Charlie Brooke, former Davenport mayor, dies after cancer fight
His nickname was “Moose,” a holdover from his football days at Central High School where he towered over some of his teammates.
As Davenport’s mayor for four years, from 2002 to 2006, Charlie Brooke also brought big passion, big ideas and a strong sense of vision for the direction he wanted to see his hometown go, some who knew him said.
Brooke, 64, who was nearing the end of a two-year term as the city’s 6th Ward alderman, died Saturday. He had a history of prostate cancer and had surgery in 2003 to remove a cancerous tumor from his hip.
Visitation is 3 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Weerts Funeral Home, Davenport. A memorial service is set for 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 2136 N. Brady, Davenport.
“Charlie was a very, very good friend of mine,” Davenport Mayor Ed Winborn said Sunday. “We go all the way back to high school where we played football together. We just continued our friendship over all this time.”
In addition to being a friend, Brooke also was a political ally. He served as campaign chairman during one of Winborn’s runs for Scott County supervisor and “was someone a fellow could always count on if you needed help.”
“He was a very passionate guy,” said Dan Huber, former president and chief executive officer of DavenportOne who worked closely with Brooke on a number of projects in the downtown and along the riverfront. “When he felt strongly about something, everyone knew where he stood.”
Brooke won the mayor’s office as construction of the $113 million River Renaissance downtown revitalization was getting under way, Huber said. The new mayor decided to put his own stamp on the central business district by proposing what would become the multi-million dollar River Vision riverfront makeover.
“He was the catalyst for River Vision,” Huber said. “He came in as River Renaissance was being implemented, and he didn’t want us to sit on our laurels.”
Longtime Quad-City Times columnist Bill Wundram was a personal friend of Brooke’s. Among the new mayor’s first actions as he took office in 2002 was to make Wundram the city’s honorary mayor.
In recent months, as Brooke’s cancer spread and his health declined, Wundram said he checked on the former mayor from time to time and was “amazed how he would just keep going. I would see him out in the yard picking up trash.”
Finally, a few weeks ago his telephone rang one night, Wundram said. On the other end was Brooke.
“He just wanted to call and tell me that he was still going to keep going, but then he told me, ‘I just wanted to say so long just in case,’” Wundram said. “That really got to me.”
Before entering politics Brooke was a prominent lawyer with the Lane & Waterman firm in Davenport. Later, he struck out on his own.
On the edge of politics as the longtime campaign treasurer and legal counselor to former U.S. Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, Brooke chose eight years ago to enter the often calamitous world of city politics with a run for mayor. He lost his first bid in 1999, but won two terms after that, both of them in convincing style.
Brooke campaigned on a relentlessly upbeat prognosis for Davenport’s future and a devotion to downtown redevelopment projects. He first ran on the platform of improving racial equity in city employment and combatting vacant housing across the city.
His style, confrontational at times, riled some of his critics, but Brooke made no apology for his beliefs.
“He had a presentation that was very unique, let me put it that way,” said Alderman Jamie Howard, who was the mayor pro tempore for four years under Brooke. “But his heart was Davenport, and you couldn’t question that. He was Davenport’s biggest cheerleader.”
During his term, the River Renaissance project was constructed, John O’Donnell Stadium was renovated and expanded and the River Vision process was born.
He devoted himself to ridding the city of eyesores, including the crumbling, Depression-era stone wall along River Drive. He also tilted against the rust-encrusted railroad bridges that overhang downtown streets.
One of his proudest accomplishments, he said in a 2006 interview as he left the mayor’s office, was getting the $8 million branch library built on the city’s west side at Fairmount Street and Duck Creek Parkway. Brooke brokered the deal to obtain the site from an elderly couple who had misgivings about selling.
“I negotiated with the family that owned the land and shepherded it along to see that it got going and worked with those involved to get where we are now,” Brooke said. “I think it symbolizes our progress and puts a significant amenity in a part of town where there are none.”
The branch simply would not have been built without Brooke, said Michael Noyes, a former law partner and member of the Davenport Library board of trustees as the project was being planned and built.
“He brought a lot of people together to get it done,” Noyes said. “That was Charlie’s style. When he wanted something done, he worked very hard to get it.”
Ideas for the branch were in the works long before Brooke became mayor, “but he had the finesse and professionalism to make it happen,” said Roxanna Moritz, a former 1st Ward alderman, who worked on the project.
“A lot of people struggled to work with Charlie, but I loved working with him,” Moritz said. “He loved working with people, and he tried to de-politicize things. Charlie Brooke always wanted us to live in a better city.”
Her last encounter with the former mayor occurred a few months ago as she was driving near Kimberly Road and Elmore Avenue and was blocked by someone who had parked his car in the middle of the road and had gotten out to remove an illegally posted sign from the boulevard, Moritz said.
“Here I am cursing him and all I can see is his butt sticking up. And then he stood up, and it’s Charlie,” Moritz said. “That was just like him. He was always trying to make Davenport better.”
Tom Saul can be contacted at (563)383-2453 or tsaul@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at www.qctimes.com.