For Mayor Robart, federal money is only good for what it's good for

Excuse me. But didn't the headline above Mike Douglas' column in today's Beacon Journal say Gov. Kasich "is against federal spending until he's for it"?
Don't get me wrong.  I have nothing against criticism of the governor.  But in this instance of the old for-and-against sequence...Well....

On the very same page there was another reference to the BJ's endorsement of Cuyahoga Falls Tea Party associate Don Robart, the mayor.  As you well know, the Tea Party and others on the ding-a-ling hard right hate all things federal with a kind of anarchical spirit. The BJ editorials haven't  been hesitant about saying so.

So excuse me, again.  A few days ago, the Falls News-Press, the mayor's hometown weekly, also endorsed Robart, mentioning among other assets his eagerness to get federal money for some of his programs, which the paper referred to as "exciting".

So given Robart's record over  the years,  can we now say that he was FOR  federal money before he was FOR more federal money?

As the BJ goes on endorsements, so goes the BJ

Were you surprised that the Beacon Journal endorsed Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robert for reelection?  Yeah, I was, too, sort of, given the problems that he and Mayor Plusquellic have had with each other over the years.  "They ended up not talking to each other again," one City Hall insider recalled about Plusquellic's anger over Robart's "breaking his word" on a water deal.  "It was basically a handshake deal, " the source said,  "and Plusquellic felt that Robart had lied to him".

Robart has long had the reputation of being a loner in the Falls who disdained cooperative approaches with others beyond his city's borders. As one of the last Republican leaders standing in Summit County,  he remains a favorite of Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, his financial  chaperone.

As for the BJ, its endorsements were a lot more effective in the days of Jack Knight than they are today,when it is calling for the reelection of a guy who has  been inimical to so  many other political entities and one  who is out of step at times with the BJ's views on urban policy.   Besides, when Robart tells a Tea Party crowd that the baggers are the moral AND fiscal conscience of America, you can see who is influencing his own decisions  in the second largest city in the county.

Is Cuyahoga Falls headed for a fresh start?

If you happen to drive into Cuyahoga Falls from the north or south on State Rd, you get a sense that not much has changed over the past 25 or 30 years. Fast-food  restaurants.  Gas stations.   Second-hand shop.  That was how it looked when we arrived from Columbus for a job at the Beacon Journal.  And except for a new look to an Acme market, the place seems  spent as  an invitation to experience the second largest city in the county. (pop: about 50,000)

For the past 27 years Mayor Don Robart, now 67,  has sat in the CEO's office at City Hall, a fellow who now  places his stake in another term in a 240-acre moonscape on State Rd. Rd. called Portage Crossing, which has been around conceptually ever since the Old West shopping center was razed for a new - yet unbuilt - shopping paradise for what Robart insists will jump-start the city into a new economic future.

That remains to be seen.  First, he must win another election on November 5.  And for a politician who ran unopposed four years ago - thanks in part to an indifferent
Democratic party - Robart faces a stiff challenge from what  has his opponents ready to proclaim victory. (That, too remains to be seen.)

The candidate of the hour is Council President Don Walters, 50, a fully accessible and experienced guy who has been in touch with the city's issues and residents for all of his 12 years on Council. Nor does he show a lack  of energy and enthusiasm in carrying out his block-by-block plan to return, as he puts it, city hall to the residents, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Is this the year for the municipal revival?    Walters doesn't hesitate to tell you that it is, with polls showing him 6 points ahead of the Republican mayor.  How can that be?  Former Democratic councilwoman Diana Colavecchio, now Stow Clerk of Courts and a strong Walters supporter,  says one of the mayor's problems is "Robart fatigue.  No mattter where I go, that's what I hear."

When I first met Robart as a Falls resident more than a quarter-century ago, he impressed me as a moderate politician. He even mentioned to me the city's food kitchens that are so important "even though as a Republican I probably shouldn't be mentioning this."

But he appears to have been caught up in the headwinds of the Tea Party.  In April 2012, he welcomed several hundred teeps  at a rally at the Riverfront Mall, exuberantly praising their value as the "social, fiscal and moral conscience of America."  Try that one on the many folks who have lost their jobs because of the Tea Party-inspired government shutdown."  (That mall on the Cuyahoga, built back in the 1970s  with such great expectations, is faltering badly as a retail lure.)

The mayor has also divorced the city from friendly relations with Akron and Stow and, as more than than one witness has told me,  created an island for himself.

Although the Falls has a tiny African-American  minority (about 3 pct) Barack Obama has twice carried the city.  So, unlike neighboring Hudson and Silver Lake, the  demographics favor Walters.

"It's time to get the city moving again," Walters says and this time the standby political promise may indeed be true on Nov. 5.

Cuyahoga Falls diplomas: What's in a misspelled name?

 Yeah, I wondered about it, too.   How could the hometown of a Cuyahoga Falls high school graduating  class be misspelled on the the jackets of 348 diplomas?  The u was  changed to an a.  And then I recalled that when Moses Cleaveland founded the city on the lake in 1796, the surveying team later misspelled it on the map as Cleveland, banishing the first a to the nitpickers  of historical accuracy.

Could that have been the long lost a that returned  to replace the u in the Falls?

 As one whose name has appeared in print in various malfunctions, I began to understand that correct spelling is not everybody's priority. (Even today, a promotional sign on  Walgreen's lot on West Market St.  tells us of a specially priced cereal  named Kelloog's.)

In my case, my name has been misspelled over the years  as Zaiden in bylines as well as in other references, some of which fell prey to  phonetics as in Zidan, Zaden and Zyden.  But spelling , folks, has been only half of my painful journey through the pages of time.
In letters that arrived on my desk as a reporter, magazine editor and newspaperman,I have been addressed on the envelope as "Rev. Zaidan,"  "Dr. Zaidan,"  "Herr Zaidan," "Comrade Zaidan" (usually in red ink) and...well, I had better stop there.

There's more. Some members of my family pronounced our name to rhyme with Biden (my father fell into that category). Two of his brothers pronounced it to sound like laden, and my dear grandmother gave it a strong French accent, which Aunt Della attributed to grandma's early years growing up under French influence in the Middle East.

Once in Ireland, a grizzled fellow I met in a countryside pub asked about my name.  In awkward confusion, he said: "That not be Irish, be it?"

"No," I said. "Lebanese."

He drew back in obvious horror.  "Do you know Khadafi?"

"The world isn't that small," I told him.  Not that it mattered that much although we did have one thing in common.  Nobody could spell his name, either.



'

Robart to Mitt: You electrified me

Beacon Journal Columnist Bob Dyer's paean to Mitt Romney on Sunday cast  the candidate as a guy who pays his bills - and President Obama as a cheapskate. It  also offered Cuyahoga Falls  Republican Mayor Don Robart  an opportunity to crow over his third choice (Romney)  for the GOP ticket, (after Santorum and Gingrich).   Dyer's Romney-Obama contrast was drawn from the candidates'  visits to the Akron area in which Mitt's campaign picked up the costs but the Obama campaign didn't.

For  his $7,050 tab,  Romney was rewarded with this praise from the mayor via Dyer:

"I think it's self-evident.  [It tells you] who is accountable for their deeds  who isn't, who's accountable   for their  actions and who keeps blaming everybody else."  Oh?  As in this historic self-evident  non-sequitur  from Mitt: "The economy is getting better but Obama made it worse."?  The mayor  said Mitt's visit was"just electric."  

But I should not be so harsh on the mayor, whose hometown we once shared for nearly a quarter-century.  We've  watched  a once moderate operative settle comfortably into the farthest reaches of the Republican Right (Tea Party) on his politically fail-safe suburban island.  It's a small field compared to Akron,  but, look, it does provide a living for the mayor and joy for the Summit County GOP brass,  including Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff.

But before I get out of the way, I would mention to Dyer:

"Bob, anybody who reads my stuff would have no problem identifying the candidate I'm voting for.  Would you allow us one guess as to your choice?

Meantime, did I hear the mayor say,  "I am  Don Robart and I approve Dyer's message."?

There's an upside to seeing double in Falls

I know.  We offered this photo yesterday of Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart in a celebratory mood  and wondered (wrongly)  whether he was rejoicing over a half-million Federal grant to hire more firemen.

But today, the Beacon Journal is reporting that the Falls has received a new $1.135 million  grant from the Federal Highway Administration that opens the vault for a  a long-delayed State Road project.

As you know, the Tea Party embracing Republican mayor ("the fiscal and moral conscience of America,"'  he once greeted them) has not  had anything good to say about Federal spending and budget deficits and all, and here his town is with all that money arriving from Uncle Sam.

I know, again.  It will be argued that the project has been delayed for six years so the Falls has waited long enough to take a bite out of the Federal treasury.

Still, I wouldn't be surprised that the mayor is in Romney's quiet room (where Mitt believes only politically sensitive things  should be considered)  and happily humming the old Bill Monroe Bluegrass favorite, "Roll on,  Buddy....Roll on."  

What's that? Cuyahoga Falls getting Federal money?

There are some painful things in politics that are clearly unavoidable.  That's true about the federal money that is arriving in the coffers in Cuyahoga Falls, a city  whose Republican Mayor Robart recently  bestowed the highest honor on Tea Party fiscal conservatism.  In this instance (certainly not the first for such federal- to- city transactions in the Falls), the mayor reported a grant of $489,704 from the  Federal Emergency  Management Agency (FEMA) to increase the size of the firefighter staff. Right. FEDERAL money right here in River City, folks. Actually the money was originally announced by Sen. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat.  We're happy for the firefighters, even if the grant didn't fit Robart's Republican brand.

Tim Gorbach: Making so much sense

THE ISSUE  of offering family rates to a gay married couple  at the Cuyahoga Falls Natatorium can now be hung in Tea Party Mayor Don Robart's office as one of his less distinguished deeds however his surrogates choose to define it.  But the record would not be complete without inserting a definitive  appeal  from another official for passage before a Republican majority defeated it with the mayor''s best wishes.

In supporting a family rate for the couple ( which included a wounded Iraqi veteran) , Tim  Gorbach, the Democratic chairman of the Parks and Recreation Board, addressed the financial cost of changing the rate structure and just as importantly, the inequality of conflicting rates between the Natatorium and Water Works, which has a more liberal policy.

To questions  raised by the discount's opponents, Gorbach said the Natatorium's annual revenue would be reduced by $49,000  - or 1 pct. of the annual budget. As of the end of April, he reported, the Natatorium had net savings of more than $100,000.

"Without reducing any services, we have already more than doubled the amount necessary to account for the projected shortfall, he told the Board.

He  said he was "very uncomfortable" with the conflicting rate structures of the two entities under the Parks board, calling the Natatorium's "discriminatory."   "I think as a board we should be moving at the speed of light to  correct this dichotomy and remove much discriminatory nuances in our Natatorium rate structure as possible.'"

He then struck on a significant element that shaped the issue:   "I   feel  very strongly that we need to apply our discount opportunities more evenly for our membership.  We tout in   all of our literature how we are family friendly.  In fact, our motto  is 'whole fitness for the whole family.'  Well,  I believe we are coming  up short in our discount plan options for this to be true."

I would add that considering the minuscule effect on the budget that so concerned the mayor and Republican board members, you had to look for underlying motives to rejecting the request of  a same-sex married couple.

I  know the Republican majority ignored the board chairman's  plea and for the foreseeable future the issue is dead.  But it is refreshing to hear a public official in the Falls making so much sense on a matter that was so symbolic for a community's openness to today's social landscape.  And for that reason alone,  I've posted this report.

Cuyahoga Falls: A friendly host to Santorum

WEEKEND ORTS:

I see that McRick Santorum will be speaking in Cuyahoga Falls Monday night. The suburb is becoming Republican Mayor Don Robart's petting zoo for GOP presidential candidates in the closing days of Ohio's elections. It was a campaign motorcade stop for President George W. Bush, when he was seeking reelection in 2004. Among other things, he charged his Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry, with wanting to expand the "power and scope" of government. It played well to his hosts, including those with powerful ties to politics and government. Indeed, county party chairman Alex Arshinkoff didn't hesitate to biblically describe the election as a "contest between good and evil." You know the rest of the story.

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I again caught a glimpse of McRick Santorum roaring that "faith has been driven out of the public square" - which is puzzling since everything he says about faith is televised to the public square every moment of the day. I am even more baffled by the empty charge in a country with 500 religious radio and TV programs in a billion-dollar industry run by conservative religious groups. Among them: Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and Regent University; and Jerry Falwell Ministries, now operated by the late Moral Majority leader's two sons. These two mammoth operations alone account for more than $700 million in revenue, according to a report by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hmmm...

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More and more states and cities are rising to an understanding of what true democratic rights are all about in a free society. So it was good to read a Beacon Journal report this morning that Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, Canton Mayor William Healy II and Stow Mayor Sara Drew have signed a national Freedom to Marry resolution supporting same-sex marriage. They will doubtless hear from critics , but so what? Unlike the Republican pols who race around the country demanding that government get off the backs of individuals while also invading the very same personal lives, the mayors have qualified for the new enlightenment that says to Big Brother: Mind your own business in how we want to present ourselves at the altar.

When is Federal money not Federal money? Ask Robart

What's wrong with this picture? Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart showed up at the Tea Party rally in his town Saturday to renew his vows of loyalty as one of the mad-as-hell right-wing opponents of federal spending. And yet...

Only a day before, the Beacon Journal reported that Susan Truby, Falls community development director, was appreciative of a $780,000 federal stimulus grant to buy and rehab six homes whose mortgages had been foreclosed., "This creates a great deal of of positive community relations in the neighborhood," she said. Cool. Even the name of Don L. Robart, Mayor, plainly appears on a yard sign in front of one of the homes hailing the program.

State Road project: Who was talking to whom?

IF THERE WAS a common denominator in the derailment of plans for the old State Road Shopping Center in Cuyahoga Falls, it would be fair to say it was a lack of clear communication among the players. Interviews with several City Council members and the school board president insisted that Mayor Robart was in the driver's seat from the beginning, and not until recently did details of the tax sharing on the site emerge. And when they did, it was enough for Falls school district president Therese Dunphy to head up a 3-2 majority on the board to oppose the project. It was a setback that the outraged mayor and his staff never anticipated as its plan for a $60 million restoration of the huge site moved smoothly along over the flattened old buildings that were razed to be replaced by ---what?

According to Dunphy, the schools normal 60 pct. share of the property taxes became a moving part. "We had figured on 25 pct or 3o pct. for this project, but in February were told by Sue Truby (Falls development director) that actually we would only get 60 pct. of 25 pct., or 15 pct." She said that after Supt. Ed Holland talked to city officials, he advised the school board that the city's best offer would be 22 pct.

As is his wont these days, Robert assailed Dunphy because she lives in Silver Lake, which is part of the Falls school district, telling the Beacon Journal that Silver Lake school board members "had very little skin in the game". Cool, whatever that choice of words is supposed to mean in this instance.

Council members told me there weren't many meetings between City Hall and the Council on the ongoing project that led Council to authorize borrowing $10 million to buy the site in 2008 - a bill that will have to be paid whether the project goes forward or not.

Diana Colavecchio, the City Council president, concedes that the details about the project were not crystal clear, and that communications between Robart's people and Council could have been much better. But Council approved it as a measure of something that the city had to do. Others, she said, shared that view.

OK, already. What's next? Colavecchio says the matter will again be taken up at the April 26 Council meeting and she is asking city officials and school board members to attend to have a fair discussion of how the project can be salvaged.

I don't find anybody who is totally against the suburban renewal. but there remains a question about how an "upscale" grocery store will attract enough other retailers to fill that vacant land mass at Portage Trail and State Road. For this kind of an investment, assumptions and upbeat assurances aren't nearly enough. Particularly in these troubled economic times, right? There have already been too many assumptions to risk many more.

DeLay dancing with stars in his eyes, etc.

GRUMPY ABE'S THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY:

• After watching the painful evolution of a health care reform plan, I have concluded that there may be some things on Capitol Hill that money can't buy. But offhand, I can't think of any...
• Now that a desperate audience seeking TV world has invited Tom DeLay, a scoundrel of the first rank, to appear on Dancing with the Stars, may we next see a guest appearance by Sarah Palin on Jeopardy? I would pay to see Rush Limbaugh as a pole dancer at Tony Soprano's Bada Bing. Hokier than DeLay on Dancing with the Stars? I think not.
• How many more national sponsors must Glenn Beck lose before Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, always the bottom-line guy, decide to replace him with old Frankenstein movies to lighten up the fare?
• Wednesday evening's Tea Party on the Riverfront Mall in Cuyahoga Falls will doubtless have a lot of fussn' about government and taxes in general. As I have mentioned earlier, it is billed as "non political" even though Mayor Don Robart and a legislative candidate, both Republicans, are featured speakers. But considering how much federal and state money has touched down in the city, it might be unwise to complain too much about some of the hands that are feeding the Falls. One example: a $750,000 "neighborhood stabilization" grant from Uncle Sam. Well, as Nikita Khruschchev was fond of saying, "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable."

Here they come - without the crumpets

WELL, THERE'S going to be some light "family oriented" discussion (and doubtless heavy breathing!) about tea next Wednesday evening on the Riverfront Mall in Cuyahoga Falls. It's billed as a Tea Party by an outfit called Summit912, a protest group inspired by weepy Political Philosopher Glenn Beck , the bizarre talk show figure who most recently suggested that Nancy Pelosi be poisoned.

The area group was founded by Amy Schwan, of Akron, who told a Falls news reporter that"we've been mad for a long time. Glenn Beck just motivated us to get off our butts and start to do something." Cool.

The event is being promoted as a non-political "meetup" and family affair to talk about - it says here on the 912 website - "over-taxation, nationalized health care, cap and trade and individual rights." Cool again. But why does it bill itself as "non-political" when the site carries an exhibit of an item called "The Clock. How many days Obama has left" and goes after all of the hot-button issues aimed at you-know-who? Not cool.

According to the Falls reporter (Schwan didn't return my calls), Schwan said Summit912 (Beck's reference to the day after 9/11 - at least he can read a calendar accurately, if nothing else) the Falls was chosen for the tea party because it has a Republican mayor, Don Robart, who only incidentally will be one of the speakers along with Frank LaRose, a Republican legislative candidate. I confess I do have trouble separating speakers with clear political IDs from politics. If they had wanted to liven up the party they should have invited, as a bipartisan outreach, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic. Now that would be cool.

I did check in with Alex Arshinkoff, the Summit County chairman, who forcefully denied any connection to the tea party. "I don't know anything about it," he asserted. "It's not a Republican Party event." But he did give it the party's Good Housekeeping seal of approval. "I am happy that they are having it. There are not a lot of right-wing Republicans in the Democratic Party and there are not a lot of left-wing socialists in the Republican Party." It's one of those careful separations of wheat from chaff, I think.

So we're back to politics, which is what I figured as soon as I read about Summit912. Cool - if not entirely forthcoming about who they are. And don't count on crumpets.

Plusquellic's forces girding for battle

THE 15 SUBURBAN mayors who joined  to oppose the recall of Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic  were another indication of the riptide that's emerging against Walter Mendenhall's ill-conceived notion of democracy in action. Letters supporting Plusquellic by prominent Akron area achievers are appearing regularly in the Beacon Journal and it's looking more like a non-partisan effort to wave off the recall crowd.  I have a hunch this is only the beginning of the counter-attack that will grow in visibility as the recall election day approaches on June 23. (The glaring exception to the mayoral group was Republican Don Robart of Cuyahoga Falls who said he didn't see any "upside" in the united action.  No surprise there.  Unlike some other Republican mayors, Robart has created his own universe in the Falls, thanks to the ineptitude of Falls Democrats to defeat him at the polls.) 

Plusquellic's  forces have already shown that they  will be a lot more aggressive than the lackadaisical 2007 Democratic primary  campaign against former city councilman Joe Finley that produced a low turnout.  It  gave his opponent an opportunity to show up better than anticipated and an opportunity for City Hall to reflect on the  political adage that nothing should ever be taken for granted. 

As for those 15 mayors,  I'm sure it occurred to some of them that this nonsensical recall effort could encourage similar costly and disruptive initiatives against any of them down the road for the dumbest reasons. As for Mendenhall. I was amused by his comment to the BJ that he was pleased a date had been set for the election.   To quote him as he envisioned the 6-term mayor being led to the gallows:  "After 22 years the city has  a chance of getting a new mayor." 

Wrong!   The voters have that chance every four years on election day.