For Summit GOP, three is worse than a crowd

Anyone who doubts that bad news occurs in threes might take a look at the fate of the Summit County Republican Party in recent weeks as 2013 limped through its final  days.

In quick succession, three of Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's few remaining groomed stalwarts plunged  from the party's honor role in unexpected defeat, resignation or a severe spanking by the Sixth Circuit  Court of Appeals.

Shall we begin on election day in November when Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don
Robart, in his 28th year at City Hall and virtually having his own way in his Cuyahoga Falls fortress for nearly three decades, was defeated by City Council President Don Walters, a Democrat,  denying Robart  an  eighth term?

Four years earlier, Robart was unopposed by Democrats, which doubtless led to complacency  this time in which he was said by startled  allies to have all but abandoned campaigning, content with the endorsements of the Beacon Journal and the Cuyahoga Falls News-Press  and his own notion of invincibility.

But  in a working class suburb that leans Democratic  and has twice opted for President Obama at the polls, he hadn't left well enough alone.  He charged out of the gate in a state of the city address by describing the anti-union SB 5 on the ballot "unbelievably good".  There was some disagreement by the voters who defeated it  by more than 60 pct. of the vote.  The mayor slid farther to right by welcoming the Tea Party  rally in his town with  overwhelming praise, telling the Teepers that they were the "social, fiscal and moral conscious of America."

Finally, he became the center of attraction in opposing a family rate at the Natatorium for a wounded Iraqi veteran , a spouse in a same sex- marriage, arguing that it would be too costly. Huh?

All of these missteps  finally caught up with him to send him into overdue retirement.

Next is the saga of Arshinkoff favorite Bryan Williams, a member of  the State Education Board, who was outed as a determined  lobbyist for an anti-union construction group running a private charter school. Soon thereafter, including a call from Grumpy Abe that he resign, Williams resigned.

Finally,  there's the most recent  lashing of Federal Judge John Adams , another Arshinkoff career enabler, by a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit  Court of Appeals for his presiding role in a case involving a public defender. (Adams also was  engaged in a long delay of a Akron 's sewer plan, costing the city a fortune.).

Had any of these fellows been Democrats, we feel sure that the voluble chairman would have labeled them "scandals of Biblical proportion".  But. alas,  they are Republicans, which is the party's problems, not of anybody on the other side.






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Arshinkoff to drop the nuclear TV ad bomb in Falls mayoral race

Is Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff ready to drop the nuclear Cleveland  TV ad bomb on Tuesday's  mayoral race in Cuyahoga Falls?  A Republican source  tells me he is a little surprised that the boss hasn't spent more to prop up Tea Party mayor Don Robart and has saved the cash for the final week end assault on Democrats in several races that will doubtless include radio bursts.

There must be some anxiety in the Robart camp over polls showing he is in a tight race with Democrat Don Walters, the president of Falls City Council.  You may recall that Robart, now in his 27th year in the mayor's office, ran unopposed four years ago.

Robart continued his mystical hold on  the local media this year with odd endorsements from both the Beacon Journal and Cuyahoga Falls News Press, a weekly.  We say mystical because, as we've written, the mayor has never aspired to the BJ's goal of regional cooperation.  In fact, Robart has no bipartisan  ties with Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic and has preferred to administer a municipal island in the county.

As for the News Press, it complimented Robart for an "exciting vision for the the city's future."

Some of that, oddly, will depend on federal dollars, scorned by the hard right, to pay for the excitement.  (I tire of reporting  that I attended a Tea Party Rescue America Tax Day rally in the Falls in which he welcomed the throng as the social, moral and fiscal conscience of America.  Right. They also help shut down the government,  as we have since witnessed.

As the Falls Press noted in its endorsement, "He also hopes to use federal money to upgrade vacant homes,  secure federal  funds to improve the streetscape  from Chestnut Boulevard south to the city limits and work with the schools to possibly increase the city income tax to help pay for construction of a new high school/middle school  campus." (Lord.  New taxes? More excitement!)

By the way, let the record show that the BJ editorial writers never had anything good to say about Arshinkoff's often unruly political hijinks -  the same party financier who is said to be preparing the nuclear TV bomb.

As for me, why can't I dismiss the fact  that Robart played his socially conservative card by successfully opposing a discounted family rate at the Natatorium to a gay couple, one of whom was a wounded Iraqi veteran who wanted to rehab at the Nat?

Personal note:  We moved out of the Falls 14 years ago.  As we grew older, we couldn't take the excitement.

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.

Robart boasts of his Cuyahoga Falls mission in ...Fairlawn!

The oddest entry in  Fairlawn's  Fourth of July parade was a  big truck with an accordion billboard promoting Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart.  It told us that the long serving Republican was "always putting  Cuyahoga Falls  first".

A rather strange boast, don't you think,  in a Fairlawn event where the local mayor, Bill Roth, is a low-key Republican  in a well-managed town.

In recent years, Robart, who is seeking his 8th term in November, has swung  over to the Tea Party wing, if not as a card-carrying member, then as a kindred  spirit.  He showed up at the teabaggers Rescue America Tax Day Rally in the Falls last year (Another of those events with a do-gooder  name) to praise the GOP insurgents as the conscience of America. Still, he's not been  reluctant to take federal money for his own projects.

He also stonewalled giving a wounded Iraqi veteran  and his male partner family rates at the Falls Natatorium. In this instance,  the mayor decided that gay couples  come second to putting his city first. So it  seems fair` to ask:  First in what?

Now after three decades in City Hall, he's being challenged by a popular Democratic councilman, Don Walters. It won't be surprising to see more of those Robart Falls-first trucks in the Labor Day parade in Barberton.  Maybe even Canton.