On restored UA president house, olive jars and Mike Williams

Inspired by the nearly $1 million makeover of  University of Akron  President Scott Scarborough & Family's new digs, I spent some time over the week end  making my office more presentable by emptying files and wastebaskets.

Among the old clippings that turned up was a Beacon Journal piece dated July 19,  2014 reporting the projected cost of the renovation as $375,000. Ted Curtis, UA vice president of  capital planning and facilities management, made it all seem worthwhile by saying "it's a great house in a wonderful neighborhood.  Very solidly built."  Not as solidly built was the rollout of the Team Scarborough's plan to cut UA debt.

Also quoted was Board of Trustees chairman Jonathan Pavloff , who noted that the trustees were "in agreement that the house is an appropriate piece of the presidential package". It was a reminder that the trustees were as useless then as they are now.

As we have come to learn, Curtis  missed the mark by a cool half-million dollars, even if you leave out that notorious olive jar...

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Speaking of that jar, it could be reinstated with respect if it were offered as a trophy to the winner of the annual KSU-UA  football game, much like the Michigan-Minnesota Little Brown Jug trophy.  I know.  UA and KSU already have a wagon wheel trophy.    But who wants to reach for a wagon wheel to garnish a martini?

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At last week's Akron mayoral debate Democratic candidate Mike Williams, a longtime foe of former Mayor Don Plusquellic,   talked of the improvements  in downtown Akron  over the past decade, sounding self-congratulatory as a city councilman.  But he forgot to mention that most of these improvements were produced during the Plusquellic administration.

Comunale out - mayor's race a twosome

The in-and-out Akron mayor's race took still another turn Monday:  Summit County Councilman Frank Comunale  withdrew from the Democratic primary, shrinking the field  to a twosome.   And that couldn't make supporters of Summit County Clerk of Courts  Dan Horrigan happier.  Or his lone remaining  Democratic opponent, Mike Williams,  more at a loss.

Once upon a time there might have been four candidates as State Sen.  Tom Sawyer teased his party with the prospect that he would  run, too.  Didn't happen, and there's nothing to be gained by revisiting that bit of Kabuki politics.

So on Sept 8, Democratic primary voters will  be choosing  Horrigan or Williams and be done with it.  The Republican candidate in the general election is Atty.  Eddie Sippien, but the political reality in  a Democratic city is that his name on the ballot is little more than a formality.

For now all of the behind the scenes pushing and shoving has produced little interest around town.  Much of the campaign narrative has been awash in intrigue - as well as it should have been. The departure of Mayor Don Plusquellic left a huge vacancy at City Hall after 28 years and Council chairman  Jeff Fusco has bravely served as an interim mayor in the office that he isn't seeking (He wants to retain his council-at-large seat)

Still there was this thing about a contentious council faction that opposed Plusquellic and was now carrying Williams banner to haul the city off into a murky direction. Besides, Williams, an Afican American who was hostile to Plusquellic, worried not only his Democratic opponents but some business interests who saw him as little more than an opportunist banking his future on the race card.

 Horrigan, who is white, does have support from some black leaders , but a three-way  primary could open the door to City Hall to Williams.  Horrigan's backers rightly  tried to remove the racial factor  and define the race on the ability of either candidate to serve the city well.

Comunale's departure will make that point more clearly.

Plusquellic's back, and good for that!

"I'm back!" the animated man in a loose-fitting patterned shirt and jaunty hat exclaimed with a broad smile.   As I  approached him on the sidewalk outside the  Uncorked Wine Bar downtown,  he repeated:  "I"m back in my city."

Well, yes.  Deeply tanned, apparently well-rested  from his tortured exit  and no longer in his dark mayoral suit, Don Plusquellic  was mingling with others ,  one of whom asked him to take off his hat.  When he did, it revealed a brush cut that had replaced his carefully groomed white hair that was a trademark of his Hollywood persona at City Hall. It was then that you came to realize that now out of the office he had occupied for 28 years, he was indeed tailoring hmself for a new life in the city.

Inside the noisy bar, a large crowd had  come to the reception for Pete Nischt, the   rising young Democratic party executive director who announced his candidacy for the Akron school board. The event was hosted by County Executive Russ Pry, who sat unobtrusively at the rear of the long narrow room to observe the  festivities..

Nischt will need all of the support that he can muster in a three-way race involving Debbie Walsh, Alex Arshinkoff's executive director at county Republican headquarters and Ernie Tarle, Plusquellic's nemesis. Need I say more?

Although the former mayor said he might take some time to work for Hillary Clinton in Iowa,  his political presence doubtless will be felt in his hometown as well as the University of Akron campus.  More than one person remarked that  Team Scarborough might have had second thoughts about an amateurish rollout of  job cuts  that  downsized the school's academic credibility  had Plusquellic, a feisty soul, been in its face.

No fault of interim Mayor Jeff Fusco, nor interim Democratic chairman  Sandra Kurt, both temporary caretakers of city or party business, the dominoes fell quickly in the post-Plusquellic scramble.  So  the party will need an infusion of kinetic energy for the forthcoming mayoral primary race pitting Dan Horrigan against Mike Williams and Frank Comunale.  I'm told Williams, an African American and perennial candidate, is already trying to fashion the contest into a racially acute  contest. If he persists, it will create two ugly camps that will divide a city with a progressive reputation in race relations.

The voters need to know the stakes as Akron approaches a critical decision for its future. So welcome back, Mr. Plusquellic.  Is there anything you can do about the city that you have long voiced with pride?

Baseball, politics work well for Plusquellic

So there, dominating the BJ's front page this morning,  was a smiling Mayor Don Plusquellic shaking hands with Ken Babby, the owner of the AA RubberDucks, as they announced that the Eastern League all-star game would be played this summer at Canal Park in downtown Akron.

Great news for business, right? And it firmly caps his history of promoting the construction of the new stadium and bringing a new team to the city.  Not the first  good deed for the mayor as he navigated enough rough moments  by local pols  and armchair critics, the latter of whom saw the man not as an honest  cheerleader and doer for his city but one who had "cooked up" a reason for retiring this year.

On the other hand,  some of the town's achievers thought the positive upside deserved far more attention.  In full-page ads, folks like Babby and Elizabeth Bartz sought to emphasize the mayor's great value  during his 28 years in office.   In all of those years covering the mayor, we've had some disagreements, but  I've never  known him to cook up anything.  And it was possible for the truth to hurt.

But that was then.  Print journalism wasn't performed from a foxhole but on the sidewalks, the union halls, the restaurants and watering counters where the local pols had lunch,  and in the crowds at the Labor Day parades without benefit of cell phones. I'm well aware that it's another world today,  but hardly a better one.

Plusquellic's departure is already causing alarm among  his hometown  Democratic friends.   Although they see positives in Council President Garry Moneypenny's rise to fill out Plusquellic's unexpired term,  they are also concerned  about the sort of candidate who might emerge to oppose him in the party primary.  Councilman Mike Williams, for example, who ran against Plusquellic before, reportedly is telling people that if he becomes mayor he would fire everybody at City Hall and only accept legislation advanced by his own faction on City Council.

There will be no end to reprisal politics in the stretch to the November election  (primary on September 8).   If Democrats are running scared today, they should be.  As for the Republicans,  Chairman Alex Arshinkoff may be working out a name in his meetings at the Diamond Grill  with his  wealthy cronies at the University of Akron.  Either that, or finding a way to gossip that Moneypenny will be indicted for some unknown  crime, as  the GOP Boss foolishly did so often  in trying to take down Plusquellic.

To end the nonsense, do you think Moneypenny should invite Arshinkoff to throw out the first ball at a RubberDucks game  in Canal Park this summer?

Akron mayoral debate by the numbers

AKRON MAYOR Don Plusquellic, the former city high school football star, likes to talk numbers as he did as a quarterback in his younger days. One of his favorite numerical references in his bid for reelection to a seventh term in September's Democratic primary is zero to 24. That's how he has been drawing a distinction between himself and his serial rival over the years, Mike Williams. Both men posted milestones in their political careers 24 years ago - Williams then entering City Council and Plusquellic beginning his first term as mayor.

Plusquellic repeated the number again at the widely visited three-person luncheon debate in the University of Akron Student Union to a sell-out audience of 400. It was his way of responding to Williams' pestering (and somewhat empty) charges that Plusquellic's long career has been corroded by intemperate detachment from the people he is supposed to represent. And once again, that the mayor travels too much.

The mayor, straining to suppress his well-known temper, asserted that in Williams' 24 years on council, his record of accomplishment has been zero in contrast to the mayor's own fully committed efforts in behalf of Akron. The operative and oft-repeated notion, loaded I believe, is the mayor's absence from The Neighborhood. I can't get more specific than that because Williams doesn't, either. Nor does it make much sense - much of today's political rhetoric doesn't anyway - for a mayor who can cover his office walls with the national and local awards that he has earned for his service to the city. That helps explain why he keeps getting reelected.

I should mention at this point that the third candidate at the podium was Janice Davis, a pleasant-enough rival who was largely candidate-neutral in the collision between Plusquellic and Williams that was sponsored by the Akron Press Club, Bliss Institute and League of Women Voters. But even Davis, with few specifics, said the city needs to "move forward''. On the other hand, Williams was pleased to portray the mayor as the ruthless commander of a

''dictatorship" who neglected young people, ignored the needs of schools and "and lacked priorities for economic development".

There was historic irony in the school issue. Four years ago the mayor spent much of his time supporting a school levy while ignoring his political campaign. It produced a closer than expected outcome on Election Day. At the windup of the debate, Plusquellic unloaded on the unsurprising rush to Williams' camp by the same group who failed a recall attempt against him a couple of years ago. He wasn't gentle, accusing the group of "half-truths, misleading statements and outright lies." The flare-up seemed to be downright therapeutic for Plusquellic as he left the stage.

You have to wonder how far Williams can take this campaign theme song, So far he hasn't

had a great deal of success raising money. His last report said he had come up with about $17,000 in contributions to which he and his family added $41,000. Plusquellic, meanwhile, reported $180,000! Williams veteran state and national campaign manager, Jerry Austin, resigned after a short stint in apparent disagreement with the candidate' s campaign plan and payments to Austin.

The only good thing to report today is the debate, such as it was, is history. Seldom do these highly orchestrated encounters change many people's minds. OK, back to work everybody.

UPDATE: Jerry Austin phoned me this morning to dismiss back-channel chatter that his departure from Mike Williams' campaign was partly prompted by the payment to him for his advisory service. "Money had nothing to do with it," Austin said. Instead, the veteran campaign consultant said he withdrew from the Williams campaign because of differences with the candidate on campaign strategy. Williams' campaign is being fronted now on a part-time basis by Tara Samples, bailiff for Akron Municipal Judge Kathryn Michael.

Mike Williams, Point 41: 50 free tickets for his side

A FEW WEEKS AGO, Mike Williams, the candidate who wants to unseat Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic in the Sept. 13 Democratic primary, proposed an astonishing 40 points that he believed would carry him to victory in the Sept. 13 Democratic primary. Somehow, it didn't include his demand for 50 free seats for the scheduled Aug. 8 debate with the mayor and a third candidate on the ballot, Janice Davis.

That 41st point arrived this week and the combined sponsors of the Akron Press Club and Bliss Institute delivered on his request. At $20 a head for a program series that raises money for college scholarships, that comes to a $1,000 gross gate, even if the freebies would not include lunch. (The seat could have been sold to paying guests.) The event is already sold out at nearly 300, so the hosts agreed to move the event from the traditional Martin Center ballroom to the more accommodating Student Union. The freebies will await their entry until lunch is served before arriving at a specially designated section of the room.

How nice. And with a huge crowd, it could be a seating and parking nightmare. But I'm sure that a room with a view was all that Williams had in mind. I was told that he first asked that everybody get a free ticket in a public spectacle. The Plusquellic forces were left with little leeway to respond to the 50-ticket request, the first of its kind in the many years that I once served as the program chairman.

The response is as puzzling as the Press Club's preferential treatment for then Republican congressional candidate, Tom Ganley, in his losing campaign against Rep.Betty Sutton. When he refused to debate her, he was offered a free pass to appear alone (She spoke at another time). Ganley's solo appearance also was a club first in a series that called for a debate. But in the latest retreat, there was no explanation as to why a minimum 50 free-seat package was included in the deal.

This shouldn't be a big problem for the mayor. He could settle the issue by asking for 50 free tickets for his side, too. Fair enough, Mike?

UPDATE: David Cohen, the University of Akron political science professor and Press Club board member who is handling arrangements for the mayoral debate, has contested my report that Mike Williams was solely offered 50 free reservations for the event. Cohen insists that the 50 freebies for folks who will not be eating lunch will be open on a first-come first serve basis to Williams, Mayor Plusquellic or any public spectator as long as the supply lasts. He did confirm, however, that Williams had first asked that all of the tickets be free for the debate at a venue big enough to accommodate the anticipated crowd. The event has now been moved from the Martin Center to the UA Student Union. The seating assignments dividing the payers and non-payers may still be complicated when the crowd presses forward.