Plusquellic wins Akron mayoral primary

Even after 24 years, Don Plusquellic is still Akron's indispensable man. So the city's voters decided yesterday, giving the mayor a 55 percent to 43 percent victory in the Democratic primary against challenger Mike Williams.

Plusquellic's record of accomplishment triumphed again over the complaints about his sometimes abrasive personality. Much of Williams' 40-point campaign plan was written as a critique of Plusquellic's leadership style. But the mayor, energized at the chance to take on a longtime rival, spun his combativeness as a positive. "Don Plusquellic is Fighting for Us... Because He Is One of Us," read a campaign flier. "The leader we need in tough times."

The mayor's aggressive, innovative record on job attraction and retention earned him the support of Akron's power elite. His victory party was filled with city leaders, the Beacon Journal reports, including CEOs, University of Akron president Luis Proenza, city councilpeople and Summit County officials.

In his victory speech, the mayor promised to revive his biggest, most elusive goal: setting up a scholarship program for Akron high school students. As he did in my interview with him, Plusquellic said he's willing to “work with anybody who didn’t mislead the public” -- a dig at Williams, who he feels misled voters about his 2008 ballot proposal to fund scholarships by leasing the city sewers.

Akron's intensely combative politics are not about to mellow out. Two pro-Plusquellic city councilpeople lost yesterday, inspiring Williams to renew his opposition to the mayor's leadership. “I’ve got some new members of council who are prepared to change how we function,” Williams said, according to the Beacon. “We cannot tolerate this old way of doing business.”

To read “Tire Calling,” my article about Plusquellic in the September issue of Cleveland Magazine, click here. For other excerpts from my interview in the latest issue of Inside Business, click here.

Plusquellic, charismatic and combative as ever, aims for 7th term Tuesday

This summer I went to Akron to meet Don Plusquellic, the big personality who’s dominated the town’s politics since he was elected mayor in 1987. I’d blogged about him before and interviewed him by phone long ago. But during his campaign for a seventh term, I wanted to size up the guy in person.

I hoped he’d prove to be as intense, charismatic and combative as his reputation. And he was.

“This is a magic wand,” Plusquellic announced, waving a gavel handle, at a press conference. “It is a magic wand that good people, even probably my own mother, wishes I had waved a long time ago, to bring 35,000 or 40,000 or 50,000 rubber jobs back to this city.”

It was his sarcastic, strong-willed way of reminding voters that he’s spent 24 years trying to expand what a city hall can do for a local economy, while forging partnerships with businesses and suburban neighbors.

I thought I might get a dose of Plusquellic’s endless feud with his motley crew of enemies, the fury he inspires and inflicts.

“I despise ‘em, I think they’re despicable human beings, and I put Mike in that category, of people who lie to the public,” he told me.

“Mike” is Mike Williams, Plusquellic’s opponent in Tuesday’s mayoral primary. Plusquellic thinks Williams misled voters about his failed 2008 plan to fund college scholarships for Akron kids by leasing the city sewers. It’s one of several reasons the mayor’s race has gotten fiercely personal.

Tuesday’s election looks like it’ll be a referendum on Plusquellic — both his record of job creation and his combative politics. You can read “Tire Calling,” my article about the Rubber City’s mayor, in the September issue of Cleveland Magazine and online here.

Akron's Plusquellic, ever-feisty, running for 7th term

The Don is in no mood to retire.

The long-serving, short-tempered mayor of Akron announced today that he's taking a shot at a seventh term.

Don Plusquellic, mayor since 1987, said it wasn't an easy decision -- his children tried to convince him not to run. But as I wrote in the Power 100 issue of Inside Business, Plusquellic has trouble walking away from a fight. He wants to erase the memory of his near-loss in 2007, and he wants to be the guy who conquers the city's serious budget problems.

That means Akron City Hall will remain an exciting place: four more years* of Plusquellic's Sinatra-esque "my way" politics. Four more years of feuds with the Akron cops and the motley crew that tried to recall him in 2009. And maybe even another campaign appearance and endorsement by Chrissie Hynde.

Plusquellic was as combative as ever in his press conference today (covered by Bill Sheil of Fox 8). He addressed his never-ending union-negotiation struggles with the police thusly:

[Should I say,] here, take more and more, and I'll just sit back and let you fill out your own paychecks? Somebody has to stand-up. Is that polarization? I'll let you choose what word you use. But you can't in this world be successful with the 20-something percent of people who are always against everything.

Those 20-plus percenters* may coalesce around councilman and Don-rival Mike Williams, the Beacon Journal thinks.

*Update, March: Brent Larkin thinks another term for The Don is far from a sure thing. "Friends of Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic fear he will have a tough time winning," Larkin writes at the bottom of this column.

Akron mayor annihilates enemies -- thanks to Chrissie Hynde?

Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic completely routed and demolished his longtime enemies yesterday, racking up about 75 percent of the vote against a scrappy effort to recall him.

"We will never, ever make a certain percentage of this community happy," Plusquellic said in his victory speech. "If we dwell on them, if we let them set our agenda, God help us."

Supporters of the charismatic, antagonistic mayor crowed. "We're not only rockin', we're rollin'," developer Tony Troppe told the Akron Beacon Journal. "It's the Don show."

Why did Plusquellic win? His forces ruthlessly attacked recall organizer Warner Mendenhall, who has a longtime feud with the mayor. They sent mailings about Mendenhall's tax problems and labeled the recall organizers a "band of radicals."

Scott Piepho, on his blog Pho's Akron Pages, calls the anti-Plusquellic effort incoherent. "The nature of the recall campaign allows each discontented resident to project his particular gripe onto the Mayor," he wrote. "Trying to take on the recall argument is no easy task." Piepho kept calling the recall campaign "Team Mulligan" for its bad aim.

I wonder if it's even simpler than that.

Plusquellic had Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders on his side. Check out the video above, in which Hynde alludes to "My City Was Gone," her classic song about Akron, as a way of saying (I think) that Plusquellic has helped bring it back.

Mendenhall, meanwhile, had "Miss Tia, Kent State University history major, resident of North Hill" -- who, according to the Beacon, once had her phone number listed under the name of Squeaky Fromme, the Charles Manson follower who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford.

No contest!

Akron votes today on mayoral recall, ancient feud

Akron voters will decide today whether to recall longtime mayor Don Plusquellic -- the Sexiest Politician in Greater Cleveland, as his fans call him, or "King Don," as the haters say.

The recall leaders accuse Plusquellic of all sorts of tyrannical behavior, but don't have one specific explosive charge of abuse of office. They just don't like the guy. The pro-Plusquellic faction says he's Akron's indispensable man.

I have no opinion about this fight, except that I think it's cool that a recall committee includes a college student known only as "Miss Tia" and is using a "fake Bass Pro deal" as ammo.

Brent Larkin, who retired as editorial page editor of the Plain Dealer a few weeks ago, got back in the game with a reported commentary in the Sunday paper. He knocked on doors in a swing neighborhood of the city and proclaimed Plusquellic Ohio's best big-city mayor (with a sideswipe at Frank Jackson about Eaton leaving Cleveland).

Plusquellic's archenemy, Warner Mendenhall, is masterminding the recall campaign. The two men have been at war for about 15 years now. This is the climactic battle.

Reading about it takes me back to 2000, my first year in town, when I interviewed both men for a story about an Akron ballot proposal. Mendenhall and his allies claimed the mayor ruled Akron through fear.

"We beat them before, and we'll beat them again," Plusquellic replied. "I'm not going to stand for the crazies taking over the city, if I can help it."

Yeah, I'd say they don't like each other.

Feagler's friend

I'll be on WVIZ's Feagler & Friends this weekend, talking about county reform, the recall campaign against Akron's mayor, and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Also, Dick Feagler interviews Dennis Kucinich, who's mad at President Obama about his auto task force's plan for GM and Chrysler.

It's on WVIZ tonight at 8:30 and Sunday morning at 11:30.