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.

Reform and recall

Yesterday I wrote about The Professor's discovery that he can't start a drive to recall Jimmy Dimora. He's so frustrated, he's talking about taking a time machine back to Ohio's constitutional convention of 1912. But there's one lesson our anonymous instructor hasn't thought of.

The Professor has done a great civic service: he's stumbled upon another way that our antiquated county government lacks checks and balances. And he did it at the same time a bunch of people are talking about writing a charter for Cuyahoga County, which would take effect in 2011 (too late to help his recall-Dimora movement, but still...)

Ohio's constitution prevents us from recalling county officials because counties are "creatures of the state." The counties all have the same structure, which the state created -- except one. Summit County has its own charter. And it turns out that our neighbors in Akron and Green and Cuyahoga Falls can recall their county officials -- their charter says so.

If and when the groups looking at Cuyahoga County reform publish a draft of a charter, I'll let you know if it includes a provision for recall.