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.