Posted by Denise Grollmus
on December 9, 2007, 3:08 pm, in reply to "Re: The King of Spin"
24.165.172.244
Kucinich loaded his campaign with promises — long lists of development plans for the business crowd, dogcatchers for the neighborhoods. It didn't matter that the city couldn't even pay its electric bill. He simply promised that the money would come from the feds.
But mostly, Kucinich talked up his city roots, referring to himself as a "child of Tremont" or a "child of Glenville," depending upon where he was.
It worked. On November 8, 1977, the 31-year-old Kucinich was voted mayor, the youngest ever of a major U.S. city. He'd won by less than 2 percent.
"He became mayor at a very young age," says Larkin. "But he got there because he was smarter and worked harder than anyone else on City Council."
Yet his torched-bridge strategy for gaining power would prove to have a very short shelf life.
When Kucinich took office in January 1978, City Hall was gearing for a major shake-up. He had promised layoffs to avoid raising taxes. But no one anticipated how far the mayor would go.
A day after his inauguration, Margaret White, a deputy director in the Community Development Department, was sitting in her office when a slender 24-year-old walked through the door. It was Betty Grdina, a Kucinich campaign worker who'd been named the department's new second-in-command.
"When are you going to get out?" asked Grdina, who'd been promised White's office, according to a Cleveland magazine article.
"As soon as that guy moves," White responded, pointing to someone sitting in her new, less desirable desk.
"I'm the boss now!" Grdina shouted. "I have to have a place to sit! How does it look for the boss to be without a desk?"
The scene became commonplace in the Kucinich administration. He ushered in a cavalry of 40 appointees, half of whom were barely old enough to drink. Many had been campaigning for Kucinich since they were in high school. Few had even remote experience running something as sprawling and complex as a city. But they did have one key attribute: All were fierce Kucinich loyalists. The notion of amateur hour would soon take on a whole new meaning.
Grdina's sister, Tonia, a 21-year-old undergrad at Cleveland State, was appointed the no. 2 administrator in the safety department, responsible for assisting the safety director. During contract talks, police-union negotiator Bill McNea complained the city was "forcing him to deal with a kid still wearing training bras," he told Cleveland magazine.
And if Muny Light was in trouble, it was about to get worse. Kucinich named 24-year-old Richard Barton, a grad student at Cleveland State, as the plant's new commissioner, though he had no experience in energy, much less the fiscal acumen to lead Muny Light to solvency. When the power went out in City Hall, thanks to a Muny Light blackout, Barton didn't even know where the emergency generator was located. He had to get a janitor to help him.
Joseph Tegreene, also 24, was named Cleveland's financial director. After graduating from Kenyon College, Tegreene's only real job had been a nine-month stint as a Merrill Lynch stockbroker. When he devised the city's 1978 budget, he neglected to account for such basic things as inflation or the city's new contracts. Independent analysts predicted that Cleveland would run out of money by October.
Kucinich had spent a decade cozying up to the media. But if apathy and corruption had long marched Cleveland to a slow death, the new mayor was moving at double time.
Reporters quickly dubbed his administration "the Red Guard" and "Hitler's youth corps." They accused his lackeys of being as much spies as administrators, hired to root out corruption, laziness, and anyone who stood in Kucinich's way. And like their boss, they were keenly adept at making enemies.
The mayor defended his hires. "What they lack in expertise, they make up for in willingness to learn," he told Cleveland magazine. "It's the quality of the experience more than the quantity."
But for many residents, the new — albeit prettier — guard was even worse than the old.
The blizzard of 1978 seemed to illustrate an administration in free fall. The summer before, Perk's service director, Robert Beasley, started planning for the winter's snow removal. After Perk was defeated in the primary, Beasley asked to meet with the mayoral candidates to exhibit his plans. Kucinich refused, contending his staff needed no training or advice.
In January, one of the worst snowfalls in Cleveland history arrived, forcing the feds to declare the city a disaster zone. In the end, 51 people died. Others were trapped in their homes or took refuge in shelters.
The chaos was in no small part due to the sheer ineptitude of Kucinich's administration, which had no concept of how to properly clear the streets. "They had no leadership," Beasley later told Cleveland magazine. "When the snow came, they panicked. The trick to plowing streets is not less snow or more equipment, but knowing how to put the equipment that you have at the place you need it at the time you need it. Without experience, that can't be done."
The mayor would later admit that his "snow removal program was an atrocity."
One of Kucinich's few advisers with any experience was Bob Weissman, a longtime political strategist and Kucinich's campaign manager, best known for his uncontrollable temper. His experience didn't serve the mayor well.
A Rasputin figure, Weissman often advised Kucinich on whom to fire and hire. Like a loyal son, Kucinich listened. When criticized for his decision-making, the mayor would often point to Weissman, claiming he told him to do it.
Once, before Kucinich paid a visit to American Greetings, Tegreene asked whether the mayor wouldn't mind saying hello to his mother, who worked in the plant.
But Weissman advised against the gesture, warning Kucinich that it would be unfair to single out a mother of an administrator. Kucinich agreed.
When he returned to City Hall later that day, Tegreene asked whether Kucinich had seen his mother, according to a Cleveland magazine article.
"No," Kucinich answered. "Bob didn't think it was a good idea."
Tegreene was shocked. The man he'd so dutifully served couldn't even say hello to his mother. "You're kidding, right?" Tegreene asked.
"No, really," Kucinich answered. "Bob thought it would embarrass her."
Even when Kucinich hired a likable aide, he managed to turn it sour. Police Chief Richard Hongisto, the former sheriff of San Francisco County, quickly became the most popular member of Kucinich's administration. Hongisto was polite, eschewing the mayor's politics of confrontation and endearing himself to the press.
But he also worried about aligning himself with the mayor's falling star. So Hongisto went public, claiming Kucinich pressured him to fire the mayor's opponents in the police department and replace them with supporters "with questionable ethics."
When Kucinich got wind of the story, he was furious. Hongisto "was every bit the publicity hound," Larkin says. "Being mayor is a big stage, but not big enough for those two egos, so Kucinich had to get rid of one of them."
On Holy Thursday, Kucinich dragged Hongisto in front of television cameras, where he suspended the chief and demanded proof of the accusations.
Then, on Good Friday, Kucinich fired Hongisto, naming Tonia Grdina, the college sophomore who was second-in-command of the safety department, the acting chief.
The press had a field day. No longer could Kucinich control the media — or his city.
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