The Indomitable Don Plusquellic: How a Controversial Mayor Quarterbacked Akron's Comeback by Steve Love

Author:Steve Love [Love, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781629220567
Google: cdp7jwEACAAJ
Goodreads: 29657705
Publisher: Ringtaw Books
Published: 2016-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Chinks in the Armor

In the waning days of February 2003, Don Plusquellic and Akron Public Service Director Joe Kidder visited Florida for rest and relaxation. While there, Plusquellic received word that Judge Ted Schneiderman of the Summit County Common Pleas Court had ordered the release of an eighteen-month investigation of Kidder led by a joint federal and state task force formed by the US Attorney and the Summit County Prosecutor. The city had asked the court to resolve a potential conflict between the Akron Beacon Journal’s request for records of the Kidder investigation and the fact that those records contained names of suspects who were never charged with a crime and police informants and witnesses who expected confidentiality.

The Akron Police Department had taken the lead in the investigation. The police sought to discover whether Plusquellic’s cabinet member and friend had violated Ohio’s conflict of interest law when he had a house built in Ellet upon his return to Akron from Atlanta. Many, it seemed, shared the cops’ interest in Kidder’s house, including federal and state law enforcement officers who launched the task force, the Ohio Ethics Commission, Plusquellic administration critics, and, of course, the media.

The investigation focused on Kidder, along with Frank Cioffi, a contractor whom Kidder awarded a no-bid contract worth nearly $1 million to renovate DIY Warehouse, a former big-box hardware store, to house the county title bureau. Make no mistake, though, the real target was Plusquellic.

“Most of the initial information,” said Stuart Warner, who had left the Beacon Journal and was writing about the investigation and Akron for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “came from two guys who hated [Plusquellic]—Larry Parker and Bob Smith. But they had done their homework and it was … accurate. They had hoped [it would lead to Plusquellic], but even they admitted they didn’t have anything on Plusquellic.”

During his many years as an editor and reporter in Akron, Warner does not recall “a need for a serious investigation. Nothing, absolutely nothing, led to Plusquellic.” Summit County government had the corner on corruption. Unlike his counterpart, former County Executive Tim Davis, Plusquellic did not try to cover up his personnel problem. “He did not try to hide Kidder as close as Kidder had been to him for years,” Warner said. Still, critics, cops, and some editors went after Plusquellic. Such vindictiveness must have been the result of his pleasing personality, because in twenty-eightplus years he was mayor, the Kidder incident is as close as his administration came to a black eye.

That is not to say Plusquellic was faultless; he contributed significantly to the situation. When Kidder came home in 1996 to replace Linda Sowa Phelps, whom Plusquellic had removed from the service director’s position, Plusquellic encouraged Kidder to return to Ellet where he had lived when he served as the Ward 6 councilman. The mayor liked his cabinet members spread throughout the city, ears to the ground, and Kidder had an affinity for Ellet. The problem was Kidder could not find a house that suited his family.

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