Schumann's Cleveland Pages archives

This archive article is selected from The Cleveland Pages, the city's only weekly independent journal of politics and opinion on the Internet. Find out all about the Cleveland Pages here, or check out the current issue.

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The trouble with Polensek (12 November 1999)

This week, City Council voted to install Mike Polensek as President replacing Jay Westbrook. That's great; we've needed to get rid of Jay Westbrook since... well, around 1989. But let's not get too excited about the new new guy until he shows us something concrete.

The trouble with Westbrook

Westbrook created a credibility problem in his position. Widely viewed as politically weak, and having all the integrity of a zebra mussel, Westbrook would do anything to keep the job of Council President. He allowed Mike White to use his influence to maintain a bare majority of pro-Westbrook Council members, but their commitment never ran deep, because borrowed loyalty is no loyalty at all.

Westbrook came into the President's chair along with a wave of new Council members elected in 1989. Immediately, and for a few weeks thereafter, he promised an entirely different agenda: neighborhoods over downtown, openness instead of back-room dealing, an end to the disrespectful treatment of voters that George Forbes, his predecessor, enjoyed.

It didn't last. Westbrook, working for White, steered through Council the legislation to complete the money-sucking Gateway project, and to grant development favors to White benefactors. He rarely challenged the administration's gross violations of open records laws, and he allowed White's department heads to evade direct questioning before Council.

Wesbrook hanging on

Westbrook maintained 11- or 12-vote majorities during his term; George Forbes usually had 18 members or more in his favor at caucus. Getting onto the bad side of George Forbes meant something. Talking about ousting Westbrook, on the other hand, was an everyday thing that Jay himself was unable to discourage.

Everything about Forbes said "power," from his posture to his suit to the way he talked to citizens at hearings. Council members feared him and loved him, strangely. One close observer of Council in those times called his manner and presence "sexy."

As Roldo once wrote, Forbes did bad things very well; Westbrook did equally bad things but wasn't very good at it.

Not having the personality or political levers to boss colleagues around as Forbes did, and having yielded the moral high ground that he might have used, Westbrook quickly lost any leverage he might have had.

Nobody ever said of President Westbrook, as they might have said of the Jay Westbrook of OPIC in past decades, that his priniciples were good but his prospects poor.

The thing about being "realistic" in a political environment is that you quickly forget why you bothered participating at all. Winning isn't everything... in fact, it's not even a priority when you're up against a political machine like Mike White's. Westbrook's desperate efforts to retain a majority to stay in the President's chair undermined his idealistic reasons for wanting it. Beating yourself like that is the worst way to lose.

The trouble with Polensek

People are not dense; they're not going to have the same high expectations for Mike Polensek as they did for Jay Westbrook. But a guy like Polensek, just given his own modest Collinwood background, could look a bit more grounded, maybe a little more dedicated, than his predecessor who migrated here from Arkansas. (Like I should talk.) Maybe Polensek's self-image isn't so wrapped up in "being Council President" that he'll avoid losing his soul to political assimilation.

But we don't know that. True believers have been burned before. Heck, even Forbes looked like a genuine reformer going in.

The trouble with Polensek is the credibility gap Westbrook leaves. Let's watch and wait.

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