Recent events on Capitol Hill put a magnified focus on a Republican Party divided between its extreme right-wing minority and its somewhat less right-wing majority. Yes, there’s still that other minority faction of good-old-fashioned conservative GOP members who could be dumped like former U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Anthony Gonzalez at any time.
Locally, though, the recent announcement by Chagrin Falls Mayor William Tomko of his intent to seek reelection for a third term next fall turned my thoughts to 1997.
Local elections in Chagrin Falls, like most Ohio municipalities and townships, are supposedly nonpartisan. Not that voters are totally unaware of party affiliation. That was especially true through the longtime promotions headed by former Republican Party ward leader David Griffiths.
Mr. Griffiths, by the way, was a founder of the Chagrin Valley Times, but that’s a whole other story.
The story in the fall of 1997 focused on a political faction referred to as the “green slate,” aka the Partnership for Chagrin Falls.
Not to be confused with the current Green Party, which is associated with environmentalism, social justice and other notions that are antithetical to conservatism, the Partnership for Chagrin Falls was focused on the retention of green space.
Most notably, the local “green slate” was in favor of preserving the Harmon property adjacent to Whitesburg Nature Preserve. The Partnership for Chagrin Falls also vocally supported protection of the Chagrin River and wetlands with buffer zones and preservation of the village’s scale and character.
If that wasn’t enough to offend the entrenched Chagrin Falls GOP, two Republican Village Council incumbents seeking reelection, Mr. Tomko and William Doyle, were teaming up on the preservation slate with two self-identified Democrats running for election that fall. Two other Republicans, former Chagrin Falls School Board member James Watterson and zoning commission member Jay Schach, also joined the bipartisan slate.
They were distancing themselves from Republican Councilmen B. Richard Bodwell, a former mayor, and Donald Anderson, who wanted nothing to do with such nonsense as environmental protection.
Mr. Griffiths, who had retired as Republican ward leader earlier that year, was aghast. “All I ever tried to do for the past 30 years is to keep the party united, and now it is all gone,” he said.
In addition to Mr. Bodwell and Mr. Anderson, the Republican Party endorsed several other council candidates in an effort to teach the likes of Mr. Tomko and Mr. Doyle a lesson about bipartisanship.
Come Election Day, among the 12 candidates for the seven council seats, village voters chose five members of the Partnership for Chagrin Falls. Both Mr. Bodwell and Mr. Anderson went down to defeat. It was apparent that the voters favored government activism for the preservation of green space and historic character over uncompromising partisanship.
That was a quarter century ago. Mr. Tomko already had served on Village Council for 16 years, and he was council president from 1998 to 2005. He’s been the mayor of Chagrin Falls since 2015.
It should come as no surprise that Mayor Tomko also is one of the founders and is current president of the Chagrin River Watershed Partners, perhaps the premier environmental-preservation organization in Ohio. And, yes, he continues to be a champion of the village’s historic character, including its charming downtown business district.
Unfortunately, unlike Chagrin Falls and many other American communities, where the citizens can put aside their political differences for the betterment of their common interests, our Capitol in Washington, D.C., is a cauldron of hyper-partisan warfare.
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