Incumbent Warren mayor faces challenge from retired publishing executive
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
In the race for Warren mayor, incumbent Democrat William “Doug” Franklin faces a challenge from political newcomer and independent candidate Dennis Blank, a former marketing executive who recently moved back to the area after retirement.
Blank had a 34-year career in the media business, much of it in management positions with Time Inc. magazines such as Fortune and Money.
In Warren, he created a website and commented on the city, then founded an organization that tried to improve a 22-block north-side neighborhood he branded the Garden District.
When he announced his candidacy for mayor last spring, he said one reason was to make sure Franklin would have an opponent so that the community would get to hear a debate of the issues.
But since entering the race, Blank says people have expressed to him that his candidacy is more than that.
“Until mid-April, I viewed myself largely as a symbolic candidate,” Blank said in a recent interview. “In that first month, I was overwhelmed by the response I got.”
Blank says he and his supporters are frustrated with Franklin and his safety-service director, Enzo Cantalamessa, and their leadership style.
“He has absolutely no plan, or, because you can’t prove a negative, it’s secret,” Blank said of Franklin. “Those guys do whatever lands on their desk and has to be done today. They do not think ahead,” Blank said.
Blank said Cantalamessa “doesn’t know the difference between a snowplow and a garbage truck, nor do I. He lets them do what they want to do.”
Blank said his own lack of experience in running a city won’t be a problem because he plans to seek out a professional city manager to serve as safety-service director if he is elected.
Blank says it’s not a mayor’s job to handle all of the day-to-day issues but to “build political consensus among a critical mass of people that our future is best served by doing A or B or C.” The president of General Motors doesn’t know how to build a car, he said.
Franklin, meanwhile, is astounded that Blank so readily admits he doesn’t “know the difference between a snowplow and a garbage truck” and says Cantalamessa brings to the job two extremely valuable skills – a law degree and experience in running his family’s restaurant, Enzo’s.
“Coming from the business community, he understands business,” Franklin said.
As for Cantalamessa’s knowledge of running a city, it’s OK that he learned on the job. “I was safety-service director for eight years, so I know the job,” Franklin said.
As for having a plan, Franklin said he did something important when he became mayor four years ago: He met with most of the businesses in the city to better understand their needs and what they do.
It gave him plans for promoting business.
“Laird Technology doesn’t come to Warren without a plan,” Franklin said of the wireless automation and controls business from Sharpsville, Pa., that moved to a former Delphi Corp. plant on North River Road in Warren in 2014. “Laird took a year.”
Franklin said last winter’s weather was the worst in a century and was accompanied by a huge increase in the price of salt, but the city managed that by being prepared.
Franklin said $11 million was spent on road resurfacing in the past four years, including “a lot of neighborhood streets that had not been touched in decades.”
The major roads through the city were improved with repaving, the entranceways were improved with brick welcome signs, more than 400 homes were demolished with grant funds, and numerous commercial buildings also came down, including two GE plants, Austin Village Plaza, Pamela Apartments and the former Soul 77 club.
This year’s budget will be a challenge, but his administration trimmed about $450,000 in annual costs by turning over dispatching to the county 911 center. The deal with JAC Management to run Packard Music Hall will continue to reduce the city’s costs, he said.
Blank said if he’s elected, he will advertise the position of safety-service director and find someone professionally trained, perhaps someone who applied for the job at a larger city but came up short. He believes the person hired will be motivated by the opportunity to make a difference.
“People go to college to learn how to do this work. They get graduate degrees to learn how to run a city properly,” he said. “I want to do what any professional organization does when they need a professional employee. They do the broadest search they can afford to do and find the best candidate.”
He believes the $82,000 salary should attract a decent candidate. “I think you should never underestimate the power of being in charge to attract ambitious people,” Blank said.
Franklin said violent crime in Warren has gone down since he became mayor; and more than 400 people have been trained through the citizens police academy, improving relationships between the police department and the community.
The number of citizen complaints about the Warren Police Department has dropped from “boxes” full when he became safety-service director 12 years ago to “a handful” today, he said.