Mayor Turner's qualifications are better. He has fulfilled a fair portion of the hope he raised four years ago. He has brought a fresh perspective to City Hall. He shook up a one-party system that had grown too comfortable. He brought a more businesslike approach to the expenditure of money. He has consistently asked tough questions of city staff, the kinds of questions that hadn't been asked in the past and that he still asks better than anyone else. The guy is exceptionally sharp.
One of his faults is a certain - shall we say - awareness of his ability. The word arrogant has come up. Abrasive. His report card would not show an `A' in `working well with others.' But the mayor's position is his first elective office. He can grow. He needs to work on his sensitivity to the concerns and feelings of others.
The mayor's office does not have much in the way of formal power beyond that of a city commissioner. Moreover, Mayor Turner was the only member of his party on the commission for a while. So nobody could expect him to fundamentally change the nature of the city. It has experienced no renaissance.
Turner a good budget watchdog
But, after enormous personnel changes in the wake of the Turner election, and after bitter divides about personnel and much else, the City Hall operation looks promising, under an energetic new city manager who enjoys wide support. And the commission seems to have learned how to function with two political parties represented. Meanwhile, the city is spending within its annual income, whereas when the mayor was elected it was dipping into reserves.
Dayton's government has serious financial problems ahead. Even the good times of the mid-1990s have not made city coffers grow. Thinking about what might happen if times turn sour is no fun. But Mayor Turner has a command of the city budget, a taste for numbers and an eye for unnecessary expenses that will be useful.
The trap to be avoided by the next mayor - whoever he is - is absorption in the month-to-month management of crises. The city needs - to use a tired word - some sort of vision, a plan, a direction. Central to it must be a stronger relationship with the broader Miami Valley. Preventing Dayton from becoming poorer and poorer, smaller and smaller, will not be easy. But many enlightened people in the suburbs understand that the goal of a strong Dayton is one the suburbs must embrace. The outside world's image of the Miami Valley will be based largely upon its image of Dayton.
Time for Dayton to think big
Some big thinking is needed. Now - because the wars over City Hall personnel seem to be over, and because other crises haven't set in - is an ideal time for it.
The biggest new project Dayton has had going in recent years has been minor-league baseball. On that, the mayor has been a disappointment. True, he has performed the useful task of asking difficult questions and looking beyond what the staff has presented him. But he has flipped from basic support of the project to what appears to be basic opposition in a period in which two things have happened: Projected costs have risen, and the election has neared. But cost projections have not risen much. You can draw your own conclusion about his motives. Obviously, many citizens oppose spending public money on baseball.
Capizzi brought baseball to table
Baseball happens to be a subject that reflects both well and badly on Commissioner Capizzi, as well as the mayor. The challenger is the person who put the issue on the community's table. He saw that baseball could work in Dayton, having learned before anybody else that team owners saw Dayton as a great untapped market. For several years, Commissioner Capizzi was virtually alone in the community's power structure in promoting the idea.
But that's another way of saying he really didn't promote it very well. Without Commissioner Capizzi, baseball would not be happening. But if the issue had remained in his hands (rather than being taken over by the Downtown Dayton Partnership), it also would not be happening. His inability to make something happen does not speak well of his potential as a mayor.
He is nearly as tested a leader as the incumbent. As the senior member of the majority party on the commission, he might actually have developed more power over the past few years than the mayor. Such things have happened. But Commissioner Capizzi is not the kind of natural leader to whom such things happen.
No profound differences
At meetings with the candidates, voters have asked questions about just about everything except baseball. There the main issues have been the quality of city services and neighborhood life, the schools, economic development, relations with the suburbs, race relations, sprawl and the weakening of the city relative to the suburbs.
The challenger has offered no compelling critique of the incumbent's record in these realms. Indeed, neither the campaign nor the previous four years of governance have uncovered profound philosophical differences between the candidates on these issues.
The best bet, then, is a bipartisan government of the best possible people. Mike Turner is the real hope of bipartisan government, what with Commissioner Abner Orick being off on his own little toots.
The incumbent mayor is one of the most capable people to offer his service in elective office in Dayton in many years. Now - when he has experience to go with his ability - is no time to turn him aside.