Long-Time IBEW Local 8 (Toledo, OH) Member May Take Lucas County Treasurer's Post Until Sept. 12

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Tuesday, January 4, 2005

Meeting to pick treasurer likely will be heated

By FRITZ WENZEL
Blade Political Writer


The Lucas County Democratic Party central committee will meet tonight to choose a new county treasurer in a meeting that promises to be acrimonious, as factions of the party fight over a temporary appointment that will expire in September.

Candidates representing different factions of the party include Wade Kapszukiewicz, a Democratic Toledo councilman who won a race for the seat in the November election, and Dennis Duffey, business manager for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 8, who also serves as the chairman of the party's central committee.

No matter who is appointed to the seat tonight, Mr. Kapszukiewicz will begin a fresh four-year term on Sept. 12.

At issue in the race is the fate of several underlings to former Treasurer Ray Kest, a fellow Democrat who resigned in late November to avoid a felony theft charge. Mr. Kapszukiwicz has promised to clean remnants of the Kest political machine from the office once he takes over, while Mr. Duffey represents a faction of the party intent on saving the jobs of the Kest assistants, giving them until Mr. Kapszukiewicz takes over next fall to find new employment, or to retire. At the top of the Kapszukiewicz hit list is top Kest aide John Irish, the deputy treasurer who needs just a matter of months to meet the goal of 30 years in the government pension system.

The central committee meeting tonight, which is open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. in the United Auto Workers Local 12 hall on Ashland Avenue. Under state law, county party central committees are charged with filling vacancies in county administrative offices.

Also at issue is how the meeting will be conducted. Because of Mr. Duffey's position as chairman of the committee that will make tonight's appointment, Mr. Kapszukiewicz said he is concerned the meeting may not be fair.

"If it's a fair election, I think the members of the committee will do what they have always done, and that is to reflect the will of the voters," Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. "If there's some attempt to have a Soviet Union show trial, then, obviously, there's an awful lot that can be done to thwart the will of the voters."

Mr. Duffey, Mr. Irish, and others were instrumental in the coup that ousted former chairman Paula Ross, and replaced her with Sandy Isenberg, who said yesterday she was distraught that intraparty squabbling could spoil the party's prospects at the polls.

With Mr. Duffey or a hand-picked assistant running the meeting, Ms. Isenberg feared it is almost certain they would first nominate Mr. Duffey for the post.

"They want to run this like the Gestapo, seriously, like a Third World country," she said. "This is not the People's Republic of China. What is this?"

Mr. Duffey did not respond to a call for comment. Mr. Irish said yesterday that procedures governing tonight's meeting "are still being worked out."

Contact Fritz Wenzel at:
fritz@theblade.com
or 419-724-6134.