Conspiracy or Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

• Author: Ben Keeler
• Filed under: Arshinkoff / Coughlin
• Date: Mar 24,2008

Current Summit County GOP chief Alex Arshinkoff would like us all to believe that the effort to oust him from his leadership post is nothing more than one big conspiracy ginned up by the Democrats and, of course, Republican Pete Kostoff during secret meetings held in the executive conference room of Akron area legal firm Roetzel and Andress. Instead of promoting Summit Republican candidates, Arshinkoff has been ranting and raving about these two bogeymen in his closet for years. Admittedly, recent news regarding Secretary State Jennifer Brunner's decisions surrounding this drama would appear to be playing right into his conspiracy theories, but that isn't really the case. It is time for a reality check here at The Point.

Here is some interesting information for you about the Arshinkoff / New Summit Republican battle and the role former Fairlawn Mayor Pete Kostoff is playing for the New Summit Republicans. Kostoff is but only one of plentiful Summit County Republicans who would like to see Arshinkoff go. The following is information from two sources and a little "inside baseball," but it provides an insight to the situation at hand.

Pete Kostoff and Alex Arshinkoff used to be very close - some say like brothers. Obviously as you can see now, along the way there was a falling out. Back in the mid 1990s, Kostoff wanted to support Wayne Jones (a Democrat, current Arshinkoff nemesis, and currently on the Summit County BOE) for Mayor of Cuyahoga Falls against Republican Don Robart. Up until this point, there was no love lost between Robart and Arshinkoff. Insiders tell me that Alex gave Pete his blessing to support Jones against Robart but told him he'd have to step down from Executive Committee for a while, due to party rules. Fair enough. Soon after, and for unknown reasons, things changed - but insiders say it was not over Kostoff's backing of Jones.

Alex promised Pete he would not get involved in the Jones/Robart race for Falls Mayor. Soon after, the entire Republican machine in the county set out to help Robart beat Jones and the Kostoff versus Arshinkoff war was on (Robart won the election in question). While Alex had originally pretty much given Pete his approval, Alex started publicly calling Kostoff out for supporting a Democrat and calling him "Benedict Pete" and bad mouthing the law firm of Roetzel and Andress where Kostoff worked (and still does). According to my sources, Alex had Gene Esser, the former Summit County Engineer, fire Pete's brother Nick from the Engineers office, fire Pete's uncle from the Board of Elections, and Pete's sister in law, Maria Kostoff, fired as the Chief Magistrate at the Juvenile Court. Nice.

Fast forwarding a little bit, with state term-limits as they are, Betty Montgomery couldn't run again for AG in 2002. Alex got behind Joe Deters and Pete and R&A got behind Jim Petro. Deters eventually dropped out and Petro won that fall. Petro and Alex absolutely hated each other and Petro took all the special counsel work from Akron area Alex-friendly firms and gave the bulk to Roetzel. You hear a lot of anti-Roetzel talk these days from Alex, and that is another big reason why.

So there you go. I thought some of you might like to hear some background that doesn't make the newspapers. Arshinkoff's claims that Wayne Jones and Pete Kostoff are the puppet masters behind the scenes in this episode and Sen. Kevin Coughlin is nothing more than their marionette is totally absurd. Would both like to live in an Arshinkoff-free political world? Sure. But did Arshinkoff push the pair of Jones and Kostoff to the brink of piling on? Probably. It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Take this with a grain of salt of course, after all, I am not a "good Republican."

Just to be clear. I don't make this stuff up. One of the great things about this gig is that I now have people feeding me this information - stuff that happened at the Keeler Report, but not a whole lot and not this in-depth. It isn't just random people - it is people who know. I have been working on this for a while, checking and double checking the facts and names before I published it. There was more than one source. There is more in the pipeline.

Tomorrow we will find out who the New Summit Republicans will be running for head of the county party. There is a press conference at 2PM at the John S. Knight Center. The event is free and open to the public.