The third time was the charm for Ralph Perk in 1971.
The veteran politician — he’d served 10 years on Cleveland City Council before getting elected county auditor in 1962, the first Republican elected to county office in a generation — was elected mayor in a four-way race that year, defeating Democrat James Carney, Socialist Labor Joseph Pirincin and independent Arnold Pinkney after Mayor Carl Stokes opted not to run for a third term in office.
On the morning of Nov. 8, six days after his election, Perk resigned as county auditor. At 10:30 a.m. that day, he was sworn in as the city’s 52nd mayor by U.S. District Judge James Connell. Perk was thronged with security (someone tried to firebomb his East 49th Street home on Halloween) and inundated with well-wishers, including councilman Dennis Kucinich, who’d led Democrats for Perk during the campaign season, and U.S. Sen. Robert Taft, extending best wishes from President Richard Nixon.
Later that afternoon, Perk climbed 14 feet up a ladder to aid in restoration efforts at the Allen Theatre, which had formally closed as a movie theater three years earlier but would host the Budapest Symphony Orchestra later that month.
Perk grabbed a paintbrush and went to work on the theater’s marquee, saying he wanted it to serve as a symbol for Downtown’s revitalization. The Allen Theatre’s day would come as part of Playhouse Square, but it would take a while.
“Don’t drip the paint,” his wife, Lucille, told him. Instead, he dipped his overcoat sleeve into the white paint. Fortunately, Herbert Diamond of Diamond’s Men’s Stores was on hand to clean the coat.
Perk went on to serve three two-year terms as mayor, presiding over a tumultuous era in Cleveland history, before losing to former ally Kucinich in 1977.
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