MAYORAL MIGRATION: It's been a tough election year for Cleveland realtors. Tom Coyne decided that his heart is still back in Brook Park. Ray Pierce packed up all that visionary leadership and headed for North Carolina, where they understand him. Jim Rokakis and Dan Moore both decided to stick with their suburban addresses. Talk about a brain drain! For a while there, it looked like we might have a mayoral election without selling a single house.

But luckily, David Lynch has decided this is his year to save Cleveland. So as of December, he's from Collinwood. As the Republican lawyer and onetime Euclid mayor told the Sun News:

"I moved there at the end of December of last year," Lynch said of his Grovewood Avenue home. "I didn't know if I was going to run for sure when I moved there, but I've since decided that I will."

And aren't we lucky that he did! In his seven months living among us, Lynch has learned that "there is a dire need to improve Cleveland Public Schools, reduce the crime rate and revise tax structures to make it easier to do business in Cleveland." And there's more, courtesy of Right Angle Blog:

[H]e would like to see a regional program established wherein the various communities in Cuyahoga would share in the tax revenues brought in by businesses so that one city isn't competing against another for jobs. Lynch also appropriated Voinovich's line for city government of "Harder and smarter" by recognizing that citizens are basically customers and government must be more responsive.

The lit piece Lynch had available said he was for casinos, but he acknowledged they aren't the panacea. He's also for lakeshore development and a new convention center. He is against red light cameras...

... [H]e'd like to bring the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies to Cleveland, and he'd also like to see Cleveland make a bid for the Summer Olympics.

...Lynch did shy away from talking about the upcoming school levy... It also sounded as if he was going to be signing off/agreeing to Dan T. Moore's Cleveland Action Plan.

Wow, that's exciting stuff. This is clearly a man of deep insight and bold, original thinking, unafraid to take on conventional wisdom and buck the elites. Definitely cut out to be a city-saver. They sure raise'em tough in... Euclid? or Cleveland Heights? Wherever he's from.

Not all our suburban "city leaders" are this superfluous. Rokakis moved to Rocky River when he ascended from City Hall to the County Building, but he's still a serious Cleveland politician with one of the city's biggest voting bases. Rev. Marvin McMickle, a Shaker resident who used to be "mentioned" for Cleveland mayor all the time, spends his days pastoring a church at 89th and Cedar. Dan Moore's "Action Cleveland" program is a mess -- in some respects an elitist, condescending mess -- but he's a smart guy who's built and operated real businesses in a Cleveland neighborhood for twenty years, so you have to take his views about the city seriously.

But David Lynch, parachuting in from Euclid to save us? Is this the best the party of Perk and Voinovich can come up with?

Well, at least we sold Lynch a house. But I hope he kept his realtor's card. Something tells me he'll be looking for it in November, when it's time to follow the crop to another town.