At a holiday party a few years ago, I bumped into former Cleveland Councilman Benny Bonanno. He was chatting with the Plain Dealer's Brent Larkin, who was recounting a piece he'd written on the anniversary of Cleveland's default. Larkin recalled how the editor had surveyed the newsroom, trying to decide whom he should ask to write the article. Realizing there were few if any reporters still around who had originally covered that story, Larkin said, he was drafted.

A casual listener might have thought Larkin was complaining about the assignment, but I detected something quite different: a man who takes pride in being the institutional memory of a major metro daily.

In the next few weeks, that walking encyclopedia of Cleveland politics must decide whether or not he should walk out the door of the newspaper he's called home since 1981. He's one of several PD editorial employees who are eligible for an early retirement package recently tendered by the paper's new publisher.

"It's hard to imagine the PD without Brent Larkin," my lunch companion Jeff, a PR guy and former journalist, told me recently. And he's right. Larkin has seemingly been around forever. He's been at the PD for a quarter century, the last 15 years as editorial page editor, and before that, he was with the Cleveland Press for a dozen years. Most of that time he's covered politics, accumulating a vast network of contacts and a storehouse of memory.

"He's got a huge amount of contacts and context," says one PD reporter. "The paper has never put a huge amount of stock in institutional memory, and he controls that. He is, rightly or wrongly, perceived to have the paper's institutional memory on politics."

In a recent phone interview, Larkin, who turned 59 last weekend, was mostly tight-lipped. "A: I'm eligible [for the buyout]. B: I haven't decided yet. C: When I do decide, I'll probably let them know first." He went on to say that "it's a very generous offer, and it would be irresponsible not to consider it."

Unlike most career journalists, Larkin does have another potential career to fall back on. Nearly 20 years ago, he earned a law degree. "I've been inactive for maybe 18 years," he says, laughing at the suggestion of pursuing that now. "Let me put it to you this way: If you had a complex legal matter, would you hire me?"

Under Larkin, the editorial page has been predictably business-friendly and center-right in political outlook, largely a reflection of the politics and temperament of former publisher Alex Machaskee. Consider a couple of recent controversial editorials as illustration (though both were published after Machaskee stepped down).

In June, the editorial page called for scrapping the Huletts, those hulking iron ore unloaders that many people consider civic sculpture and graceful reminders of our industrial heritage. The editorial ended with a line that still reverberates. "Cleveland needs to embrace its next century, not cling to the last." Is it too much to ask that the monopoly hometown paper recognize that respecting the past and embracing the future aren't mutually exclusive propositions? The paper also endorsed Ken Blackwell's half-baked idea about privatizing the Ohio Turnpike, a gimmick roundly dismissed by CSU urban affairs analyst Ned Hill and by editorial writers at Crain's and the Akron Beacon Journal.

Larkin has even managed to tone down the editorial cartoon. PD cartoonist Jeff Darcy says Larkin once told him he shouldn't draw anything controversial, but instead simply try to entertain readers. Darcy's frustrated response: "Well, I guess we can forget about winning a Pulitzer then."

While columnist Dick Feagler is rightly bashed in many quarters for his incessant habit of harkening back to the old days, Larkin is in many ways just as guilty of spouting tired conventional wisdom. Only he has more chances to do so, under his own name in his bylined Sunday column, through unbylined editorials he writes, and those which others write but upon which he exercises influence.

So will he accept the buyout offer or not?

"A growing number of people [at the PD] believe he'll take it," says one veteran reporter. A former Larkin colleague who has recently spoken with him about it says he genuinely remains on the fence. "I think he is torn. He loves to travel and play golf, but he also loves politics and to be in the mix."

Here's hoping he ultimately decides to step aside. PD readers deserve a fresh voice, and the new publisher deserves a chance to name his own editorial page chief. Brent Larkin's already achieved a kind of career immortality.

OLD BUSINESS: In my most recent column, published on August 2, (www.freetimes.com/story/554), I wrote that editor Doug Clifton seemed to be spending a surprising amount of time these days in his woodworking studio. I tried to offer him the chance to comment for the original story, but his assistant cut me off after I had asked another question. After the story was published, Clifton sent me a series of e-mails: "The longest period I've been absent from the office is a Friday or Monday around a weekend," he wrote. "And the only time I spend in my "studio' is on the weekend. I work a minimum of 11 hours a day, not counting the ones I work before getting to the office and after I get home Å  You called to ask about buyouts, a question I declined to answer. You didn't ask if I was screwing off, to which I would have been glad to respond." From now on, he's agreed to respond via e-mail, for which I thank him.

In that same column, I wrote that new publisher Terry Egger was said to have declined the offer of a company car, which I tried to confirm through a call to his office. The call wasn't returned, but I subsequently asked him about this during a Q&A session after a speech. "I have a company car," he said flatly. I stand corrected.

jettorre@voyager.net

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