Winborn: It's time to leave career in politics
For the first time in more than a quarter-century, Ed Winborn has no meetings, ribbon-cuttings or meet-and-greet obligations to mark down in his appointment book for the new year.
After a rough-and-tumble, two-year stint as Davenport mayor and 19 years as a Scott County supervisor — including 11 as chairman — the former West Point cadet is setting aside elected office.
“The political career is put to bed,” Winborn said. “They’ve been fun years.”
Winborn was a 37-year-old small business owner running his family’s sporting goods stores when he was elected to the Scott County Board in 1980 as a Republican.
He recalls his supervisor years with fondness.
“It was a good time, and I served with very good people,” he said. “We accomplished a lot and had a very stable and progressive county government.”
Jim Hancock, the current county board chairman, noted that Winborn always treated him with honor and respect, despite the fact Hancock was the lone Democrat on the board for many years.
“Ed’s the type of leader that expects everyone alongside him to be on the same page,” Hancock said. “Politically, it doesn’t always happen that way. But never have I run into a more honorable person than Ed Winborn. He has a truly giving attitude toward the community.”
Accustomed to the collegial nature of the county board — a small group where differences are often hashed out congenially in the county building’s hallways — Winborn struggled at times with the raucous nature of city politics after winning the mayor’s seat in 2005. He chose not to seek re-election in November, and newly elected Bill Gluba will be sworn in today as mayor.
“City government is the closest to the people, and you really affect people’s daily lives,” Winborn said. “That may be what makes it more complicated than state or county government. But I never regretted my decision to run. We had some bumps along the road and some crises, but I still think we’ve accomplished a lot.”
Winborn said his proudest moment as mayor was accepting the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s “most livable small city” award.
“Crime is down, we decreased taxes last year, increased the number of police on the street and created more jobs last year than we have in years,” Winborn said. “There were a number of major accomplishments.”
Winborn even touts his late push to get the Davenport Promise program on a ballot as an accomplishment, even though that effort stalled out.
“It’s something I’ll continue to work for,” he said. “The idea that it was some kind of ‘legacy’ issue for me is nonsense, in my opinion. I’ve been around 25 years, and one thing isn’t going to make or break me. The reason I brought it up when I did is there is a large group of people who had been working for six months and could have begun losing interest if we didn’t show we were serious.”
Former Scott County Sheriff and Davenport Police Chief Mike Bladel also made the transition from county to city government. Like Winborn, he found the differences in the two to be stark.
“The difference is, county government is a little more removed from the daily grind and city government is much more in your face,” Bladel said.
Still, Bladel said, criticism that Winborn’s management style of building consensus and teamwork wasn’t right for his at-times uncooperative City Council misses the mark.
“Without Ed’s leadership style, things would have been substantially worse the past two years,” Bladel said. “If anyone thinks they could have done better with a sledge hammer or a whip, they’re making fools of themselves. That was the most difficult two years I’ve ever seen a city council have to deal with. It’s very difficult for leadership to emerge if there are one or two individuals out there trying to submarine issues.”
Alderman Shawn Hamerlinck, 2nd Ward, who served with Winborn and will begin his second term today, disagreed with Bladel’s assessment.
“This position needs strong character, strong will and a strong personality,” he said. “The person must be willing to stand up and show that they’re willing to make a judgment even if it’s not popular at the time.”
Hamerlinck and the mayor often found themselves at odds on issues. However, Hamerlinck said, he admires Winborn for his years of public service.
“As a politician, we had our differences,” he said. “But as an individual, I’ll always respect Ed.”
Winborn said he’s looking forward to having some down time. A few years ago, he and his wife, Sandy, thought about converting their home in the Village of East Davenport into a bed and breakfast. They got the necessary rezoning, so they may give it a go, he said.
He also plans to continue being the city’s biggest cheerleader.
“We need people to be more proud of our city,” he said. “We need to celebrate our successes.”
Gluba, Council will take oaths today
Davenport Mayor-elect Bill Gluba and the 2008-09 City Council will be sworn in at the regular council meeting today.
The meeting, which begins at
7 p.m. at City Hall, will include a color guard featuring Davenport Police and Fire Department representatives and members of the Central High School Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps color guard. The students include Ryan Wilson, Curtrice Lockhart and Ashley Fox from Central and Nick Watson from West High School.
The national anthem will be sung by Central High School Choir member Keenan Wilson and an invocation will be given by Monsignor John Hyland, vicar general of the Diocese of Davenport. Bobbi Alpers, chief judge of the 7th Judicial District, will swear in the mayor and council members.
Tory Brecht can be contacted at (563) 383-2329 or tbrecht@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.