Cincinnati's master showman handed a white or red long-stem rose to each city council member Wednesday afternoon, and with that gesture he walked onto a new stage: politics.
He was the city's rock concert promoter in the 1960s before the job description was invented. He invited first an elephant, then Cab Calloway to a popular series of fancy dress balls he organized in the early 1980s.
He presides over the city's oldest restaurant and night club, Arnold's, which boasts traditional Cincinnati fare and a bathtub in one dining room.
And he was the spark behind Baseball at Broadway Commons, a campaign that started with a few friends in Over-The-Rhine and grew to become the talk of the town.
Jim Tarbell, 55, is getting his wish and taking a Charteriteseat at the council table. He ran unsuccessfully for the post last fall, using a baseball card with a photo of himself in a Reds uniform as a campaign gimmick.
"Jim is an enormously talented entertainer, he is an organizer par excellence," said Tim Burke, head of the local Democratic party, who tried to recruit Mr. Tarbell earlier this year for the county commission race.
"Do I think that will serve him on city council? Yes, it could," Mr. Burke said.
People who know Mr. Tarbell know there is more to him than showman, more than Broadway Commons. Community activist, urban dweller for many years, family man, amateur historian, articulator of visions.
He began to express his philosophy Wednesday after he was sworn in to fill the unexpired term of Bobbie Sterne, whose retirement has been rumored since she won a return to council again last fall. Mr. Tarbell said he hates the divisive field race for mayor and would return to the days when city council elected a mayor. Otherwise, he would leave the form of city government alone.
"There's nothing wrong with it," he said. "It's a matter of how we treat it. It's who we bring to the table and how we treat it." Vine Street and other major city thoroughfares have deteriorated to a state he never would have imagined, he said, when he attended St. Xavier High School downtown.
"I don't find it acceptable. There's no need for it," he said. "We have the resources, it's simply a matter of how we apply them." He promised to carry on Mrs. Sterne's care for medical services, a field he pursued for 10 years. He called for better maintenance of the city's trees.
Mr. Tarbell, founder of the Over-The-Rhine Chamber of Commerce, tried to assure the disadvantaged people whom Mrs. Sterne championed that he is more than a businessman. That his businesses -- Arnold's and Grammer's restaurants -- are in fact a means to social harmony. "Many of you see me on one side as the businessman, and it has been difficult for me to wear that moniker," he said. "For disadvantaged people, the best thing we can do is put ourselves in their midst . . . take the sting out of everyday life, provide economic stability.
