Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009

Jardine: It's semi-official -- J Street has its own mayor

Candidates, take notice.

Voters elected Harley Cooney the ersatz mayor of J Street on Friday, and he won it without going negative.

"No opponents," the 85-year-old Ralston Tower resident said with a smile.

He won without selling out to special interests.

"Not a lot of big money," supporter Bill Slayter said. "No developers behind this one."

Nor did Cooney need to develop a major campaign network -- no Facebook page, Twitter feeds or a Web page. Just a few fliers that were "Paid for and sponsored by Harley's People."

Harley's people? They're folks he's met over four years hanging out at DeVa Cafe downtown, where every morning he sips coffee at the small corner table they call "Harley's office."

"Just a bunch of people who decided J Street needed a mayor, someone to really watch out for J Street," Slayter said.

More accurately, Slayter decided it and the others simply agreed.

Slayter, the longtime music promoter who publishes off-beat Zorch magazine, also decided Cooney was the right person for the job. Hence, Cooney didn't have to throw his hat into the ring, even though he wears one every day.

Slayter concocted the entire mayoral campaign because it seemed like a fun thing to do with the elections coming up Tuesday -- you know, those inconsequential little political dust-ups for seats on city councils, school boards, water districts, etc.

So about this new Mayor of J Street ... . Cooney was born and raised in Modesto, leaving Modesto High School during his senior year in 1943 to join the Army Air Corps. He served on a ground crew on Tinian Island, from which the B-29s Enola Gay and Bockscar departed to drop atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945. Cooney, though, had left the island courtesy of a Japanese soldier stranded on Tinian after the United States invaded and captured it a year earlier.

"I was wounded from a grenade thrown into our tent," he said. "I got a fragment in my left eye."

Tinian had no hospital, so the Army shipped him back to Hawaii.

"They were about to remove my eye," Cooney said. Instead, doctors tried a new procedure that saved it and restored his vision. That procedure, he said, involved using the same type of medication doctors used to fight typhoid fever. Every few days, he'd get an injection that ultimately killed the infection in his eye. But it had side effects.

"The injections made you cold," he said. "You just froze ... the chills."

Sixty-four years later, though, "it's my best eye," Cooney said.

He mustered out of the service in 1946, returned to Modesto and got married. He and wife Mary had a son and two daughters. After working for years for Longs Drug Stores, he became an apprentice in a print shop.

In 1962, Cooney opened Action Rubber Stamp Manufacturing at 1220 H St., and ran the business until he retired in 1989. Three years later, Mary died. Three years ago, son Patrick died. One daughter, Teresa Hicks, lives in Modesto. The other, Dena Ingalls, lives in Sacramento.

About four years ago, Cooney began having coffee at DeVa and became friends with owners Lorena and Jamie Loftis. When Lorena needed knee replacement surgery, Cooney offered to bus tables and run the dishwasher when needed.

"He'd cook, too, if we'd let him," Lorena Loftis said.

In return, he gets coffee, food and two of the best friends he's ever had.

"They'll have me to their home for barbecues," Cooney said. "They'll take me to (Modesto Nuts) ballgames and to their friends' homes. I've sure met a lot of good people here."

And now they've elected him mayor of J Street, a duty and honor he'll take semi-seriously. As elections go -- one candidate and in a polling place that also serves as his "office" -- this one was about as shaky as Afghanistan's or Iran's. He received 62 of the 71 votes cast. Write-ins Kid Guitar got 7, singer Lady Gaga got 1 and someone named Richard also got a vote.

Cooney ran on a platform of bringing a Graffiti Night cruise back to J Street and recruiting volunteers who will help keep J Street and the windows of its businesses clean.

His campaign slogan?

"No more litter/Make J Street glitter."

He has this weekend to enjoy his victory. Then it's time to face one of the harsh realities of being in the political arena: running for re-election.

Said kingmaker Slayter, "I think we'll make this a yearly event."

Jeff Jardine's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in Local News. He can be reached at 578-2383 or jjardine@modbee.com