Bonda, Alva T.

The many sides of Ted Bonda: It sounds like a book title which, if it were, would most certainly be a work of nonfiction. Among Bonda's string of unofficial titles are successful businessman, passionate education advocate and sports-team owner. 

But when he describes himself these days, Bonda is likely to choose an unlikely adjective: Jealous. "Who do you think is the most jealous person in Cleveland right now?" Bonda asks. Answer: Ted Bonda. Why? Because he no longer owns the Cleveland Indians. 

''All owners of sports teams have big egos," he says, ''and I suppose I had one, too." 

A big ego and a big commitment. In an era when the Indians were perennially in the basement and in danger of being taken from the city, Bonda kept the team here. He made possible the joy Clevelanders now derive from their championship team playing in its jewel ballpark. 

The Cleveland native says his mid-1970s ownership of the Indians, while statistically unremarkable, was in retrospect one of the highlights in a life that has taken its share of twists, turns and career maneuvering. 

"I did so many things," Bonda says. "I never planned things in my life, they just happened and sometimes I was able to take advantage of them." 

When Bonda returned to Cleveland after a four-year stint in the U.S. Army, he had, he says, "no money, no prospects and no particular idea of what to do." When his boyhood friend and attorney Howard Metzenbaum asked Bonda to manage an Avis Rent-a-Car franchise, Bonda bit. 

It was the mid-1950s, and airports had yet to grasp the importance of organized parking. Fortunately, Bonda did — he promptly took over management of lots at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. "Of course, I wasn't interested in the parking," he says. "I wanted to rent my Avis cars out of there." 

Bonda and Metzenbaum went on to purchase another 16 Avis franchises; Bonda became national chairman of the rental-car giant in 1968. He left, though, to help Metzenbaum run the Airport Parking Co. of America (APCOA), the company the pair had founded to handle parking-lot management at Midwestern airports from Cincinnati to Indianapolis and, later, at downtown lots and garages. By the time the pair sold APCOA some 20 years later, it was the largest such company in the world. 

Bonda developed a reputation as a fearless supporter of liberal politics and candidates, chiefly of his boyhood friend Metzenbaum and of Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes in the late '60s. Although Bonda was approached to run for mayor, he says he had no interest in public office until it was suggested he run for the Cleveland school board. Out of a deep commitment to future generations of Clevelanders, Bonda stepped into the fray. 

Elected in 1980, Bonda ultimately became board president and orchestrated the passage of a 9.9 mill operating levy — the first successful levy campaign in 30 years. He helped preserve school sports programs, hired respected superintendent Fred Holliday and was a vocal opponent of Judge Frank Battisti's decision to desegregate Cleveland schools by forced busing. 

"When we were working on the levy, I was yelling at the business establishment and making enemies among labor unions, but I didn't give a damn," Bonda says. "All I cared about was passing that levy. I would give in to no one. 

"All my life, I've been very outspoken. But I've always wound up with, I think, nobody really hating me." 

Cleveland attorney Joseph Tegreene, elected to the school board with Bonda, agrees. "Ted was very passionate about what he did," Tegreene says. "He always had a very strong idea of what he felt to be the community's interest, and he pursued it aggressively, so he did make some enemies. I would have a problem with that if he was doing it for money or power, but it wasn't done for any of those reasons. 

"I was closer to him than anybody on the school board and he drove me crazy," Tegreene adds. "If you didn't agree with him, he was all over you. He could not tolerate dissent. It was annoying, but it never caused me to dislike him, because I understood where he was coming from. He cared very deeply." 

Did his experiences on the school board mellow Bonda? Not much. Tegreene says Bonda, for all his outspokenness, was and is an extremely rare breed of civic leader. "He did what was right — not right for Ted, not right for his pocketbook, not right for his political future, but right for the community."