Ex-A.C. mayor got in over his head

ATLANTIC CITY - It was a warm day last October when Mayor Bob Levy showed up unexpectedly at the Atlantic City Beach Patrol headquarters at South Carolina Avenue and the Boardwalk.

He headed upstairs with an assistant chief. The two men sat on the balcony overlooking the ocean, a place where Levy had spent so much time as Beach Patrol chief, a title that never stopped seeming to fit better than mayor.

"He put his head in his hands," recalled the assistant chief, who asked that his name not be used because of department rules. "He said, 'I never should have left the beach.' "

Last week, that sentiment never seemed more true, as the career and personal stability and integrity of someone many had viewed as one of the resort's most solid citizens unraveled its final spool.

To outsiders, the "Where's Mayor Levy?" saga played like farce, providing yucks for everyone from Geraldo ("Maybe they should get a cocktail waitress to be the mayor!") to the guys working the Atlantic City Dolphins recreational football field ("We got a mayor?"). It was grist for Republicans (Levy was with the GOP until 2004, when he was an eleventh-hour fill-in to run for mayor).

But to those who knew Levy as confident chief of the storied Atlantic City Beach Patrol, proud head of the city's emergency management waiting out those nor'easters, a guy never happier than when in his Beach Patrol tank top, red swim trunks, and flip-flops - it was a disturbing and sad collapse.

In the end, it was painful to watch. In his two years as mayor, Levy never truly emerged from the shadow of Craig Callaway, the now-jailed politician who recruited Levy to run when Callaway was about to be indicted. Levy was hounded by a decades-old lie about being in the Army Green Berets that undercut a distinguished military record and got the feds involved.

He was plagued by back problems and stress, repeatedly taking leave of his mayoral duties. In the end, the world got to know Levy as a mayor hiding out on the verge, or in the middle, of some kind of prescription-drug-addled breakdown. With his attorney in Paris, he become an international punch line, a mayoral Britney Spears.

Finally, with his old friend and fellow lifeguard, Assemblyman Jim Whelan, whistling him out of the rough seas of Atlantic City politics by publicly calling for him to resign, Levy threw in the towel.

It was a dramatic and poignant turn of events for two men who had been buddies since they were young lifeguards on the chaotic Steel Pier beach, a place that always led the pack in rescues, two guys who spent years rowing together every morning in the back bays.

It was Whelan, as mayor of Atlantic City, who appointed then-Chief Levy to head of the emergency management.

With Whelan embroiled in a race for state Senate, some saw his move as a betrayal of an old friend. But others viewed it more as tough love, the ultimate rescue of a drowning man.

Late last week, Whelan said he still found the whole thing "incomprehensible."

Levy, his mayor-plated Lexus parked outside his Venice Park home, was not talking.

Born and raised in Atlantic City, Levy was a child of the Beach Patrol whom older guards remember hanging around his uncle, Murph Levy. He has said his relationship with his future wife, Hazel Washington, who is black, got him kicked out of Atlantic City High School.

Early in their marriage, the couple lived in some of the city's toughest neighborhoods, where Levy stood out both for being white and for being one of the few fathers around. He spent 20 years in the Army, including two decorated tours in Vietnam, returning as an Army recruiter and joining the Beach Patrol.

"We worked Steel Pier beach, where frankly we had the most rescues of any beach in South Jersey," recalled Whelan. "It was kind of a matter of pride to work there. Guys who worked there had a camaraderie in a beach where you had the most rescues."

Growing up in the Back Maryland section, Ron Hall knew Levy as "Mr. Bobby" - someone who made an impression on kids by doing dad things like dressing up on Halloween.

"When I was a kid, he was someone I looked up to," said Hall, sitting at a laptop computer in the storefront Atlantic Avenue campaign offices of Councilman Marty Small, where he is campaign manager ("Think Tall, Vote Small").

On a day when City Hall was imploding, Hall's professional demeanor played like a ray of possibility on the horizon.

"When I got married and had kids, I did things that I had admired in Mr. Bobby. I answered the door with the costume on Halloween."

Levy, 60, seemed to have the makings of a bridge builder - between black and white, the beach and the neighborhoods, the old Atlantic City and the new. His son Robert is a city firefighter. His daughter, Wendi, is a former Miss Atlantic City who runs her own hair-care company, Mixed Chicks L.L.C., aimed at multiracial women. He had been adept and gregarious in two decades as head of the Beach Patrol and in emergency management.

"When storms were generating big surf, he was the first one at the headquarters looking at the surf," said Richard Sless, a Beach Patrol captain who has known Levy for 35 years. "He was a water man, a term that surfers use. He was a rower. He was a swimmer. He had everyone's respect. He would have taken a situation like Katrina, and I know he would have done a great job."

But almost from the beginning of his political career, Levy seemed out of his element, caught up in powerful riptides. First and foremost, there was Craig Callaway, who had been inflicting his brand of intimidation and corruption on the city for years.

Vince Fumo raised about $40,000 for Levy and sent his consultant, Ken Snyder, from Chicago to run Levy's campaign and advertising.

As mayor, Levy often left the job to business administrator Dominic Cappella, a Callaway ally. All along, the lie about earning a Combat Infantryman Badge and being a Green Beret festered.

"He always said, 'One term. I'll do it for one term,' " said a fellow lifeguard. "I said, "You'll be good. The people will like you.' "

It's said lifeguards in Atlantic City perform so many rescues because they tend to give the swimmers a bit more leash than other towns, then go out and haul. In politics, they can't stay afloat.

"Everybody liked him when he was on the Beach Patrol," said Evan Mills, 50, a casino employee who lives in the Monroe Park section of Atlantic City, not far from Levy. "When you try to run this city, it's very difficult."

Four years ago, when Levy applied for his military pension, the false record resulted in undeserved benefits totalling $24,000, according to his attorney. If he thought the lie would remain buried, he was wrong. As one observer said last week: "He didn't have skeletons in his closet. He had a whole graveyard."

Levy's resignation - by proxy - came on a day of twin media obsessions: the wacky disappearing out-of-rehab mayor story and the bigger-than-Borgata casino announced by MGM Grand. For good or for bad, the disconnect between the fate of the city and the $5-billion-a-year casino industry never seemed so pronounced.

For friends of Levy, the confluence of the events only deepened the pain. A day of a big casino announcement should have had the mayor basking in the credit. Instead, Levy was out of sight, the reins being handed to William "Speedy" Marsh, the 54-year-old City Council president, who, awkwardly, still owes the city $363,000 from a court settlement that was overturned.

Over at Beach Patrol headquarters, meanwhile, the annual portraits show Levy surrounded by politicians, first Republicans, then Democrats, until finally he's the politician in the middle.

Instead of a suit, Levy posed for the picture in a specially made ACBP tank top that said Mayor where it used to say Chief.