Massillon tax payers owe almost $10 million dollars on interest and principal payments for the Legends of Massillon Golf Course.
The Golf Course is under the auspices of the 'Independent' Parks and Recreation Board because when the course was expanded from 18 to 27 holes, the debt load for the expansion coupled with the original debt was too much for the city's general fund to handle.
Massillon's Mayor for Seven Months, Frank Cicchinelli, pitched the idea of merging the golf course with the parks department in 2002. This was his plan for "streamlining" city government.
The truth is he wanted to unload the golf course debt on the parks department, and use the .3% voter approved income tax to subsidize this debt ridden white elephant.
The voters, who approved the .3% income tax for parks and recreation were shown a master parks plan which their .3% income tax would pay for.
The golf course was never part of the plan.
The golf course debt is now subsidized by the parks income tax.
Our parks are a mess.
Go look for yourself.
The Chester and Florence Campbell Walking Track, the 'rubberized' walking path at Reservoir Park, funded by the former Doctor's Hospital Service League, was left to deteriorate.
Instead of repairing this gift to the community, Parks Czar, and mayoral lackey Kenn Kaminski stripped the remaining rubber off the asphalt where it was in most need of repair.
Just stripped it.
The dam at Reservoir park is in serious disrepair. This isn't our opinion, but the opinion of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, who gave the dam a first-class hazard rating, meaning that it poses a risk of "probable loss of life."
'Landscaping,' a term we use loosely, at the parks means that maybe the grass gets cut every couple of weeks.
Equipment is in disrepair.
Contrary to what the Mayor for Seven months is still preaching, the parks are still a mess.
"Yet others, including Cicchinelli, reject the idea that the parks are in bad shape" (The Independent, June 1, 2011).
He rejects the idea.
Is he blind?
We have concluded he is deaf, at least politically deaf, because if he would have opened his eyes and dealt with the disaster that is the Massillon parks system, he may yet be mayor.
The debt on the golf course will not be paid off until 2031.
The payment due for this year is $524,000 dollars.
The parks are still a mess.
The parks department is subsidizing the golf course debt to the tune of $174,000 dollars this year.
The parks department also paid an additional $50,000 dollars to finish purchasing the restaurant at the golf course, Club Legends.
$224,000 dollars that could have been used for park maintenance.
But we don't have to worry.
Because the parks are fine.
