Our Extraordinary Mayor for 122 Days, King Francis the Temporal, Lord Sovereign in Absentia, does not feel that the representation he currently receives as a resident of Massillon's Fourth Ward is satisfactory.
As a matter of fact, his dislike of Ward 4 Councilman Tony Townsend is so strong, that our mayor makes extraordinary efforts to dislodge Councilman Townsend from his council seat every two years.
This past spring, Jackie Carter was the mayor's candidate of choice. It was the First Lady for 122 days who circulated Jackie Carter's nominating papers so that Ms. Carter could appear on the ballot to challenge Mr. Townsend in the Democratic primary.
The mayor, unfortunately, failed yet again in his biennial quest to secure more palatable representation in the Fourth Ward.
Last year, when Councilman Townsend made what appeared to be a simple request to rename a park in his ward after trailblazing Massillon Councilman, the late T. Roy Roberson, Cicchinelli, according to multiple sources, worked to kill the idea.
It is believed that while publicly making 'The Pledge,' he privately had his park board lackeys and council rubber stamps kill the name change.
Remember 'The Pledge?'
"Mayor Cicchinelli told 4th Ward residents there are no plans to sell Shriver park, or many others, and he pledged to Councilman Tony Townsend that he would help him rename Shriver by urging his Parks and Recreation Board appointees to vote in favor of it" (The Independent, August 31, 2010 - One year ago today).
The Park Board Lackeys voted No.
In addition, Council President Glenn Gamber and Councilman Larry Slagle worked feverishly to prevent council from even taking a vote.
And the idea to honor T. Roy Roberson was killed.
Not because it was necessarily a bad idea, but because it was Tony Townsend's idea.
There may have been legitimate reasons to oppose the name change.
But it sure was strange how the name change proposal had little opposition when Tony Townsend first proposed it in June, but was made increasingly complicated by August. The efforts made to prevent a vote from even occurring were impressive.
It was a simple proposal to rename a park.
Either vote yes, or vote no.
But it became the big issue of the summer.
Back to the present.
Our extraordinary mayor has an extraordinary problem.
Apparently, his street needs repaired.
And since we only have dollars enough to fix five streets this year, his may as well be one of them.
Of course that would look bad.
So City Engineer Keith Dylewski told The Big Lie;
that these "select streets" "scored high on a ratings system used by his department" (The Independent, August 16, 2011).
In what our long time readers will see as a shocking development, we later learned there was no city rating system for streets, and that the streets in the mayor's neighborhood slated for repair weren't even on the State of Ohio's street ratings list.
"Correcting an earlier report, Dylewski said the paving project was not scored on a ratings system..." (The Independent, August 29, 2011).
and further;
"However, since concrete streets such as Cyprus Drive were not included in the ratings, it was not one of the factors used by Dylewski and his staff to determine the project priority, he (Dylewski) said" (The Independent, August 29, 2011).
To some, this sequence of events could possibly look like the mayor is receiving preferential treatment, and that perhaps maybe the streets in his neighborhood may not be among the five worst in the city.
And what does Councilman Townsend say?
He supports the repaving.
We expect better from Tony Townsend.
This proposal stinks. The city engineer lied about a ratings system determining the need for repairs on the mayor's street.
Whether these repairs are slated for Townsend's ward, or not, he should do the right thing and work to kill this ordinance.
Or he can simply follow the mayor's example.
Tony Townsend can pledge to the people who live by the golf course, in Frank Cicchinelli's neighborhood, that he whole heartedly supports the repairs of these five streets.
With the same passion and commitment that Frank Cicchinelli gave to upholding his pledge to rename Shriver Park.
For that would most surely kill the street repairs in the mayor's neighborhood.
