On the Massillon City Council agenda last night was a proposal to fix the street of our Extraordinary Mayor For 101 Days, King Francis of the Repaired Road, Lord Sovereign of the Concrete.
Now, one might be suspicious that the only five roads being repaired in all of the kingdom happen to be in our mayor's neighborhood.
Put those suspicious thoughts to rest.
In Massillon, our city engineer has a ratings system to determine which streets get fixed.
No monkey business here.
You see, these select streets "scored high on a ratings system used by his (City Engineer Keith Dylewski) department" (The Independent, August 16, 2011).
Oh, wait, that was "The Big Lie."
There was no ratings system after all.
"Correcting an earlier report, Dylewski said the paving project was not scored on a ratings system..." (The Independent, August 29, 2011).
OK, so there was no rating system.
Surely our esteemed city council would see through this charade, and not be tricked into fixing the mayor's street.
Surely there were worse streets in the kingdom in more desperate need of repair.
Nope.
They supported it on a 7 to 1 vote.
Only Kathy Catazaro-Perry voted No.
"We need to make sure we're making payroll, paying police and fire, and we're not even paying bills" (Kathy Catazaro-Perry, The Independent, September 20, 2011).
Why "pay police and fire" when our tax dollars could be better spent repairing the mayor's road?
Catazaro-Perry shouldn't worry so much, because as we all know, "the dollars will be there."
Councilman Larry Slagle, on the other hand, sees more clearly the critical importance of fixing the mayor's street.
"I'm not going to sit on a council that stops paving the streets of Massillon,." He says it is a safety issue just as much as it is a financial one" (The Independent, September 20, 2011).
Yes, a "safety issue."
We sure don't want the mayor's car to go out of alignment.
As for the rest of us...
