Don't Change Anything

Mayor Elect Kathy Catazaro-Perry wants to hire a budget director, a financial professional, to assist Massillon in digging itself out of the financial black hole created by our current, and soon departing, city administration.

Team Cicchinelli is desperate to stop it.

The minions are "joy"fully penning opinions to the Independent comment section explaining why hiring a financial expert is such a horrendous idea.

Why would Catazaro-Perry possibly want to hire a Budget Director?

City finances are being handled so well, in such an open, transparent process.

What could we possibly improve?

“City Council just learned of this,” said Councilwoman Kathy Catazaro-Perry, chairman of the rules and courts committee. (The Independent, July 19, 2011)

Massillon's auditor had been making the payments for the delinquent 59 Duncan Place Senior high rise with our tax dollars since 2009, and nobody bothered to tell city council until after the May mayoral primary election, less someone use the fact that the mayor got us into one more deal where someone else owns the building, and we pay the mortgage (Think Hampton Inn).

18 months of mortgage payments.

No one told council.

We pay the mortgage. Someone else collects the rents.

A familiar refrain in Massillon government.

Councilman Larry Slagle said council learned about the problems with the senior high-rise too late.

“We should have known about the problem with the debt service many, many months ago, just like the administration did,” he said (The Independent, October 18, 2011).

It would appear to the casual observer that the goal of the administration was to keep yet another city financial debacle hidden from the public until our Extraordinary Mayor for Life's May victory over Kathy Catazaro-Perry.

And they did.

Unfortunately, things don't always work out as planned, which is why the Extraordinary One is now only Mayor for 9 days, and no longer Mayor for Life.

At our Auditor's behest, City Council was told that since we are now on the hook for the mortgage at 59 Duncan Place, we ought to refinance it, and save some money. And since we already have a Columbus Law Firm working on this, and racking up a huge bill, council needs to vote to refinance now.

And they did.

“That would be an advantage,” (Auditor Jayne) Ferrero said Wednesday. “It would help us tremendously. Then we could use the money for other things. It would get us in a better position to make the payments. (The Independent, September 17, 2011).

And just two weeks later, only two weeks later, after approving the Auditor's refinancing plan, we were told we can't refinance it anyways.

"Plans to refinance debt on the Massillon Recreation Center and the senior high-rise known as 59 Duncan Place are on hold until interest rates drop, Auditor Jayne Ferrero told City Council Monday" (The Independent, November 1, 2011).

Two weeks.

Our finances are so horrific, that our dispatching company was about to drop us as a customer.

Fortunately, Auditor Ferrero concocted a brilliant plan to pay our delinquent police and fire dispatching bill.

Don't pay it, and push it into next year.

We can't even pay for dispatching.

The people who summon the ambulance to our house if a family member is having a heart attack, or the police when someone is trying to break into our home.

We couldn't pay them.

And the organization who provides our dispatching service, the Regional Emergency Dispatch (R.E.D.) Center was going to cut us off.

Because we are financial dead beats who don't pay our bills.

So if your house caught on fire you would have no one to call to summon the fire department.

We couldn't pay dispatching.

If we can't even pay for dispatching, city taxpayers should be fearful of the other financial shenanigans that lay buried in city hall.

If we can't even pay for dispatching, we should dread the state of our city finances.

So let's keep everything the same!

Nope, there is so clearly no need for a financial expert here in Massillon.

Finances are great.

We now see why a Budget Director is such a bad idea.