The first job of Massillon City Auditor Jayne Ferrero, first, last, and foremost, was to cover the rear end of our former Mayor for Life, Frank Cicchinelli. This dogged loyalty to Frank Cicchinelli earned her the moniker of the Mayor's Loyal Defender.
And it affected her judgment as auditor.
She basically allowed Frank Cicchinelli to run the city on a credit card.
She didn't pay the bills.
She could have, which would have forced Cicchinelli to make tough decisions about spending.
She chose not to.
And as department heads were told to hold their bills, and not submit them until the next mayor took over, Jayne Ferrero said nothing.
To the casual observer, it appeared Ferrero's more important priority was to allow Frank Cicchinelli to skate out of office with clean hands and no responsibility for the mess he created.
Remember how the "dollars would be there?"
And the dollars weren't there.
And would never be there.
And the Auditor said nothing.
Even though she knew the dollars wouldn't be there.
As Jayne Ferrero was part of a team effort to conceal the true size of the city's financial black hole.
Because she wouldn't pay the bills.
As long as Frank Cicchinelli was mayor.
But, times have indeed changed.
And we have a new mayor.
And now, after four years as auditor, Jayne Ferrero is ready for some shock therapy to city government.
She wants to pay all the delinquent bills, and all of the debt created by the Cicchinelli administration, all at once.
Right now.
Not to make payments. Not to be part of a larger effort to craft a sensible plan to recover the city's finances over time.
But to leave the new mayor, Kathy Catazaro-Perry, a $5 million dollar budget hole in her first month in office.
Would Ferrero have done this had Frank Cicchinelli still been mayor?
Absolutely not.
Jayne Ferrero was a loyal foot soldier in General Cicchinelli's army.
And it appears that she and her staff continue to exercise Cicchinelli's political vendettas through her plan to certify as little money as possible for the new administration.
Ferrero has, unilaterally, shorted Massillon city government close to $3 million dollars.
Because, all of a sudden, she has decided to pay the bills.
Frank's bills.
Sadly, her behavior was predictable.
The plan, all along, at least since the May primary, was to drop this debt squarely on Kathy Catazaro-Perry's head, because Kathy Catazaro-Perry did the unforgivable.
She defeated Frank Cicchinelli in a democratically contested election.
And that was not acceptable to Jayne Ferrero.
And, according to Ferrero in today's Independent, "She’s (Catazaro-Perry) going to have to do some tough love.”
It's a shame she never asked Frank Cicchinelli to exercise some "tough love."
But, this too, was sadly predictable.
Jayne Ferrero is creating a city budget crisis all by herself.
To create the self-fulfilling prophecy of Team Cicchinelli.
That things would collapse in Massillon without Frank at the helm.
And to harm Catazaro-Perry politically, to put the "blood on her hands" of having to butcher city services.
Let's not be fooled.
Ferrero's ill advised move to unilaterally gut city government and wash away the sins of her beloved former mayor are not financial decisions.
They are political decisions.
Which, to anyone who even casually follows city government, realizes are politically motivated.
And were, of course, sadly predictable.
