Brunswick Pride is Community Wide!

City Councilman Larry Slagle has always had a keen interest in our fair city's park system.

As a matter of fact, he focuses in like a laser on the big park issues of the day.

Some would say he is fiddling as Rome burns, neglecting the serious issues of municipal governance to pursue his plans for parks and recreation.

While the City of Champions has been crushed by the vat of red ink left behind by our former chief Executive, our Once & Future Mayor for Life, the Lord Sovereign of the City, the Extraordinary One, Frank Cicchinelli, Larry Slagle is most concerned about "taking the politics out of our parks."

Or, some would argue, injecting politics into our parks.

Just a few years ago, then Ward 4 Councilman, now Council President (and does that fact unhinge the Cicchinelli acolytes), Tony Townsend offered a proposal to rename Shriver Park after trailblazing former Ward 4 Councilman, the late T. Roy Roberson.

It seemed a simple request. Council could vote to rename the park, or not.

But it turned into a four month political odyssey, thanks in no small part to the assistance of Councilman Slagle.

It is believed that the Extraordinary One opposed the renaming of Shriver Park because he wanted to flex his political muscle and show Tony Townsend who the boss was.

But this was problematic, as it was right before the next mayoral election, and the Extraordinary One probably didn't want to offend supporters of the late T. Roy Roberson.

Political expediency would have called for him to kill the name change proposal while not looking responsible for doing it.

Fortunately, others worked to kill it, specifically, the former Council President, the former mayor's loyal enforcer, Glenn Gamber, and the boy wonder, Larry Slagle.

They worked Townsend over pretty hard at a council meeting in August 2010, and tried to force the park naming proposal back to the Parks and Recreation Board, the five member board dominated by Cicchinelli loyalsts.

And then Cicchinelli made "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).

Now, most people realized that "The Pledge" was a hollow promise, as the Once & Future Mayor for Life's allies on Council eventually killed the proposal in December of that year.

City Council debated this issue for months. It dominated discussions.

They were transfixed over whether or not to rename a park.

And the Boy Wonder was so transfixed by how we name city parks, he wanted to create park naming policies.

Seriously.

Policies for naming a park.

Slagle wanted to use "current policy as a rubric for establishing guidelines for council" (The Independent, October 12, 2010) to deal with this titanic issue.

Seriously.

It's a park.

And deciding to change it's name should not have been a four month process.

But it was.

And now it appears Councilman Slagle has more outstanding, well conceived plans for park management.

He wants to settle the dispute about who is truly in charge of Massillon's system of parks and recreation.

Is it the Mayor?
Is it the five member Park Board?
Is it City Council.

Indeed, he has a rubric for better park management.

A plan so well researched, so meticulously planned, with so much attention to detail that when he was literally cutting and pasting it together, he forgot one thing.

This is Massillon, not Brunswick.