Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

We have much to be thankful for in the City of Champions this year.

 

Despite the confusion of one of our council members, as he authored his rubric for better parks management, we are thankful we live in Massillon, and not Brunswick.

 

"The Director of Parks and Recreation shall have the control and management of parks, park entrances, parkways, children's playgrounds, public recreation facilities, gymnasiums, swimming pools, playfields, or indoor recreational centers, and any lands or buildings set aside for park or recreational use by the public, and the acquisition, construction, repair, and maintenance thereof. The Director shall create and supervise all Recreational Programs for the City of Brunswick."

 

 

We are thankful we have chosen elected officials who focus on the big issues of the day and the serious concerns facing our city... like where the mayor and her staff sit at council meetings.

 

Thank you Milan, Sarita, Nancy and Quinessa for keeping your laser like focus on what is truly important to the people you represent.

 

We are thankful for the attention to the will of the people displayed by some members of our city council.

 

Back in May, over 68 percent of the voters rejected a plan to make Massillon's city income tax one of the highest in Ohio.

 

One would think that plan would be dead and buried.

 

But it isn't.

 

Because no doesn't really mean no, and we fully expect the income tax increase proposal to come forward again in 2014.

 

We are thankful that the Extraordinary One, Massillon's Once & Future Mayor for Life does not believe his rejection by city voters in 2011, and the multi-million dollar "vat of red ink" he left his successor should deter his return to the mayor's office.

 

We anticipate his extraordinary return.

 

Because he provides us abundant topics on which to write.

 

And we are thankful.

 

But most of all, we are thankful for our readers.

 

You are truly the "extraordinary ones," and we hope you enjoy a Happy Thanksgiving!

A Fountain of Misinformation

The Independent newspaper ran a story today squelching the persistent rumor that the Massillon Senior Center was closing.

No one has proposed it should close.

The mayor has not proposed closing it;

"I have no intention of closing the senior center if I'm in charge," the mayor said. "I would like to expand it and grow the building so more people can use it." (The Independent, November 26, 2013)

City Council has not proposed closing it;

"City Councilman Ed Lewis, R-Ward 6, said council has not discussed closing or moving the facility, nor does it plan to draft legislation to do either." (The Independent, November 26, 2013).

Some of the speculation is a result of the retirement of long time director Nancy Johnson.

Word on the street is some of the speculation comes as a result of Massillon's one woman rumor mill, Ward 2 Councilwoman Nancy Halter.

It would appear nobody likes spreading a rumor more than Nancy Halter.

Among other rumors passed along by Councilwoman Halter according to our faithful readers include;

Mayor Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry resigning after the first of the year, and moving out of town, Florida we understand.

And this summer's rumor of Mayor Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry resigning to take a job in Washington.

There is naturally going to be some angst and speculation among Massillon residents about various governmental services in our Fair City as a result of the city being placed into fiscal emergency by the state auditor.

Feeding that speculation via rumor and innuendo is not a productive way for our elected leaders to spend their time. As an elected official, you have credibility with the people you serve. They will believe you.

Massillon has serious problems. We urge our elected leaders not to throw gasoline on the proverbial fire and stoke the fears of our residents.

Running a city is serious business.

Stop the gossip and get back to work.

Success in the City of Champions!

Windsor Ontario's loss appears to be Massillon's gain.

If you thought the Federal League was "anti-Massillon," you should see what the people in Windsor, Ontario had to say about our beloved City of Champions when it was announced that the Heinz Corporation was closing it's Windsor area plant and moving production to other cities, including Massillon, Ohio.

What was Windsor's loss is Massillon's gain.

In what has to be the singular biggest achievement of the regime of Massillon's new leader, Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry, she and her team negotiated a deal not only keeping the 450 local jobs at the Heinz corporation in Massillon, but adding another 249 jobs.

Almost 750 jobs in a city of about 32,000 people.

To say this is a big deal is a vast understatement.

Business retention and expansion is an ultra-competitive game between communities, and this is a huge win for Massillon.

While we are surprised that Catazaro-from-Perry did not try to move the Heinz plant to her home and native land, the vast pagan wasteland known as Perry Township, we are sure her detractors are vexed.

On one hand, this was a great coup for Massillon.

On the other hand, Catazaro-Perry gets credit for doing it.

According to the Windsor (Ontario) Star newspaper, the Heinz corporation will be investing $28 million dollars in the new Massillon plant.

This means Heinz will be part of the Massillon business landscape for some time to come.

And the best part, unlike some past deals negotiated by a certain past mayor, Massillonians aren't on the hook for the mortgage.

Grown Ups At Work

Massillon's Financial Planning and Supervision Commission had its very first meeting yesterday as it began the process of cleaning up the "vat of red ink" left to Massillon City government by our former Mayor for Life, the Extraordinary One, Frank Cicchinelli.

According to the Independent newspaper, "they gathered for nearly three hours in Mayor Kathy Catazaro-Perry's office for a general introductory and procedural meeting, as well as to outline some goals of the group."

However, no where in the article did we read about a contentious debate over where the mayor and her staff would sit.

Apparently, everyone in the room behaved like adults, and didn't play petty, junior high school lunch room games over where the members of the commission would sit.

Unfortunately for the people of the City of Champions, we can't say that about everyone charged with overseeing Massillon's health and welfare.

On Monday night, with their trademark laser like focus on the big issues facing our community, Massillon City Council finally had a vote on the pressing issue of the day.

Deciding where the mayor and her staff would sit.

As we last left High School Confidential, the Republicans on council were mad that "that woman," Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry hired a Republican as her safety and service director. Republican Al Hennon's decision to join the administration of a Democratic mayor was met with anger and name calling from some of his Republican colleagues.

The solution? They were not going to let Mayor Kathy sit at their table during lunch, and an ordinance was introduced moving the mayor and her staff from the front of the council chambers during council meetings.

And Monday night was the vote.

And the vote failed on a five to four vote.

The good news is that five members of Massillon City Council realized that this was ridiculous, stupid, immature and petty, and were adult enough to vote no.

The bad news is that four members of council were not.

Milan Chovin
Nancy Halter
Sarita Cunningham-Hedderly
and Quinessa Hampton

were more interested in junior high school vengeance than the adult responsibilities the voters tasked them with when they were chosen to serve.

If this vote is any indication of the maturity and level of responsibility belonging to some of the members on Massillon City Council, and we believe it is, then the next two years will be extraordinary for the amount of shenanigans we can expect from some of our city council members.

It will give us much to write about.

And the people of Massillon much to be sad about.

Monday Night Shenanigans

When our current mayor, Democrat Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry, reached across the partisan divide and hired former Massillon Schools Superintendent Al Hennon as her permanent safety & service director, one would think the Republicans would have been pleased that "that woman" hired a Republican into the top job in her administration.

One would be wrong.

Al Hennon was also the Republican candidate for Massillon City Council President.

Normally, the job of council president is not all that relevant to the governance of a municipality.

The council president simply runs the council meetings.

Except in the case of former council president Glenn Gamber, who acted as the former mayor's loyal enforcer.

Gamber acted as the de-facto boss of council, and the council members, for whatever reason, let him.

The current council president, Tony Townsend, appears to lack Gamber's informal authority and merely presides over the meetings.

We can't imagine Hennon being a head cracker in his role as council president, but we could be wrong.

Hennon, we hear, wanted to be more than the referee at council meetings twice a month, and felt he could contribute more as safety & services director.

The Republicans were enraged that Hennon went to work for the usurper, "that woman," Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry.

They screamed treason and demanded revenge.

And they had a plan for vengeance.

A petty, ill-conceived plan, but a plan nonetheless.

They would smite Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry from their presence and ban her and her administration from sitting up in the front of the council chambers during council meetings.

Seriously.

They were going to make her sit in the back of the council meeting room, away from where the council members sit.

Seriously.

They have turned their rubric for better seating into legislation, and will be voting on an ordinance to move where the mayor sits at the meetings.

Seriously.

This is what some members of council are fixated on.

The city is broke, the State of Ohio has put Massillon under fiscal emergency, and our city council will be voting on moving the mayor and her staff to the back of the room.

Tonight.

Seriously.

Sarita Cunningham stated at a prior meeting of city council that having the mayor and her staff sit up front next to the council members, "gave her the willies."

It gives us "the willies" that council is spending time on this.

We imagine the vote will be close.

We will share the vote tally with our faithful readers, so they know the name of each council member who is so totally absorbed with petty politics, and who has such a total disregard for the real issues of the city, that they are more interested in playing "gotcha" with the mayor than focusing on Massillon's real problems.

We would like to remind council members so inclined to revert to their junior high school method of dealing with people they don't like by moving where they sit in the cafeteria to grow up.

Or quit, so that adults can take your place running the city.

The Newest White Elephant in the Room

The Massillon Senior Apartments at 59 Lincoln Way East.

A private enterprise.

And guess who pays the loan?

We do.

In an all too familiar pattern of "business development" under the reign of Massillon's Once & Future Mayor for Life, Frank Cicchinelli, the City of Massillon is once more on the financial hook for someone else's private enterprise.

Tuesday night, taking a break from the critical business of determining who sits where at the meetings, City Council requested that the Law Director start the process of obtaining a receiver for the Massillon Senior Apartments. A receiver would be a third party who would run the building and collect the rents on behalf of the city.

Currently, a private developer, John Lucas collects the rents.

Massillon pays the loan.

Seriously.

He gets the rent money and Massillon pays the debt.

And Massillon still owes $925,000 dollars on the loan.

As some of our long term faithful readers may recall, the original developers stopped paying on the loan in 2010, but Massillon City Council was not notified by the city auditor until after the mayoral primary of 2011.

We can only speculate as to why the late notification.

Current operator John Lucas made an offer to buy the building earlier this year, but he couldn't come up with the money.

And now he quietly collects the rent.

While we pay the loan.

The Senior Apartments are just one more example of the "Massillon Miracle" of development, a narrative promulgated by Team Cicchinelli.

We don't argue that these are great business deals for the developers.

The City takes the risk and the developer takes the money.

What's not to like?

Except when the business fails, and our cash strapped city has one more financial obligation to pay as the result of another questionable deal executed by our former leader.

We are now left wondering if any more white elephants will be entering our collective room, led into the city by our Once & Future Mayor for Life.

Another Extraordinary Mess

Massillon's Once & Future Mayor for Life, Frank Cicchinelli, imagined himself to be quite the wheeler dealer and engine of economic growth for the Industrial Crossroads of Ohio, now known as the City of Champions.

Unfortunately, many of these deals were financial sandcastles, propped up by the people's money, susceptible to being washed away by the high tides of an unsustainable debt load.

The nine hole expansion of the Legends of Massillon Golf Course was one such debacle. This expansion, spurred on, according to our former mayor by "overzealous golfers" is the ultimate in municipal white elephants. The whole course had to be rebuilt to accommodate the extra nine holes, and the resultant debt was so large, the city could not sustain it. This is when the mayor decided to dump the debt on the Parks Board, a move which has crushed park operations ever since.

Cicchinelli didn't do this to unload the debt, he just wanted to help out, to merge golf course and park operations, to merely run things more efficiently.

"The Mayor explained that the merging of these two areas will maximize resources of the current departments and provide an organizational structure which will promote efficient operations giving top notch service to the public. The Mayor believes this decision now, in the long term, will be beneficial to everyone, and he stated that they promised the citizens that the city would not subsidize this golf course" (Parks and Recreation Board minutes, November 14, 2002).

Cicchinelli claimed that his proposal "was not a big scheme to have the parks department cover the golf course's expenses" (The Repository, December 17, 2002).

As we all learned, it was a "big scheme to have the parks department cover the golf course's expenses."

And don't worry, it will all be paid off...

In 2032.

Only 19 more years.

Then we have our City's foray into the hotel business.

The mortgage of the Hampton Inn is being paid for with our community development dollars.

"It (The Hampton Inn) was a good expenditure of tax dollars and the city is better off for it" (Frank Cicchinelli, The Independent, May 8, 2009).

And at the end of the 20 year mortgage in 2019, the City of Massillon will be on the hook for an almost $1 million dollar balloon payment.

We borrowed $2.25 million dollars, which doesn't even count the interest payments, for a hotel someone else owns.

Extraordinary.

And who can forget the proposed 6,500 seat arena?

Junior hockey right here in the City of Champions.

A million dollar state grant was spent on site preparations.

Unfortunately, proposed financier, Steven Waldman ended up in a Florida prison.

Are we done yet?

Nope.

The next white elephant has just entered the room.

We just hope someone brought a pooper scooper.

A big one.

Let's Get This Party Started

Ohio Governor John Kasich has made his third and final appointment to Massillon's Financial Planning and Supervision Commission.

Bob Gessner of Massillon Cable TV.

He joins local businessman Bob Yund and former Perry Township Administrator Elaine Campbell.

Some may question the appointment of Campbell, as she worked in that pagan wasteland known as Perry Township, but we decided to give her a pass after the uncovering of several facts by our crack Massillon Review research team.

Firstly, we can find no evidence that Perry Township ever experienced the dire financial problems plaguing Massillon that occurred as a result of the poor deals and overspending under the leadership of the Extraordinary One, Massillon's Once & Future Mayor for Life.

Secondly, Campbell does reside here in the warm confines of the City of Champions as she is a citizen of Tigertown.

The players are in place and it appears time the Commission gets to the serious of work of straightening out the mess.

We hope they do not maintain the same laser like focus on municipal finances that our city council has, or they will spend six weeks debating the seating chart, and whether or not the mayor has to sit in the hallway during the meetings.

Just last week, despite facing a multi-million dollar shortfall, with delinquent bills piling up to the ceiling, City Council decided it was time to spend more money on capital acquisitions.

Seriously.

How about using that money to pay the bills?

Part of this attitude, no doubt, results from the fact some members of council won't believe their own eyes and see the financial wreckage wrought by the former regime.

It would be a sign of disloyalty to the prior occupant of the mayor's office.

They continue to believe all is fine, all is well, and the only problem is that the current mayor, Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry scammed the State of Ohio, and cheer leaded us into a problem that otherwise did not exist.

Unfortunately for Massillon, the problem is real.

We are broke.

And ignoring the problem hasn't worked.

It has brought the State of Ohio into the mix.

And hopefully the Commission won't tolerate the shenanigans going on by some of our elected so-called leaders.

And will worry about the finances instead of who sits where at the meetings, and selecting a parks director who already has the job.

Honor Those Who Served

It Was Not Extraordinary

The man who coined former mayor Frank Cicchinelli with the adjective, "extraordinary," fell short in his political comeback bid in Massillon's First Ward.

Former Safety & Services Director Mike Loudiana, our Once & Future Mayor for Life's right hand man lost to Republican incumbent Sarita Cunningham-Hedderly.

Team Cicchinelli was unable to plant their flag in the First Ward.

And we are sorely disappointed.

This, of course, will be a mere bump on the comeback trail as native born, God fearing Massillonians everywhere are still waiting for their sovereign's inevitable return to smite "that woman."

Cicchinelli neighbor, Republican Jim Triner also went down to defeat last night to Democrat Shaddrick Stinson, despite the fact there was a second Democrat in the race, Current Councilwoman Quinessa Hampton's husband, Edward.

The Democratic vote was not splintered enough to ensure a Triner victory.

Ward 2 Republican Nancy Halter and Ward 6 Republican Ed Lewis eked out razor close wins against their Democratic opponents.

Lewis, a likely mayoral candidate in two years, had to be surprised by the close shave he took in Ward 6.

The balance of power on council has now changed from a 5 to 4 Republican majority, to a 5 to 4 Democratic majority.

Look for long time Councilman Paul Manson to be chosen as the new council majority leader.

Manson, a die hard Cicchinelli loyalist will faithfully carry the Cicchinelli banner in leading council's new majority.

Election Day in the City of Champions

It's Election Day in the City of Champions and we urge all our faithful readers to go and exercise their right to vote.

And by tonight, some questions will be answered.

Will Team Cicchinelli be on the ascendancy and plant their flag in Massillon's First Ward, celebrating the election of former Safety & Services Director Mike Loudiana?

The thought of that happening just gives Sarita Cunningham-Hedderly the willies.

We believe it would be "extraordinary."

Will mayor in waiting Ed Lewis hang on to his Ward 6 seat? Word on the street is Lewis has been angling to run for mayor since he first took his council seat.

Will Nancy Halter's past support of hotels and golf courses bring her another term in Ward 2?

Will the Democratic vote in Ward 4 be diluted, resulting in Cicchinelli neighbor, Republican Jim Triner pulling the upset, and being elected in the traditionally Democratic southeast side ward?

None of the at large races are contested, but we will have a new member of council at large, as the Honorable Councilman, the Esteemed Larry Slagle, "Voice of the People," joins Ward 5 Republican Donnie Peters in temporary retirement.

Temporary retirement.

They both will be back.

Michelle Del Rio-Keller will take Slagle's place, a woman known for her intelligence and independence.

And who will be elected to our school board as the two incumbents, Phil Elum and Tom Seesan retire. Both Elum and Seesan are quality individuals and will be difficult to replace. They were never worried about who sat where at the school board meetings and could function as adults at the meeting.

We don't care who you vote for.

Just vote.

Another Productive Night

It looks like Massillon City Council will be spending another productive night diligently working on the people's business.

They are maintaining a laser like focus on the critical issues facing the City of Champions.

They are working tirelessly on the one issue that has the biggest impact on the lives of the people of Massillon.

Making sure the mayor doesn't sit up front at the council meetings.

Here at Massillon City Council High School, Mayor Kathy stole Al Hennon at the Homecoming Sock Hop, and the rest of the gang doesn't want her sitting at their lunch table.

So, tonight they will be considering the serious business of amending Massillon's law books to change rule number 64, "who is admitted within the bar."

No, no, no...

Not who is admitted within a bar...

Hmmm....

Nah, too easy.

" who is admitted within the bar" refers to the front part of city council chambers, where the city council and other city officials sit.

Mayor Kathy and her administration are to be moved to the back of the room.

Or maybe even out in to the hall.

Or perhaps into the parking lot.

This legislation is the manifestation of the childish antics of people who do not appear grown up enough to sit together, let alone run a city.

High School is over people.

Grow up.

This lack of maturity, focus, and common sense is disturbing.

It should give everyone in Massillon the willies.

Stat of the Day

According to one of our faithful readers, one who apparently has a little too much free time on their hands, our beloved Massillon Tigers Football team has been nothing short of extraordinary in their series with arch-nemesis Canton McKinley during the mayoral reign of Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry.

During the reign of Catazaro-from-Perry, our Tigers are undefeated, posting 3 wins against no losses versus McKinley, including a playoff win last year.

Under the reign of our Once and Future Mayor for Life, Frank Cicchinelli, our Tigers were .500 versus McKinley, posting a record of 14 wins and 14 losses.

It is clear that our Tigers can overcome any handicap this year, including playing for a city led by "that woman."

Best wishes in the playoffs!

The 124th Meeting

The Massillon Review wishes our hometown Massillon Tigers best wishes as they take to the field Saturday for the 124th time against their arch-nemesis, the Canton McKinley Bulldogs.

A win for our Tigers and it's off to the playoffs!

Good Luck Tigers and look for our Massillon Review float in tonight's Beat McKinely parade!