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.