It's a different world

The Stark County Park District, like the Massillon Parks and Recreation district, relies on a voter passed tax to fund their operations. Stark Parks relies on a small property tax, while the Massillon Parks and Recreation district relies on a .3% income tax. Both these entities are funded by voter approved levies. In theory, both these entities are responsible to the taxpayers. One realizes this, and the other could care less.

If you go to the website of the Stark County Park District, you can read the district's five year plan. It's there for everyone to see. The Stark County Park District is very specific about how they will spend our tax dollars. Strangely enough, they spend these dollars on parks and trails. The Stark County Parks District is preparing a new five year plan. They are holding public meetings throughout Stark County to gather citizen input before they make decisions. They have already had meetings in Massillon and Navarre. It appears to be a very open process.

When the City of Massillon decided to steer the voter approved parks tax money to subsidize a golf course, there were no open public forums. This decision ultimately changed our park system. Citizen input was never considered. The City had 7.2 million dollars of golf course debt from building the same golf course twice, which they did when they added another nine holes. They couldn't pay the debt, so our Mayor for Life and the Democrats on Council decided to unload this albatross on to the city's parks and recreation board. They did this the week before Christmas, 2002. They do controversial stuff like this around Christmas because they know that the citizens are probably not paying the attention they should to their local government, what with the shopping, and wrapping, and cleaning, and family obligations.

While Stark Parks was preparing open public forums so people could tell the County Park Board what kind of park system they wanted, Mayor Cicchinelli and his council rubber stamps were preparing to spend almost $200,000 of park tax dollars to buy out the concessions contract at the golf course. We at the Massillon Review must have missed the paragraph in the Massillon Parks five year plan that justified and explained why this was a good idea. Actually, we at the Massillon Review have yet to locate the five year plan. It must be around here somewhere. The fact is, there is very little planning. Our parks are in dire need of maintenance and there is not enough parks money for parks, because it has been hijacked to subsidize an unprofitable golf course.

Park Director Kenn Kaminski claims the problems with our parks are because of vandals. He promised a City Council tour of the parks to show us that vandals are responsible for the lack of basic maintenance and upkeep. We are waiting. Show us.