Third Time's a Charm

After our Extraordinary Mayor for Life, King Francis the Eternal, Lord Sovereign of the City had the same budget proposal rejected by the same five members of city council on two separate occasions, our mayor had a plan.

Introduce the same budget for a third time.

The Cicchinelli budget plan to once more do nothing was so absurd that even his most loyal foot soldier, Taxman Hersher, finally spoke up.

"This budget has failed twice now," he said. "What's going to be different now? I have no reason to believe a third time's the charm" (Taxman Hersher, The Independent, March 29, 2011).

When you lose Taxman Hersher's undying support, you know all is lost.

Councilman Larry Slagle offered a compromise budget that has spending cuts.

Spending cuts? What a novel idea!

The mayor's Loyal Defender, Auditor Jayne Ferrero, appeared to oppose spending cuts.

Too bad.

The Massillon Review commends Larry Slagle for trying to fix the budget.

We also commend Gary Anderson, Kathy Catazaro-Perry, Donnie Peters, and Tony Townsend for holding strong, and not rubber stamping the mayor's budget.

Frank Cicchinelli unleashed the full arsenal of blame on these five members of council.

He claimed they wanted to hurt the city. He claimed they violated their oaths of office.

He had his Fire Chief claim he needed to call out the National Guard.

He of course accepted no responsibility himself.

While proposing a balanced budget is supposed to be the mayor's job, the mayor was once more interested in affixing blame than fixing the budget.

Thank you Larry Slagle.

Thank you Gary Anderson, Kathy Catazaro-Perry, Donnie Peters and Tony Townsend.

You did the right thing.

And the people know it.