The Main Event

In this corner, we have the undisputed champion of Massillon Politics, Mayor Francis H. Cicchinelli, Jr.

The mayor's campaign committee, in their mailers, refer to him as 'Extraordinary.'

We refer to him merely as our Beloved Mayor for Life, King Francis the Eternal, Lord Sovereign of the City.

Frank Cicchinelli has dominated Massillon politics for the past 38 years, serving as mayor for the last 24 years.

24 years as mayor.

A quarter century in the city's top job.

When Frank Cicchinelli was first elected to city council in 1973, Richard Nixon was President.

The Miami Dolphins beat the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII to cap an undefeated season.

Gas was 40 cents a gallon.

George Foreman knocked out Joe Frazier to win the Heavyweight Championship.

The movie The Godfather won the Academy Award for best film.

It was almost forty years ago.

It is claimed that Frank Cicchinelli just wants "one more term" as mayor.

Four years ago it was claimed he only wanted "one more term."

Should he win another term this year, in four more years it will be claimed he just wants "one more term."

Our Mayor for Life has had 24 years in the city's top job.

There shouldn't be any unfinished business left.

We believe that Frank Cicchinelli sees the mayor's job as his job.

He can no longer separate the man from the office. As we have stated in the past, the Land and the King are one.

If someone disagrees with a particular policy of his, he treats it as a personal attack. His opponents are labeled as "anti-Cicchinelli," and as a result "anti-Massillon."

His skin is notoriously thin.

His paranoia is indeed 'Extraordinary'

He is a brass knuckled, down and dirty, street fighter when it comes to political campaigns.

Politically, he will gouge eyes and pull hair to win a fight.

He punishes his enemies.

He rewards his friends.

And he avoids blame at all costs.

We believe all of this to be true.

We also believe all of this is irrelevant.

He should be judged by how our city government is being run.

This, and only this, should be the metric that determines his fitness to serve another term.

So how is our city government working?

City government is dead broke.

Deep into 2011, the city still had not paid off its bills from 2010.

It is believed that city operations are about 2.5 million dollars short for this year.

When city council rejected his unbalanced budget for 2011, the mayor's response was to do nothing.

He took his ball and went home. The full-time mayor with a full-time staff made not one modification to his spending plan.

He resorted to stunts and threats to cajole council into passing his budget.

His Fire Chief threatened to call out the National Guard if council did not roll over for the mayor.

It was games, not solutions. It was tricks, not dialogue that our mayor resorted to.

Our parks are a disaster. Voters passed a .3% income tax in 1995 to fund parks and recreation.

We have enough income so that our parks should be cathedrals.

They are not, because that money has been hijacked.

Hijacked to subsidize a failing golf course.

Hijacked to buy the restaurant at the golf course.

The mayor's solution? To start examining which parks we should sell off.

He has taken insurance settlement money meant for our parks and grabbed it for the city's general fund.

Our Community Development Block Grant money is being used to pay for the mortgage of a private hotel.

Even when the mortgage is up after 20 years, we are still on the hook for a massive balloon payment approaching $1 million dollars.

Even though he knew the city was collapsing financially, he negotiated 4% pay raises for the city's unions, claiming "the dollars will be there."

They weren't. And he knew they wouldn't be.

He spent money on a hockey arena that was never built. An arena that most reasonable people believed would never be built.

The proposed financier sits in a Florida prison for fraud.

Can we really afford four more years?

The mess is big and it is past time to start cleaning it up.

We need a change at the top.

In the opposite corner is Kathy Catazaro-Perry, Massillon's Third Ward Councilwoman.

She is in her eighth year on council.

She started a special needs daycare center.

She runs a business.

She is active in the community.

She tries to fix what is broken.

Catazaro-Perry requested a performance audit of city finances, so that we can make city government more efficient. The mayor opposed this.

She tried to end the practice of unvoted pay raises for elected officials. The mayor opposed this.

She has consistently opposed spending our CDBG dollars on a hotel mortgage.

Catazaro-Perry talks about bringing people together, about working together, about shared responsibility, and doesn't worry about who to blame.

She is a breath of fresh air.

Frank Cicchinelli has clearly shown that he does not merit an another term as our mayor.

Kathy Catazaro-Perry has clearly shown she deserves a chance to do better.

We are confident she will.

The Massillon Review strongly endorses Kathy Catazaro-Perry for mayor of Massillon.

Our city can not survive just "one more term" for our current chief executive.