DISCUSSION: ARE TURF WARS RAGING IN - AND TO THE DETRIMENT OF - STARK COUNTY?

Recently, the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) started a series on Stark County's 9-1-1.

The Report started out on the premise that one of huge barriers to centralizing 9-1-1 were the "turf wars" going on between centralizers and many (but not all) of the fire chiefs, police chiefs and EMS chiefs of Stark County townships, cities and villages.

To The Report's surprise, Nimishillen Fire Chief Rich Peterson in a video interview (see snippet below) yesterday (May 21st) denied that "turf wars" are a significant problem in Stark.

As it so happens, on opening the online edition of The Repository (May 21), The Report noted a front page local page article on a presentation by Merele Kinsey of COMPASS (Community Objective Met through a Partnership of All Segments of Society), in which the opposite view is presented.

Kinsey cites as an example of Stark County turfism the following:

We are a very parochial county; we are very turf-oriented. People here, when they meet you, they want to know what high school you went to because they know each other there, or at least they know something about each other. We're at a point in time where we have to move out of that.

So the question is who is correct in your opinion, Kinsey or Peterson?

CLICK ON VIDEO BELOW TO SEE CHIEF PETERSON COMMENTS ON STARK COUNTY "TURF WARS"