Thursday, July 3, 2008

OP-ED: THE REP EDITORS HAVE IT WRONG ON THE MASSILLON/NORTH CANTON FIGHT OVER MYERS CONTROLLED POWER


"Free enterprise blues," that's the The Rep editorial the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) takes exception to.

With the The Report's arrival, The Rep no longer has a free ride on being "the only published opinion - in a "one-newspaper-town."

The Report monitors The Rep Editorial Board online and will from time-to-time take published exception to The Rep editors.

The Rep editors say: " Companies' merely changing addresses within Stark County doesn't help the region's economic needs, but that is not the situation with Myers."

Hello there editors.

The Report believes that Myers had no real intention to go out of state but rather to game the intergovernmental competition within Stark County: city against city, county against city, city against county, township against city, village against village and on and on goes the game within Stark County.

As Commissioner Todd Bosley has told The Report, "the corporate welfare must stop." Periodically, The Rep reports on how the county commissioners must consider whether or not a given company has produced jobs at the rate promised and the corollary of whether or not the tax abatement shall continue.

The question that The Rep editors do not address is between Canton Township, Massillon and North Canton has there been a net gain to Stark County when the subsidies are measured against the company producing as promised.

In essence, The Rep editors are supportin a "shell game" within Stark County and citizens should reject the editors' assessment.

Mayor Cicchinelli is right to object to the Stark County intergovernmental volleyball game that Myers has set up between Massillon and North Canton. Ohio's government should not aid and abet Myers in this endeavor.

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