In mulling over the drama that is going on in Marlboro Township, it has occurred to the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) that Marlboro Trustees Wise and Wolf are a cowardly duo who cannot, as mature leadership, iron out their differences with the hired help.
In Marlboro, The Report believes, there are no "real" differences. There is only political vendetta grounded in an old fashioned political power struggle.
For whatever "UNreason," Trustees Wise and Wolf have decided that they do not like (a kind of sheer guttural emotion) Police Chief Ron Devies and he needs to be moved on. But, they muse to among themselves, how to you fire someone who is a well respected person in the Marlboro community?
Now that the move to deal out Devies has escalated into full scale warfare, Wise and Wolf have put themselves between the proverbial "rock & hard place."
They have to be beside themselves that their carefully calculated strategy to "nitpick the chief out-of-office" has fallen on hard times and they find themselves with an angry constituency on their hands ever since they (include Trustee Shillg in this move) placed Devies on "paid administrative leave."
The cuts, the nitpicks: the Ray Nash tape and the implicit "so do you," the M-16s, the "we don't like your choice for a full time officer; potential successor," the "what kind of personal motive do you have in wanting to hire a female officer," the former chief who did not like the way Devies investigated a case, the "why are you driving a township police vehicle home," the "why are you taking vacation to teach and the University of Akron," the "why is your son working on township computers as a volunteer," "and what has your son done to township computers," among other expressed but unspecified annoyances visited on him by the Wise/Wolf duo that Devies relayed to The Report.
See the pattern, folks? It's clear to The Report that Wise and Wolf are on a "death by a thousand cuts" strategy. This is how you dismantle a "public institution" like Devies.
The work of political cowards, that's Wise and Wolf.
And they may succeed. Do not count out this Marlboro duo or any other public official who operates this way. It wouldn't surprise The Report if, in this witch (err warlock) hunt, the investigation some how comes up with a face saving way out for Wise and Wolf.
The Report believes they have added a "shifting sands" factor to their strategy. What started out as a "we suspect the son has done something unauthorized" on township computers has changed (The Report suspects) to a "let's expand the scope of inquiry" to cover the entire Dieves stint in the Marlboro Township Police Department.
The object lesson of all of this?
Voters have to be very, very careful who they put in office in the first place.
Stark County is rampant with elected officials who operate with strong minded employees in the "death by a thousand cuts" mode.
It is rare that they do as Canton Mayor William Healy, II did to Service Director/Chief-of-Staff Tom Bernabei - YOU ARE FIRED!
However wrong Healy may be; he is a stand up guy.
Trustees Wise and Wolf are not.
NOTE: The quote marks around the supposed trustee statements are recreations for effect or paraphrases and not intended as exact words.
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