Congressman John Boccieri gets it, Stark County Commissioner Todd Bosley gets it; but how about of the remainder of Stark County's elected officials?
If Stark is to regain it place as "a place to be," then it is high time that anyone who has anything to with economic development in Stark County at any level get with it.
Unfortunately, Stark's major cities are stocked with politicians who get from day-to-day engaging in political food fights (a la Canton's Democratic Mayor William J. Healy, II).
Healy isn't the only Stark politico who is more into politics than they are rebuilding Stark's economy. There's Republican Alliance Mayor Toni Middleton over in Alliance whose idea of economic development activity is being the keynote speaker at Tax Day, Tea Day - Canton, Ohio April 15, 2009.
Add Republican state Representative Todd Snitchler (50th District) to the Middleton model of making Stark County a good place to live and work. Snitchler was also a star attraction at the Tax Day, Tea Day event which was simply a manifestation of the unfolding national Republican political agenda of "Just Say No."
The SCPR once held out hope that Snitchler would be different than his predecessor John Hagan. Snitchler is much more capable than Hagan, but appears to like demagogue politics over doing the real work of reconstructing the 50th into a viable economic district. The Report has always thought Snichler deified the chamber of commerce movement as some sort of panacea and has taken him to task on his naivete.
Snitchler needs to rethink (and being a lawyer, he can think if he chooses to) the political advice he is following these days. He certainly is capable of better. But so are a lot of politicians. Most choose to keep life simple. And simple they are and remain to the detriment of their constituents.
Stark County has a number of thoughtful and capable political leaders. However, Healy, Middleton and Snitchler (?) are not among them.
Instead of the political in-fighting and dwelling in the land of negativity, why don't these folks who want to be our leaders do some reading about cell engineering, tissue engineering and robotics (which just happen to be the cutting edge of America's economic future) as well as other high tech movements and then rethink what contribution they can make to create conditions in Stark County to attract these kinds of jobs to our community.
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