On Tuesday night former Jackson trustee and current Region 9 director for Governor Strickland ("the eyes and ears" of the governor in northeast Ohio) achieved a "smashing" victory over his rivals as the Stark County Democratic Party Central Committee voted on a replacement for recently resigned commissioner Tom Harmon (12/01/2009).
On Wednesday he was at the regular weekly meeting of the commissioners, but he was sitting in the audience alongside his mentor, former commissioner Harmon.
The SCPR has been told that Meeks had the approval of Strickland and Strickland's chief-of-staff John Haseley to seek the Stark commissioners position, but that - to use a favorite expression of Strickland "keeping his powder dry." In other words, in an unlikely scenario in which Meeks (a Stark County Democratic Party powerhouse based on his storied political connections), failed in his bid, then Meeks still had a job.
So now Meeks must iron out the details with Strickland and Haseley as to when Meeks relinquishes his Region 9 directorship.
Meeks could be in the commissioners chair as soon as today or it could be January 1st before he assumes his appointed position.
Commissioners Bosley and Ferguson did have the "yet to be sworn-in" Meeks sit in on a couple of "executive sessions" held in the midst of yesterday's meetng.
There was a funny aside. In announcing the beginning of one of the sessions, Commissioner Bosley asked the attendees to clear the room except for "Martin." Bosley was quick to add: "only kidding, Martin."
County administrator Mike Hanke then said to yours truly, "Martin, we may look stupid, but we are not that stupid!"
Gee, what does a guy have to do to get respect?
As an additional sidenote, The Report had a disucssion with a Democratic Party official in a position to know about the possibility that Canton Mayor William J. Healy, II will be replacing Meeks as previously reported and analyzed in the SCPR.
The official told yours truly that about the time that the SCPR reported that discussions were underway with Healy on his replacing Meeks, Mike McElfresh, president of the local trades union board, called Stark County Democratic Party chairman Randy Gonzalez with the idea of engineering a Healy for Meeks swap.
The official also confirmed that the mere public discussion of a Healy move out of the mayor's office might mature into actuality. Most interesting was the official's observation that Healy has virtually no support at City Hall among staff below the cabinet level.
The SCPR is on record as being highly skeptical of a deal being worked to transition Healy to Meeks' job. In the opinion of The Report, Healy has far too much ego to work for anyone other than himself and yours truly believes that John Hasely is far too savvy to saddle the governor with a problem, which Healy certainly would be.
But stranger things have happened.
What follows is a video of Meeks addressing those who attended yesterday's commissioner meeting.
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