IS COMMISSIONER BOSLEY SEIZING UPON THE TREASURY PROBLEMS AS A POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY?

One often hears about the power of incumbency in politics.

While Commissioner Todd Bosley is not the incumbent state representative for the 50th Ohio House District (Republican Todd Snitchler is), his command and control of local media on the problems at the Stark treasury from his commissioner base is providing him with the power to garner the public's attention to himself superior to what Snitchler is able to do.

Bosley will have tons of money to run his campaign as the Ohio House Democratic Caucus sees the 50th as a grand opportunity to help maintain its majority status.

So will Snitchler as the House Republican Caucus means to hold the 50th.

And, in an ironical sort of way, one of the main vehicles for Bosley to command the media is Republican Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor's front and center role in sniffing out or, according to Bosley, long time failure to discover the admitted theft of Stark County treasury funds by former Chief Deputy Vince Frustaci.

Ironical?

Yes.

Snitchler is politically very close to Taylor.  He has had one of her staff people appear at what the SCPR labels as being a campaign event held at the Stark County District Library (Lake Branch) on March 4, 2010.  The Taylor staffer was helping Snitchler tout his House Bill 65 and it call for performance audits of - eventually - all units of Ohio state government.

For now Snitchler political pal Taylor is playing the perfect foil for Bosley as he is soaking up tons of positive media attention (i.e. a man of action fending for the taxpayers of Stark County).  And, of course, Bosley needs this kind of attention to offset the negative attention he got as being the lead commissioner in imposing the 0.50 of one percent sales/use tax on Stark Countians in December, 2008.

Bosley seems to be a key component in a Stark County Democratic Party effort to blame Mary Taylor for not catching Frustaci.

The SCPR spoke with Randy Gonzalez (chairman of the Stark County Democratic Party) at the "Justice for Local Workers" rally at Mills Business Part down on Sherman Church Road SW.  His focus in our discussion was on the Ohio Auditor's failure to find Frustaci years earlier.

Here is a video of Bosley at yesterday's commissioners meeting asking fellow Commissioners Ferguson and Meeks to go along with his proposal to send a letter to Taylor asking for a refund on account of her failure.



The Snitchler camp has to be going absolutely crazy when they see Bosley using his commissioner seat successfully as a springboard to political stardom.  Bosley is well aware of the tizzy he has put his opponent into.

Of course, the Snitchlerites will say all this is political posturing and grandstanding.  And, it certainly looks that much of Bosley's activity is such.  It is not just the media seeking him out.  Bosley sits for hours pondering ways he can get media to focus on him.

Here is an example of a Bosley set up in video form from yesterday's commissioners meeting.



Bosley is a master at this sort of thing.  It started with his political attack on fellow Nimishillen Township trustee Russ Goffus back in the days that Bosley was a trustee himself.

His efforts really began to take on a political polish tone to them when he ran against and defeated incumbent commissioner Richard Regula (Republican and son of former Congressman Ralph Regula) in 2006.

He took the the rehab of Stark County's 9-1-1 emergency dispatch services issue (under the guidance of Nimishillen Township Fire Chief Rich Peterson) and used it to deliver the stunning defeat to Regula.

However, not all has been perfect for Bosley.  The glaring imperfections are two.

First, he miscalculated on imposing the sales tax.  He thought by offering to provide "free" dispatching services to the political subdivisions of Stark County, he would have local fire, police and many other political subdivision leaders coming out of the woodwork to resist any attempt to repeal the imposed tax.

Secondly, while Bosley always cloaks his initiatives in being for the "public good," those of us who understand how politicians work suspect that he is more about aggrandizing Todd Bosley and his political future than about the public good.  What's worse for Bosley is that with each scheme he cooks up, there is a likelihood that more and more Stark Countians will see him more as a political opportunist rather than a champion of the public good.

But the same could be said of Todd Snitchler.  However, the SCPR believes that Snitchler really believes what he touts; whether one agrees with him or not.

Rightly or wrongly, The Report sees Bosley much more pragmatical and opportunistic.

A key to the state house race could be who wins the battle for the hearts and minds of the voters of the 50th House District.

The true believer or the pragmatic one?