MASSILLON CITY: "A PROUD TRADITION," ARGUING OVER THE INANE?

Recently the SCPR contacted Councilman-at-Large Larry Slagle to talk about Council's looming annexation fight with the Cicchinelli administration over the Tuslaw schools annexation.

During the conversation, it became apparent that Councilman Slagle had other things to talk about.  So The Report bit and asked "are there other controversies brewing on Council?

Answer was along the lines: "maybe not a controversy, but some misunderstanding about how parks get renamed in Massillon."

It seems as if Councilman Tony Townsend (4th Ward - a staunch Johnnie A. Maier, Jr. political ally) wants to rename Shriver Park after previous 4th Ward Councilman T. Roy Roberson (1981-92).

 

Simple, enough?

Not really in Massillon.

Councilman Slagle brought up an e-mail that he had received from the Massillon Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB - which a source says officially is really the Massillon Recreation Board) to the effect that the Board does the renaming and that it is a policy not to do so unless the name has been discredited.

Townsend appears to feel (the SCPR's read of the July 19th minutes) he was somehow blindsided by the revelation of the policy and that, in any event, Council should ignore the MPRP and proceed because Council is the ultimate decider anyway.

Townsend then seems to take a shot at the Cicchinelli (over the attempted sale of Genshaft Park on 2008) administration and the MPRB director Kenn Kaminski, to wit:

"No, I’m not thinking that its just when you sent it out I just never seen it before and when I read it, it just appeared to me that it was a lot easier to sell a park here then to rename it.  I just never saw it before and I mentioned this to Kenn about the renaming of the park when we took a tour.  Not one time did he ever mention that there was some type of procedure that we needed to follow to do that?  Even if you look at the letter I don’t know I gave you a copy of this I’m quite sure written by Perry here he states you know the ultimate decision lies with city council and not with the parks and recreation.  So how would that conflict with this procedure?  You don’t know? (emphasis added)

The SCPR believes that this flap over renaming is somehow grounded in and related to the fight by anti-Cicchinelli forces over historical Massillon Parks and Recreation Board issues.

This to The Report is the only reason why there would be a fight over the inane.

The Report does not believe Councilman Slagle is part of the undertow.  He merely (as chairman of Council's Parks and Recreation committee) wants to square up naming procedures.

However, there are others who, in the opinion of the SCPR, want to fire the "flames of discontent" with an overall objective of defeating Mayor Cicchinelli in next May's Democratic primary election.

So the point of this blog is that one should never take differences on Massillon City Council at face value.

There are a number of political agendas circulating around the halls of Massillon government.

Such is what fuels Massillon City government's ability to argue about nearly everything!

Question:  Does the proud tradition of arguing about even the most inane serve the people of Massillon?