It's been "Holy Week" this past week leading up to Easter Sunday but there has been plenty of political intrigue going on with North Canton City Council nonetheless.
Not at North Canton City Hall so much as perhaps on the telephone and at Sylvesters North End Grille out on Portage Street in the Dogwood City; a favorite hangout of several North Canton City Councilmen as a more palatable (in terms of cuisine) place to mull over city business. The Report is not suggesting that the councilmen are violating Ohio's Sunshine law as undoubtedly they keep the membership of the "Sylvesters Group" to three or less.
President Jon Snyder was hopeful that North Canton City Council (Council) would have named "Mister North Canton" (as one local describes him) Mark Cerreta to replace Kasich administration recruit (Ohio Department of Development) Daryl Revoldt who served as Council president until Governor Kasich snatched him away.
But, as he often does (out of public view), Councilman Jeff Davies played the contrarian. The word was that since word came down from on high (Revoldt) that Cerreta would be a good man to replace Revoldt, Davies fell off the Republican wagon (Snyder, Kiesling and Davies) and was refusing to provide the fourth vote needed to select Cerreta. As a side note, readers of the SCPR will recall (from prior blogs on this topic) that Revoldt's first choice was Jennifer Creighton Kling, daughter of Stark County Commissioner Janet Weir Creighton.
Fourth vote? Yes, fourth vote. Whereas the SCPR understands that Dan Peters is a Democrat, The Report is told that he gets his marching orders from Councilwoman Marcia Kiesling which makes The Report believe that Peters is a de facto Republican. So, in an ironic fashion, the fourth vote on contested issues does not come from persuading a Democrat to cross party lines but in keeping "Davies on the Republican reservation."
The Stark County Political Report has learned that when Davies bulked at Council naming Mister North Canton (err Mark Cerreta), the name of Allen Wells was offered up as a person that Council Democrats Pat DeOrio (a former Republican) and Doug Foltz could support and so could Davies.
Coming out the Council meeting of April 18th, Repace was convinced that Wells was the person to be named tonight. Why?
He overheard a conversation between Wells and Councilman Davies to effect that he (Davies) would be supporting Wells for councilman-at-large in the November election. As it turns out Repace read too much into the conversation (which supposedly was also a conversation that Councilman Peters had with Wells but not within the hearing of Repace).
However, Council President Jon Snyder was intent in getting Cerreta accepted and after last Monday's meeting he started putting the "full-court political press" on Davies. In time, Davies folded (as The Report believes he usually does) and agreed to vote for Cerreta.
The only question remaining for tonight's meeting is whether or not DeOrio and Foltz will stand their ground and vote for their original choice of former councilman Jim Repace (long time IBEW union president at the Hoover Company, and, of course, a Democrat).
The Report believes the odds are very high that DeOrio and Foltz will abandon Repace and fall in line to vote for Cerreta.
After all, they are going to have to work with this guy and its going to be just a tad "ouchy" if they hadn't voted for him in the first place. Moreover, there is this thing in homogenous communities like North Canton (witness the drive for "public face unanimity" on the North Canton City Schools Board of Education [Board] as articulated by Board President Jordan Greenwald in a recent Board video) to have unanimity. Any expression of dissent is seen as a sign of weakness in these kinds of political environments.
Accordingly, the SCPR will be "waiting with baited breath" to see how Foltz and DeOrio vote!
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