Louis Giavasis has been a Plain Township trustee for 18 years. And he has really enjoyed being trustee. But now that his children are older and becoming more and more independent of the need to have constant parental contact, Giavasis is considering a run for the Ohio Statehouse for the "new" 50th Ohio House District.
But wait a minute, he lives in Plain, no?
Yes, however, Christina Hagan (Republican - Marlboro), who was appointed state representative earlier this year when former Rep. Todd Snitchler (R - Lake - the 50th) took up the more personally lucrative position of being Governor Kasich's man in Columbus as chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), apparently did not realize that she may have voted against her own interest in remaining 50th District representative in approving the new redistricting plan for the Ohio House.
It turns out that Giavasis recently moved (08/05/2011) into a part of Plain that is included in the "new" 50th recently. Likely that Christina was so involved in helping carve out a "safe" district for herself that she lost track of Giavasis. He used to live south of Easton and in Kirk Schuring's "old" 51st District and still in Schuring's "new" 48th.
It is basic Political Science 101 that the best time to defeat an incumbent is her first time out for an election.
Well, that's Chistina Hagan this time around.
And Louis Giavasis tells the SCPR that he would not rule out running against her in 2012.
Hagan owes her office to "daddy John." John Hagan held the "old" 50th from 2000 through 2008 when he got term limited out and then was out of government for a short spell when Democrat Pete Ferguson defeated him in a county commissioner's race in 2008. Since then he has re-established himself as a Marlboro Township trustee.
When Snitchler took off for more prosperous political/governmental haunts despite just being re-elected 50th District representative, John Hagan made it his crusade to get daughter Christina (who qualifications include being Carnation Days queen in 2007, a restaurant server and a university student) into his "old" district. And, of course, his efforts paid off and we add to the "politically entitled" families that dot the Stark County political landscape (Republican and Democrat).
Giavasis himself appears to the SCPR to be a Democratic version of the politically entitled. His brother Phil is Canton Municipal Court clerk of courts.
Phil used to be Stark County clerk of courts. It appears that when he figured out, on Tom Harmon's retirement as Canton Municipal Court clerk of courts, that that clerk of courts was significantly more remunerative than the county position and that the higher pay would enhance his retirement benefits probably not that far down the road, he made the switch.
To the SCPR, the most interesting aspect of Phil's switch was that he felt like he was entitled to name his successor. So when Lawrence Township Trustee Mike Stevens expressed an interest to him in running for the position, Phil got indignant with Stevens. It seems that Phil did not want Stevens upsetting his plan to have his top assistant Nancy Reinbold (wife of now former Stark County Court of Common Pleas Judge Richard Reinbold) appointed by Stark County Democrats to replace him when he moved on to the city of Canton.
And guess who now works for Nancy Reinbold?
You've got it. Coming full circle: Louis P. Giavasis. He serves as Reinbold's (as the SCPR likes to put it) "Car Title Czar."
So if Giavasis decides to run against Hagan, will it be a race of the entitleds, no?
The SCPR's take on a comparison of the two is that Giavasis does have a maverick/independent streak about him despite likely being a member in good standing of the Stark County Democratic Party "good ole boys" network.
Louis has a history of taking up causes and fighting them to the bitter end.
One example is his taking on Giant Eagle (the grocery store behemoth) when it vacated its Plain Township situated Oakwood store site for Washington Square only to maintain contract rights to veto its replacement at Oakwood by a competing grocery.
Another is his leadership in the anti-fracking movement. Many Plain Township resident worry about the damage that fracking may do to the water they drink, the air they breathe and the township infrastructure (i.e. the roads) among many other concerns.
Giavasis started (in December, 2009) the Stark County anti-fracking movement in making noises about banning hydraulic fracking for natural gas within Plain Township. He encountered heavy opposition from Stark county oil and gas interests.
Because of concerns about being caught up in possible litigation at the hand of the oil and gas industry, Giavasis has had to settle for Plain Township passing a resolution requesting a moratorium on fracking and a resolution banning fracking on Plain Township owned property and under Plain's roadways.
Chistina Hagan, on the other hand, gives every sign of being "owned by the company store:" that is to say - the Ohio Republican House Caucus to which she owes her appointment. And, of course, she wouldn't want to cross "daddy."
Moreover, she is likely to be a person that if Republican Governor John Kasich (perhaps Ohio's foremost fracking enthusiast) were to ask her to jump, her response: how high?
On this issue alone, their couldn't be a starker contrast between politically polar opposites that on the issue of fracking.
But there are certainly a bevy of other issues that Giavasis and Hagan would clash on: Her votes for highly gerrymandered congressional and Ohio General Assembly redistricting, her vote for curbing collective bargaining (SB 5 - state issue 2), her vote to allow fracking in Ohio's state parks, to name a few of the many.
Should Giavasis decide to run against Hagan, the SCPR's take is that he would present a formidable obstacle to Christina Hagan returning to Columbus as state representative on January 1, 2013!
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