A HOUSE CLEANING UNDERWAY IN MASSILLON: "DAVID MALEY" FORMER STARK CO. AUDITOR KIM PEREZ EMPLOYEE & PAL OF JOHNNIE A. MAIER, JR TO BECOME COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR?

As current Safety-Service Director Mike Loudiana tells it, the incoming Catazaro-Perry and his successor-designate George Maier (brother of Massillon Clerk of Courts Johnnie A. Maier, Jr. who the SCPR sees as "the power behind the throne") were not interested in taking him up on an offer to sit down with them work out a smooth transition from the Cicchinelli administration to Catazaro-Perry's.

The SCPR finds the Loudiana reported brush off interesting in light of Saturday's editorial in The Massillon Independent which seems to blame the abrasive relationship between Cicchinelli and Catazaro-Perry totally on the mayor, to wit:

However, the mayor’s refusal to make the administrative transition to the mayor-elect as smooth as possible, and his implication that there are deep, dark secrets surrounding her team only  will serve to sully his legacy in the city to which he has devoted his professional life for more than three decades.  (emphasis added)

Unless The Inde's words:

[c]oincidentally, or possibly not, Mayor Frank Cicchinelli complemented an Inde reporter at city hall Friday for “beginning to connect the dots,” clearly referring to the story about George Maier.   

can somehow be tortured into "the mayor's refusal to make the administrative transition to the mayor-elect as smooth as possible,"  it is unclear from the four corners of the editorial how the editor(s) can make the leap they do in the editorial.

There is no doubt that Mayor Cicchinelli is smarting from the Catazaro-Perry defeat.

From what the SCPR can see, on the Catazaro-Perry side of things, her supporters seem to be rubbing it in.

Take George Maier's statement given to Inde reporter Matt Rink:

Kathy’s got one shot here.  She won the election almost by a landslide, 65 percent. That was a message from the voters to fix things, change things, take our city back.

 Hmm?

Again, the language:  "... [B]y a landslide, 65 percent. ... "  "take our city back."
Reeks of arrogance, no?  Suggests, a housecleaning, no?  

So the truth of the matter likely is that neither side has any use for the other and will be holding their respective noses  when anywhere near the other.

Work together "to make a transition as smooth as possible?"  You've got to be kidding! 

Meanwhile, Cantazaro-Perry continues on in a housecleaning vein.

The SCPR hears that David Maley (husband of Johnnie A. Maier, Jr employee Tammy Maley) is set to replace Aane Aaby as Community Development Director.
Maley is the one-time chief operative of Kim Perez when Perez was Stark County auditor who was swept out of office by Republican Alan Harold in the wake of a Stark County voter reaction to what local attorney and civic activist Craig T. Conley termed as "Zeiglergate." (click on this LINK for background material)

No surprise here, The Report expects quite a number of Maier political comrades to surface in a Catazaro-Perry administration.

Reportedly Ken Koher (a former Stark County treasurer in the stream of successions of Gary Zeigler as county treasurer) will become Catazaro-Perry's part-time budget director not finance director as reported in area media.  The Report understands that elected Massillon Auditor Jayne Ferrero handles Massillon's finance duties.


It appears that no Cicchinelli administration leadership types will make it into the Catazaro-Perry administration.  


Of course that is the mayor-elect's right.  But is it a wise thing to do in order to effect a smooth transition for the benefit of the citizens of Massillon?

In another interesting development at last night's Massillon City Council meeting it appears that Catazaro-Perry (as a councilperson) attempted to ramrod (in the view of some) an income tax credit through council.  (City council nixes tax-credit proposal, Matt Rink, The Independent, 11/21/2011).

Catzaro-Perry denies that there was any attempt to ramrod the credit through council but when you have your to be chief administrator George Maier chortling about a 65% win and "tak[ing] our city back," it is not much of a stretch to believe ramrodding was in fact what Catazaro-Perry along with her allies Anderson and Townsend were up to.

Knowing the likes of Catazaro-Perry's chief supporters (i.e. Johnnie A. Maier, Jr and Shane Jackson) as the SCPR does, Monday night's move had to be the work product of this pair getting into the ear of the mayor-elect.

Massillonians should get used to loyalist and power politics as standard fare as such appears to be what the powers/political operatives behind Kathy Catazaro-Perry are all about.