ALLIANCE VOTERS DENIED OPPORTUNITY TO WEIGH-IN ON PAY INCREASE?

Four years ago former Alliance Police Chief Larry Dordea decided to go political as a Republican  and run for Stark County sheriff against long time Democratic Sheriff Tim Swanson.

The SCPR's take on Dordea is that he is one of the least political of those holding or aspiring to office in Stark County.

The Report has believed that Dordea shows more political courage (in the sense of being independent minded and not a political party puppet) than many who seek office, but an article by Stephanie Ujhelyi of The Alliance Review in today's edition (Alliance elected officials to see pay increase) may show that Dordea is changing in that he seems to yours truly, perhaps, to be fitting in more and more in with "the politics as usual" crowd.

For the record, Dordea emphatically denies that any kind of political fix was in the making as Alliance City Council (Council) voted last night 5  to 2 (including three lame duck council persons Andreani, Rhome and Thompson voting yes and Democrats Okey and Phillips being the two no votes) to increase the salaries of a number of elected city officials with the advent of the new year (except for mayor which takes hold after Mayor-elect Alan Adreani's first term).

One of the matters that the SCPR has worked hardest on in the nearly four years of the blog's existence is exposing backroom politics deals designed to thwart public imput and participation in the decisions of government.

In the view of The Report, one such major example was the December, 2008 deal in which the commissioners (then Bosley, Harmon and Vignos) imposed a 0.5% sales tax.

Notwithstanding Dordea's denial for both himself and the advocates of the Alliance public official salary increase, The Report sees in what happened in Alliance as having all the earmarks of a process to avoid the public in terms of electoral accountability in the context of the ward council, council-at-large and mayoral races of November 8, 2011.

Yours truly has heard numerous Stark County political subdivision officials lament the general public's disdain, skepticism and cynicism of local government and seemingly always deny that backroom deals are going on in Stark.

If one takes these local officials at face value, political chicanery happens elsewhere.  Not in Stark!

Hmm?

An interesting case study of "what if" may be present in the Alliance council-at-large race.

Dordea says that he would have welcomed a discussion of the merits of the pay increase issue in the midst of his campaign for re-election as councilman-at-large.

Question.  Would the candidates and their positions on the issue have changed the outcome of the results?  Dordea won over Dierre Upshaw by 203 votes.  If they differed on the issue, could the difference have resulted in a 102 vote turnaround and a Democrat Councilman-elect Dierre Upshaw?

But the fact of the matter is that there was no such discussion.

Dordea is a Republican candidate for Stark County sheriff which was a poorly kept secret that he would be even as he filed for re-election as councilman-at-large.  If he ends up being elected, then, of course, he will have to resign from Council and his successor appointed by whom?

The Alliance members of the Stark County Republican Central Committee.

Hmm?