VIDEO
MARLBORO TWP TRUSTEE
KEN EDDLEMAN
ASKS STARK COMMISSIONERS FOR MORE
STARK CO. TAXPAYER DOLLARS
TO
SUBSIDIZE SOME TOWNSHIP RESIDENTS
In the view of the SCPR, there is probably no place in Stark County that subscribes more ardently to the "general" political philosophical notion that "there is no such thing as a free lunch" than those Stark Countians who inhabit Marlboro Township. (See Demographic LINK to Marlboro Township)
But when it comes to having to fork out $2,050.00 to Stark County government for a sewer hook-on permit, well maybe just maybe that's "a horse err elephant of a different color," no?
POLITICAL BACKGROUND OF MARLBORO TOWNSHIP
Marlboro Township is one of Stark County's most reliable Republican political bastions.
While Barack Obama won Stark County (for a second time in a row) in 2012, Marlboro Township voters voted in landslide proportions for Republican Mitt Romney, to wit:
Going back the 1992 presidential election (H.W. Bush versus William Jefferson Clinton), the oldest data available on the Stark BOE website, Marlboro voters gave Bush a health 61% majority in the face of Stark County overall voting for Clinton 40% to 35%, to wit:
The SCPR's point on the Republican dominance in Marlboro is that it should be fair to say that by and large Marlboro voters/residents accept the Republican cardinal point of view of distaining government handouts in the context of Republicans believing in limited government, no?
After all, government handouts is the thing of those inner city Democrats, no?
Well, maybe that is changing?
At least that's the SCPR's take from Marlboro Trustee Ken Eddleman's appearance at last Wednesday's Stark County Board of Commissioners' meeting.
Here is a "must watch" video of Eddleman (who, by the way, is a Republican himself) and Commissioners Thomas Bernabei (a Democrat) and Republican Janet Creighton:
Hmm?
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY COLLIDES WITH POCKETBOOK ISSUES?
Maybe the folks in the area of the the sanitary sewer and storm water project aren't asking for a "complete" free lunch on the dime of U.S., Ohio and Stark County taxpayers, but it is - by the SCPR's calculation - close.
Here are the numbers:
Marlboro is the home of the quintessential rightest Republican John P. Hagan family.
Who in Stark County could be more Republican John P. Hagan (Republican - Ohio House [the 50th House District' ] 2000 - 2008)?
John might be Stark County's version of "Joe the Plumber" of the 2008 McCain/Obama campaign inasmuch as his main claim to fame is being an plumbing institution of sort for the folks out in Marlboro.
Nobody should underestimate the political clout of John even though he failed after eight (8) years in the political limelight (i.e. all The Repository ink he got as state representative) to win his try for Stark County commissioner against Democratic political neophyte Doctor (chiropractor) "Pete" Ferguson.
While John lost to Ferguson, the SCPR ventures to say that he outmaneuvered the Ralph Regula family (former 16th District Congressman Ralph Regula who retired in 2008) and other Stark County Republicans in securing for daughter Christina an appointment to his old seat as state representative when Todd Snitchler vacated it early in 2011 to go work for Republican governor John Kasich as Ohio's Public Utilities Commission (PUCO) chairman.
Recent developments might indicate that Hagan is destined to finish out his political career as Marlboro Township trustee.
Proof that John Hagan's influence in Columbus may be waning is evident in the fact that he did not make the finals in his application with Kasich to succeed Snitchler on the PUCO board earlier this year.
Republican Hagan (currently a trustee) has over the years parlayed being Marlboro Township trustee (as least going back as far as 1993, if not further) into becoming a Ohio House "sacrificial lamb" candidate in 1998 into a narrow victory over Lawrence Township trustee and Democrat Mike Stevens. Stevens had been appointed to succeed Johnnie A. Maier, Jr who resigned as a lame duck, term limited representative who moved on to becoming Massillon's clerk of courts.
When he made it to Columbus, John made what appears to have a project of having one of his kids succeed him (now that's pulling oneself up by one's own bootstrap, isn't it?) as Marlboro trustee.
That failed.
But then when Snitchler vacated the 50th, John fixed on daughter Christina (undoubtedly another "I can do it my own Republican stalwart") as a person - a bit delayed because Snitchler got in the way - to "inherit" the family right? to have the 50th House seat as a family heirloom?
And his efforts paid off.
On March 4, 2011 Christina was appointed by the right-wing Republican Ohio House Caucus to succeed Snitchler.
Christina has not disappointed the self-sufficient Republican types who make up the core of the Columbus-centered GOP caucus.
She has joined them as a loyalist to the nth degree.
Of course, Christina like her neighbors, friends and supporters in Marlboro is not above taking government help when doing so suits her purpose.
In October, 2013 there was a newspaper spread in the Akron Beacon Journal seeming to extol Christina for working two jobs (one as state representative, one as a area restaurant server) to pay back some $80,000 in government back loans for her college education.
The Report would like to ask her a few questions about her political philosophies in the context of participation government help programs.
But because the SCPR questions incisively, Representative Hagan (though a public official who gets paid by Ohio taxpayer dollars [one of whom is The Report) thinks she can pick and chose what media she talks to.
Actually she LOVES sending press releases to The Repository to a certain reporter who is apt to lock on to it and write a glowing article for a legislator who has not accomplished much of anything to date.
The next thing that the Hagans and their fixation on holding public office at one level or another will be doing is to copy Stark County Democratic Party chairman Randy Gonzalez and trying to sell the SCPR on the notion that holding public elected or appointed office with the family is a matter of a family tradition of public service.
Go figure!
That's politicians for you, Republican or Democrat.
The Hagans likely will not respond to this blog.
The SCPR can only hope.
But The Report is dying to know what the Hagans have to say about that 94.5% subsidy that township residents have received courtesy of a combination of American, Ohio and Stark County taxpayers in the light of the Republican Party creed of "doing it in on one's own?"
And, while they are at it, why didn't Christina go out and borrow money, "all" her "for college" money from private sources that gets NO backing from the federal government?
- SCPR Note. From the ABJ piece:
- By the time it was all over about three years later, she had borrowed $60,000 in federal and private loans and another $20,000 from her parents.
- SCPR comment: Despite being a devotee to the panacea of "all things private enterprise" (a core Republican Party philosophy; especially by the right wing of the party) as a cure to all that ails the nation, Christina apparently has no problem with government loan guarantees.
What's next?
Santa Claus really does exist?
And he is handing out free lunches across the nation in the form of complete or nearly complete government subsidies, even in places like Marlboro Township?
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