MASSILLON MAYOR KATHY CATAZARO-PERRY "SCARY" IN TERMS OF MASSILLON'S SAFETY?

VIDEO

MASSILLON CITY COUNCIL

DISCUSSES

MASSILLON'S

"UNSAFE"

POLICE CARS

(CHANNEL 8 CAMERA PRESENT)

A SCPR apology to Massillon Mayor Kathy Catazaro-Perry for not writing about "the State of the City of Massillon" of late.

But The Report has been preoccupied during the last month or so with the campaign of her old safety/service director George T. Maier and his "campaign of desperation" to move from being the Stark County Democratic Party "appointed" sheriff to the elected sheriff.

It appears that Republican Larry Dordea has a good chance of putting George in the unemployment line once again.

A couple of days ago, the SCPR received an e-mail which caused The Report to move off the Maier/Dordea story for today to deal with a potentially horrifying chain of political events transpiring in the "black and orange" city this Halloween - leading up the the November 4th election - season, to wit:

You may want to contact a Massillon city council member or the chairman of the citizens income tax committee regarding an ad that appeared in the Independent over the weekend.

It was a full page ad paid for by the committee and featured the endorsement of every elected city official except for the mayor and president of city council. 

I talked with a councilman about it and was told that the mayor simply refused to participate. 

Townsend apparently took his cue from her. 

I was told that the mayor was recently reprimanded by the state finance  oversight committee for her weak support of the tax issue  She then made a financial contribution but has done nothing else to help. 

I was also told that city council has completely lost faith in her since the racial charge was made in July.  In fact, the mayor has not been called on to speak a word in council meetings since then.

The SCPR has confirmed the points made in the e-mail with persons in a position to know.

And should the income tax/coupled with a conditioned income tax reduction go down, Massillon would be "in a world of hurt" the likes of which Tigerland has not seen in many of a Halloween moon.

Equally if not more dire is word that there is a dispute between the mayor and a majority of Massillon City Council (MCS) over when, how many and in what financial structure (purchase or lease with option to buy) the city will implement in replacing what is described to the SCPR as being "an 'unsafe' collection of Massillon Police Department police cars."

The major difference is whether Massillon should "act NOW" (council's position) or "wait to LATER" as The Report is told is the iron lady mayor's position.

The SCPR was at Monday night's MCS meeting and taped this segment (each and every Massillonian should view this video) of the meeting which dealt with the unsafe police vehicles.

• SCPR Note:  The Report understands that WJW Channel 8 (Cleveland) was in Massillon earlier in the day Monday doing a story on the dire police car situation.
• In the view, the SCPR circles a Channel 8 cameraman who was at the meeting.

It is Halloween and Massillon with its revenue problems and the safety of its police in nightmarish conditions has to be the scariest place in all of Stark County.

Maybe if one happens to be in Massillon during Halloween week and even afterwards continuing until new police cars are put in place, one should pull off to the side of the road (even if the sirens are not blaring and the lights flashing) until that oncoming MPD vehicle has passed by?