PART 1 - A SERIES - STARK COUNTIANS GET "SHORT CHANGED" BY THE CANTON REPOSITORY?

UPDATED ON 11/07/2014 AT 08:45 AM

ORIGINAL BLOG

The Stark County Report's "home page" on opening up an "online" browser is The Report's "online" subscription to the Washington Post.

The Report is an avid newspaper reader.

But not just any newspaper.

The SCPR's newspaper of choice each and every morning ought to be The Canton Repository.

Unfortunately, it is not very often a newspaper that yours truly thinks "is worth reading."

However, on occasion the editors at The Rep give the green light to some very good reporters on its staff (e.g. Matt Rink, Alison Matas and Kelli Young) and lets them do a thorough job in investigating this or that thing that is happening in Stark County.

But that is the exception rather than the rule and, accordingly, it is always a serendipity experience for The Report to unfold The Rep and find anything worth reading in terms of politics and government in Stark County.

More often than not, when the SCPR opens the pages of The Cleveland Plain Dealer (cleveland.com), there are a number of stories bearing on Cuyahoga County government and politics that are worth reading.

One such story that graced the pages of cleveland.com (LINK) yesterday, to wit:

Stokes comes from the "once political powerful" Carl and Louis Stokes family mix  that dominated Cleveland and Cuyahoga politics in decades of yore.

And it is relevant in a relational sense of the word in that it can be instructive regarding the effort of Stark Countian attorney and civic activist Craig T. Conley to get Stark County Court of Common Peas judge Dixie Park removed from office.

Recently, The Stark County Political Report did a series of blogs on the whys and wherefores of Conley's effort, to wit:

• September 22, 2014, Part 1
• September 23, 2014, Part 2
• September 25, 2014, Part 3
• September 29, 2014, Part 4

Getting a judge who should not be "on the bench" off the bench is a herculean task.

And, as matters now stand, Dixie Park (running unopposed on November 4th) is in for a new term amid what the SCPR believes to be a consensus among practitioners before her that she does not have the legal competence to merit being a judge.

As far as the SCPR is concerned Judge Park proved in spades her legal incompetence in a recent case in which she jailed a woman for some ten days, more or less, illegally according to the Fifth District Court of Appeals.

One might think:  "Well, judges are human beings and they do make mistakes."

Okay, counter that trite expression with a more meaningful one:  "What if you were the innocent person who had your reputation tarnished and were deprived of your liberty by an 'all too human judge."'

Moreover, the SCPR is told that there is much more to Dixie Park not having the necessary qualities for being a judge such as but not limited to her fair dealings with attorneys appearing before her and how she treats members of her staff.

The Stark County Political Report has already written extensively on Park's lack of judicial enhancing qualities.

And more is to come.

The Report hears that Carl Monday, an investigative reporter with WOIO, Channel 19 in Cleveland still has in the works a expose on Judge Park and how she functions as a judge.

But, of course, with The Repository we have heard very little.

Going forward on Conley's effort to get Park off the bench, the Stark County public will have to get its information from The Stark County Political Report.

"Mum" is likely to be the word emanating from 500 Market Avenue, South.

Just like the George T. Maier candidacy for sheriff wherein there are serious allegations of misconduct by Maier when he was number 2 in the Ohio Department of Public Safety among several other allegations weighing in on his fitness from a character standpoint to be Stark County sheriff.

Now that Maier has been elected, should those character issues flower into an abuse of power in the discharge of public duties, The Rep will bear a heavy burden of having left the Stark County reading public down in not exploring fully the allegations.

The SCPR has written frequently about those issues and would love to put the camera on George T. Maier and have him respond.

Maier and his brother Johnnie, Jr. (probably Stark County's foremost "political" and "government" official paranoids who appear work hard to squash opinions different from their own) want to minimize the SCPR's effect for public consumption purposes.

They work overtime emphasizing that the SCPR is a blog and to be lumped in with all other blogs many of which are irresponsible.

An example of their implication that "blogs" by the definition of being an irresponsible blog is characterized by, the SCPR thinks, The Massillon Review, which The Report believes (was/is?) authored by Stark County Democratic   Party political director R. Shane Jackson.

Dormant for the present for about a year now (despite being called back into existence in time for the Massillon Municipal 2013 elections by, according to the Review's anonymous (therefore cowardly) writer, look for a second "popular demand call" for after the 1st of the year.

The Massillon Review originally came into existence not long before the 2011 elections in which Johnnie A. Maier political loyalist Kathy Catazaro-Perry ran for mayor against incumbent Democratic mayor Francis H. Cicchinelli, Jr., a long time political competitor to Maier.

2015 is another Massillon mayoralty and city council election years.  And, of course, Jackson and his political patron saint, Johnnie A. Maier, Jr have a huge stake in trying to control the selection process of Massillon city government.

But their attack is not working with respect to The Stark County Political Report.

Readers of the SCPR know that The Report exercises "due diligence" to substantiate Stark County Political Report viewpoints with solid evidence.

One may interpret the evidence differently, but that the SCPR uses evidencing supporting matter is a comment frequently made to The Report by SCPR readers.

Moreover, The Report's critical eye is trained equally on Republican and Democrat officeholders/candidates and thereby earns being deemed to be Stark County only "independent" source of political/government news and analysis.

Such is what separates The Stark County Political Report from many other blogs, and, indeed, from many, many "mainstream" media opinion writers.

The fact of the matter is that the Maiers pay lots of attention to The Stark County Political Report as evidenced by George's legal counsel (in the personal liability lawsuit against him for having served illegally as sheriff for some nine [9] months) using SCPR blog material in his legal pleadings.

And George T. Maier can be sure that The Report will be watching every move that he makes and the SCPR will serve the public interest that The Rep has not and likely will not in letting the public know when Maier engages personal political interests as sheriff over the public interest.

One of the first hires that Maier should make as the "elected" sheriff of Stark County is to hire a plumber.

A plumber?  Really?

Indeed!

The SCPR during the campaign had plenty of leaks coming out of the Stark County sheriff's office during the Maier/Dordea campaign.

And, undoubtedly, going into the future discontented sheriff's office personnel will turn to the SCPR and not The Repository to get the story out to the Stark County public.

Just as The Repository has given "short shrift" to the Dixie Park story, it has gone beyond "short shrift" on Maier to "no shrift" to his characters issues and thereby has "shorted" the Stark County public on information upon which to choose between Maier and Dordea.

For this "the bigs" at The Repository should be ashamed of themselves.

A tipoff of how vain "the bigs" at The Rep is came fairly early on in the SCPR's existence.

When first introduced in 2009/2010 by then-commissioner Todd Bosley to reporter Robert Wang, his reaction?

"Oh, you're the guy my bosses hate!"

The "learned" bosses at The Rep hate?

Not exactly an image the thoughtful editors (at least for public persona purposes) would want projected of them, no?

Moreover, give us all a break.

By comparison in terms of resources, the SCPR is "a fly on the wall" of The Repository.

Why would The Repository view The Stark County Political Report a threat?

Could it be that the editors (which The Report thinks has to be one of the sorriest editorial boards for similarly sized markets in the USA) and "the bigs" absolutely know that the SCPR will go where they will not go because they worry about damaging The Rep's standing with "the powers that be in Stark County government and politics?

The meaningful to readers media outlets of the country (e.g. The Washington Post of Watergate fame, The Cleveland Plain Dealer and its willingness to take on a judge) do not worry about who they offend.

Therein, the SCPR thinks, lies the problem of The Canton Repository!