VOLUME 2
Only The Stark County Political Report (SCPR, The Report) has raised much of the fuss about suspicions of what appears to be, in essence, political hirings in much of Stark County political subdivision government.
From a November 8, 2010, SCPR blog this:
During the recent campaign in which Coons Restoration & Sealants ... chief of financial operations ran against Stark County Auditor Kim Perez, one of the themes of the Harold campaign was that a number of the Perez's employees were political appointees who, when hired, had little or no qualifications other than being registered Democrats who, impliedly, would be primarily about politically servicing Perez in his quest remain auditor.
Singled out in the buzz among Republican partisans were David Maley, Jimmy Babcock, Gary Zeigler II (*) and Kevin Fisher and the like.
* NOTE: Zeigler remains on the auditor's office payroll under Republican Harold who tells the SCPR that Zeigler has been an exemplary employee.Hmm?
Jimmy Babcock (the son of a former Canton mayor [Charles, 1958 to 1961], a long time Canton councilwoman [Mary, 1979 to 2005]) , surfaces again in recently being hired by Stark County Clerk of Courts Louis P. Giavasis in what some Stark Countians think is a repeat of the Perez situation.
By Giavasis' own words, Babcock (who has been a Canton city-councilman-at-large since January 1, 2012) got a clerk of court office job with the job not having been posted and consequently, the general run of Stark County taxpayers did not have the opportunity to apply for it.
Giavasis and his fellow Democrats might be saying that this blogger is picking on the Dems.
For the SCPR has not only cited the foregoing as possibly getting their jobs because of political connections to Louis Giavasis, The Report has previously blogged about:
- Kody Gonzalez being first employed by Stark County recorder Rick Campbell and consequently by Canton clerk of courts Phil Giavasis (where Kody holds the job of his father (Jackson Township fiscal officer Randy Gonzalez) all of which occurred without the jobs having been posted to the general public,
- Note: Randy Gonzalez (a former chairman of the Stark County Democratic Party) denies that he had anything whatsoever to do with his son getting the recorder's office job or the Canton clerk of courts job.
- the politically connected Lisa Campbell (daughter of former Stark County commissioner Gayle Jackson)
- the following from the above-cited 2010 blog:
- The SCPR [was in 2010} critical of the hiring of ... Lisa Jackson Campbell as Plain Township administrator because:
- The Report is highly skeptical of two phone calls that were made relative to her hiring
- .One by then Stark County Democratic Party chairman Johnnie A. Maier, Jr. to Plain Township trustee Louis Giavasis (according to Lawrence Township trustee Mike Stevens - who was also vying for the job) to ensure that Lisa got "a fair chance" at the vacant Plain Township administrator's job. Remember from previous blogs how the SCPR has spoken of the "family" atmosphere that exists between Maier and the Jackson (e.g. Shane Jackson is Maier'e chief deputy [Massillon clerk of courts]
- A second one (the order may be reversed) by Campbell himself to Giavasis (this is a Giavasis account of the conversation) to ask whether or not it was permissible for ... Lisa to apply for the Plain Township job.
- Louis Giavasis himself gaining employment at the Stark County clerk of court office under the hand-picked successor to his brother (who had moved on to become Canton Municipal Court clerk of courts when Tom Harmon retired)
Dan Fonte, the former business manager of Local 94, Pipefitters and Plumbers Union said this about Martin Olson:
"Martin is an equal opportunity critic"
And so it is.
Much work needs to be done on ensuring the Stark County taxpaying public that "public jobs" are just that: "available to the general "taxpaying" public.
The Stark County commissions have made a move in opening the hiring process to transparency in hiring Michael Kimble as the county's Human Resources (HR) director on October 14, 2014.
But the move will only be as good as his/the county commissioners' ability to persuade independently elected county officials to use the county hiring resource.
Giavasis says he has used the county's HR services once in his nearly four years as county clerk of courts. That was in the hiring of a collections enforcer in February 2016.
Since he took office on August 1, 2015 (as the appointee of the Stark County Democratic Party on the retirement of Nancy Reinbold) and having been elected in his own right in November 2016, Giavasis has made 29 hires, to wit:
On the surface, it appears that about 1/3rd of Giavasis' hires were not "after being posted" hires.
But digging deeper, it further appears that most of the top jobs went to "unposted" (including rehires) positions.
Other than Babcock, the most conspicuous of suspected primarily "political" hires are the chief deputy (Flex) and former Stark County sheriff office employee Tim George title manager.
Flex is a defeated for re-election fiscal officer for Plain Township.
See a letter to the editor of The Canton Repository pre-election.
Al Leno (hired November 19, 2012, a Plain Township trustee who served alongside Giavasis when Giavasis was a township trustee) has the suspected earmarks of a Giavasis involvement.
At least one other name has been suggested to the SCPR as having an inside political connection to getting hired for a position that was posted.
The Stark County Political Report is not satisfied with the number of what appear to be politically connected hirings throughout Stark County elective office hirings.
Giavasis might be okay when it comes to second level positions at the county clerk's office, but to The Report the hirings of Babcock, Flex and George seem to smack of having a political crony aspect to them.
Readers should be putting pressure on all of Stark's countywide elected officials to avail themselves of the services of Stark County commissioners' appointed Michael Kimble NO MATTER WHAT LEVEL THE POSITION.
Finally, by the direct order (err demand) of Stark County Clerk of Courts Louis P. Giavasis (sarcasm folks! sarcasm) two pdf files are attached in the APPENDIX to this blog.
As regular readers know, it is a very rare occurrence that the SCPR does not publish "unredacted" the response(s) of "the other side of the story."
Louis Giavasis nor any other persons dictates to the SCPR the content and timing of this blog.
Louis Giavasis nor any other persons dictates to the SCPR the content and timing of this blog.
What Giavasis has not done is to answer the allegations of Claude "Skip" Shriver, his opponent in the 2016 election (see volume one for a Stark Co video of Shriver's allegations).
Giavasis has done what many other politicians do when the SCPR asked him about the Shriver allegations.
He tried to turn the question into an examination of Giavasis allegations of Shriver's conduct as a public official rather than deal directly with the question posed by the SCPR.
The fact of the matter is that Claude "Skip" Shriver is not the Stark County clerk of courts.
APPENDIX
DOCUMENT OF EMAIL EXCHANGES BETWEEN SCPR/GIAVASIS
SUPPLEMENT DOCUMENT SENT BY GIAVASIS
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