In the annals of Stark County commissioner history December has proved to be both the best of times and the worst of times for former Stark County commissioner Tom Harmon.
The best of times occurred on December 13, 2007 when on the strong support of the-then Commissioner Harmon, the commissioners selected former Repository managing editor and longtime employee Michael Hanke as Stark County's new chief administrator.
No one knew it at the time, the decision to hire Hanke was probably the saving grace in getting Stark County through the worst of times which were yet to come.
The first year went well enough for Hanke, but then came December 28, 2008: the beginning of the worst of times (LINK - prior blog) for Stark County finances.
On that date the-then Board of Stark County Commissioners composed of Harmon, Todd Bosley and Jane Vignos decided to impose a 0.5% sales tax.
The imposition of the tax kicked off an furor among everyday Stark Countians which resulted in the tax being repealed in November, 2009 and coupled with a nose diving national/local economy resulted in Stark County government experiencing a financial crisis which the county is just now beginning to get out of.
Much of the credit for survival and even a degree of prospering is in the opinion of the SCPR owing to Chief Administrator Hanke.
But he did have help.
In November, 2010 former Canton mayor Janet Creighton (who has held a number of Stark County elective offices) and former longtime Canton law director Tom Bernabei (also a former councilman and Healy administration official) assessed that there was a large deficiency in county commissioner leadership quality and offered themselves to Stark Countians as having "been there, done that" type of leaders who on being elected teamed up with Hanke to pull Stark County through to the point it now occupies: surviving and in small measure beginning to thrive.
The Report could go through all the many tests, trials and difficulties that Stark County has endured during Hanke's tenure, but to do so would be to spoil yesterday's celebration by the commissioners of the former reporter and editor turned top flight administrator's gig as chief administrator.
During Hanke's time, he has served with eight commissioners.
Stark County employees will hold a Hanke retirement celebration event at the Stark County Office Building tomorrow afternoon.
Hanke announced his retirement on December 13, 2012: five years to the day of his initial hire.
Be sure to see this video of Commissioners Bernabei, Creighton and Regula commenting on the Michael Hanke era as chief administrator for the Stark County commissioners.
And thank you Tom Harmon for having the foresight in being a driving force in 2007 Board of Stark County Commissioners making the right choice!
Had Mike Hanke known what was ahead for him as he was hired on December 13, 2007, would he have had second thoughts about becoming Stark County's chief administrator?
There have been two gigantic crises in Stark County government since Hanke became the commissioners "go-to-guy" to solve all things administrative.
First, there was the crisis generated by former commissioners Bosley, Harmon and Vignos in December, 2008 when they decided to "impose" a county sales tax increase of 0.5%. (Stark Countians overwhelmingly repealed the tax in November, 2009)
Second, there was the crisis in the Stark County treasury which broke to the public on April 1, 2009 whereby it was revealed that Stark County lost nearly $3 million in taxpayer funds and Chief Deputy Treasurer Vince Frustaci was suspected of stealing it. (Frustaci later pled guilty to having stolen $2.46 million).
Beyond these two major conflagrations, there have been many, many brush fires (e.g. the dog pound troubles, budgeting problems, and the like) for Hanke to have to have a hand in putting out in order "to save the commissioners' collective bacon."
On top of the foregoing, you have the likes of the SCPR who was a tad more than skeptical and hence critical that one of Canton's/Stark County's top insiders (as long time editor and manager of The Repository) and local establishment types (who retired from The Rep in 2006) all of sudden ending up with the county's top administrative jobs from among some 70 original applicants. For a taste of a number of critical blogs yours truly has written on Hanke, here is a LINK.
But, of course, he did not know any of that on December 13, 2007.
He did take the job.
And, now, in hindsight yours truly is prepared to say that one wonders how the county could have gotten through the crises and brush fires as well as it has without Mike Hanke having been county administrator.
For he has seemingly done the impossible.
Taking from the graphic theme of this blog, hasn't Stark County Chief Administrator MIke Hanke (with the help of others) "made silk out of a sow's ear?"
And he has done so without throwing people he has had to work with "under the bus."
For instance:
From the very beginning it was a really bad idea to "impose" a tax in Stark County. Especially Stark County with it history in taking pride in being one of the lowest, if not the lowest, taxed counties in all of Ohio.
Yet when asked by yours truly about the difficult days of coping with Stark County's financial crisis of 2011 and bleeding into 2012, Hanke told The Report it would have been far worse (i.e. to cover county finances given the nearly $3 million in revenue losses growing out of the Frustaci theft) had the county not had revenues still flowing in from the imposed tax.
In other words, Hanke was crediting Bosley, Harmon and Vignos with something positive as having flowed from the highly political unpopular 2008 sales tax imposition resolution.
This week the Stark County commissioners start the budget hearings in earnest.
Stark is far from being "out-of-the-woods" and must watch every penny as commissioners work through to settle on appropriating county revenues to general fund and Fund 35 departments and non-governmental recipients of taxpayer dollars.
Hanke and his able associate Rick Flory have done a admirable job of reining in the likes of Stark County prosecutor John Ferrero (the SCPR's attribution; not Hanke's and Flory's) and spreading the pain of thin county financial resources fairly across the budgeting process.
Enough of recounting the "job well done" accolades of Hanke and the suggestion that the commissioners may not have in the applications on hand a replacement of his equal.
Here is the list so far (the deadline for applying was last Wednesday):
Some of the vocational/personal histories of the applicants include:
a city councilman, (Davison)
a former deputy director of finance of a Stark County municipality, (Fix)
a bookstore manager (Aul),
a biomedical engineer manager (Burner),
a city manager, (Cozy),
a director of children's services advocacy, (Curran)
a vice president, global business services, (McDannold)
a manager of Stark County's court-appointed guardians program,
also a former county auditor (successor to Commissioner Janet Creighton) and family court magistrate, (Luther)
a former Lake Township trustee who is now who is the industrial safety administrator for the Ohio Department of Commerce, (Martin)
a sitting Canton Township trustee (12 years) and director of revenue assurance for First Communications, (Nichols)
a Marlboro Township zoning inspector, (Pisani)
a former Massillon housing director, (Schiavone)
a CEO of a technology company, (Maniscalco)
a bank manager, (DiRocco)
If the commissioners are to be successful in their ongoing quest to rehabilitate the reputation of Stark County government, they will need someone of Hanke's skill and talent.
And if such a person is not to be found among the list of applicants, the commissioners must regroup and widen their search.
Such is what they are doing with the decision to hire a county human resources director.
The Report gets the impression that after a new chief administrator has been hired, then he/she and the commissioners will focus on hiring a human resources person and that it is likely that they will look for a new round of applicants and not necessarily limited to those with law degrees as advertised before.
The SCPR thinks that the commissioners should, in selecting a new chief county administrator, ask around in the business sector and in local government circles for recommendations as to whom the commissioners might approach in terms of enticing recommended person(s) into considering the job.
Why should they be limited to those who apply?
Getting a Hanke-esque chief administrator is a critical need of the commissioners if they are to be successful in their rehab of county government.
Yours truly can think of several persons who have not applied who might be lured into being open to taking the job based on the commissioners assessment of what they bring to the table.
For the SCPR believes that there is more work to be done in terms of taking the raw material of a sow's ear (i.e. remaining parts of inefficient/ineffective Stark County government) and making it come out silk.
The commissioners owe it to themselves and to the Stark County public to seek the very best for the highly important Stark County chief administrator position.
COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR MIKE HANKE ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT EFFECTIVE MARCH 1, 2013,
25 YEAR STARK CO. COMMISSIONER EMPLOYEE MARILYN HOOVER TO RETIRE AS OF FRIDAY, AND
STARK CO. BASED CENTRAL ALLIED ENTERPRISES, INC LOSES OUT TO A WAYNE CO. COMPANY ON MARLBORO SEWER PROJECT NOTWITHSTANDING ITS "LOWEST BID."
Yesterday, as yours truly opened the stairs doorway to the 2nd floor of the Stark County office building, it was a sight to behold.
Some 75 workers for Central Allied Enterprises, Inc. were milling around in the area in front of the building elevators extending down the hall towards the commissioners' office and then in the other director down towards the Stark County auditor's office.
What's up?
The SCPR as always had viewed the day's agenda and from the looks of it, the meeting seemed as if it was going to be rather pedestrian.
But as The Report has said in many SCPR blogs, one never knows what surprises awaits yours truly in the course of public meetings. And Stark County commissioner meetings are no exception.
Before getting into the big controversy that erupted yesterday in the commissioners' meeting room, here are the "milder" surprises that happened yesterday:
Mike Hanke, the chief county administrator of some five years, announced he is retiring effective March 1, 2013,
Commissioner Pete Ferguson notified all that he is resigning effective December 31st though his official term runs through January 3, 2013, and
Marilyn Hoover, a key Stark County commissioners' administrative staff member who announced her retirement last month after 25 years of service will spend her last day working for the commissioners tomorrow.
Also, information came out that Chief Deputy Sheriff Rick Perez is retiring (a second time?) from the sheriff's department as of December 31st.
The big, big surprise, perhaps (the Hanke retirement announced was pretty surprising), was the attempt by Central Allied Enterprises, Inc. (a Stark, County company) to get commissioners to not follow the recommendation of Stark County Sanitary Sewer Engineer Jim Jones that they reject Central's "lowest bid" on the Marlboro Township Sanitary Sewer and Storm Sewer Improvement project to benefit about 90 Marlboro residents who live in the vicinity of State Route 619 and Marlboro in unincorporated Marlboro.
But the commissioners chose to follow the recommendation of Jones notwithstanding the impassioned plea of Central Allied's CEO Gerald Orn.
So what is so surprising about this turn of events?
One of the first and most emphatic points that Commissioner Creighton made when she took office on her election in November, 2010 was that she was interested in seeing to it that Stark County-based companies got county business whenever the county made purchases for products and services. And Commissioners Bernabei (elected originally in 2010; reelected in November, 2012) and Ferguson (elected in 2008, but choosing not to seek reelection this year) were on board with her on that very point.
For a number of years the Stark County sanitary engineer's office has been working to put together a project to replace sanitary and storm sewer infrastructure in Marlboro.
So it had to be pleasing to the commissioners when the bids were opened on the Marlboro project on October 12th of this year that a Stark County company (Central Allied) was the low bidder by some $13,000.
But the law, as the SCPR understands it (LINK), is that the commissioners have some discretion within which to accept bids in that the catch phrase is not "lowest," but "lowest and best."
Well, how do they determine what is best?
Answer: they rely on their expert on such things which in this case is Engineer Jones.
On Tuesday Jones wrote the commissioners telling them that in his judgment the $2.5 million (plus a little) contract should go to Wenger Excavation of Dalton, Wayne County, Ohio.
The project is funded by a combination of:
a U.S. Army Corp of Engineers administrated federal grant,
Community Development Block Grant funding through the Stark County Regional Planning Commission, and
Metropolitan Sewer District funds.
His reasons for selecting the Wayne County company over the Stark County company?
Central Allied's bid ($2,547,138.20) is in its essence equal (given that we are talking slightly in excess of $2.5 million) to the Wenger bid ($2,580, 299.55),
Wenger "has performed many satisfactory projects" for Stark County "over the last 30 years," according to Jones' recommendation,
Central Allied, on the other hand, has had two projects in the last six years for Stark County and Jones says "that there were problems ... on both projects,"
"The quality of the work was non-standard, causing delays, safety issues, added expense, excessive noise, and quality problems."
Jones cites "dewatering of ground water" issues with Central Allied on the two previous project and says that dewatering may be a factor in the Marlboro project,
"Central Allied Enterprises was non-responsive to the List of public projects request in the Bidder's profile section of the Bid Documents,"
"Central's list did not indicate type of project or project contact person or phone number information,"
One of Central's references "which included storm sewer had some negative comments to standards which may relate sanitary sewer installation" on the Marlboro project.
A main point raised by CEO Orn in his remarks to commissioners yesterday was the number of Stark County (which he estimated at 100, but which the company's legal counsel guessed to be about 80) citizens who work for Central Allied.
Here is a video record on proceedings yesterday.
Off camera, he told the SCPR that Central's failure to get the contract from Stark County could negatively impact as many as 40 Stark County jobs.
The bottom line was that the commissioners were going to follow the county engineer's recommendation and were not going to yield to the pressure of some 75 workers and company officials (including Orn) who appeared at the commissioners meeting.
From what the SCPR can gather from Jones' report, it appears that the commissioners did the right thing by Stark County's sanitary sewer customers (of which, yours truly is one) and most importantly the folks who live in Marlboro Township who will be directly benefiting from the work done.
The SCPR has covered the Stark County commissioners for all of the time that Bernabei, Creighton and Ferguson have been in office. During that time, it is The Report's clear impression that they make every effort to award county contracts to Stark County based business so long as they can ensure quality products and services.
One thing that worried The Report somewhat was the heavy reliance of the commissioners on Engineer Jones' say so.
Not so much on this particular bid, but whether or not the commissioners, in general, are biased to what a public official's stand is on any controversy that comes before them for which the commissioners are the deciders.
So The Report sat down with Commissioner Creighton and engaged a "devil's advocate" position on yours truly's concern.
Creighton in the back and forth convinced The Report that such was not the case.
She cited a recent case involving a situation in Beach City in which the public officials were contesting the citizens and the commissioners sided with the Beach City residents.
Moreover, there is a street naming issue (Brook Avenue) between affected Perry Township residents and safety officials (fire, police and emergency services) that the residents brought to the commissioners' Public Speaks forum a number of weeks ago.
Creighton, for one commissioner, assured yours truly that she was hearing the residents' concerns loud and clear and that the commissioners are working to formulate a solution that will satisfy everyone.
Her point?
She was not going to be an "automatic" for the public officials.
That is what the SCPR wanted to hear.
Bernabei and Creighton came into office at a time that Stark Countians were disgusted with a perceived lack of openness, transparency, communicativeness, accessibility and the like being handed out by a number of county officials.
The have vowed to change that perception.
The Report thinks that the commissioners have made progress, but work along this front remains.
For instance, the SCPR has not been impressed with how the commissioners have handled the Stark County Dog Pound Advisory Board (SCDPAB).
These folks in The Report's estimate have been terrific advocates for the well being of stray and abandoned dogs housed at the Stark County Dog Pound (Pound) and have volunteered thousands of hours at the Pound in the face of resistance, yours truly believes, by employees, management and, yes, even the commissioners.
Former commissioner Todd Bosley was instrumental in forming the SCDPAB. Commissioner Creighton says that he (and his fellow commissioners at the time) had no authority for doing so.
The Report believes that members of the SCDPAB (which only has a couple of members remaining out of a total of seven; the terms of the others having expired and left unfilled by Bernabei, Creighton and Ferguson) were so much of a "pain in the _ss" to folks working/running the Pound and to the commissioners themselves that the commissioners are simply letting the SCDPAB atrophy through the expiration of all terms over time and thereby put it out of existence.
The SCPR thinks that the commissioners handling of the SCDPAB matter is disrespectful of these folks and dishonoring of all the hard work they have blessed the county with over the years.
A very compelling case can be made that BUT FOR the activism of the SCDPAB members, the "in process" replacement of the Pound's HVAC system would not be happening.
However, to their discredit is the manner in which they are handling the the demise of the SCDPAB.
They should go front and center and outright disband the board.
And it wouldn't hurt to have past and the remaining few members into a commissioners meeting to honor them for their service.
While the SCPR sees a substantial improvement with this board of commissioners over previous boards, they are not perfect.
Returning to the commissioners action yesterday, it seems to the SCPR that the commissioners showed that they have spine when it comes to an influx of complaint and criticism.
There is no doubt to The Report that they want to see Stark County-based business get the county's business.
So it had to be particularly difficult for them not to award the Marlboro project to Central Allied.
Whether one agrees with the decision or not, the commissioners demonstrated in not choosing the Stark County company that they have the fortitude to do what they think is the right thing to do in terms of what Ohio law allows and in their perception of the overall interest of Stark Countians.
Readers of The Repository could well have quit reading The Rep's October 26th editorial endorsement of Issue #5 after the first sentence.
Now isn't that "in depth editorial" journalism?
No discussion about the tax being imposed!
No discussion about the camouflaged "for the county general fund" aspect of the sales tax!
Wow!
It has been a long time since the SCPR has seen such a super-superficial and incomplete editorial analysis of a very large issue facing Stark County voters.
Does Gauger, Beck et al expect Stark Countians to give any weight whatsoever to this example of empty, conflict-in-interest - editorializing.
Conflict-in-interest?
Right, conflict-in-interest!
Explain yourself in more detail Olson.
The SCPR has long maintained that the movers and shakers at The Repository are so in-bed with the "powers-that-be" in and of Stark County that Rep readers cannot trust the editors to give them incisive political analysis.
Let's just take one example: the Hanke hiring by the Stark County commissioners.
As soon as Commissioner Todd Bosley could arrange it (within months of taking office), former county administrator Jeff Dutton was out and the commissioners were looking for a new man.
Guess who should become available?
None other than former managing editor of The Repository Mike Hanke. After 35 years at The Repository, Hanke retired, but not really retired. He figured (in the opinion of the SCPR) that he could cash-in on his "close" contacts with the likes of Commissioner Tom Harmon.
Right out-of-the-box, Harmon said that he was Hanke's man inside the commissioner's office.
Once Harmon said how enamored he was of Hanke, the other 69 candidates could just forget it. It was Hanke once, Hanke the second time and Hanke the third time.
Was The Repository (Stark County's only countywide newspaper) going to complain?
Of course not. Hanke gets teary-eyed when he fondly reminisces his 35 years at the Rep. He still carries a torch for his former employer. Undoubtedly, tears reverse-flow from the biggies at 500 Market Avenue South too.
Add to this mix that Hanke is the chief spokesperson for the Yes for Public Safety Committee.
He takes on-the-job time at taxpayer expense to go out and campaign for Issue #5 (e.g. Points to Ponder, October 22nd).
Gee, if any other public official goes out and campaigns on the taxpayer's time clock, The Rep is going be all over it.
Think maybe?
The short and long of The Rep's editorial is that a discerning voter will dismiss The Rep's editorial as pure pabulum.
There are good reasons to vote to retain the levy and there are good reasons to vote against retention.
If you were Rip Van Winkle and woke up on November 2nd, how in the world would you garner from Vote yes to retain the 0.5 Stark sales tax that there are a number of arguments for voting one way or another on Issue 5?
B.A. - Political Science
J.D.
AN INDEPENDENT MINDED POLITICAL COMMENTATOR
Until 1976 I was a Republican. Since then I have considered myself a Democrat. So after long term stints of being a Republican, then a Democrat, I have come to the political position I feel most comfortable with - being an INDEPENDENT MINDED ANALYST who demands effectiveness of our politicians - Republican, Democrat or whatever.
I have changed my political affiliation to "non-partisan" by not voting in either political party primary election.
