(VIDEOS) A STARK COUNTY GOV'T "DEMOCRACY IN ACTION" WORK SESSION GETS ANSWERS & GENERATES SOLUTIONS FOR 9-1-1 CALL RECEIVING FAILURE?

STARK COUNTIANS CAN NOW REST EASIER THAT THERE WILL NOT BE A REPEAT FAILURE?

UPDATED:  11:45 AM

VIDEOS

STARK CO. COMMISSIONERS

CONDUCT INQUIRY

ON

WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE

FOR

10/13/2013 

9-1-1 CALL-IN GLITCH

PRIMARY PARTICIPANTS

• Commissioner Tom Bernabei
• Commissioner Janet Creighton
• Paul Stoffels of AT&T
• Andy Kopystynsky of AT&T
• Jeroen Witte of Cassidian
• Director Tim Warstler of Stark EMA
• Joe Concatto, Project Mgr. Stark 9-1-1
• Tracy Houge, Jackson Twp Fire Chief
• John Bacon, North Canton Fire Chief
• Bruce McAllister, SC Sheriff Dir of Info Svcs

 =========================================

TIM WARSTLER

STARK EMA DIRECTOR

ON

THE

OCTOBER 6TH

GLITCH 

======================================== 

If a Stark Countian had a emergency between the approximate hours of 9:30 through Noon on Sunday, October 6th, there was a very high probability that any 9-1-1 emergency calls to the Canton Communications Center and the Stark County Sheriff Department Call Center were going to go "unanswered!"

Of course, most of us were unaffected.

But if you were one of the affected, it could have been "a matter of life and death."

Plaudits go, quite naturally, to those folks in the loop of emergency call receiving for Stark County who identified the shutdown and took remedial measures as soon as they possibly could.

A Stark County Political Report "Hats Off" to those Stark County based fire, police and administrative officials who acted quickly.

Once an incident ("problems do happen") like the one of the 6th occur, it is important to find out:

• why it happened?
• who is responsible?
• what is the remedy for making sure it never happens again? and
• who has the responsibility to implement the fix?

One way answers to these questions generally come is because someone in the day-in, day-out media digs, digs and digs some more in a fevered quest to ferret out the why, who, what and who questions set forth above.

Another way is for government to conduct an open to the public thoroughgoing inquiry meeting.

Before the election of Democrat Thomas Bernabei and Republican Janet Creighton to the Stark County Board of Commissioners, it was likely that no such meeting would have ever crossed the minds of the collective former boards of commissioners who have served the Stark County public.

With their election in November, 2010 and being in office as a tandem as of January 1, 2011, the two then-neophyte commissioners declared that the board was not meeting nearly enough and to boot needed to institute work sessions in which they could do far ranging scrutiny of anything connected in any way to Stark County government operations.

Since the meeting began in 2011, the commissioners have used the work sessions to delve deeply into Stark County government and take much needed corrective action for problems identified as being such, or, alternatively, to press those county officials who are charge of the problematic item(s) to apply a fix.

With the October 6th incident and Stark County government's prime role in providing for the safety and general welfare of Stark Countians, the commissioners called a work session meeting for November 18, 2013 in which all the "prime-players" in the 9-1-1 call receiving outage were called to account.

And that included players from the private sector (mainly AT&T) who contract with various aspects of county government to provide essential emergency communications services.

The Stark County Political Report was at the work session and recorded almost all (missed the first few minutes because The Report was interviewing a previous work session participant) of the commissioners' generated inquiry.



The key player in the provision of emergency services to Stark Countians is Tim Warstler who has the official title of being the director of the Stark County Emergency Management Agency.

Here is a video of a SCPR interview with him following up on some of the points made by participants as seen in the video above.



All-in-all, the Stark County Political Report believes that Stark Countians should be highly impressed and pleased that the Stark County commissioners did dig deep in their November 18th work session into the October 6th failure in their quest to get answers and provoke fixes so that none of us will ever experience needing emergency help - which could be a "life or death" matter - only to find that "the 9-1-1 call receiving/dispatch system" is down.

Many of us complain when government fails.  But do not give "credit where credit is due" when government works.

The November 18th meeting is a concrete example of government succeeding in fixing accountability where it lies and to do so in a transparent, effective (results producing) way.

Kudos! to the Stark County commissioners!!!

(VIDEO: CREIGHTON WISHES CANTON MAYOR HEALY "A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?") TODAY'S BLOG: CAN HEALY ALLY COUNCILMAN TOM WEST GET REFLEX TRAFFIC CAMERA PILOT PROJECT THROUGH HIS JUDICIARY COMMITTEE?

On the November 5, 2012 Canton City Council agenda under Communications, there was item 396:

As the SCPR sees this move, it is an effort by the Healy administration through staunch council ally Tom West (Ward 2) to feign that the twice before defeated camera legislation is not really about city finances but a law enforcement (public safety).

Hence the assignment of a consideration of the letter to the committee which West heads up as chariman:  Judiciary.

In council's latest rejection of the installation cameras on September 17th (LINK TO PRIOR BLOG), the matter made it to the full council through the Finance Committee:

The nub of it all is that Judiciary is predominated by Healy-independent-capable councilpersons whereas Finance is not.

So it becomes a real test of the strength of West as chairman as to whether or not he can get the proposed legislation before the full council in hopes that the Healyites can flip one of the councilman (The Report thinks Griffin) from the September vote.

That gets the ordinance's fate into the hands of Council President Allen Schulman's hands which, the SCPR thinks, means a Healy win.

In quite a turnabout from a couple of years ago when Schulman and Healy were at loggerheads (e.g. Schulman excoriating Healy about getting Redflex connected campaign contributions), he now seems to be a reliable partner with Healy in running the city the Healy way.

On controversial legislation in Canton these days, Healy can count on five automatics (Babcock, Cole, Dougherty, Smith and West).  After those five, Healy has to do some finessing, some arm twisting, some wheeling and dealing to get things going his way.

Healy may have some leverage with long time political adversary Greg Hawk nowadays.  Hawk,
The Report believes, desperately wants to be the successor to Canton City Treasurer Bob Schirack.  Accordingly, wouldn't Hawk be vulnerable to swinging Healy's way on something like the traffic lights camera issue in exchange for a "wink and a nod" on Healy supporting him for the treasurer position?

It seems rather obvious that the attempted re-opener on the Redflex cameras is an example of the proverbial "getting the foot in the door."

The plan?

Get a demonstration pilot project up and running and demonstrate via the numbers that downtown Canton is a safer place.

Of all the criticisms of traffic light cameras, to wit,  (from the September debate)

there is one documented positive from many jurisdictions across the nation that have cameras installed at traffic lights:

There is a research based and thereby documented 25% reduction in traffic accidents as a consequence of the cameras being present which, the research attests to:   causes drivers to be more cautious when approaching intersections.

The bottom line though will not be the relative merits of the argument, pro and con.

Rather it is the political skill of Mayor Healy and his desire to - longer term - get the city's hands on about $1 million in additional revenues in order to help solve its financial problems.

Will this latest political gambit work?

Can he and his political protege Tom West get the legislation through the Judiciary Committee?

If so, can they (joined by the other four Healy automatics) get that vote or two from the remaining seven councilpersons to get it through the full council?

As the SCPR has observed many times, Mayor William J. Healy, II is the slickest, brassiest and most audacious politician to ever serve on the eighth floor of Canton City Hall.

The Report, for one, would not count Healy out on this one.

A sidenote.

Things, apparently, are picking up for Mayor Healy with his former adversaries Janet Creighton (whom he defeated in her re-election bid for mayor in 2007) and Tom Bernabei (whom he fired from his post as chief-of-staff in the first Healy administration), both of whom are now Stark County commissioners.

At last Wednesday's commissioners meeting, Creighton brought up that Wednesday was the birthday of a Bernabei daughter and that the day was doubly significant as being the birthday of Mayor Healy.

Her stunning announcement (obviously tongue-in-cheek)?

She sent Mayor Healy a birthday card and impliedly suggested Bernabei should do the same for his "favorite" mayor.

Commissioner meetings are getting to be very entertaining these days.

Here is a video featuring Creighton and her birthday talk.