BREAKING NEWS! CANTON SAFETY DIRECTOR THOMAS REAM RESIGNS ACCORDING TO A WELL-PLACED SCPR SOURCE.

 UPDATE:  3:50 PM

 

(NOTE:  The SCPR's scoop has been confirmed by staff report filed minutes ago by the Canton local newspaper)

The SCPR has learned that Canton Safety Director Thomas Ream and Mayor William J. Healy, II have been searching for a "face saving way" (for benefit of Healy, of course) to announce the safety director's resignation for about a week.

The beginning of the end had to be case for Canton Safety Director Tom Ream when in the latter part of February he collaborated with Mayor William J. Healy, II to change the job description for the director of the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab (CSCCL) so that Ream personal and political friend and former Stark County chief deputy Rick Perez could be appointed as director.

Healy is politically close to Perez's brother Kim who is running for Canton auditor in the May Democratic primary.  The mayor has told the SCPR that he endorses Perez in his candidacy which suggests to The Report that Healy was likely in full accord with Ream's desire to appoint Rick Perez as the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab director.

About a week after the appointment and a public hue and cry and a confrontation between Stark County Council of Governments (SCOG) Executive Committee chairman Thomas Bernabei (also president of the Stark County Board of Commissioners) in early March, Mayor Healy obtained Perez's resignation and in the process - in the opinion of the SCPR - threw Director Ream under the bus.

One had to wonder how a professional law enforcement man like Ream could stay on under Healy having been abandoned on a decision that Healy had to be in on up to his ears.

In resigning, Ream has done what a person of professional pride would do under similar circumstances.

This Ream resignation should be a "wake up call" to Healy.

He could be faced with a nearly impossible task of finding a replacement for Ream.

Who among Stark County's law enforcement professionals would want to work for Mayor Healy given his treatment of former safety director Tom Nesbitt and now Ream?

Healy needs to politically mature in a hurry.

The SCPR believes he lost his opportunity to be an effective mayor of Canton in his firing of Tom Bernabei as service director and chief of staff in the first year of his first administration.

Obviously, he did not learn his lesson then.

Not much longer after the Bernabei firing, he made life so uncomfortable for Tom Nesbitt as safety director (whom he brought in from a high law enforcement position in Nebraska) that Nesbitt elected to move on.

Apparently, Healy thinks he can be an effective mayor primarily through public relations initiatives.

But he wrong on that count.

The folks who are suffering under his unenlightened leadership methods are the people of Canton. 

How long are they going to put up with his shenanigans?

THE "INFORMAL" PEREZ JOB INTERVIEW: A BAROMETER OF HOW CONFIDENT HEALY IS ON BEING RE-ELECTED MAYOR? BUT WHY NOT CAPITALIZE ON A "GIFT-HORSE ANYWAY?"

Word just surfaced that former Stark County auditor Kim Perez is out looking for a job (re:  Former county auditor Kim Perez eyes Canton post, The Repository, Ed Balint, September 7, 2011).

Hmm?

What to make of it that he surfaces at Canton City Hall and that fellow Democrat and mayor of Canton William J. Healy, II grants him "a special" pre-job audience?

Just let some everyday "Joe" or "Mary"  show up on the 8th floor of Canton's seat of government with job application in hand and see whether or not Healy bounces out of his office with an offer of an "informal" job interview?

In the opinion of the SCPR, Perez used to be one of Stark County's most powerful Democrats with a strong vote getting history.   So in political yesteryear, it would been a good political thing for one to embrace the companionship of the former city auditor.

But then came along the revelation of Vince Frustaci's theft of taxpayer money from the Stark County treasury (April 1, 2009) and Perez seemingly,  for the mere fact he held the title county auditor,  was being criticized for not detecting the thefts which are said to have occurred over time spans thought to have been from about 2003 through 2009.  Perez had been auditor since 2004.

The Report has heard a number of public officials including Stark County Commissioner Janet Creighton (a Republican) say that it was unfair to expect Perez (as auditor) to have ferreted Frustaci out inasmuch as "county auditor" is a misnomer in that the position does not call for the auditing of the Stark County treasurer's office.   Good reason that she should.  Because Frustaci's activity overlapped into her term as auditor as well as that of her successor (to fill out her unexpired term) and Republican Party appointee Brant Luther.

Nonetheless, the Stark County electorate seems to have bought into the criticism and zeroed in on Perez and refused to return him to office.

One might argue that Kim Perez's political profile these days (having been tossed from office) is not exactly one that someone like Healy would be anxious to embrace. 


Probably so.

But donning the Healy mindset, one thing possibly to be taken from Mayor Healy putting himself in a position of letting it leak out that he had "met informally" with Perez concerning Perez's interest of getting appointed to succeed former sanitation supervision Byron Carson at about $64,000 per annum, is that Healy is feeling awfully confident that he is a "shoe-in" to be re-elected mayor come this November.

While Balint couches Healy ("if he is not re-elected") in a humility context, the SCPR declines the temptation to entertain the notion that Healy "really" thinks there is a realistic chance he will be defeated by Republican "Chip" Conde come this fall's election.

And if there is anywhere that Kim Perez has any political clout, it is in the political/geographic zone of Canton, Ohio.  The SCPR believes that Perez remains a political insider in the Stark County Democratic Party and Healy is certainly aware of such.

So in line with Mayor Healy being "all things political," it makes complete sense that he would capitalize on the Perez appearance on the 8th floor for whatever it is worth (not that Healy actually thinks he needs any help) within the political context of a 9 to 1 Democrat registration majority within Canton and Perez having won big and often in the boundaries the Canton city limits.  


Politicians like Healy are by their very nature insecure.  They are very much "don't look a gift-horse in the mouth" types. 

Accordingly, The Report believes that Healy is being purposely and politically coy with Perez. 


And who can blame Perez for "doing the dance?"


It just may land him a job at $64,000 smackeroos, while scores of politically unconnected Cantonians drool in a dreamworld that they too might have an opportunity to become Canton's superintendent of the sanitation department.


Now if Healy was running countywide, would he be so quick to publicly embrace Perez?