The Alliance Review reports that the city's festival goers have experienced less Carnation City revelry last year and times are tough this year.
An excerpt of The Review's interview with festival president:
What the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) wants to know is when will Mayor Middleton (Republican) and Democrats in Alliance City Council get the economy moving in Alliance.
In process is an effort to refinance a bond and reduce the interest paid out to bond holders. But that is not economic development.
Question: Where is Alliance's economic development plan?
Middleton has taken complacency and mediocrity to a high art form. The guy either fails to show up for City Council meetings or, if he does bother to show, never has a report to give on what he is doing as the chief executive of the city. After a while, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that “no report” means that he continues to do nothing. Except grow his beard, which is now so long that he looks like King Tut. Oh, did I mention that he’s now on a two week vacation – all that hard work, no doubt.
ReplyDeleteHere are some lowlights to show just how far the Middleton administration has sunk in its apathy and incompetence:
In the past three years, Middleton has never shown up for a single meeting of Council’s Finance Committee. Not one.
Council Democrats budgeted $10,000 for downtown special events to try to attract more people downtown. Middleton had his two Republican cronies on Council work to strip the funding away, leaving the effort without any funds. Great support for downtown!
Middleton has done such a pathetic job in getting new businesses to Alliance that the Board of Zoning Appeals just voted to let a farmer convert a huge tract of the West Main Street industrial park into a soybean field! What a great use of all that infrastructure investment the city made in the industrial park! Middleton might as well run up the white flag and say, “I surrender – I don’t know how to get any business here, so let’s turn our industrial park into farmland.”
Middleton is sitting on $1.9 million in the city’s Urban Development Action Grant revolving loan fund. Middleton should be using this money to attract new economic development. Instead, it’s just sitting there.
Last year, Middleton screwed up the opportunity to annex some business property, when he allowed his Planning & Development Director to pressure a subordinate – who owned one of the businesses – into signing the annexation petition. The now former city employee didn’t appreciate the pressure tactics and backed out, causing the whole annexation to collapse. Thanks for the great personnel management skills, Toni!
The list goes on and on. What Alliance needs is a mayor with the skills, energy and attitude needed to bring positive change to the city’s economy. Instead, what Alliance has is a figurehead who likes to show up for ceremonies and photo ops, while leaving the city on auto-pilot. I don’t see how Alliance can take the punishment of three more years of his complacency.
Sign me . . . a knowledgeable source.