Wednesday, November 19, 2008

DISCUSSION: REALLY? IS IT AN OPTION THAT NORTH CANTON WON'T TAKE OHIO'S $5 MILLION GRANT?


Mayor David Held (Republican) could not have been more effusive with praise in a conversation with the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) about Governor Ted Strickland (Democrat) and Strickland having kept a promise made to Held at John Boccieri's coming out party (announcing for Congress) at a park in the center of North Canton right across from - the then dying - Hoover plant.

The promise? The governor would do everything he could to help North Canton recover from the economic blow sustained by "the dogwood city" with the closing of the Hoover plant.

Imagine, if you will, The Report's astonishment when told by another member of North Canton's official family (not the administration) that there was some possibility that North Canton would turn down the $5 million because the grant requires the payment of "prevailing wages" to workers employed with the money.

Prevailing wages are an organized labor "holy grail."

So the question becomes this.

Who is in charge of the message coming out of North Canton? If The Report has been told of the "possibility," who else?

Isn't it hard to imagine that this topic - "I don't like prevailing wages" was even brought up in official discussions?

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