DISCUSSION: STARK COUNTY ANTI-SALES TAX PEOPLE OUT IN FORCE AT CANTON TEA PARTY EVENT

UPDATE: 04/16/2009 at 11:10 PM. A source (no full name or return e-mail address given) who claims to be close to Jason Wise, the person who organized Tax Day, Tea Day - Canton, Ohio, tells The Report that Wise did not personally pay the bill referenced below that somehow ended up at the Stark County commissioners' office though, according to the source, the Stark County commissioners' office address was not on the invoice.

ORIGINAL POST

Stark County Republican operative Jason Wise was in his glory yesterday as he viewed the thousand or so folks who showed up for the Wise-organized Canton, Ohio Tea Party.

A funny and perhaps ironic twist to this event as told to the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report/SCPR) by a source, is that an invoice for an event expenditure directed to Jason Wise showed up at the Stark County commissioners' office. The Report's source said the bill was for nearly $800.

Hum? Found its way to the Stark County commissioners' office? Could it be that Wise is telling folks that he plans on running for commissioner next year (against Commissioner Bosley) and he was misunderstood as currently being a commissioner?

Wise did take command of the microphone for a time (see video below) and asked the crowd to find one of the "green-shirted" Stark County Right to Vote Committee members to sign up to put the 1/2% sales/use tax (passed in December, 2008 by county commissioners for funding to fix 9-1-1 countywide and for additional general revenue fund monies) on the ballot for repeal in November of this year.

The Report continues to believe Canton Tea Party was opportunely adadapted by the organized Stark County Republican Party as a preparatory prelude to taking Bosley on in the 2010 general election. Although the WHLO provided emcee insisted that this was a non--partisan effort focusing on state and national tax issues, it seemed to The Report that the Stark County sales tax issue got major play at the party.

The "Green Shirts" were all over Canton's Central Plaza trying to coax attendees to sign up on the sales/use tax repeal petition.

The Report is not sure whether Bosley's opponent will be Wise or fellow Republican Travis Secrest. Secrest spoke with yours truly and did definitely commit himself as running for commissioner. However, he is still determining whether his run will be against Bosley in 2010 or Ferguson or Harmon in 2012.

Secrest lost to Harmon by a substantial margin in 2008.