HEALY: ANOTHER UNWISE DECISION?

Healy in a recent press release says: “I can think of no better person for the job," referring to Canton safety director designee Thomas Ream (August 4, 2009).

Really?

Well, when Healy selected Tom Nesbitt (a guy with effrontery to disagree publicly with Mayor Healy), Ream was among the applicants. In a turnabout from "I found a better person" (Nesbitt - early 2008) to - now that Nesbitt is "persona non-grata" for not being enough of a TeamHealy player to: there's "no better person" (Ream) because who else would take this job?

Recently, the SCPR did a piece on Ream (CLICK HERE) which outlines reasons why Ream does not appear (in the opinion of The Report) to be a good choice to succeed Thomas Nesbitt as Canton safety director.

Additional reasons have surfaced which indicate that, perhaps, Mayor William J. Healy, II (a man of extraordinary ability - in his own mind) should not be his own personnel chief.

Reasons why the Ream appointment is likely to come back to haunt Healy include:

1. Ream has been the deputy to Chief Dean McKimm and sources tell the SCPR that the two have had a tenuous relationship at best. So how is that the underling is going to deal with his former superior - a man that Mayor Healy has been trying to get fired for some time now? Did Healy exact a promise from Ream that he would push hard to get McKimm out?
   
2. Though the SCPR believes that Healy is intent on ridding Canton of McKimm, yours truly has learned that Ream has his own agenda on McKimm. A source tells The Report that several years ago Ream decided that it was time for McKimm to go. So the source says he initiated a petition directed to the Creighton administration to be signed by the four leadership captains of the Canton Police Department (CPD) asking that McKimm be removed as chief. But, the source continues, one captain (Myers) would not sign and so the CPD major (the then equivalent to deputy chief) refused to sign because he would only do so if all the captains signed on. With Ream being dead set against McKimm, is there any question that Ream/McKimm warfare with besiege the Healy administration. It seems as if Healy in a perverse sort of way enjoys dissonance and disharmony. Is there any better way to distract from his failure to bring positive change and redirection to Canton? In the opinion of the SCPR, It is kind of a cover for Healy's failure to move Canton forward.
   
3. Ream seems as if he may have exercised several poor judgments - from a public perception point-of-view - to wit:

• meeting a Repository reporter soon after three persons were murdered outside the White Crown Cafe (having gone there in the first place for the stated purpose of presenting a police presence in the neighborhood [as fleeting as it was] with the Repository reporter reportedly buying him at least one beer at Ream's request. A source tells the SCPR that Ream was not in uniform and that he drank four beers while there "to soothe the concerns of neighborhood citizens."
  

• Refusing to take a "lie detector" exam when he reached the "finals" when Perry Township trustees were selecting a replacement for their retiring police chief. Why? Ream, the SCPR understands, says it is the principle of the matter. As a senior police official he should be "above" taking a polygraph. The SCPR does not buy this pontification. The Healy administration has a huge credibility problem beginning with the mayor and there are enough questions about Reams dealings as an officer in the CPD (e.g. how does one work at Stark State teaching at the police academy during hours he is to be on the job at the CPD?) that compel questions being put to him that may generate some interesting readings from the results. Now that Healy has determined there will be no polygraph, "hizzonner" has to bear the full weight of any revelations that might come out down the road about his new safety director. Healy has not properly and fully vetted Ream and he now owns the full consequences of the possibility (probability in the opinion of the SCPR) that the "chickens will come home to roost!"
  

• Becoming personally involved during the Creighton administration to steer business to Motorola amidst allegations that he had an "inappropriate" relationship with a Motorola sales person. As the story goes, Canton was in the process of evaluating "in car video equipment" to be installed in CPD police cars. Motorola and Coban Technologies were among the equipment manufacturers being considered. Motorola's equipment was the highest priced and the least reliable according to the SCPR source, yet Ream was intent on Motorola being the selected vendor. Get this. The source says Motorola is "out of the business" of selling this equipment which, if true, means that Ream's insistence on Motorola would have put the CPD in a bad way. The key here is that this selection process puts Ream's judgment in doubt on another basis which cannot be good for a man who is Canton's safety director. Fortunately for Canton and the CPD, the Creighton administration sniffed this one out and went a different direction than Ream wanted.
  
• As articulated above, the SCPR believes that Healy has not thoroughly vetted Ream. But when you know the man will be a "team player" why go further? Here is Healy of TeamHealy fame drooling - in a press release excerpt - over Ream and the likelihood he will be a team player:
  

Healy also highlighted Ream’s team-based leadership philosophy as a “good fit” with the rest of his Cabinet members and department heads, and said that this will allow his administration to more effectively serve city residents in the future.

The SCPR is skeptical of the "good fit."

Time will tell who is right: the SCPR or Hizzonner William J. Healy, II?

For the sake of Cantonians, let us all hope that that the "Whiz Kid" from the New York University Stern School of Business is correct in his evaluation and selection of Thomas Ream as the new safety director of Canton.