SCPR "ELECTION 2009 SERIES (VOL 10): IS JACKSON TWP A CASE OF "IF YOU KEEP DOING THE SAME OLD THING, YOU WILL KEEP GETTING WHAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS GOTTEN?"

Wherever you find Randy Gonzalez you will find "power politics."  Randy is an old school guy who learned politics at the feet of former Stark County Democratic Party chairman Johnnie A. Maier, Jr. who learned from Ohio's last big bad politico:  Verne Riffe.

Many Stark political people seem to be in thrall to Gonzalez who is Stark County Democratic Party chairman and holds a whole host of the political patronage tainted positions at various levels of Stark County government.
Not long ago, yours truly talked to Trustee James Walters.  Republican Walters went on and on about how well he thought of Gonzalez.

Why all this talk about Gonzalez?

Isn't this blog about the upcoming Jackson trustee contest?

It is, but you can't talk Jackson politics without bringing Gonzalez in.

The SCPR believes that the trustees that Jackson now has are pretty much superfluous.  Only Gonzalez wields "real" political power in Jackson.  It could be that he controls all of Stark County's politics.

Only a change of trustees with the cojones to move in the opposite direction of Gonzalez will bring much needed "new life" to Jackson and begin the process of breaking the Gonzalez hold on Jackson.

Jackson cannot adequately serve its citizens as a township as is evidenced by the desperation move to link up with the dying city of Canton.  Jackson's goal:  avoid annexation for 50 years.  Wow!

THE CANDIDATES

William Burger, who is running for re-election  (now a Democrat), was a Republican. One source tells yours truly that Burger is a day-in, day-out type trustee who more resembles a trustee that has held office in Lexington Township for eons rather than someone who is up to the challenge of bustling Jackson.

Jackson is Ohio's 16th largest township (2000 census) which is desperately in need of invigorated leadership attributes which do not inhabit the marrow of Burger.


John Pizzino has, as far as the SCPR knows, always been a Democrat.  However, he pals around with Canton's Republican annexation director Sam "I'm Darth Vader to the Townships" Sliman.  Moreover, Pizzino lives in the posh Glenmoor area of Stark County.

So is Pizzino a man of the people?  Hardly.

He appears to be a prime mover, along with Gonzalez and Sliman, to make CanJackson a Stark County behemoth that is going nowhere.  But Pizzino and Gonzalez like to brag about CanJackson encompassing one-third of all the people who live in Stark County.

So what?

To the SCPR, such talk is a lot of flap about nothing.  A dead city joining up with a board of paranoid trustees (set on protecting its borders for 50 years) is not a dynamic, living, "growing into an Stark economic powerhouse" collaboration in the making.

Fred Wallace

A Republican who bills himself as a person to take the politics out of Jackson government?

It could be, but as a candidate he is short on specifics as to what the current trustees are doing wrong.  He makes heavy use of "glittering generalities" in dealing with all the SCPR's questions.

When pressed to get more specific.  Guess what?  More generalities.

In a specific sort of way, Wallace does say that CanJackson (The Report's phrase) is a mistake.

Here is a sampling of some of Wallace's responses to SCPR questions:

FINAL WORD

Jackson is in need of "new life," but Wallace does not seem to be the answer.  He is taking the "good citizen" approach (naively, in the view of the SCPR) and will likely get eaten alive by Burger and Pizzino.

One would think Wallace has a long list of specifics that the Gonzalez allies are doing wrong or missing in terms of the future of Jackson.  But he is unwilling to share the list with voters.