THE REP'S GAUGER DOES BETTER TAKING NEWS TIPS BASED ON RUMORS DISCUSSED AMONG TEN YEAR OLDS ON A SCHOOL BUS THAN HAVING A "LUNCHEON" EDITORIAL BOARD MEETING WITH CANTON MAYOR "SIR' WILLIAM J. HEALY "THE SECOND!"

One would think that Executive Editor Jeff Gauger of The Repository would get tired of being eaten alive by Mayor William J. Healy, II of Canton.

It seems that every time (yesterday? being the latest) The Rep editorialists meet with Gauger et al, the editors come out second best.  Healy, whether or not the meeting is his idea or The Rep's, must start salivating the instant a meeting is arranged between himself and the editors.

While Healy paying his parking ticket and taking furlough is of symbolic importance in the sense of Healy being amenable to the law as is every other Cantonian and in his participating in the pain of cutting the costs of Canton's government; that is exactly what these two "changes" that The Rep's editorial board is chortling about is:  "symbolic."  The serious problems of Canton go on - unabated.

The $4.5 million deficit remains and Canton is going nowhere fast in terms of economic development.

And The Repository editors want to dwell on parking tickets and furloughs?

The one extremely serious thing that the editors did bring up was the slowness of Canton's New York University Stern School of Business grad in identifying the coming financial/economic hard times and taking ameliorative measures from day one of his administration coming to political power on January 1, 2008.

But they didn't press him.  He effectively evaded them as he always done when these editors bring up significant and substantial matters which the SCPR thinks is rare indeed in and of itself.

How about the safety of Cantonians issue editors?  Twenty-eight firefighters laid off, Canton's homicide rate up 80% since Healy took office and on and on go the questions.

Mayor Healy has used the editors to spin his "repentant," "I have changed," spiel to the Canton public.  But he hasn't. 

Healy does have Gauger's number.

Mayor Healy reads The Rep.  He knows the quality of the executive editor's investigative side.  Healy had to break out in a smile when he read Gauger's revelation that he had taken a rumor from a ten year old heard on s school bus as something a major Ohio metropolitan newspaper (Canton is Ohio's eighth largest city) would deal with.

At the end of the day, with a mayor like William J. Healy, II and an editorial board headed up by Jeff Gauger, there doesn't seem to be much hope for Canton.

The next time The Report passes by The Repository offices at 500 Market Avenue, South what will be the scene?

A 800-pound gorilla likeness of Jeff Gauger pounding his chest screaming out:  "I showed that Healy.  He paid that ticket.  He's taking those furloughs.  All is well with the city of Canton because of the hard work of my paper - The Canton Repository!"

Hmm?