SEE VIDEOS (ORIGINAL VOTE & REVOTE) OF COMMISSIONER DECISION. POETS GLEN ANNEXATION GOES DOWN. MASSILLON SET TO APPEAL?

After about a three and one-half hearing at Tuscarawas Township Hall yesterday evening before a standing room only crowd, Stark County commissioners denied Massillon annexation bid even though only one property owner of five opposed the annexation.

This hearing is a rehash of the very same issue that got started more than two years ago with the commissioners then finding that on balance there was no detriment to Tuscarawas Township by the annexation.  Stark County Court of  Common Pleas Judge Lee Sinclair affirmed the commissioners but the 5th District Court of Appeals found a basis on which to reverse the annexation approval.

The reversal is the reason for the filing of a new petition for annexation which required Thursday's hearing.

So will Crockett Homes (David Hayes, president) have to build the Poets Glen housing development ($140,000 to $180,00 in projected selling price range) in Tuscarawas Township as he said Crockett would if the commissioners denied he opportunity to be annexed into Massillon?

Let's take a look at the two votes taken by commissioners on the matter.

Apparently, legal counsel (Prosecutor Deborah Dawson) told Commissioner Todd Bosley after the meeting seemed to have been adjourned that the motion to deny as originally framed by Commissioner Steven Meeks ("I make a motion that we deny this annexation") was not properly crafted and therefore the commissioners had to reconvene to revote on language that met one of the specifications of Ohio Revised Code (ORC) Section 709.033.

The re-vote was on a motion made by Bosley that seemingly comported with the language of ORC 709.033(A)(5), to wit:

The re-vote motion was constructed to say that the "benefits ... will NOT outweigh the detriments to the territory proposed to be annexed ... ." (paraphrase)

Certainly, Massillon will appeal this decision.  The SCPR believes this annexation battle is far from over.