UPDATE: 02/04/2011
Scott Graber denies to the SCPR that he was working in concert with Catazaro-Perry in changes that took place at filing time with the Stark County Board of Elections
ORIGINAL POST
The SCPR believes that Massillon Mayor Frank Cicchinelli, one of Stark County's most successful Democratic elected officials, is about to experience an all out political assault at the hands of the "powers that be" within the "organized" Stark County Democratic Party.
It has been pretty obvious that Kathy Catazaro-Perry has been aiming to take on Cicchinelli for two or three years now, if not longer.
There has been a little bit of political silliness going on between her and Scott Graber in an apparent attempt to dissemble on political observers and play mind games with the Mayor in the past couple of weeks. Graber took out petitions for mayor and for council president and Catazaro-Perry took them out for her present Ward 3 council seat.
Veteran political observers know that all kinds of jockeying goes on right up to the filing deadline. That Catazaro-Perry would engage in such political tomfoolery makes one wonder if she has the maturity to be Massillon's chief executive. Undoubtedly, she is listening to her chief political patron and former Stark County Democratic Party chairman Johnnie A. Maier, Jr. (Massillon clerk of courts). Yours truly knows only too well how much Maier likes to jack people around.
When Jamie Healy announced a week ago Saturday that he was running for re-election, Kathy Catazaro-Perry was in the crowd huddled up with current Chairman Randy Gonzalez (the current Party chair).
Gonzalez told the SCPR that he is neutral in the Smuckler/Healy race (hmm?), and one would think he "officially" has the same thing on the Cicchinelli/Catazaro-Perry face-off.
To the SCPR, neutrality on Smuckler/Healy might actually be true. Maier never has really liked Healy nor Smuckler, so there may be some wiggle room for Gonzalez.
But neutrality on Cicchinelli/Catazaro-Perry? No way! Maier and Gonzalez are about as tight as politicos get and one would have to be totally naive to think that Gonzalez is going to be neutral. And this will be one race to unite the Stark County unions with the Party bigs. Mike McElfresh as president of the trades - once a close friend of Cicchinelli - has been anti-Cicchinelli (as have most of the Stark County union movement) for some time now and so look for McElfresh to lead the unions full force for Catzaro-Perry.
Catazaro-Perry and Cicchinelli have had a couple of proxy fights already over Republican mayoral candidate Carl Oser's attempt to get some rezoning done in Ward 3. Catazaro-Perry has lost twice to the mayor in this context.
If the SCPR had make a prediction today, it would be that Maier, Elum, Shane Jackson and Graber et al will finally get to Cicchinelli.
The Report believes that it will not be any one thing that does the Mayor in, but rather the alignment of a number of factors against him: the golf course thing, the parks and recreation board thing, the budget thing, the union thing, the Maier-led Stark Democratic Party thing, the Elum/Cicchinelli feud thing and the "been mayor a long time" thing.
If he can stop the political cuts at 999, maybe Cicchinelli survives.
But if the cuts reach the proverbial 1000, then it is likely that Francis H. Cicchinelli, Jr is about to sail off into the political sunset.
And Massillon will be left with Johnnie A. Maier, Jr. (a Tuscarawas Township resident) as the de facto mayor of Massillon.
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