NO PRESS RELEASE FROM MAYOR HEALY ON "ZERO TOLERANCE" IN 2011? IN WAKE OF SETTLES MURDER? HMM? WHY NOT?

A major campaign tool of Canton Mayor William J. Healy, II (Democrat) is the "press release."  If a medical report surfaces that less and less Cantonians suffered hang-nails in 2011 than in 2007 (the last year of the Republican Creighton administration), "you can bet your bottom dollar" that Healy will command his press agent to crank out a press release somehow claiming credit.

Looking at the press release list currently published on Canton's website (i.e. RECENT POLICE PRESS RELEASES), note that there is nothing new since February 9, 2010:  a veritable eternity for the likes of Mayor Healy; a man who consummately tries to manipulate the press into being his adjunct political press office.

The SCPR believes that in all fairness, crime statistics have very little to do with whom is mayor UNLESS there is a concentrated effort (a la New York City in the 1990s the "broken windows" approach in the Giuliani administration) to ramp up the police force and criminal justice operations in general so that one can track rather directly whether or not the "specific" effort is working.

Nothing on the substantive scale of the NYC effort has been done by the Healy administration in Canton.   However, when mere statistics seemed to coincidentally indicate that his administration's policies and practices was the reason for the drop-off of crime in Canton. 

From the SCPR's vantage point, Healy with his campaign-induced sloganeering of "Zero Tolerance" is an example of and indicative of Healy's overall model of governing on rhetoric rather than by the substantive and proven.  Substantive and proven crime reduction methods do exist.  But to implement such is not Healy.

The real key in economic development for Canton in realizing reduced crime is that the perception that a community is a safe place to be is the most basic starter as to whether or not most companies would be interested in entertaining the idea of coming to Canton in the first place.

The murder that occurred on the 600 block of Hazlett Avenue in Canton last Thursday night of a man who had just attended a bible study is an unfortunate reminder that Canton is on track to have its highest murder rate in recent years.

All of us who traipse through the streets of Canton do so warily.  The Hazlett Avenue murder is confirmation that the fear is not grounded in paranoia but rather in the real.

Such can hardly be reassuring to companies that the Healy administration is trying to lure to Canton.  A basic question that they all have to ask themselves:  "can our employees get safely to and fro from the parking lot to the office?"

Here is a snippet from a press release from Healy's main opponent for the mayoralty of Canton (Republican Conde):

I want to know why the Mayor is hiding.   If you recall his campaign advertising from 2007, all he talked about was his tough stance on crime.

Statistics can be manipulated and numbers can be arranged to tell any story.  But the fact of the matter is that the Healy administration has stood idly by and watched Canton spiral downward into a very dangerous place.

FBI statistics show the following murders in the Canton area:

2007 = 8         2008= 8          2009 = 13      2010 = 2         2011 = 11 to date [as of 9/8/2011 - with the 9/22/2011 murder the 2011 number is at 12 with three months to go this year]

On October 4th, The Repository and WHBC 1480AM are sponsoring a mayors debate at The Palace Theater.

Undoubtedly, Conde and Canton's voters will hear some sort of political spin on the obvious failure of rhetorical Zero Tolerance from Mayor Healy then, no?

It would be stunning indeed if Healy were to admit the obvious that his Zero Tolerance verbalization with "real" action has been a political scam on the people of Canton:  apologize and promise to govern in the concrete best interests of Cantonians in a new term with a minimum of politicizing.

Do not look for Healy to have had "a road to Damacus" experience come the 4th.

The SCPR's take is that Healy will be re-elected on November 8th.

The tragedy of Healy's likely re-election is that he will take aid in comfort that the spinning of his way through office and from election to election works for him and his re-election will  be four more years of splash-and-dash for Canton while the Hall of Fame City, serving as Stark County's seat of government, falls further behind the seven other major metropolitan areas of the state of Ohio.

And the people of Canton and Stark County say:  "Woe is us!"