For the nearly five years that yours truly has published the Stark County Political Report, the "unexpected" has become the "expected."
Back on September, 2010, the SCPR camera captured Minerva Councilman Phil Davison going bananas for the Republican Party in his presentation to the Stark GOP executive committee in his quest to become the party's nominee to replace the-then former Stark County Treasurer Gary Zeigler (whom the Ohio Supreme Court found later to have been unconstitutionally removed from office by the sitting Stark County commissioners).
As we all know, that video when "viral" on the Internet.
Being the "committed to a free press" organization it is, the Stark GOP (through sending an emissary to the SCPR, yours truly believes) tried to get the Davison video suppressed (fat chance of that happening) and then later "banned" the SCPR from bring the SCPR camera to local party "public" events.
But here the question is: whether or not the SCPR captured another video worthy of going viral?
Perhaps.
Last night at Canton City Council, Councilwoman Mary Cirelli brought to the attention of Canton Service Director and Chief of Staff Warren Price a incident in which she experienced what many of us would think to be at least in a cosmetic sense "undrinkable water."
Here is a video of Cirelli's description of how she came on her "undrinkable water" find:
Inasmuch as Canton Water Department Superintendent Tyler Converse was not present at the meeting, Councilwoman Cirelli (who brought a bottle of the discolored water with her to the council meeting) asked Price to bring the issue of Canton's water quality to Converse's attention and, to boot, to pass on the bottle of water to him.
Not only did Price promise to do so, he one-upped what Cirelli requested and to everyone's astonishment took a swig of the unappetizing water.
Here is that "do not miss" video:
To his credit, Price in addition to engaging in some "tasteful" humor in dealing with Cirelli's concern went beyond the fact of the "discolored water" to explain in a thumbnail fashion Canton's relatively long history of having been plagued by discolored but drinkable water and what he plans to do in remediating the problem with a "real" fix.
As Price explains in "the rest of the story" included this blog at the end, this problem has been around decades in Canton in various pockets of the city.
What would be done in the past (this is a classic example of how governments do not "really" fix problems, they apply band-aids), is for city workers to flush lines periodically which, of course, would clear up the water for temporary periods of time.
Well, this "band-aid approach" to fixing problems is costly and in the winter time was not doable because the flushed water would freeze and present safety hazards to those driving through affected neighborhoods.
For the SCPR's part, Warren Price may be the most conscientious and thorough (in terms of finding real solutions) of all of Canton's appointed city officials.
It is a guy like Price and a few others in the Healy administration that enables Canton to get by.
He is not the consummate politician that his boss is.
While he may not have the charisma that Healy has, Price strikes the SCPR as a "blue-collar" sort of guy who does not try to mesmerize one with "splash-and-dash" style that Mr. Cosmopolitan Mayor Healy embraces but who merely gets the job done and done in a competent, realistic, and thorough manner.
On thinking about it, Price should have been on the SCPR's Thanksgiving Day list of local officials to be thankful for, a status that Price seems deserving of.
And, Mayor Healy, should daily thank Price and the few others in his administration for a job well done and thereby keep Hizzonher's head above - can I say it? - water.
Oh! that a guy like Warren Price were mayor of Canton rather than William J. Healy, II.
For those readers who care about a public official owning up to a problem and going about fashioning a realistic remedy, here is the "rest of the story" on Canton's discolored water problem:
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