ARE GONZALEZ, MAIER, HEALY & REAM "SCREW YOU, STARK COUNTIANS!" DEMOCRATS?

VIDEO: Stark Dems Chairman Randy Gonzalez Says Democrats are for Good Government. 

The week of February 4 through 8, 2013 will go down in Stark County political/governmental infamy whereby the Stark County Democratic Party leadership of Gonzalez, Maier, Healy and Ream fully engaged a full scale "screw you, Stark County public" operation.

So thinks the Stark County Political Report.

As a "kool-aid drinking Democrat" (as one would expect a party chairman to be, as being in, [but as one would not expect] the same vein as Republican state Rep. Christina Hagan being a "kool-aid drinking Republican"); Stark County Democratic Party chairman Randy Gonzalez led (at least in the sheriff matter; perhaps not in the crime lab matter) the pack of political jackals that run the Stark County Democratic Party (de jure and de facto) in a political frenzy of shafting the Stark County public.

In the Gonzalez-Johnnie A. Maier, Jr.-led political stormtrooping appointment of  George T. Maier (brother of Johnnie) as Stark County sheriff (replacing the "too-ill-to-serve sheriff-elect Mike McDonald" [February 5th] and in Healy and Ream orchestrating the appointment of longtime Ream pal and former Stark County chief deputy sheriff Rick Perez  as director of the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab, Stark County Democratic Party leadership demonstrated they could care "rat's a__" about the interests of the Stark County public as necessarily being in their political interests.

It both cases there is a hue and cry that neither Maier nor Perez are qualified for the positions to which they have been appointed.

In the case of Healy/Ream/Perez, Chairman Gonzalez denies any involvement in helping his cousin in helping get him the job.

But who believes that?

The party leadership attitude as as far as the SCPR is concerned?

"Just suck it up Cantonians!"

"Just suck it up Stark Countians!!"

 "We are going to what we are going to do.  The public be damned!!!"

If, as he says, Gonzalez had nothing to do with Perez getting the crime-lab job which he is unqualified for; then the party chairman will have ample opportunity as an executive committee member and member of the Stark County Councils of Government (SCOG) including being chairman of the 9-1-1 rehab governance committee to step in and correct what the SCPR believes is manifestly not in the interest of the Stark County administration of criminal justice sytem.

While Safety Director Ream is correct that Canton does have the power to appoint the crime lab director, the Stark County commissioners and the villages, cities and townships (Gonzalez is a Jackson Township fiscal officer) of Stark County fund the crime lab through SCOG.

We shall see if Gonzalez joins those who want to use the financial leverage factor to undo the Perez appointment.

But do not hold your breath on this one.

It was a anathema of gigantic proportions when Gonzalez on October 31, 2011 had Alliance and Stark County Republican Alex Zumbar jammed down his throat and that of the Stark County Central Committee as successor to Democratic appointed (1999 - under the then party chairman and now Stark County prosecutor John Ferrero) Gary Zeigler as treasurer of Stark County.

Gonzalez tried to put a good face on it (witness the following video):



But you can bet your bottom dollar, that the Dems leadership has to be seething to get back to what's good for the party and the interests of certain individual "preferred persons" who the leaders want to benefit with their political power.

Gary Zeigler had run for public office numerous times and lost but thereby had earned his political stripes as an out-and-out Democratic loyalist.

When Mark Roach (who more or less became treasurer by political heritage inasmuch as his father Harold had been a highly respected treasurer) was forced from office because he had failed to keep his state of Ohio mandated educational requirements up-to-date, Zeigler was the perfect candidate for appointment to succeed Roach.

Ferrero, Maier and the-then leaders of the Stark County organized Democratic Party were likely having a one big high fiving, back slapping time when the Democratic Party dependable Zeigler defeated the iconically-surnamed Richard Regula (son of the largely revered and long serving Republican congressman Ralph Regula) in the 2000 elections.

Who would have thunk it?

Stark's organized Republicans were reeling.

In 2004 the GOP ran a political non-entity and lost by 37 percentage  points.  And in 2008, they ran nobody.  And then April 1, 2009 came.

April 1, 2009.

Yes, this is the day that the political chickens had come home to roost.

In an unfolding drama which plagued Stark County for over 2-1/2 years, the political appointment of Gary Zeigler as treasurer was an object lesson to Stark Countians that political parties cannot be trusted to appoint persons to office who are up to effectively managing the office.

At least that is the perception that Stark County voting public appears to have walked away with when news broke on April 1, 2009 that Zeigler was accusing his chief deputy treasurer Vince Frustaci from having walked off with upwards of $3 million in Stark County taxpayers' funds.  Frustaci later pled guilty to having stolen $2.45 million and is now in federal prison.

While Zeigler was not implicated in the theft, the state of Ohio auditor's office issued a report blaming Zeigler for not having effective policies, procedures and practices in place to have prevented the Frustaci theft.

As fallout, Zeigler agreed to resign his office (October 19, 2011) and Stark County auditor Kim Perez (brother of Rick Perez) lost his election to Republican Alan Harold in November, 2010.

Why Kim Perez?

Many believe because that voters perceived that he did not do enough when warning signs appeared that all was not right with the county treasury to intervene and catch the Frustaci theft much earlier in the game.

Moreover, it is thought that he is part of the Stark County Democratic Party "good ole boys network" who, like Zeigler, was brought along as a dependable party loyalist by the likes of Ferrero and Johnnie A. Maier, Jr as a person they could count on to do the bidding of the party leadership.

So we have come full circle.

The names Maier and Perez were in the lead of today's blog and here they surface again.

Kim Perez appears to have been floundering around since his election defeat to find something, anything to get back into a comfortable perch in some facet of Stark County government.

So where did he turn?

What better place than to find a resting replace in the political arms of politics first and public interest second Canton mayor William J. Healy, II?

On September 9, 2011, the SCPR wrote:

But donning the Healy mindset, one thing possibly to be taken from Mayor Healy putting himself in a position of letting it leak out that he had "met informally" with Perez concerning Perez's interest of getting appointed to succeed former sanitation supervision Byron Carson at about $64,000 per annum, is that Healy is feeling awfully confident that he is a "shoe-in" to be re-elected mayor come this November.

Well, for some reason or another that plan did not work out.

But he's back?

Perez has filed to run in the Democratic Primary ironically "believe it or not" as Canton treasurer.

And who is his main support?

You've got it!  Canton mayor William J. Healy, II.

So is it any wonder that brother Rick Perez would seek political refugee status with Mayor Healy and his loyal political foot soldier and Canton safety director Thomas Ream?

 Even if Ream has to massage the qualifications for office.

Rick Perez was Tim Swanson's 2nd choice (after former Perry police chief Tim Escola fell on hard times [see SCPR blog LINK] to succeed him.

But when what local civic activist and local attorney Craig Conley has termed as being "Zeiglergate" broke and the negative publicity on brother Kim broke, then Swanson had an abrupt change of heart (after having announced to Rick Perez's Leadership Stark class that he would be Stark County's next sheriff).  He settled on McDonald.

Isn't it just plain weird that the qualification for office question comes up in a big way in both the George T. Maier and Rick Perez accession to officeholding?

And in certain cases, qualification is immaterial?

What is the message for Stark Countians out of the George T. Maier and Rick Perez situations?

Well, it seems that the likes of Gonzalez, Johnnie A. Maier, Jr, William J. Healy, II and Tom Ream will do whatever it takes to accommodate their political whims and the interests of their loyalists even if means screwing the Stark County public!