The Stark County Political Report is not quite sure how former Canton City Schools board member Eric Resnick got on yesterday's invitation list sent to community leaders.
But he did.
For media, Resnick being present at any public meeting is like "manna from Heaven."
For Canton City Schools (CCS) Superintendent Adrian Allison, it had to be "a time that tries men's souls."
Allison made a presentation yesterday to some 40 or so Canton-based or interested persons singled out by te superintendent as being community leaders.
After the presentation, Allison opened up the session into a Q&A which most of us is a Question & Answer time.
But with respect to former CCS board member Eric Resnick's participation, it might be more fitting to think of his and Allison's segment as being a Question & Animosity time.
As readers of this blog know, the SCPR is sympathetic to citizens who actively participate in public meetings.
However there are a few that even the SCPR find hard to abide.
Resnick is one and there is another one who hangs out in Massillon official circles.
One characteristic of folks like Resnick and the Massillon guy, the SCPR thinks, is that they are "my way or the highway" people and therefore The Report deeply discounts their input when it comes to assessing the value of their public arena participation.
The Report's take on Resnick is that he lives in a world of his own defining and if one does not share that definition you are just flat out wrong.
The Report sees Resnick as a doctrinaire type (way left of center politics) who seemingly cannot image in his wildest dreams that anybody might see things differently than he does.
The SCPR has been acquainted with Eric Resnick for about ten years or so.
And he has been a subject of a half a dozen blogs since this blog got started in March, 2008.
Yesterday, Resnick, at the aforementioned meeting, made a rather sobering suggestion to the effect that the CCS Board of Education may have violated Ohio's Sunshine Law (i.e. decisions can only be "open to the public" meetings) in coming to a decision to "merge" Timken High School into McKinley High School.
To boot, Resnick took issue with and scolded (as arrogant types are apt to do) the media for using "merger" rather than "acquisition" in writing about Canton City Schools' Brighter Tomorrow Phase III initiative which, again, is the phase that deals with the high schools being merged into one.
Below is the entire exchange between Resnick and Superintendent Allison.
Things to look for (not covered elsewhere in this blog) in Resnick's questions and comments: (SCPR's interpretation)
- Superintendent/BOE being hostile and disrespectful in the merger (if The Report may disagree with Mr. Resnick) of Timken with McKinley,
- Superintendent Allison was being deceptive (the SCPR's word/phrase; not Resnick's) on November 15, 2014 at a CCS BOE work session in which Resnick says Allison never mentioned the phase including a Timken/McKinley merger,
Resnick has the potential to be an effective "hold them accountable" factor if he can rein-in his "my way or the highway" attitude.
Notwithstanding the SCPR's disenchantment with Resnick, he did raise a important point (the Sunshine Law thing) that board/school officials need to answer.
It is interesting to note however that Resnick did not mention yesterday the opinion of some that the CCS-BOE may have violated Ohio Sunshine Law in the appointment of a board member on June 14, 2010 when Resnick was a board member.
Maybe Resnick had misgivings about that process and the SCPR is having a run of bad luck in finding online documentation of same.
The Report is just a tad suspicious that the-then board member Resnick had nothing publicly to say about the June 14, 2010 appointment when it became a matter of controversy in September, 2010.
If he didn't, it does not invalidate his current Sunshine Law compliance concerns.
However, most of us expect that one who sounds off like Resnick did yesterday to have a track record of consistency.
Maybe he did object or express reservations about the 2010 appointment process back in 2010 and it is merely of case that the SCPR can't chase it down.
Credibility is everything to school boards and school officials and they need to respond to and, if need be, correct on this suggestion of legal impropriety.
But not the merger/acquisition language thing.
Resnick's oration on comparing/distinguishing the two words was just "old fashioned" silliness that apparently bespeaks Resnick's compelling need for everyone to speak as he does, to do as he does; even if on the most inane of things.
It is a credit to Superintendent Allison and the CCS BOE that Resnick (who appears to be billing himself as the spokesperson for "Keep Timken - Timken" folks) was invited to the community leader breakfast (muffin and coffee) meeting.
But it is difficult for the SCPR to think of Eric Resnick as being a community leader.
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