A PERSISTENT RUMOR TO BE ANSWERED TODAY!

May 4, 2015 may go down in a day of "great" political significance for Canton and Massillon.

As The Stark County Political Report has been reporting, Francis H. Cicchinell, Jr (a former mayor of Massillon for 28 years) has confirmed  to The Report that he has circulated petitions to run for mayor of Massillon.

However, as of the date of the confirming conversation, Cicchinelli had not made a final decision as to whether or not to actually file.

Today, is the "drop-dead" date, one way or the other for Cichinelli or any other candidate in which there are partisan primaries for to declare candidacy.

For "non-partisan" races, the filing deadline this year is August 8th.

Early this morning the SCPR has received a "heads up" email from a reliable source saying that Stark County Commissioner Thomas Bernabei (first elected in 2012; reelected in 2014) will be filing to run as an "independent" candidate for mayor.

If he files, presumably his opponent would be William J. Healy, II who is running for a third term this year.

Speculation about Bernabei running has been persistent for about six months now and the SCPR has asked Bernabei if there was anything to the rumor.

He merely laughed the suggestion off.

There is "bad blood" between Bernabei and Healy due to Healy's abrupt firing of Bernabei as his service director/chief-of-staff in January, 2009 after a mere year on the job.

Healy was so "over-the-top" in the executive management of Canton government, that Bernabei during his short time with the Healy administration would take the mayor aside and school him on the proper way to be a chief executive.

Anybody who knows the mayor, understands that he has a monumental ego and though done with the best of intentions and the welfare of Canton government, Bernabei's lecturing Healy did not go over at all with the mayor.

When Bernabei was out-of-town, Healy fired him.

The SCPR has seen Healy and Bernabei together in many different contexts since the January, 2009 firing and it is obvious that the tenseness is something "one could cut with a knife."

However, "for public consumption purposes," they treated each other civilly if not cordially.

But that was for show.

So the SCPR would not be surprised at all if Bernabei were to in fact file today.