Did Stephanie Werren use her
connections within the Stark County
Chamber of Commerce world to get
husband Curtis "prime time" at a
Uniontown/Lake Township
civic event?
Will Angela Alexander come back to
haunt Kristen Guardado?
Will Angela Alexander come back to
haunt Kristen Guardado?
Labor Day has come and gone and according to American political history, it is time to get into Stark County politics in earnest.
The SCPR starts with the Guardado (a Democrat) v. Werren (a Republican) for a Canton Municipal Court judgeship as a consequence of veteran judge Stephen Belden running into political/legal/ethical difficulties last year which played into his resigning his judgeship in December, 2014.
Understandingly, Stephannie Werren wife of Kasich appointee to the Canton Municipal Court Curtis Werren is a main player in Curtis' effort to get elected as judge.
He failed to capitalize on a Kasich appointee to the Stark County Court of Common Pleas to replace retired judge V. Lee Sinclair back in June, 2013.
In November, 2014 he lost very narrowly to Democrat and then a high level criminal prosecutor Chryssa Hartnett. A loss that was predicted by The Report in a June, 2013 blog (LINK).
Stephanie was overheard - post election - at the conclusion of a North Canton City Council meeting saying words to the effect: "that's not fair, Hartnett already had a job."
As if her husband was somehow "entitled" to being elected!
Just when you thought that entitlement attitudes belong pretty much exclusively to "on welfare types," no?
Such is not really the case. The rich and/or powerful oft times demonstrate the same entitlement attitude as the proverbial Welfare Queen and have the means to use taxpayer finance government office to satisfy that attitude.
Do Canton Municipal Court voters want someone with an entitlement attitude as a judge?
The Werrens are part of the Stark County poobah club in that his father (John Werren) and father-in-law (Randy Snow) are members of prestigious Stark County law firms and big-time rainmakers (bringing in clients and handsome fees for the firm).
Curtis Werren was once a part of the Day Ketterer law firm.
It seems to yours truly that Curtis Werren can't do much of anything in terms of making a way for oneself in life without his father (LINK) or father-in-law or governor or perhaps - as set forth below in this blog - the Chamber of Commerce lending a helping hand.
The SCPR is told that a number of his fellows at the bar think he was asked to move on from Day, Ketterer (after 18 years) because he was not attracting enough business to the law firm.
And where did he end up?
As executive director of the Stark County Branch of the American Red Cross!
We all should be so fortunate, no?
Anyhow, it seems clear that wife Stephanie is not about to let husband Curtis lose again after having received another "gift from 'political' heaven:" a gubernatorial appointment.
If Curtis loses to long time Canton Law Department prosecutor Kristen Guardado, one must think he is absolutely done as a prospect for Stark County elected office.
So the stakes in this election are about as high they ever get in any election.
The are reports that the ever loyal spouse Stephanie was blaming everybody but the Kitchen Sink for hubby's loss to Harnett.
The SCPR received an e-mail making a number of allegations re: Werren and wife Stephanie with respect to:
- his imperial ways on transitioning into his second gubernatorial appointment, this time as Canton Municipal Court judge, and
- her having supposedly vented ire on various Stark County elected officials for not being helpful to him retaining office gained by his first gubernatorial appointment,
Yours truly did make contact with various principals that were in a position to know whether or not the allegations had any substance.
Yours truly's take on their responses is that they (those in a position to know) were not ever on or off the record going to climb into that political thicket and therefore The Report was unable to get confirmation on the allegations.
But in the assessment of The Report, there was enough equivocation in the responses that one cannot totally dismiss the notion that there just might be a significant
It was interesting that Werren's father-in-law (Randy Snow, who yours truly has known many, many years) was apparently so alarmed when word filtered out that the SCPR was checking out the allegations, e-mailed The Report requesting a telephone call, to wit:
The Report's recollection/take on the ensuing conversation was one was of the veiled threat variety in terms that the SCPR should do anything irresponsible.
Which, of course, is ludicrous from the get-go that he would suggest suggest such a thing.
The Report always checks out allegations to determine whether or not they are believable.
Moreover, insisted that yours truly telephone Judge Werren for his account of things while refusing yours' truly request that he prevail on his daughter Stephannie to submit to a SCPR "on camera" interview on questions raised in the SCPR received e-mail about her post-election alledged recriminatory outbursts against those who she is said to be at partially responsible for her husband losing the close, close Hartnett election.
To which (re: Snow's demand), The Report responded: "Oh no, the SCPR does not call anybody "on demand" whether by Snow or anybody else."
Werren - as The Report stated to Snow - can call yours truly anytime he wants and The Report will listen. But that is all he or any other source can count on.
Neither father-in-law Snow nor anybody else has any leverage whatsoever with the SCPR in terms of heeding directives on how this blogger operates.
The SCPR is the ONLY truly independent media outlet in all of Stark County.
Yours truly thinks the Werrens/Snows et al travel social circles that elected Stark County Republicans and Democrats cover for each other.
As far as the SCPR is concerned, the allegations in the e-mail were not confirmable and therefore never saw the light of day in this blog.
But that does not mean The Report has stopped digging.
Not at all!
And if The Report can confirm any of the specific allegations, you can bet your bottom dollar that any confirmed part of the e-mail will be published and Attorney Randy L. Snow can call and complain "until he is blue in the face."
There was several lines in the e-mail that were intriguing, to wit:
Further, Ms. Werren and Ms. Guardado are similar personalities who have no problem expressing their opinions in public.To wrap up this blog, the SCPR deals with an incident which occurred in Lake Township which is a part of the Canton Municipal Court judicial district.
Fireworks will certainly ensue. Stephanie Werren is, quite frankly, worth coverage on her own.
No one in local politics creates more drama or bad blood. Her pettiness is legendary.
On August 19th, the Uniontown Police Department (UPD) celebrated opening a new UPD location at the former Lake Senior Center building.
Yours truly has lived in the UPD section of Lake Township since 1975.
Accordingly, in addition to publishing this blog since March, 2008, it piqued interest when in the August 28, 2015 edition to The Hartville News (to which yours truly has be subscribed for many of those 40 years) these photographs appeared, to wit:
Hmm?
Let's see. Stephannie Werren is the newly appointed director of Leadership Stark County.
She undoubtedly wants to take advantage of every opportunity to ensure that her husband does not lose a second job, no?
The Werrens of course are "card-carrying Republicans" of the first order or Curtis would not have received two Kasich appointments.
Lake Township is one of the most Republican townships in all of Stark County.
All three trustees (Arnold, Erb and Stoll) are Republicans. Chief of Police Harold Britt is a registered Republican.
The perfect opportunity for Republican candidate Curtis Werren to exploit to his political advantage, no?
Yet to hear it from Lake trustee John Arnold there was no effort on the part of taxpayer supported Lake government officialdom or the Chamber of Commerce to orchestrate a politically beneficial opportunity for Curtis Werren.
In an exchange of e-mails between the SCPR, Arnold and Chief Britt, the official position is that the event was generally made known but that the only Stark County official (appointed though he is and a political candidate for office) who showed up at the event and they imply but do not categorically say that it was mere happenstance and that there were no pre-event communication with Werren nor exclusion of Guardado or other more likely officials (e.g. one of the veteran judges of the Canton Municipal Court, or, the chief criminal prosecutor [who is not Guardado] and with who the UPD works with]) from the event.
Does anybody doubt that the photos above will show up in a flyer put out by the Werren campaign sometime in October?
Of course, the denials of a set up for Werren may be true.
But who is going to believe those denials?
The Stark County Political Report certainly does not.
To The Report, this is just one more example of a guy who needs all the help he can get to be viable in the political realm.
And Democrat Guardado may be the flip side of Werren.
In terms of pure qualifications, The Report thinks that Angela Alexander (LINK) was significantly more qualified to be a judge than Kristen Guardado.
But the "powers that be" in the Stark County "organized" Democratic Party were behind Guardado and the Alexander campaign post-election complained that party leaders were unfair to the Alexander candidacy in the May, 2015 Democratic primary election (LINK).
The perceived unfairness may cost Guardado in November's general election.
Here is what the SCPR wrote on May 13th:
So the choice for judge in the Canton Municipal Court District in November is are consummately politically connected candidates, no?
The Report thinks that Alexander would have had a tougher road to election than Guardado with her Summit County ties.
But if she could have won the primary like Harnett did by a scant 31 votes or even one vote, constituents of the Canton Municipal Court would have had a first rate judge like Stark Countians have in Harnett.
It's not that Guardado or Werren will be a deficient judge.
Both seem to connote that either as victor in November will be "run-of-the-mill."
Such is what political party loyalty as demonstrated by the two of them brings to government.
How many "run-of-the-mill" public officials can Stark County and its townships, villages, cities, boards of education, and court districts absorb without lowering the overall quality of government to an unacceptable level.
We see at the national level how utterly contemptuous the general public is becoming with political party loyalist candidates witness the surge of the Trump and Sanders campaigns.
And, moreover, right here in Stark County where it is likely - if the Ohio Supreme Court validates their candidacies, we are likely to see to "independents" elected as mayor of Stark County's major city and county seat (Canton) and Massillon.
As the SCPR sees it, Guardado and Werren are captives of their respective political parties.
Now isn't that just splendid for dispensers of justice?
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