VIDEO
Stark Treasuer
Alex Zumbar
&
Stark Auditor
Alan Zumbar
Explain to Stark Commissioners
Plan to Collect More Real Property Taxes
Alliance Republican Alex Zumbar has been an enormous success as Stark County treasurer.
As a Republican appointed as county treasurer by the "organized" Stark County Democratic Party via its central committee on October 31, 2011, he has to be like a festering sore to the likes for former Dems' chairman Randy Gonzalez (chairman presiding over the Zumbar appointment).
SCPR Note: Most Stark Countians know the circumstances under which the Dems were compelled to appoint a Republican as a successor to the Dems original appointee; namely, Gary D. Zeigler (1999). But for those who do not, here is a LINK to the SCPR blog of November 1, 2011 wherein The Report provides an exhaustive background on the reasons why.
With his initial term under his belt, Zumbar will be running for re-election in 2016.
The question is: Will the Dems' try to unseat him this time around?
The SCPR thinks not.
But we shall see. The filing deadline in December 16th.
Republicans and good government Stark Countians were overjoyed to see Zumbar sworn in as a consequence of the unprecedented Stark Dems' action.
Zumbar started off as #5 on The Stark County Political Report Top 10 List of Stark County Political Subdivision Elected Officials. On the first quarterly update, he moved up to #4 where he remains in the current update which The Report is publishing beginning last Thursday until the Top 10 List is completed.
Links to the prior blogs detailing why Zumbar deserves include:
Zumbar's latest work in looking out for the interests of Stark County taxpayers is shown in his teaming up with fellow Republican Alan Harold (Stark County auditor) to reduce the number of delinquent taxpayers on the books of Stark County real property assessment logs.
In the following video, Zumbar and Harold describe to the Stark County commissioners the extra-effort that they are going to at a minimal expense to county taxpayers in terms of additional publication costs (about $2,200) in having published on Sunday, November 15th the entire list of delinquent real property taxpayers even though Ohio law only mandates the publication of a list of current year "having gone delinquent" taxpayers.
Zumbar during his time as treasurer (both appointed/elected) has done a terrific job in setting up infrastructure (i.e. more secure physical facilities, procedural safeguards designed to prevent theft of county funds, and more secure policies in handling taxpayer funds) improvements.
An additional task Zumbar has taken on is the creation of and the administration of what is popularly known of as being a "Land Bank" wherein abandoned properties are targeted for demolition with funds provided by state of Ohio funding and local match dollars.
Canton in particular has benefited from the demolition. But it has taken prodding by Zumbar to keep Healy administration officials on a timely basis of using available funds so that the Stark County does not lose any dollars which are not direct Stark County taxpayer dollars.
As with nearly all those on the SCPR Top 10 List, The Report has had criticisms of certain aspects of Zumbar's administration of the county treasury, to wit (from a prior blog):
- LINK to blog criticizing Zumbar:
- in his handling of certain Lank Bank matters,
- in seemingly injecting Republican politics into his relationship with Canton's Democratic council, and
- his apparent to the SCPR circumventing of appropriate employment practices in providing jobs to politically connected Republicans and thereby depriving the Stark County public from a fair opportunity to obtain these jobs,
But all-in-all Zumbar is a vast improvement over what preceded him. Moreover, he continues to make improvements in treasury functions witness the above-described joint project with Auditor Alan Harold to collect delinquent tax dollars.
Accordingly, Zumbar for this quarterly assessment remains at #4 on the hard-to-qualify for SCPR Top 10 List of Stark County Political Subdivison Elected Officials.
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