"NO PIE IN THE SKY" FOR MASSILLON GOVERNMENT!

Massillon mayor Kathy Catazaro-Perry along, perhaps, with a number of Massillon's councilpersons were into full blown fantasizing that Affinity Medical Center (AMC) could be raised from the "dead" in reaching a settlement of a lawsuit in January, 2018 with AMC's former owner that Massillon government be given the AMC building complex.

The Stark County Political Report is told by an eyewitness that the mayor was being "high-fived" after she and her administration

• (likely, by far, the most capable person in Massillon government; that is to say, Safety Director Joel Smith) 

announced jointly with Aultman Foundation officials earlier this week that Aultman would pay Massillon $2.06 million for a "no compete" 5 year arrangement on Aultman's plan to expand its Wales Road, Massillon facility to include emergency room services as well as a "heart" and "stroke" treatment center by the end of 2019.

"High-fived?" (the SCPR's expression, not the eyewitness)

For what?

Ending up with a continuing expense albatross (while the AMC still stands) in hopes Massillon government can entice the Massillon City Schools to purchase the main AMC grounds so that new schools can be placed on the site?

If this "being talked about in the background" arrangement (according to a SCPR source) becomes reality, it appears likely that Massillon schools likely will be gifted with the grounds in the understanding that the on site facility will be razed at Massillon schools' expense.

The Report is told that the AMC complex (which its former owner closed on February 12, 2018) was in a high degree of disrepair and that the thought that any prudent business operation would actually pay money for a capital purchase was in "looney-tune land."

It appears to the SCPR that Massillon government did not exercise "due diligence" before agreeing to take ownership of AMC.

Aultman Foundation president  Ed Roth provided credence to the notion that it was and remains foolhardy to think any investor would pay capital purchase money for the opportunity to spend some $6 million to $8 million (just for beginners) to get AMC in "usable" shape.

Returning to the Aultman Foundation offer to pay Massillon $2.06 million.

With all due respect to Foundation president Roth, there is no way that Aultman has to worry about Massillon finding a competing emergency/heart/stroke treatment center to reoccupy the former AMC building complex.

Let's call the $2.06 million what it really is.  An outright gift to Massillon government!

Obviously, Aultman is a class operation.

Massillon civic activist Scott Graber has provided this estimate of the financials on the proposed Aultman/Massillon deal:

At a glance on the basis of discussions with a Massillon individual (not Graber) who has entree to the inner circles of Massillon government, Graber's numbers appear to be in range of what the actual numbers eventually turn out to be.

From the get-go, the SCPR has written that Catazaro-Perry and others in Massillon government who believed that "the gift" of AMC to Massillon was going to result in millions of dollars of "in effect" 'free' money had taken up residence in Fantasyland.

The Report is told that the likely vote on the part of Council on whether or not to approve will likely be 7 for, 2 against (likely Manson and Cunningham-Hedderly).

It appears in what the SCPR is told is Councilman Manson's insistence that the approval process include three readings (in successive "regular" or "special" council meetings that Manson is hoping to convert three of the seven currently for the proposal so that Massillon continues with the AMC facility liabilities with no "profitable" end in sight.

Is it possible that Massillon Council will "look a gift horse in the mouth?"

Of course!

Governments do ridiculous things all the time.

Why should Massillon be any different?

Certainly, the Aultman/Massillon deal is mostly a "wash" for Massillon.

While there is nothing to "high-five" about inasmuch as accepting the AMC facilities was a mistake in judgment on the part of the mayor and her administration in the first place apparently in hopes that there was "pie in the sky" for Massillon revenues; now is the time for Council to "cut Massillon's losses and move on.

The mayor should send "a bouquet of flowers" to Independent reporter Steven Grazier for his investigative work on Paramount Matrix which vetting (that Massillon government should have done and utterly failed to do) brought the Massillon/Paramount Matrix proposal to "a crashing halt."

Undoubtedly, Mayor Kathy Catazaro-Perry has her strengths, but the unfolding of the AMC saga clearly indicates assessing, analysing in understanding how the profit making or efficient non profit business world operates is not one of them.

But for Steven Grazier's journalistic work, it is likely that Massillon would have made a decision that would have come back to haunt Massillon government for years and years to come.

Nonetheless, the SCPR's overall take on the AMC saga is that the mayor, her administration officials and Council are now "eating crow" on their initial expectation that getting title to AMC was going to end up perhaps being worth millions of dollars in Massillon city coffers.