A CLOUD ON HOF-VP SCRUTINY HOVERS OVER 500 MARKET AVE., SOUTH DURING "SUNSHINE" WEEK?

CELEBRATING

11 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE

STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT

This week is the annual American Society of News Editors and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (ASNE) "Sunshine  Week."

Sad to say, on the Professional Football Hall of Fame village enhancement project, Stark County's only countywide newspaper-The Canton Repository-in the person of publisher James A. Porter has been the public relations arm of the HOF-VP, notwithstanding that the project has been funded in part with millions of dollars of Ohio/Stark County taxpayer money.

Today is the 11th anniversary of The Stark County Political Report which is dedicated to the objectives of the ASNE, to wit:

And, again, sad to say, The Canton Repository is not listed as a participating member of the ASNE sponsored "Sunshine Week."

One of the sponsors of ASNE's "Sunshine Week" is the late and "great" Akron Beacon Journal publisher John S. Knight.

During the years that Knight was an active journalist, this blogger read his columns/editorial voraciously and is the primary inspiration for this blogger's zeal for public governance accountability and transparency.

Stark County's politicians, appointed and elected government officials, and the reading public has Massillon clerk of courts Johnnie A. Maier, Jr to thank for the birth of and persistence of the SCPR.

Back in 2008, there was a blog named The Stark Political Report (no longer published) which the likes of Maier thought was a "shill" for Republican Party candidates and positions involved in Stark County's political and governance

Maier entreated Martin Olson to be the face of a countervailing Democratic spin blog.

It did not take long for this blogger to put the squelch the notion that Olson would shill for any political party.

The answer to Maier, Jr was an emphatic "no," which was followed up with the first issue of The Stark County Political Report on March 12, 2008, which, of course, has been and continues to be the most "independent" political analysis publication in all of Stark County.

Over the ensuing 11 years, the SCPR has published over 3,500 blogs.  A number of them scooped The Repository which when one thinks about it is astounding given The Rep's inside track access to Stark County government officials.

In particular, the SCPR believes that under James Porter's leadership as publisher The Rep has shamed itself on the HOF-VP in becoming by contract in 2016 "the official newspaper of the Pro Football Hall of Fame" and publisher Porter becoming a HOF board of trustees.

And there are other Porter community relationships (e.g. the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce) which the SCPR thinks affects his ability as publisher to be on the forefront of accountability and transparency of the HOF-VP in the context of largely unaccounted for use of taxpayer dollars and, moreover, sunlighting  HOF-VP operations, again, focusing on the taxpayer dollars which have gone into the project.

If only "private" money was infused into the HOF-VP, then it is incumbent on private sector investors to look out after their own interests.

This blogger is 76 years old.

Sooner or later, the SCPR will only be in the archives of Stark County history.

Hopefully, someone else will pick up on the challenge of being a conduit for "letting the sunshine in" on Stark County governance focusing on accountability and transparency on the spending of taxpayer dollars.