Bob Richmond, who is president of the Canal Fulton Public Library Board recently told the Akron Beacon Journal (Stark asks libraries to look at funding, Kathy Antoniotti, April 16, 2011):
Kent [Oliver - executive director of the Stark County District Library] has been pushing for consolidation for years. Although it's not a part of this proposal, I think that might be the ulterior motive to force consolidation.
Richmond was reacting to a letter (the full text of which is a the end of this blog) sent by Oliver on March 15th to the Stark County Budget Commission proposing that distribution of the state of Ohio Public Library Fund (PLF) monies be henceforth distributed according to population base of the school districts that Stark County's seven libraries serve.
Back in 2003 Oliver was a part of discussions on the possibility of Stark County library consolidation. However, due to turfism, which is rampant in Stark County, the exploration went absolutely nowhere.
The SCPR believes that Oliver does favor consolidation. However, it is not a conspiratorial thing as Richmond suggests. Moreover, The Report does not think that considation is a bad thing. A countywide library system like a countywide 9-1-1 system financially enables Stark Countians to participate in state-of-the-art advances.
As Oliver points out in his letter, the Stark County District Library (SCDL) is in a league of its own as far as libraries in Stark are concerned when it comes to keeping up with technology, programming, having a mobile service and a book transfer service.
Though consolidation is desirable as far as the SCPR is concerned, it will not be happening in the next year of two. It will come in time. But down the road five or ten years.
Oliver in his letter makes a persuasive case for the SCDL to get a greater share of Stark's PLF money. Knowing the budget commissioners as The Report does, Oliver's SCDL will not be getting the $800,000 plus he is asking for in additional revenue. But it appears, SCDL will be getting more in 2012. And it should.
Over a phase-in period the current formula should be abandoned and Oliver's population base adopted.
Here is how the SCDL population formula works out on the current funding (2011):
The SCPR agrees with Mr. Richmond in the implicit point that he is making that as state aid subsides and if the budget commission agrees to increase the SCDL's share (as The Report believes it should and will do) coupled with the difficulty that Alliance, Canal Fulton, Louisville, Massillon, Minerva (which has no loal levy) North Canton certainly have in getting future levies renewed/increased, the survival of these libraries is a matter of time.
What they ought to be doing is to initiate a dialogue with the SCDL with an eye toward creating a structure of consolidation to take place in a phase-in overtime.
Or, they can - if the want to bury their heads in sand - wait until they suffocate.
Hopefully, they will get real and make the transition a win-win for for Stark County as a whole and their respective communities in particular.
Most Stark County political subdivision governments are under financial stress or at the very least have their eyes on what the future holds in terms of whether or not they are going to see sizable cuts (which the SCPR believes could be as much as 35% in Ohio 2012/13 FY budget) from Ohio's Local Government starting with the State's fiscal year which begins July 1st.
But not in Canal Fulton.
Repository reporter Joan Porter in her report of Canal Fulton's January 4th, 2011 meeting reveals that Canal Fulton City Council is going on a "spending spree" (the SCPR's words).
Only kidding on the "spending spree" label. While the amount is only $218.50, it seems to be a "slap in the face" of taxpayers for Council to be paying for office parties.
Councilpersons Paul Bagocious and Susan Mayberry (both newly elected in November, 2009) seem to get it. Bagocious and Mayberry were the only two councilmembers who supported Bagocious' motion to have parties and flowers paid for outside-the-public-purse.
Apparently, for parting governmental employees, Canal Fulton is the place to be!
The sewer line has been built and now Canal Fulton, Stark County and Ohio are working together to compel those living along the line and and outside of Canal Fulton to hook on.
Canal Fulton, Lawrence Township officials, and state Senator Kirk Schuring have participated in two what Schuring calls citizen "participatory" meetings (June 24, 2010 and August 24, 2010) to answer "mechanics and cost" questions about the certain reality that Marshallville residents will within two years be on the sewer line unless they can get a up to five year deferment from county officials because of financial hardship.
So the meetings are not "participatory" in terms of have an option to hook onto the line or not.
To be more accurate, state Senator Schuring should have labeled them "informational meetings." Schuring's elaboration makes it clear that he apparently meant to say "informational" rather than "participatory."
It seems "forcing" citizens to do what they haven't consented to is in vogue in Stark County in modern times.
Several examples.
#1
If memory serves the SCPR right, back in the 1990s Lake Township trustees formed a water district for the township as provided for by Ohio statutory law.
Okay. So?
The residents in overwhelming numbers did not want the district. However, there was no mechanism in the law to undo the district.
There were many heated meetings in Lake over the "imposed" water district with residents demanding that the district be dismantled.
Eventually, because of the political heat, a lawsuit was filed and the Stark County Court of Common Pleas fashioned a remedy where none was provided in the statute that enabled creation of the district.
As a side note, Democrat Johnnie A. Maier, Jr., who then represented Lake in the Ohio House (the 56th) turned a deaf ear to constituents wanting him to introduce legislation to provide for a dismantlement mechanism.
Was this some sort of mistake by the Ohio General Assembly?
Not at all. It is part of an intentional overall plan by state government to force as many of Ohio families as possible off of their ground water (wells) and septic tanks.
#2
Back in December, 2008, Stark County commissioners (Bosley, Harmon and Vignos) "imposed" a 0.50 of a percent sales tax increase on Stark Countians for their (the citizens') good. The good? Reconstructing 9-1-1 emergency dispatching. However, a little publicized aspect of the 0.50 was that half of it was designated for the Stark County general fund.
A group, the "Vote No Increased Taxes," formed, gathered over 20,000 signatures and successfully led a campaign to reject retention of the imposed tax.
An aside: All the candidates for county commissioner in the November,
2010 election have committed themselves to: "no imposed tax increases."
#3
"A build it and [they] will come" exercise a la the 1989 movie Field of Dreams seems to be in full bloom in Canal Fulton and Lawrence Township, but with an odd twist.
Odd twist?
Yes, an "arm twist!"
Really?
Really!
In the movie Field of Dreams, the speculatively constructed ball field was an irresistible lure to long dead baseball players to return to play the game once again and fulfill their dreams to redeem their frustrations.
But "the sewer project to nowhere" has the twist that the lure is to more or less force - over five to seven years - families currently living along the Marshallville Street, NW corridor (outside the city limits of Canal Fulton) to hook on to the sewer line. A sewer line that it appears none of them wanted.
And get this. State of Ohio money (via the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; i.e. "stimulus" money) paid for about half of the project because it was "shovel ready" and because it qualified to help Ohio get the Marshallville Street families off of their septic systems in pursuit of the overall Ohio goal.
MORAL OF THE STORY
The SCPR believes that the Canal Fulton sewer project is a current and a Stark County example of the use of the heavy hand of government to force the unwanted on Stark County citizens.
By forcing the unwanted upon the citizenry, governments (local, state and national) are fueling an antagonism between the governors and the governed. Many government officials shake their heads at the growing unruliness of citizens.
While the SCPR does not condone the increasing citizen belligerence that is apparent at government meetings these days, one has to wonder whether or not government officials play a causative role by how they do the public's business.
Canal Fulton City Council and Mayor Grogan apparently egged on by City Manager Mark Cozy (according to a source) may think they have pulled off a cute move with this project. But have they?
Are the chickens now coming home to roost?
The SCPR's take (a view that Senator Schuring seems to confirm in his videotaped comments) is that Canal Fulton's initiative does not appear in reality to be primarily about eliminating ground pollution and thereby be in compliance with the primary objective of the funding source (the Ohio Clean Water Act administered by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency [OEPA]).
Rather the "real" objective from Canal Fulton's perspective appears to be a desire by Canal Fulton officials to increase in size by using the sewer project to push Marshallville Street residents into the City on the lure of a Canal Fulton subsidy on the sewer line hookup. Moreover, they seem to hope, co-incidently, that the sewer line will prove to be its "field of dreams" to lure companies to Canal Fulton and thereby spur economic development.
Was it proper for Canal Fulton to get money from the Ohio EPA for the ostensible purpose of lessening ground water pollution (which presumably denied other Ohio communities the opportunity to get these funds) and then constructing the line for publicly stated purposes of annexation and economic development?
The Report believes that these kinds of maneuvers are what increase citizen negativity towards the operations of government at all levels.
Here is a video of some of the citizens and government interaction on the heated meeting that took place at Lawrence Township Hall on August 24th.
B.A. - Political Science
J.D.
AN INDEPENDENT MINDED POLITICAL COMMENTATOR
Until 1976 I was a Republican. Since then I have considered myself a Democrat. So after long term stints of being a Republican, then a Democrat, I have come to the political position I feel most comfortable with - being an INDEPENDENT MINDED ANALYST who demands effectiveness of our politicians - Republican, Democrat or whatever.
I have changed my political affiliation to "non-partisan" by not voting in either political party primary election.
