VIDEO: MICHELE FOSTER (NEWLY APPOINTED DIRECTOR) MAKES A COMPELLING CASE FOR THE STARK COUNTY CRIME LAB TO LIVE ON?

ARE STATE FUNDING CUTS 
TO STARK CO. LOCAL GOV'T FUNDS
JEOPARDIZING CITIZEN SAFETY?

ARE CRIME LAB DELAYS KEEPING
CRIMINALS ON STARK COUNTY 
STREETS LONGER?

When the likes of Republican Governor John Kasich and his partisan friends in the Ohio General Assembly (including Stark County's Christina Hagan [the 50th House District], Scott Oelslager [the 29th Ohio Senate District], and Kirk Schuring [the 48th Ohio House District]) start making cuts to Ohio's budget, it is likely that most everyday Stark Countians eyes glaze over.

"Oh, that is Columbus political stuff," a citizen may say.  "What does it have to do with me?"

Citizens becoming jaded to the political goings on in Columbus and therefore not interested is exactly what the likes of Kasich, Hagan and Schuring seemingly depend on.

Well, some local government leaders and politicians say:  "state budgeting has everything to do with the functioning of local government services!"

Maybe even how speedily criminals are taken off the streets of Stark County's villages, cities, and townships and put in jail?

Many Stark County local officials (including some of whom are Republicans) say that Kasich and the Republican supermajority controlled Ohio General Assembly have balanced the State of Ohio budget on the back of local government.

One Canton official points out to the Stark County Political Report that Ohio state government is currently carrying a $750 million surplus which is reportedly expected to grow to nearly $2 billion by the end of FY 2014/2015.

Fiscal Year 2014/2015 is the budget that state legislators are now working on.  It needs to be in place by June 30th.

One unit of local government that is taking it in the chops these days from the State of Ohio (indirectly through Ohio's cuts to local government funding) is the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab (CSCCL).

The lab plays a crucial role in the effort of such units as the Alliance, Canton, Massillon, North Canton, Louisville, Minerva, Hartville, Canal Fulton, Uniontown, Perry Township, Jackson Township police departments together with the Stark County sheriff's department to get the bad boys and girls off the streets and thereby make Stark County communities a safer place to live.

So we Stark Countians for the sake of our personal safety do need to wake up and push back on Kasich and in the local context the likes of Hagan, Oelslager and Schuring.

The crime lab budget has been at $1.2 million or so lately.  Because of the local government funding cuts at the hand of Kasich et al, the lab is looking at a budget of about $775,000 going forward.

Hmm?

A cut of nearly $500,000 is about a 40% cut!

Recently, due to internal staffing problems,  production of the lab has dropped and delays in processing Stark County police department's request for scientific analysis are stretching out so much so that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) is becoming a viable alternative.

And with the projected downward spiral in funding, is production likely to improve?

Consider that currently the lab technicians have to answer their own telephones which necessarily interferes with the amount of time they can spend testing materials for evidence tying specific individuals to criminal activity.

One of the perks of having a Canton-Stark County Crime Lab was, at one time, much quicker turn around times on the processing of crime evidence.

It used to take "forever and a day" for BCI to get results back to local police departments and, though the service is free to local government, locals eschewed using BCI because of the excessive delays.

Now with Mike DeWine (a Republican) having become attorney general of Ohio, BCI has done a terrific job of turning itself into a first-rate crime lab and has cut down on the delays to the point that the Stark County Crime Lab (CSCCL) pales in comparison.

But that is what one can do with adequate resources.  Recently, BCI was provided with the finances with which to hire 49 new employees.

On the other hand, the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab has lost two employees.

So isn't this a no-brainer?

BCI does work for free and it is faster in most instances than the CSCCL and the county could save at least $775,000 a year in local government funds.

Again, a no-brainer, no?

Not if one buys into the thinking of new crime lab director Michele Foster.  (see video below)

Undoubtedly, Stark County's law enforcement leaders have a bias towards keepin it going. 

And, quite naturally, so does the staff at the lab.

As the SCPR sees it, Foster's argument is:

• its convenience to local police agencies, 
• its ability to do "extras" (e.g. putting a rush on this or that analysis, send a technician to the evidence site, et cetera) that BCI is not structured to do, and
• its physical proximity to local courts and thereby easy accessibility to the lab's expert witnesses

go a long way in justifying the continuance of the CSCCL.

She was recently appointed director at the insistence and on the intervention of the Stark County Council of Governments leadership after Canton Mayor William J. Healy, II and his safety director Thomas Ream appear to have created a crisis in the composition of the CSCCL leadership.

Readers of the SCPR will recall that in February Mayor Healy and Safety Director Ream (working together, so it seems to The Report - LINK to prior blog)  appointed Ream's personal friend and the politically connected former chief deputy Rick Perez of the Stark County sheriff's department (under Tim Swanson) as director of the lab.

The Perez appointment came as a consequence of the lab not having a properly (i.e. scientifically) credentialed director from January, 2012 when the well-respected and highly qualified Robert Budgake was fired on allegations that he retired/rehired without having complied with Ohio law.

Rick Perez scientifically credentialed?

He wasn't by the pre-Perez job description.

But something like that never stops Mayor Healy.

His solution?

Eliminate the need for the director to have scientific credentials!

A quintessential Healy political, "I'll have it my way" move.

Over time Healy has moved to eliminate civil service classified positions in order to make city employees accountable to him as mayor.

At first blush, one might think what's wrong with that.  After all, the mayor is accountable to the voters every four years and he deserves the opportunity to control the city's employees, no?

For most mayors such a state of affairs would be just fine.

But with Mayor William J. Healy, II?

Needless to say, SCOG was having none of the Healy/Ream machinations.

Under the leadership (as chair of SCOG's executive committee) of Healy nemesis Tom Bernabei (also, a Stark County commissioner), on February 12th the SCOG executive committee had Healy apologizing to the  committee en masse (LINK to prior SCPR blog dealing with topic) and promising to work with SCOG to reshape the structure of the crime lab in terms of job descriptions, classifications and control of job hires/fires and the like.



However, the SCPR believe that before the work on reform can take place, the threshold question to be answered is whether or not the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab should continue to exist?

The SCPR thinks that such was, at least implicitly, really the key point of SCOG's general membership meeting on Tuesday of this week at Canton City Council's chambers.

And by the way, supposedly Representative Schuring was to show up at the meeting to answer questions about funding issues.  He did not show.

However, in a conversation that the SCPR had with him yesterday, he said he had communicated to SCOG member Randy Gonzalez (absent at the Tuesday meeting) that he could not meet with them on Tuesdays during legislative session but he is quite willing to come to Canton and meet with them on days that do not conflict with the legislative calendar.

If SCOG makes a determination that the crime lab merits keeping, then the question becomes how to properly fund it so that it can be restored to its former first-rate status?

To remind SCPR readers, that "is where the rubber meets the road" in terms of Governor Kasich and the likes of Stark Countians Hagan, Oelslager and Schuring and their work on the FY 2014/2015 state budget insofar as its impact on local government funding.

What comes out of the budgeting process DOES have an impact on you and I and our personal safety as one among a long list of local government services that will be cut as the state money dries up.

As a sidenote, why is the SCPR excluding Democrat Stephen Slesnick from the list of key figures in the budgeting process?

Answer:   being a Democrat in a severe minority position, he really does not matter much in the context of the supermajority control of the Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly.

Moreover, The Report has such a low view of Slesnick's legislative ability that even if Democrats were in charge in Columbus, he would not be anymore helpful to the local cause than are Republicans Hagan, Oelslager, and Schuring.

The overriding point of this blog is to hammer home to everyday Stark Countians is:

• what our locally elected legislators do in Columbus does affect each and every one of us in our daily lives, and
• that they need to be closely watched and held accountable for their actions in the every two year elections (for state representatives)/every four year elections (for state senators).

It is not a matter of Republicans being the bad guys and the Democrats being the good guys.

Both political parties are equally adept at looking out for themselves at the expense of the taxpaying public.

The SCPR has written many, many blogs about how a number local Democrat office holders have  "screwed the Stark County public" either for personal political or political party advantage.

Just ask a few Democrat leaders what they think of about the SCPR's having taken them to task.

Returning to the threshold question of this blog:  Should the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab continue to exist?

But, the SCPR asks:  Is that enough?

Stark County leaders have to understand that they are stewards of the taxpayers' money.  And as sparse as local government funding is these days, it is their job to put it to the highest and most efficient use of what funding exists because there no margin for error.

The SCPR videotaped Michele Foster's presentation to the SCOG general membership on Tuesday.

Foster reeks of confidence, candor and of having superb leadership qualities.

For the Healy administration to have overlooked Michele is an outrage and the SCPR believes shows in spades that the mayor first looks to "not in the public interest" criteria in selecting some of his key officials.

HEALY POWER GRAB TO RESULT IN CANTON-STARK CO. CRIME LAB REVIEW?

 UPDATED AT 10:50 AM

The Stark County Political Report is convinced that Canton mayor William J. Healy, II has been plotting a takeover (in terms of his power as chief executive) of the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab.

In the opinion of the SCPR, Mayor William J. Healy, II has an insatiable appetite to be "the-man-in-charge."

For other Stark County political entities attempting to work collaboratively with the Healy administration on:

• 9-1-1 emergency call receiving/dispatch, 
• building code enforcement or 
• health services, 

the bottom line is always going to be - for the mayor -  focused on this question:  Is he going to being in charge at the end of the day?

As naive as it was for him to think that his administration could revise the job description of the director of the lab and appoint former chief deputy Rick Perez (a long term personal/political pal of Healy safety director Tom Ream) to the post, the mayor does have the all consuming ambition and arrogance of imagined political heft to have thought he could get away with it.

Healy and Ream not only adulterated the qualifications to crime lab director job description; they also removed (as authorized by Ohio law) civil service protection for the position.

In an interesting twist, Healy then threw Ream under the bus when there was a public outcry against the Perez appointment. One can't be sympathetic with Ream.  He had to go into the safety director position knowing who he was dealing with.

In taking civil service protection away from the crime lab directorship, you have a scientific person and her management of a scientific operation subject to the whims of a politician?

And not just any politician, but one named William J. Healy, II?

Wow!  Watch out, no?

The SCPR has written often and LOUDLY that Healy is Stark County's quintessential political power monger.

And he is exceptionally ambitious.  The Report believes he is biding his time for something more powerful and prestigious than being mayor of Canton provides.

Yours truly has learned that Healy recently met with local McDonald's entrepreneur and franchise holder Guy Cucchini (among other well-heeled local businessmen) in an effort to get their support for his prospective run for Ohio secretary of state.

Healy's pitch to Cucchini et al?

"I am one of the finalists that the Ohio Democratic Party is considering for the race?"

Anyone who knows the mayor, surely understands that the mayor is looking forward to the next political gig as a step upward on the stairway to political stardom.

Moving on will put the Canton's troubles behind him leaving the clean up to others.

The Rep's Matt Rink recently wrote and insightful article that documents Healy's philosophically based drive to power (Mayor has power to hire, fire declassified workers, February 17, 2013).

His compulsion to power has never been more manifest and obvious than in the Perez caper.

In secretly (the change appeared out of nowhere during the last week of January of this year) working with Ream to change the director job description to one that Perez (otherwise unqualified because he lacking a science-based college degree) became qualified, Healy may have opened a can of political worms that he may come to regret having opened.

The question now becomes:  can he conjure up a bit more of political Houdini to escape a self-generated problem unscathed?

Healy has been in one political scrape after another after another after another in his five years as mayor.  But because of his obvious rather accomplished "sleight-of-hand" political maneuvering skills, he, like the grand magical master Houdini, escapes as disaster is about to overtake him.

While he appears to avoid personal political disaster, the city of Canton continues its spiral downward.

Not content to limiting his being a drag on Canton, his actions in relation to the crime lab has the potential to adversely affect outside-of-Canton Stark County-based law enforcement capability and, by extension, the safety of all Stark Countians.

But one wouldn't know Canton is in a downward spiral due in large part to his deficient leadership from Healy's continuous spinning of the state of the city to whomever will listen.

In another two to three weeks, "His Magic" will be front and center with his annual State of the City sideshow (reportedly to be held at the Pro Football Hall of Fame facilities).

This year will it feature showing off a "Hail, Mary!" in a quest to divert public attention away from his botched crime lab operation?

While he continues to survive, he does leave wreckage in his wake.

This time could it be the continued existence of the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab (CSCCL)?

For years the SCPR has been hearing about the excellence of the CSCCL.  Nary a critic in sight.  And thought to be a crown jewel in Stark County law enforcement's arsenal of weapons to bring the county's criminals to justice.

But with the revelation of the Healy/Ream political power play and the concomitant scrutiny of the internal workings of the lab that the power grab has brought on, is the lab in jeopardy of becoming history?

Stephanie Ujhelyi of The Alliance Review (February 15th edition) wrote an prize-winning-esque article (in the view of the SCPR) which The Report recently brought to the attention of Stark County Councils of Government (SCOG) executive committee chairman Tom Bernabei.

Bernabei is also president of the Stark County Board of Commissioners.

The Ujhelyi piece appears to have raised his interest in perhaps pursuing a thorough review as to the continued viability of the CSCCL as a SCOG project in the light of marked improvement of the effectiveness, efficiency and the expedition of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) crime lab work an outline of which was sketched out in her report:

• A turnaround time of 20 days on DNA processing, despite a marked increase in volume of testing done,
• forensic biology and DNA combined tests improved from 125.5 to 19.75 days; 
• chemistry from 42.85 to 10.49 days; CODIS [DNA indexing] from 23.86 to 7.83 days; and 
• firearms from 35.33 to 15.73 days.

How was Attorney General Mike DeWine able to dramatically improve the performance of the BCI laboratory division?

Again, according to Ujhelyi:

• DeWine implemented a “three-pronged” approach to improving turnaround: 
• [a]dding 21 scientists to the BCI staff; 
• doubling BCI’s number of DNA testing and combined DNA index systems (CODIS) robots, and 
• establishing a continuous quality improvement process.

Currently, Stark Countians, through state of Ohio local government fund funding of Canton; the Stark County commissioners and Stark County's remaining cities, villages and townships ante up about $1.2 million annually to fund operations of the crime lab.

As mentioned earlier in this blog, the CSCCL has been a point of pride of Stark County law enforcement for its excellence in enhancing the ability of local police departments to quickly obtain highly competent scientific analysis of collected crime scene evidence utilizing the lab's equipment (95% owned by Stark County) and facilities to process the evidence through:

• chemical,
• biological,
• DNA,
• firearms,
• fingerprint,
• polygraph,
• document, and
• trace analysis 

About 33% of SCOG's crime lab funds come from Canton, 33% of them from the Stark County general fund and 33% from the remaining cities, villages and townships that make up the county.

To boot, more than half of the crime lab's work is done for non-Canton Stark County cities, villages and townships.

Ujhelyi interest got piqued because of an Alliance case, to wit (from her piece):

Alliance city Safety-Service Director W. John Gross had pointed to a 14-month-old “theft by deception” case that remains unresolved, as city police continue to await results from the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab.

According to the report, officers responded in the morning of Nov. 16, 2011 to a downtown antique shop, where the owner reported purchasing coins for $1,800 that turned out to be counterfeit.

Taken into evidence were 80 counterfeit U.S. dollars, a three-ring binder and a handwritten receipt, according to the property report.

Additional supplements stated that Detective Donald Wensel made contact with the crime lab on June 4, 2012; Aug. 30, 2012, and Monday, suspending the investigation earlier this week pending receipt of the fingerprint analysis results.

Bernabei told The Review on Thursday that Foster informed him the silver dollar evidence was processed, and Alliance police should expect a report next week with the findings.

Hmm?

This kind of result from Stark County's prized crime lab?

Well, the SCPR is learning that at least going back to a Canton Safety Director Tom Ream's firing of former director Robert Budgake in January, 2012 (in a Canton city government fiasco in which some 30 or so city retire/rehire employees were fired because of allegations that the rehiring was not lawfully done) and perhaps going back as far as eighteen months, the quality of CSCCL work has been slipping in terms of its backlog.

Moreover, Ujhelyi reports that lab criminalist Michael Short was fired five months after the Budgake firing on allegations that "he had processed multiple gunshot residue cases at the same time" which, of course, raises questions of the quality of work.

On top of all of this, coming full cycle, you have the Healy/Ream political machinations (i.e. revising the job description in bringing Ream pal Perez on board) and thereby possibly jeopardizing the accreditation of the city-county lab in their having eliminated an existing lab director scientific degree requirement so that Perez could qualify.

Like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Healy was apparently contrite at the quarterly SCOG executive committee meeting of February 13th (LINK to prior SCPR blog) at having caused all the furor in the Perez hiring effective February 5th (which he undid by gaining Perez's resignation on February 12th).

If Bernabei and SCOG follows through with a complete and thorough review of the CSCCL structure and operations (with special emphasis on its effectiveness, efficiencies and expeditiousness), there may be a silver lining to the Healy machiavellian operation.

SCOG did take the immediate step hiring a qualified person to run the lab.  In an impressive but studied reaction to the Healy generated fiasco, SCOG reached out to CSCCL quality control manager Michele Foster to take over the directorship of the lab.

It appears that she will continue under civil service protection at least for 120 days.

It is the SCPR's position that in view of "the Perez affair," SCOG should insist that so long as Healy is mayor of Canton that if the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab is going to continue to exist that the director have civil service protection.

Moreover, the relationship between SCOG and the city of Canton on management of the lab be structured so that there is in place a unanimity between the two entities on any decisions on the hiring, firing, job descriptions and compensation of crime lab employees.

Lastly, the SCPR strongly urges SCOG to pursue a complete and thorough evaluation of the relative merits of the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab compared to the Ohio BCI laboratory division (i.e. an "apples to apples comparison).

Doing so will enable Stark's leadership to make a totally informed decision on which provides the very best in crime scene evidence analysis so that Stark County's citizens have state-of-the-art and first-rate competent support for the prosecution of Stark County-sited criminals.

A big plus about going BCI (which is used by 90% of Ohio's police jurisdictions) is that it is "free" of cost to its local government users.

But as one police official tells the SCPR, the CSCCL has been a very comfortable fit for local police agencies and going to BCI should only be done if there are clear advantages to doing so which outweigh the monetary savings.

The SCPR endorses this point of view.

Most important of all, SCOG owes it to we Stark Countians to give the utmost attention and priority and urgency to ensuring our safety by having a crime lab support system in place that equips the Stark County law enforcement team to put the bad guys and gals away.