WHAT IS THE CURE FOR THE NORTH CANTON TO ALLIANCE "ANTI-DEMOCRATIC" SPREADING INFECTION?

UPDATED:  7:33 AM

OKEY FOR CLIENT LESLIE YOUNG
ON APRIL 6, 2017 FILED
 "PROPERLY" MOTIVATED LAWSUIT AGAINST ALLIANCE GOV'T!

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2017 ELECTIONS TO SOLVE NORTH CANTON PROBLEM?

In this day and age, it is not unusual for city governments to compete with one another especially on economic development matters.

A few years ago, North Canton lured a Massillon company to what used to be officially known as "The Dogwood Tree" city by advancing $400,000 (more or less) of upfront money to buy a crane for the company.

Insofar as the SCPR knows, there is no such history between North Canton and Alliance.

However, it does appear that Alliance and North Canton are vying with one another in a race to the bottom in disrespecting its citizenry's right to know, to be heard and to participate fully as a critically important factor in how we Americans govern ourselves.

At least since September, 2012 and the hiring (by North Canton City Council) of Tim Fox as law director, North Canton appears to The Stark County Political Report (SCPR) to surge to the lead among Stark County's political subdivisions in a dubious category:  a marked decline in respect for and implementation of fundamental democratic-republican values.

Under Fox's reign, North Canton has had problems"

• being transparent, 
• providing requested public records, 
• complying with its own charter requirements, 
• councilmembers' attendance (Stephanie Werren, a primary offender) at public meetings, and 
• respecting the will of North Canton voters as expressed at the ballot box.

And there are a number of  other things concerning the undermining of core democratic values that one could cite North Canton government for.

Some think that the Alliance parallel to North Canton's Fox is Safety-Service Director Mike Dreger.

Dreger was appointed by current Alliance mayor Alan Andreani in September, 2014.

A number of Carnation City residents think that Alliance has not been the same in terms of basic democratic-republican values (e.g. first and foremost, administrative transparency).

A big brouhaha broke out into the open at the Alliance City Council on August 7 when Councilwoman Julie Jakmides took it on herself to walk out of council when she was worked over by council president Arthur Garnes for discharging a prime legislative function of questioning Andreani's safety-service director (Dreger) and the independently elected law director (Jennifer Arnold) and various and sundry questions on policing, administrative oversight issues and spending volume for legal services.

Nobody should be surprised by the anti-democratic actions of Alliance government which took place on August 7th.

In April of this year, at the request of Alliance citizen Leslie Young,  Attorney Steve Okey (a former Alliance councilman, a former council president and a past candidate [against Andreani] for mayor of Alliance) filed a lawsuit against Alliance government alleging that the Andreani administration violated Ohio's open meetings law in not complying with Ohio law (on legal advice provided by Arnold) with regard to a proper "in accordance with law" motion to go into executive session as presented to council which ultimately passed:  4 votes to 3.

Here is a copy the suit:



Kudos to the citizen and Okey for standing front and center for Ohio's open records law.

Here is Alliance's answer:



Trial is set for February 12, 2018.



Back in 2014, Okey filed in his own name a lawsuit against certain members of Alliance City Council with Larry Dordea as the lead-named and pleading referenced defendant which the SCPR said at the time appeared motivated to embarrass Dordea, who, at the time was in the midst of Stark County sheriff campaign seeking to unseat Okey political ally George T. Maier.

Okey said that it was unconnected with the Dordea/Maier matchup and the litigation was filed because of Okey's devotion to Ohio's Sunshine Laws.

This Stark County Political Report was not buying Okey's protestation that the 2014 litigation was all about Ohio's Sunshine Laws.

The SCPR wrote a number of blogs castigating Okey for having filed the case on account of what appeared to be obvious political implications of Councilman Dordea running against Okey political friend George T. Maier.

So it is a touch more than ironic that Dordea was among three councilpersons (Jakmides and Edwards also voting NO)  on presented motion for council and certain Andreani administration officials and Law Director Arnold to go into executive session which prompted the Leslie Young lawsuit.

What should disturb the citizens of Alliance is that under the Andreani administration lead, seemingly based, in large part, upon the legal counsel of Jennifer Arnold (Alliance's independently elected law director); it appears that Alliance is heading in the same direction as North Canton in curtailing compliance with core democratic-republican values and perhaps in the process violating Ohio law.

However, as the SCPR sees the matter, it is likely that Okey/Citizen Young will, if the lawsuit goes to trial, prevail.

Of course, it is possible that the Andreani administration on counsel by Arnold will drop defending the suit and implement the asked for remedies.

Either way, there might be these Alliance taxpayer costs, either agreed to or ordered by the court:

• up to $1,000 in damages,
• court costs and plaintiff's attorney fees, and 
• legal fees paid by Alliance government for outside legal counsel

Shouldn't there be a "moral obligation" for those who participated in the manner in which the executive session was presented for an up or down vote to reimburse the city treasury?

Perhaps the Young lawsuit will prove to be curative of the Andreani administration's flirtation with its seeming unlawful manner of going into executive session.

One more thing.

An important point that Okey raises in the lawsuit is that governments MAY but is not required to go into executive session for reasons enumerated in the underlying Ohio statute cited in the Young lawsuit.

The SCPR's take on executive session use among Stark County local governments is that elected officials are all too quick and prone to invoke the permissive right to go into private session without considering adequately the necessity of doing so.

The taxpaying public has a right to know to the greatest degree as is practical and feasible to have discussions which serve as the basis for decisions made in public, be "public" themselves.

Government propensity to overuse is to deny, via out-of-view executive sessions, public access to the deliberations constitute the foundation upon which decisions are made in public session.

Such is a key ingredient among a number of others as why citizen trust of government grows by the day.

 In terms of the taxpaying public having confidence in the integrity of government, the processes of governing can be more important than the substantive decisions themselves.

Alliance council members Dordea, Jakmides and Edwards as well as Leslie Young and his attorney have courageously stepped forward to bolster democratic-republican values.

In North Canton, it appears there is no elected official on the inside at city hall (except perhaps a fleeting moment here and there by Councilman Foltz) who has the moxie to stand up for core government democratic enhancing process values.

All the city's councilpersons and the mayor seem to be good at is patting one another on the back in self-congratulation while they foster North Canton's democratic processes decline.

Accordingly, it  appears that the only North Canton cure is that its voters will take matters in hand in the November general election and place in office council members and a mayor who respect citizens' fundamental democratic-republican values.

JULIE JAKMIDES: Stark County's Premier "transparency in government" Advocate

UPDATED:  3:49 p.m.

It appears that there are those in Alliance city government who are trying their darndest to place a cloud over, if not totally obscure, "transparency-in-government" in the operations of Stark County's Carnation City.

Try as they may, The Stark County Political Report is betting on Councilwoman-at-Large Julie Jakmides to defeat the obscuring ways of the mayor (Andreani), the law director (Arnold), the safety-services director (Dreger)  and, perhaps, too, the president of Alliance City Council (Garnes).

Acrimony between Jakmides and her core supporters on council (Dordea and Edwards) and peripheral (i.e. here and there) supporters (King and Cherry, but NEVER Rhome) on the issue of administrative obfuscation came to a head at last Monday's regular council meeting.

The administration's thwarting of  Councilwoman Jakmides' incisive questioning prompted her walk out of council proceedings in protest to the administration-inspired attempts to shut her down in questioning various actions of the administration with regard to Alliance policing and irresponsibly spending Alliance taxpayer monies.

Julie Jakmides is a SCPR type of political party partisan.

Her demonstrated, time and again,  track record is "community interest(s)" over political party interest(s) is a model for all Stark County elected officials.

And the SCPR, really, really, really likes that quality in any Stark County politician.

Political parties are just fine as long as their interests take a backseat to the public interest.

Unfortunately, the Jakmides of Stark County political life are few and far between.

The Stark County "organized" Democratic Party effort to shut down the "independent" candidacy of Thomas Bernabei is a prime example of political parties gone wrong.

As specifically demonstrated about two years ago, Jakmides, a thoroughgoing Republican, opposed Alliance law director and Republican Jennifer Arnold in her quest to become the elected law director of Alliance over Democratic candidate Mark Whitaker.

Jakmides was unsuccessful in her 2015 effort, but she has continued to press her case against Arnold as being an "undesirable' law director based in large-part on inappropropriate for any public official, much less a law director," Facebook series of entries.

The SCPR thinks the Whitaker loss by a mere 46 votes out of over 4600 cast shows the political clout that Jakmides has in Alliance.

She, likely, was the primary factor in Democrat Whitaker almost pulling off a stunning defeat of the political party appointed law director.

Beyond Arnold's 2015 inappropriate Facebook behavior, it appears she continues to show that she is not up to—public official performance-wise— rendering acceptable standards of transparency in government.

Accordingly, Councilwoman Jakmides continues her quest to hold the law director and her Andreani administration cohorts accountable.

Asked whether or not the name Julie Jakmides might appear on a Republican Party primary election ballot as an Arnold opponent, Jakmides left open the possibility that such could be the case but as of August 11, 2017 she has no such plan.  Jakmides has graduated for The University of Akron School of Law and is awaiting her bar results.

And get this.

Asked further whether or not she plans to oppose Mayor Alan Andreani when his term is up in 2019, she had a thoughtful response:

• Maybe he will not be running again,
• Perhaps he will not have an opponent, and
• (by implication), he could change his ways in terms of transparency within the next two years and thereby redeem himself

But if he doesn't change and he does run again, she made it clear that she would have no problem whatsoever as a Republican supporting the right kind of Democrat or perhaps, even another Republican in the 2019 primary to deny Andreani another term as mayor.

Jakmides, despite her youth, appears to the SCPR to one of Stark County's most thoughtful and mature public officials.

Jakmides and the SCPR have had our differences in the interplay of public official/public figure and the media.  Nevertheless, she has continued to be accessible for Q&As.  Another sign of political maturity that quite a few of Stark County's political subdivision elected officials lack.

Accordingly, The Report rates Jakmides as one of Stark County's very best public officials in terms of her political maturity and has shown that she is committed to working for continuing/enhancing fundamental democratic-republican values over her political party ties.

Projecting forward, Jakmides, perhaps, has the makings of a Robert Mueller-esque government service lawyer  in terms of her personal integrity, independent-mindedness and devotion to wherever the facts take her as she moves through her public life.

The SCPR's focus in this blog has been on democratic-republican processes inherent in the substantive dispute between Jakmides et al and the Alliance city administration as she defines "administration" (i.e. the mayor, the law director and the safety-service director)  in the sense of being a problem that currently preoccupies all things government in Alliance.

For those readers who want to augment the SCPR's tact in this blog with a detailed exploration of the substantive elements of the disputes among Alliance city officials, the best source is Jakmides Facebook page (LINK).

Alternatively, readers can go to Stephanie Ujhelyi's excellent reportorial work to get a solid background on the matter at the following links:

• http://www.the-review.com/local%20news/2017/08/08/jakmides-walks-out-of-council-meeting/?recommended=1, and
• http://www.the-review.com/local%20news/2017/08/09/jakmides-transparency-isnt-a-game/?recommended=1, 

One Alliance resident who is not part of the current flap has offered to the SCPR that a removal of Safety-Service Director Michael Dreger might go a long way to abating the discord among the various elements of Alliance government.  Jakmides did not disagree with that observation when presented to her.  Nor did another source intimately familiar with Alliance city government operations.

The SCPR has learned that Jakmides' ally and Ward 3 councilman Larry Dordea has taken the lead in dealing with Dreger.

A position that has surfaced in discussion with SCPR sources is that Dreger did at least a presentable job as water department superintendent, but is thought to have taken on an arbitrary/tyrannical bent as safety-service director and thereby is not, in the opinion of a number of folks, of a suitable temperament to be an effective safety-service director.

Former Democratic councilwoman Sue Ryan once reported to having thought that Dreger was a good choice by Mayor Andreani for safety-service director in September, 2014 based on his service in  Alliance's water and distribution/utility services going back to 1979.

Ryan says she has changed her mind on Dreger and further says her change is based on a shared perception that he has taken on a arbitrary/tyrannical manner about himself in his current position.

Ryan as councilwoman demonstrated many of the pro democratic-republican values characteristics that Jakmides does.

In the spring of 2014, she fought fellow Democrat Steve Okey to be named president of council when John Benincasa died.

And she called him out when a controversy broke out between him and Alliance Council when he took over as council president.

Jakmides, being a fair minded person, points out that she thinks that Alliance auditor Kevin Knowles is NO part of a conspiratorial-esque appearing  (my phrase, not hers) administrative alliance that appears hellbent on destroying trust that Alliance's citizens have had in overall Alliance governmental operations before Arnold.

In an interesting aside, when asked to compare council president Garnes (to former council president Steve Okey, she left the SCPR with the impression that of late Garnes is not impressing her.

Initially, he did.  But no more.

Jakmides was at the forefront of an effort of council to censor Okey during his stint as president for his highhanded way in dealing with council.

One has to wonder whether or not Garnes might also be faced with a council censure should he continue shutting down Jakmides in her endeavor to ask telling questions that might dig out embarrassing responses by the likes of Andreani.

Such is speculation on the part of the SCPR and was not indicated as a potential plan of action by Councilwoman Jakmides as an outgrowth of the interview.

Alliance's citizens/voters should rally behind Jakmides if they care about transparency in government.

There is none better in Stark County political subdivision government on this score than Alliance councilwoman-at-large Julie Jakmides!

SCPR 2013 EDITION OF STARK COUNTY PUBLIC OFFICIAL, PUBLIC FIGURE NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

DISCUSSION: HAS LARRY DORDEA MADE AN ERROR IN CAMPAIGN JUDGMENT?

Larry Dordea, candidate for Stark County sheriff is a novice at running for political office.

One of the temptations for political neophytes is to latch on to seasoned politicians; especially when you know that early in the campaign you know your political party (the Republicans, in this case) have a poll showing you behind the sitting sheriff 75% to 25%.

As troubling as those number may have been, they were early numbers and have more to do with name recognition than anything else.

Now that Dordea has been running a vigorous campaign for a number of months, the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) has to believe that the numbers have narrowed significantly.

By associating with John Hagan, Dordea may be stunting his ability to get closer to his opponent Swanson.

The Report did a piece some time ago suggesting that Hagan and his Democratic opponent Pete Ferguson may be the laziest candidates running for countywide office in the November election. The Report did not invent this notion, it came from an elected countywide official and has been confirmed in an offhand way by a high Stark County Republican Party insider.

Another thing that may hurt Dordea in connecting with Hagan in his effort to attract independents and disaffected Democrats (disaffected with Swanson), is that Hagan is widely known by political insiders to be a Republican Party hack.

The Report realizes that both Dordea and Hagan are Alliance area politicians. But why would Dordea allow geographical affinity to hurt his chances to become county sheriff?

The Report can readily see why Hagan likes the Alliance alliance. It gives him more credibility than he can garner on his own. Dordea does have significant independent voter support and even some Democrats going his way. Hagan does not. Hagan has never had to run in an area dominated by Democrats and Democrat leaning independents. He has only run in the Republican gerrymandered 50th House district.

Question: Is this Dordea's political naiveness coming to the fore? Will being an inexperienced politician be the difference between him and Swanson?

DISCUSSION: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE 9-1-1 SET UP DEBACLE?

Drum roll, please.

Announcing the names of the public officials who created the 9-1-1 mess Stark County is in.

First, recently retired mayor of Canton Richard D. Watkins (Republican). Second, Jerry Patrick (Republican). And, last but certainly not of a lesser responsible person, Norm Sponseller (Democrat - now deceased).

Stark Countians need to pay attention to the lack of vision demonstrated by these three. Not that their mistake can be rolled back and the damage undone.

The lesson to be learned is to quiz current candidates for county commissioner: Ferguson, Hagan, Harmon and Secrest and know what their vision for the future of Stark County is.

On 9-1-1 we know the views of Secret and Harmon. Secrest fails the test. In a press release a few weeks back, Secrest takes the position we need to go slow. Go slow for what! So more people lose their lives (perhaps) or do not get timely critical care (say like in the case a stroke where a few minutes can make a huge difference).

Normally one shouldn't hold it against the likes of a Secrest who is 22 years of age or so. But his age is against him on the 9-1-1 issue. He probably feels young and invulnerable. Most Stark Countians are older and know better. Harmon has a big leg up on Secrest on this one.

One wonders if there isn't a lose confederation of stance on the 9-1-1 issue among Republicans running for county office. Is it just happenstance that Larry Dordea (candidate for sheriff) and Secrest have virtually the same position. We will know more when we hear from the remaining Republican candidates for county wide office.

9-1-1 is not a partisan issue. Republican Commissioner Jane Vignos is a staunch proponent of fixing 9-1-1 and fixing it now (or, at least within the next two years).

New Stark County Republican Party Chairman Jeff Matthews is from Alliance. Larry Dordea is from Alliance. Are the two of them making 9-1-1 a partisan issue in the November election?

Is Travis Secrest merely following marching orders from Jeff Matthews?

DISCUSSION: IS LARRY DORDEA TOO PROVINCIAL TO BE STARK COUNTY SHERIFF?

On April 7th Stark County Commissioner Jane Vignos appeared at a Alliance City Council session asking the Council to give a "thumbs up" to supporting a centralized 911 dispatch over the 10 dispatch center configuration Stark County currently has.

Who stood front and center in opposition? Fellow Republican, and former Alliance police chief, Larry Dordea who is now running against incumbent Tim Swanson for county sheriff.

Recently, an area woman who had been in an auto accident, had to wait 20 minutes for dispatchers to figure out whose jurisdiction she was in before dispatching assistance even though she was less that one-half mile away from the nearest fire department.

So candidate Dordea, is your message that you favor fragmentation and turfism over efficiency? Is this what Stark County voters want in a county sheriff?