STARK CO. CLERK OF COURT CANDIDATES REINBOLD & HEIMBAUGH TUSSLE TO GET IN THE LAST WORD ON THE SCPR?

Back on October 12th, the SCPR did its last (LINK) of a succession of blogs on the Stark County clerk of courts race between Democrat and incumbent Nancy Reinbold and Republican challenger Jeff Heimbaugh.

Readers of this blog owe it to themselves to take a few minutes to click on the LINK and get up to speed on the back-and-forth between Heimbaugh and Reinbold  (and her emissaries) so as to appreciate the significance of this particular blog:  "Who Gets the Last Word?"

The October 12th blog was given life when The Report was contacted by Stark County Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) project manager Randy Gonzalez (who also is Stark County Democratic Party chairman) who invited yours truly to go to the Canton Municipal clerk of courts office (run by elected-Clerk Phil Giavasis [former Reinbold boss]) to see the "spit and polish" of CJIS "up close and personal."  (The Report's words, not Gonzalez's)

And, indeed, the CJIS operation is impressive.

Apparently, the invitation and the schooling on CJIS was supposed to put the "perfect squelch" on anything that Heimbaugh could possibly say as a rejoinder and would lead the SCPR to conclude that any additional Heimbaugh responses should be ignored.

Well, that is not quite how the SCPR operates.

Needless to say, over the nearly five years that the Stark County Political Report has been published, yours truly has received complaints/observations from time-to-time that "there is more to the story."

The Report's response?

Fine, send in an e-mail to tramols@att.net composed "in your own words" and the SCPR will publish it word-for-word.

Quite a few Stark County public officials and other subjects of SCPR blogs have taken advantage of The Report's open invitation.

Those who decline should be thought of as being whiners who are trying to put the SCPR on the defensive and perhaps affect the tone, the critique, of future blogs merely by virtue of having whined.

Kind of like the player or coach who complains to the referee not because he thinks the call will get reversed.  Rather he hopes the next call will go in his favor merely because he protested.  Protest is in and of itself is designed to make the referee see that he has somehow been unfair.

In the sporting event context, one suspects that whining works on occasion.

However, not with the SCPR.  But The Report has a fullproof way to deal with a complainer/observer.

The Report opens up the pages of the blog to let the "offended" person state his/her case.  The readers of the blog will then decide whether or not he/she has made his/her case.

Stark County prosecutor John Ferrero comes to mind as a local public official who consummately bellyaches about how unfair the SCPR is to him.

But not one time has he ever had the fortitude to come on the blog with his counter to the blogs he complains about.

Apparently, he thinks his performance in office is immune to scrutiny as evidenced by his bellyaching.

Justices of the United States Supreme Court get roundly criticized for their work on the bench, if not lambasted,  by not only media types and by members of the bar who make it clear that they are speaking as members of the profession.

Only last week, yours truly saw Justice Scalia on a CNN program defending and explaining himself.

Hmm?

Justice Scalia, who draws perhaps more scrutiny and criticism than any other jurist, takes the criticism in the spirit of public debate that better informs the public.

But John Ferrero, what does he do?  He sulks and seeks to silence his critics.

The Report does not look for it to happen, but it would be "sweet indeed" for Stark County if Stark County voters were to unseat Ferrero in favor of Republican Mike Grady on the 6th of next month.

Thankfully, Ferrero is an exception among Stark County politicians and elected office holders; not the rule.

Heimbaugh has been the latest in a long line of SCPR subjects to take up the continuing SCPR to respond to a blog "in his own words."

Today, The Report presents Randy Gonzalez's response to an SCPR inquiry and (partially) a Heimbaugh's e-mail of October 12th (published as an "update" to the blog of same date.

The Report's inquiry:

From: Martin Olson <tramols@att.net>Subject: CJIS budgetTo: "Randy Gonzalez" <randy.gonzalez@cantonohio.gov>Date: Thursday, October 11, 2012, 1:19 PM
Randy, 

I forgot to take the copy of the CJIS budget that you printed out for me yesterday. 

Would you please e-mail it to me (or fax it to 330 838 2342). 

As I indicated I would, II did check out the point we discussed as to whether or not was Heimbaugh was calling for "off-the-shelf" software to take care of CJIS and other court-related.  It appears to me that you and Phil are correct in your take on Heimbaugh's position. 

Heimbaugh does talk about a plan to upgrade the CJIS system to enable e-filing of court pleadings and that there might be a module with "of-the-self" [sic] software that could make it much cheaper to do than if CJIS were to be upgraded. 

Is there such a plan (i.e. upgrade CJIS to include e-filing)?  If so, when is it to be done? If so, what is the projected cost?  If so, would Yates be the person doing the programing for such an upgrade?  If so, is the work to be included in the $85,000 per year contract price? 

Thanks,
Martin/SCPR

Gonzalez's response:

Re: Fw: CJIS budgetTuesday, October 16, 2012 10:43 AM
From: "Randy Gonzalez" <randy.gonzalez@cantonohio.gov>View contact details
To: "Martin Olson" <tramols@att.net>

Martin, attached is the budget you requested. Also by all the Courts working together with CJIS it gives us the ability to shop pricing for products like ORACLE and drive the prices down for all by using they get all or no contracts from Stark County. Also the CJIS server can serve as an additional back up for all the courts and information request for all courts come from one place instead of 4 separate request. 

In addition to court management systems CJIS also includes: 

Population control for the jail package
Prosecutors package
Probation Package
Pre Trial Release Package
Compliant maker for law enforcement package
Line-ups for law enforcement
Online Payments
Complete Warrant data base for all courts and law enforcement.
Jail Photos
Reports all 4 court centrally to State agencies. (Supreme Court, BMV, BCI and so on)
Coming soon will be paperless uniform traffic tickets. 

Again there is no charge to any agency for CJIS not the jail, law enforcement or any other user. It is paid for by user based fees established statutorily that created the Clerks of Court automation fund. 

In answer to your question attached; Judge Heath went to a judicial seminar and became involved in pursuing e filing. She and Nancy started a committee which included the main users (attorneys). Yes they are not looking to reinvent the wheel and are familiar with a couple different successful system currently being used in Franklin and Montgomery Counties. The attorneys are also used to those systems.  

CJIS will be the portal to the E filing system and yes Chris Yates will develop the interface with the vendor chosen at no additional charge, it is part of his job. Implementing E filing through CJIS, will include all 4 courts and again will keep the cost down by each not going off on their own while adding continuity of all users. 1 contract not 4! 

Hope this answers your questions, although as I stated yesterday I believe Nancy has answered these questions and at our meeting Phil and I have also went over all of this. I trully [sic] appreciate your thoroughness so I hope this does it. 

During The Report's one-on-two (with Gonzalez and Giavasis), Gonzalez made a point of saying that the above-budget is funded by a $10 per filing fee (to fund a court technology fund) attached to each and every new case filing with the respective listed courts. And, consequently, taxpayers do not pay for CJIS.

The implication, The Report believes, is that CJIS is free to Stark County taxpayers.

Hmm?

The SCPR begs to differ with Gonzalez, if that was his point.

The vast majority of those who file cases in Stark County courts are Stark County citizens who happen also to be Stark County taxpayers at various levels of local government.

Gonzalez's position is somewhat analogous to former Governor Ted Strickland raising fees for certain State of Ohio fees by $36 million across a number of state agencies several years ago.  His spinmeisters maintained that the $36 was not a tax increase.

Hmm?

A final point.

It could be that this blog is "the last word" on the Reinbold/Heimbaugh race.

That is, if both sides cease weighing in on the toplic.

For like no other Stark County media, the SCPR is committed to allowing subjects to get their full point-of-view before the Stark County public.

However, the issues raised in the Reinbold/Heimbaum series of blogs go beyond the campaign itself.

The SCPR will be pushing the Stark County commissioners to fully vet whether or not it is in the best interest of Stark Countians to continue to contract with an out-of-county host/maintainer of CJIS when it comes up again next year.

CJIS (CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION SYSTEM) "A POLITICAL FOOTBALL" IN THE STARK COUNTY CLERK OF COURTS RACE? REPUBLICAN JEFF HEIMBAUGH CHALLENGES INCUMBENT CLERK NANCY REINBOLD. BUT IS SHE THE PROPER TARGET?

UPDATE:  10/12/2012 AT 03:10 PM

A response from Jeff Heimbaugh to today's blog:

... there are a few facts and additional comments that your readers should know.

1) $114,000 to run the system. Through an open records request I requested the names and salaries of the programmers etc in the clerk’s office. She provided the names of the two employees whose total salary is $100,000. With benefits Ms Reinbold stated the total cost is approx. $143,000. Add the $80,000 for the Utah employee and the cost of the system is closer to $225,000. That’s just for the clerk’s office.

2) From there patrol cars... The information that police can obtain is on a statewide basis is through the Supreme Courts “Ohio Courts Network”. A statewide information exchange system to enable courts and justice system partners to share the information necessary to make critical decisions. Stark County plugs into this system and shares its information with other agencies across the state. This system is available to all counties and agencies and is not unique to Stark

3) Ms Reinbold nor I can state that one system is superior to the other. Neither can we definitevly say there would be savings or additional costs if we switch to commercial software. I am making three points; A)  If developing your own system is the way to go than why is Stark County only one of two court systems (general division) in the entire state operating their own system. (see attached)  B) Common sense informs us the one department of County government is to small to be in the software business. C) Why we don’t look at the two systems and determine once and for all which is better for Stark County. What are they afraid of?

Finally, I find it odd that Ms Reinbold had to have Mr. Giavsis and Gonzalez with her to discuss her own operating system. Shouldn't she is able to defend her record herself. The court is currently looking at a $1,000,000 upgrade to the Clerk of Courts own system. The court rejected putting Ms Reinbold in charge. Wouldn't you think that the Clerks office who developed, maintains, and operates the system would be placed in charge? The Judges work with her every day so are they trying to tell us something? One doesn’t have to look far to see that Ms Reinbold isn’t capable of managing 

ORIGINAL BLOG

It was quite surprising to the SCPR to learn from the perspective of Republican challenger Jeff Heimbaugh to sitting Clerk of Courts Nancy Reinbold (a Democrat) in a September 19th interview that he believes that not all is well with CJIS (Criminal Justice Information System).

One of Heimbaugh's main arguments is that Reinbold is overpaying for CJIS and that Stark County (CJIS serves the Alliance, Canton, Massillon clerks of courts as well as the Stark County Courts of Common Pleas and the Stark County Sheriff) could do better with off-the-shelf software.

Moreover, Heimbaugh points to a contract entered into between Stark County (approved by the commissioners on August 3, 2011) and a former Stark County employee (Chris Yates, now residing in Utah) for $85,000 annually as an additional unjustified expenditure for Yates' hosting CJIS and maintaining it from Utah on a day-to-day basis.

The SCPR has learned that the entire 2012 budget for CJIS is about $114,000 of which the Yates contract represents some 75%.

Yates apparently left Stark County employment in July/August of 2009 as August is the first month in which Stark County auditor records show his first $7,083.33 monthly contract payment.

Accordingly, the initial contract would have had to have been approved by then Stark County commissioners Todd Bosley, Tom Harmon (a former Canton Municipal Court clerk who retired and was replaced by Phil Giavasis).

It appears Yates got a $20,000 raise by transitioning from county employment to becoming an private sector independent contractor.  Of course, with his leaving county employment, the county was relieved of future benefit payments to him.

For more depth on Heimbaugh points (LINK) and Clerk Reinbold response (LINK), before to sure to read the SCPR's first report on the Heimbaugh/Reinbold race (LINK).

Well, to say the least, Heimbaugh's point-of-view is not shared by those with key roles in the implementation and maintenance of CJIS; namely, Canton Clerk of Courts Phil Giavasis (also director of CJIS) and Randy Gonzalez (a Giavasis employee and CJIS project manager).

The SCPR sat down with Reinbold (who refuses to go on camera) political proxies Gonzalez (who doubles as Stark County Democratic Party chairman) and Giavasis (who was Reinbold's first employer and from whom Reinbold inherited the county clerk position via being the Stark County Democratic Party appointee when Giavasis replaced Tom Harmon as Canton Municipal Court clerk) to get a look at CJIS.

Indeed, CJIS is an impressive operation.

CJIS was Giavasis' brainchild some ten years ago or so.  And Gonzalez has taken hold of the project and made it into the superlative system it is today.

Readers of the SCPR know that yours truly has been a frequently critic of Giavasis and Gonzalez on various topics over the nearly five year existence of The Report.

But on this project, both deserve accolades for putting this information enhancing and Stark County citizen safety enhancing computer mechanism together.

From their patrol cars, Stark County law enforcement officers can access critical information from CJIS on subjects they are dealing with as they are involved in day-to-day policing activities.

And, at any given point-in-time, Stark's judges can access information as to whom they have incarcerated as the Stark County jail, the gravity of an alleged offense as well as their criminal justice history.

This is to mention just a few of the impressive qualities of the computerized system.

As yours truly told Gonzalez and Giavasis, the SCPR has never doubted the value and quality of the CJIS system.

However, how the system is configured in terms of its staffing configuration is fair game for scrutiny and critique.

And this is exactly what clerk of courts candidate Heimbaugh is doing.

The baseline questions as raised by Heimbaugh are:

• whether or not the courts could have the same quality at a lower cost?
• why is it that the host/maintainer is a person who resides in Utah?

Gonzalez and Giavasis made a number of points to The Report in response to Heimbaugh's criticism and recommended fixes:

• CJIS is not the sole creature of the Stark County clerk of courts.  Rather, they say, it is a joint effort of the Stark County clerk (for the Courts of Common Pleas), the Alliance Municipal Court clerk of courts and the Massillon Municipal Court clerk of courts.
• That it would be "to reinvent the wheel" (the SCPR's words not Gonzalez and Giavasis) to go to "off-the-shelf" software and that the result would not compare in quality to CJIS and, moreover, they believed at a much greater cost than Heimbaugh projects.
• The decision to keep Yates on after he left Stark County for Utah was a joint decision of all Stark's clerk of courts on the basis that they felt Yates had acquired unique programming skills (having been schooled in criminal justice system particularities) and losing him would be felt within CJIS.
• While CJIS can and will function effectively/efficiently without Yates (there are five CJIS programmers spread over the various clerks of court offices), Stark County has invested many hours of training in Yates and therefore has a vested interest in keeping him on.
• Gonzalez went so far in one conversation to describe Yates as being at a genius level in his CJIS programming/maintaining skills.
• Yates started his career with Stark County under Janet Creighton when she was Stark County auditor.  When contacted by The Report, Creighton said that while her recollection of him is somewhat vague, she does remember him as a quiet person and being very bright.

So what does the Stark County Report make of "the back and forth" between Heimbaugh over and against Reinbold, Gonazlez and Giavasis?

Here goes:

• Heimbaugh is doing what candidates for public office ought to be doing.  He has examined the operations of the Stark County clerk of courts office and has spotted issues that he thinks need to be dealt with.
• Next summer, the Stark County commissioners will undoubtedly be looking at a new proposal to retain Yates for another contract term.
• As the SCPR recalls, there was no questioning on their part as to whether nor he should be awarded the $170,000 contract.
• The Report finds this a little bit odd inasmuch as yours truly has witnessed quite of number of inquiries (particularly from Commissioner Creighton) when bids are awarded to "out-of-Stark County" contractors, so the question becomes:
• Why not in this case?
• In any event, the "oversight" in 2011 should be rectified in 2013 and the commissioners should use a work session to delve deeply into the justifications of the proponents of retaining Yates (as contrasted to finding a Stark County person).
• Had Heimbaugh not raised the issue in this running against Reinbold, would 2013 be a repeat of 2011?
• Implicitly, Heimbaugh has raised the question of whether or not Stark County ought to be dependent on one person as a "go to" for the hosting and maintenance of CJIS?
• The SCPR thinks not and made that point repeatedly to Gonazlez and Giavasis in Wednesday's conversation.

Heimbaugh has distinguished himself as a political office candidate in asking probing questions.

In doing so, he casts a good model for others running for office.

There are all too many political contests in Stark County in which the non-incumbent candidates seemingly are just going through the motions of running for office.

To name a few names and races, for example:  Butterworth (R) versus Campbell (D) for Stark County recorder and Blaser (R) versus Murthy (D) for Stark County coroner.

The SCPR thinks the odds are heavily against Heimbaugh unseating Reinbold.

Even if he loses, he has made a valuable contribution to the Stark County political landscape.

From the SCPR's perspective there is no such thing as a "holy cow" in Stark County/local government that no one can question!

VIDEO (FULL RECORDING): 2012 ELECTION SERIES - JEFF HEIMBAUGH: REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR STARK COUNTY CLERK OF COURTS

This video on the Reinbold/Heimbaugh Stark County clerk of courts race is the first in a series that the Stark County Political Report will be running on Saturdays and Sundays between today and the election on November 8th.

This post is of the FULL video.

An earlier post (LINK), contains Nancy Reinbold's response to a shortened video of the first Heimbaugh post.  Clerk Reinbold has been afforded the opportunity to amend her response to include the additional comments made by Heimbaugh in this full version of his remarks.

If she elects to amend, the SCPR will publish her amended response on this blog.

SCPR "ELECTION 2009 SERIES" (VOL 29) LAKE TOWNSHIP TRUSTEE RACE - SUGGESTIVE OF A BATTLE WITHIN THE STARK COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY?

Having lived in Lake Township since 1975, yours truly knows all the local leaders pretty well, Republicans and Democrats.

Democrats?

Are there any?

Not many!

So the political fights in Lake Township are always "within the Republican family."

There is a doozy of a Republican fight going on in this election cycle to determine which Republicans (out of four running) will lead the township.

Four years ago Ellis Erb (a local contractor and Republican political activist) and Galen Stoll (brother of a long time Hartville mayor) ran as a tandem to go in and "clean up" a mess they claim was the work of former (now deceased) trustee Sue Ruley (also a Republican) and staunch, staunch Republican Don Myers.

One of their chief targets was cutting off what they said was a "cash cow" for township legal counsel Dave Herbert (himself a Stark County Republican Party power going back to the days that Dave Dowd/Jim Unger were Stark county prosecutors).

And Erb and Stoll made good on their promise.

But now they are the target of allegations of mischief by long time Lake Republican activist Jeff Heimbaugh (he ran against Phil Giavasis for Canton Municipal clerk of courts just last year)

He is joined by Melissa Link with her own set of grievances against the Erb/Stoll dominated Lake Board of Trustees.

And the Stark GOP has weighed-in on behalf of Link and Heimbaugh as evidenced by their endorsement on the Stark GOP website TO THE EXCLUSION of Erb and Stoll, to wit:

Candidate Heimbaugh.

What does Republican Heimbaugh have to say about fellow Republicans Erb and Stoll?

Charge 1 (in bold type)/support for charge:

• "Financial shenanigans.  Remember when the Trustees refused to pay the unused vacation time for a former employee.  A press release was issued stating the township '…did not incur additional legal fees..'. "  
•  Wrong, the township violated the contract and was ordered to pay $15,806.86 in legal fees to the Union ’s attorney.  They then buried this information from the public by approving the payment under “bills as of April”.  Should a $15,000 judgment be treated the same as a utility bill?

 Charge 2:

• The townships failure to retain fees from ambulance billing is now under review by the State Auditor’s Special Investigative Unit.

Charge 3:

• Lake Township taxpayers fund the Hartville Fire Department to the tune of $528,000 compared to the Village’s contribution of $417,000.  Fair?   

SCPR Note:  (Heimbaugh serves as an official for the Uniontown Fire Department)

Charge 4 (in bold type)/support for charge:

• Did the Trustees review the Uniontown Police Department’s budget before asking the voters to approve additional funds?    (SCPR Note:  obviously, the implication is that they did not)
• The levy increased the police department’s budget a stunning 65%.  The UPD now collects $1.4 for 7 full-time policemen.  A look at Plain Township ’s website show they spend $1.4 million for 20 full time deputies.  

Charge 5:

• The trustees have set aside $1.3 million for a new township hall that will house 5 full-time employees.  That equals $260,000 per office. 
  

Now onto candidate Melissa Link.

By the way, Link works for the Stark County Board of Elections which prompts the SCPR to believe she is the recipient of political patronage at the hand of Deputy Director and Stark Republican chair Jeff Matthews.

Here is what Link as to say:

• We need to create an open-information climate. Currently, township meeting agendas are full of abbreviations and meeting minutes contain more information than was stated at township meetings. Little if any information is ever provided about meetings attended by our trustees (Ohio Township Association, Regional Planning, etc.)
• Our leaders need to pursue partnerships to maximize our tax dollars and improve services and the quality of life here.
• Our leaders also need to value the service of township employees. I do not believe that residents would agree with their rewarding an employee with over a decade of service by showing him the door.

SCPR Note:  Yours truly believes the employee that Link is referring to is recently resigned Road Department Superintendent Rick Criss who The Report believes was an ally of former Trustee Ruley.  His association with Ruley was not a good thing for him in the eyes of Erb and Stoll (see Erb/Stoll/Ruley flap above).

And finally from Link:

• When the township has “Reserve Funds”, why are we eliminating needed full time employees?

The SCPR does not think Erb is vulnerable in the race.

Stoll, because he is a "lesser known" could be.  Especially with a well-known community (Uniontown-based) figure Jeff  Heimbaugh running.

One can admire Heimbaugh's honesty in questioning the need for additional finances of the Uniontown Police Department.  But to do so in this election could take away any chance he might have had to come in second to Erb in a race where four candidates are seeking two places.

Heimbaugh, being from Uniontown and being an official at the Uniontown Fire Department) could have worked a Uniontown versus Hartville (Stoll's political base) election framework to his advantage.

But his attack on the Erb and Stoll on the Uniontown Police Department "need for additional financing (i.e. the levy passed within current Erb/Stoll term) is sure to erase any Uniontown advantage he might have been able to muster.

Could Melissa Link sneak into second place?

Perhaps.

It appears that she is a new "political darling" of the Stark GOP and obviously Matthews is trying to help her make the grade.

November 3rd might be an interesting election night in Lake Township!