(VIDEOS) CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? COMMISSIONER CREIGHTON IS THE DECIDING VOTE TO HELP CANTON MAYOR WILLIAM J. HEALY, II?

SCPR SERIES HIGHLIGHTING INCIDENTS IN WHICH STARK COUNTY'S POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS (I.E. COUNTY GOV'T & VILLAGE, CITY & TOWNSHIP) FAIL STARK TAXPAYERS

VIDEOS

Healy Plays Loose with the Facts

About

Stark County's Allocation of
"Ohio Moving Forward" Money

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The SCLRC Vote

on

Canton's OHFA Application

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Fonda Williams

Post-Meeting Interview

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The SCLRC Meeting

of

January 21, 2014

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Only Mayor William J. Healy, II could pull this one off.

On the one hand,

• making out that the Stark County Land Reutilization Corporation (SCLRC, "Land Bank") to be the problem getting in the way of Canton making a dent in achieving progress in tearing down abandoned eyesore residences and, then,  

on the other,

• sending a representative (Chief of Staff Fonda Williams) to Land Bank meeting "with hat in hand" pleading with the SCLRC board members to sponsor Canton in making an application with the State of Ohio for more money to demolish the vacated properties.

HISTORY BEHIND THE "HEALY SET UP"

Back on July 29, 2013 (at a Canton City Council meeting) is seen in the video below ragging on the SCLRC for not allocating Canton all $2.3 million that the commission received from the Ohio attorney general's Stark County allocation from his Moving Ohio Forward program (LINK for background on the Moving Ohio Forward program).




Never mind that other Stark County communities have problem properties to deal with and need some of the Moving Ohio Forward money.

After all, Canton is "everything Stark County," notwithstand the following list of "other Stark County demolitions projects," no?

In Healy's mind, Canton is Stark County.

But others beg to differ with him.

Among those are SCLRC board members Stark County treasurer Alex Zumbar (Republican), Stark County commissioner Janet Creighton (Republican) and Plain Township trustee Scott Haws (Republican).

Commissioner Thomas Bernabei (Democrat) likely disagrees with Healy also but the SCPR isn't all that sure about him.

Really?

Yes.

Why is The Report unsure?

THE SCLRC "TURNING 'THE OTHER CHEEK'"

At a meeting of the SCLRC on January 21:

• Bernabei (a Democrat) joined with:
• Canton's representative on the board (Lem Green, a Democrat and who formerly worked in the treasurer's office under Gary Zeigler [until he - Green resigned], 
• to pass a resolution
• and Republican commissioner Janet Creighton in a stunning development in which she 'reluctantly" was "the deciding vote"
• in overcoming the "no" votes of Zumbar and Haws.
• to pass a resolution
• committing the the SCLRC to work with Canton, the Stark County Regional Planning Commissioner and others
• to help Canton qualify for a "minimum" $2 million grant from the Ohio Housing Financing Agency (OHFA) which is administrating a federal government Neighborhood Initiative Program (NIP) which - believe it or not - is from TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money passed by Congress.
• NOTE 1:  Ohio did not come out with guidelines and applications until the first week of January, 2014 and required that application be submitted not later than January  31, 2014 (this past Friday).
• Canton did make a submission on Friday.
• NOTE 2:  Canton (through Fonda Williams [who was present at the meeting of the 21st) did promise to include other Stark County political subdivisions in sharing some of the grant money, should Canton's application be successful.
• NOTE 3:  That Canton has not used all of its Ohio Moving Forward money (see below), may adversely affect its NIP application.
• NOTE 4:  $60 million is available statewide to be distributed in two rounds.  Round 1 has $50 million set aside for distribution.  Awards can range from a minimum of $2 million to $15 million.  $10 million (plus any unused Round 1 money) will be distributed some time after July 31st.

Here is a video of that vote.



After the meeting the SCPR spoke to Williams about the close vote.



STARK COUNTY TO LOSE "MOVING OHIO FORWARD MONEY BECAUSE CANTON LAGS ON DEMOLITION EFFORT

The big rub at the January 21st meeting was the fact "it came to light" that Canton will not meet its demolition goal of spending $1 million in demolishing abandoned and dilapidated residences by May 31, 2014.

The SCPR covers Canton City Council on a pretty regular basis and The Report can say that council is not one bit happy with the Healy administration on the slow pace of Canton's sorely needed tear downs.

With this blog, council members are likely to be even unhappier as they learn that Canton will be leaving tens of thousands of dollars (if not in the range of several hundred thousand dollars) on the table.

According to Williams, the reason for the failure is that "not enough contractors" (7 of a possible 14) are participating in the city's bidding process and - even for those who are - they - for the most part are having to "be run herd on" in getting the demolitions done on a timely basis.

Moreover, he says, Canton has been plagued by its contractors" nitpicking various aspects of their successful bids as a pretext (the SCPR's interpretation of Williams' remarks) for justifying their not getting particular demolitions done.

So let's get this straight Mayor Healy:  Canton cannot fully use the $1 million that the SCLRC allocated the city, and so you blast the Board for not allocating $1.3 million more?

A red herring, (LINK to definitions) if the SCPR has ever seen one.

No surprise to the SCPR!  Healy always seem to blame others when things go wrong for Canton. 

THE HEALY SPIN?  WILLIAMS APPEARS TO BE DOING WHAT HE CAN.

It appears to the SCPR that Williams is endeavoring to move "heaven and earth" to spend the $1 million.  The way the program works is that Canton gets reimbursed up to $1 million (the local match which Canton financed by issuing bonds).

But when The Report quizzed him before Canton's January 27th meeting about reasons why Canton was not going be spending the $1 million, he did what appears to be a Healy-esque "two-step" and avoided the head-on question that Stark County as a consequence was going to lose the unspent and focused on "making up" for the failure under Moving Ohio Forward by using the OHFA-NIP money, if it is approved.

The SCPR likes Williams and views him as a guy who wants to be straight forward but he works for a guy (Healy) who The Report thinks in practically never straight forward.

And, Healy IS the BOSS.

If you don't believe the SCPR, just ask Hizzhoner himself.

He'll tell ya!

If you are going to work for William J., you'd better get that straight or you will not be around once he figures out that a subordinate has a mind of his/her own.

Among his victims on that score have been former service director Bernabei, former safety director Tom Nesbitt and former service director, safety director, and chief-of-staff Warren Price.

After the SCPR talked with Williams, to set the Healy-inspired (the SCPR thinks) spin straight, The Report contacted SCLRC president Alex Zumbar.

Zumbar has been the driving force behind Stark County getting involved in the Land Bank business.

Since early 2012 Zumbar has been leading the effort to get Stark land bank up and going.

 

To see the underlying documents (the commissioners' resolution of March 21, 2012 and the Articles of Incorporation) of the "new" non-profit (quasi-governmental) corporation, go to this LINK at the secretary of state website and then click on "Document Number/Image," to wit:

In March of 2012, the SCPR published a blog which laid out how Canton/"the Healy administration" stood to benefit "hugely" and the hand of unlikely benefactors Bernabei and Creighton.

For Canton not to have been prepared for the infusion of millions of dollars is simply inexcusable and Cantonians should be outraged.

And they should lay it right at the feet of William J. Healy, II!

Here is the above-referenced exchange between the SCPR and Zumbar.

First, the SCPR email to Zumbar:

>>> Martin Olson <tramols@att.net> 1/29/2014 8:37 AM >>>
Alex,

I talked with Fonda Williams at Canton City Council's meeting on Monday about the progress of the OHFA grant.

My question was a follow up to the point made at the SCLRC meeting re:  Canton's inability to fully utilize the OAG Moving Ohio monies.

It was:  what happens to the "unused" portion of the OAG money?

I was unable to understand his explanation.  He seemed to me to be merging his answer with the OHFA grant application and the assumption that Stark County would qualify.  My understanding was that should Canton fail to uses all the OAG money allocated by the SCLRC, the city would be covered by OHFA money.

But still was not responsive - in my opinion - to my question.

Can you help me out with an answer from the SCLRC perspective?

Thanks,

Martin Olson
SCPR

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Zumbar's response:


Martin: [01/29/2014]

Thank you for your follow-up question on the January 21, 2014 -Stark County Land Reutilization Corporation meeting.

To answer your question "What happens to the "unused" portion of the OAG money?"

In short, it is left on the table and is retained by the Ohio Attorney General office.  The money not expended by the Moving Ohio Forward demolition grant deadline of May 31, 2014 will not be available to the Stark County Land Reutilization Corporation for reimbursement for demolished structures in Phase I.   Under our existing contracts, phase one of this program still requires the completion of all demolitions by May 31, 2014.

For any amounts remaining and available from the Phase I - MOF demolition grant program would then be a decision that would be made by Attorney General Mike DeWine.  Attorney General DeWine could consider the possibility of redistributing the remaining amounts to County Land banks that express an interest and that are in a position to be able to expend the funds should another Moving Ohio Forward demolition grant Phase II. 

Regards,

Alex


Of course, Janet Creighton never worked for Healy, but she did lose an election to him in 2007 after having been elected mayor in 2003.

Once he took office, Healy started trashing her in her administration of the mayor's office during her four years.

Of course, the objective of this quintessential Healy tactic is what?

You have it.  To make Healy look like Boy Wonder coming to the rescue, no?

Maybe the Bush administration should have checked with Healy before asking Janet to join the administration for its last year in office?

Healy is well known for trashing anyone who disagrees with him.

Actually, it is a compliment to be attacked by him.

The Report hears that every year for Christmas, somebody gives him a Top.  You know:  Spin, Spin, Spin, ad infinitum.

CREIGHTON'S "PRO-HEALY" VOTE

Undoubtedly, Janet Creighton would not see her vote as a "pro-Healy" vote.

Rather she has to be thinking that it was a "pro-Canton-citizen" vote that unfortunately is under the administration of a man who likely will find one way or another to botch things up if OHFA approves the application.

It is to her credit (and to Bernabei also) that she and he did not let past animosities affect their votes.

The SCPR does not think that the Zumbar and the Haws "no" votes were borne of partisan political differences.

Rather, The Report sees them as being for political "philosophical" differences, which The Report thinks Creighton shares.

It is a credit to her that she resolved her doubts in favor of everyday Cantonians who she faithfully served for four years.

When Healy runs for office again, he certainly spins his failure to use all the money available to Canton from Moving Ohio Forward into having been some grand success.

Such is the nature of William J. Healy, II.

One has to wonder when the citizens of Canton are going to get wise about this guy Healy?

He has been bamboozling them for over six years now.

Wise up Cantonians, wise up!

The January 21st SCLRC meeting is quite interesting and here it is - for the most part -  except for the first 30 minutes or so which the SCPR missed because of attending a Stark Board of Elections meeting of the same date.

The initial missed portion had to do with the SCLRC hiring an administrator.  The preference is to hire on a contract basis rather than a direct employee.

The Community Builders Partnership of Stark County, Inc (represented by by Director Joel Owens and Healthy Communities Manager Maureen Austin) is interested in obtaining the administrative work.

Also missing is a few minutes of board consideration of vacant lot disposition which occurred because of The Report's desire to interview Canton Chief of Staff Fonda Williams one-on-one.

The Fonda Williams interview is presented above.

(VIDEO: BERNABEI, BICKIS, GREEN, HAWS, THOMAS & ZUMBAR) STARK COUNTY TREASURER ALEX ZUMBAR MAY BE PROHIBITED FROM SERVING AS PRESIDENT OF THE STARK COUNTY LAND REUTILIZATION CORPORATION BECAUSE OF ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS? OHIO GENERAL ASSEMBLY DOESN'T GET THE JOB DONE PROPERLY IN SETTING UP STRUCTURE FOR LAND BANKS?

Ever wonder how inept the Ohio General Assembly is?

Well, you don't have to go far to find out.

We in Stark County have first hand experience with the screw ups in Columbus in formulating laws that don't work.

Remember the situation with former Stark County Treasurer Gary Zeigler?

Of course you do.

Zeigler had the misfortune of his chief deputy treasurer stealing upwards of $3 million.  A reality that came to light on April 1, 2009.

While Zeigler was not implicated in the theft, Ohio law  (ORC 321.37 and 321.38) provided that if money comes up missing from a county treasurer's office and is lost to the county, then the county commissioner "may" remove the treasurer which the Stark County commissioners did with Zeigler on August 23, 2012.

Trouble was that the Ohio Supreme Court held in a lawsuit initiated by Zeigler to be reinstated:

(June 23, 2011) ...  that R.C. 321.38, which  authorizes a county treasurer’s removal from office  “immediately on the institution of a suit,” is unconstitutional on its face because it  conflicts with Sect. 38 Art. II of the Ohio constitution that requires a complaint and hearing before an officer is removed.  Based on that determination, the Court issued a writ of quo warranto that removes the current Stark County Treasurer, Alexander A. Zumbar, and reinstates ousted Gary D. Zeigler to the remainder of his elected 2008 term. State ex rel. Zeigler v. Zumbar, Slip Opinion No. 2011-Ohio-2939 (LINK)

Folks, ORC 321.38 became law on October 1, 1953.

While the Stark County prosecutor's office shepherded the commissioners through the process of removing Zeigler (remember the Ohio Supreme Court says the law "is unconstitutional on its face") saying that they (the prosecutors) were relying on the Ohio General Assembly knowing what they were doing in putting the legislation on the books in the first place and not changing it over the course of nearly 60 years, it is obvious now that the prosecutors should have known better than to have relied on the Ohio Legislature being on top of things and making sure that compliance with 321.38 would withstand challenge if followed literally.

Eventually, the commissioners on October 19, 2011 negotiated a deal with Zeigler for him to leave office by resignation and retirement.

Yesterday it came to light in a board meeting held by the Stark County Land Reutilization Corporation (SCLRC) that the law authorizing the creation land reutilization corporations is deficient.

Ohio Revised Code Section 1724.04 (became law in July, 2010), in part, reads:

A county having a population of more than sixty thousand as of the most recent decennial census that elects under section 5722.02 of the Revised Code to adopt and implement the procedures set forth in sections 5722.02 to 5722.15 of the Revised Code may organize a county land reutilization corporation under this chapter and Chapter 1702. of the Revised Code for the purpose of exercising the powers granted to a county under Chapter 5722. of the Revised Code. The county treasurer of the county for the benefit of which the corporation is being organized shall be the incorporator of the county land reutilization corporation. (emphasis added)

Well, our county treasurer Alex Zumbar got all excited about this legislation and took steps in December, 2011 to interest the Stark County commissioners to pass a resolution authorizing the creation of  a Stark County based corporation (which is non-profit and quasi-governmental).

Zumbar has done a really good job as far as the SCPR is concerned since, once again, becoming treasurer upon Zeigler's resignation.

He has gone to town on whittling down the $40 million or so of delinquent real estate property taxes owed Stark County and has pushed the Stark County prosecutor's office to step up efforts to collect the back taxes.

However, try as they may, the prosecutor's office does not have a chance to collect taxes on the many, many of the delinquent taxpayers because in many cases the taxes are more than the value of the property most of which have been abandoned because they are uninhabitable.

With the help of former Cuyahoga County treasurer Jim Rokakis (who, when treasurer, worked hard to deal with some 27,000 abandoned and vacant homes in Cuyahoga County and who now leads Thriving Communities Institute, an organization he founded in 2011 with the Western Reserve Land Conservancy) and Robin Darden Thomas (land bank program director at Thriving Communities), Zumbar has taken the lead to develop a similar program for Stark County.

Zumbar has incorporated the Stark County effort under the name Stark County Land Reutilization Corporation (SCLRC) and has put together a board of directors (which includes Zumbar, Stark County Commissioners Tom Bernabei and Janet Creighton, Plain Township Trustee Scott Haws [representing township interests] and Attorney Lemuel Green (representing Stark County's largest city's [Canton] as provided for by Ohio law.  Green, incidentally and ironically (in the view of the SCPR) once worked for Gary Zeigler in the treasurer's office as one of his top lieutenants.

So everything was going swimmingly.

That is until yesterday.

Stark County assistant prosecutor Mike Bickis dropped a bomb shell.

Yes, a bombshell!

Picking up on discussion that the board members of the SCLRC contemplated that Zumbar would be the president of the corporation and would in that capacity be making decisions and recommending to the board that they endorse his determinations on specific actions in terms of what demolition proposals (and, also, later down the road what rehabilitations) would benefit from the infusion of SCLRC funds, Bickis, speaking as the legal adviser to the commissioners, questioned whether or not Zumbar in wearing three hats (county treasurer, a board member of the SCLRC serving as the lead and, if the board has its druthers, as president and a key decision maker in the day-to-day operations of the SCLRC) might put himself in violation of the ethical rules of Ohio (Ohio Ethics Commission) in terms of potential conflicts-in-interest.

It was discomforting to the board members (undoubtedly Zumbar) for Bickis to have raised the ethical questions.  Nobody on the board questions Zumbar's ethics.  Nor does Bickis.  But he sees it as his obligation as the adviser for the two commissioner members of the board (sitting as prescribed by Ohio law) to raise any ethical concerns that occur to him.

Bickis advised that it might be best (again, emphasis he was advising the commissioners as their legal representative) to hold off on making Zumbar the operations leader until the Ohio general attorney responds to a request made by the Mahoning County prosecutor for a clarification of whether or not there are statutes which would not permit/prohibit a county treasurer/auditor to operate a non-profit corporation while holding an official position.

Bickis says that the Ohio Ethics Commission has been asked to weigh in on the ethical aspect of the same question.

The SCPR understands that there are a number of counties which are planning to use the county treasurer or auditor as the non-profits day-in, day-out executive officer.

To return to the initial point of this blog which is the inadequate legal structure provided by the Ohio General Assembly in authorizing the creation of land reutilization corporations.

Bickis told The Report that it should have been apparent to the Legislature that creating a non-profit quasi-governmental entity, there were bound to be concerns about mixing private and public functions especially along potential conflicts-in-interest lines.

The SCPR believes that the "bastard" structure that the Legislature created was born of the Republican party's fixation with privatizing everything in sight.  Had they just made the land reutilization entity totally government, then there would not be the questions prompted by the Mahoning County prosecutor and Prosecutor Bickis.

And, of course, none of Stark County's four legislators at the time (Slesnick, Schuring, Snitchler and Oelslager) were not savvy enough to pick up on the problems they help create with this woefully inadequate legislation.

This episode brings to mind a meeting the Stark County commissioner had in early 2011 in which they brought in Schuring, Slesnick and Schuring (Christina Hagan did not attend) and asked them to do something to get rid of legislative mandates that were a burden to county government some of which are costly.

Schuring promised to tackle the specific list presented by Stark County Court of Common Pleas judge Tayrn Heath.

The last The Report knew, Schuring had gotten action on a grand total of two.

Go figure!

Schuring is a man who promised yours truly to get legislation passed to require local candidates who get contributions of $100 or more to have to identify the vocation or employer of the contributor.

Still waiting Representative Schuring?

Does anyone think that he'll keep his promise?

ORC sections 312.38, 1724.04 and the Judge Heath's list of antiquated mandates show the need for the Ohio General Assembly needs to have a permanent task force in place that is constantly reviewing Ohio's statutes for relevancy to 2012 government, conflicts between statutes and inadequately structured statutes and to deal with the problems accordingly.

Now onto the financing of Stark County's LRC.

Stark County commissioners approved a resolution earlier this year to provide the SCLRC with 5 mills of Stark County real property revenues which amount presently to about $500,000 annually.

Moreover, the SCLRC is in line to get about $2 million (likely a one-time grant) from Attorney General DeWine's Moving Ohio Forward Demolition Program later this year.

The SCPR applauds Prosecutor Bickis for his work in making sure all the ethical questions are resolved before the SCLRC gets off and running.

Here is a video of the discussion of the board members, Bickis and Robin Darden Thomas, (the land bank program director at Thriving Communities Institute):