Saturday, August 23, 2008

DISCUSSION: WILL FERGUSON EVER FIGURE OUT THE REAL ISSUES IN THIS RACE?


Readers of the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) will recall that The Report has taken Democrat candidate Dr. Peter Ferguson to task for launching his campaign (in the primary) calling for spending cuts by the Stark County Commissioners.

The Report would be first in line for cuts if there is room for cuts. Anyone who knows anything about Stark County government knows that there is no funding slack in the Stark County budget.

But Ferguson is not alone. Republican Travis Secrest (running against Tom Harmon) is another of the uninformed calling for more budgetary cuts and on top of that calling for tax cuts which the commissioners do not have the power to do.

The Report thinks the voters have to be very wary of Ferguson and Secrest until they give chapter and verse where cuts can be made without jeopardizing baseline governmental services which could put the public at risk.

Can Ferguson and Secrest deliver? The Report thinks not.

Now we have Ferguson calling for change? One thing The Report notes about Ferguson is that he likes to speak in terms of "glittering generalities," providing little or not specifics.

More disturbing about Ferguson is that neither cuts or change are the issues unless he has dynamite ideas for changing the way Stark County goes about economic development. But who knows what he means. The Report suspects that Ferguson has not gotten beyond the slogan stage.

Gathering resources for economic development is the issue in both commissioner races. To Harmon's credit, he is following Commissioner Todd Bosley's lead. The Report hasn't heard anything from Harmon that excites the imagination of what he might have mind to rejuvenate Stark County's economy.

Isn't it just more than a tad distressing that Ferguson and Secrest do not seem to have a clue as to what is important to the future of Stark County?

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