Letters to Editor
Tea Party Spin
I read Elsie Traczy’s letter in another newspaper on how the tea party is being unfairly assailed and have some thoughts for her and the rest of the GCtp.
Elsie claims that Judge Grendell and Commissioner Spidalieri are not members of the tea party. On paper that is absolutely true. On paper…
The truth is during the last election cycle, before Skip Claypool was elected, Grendell and Spidalieri spent a great deal of time paling around with Skip, raising funds for him and helping on his campaign, and he on theirs.
Mr. Claypool and Judge Grendell together “brought Mr. Spidalieri into the fold,” so to speak, so they could control the Board of County Commissioners and now the later finds himself immersed in the cesspool the two have created in county government.
So much of what Judge Grendell does is staged theatrics for the population, so it’s hard to tell when he’s being honest, but there is no doubt that he and Skip were fast friends during the election and remain so now.
Why else would Commissioner Blake Rear have been the first to refute the judge’s claim about his termination of court employees based on a lack of funding from the commissioners? Shouldn’t that have been the board president, Mr. Claypool?
At any rate, raising funds for and spending all your time in the company of tea party senior leadership can only leave people to believe they are members, despite what may be on paper, but it also clearly draws a line for the moniker of “crony.”
In comes Kim Laurie, who Elsie is again very accurate in stating in her letter was hired by Judge Grendell and not the tea party, and who is still a good friend of the tea party from Lake County and ran in that same group of people mentioned above when she ran for Lake County commissioner. She lost and needed a job.
Oddly hiring her, despite her lack of qualifications to work in Grendell’s court at $60k a year while the judge then lets qualified people go “because he can’t afford them,” doesn’t smack of cronyism to Elsie. It makes you wonder what does.
Next she will want you to believe that John Ralph, who is the least qualified person in any position I have ever witnessed and is another good friend of Grendell’s, was hired based on his qualifications and not for his support of the judge. Granted the majority of this falls on Judge Grendell, who very obviously rewards people for support and does not hire based on the ability to perform a specific job function; however, it can not go without note that the people being hired are all “good friends” of the Geauga tea party.
Elsie, if it looks like a duck…
Rob Allen
Claridon Township
