Written by The $80,000 Catch-22: Marion Needs to Fix Finances, But Can It Afford the Fix?
At a contentious “Candidates Night” hosted by the League of Women Voters, a single, $80,000 question divided the room. For opponents like council candidate Anthony Azaria, the cost to form a city charter commission was an irresponsible gamble for a city “not financially stable”. But for proponents, this $80,000 pales in comparison to the catastrophic, multi-million dollar costs of a problem that, according to extensive investigations, has been festering for decades.
This debate is the city’s political catch-22, pitting the cost of a fix against the documented, escalating costs of a 40-year “Silent Sabotage.” This documented history includes:
- Decades of documented intentional and unintentional financial mismanagement.
- “Inappropriate financial IT controls” where safeguards were confirmed disabled.
- “Unimpeded administrative access” to critical systems by non-IT staff, according to multiple eye witnesses and backed up by screenshots in the posession of Marion Watch showing the depth of this failure in the New World Financial System.
- Shocking breaches of physical IT security.
Investigations by Marion Watch, sourced from public records and insider reports, reveal this “Silent Sabotage” was systemic. During the Schertzer administration, the city’s main server room was reportedly used as a regular office, a practice that “breaks all IT security protocols” and fostered an environment of “lax security” for the city’s most critical data. This lax security apparently extended to the network itself; Marion Watch was recently made aware of a “rogue device”—an unauthorized piece of hardware—discovered and reported which, according to sources, the mayor’s office was not aware of. Although this is a city official it proves that the IT security in Marion, was in the recent past, still experiencing drastic IT control dysfunction. These issues, are added to the long and growing list of financial and information technology issues we have discovered dating back to the earliest Ohio State Audits in our posession from 1983.
This historical context has reframed the $80,000 charter debate, contrasting it with the documented costs of this ongoing crisis (a few examples include):
- Over $600,000 in mounting IRS penalties and fees.
- New “bank fraud” identified on the city’s new bank account, which was opened after the old one was closed due to irregularities.
- $1.46 Million spent just to repair the 2021 fiscal ledger.
- $1.28 Million in federal taxes erroneously sent to the State of Ohio in 2020.
- A $104.6 Million negative balance found in a single cash account on a 2020 ledger.
For charter proponents at the candidates’ night, the $80,000 is not a gamble. It is a desperate, long-overdue attempt to stop the financial bleeding and regain control from an active, multi-million dollar crisis rooted in decades of systemic failure.
The event, held at the Marion Senior Center, was a tale of two debates. The first hour featured City Council candidates focused on symptoms, while the second hour featured Charter Commission candidates arguing over a controversial and costly cure.
Part 1: City Council’s Immediate Concerns
The first panel featured City Council candidates Anthony Azaria (6th Ward) and at-large candidates Kent Halloran (write-in), Aaron Rollins, Bill Dichtl, and Dan Clark.
They were immediately confronted with resident frustration over the city’s severe financial mismanagement. All candidates agreed the situation was critical, with Mr. Dichtl noting that council’s hands are tied when dealing with an elected official, as “there’s very little as a council member you can do to remove” them. Mr. Clark argued that waiting for a charter wasn’t enough, saying, “Right now, I think every elected official in city hall needs to assist the auditor… to get this problem straightened out”.
Candidates also tackled other key neighborhood issues:
- Housing Codes: When asked about rundown properties, Dan Clark was blunt: “We currently have building codes… in Marion. We just choose not to enforce them.”
- Food Deserts: To address the lack of grocery stores in the northwest quadrant, Mr. Clark suggested increasing Marion Transit bus runs, while Mr. Halloran pushed for city incentives to attract a “full-service grocery store,” not just another dollar store.
- Neighborhood Focus: Responding to claims that downtown gets all the attention, Anthony Azaria insisted, “We must focus on our underprivileged neighborhoods. We have to pour into them.”
Part 2: The Main Event: A Deep Dive into the Charter Debate
The “fix” for the council’s financial frustration—a city charter—proved to be the most contentious topic of the night. A charter would act as a local constitution, allowing Marion to write its own rules instead of following state law.
The City Council candidates were themselves deeply split on the idea.
- Pro-Charter: Mr. Clark argued it was a necessary step to “take control of our own government”. Mr. Rollins called it “nothing more empowering than a community coming together and declaring a constitution for the city”.
- Anti-Charter (For Now): Mr. Azaria and Mr. Halloran argued the city is in no financial state to attempt it. “Financially, I don’t think that we are stable,” Mr. Azaria said, pointing to the estimated $60,000 to $80,000 cost. He warned the city could spend all that money just to have the charter “get to the ballot box and die”.
This conflict set the stage for the Charter Commission candidates, whose debate revealed three deep, underlying conflicts.
Conflict 1: The “Talent Vacuum” vs. “Local Experts”
The entire charter proposal hinges on one radical change: abolishing the elected positions of City Auditor and City Treasurer and replacing them with a single, appointed Director of Finance.
Proponents argued this is the only way to ensure a qualified expert holds the job. Commission candidate Robert Landon called it a “talent issue.”
- Pro-charter Candidate Robert Landon: “It’s a talent vacuum… When we appoint a finance director, we have the ability to open up that talent pool to outside communities and get people who have done this for 10, 15, 20 years and have a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree.”
Opponents fiercely rejected this idea, calling it an insult to local professionals.
- Naomi Craig: “Auditor [Joan] Kasotis is able to keep the county on track and she lives inside the city. So maybe we should consider paying people more money and we could bring in more qualified candidates.”
- Emily D. H. Russell: “I do not believe that we are in a talent vacuum… looking elsewhere outside could ensure that we don’t necessarily are trusting someone that has our best interest of being from this town and invested in this town.”
Conflict 2: The $80,000 Catch-22: “Investment” vs. “We’re Broke”
The financial crisis is both the reason for the charter and the reason to oppose it. Proponents framed the $80,000 cost as a rounding error compared to the money the city is already losing.
- Damen Shrivever: “Yeah. 80… $80,000 sounds like a lot upfront, but… invest the $80,000 to fix the problem.”
- John Shank: “I think we have to look at this as an investment in the future.”
Opponents, however, painted a dire picture of a city that is already insolvent. In the most stunning quote of the night, Naomi Craig detailed just how bad the city’s finances are:
- Naomi Craig: “We don’t have $80,000 to spend… Our trash trucks are getting turned around because we owe the transfer money. We are cashing out long-term investments and we are not reinvesting them.”
Conflict 3: Distrust in the Process Itself
The most unusual feature of the debate was that several candidates for the commission are openly against its creation. They warned voters to be skeptical of who is pushing for the charter.
- Emily D. H. Russell: “I am not ready for the charter yet… the people that are sitting beside me up here, there is a very large skew towards the 6th Ward and is not an accurate representation of the diversity and socioeconomic statuses of Marion.”
- Naomi Craig: “I don’t believe that a good representation of the entire city will be elected… my fear is it’s strictly to protect their own positions.“
Proponents dismissed this, arguing the 15-member commission is democratic and the public gets the final say.
- Tom Stoz: “I believe the citizens of Marion should be part of the process… give it a chance and if it’s not well written then you can vote no on it next year.“
As the Candidates’ Night concluded, voters were left with two starkly different views of Marion’s crisis.
On one hand, City Council candidates grappled with the immediate, visible symptoms: unenforced housing codes, neighborhood food deserts, and the sheer frustration of a budget that “cannot be audited.”
On the other, the Charter Commission debate exposed the alleged root cause of that frustration: a 40-year history of systemic failure. The picture painted was not one of simple mismanagement, but of a “Silent Sabotage” marked by “rogue devices” on the city network, a server room used as an office, and “unimpeded” administrative access, all of which made a mockery of gloobally accepted IT security and financial control protocols.
Ultimately, the $80,000 question is not just about a charter. It is the central conflict in a city at a crossroads. Voters must now decide whether to trust the current system to fix itself, or to pay the $80,000 price tag to tear that system down and start over—all while the documented costs of inaction, from over $600,000 in IRS penalties to new, suspected bank fraud, continue to climb.