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Blogmail response on Hafner
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QB in Browns future: another mock draft
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NBA Power Rankings from Around the Internet
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Buckeyes grab 18 players on signing day
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Republican Pre-Conditions
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Law, Love and Chocolate
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Collector Car Hobby Loses One of the Best—Jim Roll
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Decisions Decisions: Credit Cards or Your Mortgage?
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Loucile is looking for a Lake Erie getaway in June for three kids, ages 1, 3, and 5.
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Talk of the Town – Top entertainment picks for the weekend
HRLite House:
OFCCP Report
Akron Gamer:
Makers of 'Castle Crashers' unveil 'BattleBlock Theater'
See Jane Style:
Do IT this week: Layering
By Nancy Molnar
Special to the Beacon Journal
POSTED: 10:30 p.m. EST, Nov 17, 2009
CANTON: The need to complete cardiac rehabilitation and the death of a colleague have contributed to a Stark County commissioner's decision to leave office Dec. 1.
Commissioner Tom Harmon said Tuesday his 50-hour-a-week schedule left him too little time to make the changes required after his triple-bypass heart surgery in May.
Harmon said he has started and stopped smoking cigarettes about five times since his surgery. He found it difficult to stick to the prescribed exercise schedule with a professional calendar stacked with meetings from morning to night.
''When our young county engineer passed away, Mike Rehfus — admittedly, he had cancer and had been ill — just a combination of events led me to the conclusion that I needed to step back and make changes in my lifestyle,'' said Harmon, 55.
Rehfus died Nov. 10 at age 49.
Harmon said he and his wife, Carlene, discussed the possibility of his resigning and made the decision Friday, the day before Rehfus' funeral.
The three commissioners' jobs have been complicated by the voters' Nov. 3 decision to repeal a 0.5 percent sales tax the board imposed to fund county government and improve emergency dispatching.
''It definitely makes it a hard job,'' Harmon said by phone Tuesday. ''It made the task, frankly, more impossible.''
Harmon, a Canton resident, said he has been troubled by the probable effects of budget shortfalls on employees: furloughs, layoffs and no raises.
''Those are the things that keep me awake nights,'' he said.
Harmon, a former clerk of Canton Municipal Court, was appointed to a commissioner's seat in 2007 and won a four-year term in 2008. He cites four major accomplishments in slightly more than two years in office:
• The sale of the county farm in Navarre to create a permanent improvement fund.
• The conversion of the former Molly Stark Hospital property in Nimishillen Township into a park.
• The purchase and planned demolition of the former Department of Job and Family Services office at 220 Tuscarawas St. E. in Canton.
• The reactivation of the Stark County Community Improvement Corp. to make grants and loans to businesses.
Harmon said his plans for the next year include visiting a son and his family in Florida, helping a stepson recover from traumatic brain injury and, possibly, volunteering.
''I'm definitely going to work on reducing my golf handicap,'' he said, as well as to ''learn to go to sleep when I'm tired and wake up when I'm not.''
''I wouldn't close the door on me being employed in some way in the public sector.''
CANTON: The need to complete cardiac rehabilitation and the death of a colleague have contributed to a Stark County commissioner's decision to leave office Dec. 1.
Commissioner Tom Harmon said Tuesday his 50-hour-a-week schedule left him too little time to make the changes required after his triple-bypass heart surgery in May.
Harmon said he has started and stopped smoking cigarettes about five times since his surgery. He found it difficult to stick to the prescribed exercise schedule with a professional calendar stacked with meetings from morning to night.
''When our young county engineer passed away, Mike Rehfus — admittedly, he had cancer and had been ill — just a combination of events led me to the conclusion that I needed to step back and make changes in my lifestyle,'' said Harmon, 55.
Rehfus died Nov. 10 at age 49.
Harmon said he and his wife, Carlene, discussed the possibility of his resigning and made the decision Friday, the day before Rehfus' funeral.
The three commissioners' jobs have been complicated by the voters' Nov. 3 decision to repeal a 0.5 percent sales tax the board imposed to fund county government and improve emergency dispatching.
''It definitely makes it a hard job,'' Harmon said by phone Tuesday. ''It made the task, frankly, more impossible.''
Harmon, a Canton resident, said he has been troubled by the probable effects of budget shortfalls on employees: furloughs, layoffs and no raises.
''Those are the things that keep me awake nights,'' he said.
Harmon, a former clerk of Canton Municipal Court, was appointed to a commissioner's seat in 2007 and won a four-year term in 2008. He cites four major accomplishments in slightly more than two years in office:
• The sale of the county farm in Navarre to create a permanent improvement fund.
• The conversion of the former Molly Stark Hospital property in Nimishillen Township into a park.
• The purchase and planned demolition of the former Department of Job and Family Services office at 220 Tuscarawas St. E. in Canton.
• The reactivation of the Stark County Community Improvement Corp. to make grants and loans to businesses.
Harmon said his plans for the next year include visiting a son and his family in Florida, helping a stepson recover from traumatic brain injury and, possibly, volunteering.
''I'm definitely going to work on reducing my golf handicap,'' he said, as well as to ''learn to go to sleep when I'm tired and wake up when I'm not.''
''I wouldn't close the door on me being employed in some way in the public sector.''
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