County Candidates Night showcases candidates and issues

By Alberta Stojkovic –

An oth­er­wise calm and peace­able can­di­dates’ night came alive at the end of the evening Mon­day in a brief, heated ques­tion­ing of U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pat Tiberi.

Tiberi was first asked if he agreed with can­di­date Rom­ney on his posi­tion con­cern­ing trade with China. Tiberi answered that our U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ers are often com­pet­ing with China on unfair terms. He cited a con­cerned busi­ness­man in Mar­ion, Ohio who told him about the many clean energy EPA reg­u­la­tions he has recently been forced to deal with. Tiberi noted that China does not have to deal with these same reg­u­la­tions. And fur­ther­more, much more coal is now being shipped to China. Tiberi said the Mar­ion busi­ness­man, who fears for the future of his busi­ness, is the employer of 250 workers.

One man in the crowd of about 70 at the can­di­dates’ night stood up and ques­tioned Tiberi’s argu­ments. He asked if Tiberi would have us go back to hav­ing dirty air with no reg­u­la­tions like China. Tiberi said no, he would not go back to hav­ing dirty air, but we can’t con­tinue to close fac­to­ries and not have fair com­pe­ti­tion. When asked what he would do, Tiberi said heat­edly, “Stop. Stop the regulations.”

Sev­eral local issues got spe­cial atten­tion. Super­in­ten­dent, Brian Petrie of Card­ing­ton Lin­coln Schools spoke with con­vic­tion about the impor­tance of the Card­ing­ton Schools .75% Income Tax Levy for cur­rent expenses. He empha­sized that the issue is only on earned income. The tax is not applied to retire­ment ben­e­fits, rental, inter­est, mil­i­tary or estate earn­ings. Petrie noted that the dis­trict has reduced spend­ing four years in a row. The cuts from state and fed­eral spend­ing have brought a major chal­lenge to the local districts.

“Schools and com­mu­ni­ties are tied together,” noted Petrie. If we let our schools slip away, our com­mu­nity will fol­low. Fam­i­lies will look out­side of our dis­trict if the local school does not keep up in excellence.”

Four­teen can­di­dates attended the pro­gram and had the oppor­tu­nity to make a three minute state­ment about their qual­i­fi­ca­tions and posi­tion on issues. Most were unop­posed with the excep­tion of County Com­mis­sioner Can­di­dates Richard J. “Dick” Miller and Glenda G. Wil­son for Term 1/02/13; John Gersper for Com­mis­sioner, unex­pired term end­ing 12/31/14; Jeff McClain for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Pat Tiberi for U.S. Sen­ate. Hol­lis How­land and Nel­son Hack read from the posi­tions of the can­di­dates for Ohio Supreme Court.

Sher­iff Steve Bren­ne­man, who is run­ning unop­posed for his third term, asked the audi­ence for sup­port of the 1 mill levy for the Mor­row County-All Precincts Sher­iff Office for oper­at­ing, main­te­nance and repair. He noted that the depart­ment has just three offi­cers per shift with only two on the road. There are two vehi­cles that need replaced and the jail needs repairs. He appealed to the crowd that the safety and well-being of the county should be con­sid­ered and asked them to vote for the sheriff’s levy.

Mor­row County Engi­neer Randy Bush appealed to the crowd to sup­port the Motor Vehi­cle License Tax which is only $10 per each vehi­cle. He approx­i­mated that this would bring in $300,000 to the county for roads and bridges. Bush noted that the amount from the county gen­eral fund for roads is lim­ited to only $3,000. Most of their income is from gas tax, but that has decreased over the past few years by 7–10% due to peo­ple buy­ing less gas. At the same time the cost of con­struc­tion and mate­ri­als has gone up significantly.

Bush gave the exam­ple of the bridge being built on Co. Rd. 9 by Edi­son. The cost of the bridge is $505,000. $261,000 is from a grant and the rest is from the county road funds.

“We don’t have the retail busi­ness like Delaware and other coun­ties do to gen­er­ate money.

This $10 license is a first step,” Bush said.

Bush got a chuckle from the crowd when he said, “I can’t print money like they do in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.”

Com­mis­sioner Can­di­date, Dick Miller noted his busi­ness expe­ri­ence in bank­ing, real estate and at Con­sol­i­dated Elec­tric. He received his degree in busi­ness from Fisher Busi­ness Col­lege. When asked whether he would sup­port the five levies in the county, he said he would because if all of them passed it would mean that money would not be taken out of the gen­eral fund.

Miller said that as the county con­tin­ues to grow it is impor­tant to train lead­ers for the future. He would like to work to bring experts together and to study what the needs are to bring busi­ness in to the county. He would like to obtain schol­ar­ships to train lead­ers to under­stand eco­nomic, struc­tural, and strate­gic needs for development.

Com­mis­sioner Can­di­date, John Gersper said he agreed with Tom Harden’s ear­lier point that the devel­op­ment of the county infra­struc­ture is important.

“But we can’t sit and wait for the fed­eral and national gov­ern­ment to help us,” Gersper said. “The local gov­ern­ment funds have been cut in half from the state. That is why we’re hav­ing to run all these local levies.”

Gersper said a major part of his plan is that we have to buy local first. He believes Com­mis­sion­ers must buy local first and not give con­tracts to ven­dors out of the county. Gersper wants the county to make a strate­gic plan, to encour­age new busi­ness and to have local job refer­rals. He said he hopes to pre­vent land­fills and elim­i­nate immoral influ­ences in the county.

Gersper is a U.S. Navy Vet­eran, a father of five and grand­fa­ther. He added that he is an ordained Chris­t­ian min­is­ter and a jobs expert.

Glenda Wil­son worked for nine years in the Mor­row County Auditor’s office. She has attended the commissioner’s meet­ings over the past year and believes she under­stands the issues fac­ing the Mor­row County Bud­get. She had 12 years bank­ing expe­ri­ence and is a for­mer small busi­ness owner.

Wil­son said she would like to see the var­i­ous depart­ments and offices in the county work­ing together and would like to work toward that instead of hav­ing all the county offices com­pet­ing with one another.

Wil­son said when it comes to encour­ag­ing jobs and eco­nomic growth, she would start small. She has begun look­ing into small busi­nesses that would sell shoes, cloth­ing or other goods such as Wal-Mart.

“We should not have to leave the county for shoes and other basic goods,” Wil­son said.

The pro­gram was planned by the Mor­row County Tea Party. Com­mit­tee mem­bers included: Nel­son Hack, Annette Hack, Andy Katona, Duane Rasey, Carla O’Brien, and Charles Giauque. Mod­er­a­tor was Mills Poor­man, prayer was given by Pas­tor Patrick Kelly and Pledge of Alle­giance led by Duane Rasey.

Can­di­date for Recorder, Dixie Shin­aberry drew enthu­si­as­tic applause when she thanked vot­ers for tak­ing the time to come out for the meeting.

“Look for the char­ac­ter and integrity of the can­di­dates – whether they are Repub­li­can or Demo­c­rat and then vote what is in your heart,” Shin­aberry said.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Oct 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.