Jefferson County voters meet the candidates

STEUBENVILLE -- With Ohio's general election less than a month away, about 50 Jefferson County residents were on hand for Monday's candidate forum, sponsored by the Ohio Valley Business and Professional Women's Club.

On hand for the event were incumbent Jefferson County Commissioner Eric Timmons, a Republican, and his Democratic challenger, Brian Nemeth; and incumbent 96th District Representative Ron Ferguson, a Republican, and Democratic Chair Eddie Abdalla, representing Ferguson's opponent, Charrie Foglio, who was unable to attend due to a prior commitment.

Audience members submitted the questions to moderators Ross Gallabrese, representing the Herald-Star, and Dylan Cleland, WTOV-9. Questions ran the gamut from where candidates stand on the possibility of eliminating Ohio's property tax to economic priorities and data centers to Flock cameras and fiscal responsibility.

Timmons said losing property tax revenue would "be devastating."

“I look at it and I don’t like it...I think it would be devastating to our budget–think about the roads, the schools," Timmons said, suggesting state lawmakers "could tweak it a little bit. I don’t know why we always have to rush in and totally eliminate it."

Nemeth argued that property taxes "are out of control."

"I think there’s just other avenues that we can get money, but you know it’s a long, drawn-out subject of debate. We do need taxes, but we need to be very thorough in the way that we handle our taxes.

Ferguson said he'd like to see Ohio do away with property taxes or at least reduce them.

"I was actually the first representative in the state to suggest that we should (do it)," he said. "It’s the most regressive tax that there is. Sadly, property tax is due no matter what, even if you fall on hard times. It is out of control–it continues to get raised and people literally are losing their homes over this and it shouldn’t happen. I’m for reducing it (at least), if that’s proposed. I’m for reworking it if that’s proposed. I'm ultimately for abolishing it, but I would support any level of reduction in property tax."

Abdalla said Foglio "believes that property taxes are out of control but the most drastic extreme of eliminating them would devastate the community."

"The last thing you want to do is leave our county underfunded," he said, telling the audience he actually agrees with Timmons. "After meeting with (County Auditor) E.J. Conn earlier this year, he explained 100 million dollars are raised in Jefferson County on just property taxes-that’s a lot of money. Sixty-five percent of it goes to our schools. Where is that going to get made up? Where do you get $100 million in a county like Jefferson County?"

Asked about the county's economic priorities, Timmons said it has to be jobs.

"There’s a lot of opportunity coming our way," he said. "We’re probably going to need to get workers from all around because we’re not going to have enough skilled labor here to do the jobs that we’re forecasting here within the next decade, so that’s the that’s the priority for me. Economic development, new businesses. I think we’ll see that continue."

Nemeth said the priorities now seem to be "walking trails to look at beavers and salamanders."

"We’re talking about a Chick-fil-A for the last I don’t know how long," he said. "My family built a Dairy Queen in Rayland in the 90s–in three months after our architectural plans were done, we had (it) up and running. The other thing is, I come from a family that’s been in small business in manufacturing. I can tell you that I feel like this county is misguided because the things you hear are not what our roots are and what got us into Jefferson County to begin with. We need to be talking about good-paying jobs."

Ferguson agreed that creating jobs "is always a big one."

"Like the other folks have said here, certainly working on job-focused policy–I have a bill right now as well. If you talk to any business owner, the No. 1 thing that stands in the way of either opening a business or a business expanding and hiring new people is a bad regulatory framework. So my bill, the REINS Act, specifically is written to take a lot of the unelected bureaucrats’ power away. You elect representatives, commissioners, senators, they are the ones that should be setting the regulations because you can hold them accountable. Unfortunately, the way that our government is now, there are unelected people that get appointed to cabinet positions, and those people just pass rules and regulations on businesses, and there’s no oversight and there’s no ability to tell them no. What this bill says is that any rule that gets put forth by one of those agencies has to be checked off by the Legislature, they can’t just do it unilaterally, because nobody in this country should be making those decisions unilaterally."

Abdalla, speaking on Foglio's behalf, said economic development is a hot topic nationwide.

"Here in Jefferson County, due to the collapse of our manufacturing base, our steel industry, we never had anything take its place, but we’ve had (lots of talk) about bringing in major industries. Nothing has happened," he said. "Charrie is big on economic development: We have a river here, we have a highway system, we have railroads, we have a (electrical) grid that feeds into the valley. All of these could be taken advantage of if the attention was paid to them. Unfortunately, we’re still in the same spot that we have been for decades in Jefferson County, and it’s due to the local leaders."