Local voters who ask for a Republican ballot will decide the lone race for countywide office during Tuesday’s primary election.
The two Republican candidates for a Logan County Commissioners seat were asked a series of questions about their stance on issues.
Both were provided the questions in advance and allowed time to consider their responses.
Incumbent John Bayliss chose to file a written reply to the six questions. The challenger Dan Defibaugh opted to conduct an interview with Examiner reporter Reuben Mees.
Mr. Bayliss’ responses are presented as submitted, without editing. Mr. Defibaugh’s responses are a transcript of his interview made from an audio recording.
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John Bayliss
Age: 65
Hometown: Rushsylvania
Occupation: Owner of a residential design, building and remodeling firm and farm owner and operator.
Previous political experience: 20-year incumbent Logan County Commissioner; Logan County Solid Waste District; Community Improvement Corporation; LUC Regional Planning Commission; Area Resource, Conservation and Development; Ohio County Risk Sharing Authority; Ohio County Employee Benefit Consortium; County Commissioners Association; Hi-Point Career Center Emergency Services Advisory Committee.
Civic and professional: National Kitchen and Bath Association; Farm Bureau, past president; Ohio Sheep Improvement Association, past county and state president; Church of Christ, deacon; Lions Club; former volunteer firefighter; Logan County Republican Party, central and executive committees. On the web: www.johnbayliss.org. |
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Dan Defibaugh
Age: 53
Hometown: Orchard Island, Indian Lake
Occupation: Buildings and grounds superintendent, Benjamin Logan Local School District; 32 years as volunteer firefighter and assistant chief, Lakeview and Indian Joint fire departments.
Previous political experience: Has worked with the Benjamin Logan Board of Education regarding projects or issues at the schools and Lakeview Village Council regarding fire department issues; first run for elected office.
Civic and professional: Active member, Lewistown Trinity United Methodist Church; Indian Lake Lodge 1533 Loyal Order of the Moose; Indian Lake Lodge 722, Free & Accepted Masons; Ohio State licensed wastewater operator; certified through Building Operator Certification. |
Dan Defibaugh, the 53-year-old buildings and grounds superintendent at Benjamin Logan School District, is challenging five-term incumbent John Bayliss, 65, for one of two Logan County Commissioner seats this year. Commissioner Tony Core is running unopposed.
The two candidates answered several questions regarding issues and their full responses are available here.
John Bayliss
1. What are your thoughts about the health of the county budget? Do you believe it is adequate, inadequate or too much?
A County can never spend more than it receives in revenue, and the vast majority of the County budget is for items mandated by state or federal law, over which we have very little flexibility. Logan County has suffered like other jurisdictions financially since the recession of 2008. However, I have shown my fiscal conservatism by making sure we continue to live within our means. The Commissioners have worked with the other elected officials and department heads to cut expenses so as to not exceed our revenues, while at the same time building our “rainy day” fund to soften the blow in the event of further future economic downturns. We have made great strides, and I am hopeful that we can continue our efforts to make Logan County government more efficient through technology and collaboration. There are always additional wants and needs in County government, but we must live within our means. I cannot support increasing revenue by increasing taxes.
2. Do you support an effort by the Eastern Shawnee Tribe and associated developers to have land near Lewistown classified as tribal land and open to casino resort development?
While it is encouraging to hear of potential development, I am concerned about having a casino so close to a school campus and so far away from the needed infrastructure to support it. The Commissioners have little or no say in this proposed project. I am concerned about the increased demand on police, fire and EMS, as well as effects it would have on the community in regards to crime and our conservative values. While I support job creation, I do not believe this development would be good for our community at this time with what we know.
3. Do you support the continuation of the 1/2 percent road and bridge tax?
I have a history of supporting efforts to keep our infrastructure solid and strong. That’s why I have supported our local sales tax for roads and bridges. The sales tax is going to be up for renewal again this year. It passed with large support when it was on the ballot the last time. I plan to give the proposal a lengthy review before placing it on the ballot again as well as reaching out to get input from county, city, village officials and township trustees to make a final decision.
Ultimately, as I think is appropriate, it will be up to the voters to decide.
4. What is your personal opinion on wind turbine development in Logan County?
The Commissioners have been consistent and clear about the process we intend to follow when and if a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) request is presented to our office from the Ohio Department of Development. As a Commissioner I believe I should remain impartial. I may be asked to judicially consider a request for tax relief in the form of an agreement or Payment in Lieu of Taxes. It is important to note that the Commissioners have no say in whether there will be wind turbines or not, but instead only in the possible question of whether there should be a Payment in Lieu of Taxes or not. Our office has not received any such request or proposal at this time. If and when that were to occur, we will have a public hearing to take comments from proponents and opponents. I will also seek input from local elected officials in the project areas, including local school boards.
5. Please discuss what you believe needs to be done to move Logan County toward a zero waste to landfill community.
I have been a long time strong supporter of our recycling efforts. I am the Chair of the Logan County Solid Waste Policy Committee and have worked with others to develop plans to move Logan County toward zero waste. These plans are very comprehensive and extensive. Logan County is one of the top performing counties in Ohio, in terms of rates of recycling. A key to additional success is to emphasize educational programs to increase citizen awareness of opportunities to reuse, recycle, reduce, or repurpose materials in homes and businesses. We also plan to expand efforts to redirect waste from small businesses such as retail shops and food service.
6. What can the Logan County Commissioners do to encourage economic development and support the existing agricultural industry?
I view the Commissioners’ office as providing a catalyst (support and encouragement) through involvement with organizations such as the Community Improvement Corporation, which directs local economic development. It is the duty of government to create policies to help private business be able to expand and grow.
Recently, our office worked to bring commercial building inspections from the State to our local building department to help local commerce. This change was to help with consistency and improve the speed of plan review and inspections. This is proving to work well for local developers and business owners.
We are also exploring ways to identify outside funding sources as a means to help kick start business development and expansion. I also believe there is a continuing need to support production agriculture through the Soil and Water Conservation District and OSU Extension.
It’s important to maintain lines of communication with organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, Logan Farm Bureau and public utilities as well as individual businesses
Dan Defibaugh
1. What are your thoughts about the health of the county budget? Do you believe it is adequate, inadequate or too much?
First of all, it’s pretty hard to find the budget. It’s tough to get a hold of.
I do feel the budget is too low and one of the reasons I feel that way is because of the sheriff’s office
The sheriff’s office has a lower amount of deputies and detectives than we’ve ever had. We don’t even have our own drug dog anymore. We have to rely on other agencies to bring a drug dog. Evidently that’s a problem, especially with the larger amount of crime and the drug problems in the county, especially heroin
Let’s get more industry. Let’s get more jobs in the community. With more jobs is more tax revenue. I would rather look at increasing jobs and industry or any type of business in the county than I would want to take it from another department.
Mr. Defibaugh was asked a follow up question regarding the possibility of raising taxes to fund the county government.
As last resorts. I would also like to look at the possibility instead of a property tax, an income tax.
It would be a last resort, if it was necessary with the ongoing heroin situation, there is no good answers to it. Not at this point.
2. Do you support an effort by the Eastern Shawnee Tribe and associated developers to have land near Lewistown classified as tribal land and open to casino resort development?
I have no problem with the casino going in but I feel there should be a lot of research done before you go forward. For instance, how is this going to affect our law enforcement, the cost to township and county to accommodate this facility and investigate this company to see what their track record is.
3. Do you support the continuation of the 1/2 percent road and bridge tax?
I most certainly do. I feel the engineer’s office is doing a great job. It’s about time someone has been proactive on our infrastructure. Here in this county we fix bridges before they’re dangerous and have to shut them down and fix them.
4. What is your personal opinion on wind turbine development in Logan County?
My personal opinion is I’m against them — for a couple of reasons. One reason is, for as beautiful as Logan County is with our rolling hills and our beautiful lakes we have, I feel this would be detrimental to the scenery. The other thing is, I’m not 100 percent sure the payback is that great as far as the cost of erecting these, the cost of maintaining them and possibly later the demolition.
Mr. Defibaugh was asked a follow up question regarding whether he would support a request by EverPower to approve a payment in lieu of taxes agreement.
I would vote yes as long as it was going to be fair to everybody involved.
5. Please discuss what you believe needs to be done to move Logan County toward a zero waste to landfill community.
I feel this is a problem that should have been dealt with years ago before letting out-of-state companies bring their trash in here and dumping it. Now it’s going to be a pretty tough item to deal with. One of the solutions I see is more recycling and more education to the public.
If we end up having to close that we are going to be putting an even bigger burden on the public to ship it somewhere else.
Mr. Defibaugh was asked a follow up question regarding the Logan County Solid Waste Management District’s $1 per ton increase for out-of-district users of the landfill.
I think it should be more than that. Let’s face it, the only reason they are bringing it here is because they can do it cheaper than throwing it in their own landfill and then they have opposition to their own landfill in their own communities.
6. What can the Logan County Commissioners do to encourage economic development and support the existing agricultural industry?
I believe the commissioners should be looking at more industry to come into Logan County. We have a lot of these industrial parks in Logan County sitting empty. We have places in Logan County for them to go, let’s get them there. This county has everything to offer anyone would want. I don’t understand why they aren’t full.
Mr. Defibaugh was asked a follow up question regarding the availability of a well-trained workforce, specifically whether he sees social issues such as drug abuse among the potential workforce as reasons companies may choose not to locate here.
I know a lot of good people out here really don’t have a job that would love to have a job and they are very good law abiding citizens and are not drug addicts. I don’t event think that would be an issue. I think that would draw some people in.
As far as the people that work within this county and not just Honda, I have worked with a lot of contractors in this county and I’ll tell you what, we’ve got some top notch people here. I’ve done a lot of building projects for the school. We did a gas conversion project; we did a House Bill 264 project, which is energy savings; we added air conditioning. There’s a lot of good employees in this county.
Mr. Defibaugh returned to the second part of the question regarding agriculture.
As far as agriculture goes, I would like to explore the next time somebody thinks about a tax increase is an income tax, not a property tax because when it’s a property tax we beat the farmers up really bad. Let’s face it agriculture is second in the county for business.
Polls open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.