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Voters in Washington County will get the chance to narrow down their choices for State Representative for the 94th House District during the primary election March 19.
In the primary there are two candidates on the Republican ballot and one on the Democratic ballot.
The Republicans running are current Washington County Commissioner Kevin Ritter from Marietta, Washington County, and tattoo parlor owner Shannon Walker from Pomeroy, Meigs County.
The Democrat running is attorney Wenda Sheard from Athens, Athens County.
The 94th district is made up of all of Washington and Meigs counties and parts of Athens County, excluding the city of Athens.
The Marietta Times talked with each candidate about their plans for the 94th District and their campaigns.
Ritter has been a Washington County Commissioner since 2019 and believes that economic development is an important issue for the 94th District.
He thinks investment and growth in the region should be encouraged and as an elected official he would work with his colleagues to remove barriers that impede job growth, including onerous regulation and licensure rules, high taxation and environmental mandates.
He also plans to address infrastructure in Washington County and believes the government should work to ensure there are things like water, sewer, broadband and housing in Southeastern Ohio to make it attractive to attract new business and to encourage local businesses to expand.
Ritter believes that another important issue facing the district is education. He said that he supports school choice.
"I support real school choice (where the money follows the child) with a keen understanding that 'choice' is only meaningful if parents have good options to select from," Ritter said.
He also believes that publicly funded colleges and universities should be held accountable by encouraging them to move away from layers of administarvies offices that give little benefit to students and by creating a greater diversity of opinion among faculty members that leads to inquiry and discussion instead of echoing radical ideology.
Ritter plans to address the valuation of the part of Wayne National Forest that is in Washington County that he said adversely impacts Frontier Local Schools and the local government.
He said that he will pressure leaders in Washington, D.C., to fairly value the 40,000 federally-protected acres of the national forest that is currently valued at $600 an acre.
Ritter believes that teamwork is the key to addressing drug addiction and opioid overdoses in the 94th District and state. He believes that people who enter the country unlawfully should be prosecuted and removed because as any law enforcement official will tell you, the drug problem in Ohio is made worse by the country's porous southern border.
If elected as state representative for the 94th House District, the first item that Ritter will focus on will be the biennial budget, where he will push to include funding for local water and sewer projects and to increase funding for identifying and plugging orphan oil and natural gas wells in the area.
"As an effective communicator, I believe I can give voice to the frustrations and needs of (southeastern) Ohio in our state capital," Ritter said. "Our part of the state has long been neglected. While that has improved in recent years, I want to ensure that Columbus continues to see the vast potential for growth and prosperity in our corner of the state."
Walker worked in law enforcement for eight years then due to a back injury he opened a tattoo parlor, which he has run for 17 years. He believes that there are three big issues in the 94th District: the lack of jobs and the poverty level, drugs and the school systems.
Walker thinks work needs to start on getting more jobs and businesses to come to the area and growing the jobs that are already present and to do this available lanes are needed for businesses to locate locally and infrastructure, mainly roads, is needed to attract those businesses.
Walker said schools need better funding and that "we need to get the woke ideology out of the schools and start getting children back to how to think rather than what to think."
He also said schools need to get back to teaching reading, writing, math, history and science and need to add more vocational curriculum.
Walker said to help with the drug addiction and opioid overdose problems in the 94th District there needs to be more centers to help people with addiction and to change and strengthen laws pertaining to drug distribution.
"I believe that if anybody is selling fentanyl and caught selling fentanyl that it should be the same as attempted murder," he said. "Because whenever they sell that drug that's the same as pointing a gun into a crowd."
If elected, Walker said he will prioritize getting the "The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety" amendment removed from the Ohio Constitution.
The amendment was passed by voters in November and states among other things that every individual has the right to make and carry out their own reproductive choices, including abortion, and that abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability unless a pregnant person's doctor thinks it is necessary to protect their life or health.
Walker is running because of his experiences in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. He said that small businesses were forced to close in 2020 during to COVID. He opened his tattoo parlor after three weeks and was threatened with fines and jail time. He also said that his wife was an ER nurse at the time and there was a vaccine mandate that if nurses didn't get the COVID vaccine they could lose their job and there was a push to require vaccines for children to attend school. He does not believe that someone should be forced to get a vaccine or lose their job and that the government did not have the right to shut down small businesses.
"I never had a plan on being a politician and I just think that it's time we get a little bit of common sense over the political correctness in Columbus ... It's not about party lines at this point in time, it's about right and wrong," Walker said. "It's about going to Columbus and doing what's right for the people, not what's right for the parties."
Sheard is a lawyer and has also been a political science PhD researcher, teacher, mediator and the Hocking County Domestic Relations magistrate. Sheard believes the most important issues facing the 94th District all relate to economics.
"We have big corporations with wages set so low that families must rely on government assistance for food assistance and health care," Sheard said. "We've got a shortage of doctors, long wait times to see specialists. We have a housing shortage. We have food insecurity and our schools lack the funding that schools in other parts of the state".
If she is elected she said she will help these issues by listening to the people in the district, keeping them informed about legislation moving through the Ohio General Assembly and inviting them to testify at hearings in Columbus to make their voices need to be heard.
Sheard plans on tracking federal and state funding distribution to make sure the 94th District gets its fair share of funding and kids in the district have the same educational opportunities that there are in other parts of the state.
Sheard said that she hears the same things from people in Washington, Meigs and Athens counties and it is important the district gets a fair share of funding to support public education and teachers and that it has better access to health care..
She said that building better infrastructure, including roads, bridges, sewers, water lines, broadband and phone service, will attract better jobs to the area. She plans on working with legislators in rural areas of Ohio to make sure the district gets its fair share of federal money for infrastructure and to make sure rural areas aren't left behind.
Sheard believes that in order to help the drug addiction and opioid overdose issues in the 94th District and in the state, people need to listen.
She said she plans to "listen to the families affected by those issues and listen to those who have dedicated their careers to helping those with alcoholism, drug addiction and mental health challenges."
Sheard said that federal and state funding for drug abuse issues don't always take into account factors such as the distances caregivers travel to provide care, lack of cell and broadband connectivity for telehealth care and distances people must travel for care.
If she is elected Sheard said she will prioritize "legislation that will improve the lives of the people in our district", she said.
Sheard is running for state representative of the 94th District because of the Ohio General Assembly and its focus.
"I'm running for state rep because our severely gerrymandered Ohio General Assembly has lost its ability to focus on the difficulty facing Ohioians," she said. "We need a legislature willing to focus on those difficulties that Ohioans are facing in their homes, their schools and their jobs, instead of a legislature that's focused on taking away freedoms and rights of our citizens.
There may still be unaffiliated candidates for this seat in the general election in November.
Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsandsentinel.com