MOUNT VERNON — A debate between candidates for State Representative for the 90th District was held at the Knox County Career Center on Monday night. The event had Republican candidate Margaret Ann Ruhl and Democrat Duane Grassbaugh answering written questions submitted by the audience.
Sponsored by the Mount Vernon News, the debate was moderated by Ron Staats. About 90 people heard the candidates state their position on a number of issues important to Knox County.
“I’m here to see what both candidates are going to do for the state of Ohio,” said Jim Puster. “I think the biggest issue that concerns us today is education. We’ve got to get our young people educated and it’s got to be affordable.”
“I want to see what the candidates have to say about the issues and kind of get the side-by-side comparison,” said Victoria Malway. “It’s a great opportunity we have here to get their opinions in person and see what kind of leaders they can be for us.”
Topics included jobs, education, health care and the environment. Each candidate was given three minutes for an opening statement, two minutes to give an answer for each question, one minute for a follow-up answer and three minutes to sum up their views at the end of the debate.
Ruhl won the coin toss before the debate began and made her opening statement first. She emphasized her experience in government and her understanding of complex budgets.
“This is a great opportunity to present what this race boils down to, experience and priorities,” Ruhl said. “I have 11 years experience as Mount Vernon City Auditor and I have 13 years experience as Knox County Auditor. This experience will help me to be immediately effective as state representative. For instance, as Knox County Auditor I understand the complexities of government budgets, tax levies, bond levies and the revenue streams used to fund government programs. I understand the importance and public trust that goes in keeping investments safe.”
Ruhl also stressed her commitment to the local economy and the partnership between business, government and education.
“My first priority is working with state government and local businesses to do everything we can to create jobs in this area,” she said. “Nothing is more important to me.”
Ruhl said there are two ways to accomplish these ends.
“One is to work with existing businesses to help them grow; provide training for local work forces and help them attract qualified workers; and provide incentives for transportation infrastructures like roads and rails to help get goods into the market,” she said. “Two, work to attract new businesses and provide a tax climate to make Ohio more attractive for new investment.”
Grassbaugh emphasized his background in his opening statement.
“There are three criteria that set me apart from Margaret Ann in this race,” he said. “First is my college education. Second is my small business family farm experience and third is support for our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”
After Grassbaugh graduated from East Knox High School, he attended Virginia Tech, where he received his bachelor’s degree in dairy science.
“In college, I got to interact and learn about the experiences of folks from the East Coast and I took classes in political science and had a minor in Ag Econ,” he said.
With this education, Grassbaugh returned to the family farm to manage the dairy part of it.
“I took over management of our family’s 120-cow, 1,200-acre farm,” he explained. “With managing the the dairy operation, you get the experience of what you have to do to create efficiencies to make a profit. We don’t have a budget given to us. It’s what we get in production with the cows, dealing with the weather and how we deal with the revenues we get.”
Grassbaugh also started his own side business in cattle genetics, which he said gave him an opportunity to work with farmers in Knox and Morrow counties. This, in turn, led to him meeting with farmers and other citizens of the district.
“This gave me an opportunity to understand the issues and values of people in the 90th District,” he said. “The one thing that came back to me over the years is the importance of our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.”
The two most important topics on people’s minds at the event were jobs and education, and the first question dealt with how each candidate would deal with the lack of jobs.
“This is an issue facing Ohio longer than it has in the nation as a whole,” he said. “We’ve been stuck in a rut for a while and it’s obvious what we’ve been trying hasn’t been working. We need to work to create jobs that can’t be exported. I think we can use Ohio’s vast resources in energy production, be it wind, solar or renewable energy as a long-term goal. In the short term, we can utilize vast resources of natural gas in Ohio. We’re sitting here in Knox County with one of the worldwide leaders in natural gas compressors in Ariel [Corp]. So anything we do to promote natural gas use will mean jobs here in Knox County.”
Ruhl spoke about a partnership solution to the problem of jobs.
“We need to have a partnership between business and state government,” she said. “And we need to have a partnership between business and education. I have been on the Area Development [Foundation] for over 13 years. I have seen this partnership work. I’ve seen it with the environment changing here. I’ve met with Ariel Corp. I don’t know if any of you realize that Ohio Technical College is one of their sponsors. They’ve been sponsoring and trying to get them going here because we need more skilled laborers to fill the positions we have available. We need to take advantage of that.
“We also need to lower taxes,” she continued. “If you lower taxes it allows businesses to prosper and it helps retain jobs. I would work with the businesses as your state representative and would work with education also.”
The second question involved the candidates’ plans to fund education in the state and how to do it in hard economic times.
“Once again I see this as a partnership,” Ruhl said. “The legislature has made great strides in legislation and made improvements to school funding. I also see we have a lot of new school buildings around here. That is through state funding. I feel such school funding is on the right track.”
Grassbaugh took a different approach to school funding.
“I think the key thing we need to look at is the overreliance of using property taxes to fund local schools,” he said. “We need to have a broad base of funding coming, not just from property taxes, but income taxes and sales taxes to spread out the burden. We need to get funding to all schools in an equitable manner to insure a quality education to all students across the state.”
