Experience an issue in Fairfield race

Two candidates are competing in the May 8 Republican primary for Fairfield County commissioner, one citing his political experience as an asset and his opponent calling it a flaw.

Jeff Fix, 52, has served on the Pickerington City Council for 13 years, including five as president and also is chairman of the Fairfield County Republican Party. He said his council experience, plus his political background leading the county GOP and knowing all the countywide and other elected officials throughout the Republican-leaning county, will help him work well with other officeholders and do a good job as a commissioner. He is the party-endorsed candidate.

Lisa Reade, 55, of Violet Township, who served 12 years on the Pickerington Board of Education, said: “I feel Fix Reade

like I am standing up against the Fairfield County Republican Party and establishment and giving people a choice.”

The primary winner will face Democrat Leah Hackleman-Good, 53, of Hocking Township outside Lancaster, in November. Republican incumbent Mike Kiger, who has been fighting health problems, is not seeking a fifth term as commissioner. The other two commissioners also are Republicans.

Fix and Reade both cited workforce development and opioid addiction as top challenges facing the county of nearly 155,000 residents.

Fix said he would bring together the business and education communities, the Job and Family Services office and others to coordinate plans to train people in the skilled trades that local companies require. He also would encourage the establishment of small-business incubators in Lancaster and Pickerington, similar to the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center, which supports entrepreneurs and business start-ups.

County commissioners also should take the lead in developing a long-range plan to guide growth and stamp Fairfield County with a brand, Fix said. The plan would help address these questions, he said: “Where do we want Fairfield County to be and to look like in 10 to 20 years?”

Reade said she would bring her experience in connecting schools and businesses. She pointed to her role in negotiating an agreement between the school district and the OhioHealth Pickerington Medical Campus on Refugee Road that established a fully equipped classroom on the medical campus where high school students studying biomedical sciences take classes. She said she would encourage similar partnerships between the education and business communities.

“I don’t want to add bureaucracy. The job of a county commissioner is to facilitate,” she said.

Reade said she would fight the opioid problem by pushing for county drug courts to use Vivitrol, as other counties are doing. Vivitrol is a monthly, extendedrelease injection that blocks brain receptors from feeling opiate effects. Even if recovering addicts tried to get high while on Vivitrol, they could not.

Fix said he would work with the county’s Opiate Task Force on efforts including pushing for more treatment for addicts.

The commissioner’s job pays $72,346 annually as of January 2019.