Buckeye RINO

Lorain County residents, take inventory amongst yourselves and scrounge up some opposition for Mark Stewart in the race for Lorain County Auditor next year. I’d like to see a Democrat challenge him in the primary as well as see some competition in the general election. In 2006, Mark Stewart waltzed to re-election with no competition.

Lorain’s Morning Journal provides us with yet another example of how Mark Stewart hurts the county.  Past valuations by Stewart’s office for the property that once housed Ford’s Lorain Assembly Plant stand at $28 million.  The current owners say that the property is actually worth $2.3 million.  I’m not suggesting that we automatically believe the assertion of the current owners, but common sense will tell you which number is closer to actual market value.

A silver lining behind the cloud of declining property values amidst Ohio’s broken economy should be that it’s now cheaper for companies to invest in Ohio’s real estate.  Mark Stewart’s outlandish property valuations rob Lorain County of that silver lining,  deterring companies from investing in the county, and thereby derailing economic resurgence that could lead to improved employment numbers.

As I’ve noted in a prior blog article, you may be wondering why your property taxes aren’t decreasing even though the real estate market has been in freefall.  The best way to tackle this is to vote Stewart out of office, and to do that, we need to recruit candidates for the auditor’s race.

It’s not too early to file a Designation of Treasurer form to organize a candidate campaign committee and start raising funds.  Asking voters to donate funds should be easier in this race than for any other race, because supporting a challenge to Stewart could mean the end of being gouged on property taxes.