TOLEDO, Ohio — With four days left until election day candidates Lisa Sobecki and John Jennewine are looking to be the next Lucas County commissioner.
The winner will join current commissioners and Tina Skeldon Wozniak and Pete Gerken, both Democrats for a four-year term.
Sobecki has served eight years on the Toledo School Board and serves as State Representative of Ohio's House of Representatives District 45. She defeated incumbent commissioner Gary Byers in the Democratic primary.
"I just feel that I can bring the experience and leadership right here in Lucas County that I've been able to lead down at the state house," Sobecki said.
Also, a Navy veteran, she said she wants to bring a strategic plan because the county has never had one before. Such a plan would give direction for moving forward, particularly with issues like a new Lucas County Jail.
"Understand we need a jail built. The more that we talk about it the more that the price tag goes up," Sobecki said.
Republican John Jennewine said he also wants to focus on a new county jail, including important mental and behavioral care programming for the new facility.
"We've got a lot of work to do with the mental health issues in our county and obviously the jail, it's been kicked down the street for too long," Jennewine said.
He said as a trustee in Sylvania Township for 13 years he was able to make a balanced budget throughout the years and he will bring that budgeting experience to the county.
"I think my education and my experience in the finance industry is really going to help the residents of Lucas County and make sure that their tax dollars are well spent," he said.
Jennewine said he was motivating to run in large part because of the consolidation of the 911 dispatch center last year. Centralizing the dispatch function in one county facility has been a controversial move.
“I kind of knew we couldn’t go backwards in this. I thought we got to figure that out and make it right for residents in Lucas County, and I thought probably the best way to do that was as a commissioner," he said.
Jennewine said he wants to focus on making TARTA being more accessible for everyone in the county too. Also he said will focus more on the county than his opponent, Sobecki.
"She was going to go back to Columbus and bring more money to Lucas County to solve our problems, I think we have to solve them right here in Lucas County," he said.
On the other hand, Sobecki says she has more experience.
"He's not been actively engaged in the whole county. I've been actively engaged in the whole county. You have to do that to be able to understand the county. We need someone to be working on day not two or three years later," she said.
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