Wednesday, March 1, 2000

Ohio House 34th District (Rep.)

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BY PHILLIP PINA
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        How Ohio gets its money and what it does with it are the focus of the candidates running for the Republican nomination for the 34th District Ohio House seat.

        Bill Seitz, a Green Township trustee, has been a leading figure in the fight to free suburban township residents from having to pay earnings taxes to cities in which they work.

        He faces Randy L. Shank, the owner of a Harrison accounting firm calling for an audit of state highway spending.

        “Ohio's taxes are too high,” Mr. Seitz said.

        He has promoted relief in property taxes so elderly people on fixed-incomes can afford to stay in their homes. He also would like to see estate taxes lowered, so farmers and small-business owners could keep their livelihoods in the family.

        Mr. Seitz is secretary of the Southwestern Ohio Township Association, some of whose members are pushing for a constitutional amendment to free nonresidents from paying municipal taxes. Mr. Seitz supports the petition by the group No Taxation Without Representation Committee to put such a proposal before voters in November. Cincinnati leaders say the move would be a devastating blow to the city's finances, costing Cincinnati about $120 million in revenue.

        “I think that's a risky tax scheme,” Mr. Shank said. “You will kill the major cities if you do that.”

        He fears cities would have to raise their taxes to offset the change, thus driving out businesses and costing workers — many township residents — their jobs.

        Mr. Shank is pushing for an audit of highway work and spending. Too often, he says, he sees construction crews working on the same patch of highway others had worked on just a year before.

        “What are we getting for our money?” he said.

        Along with his tax-cut plans, Mr. Seitz says the state needs to look at ways of paying for school maintenance and construction.

        “We need to focus on our infrastructure in Ohio and that includes school-facility funding,” he said.

        He is calling for annexation reform, to protect township and rural area's from being gobbled up by neighboring cities. He has said in the past he would give up the fight against nonresident taxation if the state would provide tougher barriers to annexation.

THE CANDIDATES
        Bill Seitz

        Personal: 45, 2097 Beech Grove Drive, Green Township. Lawyer. Law degree from the University of Cincinnati. Family: Wife, Diane, and two sons, Andy and Brad.

        Experience/qualifications: Mr. Seitz has been a Green Township trustee since 1994 and is president of the Hamilton County Township Association. He was on the Cincinnati Board of Education from 1990-93. He is a member of the Ohio Small Government Capital Improvement Commission.

        Randy L. Shank

        Personal: 47, 10716 Winding Way, Harrison. Owns an accounting firm. Adjunct professor of computer science at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College and a part-time accounting teacher at Diamond Oaks vocational school. Bachelor's in business administration and accounting from Bowling Green State University. Family: Wife, Nancy, and two sons, Eric and Brad.

        Experience/qualifications: Mr. Shank is a small-business owner and certified accountant. He worked on campaigns when he lived in Lake County, Ohio, and was county business manager. He is active with the Harrison charter review committee.

        Back to Primary 2000 page

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