WEST CHESTER TWP. — Catherine Stoker is in her element.

        It's nearly midnight, but her excitement shows no sign of waning.

Stoker

        Petitions are pouring into her cluttered home office on the last day before the deadline to qualify for a referendum on the Butler County sales tax increase.

        “I think many politicians are sleazebags,” she is fond of saying. “I'm not here because I want to be a politician. I am here because I want better government.”

        During her seven years as a West Chester Township trustee, she has done plenty to stir up local politics. She's a Democratic woman in a county dominated politically by Republican men.

        Her latest cause, however, could have an impact beyond Butler County.

        Last week, she led a petition drive aimed at overturning a county sales tax increase recently approved by the Butler County Commission. The tax is meant for road improvements and, supporters say, to fuel the boom north of Cincinnati.

        The commissioners voted Dec. 17 to raise the sales tax for the next 10 years to generate $129 million. Besides road projects, it's the foundation of an effort to attract technology businesses and some 36,000 high-paying jobs, says Commissioner Mike Fox.

        “It could mean the difference between the region becoming Blue Ash or Colerain,” says Mr. Fox, who describes Ms. Stoker's opposition as political opportunism.

CATHERINE STOKER

• Title: West Chester Township trustee.     • Age: 57.     • Family: Husband, Michael; son, David, 25.     • Education: Bachelor's degree in sociology, 1974, San Francisco State University.     • Political career: West Chester Township trustee since 1994; unsuccessfully ran for County Commission in 2000 against Chuck Furmon; unsuccessfully ran for Ohio House of Representatives in 1992, losing to now-Ohio Sen. Scott Nein.     • Professional and business career: Co-owns with her husband Brite Belt Technologies, a home-based Internet service business. Member of Senior Citizens Inc., OKI North-South Task Force; Butler County Land Use; Community Improvement Corporation; Southeast Butler County Chamber of Commerce; VFW Voice of American Committee.

        But many residents are upset that the tax — a half-cent-per-dollar increase for six years that will drop down by a quarter-cent in the last four years — was enacted by a 2-1 commission vote instead of going before the taxpayers.

        Ms. Stoker helped give them a forum.

        “I cannot stand by and just see people abused,” Ms. Stoker, 57, says, glasses slipping down her nose as she emphasizes her point with hand gestures.

        “I can't say I like bucking the big boys, because it's very nerve-wracking. But the unease I feel doing nothing is more stressful than standing up with a bull's-eye on my chest.”

        With fellow Democrat Terry Bridge, Ms. Stoker led a drive that drew signatures from 12,700 people of all political stripes by Wednesday's 4 p.m. deadline. If at least 8,842 signatures are upheld by county elections officials, the sales tax hike will be blocked from taking effect March 1 and will go before the voters in May.

        The drive's leaders delivered the petitions Wednesday afternoon to the Butler County Auditor's Office in Hamilton. They were escorted along the Michael A. Fox Highway by a plainclothes West Chester police lieutenant in an unmarked car.

        “She should have at least had the decency to take the back roads,” jokes Mr. Fox, for whom the highway is named.

        After arriving at the auditor's office, Ms. Stoker demanded one of the petition leaders be present while Auditor Kay Rogers counted the petitions. “I follow the law,” an insulted Ms. Rogers informed her.

        “I'm not leaving until I watch them count them all,” Ms. Stoker said. “I'd be afraid that people might think if they didn't count the votes in front of a witness, there would always be people who would think some hanky-panky happened. It's a comfort level for the voters.”

        That scene illustrates a bluntness that some applaud and others find rude and counterproductive.

        “They think I'm some sort of radical fringe element,” Ms. Stoker says. “Sometimes I feel like Alice after she fell down the rabbit hole. But life is too short to go through it bored. Life is too short to go through it ashamed because you aren't doing jack.”

        She describes herself as fiscally conservative, and her efforts are appreciated by the thousands who joined the petition effort, especially senior citizens who would be hit hardest by the tax hike. She contributes to Emily's List, a political action committee that supports Democratic women who favor abortion rights. But she is gaining more Republican supporters.

        “She's been a big watchdog,” says Mike Jivoin, 33, a Republican who owns a West Chester furniture business. “If she wasn't there, a lot of stuff would slide through that should be brought out in the open.”

        After moving to her husband's hometown of Fairfield in 1978 and later to what was then called Union Township from the San Francisco Bay area, she helped lead a citizens' effort to get shut down a medical waste incinerator they believed was environmentally damaging.

        But she also has drawn repeated criticism from local leaders.

        For example, she's been chastised about a 1995 resolution the township passed approving a $20 license plate fee Ms. Stoker later successfully sued to eliminate. Critics note she signed her name to the resolution — but township records also show she was the lone vote against it.

        “My signature there attests to the fact that this is a valid resolution. It's like witnessing a document,” she says. “I clearly voted against the resolution and my opponents have very clearly lied about that fact.”

        She dismisses critics as using “smoke and mirrors.”

        “They'd love to have me come down to the county commission meeting and argue with Mike Fox instead of collecting petitions. It makes it extra sweet when you beat them.”

        Mr. Fox says she spends more time tearing down than building ideas to move the region forward.

        “It's not enough to say, "You're doing it wrong,'” Mr. Fox says. “You need to say, "Here's how you can do it better.' She's high on criticism, short on solutions.”

        He thinks she takes up causes to feed an obsession to hold a county office. She unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives in 1992 and for the Butler County Commission in 2000.

        “Every cell in her body is driven by that goal,” Mr. Fox says. “She's motivated more by ambition than public interest.”

        But Ms. Stoker says the commissioners spend too much taxpayer money and are out of touch with the public that elected them.

        “Why don't they talk to people and listen, just listen to what they have to say? People are yelling at them and they're not hearing. What I'm hoping for is they will hear them this time. We'll see.”

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