DISCUSSION: DID LARRY DODEA "RUN IN VAIN" FOR STARK COUNTY SHERIFF?

For anyone who has run for political office - if properly done, it is a gigantic sacrifice to have done so.

Serious candidates make their case for their ideas or approaches to government.

All too many candidates are running just to run. Celeste DeHoff (candidate - 50th House District seems to have been such a candidate to the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT [The Report]. DeHoff was totally deficient in grasping Ohio issues and having a prescription for what ails Ohio. While The Report does not agree with many of winner Todd Snitchler's ideas/approaches, he was a credible candidate who will have an agenda in Columbus. The Report will be monitoring his activities in Columbus and having him give an accounting as to how he is being effective to improve the lives of everyday people of the 50th District.

To give a Republican equal time, The Report singles out Jason Wise (Nancy Reinbold's opponent for clerk of courts). The Report was at an event on election evening and Wise, being there, criticized The Report face-to-face for describing him as being a "sacrificial lamb" candidate. Well, The Report stands by its assessment and does not consider Wise to be a good bet for the Stark County Republican Party to run for countywide office in the future.

What Stark County voters ought to be looking for in the candidates are ideas that should be embraced, even if advanced by a losing candidate. Quality losing candidate expend large amounts of time, effort and treasurer and advancing the public discourse.

For example, Larry Dordea who ran a competitive race against sitting Sheriff Tim Swanson, offered a number of ideas/approaches that Swanson should take an in-depth look at implementing. Stark Countians want the best ideas to be brought to bear on government processes.

One such idea from a prior post by the Report:

Dordea also says that Sheriff Swanson has not effectively used "asset forfeiture dollars" as a source of revenues to support the operations of the department. He promises to reconstitute the narcotics law enforcement group of the department and make it profitable to Stark County taxpayers by seizing and selling illicit drug-connected property.

Dordea is to be honored for making a race of it and presenting substantive ideas/approaches to improve the operations of the sheriff's department.

The Report will be pressing Swanson on considering Dordea's ideas/approaches and either implementing them in varying degrees or giving reasons why they are an improvement on current ways of operating the sheriff's department.

As much as Dordea would like to have won, being the public servant he has been (former Alliance police chief), he in running was contesting the office because he thought he had ides/approaches that could benefit Stark Countians.

Question: Does Swanson have an obligation (in the sense of benefiting the entire Stark County community) to take a thorough look at whether or not Larry Dordea's ideas/approaches will make Stark County a more secure community to live in?

To the sheriff: What about the "forfeiture of assets" factor? Do you need to re-examine this revenue generating idea in the light of budgeting problems?