Ep. 14 - Guest: Lorain County Commissioner Jeff Riddell

Guest: Lorain County Commissioner Jeff Riddell

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The following is a presentation of FCB Faith.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Keeping America First with Bishop Shawn Teacoats and
Reverend Jeff Jemison on FCB Faith.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
So happy to have with us today Dynamite elected official
none other than Lorraine County Commissioner Jeff Riddell.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Jeff, are you doing today?

Speaker 4 (00:31):
I'm having a great day.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Okay, good, good. A lot of exciting things happening in
Lorraine County.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Would you tell us a.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Little bit about what you're doing and what's going on
in your tenure as Lorraine County Commissioner.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'd be glad to there's a lot going on because
there were a lot of things that had been discussed
and contemplated but never been acted upon. And when I
arrived three years ago, we decided our motto was going
to be that we're not going to kick one can
down the road. Whenever we run into something that needs
to be done, We're going to put the team together

(01:12):
to figure out how to do it and and actually
get it done. So it's been kind of refreshing, and
I think that the media has has picked up on
the fact that we're doing things all the time, and
that's because this current board and I'm pleased to be
a protagonist in that board. We have decided that we're

(01:33):
going to handle things. We're not just going to talk
about it and hope they.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
Go away awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
What are some of the things that you've done that
you're working on as county commissioner.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, they run the full gamut. Some of the things
are are very public and and and create a lot
of stir and some things are behind the scenes as
we try to make generational change in the efficiency of
government and service to the public. So I'll start with

(02:08):
the stuff that people don't see. We have cut our
budget by eleven million dollars from twenty five to twenty six,
and we balanced it and we earned with our process.
We earned the cooperation of thirteen out of the sixteen
other electeds who rolled up their sleeves under our direction.

(02:31):
And we are very pleased to announce that we have
shrunk the size of government and eliminated some things that
weren't necessary. We built a cybersecurity network to protect all
the records and data of our citizens. Many communities have
had problems with bad actors getting involved in stealing data

(02:52):
and using it for profit for themselves and our County
Commissioner Network survived an attack and continues to survive almost
weekly attempts to get into our data by other people.
So the third thing is that you'll notice if you

(03:13):
come to the fourth floor the building is that we
took all of the staff that has public interaction. Not
every member of our staff does, but for those that
deal with the public and a direct face to face,
we condensed our staff from two floors to one staff
one floor, so that when you come into the building,
you get off the elevator, you will immediately see everybody

(03:36):
that's there, and whoever it is that you need to
have a meeting with or a discussion with.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Government efficiency is oh, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Because that's important to us. It was very difficult for
people to come. When they needed to be referred from
one person to another person for collaboration, they often had
to go to another floor, they had to get buzzed in,
they had to do a lot with private offices, and
we have eliminated all that. As a taxpayer, when you arrive,
you will see all the people busy at work.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
So that's one thing that people always talk about. Voters
always want more government efficiency, so that's something that you're
not just talking about, but you've actually implemented different measures
to make sure that government is more efficient. Like you said,
people can just come now to one floor and they
don't have to go all around searching for answers and

(04:33):
for the right person to help them with different things.
Could you talk about this a little bit in this
day and age where people are concerned about their taxes
and spending and the costs of things. What about your
budget cuts Because everyone always says they want to shrink government,
they don't want waste. Can you get into that a

(04:55):
little bit more, because that's something everybody wants. So, Jeff Riddell,
you're actually doing You've done it. Talk about that a
little bit more.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, we've not only reduced the budget, but we reduced
the taxes that feed that budget three times, focused primarily
on senior citizens with a doubling of the homestead exemption.
We also owner occupied homes got a doubling of their
state exemption, so we reduced the money coming in. We

(05:26):
took a vote to the voters last November about sales tax.
We wanted the voters to decide on restoring a quarter
percent sales tax that previous board had implemented without a
vote and then eliminated it for whatever reason. And so
we took it to the voters, and the voters, you know,

(05:47):
seventy thirty said, we do not want to raise the taxes.
So we cut the budget and we cut the taxes
beyond that sales tax, so that we are working with
about the same level of money that we did in
twenty and sixteen, plus a little for inflation. And we

(06:08):
have brought back the government down on both ends. Less
money coming in and way less money going out.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
That's what people always talk about, that's what they always want.
Everyone wants lower taxes and want to keep as much
money in their pockets as possible. So doubling the homestead
exemption that really helps seniors keep their homes.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
And is that right? Could you talk about that a
little bit.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Well, that affected twenty two thousand seniors in Lorraine County
that are over sixty five and living on less than
forty thousand dollars worth of earned income. So that really
was focused on the people that are having the most
difficult time finishing out their lives trying to do that

(06:57):
in their own home.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, what made you take that action along with your
two colleagues. You know, what did you hear from we're
seniors calling you saying that we're paying too much, we're
being taxed out of our homes. What caused you to
take that action?

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, there was there was a general public outcry. In
twenty five most people experienced a twenty five thirty percent
increase in their property taxes and that was just due
to the inflation of construction over the last three or
four years, due to.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
A lot of it due to COVID.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
But everybody was complaining about their taxes. But as we
looked at this opportunity that the legislature and Columbus handed
the commissioners, they gave us the ability to do it
if we wanted to or not do it, and we
were one of eleven out of eighty eight counties that
did affect it. And our rationale for doing that is
that as we looked at the demographics of Lera County.

(08:00):
As I said, out of about one hundred and fifty
thousand or so households in Lorraine County, we actually had
twenty two thousand that were living there on the edge,
over sixty five retired, living on fixed income and trying
to stay in their homes. We looked at the sacrifices

(08:21):
which it would mean that some of the school systems
would experience a small reduction in their budget. But we
looked at the fact that these folks had paid their
taxes for a long time, they had worked and been productive,
and now they needed a little help from those that
were coming behind them, and we decided that it was
the right thing to do. That the benefit to the

(08:42):
seniors outweighed a little bit of discomfort to the rest
of us.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Oh, that's awesome. I'd like to move to another issue
that's going on. It's been in the news quite a bit.
There've been folks putting out yard signs, have been protests.
You know, you see folks uh standing on the streets
in different areas saying we don't want this, megasite, we
don't want that. Can you kind of clear that up.

(09:11):
Some people believe that you're preparing to put a data
center in and could you talk about that a little bit,
And I know that's not accurate, but could you talk.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
About that absolutely. Yes.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
The job of the county commissioners is to is to
promote the best welfare of the county. We like to
say to do the most good for the most people.
No one issue is going to make everybody happy. Not
everybody is going to agree on a particular subject or issue,
and this is one of those. But this is where

(09:48):
the commissioners were responding to the world that we see,
which we think is our job to help help get
Lorraine County ready for a future. And we have we
have a we have a government in Washington that is
moving to bring jobs back and bring the middle class
back to the United States. We have a legacy of manufacturing.

(10:10):
We have a great state with a great culture. We're
in the northern half of the state. We have Lake Erie,
and we want to attract some of those jobs. If
we're going to bring back tens of thousands, maybe hundreds
of thousands of jobs back to the United States, we
want Lorraine County to get their share. We are still
twenty thousand jobs short of where we were in nineteen

(10:34):
seventy four when I came back after college to start
my career, and I think that we need to be
we need to do something to replace those jobs that
have been lost at the shipyards.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
And General Motors in Ollyria.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
And the Ford plant in Lorraine, US Steel and because
those jobs actually support the economy. Those manufacturing jobs create
subsidiary jobs and vendor jobs, and those jobs create economic activity,
and they helped build the middle class. And so we

(11:09):
are responding that Ohio has been looked at, and Loreen
County has been looked at several times over the last
five or six years for location of major manufacturing, high
tech manufacturing cell phones, batteries, computers, computer chips, all those
kinds of things, and good clean manufacturing, and so we've

(11:34):
got passed over twice, and we made a decision that
we wanted to make sure that we were ready the
next time. And it doesn't guarantee us that we're going
to land somebody, but we have to be ready to
get into the game. Unfortunately, these newer facilities require a
lot of land, and that leads us to the townships

(11:56):
where open land is available, some of it being farmed,
some of it not being farmed. And so that particular
location was good because it was near the airport and
it had highway access and so forth. So we proceeded
to build the infrastructure that would make sure that the

(12:18):
next time we get looked at, we can say to somebody,
you can come.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
Here, We're ready.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
So We're all in favor of jobs all across the
state of Ohio, and that's very important for Lorraine County
to be prepared for good manufacturing jobs. Can you tell
us why I know you were, why you should be
re elected, or why you're the better choice, because I

(12:46):
know there's a primary coming up just in a couple
of days.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
Talk about that a.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Little bit, sure, the primary in a couple of days.
The larger issue between my opponent myself is the is
the Megasite, and there's a there's a reluctance. We feel
that we feel that the consequences of the Megasite are
well worth the benefit. We're talking about an additional six

(13:14):
hundred acres, six hundred and sixty acres of current farmland
that would be converted to light manufacturing. We currently have
ninety eight thousand acres of farmland, not all of it
even being farmed, but zoned farmland, and so we feel
that that's a reasonable contribution to the to the process.

(13:38):
It's not much different than when four hundred and eighty
acres of farmland were turned into the Ford plant back
in the fifties, you know, almost seventy years ago. So
at the end of the day. You know, the whole
country was farmland, and we have built cities and suburbs
and and so forth, you know, and obviously there's a

(13:59):
sacrifice farmland, but as farmland gets more productive, they can
compensate for that sacrifice. So that's the major issue for
my opponent. I believe that that's that's the way the
system should work. I believe though, that I'm still the
better candidate. I got elected three years ago on my

(14:20):
resume and my experience accumulated quite a diverse resume over
over fifty years working and living in Raine County, and
I think that that diversity has shown up in what
we've done and what I've been able to help us
lead to do over the last three years. And I
think that, you know, County Commissioner's job is not a

(14:44):
one issue job. We handle any myriad of things from
transportation to children's services, to the jail to you know,
law and order, to the courts. We are the budget
authority for ninety million dollars a year. The job is
much broader than whether we want to have a megasite

(15:04):
or not. And we don't control whether that megasite, by
the way, whether it's going to have a data center
or not. Is controlled by the township where it's going,
and they're zoning regulations.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Absolutely, thank you for clearing that up. Jeff. Keep doing
what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
You're fighting a good fight, providing great leadership for the
County of Lorraine.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Glad to have you with us again.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
We'd like to have you back sometime, would that be okay?
Absolutely all right? Thank you so much. And to our
audience again, thank you. Keep fighting the good fight and
let's all make this place a better place to live.