Transparency
The Heart of the Matter
Lawrence County's financial data is technically public. It is not functionally transparent. That's the whole problem, and it's fixable.
Here's my plan, in three layers.
Layer 1 — Audit First. Before we talk about new spending or new programs, we measure what's already happening. On Day One, I will introduce a resolution requesting a performance audit of every county department through the Ohio Auditor of State. Other Ohio counties have done this and found millions in savings. Lawrence County deserves the same look.
Layer 2 — Make Public Data Actually Public. I will push to put every dollar of county spending online, searchable, in plain language — the same Ohio Checkbook model Mahoning County already uses. No records requests. No runaround. Just the numbers.
Layer 3 — What I Know, You'll Know. When legally allowable, the people of Lawrence County will know what I know. No private NDAs. No secret deals. If the law requires confidentiality, I'll tell you that it does, and why.
To make Layer 3 real, I will introduce eight specific resolutions:
No-NDA Board Policy — the board will not sign any agreement that silences a commissioner.
Statutory Exemptions Only — confidentiality follows Ohio law, not private corporate contracts.
Transparent Executive Session Protocol — the public learns the subject of closed-door discussions before they happen.
14-Day Public Notice on Incentive Deals — no more voting on a deal the same meeting it's announced.
Public Incentive Scorecards — every tax-break request comes with real numbers on jobs, wages, and cost before a vote.
Sunshine Training Requirement — every commissioner learns the Open Meetings and Public Records laws themselves, not through a delegate.
Ohio Checkbook Participation — a formal request to join the state's transparency portal so county spending is actually searchable, detailed, and easy to use — not just technically available.
Mandatory Public Comment Period Before Vote — Five minutes for the public to know what’s being voted on before the vote.
And whether the rest of the board joins me or not: I've written a personal No-NDA Pledge I will sign on Day One, holding myself to every one of these standards regardless of what anyone else does.
This isn't about accusing anyone of wrongdoing. It's about making sure it never has to be.
No Strings. No Secrets. No Standing By.
[Read the Full Transparency Plan ↓]
How We Actually Get It Done
Layer 1 — Start With a Full Performance Audit
You can't fix what you haven't measured. Before we talk about new programs, new spending, or new anything, we start with a complete, independent performance audit of every county department, every contract, and every dollar flowing in and out of Lawrence County government.
I will introduce a formal resolution on my first day requesting a performance audit of every county department through the Ohio Auditor of State. The full board decides — but I'll be the one pushing it from Day One. Performance audits don't just track where money went. They evaluate whether it was spent well. Lake County and Summit County both completed their own performance audits within the past year. Lawrence County deserves the same look.
Not a political review. Not a pass-through. A real, independent audit that tells us where the money's going, where it's being wasted, and where we can do better, with a standing requirement to repeat every five years. If a future board wants out, they do it by roll-call vote with 14 days' public notice.
Everything else — every reform, every efficiency, every promise of better government — starts with knowing what we're working with.
Layer 2 — Making Public Data Actually Public
Lawrence County's financial data is technically public. But "technically public" and "functionally transparent" are two different things. Right now, if you want to see where your tax dollars go, you need to know what to ask for, who to ask, and how to interpret what you get back. That's not transparency. That's a hurdle.
I'll push to put county spending online in a searchable, readable format — the Ohio Checkbook model that Mahoning County and others are already using. Every dollar in, every dollar out, available to anyone with a phone. No records requests. No runaround. Just the numbers, plain and simple.
One commissioner can't run county government alone. One commissioner can absolutely start the fight for one. I'll work alongside the other commissioners, department heads, and elected officials to bring in the best practices other Ohio counties have already figured out — better training, clearer processes, modern tools that make it easier to do the job right.
When the system works well, good people thrive, taxpayers get their money's worth, and state auditors have nothing to find. That's the goal.
Trust Before Growth
Before this county markets itself to the world, taxpayers deserve confidence that the entities managing economic development are accountable to somebody. That's exactly why the performance audit at the center of this platform matters — not just for county departments, but for the public money that flows through our economic development partners too. I'm not going to trade in partial numbers or my own read of raw records before an independent audit has had the chance to look at the whole picture. I'd rather ask the right question in public than answer it halfway. That audit is the first step — and it comes before this county asks for another dollar of outside investment.
No Strings. No Secrets. No Standing By.
The Bottom Line
Performance audits catch waste. Ohio Checkbook keeps everything visible. Eight transparency resolutions lock in the promise. And the personal No-NDA Pledge means I'll live that standard whether the rest of the board joins me or not.
I'm not running to make friends in the county building. I'm running to make sure every tax dollar is accounted for. If that makes some people uncomfortable, good.
Layer 3 — What I Know, You'll Know
I've signed NDAs before. I understand why they exist. But an NDA should never be used to hide things from the people who pay the bills.
Here's my promise: when legally allowable, the taxpayers of Lawrence County will know what I know. If I'm in a room where a deal is discussed, you'll know what was said. If I sign off on spending, you'll know where it went. If there's something I legally can't tell you, I'll tell you why I can't, and when I can.
No secrets. No surprises. A county government that treats its citizens like the bosses they are.
The only exceptions are the ones the law requires: personnel matters involving individual employees, active litigation where disclosure would harm the county's legal position, and legally protected sensitive information such as certain law enforcement or HIPAA-protected records. And one more, named up front instead of left for someone else to find: confidential trade-secret or site-negotiation information that a business submits to the county or LEDC before it formally commits, in writing, to a project. That's Ohio Revised Code 1724.11 — the same law every economic development corporation in this state operates under, not a private NDA. The moment that company commits in writing, the shield comes off, and the terms belong to you.
The Eight Transparency Resolutions
A single commissioner can't change county government alone. A single commissioner can introduce the right resolutions and build the public support to pass them.
Resolution 1 — No-NDA Board Policy. The Board of County Commissioners will not sign, execute, or honor any non-disclosure agreement that restricts a commissioner's ability to discuss county matters with constituents. This mirrors House Bill 695, bipartisan legislation currently in the Ohio House Local Government Committee. If Columbus passes it, Lawrence County is ahead of the curve. If it stalls, Lawrence County leads anyway. The board will not sign any agreement that silences a commissioner. This policy applies to the Board of County Commissioners acting in its own capacity, and to each commissioner acting as a trustee, director, or appointee of the Lawrence Economic Development Corporation, the Port Authority, or any other board or authority to which the office is assigned a seat. A commissioner does not get to do in one chair what this policy forbids in the other. If a future board wants to repeal this, they do it by roll-call vote, each name recorded in the minutes.
(Ohio law is already moving this direction — HB 695 would end commissioner NDAs, HB 479 already narrowed the confidentiality carve-out in state law. Lawrence County can get ahead of that curve instead of waiting for Columbus to force it.)
Resolution 2 — Statutory Exemptions Only. As a commissioner, I would hold a seat on the LEDC Board of Trustees by virtue of the office — that seat gives me a voice in the room, not a vote over how LEDC is run, since the organization's actual financial and operating decisions run through a separate executive board Trustees don't sit on. I'll raise this standard at that table anyway, and back it with the leverage I actually have: the Board of County Commissioners' authority over Port Authority appointments.
Resolution 3 — Transparent Executive Session Protocol. Before the board enters executive session to discuss confidential economic development matters, the presiding commissioner makes a public statement describing the general scope of the discussion, without naming the company. No votes or decisions happen behind closed doors — that's already the law. This makes sure the public at least knows what's being discussed.
Resolution 4 — 14-Day Public Notice on Incentive Packages. Once a project's identity is legally revealed, a mandatory 14-day window opens before the board can vote, giving taxpayers time to ask questions at a dedicated public meeting. In a genuine emergency, the board may shorten that window to no less than 24 hours, with the reason entered into the public record. Real deals sometimes move fast — but even then, there's a public record of why.
Resolution 5 — Public Incentive Scorecards. Any business seeking county tax breaks submits a standardized Economic Impact Scorecard before the board votes: local jobs created, average hourly wage, required infrastructure upgrades and their cost, tax revenue foregone, and any binding local-hiring commitments. Taxpayers get the numbers that actually matter, without touching proprietary business information.
Resolution 6 — Sunshine Training Requirement. Ohio's "Sunshine Law" is just the legal name for our Open Meetings and Public Records laws — the rules that make sure government business happens in public and citizens can see the records. Ohio law requires elected officials to take training on it, but it lets them send a staff member in their place. I'm proposing a resolution that says: every commissioner and every director-level appointee must personally complete the Ohio Attorney General's Sunshine Law training — not delegate it to someone else — and file proof of completion with the Clerk of the Board. I've already completed mine as a candidate. My certificate is public. If you're voting on the public's business, you should know the rules yourself, not secondhand.
Resolution 7 — Ohio Checkbook Participation. A formal resolution requesting the County Auditor to enroll Lawrence County in Ohio Checkbook and committing whatever budget and staff support is needed to make it work. The Auditor is a separately elected officer — the board can't compel them, but it can ask, support, and hold the door open.
Resolution 8 - Mandatory Public Comment Period Before Vote. Every county meeting, the board votes on spending, contracts, and policy in seconds — motion, second, yes-yes-yes, move on. The public watches but has no idea what just happened. This resolution fixes that: a mandatory 5-minute public comment period between motion and vote on any substantive item. No exceptions for 'we didn't feel like it.' No quiet repeals. Real money, real land, real policy — the public gets a real chance to speak.
Why This Matters: Lock 27
The state announced a $5.2M marina. The commissioners celebrated. The public got excited. And honestly — I get it. That's a big number and a big opportunity. I'd be excited too.
But nobody asked "show me the engineering study. show me the budget breakdown. who's building this and have they done it before?" The excitement outpaced the questions.
Then it turned out to be site prep. The public only found out because they had to drag it out of everyone.
And here's the thing — the change was never actually hidden. It's sitting right there in the site plan documents: infrastructure to support a private marina operator, "no specific future use, service, partnership, or operational model guaranteed." Just not in the press release. Not at the podium. Not anywhere a taxpayer would think to look — buried in engineering language on a PDF instead of said out loud. That's what "technically public" looks like in the real world. Nobody in Rome Township should have to read a construction drawing to find out their marina isn't getting built.
That's not a partisan failure. That's a process failure. And it's what happens when nobody in the room is willing to be the skeptic — the one who says "this sounds great, now prove it."
I'm that guy. Not because I want to kill a good project — because I want to make sure it's actually a good project before we put your name on it.
The Personal No-NDA Pledge
What if the other two commissioners don't pass these resolutions? Then I'll lead by example.
I've written a personal No-NDA Pledge I'll sign on Day One, regardless of what the rest of the board does. If elected, it will bind me in every public capacity that comes with the office — as County Commissioner, and as a Trustee of the Lawrence Economic Development Corporation, the Port Authority, or any other board that seat carries with it. I will not do in one seat what I've promised not to do in the other. That Trustee seat is a voice at the table, not a vote over how LEDC is run — real authority there sits with a separate executive board. Where the seat alone isn't enough, I'll use the Commission's leverage over Port Authority appointments to press the same standard through the channel where it can actually take hold.
It commits me to:
Never signing an NDA that restricts my ability to discuss county matters with constituents, consistent with HB 695 — whether I'm sitting as commissioner or as an LEDC trustee.
Relying only on existing Ohio statutory exemptions — ORC 9.66(D), ORC 1724.11, and the Public Records Act — never a private corporate NDA.
Publishing a transparency report on every executive session entered under economic development exemptions: the scope of the discussion and the outcome of any vote that followed.
Voting for and actively lobbying for all eight resolutions above.
Whether the board passes these resolutions or not, I've already made the commitment. Nobody can hide behind "we didn't pass it," because I'm already living the standard.
"The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards: and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.." — Samuel Adams
No Strings. No Secrets. No Standing By.
