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HJN local mobileCommission candidate campaigns on Tea Party values
Wes Retherford calls for ‘openness’ and ‘transparency’ in commission race.
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HAMILTON — Fiscal responsibility. Free markets. Limited government.
These are the ideals of the Tea Party movement, and this is what Wes Retherford — a 26-year-old mortician’s assistant at Webb Noonan funeral home in Hamilton — wants to bring to the Butler County Commission.
He is one of six Republicans seeking the party’s nomination in the May 4 primary.
Retherford said he wants to bring “openness” and “transparency” to the commission by holding all meetings in the evening and regularly meeting outside of Hamilton.
“People that work 9 to 5 jobs ... and the people that want to be heard, they will be able to attend those meetings,” he said.
Retherford said he doesn’t want to be a career politician. If elected, he promised to forfeit half of the $76,976 commission salary.
“Right now is an opportune time for someone’s who not an insider to step up, someone who’s not interested in making a name for themselves,” he said. “I don’t think our founding fathers intended public office to be a career.”
He cited the recent flood of scandals — nepotism allegations and FBI indictments of county officials — as an argument against “career politicians (who) look out for themselves and their friends, then the people if they have time.”
“When you get career politicians, especially in counties like ours that is basically a one-party county ... I think that builds up a complacency,” he said. “When officeholders get complacent, that’s when they start doing these things.”
He wants to hire a consultant to identify everything not mandated by state law in the county’s budget for possible cuts. He wants to do the same at the sheriff’s office, with the goal of hiring back laid-off deputies.
He wants to foster economic development by restructuring property taxes to bring them down. “Governments don’t create private sector jobs,” he said. “All they can do is make a friendly business atmosphere or make an unfriendly business atmosphere.”
“Maybe I can do my stint and hopefully get something accomplished and be done with it,” he said.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2175 or jsweigart@coxohio.com.
Copyright © Thu Feb 23 05:07:29 EST 2012 Hamilton Journal-News, Hamilton, Ohio, USA.All rights reserved.
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