Greg Jolivette’s year of decision

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3:53 PM Friday, January 29, 2010

A funny thing happened on Greg Jolivette’s way to becoming a lame duck.

The Butler County commissioner must run for re-election this year and apparently will face several challengers for his seat in the May Republican primary.

A well-known Republican incumbent is almost never challenged in Butler County, but Jolivette has been injured politically by revelations last year that he cast votes on the hiring of his children for county jobs a few years ago. That prompted an investigation by the Ohio Ethics Commission — and an onslaught of challengers from within his own party.

The Butler County Republican Party was unable to reach a consensus last fall on which candidate to endorse in the May primary for Jolivette’s commission seat. That might have been a minor victory for Jolivette — who says he plans to fight to keep his commission job — because an endorsed challenger would have had the party’s full backing in May.

So, while Jolivette’s future on the county commission is far from certain, another interesting development has occurred.

Disharmony between the other two commissioners — Charles Furmon and Don Dixon — has apparently created a situation in which Jolivette has more decision-making authority than ever before. Or as staff writer Josh Sweigart blogged earlier this month, Jolivette is “perhaps no lame duck after all.”

This situation was evident this month when Furmon balked at a study — favored by Dixon — of the county’s salary structure for employees by a consultant. Jolivette could have sided with Furmon and killed the study, but he chose to let it go forward.

Last week, Jolivette found himself in the hot seat again when Furmon and Dixon could not agree on whether to take advantage of a $3 million federal stimulus loan for a new Emerency Operations Center for the county. Furmon said the county should access the loan; Dixon opposes it, citing the county’s precarious financial condition.

Early in the week, Jolivette said he was on the fence and hadn’t decided. By Thursday, Jan. 28, Jolivette had managed to dodge an immediate decision, when commissioners signed paperwork to reserve the county’s right to access the loan until late summer.

But it appears likely that Jolivette could again be placed in the position of casting the deciding vote on an important issue — if the discord between Furmon and Dixon continues.

Of course, with a three-person commission, it’s inevitable that one commissioner is going to be in the position of casting the deciding vote. And in the past, there have been times that two commissioners would find themselves of a like mind on certain issues, often leaving the third commissioner as a lone dissenter.

But the Furmon-Dixon rift may be unique in that the two men seem to have two irreconciliable views of county government and its future. Both surely have a keen interest in who wins the GOP primary for Jolivette’s seat.

In the meantime, Jolivette is far from out of those proverbial woods — as it relates to his challengers in the primary — but he will continue to serve as a commissioner for at least the rest of 2010. That means he could be making a lot of key decisions for the taxpayers of Butler County between now and Dec. 31. The quality of those decisions could well determine whether he emerges as the winner in the May primary.

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