SUZI RUBIN
Age: 55
Residence: Monroe
Education: College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati – BFA in electronic media
Current employment: Owner/operator of Stonegate Farm Inc.
Family: Husband Marc Rubin (64); two sons, Ben (28) and Gabe (22); one daughter, Hannah (19)
Political experience: Vice mayor and council member for the city of Monroe (2004-present), Monroe Local Schools school board member (2000-03), president of Monroe's Community Improvement Corp. (2008-present), president of the Warren County Municipal League (2008-present), Monroe School District Facilities Committee (1996-99), the City of Monroe's Financial Planning and Supervision Commission (2005-07), and City Plan Steering Committee (1996-97, 2008-10)
Political party: Democrat
In an Ohio political district that has never had a Democratic representative, Suzi Rubin is hoping to finish what she started in 2012 by winning the 53rd House District this fall from two-term Rep. Tim Derickson.
“I know a lot of times Democrats run in Butler County and they lose, and lose badly,” said Rubin, who won 40 percent of the vote in 2012. “They don’t want to run again because why go through that again? I don’t mind. I don’t give up easily.”
The 53rd House District covers northern and western Butler County, including Oxford and Trenton, part of Middletown; Madison, Milford, Morgan, Oxford, Reily and Wayne townships; and portions of Fairfield, Hanover and St. Clair townships.
Rubin, who is 55 and the owner/operator of Stonegate Farm Inc., says the top three issues most important to her are funding schools, restoring the local government and protecting workers’ rights.
For the past 10 years, Rubin has served on the Monroe City Council, where she has helped the city with a fiscal emergency, and she now is the vice mayor. She also is president of Monroe’s Community Improvement Corp. and of the Warren County Municipal League, which works to improve municipal government across Warren.
Rubin also served on local boards and committees such as the Monroe School District’s Facilities Committee, the City of Monroe’s Fiscal Planning and Supervision Commission and City Plan Steering Committee.
Before Rubin held these positions, she created several small businesses and started her own newspaper, the Monroe Observer.
For Rubin, her passion for education is intertwined with her passion for finances.
“I enjoy the financial end of it,” said Rubin. “When we started the school district, one of the things I learned from working on budgets was how bad our school funding system was. It’s unconstitutional and it has been for a long time.”
When John Kasich became governor in 2011, Rubin saw a cut in local government funding that she believes has hurt a lot of cities and townships – specifically concerning public safety and education.
“Just about every township has a police and/or firefighter levy on their ballot, but they say, ‘Well those cuts didn’t hurt anybody’, but … they took money away from the cities and the townships and expect the local taxpayers to pass new levies to replace them,” she said.
Rubin said public safety should come first.
“Everybody’s scrambling to keep their public safety up. If there’s one job that a city needs to do, or a township needs to do, it’s keep their citizens safe. That’s job one. But we can’t do that with no money,” Rubin concluded.
According to Frank Cloud, lifelong Democrat and chairman of the Butler County Board of Elections, Rubin would help the middle class if she were elected.
“As a state representative, she’ll look out more for the working people of the area rather than the elite few,” said Cloud.
For Kate Rousmaniere, an Oxford City Council member and associate professor of educational leadership at Miami University, Rubin offers an important perspective because she is from a municipality instead of a township.
“The fact that she came from a city and had a lot of city experience really made a difference,” Rousmaniere said. “She’s also got a great background in social work, in social welfare agencies, she has this incredible experience of fighting for school board school finance equity, which is probably the most significant problem in the state right now, and she’s really passionate about it and strategic about it.”
Rubin said she is the best choice for state representative because she wants to see local dollars stay home.
“The state is taking more and more of our dollars, and that keeps the power in Columbus rather than locally,” said Rubin. “They decide what we can have, and how many firefighters we can have, and that’s not responsive to the community.”
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