The Richland Source team spent time recently speaking with six local candidates about their goals for three offices on the Nov. 4 ballot. Team members spoke with Don Bryant, Marilyn John, Phil Naumoff, Brent Robinson, Mark Romanchuk, and Phillip Scott. This begins a three part series introducing their video interviews. Today we present the candidates for state representative. Wednesday we will introduce the Richland County commissioner candidates, and on Thursday, the judge candidates.
The candidates for state representative, Ohio District 2, are Democrat Don Bryant and incumbent Republican Mark Romanchuk. Highlights of their interviews are provided below.
Staff reporter Brittany Schock asked Bryant about the life experiences that have prepared him for an elected office. Bryant said that he has local, state and federal government experience, and he’s a teacher. As a teacher, he taught career development and workforce development.
Schock asked him what he sees as the biggest challenge that’s facing Ohio and how he would address it.
“The state of our economy was a motivating factor for me to run,” replied Bryant. “Folks here are tired of living under an economy that’s been turned upside down by backwards policy. People out there are hurting, struggling to get by; and really what I’m looking to do is move opportunity forward for people here in Richland County.”
He continued, “As a teacher, I see firsthand struggles that people face, especially with our young people. And the reality is, we live in a global economy right now and it’s not fair. This economy is not fair; it’s not going to get fair. The best that we can do is transition ourselves to get in a better position for tomorrow—invest in our future. So the state of our economy is our biggest challenge right now, and with that goes workforce development. Young people need job opportunities, a lot of people out there need job opportunities regardless of the age group.”
During his interview, Rep. Romanchuk noted, “As I drove in here today, I came down Fourth Street,” he said, “and I realized the real work here is really not in Columbus; it’s right here in Richland County. There’s still a lot of work to be done. Our economy has improved but we need to improve it further. We need to do things to help people get back in the workforce: that’s very important to me.”
Romanchuk also said, “And the last thing is work force development is absolutely critical. We still have 100,000 jobs in Ohio going unfilled because the people who are looking for jobs, don’t have the skills needed for businesses. We’ve got to get back to teaching the trades and filling these jobs that are going unfilled.”
Toward that end, Romanchuk said a MEDAL Talent Innovation Center will be created with funds from a $500,000 grant to improve the facilities at NCSC and OSU-Mansfield in order to aid training. He also helped bring a RAMTEC center which he described as a $15 million statewide project that will build as many as 11 RAMTEC centers (Robotics & Advanced Manufacturing Technology Education Collaborative), state of the art training centers with one in at the Kehoe Center in Shelby.
Tomorrow, the candidates for Richland County commissioner, Marilyn John and Phillip Scott will share their positions with our team.
