Wednesday, October 21, 1998
Familiar names on Nov. 3 ballot for 89th seat
By Jodi Billerman
Staff Writer
Nov. 3 won't be the first time area voters have seen the names Damschroder and Wise in opposition on the ballot.
Rex Damschroder, the incumbent Republican state representative, and Democrat Roger L. Wise, both of Fremont, faced off in 1994 as well, with Damschroder winning handily.
With both men coming from politically active families, it may have been inevitable that they would find themselves in competition for the 89th Ohio House District. After all, Roger Wise, 46, is the nephew of Dwight Wise, who succeeded Rex's father, Gene Damschroder, as the area's representative and was unseated in 1994 by Rex himself, 48.
The names may be the same, but the issues have changed, with the two differing widely on their opinion of Ohio's school funding debate.
While not enthusiastic about the system currently in place, Damschroder said, "Personally, I don't feel there is any ultimate solution. It's just not that simple.''
He explained, "I think the changes we make today are not going to be the same five years or 10 years from now. We're making steps in the right direction, but it's going to have to be continual improvement."
As to the Supreme Court ruling requiring less reliance on property tax, Damschroder said, "The entire lawsuit was based on 1991 figures. Since then we've funded education at more than double the rate of inflation. It might have had a different income if that money had been included. It was a very narrow decision to begin with."
Wise, on the other hand, said the current system clearly is inequitable and unconstitutional, and should be changed.
"The emphasis on property tax is inherently unfair to areas with a lower tax base. Districts like Lakota, Bellevue and Gibsonburg with a lower tax base have to have higher millages just trying to keep up," he said.
Instead, he suggested, "The millage across the state should be equalized and a portion of the state income tax should be earmarked for education," with education funding coming first, not from the residual of the budget as in previous years.
Wise explained, "We've all been under the impression that it's a partnership between the local and the state, but it's not. The state is responsibleŠ There's going to have to be a redistribution. I don't mean take from the rich and give to the poor. We're leveling up, not leveling downŠ It's going to take a lot of political courage."
The candidates differ as well on what other issues they feel will be of most importance to Ohio in the coming two years. Damschroder said electric deregulation and transportation/public safety are his major concerns for this term.
Of the former, he said, "In Sandusky County, you can have two guys on different sides of the same street, and one has twice the electric bill. You're buying the same commodity, it ought to be the same rate."
Damschroder is concerned, however, about the speed with which some legislators want to move on the issue. He explained that with so many representatives facing final terms under recent term limits, "Conditions are right that something major could happen."
He has been actively involved in trying to lower Ohio's legal driving blood alcohol content level from .10 to .08, explaining, "Ohio is at the highest level of any industrialized nation, and Ohio has been bucking the trend" of lower drunk driving death rates."
He said, "We can't have people getting killed on the highways," whether as a result of drunk driving or the poor condition of roads like US 224 and SR 53. "That's a dangerous condition and should be alleviated."
Wise has targeted healthcare and the farmland preservation/megafarm issues as his additional areas of interest.
He said coverage portability, not excluding subscribers for pre-existing conditions and ensuring coverage are his goals. "I think if everybody has health care, it'll be cheaper in the long run because the most expensive health care we give out is emergency care," he explained, using his wife's dental patients as examples.
A lifelong farmer himself, Wise feels corporate farms should not be permitted to use the legal privileges of the owner-occupied family farm. He explained, "Every dollar a farmer makes generates about $7 of activity in the community. But these megafarms send their profits to corporate somewhere and generally don't buy their inputs locally. So megafarms shouldn't have those privileges."