League of Women Voters of Ohio Education Fund
Hamilton County, OH November 2, 2004 Election
	Eve Bolton Answers Questions Candidate for Commissioner; County of Hamilton; 4 Year Term Starting 1/3/05

The questions were prepared by the LWV Cincinnati Area and asked of all candidates for this office.

Read the answers from all candidates.

Questions & Answers

1. What are your qualifications for office?

I'm a life-long resident of Hamilton County, 31-year veteran teacher, and Association President at Wyoming Schools. As a citizen-politician, I was privileged to serve as a Mt. Healthy Councilmember, president of the College Hill Redevelopment Corporation, and as Hamilton County Recorder. The Commission needs a woman's voice and a perspective other than a lawyer's.

2. How would you implement your top priority?

I will move all non-management personnel to Civil Service. I will initiate a 40-hour work week for the county. I will fund a fully staffed and funded public defender's office so that the defense of indigent defendants is not privatized. I will provide competitive and open bidding for all county contracts and vendors. I will make sure that the Commission exercises full oversight over all independently elected county officials. I will demand a full public audit of the state division of Jobs and Family Services, which to date has incorrectly accounted for the billions of federal dollars for welfare. None of this can be accomplished without two-party government and an experienced executive who is not a career politician. At the heart of these reforms is the willingness to cut the county budget and reduce personnel by 15%. The taxpayers can no longer subsidize a corrupt county Courthouse culture.

3. What do you see as the two most pressing issues you would address if elected? What plans do you have relative to those issues?

The loss of both population and green space. Both can be addressed by immediately cutting the cost of government. We can institute a four-year plan to significantly reduce the tax burden. Reducing our tax burden and more wisely spending revenue will allow us to invest in established communities and improve our schools. While being fiscally responsible, we can also make a commitment to protect our natural beauty through smart growth benefiting citizens, not special interests.

4. What role do you see for public transit in the long-range plans for Hamilton County? What plans do you have to promote a more balanced transportation system in Hamilton County?

Transportation is an area where the county hasn't lived up to the original Metro agreement. The county must pay into Metro more funds directly and cease development without mass transit alternatives. We will not have light rail soon enough, if ever. What we can do is change the class culture of Metro by changing Metro coaches and increasing runs. Metro must increase hubs and become fully wired so clients can work on the way to work. We must also have more cross county (east + west) lines of transport. A cost effective way to increase transportation would be to think more about using the Mill Creek as our guide rather than the interstate corridors. It's also time to increase both the safety and viability of foot and bicycle paths of transport. County and other government agencies can also extend flex scheduling and off-site work to reduce the congestion during peak hours.

5. What should be the county's role in encouraging local governments to work together?

We must reduce the cost of governing. One way to accomplish this is for the county and local governments to work in a more cooperative manner. Citizens must demand a new cooperative way of governing. This cooperation will be based on shared responsibilities, which will reduce duplication of services, and increase purchasing power. No community would lose its identity or independence but each would have a greater chance of success if we forge a cooperative government alliance.

Perhaps the county could take the lead and create health consortiums to reduce benefit costs within your community's city and school budgets. I'm sure we could combine the purchasing power of more local governmental units in order to reduce the cost of doing business. Let's develop a countywide Reasonable Growth Plan that would attract more investment in our established communities rather than stretch existing capital for new development.

6. What can Hamilton County and the region do to meet the new 8-hour ozone standard for clean air?

We know that our region has been determined to have too high of a concentration of pollutants. We must engage in a plan to reach the ozone standard established by the USA EPA. In order to reach that standard, the county should adopt most of the OKI recommendations and the county should become both a facilitator and enforcer.

The county should invest in better transportation systems, lower industrial emissions significantly, and increase monitoring of air quality in historically high pollutant neighborhoods. The county should also provide respiratory checks for school age children and all independently living elderly. The county should agree to the demise of corrupt and wasteful state controlled E-check and return to a more localized E-check and safety lane system. The county must provide tax incentives to fuel alternative vehicles and businesses and become an environmentally conscientious consumer whenever it spends our tax monies.

7. Should government resources be used to support economic and socially diverse residential neighborhoods? Give specific examples to support your views.

Yes, we must use our resources to invest in our established communities and direct capital funds to help our economically and socially diverse neighborhoods. We are currently investing too much money in new development infrastructure and too little in infrastructure in our established neighborhoods. We need a Homerama for redevelopment and more localized zoning for neighborhoods. We need to save our business districts with a mix of residential, specialty, service commerce small-scale transportation hubs, and small community recreational centers that serve as learning and gathering centers. The county could also help our established neighborhoods by increasing public education regarding citizen patrols outside the city limits and fast tracking individual development! Finally, the county needs to develop a complete property inventory list and monitor all properties owned by absentee landlords and public housing developed for profit.