By Brett Milam
Editor

In the March 17 Primary Election, there won’t just be red on the ballot; Ryan Ottney, even though unopposed, will be an the ballot for the Democratic primary for Ohio Senate District 14. 

Pictured is Ryan Ottney, who is running in the Democratic Primary on March 17, 2020 for Ohio Senate District 14. Photo provided.

The District’s seat is currently occupied by appointed incumbent Terry Johnson, who is being challenged in the Republican primary by former Clermont County Commissioner David Uible. 

Senate District 14 covers Clermont, Adams, Brown, and Scioto Counties, and a part of Lawrence County.

Prior to politics, Ottney was a reporter for the Portsmouth Daily Times for 15 years.

That career gave him the venue and outlet to be creative, but also to connect with community and social issues, he said.

Ottney said he comes from a family steeped in politics: his grandfather, Charles Ottney, was the mayor of the village of New Boston in Scioto County from 1971 to 1993. 

“So, I’ve come from this kind of political family, I grew up hearing a lot about politics of local government and seeing it in action,” he said. 

Ottney, born in Portsmouth, the county seat in Scioto County, has picked up that family lineage. He has served as council member for the village of New Boston since 2018, and is the chairman of the Scioto County Democratic Party.

Being a council member has allowed him to see the view from the inside of the struggles of rural communities, he said. 

One of the issues, Ottney said, are the struggles those communities have had providing services “because the State is reaching deeper and deeper into your pocket taking more and more local government funds.”

“And that leaves communities unable to do things, like hire enough police or fire, repair crumbling infrastructure,” he said, noting that New Boston has lost $100,000. “It’s difficult to be a small, rural community when you’re losing that much money.”

It’s an issue that exists at the top, and it was one of the issues that was a deciding factor in Ottney deciding to run in the Senate District 14 race to “fight for rural communities.”

He added, “And it’s time we had someone in there I think who stood up and was going to work for rural Ohio because that’s really what the 14th District is.”

Ottney said he’s a Democrat and he’s not ashamed of what that means, and having that conversation. 

“I want to be able to talk to people about the issues that are important, no matter what they are,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of Republican control in the Statehouse and that makes it difficult to talk about certain issues like gun safety legislation, women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, minority rights, climate change, and these are issues I think we should be having a dialog on.”

He said the “tentpole” of his campaign is the local government and fighting for community redevelopment. While he’s a progressive and that word might scare people, he said, if you break it down, he’s talking about bringing back local dollars that are going to wealthier districts. 

“That’s exactly what the progressive platform is about. People can understand when you say, ‘We work hard for our money, and we shouldn’t be sending it to these people who don’t need it,'” he said. “It’s really about giving people a fighting chance, giving them the help and support they need to stop taking that away from them.”

Of course, Ottney is not unaware of how red Clermont and the entire District is, but he said it’s a “red wall of voters, but there’s not a red wall of people.” 

In other words, while registered Democrats may be outnumbered by registered Republicans, the biggest voting block are non-partisans. 

“And that’s where we think we can gain some ground. There are a lot more people who don’t show up to vote,” he said, perhaps because they don’t feel engaged by the process or the candidates. 

Ottney said he’s running with a message and it’s a message aligned with the Democratic Party platform. 

“I want to be the kind of candidate who will talk about these issues, and will hopefully excite and engage these voters to come out and vote a different way,” he said. “If we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’ve always got.”

And Ottney said he has no plans of disappearing in Columbus because he lives in the District. He wants to be part of the solution in the District, he said. 

“If I’m elected, I definitely want to keep in communication with our local community leaders, our hospital, our veterans centers, our treatment centers; anything I can, what do these places need? Tell me how you’re doing, tell me things that you need and how can I help? I am always going to do my very best to give people the most help that I can,” he added.

To learn more about Ottney, his website is https://www.ottneyforohio.com/.