The three races that have the most localized interest for Fort Thomas voters were covered by Ben, Jessica and Stephanie this morning. Circuit Court Clerk, Sheriff and the Library Tax races all deal with Campbell County specifically, so as opposed to being all over the map – these were the three races we dealt with in depth.

Unfortunately for Fort Thomas, we have only 6 candidates running for city council for 6 spots. Make sure you check out Jessica’s article on those incoming and those already on council to give you a little more information about who they are and what they do for our city.

FTM is lucky to have writers who represent all sides of the political spectrum. I think that gives us more credibility to talk about political issues, even though our last three articles have not endorsed nor made predictions about how these elections will shake out.

We conducted a straw poll with the Fort Thomas Matters brain-trust to get a sense of how the elections for these races might turn out. Obviously it’s not scientific. But we are about as informed as you can possibly be and with all of our different views in tact, we tackled the three races.

Here’s how it turned out:

Circuit Clerk

  • Taunya Nolan Jack (R) Incumbent 4 – Mary Ann Mader Jones (D) 1

Sheriff

  • Dave Otto (D) 4 – Jeff Kidwell (R) 1

Library Tax

  • Against Tax 3 – For Tax 2

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Taunya Nolan Jack has done a great job in her time as Circuit Clerk. She’s brought the office into the 21st century, facilitated the move from the old District Court House, helped institute the CATS program (in home driver’s classes to expunge moving violations) among others. 

Mader Jones’ main platform of moving the driver’s license office and renewal office to the same building is simply not enough to oust the incumbent. 

FTM feels that Jack should win reelection handily. 

The Sheriff’s race is very talked about in political circles. This race actually started when John Dunn was asked to run for one more term in 2010, then abruptly retired. Dave Otto was handpicked and Jeff Kidwell, depending on who you talk to, handpicked himself. 

FTM feels that Otto’s experience and name recognition should help him carry this race decidedly. 


The library tax issue, while not raising a lot of money between the two platforms, has become the hot topic on Fort Thomas and Campbell County ballots. 

The two articles written on FTM (for and against) received the most views (together) for the month of October. The discussion on our Facebook page got very heated and a lot of different ideas were discussed. 

FTM feels that this will probably be a close race, but ultimately, the tax will be voted down. 

On one hand, the community sees libraries as a good thing. The tax is not exorbitant, and when broken down in a year’s time, the tax does not seem like that much money. 

On the other hand, a tax is a tax.  It’s not a one time thing and in this economy, every dollar counts. The library is seen as a luxury (being the 4th one in the county) and not an absolute need.

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