Tuesday, October 21, 2014
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Sean O’Brien of Bazetta Township is seeking his third term as state representative for the 63rd District, which encompasses Niles, Girard, Hubbard, Cortland and many of the eastern townships.
O’Brien, a Democrat, isn’t getting much of a challenge from Republican Devon A. Stanley, an attorney from Niles who has not responded to requests for information from The Vindicator.
O’Brien, who was an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor for Eastern District Court in Brookfield before he ran for the Ohio House, says drug abuse should be a top priority of legislators.
O’Brien believes drug abuse is one of a number of significant problems locally that could be improved if Republican Gov. John Kasich were willing to release more of the state’s budget surplus back to local communities.
“We have people dying in the streets,” O’Brien said of drug abusers, adding that more money also needs to be applied to help people with mental illness, especially the large number of them in the county jail.
He said the Legislature should write a law that will send drug dealers to prison, not just put them on probation, which is what he says occurs in most cases now.
The state also needs to do more to encourage young people to prepare for manufacturing jobs, he added.
“We have proably the most educated workforce working at Wendy’s with bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees,” he said, because so many people earned a college degree and then could not use it to get work in their field.
He said he will focus attention on the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna Township in an effort to keep it off of the cutting block the next time the federal government closes military bases.
“We don’t even want to take a chance on them closing it,” O’Brien said.
As for environmental issues, O’Brien was recently honored by the Clean Fuels Ohio as its public official of the year for sponsoring legislation to create tax credits and grants for vehicles converting to alternative fuels, such as compressed natural gas.
He also helped organize a Brookfield conference in June 2012 aimed at educating the Mahoning Valley on what to expect from the shale gas industry as it moved into the community.
BP America later stopped drilling new wells in Trumbull County, but O’Brien says the county still has a gas and oil future.
“I believe it will be back,” O’Brien said.
He supports a pipeline project proposed for state Route 11 by Ron Klingle, owner of Avalon Holdings and chairman of the Western Reserve Port Authority.