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2 vie to replace Capri Cafaro in Ohio Senate
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Democratic primary race for Ohio senator to replace Capri Cafaro in the 32nd District features one of the more active area state representatives, Sean O’Brien, and a relative newcomer to politics, Kristen Rock.
Both are attorneys – Rock, of Liberty, having worked in business law for a Pittsburgh firm and for the Ohio Department of Development in Columbus and O’Brien having served as an assistant county prosecutor before being elected to the House the first time in 2010 and being re-elected two times after that.
O’Brien of Bazetta, D-63rd, has established a relationship with Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, and other top state officials, enabling him to call on them for help and answers, he says.
One was when the oil-field waste company Kleese Development spilled thousands of gallons of wastewater into the environment along Sodom Hutchings Road in Vienna last year. He says the phone calls he made got water testing for residential wells in the area done as fast as they possibly could – even flying them to Columbus.
O’Brien also teamed with two other state representatives to propose legislation to establish new injection rules to prohibit the use of underground storage vaults, though state officials have not explained the role such vaults played in the spill.
The legislation also would require oil-field waste to be infused with dye so spills can be more easily detected and for tanker trucks to be more closely monitored to prevent illegal dumping.
Likewise, he says he was involved in the writing of new regulations after earthquakes shook the Youngstown-Girard area as a result of the injection well activities at the Northstar 1 well off U.S. Route 422 in late 2011.
“We had a voice at the table,” O’Brien said of his advocacy. “Without that, we would have had nothing.” As a Democrat in a Republican-controlled state government, he says his cooperation with Republicans has enabled him to be as effective as possible.
Rock, a mother of four who doesn’t work outside of the home and has never been elected to public office, says O’Brien’s involvement in matters related to injection wells and fracking are tainted because he “takes large [campaign] contributions from these polluters.”
Rock says his efforts to regulate gas and oil in Ohio, including the legislation he and the two others proposed, are “weak,” and she would take steps to combat the injection of “millions of barrels of toxic wastewater being put in the ground.”
Rock was a member of the Liberty Schools Financial Oversight Commission, but her children now go to Catholic schools, as she did while growing up on Youngstown’s North Side. She is especially concerned about issues affecting Ohio schools.
“I think we need people representing us in Columbus who are boots on the ground, not motivated by the next election,” she said. “We need people who are connected on a daily basis on issues of families.”
On the Republican side, Robert Allen of Chardon has no opponent after Trumbull County Republican Party Chairman Randy Law dropped out of the race recently. The district encompasses all of Trumbull and Ashtabula counties and part of eastern Geauga County.