Kahoe, Spinner debate issues in Ohio House District 31 race

Mike Kahoe (R) and J. Noah Spinner (D), the two candidates for the open Ohio House of Representative’s District 31 seat, went back and forth Oct. 5 as they debated topics that included Medicaid, public school funding and property taxes.

The seat is open for the first time since 2019, as incumbent Bill Roemer has decided not to seek re-election.

The event was held at the East End’s Goodyear Hall in Middlebury and hosted by the Akron Press Club. It was co-sponsored by the Akron Beacon Journal, the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, Signal Akron and Ideastream Public Media. Beacon Journal Executive Editor Cheryl Powell and Andrew Meyer, deputy news editor for Ideastream Public Media, moderated the debate.

Tell us a little about yourself and why you are running for the Statehouse position?

Spinner: My reason for running is embodied in this bee pin I wear in my lapel in memory of my late wife, Shelby Lynne Stevens Kennedy Spinner. Shelby passed away last April from Stage 3 colorectal cancer. And when she was first diagnosed back in January of 2024, of course our first thought wasn’t whether or not she’s going to be OK, but how the heck are we going to afford her treatment? How can we afford for her to be sick?

At the time, I was bartending at Missing Falls Brewery as I did throughout law school, studying for the bar exam, while Shelby worked for Adult Protective Services, helping our most vulnerable in our communities.

How are we going to afford this? How are we going to afford $10,000 for chemo pills every two weeks for six months? How are we going to afford the runaway costs of everyday living including gas, utilities, electric and our rent and insurance?

We had to fight with our state to get her on essential services, including Medicaid and disability, which she was denied out of hand and told to be reassessed in 10 months, and through the work of a representative, we got her on those services.

We also had to fight with insurance companies, seeking to play the role of doctors and interfering with our treatment plan, for just an economic benefit.

I know that my story is not just unique to me. It is shared by many of our neighbors, family, loved ones, and our communities out there that are struggling when they are pitted between choosing with their healthcare and making ends meet.

The fight isn’t just about healthcare. I’m a proud graduate of Cuyahoga Falls High School. I know the value of a strong public school and the constant erosion at the state level the past 20 years in school funding. I want to make sure that our student success and the future of Ohio are not dependent on May and November ballots, but that we put that bill back on the state’s tab where it squarely belongs.

Kahoe: I’ve had the opportunity, I’ve been blessed, for over a number of years now, to serve my community. It started in 2019 when I was elected to the Revere school board and became the youngest elected official in the State of Ohio. Later they appointed me to the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center school board, and then I had the opportunity to work statewide for leaders like Jim Tressel on workforce, education and economic development issues.

Now, I’m running for state representative because I think in Northeast Ohio, we have a problem. It’s that we’re losing too many people, they’re leaving here. I’ve worked on economic development projects around the state, and I think I know what it takes to have good jobs and a thriving economy, and it’s keeping people here.

And there’s three things that I know we can do to do that. Number one is schools that actually prepare students for work. We do that with more career tech education with resumes for every student that graduates and by getting cell phones out of the classroom so kids can actually focus on learning.

Number two is homes that people can actually afford and we do that by increasing the supply of workforce housing for young people and for working families, for banning corporations from buying up single-family homes and jacking up your prices, and by creating more energy in the State of Ohio to lower your utility rates.

Three, we do it by having safe communities, and we do that by supporting our law enforcement and actually locking up violent criminals when they commit violent crimes, not releasing them back out on the streets so that they can hurt someone else.

Now, campaigns are about contrast, and I think during the course of this debate you’ll see two very different candidates.

Myself, I’ll seize on issues that will improve the lives of Northeast Ohioans, and my opponent, who doesn’t list policies on his website, doesn’t talk during the campaign about how he’ll accomplish the things that he says that he will. And so, hopefully tonight we learn whether that’s all just lip service or if he really does have ideas.

What do you see as the top needs of the 31st District in Columbus, and what’s the first one you’re going to push for legislation on if elected?

Kahoe: The number one issue is ensuring that our schools are preparing kids for jobs, and I think that’s an area that currently we fall short in. It’s one that I hear about all the time when I’m out door-to-door or out talking to voters about the issues they care about. We’ve all met the 14- or 15-year-old that struggles to look up from their phone, have a conversation, or look you in the eye and shake your hand. These are all really important things that you need to be able to do when you graduate, so I’ll talk a little bit about CareerTech education.

I had the opportunity to serve on the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center board. We had CareerTech programs in manufacturing, healthcare, construction, many other in-demand career fields, and I talked to so many kids, whether in Cuyahoga Valley or other career centers.

They didn’t like school, they didn’t learn well, but when they went to the Career Center, they had the opportunity to realize how important what they’re learning is and how it actually connects to a career, and all of a sudden they fell in love.

I think our state would benefit from a lot more CareerTech education.

It would benefit from having kids graduate and actually knowing how to write a resume and apply for a job. And if we get that right, I think we’re going to get a lot better off – kids with good jobs, bringing jobs to Northeast Ohio.

Spinner: I’d like to address something that Mike has brought up, including public schools and preparing our children for the future. How can we make a better world for ourselves? And that starts with public education.

Over the past 20 years, in neither of Mike and I’s lifetime, have our schools been fully funded here in the state of Ohio.

We talk about providing children with an opportunity to succeed and fully live out their dreams. Well, it should start by having a great opportunity that every child has to receive a full public education.

That’s not been the promise our state has been giving to our children. In fact, since 1997 in the case of DeRolph vs. State of Ohio declared it unconstitutional three separate times how we fund schools in the State of Ohio. It’s high time we fully fund our schools and put that back on the state’s tab and make sure that our communities are the ones in control. Right now, under Republican leadership, a super majority for the past 20 years in Ohio politics, our schools have not been fully funded.

In that time we see the erosion of school funding. I look to the schools in our district such as Barberton and Norton.

Barberton just got placed on fiscal emergency. You want to talk about providing opportunities for students, let them go to class, let them learn, let them excel in extracurriculars and not have to go to pay-to-play systems.

At my sister’s school in Streetsboro, she’s a middle school band director, they’re gutting the middle school band program because they can’t pass a levy because that’s how we fund schools in Ohio.

Well, it’s time we put our children first and our future first and fully fund our schools to get teachers back in classrooms and truly prepare them for the future.

Current Rep. Bill Roemer is in his fourth term in the Ohio House. What priorities of his would you continue on, and what would you drop and/or add?

Spinner: I think Representative Roemer and I have some personal disagreements when it comes in terms of policy, but I wanted to extend a personal thank you to him because it was him who got Shelby enrolled in Medicaid and disability. And when she passed, it was him who took her off those programs so I didn’t have to deal with that.

I think Bill Roemer has done a phenomenal job of bringing money back to our district, but it’s not just money that we needed, it’s money in different places, like our public schools, like our roads and infrastructures, like our public libraries.

Too often I think right now the hot buzz word in Columbus is consolidation of schools, consolidation of public libraries. I’m proud and honored to serve the community of Cuyahoga Falls as a library Board of Trustees member, and I see firsthand when we go down there and that we aren’t able to get time with our representatives on these issues, to make sure that our centers of community, learning and discovery stay open.

Not only that, but also looking towards funding, fully funding our municipal funds at the state level and making sure that our police departments are fully funded, make sure our fire departments are fully funded, which they are not right now.

We see that in our district with Copley, and that they have to go to a ballot measure to keep the lights on in the fire station.

It’s time that we fully fund our municipal funds and bring money back to our local districts to actually let them run them as they need to.

Kahoe: I think Representative Roemer’s done a wonderful job representing this district, and I’m proud to have his endorsement this November.

Things I would continue that he’s worked on: Number one is his work to eliminate e-check. I have good news to report on this issue – they made big progress just this week. The state will finally be submitting to the federal EPA a request that we end e-check.

It’s bad policy for the eight or nine counties just in Northeast Ohio that have to go through this all the time. We’ll be ending that soon.

Another one is property taxes. They’ve gone up and up and up, and there’s people, young people, who can’t afford a home because of all the costs associated with it. Property taxes and others, and then folks that have owned their home forever, raised their family there that are forced to leave because their property taxes keep getting jacked up.

I look forward to finding more solutions to making sure that people’s property taxes don’t continue to rise, and especially that we can lower them where we can.

One that Representative Roemer hasn’t worked on that I’m aware of is housing and making sure that housing is more affordable for people. That’s certainly something I want to work on … banning corporations from buying up these single-family homes and brining utility rates down so people can afford those houses.

This stands in stark contrast to what we heard previously, which is just tax you more, spend more of your money. I think it’s important that your next representative have ideas on solving our problems that don’t just increase your taxes and spend more of your dollars.

Do you support the continuation and/or the expansion of Ohio EdChoice vouchers for students? Why or why not?

Kahoe: I do support the continuation of EdChoice vouchers. I’ll tell you why, for a number of reasons. Number one is that a student that grows up in a poor family in a school district that is unable to meet their needs, they shouldn’t have their future determined by the ZIP code they were born in and they should have an opportunity to go to a school district that can meet their needs. In some places in Ohio, that isn’t their public school.

I still want to make sure that we get public education right. I’ll fight for more funding for public schools. We have to work on our public schools. But right now, for those students growing up in a poor-performing school district, we need to give them an opportunity.

I’ll absolutely stand up for those students who need those opportunities.

Spinner: To the contrast that you just mentioned of saying that I want to do this, that or the other, I did not say those things in terms of what you just said.

When we look to fully fund our schools, we say, ‘Ah, where are we going to get that money?’ Right now, we’ve committed $2.5 billion over this year and next year to EdChoice and voucher programs, while short-funding the Fair Funding Act, the most bipartisan form of fair school funding, and closest thing we got to DeRolph vs. State of Ohio by over $700 million.

When we talk about our where we’re putting our priorities at the state, we have two big jobs at the Statehouse. Our jobs are to regulate the conduct of our state and the policies therein and oversee a $90 billion budget.

Well, where are we prioritizing those dollars? Are they going back into our local communities? Our student success shouldn’t be decided by a ZIP code. It should be an opportunity for everybody across the state.

Under your party’s leadership and the past 20 years of control in the Statehouse, we’re not seeing that.

What we’re seeing is more dollars being given away to private institutions and less and less to our public schools, forcing them into impossible decisions like going into fiscal emergency in Barberton. Like going to pay-to-play systems, cutting over 70 faculty members within our Barberton City Schools and over 50 in Cuyahoga Falls.

I want to make sure that our schools at the end of the day are fully funded, and that’s what we need to do.

Kahoe’s response: I want to talk about the numbers. Noah mentioned $2.5 billion over two years.

There’s over $26 billion spent over that same time period on education. That’s a stat that people conveniently leave out. Barberton was also mentioned, and it’s important to know that their treasurer misbudgeted $9 million. Yes, we need more funding for our school districts, but yes, they have to spend it properly, not waste your taxpayer dollars.

Public school districts across the state are facing financial struggles. In the 31st District, Barberton was placed under fiscal emergency, the most severe level of state oversight. What changes do you think are needed to how Ohio currently funds public schools?

Spinner: Fully fund the schools at the state level. I can’t say that enough. We need to make sure that we’re fully funding our schools at the state level and not putting our student success on a ballot measure, increasing property taxes or income taxes to fund our schools. That’s not how we have to do it.

We need to make sure that, at the state level, as our state and Constitution prescribes. We’ve had an unchecked legislature for the past 20 or so years, in the extent that they have not upheld the law or the Ohio constitution as interpreted by the Ohio Supreme Court.

And that means fully funding our schools at the state level, ensuring that our children have the opportunity to go out for sports, to go out and experience the world that is around them and not be tethered to a nine-to-five as right now we are being forced to do under Republican leadership. We need to make sure we have fighters for education. I’m proud and honored to have the support of the Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

I fully support our schools and our administrators in making sure that we fully fund our schools at the state level.

Kahoe: I’m absolutely on board with getting more funding for our public school districts. We talked about the Barberton case. That exemplifies why that money has to come with incentives for school districts to spend it wisely.

I’ll give you one example from my time on the Revere school board and the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center school board — we shared a treasurer between both school districts. So what that did is it saved taxpayer dollars in both districts. I think we got a really good deal out of it because the treasurer did a wonderful job. So it’s not just the school treasurers; there’s other services that we can share.

It’s not going to be the state’s place to tell those schools exactly what they should do to save dollars, but I want to make sure that we put the incentives in place so that schools reap a reward when they spend their dollars home wisely.

Do you think Ohio needs to overhaul its property tax system or eliminate it all together? If you do support abolishing property taxes, how could the missing revenue be replaced, particularly by school districts in townships, which are unable to impose income taxes?

Kahoe: This is probably the number one thing I hear from voters where I’m out knocking on their doors. The reason this has happened, from 2020 in the wake of the pandemic to now, people’s home values have gone up 50, 60, 70 [percent], some have doubled. As a result, their property taxes, in many cases, have gone up 50, 60, 70 percent or doubled.

We’re asking people who’ve owned their homes forever to either — and some of these folks are retired —so we’re asking them to go back to work because the government wants more money or sell your home. I don’t think it’s right.

We need property tax reform to make sure that, one, that problem doesn’t continue into the future, and two, that we can actually lower people’s property taxes where possible.

So I support the efforts of the legislature and the governor – the bills they signed at the end of last year, that ensure that moving forward when your property values spike, your property taxes get capped at inflation and won’t go any higher than that.

I’m all about if local government wants additional funding they can put a levy on the ballot and pass that for additional funding. Without that, they continue to see inflation and we can’t continue to gouge people when their prices go up.

Spinner: In regard to property taxes, we’ve become over-dependent and over-reliant on them in so many different regards, but that’s because of how our leadership in the state has been, where we’re prioritizing our funds at the state level. They’re not coming back to our communities. We keep going back to our voters to ask for more, and the state’s asking to do more and more with our communities getting less and less in turn.

We look at Copley, for instance, right now, that their levy for their fire department, it’s just to keep the lights on. For many of our schools, it’s the same thing. It’s not asking for more money because they just need more money, it’s because that’s how we have to function. At the state level, it’s because we’re slashing our public school funding left and right, we’re slashing our municipal funds left and right, and giving away our tax handouts to corporations, to large infrastructure that’s coming into the state and taking up all of our resources.

That money is not finding its way back into our communities as it’s supposed to. As it was promised.

A big thing for me is making sure that we are putting our community first and prioritizing everyday Ohioans in our budget, and that means fully funding our schools, fully planning our municipalities, and giving them the control to govern their communities accordingly.

A Suffolk University – USA Today Ohio poll asked 500 likely Ohio voters to name their top concerns. Nearly one in four respondents listed the economy and inflation as the number one concern. What do you think state lawmakers should do to help struggling families in your district and across the state?

Spinner: At the state level, we talk, you know a buzz word is affordability. And what are we actually doing? Their top concern is the economy, their top concern is making ends meet. Over the past 20 years these issues have persisted without any resolve.

The big thing for me is making sure we have childcare, providing the opportunity for parents to go to work instead of having to pay over $10,000 a year on average for childcare in the state. Providing tax credits, supporting legislation that’s sponsored by Crystal Lett and making sure that we’re bringing down the cost of housing by actually funding grants for young couples and young families in the State of Ohio to obtain and afford housing. … Making sure, again, that we’re fully funding schools and making sure we can keep more in our pockets and not keep going out for the levies every May and November.

These are real, tangible things we can do, yet we haven’t seen these things.

The issue of affordability is not some new, novel or complex issue. It’s been persistent and pervasive. We keep having one party saying, ‘I’m the one to fix it, trust me, trust me.’ They’re the same people running for office now, and I’m not buying it.

We’ve got to have leaders in there that know what it’s like to struggle with it, know what it’s like to work hard and make ends meet. They’ll actually fight and use their experiences and fight for the community.

Kahoe: I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but taxing more, spending more money, that is not the way to solve this affordability problem. The easiest thing the government can do to put money back in people’s pockets is to stop taking it from them in the form of taxes.

I’ll give you a couple other actual policy ideas that are going to help improve affordability for Ohioans that don’t require just spending more money and taxing you more. We already talked about housing and banning corporations from buying up single-family homes and utilities.

The solution to lowering utility prices is by generating more power in the state of Ohio. Over the last 20 years, we’ve closed countless power generation plants in the state. As a result, there’s less supply on the grid, which means prices go up. The solution to utility bills is to generate more power in the state of Ohio.

Lastly is the gas tax. I’m proud that the legislature and the government took action on this last week, and they eliminated the gas tax from Ohioans. So you saw, today and yesterday, the price of gas fall 38 cents.

With this affordability issue, there’s things the state government can do and things they can’t do. Sometimes we’re at the mercy of the federal government.

The state gas tax is something that they could have an impact on, and they did.

When I’m elected, I’ll continue to look at ways that the state can make things less expensive for people other than just taking more of their money and spending it.

What is your track record for accomplishing meaningful results for your community?

Kahoe: This was an accomplishment that showed me how meaningful public service can be. It was January 2020, when I was sworn in to the Revere school board, which, as I think everybody knows, was somewhat of a turbulent time for school districts. COVID started only two and a half months into my time on the school board.

That was all that mattered at the time was how do we educate kids in this environment? And I’m now proud and I consider it one of my greatest accomplishments that we were able to get our kids at Revere back at school before any other public school district in Summit County.

At the time, it was hard. It was not a decision that everybody thought was right. Looking back, I think almost all of us can agree that that was the right move, and the kids belong in school.

Later on, on the Career Center board, we expanded programs in manufacturing and other careers so kids had access to those programs that actually led to a good-paying job for them.

Then I had the opportunity of working in the Lieutenant Governor’s office, to help, not just kids in public schools, but also kids in higher education get internships, so that when they graduate, they’ve already had career experience in Ohio and they can stay here.

Another one we couldn’t quite get done was for families that were on SNAP benefits (food stamps). If a family is receiving those and their child wants to work as part of their Career Center program, we heard from families in Southeast Ohio they couldn’t do that because their family was going to lose their SNAP benefits. So we asked the Biden administration to change that so those kids could start working. Unfortunately, they said no.

So that’s one thing I want to continue as your state representative is fighting to change that policy at the federal level.

Spinner: I’ve been blessed and fortunate to have the opportunities to pursue very different pathways to success in my life. The first is through my family and scouting endeavors — I’m proud to say I’m an Eagle Scout and the impact we make on our communities through service and showing up every day being a good-spirited and kind person.

Moving forward from there is just continuing to show up in my community in various facets, showing up for my loved ones, my family members, especially my wife, showing up for her every single day, never missing an appointment except to sit for the bar exam, which I passed my first time.

Showing up for my clients in my law practice, fighting for local businesses, non-profits in our community to succeed, to do better. Showing up for the Cuyahoga Falls Library Board of Trustees, in which we fought to keep our library doors open and open to the public — right now in the Statehouse they want to consolidate libraries and take away our funding.

We fought hard to make sure our doors stay open for all and it is a center for creativity and discovery.

I’m proud to be recognized by the Greater Akron Chamber as a 30 for the Future honoree for that dedication, for that resiliency. I’m proud to be from here, from Cuyahoga Falls, to call Summit County my home. And it’s something that I’m always proud to keep showing up for my community, for my family members, my loved ones and for my hopeful constituency. Fighting for you guys like a dog on a bone and in the Statehouse.

Do you believe Ohio should give tax breaks to data center projects, particularly to massive hyperscalers with large energy consumption and cooling needs? Why or why not?

Spinner: Ohio deserves responsible economic development, but not at the cost of everyday consumers, and certainly not to the benefit of large corporations passing off those costs to everyday consumers.

We need to ensure that data centers are paying their way, making sure that we’re holding their feet to the fire when it comes to accountability in terms of regulations and emission standards. If a data center wants to come into a community, that they are part of the community and that everyone has a seat at the table when those discussions are had.

In Ohio, our state has sold us out down the river. That started back with Republican governors giving 40 years of tax abatements to these large corporations. Continuing now with no regulation and increasingly giving tax breaks to them. You skipped part of your resume there — Jon Husted — who you worked for as well.

So making sure that we’re holding these data centers accountable, making sure they’re paying their way and not putting the cost on everyday consumers.

Kahoe: One, they should not be receiving the sales tax exemptions that the state has offered them in the past. I think it was right to end that policy.

Now, three things on data centers that I’ll always stand for:

One is, under no circumstances should a data center ever raise the utility rates of Ohioans. Unfortunately, that is happening and we need to pass laws so that, if a data center is built in the community, they pay not only for all the electricity that they use, but they also pay for all the associated upgrades to the utilities that are required.

Two is their water usage. They should be held to the same standards as every other industry. No discharging warm water into creeks, rivers, streams and destroying our environments.

Three is, even if we get all that right, under no circumstances should we ever, ever force a data center on a community. I will always defend their right to say, ‘No.’

Do you think that the state should put regulations in place in the uses of artificial intelligence? And if so, what types of limits? If not, why not?

Kahoe: There are absolutely some areas where the state needs to regulate AI, and it’s such an ever-changing technology that it’s something that’s going to require state legislators to continually stay up to date on and try to catch up with.

I’m very concerned, just with the use of AI deep fakes. There’s child pornographic AI deep fakes that get made. We need increased penalties for people that are using AI in that terrible way. We need increased penalties for people that are going to use AI to harm anyone, and we’re going to have to stay on top of that.

The other thing that we have to do, because whether we like it or not, our children are going to grow up in an AI world.

We need to give them the tools to understand it, to use it safely and to know what to avoid so that they don’t get themselves in trouble. I’ll certainly support including AI education in our curriculum for children so that they know what it is and they can be careful around it, and hopefully use it wisely.

Spinner: This is something in which I think I find some agreement with my opponent in terms of, we need to make sure we’re protecting our children. That’s first and foremost, making sure that if they’re given tools, they’re used properly and appropriately.

Our state leadership has fallen so far behind the wall on this in terms of addressing the issues of today. Our Statehouse is paying pass defense on something we needed to tackle head on. It’s making sure we stay up to date on these topics in real time.

I agree with my opponent on protecting the children first and foremost.

Where do you stand with the use of Flock cameras and other technology used for public safety? Do you feel there should be some guardrails put in place?

Spinner: As an attorney, I’m a believer in the rule of law in our Constitution. I feel that Flock cameras, by and large, in the way they’ve been used, more recently, have been a clear violation of our Fourth Amendment and privacy rights across the board.

I support current legislation to obfuscate them from the state as proposed by Representative Tristan Rader.

I also want to make sure that we are fully funding our police departments to give them the appropriate tools to go after violent offenders but also help track down missing persons. … I want to make sure we fully fund our police departments and uphold our rule of law in respect to privacy in this over-surveillance state.

Kahoe: Like a lot of people in this room, I have read many of the articles about the way that these Flock cameras are being misused. I think it’s extremely concerning.

You see people tracking down ex-girlfriends with them and just other ways that are not appropriate for law enforcement or anyone. And it is very concerning. Now at the same time, I know that law enforcement uses these to catch dangerous, violent criminals.

Just in Barberton, a few weeks ago, there was an individual that murdered a woman in her home and he fled to Mexico where he’s from. On his way there, he was caught using Flock camera technology. So, I do understand why law enforcement appreciates it so much.

We need some serious additional safeguards around the technology. We need to look at ensuring that law enforcement has probable cause when they’re searching for people using this technology and even look at making sure they have a warrant or whatever it may be, but we need some serious safeguards around this technology.

The 31st Ohio House District forms almost a western bracket around Akron and there are a number of legislative districts, all within a fairly small geographic area. Can you talk about your mindset when it comes to legislators in neighboring districts? How much coordination is needed, and what ideas do you have for improving regional cooperation?

Kahoe: This district is surrounded by Democrat and Republican legislators. I look forward to working with everyone, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats or Independents, to ensure that we’re delivering the best results for Summit County.

I think there’s a lot of issues that will be required to work together on. Public safety is number one. What happens outside of the 31st District has a strong effect on safety in the 31st District. We’ve seen it with crime, whether it’s in Summit Mall with shootings, whether it’s a shooting at an Airbnb in Bath or other violent crime.

The solution to that can’t only take place in the 31st District. It has to take place in all of Summit County and all of Ohio, because we know criminals don’t respect state legislative borders.

I look forward to working with other state reps on that public safety issue so that we don’t have people committing crimes in other districts or people living in other districts coming into the 31st District to commit crimes and to hurt people.

Spinner: I think anyone that knows me, knows me well, knows that first and foremost I’m a team player. I’m here to advocate, of course, on behalf of the people of District 31, but understanding that we are all, at the end of the day, Ohioans searching for the same things.

Whether you’re a Democrat, Independent, Republican, I’ve learned that cancer doesn’t give a hoot.

That kid that goes to school hungry, goes home hungry, doesn’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. That person, my good friend, works at the bar with me, working 20 hours a week at the bar, 48 hours a week as a meter reader and does landscape on the side doesn’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican. What they care for is someone that’s going to stand and fight for them to be their advocate, to be their fighter on that House floor.

And that’s what we need to do here in Summit County on a whole host of issues, working with Rep. Veronica Sims, Rep. Jack Daniels, Rep. Derrick Hall and our future colleague in District 35 as well. We need to make sure that we’re working as a team to bring new policies, bring money back to our district and to our county as well.

Where do you see opportunities for regionalization when it comes to reducing cost?

Spinner: Making sure that we provide opportunities for all Ohioans and across all fields. I don’t think we are pigeon-holed here in District 31 as the rest of Ohioans in terms of cost of living, in terms of opportunities for jobs or in the state of our schools.

These issues transcend borders.

They transcend all across the State of Ohio and permeate everywhere. And making sure that we work hard to bring these jobs back to, not only our district, but to our state. Making sure that we fully fund our schools at the state level because we’re having schools up in Toledo going down to four days a week, similar deals down in Columbus, and now the state’s taken over one of the schools in our district in Barberton.

Right now in the state of Ohio, we need what’s called a statewide sentencing database, because of that regionalization. We have judges in different parts of our state that don’t have the resources that we have here in Summit County in terms of alternative corrections and making sure our communities are safe. Making sure that we have consistent judgment while individualized prosecution doesn’t just happen across the State of Ohio.

It’s making sure at the end of the day we’re looking to our entire state on these issues and not just siloing ourselves in our district.

Kahoe: I used an example earlier with my school treasurer that we shared across district lines. There’s other opportunities in school districts with curriculum directors, other administrative positions.

With municipalities, anytime you go and get a contract as a group you get a better deal than when you do it individually. I think of, ‘How can cities can work together with each other on snow plowing on all the other services they offer people?’

The last one I’ll mention and it’s economic development. It’s not exactly an affordability issue, but if we don’t have people with good-paying jobs, if we don’t have good-paying jobs for people, it doesn’t matter how much we lower costs, they’re not going to be able to afford things.

To the point of regionalization, I’ll applaud the work going on in Greater Akron with the Greater Akron Chamber with the Polymer Innovation Hub.

They have realized Akron’s history in polymer and in rubbers, and so they’re getting on the same team with everybody in the region so that they can work together on attracting jobs and businesses here in the polymer sector.

That’s something that some regions struggle with, and I think Northeast Ohio has struggled with for a while is, ‘How do we get all the local elected officials, the state legislators and the state elected officials on the same game plan for our priorities?’

In Akron, just recently, they’ve done that with the Polymer Innovation Hub, and I’ll look forward to working with them to do what I can as a state legislator to support that work.

Identify an issue which you believe is unique to the 31st District.

Kahoe: I believe that this is the district that has the most national park in the entire state of Ohio with the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

I had the opportunity just the other day with some community leaders from the food bank, other local nonprofits, to kayak through the Cuyahoga River. I think we went from Kent to Cuyahoga Falls, and it’s a beautiful asset to this community and I’m sick and tired as a Northeast Ohioan of people still talking about that river catching on fire 50 years ago. It’s different now. It’s an asset to the community. It’s one that we didn’t get here by accident.

We got here by investing in cleaning that river, cleaning the park, keeping it a beautiful place, and that’s something I’ll certainly continue as your next state rep.

Spinner: We do have one of the greatest treasures of Ohio in the national park. I had the pleasure of living out there for six summers at Camp Manatoc on summer camp staff. I have the great fortune of living nine blocks from the Cuyahoga River.

I find myself in times of needing to take a breath, taking a walk down the river and admiring the beautiful falls and applaud the work of our current mayor of Cuyahoga Falls, Don Walters, and mayor of Akron, Shammas Malik, in taking out the gorge and the river dam and restoring the falls to its natural beauty.

But we have to keep talking about the Clean Water Act, we have to keep talking about our environmental regulations and ensuring that these treasures remain for future generations. Right now, in the State of Ohio, we just do the bare minimum in terms of environmental safety and our ecology and sustainability.

We’ve got to raise the bar and set the tone across the country. If we want to take care of our natural treasure, take care of the national park and the river and waterways that we are proud to call home and build our communities upon, we gotta really mean it.

We’ve got to enforce that across businesses left and right and ensure that we’re holding polluters accountable and really raising the bar when it comes to terms and protecting these treasures.

What can you tell the audience about yourself to help them get a better understanding of who you are as a person?

Spinner: For starters, a big part of me is family. I’m honored my dad’s here tonight. My mom’s on City Council in Cuyahoga Falls and can’t be here.

I’m so proud of my older brother, who is a graphic designer and who lives with his wife, Emily, down in Westerville.

My two sisters, Margie and Kate, identical twins, who are both public school teachers. Kate is an art teacher at a high school in Gahanna Lincoln and Margie was, again, the middle school band director but is now the choir director because they’ve gutted the middle school band.

I’m proud of the family that I built here with Shelby and our three cats. What you’ll find me doing outside of the campaign trail, and it’s jamming out to Tom Petty.

You might not know it, but I have a sleeve of tattoos under this arm. Thirty and counting — it’s great.

I play vintage baseball at Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens on the Akron Blacksocks. For those that don’t know or are unaware, we play 1864 rules. That means the funny uniforms, no gloves and the whole nine yards. Funny terms and everything. Sight to see, come on down.

I’m that guy with three cats now. Bean, Daisy and Nacho. Our dog, Leah, Princess Leah. You know, my favorite movie is “The Blues Brothers.” I love making pancakes, and I have aspirations to open up a bagel shop one day.

Kahoe: I grew up in Richfield and in Bath going to Revere School District, and my family, too, has been incredibly important to me. I’m thankful my grandmother, I call her Nana, Nana’s here tonight, so glad to have her support, even though she can’t vote for me, unfortunately.

So it’s minus one for me, but glad to have her here. And my family really built me into who I am today. I think about all the things that are important, and one — you might say this is kind of dumb, but when I’m out knocking on people’s doors, when I shake their hand, every once in a while, I know I’m sure you get the same, but, ‘Oh, you must be a good politician, you got a firm handshake.’

I have my family to thank for that. I tell a story about when I was maybe six and when my dad’s friends came over, and he had a friend, Paul, and Paul’s a big guy. He was an excavator for a living, and his hands felt like sandpaper.

But to six-year-old me, if I wasn’t going to look Paul in the eye and shake his hand when he came over, I was going to be in some serious trouble.

So I have a lot to thank my family for. I live here now, and I’ve always kind of hated the ‘what do you do for fun’ question, because it’s a lot of things and it’s sort of bizarre, but I like doing regular old things with people I love, whether it’s going to Home Depot to fix something up at the house or going to the grocery store with a friend or a family or just eating dinner with the people I love.

That’s how I like to spend my time, and what we’re doing doesn’t particularly matter.

Medicaid is one of the largest expenditures in this state. How can the state balance reigning in Medicaid expenditures while still taking care of Ohioans in need?

Kahoe: I think it’s important that, one, we ensure that there isn’t fraud on the program that’s taking money away from Ohioans that are really in need so that we have more funding available to help the people that really need it.

I’m also interested in creating incentives to ensure that people stay healthier. The best thing you can do to reduce healthcare costs is to keep people out of the hospital, and we do that by working with kids so that they know what’s important about healthy eating, physical activity.

I got to work with Jim Tressel on the Team Tressel Fitness Challenge, which, if you have a student in elementary school, they’re probably partaking in, and so I’m interested in how we make our population healthier, and those incentives are really important.

This is an area where my opponent, Noah, has laid out a policy, and it was House Bill 780, which I want to explain.

This is the challenge when you can’t talk about policies is you make mistakes. House Bill 780, what it would do is eliminate the incentives that our hospitals have to offer primary and preventative care to children.

It would eliminate those, so that’s no longer offered. And Akron Children’s, right here, they currently offer free primary and preventative care to 100,000 children in Northeast Ohio.

If Noah’s healthcare plan became law, there would be 100,000 kids that would no longer have doctors, nurses and medical personnel in their schools, in their libraries, in their communities, trying to keep them healthy from the start, so that they never have to go to the hospital.

Spinner: Medicaid is essential in the State of Ohio. It’s essential that 3 million Ohioans who are dependent on Medicaid as their form of healthcare coverage. I know it’s near and dear to my heart.

If it wasn’t for Medicaid and the opportunities it presented my wife, Shelly, during those times, we wouldn’t have made it.

We wouldn’t have been able to afford to get $10,000 in chemo bills every two weeks for six months. Six-figure radiation costs, and she did everything right in life, and still was denied because of those administrative hurdles at the state level, the bureaucracy that exists and the people that have been administering for years making it harder and harder for people to get access to healthcare coverage.

We have serious people running for serious office that would like to see Medicaid dismantled across the state without blinking an eye at those 3 million Ohioans that depend on it.

We want to talk about Akron Children’s Hospital. Over half the patients they see are dependent on Medicaid, and all the patients they see are children. So this is something I think we should take actually seriously, not just offer back and forth on it but to actually address it head-on.

We need to make sure that we are providing Medicaid and healthcare across the state, making sure it’s accessible, making sure that we keep our rural hospitals open, making sure that we are reducing the cost of prescription drugs because we can do that.

We have the power to wrangle in those insurance companies when it comes to what they provide and what they don’t provide. We have that power at the Statehouse and it’s immense and it’s impactful because so many people in this room I think have benefitted from it as well.

Not to mention the fact of keeping our kids healthier. How about we actually fund pediatric cancer research and not strike it like they did in last year’s budget under Republican leadership control?

How about we actually talk about children’s safety and children’s health? How about we invest in universal school lunch programs across the state? It’s the cheapest thing we can do.

Yet we have a super majority legislature last year we had to nickel and dime back and forth to get them down to a reduced lunch program to cover that.

But that was so impactful as well to the 400,000 children that have been dependent on this service.

We have to make sure that we are fully funding giving our kids the opportunity to have healthy, nutritious meals and ensuring that Medicaid across the state is maintained and expanded.

Campaigns seem to have become increasingly nasty. We want to give you each an opportunity to take the rhetoric down a notch. Do you have something nice you’d like to say about your opponent?

Spinner: I have a lot of nice things to say about Mike. I think every time we’re in public, you know, we treat each other with respect and dignity as every human should.

Someone wrote a Facebook post about us showing how cordial we were, and I do appreciate that.

I want to give Mike credit. I also ran for office when I was a senior in high school — I ran for the Ohio House of Representatives because I was sick and tired of seeing teachers let go because of how we fund schools.

But it takes a lot for someone our age to go and run for office.

This is one of the most competitive house seats across the state, and the combined age of the candidates is 50 years old. That’s something, that truly is.

For better or worse, we are the next set of leaders here in their communities. I’m sure that we’ll be seeing a lot of each other moving forward in whatever capacity, whether we’re elected the state representative or not.

So it’s an honor to be on the ballot with you. I appreciate your dedication to your community, and I’m sure this isn’t the last time that we’ll be sitting at this type of forum.

Kahoe: I think to get to the core of the issue on division, you focus on issues and not on people. I’ll never have anything bad to say about Noah Spinner and the type of person he is.

I think he cares. You care a lot. I believe that.

And another thing I’ll say is, you’re seriously more musically talented than I am. I can’t play guitar. I’m sure there’s a dozen other instruments you can play. I can’t play any of those. A little bit of harmonica. No more than two songs.

But you’re certainly very talented as a musician. And I’m a little jealous that I can’t do some of that myself.

One-minute closing remarks

Kahoe: I began this debate by giving you what I thought was my stance on education issues, how we prepare kids for work, how we make housing affordable again and how we keep our communities safe.

I think all those issues matter, and I articulated a vision to do those things that doesn’t require spending money again and again and again.

I think that’s in contrast to what we heard from the other side of this table, which to pretty much every problem is: tax you more, spending more of your money.

That’s the core of this campaign is that that’s been tried. Taxing you more, spending more of your money, that’s not going to work.

I’m not going to rehash it because I only have a minute, but I presented ideas on how we solve these problems with policy, not just by spending more of your money.

I hope that you will trust me on Nov. 3 to send me to Columbus to accomplish that vision.

Spinner: At the end of the day, we want a legislator that shows up. We want somebody that, in our toughest and darkest times, is gonna show up and do the work, even when it’s so hard and difficult to do and unfathomable.

My life, I have been dealt with a hand. We played it, and we played it the best possible way.

When I lost my wife, man, there were so many opportunities when I could of shut the door with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and just watch TV. But no, what we did was we got involved.

We’re built on our experiences. We’re built on what we’ve learned in our lives. What we do with that will define us and define the next generation.

I want to take my experiences, my love, my loss and do something with it, take my resilience and fight for the people of District 31.

My story is not unique to me. There’s so many people out there that just need a voice, that just need a hand to get them out of the hole that our state has dug us in for over 20 years.

In a time when our state needs us most, are we going to show up or are we going to get running? It’s time we show up, and I promise to do that every single day.