Mayor, council president face off in May 5 election

FREMONT – When Jim Ellis was elected mayor in 2011, the city was dealing with major projects that caused big financial issues.

The reservoir project was millions over budget.

The city was building a new watewater treatment plant, and it had to decide whether to keep or remove the aged Ballville Dam.

The projects had price tags in the millions, and some costs were unavoidably passed onto city residents.

Since then, Ellis believes he has worked with city officials to resolve the crisis and move forward on his "Big Fremont" project to revitalize downtown and bring more jobs to the city. Those are some of the reasons he is running for re-election.

"We really have a good handle on the budget," Ellis said. "We've done a lot of long-range planning. There's a lot I want to be a part of moving forward."

Fremont City Council President Dallas Leake disagrees, and that's one of the reasons he is challenging Ellis in the Democratic primary election May 5.

"I want to change the way things are done," Leake said. "There's a whole segment of the population who are not reaping the benefits of living in Fremont."

The primary winner will face Republican Danny Sanchez in the November election.

Jobs, economic development

To bring high-paying jobs to Fremont, the city needs to attract a large factory or multiple large factories, Leake said.

"The businesses we have now do a great job, but they can't meet the needs of all the citizens," he said. "Fremont has some existing buildings with all the amenities that we could move a factory into."

There is plenty of land available to be turned into an industrial park that would be ready for factories to use, Leake said. During The News-Messenger debate between Leake and Ellis earlier this month, Leake said if the city built a facility to house a factory, the factory would come to Fremont.

"I absolutely disagree with Dallas' idea," Ellis said. "Nobody is going to do that."

Fremont needs to focus on filling the skills gap by training locals for positions that factories and industries need, supporting entrepreneurs and making the city a more attractive place for people to live and do business, he said.

"Part of luring business to Fremont is going to be retaining and expanding our current businesses," he said. "We want to keep businesses like Heinz and Style Crest happy."

Training programs for the workforce that are available at Terra State Community College and Vanguard Career and Technology Centers will be key in filling the skills gap, which is a nationwide issue, he said.

Diversity, being inclusive to all

Ellis and Leake have sparred over how hiring in city departments and the Community Relations Commission, which handles complaints against city departments, has been handled.

"I'd like to see more people of color hired by the city," Leake said.

If a minority candidate has nearly all the qualifications for the job and needs a certification or additional training, the city could hire him or her and help finish the training, Leake said.

"I'm not saying they should be hired because they're African-American," he said. "All I want to do is give them an opportunity. (The city) built the culture where you don't get hired."

Leake pointed to the hiring of Molly Bauman in 2012 as the city's recreation superintendent. Leake criticized Ellis because he felt another applicant, who is black, should have been hired.

"The person we hired, who was better qualified and had more experience, was the first woman to be the head of a service department in the city," Ellis said. "So we increased diversity there."

The city has opened the hiring process and takes applications for every job it has, Ellis said. It also has reached out to the black churches in town with information about job openings.

Helping locals get the skills needed for job openings also should increase diversity, he said.

As council president, Leake said has tried to make people feel like they could come to council meetings and voice their opinions and serve on the Community Relations Commission.

If elected, he wants to make more accessible some of the public forums where locals have had a chance to share their thoughts — on downtown development and dealing with the drug problem.

Some locals are working two and three jobs to support their families. Meetings could be held at local churches or meeting rooms at low-income housing, he said.

Community Relations Commission

Ellis revived the Community Relations Commission when he took office, and he has deemed it a failure. At the debate, he said the commission was controlled by Leake, Leake's brother-in-law and the Save the Ballville Dam Committee.

Members spent most of their time hearing complaints against the police department made by Michael Williams, a city man who is married to Leake's niece, Ellis said. Those complaints are not founded, he contends.

Williams faces a felony intimidation charge after he was charged last week with confronting a Fremont police sergeant at a local gym.

Leake said he did not think hearing complaints from Williams was a conflict of interest.

"I think we're all professional," Leake said. "We agreed to deal with the issues."

Leake said the commission dealt with other complaints. They included a resident alleging police used excessive force in an arrest, which was deemed unfounded, and a complaint about a water bill.

Ellis has proposed a new group to hear complaints, and that group eventually would be included in the commission.

Ballville Dam

The more-than-100-year-old Ballville Dam remains an issue of contention. City council voted last year to remove it after the Ohio Department of Natural Resources deemed it a hazard and told the city to either repair or remove it.

A group gathered petitions to put a referendum on the November ballot that would allow residents to vote on whether to remove the dam. A court will decide whether the referendum can go forward after the city said the residents could not legally put it on the ballot.

If the referendum goes forward, a $2 million in U.S. Fish and Wildlife grant for dam removal would expire, causing the city to lose that money.

Leake said the referendum should be on the ballot.

"Any time you deny the Democratic process, it's not good for any of us," he said. "This is $2 million that we didn't have to begin with. It's not like we'll have to give it back."

When Ellis was elected, he had the engineering firm the city hired look at the pros and cons of removing the dam and repairing it. After exhaustive study, removal was the best and most cost-effective decision, Ellis said.

mksmith@gannett.com

419-334-1044

Twitter: @kristinasmithNM

Jim Ellis

Jim Ellis ousted longtime Mayor Terry Overmyer in the 2011 election.

He is an attorney with more than 30 years of experience and has represented governments in project management, personnel issues and compliance with state and federal laws.

He also has taught business law at Terra State Community College and Tiffin University. He developed and taught the Internet business law class at Terra.

He is from the Chicago area and married his wife, Marlene Sprenger, of Fremont, and moved to Fremont in 1998.

Dallas Leake

Dallas Leake has been the Fremont City Council president for two years. The Sandusky County Democratic Party appointed him to the job.

Before that, he served two years as an at-large city councilman. He also served a year on Fremont City Schools Board of Education in 2007, when he was appointed to finish a board member's term.

He is the operations director at the Sandusky County Juvenile Detention Center and has served in various roles with that agency, including probation officer and community service coordinator. He also has taught at Terra State Community College.

He is a native of North Carolina who moved to Fremont in the late 1970s. He is married to Mae Dell Leake.