YOUNGSTOWN — Republican Geno DiFabio, who narrowly lost a commissioners race two years ago to longtime incumbent Carol Rimedio-Righetti, is this time challenging Democrat David Ditzler, another longtime political figure, for a commissioner’s seat.

Ditzler, who served 19 years as an Austintown trustee and now three terms as county commissioner, won with 56% of the vote when political newcomer Steve Kristan of Canfield challenged Ditzler in 2020.

DiFabio touched on a variety of issues during a candidate interview — lack of economic development success in Mahoning County compared to the billions of investment just north of the Mahoning County line in Lordstown, taxes being too high in Mahoning County and the three-Democrat “kumbaya” at the commissioners office.

DiFabio said his lack of education and government experience are not as important to being a county commissioner as “character.”

“This isn’t a job that requires a (college) degree,” DiFabio said. “This is a job where character matters and how you treat people matters and how you deal with things.”

DiFabio said Ditzler has downplayed the cost of a $175,000 settlement paid out to county employee Ricky Morrison in 2023 after the county fired Morrison Dec. 2, 2022, and rehired him after questions were raised about the termination.

Morrison filed suit over his firing, which Morrison’s lawyers claimed was retaliation by the county commissioners for Morrison supporting DiFabio in the election against Rimedio-Righetti. Then-acting prosecutor Gina DeGenova said Morrison was reinstated because his termination was improperly carried out by county Administrator Audrey Tillis, who also was named as a defendant in the suit.

DiFabio also mentioned the Morrison lawsuit during the interview in relation to lawsuits that have cost the county money, saying, “There were attorney fees, all because of their politics, the way they acted because they violated (Morrison’s) civil rights.”

He added, “They fired him for sitting next to me. They tried to send a message to all county employees. Watch who you support. That is not how we should treat our employees. I don’t care if you are Republican, Democrat or Martian. That’s not how you treat people.”

Commissioner Anthony Traficanti broke with Rimedio-Righetti and Ditzler in the dispute, saying his colleagues wanted to fire Morrison. Traficanti said he refused to support firing Morrison. When Ditzler and Rimedio-Righetti were asked in late 2022 and early 2023 whether they fired Morrison for political reasons, they said the commissioners vote “through resolution,” and “do not vote in executive session.”

The comment seemed to suggest that the commissioners thought they did nothing wrong as long as they did not approve a resolution regarding Morrison’s termination.

When Ditzler was asked in his candidate interview about the Morrison lawsuit, he said resolving the lawsuit out of court was a way to stop the county from having to pay more money in a drawn-out legal battle and that Morrison’s firing “had nothing to do with politics.”

He added that the decision to settle with Morrison was a “financial decision that I would have loved to go to court and have all of the people that were on the list testify.” He said he does not want to see Mahoning County in the situation Trumbull County has been in regarding the lawsuits filed by and against Trumbull County Commissioner Niki Frenchko.

Ditzler also said in his candidate interview that the Morrison lawsuit has left him with the impression that a person can “basically say anything about anybody and not have to prove it and not be true and to create a false narrative like my opponent does to create a false narrative out there and allow that to grow because lies move a lot faster than the truth does.”

DiFabio said he thinks it would be beneficial to the county for him to be elected commissioner because, “We finally have to break the rubber stamp that we have (in the commissioners office) because it’s good to get along, but if that’s all you do is get along, we just need one commissioner. That third set of eyes looking at everything is certainly an asset for the board.”

DiFabio was referring to the commissioners generally voting 3-0 to approve everything on their agenda.

Ditzler said DiFabio’s remarks remind him of a time when there was great “dysfunction” in the commissioners office decades ago after an anti-tax group rose up and prevented the county from collecting enough revenue to maintain services. He said the well-publicized fighting among the Trumbull County commissioners also makes it clear that unity should be valued.

“Believe me, Anthony, Carol and myself disagree on 50% of the things that we ultimately move forward on,” Ditzler said. “But you don’t battle in public. You don’t tear each other down in public. You sit down and you cooperatively discuss issues and items and different plans to move forward.

“We have a destination for the county. We have differing opinions on how to get there, but at the end of the day, we agree that people with disabilities need to be served. We agree that veterans need facilities. We agree that Animal Charity needs to be funded. We agree that the property taxes need to be reduced.

And we agree that we need to generate income, and we need to do it in a way that doesn’t break the backs of the taxpayers. We don’t sing ‘kumbaya.’ We walk out of meetings where we don’t talk to each other for a day. The next day it’s all good.”

He said even when he disagreed with Traficanti and Rimedio-Righetti on an issue, he did not go to the public meeting and vote no. “I’ve gone out and supported it because for me to stand up and vote against it, what does that do? I’ve got to embrace it because it’s the majority of the board’s decision and move forward.”

DiFabio said there is a “gap” in the county’s economic development efforts. “We’re not getting them here,” he said of billion dollar projects like Lordstown has gotten. “There is something we are missing. I don’t know if it is complacency. I don’t know what it is, but we are going to do better. We have to do better. We have everything Trumbull County has to offer. We have everything Columbiana County has to offer. Belmont, other counties got huge developments.”

Ditzler said DiFabio says he will do better in attracting economic development to Mahoning County, but “he has no plan. He has no resume. He has no destination. All of his verbiage is just based around a false narrative and being detrimental to the county.”

Ditzler said the Western Reserve Port Authority is “getting ready to close on” $200 million of job retention and new jobs in the next two years.

“Right now we (have) small manufacturing entities, we are doing a great job through the port authority in creating 150 jobs here, 50 jobs there,” Ditzler said. He has a list “a mile long that I could provide with Steelite (International) and Trailstar (International) and Trumbull Manufacturing (in Youngstown).”

He said economic development will continue at Bailey Road and Mahoning Avenue in North Jackson in part because $1 million is available to improve infrastructure “to accommodate larger manufacturers.”

He said the commissioners put $1 million into the multicounty Valley Vision 2050 economic development plan being run by several local economic development groups as a “way to plant seeds that grow tomorrow.”

He added, “It behooves us to be regional with Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana in order to secure big opportunities, like LG Chem (in Lordstown) and electric cars because you can utilize all of the people in Mahoning and Trumbull and Columbiana counties for jobs. They are going to go where the land best fits their needs.”

Ditzler said the most important job a county commissioner does is provide funding to keep the county’s 1,500 employees working “to be able to provide all of the services that they need and deserve for 240,000 residents.”

He said a county commissioner cannot always ask the public to pay for everything.

For instance, he tried to use a tool called tax increment financing in Austintown when he was a township trustee there, “but nobody understood it. When I got to the county, we were able to do it for the (Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Racecourse) casino.” He said the TIF generated $10 million of property taxes the casino paid, and that resulted in “almost $18 million of new infrastructure and new developments.”

He said the county government now has “the highest bond rating we have ever had in county history.” He said the commissioners take great pride in developing the Campus of Care on County Line Road in Austintown after the state closed down the Youngstown Developmental Center there.

“It had 10 buildings, 47 acres, plus employees, and the state shut it down. We worked for three or four or five years to get ownership of that facility and turn it over and work with Duane Piccirilli (executive director of the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board) and tried to bring all of the nonprofits into those buildings.”

He said that today all 10 buildings are filled with nonprofit organizations working on behalf of people with disabilities. “We have 250 employees working there, and they serve over 400 people every day,” Ditzler said.

He also is excited about the purchase by the Western Reserve Port Authority of a former supermarket on Belmont Avenue in Youngstown to create a new Mahoning County Veterans Service Commission complex across the street from Veterans Administration Hospital “to better serve veterans.” A second phase will be to put veterans housing on the property where the Veterans Service Commission will be.

“We’re committing almost $7 million in that facility to build it,” Ditzler said.