Tag: Mark Welch

Amanda Ortiz of West Chester, Ohio: Democrat of the Year

I warned what would happen in West Chester Township during the November 2025 election, and it’s playing out just as I said it would.  I don’t want to pick on Amanda Ortiz personally—she seems like a pleasant enough young lady, a veterinarian and mom who presented herself in a way that felt approachable and non-threatening—but the reality is that her victory as a West Chester trustee represents something much larger and more dangerous than one local race. I warned everyone during the campaign that we should have stuck with Mark Welch, the longtime trustee who had helped build West Chester into the thriving, well-managed community it had become under Republican leadership. Instead, we now have a radical Democrat on the board, and the consequences are already starting to reveal themselves in ways that should worry every taxpayer and resident who values fiscal responsibility and growth without the typical left-wing overreach. Mark Welch was the only real hedge against the lean-Democrat influences that were already creeping into township decisions, and by losing him, we have opened the door to a shift that could erode the very foundations of what made West Chester successful in the first place. I have said it before, and I will say it again here: this was not just an election loss; it was a calculated Trojan horse maneuver by the Democrats, and the proof is right there in how they celebrated it afterward.

Let me walk through exactly how this unfolded because I believe people must understand the playbook Democrats are using in Republican strongholds like Butler County, Ohio, and across the country. Amanda Ortiz ran a campaign that deliberately downplayed her partisan affiliation. She did not go door-to-door shouting that she was a Democrat. She positioned herself as a nice mom, a community-oriented professional who cared about infrastructure, parks, and listening to residents rather than developers. Her website and materials emphasized “people over business,” which sounds reasonable on the surface, but in practice, it is code for a regulatory mindset that slows growth and increases costs for everyone else. People who were moderate or independent, or even some Republicans who were tired of seeing the same faces, listened to her and thought she represented a fresh, safe choice. They got suckered, plain and simple. I heard it from so many voters after the fact—folks who admitted they had no idea she was a card-carrying Democrat until after the ballots were cast. She kept it quiet, ran as a non-partisan in a technically non-partisan race on the ballot, and relied on the fact that most people do not dig deep into local trustee races. That is how Democrats win in places like West Chester, where the population has grown rapidly, and people are busy raising families rather than following every political nuance. They sneak in under the radar, sounding rational and moderate, and only reveal their true colors once they are safely behind the lines. I have watched this strategy play out time and again, and it only benefits Democrats in Republican areas because it creates ambiguity that allows them to peel off just enough votes from the center without mobilizing the full conservative base.

The proof of how Democrats viewed this victory came shortly after the election, at the Butler County Democratic Party’s Spring 2026 Gala. They awarded Amanda Ortiz their Democrat of the Year honor, and the room was packed with the party’s heavy hitters celebrating what they openly called a monumental win. I have followed local politics long enough to know that a township trustee seat in West Chester would normally not draw this statewide and even out-of-state attention, but here it was, front and center. Governor Andy Beshear from Kentucky flew up to speak at the event, using the platform to bash Vice President JD Vance and energize the crowd. Beshear, whom I have long maintained won his own close election through questionable means involving teacher unions and irregularities out of Louisville and Lexington, was there to lend his star power to this “victory.” Amy Acton was there too—the former Ohio Health Director under Governor Mike DeWine, who became the face of the COVID lockdowns that devastated our state’s economy and small businesses. She is now running for governor herself in 2026, and her presence alongside Beshear and the rest of the “misfit toys,” as I like to call them, sent a clear message: this seat mattered to them. Kathy Wyenandt, the chair of the Butler County Democrat Party and the architect of so much of their behind-the-scenes maneuvering, was at the heart of it all. She has always been nice to me personally, cordial and polite whenever our paths cross, but I have learned over the years that her brand of niceness is strategic. When you lack the raw political power to force your agenda through head-on, you smile, you build relationships, and you slip your candidates through the cracks. That is exactly what happened with Ortiz. No one knew who she was a year before the election, yet the party machinery got her across the finish line by keeping her Democrat identity low-key and letting her play the moderate mom card.

I have talked about this construct before in my writings and on my platforms, but it bears repeating here because Amanda Ortiz embodies the new Democrat strategy in places like Butler County. Their bench is shallow. They do not have deep pools of talent or proven leaders who can win on ideas alone in conservative territory. So instead, they recruit friendly faces who can pass as independents or moderates, avoid any mention of national Democrat policies that would scare off voters, and rely on the fact that local races often fly under the radar. Ortiz herself acknowledged in her acceptance remarks how grateful she was for the support of Kathy Wyenandt and others, as without them, she would not have been elected. That is code for admitting the party did the heavy lifting while she stayed in the background as the palatable front. Meanwhile, Mark Welch had been there for years, carrying forward policies that George Lang and others had helped establish—policies that turned West Chester into a model of explosive growth, strong infrastructure, and fiscal prudence. Welch was not flashy, but he was steady. He understood the balance between development and quality of life. He had built relationships and institutional knowledge that kept the township humming. Republicans around him, influenced by advisors who thought they needed to court moderates by pairing him with Lee Wong—a candidate who leans a bit more toward the center and attracts crossover appeal—made the fatal mistake of playing it too safe. They advised Welch not to go on the attack, not to “punch Democrats in the face” by exposing Ortiz’s true affiliations and the broader agenda she represented. Instead, they tried to run a cordial, moderate campaign, assuming Butler County’s Republican lean would carry the day. That was a miscalculation, and it cost us the seat.

I remember talking with Mark Welch around election time, and he expressed readiness to move on to other things after so many years of service, but he stayed in the race largely to hold the line for the township’s future. He had been a bulwark against the kind of creeping leftward drift that Democrats specialize in once they gain a foothold. West Chester’s success did not happen by accident. It came from years of Republican-led decisions that encouraged business growth while protecting the residential quality of life. The cash reserves, the infrastructure investments, the explosive population boom—all of that was built on policies that prioritized results over ideology. But now, with a Democrat on the board, I fully expect to see that foundation tested. Democrats are not known for preserving the status quo in places like this; they tend to burn through reserves with new spending priorities, push for more regulations under the guise of “sustainability” or “equity,” and gradually shift the culture. I have seen it in other communities, and the pattern is predictable. The explosive growth that fueled West Chester’s prosperity will be at risk if the board starts listening more to activist voices than to the taxpayers who actually fund the operation. That is why this seat mattered so much to the Democrats. It was not just one trustee position; it was a crack in the armor of one of Ohio’s most reliably Republican townships. They poured resources into it, celebrated it nationally by bringing in Beshear, and used it as a rallying cry because they see it as proof that their Trojan horse model works.

Too many Republicans fell for the moderate trap. I have been vocal about this for years, and people dismiss me as the guy in the cowboy hat who shoots guns and talks tough—but they always work in the background to steer people who should listen, away, but the record shows I am right more often than not. Look at the FirstEnergy scandal a few years back, where Democrats framed legitimate energy policy debates as corruption, and Republicans got defensive instead of fighting back on principle. Some ended up in jail because they failed to defend the traditional bases of power against the incursion of renewable energy. The same dynamic played out in West Chester. Advisors told Mark Welch and the local party to play nice, to embrace moderates like Lee Wong, to avoid aggressive attacks because voters supposedly wanted civility. But history proves otherwise. Look at George Lang’s campaigns—he has always been cordial in public, willing to talk to anyone, including Kathy Wyenandt, but when it comes to winning, he knows how to draw the line and mobilize the base. Successful Republicans do not win by bleeding over Democrats; they win by energizing their own voters and exposing the opposition for what it is. Donald Trump proved this time and again. He did not play nice; he punched back, exposed weaknesses, and forced the other side to defend indefensible positions. That is how you get turnout and loyalty. Playing in the middle of the road gets you run over. I told people during the campaign that if we wanted to keep West Chester red and strong, we had to treat this race like the battle it was. Instead, the gloves stayed on, and Democrats slipped Ortiz through.

This connects directly to what is happening at higher levels, too. Amy Acton is using the same playbook in her run for governor—positioning herself as a doctor who cares about people, downplaying the economic destruction her lockdown policies caused during COVID. She destroyed small businesses, prolonged unnecessary restrictions, and Ohio still has not fully recovered in many sectors. Yet she is out there smiling, talking about “power back to the people,” and Democrats are lapping it up. Beshear’s visit to the gala was no coincidence; he sees Ohio as a battleground and this local win as a template. Kathy Wyenandt has orchestrated this model for years. She ran for state senate herself back in 2020, lost, but stayed embedded in the county party, building relationships and waiting for opportunities like this. She is nice when she needs to be because she understands power dynamics. When Republicans hold the majority, as they do in Butler County, the only way for Democrats to advance is through deception and incremental gains. Sneak in a trustee here, a school board member there, keep the races non-partisan on paper so voters do not scrutinize the D next to the name, and slowly erode the conservative advantage. It is a long game, and they are patient. Meanwhile, too many Republicans think civility will win the day. I have heard it from moderate voices: “Don’t listen to that crazy Rich Hoffman; and his cowboy hat, bullwhips and talks about punching people.” But the truth is, elections are not won by being the nicest guy in the room. They are won by showing a path to victory and fighting for it.

I have always believed that people vote for winners, not for moderates who split the difference. Trump’s success was built on that truth. He did not apologize for being aggressive; he celebrated it. Vivek Ramaswamy is going to have to learn the same lesson as his own campaign heat up. Playing nice with the establishment or trying to bleed over left-leaning voters only works if you are already in a dominant position, and even then, it is risky. In a place like Butler County, where registered Republicans far outnumber Democrats, the winning formula is to expose the Trojan horse before it crosses the gates. We should have hammered the fact that Ortiz was the Democrat Party’s chosen candidate. We should have highlighted her endorsements and the national figures waiting in the wings to celebrate her. Instead, the campaign listened to advisors who thought Lee Wong’s moderate appeal would carry the ticket. Wong brings in some crossover, sure, but at what cost? When the race tightened, that strategy left Welch vulnerable. People took for granted how good Welch had been. He had helped implement policies that kept taxes reasonable, infrastructure moving, and growth exploding. West Chester’s success was built on Republican vision, and now Democrats are positioning themselves to claim credit while quietly undermining the principles that made it possible.

Looking back, I can see the buyer’s remorse already setting in among some voters who supported Ortiz, thinking she was a safe, independent choice. Christians, especially people of faith who value traditional values and fiscal conservatism are particularly vulnerable.  We need that same clarity here. Moderates and independents who listened to Ortiz’s pitch about parks and walkability did not realize they were voting for a party that celebrates lockdown architects like Acton and out-of-state governors who benefit from questionable election practices. I stand by my view that Beshear’s first win involved enough irregularities through teacher unions and urban strongholds to tip the scales. The details from Louisville and Lexington have never been fully addressed, and this fits the pattern of Democrats resorting to deceit when ideas alone cannot prevail. Whether it is election irregularities or Trojan horse candidacies, the result is the same: power gained through misdirection rather than merit.

The interconnections here are fascinating and telling. Kathy Wyenandt, Amy Acton, Andy Beshear, and the entire Butler County Democrat machine rallied around Amanda Ortiz because they recognize a model when they see one. A minor trustee seat became their national rallying cry because it showed they could infiltrate Republican territory without triggering a full defensive response. They will copy this playbook everywhere—find a likable face, run non-partisan, keep the D quiet, and celebrate quietly at galas with big-name guests to build momentum. It worked here because Republicans underestimated the threat and overestimated the value of moderation. George Lang has shown the right way: be cordial when possible, but fight to win when it counts. I remember specific elections where challengers who got “down and dirty,” as the saying goes, came out on top because they connected with voters who want strength, not appeasement. The secret sauce is showing you are willing to win, not just participate.

As I reflect on all of this, I cannot help but reference my own book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. It lays out the philosophy I have lived by: in any competition, whether business or politics, you prepare for the fight, you understand the terrain, and you do not hesitate to draw when necessary. Playing nice only works if the other side respects the rules, and Democrats have shown they do not. They use sweetness as a weapon when outgunned, then reveal their agenda once inside the gates. I told everyone this would happen with Ortiz. I warned that Mark Welch’s experience and steadiness were irreplaceable in the short term. People dismissed it as over-the-top, but now the proof is in the award she received and the high-profile attendees who showed up to congratulate her. Democrats are proud of this win because it validates their shallow-bench strategy. They do not have a deep roster of stars; they have to manufacture victories like this one. That is why Beshear came from Kentucky and Acton showed up—they see it as a blueprint for flipping Ohio one local seat at a time.

The months ahead will test West Chester in ways we have not seen before. With Ortiz on the board, I expect more emphasis on “resident voices” that conveniently align with progressive priorities—more spending on social programs disguised as infrastructure, pressure to slow development under environmental pretexts, and a gradual shift away from the pro-growth policies that built our cash reserves. The explosive growth we have enjoyed will begin to be strained under new ideological weights, and the positive gains Mark Welch helped secure will be spent down. That is the Democrat nature: they inherit success and then erode it. I have seen it in school boards, county seats, and trustee races across Ohio. Non-partisan labeling only helps them in red areas because it hides the ball. Voters who lean conservative or independent think they are making a safe choice, but they are actually handing power to people whose national party pushes policies that would never win in a straight-up partisan fight here.

Republicans in Butler County and beyond need to learn the lesson: expose the Trojan horse early, attack the strategy aggressively, and mobilize the base by showing you are fighters, not moderators. Lee Wong’s approach might bring in a few crossover votes, but it leaves the door open for the very incursions we saw with Ortiz. Trump proved you win by being unapologetic. Vivek will have to internalize that as primaries approach. Amy Acton will try the nice-moderate route for governor, but the way to beat her is to knock her off her feet with the truth about lockdowns and economic damage. The same goes for every local race. Kathy Wyenandt’s model relies on Republicans playing nice. Deny her that, and the weaknesses become obvious. Their base is thin; they rely on deceit because ideas alone do not sell in places like West Chester.

People who voted for Ortiz because she seemed like a nice alternative to a longtime incumbent are already starting to feel that buyer’s remorse I mentioned. I talk to them regularly—moderates, independents, even some who thought they were supporting a Republican-leaning independent. They tell me they did not realize the full picture until the gala photos surfaced and the awards were handed out. That is the danger of low-information local voting. Trustees matter. They control budgets, zoning, and infrastructure—decisions that directly impact your property values, taxes, and daily life. When Democrats sneak one in, it is not harmless; it is the thin edge of the wedge. I do not doubt that the Democrat Party will try to replicate this in other townships, school boards, and county offices. The gala was not just a celebration; it was a strategy session disguised as a party. Out-of-state attention from Beshear signaled that this is now a national template. A trustee seat in West Chester drew Kentucky’s governor because Democrats see Ohio as winnable if they can chip away at the red wall one non-partisan race at a time.

I take no pleasure in saying “I told you so,” but the record shows I did. I urged people to support Mark Welch, to recognize the threat, to fight rather than accommodate. Listening to the moderate voices who advised playing it safe cost us. West Chester is too important to let it slip through niceness and naivety. The township’s success was built on strong Republican leadership, and preserving it requires the same aggressive defense that Trump and other proven winners have demonstrated. If we learn from this, expose future Trojan horses before they arrive, and reject the idea that moderation equals victory, we can reverse the damage. Democrats are proud of Ortiz because she represents their best shot at relevance in a county that should be solidly red. Their celebration with Acton, Beshear, and Wyenandt shows how desperate and coordinated they are. Our response must meet that coordination with clarity, energy, and a willingness to punch back. That is how elections are won, how communities stay strong, and how we prevent the kind of regret that is now settling over too many voters who gave Amanda Ortiz a chance she never should have had. The future of West Chester and similar communities depends on remembering this lesson: nice gets you nothing when the other side is playing for keeps. Fight smart, fight hard, and win.

Footnotes

1.  Journal-News article on longtime West Chester trustee unseated, November 6, 2025, detailing Amanda Ortiz’s victory over Mark Welch.

2.  Ballotpedia entry for Amanda Ortiz’s 2025 campaign for West Chester Township Trustee.

3.  Amanda Ortiz for Trustee campaign website, outlining her platform and background.

4.  ABC News report on Andy Beshear’s remarks at the Butler County Democratic Party Spring Gala, March 22, 2026.

5.  Ohio Capital Journal coverage of Amy Acton’s announcement and campaign for Ohio governor, January 2025 onward.

6.  Butler County Democratic Party official website listing Kathy Wyenandt as chair.

7.  Overmanwarrior.wordpress.com post from February 4, 2026, discussing the West Chester election and Democratic endorsement of Ortiz.

8.  Historical context on FirstEnergy scandal drawn from public records and Ohio political reporting.

9.  Election results from the Butler County Board of Elections, November 2025.

10.  George Lang campaign references from prior Butler County and state-level coverage.

Bibliography

•  “Longtime West Chester Twp. trustee unseated in election.” Journal-News, November 6, 2025. https://www.journal-news.com/news/longtime-west-chester-twp-trustee-unseated-in-election/CD2ADHRUKVC2JOIQSCMINM3MWE/

•  Ballotpedia. “Amanda Ortiz (West Chester Township Trustee).” https://ballotpedia.org/Amanda_Ortiz_(West_Chester_Township_Trustee_Board_At-large_(Butler_County),_Ohio,_candidate_2025)

•  Amanda Ortiz for the Trustee official site. https://www.amandaortizfortrustee.com/

•  ABC News. “Democrat Beshear lashes into Vance in Ohio.” March 22, 2026. https://abcnews.com/Politics/democrat-beshear-lashes-vance-ohio-escalating-tensions-ahead/story?id=131307193

•  Ohio Capital Journal. “Dr. Amy Acton is running for Ohio governor.” January 7, 2025. https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/01/07/dr-amy-acton-is-running-for-ohio-governor/

•  Butler County Democratic Party. Official party page and leadership listing. https://www.butlercountydems.org/our-party

•  Overmanwarrior.wordpress.com. February 4, 2026, archive post on the West Chester election. https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2026/02/04/

•  Additional election data from the Ohio Secretary of State and the Butler County Board of Elections certified results, November 2025.

•  Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfight Guide to Business (self-published, referenced for philosophical context on competitive strategy).

•  Various local reporting on Lee Wong, Mark Welch, and George Lang campaigns from Cincinnati and Butler County media outlets, 2021–2025.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

Republicans Played Too Nicely in the Election of 2025: Who to blame in the West Chester Trustee race

It is a bit surprising to listen to everyone’s post-election analysis, where they think Democrats did a lot better than they actually did.  In West Chester, Ohio, there is a lot of chest beating that Democrats found themselves in a lot of seats, especially the West Chester Trustee position, where I went to bed feeling like my guy, Mark Welch, the incumbent who has done a good job, came in third in a six-person race for two spots, was going to win.  There was a Trojan horse effect there, where the average person didn’t know who the Democrats were.  In the West Chester race, that certainly would be the case.  Mark was a Republican-endorsed candidate, but there wasn’t much advertising for the Democrats running, as they hoped to slip under the radar without the general public knowing who they were.  I still felt Mark was strong enough to win anyway.  I might have had disagreements with the way that Republicans set themselves up for this election.  But I wasn’t surprised by anything in Virginia, New York, or California.  Where Republicans ran away from President Trump, Republicans lost to Democrats, and it’s pretty much that simple.  Republicans, the same old Never Trump types, a year after his magnificent election, tried to go it alone, and they lost.  I hear a lot of analysis, and they are all mostly missing the point.  The Republican Party traditionalists still don’t want to admit what MAGA America really is.  The West Chester race, like the Lakota levy issue, truly captured a national sentiment worth mentioning.  I’ve spoken to Mark, and he’ll have the opportunity to do many great things.  Meanwhile, West Chester was warned what electing a bunch of Democrats would do, which is what the Lakota school board has been experiencing.  And people are going to have to learn some hard lessons. 

But here’s the deal.  While I support and endorse various candidates, and I certainly did endorse Mark Welch, I disagreed with the “niceness” campaign.  Mark is a nice guy, but everyone has to remember he won as a Tea Party conservative, and the Republican Party at that time was led in that effort by a scrappy George Lang, who when pressed can be pretty ruthless to those he runs against.  It was the Tea Party types who went out and fought to put Mark on the Board of Trustees of one of the most successful communities in America, and he has been great in that position.  Over time, people have forgotten what it took to get there and what it takes to keep a community great.  New York is going through that same cycle. Over time, people get complacent when things are stable for a long time, and they dare to make changes that might sound “nicer.”  And when it comes to me and many political people, there are always these tagalongs who aren’t very savvy, and they certainly don’t like me.  When I see Mark at an event and speak to him, there are always those who swoop in after me and ask him why he gives me the time of day.  There are lots of whispers in the ears of some of these people who want to believe that the world is something other than what it is, and that I should not have a place in it.  But I’ll tell you what, if I were managing Mark Welch’s campaign, he wouldn’t have lost.  I would have advised him to be a lot more competitive and a less smiling, more angry, Mark.  The belief was that Mark needed to get Democrats to vote for him, so he needed to be more like Lee Wong, whom conservatives thought of as safe to vote for, but who would undoubtedly receive a bleed over of Democrat votes.  The belief was that in West Chester, if you wanted to win the trustee seat, Democrats would have to step over and vote for Mark. 

But in truth, as it was everywhere in the country, it’s the MAGA base that supports Trump that everyone had to tap into.  Because even there, there are already Democrats who have left the party and are voting for Republicans because of Trump.  So, in Mark’s case, and this is the fault of all those people who whisper in his ear when I leave the room, playing “keep away” with these office seats is not the way to win.  Democrats are trying to sneak under the door, and Republicans are trying not to look too mean to win over Democrats.  When the real desire is for MAGA Republicans to grow in number, and people in West Chester would have loved to know that Mark was much more MAGA than just being a nice guy incumbent.  The reason why Mark didn’t pull out one of the two top spots was engagement.  The MAGA people, the old Tea Party types, weren’t excited about this election cycle, so they stayed home.  And Democrats were desperate for relevancy, so they worked the polls, mailed out their mailers, knocked on doors, and tried to sneak under the door wherever possible so people wouldn’t know who they were.  Mark worked hard, but the people around him were on their heels, and that was obvious.  They were on cruise control and wanted him to play keep away, to not do anything that might steer away those Democrats that they are so afraid of. 

This year, more than other years, I have been doing a lot of video coverage of important political figures, not because I’m some radical right winged maniac, as those people who were whispering to Mark criticisms toward him for even talking to me, but because I know what I’m talking about and I always know how to handle these kinds of things with an excellent track record.  If someone listens to me, they will have a significantly better chance of winning their issue, regardless of who they are.  I’m so good at it that lots of people want to pay me a lot of money to do it, but I look down my nose at that kind of business, because I don’t respect people who take money for something that is essentially part of our republican form of government.  It should be a labor of love, in my opinion, not something you profit from.  So I already don’t respect a lot of those types of people who are critical of me.  Everything gets back to me, so I know who those people are.  And I think so little of them that I don’t even waste my time speaking with them at a lot of those events.  I see them as a waste of time.  They don’t understand the game, and they don’t respect the people who vote.  They are busy trying to make the world into what it isn’t.  Because they like Democrats secretly, and they don’t want to fight them, they want to get along with them.  I advocate destroying them.  Why wouldn’t you want to destroy people who are trying to ruin our civilization?  And I understand that a lot of the people I’m talking about don’t think of things on a vast scale for the actuality of existence.  That’s the only way I think.  So do I care if they find my outlook repulsive? Absolutely not.  I see them as a waste of time, and they have a lot to learn about life.  And when they give bad advice, as they certainly have been, don’t be surprised when your guy loses.  Republicans lost in races they could have won because they were too nice to Democrats.  And it’s that simple. 

Rich Hoffman

We’re rebuilding the school board. Good management is the best way to defeat tax increases.

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Dirty Tricks by the Pro Levy People at Lakota Schools: Trying to sneak their issue under the door at the last minute

Just a few observations about the upcoming Lakota school levy, the biggest and most ridiculous in the state of Ohio, where they essentially want to tear down a bunch of schools and rebuild all new schools, to make the classrooms smaller and drive up payroll by hiring more teachers to teach the same number of students.  It’s expensive and stupid, but what do we expect from these people?  But there is a lot more to notice than just how flat-footed their campaign is.  We always talk about how liberal they are who run and manage the school, and as they are pushing for their levy passage, they look to have taken their entire campaign out of the Kamala Harris playbook.  They have waited until essentially two weeks before the election to put out their signs, and what they have put out is a minimal number.  I’ve been all over the district and was looking for more signs in places more friendly to their position, but they are pretty flat, and where they do have signs, they have tried to appear bigger and more of a mainstream position.  Especially in places where Mark Welch has yard signs, they have been attempting to put the limited amount of signs that they do have next to him to give people the illusion that he supports the Lakota levy, when I know for sure, he does not.  These are not politically savvy people running the Lakota campaign for their massive tax increase, which is fine with me.  I want to see that levy crash and burn more than anybody.  But things have changed a lot over the last ten to twenty years, since I was on the front line of these things, and it’s certainly worth talking about.  Of course, anything can happen in an election; it will all depend on turnout.  But the Lakota people are certainly on their back foot on this one.

The pro tax people are trying to associate with the No More Taxes position of the very popular Mark Welch

It costs a lot of money to run these campaigns, and usually, Lakota schools have plenty of mad moms trying to hide how terrible they are for their kids from the public by supporting the schools that give them a free babysitting service, because they are too lazy to be good parents themselves.  It’s a well-known personality type, the mad and crazy mothers who campaign for tax increases on other people’s property.  And even worse than those neurotic types come their queer eye for a straight guy husbands, who are more interested in doing the dishes, hoping to get laid by their wives’ best friends husbands because they are so progressive themselves, that all traces of manhood have vanished from their cell structure like clowns at an anti-mime rally.  (that’s how you know that I don’t use AI to write my articles, I do everything the old fashioned way)  And watching their campaign this time around, after watching lots of campaigns from the past, it looks like their entire approach to this tax increase is based on that inner firing squad of transgender losers, wife-swapping scandals, and corporate bootlickers too busy to know that their children had their 8th birthday.  They don’t understand the forces against them because they haven’t worked very hard to get to know them, and you can tell by the way they have put out their signs and raised money for the effort.  They are doing what I call the Kamala Harris approach, where they know they have a weak position and their strategy is to surprise everyone at the last minute, before anybody knows what’s really going on.  And where they are present, they are trying to affiliate themselves with well-known politicians, like Mark Welch, who is an obvious frontrunner for the upcoming West Chester trustee race. 

A very weak campaign by the pro tax people

Another thing that I noticed while driving around the district is that there are a lot fewer businesses supporting this levy than there used to be.  The school has always acted like a bunch of mobsters when it came to pushing for business support.  If businesses did not support massive tax increases, those businesses were attacked by that mob of angry moms, and they’d try to inspire a boycott against those businesses.  Lakota schools traditionally has quite a collection agency force that is very aggressive on tax shakedowns, and they have been pretty ruthless.  But things have changed over the years; it’s been a long time since Lakota went for a tax increase because the community has been so hostile toward them.  And the shoe is on the other foot now, for sure.  When the mad moms think they are getting a hook in the water by putting their signs next to Mark Welch, to attempt to trick voters into supporting massive tax increases, hoping to get bleed off votes from low information people, there is an air of desperation looming over the whole effort.  I could tell a lot of stories about the past where the outcome was never obvious.  I have done interviews with some of the big media, a Channel 5 broadcast on prime time television comes to mind, where the pro-Levy people had the streets all lined up with supporters, and they looked like everyone was going to vote for them.  Then they’d put me in a lonely parking lot, trying to make it look like I was on my own and had little support from anybody.  And once the election happened, the silent majority showed up and crushed the visuals in embarrassing ways.  Those were the old days, and these Lakota people are certainly not functioning from that kind of strength. 

I think this says everything about the election of 2025

It costs about $5 per yard sign.  And based on the yard signs, you can tell the strength of the political party because the early investment usually indicates how much community support there is ahead of the election.  On the No More Taxes at Lakota side, the push was to raise about $20K to fight this levy attempt and to be prepared for follow-up attempts after this first one fails.  For Lakota’s side, once the filings get reported, it would not be surprising that their donations are in the six figures, as many schools are these days.  But in Lakota’s case, that money isn’t seen yet, and obviously, they are worried about giving people too much time to learn the facts, so they are doing a last-minute push just like Kamala Harris did, hoping to catch people a little off guard, which doesn’t spell confidence in their position.  They don’t have many signs out really late in the campaign.  The No More Taxes campaign has had its signs out since the last week of September.  So, impressions by the public who didn’t already have a strong opinion on the matter were being made during October.  But early voting has already been going on, so the Lakota effort has been noticeably flat-footed.  And where they hoped to win over people, they are trying to give the illusion that a popular local trustee, Mark Welch, is on their side, which he most certainly isn’t.  But those are the strategies of the desperate, and not very smart.  And a group of people who think that everyone is with them when they are only talking among themselves, with a couple of cats and dogs to greet them at the door.  When it comes to the community as a whole, I think they are in for quite a shock when the reality of the vote totals comes in.  They don’t seem to know just how bad people have come to hate them.  But they will, the election is near.  And for all the normal people out there, those who are not dysfunctional misfits hoping to hide in society through an overly liberal education built on a foundation of DEI hires, make sure to vote NO on the Lakota Levy, and do it in a big way.  These losers need to learn a lesson. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Vote For Mark Welch on November 4th 2025: Its all about keeping West Chester great and taxes low

I think it’s an easy decision to vote for Mark Welch for West Chester Trustee.  He has been in that position since 2013 and is running for another term. West Chester has thrived during his tenure.  Several other people are running for Trustee this time as well, including another incumbent, Lee Wong, and a few others who are various degrees of Democrats.  Mark is a solid Republican who carries several endorsements, including those of Warren Davidson.  Given the nature of the 2025 election in November, I think Mark is the best pick, but we can’t take anything for granted.  There have been many new people from more Democrat areas who have moved into the area, and the hope of the opposition is that they’ll be able to take over the West Chester trustees, as they have been trying to do for many decades now.  However, we’ve managed to keep the politics relatively good, anchored behind Mark, which has created a very pro-business environment in West Chester, resulting in significant revenue and low taxes.  However, we have had some people fall off the rocker over the years, and Mark could use some help as a trustee.  But first, he needs to get re-elected.  And his message is one that everyone can understand. If you like West Chester, as many do, and see it as one of the best places in the world to live, which it is, then vote for Mark Welch, because he’s a big reason that it has been great for so long.  When rival people who want to run for his seat say we need to “change,” consider what that means.  To change from good to bad.  Because that is the only kind of change they intend.  The only type of change Democrats could give West Chester is to make it change from good to bad. 

The foundation was set when Mark Welch joined Senator Lang as a trustee all those years ago.  Before that, it was just George Lang who fought off two other trustees, one of whom was Lee Wong, who is also up for re-election.  When Mark won, he replaced one of the two liberals, and suddenly there was a two-vote majority. Over the last decade, they have kept taxes low and business interactions very friendly, which has helped maintain home values and made the township one of the most competitive anywhere, earning it the title of ‘best place to live’ many times.  George Lang has since moved on to other political positions and taken the West Chester message to the Ohio Statehouse, where he has done a great job as the current Senate Majority Whip.  And Mark has held down the fort.  We replaced George’s seat with a tea party-type person who was good for a while.  But people change over time, and she has gone wobbly in the knees and is more Democrat these days.  So Mark needs help.  Lee, even with all his problems that have been well chronicled over the years, votes with Mark a lot.  However, without Mark on the board, Lee will likely vote for the Democrats, which is the current situation.  Mark is the one who stands between success and failure in government in West Chester.  Democrats, seeing some of the changing demographics in the area, are licking their chops at a chance to interrupt a Republican foothold position, as they have on the Lakota school board, which just voted as all Democrats do, to implement the most significant school tax increase in Ohio history, which is also on the ballot for the November election.  They hope that enough Democrats will vote for the levy to carry some of these Democrat challengers over the top and to knock off Mark, after many years of trying. 

The meet and greet for Mark Welch was held at Lori’s Roadhouse, which is an excellent spot for that kind of thing.  Those who attended had a chance to really get to know what Mark and his wife, Karen, are like.  I filmed Mark’s speech and some of the activities at the event, so that people who weren’t there could have the opportunity to see the person beyond the yard signs.  Many people asked me what I thought about the race while we enjoyed the atmosphere.  There were a lot of GOP officeholders there to support Mark, so he is well represented with great enthusiasm.  However, many people were nervous about this one because the Democrats seem more confident than usual that they’ll pick up that critical seat.  And what I told everyone was that I thought Mark would win his seat back.  That people weren’t willing to change West Chester into something less desirable, and that they would keep Mark in his position as long as he wanted to run.  But it will come down to engagement.  Republicans need to show up to this election and vote against the Lakota levy, vote for Lakota School Board candidate Ben Nguyen, and, of course, vote for Mark Welch, as everything points to.  Low taxes and a resistance to Democrats, who always want to expand government, spend money, and micromanage people in detrimental ways.  Republicans will need to treat this election as if it had Trump on the ballot.  And if they do that, many good things will happen in this election.  However, people must take it seriously and show up; they can’t sit out on this election.  In many ways, it’s more important than last year’s when Trump was running for President. 

It’s challenging to raise money at fundraisers, and it’s expensive to print signs and host some of these political events.  And Mark and Karen have done the work.  I thought it was very classy that Mark called Ben Nguyen up on the stage, who is a very sharp young man, and introduced him as the future of Butler County politics, which I tend to agree with.  And Ben said something very true: it is cheaper to give money as a donation to these Republican politicians who will stand in the trenches and hold back tax increases than to pay for the massive tax increases that Democrats always want to put forth.  And that is certainly true of Mark.  If he had not been a West Chester Trustee, taxes would have gone up in West Chester a long time ago.  But because he was there over the last 10 years, West Chester, Ohio, has thrived in ways that are unique to the rest of the country.  As a result, people have had opportunities for truly fulfilling lives.  As I listened to Mark’s speech, I thought about all the charming aspects of West Chester that I enjoy, such as taking clients to Top Golf, going out to dinner at Jags, and the many books I buy at Barnes & Noble.  The nice roads, the many businesses, the parks, the hospitals, and the excellent highway access.  The low taxes.  Mark is at the center of all that and is a big reason why West Chester has remained great all this time.  And we want to keep it that way with a vote for another term.  Supporting Mark is significantly less expensive than the taxes that all the Democrat challengers wish to implement.  Nobody should take this election for granted.  Show up and vote.  Don’t give the Democrats a seat at the table because the only change they can bring with them is various degrees of bad.  And we certainly don’t want that.  So, vote to keep Mark Welch as trustee of West Chester and keep the community as the one that the world needs to watch and emulate for themselves. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Re-elect Mark Welch to West Chester Trustee: The excitment about the future of air taxis

It began with a discussion about the new Trump executive order on air taxis and exploring how West Chester, Ohio, could become part of this exciting new trend.  But halfway through our conversation, it became apparent to me that Mark Welch was up for re-election, and it would be a good idea to continue the discussion on camera so that people could see how the spaghetti is made politically, because West Chester is at a critical time.  It has been very prosperous, and Mark, as a trustee, has been exceptionally effective in contributing to that success.  He is what remains of a long-standing government relationship that balanced power and innovation in just the right way over an extended period, resulting in great success.  I don’t think he will have a difficult time re-winning his seat.  However, there are challengers, and quite a few of them lean toward Democratic politics, and we all know what that means.  It’s a second-generation kind of thing, where the governing we do ends up being second-generation concerns.  They know they like the success, but they don’t know how to earn more of it for themselves.  And under the traditional campaign platform approach, there isn’t much opportunity for someone with extensive experience and success, like Mark Welch, to demonstrate why he is so much better than everyone else.  During our conversation, I suggested to Mark that we record the rest of our talk on camera so people could listen in and see what goes into being a good trustee.  These kinds of races cost a lot of money, because you have to buy print media, do the yard signs in a big district, and do radio and television to maintain a brand expectation that the public has for a front-running political figure.  However, the best thing Mark Welch has in his favor, campaign-wise, is his own experience, allowing people to hear it for themselves without interruption. 

One thing that Mark has always been good at is understanding the passions that business owners have and embracing a go-forward path toward fulfillment, which is why we were discussing flying cars and a vertiport in West Chester.  Over the last 14 years or so, there were numerous decisions made, including Mark’s election as a trustee, that contributed to West Chester, Ohio, becoming one of the best places to live in the world. Welch knows his stuff.  Every time I speak with him, he rattles off an enormous amount of detailed information about the subjects we’re discussing, and he finds a way to get along with just about everyone.  So he was undoubtedly the right guy to talk about an abandoned property that I had been thinking about that could use a repurpose to be a vertiport for the new Joby Air Taxi service which would take visitors to and from the local airports, CVG to the south, and Dayton International to the north, to avoid the heavy traffic that is typically associated with both routes.  Joby Aviation has relationships with Uber, Toyota, and Delta Airlines to advance personal transportation along these frontiers. All they needed was a presidential administration like Trump’s to sign an executive order allowing them to proceed, and FAA certification to advance.  Mark and I were talking about what a shame it was that Saudi Arabia and, specifically, Dubai, were going to be the first to market for this exciting new transportation system.  This is no longer science fiction, like the Jetsons cartoon or Back to the Future.  These vertical takeoff vehicles are real, very efficient, and can safely transport up to four passengers right now.  All they need at this point is the FAA certification, which they are expected to receive later in 2025.  Now was the time to discuss how West Chester, Ohio, could become part of this exciting new trend.

The reason West Chester would be a great place to start an American hub is that Joby Aviation has a manufacturing facility where it will build thousands of these sky cars in the Dayton area for many years.  And as it stands, Toyota has invested over $500 million in a partnership with Joby, which means that Japan will be using these sky cars soon, as will China.  It would be a real shame to have all these far-away places using something that was being built right down the road from West Chester.  I have people who come from all over the world to see me often, and their number one complaint is that it takes too long to get to the area airports from West Chester.  They’d rather not worry about renting a car once they get to Cincinnati to visit a business associate in West Chester.  They’d like to fly in on Delta, catch their direct shuttle service to the Joby air taxi at the Delta hub, and fly directly to West Chester, so they can walk to their hotel without worrying about traffic.  West Chester has a lot of hotels, but the other complaint is that they are always booked, so there is a genuine business need to solve this transportation problem.  It’s great to have such excellent highway access as West Chester does.  But the hour spent either to the north or the south getting to the airport could be used in a much better way, and these Joby Air Taxis are just the right thing. 

Air taxis will play a significant role in the future American economy.  The best way to deal with traffic is to fly over it; as a result, many parts of America will likely utilize air taxis after just visiting Washington D.C. I can say that they will be instrumental in flying people in and out of the city from many directions, as the traffic on the highways is always so thick.  People don’t travel long distances for business meetings only to sit in traffic.  And it happens all the time in West Chester: people from out of town want to go to a Reds game, but everyone has worked all day at their business and doesn’t have time to drive down to the stadium to sit in traffic for an hour and a half during rush hour.  If they could take a Joby air taxi to the stadium, they would do it without hesitation.  Mark and I were discussing that old building in West Chester that would make a great skyport for the southern Ohio region.  Because establishing those would be the very next problem that Joby Aviation would have to overcome, they had the technical parts worked out.  Now they had the political support.  Now, all they needed were vertiports to create a network of use that these flying cars could be a part of, so that commercial travel could begin.  But that was new information.  Mark has been down this kind of road before, with many thousands of similar enterprises that just needed a friendly place to set up shop, which is why West Chester became one of the best places in the world to live.  Mark Welch embodies the perfect politician, and if we want to protect what is so good about West Chester, Ohio, re-electing Mark Welch to his trustee position is crucial and a wise decision.  There is a lot of fun coming on the horizon for those bold enough to put their arm around innovation.  And when it comes to government leadership, Mark Welch excels at doing just that.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Vote for Mark Welch as Trustee of West Chester, Ohio: The island of misfit toys wants to ride the success of good politics

Mark Welch, the long-standing trustee of West Chester, Ohio, has undoubtedly been one of the main reasons that the northern Cincinnati community is one of the best places to live in the world.  And that’s not just me saying that because I like West Chester, Ohio.  Years ago, some effective policies were implemented to limit government overreach and foster a free enterprise approach to the growing community. This was achieved through a collaborative effort, led by then-trustee George Lang, with Mark Welch subsequently elected to provide a much-needed second vote.  It used to be that George was always outvoted two to one, and he needed someone who could share his vision with him. The result was a period of prosperity in West Chester, Ohio, which has made it unquestionably one of the best places to live anywhere in the world.  As a result, many people have moved into the area, bringing with them political ideas reflective of their origins, which have evolved.  George is now Senator Lang of Ohio, representing the 4th District.  However, Mark Welch remains a trustee who is now up for re-election in 2025.  With his excellent track record, he should have an easy re-election to his seat.  But we don’t want to take anything for granted.  Another long-time holdout, Lee Wong, who is very sympathetic to Chinese causes, is also up for re-election.  He is the kind of person who a lot of Democrats vote for, so he tends to get support from the many moderate Republicans, and the Democrats so there is some concern that in a race that is introducing the long term police chief to the mix Joel Herzog, that if Republicans don’t work together, that damage could be done to the seats in West Chester. 

Most of the time, there aren’t many people who run for these spots, and it could be assumed that Mark would win his seat back and that there would be room for Joel Herzog to join him.  Lee Wong, under all considerations, is vulnerable for many reasons, but he plays nicely enough with Republicans to avoid drawing too much hate, which is part of his strategy.  In a three-way race for two seats, it can get tricky.  The ideal situation would be for Republicans to show up and support Mark and Joel, thereby putting Lee in third place.  However, as I mentioned earlier, Lee will likely draw Democrat votes without needing to do much campaigning.  And the way these elections work is that it’s the best of the candidates who get the highest vote count.  Therefore, the top two vote-getters will win the seats.  And if it were just between these three, I would say Mark Welch would have no problem retaining his seat.  Joel Herzog is a good guy who comes highly recommended by everyone who knows him.  I have mentioned that, as a former police chief, it would be challenging for him to negotiate police contracts as a trustee with impartiality.  But most people agree that the good stuff with him is so good that that’s not a concern in his regard.  To regain the support of two conservative West Chester trustees, it will require a coordinated effort to retain Mark and help Joel win without one of them losing to Lee Wong.  The current belief is that Lakota schools will attempt to put a levy on the ballot, which is expected to attract many big-spending Democrats, making the math for Lee much more favorable than in previous years.

Then there is the issue of Ann Becker. A couple of other prominent Democrat challengers, affiliated with the Kathy Wyenandt area Democrats, who are certainly in the minority, are also running. Still, they are organizing to tag-team their efforts with the Lakota school levy push, so they hope to have higher than normal voter turnout to capture some advantage.  Ann Becker is the third trustee who was formerly a Tea Party conservative, serving as president of the Cincinnati Tea Party and the West Chester Tea Party.  She used to have a show on 55 KRC to discuss Tea Party topics, but Ann Becker is long gone these days.  She used to be a good tag team vote with Mark Welch, but she has changed quite a lot over the years, to the point where she might as well be a Democrat.  Therefore, electing Joel and retaining Mark become that much more critical.  When I first met Ann, whom I have been good friends with for a long time, she was associated with the levy supporters of Lakota, and we were at odds politically.  However, I always liked Ann, and she made a transition into the Tea Party movement, where we saw many things eye to eye.  People would warn me that she used to be a Democrat.  But I liked her anyway.  I also like Kathy Wyenandt, too, as a person.  However, Democrats are not adept at handling money or policy, and the needs of West Chester require a particular kind of mind. Unfortunately, Ann has lost her way and reverted to the person she was before I met her, before the Tea Party movement.  These individuals might be friendly, but they shouldn’t be in government. 

The other two candidates stepping into the crowded race for those two trustee seats are both Democrats: Alyssa Louagie and Amanda Ortiz.  I don’t think either one of them has a chance, but they think they do because they plan to tag-team the Lakota levy, which many are counting on Ann to lend her support as well.  So, we suddenly have a lot of Democrats taking a calculated leap into the mix, hoping that something will stick.  There is also a risk of losing what made West Chester great and falling into the same trend that muddles so many other communities, which assume that their success stories can survive with Democrats moving into positions of leadership.  People see things going well, so they give the misfit toys a chance, out of the luxury of success.  Then democrats ruin everything, and they want to attach themselves to the success story of West Chester, and the game for the rest of us is to preserve that success by re-electing Mark Welch and adding Joel Herzog.  However, the Democrats want to capitalize on the success to fund their social engineering projects, which will then alter everything great about West Chester, turning it into just another typical community that has seen its success fade because it was taken for granted.  And if we let the Democrats have a greater share of the seats at the table, we could easily end up with three Democrats as trustees, which would be detrimental to the interests of the other parties. That provides some early math to put the situation in perspective.  I think it will be good for Lakota to put out their ridiculous school levy because it will bring out more MAGA, Trump-voting Republicans, who will only help Mark hold his seat.  I think the math works in Mark’s favor to pick up votes this year, given the anger at Lakota schools over their proposed tax increases.  But we’ll see.  What we do know is who is running, and it’s now that the strategies for preserving West Chester need to be developed, before it’s too late.  And taking a long view, Joel would be great, but the more strategic seat comes up in a few years. To protect West Chester, we need a strategy and a lot of players willing to support the long view, especially in a crowded field.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Michael V. Ryan is Running for Butler County Commissioner: There is no reason to put up with wilted flowers

It was a surprise that so many people attended the Michael V. Ryan press conference at the Courtyard by Marriott in Hamilton, Ohio.  The current Vice-Mayor of the city and city council member announced that he was running for Butler County Commissioner, and it was good to see such a diverse group of people coming out to show him support on a Monday afternoon.  There were people of all ages and a nice, even number of men and women from all kinds of backgrounds, which showed broad support early in the process.  When I first heard about it, I thought it was a great idea that someone from the group of anti-liberal rebels on the City Council would migrate into the commissioner seat that is coming up, where the incumbent, Cindy Carpenter, is up for re-election.  Recently, she had been caught in Middletown, Ohio, campaigning for Democrats, and that pretty much sealed her fate among the many who have been unhappy with her over the years and have been calling her a RINO.  Well, now people had more than speculation on the matter, and they were looking for alternatives.  And Michael Ryan was making himself available, and people were excited about it.  It was also surprising that several officeholders also showed up to lend their support.  When you see Bruce Jones at a political event, you know something significant is brewing, because he tends to associate with emerging vigilance over the years that I have come to trust for several decades now.  And as I peeked around the crowd to the back of the room, I saw Mark Welch, the West Chester trustee there, whom I wanted to talk to.  It was a good crowd that had run out of seats, leaving many standing in the background and doorways to hear the future commissioner speak.

After the announcement, I took the chance to speak with Mark because I knew he was also thinking of running for commissioner, so it showed some significance that he was willing to come out and support Michael Ryan running.  The other two seats for the commissioner have a few years left on them, so for Mark to show public support this early in the process was very admirable.  And as we discussed, he has challengers for his trustee seat, which is up for re-election this year.  And he is committed to protecting that seat, which I thought showed great teamwork by the GOP to help in several races, which I’d like to see more of.  West Chester has been great because it has had some significant policies from the trustees over the years, which worked best when George Lang and Mark Welch served in West Chester simultaneously.  The best path forward, which has made West Chester one of the best places to live in the world, occurred during this period.  But since then, George has moved on to become State Senator, leaving Ann Becker to fill that void, which we all thought was going to be a good thing, as she used to be the President of the West Chester Tea Party, and the Cincinnati Tea Party, and she was a good friend.  She was on 55 KRC all the time announcing on the radio Tea Party events and was a key to implementing fiscal small government ideas back into the Butler County Republican Party.  But time has a way of eroding at people, and the person she once was isn’t quite so much anymore, and she has been siding with Democrats a lot these days, which has been a concern.  Because the other guy, Lee Wong, is a known Democrat.  So the trustees have moved more toward the Democrat side of things in dangerous ways.

Mark knows the situation, and he doesn’t feel like he can step away from the West Chester Trustee race because he needs help, so things don’t get out of control.  At a minimum, Mark needs to win one of the two seats this year, with Lee also up for re-election.  So while everyone is excited about Michael Ryan running for commissioner, the Republican Party needs to protect some of the best spots, which in West Chester is how the MAGA movement evolved in the Butler County area and set the foundation for what a prosperous community with good politics should look like.  Ann Becker and I used to be close during all this, and I was very supportive of her in that other Trustee spot George left behind.  And back then, we all planned to keep West Chester conservative by tag-teaming who would run and maintain a two-vote majority.  It meant a lot that Mark was doing that with this Butler County Commissioner race because that’s how you get good management at these positions.  It doesn’t do any good for everyone to beat each other up in primaries only to wonder why some knuckle-dragging Democrat ends up winning in the end, pretending to be a Republican, such as what we had for a long time in Cindy Carpenter.  I can say that in Ann Becker’s case, she didn’t start badly.  She and I parted political ways a bit when Trump came into the picture, and I was in full support of him early, while it took others a while to get there.  Ann eventually did, but over the coming years, it got increasingly complex to hold the same Tea Party political philosophy, as life has a way of chipping away at our foundational beliefs.  And at times like that, political challengers are healthy and needed.  But knowing when to work together and when to challenge for the betterment of a party that serves the needs of a representative government can be tricky, and takes good people to do things for the right reasons. 

Many great things are happening where Michael Ryan, as a commissioner, could be inspiring, especially given that Vivek Ramaswamy will soon be the governor of Ohio.  Butler County is one of the biggest counties in Ohio, with high population density, so having Michael Ryan as one of the commissioners is a rare opportunity.  Trump in the White House setting economic policies flowing down into all levels of government is showing great promise, which Vivek’s future administration will take full advantage of.  Then, having an enterprising commissioner like Michael Ryan engage in that excitement is a great opportunity.  What he has done with the City Council of Hamilton has been fun to watch; they have done things that have brought life back to the city that I never thought I’d see in my lifetime.  And he could do so much more as a commissioner.  But we don’t want to lose the West Chester seats, because that would be a step backward.  So it was good to see some teamwork at key positions, covering each other with support where it counted.  Elections are always opportunities.  It’s rare to have such good people running for politics simultaneously in the same room, but that was certainly the case here.  Michael Ryan and his very nice wife, Amanda, are good, solid people who bring a lot of pride to Republican politics and have a very bright future that is well deserved.  But authentic leadership doesn’t just come in election wins; it comes in setting the table for victory on many fronts.  It was also good to see that happening in the background at the Michael Ryan announcement for County Commissioner on a bright day in May 2025 was unfolding a new strategy, where so many opportunities were blooming everywhere.  And in the Republican Party, several flowers have lost their luster and are wilting.  Cindy Carpenter is one of them, and she needs to go.  There is no reason to put up with wilted flowers who are Democrats in disguise when we have so many good, solid Republicans who are aligned with the MAGA movement.  But everyone will need to support each other in these efforts. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester: Mark Welch, the Superstar of Politics

Government is Best when it Gets out of the Way

As I listened to Mark Welch speak at a special fundraiser preview event at the new honky-tonk in West Chester called Lori’s Roadhouse, I couldn’t help but think that government is good, at least in West Chester.  When I say honky-tonk, I’m not talking about the old days of Gilley’s in Pasadena, Texas, where Urban Cowboy took place.  This place in West Chester is more like the modern Gilley’s in Las Vegas, very nicely put together luxuriously.  There is nothing cheap about it; it’s an ample space to host very large national talent for concerts. It’s something special for the Cincinnati area, and it’s great to see it located in West Chester, Ohio.  It’s not by accident.  The endeavor is a combination of great government that pushed out of the way as much nonsense as possible so that the dream of Greg and Lori Fisher could put all their great efforts into creating such a wonderful venue. I’ve been to places like Lori’s Roadhouse in parts of the country far away from Cincinnati.  But the moment I stepped into Mark’s fundraiser and saw what the owners were up to, I was enchanted.  There wasn’t a better way to show why Mark Welch should be re-elected as trustee of West Chester.  It’s not so much what an elected official can do for a project like Lori’s Roadhouse, but what kind of nonsense Mark can remove from the Fishers to let their creative input do the great work of creating such a wonderful place. 

Mark Welch and one of the owners, Lori Fisher herself

I view business as a creative enterprise, and I deeply respect people who go out on a limb and build new things that contribute to an economy.  Something like Lori’s Roadhouse is one of those things that adds to the many other things there are to do in West Chester.  There are so many options, and a lot of the reason is that the government has been small enough not to crush the hopes and dreams of entrepreneurs along the way.  It is hard enough to come up with an idea and then fund it with seed money.  It’s quite another to deal with politicians and other bureaucrats who embed themselves into the system to make a molehill of regulation into mountains for their benefit.  Usually, projects like Lori’s Roadhouse would be crushed before a business plan could ever be conducted because of politics.  I can think of hundreds, if not thousands of places around the country where a place like Lori’s Roadhouse would do well.  But, the politics of those areas would prohibit the dream from becoming a reality. 

Mark Welch and his wife Karen
Mark Welch doing what he does, being a celebrity politician

I had a chance to talk to Lori and her husband Greg Fisher quite a lot which was nice.  It was busy at the fundraiser, and I wasn’t sure if I’d get the chance.  As it turned out, Lori is the perfect front lady for such a place. She’s very friendly and optimistic, a fun personality which a place like that needs.  She told me she usually likes to work behind the scenes, but I can see why her name is on the place.  It deserves to have her name on the place.  Then there is her husband Greg, who had just spent months and months working out every little detail of this spectacular venue.  The food was great.  The bar was full.  The bathrooms are designed to still look good after lots and lots of drinking.  There is plenty of space for the men and women to have their dignity and get back to the action of live country music, a sports bar setting in much of the place, but a vast stage and dance hall area complete with VIP booths.  It was all top class, and the acoustics were fabulous as personally supervised by Greg.  As he ran down the list of all the elements of the place, it was apparent, he had a genuine love for the work, and I was happy to see it. That’s where someone like Mark Welch comes into these kinds of things.  Mark had worked in the background ever so subtly to help take away the burden of government from the Fishers so they could focus on the important stuff. Like securing the millions of dollars a place like that would cost and building a reputation that would bring in the big acts from all over the country.  A modern Gilley’s, but I would say better and with more class.  Something specific to West Chester. 

Lori and her Husband Greg Fisher, a dream come true in West Chester

TC Rogers was there; he is one of the commissioners of Butler County, where some of the legacy zoning issues made the project hard to get moving.  But at least West Chester didn’t do as other places do and compound the problem.  There were a lot of big-name politicians at Mark’s event, which was a good way to open a good American testament to goodness that Lori’s Roadhouse was offering.  It was undoubtedly a place anybody could enjoy, but country music, big leather boots, and cowboy hats draw a certain kind of political flavor, and it was on full display.  I had just returned from Jackson, Wyoming, where they have a similar high-class flair to their country background.  They have some very classy honky-tonk types of places there, but Lori’s Roadhouse was far better.  It looked and felt like something right out of Music City, Nashville.  It was unapologetically American for sure.  It had the kind of swagger that I had just been bragging about that I saw at a Cody, Wyoming rodeo.  They were similar in their boot-kicking display of Americana and a tip of the cowboy hat to great family tradition. 

Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester, a super cool place of Americana and family friendly entertainment
Mark Welch Gets It! No Income Tax!!!!!

The community will have an option not just for the concerts but for a place to stop by after work, have a few drinks, and talk to people in the community; Lori’s Roadhouse will be a real treasure.  It’s not fair to give Mark so much credit because the Fishers did all the work along with their crews.  But I have to give Mark and the trustees credit for not getting in the way, and Mark specifically for helping where he could make the process of dealing with the government not such a challenging endeavor.  I had to smile a bit to myself as I listened to Greg and Lori talk about their new place because I have heard so many hundreds of stories over the years from people who never get things like this launched into reality.  And they had managed to do it. Usually, what ends up happening is the life gets sucked out of a project like this by all the rules and regulations of government.  It’s not often where a dream comes close to the original vision, and in the case of Lori’s Roadhouse, it’s easy to see the dream of the owners as they intended it to be, and that is the result of good government that knows when to help and when to get out of the way.  Often the skill of politicians is in knowing when not to be part of the problem, but in being part of the solution.  And when they figure that much out, great things like Lori’s Roadhouse happens.  And I am very excited about the results. 

TC Rogers, Commissioner of Butler County with the Owners of Lori’s Roadhouse

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Vote Todd Minniear for Liberty Township Trustee: Getting to know the candidates in Liberty and West Chester Townships.

Vote for Todd Minniear for Liberty Township Trustee

Like I did for the school board candidates at Lakota for the 2021 election, I have clips of the various candidates to help make decisions.  Like the school board candidates, I support some and recommend changing some of the incumbents in Liberty Township.  These clips deal with trustee candidates in Liberty Township and West Chester, two of the most affluent and great places to live in the United States.  And they are examples of just how great a small government is when you have just three trustees managing things.  So, of course, for this next election, the goal is to keep the government small, effective, and accountable.  I say all that because we do have some significant government types who are running.  Trent Emeneker calls himself a fiscal conservative but had a “meet and greet” at Liberty Center with a known Democrat.  You can see by the video clips that he’s not worth a vote so that I won’t waste much time on him.  In West Chester, the choice is clear.  Mark Welch is a personal friend of mine not because he’s a politician, but because over time, and common ways of looking at things, it just evolved that way. He’s many reasons West Chester has been so successful, and we certainly want to keep things that way.  There are two seats open, so the second should be Lee Wong.  Lee and I have not gotten along over the years, but in this case, he’s working well with Mark and Ann Becker as a trustee, and we want to keep that going.  So the trustee race in West Chester is easy.

However, Liberty Township is more complex; it’s far more complicated.  I live in Liberty Township.  I have lived in Liberty Township for about 45 years of my life.  I spent nearly a decade living in other places worldwide, but my wife and I returned to Liberty Township after the 1990s and loved it very much.  Yet, I have paid a lot more attention to West Chester than Liberty for a good reason.  In West Chester, I was involved in the Tea Party there; Ann Becker was the president of the Cincinnati Tea Party, a pretty big position.  George Lang, a senator now, was a trustee who was getting voted against during every meeting.  We worked hard to put Mark Welch in the second spot to help George get the votes he needed, and it worked very well.  And we went to work to fill the West Chester trustees with all those Tea Party types of candidates.  History will show how smart that was.

Tea Party people are not crazy radicals.  They are fiscal conservatives, small government-minded, and rooted in American traditions.  So I enjoyed the experiment in a small government that was going on in West Chester that has produced magnificent results.  Because of the population density of West Chester, there have been lots of Democrats who have tried to push for a city designation.  The latest is Trent Emeneker.  They want to be a city because it creates more jobs for the government, which drives up costs, bureaucracy, and the overall feel of the community.  Between those three names, George Lang, Mark Welch, and Ann Becker, West Chester has managed to stay lean and sharp, making for a wonderful place to live and work.  Better than just about any other place in the country. 

In Liberty Township, there have always been these Agenda 21 Comprehensive Plans that liberals write and conservative trustees have then followed which has been highly unsatisfying for a guy like me, a long term resident who knows what Liberty Township was like before all the tag-alongs moved in from other places and brought all their big government ideas with them.  And now there is the Agenda 2030 plan that the United Nations has put out, and if you read it and also read the 2020 Comprehensive Plan for Liberty Township, you’ll see that the same person might have as well written them.  Of course, they weren’t, but the ideas are the same.  This is what you get when you hire many kids trained in good, liberal colleges who have been taught that the United Nations would rule the world and that any interpretation of sustainable development must come from those socialists and communists on the world stage.  When any trustees commission a plan like the Comprehensive Plan for 2020 or any previous revisions, you essentially get a bunch of liberals who decide what your community will look like.  I can say that George Lang had quite a challenge when he pushed back against this trend in West Chester.  I know some of the personal stories, and thank goodness George did push back in constructive ways.  But in Liberty Township, even though the trustees are usually what everyone considers “rock-ribbed Republicans,” they get pulled into the Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030 game of serving the United Nations instead of the real history of Liberty Township and the reasons people moved to the area, to begin with.

Every time I have to navigate one of the many dumb roundabouts in Liberty Township, it reminds me what suckers our local government has been toward this United Nations strategy.  I know all of them and have over the years.  They consider themselves conservatives and don’t think of the United Nations game.  Only people who do some research into the matter would know the strategy of how the United Nations embedded itself into all local zoning to lay the groundwork for a future of sidewalks, roundabouts, electric energy, and an eventual carless society.  It was a plan from the United Nations that sought to turn capitalism on its head to implement its objectives. They got away with it because people generally don’t look for the United Nations fingerprints on these kinds of Comprehensive Plans that the trustees follow in their decision-making processes.  Because of this adherence to a United Nations comprehensive plan, I have not been interested in Liberty Township politics at the same level as West Chester.  The frustration with them is just too much a pain in the ass.  They are good people; I like my trustees, two running for November, Tom Ferrall and Buck Rumpke.  But they are big government guys who have philosophies that lean towards development and not personal freedom.  For instance, many local developers want to know that someone is following some comprehensive plan to understand what property to buy and how to invest in the future.  But, to make a good community, there are many more factors to consider, and in Liberty Township, they often don’t come to light. 

To make matters worse, one outstanding trustee that Liberty Township had was David Kern, who recently died.  He was a Tea Party guy, and an influential Republican before the world fell into a tailspin.  But he was old when I was a little kid in Liberty Township, and my brother used to play with their kid at their nursery off Millikan Road.  Once David Kern was no longer a trustee, the government of Liberty Township moved much more toward the United Nations than the personal liberty and sovereignty of the United States.  David used to like to poke sticks in these kinds of comprehensive plans.  He might eventually vote on them, but he at least would argue the matter to see how strong they were.  It was a good balance to have someone like David Kern on the Liberty Township Trustees for many years.  Yet since his death, a guy like him has been missed. 

So when it comes to this election, I was pretty bored with it until I met Todd Minniear at the West Chester Tea Party forum recorded in these videos.  I like Buck Rumpke as a candidate and Republican, but he’s coming over from zoning. As I said, most zoning people have been saturated over the years through their educations with this massive United Nations plot to “Make Europe Great Again.” I have written voluminously that one of the great insecurities of America is the lack of history and culture that we have as a young country, compared to Europe.  So we assume that Europe, the mother country, is the way to emulate, and many of the Liberty Township residents have evolved into thinking the same way.  A wine purchased from Europe has a much higher value than a wine purchased from a vineyard by the Rumpke landfill.  They may be just as good, but it’s the stigma that people care about.  When I hear Buck talk, it’s evident that he’s been saturated with this global way of thinking. He’s a small-town guy who worked hard all his life at the family garbage business, and he wants to show how cultured he is by adopting all these woke, globalists’ points of view. He’s a super nice guy, but he thinks wrong about the big things.  And I would put Tom Ferrall into that same category.  Big government guy who wants to show how cultured he is by supporting all these dumb roundabouts and other European features. I’ll end up voting for one or the other, but my first pick will undoubtedly be Todd Minniear in a two-seat race. 

So Todd and I have met each other on several occasions.  I didn’t know it at the time, but Todd was on the front line protesting against what DeWine was doing during the Covid lockdowns. He’s smart, and he gets it. He’s a Tea Party type which excites me because of the success that we have seen in West Chester.  To have a guy like Todd in Liberty Township might help take things in a more successful direction.  Todd Minniear challenged the DeWine administration in court and won over the Covid lockdowns, and he is extremely intelligent.  Talking to him reminded me of David Kern.  What an excellent opportunity to get a great trustee onto the Liberty board.  People like Todd Minniear do not come along often.  Clearly, by watching the videos included here, you can see my two picks by how well they spoke.   Todd was by far the most articulate of the evening, and he’s willing to do that extra work that is often necessary.  When we talk about “liberty” in Liberty Township, we are not talking about blind compliance to some United Nations Comprehensive Plan or other dumb rules that hold us back.  Sometimes we need people we put into such positions to push back against the rules because the people making the rules may not have our best interests in mind.  That is the case with the United Nations.  They want Liberty Township to look like Europe, not America, and if you follow their ideas, that’s exactly what we’ll get.  Todd has a history of challenging the rules, which is precisely what we need in Liberty Township.

After the forum, I spoke to Todd a bit, along with other very smart people in the room, and had questions for the bright young mind.  I noticed that Todd had the great book that I value quite a lot, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates.  That is a book that describes the moral obligation of leadership lower in the pecking order of life to push back against authoritarian rule.  The book proposes several instances where it is the moral obligation to lash back at a higher authority for corrupt regulations and edicts.  For example, in this case, we should have had more trustees, state reps, and senators who openly fought the unconstitutional vaccine mandate.  For Joe Biden to issue an executive order demanding that all federal employees take medicine or lose their jobs, we needed more local officials to reject the premise.  Instead, most everyone has caved from lawyers to human resource departments for fear of drawing attention to themselves.  When Governor DeWine issued the mask mandates of last year, Butler County’s Sheriff Jones was one of the first in the country to say no, we’re not going to do that.  We need many more politicians in prominent positions who will behave this way when pressed, and Buck Rumpke and Tom Farrell are certainly not those guys.  They will be the first to put on the mask and follow the rules, like good Republicans who care more about adherence to the law than whether the laws are correct and just.  Todd Minniear cares about what’s truly right or wrong, and for me that sets him into a stratosphere all his own. He’s a lot better than the other two guys, and I will be voting for him. 

Like most of them, this election season proposes good things for those with the guts to say yes to them.  It takes courage to try something different, but sometimes it takes courage to stick to what’s working.  In West Chester, it takes guts to keep things solid as they have been.   To resist the tide of corruption that wants to open the door to a bigger government, to loot off the efforts of what made West Chester great, to begin with.  Yet, in Liberty Township, it would take guts to vote for Todd Minniear and take a great community and make it noticeably better.  Liberty Township has enjoyed a cascade effect from West Chester for years.  But now, there is an opportunity to make Liberty Township its unique kind of good truly.  That won’t happen with Buck Rumpke or Tom Farrell by themselves.  It would take a truly smart intellect and a person willing to do the extra work in Todd Minniear to pull it off, which is a fascinating prospect. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Trent Emeneker is a Liberal in West Chester: Relative to Butler County, Ohio, the trustee challenger is a Democrat in disguise

Trent Emeneker Wants to Be a Liberal Trustee in West Chester, Ohio

Not a surprise; I’m a Mark Welch guy in West Chester.  Of course, I’m supporting Mark Welch for re-election to the West Chester trustees. He’s had that job for a while and has done a fantastic job.  West Chester, Ohio, is one of the greatest places to live in all of America.  As I said in the video above, I have recently returned from Jackson, Wyoming, which is per capita one of the wealthiest places in the United States.  I love Jackson Hole, Wyoming; I enjoyed shopping there with my family.  It was all very nice.  But it’s not nicer than West Chester, Ohio.  Not by a long shot.  I’ve been all over the United States and seen a lot of nice areas to live in.  When people vote for West Chester to be one of the best places anywhere to live, they aren’t kidding.  And Mark Welch gets a lot of credit for making it that way.  The process started long ago when Senator George Lang was a trustee and implemented a small-government philosophy, which the trustees still adhere to currently.  Small government anywhere, minimal, competent, government leads to prosperity.  A big, bloated government, especially filled by incompetent people, leads to corruption, disaster, and high costs to maintain that government.  In this upcoming race for re-election in November of 2021, Mark Welch is the small-government guy with a proven track record.  End of the story, vote for Mark and enjoy another term in office to keep West Chester great.

But there are always challenges to these kinds of positions, and this year is no different.  Liberals are always trying to replace conservatives as trustees, representatives, commissioners, everywhere.  And to do that, they have to pretend to be Republicans when, in fact, they are Democrats, relative to the kind of politics that we have in Butler County, Ohio.  The challenger this time is a guy by the name of Trent Emeneker, a recently laid-off employee at GE who needs something to do, so he decided to run for West Chester Trustee.  Now on paper, Trent will say that he’s a former Marine and a registered Republican.  However, the Democrats had a recent fundraiser for Trent hosted by the old Lakota school levy supporter Kathy Wyenandt at the AC Hotel at Liberty Center.  I was at the Roosevelt Room across the street around 5:30 PM on the Tuesday of that fundraiser and learned all about it from some little birdies who came to that back table complaining about the $10 drinks at the cash bar.  I didn’t know Trent much but thought it was strange that a so-called “fiscal” conservative was having a fundraiser with a Democrat, even if only a few people showed up.  I didn’t pay much attention to the guy until that point, but the fundraiser was enough of suspicion to inspire some research.  After all, who would question a former Marine?  Well, maybe people should ask those with a military record more often and not just assume they will be good officeholders.  That is how we ended up with General Milley.  In today’s military, many progressives are coming out of that system, so we can’t take anything for granted, which looks to be the case with Trent Emeneker.

The biggest problem with Trent is that he wants to hold a vote in West Chester to make the township into a city, which has long been a progressive plan wanted by people who attended Kathy Wyenandt’s fundraiser.  Do you know why they want to make West Chester into a city?  It’s not to better pay for roads and other social services.  We do well now with partnerships with Butler County to operate a great community with low crime, high service value, and without an income tax.  Liberals want to make West Chester a city to create more office positions for people who wish to sit in and get attention. I’m thinking of old-school levy supporters like Joan Powell, who has pushed for this city thing in West Chester for a long time.  With a city comes city council seats like what they have in Middletown and Mason.  Then, of course, there are significant positions such as mayors, vice mayors, and other offices.  Government expansion is what we are talking about, and for liberals, it’s a chance to do something progressive and raise taxes to pay for everything.   Right now, West Chester is run by essentially three trustees and a fiscal officer.  Parts of Butler County that are cities do not run better than West Chester.  The track record is unavoidable. 

Yet that is pretty much the campaign of Trent Emeneker.  Somebody that not even GE thought was worth having around since they let him go as part of their Covid-19 resizing. He wants to get on West Chester’s Board of Trustees and push to become a city so that more liberals can have some office to sit on and create more bureaucracy, such as what happens everywhere that government expands.  With West Chester interacting with hundreds of thousands of people in the residing area, providing services to them all efficiently and with a budget surplus most of the time, what else is there for Trent to do but complain about making government bigger?  This is where the “fiscal” conservative on his signs comes into play.  If he was a real conservative, not just somebody who might have voted for George Bush in the past or every other RINO like John Kasich, he does not think like a conservative.  It’s not enough to complain that the current Trustees spent millions of dollars on landscaping at the new exit off the highway.  Hey, when you manage your money, you can do that.  I like coming off that exit and seeing it look classy.  The amount of money that is generated off the Union Center exit in West Chester is enormous.  Planting a few flowers doesn’t make the current trustees fiscally reckless. Instead, they respect the great businesses camped out in West Chester because the trustees have protected them from the overly intrusive government Trent wants. 

These kinds of campaign theatrics used to work when people didn’t know better, but in West Chester, everyone can look at a track record of success.  Then to propose that government is what makes something great, which most liberals believe and what gives Trent away as a liberal, is to slap away everything successful in West Chester.  And that’s what would come with a vote for Trent Emeneker.  He can sell himself as Goose from Top Gun because he spent ten years in the Marines in the back of a Navy fighter.  I might like Top Gun, but I don’t know if I’d want Goose managing the money in my home township. I’d need more than that.  What matters to me is that he was so invaluable that he ended up on the lay-off list at GE when they decided they needed to reduce their workforce after Covid hit.  Why would he make a good trustee again if an employer didn’t even want him?  And when Democrats are pushing to get you elected, what does that say about the person running?  Yeah, I’m sure Trent is a nice fellow.  He probably is a nice husband and father.  But keep that guy away from money.  Because he’s a liberal in disguise, and he wants to expand government and change what has been working for us all very well already.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business