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
The Gunfighter's Guide: 