This is Part Two of a three-part series on the upcoming Ohio 61st District primary race. Here is our interview with primary Republican candidate Mike Holt. You can read Part One here.
MOUNT VERNON – Mike Holt doesn’t mind starting the day on the farm.
“I had a little bit of a long morning,” Holt said. “We had to deliver a calf that got stuck and had to pull it out, so it was a tough morning.”
Protecting agriculture in Knox and Delaware County is one of Holt’s campaign messages going into the March primary.
Securing grants is part of the picture
Holt hopes to secure new grants to help with rising costs of fuel, fertilizer and many other expenses, according to the campaign’s website.
Holt points to programs like regenerative solar land leases to help pay some of those expenses and provide improvements to farming grounds — programs like Farmers to Families allowing non-farming families to benefit from area farms.
For land that may be less productive for farming, Holt said he wants to find unique value for possible development and encourage new business prospects to create greenspace and park-like settings to benefit the community.
“We try to figure out where the least productive farmland is — give somebody that owns maybe some property that they haven’t been able to farm for years ’cause the quality’s poor, and opportunity to sell that land off and become a useful piece of land either roads, housing projects or something like that,” Holt said.
“Instead of just assuming that big beautiful farm over there is a nice flat area and easy to build on, let’s look for places that don’t tear down our communities.”
When asked how it would be accomplished, Holt said it would be a “combination of things” with zoning, land surveys and communication with property owners being part of the equation.
“We need someone who can make choices from experience and not political motivation or the desire to force their beliefs on the entire state – someone who wants the entire family at family gatherings,” the campaign site states.
“The thing that worries me is, you know, I’ve been a farmer all my life,” Holt said. “If our communities lose their identity, people aren’t gonna want to stay here and then people lose their homes and they move out and try to start over again.
“And a lot of our citizens here are elderly. They’ve had family farms for years. So as we make decisions for where roads are going to go, we need to look at what’s the best route not just the easiest route.”
When it comes to industrial solar farms, Holt said it needs to be a local government decision — not involving the state.
Holt on public education
When looking at the state’s school system, Holt said it’s a train wreck.
He is a pro-school choice, meaning a parent and child should have the option to choose what school district they can attend regardless of where they live.
“How do you tell a 7-year-old boy that he wants to go to this other school because they do have a good education but he can’t get there?” Holt said. “His family can’t afford transportation. They’re not going to take buses around and pick kids up and take them to 15 different schools.
“So we need to really address what’s going on in the school system themselves. We need to take the federal government back out of the school systems.
“We need fixed learning agendas, concentrate on math, writing, reading — and get these kids to a third- to fourth-grade level simultaneously.
“We can’t have one school teaching something and another school teaching something that later in life they’re saying well these guys never had a chance it’s because they weren’t teaching the same stuff.”
‘We need to protect the elderly’
The elderly need to be protected with the hike in property taxes, Holt said, noting he believes it’s going to get worse.
“As Intel moves in and our property becomes more valuable out here, the problem is the auditors and the tax accountants, everybody knows that,” Holt said.
With repeated land evaluations — property taxes will continue to rise, Holt argued.
“But we need to protect the elderly first,” he said.
Holt suggested anyone reaching retirement age on a fixed income “needs to get a minimum of a 25-percent tax reduction on their property.”
“If we could make it work, I think it should go to a zero at some point for them. They’ve already paid their dues. They’ve worked all their life on a hard job and paid their dues.
“And now we’re trying to shortcut them on what they have to live on.”