The Ohio Republican Party today demanded that Democratic State Auditor candidate David Pepper cease and desist airing an attack ad on his Republican opponent because it contains false statements.
"David Pepper is lying, and he intentionally aired these false statements four days from the election so he could avoid being taken to the Ohio Elections Commission," said Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine. "Pepper's outright fabrications prove he's unfit for the office he seeks, an office that requires truth and accuracy above all else. Ohioans have had enough of politicians with Pepper's kind of elastic integrity."
The ad implies Yost is responsible for "big spending" and "higher taxes," yet Yost has kept his county budgets lower than any other county of comparable population in Ohio. He also has never raised a tax while serving in public office as a county auditor and prosecutor, offices that have no control over taxes.
"It's actually David Pepper who has a very clear record of raising millions of dollars in taxes and spending," said DeWine. "It's unfortunate that just 48 hours after decrying negative ads, he became desperate enough to launch one of the most deceptive attacks of the season. It's even more pathetic that he didn't have the guts to do it when he could be held accountable for his lies."
Hey Pepper, let's speak some truth to power and then go run tell dat! To Wit:
When the voters rebelled and forced the tax hike to a vote, he campaigned hard to keep it. The voters repealed his tax anyway. Only then did he cut the budget -- because he was forced to do so. Now he wants to claim for himself a cloak of virtue for doing what the voters forced him to do against his will. David Pepper spent $4,000 to buy himself new office furniture because he wanted something “more stylish.” Seriously.
Under Pepper’s watch, Hamilton County has continued to waste money on a train station that has already cost taxpayers over $47 million -- even though Cincinnati has no rail transportation. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the train station is virtually abandoned: “Six years after being hailed as a vital hub for the region's bus and future passenger rail service, the Transit Center is almost always empty -- all 3,740 feet, 23,800 tons of concrete and 20 bus bays of it.”
But that didn’t stop Pepper from bragging about a $5 million project to renovate the seldom-used transit center. Pepper touted the so-called “stimulus” project, stating: “The result of these investments will be job creation and economic stimulus in the short run, and the transformation of our Riverfront in the long run.”
While the county was facing a serious budget crisis, Pepper and the County Commission hired “environmental czars,” or a taxpayer-funded, county-level Environmental Protection Agency. It’s a mystery why a county with serious budget problems needed this, since it is not required by state law, and the EPA already operates at the state and federal level.
Pepper voted to pay a private law firm $17 million taxpayer dollars to help with a private development in Cincinnati. The Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, who legally represents the Board of Commissioners said that Pepper’s contract “…allowed the outside law firm ‘to run wild’ racking up millions of dollars in fees unchecked and unsupervised”
When Hamilton County judges voided the contract, Pepper voted to take the issue to the Ohio Supreme Court. He lost. When Pepper became a City Councilman, City spending was at $937 million. By the time he left, the budget had ballooned to $1,111,500,000 – an 18.5% increase. It seems David Pepper only thinks spending is bad when someone else does it.
Pepper has spent public money on a train station that has no trains and created a duplicative county-level EPA – even though we have a state and federal one. He allowed tax money to go to a department store renovation that paid for mannequins.
Really, David, this obsession with mannequins....Sad......
