County commissioner seeking re-election

VW independent/submitted information

Van Wert County Commissioner Thad Lichtensteiger has filed his petition to run for re-election. Lichtensteiger is currently serving in his second term in that office.

Born and raised in Van Wert County, Lichtensteiger graduated from Crestview High School in 1979 and from the Ohio State University in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture. Coming home he immediately joined the family farm, while he and his wife, Debra, started raising a family.

Sons Kirk (fiancée Ally Reindel), Kory (Mandi), and Luke (Kristin), and daughter Carly (Rikki) Covarrubias reside in Van Wert County and collectively have 10 children. His parents are Dean and Jan Lichtensteiger.

Lichtensteiger served four terms on the Crestview Local Board of Education before joining the Board of County Commissioners and is active in the community. He serves as a trustee of the Van Wert County Foundation and is chairman of the foundation’s Property Committee. Lichtensteiger is also a member of the Republican Central Committee, where he is in his third year as chairman.

Lichtensteiger also serves on the Van Wert County Farm Bureau County Board, is a member of Redeemer Lutheran Church, and serves on the Van Wert Ribfest Committee.

He also enjoys an annual trip to Pine Ridge, South Dakota, where he helps take heaters and other needed supplies to Native Americans on the reservation there.

For Van Wert County, he serves as the chairman of MPRMA, a five-county insurance board that includes Mercer, Auglaize, Shelby, and Hancock counties. He also served as vice president of the Northwest Ohio Commissioners and Engineers Association, which includes 22 counties.

In the more than seven years of Lichtensteiger’s tenure as a county commissioner he has been instrumental in the implementation of electric aggregation; in exiting the health insurance consortium (saving the county $700,000 the first year); formation of the Van Wert County Land Reutilization Corporation (Land Bank), which has torn down more than 20 blighted houses; and creation of the new city-county economic development office, including helping to hire the new development director. He has also been active helping local villages and community organizations apply for grants.

As a commissioner Lichtensteiger enjoys a solid working relationship with Van Wert city officials and has endeavored to openly and frequently communicate with all other elected officials and township trustees in the county. He freely shares his contact information and endeavors to be available and visible to his constituents. He is a fiscal conservative and a problem-solver.