![\"Jerry](\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Candidates-Night-9-15-15-Mazur.jpg\")
<\/a><\/a>Both candidates, Republican Jerry Mazur and independent Joe Jared, first talked about their backgrounds and why they want to be mayor.<\/p>\n
Mazur, a retired manager for Otis Elevator, stressed his community involvement, which includes membership in a number of local organizations, talked briefly about his former stint as manager of the Van Wert County Regional Airport, and provided information on the six points he highlighted during his primary election campaign.<\/p>\n
Those include uniting the city and county economic development offices; developing a five-year strategic plan for the city; enforcing city codes related to junk vehicles, weeds, etc.; working with neighboring townships to combine fire and EMS coverage areas; improving small business and workforce development; and managing the city\u2019s budget in a responsible manner.<\/p>\n
Mazur also noted that City Council candidates who shared his viewpoint on what was needed for the future of the city were all elected in the primary.<\/p>\n
Jared, a largely self-educated person who owns and operates a small business from his home in Van Wert, talked about the city\u2019s economic problems and provided his take on what needs to be done to improve the community.<\/p>\n
Noting that his business provides enough income for him to live on, Jared said he would donate the mayor\u2019s $55,000 annual salary toward helping individual city residents become more successful by starting their own businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m focusing on freedom and prosperity,\u201d Jared said, noting that would work with City Council to identify ordinances that were arbitrary and unnecessary and remove them from the books. \u201cLike snowball fights in back alleys and things like that,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
Like Mazur, Jared said he feels city and county ED efforts need to be combined to better serve local residents, while he said he would also look at city officials\u2019 salaries to see where expenses could be lowered to provide more money to help local residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, I\u2019m looking at this town as being a little Eureka,\u201d Jared said, referring to the SciFi Network television series about a town where people created futuristic inventions.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal is to be very helpful in the creation of businesses,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
When asked why he wanted to be mayor, Jared said it was so that he could have a forum for his ideas on economic development through small business creation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need my ideas to be popular,\u201d he added. \u201cI need everyone to know what my ideas are.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mayoral race is the only one of note in the city for the November 3 general election.<\/p>\n
Also Tuesday, Linda Hartman, who is running for Pleasant Township fiscal officer, spoke briefly about her qualifications. Her opponent, incumbent Kelly Bartz, was apparently not invited to speak.<\/p>\n
Milo Schaffner also spoke in opposition to Ohio House Bill 190, a bill dealing with wind turbine setbacks that he said limited Ohioans\u2019 property rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor The two candidates for mayor of Van Wert brought their visions of the future of Van Wert to a Candidates\u2019 Night sponsored by the Heart Land Patriots that was held Tuesday in Trinity Friends Church\u2019s Family Life Center. Both candidates, Republican Jerry Mazur and independent Joe Jared, first talked about their backgrounds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 18:55:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}