David Pepper walked down Chardon Square, stashing his empty breakfast bag in a trash can before making his case to voters inside Beans Coffee Shop.
It was Pepper’s first time in Chardon, and the democrat running for Ohio Attorney General looked out the window at the light rain.
“It’s stunning,” he said of the view.
Born and raised in Cincinnati, Pepper served on the city’s council beginning in 2001, and was a Hamilton County commissioner. He ran unsuccessfully for Ohio State Auditor in 2010. Currently he is a lawyer and teaches at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.
The crowd that gathered was small, and Pepper talked with supporters Jim Mueller, a Russell Township trustee; Janet Carson, the chair of the Geauga County Democrats; and Barbara Ianiro, a former Hambden Township trustee and bailiff with the county courts.
He told the table about his opponent, Mike DeWine, and what he calls the “pay-to-play” culture in Columbus. “He should stand out there and resign,” Pepper said with incredulity.
Pepper’s young staff, often buried in smart phones, passed out red folders with Pepper’s policy positions. A recent endorsement from the Fraternal Order of the Police of Ohio was a boon to the campaign.
But a major issue affecting Geauga County was also on Pepper’s mind: heroin.
“It’s an issue everywhere I go,” he said. “In small towns, nice towns, big suburbs. It’s a full-bloom crisis, and Ohio has not been good at treatment.”
He added that budget cuts in Columbus, mainly the local government fund cuts, have hamstrung law enforcement. “Just when they needed more, we gave them less,” he said.
Pepper said local officials were doing their best, but more state leadership was needed. He likened the approach from Columbus to “whack-a-mole;” treatment pushed people from one opiate, prescription painkillers, to another, heroin.
It’s been a “crazy schedule” for Pepper, said his communications and policy director, Peter Koltak, emphasizing the 70 days till the Nov. 4 election.
Koltak said polling, not yet released to the public, had Pepper trailing due to name recognition.
Petter had other stops to make that day, in Portage and Trumbull counties, before an evening event in Youngstown. He remembered his first stop to Northeast Ohio as a state-wide candidate, a Fourth of July parade in Chesterland.
He’s enjoyed time in Geauga County, having stayed at Punderson Manor Lodge twice.
“The area has a really unique feel to it,” he said of Chardon. “It feels like a nice New England town square.”