Voters should support experienced candidates
The marquee issues Greene County voters will be deciding Tuesday are who will fill a seat on the county’s Court of Common Pleas and what three candidates will be serving on the county’s Board of Commissioners.
Lou Dayich and Jeffrey Grimes are both vying to fill the vacancy on the Greene County bench left by the retirement in 2014 of William Nalitz after he reached 70, the mandatory retirement age for judges in Pennsylvania. Dayich has been a district judge since 1999, and has also been a trial attorney and chief public defender. Grimes is the son of now-retired Greene County Judge H. Terry Grimes, and a Waynesburg attorney. He has a wide-ranging background in family and criminal law, as well as issues related to the Marcellus Shale industry. As we noted in the spring, when both candidates were competing in the primary election, Greene County residents will be well served regardless of which candidate prevails, but we would give the edge to Dayich because of his experience as a judge on the magisterial level.
The county commission contest has four candidates competing for three seats. Incumbents Archie Trader, a Republican, and Blair Zimmerman, a Democrat, are looking to return to the board, along with newcomer Keith McClure, a Republican, and Dave Coder, a Democrat who served as a commissioner from 1996 to 2010. Charlie Morris, an incumbent commissioner defeated in the spring primary election, said he is launching a write-in campaign.
What will be best for Greene County? Experience. Voters should return Trader and Zimmerman to the board, and allow Coder back on the commission.
Greene County faces some of the same problems and opportunities as Washington County, its neighbor to the north, with the growth of the Marcellus Shale industry and the scourge of heroin and opioid abuse challenging lawmakers and law enforcers. Trader, Zimmerman and Coder are three candidates best positioned to confront these issues.