State Rep. Gary Click did not appear at the League of Women Voters’ District 88 candidates night, leaving Republican primary challenger Eric Watson and Democratic candidate Aaron Jones to face voters without him.
The event was held Wednesday evening at Tiffin Middle School and moderated by Audrey Flood Naegele. Watson and Jones participated. Click did not attend.
Watson addressed the absence directly from the stage.
“I wish that my primary opponent was here tonight, but he’s not,” Watson said. “Representative Click must have been very busy. And it’s kind of sad, though, that he can’t come to see you guys because you are his constituents as he sits in the seat right now.”
Watson also told the audience he had heard from residents that Click had not convened a public forum on the Seneca Poultry situation. “That’s a problem because the state representative is supposed to be there to listen,” he said.
Seneca Poultry Project and the landfill
One of the sharpest exchanges of the evening centered on the Seneca Poultry CAFO and the nearby Sunny Farms Landfill accepting out-of-state waste.
Jones, a Tiffin City Councilman, said residents had brought their concerns about the CAFO directly to Tiffin City Council on multiple occasions. He tied the project to Tiffin’s drinking water supply. “The only water source in Tiffin, Ohio is the Sandusky River,” Jones said. “[The state] allowed someone to put in a farm that could potentially be dangerous to our drinking water — and not only that, [the state] let them drill a well by a landfill that’s 50 years old.”
On the landfill, Watson said a portion of the facility is not properly lined and called for multiple rounds of independent water testing. He acknowledged that out-of-state waste cannot be blocked outright because it is classified as commerce under federal law. “The only thing we can do is add more regulation to it,” he said.
Jones described growing up on County Road 43, near an old landfill, and said he witnessed residents in that area become ill. “If we chose, we can sure as heck make it difficult as hell for them to do business in the area,” he said.
Factory closures and union workers
The moderator asked candidates about the announced closure of Toledo Molding & Die, which employs more than 400 workers in the district. Jones disclosed a direct personal stake in the question.
“Whoever asked this question, you tend to nail them right on the head — because Toledo Molding and Die happens to be where I work,” Jones said. “I’m a production supervisor out there. I’ve been there for 23 years. I know exactly what 406 other people are going through.”
Jones stressed that the closure is not finalized. “It is not a done deal,” he said, calling for job training programs and legislation designed to attract manufacturing businesses back to Tiffin and Fremont. “We’re going to have to create legislation that’s going to want to attract businesses — in particular manufacturing businesses — back to Tiffin, back to Fremont.”
Watson said displaced workers should be supported through available housing and funding programs and stressed the need for state-level accountability over how those funds are distributed.
On unions, Jones said organized labor is an essential voice for workers. “It’s a voice for the American worker, has been for years. It should not be something that we neglect or ignore or try to get rid of,” he said. Watson said unions have their place, particularly in dangerous working conditions, but added that not every workplace requires one.
Energy, data centers, and FirstEnergy
Both candidates agreed that data centers operating across Ohio should bear the infrastructure costs they require rather than passing them to ratepayers.
Watson said Ohio had “gotten the cart before the horse” on data center expansion, with 220 AI data centers now operating across the state. He linked rising property taxes to the artificial inflation of assessed land values driven by data center purchases. “Why should we be on the hook for it?” he said.
Jones tied rising energy costs directly to the FirstEnergy corruption scandal currently before federal courts. “There’s several people in trial right now for embezzling off your money,” he said. “Regulation isn’t such a bad thing.” He agreed with Watson that data centers should be responsible for their own energy infrastructure.
In his closing statement, Watson also criticized Click’s support for House Bill 116, which he said puts out “a welcome mat for cryptocurrency” and digital asset mining businesses, and said Click co-authored House Bill 646, which Watson described as appointing “a whole bunch of unelected bureaucrats.”
Browns stadium, school funding, and ranked choice voting
Both candidates opposed the state’s $600 million allocation toward a new Cleveland Browns stadium. Jones noted the team is owned by the multi-billionaire Haslam family. “When you talk about $600 million of taxpayer money to give to a billionaire to profit off of, that money could be better well spent on other issues,” he said.
Watson suggested the money would have been better distributed among Ohio’s 1,308 townships for fire stations and schools. “Are we really putting us first — the constituents, especially of District 88 or Ohioans?” he said. “No.”
On school funding, both candidates said private schools receiving taxpayer money should be subject to the same financial transparency requirements as public schools. Jones said the current voucher system lacks sufficient oversight. “Any school receiving taxpayer money — the taxpayer should have the right to see where that money is going,” he said. Watson proposed a direct tax incentive program that would route funds to school districts of a taxpayer’s choosing without redistribution through the state.
Closing statements
Watson framed his candidacy around transparency and accountability, and said Click “flip-flops quite a bit” on issues. He raised specific concerns about Click’s support for digital ID legislation, his opposition to House Bill 382 — a Second Amendment protection measure — and what Watson described as a failure to take a position on legislation that would remove toxins and chemicals from the food supply.
“What you see with me is what you get,” Watson said. “I’m going to serve the constituents of District 88 because I am a constituent of District 88.”
Jones, a U.S. Army veteran, told voters he would answer calls and respond to every constituent regardless of party. “Every single person in the 88th District will have a seat at the table,” he said. He contrasted that pledge with the district’s current representation. “If you email [Gary Click], you might get a response next year. You probably won’t get a phone call. But I guarantee you if there’s a camera around, someone will be there.”
Click responds, calls forum ‘not truly inclusive’
On Thursday, the day after the event, Click posted a response on Facebook defending his absence and attacking the forum’s credibility.
Click said he attended “the district’s first truly inclusive forum” at the Fremont Kiwanis on Thursday and cited an Ohio House session as a scheduling conflict for the League of Women Voters Tiffin forum. The Ohio House’s publicly available session schedule confirms the House was in session March 18 — with sessions scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. But the LWV forum was held Wednesday evening.
Click claimed he personally informed LWV organizers of the conflict and that the board declined to reschedule. “This is not the first time LWV has done that and likely won’t be the last,” he wrote.
Click then addressed the forum’s outcome directly. “No big deal,” he wrote. “I won without even being present.”
He also targeted this outlet by name. “It really resembled what it would look like if the Democrat blog Tiffin dot net [sic] had a podcast,” Click wrote. “Fake News with a dash of rumors and liberal, unverified Click bashing all day long.”
Click closed by defending House Bill 646, the data center legislation his primary challenger Watson criticized at the forum. “My time was better spent passing bipartisan legislation aimed at protecting citizens interest due to the rapid rise of data centers in Ohio,” he wrote.
The Ohio House District 88 Republican primary features Click and Watson. The primary is scheduled for May 6, 2026. Whoever wins that primary will go onto face Jones, a Democrat, in the November general election.
