EATON — Preble County voters will select a candidate for Preble County Common Pleas Court Judge on the Tuesday, March 19, primary election ballot. Republican candidates Jacob Kovach and Martin Votel introduced themselves during a Monday, Feb. 19, meeting of Eaton City Council.
Kovach, a Preble County native and graduate of National Trail High School was the first to speak.
“I went to Bluffton University for undergrad. I graduated in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts and History and went on to Ohio Northern College of Law where I graduated in 2010 with my law degree,” Kovach said. “After I graduated law school, I landed a job in Dayton where I practiced for about two years or so. I started taking cases out here in 2012. Juvenile Court Judge Dues encouraged me to hang my shingle out here in the county. And so, I thought I’d take a chance at it and opened my office in a garage.
“Once I was fortunate enough to build up enough in my practice, I opened an office here in Eaton in 2015, where I’ve been ever since,” he noted. “When I first opened my practice, I primarily handled juvenile and probate matters. But once I opened my office here in Eaton, I kind of branched out and started doing other things. I represent the villages of New Paris, Verona, and Eldorado. I’ve handled a wide variety of civil matters – handled divorces, dissolutions, custody cases, protection orders, real estate matters and business organizations. That’s why I feel at this point I’m a good candidate for the job, because I feel like I have a wide variety of experience. I’ve handled a little bit of everything.”
“If I’m fortunate enough to get elected, I do have a couple of goals that I’d like to accomplish, the first being a drug court,” Kovach shared. “I practice in a number of counties, six or seven surrounding counties, and I’ve seen a drug court work wonders for clients. It allows someone who’s been in treatment to come into the court on a regular basis. And they know that the judge is kind of watching. I think that’s something our county could benefit from.”
“The other idea that I have is the implementation of a visitation center for a supervised visitation program,” he continued. “I have served as a guardian ad litem in this county since 2012. And on the third floor, if we have a case that needs supervised visitation, we don’t have anywhere to send them.”
“The third goal that I would have, would be to try to create some kind of packets to make the court a bit more accessible to those who can’t afford attorneys. Right now, if you needed to do your own dissolution, they would either direct you to the Supreme Court website or hand you a packet with no instructions. And there are other counties where they have instruction packets and I think that’s something that could be accomplished on day one. Just create an instruction packet that can go along with the dissolution, so people don’t necessarily need to hire an attorney on their own,” he concluded.
Votel, current Preble County Prosecuting Attorney, spoke next.
“I’m also a Republican candidate for judge of the Court of Common Pleas that will be on the ballot March 19 of this year,” Votel said. “That court is currently held by Steve Bruns and Judge Bruns has opted not to run for reelection. So it’s an open seat that Mr. Kovach and I are running for. There is only one general division judge in Preble County. It’s an important office. It is the court that has the exclusive jurisdiction over significant civil disputes, domestic relations, and I think most importantly, felony cases,” he noted.
“And so, the people who appear before that court, the defendants, will have their liberty at stake and the victims will have their access to justice at stake,” he continued. “So it’s the kind of job that you have to be prepared to do well on day one. It’s not the kind of job you learn on the job. And I would like to think that in my career, 26-plus years in the prosecuting attorney’s office, my experience as a trial attorney has qualified me to be an excellent trial judge.”
“I tried my first felony case in 1997 and I’ve been trying felony cases and supervising trial attorneys since that time,” Votel said. “There’s literally not a job in the prosecutor’s office that I have not personally handled at one point or another in my career since 1997.
“When it comes to this election, this is a Republican primary. I’ve pulled the Republican ballot, and so it is a race of interest to Republicans who are going to say that I am a conservative, and I’ve always been a conservative,” Votel continued. “I believe in the founding traditional American beliefs of due process of law and equal protection of the law. The written word means what it says, not what a judge perhaps wishes that it said. And I also believe in personal accountability. By that I mean accountability of the defendants before the court, to the people in the community, for what they’ve done and I also mean accountability of the court to the people that it serves.”
“I would intend to bring a spirit of humility with me to the third floor,” Votel said. “Because I believe these things, these conservative beliefs, that’s why I’m Republican, of the two major parties in America. The Republican Party best represents my conservative beliefs. It’s not a perfect marriage. I’ve been disappointed in things that have been done and things that they failed to do at all levels of government, but it’s the best fit for me, and that’s why I’m a lifelong Republican voter. I’m 19-year member of the executive committee of the local Republican Party, and I’m proud to announce tonight that I received the endorsement of the Republican Party, the unanimous endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police and also the endorsement of our Sheriff Mike Simpson, and the endorsements of all non-judicial elected officials, from the clerk of courts to the county engineer. And I’d like to think that’s because I’ve been a good partner to them and a good friend to them over the years,” he noted.
“I believe that those relationships would serve me well were I to be given the opportunity to be the next judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Preble County. I do believe that these elections are job interviews. That’s what Mr. Kovach and myself are doing here tonight, interviewing, and our appearance before this board is part of that job interview. This is the 20th political subdivision I’ve appeared before on the campaign trail this year. It’s been my favorite part of the process,” he closed.
