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WYSO's coverage of the 2011 Election

Dayton City Commission's Incumbents Re-Elected

Updated 11:00 AM

Voters in Montgomery County chose incumbents for two open seats on the Dayton City Commission. Dean Lovelace and Matt Joseph each earned more than 36% of the vote. First-time candidate Mark Manovich took 15% and William Pace came in fourth with 11%.

Matt Joseph has been in office for eight years, but he acknowledges that being an incumbent doesn’t mean an automatic win.

"There's an old saying in politics," Joseph said, "There's only two ways to run a campaign, you either run unopposed or your run scared. Too many people have gotten beaten not paying attention to that saying. So, it was a tough campaign, and I'm proud to have won. I'm very happy and I'm honored the citizens have chosen to give me four more years."

The biggest issue facing the city right now is the budget and Joseph says he will continue advocating for Dayton in the face of statewide cuts.

"The state, as you know, is chopping millions of dollars from local municipalities’ budgets and we're no exception. So, we have to figure out how to deal with those cuts, which I say are really unfair. The governor accuses us of not being able to manage money well, but we're lean, we've dropped 40% of our employees in the last ten years," Joseph said. "The state has as many or more [employees] as they did at that time. So I think it's sort of hypocritical for the governor to be telling us to look after our budget and criticizing us for not being able to balance it rather than taking care of his own house."

Joseph says he hopes things will start to turn around in Dayton, and that he wants to be part of a re-building effort rather than focusing solely on trimming the city’s budget.

Dean Lovelace is out of town and could not be reached for comment.