In a county where political party endorsements dictate many election outcomes, voters in Colerain Township went totally unhinged last Tuesday and elected candidates of their own choosing.
For the Colerain Board of Trustees, that is. Colerain, whose 58,924 residents make it the second most populous township in Ohio, is run by three elected trustees. Two seats were up for grabs last week. The two incumbents — Jeff Ritter and Mike Inderhees — were hoping for another four-year term.
The deck appeared to be stacked in their favor. Although township elections are nonpartisan affairs in Ohio, the Hamilton County Republican Party and the Colerain Republican Party’s Central Committee saw fit to endorse Ritter and Inderhees. Ritter, a trustee since 2005, received $20,884 in campaign contributions. Inderhees, the board president, received $12,764.
It was all for naught. Neither Ritter nor Inderhees made the cut, finishing in a tie for third place, each with 17 percent of votes cast.
Leading the ballot with 30 percent of the vote was a political novice, Pakkiri “Raj” Rajagopal. Members of the Coleraine Historical Society think that Rajagopal, who is Indian, is the first person of color ever elected to the township board. He entered the race late and had to advance his cause with only $4,085 in donations.
Behind him with 23 percent was Dan Unger, who served two terms on the Northwest Local School District Board of Education. He won with an even paltrier $600 in contributions. Both he and Rajagopal are Republicans.
The two upstarts' victory, overcoming the wishes of the Republican political machine, harkens back to Donald Trump’s presidential win in 2016. In 2017, Colerain residents were becoming increasingly unhappy with decisions made by the Inderhees-Ritter majority. Among them was a new policy aimed at corralling out-of-control board meetings, but which effectively restricted citizens’ ability to speak out.
“I felt somewhat inspired by the things that politically have happened in the past year, and that’s one of the reasons my husband and I got involved with Raj, because we felt maybe we can make a difference on a local level,” says Denice Yosafat of Colerain Heights, who became a campaign adviser with her husband Steve.
“I think it’s a very positive thing that people are able to voice their concerns and go to the polls and make a change,” she says. “It was very exciting and very positive for our community and for the county, the state and the country as a whole.”
Rajagopal did not respond to a request for an interview. But on his campaign website, he wrote of “strengthening relationships” and leaders working with residents in the “improvement process.”
“The current administration has fostered an adversarial environment that is not transparent and has eroded the trust of residents,” he wrote. “I believe respect for everyone needs to improve.”
Rajagopal has worked 37 years in the Hamilton County criminal justice system, going from a sheriff’s deputy in 1980 to head of community relations in the county Probation Department to, in July, director of programming under Sheriff Jim Neil. He and Unger take office in January.
In 2015, the Colerain Board of Trustees was squarely linked to the Republican establishment with longtime Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters at its hub. One trustee, Melinda Rinehart, was — and still is — an assistant prosecutor under Deters. Another was Deters’ brother Dennis Deters.
The Deters linkages waned that November, however. Rinehart lost her re-election bid to the Zumba instructor and ordained minister Greg Insco. And Dennis Deters was promoted by the Republican Party to county commissioner. Deters was replaced by Inderhees.
CONTACT JAMES McNAIR at [email protected], 513-914-2736 or @jmacnews on Twitter
