T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Ohio District 96th representative Democratic candidate Paul Cameron speaks to St.Clairsville City Council about what he plans to do for the city if elected in November.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE – Ohio District 96 Democratic candidate Paul Cameron is making his rounds to various council meetings in his district to ask what they would need from him if elected.

On Monday, he attended the St. Clairsville City Council meeting, the city where he resides.

“I’m just trying to get out to as many village council and city council meetings as I can within the district, just to hear what kind of problems and issues the local governments have, so that I can be a better partner when I get to Columbus,” Cameron said.

Mayor Kathryn Thalman replied that Cameron will come to find that St. Clairsville is the best city in his district, to which he said he had no notes while attending the meeting.

He said he has two cities in his district, Athens being the other, and he did not have many notes there either.

Council member Mike Smith told him the city could always use more funding.

Cameron replied that that seems to be the common theme in Appalachian Ohio.

“A very common thing that I hear is councils telling me that they know that there are programs at the state, but people don’t return our phone calls,” Cameron said.

Thalman asked if he could provide council with information about what he has done prior to running for state representative.

Cameron said he spent 24 years in the Army and retired in 2014 from National Guard components. He said half of his service was active duty.

He worked in field artillery, military intelligence and vertical construction before retiring.

He said he moved from St. Clairsville in 2015 and previously lived in Adena.

“I have an associate’s degree in civil engineering technologies from Belmont Technical College, and I’ve worked as a land surveyor in the oil and gas industry with Green and Associates and with Gulfport throughout the northern half of the district,” Cameron said. “Then I’ve worked with American Plate Glass as a project manager out of Wheeling and Parkersburg for most of the last nine years, with a couple of those years working as a steel detailer with Newport Steel in Wheeling.”

He added that his main focus is revitalization.

“You’ve got a vibrant downtown area, but a lot of the other smaller towns within the area, all the old coal towns that have been abandoned and forgotten,” Cameron said. “Prior to living in St. Clairsville, I lived in Adena for nine years, so there’s a big contrast there. And I’m looking at trying to get funding into the area to redevelop the downtown areas of the communities while working with the land banks, working with brownfield reclamation, trying to get the commercial areas rebuilt, reestablished, and making the communities attractive to small manufacturing into the area, and then building out from there.”

He added that St. Clairsville’s downtown is a model for what he would like other downtowns in his district to look like.

“We need to come up with plans to get industry attracted into the area,” Cameron said.

He added that he wants to attract industry to the district, but not exploitative industry that would use up resources and then leave.