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Vision
When people ask me why I believe that I am the most qualified candidate for the Darke County Juvenile/Probate Court position, I believe that my campaign slogan of “His Experience…..Leadership………Work Ethic………It Makes Sense” appropriately summarizes the qualities I bring to the position.
However, I also have a vision of making this Court better. Having served as a Magistrate of the Juvenile Court for over 4 years, I believe that I am in a position to suggest and implement new programs for this Court.
Many times, Courts are reactive institutions, handling cases where events have already occurred and the Court is ultimately responsible for sorting the facts out and determining an appropriate resolution for the parties of the case.
I envision a pre-teen assistance program, the focus of which would be to identify “at-risk” pre-teen youth in our community, and provide them with services with the goal of dissuading them from engaging in future negative behavior. This voluntary program would need the cooperation of the child's parents and the child themselves.
Too many times, troubled youth come into the Court after they have already formulated a long-term destructive path. I want to nip that potential behavior in the bud, before it progresses into even larger issues and problems.
One of the first things I will do as a Juvenile Court judge is to personally travel to each of the schools in Darke County and meet with the school’s administrators. I will want to know, from their perspective, what the Juvenile Court is doing well, and what the Juvenile Court is doing not so well. I will also want to know what kind of services, utilizing the professional staff the court has, the schools feel we need to adopt for at-risk youth. Taking information from those meetings, I will formulate a plan with the court personnel to address those issues.
I believe that such a program can be implemented without incurring additional costs. The people and staff are in place, in my opinion. It’s just a matter of putting the vision to work in a practical setting.
As indicated in my description of the Probate Court, an important function of the Probate Court is the appointment and administration of guardianships. With the aging of the country, and Darke County specifically, I believe that this function of the Probate Court will become more and more important in the years to come.
While most guardians of the elderly are family members who, by the most part, do a wonderful job of caring for their loved ones, there are many elderly who may not have family in the area, or may not have others who are able to assist them in their time of need. This is concerning given the numerous reports of people taking advantage of the elderly, especially in cases where a person gains the trust of an elderly person and that person ends up depleting their life’s savings.
I believe that a function of the Probate Court is to find individuals in the community who may be willing to serve as a guardian for someone who does not have a family member or other individual ready and willing to serve. Being a guardian can be time consuming and carries with it much responsibility, but I believe that the need is here for finding capable individuals to accept this task, and will only grow in the future.
While the programs identified above can be implemented fairly quickly after my election to the Juvenile/Probate Court bench, I also have a long term vision for this Court which would ultimately result in increased efficiency, reduced costs, and an improvement of Court services to the citizens of Darke County.
It has never made much sense to me why child custody issues, support issues and visitation issues are currently heard in one of two Courts, dependent on the marital status of the parents. If the parents are married to each other, the cases are heard in the Court of Common Pleas, General Division. If the parents are not married to each other, the cases are heard in the Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Court. These Courts have separate addresses, separate facilities and separate staff. Yet, they hear many of the same types of cases.
My long term vision includes exploring the possibility of combining these two Courts into one, and creating a “Family Court”. I believe that the operation of such a Court would result in reduced costs, increased efficiency and the lessening of confusion by many folks who are unsure which Court will hear their case. One of the goals of the Court, if I am elected, is to become as “user friendly” as possible. I believe that the Family Court concept is a step in the right direction.
I understand that the Family Court vision is bold and would require the cooperation of state and local governmental officials. However, I believe it is an option which needs to be explored, especially at a time of increased budget constraints.
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