Race for Zanesville Mayor Winds Down as Election Day Looms

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Election Day is only 8 days away and area candidates are appealing to voters one final time before the polls open. The race for Zanesville Mayor is winding down and both candidates have proposed plans to help continue improvements in the city.

Candidate Don Mason (R) says that if elected, he plans to work in tandem with local organizations.

“I want to convey to people that the status quo–the way things are now–is not the way they have to be a year from now, or five years from now, or ten years from now. Just because we’ve sunk into this valley doesn’t mean we can’t climb our way back out. I’d like to be elected mayor and work will all the social groups, the civic groups, the fraternities, and small businesses in Zanesville; to help make Zanesville a better place.”

Incumbent Jeff Tilton (D) says he wants to continue the progress made over the past eight years.

“Well, I would hope that they would look at what we’ve done in the last eight years; you know we’ve done fifty-two miles of paving for nine million dollars. We have bought sixteen new cruisers for our police department; we have put close to a million dollars into our IT department.”

Among hot topics this election season is that of infrastructure within the city of Zanesville; including those on Linden Avenue, Dug Road, and Wayne Avenue. Tilton says the current projects are expected to be finished soon.

“The Wayne Avenue project–that we’ve now started and hopefully it will be completed by December. Dug Road; we have been working tirelessly trying to get grant money to get that project moving forward. What we’re looking at is a three million dollar project to make that road safe; and actually move the road away from the river so in the future, we don’t have to worry about slippage on the river side.”

Mason says that if elected, he plans to clean up blighted properties such as those on Linden Avenue.

“Those eyesores are actual embarrassments to our community. They’re disrespectful to the people who live there–and I want to go after the landowners by taking them to court. And the bottomline is, it’s been too easy for them to lay their waste upon us and walk away from it. I want to make it so that every morning when they wake up, that they realize the city of Zanesville is coming after them and we’re not going to stop until we fix the problem.”

Polls will be open from 6:30 AM to 7:30 PM on November 5; while early in-person voting ends on November 4.