Ever since the ending of my 2023 campaign for mayor, I continue to be asked if I will run for mayor again in 2027. My reply has been, “In politics you never say never. I am currently in a wait-and-see mode. The election is two years away.”

As for Andy Ginther’s campaign claiming he will run again in 2027, I will say this:

• Our affordable housing crisis continues to escalate regardless of Ginther’s policy changesHomelessness and evictions continue to increase.
• Ginther distorted the facts regarding the severity of the city’s data breach which can be partially contributed to his failure to allocate proper funding for our city’s Department of Technology. His political career is laced with concealing the truth.
• Ginther’s 2023 campaign staff allegedly forced one of his executive assistants to illegally work on his campaign, resulting in a $195,000 city-paid legal settlement.

As an elected City Hall official for 18 years, his disinvestment in the lives of Columbus residents and the neighborhoods they live in has elevated economic segregation and infrastructure needs. His recent “Clean and Safe Corridor” initiative is one more campaign gimmick that lacks long term solutions and financial resources. The violations that are being addressed as part of these so called “blitzes” signifies his administrations lack of proper and timely code enforcement.      

He and his Department of Development’s gross mishandling of the West Side’s Greyhound bus terminal situation and more recently their granting of a permit for a carnival on the grounds of the former Eastland Mall’s demolition site is a further sign of an incompetent mayor.

Columbus residents deserve a mayor who will lead and put people and neighborhoods first, before the needs of the rich and powerful who fill one’s campaign coffers.  

Ginther…a 2025 Golden Padlock Award finalist

Andy Ginther can now proudly add to his list of accomplishments as one of five prestigious finalists for the 2025 Golden Padlock Award. The award, presented by the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) national journalism association, is NOT an honor. The award recognizes “the most secretive public agency or official in the U.S.” The winner will be announced at the IRE’s June 21st conference in New Orleans.

IRE chair Robert Cribb stated in a prepared release, “From surreptitiously shredding public records to masking the impacts of serious government failures to undermining the principles of open courts, these finalists have distinguished themselves in the field of bureaucratic opacity. We honor them for the lengths they have gone to ensure the public interest does not threaten personal expediency.”

Andy’s claim to fame is a result of his blatant and deceitful handling of last year’s City of Columbus cyber-attack resulting in a data breach that exposed personal information of thousands of city employees and members of the public.

Ginther immediately downplayed the data breach claiming the city had “thwarted” efforts to steal city data and even went as far to claim that “stolen data released online was encrypted or corrupted and unusable.”

As I mentioned: “Ginther distorted the facts regarding the severity of the city’s data breach which can be partially contributed to his failure to allocate proper funding for our city’s Department of Technology. His political career is laced with concealing the truth.”

Columbus can ill afford another term from a mayor who lacks honesty and integrity and puts his own self-interest ahead of our city’s reputation and image.