COLUMBUS, Ohio — Incumbent candidate Andrew Ginther has declared victory against opponent Joe Motil.
This will be Ginther's third term as Columbus mayor.
“Tonight is a victory for all of Columbus. To the voters who provided me the opportunity to lead for a third term, thank you for your support. Now is the time to celebrate the crucial work we’ve done over the last eight years, and tomorrow, we will continue to make Columbus neighborhoods safe, affordable and connected for years to come — together," Ginther said.
A major topic of this year’s race was the crime rate in the city. Columbus saw a record number of homicides in 2021, besting the records set in 2020 and in 2017. For 2021, as of Monday, October 2, Columbus has recorded 120 homicide investigations. 103 of them were the result of gunshots.
Both Ginther and Motil focused their campaigns on what they will do to make Columbus a safer city.
"We know there are fewer than 500 people in a city of a million who are responsible for 50 percent of the violence,” said Mayor Andrew Ginther.
Candidate Joe Motil said the city needs to change course and needs a change.
"We have to make sure the parents of our youth know what kind of services are available to them so we can help get them into these programs. Nobody is advocating that we lock our youth up and throwing away the key,” Motil said.
Motil’s ideas involve more investment from the city into programs through Columbus Public Health and other resources. He said cracking down on guns is part of the solution, but not the entire solution.
“Red flag laws and such. I am in favor of those, but again, that is not the complete answer to that. It always falls back to the underlying issues of social and economic issues of people, our neighborhoods and our families,” Motil said.
Ginther said the city is investing in more training and recruiting for the city’s police force.
"By the end of next year we'll have more police officers on the street than we've ever had in our city in our city's history which is important because we're growing,” said Ginther.
Motil said the city must start going after the non-violent offenders before they become violent.
"We have to start issuing citations or doing something about non-violent offenses that occur in the city because if our youth and others continue to get away with non-violent offenses, that's going to escalate to more criminal offenses,” Motil said.
Both men do agree that part of the solution falls on parents and community members to step up and direct youth away from a life of crime.