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Maple looks back on his service

LOONG BACK — Dave Maple reflects on the 20 years he spent as a Jefferson County commissioner. -- Linda Harris

STEUBENVILLE — Thomas “Bo” Graham stood in the lobby of the Jefferson County Courthouse for nearly 30 minutes Thursday just so he could talk with the newest member of the “former Jefferson County commissioner club,” Dave Maple, before what was to be his final meeting in office.

“I wanted him to know that, as a taxpayer and a colleague, he has my thanks and my gratitude for his unselfish service to the taxpayers of Jefferson County,” Graham said afterward. “Dave is a man of character. He is one of the most intelligent persons I know. We both served for 20 years as commissioner, and I think we were a great team. We both researched everything, and we could rely on each other’s word; I never doubted what he would say, even though we might not always agree — but if you didn’t agree, you had better have your homework done because you knew he would.”

Maple, a Republican incumbent who decided not to seek re-election this year, has served as a county commissioner for 20 years. Graham, a Democrat who served alongside him for most of that time, lost his seat in 2022.

“It’s sad, but it’s good to look back,” Maple said. “I’m really, really happy to have worked with so many good people, and when I do look back, I like that I was able to help a lot of good projects and we had a good (balanced) budget every year — some years it’s much harder than others, but we really did, I think, a good job.”

Maple joined the board of commissioners in 2005. It was a period when Jefferson County was still recovering from some tumultuous years when political disagreements played out on an almost daily basis in newspaper stories and on television screens.

“It was pretty fractured, but by the time I got in office, to be really fair, (former commissioners) Adam Scurti, Rich Delatore and Tom Graham were in office and they had done a great job of settling (things) down prior to me getting there — they’d put in some meeting rules and public participation rules, so I don’t think my presence made that great a change, but I think it made it stronger (because) we continued that.”

He said it was so important to him to be part of the solution.

“When I moved back to the area I’d started a small business,” he said. “I was in my early 20s and my wife (Tricia Maple-Damewood) was working at the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce. I started getting involved in the business community — as a young person, you want your business to grow so you look at the government to see how it’s functioning and it wasn’t functioning at all. So, I was talking with my wife one day, and I said, ‘I think I want to run for commissioner’ and it started off — I got involved. It was tough because there weren’t a lot of Republicans in the county getting elected in those days, but, luckily, we had enough support and we ran enough good campaigns that we got in office, and it took off from there.”

He said it’s been a learning experience.

“When I first started, budgets were just meetings and when people started coming to me with budgets I had questions. I asked why — why do you need that? Is it a have-to-have or is it a want-to-have?” he said. “Those discussions weren’t happening that much, so I hope I helped build somewhat of a culture within the county government of saying, ‘Do we really need that’ and ‘Can we do without that’ and ‘Can we put money aside to do something later’? I think that knowing the numbers, knowing the budgets and when people came in front of the commissioners, they knew that they were going to be asked serious questions about what their asks were — that’s probably what I’m most proud of.”

Maple said he “always worked on the premise that it wasn’t my money, it was the taxpayers’ money.”

“I always kind of thought about the people who worked really hard and what they would want me to do as steward of their money,” he said. “So, hopefully, that can (continue) on into the future — I think government should look at that all the time because it’s not your money, it’s taxpayer money.”

Much as he’s loved his two-decade tenure as commissioner, Maple said it’s time to turn the page.

“I like the people I’ve worked with, I like the challenges you have in front of you,” he said. “There’s always another project out there and then another project, and in the past, I’d always say, ‘Well, I want to see this project get done and I want to see that project done … but at some point in time you can’t keep chasing those projects, you’ve got to hand them off. There’s a good board of commissioners (overseeing county functions) now and they don’t need me to keep moving onto the next project.”

Much has changed during the past 20 years: The county has a new animal shelter and a new 911 building. Commissioners purchased and renovated the Tower building, tore down the annex building, carved out parking lots, completed numerous water and sewer projects and saw the Jefferson County Airpark take off with a new terminal building and runway. A new spec building is being developed at the Jefferson County Industrial Park.

“I don’t think there’s a single item that I’m proudest of,” he concluded, “but I am very proud of being a conservative fiscal person in the spending of county money.”

Maple’s successor, Ron “Jake” Kleineke, will be sworn in along with other GOP officeholders at 11:30 a.m. Dec. 28 at the First Christian Church on Fourth Street in Steubenville.

Kleineke will join Tony Morelli and Eric Timmons on the board.

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