By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
This is not the first time Jan Materni has sought to replace Haraz Ghanbari.
Back in 2018, when Ghanbari was appointed to fill an Ohio House vacancy, she applied to fill the vacancy he left on the Perrysburg City Council. She was not selected, but then in 2019 ran and won the seat she now holds.
Materni said that it was a comment made by a member of council that finally spurred her to seek a seat on council. During a discussion about appointing a city attorney, a councilmember said that the position should go to the male candidate because he needed the income, and as a woman the female candidate did not.
This enraged Materni. She heard the same sentiment when she first started her 30-year career with ODOT. She was told in 1984 she should be ashamed of herself because she was taking a job that some man needed to feed his family. It wasn’t acceptable then, and it certainly wasn’t acceptable in 2018, she said.
Materni said in a recent interview that she had always intended to get involved in politics but couldn’t because of the provisions of the Hatch Act.
She retired after a diagnosis of breast cancer. She’s lost her mother and two sisters to cancer, and another sister survived cancer. “I have this burden, this legacy, I owe to them to make sure that my life is not wasted.” Now cancer free she’s entering the political fray.
Materni is taking on Ghanbari because she feels the incumbent’s politics are too far to the right for the district.
(BG Independent reached out to Ghanbari by telephone, email, and social media requesting an interview. Ghanbari did not respond, nor he did participate in the League of Women Voters candidates forum, so Materni also could not appear, and he did not fill out the League’s candidate survey.)
Materni’s politics have been shaped by her upbringing. The 60-year-old grew up in a union household. Her father was member of the United Auto Workers. She remembers once his coming home from the picket line stinking because he had been pelted with eggs and tomatoes.
Materni has stepped out and took part in protests after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe.
One of those issues is the so-called “heartbeat bill,” which bans abortion after approximately six weeks from conception. Ghanbari voted for that legislation, and is a co-sponsor of HB480 which defines personhood as starting at conception and allows private citizens to file suit against those providing and aiding in abortions.
Materni said she finds it ironic that the GOP which claims to support personal freedom only does so when it benefits them.
Instead, they support legislation that would forbid someone from getting a medication because it could possibly be used to induce abortion or force a pregnant woman with cancer to go out of state to get an abortion before receiving chemotherapy.
Materni, who grew up with guns, has been a gun owner, and enjoys target shooting, says she favors “sensible gun laws.”
“What I have trouble with these gun laws that pretty much let anyone own anything,” she said. “Statistics show if you have sensible gun laws gun violence goes down.”
She also opposes the legislation that loosened “stand your ground” standards, and the bill that allows just about anyone to openly carry a weapon and removes the requirement of those with concealed weapons from having to inform law officers.
She recalls when she worked for ODOT, highway crews were able to do preventive maintenance on roads. “That’s turned around and now just putting out fires.”
Also, the state needs to do more to restore cuts made to aid for local governments, which are struggling to keep their own roads repaired.
Both these come as the state government sits on a $1 billion surplus.
The state’s tax cuts, she added, benefit the wealthiest Ohioans.
Materni is disturbed by pending legislation that addresses transgender athletes that could force female athletes to undergo genital examination to prove they are girls if a parent questioned their gender.
She also doesn’t want the legislature dictating what teachers can teach.
Materni objects to the extremism that has taken hold among many Republicans who have back pedaled on their objections to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S Capitol.
It was not just “a little riot,” she said. It was “an attempt to overthrow the government.”
She said when she took her oath of office to sit on council and when her only child took his oath to serve in the U.S. Navy, they pledged to uphold the U.S Constitution not loyalty “to a party or a leader.”
Materni said “I have no trouble working with Democratic and Republican moderates as long as, like me, we’re working toward the betterment of Ohio.”
