By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
In a couple days, State Rep. Theresa Gavarone from Bowling Green will become a state senator.
A screening committee of Republican senators selected Gavarone today to fill Ohio’s 2nd State Senate District seat that was vacated last month when Randy Gardner was appointed the state’s chancellor of higher education.
Gavarone expects to be sworn into the Senate seat on Wednesday.
“I’m pretty excited,” she said this afternoon.
“I’m going to approach my Senate position the way I did in the House,” Gavarone said.
Though instead of representing just Wood County, she will now represent four more – Erie, Ottawa and parts of Lucas and Fulton counties.
With Gavarone’s appointment announced today, that poses the next question of who will fill her seat in the Ohio House. The process will be similar, with the Speaker of the House selecting a screening committee which will then take applications for the seat.
In the Senate, Gavarone hopes to keeping working on issues she has been focusing on in the House, such as drug addiction issues, mental health and access to health care. But now she expects to add water quality to the list since her district will now border Lake Erie.
“I certainly want to continue with Randy Gardner’s good work – working on solutions for Lake Erie that have a real impact,” she said.
The 2nd Senate District covers a much larger geographic area, with about 380,000 residents. Gavarone said she understands it takes about two hours to drive from one end of the district to the other.
“I’ll find out real soon,” she said.
Though her district will be much larger, Gavarone said she is up to the challenge.
“Wood County seemed so large when I started in the House,” she said. But she made an effort to get to every corner of the county.
“I’m going to take the same approach with the Senate,” Gavarone said. “I want to get to know the people and the issues, and do my best to represent them.”
“I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to serve a larger group of people, and can’t wait to get to it,” she said.
The Senate seat comes with a four-year term, but Gavarone will have to run for the position in 2020, when Gardner’s seat would have been up for election.
Prior to joining the legislature, Gavarone served on the Bowling Green City Council. While on city council, she was chair of the Public Lands and Buildings Committee and served on the Finance and Ways and Means Committee as well as the Planning, Zoning and Economic Development Committee.
Gavarone is an attorney and co-owner of a family business, Mr. Spots, with her husband Jim. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Bowling Green State University and a law degree from the University of Toledo College of Law.
