Wood County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Dobson announced today that he has filed his petitions to run for his fifth term as prosecutor. Dobson was first elected as county prosecutor in 2008.
Upon the completion of his present term, Dobson will be the longest sitting prosecutor in Wood County since Floyd Collier served from 1935-1953. Since graduating from the University of Toledo College of Law in 1994, Dobson has served most of his career as a prosecutor. After working as a Bowling Green City Prosecutor, he was appointed in 1996 to serve as an Assistant County Prosecutor in the Criminal Division and, in 2005, was appointed as Chief Assistant.
During his tenure, Dobson has overseen the conversion of the Prosecutor’s Office from paper files to a largely paper-free office and has integrated his system with most of the county police agencies to increase the speed and efficiency of the submission of evidence, case files and reports. He has responded to the Wood County population growth and increased demands on his staff by increasing assistants from 12 to 16.
In 2014, Dobson was appointed by then-Governor John Kasich to serve on the Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission. In 2017, he was elected to serve as the President of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association.
In 2017, Dobson and Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn, with the assistance of the Wood County Commissions and funding from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, the Wood County Health Department, and the Wood County ADAMHS Board, created the Wood County Addiction Response Collaborative, or ARC program. With a coordinator and Sheriff’s Deputy, the program offers a Quick-Response Team which works to get overdose survivors involved in treatment and recovery outside of the criminal justice system. Within ARC, Dobson created the Prosecutor’s Office’s first diversion program, where low-level first-time offenders whose crimes stem from drug use can engage in a 12-week interactive course to teach them mechanisms and methods to avoid the dangers of drug abuse and addiction. Successful completion of the program means dismissal of the criminal charges against the participant.
In filing his petitions for the 2024 election cycle, Dobson said, “I’m so very grateful to the people of Wood County for the trust and support they have given me over the past 15 years. It has been an honor and a humbling experience during that time to have served the citizens of this great county and such a privilege to have worked side-by-side with an outstanding staff. It is a testament to the quality of people who have served our county that former members of this office now serve as the Delaware County Prosecuting Attorney, the Henry County Prosecuting Attorney, the Wood County Administrator, the Wood County Court Administrator, a Wood County Common Pleas Judge, a Toledo Municipal Court Judge, the Perrysburg Municipal Court Judge, the Bowling Green City Prosecutor, an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, and a Sixth District Court of Appeals Judge. I look forward to the new opportunities and challenges of serving and protecting our constituents in the next term.”
Dobson lives in rural Wood County with his wife. He has a son who is a firefighter, a daughter who is a nurse, and a stepson who runs his own international company. He has seven grandchildren.
The county prosecutor serves a four-year term and runs on the presidential cycle.
