ASHLAND — Ashland County residents voting in the Board of Commissioners’ race Nov. 3 will choose between two candidates seeking election to the seat for the first time.
Democratic candidate Sandy Bally, 73, and Republican nominee Brandon Carpenter, 39, are both vying to serve at the county-government level. The winner will replace Denny Bittle, who sought his fourth, four-year term as a county commissioner during the May primary.
Carpenter received nearly 31 percent of the votes in May (1,722) to defeat Bittle and additional challengers Jeff Hardman and Burton Williams. Bally was unopposed in the Democratic primary, receiving 1,522 votes.
November’s winner will take office Jan. 1, 2027, with the four-year term expiring Dec. 31, 2030.
Bally and Carpenter will participate in a debate Monday from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
The debate, organized by the Ashland Area Chamber of Commerce, will take place at the Ashland High School Little Theater, 1440 King Road. Jeffrey Sikkenga, executive director of the Ashbrook Center, will moderate the event.
The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Both candidates recently spoke with Ashland Source ahead of the debate to talk about their backgrounds and why they’re running for office. They are featured in alphabetical order.
Sandy Bally
Bally is an Ashland native and attended Ashland City Schools through her first year of junior high. She moved to Cincinnati in eighth grade after a change in her father’s career.
The 73-year-old attended the University of Cincinnati where she earned degrees in psychology and chemical engineering.
This led Bally to a 22-year career working for General Motors in Dayton, where she was a product engineer and also worked in a lab testing compounds for parts. She also helped design parts and trained new employees.
She moved back to Ashland later in life to help take care of her mother after her father passed away. Since moving back to the city, Bally has volunteered most of her time at the Ashland County Board of Elections for the past decade.
I want Ashland to grow, but I want it to grow in the right way.
SANDY BALLY
This is the fourth time Bally has sought an elected position. She previously campaigned for school board in Oakwood, near Dayton, and twice for Ashland City Council, but was never elected.
She said she’s vying for commissioner because she wants to help make a difference in a different way. Bally spent several hours visiting government meetings throughout the county in past months.
“I really think commissioners should be somewhat involved with all of them (governing bodies),” she said. “Because I don’t know where else we get information.”
Should she win in November, Bally said she’d like to organize a schedule for commissioners to attend different government meetings on a regular basis.
She also said fiscal responsibility and communication to the public are priorities.
The unfinished portion of the Ashland County Dog Shelter is something Bally would like to see be completed and rented out — an issue on which she and Carpenter agree.
The vacant 3,600-square-foot space at the front of the shelter has a separate entrance and utilities from the dog shelter, but still has only dirt floors. Current commissioners approved a contract in August with Coldwell Banker Ward Real Estate to advertise the space as available for lease.
“No one is going to rent this place if they don’t get the floors done,” Bally said. “That’s still an issue because its a great facility.”
The candidate said her ambition is not to get elected and start enacting massive amounts of change. Instead, Bally wants to focus on improvements where necessary, including to buildings and county infrastructure.
She said she and Carpenter see eye-to-eye on more issues than they disagree on with each other, including the commissioners’ decision to construct a new county administration building rather than purchasing the former Rite Aid property along Claremont Avenue.
“The only thing that’s really different is kind of our personalities,” Bally said. “There’s a lot of similarities, but differences in terms of how we deal with people.”
If elected, she wants to help grow Ashland County in a way that serves everybody, Democrats and Republicans alike, she said.
“I want Ashland to grow, but I want it to grow in the right way,” Bally said.
Brandon Carpenter
Carpenter was born and raised in Ashland and has remained a lifelong resident of Clearcreek Township.
The 39-year-old attended Crestview High School and Pioneer Career and Technology Center, where he spent two years learning in PCTC’s industrial diesel program.
Through a work-release program at PCTC, Carpenter went to work for a trucking company in Willard even before graduating high school. He graduated from Crestview in 2006.
Around 2007/2008, his father lost his job of 28 years after Hydromatic Pump Company closed its doors in Ashland. Deeply connected to the trucking industry, Carpenter decided to start Haul’er Back Trucking, LLC with his father in October 2010.
His father passed away three years later. Around 2022, Carpenter said he could see the writing on the walls as another trucking recession was looming.
He decided to shift gears and founded Carpenter Custom Truck & Trailer, LLC in September 2024. Carpenter also spent 14 years as a volunteer fireman in the village of Savannah.
His entrepreneurial spirit dates back to his days in middle school, when Carpenter decided to sell pencils to students who forgot one at half the price of the school.
“Even now, some of the teachers talk about that,” Carpenter said. “In my younger years, I was always just the kind of kid that I had a lot of plans and things I wanted to do.”
This year’s election is the first time the 39-year-old his sought an elected position.
He was elected by his peers as vice president of the Savannah Volunteer Fire Company, but this year marks his first campaign for public office.
Working in a heavily regulated industry, Carpenter said his interest in politics dates back several years.
“I really started taking a real good look at politics here about four or five years ago and then really started paying attention to local politics as well,” he said.
I feel like we should be a community of people that should be able to talk to our elected officials and actually have an open dialogue with those folks.
BRANDON CARPENTER
As someone who doesn’t envision ever leaving Ashland County, Carpenter said he felt like the county needed more business-minded individuals leading at the government level.
He said another driving force to run for office is what he described as a lack of transparency.
“I feel like we should be a community of people that should be able to talk to our elected officials and actually have an open dialogue with those folks and I didn’t feel like we were getting that so that’s what prompted me to run,” Carpenter said.
Should he be elected in November, the 39-year-old said he wants to help amplify the community’s voice regarding property taxes. Despite commissioners having limited control over the issue, Carpenter said he knows it’s an important topic among constituents.
An effort he wants to work on is an economic plan in the event of the abolishment of property taxes.
He also wants to implement initiatives that make the public feel more heard, including ideas such as evening meetings and the inception of a Citizen Advisory Committee.
“That’s something I hear over and over again from constituents, is they feel like they’re not heard,” he said. “That’s one of the first things that I want to start working on is immediately changing that.”
Another effort high on Carpenter’s priority list is visiting with leaders of each county department to learn about their jobs and responsibilities firsthand.
“I want to see what everyone is doing so that way I can become a resource to them and I can understand their job so I can help them in whatever it is they need to conduct their daily business,” he said.
Business and management skills are areas where he feels he differentiates himself from Bally. But Carpenter said he’s had great conversations with the 73-year-old and has appreciated listening to her ideas.
If there’s one thing he wants voters to know, Carpenter said he’s a transparent man.
“I’m not afraid to hit things head on,” he said. “I’m not afraid to go up against people. I’ve been in business forever — it doesn’t hurt my feelings, it’s business.”
