Republicans seeking nomination for Mansfield finance director

Mark Abrams says he has been building for this position during his 28-year career with the City of Mansfield.

Kelly Blankenship has done the job before and says she’s ready to do it again.

Abrams and Blankenship are the two Republicans vying for city finance director in the May 2 primary election. The winner will face Democrat Jon Van Harlingen in the general election.

Current Finance Director Linn Steward is not able to run again because of term limits. She is running for mayor.

Abrams, 49, is a Mansfield native. He has been working his way up the city ladder for the last 28 years.

Abrams started off as a corrections officer at the old city jail before becoming a 911 dispatcher. He was president of the local AFSCME union for six years.

For the past 10 years, Abrams has been superintendent of the city’s parks department.

“I’ve worked on the safety side of things,” he said. “I have a pretty good understanding of how the city works. I’ve dealt with a budget for most of my career.

“I’ve always wanted to run for an office. I have experience in managing people; I’ve worked with most of the candidates.”

Blankenship has been finance director before

Blankenship was the city’s finance director from 2007-11. She lost her re-election bid to Steward by fewer than 20 votes. For the last five years, she has been executive director of Wayfinders Ohio, formerly Harmony House, the city’s homeless shelter.

While attending Coastal Carolina University, Blankenship switched her focus from marketing to accounting.

“Once I got into it, I thought, ‘This is where I belong,”’ she said. “Accounting is storytelling but with numbers.”

Blankenship said her term as finance director “was characterized by lots of change and a lot of turmoil.”

“After a year in office, the economy tanked,” she said.

Blankenship said she foresaw fiscal emergency for Mansfield.

“I’m telling anyone who would listen, but no one was taking heed,” she said. “It was contentious.”

While the city is in much better shape financially these days, Blankenship has some issues.

“They are stable,” she said of finances. “One of the things that concerns me is the city’s debt schedule. It’s getting pretty scary in about five years.”

Abrams remembers those difficult times.

“I survived fiscal emergency,” he said. “We had to lay off half of the union. I don’t want to see that happen again, and I’d like to have more of a say.”

Abrams has ideas to save city money

Abrams offered some ideas for cutting costs.

“We (departments) all buy our own supplies,” he said. “I’d like to look at doing some joint purchasing for the city to see if we could save some money.”

Regarding the police and fire departments, Abrams would like to replace their equipment on a regular basis.

“They (police) go through cars like most people go through shoes,” he said.

Blankenship said the national economy will eventually trickle down to Mansfield.

“The city’s got some trying financial times ahead,” she said. “Assuming I get through my primary, I plan to study what has happened the last 12 years to see where we are.”

Abrams got started on his campaign on early February.

“I understand how it’s run and what you can and can’t do,” he said of city government. “I think the management of it will be OK. It would be no different than when I started with the parks.