Chris Mallin with Congressman
Tim Ryan in Rootstown.

Link to my attorney website
SafeKent.com

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I have been writing essays on economic philosophy since 2007. Those essays are archived on
OldCountryLawyer.us

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I'm Chris Mallin, and I'm a Democrat. I am a candidate for Portage County Auditor. I support responsible government to preserve the advantages of Portage County that helped me decide to live here. It's the job of a public figure to let the voters know the individual's background, so most of the sentences on this page start with "I."

I moved to Portage County as an adult. That means I live in Portage County because I made the choice myself to live here, not because my parents or some earlier ancestor decided to live here. I have lived around the edges of Portage County most of my life, and I have attended schools and done business and traveled in other cities and other states and other countries. I choose to live here.

Many in Portage County have the approach to life that my parents learned in their neighborhood, and made certain that they taught to me, "You pay for what you get, and you don't get what you can't pay for." In Suffield Township, I found a small, well-built house in a quiet, natural setting. I bought the house from the man who had built it himself sixty years earlier, who was finally leaving the family home to live with his son. He has left me a Spring with magnolia, crabapple, lilac and dogwood blossoms, and an Autumn with grapes and apples. I have realized that I should take some part in County government to try to preserve some of these good things.

I was born in Cleveland. My family lived in the upstairs of a two-family house off Warner Road when I began school at Holy Name Elementary on Broadway. We moved to Bedford Heights during my elementary school years, when new homes were being built from farmland. Yes, there were still farms in the Village of Bedford Heights at that time, and my family's home was close enough that we could hear a rooster. I attended Bedford City Schools, with a one-year attendance at Chanel High School, and I graduated from Bedford High School in 1968. Interstate 480 was completed during that time, and I became acquainted with the City of Kent's downtown entertainment district as a "young adult." I'm one of the one-in-ten Americans who worked at McDonald's when I was in high school.

I won a National Merit Scholarship to Michigan State University. I studied economics in class and practiced economics working in the cafeteria. The scholarship paid my tuition; I earned my room and board. I learned that my Dad had a different concept of the term "vacation" than I did, so I worked a couple "vacations" at the Harshaw Chemical Company on the Cuyahoga River, about the time of the river fire that sparked the federal Clean Water Act. I was a member of International Chemical Workers Union Local 10. I received my degree from Michigan State in 1971, with an area of concentration in economics. I was admitted to the academic honorary society of Phi Beta Kappa.

I attended the Law School of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. I completed classes at the end of 1973, was awarded my law degree in January 1974, passed the Ohio bar examination and was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in April, 1974. During the last summer that I attended law school, I worked at the Ford Walton Hills Stamping Plant as an ATPL, where I was a member of United Auto Workers Local 420. Working at Ford provided me additional encouragement to stay in school and study hard. I have made my living as an attorney in private practice since 1974.

I got married in 1977. My two daughters and my son were born from 1979 through 1983. I had a long and excruciating divorce from 1986 to 1988, learned some of the difficulties of raising children when your children are not with you full time, and paid child support through 2001. My older daughter graduated from Kent State University, my son graduated from Case Western Reserve University, my younger daughter graduated from Miami University of Ohio. All of them have jobs, two of them are married, and none of them live in Portage County.

My career as an attorney, my service in local government, my experience as a teacher of professional continuing education are described in more detail on other pages of this website.

Portage County shows most of the diverse styles of Ohio life within the County: a century and a half of industrial production in Ravenna and Kent, metropolitan suburban communities in Aurora and Streetsboro, two centuries of agriculture and family businesses throughout the townships and villages, and the education and research to create the future in Kent, Rootstown and Hiram.

Some folks who have never lived anywhere else may think that it's normal to have all these different resources in one place. I have lived in other places; most other places don't have it this good. Most folks in Portage County understand that we are responsible for what we have and we are responsible to pay for what we need. We are Americans. We expect to pay a fair price for what we get, and we expect all of us to pay our fair share. We have a lot to lose in Portage County. I don't want to lose it to folks who think we shouldn't pay for anything. As I take part in public life in Portage County, I will do my best to see that the bills get paid and the cost is fair.

– Chris Mallin