CAROLYN BRAKEY FORMALLY ANNOUNCES CAMPAIGN FOR GEAUGA COUNTY COMMISSIONER
Will leverage her proven professional conservative leadership to address county government dysfunction.
Bainbridge Township, OH, June 10, 2023 – Carolyn Brakey, President of the Geauga County Board of Health, announced today that she is running as a Republican for Geauga County Commissioner. The announcement occurred at a well-attended meet-and-greet event at the home of Shanley and Dane Davis in Bainbridge Township, OH. Brakey will seek one of the two Commissioner seats up for election in 2024.
Photo by Jonathan Williams “Those who hold positions of power in the upper echelons of county government are quick to concede that their relationships are irreparably broken,” Brakey said to the more than 75 attendees, including more than a dozen current and former elected officials. “The two Commissioners up for reelection literally aren’t on speaking terms with many other county officials, let alone collaborating to solve Geauga’s problems.”
Brakey was quick to note that her critique of the two Commissioners up for reelection was not personal. “I actually like both men who are up for reelection. I’m certainly not claiming this extreme dysfunction is exclusively their fault. Yet we know success has many fathers, but failure is always an orphan. Like any orphan, do you know what our failing county government desperately needs? A mom.”
Brakey has followed an unlikely path into politics, spurred on by how harsh Covid policies impacted her family and community. “My political origin story is simple and unremarkable: Up until 2020, I was an apolitical mom. But they hurt our kids too often and for too long. Enough was enough,” Brakey stated.
Shortly after her appointment to the Board of Health, Brakey was the principal author of Geauga Public Health’s August 2022 Covid-19 Guidance in Schools. The guidance affirmed parental mask choice, ended quarantine recommendations for the healthy, and championed personal freedom over government mandates. All Geauga County schools ended their restrictive Covid procedures immediately thereafter, with school districts like West Geauga expressly citing the guidance as their rationale.
Brakey told the audience, “I am a fighter. Check the receipts. We dismantled Geauga’s Covid regime brick-by-brick with our bare hands. I am proud of who I was then, what I stood for, and the actions I took during that terrible period of time; a time when it was so easy to do wrong, but so hard to do right.”
Brakey expressly laid out her vision on how she could improve county government. She noted her campaign’s use of the slogan “Better with Brakey.” Carolyn shared with her supporters what would be better with Brakey:
I will introduce the same professional conservative leadership to the Board of Commissioners that I’ve brought to the Board of Health. We will contract the size and reach of government while expanding individual freedom.
I will be visible, accessible, and active in the community. I will serve as a catalyst to identify needs and drive results.
I will work respectfully with all factions within the Geauga GOP and outside of it. I will partner with all who want to move Geauga forward in a more responsive, efficient, and virtuous direction.
Carolyn resides in Russell Township with her husband Matt Brakey and their eight-year-old boy/girl twins. She is a business attorney and has her own law practice, Brakey Law. She also runs Brakey Energy with her husband. Both companies are Geauga County-based businesses. Brakey Energy was founded in 1999 to provide energy management services to Geauga-based manufacturers, having since expanded to all of Ohio.
Brakey has her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Grove City College and holds a law degree from Case Western Reserve University. She is a member of Fellowship City Church in Bainbridge Township where she often serves in the children’s ministry. Brakey is a graduate of the Jo Ann Davidson Leadership Ohio Leadership Institute, and the District 3 Vice President for the Ohio Federation of Republican Women. She has been named a Rising Star by Super Lawyers®, and has been honored by Crain’s Cleveland Business as a Notable General Counsel and as a member of its Forty Under 40 class.
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