Ohio House Local Government Committee - 3-11-2026

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Chair King?

Vice Chair Kishman?

Ranking Member Sims?

Representative Abrams?

Here.

Here.

Representative Kloppenstein?

Representative Lawson-Rowe?

Representative Moore?

Representative Schmidt?

Here.

Representative Thomas.

Madam Chair, I motion to amend. Madam Chair, I motion to amend House Bill 361 with Sub Bill 1211-13.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair King, Vice Chair Kishman, ranking member Sims, and members of the House Local Government Committee. Appreciate the opportunity to provide sponsor testimony on House Bill 639, Ohio's version of right-to-race bill. This same legislation has already been passed and enacted in Iowa and North Carolina, and similar legislation has been introduced and is currently being considered in 14 other states. This bill creates a defense to certain nuisance claims, such as those specifically involving noise, traffic, dust, and lighting against racing facilities and racetracks when the complaining property owner acquired or developed their property after the racing facility was already established and operating. This legislation is intended to protect longstanding motorsports facilities from nuisance lawsuits brought by nearby residents, newer nearby residents. It provides a clear legal framework for nuisance claims involving racetracks across the state. These types of laws help provide long-established racetracks with stability and predictability so that they can continue hosting events, supporting local jobs, and serving the motorsports community. Motorsports venues are vital to Ohio's economy, culture, and communities. Performance racing generates approximately $5 billion in economic impact in Ohio, supporting 19,499 jobs, $1.38 billion in total wages and benefits, and roughly $580 million in total taxes. Across Ohio, racetracks create employment opportunities for staff and event workers while attracting fans who support local hotels, restaurants, and businesses. Currently, there are 36 racetracks operating across roughly 29 of Ohio's 88 counties. I am proud to represent Summit Motorsports Park in my district and my joint sponsor, Representative Click, represents communities served by the Attica Raceway Park and Fremont Speedway. These facilities are major economic drivers in our communities, mine specifically, $100 million to Huron County and Erie counties. Despite their economic and cultural importance, in recent years, some longstanding racetracks have faced nuisance lawsuits driven by adjacent development, specifically most recently Columbus, Speedway, and Wayne County. Defending these lawsuits creates financial strain and uncertainty that can threaten closure, and this bill gives the legislature an opportunity to establish proactive legal safeguards that protect these facilities and the communities that rely on them. House Bill 639 offers a common-sense solution by ensuring that facilities which predate neighboring development are legally protected. By supporting House Bill 639, we can help prevent the closure of longstanding racetracks, preserve a pastime enjoyed by both small town and urban communities, and protect local jobs, tourism, and decades of racing heritage for future generations. I will yield to my joint sponsor, Representative Click, to provide his testimony.

Thank you, representatives. The chair recognizes Representative Stevens for a question.

Through the chair to Representative Stevens, thank you for those questions. It would only apply to racetracks that are currently in operations today. Any new racetracks would have to be zone permitted and going forward have to comply with those rules and regulations. and I will have to get clarification. I do not believe that it would apply to fairs. So there's a possibility of that, but we can get clarification on that. That's actually a really good question.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to applaud you for bringing this bill to our attention. It is long overdue. I want to give you a little story. Molar Speedway, it's in Brown County. It's in an area that doesn't even have zoning. It's been there forever. It's a dirt trap. But the neighborhood grew into the facility, went to the judge and asked the judge to put a court order in, not allowing them to admit dirt into the air, have loud noises, et cetera. Kim Muller called me. This is about eight years ago, asked my advice. I got her in touch with a very good but very expensive attorney. and, of course, all of those rules were invalid. When a racetrack has been in existence for a long time, the neighbors should know that it is there, no different than an airport. So I applaud you for this because the Kim Mollers of the world live on the margin sometimes because of the ebb and flow of people going to the racetrack, and they shouldn't have the worry that they might be put out of business because somebody doesn't like the fact that they're there. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for bringing the bill. It's interesting. I remember going out to Norwalk Raceway Track when I was a little boy. It's been a long time, and they had the jet cars, and they were really, really loud. And as I recall back then, it was surrounded by farmland. I don't know if that's changed. I haven't been out there in a long time. But what if maybe over the years these jet cars have gotten even louder, or what happens if they expand their operations? I mean, does this bill still apply in those types of cases as well?

Gotcha. Okay.

Proceed. Thank you. Are there any other industries that we have laws on the books like this, like for factories or for distribution centers or quarries or anything like that?

Are you aware of any?

If we could move on, please. Yeah, sure, no problem. Ranking Member Sims?

I could not be very specific, but there are some laws regulating them, and we can dig into that a little bit further. Or we will have proponents who will come in who will have more of the details on that, but certainly there are times that are established, such as maybe no racing after midnight or things like that that already do exist, that do regulate the racetracks. Follow up?

Through the chair, I'm not sure I understand the question.

Through the chair, I do not anticipate that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for the testimony. Representative Click, you must have been reading my brain. We have a spiritual connection. Common sense. Who's there first? If that racetrack has been there for whatever number of decades or whatever, and then you build a subdivision around it or move around it, you have to do your homework. That's basically common sense. So would you agree with me that the owners or whoever purchased property in that area you probably should have done some research or the realtor sold them, the property should have advised them that you're moving next to a racetrack.

Okay. That's a good answer.

Vice Chair Kishman for a motion. Madam Chair, I motion to amend House Bill 92 with AM underscore 1861.

I now recognize Vice Chair Kishman for another motion. Madam Chair, I motion to favor report the bill as amended and recommend its passage.

Vice Chair Kishman? Yes.

Rep. Abrams? Yes.

Representative Creech Yes

Representative Kloppenstein Yes

Representative Moore Yes

Representative Stevens No

With eight affirmative and five negative votes, the House Bill 92 is favorably reported out of House Local Government Committee. We'll leave the roll open until noon today, and we'll ask LSE to please harmonize the bill. And this concludes the final hearing for House Bill 92. Number 8? Okay. I'd like to now call forward House Bill 653 for its third hearing. We have no in-person testimony today, but I would like members to draw attention to their iPad. We do have written testimony from Kristen Atha

And this will conclude our third hearing. on House Bill 653. And I would like to now call forward House Bill 695 for its first hearing. We have Representatives Byrd and Stewart with us today.

The floor is yours. Awesome.

Chairwoman King, Vice Chair Kishman, Ranking Member Sims, thank you for allowing me also to give some testimony on House Bill 695. This is common sense legislation to prohibit certain elected officials locally from entering into nondisclosure agreements while acting in their official positions. Coerced secrecy sows distrust amongst our residents and violates the spirit of Ohio's open meetings laws and our public records laws. A nondisclosure agreement gags local elected officials from discussing, describing, or commenting on important matters related to their official duties. This is, thankfully, a fairly recent development. But it is bad policy, and we should draw a line in the stand against it now. As a Pickaway County Commissioner, I helped bring more than $2 billion of private investment to our county, including more than 1,500 good-paying manufacturing, logistics, and engineering jobs. And in 11 years as a local official, I never signed a nondisclosure agreement, and I never would. And that's because it's a recipe for distrust amongst our taxpayers, and it is harming our economic development efforts in the long run. In the absence of any true information being withheld through an NDA, community rumor mills are filling in the blanks with the worst-case scenarios. Stated another way, if the local township trustees can't tell the residents the new project is something positive, the secrecy convinces residents that it must be something negative. Signing NDAs is also simply unnecessary to compete and win projects in our state. Ohio's growing communities have thrived for years before NDAs became a factor. Residents do understand that competing for big projects may require some discretion from time to time, but that's a far cry from a legally enforceable gag order the moment that a company walks through the door. House Bill 695 is simple, straightforward, and essential to maintaining transparency amongst local elected officials and trust from the citizens that they represent. And we're happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, gentlemen. So do you think that this prohibition should also be extended to state agencies? So, for instance, Jobs Ohio?

Proceed. Thank you. But couldn't you make the argument that we have unelected bureaucrats making decisions, whereas your local elected officials are more accountable to their voters?

Representative Kloffenstein.

I've not heard of any state taking this step yet, but I also think it's important to point out, this is new. When you were a county commissioner, when I was a county commissioner, I was never asked to sign an NDA. Now, I was never – I wouldn't do it anyway for the reasons I laid out. But I have had, since we introduced this bill, a number of local officials call and say, well, I've got some concerns about that. They say, well, have you ever signed an NDA? Well, of course not. I said, would you ever sign an NDA? Well, of course not. Well, then what's the problem, right? So I think that we have been doing these deals and winning these projects for so long without NDAs that I think I'm really skeptical of the idea that suddenly they've become essential. I think you'll see more states, you know, if this practice proliferates, I think you'll see a lot of states come up with legislation like we have to try to nip this in the bud.

I'll take a stab at that one. Chair, Representative, I understand your concern about losing to other states, and certainly we don't want to do that, but this is good government. This is transparency, and it does put every community in Ohio on the same equal playing field. So sometimes you might hear somebody make the argument that, you know, Community X will, because of this, will lose out now to Community Y. Well, they're both playing with the same rule. And so I don't think it puts us at a competitive disadvantage to other states because of the great reasons that my joint sponsor mentioned regarding Jobs Ohio.

Thank you, Chairman. Thank you. I had a question regarding how far down the chain of county administration or city administration that this would go. Obviously, as a county commissioner, I used to tell my economic development folks, if you don't want me to tell it, don't tell me because we're elected officials. We're going to share good news. But I personally never was asked to sign an NDA. We had a lot of development that went on. But let's say there's a county administrator. Does that touch them or a city manager or whatever position they may have? Thank you.

Follow-up? Just to follow-up. So on the flip side of this, and I don't think it would, but I just want to make sure, if, say, you have a business come in, they meet with one county commissioner because of sunshine loss or whatever at a time, does that then require if somebody publicly asks a question, well, what is the name of the company? You know, they haven't signed an NDA. We know that we're doing, you know, they're probably doing a tax abatement is probably what's coming. does it require that county commissioner or that mayor, you know, kind of as a freedom of information or whatever to give that information out? Does it touch any of that and make any more requirements, even if you know something? Because a lot of times the county commissioner or mayor will know something, and the business development has said, please don't tell anybody. And as a general good business practice, you say, hey, something's coming, but I can't tell you. Will this require that disclosure?

Thank you. Representative Schmidt.

the exclusion of cities was generally to avoid one more home rule fight in the state. I understand the point of you do have some larger townships that sort of look, talk, and act like a city, but they're not. And so townships don't have home rule, generally. Cities and villages do. There may be a few home rule townships. I know there's some intricacies there. But generally speaking, townships don't have home rule. Villages and cities do. You will notice we do have villages in here, however. That is the thought process is cities generally have a law director, an elected official, a legal counsel that is always there. A lot of our smaller villages, they may not, right? And so I think that kind of trying to split the difference a little bit, avoid some home rule friction while, you know, accounting for the fact that you do have – where this is most prevalent, I think, right now is in some of these villages that are probably underserved from a legal representation standpoint. Somebody comes in and says, we can't talk to you until you sign this paper. And they don't have a solicitor. They don't have somebody on site. And so they say, well, yep, we'll do that. I think that's what we're trying to avoid. But there is just legally a difference between townships and cities generally, and I think we want this to be as expansive as we can legally make it.

Oh, I had a follow-up. I'm sorry. Thank you.

Ranking Member Sims.

Yeah, this is something that's become pertinent. I'm sorry, Chair, Representative, this has become important in my community because there is a proliferation of them, and the use of them hides the ability for government to be transparent to its community. And I think it's important that, as government, we be transparent with them. And if you've got an economic development department or director, they can handle some of these things. But it's a very poor look for elected officials to look at their neighbor, look at their constituent, and say, I cannot tell you because they signed a nondisclosure agreement.

Through the chair to the representative, I think generally right now NDAs are mostly used in what folks would say is an economic development context. However, if you give the mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk. And I think that if you allow NDAs to be used for the good projects, it's not hard to imagine they might start to be used in other contexts, like employment disputes, like lawsuits, like disputes between elected officials. I mean there a whole host of scenarios in which signing a gag order would be convenient for other folks but not the taxpayers So I think that is another reason why halting this practice makes good sense As for where they stored I not seen litigation yet on well I signed a gag order, but is that a public record? I think it certainly would be. I mean, that would be my argument. I think it certainly is a public record, and you should probably be able to request it. I don't know that it's going to tell you a ton, although, I mean, if you're signing a gag order to prevent yourself from being able to say that the applicant for a job creation project is Honda, well, then it makes a little – I'm sure some of those communities would try to block the release of a nondisclosure agreement if it identifies Honda as the recipient because it would defeat the purpose. So, again, I think these are thorny issues that present themselves only because, largely within the last five years, we've started to go down a road here that we didn't used to go down.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Representative Lawson-Roll.

Chair, Representative, there is a growing trend, And I think companies and or their developing partners have well-paid lawyers, well-paid legal teams that are coming to small-town Ohio right now. And they're going to a variety of elected officials and saying, we might consider you, we might develop here, we might grow here, but you have to sign a nondisclosure agreement first. And that to me is not good government. And I think that if a community thinks that a certain development project is going to be a net positive for that community, then they should be able to sell and make that case to their community and talk about what its impact is going to be on taxes, what the impact is going to be on jobs, what the impact is going to be on infrastructure. And if that project is able to be good for the community, they should be able to sell that. Now, maybe there will be some opposition. Maybe there will be some people upset about that. But in my experience back home, people are more upset about the nondisclosure agreement and the lack of transparency than they are upset about the potential development.

Is there a specific example that you could share with us, particularly for those that are at home watching? Just for clarification, thank you.

Representative Creech

Through the chair to the representative, I think that some of it is just opportunity. You know, the window kind of moves as development happens. And I don't even think some of the requests to sign an NDA are necessarily intending to be nefarious. I'll pick on lawyers because I am one. There is just a certain amount of CYA, right? And if you can go in and you can get extra protections for your client, give it a shot. Now, I took a tour of a facility in my district a couple weeks ago, and, you know, high-tech facility. and as part of the check-in procedure, there was the long list of, here's what you're agreeing to to come into our facility. And one of them said, I agree to a nondisclosure agreement. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I just introduced a bill to say the elected officials shouldn't sign NDAs, so I'm not going to sign this. Now, I understand if you choose to not let me take the tour, no hard feelings, but I'm not going to sign this. And they said, oh, no, no, don't worry about that at all. No, no, no, come on in. It becomes just a part of the typical lawyering due diligence, I think, for some of these companies. And that's where I think if we give the elected officials the ability to say, well, legally, no, I can't do that, I think that's going to cut out a lot of the requests. Now, I also think Ohio's kind of been – in 2012 when I became a commissioner, the unemployment rate in Pickway County was 13.3%. It's now 3%. And so I think some of our communities were a little hungrier for development deals maybe back when there's not enough jobs to go around. And I think part of it's a good thing. We can afford to be a little pickier now. And so I think the residents are a little more – want a little more scrutiny of some of these deals than maybe they did 15 years ago. And so I think that with added public scrutiny, which we should be able to withstand in these deals, I think companies get a little leery and say we don't like that folks are talking about whether this is a good idea or not on Facebook. Well, you know, that's part of democracy. So I think that we are continuing to win deals without NDAs, and we shouldn't feel compelled to chase a problem that I think does not exist.

Yes.

I'm sorry. Thank you, Madam Chair. And both of you, thank you for your testimony. I do understand the spirit of what you're attempting to accomplish. But oftentimes when we try to fix something in a specific part of our state that affects maybe somebody in your district, that law has an impact on the entire state. So oftentimes it's probably maybe a good idea to have some interested parties meetings and try to come to some type of resolution simply because one size just does not always fit all. And in this particular case, you've got various municipalities, various townships, all of those have their own. And this bill could have a different impact based on their structure. So would you probably be open to maybe having those interested parties meetings and try to bring some understanding so that sort of show how it won't affect everybody in the same way in the entire state.

Okay.

Are there any other questions from members of the committee? Representative Schmidt?

Through the chair to the representative. No, I don't believe so. But if we need to make the clarification that you can't violate federal law by disclosing military secrets, we can do that. I think this is more geared towards not disclosing, not being able to sign nondisclosure agreements about deal points of potential deals.

Bob? So I think your intent is this is something new that's coming into the facility and into the region. And so signing a nondisclosure agreement before you go through the permitting processes of zoning and those kind of things is what I think you're after. You're not after an existing project that's already there that somebody wants to have you tour that may have sensitive things, maybe it's not government, but unfair competition to somebody else. I don't think you're getting into that weed. I think you're looking at coming into a region, building something new, needing all those permitting, but not showing the public that it's coming until after all of the seeds have been planted. Through the chair, to the representative, I think that is what is driving the bill. If we need any carve-outs or caveats to say, you know, we're not trying to say elected officials go share the trade secrets of businesses in your district already. That's not what we're talking about. But I do think elected officials should think carefully about what rights they sign away in the course of their official duties. I mean, if I tour a facility in my district and it turns out I come to be aware that we had an economic development deal that says they have 1,000 employees and we walk in the building and nobody's there, no, I don't think I should be bound by an NDA to say I can't do my job and go after and make sure that they're fulfilling the terms of their agreements. So I think everybody should be careful as an elected official to what degree you agree to subordinate your elected authority to the fine print of a company's bullier docs. Chair, if I could add to that. Chair, Representative, this is not trying to take away from your ability to tour something locally, and this is not about that at all. But if this committee needs more specific language, I think we'd be willing to listen and work with this committee to improve the bill if that's what is necessary. Thank you.