Charles wants to ‘take politics out of local government’

Four years after Justin Charles was the Democratic Party’s nom­i­nee for Clark County judge-exec­u­tive, he is run­ning again — this time as a Republican.

“My polit­i­cal views align more with Republicans right now, but I’m fair­ly mod­er­ate,” he said in an inter­view. “Politics is not impor­tant to me. That’s the real rea­son I’m doing this. I want to take the pol­i­tics out of local government.”

Charles lost to Republican Les Yates in the 2022 gen­er­al elec­tion after win­ning the Democratic primary.

He said he reg­is­tered as a Democrat when he was 18 to be able to vote in the pri­maries, but he noticed that this year there isn’t a Democratic pri­ma­ry race for any local office. That’s because Clark County has been trend­ing Republican for years.

That isn’t why he changed par­ties, though.

“I’ve always been con­ser­v­a­tive,” he said. “I was raised that you spend less than you make and you take care of what you’re sup­posed to take care of, and things like that. And that’s real­ly the only rea­son I switched.”

“You’re here to serve the peo­ple,” and pol­i­tics shouldn’t have any­thing to do with it, he said.

“I feel like peo­ple should do some kind of pub­lic ser­vice in their life­time,” and he’s reached the point where he thinks he could make a con­tri­bu­tion, he said.

But he said that if he is elect­ed coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive, it won’t be a step­ping stone to some oth­er office.

“I’m strict­ly doing this to help the peo­ple of this coun­ty,” he insisted.

Charles, 44, is the own­er of Charles Electric, a busi­ness his father start­ed in the 1970s. They worked togeth­er until his dad was 80.

The can­di­date was “born and raised” in Winchester and grad­u­at­ed from George Rogers Clark High School in 2000. He was on the golf team, and they were state run­ners-up his senior year. He attend­ed Lindsey Wilson for a year on a golf schol­ar­ship, then trans­ferred to Morehead State University for anoth­er year, and then came home to work in the fam­i­ly business.

Charles and his wife, Ashley, have a 7‑year-old son, Knox, and they are mem­bers of St. Joseph Catholic Church. Charles coached eighth-grade bas­ket­ball for a cou­ple of years when Clark Middle tran­si­tioned into Robert D. Campbell Junior High.

“I want to bring the people’s voice back to that office,” he said when asked why he was run­ning to be the county’s chief admin­is­tra­tive offi­cer. “I have no mag­ic tricks up my sleeve. All I know is hard work, and I will do that for the peo­ple of this coun­ty,” he said.

Hard work, hon­esty, and integri­ty are what he said he would bring to the job. He said his back­ground in elec­tri­cal con­struc­tion and busi­ness man­age­ment pre­pares him for local gov­ern­ment. Working on projects, he explained, helps him under­stand how to stay with­in one’s means and still reach one’s goals.

Charles said the biggest chal­lenge fac­ing the Fiscal Court is its dif­fi­cult finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. He said the coun­ty judge and oth­er offi­cials “need to take a real­ly hard look at all of our spend­ing — I mean from the top to the bottom.”

The coun­ty gov­ern­ment, he said, must look at what it can cut and do without.

“You’ve just got to stay with­in your means,” as with run­ning a busi­ness or a house­hold, he rea­soned. “My main objec­tive is to get us back to square as fast as pos­si­ble,” he said. “I know it’s going to take a lot of work.”

And it will take coöper­a­tion, which has been lack­ing in recent years, he added.

Something Charles wants to avoid is rais­ing taxes.

“I think that’s the last thing you want to do, but if it’s nec­es­sary to bal­ance things out, I under­stand,” he said.

As for spe­cif­ic plans to man­age the ris­ing costs of ser­vices such as the jail, emer­gency med­ical ser­vices, and fire pro­tec­tion, Charles said he is “not well-versed enough on all the expen­di­tures to say a hun­dred per­cent one way or another.”

He said he want­ed to spend time with the heads of those depart­ments to assess the sit­u­a­tion and devel­op ideas. One of his goals is to see more devel­op­ment in Clark County.

“We def­i­nite­ly need to grow,” he said. “If you look at Madison and Montgomery and sur­round­ing coun­ties, I think we’re behind.”

The east­ern bypass, he said, “would be prime for devel­op­ment,” but he would like to get input from res­i­dents about where growth should occur.

“Farming is impor­tant,” Charles said when asked about farm­land preser­va­tion, but he added that he is opposed to infringe­ment of prop­er­ty rights.

“I don’t see how you can tell peo­ple who own land what they can do with their land. I real­ly don’t,” he said.

Charles said he doesn’t expect that admin­is­ter­ing coun­ty gov­ern­ment and doing the things that need to be done will be easy.

“I don’t want any­one to think that I’m smarter than any­one else who’s ever done this, but what I will bring is effort,” and, he added,  “effort will take you a long way.”