Patty Day is running for Hillsboro city auditor in the May 2 primary election, a position she has held since last year when she was appointed to replace former auditor Alex Butler after he resigned to become Highland County auditor.

Day’s previous experience in Hillsboro city government has included several years of service on city council, for which she successfully won an at-large position in 2021, after having been appointed by the Highland County Republican Central Committee to represent the third ward.

Day’s other experience in public service encompassed a 40-year career in public health as a nurse and certified family nurse practitioner.

Having obtained a master’s degree from Otterbein University, Day said that she has worked in many different capacities in her career in which, “planning and budgeting was most certainly a requirement.”

Beyond her vocational background and city legislative and administrative experiences, Day has been involved in many volunteer organizations including the Highland County Society for Children and Adults. She was appointed early last year to be the fifth executive secretary of the organization, which assists Highland County residents with special medical needs and is the beneficiary of the annual fundraising telethon, organized by area Rotary clubs, that will be held this year on March 29 from 7-9 p.m.

Day, along with her husband Herb, has run the radio stations Fun Oldies Herb Day Radio and Red White and Blue Herb Day Country Radio for several years. She recently held a public meet and greet at Southside Praise and Worship Center in Hillsboro, during which the candidate informally addressed concerns of attending citizens.

She said that the people who stopped by did so with the desire to communicate their ideas in the informal setting without some of the potentially intimidating constraints that often silence public comment in representative government legislation processes like formal city council meetings.

“Some came with ideas that they would actually like to see the city do. Start listening to the concerns of citizens was something we heard,” Day said.

She spoke of another conversation in which people had come to the meet and greet hoping to get assistance for problems that they had not been able to mitigate despite their attempts to do so.

“One gentleman attended that I remember from when I was on council,” she said. “He brought an elderly couple with him and was their spokesperson. He was asking for the administration or council to assist the elderly couple who were handicapped and could not get access to the alley beside their home to exit to the street to attend doctor appointments because of a business keeping the alley blocked with their delivery trucks.”

She said that the man told her that they had been unsuccessful getting follow-up responses from officials and that “they are still dealing with the same problems,” despite their efforts.

“These are the kind of concerns that I am hearing from the public,” she said. She said that many people have told her that they feel that their concerns as individuals are not being heard, validated, addressed or resolved.

Day is running for city auditor against interim city treasurer Dawson Barreras. He was appointed to his current post after the resignation of former city treasurer Steven Conrad.

Juliane Cartaino is a stringer for The Times-Gazette.