Bob Cottrell, a 30-year Summit County resident with experience in the real estate industry, is running as a Republican candidate for Summit Board of County Commissioners District 2 seat. 

Cottrell is running against write-in candidate Kevin Adamson in the June Republican primary, the winner of which will go on to be the Summit County Republican Party’s nominee for the commissioner seat in the Nov. 5 general election. The seat is currently held by Tamara Pogue, a Democrat, who is running for reelection. 

Cottrell is an attorney specializing in real estate titles. He moved to the county in 1993 and currently serves as contract consultant for companies developing real estate in several Rocky Mountain states. 

“Unfortunately, it has become much more difficult for our hard-working local families to live and work and raise children here in just the last 25 years,” Cottrell said in a statement shared with the Summit Daily News. “I am running for these families and the kitchen-table issues that are causing them to struggle.”

Cottrell criticized the lack of property tax relief from county commissioners last year at a time when property taxes were set to significantly increase as well as “county government that appears to dislike the very people who invest in the real estate that lodges most of our visitors, the engine of our locals’ businesses.”

He added that many of the county’s workforce housing strategies “lack clear thinking or innovation” and proposed allowing for accessory dwelling units to be built without deed restrictions as a way to help alleviate the housing shortage. 

“I don’t believe that every challenge we face is a ‘crisis’ that requires the heavy hand of government regulation and government bureaucrats to fix,” Cottrell stated.