Ted Finnarn presented the CAUV Defender Award to Representative Rodney Creech at the recent Farm Forum.

Submitted photo

NEW PARIS — State Representative Rodney Creech (R) of Preble County, received the CAUV Defender Award at the recent Farm Forum hosted by U.S. Representative Warren Davidson on Saturday, March 4, at National Trails Schools in rural New Paris.

Creech has served in the Ohio General Assembly since first being elected in 2020, and represents all of Preble County and portions of Montgomery and Butler counties. He was recently named as Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and previously served as a Preble County Commissioner. Creech is a strong advocate of agriculture and of farm and woodland owners rights to “reasonable real estate taxes” based on a property’s “use” value, rather than it’s “speculative” sales or so called “fair market value”, which is often influenced by foreign entity purchases.

Creech has pledged to support the Current Agricultural Use Valuation (CAUV) Law, and thus he was presented the CAUV Defender Award. The prestigious award was presented to him by farmer-attorney Ted Finnarn of Darke County, who helped to write the original CAUV Law in 1974-76, and has served on the Ohio Department of Taxation’s CAUV Advisory Committee ever since, for a record 47 years. Finnarn who is sometimes referred to as “Mr. CAUV”, was recently named by President Biden to be the chairman of the State of Ohio, Farm Services Administration (FSA).