My name is Gary York, and I’m honored to be running for Madison Township Trustee.

Madison Township has been my home since 1972, and my wife Jen’s since 1976. We both grew up here and proudly graduated from Groveport Madison High School in 1983. In 2017, we built our home in Groveport and moved in the following year. As a proud blended family, we are blessed with four children and three grandchildren. Our lives are firmly rooted in this community, and our faith plays a central role—we are active members of Fellowship Baptist Church, where we find strength, purpose, and connection.

I dedicated 37 years to public service in law enforcement, with over 30 of those years spent serving the City of Groveport. In 2018, I was honored to be appointed Police Chief for Madison Township—a role I held until my retirement in December 2024. Throughout my career, I have remained committed to the principles of integrity, accountability, and transparency—values I pledge to uphold as your Township Trustee.

I believe effective local leadership begins with listening, showing up, and putting people before politics. With your support, I’m ready to continue serving the community I love—this time as your Madison Township Trustee.

While serving as your Police Chief, I worked hard alongside my team, our Board and Community Partners to achieve the following:

• Increase staffing levels

• Maintain minimum staffing levels of two officers per shift 

• Improved Relationship between the FOP Capitol City Lodge #9 and Madison Township 

• Reduced Grievances

• Reduced Legal Cost 

• Revamped the hiring process to get a more qualified and diversified staff

• Revamped promotional process to assessment center style 

• Promoted the first female Sergeant in Township history

• Established a plan of succession through promotion and professional training 

• Established a training plan to focus on policy through monthly scenario-based training, open ranges, and open mats for subject control, in-class training courses, Crisis Intervention Training, and yearly legal update date training

• Changed the culture of the Department and how we policed the community

• Established community engagement with involvement in community events such as Canal Winchester & Groveport's Touch-A-Truck, 4th of July, and Labor Day, the Santa Parade in Blacklick Estates, and Christmas in the Village in Canal Winchester, schools, businesses, and programs such as women's self-defense classes, National Night Out, Faith in Blue, Beggars Night

• Reimagined and modernized the Department Patch to reflect the community we serve 

• Established Department core values of Honor, Respect, Professionalism, and Integrity

• New graphic design for cruisers

• Added additional cruisers to the fleet

• Initiated a preventative maintenance program, extending the life of our cruisers

• New uniform design

• External Ballistic Vest Carriers

• Rifle Plates, Carriers, and Ballistic Helmets for Active Threat Response

• Guardian Angels

• Tourniquets

• NARCAN

• Glass Break Tools

• Halligan Bar & Breaching Equipment

• Lexipol policy and procedures

• Updated and, in most cases, drafted job descriptions

• Ohio Collaborative Certification

• New Motorola portable radios

• New Motorola mobile radios

• New back-channel Motorola radio server, base, portables & mobile radios

• Body Worn Cameras (Axon Fleet/BWC with holster and taser activation sensors)

• Matrix Records Management System

• Monthly stats provided to the Board and area elected officials

• New duty weapons (Glock Model 45) 

• New weapon-mounted lights

• New duty holsters

• Less lethal shotguns

• New men's and women's locker rooms

• New records room

• New storage room

• New training room

• New report room

• Remodeled patrol room

• Remodeled patrol office

• Remodeled prisoner holding cell number 2 with a bench

• Remodeled vestibule and lobby

• Remodeled and freshly painted stairwells

• Relocated all supervisors' offices to one hallway

• New exterior security cameras

• New interior security cameras

• Drug Dropbox, Flag Dropbox

• Social Media Accounts (Facebook & X)

• FREE Women's Self-Defense Classes

• Established the first Safety Exchange Zone in the Groveport/Madison area

• Event Tents and table coverings with the department logo for Community events

• SRO Canal Winchester School District drafted a contract

• Two SROs with the Groveport Madison School District drafted contract(s)

• New Department Chaplain Position

• Starfish Assignment, where our officers provided and read books to children in Canal WInchester and Groveport Madison Schools

• Recycling Program to recycle all paper waste received by the Police Department

• For the first time in its fifty-year history, the name Madison Township Police and address number 4567 were affixed to the outside of the Police Building

• Authorized Personnel Only Signs on Police Building

• Memorial Plaques for Chief Michael Ratliff and Officer Brian Beach 

• Secured Flock Cameras & Mobile Pro Video Trailer via Crime Reduction Grant

• Secured approximately $736,536 in grant funding

  • • Ohio Attorney General Body Armor 

    • Office of Criminal Justice Services 

      • • • Crime Reduction 

          • ARRPA

          • Body-Worn Camera

    • Edward Byrne Memorial (Federal) Justice Assistance Grant - Servers

    • Community Oriented Policing Services – U.S. Department of Justice - Hiring

Grant funding allowed for equipment purchase and/or hiring officers outside of levied monies to serve the Township better and protect you. 

I'm frugal and take my responsibility as a Steward of the taxpayers' money seriously. After all, as a resident of Madison Township, this is my money as well. As Chief, I was the one who would go around the station and turn off lights that didn't need to be on, turn down the heat that wasn't necessary, and, in the summertime, keep the station a bit warmer than it should have been. But I was trying to pinch every penny on a shoestring budget. 

Unlike cities, which typically receive their revenue from an income tax, townships rely on funds from property taxes, which are collected only twice a year. A minimum of 25% carryover was required to operate the Department until the first settlement comes in by late March or early April. 

I'm proud of my financial accomplishments with the department. I always worked hard preparing the department's budgets and included others so that they would learn the process. 

In addition to creating the budget spreadsheets, I aimed to develop and maintain a strategic plan for the department. This way, we could determine our current and future needs and map out plans or phases, as I would call them, for remodeling projects within the department. 

One of my regrets is not having had the opportunity to complete a critical remodeling project for the police station. This project was intended to address much-needed improvements to the prisoner intake and processing area, as well as the restrooms within the facility. At present, both employees and arrested individuals share the same restroom facilities. This arrangement is not only unsanitary but also poses significant safety concerns for our officers and civilian staff. If elected Trustee, I am hopeful that we will have the opportunity to complete this important project.

 City of Canal Winchester: 

In early 2024, my Office Manager and I worked diligently to put together what we thought was an excellent plan for policing services in Canal Winchester, knowing the city's contract with Fairfield was set to expire later that year. Canal Winchester had always been a goal of mine from day one. 

I made it abundantly clear to my officers that we needed to be visible to the residents, businesses, and schools of Canal Winchester. After all, they are paying for our services and deserve to receive something from us in return, even though when they call for help, their call is going to Fairfield County, and the likelihood of us knowing or responding will be very low. Nevertheless, we will patrol Canal Winchester, calls permitting. 

I worked hard to increase our visibility and ensure that our officers could monitor the Fairfield County Sheriff's radio, and when necessary, communicate with their radio room to offer assistance. Eventually, this led to a meeting with the Fairfield County Sheriff, his communications team, and representatives from Franklin County EMA and Motorola. Ultimately, the next step was to purchase new Motorola mobile and portable radios for our officers. To enable our officers to monitor both Franklin County and Fairfield County radio rooms via the scan function, I had to write a letter to the director of the Ohio Multi-Agency Radio Communication System (MARCS). A lot of effort was put into this. Still, it was imperative that my officers knew what was happening in Canal Winchester and could assist residents, businesses, and others in case they were just seconds away. 

I began collecting statistics on our activities and reporting them to our Board, the mayor, and council members monthly. 

Occasionally, questions about different entries were asked, but after a brief learning period, those stopped. 

I recall a Canal Winchester Council member once questioning me about the statistics, specifically regarding the amount of time my officers spent in the city that month. He broke it down to basically that they had not spent enough time, in his opinion, that month, compared to what the residents were paying in property taxes. 

Instead of getting upset, which I didn’t, I was excited that he had taken the time to read the stats. We didn’t have the contract and had obligations to respond to calls outside of Canal Winchester. We would have had cars on Canal Winchester if we had the contract. 

Canal Winchester Local Schools:

The Canal Winchester Local Schools approached me in August of 2022 about providing the district with a School Resource Officer. This was an exciting time for me and my officers. Madison Township PD would have an officer in a Canal Winchester School for the first time. To this day, we still have an officer assigned to the Middle School in Canal Winchester. The relationship between that officer and the district is outstanding. 

That same year, we were approached by the Athletic Director at the High School and asked to provide officers to work security (special duty) for the home Football and Basketball Games. 

In 2023, our officers made multiple arrests at the first game of the season against Groveport when three individuals, two juveniles and one adult, were arrested for bringing loaded, fully automatic Glock handguns into the Football Stadium. Our officers were true heroes that night and exemplified the true essence of our core values of Honor, Respect, Professionalism, and Integrity. There were no injuries, and our officers were honored by the City of Canal Winchester, the Groveport Madison Board of Education, and the Madison Township Board of Trustees. I am so proud of every one of them to this day. As I would often tell them, this is a Proud Chief Moment!