Alyssa Louagie (West Chester Township Trustee Board At-large (Butler County), Ohio, candidate 2025)
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Alyssa Louagie ran for election to the West Chester Township Trustee Board At-large (Butler County) in Ohio. She was on the ballot in the general election on November 4, 2025.[source]
Louagie completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Alyssa Louagie provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on October 24, 2025:
- Birth place: Cleveland, Ohio
- High school: Lakota High School, Brecksville Broadview Heights High School (moved junior year to Lakota)
- Bachelor's: University of Toledo, 1999
- Gender: Female
- Profession: Nonprofit Professional
- Incumbent officeholder: No
- Campaign slogan: Leadership that Listens
- Campaign website
- Campaign endorsements
- Campaign Facebook
- Campaign Instagram
Elections
General election
General election for West Chester Township Trustee Board At-large (Butler County) (2 seats)
Alyssa Louagie, Amanda Ortiz, Mark Welch, and Lee Wong ran in the general election for West Chester Township Trustee Board At-large (Butler County) on November 4, 2025.
Candidate | ||
Alyssa Louagie (Nonpartisan)  | ||
| Amanda Ortiz (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Mark Welch (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Lee Wong (Nonpartisan) | ||
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| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Election results
Endorsements
To view Louagie's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Louagie in this election.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Alyssa Louagie completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Louagie's responses.
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I'll start with my last name: it's pronounced Lou-EYE-jee and it's Belgian.
I have called West Chester home for more than 20 years, but my journey here started when I moved to the area as a teenager. I graduated from Lakota High School in 1995. After high school, I attended the University of Toledo, where I earned my Bachelor of Business Administration and met my husband, Mark. After graduating, we stayed in Toledo while Mark was in grad school. However, when we were ready to start a family, we knew West Chester was where we wanted to be, and we’ve been here ever since. We have two daughters—our oldest is a 2023 Lakota West grad and now attends Miami University in Oxford, and our youngest is a member of the Lakota West class of 2026. My parents still live in West Chester, and my sister and her family live in Liberty Township. For nearly 15 years, I have worked for area mental health nonprofits, helping individuals and families access critical support services. Prior to that, I started my career in corporate benefits and human resources for a Tier 1 automotive supply company, and I was trained in Six Sigma - a method for statistics-based process improvement.
In addition to my professional work, I am actively involved in the community, serving on PTOs and Lakota district committees. Beyond education, I’m engaged in the broader community through organizations like the West Chester Liberty Chamber where I serve as an ambassador and other local nonprofits.- Balance Growth - Old vs New areas and Residential vs Business - Unfortunately, some of the older areas of our township are in need of revitalization and attention. Our trustees (and the zoning board they appoint) have approved projects without adequate planning for increased traffic and road capacity.
Certain areas of our township have fancy interstate landscaping and walking trails , and other areas of our township have vape shops with neon lights (why does every vape shop have neon lights??), or empty Kroger stores, or streets in need of maintenance. We need to invest in and support our township as a whole, not just new areas.
We also need to balance investment in our residential and business corridors of the township. - Pedestrian and Traffic Safety - Sidewalks, Crosswalks, reduce Residential Speeding Our community has grown dramatically over the last 30+ years since my family first moved here. In 1990, West Chester had fewer than 40,000 residents. In 2020, there were almost 65,000 residents. We have some areas of our community that have relatively strong walkability - Beckett Ridge, for example - and other areas of our community that have almost no sidewalks (most of the east side of the township, areas off Tylersville Road, etc). I want to prioritize putting sidewalks in key areas - along our major roads, and near our schools and parks. We also need to ensure we have safe crosswalks and lighting near our parks and schools.
- Communication and Collaboration with Lakota Schools and Butler Tech I am a proud graduate of Lakota schools (I'm an OG Thunderbird from before the high school split), a Lakota parent and a volunteer. My daughters have attended 6 of the 22 schools within Lakota, including two of the oldest buildings still in use (West Freshman and Adena). Our township leadership needs to commit time and energy to being knowledgeable about Lakota schools and Butler Tech - attending important events, key board meetings, etc. Our township leadership should understand and consider the impact of township decisions on our local schools. I would also like to see the township and schools continue to collaborate on safety, as we do with school resource officers.
I decided to run for trustee last fall after 2 students in 6 months were hit in our school crosswalks, and our current trustees failed to attend the traffic safety panel Lakota hosted for the community. We need leadership that listens and engages with our community. We need leaders who are actively involved in our community beyond their role as a trustee. I am passionate about having leadership that listens to Pitt community - not only at election time but all the time.
Township trustees is the oldest and most local form of government in Ohio. You may not see your congress person at the grocery store, but you'll probably see your township trustee. As a limited home rule township, we can function with a lot of local authority on many issues, but our township can't override state laws or regulate areas the state fully controls.
I look up to my mom. She graduated in the 1960s from a rural farm town in Illinois - a class of just 32 students - and went straight into the University of Illinois College of Engineering. As a woman. In the 60s. She ended up switching to journalism after two years, but literally had a chemistry teacher tell her class "You women don't belong in my class and I intend to see you don't stay". She earned a C in that class and it's a grade she's incredibly proud of due to the way the professor actively worked against her and the few other women in the class. I hope to be as impactful, caring and amazing a woman as she is!
At the local level, leadership that listens to and engages with the local community - residents, small businesses, nonprofits, community organizations, schools, etc - is so vitally important. Township trustee is a nonpartisan position, so it's important to have individuals who will put the needs of the community above partisan politics. Elected officials must be trustworthy, transparent, curious, honest and willing to admit when they don't know something and be open to learning and growing in their knowledge.
The core responsibility of a township trustee is to serve as the legislative body at the local level. In West Chester, responsibilities include personnel decisions for the township administrator, as well as overseeing roads, police/fire/EMS, parks & cemeteries, zoning, contracts, and overall township budgeting and fiscal oversight.
I want our community to be a better place because of my involvement in it. I want to leave a legacy of encouragement, of collaboration, and of intentionality. I want to exhibit the fruits of the spirit (I learned a song about these as a child that I still sing when I think of them) - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. Whatever your faith, these are wonderful traits to strive for.
The most memorable historical event of my childhood was the Challenger space shuttle explosion. Like many elementary school students in the 1980s, we were watching it live on TV in our classroom. I remember the utter shock we all had when it exploded. I was in 3rd grade.
My first job was a summer camp counselor at Camp SWONEKY just up I-71 in Wilmington. I worked there for two summers, and it was a blast. I still have friends to this day that I worked with those two summers! In college I worked at the university bookstore and also for the International Business department.
Oh this is HARD. I am an AVID reader - 100 or more books a year - so picking just one is REALLY tough. I'm going to share the best book I've read recently - The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (the whole series, really). It's British octogenarians solving crimes. How can you not love it?
Another tough one! Honestly, I'm going to throw it back to my childhood and say Pippi Longstockings. I LOVED those books as a kid, and how can you not want to be a kid with a pet monkey, have no one tell you what to do and keep a horse on your front porch? :)
Unserious answer? Summer. I greatly dislike hot weather. My standard "unpopular opinion" response is that summer is the worst season. Ha! Seriously, however, I struggle with saying no. I want to help, I put myself in others shoes, and I sometimes struggle with overcommitting (and therefore exhausting) myself. I have tried to get better at saying no when I don't have the capacity for something, and I'm making improvements on it. Making sure my own bucket doesn't empty in trying to fill others, so to speak.
One important topic that I wish more residents were aware of is the impact of TIF (tax increment finance) districts. They are powerful tools for development and growth, but they have some important caveats and downsides as well. TIFs are geographic areas created to revitalize or stimulate economic development. Without getting too much in the weeds, the important thing to know is that TIF funds do mean that more tax money stays local to the township, but that it comes with significant restrictions on how it can be used. The taxes go into a TIF fund and it can only be spent for the benefit of the TIF district - they can't be used to repave roads wherever it is needed most.
I believe that local government is a great opportunity for involved, passionate, knowledgeable local citizens. Certainly there is a learning curve with anyone new to a position, but someone who has taken the time to learn about the position, responsibilities and our community will succeed. I am a strong advocate for term limits and fresh perspectives. Even the most experience incumbents started out new at one point.
Local township trustees should be actively involved in their local community beyond their role as township trustee. It's important to understand and engage with local residents, businesses, community organizations, faith communities and others. It is important that our trustees represent our community as a whole and does their best to balance the needs of our community. Strategic planning is a key skill for trustees, and I have developed and tracked strategic plans for many years in the nonprofits I have worked for. The ability to work collaboratively, to obtain input from a wide variety of stakeholders and to communicate effectively are key as well.
A unique thing about township trustees is that they serve as essentially both the executive and legislative branches of government at the local level, since unlike city or village councils, there is not a mayor in a township. The trustees work collectively to govern the township.
Everytown for Gun Safety
I love knocking doors. I restores my faith in humanity after seeing rude and attacking comments on social media. When you get people face-to-face, they really are generally kind and curious and interested. I think my favorite story is one a friend told me. I knocked a door and had a lovely conversation with the woman who answered about our township and how it can adapt and be an even better community. I am a Lakota West Marching Band parent, and she was a Lakota West Marching Band grandparent. It was a great conversation, and I went on to finish the rest of the doors I was knocking that day. A few days later, my friend down the street reached out to say that I made such an impression on the woman, that she had stopped to ask how she could get a yard sign - and it was her first time putting a sign in her yard for any candidate. I feel honored that she has my sign in her yard.
This past spring I was awarded the Lakota district-level Barb Bossu volunteer spirit award. It was an amazing honor because we have so many amazing volunteers in the Lakota community, and I was blessed to join some truly amazing company. Being a Lakota grad myself, the district always holds a special place in my heart, and I have loved working with many school PTOs over the years as well as a decade of serving with Lakota LEADS, a district-level parent group focused on supporting gifted and high achieving students (and families).
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
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Candidate West Chester Township Trustee Board At-large (Butler County) |
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Footnotes
