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Democrat Lisa Zukoff announced Tuesday she will make a run for the 4th District House of Delegates seat being vacated by incumbent Mike Ferro.
Zukoff, of Moundsville, said she watched this year's sessions of the Legislature, and came to believe lawmakers have "lost sight of the common, everyday working person."
She was personally discouraged by budget cuts made to education, and by lawmakers' efforts to eliminate Regional Education Service Agencies.
"Personally, I believe education is the key to changing West Virginia," Zukoff said. "An educated workforce brings jobs to West Virginia, and cutting money to education isn't the right thing to do from my perspective. Education is the key reason I want to run."
Ferro, D-Marshall, is a retired teacher who will instead seek a Marshall County Commission seat next year, and Zukoff said his departure from the Legislature also "is one of the drivers" leading her to the ballot in 2018.
She has filed her pre-candidacy papers for the 4th District race with the West Virginia Secretary of State's Office, and this will allow her to begin raising money for next year's election. The 4th District includes all of Marshall County and the southeastern portion of Ohio County.
Candidates won't officially file for the 2018 ballot until January.
Zukoff was a candidate for the West Virginia Senate in 2016, but lost the general election to Republican Mike Maroney. She is a West Virginia University graduate with a degree in political science, but in recent years she enrolled at Wheeling Jesuit University with hopes of obtaining a degree in education that would lead her to the classroom. She is currently six hours short of her teaching certification, and said after student teaching she no longer wishes to be a teacher.
"All of the bureaucratic paperwork teachers must do hampers how they teach," she said. "But I do have a good understanding of what they go through each day."
Zukoff has experience in both the public and private sectors of the housing industry and finance business. She is a former executive director of the Wheeling Housing Authority, and she has created jobs through housing construction and her family-owned small business, Accessories Ltd. Moundsville. She also operates a business consulting firm.