Marilyn Brown

She has long been a leader for community cultural enrichment, social justice, and progressive issues. Marilyn is considered a community trailblazer in the realm of family and domestic violence prevention, serving on the boards of many organizations but also leading the efforts to create the system that provides families the help and support they need to begin the healing process. Marilyn has been at the forefront of the LGBTQ and marriage equality movements, for women's reproductive and educational freedoms, for the seamless reintegration of ex-offenders into society, for protection of workers’ safety and right to organize, and for an ongoing commitment to the care, safety, and education of our County’s children and families.

Commissioner Brown has actively led the planning, design, and construction of Franklin County’s new Public Safety Center, a state of the art facility that will transform how we house, educate, and rehabilitate the inmates serving their time. An early advocate of smart justice, Marilyn facilitated conversations in local jails and prisons and developed a program to reduce the rates of recidivism for women with substance abuse and co-occurring disorders – which is now a nationally recognized model for successful rehabilitation programs. She created the Franklin County Reentry Coalition – bringing partner organizations into the fold and increasing the success rates of ex-offenders transitioning from correctional institutions back into the community.

Marilyn’s stewardship of the construction of Huntington Park, the Common Pleas Courthouse, and the Franklin County Dog Shelter, and the renovation of the Judicial Services Building, have led to national recognition of these projects for job creation, quality contracting and construction standards, and award-winning design, construction, sustainability, accessibility, and fiscal stewardship.
As Commissioner, Marilyn has served the residents of Franklin County in a variety of roles, from Board Chair at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), Vice Chair for the Courts & Corrections subcommittee on Justice and Public Safety Committee at the National Association of Counties (NACo), and on the Boards of One Columbus and Future Ready’s Early Learning Advisory Council.

Marilyn holds a masters' degree in organizational development from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and is the author of a chapter entitled “What’s Important Now” in the book Women on Fire, vol 2. She and her husband, former Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court Eric Brown, have two daughters - Beryl and her husband Andrew; and Daryn. The Browns have three grandsons, Vincent, Max and Alex. She and Eric are members of Congregation Tifereth Israel.

Marilyn Brown is serving her fourth term as a County Commissioner – having first been elected in 2006.