Commissioner candidate Phil Van Treuren is launching an aggressive campaign this month to highlight his family’s 100-year history and union roots in Lorain County.

Van Treuren, who is running for the seat currently held by incumbent politician Ted Kalo, said that his campaign is mailing literature focusing on his family’s history and union background to thousands of targeted Lorain households.

Van Treuren will also be personally reaching out to union leaders and government employees to introduce himself and answer any questions they might have.

In addition to the direct mail campaign, Van Treuren also released a commercial in which he talks about his family’s union history in the City of Lorain. He said that his campaign will use social media to market the commercial heavily.

“My family has lived in Lorain County for more than 100 years,” Van Treuren says in the campaign commercial. “My great-great grandfather came to the City of Lorain in the 1890’s to work at the steel mill and take care of his family, and we’ve been here ever since. I’m very proud of that.”

Last week, Van Treuren released an open letter on his website to Lorain County government employees in which he stated that he was not running for commissioner with the goal of laying off county workers, contrary to rumors that were being spread by his opponents.

“This is a boogeyman that the Good-Old-Boys Gang has conjured up in the past to seed doubts about candidates who are challenging the establishment, and to a certain degree it has worked for them,” Van Treuren wrote in the letter. “I think that the vast majority of Lorain County employees are hard-working, dependable people who earn the paychecks they are given, and I believe that we can be good stewards of taxpayer money without laying off hard-working employees.”

Van Treuren’s open letter to Lorain County employees was viewed hundreds of times and widely shared among local residents via social media.

Van Treuren will appear on the ballot in the 2012 Lorain County Election.