From the Seneca Journal January 1, 2010 Reprinted without permission
SENECA — Stuart Pohl, a 55-year-old businessman with a successful restaurant on Seneca’s prominent RAM Cat Alley, is running for Seneca City Council.
“I filed about a week ago,” Pohl said. “It was actually after The Journal did an article that said only the four had signed up. That morning I looked at the city’s Web site and saw nothing. Nothing at all about any election, any cutoff date. So I said, ‘son of a gun,’ and filed.”
Pohl, who runs the The Spot on the Alley restaurant with his wife, Wendy, is a native of Michigan. He graduated from Colorado University with a degree in accounting and finance. After graduating, Pohl returned to Michigan, where he was a public accountant for 10 years before entering the private sector, working for an engineering company and construction company there, rising to become a chief financial officer.
Pohl and his wife moved to Seneca 12 years ago, and several years after opened up their own business. The Spot on the Alley has now been a dining hot spot in downtown Seneca for nearly a decade.
Pohl said he didn’t want to get into any negative politics while running for City Council.
“There’s no particular issue. It’s just that I’m fortunate I’ve got a business downtown here, and I have some extra time I can devote to public service,” Pohl said. “It’s something I’ve thought about doing for years. There’s no one on the council in mind who’s done something wrong. But can we do better? Yeah, we probably can. I’m just asking for a chance.”
Pohl said one of his most definitive characteristics as a councilman, should he be elected, would be a principle of fiscal restraint.
“I’d be very tight with money. The first thing I’d look at is do we absolutely positively have to raise taxes? And isn’t there the possibility of lowering taxes? Are we doing everything we need on a daily basis to provide value to the citizens of Seneca?” he said.
“It never hurts to have a new face in there. I think I’m going to look at things a little differently.”
Meanwhile, The Journal also received confirmation that James Sarver, a Seneca resident with a listed home on Townsville Street has also filed to run for council, taking the field up to six when including the four incumbents up for re-election, Ernest Riley, Joel Ward, Warren Bright and Andrea Alewine.
Election filing ends at noon, Jan. 8. The municipal election is March 9.
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Brother, knowing you for nearly 50 years I can attest to your intellectual capacity but more importantly your ability to reasonably apply logic. Your skills with people and relationships make you a great choice in any public office!! Good luck to you in this endeavor, I know you do it out of sincere motivation to make things better for others.
ReplyDeleteSigned, the brother your mother loves more,
Bruce Pohl