By James Windell
Eddie Polk remembers what Elkenburg Park was like when he was a kid.
“I have beautiful memories growing up around the Elkenburg Park area,” he says. “Historically, Elkenburg Park has been a family gathering place. We used to have a very close community back then. Everybody would come to Elkenburg Park and bring their kids and play basketball.”
Eddie Polk and his children all went through South Haven schools and graduated from South Haven High School. It’s always been the feeling of a hometown community that convinced Polk and his wife to buy a house in South Haven 30 years ago.
It is his fondness for the city that persuaded Polk to run for the South Haven City Council.
“I was already serving on the Planning Commission,” Polk says, “so I got some background and some baseline experience there helping me to understand some of the issues the city council is dealing with.”
When he was approached about becoming a city council member, he says that he wondered how effective he could be on the council. “I didn’t know if I have enough experience to be effective on the city council,” he says. “However, when I think about it, I see this as a greater opportunity to learn more and get more involved with my community.”
He says that he recognizes some of the challenges that the city council has faced. “One of them that I recognize is the challenge in dealing with some of the issues, but more so working as a team,” he notes. “Based on my experience, you come up with the best solutions when everybody works collaboratively.”
His experience includes 45 years working for Consumers Energy and for Entergy at the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant. Although he retired in 2022, he was offered an opportunity to return to work in January 2024 for Holtec, the current owners of the nuclear plant, and he jumped at the chance.
“When they closed down the plant,” he says, “it was a big heartbreaker because the performance of the plant had gone from one of the worst performing plants to one of the top performing nuclear power plants. Now I want to be there because I had grown up there.”
Over the years in leadership positions with Consumers Energy and Entergy, he developed skills as a supervisor and instructor. “I can draw on all of that experience on the city council,” he says. “On the city council, I think I can be effective in helping build a better bridge as we solve issues.”
He firmly believes that the South Haven City Council needs to regain public trust and public respect. “That’s vital to any organization and I think some of that has been lost,” he says. “My hope is that I can help the council become a lot more effective and regain that trust and respect from the community.”
