By James Windell
Although Dave Flack is running unopposed for the Ward 3 South Haven City Council seat, he isn’t going to take his campaign lightly. He is out talking to people and getting to know the issues in Ward 3.
As a former Global Steering and Brakes Manager for Ford Motor Company, he is used to managing people and working with a team. One of the phrases that he uses is “speed of trust,” a concept that comes from working with a team to solve important issues.
“To me when I use ‘speed of trust,’ it means that I look around and try to see who is in my organization and what they can do,” he said in a recent interview. “Then, I look for barriers and how I can remove them. I try to knock issues down and eliminate bureaucracy so we can move forward quickly. That’s how I built trust and I was successful in doing that in different jobs over my career.”
Flack wants to bring the skills he employed in his 25 years at Ford’s to the South Haven City Council. More than anything, he wants to represent people and he is eager to give back to the community.
“The one thing I want to be able to do on the city council,” he says, “is to speak for the true voice of the people. I’d like to be able to understand what they are interested in and what they are not interested in so I can represent others in the right way.”
After moving to South Haven in the past year, Flack says he got interested in the inner workings of the city when a couple tried to build a house next door to the Flacks. “Their difficulties introduced me to the city council and the Planning Commission, and I really developed an interest in what was going on in the city. Then, I thought I’m retired and I can help out. I know some things. I can be altruistic, I can grow myself, and at the same time I can help out my community.”
Flacks says that his three priorities are housing, the economy and beach safety.
“Clearly we have a need for housing,” he says. “We are a unique municipality in that we have a high percentage of STRs, but we also have a high percentage of second homeowners. This is a balance there that we have to deal with. We have to find a way to get more housing in the area and achieve a better balance.”
Building and making available housing for young families, he says, is going to be a key for both the housing issue as well as the economy. His strategy for increasing housing includes designating an individual to build a coalition to create five- and 10-year strategies to bring about more mixed housing, work with the statewide housing authority in Michigan, and working with a coalition of residents, the Planning Commission, the Zoning Board, the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, and South Haven Township.
Flack says that he recognizes South Haven’s tourist industry generates $140 million in annual revenue and that the tourist industry is crucial for the city. With this in mind, he states that the strategy going forward “should be to maintain and grow what we have and work to grow and expand our tourism season.” But it is also important to attract businesses with higher paying jobs to South Haven.
“We need to identify available industrial park land, target specific industries and companies, and sell a package that could include tax and other incentives,” he says.
But he also wants to hear from the people he will represent on the city council. “I love to talk to people,” Flack says. “People can go to my Facebook page sand let me know their thoughts.”
