Candidate stresses business development

Election 2011

EDITOR'S NOTE

Traverse City voters on Nov. 8 will determine the city commission's makeup for the next two years. Two candidates are vying for mayor, while seven commission hopefuls are competing for three open seats.

The Record-Eagle will profile each candidate, available at Record-Eagle.com/election as they are published.

DAVID FORD

Age: 49

Occupation: Principal at Ford Insurance Agency in Traverse City

Experience: No government experience; involved with several community groups

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David Ford

October 14, 2011

BY ART BUKOWSKI abukowski@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Fri Oct 14, 2011, 07:59 AM EDT

TRAVERSE CITY — David Ford is all business.

Ford, a principal at Ford Insurance Agency in Traverse City, has a strong interest in city business development. It's one of the main reasons he decided to run for city commission.

"I had this idea a couple of years ago that business needs another seat at the table," he said. "If Traverse City is going to continue to grow and be a prosperous area, we have to do more to address the needs of businesses."

Seven candidates will vie for three commission seats during the Nov. 8 election. Citizens also will choose a new mayor in a separate vote.

Ford said he wants to remove red tape and make it easier for businesses to further develop and expand. Hagerty Insurance Agency in 2009 inked a deal with the city in which the business agreed to expand if the city paid for and built the Old Town parking deck. Discussions on that project stretched over several meetings, and Ford believes that process could have been streamlined.

"As an outsider, I watched the Hagerty process kind of unfold, and it seemed like it took an awfully long time," he said. "Many people would have given up and done something someplace else ... some friends of mine said, 'If that's what it takes to build a building in Traverse City, why would someone else want to do it?'"

Ford also is in favor of brownfield plans, tax-capture districts and other items that use public money to help support private investment or development.

"There's some projects that maybe just need a little boost," he said.

Among other goals, Ford said he'd like to lead a drive to improve the Eighth Street corridor. The street itself is a "potholed mess," he said, and he's troubled by a lack of quality development in the heavily traveled corridor.

"I drive down Eighth Street regularly, and it just seems like there's something missing there," he said. "Something needs to happen, and I would like to see that kind of improved."

Ford doesn't have a plan just yet, and doesn't believe the corridor should be developed for development's sake.

"It should be to not just approve the next thing that comes through, but it should have a reason to it, a theme to it, some sustainability," he said.

During the summer, Grand Traverse County tests area beaches for E. coli, a bacteria that can cause illness. Ford said he'd like the city and local authorities to take a more aggressive approach at controlling troublesome E. coli spikes.

"It does not help when people want to relocate here or they want to expand or anything like that," he said. "I know the city's working on some technology to improve that, and I'm hopeful that whatever they do with the grant money they've got can solve the problem, but that should just be handled by civil engineers and be done."

Ford also wants to push for more infrastructure improvements in the city's neighborhoods.

"The neighborhood streets are caving in all the time," he said. "You have people in every neighborhood who say, 'If I ever sell my house, how am I ever going to get top dollar if it's a ... pothole-patched street?'"