Ben Seidler announced his intention of running to represent Wheeling’s Ward 2 much more than a year ago, and that’s because he was exhausted with his own fights about neighboring properties to his Wheeling Island homestead.
Seidler, the first to file his candidacy paper with the City Clerk’s Office, joined downtown resident Charles Ballouz as two candidates running for the Ward 3 seat. Incumbent Ken Imer had not filed to run for a third term. He was the only incumbent in 2016 to be re-elected.
“I didn’t want to wait and allow our neighborhoods to deteriorate for another two years before an election season. I wanted things to start getting done back then,” Seidler explained. “Section 800 in our (city) charter gives us the right to perform a forced sale of property when municipal fines have not been paid. This code is clearly intended to be used as the final “nuclear approach” and not to reclaim a $100 citation.
“But it can’t benefit us unless the city actually does what it needs to do to actually start the timer and follow up with citations when the significant issues are not addressed. Had our city (council) started on some of these properties when I personally handed a copy of this exact ordinance to the members of council and asked them to leverage this code, we could have been that much closer to clearing and repurposing some of these abandoned properties. Unfortunately, they ignored the request.”
Seidler hopes to alter the course.
“The clock will finally start when someone in the city is pushed to do the necessary work to meet the requirements of that ordinance. I launched my campaign early in order to also let our community know loud and clear that this isn’t how it has to be. We don’t have to wait around for someone to get motivated right before an election and then fall off the grid again,” he said. “We can make change in our community immediately by following a process that has been proven to work. I had hoped to light a fire under anyone else that had it in their sights to run for this seat, to step up to the plate and partner either with me or even to push hard for change, independently. How can folks trust someone to represent them when it only seems to matter during an election season? They can’t.”
Most voters who do not reside on Wheeling Island always wonder if the Ward 2 council member will pay attention to a section of North Wheeling, Fulton, and Glenwood Heights. Seidler says he intends to meet with residents of those areas during the next few months.
“I’m already active in all of the neighborhoods in Ward 2, and I have already put together teams of people in each respective neighborhood who act as eyes and ears. I fully expect these teams of engaged residents to grow as time goes on,” he explained. “I was the first person that I am aware of to schedule community meetings for Fulton and Glenwood in order to get a good pulse on the concerns in these seemingly historically ignored neighborhoods. I remain in close contact with these folks, and I will begin to schedule more community meetings this spring.
“Many of the residents in Ward 2 neighborhoods already know that I am extremely responsive and always accessible on the street, at the store, out to dinner, by phone, text, email, or social media,” Seidler said. “I communicate with folks across each of these channels nearly each and every day. My number is 304-215-1418.”
Seidler, graduated from Wheeling Park High School in 2000 and DeVry University in Columbus, is an IT director for Ohio Coatings. He has lived in Wheeling since completing his college education and is the father of three daughters.
“I decided I was running for city council as a direct result of anger, disappointment, and feeling like I was stranded on an island with no representation, despite how loudly I cried out for help to my council representative,” he said. “After it became clear that my concerns weren’t being heard and as I started making new friends and acquaintances in my new neighborhood and those surrounding me, it became even clearer that almost none of our concerns were being heard or addressed. I grew up in Edgewood, which isn’t much different from the neighborhoods in Ward 2, but I didn’t feel like the stuff we were dealing with here would have been tolerated there.
“At that point I realized that the only way to get things done was to take our concerns directly to the respective individual departments within the city itself. Once I started following that process, I began to have a lot of success,” Seidler continued. “To this very day, I have never received a single response or acknowledgement from my councilman on any of the issues that were presented to him, despite publicly addressing council numerous times, and that’s another thing I would change.”
