Northwood Councilman Dave Gallaher is throwing his hat in the mayor’s race.

It is the third time Gallaher, 53, will try to defeat Stoner for the city’s top spot.

Gallaher, who has been a councilman since 1994, said he is running for mayor simply because he thinks he can do a better job addressing issues facing the city.

“I really think the city can do better. I think we have to do better,” said Gallaher, who was a Northwood firefighter/EMT for 17 years before he ran for council.

Dave Gallaher

As mayor, he would ensure the city lives within its budget, and promote economic development, he said.

“If we are successful in one, then we really don’t have to worry about the other one. It will take care of itself. They go hand in hand,” he said. “We really need to get going on economic development in the city. I talk to people. The only thing I can compare it to is taking a cruise. If you were buying a ticket to go on a cruise and you showed up at the dock and there was one boat ready to go, and another boat that looks like it hasn’t left the dock in years, it doesn’t matter how cheap the ticket is on the one boat, you’re going to go with the boat that looks like it’s going to go someplace. I have a feeling we have to get a plan for the city and we have to move it forward.”

Northwood in the last few years has made deep budget cuts, made several layoffs, and put a proposed income tax increase on the ballot after revenues started dropping as a result of the economic recession that gripped the nation in 2008. Gallaher said there are some communities, such as Oregon, that have been more insulated from the effects of the recession due to what he calls strong leadership.

“Compare us to Oregon. I would be interested in what the difference is in the traffic count between Woodville Road and Navarre Avenue. How significant is that? If you look at the economic development differences between Northwood and Oregon, it’s staggering. Navarre Avenue is still building up and we’re still not able to get Woodville Road off the ground,” he said. We really have to be proactive. We cannot sit back and wait for people to realize what a wonderful place this is. We have to go out and sell ourselves. We have to make it happen. That’s our job. If we want to be successful, we have to create that.”

Despite an increase in revenue this year, Gallaher said the city is still on fragile financial footing.

“Right now, we’re not in very bad shape. But I think we have to be very, very careful about the money that we allocate and make sure we’re getting the most bang for our buck. We still have to watch the budget. People think we’re doing a lot better now. We moved a lot of money around and changed some funds so it looks like we’ve got more cash. We’ve just got different allocations of cash in different funds. It makes it look staggering – that we’re doing great. But it’s almost like robbing Peter to pay Paul. We’re not putting money away for capital improvements and capital replacement. It’s going into the general fund. So those are the types of things to look at,” he said.

To stimulate economic development, Gallaher said he would meet with the city’s department heads to gauge input “to determine what we have to do to be successful.”

“My take on the mayor’s job is a little bit different than Mayor Stoner’s,” said Gallaher. To me, the mayor does not run the city. He’s not qualified to run the city. If the mayor were qualified to run the city, then we wouldn’t need an administrator. We could save a tremendous amount of money. But that’s not the way the system is set up. That’s not the way our charter is set up. The mayor’s job is to be responsible to the people for the way the city is run. It has nothing to do with running the city on a day to day basis. The mayor, in my opinion, should be looking out to the future and making a decision and sharing it with the department heads. It’s up to the department heads to make that happen. They are really the experts.”

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