Kathy Pollauf was unsuccessful in her run for council in 2007 and 2009. In 2011, she decided not to run.

But on Thursday, she was scheduled to be sworn in to take the council seat vacated by Clint Wassserman, who resigned on Monday as council president to take a job with the Lucas County prosecutor’s office.

Pollauf, of Corduroy Road, didn’t run this year because “all the same people are going to run and they all have their followings.”

In addition, her new massage therapy business on Navarre Avenue is thriving.

“I opened my business in May. It’s quite successful. It’s really taken off. I am there every day. I’m so blessed,” she said.

After Monday’s council meeting, she heard about Wasserman’s resignation and that she would likely fill the seat since the city charter states that the next candidate who finished with the next highest vote in the previous election, which was Pollauf, filled the vacancy.

She said she called city Law Director Paul Goldberg after hearing a rumor that the seat would not be filled, since the general election, in which all seven seats on council are up for grabs, was just two months away.

“I thought, `You have to follow the charter and fill it,”’ she said.

Goldberg agreed, she said, saying she was next in line.

Although she will only have the seat until Dec. 1, when a new council is seated, she is pleased to serve.

“I always had an interest in politics. I don’t know why. Something kept pulling me to it,” she said.  

Pollauf, an independent, has been involved in issues, mostly involving public safety, in the past. She said she had pressured the city to lower the 50 mph speed limit on Corduroy Road after a neighbor was run over and killed by a car.

“There was just so much traffic, and it wasn’t being policed. It took me over three years to go in front of council and say you have to lower the speed limit,” she said. “It’s now 45 mph. Now there’s more policing, and if you go five mph over the speed limit, you’re still going to get a ticket, but if you go 55 mph, it’s a court appearance.”

She also got a tornado siren installed in the neighborhood.

“The day before my son was born, a tornado came through and ripped off part of the roof from our barn. We didn’t know there was a tornado in the area because there was no siren,” said Pollauf. “So I went in front of council, and they said I lived in a `dead zone’ and that it was too expensive. I asked how much it would cost Oregon if they didn’t have a siren and one of my kids was swept away. A couple of months later, there was a tornado siren in my yard. It’s pretty loud when it goes off, but that’s okay. My children motivated me to do that. When I was single, before I got married, I would never have done anything like that.”

She sympathizes with a group of Oregon residents, some of whom are in wheelchairs, who recently demonstrated on Navarre Avenue protesting the lack of sidewalks between Coy and Lallendorf roads.

“When I see people in their motorized wheelchairs going down Navarre, it is so dangerous,” she said. “It’s terrifying. I’ve seen them come up Navarre, past Coy, get onto the street and ride that curb. It’s going to take someone get killed before something is done,” she said. “There should be a sidewalk all the way to Lallendorf. I totally agree with that.”

City officials met with the demonstrators a few weeks ago, saying they would have to circulate petitions in the area because property owners would be assessed if sidewalks were installed.

Pollauf was born in East Toledo, but has lived in Oregon since 1996.

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