ORANGE PARK — While Chuck Lindholm presses through campaign season and awaits the results of the April 14 Super Tuesday Municipal Election, his crusade has revolved around one concept: No excuses, just results.
“We need to really sharpen our pencil and start prioritizing,” he said.
Lindholm casted his bid for Seat 1 on the Town Council dais on Feb. 2. Success for him, he said, is finally leaning in and asking the hard questions that no one else will. As a faithful town resident, Lindholm said he’s seen the ins and outs of local leadership. And he’s looking forward to bringing something new to the table.
His story in Orange Park began back in 1986. A nine-year Navy veteran, Lindholm was stationed in the area for pilot training when he met his wife, Susan, a lifelong resident of the town. They moved quite a bit but always found their way back.
Lindholm worked for Vision Care for almost 17 years, and then moved to Johnson and Johnson, a fortune 500 company, for almost 30 years. During that time, he began regularly attending town council meetings, where he soon sought out ways to contribute more directly.
He joined the Historic Preservation Board and the Parks and Recreation Committee, where they carried out many significant initiatives, including rebuilding the playground at Clark Park, establishing Gano Dog Park and rehabilitating the pavilion and restrooms at T.C. Miller Community Center.
This allowed him to gain even more familiarity with the local community and the government that ran it. He wanted a seat at the table.
“I thought it’d be fun to take a stand, [and] run for office,” he said
During his time in the corporate world, Lindholm said he spent a lot of time working with national governments and local communities to meet critical healthcare needs. Lindholm said his career experience has made him familiar with not only business, but fiscal responsibility. Something his campaign is keen on.
“The reason [I’m] running was because the town’s budget has exploded in the last four years. It’s gone up [by] over 130%. When you think about that, mathematically, that’s 25% per year for four straight years.
“The spending has gotten ahead of the town’s ability to bring in revenue. And yet, the town continues to manage its budget. So, how do they close that gap?”
The biggest issue that he wants to address, he said, is balancing the town’s growing budget and sinking revenue. He said right now the town is relying too heavily on grants.
“We need to address our bottom line just from a straight profit loss. The town, in some ways, is a business. If you’ve got costs and you’ve got revenue, they’ve got to figure out how to balance. That’s a big one. It’s a huge one.
“We can’t continue to keep spending. Particularly if the revenue’s not there. The way to address that is to increase taxes. That’s what we’ve been doing,” said Lindholm, pointing to the town’s doubled costs for water and sewer, and garbage collection as examples.
Lindholm said he questions the effect that spending is having on residents, who in turn must deal with rising taxes.
Another challenge he hopes to address if he succeeds in the election is building revenue streams to offset hefty taxes, such as private/public business partnerships. He also said he has thought of collaborating with the Clay County Chamber of Commerce to make that happen.
“I’m excited about that. I’ve had a lot of experience and success in business and driving some innovation and growth.
“Every creative dollar that we’re able to generate on the business side is an opportunity to build our revenue,” he said.
Savoring Orange Park’s small-town feel is another priority, all while maintaining the amount of traffic that keeps the town visible. Although there’s no significant residential growth in the town, which has more than 9,000 residents, he said that it’s important to look at other outlets. While living in Singapore, he said, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew led the small island with little to no resources. But he catapulted it onto the world stage, simply by asking questions and pulling the country by its bootstraps. Lindholm hopes to do the same with Orange Park.
“I’m not saying that we’re going to go onto the world stage for the most part, but the model showcases what real leadership can do,” he said.
Lindholm said he’s not running to be everyone’s best bud, but to bring out a rigor that he believes the council hasn’t had in a while. He’s hoping to bring new conversations, direction and change.
“It’s a judgement issue. It’s a leadership issue. Why haven’t we been asking the hard questions to sort of figure out where those dollars and cents have been going?”