From the News Record of January 14, the only printed announcement I've seen of the candidates for the Neenah 3rd Aldermanic District:
Neenah Aldermanic District 3
- Steve Erbach, 1017 Babcock St.
- Tim Hamblin, 1025 Westwind Drive
Incumbent Bruce Rhoades did not seek re-election.
You may have heard of Mr. Hamblin. If you drive west over the new double S-curve viaduct on Cecil Street you'll see a small sign off to the right that says "Timothy Hamblin Bridge". Mr. Hamblin is the former Neenah Public Works director, and that's his first "yard sign"!
I took out my nomination papers during the first week of December and filed them a week later. I had heard a rumor that Mr. Rhoades would not seek re-election, but that didn't affect my decision to run. I'd been through an aldermanic campaign in April '07 versus Lee Hillstrom and I thought that I now knew what it would take to win.
(I lost that 2007 contest by 22 votes out of over a thousand votes cast. I detailed my thoughts after that loss <here>. The beginner mistakes I made during that campaign are not going to be made again!)
When the end of December came I found that Mr. Rhoades had filed his declaration of non-candidacy on the last possible day, December 26th. New Year's Eve came along and no one else had filed papers for District 3. I felt a weird mixture of disappointment and relief: disappointment that nobody else wanted to run ... and relief that nobody else wanted to run!
I mean, when I won the special Council election to fulfill the unexpired term of the late, lamented Kip Kitzerow in November '06, there were five other people (including Mr. Hillstrom) that applied for the job, some with dandy qualifications. Of course, none of them had been coming to Council or committee meetings. That was what clinched it for me in '06: the fact that the Council members were familiar with me.
Anyway, I felt this mixture of conflicting emotions for about 6 hours. On the afternoon of December 31st, City Clerk Patty Sturn called to tell me that there would be a ballot placement drawing on Wednesday, January 7th, the day after the deadline for filing.
"Oh! You mean I have an opponent?", I asked. She told me then that it was Mr. Hamblin. That is, he had taken out his nomination papers but had not yet filed them. In the course of time, he filed them with at least the required number of signatures.
So, there's to be a race after all; a race against a long-time city official...a man with a bridge named after him!
I still believe that I know what it will take to win in April. It will still come down to the basics: what each individual voter thinks about me when I knock on his or her door. Look for me soon all over the 3rd District!