Meet Will

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A former school teacher, baseball coach , group investor and avid fisherman. Will loves where he lives , heeded the call to serve and is constantly working to help others. Living in Stuart for more than 30 years, he has seen the changes first hand and knows the heritage of this special place we all call home. He also understands the need to protect what we have before it is too late. Once again being called to serve, Will is committing himself to better his community.  Let's join together and support Will in this fight to Save Stuart. 

In 1990, After graduating with a BA in Secondary Education with a major in History and minor in Biology I landed in Orlando and in the three years there experienced what runaway growth looks, feels and sounds like. Stuarts small-town charm and reputation for outstanding fishing played a large part in my 1993 decision to call this place my home.  Seeking a better understanding of the framework of our education system I’ve sought work in parochial, Dept. of Juvenile Justice and public schools. During this time, I began to dabble in the financial markets and like the vast naive majority blew up in spectacular fashion as a bubble popped. This humiliating event only motivated me to dig deeper resulting in answers and insights in how our financial system works and exactly which entities benefit the most. This past failure is precisely the reason why I can now recognize what others miss. I have developed a strong understanding of how our financial system is used as a key mechanism to effect change, which typically is asset transfer and destruction of competition. This knowledge provided the necessary competence and confidence needed to launch my financial asset management company in 2009 followed in 2014 with a pooled investment company, which I serve as manager and general partner respectively.   Along the way, I’ve volunteered for my condominium associations board helping bring the community together.  Additionally, served as deputy chairperson and finance chairperson for a local non-profit organization, playing a role in preventing a merger which lacked evidence of benefit and may have even harmed some small businesses in our community.  Our current Stuart City Commissioners are at best naïve, as evidenced by their embracing a plan and recommendations that will effect change in the form of transforming residential units from low density into high-density in turn eliminating our historic small-town. I do not intend to allow the naïve to blow up our small-town in spectacular fashion. If elected, my first action would be attempting to rescind the recommendations they’ve sent to Tallahassee. Recommendations allowing doubling density in our town. It is precisely the small-town feel and charm that brings so many to Stuart. The exodus from big cities coupled with extremely loose monetary policy has caused housing prices to skyrocket and availability to plummet. Having owned an investment property, I am acutely aware of the challenges those seeking housing are facing as well as the interest from investment firms based in places like Manhattan. I’ve seen the looks on the faces, heard the stories, have lost good neighbors and have had the phone calls from the firms. I’m aware of the rent to income ratio nightmare both renters and landlords are facing. The need for affordable housing is real. But, changing the word affordable to “attainable” and allowing big corporations to control the rental market is not the answer. The financial system is designed to enable these big corporate landlords to survive on thinner margins, pricing “mom and pop” landlords out of the market. Once an effective monopoly of the rental market is attained, they will have pricing power. Any honest person knows how this development will impact affordability. No! Government subsidies are not the answers as these are effectively subsidies to big corporations allowing them to maintain lower wages and margin advantages over local “mom and pop” business owners. Part of the solution to home affordability is having businesses in the area that can pay wages which allow their employees to live in our community. Responsible growth is good. I’ve been listening and hear what the people want. In the past, I’ve dug in against potentially harmful projects and I’m digging in again.  

Aside from laughing, the first thought I had when asked to run for a political office was to say, “Yea, NO!”. However, those asking were good people, the kind of people I’ve seen give away their most valuable asset, time, helping our community. They’ve spent countless hours away from their own family and children while helping others. These are the kind of people I feel comfortable calling my friends. They asked not for themselves, but for our community we love. They asked because they knew I had knowledge of what was driving the narrative that would see the charming Stuart brought to an end and turned into just another stop in the narrative’s idealistic urban jungle. For those who have seen enough and would like Stuart to preserve its iconic charm, I am your huckleberry. It was 1993 when I moved to the Stuart area, accepting a call to teach at Redeemer Lutheran Church and School, moving inside the Stuart city boundary in 1994. It was a combination of great people, small city charm and great fishing that lured and have kept me here. Stuart had hooked me. Despite some long commutes as I sought to better understand our education system at destinations with the Department of Juvenile Justice and our own public school system, in Stuart I stayed. Having majored in Secondary Education and History, along with a minor in Biology, I’ve always sought answers. Curious to get a better understanding of what drives the events impacting our lives I began studying financial markets in 1994 and in 2009 started an asset management company which I currently manage. The skillset I have developed over these years enables me to see through the narrative disguised in virtue yet intent to see small towns across America wither away and die or if in a strategic location, like Stuart, turned into densely packed urban areas. The Stuart commissioners have bought into this narrative. Their plan involves building high-density residential projects. We’ve only seen the beginning of their plan for high density development. The past two years along with their recommended changes to zoning in the Stuart Comprehensive Plan indicate their future intentions. In other words, they intend to bring more of the same. Enough is enough! For the first time ever, I gave thought of moving. But there are good people here, on both sides of the bridge. There is reason to make a stand. So, I have agreed to run. I do not intend to see our small town shot out from under us. Have you seen enough? If so, let’s make a stand together right here, right now!