Commissioner Steve Oelfke has a lot of ideas and he’s hoping that voters will put him in one of two available seats on the city commission in November.
“I knew that there was a need for people to step up and I felt that was the direction I would move in at some point,” he said of throwing his hat in the ring to make the transition. “The reason why I’m doing any of this is because we, my wife and my family, love where we live.”
Oelfke said it’s important to him to serve the community in some way, crediting Commissioner Terry Schaffer with “planting the seed” that encouraged him to apply for the planning commission, which now has led to him to seek elected office in the city.
In his professional life, Oelfke is a nursing home administrator, a job that lets him do what he loves – helping people. It’s that attitude that he wants to bring to the city commission by working as a team with the other commissioners to best serve the community and solve problems.
“The biggest problem is handling the amount of people who want to come to the Island, the strain that puts on the people who live on the Island,” he said. “I think the biggest problem is how to handle that.”
Some of the effects of that strain, Oelfke said, are traffic, accidents, noise and strain on infrastructure. While he said he doesn’t believe that the parking garage at Manatee Beach proposed by county commissioners would be an answer, he does feel that the Gulf Island Ferry service is a nod in the right direction to helping reduce traffic.
To really reduce traffic, he said, mass transit has to become a more viable option for commuters and beachgoers. For that to happen, he said the Anna Maria Island Bridge on Manatee Avenue would need a third lane, one that would be dedicated to bus and trolley service along with first responder vehicles in an emergency. To take the idea a step further, Oelfke said the third lane could also be utilized as an extra traffic lane to move heavy traffic off the Island, though he did acknowledge the third lane would really need to extend to the mainland in Bradenton to truly be effective.
He also sees the county effort to put another ferry stop on Anna Maria Island as a positive move in the right direction to build up mass transit from the mainland.
Two county-led efforts that Oelfke said he’s not in favor of are consolidation of the three Island cities and a parking garage at the county-owned Manatee Beach.
He said part of the charm of the Island is in its quaintness and diversity among the three cities along with the small-town feel. Building high rises on the beach and taking away local government would ruin the character that makes the Island special.
“The Island, I feel, is a paradise,” Oelfke said. “We feel lucky to live here.”
Hear Oelfke answer questions from the community live at The Sun’s candidate forum on Wednesday, Aug. 28 at 6 p.m. at Holmes Beach City Hall.
