Charles Niederstadt is one of five registered candidates vying for a seat on the Martinsville City Council this fall. Niederstadt is seeking the position because he wants to help move the city toward a future that keeps young people from leaving.
Niederstadt previously served in the U.S. military, beginning in the Marine Reserves. He now wants to bring those leadership skills to the people of Martinsville.
“I enjoyed my time there,” said Niederstadt, who now lives in Martinsville and is hoping to make a change.
He currently works as a manager at Food Lion. He previously managed and helped develop new bylaws for a homeowners association with more than 100 homes.
“It’s OK if people disagree. If the council agreed on everything, we wouldn’t need a council, we would just need a mayor,” he said, adding that disagreements are normal.
“I have no problem with disagreement, no problem with spirited debate, but we need to be doing better than what we’ve been saying,” Niederstadt said. “There’s a professional way to disagree, and then when you do come to a consensus, then that consensus is what it is.”
Niederstadt believes many people in office are voting without being informed.
“It is your responsibility to know what you are voting for. The worst thing that can happen is voting without being informed. That way you can have a debate about the pros and cons to any problem,” he said.
“I have a good track record of working with subordinates, with peers, and higher ups,” he said, adding that he also feels like he has a good track record working with City Manager Rob Fincher.
Niederstadt said he wants to see the community as a whole benefit.
“Look for (ways of) benefiting the entire community, not segments of the community. When we do that, everyone wins,” Niederstadt said, adding that he is running for council to make a change.
“We want to see people that want to stay in Martinsville. I work with a lot of kids. I don’t want to see them grow up, get their college degrees and never come back,” he said.
He wants to build the city up for young people.
“There’s so much good here, there’s so much opportunity here, we need to open that opportunity up,” Niederstadt said.
Professionally, Niederstadt said he sees a need for businesses to provide quality jobs.
“I hire entry-level positions, we need businesses that provide good quality jobs. Martinsville has a history of the industrial job specifically in the furniture industry; those are gone,” Niederstadt said. “We keep trying to reclaim the past when we need to be looking to the future.”
He’s a fan of office and IT-based positions.
“With positions like IT and bringing things into the city that we need, we do have opportunities to bring in good paying full time jobs,” he said.
He said the city needs to “set up a business friendly platform to bring in jobs that young people want to have.”
“For the entire southwest region, we could be a business friendly environment,” Niederstadt said.
But he doesn’t want Martinsville to become like Greensboro, North Carolina, or Roanoke.
“We want to be uniquely Martinsville,” he said, adding that he would like to see unique restaurants and stores.
“Not chain restaurants but unique restaurants to the southwest,” he said.
Niederstadt is torn on the idea of data centers but wants to support residents.
“I cannot say yay or nay. From my understanding, they take a huge amount of electricity and water that it seems like the citizens in the surrounding areas pay for. I’m not in favor of that,” Niederstadt said. “Our electricity costs are already high enough as it is.”
He also doesn’t want to further burden residents.
“I don’t see where they create a lot of jobs. There’s a lot of talk of job creation, but I don’t see a lot of jobs,” Niederstadt said.
“If we want to move forward together, change is needed.”
Long term, Niederstadt said he plans to retire in Martinsville.
“I want this to be my last move and last stop. I am big on understanding the future, and we need to look to young people,” Niederstadt said. “We are losing our best and brightest to other areas because we are not offering them a future.”
