North Valley man seeks county seat

Skyline Ranch resident Stuart L. Posselt is the first non-incumbent to announce he's running for the Douglas County Board of Commissioners.

Posselt, 72, is a five-year resident of Carson Valley and said he is a registered Republican.

This is not the first time he has sought political office. He was defeated in the primary when he ran for state senator in Benicia, Calif., in 2002.

Posselt said he was asked to run for the commission.

"I've been considering it and talking to people who support my candidacy and support me."

While a frequent critic of county action on development and the budget, he said he supports the current draft of the county growth ordinance proposed for the November ballot.

"It's a compromise between all the parties, or what I like to call a mutually dissatisfactory solution," he said. "It doesn't make everybody happy, but it is a solution. It is not a no-growth ordinance, it's a pro-growth ordinance, it just says we have to do this carefully."

One of his main platforms is to maintain Carson Valley's rural feel.

"We live in a beautiful Valley," he said. "You can see stars at night, we have views of the mountains. We have a very desirable area thanks to the rural quality of our community. That's why I moved here. But we have to be very careful to maintain that and not destroy it."

Posselt said he believes people are ready for a change in government.

"Development agreements and conditions of approval and the county's adopted building codes need to be enforced," he said. "Park Cattle is another big issue, the clustering issue, which the commission fortunately voted down, would have circumvented the growth ordinance. They said the business tax would let them do all this good stuff with the money, but the bottom line was money."

Posselt said he feels the development of the airport is an important issue for the future of Douglas County.

"When the commission was preparing an interim plan for the airport, there was no input from staff about Piñon Aero," he said. "That is a fatally flawed report, it is incomplete and needs to go back to the drawing table. There needs to be a public hearing on how and why the consultant was not told about Piñon Aero's plans."

Posselt is a retired architect, who was chief of administrative operations of the California Architects Board. He said he has been a delegate to three national political conventions, was on county central committees and was a site manager for the Republican caucus in January.

He is married to author Ruth Keil Posselt.

More Information

www.slp4douglascommissioner.org