By David Murchland - Marshfield Now!
MARSHFIELD, Wis. — Nick Poeschel says he’s running for mayor after residents and local leaders urged him to seek the office and told him the city “ready for a change in the mayor position.”
“Well, last summer, a couple of different people came to me and asked me to run for mayor,” Poeschel said in a recent interview on Marshfield Broadcasting’s “Get to Know” program. “It’s not the first time I’ve been asked, but I said, ‘I’ll look into it.’”
He said that as he spoke with “citizens and business leaders and people in city government and city employees,” he found strong encouragement to enter the race. “I got overwhelming support to run for mayor,” he said. “I heard a lot that the city of Marshfield’s ready for a change in the mayor position.”
Poeschel said he has lived in Marshfield for “30 some years,” is a former police officer and has been retired for “going on 10 years now.”
He said he and his wife are “known around town for being walkers,” adding, “We try to get in a walk every day,” generally about “five miles a day.”
He said he served six years on the City Council and was council president in 2021 and 2022 when the city was without a mayor. “So as such, I fulfilled all the duties of the mayor,” he said. “You could say I have a year’s worth of experience as the mayor.”
Poeschel said he is on the Marshfield Utility Commission and called it “an eye-opening experience,” adding that it comes with “a whole different language to learn.”
Asked about the top issues facing the city, Poeschel said, “Marshfield is facing the same issues that a lot of cities are facing. And you can break it down into money, people and potholes.”
On city finances, he said, “We can’t just keep raising taxes. We have to look for different ways of financing the city government.”
He also criticized state funding decisions, saying, “The state’s sitting on a big pile of money down there that they’re basically using for a political football to kick back and forth rather than doling it out to help the municipalities, the counties do the things that need to be done.”
On staffing, Poeschel said, “With the current climate, there’s not a lot of people available for jobs,” pointing to retirements and fewer younger workers entering the labor force. “So it’s been difficult for Marshfield to fill a lot of the positions that we have open in the city at all levels,” he said. “We have to find ways to attract people to come to Marshfield and to retain those people.”
He said workforce changes also mean the city should prepare for new types of jobs. “Right now the workforce is changing as AI and robotics and things like that come into play,” he said. “Some jobs are gonna be lost, but there’s gonna be a greater need for more hands-on people in the workforce.”
Poeschel said he wants partnerships with higher education, including “internships, apprenticeships and things like that to increase the workforce.”
He also said keeping young people in the community means having “recreational opportunities” and “entertainment,” and, for families, maintaining strong schools and access to health care. “I can be at the clinic in five minutes to get my healthcare,” he said.
On growth, he said, “Marshfield needs to grow at a slow and steady pace.” While he said it “would be great” to attract a major employer, he added, “But that’s not likely to happen.” Instead, he said the city should focus on helping existing businesses “grow and expand and provide more jobs for people and provide greater economic opportunities in the city.”
Poeschel also linked road conditions and infrastructure to funding. He said the Public Works Department maintains roads but faces challenges in “a harsh environment here in Central Wisconsin.” “Mother Nature is hard on the roads,” he said. “But the biggest thing is being able to provide them the money to do so.”
He said the mayor should advocate for outside help. “Hopefully the mayor position can be someone who’s talking to our representatives in Madison, talking to our representatives in Washington and saying, ‘Hey, we really need some funding for these projects that we just can’t come up with on our own.’”
On housing, Poeschel said, “Affordability is really hard. There’s not a lot that the mayor’s office can do.” But he said one approach is what he called “moving up, trickle down,” describing a chain of moves as families upgrade homes and lower-priced housing becomes available.
He said the city can help expand supply by encouraging builders to add housing at “some other housing levels.”
He also pointed to the city’s “long history with mobile home manufacturing and modular home manufacturing,” and said some mobile home parks “are looking a little rough,” but, “we don’t wanna give up that level of housing in the city.”
“So they’ve already got the infrastructure there,” he said, listing roads, water and sewer. He suggested working with modular home manufacturers to explore whether “a smaller construction” could be placed in those parks as “more of a permanent” unit, “a fixed housing unit,” using infrastructure already in place.
Poeschel called public safety “one of my favorite topics,” saying Marshfield has “an excellent public safety department.” “We need to maintain that by providing them with the training they need, providing them with the equipment they need,” he said.
He also praised the city’s parks and recreation work, saying, “A lot of this is due to our public-private partnerships that we’ve developed,” and pointed to community donations for improvements.
On transparency, Poeschel said, “We live in a time of unparalleled transparency and accessibility,” noting meetings that are “videotaped or live” and information that is “as close as the computer that’s in your pocket or your home.”
Asked about disagreements and consensus, he said, “What you quickly learn as a police officer is there are two sides to every story and the truth generally lies somewhere in the middle.”
In the closing portion of the interview, Poeschel said, “If I’m elected mayor, I won’t be the first mayor in my family,” adding, “My brother Dewey is the mayor of our neighbor to the west, Neillsville.”