Marc Seelinger

The Gaston Business Association Questionnaire

Please provide a short introduction (50 words or less) highlighting your background and achievements.

I have a background in data analytics and own/operate two Marco's Pizza restaurants in the area. I previously served on the Belmont City Council from 2019-23 and also served as Mayor in 2023. Additionally, I was the Council representative to the Main Street Advisory Board and the Tourism Development Authority.

What inspired you to run for city/town council, and what specific qualities or experiences make you well-suited for this role?

Belmont continues to see unprecedented growth throughout the city, and I would like to build on the successes we had in my first term in managing that growth in a sustainable way that accounts for its impacts on our residents. I supported tightening our requirements around things like traffic mitigation and apartment development to ensure that we are not pushing projects through that will negatively impact the day-to-day lives of our existing residents. Belmont needs leadership that is willing to stand up for the community against this onslaught of growth, which I have done before and hope to do again.

In addition, my background of being a small business owner with a technical background in data analytics is uniquely suited to improving how the city council allocates the budget every year. Through my own analysis during my last term, I identified over $2MM in unnecessary or unneeded spending that we used to fund a tax cut and support other needed projects. I can use the data contained within the city’s financial reports to drive greater accountability for the city’s staff and real-world savings for the city’s taxpayers.

What are your top priorities for your city/town (specifically pertaining to the business community), and how do you plan to address them if elected?

The number one issue facing Belmont right now is traffic, which affects every person or business in the city. Many of our roads are clogged with more cars than they were ever designed to handle which impacts not only the people stuck sitting in the traffic but also the people who live in many of the neighborhoods that are plagued with the cut-through traffic that is attempting to circumvent the gridlock. The city needs to focus on ways to relieve the pressure on our main traffic arteries while making sure that our residential neighborhoods are safe for the families that are living in them. The place to start with this is the project list that was put together for the (failed) bond package last year. The city has enough surplus funds to start chipping away at these road improvements without raising taxes, so it should make that a priority. In addition, we need to ensure that we are getting things like stop signs and speed bumps out to the neighborhoods that need them to keep those residents safe. Over time, we need to be budgeting for transportation upgrades so that our transportation infrastructure keeps pace with our growth.

Please select one of the following local issues, and provide a brief description of your stance on the topic: Economic Development, Public Safety, Transportation & Infrastructure, or Education.

Transportation & Infrastructure: Transportation and Infrastructure improvements necessitated by growth should be in place before that growth occurs. In most cases, it is actually quite easy to model what the impact from a given development will be, e.g. building a neighborhood with X new homes will put Y additional cars on the road and create Z additional gallons of demand for water, etc. So, the city needs to ensure that it is accounting for all of those impacts and requiring the appropriate mitigation on the front-end of the project. There is significant development interest in Belmont, and we should use that to our advantage. For example, many of the projects that have been approved in recent years have gone beyond simply mitigating their own impacts and have gone as far as actually improving the roads and utilities in and around their project areas (Del Webb is a good example of this). The city should be primarily concerned with protecting the quality of life of its existing residents, while the developers will be primarily concerned with the marketability to their future customers/residents. Ultimately both current and future residents will want the same thing: reliable and efficient transportation and utility infrastructure. So, it is in the interest of both parties to ensure that that is in place before a single new resident moves in.