Holmdel Native Takes Portsmouth First Ward

Congratulations to my good friend Sean Dunne, who was elected as a councilman for the First Ward of the Portsmouth, Ohio City Council Tuesday night.

Sean Dunne

Sean is a Holmdel, New Jersey native and a former Independent candidate for the NJ State Assembly in LD13.  It was during that campaign that I got to know him well and we became fast friends. He left the area after that campaign to accept a teaching position at Trinity College in Ireland, where he stayed for a few years before coming back to the Holmdel. He left again in 2013 to accept a teaching position at Shawnee State University in southern Ohio.

Since his arrival in Portsmouth, he was able to work on a variety of community projects with Shawnee State students and other community members and was successful in applying for a $25,000 grant for Spartan Municipal Stadium and an application to Preservation Ohio that resulted in the stadium’s inclusion in their 2017 List of Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites. Both of those achievements move the stadium closer to restoration.

He also worked with a number of groups and organizations outside of the Portsmouth area to bring positive attention and produce positive results for the city. He worked with Senator Sherrod Brown’s Office and Senator Portman’s Office, the NFL Hall of Fame, NFL Film, NFL Foundation, the Detroit Lions, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the New York Giants and ESPN. And led an effort involving the Southern Ohio Port Authority and other individuals in improving Portsmouth’s Wikipedia page. The page had served as a point of online vandalism for years, which drove businesses and residents away from the city.

I wish Sean well, the good people of Portsmouth are lucky to have him.