ArticlesIn the Candidates Own Words - For City Council

49 min read

In the Candidates Own Words - For City Council

Excerpts from Tuesdays Meet the Candidate Session.

By We Love Harbor Springs (Substack)

September 26, 2026

Sept 23, 2026

For City Council

These are the statements from those running for City Council. A separate email covers those running for Mayor.

A note before you read

This post is built from the transcript of the Meet the Candidates forum hosted by the Harbor Springs Chamber of Commerce on September 23, 2026. We regrouped the transcript so each candidate’s answers sit together under their name. We chose to publish it this way to make it easier to understand each candidate: you can read what they said in one place, without scrolling through the whole evening.

If the newsletter is truncated in an email, readers can click on** View entire message **and you’ll be able to view the entire post in your email app.

Please read with care. The transcript was generated automatically from the recording. It may contain typos, misheard words, or phrasing that does not match what a candidate meant. Beyond removing moderator remarks and filler words, we have not changed the candidates’ answers, so any errors come from the transcription, not the candidates.

The video is the official record. If an answer matters to your vote, watch the full replay

Talk to the candidates. No transcript replaces a real conversation. Reach out to them, go to their events, or stop them around town. They are running to serve you, and they want to hear from voters.

We Love Harbor Springs does not endorse any candidate. We ordered the candidates by years of service in some capacity at the city.

Questions and Answers only, organized by candidate, in the order each question was asked. Moderator remarks, crosstalk, uh’s and asides from other speakers have been removed; each candidate’s own words are kept in full.

City Council Candidates

Melissa Georges — City Council

Introduction

Hi, I’m Melissa Georges. We bought our home here 16 years ago after falling in love with the people in the town of Harbor Springs. There is a sense of belonging to the town, the water, the culture, our church, our gardens, the parks. That feeds—I know this sounds corny, but it feeds your soul. My father was a first-generation American who raised us with a deep love and appreciation for our country and a strong work ethic in hopes of achieving the American dream. My brothers and I took a local pharmaceutical company and built it into a national sales force. I handled the books, the early stages of our human resources department. I believe this, along with my volunteer service, has taught me to work and play well with others while continuing to acknowledge and appreciate the different points of view. I feel a strong sense of pride and dedication to Harbor Springs, which propelled me to the ridiculous thought to run for city council. I did some research and spoke with many of our talented and committed city staff. As strange as it may seem, in preparing for the campaign and role as a city council member, I discovered I would be honored to serve and support our city staff’s efforts and our community’s future. Thank you.

Question 2: What are your top 2 or 3 priorities for the city of Harbor Springs over the next 2 years, and why?

Well, clearly all drank the same Kool-Aid. Infrastructure is huge to this city. Um, the electric, the sewer, sidewalks, the streets. We need to maintain what our investment is, our real estate. We have a lot of, um, assets in this town, and we need to take care of them. Um, I would like to keep the city affordable for the people that live here so that their property values or property costs do not exceed their ability to stay. That would be number one. Disaster preparedness so that we’re prepared for things like an ice storm or the lots of snow and flooding that we had last year.

Question 3: The city has significant infrastructure needs — utilities, sewers, sidewalks, other aging infrastructure. How should the city prioritize these needs when there is not enough money to address everything at once?

So regarding the electricity, I—from what I understand, we’re already seeking or trying to establish bonds, so we’re pretty far down the road on that. I think we should consider ourselves extremely lucky that we have our own substation and have been experiencing extremely low rates decades. So lucky us. And sewer seems to be on its way. I just want to couple with what he just said. That was something I think about all the time—micromanaging our staff. They do a great job, and we pay them, and they know what we’re doing. We’re volunteers that come in twice a month and we do the research, but we never see the day-to-day of what they do. And they know what hits us on a daily basis and really what needs to be prioritized. And I think we should let them have a stronger voice, and we should facilitate more than we—(Cut off here — out of time.)

Question 4: Once council approves a project or initiative, what responsibility does council have to ensure it moves forward in a timely and effective manner? How should council monitor progress, if at all?

Um, I think that the responsibility in seeing the project completed really lies on the city staff. It’s city manager. And as long as you construct a timeline, all they have to do is let us know, are we meeting our goals? And if we’re not, advise us and we’ll go from there.

Question 5: As Harbor Springs, our neighboring townships, and surrounding communities grow, how should the city plan for increased tourism, traffic, and demand on infrastructure while maintaining the quality of life for year-round residents?

So when I think of tourism, I think of traffic, trash, and parking. And none of those are necessarily bad things. I also think that we handle tourism really well, as exemplified by July 4th. We have so many people here, and we all survive, and it’s a great day and a great weekend usually. I think that tourism is necessary for our downtown. We need the businesses to thrive, and they need the people to do it. Sadly, I think mostly it’s the tourists who shop downtown since the rest of us tend to go uptown. I think that we can strike a balance. I think we just need to remember that what is good for the goose is not always good for the gander, but that we can work it out as long as we think that we need to keep things coming into the town for the people who are downtown.

Question 6: Do you support or oppose cruise ship tourism in Little Traverse Bay? How should the city balance the economic benefits of tourism with its impacts on residents, businesses, and city services?

Never say never. It’s not that I’m excited about cruise ships, and I certainly don’t want a 5,000-person boat descending on us, but by the same token, I think it’s good for downtown business. I think there’s a way to handle and work it out so that they come in the shoulder season, obviously not on the 4th of July, and if our services like the police, fire departments, emergency crews, things like that, you know, Coast Guard, stuff like that, to take care of it, then I would not say no. I would want to talk to the people that run businesses here that would get a big plus from something like that, especially in March and April when no one wants to be here.

Question 7: The Harbor Commission currently includes representatives from both Little Traverse and West Traverse townships. Should that model be considered for other boards and commissions such as Parks and Recreation? Why or why not?

As a member of Parks and Rec, I think that it would be a great idea if we had people sitting on the committee with more ideas, more people with ways to solve problems or to create new projects or events that we’re doing, and they are giving us a considerable amount of money. So they’re here, might as well listen to them.

Question 8: What is one thing Harbor Springs is doing well that you would work to preserve, and one thing you believe needs to change?

Not because I sit on the committee has something to do with me, but I do think that we do really, really well with the parks and recreation. We have a lot of parks for an extremely small area, and I happen to be in a park twice a day because my dog. So all the ones I visit, I love. I think we do a great job with that. I would want to try to be more inclusive, inclusive with our community, not so much we or us and them kind of a thing. And, um, I would want to add more voices to what we do so that people feel as though they’re heard when they stand up at the city council meetings and they pose their questions. Everyone just sits in complete silence and no one actually get back to them or address their issues generally, because you can’t. I mean, you’re not planning for that, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t get back to them at a later date or put them on a list or something.

Question 9: Following recent major storms and prolonged outages, what should the city’s disaster preparedness priorities be? What should the city do to ensure it is prepared for prolonged power outages, blocked roads, communication issues, and the needs of an aging population?

Well, let’s get ready. And how would I do that? I would make sure that we—and I’ve actually read recently an excellent disaster preparedness plan provided to me by my friend Karin over there. Yeah, um, I think it’s incumbent on us to look after our people, which we do amazingly well. Kyle and his group of people did such a great job with the electric outage before. Stay in touch with people, make sure you have the resources for all types of people, whether they’re ambulatory or not, whether they are well or not, the food, the electricity, try not to send things out on Facebook when nobody has a license to read Facebook. Things like Starlink. Make sure that you have the resources that you can stay in touch with your people, and if you need to go door to door.

Question 10: What should city government do to improve communication and build trust with residents, particularly when making difficult or unpopular decisions?

I agree, we came a long way in improving our communications, and I think we all agree we had a long way ago, because we were a little behind the 8-ball. But in the last 4 or 5 years, we’ve done a lot. Building trust, it’s pretty simple. Say what you mean and mean what you say. It’s just be who you are, be out front. There are certain committees that still do not have minutes, that do not do the Open Meetings Act because they’re a smaller group or a subgroup. So I know that it—we have them. I’m not sure that people are interested in those particular meetings that we go to every other month, but maybe we should make sure that if they are, that that’s available for them as well.

Question 11: What would you do to ensure residents with opposing views are heard and that council discussions remain factual, civil, and respectful?

I think everyone has a right to speak as long as they’re behaving as their mothers and fathers taught them to speak in public and show respect for the people that they’re speaking to. I think they also need to remember that the personalities need to stay out of it, and it really has more to do with the topic. It’s not a question of a bunch of 8-year-olds playing kickball or taking a ball on going home. They need to remember and address their audience appropriately. I think it would also help, and I brought this up earlier, if the committees, whether it’s the City Council or somebody else, actually in some way, shape, or form address what they had to say so they feel like they’re being heard, that they’re not just speaking into empty space where no one’s paying any attention, which I think sometimes people have a tendency to feel like when they address—you know, you can tell your story, but know that your story meant something to somebody else, not just yourself.

Closing Comments

The questions were difficult but fun. I actually never thought I’d be in this position. In fact, probably anyone I ever spoke to would tell you that I would never run for city council. I am in awe of what Jamie and Wendy and others that have sat in this chair have done, because it’s a tough job and they’re volunteers and it’s a lot of time. And I never really knew that until I sat down and I interviewed the city staff and Kyle. And,, I’m still working my way to public works people so that I can get to know what it really means to run the city of Harbor Springs. It fulfills a dream to have this kind of community spirit. When Mark talks about the safety and security, there’s nothing better to know that you can leave your front door open and you find money in the middle of winter at IGA going for 10 minutes. So, I don’t have an agenda. I want to come and work for the city. I feel like it’s something I should be doing because I love this place so much. I appreciate everything that I get here, and I feel like I should pay it back. If you want to vote for me, I’d love it. And if not, I will certainly sit here and serve those who can get into the seats because they are worthy of our appreciation.

Mark Rondel — City Council

Introduction

Mark Rondell. As I look around, I think that an awful lot of people know quite a bit about my background in this town. My wife and I have lived here for almost 50 years now. I started coming up here in the late ‘50s with my parents as skiers. I’ve been heavily involved in lots of work around town. I was also on the ski patrol at Nubs for many years. As far as work experience, I have quite a resume. As a ski instructor and a yacht delivery captain. But I also have spent an awful lot of time building and remodeling and running affordable housing in Harvest Springs on corner properties across the street. With that, we have had many interactions with the Zoning Board of Appeals. In lots of the city processes. Living straight across the street from City Hall gives us great access to all the city functions and activities. So I would have to say that I feel that I’m pretty up to date on what’s going on. I guess that’s about it. Oh, I grew up in Ann Arbor, went to U of M also. And ended up migrating on.

Question 2: What are your top 2 or 3 priorities for the city of Harbor Springs over the next 2 years, and why?

Well, I’m gonna go off on a flyer here. And for those of you who know me will not be surprised. Um, last spring, when we had our hiring interviews for our new city manager, one of the questions that they were asked was, what do you consider to be one of the most important and critical situation facing the city of Harbor Springs now. And as I listened to their replies, I thought about my own reply to that. And I put that in my bio to the, to the chamber here. And that is the schisms that seem to have developed in this community, the antagonism, the uncivilness, the rudeness that has occurred over the last couple of years. And I think that really a critical feature of solving those are for us—

(Cut off here — the timer buzzer sounded before he could finish.)

The city has something called a master plan. The master plan is supposed to be a foundational document that describes the vision and how the city is to deal with all aspects of city operations. It’s interesting that we’re focusing on infrastructure because there is only one goal in the city’s master plan, which I have studied very thoroughly, that directly deals with infrastructure. I would take and rewrite the master plan so that infrastructure becomes number one priority in the master plan. And then we can start dealing with how to fund it and fix the infrastructure that’s been neglected in the city for so long. Thank you.

Um, well, virtually every council meeting there’s a section of old and new business, uh, that, that consists of updates and reports from staff and people who are on, on the street and on the scene, and that keeps council, uh, aware of projects have been approved or instituted, or at what stage they are. And so I think that that’s how council needs to keep track of what’s happening is through the new business reports.

You’re dear to my heart. As I said, I’ve been involved in the Harbor Springs community and the greater Harbor Springs community for a long time. We’ve been involved with my wife and I with resorts, with resort-oriented businesses. We’ve—and dealings with all aspects of the community. And yes, there’s a balancing act. One of the historical realities of the last few decades are that there has been huge growth in surrounding townships and very little growth in the city of Harbor Springs. And this is an issue that needs to be dealt with at the master plan level.

We’ll go again. In my lifetime, I’ve been called by a number of different titles. My absolute favorite title that I’ve been called in my life is an Italian word, armatore, and that means shipowner. Because there was a period when my wife and I were actually ship owners. We owned a ship. But I think back again, I’ve been called the big picture guy. I call myself that in my bio. I’m into the big picture. To me, this is a big picture question. In the master plan, we need to deal with the vision of Harbor Springs. Do we want to be a tourist town, or do we want to be a residential town? And we need to solve that question before we can move on to how to deal with specific—thank you.

I’ve long been a proponent of regional planning, uh, that I think that the city should work in concert with the surrounding township to try and, uh, address problems regionally, even countywide. I’ve had discussions years ago with Max about coordinated neighborhood plans. And so I guess I don’t have any problem with surrounding residents serving on advisory committees to the city council. I think it’s pretty clear that the City Council does make decisions for the city.

Question 8: What is one thing Harbor Springs is doing well that you would work to preserve, and one thing you believe needs to change?

One of the things that comes to mind that we do extremely well here is safety and security. How many of us leave our cars, our houses, everything unlocked? We’re very fortunate in this, and that’s one of the super, super high points for me of this evening. Again, where I think we really fall down is long-range future planning, and that starts with the master plan.

I’d like to use the aging population as an example. In this community right now, we have a dearth of medical facilities. There are a few older care facilities. My father just passed away in one. It was excellent, but it’s not going to be sufficient to handle if we—if our demographics keep going the direction that they are, uh, the future needs and I feel very much that city policies can incentivize certain activities in the city, and I would like to see us incentivize medical providers. Transit is another issue for elderly people. How do you get around when you can’t drive? So these are the sort of things that we need to plan for and incentivize with city funds.

Question 10: What should city government do to improve communication and build trust with residents, particularly when making difficult or unpopular decisions?

Certainly, agree that communication is a critical, critical factor. But I think we do quite well. We’ll do better by upgrading our microphones and so on. But, but I think maybe the most important thing for building trust with the community is consistent, and consistent leadership from council, from the mayor, the staff, and so on, that if everybody follows a known playbook, then people will feel like they’re being more integrated with the community and what goes on in this room.

Question 11: What would you do to ensure residents with opposing views are heard and that council discussions remain factual, civil, and respectful?

It seems like over the last couple of years we’ve spent a fair amount of time—I don’t want to say really focusing, but, but, uh, dealing quite a bit with disagreements. We disagree about the color of the lampposts. We disagree about, uh, uh, the size and bulk of a building downtown. We disagree about a lot of things. I think that if we were to intentionally focus on agreements, things that we can agree on, that we can all subscribe to. As our new city manager says, finding some shared or common values. If we were to focus more heavily on that in our discussions, I think we would build bridges as opposed to building divisive ones.

Closing Comments

Okay, first of all, I want to say thanks for you guys for having this, providing this opportunity for everybody taking the time to come. And I want to say that I’m very impressed with the field up here behind me, behind the desk. I think that Harbor Springs is going to be well served after this election. I’d like to just wrap up, of course, with the master plan. The principal failings that I find with our master plan now are 3 words. It does not adequately define a lot of things. What exactly is the small-town character of Harbor? Right now, we might have to say that, uh, we’re pretty divisive. We’re pretty at each other’s throats. We’re—there’s a lot of antagonism and incivility. That’s not the character that we want to carry into the future, I don’t think. Number 2, with the master plan, I think that the goals need to be highly objective. Currently in the master plan, they are very subjective. It’s nice to have a nice town. We’re gonna have a great town. It’s gonna be pretty. It’s gonna be cutesy. But there’s a lot of subjectivity. So I think the master plan needs to be rewritten to be highly objective. And thirdly, as was touched on with infrastructure and so on, I think it needs to be heavily prioritized. We need to really look at the fundamental values that we want to carry on in the community of Harvest Spring. Do we want to encourage young families? Do we want to make affordable housing? If any of the answers to these are yes, right, there are lots of ways to go about it through Master Plan

Wendy Reeve — City Council

Introduction

Thank you, ladies. I put myself through Albion College, which is one of the things I have in common with our new city manager. I’m 66 years old, so I’m now on the north side of the average age of a Carlsbad citizen. I have operated my own business, Cottage Interiors, since um, August of 2000. And, I’ve enjoyed the last year— 2 years on City Council. I’m shocked at how fast those 2 years went. I’ll warn you all how fast that goes. And I am asking the citizens, please, put me back for another 2 years.

Question 2: What are your top 2 or 3 priorities for the city of Harbor Springs over the next 2 years, and why?

The electric, sewer, water, as the top 3 priorities, and pretty much all take number 1 place because no one wants to start investing in porta-potties. After that, I prioritize roads, and after that, unfortunately—this is the thing that is talked about the most—sidewalks. But I would also like, after we get all of that, figure out how we’re going to pay for it. I would like to start investigating burying utility lines block by block, and I would like to find some way to start heating the Central Business District sidewalks, because the opportunity to be able to walk safely in the winter and utilize all of our shops and restaurants safely would be an enormous benefit to every citizen in town. And I’d like to hold the line on taxes, but unfortunately I’m of the mind that where our utility rates, which are the lowest in—almost the lowest in the state, are going to have to come up in line with the various other classes in the area.

(Transcript resumes mid-sentence.) …well as ordering material. Now, when the sewer lift station brings this ugly little head, we are in the year right now when we’re designing the answer to it, then there’s going to be the year when they do the specs for it. It’ll be at least 3 years, maybe 4 from now before we actually start the construction. So we have time to put our financial things in as well as figure out how we’re going to be able that. Water is the third item there, and we’ve kicked the can down the road several times on the water issues, but they’re not yet at an emergency state. So while we have a lot of big projects coming up, they all seem to be aligning themselves to make it more comfortable for us to take them on.

First of all, there are so many things thrown at your council every week. There’s a whole new process that if you don’t review your minutes from the last meeting, the last 6 meetings, things fall off the table, and you forget them. So I would suggest that all of us review our minutes, at least the previous minutes or 2 minutes before the council meeting, so that you remind yourself, oh. we talked about this, we never did come to consensus on it.

The number one complaint I hear that affects the quality of life is short-term rentals. I think that what we should do is raise the fee for a short-term rental permit. $350 to $5,000. And then we will have enough money in our budget to hire 2 or 3 part-time people who do—I’m going to call them short-term rental stars. They inspect every property whenever anybody is arriving, and they’re responsible for those people knowing the rules and taking care of them and safeguarding the rest of the town from the onslaught of the short-term rentals who are the—no one wants to be next door to the party palace. And there’s also been talk about raising the short-term rental time period, anything to extend ways that would be hard to be a party palace.

There are only seven restaurants downtown. That’s almost an extra ninety people per restaurant, and most of them aren’t set up to handle that. There’s very few merchants that I can think of that would benefit from this. And most of them would say, I’m overworked now as it is. So if we can’t do it for the benefit of the merchants, we wouldn’t do it at all. I really think that council would get lynched if we were to do this.

So, we have the full board, the DBA, Parks and Rec, the Harbor Commission, and the Planning Commission. I forgot anybody. I didn’t know that the Harbor Commission has funding for this. And the Planning Commission has 2 seats available for that. I don’t see a problem since we take money from local charities and that’s regarded as conflict. It’s putting at least one person, vote counted on that board. You might have to increase the number of people on that board so that if everybody in the city wants to be on that, there’s room for them. I don’t see a reason to put it on the people or the DDA. Those are both strictly city boards, and I don’t see any benefit having anyone from the township. The DDA is all business owners, so these people are from the township there anyway.

Question 8: What is one thing Harbor Springs is doing well that you would work to preserve, and one thing you believe needs to change?

Preserving our small-town character, which everyone states is very important to them. I think we should work on things that enhance life here for all of us and the area around, which I go back to the downtown sidewalks and during our lifelines.

This kind of relates to what Harrisburg does well. What we did really well in that was look out for each other. The fire department went door to door checking on citizens. Did they need anything? Did they need any help? Were they trapped? The police department opened a shelter at the school and when they moved it to the church, um, and I unfortunately am not here at this time, so I only got to hear about it, but I never actually experienced it myself. I’m not sure that there’s anything other than making sure we have a disaster preparation plan in place and looking at our fuel storage needs, because gas will become a big issue. And we did a great job of sharing what we have with our communities around us, and they shared with us as well. I think we just wanted to do that plan on a fairly consistent basis to make sure that we keep up with it, but they did an outstanding job.

Question 10: What should city government do to improve communication and build trust with residents, particularly when making difficult or unpopular decisions?

Communication. Partly, city staff, so they got more bodies. The city manager now has an assistant to help them with communication duties. Bill’s right, we did just buy a new sound system for this room that will follow you around the room. It will be perfect, we hope. And we are going to have to put upgrading our computer and our communication systems on the capital improvements plan so that we’re constantly looking at it. That’s it. Needs to be upgraded.

Question 11: What would you do to ensure residents with opposing views are heard and that council discussions remain factual, civil, and respectful?

Well, everybody has a chance for public comment at the beginning of the meeting on anything that’s not on the agenda. During the meeting, we don’t always remember to seek public comment when we have a discussion item, so we should do a better job of that. And basically, if we slip, please just say you’re sorry, because none of us is perfect.

Closing Comments

We’ve accomplished a lot in the last 4 or 5 years. We’ve accomplished probably the—so I’m the rewrite of our—probably the national record for the amount of time we put into it. We hired a new city manager. We have started the process of upgrading one of our 3 major utilities. Um, we’re interviewing for a city planner. We had 39 people apply for a job in City Hall. I feel like the, the hate and difficulty is lessening, and I’m hoping that Facebook groups are disbanding and then they can stop that. And I think that you should elect all 7 of us.

John Cupps — City Council

Introduction

Uh, John Cupps, um, born and raised in Harbor, uh, currently own and run the family business, Phelps Masonry. Uh, 36 years on the fire department, 10 years currently as chief. Uh, attended college at Northern Michigan University. Previously sat on city council for 4 years. A couple years back, decided to run again and try to see if we can help out some of the distance and the craziness that’s been going on here the last couple years.

Question 2: What are your top 2 or 3 priorities for the city of Harbor Springs over the next 2 years, and why?

Again, utilities are a big one. Harvard’s always shown pretty fair job over the last 15, 20 years on maintaining, rebuilding, and everything. City sidewalks is already— I mean, I know it’s a subject of view, but it’s already in the city budget to replace depending on what the thing is. I mean, there’s $25,000 that goes towards redoing things. Um, downtown business district is a different thing, you know, the rest of the area. So it varies. One of my biggest things I’d like to try to see is kind of going off what Mark was saying, is the negativity, that’s came up over the last few years. Uh, people, you know, not necessarily from town, uh, going against, you know, what, you know, construction, development, different things like that. So it’s kind of wanted to get everybody maybe back on the same page. Social media was crazy. So. (Cut off here — out of time.)

Obviously, infrastructure. Sydney already has, from what I remember being involved here, a pretty good plan for keeping infrastructure in place. Uh, the water system’s been updated over the years after we had a big fire and we collapsed the water system. Um, there’s only a few sections in town that aren’t maybe up to code yet, so to speak. Roads for the most part are really good around here, with the exception of maybe Glen Drive. Um, different things like that. My biggest thing is I’d like to see, uh, City Hall be able to make the decisions and get things done without, uh, the general public having to have several meetings to discuss what’s maybe a priority or not a priority. We hired the city manager and the people in this office, the city crew, to do their job. Um, and for many years before social media became an issue, they did a really good job. Um, there were no issues. Things got done.

Basically, boils down to communication. As Jamie said, there’s a process already in place. City has done a great job for many years, um, going through the process. I’ve—my company’s been involved in the process. Um, I know there was a little distance where people didn’t want to talk to the previous city manager. Um, I’m just getting to know this one, so, uh, I feel if council has questions, you talk to the city manager who’s the one in charge. Um, if we need to know more, then, um, you can let us know or bring it up in board meetings, and that’s where we get things done. So, um, I think Chris already got a good plan in place.

This is a good question. City is only a little over a mile square. City’s not growing. 2/3 of the city are not year-round residents. So yes, townships around us are growing. Kind of piggyback on what Jamie said. Our systems get used, but not by year-round residents here. We’re a resort community. They’ve changed 25, 30 years ago, and it’s that it’s never going to go back. So we need to try to figure out how are we gonna go through that. And that’s looking at the townships to reimburse maybe a little more with some of our infrastructure, our parks, and different things like that. Um, and then we gotta look at, you know, the rentals and some different things on, uh, how the city—you know, I know we maintain, you know, a certain amount of them, but I think there’s some ways that, uh, some of that funds could come back into budget.

Right now, I’m not in favor of it, mainly because fire department, city police, and our marine district are nowhere near capable of handling a conflict. We are in the process of building programs to handle that. In the next year or 2, we’ll have things in place. But you’re talking the cruise ships that currently are going into Mackinac Island. Um, they carry up to what, 5,000 people? Um, what’s that? Um, so what do we have on the 4th of July here? 15,000, something like that. So, um, right now the city, we can’t have enough. So I’m not in favor at all.

(Transcript begins mid-sentence.) …sitting on the Parks Board for a little while. Um, yes, I’d like to see a representative from both Travers and West Travers, one representative from each, so that each had a say, or at least could go back, you know, and discuss things with their board and try to develop that interaction, uh, and work towards maybe, you know, upping the fees, uh, and different things between um, the organizations.

Question 8: What is one thing Harbor Springs is doing well that you would work to preserve, and one thing you believe needs to change?

One thing the city’s doing well is basically, in my opinion, managing infrastructure. They’ve worked long and hard on this electrical issue. Good, bad, or different between the townships and the city, it’s needed. Houses aren’t getting any smaller. Electric cars, blah, blah, blah. The overload is, is here. Trying to manage the fences with some of the issues with the downtown business area, planning and zoning with some of the issues that are going on there, like the building, some of the height issues, some of the things downtown.

First of all, know that we’ve always—there’s always been a disaster plan. You never plan for what it was we had, but all the powers to be all communicated right off the bat. There were some things that we noted after it was all said and done that will get done differently should we ever, God forbid, be in that situation again. All very minor things. But as Gail said, you know, we got—the city is set up in quadrants with generators. I think there’s some areas where, you know, we don’t have to ask for permission for certain things, you know, we should just go turn some stuff on. Stupid little things. But for the most part, everything worked as it should. We all did make some notes if we get into that situation again.

Question 10: What should city government do to improve communication and build trust with residents, particularly when making difficult or unpopular decisions?

Well, we’ve come a long way from the Harbor Light passing news review and a thing at the IGA. Have phones, computers, and AI doing pretty much everything for us. Uh, city, I think, has come a long ways in informing, uh, everybody in the public one way or the other. Um, we build trust, be friendly with anybody in the public, come to a meeting, pay attention on Zoom, um, stay off Facebook, stay off Instagram, don’t get involved in all the bullshit. Honestly, sorry, but that’s where it gets—that’s where all the negativity comes from. Being president. You want to get involved, come here, ask questions, do it online, whatever. Don’t get in the back or on social media. Um, and, you know, council, please, or, you know, any of the boards, be transparent and be consistent.

Question 11: What would you do to ensure residents with opposing views are heard and that council discussions remain factual, civil, and respectful?

I think this was built after the conversation I had several years ago on a council meeting. I think the meetings just need to get reeled in. Um, mayor sets the tone, have set guidelines. Um, people in the community got to actually respect the people that are up here. Um, it was one these days you know, take a beating. And you get disrespected, and, you know, sooner or later, you know, you’re gonna fight back. I’m one of them. So respect me, I’ll respect you kind of thing. But basically, it boils down to setting the rules and abiding by the rules. I think we’ve gotten—I think council’s kind of gotten away from that with the bantering back and forth.

Closing Comments

Be a lot shorter than that. Thank you, ladies, for putting this on. Uh, to you guys in the audience, uh, a lot of familiar faces who I know spend a lot of time down here and are very well invested in this place. So thank you guys, everybody online and whatnot. I’ve previously sat at this table. I think I did some good, and I hope I get your vote, and I would look forward to being back up here again and trying to do some good for the community.

Bill McCullough — City Council

Introduction

I’m going to read prepared remarks so that I don’t go way off on a tangent, as is one of my habits. I’m Bill McCullough. I’m married to Ruth. I have 2 grown kids and a dog, and I live on a dead-end street that is very popular on Halloween. I’m a proud graduate of Petoskey High School. I got some schooling at U of M, mostly econ, physics, taste of accounting, tax theory, symbolic logic, computer programming. I was captain of a ski team. I was greenlit for architecture, but was then in a serious car crash, and that was the end of that. Relevant professional experience includes a stint in financial services. I held a securities license, followed by decades in technology sales and service. I started and operated a computer services company locally, supporting a wide range of business systems, including end-to-end fully integrated accounting with full wholesale, retail, and manufacturing industries. Volunteering over the years includes Petoskey JCs, Raven Hill Discovery Center—I was on both of those boards—the Holy Childhood Daycare Center, which is the direct ancestor of the current center at Blackbird, Harbor Springs Volunteer Ambulance back when it was all volunteer, and 37 years with the National Ski Patrol. Within the NSP, I was an instructor at the division level in all disciplines. Uh, improved a variety of processes, including new ski technique and improved evaluation methods in complex first aid situations. Oh yeah, I was also appointed to the Harbor Commission in 1987. Um, I’ve been reappointed by every council since then. My fellow commissioners have twice chosen me to be chair. In that role, I’ve had a finger on the pulse of the community since roughly the disco era. Skills valuable to a council member include solving complex problems, listening and understanding various viewpoints, awareness of the interrelated aspects of the many facets of the Harbor Springs community, collaboration.

(Cut off here by the moderator for time.)

Question 2: What are your top 2 or 3 priorities for the city of Harbor Springs over the next 2 years, and why?

The advantage is going later, it’s all good ideas I’ve been thinking already. Infrastructure obviously is a big deal. We have to put in like $8 million worth of electrical equipment to support the growth, a lot of which is not actually in Harbor Springs. So I think there’s—there may be some negotiating that needs to happen down the road, not only with the electric but with the water and sewer. I did a little math, and if I did it right, which I didn’t check it, it looked to me like the electric bill should go up an average about $20 a month per service in order to pay for this upgrade, which I don’t think is all that big a deal. One of the things I’ve always been proud of this community is that people are generous and they’re willing to, to pay up for, for quality. And I think we’ve got a quality town, and I think we need to just kind of keep things into perspective. And there’s probably something else.

I’d say you start with the health and safety issue. You know, how does this, whatever the problem is, affect health and safety? Then perhaps the projects that would benefit the largest, you know, the broadest part of the community. And then as you work down through the things, you know, the trivial things are less important by— And, you know, so fixing the roads, fixing the utilities have to come first. And then the rest of it is enhancing the experience of living in Harbor Springs, working in Harbor Springs, doing business in Harbor Springs. And again, I would go back to start with what benefits the broadest contingency.

I think this question probably came due to the Kiwanis Park upgrade, which behind schedule because there were some assumptions that were not correct. So every project is different. For example, the Harbor Commission and the city rebuilt the harbormaster building, and it turned out it was on schedule. And the only thing that I had anything to do with making it be on schedule was that I scheduled a ribbon cutting for the day it was supposed to be finished about a month out and informed the contractor that we had done that. And it got done. It was—that was pretty cool. Um, but no, you don’t know what’s going to happen with the project. Center Street, for example, you know, they’re going to pave one block. It turned out—I don’t remember what the reason was, but they had to pave 2 blocks. And so it went through and we paved 2 blocks and we probably saved a bunch of money in the long haul by doing that. Instead of coming back around and put some of the other thing later. So every project’s different, and I think we do a good job here.

This is not a new problem. When I started being involved with the city, there were people who were talking about putting up a fence at the top of the hill. One of the clichés around town was rubber tomahawks because they didn’t want this to become Mackinac City. So this is something that’s pressed us for a long time. One of the ways that we can limit it is there’s only so many parking spaces. There’s only so much room. And so there’s kind of a—there’s kind of a natural barrier there. I think that we may be overmarketing ourselves. I don’t know if that’s true. I know that this is not unique to Harbor Springs either. You read any of the stuff about online out of Traverse City. A lot of people down there are saying that, you know, they paved paradise for a parking lot. So I think we need to resist that sort of thing. And we probably—

I wasn’t sure if I’d be delighted to hear this question, turns out that that question came up because the Harbor Commission is rewriting the rules and regulations, and we are doing exactly what I just heard everybody say. We have not made it official. It hasn’t gone past legal. It’s going to go to the council before it becomes a rule. Um, but we’re—what we’re looking at doing is in the high season, no. In the shoulder season, very limited by application only with stipulations. One of the biggies is safety, as John alluded to. We only have so much capacity on the waterfront. And, you know, the shuttle boats that they use are big and kind of ungainly. And the 2-hour dock is full most of the summer long. And the main dock is not set up for that. We’re full from—you know, before the fourth of July through the end of August every year, all the time. So we don’t have capacity. We’re working on it.

I think that the, uh, greater Harbor Springs community needs to weigh in. Um, I think that citizens and taxpayers of the city of Harbor Springs need to have, um, be overrepresented, um, but to, uh, you know, say no to that, I would probably be against. And I also think that if we have representation from the townships, then some of the people who are coming to our meetings from the townships could be directed to go through their community process rather than coming down here and railing at the city council over some perceived slight.

Question 8: What is one thing Harbor Springs is doing well that you would work to preserve, and one thing you believe needs to change?

Well, I’m biased, and I think we’ve got the best little harbor anywhere. Um, currently hosting the world championships, some really cool little boats if you haven’t been down to look at it. I don’t know about things that we’re not doing well, but I would suggest that we’ve had a significant turnover in city staff in, in high-value positions, and we need—we’ve got a, like, call it a rebuilding year coming up here, or 2. I don’t know how long it takes. I think that it’s holding together well, but I’m sorry to see we’re going to lose Kyle. We lost Lucas, and we’ve had some other turnover. So I’d like to see, I’d like to see that go really well for the community.

The event that you’re prepared for isn’t an emergency. It’s just a thing that happens. So, like the ice storm, that took out—we had no power for, um, 6 days. So Starlink isn’t going to work either. Everybody’s cell phone dies. Um, the community came together tremendous. If I were to try to maybe suggest something, we mentioned, you know, the aging population. You know, if we had, —I don’t know if the police department knows who the most vulnerable people around town are, but if there’s, you know, sort of a, a list that in an event like what we experienced, they could just go around and knock on doors. I know I was fortunate enough to come up with a generator, which meant I could run my furnace, which meant my house was warm. And so I had my neighbors over and, uh, charged phones and got warmed up and had a cup of coffee and all that sort of thing. Um, so mostly it’s neighbors helping neighbors. You know, situation like that.

Question 10: What should city government do to improve communication and build trust with residents, particularly when making difficult or unpopular decisions?

I think the city has been working diligently. We just approved upgrading the, microphones, among other things, in this room. The, uh, yeah, so they already sold it. You know, there’s always going to be somebody who didn’t get an engraved invitation and is upset, because they didn’t know what was going on. But I think that, you know, all of our meetings are public. 6 weeks from now, you can watch me saying this online. Um, so I think, uh, I don’t think, uh, what they’re doing is all that bad. You know, I think, you can—they’ve got the Text the City app, you’ve got the website, you’ve got, you know, the website might be updated a little more frequently, but I think the city’s doing a pretty good job of communicating with the general public for citizen science.

Question 11: What would you do to ensure residents with opposing views are heard and that council discussions remain factual, civil, and respectful?

I think that de-escalation is a skill that, you know, some people have and some people don’t have. So when somebody’s particularly upset about something, you know, it’s a—it can be a challenge to settle them down. Breaking, acknowledging whatever their thing is, validating that they’re, you know, we’re hearing you, you know, just basically, dealing with an angry person. I don’t think it has a whole lot to do with much else. Um, the, uh, if it’s actually factual that they’re talking about, you could restate the facts, and say, okay, so there’s, there’s green and there’s blue, you know, nobody’s gonna die, you know. And, uh, so let’s, you know, just be like everybody else has said, be adults and encourage the people at the podium to be adults as well.

Closing Comments

A couple tough acts to follow here. I’m going to pick up where I left off my opening remarks. Valuable skills include solving problems, listening viewpoints, awareness of interrelated aspects of the many facets of the community, consensus building, and all that. It’s going to be okay, and then why did I decide to run for council at this time was the official question. Uh, if you ask Brian, he thinks I took a hit in the head. But seriously, I have the time. I believe I have valuable skills and experience to help steer the ship through the next couple of years. I don’t have an agenda other than to preserve those attributes that make Harbor a great place to grow up, do business, recreate, live now and into the future. I didn’t write closing comments, but I did make a couple notes. I’d like to continue to improve processes. I think that the community has improved in all aspects over the years for a long time. Continue to do that. And collaborate to make best decisions. I don’t have all the answers to anything, but we are all on the same team. So I’ll leave you with that. And if you’d like to vote for me, that’d be great.