The 2026 City Council Race and a Race to be Mayor of Harbor Springs

The Harbor Springs Area Chamber of Commerce is hosting its Meet the Candidates forum at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 22, at City Hall, 160 Zoll Street. Doors are open to the public. If you can’t attend in person, the forum will stream live on the City of Harbor Springs YouTube channel and be recorded for later viewing.

Chamber Executive Director Bonnie Kulp and Assistant Director Amy Millard will moderate. Submit questions in advance to director@harborspringschamber.com.

Event page, Zoom link, and candidate bios: Chamber event page

The Chamber has run this forum since 2018. It is the one night each year when all the candidates sit in the same room and answer the same questions. Go.

What’s on the ballot

Two non-partisan city races on November 3: Mayor (one seat) and City Council (two seats). Mayor Tom Graham is not seeking re-election. The summaries below draw on each candidate’s own statement to the Chamber; read the full versions at the links.

Mayor: two candidates

Gail Brown has served on the Downtown Development Authority since January 2023, the last three years as chair. Before that she spent 25-plus years in retail leadership at Dillard’s and Vera Bradley in district, regional, and national roles, which she cites for her experience with budgets, strategic planning, and operations. She and her husband, former Mayor Bill Brown, have had a cottage here since 1995 and have lived here full-time since 2012. Her stated priorities: strong city services, economic vitality, community engagement, and preserving the town’s character, with transparency and fiscal responsibility as the operating rules. She describes herself as “downtown all the time” and says the merchants’ top concern is staffing. Volunteer work includes the History Museum, Preservation 49740, and the Pointer Boat. On preservation, in her words: “preserving the character of Harbor Springs” is one of her four stated priorities, alongside city services, economic vitality, and engagement. Bio (PDF)

Jamie Melke is finishing her fourth year on City Council, first elected in 2022 (349 votes) and re-elected in 2024 (430 votes). A Northern Michigan native, she has spent years managing the dining room and leading the team at The New York Restaurant. Her pitch is process: as Mayor she would set focused agendas, improve the city’s asset inventory and capital improvement planning, provide clear policy direction, and keep meetings productive and respectful while making sure residents get heard. She emphasizes protecting taxpayer dollars and a practical, steady approach. On preservation, in her words: her statement does not mention preservation, character, or growth. It is about how Council runs. Bio (PDF)

Two different vantage points on the same City Hall. Brown brings a corporate operations background and the DDA’s view of downtown. Melke brings four years inside Council and a specific plan for how it should run. The question for each is the same: what are the top three priorities, and what gets deferred to pay for them?

City Council: five candidates, two seats

John Cupps was born and raised in Harbor Springs, went K-12 here, and attended Northern Michigan University. He owns and operates the family construction company and has served on the Home Builders Association and Chamber boards and on City Council (elected 2019). He has been with the Harbor Springs Area Fire Department for 36 years, the last 10 as Fire Chief. His family’s roots here go back more than a century. He says he is running to “restore balance” and address the challenges facing the community, and that he does not claim to have all the answers. His statement stresses family, personal responsibility, and respect. On preservation, in his words: his statement does not mention preservation or growth. His family construction business builds here. Bio (PDF)

Melissa Georges has lived in Harbor Springs for 16 years and serves on the Parks and Recreation Committee. Her background is the family business, Fielding Pharmaceutical Company, first in sales and later as CFO. Her platform is narrow by design: protect the town’s character and keep it affordable, focus Council on the basics (power, sewers, public safety, sidewalks, snow and ice), spend carefully, and maintain the assets the city already owns. She sees Council as an advisory and oversight body that sets priorities and lets professional staff do their jobs rather than micromanaging them. She notes half of year-round residents are over 60, which makes reliable basics a bigger deal than they sound. On preservation, in her words: “protect the charm, the assets and the character that make our town so special and keep it a place people can afford to call home.” It is the first line of her statement. Bio (PDF)

Bill McCullough grew up on Little Traverse Bay, went to the University of Michigan, and raised his family here. He has served on the Harbor Commission, a council-appointed advisory body, since the late 1990s and currently chairs it, and he points to that record of listening, building consensus, and working with budgets as his preparation for Council. His stated goal is to preserve, protect, and enhance the community for future generations, and he notes that everyone has their own view of what makes Harbor Springs and none are wrong. Volunteer history includes National Ski Patrol, school athletics, and several local nonprofits. On preservation, in his words: “preserve, protect, and enhance the community for future generations.” Ask what “enhance” means. His firm has provided IT services to the city. Bio (PDF)

Wendy Reeve is the incumbent, first elected in 2024 (420 votes). She grew up the eldest of four daughters on a third-generation farm south of Lansing, paid her own way through Albion College (1981), bought her first Harbor Springs house on West Lake Street in 1992, and founded Reeve Cottage Interiors in 2000 after a four-decade career in interior design. She is running on pragmatic, balanced governance. Her pledge list: listen to all residents and property owners, consider every viewpoint, understand issues thoroughly, address problems proactively, spend responsibly (”I hate wasting money”), preserve the town’s character, and prepare the city for future generations. On preservation, in her words: “preserve the character and charm that makes Harbor Springs special” is on her pledge list, next to “I hate wasting money.” Bio (PDF)

Mark Rondel lives at 181 Zoll Street, first came here on a family ski trip in 1959, patrolled at Nub’s Nob and worked summers at Walstrom Marine, and has been a full-time resident since buying a house at Main and Zoll in 1979. He ran once before, in 2000, narrowly losing to Al Dika. He argues the decisions of the next few years will echo for decades and that Council, as the city’s decision-making body, has to make them. He calls himself a big-picture guy and wants the city to step back, build a shared vision for its future, and use every Council meeting to make concrete progress toward it. He cites long engagement with city policy and relationships across resorters, residents, workers, administrators, and visitors. On preservation, in his words: his statement calls for a shared vision for the future but does not say what that vision is. Bio (PDF)

How to read this race

Every candidate promises to listen, spend carefully, and protect the town’s character. Nobody runs against those, so the words will not separate anyone on Tuesday. Two things will.

First, discipline. Watch who answers a yes-or-no question with yes or no, and who answers it with a speech. A candidate who cannot give a straight answer at a forum will not give one at a Council table.

Second, incentives. Ask, for each candidate, a plain question: does their income go up when Harbor Springs builds more, hosts more, or contracts more? Some candidates run businesses that do better when the town grows or when the city spends. Some do not. That is not a character judgment. It is arithmetic, and it tells you which way a close vote leans when nobody is watching. Read the bios above with that in mind, then listen to the conflict-of-interest answers below.

Where WLHS stands is no secret. We are for preservation: two-story buildings, no stoplights, no parking meters, and a town where people know each other’s names. Infrastructure first, growth second. Read us with that in mind. Here are the questions we think the candidates owe you straight answers to.

Questions worth asking Tuesday

1. Priorities. Name your top three for the next two years.

2. The job. Is Council’s job to make sure we all get along, or to manage costs, taxes, and infrastructure?

3. Accountability. Voters rejected the 2024 zoning rewrite at referendum. If you were on Council during the rewrite period, why were you right to vote yes? If you weren't, why did Council vote yes while citizens voted no?

4. Preservation: Why is it harder to preserve a town than it is to grow it?

5. Winter or downtown. Utility substation upgrades have been deferred for more than 15 years. Day six of an ice storm with an older population means cleared streets, buried lines, backup generation, groceries and gasoline still flowing. Which comes first: winter readiness, or growing downtown business?

6. Tourists. The cell phone tracking study found roughly 1.5 million people come through each year and about 60 percent are here once, for less than a day, never to return. Does the city spend more serving them than it earns from them?

7. Cruise ships. Ships anchor in Little Traverse Bay and tender passengers downtown via a private marina, April through October. For or against?

8. Traffic on 119. If Little Traverse Township, Bliss, and Cross Village triple over the next decade and traffic on M-119 through town doubles. What would you do now to prepare for that possible future?

9. Preparedness. The City published an after-action review after the 2024 ice storm. Then came the 2025 snowstorm. What is the City's disaster preparedness plan?

10. The utility overrun. The city substation project has grown from an estimated $2M to $8M. Why?

11. Paying for it. There is no plan to pay for the utility upgrades beyond more debt. No rate plan change is finalized. The sewer system needs an estimated $2.5M in work. Sidewalks are a standing complaint. Is there enough money for all of it? How do you decide what gets done first?

12. Cut $500,000. Take half a million dollars out of next year’s budget. Name the line items.

13. Reliability. Our wholesale power supplier has said rising demand and more renewable generation may mean less reliable power here. The city owns its electric utility. Which do you choose: pay more for firm capacity, build city-owned backup generation, harden the local grid, or accept more outages?

14. Long-term planning. Council turns over every two years and agendas fill with whatever is loudest that month. What mechanism would you put in place to keep Council focused on long-term city issues?

15. Meetings. Council meets every two weeks, often for hours. Should it? What would you take off the agenda?

16. Preservation. Development disputes are now in court, in part because people read the rules differently. Are you willing to go to court to preserve the town?

17. The DDA. The Downtown Development Authority has its own board, director, and budget. How independent should the DDA be to set its own downtown strategy?

18. City revenue. In the last five years, have you earned revenue from the City of Harbor Springs as an employee or contractor? If so, how much?

19. Business interest. Does your business or household income benefit directly from decisions you would make on Council?

20. IT. The acting city manager found the city’s IT outdated and in disrepair, with the email server years out of date and vulnerable to hacking. Why did this happen?

21. Personnel. The city has spent years defending a lawsuit over the firing of city staff. What would you change in city HR policy so it does not happen again?

Send your questions to director@harborspringschamber.com before Tuesday. Then show up.