About Mike

Meet the Family

Willisa and I graduated from William Henry Harrison High School in 1985. We have been married since 1989 and when we graduated from the University of Cincinnati we knew we wanted to raise our family in Harrison and bought our first home here in 1991. For 18 years we lived on Harrison Ave. in Historic downtown Harrison, after purchasing the home from my parents when they first moved into town in 1976. We are the proud parents of four adult children and one grandchild.

Record

I was elected to Harrison City council in 2017 and have served on the streets and bike path committee my entire tenure. When we experienced a pedestrian fatality on the West Road overpass in 2018, I was told there was little the city could do to move ODOT to add a sidewalk to the bridge. Not taking no for an answer, I enlisted the help of 143 Engineers, a contact I made through my work volunteer work on the Doug Dunaway MX park, to find a way to secure a 100% safety funding grant from ODOT. This project is schedule for completion in 2022 and will include a sidewalk from Harrison Ave. across the West Road overpass and connecting to Country View Drive.

On Running as a Libertarian

My earliest remembrance of political affiliation was the split in my parents home between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan during there Presidential election of 1980. That was probably what begin my interest in local, state and national politics. During my time working at Levi Strauss & Co., I remember long conversations with my colleague and libertarian friend Lewis Napper. I was impressed with his Senate run against Mississippi incumbent Trent Lott and the principles of liberty and small government espoused by the Libertarian Party.

In 2017 I considered running as a Libertarian, but the party had lost its ballot access in 2014 with the passage of SB 193 and it was not an option. In 2018 the party re-gained ballot access and I started to plan my re-election campaign as a Libertarian. In 2019 I was introduced to Joe Combs while he was running for city council as an independent. and we became fast friends. In 2020 I actively supported Kevin Kahn’s Congressional Campaign and the Jo Jorgensen Presidential Campaign as well as helping to reboot the Hamilton County Libertarian party. Joe Combs and I decided to join forces and run as Libertarian. Unfortunately, while gathering signatures for the 2021 ballot, we were notified by the Ohio Secretary of State that the Libertarian party had lost ballot access in 2020 forcing Joe and I to run as Independents. The Libertarian Party lost ballot access because of an Ohio Law that required parties to receive 3% of the vote from their candidates in their Gubernatorial or Presidential elections. Since Travis Irvine and Jo Jorgensen didn’t meet the threshold in 2018 or 2020 we lost ballot access.

This past summer the Libertarian Party of Ohio regained ballot access by circulating 88,000 signatures statewide. In comparison, my opponents only needed 50 votes to place their name on the ballot. An independent candidate would also have a very difficult time gaining ballot access requiring 1,381 signatures to gain ballot access.