Ypsilanti resident of six years and chair of the Libertarian Party of Huron-Raisin, Mark King will be on the November ballot as a city council candidate for Ypsilanti’s 3rd Ward.
King also ran for mayor of Ypsilanti in 2022, which allowed him to interact with more citizens and get their perspectives, he said.
As a third-party candidate, it is difficult for King to spend a lot of time or effort campaigning mainly due to the straight-ticket voting policy in Ypsilanti, he said.
“Unfortunately, Ypsilanti is one of two cities in Michigan that has a partisan city council,” King said.
This means that straight-ticket voting will apply to city officials, as opposed to only state and federal officials.
Local elections should not be affiliated with national political parties, King said.
“The national parties have their own focus,” King said. “The focus is just way too broad to align with what a specific municipality might want,”
King’s priorities if elected include addressing the city’s property tax rates, crime, and members of the city council who appear to be too focused on pushing a political agenda, he said.
“Ypsilanti has a very high tax rate in the county and even the state of Michigan,” King said. “This drives up costs all across the board, whether you’re a homeowner or a renter,”
After speaking with homeowners and landlords in the city about their taxes, King says landlords are essentially forced to charge high rates of rent to afford those taxes.
“They may also do what we’ve seen all over the city where they segment a single-family house into six crappy little one-bedroom apartments,” King said.
This also leads to a lack of property maintenance due to the amount of money that landlords owe to the city, King said.
King is also an employee at a local Ypsilanti bar, where he sees a lot of issues relating to loitering, soliciting, and aggressive panhandling, he said.
“You can’t rely on the police department here because nobody actually wants to work for the Ypsilanti police department,” King said.
King recalls personal encounters with the city’s police department.
“I remember one time we had a smoke bomb thrown into the bar, and I called the police,” King said. “It took two and a half hours for an officer to arrive.”
The Ypsilanti police only showed up after King and other employees called Eastern Michigan police, who then requested backup to the bar, he said.
“That was the only way we got any attention,” King said.
Any time King has called Ypsilanti police to the bar, they have taken anywhere from 40 minutes to two hours to arrive, he said.
“At that point, what’s the point?” King said.
King also would like to address the use of city council positions to further national party agendas or issues, he said.
“It feels to me and a lot of people that I’ve talked to that people on the city council use it as their vanity project, where they can further their political stances not to the benefit of Ypsilanti,” King said.
King used the city’s resolution condemning Israel as an example.
“There is nothing stopping anyone on city council from making their own website and publishing opinions on there,” King said.
King wants the city to focus on its own issues, like high tax rates and just running the city overall.
“It doesn’t make sense for a small city in Michigan to take a stance on foreign affairs,” King said. “We shouldn’t be wasting our time with things like that.”
As a Libertarian, King’s views contrast with the current city council’s, he said.
According to the Libertarian Party, libertarians strongly oppose any government interference in personal, family, and business decisions and believe all Americans should be free to live their lives and pursue their interests as long as they do no harm to another.
King wants Ypsilanti residents to strongly consider not checking the straight-party box if they want to see change within the city.
“If you see a problem, then stop voting for the same types of people,” King said. “Clearly they don’t want to actually solve the problem.”
Regardless of the election results, King plans to remain active by attending city council meetings and providing a different perspective on how things are being run.
“I just want to keep things on point and focus on the things we need to be doing so that we can all live, work, and have fun in this town,” King said.
