Nine people, including the mayor, make up city council. Residents can find out which ward represents them at https://www.hhoh.org/361/Ward-Locator-Ward-Map.
Every one of the ward seats has a competitive race in the Nov. 2 election. Richard Shaw, who currently represents Ward 1, is running against Nancy Byrge for one of the two at-large seats.
The Dayton Daily News interviewed all eight candidates who are running in the Nov. 2 election.
Council at large
Nancy Byrge
Byrge is one of the two current council-at-large council members. Byrge has been on council since March 2016.
She said she keeps coming back to council because she feels her role in government is serving the people.
“I just want to give back to the community,” she said. “I like to listen to our residents and their concerns and help them resolve their issues, and also to bring new amenities to the community.”
Adding more sidewalks, making them accessible, making sure parks are accessible for people who aren’t as mobile, adding bike paths and improving parks were priorities for her, Byrge said. She said her role on the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission helps her with this, as does her role on council.
Byrge said people should vote for her because she is there to listen.
“I’m not in it for me. I’m there to serve them,” she said. “That’s why I’m on council.”
Byrge retired from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and serves on a number of boards, including president of the Kiwanis of Dayton.
Richard Shaw
Shaw currently holds the Ward 1 council seat. He has served as Ward 1 council member for about two terms and said he made a promise to only hold the seat for two terms. He has served since 2016 and his term expires in 2023.
“During my time on the charter Review Commission, I advocated for term limits,” Shaw said. “Because I truly believe that fresh ideas and fresh perspectives of city council members is important for our city to grow.”
Shaw said he was approached to run for council after he attended a meeting about taxes.
He said he is advocating for roads, water improvements, changing the way the city speaks to its residents, and improving the existing city.
“We have houses in our southern part of our community that really need attention,” Shaw said. “We have roads that need attention, businesses that need attention, in my opinion, before we continue to grow and bolster additional housing and businesses.”
He said he plans to accomplish those goals by continuing what he has done on council already.
Shaw works for a financial institution.
Ward 3 council
Kate Baker
City council appointed Baker to replace former Ward 3 councilman Seth Morgan who moved out of Huber Heights and was no longer eligible to be on city council.
Baker has long been involved with volunteering in her community, she said, so the chance to make a difference on council was one she wanted. She called her council service “an honor.”
“I’ve worked with the multiple boards and committees and commissions to make Huber Heights a better city for my residents,” she said.
Baker said she was proud of her role in helping create the Culture & Diversity Citizen Action Commission and the council’s resolution to denounce racism as a public health crisis.
She wants to go further, adding wheelchair access around the city and honoring veterans.
“It measures the community how you take care of your indigent and your people who have diminished capacity,” Baker said.
She said it’s great Huber Heights has been expanding and she’d like to see it continue, but also be able to advocate for her own constituents in Ward 3.
Baker works for a bank.
Frank Wylie
Wylie applied to for Morgan’s empty council seat in 2020, but was not selected. Wylie said he planned on running for the seat this year whether he was selected or not.
Wylie said he was frustrated with not getting the answers to questions he and others had asked about issues at city council, such as voting against a medical marijuana facility before all responses to a survey had been collected.
“I can either just sit around and be frustrated, or I can actually get up and try to do something about it,” Wylie said.
Wylie cited improved communication as a major priority for him.
“I think the communication and being fully transparent about what’s going on and making sure we have all the information is just something that you can do as a representative without having a whole lot of effort involved in that,” Wylie said.
Wylie said he also wants to see Huber Heights continue to grow as it has been.
“I want to see Huber Heights maintain the community feel while growing responsibly,” he said.
Wylie is an addiction counselor.
District 4 council
Current city councilman Andy Hill is not running for reelection.
Vincent King
King is currently serving on the Huber Heights Parks and Recreation Committee and has served on the committee for about six years.
He said he wanted to run for the seat to be able to focus on bigger issues.
King said communication and better jobs in the community are high priorities for him. The jobs must be able to help families pay for their expenses, he said, but also to attract young people back to the area who have left for college. These need to be more than retail or fast-food jobs, he said.
“It’s about fostering economic growth and development,” King said.
King said the city could also do a better job at communicating with its residents.
“I would like to see more communication between, city and residents and not on social media, specifically, but face to face, and outside of City Hall,” he said.
King suggested a smaller town hall or event may help improve communication.
King works as a civilian at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Anita Kitchen
Kitchen said she chose to run for council because her area has had several water main breaks. Ward 3 is the center of Huber Heights and one of the older parts of the city.
“Once all these developments started happening, our lines were breaking, they were older, they couldn’t sustain the additional pressure to get water out to the other areas,” Kitchen said.
Kitchen said the city should consider spending more money to fix the water and sewer lines that have been breaking. It will likely be a long-term project, she said.
Kitchen said the city should also be increasing the number of firefighters and police officers in the city to keep up with population.
“I’m not saying bigger and better is not nice but if you’re not taking care of your basic needs, then we need to stop the others, until the others are caught up,” she said.
She said as a social worker and as someone whose aging parent lives with her and her husband, she has a different perspective.
She is the executive director of FOA Families of Addicts.
Ward 5 council
Mark Campbell
Campbell is the current Ward 5 councilman. The first time he was elected to council was 1986 and he has served continuously since Jan. 1, 1990.
“I think I’m the most qualified, and I’m ready to serve on day one,” Campbell said.
He said he has kept his word to residents from the last election, when he told residents they would redevelop Marian Meadows Shopping Center. Since then, the city has bought the property and has commitments from several businesses and plans for a new library to take shape there.
But he said there is still work to be done.
“We need to be good stewards of our money,” he said. “We need to focus on our infrastructure.”
He noted Ward 5 is the oldest part of Huber Heights and some of it is more than 60 years old.
“We need to continue to reinvest in our interior streets,” Campbell said. “We need to continue the water lining project which is relining our water, so that we have less water main breaks.”
Campbell is the Ohio performance manager for Gerber Collision and Glass.
Noemi Marrero
Marrero said she is looking to serve the residents of Huber Heights. She has lived in the city for about 12 years and raised her children there, and now she wants to give back.
“It has been a good city for me,” she said. “It is time for me to turn around and serve my city, like a good citizen.”
Marrero said she wanted citizens to have a better sense of what’s going on in their communities.
“I believe that we need to start getting to know each other and I think that I can accomplish that in my ward where neighbors know each other and they can help each other, they can support each other,” she said.
She said she also wanted to improve places for young people to go and hang out, which would also be good for parents.
“The children really need to have a place where they can go and do things as opposed to thinking of vandalizing the neighborhood,” she said.
Marrero is an elementary school teacher at Dayton Public Schools
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