“I'm ready to get to work for Pontiac as our Mayor. You've seen my ability to get results and to lead. Put me to work for Pontiac as our Mayor and I'll give it everything I've got to get us moving forward faster.”
MEET MIKE MCGUINNESS
Mike McGuinness loves Pontiac and has dedicated his life to improving our city. He serves our community as Pontiac City Council President, a position he’s held for over three years. Mike represents Pontiac’s Eastside on City Council, elected by the residents of District Seven.
As Pontiac City Council President, Mike McGuinness has gotten results for us. Under his leadership the City Council handles the city’s business professionally and hasn’t shied away from making the hard decisions to keep moving us forward. Council President McGuinness led the charge to ensure the city’s $37 Million in federal American Rescue Plan Act was saved from the current administrations mismanagement, the city’s annual budgets were fiscally responsible and adopted on time, and the transformational project of Oakland County moving operations back into downtown Pontiac was shepherded to passage.
Mike led the reorganization and modernization of City Council operations. He directed the City Council’s economic development, housing, & planning subcommittees for three years. As a member of the Pontiac Planning Commission, Mike advanced projects that were adding value to Pontiac and opposed requests that were too burdensome to our neighborhoods. As the Eastside’s City Councilman Mike is responsive and accessible to his constituents - returning resident phone calls and email requests, promptly. He brought back monthly community meetings for the Eastside, and they’ve seen tremendous growth and participation. To address the current Mayoral Administration’s ongoing struggles with managing the city’s Finance Department and basic financial operations, Mike has now taken on the responsibility of leading the City Council’s finance & personnel subcommittee.
Prior to serving on City Council, Mike was elected twice to the Pontiac School Board. He served in that role for five years, including as School Board President in 2020 and 2021. During his time as Board President, the school district’s $51 Million deficit was eliminated and for the first time in over thirty years a capital improvement bond was adopted to make long-overdue repairs to our public school buildings. He prioritized student success and supporting teachers and staff. Mike led the school district during the height of the pandemic’s uncertainty and, despite those major obstacles, his time on the School Board was marked by stability and problem-solving progress.
Professionally, Mike has extensive experience in economic development, downtown management, government relations, and community engagement. He led Downtown Berkley as Executive Director of the Berkley DDA from 2021-2025, launching multiple popular initiatives and helping recruit dozens of new retailers and restaurants. Mike was the primary economic development point person for the city of Berkley; learning firsthand how Oakland County local government’s structure themselves and utilize best practices.
Mike leads Oakland County’s Historical Society, a 150-year-old nonprofit organization based in Pontiac, as their Executive Director since 2019. Under his leadership their financial support diversified, their donations reached record levels, and their programming activities grew exponentially. Mike is passionate about Pontiac’s history and its future.
He previously worked for the United States House of Representatives and our then-Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence from 2016-2019. Congresswoman Lawrence was at the time — and remains to this day — Mike’s biggest mentor in politics. He coordinated Congresswoman Lawrence’s outreach efforts across both Oakland County and expanded those initiatives for Pontiac. While working for Congresswoman Lawrence Mike assisted Pontiac residents with federal issues — helping them secure hundreds of thousands of dollars in Social Security benefits, veterans benefits, and other government agency services.
His love of Pontiac has led Mike to be involved in many Pontiac organizations. From 2015-2019, he voluntarily served as Chairman of the Pontiac Arts Commission. It was Mike who successfully led the Pontiac Arts Crawl’s creation and growth in the first years. He also served on the Pontiac Charter Revision Commission from 2013-2015.
He graduated from Oakland University, with a degree in Political Science. Mike served as Student Body President and Vice President. To pay his way through college, Mike was always working multiple jobs. One of those college jobs was in the AmeriCorps. Through AmeriCorps’, at Oakland University, Mike helped lead after-school and summer youth enrichment programs in Pontiac. His work was based within Pontiac’s public schools and in neighborhoods that included ArborView Village, Newman Court Apartments, and Walton Park Manor.
Mike owns an historic century-old home on Union Street, near Pontiac City Hall on our city’s Eastside. His first home was on Mechanic Street and he was very active in cleaning up his neighborhood. In his teenage years he lived in the Pontiac Knolls on Court Street with his father, who still lives in that same house today.