PONTIAC, Mich. \u2013 A candidate for a city council position grabbed a microphone at a nightclub in Oakland County and targeted a mayoral candidate\u2019s sexuality.<\/p>\n
Mike McGuinness has been the Pontiac City Council president for four years, and he said he has heard about every possible snipe and insult.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been called everything you can imagine, including a vampire,\u201d McGuinness said. \u201cI can tell you: I am not a vampire.\u201d<\/p>\n
One hotly contested race that will be decided next week is in Pontiac, where McGuinness is running for mayor against former three-term city councilman and former council president, Kermit Williams.<\/p>\n
McGuinness, who is gay, said he has dealt with constant attacks about his sexuality. He was on the wrong end of another one this week.<\/p>\n
A video from a nightclub in Pontiac was posted to Facebook on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. It shows Dawn Hannah, a community activist and write-in candidate for the District 3 city council seat, grabbing the microphone and rallying people to vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need y\u2019all to flood the polls,\u201d Hannah said, \u201cY\u2019all better get out and vote for Kermit Williams, unless we going to have another gay white man over us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hannah\u2019s social media is flooded with posts urging people to vote for her and Williams on Election Day.<\/p>\n
Williams told Local 4 that Hannah is not connected with him or his campaign in any way, and he said she does not speak for him. He added that his 20 years of working for the city speaks for itself.<\/p>\n
Williams posted a statement on his Facebook page on Thursday morning denouncing what Hannah said, without directly referencing her by name.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur campaign stands firmly against hate speech, division, and negativity of any kind,\u201d the statement said, in part. \u201cThis election is about bringing our city together.\u201d<\/p>\n
McGuinness said Hannah\u2019s comment, whether she works with his campaign or not, has been part of a very nasty campaign led by Williams.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been mailers from out of town attacking me,\u201d McGuinness said. \u201cFrom Michigan Voices to Facebook Lives — all of this deluge, all the debate performances, is just a matter of public record that my opponent has been very divisive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had to endure a lot of attacks, and this is just the latest example.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local 4 reached out to Hannah for comment and has yet to receive a response. McGuinness said he wants to focus more on the issues and uniting the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve tried to be very positive, focus on the issues, focus on the city\u2019s future, because that\u2019s really what the people of Pontiac want and deserve,\u201d McGuinness said. \u201cIt\u2019s up to the city of Pontiac to say what approach best represents them and what vibe are they feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTIAC, Mich. \u2013 A candidate for a city council position grabbed a microphone at a nightclub in Oakland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,904,145,144,3131],"class_list":{"0":"post-35749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-oakland","9":"tag-oakland-county","10":"tag-oakland-headlines","11":"tag-oakland-news","12":"tag-pontiac"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}