sProduction funding for Media Meet is provided by the Ray and Peg Hirvonen Foundation.

sStay tuned to WNMU as we continue our candidate forums.

This time with a focus on the 108th House District, which runs sfrom Menominee County all the way east into portions of Chippewa and Menominee counties.

We will hear from the candidates hoping to fill this open sseat, Democrat Rachel Keys and Republican Larry Johnson.

The Michigan 108th House District Candidate Forum is next on Media Meet.

sHello everyone.

I'm Mike Settles.

sWelcome to WNMU's Media Meet.

With Representative Dave Preston running for the state senate, his 108th House sDistrict seat is up for grabs.

Come November 3rd, those of you living in the district will pick a fresh face to represent you and your interests in sLancing.

Today, we're going to talk with the two candidates hoping to convince you they deserve your vote.

In the second half of the show, we will speak swith Republican Larry Johnson.

But first, I would like to welcome to the program, Democrat Rachel Keys.

Rachel, welcome to Media Meet.

sThank you for having me.

My pleasure.

sThanks for driving over and and doing this appearance for us.

It's really going to be helpful for our viewers and listeners.

Um, I suspect a lot of folks sin your district may not know who Rachel Keys is.

So, tell us more about yourself and and your interest in becoming the next 108th House District Rep.

sAll right, jumping right into it then.

sHey, so I am on Let's use our Michigan map here.

Let's do that first cuz as you said the house this house district the 108 is a big broad swath of land and it sgoes right through the central portion of the upper peninsula.

I am up here at the very tippy top of it uh in Bay Mills.

I'm from the um Bay Mills Indian s, 7 secondsReservation right up there.

I'm Manisha Bequay.

I am also a mom, a hockey mom up there.

I've got an eight-year-old in hockey and public school.

I've got a lot s, 16 secondsvested in this.

So when people say what brought you to this I say well I've got a lot vested in this.

Right.

So, I live s, 23 secondsin this upper peninsula and I've seen too much going wrong too fast and it's time to get out of my blueberry patch and do something about it.

And so, when s, 31 secondsthey asked, you know, who can do something about this, I thought, I can do something about this.

I'm uniquely qualified for this.

Um, let me ask about your qualifications.

s, 39 secondsWhat What in your background, in your life experiences would make you a good representative?

s, 46 secondsA good representative.

What does that even mean these days?

because we talk about representatives and it has become this sort of abstract concept but we're s, 53 secondstalking about a onetoone representation and I looked at my representation and I thought these people aren't representing what I am and what I am is a woman who s, 2 secondshas lived a life of service and I see these politicians career politicians who have confused service with winning they think winning is the same thing but I s, 10 secondsthink those of us like myself who have served their church served their family served in the military I am a US naval s, 17 secondsveteran I did six years on board the USS Ewima in the Navy.

Um I was a fire controlman and when I got out of the Navy I was uh immediately picked up by s, 26 secondsthe Department of Defense as an anti-ship cruise missile defense weapons specialist.

So I have this background of service with my country, background of service in the church.

I was I was s, 34 secondsraised by an Assemblies of God pastor and I've seen what service looks like and what I'm seeing is not service at least it's not service to the public.

It s, 42 secondsmight be service to self.

And I'd like to bring back that concept of service because I think everybody seems to know s, 50 secondsthat service requires sacrifice.

So why are we seeing these people that are in service bettering themselves in their own lives so much while all the rest of s, 58 secondsus have seen just a negative decline consistently over the last two decades?

s, 4 secondsSo as a as a state and the UP and the 108th district uh where do you feel we s, 11 secondsare failing and need to do better?

What are there issues that could be improved upon through legislative action?

s, 18 secondsThrough legislative action.

That's the big thing here, right?

Because I hear a lot of lip service.

We hear these like, let's just pick one of those hot button s, 25 secondstopic issues right now where we say the birth rate is is falling, right?

s, 29 secondsEverybody's talking about the plummeting birth rate and what can we do to get women to have more babies and they're pulling out all these abstract ideas and s, 37 secondsin the meantime the 108 is a healthc care desert to the most extreme of that uh in six counties from Menominee s, 46 secondsSchoolcraft Delta Menominee Chippewa and loose counties there is one place in that 6,000 square miles that a woman can go s, 54 secondsto have a baby and in the last two decades of Republican male leadership that is dropping.

We're getting less s, 1 secondopportunity for that.

We're getting less opportunity for healthcare.

We just saw in the last two weeks Diane Pepper centers closing in these rural areas where they are needed the most.

So while s, 10 secondswhile we're hear Paulians talking about how things are a priority to them, it's lip service because we can look with our own eyes and see that it is clearly not s, 18 secondsbeen a priority.

And I think in our healthcare industry is the biggest most glaring example of that where they're always talking about providing more s, 25 secondshealth care.

And in the meantime, in order for those of us in the 108 to actually receive health care, we 100% of s, 32 secondsthe time have to leave the 108.

From where I am in Bay Mills, the nearest hospital is in the 107 or the 110 or the s, 40 seconds109.

There is nowhere for me to go in the 6,000 miles that I live in for health care.

That's a wild statement to make.

s, 48 secondsSo, increasing access to to rural health care sounds like a top priority.

What other issues are top of mind for you s, 56 secondsthat you would like to pursue on day one should you be elected?

s, 59 secondsIt goes back to what we're hearing versus what we're seeing?

So, I am a very America first person.

I I believe in America first and I hear politicians s, 8 secondssaying that America first, America first.

But then when I close my ears and open my eyes, what I see is $50 million s, 15 secondsgrants going to foreign Canadian companies.

And I see, did you know that Singapore owns 5% of the upper peninsula s, 23 secondsnow?

Singapore owns three times more land in the upper peninsula of Michigan than they do in the country of Singapore.

And it's because of private s, 31 secondsequity and these sweetheart deals and our politicians basically trading the Upper Peninsula like a bargaining trip down in Lansing.

It doesn't look America s, 40 secondsfirst to me.

It certainly doesn't look upper peninsula first to me.

And I want to see that rhetoric matching up.

And that's where I would come in.

what I say s, 48 secondsand what I do are the same thing.

That's integrity.

That's what integrity looks like.

s, 53 secondsSome of these concerns you just raised though, can they be addressed through legislation?

s, 57 secondsThey absolutely can be addressed through legislation.

We can go after private equity.

We see these like limp um initiatives towards that.

Um we just saw s, 6 secondsout of Lansing recently where they where they capped private equity at 200 homes.

s, 12 seconds200 homes, it seems like a good cap when you're talking about it from Lansing or from Detroit or from Grand Rapids, but 200 homes in these small rural communities is absolutely devastating.

s, 22 secondsSo, when you have already struggled so much to buy a house and you've already met that banking threshold that's almost an impossible hurdle in these rural s, 32 secondsareas and then you get to go buy that house and you're immediately beaten by a private equity cash offer, well, they can only do it a hundred times.

What does a hundred times look like in s, 40 secondsMcMillan or in Newberry?

What does a hundred times look like in sceni?

That's devastating to those communities.

So, we're looking at the upper peninsula s, 48 secondsthrough the lens of downstate and it's just not the same.

We have to start thinking of things like we used to.

s, 54 secondsRemember when the UP used to be this big community and it wasn't what side of the aisle you're on, it was what side of the bridge you were on.

There was yupers and s, 2 secondsthere was trolls and what's what's good for the goose is very seldom good for that gander.

We got to bring that back.

s, 7 secondswe have to start working for the upper peninsula again.

s, 11 secondsWell, speaking along those lines, the UP legislators have had a history of working together to advocate on behalf s, 18 secondsof the entire upper peninsula.

Uh should you be elected?

Uh do you see yourself continuing with that or would you be more focused on your district and those s, 27 secondswho supported you in the election rather than the overall constituency?

s, 32 secondsFortunately for me, um those are all one and the same.

I have found knocking on doors that this has been an overwhelmingly positive experience for s, 40 secondsme.

I have met with so many yupers and we all have relatively the same agenda regardless of the side of the aisle we're on.

Um people that are up here I s, 48 secondslike to say that we're very much like bears.

We want to when you live in the upper peninsula, you're not up here because you want to see manufacturing growth.

You're up here because you want s, 56 secondsto eat blueberries and fresh meat and play in fresh water and live in our pristine wilderness.

And then when football season gets here, we want to go hibernate.

Like this is our life.

We s, 5 secondswant to live in relative obscurity.

The less you hear from politicians, the better.

I'm from the Upper Peninsula.

I know this.

So, that has got to be our s, 13 secondsfocus.

I am very much focused on my district and bringing community back into it.

I think community is how we bring ourselves back to where we were.

s, 22 secondsWhen we talk about getting back to that good place, that good place is the community and pulling rental ship into things.

Renting, it destroys a s, 30 secondscommunity.

Renters don't care about their property values, about their public schools.

Renters don't care about mowing their lawns and painting their s, 37 secondshouses at the same way that home ownership does.

I think a real focus on community is how we bring that back.

And s, 45 secondsit's a really good thing to say it like that because all of our leaders believe that too on both sides of the aisle.

I think you're going to see that across the political spectrum of the focus not s, 53 secondsbeing on politics with the focus being on community.

s, 57 secondsI feel like I just heard you say uh with regard to manufacturing that that's not a priority.

Did I misinterpret that?

s, 4 secondsNo, it's not a priority in the 108.

You know, when people talk about bringing um when you talk about bringing jobs up s, 11 secondshere, the sort of jobs that come up here are very specific.

uh we just lost for example I work in partnership with the US forestry service and over the course s, 20 secondsof the last several years we've had dozens and dozens of people working good solid upper peninsula jobs in the s, 27 secondsforestry service we have huge swatches of public lands that need to be maintained and when Doge came through in s, 34 secondsand just slashed those jobs America first was what removing the good jobs from the upper peninsula that we need and instead we're what going to put in data centers or Canadian pipelines.

s, 45 secondsThat's not what we want up here.

Now, those things bring in minor jobs, but they're not the sort of jobs that Michigan really thrives on, like those s, 54 secondsforestry jobs, like like the jobs that we see being removed from us and being replaced with things like AI.

I don't s, 2 secondsthink anybody up here wants to see AI take over the Upper Peninsula.

s, 6 secondsWe do not have a lot of uh Native American representatives in Lansing, and I think it's been quite some time.

you tell me about that and whether s, 14 secondsyou can bring maybe more of a voice to our Native American communities.

s, 19 secondsSo, uh it's that is a big ticket item for me.

Um and if you will indulge me, I will tell you that there has been a s, 27 secondsNative American representative.

Um more than a hundred years ago was the last time the Upper Peninsula or Michigan had a female Native American representative.

s, 35 secondsHer name was Coral Reynolds Anderson and she was an Oji boy woman from the upper peninsula and she stood on unironically s, 43 secondsthe literal exact platform I'm on right now.

A more than a hundred years this woman out of the upper peninsula said, "I don't know what's going on up here, s, 50 secondsbut we need health care.

We need housing.

Our schools are falling apart.

s, 55 secondsWe need actual real measurable change.

I don't care about all the other lip service.

Things are in desperate need up here."

and she was such an absolute s, 3 secondsforce in Lansing that if you were to drive there today and go to the building where the House of Representatives does their work, it's called the Coral s, 11 secondsReynolds Anderson building.

We named it after her.

And then we haven't had another native voice in Lansing since.

s, 18 secondsAnd I think that's one of those um unsung voices that I mean, congratulations on 250 years America.

s, 25 secondsYes, we have a 250th birthday.

But those tribes, my tribe, the Bay Mills tribe and the um the Hannavville tribe and the Sue tribe, they've been here more than s, 33 seconds10,000 years.

Talk about caring about the Upper Peninsula.

That seventh generation isn't going anywhere.

We live for the past.

We live for the future.

s, 41 secondsAnd we can raise that voice very loud.

s, 44 secondsRachel Keys, we're down to our final minute.

I'd like you to take that time to to make a final appeal to voters in your district as to why they should s, 52 secondsconsider consider sending you to Lansing.

s, 55 secondsYou're going to have to look at your own lives.

This isn't an appeal for me.

This is an appeal for you.

You have to look at your life today and think in the last two decades have things gotten better.

s, 6 secondsWe can look at our school public school education rates and see that they have catastrophically dropped.

We can look at our um housing and see that it's s, 14 secondscatastrophically dropped.

And if you can feel those those hits in your own health care and your own workplace and your own affordability and you can say to s, 22 secondsyourself, "My life has not gotten better in the last two decades, it's gotten worse," then you need to to approach things differently.

You can go with more s, 30 secondsof the same.

If you want more of the same, or you can come with a new fresh perspective and try to make real measurable change in your life.

I have a s, 38 secondsvested interest to this.

I know you do, too.

Together, we can make that change.

s, 42 secondsRachel Keys, Democratic candidate for the 108th House District.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

We glitched.

s, 48 secondsThank you.

For our viewers and listeners, stay tuned.

In just a moment, we'll hear from the person hoping to keep the 108th district in Republican s, 56 secondshands.

We will speak with candidate Larry Johnson right after this.

s, 4 secondsMichigan's Upper Peninsula isn't just where we broadcast.

It's our home.

It's the people we meet, the communities we s, 12 secondsreach, and the families that invite us into their homes.

From classrooms to farmers markets, concerts to s, 19 secondsneighborhood events, WNMU Public Media is committed to making a difference both on the air and in person.

Proudly serveing s, 28 secondsthe Upper Peninsula, where our greatest stories begin with you.

s, 34 secondsWelcome back to Media Meet and our Michigan 108th House District Candidate Forum.

You just heard from Democrat Rachel Keys.

Now it's time to hear from the Republican candidate Larry Johnson.

s, 45 secondsLarry, welcome to Media Meet.

Thank you for having me.

s, 47 secondsIt's It's good to have you.

Uh you come from the Menominee County area, but I'm going to let you tell the story.

Tell us more about um who Larry Johnson is and s, 56 secondswhy you're interested in pursuing the 108th House District seat.

s, 59 secondsYeah.

Well, like I said, my name is Larry Johnson.

I'm uh 43 years old.

I live in Spalding with my wife and my three daughters.

We uh we've been there s, 7 secondsmost of my life.

I've traveled a lot, but always came back to the UP um outside of work.

Um I'm a nominee county commissioner, been there since 2019, and s, 15 secondsit's kind of led into this and just looking to to get involved and do some good for the people of the district.

s, 21 secondsElaborate that on about that a little bit.

Why why go to that next level from a county commissioner to possibly a state representative?

s, 28 secondsI think it's true on all levels of government.

You get to look up the ladder a little bit and you get to see some of the shortcomings, some of the things you don't like.

Um, so it gets s, 35 secondsyou a little more involved and always leaves you wishing you could do a little more or that you had a little more pull in certain areas.

So with the uh vacancy s, 43 secondscoming due in the 108 with Representative Preston going after Senator McBroom seed who's termed out now, I just decided now is the time and I wanted to get involved.

s, 52 secondsWell, tell us a little bit more about your background and and your life experiences and what from those things uh would make you well qualified to s, 1 secondrepresent us in Lansing.

Um, everybody always asks, you know, who I am, and I I kind of truncate it down to bluecollar, low dollar as a common sense s, 8 secondsconservative, and that comes from my my work history.

So, I've been around the timber industry most of my life.

Um, and s, 15 secondsa little step away I took was in the mining industry.

So, it's our heritage industries here in the UP.

Um, I represent your everyday average working s, 24 secondsman.

You know, I I go out and I talk to people and they say, "That's a working man's hand.

You got some calluses.

You can see the grease stains."

So, um I s, 33 secondsjust feel like uh I could be the excellent voice that we need down there.

s, 37 secondsWould you say you are both fiscally and socially conservative?

s, 41 secondsYes, correct.

Yeah.

Uh that's one of my prides in the Menominee County tenure that I've had.

Um I'm sitting in the finance chair right now.

Um I I took a s, 49 secondspassion to that right away.

My first term in there was some issues with trying to balance the budget, which we always have to start with a balanced budget.

and uh we had to take a real s, 58 secondstough look at some departments and and different spendings and revenues and and put something together and it wasn't it wasn't easy but we did it and it was s, 6 secondsvery rewarding in the end and I've always kind of considered myself conservative on the fiscal end of things and it's led us to a great place in Menominee so I'd like to take that down to Lansing as well.

s, 15 secondsWell the 108 covers just a great deal of the upper peninsula.

Um as you look at that region where do you where do you s, 23 secondsfeel we are failing and need to do better?

Are there issues that you feel can be improved upon through legislative action?

s, 30 secondsLike you said, it's a huge area and uh we go from just west of the sue all the way down to the tip of Menominee County in the city of Menominee.

And the one s, 37 secondsthing I've learned about campaigning is there's varied responses to their primary concerns, but if you let people talk long enough, it always ends up down s, 45 secondsthe same list, the same five or or six different issues that we've got.

So, I don't think we're we're sitting in a great position um for a couple different s, 53 secondsreasons.

We've had some legislation coming out of Lansing that doesn't really benefit the UP in general, especially our district and um s, 1 seconddefinitely room for improvement in that neck of the woods.

Can you give me an example of that?

s, 7 secondsIt again very varied.

Um we see uh legislation that's designed for the the populace down, you know, coming out of s, 14 secondsLancing for the the the bigger majority areas, especially when it comes to business.

Um that's one of the inhibitors that I think really affects s, 22 secondsus here.

When you go through that list I talked about earlier, whether it be um access to rural health care or uh economic growth.

Actually, it all kind s, 30 secondsof ties back to economic growth is the biggest concern.

We've seen a downturn in our economy in the UP over the past 30ome years.

That's really been the s, 38 secondsdirect root and caused everything we have.

Right?

when we have less business, we have less employees, we have less reasons for families to stay, our tax revenue shrinks, our school enrollment s, 46 secondsshrinks, and therefore the budgeting there becomes a concern.

So I I I think that the the overall s, 54 secondseasiest way to address it is to to push for economic growth.

And I think that the easiest way to do that is to is to hopefully make it easier for people to s, 2 secondsdo business across the board, but especially mom and pops.

Um, I talked to a lot of individuals, business owners, uh, in Michigan and I hear their s, 9 secondsconcerns and I talked to some that are dual business owners or I've operated before in different states and that's one of their big barriers they talk s, 17 secondsabout is is is how hard it is to work with I call them the alphabet up here whether it's Eagle or MDR or or My OSHA s, 25 secondsor or whoever it is.

Um, and every every organization is there for a great reason and and they definitely belong there, but I think it's just burdensome upon s, 34 secondsbusiness and we're seeing that trickle down into a lot of the issues that we have.

s, 37 secondsSo, it sounds like uh you're pushing for better business development through reduced regulation.

Uh, economic development's a priority for you.

What s, 46 secondsother issues are top of mind should you go to Lansing?

s, 49 secondsOne thing I'm taking with me out of Anomy is uh mental health care access.

s, 53 secondsSo, we've had a huge battle going on there in I'd say the past couple of years, and we're finally starting to see um our our hopes and dreams coming to s, 1 secondfruition.

Um specifically, Menominee, there was an issue with um interstate healthcare access.

The the bulk of our s, 8 secondsresidents are close to the border and there's access directly across the border.

So what we had there was for a s, 15 secondswhile people were being told that they they couldn't access that and especially when it came to our our sheriff's department for example having to bring s, 23 secondssomebody in for an evaluation they were having to bring them to a different county but stay in the state uh which is asinine to me because mental health care s, 30 secondsis healthcare and if somebody was having a heart attack they go directly across the little bridge and receive access but we were being forced to go out now that's since taken a turn and we're s, 39 secondsworking through that and that's getting better every day.

We've had some new developments recently even in that.

But then outside of that realm, uh I'm talking inpatient mental health care s, 48 secondsaccess.

We don't have a lot of options here in the UP and sadly it's kind of reserved for the specific areas they're in.

So when somebody again on the west s, 57 secondsend of the district is looking at having to have an inpatient treatment, they're talking a six, seven hour drive and it gets worse the farther west you go to s, 4 secondsget down into to the lower peninsula.

So been advocating for a facility somewhere centrally located in the UP.

That process has been rolling with our s, 13 secondscurrent state rep.

Preston and Senator McBroom have been more than facilitating to try and get that ball rolling, but sadly politics takes a while.

So I don't s, 21 secondsthink we're going to see much come to fruition in this term.

So that's going to be definitely one of the balls I'm not have to pick up and run with.

s, 27 secondsUh again, I I asked this of many of the the candidates.

Um, tell me, give me an example of when you've reached s, 34 secondsconsensus, when you've had to to uh convince another group to come to your side and and advance something.

And I don't know if that would be as a as a s, 42 secondscounty commissioner or what.

I mean, I asked that because reaching consensus is just so important as a legislator.

s, 48 secondsWell, there's so much division in in the country today and it's starting to spill over into the UP and a lot of it centered around politics, right?

And and the division is perpetuated all around s, 56 secondsus.

Um, especially on social media.

uh people have a voice and they're not afraid to use it and they're they're s, 3 secondstalking more and listening less.

But uh as far as as working with people was stick in the political realm.

Really interesting story.

When I was first s, 11 secondsasked to run or when I decided to run as a uh county commissioner, I was asked prior to that and I turned it down, but uh they finally talked me into running s, 18 secondsand I filled out all the paperwork and the gentleman who got me to run uh was a Democrat.

I was replacing a Democrat and they were just making sure I had all my s, 26 secondseyes dotted, tees crossed, helping me out with the paperwork.

And I came back to party affiliation, the last part that I had.

I must have hesitated for a s, 34 secondsminute cuz I didn't really consider myself political at the time.

And the gentleman reached over and grabbed me by the arm and he said, "I want to tell you something.

We agree about 90% of this s, 42 secondsstuff.

If you're willing to work on that 10% that's left, you're going to do fine."

And I've always carried that with me.

So, uh, you know, as a county s, 50 secondscommissioner, uh, countless times I had to reach across that party line and and open a dialogue up.

And that's I still find to this day if if we're willing to s, 57 secondstalk, we can find out where the basis of your concerns lie and we can address them.

And there's middle ground in there somewhere.

s, 3 secondsWell, we talked about the size of the 108.

It's also the location of the 108 is so far away, physically isolated from s, 10 secondsuh our state capital.

How do you plan to combat that Lansing centric mindset of downstate lawmakers who may not s, 18 secondsunderstand the northern area and rural areas of the upper peninsula?

s, 23 secondsYeah.

Unfortunately, I think the best approach is uh being loud when you have to be loud, being a very assertive when needed to be, but also being reserved enough to work with people and opening s, 31 secondsthose those relationships up relationships up and starting again a great dialogue.

If people talk, we can move forward.

It's not that hard.

I've s, 40 secondshad the the fortune of getting down there to Lansing and meeting a lot of um representatives and legislators kind of ahead of this just to to more get my s, 48 secondsmind into it and know exactly what I'm into potentially.

And I find that it's through a dialogue and through shared s, 56 secondsconcerns, it's not not hard to move forward.

Um obviously that's that's tough being said that we are a third of the land mass of Michigan and about 3% s, 5 secondsof the vote.

So there's a lot of convincing to do.

So, it's definitely a hurdle, but uh going forward given an opportunity to just work with people and and try and find that middle ground.

s, 15 secondsWell, the 108, as you pointed out, is an open seat.

Um what makes you or would make you a better legislator than your opponent in this race?

s, 25 secondsGreat question, and that was a question that I got asked a lot in the primary.

s, 28 secondsWe had a very contested primary.

It started out with six of us and dropped down to five at the last minute.

Uh I believe it's my my local government s, 36 secondsexperience.

I believe it's the real world experience being that bluecollar type of background that I come from and seeing how uh things relate to the s, 44 secondsworking person.

I think I can take that down there again and try and be aggressive when needed to be.

I've got a long track record of of doing that and s, 51 secondsconveying my point across and hopefully getting it my way.

s, 55 secondsIn terms of uh government control versus local mandates, what's your philosophy there regarding state level mandates on s, 3 secondslocal townships and cities?

And again, maybe you've dealt with this as a county commissioner.

And when is state intervention necessary?

Uh, and when should local control be absolute?

s, 13 secondsI try to keep the state out of as much as possible.

I I've been so frustrated before with unfunded mandates coming down.

I've I've seen so many s, 21 secondsopportunities for people to to get behind the momentum when the state wants to get involved, but it's a slippery slope.

If you let the state get involved s, 30 secondson everything that's convenient, they're going to start getting involved on things that aren't convenient.

And I think that the truest representation we have is at the local level.

So when I s, 38 secondsget people approaching me with contentious items saying, "What are your thoughts on this?"

And it sounds like the easy way out, but it's how I feel.

I think the state should stay out of it because there's again accountability.

s, 47 secondsYou can show up to a local meeting, whether it be your township board or your county board, and there there's a better chance for interaction.

There's more likelihood of you getting there in s, 54 secondsthe first place.

and and ultimately I think it keeps everything a little more tangible.

So on on most levels, I can't even think of an example where I'd love the state to step in.

s, 4 secondsLarry Johnson, we are down to our final minute and I want to give that to you to kind of make an appeal to our viewers and listeners as to why they should consider voting for you and sending you to Lansing.

s, 14 secondsI hate to get repetitive, but uh again, I I'm a working Joe.

I'm your your average everyday ordinary, and I look to s, 22 secondstake that down to Lansing.

I look to be ambitious enough to get some things done, but still cautious enough to to to s, 31 secondswork with people, build these relationships, and and progress moving forward.

s, 36 secondsLarry Johnson, thank you for doing the drive up uh to do this interview.

I do appreciate it.

Um I want to thank you.

I also want to thank uh Rachel Keys for s, 43 secondsher participation.

Election day is fast approaching.

If you are planning to vote ahead of the election or in person on s, 51 secondsNovember 3rd, you might want to first go online to the Michigan Voter Information Center to verify your early polling place and to see what's on your ballot.

sOnce again, the Michigan Voter Information Center can be found at mi.gov/vote.

That's mi.gov/vote.

s, 8 secondsI am Mike Settles.

Thank you for joining us today.

We will look for you next time on Media.

s, 14 secondsThe preceding program was produced by WNMUTV, Northern Michigan University Public Television in studios located in Elizabeth and Edgar Harden Hall.

s, 36 secondsProduction funding for Media Meet is provided by the Ray and Peg Hirvonen Foundation.