Michael McKay: Where Ballparks Meet Budgeting in District 4

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part of a special election series from All Things Madison and has been published exactly as submitted by the candidate. All mayoral and city council candidates were invited to contribute a guest article at no cost. Submissions are shared in the order received and have not been edited for content. The goal of this series is to give every candidate an equal opportunity to share their vision, qualifications, and ideas directly with Madison residents. Madison’s municipal elections for city council and mayor will be held August 26th, 2025. Not sure which district you live in? Click here to view the map.

My personal experiences and my experiences alongside my family only add to the reasons why I feel I am uniquely qualified to serve as District 4’s representative on city council. These same reasons have actually helped shape the primary platforms on which I am running. My family and I moved into the Madison city limits right before my son started kindergarten at Madison Elementary School (MES – the original!). This was on purpose: we wanted to be in the school system. Both of my kids have now finished their time at MES and are at Journey Middle now (Go Jags!).

Maintaining our stellar school system, as a parent, is extremely important to me. If elected, I will have the opportunity to help appoint the highest of caliber citizen(s) to the Board of Education. I served on the MES PTA for several years alongside my wife and some great friends. For several consecutive school years (until I “termed-out”), I was the PTA President. Over that time, I became so much more connected to and within the system: from knowing the needs of schools, learning more from the administration, and even serving on the MES Building Leadership Team and the MCS District Safety Committee and learning from some of the smartest people in MCS. So for me, it became more than just the importance of what my kids were learning: everything mattered more. How are the school’s staff doing? Do they feel valued and appreciated? What are we doing to keep our kids and staff safe every single day? What could we do better – and how? Our school system is the foundation of our community – that’s undeniable. It serves our kids, provides jobs, boosts our property values, helps bring in business…the list goes on and on. As such, the city council and mayor must be ready to support the school system when needs arise. That includes – and I say this without hesitation – keeping the 1/2 cent sales tax that is set to expire in the next couple of years with the schools. 100% of it.

The hours I have spent with my family on the ballfields in Madison – at Dublin, at Palmer, and all the smaller city parks – would best be measured not in hours, but in months. I’ve coached flag football, soccer, softball, and baseball and literally met some of my best friends along the way. I have formed relationships with so many families through youth sports, and I have an excellent pulse on what they think of the state of parks and recreation / youth sports in Madison. In my opinion – based not only on the things I have heard from others, but from my first-hand experience – Madison is simply not cutting it when it comes to our parks and recreation facilities and the overall experience. We lag behind most of our neighboring cities, and we honestly don’t even hold a candle to parks like Sand Mountain Park and Amphitheater (Albertville, AL), Bill Noble Park (Gardendale, AL), and the Florence Sportsplex (Florence, AL). Most of the Birmingham suburb parks have us beat, too. We are missing a huge opportunity in terms of quality of life improvements for our citizens and we are missing a massive opportunity in terms of positive economic impact from increased patronage that would support existing and future businesses in Madison. The good news: it’s not too late to get Madison on the right track. And I sincerely hope I can be one of the drivers in making our facilities meet – and exceed – our citizens’ calls for improvement.

I love Madison, and I think creating a more visually-appealing city would do us wonders. Not only for the folks that currently live here, but attracting our future neighbors and future businesses. I graduated from Homewood High down in the Birmingham area; what a great example of how a city that puts forth effort into its appearance and offerings (walkability, bike paths, planting trees, keeping the grass mowed regularly, planting flowers) can be a win-win for everyone. Those kinds of things show that the city cares enough to invest in itself; in-turn, businesses that are wanting to invest in Madison might make the move to choose us over neighboring cities because they see us all-in on ourselves. We have some pretty surroundings here and some excellent nature trails (looking at you, Rainbow Mountain and Bradford Creek Greenway), and I think we can keep pushing to get even better.

That sort of mindset leads me to my final platform, and maybe one of my most important: encouraging smart economic growth to fuel Madison’s engine through increased revenues. No, not unbridled and unchecked growth. The kind of healthy growth that any city needs to survive and thrive. The ongoing joke is that we’re going to be overrun by storage units and car washes – which, by the way, happen to have excellent profit margins; hence, why you see a lot of them. But as a resident with a family, I don’t want to leave the city limits to do fun things and eat at different restaurants: I want to stay here! I’d love to see some more diversity in offerings. Getting some more entertainment options. Bringing some new restaurant offerings to County Line Road and Madison Boulevard. Seeing a retail establishment where families could buy varying types of sports gear, instead of going outside the city lines or going online to make those purchases.

Madison is notorious amongst those in-the-know to be a hard place to try and do business, for a myriad of reasons. We need to pivot and do a 180 on this; let’s try to get to “YES” instead of “NO.” Let’s cut down on the red tape and make it easier for someone to come inside the limits and plant roots here. Let’s make it easier on our existing businesses to do what they need to do in order to thrive so they want to stay in Madison. And everything I mentioned before (maintaining our stellar schools, improving parks and recreation, increasing our visual appeal) only helps recruit new and unique businesses into Madison.

I am anxious to hit the ground running once elected, and I hope that I can earn your vote on August 26th. To learn more about me, visit and like/follow my Facebook page (Michael McKay for Madison City Council D4) or my website (McKayforCouncil.com).

To read additional submissions to this 2025 Municipal Election series on All Things Madison, click here. 

Click here to read an additional bio about Michael McKay on the Madison Chamber of Commerce’s website.