I recently sat down with Joe Siegel for a conversation on his publication, Joe’s Substack. We talked about my press release announcing my candidacy for the Smithfield Town Council and spent time digging into why I chose to run as an Independent.

In the interview, I explained that my focus is on building coalitions that work for Smithfield. Local government should be about solving local problems, and that means bringing people together based on shared priorities rather than national party agendas. That idea shaped much of our discussion, especially around transparency, collaboration, and keeping decision‑making rooted in the needs of our community.

Joe has posted the full interview on his blog. You can read it here: https://joe165.substack.com/p/candidate-profile-ian-mclean