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Edmond Ward 4
Michael Buoy, Stacie Peterson, Ryan Dahle and David Miller are running for Ward 4 of the Edmond City Council in 2021. (NonDoc)

Four candidates are running in the Edmond Ward 4 City Council election, including two local business owners, a relatively new Edmondite and a candidate who has held the seat before.

The seat is being vacated by Nick Massey, who has held it since 2012.

Edmond has an unusual electoral process for its City Council. Elections are nonpartisan, and if more than two candidates are registered, they first compete in a primary election — this year scheduled for Feb. 9. Only residents of the ward may vote in the primary.

Afterward, the two candidates who receive the most votes proceed to the general election, which will take place April 6. All Edmond residents can vote for candidates in the general election, regardless of the ward in which they live.

Below are details on the people running to represent Edmond Ward 4, which lies on the western edge of the city. The information was gathered from publicly available sources, and the candidates are presented in alphabetical order. A video of a forum hosted by Edmond Summit Rotary and Edmond Active with the candidates in this race and in Edmond Ward 3 is also available on Facebook.

(edmondok.com)

Michael Buoy

Michael Buoy

Age: 45

Profession/background: Buoy, who goes by Michael “RedDawg” Buoy on many of his social-media accounts, was raised on a farm near Shawnee and has lived in Edmond for about 11 years. After high school, he played football at Seminole State College and Southwestern Oklahoma State University. He didn’t complete a degree at that time, but he later went back to school and received a bachelor’s degree in education from Oklahoma State University.

Buoy has been in the real estate business from the age of 14, which is when he bought his first house and became a landlord, according to a bio on the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Association of Realtors website. He got his real estate license at 19. He now runs Bonanza real estate services in Edmond. Buoy was the Edmond Chamber of Commerce’s Ambassador of the Year in 2017.

In addition to his real estate business, Buoy has worked as a family and children’s pastor at Mosaic Church OKC, Victory Church, and LifeChurch.tv.

Buoy ran for the Oklahoma State House in 2016 but was defeated in the Republican primary by Rep. Ryan Martinez (R-Edmond).

Platform: Buoy’s campaign Facebook page promises he will be “a conservative voice for the City of Edmond and Oklahoma.” His social-media campaign accounts don’t contain many details about his platform, and links to what appears to be a primary campaign page at michaelbuoy.com are not functional.

On Facebook, he has shared posts promoting gun rights, support for the police and the Keystone XL pipeline. He has often tweeted in support of Donald Trump.

Online: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn


Ryan Dahle

Ryan Dahle

Age: 39

Profession/Background: During the recent candidate forum hosted by the Rotary Club and Edmond Active, Dahle said he is originally from Montana. He studied at the University of Utah, majoring in business administration and management, and he finished an undergraduate degree in finance at UCO two years ago.

Dahle’s LinkedIn page says he worked for a year as a beekeeper in Hawaii before moving to Texas and joining the oil industry in 2004. He has worked in petroleum ever since and is currently employed by CP Energy, in Edmond, where he is vice president of crude oil marketing for the company’s operations in the Permian Basin.

Dahle has lived in Oklahoma for five years. He has worked in Edmond the whole time, he said in the candidate forum, but spent the first four years living in Yukon. He, his wife and their five children moved to Edmond a year ago because they were looking for a good community in which to raise kids.

Platform: There is little information about Dahle’s campaign available online. At the time this piece was published, his website promised to be “launching soon,” and he does not appear to have any social media accounts associated with his campaign.

He said in the candidate forum that he believes citizens and businesses should be allowed to make their own decisions regarding COVID-19 precautions. He also said he believes the city should be proactive about developing its infrastructure.

Online: Website | LinkedIn


David Miller

David Miller

Age: 63

Profession/background: Miller first moved to Edmond 25 years ago and he has already spent more than 10 of those years on the City Council representing Ward 4. He held the seat from 2001 to 2012, and he told Edmond Life and Leisure last year that he’s running again because he believes his experience is needed.

According to an article in The Oklahoman from the time, he resigned the seat in 2012 because he had taken a job in New Orleans. His LinkedIn page indicates that he was in that job — working as an operations manager for a rent-to-own furniture company called Colortyme — only briefly and soon returned to Edmond to open a Colortyme franchise. Most of the rest of his career has also been spent in rental services. He now works as an e-commerce specialist at Heartland, a financial services company.

Miller grew up in Texas and studied business administration and management at the University of Texas.

During the time he was on the City Council, he also served on the board of the Edmond Economic Development Authority. He has been involved in community organizations such as the Knights of Columbus and the Edmond Senior Foundation Trust, according to his Facebook page.

In 2019, Miller was one of the main proponents of the posthumous re-election campaign of former Edmond Mayor Charles Lamb, who died unexpectedly after filing to run. If Lamb had won, the City Council would have been allowed to appoint a new mayor. Lamb made it out of the primary but lost in the general to the current Edmond Mayor Dan O’Neil — who himself had been mayor before, from 2007 to 2009.

Platform: Miller’s campaign doesn’t have much of an online presence beyond his Facebook page, which does not contain details on his platform. The Facebook page points to several accomplishments he is proud of during his previous stint on the Council. These include co-authoring the Edmond Transportation Plan, establishing CityLink Edmond, developing the city’s parks and recreation facilities, promoting development and expanding roads.

In the forum hosted by the Rotary Club and Edmond Active, he said he opposes business shutdowns for COVID-19, that the city should not pursue growth just for the sake of growth and that he opposes instituting a municipal property tax in Edmond.

His Facebook page says he has been endorsed by the Edmond Fraternal Order of Police.

Online: Facebook | LinkedIn


Stacie Peterson

Stacie Peterson

Age: 53

Profession/background: Peterson grew up in Edmond and has a nursing degree from UCO. She and her husband, Doug, own Paragon Homes and Remodeling, a development company in Edmond. She also works as a registered nurse and is a consultant for Rodan and Fields, a multi-level marketing company specializing in skincare products.

Peterson is involved in the Edmond Chamber of Commerce as an ambassador and is a member of the Small Business Owners’ Alliance. She also served on the committee to craft the Edmond Chamber of Commerce’s legislative agenda for 2021.

Platform: On her campaign website, Peterson lists three main priorities: protecting individual liberties, supporting the police and resisting new or higher taxes and increased rates for things such as water service.

She is concerned about government overreach.

“All across the nation local governments are infringing on personal freedoms at unprecedented levels,” her website says. “This isn’t an Edmond value and we can’t let it happen here!”

She also warns of the need to guard against “aggressive leftists” who have promoted police defunding in Norman and other communities.

Online: Website | Facebook

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Andrea DenHoed is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and was formerly the web copy chief at The New Yorker magazine. She became NonDoc's managing editor in March 2020 and transitioned to a part-time role as features editor at the end of 2022. She departed NonDoc in 2023 to pursue an educational opportunity.