Tim Hayes is an Army National Guard Veteran, Dublin Borough Council President, and Environmental Legislative Manager running for State Representative in Pennsylvania’s 143rd District. He speaks with Editor Cyril Mychalejko about growing up in Bucks County, his dedication to public service, fighting for working families and a sustainable future, and why Republican Shelby Labs has failed her constituents.
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Tim, could you tell listeners where you grew up and just what your childhood was like?
So I was born and raised in Bucks County. I was born in Warminster, lived there for the first five years of my life. My father, Mike, was a Union Sheet Metal worker with Local 19 for just under 20 years. Growing up, my mother was a stay-at-home mom. She raised five kids. I’m the youngest of five, so I have three sisters and a brother.
When I was five, we moved to a farm in Chalfont on New Galena Road right outside of Peace Valley Park. I spent the better half of my childhood there.
And it was when we were at the farm my father unfortunately had to retire on disability due to the years of manual labor he had done with Local 19. He had worked some other labor related jobs as well. So, you my mother was thrusted back into the workforce. At one point she was working three jobs to support us, full-time she was a cashier at Wawa, the one in Doylestown. She also worked part-time at a Habitat for Humanity Restore and she babysat on the weekends. So she was really working seven days a week just to support us.
And my parents eventually ended up splitting up. we moved to, my father moved to another place in Chalfton and my mother moved to Dublin. I went to Central Books School District. I graduated from CB West and Middle Bucks Institute of Technology. went there for public safety. Graduated there in 2016. That’s when I moved to Dublin. That’s where I’ve been ever since.
At a young age, my parents really instilled in me the values of hard work, community, and service. That’s really what led me down this path of being a public servant.
That’s why when I was 17, before I was even a legal adult, I enlisted in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. My parents actually had to sign a permission slip to allow me to join the military, which was an interesting process. So I served in the military for six years. While I was serving in the military, I was also going to college full time. I did my first two years at Bucks County Community College.
I was originally studying criminal justice. I transferred to Temple University and changed my major to History. Graduated in December of 2020 at the height of Covid had a virtual graduation. I then went on to go to Westchester University for grad school. I got my master of public administration It was also during this time. I decided I wanted to run for office and give back to my community here in Dublin.
What year was it?
So I ran the first time for borough council back in 2017 right after Donald Trump got elected. I was 19 years old at the time.
That was really my first foray into politics. It was a really great experience. I ended up losing that race. I came up short 10 votes in a field of five candidates. So I decided to stick with it. And in 2019, I decided to give it another go and I got elected to Dublin borough council, placed first in a field of four candidates.
And the youngest person elected in the Borough’s history?
Yeah, yeah, I was and I was the youngest elected official in Bucks County at the time and I believe I might need some more research to back this up, but I believe I was the youngest elected official in Bucks County up until this past January when Emma Hawkins and Perkasie got sworn in, I believe. She was the next person in line to get elected to a borough council or a board of supervisors. So yeah, I was the youngest person for a long time. When I got elected to borough council in 2019, Dublin was a 7-0 Republican municipality. Fast forward to now, it’s a 6-1 Democratic majority. I got re-elected in 2023, got sworn in as council president in ‘24.
And yeah, just really been getting things done ever since.
How do you explain the shift from a Republican supermajority to a Democratic supermajority?
I think there are a couple different reasons to kind of explain that. I’m sure you’ve driven through Dublin recently, we’ve welcomed a lot of new development into our small borough. We’re gonna have close to 200 new housing units, but more housing units currently being constructed on the way. So we welcomed a lot of young families, a lot of renters, a lot of retirees. The voting demographics of the borough have definitely changed.
But Dublin just wasn’t the only municipality in the 143rd that flipped blue, because we managed to flip Pennridge School Board. They now have an 8 to 1 majority.
We flipped Perkasie Borough Council. We flipped Plumstead Township Board of Supervisors. We have a majority in Tinicum. So all the municipalities in the district are very quickly trending towards the Democratic Party. I think that’s representative of the national environment. I think folks are just really sick and tired of what they’re seeing on the federal level. But I believe they were just ready for change on the state and the local level as well. A lot of the folks that have been in these positions 20, 30, 40, years. So I think a lot of folks were just really ready for a change, they were ready for folks with new ideas, predominantly younger folks are helping to shape the communities that they want to raise their families in. That was one of the biggest reasons why I ran all the way back in 2017. That’s why I ran in 2019 again. So yeah, we’ve made a lot of great progress in the district, but I’ve always made sure, whether it be in my elected position or in my professional capacity, I’m the state policy manager for a statewide environmental nonprofit. I’ve done legislative work in Harrisburg the past couple of years, and I always make the effort to reach across the aisle as much as possible.
When I got sworn in as council president, it was a Republican that nominated me for that position. We nominated a Republican, the lone Republican on council, we nominated him unanimously to be our vice president.
The issues we’re facing in our community and the issues we’re facing in Harrisburg, it transcends party lines, right? We want well-funded schools, we want upgraded infrastructure, we wanna make sure our first responders are taken care of, we wanna protect our natural resources. These are issues that are not inherently partisan, right? But unfortunately, given the politics of the Trump era, so many of these issues have become just so divisive. So one of my priorities as state representative is I say, take the politics at a policy. Just focus on the issues, get to work, tackle the affordability crisis, deliver real relief for working families. That’s the approach I took when I ran for borough council, which is a big reason why I think we were able to flip it blue and then grow that majority. And that’s why I think we have a really good shot to flip the 143rd this year.
So specifically in Dublin Borough, what were some of the issues that you working on? Now you had mentioned development and I’m assuming the community was concerned about sustainable development and responsible development. But what were a few of the other issues that really took center stage as you were working on the Borough Council?
Dublin Borough has really become one of the leading economic hubs of Bucks County. We have tens of millions of dollars in private sector investments that are going to be coming in by the end of this decade. Some of my top priorities as council president was we invested into our first responders. We invested heavily into our police department.
So much so I actually serve on the borough council for free because I donate my council check to the police department so that they can use it for whatever they need. So I’ve made them a priority, our volunteer fire company, trying to get them the funding and the resources they need to stay afloat and retain their volunteers because I’m sure you’ve heard that a lot of volunteer fire companies across Pennsylvania are really approaching a fiscal cliff and a volunteer cliff and so I’ve done whatever I can on the local level to ensure we’re getting them funding they need to buy new equipment, know, Maling sure they can retain volunteers, invite new folks to volunteer with the fire company. I’m excited to continue to work with them.
Why the volunteer cliff, Tim? Why do you think there’s this drop off in volunteers with the fire department?
Yeah, there are a couple of different reasons. I think younger folks, like in my age group, I’m Gen Z, not as many people are volunteering as they used to. Volunteer rates for fire companies in Pennsylvania have dropped significantly the past couple of decades. I think a big reason is the affordability crisis. People can’t afford to take time out of their day to go on a fire call, right? You need to focus on going to work, paying your student loans, paying your rent. You don’t have time to go to classes X amount of hours a week to get your Firefighter 1 Certification. I was lucky enough, I went to MBIT, I got my Firefighter 1 Certification through that. But a lot of people get that certification after they had already graduated high school. So I think the affordability crisis has really inhibited our ability to retain volunteers and also invite younger folks to run with our local fire companies. One of the things we’re exploring here in Dublin now is offering some sort of incentive program. We do have a stipend where if you attend X number of calls per month you’ll get a couple hundred bucks at the end of the year or something like that. We’re working on other ideas to kind of help bring folks in, but really it’s just the time it takes to become a firefighter and then taking the time out your day to go on a fire call.
That’s a luxury that a lot of people don’t have these days, unfortunately. So, I think the state really needs to step up and invest into a long-term sustainable funding mechanism for our local fire companies so that they can focus less on fundraising and more so on actually doing their job and inviting new folks in.
That’s something I’ve tried to do on the borough level. Obviously, we’re a small borough, have limited funds. So obviously the state is going to need to help with that. And I’m sure a lot of boroughs and townships across Pennsylvania are in the same position, too.
You also mentioned earlier sustainable growth within Dublin. That is something, obviously, since I work in the environmental sector, that is something that is very important to me. One of the first things we did when I took over as Council President was we renewed our energy contract with Constellation. And when we renewed that contract, we voted as a council to source 50% of our energy through renewable energy credits. Renewable energy credits is excess renewable energy that’s sold back onto the grid that can then be rerouted to other municipalities. I also made an investment into switching out our street lighting with LEDs because they’re much more energy efficient, which means it’s a smaller footprint, which also translates to reduced costs for folks in the borough.
‘ve been working really closely with developers to try to keep any new development as wide open and preserved as possible. We have a new development coming in on the Moyer tract pretty soon. I was able to work with the billing developer to keep a one acre parcel of that preserve to be a little pocket park/native plant meadow. We’re still kind of working through the details of that. But, I’ve really worked to ensure that any growth we welcome into Dublin is as sustainable as possible for sure. We’ve also made an effort to reduce wasteful spending.
We switched our meeting calendar from twice a month to once a month to save money on professional services. There was a chronically vacant administrative position. We were budgeting, I believe about $30,000 a year for, we eliminated that position to return that money back to the budget. We’ve also made significant efforts to upgrade our water and sewer infrastructure as well. We’ve done a lot of work for that the past couple of years, and that’s something we absolutely intend to continue.
Something we are very proud of is that we did all of those things without raising taxes by a penny too. So, that level of making sure we’re prioritizing these public sector investments while also being good stewards of taxpayer dollars, that’s something that’s worked very well in Dublin. And that’s the exact approach I’m going to take to Harrisburg as well.
Tim, why are you a Democrat?
That’s a great question. I am a Democrat … my father, like I said, was in local 19th. He was a union sheet metal worker. And he really believed in the values of hard work, community and service. And those values really, they personify the Democratic Party.
We are the party of the working class, going back all the way to the early 20th Century with FDR’s New Deal policies helping to get folks back to work during the Great Depression, making sure we’re providing adequate public education, adequate public health care funding, whatever we can do to give folks the ability to get themselves back to work. That’s what the Democratic Party is. That’s what it still is. That’s what I believe it is still to be. So that’s why I’m a Democrat. It’s the party created by and for the working class.
I’ll have to push back a little there because I feel like the party has kind of lost some working class support over the years, including in unions. Why do you think that’s happened?
I share that sentiment to a degree. The mainstream Democratic Party has strayed away from working class issues. I think both parties are guilty of that too – focusing on these partisan culture war issues that don’t affect the day-to-day life of the average working Pennsylvanian.
I think Democrats haven’t really done a great job of pushing back on that and focusing on the issues they’ve kind of given into that Trumpian level of political communications. But I believe the Democratic Party I described earlier, it still exists. And I think we need folks in office that believe in the core tenets of the Democratic Party, which is one of the many reasons why I’m running for the seat, because I want to get into Harrisburg and tackle the affordability crisis head on. And to tackle the affordability crisis, that means getting folks back to work and good paying union jobs, because that translates directly into an economic benefit for Pennsylvania. We need to do a better job of communicating with the working class and given my background growing up in union household, I think I’m pretty well suited to do that.
So you announced in December your candidacy for Bucks County’s 143rd PA state representative seat, and you’re looking to challenge Republican incumbent Shelby Labs. Why are you running? Why are you running for this seat?
Yes. I’m running to be the fighter this district deserves. I’m going to say it over and over again: We’re currently in the midst of one of the worst affordability crises in our nation’s history, utility costs are skyrocketing, grocery costs are up. Housing is unattainable for thousands of families. And that’s coupled with the fact that our manufacturing and our agricultural workforces are shrinking. Our first responder departments are struggling. And our current state representative seems to be asleep at the wheel. So I spent my life serving the people of Pennsylvania and delivering results for working families. That’s why I enlisted in the military when I was 17. That’s why I got elected to Dublin Borough Council when I was 21. And my current professional capacity doing legislative work in Harrisburg, I’ve done that for the past three or four years now. So I’ve spent the past couple of years advocating for pro-environment and pro-labor policies. I’ve helped to secure millions of dollars in investments for clean energy deployment. I helped to get increase in funding for the Clean Streams Fund that was established back in 2022, the Whole Home Repairs Program.
One of the things I’m most proud of is I actually helped author a bill that’s currently in the House right now, House Bill 894. This would create the VETSS Program Act … VETSS is an acronym for Veterans Entering the Sustainability Sector. Basically what that bill would do is it would help get veterans connected with apprenticeship training and workforce opportunities within the sustainability sector. So that could be clean energy, energy efficiency, land conservation, water quality, you name it. And I was able to get a couple of Republicans to sign on in support of that bill. I also got a couple of environmental organizations and veterans groups, and I also got a conservative group to sign on and support as well. I serve with the people of Pennsylvania. It’s the only life I’ve ever known. And that’s why I’m running for the seat.
I want to get more energy onto the grid to help lower utility costs, put straight guard rails on AI data centers that are driving up utility costs. I want to work with local farmers to bolster local food processing to help bring costs down associated with supply chain issues we’re seeing. I want to bring municipalities together to promote more mixed use affordable housing development.
I want to make sure that public dollars stay in public schools. I’m a product of public school all the way from kindergarten to grad school. So it’s something that’s very important to me. I want to get more funding for our first responder agencies, like I said and really doing whatever I can to support our labor unions, make sure we’re protecting prevailing wage requirements, project labor agreements, combating offsite fabrication, which has been a chronic loophole within the labor space. Doing whatever I can to deliver results for working families, that’s what I’m going to Harrisburg to do.
You said Labs has been asleep at the wheel during her time as state rep. What are a few of her kind of greatest misses when it comes to votes that she’s cast?
So the two most recent ones was she voted against raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Our current minimum wage of $7.25 it’s a starvation wage, is not a wage that anyone can live comfortably on. And we need to join our neighbors and raising the minimum wage. She voted against that.
Another bill, House Bill 1834 which would put strict guardrails of data centers, require them to source a certain percentage of their energy from clean energy resources … It would require data centers to make contributions to LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
It would do whatever it can to really offset the rising costs in utilities associated with data center deployment. She voted against that. Late last year, she voted against placing a question on the ballot, which would ask voters whether they believe we have a constitutional amendment to reproductive freedom. She voted against that. She voted against House Bill 504, which would enable community energy facilities. So that means community solar and anaaerobic digester facilities, which would also help to lower energy costs and create opportunities for our labor unions. She voted against that. I could go on and on. There have been a lot of really critical issues that have been voted out of that house recently. And she has made some very negative votes. And we also need legislators that are being proactive and are being a fighter, introducing bills to get more energy onto the grid to help farmers. We need folks that are constantly introducing legislation and she hasn’t done that.
She seems to be allergic to any kind of bipartisan efforts in Harrisburg. And I’ll give a few of the Republicans in lower Bucks some credit. We have seen a few Republicans in Bucks County kind of cross the aisle, specifically with some of the bills that you had mentioned, whether it was like minimum wage or data center efforts. I think that’s something that people are starting to really get turned off on, this just rigid partisanship, placing that above the public’s interests and shared solutions to improve the quality of life of constituents.
Absolutely, I’ve knocked a lot of doors in this campaign so far. I’m one of the top door knockers in the state. I’ve talked with mostly Democrats, but also with independents and Republicans too. And over and over again, regardless of party, I’ve been hearing the same thing, except folks are tired. They’re tired of the status quo. They’re tired of this level of fence-sitting politics, voting for one thing one day, but then voting against it another day because they feel as though that’s what’s popular at the time.
Shelby Labs does that a lot. Brian Fitzpatrick does it a lot too. I think folks are sick and tired of that. Folks want to know what their elected officials are going to do to tangibly make their lives better. And they want to know how they’re going to do it. Just voting for these bills that are going to pass anyway, just to say that you’re bipartisan, that’s not being bipartisan, that’s being safe. And I think we’re at a point in this time where we need to start introducing some transformative legislation to aggressively tackle the affordability crisis. And our current state representative hasn’t done that. But like I said, I’ve spent my life serving the people of Pennsylvania. It’s the only life I’ve ever known. So I’m ready to get into Harrisburg and get to work and really start to tackle these issues head on.
Tim, how can people get involved in your campaign?
Yes, there are a lot of different ways. We always need folks to go out and knock doors and kind of spread the message about tackling the affordability crisis. So if folks want to go to our website, TimHayesForPA.com, you can sign up to volunteer. If you want to put a yard sign in your lawn, I should be ordering yard signs pretty soon. So excited to get those out to folks. We need to make sure we’re kind of beefing up our volunteer numbers as much as possible ahead of the general because it’s gonna take a lot of effort to reach as many voters as possible. If folks are be would be willing to make a contribution as well, this is a we have a great opportunity to flip this seat, but it’s gonna take a lot of resources. So if folks would be willing to contribute that would be a massive help as well. If folks want to reach out to me directly as well
Our email is info(at)TimHayesforPA.com. I give that out to everyone. I want to hear what folks have to say. I want to hear what some folks find. And I’m going to use all that information and tailor it to my policy platform because I’m running to represent the people of the 143rd. I’m not running to just represent a political party. I’m running to represent everyone.
Even the most intense conversations I’ve had at the doors, I still give them my business card and I tell them to keep in touch. If they want to spread my contact info, they’re more than welcome to do that as well. I want to connect with as many folks as possible and we need to build a big team to get that message out. So if folks would be willing to knock doors, that would be absolutely fantastic.
And Tim, before I let you go and get back to it, is there anything else that you wanted to add that we didn’t touch on?
Earth Day was not too long ago. And like I said, I’ve spent the past couple years in Harrisburg advocating for pro-environment, pro-labor legislation. The organization that I work for, we’re part of the Blue-Green Caucus, which brings environmental organizations and labor groups together to come up with ways that we can develop and get legislation passed that both protects the environment and gets folks back to work at the same time. So that’s work I intend on continuing. And we have some really exciting pieces of legislation in the House right now that has passed out of the House and has gone into the Senate, which obviously is gonna be a big hurdle given the current makeup of the State Senate. So I definitely encourage folks to go into the general assembly website, do some research, know, search some cool environmental bills that are currently in the House or have made their way to the State Senate and contact their current elected representatives and tell them to support it.
Tim, thanks so much for your time and just thank you for your dedication to public service. I know I appreciate it and I know a lot of the other folks in Bucks County also appreciate that. And you’ll definitely have to come back again as we get into the general election. So thanks, Tim, I appreciate it.
Thanks for having me here. This is great conversation.
