By STU CLAMPITT
On Sunday evening, Hamilton County Republican Party Central Committee Chair Mario Massillamany announced Teresa Ayers was replacing Lisa Everling as Vice Chair, effective that night.
The full announcement appears below.
The Reporter spoke with Massillamany about his reasons for this change and his vision for the Hamilton County GOP.
“My priorities are to make sure we are an open, big-tent party – that we allow for all views to be heard and that we do not try to exclude certain people or certain groups from the Republican Party,” Massillamany told The Reporter. “We are a big-tent party. We are for low taxes, limited government and fiscal responsibility. We want to make sure that government does all the things to help us but not intrude in our lives.”
According to Massillamany, Ayers’ family has been active in the Republican Party for over 50 years. He said Ayers has been attending breakfast clubs, Lincoln Day Dinners, fall dinner dances, volunteered for Victoria Spartz, volunteered at CarmelFest for the GOP, and is on the Carmel-Clay GOP Club Board.
“She is, I believe, 38 years old – not that that matters – but our goal is to focus on bringing in younger people to get more engaged and involved in the county party, and she will do a good job of helping with that,” Massillamany said.
Massillamany spoke very highly of Everling’s service to the party during her time as vice chair.
“I really appreciate all the work that she [Everling] has done,” Massillamany said. “I know that she is focused on a brand-new business. She started a new company with Andrew Dollard, and she is interested in running for Westfield [City] Council.”
Massillamany said one of his reasons for replacing Everling was about her potential run for a seat Westfield City Council.
“When I was elected to the Hamilton County Central Committee as a chairman, a lot of the precinct committeemen wanted to make sure that when we are elected on the central committee that we don’t hold other offices,” Massillamany told The Reporter. “I have respectfully asked all of my central committee not to hold other offices or to resign or to move on if they want to run for other offices. I think it’s hard if you’re on central committee to also be running in a Republican primary against other Republicans and then for us as the Republican Party to say we are being neutral. I know Lisa wants to run for Westfield [City] Council. I know she’s starting a new business. She has a lot of exciting things coming down the pipeline.”
Everling told The Reporter she has not made either an official decision or a public announcement about running for a seat on Westfield City Council. She does serve as one of three Westfield GOP board members, as treasurer for Hamilton County Republican Women and as a board member for Nickel Heritage Railroad, which operates the Nickel Plate Express train.
“I’ve got nothing but great things to say about Lisa,” Massillamany said. “She did a great job. I should never be the one to try to stop her from doing great things for Westfield.”