CC Candidate Feature: James Vinch

Editor’s Note: The Oxford Free Press is publishing one City Council Candidate Profile per week until polls open. All candidates were contacted for an interview and asked similar questions. Each profile highlights experience, policy and goals for the Oxford community. 

James Vinch attended Miami University during his collegiate years and fell in love with Oxford and the Miami communities. 

“It was idyllic,” he said. “Experiencing all of these new things and meeting all of these new people was just amazing.”

According to Vinch, the impact that Oxford and Miami had on him left a soft spot in his heart.

After college, Vinch started working at a large law firm, where he realized that corporate law wasn’t for him. 

He then attended George Washington University in Washington D.C. to study environmental law, something important and personal to him. 

He began working with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as an attorney, where he focused on the Clean Water Act and safe drinking water cases.

Vinch began volunteering at Miami University’s Pre-Law Alumni Advisory Board, where he still works today. Here, he helped students navigate law and law school applications.

Vinch also spent time working as an educator at Miami University while splitting time between the nation’s capital and Oxford.

He found that D.C., while being great for his career, wasn’t where he wanted to live long term. He decided to move back to Oxford fulltime and continue his work with the EPA virtually while spending more time teaching, his true passion. 

Soon, the Trump Administration started to require all government workers to be on-site for their duties. Knowing this, Vinch quit his job in D.C. to stay in Oxford.

“There’s no way I [was] going back,” he said. “I love it here – it’s my new home.”

Since April, Vinch has been working towards bettering the Miami University and Oxford communities through his work at Miami University and as a member of Oxford’s Environmental Commission. 

“The community feel here is beyond anything I’ve ever felt before,” he said. “It’s just such an amazing community of like-minded people.”

When asked by the Oxford Free Press about his running for City Council in 2025, Vinch stated that he was “never really into being a politician.”

“What I really enjoy is public policy,” Vinch said. “That’s what I’ve done at the EPA for 20 years.”

Vinch believes that deciding how best to use public resources in order to benefit society is important and he hopes to bring this experience to the council.

“There’s a lot of overlay between my experiences and what Oxford needs and wants,” he said. “I decided to roll up my sleeves and do the hard work.”

Vinch hopes to ensure due process in Oxford for its residents and students. 

“The things that are going on outside of Oxford are really concerning to me as an attorney,” he said. “I’m really concerned about due process and how due process rights have just been disregarded casually.”

A major issue in Oxford that Vinch aims to address is homelessness. He believes that two things need to happen to help the homeless in Oxford.

“There needs to be some immediate sort of emergency shelter for homeless people and we don’t have one now” he said. “Secondly … There really  isn’t a lot of low-income housing here.”

He added high-end and middle housing options are also needed in Oxford, but believes that low-cost housing should be a priority.

Vinch is also in support of Oxford’s sustainability and environmental goals, such as its carbon neutrality plans and requiring and enforcing recycling throughout businesses, apartments and the community.

Vinch also hopes to finish working on the Oxford Area Trails System (OATS), specifically the bike path. While the first half has been finished, the remaining planned trains present a challenge to complete, according to Vinch.

“We need to finish this,” he said. “We’ve committed to and invested a lot of money into it … it needs to be done some way.”

Vinch stated that he wants to make a better place, even though he still sees Oxford as an “awesome place to live.”

“How can I improve on awesome?” he asked. “It’s to keep doing what we are doing and try to improve on the things we can do better at.”