2019 in Review

It’s been a year now that I’ve had the pleasure to serve City of Holland residents as your representative to the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners. During that time, the board has acted on a number of important issues, and I’ve listed ones I felt to be most important below:

Juvenile Justice Center: In September, the Board approved the Resolution calling for construction of a new Family Court to be built at Fillmore Complex. I voted no on that because I felt the cost, between $15 to $23 Million, was too high and that we could accomplish many of the new Courthouse’s goals, especially those related to privacy and safety, through a smaller scale, more strategic build that would also imply reduced annual staffing and maintenance costs.

2020 Millage Rates: In June, the Board voted to raise Ottawa County’s Operational Millage by .3 mils, so that the County can fulfill its obligations to its current and former employees who are vested in our defined benefit pension (DB) plan. The county shifted to a defined contribution plan following the Great Recession. This shift has been positive for the County, but the State of Michigan has obliged us to have definite plans to make sure the DB obligees are assured of the future benefits.

My preference was for the lowest possible increase that will still keep us within State of Michigan parameters to do this. The .3 mil was not my first choice, but it is the lowest increase that a solid Board majority could sign on to, and as such I believe, represented the best possible compromise towards fulfilling the twin goals of keeping taxes low here in Ottawa County and fulfilling the promises we made to these employees.

Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: In February, we approved the funding plan for the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Likewise, we approved the two new positions that the office will consist of. The first-year cost to the County for the two staff positions is $0. The cost to the County for the first five years totals $630,000.

In June, Ottawa County announced the hiring of Robyn Afrik as Ottawa County’s first ever Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Director. The DEI office will lead the development of an equity plan for the entire range of human differences. A key initiative will be identifying implicit bias in internal policies, procedures, practices, and in external service delivery. In addition, the County intends to extend assistance to local units of government that desire to tackle similar objectives.

In November, the Board voted to authorize a contract with Inclusion Performance Strategies of Grand Rapids to conduct an organizational assessment to understand Ottawa County’s current capacity to support a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment. Their work product will be a written report including an executive summary of key current state findings and contributing factors and determine the necessary steps to create and implement a comprehensive strategic DEI framework for Ottawa County in a future scope of work.

Working to make Ottawa County truly a place ‘Where you Belong’ will be an enduring, yet worthy task.

Ottawa County Public Defender Office: The new Ottawa County Office of the Public Defender has already taken over half of the new cases for indigent defendants since the first of the year, and is now taking on all new indigent defense cases.

Ottawa County Art Trust Reception: Former Holland Arts Council Executive Director Lorma Freestone was the Jurist for the 2nd Annual Art Trust. For 2019, the County received 77 submissions from 42 artist and selected 8 pieces for our permanent trust.

West Michigan Express: The board approved a resolution of support for the West Michigan Express. This resolution does not commit the County in any way to financially support this initiative. Rather, it demonstrates the County’s support for the West Michigan Express Task Force to identify further partners to support this initiative and explore funding options.

Grand River Waterway Project: In March, the Ottawa County board passed a resolution opposing the Grand River Waterway project, which was an effort to get backing for a 23 mile dredging of the Grand River from Bass River all the way to Grand Rapids. In November, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources came out recently with a statement saying that a proposal to dredge the Grand River presents too many risks to the economy, environment and natural resources in West Michigan. The $3+ million appropriated for this project should go towards the 2020 Budget.

Ottawa County Housing Commission: The Commission met for the first time in November, having been reconstituted after an eight year hiatus. We plan to meet monthly in 2020, and will be defining our scope of work at the January and February meetings together with help form the Planning Department and Ottawa Housing Next.

Thank you for reading and best wishes for the New Year!