Comments on: Mayor Heartwell and the State of the City Address 2010 http://griid.org/2010/01/30/mayor-heartwell-and-the-state-of-the-city-address-2010/ Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:04:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Kate Wheeler http://griid.org/2010/01/30/mayor-heartwell-and-the-state-of-the-city-address-2010/#comment-803 Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:59:33 +0000 http://griid.org/?p=1884#comment-803 I find it mystifying that Mayor Heartwell, who used to serve at Heartside Mininstry, and who also used to run a mortgage company, could gloss over issues such as the alarming increase in poverty in Grand Rapids (24 percent!) and the out-of-control foreclosure rate here.

A real estate survey in 2008 showed that the number of houses for sale in Grand Rapids that were being offered due to foreclosures was between 40 and 50 percent. Many people who ended up losing their homes that year and in 2009 were not the actual homeowners, but renters whose landlords did not tell them that the units they were renting were about to be seized by the bank. They were faced with having to find another rental they could afford at a moment’s notice…come up with first and last months’ rent again…and somehow keep their lives going in the midst of the chaos of suddenly being homeless.

We’re also facing a decrease of 25% of our jobs since June of 2008, and that’s on top of the massive job losses from 2000-2007.

I’m sure that Mayor Heartwell is well aware of these issues. Why not frame his address in terms of concern for the many, many citizens who are struggling with poverty, job losses, the inability to find work, and the loss of homes, rather than frame it in this “Hey, everything is looking great!” tone?

And a consolidated government seems like it would take away more control from citizens, as the article points out.

I’m completely stymied by this.

]]> By: Nick Manes http://griid.org/2010/01/30/mayor-heartwell-and-the-state-of-the-city-address-2010/#comment-792 Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:54:01 +0000 http://griid.org/?p=1884#comment-792 @Steve: I completely agree that drug use and the damage it causes (i.e. overdoses and crime) really does need to be addressed better. Primarily the status quo of if you do drugs you go to prison is clearly not working. I really admire Clean Works and think that it’s a program that aims to hit at the core of the problem. I hope its able to grow and be effective.

@Ben: I think that the idea of trying to consolidate local government is just another example of those in authority trying to dance around serious problems rather than doing anything meaningful to fix them. For example, should this consolidation ever go through, which I agree is very unlikely, it would be very painful to watch as already ignored neighborhoods become even more blighted in lieu of services going to EGR. However I think that the response of people in places like EGR and Grandville will be extremely negative towards the idea of being annexed into Grand Rapids proper.

]]> By: Ben http://griid.org/2010/01/30/mayor-heartwell-and-the-state-of-the-city-address-2010/#comment-791 Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:11:28 +0000 http://griid.org/?p=1884#comment-791 Nice article. I have to say, I was startled by how many in the room applauded the move to consolidate local governments. On one hand Heartwell described a nimble and agile city that could serve as a “platform” for greater community involvement, next he is describing how a county wide government could more efficiently oversee and provide day to day services to citizens.

Creating one massive bureaucracy seems completely juxtapose to the concept of empowering more people to become active in local government affairs. Fortunately, I think the logistics of this will prevent it from proceeding much past the management of waste water and bio-solid waste (the model for which he touted all this would be based on).

]]> By: Steve Alsum http://griid.org/2010/01/30/mayor-heartwell-and-the-state-of-the-city-address-2010/#comment-790 Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:01:52 +0000 http://griid.org/?p=1884#comment-790 I went to this event today to raise awareness of overdose fatality in the Grand Rapids area. Overdose is the second leading cause of accidental death of all people under the age of 65 in Kent County. More than 60 people have died from drug overdoses each year for the past four years. The only thing that kills more people accidentally in Kent County is car accidents. Death from drug overdose is something affecting the citizens of this city. It is something that should have been mentioned in a state of the city address; I was not surprised that it was not. People who die from drug overdoses are brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters to someone, they are not just drug users. I wonder how many more people will die from overdose before we, as a community, choose to address this issue? I work with the Clean Works program. We have been training people who actively use drugs in how to prevent and respond to overdoses. Since our programs inception, we have trained 78 people who have successfully reversed at least 16 overdoses. This is not enough. We need a coordinated community response to this epidemic if we wish for people to stop dying. We need this issue to be on the table; it needs to be mentioned at a state of the city address. It is the state of our city.

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