Get the public to pay for it while billionaire families get their name on the Amway Stadium and make the bulk of the profits once it is open
Wednesday was a day for showing off the progress of the soon to be completed Amway Soccer Stadium in Grand Rapids. Crain’s Grand Rapids Business did a story on it, along with the recently created Amway Stadium Facebook page, which was also share by the social media page GR&Riverfront, which promotes downtown development projects.
The new soccer stadium will be open in March to host its first professional soccer league game. There has been a great deal of publicity about the Amway Stadium, along with the usual claims that it will boost the local economy.
Of course, when groups like Grand Action 2.0 first pitched the soccer stadium idea they were the first to make the claim that the stadium will benefit the local economy. It is true that the Amway stadium will generate lots of money, but the real question is who will be the primary beneficiaries. Like all Grand Rapids downtown development projects the Amway Stadium will benefit members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure and business owners in the area.
Those who will not benefit from the Soccer Stadium will be working class communities in Grand Rapids and West Michigan. In fact, working class communities have provided millions for the Amway Stadium, mostly from tax incentives from the State of Michigan, Kent County and the City of Grand Rapids.
Amway Soccer Stadium Timeline
Grand Action 2.0, which was created in the 1990s by both the DeVos and Van Andel families, first pitched the Amway Stadium idea before the pandemic.
In 2022, it was first reported that the soccer stadium project was in the works, but that a site had not yet been determined. However, at the same time that this was first reported that DP Fox Ventures LLC (DeVos owned) had acquired 407 Pearl St. NW, the site of the Big Boy restaurant on Pearl St. Several months later Grand Action 2.0 announced that the soccer stadium would be built along US 131 by Pearl St., which GRIID reported on.
Once the soccer stadium project was finalized, it would be owned by the Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority (CAA). The CAA Chairman, Richard Winn, is the President of AHC Hospitality, which is the name of a hotel chain owned by the DeVos family, including the 5 hotels they own/manage in downtown Grand Rapids.
In August of 2024, those who would economically benefit most from the new soccer stadium funded the Hotel Tax ballot initiative. Check out the list of people and orgs that funded the campaign.
In November of 2024, it was announced that the name of the soccer stadium would be the Amway Stadium. The local news omitted the fact that the DDA – which approved using lots of public tax money for the project, has a DeVos family operative on that unelected board and the fact that the Kent County and Grand Rapids City Commissions are in the pocket of the DeVos family. Both of these governing bodies approved $100 million in public subsidies for the Soccer Stadium, which I reported on.
In December of 2024, it was announced that the DeVos and Van Andel families would own the professional soccer team that will play at the Amway Stadium. I wrote a post entitled, What the DeVos/Van Andel ownership of the soccer team means for Grand Rapids.
In May of 2026, Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand signed one of the metal beams used to construct the Amway Stadium, which was considered news.
I write all of this to say that this city is run by the DeVos families, their close friends and they will be the primary beneficiaries of the soon to be open Amway Stadium, just like the Amphitheater, the Downtown Market and the Van Andel Arena. Billionaires put their name on the building and get the public to pay for the bulk of the cost of whichever new project that Grand Action 2.0 is pushing down our throats.
For the group Talent First education is only about creating workers to fill the needs of the businesses in the Grand Rapids area
On Wednesday, Crain’s Grand Rapids Business ran an article with the headline, West Michigan talent gap widens as automation and AI reshape workforce needs.
The headline suggests that automation and AI are changing the kind of employees that businesses are looking for. However, the article is based on a new report by the Grand Rapids-based group Talent First. Their current Board of Directors is taken straight from the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
Talent First was created shortly after the economic crash of 2008/09 and was the brainchild of 40 CEOs who met to discuss how they could develop strategies to recruit the kind of employees they need.
So, after the working class was devastated from the economic crash, which also involved the US government bailing out the banks and Wall Street, local CEOs met to figure out ways to change the direction of education systems to create future workers that they would benefit from.
The Talent First report bemoans the lack of graduates from area colleges that would fit the kind of workers they need. The report states, “West Michigan is producing four graduates with the needed credentials for every 10 job openings — a shift from 15 per 10 jobs just 15 years ago — as automation and AI accelerate employer demands faster than the region’s workforce development systems can adapt.”
The report also has a section with the heading of K-20 pipeline: Leakages limit skilled talent supply. This section uses a graphic (shown on page 20 of their report) but frames the issue as employer driven and employer needs. Of course this all makes sense, since Crain’s Grand Rapids Business is a pro-business publication and Talent First was created by members of the Capitalist Class. It’s instructive to note how the Capitalist Class fails to understand that workers are the ones that create wealth and that without them there would be no millionaires of billionaires.
Influencing Education to create a labor pool
During the decade after the economic crash there was a DeVos-funded group called Believe to Become, which initiated a K-12 effort to influence education and mold students to meet the needs of the business community. GRIID reported on this in 2017, first in May and followed by an article in June.
A second example of how K-12 education, specifically in the Grand Rapids Public School District is reflected in these FOIA documents related to their curriculum around offering classes on Hospitality and Tourism for High School students.
At the university level there has been a long-standing tradition of having the business community fund departments and programs in the Grand Rapids area. However, in 2023, Grand Valley State University began a program called the Laker Accelerated Talent Link. This program involved certain businesses that partnered with GVSU in order to generate labor to fill the needs of those companies.
The five companies that are partnering with GVSU are, Acrisure, Amway, Cascade Engineering, Corewell Health and Michigan Software Labs. Now, these aren’t just random companies that will be partnering with GVSU, they are companies that are deeply tied to the Grand Rapids Power Structure, which is essentially an interlocking system of power, as is reflected in the graphic above. For the purposes of this post, we will attach the DeVos name to Amway, since the DeVos family is at the top of the Grand Rapids Power Structure and has dozens of subsidiaries that are represented in the groups that make up the local power structure.
The false narrative of elected officials: Kent County Sheriff LaJoye-Young deceives GR City Commissioners
What is it about local elected officials and their constant false narratives or outright lies regarding ICE?
Just last month Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand at the end of a city commission meeting stated: “Every City that I have looked at for policies has allowed the GRPD to keep ICE agents safe. They are also humans.”
Just last week, Kent County Sheriff LaJoye-Young did a briefing for the Grand Rapids City Commission on why they should support the November 3 millage to use even more public tax dollars for the Kent County Jail, which you can watch here. The Sheriff’s presentation begins at 44:30 in the video.
Fairly early on in the Sheriff’s pitch to the City to support the upcoming millage she states:
I have several responses to this comment from the Sheriff. First, no one in either Movimiento Cosecha or GR Rapid Response to ICE has said that they believe the county will building a detention center for ICE.
Second, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office has a relationship with ICE and at least since March of 2025, the Kent County Jail has been engaged in detainers for ICE. You can don’t have to take my word for it, since we have a document obtained via a FOIA request, which you can read here.
Part of the memo from the Kent County Sheriff’s Office states under the heading of Policy:
The Kent County Sheriff’s Office is committed to upholding all applicable Local, State, and Federal laws regarding immigration enforcement. KCSO works closely with Immigration Enforcement and Removal officials to ensure compliance with these guidelines while maintaining the safety, security, and rights of all individuals in our custody. All interactions with immigration authorities will be conducted in accordance with legal requirements, department policies, and established procedures to ensure transparency, accountability, and due process.
Since the Kent County Sheriff’s Office has a relationship with ICE and is holding immigrants for ICE, we can then conclude that they are using beds for those whom ICE has requested a detainer for. Thus, when Sheriff LaJoye-Young says that they will not be using beds for immigrants with ICE detainers she is creating a false narrative, indeed an outright lie.
We can expect that during the upcoming Grand Rapids City Commission meeting on September 22nd at 7pm, that Mayor David LaGrand will continue to deny any collaboration between the GRPD and ICE. Along with roughly 100 people, I witnessed a coordinated effort between ICE and the GRPD to make sure that activists would not interrupt the transport of abducted immigrants in a GEO Group van last Saturday. We can expect more lies and deceptions from local elected officials in the very near future.
Kent County unanimously passed the FY2027 budget, with the largest portion going to the prison industrial complex
Last year the FY2026 budget for Kent County was $668 million, which was passed by a vote of 16 – 4. All 9 of the Democratic members of the Kent County Commission voted for the $668 million FY2026 Annual Budget, while 7 of the 11 Republican commissioners that voted also voted to approve.
Now if you look at how much of the $668 million went to the Sheriff’s Office, the Kent County Jail, the Courts and the Prosecutor’s office the combined total came out to about 43% of the budget, roughly $300 million.
The total for the FY2027 Kent County budget went up to $696 million, an increase of $31 million from last year. This year, the Commissioners voted unanimously to adopt the budget, with three Democrats not showing up to that meeting (Pachla, LaGrand and McCloud) which is included in the September 10th County Commission minutes.
Once again, the combined amount of the Sheriff’s Office, the Kent County Jail, the Courts and the Prosecutor’s office was over 40% of the budget. These entities I just listed are what abolitionists (like Angela Davis) have named as the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). In recent decades people are also referring to the PIC as the carceral system or the carceral state. Activists and organizers have been using these terms to make the point that the system of cops, courts and jails is a system of punishment.
The majority of those in the Kent County Jail are disproportionately Black and Brown, plus the majority are working class poor people. Most of them are in jail for non-violent offenses, and most of them are unable to post bond, so they have been sitting in jail without being found guilty. Above is just one of the graphics created from research in a report from Linc Up, which you can access here.
When politicians, like the Kent County Commission vote to use over 40% of public tax dollars on the Prison Industrial Complex, they are voting to punish poor working class people and disproportionately Black and Brown residents. These politicians do it without regard for the lives of those in this carceral system, which practices collective punishment. And yet, people will continue to vote for these commissioners.
Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce is now using Mayor LaGrand’s talking points about Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE demands
The primary goal of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce is to represent the interest of the Capitalist Class, but that also often includes marginalizing those who threaten the interests of those who have economic power.
Last week I wrote about the GR Chamber of Commerce and how they equate people who challenge policing in this city with being anti-public safety activists. Now the GR Chamber of Commerce turns their attention to immigrant justice activists in their September 4 post on what is happening in local government.
The Chamber states: GR activists hosted a “Mayor LaGrand Accountability Forum” this week. It is true that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE held an accountability forum centered on Mayor David LaGrand. The hyperlink they use above is to a WOODTV8 story about the forum that was held. That channel 8 story fails to mention that the whole reason for the forum was because Mayor LaGrand has refused to meet with members of Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE, even though the Mayor stated in June he was willing to meet with them.
The GR Chamber of Commerce could have used the live streamed video from Cosecha about the accountability forum, which would have provided a more accurate accounting of what actually was said.
The GR Chamber of Commerce listed three bullet points (below), but since they relied on the WOODTV8 story these three points are only part of what was discussed at the accountability forum, which I want to discuss further.
- Their demands include prohibiting any coordination between local authorities and ICE, and have expanded their focus to flock surveillance and any other systems that could be used for identification/tracking.
- The City has a very strict policy around surveillance technology, and it took several years to even authorize the deployment of drones to assist in specific public safety matters.
- Elected and executive city leaders have communicated frequently about these policies and responded to the demands repeatedly.
The demands from Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been 6 sanctuary policy demands since they began this campaign in January of 2025, demands which are not reflected in the GR Chamber bullet points. One of those demands has been that the City of Grand Rapids/GRPD NOT share Flock camera images with ICE, even though the Chamber’s comment suggests this is new. What is new is that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE, along with Grand Rapids DSA, are now calling for Flock cameras and any other ALPR technology to be banned from use in the city.
The second bullet point from the GR Chamber of Commerce suggests that the City’s surveillance policies are strict and the reason they believe this is because it took years for the GRPD to use drones for so-called public safety reasons. This is a bot of hyperbole, since the city’s surveillance policies are not that strict and the reason the GRPD could even buy drones or use them is because there was significant public pushback against allowing the GRPD to even purchase drones in 2023.
The last bullet point used by the GR Chamber of Commerce is also inaccurate. When Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE began their campaign to get the city to adopt the six sanctuary policies in January of 2025, for the first year City officials outright dismissed them. In 2026 Mayor LaGrand decided to take a new approach which was to say that they are already doing most of the demands, despite the fact that the Mayor has never provided concrete evidence. Equally important is the fact that both Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have documented evidence of the collaboration between the GRPD and ICE on numerous incidents, with the most recent being this past Saturday.
It’s funny how the GR Chamber of Commerce talks about issues they have no direct involvement in, meaning they have no involvement in resisting ICE violence in this city. However, the GR Chamber of Commerce is involved in this matter, since they contributed to Mayor LaGrand’s campaign in 2024 and the Mayor has represented their interests well. Lastly, it is worth noting that the three bullet points that the GR Chamber of Commerce used are essentially the same talking points used by Mayor LaGrand himself.
GRPD once again coordinates with ICE by preventing resisters from stopping transport van with abducted immigrants in Grand Rapids
Saturday morning saw over 100 people participating in an action that attempted to prevent the for profit GEO Group Corporation from transporting ICE abducted immigrants from Grand Rapids to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan.
The action took place in the alley of the 517 Ottawa NW ICE building, which is their deployment office, meaning the office where ICE agents work out of to abduct immigrants, process them and then put them on a GEO Group van for transport to Baldwin, Michigan.
People noticed that the GEO Group van was in the ICE parking lot, which was around 11am, when most of the people who were resisting ICE had arrived. The GRPD arrived just minutes after those protesting ICE were on the scene, although the GRPD had a presence in the area at least an hour prior to the protest.
Several GRPD cruisers pulled in the alley from the north entrance and blocked the alley right about where the ICE parking lot and the building begins. The GRPD cruisers parked diagonally in two different directions, making it nearly impossible for people to no north in the alley. At the same time the GRPD had cruisers near the south entrance of the alley.
Protesters engaged the GRPD with chants and by calling them out on their ongoing collaboration with ICE. This went on for 5 – 7 minutes, when all of a sudden the GEO Group van was spotted coming out of the ICE parking lots going north in the alley. ICE had loaded immigrants they had abducted in the morning into the GEO Group van, which was a completely different tactic than people had seen previously. Of course ICE used this approach because those protesting made it so difficult for them to get the GEO Group van into the ICE garage, which means they were using the GRPD to prevent people from stoping the van from leaving the 517 Ottawa NW deployment office.
You can see in the picture above that the GRPD had cops blocking the north entrance of the alley and the white GEO Group van coming out of the ICE parking lots. In the picture below you can see a GRPD cruiser acting as an escort for the GEO Group van to make its get away.
Those who were protesting were so enraged by what had happened, especially since the GRPD played a critical role in assisting ICE abducted immigrants to escape without any interruption.
The GRPD then took a more aggressive stance towards those who were protesting ICE by repeating over and over that people needed to leave the alleyway, then stating – If you refuse this lawful order you will be arrested. At this point there were three people arrested by the GRPD, all of which told us that the cops were physically aggressive with all of them, even throwing two of them to the ground. You can partially see the three who were arrested.
There were two additional people arrested by the GRPD during the protest, making the total number of people arrested at five. The three who were arrested first said that while they were in the GRPD cruisers they could hear communication from ICE to the GRPD, which is one additional confirmation that the GRPD and ICE were coordinating how to deal with protesters.
After the protest many of the people went to the Kent County Jail to provide jail solidarity. Eventually all five were bonded out and released while supporters applauded them when exiting the jail.
The fact that the GRPD assisted ICE/GEO Group by preventing people from trying to stop immigrant family separation completely contradicts what Mayor LaGrand and the GRPD Chief of Police have been saying since January of 2025 when Movimiento Cosecha began their campaign to get the City of Grand Rapids to adopt six sanctuary policies. In fact, from where I sit, this recent GRPD collaboration with ICE/GEO Group signifies to me that Mayor LaGrand and the GRPD Chief have been lying to Cosecha, GR Rapid Response to ICE and the community at large.
The Mayor and the Chief of Police can hide behind the argument that the GRPD was there to prevent people from blocking an alleyway or for some notion of public safety, but the fact remains that ICE and the GEO Group (which has a contract with ICE to detain immigrants) are engaged in unjust, racist and oppressive practices by criminalizing undocumented immigrants, where ICE abducts immigrants and the GEO Group makes money from detaining them. More and more people are now opposing these ICE abductions and the resistance to ICE is likely to grow in the coming weeks and months.
The GR Chamber of Commerce equates people who challenge policing as anti-public safety activists
The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce writes up a summary after the Grand Rapids and Kent County commission meetings in a section called – LOCAL GOVERNMENT: WHAT’S HAPPENING.
In their August 28th post they wrote a summary of the Public Safety Committee meeting held by the City of Grand Rapids. I wrote an article about that meeting as well, which you can read here, but compare it to what the GR Chamber writes:
“The presentation and discussion led to a commitment from GRPD to begin reporting on its use of Flock to the Public Safety Committee. Unfortunately, this topic (as in other cities) has reignited anti-public safety activist groups. They attended the meeting and made hours of public comments at the night meeting.”
What the Chamber wrote about the Flock presentation completely omits the fact that the GRPD attempted to present their use of Flock cameras as a crime prevention tool, along with the fact that there were two Flock Corporation reps there who presented a narrative was driven by the fact that they sell their technology to communities in order to make money, not keep people safe.
However, the comment that followed was most instructive, where the GR Chamber states: “Unfortunately, this topic (as in other cities) has reignited anti-public safety activist groups. They attended the meeting and made hours of public comments at the night meeting.”
Here the GR Chamber of Commerce clearly wants to paint community members and community-based groups that are against mass surveillance technology as anti-public safety activists. Now, it could be that the GR Chamber views anti-Public Safety groups as anti-policing. If this is the case then that would generally be an accurate statement. However, by calling people who question policing as anti-public safety groups the GR Chamber is attempting to frame people as against public safety. On the contrary, whether we are talking about the Movement for Black Lives, DSA, Movimiento Cosecha or GR Rapid Response to ICE, these groups are not against public safety, they are against defining public safety as cops. Read the amazing document – A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom and Justice, if you real want to know what public safety really is.
Real public safety is when everyone feels safe, in their home or in public, safe from violence, safe from discrimination and when their basic needs are being met – housing, health care, nutrition, relaxation and acceptance in the community. In addition, public safety would be fundamentally improved if the millions that the GRPD receives every year would be used to meet community needs.
Equally important is the fact that cops do not keep people safe. In a report from the group Interrupting Criminalization entitled, Cops Don’t Stop Violence: Combating Narratives used to defend police instead of defunding them, they state:
Police are facing one of the greatest crises of legitimacy in a generation. In the wake of the largest uprisings in U.S. history, sparked by police violence, bloated police budgets, and the deadly impacts of a failure to invest in community health and safety laid bare by the pandemic, pro-police forces are on the defensive. So they are reaching for one of their most reliable weapons — fear.
This is nothing new — cops and policymakers have always used fearmongering to push “law and order” agendas and pour more and more money into police departments. Now, with police budgets under scrutiny by campaigns to defund the police and refund our communities all across the country, lawmakers and the media are once again recycling old talking points about increasing violence and crime, claiming that campaigns to defund police are responsible.
The Cops Don’t Stop Violence report is well researched and full of data, that is presented in a very readable fashion. The report concludes with the following statement:
It’s time to recognize that decades of pouring more money, resources, and legitimacy into policing in an effort to increase safety have failed — because policing is functioning as it is intended to: to contain, control, and criminalize Black and Brown communities rather than to prevent and reduce violence. It’s time to invest in meeting community needs and building non-police community safety strategies. It’s time to invest in just recovery.
For the GR Chamber of Commerce to say that people challenging the function of the GRPD are anti-public safety is simply absurd. Of course the GR Chamber of Commerce loves the GRPD, since they protect the interests of the Capitalist Class, just like the GR Chamber of Commerce.
Since the beginning of 2025, groups like Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been demanding that the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Office not share Flock camera images with ICE.
In recent months there has been a growing movement across the US and in Grand Rapids to ban the use of Flock cameras and all Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) technology. People are tired of mass surveillance technology, like Flock cameras, and some have created online tools to assist people in finding Flock cameras in their communities.
Over the past few months other groups have joined in the call for Flock and other ALPR technology to be banned in Grand Rapids and Kent County. As an initial response the City of Grand Rapids invited the GRPD and Flock company reps to speak during their August 25th Public Safety Committee meeting. GRIID found out that the ACLU asked to present as well, specifically about the dangers of Flock technology, but GR City officials denied that request.
During the Grand Rapids City Commission meeting that same night there were roughly 60 people who spoke about the GRPD’s use of Flock technology, along with support for the six sanctuary policies that Movimiento Cosecha has been demanding over the past 18 months.
As a response to the public pressure to ban Flock technology in Grand Rapids and Kent County, both the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Office have taken steps to create so-called transparency portals. The fact of the matter is that the Flock corporation has provided the so-called transparency portals for both the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Office. There are cops logos for both police agencies, but the website these portals are on is the Flock corporation page.
On the GRPD Flock Transparency Portal page under the heading of Community Impact there is a list of ways in which Flock camera use by the GRPD assisted them in solving crimes. In fact, these examples were the same examples that GRPD Deputy Chief Michael Maycroft gave during the August 25th Public Safety Committee meeting. On the right hand of that page there appears a long list of how Flock technology assisted police departments all across Michigan.
Nothing about what I mentioned so far provides much transparency. In fact, nothing else on these pages provides much that would even be considered transparency for thinking people. Yes, there is some data and listings of which other police departments are sharing their data with GR and Kent County, but there is no real transparency such as logs of where and when Flock cameras were used by the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Office, let along what they were used for.
Lastly, under the Policy & Trust section it lists What Flock Does Not do or Detect. Look just because cops are saying that the Flock technology doesn’t do certain things, doesn’t mean we have to believe them. I certainly don’t.
More importantly, most people who have engaged the City of Grand Rapids and Kent County Commissioners over the Flock camera issue are calling for those two governing bodies to ban the use of the Flock cameras or any other ALPR technology. People don’t want the government collecting data on them, nor do they want their privacy invaded nor to be targeted by police.
Grand Rapids and Kent County hoped that the so-called transparency portals would appease the public over concerns of mass surveillance. What the local governments have done is demonstrate that they don’t listen to public input or public demands. Don’t they know that this will only embolden increased public outrage over mass surveillance?
What do you get when you use other people’s content to promote far right talking points? The Grand Rapids Businessman FB page
Even when the Facebook page was called Commies of Grand Rapids it was pretty clear that whoever is behind the social media site that they embraced a far right agenda, which I pointed out at the time.
Since they changed their named to Grand Rapids Businessman their page has become even more “popular,” although they continue to demonstrate ideological perspectives, such as being pro-Capitalist, pro-cop, anti-unhoused and regularly make posts that is through a racist/white supremacist lens.
The FB page known as Grand Rapids Businessman doesn’t do journalism, nor do they have any original content. What they primarily do is to use content created by someone else and then respond to it with brief commentary which often reflects their ideological position(s). For instance, in a post from September 8 they write:
The city is on its 5th police Chief in just 12 years, as activists press officials to use taxpayer funds for things like alternatives-to-policing endorsed by Black Lives Matter, increase equity-based programs, adopt sanctuary city policies, and develop “climate action plans.”
Commissioners Lisa Knight, Marshall Kilgore, and Mayor David LaGrand recently endorsed Abdul El Sayed who previously called to defund the police as Grand Rapids struggles to hire more officers.
In just these two sentences the person(s) behind Grand Rapids Businessman reflects an anti-DEI, anti-BLM, anti-sanctuary, climate denying and pro-cop bias.
I say the person(s), since they aren’t very transparent about who they are, which is pretty typical for those on the far right. Numerous people posting on the page have asked who is behind Grand Rapids Businessman, but they have never responded to such inquiries.
In addition, Grand Rapids Businessman receives lots of comments, from both liberals and conservatives, although my guess would be that their target audience are those on the far right. I say this, because if you read the Grand Rapids Businessman page, the bulk of those commenting are people on the right, mostly white dudes.
Using content created by other people and then simply responding with shallow far right talking points is nothing more than lazy. However, besides using other people’s content the Grand Rapids Businessman will regularly engage in misinformation. Here are two recent examples of how they engage in misinformation.
The first example is from four days ago, where they wrote: Mayor David LaGrand refuses to attend Democratic Socialists of America town hall demanding sanctuary city status and flock camera removal. LaGrand has sparred for months with local agitators who are now publicly shaming him for declining the invitation. The rest of the Grand Rapids city commissioners have been silent on sanctuary status as activists target the mayor and protest inside his personal business, Long Road Distillery.
The first misinformed comment was that they referred to a town hall meeting that Mayor LaGrand refused to attend, but called it a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) event. The event was host by the immigrant-led Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE, which is reflected in the image they used that had of the logos from these two groups, but not the DSA logo. The second comment they include which was wrong is that the Grand Rapids Businessman stated these groups were demanding “sanctuary city status.” The fact is that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been pushing for the City and the County to adopt six sanctuary policies. These six demands are very different than calling for the city to declare itself a sanctuary, which is pretty meaningless designation. The person(s) who run the Grand Rapids Businessman would know this if they watched or shared the livestream of the event that Cosecha organized last Thursday, which you can view here.
A second example of how the Grand Rapids Businessman engages in misinformation was also from last week where they post a video with this brief commentary:
Rep. Hillary Scholten votes to block federal aid for universities that boycott Israel. The Grand Rapids Democrat appears agitated and passive aggressive with Dropsite News reporter, Julian Dreone when he asks, “what do Jewish people in Michigan have to do with Israel?” She responds, “who are you again?”
What is instructive is that the video clip they use from Dropsite news was just 35 seconds long, when the Dropsite news video much longer and includes some background information from the reporter, who also speaks with several more members of Congress to get some answers on the issue of denying funds to universities that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign that began several decades ago.
I wrote a more informative piece about Rep. Scholten’s vote on this issue, which the Grand Rapids Businessman doesn’t seem interested in. In fact, the Grand Rapids Businessman only seems interested in promoting their own far right positions by using and misusing content created by other people. Then again, this is what the far right usually does, which is to use simplistic, ideologically driven talking points to push their agenda and provide a platform for white supremacists to chime in.
Mayor LaGrand continues to dismiss calls for greater accountability in so-called statement after Cosecha-led public forum
Last Thursday, Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE hosted a community forum after Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand refused to meet with them to discuss the six sanctuary policy demands.
The event was promoted by Cosecha as an accountability event, since the Mayor not only refused to meet with the immigrant-led group, but refused to have a good faith conversation about the six sanctuary policy demands. Those who spoke at the public forum were organizers with Cosecha, GR Rapid Response to ICE and the Grand Rapids chapter of DSA.
Besides talking about the Mayor’s refusal to meet with these groups, Cosecha also presented a draft of a 12-page ordinance proposal, which was crafted by a legal team that would consolidate the 6 sanctuary demands that Cosecha has put before the City of Grand Rapids since January of 2025.
There were several news agencies present for the public forum, but I want to address the coverage from WOODTV8. The channel 8 story that they broadcast, simply provided a summary of the public forum, along with comments from Cosecha organizer Gema Lowe. However, the story was updated to included comments from a “statement” released by Mayor LaGrand.
I checked the City of Grand Rapids webpage, their Facebook page, Mayor’s LaGrand’s Facebook page and even the Office of Public Accountability’s page, but could not find a released statement from Mayor LaGrand regarding the Cosecha accountability forum. When public officials make public statements they need to provide a paper or digital trail for the public, which provides not only greater transparency, but accountability.
In the online text story version from WOODTV8 Mayor LaGrand said:
“The bad news is that as a city, we are often unable to stop the actions of the federal government since the federal government is often able to simply override the wishes of our residents and city policies,” he said. “The good news is that as a city, we can craft city policies that implement our welcoming values.”
The truth is that if the City of Grand Rapids would adopt the sanctuary policy demands from Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE it would reduce the level of harm being perpetuated by ICE agents on the undocumented immigrant community. Also, notice how the Mayor does not name ICE abductions in his comments, but merely refers to them as “actions of the federal government.” Not naming the harm that ICE perpetrates also makes the Mayor complicit in the harm they are committing daily against immigrants in this city.
The channel 8 story goes on to quote LaGrand:
“While we cannot control federal actions with zoning policies, the city does not operate any detention facilities for violations of local, state or federal laws,” the statement reads. “Grand Rapids has a clear policy closely mirroring policies of other cities such as Ann Arbor and Chicago, preventing our public safety employees from assisting ICE agents in ICE investigations.”
The Cosecha sanctuary policy demands and the newly drafted 12-page ordinance are not “zoning” policies they are harm reduction policies that would commit the City of Grand Rapids from not cooperating or collaborating with ICE in any way. As to the Mayor’s comments about Grand Rapids not operating a detention facility, he is completely mis-representing what Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been demanding in regards to not allowing an ICE detention facility to operate in Grand Rapids. What is being asked is that the City not allow any future ICE detention facilities in the City of Grand Rapids, like what was proposed in Romulus, Michigan earlier this year, which was to use an empty warehouse. Grand Rapids has numerous empty warehouse space, which could easily be converted into ICE detention centers, which is discussed in excellent article from the American Immigration Council earlier this year.
Lastly, Mayor LaGrand also said in the so-called released statement that he would listen to the concerns of those who addressed the Flock camera issue. Those who spoke at the Cosecha public forum were not asking concerns to be addressed, but to ban the use of Flock cameras and all ALPR systems. Grand Rapids did what systems of power do, they merely brought the GRPD’s use of Flock camera technology into their surveillance policy, claiming it will provide more oversight.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 