GRIID end of the year in Review: Part III – Monitoring the Grand Rapids Power Structure

The function of journalism should be to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable!

It’s time for our annual year in review, where we look at GRIID reporting on the far right in West Michigan, the Grand Rapids Power Structure, and our reporting on social movements in Grand Rapids. On Monday, we posted Part I of GRIID end of the year in Review: Monitoring the Local News Media, and in Part II, GRIID posted a review of the articles we have done on the Far Right in West Michigan.

The Grand Rapids Power Structure

For years GRIID has been monitoring the players involved in the local power structure, including families, businesses, and organizations that are run by or have missions that primarily benefit the wealthiest people in Grand Rapids. In 2018, GRIID did a 10 part series on the power structure and we are working on updating the content of that series in 2024.

We just updated our now 746 page document on the DeVos Family, so we won’t be including them in today’s post.

There were too many stories I did that deconstructed the Grand Rapids Power Structure, so I’ll try to provide a summary on organizations and issues.

One group, the West Michigan Policy Forum (WMPF), which was created in 2008, brings together the most powerful members of the Capitalist Class in this area. They focus on influencing state policy and have their own wish list of Pro-Capitalist policy proposals they want to see adopted. I posted two stories about the WMPF, one in January about their ongoing efforts to undermine public education and a second story in September where the WMPF was lobbying against a proposed paid family leave policy for Michigan.

Another area of interest has been the promotion of the so-called transformational projects in Grand Rapids, which are really development projects that would greatly benefit the very people who have the most power in this city. For instance, in early February I wrote about the Grand Action 2.0’s ongoing effort to use public money for the outdoor Amphitheater.  

In May, I wrote a piece to challenge people to think about how we could radically imagine what public money could be used for if it wasn’t going to the pet projects of the rich and powerful. In September, I wrote about the money spent on naming rights for the Amphitheater.

Of course, these kinds of decisions to use public money are also made by local governments, which are made up of elected officials who are often the recipients of campaign money from the very people who have proposed such projects. I wrote several posts about this power dynamic, such as an article in May, which takes a close look at the funding priorities of the City of Grand Rapids.  

In August, I wrote another story about how massive amounts of public funding would be used for a pocket park along the Grand River, which is also adjacent to the Amway Grand Plaza. And in early December, I wrote about how the Kent County Government also agreed to provide $15 million for the Amphitheater project.

However, the biggest issue certainly centered around how the local power structure is inserting itself around the issue of housing and housing policy. In April, we wrote about the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce-created group Housing Next, which essentially is a market-driven response to the housing crisis.  Then in June, I wrote about how members of the Public Safety Committee made disgusting statements about the unhoused during a public meeting.  Finally, in July, I wrote about how those who own Grand Rapids made sure the Grand Rapids City officials would adopt two ordinances that would essentially criminalize the unhoused.

I also wrote several articles about the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, specifically about some of the overarching work they do which benefits a small percentage of the local population, specifically the Capitalist Class. In January, I wrote a piece about the type of class war the Chamber wages, another post in April looking at the leadership program, an article in August about their overall profits over people vision, followed by another August article about their annual policy conference, where business leaders and local politicians were pushing a policy agenda that gives priority to projects that benefit the already wealthy sectors of this city.