MLive article doesn’t challenge the unelected, anti-democratic DDA Board, who also makes decisions on how millions in tax dollars are spent

Last week Wednesday, MLive posted an article with the following headline, Riverfront amphitheater gets $20.5M commitment from Grand Rapids board.

The Grand Rapids board the headline was referring to is the Downtown Development Authority, the DDA. The MLive article states:

On Wednesday, the DDA approved a resolution to cover annual debt payments over a 20-year period on $20.5 million the city of Grand Rapids wants to borrow to help finance the venue at 201 Market Ave. SW.

The majority of the MLive story follows the usual pro-development line of thinking, with no critical assessment of what all of this means. The article does acknowledge that at least $45 million in public funding has been made available for the amphitheater project, but fails to mention that the public had no say in such matters.

If you look at the DDA agenda for the February 14th meeting (which you can find here), you can read for yourself what was included in the agenda packet for that meeting. 

Before discussing more of the details from the February 14th meeting, it is worth noting that the DDA Board is made up of mostly corporate representatives, 2 government representatives and a representative from the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, although that person operates within the framework of the Grand Rapids Power Structure. Two of the corporate DDA Board members are DeVos family operatives – Richard Winn and Greg McNeilly. 

In addition, the DDA Board is by appointment so they are not an elected body, thus they are only answerable to Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. and Grand Rapids City officials. 

In looking at the DDA Agenda for February 14th, one can see on page 7, that their current assets are roughly $32.5 million, money that is mostly generated from taxing entities within the official DDA boundaries. And speaking of the DDA boundary, there was a very useful map in the agenda packet (page 43), which shows the ever expanding boundaries of the DDA, which began in 1980 in the area shown on the map as area A, to 2024, with 18 areas, from A through R. It’s too bad that the MLive article didn’t include this map, as it is extremely useful for the public, since it provides a good visual of how much land/property the DDA controls. Again, it cannot be said too often, that the taxes generated from the DDA-controlled area are spent by an unelected body that primarily represents the Grand Rapids Power Structure.

Also included in the DDA agenda packet for February 14th (from pages 86 – 95) is a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the DDA’s plan to pay off the bond that the City of Grand Rapids will incur for the Amphitheater. 

It’s too bad that MLive does not provide more details on these so-called private/public partnership projects. Not only do they not provide more details, they don’t even provide the necessary hyperlinks to make it easy for people to do their own investigations. More importantly, as part of the local commercially controlled media landscape, MLive fails the public by not questioning or challenging the undemocratic nature of the DDA and how this unelected body gets to decide how public tax dollars are spent.