Look at how Grand Rapids is prioritizing public money: More cops and entertainment venues

Within the past 48 hours, the City of Grand Rapids has announced how they are going to use public tax dollars, both in the proposed 2025 City budget and the massive subsidies and tax breaks for developers involved in the Amphitheater and Soccer Stadium projects.

The Grand Rapids City Commission introduced the proposed 2025 City budget during the Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday. You can access a draft of the 2025 City budget at this link.  The proposed 2025 budget for the City of Grand Rapids is 532 pages long and it is not an easy document to read. This of course is intentional on the part of the City, both to make it so long and to make it difficult to understand.

The local news coverage of the proposed 2025 City budget provides a summary, but still leaves gaps. For instance, the article that appeared on MLive, uses the headline, More firefighters, 911 dispatchers included in Grand Rapids’ proposed $690M spending plan. Interestingly enough, the headline does not reflect issues like policing, development projects or the current housing crisis. 

The MLive article does provide some numbers around policing, despite its absence from the headline. The MLive reporter writes: 

As for public safety, the spending plan maintains the police department’s budgeted staffing at 304 sworn officers, with the department receiving about $64.8 million from the general fund. That’s an increase of about 3.3% from the approved $62.7 million general fund allocation in the current fiscal year.

To see more details of the 2025 proposed budget for the GRPD go to page 441, which you can access here. The screenshot above shows the dollar amount going to the GRPD and the expected amounts through 2029, which on average is about a $3 million increase every year. Based on these numbers, the MLive article only includes the money from the general fund and not the money from other sources that will end up in the hands of the GRPD. 

As someone who comes from an abolitionist perspective, I would argue that the GRPD fundamentally don’t keep people safe, nor do they prevent crime. In the bulk of cases, the GRPD shows up after the fact, whether we are talking about violence crime, theft or other petty offenses. Despite this reality, the GRPD has convinced Grand Rapids City officials that the millions going to their department is necessary.

Bread and Circuses

The other example of how the City of Grand Rapids is spending public money has to do with the so-called transformational projects – the Amphitheater, the soccer stadium and what MLive is calling the “two housing towers” that will be adjacent to the Amphitheater and soccer stadium. 

The MLive article states, “The vast majority of the $318 million subsidy comes from the Transformational Brownfield program.” The article goes on to say, “In addition to the Transformational Brownfield program, the projects are also seeking a $30.8 million tax cut through the city’s Neighborhood Enterprise Zone exemption.”

So, a $318 million subsidy for entertainment projects. Imagine if $318 million was spent on social housing, on public education or health care for those most in need? To address the housing crisis, imagine if $318 million were spent on new housing, say at $250,000 each. For $318 million 1272 houses could be built. If we are talking about renters, with say an average $1500 a month for rent, 17,666 people could have their rent covered for an entire year, all for the cost of providing subsidies to entertainment venues. 

Once again, the City of Grand Rapids is demonstrating what they are prioritizing. Entertainment venues have a priority over the current housing crisis or addressing the fact that there are thousands of families in this city who are subjected to poverty. In many ways the police funding and the subsidies for the transformational projects make complete sense. Those who run this city want to entertain (pacify) us, plus they then get to use the cops to police the unhoused, BIPOC people and dissidents who would dare to question or resist the use of public money for private gain. 

If you object to this funding there is a public hearing on the budget during the city commission’s 7 p.m. May 14 meeting. People can also submit comments in writing to cityclerk@grcity.us. Or people could skip this process – which is generally useless, since GR City officials have already made up their minds – and organize people to actively resist the use of public money for private gain.