Kentwood Mayoral race is a perfect example of how problematic electoral politics are for making substantive change in people’s lives

Next week people who live in Kentwood will have an opportunity to vote for a new Mayor. The two candidates who are running are incumbent Stephen Kepley and Monica Sparks, who is currently a Kent County Commissioner.

If you look at the campaign finance data for Stephen Kepley you see that he has raised $46,926.12 and spent $32,022.23. Kepley had 101 separate donors, with the following being some of the largest:

• Maintain Our Majority PAC – $10,000
• Friends of West Michigan Business – $5,000
• Realtors Political Action Committee of Michigan – $2,000
• Dan DeVos/DP Fox – $1,225
• Mike Jandernoa/42 North Partners – $1,225
• Dan Hibma/Land & Company – $1,225
• JC Huizenga/Huizenga Group – $1,225
• John Kennedy/Autocam Medical – $1,225

This short list represents some of the wealthiest families in Kent County, many of who are part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure. There are also PACs representing Realtors – those who have an interest in profiting from the housing market; the Friends of West MI Business, which is the PAC of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce; and Maintain Our Majority, which is a Republican run PAC that has it’s campaign donation address the office of 220 LYONS ST NW SUITE 510, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503. When you look up that address, it is listed as SIBSCO, the real estate firm that was started by the Secchia family, which is now run by Charlie Secchia.

The campaign finance data for Monica Sparks shows that she has raised a total of $30,015.00 and has spent $18,570.14. There were 153 separate contribution entries on the most recent campaign finance document from Monica Sparks. Here are some of the larger contributors:

• Monica Sparks – $2,540
• Michigan Laborers Political League PAC – $2,500
• Teamsters 406 Political Action Committee – $2,500
• Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters Political Action Committee – $2,000
• Kent County Democratic Party – $1,600
• Kentwood Professional Firefighters Union – $1,225
• Joshua Ferguson/270 Strategies – $1,225
• Brandon Dillion/The Winmatt Group – $1,225
• PHILPAC – $1,000

Monica Sparks is not only the largest contributor to her own campaign, she also contributed an additional $24,068.29 under the In-Kind Contributions section of her campaign finance data.

You can see that the larger contributors to Sparks’ campaign are the Kent County Democratic Party, PHILPAC (which is Phil Skaggs’ PAC), Winmatt Group (a Democratic Party consulting group), plus several labor unions, all of which have a history of funding Democratic Party candidates.

Now, some people might say that it seems clear who Kentwood voters should support. You have the incumbent Kepley, who clearly gets a large amount from wealthier families in Kent County, along with organizations like the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce. Kepley is a business as usual politician that does not want to disrupt development efforts or question funding for cops or the Kent County Jail. Kentwood is also a deeply diverse community, both culturally and ethnically, yet Mayor Kepley rarely does anything that challenges the white supremacy framework of Kentwood politics.

Then there is Monica Sparks, a current Kent County Commissioner. Besides relying heavily on Democratic Party and Democratic Party support groups, of the 153 separate contributions listed only 21 of those entires are from people who actually live in Kentwood. This means that the majority of campaign contributors to Monica Sparks comes from people who do not live in Kentwood.

In addition, as a Kent County Commssioner Monica Sparks has also not disrupted business as usual when it comes to issues like voting for all the massive Grand Action 2.0 projects in downtown Grand Rapids like the Amphitheater and the Soccer Stadium. Sparks has always voted to maintain hundreds of millions in funding for the Kent County Sheriff’s Department and the Kent County Jail, which has a disproportionate number of Black and Brown inmates.

Lastly, Monica Sparks was elected to the Kent County Commission in 2018, which means that she did not support Movimiento Cosecha’s push to end Kent County’s contract with ICE and she currently doesn’t support the Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE campaign to get Kent County to adopt several sanctuary policies that would concretely reduce ICE violence in this county.

Neither Mayoral candidate for Kentwood has a platform for disrupting business as usual politics, which means that systems of power and oppression will continue to thrive in Kentwood. What we have in Kentwood is clearly a partisan battle for power, but neither party wants to center the most affected people in Kentwood, working class residents and the vast immigrant and refugees communities that make Kentwood so unique. Here is a clear example of why electoral politics doesn’t serve the majority of the people, which means we need to take matters into our own hands if we want substantive and long lasting change.