Mayor LaGrand gives his signature for the Amway Soccer Stadium, but won’t sign off on the sanctuary policies brought forth by the Movimiento Cosecha

The local commercial news media made a big deal over the last structural beam being put in place for the Grand Action 2.0 proposed Amway Soccer Stadium.

Several news agencies noted that there were “community leaders” present for this event, among those were Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand. LaGrand was pictured signing the structural beam before it was lifted up to the top of the stadium structure.

The event was clearly designed to continue to hype the Grand Action 2.0 projects, like the recent opening of the Amphitheater, which open just weeks ago. The price tag of the soccer stadium is $175 million, which will be home to the professional soccer team that will be owned by the DeVos and Van Andel families.

Of course the City of Grand Rapids and the Kent County Commission approved the use of $100 million in public taxpayer money for the stadium, which is three time the amount that Amway gave to purchase the naming rights.

What Mayor LaGrand is sign onto with his signature

Grand Action 2.0 proposed this project, which makes sense two of the three executive leaders are Dick DeVos and Carol Van Andel. A few additional points about the new soccer stadium are worth pointing out, such as:

• Dan DeVos had purchased the Big Boy restaurant property in 2022, since the DeVos family already knew that this was going to be the local of the soccer stadium.
• The ultimate goal of the DeVos and Van Andel families is to expand their wealth. By owning another sports team, they will get to hold the City and County hostage in the future, when the time comes to expand the soccer stadium or use more land for parking, etc. The DeVos family owns most of the hotels in downtown GR, so when people come to watch a game and don’t want to drive home, or because they are from out of town, the chances are high that they will stay in a DeVos-owned hotel.
• With the Amphitheater and the Soccer Stadium construction projects will come a parking nightmare for those who live on the near westside of Grand Rapids. In addition, all of this construction between Fulton on the south and Bridge St. on the north, will likely result in an ongoing gentrification of the near westside. Low income and working class families will not be tolerated, since they have little to offer to the billionaire families and their network of other members of the Capitalist Class.
• All of this new development, which is primarily predicated on the expansion of wealth for the DeVos, Van Andel and other members of the Capitalist Class will also result in further justification of expanding the GRPD. People with deep pockets will always use cops to protect their wealth, which is what the GR Chamber was arguing with their push to get the city to deal with the “unhoused problem” in downtown GR in 2022. In addition, the GRPD also recognizes that more development where people are coming in large numbers to spend money will result in the “need” for more cops. GRIID reported on a WOODTV8 story where a GRPD Captain stated: “We want to expand our numbers in the next couple years quite a bit. So I would say in the next couple of years — without speaking for the city commission, they’d have to approve it — but we would like to be in that 330 or 340 range. There’s a lot going on downtown with the amphitheater coming in, the soccer stadium. There’s excitement with the river transformation. There is a lot of great restaurants and nightlife down here.”

It has only been 18 months that LaGrand has been Mayor of Grand Rapids, but he has demonstrated over and over again that he is committed to the same things that the DeVos family and other members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure want from this city.

The irony is the over the past 18 months the immigrant-led group Movimiento Cosecha has been asking the Mayor to sign on the 6 sanctuary policies, all of which would demonstrate a commitment by the City of Grand Rapids to not collaborate or be complicit in the violence that ICE is committing against immigrant families on a weekly basis. Signing off on a Grand Action 2.0 project, which will make more money for the billionaire DeVos and Van Andel families is more important than signing off on sanctuary policies that would reduce the amount of ICE terrorism directed at immigrants who live in this city.