Monitoring the Rich and Powerful in Grand Rapids – Segment #12: More downtown hotels, subsidizing developers and Amway pays a fine

One of the 10 principles of journalism is that it must serve as an independent monitor of power.

Now, I don’t claim to be a journalist, more of a media watchdog, but I do engage in movement media. Movement media is reporting and documenting what social movements are doing, which is what I have been trying to do with GRIID since 2009.

However, since I have been monitoring what I call the Grand Rapids Power Structure for nearly two decades, it seems like a good idea to do a Monitoring the Rich and Powerful in Grand Rapids segment.

There are three issues in this segment of Monitoring the Rich and Powerful in Grand Rapids that I want to draw attention to.

The first item I want to look at is the Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority (CAA) plans to have a new hotel built in downtown Grand Rapids so that the city can stay competitive when it comes to “offering ballroom and meeting spaces.” At least this is what Richard Winn, who is chair of the CCA board of directors and president of AHC Hospitality. AHC Hospitality is owned by the DeVos family, which begs the question of whether or not Winn and other CCA board members are wanting additional hotel space that would also be owned by the DeVos family?

A second example of what members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure are up to has to do with a new partnership between Houghton-based Braveworks Inc. and CWD Real Estate Investment to convert part of the historic Trust Building in downtown Grand Rapids into a 63-room boutique hotel, according to Crain’s Grand Rapids Business.

CWD Real Estate Investment is owned by Sam Cummings and Dan DeVos, both of which have benefited from lots of public money through the Brownfield Redevelopment Financing Act. Those public dollars have provided wealthy developers like Cummings and DeVos the opportunity to use public funds to expand how much property they own, which is recent years has been rental units, condos and now hotel rooms in downtown Grand Rapids. Ironically, Cummings and DeVos both signed on to the the GR Chamber of Commerce proposed ordinance that would criminalize unhoused people in the downtown area. CWD loves it when public funds are used to expand their wealth but will   oppose public funds for truly affordable housing.

Our third and last example of what the GR Power Structure is up to has to do with a recent court ruling, which states:

“The Amway Corp. and two affiliates have agreed to pay $225 million to resolve allegations from the Federal Trade Commission and Washington state that they used deceptive tactics to recruit members to the direct-selling and multilevel marketing business.”

The Crain’s article goes on to say, “We fundamentally disagree with the agencies’ characterization of our business, This settlement, like all settlements, required compromise. Resolution positions us to move forward and focus our energy where it belongs: on our customers, IBOs and employees.” Of course Amway disagrees with the court ruling,, but if it means just paying a fine and keeping how they do business out of the public eye, then that is a win for them. The Crain’s article does not include details from the Federal Trade Commission, which made three major complaints against the Amway Corporation:

• Falsely telling IBOs that they are likely to earn substantial income, exceeding $40,000 a year, or that they are likely to earn income that will replace their full-time job or allow them to retire early, when most IBOs who joined WWG or LTD after 2020 spent more money on Amway products and training than they received from Amway 
• Falsely telling IBOs that they are likely to recruit multiple IBOs into the business to help them succeed, when in fact most consumers who joined Amway and WWG or LTD did not recruit multiple participants
• Falsely telling IBOs that they are joining an exclusive opportunity in which they will get access to mentoring from highly successful leaders, when in fact the Amway opportunity is open to any prospective IBO who follows the instructions of their recruiter, and the “mentors” IBOs work with are typically not highly successful 

Sharing these kinds of details are a PR nightmare for Amway, since they ultimately affirm what many people have been saying for decades, which is that the company is a pyramid scheme. This was the thesis of a book by Stephen Butterfield in 1985, entitled, Amway: The Cult of Free Enterprise.