Despite overwhelming opposition the GR City Commission unanimously votes to exempt the Amphitheater from the city’s noise ordinance

At last night’s Grand Rapids City Commission there was an agenda item regarding the City Commission proposal to continue to exempt the Amphitheater from the City’s noise ordinance.

Since it was an agenda item people were allowed to utilize the first public comment period, which was the first order of business for the commission meeting.

The majority of people who spoke lodged complaints against the noise from concerts at the Amphitheater, sharing concrete experiences. Most of the people who spoke either lived in the 1st or 2nd city wards, some as far away as 4 miles. There was also a person who spoke who created a website where people could provide input and file noise complaints. The online site even has maps and provides interesting data about the location of people filing complaints. That sight is called https://www.surveyofsound.com.

In between those who were advocating that the City not except the Amphitheater from the noise ordinance were 3 people who got up to speak, although there was limited acknowledgement of who they were and what relationship they had to the Amphitheater.

The first of the three was Richard Winn who acknowledged that he sits on the Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention/Arena Authority (CCA). Their website still says that Winn works for AHC Hospitality, which is the DeVos hotel/entertainment company. However, as I noted in a recent GRIID article, Winn is no longer works for AHC Hospitality. Winn is still a DeVos family operative, which is why he spoke in support of the noise ordinance exemption.

The second notable person to speak was Kara Wood, who is the Executive Director of Grand Action 2.0. Wood did not acknowledge that her organization was the primary driving force for the Amphitheater, nor the fact that Grand Action 2.0 was created by the DeVos family. GRIID has written extensively about Grand Action 2.0.

The third person to speak was Josh Lunger, the government affairs person for the GR Chamber of Commerce. Lunger was also the lead Chamber person to propose and then push for the City of Grand Rapids to adopt the two ordinances that would criminalize the unhoused, thus keeping unhoused people away from money making entities like the Amphitheater. GRIID has also written a fair amount about Lunger’s role at the GR Chamber of Commerce.

One thing that Lunger did say during his comments, which I think is important to note was that the Amphitheater was an “Important layer of building a vibrant community.” People like Lunger always use this kind of language, but they rarely can demonstrate how the Amphitheater or any other Grand Action 2.0 projects benefit the community. Now, I do agree that some people benefit from venues like the Amphitheater, but not a large portion of Grand Rapidians. The question is always for whom are we building a vibrant community.

These three corporatists and DeVos family operatives who spoke was not lost on those who spoke afterwards, those who were not happy about the invasive noise coming from the Amphitheater. In fact, one person made the point of saying that it was instructive to hear these three speakers who represent business interests and how they were received as opposed to how regular folks, folks who are part of the working class, how they were treated by the City Commission. It was a lovely moment of class consciousness, despite the fact that the City Commission unanimously vote to exempt the Amphitheater from the noise ordinance.