GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — FOX 17 is profiling all four candidates on the August 6 ballot for Grand Rapids mayor.
In our last installation of profiles, we sat down with candidate David LaGrand several weeks ago. LaGrand is experienced in local and state politics, and is a local business owner.
Watch the interview in full here:
Below is a transcript of FOX 17's conversation with LaGrand.
What are your biggest goals if elected?
[There's a] lot of work we can do on justice and policing, neighborhood policing, a lot of need in the affordable housing space; I think we need work there. We also need to work on infrastructure, neighborhood development. A big one for me is government transparency. We need to improve transparency in the city.
Justice and police, what do you mean by that?
For one thing, we had a significant bump in crime rates during COVID, particularly in the juvenile population. [It's worth] figuring out how to coordinate with our schools, so we’re making sure that kids are in school so we can stop behaviors that aren’t good out in the community. It’s a very complex conversation. Our new police chief is great, I’m excited to be working with him, but we can always do better.
Policing issues often boil down to what your policies are, your training, your hiring practices, and your leadership, so all of those things are going to be part of the mix of making things better.
Affordable housing is such a difficult complicated issue. How do you plan to address that?
Sure. And often when people hear affordable housing, maybe they think of the unhoused population, which is a small but acute part of the issue. We absolutely have to do better on how we’re responding to ... the needs of the unhoused population. Then you’ve got a lot of people who need short-term housing, who are unhoused, frankly, because of affordability issues.
There’s a lot to do in that space, from lowering costs of construction, speeding up timelines for construction and permitting, getting rid of a lot of unnecessary regulation … down to, frankly, regional resource-based response. ... I am clear that I think that this has got to be either a countywide or a several citywide response. That involves real resources that we can use to address affordability in town. It’s a big issue; there’s a lot of need. A lot of organizations are grappling with the issue right now, but it’s time we take action.
How?
If we actually devote resources to it, we can start building more housing that is affordable. As we do development, require affordable components to that development. There are ways you can do development; they’re called development agreements. You can put those in place that have actual paybacks in the community. It’s a very complex issue; it’s not something we’re going to get into in a two-minute interview.
Explain to me what is best for Grand Rapids?
What’s best for Grand Rapids is that the human beings who live here have good lives and that people who are here feel valued and respected and have dignity, and that people want to move here, are able to move here.
Is there room to work on things in Grand Rapids?
Of course. I own a number of businesses, and I always say when people say government should be more like a business, I say, well, in the sense that every year my business has new good ideas that we implement that make it more efficient, make it work better. Government is the same way. The fact that a lot of things are going well doesn’t mean things can’t go better.
I am really proud that I have got both of our former mayors endorsing me: Mayor Hartwell and Mayor Bliss. That’s because there are all of the things that they have been working on are things that I want to continue working on.
You’ve got some state-level experience. Why don’t you go into your experience a little bit. I just got done wrapping up an interview with Commissioner Lenear; she’s got a ton of city experience. What makes you qualified?
I’ve got city experience too; I was a city commissioner. She has some experience in places I also have experience in. She was also on [a] school board. What makes me different is I did transformative work most places.
When I was on city commission, I instituted some real reforms to how our court system worked in the city, and did some restorative justice work. When I was on [the] school board, I instituted a restorative justice program that cut our suspensions and expulsions in half in our city schools. Did expungement work at the state level; that’s helped at this point over a million people get on with their lives, get better jobs, get better employment. So the clean slate legislation that’s triggered a lot of expungement fairs in town, that was a result of a project that I initiated. I wrote those bills and got them passed.
I want to talk big projects in Grand Rapids, and what your plans are for those. Amphitheater and soccer stadium. That’s something that people are paying attention to, and they’re kind of concerned about. In terms of, like, everyone who I talk to is like, "Is my tax money going to go to this?" What’s your stance on that?
The first thing is that the hotel-motel tax that’s being proposed is kind of a beautiful tax because it’s not taxing residents; it’s taxing people who stay in hotels and motels from out of town. So that’s going to be the revenue source for these projects going forward, largely, as well as some private sector contributions and some other sources.
There’s always a balance. I think that the city... as far as the city is concerned, the city has to be there for city residents. I’m not all that interested in being a vacation spot for people that don’t live here. But it’s also true that catalyst projects can have a big difference.
If we want to talk for a second about the soccer stadium, the example I use is Wrigleyville in Chicago. Now, I don’t want to live next to Wrigley field, but that’s a vibrant neighborhood. Lots of folks want to live there. They can watch the game from their roof, or whatever. There’s lots of sports bars around Wrigleyville. It’s a vibrant, cool neighborhood. If the soccer stadium becomes a kernel for that kind of vibrant development in our city, that’d be wonderful. Do I want to live next to a soccer stadium? No. But cities are really a collection of neighborhoods. I don’t live in Heritage Hill because I don’t like Ottawa Hills. I love Ottawa Hills. But it’s different. I love Alger Heights. I love Garfield Park. It’s a different neighborhood. I love Creston, different neighborhood. All these neighborhoods have different flavors and different feels. Some of these projects, I hope, add in flavor and making the city a more fun place to live.
Same thing with the amphitheater. I think if you look at the space where the amphitheater is going to go, we were storing city salt trucks there. And it’s some of the nicest real estate in Grand Rapids. That doesn’t make much sense. The vision for what’s going to go in there involves green space, real community access. Now, you know, I hope the music isn’t too loud because it’s not that far from my house. But really, cities are really beautiful because they are community. The reason I love cities more than things that aren’t cities is cities have density. They let you see your neighbors and rub shoulders with them and build relationships.
Community gathering spots are things I love. I started Wealthy Street Bakery; that’s a community gathering spot. I started Four Friends Coffeehouse back in the day. [It was a] community gathering spot. Long Road Distillers [is another] community gathering spot. I love the business of helping people get to know their neighbors and enjoy them. These projects help that happen; that, I’m excited about.
Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?
I think that right now in America, there is a deep level of distrust in government. And I think that’s something that has to be addressed at every level. So at the city I absolutely am going to be working so that all elected officials have to disclose their finances. I disclosed mine years ago. If you don’t know where my money is, why should you trust me? Restoring trust in government is a problem for politicians more than it’s a problem for voters. I really want to work at that... at the city level, getting dark money out of politics, having better transparency, something we really can work on.
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