Order.

Our first item of business is a resolution approving Commissioner Belcheck's attendance at a uh summit in May.

Um can have a motion.

So move.

Support.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Our next res our next item is a resolution uh revising downtown uh social districts to add five locations.

Um can I have a motion?

So moved.

Support.

Uh Mr.

Clerk, you want to give us a little bit of information here?

Yeah, so this item is going to um add the to the social district to the south west of the downtown social district.

So to add the um areas around the amphitheater.

So um basically going down to the rip down to the railroad tracks.

Great.

Uh any questions, commissioners?

Um I'll say again, I think at this point maybe we just need to uh make county a social district and call it a day.

Um but uh any any seeing no discussion, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, and I assume item number three is essentially a tag on to item number two, which is a resolution uh approval of the social district application um from PA 112.

Uh is that accurate, Mr.

Clerk?

Yeah, it's it's to add um Beastro Bellavita.

Great.

Oh, okay.

So it's it's separate.

I'm sorry.

Correct.

It is okay.

Uh so can I have a motion for item number three?

That's a resolution um for a social district permit application.

So moved.

Uh and Mr.

Clerk, that's uh Bistro Elvida you said yes, correct.

Okay.

Any discussions, colleagues?

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

Uh that brings us to a resolution for a brownfield plan for Lake Eastbrook apartments development at 3538 Lake Eastbrook.

Uh, can I have a motion?

So support.

Uh and who can tell us about this, Ms.

Ranero?

Good morning.

Okay, this is our final step before advancing a work plan that would ultimately be considered by the housing authority at the state.

Are are we good?

Yeah, yeah, we're good.

We're just we're just um there's a moment of panic.

I think I'm I'm momentarily the city attorney.

Um I am an attorney and I do work for the city.

Um but uh I we can keep rolling.

I don't go ahead.

Okay, sounds good.

This is um the development with uh Scott Weirda at uh the former site of the orbit room, right?

This is adding 132 apartments across four multifamily apartment buildings.

Um the developer intends to designate 45 percent of the units, which is 60 units uh to tenants or uh tenants in the 90 to 100 percent AMI range for a period up to 25 years.

The eligible activities again for this is housing TIFF uh are approximately 10.8 million over that 25 year period, which that affordability uh period would follow the length of that plan.

And the subcontractor uh aspirational participation goals for micro-local women-owned and minority-owned enterprises is approximately 15.38 percent or 3.6 million of the total uh 26 million dollar overall capital investment.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Yep, and this is a project that you've brought before us and we've reviewed already.

So this is the Brownfield step.

Uh any questions or comments, colleagues?

Seeing none, uh all in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye, all opposed.

Resolution carries.

Thank you, Ms.

Rennero.

Uh this brings us now to another project, so you may as well stay.

Um this is uh resolution to execute documents um for three properties 201, 235, and 333 market.

Um giving those to the convention and arena authority.

I think we're we're going to Dean Lake actually at number five.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I yep, I don't know how I missed that.

Sorry.

So uh item number five then is Brownfield Plan Amendment uh for Nap Hills development at 27 Lake.

Uh can I have a motion?

So moved.

Support.

Uh again, you want to Okay, perfect.

This is uh the wheeler group.

Uh this is a again adding uh housing, so housing TIFF uh for nine new multifamily buildings uh that will uh be approximate well will be 38 new uh family family townhomes uh where excuse me I want to say 20 percent are being set aside for 100 percent AMI the total development costs are 12.3 million.

Uh this plan doesn't it it goes out I think twelve years uh so yes 17 years total uh but 12 years reimbursement back to the developer.

Uh the micro local women owned and minority owned aspirational inclusion participation goals are set at 22 percent, which is great.

Our normal range that we're looking for is about 20 percent.

Great.

Uh again, this has uh been before us before, so this is the brownfield step.

Uh any comments or questions, commissioners?

Uh just a question, Mr.

Nero.

Uh, if 20 percent is at 100 AMI, what are the other eight?

What are the other 80 percent?

Market, presumably.

Yes, market.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other questions?

All in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries, and that brings us to the market project.

Uh documents to sell uh for us to sell to the convention arena authority.

Uh, three properties 201, 235, and 333 market.

Uh Southwest can have a motion.

So moved.

Support.

Um and Mr.

Clerk, this decodes as the land we're using for theater.

Yeah.

Um, and it's a little late now to not do it.

Um so uh I don't know that we have to have any any other back.

Exactly.

We're keeping it.

It's a city asset now.

Um so uh I don't know if you want to uh dig into this a little bit, Ms.

Burns, but feel free.

Sure.

Sure.

So uh this is kind of the culmination of the uh long time planned sale of a portion of 201 Market to the convention and arena authority.

Uh many actions have preceded this, uh, but just a couple highlights.

So that property will be divided into three parcels.

The city will retain ownership of what is lovingly referred to as the pocket park, which is sort of the back of the slope of the amphitheater towards 131, a 50 foot riverside trail, and then a trail that comes up towards the railroad track to to loop back to market.

Uh and then the convention and reading authority are acquiring two property or two parcels.

One contains the amphitheater and the access drive to the amphitheater, and the second is anticipated uh once we complete the river trail project, anticipated for private development.

Part of one of the advantages of some changes that the parties made back uh last summer is that that second parcel for private development uh is going to be uh hopefully developed with on-site affordable housing, so up to 20 percent of the units um at 100 percent AMI.

So that was one of the objectives that we were able to work with the partners to develop some approaches to try to get to that place um through this transaction.

So that's a little bit above and beyond what we had originally expected.

Uh so hoping to see that come to pass.

There have been prior TBP approvals of this project and a number of other things.

This resolution specifically allows for all the minutiae of closing.

So you have title insurance things, you have a deed you have to sign, you have a number of things you have to sign.

Uh, probably most importantly is a post-closing agreement that acknowledges we have two projects still under construction.

At the end of the day, we're gonna have to match up some of the utilities against the property lines and grant each other easements across those things.

And when that those as built are done, then we're also authorizing the mayor to sign all those easement documents, and that will be taking place over the course of the next month or two.

Uh so those are the key features of what is being approved today.

Happy to attempt to answer any questions.

Any questions, colleagues?

Okay, seeing none, all in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

That brings us to our briefings.

Uh the first uh is on the neighborhood investment plan funding.

Yep, and uh Mr.

Tucker's coming up to do his debut presentation for us.

Thank you, Commissioners.

It's a pleasure to be with you.

I got it, Mr.

Tucker.

Yeah.

All right.

We are here talking about our neighborhood investment plan, your neighborhood investment plan, which you approved in January, and the recommendations to fund and support uh that plan with federal, state, and local dollars.

Um beginning with our uh federal plans and funding application.

Um our five-year plan known as our HCD housing and community development plan uh covers fiscal years 2026 through 2030 and is ultimately in support of the city strategic plan and our and the major and the major federal funds that support that are CDBG home and ESG.

This plan identifies needs for housing and community development priorities and establishes goals and objectives.

Our annual action plan is submitted concurrently with the HCD plan, um, and this will be the first action plan of this five-year plan, um, and it effectively serves as our application for two HUD for our CDBG home and ESG dollars and deals with projects with a period of performance uh between uh July 1, 2026 and June 30, 2027.

The neighborhood investment plan is your plan that you approved in January, and it is um the federal requirement, it is those federal requirements, but ultimately in service of the neighborhood investment plan.

Um and those dollars as part of uh those resources that fund that neighborhood investment plan include CDBG at 3.9 million, home at 2.4 million, ESG at $302,000.

Um other funds that are included to support your neighborhood investment plan include the opioid settlement funds at about $730,000, affordable housing fund at $700,000, and our justice assistance grant.

These funds support the eight come the eight outcome areas in your neighborhood investment plan that you all have approved, and we'll go over each outcome area in today's presentation and the recommendations for each.

Education and notification.

Uh this is how we perform external outreach with respect to this opportunity to partnership with community.

Um we provide customer service and technical assistance throughout this project uh to guide interested parties through the process.

Uh we host virtual information sessions sessions.

We communicate that a notice of funding is coming, uh, and we host uh workshops in anticipation of that notice of intent.

We release the notice of intent to apply, um, and we host workshops for that.

Um, and then following that, a selection of those notice of intent to apply applicants are then um are then invited to uh respond to a full RFP.

Um we provide direct technical assistance throughout the process, and in this year we had uh 40 organizations take us up on that one-on-one uh direct technical assistance.

Applications and recommendations.

This is really about our in that just explain the external.

This is about our internal process, which is essentially two major steps with a whole bunch of milestones and check-ins in between.

Um we create one application for all of the funding sources that we've discussed, and at the top of the funnel, um there are 120 submitted uh applications for it at the NOI phase with 180 projects represented.

In total, that in total requested 58 million dollars uh were requested in that notice of intent to apply.

Um that is our largest year of request by far.

Uh to give you some to give you some context, the most closest uh for request was 27 million dollars uh back in 2025.

Um applications are narrowed and eventually selected.

Uh first it's the NOI process, then it's the RFP.

Staff do a deep dive over dozens of proposals, over 700 pages from those RFPs that we have to that we have to process to create a slate of recommendations.

Um, an RFP work group uh staffed by uh Commissioners Belcheck, Asasi, and Kilgore.

We want to thank you for your support and your thoughtful counsel because difficult decisions have to be made and it's invaluable uh throughout that process.

Um we also have a formal check-in with the Grand Rapids Area Coalition to end homelessness uh under our outcome one area, and we also have a check-in with the Affordable Housing Fund Board uh subcommittee to review and affirm the recommendations uh that are made.

Uh that affirmation from the board ultimately happened on March 19th of this year.

Um the recommended projects address needs identified in the housing community development consolidated plan.

They advance the city's strategic plan and truly they expertly maximize the funds that are available.

Um and finally, and I'll just give a few highlights before we get into the recommendations and I'll try to pull them out when we get to those recommendations.

Um, this year's funding process, we were able to make some pretty strategic investments in affordable housing, uh, but not just in rentals, specifically in home ownership.

Uh so I'll try to point those out when we get into it.

Um this plan also resources our behavioral rec uh our behavioral health outcome, which is uh pulled out.

It used to be nested under our public safety outcome, but now it is its own outcome, and our opioid settlement funds do a lot to leverage uh our impact in that area.

And uh finally, we have a material increase to our funded neighborhood associations.

Um really excited to talk to you about that.

Umce again I'll try to point those out uh as we go through those recommendations.

And I will not go through every line item in the recommendations.

You have all that detail in your packet uh as well as the corresponding spreadsheet.

So uh getting into it.

Outcome one, to present uh to prevent and resolve homelessness.

Um, this outcome area is in support of the city's strategic plan for prosperity and affordability.

Um that we are recommending 1.2 million dollars uh of investment in this area, uh, which ultimately supports um which supports efforts to obtain or retain housing for individuals and families experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.

Outcome two is about creating and preserving affordable housing.

Um this uh this work supports the city's strategic plan area of economic prosperity and affordability with about 2.5 million dollars of investment, which ultimately supports uh an increase in the number of new affordable rentals and home ownership rentals available to low and moderate income residents.

I will highlight in this category that um these funds support uh we expect to be about 133 new units that are going to come online and and a subset of those units 26 um are going to be for sale.

We're really excited about that.

Uh outcome three, uh this is about increasing home ownership and housing stability in support of the city's strategic plan priority of economic prosperity and affordability.

Three hundred and sixty thousand dollars are recommended to support this work, um, which ultimately is to uh which ultimately is to support the maintenance, repair, and improvement of existing housing stock within our neighborhoods.

We expect about 376 households to be supported by these funds.

Outcome five.

Increase homeownership, improve housing, behavioral health.

Uh outcome five.

This uh this is about health, uh behavioral health.

This is about supporting the city strategic plan uh with your health and environment priority.

About $500,000 are recommended uh to support efforts that ultimately uh prevent and mitigate the effects of the opioid and substance use disorders while it will while expanding access to mental health services for uninsured and underinsured individuals.

I'll highlight that this is a new this behavioral health outcome is new uh for this plan and uh that's the one that was previously nested under public safety, but now uh it gets its uh its place in the sun with its own outcome area.

Outcome six is about increasing wages and economic opportunity.

Uh ultimately in support of the city's uh strategic plan priority in economic prosperity and affordability.

There's about 150,000 recommended for activities that support economic prosperity with an emphasis on increasing income and overcoming barriers to employment.

We expect roughly 137 people to be supported with job training and employment services.

Um these last two, outcome seven and eight, I'm going to take together.

Um and I'll explain that that these two uh that these two really fund our neighborhood associations, and we fund them out of two specific outcome areas.

Um the uh at baseline, the neighborhood associations, these funded neighborhood associations should expect to receive a ten thousand dollar increase, um five thousand dollars from outcome seven and uh which deals with improving neighborhood safety, and five thousand dollars from outcome eight, which is about engaged and connected neighborhoods, and we sometimes call it leadership.

Umcome seven supports the city's strategic plan priority of safe communities and increased quality of life.

$314,000 is recommended to support these activities.

Um and those activities include crime prevention, education, and organizing, uh violence reduction strategies, and other services to ensure health and safety.

And our final outcome area is outcome eight, um, which is about engaged and connected neighborhoods uh with $319,000 of funding recommended, supporting activities that build relationships to enhance uh to enhance neighborhood uh neighborhood stability through resident leadership training um and a resolution of housing and neighborhood issues.

Um I want to highlight a restoration of funding to the Baxter Neighborhood Association in this particular category.

They were not receiving um they were not receiving this uh this section, this outcome eight section of the money previously.

Now they are as there was a previous organization that was uh that was performing that sir performing those services in the third ward.

Uh closing out our presentation, um our contingency provisions.

Uh we put these in here because if for some reason uh the federal awards that we that staff do an incredible job of estimating if those awards come back different than we expect, um we we put in contingencies around what will happen if there are reductions or increases.

I won't go over the details, they are in your packet, uh, but we do put those before you so that you know what happens in the event that uh the feds are um unreliable.

Um and finally, public comment um opportunity approval and submission.

Um I'll close with the fact that our public comment begins on March 27 and runs through April 29.

Um and final awards and annual plan submission happen after City Commission approves uh these recommendations on May 12th.

I will invite your comment uh or questions.

Um and if uh if for some reason I need to call on one of my venerable colleagues from community development, uh please allow me to do so.

Thanks.

Well, this is a big exciting basket of stuff.

Um colleagues, Commissioner Covar.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Uh Mr.

Tucker, it's great to see you.

Uh the city manager and our staff made a great hire.

Uh the community development uh department continues to do fantastic work.

Um I've had a really uh awesome uh time working with them for the second year on this process.

Uh and my colleagues and I, Commissioner Belchak is a new addition that brought some fresh perspective and life to uh the committee.

And uh I think we really focused in on being as balanced and measured as we can, and also looking at um some specific outcomes that community so really centering what community has been telling us as elected officials, such as uh my colleague in the third ward, we know that neighborhood associations are really uh needing that support from the city.

It's just a model that continues to morph and we now know that community looks different.

People are online more rather than being in person, and so how the city can uh support our neighborhood associations is huge.

Um and in addition, there were some um when we think about um harm reduction, you we usually see um some work around that, but it was nice to learn that some of those needs have been met, such as accessibility to Narcan within our community, so we didn't see that this year.

So there's been some very good progress in addition to um helping uh housing first models through um our worked with the unhoused community.

So I'm very uh pleased with this and um I think that we did a very good job of being balanced in our approach, but also centering the voices of those who we serve.

So thank you for this and very happy to see it.

Uh city manager.

Mayor, uh, I too want to thank Mr.

Tucker and Ms.

Bohat for uh their work and Aaron as well for uh working on this annually and and certainly the committee commissioners that were part of it.

Uh just I I just want to put in perspective uh today we're fortunate to talk about how we can allocate these proceeds uh among our community.

And only a few months ago we were threatening, we were threatened with uncertainty and the possibility of not having these uh federal funds.

And so it is a reminder that uh business as usual is not business as usual.

And we have to be very, very uh prudent on how we allocate these dollars because there are a lot of uh new criteria that uh is monitoring how cities are uh spinning federal funds.

So I want to thank you for making sure that uh we complied with uh all of the federal requirements in our allocation and distributions of these funds.

Commissioner Jester Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Tucker, for the presentation, and thank you to the entire staff that worked so hard to put this together.

It's one of these things.

This is I don't think I've been on this every single time I've been a commissioner, but I learn a lot.

There's a lot of details, and just wanted to highlight um then add on to what um the city manager just said.

Um there are some organizations who also have to make some choices because of the federal government and the questions that they're being asked.

And so I want to say thank you to you and the team.

I know Miss Bohach really flagged this to say we want people to feel comfortable if they're gonna do this work, and you know, this money has kind of been there, and and I know so many organizations are faced with federal funding going away.

It's been really horrible to watch.

And so I just appreciate the effort that we've taken um to say this is what's gonna be asked, this is what we have control over, which is pretty limited.

You know, this is our our responsibility is to you know to be there to provide additional resources.

Um, you know, it's uh as somebody who's had to write some of the uh similar grants, it can be overwhelming.

So I just want to say thank you for that aspect as well, because there in some cases people might have decided to opt out or just maybe it wasn't the best source of funds for them anymore.

Um I'm glad that we're able to put a little bit more into different spaces.

So sometimes, you know, it's uh it's it's is it a T, you know, how long is the top of the T and how deep does the T go.

And so I think for us, really looking looking at organizations um that have you know been great partners that have been doing consistent work and just trying to see where we could add to that.

So you'll hopefully see that reflected in in the presentation colleagues.

So I'm really glad that we've gotten to this point and just look forward to the future discussion.

Thank you.

Um I I have one thing that I guess I'd like to, you know, this is a this is an oil tanker.

We've got a five-year plan here.

Um we're not gonna turn this thing uh pivot on a dime, but I do think um going forward, I think this commission might think about um specifically how we're spending the money that's allocated and and and uh at least nominally so that it's uh for a safe community.

I think that um it's probably it would be profitable.

I mean, there's three hundred thousand dollars allocated there.

It's not and I want to I'm gonna start by saying, you know, a lot of amazing, exciting stuff on housing, and that really all looked uh positive and targeted and good to me.

Um yes, our neighborhood associations need support, but it's also true that if we're gonna say that we're giving the money for X, um, I think we should be outcome focused and looking at how exactly we are achieving the nominal objectives.

And by that I that's a long way of saying that if the neighborhood association sends out an email once a year saying, hey, by the way, it's summer, um, don't you leave your windows open?

Um I'm not sure there's a really strong correlation between telling me to do something that's really obvious and actually making my neighborhood safer.

So I think that I would welcome a conversation in the future about whether we can invest in things that, for example, calm traffic, um, since reckless driving is a crime category, um, look into conflict resolution programs in in neighborhoods.

Um and so I I want to make sure that we're not stuck in sort of 70s and 80s um what was that crime dog uh McGruff uh models on on you know crime prevention, which is you got the template, you do the same thing over and over again.

Um so I'd I'd welcome an ex examination of like whether we're what are we what are we getting in terms of actual positive uh community safety outcomes out of that 300,000 dollars.

And I'm sure that there's thinking there, but I'd love to continue that conversation.

Uh Commissioner Belchuk.

Thank you, Mayor.

I appreciate that.

Uh I I just want to address that a little bit.

I think that we are very aware and cognizant as we discussed in our committee work um about what those dollars would be.

And what what I'm aware of with um a lot of our neighborhood associations is they're increasingly being asked as like a first point of contact to know what's happening with say the ice or what's happening with police or what's happening with construction, and um a lot of them are doing door-to-door knocking and they're needing increased um people time, being able to create um real engagement.

So I do think like in all the environments that we have, the neighborhood associations are our front line, and so it's really important that we support them.

I do think that we can definitely ask for more, you know, specifics on the metrics and what they're gonna be reporting.

I think that you know, this is a huge puzzle piece being part of this for the first time.

It's sort of like um a really bad game of Jenga if you do it wrong.

So you want to be able to make sure you're pulling on the right blocks at the right time and putting them in the right place.

And I really think that that was the massive uh feat that the staff and the community development folks did.

And so I don't want to um belabor it, but I do want to just say highlight that I think that we have the opportunity to think about things differently, but it also these funds require people to apply for them and come up with those programs.

So if we want to see more neighborhood mediation or other things, have people hired to be able to do that sort of stuff, we need to either have uh programs we are promoting in the city or we need to have um neighborhood folks coming to us with those.

And I I we do have eight million dollars out of fifty-eight million dollars that were asked for already.

So I think like um our our community, our community as a whole wants to do things and wants to have their elbows um in the work.

Um so I think we're doing okay, but how can we do better, right?

Noted Commissioner Sasi.

Thank you.

Um yeah, I'll I'll just um echo that I think we have seen a number of our organizations put some some cool things in place.

One of them, and quite honestly, I'll have to be perfectly frank and say this is a neighborhood association that we no longer can fund through these dollars because of you know, really the changing um neighborhood, and that's East Town, but they implemented the s uh sidewalk angels, I think is what they called it, and I'll look at my colleagues to really just kind of get at how could they make the neighborhood safer.

And so I think we're in this evolution, right?

Is as you said of what is this look like.

I think a number of them have, you know, one of the um I think the crosswalks, the light, the lighted crosswalks that we're gonna install is one over in the riverside uh gardens area, and that was really reflective of neighbors coming out and kind of sharing some of these things.

I think the other piece that is sort of interesting right now that is different than a few years ago is that we have our uh four community um police officers that have been to a number of things.

Um I see some of the department here today.

And so also trying to make sure that they have that time and space to work with those community police officers to stay really connected to get to know people, I think is another another iteration of this work that we'll need to like that didn't it probably existed, you know, 15 years ago, but then went away, and so now we have this again.

So I think that's also you know part of this.

Um and then lastly, I'll just add that um I think the neighborhood associations are very open to other ideas and just different sessions that we've had, like what are some of the things that they have learned from one another.

Um, and also I think to your point too, Mayor, about redefining public safety is working really closely with our corridor improvement authorities.

And so I know that's something that a number of our organizations have tried to do well and to um hopefully, you know, kind of as you were saying, Commissioner Balchak, like just reduce some of the overhead costs that exist when you're a small organization.

So I'd like to can kind of continue to see what those iterations are, but I wanted to point those out as we go into these next cycles.

So thank you.

Thanks.

Uh Commissioner Knight.

Uh thank you.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Tech, for your presentation and not to be the dead horse, but I also support, and I think from day one of me being on this commission, that is one of the things that I push for is being able to support our neighborhood associations a lot more because they are literally the tentacles that lead out from this organization that reach in to neighbors so they know the names of the people that are next to them, and they're able to to talk to them and really help um the things that are going on that the city as a whole may not necessarily be able to touch.

Um, and I remember um you know, we talk about you know, telling somebody to roll up their window or lock their door, but I remember uh a certain commissioner friend of mine who husband forgot to lock the door one night and their car got rummaged through, and right, and so it's it's some sometimes it's the little things that we don't think about that are important, and and these organizations do a whole lot on very little, right?

And so I I really appreciate the focus on that and always seeing how we can continue to grow and serve because that this has changed over the last four years on how much we're able to do and what we've been able to do for different organizations.

So it's really good to see uh how we're continuing to move forward and really continue to think about uh how we can get better because things may not change and those decreases may happen.

We we don't know yet, right?

Um so being able to be prepared for that and be able to serve our community still in an in an excellent way.

So thank you.

Anyone else?

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you.

And that brings us to our um our final presentation, uh, which is um on there was a request for review of officer involved shootings over the last number of years.

Uh, and uh interim chief Trig is coming to the podium as is some of his command staff, but um I'll hand this over to our city manager to frame it for us a momentarily.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and uh Commissioners.

First of all, thank you for your your flexibility today.

I know today is a really really busy day as you have uh interviews this afternoon, as well as uh we were not able to have our normally scheduled public safety committee today.

And because of that, I didn't anticipate uh when we first talk about this having this conversation today.

We're gonna we were gonna defer until um next month.

But given the importance of it and the narrative that continues to be uh had around the city and sometimes incorrectly had, we wanted to make sure at least on these instances today.

This is the first time we've had a conversation like this to holistically look at each of the officer-involved shootings with the exceptions of the two that I mentioned before, those that are uh under current investigation or being litigated to go through them serial item and have our individual excuse me, uh uh interim police chief uh trig to uh help us understand the circumstances, the reasons why use daily use of force was used and looking at some of the other trends around the use of force of the offices, but also correlating that with violence in general in the city.

And I think uh what you'll hear today are some interesting um highlights.

Uh I do again recognize the serious nature of this, and it's uh a difficult conversation, but it's one that you asked for in your request for information on office involved shootings, as well as the use of our pursuit policy and the uh review of the civilian appeals board.

And so those last two conversations will happen uh subsequently as I indicated.

We're still likely to have those uh in the month of May and uh June or July.

But at this time I will turn it over to uh uh interim police chief Trig, and I want to thank him for his um taking this very seriously.

You actually uh had already started working on it prior to the request being made from the dive.

So I want to thank him for that.

Chief.

Thank you, sir.

All right, let's make sure this clicker's working good.

All right.

Uh as you stated, um, and I've got a gonna read verbatim because there's a lot of important details here that I do not want miss, especially involving the seriousness of this.

So as you just discussed on February 26th or February 24, 2026, public safety committee members, city commissioners requested a review of officer involved shootings, uh OIS incidents.

Uh city manager directed the Grand Rapids Police Department to summarize key facts about each OIS over the last few years.

This presentation discusses 10 OIS incidents from 2022 to 2025.

Two OIS incidents are excluded.

It's the April 4th, 2022.

Uh Patrick Leoya incident, because litigation is pending in the February 18th, 2026 incident because uh involving Daquan Johnson, because that investigation is still pending.

Uh the names of the officers and suspects are redacted, and as always, uh this following presentation contains sensitive content, so because each OIS is traumatic event for all those involved.

Uh regarding our N OIS, by definition, an OIS is an incident where an officer discharges his or her firearm.

This is not necessarily mean that a person has been struck by gunfire.

Our manual of procedures 9-2.1 as far as deadly force application, officer may discharge a firearm connection with the performance of their duties of their official police duties.

Two defend against a reasonable threat of death or serious bodily injury to himself or herself, or to uh another officer or citizen.

Third point is to prevent an escape of a subject who was fleeing from an higher inherently violent crime, felony crime.

And last point is officers may use a firearm at a moving vehicle or its occupants when the vehicle presents a reasonable threat of death or serious bodily injury to themselves, another officer, or others.

Uh if we could back up a slide, you said you were going to read a verbatim, but there was an important qualifier on the third point there, which you didn't read, which is it's not just someone fleeing from an inherently violent crime, but they also has to be reason for the officer to believe that the person is an ongoing threat.

And I just wanted to point that out.

Correct.

I guess more verbatim I was saying when we discuss the incidents itself.

Uh but yes.

The point is I think the community is very very keyed in on this, and uh, if someone's leaving a violent crime, then alone is not a reason to discharge a firearm.

It's critical that there be an ongoing risk and that the officers evaluating that.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um regarding policy.

Um I thought it was important to note uh where our policies stand in the nation, and not only in the state, but uh committee on accreditation for law enforcement agencies, referred to as Kalita.

It's a board of 21 members uh that basically look at our policies, and it's the the members are built up of police chiefs, sheriffs, city managers, mayors, prosecutors, judges, uh emergency communication experts, professors, and state legislators.

Uh we were awarded certification or accreditation in 2018 after a year-long comprehensive view of the entire department's policy and process.

And CLIA also conducts an annual audit.

Only 13 agencies in Michigan are uh a CLEA accredited, and less than five percent uh nationwide meet the rigorous standards of CalIA accreditation.

Uh first incident occurred June 24, 2022 at 316 a.m., the area of prospect and highland.

Circumstance was an officer observed a vehicle driving in the roadway uh that didn't have its lights on.

As the officer approached, a subject leaned out of the driver's side window and fired several rounds at the officer.

The officer returned fire, shooting one round at the vehicle, which then fled at a high rate of speed.

There was one officer present during this incident and did not know the subject to be previously armed.

The threat posed were the shots that were fired at the officer.

Uh I have quotes from prosecutor uh Becker in here.

He stated the evidence gathered in these investigations clearly show that officer X was fired on first with multiple shots, and they simply returned fire after they were suddenly attacked.

There's no basis for criminal charges here.

They are listed as the victim in the charges we have filed.

They were within their rights to use deadly force and self-defense when they were fired upon.

On to the next incident was August 25th, 2022 at 1140 p.m.

near Giddings and Forrester Southeast.

Circumstance was officers received a port of a subject breaking into cars.

They intempted to contact the subject matching the description and gave him multiple commands to stop.

The subject then pointed a firearm at officers.

The officers then fired upon the subject, striking him.

Officers rendered aid to the individual who survived.

Present during this incident was two officers, and they did not know the subject to be previously armed.

The threat posed was the firearm that he pointed at officers.

Both officers from different angles saw the gun pointed and assessed that the suspect was about to use deadly force to escape.

They both fired after suspect pointed the gun back as he fled.

Officer X was within their right to protect themselves, and officer Y was at that was within their right to protect their partner when each made the decision to fire their weapon when faced with a gun pointed at them.

Given the circumstances, both officers used deadly force was justified, and I will not be filing charges against either of them.

Next incident, December 1st, 2022 at 1152 AM near Jefferson and Cass Avenue.

Circumstance where officers were looking for a wanted murder suspect.

They attempted to contact the individual when he produced a firearm and shot at their patrol vehicle, striking it multiple times.

One officer returned fire.

After the suspect fled, a third officer on foot located the subject running towards a school that was in session.

The subject was still holding the firearm, and the officer gave him verbal commands to drop the gun.

The subject did not comply and raised the firearm towards the officer.

The officer didn't discharge his firearm but did not strike the subject.

The individual again fled and shortly thereafter took his own life.

The in-car video clearly shows the cruiser turning the corner when the suspect turns, points the gun directly at the cruiser.

He then fires multiple shots into the cruiser.

The body camera footage shows the impact of the shots into the car, glass breaking, the surprise of both officers, and officer X then returning fire.

Officer Z confronts the suspect in the alley near a school between Jefferson and Cass.

Officer Z fires five rounds at the suspect, none of which struck him.

Given the fact that the suspect had just fired multiple shots into a police cruiser, it was not unreasonable for Officer Z to take the action they did under the circumstance.

The next incident, October 27, 2023, at 210 a.m.

near Division and Fair.

Officers were driving down division when they heard multiple shots fired at a nearby bar.

As individuals fled the scene and continued gunfire, one officer ran towards the shots.

The officer noticed a green laser light near him and then spotted an individual crouching with a rifle that was pointed in the officer's direction.

The officer fired two shots towards the individual and then sought cover from their patrol vehicle.

The subject was not struck.

Of note, this was the scene of a double homicide where officers found over 50 casings.

There's two officers present during this incident.

They didn't know the subject to be previously armed, and just a note, which is not on the slide, this was an armed security guard that had strayed uh away from the door and now was presenting a danger to himself and others by interjecting himself into this situation.

The threat posed was a firearm with a laser guided sight that was pointed at the officer.

Prosecutor Becker stated both officers should be complimented as to how they responded to this situation.

They found two men both firing shots as they were simply on general patrol.

Without hesitation, uh they moved to apprehend these individuals, even while gunfire erupted from seemingly everywhere around them.

Officer X and Officer Y responded immediately and without hesitation to an extremely dangerous situation and professionalism and tremendous restraint.

And I will add to this also, not on the slide.

I recall reviewing this body cam footage, and if you can think of the gunfire that's going on as the officers are running towards it, one officer rounds a corner and confronts a subject or comes upon a subject that is gun in hand, probably less than 20 feet away, uh, and despite that gave him loud verbal commands to drop the gun and get down on the ground.

This would have very well been another OIS if the subject hadn't immediately complied, which he did, dropped the gun and went face down.

So it had a uh a better ending.

The next incident, December 16th, 2023.

So for on each slide, uh, where you give an overview of the incident where it says new subject was armed.

How are you?

So if you go back, yeah.

How are you defining that?

Because in this example, it seems like they wouldn't know based on the description.

So can you just clarify that?

Uh, because as they're coming up to the incident, they're they're hearing the gunshots, but when they're rounding the corner, they they don't have a suspect.

They don't know who they're looking for, they just hear gunshots.

So what they're yeah.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh December 16th, 2023, at 845 a.m., Lion Street and uh Union Ave, Northeast.

Uh circumstance where officers responded to a call that a disorderly male was attempting to steal from a store in the area.

An officer located the subject in an alley.

The subject produced a box cutter and advanced towards the officer.

The officer gave multiple commands while backing away from the subject.

Despite the officer's attempt to de-escalate the situation, the subject continued to advance towards the officer and disregard commands.

The officer discharged their firearm, striking the subject.

The subject then fled into a nearby garage that was connected to a house.

Another officer arrived and they gave the subject multiple commands to surrender.

Again, despite the officers' attempts to de-escalate the situation, the subject subject ran out of the garage, charged at the officers with the box cutter.

The second responding officer then discharged his firearm, striking the subject.

Officers then rendered aid to the individual who did survive.

There was two officers present during this incident, and they did not know the subject to be previously armed.

The threat posed was the subject had advanced towards officers with a box cutter.

Prosecutor Becker stated, after reviewing the materials, I find no basis to charge either officer X or Officer Y.

Generally, I do try and provide some underlying facts to you regarding what occurred.

However, from this incident, I have made the decision to charge the suspect with one count of felonious assault, two counts of resistant oppose an officer due to his actions that day.

Officers initiated a traffic stop on a vehicle for not having a license plate and heavily tinted windows.

As the vehicle slowed, the subject jumped out and fled on foot.

As officers pursued on foot, one officer noticed the subject had a firearm.

Officers gave the subject loud verbal commands to stop and drop the gun.

The subject then pointed the firearm at officers and fired as he continued to flee.

Officers returned fire but did not strike the subject.

Present, uh two officers were present during this incident.

Uh the subject uh did not know the subject to be previously armed, and the threat posed uh was shots fired at the officers.

Also not on the slide.

I was on uh scene on all nine uh I'm sorry, eight out of nine of these these incidents, and this one I recall uh from reviewing uh the video of the subject uh running down the alley.

We're taught in this profession uh the hands, the the hands are what could what can hurt you, and most firearms are held in the waistband, front of the waistband.

So um always concerned with with this movement, and we're noticing the the 45 as somebody's driving.

That's an indicator to an officer, especially if you're pursuing somebody from behind or dealing with when you see the that elbow protrude out at the 45 uh degree angle was is something that the officer uh noticed in this, and that's why when he's he discusses he noticed he has a firearm as he's running down the alley.

So uh prosecutor Becker stated after reviewing the investigation by the Michigan State Police, I found that officer X and Officer Y were justified in firing their weapons in this incident.

We have filed charges against the individual who was firing shots at the officer as he fled from them that night.

So I will not get into specific facts and circumstances with led me to this decision.

I just wanted to inform you there will not be any criminal charges against your officers since I believe they acted appropriately given what occurred that night.

The next incident, November 9, 2024, Jefferson Ave in uh Maple Street.

This is outside uh Trinity Health.

Um circumstance was an ambulance crew reported a man with a handgun outside the hospital.

Dispatch it received a 911 call about a man waving a gun as reported by individuals running away from the area.

Officers located the subject and who was holding what appeared to be a firearm to his head.

Uh officer shouted multiple commands for him to drop the gun.

He then pointed the alleged firearm at an officer and advanced towards the officer's position.

Other officers, observing the subject advancing towards the officer, who was taking cover behind the cruiser, discharged their firearms and struck the individual.

Officers rendered aid, but the suspect succumbed to his injuries.

There's a total of five officers present during this incident.

The two that were pretty much behind the cruiser as the suspect was advancing, uh, and then the three that kind of uh responded to the aid of those other two officers.

Uh they did know the subject to be previously armed, and the threat posed was the alleged firearm that was pointed at officers.

This was the incident where it involved the the lighter that was uh shaped like a gun.

Uh prosecutor Becker stated it would appear to any reasonable person that the suspect had a gun.

The lighter he held closely resembled a gun.

It would be virtually impossible for any person to think it was a lighter when viewing it at night from a distance and in a way the suspect was using it.

Every police officer, EMS worker, and civilian who saw the suspect that night clearly believed he had a gun.

There's no requirement that someone actually fire a gun before another individual can react to protect someone else.

This is what officer X and Officer Y did.

They heard another officer state that someone was pointing a gun at them.

They saw this individual acting like he was pointing a gun, and they reacted to protect their fellow officer.

Once again, this is an entirely reasonable action given all the facts and circumstances they knew at the time they fired their weapons.

There is no question that officers believe the suspect had a gun, was pointed at another officer, and may fire that gun at any moment.

Nor is there a requirement under the law that the person is potentially uh potential danger act first.

The law pertaining to defense of others allows an individual to act in defense of another person, regardless of what actions uh the person in danger does.

Uh the next incident, September 25, two, 2025, at 6 p.m.

at Broadway and 4th Street Northwest.

The circumstances officers responded to a domestic call of a male refusing to leave his brother's house.

Officers with the assistance of the brother spent nearly 30 minutes trying to get the subject to leave.

And this subject is on the second level of the residence, and the officers are at the the base of the stairs just to kind of paint a picture.

Eventually, the subject grabbed a knife.

Uh the officers then exit the house to create distance and cover while trying to devise a plan to continue to de-escalate the situation.

Suddenly, the subject ran out the front door and charged at the officers with a knife.

One officer deployed a taser, which is a less lethal option, but it was ineffective.

Officers then fired shots as the subject ran towards another officer who was experiencing a gun malfunction as they were retreating.

Officers rendered aid to the individual who survived.

There was a total of five officers present during this incident, and they did not know the subject to be previously armed.

The threat posed was the subject advanced towards the officers with a knife.

Prosecutor Becker stated, your department had been at the house where the incident occurred for a substantial amount of time, simply attempting to get the suspect to leave the home.

He did not, and instead of leaving, he armed himself with a knife and came charging out the front door at officers who were present.

Officers initially fired tasers to get the suspect to stop.

Unfortunately, those had little impact since he was still able to jump off the uh front porch and charge uh towards officer X after being tased.

The decision by Officer Y was reasonable to protect Officer X given the fact this taser did not stop the suspect.

Officer X could fire to defend themselves, however, their gun clearly did malfunction during this incident.

Quite frankly, if Officer X's gun had fired initially as they intended, the suspect most likely would have not survived.

This was a tense and rapidly developing situation.

The officers could and did act to defend themselves and others, so no charges will be filed.

Next incident November 11, 2025 at 140 p.m., Blaine and Adams Street Southeast.

Officers were attempting to stop a suspect, a person suspected in a larceny of a firearm.

Upon attempting to contact the subject, he produced a handgun and fired shots at officers while fleeing.

The officers returned fire but did not strike the subject.

There was two officers present during this incident, and they did not know the subject to be previously armed.

The threat posed was a firearm pointed at officers and the shots that were fired.

Another incident or also not on the slide.

This is another incident of reviewing the uh body cam footage shows the hand of the subject go to his waistband, and again that 45 of the elbow that the officers are seeing before he he spins and starts shooting at them.

Prosecutor Becker stated, as you know, we have charged the suspect with multiple felony crime felony charges, two of which are assault with the intent to murder.

Officer X and Officer Y are the respective victims in each count.

This was a simple decision.

Suspect clearly fired first at the two officers when they approached him.

They were well within their rights to return fire when uh he did so.

No charges are warranted against them under such facts.

See, the next incident, December 6, 2025, uh Tremont Boulevard in Mount Mercy.

Uh circumstance where officers were dispatched to take a report from an individual who said a male pulled a handgun on her mother and threatened to kill her.

Officers were continuing to investigate the incident and locate the suspect.

Later that afternoon, officers observed the suspect leaving his residence.

Due to the subject being potentially armed, officer initiated a high-risk traffic stop.

Subject began to f begin firing his handgun at officers while stepping out of his vehicle.

Officers returned fire, struck the subject, and then rendered aid.

He later succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.

There were three officers present during this incident, and as far as knowing if he was armed, it was alleged, and the threat posed was the firearm that was pointed at officers and the shots that were fired.

Prosecutor Becker stated this is about as clear a case of self-defense or defense of other justification as will ever occur.

Suspect exited his car, firing a gun at officers who had pulled him over.

From all the video and statements of the officer, he opened the door and started firing his gun directly at them.

Once this occurred, the officers were completely justified in returning fire.

The officer also justified in attempting to stop the suspect as he drove away from his home.

They had information he had threatened his wife with a gun.

He was suicidal, and he posed a danger to himself and others that necessitated them taking some sort of action.

Alright, that's all ten of them.

So just to recap, um, each of the subjects involved in the 10 OIS incidents in this presentation presented a weapon.

Per policy 9-2.1 officers may discharge their firearms to defend themselves or others against a reasonable threat of death or serious bodily injury.

Five subjects shot at officers, three subjects raised firearms towards the officers, and two suspects charged at officers with bladed weapons.

The suspects' actions in all ten of these incidents initiated the deadly force response from officers.

Obviously, it's a very serious incident.

We take it as as such.

One, it's both look at it as a opportunity for healing, and it's offer opportunity to learn from a training perspective, things like that.

How are men and women doing?

How are they handling this?

And speaking of this note, regarding uh 10 of these OIS, two officers don't work uh here anymore.

They one it was several years later resigned, and then one during the aftermath of this had resigned because of how heavy uh you know this this can be.

So we have an inner inner internal department review of our use of force uh concerning policy and law.

We have a use of force committee that is comprised of uh several subject matter experts of our department, probably have over a hundred years of law enforced experience, and they're instructors, they're they're experts.

They review these incidents and see make sure they're within policy, or if there's anything to be gained from them, such as such as training.

Always looking for ways to be to improve.

Um the returning officers, once they cleared administrative leave, uh they are assigned to our training unit so we can assess them mentally and physically uh see if they're able to get back to their duties.

We have a uh MSW, a therapist that works with our department closely uh that helps us monitor uh their status.

And the last point the the thorough training and incident review of current trends and best practices because we're always trying to find the next best thing and anything that can help us do our job uh better.

So go to the first graph, it's uh historic historically uh trend of illegally possessed firearms uh seized by GRPD personnel.

I know whether it's been at a community event or it's public safety or something has has been uh made mention of how many guns were taken off the street today, and how was it back in the day?

Um, you know, more so when I was back working the street more.

Goes back to 2012 because that's when we got our our evidence uh management software, so we're easily uh able to track it.

But um, but yeah, this is this is a list of the guns, and obviously I m when I discuss it, I talk about the completion of years, but you'll see the number there and 26 where we're at right now.

But I I broke this up into two to pre-COVID and post-COVID.

So if you look at from 2012 uh to 2019, during that period, I think it's just under uh 1,700 guns that we took off the street, which is an average of 210 guns uh per year.

Um and now you look post-COVID, starting from 2020 to the completion of 2025, that's 476 uh guns per year.

And that's that's that's a dramatic increase.

Um I think I trust my math, although I'm a cop, not a not a mathematician, but uh that's a hundred and twenty-six percent increase.

And it just goes to show um the dangers that our our men and women are faced with, and not just our men and women, but the community.

There are just a lot more guns in people's hands these days, and um our men and women are out there trying to remove them, you know, from the street.

Uh the next graph, uh the historical uh trend of non-OIS shootings just means the the shootings that are uh happened in the city because once again the discussion has been you know kind of where is this crime taking place and and and how frequent what are our officers encountering, right?

So and this is just a breakdown of the the shootings we are having, you know, per year um by year, basically, and that's you know that's almost 500 people, you know, uh shot over that time and just over 100 two two homicides.

And as you can see from that graft, um you know crime is trending down, but it it uh which is attributed to you know we're getting back to our staffing numbers, which is good.

So our men and women are able to be out there and uh have proactive activity, and you you saw from the guns that were uh now being seized that we're seizing a lot more guns because we have men and women out there uh able to take those, be proactive and get those off the street.

Uh the next is broken down uh historical trend of uh shootings by ward.

And this was revel relevant because of once again stuff I've I've heard uh and recently at uh public uh safety regarding why our our OIS were uh more were happening on the our southeast side of town.

So I just wanted to know where um where are men and women going, where is where are we responding to uh the most violent crime?

So you can see ward one, um, this is for fatals, victims of fatal uh shootings.

Ward one 36%, ward two, fourteen percent, and then ward three, fifty percent, and then the non-fatal uh ward one forty-two percent, uh ward two fifteen percent, and ward three uh forty-three percent.

Uh that concludes that portion, but uh I want to say our department is continuing to improve.

We made a lot of strides, you know, these these last several years with we talk about the sanctity of life policy where uh deadly force only to be used when absolutely necessary when no other options uh seem available.

Uh we've put an emphasis on de-escalation, right?

Trying to uh what whether that and we I talked about this during the OIS is that you know the officers given multiple commands, the officers creating space and distance, the officers backing up uh from the threat, the officers using the taser uh before using the firearm because I believe no officer wants to be involved in officer involved shooting.

We already discussed how it's a uh traumatic uh event uh but it's it's something life is never the same after these these incidents.

Talk about the grappling and the the the jujitsu based um uh subject control that we use, no less kicks and uh kicks and punches, I think is key.

Learning the officers get more comfortable with being on their back during a physical encounter, uh something that I wasn't trained of back in the day, and being on your back.

Um, you know, I said uh as a youth, you got in uh some fights in my time, but getting into a fight with a gun on your hip is a totally different experience because you don't know what the suspect's intentions are.

Is it to get away or is it to hurt you?

And you still have to act appropriately, right?

So it's definitely a difference.

But uh and our training unit has identified just in 2025 alone that due to the grappling uh training that we have, we believe it's prevented four to five OISs because of the officers' confidence with maintaining control of a subject because they have a game plan.

The grappling is a game plan of who has lower body, who has upper body, and things like that.

It's a it's a device plan for a physical out encounter, which was not around during my time, uh my time on the street.

Uh our training innovations, we're always looking for bigger and better ways to improve our department.

You know, we have a high expectation for our department.

Uh the co-response team that I know we've talked about for for several years now, but that's beneficial knowing that we're not the answer to everything.

Not everybody needs to go to jail.

We don't want to take everybody to jail.

It's just not uh, but we realize too, we're the default button at 2 a.m.

when there's a problem, right?

So and we want to help with the problem the best as possible.

Community officers.

Chief Winstrom uh put that on me to to bring the uh uh the community to devise a plan to bring the officers, uh community officers back.

I know the value of them.

You're already hearing some of the value that they're already doing out on the street.

I was one, I know the value.

Uh and now that I've stepped into this interim role, interim uh deputy chief uh baker uh has an idea to bring five more back this fall.

So that'll be a total of ten.

And and keep that going as long as we can keep improving proving the staffing uh and they're doing good work.

Um the accreditation and and accountability, as I mentioned with with Kalia, we're in the top five percent of police departments in the country, and I think that's something to be proud of, right?

I'd I'd I'd like to keep proving on that, be the be the top agency in the in the country.

Um so in our policies are right online for anybody to to look at and discuss, and um, so uh nothing to hide there.

And just in closing, um just wanted to note that you know an officer's took an oath to faithfully uh perform their duties, you know, in this city.

Um and an OIS, as I discussed already, it's a traumatic event uh for all those involved, and an officer doesn't look to have a deadly uh force encounter, because like I said, life is never the same afterwards, regardless of the circumstance.

Um if someone's gonna be shot at, if someone's gonna be uh a firearm raised at, if someone's going to be charged with a um a bladed instrument uh of some kind, I'd rather it be our officers than the citizens of the city because we've invested a lot of training uh and effort into our men and women to best protect themselves uh you know from it and do so within policy and within the law.

So uh but it's also not lost on me the impact of OIS's have uh on family and friends, right?

It's or uh the subjects uh family and friends of the subjects that are involved, right?

So um, or anyone that has lost someone of gun violence in our city.

Um I lost a friend to gun violence in the city, uh, so I can I can definitely regret relate and regardless of the circumstance, you know, my heart goes out to anybody that's lost anybody, you know, um, you know, through gun violence or anything else.

So uh that concludes what I have for you today.

So I'll open it up for questions.

Thank you, Chair.

I brought a brought a uh dream team with me too in case it's something I can't answer.

So you know the old joke that lawyers should never ask questions they don't already know the answer to, but I don't honestly know the answer to this, so um, here we go.

Um thinking about the officers involved in those shootings and and how traumatic that is.

Um this sounds to me like roughly what I see on TV.

You know, if you see a TV show, it's like, oh, I gotta go see the psychiatrist before I go back on the job.

Um, but you pointed out what the thing I was gonna ask, which is are these things long enough traumatic that you can see people who just decide they can't do this anymore?

And your answer roughly was yes.

Like for some people, this is sort of the end of their career, unfortunately.

And I you have short-term protocols detailed here.

Do you have longer term?

And I'm sure you do it informally, but do you have any formal mechanism to say if you've been involved in an office involved shooting, that officer then has the right to say, I don't want to do street patrol anymore, find me something else to do inside the department?

Yeah, we we're always checking in on our people, right?

We have great men and women that that work here.

Uh uh we have a peer support team that I believe uh, you know, Deputy Chief Baker and myself were we're technically part of it.

Through promotion, we've kind of you know come out of it because you definitely want you know your peers, someone that they feel safe talking to, uh having that discussion.

But we're always open to anything possible.

We want to retain our employees, we look at our place as a family.

So if our family is struggling with something and they could be best served somewhere else, then we're absolutely going to look to do that.

And then sometimes they just have to tap out, right?

It's just it's it's too much.

You know, so thanks.

Yep.

Um Commissioner Knight.

Um thank you, Chief, for uh this presentation as a parent of a former police officer, I understand, especially being engaged in OIS because he was and he struggled um quite a bit with the thoughts and what happened in impacting someone else's life in a family.

Um so in line with that um in my past, one of the other hats that I wore, we did a number of DEI trainings with new hires.

Um and uh the first thing that came to mind was the question of what the cultural demographic is right now within the the department, um, and especially amongst new hires.

Is any of that being implemented still?

Um I know we were doing some at that point, but it's really important, especially for our community to understand, especially when you're bringing in new officers and there's that cultural dynamic of you know how they're conditioned, where they grew up, where they lived, what they believe about a certain person that may not be uh from their background, right?

And so how people approach certain situations, and then thinking about the mental health um follow-up, do you use an outside uh consultant to do that, or is that something done internally?

And then my last question was around the internal department review.

Are those when you do those is OPA or the CAB involved in the uh civilian appeals board, are they engaged in that or is that just e internal and when do you bring them into that conversation?

Our last part first, um that's just internal, right?

That's our that's our experts uh looking at the uh incident.

Um and obviously their their findings are are shared with internal affairs.

If there's a uh an incident that they find, which we do more often, uh I think than people realize, if we find something that's outside of policy, uh, you know, our subject matter experts, our our men and women are bringing that to internal affairs for to go down a different avenue.

But that initial after the OIS, it's it's hey, let's let's look at this.

What can we learn from it?

It is everything within policy uh and whatnot.

The uh the second part, uh I guess I'll go to the diversity in hiring or or uh the cultural stuff.

We're always looking at ways to improve, like I said, any type of training that's out there that can help our men and women do a better job at at what they're doing.

I know we've had the impartial uh um uh training.

Um someone that's been involved in the um recruiting efforts of our department for a long time.

My my last days as an officer, I was I I was a recruiter, I was doing recruiting for the department.

Uh we have an explorer program that I did a hundred percent of that recruiting on my own for the first two years, uh going to GRPS schools and our explorer program.

If you didn't know it's for ages uh 15 to 20, and it's it's for those that are both interested in law enforcement and those that just you know want to take a look at it, because I think at the end of the day it'll make you a uh a better citizen by knowing why officers do what they uh they do.

But I've done that recruiting.

Uh I moved out as a sergeant uh and still did a ton of that that recruiting, and what I say is that we are making constant efforts to improve the diversity of our our police department.

I think we're sitting around 11% uh minority um, I believe.

Uh don't quote me on that.

But um we're looking to improve that.

But also too, I mean, from going to the HBCUs to uh various events, but also I don't think that's gonna improve completely until we start talking about our our police department uh in a in a a better light as well.

As a person of color, I've always said uh I had several people that weren't proud proud of me uh in my family and friends for me entering this profession.

So there's a different type of and maybe you can relate with with your your son being in it, that uh pride isn't the first thing that's that that's being uh you know given to you when you choose the uh this profession for whatever reason.

Uh but I stand for the what the profession means as a as a whole.

Can I speak up for every officer in the country on uh how they're raised and how are they they do things?

No.

But what the uh profession is supposed to be, the integrity you're supposed to have doing this profession, absolutely.

Uh and I missed the point in there because you fired so much stuff at me.

I sorry I apologize.

It's a habit, sorry.

Um I think the other piece was I think um uh the mental health piece.

I missed the one in the middle.

The mental health piece and and um oh is that yeah, we have we have internal and external.

Like I think we look at it as if if there's something that we can't with our our in-house therapists get, or maybe for whatever reason our officer isn't comfortable dealing with uh our in-house one, right?

And then wants to be away from the department by any means necessary, right, to get them the mental health help they need.

That answer it?

Yes.

All right.

Uh Commissioner Saucy.

Thank you.

Do you want to?

No, no, I just wanted to keep it up and then Commissioner Belchak, I saw.

Um so thank you, Commissioner.

I had a step away, but I heard I heard the initial questions, and I think those are definitely some of the ones that I had in mind as well.

Um I don't think you talked about this when I stepped away, but really um after 2022 and the officer involved shooting um uh where uh Patrick Leo was killed, we did implement some other policies and practices.

One of them was I I don't think this existed already, city manager, and I don't remember if this was PD or you or if it was a conjunction of the duty to intervene.

And so can you talk a little bit about that, Chief?

Um about you know that um that policy of where another officer has a duty to intervene in it in an instance where if they believe the action is not the appropriate use of force.

Um could you speak to that?

Yeah, and I think it's pretty basic, you know, kind of like you said it, like I say if if an officer sees some type of uh action uh that's that's not legal, that's not uh within policy, it's there's an expectation, a duty that that they step in uh and and take action.

And if not, you know, they could be held accountable for that.

It's just spelling it out to make sure that uh um uh the expectation is here that we do our job and we do so um appropriately and reasonably, right?

And we know in this profession, we you uh the weight is on you for what any officer does in the country, right?

And that's not an uh excuse, it's not a feel bad for us in this profession.

That's what the profession uh comes with, and the callous side of me will say if you if you can't handle it, then you know you you need to move on to another profession.

But that's part of of what this job is.

You gotta hold yourself to a high standard.

And if um once again, that's why I think our department does a does a good job at it with most people don't realize our with our internal affairs, most of our complaints come internally, not externally.

That means we have men and women that are finding uh their co-workers that aren't doing things up to standard and it's getting called out and it's sent to IA uh for a complaint.

I led the IA internal affairs uh for two and a half years, and I'm a big believer in the truest form of love is holding our people accountable because if they don't hear from us that they need to be better, um yeah, I just it to get the best out of them, you gotta hold them accountable.

And um I think that's what we we do, and we're always looking to uh to do that better.

So is that answer?

Yeah, um can you can you help me with um just some of the the um probably the specifics so say if an officer believes that somebody has violated that duty to intervene policy, then they therefore would complete an internal affairs complaint.

Okay.

Just wanted to make sure I was following the correct process.

Thank you.

City manager thank you again, uh Chief for for the briefing.

Well, I think you're your first uh at Cal since being an interim and you did a great job.

I just wanted to uh offer a little clarification on the uh representation in hiring.

And uh we certainly want to be as inclusive as possible in all of our um positions in the city, all of our departments, uh, but we know we do not have any quotas or minimal um uh quotas for representatives uh in any city department that is illegal, but we do our best to affirmatively recruit to make people aware of the opportunity.

But when we hire, we hire the best people who are exceptionally qualified uh to be in those positions, and there is no such thing as a DEI hire.

Thank you, Commissioner uh Balchick, did you want to say something?

Yeah, um I really appreciate all of the work that and being proactive and bringing this to us as well as the requests being listened to by city manager to ask for these um data points and information.

I I want to just highlight a couple of things for myself that I'm noticing, and that is first of all, there is in a couple of these instances over a year or nearly a year between officer involved shootings.

And I think that is important to note because where they are spaced in time should also matter, as well as where they are located geographically in the city.

I would continue to be interested in learning more about and seeing the data around, you know, where are the hot spots and how how the how you are seeing the community.

I think that this data that you're presenting here today also shows that I want to make it clear that when we talk about these um bar charts and things that you put up here, you mentioned not they're non-OIS.

But what does that that really means?

You're talking about community gun violence, community shootings.

So I think it's important to just pay attention, I think what you're saying with there's more guns, there's more risk, that means there's more risk to community, there's more risk to our our officers.

Officers are people too.

So I'm looking at this as um the trauma that gets involved across the board.

And if we can find ways to elevate that conversation, if we can find ways to, and I would call upon our community partners and leaders and nonprofits in this to work on breaking down the silos that make us be headbutting instead of finding proactive solutions together.

When I was working at the chamber in 2012, and I would like to see new data on this, but at that time we had a national author and researcher coming in and did a presentation, and there's a book, I don't remember the name.

But at that time, our city was the fourth most segregated city in the entire country.

I don't know what's changed in the last dozen years, but I think it is a conversation we need to have as a community.

And when we look at these historical trends of shootings, again, community just general gun violence, you're seeing um quite a lot happening, you know, in these um five last five, six years.

You know, in these um five last five, six years.

I happen to find some data from 2025 that is publicly available that you do a great job of as a department.

And it is very clear to me that a large majority of the incidents that you're responding to in 2025 were things that really do require a co-response or another community level type service.

Umestic violence can be handled that way, maybe not, because we may need an officer on scene.

But there's a lot of other things.

The welfare checks, the dog barking, the you know, different complaints that you get.

So I continue to look for that.

I will be continuing to dig into that, and I just want to commend you for being here today and sharing that with us.

I would just say is as follow-up when you look at uh an area, whether it's uh by ward or service area, which is uh is how we do it mostly because it's it's we we have five service area captains, so they should know what's happening in their uh their area so they can get whatever resources they need there.

So if you look at an area that has oh, you have more crime here, you have uh have more shootings here, it doesn't mean hey, we need to go arrest more people.

It just says what other resources as a city can we provide to that area uh to help with that, right?

There's a there's a public safety component uh as a as a youth that didn't always make the best decision.

There's a component to uh finding things of to fill the void and uh some free time, right?

So uh so that's how I look at it.

I look at it data's important, it's not everything, right?

So, but it's important to see what can we do as a city, not just as a police department, to affect uh areas that that might need some different resources.

So that's how I I look at it.

So thank you.

Thank you for today's presentation.

Thank you for having your leadership team here.

Um you excuse me, hit the nail on the head um as it relates to how do we build a safe community, and it really takes um all parts of our community coming together.

So the work of the police department, we spoke about the role of neighborhood associations earlier today.

Um, and we can add to that list things from healthcare access to employment and and opportunity in schools, and the list goes on.

So thank you for showcasing that you understand that it truly is a holistic approach that creates a safe community and uh being proud of the work and the role in the lane that that the police department plays in that.

Um sometimes, unfortunately, particularly I think right now in our society in general, it's difficult to sometimes have just kind of moderated conversations and share different points of views.

Um, and in this environment, when we call to say, hey, let's review something, let's look at something.

Um I see a lot of folks take that as you're anti this, you're you're not that.

And I what I appreciate about uh your leadership thus far in today's presentation is that we embrace transparency.

Um we don't see an ask for transparency and information as a threat, but as a way to illuminate the good work that we're doing and a way to honestly say uh here to honestly and publicly say we are constantly assessing where we might improve, right?

Through a variety of sources, and so I thank you for that.

Also uh want to note um, you know, in that I think your the description that you shared illustrate really really well the risks that our folks, our officers have day in and day out doing the work that they do, and many times unexpected.

And I've had the privilege of attending the GRPD awards dinner every single year since being a commissioner, it's closed, you know, it's a family celebration, but we need to tell those stories because there's so many amazing things that you all do, lives that you save.

Um, and even as we reviewed the officer involved shootings today, what I notice is in every instance of someone being struck by gunfire from um or returning gunfire and striking someone that they the officers in also rendered aid to that person to to save their life.

Um I want to note that too, and and thank you for I think that that shows that commitment to stopping uh what was happening, but uh protecting everyone who's on scene.

Um so I wanted to name that as well.

Um and then with that, just really appreciate the thoughtful integration that you all have when folks when officers are in a traumatic, uh potentially traumatic event to thoughtfully integrate them back into the their regular work, both for their well-being, but also quite frankly for the well-being of community.

You put you pointed out, and thank you for bringing the data around community-based shootings as well.

Um 386 people shot um since 2020 and 105 folks killed.

Um and so my hope is that we can be more aggressive in ensuring that those people, um, nearly 500 in our community also get the the support that they need in terms of mental health and integration back into day-to-day life, including back integration and interaction with PD in the future, right?

Because there will be will be trauma there.

Pardon me.

Uh so I have two questions.

Uh one um related to those community-based, uh, community-based violence.

My understanding is that the vast majority of those are interpersonal based.

It's interperson, interpersonal relationships escalate and become violent as opposed to random violence, right?

Random shootings.

Can you talk a little bit about that and kind of paint the picture of what's behind those numbers that we discussed today?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a a combination, but we know in in this profession that you know uh domestic violence can be the most violent uh uh incidents that an officer can encounter because there's so much passion uh and stuff from the relationship stuff that's uh involved.

And then it's it's you've you've got the youth violence is as well.

I mean, it's subjects are known to each other um, you know, by means of of the street per se, but uh there's not a you know any type of uh intimate relationship or or whatnot.

But um yeah, no, we're we're seeing the um uh the trends, it's it's not put it this way, it's not random.

You know, it it's never hardly ever ran.

I won't say never, but it's it's hardly random, it's it's targeted uh for the most part, and then if it's targeted, I look at it, then it's it's potentially preventable, right?

Whether that's uh getting cure violence or any other mediation that's an involvement trying to help uh settle some of these disputes uh that are obviously happening in our city and things.

So well said.

Well said.

Um and I would love I I one, I've said this uh well as a as a body, we have invested in victim services support, um, which we need, and we know that happens after people become victims.

So to your point, continuing to invest in prevention, particularly around violent crime.

And I also wanted to bring that up as a way to um uh let our let kind of our broader community know that uh there isn't just random violent crime really happening in our city.

Like this is a very safe city.

Um it's safe for visitors, it's face for the safe for the vast majority of residents, and we are obligated to uh do everything that we can with that full ecosystem to make it even safer.

Um the last thing I want to touch on is um how many how many new officers would you say we've gotten in the last few years as we've kind of gone up to staffing?

Well, I know I was I was counting it at one point in time just when uh during Winstrom's uh Chief Winstram's time, I think we had uh uh maybe you guys correct me if need, but I believe it was like a hundred and forty plus officers that that came through.

They didn't all make the team, as I say, but uh it was a hundred and forty that we we we interviewed, hired, and um eventually whether some of them failed out of our FTO, our field training program or not, but that's a lot of bodies, and that's a lot of a lot of youth uh that we're dealing with it.

And I know this is a discussion deputy chief Maycroft and I recently had uh with the ACLU, which was a good conversation, but the uh to talk about the the over policing thing that's been around forever since my whole career.

But but being able to have those conversations and break down why you might have three cars and seven officers on one traffic stop and explaining that, you know, uh there's a cry too for us to have more training.

Well, no better training than on the job training experience.

So you have a a field training officer in his recruit on a stop.

Well, if you have another field training officer with a recruit, let's get by that stop and see this a perfect opportunity to learn.

So now you got two cars, four officers.

Well, now they need a supervisor based off of decisions.

Well, there's your there's your fifth person and your third car, or of a high risk traffic stop of uh one of the OIS that I explained in here, a officer involved, or I'm sorry, a high risk traffic stop needs two cars positioned at a certain position, it needs one car down the road, one over here blocking off the road to keep the community safe.

There's more intersecting roads, you need those raw roads blocked off.

And um and I think it's good.

If you have more officers, we all know that a show of force can be a dis de-escalation anyway, right?

So uh we're ordering a subject out of the car that potentially has a gun.

If we would have bum rushed that car, could have forced the issue.

But instead we're we're paused and make sure we have the resources that we need there.

So maybe that person in the car runs through their decision making and it's not worth it based off the seven to ten cops we have back there, it's not worth getting in this gunfight, I'm gonna surrender.

So it has more meaning than just showing up.

And I know the perception out there is it's a fear uh type thing, and I I I disagree.

I do.

It's just just how we how we train.

We train and we train, we rep things out.

We've hired a lot of laterals uh in my time being involved in uh recruiting, and they come over to our department and they are not just amazed, I mean, not just pleased with training, they're amazed.

It's different for my son who's brand new in the department who he's a rookie, he's web behind the ears, right?

Everything is amazing to him, right?

The training.

But for an officer anywhere from five years to 20 years comes over and they're amazed by our training because it there's a difference.

And that's not a knock to any other agency.

Um, but we do things uh very well here.

Not perfect by any means, but we do things very well uh because of our training staff and years of it.

We repetition, repetition, repetition, right?

So no, I'm proud of our department.

I I search for a way to showcase our department and the good stuff we do without looking like we're boasting or bragging or deflecting from anything.

I haven't found that answer, but I'm I'm keeping the search.

But thank you for commenting about the board of uh Ward's banquet, because that is, and that's why I have the sense of pride I do for my department.

I will stand up for them when they're uh they they act appropriately and I'll hold them accountable when when they don't, right?

So I've got a history of that.

So no, but thank you for those comments.

Chief, one of the last one of the recent ride-alongs I did, I read reminded, like if you wanted to make a negative headline out of it, you could say there were seven officers responded to a 10-year-old uh child.

Well, the 10-year-old child was running around in a shopping mall parking lot uh where there were a real risk of getting hit by a car.

And uh a whole lot of officers came out to try to make sure that that kid didn't get hit.

He was just running around like a pinball on a pinball machine, and it was a dangerous situation for the child.

Like no one was no one was scared of him.

We didn't over you know, there wasn't a response of a lot of officers because they were can they were scared about this 10-year-old kid, they were scared for the 10-year-old kid.

Um so that's another example of yeah, yeah.

So thanks.

With the um with so many, so you you mentioned a hundred and over a hundred and four uh officers started uh FTO the last few years, but we've hired dozens, right?

Uh a few dozen.

Um and so we and many of them are not necessarily new to policing, but they are new to Grand Rapids, right?

We I know we had a number of lateral hires.

So I just want to make the point to the leadership team and everyone up here the importance of integrating our the folks, officers that are not just new to the apartment, the department, but new to Grand Rapids into our community, even outside of Patrol to get to know community members outside of some of the worst moments that they can possibly interact with folks in.

So I think that's a challenge for all of us.

How do we and for the in the community at large, we need to rebuild relationships and connections that are not made in moments of crisis, in moments of tension, but just human-to-human contact.

Um I'm looking forward to hearing a little bit more about how that will be operationalized in the community policing program, but even outside of that, outside of your duties, welcoming people and integrating them in our community as fellow neighbors.

Um with that, thank you so much for uh this presentation and thank you, uh Mr.

Washington for um getting this done pretty quickly here.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Mayor.

And uh again, I want to uh those officers that um were involved in these incidents as well as the families, um express uh you know my um sincere thoughts uh for those who were injured, but also my commendations for those officers who acted with bravery according to policy within the law.

And there are many, many uh men and women in those in the department that uh daily uh take on this very high risk job and are very unfairly uh painted as uh unlawfully using force in every incident.

And so I think uh as the chief said, whenever those incidents occur, we want to uh be transparent and hold uh people accountable when needed, but what we don't want to do is villainize um every officer or every city employee for that matter.

Uh we know we sign up for a tough job, tough scrutiny, but uh it is a very noble and very um selfless job because you are sacrificing for others.

So I wanted uh you to know that and all the officers who work in the department.

Thank you.

Last comment I'll make for the public is um look having looked back at these and and being familiar with some of them.

The reason I'm familiar is not because I'm the mayor, I have some secret um back channel to information.

Uh it's because a lot of this uh a lot of the body cam footage was very quickly released by the police.

Um so I'm thinking of the incident with uh gentlemen the gentleman with the box cutter.

Like I watched all that video very carefully, and uh Chief Winstram had a had a press conference and released all of that information um very quickly, and I remember him ending that uh press briefing by saying now you, the citizens of Grand Rapids know everything we know.

There's gonna be a state investigation, there's gonna be a prosecutorial review, but now you know what GRPD knows.

And so I want to highlight that I think that we are we aren't just leading on uh training and uh supporting the officers supporting the community, but I think we're also leading on keeping the community informed if they want to be informed about the circumstances.

And I'm also I remember the the case with the with the individual who wasn't who wouldn't come out of his brother's house.

Again, watching just coaxing and calm repetitions of like okay, you know, really trying to for a long time uh get that individual to make the right choice.

So um that information is out there for people who want to find it.

So it's not as though um you have to get elected to city commission to be able to find out how these things are being are being treated.

So thank you for this review, but thank you also for this as part of a broader commitment to uh real transparency about the work that you and and your officers are doing.

So thank you, Chief.

Okay, that um I I actually thank you, Chief.

Uh we can wrap with the briefing.

I would like to um get entertain a motion to move into closed session um uh to deal with an issue uh pending litigation.

So move.

And that will be in room 601.

Uh city clerk, if you call the roll.

Commissioner Kilgore, yes.

Commissioner Knight?

Yes.

Commissioner Asassi, yes.

Commissioner Purdue.

Yes.

Commissioner Belcheck.

Yes.

Come here Legrand?

Yes.

And I have a can I make a comment, please?

Sure.

All right.

So for those that are um following us today, our schedule is a little different than what our normal day is.

Um they're gonna be go the commission will be going into closed session now.

They'll be coming back out at noon um to interview the three candidates for city attorneys.

This will be in this room as well.

Um there is uh lunch in the back hallway here, so um it should be here, it's either here or it'll be here shortly.

Um for the public and um as well.

And uh we'll be getting back here.

Also, for tomorrow, we have a scheduled meeting for more deliberation on city attorney um deliberations on the city attorney hire if we if needed so.

Um so that's needed.

It may be canceled if the city commission decides not if they don't need it.

So just so the public knows all these if the things are going, and then just one reminder it's commission night out tonight at GRPS University at 1400 Fuller doors open at six o'clock with resource tables in city commission to begin at seven o'clock.

And there's also food there, and for those of us, there's only snacks.

Okay, and and anyone online can have a virtual meal on the city.

I'll give you a picture of a sandwich.

Okay.

Okay, are we ready to get started?

Okay, well, good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Michelle Eddie, Deputy HR director here at the City of Grand Rapids.

And today is the day that we have been waiting for.

We'll be interviewing our three city attorney candidates.

Um so before we dive into the interviews, I am going to bring forward Greg Nelson, and he is here from Mosaic Public Partners, who has been our partner through this recruitment process.

And he's gonna go over a quick um introduction and orientation with you, and then I will bring the first candidate in.

Sounds good.

Good morning, everyone.

Actually, good afternoon.

Uh we're right at that time.

I wanted to just briefly get us oriented for the interviews today.

I'll only take a couple of minutes so we can dive right in.

I just like to use the booklets as a guide to do that.

So if you would um if you turn to your first page, you'll see the schedule behind the tab, and at the very bottom of that schedule.

Uh that long schedule, the candidates have really been through a lot yesterday, uh coming into today.

But you'll see the order of the interviews today.

We'll have Sarah Hartman interviewing at noon, Matt Cross interviewing at 110, and Philip Strom interviewing at 220.

The interviews are one hour each, and there's a 10-minute break between each candidate for you to uh utilize.

Uh the next tab in the booklet are some interview guidelines.

And I just want to touch on these briefly.

And uh the questions are prepared today uh for a couple of reasons.

One to gain consistency and making sure you're using the same yardstick to evaluate all three candidates, but also uh to make sure that we don't run a foul of any employment laws.

And so on this page we have a list of topics that you generally cannot ask candidates about.

And I don't think I need to go through it line by line because the questions are prepared, but it's here for you as a reference.

Uh if you have a question that you want to ask as a follow-up, um and you're not sure if it may be appropriate, you can turn here.

If the candidates answer didn't quite square with the question, or perhaps it prompted something related that you'd like to follow up on, please do uh be mindful of the time and uh just be sure it's related to the question that it was asked.

The next tab in the binders are the questions themselves, and we also provided a separate uh copy of them that you could pull out so you wouldn't be flipping between resumes and questions.

Um we do have a um each commissioner is assigned questions already, so we didn't have to do that right now.

And Commissioner Isasi, you have the first question and also the greeting for each candidate, which is their italicized Mr.

Mayor, if I could.

Um could we also just do a quick overview of the process today?

So we're obviously we have these three, um, and then we will perhaps take a break, mayor, come back, deliberate, uh perhaps make a decision.

If we don't make a decision today, then we would come back tomorrow to a special meeting that we have previously scheduled to start at is it nine o'clock, Mr.

City Clerk.

I just wanted to to overview that so that anybody who is watching or is here inside um knows what to expect.

Yeah, so there's there's several options um that the commission can choose.

Um after deliberation today, they could make a decision.

We have we do have resolutions prepared um if we if we need them.

Um also we can do a after deliberations and we get a sense and um the mayor says you know this is where the direction we go, we can do a walk on at tonight's meeting.

Okay, um, under resolutions, or if the the commission needs more time, um we can come back tomorrow for deliberation and deciding, or you find out like this afternoon like tomorrow's not gonna do it, we need to wait till the 14th to do it as well to at our next regular meeting.

Those are all the different options that you can choose.

But um resolutions are prepared um depending on what you want to do.

Okay, um, I don't mean to be pedantic or already technical time.

I understand.

Let's just make sure we give everyone a actual model, which I think we use more functionality.

I'm also anticipating your microphone.

Everybody who wanted a launch got one.

Um, that no one's gonna be dying of hunger at 3 30.

So um depending on the will, the group will either take a 10-minute break there or simply move uh straight into deliberation and to remind everyone we have till five o'clock schedule for that.

So um an hour and a half, which I think should be a uh good amount of time for certainly uh starting and perhaps ending the deliberation process.

So great.

Uh very good.

The only thing I'd like just like to add before I um we move on is just at the end of the interviews, I will come back up and summarize the substantial amount of feedback we received from all the components of the process yesterday, so you can have that in your minds during the deliberations.

Great, thank you.

So you'll do that at 3 30, you're saying?

Yes.

Okay, yes, sir.

Thanks.

Okay, let's start.

Sarah might get an extra three minutes here.

Two minutes and fifty seconds.

That's true too.

Hi, good afternoon, Sarah.

Ms.

Hartman, sorry.

You can call me Sarah, that's fine.

Um so I'm just gonna share just a little overview and then we'll jump in, but we'll um, as the mayor's noted previously, we'll make sure that everybody has the same amount of time since we're uh did a little bit of housekeeping.

But again, thank you um for your willingness and your interest in the city attorney position and for joining us today and for all the things that happened yesterday with different community members and the general public.

We have a total of 14 different questions that'll be asked the same question of each candidates and 60 minutes for our overall discussion today with the city commission.

Um you also have some opportunity at the end to make a closing statement, and then um we'll make sure also we're keeping general time and uh stay on track.

So with that, I that's just some housekeeping and I think you have water and everything there, and we have the city clerk to aid us if we might need something else.

But I'm gonna jump into the very first question, okay?

So could you please tell us about your background, education, and experience, and why um you want to be the next city attorney for the city of Grand Rapids.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Uh, hopefully this is on.

Can you hear me?

I don't think it's I first and foremost would like to say that.

I don't think it's on.

Uh we're not getting a lot of love.

Yeah, yeah.

You may just have to do the McJagger and eat the mic.

This one does.

We get some assistance first, Ms.

Hartman, please.

Keep it say the Gettingsburg address, and we'll say if we can hear you.

Can you hear me now?

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

A little bit better.

I'll speak up.

As a litigator, I'm I'm sure I can project if I really need to.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank all of you and tell you how honored I am to have been selected as a finalist uh for this role as city attorney.

Uh I, while I don't ever fear talking in front of people, uh have been doing it for a number of years.

I don't love talking about myself, just uh personal quirk.

Um, and so it was a really difficult difficult decision for me to decide to apply and put myself out here uh in this way.

Uh and I'm happy to say after going through the process yesterday, which was taxing, uh, that you have you do have three good qual qualified candidates.

Uh, and I know that no matter who this commission chooses, we will be in good hands.

Uh we've got one very obvious internal promote up, so that too also weighed in my decision to decide whether or not to run against my my colleague who I respect greatly, uh Phil and I have worked uh well together for the last five plus years since I've been with the City of Grand Rapids and we've been supporting each other even through this process and through the day yesterday.

Um but at the end of the day, I think that my unique background, my skill set lends me to be the best candidate for this role, and I'm hoping that today you'll leave here thinking that I am.

Uh I love and am very proud of the work that I do for the city of Grand Rapids, but also the work that our department does as a team.

We provide this city excellent legal services.

I've worked in private practice, I've worked for large law firms, small law firms, uh, and now with the city, and I can tell you that uh we have a top drawer staff.

Uh the mandate came into the prior city attorney, it's my understanding before I joined the city to actually cut outside uh legal expenses.

And she began to develop uh and be very strategic about hiring so that uh those outside costs could be cut.

And she did this in a couple of ways, and I think that I would love to be able to grow and continue that good work done by by Anita Hitchcock.

Um, first of all, also that have uh different skill sets to fit the needs of our client in that moment.

So when we do hire, we try to be very we've been doing a lot of hiring of lawyers lately in the last year or two, and we do try to be very strategic in what are we looking for and what skill sets are we looking for when we're trying to hire.

And I think that we would like to continue to work and grow in that in that uh venue.

Um but as I've I've met all of you, uh, just was with all of you in closed session a few moments ago.

Uh so you know a little bit about at least one area of work that I do, but I'd like to take this opportunity to also introduce myself and my personal background.

Uh I grew up outside Chicago in Northwest Indiana.

Uh I have very blue-collar family, middle class.

No one in my family had ever gone to uh away university before.

Community college was the highest education for my my father.

Um I was the first in my family to ever go to grad school.

I'm very proud of that fact, and I'm very again honored to be here just just with that.

Um I attended Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where I majored in uh music engineering technology with a minor in applied physics and electronics.

Uh how did that get to law school?

Uh towards the end of my undergraduate uh degree, I decided that I wanted to go to law school, possibly to pursue a career in music business.

Uh that did not work out as I met my husband and moved to Kalamazoo, and I've been in West Southwest Michigan ever since.

I love this this area, this community, and don't uh plan on leaving Michigan anytime in the future.

Um, but my dual uh undergraduate degree and background has really been a cornerstone of who I've become as an attorney.

It has let me both to be uh creative and out-of-the-box thinker, and that I attribute to my musical background, but also analytical, which is another very important skill for an attorney.

Um, and I get this from my science and engineering background.

Uh I found these traits to be absolutely invaluable uh in my legal career and also when I was in law school.

It's given me a lot of different offer opportunities in my practice that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten.

After graduating from Cooley Law School in 2007, where I attended both here in Grand Rapids and in Lansing.

Uh I started off in practice uh as the stock market crashed in 2008 with a solo practitioner, where I was very happy to help him start up his firm and be all hands on deck.

Uh I am still happy to jump in and do whatever needs to be done to support my team.

My staff knows that uh I would not ask anyone in our office to do anything, I wouldn't be willing to jump in and do myself.

And if that's as routine as mail something or photocopy something, I'm happy to help out if that's what needs to happen to get something out the door.

Uh after spending a few years in a solo with a solo practitioner, I worked for a larger insurance defense firm.

Uh, and there I began to have a relationship with municipal law.

Uh, I worked directly as outside counsel for MMRMA, which is who the city uh partners with as our risk pool manager now.

Um I defended a number of different types of municipal entities, school districts, higher education, law enforcement.

Uh, also did a lot of public utility work uh and uh employment work and defense.

I was involved in uh high-end uh employment investigations and making very difficult termination decisions.

I also got to use a little bit of my engineering degree there.

Uh we had two partners that did a lot of architect and engineering work for uh construction projects.

I think that that is something that's gonna lend itself to be very useful as we move uh into the coming years where there's so much development and uh public partner partnerships, uh public funded projects here in the city.

Uh and I uh have lots of experience in litigating those types of very complicated litigation when construction projects simply don't live up to expectations.

And unfortunately that's that's the case frequently.

Uh but through that I found that I had three uh areas of law that I am very uh very passionate about.

Generally civil litigation, and you all know me in that that world, but more specifically, municipal law and employment law, and that's what I've been doing since I left uh the city of St.

Joe.

Um as a litigator, I uh am very good at doing risk assessment, and those risks are dollars and cents, but they're more than that too.

Uh I can provide strategic advice and problem solving when you, my client, uh collectively collectively decide on an action.

Uh I believe I am the best candidate to be able to help you implement the strategy to move in a direction once that decision has been made.

I have uh a very diverse and lived experience that uh I can tell you what happens when something does go wrong and step in as a problem-solving partner when things don't go as expected.

I also take a lot of pride in being an effective communicator.

I've been talking for two days now, so you will uh I will apologize and have some more water because my voice is getting tired.

But uh I do I love to learn, and because I love to learn, I love to teach uh others what I have learned, uh, and sometimes that comes down to communicating with you all to explain the nuances of the law or uh a decision-making strategy or a risk.

Uh I also have a lot of experience serving as mediator, uh, negotiating between parties.

This came became very uh useful during contract negotiations in the last few years where I've done those for the city.

Uh, and that's multifaceted.

There's often not just two sides, but 12, especially here at the city of Grand Rapids.

And Miss Harmon, I don't, I am I am gonna interrupt and say you're about 10 minutes into this first question.

I just want to make sure we have time for all the rest of them.

If you wanted to wrap up that final thought and Commissioner Purdue, thank you.

Um I think that I am uh the city, state, and country are going into challenging times, and with that uh I think that it's gonna take strong independent and focused leadership from the city's legal department to see us through it, and I hope that you consider me for that role.

Thank you, Android.

Hearing more about your background and how you got to today.

Um, so we're gonna spend the next few questions just focus on leadership.

Obviously, the city attorney position is a leadership role within the city.

Leader leading in terms of leading a department, leading staff, leading the work and the charge, and working in lockstep with the city commission.

So I think we'd like to hear a little bit more about your leadership style and how it has evolved over time.

And you spoke a little bit about the legacy of your predecessor.

And so I'll add to that.

Well, first and foremost, my my predecessor has left some very big shoes to fill.

I very much saw her as a mentor and just an amazing uh colleague and somebody to work with and and for.

And uh one of the things that I've taken away from her is part of my leader, what I would like my leadership style really to be, and that is to certainly put out in front of you all and in front of the community and show off an individual's good work when they are deserving of it.

It's not my achievement as the city attorney, but it is uh each individual who works and supports the city attorney in our legal department.

And to the extent that I can highlight any individual's work so that you get to know the rest of our team and not just me, uh, I would certainly want to do that.

Uh but that said, the city attorney is also the one in charge, and the one that's where the buck stops.

So I I think as a leader too, it would be defending and taking the responsibility and accountability for when things don't go the way you all want the department of law to run.

And I am not afraid to step in and be that shield and and buffer uh between uh departments or uh the commissioners when uh my team and have those conversations in private.

And I think that that's uh the way I think my leadership would go, and also how I would like to um continue on with what Anita Hitchcock taught me.

Wonderful.

And then a follow-up on that seeking of leadership.

I think it's really important for city leaders to uh live work and play within the city as much as possible.

And so you mentioned you've been based on Southwest Michigan, more specifically specifically Kalamazoo.

If you were to get this role, can you talk about your willingness to um to be within the city and or how you would ensure that uh your leadership would include integration within community life itself?

Uh thank you, Commissioner.

Um my family is based in Kalamazoo, my husband's business is there, and I can't uh absolutely commit to making a change.

If the right opportunity presented itself, especially if I had this role, of course, that would be a conversation that we would be having and if it made sense to make it to make that that move or that change.

Uh but that said, I think that the city attorney's role uh to some extent also needs to be not necessarily removed from uh the community, but a little bit independent of the community, and sometimes it's nice to have that that be able to step back and uh see what's what's playing out in the news and to meet with people in the community as part of the job and part of the role, uh serve on nonprofits.

I've done that in the past in community, um, not necessarily with the city of Grand Rapids, but I would love to do that if the opportunity presented itself.

Um, but it's also important to to have that focus and be able to step back.

Thank you.

Commissioner Belshack has the next question.

Good afternoon.

Um I think you started to touch on this a little bit, but um it's very important.

How would you build and maintain relationships with other appointed officials to ensure government excellence within the city of Grand Rapids?

Well, I'm fortunate as an internal candidate that I do already have at least a little bit of a relationship with I think all three of our appointed officials, um, but I would certainly uh want to continue to grow that.

Uh I have an open door policy, and anyone who needs uh to just bounce an idea around, if they're walking around City Hall at 4 o'clock on Friday afternoon, uh Commissioner uh I'm sorry, City Manager Washington has appeared in my doorstep a few times.

If uh Ms.

Hit Hitchcock or uh Mr.

Strom were not available, they'd be darkening my doorway, going, Well, Miss Hartman, what do you think about about this?

Um, and I'm always happy to have those conversations and uh have an open door policy.

Yes, go ahead.

All right.

Um, what areas of municipal law do you consider most critical for the city commission to understand?

And then part B is how do you ensure that complex legal concepts are understandable to all elected officials on the commission?

I'm gonna start with the second part of that question.

I mentioned a little bit previously that I do uh enjoy trying to communicate uh at the level which my audience is at, and that is a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

I uh can go argue a very complex legal issue to a federal judge, and I'm going to explain it to you all very differently than I would argue it before somebody who's been on the judicial bench for 20 years.

Um I've I've pointed this out to a couple of groups yesterday, but uh as I mentioned, I come from a very blue-collar background.

Uh my mom has a high school education, and I've often found myself trying to explain complex legal theories to my mother.

And I go, okay, if I can explain it to you, and you understand what I'm saying, uh, and she's always happy to pick up the phone when I I'm like I need to just bounce this around and make sure that I'm not using legalese.

Um and Commissioner Knight, can you remind me the first part of that question?

Yes, ma'am.

What areas of municipal law do you consider most critical for the city commission to understand?

Uh that is a long list, but I'll try to pick a few.

Uh obviously, complex complicated legal and constitutional matters are what I I focus my practice on, so I'm gonna say that as number one.

Uh they're not easy answers, they have a lot of different facets that go into the analyses when we do have those complicated um questions that arise through through litigation in particular, but sometimes even before there's litigation and why we uh elect to do or make the advice and the recommendations that we do.

Um, of course, uh Freedom of Information Act, that too is a nuanced uh area of law.

We love to talk about transparency and we want to be transparent, but we have some uh guide rails for a number of reasons, whether that's through FOIA itself or through uh other state and federal law.

Uh so transparency would be number two and through through FOIA.

Um, and then finally, employment law.

Uh the city of Grand Rapids is a large employer.

It doesn't sometimes we don't think of of this body as also being manager, but you oversee a lot of different uh and diverse groups of employees, uh a lot of unionized workforce that brings to it its own comp complications and uh areas that need need some assistance, um, but to uh just the run of the run-of-the-mill employment uh workplace disputes, harassment claims, bullying, um, and policies that need to be updated.

So I think employment law would be number three.

Thank you.

Okay, uh please describe the workplace culture you aim to create in the city attorney's office and the way it should interact with other parts of the city organization.

Again, I'm gonna suggest that we do have a really really wonderful department.

I have enjoyed working there more than I've worked more than I've enjoyed working anywhere else in my in my career.

And I only hope to continue that uh very positive out outlook outlook and attitude uh from those who work there.

I think that we work very collaboratively as a team.

Um of the things I did not like about uh private practice is we felt very siloed a lot of the time.

Um if you're in this practice group, that's the only type of law you can practice, and even if you know the answer to the question that's over in this other area, you still have to refer it to one of your partners.

We don't operate that way.

We do have three divisions, but we all work together.

If one division gets overwhelmed, we are all uh available to step in and do that work to help each other out.

Um but likewise we also see a lot of cross-reference, whether it's coming from enforcement and talking to the litigation team because they've gotten uh an enforcement case and they go, uh, this may end up being litigation in the future against the police department.

We want you to be aware of it now.

Um, to also uh municipal affairs, you know, going through zoning and planning to build the amphitheater will then come and say, hey, look, litigation team, this also might be coming your way.

So we want you to weigh in on how we proceed uh at the beginning, and I think that collaborative and team approach is really important.

Thanks.

Cool.

Um, so we all know there's um lots of situations where there's more than one answer to a question.

Um so talk to us a little bit if you would about how you approach advising us or uh appointed officials on complex or um politically sensitive issues where there's maybe one more than one path and how you work through that, and maybe you could give us an example and how you approach those areas of complexity.

Sure.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um first, uh I think that the uh city attorney's role is a little bit of an independent advisor, uh independent not being that we're uh on an island, but have the room to advise our client or department heads uh on what the law is and what it is not, and to make recommendations based on what the law actually says.

Of course, you're gonna have some gray areas in just about every area of law, but to say the safest route and what I can actually tell you is for sure where the the boundaries are is one thing, but then also uh given you know, depending on the circumstances in the question, uh what might be a little bit more uh able to do.

Um I do like to provide uh my clients with uh some suggestions on even if I'm saying, okay, well, what you've asked me to to opine on whether or not you can do this, is probably gonna be a little bit over the line, but here are some other ideas that might get you part of the way there, and will certainly be less risky.

So and let me ask a follow-up, and this is I promise I'm gonna ask your your or your other two colleagues the same question, but it's uh this is a little bit of a put you on the spot question.

Um Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, I hate justice.

Um the job of being a city attorney means doing a lot of um this is the law, this is not the law, here are the risks or not the risks.

Um how do you see your role as a moral agent uh in the complexities of giving legal opinions to specifically this body?

Uh part of it is going to be uh policy decisions that you all get to make.

I can advise and tell you what those risks are and say what the law is and what's not, uh, but also opine and give you my uh professional and personal opinions at times as to where the right answer might be.

Uh a lot of legal advising, uh, you know, we are we do call ourselves counselors at law, and sometimes that counselor hat needs to come out and say, look, it's not just this is what the law says it it is and what we have to do, but here is also what uh you might consider doing, and here are the risks if you go that route.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um Ms.

Hartman, how do you build trust and maintain effective working relationships with members of this body, city commission, um, or any other you know, uh legislative body who you may have differing priorities or perspectives while remaining objective and professional.

Uh thank you, Commissioner.

Uh I will say for me foremost, first and foremost, is I'm always going to be a genuine person.

You're going to get my honest beliefs and opinions, even if at times those might end up being inaccurate.

I'm happy to step in and say I was wrong.

Um and I'm gonna tell you the truth.

Um I take honesty and my integrity very seriously.

Uh I've you know served on ethics board for the state bar for a number of years, and uh I hope to earn all of your support and uh mostly through being being honest and forthright, even when it's bad news and even when it's uh I was wrong.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we've touched on leadership and interactions with the commission.

Our next few questions will really be about subject matter issues.

Um a lot of times defending the city and protecting the city is that you know that's one of our responsibilities and call to action, as well as defending and protecting the residents and the businesses and all the people within the city.

And so sometimes those interests can be at odds.

And so we want to hear a little bit more about how you would balance the role of advising and defending the city with working to advance justice in the Grand Rapids community as the two will be in tension at times.

So can you can you speak on um both of those things?

I can't a little bit, but some of that's gonna go back to the role of the city attorney.

So the city attorney is going to take uh their lead, or I'll take my lead if I get appointed to that that position from the six of you and seven of you once uh we have another first ward commissioner.

Um so the policies that you set, which can be done with the advice of the of the city attorney where where that's uh appropriate, um, are going to set the the tone for what the city attorney actually uh effectuates and where that's in conflict where defending the city in a lawsuit, for instance, is in conflict with justice as a whole, that's part of the risk assessment.

It's it like I said, it's not just dollars and cents, but where uh continuing to act in a certain way might have a negative impact on the community.

That is somewhere where we can talk about that as being part of a risk.

Uh, if it's going to have a positive impact to settle a case, then that will be another conversation that we we would have.

Uh so I don't necessarily think that they're always in at odds with one another or adversarial, but that's just part of the multifaceted analysis that has to be undertaken for every unique different circumstance.

Thank you.

And as a follow-up, you mentioned earlier you referenced the difficult times that we're in both politically and I would say legislatively, um, and the importance of the city attorney's office to be a strong independent body.

Can you talk a little bit more about what you mean by that?

Sure.

Uh I think that we're gonna be faced with more and more conflicts between state, local, and federal government.

And I think that the city attorney's office as somebody who's not directing directly affiliated with the state government, not directly affiliated with the federal government, but still bound by the rule of law, can provide this body with the independent advice that's unique and uh curtailed just to the city of Grand Rapids and what its policy goals are and what this body has decided to set in motion.

Thank you.

Thanks for highlighting that.

Um we are, of course, making lots of new decisions and encountering new situations.

We have a lot of um public oversight and interest from the public to be accountable.

So of that, you know that we're very interested, and the community is interested in transparency in government, but the legal field does tend to be steeped in confidentiality.

There are times when we have to have conversations that are um in closed session.

How can the city attorney help the city be more transparent?

You are correct.

The attorneys we are we are ingrained in confidentiality in law school.

I think that you get as part of your law degree a do not tell, do not answer these questions uh certificate.

Uh but that said, there are some things that we can do, and I think that the city actually does them better than most people believe.

Um we process just a ton of Freedom of Information Act requests, and those go out routinely, they get reviewed uh multiple levels, whether it's through the city attorney's office or uh on appeals through that body of work.

Um but two uh we do um consider very carefully what information can go out responsibly, and when this body or the city manager or department has asked us to opine on whether or not information can go out proactively, we're never in a position where we're saying do not send anything out, absolutely nothing.

It's always okay.

Well, let's step back and think about what that message might be and why some things can be said while while certain things should not be.

And it's it's never a no, it's a yes, but uh maybe you could consider a couple of these these things uh as far as increasing transparency, a lot of the transparency is tied to law, whether that's the freedom of information act itself, uh state law or federal law that governs what sort of criminal justice information can be readily disclosed, uh witness identities, um, that that sort of thing.

We we do have laws in place that that protect those things.

Uh same with employment files.

We can't readily be giving out every single nuance to an employees file, even if they do work here and work for the public.

So there are some restrictions and some guardrails, and uh I think that as city attorney I'd be in a great uh position to explain those to not just you, but maybe have the opportunity to educate the community on what those limitations are and why they exist.

I guess I would add one follow-up question.

Would you be willing to andor able to help with crafting or helping messages?

Absolutely.

Hawking points, things like that.

Absolutely.

Um I think that having those conversations either one-on-one or uh if if you're asking for a legal opinion, if it's something uh that is a broader issue that could be done in in close session, just to strategically talk about how those things can be handled.

I think I'd absolutely be willing to do that.

Thank you for that.

Um I think uh Commissioner um Purdue alluded to this next question when we think about you know city, state, and federal and the challenges that we're facing as a country.

What do you see as future challenges for this city that we might face?

And then in the near and long term, and then how can the city attorney best help to address them?

Oh, where to start?

You turn on the news, and I think that you you'd get five different answers.

Um we're seeing uh more and more issues uh where voting rights are being challenged.

Uh, if the SAVE Act were to pass, that would uh institute a whole nother level of challenges to just our our election this this coming year.

Um and uh I've I've worked on some election cases, so I'm I'm familiar with that that body of work too.

Um we have uh federal agents uh in our streets uh and working with our partners at GRPD uh on where those boundaries are is another area that I really think that the city attorney's office can can weigh in on.

And uh, you know, there may even be come times where not necessarily in either of those two areas, but as um federal law changes and rolls back where the city attorney's office may be poised to push some of those boundaries and make legal affirmative legal challenges um in court.

Uh the AG's office does that uh routinely, and that might be something that we could strategically think about uh in the future too.

Thank you we've discussed this a little bit here.

Uh, which areas of the municipal law do you have the most experience in, and which areas do you have the uh do you have less experience in?

I'm gonna talk specifically about what we do here at the city.

I obviously have the most experience in civil litigation, particularly civil rights and employment litigation.

That's that's been the bulk of my practice for the last decade or so.

Um have a lot of very well-versed civil litigation experience.

I could probably say that I've worked on a case that's just about every area within that that body of work.

Uh I also have worked uh a lot on um contracts and business law, so I'm familiar with that that body of work too.

As far as what the city attorney's office does, our enforcement division is probably the area I know the least.

I do have some experience there, um, but it's not something I've done day in and day out as code enforcement.

I've uh for the most part filled in here at the city and in past work uh where it was needed to go and represent a small municipality for code enforcement.

Uh in fact, my first case ever with code enforcement was Backyard Chickens.

Uh and uh as a new attorney um at uh the firm down in in St.

Joseph, I had to I probably within a week of getting hired, they made me go ask for a search warrant from a very stern judge uh for chickens and chicken paraphernalia because we were convinced that this person who lived within the city was um having chickens in their house and raising chickens inside their house.

And and Mayor Le Grand is laughing because I managed to do that and make that argument with a straight face and got my search warrant.

Um I love that you use the word chicken paraphernalia.

Chicken paraphernalia, yes.

Uh so uh you know, I I do have a little bit of experience in in enforcement, but that would probably be my least least area of expertise.

Um can you give us feedback to an example maybe and I don't have my microphone on.

There we go.

Try again.

Uh, if you can think back to an area uh or an example of somewhere where you had to essentially uh bridge gaps or collaborate with either city departments or external agencies on um an issue with some some complexity.

Um how did you get people?

How did you get uh legal and operational alignment um between all the players?

Thank you.

I'm going to hearken back to contract negotiations.

Here at the city of Grand Rapids, it is so multifaceted.

There are so many different sides to even get aligned on the management side before you can go to the table and negotiate with the union.

There's the department, the departments that are affected by that collective bargaining unit.

So the department heads will have some interest, the city manager will have some interest, you all will have some interest and some some opinions on what should happen and what should not.

And that was in large part due to efforts that I had, meeting with the police chiefs, meeting with uh Brandon Davis, the director of OPA, meeting with uh Mark Washington, meeting with Lou Canfield, um, and just coming up with how we are going to start to move the ball forward.

And uh my approach to it is to hear everybody out, have everybody give me their dream list and prioritize it.

What do you really want?

You know, come up with with the top three, and we'll see how far we can get down that list that meets everybody in the middle uh and at least gets us started in the direction that management and leadership want to go.

Thanks.

Thank you.

This is the last question before you get the the question to share anything else that we might not have answered or anything you want us to consider.

Um so the work of the city attorney's office um at many times um has various segments of the community that are impacted.

And especially here in our city, stakeholders are accustomed to a level of engagement to ensure that their perspectives are understood and considered.

You see this from yesterday and and having all the groups that we had in the the evening session.

So knowing that, can you give us an example of a time when you engage stakeholders on a sensitive or controversial matter?

Engage stakeholders meaning outside this.

Yeah, outside.

Um I'm gonna have to uh step back into time that I was outside of the city of Grand Rapids.

Uh I I've had a number of instances where I've represented very small municipalities and on issues that this body would never think are are huge issues uh to be able to go to a small um municipal entity, a small township that has never been sued before in this the whole commission's memory or gets sued maybe once every three years and to explain to them and have a lot of of public outcry about an issue is very different than what it is here.

But in that instance, I I've actually been in in public meetings where I've been personally addressing those those constituents and those voting members to say uh I'm outside council, I'm representing us just for the purpose of this lawsuit.

This is what the lawsuit is about and what it says and what it doesn't say and what the allegations are and what they aren't, um, and to just uh educate the community uh in a thoughtful and meaningful way that lets them understand what what the city uh attorney or the outside council is trying to accomplish and what uh the risks might be so that they can make um informed statements to their elected officials.

Thank you.

Thanks.

All right, uh just a time check.

We're at 1247, so I think we have 20 minutes left, so we're doing good on time for your hour.

Um so in conclusion, we certainly want to invite you to share closing comments that we may or may not have covered, but I also want to invite you uh if you have any questions for us.

I'll start with any questions for you.

What are you uh looking for uh in the next city attorney?

I'll start since I'm already um off of you.

Um so I think uh weighing protection of the city with protecting of our our folks, particularly in times such as these that you spoke about with um kind of threats to civil rights and kind of everyday protections that I think we have uh almost taken for granted, right, with their presence and now that they're being threatened, I think it changes the context in which we do our work as well as the context in which everyone in our city works, lives, and plays.

And so I think more and more the local level is going to become more and more of an important uh protection and stop gap um to protect our local folks.

Uh so with that, and I've said this several times over the course of us preparing for this process, uh, but I'm looking for someone who can balance those things and have a larger appetite for risk.

Um, you know, over the years, particularly in my grassroots organizing days and working with folks in the nonprofit industry or the housing industry or the criminal justice uh space.

Uh there's been things that we wanted to pursue.

Um, and there hasn't always seemed to me, when I was on that side at least of the dais, um, to have as much appetite for innovation and risk and figuring out, right?

Um, oftentimes you ask for legal advice and it's this is what it says, the end.

Um, but I would like to engage, I want a partner to engage in generative conversations of all right, but how can we get there?

What is the legal path that exists that we can get there?

And if there's not, how do we create one?

How do we work with our state and federal partners to allow us to do the things that we want to do and that will be good for our community that maybe there's no no great path.

So with that, um, you know, I'll speak specifically around economic development, better support for our small businesses, um, and and small developers are some some ways that that has popped up.

So balancing, um knowing what we're stepping into and when it comes to leadership at this moment, and I think that that calls for a bit more courage and appetite for risk and even pushing some boundaries in the name of doing good on behalf of our community.

So that's me personally.

Thank you.

I'll answer next just because I'm sorry, I'm I need to step away, Miss Hartman.

Just keep coughing and choking a little bit.

Um, I would say, you know, I had I wasn't a city commissioner when Miss Hitchcock took the role, but I was on our civil service body at the time.

And quite honestly, what um, you know, I think your comments about Ms.

Hitchcock are are, you know, and I it it's almost an understatement because I think she took um, and I know that's nothing to what you were saying.

She took a situation that was a really difficult situation in a short amount of time was able to build up a really strong legal team.

I think um I would uh totally agree with your assessment about your the current department, um, both legal professionals as well as administrative professionals, um, and really, you know, some of the things that people might not see on the outside because there's so much work internally that needs to be done with the city um attorney's office.

So I think somebody who can build a strong team who understands the importance of working with others that you know, yes, you might be in the leadership role, but that doesn't mean you know you're not the person who does everything, even if I'm the same way, you know.

I can make the photocopy, I have no problem with that.

Uh so I appreciate your comments on that.

And then I also think that um, quite honestly, the commission, when I started to today, um, you know, is talking to somebody who was wants to run, and they're like, I think I'm well prepared.

I'm like, you will never be well prepared.

I'm I I don't think I've been prepared and every single year that this commission year has started because something new and different has happened.

So I think somebody who has the agility and flexibility to say, you know, I know this much, and also I don't know everything.

Let me come back to you.

Um, somebody who um is not just agreeing with us, but can say this is you know my perspective, and so that good, you know, conflict that should exist between this body and and the appointed officials.

So that's what I would say.

And I'm sorry, I'm gonna excuse myself.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Commissioner Knight.

Um, I think I'd to echo a little bit about the um Commissioner Purdue, um, really thinking about how that balance is between uh community as well as the city.

And I know that there is, you know, some complex things that have to um happen, especially as you're representing the city organization as a whole, right?

Um, but also understanding the people that live within that space and and their needs and how we can um be open to ideas and thoughts and things that can help them.

I remember um someone sharing with me an incident of a young woman that was dealing with some litigation uh with the city and she didn't have proper ID.

And so this person actually went outside and said, Let me help you get what you need, so that you don't have to per or go any further down this road, right?

And so those may seem like small things, but they're huge things to the community when you think about the needs that we deal with.

Um, and then for me, really somebody who um is in tune and connected with the community and what's going on in the community and not just you know, from a surface uh aspect, but really being engaged in here, and it's not something that everybody has to know that you're doing, but just to know that you're really doing it, you know what I mean?

Um because a lot of times we have people that do this work um within our organization, but they they don't really know the community, so it's more of just a job as opposed to this is the place that I love and my heart is here, and I'm doing what's necessary to continue to make sure that we're whole and safe and and represented the way that we need to be.

Um so I guess those are the things that are kind of on the forefront of my mind.

Thank you.

Commissioner, yeah, I've got uh three simple bunkets.

Uh it's a great question.

Uh compassionate heart for the people.

I think I concur with my colleagues of really looking beyond just numbers and seeing that all a city is is a collection of people.

Um an excellent communicator, uh, folks who can take all of the law and things and communicate it to all different types of folks from youth to people who um are you know high schoolers to uh folks with even learning disabilities of how can we do that?

How awesome of a communicator I believe we need in this role.

Um, or you know, folks who really have an adverse reaction to interacting with the law.

How can you win them over?

That's what I think, and then lastly, uh longevity.

So someone who wants to grow with the role and be a part of um this city for the long term.

That's really important to me as well.

Commissioner Miller.

I think that everything has been well covered.

Um, we did talk a lot about this before we had all of you here today.

So it does help.

Um, I think as you saw embedded in our questions, where we're going, um, there is definitely a need for people who can hold tension and be able to be uh not just a name but a person in the community and up here.

That's what I really value when um from record we can say things to the community to be an advocate, to be an educator, to be able to explain the why things are the way they are because we're gonna be confronted with things, and as legal counsel, um it is good that it's more than just sitting, you know, we're here talking.

So I uh that that's the proactive and strategic communication part too that helps assist when we're out there doing the same thing.

Sounds good.

So uh given that this is your interview, not ours, I just assume hear from you.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I will very briefly wrap up.

I'm gonna touch on just one or two points there.

Um, I absolutely love the city of Grand Rapids.

Well, I don't live here, um, I love working here.

Uh I have worked here and gone to school here in the past.

Uh and it is uh, you know, I grew up outside Chicago, which was big city.

This is nice to be in uh a little bit more of a big city than Kalamazoo or St.

Joe.

Uh, but it is certainly um uh really really near and dear to my heart, and I love seeing it grow and thrive in the way that it has in the in recent years.

Um that said, I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere so long as the new city attorney will have me.

If that isn't me, which I hope that it is, uh, I absolutely plan to stay on, at least in the role that I'm currently in, or in some other capacity, if that's offered to me.

Uh, I hope you know, to work with all of you into the future.

And I hope that if nothing else comes of this, if you decide uh on a different candidate, um, which I don't think you should, but uh in case you do, um, I hope this at least gave you the opportunity to know a little bit more about where I'm coming from, uh, so that when I do approach you, you know that I'm not just looking at things from one angle.

I really am coming to you with with a more global uh approach.

And uh my my background lends itself not just to one thing but to to many.

Thanks.

Now with that I'll conclude.

And thank you.

I'll just ensure we we you do have a few more minutes if you want to take them, but if there's any other closing comments or questions that we did not ask about that you want to and start to make sure that we know, I want to make sure you you don't feel rushed.

I'm not rushed.

I'm good.

Thank you so much, Commissioner.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh let's take a 10-minute break and then we'll start with our next candidate.

Hello, good afternoon.

Sorry.

Welcome, Mr.

Cross.

You can see all of our names in the front.

Um, I'm Commissioner Melinda Isasi, and um, I'm just gonna give a little bit of a a welcome and then I'll jump into the first question.

So again, thank you for going through this process.

We know it's a public process, and for your interest in both the city attorney and the city of Grand Rapids, and for joining us today.

Um, we'll have a total of 14 questions that we're asking you and the other candidates, and we have a total of 60 minutes for that discussion.

I'll say at the front end is more of a general introduce yourself and at the end, um, a time to wrap up anything as well as to ask us questions.

So we did that with the last candidate, so we'll do that for the other two.

Um so if if there is needed, I'll do a time check, just if I think one section is going a little bit longer, and we'll just really work to keep ourselves on track to that 60 minutes.

Does that sound good?

Sounds great.

Great, thank you so much.

Um and I think, yep, is your microphone on?

Can you just test it really?

There you go.

Okay, are you gonna hear me?

Wonderful.

Um so the first question is to tell us a little bit more about your background, your educate education and experience, and why you're interested in being the next city attorney for the city of Grand Rapids.

All right, thank you for that.

I just wanted to start too um by first saying thank you for having me here.

It's a pleasure to be here.

I've got a lot of great memories of being in Grand Rapids.

I grew up not that far from here in Three Rivers, so this was always like the big city for us.

We came here to do all the, you know, see the shows and go to the great restaurants.

And uh actually, my wife and I, one of our first dates about 20 years ago is to see the Globe Trotters at Van Handel Arena.

So uh it's it's cool to be back here, and uh it was really a pleasure to be part of that process.

It was a bit of a gauntlet yesterday, but um I think the the way it was set up was excellent.

The amount of feedback that you guys got, I think it speaks volumes.

One of how important this job is to the community and your uh priority to get feedback from all the stakeholders in the city.

So that was very fun to be a part of and to get a little sense of camaraderie with with Phil and Sarah too.

We were kind of debriefing afterwards and you know, kind of commiserating with each other.

So uh being the one outside candidate, I mean I've spent a lot of time um actually I just got back from vacation, not really great timing for me, but I spent much of my time on vacation watching your old meeting minutes and sort of uh getting a feel for where you guys are at and what it is you're looking to accomplish uh in in the future.

Uh it's very clear you guys are at a pivotal moment.

You're trying to accomplish some some big things, try to address some big complex problems uh by taking bold and decisive action.

And I what you really need, and this was clear from the brochure you guys put out as well.

I mean, you're looking for someone who's not just a typical legal advisor, someone who is uh a strategic partner, someone to collaborate with you, not necessarily to be a gatekeeper, but uh to you know help you get to those those policy objectives that you all have and navigating in areas where the parameters of the law may not be all that clear, uh that consequential gray space that's mentioned throughout the brochure that you guys uh posted for the position.

So uh whether it's addressing things like like housing, closing the 14,000 unit gap you're trying to close, uh, or addressing issues like uh criminal justice uh uh restoration, uh police reform, uh finalizing formalizing the OPA's uh oversight role and sort of juggling that with uh the collective bargaining agreements.

Uh that's all very exciting work that I would I would very much uh like to be a part of and just again helping you accomplish your uh your policy goals and to make the lives better for everyone who lives and works in Grand Rapids.

So the last thing I want to touch on before getting in in depth in my my background.

I yeah, I do have a litigation background, but I think you what you need is something a little more than that, someone who's not going to just react to litigation as it comes.

Uh, but someone who's able to sort of read the tea leaves and see where things are going.

That's something uh as I'll talk about in greater detail in a minute.

My practice is pretty much split into litigation and general representation.

Um and that litigation background gives me a lot of insight into how things are likely to shake out.

I I can tell you a number of times that you you kind of know lawsuits coming.

It's months in the offing, but you could see it happening.

Um and I can usually even predict the causes of action that they're going to bring and then kind of posture the city such that we're in a position where when we inevitably end up in court, we're in a a better position.

So I think that's an important attribute to have.

Um pivoting now to my my personal background and into my experience.

Um I grew up around local government.

I my dad moved us to Three Rivers from Texas when I was 12 to be the fire chief.

And uh I have a lot of great memories.

I mean, admittedly, sometimes the mission the meetings were boring, but uh, you know, I went to the commission meetings with them when he was giving his department reports and uh to see how local government functions was very cool to see how democracy works.

It's messy sometimes.

I know you all know that, but uh it is it is fun to see it happen uh in real time.

So I followed my dad into the fire service initially after uh after high school, uh got my ultimately got my bachelor's degree from Ferris State, went on to Wayne State for law school, uh spent a little time in Metro Detroit uh clerking for a judge first, which was an excellent first judge uh first job to have, uh opened a lot of doors for me and also gave me a great insight into how litigation actually works.

I mean things they don't teach you in law school, but uh moved to northern Michigan in 2016.

I've been up there ever since, and uh my current practice again is sort of split into two silos, I would say, and it sort of varies the breakdown of what I'm doing depending on the week or the month, even uh, but half of what I do is litigation in state, federal court uh and administrative agencies, less often in administrative agencies.

Uh right now I have 13 different cases pending in state and federal court, and we could talk about what those cases entail if you'd like, but great variety, FOIA litigation, OMA, some civil rights, uh, some uh inverse condemnation cases as well, breach of contract.

So I I have a great variety in my practice.

There's it's kind of rare that something comes across my desk I've never seen before.

I do have one case uh right now that's kind of interesting, but uh we'll get to it if we get to it organically.

But uh my general representation clients, I have two home rural cities that I represent.

Uh they both have the same form of government you all have.

It's a commissioner manager form of government.

Uh I represent a general law township, uh, a county zoning department and a regional health department.

Uh so in that capacity, I mean I touch a bunch of different uh areas of the law.

So I think that's that's all very helpful uh in this position, and I understand from talking to Ms.

Hitchcock that you know the position may not necessarily be the on the ground writing briefs, arguing motions, things like that.

But I think it certainly helps to have that experience.

So I'm speaking the same language of everyone in the law department uh who I'd be supervising.

So I wrap it up with just saying that again, I I have a lot of great memories of Grand Rapids.

This is a fantastic city.

I definitely don't see it as a big city anymore, having spent some time in New York before going to law school, so this is just kind of a right size city for me.

Uh it would be a breath of fresh air to work with a commission whose policy goals I align with.

That's been a bit of a struggle for me in northern Michigan at times.

No offense to I don't think my clients would be watching, but I love working for them, but that's sometimes uh a little difficult to grapple with.

So I'll stop there and uh take the next question.

Thank you.

Can I just ask a follow-up?

And so is that is is um to just distill what the reason that you're interested in this particular position.

To I don't want to I don't want to put those words in your mouth of uh, you know, policy positions or one client, but just wanted to clarify.

Yeah, yeah, thank you.

Um so it's a couple things.

One, this sort of like strategic collaborator aspect of my job is something I don't get to do nearly as often as I would like to.

That that's one thing.

That seems to be a very big part of what you're looking for in this role.

Um the other thing is uh and you as you pointed out, I kind of I don't get the it's very important to me to feel like I'm part of a team, one team, you know, and that's something I'm missing out on right now.

I haven't I didn't sit down and count before I came, but counting general representation clients and litigation, I'm probably representing like 15 different communities right now, and it's sort of hard to you know feel part of each and every one, you know.

So that's that's something uh is very exciting to me to have one community that I'm focusing on, to know them inside and out.

Uh that's very exciting to me and to get involved in this community.

Uh it's something I do everywhere.

Uh I live.

I mean, if you see on my resume, I I volunteer for local organizations.

Um I help set up a uh diversified community investment fund and uh in my area where we live, trying to help uh generate some housing options for folks.

So that's something that's very important to me, and that's really the primary reason I applied for this job.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Uh my name is Kelsey Perdue.

I represent our third ward um part of the city.

So we we are going to go into a few questions related to leadership.

Um so I would like to, I think we all want to hear a little bit about your leadership style and how it has evolved over time.

Um and then I'll add to it just to be consistent amongst all the the questions for the candidates.

Um when you think about what your potential legacy could be in a row like this.

Um if you could speak to that um from a leadership perspective, too.

That would be great.

Sure.

I I and this came up when I talked to the um the law department yesterday too.

And it has changed over time.

I mean, we uh you know when we come out of law school, I mean, we kind of to be fair, we don't know what we're doing.

We we think we do, but we don't.

And I remember that first law firm that I worked at where I, you know, I thought I knew what the hierarchy was, and I had a paralegal telling me I was doing something wrong.

It's like what do you know what you're talking about?

Uh she was right.

So I it's um I'm much more humble now.

And at that firm, uh man, I had I work in the toxic work environment.

I know what it's like to work for a boss like that.

Uh, and that's something that I I will never repeat.

It's something that I am mindful of every time I interact with, whether it's an associate working with me, a paralegal, a law clerk, it doesn't matter.

I I treat everyone the same way with kindness and empathy, and you know, ultimately the work has to get done, and I get that.

There are some times we're just gonna be stressed out, and that's that's the nature of the job.

But I think um, you know, helping spread that burden out is is very important to me.

I'm the type of leader where if I see someone struggling, if there's a last-minute deadline that has to be met, I'm not gonna just set a stack of papers on someone's desk and say, good luck, you need to get it to me tomorrow.

I'm gonna be the type of person to help make sure it gets done.

I mean, that's just that's how I've always been, and that's I I think it it makes people feel you know, sense of camaraderie, like they're not in it alone because again, that first work environment.

I remember they put me in a room filled with boxes of papers.

I didn't know what to do with them, but they you know said summarize them, tell me what's in it.

And so I don't like that feeling.

I don't think it's helpful, and I think ultimately what happens is you know, it stresses people out, they burn out and they quit.

And uh stressed out attorneys, they do bad work before they quit, and then it's extremely expensive to hire new talent and train them.

Uh so my priority would be making sure people, if not love coming into work, at least don't dread it.

I mean, I know what that feels like.

Um so making it just sort of a welcoming environment where we can just get good work done together.

Uh, and I want that to be my legacy.

I want people to see me as someone who you know served alongside them and and and and treated them with empathy, and you know, I care about what is happening with people outside of work.

I think it would be uh work for plenty of people where in an ideal world you leave everything out there, but that's not how it works.

I mean, it's it affects how you how you work, how you present, and I think that's important to take into account when you're when you're leading a team.

Thank you.

And then just following up on that, um, I think it's important for city leadership, whether elected or executive to to live, work, play in the city as much as possible.

Um, and so I don't believe you're currently located here.

Can you talk about your willingness or your plan to uh become integrated and connected with this uh community if you are to get this role?

That that is absolutely my intention.

You're right.

I'm pretty far away from here.

Um it's about a three hour shot right up 131.

Um, no, I've already I this is a little embarrassing.

I was already looking at houses, so but I was like, you know what, I got better pump the brakes a little bit.

So I um yeah I that's my intention, very much so to live in the city to spend time here.

Um yeah, uh that that is that is definitely my intention, but just kind of waiting to see how this pans out, obviously.

Well, thank you for that.

Um I'm Alicia Marie Belshack, I'm uh first word commissioner.

It's the west half of our city.

And um we have a lot of other appointed officials and people that you would be working with.

How would you build and maintain those relationships with those appointed officials and ensure that we are continuing government excellence within the city of Grand Rapids?

Yeah, that's that's something that um I I value greatly, just sort of the personal relationships, first and foremost, because I think it makes it a lot easier to work with folks once you sort of get to know them and uh just treat them as people.

And again, we all have jobs to do, and we have to get those jobs done, but I think it's it's easier to interact with people once you kind of find a level of you know you can relate to each other, you have a good rapport, and that's something that um I've gotten pretty good at.

You wouldn't believe it from this process.

I'm actually a little bit more of an introvert.

I prefer sort of one-on-one interactions and getting to know people, but um that's something that would be very important to me.

I I think you'd be very hard-pressed to find anyone in my past who would tell you anything, but I'm uh pretty amiable guy, I'm easy to get along with, and um ultimately I just care about the work getting done and uh getting done well.

All right.

Um, what areas of municipal law do you consider most critical for the city commission to understand?

And then part B of that is how do you ensure that complex legal concepts are understandable to all the elected officials on the commission.

At this point, I I know some of the big areas of the law that I I think that we need to be familiar with.

Um I'm just kind of going off of some recent things that have happened.

Like data centers are a big deal right now.

I mean, a lot of my communities, especially in northern Michigan, where there's a lot of open green space, they're concerned about what that means for their community.

So knowing what we can and can't do with data centers is something that I'm currently advising a lot of people on.

I know a lot of communities at the moment are sort of just taking the approach of let's pass moratoriums until we can figure it out.

But uh, even that was kind of a um, you know, a little bit of a gray area too, because a lot of communities will pass resolutions without going through the formalities that are required by the zoning enabling act.

So even that was sort of an open question which way we needed to go.

So essentially what I've told people is let's pass the resolutions and then go through all those formalities so we kind of have a placeholder.

But um areas like that, I think just keeping an eye out for what emerging issues are, data centers are big one right now.

Of course, housing, that's something all my clients are dealing with too.

Um and one of the things that really excited me about this job is the fact that um, and maybe there's just not the same sense of urgency in some of these communities I represent in northern Michigan, but uh they're kind of content to nibble around the edges and take the incremental steps that really aren't solving the supply problem.

Uh and that doesn't seem to be the case in Grand Rapids.

You seem to want to take a bigger bite of the Apple, which I think is the right approach.

And part of that is knowing what tools are in the tool chests, like brownfield, like pilots and things like that, and those are processes I've been through several times before with several of my communities.

Um I know police reform is is always a community of this size, always a concern.

Um I do spend a great deal of my time litigating those types of cases and uh providing training proactively to officers too, sort of staying up on uh as things evolve as new cases come down.

Um that's something that's very important to me, just watching that and uh keeping them up to date on what's happening.

Um I mean, those are the the biggest uh issues I'm currently dealing with.

Um but yeah, I think some of the things you guys are doing now, like this level of input from the community, this this OPA office, I think is fantastic, and something I haven't seen anywhere else.

And I think the only other example I really found of it was in Sacramento, California.

But um it's I I think it's a great tool.

I know that it's still maybe a little uncertain what the mandate is for that organization, but that you know, sort of finalizing that, I think would be uh I'd love to be a part of that.

Well, thank you very much for being here, Matt.

I'm Commissioner Marshall Kilgore.

I also have the pleasure of representing the South Side of Grand Rapids.

I was recently elected in uh last year, November.

Uh so I'd like to chat with you about uh workplace culture.

You know, what please describe to us the workplace culture you aim to create in the city attorney's office and the way and the way it should interact with other parts of the city organization.

Okay, thank you, Commissioner.

I uh probably a little redundant because of some of the previous statements, but um I think it's it's critically important to you know minimize turnover to make sure people are happy here that they're doing good work.

And um I think it was probably my favorite panel that I took part in yesterday was talking to the law department because um you know very nice people, I know they do good work.

Uh my firm, at least the office here in Grand Rapids has occasion to interact with them uh on occasion.

And um, yeah, I think what my priority would be again is just making sure people aren't overworked, making sure the burden is spread out, um, making sure that the quality is there first and foremost, because I will say that um it it's a um I I'm certainly I will tell you I'm certainly no pushover.

I'm very, very particular.

I have very high standards for myself, and those necessarily have to trickle down to other people who are working underneath me.

So that's uh something that uh may initially cause some tension, but I think ultimately we would all share the same goal.

We just want to do the best work.

Uh we just want to you know put out the best product and and serve this commission so you have the information you need to make your your policy decisions.

Uh so lawyers know there's often uh not only one answer to a question, and uh uh so uh curious if you can tell us a little bit about your approach to advising elected or uh executive leadership and complex either either complex uh or politically sensitive legal issues, and can you give us an example of where there might have been multiple paths and how you walk walk through that with uh the client or the or the uh decision makers?

Sure.

So the the best example I'm surprised it hasn't come up yet, it probably will again is I spent um about three years, and there's still some appeals pending dealing with cannabis litigation uh where I'm trying to give you the the high level version because I could probably talk about this for a full hour.

But I you know, we got through a first round of five lawsuits, got all five of them dismissed.

And by the way, this is all stuff that's been aired out in public, so this isn't there's nothing, you know, that isn't public information that we're talking about here.

But uh we got to a point where again all five initial lawsuits had been dismissed.

Uh and we're kind of I was just looking at appeals, and then we could wrap all this up.

And what was happening was there is this it was a very politically charged issue in the city.

This is a border city on Wisconsin the border with Wisconsin where marijuana is still illegal.

So, like if you go there now to some of these establishments, I would say 80, 90 percent of the cars are from Wisconsin.

So this is a huge market for these companies.

They spend a lot of money there.

Uh and they're sort of making overtures to these elected officials, and it was a frustrating dynamic for me because under normal circumstances, if I'm representing a private client, which doesn't happen terribly often, um, I would say, hey, you can't talk to them, they're represented by council.

What are you doing?

Well, that what the ethical rules actually say is if unless you have sort of a legal ability to do that outside of the context of that pending litigation, and as a as public officials, they did have that right.

So I had to sort of just you know let them talk in one ear, I talked in the others, and and and try to give them the best advice I could and you know, stay the course, let's just deal with these.

Well, what ended up happening, and this is one of those situations where we're already in litigation, but having that sort of foresight to know, like, okay, if you go down this path, this is what's probably gonna happen.

I was able to give that advice, and and sort of that's always my approach, is like I give you the options.

Like this is this is the legal framework we're working with.

We're already one on at the trial court level.

We're probably gonna win on appeal, but okay, here's this other option that you're thinking about, apparently, and here's what happens if you do this.

Um and it was one of those situations where I just had to put it all out in front of them, let them make their decision.

Um I you know, I didn't put my thumb on the scale.

I certainly had my thoughts on what the right course of action was, but they went into it knowing what the fallout would be, and that was exactly what happened.

So another two rounds of lawsuits came, and then uh a third they're currently dealing with.

So I mean that was one of those situations where I think at a certain point it's important for uh legal counsel to to a city to any municipality, know their place because it's it's not my place to tell you what the right choice is.

I've had people ask me that before.

I say, is this a good choice?

Like, I don't know, you're the one who got elected.

Like so I I just put the information in front of the elected officials, make their course of action, and I just have to pivot and deal with the new reality.

Well, you led right into my follow-up.

Um so uh lawyers all know the famous Oliver Wendell Holmes quote, I hate justice.

Um you've talked a little bit about um wanting your values to align with the organization you work with.

So how do you see your you know, role as a moral agent interplaying with your being city attorney, giving advice?

And you know, if so I I heard what you just said, but if you could talk about the moral agency problem.

Because it's it's it seems to me it's a real dilemma, and it's something you gotta deal with.

Yeah, and uh just didn't want to clarify that make sure I'm understanding your question right.

So you're talking about situations where I may not necessarily agree with the direction we're moving in.

I may it may be inconsistent with my personal morals, is that or even if you do, like how do you how do you see do you see your how do you see your role in articulating or or uh I I hesitate to say advocating, but let's say expressing Yeah, I uh in this role, um if I'm not in court zealously advocating for the city for in some particular case, I don't necessarily see my role as a you know, as sort of the general counsel here giving you advice, giving executives advice as an advocate.

I don't see that being the role at all.

I think the role is objective being objective and just giving you the research, you know.

I mean, that's I I don't put any spin on it.

Um I don't think that's my place.

Um yeah, I I think it's as simple as that for me, honestly.

I just I give you the information.

If you want more information, sure, I'll go get it for you.

But um, to to sort of and look, obviously I have my own personal politics, my own personal morality, but I um I do my best to check them at the door, and that's I it's not my place to to do anything but that, I think.

Thanks.

Um, this is question number seven, just to give you a a check of where we're at in the the process.

But how do you build trust and maintain effective working relationship with members of the selective body, or how would you?

Um again, kind of going back to this idea that we all even all of us up here have different priorities and perspectives while remaining objective and professional.

So a little bit kind of expanding on what you've just answered.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um I I think to some degree, I the uh unfortunate reality for me is the only outside candidate who you don't know yet is some trust is gonna come with time.

You I don't expect you to trust me on day one.

I'd probably be foolish to do that.

Um but you know, I I think through my my actions, my words and my actions, it it will gain your trust over time, hopefully in a short amount of time.

But um I think that's the most important thing, and then just honest and open communication.

I mean, if you want a quick turnaround on something and I don't think it's achievable, I'm gonna have to tell you that.

Um so I I think that's that's really it.

I mean, I I'm kind of again just lead by example.

I I'll show you why you should trust me.

And uh I I will say that I mean, even though you don't know me now, I mean, I do have a a track record that I think speaks well of me.

I've never never been uh reprimanded by the bar, I've never been sanctioned for any improper behavior.

I uh leave a trail of happy clients wherever I go.

So I think trust is gonna come over time uh just through just showing you that I know what I'm doing and that I'm hearing you and I'm I'm staying in my lane and and doing what it is you all need me to do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we've touched a bit on leadership and the last few questions were really focused on interactions with the commission.

The next few questions will focus on subject matter issues.

Um in the city, one thing that we see a lot, and um I'm particularly interested in is we have an obligation to protect the city as well as protect and advocate for the residents of the city.

And sometimes those things those two things are aligned, and sometimes those two things are not fully aligned, and there's and or there's tension in between.

So we'd like to hear a little bit more about how you would expect to balance the role of advising and defending the city with working to advance justice in the community as a two will sometimes be in tension.

Okay, thank you.

No, I'm good.

I just had to make some notes.

So just um so um, yeah, I obviously that there are some occasions where that attention uh that tension arises.

I mean, I could tell you having defended, like, oh, just to use the example of you know, police misconduct.

I mean, I've handled so many cases in that subject matter over the years.

For as many cases, uh obviously we have some entitlement to qualified immunity and state immunity, depending on what court we're in.

So there's a great level of deference.

So the quite the answer may be in a particular scenario are we legally liable, civilly liable.

The answer is no, but the question is was there an action that maybe shouldn't have happened, maybe it was inconsistent with a policy, uh, or maybe policies need to change.

So I I appreciate that tension as for and as for as many cases I've gotten dismissed, I've settled just as many because sometimes it's obvious when when there was a mistake made.

And I think that's important because I think at all levels of government, uh people have a bit of a distrust in government, and I think that's somewhat woven into our DNA as a as a country, and maybe that's a healthy thing uh to have that level of distrust.

But I I think to um admit when we've made a mistake is important.

Uh it goes a long way to to building that trust.

Uh and sometimes it's the uh that's one thing I've tried to do over the course of my career over the course of the 13 years I've been practicing is to do the right thing even when it's a difficult thing to do.

I mean it's it's always it's always it's difficult at the time, but I I think that uh we need to be um I think objective and know when we need to to course correct a little bit.

So that's happened plenty of times in the context of cases that on one hand I am zealously advocating for the community, but I also realize there's a problem, and um I think it's important to know the difference and to know when to fight and know when to sort of come to the table and say, okay, we need to make this right, we need to fix it so this doesn't happen again.

Uh and that's happened too in the municipal prosecutions that I do uh for communities.

I there's one example that I think will always stand out to me.

And if anyone watched the meeting uh last night, apologies, this is gonna be redundant.

But this is just like one of those, I have a handful of memories that just I you know will never leave my mind from the work that I've done.

And one was this this guy in in uh northern Michigan City where he was arrested for being a disorderly person.

He was just as far as far as we knew at the time, he was just picking fights with people in a convenience store for no apparent reason.

And so he gets picked up, we charged him with a misdemeanor, uh, an ordinance misdemeanor.

And we come come to find out the guy was having like a complete psychotic break, and he his son calls me, you know, in tears talking about you know he doesn't know what's going on with his dad, he can't get him to get help.

And so it was at that point, you know, I I think that the role of the municipal prosecutors is sometimes it doesn't mean going by the letter of the law, and I didn't think the right thing in that scenario was to put this guy in jail to saddle him with with fines when what he needed was mental health treatment.

So um I I did what I could to um to help him get that, but um the story really doesn't have a very happy ending because I realized then that it doesn't the system doesn't uh take care of everyone.

There are a lot of gaps.

I don't know that that's something we could fill at the city level, but there are gaps, and unfortunately um this gentleman was you know, he he underwent an evaluation and was promptly released again and re-offended.

So we ended up dismissing the charges, and that was just one of those scenarios where I think you know, if you're going by just the letter of the law, the right thing to do is to okay, well, we got this guy dead to rights, let's take him to trial.

And you know, if he has if he goes to jail, uh, you know, that's well, that's what the penalties were.

But I think the right thing to do in that scenario was to dismiss the charges, and sometimes that's where I think that tension of zealously advocating for the city versus taking care of the residents.

I think something has to give, and we should, I think more often than not, err on the side of protecting the residents and you know, making sure that the their lives are as good as they can be.

Thank you.

And and one follow-up to something you said, um, you talked about being able to admit when we make a mistake.

I think I've observed that we are in a very uh litigious uh society and time.

Um and so uh I'm curious if you might want to speak a little bit more about how we might balance admitting when we made a mistake and understanding that sometimes that may that may uh bring about increased legal risk.

Yeah.

No, I mean that's the uh that's the obvious trade-off.

I mean, I I can tell you that um a number of times things that people say in these meetings, you better believe if someone's gonna sue the city later, they're gonna tell you in your deposition what you said at this meeting on this date.

So they're gonna throw it right back in your face.

And you know, I've had that happen before.

I I mean w one example stands out, like a I'm not gonna use the community's name, but there was a northern Michigan county that just had a systemic problem with its jail, and we had multiple suicides and a pretty tight window.

Um, and the sheriff was it kind of gave me heartburn at the time, but he was out in the press just like saying how bad the jail was and how we need to fix things.

And of course, you know, in my role as the advocate in those cases, I was just like, oh God, I really wish he hadn't said that.

But he's telling the truth.

And what ended up happening eventually was we got the funding necessary to you know to build that uh the improvements they needed at the jail.

I haven't seen any cases like that come through since, but you know, you're right.

But you're right.

I mean, there's at a certain point, I mean, there's a trade-off, and that's one of the things when it uh during the community panel yesterday.

I understand we people were asking about well, how are you going to be transparent?

That's a difficult proposition for an attorney because there's certain things we just can't talk about.

I mean, there are certain privileged conversations I I can't talk about.

And um I get it, that's I probably an unavoidable tension to some degree, and there may be scenarios where if we are like in litigation or litigation seems pending, we might have to convert have a conversation about like you know, maybe we might want to temper the language a little bit, but um I think the reality again is that you all are the ones who are answerable to the voters.

If something happens in your ward and you feel like you need to disseminate information to them, it's not my place to tell you not to.

So I I again would be one of those situations where I say, hey, this might come up in a case later if you say this.

So uh that's all I would do uh is just sort of let you know, like there's risks associated with it, which you've you've acknowledged, but um I think ultimately erring on the side of transparency is is the best way to best way to go.

Thank you.

That's a great lean in the past.

Um I would say I think you answered the next question without knowing it.

Um so we'll I'll ask the question and then I will add my follow-up and you can you know go from there.

Um so yes, Grand Rapids is a community that is very interested in transparency and in government, and you've kind of touched on the the trust issue that tends to be out there.

Um you've talked you've already mentioned that the legal field tends to be steeped in confidentiality.

We do deal with those things in our closed door sessions and elsewhere when we're doing it.

Talking about things in the community.

So, how can the city attorney help the city be more transparent?

And then my follow-on with that would be you know, thinking about helping craft or helping us have more proactive strategic communication when we're dealing with um certain circumstances.

Yeah, I think I mean it's often going to be um situation dependent.

I mean, I think if there's just some general lingering problem that we can talk generally about and disseminate information, like I don't think it would be inappropriate for you know to help people navigate how to file a claim with the city or something like that.

For that to come from the city attorney's office, that makes sense, and maybe even some guidance on submitting foyer requests like things like that, just general circumstances, I think that would be perfectly fine for the city attorney's office uh to do that.

I and again, things just get more complicated when we're dealing with either pending litigation or I mean, just we we know it's coming.

I mean, uh that's when I think uh we need to sort of circle the wagons a little bit and be a little more careful with what we say.

Um but um yeah, I it it's not lost on me that I think Grand Rapids more so than any other city I've ever seen, uh, is very proactive about its communication, like the level of the videos you all do, the videos the city manager does.

I'm not seeing that anywhere else.

And I and I can't uh I hope that's not lost on the the residents of this city because I don't I mean the residents of a lot of the cities I represent, they don't know what's going on in local government.

And I think that you we're at least making you're making the effort to do that.

Uh but yeah, it's my role I think makes it a little complicated.

I would certainly be open to hearing feedback from the community, what it is they think they want to hear from the city attorney's office, and any time I can within my uh the limits of my ethical obligations do that, I would absolutely do that.

All right.

Um, what do you see as future challenges that the city of Grand Rapids may face in the near near term and long term, and then how can the city attorney best help address them?

I think you kind of alluded to some of that in your last answer.

Yeah, um I guess the first thing that kind of comes to mind.

I mean, I already talked about data centers, I don't have much to elaborate on that, and I wonder how big of a concern that is even going to be for you all in Grand Rapids.

I don't know how much green space you have that would accommodate a data center.

But I think as technologies evolve and and new things sort of crop up, I mean, that's gonna be um that's gonna be inevitable.

But you know, one of the things that I could very well see being an issue uh in the near future is as part of your housing reforms making changes to your zoning ordinances uh in ways that may prompt uh like regulatory taking type claims from local property owners.

Um I've dealt with a couple of cases like that.

So uh I think that is what's likely to come up.

Um of course, there again, just given the size of Grand Rapids and the number of interactions your law enforcement has with community members, I think those cases are probably going to be inevitable.

And uh, you know, I I those are the big things that stand out to me.

I mean, it's um I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage.

Well, I did spend a good amount of time looking at your meeting minutes for the last year.

I didn't really get a feel for everything that's going on here.

So I think it's important uh, especially for someone like me coming from a different community to listen to you, listen to members of the community to know what's going on and what I should be paying attention to.

But uh without having that sort of intimate knowledge today, I would say that those are sort of the big issues that I see.

Okay.

Uh what areas of municipal it's gonna come up city law uh do you have the most experience in, and which areas do you have the uh least experience in?

I'll uh I'll start with the the least.

Um, the nice thing about practicing a municipal law, there's that old saying where it's a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one, and that's kind of me in a nutshell.

I mean, I've touched a lot of different areas of the law, but the one thing I kind of avoid, like the plague is um I've dealt with some municipal financing and bond uh issues, but that gets especially when you're dealing with like headly and things like that, it gets to be a little wonky for me.

So there's um a firm, you know, the best firm in the state, in my opinion, that does this for every community represent.

So for highly specialized areas like that, I will um generally confer with someone outside.

Uh there may be someone in the law department who specializes in that.

That's entirely possible.

I guess I don't know that.

But personally, I I would say that is the area that I'm definitely soft on.

I don't know that as well as I um probably could.

Um but as far as the the area I know the best, I mean, I've done an awful lot of civil rights litigation.

I mean, that and of all different stripes.

I mean, it it's First Amendment claims uh in all sorts of different contexts.

I've dealt with like um there's this uh religious land use and institutionalized persons act that kind of has some protections for churches and things like so.

I've dealt with that type of litigation.

I've dealt with uh First Amendment retaliation litigation, uh wrongful arrests, wrongful search and seizure, um deliberate indeference cases.

So I mean you get it.

But it's it's a similar framework, so I'm extremely comfortable with with those types of issues, uh dealing with like substantive due process and procedural due process claims.

Um but yeah, those are those are probably the the cases I see most often, uh aside from like OMA claims and FOIA claims, those come, you know, in trips and drabs.

I'll get a few a year, but um yeah, that's thank you.

Uh so the next question we have the next question we have for everyone is is um I'm gonna have to reframe it a little bit for you because I don't think you the um probably been in a venue where you've had in um as much interagency cooperation, but if you could think of an example of a time when you had um essentially multiple uh entities or agencies working in this pulling in the same direction potentially on uh a legal issue.

Um how do could can you speak to you know an instance where you sort of had to align various groups and and get them to work in the same direction?

I I think the best example I could really come up with is um there are certainly times, especially in northern Michigan where there's a lot of sort of overlapping jurisdictions.

Um we'll get cases where we have you know my local police, county police, state police all sort of in the same uh encounter.

And there are times where you know, for the most part our interests are aligned, but um, you know, there's there's some tension there because it matters very much.

I'm I'm thinking in the context of like a police misconduct type case.

Um but it it does arise occasionally in other civil cases.

You know, we we try to stay in the same direction until at a certain point something's got to give and someone's gonna be left holding the bag.

Uh and some that's not always the case.

Sometimes we all get out.

But um, you know, I I think collaborating it to the extent we can um and and rowing in the same direction.

I'm certainly comfortable doing that, but um I think everyone knows um at a certain point when interests diverge, I mean ultimately I have to look out for the best interest of the entity I'm representing.

So um that's probably the best example.

I mean, I could think of some like infrastructure projects where there were other entities involved, but that was pretty uncontroversial.

These were like you know, sewer main extensions where we're working with the federal government and things like that.

But um yeah, I think the litigation context would probably be the best example that I have.

Um this will this question will kind of follow that uh about stakeholders, but in a different way.

So you've heard us talk a little bit about you know, Grand Rapids is a community, not a big city, but you know, a desire for a lot of transparency and and and overall I would say stakeholders, community members from the day you had yesterday with a number of people being part of this interview process, really want to make sure we're engaging them at all levels and that their perspectives are being considered.

Can you give us an example of a time where you engage stakeholders that were part of like a broader general community?

So not so much like the last question that might have been on a sensitive or controversial issue.

I I can't take credit for it myself, but I I do push like when there is a politically sensitive issue in a community, I do push that public body to engage, you know, and and make sure that they're pushing out not just the the normal OMA compliance notice, but to really reach out, whether it's through social media or whatever the case may be to engage people who may be impacted uh by that issue.

So I it's not something I do directly, but I certainly encourage uh the communities I represent to uh engage the public because again I think that sometimes, and I'm guilty of this too as a city servant, you kind of lose track of the fact you just have a job to do, you kind of lose track of the fact the people you actually report to are the people who vote.

So um I think that's important, and that's something that I I never really lose lose sight of.

Um but yeah, I just in my role, I I can't say that I'm the one who uh engages those stakeholders, but it's certainly something that I encourage and something I listen to.

I mean it's important to me to hear what they have to say, and I'm I'm at those meetings listening to those public comments too.

Thank you.

All right, the time is now one fifty, so we have about 18 more minutes, and we are at the concluding point of the interview.

Um we do want to open it up to allow you to leave closing comments on anything that we may or may not have covered.

Um, but then also want to give you the opportunity uh to ask any questions of us if you might have them.

Okay, uh if you don't mind, start with the questions, just have probably keep it to just a couple, but um I I guess just generally I I think I got a pretty decent sense of what you're looking for from the brochures that Mosaic put together and put out.

But can and this might be a little awkward, I don't know if you've been select as uh spokesperson, but what is it what are you looking for?

Like to hear it straight from you, like what what is your next city attorney?

What is the ideal person look like?

I'll start since I'm off mute.

Um I think for me personally, I mean, there's so many things that are important, right?

From you know, leading a really strong department, doing the the day-to-day kind of typical work, but I think right now, um, at the time that we are in politically and legislatively, and with all the emerging issues uh that we do have.

Uh I want to work with someone who can be a strategic thought partner and someone who has an appetite for risk and for finding or creating legal pathways to allow us to do things that we believe are in the best good of our entire community.

Um so I kind of one of my questions earlier was around kind of that balancing that tension.

Um, and that's kind of behind some of the questions that got to that for me.

Okay.

I open it to others.

Well, let's go in the same order.

Uh one of the thank you, Mayor.

Um, yeah, I um I added before that um this is my seventh year on the commission, and so um our previous city attorney was here when I got here, but I had known of her when she was first appointed because I was on our civil service body.

And so again, going back to somebody who can really uh whoever gets this job has a really strong team that they're getting handed.

And sometimes as leaders, you get a team that needs to be fixed or you know, created, and that's not the case here.

Um a really strong team, and so somebody who would be um able to, you know, to build upon that to value what's already there, I think is really important to me.

Um I think somebody who is going to recognize that you know I think I said in my last answer, uh, somebody told me recently, you know, I'm running and I think I'm really prepared, and I said you'll never be prepared.

Every single new year, new session, something that I didn't expect has happened to me in this seat, and so the ability to be organized but stay agile and flexible.

Um I think a leader is somebody who I always say you know you know a a lot.

I'm sorry, you know a little bit about a lot of things, but maybe you're no longer the expert in one particular thing, um, but it's around relationships and people.

So I would think that those rise, you know.

I think when we get to this stage too, um, you know, working with the firm, you've got you know three strong candidates, and I think that um, you know, so it kind of goes into some of those different nuances.

So yeah, thank you.

Um I think from my perspective, uh, both for what both both of my colleagues have said, um, but also that that alignment with community, really being able to engage and hear from the community and have that strong moral compass that's really gonna be their their foundational guide because of course there's representation of the city, and that is um what that job is, but also being able to come from a standpoint and and give advice and guidance um from a moral position as well as it pertains to our community.

Um somebody that is is is really has a heart uh for this community as a whole.

Because it's real easy to get caught up in in pockets and spaces um and lean towards one area or another.

But um our community is very diverse.

Um we are a large small city um and continuing to grow daily, and so being able to really have that foresight and perspective on what the needs are uh in this community.

Commissioner Cover.

Yeah, I split it into three buckets.

Uh first to uh also echo some of the comments of my colleagues, a compassionate heart for people.

That's all a city is a collection of folks.

Uh an excellent communicator, someone who can uh communicate uh law and all of the legal things to folks who learn differently, who have diverse backgrounds uh and experiences, and then lastly, longevity.

So someone who's going to be able to stay on the role uh sees themselves in the in the role long term and will have some growth in the role.

Commissioner Bell.

So um in addition to all of that, we we've touched on the transparency issue, and I think like um there is a real appetite for not from just us as commissioners, but also a need out in the community to have um education, understanding why we do what we do, why um the legal precedent or the decision was made, and to help us be advocates for that.

So I do see that there is a need to be a strong communicator, strategic partner, proactive, helping create uh talking points and or even up here at the uh during meetings to to be willing to speak to that and all of that in in the interest of building better trust and better relationships so that we can function better out of the city.

And as I said last time, this is your interview, not ours.

So I'd like to hear what uh what else you'd like to add.

Well, how much time do we have left?

I don't want to ten minutes, 10 minutes.

I don't know if I'll eat up all the 10 minutes with my closing remarks, but that was sort of uh intentional because I wanted you to prompt me to just sort of highlight some things.

So I I want to just sort of take it um in reverse order, uh, Commissioner Kilgore.

You mentioned longevity.

I mean, this is um I love being in Northern Michigan.

This is truly the only job that would take me from northern Michigan.

I didn't expect it to come open.

Um and my intention would be I'm tired, I don't like interviewing.

Interviewing is is not my ideal way to spend uh a few days, but I would want to stay here until I retired.

Like I mean, and you know, if genetics is any indication, probably 25 years or so, yeah.

Like I want to stay here for a very long time.

I want to leave a lasting legacy here.

I want to do good work here, and um that would be my intention is to stay here long term.

Um you mentioned communication um with other sort of multiple people mentioned that, but I hope you've at least gathered from this conversation that there's probably nothing I value more than my communication and my connection with people.

Um again, I uh more of an introvert by nature, but like when I connect with someone, I usually connect with them pretty deeply.

I don't like small talk kind of kills me a little bit.

I talking about the weather and sports, just I die a little bit every time I do it.

So I like talking to people about things that matter to them and and meeting them where they're at, and that's very important to me.

So I know that I would do that internally and with with members of the of the public.

Um and to sort of jump around a little bit.

We mentioned the um you know leadership of the law department and how it's it's already functioning pretty well.

Uh and I is I certainly had this conversation with the law department yesterday.

That is not my personality to come in and you know, day one, like, no, this is my department, now we're changing.

No, I I'm the new piece, I would get in where I fit in, and I would we would keep growing in that same direction.

So again, I the the part about this job that excites me so much is that role of like a strategic partner, not necessarily just giving you generic legal advice.

I think being creative and taking some calculated risks, I think is important, and I think that's what progress requires oftentimes.

Um but uh I I will say too, and I I get that um uh Grand Rapids is a diverse community, and that's not lost on me.

And I think we should always, I know you all are, and I know I will look at everything that we're doing, whether it's an ordinance, a policy, anything at what its downstream effects are going to be for everyone.

Um so that's important.

I mean, I you know, uh it's there's gonna be times when there's tension and and some communities uh may feel uh the burden more than others.

We should try to avoid that, obviously, but they're gonna be uh perhaps some situations where that happens.

But I think that's where again we have to be uh flexible, and when we see that happen, okay, well, what can we do to fix it?

Is there some way we can mitigate those those adverse impacts?

Um I will say too, I don't know how often uh the city attorney is is out in the public, but I am certainly comfortable being out in the public, even though I am a bit of an introvert.

I'll probably have to drive home in silence just to recover from the last couple days.

But um, I'm comfortable doing it.

I've been doing it for years in court and and giving presentations to large groups, and it's uh not something I would shy away from.

And and I uh I I I think it's a great goal, Commissioner Belchak, to as much as we can to educate the public.

Um, and I would have I'd be happy to be uh a part of that.

Um and uh I guess the final point, I mean, I I don't pride myself on always getting it right, but I always try to do the right thing.

Um, and that's um that that informs everything that I do with how I interact with everyone, how I do my work.

So um you mentioned having a good moral compass, and it's you know, I I certainly hope you didn't get the wrong impression by me saying that my morality may not necessarily weigh into legal opinions.

That's you know, I I have to give objective advice, but obviously I am a person and I I do have a strong moral compass, and I always try to do the right thing.

I think anyone in the public can at least rest assured that I'm trying my best to do what's right and what's equitable and good for everyone for both the city and for the residents of Grand Rapids.

So and uh I'll do my best to explain when I make a decision.

So people may not like the explanation, but at least they have one.

So we may be a little bit early, but um again, probably wouldn't believe it from this interview.

I'm not terribly loquacious type.

I don't like talking uh if I don't have to, I'm more of a listener than a talker, but that would make for a very awkward interview.

So I will uh I'll cut it off there, but again, I really do want to thank you all.

Oh, and of course, I want to say too that um I really did get to know Phil and Sarah a little bit.

Awesome people.

I kind of wish they weren't, so I could still see them as the competition, but uh they they are excellent.

I I think no matter who you pick, um you guys are gonna be in great hands.

So thank you again so much for having me here.

All right, colleagues, um, and Mr.

Strom, nice to see you.

Um we are here at our third and final interview.

I'm gonna go through the same opening that I did with all the other candidates.

Um again, thank you for your interest in the city attorney position and for joining us today.

Obviously, we know you've been serving in this interim role.

Um for today, we have a total of 14 questions and about 60 minutes for those questions.

Um, if needed, I'll I'll jump in on a timing if I think you're going over on one a little bit too long.

Um, you'll also have time at the end to make a closing statement.

It looks like we're running where people are having anywhere between um 10 to 15 minutes at the end of the time to be able to do that just to just to um keep on track.

Um some of our colleagues may ask clarifying questions or to share a little bit more.

And if you need us to clarify, please let us know too.

So, with that, I will jump into the first question.

Um, can you please tell us about your background, your education, your experience, and why you want to be the next city attorney for the city of Grand Rapids.

Thank you.

Certainly thank you for having me.

Thank you for trusting me for the last seven months.

Thank you to all those that were involved in this process, the other candidates included.

Uh it's been a busy but uh very beneficial last couple of days.

I've spent my career dedicated and committed to public service.

I'm a proven leader, both internal to this organization, but I have external leadership uh experience that spans my career.

I have a strategic vision on how to bring our law department forward to provide excellent legal services to this city and to you as a commission.

Above all of those things, I have a deep understanding and a deep connection to this city and to this community.

I was born and raised in the upper peninsula, Escanaba, Michigan.

Yes, I've seen the movie.

Uh I graduated from high school up there and went to Western Michigan University for my undergrad uh down in Kalamazoo, fell in love with West Michigan uh in Kalamazoo.

I went to Cooley Law School in Lansing where I got bit by the public service bug.

Uh I participated in a legal clinic called 60 Plus.

It's an elder law clinic where student legal interns provide free legal advice to seniors in the community that have nowhere else to turn to and have legal issues that are impacting their lives.

I moved home in 2009 back to the upper peninsula where I joined a family practice downtown.

Uh I'm a fourth generation lawyer.

My family has been providing legal services in the upper peninsula for four generations, and I'm really proud of that.

I practice in private practice, and in 2009, we had some very uh grave economic conditions as a nation.

And I saw the most value to my community and to the firm to be a public defender for indigent people that were charged with crimes.

I joined the court-appointed list and I represented individuals charged with felonies, and I spent a lot of time at the jail talking to people, learning about why they happened to be in the situation they were in and how I could help them come out of that situation with some grace and some uh tools that maybe would allow them not to find their way back in.

Uh in that private practice, we also had a relationship with Michigan Municipal Risk Management Authority.

So I got an intro to municipal law traveling around the UP representing clerks, representing uh smaller cities and law enforcement agencies when they were sued uh and and we would handle the litigation.

In that role, I formed a relationship with the prosecutor.

Uh I often found uh navigating those cases.

Uh you needed a good relationship with the prosecutor, and he asked me to join his office as an assistant prosecutor uh several years later.

I worked my way up and uh focused on victims' crimes for a number of years before uh my boss got elected to the district court bench, and I was appointed to the elected position by the circuit court judge.

I ran for election, I was successful, I had no competition, but that doesn't make you any less of an elected official.

Um in that moment, I saw an opportunity to do some real good work within the criminal justice system.

I focused on rehabilitation, I focused on restoration, and we did things like establish the first drug court.

We started a program called Handcuffs to Hard Hats, where we partnered people in the criminal justice system with gainful employment through the trades and the skilled labor groups.

And we started a program called the Angel Program, where individuals that were suffering from substance abuse, addiction, or mental health treatment, could go to the police department or a law enforcement agency and get connected with a community member.

And in a remote uh community, you can imagine there's not a lot of services.

So that community member would provide transportation and a kind ear and help transport those individuals, and they would be immune from charges or prosecution.

That program caught on statewide, and it was adopted by the Michigan State Police, and a little small rural community in the UP was leading the way across the state.

At that same time, we were running out for millages because our jail was dangerous.

It was dangerous for the inmates, it was dangerous for the corrections workers.

It was not a community service center or a corrections facility.

It was an old school linear jail, and it was fallen into Lake Michigan, to be honest with you.

And the first millage we went out, uh I went out with the county administrator and the sheriff, and we lost by less than 10 votes.

Uh we did not get deterred.

We went back out and we won by several hundred votes a short time later.

And we parlayed that into a USDA loan uh opportunity backed by the um millage, and we started our work to build a state-of-the-art correctional facility that would be safe for the corrections officers in the union and also the inmates that were going to be housed there, the people that were gonna be housed there.

Shortly into that project, right when we were kind of breaking ground and and well on our way, our county administrator decided to leave for a CFO job.

As prosecutor, I had taken on a general counsel role to the county to help us save money.

We looked at the legal bills that were coming in for outside counsel, and I said, hey, we can do this, and we can save the county a lot of money.

And I was getting burnt out on criminal justice stuff at the same time, so it was kind of a breath of fresh air to work on some corporate counsel uh things.

Uh I jumped into the county administrator role, uh, finished off that correctional facility project, all while serving as an elected official as a trustee on the community college in the upper peninsula.

And uh that brings me to 2019.

Uh I joined the city attorney's office as the deputy.

I drove down here uh for two interviews with Anita Hitchcock, and I didn't know at that time how close we would become.

Uh have really appreciated her mentorship.

Uh I've been in every city commission meeting that I can think of since I started, with the exception of one when COVID was happening.

I've been in top management.

I've advised pretty much every department and board that you can think of in those six years, and the last seven months have been on-the-job training for this position.

I'm proud of the work that we've done over the last seven months, and I'm happy to answer any additional questions about my background.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So, our next few questions are going to talk uh focus on leadership.

Uh so we'd like to hear a little bit a little bit more about your leadership style and how it has evolved over time.

And for the sake of consistency, I'd also ask you, like you spoke about your predecessor and the legacy that she has left.

Um, what legacy would you look forward to leaving uh if you were in this role?

I lead by example.

I've had a almost any job that you can think of from riding on the back of a garbage truck to pumping gas at a gas station.

So if you aren't willing to do the work, then you I don't think you can really expect anybody else to do it.

So you have to know the work before you can delegate it.

Uh I'm a servant leader.

Uh I know those are kind of buzzwords, and it's it's easy to say that, but I I think my records uh is serves as evidence to that.

Uh Anita Hitchcock's legacy is something that I'll carry with me and hope to um expand on.

Her legacy and her charge was always she wanted to leave the city better than the way that she found it.

And I think she did that.

Her thumbprint is on a heck of a lot of great initiatives that have happened here.

Our city is changing.

The practice of law is changing and evolving.

Technology is requiring attorneys to do this work differently and to uh understand technological resources in order to give the best services to the client.

So I'm committed to understanding and adapting to the practice of law.

We need to recruit and retain excellent attorneys, and we need to remain focused on the three pillars of our success.

How is our department of law?

How are our attorneys and our staff people doing?

How is our client feeling about our work?

And then the third thing that we haven't been able to quite get to recently is how is the community feeling?

Some of the things that the community is feeling, we might not be able to directly impact in the law department, but we can be present to listen.

We can understand what our neighbors are are thinking about the city, and the law department can help you as elected officials set policy and understand some risks and benefits associated with the policy work to account for our changing community.

We have a lot of excellent uh economic catalyst projects that are underway, and that's going to change how people interact with our city.

And our law department is committed and I'm committed with through my leadership to bring us uh through that in a healthy way.

Thank you.

And I've also been commenting that I think that it's important for elected and and certainly executive uh team members to live, work, and play in the city as much as possible.

Um so just curious about your willingness and your readiness and how you're approaching the idea of living and being connected and integrated to the community as a whole.

I've got no other choice, and I'm really happy about that.

I got uh two kids.

Um my wife works for the city.

Uh I coach softball at MLK Park for the Ted Raspberry League in the summers.

I'm the elected president for the local bar association.

So our legal community is trusted that I will have roles in the community to advance the mission of that uh local bar association and make sure that our legal community is prepared for the the future in in Grand Rapids and beyond.

I embrace it.

I think that there can be some discomfort.

You know, you gotta be able to hold a room, sometimes of people that don't agree with you or necessarily like you, but you gotta be unashamed to go into that room and be a good listener.

Uh you got to be careful not to commit to things that you can't control or that uh might cause undue um consequences or unintended consequences, but we can show up.

I've been doing that for the last six years, and I'm really excited to keep doing that into the future.

Thank you.

Yeah, and uh as really like what you said about holding holding a room, and that you are here um helping us with our changing community right now, and to that end.

How do you now and would you in the future continue to build and maintain relationships with other appointed officials so that we can ensure governmental excellence here in Grand Rapids?

Yeah.

Uh I have a good track record of doing that.

Uh city clerk and the law department work very closely every time there's an election.

I've worked every election but one when my family had COVID and we were all on lockdown in a different time of all of our lives.

But uh I've been at every election.

I've been there late.

We've counted, we've made sure that the um the information is coming in.

We're monitoring the elections to make sure that they're safe and secure during the time that people are voting.

We have conversations and we prepare for situations that we hope never happen, and uh our city clerk is wonderful.

Uh our city manager, we've worked together with him through very difficult times.

I'll hearken back to 2022, a time when the pandemic was in full force and we had civil unrest downtown, and we were all quickly.

I was uh back here from a vacation, and in 24-7 lockdown, Anita Hitchcock and I would give each other breaks along the way, but we were talking about some things that I never learned about in law school.

How do we do we have an emergency executive order from the city at that time through the mayor?

Are there resources beyond the city that we need to utilize in this time to restore some sort of public safety in our community?

Could those things have an adverse impact on our citizens and on our workers?

And those conversations were were very difficult, but we provided I know really valuable legal counsel through those times to make sure that the options were understood, the risks were managed, and that decisions were made confidently and competently.

So uh this the city treasurer and I, he is uh a great person to come up into the office, shut the door, and brainstorm about different things.

And uh my wife works for the treasurer's office in full disclosure and and has for some time, and so uh I'm really proud of the relationships that I've formed already.

I'm excited to see if I were in the official appointed role, how we could uh continue to see those growth.

All right.

Um seems like an interesting question, but what do you see as future challenges that the city of Grand Rapids may face in the near term or long term?

And then how can the city attorney best help to address them?

Well, we all know that there's land use conversations that are happening through our master plan and zoning review.

Uh there's some uh politically um interesting conversations that will have to happen as it relates to housing and density and use of our land in a city.

We all know that there's not a ton of green space.

So, how do we uh put our land to best use through our land use and zoning codes and and our planning department?

We have new facilities coming on board for public activation, and whenever there's large-scale public events in our city, we need to be mindful of uh public safety, but also public use and the the rights of those using it, whether it's First Amendment rights or you know uh different behaviors that you might see after concerts, uh traffic and pedestrian safety, all of those things are really going to be tested as those new public uh spaces come online.

We will never be at a loss for a conversation around police and community expectations.

You had a uh very valuable conversation just this morning, and I think that we can't ignore some of those things.

I I look forward to hearing more about the future of policing, but more so the holistic approach to community safety.

And I think the city attorney's office is going to be instrumental in in all of those conversations.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Please describe the workplace culture you aim to create in the city attorney's office and the way it should interact with other parts of the city organization.

First of all, we take care of our people.

Uh we have such a wonderful team.

I've had the pleasure of hiring or being involved in hiring not all, but most of the team that we currently have serving the the law department.

Uh we are intentional about communication and collaboration.

We have weekly meetings within our divisions, and we have uh monthly meetings as a all staff.

We have a leadership team that meets monthly, and then we have social events throughout the year that we try to engage and forget about work and possibly go bowling or have a barbecue or go out to a local restaurant and and share some uh friendship around breaking bread and talking about things that aren't related to work.

Uh those individuals help us maintain good relationships with the with the client or the departments and and the city commission.

And if they're not happy, our client's not going to be happy.

We've built a practice around doing satisfaction surveys, both internally to our employees, but also internally to our client.

Uh we also are working on a way to get community uh feedback on satisfaction.

It's it's a as a city attorney, our role is really internal spacing.

We advise the organization through the departments and through the city commission, but we have a role to understand the community, to have a pulse on the community because a lot of things the things that departments are doing depend on it.

So we're we're still finding what that right balance is in the community sector.

Um, but those are some things that we've done for employee and client satisfaction.

Thank you.

So lawyers know there's often not only one answer to a question.

Uh and so if you could describe an example of uh maybe your approach on advising elected officials and leadership generally on complex and um politically sensitive issues, but also maybe give us an example of where there were multiple legally defensible paths and explain how you walk through the risks and trade-offs for your clients.

Absolutely.

First, it's about accessibility.

Uh you have to be willing to put in the hours and work hard and be accessible.

I understand as elected officials, you may get approached outside of business hours.

You might most have jobs and lives and kids or family members that require your attention.

So uh first and foremost, you have to be accessible, and that also comes with being trusted.

You have to trust going into the city attorney's office or making a phone call late at night and not really caring that it's after business hours, but uh you might need to know some information, and I'm I'm comfortable with that.

I invite that.

I expect it as an elected official, especially as a trustee to the college that was maybe a little bit more similar to the to the role that you have.

I would call the president when I needed to know an answer because uh that's just the way it had to be.

And so I expect that as an appointed official.

I think um if you don't feel trusted or you don't feel like you're gonna get an answer on the other end of the phone, you're gonna be reluctant to make that call.

So uh you got to have consistency with your communication and your approachability.

Uh and then you have to be able to be a good listener before you can be a good advisor.

Sometimes good ideas and alternative solutions come out of the listening, and sometimes you allow uh others to own that idea and test that idea, and you collaborate to come up with some alternative solutions, and hopefully by being a good listener uh that breeds good innovation and good conversation.

Uh this happens often.

We've experienced it, I would say, in the last seven months together, but the example I'll draw from was again coming out of COVID.

We had our public spaces being utilized in a way that was uh understandable but not acceptable.

So there was tents and property being left behind and spaces that were being unable to be used by other public members, and we had to find a way to be compassionate and empathetic to individuals that were really struggling with housing and paying bills and getting medical treatment and the way that uh some of our spaces were trying to be used by other individuals in the community coming out after being locked down in our houses for a long time.

People were hungry to get out to the parks and use them.

And so uh there was some community members and other municipalities that were passing some very punitive laws that would punish and criminalize behaviors in public spaces, and they were oftentimes getting sued and losing.

And there were other municipalities that were doing absolutely nothing, and they were getting sued, and they were sometimes losing.

And we took a more balanced approach.

It maybe it's not the perfect approach, but we took a more balanced approach, and we said, how do we embed the most due process and the most compassion in these circumstances while also having some accountability?

So we stood up city services first through our property maintenance code, and we put in places where people could store their property.

We trained internally the staff that would be first responders to this, which included the homeless outreach team and some of our downtown ambassadors and our people that are not uniformed police officers that could maybe have a different reception if they were on the front end of this.

And we talked to them about some resources that we could help with.

And generally we found that people would comply if they just understood what the expectations were.

We did some signage that helped kind of reiterate that.

And very rarely, if ever have we had to get criminal based on that.

Sometimes there's criminal activity that co-occurs that behavior, but in general, uh I know for a fact that most people comply when they're confronted and asked to provide a cleaner, healthier, more universally used space in our community.

So that was a challenge.

There were some very strong internal and external political opinions.

So let me ask you a follow-up question I've asked before.

Um the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote, I hate justice.

Um how do you see balancing your obligation as city attorney to navigate the law with your you know role as a moral agent in the community?

The rule of law is critical.

So as an attorney, you know, uh we advocate for the rule of law.

If we can't follow the law ourselves as an organization, we can't expect anyone else to follow the law.

Uh you are policymakers and you get to set the law, so uh we owe it to you as the city attorney's office to help you understand some of the um legal considerations while you're making those policy decisions.

Uh as you stated before, there's probably a bunch of answers to that question, and it likely depends on the the facts and the circumstances, which I acknowledge is a classic attorney answer, but um we cannot be risk immune as a city.

We just there's more risk in that than taking on some risk here and there.

You need to know what that level of risk is, and you need to know what the unintended consequences might be, and we stand by ready to do the research and the legal analysis to make sure we're not missing it.

Um we will not get it right every single time, all the time, and that's okay.

We the law is malleable to a certain extent.

We can go boldly forward and then make adjustments as we need to along the way.

Thanks.

Okay, this is question number seven, just to give you a sense of where we're at, and it's about 240.

Um how do you build trust and maintain effective working relationships with members of this body of city commission, um, knowing that we have very many different priorities and perspectives, and how do you do all that while also maintaining um remaining objective and professional?

At the end of the day, we're people.

I I try to, if if you'll allow me, have a personal connection so that you know uh where my moral compass is.

Um if we just view each other in those titles that follow our name, we're gonna have a very stuffy relationship, and that trust is gonna be harder to build.

So uh, you know, I I welcome ideas on how to do that.

Each person is different, so I try to meet people where they feel most comfortable, and um I think that's that's first and foremost.

I think uh showing showing you as elected officials and as seven, six people, soon to be seven people that uh will be the supervisor to this position.

Um you gotta evaluate us, and we got to give you some evidence every year or however often we decide to to how we're doing, and I need that feedback uh from you to make sure that I'm doing my job well.

So uh open communications, honest communications, frequent communications, but it it starts with uh an acknowledgement that at the end of the day we're all trying to to go home and and be good community members, and if we can meet each other there, I think the rest is relatively easy.

Right, we have touched on leadership as well as interactions with the commission.

Excuse me, and next we'll our next few questions are focused around subject matter issues.

Uh so this one is uh very timely and relevant.

Um I think a common theme in the work that we do uh as a city, we and as leaders of the city, uh, we are really obligated to protect and defend the city while also being obligated to protect and defend our residents, right?

And sometimes those two things are aligned and sometimes they're not, sometimes they are they're at tension.

So we'd like to hear a bit more about how you balance the role of advising and defending the city with working.

Let me start a little bro.

How would you balance the role of advising and defending the city with working to advance justice in the Grand Rapids community as a two will be intention sometimes?

Tension's not a bad thing.

Uh tensions necessary to influence change.

Um be true at the same time.

So uh case by case, we're gonna have to roll up our sleeves and evaluate uh what are the facts and the circumstance of each particular case, how does the law apply, and what are some of the intangible factors that might also influence the outcome?

Community reputation sometimes is a factor, it's not a monetary factor.

Uh and also setting precedent for how we deal with similar but different cases in the future is something we have to consider.

We cannot be an open checkbook writing checks for things that we don't have liability to forever until the end of time because we've got essential services that we need to provide.

We've got to uh provide fire protection, we gotta plow streets, we gotta pick up trash, and if if every time a claim comes in and we don't have legal liability and we decide to pay that out, we're not gonna be able to fight fires, we're not gonna be able to plow streets and we're not gonna be able to pick up trash.

But when we do get a case that comes in and it's a disputed claim, and there are issues with legal liability, uh you own that decision.

I can sleep well at night knowing that I gave you good legal advice, sound legal advice, I gave you the risks and I gave you the uh gravity of the risks.

Uh you're the ones that have to make the decision as a client.

The law department in this city previously, and in many other cities is the department I know.

Uh Anita and I have worked really hard to be more of a an advisor, giving the city commission a menu of options, but being really specific about the risks associated with each option.

So advocating for justice.

Can you I want to make sure I get the terms right on that other tension point that you mentioned?

The advising and defending the city with working to advance justice in the community.

Sure.

Advancing justice is uh a big concept, and the city attorney should not be immune from the responsibility with that.

I think on a granular granular level, one thing I've talked about over the last, well, maybe year is how do we expand our diversion program at our district court to allow people that come into our district court with driving on a suspended license, or maybe they got in a fight and it was a one-time thing, and it was two friends outside of uh a place, and nobody wants the charges to go forward.

How do we allow individuals to exit the criminal justice system in a place that's better than where they entered it?

Diversion is one opportunity to do that.

Uh we utilize the alternative sentencing department in the court for community service, which ultimately is some accountability and some improvement to the community, but then they get the charge dismissed, there's no fine, there's no cost, and oftentimes they don't come back.

Driving on suspended license, we partner with the court to get grants to help people get their driver's license back because oftentimes financial situation, family situation, uh cause driver's licenses to lapse, and it's not intentional.

It's life life can be a lot sometimes.

And so if we can be uh partner to help somebody be better when they leave the criminal justice system, I think it builds our reputation as a city, it advances justice, and and those are some small kind of more granular things.

Um the big idea of advancing justice.

Uh I think the city attorney's office can be a community connector.

I think as the bar president for the Grand Rapids Bar Association, I might have a bigger lever to pull on that idea and bringing people to the table to talk about that.

Um, but those are my thoughts on the tension that might exist between the two.

Thank you.

And then while one follow-up, you mentioned in your opening remarks that uh the seven months that you've spent in the interim role has been on the job training.

So I'm curious to hear a little bit more about that, and you know, what has been your greatest learning kind of in this trial run, and um is there anything that you uh would have done differently over the last seven months.

Well, I'm gonna ponder on the done differently.

Fair.

Um I'm learning your individual communication styles and expectations.

Uh there's uh a respect for your sit your boss when you're the deputy city attorney.

It's a lot easier to make one person happy, in my opinion, or know where you stand when one person is your supervisor.

And so Anita and I were very good about connecting.

She did not uh suggest that I never have contact with elected officials or anything like that, but it was uh understood that she was the best person to be in those conversations because she could protect to a certain extent um the staff from feeling like they had to do something for one elected official and not know kind of what the accountability was.

So um I'm learning all of your communication styles and expectations.

Uh I think that we've had good communication along the way.

Uh I've been able to work with you, some of you closer just because of some of the issues that have come up and some of the priorities that were in place when I took on the interim role.

So um, you know, whether it was fist financial disclosures, you know, some some of us worked a lot closer on on those matters, the noise ordinance um changes that went into place, the litigation that we've been able to resolve over the last seven months, though I mean, those are four pretty major things that I think that we've been able to do.

Uh what would I have done differently?

You don't have to answer that one.

I think getting a sense of your greatest learning and what you what you what you may have wanted after.

So we certainly didn't ask anybody else.

Yeah, we didn't ask anyone else that.

Okay.

What I'll say though, on on that topic, and this might be kind of just a department has been understaffed a little bit.

And so if there had been a way for me to find the one nice thing is Anita was able to stay on board and we were able to stay connected, so keeping her institutional knowledge was great.

Uh if there were ways to make sure that our departmental staffing was more robust through this time of transition, uh, that would have been nice.

I'm not sure exactly how I would have made that happen, but it's something that I acknowledge and I appreciate our staff because they've all been doing more uh over the last seven months.

Thank you.

All right, I'm gonna take a sip of water here.

Okay.

We all got tickles in our throats today.

Um, as you know, um, there is a lot going on in Grand Rapids, and the community is very interested in transparency in government.

But the legal field does tend to be steeped in confidentiality.

There are often discussions we're having in closed session or just trying to figure things out.

So, how can the city attorney help the city be more transparent?

I'll start with what we do to help the city be more transparent, and I'll be open to ongoing conversations about what the city attorney's role is in that space.

I will say over the last six years, we've been a lot better at collaborating, and this is uh uh thanks to our communications department because communications has uh grown, the department has grown, their capacity has grown, and so to have one voice through the communications department, we've collaborated with them a lot more.

Uh it's very maybe easy but also oftentimes appropriate to say as an attorney, no comment on that particular matter.

There's too many legal pitfalls that might uh make us feel nervous about it.

We've gotten away from that.

We know that communications and community expectations have changed, and instead of saying no comment, we've tried to give some better understanding around controversial issues uh to shed some light on what the facts are.

And so that's that's a relatively new approach, and it's not super uh a super comfortable place for attorneys to live, but we've tried to be intentional on that.

FOIA is obviously a key state law that helps us be transparent.

We've tried to improve times.

I was uh instrumental in getting our FOIA portal more digital.

It's um it's resulted in a lot more FOIA requests, which has caused uh you know, continues to cause us to keep up with the demands for fulfillment, but uh the online portal makes it easier for people to ask for information.

And I suggest that technology will continue to allow us to both be better at helping people ask for information and also as a government be better at producing that information, and so we have to understand how to use technology to uh move transparency forward.

So that's all that side of it.

The other side is you should want confidentiality with your attorney.

You need confidentiality from your attorney often, and uh you should not uh lightly dispose of your confidentiality.

And attorneys are professionally uh required to maintain that.

Uh sometimes there may be opportunities or or ways that you would waive that.

I can't think of a good one right now off the top of my head, but we can talk about that if if the situation arises.

Thank you for that.

And um uh we as a follow-up, you mentioned the no more comment more than doing more than no comment being a relatively new approach.

We did ask as a follow-up for the other candidates as well.

This idea of what kind of assistance do you imagine when we're thinking about more proactive or strategic communications from commissioners in partnership with um our attorneys, you know, in crafting those messages or talking points?

We've we've done this in the last seven months with some of you.

Uh I think this is kind of goes back to some of the earlier questions.

If we have a good relationship, you're gonna be more inclined to come forward and say, I I feel like I've got to make a statement.

So I've been an elected official.

I know that there is pressure and sometimes a necessity to say something.

And if you know that the city attorney is always gonna tell you you can't say that, you can't say that, you have to say no comment, you're not gonna ask for permission.

You might ask for forgiveness down the line, and we might be having a more kind of challenging uh communication, but um in the last seven months, I appreciate the uh communication that some of you have have said.

I'm thinking about doing this.

Is there any real negative consequences that I should think about?

And sometimes I might say, wait, if you don't mind, please wait a little bit and sleep on it and let's see where we're at tomorrow before you feel like you gotta rush something out there.

I know that some of the best communication I've had is after I put it under my pillow for a minute and wake up the next day and determine if that's the right path forward.

But I'll collaborate with you on that, and uh you can say whatever you want.

That's the truth.

Uh that's the end of the day.

But I hope that you want to know what my experience as a lawyer as a city employee as a community member, you know what the audience might think through my lens, and uh I'll be committed to give you honest and open feedback.

Thank you.

Um my first question was off um target that was under subject matter issue, so I'm gonna go back to leadership.

Um, and my question was uh what areas of municipal law do you consider most critical for the city commission to understand?

And how do you ensure that complex legal concepts are understandable to all elected officials on the commission?

Sometimes it depends on on timing.

So if we're right on the heels of collective bargaining, y'all are gonna be interested in uh public employee rights law, collective bargaining.

Some of it's gonna be inflections in time for an incident that happened in our community where the community is really uh interested in use of force for for the police department.

Sometimes it's gonna be governmental immunity.

And uh the fun part of my job is that changes from time to time based on what's going on in our city.

Uh I hear it from my neighbors, I hear it from uh other parents when I'm dropping off my kids at school, and so I got a good sense of what the community is elevating in your inbox.

Sometimes it's gonna depend on who's sitting in those seats up there.

We've got a mayor now that's a lawyer, and he's been very respectful about the differing roles, but he comes to this space with a different uh life experience and and different institutional knowledge on systems and policy making and things like that.

So um I love that about this job that it's different every day.

I'm not so thrilled that term limits and change happen on the dais as fast as they do, but I I've experienced it.

This is a whole new board or a whole new commission, I should say, than when I started.

And um that's not bad.

It's it's how it is, and uh it's it's been fun to see that evolution and to meet you all and and understand what your priorities are.

Thank you.

I just want to point out for everybody we have 15 minutes left here in interest of fairness.

So um how are we doing on questions?

Am I uh we're we have three more we want to let you have your Gettysburg address at the end or you know, soliloquy from Macbeth or whatever you want to say.

Okay, so which areas of municipal law do you have the most experience in, and which areas do you have the least experience in?

Okay.

I came on as a municipal affairs kind of not necessarily expert, but my bread and butter was understanding the politics, understanding the departmental uh transactional things, working across departments to see the big picture, uh having managed a county with a bunch of different departments doing a master plan.

That was my initial expertise.

Uh I certainly had expertise in justice and prosecution, and so in the last year I've been able to go to district court to uh help our team get fully staffed uh and and step into that role.

So um those are the two areas are our enforcement, criminal justice, public safety, that bubble, and then municipal affairs, which is advising the departments and understanding how uh the city works.

The the civil litigation I've been certainly involved in, but thanks to people like Joy Fossil, Sarah Hartman, and the attorneys in that space, they've uh they've really been great leaders in that particular area.

And was there a second part to that question?

Okay, thank you.

Um then uh you've you already talked about this a little bit, but if you could speak to in a time when you had to get either a bunch of departments or uh external agencies um to align and pull in the same direction um on a complex issue.

If you could you've got an example you could maybe think of that you could speak to Yeah, um I'm dealing with one right now in all my free time.

Uh in all seriousness, we're closing on the amphitheater project tomorrow, and that is been a very interesting complicated property transaction that everybody at the table is pulling in the right direction, but with a concert coming up and construction nearing complete, but also other projects in the mix and public utilities.

That is something that as soon as I leave here, I'm gonna be checking my email to make sure that we're on track.

So, mayor, you and I can walk down and sign some closing documents tomorrow.

And uh I'm confident that that conversation is not uh offending any notions of confidentiality.

You all took a vote on it earlier today, but uh that's the one that's on the front of my mind.

And my question is um again, I won't give the whole soliloquy about this, but can you talk about a time where you engage people in a sensitive or controversial matter where it's more maybe not so much the internal stakeholders, but external community, community, you know, in a broader sense.

Yep.

Uh during the civil unrest, we thought that well, we knew that people wanted to know how do you exercise First Amendment speech in a safe and protected way in our community because we had seen that uh the downtown incident occur.

We had people that were upset, uh still upset about a lot of different things, and so we were coming off of a relatively traumatic incident in our city to uh try to help people better understand um what our city ordinances, what the constitutional laws were.

So I worked together to with uh Brandon Davis at OPA.

Uh we had some conversations with my friend Liz Balk at uh ACLU, and we put on a virtual uh training that was maybe not as well received as we thought, but uh I learned a lot through that that sometimes a city attorney or a person with a city logo at the end of their name doesn't have to be that spokesperson.

Sometimes it comes better from a different person that you have a trusted relationship with in the community.

Uh we did get some engagement on it.

We provided good factual information, no different than a lot of the information that's provided by other advocacy agencies.

Um you know it led to some interesting conversations in terms of who would be in a better better place to deliver that information in a more receptive way in the future.

And so that was a time that tensions were high, external stakeholders wanted information.

I was excited to give the information.

We learned some lessons.

We're still doing that to a certain extent now through OPA and through some of our partners, but the city attorney's office is not necessarily the face of that.

Okay, now we are entering our the conclusion of our interview.

We have 10 minutes, so don't feel too rushed.

Um but uh we want to give you an opportunity to leave any closing comments or um speak to anything that we may or may not have already covered.

And before you do that, uh we also invite you to ask us any questions if you if there are any Barney for you.

How much time do we have?

Ten minutes.

Ten minutes.

I would be interested to know from you uh maybe a priority, not your top priority, but a priority that you want to see in your next city attorney.

I think that'll help me use good time in my closing our closing statement.

So top priority, did you say?

A priority.

Um I think for me, um looking proactively ahead at what's coming down, like what are our emerging issues, what are headwinds, kind of that SWOT analysis and thinking what are the legal ramifications for us and how do we prepare for that.

Uh so kind of thinking proactively and strategically to protect the city and protect everyone who lives and works here.

Um I'll just say a little bit more succinctly, um, somebody who's can you know kind of take that history of the team being rebuilt, a very strong team.

You know, you mentioned some of the opening and the positions that you have.

I know right now there'll be some positions, whoever gets this role that will need to be filled.

Um the deputy role, right?

And so I think thinking through, even though that is not our responsibility, um, I think I've talked with people that we have a lot of new leadership in the city, and so we're we're seeing that across a lot of departments, not just the legal department.

Um, so really looking for somebody who's gonna build up that team and execute kind of what's been built, and I think knowing that we we can never, I said I I feel like I can never be prepared, and that there's just gonna be something that is unexpected, right?

And that has been the case, I think, every single month of this year, and every year since I've been here, so thank you.

Um I don't know if I can speak to just one in particular thing, because there's a number of things that we're facing uh as a city that I think um to Commissioner Purdue's point, uh really some of that forethought and really thinking ahead and having plans and contingencies in place about the things that we're dealing with, but also keeping in mind um the question about working with external stakeholders in our community and how to really uh best align uh the practices that we have within the co in the city um with our community so they feel a part of what's going on and being able to just um listen and um focus in on what's what what's the best next move.

Yeah, the top priority that I've shared with all of our candidates for this role is someone who is uh has a compassionate heart for people uh looking beyond uh the number uh city is simply a collection of folks.

So someone who believes in that and shows that through their work is a top priority for me and looking for uh the best candidate for this role.

And I'll tell you that you and both of your uh other candidates were smart enough to ask us what we'd like you, what we what we would like you to tell us in your what you call what you slipped and called your closing arguments.

Um so I will tell you that I am the only person who said nope, this is your interview, it's not mine.

I will interrupt though.

Is that okay, Mayor?

No.

Oh you hadn't gone.

That's right.

Um so you asked it a little differently, but um, if I were to pick a top priority, it would be trust.

And I do think that that is built by being someone who can be seen by both the um stakeholders and our commission and our community as somebody who is proactively educating and communicating the why behind we're doing things or why we can't do things or how we're gonna be different.

So building that trust.

Thank you.

All right, time check before I just you got six minutes for your closing argument.

Thank you, Your Honor.

I'm not gonna let you forget.

I love the city.

I moved here intentionally six years ago, not knowing that I would feel this way.

Uh I have not this has not been an audition the last seven months.

It has not been uh what you see is what you get for the last six years, for the last seven months.

My work ethic is unmatched.

My knowledge of this organization from a legal standpoint is unquestionable, and my connection to this community is something that I'm very very proud of, and I'm not done.

Uh I'm coming into the Grand Rapids Bar Association as a president, and there's no greater honor to be elected and trusted by the colleagues in your field, and and to come in for in six years and gain that trust of fellow lawyers, it's gonna set this department up to recruit and retain top talent.

That is the only way that we can provide great legal services to the city.

I can't do it alone.

We need great attorneys to come into this office and give our departments legal advice, be willing to go out and get professional development because municipal law is changing, it's changing fast.

The practice of law is changing fast.

We cannot just sit back and do things the way that we've always done them.

I was embarrassed by attorneys in my career that would brag about keeping a flip phone for their entire career or not transitioning to Westlaw when it went to an online legal research service.

Uh those sorts of attitudes are malpractice.

You have to be able to develop with technology in the times to give your client effective and efficient legal services, and I am prepared and ready and excited to do that.

This city is changing, it's growing, it's developing.

The issues will continue to get complex.

That I didn't learn about in law school.

I didn't learn about deer management in law school.

But I'm confident that I can practice those sorts of law, that I can get up to speed quick, and that I will fill our office with people like the people that are in our office today.

Wonderful, smart, compassionate people.

We are a city uh of people trying to do the best we can every single day.

Come down to Thomas Street, find out.

This has been a great experience, great opportunity.

Um it's allowed me to reflect on on my career and recommit to to my public service here in the city.

It's allowed me to reflect on my career and recommit to my public service here in the city.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

So first I want to ask our bigger.

So we we are live on YouTube.

Facebook will join us at 3 45 because you have to schedule it out.

So just FYI.

So great.

So we did get uh first of all.

I want to thank our um uh recruiting committee uh recruiting firm for their for their great work uh mosaic.

Um and I'll just you know, as a minor point of privilege, say it publicly what I've said uh uh in private, and that is uh I'm the only person up here who's done this twice for city attorney.

Um when I was on city commission back in the day, we had to hire a new city manager and a new city attorney and a new clerk.

And um at that point, uh I felt like we didn't have great options, and um we had a clear candidate who we thought would be able to do the work, but uh not multiple options, and uh at least for me it's very very clear uh that you got us three really good finalists and um you know it's a a good process you you're sitting through every single one of their interviews and thinking, hmm, maybe this person's the best.

Um so uh thank you for your work on that.

Now uh I do I would like you to come up for a moment or however long it takes and summarize for us some of our community feedback.

And as you're doing that, um having had a little bit of sidebar with my colleagues, uh not everyone is going to be comfortable voting uh uh on a making a final decision right uh today, no matter how long we stayed and deliberated, uh, for the I think perfectly reasonable uh position that we're gonna have a city commission meeting tonight.

People might come to public comment, they might give us their input.

Um, and so since that public facing part of this uh work is still potentially doable, um, and since we already have tomorrow morning at nine o'clock scheduled to finish our deliberations, um my sense of the body is that we're not going to need to spend 17 hours deliberating.

We're not we're not gonna be a hung jury.

So I'm hoping since I have to sign documents tomorrow at 1030 down the road, I'm I'm I'm anticipating that an hour tomorrow should be sufficient.

Um, but I also would like us since we're already here after you've spoken, um, for everyone to take a couple minutes and share their initial impressions of the field uh and you know uh comments on can uh candidates as they feel appropriate um before we convene.

But then I'll convene after we've all had our first bite at the apple, so to speak.

So thanks.

Go ahead.

All right, thank you, Mayor and Commission.

And it's it truly has been a privilege to work for the city in this recruitment, and I know I've shared this more than once.

Uh, this is by far the biggest and most involved and engaged city attorney search process I've ever done in my ten years of doing this work, and that just speaks to the connections and the engagement that you as a commission have toward your community and how you value that input.

What I'd like to do next is just summarize uh yesterday's events uh because I think it is worth touching on those again, and then share the feedback from those events so that you can use it to help inform your decision.

So yesterday um the three candidates had six events that they had to endure and um perform in, and the first was an opportunity to meet with members of the city's executive team in uh uh early in the morning yesterday, and that was followed by four interview panels, structured interview panels, much like this was uh in a um and those interview panels included the appointed officials for the city, uh so the city manager, the city clerk, the treasurer.

Uh there was a large community stakeholder panel of 17 members in attendance from a very very wide cross-section of the community with many different viewpoints represented.

Uh there were um five members from the greater Grand Rapids Law community, uh so somewhat of a peer group uh from other lawyers, and the staff in the law department formed another panel.

Um candidates got a little bit of a break in the afternoon and came back for a two-hour, almost two-hour uh public forum here in the chambers where they responded to a litany of questions that were um crafted in response to stakeholder input from the beginning of the search and prioritized in a recent survey.

So there was six different touch points for this summarized feedback that I'm about to share with you, but I just wanted to, for the benefit of the community, let everyone know where that came from.

I think just some overall comments, and uh, and I appreciate your comments as well, Mayor.

Um, the overall comments from all of these venues that you do have three very well qualified candidates that have strong background in municipal law, and there was a sentiment that any of them have what it takes that they could be your city attorney and be successful in the role.

Um because there was so much consistency across the panels.

I was able to summarize the major themes together.

Happy to answer any follow-up questions you have, but that is one thing that uh I think is a bit of a gift.

Uh sometimes when you have so many different viewpoints represented in different panels, you get a lot of varied feedback.

In this case, there was a lot of consistency across the feedback.

So I'll begin candidate by candidate in the order that you saw them today, uh, sharing both some strengths and perceived weaknesses, and this is how the feedback was um you know requested from people.

Our first candidate was Sarah Hartman.

Um it was noted she had very strong litigation experience, and litigation is one of those um areas that touches or can touch all aspects of law.

Anything could be litigated, and so she's had a lot of varied experience in municipal law.

Um conversely, she has limited experience with prosecution.

Um she was seen as a very calm and steady demeanor, and someone that would probably pretty and unflappable.

She was also seen to be conservative in her approach, uh, a low risk tolerance, um, perhaps risk averse to the point of missing options, um, but a conservative voice and a conservative advisor.

She demonstrated the strength of character to hold boundaries and push back when pushback was appropriate.

Uh, clearly a hard worker, appeared to be the most legally analytical of the three candidates.

Uh she is someone that's known and trusted at the City of Grand Rapids and would likely be a good fit for the team in the law department and in the broader city as a whole.

However, the other side of that same coin is that she doesn't have a fresh perspective that an outside candidate would have.

Um she did not appear to have a great deal of community involvement or as much exposure to the city commission or elected officials as the other two candidates did.

And um her communication and level of detail to questions was not as strong as the other candidates.

And finally, in the last uh area of critique, if you will, uh, her responses to equity questions were not seen as strong as some of the other candidates.

And if you'd like, I can just move right on to the next candidate.

Please.

Okay.

Uh the next candidate was Matt Cross.

His work across multiple public agencies has created a wide breadth of experience that would be valuable to the city as well as a fresh perspective.

Uh, there was a sense of confidence in his abilities, and he was a good communicator.

His experience as a municipal lawyer is very diverse with a good mix of litigation, transactional, and advisory work.

Many felt that he presented as someone who was empathetic and compassionate and who applies those characteristics in his day-to-day work.

It was apparent that as an outside candidate, he had done considerable research on Grand Rapids and the position, and appears to be very excited about the bold ambitions of the city commission.

I think we heard that today.

While he seemed to have strong appreciation for diversity, he's not been working in a diverse region, and some felt that lack of experience in a diverse environment was a differentiator.

While Matt has supervisory experience with attorneys and other legal professionals, the staff size in Grand Rapids is significantly larger, and that would be an adaptation.

Likewise, moving from a firm with multiple clients to serving a single client would require change, most likely a welcome change, but uh something to adapt to nonetheless.

And finally, the size of Grand Rapids could present legal issues that he may he may not have been exposed to serving smaller agencies.

Moving on to Phil Strom.

Um the feedback was that he was an excellent, well-rounded, has excellent, well-rounded experience in all areas of municipal law and good leadership experience as well.

Of the three candidates, he had the most aligned experience for the role.

Strong institutional knowledge of Grand Rapids, most likely to provide stability and continuity of operations in the law department.

Again, this comes without having an outside perspective if that was to be desired.

We received comments that he has a values alignment that's backed up by his prior work in creating diversion programs and restorative justice, for example.

He is very involved in the Grand Rapids community and seems personable and relatable to people.

He had strong responses to questions on equity and was seen as a community connector.

Phil was seen as someone having a strong work ethic, but the other side of that is that he may have difficulty in saying no or delegating.

And this could result in overcommitting.

And sometimes when you're not delegating, you're not exposing others to professional development opportunities.

And some also question his ability to push back and hold boundaries across the six groups.

While we didn't ask for any type of ranking of the candidates, but there were preference expressed uh in the feedback, and there was consistent sentiment that Phil Strom was the candidate that was most aligned to be successful in the city attorney role.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Well, I will say that that's interesting to hear um uh such a coalescing of opinions, and it's it's also um one of the things I'm just gonna put my lawyer hat on here.

One of the things we always say about juries is that um the collective wisdom of 12 people almost always trumps one individual person's uh wisdom, which is why juries are good things.

Um so uh good to have sort of a jury pool of of opinion there.

Um I don't know if anyone else wants to comment on on the feedback, but if not, I'm happy to move on to our our own personal and I'll I'll I'll go first if and if if no one minds.

Um so I'm just gonna go I'm gonna go briefly and and and just highlight things.

So as I said before, I think they're all really, really impressive, impressive human beings.

Um and you know, I think I didn't say it then, but I'll say it now.

What I mostly want out of city attorney is exactly what I mostly want out of a judge.

I want a good human being.

I want somebody who can work with empathy and compassion uh and um see the humanity of the work that they're doing.

And um I think I think all of that, all of them have the ability to do that, and and uh uh Sarah clearly a litigator, um, and that has its f that has its style, um, it has its strengths and it has its uh you know, maybe areas where where litigators need to stretch if they were to move into another role.

Um I really do value her experience and work uh in labor relations in this in the city because I think that's something that maybe the other candidates didn't stress as much, but um boy is it nice to have contracts in place with all of our unions uh with no I mean that was the least drama I have ever seen in a round of uh negotiations, and so you know that doesn't go unnoticed for me, uh her part in that.

Um I think she's an incredibly dedicated, not a doubt in my mind.

Uh really really wants the city to succeed, wants wants to be part of it of a team that's helping the city move forward, really has her heart and soul um in the job, and I really appreciate that.

She's clearly also very smart.

Uh, and I think she's uh clearly a good negotiator, and I think um those are all um those are all real talents that she would bring to the job.

Um as far as Matt goes, um, you know, uh right away it was interesting to hear him talk about his values right out of the gate.

He's like, Well, I'd like to work with the city attorney that allied with my value with the city commission that aligned with my values.

I was like, I talk a lot about how we are actually for all we can.

I mean, Freud talks about the narcissism of small differences.

Like, yeah, we sometimes we can feel like we've got like big differences between us on stuff, but we don't really.

We're actually fairly values-aligned, we're an incredibly values-aligned group, it seems to me.

Um, and so I was kind of glad for some external validation of us.

I sort of I sort of saw that as a as a the fact that he wanted to join the club made me feel good.

Um the um I thought he was obviously very articulate.

I even wrote that down twice because I was a little scatterbrained, but um he really really gets the the team support nature of the job.

Uh I thought he was eloquent about uh leadership style, frankly, and I think he's clearly quick on his feet.

Um very candid.

I like um you know some of my pet things that I love.

I love people talking about admitting mistakes, um, which he talked about and um the need to build trust over time.

And so I thought he was I thought he did a great job of emphasizing all those things, and I think those are real skills.

I think he's an impressive guy, and and uh I'm really really glad he applied.

Um Phil, we all know, but I will just say that you know, I think it's it's clear that I mean we all know Sarah too, but um, you know, clearly Phil is committed, he is experienced.

Uh he his background before he became in the city attorney's office was sort of bizarrely qualified, right?

Like how many people get to do all of that stuff before they even land here, right?

Um he clearly um uh uh is you know he he is I I loved what he said about leadership.

Like he really he really sees them, he sees that legal department as as as an extension of his sort of part of his family, I think, and that was really uh nice to hear.

Um, you know, it's nice to hear how much he loves the city.

Um and to hear him say you didn't see that coming, but like he's pretty bonded with the city.

Um his uh connection to the legal community, I think is and as he pointed out, maybe a unique asset.

Um I mean he I hadn't really thought of that before, but the fact that he's the president of the granite's bar may actually mean it makes this look like a prestigious place to come work.

Um and given that we don't pay what Warner Cross and Judd pay uh or Varnum or any of the other firms in town.

Um, you know, we it's nice if we can pay with prestige.

Um so uh and it's nice to think of us as a prestigious place to be.

Um the last thing I'll say is um uh uh about uh Phil was that I really appreciated more than anybody.

I think maybe he he really looked like he was seeing us all.

He sort of said he'd really talked about working with us all individually.

Now I get that he has the advantage of you know coming at it from where he's coming at it from, but uh I appreciated his like wanting to see us all as individuals and work with us all individually and and deal with all of our different styles.

So that's my summary of reactions without saying what I want to do tomorrow.

Uh uh let's see, I Commissioner Belchuk, I'm not gonna call on you first because you made me cry last time.

Um Commissioner Kilgore.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Uh so I want to uh echo uh uh the mayor's sentiment.

So thank you so much to everyone who applied for the role, uh to the uh Mosaic for uh getting us these talented folks and uh it is always very meaningful, especially when we have internal candidates and folks who want to step up to serve uh their neighbors.

Um I'm very um pleased with all of the folks who we interviewed today.

Um and I look forward to um uh hearing feedback.

I think that's a good note to hear tonight uh from community members.

So thank you to my colleague in the third ward.

That's a good no.

It'll be good to hear what community further uh if they have anything further.

And yeah, these folks were uh very uh it it's nice to see people make the resumes come alive, and that was really cool to hear from all three of them and uh the background and just getting to know them better.

I think they all truly um are a value to this state, and I look forward to making my decision tomorrow morning.

Right on, Commissioner Knight.

Um echoing those same sentiments, uh I really appreciate and respect um everyone that came and put themselves uh forward for this process.

I know we were hoping for a my more diverse pool of candidates, but even the candidates that we have uh very talented, very skilled, um have a deep background in the work that they're doing, and and coming in and doing interviews like this is intense.

This is intense.

Um so I I give you all the respect and honor for really coming in and putting yourselves um out there because your life is on the line, right?

And it's in front of everyone.

You are on display.

And so um I appreciate you sharing your heart and your thoughts and your your skills and your knowledge uh with us.

Um and and then just I'm not gonna get too deep because I'll probably give the cat away.

Um, but really having an understanding of um thinking of of the person that's gonna come in this position, have a real deep understanding of what the needs are for this community, whether you're already in it or you have to come in it, it's like you know, when we come in here, you gotta put your feet on the ground and just start running, right?

And you still have to have to start doing the job.

But really, hoping for someone that has that vision um for the future and what the needs are in this community and can really uh project that in the work that they're doing, building uh a good culture within that that department.

I heard multiple times um uh uh our former city attorney's name mentioned and and and told her that you should be really proud that you left an indelible mark um on this organization and the people that she worked with.

And so those are big shoes to fill.

Um, and not expecting anybody to be a clone, but actually, you know, expecting them to have that heart though.

I I do look for that heart, and I think at the end of the day for me, is that as somebody who can come in in this community and treat these community members, our neighbors, our friends with justice and with mercy, and can see that from a number of different perspectives and operate accordingly.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um echo the sentiments that you shared, Mayor, and thank you for the process.

Thank you to the HR department as well for working with Mosaic to ensure that this process was really smooth.

It seems like a while ago that we started talking about this, and we're here today.

Um, you know, I I too was very impressed by the candidates.

I think again, when you start thinking about what's the reasonable recruiting area, um, knowing that you know, this is a public process, and that night might not be the case for everyone.

Um we we ended up with three very good candidates.

Um for me, I think all along I've talked quite a bit about the team.

I also just share, you know, for me, I'm really looking for a lot of stability.

Um, we've had a lot of change on this body.

Not only the people on this body, even take that away, because that's always gonna change, um, but things that are happening inside our city.

And so, you know, for me, um, I appreciated the the real life examples that individuals are able to provide.

Um, both, you know, uh I'll I'll share a little bit with both Sarah and Phil working with both of them.

I've seen both of them in close session.

They've they've been able to communicate with all of us in really meaningful ways, and it's you know, I would say it's never of like this is the way it is, and this is the way it's going to be.

Um, but also appreciated Matt coming in and um I think I did sense a um a real strong um research into what Grand Rapids was and um what we have to offer, and I think that should be continue to be highlighted.

But you know, I I'm happy to wait until tomorrow.

I'm I'm always I'm I'm pretty decisive, so I'm I'm ready to make a decision today.

But if that's the selection or that's the decision of this body, um, I think uh I have no problem with that.

Um, but I think I had enough information from today and through this process, um, and then getting that recap was also very helpful.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Yeah, this was uh I echo the sentiments around the strength of all three candidates.

I mean, this was just is a wonderful um, I won't say surprise, but it was a yeah, it was a wonderful surprise.

It's just have that sentiment of everyone, everyone will be an excellent addition to this team in this role.

And so thank you for Mosaic for all your hard work and uh everyone who's been involved to this point.

Um much of the the consensus and the community feedback that was shared are things that I also picked up on on each candidate, you know, with Sarah, uh just her strong litigation experience, particularly as it relates to negotiation, her calm and steady demeanor, and her ability to hold boundaries and push back when needed.

I've witnessed all of those working with her.

Um, and uh kind of constructively, um, some of that conservatism.

Um, you know, I'm looking to push the bounds, and I did hear an appetite for that.

Uh, but all in all, just really enjoyed getting to learn more about her background because I didn't know everything that she shared with us today.

And so, to her point, I think those are wonderful exercises.

With Matt, um, you know, he did he does come with a wide breadth of experience, I think will be very valuable to the city, and also appreciated as the only outside candidate at this point, the considerable amount of research he did into our city, and you could feel his excitement um about our work and wanting to be part of the team, and this idea of having a strategic partner and advisor was really exciting to hear from him and constructively uh just you know, transitions uh to a different city, new connections, new place, new team uh could really disrupt uh some of this ability that we have, and I know that we value right now.

And then finally, uh Phil um also just excellent, well-rounded experience.

I also learned more about his background that I wasn't aware of.

Um, and really his strong work ethic and his value values aligned work really showed.

Um, some of the constructive feedback from the community was um pushing um, you know, the ability to push back and hold boundaries, and um, I have noted that as well.

And so um I think every candidate just brings a wealth of knowledge and strengths and alignment with where we're trying to go as a city.

Um, and I look forward and you and this is a really really important hire for us.

And so um, I know tonight we'll have commission night out and um a commission meeting.

Uh folks can look back at the the forum, the public forum, they can look back at the interviews today, and then at 9 a.m.

we'll be back here uh making a final decision.

So thank thank you all for your commitment to this process, and I'm excited to make a decision and and keep it moving.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Ironically, I was ready to go first this time.

Um, but I appreciate you.

And so what else is there to say?

You guys, Matt, let me let me go this way.

As an outsider coming into the community, Matt provided, I think, some unique perspective that we need to listen to in our own thinking and in the community.

I heard him say that, you know, especially because he came from New York at one point with some experience, that Grand Rapids is a great big little city, and that we're actually doing a lot with transparency in a way that he was very impressed with and communication and those kinds of partnerships.

So I I thought that feedback from him as a candidate was very interesting.

Um, I do think that I guess I'll get to be the critiquer at the end here.

Um, he he would fit in very well in our law department in a lot of ways.

Uh, I think that he has done, I love that he loves the city.

I think we're I'm gonna recruit him to come no matter what, because um I think I could see him being a part of this.

Um, and I love that he was dedicated to listening and being a part of things and being a strategic partner, but I do think that you know there is room for growth um in terms of maybe more leadership experience, having a team, things like that.

I think that I thought it was fascinating to learn about Sarah's interdisciplinary background as someone who holds a science degree and a journalism degree and also has played the flute.

I really appreciate that.

And so I do think that makes her a very creative and and analytical um candidate, uh lifelong learner.

And I saw in her a heart of a teacher, someone who would be able to hold that calm steady space, but also um be able to be up here on Dais and help explain why we're doing what we're doing as a potential.

Um I think she could be great in leadership if she chose to continue no matter what.

So I will end on Phil that I wrote down he had a calm, quiet presence.

That's how I experienced him.

I experienced him as very centered and grounded.

He came out of the gate with his conversation here today in his opening statements.

So prepared.

I don't know if he was talking from the heart or if it was planned, but it was um very persuasive.

I could see why he'd be an excellent prosecutor or litigator.

Um I think he's smart, strategic.

And what I heard in what he was saying was right out of the gate why this matters, which again goes back to that um communication aspect.

I think he's got a lot of manager experience already, and he may not have that fresh perspective, but he said something really important, and that was we cannot keep doing things the way we always have done them, and that this has not been an audition for the last seven months.

So he takes it very seriously.

I think that both Sarah and he made it clear that we are looking at a new era of seeing how we can strategically communicate and not necessarily have the culture be a an all automatic no or no comment.

So I think you know, again, we have great candidates, and we're gonna look forward to more comment if that's what's happening and conversation tomorrow.

All right.

Well, um, well, now I'm gonna join us and we'll convene together tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.

Thank you all.