The Grand Rapids City Commission met on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at 2 p.m. The meeting included approval of minutes, consent agenda, a contested appointment to the Housing Commission, a historic landmark designation, an opioid settlement authorization, and four public hearings on historic preservation, neighborhood investment, brownfield redevelopment, and industrial tax exemption. Public comment addressed downtown information centers, the Downtown Improvement District, housing, transit, parking, traffic safety, and police oversight.
Call this meeting of the city commissioner order. Ask you all to join us as is our habit with a moment of silence. Please all join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. One nation under God, indivisible liberty and justice for all. Mr. Clerk, if you call the roll, and as you do so, if there are interpreter could come up front. Commissioner Belchak. Present. Commissioner Purdue. Good afternoon. Commissioner Asassi. Present. Commissioner Kilgore. Present. Commissioner Knight. Present. Mayor LeGrand. Yes. Do we have an interpreter? This is the first. No. Okay. Well, if our interpreter shows, I will ask her to identify herself. Uh that's a pity. Generally, we have an interpreter for English and Spanish. Uh, we do to spontaneous translation for the for the broadcast, but for people in the audience. Okay, well, moving along. Um, I will first this is our first opportunity for public comment on agenda items specifically. There's an opportunity for comment on other items at the end of the meeting. My name is Scott Atchison, and I asked the clerk to hand out a little piece of paper of what I'm going to speak to you about. Uh fiscal committee number one and committee of the whole number four. Um fiscal committee one is the resolution recognizing the African American museum as a local civic organization. Great idea. The reason I'm saying this, I think you guys need to promote all the museums downtown. That's why I'm here to go tangent to say that's why you need an information center downtown through the QR code daily scan newsletter that lets them know about all the five museums downtown. The Ford Museum, the Grand Rapids Public Museum, the Art Museum, the Children Museums, and now the African American Museum. It just still makes me crazy that we don't have an information center downtown to let everybody know it's open daily and every day it changes. You know, but basically it's a simple thing. But now, committee of the whole number four, you guys are scheduling a public hearing for the necessity of a special assessment for the downtown improvement district, and I still find it hard to distinguish between the downtown development authority, the downtown improvement district, and the downtown Grand Rapids. They all work in the same building in the same office, and it's like we have three when we only need one. You know, it's but then on this um thing you're gonna be voting on or after the public hearing. This is gonna be a three-year contract instead of one year contract, and I think everybody needs to know that. Three there's a lot of shenanigans that can go on in three years instead of one year from input and oversight from this board. You know, and I I was in a downtown improvement district meeting earlier this year, and every year I see uh rates and assessments go up, but this is definitely about the ambassadors. The ambassadors, what I heard in the meeting, if they're gonna get another raise, it's gonna be more money coming out of the taxes and assessments of Grand Rapids, other than what the contract is. So these are some of the questions you need to ask when whoever shows up at your public hearing. Three years instead of one year. They're already talking about expanding the assessment area. Um who pays the ambassadors? Who do the ambassadors work for?