Mayor LaGrand delivers inaugural State of the City address

Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand delivered his inaugural State of the City address on Thursday, where he focused on three central policy categories: housing, justice and policing and city and neighborhood design.

The invite-only private event hosted at Studio D2D began with a welcome reception mixer, followed by an introduction from former Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss.

LaGrand took office in January, following two terms held by Bliss, who served as the city’s first female mayor and endorsed LaGrand early on in his 2024 mayoral campaign. Following his win against City Commissioner Senita Lenear in November, LaGrand was sworn in as the new mayor at his Oath of Office ceremony on Dec. 17, 2024 at City Hall. He previously served as an assistant Kent County prosecutor, Grand Rapids city commissioner and state representative.

LaGrand started out the evening by thanking the sponsors and those who helped to facilitate the event, including Meijer, Grand Valley State University, Downtown Grand Rapids Inc., Rockford Construction, Ellis Parking and Amway. It has been a decades-long tradition for sponsors to pay for the cost of the State of the City address, “so we don’t use taxpayer dollars for what's very much a civic event,” said LaGrand.

Bringing attention to the growing housing crisis, LaGrand spoke to the reality of housing in Grand Rapids, saying the city needs to accelerate the work it’s already doing to create more housing.

“We all know Grand Rapids is no longer a cheap housing market and that makes sense,” LaGrand said. “Housing is cheap in places people don't want to live and more expensive when there's demand. It's clear that we need housing as fast as possible at every price point.”

Grand Rapids needs roughly 12,400 more housing units to meet growing demands, LaGrand said, stating the city is currently behind and will have to work harder to meet housing needs. LaGrand mentioned while income has risen 54%, housing costs have increased 124%.

He credited the work of nonprofit leaders and staffing at the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce for spearheading the 100 in 100 initiative, which seeks to help 100 people who are chronically unhoused and are most vulnerable connect to permanent housing solutions in 100 days. To date, 73 individuals have been housed and an additional 72 have been referred to a permanent housing resource, LaGrand said. 

LaGrand brought attention to the large-scale development projects Grand Rapids currently has and their limitations on housing. The controversial three towers project replacing the former Charley’s Crab site, the conversion of the Fifth Third building on Lyon Street, the factory yards housing development near the intersection of Market Avenue and Godfrey Avenue and housing that will be triggered by the new Amway soccer stadium. 

“As exciting as these new projects are, they don't sum up our city's demand for housing and they don't fill important parts of our housing needs,” LaGrand said. “The need for smaller, small investor, neighborhood-embedded, affordable options that fill gaps in our neighborhoods, make space for new neighbors, add vibrancy block by block around our city, helping to support neighborhood businesses and the shared community resources that make all of our neighborhoods fun and really different places to live.” 

Shifting into the next central policy of the evening, justice and policing, LaGrand spoke to progress in alternatives to policing within local neighborhoods. 

“The stronger and more interconnected our community is, the more our need for order is going to be filled by collaborative peacekeeping responses to conflict,” LaGrand said. “But we will always need traditional policing for the times when other means of peace just aren't enough. In Grand Rapids we've been making real progress on non police centered public order work.”

LaGrand highlighted the work by Cure Violence, an evidence-based violence reduction and intervention program that approaches violence through the lens of an epidemic, which is expanding across all three wards in the city to stop violent acts from spreading. Their teams are digging in, finding conflicts before they erect into violence, mediating and engaging. He also touched on the fact that the 911 system is differentiating calls that need a mental health team response from those that need a police-only response.  

Additionally, LaGrand expressed gratitude and appreciation toward the leadership of the Grand Rapids Police and Fire Department, noting an increase in police officer applications and plans for two new fire stations in the city. 

The event garnered a diverse and supportive crowd, including several well-known Grand Rapids civil servants. Among the crowd was Police Chief Eric Winstrom, Chief of the Grand Rapids Fire Department Brad Brown, City Manager Mark Washington, and City Commissioners Marshall Kilgore, Milinda Ysasi, Drew Robbins, AliciaMarie Belchak, Lisa Knight and Kelsey Perdue. 

Broaching his final central policy of the evening, city and neighborhood design, LaGrand emphasized the importance of enabling Grand Rapids neighborhoods to meet the needs of locals.

“We're moving forward now with a vision that every neighborhood should fill most of our weekly wants and needs close to us,” LaGrand said. “That vision encompasses safe, walkable and bikeable streets, healthy public infrastructure, healthy public transportation, thriving schools, solid business institutions, parks to connect in and third spaces to get together with each other and share experiences.”

Before concluding his speech, LaGrand left the audience with a call for bipartisanship and community amidst concern for democracy.

“'I’m going to close by telling you a story of doing better,” LaGrand said. “Democracy means insisting that every voice matters. Not just the rich, not just the educated, not just the noisy;  every voice. If we don't live that value, people will check out and they'll pull back into separate groups. They'll lose trust. Too often in democracy, we somehow still default to a process where decisions are made by the few and sold to the many. That's not democracy, that’s marketing.”