Judge Smolenski says goodbye after 34 years

GRAND RAPIDS TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — For the first time in more than a half century, there is no Judge Smolenski on the bench in Kent County.

63rd District Judge Sara Smolenski said goodbye at a retirement party on Monday, her last day in office after 34 years on the bench.

Her father, J. Robert  Smolenski, became a Grand Rapids district judge in 1969 and was replaced by her brother, Michael Smolenski, who later became a Kent County Circuit judge and a judge on the state Court of Appeals.

Sara Smolenski was first elected as judge in 1990 and became known for her wit. She is a Grand Rapids native who previously worked as a private attorney and an assistant city attorney in Grand Rapids.

She was the center of a controversy in 2019, three years after she became the county’s first elected official in a same-sex marriage . Her marriage led the priest at St. Stephen Catholic Church in East Grand Rapids to deny communion to the lifelong Catholic.

“It is emotional because when you have a career that you love and you’ve felt so lucky having the opportunity to work with people in our community, you question, when’s the right time?” she said on Monday. “But it’s not a race to get to the end. You do the best you can every day. This is a job that can be very tiring; you deal with so many emotions and so many things with people’s lives that are difficult, and I felt like the time was right.”

The governor will select someone to replace Smolenski before her seat next comes up for election.

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