Meet Grand Rapids mayoral candidate David LaGrand

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article mistakenly identified David LaGrand as an owner of Wealthy Street Bakery. Though LaGrand was involved in its opening , he is no longer an owner, and the bakery’s current owner says there is no affiliation. We regret the error, which has been fixed.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — News 8 is interviewing the candidates running to become the next mayor of Grand Rapids.

The primary election is set for Tuesday, Aug. 6. The top two vote-getters will move onto the November general election.

News 8 previously spoke with candidate Steve Owens and interviews with other candidates will air and publish on woodtv.com in the coming days. Below, see candidate David LaGrand’s response to our questions.

You might recognize LaGrand’s name. He’s been an assistant county prosecutor, a member of the Grand Rapids Public Schools board and a state representative. The Grand Rapids native was also involved in opening Long Road Distillers. Now he wants to be your mayor.

“I’ve always been a city guy,” LaGrand said. “For me, it’s really exciting to think how can we take Grand Rapids for the really good place it is to great. How do we get from good to great?”

He said his biggest priorities are justice in policing, creating affordable housing and growing neighborhoods.

“Everyone in our community wants to feel like they’re being treated fairly and they’re getting justice.” LaGrand said. “They also want safety. Affordable housing, everybody knows we got a problem. It’s a continent-wide problem, which means it’s going to take persistent attention and resources.”

LaGrand said he also wants to rebuild trust in government by including more people in the conversation.

“If we don’t figure out how to build a better democracy, we’re going to lose the one we have,” he said. “I think that means a lot more transparency and a lot more participatory models for how we actually make decisions. Not making a decision in secret and then coming out in selling it — that’s not democracy, that’s marketing. Instead include people deeply on the front end in a really crowdsourced and open way on decisions on those major issues. There’s broad agreement what the big issues are in the city, but there’s a lot more talent out there than there’s ever going to be in city hall on options on how to do better.”

The following interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Q: What needs to change in the city?

LaGrand: “I’ve got Mayor Rosalynn Bliss’s endorsement and also former Mayor George Heartwell’s endorsement. A lot of things they’ve worked on are things I care about and we’ve got to go further. I just saw an announcement where we’re about to hit the point where all city buildings are using 100% renewable energy, which is awesome. But I think we can do much better and take a great lap on renewable investment for the city, which will prevent us from energy shocks and maybe make us more resilient.

“I want to make the city an easier place for pedestrians to get around, a safer place for pedestrians to get around and for kids to be in. We need to slow the speeds down on a lot of our streets. I don’t want kids in danger. I don’t want elderly people in danger. Pedestrians shouldn’t fear for their lives when they’re navigating our city, nor should cyclists.”

Watch News 8’s full interview with LaGrand below :

Q: Do you support the amphitheater currently under construction, the proposed soccer stadium and the possible aquarium ? Are they a good use of resources?

LaGrand: “Ground has already broken on the amphitheater. The soccer stadium is the medium one (in the development process). The aquarium is a light bulb somebody has. I am not prepared to tell you I am satisfied with the details on the aquarium because it’s the furthest down the road.

“I am hopeful about the soccer stadium for a number of reasons. Soccer is a global sport. The idea of something that first-generation immigrants could really play. It’s a sport that’s played in Latin America, Central America, Europe. Making us more of a culturally-global city sounds like a good idea for me. For me, the metric is really gonna be if there are 25 home games for the pro team, how many days for the rest of the year does the community get to use that stadium?”

Q: Some members of the community have expressed concerns over the availability and rising cost of parking downtown. How are you balancing that need with the current projects aimed to expand our city and bring in more visitors?

LaGrand: “I don’t think we want to build to a standard where there are acres of empty land for parking. For example, the amphitheater is going somewhere where there used to be salt trucks, so it’s not like it’s taking away parking. The soccer stadium is going in an area that is just acres of asphalt, it’s a broad underutilized area that you can call parking, but it does not hit capacity 99% of the time. I think there’s been some intelligent use of siting there.

“When we think about parking, that comes down to a question of how much do we want to encourage people to walk? How do we want to make it easy for them to bike? Cyclists, pedestrians don’t need a parking space when they get where they’re going. It’s a longer complicated conversation. But the simple answer is we got to have an intelligent conversation and not just invoke the word parking without knowing what we’re talking about.”

Q: This August, Kent County voters will decide whether to create a 3% excise tax on hotels and motels. Do you support that effort?

LaGrand: “I think it’s a fairly elegant tax. I passed a billboard that said ‘no new taxes’ the other day. It’s a tax on people who visit. I’m happy to have people come visit, but then they should pay into the cost of things they’re consuming.”

Q: How do you hope to reduce crime and violence in our community, especially involving young people?

LaGrand: “I’ve long been an advocate of a vision that’s restorative justice. It tries to identify harms that are caused and fix the harms. It’s a harm-based look at things rather than a, ‘you did something wrong that I said was wrong and now I’m going to do x to you.’ If you have a consequences-based system, it often doesn’t work very well. For example, using money as a way to decide whether people stay in jail or don’t stay in jail is a hot mess. We need to assess risk when we’re looking at who stays in jail or who doesn’t stay in jail, not how rich they are. It doesn’t make any sense.

“One of the things we need to do about crime in the city generally is community policing. It’s good, it works, we need to lean into community policing. We can do a better job of policing, but we can also do a better job before policing happens on de-escalation and building a culture that isn’t conflict-based and violence-based. There are tens of things we can do here, many of which our police chief is absolutely cognizant of. I think he’s brilliant on this, and I think bringing in stakeholders is really important. Whether you perceive the justice system is working for you or not is a really important question, and not everybody in our community feels the same way about that.”

Q: Speaking of the police chief, he has talked about his department experiencing staffing shortages , like many others across West Michigan. Do you feel the police department needs more funding at this point or less funding?

LaGrand: “I think it probably needs more funding is the short answer. But let’s answer your primary question. The No. 1 reason someone works for you is because they feel respected. The No. 2 reason is because you pay them. People won’t work somewhere where they don’t feel respected and they don’t feel valued. One of the things I want to prioritize as mayor is making sure the people on the police force feel valued and respected, and the community feels like they are being valued and respected as justice is being administered in the city.

“This is a job that often is stressful, it can be dangerous. We need to lift up and support the officers as they’re doing that job. We need to do it more publicly.”

Q: It was clear during the protests after the killings of George Floyd and Patrick Lyoya that there remains a lot of pain and frustration and much of the community when it comes to the police department. How would you hope to bridge that divide between the community and law enforcement?

LaGrand: “I live in the inner city. These are issues that are real to me and I’m very empathetic to the communities that have those concerns. Listening to people and keeping your ear to the ground is really important.

“The other part of this is we really actually need to talk about policy because police officers do what policy tells them to do. I had a great conversation with one of our local law enforcement leaders who said, ‘Traditional training has been if you touch somebody, they better wind up in cuffs at the end of the encounter.’ We need to figure out how to incentive our officers to use their brains and give them permission to say if this encounter is not going the right way, it’s going to be OK if I pull out. Nobody’s going to yell at me for disengaging and de-escalating a situation.

“None of this is to be critical of law enforcement as they’re doing their job right now. My business is always get better year after year. We can have the same standard for any competent skilled workforce, and that’s what our law enforcement officers are.”

Q: Why should someone vote for you? What is your closing message?

LaGrand: “I think I have a passion for the city. I think I have the skills. I know what economic development looks like because I’ve done it. I know how to do justice and safety work because I’ve done it. I not only have a real heart for the city, but I have a real heart for the future. I’ve done housing work and mostly I really want to build a better democracy in this city, I think that’s an exciting project. I want a city where everybody feels listened to.”

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