![]() 2020 for allegedly failing to follow coronavirus guidelines or cooperate with contact tracing. Libertas Christian School, a private religious school where Moss is a director and treasurer, was shut down by the local health authority in Oct. Moss, who did not respond to requests for comment for this story, seems to have been motivated to organize the group by his anger over COVID restrictions at the local school. Ottawa Impact emerged from the fractious local politics of the pandemic, founded by two local activists Joe Moss and Sylvia Rhodea. They ran on an almost identical platform, advocating “medical freedom,” “parental rights”, and “childhood innocence.” (“A boy is a boy and a girl is a girl,” their websites read. Six of the new commissioners were all backed by a group called Ottawa Impact (OI). (The last time a Democratic presidential candidate carried the county was 1864.) Its county commissioner’s board has traditionally been governed by a stable of long-serving traditional Republican candidates.īut since the COVID-19 pandemic, the politics of the county have been transformed, first by local anti-mask and anti-lockdown activists, and then by a slate of ultra-conservative candidates for the board of commissioners, who took the majority of seats in an Aug. Settled by mostly Dutch immigrants, it has historically leaned conservative. Ottawa County, home to 300,000 people and a beloved annual tulip festival, is the fastest growing county in the state. Revenge politics is no way to govern.” A new brand of conservatives “Ottawa Impact is tearing at the fiber of our community over their trifling grudges. “They are exacting political revenge against our public health director by cutting millions in funding to core services that support our most vulnerable citizens,” O’Brien said. Kathleen O’Brien, a local activist mobilizing against the proposed cuts with the group Progressive Lakeshore, told The Daily Beast the board’s actions amount to “bad governance and petty retribution.” The final vote on the budget will be held on Tuesday. 12, the board revised the budget up to $4.3 million, still lower than the $6.4 million Hambley proposed in May. “These cuts do not save taxpayers money but serve to reduce services that the county is required to provide to protect the health and safety of the community.”įollowing a public hearing on Sept. “The significant and retaliatory cuts requested on behalf of Commissioner Moss are an attempt to achieve political victory over COVID-19 at the expense of Ottawa County citizens,” Hambley wrote in a revised budget document, according to MLive. John Gibbs, the county administrator, initially proposed an annual budget of $2.5 million, cutting 63 percent of funding from the department, including “discontinuing all COVID-related grants.” Gibbs said the cuts were “returning to pre-COVID budget levels.” The health department pushed back, saying the budget did not account for chronic underfunding, and estimated they would be forced to close down within weeks. “The last few weeks, we’re just fighting and battling to try and grasp these funds back for these mandated services, or services specifically for marginalized people, like getting food and health care,” Hambley said. “Our most vulnerable and our most marginalized in the community are the ones to pay the cost,” Hambley told The Daily Beast, citing programs for low-income people, children and migrants that she says the department will be forced to shutter. The embattled public health officer, Adeline Hambley, who the Ottawa Impact commissioners have been attempting to remove since they took office in January, said the proposed new budget would gut the department. Since taking office in January, the new commissioners affiliated with “Ottawa Impact” have used their majority to fire top county officials, install a former Trump administration official and MAGA loyalist as county administrator, shutter the county’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion Office, and change the county motto from “Where You Belong” to “Where Freedom Rings.”īut their particular target has been the public health department, apparently in retaliation for COVID mandates. A county commissioners board in western Michigan that was taken over by a far-right slate of candidates will vote Tuesday on whether to drastically cut the health department’s budget, in the face of pleas by public health officials and community protests.Ī group of ultraconservative candidates, motivated by resentment over COVID restrictions and mask mandates, swept to power in a election held in Ottawa County in Aug. ![]()
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