Editor's note: In his 2007 State of the City Address, Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell ranged widely on a series of important policy issues. He challenged state leaders to get more aggressive in the campaign to promote green energy. He called for a regional partnership to improve public education. He reaffirmed the community's pledge to end homelessness. And he proposed the concept of Neighborhood Improvement Districts to revive the business corridors and residential areas around downtown. But the central theme of the mayor's speech was unity, fairness, and equality. Below is a portion of his remarks.
Just a few weeks ago we saw more than 57,000 people come together in this city. They came out of respect for the great healer and his family. They came to say welcome home. They came to say good bye. They came to be a part of history in the making. The eyes of the world were on Grand Rapids for three days earlier this month. And the world saw the best in our community – our commitment, our diversity, our hearts, our unity of spirit and purpose.
We continue to honor our president, Gerald R. Ford, when we live according to those values and qualities we exhibited to the world. Grand Rapids can continue to make history as a city in which people unite to accomplish what others find impossible. We've done it before. We did it earlier this month. We can and will do it again.
The State of the City Address sets grand goals – goals for us to accomplish together as a community; goals that stretch us, and change us, and move us toward a vision of a community unified in excellence.
This morning I will address social sustainability. If we don't have a city where equity, fairness, even-handed deployment of city services and city resources is the norm, then we don't have a sustainable city. All our grand economic plans, all our work for environmental protection is hollow – and ultimately futile – if we aren't a city where the poorest among us get equal consideration to those with wealth and power.
We do not carry out our recently demonstrated commitment to live by the principles exemplified in Gerald R. Ford if we are not purposefully healing past rifts and moving forward united in spirit and purpose.
Let me start, then, with race relations and diversity programs. Proposition 2 passed in Michigan. It passed by a wide margin. Proposition 2 ends the use of affirmative action by government and public education to remediate past injustices based on race and gender.
You may have noticed that I was a little grumpy about the passage of Prop 2. The City Commission had unanimously passed a resolution before the election urging defeat of Prop 2. The Chamber of Commerce, University Presidents, hundreds of civic and labor organizations and both candidates for governor urged a vote against Prop 2. Still it passed.
And when it passed I suggested that Grand Rapids consider challenging its constitutionality. The response was immediate, and it was angry: "What right do you have, Mayor, to challenge a legitimate vote of the people. In our system the majority rules and the majority has spoken clearly." You saw the letters, day after day, in the Public Pulse and that was a fraction of the communication I received.
Ah, but we live under a system where the majority cannot run roughshod over the rights of a minority. Many of the early gains of the civil rights movement in this country came through the courts; came as the result of challenges to majoritarian rule. That's democracy.
Having said that I can tell you that, for a number of reasons, none of which have to do with a softening of will, we have determined not to proceed on our own with a federal lawsuit. We have been told by Constitutional law experts that our chances of prevailing are slim and that the cost would be very high. We continue to monitor the federal challenge in the Eastern District of Michigan to weigh the benefit of filing an amicus curie brief on behalf of the plaintiff in that suit.
Further, at the direction of my office and the City Commission, municipal staff has been assessing all programs that seek to diversify our workforce, our supplier and our contractor base. We value diversity. We valued it before Prop 2 was introduced. We continue to value diversity now that Prop 2 is law.
Let me be clear. We will comply with the law. That means we will eliminate race and gender preference in hiring and contracting. There will be no goals. That's the law.
But mark my words. We will be an increasingly diverse workforce. And we will have an increasingly diverse supplier and contractor base. Because that's what we value in Grand Rapids.
My own heartfelt belief is that none of us have opportunity unless all of us do. And I am choosing a course that I hope, in time, will heal our divisions rather than continue to divide us. We need to move forward together. There is much to accomplish in the coming year and it can only be accomplished by a community united across gender and racial barriers. By that community – united in purpose – that we showed ourselves to be in early January.
Click here to read the full text of Mayor Heartwell's speech.
Photograph by Russell Clime of Tiberius Images - All Rights Reserved
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