GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023 was a day to be remembered in Ottawa County with the declaration of a new motto: Let freedom ring. After community members got fed up with the past commissioners not representing them by imposing mask and other mandates, closing schools and not listening to their concerns, they organized in order to get rid of those commissioners by running against them in the primary and general elections.

The community voted to get rid of most of the previous commissioners who wouldn’t listen to them on important issues, including seven Republican incumbents who got replaced – and now there are eight new conservative commissioners who have the backing of the conservative and anti-lockdown group, Ottawa Impact.

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Now those new commissioners have a majority and have taken over the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners. In keeping with their promised agenda, changes from Tuesday’s BOC meeting were coming fast and furious.

The Ottawa Impact group was founded by current County Commission Chairman, Joe Moss, who represents District 5. The website lists their mission as “to preserve and protect the individual rights of the people in Ottawa County. These rights include freedom of speech, freedom of association, religious liberty, due process, and sanctity of conscience. These are essential qualities of liberty and freedom. Ottawa Impact educates people about threats to these rights and provides a means to defend and preserve them.”

With a majority on the 11-seat Board of Commissioners, the newly elected commissioners went right to work on Tuesday after they were sworn in to do what they had promised the voters that they would do.

Those promises turned into decisive action as they abolished the DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) Department and fired the director, got new legal counsel with a conservative law firm, replaced the county’s health officer with Nathan Kelly, and they fired Executive Director John Shay and appointed John Gibbs to replace him. Gibbs had lost his bid to represent Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District and had worked for the Trump administration.

Nathan Kelly will have to be approved by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS). During public comment, Kelly said that he looked forward to running on “facts and technology driven data.” He continued, “We are not going to revolve anything around political bias…”

The commissioners also changed the county’s motto from “Where You Belong” to “Where Freedom Rings” which was taken from a Martin Luther King Jr. speech. In a resolution passed on Tuesday, the Board said that the old motto was used to “promote the divisive, Marxist ideology of the Race Equity movement.”

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Other resolutions passed included “Whereas the people of Ottawa County overwhelmingly spoke with their vote to restore the constitutional fights of the people as a first priority of the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners” and “Whereas constitutional freedoms are not to be suspended in times of crisis.”

The excited residents in the crowd clapped and cheered when they saw that these new commissioners were actually going to keep their word. During public comment, a resident called it a “historic day for Ottawa County in a good way” because the commissioners were listening to “we the people.” Another older resident said, “I am so glad to see this day. I’m 85 this month and I tell you I’ve seen so much corruption and I love Ottawa County…and to see all of you young parents step up and do the work, thank you, thank you, thank you…”

Michigan News Source reached out to attorney David Kallman of Kallman Legal Group, the county’s new corporate law firm, to ask about the commissioner’s meeting and he said, “Ottawa County was a pretty amazing place to be yesterday (Tuesday).” Kallman Legal Group will replace the former and current attorney Doug Van Essen after the transition is completed in about 60 days.

Kallman described the meeting as a scene that was packed with people standing and overflowing in the lobby with plenty of clapping and yelling. “It was quite the meeting,” he said.

He continued, “They (commissioners) didn’t waste any time” and heaped praise on Joe Moss, the new County Board Chairman. “He was great. Very level, even-tempered. DIdn’t let things get out of control. It was a great meeting. He really did a nice job. This guy’s gonna go someplace I think. He’s really good.”

Kallman has represented many clients while practicing constitutional law including Owosso barber Karl Manke and other businesses during the Michigan shutdown orders, Western Michigan University athletes who sued over a vaccine mandate and 84-year-old Joan Jacobson, a Right to Life Michigan volunteer, who was shot while campaigning against a pro-abortion proposal.

 The new candidates had run on a clear platform of change and even signed on to a contract called the Contract with Ottawa which Moss calls a core piece of their strategy. The contract agreement is eight pages long and includes six key points including: promote and protect liberty, govern with the least force, promote due process, defend the moral responsibility of parents, honor all people equally and use common sense.

The “Pro Life Protection Assessment” was another important piece of their strategy and Moss said it resulted in Right to Life of Michigan withdrawing endorsements of the previous Republican commissioners. The Ottawa Impact website says their assessment also resulted in the county removing their “sexual health” page from their website.

The new candidates who won were vetted by Ottawa Impact and ran a very organized campaign. Moss outlined how they were able to be successful. He said they were able to raise about $250K and ran nine campaigns, fully coordinated, all with the same branding and messaging. He pointed to knocking on thousands of doors, putting up thousands of door signs and using billboards and radio ads. He told Michigan News Source that “with clear messaging and a clear vision for the county, eight out of nine commissioner candidates won.”

Moss said he believes that all eight commissioners are completely new to serving the community in politics, including him. The new commissioners include a school teacher who taught nature kindergarten, two nurses (one with 30 years experience) and an insurance broker. Moss said they are “average everyday people who came together and worked together.”

Moss founded Ottawa Impact after dealing with the county’s response to the pandemic which included threatening the private Christian school that his daughter attended because they weren’t complying with mask mandates. Ultimately, the school was closed by force and he said that it “didn’t go over well in the community.” Neither did the subsequent mask mandate on younger students when school started again in the fall of 2021. Those actions, Moss said, drove about 1,000 residents to show up at a county commissioner’s meeting but the commissioners ignored their constituent’s concerns.

Moss said after launching Ottawa Impact, they quickly realized that the only way for change was going to have to be replacing the individuals who refused to act. From there, they launched PACs and proactively searched and vetted candidates to run for office.

When Moss was asked about the future plans for the commission and the county, he said, “Ottawa County is the fastest growing county in Michigan. It’s an amazing place to live. The county administration and its staff are highly professional and provide excellent services both internally and externally to the county. And the major changes that happened yesterday are part of a course correction more so at a leadership level and a directional level. In general, they’re the main changes.”

He went on to say, “You can be sure that we are very pro-active in our governance and looking to serve the people…the people spoke and we listened.”

He said listening to the constituents was a huge problem with the previous board and that the new board will continue to listen no matter if it’s things that they like or not.

Moss said, “We’re going to take decisive action to make sure Ottawa County is that ‘shining city on a hill’ that former President Reagan talked about.”

Michigan News Source asked Moss how he felt about being the Chair and the new direction that the commission will be taking. He said, “I feel excellent. I am comfortable and confident that the county is in excellent hands both with the new board, with the new direction focusing freedom, new legal counsel, and a new administrator… and we’re in the process of appointing a new health officer. We heard the people. They spoke very loudly with their vote. I don’t think eight out of 11 commissioners have ever been replaced at once before. I’m very excited. We’re taking our responsibility to do what we said we would do – very clearly. We made it very clear on the campaign trail what we would do and we’re simply doing that…”

However, not everyone is happy about Ottawa County’s current trajectory. One of those people is Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel who is looking into the proceedings that took place at Tuesday’s meeting. AG spokesperson Kimberly Bush made a statement that said, “AG Dana Nessel is committed to defending the Open Meetings Act and recognizes the importance of ensuring that the people’s business allows residents to participate in their government and that local and county governments operate in accordance with the established law.”

An article from the Holland Sentinel could shed some light on what the AG office might be looking into. Their website reports that administrator John Shay was fired “without conducting a public interview” and did other things that were “missing from the initial agenda posted for the meeting, denying community members the opportunity to speak on the issues, and instead were added, one-by-one, by several of the new commissioners in a meeting that was clearly orchestrated ahead of time.” They also changed board rules.

The Holland Sentinel continued, “While it’s clear electees backed by Ottawa Impact met or communicated prior to being sworn into office to plan the decisions made Tuesday, government officials of public bodies are required to follow Michigan’s Open Meetings Act – under which they must conduct public meetings if a quorum of the board is present. In addition, OMA requires any discussion on matters that could pertain to a public body’s decision to be conducted in a meeting open to the public. That means, now that they’ve been sworn in, all members of the Ottawa County Board will be required by law to discuss their views on agenda items in front of the public.”

The Open Meetings Act covers a “public body” and because commissioners were not sworn in yet, they were not part of that public body when they held meetings before Tuesday.