Every citizen of Kalamazoo has an interest in protecting our ability as community members to access and participate in our local government. 

At the end of the city hall meeting on Tuesday 11/12 the commission removed policy 10.1 which is citizens' ability to move items from the consent agenda to the regular agenda. They referenced the fact that a group of citizens, Black, indigenous, and trans advocates had been removing several items at the last few meetings, and not speaking about the item. This in no way prolonged the meeting but according to Jim Ritsema it was “not fair”  city staff had to stay longer at the city meeting. This is in contradiction to Mayor David Anderson’s statement where he called the same citizens abusive for speaking multiple times about the housing crisis and the quantity of the new supposed affordable housing and its impact on the housing crisis. Commissioner Praedel blatantly blamed community advocates as the reason for stripping the community of the right to pull items out of the consent agenda. This just confirms what citizens have been vocal about, that the city commission does not care about unhoused citizens and they will work to dissuade and use community advocates as a scapegoat to act against democracy. 

If the community accepts the removal of citizens rights and abilities to be involved in the democratic process, the mayor and commission will continue to shut people out of the democratic process, specifically people who are advocating for homeless, impoverished and low-income community members. 

The commission has already shut people out by removing citizens' ability to call in to make a public comment.

The commission must return citizens ability to move agenda items to the regular agenda for a vote, and return citizens ability to call-in to make a public comment.

Public comment is not currently accessible to the public as not everyone has the time or ability to attend the city hall meeting in person, especially disabled poor and working poor citizens. Call-in comments are necessary to include every citizen who wants to comment and participate, not just those who are able to attend in person. 

THESE OPTIONS ARE PART OF THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS, FOR ACCOUNTABILITY AND COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES AND CONCERNS WHICH GO UNHEARD OTHERWISE.

Community members need to be able to pull items out of the consent agenda and be able to comment on items on the regular agenda such as the fact that   Southwest MI first submitted an application to the MI economic Dev, corporation “MEDC” and selected the city of Kalamazoo as the sub-grantee for phase one of the Arcadia Creek Festival site Project for the amount of $2,071,500. According to the City of Kalamazoo agenda report this grant will combine with the $1,650,000 of Arpa state and local Fiscal relief funding. The community has been vocal about the misuse of $1,650,000 of ARPA funds. According to the Department of the Treasury “. Recipients must serve ‘‘impacted’’ and ‘‘disproportionately impacted’’ classes of beneficiaries: impacted classes experienced the general, broad-based impacts of the pandemic, while disproportionately impacted classes faced more severe impacts, often due to preexisting disparities. Public health-eligible uses include COVID–19 mitigation and prevention, medical expenses, behavioral healthcare, and preventing and responding to violence. Negative economic impact eligible uses include assistance to households such as job training, rent, mortgage, or utility aid, affordable housing development, childcare.” First and foremost.

SW MI first has been in the middle of controversy due to the problematic creation of the Foundation for Excellence, which according to the TIMES has arguably made the economic disparities in the city worse and the ALICE statistics prove that the wealth gap between Black and European Americans has been widening. That excellence is not being achieved by everyone. 

Not only are ARPA funds being misused but they are also being used to negatively impact and displace homeless communities who had been relying on the Arcadia Creek dome as shelter from the freezing elements. The funds could have been used to improve or simply mitigate the impact of the housing crisis and/or to secure more funds for a housing first pilot program and/ or for public shelters as they are doing with the Arcadia Creek festival site renovations.

Unfortunately, as we continue to see time and time again, the city commission is willing to side with the rich and greedy to “solicit more funding from the state and philanthropic donors for the project” (Kik) According to Rebekah Kik the overall cost could be as high as 14 million dollars towards the complete renovation. Imagine if the city administration worked this hard to find the funding to end the housing crisis?  In a time when hate/intolerance and gentrification are on the rise, our city is not acting any differently than those that we condemn for stripping us of our rights, autonomy, and accessibility to housing, nutritional food, and clean water.