The Honorable Mayor George Heartwell, 65th Mayor of Grand Rapids
interviewed by Catherine Ettinger of Grand Rapids Insight (formerly Inside Grand Rapids) 2007-10-17
Announcer: Welcome to Grand Rapids Insight, a weekly show featuring interviews with community leaders, business leaders and individuals who are committed to building a stronger future and now, here is your host for Grand Rapids Insight, Catherine Ettinger.
Catherine Ettinger: Welcome to Inside Grand Rapids. This week we are joined in the Foxbright Podcast studio by Mayor George Heartwell. Mayor Heartwell is the 65th Mayor of Grand Rapids. Welcome Mayor Heartwell; it's a pleasure to have you on our show.
Mayor George Heartwell: Thank you Catherine and it's a delight to be here with you. This is a great service to the community and the only way of communicating that I think is going to prove to be very important in the future.
Catherine Ettinger: Thank you. Your background is quite diverse. You've led a mortgage firm, been a professor at Aquinas College, you're an Ordained Minister, you serve as President and CEO of a retirement community and you've served as a City Commissioner. Can you share a bit about your background and why you ran for Mayor?
Mayor George Heartwell: Yes, mother says I can't keep a job. It is a sequiturs route that I have taken through my life starting in business, in our family business of Heartwell Mortgage Corporation and leaving that as a 36-year-old to return to school to theological seminary.
I spent 15 years in Ministry with the homeless community here in Grand Rapids at Heartside Ministry and to answer your question, it was during that time that I became interested in local government. I found myself regularly in front of the Grand Rapids City Commission pounding on the podium and demanding justice for the poor and oppressed in our city and being regularly frustrated that, that Commission and that Mayor weren't paying any attention seemingly, weren't doing - so, obviously right and just things that I was calling for.
So, I decided to run for City Commission. I lived in the Third Ward, the south-east side of town and so ran as a Third Ward Commissioner, was elected and then reelected to a second term that two four-year terms; a total of eight years and during those eight years I was also a Pastor at Heartside Ministry.
I think it's fair to say that my frustration levels didn't decrease significantly just because I took off as of anything.
Catherine Ettinger: Being part of the process.
Mayor George Heartwell: Yeah, it is a difficult and a challenging process. I mean how do you fairly represent people in a community whether it is the Third Ward or now as the Mayor of the city as a whole that are as diverse in their economics, in their interests, in their ages, in their race or ethnicities. I mean this is an incredibly diverse community and so being a representative for all those varied interests proves to be very challenging for anybody who takes their officeholder responsibilities seriously; but I love the job, I love the city, it's the city where I was raised in the metro area, the city where I raised my children. I have four of my six grandchildren living in Grand Rapids now. So, it's the city I love.
Catherine Ettinger: Excellent. The financial challenges facing Grand Rapids in the state of Michigan are many and well documented but what do you see as the largest or most significant opportunity here?
Mayor George Heartwell: That's a great question. I think in terms of economic sustainability, our future in Grand Rapids lies with the knowledge based industries.
Now, in that I include healthcare, I include research both medical and technical and project, and product research; but I also include in that knowledge-based economic sector the advanced manufacturing, high-tech manufacturing that we're starting to see replacing the old traditional manufacturing model that we've all known that we've all grew up with.
It has been around since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but it's a different day and time for manufacturing and I'm not ready as some are to sign the death warrant on manufacturing as an industry. I believe that it's only morphing into something that's very different and very much more sophisticated than what we've known in the past.
So, the kind of policies that we make in the city, the kind of investments that we make in the city that will encourage and enhance knowledge-based industry, I believe will bode well for a good economic future of Grant Rapids.
Catherine Ettinger: In your 'State of the City' address, you spoke about social sustainability. What do you see as the corner stones for social sustainability for Grand Rapids?
Mayor George Heartwell: Well, when I talk about social sustainability, I'm talking about creating a quality of life that is healthy and satisfying for all people irrespective of their income level, their race, and their age.
So, when we talk about social sustainability in Grand Rapids, for me the first thing that comes to mind is public education, you know, creating a viable public school that provides top-quality education for our children. I look forward to the day and I believe it's within reach for when the Grand Rapids' public schools become the schools of choice for this metropolitan area, when people will be clamoring to get their kids into the Grand Rapids' public schools rather than trying to transfer them out of the public schools.
I also look at health-related issues. Issues like infant mortality that disproportionately impacts the poor and racial minorities here and everywhere. I look at childhood-lead poisoning as an issue of social sustainability. I worked for a number of years before taking the office of Mayor developing a group called 'Get the Lead Out' that addresses the issues of childhood-lead poisoning and I know that when children are impacted by lead in their blood system, the result of environmental hazard really it's lead paint, it's the paint dust, it's lead on toys or in toys that they ingest and the impact that that has on their neurological development is well it's irreversible.
The damage once done can't be undone. You can get the lead out of their system but you can't recover the damage that's been created by that lead while it's there and so, poor children are more likely to be lead poisoned. In fact, African American children are five times more likely to have lead poisoning than white children. Hispanic children almost as much four point something times as likely.
So, I see these as issues as social sustainability that city government absolutely ought to be paying attention to and making sure that the life for all our people in the future is good and a fair and a healthy life.
Catherine Ettinger: You spoke a little bit about the economic sustainability and then the social, the third leg is environmental. How are we doing there?
Mayor George Heartwell: Well, that's the area where I get I suppose most geeked. I love what we're doing in environmental sustainability here in Grand Rapids and in truth for those who are really in touch with this whole movement of sustainability will know that you don't just separate the economic, the social and the environmental into categories, they're interrelated and interwoven.
So, that when you're addressing issues of environmental degradation, you're also improving the quality of life for people. We will shortly, I set a goal three years ago that Grand Rapids would purchase 20% of its electrical power from renewable resource generation that is non-fossil fuel generated electricity.
By the year 2008, as we sit here and record this today, we're very close to having that approval in place. We're only waiting for the Michigan Public Service Commission to finish its work and Grand Rapids will be a purchaser of green power for 20%.
Catherine Ettinger: Is that wind and solar or water?
Mayor George Heartwell: It's a mix of hydro, landfill gas and wind. We're also involved in two large projects that over the course of the next two to three years I think will allow us to purchase perhaps as much as 50% of our electricity from renewables, one is a wind power project, and the other is a landfill gas project.
Catherine Ettinger: The UN designation.
Mayor George Heartwell: Oh, thanks for mentioning it Catherine. I'm very proud of that. The United Nations has designated 32 cities in the world as 'Centers for Excellence in Education for Sustainability'. The United Nations looks at the track record of a community and on that triple bottom line that you've just mentioned economic, social, and environmental sustainability and based on our track record here in Grand Rapids, the UN designated Grand Rapids, a Center for Excellence in Sustainability. We're the only city in the United States that has received this designation from the UN. We're one of only three in North America. Toronto was the first, and Grand Rapids, and Saskatchewan are the other two in North America and only 32 in the entire world.
So, it's an honor but at the same time we understand it's an obligation to take our best practices here and share them with the world quite literally through the UN and especially share them with other US cities so that as a nation, we can become a more sustainable, political jurisdiction.
Catherine Ettinger: How can individuals or companies impact the sustainability? How can they get involved, what can they do?
Mayor George Heartwell: One of the things that the United Nations liked most about what Grand Rapids was doing was an organization we formed called the 'Community Sustainability Partners'. It started as a five-way partnership with the City of Grand Rapids, The Grand Rapids Public Schools, Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids Community College, and Aquinas College. And our purpose in coming together was to assist each other in preparing sustainability plans using a common framework, so that we could begin to identify work that we could do together in sustainability.
We very soon after we convened this group, we realized that we were missing a key component and that was the business community and so we invited businesses to join us in this effort of developing sustainability plans using the same common framework for developing those plans. That work now has generated over 125 business partners as part of this partnership. We hold quarterly summit meetings, educational opportunities for all of our partners and for me as the Mayor it has become the vehicle around which I organize all of my work at City Hall.
Sustainability drives everything we're doing today in city government. We've got a sustainability plan, it has economic, social, and environmental components to it and any new piece of work that comes my way or any new initiative that I want to propose has to fit within that sustainability plan because that's how we're doing our work today. That is equally true of the other public sector partners in the 'Community Sustainability Partnership' and businesses as well. Well, there are some marvelous examples here in Grand Rapids of sustainability in the corporate sector and I just am so proud of so many of our companies.
So, there is open membership for a business, to join the 'Community Sustainability Partnership'. There is also a wonderful organization called the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum that has over a hundred business members who are also pledged to each other and to hold each other accountable for sustainable practices. Businesses is leading the way today and government in higher education are running to catch up but, I believe, that there is a culture of sustainability that's developing right here in West Michigan and I think it bodes very well for our future.
Catherine Ettinger: Why Grand Rapids, why do you think, you know, we've become a leader in sustainability or why did we start down that path?
Mayor George Heartwell: Well, I point to some truly important corporate leaders - Herman Miller Company and the Steel Case Corporation that early on decided that in addition to making money, which is an important objective for a business, of course, in addition to making money they needed to be sure that the footprint they leave as a corporation on the world doesn't adversely impact future generations.
So, they were committed not to using up natural resources that would be un-reproducible. They were committed to respecting the environment. They were committed to working and respecting their employees at every level of the organization and treating them fairly and justly and so with that kind of an initiative I think with leaders like that it was easier for other businesses to follow.
Herman Miller was the first company in Michigan and I think among the first in the nation to have a building certified by the 'US Green Building Council' under the 'LEAD Certification Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design'.
Catherine Ettinger: Okay, now we are one of the leaders in that.
Mayor George Heartwell: Now, this area, Grand Rapids has more lead certified buildings, than any other city per capita I should add, than any other city in the country. In terms of absolute numbers, we are third in the country behind Seattle and San Francisco and then comes little old Grand Rapids. I'm pretty proud to that and today, well, let me go back four years when I first took office.
Every time a developer would come before the City Commission with a great development project, a new building. I would always ask the question, is this going to be LEAD certified? And I'd get a variety of answers like, what do you mean, what does LEAD certified mean? Well Mayor we're going to build some green elements into it but we don't think we can afford to an entirely lead certified building.
Today, four years later, the first thing a developer says when he stands up before the Grand Rapids City Commission with this Mayor behind the gavel is, "This is going to be a LEAD certified building Mayor, I want you to know that" and well, here is the great example.
Recently in Grand Rapids, we had three weeks in a row in which we dedicated a lead certified ballet building, performance space and rehearsal hall. A lead certified 340 room JW Marriott Hotel, and the nation's first lead certified public art museum. It's just a wonderful time for green building in Grand Rapids.
Catherine Ettinger: Excellent. What are some of the community programs that the City is involved in or makes possible that you would like to share?
Mayor George Heartwell: Well, the City government of course has its discrete and important functions of public safety and parks and recreation services and trash collection and clean water, drinking water, and waste water disposal but the city also gets a piece of federal money, it's called the 'Community Development Block Grant' and we put with that a piece of local revenue. We call it 'General Local Revenue Sharing' and we make grants available to neighborhood foundations, neighborhood based organizations that through this federal block grant plus local revenue sharing dollars can provide services at the neighborhood level for citizens all over the city, especially for low income citizens that might not otherwise have those services available. Maybe it's simpler if you I give you some illustrations of how this works.
The neighborhood associations in Grand Rapids from the Madison area neighbors to the Heritage Hill Neighborhood Association are funded in part. In some cases in principal part by community and development block grants, the work that they do on organizing at the neighborhood level whether that's organizing for social events in the neighborhood or to promote, improve the street lighting, or improved housing stock in the neighborhood. Neighborhood associations in Grand Rapids are very strong. We have 23 funded neighborhood associations in Grand Rapids and they provide a variety of services in their neighborhood, they couldn't do that. They just couldn't do it without those block grant dollars in the local revenue sharing dollars.
Catherine Ettinger: How do you see Grand Rapids evolving over the next several years? What do you think the future looks like?
Mayor George Heartwell: When I visit with my counter parts around the state, I go to Mayor Meetings. I find that Grand Rapids today is the envy of Mayors all over the state. Grand Rapids is one of the few really two cities along with Ann Arbor that are experiencing any kind of growth. Trevor City is a much smaller city but it's also experiencing some good growth right now but we're gaining jobs in Grand Rapids where overall in the state we're losing jobs. Our unemployment rate is substantially below that of the State of Michigan as a whole.
So, as I look to our future here in Grand Rapids, I think we've got a strong foundation to build from. Hey, we're still in Michigan and Michigan is struggling right now, we all know that. In fact, on many of the economic indicators Michigan is dead last in the nation and that's something to be concerned about but Grand Rapids has identified, I think, its own growth niche, its healthcare, and its higher education and its advanced manufacturing and when we can see a path, we are hardworking people, we an entrepreneurial people and when we can see that path, we can follow it and right now, well you only have to look at the development that's taking place downtown Grand Rapids. In 2006-2007 there will be $1.3 billion worth of starts in our downtown area. That's unheard of, here it's unheard of and it's unheard of any place else in the state.
So, I wouldn't want to in any way suggest that there aren't a lot of people who are hurting right now. Many of those folks who lost manufacturing jobs that were good paying manufacturing jobs have replaced those jobs with much lower paying service sector jobs or they're still looking for work and we've been doing everything we can to attract new training dollars and provide for retraining of workers in our city but we've got a long way to go further and so for those folks there isn't the same prosperity that I have just described and we certainly can't forget them.
Catherine Ettinger: Mayor Heartwell, I want to thank you for taking the time to be with us today and for sharing more information about the City of Grand Rapids. If you would like to contact Mayor Heartwell, he can be reached by telephone at (616) 456-3168 or you can find out more information from the City website at www.grand-rapids.mi.us. Until next week, this is Catherine Ettinger with Inside Grand Rapids.
Announcer: This has been the Grand Rapids Insight podcast. Comments are welcomed to our website http://www.grandrapidsinsight.com or email your feedback via our contact form. We hope you've enjoyed the show.