Eric C. Grimm1330 West Summit Avenue

Roosevelt Park, MI 49443-0041

June 5, 2015

Hon. Alan Lowe, MayorAnthony Chandler, City ManagerCity of Roosevelt Park900 Oak Ridge RoadRoosevelt Park, MI 49441

Mr. Mayor and honorable members of City Council:

I resign from the City Council, effective immediately. This is both for personal reasons andfor city-related reasons.

I also resign as Chair of the Zoning Board, and from representing Roosevelt Park andMuskegon Heights on the Board of the Muskegon Area District Library, effective immediately.

Very soon, banners will be hung along Broadway Avenue sporting the new marketing sloganWatch Muskegon. Whatever the hype, the question that needs answering is whether the realitymatches the slogan.

Various marketing and image campaigns have come and gone, in Muskegon County, for over40 years. I remember when the Occidental Hotel came down and have seen the pace of change,for better and for worse, in this area, in the intervening decades. How does that compare to seeingAnn Arbor again, after just a couple of years? Or Austin? Or Kalamazoo? What does the splashymarketing campaign accomplish if the reality more resembles Watch Muskegon nowhere?

This should not be taken as a criticism of the City of Muskegon itself, its staff, its mayor, orits elected leaders. The problem, to put it bluntly, lies principally a bit outside of Muskegonsborders, in a balkanized collection of other municipalities to the north and to the south of our centralcity, that are much slower to embrace needed change, and to evolve a more inclusive culture.

The City of Muskegon, under Mayor Steve Gawron, seems to get it, and one reason foroptimism that I see is that the leadership of our neighbor city seems to be working mightily to movethings in the right direction.

In Roosevelt Park, however, we have had one or more candidates for office who actuallyused the slogan the way things used to be, and who pine with nostalgia for an imaginaryMayberry that never existed. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Andy Griffith televisionshow was fiction. And the fictional town of Mayberry was far from diverse or multicultural. Andin the real section of the United States that was whitewashed by Mayberry for televisionconsumption, instead of idyllic scenes with Opie and Aunt Bea, what really was going on was John

Lewis getting punched in the face, for riding a bus in mixed company, and the Freedom Riders beingrefused medical treatment in the hospital after their bus was set on fire. Either we get out of ourcomfort zones and stop pretending that our city (or other balkanized cities and school districts)somehow represent islands isolated from the whole County, or watch us go nowhere.

Our local newspaper put it quite well in an editorial, when they observed: To be successful,Watch Muskegon and the related image-building elements of the overall plan need to be embracedby citizens across the county. The outreach must include all segments of our diverse population.There are still many difficult conversations that must take place to bridge the divisions of income,class and race.

Those conversations have been overdue for more than 40 years, and I have personally seenwhat kind of push-back occurs when one is encouraged to facilitate or lead such conversations. The truth is, in much of Greater Muskegon, the culture and even the elites who came up with thisimage campaign dont want to have the long-overdue conversations and dont want to makenecessary or sufficient changes. The old comfort zones are just too doggone comfortable.

When I last ran for office, one of my repeated themes was that the then-City Council, underMayor Lumley, was too focused on image and public relations, rather than dealing with reality.

Although some of my transparency goals have since been accomplished, what I cannot dois change the culture (in all our departments) all by myself without adequate effort from the restof Council. And the right people elected or appointed to City Council. And, regrettably, I donthave a sense of optimism about how that has been going or will go.

Accordingly, I think it makes sense to move on to other things rather than continuing tocontinue to debate with those on Council who remain stubbornly nostalgic about a fictionalMayberry that never existed, or who tell me that the word reason is one they cannot evenunderstand.

What the way things used to be seems to be a code-word for, is a shady behind-the-scenesway of running a city, with handshake and backroom deals, inconsistent enforcement of laws andordinances, public money spent on firearms that serve more of a hobbyist than a public safetyfunction, persistent morale and discipline problems, and the manufacture of many problems thatfuture city councils and city managers have to spend time cleaning up, because things were not donethe right way and the consistent way, in the first place.

Our city will soon go to the financial markets, in an effort to raise funds for a majorinfrastructure project.

If you are an investor, looking to get a good return on your investment over a term of years do you want to invest in the kind of community that is attractive to young, college-educatedpeople, from a variety of backgrounds, one-third of whom are religious, but an equal proportion ofwhom also are entirely nonreligious? Do you want to invest in the kind of place that is welcomingto and inclusive of everyone? Or do you want to invest in the kind of place that promises a returnto the way things used to be, with a uniform Mayberry complexion, and prayers every Council

meeting only in the name of Jesus? Do you want to invest in a place that sends a message ofexclusion and we-dont-want-you-here unless you are willing to sign the statement of beliefsrequired of National Day of Prayer volunteers? In terms of future prospects for municipal finances,the difference would seem to matter especially over the next decade or more.

How are investors really going to look at the recent fiasco initiated by Mayor Lowe, of takinga divided vote for a National Day of Prayer proclamation, and then rejecting equal recognition foran inclusive National Day of Reason? How is it going to look to investors and the bond market,when they see which members of Council stick around to bring back the way things used to be,and which are leaving? Not just leaving Roosevelt Park, but Muskegon County altogether.

One of our members is of the view that some people are just not yet ready to get okay withnew people and new ideas. Fine. But the rest of us are not waiting around for you to get ready toget out of your comfort zones. So dont be surprised when you watch the rest of the world goingplaces, and Roosevelt Park (and perhaps some nearby cities, too) going noplace in particular.

I hope, for the sake of the city and its residents, that our leadership can change their focusfrom an imaginary past, to reality and the future. But I can just point out the need. The rest is upto all of you. And it is no longer my problem.

Thanks for your attention.

Very truly yours,

Eric C. Grimm

cc: Dave AlexanderMichelle Anderson