EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.

In December, my abbreviated term as a county commissioner concluded. I made a vow to myself that I would keep my own counsel about the proceedings of the board of commissioners for the first six months of the session. 

I did this out of respect; there was work to do addressing the myriad issues their fellow Republicans created through inexperience, incompetence and lack of critical-thinking skills.

Fixing that was going to take time.

As July began, it has become clear to me that rather than creating a culture of governance that serves everyone, what the current board has instead focused on is staying off the media radar and giving the appearance that Fillmore and Ottawa County are back to being boring again. The chair and vice chair feel they have their feckless foursome framed off into something that will give them voice, but no power. 

And in 81 out of the 83 counties in the state, that would probably be correct.

But we live in a county where the new board members, regardless of how much they point out they’re not like the previous board leadership in action, nevertheless share membership in a county Republican party seemingly bent on continuing the futile, divisive culture wars and absolutist point of view that brought the OI faction to prominence.  

And this matters. 

It matters because last April, we witnessed a series of sustained and false attacks by the OCGOP on our OAISD as they sought renewal of a millage whose sole purpose is to give our special needs children and youth the support they need to have the best lives they possibly can. 

I’m not upset by the attacks; anyone who has watched county or national politics for the past several years should have seen this coming. 

What I’m upset about is the fact that none of our new GOP commissioners came out publicly to either correct the record or support the millage. This is concerning because a millage focused on helping children shouldn’t be a partisan issue. 

Their rationale to not say anything may reside in that desire to give credibility to the appearance of being boring. Or perhaps it comes from a place of reluctance and fear about upsetting their party’s executive committee, which continues espousing positions and beliefs not held by the majority of Ottawa County residents — whether they call themselves conservatives or not.

It matters because in May, all the Republican members of the board were publicly celebrating a performative 90-day extension of the J.H. Campbell power plant's lifespan — a move that seemingly does more to burnish the conservative credentials of commissioners censured by the OCGOP Executive Committee than it does to provide solutions to a nonexistent “national energy crisis.”

Residents will shoulder a portion of the unnecessary costs to keep the Campbell open. That expense lies squarely on the new commissioners for listening to hyperbole over fact and encouraging this idea to avoid controversy.

And most recently, we watched as the process of finding a new administrator was hijacked by the current Republican minority while providing a master class in revisionist history about their own ineffectual search process that collapsed under the weight of its own flaws last year.

We, as taxpayers, have subsidized this search, piloted by the majority, to the amount of $600,000 thus far — with no end in sight.

During the 2024 Republican primary, many Independent and Democrat voters participated in the open primary to cast a “lesser of two evils” vote. Many of the commissioners who won those primaries now occupy seats made possible for them based on the belief of many residents that they were the more reasonable candidates who would stand up to OI and, by proxy, the structure that supports them. 

Conversely, county voters were given a robust slate of local Democrats to vote for last November, some running in areas that had never had a progressive candidate before. While few of those races were successful, the number of votes received by the Democrats county-wide buries the narrative that this is a red county.

For the past two decades, Ottawa has been changing, trending away from its historical political underpinning, and it continued to do so in an election cycle where just about everywhere in Michigan but Ottawa County inched to the right.

For the past seven months, we have seen platitudes, caustic commentary, mild grandstanding and long discussion. What any voter, be they traditional Republican, Independent or Democrat hasn’t seen yet is any actual indication that this new boss is any different than the old boss. 

Which leads me to surmise there isn’t any real difference as far as substance between the two versions of Ottawa County Republican we see — the only difference is in execution. Those primary voters who voted hoping to see a board with more empathy and acknowledgement that Ottawa’s continued success and strength lie in its diversity, and were hoping for more aggressive action to resolve the issues of housing and growth need to accept the fact that all that was achieved was a return to version 1.8 Republicanism. 

And for many, that might be enough, because when you’re getting hit in the face as regularly as we were with the last board’s antics, getting punched in the arm seems like an improvement.

This presents all the residents of Ottawa County with two unique issues to consider:

First, Republicans who aren’t paid members of the county, state or national party simply must start paying attention to what the party representing them is saying and supporting. The saying “Our Republicans aren’t like those Republicans in Washington” is no longer true. You might want to investigate and then decide if this is what you want to support or if you want something better. Bottom line: This is not my Grandpa’s “fiscally responsible, inclusive but socially conservative, keep your God out of politics” GOP.

The second is that Democrats need to work at being the opposition party and stay out of the GOP’s sandbox. We must accept the responsibility of being a counterpoint to the false narrative that Ottawa is a blood-red county and get past the idea that our greatest strength is which Republican we vote for in the primary. This means we have to accept that the outcome of that could be pretty scary.

OI version 2.0 is always going to be a possibility, and they aren’t going to mellow. But until the GOP loses the ability to use non-Republican voters as the excuse for why the extremist candidates the party endorses lose, they won’t have to take responsibility for the consequences of their party. And the type of conservatism reflective of the wide band of Ottawa County residents who call themselves Republicans will never happen.

— Chris Kleinjans is a former Ottawa County commissioner. He resides in Holland Township.

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