Once introduced to Ottawa County, DEI was deliberately spread to local municipalities by the county DEI Office. The long, slow introduction of DEI began in 2004 when former County Administrator Al Vanderberg became involved with the Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance (LEDA). LEDA began hosting an annual Summit on Race and Inclusion in 2001 and was influential in presenting the need for diversity and inclusion to the board of commissioners. Between 2014 and 2018 much of the Ottawa County DEI initiatives were centered around workshops and trainings hosted by the LEDA, but in 2012-13 Ottawa County obtained a core membership to the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE). In 2019, the board of commissioners approved the creation of the DEI Office, and that office began spreading DEI to municipalities in May 2021.
In April 2021, Ottawa County created a Request for Proposal for a facilitator to provide DEI services for 12 months using GARE tools and resources.
Multi-Training Systems, LLC (MTS) was the selected vendor. MTS proposed a total cost of $52,500 to provide the requested services shown above. Their proposal involved reviewing employee equity assessments, developing tools, resources, and training materials based on the GARE framework, conducting community research, reporting results, facilitating DEI/GARE training, and developing an action plan.
In May 2021, Robyn Afrik sent a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to all local municipalities (cities, townships, and villages) within Ottawa County requesting their participation working with the County DEI Office and other municipalities in what was called the Learning Communities of Practice (LCoP). This MOU was a non-binding agreement for a municipality to complete six months of DEI pre-work before having to pay a fee to the county (estimated at $2,000 per participant, not per municipality).
An MTS facilitator was assigned to each municipality that agreed to commit past the pre-work and utilize the GARE framework. A number of municipalities agreed to continue the DEI work. The following shows the number of participants involved, and cost paid to county (based on tier levels (size), potential discounting and non-profit funding).
Grand Haven (2 participants, $900)
Muskegon (3 participants, $4,100)
Spring Lake Township (2 participants, $700)
Spring Lake Village (1 participant, $250)
Holland (5 participants, $8,375)
Holland Board of Public Works (3 participants, $5,025)
Zeeland (1 participant, $1,575)
Zeeland Board of Public Works (1 participant, $1,575)
Payments from municipalities totaled $22,500. The county received an additional $10,000 grant from Community Foundation of Holland Zeeland, and a potential $20,000 grant was pending from Grand Haven Community Foundation. This provided the county the $52,500 needed to proceed in contracting with MTS. Hudsonville, Allendale, Ferrysburg and Coopersville had not signed an MOU for DEI work per Doug Van Essen, Ottawa County Corporation Counsel.
The work of implementing DEI initiatives in Ottawa County continued until newly sworn in commissioners eliminated the department on January 3, 2023, saving the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, nearly 20 years of working to implement DEI initiatives in Ottawa County has done much damage to the social fabric. Some people who received DEI training and have bought into its hyper-focus fixation on race and oppression are finding new ways to continue “the work.”
As a citizen, I am thankful that our new county commissioners have removed this office and its funding source, but understand the damage caused by the DEI industry will take a while to repair.