The following is a column I have submitted to the Grand Haven Tribune to correct a very unfortunate typo in the first paragraph of my column published yesterday.
Yesterday, in my column on the attempts of far-right extremists to take over our school board and force their views upon all the education of all children in the district, there was a tremendously unfortunate typo in the first paragraph.
I wrote how all this began two years ago with a group called “Grand Haven Conservative Parents” and their attempts to ban book with sexual content, particularly books that contain LGBTQ characters. I wrote how that group then became “Restoring Ottawa,” and then wrote how many of the individuals associated with this campaign are active in a local PAC.
However, in a slip of the keyboard I wrote that this local PAC was “Ottawa Integrity.” Clearly, though, “Ottawa Integrity” is not the PAC formed from these extremist individuals. And throughout the rest of the column, I referred to that PAC by their actual name “Ottawa Impact.”
As soon as I was alerted to the typo in the first paragraph, I alerted the Tribune who promptly corrected the online version and issued a correction in the next print version. However, there may be a “felix culpa” here. That Latin phrase means “happy fault” and refers to the truth that goodness can flow even from mistakes and sins done wrong. The typo raises the importance of explaining why a distinction between Ottawa Impact and Ottawa Integrity is so very essential.
Ottawa Impact is a PAC that has already successfully won primaries where their candidates will now run unchallenged to represent several districts on the Ottawa County Commission. Absent challengers in the General Election, those Ottawa Impact commissioners will likely be elected in November and establish their own majority on the Commission. Presumably, they will proceed to do what they promised in the campaign. They will seek to dismantle the Ottawa County Health Department and to eliminate the Ottawa County Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. They will find any way they can to grind their axes from the restrictions of the pandemic and punish public health officials who were trying to keep us safe.
This is the same group that is running extremist school board candidates in the Grand Haven Area Public Schools election: Roger Williams, Thomas Hoekstra, and Tommy Van Hill. Not only are these candidates running on a platform to ban books in the name of parental rights (they really are only interested in the rights of parents who agree with them, not other parents who want a free and professionally curated library for our kids), but they have all signed a contract with Ottawa Impact supporting its platform. That platform is based on not only on banning books in library, but is also opposed to LGBTQ content in sex education (erasing the existence of queer and trans kids, something that will only increases their pain and suffering), the rejection of healthcare policies for vaccinations to keep the public safe, and a platform statement that explicitly opposes attempts at racial justice and equity.
This group is so extreme that one of the candidates, Roger Williams, has regularly attended school board meetings and when he is told he has to keep to the same three-minute time limit as everyone else in public comment period, he says the board is racist for insisting upon that reasonable guideline.
And Ottawa Impact is not only active in Grand Haven. They are running candidates in school boards across the county. Right across the bridge in Spring Lake, they are running candidates who are disingenuously hiding their connections with Ottawa Impact, as our communities increasingly realize the danger of this group’s extremist views. Indeed, their fear to confront the public is evident in the refusal of any of their candidates for school board to attend the public forum hosted by the non-partisan League of Women Voters. Ottawa Impact, and candidates aligned with their views, are part of a larger effort nationwide to takeover local government and replace public servants with ideologues who support fascist control based on narrow puritanical and discriminatory beliefs over service to a diverse populace.
Ottawa Impact is true to its name: they are seeking to punch through the policies and structures that seek to enable the freedom and flourishing of the whole community, insisting everyone else must follow their own views on these questions. Theirs is a platform that would violently disrupt our community.
On the other side of the world from them is Ottawa Integrity. While it is clear that Ottawa Impact only supports far-right candidates who align with Trump’s “America First” worldview, Ottawa Integrity is a non-partisan PAC that “is driven by a desire to protect, promote, and uphold integrity for the people in our community.” Rather than attack the health department and school boards, they have explicitly expressed appreciation for the work they (and so many other publics servants) did, trying to keep us safe in the worst health-crisis we’ve seen in a century. Instead of dismantling government, or running on national partisan issues for local elections, Ottawa Integrity believes that “the primary responsibility of local governments is to assess and meet the needs of the community; through the functional administration of municipal services and infrastructures.”
And, yes, they are non-partisan. When you go to the website of Ottawa Integrity, you can see that they have endorsed both Republican and Democratic candidates who follow the principles of integrity they have outlined. None of these candidates are required to sign a contract with Ottawa Integrity.
So, I want to express my apology to Ottawa Integrity for anyone who may have been confused by the typo in the first paragraph of last week’s column Ottawa Integrity is striving to create a non-partisan response to far-right extremists like Ottawa Impact. Please, whether you live in Grand Haven or elsewhere, be very attentive to who is running in this year’s election and who supports them. It will take every resident standing up and rejecting this takeover for it to be stopped. It might be too late for this year’s Ottawa County Commissioners, but it’s not too late to protect the kids in our schools.
The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com. These opinions are those of him alone as a resident of the community and do not necessarily reflect those of his church or congregation.
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