There's been much talk in recent days about the charts that were included as supplemental information in the Jan. 28, 2025, Ottawa County Board of Commissioners' meeting packet. 

These graphs were included with recommendations for commissioner appointments to various boards and commissions. The side-by-side comparison of the 2024 appointments (on the left) that were recommended by then Ottawa Impact (OI) Chairman Joe Moss and approved in a split vote with all OI commissioners supporting his recommendations, are shown alongside the 2025 appointment recommendations made by current Republican Chairman John Teeples and approved unanimously by all commissioners.

This simple side-by-side comparison is a textbook "case in point" of George Washington’s warning to our nation about what happens when potent political factions like OI play on the emotions and intellect of the electorate. 

In his farewell address of September 1796, Washington warned against factions like OI, “Combinations or associations … may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” 

Upon winning in 2022 and taking office in 2023, OI made no apologies for quashing dissent by firing those who stood in their way. Then, systematically over the next two years, they labored to disenfranchise significant portions of the electorate by appointing ideologically aligned individuals to boards, commissions and authorities. Sprinkle in lawsuits, settlements, legal fees, exorbitant severance packages, and pork doled out to their supporters at the expense of Ottawa County residents, and what happened next was fascinating. 

Traditional Republicans and a hearty contingent of Democrats in Ottawa County decided that they’d had enough. OI-endorsed candidates got shellacked in the August 2024 primary. A grand total of four out of 12 of their endorsed candidates won their races. When you add in state and national seats, the return on investment on the OI dogma is even worse. Less than 27% of their endorsed candidates won their primaries.

Ouch.

Washington warned us about factions like OI, and "we the people" took action. 

Those elections ushered in six Republicans and a Democrat who has bravely joined the center-right majority in Ottawa County — a majority that is walking lockstep with our nation’s first president, standing shoulder to shoulder against the fruit of factions like OI; disenfranchisement, wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars to settle personal scores, and an agenda that commands the allegiance of the many for the benefit of a few. 

And now that OI is in the minority, what would this new majority do? Would they abide by Hammurabi’s Code of "an eye for an eye" and relegate them to the sideline of decision-making in Ottawa County as they did all of us?

Or would they take a page out of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5:39 when he said: “…[I]f anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also.” The answer is written above in the graphs provided in the supplemental packet of the Jan. 28 Ottawa County Board of Commissioners meeting. 

How to submit an opinion

Ottawa News Network accepts columns and letters to the editor. Letters should be about 300 words and columns should not exceed 1,000 words. ONN reserves the right to fact-check submissions as well as edit for length, clarity and grammar. Please send submissions to newsroom@ottawanewsnetwork.org.

While we’ve heard much about “mandates” from nationally elected leaders, the new majority in Ottawa County does have a mandate. It is to return Ottawa County to governance that’s competent, transparent, fiscally responsible and representative of all people in Ottawa County. At the first official meeting, a solid step was taken to fulfill this mandate. 

Make no mistake, it will take time and treasure to right this ship. But a new day is dawning in Ottawa County and George Washington would be proud. 

— Josh Brugger is vice chair of the Ottawa Board of Commissioners. He represents the county's 10th District, which includes the cities of Grand Haven, Ferrysburg and portions of Spring Lake Township.