User:Merinnazli/Rosalynn Bliss

Political History/ Campaign
Bliss was first elected to the Grand Rapids City Commission in 2005. She was re-elected in 2009 and 2013. During her time as a City Commissioner, she led a Blue Ribbon Panel on Parks, was a founding member of the non-profit organization Friends of Grand Rapids Parks and served on the millage campaign for Parks, Pools and Playgrounds. She served on the Uptown Corridor Improvement District and was a part of the Fulton Street Farmers Market Redevelopment among other neighborhood and community initiatives.

In 2015, Mayor George Heartwell was prohibited from seeking a fourth term. Bliss was one of four candidates who entered the race to succeed Heartwell; the others were Robert Dean, John George, and Willard Lee. A primary election was held on August 4, 2015; Bliss received 66% of the vote. Because she won a majority of the vote, Bliss was elected in the primary election without a need for a runoff election.

1st Mayoral Term
Bliss became the 59th Mayor of Grand Rapids on January 1, 2016. She is the first woman to hold that role, as well as the youngest mayor in 130 years.

Bliss’s first words as mayor were in regards to George Hartwell, the previous mayor of Grand Rapids. She expressed her gratitude by saying, “I am standing on the shoulders of many great leaders who came before me.” During Bliss’s first term as mayor, she was joined on the commission by newcomers Jon O’Connor and David Allen who were both former school board members. As well as Ruth Kelly who was re-elected and library commissioners Rachel Anderson, James Botts and Sophia Brewer.

During her inaugural State of the City speech, Mayor Rosalynn Bliss expressed her entire to-do list. This consisted of, “Foster racial equity, Provide more affordable housing. Enliven neighborhoods, Strengthen schools. Restore the Grand River’s rapids. Solve homelessness. Grow the local economy.”

Implicit Bias Training
Another major action Bliss took in her first term as mayor was she was able to work with city workers to begin getting them implicit bias training. Bliss strongly believed this was important as she states, “We must confront a difficult issue that has grown to an unacceptable proportion in our city…It starts with how the city government looks and how we think. We learn to honestly assess our own biases, and know how those biases impact others, specifically in how they result in denying opportunities for others.”

Police Community Relations
During her first term as mayor, Bliss also chose to prioritize bettering police-community relations. She refers to the police force as the “canopy that covers our neighborhoods” and highly emphasizes the fact that a community and a police force would be stronger working together.

Money for Neighborhoods
Bliss got fellow commissioners on board to create a fund that can be donated to local neighborhoods in order to fund projects. “This would create an innovative, creative way to empower people to come together to work on projects”.

Blight Fight
At the beginning of Bliss’s mayoral term, she also urged colleagues to pass an ordinance in order to hold property owners accountable for blighted vacant properties. Bliss strongly believes that these vacant properties contribute to the lack of success in a neighborhood. “We can’t allow these properties to drag down neighborhoods like a diseased tree branch that, if left untrimmed, the disease spreads.”

Environmental Sustainability
Bliss also created a general plan for the Grand Rapids movement towards sustainability. Some goals were to provide a city park within walking distance of all the citizens, completely make the change to renewable energy throughout the entire city by 2025, increase recycling habits, increase the tree canopy to 40% throughout the city, and pave over 100 miles of bike lanes to stray away from the use of motor vehicles.

River Restoration
The Grand River is a very treasured river to the city of Grand Rapids. With this being said, Bliss hopes to be able to restore the aesthetic and accessibility of the river. “Imagine being at Riverside Park and seeing rowing on the river, canoeing or kayaking through the city, and the eventual capacity to ride your bike on a 10 mile urban trail all along the river from Riverside Park to Millenium Park and beyond.” Like all other of the policies that Bliss will be focusing on, she really is hoping to bring the Grand Rapids community closer. She then went on to say, “These are realistic dreams. The groundwork has already started to restore our namesake – Grand Rapids.”

2nd Mayoral Term
She won reelection on November 5, 2019. She defeated Daniel Schutte with over 83% of the vote. Bliss received 23,715 of the votes compared to Schutte who only received 23,715 of the votes. For Bliss’s second mayoral run, her campaign fund totaled to $87,200 going into election week.

At the time of her re-election in November, Mayor Bliss was also serving as the Frederick Meijer Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Grand Valley’s Frederik Meijer Honors College. During this time she was also a professor at the university for a junior seminar course.

On the ballot for Bliss’s second election, voters also had the opportunity to vote for permanent parks millage which would ultimately create a fund for the city's public parks and pools. Towards the end of Bliss’s 2nd term as mayor, Grand Rapids was awarded with many recognitions. In addition to this, Grand Rapids marked at 85th percentile according to the 2022 NCS results.

To this, Bliss can take some pride and recognition. In regards to overall quality of life, survey participants gave positive feedback on Grand Rapids being a city for them to live in. With this meaning that at least 8 in 10 residents would recommend living in Grand Rapids to their close family and friends, they were also likely to stay for the next five years.