On October 26, 2021, the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners meeting included a “Resolution Opposing a Vaccine Mandate from the Federal Government” on behalf of the county’s own government employees.

The resolution passed 6-4 with “no” votes from Commissioners Bergman, Garcia, Holtvluwer, and Zylstra. The resolution stopped short of prohibiting vaccine mandates for Ottawa County employees, and merely voiced an opinion to the Biden administration and OSHA about the proposed mandate.

, Commission Bergman commented,

“We’re not supportive of [a vaccine mandate from the Federal government]. But at the same time, would we go against the federal government? No, we wouldn’t.”

On November 4, 2021, the Biden administration and OSHA implemented a new regulation requiring Covid-19 vaccination or testing be in place by January 4, 2022.

We now ask Ottawa County to take action to protect their employees from these unconstitutional requirements, and protect county resources from being impaired by vaccine mandates and unnecessary isolation and contact tracing.

Perhaps Ottawa County Corporation Counsel Doug Van Essen should join Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody in their lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s unconstitutional vaccine mandates.

Additionally, Ottawa County residents require ACTION to restore and protect freedom to ALL citizens. We ask the County to stop pushing COVID-19 tests on parents and children. These tests were recently called “their little super power” by Gwen Unzicker, MD, Medical Director of the Ottawa County Department of Public Health.

Corporation Counsel, Doug Van Essen, included the following statement in the resolution that passed:

“WHEREAS, the Board recognizes that COVID-19 testing where individuals have no symptoms could lead to false determinations of COVID-19 and result in unnecessary isolation and contact tracing, which would needlessly impair its resources;”

We are disappointed that Corporation Counsel and the County Commissioners did not intervene on behalf of student athletes facing devastating mandatory testing, “false determinations”, “unnecessary isolation and contract tracing” over the past school year.

Numerous Ottawa County student athletes were negatively impacted, and even excluded from state finals due to mandatory testing of other athletes.

In an email from Ottawa County on November 3, 2021, Lisa Stefanovsky commented,

“We respect the rights of parents to choose what medical measures are right for their child.”

– Lisa Stefanovsky

Apparently the rights of parents don’t extend to ALL medical measures… only the rights the Health Officer determines are currently allowed.

The Ottawa County Department of Public Health continues their order to mask elementary age children for 58 more days, through January 2, during which time they encourage parents to vaccinate their little ones.

Children in Ottawa County have already endured over 220 days of masks, during which time it has become beyond clear that Covid-19 does not significantly impact children.

We request the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners immediately end enforcement of Covid-19 orders and restore constitutional freedoms to Ottawa County—including unmasking our children, as outlined in the Resolution to Restore Freedom on May 25, 2021, signed by Senator Victory, Representative Meerman, Commissioner Terpstra, multiple elected officials and over 2700 Ottawa County residents ().

Constitutional freedoms and parental rights need to be restored and protected in Ottawa County. Ottawa County needs leaders who understand and prioritize the principles of liberty set forth by our Founding Fathers.

Read more on the Commissioners’ record of inaction in the face of citizen advocacy .