Our nation was founded by wise men who believed in the power of words and ideas—the power to overthrow tyranny, to topple kings, and to birth a new nation.
Our founders labored over every word of our founding documents, convinced that a people given the chance to fully experience their God-given freedoms could self-govern and sustain a nation truly of, by, and for the people.
Built on the brilliance of their hard work and sacrifice, America has been blessed with nearly 250 years of freedom.
Throughout our history, moments have come when courage—and words—were again needed to defend our nation from threats within and without. In such times, leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan lifted the torch of freedom to preserve our republic.
Since 2020, America and our communities have faced dark days—marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and government overreach, the rise of Marxist DEI ideologies, and state and federal administrations unwilling to defend our freedoms.
In 2023, the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners adopted a new county vision statement: Where Freedom Rings—affirming “Where Freedom Rings—where individual freedoms, parental rights, and freedom of religion and conscience are protected, all people belong.”
A vision statement is the county’s north star.
There is no greater duty of government—and no higher calling—than to protect the freedom of its people.
ELIMINATION OF WHERE FREEDOM RINGS
At the upcoming Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, July 22, the 2025 Board leadership will propose eliminating Where Freedom Rings as the county’s motto. No replacement motto has been identified.
Why erase freedom from the county’s vision, and why the battle over words?
From 2017 to 2023, Where You Belong functioned as the county motto/vision statement, and was built on DEI language. Under this banner, the county launched wide reaching DEI initiatives designed to reshape the demographics and culture of one of Michigan’s most influential and fastest-growing counties.
County leadership, backed by business interests, viewed the county’s predominantly white, conservative population as a problem to solve. Their goal? To change not only the race of the people but also their deeply held beliefs—especially on issues of sexuality and gender.
How did one of Michigan’s most conservative counties get here?
DEI BEGINNINGS
Nikita Khrushchev, the Marxist leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, famously warned, “We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within.” Like America’s founders, Khrushchev understood the power of ideas—and operated with the patient belief that communism would one day conquer America by infiltrating her institutions.
Over time, Marxist ideology seeped into American universities and political movements, especially within the Democratic Party. From these platforms, it gave rise to the DEI and social justice movements—crafted with the goal of fundamentally reshaping American beliefs and institutions. The strategy: deconstruct America’s founding principles in order to reconstruct a nation with socialist ideals.
DEI ideology teaches that America was evil from its founding—and frames individuals who are heterosexual, cisgender, Christian, white, and male as inherent oppressors. By contrast, those outside these categories are seen as oppressed and lacking personal agency. DEI aggressively promotes LGBTQ+ activism, particularly in schools, fueling the rise of gender ideology/transgenderism and, until recent Supreme Court interventions, undermining parental rights.
Organizations like UC Berkeley’s Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), Race Forward, and the Othering and Belonging Institute have been instrumental in shaping and spreading DEI. These groups packaged DEI frameworks for local governments, accelerating its reach nationwide. After President Biden’s inauguration, GARE expanded its influence—helping the administration embed DEI principles throughout the federal government, including the military.
OTTAWA COUNTY—EARLY ADOPTER OF DEI
Years before DEI became a national flashpoint, Ottawa County aligned itself with UC Berkeley’s far-left Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE). Under the leadership of County Administrator Al Vanderberg, working alongside the Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance (LEDA), Ottawa joined GARE as an early adopter and Midwest Core Member around 2015—becoming the 11th government nationwide, and the first east of the Mississippi, to do so.
According to GARE, “Ottawa County was one of two locations in the U.S. to participate in the Transforming White Privilege Project, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.” Key staff from the County Administrator’s Office, Sheriff’s Office, and Human Resources took part in this pilot program in Grand Haven in early 2015.
Ottawa’s fellow GARE members included progressive cities like Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis—cities later thrust into the national spotlight for violent unrest in 2020.
Yet, Ottawa County’s Republican leaders embraced GARE’s progressive DEI agenda, packaged in compassion and beautiful words. They either overlooked or ignored GARE’s alignment with Democrat positions on immigration, abortion, Planned Parenthood, DEI in schools, climate justice, transgender activism, LGBTQ+ policy, Palestine, Black Lives Matter, and open hostility toward President Trump and conservative values.
OTTAWA’S DEI VISION STATEMENT
Believing that Ottawa County’s 90% white, largely conservative population was a barrier for employers, county leadership deepened its DEI efforts. In 2017, they changed the county vision statement to “Where You Belong”—a phrase rooted in DEI’s language of “belonging.”
As one of Michigan’s fastest-growing counties, Ottawa actively sought to attract residents with what DEI ideology considered more “desirable” traits—non-white, LGBTQ+, transgender, non-Christian—largely at the urging of large employers.
While communicating that white, conservative residents were a problem, “Where You Belong” became the guiding vision for the county’s DEI agenda, driving its integration across all departments.
Yet somehow, county leaders failed to recognize a simple truth: racism and discrimination are not defeated by institutionalizing new forms of racism and discrimination.
In 2018, to further integrate DEI into the county, Ottawa County established a formal Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Department—promoting not only DEI principles but transgender ideology as well. By doing so, the county legitimized DEI’s reach into local institutions, including the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District (OAISD) and public schools. The county then promoted DEI—and its partnership with GARE—to cities, townships, and neighboring counties through organizations like the Michigan Association of Counties (MAC) and the National Association of Counties (NACo).
For more on GARE’s influence and Ottawa County’s DEI Department, click here.
A THREAT TO FREEDOM
Intersectionality—a core tenet of DEI—teaches that a person’s success in life is determined by traits like skin color, biological sex, religion, sexuality, or gender identity. This ideology sends a destructive message to our children and community: that some cannot achieve their dreams due to their skin color or other characteristics, while others are branded oppressors because of their race, faith, or biological sex.
Teaching children to see themselves and others through this divisive lens is not only discriminatory—it is emotionally abusive.
We love the people and children of our county. and for that reason, we oppose teachings that divide us. We believe every individual is inherently valuable and possesses the potential to thrive.
We also reject efforts to violate religious freedom and freedom of conscience by coercing agreement with the doctrines of DEI and Critical Race Theory. These Marxist-rooted teachings aim to fracture society, dismantle institutions, and redefine America’s founding as evil. We are strongly opposed to the harm DEI will bring to the future of our nation and our children.
Read more: Freedom of Conscience
FIRST COUNTY IN AMERICA TO ABOLISH DEI
Ottawa County’s early embrace of DEI gave families firsthand experience of its harmful impact—especially on children and schools. In 2021, the Biden administration amplified DEI across America, further confirming its Marxist design to reshape children’s thinking and undermine core institutions.
Out of concern for the growing threats to freedom, family, and faith—from both the Covid-19 response and the spread of Marxist DEI—Ottawa Impact was formed to educate and equip families to defend against these dangers.
In 2022, the people elected a new Republican majority to the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners—leaders who promised to realign county government with the constitutional freedoms of its people. On January 3, 2023, that promise was kept.
The new Board took decisive action: closing the DE&I Department, which had been founded on the divisive tenets of Critical Race Theory, and passing a resolution to adopt a new county vision statement—Where Freedom Rings. The resolution affirmed “Where Freedom Rings—where individual freedoms, parental rights, and freedom of religion and conscience are protected, all people belong.”
Read the Resolution in its entirety, which embraces freedom and a love for all people.
Ottawa County became the first local government in America to reject Marxist DEI ideology.
As our founders understood—and Marxists and Democrats alike admit—words and ideas have power. The progressive DEI movement’s relentless effort to redefine language is proof.
A county’s vision statement serves as its north star, guiding every decision and shaping the work of every department. Words matter. Freedom matters.
DEMOCRAT PANIC
The closure of Ottawa County’s DE&I Department and the adoption of the Where Freedom Rings vision ignited outrage among local Democrats. They enlisted the Washington Post, national media outlets, and progressive columnist Sarah Leach of the Holland Sentinel to unleash a relentless smear campaign against a small group of ordinary Americans who dared to challenge the national Democratic-socialist agenda.
Over 400 lengthy articles followed—labeling the new Board as Christian Nationalists, extremists, and fascists. This unprecedented media assault fooled some and enraged others.
But standing against the misuse of government to enforce a harmful DEI agenda does not make Americans racist, extreme, or fringe. Nor does it place them outside the mainstream of the Republican Party.
Defending freedom of conscience—and opposing racism and discrimination in all forms—are core Republican principles. The Republican Party remains the party of Lincoln, the party of Reagan—the party that ended slavery and confronted the evils of communism.
NATIONAL CLARITY
The 2023 Board majority recognized early the dangerous ramifications of the Marxist-inspired DEI movement—and acted decisively to protect our community. At the same time, President Biden was embedding DEI into every level of the federal government—our schools, girls’ sports, and even our military—with help from GARE.
Today, with the election of President Trump, the nation has decisively rejected DEI. President Trump is now dismantling DEI policies in the federal government—with historic results: surging military enrollment, restored protections for girls in sports, and the closure of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the nation’s largest public provider of gender-transition services.
Yet, Ottawa County faces a different political reality—a challenge unique to our community.
LOCAL CHAOS
In 2024, out of step with the heart of America, Ottawa County’s Republican power brokers joined forces with local Democrats—recruiting Democrat crossover votes in the Republican Primary. Their goal: eliminate bold conservative commissioners and replace them with weak or fake Republicans.
With the help of Democrat anger, dishonest media, and an unprecedented flood of money, they succeeded—securing a UniParty Board majority sympathetic to Democrat and establishment priorities. And they did it in a low-turnout Republican primary, when most Republicans weren’t voting.
The new UniParty majority: Jim Barry, Jordan Jorritsma, Jacob Bonnema, Phil Kuyers, John Teeples, and Josh Brugger. They installed John Teeples as Board Chair, Josh Brugger as Vice Chair, and elevated Democrat Commissioner Doug Zylstra to Vice Chair of the Finance Committee.
Former Democrat Commissioner Chris Kleinjans recently wrote on the alliance in a recent op-ed—published in Sarah Leach’s paper—confirming what many suspected: Democrats expect this “Republican” majority to do their bidding.
And now, the UniParty majority seems ready to make good on that alliance.
PROPOSED ELIMINATION OF WHERE FREEDOM RINGS
Less than a month after celebrating America’s Independence Day, the new county board majority is moving to strip “freedom” from Ottawa County’s vision—ironically, in the same month the Health Department promoted Pride events with children and drag queens in Hudsonville.
This is not leadership. This is surrender.
Words matter. So do political alliances. The current Board majority owes its power to Democrat voters and establishment power brokers who funded a campaign to silence everyday Americans and punish those who defended freedom.
The truth is, the UniParty majority cannot pretend to champion freedom while serving those who oppose it. Their actions in their first months have made clear—they do not value freedom.
REVENGE OF THE UNIPARTY
Driven by an obsession to punish courageous, Trump-aligned Republican commissioners—those who stood in the gap for the people under the radical Whitmer and Biden administrations—the 2025 UniParty majority launched a campaign of political retaliation.
They threatened qualified candidates for County Administrator before even taking office, manipulated the latest administrator hiring process, and forced out Michigan’s leading constitutional law firm, the Kallman Legal Group, from serving as Ottawa’s Corporate Counsel.
Despite constant attacks from the media, Democrats, and the UniParty, the Kallman Legal Group fought tirelessly to defend the freedoms of Ottawa County families—and just this month, helped secure significant wins for faith and family at the Supreme Court of the United States.
Yet, after ousting Kallman, the 2025 Board quietly reinstated Doug Van Essen—known for enforcing legal overreach during the Covid era—this time hiding Van Essen behind another attorney and law firm as a façade.
On issue after issue, Ottawa County’s current leadership seems more concerned with pleasing Democrats than serving the conservative majority they were elected to represent.
Freedom no longer appears to be a priority for this Board. And while transparency and honesty are in short supply, at least they are being honest on that point.
GOD IS IN CONTROL & TRUMP IS IN THE PRESIDENCY
We remain encouraged by God’s continued protection over Ottawa County—raising up bold local leaders when needed most, and now providing President Trump’s leadership for our nation during a time of weak and compromised leadership here at home.
With President Trump in office, Ottawa Impact will stay the course—working tirelessly to ensure Ottawa County remains a place Where Freedom Rings.