On Sept. 9, 2003, Grand Rapids voters went to the polls and overwhelmingly elected George Heartwell, Director of the Community Leadership Institute at Aquinas College, as the next mayor for the city.
Heartwell received 12,264 of the 14,622 votes cast. The next day, a clearly amazed Heartwell stated, “I wrote down my most optimistic projection and I sealed it in a envelope three days ago, and it came nowhere near 84%.”
Because Heartwell won Tuesday’s primary election with over 50% of the vote, he avoided a run-off election in November. He starts his four-year term as mayor in January.
Before joining the Community Leadership Institute in 2000, Heartwell served eight years on the Grand Rapids City Commission and 14 years as a pastor at Heartside Ministry, a church in the poorest neighborhood in Grand Rapids. He is ordained in the United Church of Christ.
Prior to serving at Heartside, he was President of Heartwell Mortgage Corporation, a family-owned firm founded by his father. Heartwell has also been involved in many community groups, such as the Interurban Transit Partnership, the Grand Rapids Housing Appeals, Habitat for Humanity, Grand Rapids Urban League, and the Women’s Resource Center.
Because the job of Mayor of Grand Rapids is only part-time, Heartwell said he will continue as Director of the Community Leadership Program at Aquinas.
Heartwell said working at Aquinas, while serving as mayor, gives him a unique opportunity to connect with the younger generation. “It will give me an opportunity to make some connections with the community at a different level,” said Heartwell. “Young people - college age and older - are investing their energy and time not in the political process, but in community improvement.”
Heartwell stated that part of his campaign strategy was to develop a youth movement. He accomplished this through such activities as a poetry jam and concert in August that doubled as an informational session on how to register to vote and get involved in politics.
Heartwell said that he has a goal of using that youth movement to give young men and women “new access to city government.”
Additionally, Heartwell said he would also like to establish new relationships with the city and the Grand Rapids public school system.
“Over the course of the last couple of years here, every time that an article in the paper talked about the city and the public schools in the same breath, it was because they were fighting over something. Since we have separate government structures for the public schools and the city, it’s a matter of creating partnerships that work together.”
Another big issue – and the one Heartwell will focus on in his first State of the City address – is the economy. The mayor-elect acknowledged that lay-offs at local companies like Siemens Dematic and Meijer, as well as faltering industries important to the Grand Rapids, economy such as the furniture industry, need to be addressed.
“We’re approaching an eight percent unemployment rate… We have to be aggressive in promoting our city with any firms that might be looking at moving here,” said Heartwell. “Also, we’ve got to use the tools we have to make sure the companies that are already hear are strong - to do whatever the city can do to make that happen.”
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