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Meet Senita Lenear, candidate for Grand Rapids mayor

By: FOX 17 News

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and last updated

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Senita Lenear has served as both a member of the local school board and as a city commissioner in Grand Rapids.

Her full campaign information can be found on her website.

FOX 17 sat down with Lenear several weeks ago to discuss her candidacy for mayor.

The interview can be watched in full here:

Senita Lenear full interview with FOX 17

Below is a transcript of the interview. It has been slightly edited for clarity.

When did you announce your campaign?

I announced the week of Thanksgiving, earlier in the week of Thanksgiving in 2023.

So tell me, what are your top priorities if elected?

That's a really good question. And so what I've been doing is having what I'm calling neighborhood connections, where I am inviting residents and business owners into community spaces to really hear from them. So sure, as a former commissioner, I have a whole lot of ideas of things that I'd like to continue, I'd like to I'd like to see grow, or thoughts that I may think would be valuable things to bring to this office. But I think it's also important to hear from the community and bring their ideas with me.

That's what I've been doing with these neighborhood connections. Some of what I'm hearing are similar to the things that I'm interested in. So housing, you know, being able to have like a business "buzzment" office where businesses can tap into one person and get their questions answered and can help them to navigate through city government.

We're also looking at the expansion of the Third Ward equity fund, when we think about, you know, where, how it's funded. Currently, I'm grateful. But I also know that there's more room to expand that, and then to also look across the city to see what other areas in the city need reinvestment.

Similar to what happened with the Third Ward, the SAFE Task Force, as the former chair of that task force, definitely would like to see that expanded and to see that elevated a little bit more. Obviously, we've done some great work. Over $600,000 has been poured into grassroots organizations to address violence in our community, and I'd like to see how can we expand that. How can we grow some of those smaller nonprofits? So those are just a few that I'm thinking about, but also some that are similar to what I'm hearing in the community.

The Third Ward Equity Fund, for people who don't understand what the Third Ward equity fund is, you're a huge part of that. Can you explain that and what your intentions are to grow that?

So the Third Ward Equity Fund, if I can just share a quick story, started when Commissioner Dave Allen and I "protested," if you will, or "boycotted" an exercise that the City Commission was having. During one of our strategic planning sessions, we were asked to put dots on different ideas that were capital improvement projects on those large sticky notepads. We were asked to put dots to prioritize our thoughts and our thinking. As we were going through, I noticed that none of them were in the Third Ward.

And what it did for us, I think, for everyone who was there that day, it helped us to see that some of what we had been saying and expressing about, you know, underinvestment, it actually helped us to see how it happens. This was because the city was not prioritizing the Third Ward. From that boycott, if you will, came this Third Ward Equity Fund, because what we wanted to do was to reinvest in the Third Ward. The Economic Development Department did a study and their data supported what we saw through that small exercise, that we had underfunded the Third Ward significantly over a number of years, if not decades. And so what we wanted to do was put money behind reinvesting in an area in our city that had been underinvested in by the city of Grand Rapids.

And in a way that's a direct address of systemic racism, I think, in a lot of ways. Can you elaborate on that?

So systems create the experiences that we all have in our city. And you're exactly right. So there was a system; there was a structure that existed to underfund one of the most diverse wards in our city. And so ... and we know that the largest population of Black people are in the Third Ward. So that was a direct connection. If you go right to those neighborhoods, specifically for 49507... We're actually sitting in my office here in the 49507, which is an intentional decision as well, because there was underinvestment right here in this zip code, and broadly in this community. And so this is what people have experienced. You remember the Forbes article that said Grand Rapids is the second-worst place to live for Black people economically? And that was a shocker for many people, but Black people weren't as shocked by that as others were because we were experiencing that living in the city and seeing the blight or seeing the underinvestment and so sure, you know, when when the data comes out, and we're seeing those articles, we know where it's coming from, and this is why we have to have systemic changes in order to address and undo some of those challenges.

Is that something more broadly you plan to work on as mayor?

Absolutely. So you know, one of the things I keep saying to people about some of the work that I'll do is, really, to open up the junk drawer of Grand Rapids. So, it's an amazing place to live. I've lived here since I was 9 years old. And I really have enjoyed it; I went to college here; I have raised my family here. And so this is home for me. But we also know what happens when company comes over; we have a drawer that we may throw all of the keys in the mail and everything that's on the counter in, and we'll get to it when we, you know, whenever we can. But that junk drawer is a mess; sometimes it does take opening it up and addressing the issues that are in there. And I think we have that in our city where we've put some things away, and we just need to open up the door to address them.

That's exactly one of those issues that we need to come unpack and address so that we can all have the same experience here. You know, it's the initiative, the DEI initiatives we've all been hearing about; you hear about 'em at conferences all the time. I'm sure in your profession, you're talking about it; I know it at the different chambers of different calibers, they're talking about it, you know, so everyone across the spectrum... schools are talking about it; we're all talking about it. But when it's time to take action and do the things that are necessary to make the change that we all say we want to see, that's when it gets a little uncomfortable for people.

And it's time for us to just have those challenging conversations, make those challenging decisions so that we can have the outcomes that we're all seeking.

I was just at MLK yesterday for the groundbreaking.

Right. So cool.

And you know, it's things like that ... some of the funding from the Third Ward Equity Fund contributed to that. And so it's things like that, where it's just, like, this is amazing. And this is what you can do and, you know, some of the intimate conversations I had with staff members from the city, neighborhood association members, you know, who were all saying, "Thank you, thank you," because it started off as a refresh of the lodge. And I was adamant.

And sometimes that's the challenging thing is when you're adamant and you're like, "No, we can do better than this." Let's stretch ourselves to do better than this.

And then you have an outcome like this; we're all just excited, you know, to see the the groundbreaking of that and what's to come, because the community deserves that. And so ... that's how you dismantle the things that aren't working well. And on the other side of it, no one's harmed. We are all benefiting from it. But we didn't want to take the necessary steps in the beginning. And sometimes it just takes a lot more conversing and a lot more meeting to help people to understand and bring them around, like, "No, this is worth the investment."

Now, I want to switch gears a little bit. So we have some major projects on the horizon and Grand Rapids that have a lot of people talking: the amphitheater, the soccer stadium. Give me your thoughts on those projects, and what would you do with them as mayor?

So, you know, on my website, I talk a little bit about Grand Action 2.0 and my interest and desire to see those projects move forward. You know, those are the projects that you have once in a lifetime. But what's important about those projects is to do those projects well. Because they're once in a lifetime. Looking at the Van Andel [Arena] — I don't know how old, is 25 years old or something like that — like, you don't get those things frequently. So you want to make sure that when you're doing them that you're doing them really, really well.

And so I know that there are places that have done projects of that magnitude. I remember a colleague in the city telling me about Atlanta, Georgia, and one of their larger... I think it may have been a stadium, and how they were able to galvanize the community so that the community could be a part of the structure embedded in the structure at the very beginning.

I remember advocating for that... I know that there's a lot of community engagement that's happening. And what we want is engagement that results in change, engagement that results in seeing people's ideas come to fruition; it's going to be extremely important for all of the people who are stakeholders in these massive projects to understand that we are all a part of the community.

As I was at the at the groundbreaking last night for MLK Park, someone mentioned, you know, these are our tax dollars. So this is great that we're doing this, but we're all contributing to it. And we all need to see ourselves as investors in a lot of these projects as well so that we can come to the table with our ideas to make sure that our voices are heard. And as mayor that will be something that I will be championing. I know that they're doing some of that now, but I won't stop there. We're going to make sure that those voices are integrated and embedded in the fabric of the institutions that are going to be in our community, which we are all, you know, grateful that they're coming, but we want to make sure that they have the impact that we're all intending.

I think the other thing that I think about with some of these larger projects is that as we're doing this, we also have to do the other things in our city to make sure that the structure is in place, and that things are also happening the way that they should happen. I say to my kids, "Sometimes you can't do the extra credit until you do the homework." So you know, these bigger, broader things that are going to attract people into our city are great things that we need and we want, but some of the homework is making sure that our roads are taken care of, making sure that people have access to city staff and making sure our good governance is at a high quality so that people are interacting and engaging with government very, very well. So we have to balance some of those structural things. And we can't not do those as we're looking at some of the other things, these bigger and broader and more flashy are things that we're considering.

If you could name a few topics, what are your main missions or causes or things you want to champion if elected?

Well, I think some of them we've talked about already: Third Ward Equity Fund and then combing through the city.

Here's another one that I'll talk about is A to P. So ... because you follow our local government, [you] probably have heard me talk about, is A to P. But it's my thing; it's not the city's thing. And it's talking about having what I'm considering, what I'm calling, diversity in our housing stock and in our investments into housing. So how do we reimagine streets like Alpine, 28th Street and Plainfield? Or Lake Michigan Drive. You know, how would we... how can we reimagine those places for housing? So we're in a city where we're kind of deadlocked in our land. You know, we've built as much as we possibly can; we know we're building up. And that's important for us to have, but we need diversity in our housing stock.

And so when we look at places where there are gaps, and openings, where retailers used to be, especially large retailers with really large parking lots, we've seen buildings that are on slivers of land and downtown. So how can we reimagine some of the spaces on those corridors to be able to get some of the housing that we need in our city? So that's another one. We've talked a little bit about SAFE. So those are some of the initiatives that I'll be bringing with me and talking about when I get there.

Is there anything else you'd like to add or talk about?

Well, I think one of the things that as mayor that I think I'm learning more and more is that people want access. So you know, the last couple years, as a commissioner, I would attend our commission; I would go out on the dias a half hour before the meeting started, just to make sure that I was accessible for people to ask whatever questions that they wanted to ask. We know that during public comment, people can't hear from us in that moment. But if you really want it to, you know, talk through some things, I made myself available so that people could ask those questions. And that's something that I'm finding as I'm doing the neighborhood connections that people want... they want to be heard.

And so I'm going to make sure that I continue instituting something like that, attending though, coming to the meetings early to make sure I'm available, and also some neighborhood connection of some facet so that I can continue to engage with neighborhood associations and with the residents that live across the city and our neighborhoods. This is our community. For the business owners that are here, so we can make sure we can hear from them. And taking their perspectives as we're making policy decisions.