KALAMAZOO, MI — Despite some calls urging them not to, the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners in a 7-4 vote along party lines approved a resolution to declare gun violence a public health crisis.
The county board passed the resolution Tuesday, Sept. 21, that said it was in the best interests of the residents for the commission to support the existing collaborations “to establish an evidence-based public health response to address the underlying social, economic, and systemic factors that promote gun violence.”
Some additional actions cited include:
- Allocating $1 million from federal stimulus funds for ongoing community violence intervention through allocations from stimulus funds to ensure the sustainability of such intervention programs.
- Directing the county administration to give, at minimum, a bi-annual progress reports to the board on the work performed under the resolution.
The county board joins the Kalamazoo City Commission in taking a similar action. The city of Kalamazoo designated $1 million to the cause with a vote of the commission on Sept. 20. Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners Chair Tracy Hall called it a historic partnership.
Democrats Hall, Montez Morales, Mike Quinn, Tami Rey, Jen Strebs, Fran Bruder Melgar, and Veronica McKissack voted in favor of the resolution. Republicans Dale Shugars, Roger Tuinier, John Gisler, and Jeff Heppler voted against it.
The resolution says there were 21 deaths by gun violence in 2020, making it the highest number of homicides in Kalamazoo County this century. There have been 18 deaths so far in 2021, with more than 70 non-fatal shootings.
“Gun violence is a significant problem in the United State that affects people in all stages of life, from infants to the elderly, and is linked to many chronic diseases, obesity, substance abuse and other physical, reproductive, and mental health consequences,” the county’s resolution reads, in part.
The resolution also says that it is the belief of the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners that the issue of gun violence in Kalamazoo County is rooted in racial and health inequities and injustices experienced for generations by people of color, and communities across the country require multidisciplinary solutions that address the root causes of violence.
The issue attracted input from both within and outside of Kalamazoo County. Multiple callers gave their opinion during Tuesday’s meeting, with some of them speaking strongly against the resolution. Several people talked about the Second Amendment and about being against any measure to take guns away from people.
Commissioners responded by saying the resolution does not include any language about taking guns away from people. Read the full resolution here on page 67.
In total, more than 30 people commented at the 7 p.m. board meeting. Many of the comments were about guns and/or the mask mandate. Most of the comments about the gun issue were asking commissioners to vote against it.
“I don’t know who you people think you are if you’re going to try to take our guns away,” one caller said, calling commissioners “tyrants.”
Kim Harris of Portage urged officials to vote against it because it was unconstitutional and anti American:
“The resolution is a direct violation of our Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that attempts to deem the use of guns as a public health crisis, which would infringe the Second Amendment right of every American to keep and bear arms. The commission needs to know we will not be disarmed,” Harris said.
Other callers used some of the exact same (or very similar) phrases at times while calling in.
For example, Kelly Sackett of Kalamazoo said, “This resolution is in direct violation of our Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that attempts to deem the use of guns as a public health crisis, which would infringe on the Second Amendment right of every American to keep and bear arms. The commission needs to know we will not be disarmed.”
Caller Wendy Flora said she supports the gun violence resolution. Neighborhoods all over the county are experiencing gun violence, she said.
The resolution is to acknowledge there are many health issues that are a direct result of gun violence, both physical and mental, she said.
“We can’t continue to turn our heads when people are dying,” she said.
Greg Wiseman from Pierson, Michigan, called in and said he read about some of the issues coming before the Kalamazoo County board. Pierson is about 80 miles north of Kalamazoo.
“I really don’t understand where anybody can declare gun violence as a public health person unless there’s a lot of shooting going on, or a lot of kids bringing guns to school. I mean, it has to be more than just one or two times every once in a blue moon,” he said.
He added, “I don’t think there is a gun violence problem to be totally honest with you, and I don’t think there ever will be.”
The gun resolution was a partisan issue.
Commissioner Tuinier asked if the board would be spending $1 million on the issue, which he said he learned from a television media report.
“Yes, that was added with the other updates,” Hall said.
However, there is no mention of a funding amount in the resolution in the packet approved Tuesday. Hall could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
Vice Chair Rey, who helped write the resolution and introduced it, said it allows the county to look at the problem from a different perspective and will allow the county to approve funding to get to root cause issues of violence.
“I also want to ensure folks that this resolution in no way violates anybody’s constitutional rights. I am not anti gun,” Rey said.
Hall said on Tuesday that no money would come out of the general fund as shown in the agenda packet document, saying the resolution had been updated.
Commissioner Heppler, police chief and village manager of Augusta, was critical of the resolution and said there should have been more of an effort to include law enforcement.
“We’re talking about throwing a million dollars of hard earned taxpayer dollars towards the health department, and I still don’t know what programs we’re going to throw it at. I’m kind of set back by this, and I can’t support this. I can ‘t support throwing money; that isn’t going to help anybody. And I’ve had a ton of people yell at me about this very topic,” Heppler said.
Commissioner Morales said she is in communication with a police officer in her neighborhood in Kalamazoo and they talk about ways to reducing violence. She was critical of Heppler’s stance on the issue.
Morales said she believes the idea that commissioners aren’t involving law enforcement is a false statement.
“I’d like to work with you so you can come into our world because it’s more than when you all come to the same pick up the body and arrest somebody. The trauma that comes along with what we have to deal with as an educator, I have to deal with students on the daily who have watched their peers get their brains blown out, literally, blood on their face,” Morales said.
“I have to deal with that they have to deal with that we depend on mental health services to help us with these issues moving forward. So, I’d like to work collectively on this this is a serious issue.”
Heppler later said he and other police have come to incidents in the city recently as needed.
“I have been to where shootings have occurred and the brains are all over the wall,” Heppler said. “And I got to tell a parent that their kid is dead, their family member is dead, either by hanging shooting, stabbing or a number of other ways so please do not try to lecture me on how I’ve had to deal with issues.
“When it’s bad, I got to go,” he said.
Hall said nobody on the board who supports the resolution had it in their mind that it had to do with usurping the Second Amendment.
Commissioner Shugars said mental health should be part of the conversation and talked about law and order.
“If you look at law and order, I mean it goes back to the Bronson Park, if we’re going to have laws that you can’t camp out in the Bronson Park, then we should enforce them. Then if we aren’t going to enforce them, then let’s get rid of the laws. I mean if encampment on the river, or wherever it is, is legal, then get rid of the law,” Shugars said.
Related: 14 arrested, released after police break up Bronson Park protest
He asked where people staying in Bronson Park defecated, and said it was a problem that took thousands of dollars to clean up.
Related: Bucket toilets and trash floating in Kalamazoo River downstream of homeless camp
If others are putting out resolutions without working with everyone on the commission, Shugars said he would vote no.
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