Ottawa County Commissioners Kyle Terpstra, Jacob Bonnema, Joe Moss, Sylvia Rhodea and Rebekah Curran listen at a board meeting in the Michigan town of West Olive in January. (Photo for The Washington Post by Evan Cobb) WEST OLIVE, Mich. - The eight new members of the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners had run for office promising to “thwart tyranny” in their lakeside Michigan community of 300,000 people.
In this case the oppressive force they aimed to thwart was the county government they now ran. It was early January, their first day in charge. An American flag held down a spot at the front of the board’s windowless meeting room.
Sea-foam green carpet covered the floor. The new commissioners, all Republicans, swore their oaths of office on family Bibles. And then the firings began.
Gone was the lawyer who had represented Ottawa County for 40 years. Gone was the county administrator who oversaw a staff of 1,800. To run the health department, they voted to install a service manager from a local HVAC company who had gained prominence as a critic of mask mandates.
As the session entered its fourth hour, Sylvia Rhodea, the board’s new vice chair, put forward a motion to change the motto that sat atop the county’s website and graced its official stationery. “Whereas the vision statement of ‘Where You Belong’ has been used to promote the divisive Marxist ideology of the race, equity movement,” Rhodea said. And so began a new era for Ottawa County.
Across America.