Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand on Tuesday brushed off concerns of a potential “surveillance state” in his city amid growing outcry against Flock cameras.

Flock cameras, or automated license plate readers (ALPR), are artificial intelligence-powered devices which can capture unique identifying details about vehicles, like bumper stickers, color, or aftermarket modifications. This information is categorized into a searchable database for law enforcement to investigate crimes, track stolen vehicles, and generate real-time alerts on “hot lists.”

Public crowdsource data site DeFlock.Me shows reports of at least 38 such cameras in use within official Grand Rapids city limits. The site also shows as many as 150 cameras throughout the surrounding metro area.

Sightings of several ALPR cameras within Grand Rapids city limits have already sparked a community push to ban them, though no formal action has yet been taken.

The mayor acknowledged local concern surrounding AI-powered Flock cameras, adding that he does not believe there is merit to “surveillance state” concerns. His comments came in an appearance on GRTV, a component of a local media network linked to both city dollars and a nationwide network of progressive donors. 

“I don’t want to live in a surveillance state,” Mayor LaGrand said, adding that “we all opted into that.”

LaGrand likened surveillance concerns to identity theft, which stems from retailers who create similar credit card databases. He argued that both cases come with inherent risk, which is the price one pays for convenience.

Despite this, the mayor assured residents the cameras are not being used to monitor people.

“This is a license plate reader, that’s all that Flock cameras do, they don’t check people’s hair color or whatever,” he said. “Could they? I suppose they could. I don’t know. I’m not an expert.”

Mayor LaGrand also denied concerns the cameras are being used in cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. 

“GR does not share Flock data,” he said. “We have a very tight limit on what our Flock cameras are used for.”

The mayor’s remarks follow a February announcement by Rep. Hillary Scholten that she had secured $750,000 for Kent County’s Real Time Information Center, which utilizes ALPR cameras. That grant taps into a well of federal dollars earmarked by Congress for local “community support” initiatives. 

“This investment will strengthen public safety, while protecting privacy, and support the work being done every day to keep our community safe,” Rep. Scholten wrote about the grant.

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A scathing internal email written by a former city equity employee accused four Grand Rapids city leaders of allowing a culture of sexism and intimidation to go unchecked at city hall, leading her to resign.

Ciarra Adkins, who authored the email, spent more than four years in the City of Grand Rapids Office of Equity and Engagement (OEE), the city government’s primary social justice arm. That office employs former city activists and champions “an Internal Culture of Equity” according to its website.

Adkins’ letter named four city leaders—Assistant City Manager Doug Matthews, OEE Managing Director Brandon Davis, City Manager Mark Washington, and Community Engagement Manager Andrea Riley Mukavetz—each of whom she claimed ignored her concerns and demeaned her ahead of her decision to resign. 

At the time of her resignation in 2024, Adkins worked as an Equity Systems Manager. 

In her email, Adkins expressed frustration with city leaders and called on others to push back against the many “injustices” she experienced.

“I resigned because I could no longer tolerate the shameful and deliberately poor treatment that I'd been subjected to over the last several months by the executive office and other city leadership,” the email reads. “Despite the length of this letter, this is only a summary of the incidents and hurt that I experienced,” she added.

Assistant City Manager Doug Matthews

Adkins in the email accused Matthews of allegedly engaging in sexist and racist treatment toward women. She wrote that his verbal comments during meetings frequently bordered on “manipulation” and that he was disrespectful to his Black female coworkers.

The email claims Matthews allegedly lied to Adkins about merging OEE with the Office of Oversight and Public Accountability so that she would stop seeking a promotion from Interim OEE Director to the permanent role, which was eventually given to Brandon Davis. That conversation came as Adkins was navigating a difficult family matter, she wrote.

“By the time Brandon [Davis] came to me with the truth, I had to choose between staying in Grand Rapids to fight for a position and opportunity that I fully earned and going to spend my father's last days at his bedside,” she wrote.

“The way I was lied to and humiliated was utterly shameful, on top of personally reeling from the loss of my father,” the email continues. “To date, this has been the worst thing that any employer has ever done to me.”

Adkins also claimed that Matthews was often “unsettling” in one-on-one settings and was “grossly inappropriate” with female staff members.

“[H]e is always winking at and smiling at women staff members whenever they are speaking in a manner that I can only accurately describe as ‘creepy,’” the email reads. “It is widely known that he does this to women staff members, and yet no one does anything about it.”

Community Engagement Manager Andrea Riley Mukavetz

The email continued by accusing Mukavetz of being “openly hostile and aggressive” toward Adkins and claimed Mukavetz had repeatedly attempted to “undermine and sabotage my leadership in any manner that she could.” 

Mukavetz allegedly leveraged her relationship to Matthews to do “whatever she wanted to do” by leaving assignments unfinished and pushing professional boundaries. In one instance, Adkins detailed how, after raising concerns, Mukavetz and Matthews “conspired with false and extremely misconstrued statements” that she was a poor leader and “anti-indigenous.”

“[T]he reality is that we live in a world where you are judged on your appearance and I look much more Black than partially-indigenous, thus I have always led with my Black identity first, BUT that does not give Andrea [Mukavetz] and Doug [Mathews] the right to police my connection to a part of my history and fabricate lies about me being anti-indigenous,” the email reads.

OEE Managing Director Brandon Davis

Adkins wrote in the email she believed Davis held a “deep seated personal grudge [sic]” against her because her appointment as interim OEE director held up his eventual promotion to permanent OEE director. Because of this, she wrote, Davis “abused his authority over me in a form of retaliation and spite.”

Davis, according to the email, had once attempted to “ambush” Adkins with an impromptu performance evaluation meeting without giving prior notice, during which he submitted “false statements” regarding her performance. When Adkins filed a letter rebutting the statements with the Association of Public Administrators, Davis allegedly responded with an intimidating phone call.

“Behaviors like this are a huge part of the reason why City employees do not choose to fully utilize their union representation nor engage in the complaint process,” the email reads. “Especially when it's against executive leadership because they are allowed to intimidate staff in manners like these.”

Adkins dedicated a significant portion of the letter to describing Davis as an inept leader who delegated his work to her only to later take credit for it. She described Davis as being unwilling to accept criticism when this led to misunderstandings.

“Ultimately, I am fully certain that his refusal to listen to reason is because Brandon was seeking to diminish, and ultimately eliminate my role in OEE due to his personal grudges against me,” she wrote. “Brandon's actions constantly made me feel like he wanted to get rid of me.”

City Manager Mark Washington

These negative interactions were allowed to happen due to each leader’s proximity to Washington, who allows a culture of fear to stifle employee dissent, Adkins claimed in the email.

“These are some of Mark [Washington]'s closest staff members and this behavior is allowed because he chooses to condone it because he too perpetuates patriarchal and sexist behaviors in the workplace,” she wrote of Washington.

She claimed many of the alleged sexist behaviours exhibited by city leaders stem from Washington’s “inappropriate, joking/imitating and mocking comments against some of my women colleagues.” Adkins claimed Washington’s behaviour goes unchecked because “due to his position, nothing is ever said about that not being okay in the workplace.”

Adkins’ email also claims she repeatedly sought a meeting with Washington to explain her concerns, which was continually canceled and rescheduled. She said the only time she was able to reach him via phone was after she submitted a resignation.

After resigning, Adkins said Washington used “microaggressions to let me know that I no longer had a relationship with the executive office.”

Call to Action

Adkins closed her message by calling on members of City Hall to speak up against the issues she described in the letter. The problems that led to her resignation, she said, will persist until someone becomes brave enough to overcome fear of retaliation.

“Nothing is going to change if we do not speak up each and every time that we see something occur that is wrong, and I encourage you all to productively make your voices heard to help facilitate positive changes for the future,” she wrote. “I know that the City of Grand Rapids has the capacity to do and be better.”

City Response

The partially redacted email was obtained by The Grand Rapids Herald through a Freedom of Information Act request. FOIA Coordinator Alma Echeverria wrote in a response to The Herald’s request that the city decided to release the email despite feeling strongly that the information it contained would not contribute to a better public understanding of city operations.

Echeverria added that the allegations contained in the email were examined through a “thorough, impartial, and comprehensive” investigation, which yielded no legal or policy violations.

None of the four city officials mentioned in the letter responded to a request for comment sent by The Herald via email. Instead, City Media Relations Manager Steve Guitar responded on their behalf and did not deny the allegations, but said the city does not discuss personnel matters.

“Please note, these allegations are from more than two years ago, have been thoroughly investigated by the City Attorney’s Office and the Human Resources Department, and no violations of law or policy were substantiated,” he wrote. The City of Grand Rapids considers this specific personnel matter closed and remains focused on delivering accountable and equitable service to our community.”

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The City of Grand Rapids paid nearly $35,000 to a business run by the wife of former Commissioner Kurt Reppart, who is now a candidate for an appointment to rejoin the City Commission.

Reppart is one of three finalists vying to fill a vacant First Ward commission seat which had been occupied by Drew Robbins. Reppart previously served on the commission from 2018 to 2023.

Three sitting members of the commission voiced their support for Reppart during last week’s Committee on Appointments meeting. That meeting did not result in any candidate being selected for the role after tense infighting stalled deliberations.

Details included in Payments Issued Reports published by the city reveal Grand Rapids repeatedly did business with Proponents LLC, a business which lists Reppart as principal consultant and his wife, Matteah Spencer Reppart, as founder. In 2020, Proponents LLC received $15,607 from the city across four payments. 

In 2021, the business received another $17,624 across seven payments. In 2022, the business received just one payment of $1,767.

Each of the payments overlapped with Reppart’s time on the city commission, during which he received a salary of at least $25,000, according to public salary records. None of the expenses listed include details as to what services were provided by Proponents LLC.

When reached by The Herald via email, City Media Relations Manager Steve Guitar confirmed that the city was in receipt of the inquiry. When asked by The Herald if the city planned to give a response, Guitar observed “it appears most of your questions can be answered though Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and research.”

When asked for confirmation on whether the city had nothing to say about its business dealings with a commission finalist, Guitar only said, “I respectfully refer you to the City Commission policies.”

A publicly available email address listed for Reppart returned an undeliverable error when reached by The Herald. Proponents LLC did not respond to a request for comment sent to the company’s administrator address.

Reppart received endorsements for his original commissioner bid by Commissioner Milinda Ysasi and then-Mayor Roslynn Bliss, according to his campaign Facebook page.

Commissioner Marshall Kilgore last week condemned the process for selecting the First Ward appointee, claiming that the process benefitted a “specific class” of people who are already established and independently wealthy. He then voiced support for finalist Dan Cope, who he claimed would succeed at navigating the “flawed system.” 

The expenses come in the wake of other questionable city spending uncovered by The Herald. The City of Grand Rapids paid at least $47,200 to a business owned by Kent County Commissioner Monica Sparks, since 2024, according to records published by the city. 

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