AL Vanderberg, Kent County Administrator - May 24, 2024

Al Vanderberg is the current administrator/controller for Kent County and former administrator for Ottawa County. Vanderberg is an experienced, insightful administrator who believes that the work of county government is not activism, but well-managed operations. 

How Good Government Works
For decades, Ottawa County residents were fortunate enough to take good governance for granted. We were accustomed to civility, transparency, efficiency, and accountability from our county board of commissioners. In fact, most of us were comfortable paying little attention to county government because it was well run and didn't spark community outrage at every turn. County government was boring, at best, for most residents. 

Enter Ottawa Impact and its Christian Nationalistic Contract with Ottawa and we quickly found ourselves enrolled in a masterclass in government mismanagement, a class that has proved to be excruciatingly un-boring.
Last month Progressive Lakeshore welcomed Al Vanderberg, former Ottawa County administrator and current Kent County administrator/controller, to our May conversation to remind us how good governance should work. And it's a far cry from how things have operated in our county in the last 18 months.

What we’ve a right to expect
To show what voters should expect from our county government, Vanderberg provided a checklist of sorts: transparency and accountability, responsiveness to community needs, efficient service delivery, fiscal responsibility, effective planning and development, ethical leadership, accessibility and inclusivity, environmental stewardship, and adaptability and innovation. 

Dillon’s Rule limits county authority 
Most local governments in Michigan adhere to a legal doctrine called Dillon's Rule, which says “local governments are considered creatures of state law with limited authority.” 

Ottawa County, along with 78 of 83 counties in Michigan, operates under a general law form of government (one of four structures available to county governments). The general law structure limits the county's power to the authority specifically delegated by the state legislature. 

Efforts to usurp the state constitution, including resolutions to establish Ottawa as a "constitutional county," fly in the face of this long-established doctrine.

Commissioners should serve all people
County boards of commissioners act as officers of a municipal corporation under the state constitution with duties specified by Michigan law. They have a responsibility to “act as [a] conduit for public input and concern between meetings," Vanderberg explained.
In other words, they are required to serve the community, not their own interests. Vanderberg was clear that the best reason to run for county commission is to serve the county well by providing high-quality services to county residents. The worst reason? To serve one's own activist interests or the agenda of a special interest group. Commissioners should, according to Vanderberg, “strive to provide the best representation and service to all residents, businesses, and stakeholders.” Commissioners' roles as members of a political party should be completely separate from their role on the county commission. But that responsibility has clearly been abandoned by our current OI-led commission.

County administrators need knowledge, skill, experience
Well-run counties rely on professional administrators to oversee government functions well and efficiently. In the best systems, according to Vanderberg, that person is hired for their knowledge and skills in administering and managing the functions and budgets of the county.

This is not what's happening in Ottawa County, where Ottawa Impact commissioners have now fired one experienced administrator and have now appointed an interim administrator with no experience in county administration--Jon Anderson, a sheriff from California. The results were quickly apparent in the chaos of the recent Compensation Commission process--meetings were not properly noticed, minutes were not properly recorded, statutory deadlines and guidelines were not met, and in the chaos of the cleanup, Anderson, along with the OI board, requested that the Compensation Commission "re-enact" the meeting to get things right. This is not normal. 

Counties deserve skilled county administrators, department heads, and staff who will put their experience and creative talents to use carrying out the day-to-day work of the county--people with years of service and the experience commensurate with administrating complex government organizations. This is not a job for amateurs or for activists who seek to use county government as a tool to further their own agenda.

County governance should not be controversial. It should be heads-down work, and administered by educated and experienced professionals focused on providing the greatest good for all residents.

Let’s make county government boring again.
Be sure you and your friends and neighbors vote in the August 6 primary. It's the first and best opportunity to keep extremism out of county government and return our county to a professionally managed, well-run organization that serves all who live and work here.