There are no changes that take place without considering their impact on our community today and tomorrow.  Our immediate struggles with housing, with transportation, with employment opportunities and with rapid growth have to be addressed while considering what our City will be like ten and twenty years from now.

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Mayor Bliss has committed  her time and experience to making sure that our approaches to these challenges work for both the short and long term.  She consistently involves residents in planning processes while also incorporating the best practices she learns from cities across the country.

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Our success in the area of sustainability is not only beneficial now (with almost a third of the City's electricity usage being produced by renewable energy): it will pay off decades from today as the City approaches being a carbon-neutral municipality. This means a better environment and tax savings for all of our residents.

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The same holds true as we find creative ways to increase our affordable housing stock: we are finding solutions that empower residents to repurpose the space they already live in, encouraging more reasonably priced apartments and working closely with community partners.

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Mayor Bliss has also taken on the issue of equity head-on, working with many community leaders on the Grand Rapids Racial Equity Initiative, working to implement systematic approaches to increasing opportunity and representation of diverse groups in some of our largest local employers.

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Every aspect of her leadership works this way: making needed changes now that will pay off for us and generations to come.