OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich. — According to unofficial results from Tuesday's primary election, the ultra-conservative group known as Ottawa Impact will lose its majority on the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners for next term.
Phil Kuyers served District 9 on the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners for 22 years before he lost to Ottawa Impact member Roger Belknap in the 2022 election.
Ottawa Impact members currently have a majority of board seats with six out of eleven total. The group identifies as Pro-Parental Rights, Pro-Childhood Innocence, Pro-Life and Pro-America.
13 ON YOUR SIDE has reported for months on the ongoing disagreement in the Ottawa County community surrounding choices made by current board members made over the last two years.
According to unofficial results from Tuesday's primary election, Kuyers beat Belknap for the Republican nomination for the District 9 Ottawa County Board of Commissioners seat. Four Ottawa Impact members are projected to head to the general election in November, which is no longer a majority.
It's a change Kuyers said he is happy about, "the way they had their structure in government, and the way they dealt with meetings, it was very, in some sense, I thought it was very rude that they bring people in that weren't even in our county, to make comments. It was more political comments, than it was about what we're doing for the day on the agenda."
Kuyers said this shift took teamwork across party lines.
"It was about working bipartisan to help everybody in the county receive the right services."
While he would still have to win his seat in the fall, he is already thinking about his plans for the county.
Kuyers told 13 ON YOUR SIDE, "we'll have strategic planning and we'll prioritize things, and that's how we'll work through the county, and we'll work through every district," and "the majority will rule, I mean, that's the way boards work, but we'll take the opinion of everybody, and we'll try to work that forward."
Ottawa Impact posted the following on Facebook Wednesday: