GRAND RAPIDS – A proposal to create a larger Grand Rapids by merging the city with Kent County governments envisions a “strong mayor” form of government that would end the council-manager form that has been in place for 95 years.

That's one of the effects of legislation being passed around local government circles in draft form this week. A summary of the draft was leaked to The Press.

One Kent Coalition, a group of influential business leaders who want to super-size the city's image on the national and world stage, introduced the merger to Kent County officials last week.

The wording of the legislation needed to put the merge into play remains in flux, One Kent spokesman Nyal Deems said Tuesday.

“This is an attorney's take on what they were verbally told to put on paper,” Deems said.

The draft leaves unresolved the question of whether future officeholders in the merged city and county would be elected in partisan or non-partisan elections.

“It's an important issue to people. Each have their own perspective,” Deems said. “It's kind of hard to think about how to split the baby there. I'm sure you can resolve it, but there will be strong feelings on both sides.”

Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell said he supports the formation of a strong mayor form of government for the merged entity. “We are among the largest cities in America not to have an executive mayor,” he said.

Though he argued for a city-county merger in his 2010 “state of the city” address, Heartwell said he cannot support partisan elections for officeholders, including county-wide offices such as sheriff, prosecutor and county clerk that have historically been partisan.

“I've gone so far as to say it will be dead on arrival if they insist on it being partisan,” he said.

Other aspects of the proposed merger also are up in the air.

The draft calls for a special committee of city residents who would determined how city income tax revenues are spent by the county, which does not levy a city income tax. Deems said it's not clear if the special committee will be autonomous or advisory to the full county body.

While the draft legislation calls for the merged government to be ruled by a 21-member body, Deems said that figure is not cast in stone and could be adjusted upward or downwards.

Likewise, the draft legislation's eight-year window for city and county voters to approve the merger probably will be shortened, Deems said.

Related content

• Podcast includes discussion of One Kent plan

Deems also backed away from a line in the draft that said the consolidation question would be brought to city and county voters this fall.

Though unwilling to call it a typo, Deems said a vote on the question is envisioned in 2012, after enabling legislation is adopted by the state legislature.

Deems said he also hopes the draft legislation will change language that says Kent County's current government will be “superseded” by the new metropolitan government and “cease to exist.”

At this point, Deems said his group is hoping to get more input and reaction from local officials who have seen the draft legislation.

So far, no state lawmakers have been asked to sponsor the enabling legislation – the first step to bringing the question before voters, Deems said.

“We were hoping to get a little bit more drafting done,” he said. “We will ask somebody to sponsor it and perhaps, they will ask some others to co-sponsor it.”

E-mail Jim Harger: jharger@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JHHarger