Rosalynn Bliss (born August 3, 1975) is an American politician, social worker, and former mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The first woman to be elected mayor of Michigan's second-largest city, Bliss took office on January 1, 2016 and served until the end of 2024.
She also served as adjunct professor of social work at Grand Valley State University for 10 years and currently serves as the Frederik Meijer Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Grand Valley's Frederik Meijer Honors College.
[1] She was also appointed by Governor Rick Snyder to serve on the Child Lead Poisoning Elimination Board.
She served on the Uptown Corridor Improvement District and was a part of the Fulton Street Farmers Market Redevelopment, among other neighborhood and community initiatives.
Bliss was one of four candidates who entered the race to succeed Heartwell; the others were Robert Dean, John George, and Willard Lee.
She expressed her gratitude by saying, “I am standing on the shoulders of many great leaders who came before me.”[10] During Bliss’s first term as mayor, she was joined on the commission by newcomers Jon O’Connor and David Allen who were both former school board members.
As well as Ruth Kelly who was re-elected and library commissioners Rachel Anderson, James Botts and Sophia Brewer.
Grow the local economy.”[9] Another major action Bliss took in her first term as mayor was she was able to work with city workers to begin getting them implicit bias training.
Bliss strongly believed this was important as she states, “We must confront a difficult issue that has grown to an unacceptable proportion in our city…It starts with how the city government looks and how we think.
“That was an economic development issue because it’s an entry point for entrepreneurs who don’t have a significant amount of access to capital to open a brick and mortar,” Bliss said.
"Knowing that many entrepreneurs get their foot in the door through a food truck, I wanted to create that opportunity for folks in our community.
The groundwork has already started to restore our namesake – Grand Rapids.” During the COVID-19 pandemic Bliss made sure to keep in touch with her community.
She also urged citizens to stay informed on the latest updates and initial steps towards combatting the pandemic.