Gov. Rick Snyder and the Legislature have gone big on many issues so far this year — taxes, public employee benefits and education, to name a few — but one area that has drawn less attention has been their work on bills affecting the environment. That’s about to change. So far, the push for changes […]
Michigan Government
Citizens cannot do their job of running their government if they don’t know what their public servants are doing.
Posted inMichigan Government
Veteran regulator prefers to say 'yes'
Getting to “yes” is a mission for Jim Sygo, the deputy director of the Department of Environmental Quality. It’s an answer, he believes can help Michigan’s environment and its economy. And it is a fundamental reason why Sygo is still on the job after nearly 30 years of state service that has taken him from […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Deer have Michigan on the run
Michigan’s 2010 firearm deer season was in its first week when a bizarre car-deer accident in suburban Grand Rapids killed a 17-year-old girl. Barbara June Barnick, of Ionia, was driving toward Grand Rapids when an approaching vehicle hit a deer and catapulted the animal into Barnick’s minivan. Stunned by the violent collision, the teen veered […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Fund-equity deals break teacher contract logjams
In March 2010, members of the Grosse Pointe Education Association held a noisy demonstration before a meeting of their district’s board, calling attention to the fact they’d been working without a contract for six months, and negotiations were going nowhere. The district was planning layoffs and pushing for concessions to cover a shortfall of around […]
Posted inMichigan Government
City manager embraces Cedar Springs' intimacy
Many people would be uncomfortable having everyone in town know their salary and handing out their cell phone number to take evening and weekend calls. Not Christine Burns. She welcomes the scrutiny that being a city manager brings. “The part that I like the best about it is everything is out in the open,” said […]
Posted inMichigan Government
'Flagrant foul' on Moroun
Another arm of the burgeoning Center for Michigan empire — the Michigan Truth Squad — today issued a “flagrant foul” against a TV ad paid for by the Detroit International Bridge Co. against the proposal to build a joint Canada-Michigan crossing between Detroit and Windsor. “This is the third ad from DIBC to blatantly stretch […]
Posted inMichigan Government
11,000 Michigan families confront the unknown
The roles Sharon Matthews has fielded so far are hardly the stuff of cakewalks: high school dropout; single mom; gunshot victim. But her toughest role yet begins next month: Guinea pig. The 41-year-old Detroit resident and her 15-year-old daughter are among the 11,000 Michigan families banned from welfare, as the state of Michigan begins to […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Cuts don't fall evenly across Michigan
A welfare recipient in Flint is four times more likely to be kicked off cash assistance next month than a welfare recipient in bucolic Luce County — even though the Upper Peninsula county has a higher poverty rate. In rural northern Lake County, 36 percent of children lived below the poverty threshold, the highest rate […]
Posted inMichigan Government
What will they do?
More than 11,000 families will be banned from cash assistance next month, in the biggest one-day dumping of welfare recipients in the state’s – and possibly the nation’s – history. Will those families blend into the work force? Will they lose their homes? Will they find help from charities, churches and nonprofits? Over the next […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Rep to recipients: 'Man up' and feed family
State Rep. Ken Horn, R-Frankenmuth, tried for four years to reform Michigan’s welfare system for cash assistance. On his fifth try, bolstered by the solid Republican majorities in the House and Senate and a Republican governor brought in via the 2010 elections, Horn shepherded a massive reform effort into law. The keystone of that reform […]
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