Tom Nardone’s father was an Elk in Wakefield, Mass., and spent time, as Elks do, in the Elks Hall. His son assumed his dad went to the club mostly to have a place to drink with his buddies. “I didn’t know the money they spent there went to children’s charities,” he said. “It never occurred […]
Gang takes over parks — and tidies them
Posted inMichigan Government
Guest column: Real truth in sentencing could save really big prison dollars
By Richard Stapleton/Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending Ultimately, the least expensive prisoner is one who isn’t there. While the prison population has dropped by about 8,000 over the last five years, the Michigan Department of Corrections’ projections anticipate no further decline. But the projections assume the status quo on policies. Those assumptions can […]
Posted inChildren & Families
Welfare reform: Back to the drawing board
What would you do if you could reform Michigan’s welfare system? That may be a question state leaders are asking today, after Michigan’s massive welfare reform was thrown out in court. Calling it an “end-run around the Legislature,” a Genesee County Circuit Court smacked down a Department of Human Services policy that knocked between 11,000 […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Pure Michigan equals pure gold
About 50 years ago, an Illinois senator reportedly quipped, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” In 2012, in the world of Michigan tourism, the days of “a billion here” and “billion there” have apparently arrived. A newly released study of the impact of the state’s famous Pure Michigan […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
“What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child” — George Bernard Shaw, British playwright * Starting July 1, the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association fee, levied to cover medical costs from auto accidents as part ofMichigan’s auto no-fault insurance regime, will go up $30, to […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Senate panel backs prison cuts
A month ago, CFM President John Bebow urged the Senate subcommittee overseeing prison spending to take pruning shears to the governor’s proposal for 2013 to spend about $2 billion on the Michigan Department of Corrections. “(C)ontinued re-engineering of the prison system in Michigan is another chapter in the theme of Reinventing Michigan,” Bebow told the […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason” — Immanuel Kant, 18th century German philosopher. * Foreign Policy has an analysis of five trends that threaten recovery in advanced economies around the world, including our own. One of the five is […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Michigan struggles against gas-tank leaks
Just before reaching the stunning vista of Grand Traverse Bay, motorists driving into Traverse City on U.S. 31 pass an abandoned gas station that symbolizes one of Michigan’s most serious but undervalued environmental problems. The former Union 76 station at the corner of U.S. 31 and West Front Street sits atop a large plume of […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Big job, little money: State lags in tank cleanup
Dale Flaherty said he and his friends in the resort town of Lake Ann used to joke that buying gasoline at the local convenience store was risky, because the fuel was allegedly contaminated with water. And they were right, sort of. Contamination did occur. No one knew until the late 1990s, though, that gasoline from the […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Fuel-tank cleanup leaves mess above ground, too
Michigan’s program for cleaning up leaking underground storage tank faces a major overhaul this year, one that could make cleanups simpler and less costly. But the planned changes, which are moving through the Legislature, won’t address one of the program’s biggest weaknesses: The program is grossly underfunded. Michigan spends $20 million annually cleaning up leaking […]