Priceline plans to add more than 500 jobs to its call center in Wyoming in the Grand Rapids area. More jobs equal good news in Michigan, of course. But an online discussion shared with us between Milt Rohwer of the Frey Foundation and Birgit Klohs of The Right Place, Inc., may provide more illumination on […]
Priceline expansion propels policy questions
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 inPhil's Column
Moroun's money writes sad tale for state
You might not think finger-pointing could make a sound of its own, but it does. High, thin and very penetrating. And it could be heard all over Lansing after last week’s vote in the Senate Economic Development Committee sunk — at least temporarily — the much-debated project to build another bridge connecting Detroit with Canada. […]
Posted inChildren & Families
The popularity of manning up
Rep. Ken Horn knows how to get people’s attention – for better and worse. Horn is the author of Michigan’s new welfare reform, which cuts recipients off cash assistance after they have received 48 months of benefits in their lifetimes. Because the law is retroactive, more than 11,000 families will lose their cash benefits the […]
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 […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.