I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Benton Harbor residents will need to pay $75 to view Lake Michigan from atop the dunes in the city’s lake front Jean Klock Park.
WJSM news reports that a panel that oversees policy at the Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course now partially built in the public park has approved a fee schedule for use of the nine-hole course.
The golf course is part of Harbor Shores, a 530 acre commercial and residential real estate development that has been billed as an attempt to alleviate poverty in economically devastated Benton Harbor.
Though the course is largely built, some locals are pursuing a federal case to reverse approvals for the privatization of the city park. These plaintiffs argue that regulators were wrong to permit the development, which never completed an Environmental Impact Statement, and that the project disadvantages a poor African American community by swapping pristine lake front property for contaminated inland parcels.
On Wednesday, the Department of Environmental Quality convened an environmental justice work group meeting in Benton Harbor.
Nicole Moon, one of the plaintiffs in the suit against the golf development, turned down an invitation to participate. She said that past experience of state involvement in Benton Harbor “leads me to believe our voices will once again be ignored and only our participation will be used as a statistic.”
In a letter to Department of Environmental Quality Director Stephen Chester Moon noted that the environmental justice meeting in Benton Harbor was to be hosted by an organization involved with the Harbor Shores golf development and criticized DEQ for issuing a permit for the project.
“The residents of our city contacted several agencies on behalf of environmental justice.” Moon wrote “… Even as the MDEQ pretends to appear concerned over environmental justice, they’re manipulating the composition of the task force for reasons that may have little to do with improving the quality of environmental justice implementation in Michigan, and a lot to do with silencing opposition to the biggest environmental injustice — the privatization of Jean Klock Park.”
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter