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.
The deal we reported on yesterday involving new investment from companies seeking state tax credits to take over the dormant Ford plant at Wixom was announced by the Detroit Free Press:
In what shapes up as a $1-billion conversion of an iconic rust-belt industrial plant into a massive renewable energy park, Ford Motor Co. has struck a tentative deal to sell its dormant Wixom Assembly Plant to Xtreme Power of Austin, Texas, and Clairvoyant Energy of Santa Barbara, Calif.
Investment in the proposed project would initially be $725 million to create 4,300 direct jobs, growing eventually to about $1 billion altogether. The two firms would use about half of the 4.7 million square feet of buildings on the 320-acre site, and recruit other firms to join them.
It’s perhaps fitting that the Ford Wixom plant — which built gas guzzlers such as the Lincoln Town Car for 50 years and once employed 5,000 — stands to become a centerpiece of Michigan’s effort to create green jobs in solar, wind, electric propulsion and other non-fossil-fuel energy sectors.
As noted by Tim Skubick, this plant is in the district of state Sen. Nancy Cassis, a critic of using tax credits to attract investment. But leaders from the two companies are making the rounds in Lansing, asking several committees to pass tax credits that are required for this deal to go through.
So will Cassis drop her opposition to using tax credits if it means bringing thousands of new jobs to her own district, which has been hit very hard by unemployment? Time will tell.
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