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.
Agnes Hitchcock says that after going through the Kwame Kilpatrick and Monica Conyers situations, the last thing the city of Detroit needs is to put a man convicted of fraud and racketeering in one of its most powerful administrative positions. Unfortunately, it’s already been done by Mayor Dave Bing, who appointed convicted felon Charles Beckham to be his right-hand man. Hitchcock wants Mike Cox to remove Beckham from his position:
A Detroit activist is asking state Attorney General Mike Cox to remove Charles Beckham from his executive position in Mayor Dave Bing’s cabinet, citing a state law that forever disqualifies anyone who has been convicted of bribery from holding public office or accepting a political appointment.
“He’s not eligible,” said Agnes Hitchcock, who sent a letter to Cox on Tuesday via FedEx. “We’ve been trying to get city government straight for a while.”
In her letter, Hitchcock writes, “Charles Beckham is usurping and/or wrongfully holding and/or exercising the appointed office of Chief Administrative Officer for the City of Detroit.” State law says that is a felony.
Beckham has been so involved in negotiating some of the difficult issues facing the city of Detroit that one city council member sarcastically referred to him as the acting mayor during a hearing on reducing Detroit’s bus service.
When Beckham was the head of Detroit Water and Sewerage Department in 1984, he was convicted of federal racketeering, extortion and mail fraud charges for taking bribes to rig a sludge hauling contract, which is remarkably similar to what Monica Conyers pleaded guilty to earlier this year.
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