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.
Last week the City of Detroit’s Department of Transportation switched transit services for the disabled passengers by halting further payments to Veolia transportation, the company that runs the Metro Lift service for passengers in Detroit with disabilities that prevent them from taking the bus.
Instead of one unified transit service for physically and mentally disabled citizens, the city is now using various methods of pickup, namely taxi cabs, to get disabled passengers to their destinations.
Rev. David Bullock, president of the Highland Park NAACP and Rainbow PUSH Detroit along with the Council of Baptist Pastors, Teamsters and ARC Detroit, an alliance for disabled citizens, is urging Mayor Dave Bing to pay Veolia and resume Metro Life services.
Veolia, a French based multinational transit company, has a contract with the city until 2011 but the Detroit Department of Transportation stopped paying Veolia nine months ago.
Bullock warned of legal repercussions in addition to social issues as a result of city’s move to halt the service through nonpayment. “We cannot wait for lawyers and political aides to figure this out, we need our mayor to take the lead on this issue,” Bullock said in a statement Wednesday. “If we don’t protect our seniors and disabled citizens now, the next time we meet it may be at someone’s funeral”.
Other voices in Detroit’s church community have spoken out about the city’s change in transit service for the disabled.
Rev. Robert Smith of the Northwest Community Baptist Church, who is blind, told fellow pastors at the Council of Baptist Pastors meeting on Tuesday that he has filed multiple complaints with DDOT after he dropped off at the wrong location by a cab hired by the city to replace Metro Lift services.
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