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 ACLU of Michigan has filed suit on behalf of three police officers against Flint Police Chief David Dicks in response to a gag rule that Dicks imposed that forbids all police officers from talking to the media.
The appointment of Dicks as chief of police in Flint has been highly controversial. At the same time as he was appointed, his father, Richard Dicks, was promoted from fire chief to “super chief” overseeing both the police and fire departments.
Both Dickses were part of a federal investigation earlier this year into the misuse of funds at Career Alliance Inc. A private security company owned by the elder Dicks contracted to do security for the company and the Department of Labor searched both their homes as part of that investigation. No charges were filed against them but the security company subsequently had their contract voided.
After their appointments in June, the Flint Journal interviewed some of the longtime officers in the police department, including union leaders Sgt. Richard Hetherington and Lt. David Winch. Police Chief Dicks then issued a policy saying “[n]o member of the department shall speak to or release any information regarding the department and/or its employees to the news media.”
Hetherington was fired last week for speaking to the media, but a few days later his firing was rescinded — but not the policy forbidding him from speaking to the media. That prompted the ACLU lawsuit. The ACLU won a similar lawsuit in Michigan in 2003, voiding a rule by the Frenchtown Township fire chief that no firefighter could speak to the media without his prior consent. A federal judge ruled that such a rule violated the employee’s right to speak out on matters of public concern.
A copy of the ACLU’s complaint may be found here.
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