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.
According to a document obtained by Michigan Messenger from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, if the city of Detroit were to consider selling off a portion of Riverside Park to the owner of the Ambassador Bridge -– or anyone else for that matter — significant hurdles would have to be overcome first.
That’s due to strings attached to public grants the city of Detroit has used over the years to expand and develop the park located next to the Detroit side of the Ambassador Bridge, according to an e-mail written by James Wood, manager of DNR’s Grants Management division.
Among those strings: opportunities for public comment on any would-be sale, as well as a requirement that the property the city would gain in return must be of “equal or greater” market and public recreation value.
The grants have come from the state Department of Natural Resources (from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund and a separate waterways fund), as well as the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), an extension of the National Park Service.
In the e-mail, Woods identified at least $500,000 in state funds used for Riverside Park, as well as $1.1 million in federal funds through LWCF. And it just so happens that the federal money was used to acquire the eastern portion of the park, part of which is the subject of ongoing litigation between the city and the Detroit International Bridge Company.
From Woods’ e-mail:
All three of these grants encumber the park with long-term obligations to keep the site in public outdoor recreation use in perpetuity. There are processes that the City may use to release these encumbrances, however mitigation must be provided by the City to do so. Of the three, the LWCF program has the most rigorous process; the federal rules require that if property assisted through these funds is converted to any other use than public outdoor recreation, the grantee must replace the converted property with property of equal or greater market value, public recreation value and acreage. This process does take some time to complete, and involves public input opportunities, appraisals of both the converted and replacement lands, and environmental due diligence to ensure that the replacement properties are safe for their intended use of public outdoor recreation.
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