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.
On Monday the Ann Arbor City Council voted a new fire chief into command and welcomed him to a difficult job. Chuck Hubbard, a 25 year veteran with the fire department, will need to cut seven full-time firefighters by July 1 as well as reduce other operating costs.
The previous two fire chiefs said a large reason they stepped down from the position was because of continued pressure from the city council to make more personnel and operating cuts. Hubbard will face the same pressures because of further budget cuts from the state, reports AnnArbor.com
The fire department will see its ranks decrease from 89 to 82 full-time career firefighters July 1 after the latest round of budget cuts. …
That leaves the city with 0.72 firefighters per 1,000 residents. According to the National Fire Protection Association, the average full-time career fire department in the United States has about 1.72 firefighters per 1,000 residents.
This past February, the city implemented a rotational shutdown of stations to save costs but Hubbard may move to shutting down individual trucks when necessary instead of entire stations. But Hubbard acknowledges that the situation is not a good one regardless of where the cuts happen.
“No matter where you close something, you could have bad news — there’s just no good answer to it. It’s just a no-win situation,” he said. “We have to be careful how we do that. Nobody wants to close any stations or any trucks, but if we get to the situation where we have to, it’s not a permanent thing — it’s just on a need-be basis.”
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