The Centers for Public and Global Integrity rank the state of Michigan 50th in the country in areas of ethics and transparency. Certain members of the Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners are doing all they can to make sure their community is unable to improve that embarrassing statistic. Shortly after the new Board was seated, an Ad Hoc Ethics committee was appointed by Rob Henschel to improve the outdated county ethics policy. Ron Clous was to chair the committee completed by Brad Jewett and Betsy Coffia. A new policy for all county employees was completed. However, Clous and Jewett refused to agree on a policy that would cover appointed and elected officials. They were uncomfortab
On Thursday, October 3, 2019, at Central Methodist Church in Traverse City, the public met with members of the criminal legal system. The discussion included how our local law enforcement works, what isn’t working as well as it might, and what should be done to improve it. Before During and After Incarceration, a local group, hosted the event moderated by Ron Jolly. Local judges, attorneys, the jail Chaplain and a member of the ACLU all had something important to add. Toni Stanfield, one of the co-founders of BDAI and a board member, began by talking about the services this group offers. There are many reasons why an individual may end up in front of a judge, but mental illness is seen most
On August 20th, 2019, Democratic Senator, Adam Hollier, who represents Senate District 2 in the Detroit area, introduced a bill to amend 2006 PA 110 entitled the “Michigan Zoning Enabling Act,” numbered SB 431. This bill, if signed into law, would make it impossible for any county or township zoning board to deny a special use permit for an open pit gravel mine or gas and oil drilling operation regardless of residential or rural residential zoning. Further, the bill stipulates that “the person seeking to extract natural resources by mining submits to a local unit of government a plan for the proposed extracting that includes…a setback of equipment used for screening and crushing of…not les
