LANSING – When Gerald Ford became president in 1974, the nation was in agony.
His predecessor, Richard Nixon, had resigned from the Oval Office rather than face certain impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The previous year, the last American combat troops had withdrawn from Vietnam amid intense anti-war protests, dwindling trust in the federal government and the subsequent collapse of the corruption-riddled regime of U.S. ally South Vietnam.
Cover of “Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis.” (Courtesy, Potomac Books)
Ford, the quiet Republican vice president from Grand Rapids, faced the challenge of helping the nation heal from the anguish of White House corruption and the trauma of a deeply unpopular war.
His first official act was to pardon Nixon, a decision that political analysts say doomed his chances of winning the presidency in his own right in 1976.
After that, Ford’s tenure in the White House was unspectacular as he wrestled with problems that are familiar to Americans today, such as high inflation, recession and international conflicts in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere.
He endured no crises that rose to the level of creating major conflict with journalists and news organizations, unlike what the nation witnessed with presidents Donald Trump, Nixon and several others.
And thus Ford – the only president to come from Michigan – received only two brief references in Northwestern University journalism professor Jon Marshall’s new book, “Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis” (Potomac Books, $36.95).
Bill Ballenger, the publisher of the political newsletter “Ballenger Report” and a former Republican state legislator, observed, “Generally speaking, I thought the press did a pretty good job covering Ford.”
“He wasn’t a polarizing personality by any means,” Ballenger said.
Ford had built good will with the press during his years as minority leader of the U.S. House, Ballenger said, and his selection as vice president was well received by the press.
“Ford had good connections in the traditional Washington press corps,” Ballenger said, and that’s where he turned to staff his press office rather than picking public relations practitioners or people who “were not really journalists, like you’ve seen in recent years.”
As president, he drew on veteran Michigan reporters, starting with Detroit News chief Washington correspondent Jerry terHorst, whom Ballenger described as “a big hitter in Michigan journalistic coverage.”
But a month later, terHorst, who also was from Grand Rapids, quit in protest of the Nixon pardon.
Ford then hired Detroiter Jack Hushen, also from the Detroit News, as deputy press secretary.
Ford’s approach to press relations contrasts vividly with Trump’s.
As Marshall wrote in the new book, “Through his presidency, Trump encouraged hostility toward journalists. He called them ‘dishonest,’ ‘disgusting’ and an ‘enemy of the people.’’
“He referred to negative but accurate stories about him as ‘fake news,’” Marshall wrote.
Relations between reporters and other presidents have been ragged as well, to say the least.
John Adams, for example, sent editors to jail, Abraham Lincoln let critical newspapers be closed and Woodrow Wilson used “misleading propaganda” to advocate going to war.
Nixon directed his first vice president – the convicted felon-to-be Spiro Agnew – to skewer the press as a “treacherous enemy.”
Gerald Ford of Grand Rapids is the only president from Michigan. (Courtesy, whitehouse.gov)
Bill Clinton’s clashes centered on his sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinski and Whitewater, the scandal involving his investments and financial dealings.
Marshall also detailed crisis-linked conflicts between the press and presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
What does it all mean?
Marshall wrote, “Since the founding of the United States, the relationship between presidents and the press has been inspiring and troubling, fragile and durable, pivotal and dysfunctional, often all at the same time.”
In Marshall’s view, “Although sometimes sloppy, partisan and sensationalistic, journalists have often courageously served the public while covering presidents despite formidable forces trying to stop them.”
And he warned of trouble signals for future Oval Office accountability to the citizenry.
“The truth about presidents may now be harder to know,” according to Marshall. “The declining economic health of the news business has weakened its ability to hold presidents accountable.”
Eric Freedman is the director of Capital News Service and a journalism professor at Michigan State University.
On Oct. 20 at approximately 1:19 p.m. the Kentwood Police Department was dispatched to 5768 Hickory Hill Court for a “shots” fired complaint. After talking with the caller, it was determined that a single subject remained inside the residence and no persons were harmed during the initial incident. Kentwood Police surrounded the home and began making contact with the suspect. Local schools were notified of the incident and went into lock down. Kentwood Police were able to make contact with the suspect, and he surrendered peacefully at around 5 p.m. No injuries were sustained during the incident for any of the involved parties.
Kentwood detectives will be working with the Kent County Prosecutors office to determine necessary charges. Kentwood Police Department also would like to thank the Kent County Sheriff’s Department and Wyoming Department of Public Safety for their assistance in coming to a peaceful resolution.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Kentwood Police Department Detective Bureau at 616-656-6604. Anonymous tips can be submitted through Silent Observer at 616-774-2345 or SilentObserver.org.
By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma WKTV Managing Editor joanne@wktv.org
The Wyoming Department of Public Safety is seeking help to identify a person of interest in an assault case that took place at 800 Burton St. SW.
On Oct. 9, 2022, at 4:20 a.m. officers from the Wyoming Department of Public Safety responded to a report of an assault that occurred at the Citgo Station located at 800 Burton St. SW.
A female store employee was allegedly assaulted by a male customers in the store. The male arrived with numerous individuals in black “party” bus. The male customer engaged in argument with employees and began throwing items in the store and at employees. The female employee was attempting to get the male to leave when she was stuck in the head causing her to fall. The male suspect returned to the bus which then left the scene.
The female store employee had significant but non-life threatening injuries from being struck and falling to the floor.
The male involved in this incident is described a a black male, 20-30 years old, 5 feet, 10 inches tall with a skinny build and short hair. He was seen wearing a dark-colored North Face hoodie sweatshirt with dark-colored jeans.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact Wyoming Police at 616-530-7300 or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345 or 1-866-774-2345.
Kentwood Police
Last week, the Kentwood Police Department was able to identify a 16-year-old male believed to have been involved in the theft of a vehicle in which a 2-year-old was inside. A juvenile petition was forward to the Kent County prosecutor’s office and the following charges were issued: child abandonment, unlawful driving away of an automobile, lying/obstructing police and malicious destruction of property under $1,000.
Courtesy, Kentwood Police Department
“I would like to commend our Kentwood Police officers and the officers from our neighboring communities on their tireless work to identify and locate this individual,” Kentwood Police Chief Byron Litwin said. “I would also like to thank the bus drivers form Kelloggsvillee Public Schools for their quick actions in locating the missing child and returning him to his parents.”
On Oct. 4 at around 8:10 a.m., the Kentwood Police Department was dispatched to a stolen vehicle with a 2-year-old child inside. The vehicle was stolen form the area of 48th Street and Marlette Avenue in Kentwood.
According to media reports, the parents were able to flag down a Kelloggsville bus driver. The driver alerted 911 and then got on the bus frequency radio and alerted the other drivers in the area. Another Kelloggsville bus driver realized she had just seen a 2-year-old child wrapped in a blanket. The driver went back, picked up the child and returned the baby to its mother.
The stolen vehicles was found in the city of Grand Rapids shortly after it was stolen. Multiple agencies assisted the Kentwood Police Department including the Kent County Sheriff’s Office, Wyoming Department of Public Safety and the Grand Rapids Police Department.
By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma WKTV Managing Editor joanne@wktv.org
This fall, the residents of the City of Wyoming will decide who will fill two open spots on the Wyoming City Council.
Current Mayor Pro Tem Sam Bolt announced he would not seek re-election to his at-large council seat. Current Council Member-at-Large Kent Vanderwood was elected mayor during the August primaries as he received more than 50 percent of the overall vote.
Three candidates, Robert Arnoys, Renee Hill and Robert Kilgo, are seeking to fill those seats. Also, Sheldon DeKryger is running unopposed for his First Ward seat.
Robert Arnoys
Occupation: A life-long resident of the City of Wyoming, Arnoys is the vice president of treasury management for Lake Michigan Credit Union. Along with having more than 30 years of banking experience, Arnoys has served on a number of community boards and is currently on the City of Wyoming Planning Commission.
Tell us a couple of issues you want to focus on if elected: If elected, Arnoys will focus on public safety, working with officers in providing them the resources needed to keep Wyoming safe. Because of his background in finances, Arnoys plans to help keep Wyoming fiscally responsible. He also will focus on planned development, ensuring the city has a strong master plan that will put the right uses in the right places as well as supporting an environment for small businesses to prosper.
Occupation: Hill has lived in the City of Wyoming for more than 27 years. She is a doctor of physical therapy. She does home care. She also served on the city’s Enrichment Commission.
Tell us a couple of issues you want to focus on if elected: Hill’s main concern is the wise use of citizen’s tax money and is dedicated to making sure every dollar honors the trust of the citizens. She also supports prudent property management and keeping Wyoming residents safe.
Website: There is no website for this candidate.
Robert Kilgo
Occupation: Kilgo moved to the City of Wyoming when he decided to attend Grace Christian University. He now is the assistant to the president of Grace Christian University. He also has served as a mentor to at-risk students in Wyoming.
Tell us a couple of issues you want to focus on if elected: Kilgo believes that the city is in a good position financially and he wants to continue that for the future. He also recognizes the need for a well-funded public safety initiative and safe neighborhoods and is looking to help add to the public safety department and reduce the city’s dependence on its neighbors especially for fire services. He also wants to work on addressing the housing shortage, expand access to city services and focus on maintaining the city’s parks.
The cities of Wyoming and Kentwood will join the cities of Grandville, East Grand Rapids, and the southern portion of the City of Grand Rapids in selecting the next 29th District State Senator.
Running for the seat is incumbent Winnie Brinks (D) and current State Rep. Tommy Brann (R).
Note: All candidates who are running in the cities of Wyoming and Kentwood were invited to participate in the We the People videos, where candidates may talk about why they decided to run and the issues they want to address.
Tommy Brann (R)
Occupation: The current 77th State Representative, Brann has been a restaurant owner, Brann’s Steakhouse, for more than 50 years.
Why did you decide to run for this seat?
I decided to run because as an owner of a blue collar restaurant, I see and feel the struggles of my employees, customers, and neighbors. I want to address those struggles as your next state senator. I am good at this job. As a small business owner and a legislator, I know how to bring people together to solve the big problems we are facing. I know our district, I’ve lived and worked here my entire life. I know our values and I want to preserve and protect our way of life here in West Michigan.
What are a couple of issues you would want to address if elected?
I would like to address inflation, public safety, and the state budget. I know what it takes to manage a budget having done so for 51 years at my restaurant. As a state legislator for six years, I’ve managed that state budget being responsible with YOUR tax dollars. The state budget has a $5 billion surplus, the government is living too well. With rising costs, people need relief. I support measures to lower the income tax, increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, and suspend the gas tax. I also support fully funding the men and women of law enforcement. The nation is experiencing a crime wave. We need to defend our police and equip them with the training and resources needed to keep our communities safe.
Brinks has served in the state senate since 2018. Before that she, she served in the state House of Representatives for six years. She is graduate of Calvin College (now Calvin University), where she earned a bachelor’s in Spanish with a concentration in sociology. Before joining the state house, she was a caseworker for The Source, a non-profit employee support organization based in the City of Wyoming.
On Oct. 4, at approximately 8:10 a.m., the Kentwood Police Department was dispatched to a stolen vehicle with a 2-year-old child inside. The vehicle was stolen from the area of 48th Street and Marlette Avenue in Kentwood.
A few minutes later, the police department received another phone call that the 2-year-old child was left on the side of the road a short distance away. The child was returned to its parents, unharmed.
The stolen vehicle was found in the City of Grand Rapids shortly after it was stolen. A search for the suspect was not successful. Multiple agencies assisted Kentwood including the Kent County Sheriff’s Department, Wyoming Department of Public Safety, and the Grand Rapids Police Department.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Kentwood Police Department Detective Bureau at 616-656-6604. Anonymous tips can be submitted through Silent Observer at 616-774-2345 or SilentObserver.org.
By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma WKTV Managing Editor joanne@wktv.org
At Monday night’s Wyoming City Council meeting Mayor Pro Tem Sam Bolt announced that the city’s long-time city manager will be retiring.
At the Wyoming City Council meeting, it was announced that Wyoming City Manager Curtis Holt will be retiring in the winter. (WKTV
Reading from a prepared statement, Bolt announced after a career of public service of more than three decades, City Manager Curtis Holt announced that he will retire from his role this winter.
“Curtis has served as City Manger in Wyoming for more than 26 years and has fostered a culture of strong community service and fiscal responsibility,” Bolt said.
Curtis joined the Wyoming city staff in 1996 as the deputy city manager and was named as Wyoming’s city manager in 2000. Before coming to Wyoming, he was the city manager of Otsego from 1989 to 1996, and assistant city manager of Cedar Springs from 1987 to 1989.
According to Holt’s bio on the City of Wyoming’s website, he also serves as a board member of the Michigan Municipal Risk Management Authority, and is chair of the Greenstone Insurance, which is a captive held by the MMRMA. He is a board member and past chair of the Regional Geographical Information Service (REGIS) agency of the Grand Valley Metro Council, and is vice-chair of the Grand Valley Regional Biosolids Authority. He is the past chairperson of the Kent County Dispatch Authority and a past commissioner of the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA).
Bolt said he would be working closely with Mayor-elect Kent Vanderwood and council members to deliver a process to fill the position and that information on the next steps will be shared in the coming months.
“Thank you very much for your commitment to the City of Wyoming, our staff and community members,” Bolt said. “We’re excited for your next steps.”
Kent County Sheriff Deputations Krystal Stuart with her former K9 partner, Axel. (WKTV/Jodi Miesen)
It was after a mom approached Kent County Sheriff Officer Krystal Stuart that she knew just how much K9 officer Axel had meant to the community.
Axel died of an undiagnosed heart condition while tracking a suspect in August of 2021. The mother tracked Stuart down in the sheriff department’s parking lot. She told Stuart that her nine-year-old son cried when he saw the news about Axel because he thought of Axel as “their dog.”
“And that just broke my heart because it wasn’t just me that was feeling it,” Stuart said. “It was all these other people that were upset and crying over my dog. You know, and when you have a personal dog, you have your friends and family and people that are sad about it.
“But on such a large scale. I could never have thought that that would have ever happened, that he touched so many lives.”
Not a match made in heaven
Because of her love for animals, Stuart was intrigued by the Kent County K9 Unit and joined in 2019. She had no idea what that was going to entail.
One of Deputy Krystal Stuart’s favorite photos of Axel. (Courtesy, Deputy Krystal Stuart)
Then came the 63-pound German Shepard named Axel. He was just 16-months-old at the time and what many would call a second-time handler dog, not one that a first-time handler such as Stuart should have been assigned. Axel was to be the first explosive detection dog for the Kent County Sheriff’s Department.
However the handler and the K9’s relationship was a rollercoaster from the start.
“The beginning was horrible,” she said. “I had not picked Axel. Axel was actually my third pick. I passed him up because he came into the testing site just digging his claws into the dirt and letting out this Banshee cry…I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t want to deal with that. I’m not gonna. I don’t have the patience to deal with that dog’. So, I passed him up.”
But in the end, Axel became her dog. She was stuck with him. Now came the part of figuring out how to work with each other.
Building the team
“He was a very dominant dog, a very aggressive dog,” she said. “We had to figure out how to respect each other. It wasn’t going to be me ruling over him or him ruling over me. We had to have this mutual respect and I didn’t know how to do that in the beginning. So, him and I battled for the first six months.”
Working dogs such as Axel come with a high drive which is necessary for police work. That drive also comes with its own set of challenges.
“We want dogs that are not going to give up,” she said. “Dogs that are going to continue working until basically we tell them to stop, or they are forced to ‘stop.’
“These dogs are constantly doing something. So, when they’re not working, they can get naughty, because they just want to be working.”
‘Not what I signed up for’
By December of 2019, things got so bad Stuart began questioning if she wanted to continue as a handler. She had experience with dogs, grew up with them and even had two at home before she added Axel to the mix. She also had a husband and two small children, ages 2 and 5, at the time.
“It was just a lot on my family,” she recalled. “It was a lot on me because he wasn’t a good house dog. He didn’t use too much energy to be around the kids. He didn’t get along with my husband very well. And I was like, ‘Yeah, this is not what I really thought I was signing up for.’”
Stuart said the two were living and working together, 24 -7. They were always together. Unlike with a regular partner, who gets to go home at the end of the day, they never got a break from each other. What made things worse is Axel identified Stuart with the job. He always wanted to be working and he didn’t know how to turn it off.
“We have some dogs on our team that when they come home, they can just be couch potatoes and just lay down and relax,” she said. “Axel was not one of those dogs. Because when he saw me, he was like, ‘What are we doing?’, and he was always on it. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we are literally just going outside to go to the bathroom, like just calm down.’”
The turning point
But December also was a turning point as Stuart got some help from trained professionals.
“I talked to a trainer and it was kind of like a come to Jesus moment,” she said. “They really helped me understand how to work with a dog like that in a way that I understood. And once I started applying the things that he had taught me; had told me about. We started building from there.”
By the time Axel passed away, Stuart said the pair were coming together and neither had to think about what the other was doing. They were working as a team. Stuart acknowledged that Axel still tested her patience, but things weren’t as hard anymore.
He did what he loved
It was in August of 2021, while working the first call of an overtime shift, things went bad very quickly. Stuart and Axel had responded to a call in Sparta about a possible home invasion. The suspect had fled the scene and Axel with Stuart began to track.
“It was very hot out that day,” she said. “We found one shoe. So, I knew we were on it. I don’t know, a couple 100 yards and we found the other shoe and I’m like we’re still on it. (The suspect is) stripping clothes, you know, either losing them in the thick brush or just stripping down.”
The team made it to an open area of a lawn and Stuart could tell that Axel was hot. She got water from some people in the area. Recognizing that they were closing in on the suspect and knowing another dog was on its way to relieve Axel because of the heat, Stuart said she felt OK wrapping up the track. They were eight minutes into it.
“After he got water, he jumped back up and start tracking again,” Stuart said. “And I was like, ‘Hey’ I’m like, ‘We’re done.’ So, we had to get out to the field.He picked up the track again and started tracking up the field. And I was like, ‘Dude, we’re done like stop.’ So, I yelled at him and was like, ‘stop!’
“But these are those dogs. They want to finish the game and they want to keep working. So, after I told him to stop, he collapsed.”
An undiagnosed condition found to be the cause
Stuart didn’t know what had happened until a necropsy, an animal autopsy, was performed. She was later told he died of an undiagnosed heart condition. Axel was three-years-old and weighed 96 pounds when he died. He had grown into a strong, muscular, powerful German Shepard.
There was nothing that could have done to prevent it. Stuart said it was explained to her that it was similar to when an athlete dies unexpectedly after vigorous activity. In the end, Axel died doing what he loved.
Stuart says she took his passing hard. He was more than a pet. Axel was such a big part of her life and for that reason, there were no breaks from the grief.
“I was at home and then I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I feel him here. I want to go to work.’” she said. “And then I have an empty cruiser…I couldn’t get away from it.
“And so that was one of the hardest things I think I had to deal with.”
An outpouring of love from the community
Axel was connected to the community. Every morning in the field he could have been seen doing obedience training or just playing ball. A week before Axel’s death, Stuart was working as a school resource officer for the Cedar Springs School District for the district’s first week of school.
Kent County Sheriff Deputy Krystal Stuart stands with artist Kathie Van Hekken next to a portrait Van Hekken drew of former K9 officer Axel. (WKTV/Jodi Miesen)
Because of Axel’s connection to the community and being part of the Kent County Sheriff’s Department, the toughest part for her children was that Axel’s death was so publicized.
“When our personal dog passed away, it was hard because that was their dog,” she said. “But then when Axel passed away, everybody in the community knew. And so, teachers, principals, friends were all coming up to them.”
That outpouring included a Rockford artist, Kathie Van Hekken, who offered to create a 44- by 44- color pencil drawing of Axel, which is on display at this year’s ArtPrize at First (Park) Congregational Church, 10 E. Place Pl. NE. Part of the exhibit includes educating the public about the Kent County Sheriff’s Department’s K9 Unit, which is donation based.
A little about working dogs
There are currently 10 K9s covering all of Kent County for the sheriff’s department. Stuart said the department relies on the K9 Unit to make situations less dangerous and more hands on for officers. They can detect explosives, track suspects, secure buildings, or be used as a compliance tool with Stuart adding some people are more likely to comply when you get a dog out and they start barking.
“And it helps officers in different situations as well, especially with people who are trying to run or fight, you know, our deputies,” she said. “So they do a lot in the community. And I think with Axel passing, we really saw how much the people in the community recognize that.”
The new partner: Meet Kai
Stuart decided to stay on with the K9 Unit and this May a German Shepherd Belgian Malians, weighing in at 20 pounds less than Axel, named Kai became her new K9 partner. She started training Kai in July and he has been on the road with her since the beginning of August.
“He has more energy than Axel, which I didn’t think was possible, because Axel was crazy!,” Stuart said. “This dog is just as crazy! And both of them are bulls in a China shop.”
There is also a bit of resemblance.
“We just took pictures for our calendar fundraiser that we’re doing for 2023,” Stuart said. “I have a picture of Axel in the background and I have Kai on a table and they look oddly familiar, like similar. If you didn’t know, you would think it was almost the same dog,” then quickly adding, “Kai, he is his own dog.”
Axel left his mark, helping her to be a better handler for Kai, whose is progressing in his training. It usually takes about two years of training before a dog like Axel or Kai are solid work dogs.
“He set me up for success with my new dog,” Stuart said of Axel. “He taught me patience, how dogs tick. How they work. What to let them get away with and what not to let them get away with. He taught me all that and so I wouldn’t be the handler I am today without the experiences that I went through with Axel.”
Axel may not have been the dog Stuart wanted but he ended up being the dog that left his mark on the heart of his community as well as his handler.
Many seniors want to “age in place” with help from family and/or friends. (pxhere.com)
LANSING – Funding for in-home care and other state senior services is not increasing proportionally to the number of seniors in Michigan, according to Melissa Seifert, the associate state director of AARP Michigan.
“Michigan is one of the most rapidly aging states in the nation,” Seifert said. “But we’re also one of the worst states when it comes to adequately addressing the needs of our senior population.
“A large amount of taxpayer dollars go to nursing homes, but not enough go to at-home care,” she said.
Many seniors have a desire to stay at home
Most senior citizens want to “age in place,” staying at home and being cared for by family or friends, said Seifert, whose organization provides seniors with information and services. But that is impossible for most people with current funding.
The one-time federal funding under the American Rescue Plan Act offers the opportunity to better care for the state’s elderly population, she said.
Though the money is an important step, Seifert said ongoing support is needed. The goal is to bring about structural changes in at-home care funding that will make a positive difference without creating additional financial obligations for taxpayers, she said.
A growing senior population
The two most pressing issues for seniors are unnecessary institutionalization and overcrowded senior care facilities, Seifert said.
These problems are likely to get worse as more people get older and are no longer able to care for themselves the way they used to, advocates say.
The proportion of Michigan seniors is expected to reach 22% by 2050, said Cathleen Simlar, the communications manager for AARP Michigan. And the proportion of people 85 and older in Michigan is expected to reach 4.8% by the same year.
“We are incredibly unprepared for the amount of people who will be needing senior services in the coming years,” said Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia, who is a member of the House Committee for Families, Children and Seniors.
The need for more funding
“We’ll need more funding for them, especially for their health care. Although there are options to help people with paying for health care, it should be expanded,” Pohutsky said.
Seifert agrees. “Not only is there a lack of government funding in health care, but there’s a shortage of direct care workers to serve those who want to stay at home,” she said.
Michigan needs 34,000 more home caregivers than the 165,000 it has, Seifert said. But “noncompetitive pay, low job satisfaction, unpredictable schedules and the absence of benefits” make it difficult to attract and retain them.
That turnover costs Michigan $684 million per year, she said.
Coming up with creative solutions
Services provided by the Tri-County Office on Aging have been strained during and after the COVID-19 pandemic as more people are choosing to age at home rather than move into a senior care facility, said Casey Cooper, the community engagement and fundraising director for the agency serving Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties.
“For example, we do a Meals on Wheels program for our seniors and community members with disabilities,” Cooper said.
“Our services were definitely strained during the pandemic, and we had to get creative in order to serve everyone. Although qualifications for who could request our services were expanded, funding was not,” Cooper said.
There was not enough funding for one hot meal a day for everyone, she said. So, instead, seven frozen meals were delivered once a week. Now, the program has gone back to one hot meal a day, but people can still request frozen meals.
More creative solutions will be needed as the population of Michigan’s seniors grows, Cooper said.
There is a need for volunteers as well
“Right now, we have a shortage of funding and volunteers,” she said. “If funding is not increased along with the increase of seniors, people will not be able to access all of the services we would be able to provide them.”
Seifert said the coronavirus pandemic highlighted many holes in services for seniors.
“These issues were overlooked before and, hopefully now, increased funding and resources will be allotted to us and allow us to serve our senior communities how they want to be served,” she said.
Sarah is a junior at Michigan State University double majoring in Social Relations & Policy and Journalism. She is interested in writing about how politics affects local communities and making information accessible for everyone. In her free time, she likes boxing, yoga, and spending time with friends, family, and her dog.
By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma WKTV Managing Editor joanne@wktv.org
Pictured from the left, Sgt. Robert Robinson, Kato and Officer Logan Wieber, Tommy Brann, Mayor Pro Tem Sam Bolt, Amanda Clark from K911 Foundation, Lt. Brian Look, and Chief Kim Koster (Courtesy, City of Wyoming)
Through the help of a local business owner, the Wyoming Department of Public Safety was able to introduce its newest K9 member, Kato, at Monday’s Wyoming City Council meeting.
State Rep. Tommy Brann, who owns Brann’s Steakhouse in Wyoming, and the K911 Foundation, each contributed 50 percent of the total cost to purchase Kato. The City of Wyoming purchased Kato from the Shallow Creek Kennels in Pennsylvania for $4,450.
“For several decades now, Wyoming police K9 team has been an important part of our organization,” said Chief Kim Koster at the meeting. “These canines are part of our entire police family and they are speciality trained in enforcement activities such as clearing buildings, tracking suspects and searching for narcotics. They also assist officers enforcement actives such as searching for lost of missing persons.”
Koster noted one of the greatest benefits from the K9 program is the impact it has had on police and community relationships.
“Most kids love dogs and they ask their parents if they can come over and touch the dog,” she said. “They say ‘hi’ to the dog and from there, there have been many good conservations that we have had that have helped start and build upon on our relationships with our community.”
The new additions
The Wyoming police’s K9 unit is overseen by Lt. Brian Look and Sgt. Robert Robinson and consists of four handlers who live, work and train with the four K9 officers. In August, Officer Ryan Paterson received a promotion which lead to him moving on from his position as a handler. His partner, Chase, also retired from the unit after seven years of service.
Through a selection process, Officer Logan Wieber was chosen to fill the vacancy on the K9 unit. He is partnered with Kato, a 14-month old German Shepherd who was imported from Poland to the United States.
The newest member of the K9 team, Kato. (Courtesy, City of Wyoming)
“Although he is a green dog in the world of canines, as you can probably tell,” Koster said as Kato took in his new surroundings. “He will be trained by the staff.”
The importance of community support
Koster expressed her appreciation to Brann for his continued support of the Wyoming police department.
“Tommy has made serving people his biggest priority and the investment he made with our K9 team is another extension for that heart for service,” she said.
Brann said he his appreciative of all the support he has received in the past 51 years as a restaurant owner.
“I own a bar, and so when you have bar fights, who comes? The police,” Brann said, adding that he supports the police and the work they do and plans to continue doing so in the future.
East Kentwood High School art teacher Olivia Miller works with students in class. (Courtesy, Kentwood Public Schols)
East Kentwood High School art teacher, Olivia Miller, is a lifelong learner and self-described explorer. She has a passion to experience other parts of the world, other cultures, and that passion spills over into her classroom. It is also taking her places.
Recently, Miller was named a 2023 National Education Association (NEA) Global Learning Fellow. She is the only teacher in Michigan to receive this honor. According to the NEA Foundation, Miller will join colleagues from states across the country to immerse themselves in a year-long study that involves online coursework, webinars, readings, and reflections. Eventually, the group will travel to South Africa this summer as part of this experience.
The goal, Miller says, is to return to the classroom, enriched from the learning, to create a global learning experience for her students. This work, she feels, also helps her to connect with her students.
Recently, East Kentwood art teacher Olivia Miller was named a 2023 National Education Association Global Learning Fellow. (Courtesy, Kentwood Public Schools)
“For me, the biggest way that I can learn is experiential, through traveling,” Miller explained. “It’s so different walking into a school in a different country and seeing how things are done there….It’s a different level of experience that I can connect with and then maybe better understand my students who come from different countries.”
This is not the first time Miller has been part of this type of opportunity. Prior to the pandemic, she was accepted as part of the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms Program. This enabled her to work with teachers from across the nation and to travel to Morocco as part of this learning experience.
Part of Miller’s motivation is rooted in her own heritage. Her mother’s family immigrated to the United States from Ukraine. Growing up in West Michigan, she says she did not see much of her own family’s history and culture represented in the school curriculum. This made her wonder about representation for the students she serves today.
This is Miller’s third year teaching in the Kentwood Public Schools and her tenth year of teaching overall. Kentwood is where she wants to be. “This has been my dream school to come to,” Miller says of East Kentwood High School. “There are so many layers and good things to our EK community and environment. This place is such a cultural hub that many people may not even know about. You can learn about so many different ways of life, different cultures, different people here in Kentwood.”
East Kentwood is definitely glad to have Miller on its team. “Ms. Miller is one of the most culturally sensitive and equity-minded teachers that I’ve had the pleasure to work with,” says EK Assistant Principal Lindsay Kimbrough. “She brings a perspective that goes much deeper than the beautiful art she elicits from her students. She promotes social emotional development, and through her whole-child approach, helps to mold true global citizens.”
East Kentwood art teacher Olivia Miller helps a student on an art project. (Courtesy, Kentwood Public Schools)
Kimbrough adds that the relationships Miller builds with her students are so important. “Her innate ability to build relationships with students is the bridge that leads students to taking academic and artistic risks, reaching heights they may have never dreamed of.”
The trip to South Africa this summer will be a rewarding culminating activity for Miller as part of her role as an NEA Global Fellow; however, there is work to be done between now and then. This work includes a trip next month to Washington, D.C. where she will collaborate with the other NEA Global Fellows from around the nation at a conference in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education.
While Miller is focused on her current students and how the NEA Global Learning Fellowship will positively impact them, she is also looking ahead, and dreaming about possibilities to benefit KPS students and staff in the future.
“I want to someday have funding to take KPS teachers to the countries that our students are primarily from,” Miller explains, “to do a teacher tour. To go into the countries and learn.” She adds, “I think that would really make a big impact. It would close a gap in the relationships between teachers and students because students would be like, ‘Oh my gosh. You cared enough that you went and traveled to where I’m from.”
Picture this: You’re walking through the woods when you brush up against some tall grass, or maybe you wandered off trail momentarily. You head home, but the next day notice a black speck on your arm.
It’s a tick.
Beyond the gross-out factor, you wonder if it might make you sick. A new mobile app may help figure that out.
Emily Dinh, a medical entomologist with the Department of Health and Human Services, says encounters people are having with ticks are becoming more common.
That’s as the state’s tick population has been on the rise, including numbers of the American dog tick and the blacklegged tick, which can transmit the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.
“That blacklegged tick is something that we’re concerned about and seeing a greater distribution throughout the state of Michigan. That is the tick that can transmit Lyme disease,” Dinh said.
In 2021, the state health department reported nearly half of Michigan’s counties had a known risk of Lyme disease for people and animals.
Ticks like shady, moist areas
Ticks are typically found in wooded and brushy areas but can even show up in suburban yards.
“The most important thing to be aware of is where ticks are, so ticks like shady, moist areas in woody, grassy locations,” she said. “Especially in the warmer months of April through September, but sometimes into October as well because ticks can be active when the temperatures are above 40 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Barry OConnor is a tick expert at the University of Michigan’s Zoology Museum. He cites a rise in temperatures as a possible reason for the increased risk.
“We’ve certainly seen changes in the distribution of several species of ticks moving northward over the years as temperatures have become warmer,” OConnor said.
According to the state, average yearly temperatures have increased two to three degrees in the past two decades.
The Tick App
A group of researchers from universities across the U.S. decided to create a mobile app, called The Tick App. (Courtesy, The Tick App)
Because of growing concerns about the pests, both in Michigan and across the country, a group of researchers from universities across the U.S. decided to create a mobile app, simply called The Tick App.
Michigan State University professor Jean Tsao said the app allows scientists to learn more about where ticks are and what people are doing to keep safe from them. She is in the Department of Fisheries & Wildlife and is part of the group that helped develop the digital portal.
“It’s a mobile health app that is both a research tool as well as an outreach tool,” she said.
When people download it, they’re prompted to fill out a 10-minute survey about potential risk factors.
“We really wanted to understand, if possible, when and where and what kind of activities people are doing to expose themselves to ticks,” Tsao said.
She said users are also able to take a picture of a tick and submit it to the app. The research team is then able to identify it within 24 hours.
“They have a lot of reliable information all collated into one area that can tell you about what a tick is, what the various species of ticks are that you’re likely to contact in the area that you live and what are prevention measures that you can take,” Tsao said.
Tips on avoiding ticks
To avoid ticks, Tsao recommends wearingbug repellent and long clothing outside.
After returning home, a full-body tick check and shower is also ideal.
Tsao said the research team is working to use artificial intelligence to make tick identification faster and more accurate.
She said she hopes that with this advancement, the app may one day be used by health care workers as a diagnostic tool.
Genevieve Fox reports for WKAR Radio in partnership with the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism and Capital News Service.
On Sept. 13, 2022, Kentwood police officers responded to the 4500 block of Bowen Boulevard in the City of Kentwood on the report of a subject shot.
Officers arrived and located a 17-year-old male white a gunshot wound to the lower chest/abdomen area. The victim received medical treatment on scene and was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Numerous shell casings were located on scene and several vehicles/buildings were struck during this incident.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Kentwood Police Department Detective Bureau at 616-656-6604. Anonymous tips can be submitted through Silent Observer at 616-774-2345.
In August, the City of Wyoming straightened the crosswalk on 56th Street and are planning to put in a HAWK beacon signal. (WKTV)
Those traveling east or west on 56th Street between Byron Center and Ivanrest may have noticed something different: the crosswalk for Kent Trails have changed.
In August, the City of Wyoming removed the median from the center of the road and straighten the trail’s crosswalk over 56th Street. With this change, the city also will install a HAWK (High-Intensity Activated crossWalK) beacon signal, which according to the Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology Department, have been proven to be effective in reducing accidents.
“There were numerous accidents at the crosswalk and quite honestly, it was confusing as to who had the right-away,” said Russ Henckel, Wyoming’s assistant director of public works and engineering. Henckel added it was the reason for the change.
Old System Created an Accident Zone
According to Michigan’s Uniform Traffic Code for Cities, Townships and Villages, under R 28.1702 Rule 702, when traffic-control signals are not in place or not in operation, the driver shall yield the right-of-way, slowing down or stopping for a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk when the pedestrian is on the half of the roadway the driver’s vehicle is traveling. A pedestrian shall not suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and cross when the vehicle is so close that it would be impossible for the driver to yield.
The original crossing designed bent the trail at the intersection so pedestrians would have a clear view of traffic. For insistence, a person traveling north, the trail curved at 56th Street so he could see the cars traveling east and then cross to the median. The median then angled to the west so pedestrians would have a clear view of cars traveling west.
“What was happening is that pedestrians would cross to the median and drivers would see them there and try to quickly slow down or stop resulting in vehicles getting rear ended,” Henckel said.
Henckel noted that there are similar median mid-crosswalks set up at other locations. Wyoming has one on Division Avenue and there is one in Grandville on Wilson Avenue. Those medians have worked well to deter accidents. Henckel said he believes it is partly because those areas are heavy volumes of traffic on five lanes, where the cars are not going to stop forcing pedestrians to be much more alert.
As for the one on 56th Street, the road is only three lanes and currently does not have the traffic volume such as a road like Division Avenue has, Henckel said.
HAWK Signal Follow Traditional Rules of the Road
With the new HAWK beacon signal, it will be clearer to both pedestrians and drivers on who has the right–of-way. (WKTV)
With a HAWK beacon signal, a pedestrian will activate the light by pressing a button. The system then starts its cycle of a flashing yellow, then steady yellow and finally a red to indicate that vehicles need to stop. Similar to an intersection crosswalk, the signal will give pedestrians a walking person to indicate when they can cross, a flashing raised hand with a counter to indicate the crossing time is ending, and a sold raised hand for do not cross.
Henckel said with the signal, it should be clearer to both drivers and pedestrians on who has the right-of-way as the rules for crossing are now the same as those at an intersection crossing. Vehicles must stop when the lights are red and pedestrians should yield and wait for the signal to change to indicate when to cross.
City staff hopes to have the new signal installed by the send of September. The delay has been the contractor who needs to install the poles for the signal, Henckel said, adding that once the poles are placed, it will not take long for the city to install the signal.
An odd tradition – sea lamprey pie – linking the Great Lakes to Great Britain’s Royals and is expected to continue with the crowning of King Charles III.
Lampreys are considered an undesirable invasive species in the Great Lakes. They devastate native fish by latching onto them with a sucker-like mouth filled with sharp teeth.
Great Lakes state, provincial and federal governments spend millions of dollars to control them.
But baking them into a pie is a longtime tradition in the United Kingdom.
A popular delicacy
Queen Elizabeth II, who died Sept. 8 after reigning 70 years, was served the eel-like sea lamprey in 2002 to celebrate her Golden Jubilee, or 50th anniversary of being on the throne.
The Great Lakes Fishery Commission made another shipment of the fish taken from the Great Lakes 10 years later in 2012 for the queen’s 60th anniversary, and once again in 2016 for her 90th birthday.
“We capture them and send them over to Gloucester, England, so that they can continue their long tradition,” said Marc Gaden, the deputy executive secretary of the fishery commission, a binational organization founded in 1954 to fight the parasite.
“With the coronation of King Charles III coming up, I can only assume I’m going to be sending a few more over there.”
Sea lamprey are protected in the U.K. because streams there are heavily dammed, and they cannot spawn as much as they do in the Great Lakes, Gaden said.
The lamprey pie is a tradition in the U.K., spanning hundreds of years. Serving it was discontinued except for coronations in 1836, due to its high cost, according to “What’s Cooking America,” a website that documents food history.
The lamprey is baked while coated in syrup, along with some wine and spices. It is then spooned out and served on sliced white bread.
In America, mixed reviews
In 1996, Wisconsin Sea Grant organized a sea lamprey taste test in hopes of spurring a commercial market for the fish instead of simply landfilling those that they trapped.
Taste ratings were high, but the plan fell apart when contaminant tests showed that the Great Lakes lamprey contained mercury levels that were too high to meet European Union standards.
How does it taste?
“Surprisingly good,” Bob Bennet, the owner, and chef of a Duluth restaurant that hosted the event said at the time. “Try selling it without telling people what they are eating. It would be better.”
But don’t ask Gaden.
“I can’t say I’ve tried the lamprey pie,” he said.
The National Weather Service predicts this year’s fall season will be 40% warmer compared to average mid-Michigan temperatures of 50 degrees from September through November. (WKTV/Joanne Bailey-Boorsma)
The National Weather Service predicts there’s a 40% chance the temperatures will average above normal this fall in mid-Michigan.
MeteorologistWilliam Marino said warming fall temperatures have become more common in recent years.
That’s largely due to an ongoing La Niña, according to Marino, who is based in Grand Rapids.
That phenomenon allows for warm air to pass through the cool Pacific sea surface temperatures and enter North America.
Along with warmer fall temperatures predicted, low precipitation is also expected.
Jeffrey Andresen is the state climatologist for Michigan. He said roughly 30% of the state is experiencing some form of dryness, or even moderate drought.
With abnormal dryness, fall crops will reach maturity faster, lowering the quality of the crop, said Andresen, who is also a professor of meteorology/climatology in the Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University.
“It’s good to have warm soils and so forth for that crop to germinate, but we do need moisture,” Andresen said.
To combat warming temperatures, Andresen said people should keep their eyes on long-term trends and plan as needed.
“We have to adapt to these changing long-term patterns,” Andresen said.
Genevieve Fox reports for WKAR in partnership with Great Lakes Echo and Capital News Service.
The Wyoming Department of Public safety announced last week that suspect Yenly Garcia was found in Mexico and taken into custody.
Wyoming Police Detectives have been investigating the homicide of Mollie Schmidt since Aug. 30, 2022. The murder took place in the 1500 block of 44th Street SW inside an apartment belong to Garcia. On Sept. 2, 2022, the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office authorized an open murder warrant for Garcia associated with the incident.
Earlier this week, Garcia was taken into custody in central Mexico, north of Mexico City. He was arrested through cooperation between Wyoming Police, the United Marshals Service and Mexican authorities. Further details of his arrest are not available a this time. Extradition processes are being exorcized to return Garcia to Michigan to face his changes.
Anyone with further information on this incident is asked to contact the Wyoming Police at 616-530-7300 or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345 or 1-866-774-2345 or to visit www.silentobserver.org
Kentwood investigates shooting
The Kentwood Police Department wants you to keep cool this summer, and one was is to avoid crime and confrontations.
On Sept. 9, 2022, officers of the Kentwood Police Department were dispatched to the area of Kelekent Avenue and 56th Street for a possible shooting that occurred. One subject showed up to a local hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound which is believed to be related to this incident. Three subjects were taken into custody during this investigation for charges related to this investigation and outstanding warrants.
Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to contact the Kentwood Police Department Detectives Bureau at 616-656-6604 or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345 or 1-866-774-2345 or to visit www.silentobserver.org.
No charges in Burger King incident
Kent CountyProsecutor Chris Becker announced today that he would not be filing charges in the alleged Sept. 4, 2022 assault that occurred at the Wyoming Burger King located at 1313 28th St. SW.
According to a Sept. 4 report from Wyoming Department of Public Safety, a disorderly male customer who was unhappy with his service entered the store and climbed over the counter. He acted aggressively toward staff and assaulted two juvenile employees of the business during the incident before leaving.
Upon further investigation, Becker said that while he finds the suspect’s behavior “abhorrent,” the actions of the Burger King employees was “aggressive and that there is blame on both sides for the incident.
“By no means am I condoning (the person’s) behavior,” Becker said. “This could have been avoided if he would have simply just driven away after not getting the service that he wanted at this Burger King, but he didn’t do so and we have to deal with the facts as they are and there’s just not a basis to file charges for this incident.”
The suspect, who came through the drive thru, was unhappy about the soda coming down the side of his cup. Security footage, which was shown at press conference held last week, shows an employee wiping down a cup and returning it to the suspect who knocks it out of the employee’s hand. It then shows the suspect driving around and coming into the restaurant, jumping the counter, and grabbing a cup. He then went to the soda fountain pour a drink and poured soda on the floor. An employee then threw an ice-coffee at the suspect, who confronted the employee.
From there things escalated with Becker noting that as the suspect left the premises employees pursued him with one appearing to do a flying kick out the door.
Becker said because there was a fight with both sides being aggressive, there’s not enough evidence to charge the suspect with aggravated assault.
Sept. 6, 2022 UPDATE: Wyoming Department of Public Safety obtained an arrest warrant for open murder on Yenly Garcia in relation to the homicide of Mollie Schmidt.
Yenly Garcia
Garcia’s location is still unknown at this time and detectives are still working to locate him.
Anyone with information as to Garcia’s locations is asked to call the Wyoming Department of Public Safety at 616-530-7300 or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345, 1-866-774-2345, or www.silentobserver.org.
On Aug. 31, the Wyoming Department of Public Safety announced it is conducting a homicide investigation in the 1500 block of 44th Street.
On Aug. 30, detectives from Wyoming Public safety and Kent County Sheriff’s Department served a search warrant at an apartment belonging to Yenly Garcia and located a female deceased from a gunshot wound. The female has been identified as Mollie Schmidt who was reported missing to Kent County Sheriff’s Department last week.
Detectives are investing this case as a homicide and are pursuing all leads .Garcia is a person of interest in this case. Garcia is 44-years-old, 5-foot, 10 inches tall, 200 pounds with dark hair and distinct tattoos on his face. Garcia was last known to be driving a black 2019 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup with a Michigan plate of ELW6780. Garcia’s current whereabouts are unknown. Garcia current has an active warrant out for his arrest on an unrelated charge.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact Wyoming Police at 616-530-7300 or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345 or 1-866-774-2345 or online at https://www.silentobserver.org.
The Diatribe hosted a live Facebook stream on issues facing the 49507 zip code. (Supplied)
By Sheila McGrath WKTV Community Contributor
If the community poured as much money into the public health crisis of racism as it poured into the public health crisis of COVID-19, what might the result be?
That question and many more were discussed in a Facebook Live event recently hosted by Marcel ‘Fable’ Price and G. Foster II from The Diatribe, an organization that uses performing arts to raise awareness of social issues.
Fable and Foster posed questions about health care, community and life in South Grand Rapids neighborhoods to a panel that included social workers, health care workers, and community organizers.
Racism has been declared a public health crisis in Grand Rapids, Fable said, but since the city government made that declaration nearly a year ago, what has been done about it?
“We responded to COVID in many ways. Money, pop-up clinics, stimuluses, billboards, millions of dollars in marketing campaigns,” he said. “What would a response to racism as a public health crisis look like if we took it as seriously as COVID?”
“It would mean people are reacting to racism like their lives depend on it,” said Aarie Wade, director of education at Baxter Community Center.
“Like if they don’t attack this, they will die. And their families will die. And generations will die.”
Listening to the community
In addition to Wade, participants on the panel included Chinyere Aririguzo, LMSW, client services supervisor at Health Net of West Michigan; Ashlie Jones, senior program coordinator for the Grand Rapids African American Health Initiative; Nirali Bora, MD, medical director of the Kent County Health Department; Kelsey Perdue, a project director with the Michigan League for Public Policy, and Lee Moyer, director of community programs at Spectrum Health Healthier Communities.
Questions posed in the forum were based on listening sessions hosted by The Diatribe as part of its 49507 Project, an anti-racist project by and for people of color that involves the creation of public murals, writing, and community listening sessions.
Fable said during listening sessions, they were able to listen to more than 400 individuals from the 49507 neighborhood.
“Many residents didn’t feel like our downtown belongs to them, which makes it even more important that we pour into our communities, our neighborhoods,” he said.
Creating more home ownership opportunities
Obstacles to home ownership in the 49507 zip code are a big problem, many of the panelists said, as well as the difficulty of people being able to afford housing in general.
Fable noted that nonprofit organizations own hundreds of homes in the 49507 zip code. He questioned why those couldn’t be given to families, bringing home ownership and stability to those neighborhoods.
Investors and developers buying up properties bring another obstacle, according to Fable.
“How do community members obtain equity if developers are constantly taking control of neighborhoods, and our politicians and community leaders continue to align with them?” he said.
Aririguzo said the requirements for subsidized housing are keeping a lot of people from even being able to live in the neighborhood, such as rules requiring people to be able to come up with three times the amount of the rent to be eligible for assistance.
“If I could make three times the rent, I wouldn’t be looking for subsidized housing, right?” she said. “I would like to see changing the requirements that are supposed to be helping us stay in our neighborhoods.”
Using your vote to get local leaders to listen
The difficulty getting city leaders to listen to the concerns of Black and Brown residents was another topic of discussion. Panel members said that when conversations with city or county leaders did happen, they felt as if leaders were just waiting for them to finish talking so they could give their prepared rebuttals.
Panelists agreed that it’s important to get informed on local candidates running for office in the city of Grand Rapids and Kent County.
“Do your research on candidates, not only when it comes to their political stance but what they’ve done in the past. What does your track record say you’ve done for the city to improve it?” Moyer said. “That will speak volumes.”
“We get wrapped up with the news about Trump vs. Biden, but it’s wildly important to care about these smaller elections,” Fable said.
Dr. Cory Redman, Grand Rapids Public Museum’s science curator, works to excavate the mastodon bones. (GRPM)
Kent County road crews got a little surprise as they were working to replace a culvert along the county line on 22 Mile Road: they discovered a femur bone.
Turns out that the bone is part of a mastodon with officials from the Grand Rapids Public Museum and the University of the Michigan contacted to come to the site to excavate. University of Michigan officials confirmed that the bones are mastodon.
There is some speculation that there may be two set of bones. Once the bones have been excavated, they will be processed by the University of Michigan. The bones are scheduled to be returned to the Grand Rapids Public Museum per the landowner’s wishes.
Mastodon versus mammoth
The mastodon is a member of the order Proboscidea, which also includes the mammoths, modern elephants, and a wide variety of extinct elephant-like species that evolved more than 60 million years ago.
The American Mastodon was wide-spread across all of North America from Alaska to central Mexico. It was smaller than the mammoth and they used their teeth to clip and crush twigs. Mammoths grazed on grass. Also, mastodons had straighter tusks and both the body and head of the mastodon is longer and squatter than the woolly mammoth
It is estimated that more 300 mastodon fossils have been found in southern Michigan and in fact, the state’s fossil is a mastodon fossil. In 2016, a UM-lead team unearthed Michigan’s most complete ice age mastodon since the 1940s in Mayville, located in Michigan’s thumb area. The team found 70 percent of the mastodon skeleton.
The Grand Rapids Public Museum has several mastodon fossils in its collection including the most famous local find, “Smitty,” which was 40 percent of a full mastodon skeleton found in 1985 in Grandville. Smitty’s skeletal material has been radiocarbon dated by multiple researchers, yielding dates ranging from 10,920 to 12,160 years ago.
The Museum also has the Moorland Mastodon which was found in 1904 in the Muskegon area and which has been on display for several years at the museum. Dr. Cory Redman, who is the museum’s science curator, has been working on restoring the Moorland Mastodon to a state that would be better for is preservation.
As a side note, the Grand Rapids Public Museum currently has the exhibit “Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs.” For more information about the exhibit, visit grpm.org.
By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma WKTV Managing Editor joanne@wktv.org
In March, the Wyoming Department of Public Safety installed license plate readers. Within six months, it has been able to identify and recover 13 stolen vehicles and arrest 18 suspects.
“The real story is that we are able to find missing persons,” said Chief Kim Koster. “If an older family member gets into a car and takes off and the family cannot find the person, we can enter the person’s license plate number into the reader. If the person has passed a reader, it will let us know and give us an idea where to start searching for that missing person.”
From left, CALEA Executive Director Craig Hartley, Wyoming City Manager Curtis Holt, Wyoming Public Safety Chief Kimberly Koster,, Wyoming Sergeant Jeremy Walter, Wyoming Captain Eric Wier, Wyoming Lt. Brian Look, and CALEA Commissioner Marcus Brown. (Supplied)
Through that process, the department has been able to find two missing persons since March.
It is because of the Wyoming Department of Public Safety‘s commitment to utilizing best practices in law enforcement that it has earned its fourth in a row accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). This includes implementing new technology, such as the license plate readers, as well as reviewing policies and procedures.
Meeting the standards
CALEA is considered the “gold standard in public safety.” Of the approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, the Wyoming Department of Public Safety is one of 770 agencies nationwide that has CALEA accreditation. It is one of 12 in the State of Michigan. Wyoming received accreditation in 2012.
Wyoming Department of Public Safety Chief Kim Koster (Supplied)
“It is the blueprint for success for a department,” Koster said. “I always say it is the people, our officers, who make the department where we work but CALEA helps to organize us and achieve our goals.”
Reaccreditation happens every four years. To receive reaccreditation, the department must provide proof every year that the agency is in compliance with about 180 of the 452 CALEA standards. Commissioners review different guidelines each year and on the fourth year, all 452 standards are reviews with assessors coming to the department to meet with officers and the public, and department officials coming before the Commission.
“Today, one of the things that departments need to do in general is to be transparent and accountable,” Koster said. “By having this accreditation, we are doing both and it assures the public that we are performing the best practices in law enforcement.
Keeping Up-to-date
Once such practice that came out during the 2020 George Floyd situation was the development of the duty to intervene policy, which the Wyoming Department of Public Safety has incorporated.
“While it was the expectation that an officer would intercede and help de-escalate a situation when he or she sees the use of of force in excess, departments did not have that as a policy,” Koster said.
CALEA also provides direction on other police activities such as witness identification of suspect, best practices in training, evidence handling and storage, and recruiting.
In fact, by being a part of CALEA, the department has the opportunity to learn about what others across the nation are doing in police and public safety. Koster said during the reaccreditation process, the assessors asked about areas the department was looking for assistance. She chose recruiting and was offered a number of ideas including working with MichiganWorks!
But it is not only reviewing policies to assure they are meeting current modern-day needs, but also keeping up on technology and the possibilities of how it can help in police work. That encouragement to consider new ideas is what lead to the department purchasing the license plate readers.
Following the road map
“This is a map in how we should be doing things,” Koster said. “For example, in training, it focuses on best practices in such items as the use of the force, handling calls or helping someone with a mental health issue. By making sure that you are revisiting that topic every year, it assures that you are using the most update-to-date information and techniques.”
CALEA was formed in 1979 through the combined efforts of four major law enforcement organizations: the International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, National Sheriff’s Association, and the Police Executive Research Form. The main purpose of the Commission is to develop standards based on international best practices in public safety, and to establish and administer the accreditation process which looks at how a department meets recognized criteria for excellence in management and service delivery. Accreditation is voluntary.
Brian Long is a local business forecaster. Credit: GVSU
West Michigan’s economy has flattened, following a national and worldwide trend, according to a report released Monday by Brian G. Long, director of Supply Management Research at Grand Valley’s Seidman College of Business.
So, is the nation in a recession?
Long said he’s not quite ready to say so, given the complexities that go into determining when a recession begins or ends. However, he does think the nation is “very likely to slide into an official recession in the near future.”
“I’m sticking with an 80 percent likelihood of recession right now because, the future being what it is, things could change,” he said. “There’s a possibility that we might skate by, but it’s growing increasingly unlikely as time goes by.”
The key sales index, indicating new orders, sank into negative territory, according to the results of the survey of West Michigan manufacturers.
“Although many factories are still operating at or near capacity, higher commodity prices and rapidly rising transportation costs continue to restrict the profitability for many firms,” Long said in the report. “Even though business conditions remain modestly positive for some survey respondents, the talk of an impending recession is resulting in many expansion plans being put on hold.”
Automotive suppliers, though still hampered by chip shortages, are expected to weather any economic storm better than other sectors due to continued pent-up demand for new cars, Long said.
Key metrics in the July survey were a mixed bag: • The sales index, reflecting new orders came at -3 after being +26 in June • Production, or output, softened to +7 from +31 in June • Employment remained strong, reaching +27, up from +23 the previous month
Long cautioned against putting too much weight on the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in determining the start of a recession.
While economists once used two consecutive quarters of negative GDP reports as a signal of the start of a recession, thinking has evolved in recent decades to include other factors such as income, employment, unemployment, industrial production, capital investment and consumer spending, he said.
Wyoming City Council Member Kent Vanderwood was elected the city’s next mayor during the Aug. 2 primary election. Vanderwood received 56 percent of the casted votes. (Supplied)
At this week’s primary election, Wyoming voters determined the city’s next mayor, Kent Vanderwood.
“Normally in a primary, there is usually a narrowing of the number down for candidates but in our city charter there is a little asterisk to this in that if a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, they automatically win the seat,” said Wyoming City Clerk Kelli VandenBerg.
Vanderwood took 56 percent of the casted votes in Aug. 2 primary, receiving 5,635 votes. Current mayor pro tem and candidate Sam Bolt received 3,033 votes and newcomer Cliff Tompkins had 1,144 votes.
Vanderwood, who current serves as a council member, said he was pleased with the results of the primary and sees this as an opportunity to prepare for the role of mayor.
“This gives me a lot of time to prepare as I will be able to meet with the current mayor, city staff, the city manager,” he said. “It gives me an opportunity to get oriented to the mayor duties.”
VandenBerg said turnout for the primary was about 22 percent of the city’s registered voters which was what her office was expecting.
“What was a surprise is that in the past we have seen more absentee ballots in an election and this year it was much more balanced,” she said.
For the Nov. 8 general election, Wyoming residents will be deciding between three candidates to fill two council member at-large seats, which are four-year terms. Those candidates are Rob Arnoys, Renee Hill and Robert Kilgo. Sheldon DeKryger is running unopposed for the first ward council seat.
VandenBerg said the elected officials, including mayor elect Vandenwood, would take office in the beginning of December.
Meijer loses to Gibbs
In the 3rd District U.S. House of Representatives, current Congressman Peter Meijer lost his bid for the Republican nomination which went to newcomer John Gibbs. Gibbs had 36,527 votes to Meijer’s 35,395 votes. Gibbs will face Democratic nominee Hillary Scholten in the Nov. 8 general election for the seat.
State House races
For the 80th District State House of Representatives, Democratic Phil Skaggs edged out Lily Chong-Schulting, 5,202 to 4,626 for the Democratic nomination. Skaggs will face Republican nominee Jeffrey Johnson in November.
For the 82nd District State House of Representatives, candidate Kristian Grant had the most votes, 3,884, in a three-way race for the Democratic nomination. Also seeking the nominations were Robert Womack, who received 3,821, and Salim Mohammed Al-Shatel, who received 1,301.
The Republican nomination for the 82nd District was between two candidates, Ryan Malinoski and William Alexander. Malinowski beat out Alexander, 2,640 to 1,527.
Malinowski and Grant will now face each other for the 82nd District House seat in the Nov. 8 general election.
In the 83rd District State House of Representatives, current Wyoming Councilmember John Fitzgerald won the Democratic nomination with 2,567 to Jose Flores’ 2,037 votes. Fitzgerald will now face Republican candidate Lisa DeKryger for the season in the November election.
Kent County Commission races
Current 10th District Kent County Commissioner Emily Post Brieve won the Republican nomination with 2,615 votes over her challenger Bill Hirsch, who received 2,127 votes. Brieve will face Democratic challenger Julie Humphrey in November.
In the 12th District Kent County Commission seat, Lee White won the Republican nomination with 1,135 votes over candidate Adam R. Palaces, who had 959 votes. Lee faces current commissioner and Democratic candidate Monica Sparks in November.
Tom McKelvy took the Republican nomination for the 13th District Kent County Commission seat. McKelvy has 1,591 votes to candidate Nick Prill’s 1,169. McKelvy will face Democratic candidate and current commissioner Michelle McCloud in the Nov. 8 general election.
By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma WKTV Managing Editor joanne@wktv.org
The current owners of The Pines Golf Course plan to operate the facility through the 2023 golfing season. (WKTV)
Impressed overall with a proposed development for The Pine Golf Course, the Wyoming Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend rezoning the site.
Illinois-based developer Redhawk Multifamily and Indiana-based Domo Development had requested a rezoning of 114.52 acres at the addresses of 2180 52nd St.SW and 5050 Byron Center Ave. SW, which is the current Pines Golf Course. The sites are currently R-1 for single family homes with the proposed zoning being a planned united development (PUD-4) for mixed use of residential and commercial.
“The Pines are a near and dear place to me,” said Planning Commissioner Robert Arnoys. “My parents built their house in ‘77. We lived by the fifth hole. Mike kicked me off the golf course many times on Sundays and various times, so I have a lot of sentimental and valuable memories related to the golf course.
“But it is going to be developed…Again, it pains me for the change but I do feel that this is something that we’ve talked about, best use, and the way this is laid out it is very well done.”
The Pines project
“A master plan, as developers, gives us guidance to the goals of Wyoming,” said Redhawk Multifamily representative Mark Avis. “We came here to design something that specifically matches almost word for word what is in the master plan.”
The proposed The Pines development is located northeast of the intersection of Byron Center Avenue and 52nd Street. (Supplied)
The project, named “The Pines” after the golf course, is proposed to be a mixed-use development that includes residential and commercial uses. The proposal calls for 604 units, which comes out to be about 5.27 dwelling units per acre. The residential proportion will be a mix of for sale and for rent units and includes a variety of housing types such as low-density like duplexes and lofts and medium density such as story apartment buildings and townhomes.
The site would include 22,000 square feet of office space, which would mostly be located off of 52nd Street and 7,500 square feet of commercial/retail, which would be off of Byron Center Avenue.
The Pines project also includes a 13-acre dog park that would be open to all Wyoming residents, sports courts for pickleball and bocce ball, fitness center, two clubhouses and two swimming pools.
Avis said when the company considers a property for development it is a process. It starts by meeting with the current owners and learning their vision and then identifying the natural features of the property including the trees, wetlands, natural grades and wildlife habitats.
The company also studied the city’s master plan, met with residents and staff and through that process felt it had developed a better plan than what the company had originally envisioned.
Planning Commission’s recommendation
Noting how well the plan was laid out and overall impressed with the design, the Planning Commission unanimously voted to recommend approval of the plan to the Wyoming City Council.
For a PUD rezoning, the Wyoming City Council will have two readings before voting on the rezoning. The rezoning is expected to be introduced at the Council’s Aug. 1 meeting which is at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 1155 28th St. SW.
If the zoning is approved, the Wyoming Planning Commission would need to review and approve the project’s final site plan.
Residents at meeting were opposed
Redhawk presented about 15 pages from residents about the project including 100 positive reviews along with letters of sport from Grandville Superintendent Roger Bearup and Walker Mayor Gary L. Carey Jr. Redhawk is working on converting the former English Hills and the Lincoln golf courses in Walker to a planned unit development similar to the one proposed for The Pines Golf Course.
About a dozen residents voiced their concerns about the project citing increased traffic, not wanting rental housing, and a strong desire to keep the zoning residential for single family homes.
“I want you to keep in mind that apartments are one component of this,” said Planning Commissioner Barbara VanDuren. “There are for sale condos. There are duplexes and townhouses and it is hard because we all come from an era where we were born and raised and wanted that single family home. Things are changing. These apartments are not low income apartments.
“I think if you give it an opportunity and take a look at it and when it happens, I don’t think it will be as bad as you are perceiving.”
Addressing the public concerns
City of Wyoming’s Planning Director Nicole Hofert noted in her presentation that a traffic study showed that Byron Center and 52nd Street would be able to absorb the projected growth through minor traffic improvements such as timing adjustments. She also noted that there would need to be further evaluation of the traffic flow to ensure efficient egress of the site and minimal impact to surrounding roadways.
As for the crime, Hofert reiterated what she said for the rezoning of the 12 acres at the corner of Byron Center and 52nd Street that statistically, where there are more people, there is more crime and it is not related to the type of housing in the area.
The Pines site will have 604 dwelling units with 7,500 square feet of commercial/retail along Byron Center Avenue and 22,000 square feet of office space along 52nd Street. (Supplied)
Meets the requirements
According to staff, the property met many of the city requirements including location, size, housing variety, units and residential density. It was noted by staff that a PUD of the size of The Pines could go up to 15 dwellings per acre, but the developer is only asking for about a third of that at 5.27 dwellings per acre totaling 604.
The city’s [re]imagine master plan calls for the parcels to be used as suburban residential and should be directed suburban residential growth primarily as planned unit developments that include higher density options, green space, and pedestrian infrastructure. In defining suburban residential, the master plan says that higher-density residential should be prioritized near major roadways such as Byron Center Avenue and 52nd Street and near neighborhood commercial centers.
The master plan considered the Pines Golf Course an opportunity site that should be considered for mixed use with commercial fronting the street and medium density housing in the interior, which the plan proposes.
Green space, mixed housing and parking
The project also includes a public benefit such as preserving the features and tree canopies of the existing golf course where possible as well as preserving the natural wetlands on the property.
Only 22.9 acres, which is 20 percent of the development, are required for open space with the proposed project providing 29.7 acres which includes an open park in the development’s central core, the 13-acre dog park and trail connections to the nature preserve that abuts the northern-eastern portion of the site. The trails provide connection to the George P. Tilma Preserve and the Kent Trails.
It also addresses the need of middle housing such as townhomes, duplexes and fourplexes and apartments in the Wyoming area as per the Housing Choice and Housing Needs Assessment. The developers also met residents requests to have four-sale property available as well.
Staff did have a concern about parking. Through an agreement with the developer, parking will be 1.72 per unit which is slightly higher than the 1.5 maximum allowed for the PUD.
Property owners looking to sell
The Pines opened in 1967. It is the third golf course in the Grand Rapids area to be sold for redevelopment since 2020.
In January of this year, Ron Zandbergen, president of the Pines Golf Course, sent out a letter to its neighbors announcing that the owners had entered into a purchase agreement for the Pines Golf Course with RedHawk Multifamily.
Zandbergan said the family had followed the Wyoming [re]imagined master plan discussions and noted that the Pines Golf Course was designated to be a high density multifamily. Since the family is looking to retire, they began to look at other developments in the area.
“…last year we became extremely intrigued with the multifamily development of the English Hills Golf Course in Walker, which was being sold by long-time owners like ourselves. We really liked the developer’s plan which preserved a vast majority of the land,” Zandbergen wrote in the letter. “For us, it was very important to have a developer that would enhance the neighborhood and follow Wyoming’s Master Plan.”
The owners plan to operate the golf course through the 2023 golf season with the development starting after that. The Pines development is scheduled to open in 2025.
West Nile virus has been detected in a recent mosquito trapping by the Kent County Health Department. (CDC.gov)
The recent news that West Nile virus has been detected in Kent County reminds everyone the importance of preventing mosquito bites.
The Kent county Health Departments (KCHD) Mosquito Surveillance Team has detected West Nile virus in mosquitos. This part of the ongoing tracking that takes place through the country every summer. The discovery comes after testing pools of mosquitoes that were trapped by KCHD in the 49519 zip code, which is in Wyoming.
“The discovery is important because it lets us know that this season’s mosquitoes are now carrying the virus and it could spread to humans,” said KCHD Public Health Epidemiologist Paul Bellamy. “It is important for people to take precautions to prevent mosquito bites as much as possible.”
The Mosquito Surveillance Team traps large amounts of mosquitoes in various locations in Kent County. The team then collects the pools of mosquitoes and begins the process of testing the insects for presence of West Nile virus. The information the team gathers is shared with the municipalities where West Nile virus is found. Those agencies can then use that information to inform that mosquito mitigation strategies.
Tips for keeping safe
There is no vaccine or cure for West Nile virus so the best treatment is prevention. KCHD recommends the following measures:
Cover exposed skin when able
Wear a mosquito repellant that contains 10 to 35 percent DEET (read and follow product directions)
Wear light colored clothing and stay indoors
Remove or refresh water in bird baths, children’s wading pools, water bowls for your pets, and empty other small containers that can collect water in your yard.
Repair missing, damaged or improperly installed screens.
Only about 20 percent of the people infected with West Nile virus notice symptoms that may include headache, body aches, joint pains, and fatigue. Most people with West Nile virus completely recover, but fatigue may linger. About one in 150 people infected develop severe illness that can affect the central nervous system. Recovery may take several months. Some damage to the central nervous systems can be permanent. In race instances, the disease can lead to death.
According to a 20 year review of the West Niles virus (it was discovered in the United States in 1999), a total of 51,702 cases of WNV have been reported to Center for Disease Control’s ArboNET, including 25,227 (48.8%) WNND and 2,376 (4.6%) deaths.
Zika Virus
The mosquito species that carry the Zika virus are not currently present in our area. However, the Zika virus is still a worldwide concern and can be contacted through out-of-state travel.
By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma WKTV Managing Editor joanne@wktv.org
Looking to provide housing for young professionals, the Wyoming City Council, in a split vote of 4-3, approved the rezoning of the northeast corner of 52nd Street and Byron Center Avenue to allow for multi-family housing.
American Kendall Properties is looking to put a mixed use of commercial and multi-family housing on 11.79 acres located near the corner of 52nd Street and Byron Center Avenue. (WKTV/Joanne Bailey-Boorsma)
American Kendall Properties asked for the properties at 5160 and 5190 Byron Center Ave. SW to be rezoned from B-1 Local, which allowed commercial use, to B-2 General, which would allow for commercial use with multi-family housing. Mixed use is only allowed in the city’s B-2 zoning and through a planned unit development (PUD).
The project, called The Retreat, would be on 11.79 acres. Developers have proposed 6,000 square feet of commercial retail space with 178 dwelling units. The units would be housed in 15 buildings which includes two floors of apartments above the commercial space. The site also would include a pool for its residents, an expansive green space, and 372 parking spaces. The development would need a special use permit for the multi-family units and the entire project will need to have a site review and approval.
City Council decision
“It is consistent with the Wyoming [re] imagine master plan, the land use plan, the housing needs assessment,” said Mayor Jack Poll. “We are in the midst of a housing shortage in Wyoming, as well as across the country. Studies have shown the city has additional needs for thousands of rental units at various price points.”
Poll said this included the need for high-end apartments in the panhandle as proposed for the northeast corner of 52nd Street and Byron Center and felt this was an opportunity for the city to provide that.
Mayor Pro Tem Sam Bolt, and councilmembers John Fitzgerald and Marissa Postler joined Poll in approving the rezoning, citing they felt that it met the land use and adapted [re] imagine master plan criteria.
Council members Kent Vanderwood, Sheldon DeKryger and Robert Postema were opposed to the rezoning, stating they did not believe it fit the adapted master plan, especially the definition of a neighborhood commercial center as stated in the plan.
“The master plan calls for this to be neighborhood commercial with surrounding multi-family so we are not getting what the master plan called for,” Postema said. “It does not call for multi-family on the corner with a little sliver of commercial inside one of the buildings.”
Neighbors not in favor
Several residents with homes close to the project attended the July 5 council meeting as well as two Planning Commission meetings to voice their objection. Their concerns were increased traffic, increased crime, the upcoming possible development of the Pines Golf Course (located next to the property), the density, and that the proposed zoning did not fit the city’s current [re] imagine master plan.
The corner of Byron Center and 52nd was rezoned to B-1 Local in 2002 and has sat vacant since. (WKTV/Joanne Bailey-Boorsma)
At its April meeting, the Wyoming Planning Commission voted, 5-4, to recommend denying the rezoning because of density concerns, not fitting the land use or master plan, the B-2 zoning was not a good fit for the area, and concerns over the type of businesses allowed under the B-2 zoning.
“I believe the planning commission got this right,” Vanderwood said. “I believe there is no overwhelming or compelling reason to rezone the property from B-1 to B-2.”
Factors for rezoning
However, staff recommended approval of the rezoning. Nicole Hofert, the city’s director of planning and economic development, said when reviewing a rezoning request, staff considers several factors. Those factors include consistency with the current adopted master plan, compatibility with existing and future land uses, capability of property to be served by public utilities, ability of property to be used as currently zoned, and appropriateness of all uses allowed within the proposed district at the property.
Hofert said the adopted 2021 Wyoming [re] Imagined plan identifies the parcels as future neighborhood commercial with the proposed use consistent with the future envisioned use.
Conditions on the property
Hofert said the property has stood vacant since 2002 when it was rezoned to B-1 which indicates the zoning could be impeding the potential development. Also, B-2 fits the overall area with the developer agreeing to conditions that would restrict what would be allowed on the site.
American Kendall Properties’ conditions for rezoning would restrict such businesses as automobile gasoline and service stations, adult businesses, new or used mobile home sales or service, excavation, equipment sales or service, machinery or farm implant sales and automobile, truck, motorcycle, trailer, recreation vehicle or boat showrooms.
The need for diverse housing
Through the master plan process, one of the stated goals was to provide equitable, diverse, and geographically dispersed housing.
The proposed site plan for the northeast corner of 52nd Street and Byron Center Avenue. (Supplied)
“That included not only the distribution of single family homes throughout our community but also including multi-family that we also refer to as missing middle housing, the duplexes, the triplexes, the quad-plexes,” Hofert said.
According to theImpediments to Fair House Choice and Housing Needs Assessment, there is a demand for 2,010 units among high income renters earning 80 percent of area median income, which would be more than $50,000. The master plan also states that this is a shift in development pattern that may require increased density and a more varied housing stock on existing vacant sites than what has been historically accommodated in the city. The site’s density would be 15 homes per acre with medium density at 13-15, Hofert said.
“We have often heard, and we have had The Right Place come here and talk about not only the need for more housing units in our community but that we need housing units that attract young and talented workers,” Hofert said. “This is in order to bring, for example technical workers, high skill workers, etc. These are types of individuals who may not be ready to buy a home yet but need somewhere to live.
“Oftentimes what we see is that when a person is moving out of an apartment they are moving into the larger community when it feels really welcoming to them.”
Lifestyle change among young professionals
Representatives from The Right Place also have discussed with the Planning Commission how employers are looking for communities offering a variety of available housing for their employees. Currently the City of Wyoming has a ratio of 39.3 percent of single family detached homes, 4.3 percent of multi-family homes, and 1.6 single-attached homes.
“You can’t attract the people that you want to your community and the businesses you want to your community if there is no place for them to [live],” said Tim Mroz, senior vice president of community development for The Right Place.
Mroz said the desire to have a single-family home also has decreased significantly over the past several years. In fact, according to a rent.com survey, 85 percent of millennials, 18- to 34-year-olds, are renting for several reasons including being more mobile, changing jobs, and settling down later in life.
“I will admit that there is enough gray in my hair and my beard that I am still part of the single-family home generation and from what I have seen in terms of housing demand and what I have seen in terms of community, I am going the way of the dodo bird,” he said.
“My younger colleagues don’t want a lawn, they don’t want an acre and a half. They want that closer sense of community where their families can grow up together.”
Addressing the concerns
Other concerns raised were traffic, which Hofert said through engineering studies it has been determined that Byron Center Avenue could sustain the additional traffic. If a grocery store, similar to the Family Fare on Burlingame Avenue, was constructed on the site, which is allowed under the current zoning, it could have up to an additional 370 vehicles per peak time. A residential development would have about 64.
“Commercial developments generate higher traffic volumes than residential developments,” she said.
Several residents raised concerns about increasing student numbers for the school. Mayor Jack Poll said he learned that at The Haven, another American Kendall Properties located at 52nd and Wilson, there were only six additional students added to the Grandville Public Schools.
Grandville Public Schools Superintendent Roger Bearup sent a letter in support of the development stating “This project is tentatively scheduled for the Fall of 2022. This timeline fits well with the construction and reconfiguration within Grandville Public Schools as our new middle school will open in the Fall of 2023, our old middle school will be renovated for our fifth and sixth graders and open in 2024, which will create space within the district buildings to address any potential growth from this project. We should have plenty of space to welcome new families to our excellent schools.”
Concerns were raised about crime, which Hofert said statistically, where there is more people, there is more crime and it is not related to the type of housing in the area.
The site still needs to go through review for the special permit and site plans. If the project is not under construction by Dec. 31, 2023, the properties will revert back to the B-1 zoning.
In an interview last year, the Diatribe Executive Director Marcel “Fable” Price and teaching artist Foster “AutoPilot” to discuss 49507 Project initiative. (WKTV)
By Sheila McGrath WKTV Contributing Writer
The Diatribe relies on funding of all kinds to do its work.
But a recent $75,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts will give the nonprofit Grand Rapids arts organization more than just a financial boost.
“The reason this is such a huge deal is historically, NEA grants have gone to pretty large, prestigious organizations in the city of Grand Rapids,” said Marcel Price, founder and executive director of The Diatribe. “The NEA opening funding like this to organizations that are our size really gives us capacity, and allows us to show national as well as local funders alike how well we can be responsible stewards of federal dollars.”
“Enjoying the Roots of Our Positive Struggle,” by E’lla Webber, is located at 40 Acres Consulting, 703 Eastern Ave. SE. (Photo by Leda Theres for The 49507 Project.)
The funds will go to The Diatribe’s 49507 Project, which is in its second summer of bringing beauty and neighborhood pride to an underserved side of Grand Rapids. Last year, Black and Brown artists with the project created seven large-scale murals on buildings around south Grand Rapids. In addition to the murals, the 49507 Project features programming for young people, community listening sessions, and a youth-organized community art unveiling.
The Diatribe was one of 51 organizations across the country to get an Our Town grant from the NEA. The funding is designated for projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into efforts that strengthen communities by advancing local economic, physical, or social outcomes.
“The arts contribute to our individual well-being, the well-being of our communities, and to our local economies,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson. “The arts are also crucial to helping us make sense of our circumstances from different perspectives as we emerge from the pandemic and plan for a shared new normal informed by our examined experience.”
An NEA grant requires a higher level of bookkeeping and tracking than other types of funding, so The Diatribe’s success with this NEA grant will help them secure additional grants from large donors in the future, Price said.
“A lot of people in Grand Rapids, when it comes to art, they believe there’s only one view of what art can be or where it can be,” he said.
This year, the group is bringing eight more murals to the 49507 zip code. Price met with city officials on June 20 to get approval for the design of the murals.
A key component to the 49507 Project is community engagement. (Supplied)
“All of the buildings have been primed and are ready. All of the artists have been selected and all the paint has been ordered for their murals, so this is the last step and then they’re off and running,” he said.
The murals will tell the stories of the area’s people, neighborhoods and businesses at a time when tensions continue to exist there, particularly with the April shooting death of Patrick Lyoya at the hands of former Grand Rapids Police officer Christopher Schuur. Price said that this a great year to show that residents of the 49507 zip code have the capacity to build the kind of neighborhood they would like to see.
“People in our listening sessions have been saying, ‘My kids seeing artists who look like them painting in our neighborhoods is inspiring beyond words,’” Price said.
The participating artists and locations of this year’s murals are:
Samaria J’s Salon Suite, 701 Grandville Ave SW; artist Arturo Morales Romero
Load A Spud, 1721 Madison Ave SE; artist Edwin Anderson
Farmers Insurance, 2435 Eastern Ave SE; artist Wanda Morena
Mr. B’s Party Store, 1216 Kalamazoo Ave SE; artist Rryuhn Dotson
Aleman Auto Repair, 1801 Division Ave S.; artist Hugo Claudin
Cisneros Tires, 800 Division Ave S.; artist Alynn Guerra
Office of Mary Malone, 1956 Eastern Ave.; artist Mila Lynn
Dégagé Ministries is excited to host Unhoused, a film series on the causes, realities, and solutions to homelessness. The event series will include two films shown at Wealthy Theater on June 22 and July 20 from 6-9 p.m., followed by an outdoor community celebration at Dégagé Ministries, 144 Division Ave S, on Aug. 10 from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Each film will be followed by a Q&A with representatives from various organizations, including Mel Trotter Ministries, Family Promise, and Network180. Grand Rapids Poet Laureate Kyd Kane will moderate all sessions.
The film series will culminate in an Outdoor Community Celebration on Aug. 10 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., outside Dégagé Ministries at the corner of Cherry and Sheldon Avenue. This celebration will feature local food trucks and a live poetry reading by Kane. Food and drink will be available for purchase at all three events, but are otherwise free for the public.
The first film featured, Us & Them, documents ten years in the lives of four individuals facing homelessness. Directed by Krista Loughton and Jennifer Abbott, the film explores the challenges of homelessness, and the powerful transformations created through human connection.
The second film, The Public, continues the theme by retelling a story of civil disobedience in Cincinnati, as people turned to a public library for shelter from the outdoor elements. Both films seek to explore and educate the general population about the complexities of homelessness in our community, and wider society.
“Homelessness is a multi-faceted issue with widespread effects in our city,” says Dégagé Ministries Executive Director Thelma Ensink. “Our goal is to bring the complexities of homelessness to light, and promote education and conversation in our community.”
The Kent County Animal Shelter will become a stand-alone department answering directly to administration. (Supplied)
Following the nationwide best practices in animal welfare and public safety, Kent County has announced it will be restructuring its animal shelter and animal control operations.
On July 1, the animal shelter will become a stand-along county department report directly to the administration. It is currently under the Kent County Health Department. With that change, the animal control operations will be reassigned to a dedicated, special tailed team at the Kent County Sheriff’s Office.
“Best practices in animal welfare and animal control are Kent County’s top priority in restructuring these operations,” said Kent County Administrator Al Vanderberg. “We consulted subject matter experts and community members and commissioned extensive research into county-level animal shelter and animal control operations before recommending these changes. These decisions are data-driven and reflect nationwide best practices in animal welfare, as well as public safety.”
Kent County Animal Control
Animal control will be reassigned to the Sheriff’s Office because these operations are largely a function of law enforcement. The team will be led by certified law enforcement officers including a KCSO Enforcement Division lieutenant and two Enforcement Division sergeants who will oversee daily operations and staff. Staff will include a civilian animal control supervisor and civilian special deputies who will be supported by community outreach, media relations and training staff already at the Sheriff’s Office.
Kent County Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young
At a meeting on June 9, the Kent County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved recommendations from its Legislative and Human Resources Committee and Finance and Physical Resources Committee to create and fund the three full-time animal control unit supervisors at the Sheriff’s Office.
“For years, KCSO officers have worked cooperatively with Kent County animal control officers in response to calls and to carry out the law enforcement aspects of these operations,” said Kent County Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young. “With these changes, animal control operations will be led by sworn law enforcement officers trained to provide oversight and to protect due process in rapidly unfolding legal and civil rights matters.”
While the animal control officers will be civilian positions and will not have arresting authority, the certified Sheriff’s deputies in the animal control unit will have authority to make arrests when there is cause to believe a crime has been committed.
To prepare for these changes, the Sheriff’s Office is developing a new Kent County Animal Control Ordinance to replace the Kent County Health Department Animal Control Regulations that have been on the books for more than 20 years. Starting July 1, the new ordinance will apply anywhere in the county where local city, township or village ordinances are not already in place. Existing local ordinances will supersede the Kent County Animal Control Ordinance.
How and When to Contact Animal Control
If a Kent County resident encounters an animal emergency – an animal is attacking a person, or a pet is in immediate danger – they should call 911. Otherwise, residents should call the Kent County Sheriff’s Department dispatch at 616-632-7310 if they encounter a stray dog, in the case of a dog bite, or to report a suspected case of animal cruelty or neglect.
The primary focus of Kent County Animal Shelter will be the care and welfare of lost and abandoned animals. (KC Animal Shelter)
Kent County Animal Shelter
With the restructuring announced today, the Kent County Animal Shelter will maintain primary responsibility for the care, shelter and feeding of lost and abandoned animals in Kent County. The change in reporting directly to the administration will allow the Kent County Health Department to focus more exclusively on human health.
“Our mission hasn’t changed. We remain keenly focused on reuniting pets with their families and finding safe and loving new homes for animals when needed,” said Kent County Animal Shelter Director Angela Hollinshead. “We value the assistance that many community leaders and animal welfare agencies have provided in support of that mission and of the animals in our care over the past several years. We look forward to working with these leaders and organizations to formalize and increase community support in the months ahead.”
Following the restructuring, County administration and the animal shelter will explore the possibility of establishing a foundation and “friends group” to increase financial and volunteer support for the shelter.
There are a number of reasons that a municipality may seek government-run broadband such as faster service at a lower cost, encourage economic development, and provide economic development. (pxhere.com)
For more than a decade, municipalities around the United States have been starting their own government-run broadband networks to bring high-speed internet to their residents.
They might do so for a variety of reasons: to provide residents faster service at a lower cost, to encourage economic development, to provide high-speed internet to areas that private Internet Service Providers aren’t interested in serving, or to bring more economical connections to urban areas where residents can’t afford the service provided by private ISPs.
But due to laws on the books in Michigan, cities can face significant obstacles in starting their own network.
Michigan is one of 18 states that put restrictions on municipal broadband programs. Under the Metropolitan Extension Telecommunications Rights-of-Way Oversight Act of 2002, public entities can provide telecommunications services only if they have first requested bids for the services and received fewer than three qualified bids. They also must subject themselves to the same terms as those specified in their Request for Proposal.
Around the United States, measures regulating municipal broadband are enacted largely due to the influence of telecommunications companies wishing to be shielded from competition, according to MuniNetworks.org, a Community Broadband Networks Initiative of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
According to the Common Cause Education Fund, which tracked the spending of telecommunications companies for the years 2019 and 2020, Comcast spent $13 million on lobbying in 2019 and $14 million in 2020. The company spent $15 million on political contributions and expenditures in the 2020 election cycle. AT&T spent $11.5 million on lobbying in 2019, $11 million in 2020, and $13 million in political contributions in 2020.
Some small cities in the Michigan, such as Marshall, have been able to start their own network because they sent out a Request for Proposal and no ISPs responded, according to the Battle Creek Enquirer.
Holland is exempt from the Metro Act provisions because their fiber system predates the Metro Act, according to Ted Siler, utility services director for the city. They started it in the 1990s to connect their public utilities.
But even though the regulations don’t affect Holland’s plans to build a fiber network in the city, there are still parties pushing to stop it.
In late May, Holland residents began getting a “push poll” text from G1 Research. While purporting to be an opinion poll, the questions aligned with talking points by conservative commentators who believe municipal broadband networks place a unnecessary burden on taxpayers.
Daniel Morrison, a broadband activist who leads the civic group hollandfiber.org, said he didn’t know who was behind the push poll. All he had were “rumors and suspicions,” he said.
But he believes the Holland community supports the plan.
“I think the community is behind this because we have such a well-respected utility that takes good care of us,” he said. “It’s very clear to residents why a community-owned broadband utility fits in really well and would be an improvement over what they have now.”
Telecommunications companies aren’t the only ones trying to halt municipal broadband networks. Conservative lawmakers routinely introduce legislative restrictions because they feel municipal networks raise taxes and are not a cost-effective solution.
Holland representatives believe there is support to have a government-run broadband within their city.
Some studies have shown that municipal networks don’t attract enough users to pay for themselves. Elizabeth Hicks, U.S. affairs analyst at the advocacy group the Consumer Choice Center, cites a 2017 study by the University of Pennsylvania Law School concluding that of 20 municipal fiber projects that reported results of their municipal operations, 11 generated negative cash flow, and only two were on track to break even.
“What happens if there’s not enough consumers who end up signing up for the municipal broadband services or network? If that does happen – and what we see happen across the country with other municipal broadband networks – is the taxpayers within that municipality are stuck holding the bag for this failed network. So not only do they have a network that doesn’t work, but now they’re paying for it with their own tax dollars.”
But according to MuniNetworks.org, several of the cities that were subjects of the University of Pennsylvania Law School study disputed the accuracy of the numbers used in the calculations. The authors of the study issued a correction to some aspects of their report. The University of Pennsylvania released an updated study in January this year which again found that the actual performance of municipal broadband projects fell short of their financial forecasts.
Hicks said she believes everyone should have access to high-speed internet at reasonable prices, but that municipal networks are not the most effective way to do that. She said she has seen public-private partnerships work in rural areas where it’s cost-prohibitive to bring fiber. Cable and satellite service could be other options to consider, she said, or government subsidies for broadband in areas where there are ISPs providing service, but it’s too expensive for residents.
“There are a lot of unique solutions – I just don’t think jumping to a municipal broadband network should be the first one,” she said, adding that more than 200 communities nationwide currently offer municipal broadband, but only a small percentage of them have been successful.
In Holland, if the ballot measure passes, city residents will pay a millage of about $12.50 per month for building the system. Those who choose to connect would pay about $42 per month for service of 1 gigabit per second. The cost will depend on the “take rate,” in other words, how many people sign up. The more people who sign up for the service, the lower the cost will go.
Holland leaders are confident they will have the numbers needed to ensure success. The City and its Board of Public Works surveyed residents in 2018 and found that the vast majority of residents were in favor of a community-owned solution that provides high-speed internet access.
Morrison said demand for fiber connection in Holland’s existing downtown pilot project area has been strong. They have more than 200 customers in 150 buildings, he said.
The Covid pandemic and the lockdowns that followed brought the need for high-speed internet into sharp focus, he said.
“Everyone understands now the value of a good, reliable internet connection. We look at our very reliable utility that has been lowering electric rates, and say ‘We want (internet service) to be a utility just like water, sewer, or electricity.’ That’s what we want. We want to be in control of our own destiny. Not leave that up to a big telecom company.”
On Aug. 2, the City of Holland could join a short list of cities that has broadband as a city utility. (pxhere.com)
When Holland voters go to the polls on Aug. 2, they will decide on a milage proposal that would give residents a benefit that’s relatively rare in the United States: a publicly funded, city-wide broadband internet network available to anyone living within the city limits.
The Holland City Council voted in April to take the measure to the voters. Now, the city is immersed in a campaign to educate voters about the benefits of the proposal.
If the ballot measure passes, Holland would join cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee; Sandy, Oregon; Cedar Falls, Iowa, and several others spread around the country that have a broadband network run by the municipality.
“Covid made it very clear that home internet is not a luxury,” said Daniel Morrison, a local broadband advocate who runs Hollandfiber.org, a civic group that has long championed the idea. “I’ve been banging this drum for years – that it’s not just people’s Netflix. It’s a utility. Covid changed the perception of that. It’s how you work. It’s how you go to school, it’s how you do everything, It’s not just entertainment. But even entertainment is important too.”
If the ballot measure passes, the funds raised by the millage will extend a fiber network that already exists in the downtown area to the rest of the city. The network will be owned and maintained by the Holland Board of Public Works and operated in the same way as other utilities, such as water or electricity.
“For the average family, we expect this would give them better choice in internet providers and lower – possibly significantly lower – prices,” Morrison said. “Better service at a lower price is what we’re seeing.”
Downtown business in Holland already have been enjoying the faster upload speeds offered by the city’s fiber connections. (pxhere.com)
Residents would be able to choose between several different Internet service providers that offer service packages using the new fiber network, bringing a more competitive environment.
Residents would pay to hook up to the service – $820 per address – but would be allowed to pay that off at a cost of $7 per month for 10 years, according to hollandcityfiber.org, the city website explaining the proposal. A sample internet service bill provided by the city shows an estimated monthly cost of $42 for internet service – $7 for the monthly installment payment for connection, $7 for internet access and $28 for maintenance of the network.
The millage would levy up to 1.5 mills in its first year, and about 1.12 each year after that for the life of the 25-year bond, according to hollandcityfiber.org. The millage would cost about $12.50 per month for the owner of a $200,000 home with a taxable value of $100,000. If approved, the project to run the fiber throughout the city would start in 2023 and be finished two years later.
Morrison said that for businesses in Holland, the service would let them take advantage of high-speed uploads they may not have had before. Businesses in the existing downtown service area are already reaping the benefits, he said.
“There are some companies in town that do video work and they’re able to upload finished projects crazy fast over our current downtown service area,” Morrison said. “It’s unlocking so much potential of high-speed, high-availability options for businesses outside the downtown area.”
Pete Hofswell, Holland’s broadband services superintendent, said Holland first developed a fiberoptic system in the early 1990s to connect, monitor and control the city’s public utilities.
That system has been growing slowly ever since, but expanding broadband access to the rest of the city has been a priority for many years, with ongoing discussions between the city council and the board of public works, Hofswell said.
“City Hall would get back to us and challenge us, saying ‘How can you get this service into more people’s hands?’ They see the value of it. They want to connect everybody in our town.”
A survey of residents taken in 2021 showed that 65% believed community investment was needed to ensure sufficient broadband access for all, and more than 72% agreed that community based broadband would benefit the community, according to hollandcityfiber.org.
Because Holland has had its fiber optic network for decades, the city is in a unique position to expand its network without being hampered by regulations that might affect other communities attempting to put a publicly funded fiber network in place.
The services are governed by the Metropolitan Extension Telecommunications Rights-of-Way Oversight Act, Public Act 48 of 2002, and Michigan Telecommunications Act, Public Act 179 of 1991. In Michigan, public entities by law can provide telecommunications services only if they have first requested bids for the services and received fewer than three qualified bids. And they have to abide by same terms and conditions as those specified in their request for proposals.
But Ted Siler, utility services director for the city, said that because Holland has been providing broadband service for more than 30 years and its service predates the Metro Act, “we’re exempt and grandfathered in.”
Morrison said he’s not worried about regulation popping up to derail Holland’s plans. But other communities might not be so lucky.
“The telecom companies have had their hands in legislation for decades to try to prevent cities from doing what we’re doing. We’re lucky that we been doing this for 30 years in Holland so we’re unaffected by that legislation now,” he said. “But I feel bad for other communities that won’t have the same luxury we do. It’s going to be harder for them.”
LANSING – “We’ve been in business for 37 years, and this is definitely the craziest season we have ever seen,” said Kevin Humphrey.
While there have been more requests to book Adeline Leigh’s services than in an average year, the company had to reduce the number of weddings booked this year to deal with worker shortages. (Supplied)
Humphrey is the office manager for Adeline Leigh Catering, a Wyoming business located at 1132 Chicago Dr. SW, that prepares food for hundreds of weddings each year.
Across the state, vendors like florists and caterers are preparing for a frantic 2022 season as the number of weddings is up 15% nationally from normal, according to Wedding Report data.
While there have been more requests to book Adeline Leigh’s services than in an average year, the company had to reduce the number of weddings booked this year to deal with worker shortages.
“We actually cut back to mediate labor issues,” said Humphrey.
Humphrey said the business is also ensuring employees’ time-off requests are honored to keep workers on board.
Adeline Leigh has booked approximately 300 weddings for the upcoming months, about 100 fewer than in 2019.
“There was a point where we were turning down 15 events a day, and not everyone was so understanding,” Humphrey said.
Kalin Sheick, the owner of Sweetwater Floral in Petoskey, said she expects a busier-than-normal season in the months ahead.
Sweetwater will provide floral arrangements for about 100 weddings this year across the state, which is an “immense jump” compared with previous years, said Sheick.
“We will usually average around 65 or 70 a year,” she said. “We only stopped at 100 because of staffing. We could have booked way more than that.”
Sheick said the store has hired additional staff to help tackle the increase, and it is training its employees to focus on taking care of themselves to prepare for the looming, long busy season.
“We know that we need extra help and need to support them as best as possible,” Sheick said.
Other problems vendors are preparing for are supply chain delays and a shortage of products.
“We’re feeling the impact of delay, just like every other industry,” she said. “Stuff that used to be easy to get – vases, hard goods and supplies – there’s a delay and you need to be patient.”
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, many large flower farms shut down, causing a smaller supply of flowers, said Sheick.
When it comes to food, Adeline Leigh Catering has had to remove only a couple of items from its menu due to supply issues. (Supplied)
“It really squeezes the amount of product you’re able to get. But at the end of the day, there’s a flower shortage because there’s more weddings happening than ever before,” she said.
When it comes to food, Humphrey said it was lucky that his catering business had to remove only a couple of items from its menu.
The time and effort put into ordering supplies has greatly increased as well. What used to be an hour-long project for Humphrey now can take up to an entire work day, he said.
“We order from many suppliers, and it used to be ‘they’ve got the best price, we’ll go there.’ Now you have to find whoever has it,” Humphrey said.
Another change vendors are seeing is a growing number of events booked outside of the prime wedding season of May through October.
Shannon O’Berski, the director of external relations at Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester, says the event venue is handling more weddings on less typically booked days.
“We have seen an increase in interest in off-season events throughout the fall and winter,”O’Berski said. “And more couples are choosing to host Friday and Sunday weddings.”
Meadow Brook Hall is often booked for the entire season.
“We are certainly receiving many inquiries!,” O’Berski said, and reservations are already filling up for 2023.
Though the months ahead will be busy and stressful for wedding vendors, Sheick said her team at Sweetwater Floral is excited about the upcoming season.
“It’s just a really fun job and a good thing to be a part of.”
Capital News Service is provided by the Spartan News Room located at Michigan State University. CNS reporters cover state government for member newspapers and digital media outlets across the state of Michigan.
by Redfin, a full-service real estate brokerage, found that 68.8% of home offers written by Redfin agents nationally faced competition in February. (pxhere.com)
LANSING – “Pretty much every offer I put was a shot in the dark, where you’d just cross your fingers and pray and hope that it gets accepted,” said Corbin Holwerda of Grand Rapids.
Holwerda is a first-time homebuyer who has been looking for a house in Grand Rapids since mid-January.
“I’ve put in seven or eight offers, and it’s really tough because half of those I’m losing to all-cash offers,” he said. “I’m still a young adult. I don’t have $250,000 in the bank that I can just front and put up for a house.”
A recent study by Redfin, a full-service real estate brokerage, found that 68.8% of home offers written by Redfin agents nationally faced competition in February. That’s the highest share reported by its agents since at least April 2020.
“Even if we are able to go above asking (price), there are still people waiving inspections and going $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000 above asking in some cases,” Holwerda said.
According to a new Congressional Research Service report, the main factor causing record-high home prices is that more people are looking to buy houses than there are houses for sale.
Cash offers can help the sale of a home move more quickly. (pxhere.com)
It’s a question of supply and demand, the report said.
“We have people selling homes with 40 offers on one home,” said Shirley Smith, the executive officer of the Hillsdale County Board of Realtors.
“There is a huge amount of competition right now, and the reason for that is because inventory is low. House prices have been going up the last few years and inventory has not increased appreciably,” Smith said.
“I think we’re also seeing more cash offers because those are the offers that get accepted more quickly,” she said.
Sometimes offers are contingent on the sale of the buyer’s current home, a bank loan or inspections to be done, and that can take more time, she said.
But cash offers move the process along more quickly.
“Generally, when we have high housing prices like this, it doesn’t go on forever. I think I, and most Realtors, expect that in the not-so-distant future there will be a change in the trend,” she said.
According to Smith, projections from the National Association of Realtors say housing prices may increase 5% in the coming year, which is much lower than several years past.
“That might be a tapering off in the market,” she said.
According to the Case-Shiller Detroit Home Price Index, home prices in Detroit have gone up about 8.6% per year since January 2012. But from January 2021 to January 2022, prices rose 13.9%.
That can be compared with neighboring states’ large cities, like Cleveland, rising 13.3% and Chicago, rising 12.5%. Nationally, home prices rose 19.1% from January 2021 to January 2022, according to Case-Shiller’s national data.
“The interesting thing here (regarding the increases) is that in traditional years, only 3 to 5% of the housing on the market is actually new houses,” said Wayne State University economics professor Allen Goodman.
“As a result, most housing supply occurs kind of above the middle of the market. We don’t allow people to build new, low-quality houses,” said Goodman, who specializes in housing and health economics.
He said some new houses are resold multiple times and “as a result, the housing gets toward the upper end of the market, and what’s left there is sometimes said to filter down to other buyers.”
“A lot of this goes back to COVID, in part,” said Goodman. “To keep the economy growing, the federal government and Federal Reserve banks have had what were historically low interest rates. What it meant was that people who wanted to buy houses were faced with mortgage rates of like 3%.”
A combination of low interest rates and a smaller-than-traditional supply lead to increases in the price of housing. (pxhere.com)
“A combination of low interest rates and a smaller-than-traditional supply lead to increases in the price of housing,” Goodman said.
Monitoring estimates of the value of his own Huntington Woods home over the years, Goodman said it lost half its value from 2007 to 2009.
The value can vastly change by month. In one recent month, his home’s value was estimated to have increased around $30,000, but in a previous month it was estimated to have dropped $20,000.
“But really over the past year, it’s pretty much been the same, at least according to Zillow,” he said, referring to the online real estate-market national company.
Capital News Service is provided by the Spartan News Room located at Michigan State University. CNS reporters cover state government for member newspapers and digital media outlets across the state of Michigan.
Residents identified they would like to see ARPA (COVID) funding used for is on the city’s water and sewer system. (City of Wyoming)
It was a pretty exciting in the fall when the City of Wyoming, like municipalities across the state and country, learned it would be receiving $13.1 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding.
Similar to the most recent round of stimulus checks the U.S. government gave to American residents, the City of Wyoming’s $13.1 million also was part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) designed to rescue the economy. The federal government gave states about $350 billion dollars, of which Michigan received $250 million.
Deputy City Manager John McCarter said the city has received about $6.5 million of the estimated $13.1 million with the remainder expected to be paid out this year.
But like anything that comes from the federal government, there are a few strings attached to the money, such as what it can be spend not, when it needs to be spent and how cities must report expenditures. According to the U.S. Treasury, those guidelines are:
Revenue replacement for the provision of government services to the extent of the reduction in revenue due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, relative to collection in the most recent fiscal year prior to the emergency.
COVID-19 expenditures or negative economic impacts of COVID, including assistance to small businesses, households, and hard-hit industries, and economic recovery
Premium pay for essential workers
Investments in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure
The money must be used for COVID-related needs. An example given by the Michigan Township Association (MTA) is because of the COVID pandemic, a community’s parks had high usage which resulted in damage and higher than normal maintenance needs, the ARPA money could be used for those parks.
Also, according to the MTA, the ARPA money could be used to bring staffing back to pre-pandemic levels, but only if reductions were a direct result of the COVID pandemic.
How ARPA funds impacts city staffing
The question of using the grant funding has been raised instead of the city seeking an income tax, which is one of two proposals Wyoming residents will vote on May 3.
The additional police and fire staffing that are required to address the community’s needs are a recurring expense that should be support by recurring revenue, McCarter said.
“When you consider the ARPA funding, it is a one-time payment, it will not support the recurring expenses that hiring additional staff includes.” McCarter said, adding that the leaders at the federal level have referred to the bill as a “once in a generation funding opportunity.”
“Because it is a one-time payment, using it to fund police and fire, which is an ongoing expenditure, would not be fiscally responsible as the city needs long-term funding to maintain staffing levels,” McCarter said.
The question of using the grant funding has been raised instead of the city seeking an income tax, which is one of two proposals Wyoming residents will vote on on May 3. The first proposal is the income tax, which would be up to 1 percent for Wyoming residents and .5 percent for non-residents, which according to state law, is the maximum cities are allowed to levy an income tax. City officials have stated that if passed, the income tax would be up to .8 for residents and .4 for non-residents.
The second proposal is to reduce the city’s property taxes for homeowners and businesses by about 58 percent, going from around 12 mills to 5. Both proposals must pass to take effect.
It is estimated that the city would generate about $6 million annually if the proposals are approved. The money would be used to fund 27 additional firefighters (doubling the department), 13 police officers and 1 crime analyst with $600,000 annually being dedicated to update and maintain the city’s parks.
The City of Wyoming is hoping to use its remaining ARPA (COVID) funds for large-scale capital projects. (Supplied)
City of Wyoming projects being considered for ARPA funding
The city has used $437,280 of the ARPA funding to make modifications at city hall which has included a drive-thru for the treasurer’s office, court building upgrades, a city hall kiosk, police flock cameras, and a police desk officer reporting system, McCarter said.
In November, the city did conduct a survey of residents to determine what they would like to see the funds used for. From that survey, residents indicated that their top priorities were equipping first responders and improvements to water and sewer systems. Also receiving strong support was construction of affordable housing and a community clean-up program. Other projects listed were improvements to city facilities to address public health, assistance with home repairs, improvements to parks and grants for improvements to businesses and mobile parks and recreation programs.
The remaining $10 million, which also must follow the ARPA use guidelines, will be used on large scale capital investments and matching funds for grants and other funding sources. City Council is scheduled to resume discussions about how to spend ARPA funding in June.
Municipalities have until Dec. 31, 2024 to obligate the ARPA funds and must spend the APRA money by Dec. 31, 2026.
Currently there are 27 Wyoming firefighters. The department is down by 8 employees from 2000. (WKTV)
In the early morning hours of Jan. 25, the Wyoming Fire Department was called to a house fire on Canal Ave and shortly after, the department received a second call of a fire at the 28th Street Taco Bell.
“Thankfully another shift was on,” said Wyoming Chief Kim Koster. “The Taco Bell fire occurred at 6:30 a.m. Our next shift came on at 7 a.m., so we did have another shift of firefighters who could respond, and they were assisted by other departments.
“But what if we didn’t have that other shift coming on at that time?”
More than likely, a department from a neighboring city, such as Grandville, Grand Rapids, or Kentwood, would have been called. In fact, the City of Wyoming has had to call on those three cities 165 times in 2021 while in the same year providing return assistance 23 times.
The tide needs to turn, Koster said, adding “We need to provide mutual aid in the same manner that we receive it.”
The City of Wyoming is hoping to double its firefighting staffing from 27 to 54 and added 13 police officers and a crime analyst through two proposals on the May 3 ballot. The first proposal would be an income tax of up to 1 percent for city residents and up to .5 percent for non-residents such as commuters who work in the city. In the second proposal, the city is seeking to reduce its property tax by about 58 percent, from around 12 mills to 5. Both proposals must pass to take effect.
The passage would generate about $6 million for the city, of which $5.4 million would be dedicated to the Wyoming Department of Public Safety, which houses the city’s police and fire.
How would the city gain revenue if the property tax would go down? According to City Manager Curtis Holt at the March 24 income tax public information meeting, according to the U.S. Census there are about 34,000 non-Wyoming residents who work in the City of Wyoming who currently contribute zero toward the city roads or services. Through the first proposal, those residents would contribute up to a .5 percent of their income. City staff has estimated the total revenue raised from the income tax would be about $6 million annually with $3.3 million dedicated to the fire department, $2.1 million to the police department, and $600,000 to the parks.
With the additional $3.3 million, the City of Wyoming would be able to hire an additional 27 firefighters. This would add about 9 firefighters per shift and the city would be able to fully staff all four of its fire stations. Currently only two of the stations, Gezon and 36th Street, are fully staffed; however emergency calls are evenly distributed throughout the city, Koster said.
The city received about 7,155 calls in 2021, which is about 265 calls for service per firefighter. With the additional firefighters, calls for service per firefighter would decrease to around 133. In neighboring Kentwood, calls for service per firefighter is about 121. Kentwood has 42 firefighters serving a population of 51,898. The City of Grand Rapids has 195 firefighters serving a population of 201,013 with calls for service per firefighter around 123. Holt pointed out that this shows that Wyoming’s firefighters are answering a lot of calls.
The Wyoming Fire Department answered 7,155 calls in 2021, averaging 265 calls for service per firefighter. (WKTV)
The additional 27 firefighters would allow the city to fully staff all four of its stations, Koster said, adding that in return this would mean faster response times.
“Right now, we have to send our resources to where the calls are,” Koster said during the March 24 informational meeting. “Sometimes we have to send them all away across the city and then a call comes out from where they just came from. So then again, we have to send a unit from this side of the city all the way back. So our response times are higher that way.”
There would be more firefighters on each shift, again increasing response times along with providing enough officers to answer more than one call at a time. More officers not only increases the safety of residents but of the firefighters as well.
“Right now, we don’t have enough firefighters in the City of Wyoming to enter a burning building,” Koster said, adding that the rule is you have to have two out for the two going in a burning structure so the two out can rescue the two in if something happens.
Lastly, the increased staffing would reduce Wyoming’s dependence on mutual aid.
“It won’t eliminate it,” Koster said, adding that there will be times when another city’s department has to be called.
“It would increase the number of firefighters on each shift so when we have those structure fires we can handle them alone or at least leave some of those units available for some of those medical calls,” she said.
To learn more about the two May 3 proposals, visit wyomingmi.gov/FundingFortheFuture. The next informational meeting on the two proposals is April 19 at 6:30 p.m. at the KDL Wyoming Branch, 3350 Michael Ave. SW.
