Commission aims to give residents a voice – no more gerrymandering as voting districts are redrawn
By Tom Travis Residents stood up and spoke up Tuesday at a public hearing at The Dort Federal Event Center on Lapeer Road with their thoughts and comments about redistricting in Michigan. Standing at a podium, residents addressed the new 13-member Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC), who sat at tables on an elevated stage looking down on the speakers. Masks were required and social distancing was followed. Flint...
Village Life: Memories burned into Washington School’s demise: “This one hurts the most”
By Gary Fisher She was nearly half a century old by the time I showed up. Creaky wooden windows, stifling forced heat, so thick you could taste it, zero air conditioning, lead paint everywhere, and asbestos-covered pipes. The ancient bathrooms with the old radiators (an especially egregious artifice when some miscreant relieved himself on it), with wooden stall doors, long ago removed, meant zero privacy. Really tough kids, and...
Tendaji Talk: “The Deep Sting of Slavery”
By Harold C. Ford “It’s really not enough to say, ‘Those were horrible days and let them pass.’ Uncovering this buried history … could also help ease the kind of intergenerational trauma that silence can mask, trauma that can seep through entire communities.” –Margaret Burnham, Northeastern University professor, from “Healing Requires Truth” by Samantha Michaels, Nov-Dec 2021 issue of Mother Jones ‘Slavery has tentacles and they are...
Education Beat: Flint School Board votes unanimously to talk with Mott Foundation CEO Ridgway White about abandoned Central-Whittier campus
By Harold C. Ford On Wednesday, Oct .20, near the end of another long meeting (four hours and 22 minutes), the Flint Board of Education (FBOE) voted 6-0 to invite C. S. Mott Foundation CEO Ridgway White to visit and talk about the future of the long-abandoned Flint Central High School-Whittier Middle School campus. Votes supporting the motion, made by board treasurer Laura MacIntyre, came from: Carol McIntosh; MacIntyre,...
Commentary: Secure MI Vote petition won’t secure your vote — or democracy
By Paul Rozycki A few years ago I was asked to give a presentation on the right to vote to a large number of prospective election workers at City Hall. As I looked out over the audience, I realized that almost none of those present could have voted when this nation began. The great majority of those in the council chambers that day, preparing to conduct our elections, were female and/or African-American. None could vote when this...
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