Commentary: Murder a harsh dose of reality in East Village
By Paul Rozycki Some years ago, one of our favorite programs was “Murder, She Wrote,” where mystery writer Jessica Fletcher solved the latest murder in the small New England fishing village of Cabot Cove. At the time, my reaction was that for all of Flint’s crime problems, Cabot Cove must have had the highest crime rate in the world. Her little village produced at least one murder a week for a very small population. It just didn’t...
Commentary: Why to vote “Yes” on the Charter: Placing the collective interests of residents first
Placing the collective interests of residents first: an interloper’s support for proposed Charter By Ashley Nickels, Ph.D. On Tuesday, Aug. 8, Flint residents will vote on whether or not to adopt revisions to their city charter for the first time since 1974. As an encouraged interloper, an outsider, a political scientist, I have followed Flint’s charter review and revision process since its origins in 2014. I have attended advisory...
Commentary: Why to vote “No” on the Flint Charter revision: existing one already is “masterful”
Flint voters will be asked to vote Aug. 8 on whether to approve a new charter for the city. As Paul Rozycki explained in his July column in EVM, the current city’s charter was last revised in 1974, when Flint’s population was nearly 200,000 and there were still 80,000 well paid GM jobs in the county. The nine elected charter commission members, chaired by Cleora Magee, have been at work for two years, and have developed...
Commentary: In Gov. Snyder’s RTAB decision on a tax lien moratorium, more than just finances are at stake
The following essay was written by Dr. Ben Pauli, Ph.D., an assistant professor of social science in the Department of Liberal Studies at Kettering University in Flint. Thanks to Chris Savage at Electablog, where this essay first appeared, for allowing us to reprint it. You can see the original here. In a special meeting on May 17, the Flint City Council voted to approve a one-year moratorium on the city’s practice of putting tax...
Book Review: Sing for Your Life, a Story of Race, Music, and Family
by Harold C. Ford In 1994 at the age of 12, Ryan Speedo Green was taken forcibly to Virginia’s infamous DeJarnette Center after he threatened to kill his mother and his brother. The lowest point for Green at DeJarnette may have been when his downward spiraling behavior landed him in solitary confinement, as related by Daniel Bergner in the 2016 book Sing for Your Life, A Story of Race, Music and Family: “He stood at the door...
Commentary: Flint’s Aug. 8 primary affects the city and your life
By Paul Rozycki In light of recent terrorist threats at Bishop Airport, criminal indictments of state water officials, continuing squabbles between the Flint City Council and the mayor over the source of Flint’s water, the hype over a $50 million election in Georgia, and endless tweets from the president, this August’s election in Flint may seem of little consequence. Perhaps by comparison it is. And I suspect that unfortunately the...
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