Arbor Update

Regional

Kwame wins?!

Posted by Murph on 9. November 2005

Detroit News:

Incumbent Kwame Kilpatrick claimed victory today in the Detroit mayoral race after a long, tense election day that saw him trailing challenger Freman Hendrix until the very end.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Kilpatrick had 53 percent of the vote, compared with 47 percent for Hendrix. The challenger had yet to concede.

“We had people power,” Kilpatrick told supporters at a 2:30 a.m. celebration. “Some of y’all are just plain crazy, because you had no business standing up … you had no business knocking on doors, we couldn’t win. And now, the whole country that’s been watching this race, they say you’re crazy like a fox.”

Well, that’s surprising.

Comment [15]

Local

Washtenaw election results, 8 November 2005

Posted by Murph on 9. November 2005

Today’s (unofficial) election results are being posted to the County’s website as they’re known, including precinct-level and overall results.

As of this writing, Ann Arbor has 0% of precincts reporting.

Ann Arbor results (unofficial)

• Ward 1: Robert Johnson (92.81%)
• Ward 2: Stephen Rapundalo (52.17%)
• Ward 3: Leigh Greden (66.38%)
• Ward 4: Marcia Higgins (50.66%)
• Ward 5: Wendy Woods (94.46%)
• Millage: No (56.55%)
• Total of 12158 ballots cast (13.22% turnout)

Other places

The Detroit News also has to-be-updated pages of election results, covering Detroit, Wayne County, Oakland County, Macomb County, and Livingston County. Data on percent of precincts reporting doesn’t seem to be included in these pages.

An article states that, with the first 10% of Detroit precincts reporting, Hendrix leads Kilpatrick 59-41.

Comment [43]

BlackBox Radio for 11-08-2005

Posted by Jason Voss on 8. November 2005

Local and National Headlines plus feature segments:

What environment do we need to learn? And if schools aren’t providing that environment, then what are they doing? Kris interviews Pat Montgomery, homeschooling pioneer and founder of Clonlara homescooling program.

And an update from Max and Kate on the work of the Student Coalition to Cut the Coca-Cola Contract at the University of Michigan.

download the show: lower quality | high quality

BlackBox Radio broadcasts from 88.3 FM WCBN FM Radio Free Ann Arbor at 6pm on Tuesday, 9am on Friday, and 5pm on the last Saturday of the month as part of the Critical Mass Radio Network. BlackBox Radio produces original, independent news programming covering local, national and international issues.

Comment [1]

Local

Protest of Bans for Felons

Posted by Jason Voss on 8. November 2005

During a recent keynote address in Battle Creek, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Deborah Thomas called for the state’s Black population, and working and poor people of all colors, to surround the state capitol building on May 1 to protest laws that bar felons from living in public housing, getting a college education, serving on juries, and voting, among other deprivations. She designated May 1 as the target date because it is Law Day.

Last year, Judge Thomas ordered a study of the race and ethnicity of Wayne County juries, noting that Black jurors appeared to be deliberately excluded from jury panels. The study showed that only 27 percent of Wayne County jurors are Black, in a county that is 42 percent Black, and in a city, Detroit, that is at least 81 percent Black.

One of the factors contributing to the exclusion, said Thomas, was a state law enacted in 2003 that barred all convicted “felons” from serving on juries. Previously, only those “under current sentence” for a felony were barred.

In response to Thomas’ order, and to allegations that other Black Wayne County judges were seeking to seat more Black jurors through the voir dire process, the State Supreme Court has proposed a rule that would bar efforts to balance juries to more adequately represent the population.

(from Black Box Radio local headlines 11-08-2005)

Comment [1]

Local

Michigan Juvenile Life in Prison without Parole

Posted by Jason Voss on 8. November 2005

Last Tuesday, state senator introduced legislation to bar Michigan juveniles from being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Noting a study showing Michigan is the second-most aggressive state in imposing life-without-parole sentences on juveniles, Sen. Liz Brater of Ann Arbor, announced a four-bill package she said would give children who commit violent crimes a second chance at life.

According to a report issued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, 306 prisoners in the state are serving life sentences without a chance of parole for crimes committed before the age of 18. Almost half of them, committed their crimes before age 16.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International released a study earlier this month showing that at least 2,225 juvenile offenders are serving life sentences without chance of parole in the United States, compared to a total of 12 elsewhere in the world. Michigan had the second-highest rate of giving youths life sentences without a chance of parole.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm has said she is open to considering changes in the current law.

(from Black Box Radio local headlines 11-08-2005)

Local

National Conference to Reclaim Our Cities

Posted by Jason Voss on 8. November 2005

Detroit will host the National Conference to Reclaim Our Cities November 12, under the theme “Money to Rebuild New Orleans and all U.S. Cities, Not for War.”

Expected to attend and address the conference are Curtis Muhammad of the New Orleans-based Community Labor United, which is mobilizing support for a people’s reconstruction of that city, Clarence Thomas of the Million Workers March movement, Nellie Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council, Larry Holmes of the Troops Out Now Coalition, Detroit City Council write-in candidate Maureen Taylor, and many others.

Dave Sole, president of United Auto Workers Local 2334 in Detroit and conference organizer said. “Our leaders need to be mobilizing people against the war, because the Detroit city deficit could be wiped out with one or two days of spending on the war in Iraq.”

Plenaries at the conference will deal with rebuilding New Orleans, the crisis affecting all U.S. cities, and the anti-war struggle, the Michigan Citizen reports. There will also be workshops on topics such as utility shutoffs, police brutality and immigrant rights.

The main session of the National Conference to Reclaim Our Cities will take place this Saturday, Nov. 12, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Student Center Ballroom on the Wayne State University campus. For more information, call 313-680-5508.

(from Black Box Radio local headlines 11-08-2005)

Comment [1]

Politics

GOP poll challenges in Detroit today

Posted by Jason Voss on 8. November 2005

As Detroiters go to the polls today to elect a new Mayor, they will likely be met with poll challengers sent by the Republican party, despite objections by the NAACP. As reported by The Michigan Citizen, GOP officials said recently that they would be sending poll challengers to Detroit, Ecorse, and Kentwood in Grand Rapids mayoral elections as a training exercise ahead of the 2006 statewide elections.

But the Detroit chapter of the NAACP said the move is symptomatic of the GOP strategy to intimidate Black voters and has asked the state Republican Party to back off its plan to send challengers to Detroit’s mayoral election.

During the 2004 presidential election, Detroit experienced Republican challengers interfering with voters by asking them for their driver’s licenses and dispensing false information. For instance, some poll challengers reportedly told people that if they owed child support or were late on their rent, they could not vote.

Many critics connect the GOP’s current tactics to Jim Crow era policies that were also designed to discourage African Americans from voting. One Detroiter said,
“The poll taxes of the 50’s and 60’s, which served as a measure to suppress the Black vote, have now been shifted to a voter challenge to suppress the Black vote in the 2000s.”

(from Black Box Radio local headlines 11-08-2005)

Regional

Ann Arbor makes first greenbelt purchase

Posted by Murph on 8. November 2005

From today’s News:

In its first official greenbelt purchase, Ann Arbor finalized a deal to preserve a 152-acre farm in Webster Township Friday. Development rights on the Tom and Roseanne Bloomer property cost the city $1.7 million. The farm was appraised at $2.36 million; the Bloomers donated $210,000 in land value and a federal grant paid $190,642.

Greenbelt Advisory Chairman Mike Garfield said officials hoped to preserve other properties near the Northfield-Church Road farm, which primarily grows fresh produce and soybeans that are roasted and sold as snack foods.

I’m presuming that’s the “Rosie’s Roasters” brand I see in the food co-op…

Labor

Northwest Airlines - Danger in the sky

Posted by MarkDilley on 7. November 2005

from an email:

I hope the media will report these incidents.

There were reports of two incidents involving NW planes at Metro Airport today.

#1. Following is a verbatim report from WWJ News Radio that also appears on its website:

“Tense moments this morning at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after an emergency landing. A Northwest Airlines DC-9, on its way from Traverse City to Detroit, made the emergency landing after reporting minor electrical problems. The pilot called ahead for help as a precaution, but no problems were reported and there were no injuries. An airport spokesman says while such issues are treated seriously, they occur once or twice a day.”

#2. My wife called me from Chicago this afternoon after the captain of the American Airlines flight that had just boarded announced a delay in taking off from O’Hare because of a “disabled aircraft” in Detroit (her flight was delayed by two hours). Apparently the disabled aircraft was a NW flight: AMFA striker Curt Booza, tells me he heard reports that a NW Boeing 757 blew four tires as it landed this afternoon, which would have closed a runway. It’s the second multi-tire blowout on a NW plane since the strike began. Curt said that before the strike he’d never heard of such an incident in his 18-plus years as a mechanic.

There is a safety risk in not having people on the job who know what they are doing, but most importantly have a union to back them up when they hold up a plane for safety checks.

Campus

BAMN's tactics criticized (still / again)

Posted by Murph on 6. November 2005

UM’s campus NAACP group criticized BAMN last week for including bussed-in high school students from Detroit as part of a rally against the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a ballot proposal to ban affirmative action in Michigan. From the Michigan Daily:

Alex Moffett, vice president of the NAACP, said BAMN tokenized and presented black students in a bad light when it bused in hundreds of black middle- and high-school students from Detroit for the Thursday rally on the Diag.

During the rally against the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a proposal that could ban the use of affirmative action by the University and the state if it is approved by voters next year, the Detroit students were given microphones and could be heard yelling profanities and slurs at anti-affirmative action protesters at the back of the crowd. Moffett said the students came across as uneducated about affirmative action and faulted BAMN for putting them under the spotlight without preparation.

Representatives of the two groups sparred at an MSA meeting over the comments:

“(BAMN) failed to acknowledge that they didn’t properly prepare these students to come to participate in the rally, and they didn’t accept responsibility for the damage they caused to the image of black students on this campus,” Moffett said after the meeting.
. . .
Moffett was verbally assaulted by a BAMN activist during the meeting, who yelled out, “Alex, are you scared to be black?”

ArborUpdate contributors Rob and Dumi provide comment on their personal blogs, Goodspeed Update, and The Blackblog.