Nolan Out Loud: A trip to normal
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Driving from Metro Detroit to southern Kentucky over the weekend confirmed that the world is wide open again.
The roads were crowded Cincinnati was the usual mess to get through and nearly all of the restaurants along the route were open for indoor seating.
Ohio and Kentucky dropped all COVID-19 restrictions, No masks, No social distancing.
Before I left, it was also terrific to be on Belle Isle for the Detroit Grand Prix, seeing folks I haven t seen in over a year. It felt a little strange to be out again in unmasked crowds, greeting familiar faces.
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Michigan Radio reporter Sarah Cwiek talks with Stateside about the battle over revising Detroit s city charter.
Credit Lester Graham / Michigan Radio
Why is Detroit looking to revise its charter in the first place?
In 2018, Detroiters voted by a narrow margin to open the charter up for revisions. A charter is like a city constitution it outlines the structure of government, how powers are distributed throughout it, and can serve as an outline of a city’s priorities. A group of people were elected to serve as charter commissioners, and members started holding meetings and gathering input on possible changes.
Detroit actually changed its charter fairly recently, in 2012. The changes at that time were mostly concerned with ethical issues, in the wake of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s trial and conviction for bribery and racketeering.
by Charlie LeDuff Gov. Whitmer Come clean, Madam Governor. Tell the people who was on that airplane with you. Tell them, Madam, or I may have to. Your folks are claiming the luxury private jet you flew to Florida was “chartered” and paid for by your million dollar political fund. They claim you simply purchased a hitchhiker s seat for $855. Your crack team of communicators are claiming that your fund, Michigan Transition 2019, set up for the transition of power and to promote civic action and social welfare, was using the plane for official business when you tagged along to Florida. What business? There are no expenses filed for any type of business except for the flight. Were the fund s executives on the plane with you? The fund s director– a union lobbyist – could not be reached for comment. Nor its treasurer – a former power company executive. Nor its secretary – a professor of legal ethics, of all things.
“Mr. Kilpatrick’s release undermines the balance the court attempted to achieve at sentencing,” Edmunds said. “(Ferguson) was not an elected official and took no oath to serve the people of any constituency. He was a single-minded crony of the mayor’s, whose only apparent goal was to enrich himself at others’ expense.
“He achieved that goal through threats and intimidation, primarily focused on the business expectations of his targets,” the judge said. “But he was not the driver of the bus; that was Mr. Kilpatrick, where the power resided.”
Edmunds also noted that Ferguson has only 65% lung capacity and other health issues that could put him at risk for COVID-19 in prison.
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Detroit A federal judge Thursday freed contractor Bobby Ferguson from federal prison on compassionate grounds after he served only eight years of a 21-year sentence for helping former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick turn City Hall into a criminal enterprise.
The move by U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds shortens one of the longest sentences for public corruption in U.S. history and alters punishment for participating in a racketeering conspiracy that helped push Detroit to the brink of bankruptcy.
The order sends him home three months after Kilpatrick s conviction was commuted by President Donald Trump. Ferguson, 52, will still be required to pay $6,284,000 restitution to the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department.