The Detroit News. June 14, 2018
So far, politics takes break in school safety talks
Since the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, a flurry of school safety plans have been presented to the Michigan Legislature. Despite political division over related issues, notably gun control, lawmakers are admirably working across party lines to adopt legislation to make schools safer.
Michigan has consistently been in the top five states in terms of the number of school threats since the Parkland shooting. And while there have been no major incidents, the disturbingly high threat activity has brought lawmakers to the reality that funding school security can’t be shoved aside any longer.
Last week, the Senate passed a package of seven bills addressing various areas of school safety. Sen. Margaret O’Brien, R-Portage, sponsored a bill that would require school administrators to contact law enforcement officers for inspection of new school buildings or renovations. O’Brien says she responded to complaints from police that they typically don’t see a school building until the ribbon cutting, and aren’t asked for input about making the new structures safer. She then worked with Democratic Sen. Jim Ananich, the chamber’s minority leader, on a related proposal.
“We each realized we had a piece of the puzzle,” she says.
Sen. Marty Knollenberg, R-Troy, introduced a bill mandating school districts assemble an emergency operations plan for every school. The plans would address emergency protocol and possible vulnerabilities in school security.
The recent budget passed by legislators will include $25 million toward school safety grants. An additional $30 million will be designated for funding school mental health services.
In another initiative, a coalition of law enforcement officers, school officials and lawmakers unveiled the Michigan School Safety Reform Plan, which seeks both increased funding and better ideas for keeping schools safe.
Matt Resch, whose public relations firm is promoting the plan, says the focus will be on proposals that can win bipartisan support. Backers want the state to fund school resource officers, mental health counselors and added structural safety features. It also increases penalties for individuals who make threats against schools.
Three bills were introduced in the House as part of the plan. Rep. Beau LaFave, R-Iron Mountain, (HB 5942) would make threatening violence against schools a more severe crime. Rep. Aaron Miller, R-Sturgis, (HB 5966) would create a new grant for school resource officers and mental health professionals. Rep. Robert Koslowski, D-Westland, (HB 5967) would require those who are already mandated to report incidents of child abuse to also report suspected threats against schools.
Gov. Rick Snyder created the School Safety Task Force two months ago to research solutions based on input from teachers, mental health counselors and students.
Lawmakers should work with the task force to make sure its recommendations go into law, and not on a shelf.
There are many elements of the school safety debate that will predictably devolve into partisan scraps.
But common sense safety measures should not be among them.
Michigan is off to a good start in stressing bipartisan solutions to making schools safer.
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Lansing State Journal. June 15, 2018
Engler must apologize, raise standards of conduct to remain MSU’s leader
Interim President John Engler, who was hired to lead Michigan State University through arguably its most difficult time, is now part of the university’s problem.
If he hopes to stay - if a majority of the board wants to keep him - there are apologies to make and serious mistakes to correct.
First, a university president cannot behave like a governor or a bully. Mock the ivory tower if you will, but there is a sense of decorum and dignity that is fundamental to leading a major university. A community that values intellectual freedom must resolve to treat others with respect even when they disagree.
Second, no university president has any business attacking a survivor of sexual assault. No governor does either for that matter. That’s what #MeToo is about. Don’t shame victims, period.
This brings us to the third point: The leader charged with healing the university cannot take an active role in its legal defense. Engler has a law degree and is a member of the Michigan Bar, but he should have let the lawyers hired by the university do their job.
In his attempt to discuss a financial settlement with survivor Kaylee Lorincz, and again in disparaging Rachael Denhollander in an email that also criticized plaintiffs’ attorneys, Engler behaved like a lawyer and not like a leader.
The 300-plus plaintiffs who are party to MSU’s tentative $500 million settlement agreement were harmed, in part, because of a university culture that let a campus physician sexually molest patients for 20 years without detection. The fact that they sued does not mean they deserve vitriol from MSU’s president.
A governor can attack the political opposition. A governor can rally his partisans with venomous language. A governor can wage war at will - as long as he is confident a majority of voters will support his efforts in the next election.
A university president - an interim president at that - must never do those things. Especially not one who was brought in by a vulnerable Board of Trustees and charged with leading a disillusioned campus community in healing its wounds.
In a supreme moment of irony, we must point out that governors of Michigan are exempt from the state’s Freedom of Information Act. That means governors of Michigan might make hateful and malicious comments in emails to their senior advisors and probably nobody else will see them (unless someone in the governor’s inner circle decides to go behind their back).
When a university president commits such comments to writing, the disgraceful remarks can be provided to media through a public records request, prompting widespread disgust and a growing tally of calls for resignation. (Note to the citizens of Michigan: It is time to extend FOIA to the governor’s office and the legislature, because we really don’t need such vile communication among any of our civic leaders.)
The LSJ Editorial Board called for Lou Anna Simon’s resignation because of her inability to see the culture problem on the campus she had served in multiple roles over 40 years, and because of her inability to demonstrate empathy for Larry Nassar’s victims.
Engler’s biggest challenge as interim president is neither the victims nor the money: It’s creating a campus community that respects and protects the rights of everyone. It’s fixing a culture that has disrespected and mistreated young women, that has allowed too many to be victimized, because those who could prevent it saw no reason to do so.
Engler owes Denhollander, the other Nassar survivors, the campus community and the people of Michigan an abject apology for his mistakes. He needs to acknowledge his errors and the hurt he has caused.
If he cannot muster the needed apologies, he cannot stay.
Finally, he owes his bosses - the MSU trustees - a credible explanation of how he plans to move forward. And they must be relentless in demanding that Engler meet the highest standards of leadership and decency. Because the role of Engler and his advisors is not to steer the trustees; it’s the trustees’ role to direct Engler.
When he took the MSU job, Engler spoke of approaching the challenge as if his own daughters were on campus. He couldn’t possibly think his conduct to date meets that standard.
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Times Herald (Port Huron). June 12, 2018
County should join drug lawsuit
If the lawyers are right, suing the manufacturers and distributors of opioid drugs is a slam-dunk. St. Clair County commissioners are considering joining one of the lawsuits that seeks compensation from the makers of the potent synthetic narcotics for the havoc the drugs have wrought across the nation.
The board of commissioners should agree to join the lawsuit for no other reason than it would be daft to say no to a potential payout, especially when the lawyers selling the class action promise there is no risk.
Settlement talks with one of the manufacturers is already underway, which makes compensation seem like a case of when, not if. Not every manufacturer and distributor is rolling over, though, probably because they know they will be paying back all the billions they profited from the nation’s pain.
Analysts suggest they are going to lose for the same reasons that the tobacco companies lost. Manufacturers made false claims about their products and they knew they were false. The most ludicrous claim is the most obvious: That OxyContin and related synthetic narcotics such as fentanyl are not addicting. People have known for centuries, if not millennia, that opioids are highly addictive. The ancient Egyptians knew it; the marketing department at Perdue Pharma should have known it.
They also claimed opioid drugs were effective for the relief of chronic pain. People, again, have known for centuries that opioids are not effective for long-term pain relief because patients develop a tolerance for the drugs. That tolerance means patients seek more of the drug for the same level of relief, which means bigger profits for the pharmaceutical companies and addiction for patients. Too often, it also leads to street drugs and death.
Remember when cigarette makers said their products were safe and not habit-forming?
Distributors are on the hook because they should have known, lawyers argue, that they knew they were selling way more pills than could be therapeutic. In many places, including some here, there were more prescriptions than people. Patients and physicians share some culpability for that, certainly, but at least some of them were victims of lies profiteers were spending millions to spread.
What hasn’t been answered is where the settlement money would go.
The money states won in their settlements with the tobacco industry did not go to right their wrongs. States dumped the money into their general funds and did nothing about the health of smokers and future smokers.
Don’t be surprised if government entities that have signed onto the opioid lawsuits do the same with drug settlement money. It would be horrible if the money goes to business as usual while people keep dying.
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The Mining Journal (Marquette). June 11, 2018
Park service made right decision in Isle Royale wolves case
We know not everyone agrees but the decision to relocate a handful of wolves to Isle Royale National Park is the right thing to do.
It was announced last week that 20-30 new wolves would be reintroduced, perhaps as early as this fall. The species is currently on the verge of dying out on the island. The decision followed what can only be described as an exhaustive review process conducted by the National Park Service that considered a variety of options, including doing nothing at all.
The park service has traditionally taken a hands-off approach to such things. A key complicating factor in the Isle Royale decision was the fact that the lack of wolves on the island contributed to the park’s moose population becoming so abundant they overeat its trees and shrubs, damaging the environment and eventually threatening their own food supply, according to Cam Sholly, the park service’s Midwest regional director.
“This decision is an important step forward in attempting to obtain a proper predator-prey dynamic within the Isle Royale National Park ecosystem,” Sholly said for an Associated Press story on the issue.
AP reported that wolves are believed to have made their way to the park in the late 1940s by crossing an ice bridge from the Canada or Minnesota mainland, about 15 miles away. Their numbers grew as they feasted on moose, eventually forming several packs that battled each other for territory.
Their numbers peaked at 50 in the early 1980s but averaged in the 20s before falling sharply in recent years, a decline that scientists attribute to inbreeding, disease and accidental deaths. Only two remain - a closely-related male and female that are unlikely to breed.
As climate change shrinks Lake Superior’s winter ice cover, it’s considered increasingly unlikely that more wolves will reach the park on their own and refresh the gene pool, as happened previously, stated AP.
Meanwhile, the island’s moose population has ballooned to near 1,500.
The reintroduction details are still being worked out. Needless to say, though, there will be cost associated with it. And resources will be needed to monitor what’s happening on the island, going forward.
But overall, at the end of the day, we believe the benefits long term will greatly outweigh the costs. It will be money wisely invested.___
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