News

Features Northern Express Community

If you've ever tried crossing Division Street as a pedestrian, or have endured its half-mile-long traffic jams during rush hour, you know that this is a highway in need of re-invention.

TC Proposition 1 offers a solution 'down the road,' but would involve giving up a strip of parkland along Division. The proposal has aroused passions both for and against. Following are the thoughts of four noteworthy citizens:

Features Patrick Sullivan

It appeared at first to be a crime that made no sense at all. A man was attacked on the side of a rural road in East Bay Township southeast of Traverse City Aug. 12, stabbed over 20 times and left to stagger to a nearby house to call for help.

Features Erin Crowell

For awhile, all I hear is the rustling of dry corn stalks in the wind. Then, I hear the laughter of a child somewhere toward the west. I can’t see anyone, but I know they are wandering like me through this maze of maize.

Letters

Birthday bust

What constitutes probable cause? This is one of many questions that has been going around in my head since my house was raided last Wednesday!

Last Wednesday should have been a celebratory day in my life. My boyfriend had just bagged a trophy buck and it was the eve of my birthday. My festive spirit was quickly halted when I received a call from TNT informing me that they were at my house. When I returned home from work, I found many police cars and officers at my house. My boyfriend was being detained in a police car, and officers were going through my personal belongings. I found out later that the officers busted into my house, and had held my boyfriend and house guest at gun-point.

I was told that based on two tips from informers and my boyfriend’s history, they felt just cause in raiding my house, instead of knocking on the door and politely asking, which they said was the usual protocol!

One of the informers told police that my boyfriend, Zach, had an illegal marijuana grow room and was manufacturing marijuana. The second informer, which was a recorded citizen tip, stated that Zach was selling crack-laced joints. Both of which were lies!

Zach told the officers as soon as they entered that there was a grow room. The room belonged to me, and I had my medical marijuana card. They proceeded anyway. If there had been an investigation, why didn’t the officers know this bit of crucial information before they came into my house? They found no evidence of illegal substances! They also found no evidence of any type of sales. They found nothing out of the ordinary, except a few immature plants over my limit and a few pills with no prescription attached.

The medical marijuana laws are “milky.”

Although there is a limited number of plants allowed, what really constitutes as a plant? The few that were removed from my house were small immature plants that contain no THC.

The point to my letter is why did the police feel justified in raiding my house...

Letters

Climate change & Prop 3

Climate change is real. This year’s catastrophes are a mere preview of things to come, and a warning to quit procrastinating and demand action.

Scientific consensus states that anything above 350 ppm will permanently change our climate. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon are now over 392 ppm and rising.

Feed-back loops from methane releases are self-reinforcing. More methane means more heat, leading to more releases. Growing evidence indicates we have already triggered this disastrous pattern...

Features Robert Downes Her 2006 book, “Infidel,” detailed her childhood in the self-destructing nation of Somalia and her subsequent flight to the Netherlands at the age of 21 to escape an arranged marriage to an older man she despised.

Features Patrick Sullivan A 2,000-square-foot home in a subdivision outside of Traverse City and full-time jobs at nonprofit organizations didn’t add up to a satisfying life for Rolf and Mari von Walthausen.

Dining Rick Coates Finding authentic “fish and chips” is not always an easy task as there are lots of “posers” out there. The Little Traverse Inn Gastro Pub located on the Leelanau Peninsula between Glen Lake and Leland (at the former North location) offers a signature fish and chips dish prepared in the English tradition.

Dining Rick Coates Fish and ChipsFinding authentic “fish and chips” is not always an easy task as there are lots of “posers” out there. The Little Traverse Inn Gastro Pub located on the Leelanau Peninsula betwee

Features Erin Crowell In a rotted-out building in Suttons Bay, Jeff Bryant sifts through a pile of rusted desks, abandoned cabinets, broken windows and molding furniture. A grape vine, with violet berries still attached, snakes through the gaping hole in the ceiling into the collection of junk.

Features Patrick Sullivan Some environmentalists are alarmed after it was learned that thousands of gallons of flowback wastewater from two high-volume, deep-shale hydraulic fracking wells in Kalkaska County was sprayed on roads throughout the region to control dust.

Letters

Blowing in the wind

I am writing to support Proposition 3, which requires Michigan’s utilities to get 25% of their power from renewable sources by 2025. I don’t think that our utilities, in flatly rejecting Proposition 3, have fairly evaluated the considerable renewable resources that exist in our state.

Take wind, for example. If you look at a wind map of Michigan, (Google “Michigan 50 meter wind map”) you will see that just offshore Michigan is surrounded by winds that are classified as excellent to outstanding. Offshore wind power is rapidly being developed by Denmark, Germany and the U.K. The technology could readily be adapted to the coast of Michigan.

Very little will happen, however, unless we commit ourselves to a significant increase in the production of renewable electric power. There needs to be a market in order for investors and manufacturers to show interest. Proposition 3 will create that market...

Dining Rick Coates Petoskey is the latest to contribute to Michigan’s growing reputation as “The Great Beer State.” Just six weeks ago Beards Brewery opened on Howard Street in downtown. Later this week, a new venture, Petoskey Brewing, is expected to open in the Old Brewing Building on M-119 (around the corner from La Senorita).

Extra Northern Express CITY PARK GRILL: Moderate prices are married to the imaginative  cuisine of the ‘90s, with Petoskey’s best nightlife scene to boot.  Fresh pasta, steaks and seafood. 432 E. Lake, Petoskey,

Features Patrick Sullivan John Matthews knows he is an outsider and he knows he might be a long shot in the race for one of three Elk Rapids Village Council seats up for grabs this November.