Patrick Sullivan

Features Patrick Sullivan David Allen knew trying to have his car shipped to Northern Michigan from California was going to be expensive and a big hassle.
Little did he know it would be a hassle he would still be dealing with eight months later.
Last December the history and political science teacher attempted to have his white 2006 Nissan Altima shipped from Los Angeles to his new home in Interlochen, where he had taken a teaching position a few months earlier.
“The plan was for me to get my car and go home and see my family for the holidays,” said Allen, a Boston native whose family still lives in Massachusetts.
Allen looked online and found a company called Tristar Trucking of Glen Head, New York, that would set up the car delivery for $745, a price that sounded fair to Allen.
He paid a deposit and received the contract on a Friday afternoon and called the company to ask some questions.
A company representative refused to go over the contract with him, told him he had to get off the phone because he “has a social life,” and left Allen wondering what he was getting into.
That should have been a red flag, Allen says now.
Allen said he just hoped his car would arrive soon so he could get home for Christmas with his family.
But last year, Allen would have no Christmas with his family.

Features Patrick Sullivan CLINCH PARK DEATH
City officials want to find out how a teenager swimming in the Clinch Park
Marina suffered an electric shock and drowned.
Michael Scott Knudsen, 18, of Mancelona, died at around 7:30 p.m. Aug. 15.
An autopsy showed the cause of death to be electric shock/drowning,
according to a City of Traverse City news release.
A preliminary investigation by the city determined that a short in a
220-volt electrical line, which carries power to a section of floating
dock, caused an electrical current to enter the water, according to the
city’s press release.

Features Patrick Sullivan Tales of the Salmon Seekers: Champion fisherman Scott Alpers fought his way back from injuries

By Patrick Sullivan

If the best fish stories are about the one that got away, charter boat
Captain Scott Alpers has a story four times better.
One year during the Salmon Classic, an annual salmon fishing contest on
Grand Traverse Bay, Alpers and his crew wound up with a bunch of fish
hooked all at once early in the tournament.

Features Patrick Sullivan TC business has fishing in its blood
By Patrick Sullivan

Roger Borgeson had been retired for six years, but he missed the tackle
business, the line of work he’d been in for a half century.
He’d been sidelined by illness, could no longer fish, and he wanted to
find his way back.
“Basically I got sick and I couldn’t work anymore and I can’t stand
retirement,” Borgeson said. “The boys came to me, Mike and Pat, and said,
‘Let’s get into the lure business.’”

Features Patrick Sullivan When Jan Stuhlmann heard how much a company wanted to pay him for oil and
gas rights to his 80 acres in Kalkaska County, he couldn’t believe his
ears.
The 69-year-old and his wife stood to receive around $140,000.
For Stuhlmann, a retired community college pottery instructor and
carpenter who’s lived in the same house on North Crooked Lake in Blue Lake
Township with his wife, Janet, since 1973, the windfall would have been
life-altering.

Features Patrick Sullivan STREET FIGHT
A man and his ex-girlfriend were arrested after a fight in Traverse City.
Police were called about a fight in progress Aug. 12 at around 2:20 a.m.
at the intersection of Newcomb and 17th Street but no one was there when
they arrived. A short while later they were called to Munson Medical
Center to interview a 20-year-old man with a broken jaw.
The man told police he and his girlfriend were headed to a residence when
they were interrupted by the woman’s ex-boyfriend. An argument ensued and
the ex-boyfriend came at him with a knife, he told police.

Features Patrick Sullivan She was the Sweetest Person in the World’:Benzie man faces trial in hammer death of Valerie Smith
By Patrick Sullivan
In retrospect, there was something creepy about the day Jerry Bolton was
called to a trailer park to fix a broken septic tank and a man peered out
of his trailer and stared at the workers.
It was only the next day, after the police arrived and put up crime scene
tape, that Bolton learned the man inside, Robert Lester Cheek, allegedly
spent days in the trailer with the corpse of his girlfriend, who Cheek is
now accused of killing.

Features Patrick Sullivan MAN RESCUED FROM LAKE
An unresponsive man pulled from Lake Michigan owes his life to the quick
actions of bystanders and emergency responders.
Mark Urness, 53, of Providence, New Jersey, was swimming in Lake Michigan
near the Lower Herring Lake outlet on Aug. 1 when he lost consciousness.
Bystanders pulled him from the water, Benzie County Sheriff Rory Heckman
said.

Features Patrick Sullivan MARIJUANA DISPENSARY QUESTIONED
A judge signed a subpoena requested by Garfield Township that will force
the owners and landlord of the Green Things Plus dispensary to answer some
questions.
At issue is whether the marijuana store on South Airport Road opened
during a temporary moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries that went
into effect in the township in January.
The agents of the business claim they opened before the moratorium;
township attorney Scott Howard says permit applications and social media
posts from the company say otherwise, according to a circuit court file.

Features Patrick Sullivan Lovers of trout streams should long for the day when the Boardman River
flows north into Traverse City unobstructed by dams, as wild, free and
clear as nature intended.
But some trout fishermen worry about one consequence that could come with
the removal of the dams -- the Michigan Department of Natural resources is
considering allowing salmon or steelhead to swim upstream once the new
river configuration is in place.

Features Patrick Sullivan For one filmmaker, this year’s journey to Northern Michigan could be a
little bit like a return to the scene of a crime.
At least a possible crime that might have happened to his family 40 years
ago.
In addition to a string of victories for workers, unions and civil rights,
the Reuther family also notched a slew of assassination attempts during
the 20th Century.

Features Patrick Sullivan Northern Express: How did you end up making a film about your family?
Sasha Reuther: Obviously, I grew up around the story. I’m Victor Reuther’s
grandson, so throughout my childhood we’d spend holidays together with my
grandfather. We grew up in Washington D.C., so I was only right down the
street from him and I grew up around these amazing stories of the picket
line battles and my grandfather was the international director of the
union so he would travel overseas and he would talk about traveling in
Japan and Germany. And of course, he lost an eye in an assassination
attempt, so here’s this kind of larger than life character that I grew up
with. ...

Features Patrick Sullivan Northern Express: How did you end up making a film about your family?
Sasha Reuther: Obviously, I grew up around the story. I’m Victor Reuther’s
grandson, so throughout my childhood we’d spend holidays together with my
grandfather. We grew up in Washington D.C., so I was only right down the
street from him and I grew up around these amazing stories of the picket
line battles and my grandfather was the international director of the
union so he would travel overseas and he would talk about traveling in
Japan and Germany. And of course, he lost an eye in an assassination
attempt, so here’s this kind of larger than life character that I grew up
with. ...

Features Patrick Sullivan ‘With All My Hate’: Family values crusader has problems in his own family
By Patrick Sullivan
Paul Nepote holds himself out to be something of an arbiter of morality when it comes to gay issues in TC politics. He opposes a nondiscrimination ordinance that offers some civil rights protections for homosexuals and he attacks gay rights activists as enemies of families and Christian values.
He campaigns against gay causes on his Facebook page and seeks to ridicule and shame gay activists.
On Facebook, he writes things like, “When sodomy fills the national cup of man’s abominations to overflowing, God earmarks that nation for destruction.”
In his own life, however, Nepote is not a spotless supporter of family.
He filed for divorce from his wife of over 30 years in 2006 shortly after his wife and sister-in-law sought personal protection orders against him, alleging that Nepote attempted to break down a door as his wife dressed, threatened to shoot her, and had been emotionally abusive toward both women.

Features Patrick Sullivan Public Safety: Regional Eye on Crime
Fatal Traffic Crash
An 18-year-old Benzie County woman died after she crashed her car on Mud
Lake Road near Interlochen.
Allyson Kaye Mayer struck a tree around 4:30 a.m. on July 8, Grand
Traverse Sheriff Lt. Bryan Marrow said. Mayer, who had an Interlochen
address, was not wearing a seatbelt.
The crash was discovered on the remote dirt road by a passing motorist who
called 911. Sheriff’s deputies were called to the scene at 8:13 a.m.