That’s because the lion’s share of the one-time special school aid is covering cost overruns for a 6-mill, $100 million buildings bond that voters approved in November 2000 for the new Saginaw United High and three other projects.

Inflation and supply chain troubles have pushed the price tag into the $140 million range. Instead of going back to taxpayers for even more money, school leaders are covering the excess by tapping most of their $60 million ESSER grant.

ESSER stands for Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief, companion to ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act. Both were passed in D.C. to help local schools and communities cope with COVID-19’s  economic damage. Support in Washington was bipartisan during the worst of the pandemic, although many Republicans now are backtracking.

City Council members with ARPA used half of their $52 million to bolster the regular budget, and they still are going through the ins and outs of accepting outside proposals for the other half.

In the school board’s case, without the infrastructure projects, the ESSER funds could have been spent in the buildings, instead of on the buildings, for more teachers and programs.

Superintendent Ramont Roberts told trustees at their July 10 session, “Things are getting pretty tight right now.” One example is spending nearly $100,000 to maintain the dilapidated southeast “science wing” at Saginaw High (left rear from the front), delaying the $500,000 demolition estimate. The first cost-cut was to refrain from HVAC updates at remaining buildings that lack air conditioning for the increased 90-degree school days that climate warming has wrought.

The district will consider suing contractors for alleged errors that led to some of the overruns, Roberts said. He did not identify the companies that are subject to potential litigation.

In addition to Saginaw United opening this fall on the riverfront, other projects include moving SASA to Arthur Hill, locating the new Handley Elementary behind Arthur Hill, and converting a portion of Saginaw High to a middle school. Another plan called for converting a portion of Saginaw High to a social services and recreation center, but the City Council and County Board both backed out of the proposal for collaboration.

Property owners annually are paying roughly $3 for each $1,000 of sales value, slated to close around calendar 2050, while this decade also finishing the 2004 millage for Thompson Middle and the new Loomis Elementary.

Roberts said some amenities, especially athletic facilities, won’t be ready in time for the Saginaw United opening, which means the Phoenix footballers — the sports moniker selected by students and approved by the board — probably will be playing another season at the Saginaw High and Arthur Hill stadia, rather than on North Niagara street at the old Bean Bunny site.

Regardless, the superintendent pledged to fulfill all promises from the 2020 millage campaign, which broke historic precedent with higher support on the West Side than on the East Side.

To view the discussion, click here.

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When the City Council called for citizen participation during 2022, the place to submit funding proposals was named the portal. And so, two summers later, viewers on July 8 may have felt  like they had been misdirected to a municipal session in Portland.

A sum in the range of $5 million remains. Fund-seekers may be described in three ways:

• Those who “went through the portal,” already received dollars and then asked for more.
• Those omitted in 2022 but still seeking funds.
• Those who came along after the portal closed.

Michael Flores, Monique Lamar Silvia and Michael Balls support $740,000 for a project to combat mass incarceration, Come Out Stay Out, under Bishop Timothy “T.J.” Holden Jail Ministries, that is new to the discussion. Balls took part in the advocacy even though he said he will not vote because he is an employee, creating a conflict of interest.

Others, led by Mayor Brenda Moore and Pro-Tem Annie  Boensch — supported July 8 by Reggie Williams II and George Copeland — are more protective of the portal. This means Bill Ostash and Priscilla Garcia may stand in  the middle when the council next meets on July 22.

“Programming” also is a sticking point with Moore and Boensch because they perceive that annual operations are more expensive for federal audit oversight than one-time building projects that could incur more monitoring costs than the $850,000 already paid to the Guidehouse  consultants.

Bricks-and-mortar already are ARPA top priority, starting with the City Hall overhaul and the home repair grants for heaters, roofs and windows. Women of Colors and the Mexican American Council have received added monies for buildings, and First Ward Community Center is making a pitch. The latest add-on is $100,000 for the Emmaus House, a women’s jail transition shelter in the former Holy Rosary Catholic rectory.

None of the members expressed opposition to Come Out Say Out. In fact, Williams strongly aired the view that Flores sometimes showboats on issues to show  up fellow members, speaking  of efforts “to pull on heart strings” without being “accountable” for details.

Flores also had his proposal for Come Out Stay Out delayed by tabling the past two sessions, both with  Williams absent. He continually  has recited the names of 2024 homicide victims at recent meetings, and says he simply is looking for some sort of plan to counteract violence in all age groups.

Silvia said the project would lead to “collaboration” among various programs that address justice and incarceration. Boensch countered by noting that in the category 13 proposals from the portal were not funded at all, and many applicants never were contacted.

Williams closed by doubling down with a challenge: Would all of the 13 portal applicants agree to collaborate with Come Out Stay Out as fiduciary of the funds?

About $1 million remains from the original $52 million, while another $4 million is interest on unspent monies like with the Medical Diamond, along with accounts that naturally have moved more slowly, like work at City Hall, Hoyt Park, Ojibway Island and the cemeteries, or for that matter, home repair projects.

The council in January 2003 wrapped up about 90 percent of the package. Since then, the remaining unresolved 10 percent of the aid money has gained 90 percent of the council’s attention.

To view the discussion, click here.

The post If your ARPA proposal has arrived late, what’s your fate? appeared first on Saginaw Daily.

He was 42 years old when he suddenly collapsed on the local lanes days before Christmas 2007, with the dual diagnosis of a stroke and a brain tumor.

Since then, now in the 17th year since that fateful evening, Joe has not scored another 12-strike perfecto in pursuit of “100 300’s.”

Still, he is winning:

• He says medics told him he would be fortunate to simply walk again, but he definitely would be finished with bowling. Forget that! Jimenez needed three years, but he has been back out there  for more than a decade, in defiance of the diagnosis.
• Foremost, he has conquered the personal self-harm of alcoholism, formerly consuming “hard stuff….. every day,” he told Hugh Bernreuter of The Saginaw News in 2013. He not only capped the bottle, but he shed 65 pounds (250 at the time, now 185) by dieting and by becoming a regular at the Saginaw YMCA.

Jimenez says he began “talking to God” to find inspiration for his comeback, and he is sharing his story as a representative for the Mexican American Council. Among other activities, MAC is organizing a health fair later this summer with support from the county’s new Health Equity Council.

“The stroke was a God-given thing,” he said. “If I didn’t have the stroke, I never would have known about the tumor, which was found to be not malignant.

“I was on my way toward dying because my blood pressure was so high.”

In the Saginaw Bowling Hall of Fame, he joins his departed father, Albert Sr., along with Jesse, his uncle, and Albert Jr., his sibling.  Joe Jr., who was 16 when his father took ill, is in line to become a fifth Jimenez family member for enshrinement.

Top supporters are a nephew, Andre Gonzales, and a niece, Shayla Owens, with young Shayla showing that 300 also is in reach for females. Andre, meanwhile,  is known for his no-thumbs, two-handed style.

Less skill, still a legend

Along with strength of character, the new life for Jimenez is filled with modesty. The stroke’s personal effect is on his right side and he’s a right-hander, noted for his unique style of holding the ball side-saddle instead of in front. Nowadays he simply can’t throw the ball as hard as he once did, when he won 11 straight Saginaw News high-average “Bowler of the Year” crowns.

He’s more likely to shoot around 180 than his former 240. He earlier chalked up more than 50 three-game series of 800 or above, but when he rolled a post-recovery 709 triad, subpar by his old standards, he still proudly posed as “Bowler of the Week,” a newspaper award usually reserved for regular keglers who enjoy once-in-a-lifetime high-score performances.

“It was an honor,” he says, even though 709 was far from his best. “It was my way of showing how much I always will enjoy the sport.”

He today is similar to a star athlete who maintains grace and class after their prime years have ended. A recent example is Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, who comes from Joe’s next-favorite sport, baseball. A youthful Jimenez was a teenage pitching star for the Green Hornets, a youth baseball state championship team

But just as Miggy closed with a flourish with his 500th career home run, Joe Jimenez dreams of another 300 game some day. His closest was starting with an open frame — no strike, no spare, like a golfer hitting his first tee shot into the water — and then stringing together 11 consecutive strikes to finish with 257. More recently he registered a 268 that “would have been 279” except for a hard-luck 9-pin leave on his final ball.

“It can be a matter of one or two shots within the game,” he says. “I know I can do it.”

History lives today

He also “can do it” in terms of health and well-being, and as one of Saginaw’s most-noted athletes he aims to serve as a role model for others to do the same.

Not that Joe Jimenez was a big wrong-doer with his drinking. He was friendly and popular among his bowling peers, even as he vanquished them on the scoresheet with one “X” (strike) after another. He has maintained loving bonds with wife Geraldine and daughter Jasmine, along with Joe Jr.

Jimenez says his boozing began during post-competition parties with other bowlers who also were his best friends, always after the matches, never before or during.

“At first, I didn’t realize it was going to be a problem,” Joe recalls.

In 1982, Jimenez made his inaugural mark on local sports history when he became the first Saginawian to roll a 300 game at the age of 15. His son and J. Neville Kirby have broken the youngest-ever record, and while Joe Sr. was thrilled by the acclaim, he feels the pressure to stay on top may have led him to pursue an alcohol escape valve.

A former competitor and bowling equipment specialist, Brian Waliczek, once said, “Joe was the best, but his actual physical game was not high end. It was his mental game. Some guys would get eight or nine strikes, but couldn’t finish it off. Joe always finished it off.”

That type of tough-minded determination paved the way for 98 perfect bowling games. Now it is leading to a better life. In his modest manner and soft-spoken way, he aims for his message to be a strike.

The post A MAC/Health Equity message: Keep doing what you love appeared first on Saginaw Daily.

• Focus on building projects, a.k.a. capital or infrastructure, that are the most basic and simple to achieve?
• Continue supporting agencies that offer staffing to address human needs, from health care to community centers, which can be more difficult to oversee and maintain because they require annual operating budgets and more accounting?

Council members are sticking with programs along with buildings. In favor of keeping the approach are Michael Balls, Bill Ostash, Michael Flores, Monique Lamar Silvia and Priscilla Garcia. On the opposite side, supporting infrastructure for the closeout, are Mayor Brenda Moore and Pro-Tem Annie Boensch.  Absent again this week were Reggie Williams II and George Copeland, both for the second time for the three latest revived sessions regarding ARPA, the federal American Rescue Plan Act, aimed to assist communities in COVID-19-related economic and social recovery.

But whether bricks for buildings or bodies for services, the council has come no closer, after three years, to making final decisions in either category for the record-setting ARPA grant of $52 million, which is Saginaw’s share of $1.9 trillion allocated in 2021, covid’s peak, back when the new Biden Administration had Democrats in control of both the House and the Senate.

The deadline for spending decisions is the end of this year, with disbursements by December 2026, but elected leaders are discovering that they must act prior to Dec. 31 so that all the paperwork and accounting can be ready. Flores said the goal should be for final votes within the next several meetings. There’s a three-week break until the next session Monday, July 8. Past councils conducted business weekly.

Moore and Boensch have become frustrated with snags involving third-party agencies, for example the newly-formed YEARN, Youth Employment And Recreation Network, an effort to revive de-funded summer jobs, led by clergy Hurley Coleman Jr. and Larry Camel, because the city general fund, according to Guidehouse, may have to reimburse the feds for $400,000 deemed unaccounted in summer job salaries for young workers. 

The $850,000 contract for oversight by Guidehouse consultants, employed by communities across the nation for ARPA expertise, expires this summer. The mayor and the pro-tem say infrastructure is the most cost-effective way to wrap up the budget without incurring higher Guidehouse fees.

Silvia and Balls said it would be “not fair” to exclude outreach agencies and operations staffing, because the original request for proposals in 2022 did not state buildings-only.

Flores and Balls support $740,000 for “Come Out, Stay Out,” a project to combat prison recidivism, although Balls notes he cannot vote because he is an employee. This led to Moore taking her turn with a “not fair” stand, because the proposal was not among initial submissions two summers ago. This led to back-and-forth debate on allowing new ideas beyond the so-called original “portal,” with Flores asserting that exclusion of new agency projects would “handcuff” the council’s options.

However, a recent unanimous decision involved a new program, the Saginaw African Cultural Festival’s three summer Freedom Schools. SACF was in the portal but Freedom Schools — named for both legendary educator Charles McNair and for Mississippi’s 1964 summer in civil rights — were not. The amount is $50,000, an example of the council being more decisive on some comparatively smaller sums that “simply made sense,” regardless of capital versus program or of portal versus new. 

One group among original portal applicants that never received a response is the PartnerShift Network, formerly Saginaw Business and Education Network, represented by five speakers who pursued redress of the overlook. The Mission in the City Park at Sixth and Janes raised a similar concern last year. In spite of their differences otherwise, council members generally agree that not all applicants were given full consideration from the start.

Balls and Flores joined Silvia’s past criticism of $5 million for the $100 million downtown Medical Diamond facility, aimed for the old farmer’s market site at Millard and Washington, saying they fail to see action. However, June 17 was the same meeting as the council invested the first $1.372 million for site preparation, as health care continues to supplant manufacturing as Saginaw’s top employer.

About $1 million remains from the original $52 million, while another $4 million is interest on unspent monies like with the Medical Diamond, along with accounts that naturally have moved more slowly, like work at City Hall, Hoyt Park, Ojibway Island and the cemeteries, or for that matter, home repair projects

As for buildings versus programming, two grantees — Women of Colors and the Mexican American Council — won ARPA funds for both, but then received approval to switch operations to capital when facility needs became top priority. WOC received $275,000 for a structure at 3057 Davenport, and founder Evelyn McGovern reported that another $150,000 is requested for fixups, mainly a leaky roof.

As for maybe cutting Guidehouse ties, Ostash said he understands the displeasure but asked, “Who are we going to hire in the middle of the program?”

Debate peaked at the close of the half-hour discussion when raised voices between Balls and Moore led to “point of order” calls from other members. Also, Moore said statements from Flores indicated he has not read the 400-page proposal book issued in 2022, which he vehemently denied. Silvia claimed Moore and Boensch want to “claw back” monies already approved for program operations, which neither has proposed.

To view the discourse, click here.

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Local leaders often lament that many residents fail to realize all the various forms of help that are available, not only from the government (federal, state, local) but from the various nonprofits.

Summer is the most popular time for health fairs, job fairs and community events to promote the greater good. City Hall’s organizer for the Bliss Park event was Cassi Zimmerman, first-year director of planning and economic development, who explained beforehand: “The Community Resource Fair is a one-day, one-stop event  to learn more about the incredible services and assistance that is available. We understand that so many Saginaw residents and families need some sort of support, and this is a fantastic opportunity for local organizations to directly engage with residents and showcase the valuable services they provide.  With over 30 organizations at the event, we have just about every area represented.  I want to thank all the participating organizations who partnered with the city to make this event possible.  Our hope is that we can educate and empower our citizens with the tools and resources they need to help them succeed.” 

Me, personally, was educated and empowered to learn that the AmeriCorps community service program isn’t only for idealistic young people, but also offers options for oldsters. Training for volunteer elementary reading tutors begins in late July. This is right up my alley, and even as a news reporter I had not known of this.

Here are some of the others who pitched their tables in the Bliss Park pavillion’s shade:

• Covenant Health Care and Great Lakes Bay Health Centers.
• Saginaw County public health and mental health, along with the RCO men’s shelter and Underground Railroad for domestic violence protection.
• City of Saginaw block grant programs, especially for home repairs, and SEDC for entrepreneur dreamers.
• First Ward Community Center, Neighborhood House and Houghton-Jones
• County parks and local libraries, even STARS.
• Saginaw County CAC and Mid-Michigan CAA.
• Michigan Works, for those seeking real jobs beyond volunteerism.

If it’s difficult to generate high attendance at these types of events, at least people could become better-oriented to contact these help sources when a need arises among family and friends.

The post City Hall takes leadership on social aid appeared first on Saginaw Daily.

Monique Lamar Silvia says the Guidehouse consultants should be scored with a “report card,” in the same spirit that the American Rescue Plan specialists have graded various block-grant type programs that received third-party contracts, and she cited rapid staff turnover with three managers since David Sernick stepped down in 2022 to become a top City of Detroit administrator.

Furthermore, Silvia asserts that she sees that “nothing has happened” with the council’s $5 million allocation toward the $100 million downtown “medical diamond” project, featuring the Central Michigan University College of Medicine as the anchor tenant. The County Board also has put forward $5 million and the state another $30.3 million, with another $3.3 million from the feds.

City Manager Tim Morales responds that organizing for the facility is on target, with a $100 million match approved late last year by the CMU Board of Trustees toward a 2030 target, with hopes of creating at least 1,000 jobs. He also reported satisfaction with Guidehouse, which received an $850,000  city contract off the top from ARPA, while also assisting Saginaw County and the City of Detroit among hundreds of communities across the nation with new rules in the $1.9 trillion allocation, aimed to help communities bounce back from COVID-19’s damage.

Discussion took place June 3 and could resume at the next meeting, 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 17, even if ARPA is not included in the pre-meeting posted agenda. Council members have made their recent ARPA decisions through last-minute “miscellaneous business” when it may appear their meetings already are finished.

Other members have raised questions through the three years with the Rescue Plan Act. George Copeland said the council should have used a scoring system to rate the proposals, Michael Flores opposed bailing out past general fund budgets, and even Mayor Brenda Moore has reflected that the most effective program has been home-repair grant because of low overhead costs.

However, Silvia’s blandishments are the strongest so far. “Medical diamond” is a term coined by Dr. Sam Shaheen with downtown at the geographic top, the central parks and Old Town forming the bottom point, and the sides being Covenant and Ascension St. Mary’s

To view Silvia’s remarks, click here.

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He says a major reason for the decline is “technology” from an $850,000 federal grant five years ago finally is fully in place after covid-related delays, in particular surveillance video cameras, some with blue lights visible to motorists but some concealed.

Now entering his ninth year, the chief aimed for his report to state publicly that all the high tech finally is having an effect, without giving away secrets to the criminal element. Without details, he said videos have helped solve four of the city’s homicides this year, and he offered a specific account of a stolen car recovered even though it had been spray painted a different color, because the license plate has been photographed.

The three main categories that are down are car thefts, forced-entry burglaries and felonious assaults.

Councilman Michael Flores said the 19 percent decline is deceptive because murders, criminal sexual conduct and armed robberies all are up, although slightly. Ruth answered that the smaller numbers may vary randomly month by month, but overall homicides are    down from the turn of the millennium, when totals annually averaged about 30.

Saginaw has 62 officers on staff, up from 50 a couple years ago but down from 155 two decades ago, and Ruth said, “We are doing more with less.”

Councilman George Copeland asked whether the high tech is intensive enough to allow officers more time for “community engagement,” such as walking neighborhood streets like in the old days.

Ruth said engagement nowadays often takes the form of increasing partnerships with sources that may range from the state police to the FBI to the county sheriff to AFT. He also spoke of working with the city’s dozen-plus neighborhood associations and conducting monthly “roll call” outreach and information sessions in residents’ front yards.

Officers also keep tabs with HELP, Healing Engagement Love Presence, a year-old mentorship featuring civic leaders who include Terry Reed, Ralph Martin and Pastor Kareem Bowen.

Councilman Michael Balls, also active with HELP, joined Councilwoman Monique Silvia in asking to restore a gang task force that was most prominent during the 1990s while Gary Loster was mayor. Ruth said the cost to pay and equip seven officers, including a sergeant, would exceed $1 million.

Councilman Bill Ostash reacted by noting that  voter approval  to lift 45-year-old property tax caps could generate $1.5 million a year by making the general levy 10 mills instead of 6.7, an increase of 3.3 mills. Council members still would have time to put the question on the November election, but they apparently will wait until a smaller turnout special election early in 2025, the same way they renewed a 7.5-mill public safety added assessment last February in quiet fashion.

Ruth also reported:

• Fights against heroin peddling have met widespread success and the drug is far more difficult to find these days, but fentanyl remains a major challenge.
• We don’t hear about as many problems in Birch Park Apartments as in the past, in particular on notorious Vestry Drive, because of interventions that involve community partners.
• In good humor, a Memorial Cup law enforcement incident involved a Canadian visitor who couldn’t find his car on the Civic Center parking ramp and assumed it had been stolen. Found on the fifth (top) level.

To view the 40-minute report and discussion, click here.

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Parker received a transplant last winter after more than seven years of medication that followed a heart failure diagnosis and installation of a pump in 2020, all the time waiting and hoping for a donor.

“My own life has been saved by the type of screening that is offered at our free event,” says the retired outreach administrator for Flint’s Hurley Medical Center and former Buena Vista supervisor.

A Health Fair presenter, Dr. Christopher Allen from Covenant Health Care, says: “Most men don’t go see a physician until something is very wrong. We are inviting men to come in and to get checked out, before it’s too late.  The main barrier is often those three words: ‘I feel fine.’  We all are tempted to believe that if we don’t know, it won’t hurt us.” 

Among many examples of health issues that may gradually grow more severe for an otherwise healthy man are high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes. Those types of concerns will be evaluated as part of a mini-health assessment that offers an array of tests and screenings. But for fellows who remain reluctant, health and wellness information will be offered with follow-up care available.

For guys who still are skeptical, here are some eye-openers:

• Men in the United States, on average, live seven fewer years than women.
• Out of the top 10 causes of death, men die at a higher rate for nine of them.
• Half of all men will face some sort of cancer.

Women and children also are welcome on June 8, and they are encouraged to bring reluctant men along.

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Opposed: Mayor Brenda Moore, Pro-Tem Annie Boensch, Bill Ostash, Michael Flores.
In favor: Monique Lamar Silvia, who made the motion, with Michael Balls and George Copeland.
Absent on Feb. 3: Reggie Williams II, Priscilla Garcia.

The 2020 council that decided 8-1 to allow dispensaries (John Milne opposed) included Moore, Boensch, Ostash, Balls and Williams.

Since then, Williams and Balls have aired misgivings on their decisions. They have cited marijuana use among young people, Williams speaking from law enforcement and Balls as a Big Brothers mentor. At the same time, they have acknowledged that young people get cannabis from adult friends and even family, not from the city’s dozen current shops, which follow far stronger age standards than many party stores with beer, booze and loose cigarettes.

Silvia and Copeland potentially could enlist with Balls and Williams, making Garcia the swing vote. In her only cannabis ballot of her tenure, she supported the conversion of the former Hamilton Bakery site on Gratiot, which places her with Moore, Boensch, Ostash and Flores.

Michigan voters passed 2018 legalization with 56 percent in favor. Of more than 500 local communities, about 400 are not allowing sales. Saginaw joins the other 100 — including nearly all the older cities, even conservative Grand Rapids — that have given the go-ahead. Shared revenue from the 10 percent state excise tax provides about $60,000 per dispensary per year.

Veterans Balls and Williams aren’t the only members with mixed feelings. Copeland voted in favor on the zoning board, but against on the council.

Meanwhile, Moore and Ostash are delegates on the planning commission, and they noted that no grievances have come forth since the early onset, when Saginaw High parents successfully blocked a location at Sheridan and Webber.

Silvia’s proposal first was outlined earlier this year by Joyce Seals — Board of Education trustee, and chair of the county’s Health Equity Council and also the Saginaw County Prevention Coalition, created as the Family Youth Initiative under retired Probate Judge Faye Harrison.

Seals reported “shocking” levels of use in middle school and down into elementary, backed by stories of children finding and consuming gummy products left by negligent elders.

Group members frown upon any sort of drug use and abuse, while airing specific concerns about THC’s health developmental effects on children and teens, which may not be general knowledge because marijuana is not viewed as a “hard” drug like heroin, crack cocaine or even excessive alcohol, or fatally dangerous like today’s prescription painkillers.

An attempt to shut down Saginaw’s dozen existing dispensaries would create expensive havoc in legalities, the former mayor acknowledged, but a moratorium could give the community a chance to re-think the future.

East Side ‘reefer redlined?’

If a dispensary is completed at the old La Familia restaurant, Genesee at Remington, that will be the fourth for the East Side, joining:

• Premier Provisioning, 910 E. Genesee
• OUI-D Shop, 3465 Sheridan
• Kush Kween, 2225 E. Genesee

Meanwhile, the recent opening of Elite Cannabis at State and Mason, in a former 7-Eleven, builds the West Side count to eight, also including:

• Lume Cannabis, 3446 State
• Sozo Saginaw, 2617 Bay
• JARS Cannabis, 2301 N. Michigan
• Courtside Gardens, 1321 Court
• Primo Provisioning, 1205 Court
• Skymint Saginaw, 700 Gratiot
• Premier Cannabis, 1034 Gratiot

Sozo and Lume are especially located near the city border to draw residents from suburbs that do not allow marijuana sales.

To make a purchase is similar to visiting a neighborhood party store for beer and/or booze. The difference is that a customer remains in a waiting area, similar to a doctor’s office, until their turn to enter one-by-one. 

City planners crafted a 1,000-foot minimum distance from schools that are open and operating, but the limit is only 100 feet from churches. Zoning officials said there are too many churches for a stricter rule in that regard. None of the locations to date is next to a church or near a school, although Premier on the East Side is adjacent to the soup kitchen.

The one “sin tax” that is more severe than the 10 percent for marijuana is $2 for a pack of regular cigarettes and 32 percent for other forms of nicotine. State annual revenue collections this year, rounded off, are:

• $1.3 billion for lottery
• $1.2 billion for gasoline
• $830 million for tobacco
• $130 for beer, liquor, wine
• $111 million for marijuana

This does not mean pot has become nearly as common as booze. The closeness in the dollar figures is because the tax for a Bud remains far lower than for a bud, so to speak. But the usage gap is narrowing.

To view the council vote, click here.

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Families are invited to make use of:

• A regulation quarter-mile track.
• Courts for basketball and pickleball.
• The eye-catcher you won’t see elsewhere, a giant chess board with life size pieces.

Choices also include shuffleboard, horseshoes, cornhole, ping-pong, jump rope, hopscotch, and yoga. Games include chess, checkers and Uno cards. Hours will continue through the summer, mornings from 7 a.m. to noon (except Sunday morns, of course) and evenings from 5 p.m. to 7:30.

Tatum never dreamed he would return to his hometown, so close to his childhood neighborhood up near 14th and Janes. Before the turn of the millennium, he departed for Battle Creek — joined by wife Dawn and their sons, Trevel and Travon — for two decades as pastor of First Salem Missionary Baptist Church.

The road back to Saginaw began with the 2018 death of his ministerial mentor, Rufus Bradley, founding pastor of New Life and originator of Mission in the City. During the middle 1990s, Tatum had served as a youth pastor and director of Christian education. This placed him years later at the top of the candidates’ list, and at age 55 he accepted.

The two men shared a passion for reaching beyond the church walls. Bradley’s outreach was rooted in the rural South, where as a child he preached to barnyard animals on an Arkansas farm. Tatum is urban North, with an SVSU masters in political science and criminal justice. His pre-Battle Creek experiences in Saginaw included county probation officer and Boysville treatment specialist. He was director of SVSU’s Affirmative Action and Cultural Program, and also for the city schools’ Project SUCCESS.

Upon his return six years ago, he resumed his activism as if he never had departed. He has organized SAAP, Saginaw African American Pastors, with 46 clergy members. Beyond Mission in the City, New Life has obtained other tax-reverted vacant lots for a community garden, and the church will host one of three African Cultural Festival new summer Freedom Schools, along with Bethel AME and Victorious Believers.

The Links Inc. sorority is the sponsor of “positivity benches” with peer counselors on site, and Narcom packages will be distributed in the fight against opioids.

New Birth congregants supervise Mission in the City Park, which bears Rufus Bradley’s name, but Tatum also welcomes volunteers who may serve the community, especially the children, in any way. He was a track and field standout at Bridgeport High, class of 1980, and then earned All-American honors as a sprinter at Saginaw Valley State. He may be contacted through Facebook pages for New Life or for Mission in the City.

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