TRAVERSE CITY RECORD-EAGLE
June 27, 2009 08:50 pm
No local cherries for festival
Chilly weather stalls growth
Don’t expect to munch on local cherries at this year’s National Cherry Festival. The Grand Traverse region’s crop will still be clinging to the trees. Douglas Tesner/Record-Eagle
BY BILL O’BRIEN and AND LAURA WRIGHT
Record-Eagle staff writers
Record-Eagle staff writers
TRAVERSE CITY — Don’t expect to munch on local cherries at this year’s National Cherry Festival. The Grand Traverse region’s crop will still be clinging to the trees.
Festival organizers, area retail shops and farm markets are resigned to importing cherries from other parts of Michigan for the summer festival that begins Saturday and runs through July 11.
Lingering chilly weather stalled cherry growth and left the crop a week or two behind schedule. That will push the sweet cherry harvest into early July and tart cherry harvest to mid-month, keeping the bulk of the area crop in the orchards for this year’s festival.
“It’s going to be a week and a half, maybe two weeks before we’re picking anything locally,” said Dennis Hoxsie, who grows sweet and tart cherries at his Acme Township farm and also runs a farm market along M-72.
Hoxsie said he’ll have to truck in sweet cherries from southwest Michigan to stock the market until he can pick fruit.
“Everybody that comes to the festival wants to see local cherries,” Hoxsie said. “Unfortunately, there’s not a whole heck of a lot we can do about it.”
Area business owners said customers prefer local cherries, but foreign cherries won’t make visitors think this year’s Cherry Festival is the pits.
“Cherry Festival is what it is,” said Judy Izard, owner of Peppercorn in downtown Traverse City. “There’s too much to do not to come just because we don’t have local cherries.”
Several downtown merchants focus on providing local cherries, or at least cherries grown in Michigan.
“Our focus is local,” said Jamie Roster, owner of The Cherry Stop downtown. “My customers are specifically looking for Michigan cherries. They don’t want Oregon or Washington cherries.”
It’s not overly unusual for the Cherry Festival to be void of local fruit. But warm, dry springs in recent years accelerated fruit development, and created ample opportunities for tourists to enjoy the signature sweet cherries.
Hoxsie compares a Cherry Festival without local fruit to what ski resorts face when they don’t have snow between Christmas and New Year’s Day. It cuts into profits and represents a key business week that’s lost without a chance of full recovery.
“We’ll have cherries to sell; they’re still Michigan cherries,” Hoxsie said. “But the profit thing is different when you can’t sell your own.”
Local cherries or not, the show must go on, and festival organizers pledge there won’t be a cherry shortage.
“When we can’t look to our own growers as the first opportunity, we definitely work on the national level,” said festival spokeswoman Susan Wilcox Olson. “Visitors will find an abundance of cherries.”
Local cherries will be hustled into the festival as soon as they come off the trees, she said.
A solid cherry crop is anticipated this summer, tardy as it may be. The state’s tart cherry production is expected to reach 220 million pounds this year, up more than 30 percent from last year’s harvest. The crop potential in northwest Michigan is described as “excellent” by the U.S. Department of Agricultural.
The overall condition of Michigan’s sweet cherry crop also is rated as “very good to excellent” by the USDA. The projected harvest in Michigan is 28,000 tons, up 5.6 percent from last year.
“Things are great,” said Nikki Rothwell, director of the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Station. “But they’re just not ready yet.”
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Up North Live
TV 7&4 News
June 28, 2009
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Gas stations sign deals
after gouging
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Friday, June 26, 2009 at 12:08 p.m. LANSING (AP) — Eleven Michigan gas stations have entered into compliance
agreements with the state amid allegations of price gouging during a 2008 hurricane.
Gas prices at the stations ranged from $4.99 to $5.39 a gallon when Hurricane Ike
made landfall near major domestic oil facilities in Texas last September.
Some stations will pay fines while one has voluntarily provided refunds to motorists.
Attorney General Mike Cox said Friday the gas prices were “questionable.”
Six of the stations are in Lansing, while another is in Holt south of Lansing. Two
are in Adrian. One is in St. Johns and another is in Clare.
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June 27, 2009
GM to take on futureproduct liability claims AP – FILE – In this Dec. 12, 2008 file photo, the General Motors logo is seen outside the GM headquarters … By BREE FOWLER, AP Auto Writer
NEW YORK – General Motors Corp. has agreed to take on responsibility f
or future product liability claims, removing what could have been a sizable
roadblock on the automaker’s path to a quick sale of its assets and
emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a new company.
As part of its government-backed restructuring plan, GM wants to sell the
bulk of its assets to a new company and leave behind unprofitable assets
and other liabilities such as product-related lawsuits. A hearing on the
proposed sale is scheduled for Tuesday.
But in a concession to consumer groups and state officials who had
threatened to block the sale because of product liability concerns, the new
company will now assume responsibility for future claims involving vehicles
made by the old company, according to documents filed in federal
bankruptcy court in New York on Friday.
Under the automaker’s previous plan, “New GM” would not have assumed
any liability for future claims related to GM vehicles made before the sale
and creation of the new company. That meant that consumers who wanted
to file a lawsuit related to a defective GM vehicle would have had to seek
compensation from “Old GM,” a collection of mostly unprofitable assets left
over after the sale, where there likely would be nothing left to pay their
claims.
But under the new plan, “New GM” will not assume liability for already
pending claims against the automaker and those people will still be forced
to seek compensation from “Old GM.”
“The fact that ‘New GM’ will protect consumers injured by defective ‘
Old GM’
cars is a positive development for public safety,” The Ad Hoc Committee
of Consumer Victims of Chrysler and GM said in a statement released
Saturday.
But the group said more needs to be done, noting that GM’s concession
doesn’t help people that have already been hurt by its vehicles. It also said
consumers hurt by fellow automaker Chrysler LLC still have little recourse.
As part of its plan to sell most of itself to a group led by Italy’s Fiat Group
SpA and emerge from Chapter 11, Auburn Hills, Mich.-based Chrysler
also
asked the judge overseeing its case for permission to leave behind its
past and future product liability claims.
Consumer groups, as well as several individuals with pending claims
against Chrysler, objected and some even took their arguments to the
shortly thereafter.
GM, which filed for Chapter 11 on June 1, has said it wants to spend no
more than 60 to 90 days under bankruptcy protection and that a key part
of meeting that goal will be a quick sale of the company’s assets.
Under the deal brokered with President Barack Obama’s administration,
the U.S. government will get a 60 percent ownership stake in the new GM.
The Canadian government will get 12.5 percent, with the United Auto
Workers union taking a 17.5 percent share and unsecured bondholders
receiving 10 percent. Existing GM shareholders are expected to be wiped
out.
Even with the resolution of the product liability issues, GM still faces
numerous objections to the sale, including ones filed by a group of its
unsecured bondholders, a handful of states and cities and individual
retirees
and shareholders.
While noting the “painful” sacrifices being made by many parties in GM’s
bankruptcy process, including individuals injured by GM products, an
administration official said Sunday there is nothing “exceptional” about the
automaker’s bankruptcy terms.
“The outcome for all involved would have been far worse had the
government
not intervened in the restructuring and General Motors had liquidated,”
the official said in an e-mailed statement, declining to be identified.
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LUDINGTON DAILY NEWS
June 25, 2009
Stimulus funds to aidlaw enforcementJennifer Linn – Staff Writer
Law enforcement agencies in Mason and surrounding counties will be
receiving more than $63,000 collectively in stimulus funds to purchase
equipment they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford this year.
Local agencies receiving American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds
are the Ludington Police Department, Mason County Sheriff’s Office,
Oceana County Sheriff’s Office and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Manistee is not receiving money from any public safety grants.
Mason County Undersheriff Tom Trenner said there are guidelines as to
what the money can be used for and said some of the department’s
$17,957
in ARRA funds will go towards communication equipment for the office.
Of that money, $16,800 of it will go towards an upgrade to the computer
security system so deputies can still access the Law Enforcement
Information Network.
“Right now we don’t have the right security wall in place to access LEIN
according to state guidelines,” Trenner said.
Trenner said although the current firewall does not meet the stringent
standards the state requires, there is no risk of a security breach with the
current security system.
If the firewall is not upgraded the sheriff’s office could lose the use of LEIN
from the state.
“Communication is a big thing, it’s part of the requirement of the grant —
communications and operability.”
With the money left over from upgrading the firewall, Trenner said the office
may be able to get a couple extra mobile radios for vehicles, extra digital
cameras, or upgrade in-car cameras from the old VHS system.
Ludington
The Ludington Police department wants to purchase two new cameras
and four or five patrol rifles with money it will receive from the ARRA.
The City of Ludington will receive $16,782 in public safety grants.
Police Chief Mark Barnett said $7,400 was for a camera to be placed in
the downtown area, and $6,600 is for a camera to be placed in Stearns
Park.
He said the Stearns Park camera will be able to view up Stearns Outer
Drive to the north, the first part of the breakwater out, the Loomis Street
Boat Ramp, the skate plaza and the beach.
Oceana County
The Oceana County Sheriff’s Office plans to use the additional money to
install wireless hotspots for deputies to use to upload reports from the road
and to purchase an e-citation program.
Oceana Undersheriff Tim Priese said seven wireless hotspots will be
placed across the county so deputies can upload reports more efficiently.
He said the mobile Nextel modems deputies currently use can’t transfer
the
large electronic crash report files. The hotspots will cost $3,036.
The rest of the money will be spent on e-citation software and printers and
mounts for patrol vehicles.
E-citation software will allow deputies to do electronic citations, which
would
help the efficiency of officers and reduce the paper being used.
“It takes away from the officer having to hand write out tickets in
quadruplicate,” Priese said.
Thermal printers will also be installed in patrol vehicles. Deputies will be
able to print everything out on the paper, and give a copy to the motorist
and a second copy to the court.
Priese said there isn’t enough money to connect the system to court yet.
“Ultimately we want to have court connected,” Priese said. He said once
that is done the court will not have to import the information from the paper
ticket into a computer system. Once the court is hooked up to the system
deputies will just have to print one hard copy, for the motorist.
The system will also serve as a repository to look up old citations quickly.
Lake County
The Lake County Sheriffs Office will spend the money it receives from the
ARRA on new radios for its deputies.
Undersheriff Mike Dermyer said the office will be using the $13,929 it
receives for 17 new radios to make the office compliant for the 2012
narrowband radio requirement for a 900 MHz bandwith frequency.
All deputies will receive the new portables and the older radios will be
passed down to the reserves. Dermyer said this will put everyone on
federal frequencies.
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jlinn@ludingtondailynews.com
843-1122 x309
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CADILLAC NEWS
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DETROIT (AP) — A candlelight vigil celebrating Michael Jackson’s life
and legacy has been held at the original home of Motown Records in Detroit. Sharon Banks, a spokeswoman for the event, says at least 2,500 people took part in the Sunday evening vigil at the Motown Historical Museum. The historic Detroit building, dubbed Hitsville USA, was the launching pad for Jackson’s career. Banks says organizers ran out of candles to give to Jackson fans of all ages and ethnic groups. She says flowers and other gifts left at Hitsville will be stored at a Detroit cemetery. Fans have gathered daily outside Hitsville since Thursday, when Jackson died in Los Angeles at age 50, to pay their respects to the pop superstar. Hitsville includes Studio A, where Jackson and his brothers recorded as The Jackson 5 after being discovered by Motown Records founder Berry Gordy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
