Education Beat:  Flint School Board fiscal scrutiny of Williams legal services and  Lambert public relations firm intensifies
Oct29

Education Beat: Flint School Board fiscal scrutiny of Williams legal services and Lambert public relations firm intensifies

By Harold C. Ford “It’s going to get ugly … I’m ready for the fight … This man here [former Flint school board attorney Kendall Williams] making a million dollars. Unbelievable.” –Joyce Ellis-McNeal, Oct. 13, 2021, Flint school board meeting Fees charged to Flint Community Schools (FCS) by The Williams Firm, for legal services, and Lambert & Co., for public relations work, came under intense scrutiny by the Flint Board of...

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Commission aims to give residents a voice – no more gerrymandering as voting districts are redrawn
Oct28

Commission aims to give residents a voice – no more gerrymandering as voting districts are redrawn

By Tom Travis Residents stood up and spoke up Tuesday at a public hearing at The Dort Federal Event Center on Lapeer Road with their thoughts and comments about redistricting in Michigan. Standing at a podium, residents addressed the  new 13-member Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC), who sat at tables on an elevated stage looking down on the speakers. Masks were required and social distancing was followed. Flint...

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Village Life:  Memories burned into Washington School’s demise:  “This one hurts the most”
Oct25

Village Life: Memories burned into Washington School’s demise: “This one hurts the most”

By Gary Fisher She was nearly half a century old by the time I showed up. Creaky wooden windows, stifling forced heat, so thick you could taste it, zero air conditioning, lead paint everywhere, and asbestos-covered pipes. The ancient bathrooms with the old radiators (an especially egregious artifice when some miscreant relieved himself on it), with wooden stall doors, long ago removed, meant zero privacy. Really tough kids, and...

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Tendaji Talk: “The Deep Sting of Slavery”
Oct23

Tendaji Talk: “The Deep Sting of Slavery”

By Harold C. Ford “It’s really not enough to say, ‘Those were horrible days and let them pass.’ Uncovering this buried history … could also help ease the kind of intergenerational trauma that silence can mask, trauma that can seep through entire communities.” –Margaret Burnham, Northeastern University professor, from “Healing Requires Truth” by Samantha Michaels, Nov-Dec 2021 issue of Mother Jones ‘Slavery has tentacles and they are...

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Education Beat: Flint School Board votes unanimously to talk with Mott Foundation CEO Ridgway White about abandoned Central-Whittier campus
Oct22

Education Beat: Flint School Board votes unanimously to talk with Mott Foundation CEO Ridgway White about abandoned Central-Whittier campus

By Harold C. Ford On Wednesday,  Oct .20, near the end of another long meeting (four hours and 22 minutes), the Flint Board of Education (FBOE) voted 6-0 to invite C. S. Mott Foundation CEO Ridgway White to visit and talk about the future of the long-abandoned Flint Central High School-Whittier Middle School campus.   Votes supporting the motion, made by board treasurer Laura MacIntyre,  came from: Carol McIntosh;  MacIntyre,...

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