ANTRIM
Drug deliverer charged in woman's death
BELLAIRE -- A Petoskey man illegally provided a woman with a powerful prescription painkiller that led to her fatal overdose, authorities said.
Antrim County authorities this week charged James Jeffery Lauer, 49, with delivery of a controlled substance causing death, or in the alternative, second-degree murder. A jury will decide which charge is more suitable. Each charge is punishable by up to life in prison.
Lauer traded a Kalkaska woman a Fentanyl patch he possessed for two packs of heroin last September outside a grocery store, court records show. She overdosed on the prescription painkiller after the exchange.
Amanda Brookz Harding, 27, was found dead in her van outside Glen's Market in Mancelona two days after the alleged exchange.
Autopsy results showed Harding died from a mix of Fentanyl and heroin. Lauer told authorities Harding "was already high on heroin" when he provided her with a Fentanyl patch, court records show.
GRAND TRAVERSE
Ordinance would smooth movie production
TRAVERSE CITY -- Bring it on, Hollywood.
Traverse City commissioners introduced an ordinance Monday designed to make the city more friendly to film production companies. It's expected to be enacted at the commission's March 15 meeting.
The ordinance will allow the city to meet production companies' needs in a quick and organized fashion.
"There's a real-world speed, there's a business-world speed, and then there's the entertainment-industry speed," Community Development Director Bryan Crough told commissioners. "And that is, they need an answer now." The ordinance allows permits to be issued administratively, City Manager Ben Bifoss said, meaning companies wouldn't have to wait for a week or more for commission approval.
It also sets up various rules and regulations film companies must follow, and sets up guidelines for reimbursement of expenses the city might incur while assisting film producers.
City officials tested out the proposed ordinance guidelines last year while filmmakers shot "A Year in Mooring" in Traverse City. The film is set to be released next year.
Census count is now in progress
TRAVERSE CITY -- Ali Tate can't understand why people wouldn't want to fill out their census forms.
"When I lived in New York and your neighbor had 15 people in their house and half of them weren't supposed to be there, that I understood," said Tate, who now lives in Long Lake Township. "But we don't have much of that up here, so I don't know why someone wouldn't, except for plain laziness." About 56,000 census workers began Monday hand-delivering 2010 census questionnaires to about 9 million homes, mostly in rural areas. Locally, census workers will visit some isolated pockets in Antrim and Grand Traverse counties and the west sides of Benzie and Leelanau counties, said Nancy Brethauer, manager of the local Traverse City census office.
Forms are hand-delivered where residents don't have good mailing addresses. Most of the nation's 120 million households will receive a census questionnaire in the mail around mid-March.
"The heaviest area for hand-delivery is the east side of the state, with its lower population and the old-fashioned rural routes," said Brethauer, who formerly served as Traverse City's postmaster.
The 2010 Census is a count of everyone living in the United States and is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. About 70 percent of Grand Traverse County residents dutifully filled out and returned their census questionnaire in 2000.
Janitor allegedly stalked student, solicited images
TRAVERSE CITY -- Todd Neibauer plans to talk with his three kids about Internet etiquette.
The decision to talk about safety on the World Wide Web comes the week after Traverse City Area Public Schools suspended a janitor and authorities said he stalked a student and solicited naked images of him over the Internet.
Neibauer's three children were not involved, but he plans to use the situation as an opportunity to discuss what not to post online.
"It's an issue that can't be ignored anymore," said Neibauer, 40, of Traverse City. "I don't think they're really thinking ahead of what the long-term repercussions will be." Walter Edward "Wally" Lucas, 40, of Traverse City, was charged with a count of using computers to commit a crime, five counts of child sexually abusive activity and one count of stalking a minor. A judge arraigned Lucas on Monday in 86th District Court and set a $100,000 cash bond.
Lucas served as a janitor for the Traverse City Area Public Schools since 1997, but for the past few years primarily worked at Central High School.
Region revels in relatively mild winter
TRAVERSE CITY -- Judy Stetler wishes every winter could be this pleasant.
"It's been a lot easier than last year," Stetler said as she strolled along dry, sunny Front Street Tuesday afternoon. "Easier to get around and our plowing bill hasn't been as high." Snow totals across the region are as much as 50 inches below average for this time of year, and in several instances are more than 100 inches below last year's March 2 marks.
An "El Nino" pattern kept the region's winter in check and led to significantly less precipitation, weather officials said. In fact, this winter is among the driest in the past 60 years, according to weather service data.
But will winter remain relatively dry and mild until spring arrives? Longtime Long Lake Township resident Faye Hoxie won't be fooled by the weather thus far.
"I think March is going to come out like a lion like it always does," she said.
New eateries, stores move in downtown
TRAVERSE CITY -- Springtime is moving time in downtown Traverse City, and several businesses will open new storefronts or shift to different locations to gear up for tourism season.
Downtown property owners said the jockeying for retail slots is off to an early start this year, as tenants bargain for the best deals in a tough economy and landlords troll for takers amid a soft commercial property market.
"It's sort of like our version of musical chairs," said Terry Beia, a partner in Traverse City Development LLC, a group that owns more than a half-dozen downtown properties. "Some merchants are upsizing, some are downsizing and some aren't making it." Several new restaurants plan to open this spring and summer. Brothers Matt and Mark Davies will expand their local lineup with Union Cantina. They're pouring around $500,000 into a two-story former print shop at 127 S. Union St. for a southwest and "Tex-mex" restaurant to open in April.
Their other local eateries include Peninsula Grill on Old Mission and Western Avenue Grill in Glen Arbor.
"I think it's a good fit for downtown," said Matt Davies, who plans to offer dishes ranging from under $10 to high-end steak and seafood. "If you want to come in and eat for eight bucks, you can eat for eight bucks."
CMS ends shipments to GT septage plant
TRAVERSE CITY -- CMS Energy will eliminate shipments of contaminated groundwater from Bay Harbor resort to Grand Traverse County's septage treatment plant, a move that strips the plant of a major revenue source and will gouge a hole of at least $300,000 in its 2010 budget.
CMS Energy was expected to truck almost 27 million gallons of polluted water from Petoskey to the Grand Traverse plant in 2010. That wastewater would have generated up to $800,000 and a cash surplus for the first time in the septage plant's five years of operation.
Beginning April 1, Bay Harbor's groundwater leachate instead will be shipped to a deep injection well near Johannesburg, CMS Energy spokesman Tim Petrosky said.
"This is a setback because that was a nice gift we were given," said Grand Traverse County board Chairman Dick Thomas. "I'm not surprised CMS pulled the plug because they can't afford it." CMS spends more than $6 million a year treating and trucking groundwater contaminated by buried cement kiln dust piles beneath Bay Harbor, an exclusive resort on Little Traverse Bay that CMS co-developed, Petrosky said.
Area counties' health rankings vary
TRAVERSE CITY -- How healthy is the Grand Traverse region?
It depends on where you live.
A new report out of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute ranks Leelanau as the third healthiest county in Michigan, followed by Grand Traverse at eighth. Ranking lowest: Antrim at 43rd, Benzie at 51st and Kalkaska at 66th. Michigan has 83 counties but only 82 were ranked.
The County Health Rankings used multiple factors that affect health -- from tobacco use, obesity and access to health care, to education, community safety and air quality -- to come up with a scorecard for each county in the country. The idea is for public health and community leaders to use the reports to tackle health issues in their communities.
Leelanau had the lowest rates of smoking and alcohol use in the state and the third-lowest rate of unsafe sex. It ranked second best in quality of care and education and fourth best in employment and family and social support.
The rankings were only mildly surprising to the county's top health official.
"I knew the numbers were good but not that good," said Bill Crawford, director of the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department.
Grand Traverse also fared well, ranking third in education and fourth in diet and exercise. But that doesn't mean the county should be complacent, warned Fred Keeslar, Grand Traverse County Health Department director. It's a message he planned to bring to area lawmakers in Lansing on Wednesday.
East Bay supervisor to run against Schmidt
TRAVERSE CITY -- Glen Lile wants voters to compare his record against that of state Rep. Wayne Schmidt when they weigh in at the August Republican primary.
Lile, East Bay Township's supervisor, said Thursday he's filed to run for the 104th state House district that includes Grand Traverse and Kalkaska counties. He'll face Schmidt, a former county commissioner and first-term legislator from Traverse City.
"Families are losing their jobs and homes," Lile said. "Last year Michigan lost 288,000 jobs. We can't keep doing things the same way, sending the same people to Lansing. What has Wayne Schmidt done? Nothing." Schmidt said he's done plenty in his first 14 months in office. He said he's held the line on taxes and served on a task force that put out a jobs creation plan.
"I think I've done an excellent job," Schmidt said. "I've gotten a lot of support and on a variety of issues." Lile, 58, said he's not a career politician and would like to break the template for selecting local Republican candidates for state office. Typically, Grand Traverse County commissioners line up to take turns.
KALKASKA
Kalkaska shoe tree trimmed but still alive
KALKASKA -- Sara Crosby doesn't know why passersby throw shoes into the branches of a large tree near her house on U.S. 131 north of Kalkaska, but they've been doing it for years.
The famous -- or infamous, take your pick -- shoe-draped tree recently was cut back almost to the trunk on one side, but might not be felled, as some feared. State highway workers trimmed the tree significantly in recent weeks as a safety precaution, officials said.
For about a decade, Crosby watched motorists screech to a halt on the busy and fast-moving highway, pull into her driveway, jump out of their vehicles and stand in wonderment before the tree. They take photographs and many end up tossing a pair of sneakers, work boots and even stiletto pumps into the tree, Crosby said.
A pair of fishing waders dangled from the branches for a while, too.
"Sometimes people come up the drive and ask about it," she said. "I'd love to put a lemonade stand out there. I'd make a fortune." Theories abound as to why the shoe tree exists and how it got started: a memorial to a local student killed in a traffic crash; an oil field worker tradition to avoid taking dirty boots home to the chagrin of wives; a domestic argument in which a husband threw his wife's shoes into the tree to prevent her leaving; or simply a way to be "closer to heaven," Crosby said.
All guesswork aside, there's no definitive answer, just conjecture.
The tree is on Crosby's property but within the state's easement along U.S. 131.
She doesn't mind the strange phenomenon, but acknowledges safety concerns for those who stop to admire or add to the shoe cascade.
