Focus West Michigan
Focus West Michigan 7-10-24
Today on Focus West Michigan, Kent County is launching a new domestic violence court, a Grand Haven bus service is building a new operation center, the latest edition of our Crane's Grand Rapids business brief, and more state and West Michigan news. For WGVU, I'm Joe Bilecki. Today is Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Focus West Michigan is brought to you by listeners like you. To support this show and everything we do, visit wgvunews.org and click the donate button. Kent County leaders are launching a new specialty court to deal with the rising number of domestic violence cases. WGVU's De Morrison reports. In response to what they call the alarming increase in the number and severity of domestic violence cases in recent years, Kent County leaders have created a domestic violence specialty court. Better than just being a punishment, if you will, this court model really does seek to identify the root cause of violent behavior and treat the root cause. Sherry Williams is the executive director of the Domestic Violence Action Network, which coordinates the many community groups involved in the program. The idea is to better support victims while holding offenders accountable in a different way than traditional courts. Judge Amanda Sturkenberg is one of two dedicated to overseeing the cases. We will be utilizing a 52 week better intervention program, which empirical evidence shows is the most effective program for long-term change for defendants. It includes more frequent meetings with caseworkers and more face-to-face time with judges, counseling, and screening for additional help that may be needed. Kent County Commission chair Stan Stach says the innovative approach of specialty courts is worth the investment of county grant money. While these courts take more time and energy and money to get going, in the long run the community, the victims, and even the perpetrators are far better served. More information is available at stopkantviolence.org. I'm Dee Morrison. A Grand Haven area bus service is receiving a major grant to build a new operation center. WGBU's David Limbaugh has the details. Harbor Transit Multimodal Transportation System is receiving over $16 million dollars from the federal government. Harbor Transit serves Grand Haven, Grand Haven Township, Spring Lake, Spring Lake Township, and Ferrisburg, and will use the grant to design and construct a new operation center as it transitions into a zero emissions fleet. According to Harbor Transit's website, two parcels of land in Grand Haven Township have already been purchased for the new operation center. Upgrades to the system will feature fueling and charging equipment, vehicle maintenance infrastructure, and electric vans and charging stations. It will also accommodate administration and workforce training facilities for regional transit providers. According to a release from the Office of U.S. Representative Hilary Scoulton, the grant is part of the Federal Transit Administration's bus and bus facilities grant program, which announced nearly $1.5 billion in funding for 117 projects across the country. I'm David Limbaugh. The second adopt a highway event of the year will take place this weekend during this annual cleanup. Thousands upon thousands of bags of garbage are collected. WGVU's Jennifer Moss has more. Starting Saturday, motorists should be on the lookout. Adopt a highway volunteers will be fanning out across the state picking up litter. A news release from the Michigan Department of Transportation, or MDOT, says participants in the program will clean highway road sides from July 13 to 21 during the second of three scheduled pickups this year. The adopt a highway program began in Michigan in 1990 and has grown to involve more than 2,900 groups cleaning more than 6,000 miles of highway. Every year volunteers regularly collect more than 60,000 bags of trash. Those volunteers include members of civic groups, businesses, and families. Crew members have to be at least 12 years old and each group must include at least three people. Groups are asked to adopt a section of highway for at least two years. Adopt a highway signs bearing group names are posted along the stretches of adopted highway. The year's final adopt a highway pickup is scheduled for this fall, and that will run from September 21 through the 29th. I'm Jennifer Moss. A West Michigan dog who didn't make it as a service animal just got a new career as a Secret Service agent. WGVU's Dean Morrison reports. Trainers at Whalen-based Paws with a Cause try to help a yellow lab named Mozart become an assistant's dog for a person with disabilities, but he wasn't a good fit. The same way humans have different personalities and require different jobs, dogs are the exact same way. Communications manager Sydney Baxter says some puppies can't become service dogs due to health issues such as hip dysplasia or personality traits like being easily distracted and a multitude of other reasons. The cost of breed, train, and raise that dog is about $35,000, so yeah, it is a pretty big investment in the dog. Some become facilities dogs at hospitals or schools. Paws now has partnered with Jordan Detection K9, a training company that re-certifies dogs for police work. These dogs are high energy, their breed wants to work, they want to work with people, and so we found an alternative career for Mozart. He eventually found a new career as an electronic detection dog with a Sheriff's Office in Kentucky. Then just last month he earned a big promotion as the first Paws dog to be sworn in to the United States Secret Service. Mozart definitely found his calling. Baxter says of the Paws puppies that don't work out as assistance dogs, they've been able to place 86% in new careers. I'm Dee Morrison. A 20-year-old man from Muskegon has died after he was shot by police early Wednesday morning. WGVU's David Limba has the details. Officers with the Muskegon Police Department responded to the 1900 block of Houghton Street around 4 a.m. Wednesday. Here they found a 20-year-old man armed with a knife displaying erratic behavior. According to a statement from the Muskegon Police Department, the man was not compliant with officers who were attempting to de-escalate the situation. Still armed, the subject fled to a neighboring residence and attacked a female bystander with the knife. Officers then opened fire on the subject, who died at the scene as a result of his injuries. The female who was attacked sustained multiple injuries and was transported to a nearby hospital. She is expected to survive. Over department policy, the involved officers have been placed on administrative leave while the Michigan State Police investigate. I'm David Limba. Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the Homeowners Energy Policy Act on Monday. It will nullify Homeowner Association bans on solar panels and some other energy-saving improvements. This was good news for Portage resident Rick Fryman. Four years ago, he planned to install panels on his roof but was denied by his HOA. Fryman reached out to local lawmakers seeking a change. He says going solar would reduce his electricity bill, that's not the only reason why he wants to pursue clean energy. I do have another motive and that is just the ethical idea of protecting the environment from putting more carbon dioxide in the air. Fryman says he'll move forward with his solar project. His HOA, the Moors of Portage Association, did not respond to a request for comment. The law does provide for some restrictions on panels, placement and appearance. State funding for Michigan households to help cover the cost of utility bills has run out for the current fiscal year that's according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The state emergency relief program is designed to assist families who need support covering essential expenses like electricity and heating bills. Nicole Denson Sobaka is a policy director at the state health department. She says Michigan has seen an increase in applications since federal pandemic relief funds have run out. So now we're the sole source of funding for crisis assistance with the exception of community action agencies. Funding for the state emergency relief program was reduced by $2 million this year compared to the 2023 fiscal year. Applications for the assistant program will reopen on October 1. A new season of mutually inclusive is right around the corner. Join WGVU PBS hosts Kylie Ambu and Jennifer Moss this fall, as they partner with West Michiganders to highlight our diverse communities and tackle some of the biggest issues facing West Michigan today. From the housing crisis to race relations, dive into diverse cultures, experience new narratives and gain fresh perspectives, only on mutually inclusive stories that connect us. This afternoon in our Crane's Grand Rapids Business Brief, WGVU's Patrick Center talks with Crane's Grand Rapids Business senior writer Mark Sanchez about Trinity Health opening at $6.5 million Rockford Energy Center, Michigan's public universities raising tuition and office furniture makers predicting sales growth. But first, are we beginning to see signs of an uptick in affordable housing construction across the state? We need more housing in this state, certainly here in Kent County, West Michigan, Kent Ottawa County's Muskegon County, and statewide the Michigan State Housing Development Authority estimates there's a shortage of about 140,000 housing units that's compared to demand and need. That's the most recent figures from that state agency. And this story comes to us from our colleagues in Detroit, Nick Madison, Crane's Detroit Business. And basically there is some data that the Home Builders Association of Michigan put out in the field last week that said in the first half of 2024, there were nearly 6,000 single family housing permits pulled by Home Builders in the state. That's an increase of more than 21% from the same period the year before. So as you say, beginning to see, perhaps there are some early signs that even with the interest rates still remaining high, your Home Builders are really beginning to respond to this issue of we need more housing in Michigan. And not just any housing, we need housing obviously people can afford affordable housing is the buzzword right now, because with this housing shortage, that's forced housing prices up on the last few years. So it's a real issue. And now here's a little bit of data that suggests, as you say, beginning to see that this is beginning to get addressed and over the next couple of years, we'll see how this is this a trend? Is it emerging? Is it a trend that's going to continue of how much new housing stock is built in the state? Inability will be the key in all of this over time as you talk about projections and trends. Another trend that we're seeing in that is higher costs associated with public universities and of course tuition being the primary suspect. Yeah, you know, getting the college education is an expensive proposition in America these days. And it is that time of year for tuition increases at public universities in the state and we've seen these boards at the universities acting within the last few weeks. It's, you know, that new fiscal year is starting. And so they make those adjustments based on what they're doing with their costs and bottom line at Michigan State, there's a flat increase of about $235 per semester or $70 per year in tuition for a full-time undergraduate student. That equates to about a 2.7% tuition increase for in-state undergraduate students at the University of Michigan. You're looking at about a 2.9% tuition increase for in-state undergraduate students and 4.9% for out-of-state undergraduate students. Grand Valley State University here in town, boy, looking at about a 3.5% tuition and fee increase in Western Michigan, similar 4.5% tuition increase for residents in first-year undergraduate students. As I say, is that time of year? Your universities, just like anybody else in the economy, are feeling higher costs and cost increases, so they need to adjust their rates accordingly. Does that floor funding that comes from the state has that increased over time? You know, a lot of times, quite often, it's always that vantage point when more folks sit there, folks who say, you know, yes, we're putting more money into higher education. In real dollars, yes, but what your colleges will say is that it doesn't keep up with these cost increases, you know. Academics don't work free, and they expect to be paid well, too. So you're seeing this, you're also seeing some declining enrollment and rising salaries of goods and services, continued need for investments in campuses, especially for safety and mental health concerns, and your colleges, your public universities, will say what the state's been putting into the college aid fund has not been keeping up with these cost increases. We're talking with Crane's Grand Rapids business senior writer Mark Sanchez. Furniture makers are predicting sales growth as what you're calling, or maybe somebody in the story is calling, a steady march back to the office. That was from the executives, they still call it from a Miller, but Miller Knoll and Steelcase recently reported their latest quarterly sales. And they were down a little bit to the industries a little soft right now, but increasingly, they're seeing demand pick up Herman Miller or Miller Knoll, I keep making that mistake, but they're saying the fiscal year that just started for Miller Knoll should be above what they reported in 2024, and for 2024 they reported about a 6.9%, or may I'm getting my numbers messed up there, but they reported a little lower sales. And for the new fiscal year that just started for Miller Knoll, there's kind of a wide guidance they offered, but they could see some growth pick up. The good part in their quarterly report here last month was they saw their orders increase their backlog orders, increase 6.9%. Their order rate for future sales, that grew 12.4% from the previous quarter. So there's some optimism there, and of course, someone Miller reported or Miller Knoll reported just about $890 million in sales for the fourth quarter. And that was a 7.1% decline, and I'd say the fourth quarter for the fiscal year of 2024, in sales for the full year, they were down about 11% for Miller Knoll. Still case, a little better, only about a 3.2% decline in the most recent quarter. So they're doing a little better. But still cases orders in the quarter grew 8%, globally 10% in America. So that's, again, from both of these companies, it's an indication that demand is picking up, that there's an uptick. And all this, of course, is occurring as there's this ongoing, I don't know, debates the proper word about return to office. And people wanting to work from home, a lot of folks liked working from home in the pandemic and got used to it, but now you're seeing corporate America trying to bring people back to the office and kind of changing their offices to accommodate these hybrid work styles. And what the CEOs, when they were talking to analysts a week or so ago in their conference calls, after reporting the results, was saying they're seeing more corporations adopting this hybrid work schedule and also wanting employees to spend more time in the office instead of two days a week, going to three or four days a week instead of three days a week, four or five days a week. But at the same time, having some kind of hybrid flexibility in their work styles. Curious to get your perspective on this, because we are talking about that hybrid, the remote and then working on site, what then does the hybrid workspace look like? Are we seeing a reinvention of the office? Yeah, and you've seen it for a number of years, the pandemic that hit us four years ago to simply accelerate this trend. And it's called hoteling space where workers, you don't have a permanent workspace, a permanent cube or a permanent desk. On those days, you're going into the office, you book, I'll work at this space that day. So you're seeing more of these open concepts with spaces there for privacy when you have to have that private conversation or meeting one on one or meeting in a group that needs privacy. But you've seen this actually for many years is accommodating this home work balance. But now when the world changed here in 2020, and as we came out of that, the pandemic, this trend really accelerated in the way offices are being designed. And corporations with large workforces are now moving to accommodate this trend a little bit more while still wanting people to come back to the office more before I let you go. This would not be a cranes business brief segment without health care, Trinity health that opened a new six and a half million dollar emergency center in northern Kent County. Yeah, it's called Trinity Health, the emergency center, Rockford. It's on Northland Drive, just north of seven mile road open this week. It's a 24 hour ER that yes, run by health systems, but not part of a hospital. And this is a bit of a trend you're seeing in health care in America. These days where hospitals, health systems are opening these EIRs that are not part of a hospital, and you can go in for a lot of different situations, including if you're having chest pains or symptoms of a stroke, they can assess, evaluate, perhaps stabilize your condition. And then if you need transporting to the big hospital downtown, they'll have you transported there. You've seen this one that Trinity health opened this week there near Rockford. There's another one that also opened it by emergency care specialist PC. It's called the right care clinic. It's on East Belt Line Avenue, emergency care specialist. This is a practice of the emergency medicine doctors and they've opened their own kind of ER clinic for lack of a better term and McLaren health is building a new 40 million dollar outpatient campus in Grand Ledge, Western Lansing. It's going to include a emergency department that again is not attached in part of a hospital. The idea is to have something that's a little higher level of care than what you can get at an urgent care center. Obviously, if it's traumatic injury or traumatic serious situation with a heart attack, they're going to send you to the hospital downtown real fast. But for a lot of situations where people are going to a hospital emergency room, these new type of facilities can handle it very well. It's an emerging trend in health care, we're not beginning to see it here in the Grand Rapids market and the new Trinity health emergency center, Rockford, is open for business as well as the right clinic over on the Belt Line. Crane's Grand Rapids business, senior writer Mark Sanchez, thank you so much. Thank you, Patrick. This has been Focus West Michigan from WGVU for Wednesday, July 10, 2024. I'm Joe Bilecki. Our audio operations manager is Rick Bierling and our news and public affairs director is Patrick Center. We'll be back with more news and events in West Michigan tomorrow, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. Bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)