Focus West Michigan
Focus West Michigan for 8-5-24
[music] Today on Focus West Michigan, Michigan residents can now transfer vehicle titles online. MDOT wants your feedback on their five-year transportation program. The one-day ride across Michigan is right around the corner and more state and West Michigan news. For WGVU, I'm Joe Bilecki. Today is Monday, August 5, 2024. [music] Focus West Michigan is brought to you by listeners like you to support the show and everything we do here. Visit WGVUNews.org and click the donate button. Michigan residents can now transfer vehicle titles online instead of having to go into a Secretary of State office. WGVU's Dean Morrison reports. The Michigan Secretary of State's office is working to find options for residents to transact business without having to come into a branch in person. The latest online option is transferring vehicle titles with the following criteria. Both buyer and seller must have a valid Michigan driver's license or state ID and have a current paper vehicle title. The vehicle must be a car, minivan, SUV, pickup, van, or motorcycle and cannot be financed by the buyer. Other important documentation is required, such as a title with buyer and seller signatures, an odometer disclosure, and loan provider statements. Proof of a valid no-fault insurance policy is also required to register a vehicle in Michigan. The fees still apply and online title transfers can take up to three business days to approve. All documents and more information can be found on the Michigan Secretary of State website. I'm Dee Morrison. The Michigan Department of Transportation is inviting the public to give feedback on their five-year transportation program, which was posted online on Thursday. WGVU's David Limbaugh has more on the program and some of the projects coming to West Michigan. The five-year transportation program, or 5YTP, contains a list of planned projects for the Michigan Department of Transportation Highway Program, which includes state-maintained roads, bridges, and facilities, as well as information on public transportation, rail, and aeronautics programs. An online interactive map shows numerous West Michigan road projects over the next five years, including improvements to I-96 between Fruitport and Muskegon, a stretch of 28th Street between Wyoming and Kentwood, and continued work on US-131 between Belmont and Comstock Park. Highlights of this year's 5YTP include 10.6 billion in highway projects, focused on repairing and rebuilding MDOT roads and bridges, 3.6 billion for the public transportation program, including local and intercity buses and freight and passenger railways, and $1 billion for aeronautics focusing on federal, state, and local aviation programs. The 5YTP is required to be delivered to the Michigan Legislature by March 1st, 2025, and aids in the development of the annual state budget. The public can comment on the 5YTP from now until September 3rd of this year. You can find the plan at michigan.gov/m.5-year program. I'm David Limbaugh. More than $100 million will go to children in Michigan in summer food assistance benefits. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services made that announcement today, and WGVU's Jennifer Moss has more. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, or MDHHS, is providing more than $118 million in food benefits to more than 980,000 students through its new Michigan Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer or EBT program. Elizabeth Hurtel, MDHHS Director, says, "We want to ensure children are able to access healthy food this summer while school is out." She adds, "Elegible families are receiving $120 per child through this program to bolster their grocery buying budgets." A news release has created by the U.S. Congress this summer EBT program is based on similar efforts used during the coronavirus pandemic to address food insecurity for students. MDHHS and the Michigan Department of Education are working together to get these benefits to families across the state. For more information, you can visit the summer EBT page on the MDHHS website at michigan.gov/mdhhs. I'm Jennifer Moss. Charges are pending against a woman who allegedly slipped out of handcuffs, stole a patrol car, and led police on H.A.S.W.G.V.U.'s Demorison reports. Michigan State Police Troopers from the Grand Rapids Post responded to a report of domestic violence Saturday about 8.30 in the evening. Officials say, as a trooper arrested a woman, she began struggling and bit the trooper. While police spoke to others at the scene, the woman slipped out of her handcuffs and stole a patrol vehicle. As other police units pursued her, the woman eventually crashed the vehicle and was taken into custody to await multiple charges. One trooper was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. I'm D. Morrison. A team of scientists from Seeds of Success is traveling across the state this summer. It is part of a larger project to restore natural habitats. The federal program collects and saves native plant seeds to restore areas ravaged by invasive species or extreme weather events. It's been around since 2001 but didn't reach Michigan until this year. Meredith Holm is a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She says native flora are foundational to a healthy ecosystem. So in order for us to have clean air, clean water, flood storage, you know, pollinators that pollinate our crop and flowering plants, we need the seeds and the appropriate seeds to put in the right place at the right time. Native plant restoration is needed in rural and urban areas across the state. The team will be collecting seeds until November. The coalition behind Michigan's new banked sick leave law rolled out a new proposal on Friday. They want to create a state managed program to allow employees up to 15 weeks of time off for personal or family situations. We have more from Rick Pluto. The situations would include recovering from an illness, caring for a sick or dying family member or time off after giving birth. The plan would be administered by the state and funded by employer and employee contributions. Democratic state Senator Erica Geis says this would be different from the new law that allows employees to bank up to 72 hours of paid sick leave. This is for that long term need where the ability to take a few days off doesn't cut it. The idea is modeled after programs in 13 other states. Geis says she hopes the legislature will schedule hearings following its summer recess. I'm Rick Pluto. Michigan Supreme Court sided with state regulators last week in a case against industrial farms. In 2020, the state updated its wastewater permit for these farms, saying tighter regulations were needed to protect water quality. But the Michigan Farm Bureau sued arguing state regulators overstepped their legal authority. Katie Garvey is an attorney. She says the decision is a big deal. What it means for everyday Michigander is that hopefully there will be improvements in permits, which will hopefully lead to improvements in water quality. In a written statement, the Farm Bureau disagreed with the decision and says these kinds of updates should be approved by lawmakers. Your Tuesday edition of the Shelley Irwin Show, we put the spotlight on the crisis of foster care. Plus, Circle Theatre presenting its next lineup of actors on stage, a raisin in the sun, that and more. That's tomorrow on the Shelley Irwin Show from 9 to 10. The one day ride across Michigan is an annual event that supports Breakthrough T1D for diabetes research. WGVU's Shelley Irwin spoke to Tom Shydell about this important ride. Oh Graham, it's that one day ride across Michigan right around the corner, an annual event that supports Breakthrough T1D for diabetes research. Tom Shydell in the house again, probably for the 14th time we've talked about this topic. That sounds about right. Good morning, Shelley. Good morning, Tom. When's the last time you've been on your cycle? Oh gosh, last Thursday, we were gone for the weekend, so I didn't get a chance to get out over this weekend. But yeah, I'm out two or three times a week on the bicycle training for our Breakthrough T1D ride, which this year we're going to be going to Coeur d'Alene Idaho to do a ride. So that's going to be fun, new place. Thank you, but that's a little different than riding across the state of Michigan. Exactly, so yeah, so we got involved at that time, it was called the General Diabetes Research Foundation when our oldest son, Jake, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was six years old, and he just turned 33, so we've been doing this kind of stuff for a very long time. But one of the things we do to help support the mission of Breakthrough T1D, which is to find a cure for type 1 diabetes, is we do a lot of fundraising, and part of that fundraising is being part of the cycling team out of West Michigan. And so we go all over the country doing different rides, doing charity rides, people can donate to the rides, and then, for as you said, 14 years ago, a bunch of us started running the one day ride across Michigan. It had been run by the League of Michigan bicyclists. They got out of doing rides and went in more into advocacy, and so we picked up the ride and made it a fundraiser for Breakthrough T1D. And so the ODRAM starts from the double J ranch up in Rothbury. If you desire, you can make a right turn out of the ranch and head over to Lake Michigan, and then ride all the way across the center of the state to Bay City, State Park, and dip your wheel in Lake Huron, and so it is a true lake-to-lake ride. Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, about 145 to 153 miles, depending on which route you take, and it takes all day. Yeah, sure, as it should, and it's not a race. It is not a race. There are people who race who try to set PRs and things, but it is not an organized race. It's basically, you start when you want to start. Most people start, I will say, between 6 a.m. and about 7.38 a.m. It's pretty hard to get finished during the daylight if you don't start by 8 o'clock in the morning. And then the fast people are done, probably by about 3 in the afternoon, then usually by 8 p.m. everybody is in. Yes, this is this Saturday. This is this Saturday, yeah. As of last night, we had 207 people registered for the ride, which is pretty good. We were pre-COVID, like a lot of events like this. Pre-COVID, we were running about 350, 400 riders. And like a lot of events when COVID happened, numbers really dropped off. But it's been building back up ever since. So this will be one of our-- well, depending on how many people registered this week, because we always get a large number who registered a week of. Tomorrow, online registration closes tomorrow, but you can still register on site at the Double J Ranch, either Friday evening from 3 to 8, or Saturday morning, from 5.30 to 8 a.m. And this is a point-to-point. So we prepared for someone to bring me back. Right, so one of the things with being a lot of rides around here that people are familiar with, the Holland 100, the 100 grand rides like that, they're basically loops. And so you can do like a 25-mile loop, a 50 or 100, usually is what they have. With this being a point-to-point, you have to figure out, how am I getting to the start line, and then how am I getting back from the finish line? So some people will have their own support. They'll have their own SAG vehicle. A bunch of people will get together, and somebody's husband or wife will drive a SAG vehicle for them. But for those people who don't have that, we do offer bus transportation. So we'll have a bus on Friday afternoon that will leave Bay City State Park at 4 o'clock, and it will bring riders from Bay City and their bicycles to the Double J Ranch. And so those folks basically are riding back to their car on Saturday. And then on Saturday, once the ride is finished, we'll have another bus that will bring riders and bicyclists back to the Double J Ranch. So they'll ride from their car to Bay City, and then the bus will bring them back to their car after 8 o'clock at night. Long day, but that's what's fun is preparing for that long day. And of course, you'll have us on roadways, so meander safely. Yeah, the route that we take, again, if you're familiar with the central part of Michigan, US-20 cuts all the way across the state, we're about 5 to 10 miles south of US-20. So we're going through, we go across Hardy Dam, we go through Fremont, we go through Morley, lunches at Blanchard, we go through Gordonville. So these are smaller towns, good roads, but you don't have the same amount of traffic. And that's very important that we want to make sure that the ride is as safe as we can make it. We're in touch with the local sheriff's department, so they know that we're coming through. And we even have gone so far as, like, for the SAG route. So for people that are providing SAG for individual riders, they have a separate route, so they're not even following along with the riders, they're on a separate route, and then there are places that they can come down and meet their riders. And again, that's just another way to keep as much traffic off those roads as we can. Lastly, Tom, how are we doing against the fight against juvenile diabetes? It is amazing some of the things that are going to be there. There is a clinical trial going on right now for an implantable device that works for, I think the last they said was, like, for a year or two. And for the people who have been using this, they don't have to take insulin, they don't have to check their blood sugar. I mean, it basically is an artificial pancreas, and that's very, very exciting. And a lot of that is because of the work that Breakthrough T1D has done over the years, not only fundraising, you know, hundreds of million dollars every year, but then also going to Congress and getting a special diabetes funding, which is more hundreds of billions of dollars. And that funding is what is going to enable people like my son, Jake, to someday be insulin independent and free of type 1 diabetes. Your way to help is to raise funds and participate in the one day ride across Michigan. Is the call out details one more time, please, Tom? Yes, so it is the one day ride across Michigan. It takes place this Saturday, August 10th. We go from the double J Ranch in Rothbury all the way to Bay City State Park. And if you want more information, the best way to do is to go to oodram.com. That's O-D-R-A-M dot com. Lake to Lake. It's an adventure for a good cause. Tom Shydell, Communications Consultant, the Shydell Group. Thank you. Thanks. This has been Focus West Michigan from WGVU for Monday, August 5, 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. [Music]