Area News
Saturday, September 14, 2013 • Daily News
Great Lakes inspires rare bipartisanship
Briefly From staff and wire reports
Fashion, dinner to benefit Kelly’s Place
By John Flesher
AP environmental writer
ROCKFORD — A fashion show and dinner will raise money for Kelly’s Place, the CanDid House, a residential facility for younger adults with physical disabilities in Rockford. The fashion show will be 5 p.m. Wednesday at Bow Dacious Designs in downtown Rockford. Munchies will be provided by The Corner Bar. Tickets are $10. The dinner will be 5 to 8 p.m. Sept. 22 at Beacon Hill at Eastgate in Grand Rapids. Tickets $65 per person or $350 for a table of six and are available at icanidid.com or by calling (616) 447-7523.
DETROIT — A northern Michigan man’s bid to establish parental rights to a 2-year-old boy was shot down by the state appeals court in a decision that rested on the marital status of the mother when the child was born. It’s another case where a man has no automatic right to paternity in Michigan if a child is born to a woman while she’s married to another man. The law has changed since John Sprenger filed a lawsuit in 2011, but the new version hasn’t helped him, either. Sprenger, 30, of Traverse City claims he’s the biological father of a boy born in 2011. He and Emily Bickle, 33, were engaged, but the engagement ended and Bickle remarried her former husband before the child was born. Emily and Adam Bickle have the advantage under law unless they agreed to let Sprenger intervene and try to establish fatherhood — “even if blood test results revealed a 99.99 percent probability that he is the biological father,” Gleicher and Judge Amy Ronayne Krause said. In a separate concurring opinion, Gleicher said the boy already has a father, Adam Bickle. “When married parents choose not to explore the paternity of a child born during a marriage, a putative father has no right to meddle with their decision,” she wrote. Gleicher said it would be “nothing short of chilling” to try to separate the child from the Bickles. In dissent, Boonstra said Sprenger deserves a chance to establish he’s the father.
State getting federal conservation funds LANSING — Michigan is getting more than $1 million in federal funding for conservation and outdoor recreation projects. The announcement was made Friday by U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. The money is from the Land and Water Conservation Fund at the Interior Department and goes to the state Department of Natural Resources. The senators say the funding may be used for matching grants for recreation planning, acquisition and facility development for state and local projects.
File photo
Participants stop cycling to enjoy a doughut during a previous Le Tour de Donut.
Le Tour de Donut is returning to Greenville n 30-mile event is set to take place next Saturday By Cory Smith
Daily News staff writer
GREENVILLE — What goes hand-inhand with cycling several hours over a distance of 30 miles? Doughnuts, of course! At least that’s the case for the fifth annual Le Tour de Donut bicycle race in Greenville next Saturday, Sept. 21. According to event organizer Steve Klackle, this year’s race will feature upward of 500 cyclists from around the state and beyond who will take to the 30-mile course which weaves between paved roads and bike trails throughout Greenville. “This is a chance to highlight the Greenville area, that’s the reason we do it,” Klackle said. “We’re hoping to break the record for doughnuts eaten by one rider, which currently stands at 18.” The event features two races, a road race and mountain bike race, which was new as of last year. “We’re hoping for about 100 riders in the mountain bike race,” Klackle said. “It’s a great race that makes use of both of our mountain bike trails in Greenville and utilizes the Fred Meijer Flat River Trail as well.” During the two rest stops spread evenly throughout the road race, riders can consume as many doughnuts as they wish,
with each pastry taking three minutes off of their total time. “Ten miles isn’t too bad of a stretch to ride before taking a break,” Klackle said. “We do attract some pretty competitive cyclists, but most of the riders are recreational.” Klackle said he expects an influx of riders to sign up during the final week before the race, a trend that has occurred every year. He added that the number of people to participate often depends on the weather. New to this year’s event will be the use of “chip timing” to provide more accurate results as riders cross the finish line. “We continue to try to make improvements,” Klackle said. “There are a number of races throughout the summer in Michigan, and everyone likes to up the ante. You’ve got to have something new to keep people coming to your event.” Klackle encouraged those who wish to participate to bring family and friends as Klackle Orchards will be open all day for visitors to enjoy. “We’re seeing more and more people bring guests to enjoy a day at the orchard,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun.” Registration is available online at www. snapregistration.com/110056. The registration entry fee is $30, which includes a T-shirt, breakfast and coupon to enter the orchard for the day. csmith@staffordgroup.com (616) 548-8277
Man arraigned in shooting of trooper By The Associated Press
LUDINGTON — A 19-year-old Northern Michigan man has been arraigned on a homicide charge in the slaying of a state police trooper shot to death during a traffic stop. The Ludington Daily News reports that Eric Knysz was arraigned Friday from the Mason County Jail. He also is charged with using a gun during a felony, car theft and being a
habitual offender. Trooper Paul Butterfield was shot in the head Monday in Sherman Township, about 80 miles north of Grand Rapids. Knysz, of Lake County, was shot by another trooper during his arrest. He was appointed a public defender and ordered held with-
out bond. Twenty-year-old Sarah Knysz is charged with helping her husband try to escape. Both face Sept. 25 preliminary hearings. Butterfield’s funeral service is scheduled to take place today at Manistee High School.
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LANSING — All 83 Michigan counties could allow offroad recreation vehicles on road shoulders under legislation nearing final approval in the Legislature. Current law lets eight counties in the Lower Peninsula and every county in Upper Peninsula authorize the vehicles on shoulders. Measures approved 103-5 and 101-7 by the House Thursday would allow the vehicles on more roads if municipalities pass an ordinance. Local governments could ask the state transportation department for permission to allow offroad vehicles on highway shoulders. Another bill approved 80-28 would expand off-road vehicle uses not requiring a license. Backers say the legislation would boost tourism and complain the off-road vehicle trail system is fragmented and riders should have freedom to travel limited distances. Critics have safety concerns. The bills are expected to reach Gov. Rick Snyder soon.
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TRAVERSE CITY — Nowhere has the fervor to cut government down to size been more dramatically on display than in the industrial Midwest. Republicans have seized control of statehouses across the traditional battleground region, where they’ve slashed budgets with a vengeance. Their counterparts in Congress have waged war with Democrats over federal spending, led by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, architect of blueprints that renounce “earmarks” for local projects and even target Social Security. But there’s a 94,000-squaremile exception to the Republicans’ crusade to starve the federal beast: the Great Lakes. For all their indignation about government overreach, Republicans in the eight-state region are matching Democrats’ enthusiasm for an array of federal programs benefiting the inland seas, from dredging harbors to controlling invasive predators like the fish-killing sea lamprey. When a House subcommittee this summer tried to cut 80 percent of President Barack Obama’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which has pumped $1.3 billion into 1,700 grants for cleanups and research since 2010, alarmed Republican freshman David Joyce of Ohio quickly weighed in to get most of next year’s money restored. A bipartisan parade from neighboring states is now backing his push to get the rest of the money or even increase it. Where the Great Lakes are
concerned, party politics really does stop at the water’s edge. It’s a marriage of convenience, explained partly by the lakes’ equal importance to the economy and the environment. They supply the drinking needs of more than 30 million people, support 1.5 million jobs and generate $62 billion in wages annually. They’re also home to more than 3,500 plant and animal species. More fundamentally, the vast lakes are cultural icons, inspiring poetry such as Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” and countless memories of fishing with grandpa or camping on the beach. “There’s just something about the Great Lakes that’s part of our DNA, I think,” said Rep. Candice Miller, a Republican from suburban Detroit. “It’s hard to explain. It’s about our way of life.” In Congress, vote-rich states such as Illinois and Ohio, along with neighboring Pennsylvania and New York, pack considerable punch when they stick together. Other clean-water programs lacking such an impassioned constituency haven’t fared as well. Federal funds that provide loans for drinking water and sewage treatment improvements also were cut 80 percent. No one has come to their rescue. “The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is among the most fiercely defended programs in the country,” said Andy Buchsbaum, regional director of the National Wildlife Federation.
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