Behind the Headlines

I found out last night through the vine of grapes that is Monroe County – one of the guys we featured in the Homeless Warming Center story received a steady job shortly after the story ran.

Earl, the guy who had welded for more than 30 years but lost his job late last year, is reportedly now making a hefty hourly wage doing what he does best. I was told it was related to our story, so I’m not just basking in the glow on pure speculation. Also, one of the other guys – unclear at this time who, but I’m guessing Al, got some work too. Not sure if it’s ongoing or one time only.

I won’t get all preachy about it, but it’s amazing when something like this can come together. Let me explain a little more. it’s sometimes difficult to do these stories, not because the people we talk to have had hard lives or are basically good but surrounded by an orbit of circumstances they find difficult to fight their way out of. Those are emotional things to hear – like Rose talking about how she has not seen her kids in two years and how it hits her everyday – and they stick with you. But trying to put together a story without exploiting a source or feeling like we’re using them in some way is something I always keep in mind. People are sometimes so trusting with their stories and their feelings and I would hate to abuse that or become the kind of reporter who is in it for the quotes and byline. So, when something like this comes out of the work we do, it’s rather nice and validating.

Also, as Kim Brent the photographer on the project pointed out – what does it say about our community that someone read the article or watched the slide show and decided to act on what he/she saw?

Ugg – I guess that was kind of preachy afterall.

As I’m working on a story about Girl Scout cookies, I can overhear the Chief of the Toledo Police’s voice wavering with emotion in the background, talking about the fallen police officer originally from Monroe County. It really puts it in interesting conjunction – to state it lamely.

Doing the cookie story, I’ve been running through my memories of being a Brownie and marching in a parade as such. I was dressed, along with my troupe, as a cookie – a Samoa to be exact. The Police Chief just described Keith Dressel as a cross between Grizzly Adams and Milton Berle. The people who knew him are running through their own memories, probably not really involving cookies.

It’s difficult to focus on a story that seemingly means a lot less than another one at the present. Girl Scout cookies at a time like this? But it brings into focus the complexity of being human as well as the complexity of newspapers. Girl Scout cookies, and other things like it, are innocent enough to be crucial. And as we try to continue to nurture our newspaper into a living, breathing thing it continues to be part of the whole story.

Or at least, that’s what I’m going with for now. What do you think?

By Adam Bennett adam@monroenews.com

There are times for every reporter that genuinely memorable moments happen. Then there are the times that make you want to bury your head in the sand.

I had one of those moments today.

While on assignment at Munson Park, I ran across a Monroe man that was flying a kite in the winter wind that swirled around the park’s large sled hill. He pulled and jerked the kite’s strings to make it artfully chase and dodge through the air.

What a sight.
I thought he would have a great perspective among the throngs of kids that were there to sled their day away. Just as I thought, he did.

The man told me he bought the kite in Florida and has practiced hard at perfecting the intricate motions needed to make it slash and dramatically dive.

As he maneuvered the kite around, he said he wanted me to see the antique sled he had in his truck. He handed me the reigns of the fast-moving kite and explained the “not-so-hard” instructions to keep it level.

Obviously, the directions didn’t work. I pulled the kite left to make it dodge and then pulled it right. But my pull to the right put the kite right into the ground. The kite made an unsightly nose-dive straight into the one patch of pavement that was sticking out of the snow-covered ground.

Red-faced, I apologized for crashing the kite and told him I was really more of a balloon kind of guy.

The point: Monroe County is not under an official emergency, but it’s recommended that people follow the guidelines for Lucas County’s Level 3 status.

I just talked with some of the county officials about their reaction to the snow. It was unclear at first if they were going to declare a snow emergency. Technically the only one with the authority to do so is the chairman of the county board, Bill Sisk. He said he usually confers with Emergency Management Director Mitch Yudasz to make the determination. But Mitch didn’t make it to work today, nor did his assistant director Glenda.

Sisk said he wanted to talk to the road commission to figure out what to do about the state of the county, figuring out what shape the roads are in. Ralph Lange, who reportedly stayed the night with the road crews, was the one to determine that it’s not an official state of emergency because he said they didn’t want to start getting into telling people what they can and can’t do as a result of the weather and also because they don’t have that authority anyway.

But this all goes back a few years, as many things in Monroe County do. In 2003, the board talked about establishing a system like Lucas County’s that would help designate the different threat levels to those in the county when snow storms hit.

Apparently recent attempts at making that come to life have been quelled because of city, village and state regulations.

This morning, most of our friends in northwest Ohio are under Level 3 county snow emergencies and a few are under Level 2. Level 1 means the roads are snowy, Level 2 means drive only if necessary and Level 3 means drive only in an emergency.
I’d like to see Michigan invoke something similar to Ohio’s Level 1, 2, 3 snow emergency procedure. I was living and working as a reporter in Ohio when that system was created in the 1990s. It took a few years for people to get used to the routine, but it really does take the second-guessing out of “do I travel or not?”

The complaints about not going to such a system usually focus on whether the sheriff or road commission has the authority to close down a private business … usually with fussing about “well this is the Midwest, we should be able to handle some snow.” The fact is, sometimes the snowplow crews can’t keep up with the weather conditions. There are times when even I-75 and the Ohio Turnpike cannot stay open.
That’s why Ohio law enforcement officers can and do, issue citations of “misconduct at an emergency” for motorists who are on the roads without good reason during a Level 3 snow emergency.
In the long run, the snow emergency plan proved to prevent a lot of guesswork for the workplaces. If you, as a business owner or manager, are willing to go to court and defend the need to a judge for your customers and employees to travel during a Level 3 snow emergency, then by all means go ahead and stay open. For example, as a news reporter, I carried an ID card that allowed me to be on the roads during Level 3. The news media was considered a necessary public service. On the other hand, my daughter’s day care center shut down during Level 3, and as a parent, I knew that procedure ahead of time.

Thank you to whomever is responsible for snow plowing the Lauer-Finzel public parking lot along the River Raisin! I live close enough to The Monroe Evening News office to walk to work when necessary, but who wants to do that in nasty weather like we have this morning? I decided to drive, hoping that would work out, and was very glad to have a spot to park my car for the day.

Ida, Dundee and Monroe Public Schools already have called off school for Wednesday (it’s 9:15 p.m. Tuesday).
Looks like Valentine’s Day will be a snow day in Monroe County.

I finished snow-blowing my driveway about a half-hour ago, but it looks like the blowing snow is just about done undoing my work.

It will be interesting to see what the place looks like early tomorrow morning as I try to maneuver my way down the drive to the frozen lumps the plows will leave behind.

It makes me wonder what the old-timers did back in the days when they had to make it into town to do some shopping at the dry-goods store. Or did they just hunker down for days and only venture out together with ropes linking them together so they didn’t lose their way.

I think I recall a story from my history lessons where they found a whole family that had frozen in the snow with ropes linking them together and, ironically, they were only a few steps from their door.

Of course, they found them in the spring when the minister came to inquire as to why they hadn’t been attending church.

4:48 p.m.

I just heard about a four-car accident on south 75 just outside of Monroe. Sounded like only a property damage thing but sounds like it could put a choke on travel.

3:04 p.m.

Well, I think it’s safe to say that the snow has arrived.
I just saw someone snowmobiling along the side of S. Dixie Hwy. It didn’t strike me as odd until I realized I wasn’t in the U.P.
Driving back from south county, I was behind a string of cars that was behind a snowplow/salt truck. When I spoke with Kyle Kinsey with the road commission earlier I had to ask him – what’s the etiquette for driving behind a plow, particularly if it’s slow moving?
Here’s what he had to say:
The impulse may be to pass the generally slow-moving vehicles, but resist the urge.
“Of course, it may not be against the law to pass (depending on the roadway), but I would advise against it,” he said. “Our trucks will go whatever speed the conditions allow. So if they’re going slower, you probably should be going slower.”
His advice is to stay an adequate distance back from the truck which, because of size, has limited visibility.
Also, cars following salt trucks can apparently make the salt work more effectively. Kyle said the heat generated from the tires and the traction helps it melt and take hold better – something I had never heard before.

12:42 p.m. – the powdery snow is gusting through downtown Monroe. I’m about to head to south county, so we’ll see what the conditions are like there.

According to Kyle Kinsey, one of the road crew supervisors, he regularly checks in with two sources when he’s keeping an eye on the weather: www.weather.com and WTOL, Channel 11 News.

“It’s not like I sit down and watch all of the news casts,” he said. “But over the past eight years I have noticed that the emailed forecast I get from Channel 11 tends to be the most accurate.”

He said he used to have five or six forecasts emailed to him but found it was not necessary.

“I monitor it pretty constantly, but you never know what the weather is going to do,” he said.

11:32 a.m.

Supposedly it’s coming. That’s what I keep hearing. But right now, it’s completely calm, with nary a flake in sight.

I love how snow instantaneously has the ability to slow everything down. However, this morning driving in to work was so excessively slow. 25 mph the entire length of Monroe St. from south of Dunbar is a little much.

9:43 a.m.

I’m always a little skeptical when all the neck scruff gets raised about huge, huge, huge weather heading our way. But this one seems to have panned out a little already. (Though, as I look out the window it’s no longer snowing.)

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning, staring at 7 a.m. this morning and running until 7 a.m. tomorrow morning, with 5-10 inches of accumulation expected. A Winter Storm Warning means significant amounts of snow along with considerable blowing and drifting is anticipated, making travel “very hazardous or impossible”.

What do you think? Are you tired of weather warnings that don’t seem to live up to the hype or are they a necessary part of our modern world? Did it change how you planned for today? Am I the only one actually looking forward to 10 inches of snow?

While at home the other day, I wanted to retrieve a fact from an article I had written for The Evening News several months ago. Since I didn’t have direct access to the Evening News’ electronic archives, I resorted to a trick I tried a few years ago – I Googled myself.

I typed in my name on the Google search engine and hoped the bylined article would pop up. It did, along with a bunch of other links that reminded me of how pervasive the Internet is.

Though there’s been a lot of industry talk about the future role of newspapers recently, I think what’s sometimes overlooked in the discussion is that the insatiable desire for information that will almost guarantee that chroniclers of events and data will always have a role in society. Indeed, I was stunned at the “global” exposure the information in The Evening News gets.

It also made me a bit nervous.

Included in the search “hits” I found were articles written years ago that were captured electronically and posted on various special interest Web sites. There were articles from the 2004 election posted on a Green Party site, an article reprinted in a Vietnamese newspaper, and even photos of me taken during an address to the Michigan Chapter of the American Nuclear Society (I didn’t even realize someone had been taking pictures at that gig).

These were all “electronic clippings” so to speak, kept in all manner of electronic “scrapbooks” — items of interest pixilated and preserved, not unlike the yellowed clippings of yesteryear you might find pressed in any heirloom family album.

In 1939, guess who was the highest paid employee in the county? Guess how much he was paid?

Researching the county board history for a story, I’ve come across some interesting and/or humorous stuff. The first thing I found in our clips file – the actual story or additional papers involved in a story – was a letter to the chairman of the board of supervisors from the salary committee, dated Oct. 19, 1938.

The top position to have in the county was sheriff. The salary for 1939 was set at $4,000 for the year. But, a new clause in the contract required him to pay his own gas, electric and water bills. Harsh. There were six deputies on the payroll. Judge of Probate was the next highest paid, raking in $3,800 annually. The county clerk, prosecuting attorney and the county treasurer could look forward to $3500 a year – a $500 raise for the treasurer and prosecutor. While the salaries are a little outdated, the highest paid positions are similar.

Which leads to the conclusion that some things don’t change. The probation officer – only one of them from what I can tell – earned a measly $500 a year while the jail kitchen cook was paid $1020 – an increase of $10 a month over the previous year’s salary. A little odd – Circuit judge, unless it was typo, was earning $600 a year.

Road commissioners took a hit, with one commissioner taking a decrease of $300 over the previous year. The three of them all earned $1200 a year once that was adjusted. Employees on the road were reimbursed $.05 per mile.

My favorite part was that the Detention Home Matron was allotted $.25 per meal, per child with “no allowance for extra help.” Detention Home Matron. What a title.

The work day ran from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and all employees were given two weeks of paid vacation – not bad by even today’s standards.