'Defund the Courts' happening in Michigan

Local mayor calls this a disaster. Claims county commission was deceptive

FLINT, Mich - The Genesee County Board of Commissioners could vote on a proposal that would close satellite court buildings in rural areas of Genesee County.

The plan comes after commissioners approved an $83 million capital improvement plan. That plan calls for the closure of the rural district court offices while spending the $83 million on the Genesee County Circuit Court, the Genesee County Jail, the county motor pool, and the Genesee County Community Action Resource Department warehouse.

The plan calls for the closing of all six of the outlying 67th District Court buildings for a savings of $21 million over a period of nine years.

Flushing Mayor Joe Karlichek says the plan was quietly passed at the September 13 meeting.

You can watch county commissioners make the decision at the link below. Fast forward to the 34 minute mark.

"This is a clear deception right out of the cradle, it's like the decision was already made ahead of time based on the capital improvement plan where people were just understanding what was going on, said Mayor Karlicheck.

"I understand what they are doing to save money, the way they handled this was a complete deception," said Kalicheck.

Information about Monday Davison meeting

Karlicheck will be speaking at a special meeting Monday in Davison asking the County Commissioners to reverse their decision. He says if the County Commission doesn't reverse their decision they will be asking the commission for $175,000 per year to help fund their police departments. Karlicheck says closing the courthouses will create undo costs for all of the townships involved.

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How could this impact communities? Flushing and Mt. Morris in the past year had 20,000 issues like tickets, small claims, and code enforcement violations. All of these issues would now have to be handled in downtown Flint.

For example, if you get a traffic ticket in Flushing you would have to go to downtown Flint to handle the issue instead of taking care of it in your hometown of Flushing.

Karlicheck says this consolidation serves as a public safety issue. He says residents in these six communities will now have to go to downtown Flint for anything court-related. Karlicheck says police officers will now have to go to downtown Flint which would leave communities with less police protection.

Chief Judge Christopher Odette also is not happy with the plan. Odette wrote a letter saying in part, "Please be advised that the 67th District Court is not closing in Davison and moving its operations to the McCree building in the city of Flint on November 30 or any other date ...,” the letter says. “In the future, please provide notice to the public and the court before passing meaningless illegal resolutions based on false and deceptive data.”

According to MLIVE, the capital improvement plan was drafted by Derek Bradshaw, director of the Genesee County Metropolitan Planning Commission, and Josh Freeman, director of administration for Genesee County, to address four deteriorating buildings housing various county offices that are mandated by law.

“We’re trying to be frugal and watch over the tax dollars,” said Ellen Ellenburg, D-Burton, and chair of the county commission told MLIVE,  “I’m hoping we can sit down (with the judges) and come up with a plan ...

“It boils down to cost,” Ellenburg said. “We don’t want to have to lay people off and I don’t believe ... we can raise taxes” to pay for the status quo.

County Commissioners are expected to hear from Judge Odette and many others during their next meeting on October 27.

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