Tag: Watchdog

Date: Aug. 1, 2013

The Mackinac Center is hosting a series of community events aimed at raising awareness of common problems encountered by those who attempt to request government records and provide information to those who want a better understanding of how the Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act work. Our state has valuable tools for holding public servants accountable but those tools are useless if people don't know about them or don't know how to use them.

Vic McCarty, host of "The Vic McCarty Show" on WMKT AM1270 in Traverse City, will be moderating this event.

The panelists will be:

• Miriam Aukerman, ACLU Staff Attorney


• Robin Luce-Herrmann, General Counsel, Michigan Press Association


• Michael J. Reitz, Executive Vice President, Mackinac Center for Public Policy

The event will be held on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013, from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

I was a finalist, then won, and split the prize with Chetly Zarko for the watchdog award at the Sam Adams Alliance event as mentioned previously.

The other two finalists Rob Port of Minot ND, and Sherry Loar of Petoskey were both worthy of this award, so its with a greater sense of humility that I accepted it.  Its really a big deal. Rob runs a watchdog type blog which is like a combination of the Blog Prof's site, and RightMichigan.com.  Sherry took the lead as the plaintiff fighting the forced unionization scam, who sacrificed both monetarily and psychologically in dealing with the collusive measure brought about by the last administration and their union cronies.

I was in very respect worthy company.

I should note that I am not the greatest speaker, and I do not travel with dueling teleprompters. So this award might well be seen as the greatest speaking fee I should ever expect to see.  I guess that is OK, as long as I can keep the pen to the page (so to speak) to entertain and inform.

In the WATCHDOG category...

Rob Port, of Minot, North Dakota, is the publisher of Say Anything, North Dakota's most widely read blog. The blog regularly uncovers stories involving government waste, corruption, and the misappropriation of public funds.

Ben Joravsky, of Chicago, Illinois, is a journalist for the Chicago Reader and a long-time government watchdog. Thanks to Joravsky's investigative reporting, accountability for tax increment financing (TIF) funds became a major issue in the 2011 Chicago mayoral elections, with momentum for great accountability in the future.

then.. there is a complete unknown.

Jason Gillman, of Traverse City, Michigan, & Chetly Zarko, of Lansing, Michigan, uncovered evidence of a fake "Tea Party" that was set to run on the November ballot in nearly 24 toss-up races across the state. Because of their work, the Michigan Supreme Court removed the fake "Tea Party" from the ballot before the November elections.

This year, the winner receives a $10,000 award, or a really cool snuggie.  Cold winter nights, combined with the falling dollar really make the decision which would be better more difficult .