State Roundup

Lansing
State gets online tool for food inspection results
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — There’s a new tool to help people find out about inspection results from more than 19,000 retail food establishments in Michigan.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development announced Tuesday that an online system will allow people to check for those results.
Michigan has updated food regulations taking effect Oct. 1. The online system called MiSafe offers access to inspection results, including violations. Routine inspections typically are conducted at a 6-, 12- or 18-month frequency, depending on the type and complexity of food handling at the establishment.
MiSafe will include inspection reports dating back to September 2011.

Detroit
Libertarians want candidate on Michigan ballot
DETROIT (AP) — The Michigan Libertarian Party is pledging to appeal a court decision that keeps presidential candidate Gary Johnson off the state ballot.
Michigan election officials won’t allow Johnson to run as the Libertarian candidate because he ran in the Republican presidential primary earlier this year and lost. State law doesn’t allow a losing candidate to run in the general election for another political party.
Detroit federal Judge Paul Borman last week said the rights of the Libertarian Party haven’t been violated. He says the party isn’t barred from the ballot — just Johnson.
Johnson is the former governor of New Mexico. He faces ballot challenges in other states.

Lansing
Variation found in drunk driving arrest rates
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — There are wide variations in the rates of drunken driving arrests among Michigan police agencies, with the hometowns of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan showing one of the sharpest contrasts, a news organization has found.
Mlive.com reported Monday that it examined drunken driving arrest rates across Michigan for last year.
Police in East Lansing made 620 such arrests, the investigation found. It said the 54 fulltime officers on the police department in the hometown of Michigan State University averaged 11.5 arrests each last year.
Ann Arbor police made 101 drunken driving arrests in 2011, according to the report. It said the University of Michigan’s hometown had 117 fulltime police officers, and they averaged 0.9 drunken driving arrests in 2011.
Ann Arbor police Deputy Chief Gregory Bazick said he couldn’t explain the differences.
“One of the things to caution against is using crime statistics as a comparison of the effectiveness of a police department from jurisdiction to jurisdiction,” he said. Bazick said some agencies emphasize beat patrols and other deployment models, and some communities have more public transit.
Drunken driving enforcement has been a priority for East Lansing police for years, said Capt. Jeff Murphy, a 25-year veteran of the department. Chief Juli Liebler made drunken driving an even greater priority when she became acting chief in 2010, Murphy said.
“Our midnight shift consists of 15 officers and that’s quite a bit smaller than other departments,” Murphy said. “Obviously, those officers work very, very hard.”
Big city departments facing higher crime rates often have lower arrest rates than neighboring suburbs.
For example, Flint’s 112 fulltime police officers made 77 drunken driving arrests for the year, an average of 0.7 arrests per officer. In Genesee County’s suburban Grand Blanc Township, the 44 fulltime officers made 331 arrests, or 8.3 per officer.

Traverse City
Dry, hot weather push up Michigan’s wildfire count
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Michigan has had three times the number of wildfires so far this year, and a state expert says an elevated fire risk may last into the fall even if cooler and wetter conditions set in.
Hot and dry conditions this year have contributed to a sharp rise in wildfires to about 460 this year. That’s the highest since 2005, when 498 wildfires had been reported by this time of year, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources said.
Michigan had 155 reported wildfires by this time in 2011, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported Sunday.
Intense heat and a lack of rain have turned the Grand Traverse area into a tinderbox, according to DNR wildfire prevention specialist Paul Kollmeyer. He said the fire risk likely will remain high for at least several weeks, even with rain and cooler weather.
Kollmeyer says extreme heat has coupled with the relative lack of rain to make debris, wood and layers of soil much dryer than normal.
With the dry conditions, fires penetrate the land and are consequently much more difficult to extinguish, he said.
“If you get a fire, it still may be a relatively small fire, but it’s taking a lot more work because you can’t put them out that easily,” he said.
This fire season has been a tough one for members of the Grand Traverse Rural Fire Department, said Rebecca Pruyne, the agency’s health and safety officer.
“We’re always on that train of thought: ‘Boy, we could really get something today, we need to be alert,’” she said.
Pruyne and Kollmeyer said public education is key to limiting wildfires, because people cause most of them. Should conditions stay dry, people should be aware of the fire risk before they start burning leaves and other waste this fall, Kollmeyer said.
“Debris burning is our biggest cause of fire,” he said. “It’s been that way for decades.”