Board members also reacted to last weekend's events in Charlottesville.
Kalamazoo County is considering waiving the fee for birth certificates and other records for applicants who are homeless. The proposal for the one-year pilot program comes from County Clerk-Register Tim Snow. He says nonprofits in Kalamazoo would help people experiencing homelessness to figure out what documents they need.
Snow says Kalamazoo could lose up to $5000 in revenue by not charging those applicants for records. But the county says that other gains in the budget would offset the loss.
On Tuesday, commissioners from both parties told Snow they like the idea. One was board member Julie Rogers.
“I’m thrilled to see this, I’m very supportive and I think it’s going to have a greater economic impact than just the $5000 you outlined and I appreciate you stating that it’s not really a cost, it’s just that we’re not taking in the revenue,” she said.
Vital records play an important role in getting an ID card, which is often required to apply for a job, a lease or a mortgage and a variety of services. The fee waiver proposal builds on a planto make a county ID card available to residents starting in January. That card will have less stringent requirements for papers than the state.
Commissioner Ron Kendall says he supports not charging homeless residents for records.
“This was the thing that I kind of screamed from the rooftops all along was the much larger hurdle than the ID itself, is actually garnering the things to prove who you are,” he said.
Calhoun County has launched a similar pilot program. Kalamazoo is expected to vote on the fee waiver proposal in two weeks.
After Charlottesville, treat white supremacist groups as terrorists?
Kalamazoo County Commissioner Tracy Hall says she thinks it’s time for law enforcement to start defining white nationalist groups as outlets of domestic terrorism.
Hall was one of several commissioners who on Tuesday discussed the violent events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend. One woman was killed and a number of people injured when a man who reportedly has ties to white supremacist groups drove his car through a crowd of people in Charlottesville.
On Tuesday, Commissioner Hall noted that the Illinois Senate has passed a resolution that encourages police to draw a link between white nationalists and terrorism.
“I’m fooling myself by saying I hope that our state legislature does the same thing because they won’t. But maybe there’s something we can do at the county to encourage the Kalamazoo County Sheriff and our local law enforcement to treat these groups as domestic terrorists,” she said.
Commissioner Mike Seals says he also doubts that the Michigan Legislature would follow Illinois’ example. But he said the country, in his words, needs to “grow up” and make room for everyone. Seals, who’s African-American, said right now he fears for his children’s safety.
“They have to live here too. I don’t care if they get to me. But I sure as hell care about my kids,” he said.
Seals, a veteran, expressed particular disgust at seeing former members of the military participate in white supremacist activities.
In Southwest Michigan, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate organizations, says it’s identified a Neo-Nazi group in Grand Rapids and a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Battle Creek.
