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Interviews with news makers and discussion of topics important to Southwest Michigan. Subscribe to the podcast through Apple itunes and Google. Segments of interview are heard in WestSouthwest Brief during Morning Edition and All Things Considered

WestSouthwest May 7, 2015

Kevin Lavery, WKAR

On WestSouthwest, a look at the wreckage of Proposal 1 and what options remain for improving Michigan's roads. Plus Two major youth forums on race issues in Kalamazoo. 

  

Voters overwhelmingly rejected a road funding ballot proposal on Tuesday. Proposal 1 would have raised the state sales tax by 1% and triggered a series of other changes to pump more money into road repair. Gongwer News Service Editor Zach Gorchow calls putting the issue on the ballot "one of the biggest political miscalculations in modern Michigan political history." Gorchow tells us where the ballot proposal's defeat leaves infrastructure in the state. 

Issues of race and police conduct have received a lot of attention lately. But organizers of two events in Kalamazoo say the voices of youth aren't being heard on these important matters. WMUK's Earlene McMichael speaks with Reverend Lenzy Bell, Vice President of the Northside Ministerial Alliance and Jacob Pinney Johnson of the Southwest Michigan Black Heritage Society. 

Gordon Evans became WMUK's Content Director in 2019 after more than 20 years as an anchor, host and reporter. A 1990 graduate of Michigan State, he began work at WMUK in 1996.
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