Rewind: News from the last 21 days

Lansing City Council members elected Ryan Kost president and Tamara Carter vice president for 2025 in their first meeting of the year Monday. Kost replaces Jeremy Garza, and Carter replaces Adam Hussain. Kost, who was not even nominated during the first of multiple rounds of voting, received five of the Council’s eight votes in the final round after Hussain nominated him.

Fourteen people in Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties died from violent acts in 2024, about 10 fewer than in 2023. Lansing police said it recorded 11 homicides, the same number as 2023. Three more occurred in surrounding townships. Lansing had nine fatal shootings and 56 non-fatal shootings in 2024, compared to nine fatal shootings and 64 non-fatal shootings in 2023. Two city homicides remain unsolved: One was the mass shooting in Rotary Park over the Memorial Day weekend, in which one teen was killed and six youths were injured. The other was the last homicide of 2024, when a 36-year-old man was killed and a 25-year-old man was injured on Dec. 29 in a shooting on the 4900 block of Belle Chase Boulevard, near the Jolly and Dunckel roads intersection. The 25-year-old is expected to make a full recovery. Police said they detained a person of interest, but the investigation remains open. They recovered multiple firearms from the scene.

Longtime Democratic Delta Township Supervisor Ken Fletcher declined to accept another term after winning his reelection bid on Nov. 5, opening up the process for the township board to nominate a replacement by mid-February, including from the board itself. Fletcher, 58, resigned after he was arrested in September for allegedly accosting a minor on the LGBTQ dating app. Police used a decoy posing as a 15-year-old boy to arrange an August meet-up, where officers detained Fletcher. By that point, it was too late to remove Fletcher’s name from the ballot, and he won reelection. Township Clerk Mary Clark, the interim supervisor, said his replacement will retain the position through the November 2026 election, when a supervisor will be chosen to serve a partial term ending in 2028.

Barbara Wolf, an assistant professor at MSU’s College of Human Medicine and a clinical psychologist with McLaren Health Care, was shot and killed by a motorist in Oxford Township after she had stopped to assist him. Wolf, 71, and her 38-year-old daughter were driving together when they stopped to see if the driver of a car that had crashed into a tree was OK. The driver allegedly ran up to the driver’s side of Wolf’s car and tried to get inside her vehicle. Wolf tried to drive away, but the stranded motorist began shooting into her car, striking both Wolf and her daughter, who is expected to recover. Malik Webb, a 29-year-old ex-convict from Genesee County, is facing murder, carjacking and weapons charges. He has a history of gun violence and was paroled early last year despite getting convicted of another gun crime while behind bars.

Lansing Police Chief Rob Backus has promoted Eric Pratl, a patrol captain who also has led the community policing unit, to assistant chief. Pratl has also served as a patrol officer, K-9 officer, community police officer and field training officer during his 21 years of police work. He was on the department’s START tactical team for 13 years and has overseen the Police Athletic League since 2018. In 2020, Pratl was promoted to lieutenant and managed patrol and internal affairs before becoming a captain last year. “His experience and vision make him the ideal choice to help guide the Lansing Police Department forward,” Backus said in a release. Shawn McNamara, who was a lieutenant, has been promoted to captain.

The Eaton County Board of Commissioners has voted to place a 2-mill increase for public safety on the May 6 special election ballot. Based on a $200,000 home with a taxable value of $100,000, the millage would cost homeowners about $200 a year. Eaton County turned down a larger tax increase in November that would have cost homeowners $500 for the same value home. If approved, the increase would fund law enforcement, including staffing and resources for the Prosecutor’s and Sheriff’s offices, including animal control, county officials said. Eaton County spokesperson Logan Bailey said that the failed operational millage from November, needed to address a financial shortfall in the 2025’26 budget year, contained confusing state-mandated language.

Five Ingham County departments paid the Boston-based Iron Mountain document storage company $88,477 in 2024 despite not having properly approved contracts. Officials admitted the payments are the most recent example of a longstanding county issue in which departments renew or sign contracts without following county policy. The Ingham County Board of Commissioners changed policy in 2018 to address the issue, but the problem has persisted. The county has been trying for a year, unsuccessfully, to get Iron Mountain to return county data and documents without paying additional fees. Iron Mountain has faced about a dozen lawsuits in the past 10 years from other businesses or agencies struggling to get their property back at the end of a contract or following Iron Mountain’s acquisition of another document storage company.

Adaline Nicole Clough was the first baby born in 2025 at UM Health-Sparrow, arriving at 1:40 a.m. New Year’s Day. The third child of Trevor and Natalia Clough of Eagle, she was born at 6 pounds and 9.8 ounces. McLaren Greater Lansing welcomed its first baby at 4:18 p.m., Kenneth Young, born to Chelsea and Kenneth Young of Mason. Hayes Wicker just missed being the first, born to Courtney Burtch and Reese Wicker of East Lansing two minutes later.

Civil rights activist Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. will be the keynote speaker for the 40th Annual Day of Celebration honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., set for Monday, Jan. 20, at 11 a.m. at the Lansing Center. LaFayette, 84, co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960 and led efforts to desegregate lunch counters in Nashville, Tenn. He was a leader of the Selma Voting Rights movement, which paved the way for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He also participated in the Freedom Rides, which protested segregation in interstate bus travel and worked closely with groups that included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and American Friends Service Committee. Tickets and info are available at https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/48354636/2025-mlk-luncheon-lansing-lansing-centerlansingmi.

Lansing native Earvin “Magic” Johnson was among 19 people who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Biden Saturday. Johnson led Everett High School to a state basketball championship, then attended MSU from 1977-‘79, leading the Spartans to an NCAA title. He then won five NBA championships and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Since retiring, Johnson has been a successful entrepreneur whose foundation assists underserved communities. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is considered the nation’s highest civilian honor, presented for contributions to the national interest, world peace, or cultural or other significant matters. The late George Romney, who served three two-year terms as Michigan’s governor, was also honored.

Hugo “Hugh” P. Spagnuolo, an English teacher for 44 years at Lansing Eastern High School, died Dec. 24 at 89. He attended Michigan State and Columbia universities, then started at Eastern in 1961. In 2005, he retired from teaching due to Parkinson’s disease. Mark Hahn, also a retired English teacher from Eastern, told the Lansing State Journal that Spagnuolo kept 22 boxes of letters from students he taught. When President Ronald Reagan called Spagnuolo in 1983 to ask if he would consider being Teacher of the Year, he turned him down to stay close to family, said Hahn. The Funeral Mass was held Dec. 28 at the Catholic Community of St. Jude in DeWitt, followed by the Rite of Committal at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery in Lansing.

Clinton County District Judge Michael Clarizio announced his retirement after 10 years on the bench and 34 years with Clinton County. In early November, he notified Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office that he would retire at the end of 2024. Whitmer will appoint a successor for the remaining two years of his term. Clarizio, 63, said he was retiring to spend more time with family following his wife’s cancer diagnosis. He spent 24 years in the Clinton County Prosecutor’s Office before being elected to the district bench in 2014 and reelected in 2020.

The Meridian Township Board of Trustees has appointed Tim Dempsey township manager. He has 20 years of experience in local government, including seven as East Lansing’s deputy city manager. He was also the city’s director of planning, building and development, as well as director of planning and community development. Dempsey had applied to be East Lansing’s city manager in 2023, but officials chose Robert Belleman instead. Dempsey replaces Frank Walsh, who announced his plans to resign last April.

East Lansing appointed Deputy Police Chief Jennifer Brown its second interim police chief since former Chief Kim Johnson resigned during an internal investigation. Brown replaced Chad Price, who asked to return to being deputy chief pending his planned retirement Jan. 27. Brown, who joined ELPD in December 2023, worked for MSU Police and Public Safety for 15 years after a decade in private security. The department is conducting a nationwide search for a permanent police chief. The East Lansing City Council has authorized City Manager Robert Belleman to engage the advisory firm Baker Tilly to assist in the search.

Meridian Township fired a probationary officer amid a Michigan State Police investigation into his alleged possession of child pornography. Alexander Stachura, 38, of Williamston, faces counts of possession of child sexually abusive material and three counts of using a computer to commit a crime. Court records indicate that the case against Stachura began when his wife found a flash drive with photos of a “a post-pubescent teenage female engaging in sex acts or posing in a sexual manner.” The affidavit said that she contacted the MSP and provided the thumb drive to investigators.

Teresa Woodruff, former MSU interim president, was presented with the National Medal of Science at a ceremony at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. She won the medal for her work in oncofertility, which combines oncology — the study of cancer prevention — and reproductive health and focuses on how young cancer survivors, or those still undergoing treatment, can plan for their “future fertility.” Woodruff received a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring in 2011 in an Oval Office ceremony.

Michigan State University alum siblings Dave Porteous, Bill Porteous and Ruth Porteous Hamilton, together with their spouses and children, donated $1 million toward a project to transform the cafeteria in the Campbell Hall dorm into a living and learning hub called Porteous Grand Hall for students in the Honors College. In doing so, they honored their parents, William and Mabel, who met at Campbell and fell in love when they worked in the cafeteria there as students from 1937 to ‘42. Officials broke ground on the Campbell Hall renovation project last May. This new space will allow future Honors College students to collaborate and build lasting connections, the university said.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has selected the MSU Museum to join its Digital Accelerator Program for some 200 nonprofit cultural organizations. The program helps cultural organizations across the U.S. and U.K. to strengthen technology and management practices to improve operations, drive revenue, increase fundraising, engage broader audiences, and deliver dynamic programming, the university said. The MSU Museum will develop a Digital Surrogates Pipeline, a project that brings objects from the museum’s collections to life through digital innovation. This effort will include creating immersive experiences with virtual and augmented reality technologies and placing cultural and scientific objects in new contexts to inspire deeper audience learning and engagement. The museum started an 18-month renovation project last July.

The restrictions the MSU Board of Trustees placed on members Rema Vassar, D-Detroit, and Dennis Denno, D-Lansing, were lifted Dec. 31. Responding to bullying accusations, the trustees voted 6-2 in March to prohibit them from board-related activities and took away their committee assignments. They also asked Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to consider removing them, but she has taken no action. MSU Faculty Senate Vice Chair Jack Lipton wrote Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel Dec. 30 requesting she investigate their behavior. Whether the trustees will seek or be granted committee assignments this year is unclear. The board’s first meeting is Feb. 7.

A federal judge has ordered Jacob Hawley, who operates several Barrio Taco locations, including one in East Lansing, to pay $823,325 in back wages and damages to employees after finding the company shortchanged workers. U.S. Judge Paul Maloney issued a summary judgment against Sparty Tacos LLC, TC Tacos LLC, GR Tacos LLC and Hawley after the U.S. Labor Department claimed the restaurants operated an illegal tip pool system “for at least two years;” provided tips to employees who don’t typically receive tips — invalidating a tip credit; failed to pay earned time-and-a-half overtime; and failed to keep “true and accurate records.” He ordered the defendants to “pay full back wages and liquidated damages.” The judgment involved more than 200 employees in East Lansing, Traverse City and Grand Rapids.

A single-engine 1979 Beechcraft A-36 en route from Lansing to White Plains, N.Y., crashed in East Aurora, N.Y., killing pilot Phil Marsh of Lansing. He was the only passenger aboard the plane when it went down in a residential neighborhood, just feet from the home of Buffalo Bills football player Dion Dawkins. The Buffalo Niagara International Airport sent out an alert for a single-engine plane with mechanical issues. Several calls to 911 followed before fire crews arrived to find a “fully involved fire,” East Aurora police said. An investigation into the crash is ongoing.

Police planned to seek warrants for those involved in an incident at the Park Terrace MHC mobile home park in Lansing Township in which occupants of one vehicle fired shots at another vehicle carrying a 26-year-old man, a 25-year-old woman, a 4-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl. There were no injuries, Lansing Township police said. A 24-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman occupied the second vehicle. That man threatened to “shoot up” the other man’s house in a dispute involving “money owed,” police said.

Valentino Wallace of Lansing, 22, was sentenced to 3 and one-half years in prison for machine gun possession, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. He was convicted on the weapons charge last August. Wallace had modified a 9mm Glock handgun with a switch that converted it to fire continuously. Lansing police had been surveilling Wallace as part of a shooting investigation and arrested him in February 2023, finding the loaded pistol with an extended magazine and a switch.

A suspect was in custody after a Mason woman was injured in a stabbing in the 400 block of Waldo Road in Wheatfield Township. The Mason woman, 33, reported being stabbed in the chest by a 26-year-old Jackson woman and was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. The suspect was arrested and taken to the Ingham County Jail.