Editor's Notebook: Column to touch hearts of caring readers
Let's replenish our Metro Flint Community Pride Fund
Editor's Notebook: Column to touch hearts of caring readers
Let's replenish our Metro Flint Community Pride Fund
The Daily Gazette ⚫ Your No. 1 Local News Source
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson loses bid for Democrat nomination for Governor
BY MIKE KILLBREATH
CCN Executive Editor
(CCN) — Fenton's Chris Swanson had a long ride home from a Saginaw union hall Tuesday night.
The Genesee County Sheriff set up what he hoped would be a victory party there at the site of the first labor group to offer an endorsement last year for his campaign to become the Democrat nominee for Governor
BY MIKE KILLBREATH
CCN Executive Editor
(CCN) — Fenton's Chris Swanson had a long ride home from a Saginaw union hall Tuesday night.
The Genesee County Sheriff set up what he hoped would be a victory party there at the site of the first labor group to offer an endorsement last year for his campaign to become the Democrat nominee for Governor in Michigan.
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson pulled only about 18 percent of the vote last night in a landslide loss to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in the primary election for the Democrat nomination for Governor of Michigan. Swanson went to more than sixteen hundred campaign events around the state while putting more than 100,000 miles on his vehicle during an 18-month campaign to win. The A Pee called it early when Benson was ahead 92 to 8 and Swanson appeared with his wife to concede at a Saginaw union hall where his first labor endorsement came from last year.
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Facing more accusations, Carrie Germain resigns as Swartz Creek school board member
Facing more accusations, Carrie Germain resigns as Swartz Creek school board member
BY MIKE KILLBREATH
CCN Executive Editor
SWARTZ CREEK (CCN) — Swartz Creek Board of Education Trustee Carrie Germain has resigned, according to confirmation via text from President Chuck Melki.
"(It was) over the more meetings I recently uncovered," Melki said about the resignation.
Germain and fellow Trustee Angela Fick were censured by the
BY MIKE KILLBREATH
CCN Executive Editor
SWARTZ CREEK (CCN) — Swartz Creek Board of Education Trustee Carrie Germain has resigned, according to confirmation via text from President Chuck Melki.
"(It was) over the more meetings I recently uncovered," Melki said about the resignation.
Germain and fellow Trustee Angela Fick were censured by the board in mid-June for their actions regarding meetings they hid from other board members. They were tied to an attempt by the Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance (FGEA) to buy the district's Morrish Elementary.
The elementary school is on the southern corner of the nearly 1,800-acre Mega Site bounded by Elms, Linden, Maple and Jennings roads. The FEGA has been given $261 million in state funding to build an advanced manufacturing plant
Prominent local civil attorney Tom Pabst filed a lawsuit on behalf of Melki against the district because of actions by Germain and both current and former administrators. The civil complaint alleges they targeted him and hurt his business with untrue accusations.
"They wanted rid of me because I was in their way of doing what they wanted," Melki said. "I was elected to answer to the taxpayers, not them. They didn't want me around."
Pabst said on The Morning Gazette Radio Show that he predicts "people are going to jail for what they did" and says untrue accusations "made up" against Melki have harmed his business.
He's a businessman who owns a gun range on Linden Road in Flint Township.
Melki has said during board meetings that he has filed a criminal complaint with the Genesee County Prosecutor's office and the Michigan Attorney General's office about illegal meetings and other actions he says break state laws.
Melki is a retired detective with the Genesee County Sheriff's Department and Clayton Township Police Department as that community's first police chief when helping form the force there.
Subsequent to his public announcement about filing on them, Melki uncovered what he alleges was an unauthorized $20,000 payment to former Deputy Superintendent Jim Kitchen who became the district's interim Superintendent when Rod Hetherington resigned to take a similar job in the Zeeland school district.
The Morning Gazette Radio Show met on June 3 to seek criminal charges for this additional allegation leveled by Melki who said $152,000 in bonus payments were passed out to administrators without board approval or knowledge.
Melki exposed lies by Kitchen to the school board after Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) findings revealed numerous false statements. Kitchen then subsequently resigned and joined old boss Hetherington in Zeeland.
Swartz Creek's school board rejected a $40 million offer last week for a second time from the FGEA but Trustees Germain and Fick voted to accept the offer after previously joining a 7-0 vote to reject $40 million earlier this year.. The only difference was altering the offer to be all of the cash up front and extending a two-year lease on Morrish until a new elementary building could be constructed.
The FGEA must find a buyer by May of 2028 or turn over the property to the state. The organization, which is an arm of the Flint-based non-profit known as the Flint & Genesee Group led by President & CEO Tim Herman, has yet to find a buyer but has cleared most of the site by buying up homes and chopping down trees.
Mundy Township Supervisor Jennifer Arrand Stainton praised last week's decision after urging a "no" vote on the offer.
Mundy Township Trustee Leah Davis also praised them for rejecting the offer.
They were the only Mundy Township board members who attended last week's special meeting of the school board to join public speakers opposing the idea except for two speakers out nearly a few dozen.
This was the second time school board members have rejected a $40 million offer but this one was revised to pay all the money up front and extend a two-year lease for the building while a new school was constructed.
Stainton has been once of the most vocal critics of the FGEA and she reacted to the news of Germain resigned by saying, "More people should resign. This corruption goes further than just the school board. Look for more people to be investigated and resign.
Realtor Winn Cooper delivered the revised offer and last week's special meeting was called to give him an answer for his client by a two-week deadline imposed to accept the deal.
Trustees Ken Angle, Kim Winter and Autumn Henry again voted against selling along with Vice President Jenny Wolgast and President Melki.
PHOTO CAPTION: Pictured above this story is Carire Germain who has resigned from the Swartz Creek Board of Education
Column to touch hearts of caring readers; Support our 'good works' in Metro Flint area community
Column to touch hearts of caring readers; Support our 'good works' in Metro Flint area community
Column to touch hearts of caring readers; Support our 'good works' in Metro Flint area community
I need your undivided attention for a few minutes.
I need your help. Worse yet, I need to pound on you to put a bit of your money to use doing good works in our community. I've set up a platform on the front page of our online daily newspaper known as TheDailyGazette.net. Give there. Credit card, PayPal, Venmo or CashApp. Or simply get a
I need your undivided attention for a few minutes.
I need your help. Worse yet, I need to pound on you to put a bit of your money to use doing good works in our community. I've set up a platform on the front page of our online daily newspaper known as TheDailyGazette.net. Give there. Credit card, PayPal, Venmo or CashApp. Or simply get a check to me made out to CCN.
Here's a link to donate so we can do good works in our community.
In return, you get an advance peek at a segment I'm doing for my first new Sunday TV show known as the Weekend Gazette and audio of it aired on today's Morning Gazette Radio Show on Metro Flint News/Talk Radio that's presented live weekdays at 8 am.
We have a problem you can help me battle here in the Metro Flint regional area. Meeting all the needs in our community has become absolutely impossible. I've always used my media companies to patch the smaller holes in needs here and there, especially for inner city youth. But I need all of you pitching in a tiny bit to help CCN do more.
I've won lots of statewide and national awards for investigative reporting and my chain of 14 community newspapers gave my children a good life financially and great childhoods. I was there coaching their games and sitting in the stands for cheerleading competitions and dance recitals. I didn't miss a moment of their activities as they grew into productive young people. We traveled together to see cities all over this country. Now I get to do that with our 5 grandchildren.
If you are getting this message today, you are lucky like me in life.
Our kids and grandkids are lucky.
I'd trade in all my awards and all my accolades during 50 years as a journalist to be able to always meet the needs presented to me in our community by the less fortunate, especially young people who are our best asset. They are our future.
Keep in mind that one we help might grow up to cure cancer or become a Congressman or President.
All kids are not so lucky as ours. They are dealt a bad hand with parents who suffer from alcohol abuse or drug addiction. They don't have good role models in their lives. That's why I've always strived to help inner city kids in any way I can.
Owning media companies has allowed me an opportunity to help a lot of people over the years.
Now that I'm doing a new national TV show on a Christian network available in 92 million cable homes, 74 million more with Roku devices and millions more via various OTT platforms my grandkids would have to explain to you, I want to take it to a new level and meet the needs I see all over this country.
Let's start in our own community.
Our community gave the world its automobiles in the early 1900's, community school programs that opened gymnasiums to the public across the USA in the 1960's and the 1937 sitdown strike in Flint is generally regarded as the birthplace of America's labor movement.
Today, let's start something new in our community again.
Let's start by helping CCN meet all the needs of our local community.
Let's show what good people can do to inspire good works in communities all over this land.
I have 5,000 numbers in my cell phone, about 10,000 more on my computer. Every one of you know me. Some of you like me. Some of you don't but maybe you are an advertiser because I've always got you results for your business.
But every last one of you has one thing in common.
You wanna make it to heaven.
I know where I'm going. I told my story about making it to the Pearly gates of Heaven when I went back on the radio two years ago this month.
A mild case of COVID attacked my organs. My world kinda ended and I spent most of my hours flat on my back, often unable to find the strength to even get up to walk to the bathroom. I had congestive heart failure and kidney failure. I spent 14 months on dialysis in a torture chair. They strapped me in it inside a cold room for 4 hours hooked to a machine that pumped poison into my veins while sucking all the blood out to cleanse it and then pump it back in again. They tried to kill me 3 days every week.
In short, I survived because I married up to a pretty smart cookie.
Beautiful with brains! What a rare combination.
She was the world's most loving and compassionate caretaker and nurse. She figured out a magic diet to counteract the poisons they pumped into me. I remember my kidney doctor once raving, Mike, I've never seen perfect levels across the board two weeks in a row in 30 some years taking care of patients on dialysis, let alone 5 months in a row.
I didn't know it at the time but my perfect scores on potassium, posphorus, sodium, iron salt, sugar, etc. etc. qualified me for a life-ending kidney. I was a good bet to live.
Today, I have a 16-year-old's kidney working inside me and the brilliant doctors at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor tell me my kidney will likely out-live me.
I also wrote a moving article about the need for donors in America that moved me up on the waiting list.
The national kidney foundation used it and I was visited a week afterward by some folks who told me I had inspired living donors all over the USA to present the gift of life to friends and loved ones who had never previously had a single person sign up to get tested to be a donor.
One of the benefits I stressed was how being a donor not only saved a life but moved you to a special spot in line if you ever need a kidney. No waiting years to get a kidney donor for a hero who saved a life. You go right to the front of the line.
Well, apparently saving some lives with my article also moved me past thousands on the waiting list.
The funny thing is I didn't write it to move up on the waiting list. I didn't realize inspiring someone to be a donor could get me points.
I was using it to inspire more people I know to get tested for me. You don't exactly go up to someone and ask, "Hey, can you spare a kidney please?"
I was lucky with 72 who got tested for me. Twice as many more were over 70 and couldn't get tested. I didn't ask a single one to do it.
But out of all that love people showed me, only my wife qualified to be a donor and after going through weeks of extensive testing, doctors told her she had too tiny of a frame.
She's 5-6 and 126 pounds in perfect shape as an exercise nut. But a small frame.
That's why U of M hasn't lost a donor since the 1950's. They don't take just any volunteer. They need to know 100 percent you are gonna survive.
I had one friend pushing 90 who threatened to file a lawsuit because he said he was in better shape than any 50-year-old. He is but they wouldn't let him donate.
My wife begged to waive the risks and help save my life. They said no.
I admit I sensed that my time on this earth was growing short. That's why I attended a seminar in California on a Monday Zoom call to hear suggestions to motivate others to see the need. I hit on every point mentioned by a renowned surgeon as I turned to my pen to explain the process and magnify the need for so many.
The average wait for a donor in Michigan is 7 1/2 years. I knew I wasn't going to make it. The pain was too much. All those sad days flat on your back was lonely. Not being able to work was harder for me than my torture chair at dialysis.
Seeing so much death all around me at dialysis was depressing.
Mondays were my day to be human for a day. I began using my Mondays to prepare videos for my loved ones to remember me after I'm gone.
Then God delivered my miracle.
It came with a 10:22 pm phone call while on the living room couch watching TV with my wife on a Sunday night. The time I prepared weekly for my Monday schedule of events to be human again for a day.
"Can you be here in Ann Arbor at 5 am for a transplant? We have a kidney for you."
The rest is history and as Arnold Schwarzenegger once famously said in a movie, "I'm baccck!"
But back to my return to the radio, I remember telling about a dream I had during my 6-month recovery after a 15-day journey in the hospital from surgery, to the intensive care unit to release.
I dreamed that I had died and arrived at the pearly gates where Saint Peter said, "Killbreath? Oh wait God wants to see you."
God appeared and told me how he had never received so many prayers for one person. I told God how humbled I was that so many people in all corners of this county had told me tales of how they urged everyone in their church to say prayers for me to live to see my 5 little grandkids grow into successful adults.
God said he meant the other prayers from all the crooked politicians praying that I would die! He declared that I must be doing a good job and sent me back down to fight public corruption.
That's when I woke up and began plotting my return to the radio despite my wife's demands that I instead be a retired guy for the rest of my life.
So here I am now asking you to help me achieve a goal.
Let's put the Metro Flint regional area on the map as the community known for its people with kindness and compassion.
The Bible tells us clearly that God's people will be those known for their service and good works. Our good works here on earth are stored as our riches in the kingdom of heaven. I'd like to think I get to pick out a mansion on the hilltop.
If all my good works don't do the trick, hey, there's that public corruption thing. I think only Mike Killbreath can recite all 52 Bible verses about how much God hates public corruption.
But there's that tithing thing in the Bible some of you may overlook.
Think about it for a minute. Tithing is something I can preach to you about all day long.
I don't think it counts when you give to a church with a pastor driving a fancy car from his big fancy house to greet you on Sunday morning at a beautiful church auditorium.
First off, if he's preaching to you on a Sunday to earn his salary to finance that nice car and big house, he's going to hell in my opinion.
The Bible says Sunday is a day of rest. It's a big one right there in the 10 commandments. I'm not sure how he missed it.
So many pastors turn my stomach when it comes to making sure good works are done with tithing given to their church.
For more than a decade, CCN has provided once in a lifetime opportunities for young inner city kids who have never been out of Flint to experience everything from Tigers games and Pistons games, to college basketball games and other fun outings.
Pastors line up to rent us a bus to transport the kids to our destination. Seldom do they offer a chaperone and never do they offer up a free bus.
I don't think they believe in good works as much as they do in paying their own bills for their big house and nice cars.
Just last fall, I arranged a nice outing to the Michigan Renaissance Festival on kids day. CCN donated the tickets. At $29.95 for adults and $19.95 for kids on tickets at the gate in Hollygrove, it's a fun place most inner city kids will never get to experience.
With a hectic schedule while continuing to rebuild my staff at CCN after closing down and even selling the furnitue, I was running out of time to organize a nice outing. I turned to some politicians I know to be good people who care about helping kids. At least they say they do.
It breaks my heart that no trip happened last year.
It breaks my heart, too, that millions of dollars are being spent all over our country right now during this election season, including right here in our state, to get politicians elected to ignore real needs of our communities.
We have good non-profits but what percentage of donor funding actually goes to good works compared to salaries for people to run the non profits?
I see so many serious needs in our community and it absolutely breaks my heart that our radio show fund is currently upside down. What do I mean?
The fund we use at CCN to support good causes for kids and emergency needs has always been provided by our listeners and advertisers.
I hate saying "no" or not being able to offer support where it's really needed in our community. But as I mentioned, we are not even back to ourstaffing level during my pre-health scare.
It seems as though not a day goes by that I'm forced to say no to a need, or can't jump into action when I encounter a serious need.
A fire at Crystal Lake Apartments in Mundy Township destroyed 12 units, leaving folks homeless and in dire need of help after losing everything. Fortunately, the owner of Big John's stepped up with a $25,000 donation to help. There was also a fundraiser Saturday.
I read on social media today how Little Miss Flint was telling how someone broke into a storage shed her group of friends use to store backpacks and other items for needy children during back to school days. Is a local organization stepping up to help them?
A day earlier I heard about an 18-year-old away at college, working all summer to stash money for food and gas to go with all the government loans and grants he received to get a college education. He plans on working part-time when classes begin. Then his car konked out. He needs a new one. Selling his got him a measly $300 check to put toward new transportation. Then he finds out the check went to the home of his drug addicted loser parents. He says they cashed it for dope money.
The needs are too many list. I come across them on a daily basis.
If everybody in my phone and all my other contacts on my computer chipped in $100 each today for a once per year donation to help CCN do good works, that's about $1.5 million. CCN could help Little Miss Flint. We could help the next victims of a disaster. We could get that hard-working young person a used car to get his education and make something of himself.
So don't think of it as giving $100. Think of it as being part of giving $1.5 million to help people and help us provide support for needy causes.
Make it $100 quarterly and that's $7 million in our CCN fund. At $100 monthly, that's $28 million.
I need my friends to help us do some good works.
My remember my dad teaching me the important lessons of showing loyalty to my friends and saying how lucky I'd be if I could use a second hand to count my true friends when I'm ready to die.
I was there once but God gave me a miracle and sent me back down to pick on politicians. But I was able to use both hands to count my friends, plus all my toes too and I had to double back a few times to keep counting.
I'm a lucky guy.
Give today to help CCN help those that are not so lucky at times.
I will close with this. Back to that thing all of you share about wanting to get into heaven and my rant about tithing.
If you do it as the Bible tells us, ask yourself if your pastor is using it for good works or his cushy lifestyle. Ask him or her if they will help out Little Miss Flint. If not, maybe you are not directing your 10% in tithing to good works.
If you don't do your 10%, consider this example I've never talked about.
Running a chain of 14 community newspapers allowed me to donate more than $1 million to charitable causes. How did I turn a twice-per-week newspaper known as Tri-County News into a 6-day daily with 5 free weekly newspapers?
With a subscription drive failing on making 3 days per week happen first, I prayed about it and promised God I'd donate 10% of all my revenue to good works if blessing me with success. God delivered and so did I.
When getting mad at the phone company for using my plastic delivery tubes to deliver their phone books in, legal threats failed and I prayed to God for guidance. I created a phone book of my own. You guessed it, 10% of all my revenue went to good works.
Let's ramp it up a bit. Let's steer all your donations to good works. How about the full $1.5 million? Or maybe we can do the $28 million.
Let's show the world some Metro Flint Pride.
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Mike Killbreath appears on Metro Flint News/Talk Radio via The Morning Gazette Radio Show weekday mornings from 8 am until 10 am. He's an award-winning newspaper columnist and investigative reporter who is the former long-time owner of the local Metro Flint area chain of 14 community newspapers. This past fall marked his 50th year as a journalist. He also hosts a new weekend national TV show known as The American Crusaders on cable TV and various OTT TV live streaming platforms.
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Column to touch hearts of caring readers; Support our 'good works' in Metro Flint area community
Column to touch hearts of caring readers; Support our 'good works' in Metro Flint area community
Guide to what's inside today's edition:
Section-by-Section Top Stories:
METRO SECTION:
METRO SECTION:
Death of her daughter at Genesee County Jail motivates woman to hold Monday protests there
CAMPAIGN 2026 LOCAL SPECIAL SECTION
Editor's Notebook by Mike Killbreath: Campaign fever heating up across Metro Flint regional area as we're inside 6 months away from primary
VIEWPOINTS SECTION
Editor's Notebook by Mike Killbreath: U of M leaders need to take lesson from private institution not hiding behind attorney-client hogwash
LOCAL SPORTS SECTION
Today's Sports Thoughts column by Executive Editor Mike Killbreath focuses on the social media posts of local dads letting us in on the journeys of their sons as star athletes. The photo above is of the latest star to sign a pro baseball contract who was former Grand Blanc High star David Lally. Mike's salute to four local dads was inspir
Today's Sports Thoughts column by Executive Editor Mike Killbreath focuses on the social media posts of local dads letting us in on the journeys of their sons as star athletes. The photo above is of the latest star to sign a pro baseball contract who was former Grand Blanc High star David Lally. Mike's salute to four local dads was inspired by watching the wild celebration in the seats Sunday at Comerica Park when rookie Brett Callahan drilled a triple in his first big league at bat for the Detroit Tigers after being called up from their Triple-A farm club in Toledo.
OTHER LOCAL SPORTS SECTION STORIES
Local Sports Section Front Page
LIFE STYLES SECTION
LIFE STYLES SECTION
A press conference was held Tuesday to reveal details about an upcoming kickoff event for the Eric B. Mays Foundation to honor the legacy of long-time community activist and Flint City Councilman Eric Mays. See Today's Life Styles Section
OTHER LIFE STYLES SECTION STORIES
Colorectal cancer deaths rising in young adults and minority communit
A press conference was held Tuesday to reveal details about an upcoming kickoff event for the Eric B. Mays Foundation to honor the legacy of long-time community activist and Flint City Councilman Eric Mays. See Today's Life Styles Section
OTHER LIFE STYLES SECTION STORIES
Colorectal cancer deaths rising in young adults and minority communities
CCN's long-time popular and controversial columnist, talk show host George Moss passes away
Interim Editor named for Flint online magazine featuring 'good stories' about county's biggest city
Columnist Marty Embry reveals new book about Flint's long and great athletic tradition
Section-by-Section Top Stories:
STATE NEWS
Michigan lawmakers demand action from Canada as wildfire smoke impacts Michigan & U.S. air quality
Shooter released from custody by Auburn Hills police in deadly Great Lakes Crossing incident
SPORTS SECTION
Steve Yzerman out as General Manager of Detroit Red Wings in surprise announcement
NATION & WORLD
STATE NEWS
Michigan lawmakers demand action from Canada as wildfire smoke impacts Michigan & U.S. air quality
Shooter released from custody by Auburn Hills police in deadly Great Lakes Crossing incident
SPORTS SECTION
Steve Yzerman out as General Manager of Detroit Red Wings in surprise announcement
NATION & WORLD
43 million student loan borrowers in default on notice about wage garnishments ahead for new year
STATE & NATIONAL BUSINESS NEWS
Report says at-will employment undermines Michigan workers’ rights
FRONT PAGE
Mike Killbreath's Editor's Notebook Column
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Charlie LeDuff gets 'love your work' Valentine's Day card, kinda
FAME NEWSPAPERS ⚫ LOCAL EDITIONS
TRI-COUNTY NEWS
GRAND BLANC PRESS
M-15 CONNECTION
THE BURTON BANNER
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