calhoun county

A package of bills introduced in the Michigan House Tuesday and co-sponsored by Battle Creek representative Dr. John Bizon would relax some hunting regulations. The primary sponsor for the bills is Rep. Steve Johnson from Allegan County.

Several events are taking place in Calhoun and Kalamazoo Counties January 15, to honor the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King would have been celebrating his 89th birthday January 15, were he alive.

Battle Creek Unlimited announced that they are seeking proposals for a brewery, brew pub or distillery to be located in the downtown area, preferably at one of the three properties BCU owns. The accepted business would receive up to $200,000 in financial assistance to get started.

Janesville Acoustics has announced that they are closing their facility in Richmond, Indiana, and moving the jobs to Battle Creek. Janesville Acoustics is based in Southfield, and is a subsidiary of Jason Industries, Inc.

The Battle Creek City Commission will be meeting again on Tuesday, and they have a few items of note on their agenda. According to the agenda, one item that will be up for a vote is a deal to finally sell the land the vacant Michigan State Police post sits on, at the corner of Columbia Ave. and LaVista Blvd.

In a post to their website Saturday, The Homer Schools superintendent says that the district learned last week of allegations against a female teacher, and quickly put her on administrative leave; less than 24 hours later, the teacher resigned from her position.

Last week, work to replace roofing on the 20-story building began, work made possible thanks to an almost half-million dollar loan from the Battle Creek Community Foundation. This reroofing project is expected to take around six weeks, and constitutes a major step in the $34 million redevelopment.

Back in March 2016, the Spencer Funeral Home building in Athens was bought at auction by Lighthouse Funeral & Cremation. According to a statement, in October of this year, the former owner of Spencer’s died, and their family came to Lighthouse of Union City with several boxes “that contained the cremated remains of those that had not been claimed by family members prior to the sale of the building.”

The Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office was called to the 3000 block of 3 ½ mile Rd. in Athens around noon Friday, and while they were there they were advised of possible animal cruelty taking place in the area. Deputies responded later with a search warrant.

The City of Battle Creek has taken exception to a recent ranking by the website 24/7 Wall St. that listed Battle Creek as one of the 25 worst cities to raise children in; in response, they have pulled out data refuting some claims. The City says that they believe the website’s methodology was “lacking”, particularly in their use of the FBI Uniform Crime Report, particularly when the FBI itself says the crime statistics shouldn’t be used to rank cities.