Tagged: dale kildee

A Saginaw area school district that's closed its doors has now asked the state to review its finances.

That's the first step toward a state appointed emergency manager.

But the move does not guarantee the District's 400 students will be back in class anytime soon.

The Buena Vista school board heard from parents and students last night, angry about the abrupt and apparent early end of the school year.

“If we don’t get these kids back in school…we’re going to be the ones who destroyed their lives,” one upset father told the school board. 

Patrick Clawson is one of the more aggressive investigative reporters I know.

The former CNN journalist is now semi-retired, and dabbles in a number of occupations. He is no great worshipper of government, titles or institutions. Last year he broke the news that Governor Granholm had awarded a huge tax break to a convicted embezzler whose business was entirely fiction.

Yet he is now outraged about a story he sees as totally irresponsible, and so am I. Yesterday, media throughout the state began reporting allegations that longtime Flint area congressman Dale Kildee improperly touched a young male second cousin of his more than half a century ago. The 82-year-old congressman, indignantly denied the allegations, and noted that the man making them had a long history of mental illness.

There has never previously been any hint of scandal involving Congressman Kildee, who has a wife, three children and announced months ago that he intended to retire after this term.

These stories bothered me when I saw them, because they contained absolutely no evidence or shred of proof. And because I know that any time anyone is accused of something like this, the accusation sticks to them through life, even if later exposed as totally false. What I didn’t know was that it had been checked out.

Pat Clawson contacted me last night and said that he and another well-known investigative journalist, a man instrumental in exposing Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick became aware of these allegations more than a year ago.

Updated at 10:55 pm: The Flint Journal reports that Congressman Kildee WILL NOT hold a press conference on Monday. According to the newspaper, Kildee has agreed to "an in person interview with the Flint Journal and at least one other media outlet." Michigan Radio will also try to speak with Congressman Kildee on Monday.

Michigan congressman Dale Kildee (D) is denying allegations by distant relatives that he sexually abused a then-12-year-old second cousin several decades ago.

The race to replace longtime Michigan Congressman Dale Kildee moves into a higher gear today.   

Kildee announced earlier this year he would not seek a 19th term in Congress.   

Today, the outgoing congressman’s nephew, Dan Kildee will  formally announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. 

With U.S. Representative Dale Kildee announcing his plans to retire after next year, his nephew, Dan Kildee, says he is seriously considering a run for Congress. Dan Kildee is the President and CEO of the Center for Community Progress, and a former Genesee County treasurer. He also ran for Governor early last year before dropping out of the Democratic race.

The Associated Press reports that Kildee told the AP yesterday that, “running for Congress ‘has been on my mind for some time.’ He says he plans to announce his decision soon.”

Congressman Dale Kildee announced his retirement earlier this month. He has spent 18 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, a total of 47 years, as a Democratic Congressman representing the area around Flint.

The voters of Flint first sent Dale Kildee to Congress in the year our nation celebrated its bicentennial. He was in his mid-forties then.

Next year, he’ll turn eighty-three, and as last weekend started, he announced next year would be his last in Congress. He’s had a long and honorable career, in politics and beforehand.

Kildee started adult life as a high school teacher who had almost become a priest as a boy, and who, after ten years in the classroom, had gotten himself elected to the state legislature.

He spent a dozen years there, running shoe-leather campaigns during which someone calculated he had to have knocked on every door in Flint. When the seat in Congress opened up in 1976, he jumped into the primary, and won it and the general election easily.

Years ago, I heard Kildee say that he was embarrassed that he wound up spending more on that first campaign than he wanted to.

How much was that?  $48,000. In case you need reminding about how much things have changed, a Democratic candidate in another Michigan district spent $8 million trying to get elected last year, and by the way, he lost.

Kildee never lost an election. After that first election, the voters sent him back to Congress seventeen more times.