Oakland County

An Oakland County teenager at the center of a controversial court case will soon be heading home.

She’s identified only as “Grace.” 

A judge sent the 15 year old to the Oakland County Children's Village back in May, after she violated her probation on assault and theft charges. The violation?  Not doing her school work.

A controversial case involving an Oakland County teenager drew dozens of people to a Waterford parking lot Wednesday night.  

The group chanted “Free Grace” to show their support for a girl, known-only as “Grace”, who has been held at Oakland County’s Children’s Village since May.  

Public pressure is mounting to free a 15-year-old Black girl sent to Oakland County juvenile detention for not doing her homework.

The girl is known only by her middle name, Grace. She was on probation for some minor offenses, such as fighting with her mother and taking another child's iPad.

The Michigan Supreme Court has dealt a blow to county treasurers with a new ruling, finding that counties can’t keep any profits they get from selling tax-foreclosed homes at auction.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit, Rafaeli v. Oakland County, that challenged one part of Michigan’s tax foreclosure law. The current law, which dates back to 1999, allows county treasurers—who collect delinquent property taxes on behalf of local communities—to pocket the whole sale price of auctioned properties, regardless of the amount of delinquent tax debt.

Oakland County has won an appeal in a lawsuit brought by inmates in the county jail. The lawsuit was related to conditions at the Oakland County jail during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the lawsuit, inmates said they weren’t provided soap and disinfectant to clean surfaces and shared items, and that it was impossible to follow social distancing guidelines.

Starting Monday, 15 churches in Pontiac and Southfield will offer free COVID-19 tests on a rotating basis over the next two weeks.

It’s a joint effort with Oakland County health officials to reach two communities hit hardest by the pandemic: Black people and older adults. Officials say African Americans make up just 14% of Oakland County’s population, but represent 33% of the COVID-19 cases, and about 36% of the deaths there. Nearly 80% of COVID deaths in Oakland County were people over 70. (Statewide data shows similar disparities.) 

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has delivered a blow to an effort to release medically-vulnerable inmates from the Oakland County Jail.

Inmates and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit in April. They said Oakland County wasn’t doing enough to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the jail, and asked the court to order that inmates with medical conditions be released.

Oakland County is bringing some new employees on board for when schools re-open this fall—nurses.

The Oakland Together School Nurse Initiative calls for hiring 68 nurses. Each nurse would be assigned a school district to work with through December.

A federal judge has ruled that Oakland County must set up a process to release medically vulnerable inmates from its jail.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit that alleged the Oakland County Jail has taken inadequate steps to protect inmates from COVID-19.

A new lawsuit demands the release of medically vulnerable inmates from the Oakland County Jail while the COVID-19 pandemic rages.

The civil rights groups behind the lawsuit call for the immediate release of inmates with conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order last month allowing those people to be released early, so long as they don’t pose a threat to public safety, as well as others serving time for things like traffic offenses or failure to appear in court.

One Oakland County hospital has run out of space to store deceased COVID-19 patients, so those bodies are headed to the county morgue.

County officials aren’t naming the hospital. But several southeast Michigan hospitals have struggled to find enough store storage space for bodies of the pandemic’s victims.

Oakland County is opening up its own drive-thru COVID-19 testing site on the county government’s Pontiac campus.

It will only test people with COVID-19 symptoms. It will focus on first responders, essential business employees, and Pontiac residents to start.

This is the worst day so far in the COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan.

New state data shows the number of deaths increased by 52 to 184. And for the first time, more than 1,000 people tested positive for coronavirus in a 24-hour period. Michigan’s total number of coronavirus positive cases is now 6,498.

Oakland County’s Health Division is issuing emergency orders, immediately closing shopping malls and putting playground equipment off-limits as the number of COVID-19 cases in the county rise.   

The county is also imposing new restrictions on people entering child care facilities.

As of Saturday morning, 225 people in Oakland County have tested positive for the virus. On Friday Oakland County recorded its first coronavirus death. The 50 year old man was the fourth person in Michigan to die since the outbreak.

Oakland County’s first COVID-19 patient is "in good shape," according to county officials. The patient was tested Tuesday and the positive result came in late that night. 

Oakland County will try a new approach to providing health services to its un- and underinsured residents.

The plan, called Oakland Health 360, calls for consolidating more services at the county’s two health centers, in Southfield and Pontiac. Those will include a range of health services, including primary care, family planning, dental, and mental health services.

Oakland County has expanded its non-discrimination policy. The policy now includes gender identity, marital, familial, and veteran status.

Dave Coulter is the county executive for Oakland County. He says that expanding the policy is not just the morally correct thing to do.

Interim Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter has had a change of heart: he now says he will run for a full, four-year term in 2020.

Coulter is a Democrat. He was the mayor of Ferndale when county commissioners appointed him to fill the vacancy left by the late Republican L. Brooks Patterson back in August.

Former Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson died on Saturday, but the race to replace him is already becoming complicated and heated--and sparked public criticism from Patterson's team.

By law, Oakland County commissioners have 30 days to appoint an interim successor for Patterson. If they don’t, a special election will be held to fill the remainder of his term through 2020.

The measles outbreak in Oakland County is over.

Officials announced Wednesday that the months-long outbreak has successfully been contained.

Oakland County commissioners may be getting into a big fight over paying a small number of county employees a higher minimum wage. 

Commissioner Angela Powell wants to set a $15 per hour minimum wage for all full-time county employees. The change would affect about one percent of the county workforce.

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson has stage four pancreatic cancer, but plans to stay in office through the end of his term while seeking treatment.

Patterson made that announcement at an emotional news conference at the county building named after him on Tuesday. He also announced that he won’t run for an eighth term in 2020.