City Council Puds Out On Issues

City Council Puds Out On Issues

Monday, March 6, the Ann Arbor Tribal Council, the Human Rights Party, and the Southeast Ann Arbor Council went to City Council with charges of false information and harassment on the part of the Police Department, neglect of the rights of the people to protect their communities against ecological rape on the part of the City administration, and the taking of a lackadaisical and non-responsive attitude toward the needs of the people on the part of the City Council.

Elson Haas, graduate student in medicine, worker at the Free People's Clinic and representative of the Tribal Council, told the City Council of Police Chief Walter Krasny's false statement to the Ann Arbor News, which printed an article concerning the death of Dirk Fisher, a young artist in the Ann Arbor Community. Krasny said that he talked to the person that performed the autopsy and that the cause of death was a "massive overdose of LSD." This was a total lie, as Krasny never talked with anyone concerning the autopsy and even if he did, this, death by "overdose of LSD" couldn't be proven by an autopsy.

The appearance at the City Council meeting came after an intensive investigation which brought forth facts that Krasny had hoped to suppress, and which the Ann Arbor News could have known if they would have been responsible to the community and worked to verify the report given by Krasny. This continual program on the part of the police departments to withhold drug information from the people and to keep communities in the dark as to the real drug problems lies in the City Council's unresponsiveness to the needs of the people. The City Council has not yet answered these charges of police irresponsibility.

Mary Meiswick, of the Southeast Ann Arbor Council announced to the council that the residents of southeast Ann Arbor will file petitions objecting to the relocation of Lansky's Junkyard from Summit St. to the sanitary landfill at Platt and Ellsworth.

Mary asked that there be a public hearing on the subject, stating that this would be an alternative to a law suit being filed by the community.

All these issues brought before the city expose the present government's desire to front for the business interests of Ann Arbor and to ignore people's lives. If we elect our own people to City Council, we can begin to have some power in the decisions that affect us. This year, with the Human Rights Party running candidates in all five wards, we really do have a choice on April 3rd. Seize the time! Vote HRP April 3!