Women are dominating state politics, at least in the Jackson area. District 46 Representative Kathy Schmaltz recently honored local cardiologist Dr. Kathy Glick.
“This was the Girl Scouts Heart of Distinction or heart of Michigan women of Distinction Awards and they held their event in Jackson and they honored five women as Leaders who Inspire what they say through imagination and Innovation dedication and someone who has a passion for helping others and the person honored an art area was Dr Kathy Glick and we everybody knows her she’s been a cardiologist in Jackson since 1990 she’s involved in medical ethics the local medical society the American Heart Association I had the privilege of presenting her with the state of Michigan tribute to congratulate on the award and to thank her for being a part of our community and helping so many people here and she actually had to receive the award on Zoom because her flight was canceled because of the hurricane Legend yeah.”
Kathy is good friends with Jeff Daniels.
“Well you’ve been part of the Purple Rose haven’t you?”
“Yes with the theater for 10 years doing fundraisers and it was a time when we, could be like, dumber and or Gettysburg and be able to fundraise for the theater off of that of course. The studio stopped that but then I helped with the different golf outings he did and he’s been here at the Michigan Theater to help us sure fundraised here and also through the capital campaign. He’s been here to help us out so yeah keeping our theaters live in the Arts going is really important.”
“No movie has been more appropriately titled the Dumb and Dumber because that was about the dumbest thing ever see.”
“It seems like it’s for me.”
Sarah Lightner, State Representative in the 45 District recently discussed the trouble brewing for restaurants and employees concerning the minimum wage and tips.
“Okay so this is your fiscally responsible lawmaker?”
“Yeah so this is a new thing down from the Supreme Court yesterday. Our new situation I should say so in 2018 so before I even came to the legislature you know the legislature tried to do a fix to kind of save our restaurant and tipped wage people I guess from the Supreme Court was basically that that is not enforceable. It’s not constitutional and that we need to convert tip people that industry over to a minimum wage and so it also kind of gets rid of the way the tip credit you know. The tips kind of go away which you know a lot of these people you know they get cash tips and stuff like that but like they make a good wage at some of these restaurants and I can understand the minimum but I don’t think they understand that the tip credit goes away so they’re going to you know have to pay more and everyone’s going to see this. I mean some restaurants probably aren’t going to survive you know when we were talking to the restaurant and Lodging Association yesterday they were estimating probably 25 to 40% of restaurants that are in existence right now will probably end up having to close.”
Area State Senator Sue Shink recently on WKHM discussed her mission is to bring more money into the district.
“Michigan’s gotten 800 million in opioid settlement dollars that helps but it’s a really big problem so even though we’re talking about a lot of big dollar numbers we have a problem that is going to be with us for a long time and we’re gonna have to keep working on it for a long time.”
“Man you’re you’re racking up a lot of money.”
“So it’s one of my if I went there with the idea that that was one of my goals I had served in County government for four years and I that a lot of times people know what to do what they know what their Community needs they just don’t have the money to do it so that’s one of my that’s one of my goals and I worked really closely with our Senator Appropriations chair my colleague to make sure that we’re bringing that I’m bringing home money for Jackson’s needs and we’ve been able to address some of the needs and I have heard from people that they see the difference so to me that’s why I’m in government.”