Kent County Star

Business Against Free Enterprise

For Affordable Piano Lessons in Kent County - Click Here!West Michigan business leaders met with presidential candidate Mitt Romney yesterday evening and complained about unions and the requirement that workers be paid prevailing wages on public works. The problem, of course, is that unions get in the way of businesses dictating the terms of employer-employee [...]

Local First Announces Holiday Auction

Local First launched an Online Holiday Auction today. The event runs Nov. 23, to encourage awareness of what local businesses have to offer to holiday shoppers. Each week the auction will have featured items to highlight some of the unique gifts available from local retailers. The auction web site is located at http://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/AuctionHome.action?vhost=localfirst You just [...]

Toxic Coal Ash Pours into Lake Michigan

LAKE MICHIGAN – A partial retaining bluff collapse Monday at the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant in Wisconsin sent toxic coal ash spewing into Lake Michigan. This collapse comes just weeks after the U.S. House voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from protecting Americans from coal ash. In response, Mary Anne Hitt, [...]

No-Fault Insurance Changes Passes Committee

Last week, the House Insurance Committee passed HB 4936, a bill that would eliminate Michigan’s no-fault auto insurance system. According to Rep. Jeff Irwin, “This change will mean that more families will be bankrupted by car accidents, more patients will receive substandard or insufficient care and the taxpayers will be picking up more of the [...]

Occupy Grand Rapids to Hold Outreach Rally

Occupy Grand Rapids is holding a Rally this Saturday at Monument Park. According to a OccupyGR press release, the purpose of this rally is to reach out to the community in support of the Occupy Movement. The Occupy GR Rally will also include workshops, music and discussions in an effort to interact with and educate [...]

Grassroots ‘Occupy’ Group Forms in Grand Rapids

GRAND RAPIDS – A diverse grassroots group of area residents gathered at Calder Plaza at noon today to form the first Occupy Grand Rapids demonstration. Starting with two people using social media and word of mouth, the event grew to a gathering of about 120 people. Denis Kovacevic, Grand Rapids, helped to organize today’s event. [...]

Recapping the first weekend of ArtPrize

The crowds descended upon downtown Grand Rapids this past weekend for the third installment of ArtPrize. According to founder Rick DeVos, ArtPrize is all about “rebooting the conversation on art”. Based on the thousands of people who have already attended there is plenty to talk about. There are over 1,500 artists exhibiting in a three [...]

Activity and Activism at West Michigan Labor Day Fest

Grand Rapids – People came to participate in the West Michigan Labor Fest today held at Ah-Nab-Awen Park along the Grand River between the Ford Museum and the Grand Rapids Public Museum. Even though Ah-Nab-Awen means “resting place” in honor of Native American village that once occupied the location, the event made it a place [...]

Ok White Conference Week 2

Kent County, MI- Welcome to Week 2 of the Ok White Conference Season, and as teams are gaining momentum from the first week, some of the teams, take a step back towards winning the conference championship. Kicking it off, the perennial favorite Lowell Red Arrows took care of business as usual beating Kenowa Hills easily [...]

ArtPrize returns on September 21

Now in its third year, ArtPrize is described by its organizers as a radically open art competition. Each year over 1,000 artists and hundreds of thousands spectators converge on downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan to take part in this event. ArtPrize opens on September 21 and runs until October 9. This is a unique competition to [...]