Michigan
Bills to expand FOIA to Michigan Legislature, governor’s office clear Senate panel
Legislation to expand Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act to include both the governor’s office and state Legislature is advancing, after members of the Senate Oversight Committee voted Wednesday to report bills to the full Senate floor for consideration.
Senate Bills 669 and 670 would add both the Legislature and the governor’s office to Michigan’s existing FOIA laws, which allow individuals to request records and other information from government organizations to gain a better understanding of how they’re operating. The bills were introduced by Sens. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, and Ed McBroom, R-Waucedah Township, respectively.
In February, the Senate Oversight Committee heard testimony on the bills for the first time. While speakers mostly applauded the bills, there were concerns over some exemptions to open records requests that are currently baked into them, like shielding the communications in the governor’s office for issuing pardons and criminal reprieves, and exemptions for communications between constituents and employees of the governor’s office or Legislature.
Moss and McBroom said after the initial hearing, they worked with advocates to tweak the bills, leading to a pair of substitute bills being adopted and reported Wednesday.
Under the substitute bills, communications between lawmakers and their own constituents remain exempt from open records requests, but communications between lawmakers and residents who don’t reside in their districts are no longer considered exempt.
“We did feel that this was the best route to capture the sensitivity around the communication that somebody engages with their lawmaker on,” Moss said.
Communications between lawmakers and an individual who is required to register as a lobbyist, is a public employee or is appointed to a public board would not be exempt, even if the individual lives in the lawmaker’s district, under the proposed legislation.
Additionally, Moss said the substitute bills now place the burden of explaining why a FOIA request is denied on the FOIA coordinator of the responding agency — the initial draft placed the burden of proving why certain records are of public interest on the individual submitting the FOIA request.
Exemptions for records possessed by majority and minority caucuses in the Legislature have also been peeled back slightly. Under the substitute bills, exemptions are limited to advice, opinions or recommendations about public policy or district work.
Bill sponsors said the substitutes adopted Wednesday are aimed at addressing some of the concerns transparency advocates presented at the initial hearing in February, among them the amount of discretion FOIA coordinators would have when responding to public records requests.
“I think that we have really worked very hard to create a system that’s as objective as possible,” McBroom said. “We’ve tried to create something that can just be more objectively determined. Does this person live in your district? Are they registered lobbyists or not? Is this personal communication? Those are just mostly very objective, easy-to-determine standards.”
Moss and McBroom were the only speakers to testify Wednesday. The committee voted 5-0 to send the substitute bills to the full Senate, with one member, Sen. Jonathan Lindsey, R-Coldwater, passing on both votes.
Michigan has long held a reputation for being one of the worst-ranking states when it comes to government transparency. In 2014, the Free Press reported Michigan was one of only two states in which both the governor and state lawmakers have blanket exemptions from public record laws, and despite efforts from some lawmakers to change that, no legislative expansions of government transparency have taken place in the decade since.
But longtime backers of shedding more sunlight on the governor’s office and Legislature in Michigan are hopeful the current effort to expand open record laws is successful.
“I think this is a historic moment at least for the Senate, because it has been the Senate who has been the block of making this law for the last couple of sessions,” said Sen. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, who chairs the Oversight Committee. Singh also noted that March 11-15 is the so-called “Sunshine Week,” which aims to educate the public about government transparency and warn about issues arising from excessive secrecy for government operations.
Keeping with that theme, Michigan House Democrats were expected to unveil their own set of transparency legislation Wednesday afternoon — lawmakers had called a press conference to discuss a package of bills called the Bringing Reforms for Integrity, Transparency and Ethics, or BRITE Act, later in the day.
Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com. Follow him on X (Twitter) @arpanlobo. Contact Clara Hendrickson: chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, @clarajanehen.
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MUNISING, Mich. – A 65-year-old Michigan woman allegedly left her home in the middle of the night and never returned.
Now, more than two months after she was last seen, police are continuing to search for her.
Starla Goings was last seen in Munising on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025.
Her daughter, Steffanie Goings, and her husband, Anthony Owens, told NBC’s News that they live in Orlando, but would talk to Starla every couple of days.
The couple said they last spoke to Starla in the afternoon on Aug. 15.
It was a normal conversation, and Starla told them that she was at the State Fair in Escanaba, according to NBC News. They haven’t heard from her since that day.
Two days later, after reaching out to some of Starla’s friends, they discovered that no one had talked to Starla all weekend.
That’s when the Alger County Sheriff’s Office received a call for a welfare check on Starla, which was carried out in the evening on Sunday, Aug. 17.
Alger County Sheriff Todd Brock told NBC News that Starla was last seen by her husband at around midnight on Aug. 15. She allegedly told her husband she was leaving, and then left the home.
Her car was located about 3.5 miles from her home on Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025.
On Sept. 11, 2025, Anthony made a post on the Munising Informed Facebook page saying that they knew Starla made it home from the fair, but had no other information to provide.
Then, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, Steffanie made a post on that same community page, referencing a report that authorities were searching Starla’s property, and said they didn’t know what police were doing at the house or if they had found anything.
“When we know something, we will share what we can, but right now we need time and space to process and grieve,” Steffanie said in the post. “Please respect that.”
On Wednesday, Oct. 29, the sheriff’s office confirmed to Local 4 that a search had been conducted at the property, but didn’t provide any additional details.
The investigation is ongoing.
Starla is 65, 5′4″ and 160 pounds, with bright white hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Starla’s disappearance is asked to contact the Alger County Sheriff’s Office at 906-387-7030.
Copyright 2025 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.
Washington ― Michigan’s congressional delegation is aiming to use the upcoming defense policy bill to block the Air Force from retiring the A-10 “Warthog” Thunderbolt II “early” in 2026 to ensure the squadron stays at Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Macomb County into 2027.
Their goal is to minimize the gap between the time when the A-10s will roll out of Selfridge and a replacement flying mission, F-15EX fighters, is supposed to arrive in 2028 in an effort to maintain the workforce of pilots and maintenance staff for the aircraft.
Led by U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, a Charlotte Republican, Michigan lawmakers wrote Wednesday to the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, asking them to use language that requires the Air Force to maintain a minimum fleet size of 162 A-10 aircraft and prohibits early retirement of the A-10s without the approval of Congress.
“This would basically do a transition between the two (platforms) without a significant or sizable gap between them,” Barrett told The Detroit News. “And that’s the big issue we’re trying to stop. Now that we have the commitment for the new F-15EX aircraft, we don’t want the A-10s to go dormant early and present a gap.”
The lawmakers worry that a gap of a year or two between flying missions would potentially see the staff at Selfridge devoted to pilot training, maintenance and other tasks reassigned or placed elsewhere without aircraft at the base.
“Then all of a sudden, you’re scrambling to get them back and build back up,” Barrett said.
His letter comes as members of the committees are meeting to negotiate the final text of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Both the Senate and House-passed versions of the NDAA included language barring early A-10 retirements, but the lawmakers say the House-passed language is stronger “and will ensure the A-10 Thunderbolt II Aircraft fleet cannot be retired earlier than planned,” they wrote.
All members of Michigan’s delegation, including Democratic Sens. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township and Elissa Slotkin of Holly, signed onto the letter except Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit. Peters and Slotkin both sit on the Senate Armed Services panel.
Idaho’s congressional delegation also joined the letter, including GOP Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, whose state hosts an A-10 squadron at Gowen Field that is set to be replaced with F-16s.
“Early retirement of the A-10 Thunderbolt II Aircraft fleet could negatively impact Air National Guard Bases like Selfridge in Michigan and Gowen Field in Idaho,” the lawmakers wrote.
“While both bases have planned for the divestment of the A-10s prior to receiving the F-15EXs and the F-16s, an expedited retirement of the A-10s would have negative consequences on their workforce, including pilots losing currency and certification, as well as maintaining proficiency due to the lack of airframes on which to work.”
The Air Force has long planned to divest the aging A-10 Thunderbolt fleet to spend instead on next-generation aircraft.
The Maryland Air National Guard, based in eastern Baltimore County, deactivated its last remaining A-10s last month, sending most to a boneyard in Arizona and two to Selfridge in Harrison Township, Michigan.
A general picked to serve as the next chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, Kenneth S. Wilsbach, this month reiterated the Pentagon’s plans to send a squadron of F-15EX fighter aircraft to Selfridge on time in 2028, assuming the required infrastructure upgrades are complete.
Wilsbach was responding to a question from Slotkin, who asked him about reports that bureaucrats at the Pentagon were looking to delay or “push out” the arrival of the F-15EXs beyond the 2028 date announced by President Donald Trump in April in Michigan.
That, Slotkin worried, would create a gap between when the A-10s’ pilots and personnel depart and the arrival, potentially years later, of the F-15EXs, causing the base to “lose all that good training and manpower that we have.”
Wilsbach said the Air Force would have to train the new crews and maintenance personnel as they transition from the A-10 to the F-15EX, a process that could take six to 18 months.
“So we’ll have to work on that timing,” Wilsbach said.
Michigan’s delegation and state officials lobbied for over a decade for a fighter mission to replace the A-10 Thunderbolt II squadron at Selfridge that is set to be retired starting next year.
Overruling the Air Force, Trump in late April said he’d send 21 brand-new F-15EXs to the base located on Lake St. Clair, northeast of Detroit, starting in 2028 in a gesture that Trump said should “save this place.”
mburke@detroitnews.com
MLive is on a quest to name the best.
With our Top Athletes project, we’re giving readers a chance to select the top performer in each class in each sport for the fall of 2025.
We tested the waters for girls swimming with the senior class, now we’re moving on to the juniors. We’ll follow with underclassmen next.
We’ve collected a list of about 25 candidates and ask for your vote on the Top Junior for girls swimming in Michigan this fall.
Girls Swimming
TOP JUNIORS
*Maria Baldwin, Saline
*Elle Brooks, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood
*Maya Cebula, Portage Central
*Ayla Daigneau, Ypsilanti Lincoln
*Katie Dunfield, Fenton
*Leah Greaves, Farmington Hills Mercy
*Ainsley Gump, Sturgis
*Suryn Lee, Ann Arbor Pioneer
*Anna McAllister, Chelsea
*Kayce McAllister, Dexter
*Mia Mracna, Berkley
*Quinn Norlander, Detroit Country Day
*Vera Roberson, Midland Dow
*Joscelyn Ryan, Madison Heights Bishop Foley
*Juna Sakamoto, Ann Arbor Huron
*Adrienne Schadler, Ann Arbor Skyline
*Mallory Shaver, Grand Blanc
*Campbell Shore, Farmington Hills Mercy
*Camryn Siegers, Holland Christian
*Genevieve Springer, Grand Haven
*Avery Tack, Farmington Hills Mercy
*Cecilia Walusek, Ann Arbor Pioneer
*Anna Williams, Ann Arbor Skyline
MLive player polls are non-scientific ventures, designed to promote fun, fandom and discussion. The winners receive no prize and the results have no bearing on postseason awards.
Use of any form of automated voting is contrary to the intent and is not allowed.
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