Tagged: Highland Park

Just call him “Big Dog.”

That’s allegedly how Highland Park police officer Price Montgomery prefers to be addressed, at least when he’s soliciting $10,000 bribes, or trafficking drugs while wearing his firearm and police badge.

At a press conference Friday morning, the FBI broke the news that it’s arrested four Highland Park police officers, including Montgomery.

They’re in custody and being charged with armed drug trafficking and taking bribes. If convicted, they could face up to 55 years in prison.

After years of legal wrangling, Highland Park’s former emergency financial manager will go on trial for alleged embezzlement next year.

A Michigan Supreme Court ruling this week reinstated charges against Arthur Blackwell III.

Blackwell was emergency financial manager from 2005-2008. He’s accused of writing himself $264,000 in checks from city funds.

Highland Park’s mayor say the city’s water treatment plan will remain shut down indefinitely, while crews are working to repair serious problems that have plagued the facility for months.

Problems range from accumulating sludge to non-functioning valves and water meters. Windom says water quality has not been affected, but the problems are so pervasive that he shut the plant down pre-emptively.

Highland Park mayor DeAndre Windom says while the repairs are ongoing, the Detroit water and sewerage department will provide water directly to Highland Park residents.

Crowd funding is helping to light up Highland Park's streets.

Last year, D.T.E. energy removed 13 hundred street lights, poles and all, when the city was unable to pay its light bill for over 5 years.

So A. J. O’Neil, a café owner, decided to lead a group to buy solar streetlights that would have little ongoing expense.

"I think", he says, "that Highland Park is going to show that providing lighting without that monthly bill is doable in a urban environment."

The ACLU filed a lawsuit yesterday that may change the entire conversation we’ve been having about education, in this state and perhaps beyond. Their focus is on the battered and impoverished little enclave city of Highland Park, which is embedded within Detroit.

The Michigan ACLU has filed what it calls a “groundbreaking” lawsuit against the Highland Park school district, and state education officials.

At issue: The state’s responsibility to make sure every child can read.

State law says school districts must provide any special assistance “reasonably necessary” to bring a child up to grade level in reading.