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required by federal regulations when working within a highway
right of way.
The Adopt-A-Highway program began in Michigan in 1990.
Today, around 2,900 groups have adopted more than 6,
miles of state highway. In a typical year, these volunteers collect
60,000 to 70,000 bags of trash annually, an estimated $5 million
value for the state.
MDOT provides free vests and trash bags, and arranges to
haul away the trash. Volunteers include members of various
civic groups, businesses and families. Crew members have to
be at least 12 years old, and each group must number at least
three people.
Sections of highway are still available for adoption. Groups
are asked to adopt a section for at least two years. Signs bearing
a group’s name are posted along the stretch of adopted highway.
There is no fee to participate.BRIEFS, continued from page 1 –––
businesses from stacking on top of one
another.
Between its March and April meet-
ings, the board shared the ordinance
with the township lawyer, Craig Rolfe,
who advised them against the 500-foot
distance. Hall told the board that Rolfe
worried they may face a constitutional
issue of due process because of the buf-
fers.
Hall presented three options to the
board on Wednesday night: They could
approve the zoning ordinance with the
buffer, they could approve the zoning
ordinance without the buffer, or they
could wait 60 to 90 days, just in case, for
further state and federal regulations.
After hearing from Rolfe, Hall, who
has continuously voiced support for a
buffer, said his opinion had changed. If
it moved forward, he would like to see it
without a buffer.
“I think our attorney has made a good
case,” Hall said. “I don’t think I would
go in deference to our attorney’s opin-
ion. I know that he says we’re going to
get our pants sued off if we put buffers
between them. So why would we go
ahead and do it?”
But he said he didn’t see a reason to
approve the legislation now. There is no
rush or deadline that they must follow,
he argued. “I mean, we may have an
ordinance out there that we may have to
scrap in six or eight months because the
federal government says, ‘All right, this
is what we want,’ ” Hall said.
Treasurer Sandy Greenfield agreed
with Hall. Waiting would not create
extra work for the township, she argued,
rather, it would allow them to “err on the
side of caution.” If they held the ordi-
nances for two months and nothing hap-
pened, they could pass it then.
“We’re pretty well prepared. We’ve
got it written. We pretty much like what
we got,” she said.
In the end, though, the board voted to
approve the legislation. Clerk Robin
Hawthorne argued strongly in favor of
moving forward. At some point, she
said, the township has to pull the trigger.
“We can battle this thing and throw it
against the wall until the cows come
home, but it’s not going to change,”
Hawthorne said. “... I mean, nothing’s
going to ever be exactly perfect.”Township returns with
updated anti-blight ordinance
One month after 50 people packed
the Rutland Charter Township Hall, a
majority of whom expressed displea-
sure with a proposed anti-blight ordi-
nance, the board returned with a revised
anti-blight ordinance this past Wednes-
day, featuring new and more in-depth
definitions.
The updated ordinance included defi-
nitions, such as building materials,
inoperable vehicles and “implement of
husbandry,” relating to agricultural
vehicles. It also allows the township to
grant a waiver, or an extension, not toexceed 90 days, to homeowners who
need wiggle room to clear their proper-
ty if needed.
“If you’re showing that you’re work-
ing on it, we’ll work with you,” Supervi-
sor Larry Watson said.
With little public pushback Wednes-
day, trustees unanimously approved the
ordinance in its first reading.
The ordinance is designed to clear
excessive junk on people’s properties,
such as leaking, inoperable cars. The
township already has a blight definition,
but it is only one paragraph long. If the
township needed to enforce the current
law, it wouldn’t have the ability to
enforce the law in court, the board had
argued.
“It makes it easier for our code
enforcement officer, a little bit easier for
the residents to understand,” Clerk
Robin Hawthorne said. “But we’re not
going to go out and ticket anything that
we didn’t ticket yesterday or the day
before or the day before that. It’s really
not changing anything.”
But at last month’s meeting, members
of the public didn’t see the proposed
ordinance in the same way. They argued
that the ordinance infringed upon their
freedom and opened up the possibility of
“selective enforcement.” They expressed
concern that the township could penalize
them for what they considered minor
infractions, such as a sentimental, unli-
censed vehicle or a pair of tires on their
lawns.In response to the public, the town-
ship board returned in April with a
revised ordinance that further clarified
some of their concerns.
Some on the board, however, wanted
to see even more depth in the ordinance.
After reading the most recent draft, Hall
suggested the township make it even
more “finite.” He pointed to the mention
of “electric wiring and equipment” as an
example.
“Therefore, if it’s defined in here, it’s
blight. If it’s not defined, it’s not,” Hall
said. “There’s no question about it.
There are no hypotheticals.”
But Hawthorne said being more pre-
cise could create more problems for the
township. She advised the board against
implementing additional detail.
“How far down do you want to go?”
she asked. “I mean, garbage is garbage.
You want to go all the way down to the
meat scraps and egg shells and banana
peels? You can’t get too particular in an
ordinance like this because, like you
said, if it’s not there, then it’s not blight.”
Trustees, including Hall, followed suit
and approved the more recent draft.
After making substantial changes to
the draft following last month’s public
comment, the township restarted the
approval process, which requires two
readings at separate meetings. If all goes
according to plan, the ordinance will
return to the board for a second official
reading at its monthly board meeting
May 11.MARIJUANA, continued from page 1 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
They wept for Grace
“The felony murder (conviction) connected
to Count 3 is torture. Very little needs to be
said. There is clearly torture in this case –
and not just the number of times he hit and
stomped on her. The threats and the taunts.
... It’s not even a close call.”
A stipulation for a guilty verdict on Count
5 is that Lafey had a prior felony, the judge
noted.
The record shows that Lafey, in fact, is a
habitual offender with convictions for
third-degree home invasion, witness intimi-
dation, and assault with intent to rob while
unarmed, all in Kent County, on Dec. 2, 2019.
Lafey told Detective Sgt. Maki he had
been released from the Kent County jail,
where he had been serving time on a proba-
tion violation, before he came to live in the
house on Guy Road.
Charles James, who is in the process of
buying the house on land contract, said Lafey
had been sleeping on his living room couch.
As a convicted felon, Lafey was prohibit-
ed from having a gun.
“He was certainly in possession of a fire-
arm,” Schipper said. “And that is, in part, the
way he committed the murder because he
admitted to it and he shot her twice ...”
“I can say, for the record, the cause of the
death here was listed by the medical examin-
er, as a combination of things.”
Dr. Joseph Prahlow, the medical examiner
and a forensic pathologist from Kalamazoo,
testified that Brickley was shot twice. He
described the trajectory of the bullets and
how one severed an artery.
According to Prahlow, “there was about
850 milliliters of blood – a third of her total
(blood) volume – that was already lost,” the
judge said. That, alone, could be a cause of
death but, “additionally to that, Brickley was
stomped on the face, neck, head, chest.”
The butt of the rifle was used to break her
jaw.
The tissue around her heart was bruised.
The totality of all these blunt-force injuries
“maybe on their own would have caused
death as well,” Schipper said, reviewing the
medical examiner’s findings.
In the jailhouse interview with Detective
Sgt. Maki, Lafey claimed that he had acted in
self-defense. He and Brickley had gone out-
side the house that night to hunt rabbit, he
said. Suddenly, Brickley came at him from
behind with a knife, so he shot her. When she
kept coming, he shot her again. Then, when
she lay on the ground, he stomped on her to
stop her from “twitching,” he said.
Lafey also told the detective that the.
rifle he used to shoot Brickley had been
destroyed, melted down by a man named
“Jake.”
But one of the bullets was found in Brick-
ley’s body during the autopsy and, through
ballistics tests, police experts confirmed that
bullet came from the.22 rifle they found in
the house.
During his testimony, James angrily con-
firmed that the gun belongs to him.
Parts of Lafey’s story “were preposterous,”
Nakfoor Pratt told The Banner Tuesday, add-
ing that, in 34 years as a prosecutor, she has
never had a case where someone videotaped
a murder as they were committing it.
“This guy does something so evil, so bad,
the only way the world is going to know is if
we tell them,” she said.
“You just don’t want to ever believe a
human being can do that to another human
being.”
During her closing arguments, Nakfoor
Pratt told the judge that Lafey “said he was
going to do it. He bragged about it. He admit-
ted it. ... No way ... can this be construed as
self-defense.”
“The Feb.12 searches happened four days
before the murder: ‘Electrocution.’ ‘Paralyze
and still be awake.’ ‘How do you kill some-
one and make it look like a suicide?’ ”
“He got that poor girl where she was help-
less and then he decided to carry out the
other gruesome half of this, which was
stomping her.”
In viewing the video of the murder, “I
counted upwards of 50 blows,” said Nakfoor
Pratt, striking the podium before her. “Fifty
stomps on that girl.
“There is no way a human can endure
(that) ... and think there is any justification.
There are only two words I have: The video.
“The self-defense theme again is ridicu-
lous. ... There is no justification. He stomped
the life out of her.
“He watched the light go out of her eyes.”
Nakfoor Pratt then proceeded to quote
Lafey’s own words from the video.
This, she told the judge, was “the most hid-
eous, heinous part” of the crime – and part of
the best evidence against Lafey: His own
words.
She apologized to Brickley’s weeping
family in the audience as she spoke. Brick-
ley’s parents held on to each other; her father
staring up at the ceiling, his face etched in
grief.
“My job is to seek justice and the justice in
this case would be a guilty verdict on all
counts,” Nakfoor Pratt said as she rested the
prosecution’s case.
A few minutes later, Defense Attorneys
Kinney and Jackie Baker of Hastings rested
their case, then the judge called a recess.
When he returned about 30 minutes later,
the judge told Lafey to stand and found him
guilty on all counts. Then he scheduled a datefor sentencing.
Before adjourning, Schipper briefly
addressed Brickley’s family, who has been
present in the court for all the proceedings.
“It’s not lost on me entirely that this is
Good Friday and I don’t think that’s entirely
a coincidence,” he said, struggling for a
moment to speak. “I don’t know if you have
a faith or not. I do. “
“I hope, I hope, somehow in this holiest of
weekends that your family can find some
peace and some healing. OK. Court’s
adjourned.”
From the back of the courtroom a soft
voice replied: “Thank you, your honor.”Hawthorne said she is not aware of a crim-
inal investigation and has not been provided
any additional information.
“I don’t have any kind of warrant or any-
thing telling me that there’s anything criminal
that happened in my precinct at all,” Haw-
thorne said. “So I’m like, what criminal
investigation? This is from November 2020. I
mean, what did you hope to gain from this?”
Hawthorne directed the FOIA request to the
township attorney, Craig Rolfe, who respond-
ed, barring any additional clarification, that
they did not have any information to provide.
They have not received a reply since.
“This is crazy. It’s ridiculous,” Hawthorne
said. “And there’s absolutely no foundationfor it whatsoever. I don’t understand what
he’s fishing for.”
Leaf said this is not a new investigation; it
is merely picking up from where they left off
five months ago. The complainant is the
same, he said: Julie Jones, a former sergeant
with the Barry County Sheriff’s Office.
Last year, Jones told The Banner she sub-mitted the original complaint that started the
investigation into voter fraud in Barry County.
Jones, who retired in 2019, said her com-
plaint was based on a court document that
came from a lawsuit filed by William Bailey
in Antrim County. She obtained it from the
website of Bailey’s lawyer, Matthew DePer-
no of Portage.“It all came from the information, Barry
County-specific information, from Matt
DePerno’s case brief,” Jones said at the time.
“My report pretty much mimicked what was
in the case brief.”
She filed her complaint in April 2021; the
lawsuit it was based on was dismissed by a
judge early last May.A video recording of Andrew Lafey's jailhouse interview, shown last week in Barry County Judge Michael Schipper's court, pro-
vided key evidence during the trial. (Photo by Scott Harmsen.)GRACE, continued from page 1 ––––––––––––––––––
The six convictions in the Lafey case
Count 1: First-degree murder, both pre-
meditated and felony murder, carries a max-
imum sentence of life in prison without the
possibility of parole.
Count 2: Felony firearm carries a two-
year mandatory sentence and must be served
consecutive to the sentence for first-degree
murder.
Count 3: Torture carries a maximum sen-
tence of life or any term of years.Count 4: Felony firearm carries a two-
year mandatory sentence and must be served
consecutive to the sentence for torture.
Count 5: Possession of a firearm by a
felon carries a maximum of five years in
prison and/or a fine of $5,000.
Count 6: Felony firearm carries a two-
year mandatory sentence and must be served
consecutive to the felon in possession of a
firearm conviction.FOIA, continued from page 1 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Judge Michael Schipper addresses the
family of Gracyn-Michael Kay-Candace
Brickley of Ionia after finding Andrew
Lafey guilty on all counts.