This Grand Rapids Attorney Advises Locals to Staunchly Defend Pere Marquette Memorial

In September, somebody noticed that Pere Marquette (PM) Township was spending a good amount of money to maintain the Father Marquette Memorial out on a hill in the Buttersville Peninsula.  The monument inside a small township-owned park features a concrete base topped with an obelisk with a large white cross poking out of the top.  For reasons known only to them, this person was offended enough to contact the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists (MACRA), led by activist-atheist Mitch Kahle.  They weren't offended enough, or courageous enough, to contact the PM Board with their concerns as most interested parties would do in similar situations.

Kahle's group has threatened legal action against the township since the middle of October, and as the township approaches four months of living under the shadow of that threat, they have yet to indicate how they will proceed.  To their credit they have sought the advice of their Grand Rapids based attorneys, but reviewed that advice in closed session away from the public scrutiny.  They have also held a special meeting to get public input and received two earfuls of comments indicating the public wants to retain their landmark, but every single trustee on the PM Board has kept their opinions away from the public scrutiny at that meeting and otherwise. 

It makes local people uneasy when their popularly-elected leaders have their clear and popular mandate, when it appears those leaders may give in to whatever their attorneys from Grand Rapids advise them to do.  In this vacuum of leadership, we should take heart in what a notable Grand Rapids attorney with no connection to the PM Board advised them to do in yesterday's opinion page in the Ludington newspaper:  fight the false civil rights activists who know better than engage with a baseless lawsuit.  Here are her words:  (a brief biography of the senior assistant Kent County Prosecutor follows as well as a link to a summary of the recent Supreme court ruling she cites)

Biography (from a 2014 YWCA award for professions)  Helen V. Brinkman, pictured below, senior assistant prosecuting attorney at Kent County Prosecutor’s office.  Over her 25-year career, Brinkman has tried a remarkable number of circuit court felony trials with an even more remarkable success rate. Of her 178 sexual assault trials, a jury has only acquitted 14 defendants. She was asked in 1991 to help in the creation and implementation of the Children’s Assessment Center, which opened in 1993 and has been an unqualified success by providing a “safe haven” for abused children.
She was involved in the initial meetings that explored the possibility of bringing the YWCA Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Program to Kent County; the program opened in November 1996. Since that time she has become a strong supporter of the program and has made herself available to speak to prosecutors in other counties where the service is being considered.
In addition, she has a long history of conducting a portion of the training for YWCA volunteer advocates. She was also a member of the YWCA “Making a Difference” team that received training to help address the needs of victims of “non-stranger” sexual assaults and the prosecution of such cases.
Brinkman has been a member of the Kent County “Child Death Review Team” since its creation. It is tasked with examining all childhood deaths that occur within the county regardless of whether criminal charges are filed.

Pleasant Grove City v. Summum

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Very good advice from Helen Brinkman. I hope the PM township board considers her information not to cave on this issue. I still have a feeling that the anti PM monument people will not let this go since there are so many PM monuments around the Great Lakes area. WInning only one may cause a domino effect and may cause problems with other areas who have these kinds of monuments.

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