Accuracy matters to us. When a factual error, attribution, date, link, or material detail needs correction or clarification, we believe the change should be visible rather than quietly erased.
This page maintains a public record of significant corrections, clarifications, and updates made to Gratiot County Whistleblower reporting.
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Correction · Dates and quotation
Evaluation Report: Discussion Is Nov. 3, Review Nov. 17
Our Oct. 23 report, “Administrator Will Miss Nov. 3 Meeting, Says Performance Evaluation Is Planned for Nov. 17,” said the administrator expected commissioners to discuss his evaluation without him at the Nov. 17 meeting. On a re-check of the county’s recording (from 14:01), he said commissioners would discuss it at the Nov. 3 meeting, which he will not attend, and that “we can do the performance review on the 17th as well.” We also restored a shortened quotation to his exact words and fixed a source link that gave the date of our administrator-record report as Oct. 22 instead of Oct. 21. A dated correction note is at the top of the report.
Administrator Record Report: Date Corrected From Oct. 22 to Oct. 21
When we added our report “Gratiot County Administrator’s Record: Resignations After Board Concerns, Contract Delays, and a Current Refusal to Answer Questions” to this website on Oct. 23, we dated it Oct. 22. The report was first published on our Facebook page on Oct. 21, at about 1:12 p.m. Eastern, according to the page’s own publishing records. The website date and one reference to it in our Nov. 3 meeting report now read Oct. 21. The text of the report did not change.
Administrator Record Report: No Request for Comment Was Sent
Our Oct. 21 report, “Gratiot County Administrator’s Record: Resignations After Board Concerns, Contract Delays, and a Current Refusal to Answer Questions,” lists questions that “will be sent.” It did not say that no request for comment on the report itself was sent to the administrator before it was published.
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None was. The administrator has said in writing that he will not respond to questions from anonymous persons (see our Animal Control inquiry report and the Requests for Comment Log), and we chose not to send a request we expected to go unanswered. We have added a dated update note at the top of the report saying so. No earlier wording in the report was changed. Requests for comment and public-records requests on the subjects in the report will be part of a follow-up report and will be logged on the Requests for Comment Log when sent.
Three policy-page sentences reworded so they describe who publishes the reports without claiming who writes them; no wording in any report was changed.
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The About page now says the bylines are “published by” the people behind this publication (it said “come from”). The Support page now says advertisers have no contact with “our reporting” (it said “the people who write the reports”). The Volunteer page now says “We prepare the report” (it said “We write the report”). See How we use AI for what AI is and is not used for here.
Editing note
“How We Use AI” Statement Added; How We Work Expanded
A plain statement about our use of AI, and fuller standards, added to our policy pages; no wording in any report was changed.
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How We Work and About now say what AI is used for here (research, checking figures, dates and quotations against the linked records, the AI reading voices, and software-generated share images and videos) and what it is not used for (AI-generated photographs, invented quotations, sources or facts). Each report now carries a one-line “AI assistance” note under its headline, and the footer links to the statement.
How We Work also gained four rules: how a report is checked (rule 16), sensitive reports (17), how we use AI (18) and who runs and pays for this site (19), plus fuller wording on corrections (6), anonymity (11) and the volunteer representatives (12).
Correction · Figure
Lumberjack Road Bridge Headline Says $857,000 Under the Estimate; the Bid Records Show About $857,700
The headline of our Sept. 23 report says the low bid came in “$857,000 under the engineer’s estimate.” That figure is wrong. The body of the report gives the correct one, “about $857,700.”
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The Michigan Department of Transportation’s bid results for its Jan. 9, 2026 letting list an engineer’s estimate of $2,806,943.05 and a low bid of $1,949,242.56 for the Lumberjack Road bridge over the Pine River. The difference is $857,700.49, which is 30.56 percent under the estimate. Rounded to the nearest thousand it is $858,000; $857,000 is not a rounding of it.
The headline stays as published, and this entry is the correction of record. Nothing else in the report changed.
Plain-Words Summary Added to the Animal Control Pay Report
Plain-words summaries added to one report; no wording in the reports was changed.
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The report below now opens with a short “In plain words” box, and some also carry “What this means for you” and “What we know / What we don’t know yet” boxes. The boxes restate what the report itself says, with its own figures and names, and carry the date they were written. A few terms in them link to the glossary. Headlines, summaries, dates and report text are unchanged. Where a report carries dated update notes, the box sits below them and adds nothing they do not say; a few boxes point to a note. A date that was still ahead when a box was written is worded as scheduled or as of that date.
Voice Naming Wording Updated; Page Added Explaining the Names
Wording about our reading voices updated and an explanatory page added; no wording in any report was changed, and the audio is unchanged.
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The dedication shown with every audio player and in How We Work now reads: “Our two reading voices are named in remembrance of Koda and Queenie, the two dogs from our report.” It replaces the earlier line, which said the voices were named for the two dogs “so they are remembered here.” The Oct. 3 entry below is left as written.
We also added a page, Why Our Voices Are Named Koda and Queenie, that explains what the voices are, what our report documents about the two dogs, and why we chose the names. The names are a dedication and not a claim about any animal.
Editing note
Audio Versions Added to Reports; Voices Named
Audio versions added to published reports; no wording in the reports was changed.
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Each report now has a “Listen to this article” player above the text. The voices are artificial, not people, and the player says so. The audio reads the report as published; it skips tables and charts, and it says numbers, dates and place names in words. If the audio and the text ever differ, the text is the report.
The two reading voices are named Queenie and Koda, for the two dogs in our report on Koda and Queenie. The names are a dedication only.
Editing note
Plain-Words Summaries Added to Five More Reports
Plain-words summaries added to five more reports; no wording in the reports was changed.
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Each of the five reports below now opens with a short “In plain words” box, and some also carry “What this means for you” and “What we know / What we don’t know yet” boxes. The boxes restate what the report itself says, with its own figures and names, and carry the date they were written. A few terms in them link to the glossary. Headlines, summaries, dates and report text are unchanged. Where a report carries dated update notes, the box sits below them and adds nothing they do not say; a few boxes point to a note. A date that was still ahead when a box was written is worded as scheduled or as of that date.
Plain-words summaries added to nine more reports; no wording in the reports was changed.
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Each of the nine reports below now opens with a short “In plain words” box, and some also carry “What this means for you” and “What we know / What we don’t know yet” boxes. The boxes restate what the report itself says, with its own figures and names, and carry the date they were written. A few terms in them link to the glossary. Headlines, summaries, dates and report text are unchanged. Where a report carries dated update notes, the box sits below them and adds nothing they do not say; a few boxes point to a note. A date that was still ahead when a box was written is worded as scheduled or as of that date.
Plain-words summaries added to ten more reports; no wording in the reports was changed.
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Each of the ten reports below now opens with a short “In plain words” box, and some also carry “What this means for you” and “What we know / What we don’t know yet” boxes. The boxes restate what the report itself says, with its own figures and names, and carry the date they were written. A few terms in them link to the glossary. Headlines, summaries, dates and report text are unchanged. Where a report carries dated update notes, the box sits below them and adds nothing they do not say; a few boxes point to a note. A date that was still ahead when a box was written is worded as scheduled or as of that date.
Plain-words summaries added to ten more reports; no wording in the reports was changed.
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Each of the ten reports below now opens with a short “In plain words” box, and some also carry “What this means for you” and “What we know / What we don’t know yet” boxes. The boxes restate what the report itself says, with its own figures and names, and carry the date they were written. A few terms in them link to the glossary. Headlines, summaries, dates and report text are unchanged. Where a report carries dated update notes, the box sits below them and does not repeat them. Boxes that mention Oct. 6 describe those items as scheduled, as of the date on the box.
Plain-words summaries added to ten reports; no wording in the reports was changed.
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Each of the ten reports below now opens with a short “In plain words” box, and most also carry “What this means for you” and “What we know / What we don’t know yet” boxes. The boxes restate what the report itself says, with its own figures and names, and carry the date they were written. Terms in them link to a new glossary. Headlines, summaries, dates and report text are unchanged. Boxes that mention Oct. 6 describe those items as scheduled, as of the date on the box.
Five Reports Updated With Records Posted or Requests Sent After They Ran
A review of the site found reports that still described something as proposed, due or not yet asked about after the record had moved on. We added a dated note at the top of each. No earlier wording was changed.
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St. Louis bulk-data fees (Sept. 18 report). The council’s Sept. 15 minutes, included in its Oct. 6 packet, record Resolutions 2026-18 and 2026-19 adopted on four ayes with one member absent. The report described the draft packet correctly but could not say how the vote went. The front-page answer to “Can St. Louis charge $1,000 for public data?” now says the council adopted the fees.
St. Louis demolition bids (Sept. 23 report). The Oct. 6 agenda statement lists two proposals, $56,700 and $99,650, with management recommending the lower one and a budget amendment needed. The report said bids were due Oct. 1.
Commission on Aging parking lot (Sept. 23 report). Bids closed Sept. 25. The county’s tabulation lists three responses, and a draft resolution on the Oct. 6 agenda would accept the lowest at no more than $128,740. The report said bids were due that Friday.
Medical examiner report (Oct. 1). It said the 2026-27 budget would be presented in draft. The board adopted the fiscal 2027 budget on Sept. 15; we have not yet checked whether it has a medical examiner line.
Legal notices report (Sept. 30). It said the Gratiot County Herald and the Michigan Press Association had not been asked to comment. That was true when it ran. We emailed both later that day, after publication. Both emails are on the Requests log, which records no reply as of this entry.
The Oct. 6 votes had not happened when we wrote these notes, and the notes say so.
Correction · Count
Gratiot Ballots Carry Seven Local Questions, Not Three; Election Guide Completed
Our Alma library levy report calls the levy “one of three local questions on Gratiot County ballots,” and our August turnout report says three more local questions are on the Nov. 3 ballot. Counting the county clerk’s unofficial list proofed Aug. 27 ourselves, we find seven local proposals: the Alma library millage; school bonds in Breckenridge, Shepherd and St. Johns; operating millages in Merrill and St. Louis; and the Saginaw Intermediate School District career and technical education millage. Some apply to only part of the county. Our count of three was only the questions we had reported on, and one of those, the county transit millage, is not on the clerk’s list. A dated note is at the top of both reports.
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We also finished the Nov. 3 election guide. It now lists all twelve school districts with board seats on the clerk’s list (it had six), the Lafayette Township trustee partial term, the Seville Township clerk seat that has no candidate, the Montcalm Community College trustee seats, and the Alma City Commission term split: the clerk’s list shows one four-year term, vote for four, while the city’s website says the fourth-place finisher serves two years. We removed a duplicate transit paragraph that said we did not know why the question was missing, which contradicted the update above it, and corrected the guide’s date line, which said Sept. 30 although it held the Oct. 2 update.
Clarification · Attribution
Solar Report: Who “Tim” Is in the Aug. 4 Minutes, and What They Say About the Developer
Our Sept. 22 solar report says Commissioner Gay reported that the county administrator “doesn’t want to see our farmland going to Solar.” The Aug. 4 minutes, in Commissioner Gay’s report, say only that a caller phoned “Tim” and that “Tim doesn’t want to see our farmland going to Solar.” The minutes do not say whether “Tim” is Commissioner Tim Gay or Administrator Tim Dolehanty, and we could not tell from them. We have not resolved it, so the attribution to the administrator is not established. We checked the minutes only.
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The same minutes also record statements the report omitted: in the administrator’s report, of a meeting with the Honeyoey solar proposal, “They do want to work with the Townships and the County to meet our Ordinance”; and in the Aug. 11 minutes, that ibV’s representative asked the board to take a procedural step to move forward. A dated note is at the top of the report. No earlier wording was changed.
Update · Clarification
Transit Millage: A Dating Error, an Aug. 4 Record, and the Printed Editions
Our Oct. 2 entry on the county transit millage said our reports were accurate on the dates they were published. That was wrong for the main report: it is dated Sept. 22 (it describes the June 2 vote), and the July 21 “Resend” vote came before it. We added a note to that report saying so.
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The county board’s Aug. 4 minutes, in Commissioner Bunting’s report on the City of Alma, say “they are disappointed that the Transportation Millage did not go forward.” We left that out on Oct. 2. With the July 21 vote and the clerk’s list, it suggests the question was withdrawn, but we still have no confirmation from the county. It is added to the report’s note and to the election guide.
Printed editions. We have not altered any printed edition. Printed Vol. 1, No. 2, dated Sept. 30, 2026, says in its turnout and library items (page 3) and its transit report (page 5) that a county-wide transit millage will be on the Nov. 3 ballot. Those statements are superseded by the online notes dated Oct. 2 and Oct. 3. The same edition’s report on the Sheriff’s Office review (page 5) lists the names of eight residents who spoke in public comment; that listing is superseded by the Oct. 3 privacy correction, which removed the names online, and we do not repeat them here. Our Oct. 3 privacy entry gives that edition’s date as Sept. 25; the edition’s own date line reads Sept. 30. The corrections list in printed Vol. 1, No. 3 (page 6) does not include the transit update.
Clarification · Our rules and pages
Request-for-Comment Rule Spelled Out; Anonymity Wording and Several Pages Made Consistent
Request for comment.How We Work and About said we ask for comment before publishing and that earlier reports state whether comment was requested. That did not match what we do. We now say it as practiced, without lowering the rule: a report that raises a question about a named person, office, business or organization gets a request for comment first. Service reports that only summarize a public agenda or minutes do not question anyone’s conduct and are published without a request, with an open invitation to respond. If a report that does raise a question must go out first, it says so, and we send the request afterward, list it on the Requests log and add any reply with a dated note. Reports published before Oct. 1, 2026 were written without this rule, and some do not say whether comment was requested. The log lists every request actually sent; where a report names an office and the log has no entry, none has been sent. The front-page trust cards, the About page and the volunteer page were reworded to match.
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Who runs the publication. Our pages described the operators several ways (“the person operating this page,” “a small group of individuals,” “unpaid volunteers,” “our editors”). The pages now say “the people behind this publication.” The emails we sent are printed as written and keep their original wording. Online reports are signed “W.E.” and printed Vol. 1, No. 3 is signed “Staff Report”; the About page now notes that.
Other fixes. The volunteer page still called the Animal Control report “developing”; it closed Oct. 2. The About page said each report names who made a records request, while the volunteer page promises not to name a volunteer without permission; the About page now matches the volunteer page. The front page said we “update the story” when we correct it; it now says we add a dated note. The meetings page’s “How to speak” box now says the county board’s rules ask speakers to identify themselves, that St. Louis and Alma allow five minutes, and that we have not found posted rules for the other bodies. On phones, the “How We Earn Trust” section no longer hides behind the “Show the rest of this edition” toggle.
Correction · Privacy
Two Reports Edited to Protect Private Individuals
A review of the whole site found two places where our reports exposed more about private people than they needed to. We fixed both.
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County board and the records-appeal report (“County Board Denies Records Requester’s GIS Fee Appeal”). The report says it withholds the requester’s name, but it linked the county’s unredacted appeal letter, which shows that person’s name, street address and personal email address. We removed the link and the sentence that pointed to it. The county’s agenda and the rest of our sources remain.
Sheriff’s Office review report (“Sheriff’s Office Workplace Review and New Harassment Policy”). The report listed the names of eight residents who spoke during public comment on June 2. The minutes record those names, but the report does not need them, and they were printed next to a sensitive subject connected to an event the minutes say is in litigation. The sentence now says “eight residents.” The county’s own minutes are unchanged.
No other wording in either report was changed. We have also adopted a rule: we do not print the names of private residents who speak in public comment unless they are the subject of the report or have asked to be named. Printed edition Vol. 1, No. 2 (Sept. 25) still contains the names on its inside pages; we have not altered a published edition, and we are considering how to handle that.
Update · Clarification
County Transit Millage May No Longer Be on the Nov. 3 Ballot
Our June 2 report, “Voters to Decide County-Wide Transit Millage in November; Board Split 4-1 to Put It on the Ballot,” and passing references in two other reports (the Aug. 4 turnout report and the Alma library levy report) say a county-wide transit millage would be on the Nov. 3 ballot. The reports were accurate on the dates they were published. The record has since changed, and we did not catch it.
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Minutes of the county board’s July 21 meeting record a 4-0 vote on a motion to “Resend Resolution 26-431,” the resolution that placed the question on the ballot. The Alma city manager’s July 24 newsletter says the board “voted to rescind” it. The county clerk’s unofficial list of Nov. 3 questions, proofed Aug. 27, includes no county transit millage, and no county board agenda since July 21 has an item on it. The same July 21 minutes also quote the administrator describing “the Transit Millage that will be on the November ballot,” so the county’s own record is not consistent.
We have added a dated update note at the top of each of the three reports, rewritten the transit paragraph in our Nov. 3 election guide, and are asking the county clerk and administrator which is correct. The minutes do not record the commissioners’ reasons, and we do not state them. No earlier wording in the reports was changed. We will update this entry when the county answers. Every request is on the Requests for Comment Log.
The closed Animal Control report had picked up several overlapping update notes. We combined them into one section so the same points are not stated four times. Both emails, the county administrator’s reply and every fact in the report are unchanged, and the change is listed in the report’s update history.
Our Sept. 19 developing report, “Animal Control Inquiry Routed to County Administration After Publication Seeks Comment,” is now closed. The county administrator wrote that he will not respond to questions from anonymous persons, and our Sept. 19 follow-up, which asked whether Animal Control employees may answer our questions directly or whether all questions must go through his office, has had no reply as of Oct. 2.
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We added a dated update, a plain tally of our requests, and a labeled statement of our position, and changed the report’s label from Developing to Closed. No earlier facts, quotations or attributions were changed. If the county answers, we will add the answer. Every request we send to officials, with its full text, is on the new Requests for Comment Log.
How This Site Is Paid For Has Changed: Labeled Advertising, No Reader Payments
Until Oct. 1, 2026, our About and Privacy pages said this site carried no advertising. That is no longer true. The site now carries advertising code from Google AdSense, and ads will appear once Google finishes its review. Ads are placed automatically, are labeled, and advertisers have no contact with the people who write the reports.
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We do not accept money from readers: no donations, memberships or subscriptions. For a few hours on Oct. 1 a new support page said online payment was being set up; it was never switched on and no money was collected. That page now lists ways to help that cost nothing.
The About, Privacy and Support pages were rewritten to match. One source link in an earlier report, to a Michigan Department of Agriculture page that the state has since removed, was pointed to the department’s current animal-industry page. No report text was changed.
Graphic With Our Legal-Notices Report Named the Wrong 2022 Act
The image accompanying our Sept. 30 report, “Gratiot’s Legal Notices Are Missing From the Statewide Archive State Law Calls For,” described MCL 691.1051 as “amended by 2022 PA 74.” The act that amended that section is 2022 PA 76 (Senate Bill 258 of 2021). Public Act 74 of 2022 was the companion bill that amended a different section, MCL 600.1461.
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The article text did not name the act and is unchanged. The graphic on the web version has been replaced. The same graphic appears on page 2 of the Vol. 1, No. 2 newspaper PDF, which we do not alter after publication; this note is the correction of record for it.
Preview of Koda & Queenie Report Described Both Dogs as Gratiot County’s
Page 5 of our Sept. 18 newspaper (Vol. 1, No. 1) previewed an upcoming report as “tracing reports about how two Gratiot County shelter dogs may have reached research labs.”
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That wording went further than our records do. Documents and published reports we have reviewed identify Queenie as a stray from Gratiot County. We have not found a record showing which county or shelter Koda came from. Accounts of Koda describe a family’s surrendered dog that was sold to a licensed dealer and then to a university, without naming the shelter.
This is a clarification, not a finding that the preview was wrong: we have not established that Koda came from somewhere else. We have only established that the Gratiot County connection is documented for one dog and not, so far, for the other. The Sept. 25 report will state what the records show for each. The newspaper edition is a finished document and remains as printed.
Update, Sept. 19, 2026, 11:42 p.m. EDT: After this clarification was posted, we located a June 11, 2011, CBS Detroit report stating that Koda, a 3-year-old Malamute, was surrendered to the Gratiot County Animal Shelter on June 13, 2007, sold to a Class B dealer on June 19, 2007, and resold to the University of Michigan. The report attributes the account to the Michigan director of the Humane Society of the United States.
Our statement above that we had found no record naming Koda’s shelter was incomplete. It was accurate about government records, which we still have not obtained, but a published news report does name the shelter, and we should have found it before posting. The preview’s description of both dogs as connected to Gratiot County is supported by published reporting. What remains unconfirmed is the county’s own intake and transfer record for either dog. The text above is left as originally posted so readers can see what changed.
Date Corrected in U.S. 127 Report; State Guidance Linked in Animal Control Report
Our report on human remains found near U.S. 127 said that follow-up reporting had been “reviewed through Sept. 18” and carried an “Updated Sept. 18” label, while another paragraph in the same report correctly said this publication searched again on Sept. 19. The search took place on Sept. 19. Both references now read Sept. 19. No other wording in the report changed.
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The Animal Control report refers to State of Michigan guidance on animal-control responsibilities without linking to it. A direct link to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development's Animal Control Officer page was added to that report's primary records. The report's text did not change.
Website Reports Expanded With Additional Sourced Detail
On Sept. 19, 2026, while the website was being moved to a new publishing system, a number of website reports posted on Sept. 18 and earlier on Sept. 19 were lengthened with additional facts drawn from the same primary sources they already cited, including council packets, the county's request for proposals and city and college announcements. A direct link to the county's Animal Control Officer job description was added to the Animal Control report's primary records.
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No previously published fact, figure, quotation or attribution was changed or removed. Since that date, the text of published reports is kept fixed; later changes are limited to corrections recorded on this page. Reports labeled as developing carry their own dated update history.
The original Facebook version of our Animal Control report sometimes used the term “commissioners” generally when describing portions of the Sept. 15 Board of Commissioners discussion.
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The specific remarks quoted in the report concerning dogs and cats, animal comfort, unusual animals, and related statements were made by District 2 Commissioner and Vice Chair Jan Bunting.
The quotations themselves were not changed. The clarification was added so attribution would be clear.
