Stories indexed with the term ‘Jim Fink’

With the 2012 general elections well behind us, it’s time for politicians to put on their very serious faces and make very serious pronouncements like, “The voters have spoken.”

I prefer to make a funny face and ask: How is a judicial candidate like the city park system? Or for a question that sounds less like the set-up to a punch line: What’s the deal with downtown Ann Arbor and its connection to the art millage and the library bond proposal?

Of course, politicians are at least partly right when they say that the voters have spoken. But what did the voters actually say? It’s easy to make true statements about voter sentiment – if you stick to the text of the ballot.

For example, in the non-incumbent race for judge of the 22nd Circuit Court, more voters preferred to have Carol Kuhnke decide future Washtenaw County court cases than to have Jim Fink decide them. You can tell that just from the ballot and from the results. But it’s possible to make a stronger claim: More voters preferred the kind of person Kuhnke is – a candidate endorsed by the city of Ann Arbor Democratic Party. And to support that claim, we’d need to look at other results, like those from the presidential election.

Or by way of another example, the election results indicate that a majority of Ann Arbor voters said they do not want the city to levy an 0.1 mill tax to pay for art in public places. That’s all you can tell from the ballot question and the results. To make stronger claims – related, for example, to what (if anything) voters were trying to say about the existing Percent for Art program – you’d need to find some other way to explore the content of voters’ minds.

The same goes for the Ann Arbor District Library bond proposal and the parks maintenance and capital improvements millage renewal. “Do not tax us to make the bond payments for a new downtown library building, but please continue to tax us to pay for city park needs.” That’s all voters said. They didn’t say anything about their favorite books, or which city park is the best. (By the way, it’s West Park, located in Ward 5, which is indisputably the highest-numbered ward in the city.)

Yet we’d like to divine something more from the results than just the results.

This column, which is heavy on impressionistic conclusions based on maps, and light on rigorous statistical analysis, begins with mapped illustrations of some basics. For example, mostly Democrats live in the eastern portion of Washtenaw County. And in Ann Arbor, Wards 2 and 4 are the strongest city wards for Republicans – even though those wards also lean Democratic. That’s still true 20 years after Ann Arbor’s ward boundaries were drawn to achieve that effect.

The column concludes by illustrating a possible geographic connection between the failed public art millage and the failed downtown library bond proposal – namely, downtown Ann Arbor.  [Full Story]

Attorneys Carol Kuhnke and Jim Fink, the top two vote-getters in the Aug. 7, 2012 primary, are now vying for a vacancy on the 22nd Circuit Court bench to be left by retiring judge Melinda Morris. The nonpartisan judicial elections on Nov. 6 are for six-year terms.

At a candidate forum held in Ann Arbor’s Bach Elementary School cafeteria earlier this month, sponsored by the Washtenaw County Bar Association and the Old West Side Association, Kuhnke and Fink fielded questions on fairly standard topics: judicial temperament, experience, role models and the like.

In addition, Kuhnke and Fink have both provided written responses to questions on the League of Women Voters vote411.org website. And they previously participated in a June 23 forum for the primary race covered by The Chronicle, which included a total of four candidates.

Campaign finance statements filed with the state show that the cumulative total amounts raised by Kuhnke and Fink for their campaigns are $82,018 and $93,465 respectively.

Of her $82,018 total, Kuhnke has raised $46,738 since the primary election, and had spent just $13,892 between the primary and the close of books on Oct. 21. That left her with $34,405 to spend in the final two weeks of the general election campaign. Of his $93,465, Fink has raised $37,635 since the primary, and has spent $20,967 during the same period. He has $21,417 left to spend in the final two weeks.

Kuhnke has been practicing law for 18 years, longer than Fink’s 14 years, and is campaigning with the slogan, “The most experienced.” Fink is inclined to add to the mix his previous 20 years of experience working in law enforcement, starting in 1977 as a Washtenaw County sheriff’s deputy and moving up the ranks to commander.

Fink argued implicitly that the quality of the endorsements he’s received – from local judges – is better than some Kuhnke has received, from judges in other counties in southeastern Michigan where she’s argued cases. One local judge, Tim Connors – who is seeking re-election to the 22nd Circuit Court in a separate race against Mike Woodyard – is listed on websites for both Fink and Kuhnke among their endorsements. Connors and Woodyard participated in the Oct. 16 forum with Fink and Kuhnke – their responses are included in a separate Chronicle report.

Fink challenged any perception that he felt entitled to the judgeship based on the service of his father and older brother as judges, by stating it’s not the case that he felt entitled. He described how he’d always planned to practice law, even though he took a “side trip” to work in law enforcement.

Kuhnke described her vocation to the law as stemming in part from her undergrad studies in philosophy, and the impact that the meaning of words can have on people’s lives. She was matter of fact in drawing out one contrast between herself and Fink: “I’m a woman.” She thinks that having a woman’s voice on the court is important, but stated that she did not think she deserved a vote just because she is a woman.

An issue related to women’s health was highlighted in a question fielded from the audience. Fink is endorsed by Right to Life of Michigan – so the question related to whether Fink had pledged to rule against young women who were requesting a “judicial bypass” for permission to have an abortion. Fink was emphatic in stating that in order to receive that organization’s endorsement, he’d made no such pledge and that he hadn’t been asked such a question.

Even though the judicial bypass question came last at the forum, this detailed report of candidate responses begins there. [Full Story]

This year, five local judicial seats will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot. Incumbents will be running for four of those positions, and three of those incumbent judges – Cedric Simpson (14th District Court, Washtenaw County); Joe Burke (15th District Court, Ann Arbor); and Darlene O’Brien (probate court, Washtenaw County) – are unchallenged.

The fourth incumbent – Tim Connors of the 22nd Circuit Court – is facing Mike Woodyard, an Ann Arbor resident and attorney in the Wayne County prosecutor’s office.

Another position on the 22nd Circuit Court is currently held by judge Melinda Morris, who is ineligible for re-election because of her age. The state constitution requires that judicial candidates at the time of election must be younger than 70 years old. The race for that non-incumbent judicial seat is a crowded one, with four candidates: Erane Washington, Doug McClure, Carol Kuhnke and Jim Fink. All four will be on the Aug. 7 primary ballot as non-partisan candidates, with the top two vote-getters facing off on Nov. 6.

On June 23, the Washtenaw County Democratic Party held a judicial candidate forum in Pittsfield Township hall. A previous Chronicle report covered the panel with Connors and Woodyard, as well as a presentation by 46th District Court judge Shelia Johnson, one of three Michigan Supreme Court candidates endorsed by the state Democratic Party.

This report focuses on the four-way non-incumbent race for 22nd Circuit Court. Questions covered a wide range of issues, including metrics for evaluating judicial performance, views on significant Michigan Supreme Court decisions, and descriptions of each candidate’s judicial philosophy and temperament.

Circuit court judges are elected to six-year terms and run as non-partisan candidates. But partisan politics was a significant part of this panel discussion, spurred in part by a handout had been placed on chairs in the audience prior to the start of the forum, titled ”What Washtenaw Democrats Should Know About Jim Fink.” [.pdf of handout text] At the start of the forum, Cleveland Chandler, chair of the Washtenaw County Democratic Party, announced that the WCDP had nothing to do with the handout, and the other three candidates made that same claim.

Some of the questions posed to candidates – specifically related to reproductive rights and the right for gay couples to adopt – highlighted the differences between Fink and the other candidates. With his Republican affiliations, Fink acknowledged during the forum that if this were a legislative race, ”you would not even think about voting for me.” But he vowed to follow the law and set aside his personal views as a judge, and noted that he has broad support from both parties, as well as ”people who don’t care about partisan politics at all.”

While not mentioning Fink directly, the other candidates noted that values do inform judicial decisions, and implied or stated directly that their positions on issues would align with those of Democrats. [Full Story]

Local attorney Jim Fink has officially entered the race for the judgeship on the 22nd circuit court of Washtenaw County, a seat currently held by Melinda Morris, who is retiring. A press release issued on Tuesday, Jan. 17 stated that Fink decided to run because he is “exceptionally qualified,” and because his father, the late Robert V. Fink, and his brother, Karl V. Fink, were both judges in Washtenaw County. [.pdf of press release]

Fink is an Ypsilanti resident who practices law in Ann Arbor at Fink & Valvo PLLC. He has a degree from the Detroit College of Law and served for 20 years in the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office, first as a deputy and ultimately as a police services … [Full Story]