January 4, 2004

Clous voted top story

Judge Gilbert No. 2, Iraq war No. 3 in R-E poll

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

TRAVERSE CITY - Visitors to the Record-Eagle Web site picked an alleged environmental scofflaw as the top local news story of 2003.
Just over five hundred responses to the online poll were recorded by Friday afternoon. Of those, nearly a third - 157 voters - selected the Record-Eagle's coverage of farmer-developer Bill Clous as the year's most significant story.
The president of Eastwood Custom Homes faces environmental charges and possibly millions of dollars in fines for failing to obtain permits before moving earth and allegedly destroying wetlands on property he owns in the Mitchell Creek Watershed in East Bay Township.
Clous says he had an agricultural exemption because he is a farmer, but county and state officials disagree.
The Web site vote was based on a list of 10 top stories from the year as chosen by Record-Eagle news room staff. A top 10 list and recaps ran Dec. 28 and online readers were asked to make their top pick.
The Clous story ranked third among Record-Eagle news room personnel.
The travails of pot-smoking 86th District Judge Thomas Gilbert earned second place among poll voters, edging the invasion of Iraq by an 88-86 margin.
Gilbert was caught smoking marijuana at a Rolling Stones concert in Detroit in November 2002, and the Michigan Supreme Court suspended him for six months without pay in September.
Record-Eagle staffers voted the Gilbert story their top pick for 2003.
The Northern Michigan Hospital nurses' strike came in fourth among readers with 73 votes. The labor impasse became the longest uninterrupted nurses' strike in U.S. history when a strike at a hospital in San Pablo, Calif., ended last month.
The remaining top 10 stories on the Web poll included the Hartman-Hammond bridge with 44 votes, the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa sale with 20, the Traverse City municipal election with 12, Acme Town Center development proposal with 11, beach grooming with seven and the downsizing and eventual closing of a local Lear Corp. plant with six votes.
Online voters were allowed one vote per computer in the top 10 poll.

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