Pierson News

Free Meal for Northern Kent County Families -6 to 7 p.m. at the Our Lady of Consolation Family Center, 4865 Eleven Mile Rd., Rockford, every Thursday.

Eric Scott Pierson, the Cedar Springs man who claims he doesn't remember a drunken racial slur where he used the term "dark chocolate" will spend nine months in jail.

Take a few paragraphs from Mayor Don Van Doeselaar's article in the city's spring newsletter about a public-transit millage proposal that was on the ballot this week, and compare them with part of a letter to the editor written by the chairman of a "Hudsonville Friends of Transit" group that lobbied for the tax: They match verbatim.

A village councilwoman behind an effort to recall the Pierson president claims an illegal flier swayed the election in favor of Karl Van Haren.

A village president who two years ago took office on the strength of three write-in votes now needs to collect double that number of signatures to muscle out three adversaries as a contentious political battle rages on in his town of 172 people.