Nathan is a Michigan State junior who is majoring in journalism. He also is the Sports Editorial Assistant and Football Beat Reporter for Impact 89FM. For JRN 300, he will be covering the community of Troy
As the Supreme Court actively considers the merits of a lawsuit by Texas and other states looking to overturn the Affordable Care Act, many different people would feel wide-ranging impacts if the law is repealed, including young adults who currently are under their parent’s health insurance.
Troy City Clerk Aileen Dickson wants the residents of Troy to know something: If they are worried about the prospect of voting in person on Nov. 3, they shouldn’t be.
With COVID-19 cases spiking across Michigan (and the U.S.), the fire and police department in Troy have been forced to be more mindful of where to expend their limited resources in addition to implementing new protocols to ensure the safety of its firefighters and police officers. “Just with the way our system operates, we are usually only having one person in the (firetruck) at a time, ”said Lt. Dan Mahrle of the Troy Fire Department. “Other firefighters will actually take their personal vehicles to the scene, so that helps us out a little bit.”
Mahrle said that since the Troy Fire Department contracts out local emergency service calls (car accidents, medical distress, etc.) to Alliance Mobile Health when medical emergencies occur in Troy, firefighters have been fortunate since they aren’t directly dealing with COVID-19 positive members of the community. A new training program for firefighters
The Troy Fire Department, which consists of 180 volunteer firefighters and 11 tenured paid staff members across six stations, is the largest volunteer firefighter unit in the state of Michigan. As such, during the pandemic, those 11 paid staff members, including Lt. Mahrle, were forced to put their heads together and come up with a new training program to allow for new volunteer firefighters to understand the risks of the virus.
As with municipalities in heavily-populated communities across the country, the city of Troy has been forced to undertake creative measures to ensure restaurants, hotels and retail establishments stay in business during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Student-athletes across the Troy school district have been dealt a mandate from Troy High School Athletic Director, Shane Hynes: Either exercise common sense during non-school hours and interact with as few people as possible or risk putting the entire fall sports season in danger