Perhaps you saw the coverage of Michigan Senate Bill (S.B.) 631 in the 1/27/02 Oakland Press. In case you didn't, the highlights are below.

The important point is that this proposal classifies non-running, or damaged vehicles as litter, and provides provisions for any private citizen (or the gov't) to seek a court order for removal of said vehicle(s).

A key point of the bill, is it includes vehicles that are within the confines of your garage or other structures.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Joe Young Jr. of Detroit (Democrat). It is well-intended, but (not surprisingly) mis-guided and violates our freedom to collect and store vehicles within your private property.

While you can read summaries of this bill on the SEMA website, I recommend reading the bill in its entirety. Go to http://www.michiganlegislature.org/ and enter 631 in the Senate Bill section. (It's only a couple of pages long.) This site is valuable to bookmark, as it will also tell the current status of any Michigan legislature.

STATUS: This bill has been referred to the committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs. Membership of this committee is shown below, so that you can contact them. I urge you to do so, in addition to writing your own district's representatives. I have done so, and received a very prompt email reply from the chairman. He is interested in hearing from the voters of Michigan!

Kenneth Sikkema (R)--Chairman of Committee
SenKSikkema@senate.state.mi.us

Walter North (R)--Vice Chairman
SenWNorth@senate.state.mi.us

Harry Gast (R)
SenHGast@senate.state.mi.us

Gary Peters (D)
SenGPeters@senate.state.mi.us

Joe Young Jr. (D)--author of SB 631
SenJYoung@senate.state.mi.us

[ 01-28-2002: Message edited by: 70 Electra ]