The Conversation Starts Here

This broke late this afternoon. Lansing Mayor Virgil Bernero has asked the Michigan Attorney General, Mike Cox, a Republican and a candidate for the GOP nomination for governor, to start an independent investigation into the release of a man’s HIV status.

From Michigan Messenger:

LANSING — Lansing Mayor Virgil Bernero has formally requested Attorney General Mike Cox investigate the release of the HIV status of man arrested in a sex-sting operation.

The letter, dated July 29, asks the attorney general to “initiate an independent investigation of the City’s release, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, of a police report containing a defendant’s self-described alleged HIV status.”

The letter is available here.

Arnold “the Govinator” Schwarzenegger flexed his Govinator muscles today and wiped out $52 million in HIV/AIDS services. In fact, the cuts eliminate everything except for medications for those who are positive (which btw is mostly funded by federal bucks) and survelliance– which is mandated in order to get the federal bucks to give the meds to the HIV poz.

The move was made to help eliminated the state’s enormous budget gap.

Maybe I am missing something here, but by eliminating things like prevention programming the Govinator may have just shot himself in the foot. Now the survelliance is going to cost more because more people are going to get infected, because well the prevention money isn’t there to prevent the infections in the first place. The new infections in turn will add a massive budget burden becase many of those infected are now going to need access to the medications, expanding the need for the meds the Govinator spared this time around.

Good Job Arnie.

And Equality California is not happy about all this either:

“These cuts are both fiscally short-sighted and immoral, given the grave human cost,” said Geoff Kors, executive Director of Equality California (EQCA). “More people will contract HIV and some will die from AIDS earlier or have a harder time managing their disease because we are not investing in early intervention, testing or counseling. People will lack support in their homes and communities, where they often receive the best and most culturally competent care. And low-income people living with HIV and AIDS will be more likely to become homeless. The Governor is dismantling a proven model of wrap-around care for HIV that has made California a leader. The Governor shouldn’t try to solve California’s fiscal crisis on the backs of our state’s most vulnerable,” Kors said.

Meanwhile, Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco/San Rafael) had this to say:

“It’s bad faith on the part of Republican legislators to negotiate a set of budget solutions and then refuse to vote for one of the largest ones, worth over a billion dollars. The funding gap this created opened the door for the Governor to line item veto critical programs that Democrats worked hard to preserve. Today’s cuts will further devastate our already reeling health and human services safety net and cause even more unnecessary harm to our most vulnerable populations. We believe there are strong legal grounds to fight many of these vetoes. California’s constitution empowers the Governor to veto or reduce appropriations, but our budget agreement doesn’t make new appropriations, it makes spending reductions. In the end, my colleagues and I will fight these devastating cuts with everything we have.”

He also had this to say:

(SACRAMENTO) – Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco/San Rafael), Chair of the California Legislative Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Caucus, released the following statement today on behalf of the Caucus in reaction to the Governor’s line item vetoes of HIV/AIDS programs and the signing of the 2009-10 budget revision bills:

“We are outraged by the Governor’s line item vetoes to eliminate state funds that support critical HIV/AIDS-related programs.

With the stroke of a pen, he has crippled the Office of AIDS, striking a totally devastating cut to a state-funded infrastructure that took more than two decades to build and that has been a model for other states to follow in combating the spread of HIV and in care and treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Given that the Governor has chosen to eliminate support for HIV/AIDS early intervention, treatment, education and prevention programs, we wonder how many new HIV infections the Governor has projected for this year and next, and whether he really thought through the additional costs, in both fiscal and human terms, these cuts will have on people across this state.”

Now Michigan is currently negotiating with Arnie and his minions to move California prisoners to Michigan– because our own Gov. Jennifer Granholm has cut back the Michigan Department of Corrections budgets and reduced the number of prisoners in order to downsize the number of prisons belaboring our budget. The Govinator wants to write IOUs for the prisoner time and the costs of Michigan Department of Corrections Officials to monitor those California convicts.

The fallout from the decision by Lansing City Attorney Brigham Smith’s decision to release the HIV status of a man arrested in a May 22 sex sting continues. This time Mayor Virgil Bernero’s challengers are chorusing that an investigation into the release is necessary.

From my story on Michigan Messenger:

LANSING — Mayoral candidates Charles Ford and Carol Wood, who are both trying to unseat incumbent Virgil Bernero, say city officials should press for an investigation into the release of a man’s HIV-positive status by the city attorney earlier this month.

“If some one on my staff were to divulge confidential information like that, I’d do my own investigation,” said Ford, a Lansing School Board member. “I wouldn’t need an attorney general investigation.”

Carol Wood, an at-large city council member, said she supports the call for an investigation by the attorney general.

“If an issue like this came up I would want to the know the who, what, why, where and how,” said Wood. “If that meant asking someone to come in, I would ask.”

Bernero has said he is considering asking for an investigation.

This issue has been simmering since the beginning of July when Smith released the man’s HIV status. Some advocates called the release a violation of the law. And last week, the Michigan Department of Community Health added fuel to the fire in stating the department tasked with maintaining privacy and confidentiality for HIV patients in the state said the city of Lansing should ask Republican Attorney General Mike Cox to investigate the release.

It was also learned last week that the man in question has changed his plea from guilty on one count of indecent exposure, to not guilty on one count of indecent exposure.

Following up from a story published Tuesday, Lansing Mayor Virgil Bernero said Wednesday that he is “not unwilling” to ask Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox to investigate the release of a man’s HIV status earlier this month.

From my report at Michigan Messenger:

“I am looking at the request [for the investigation] and I am looking at the allegation,” said Bernero, who is running for re-election in the Aug. 4 primary.

For the whole story, click here.

City Council member on Monday night were also divided on how to respond to the attorney general investigation call. Click here to read that story.

Bernero has often discussed his brother’s battle with HIV– which he eventually lost almost 20 years ago– when campaigning to gay groups. As recently as this June he spoke about it, and made the following statement about those living with HIV (Time index on video 5:22)

“We stand by you. We stand by all those victims of AIDS. We’re gonna find the cure. We’re gonna continue to work for more research into that terrible disease. And we’re going to give you the love and welcome you all deserve.”

How releasing the HIV status of a person arrested for indecent exposure is “love” or “welcome” I still have not figured out.

As I reported earlier this month at MichiganMessenger.com, the City of Lansing released the HIV status of a man arrested in a sting operation targeting men who have sex with men. That sting operation was in May.

Now the Michigan Department of Community Health which is responsible for the maintaining the confidentiality of those infected with HIV is calling on the city to ask Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox to investigate whether any law was broken.

From Michigan Messenger:

LANSING — The Michigan Department of Community Health is calling on city officials to request an investigation by the Michigan attorney general’s office into the release of a man’s HIV status related to arrests made during a controversial sex sting in May.

“They should call the attorney general’s office to request that they conduct an independent investigation, if they want to handle this the right way,” said James McCurtis, a MDCH spokesman.

McCurtis said his department is not an enforcement agency and is not authorized to initiate formal investigations.

There is more to the story here.

But before I leave the page and let you wander over to Michigan Messenger I wanted to highlight a very telling comment from Mark Peterson from MI POZ Action:

“MDCH is right to take this seriously. I echo their concern that the Attorney General should investigate to see if disclosure confidentiality violations occurred. Many people are aware of the mandatory HIV disclosure law that is placed on the HIV positive individual and the requirement to disclose their HIV status to sex partners. Many others are keen to prosecute fully anytime apparent violations of this occur. It’s perhaps time that breach of HIV confidentiality laws are prosecuted as vigorously.”

If this were a case of a person being accused of not disclosing his HIV status before engaging in sex, you can bet your bottom dollar that the city and state officials would be beating down the man’s door with warrants. So why, then, when a person allegedly violates another law about HIV disclosure, are officials turning a blind eye to the matter? Better yet, where are the glaring white hot lights of the mainstream media, who would also be plastering the accused nondisclosure’s face all over the news?

Things that make you go hmmmmm….

As the U.S. government continues to pump billions of dollars into the U.S. economy, funding for HIV/AIDS continues to be a target for cuts (for example, California’s plan to eliminate it’s HIV/AIDS budget.) So two dozen activists staged a protest today in the {VIDEO LINK}U.S. Capitol building, and ended up arrested for it, says Politico.com.

From Politico, here is what the protestors were seeking:

The protest was organized by the Health Global Access Project to demand congressional action on three AIDS priorities: the end of the federal ban on syringe exchange, increased housing funding for AIDS patients and significant increases in U.S. international AIDS contributions.

And what did one organizer have to say to Politico about the protests?

“We have tried to work through standard advocacy channels,” but were just told to be patient and that there was no money right now, said Project spokeswoman Christine Campbell, on her way downtown to bail out her colleagues. “It was time to up the ante and make some noise.”

“We can bailout banks and car companies” but there’s no urgent response to pressing AIDS challenges, she said. “We think that’s untenable.”

Right on.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been buried in a story about a sex-sting operation in Lansing’s Fenner Nature Center.

I first reported on the story June 4 in Between the Lines, and during my interviews leading up to that story, it became abundantly clear that something was wrong. After fighting to get arrest reports and internal documents released by the city, I uncovered that Police Commissioner Jan Kolp triggered the sting operation with her call to the Lansing Police Department’s Special Operations Unit. That sting netted two arrests, both on indecent exposure charges. Both men were in their 60’s and neither man was charged with having sex in the park– something neighbors claim is happening.

Tuesday of last week, the City finally released all the documents I had been fighting for for weeks. Buried at the end of one of the reports was a stunning revelation. One of the men arrested was HIV positive, and the police felt this was necessary to include in the arrest report.

To read more on the sting operation and the involvement of the police report, visit these stories:

Between the Lines, June 4 2009
Michigan Messenger, June 26, 2009
Michigan Messenger, June 30, 2009
Michigan Messenger, June 30, 2009
Michigan Messenger, July 1, 2009
Michigan Messenger, July 2, 2009

What this series of stories documents is how one appointed official triggered a sting operation to address an alleged problem of sex in a local park. The police say they have never been able to prove there was sex in that park. And arresting two men for pulling out their penises is hardly proof of sex in the park.

Lynda Waddington, a reporter at The Iowa Independent which is a sibling site to Michigan Messenger, has published a intensive primer on Iowa’s disclosure law, as well as discussions to repeal it.

You can catch those here, here and here.