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NEWS

Thursday, August 2, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
U-M prof improves
water safety in lakes

After almost 
drowning, Jamie 
Racklyeft creates 
new intiative

By NATASHA PIETRUSCHKA

Daily Staff Reporter

Jamie Racklyeft, the commu-
nications director of the Michi-
gan Institute for Clinical and 
Health Research at the Univer-
sity of Michigan, knows second 
chances are rare. After nearly 
drowning off the shore of Van’s 
Beach in Leland, Michigan in 
2012, Racklyeft is leading the 
effort to end drownings in the 
Great Lakes.
In 2016, Racklyeft founded 
the Great Lakes Water Safety 
Consortium, a non-profit part-
nered with more than 350 orga-
nizations to create guidelines 
for water safety.
“There are a lot of people 
working on preventing drown-
ing in the Great Lakes, but they 
weren’t 
working 
together,” 
Racklyeft said. “That’s when I 
got involved as a communica-
tor. The more we can get people 
working together and collabo-
rating, the more we can find 
what’s working and what isn’t.”
A study by the Great Lakes 
Surf Rescue Project, one of 
GLWSC’s 
partners, 
reported 
there were 669 drownings in the 
Great Lakes from 2010 to 2018. 
According to Racklyeft, 85 per-
cent of drowning victims are 
male with a particular emphasis 
between ages 18 and 24. A study 
concluded males tend to over-
estimate their abilities in the 
water and are more susceptible 
to peer pressure.
LSA junior Connor Kippe 
explained pier diving was a com-
mon pastime for young adults in 
his hometown of Grand Haven, 
Michigan.
“Growing up, guys tend to be 
a little more flippant about risk 
and showing off,” Kippe said. 
“It was a thing people did. Some 
people would just watch, they 
wouldn’t always jump. Others 

would do tricks off the side of 
the pier.”
Water safety was part of Kip-
pe’s middle school health cur-
riculum, setting his school apart 
from many others in Michigan. 
But despite being educated on 
the subject, Kippe said people 
in his community and similar 
areas continue to participate in 
risky behavior.
Racklyeft recognized the dif-
ficulty of communicating the 
importance of water safety. 
“If they’ve gone to the lake 
before and they’ve been fine, 
they’ll think they’ll be fine 
again,” Racklyeft said. “There’s 
so many ways things can go 
wrong. How can we get that 
across? It’s tough. It’s not just 
about awareness. We can let 
them know, but does that mean 
it’ll 
change 
behavior? 
Not 
always.”
According to GLWSC, there 
are many factors that can con-
tribute to a drowning. Rip cur-
rents, powerful fluxes of water 
that jets away from shore and 
out into open water, are one of 
the main causes of drownings 
in the Great Lakes. “Flip, float 
and follow” is a universal tech-
nique used for escaping these 
currents. Rhett Register of the 
Michigan Sea Grant, another 
GLWSC partner, said someone 
caught in a rip current should 
never try to fight it.
“Even Michael Phelps can’t 
swim against a rip current, 
they’re so powerful,” Register 
said. “Flip over on your back, 
float for a second and follow 
the best path out of the current. 
Don’t fight the current.”
Swimmers can also prevent 
drowning by being prepared. 
According to Racklyeft, out 
of the 669 people who have 
drowned in the Great Lakes 
since 2010, only 5 of them were 
wearing life jackets. He also 
advises checking the National 
Weather Service before going 
to the beach and staying out of 
the water when waves are more 
than two to three feet high.

TMD talks to Council candidates about 
political controversy, plans for Ward 1

By ALICE TRACEY

Summer Daily News Editor 

Ann Arbor’s Ward 1 City Coun-
cil candidates, Democrats Jef-
frey Hayner and Ron Ginyard 
and Democratic Socialist Ryan 
Hughes, spoke with The Michi-
gan Daily to address controversies 
surrounding their campaigns and 
to elaborate on their respective 
platforms.
Hayner, a 53-year-old busi-
ness owner who works in design 
and fabrication, and Ginyard, 
a 61-year-old retired financial 
adviser, will compete in the Aug. 
7 primaries. The winning Demo-
crat will face off against demo-
cratic socialist Ryan Hughes, a 
37-year-old computer program-
mer, in November. The candidates 
are vying to replace the incum-
bent representative, Sumi Kaila-
sapathy, D-Ward 1.
A July 23 MLive article drew 
attention to the Ward 1 City 
Council race by highlighting con-
troversial aspects of Ginyard and 
Hayner’s pasts. Specifically, the 
article mentioned Ginyard’s past 
financial difficulties and noted he 
hasn’t voted since moving back to 
Ann Arbor four years ago. MLive 
reporter Ryan Stanton also raised 
concern over some of Hayner’s 
contentious tweets.
In an email interview with 
The Daily, Ginyard, an Ann Arbor 
native who lived in California 
from 1970 to 2014, said he wasn’t 
able to give Stanton the whole 
story.
The MLive article cited the 
Financial Industry Regulatory 
Authority’s BrokerCheck website, 

which reveals several complaints 
filed against Ginyard while he 
was working for investment firm 
Morgan Stanley in California. In 
2003, clients of Ginyard’s claimed 
he made poor investment sugges-
tions and they requested $525,000 
in compensation. The case was 
settled for $110,000. Different cli-
ents made similar claims in 1998 
but withdrew their case.
Regarding the 2003 complaint, 
Ginyard said the financial loss-
es of his clients — for whom he 
invested $600,000 — were a result 
of economic downturn.
“Over the course of three and a 
half years, I made a lot of money 
for them,” Ginyard wrote. “They 
withdrew a quarter of a million 
dollars during that time and still 
the value of their investment grew 
to $1,000,000. They were very 
disappointed when the market 
ate their gains during the tech-
nology crash of 2001, even though 
they were still up by $100,000 at 
the time they brought their com-
plaint.”
He added only two of the 
approximately 45,000 transac-
tions he completed during his 
32-year career ended in formal 
complaints.
Stanton’s article also notes sev-
eral tax liens were filed against 
Ginyard for failure to pay taxes 
between 1988 and 2013. The larg-
est claim was a $263,547 federal 
tax lien issued by the IRS in 2006.
Ginyard said family issues pre-
vented him from paying taxes on 
time, but he has now paid off all 
his debt.
“(O)ver that 18-year period I 
paid $280,000 in child support 

for my two daughters,” Ginyard 
wrote. “In addition, in the early 
1990s, the mother of my young-
est daughter was diagnosed with 
glaucoma and declared legally 
blind. This put additional pres-
sure on me to keep her household 
up and running, which included 
paying my daughter’s tuition for 
her first year at USC and pay-
ing all of her health insurance 
expenses. When you work for a 
firm like Morgan Stanley, a lot of 
your income comes from bonuses, 
so when the market fluctuates 
your income can vary widely from 
month to month.”
Responding to MLive’s cover-
age of Ginyard’s financial history, 
Hayner said he does not want to 
get involved in Ginyard’s personal 
business but does find it problem-
atic that Ginyard missed tax pay-
ments. Hayner said paying taxes 
gives a citizen the right to speak 
out about local policy issues.
“In this city, I think that our 
services are not commensurate 
with the prices we pay for them,” 
Hayner said. “I’m happy to go 
down and complain about them, 
because I pay.”
Hayner also took issue with 
Ginyard’s spotty voting record, 
another controversy addressed 
in Stanton’s article. Since moving 
to Ann Arbor four years ago, Gin-
yard has not voted once, including 
in the 2016 presidential election.
“I think it shows a complete 
lack of commitment to the sys-
tem,” Hayner said.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Hayner and Ginyard address issues from their personal histories

COURTESY OF RYAN STANTON, THE ANN ARBOR NEWS
Ann Arbor City Council D-Ward 1 candidates Ron Ginyard and Jeff Hayner.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

