Charles Pugh facts for kids

Charles Pugh (born August 3, 1971) is an American former television journalist, radio personality, and politician from Detroit, Michigan. For ten years, he served as the weekend anchor at WJBK in Detroit. He also served as the radio personality on CoCo, Foolish and Mr. Chase in the Morning and his own talk show, That's What's Up, which both originally aired Sunday evenings on WJLB.

In 2009, Pugh was elected council president of Detroit City Council, becoming the city's first openly LGBT elected official. Pugh served as president from 2010 until resigning in 2013 and relocating to New York City.

..... On December 22, 2021 he was released from Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan to serve a two-year term of parole. .....

Early life, career and entry into politics

Pugh was born in Detroit to George and Marcia Pugh. His parents divorced when he was a toddler. ..... At the age of nine he moved in with his grandmother. Pugh graduated from Murray-Wright High School in 1989 and attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri on a $24,000 ($48,500 adjusted for inflation) scholarship from Ford Motor Company.

After graduating in 1993, Pugh started as an anchor on WIBW in Topeka, Kansas, later moving to WISE in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and news stations in Columbia, Missouri, and Norfolk, Virginia. In 1999 Pugh, joined WJBK the FOX affiliate in Detroit.

Pugh resigned from the station in March 2009 to campaign for Detroit City Council. He won the most votes of any council candidate on election day, giving him the title of council president, despite a controversy late in the campaign when he acknowledged that he had been struggling financially and his home had been foreclosed.

In 2012, Pugh sold his home, a condo on 73 Adelaide Street in Midtown Detroit, in a short sale to Shamrock Acquisitions LLC for $106,000. Pugh had purchased the home for $385,000 in 2005.

In 2012, Pugh made headlines in what local newspapers termed a "Twitter war" with an intern at Automotive News. After a brief disagreement on the social network, Pugh tweeted Automotive News requesting that they speak with the intern about his "offensive" posts. Pugh's action was widely derided.

In June 2013, City Councilman Ken Cockrel Jr., who had served as mayor and president of the council, made note of Pugh's recent attendance problems, noting that the then-council president had missed four meetings in a row. At the end of that meeting, Gary Brown, who was the council's president pro tempore and presided over the council in Pugh's absence, told his colleagues that Pugh had requested a four-week leave of absence as "sick leave". Later that day, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr denied Pugh's request and told him to return to work or resign.

On June 27, 2013, Detroit emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr formally stripped Pugh of his responsibilities and pay as president of Detroit City Council.

Pugh formally resigned from the Detroit City Council in September 2013.