MICHIGAN’S OFFICIAL’S USE OF RACIAL SLUR PROMPTS GOVERNOR TO CALL FOR HIS RESIGNATION. A Michigan county official’s use of the N-word at a public meeting has prompted the governor and other officials and residents to call for his resignation. When asked by a fellow commissioner why he wasn’t wearing a mask, [Tom] Eckerle, [Road Commisioner for Leelanau County] said in an apparent reference to the coronavirus pandemic, “Well this whole thing is because of them N—— down in Detroit.”