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April 24, 2026Can you guess what’s pictured above? Click the image to find out! |
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| | I spent the weekend in Detroit covering the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) convention for the New York Times, and one thing really struck me: Ann Arbor has some serious political clout these days. Beyond county prosecutor Eli Savit winning the attorney general nomination, there’s also lieutenant governor Garlin Gilchrest II – formerly a researcher at U-M’s School of Information – winning the nomination for secretary of state and U.S. Senate hopeful and townie Abdul El-Sayed, a leading candidate in the most recent independent poll. Plus, as I reported in the Observer last year, Ann Arbor state rep Jason Morgan is one of the state’s most influential Democratic power brokers.
This is where it’s at!
It makes sense given the intellectual and financial power found here, but it really hasn’t always been that way. I fell down a rabbit hole this week researching state attorneys general because I wanted to understand the historic dimensions of Savit’s accomplishment, and it struck me that quite a few state AGs got their law degrees at U-M – and then went back home to practice. Ann Arbor has long been a place to pass through, but now it seems it is developing a real political power base of its own separate from the university.
Your news is here. Yesterday, the Observer was first to publish the tentative contract that AAPS teachers begin voting on today. And beyond Savit’s win, there’s also the messiness of regent Jordan Acker’s loss, some storm aftermath, and my report on the exceptionally high amount of absenteeism at Pioneer, Huron, and Skyline high schools.
This is last week’s most-clicked link.
– Steve Friess, editor
P.S. Editor in chief Brooke Black here! I’ll be holding a Coffee Seltzer With Brooke at Gallup Park on Monday, April 27, from 4 to 6 p.m. Meet me in the grassy area between the playground and Maas Shelter. I’ll bring the LaCroix; you bring your opinions about the Observer. As always, I want to know what we’re doing well and what we could do better, story ideas you’d like us to cover, and any other thoughts you’d like to share. Can’t wait to see you there! |
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| | | Parker Mill Park, four days later. Credit: Steve Friess |
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How Acker lost. Credit: Steve Friess |
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| | EXCLUSIVE look at proposed teacher contract: Voting opens this morning on a tentative two-year deal between AAPS and the Ann Arbor Education Association that remains under wraps but which the Observer obtained and published yesterday on Facebook. You can read it via this link. If it were ratified, teachers would receive a 1.5 percent salary raise per year, face increased class size at every level, and reductions in the amount of paid prep time. In a missive on Facebook, the Ann Arbor Education Association’s “crisis team” vivisected the plan and urged a “no” vote, saying it would mean teachers would pay “the highest healthcare costs around. … Increasing class sizes, decreasing planning time, and cutting specials will not make Ann Arbor more competitive. It cuts jobs and harms students.” The crisis team is a different subset of AAEA than the bargaining team, which has not commented publicly on the tentative agreement. The union’s membership met last night at Pioneer High in advance of an expected vote that closes Monday. |
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| | Progressives unseat scandal-ridden Jordan Acker: The loss for the first-term U-M regent, who sought renomination at the MDP convention on Sunday, was revenge from the party’s most liberal wing for Acker’s refusal in 2024 to support divestment from companies believed to profit from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and his unwillingness to speak out last year as the school gutted its DEI initiatives. Dearborn attorney Amir Makled, who represented a pro-Palestinian demonstrator arrested during campus protests in 2024 and whose name was placed in nomination by the newly elected U-M student president, replaces Acker and will run alongside renominated regent Paul Brown. The race’s outcome prompted some to question whether Democrats were spurning its Jewish base given that Acker is Jewish and was the target of antisemitic vandalism related to his Gaza position at his home and business. The days leading up to the vote were full of controversy for both Acker and Makled; Acker was accused in a piece in the Guardian of having used lewd language in Slack discussions in 2020 and 2021 to describe a political strategist and a female U-M student, and Makled faced criticism following a report by the Detroit News about deleted social media posts that praised members of Hezbollah. Acker denied the authenticity of the Slack messages, but on Wednesday the university confirmed it had hired an external law firm to investigate the matter. Makled, meanwhile, lost the endorsement of the Service Employees International Union after the News story broke. |
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| | Eli Savit lands AG nod: Fresh off of being named in a federal lawsuit filed by the Trump administration alleging his office’s interference with immigration enforcement, the second-term Washtenaw County prosecutor landed the MDP nomination. The forty-three-year-old Savit, a Pioneer High graduate, would become the first Michigan AG born and raised in Ann Arbor – and the first from the city since Edward Mundy from 1847–48, according to a2view research. Mundy, who moved to A2 from New Jersey in 1831, was a local justice of the peace prior to Michigan statehood and became the first lieutenant governor and later was appointed as the state’s “prosecuting attorney.” Savit, despite being beset by a Detroit News report just prior to the convention that he had used the county’s gas card for nonofficial travel, beat out Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald. He’ll face Republican Doug Lloyd, the Eaton County prosecutor, in November, in the race to replace term-limited attorney general Dana Nessel.d reduces the amount of paid prep time. In a missive on Facebook, the Ann Arbor Education Association’s “crisis team” vivisected the plan, saying it would mean teachers would pay “the highest healthcare costs around. … Increasing class sizes, decreasing planning time, and cutting specials will not make Ann Arbor more competitive. It cuts jobs and harms students,” the union writes. The crisis team is a different subset of AAEA than the bargaining team, which has not commented publicly on the tentative agreement. The union’s membership was set to meet last night at Pioneer High in advance of an expected vote beginning today, a source tells a2view. |
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| | | Off the hooky: Ann Arbor’s three traditional high schools have some of the highest chronic absenteeism rates in the state – but it’s unclear why or whether the administration considers it a crisis. The data concerned school board president Torchio Feaster, who told me for my piece in this month’s Observer that superintendent Jazz Parks has expressed little alarm. Parks thinks “that people have decided they’re going to change the way they do education, the way they live life, and that people are going to take the time off and the days off that they want to take off, and that there’s not a whole lot that, from a district standpoint, they think we can do to make them come to school.” Chronic absenteeism, defined as students missing more than 10 percent of school days, soared across the nation after the Covid pandemic, but most districts have brought their numbers down dramatically since.
The real mom bosses of Ann Arbor: Shelley Daily digs into the stories of a variety of mothers building businesses and providing support for others, including Little Break Cowork owner Ariel Wan’s the Mamas Network and business incubator Little Break Launchpad as well as Stephanie Miller and Krista Parker, co-owners of Hide and Seek: A Play Boutique. As Andi Sperry, owner of Future Innovators Academy, says: “I think moms are real. When I do networking things with other groups like the chamber of commerce, it’s always so polished and can feel so overwhelming. … And I think when you go through the trials of motherhood you just get it. You know, and other mothers know. You can just lock eyes and be like, ‘Yeah, I know, girl.’”
A2SO, Carnegie Hall team up for kids: The local symphony orchestra takes part in the prestigious New York venue’s Link Up program in which elementary school students get to play recorders or sing with a live orchestra, Erica Hobbs writes. Two Link Up concerts held at Hill Auditorium on March 4 drew 2,415 students from thirty regional schools. Conducted by U-M alum Yaniv Segal, the performances also featured the Paul Keller Ensemble and a violin solo by Pioneer freshman Hannah Lee, who won the 2025 A2SO Young Artist competition. “One of the challenges facing orchestras is finding cultural relevance in today’s world,” A2SO spokesperson Trianne Newbrey says. “Communities and audiences are shifting dramatically, and it’s our responsibility to evolve with them.” |
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| | | The Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority board voted to ban providing water or sewer service to data centers for twelve months, a move that could interfere with plans by U-M and Los Alamos National Laboratory to build a $1.2 billion advanced computing facility in Ypsilanti Twp.
Council approved the expansion of the Downtown Development Authority’s boundaries some nineteen blocks to the north.
The local measles outbreak isn’t officially over yet, but the last new case was confirmed thirty days ago, on March 25. An outbreak ends when it’s been forty-two days, which would be May 6. A measles case confirmed in Ottawa County, their first since 1991, is not considered to be related, according to the Detroit Free Press (paywall).
Monroe Public Schools has reinstated the athletic director who was suspended four months ago after making empathetic comments about a Skyline High volleyball player at the center of controversy over what team a transgender girl should play on.
A pilot program in which residents drop off food scraps for composting is expanding to Dexter and Salem Twp. About 180 households – mine and AAO editor in chief Brooke Black’s are actually two of those – have participated since the county began handing out plastic bins to collect the material. We do our part, but these people are really, really into it. Here’s the interest form to sign up.
Pioneer High sophomore running sensation Natasza Dudek has an NIL deal.
Police collected 699.5 grams of heroin and fentanyl, forty-seven grams of crack cocaine, 14.5 grams of cocaine, seven Xanax bars, four firearms, $73,968 in cash, and about $200,000 worth of jewelry in a multicounty bust that included Washtenaw. No word on a partridge in a pear tree.
U-M gives out its millionth degree at next month’s commencement. The lucky recipient gets student loan forgiveness and season tickets to everything. Haha. Just kidding!
Council unanimously agreed to the expected deal to let the library district build a new branch inside a mixed-use high-rise on AADL’s existing property as well as atop the Library Ln. garage. The current downtown branch will remain open until 2029.
An Ann Arbor native and her daughter wrote her own obituary. Then the daughter wrote this sweet piece about that.
This Ypsi woman came one fake Microsoft pop-up away from being scammed out of $80,000.
A (really, really yummy) Guatemalan restaurant in Ypsi tells Michigan Public the immigration crackdowns are scaring customers away.
U-M was in a Jeopardy! clue this week. |
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| | | Buffalo Wild Wings to close May 3: The venerable State St. sports bar, which opened in 2004, will shut down the day after undergraduate commencement, MLive reports. Manager Paul Creely explained the closure by saying, “Times are tough right now. We understand that people don’t have as much money to come out and eat and it’s just the nature of the beast.” The Buffalo Wild Wings on Boardwalk Dr. will remain open.
Yemeni coffee shops proliferate: The Michigan Daily takes note of the trend – which the Observer’s Dave Algase covered in September – on the occasion of the announcement of yet another entry coming to town. Caffeena is expected to replace Tea Ninja on E. Liberty, although there’s no opening date yet.
Indy florist completes move: Lily’s Garden, previously located in a house next to Zingerman’s Next Door on Detroit St. in Kerrytown, has relocated to a studio space on Jewett just east of South Industrial, Dave Algase writes in this month’s Observer. The shop is owned by Harriet Held, the remaining member of the three-woman partnership that purchased the business in 2003 from Lily Kittle. |
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| | | Ozone House fundraiser is tonight: The soiree — which includes dinner, cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and live music by the Brain Plasticity Ukulele Collective — supports the nonprofit focused on helping youth facing housing instability. Tickets are $125 in advance only; the event runs from 6 to 9 p.m. at WCC’s Morris Lawrence Bldg.
Growing Hope’s Incubator Kitchen fosters food entrepreneurship: The Ypsi-based nonprofit provides participants with access to commercial-grade equipment as well as business coaching, licensing support, and connections to local markets like the Ypsilanti Farmers Market, Concentrate writes.
Walk raises awareness of family grief: The local chapter of the national nonprofit Chasing the Rainbows hosts its annual Bursting Bubble Awareness Walk at 2 p.m. on May 3 at Prospect Park, 550 N. Prospect, in Ypsi. The organization seeks to raise $10,000 for its programs supporting families grieving infertility, pregnancy loss, stillbirth, and infant loss, according to its event page. Registration costs $38.10 for adults, $32.80 for kids eight to seventeen, and free for anyone seven and under. |
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| | | Friday: The naturalist-led Friday Night Geology Hike explores hills and hollows created by the intermingling of moraines, as well as spring wildflowers.
Saturday: The Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North America plays songs of resistance and folk songs with a large ensemble of lyre-like Ukrainian banduras.
Sunday: In Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, Dreamland Theater uses marionettes and puppets to bring George Orwell’s dystopian classic to life.
See the Observer’s online calendar for many more local events. |
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