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Social media uproar prompts Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler’s resignation: The son of Bo Schembechler was hired last week as a recruitment coach for Jim Harbaugh’s football team, but that unraveled within days when eagle-eyed Internet sleuths discovered Schemy had liked a number of racist and anti-trans tweets, Mediaite reports. Schembechler, who spent a quarter-century as an NFL scout, apologized and renounced the bigoted statements in the tweets he had liked.
Emails suggest U-M students are getting As in lieu of real grades: Several department chairs wrote to colleagues that they were under pressure to produce marks for students whose only instructors are striking members of the Graduate Employees Organization, the Metro Times reports. “We do not have any mechanisms for submitting ‘real’ grades,” English Literature and Language chair Gaurav Desai wrote last week. “So any students with outstanding grades will receive an ‘A.’” The university denied applying such pressure.
Fired Starbucks barista returns to work by court order: Hannah Whitbeck is making lattes and frappuccinos again at the shop at Main and Liberty after a federal judge ruled she was unlawfully dismissed for union organizing, the Metro Times reports. Starbucks fired Whitbeck in April, two months before her co-workers voted to unionize.
Woman hit by stick while dining at Avalon Cafe: The twenty-year-old was struck on the back of her head by a stranger passing her streetside table on E. Liberty on Monday, police said on Facebook. Police arrested a twenty-nine-year-old Ann Arbor man near the parking structure at E. William St. and S. Fourth Ave. The woman suffered minor injuries.
School bus struck by gunfire in Ypsilanti Twp: The three elementary school students, two adult staff members, and the driver were unharmed in the incident, which took place Monday afternoon in the area of Concord and Bedford drives, the Detroit Free Press reports. Police say the bus was not the intended target. Ypsilanti Community Schools superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross wrote in a letter to families, “We take this matter very seriously and will continue collaborating with law enforcement authorities to ensure the safety and security of all our students.”
Four injured as wrong-way motorist drives from Monroe to Washtenaw: The driver raced north on southbound U.S. 23 on Tuesday morning, colliding with eight cars along the way before coming to a stop near Willis Road, the Monroe News reports. Four people, including the wrong-way driver, were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries. State police said alcohol or drugs may have been involved in the incident.
Two dogs die in Ypsilanti Twp house fire: The blaze in the 7000 block of Textile Road trapped a woman and her pets inside, MLive reports. Police helped her out of a window, but the dogs perished in a fire that totaled the home and burned for more than five hours.
Home Point Financial’s endpoint arrives: By the time the Observer caught up with the once-mighty Ann Arbor-based mortgage wholesaler in March, its brief moment as a billion-dollar business had already passed. Rising mortgage rates crushed its refinancing business, prompting it to cut its nationwide staff from 4,000 to fewer than 1,000. Anita LeBlanc followed up on the sale of its core lending business in the May issue, which left the company with only a small niche servicing existing mortgages. Now Crain’s Detroit Business (paywall) reports the company has sold that business, too, and is shutting down.
Memoir details how MDSI revolutionized factory automation: Chuck Hutchins reflects in Hot Tech, Cold Steel on the heady days in the 1960s and 1970s when he created “one of Ann Arbor’s first great tech companies,” as Stephanie Kadel Taras writes in this month’s Observer. In its heyday, Manufacturing Data Systems Inc. was one of Ann Arbor’s largest employers and so profitable it paid for its 200,000-square-foot international headquarters on Plymouth Rd. in cash. The company fizzled after an IPO and sale, and the buildings were sold in 1997. It’s now U-M’s Arbor Lakes complex.
Invasive insect dangerous to hemlock trees found at Nichols Arboretum: The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) this week confirmed the presence of the woolly adelgid, which feeds on sap and can kill the trees, ClickOnDetroit reports. That makes Washtenaw the seventh county in the state to identify the invasive insect. Nearby residents with hemlocks on their property should check the base of the needles on the underside of their branches and contact MDARD by phone at (800) 292-3939 or via email if they see signs of infestation.
Peninsular Paper Dam removal lands $3.8M in state funding: It’s the largest of sixteen dam-removal and repair grants handed out by the department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, MLive reports. Ypsilanti’s City Council voted in 2019 to remove the defunct power dam, which dates back to 1867 and is in poor condition. From the same round of grants, Saline is getting $192,000 for a feasibility study for the removal of the Saline River Dam and the Washtenaw County Water Resource Commissioner’s Office is receiving $1 million to remove two dams near Willow Run Airport.
Crew breaks ground on pair of affordable housing buildings near EMU: The twin buildings rising at 845 and 945 Clark Rd. in Ypsi will create 308 apartments when completed by late 2024, MLive reports. One of the buildings, Huron Vista, will bring 156 units for individuals and families, while the other, The Residences at Huron, will provide 156 units for seniors.
Scio Twp approves 105-acre senior living community near Dexter: The Encore at Heritage Woods development is expected to have 149 attached villas, eighty-two duplexes and an 85,000-square-foot building that could be an independent or assisted living facility, MLive reports (paywall). The project will occupy what is now farmland north of I-94 west of Baker Rd.
Pittsfield Twp. puts kibosh on controversial drive-thru Starbucks: The coffee shop, proposed for the outlot of a strip mall at the corner of Moon Rd. and E. Michigan Ave., was seen as a major threat to independent coffee shop Brewed Awakenings, MLive reports. The township planning commission said this week that it would create too much traffic.
U-M sports celebrates record year of Big Ten championships: Football, men’s and women’s tennis, and men’s and women’s gymnastics were among the thirteen teams to finish on top of the conference in 2022-23, 24/7 Sports reports. The total matched the record set in the 2021-22 season.
All Washtenaw students to get $25 to start savings accounts: The program, called My Future Fund, makes all children grades first through fifth who were enrolled in a county public school or academy as of October 2022 eligible, Concentrate reports. Students in lower-income households could receive another $475. The county put $2.9 million of its federal American Rescue Plan Act funds and $3.78 million from the general fund into the effort.
Kiwanis Club of Ann Arbor Foundation hires first executive director: The charitable arm of the service club has operated since 1965 but has seen revenue from its Friday and Saturday thrift sales grow dramatically since 2016, ClickOnDetroit reports. The new leader, Mary Buck, was previously an administrator with nonprofits in Santa Cruz, California. Kiwanis gave away more than $1 million in scholarships, grants, and goods in Washtenaw County in 2022.
City agrees to save piece of sidewalk after child’s plea: Nine-year-old Dahlia Grocoff urged the preservation of a section along Seventh St. because a defect the city thought needed to be removed looked to her like a heart, MLive reports. Dahlia left a handwritten note on the sidewalk about how important the heart in the sidewalk was to her, and city engineer Nick Hutchinson decided to save the slab.
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