| May 29, 2026Can you guess what’s pictured above? Click the image to find out! |
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| | On Monday, I piled the kids in the car to meet up with friends at the wonderful Toledo Zoo. It was a lovely time except that it was 80 degrees out and the splash pad that the zoo advertises was closed.
Ah, but I wasn’t about to let our bathing suits and towels go to waste. On the way back up US-23, I remembered someone had mentioned a park in Milan with a splash pad. A quick internet search later, we pulled up at Wilson Park. It turned out to be one of those eye-popping discoveries.
The city of Milan spent about $1 million upgrading this park last year with some really inventive, accessible play structures and other amenities. They already had had the splash pad, and it was marvelous. But the entire place was a bit of a hidden gem, and it’s well worth the drive south if the kids are bored with the same-old. Pro-tip: Bring water shoes so the kids can run from the pad to other attractions without hurting their feet on the carpet of wood chips under the play structures.
Your news is here. BCBSM and Michigan Medicine struck a deal which, I hope, includes free mental health counseling for everyone who needs it after the anxiety caused by their standoff. (Probably not.) The mayor’s race is heating up, the state’s prison director is under fire, there’s movement to switch from elected to appointed U-M regents, and the sports world is agog about (checks notes) EMU’s women’s golf team.
This is last week’s most-clicked link.
– Steve Friess, editor |
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| | | MCity may be a fake town, but those were real baby birds nesting inside a parking meter last week. Credit: Steve Friess |
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| | | | | | BCBSM and Michigan Medicine reach new long-term contract: That deafening sigh of relief heard across Metro Detroit on Wednesday came from news that the mammoth insurer and the mammoth health care system ended their negotiations with a deal that keeps the academic medical center and affiliated facilities, clinics, and physicians in-network. After the parties spent months freaking everybody out and thousands of patients were warned to go look for other health care providers in the event the two sides couldn’t come to terms by June 30, it’s over. The details have not been made public yet, but odds are good everyone is getting paid handsomely to allow the rest of us to move on with our lives. |
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| | Bernie Sanders, teachers union endorse Yousef Rabhi for mayor: That’s a pretty significant one-two punch as the Washtenaw County commissioner and Democratic Socialist attempts to unseat three-termer Christopher Taylor at the city’s helm. Progressive icon Sanders has long been popular among Ann Arbor voters, having beaten Hillary Clinton here in 2016 and then outpolling Joe Biden in 2020. This comes after the Ann Arbor Education Association, which is locked in protracted contract talks with AAPS over teacher compensation, also threw its support behind Rabhi. Taylor, gunning to become the longest-serving mayor in A2 history, has the backing of all ten city councilmembers as well as local state reps Jennifer Conlin, Jason Morgan, and Carrie Rheingans. The primary is Aug. 4. Rabhi hopes to ride an anti-establishment wave among Democrats around the country who vaulted little-known Zohran Mamdani into the New York City mayoralty, helped Dearborn lawyer and U-M regent candidate Amir Makled and Washtenaw County prosecutor and state AG candidate Eli Savit win Democratic nominations, and are fueling momentum for former Detroit Health Department chief Abdul El-Sayed in his bid for the party’s nomination for U.S. Senate in Michigan. Two others also endorsed by the Michigan Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus, Dave Zeglen and Ryan Bartholomew, are running for Democratic nominations for A2 council seats. |
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Prisons chief under fire following deaths: More than thirty current and former state lawmakers signed a letter demanding the resignation of Michigan Department of Corrections director Heidi Washington after four inmates, including two at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Pittsfield Twp., died in the last month. “Significant policy and culture change must occur,” read the letter to Washington, written by state rep Laurie Pohutsky, but “it has become abundantly clear to each of us that such change cannot and will not occur under your leadership.” Seven Republicans cosigned the missive along with twenty-seven Democrats including congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Washington was appointed in 2015 by then-Republican governor Rick Snyder and retained by Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer. Two of the deaths took place within days of each other at the women’s prison: twenty-eight-year-old Khaira Howard and fifty-seven-year-old Rebecca Fackler. Howard, two weeks away from being released on parole, had complained to Pohutsky about unsanitary conditions. The causes of death for both women are under investigation. MDOC says Washington and other leaders have been visiting the Huron Valley prison to investigate problems. |
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| | MSU president’s stunning departure bolsters regent reform chatter: Kevin Guskiewicz’s announcement that he’s leaving after less than three years to take a lower-paying job as president of Clemson University sent shockwaves through the Detroit Regional Chamber’s annual Mackinac Policy Conference. Guskiewicz cited political in-fighting and dysfunction among the regents, a complaint that former U-M president Santa Ono also mentioned when he quit for an ill-fated bid for president of the University of Florida. On stage at the Grand Hotel on Thursday morning, DRC president and CEO Sandy Baruah suggested having regents for U-M, MSU, and Wayne State elected statewide is “an outlier in the rest of the nation” and causes the boards to be beset by “extreme politics.” He urged the state to shift to a cycle of regents appointed by the governor. Baruah’s comments come a week after former Democratic House speaker Joe Tate and Republican state rep Gregory Markkanen co-sponsored a new bill to end the election of regents. |
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| | | Dorro and Goliath: Can three U-M alums build an online commerce platform that can compete with Amazon, which, they say, “fuels unethical consumption, made-to-break products, and undermines local businesses”? Rachael Merritt, a former Rhodes scholar, took to TikTok in March to posit that prospect and, lo and behold, accumulated nearly 80,000 followers. One of the earliest was the Observer’s eagle-eyed social media guru Tabitha Walters, who talked to Merritt about the platform – Dorro – and going viral. “It was really quite scary, to be honest, getting that many followers so quickly,” Merritt said.
The restaurant kids are all right: Michelle Yang writes a charming My Town essay about her upbringing in her family’s Chinese restaurant in Phoenix in the eighties and nineties, how she feels a kinship now to the children living the same life at family-owned spots across Ann Arbor, and how the experiences of “restaurant kids” of second- and third-generation immigrants differ from hers. Yang’s son got hooked on Food Network’s Kids Baking Championship after they moved to Ann Arbor, and they realized one of the contestants, Nemo Tsai, was part of the clan behind Tsai Grocery and Godaiko on Oak Valley, a place they frequented. Yang talks about her experience on our Facebook page.
Starry-Eyed: A group of local chefs and business owners hope to convince the vaunted Michelin Guide to visit Ann Arbor as the publication begins planning out its Great Lakes edition for 2027, Micheline Maynard reports. The odds aren’t great, as Maynard explains, but Destination Ann Arbor is working on it anyway. |
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What is “one of the great sports stories of the year”? EMU’s women’s golf team (above). No, really.
A downtown convenience store sold a $1 million-winning lottery ticket.
These six brave souls, for some reason, want to replace Don Wilkerson on the AAPS board.
If that doesn’t happen for them, maybe they’ll apply to fill an expected vacancy on WISD’s board instead.
The Peony Garden was at 20 percent bloom as of Tuesday and “expected to progress rapidly throughout the week,” MBGNA says. Check out the free shuttle schedule for this weekend and next.
AAPS is worried it will get shortchanged in the $300 million tax-capture arrangement approved to support Arbor South.
Greenhills School headmaster Peter Fayroian is suing Ann Arbor Independent publisher Patricia Lesko alleging defamation.
This New York Times video report on the Saline Twp. data center controversy has been viewed more than 1.5 million times on Instagram. Fortune has a similar report on Instagram with about 369,000 views.
That’s impressive, but 2024 Olympic medal-winning gymnast Fred Richard got 4.5 million views for his video with fellow Wolverine Bryce Underwood in which the quarterback tries to copy Richard’s moves – with remarkable success, all things considered.
And while we’re on the ‘Gram, here’s a tour of U-M’s soon-to-open $165 million rec center.
With Veterans Memorial Park’s pool closed at least until July for post-tornado repairs, Fuller and Buhr are bracing for bigger crowds.
This was quite an acid trip — but not the good kind.
Kappa Delta can build its new sorority house on Oxford Rd. despite neighbor opposition.
The city is offering rebates of up to $7,500 for qualified residents who buy EVs by September 2026 – or whenever the allotted $500,000 runs out.
There appears to be an impostor masquerading as, uh, the defunct Downtown Home & Garden.
Ypsi police are under fire over what some feel was an unnecessarily rough arrest.
Move over, Arbor One. There’s a new poorly managed and maintained apartment complex grabbing headlines and drawing Debbie Dingell’s ire.
They’re replacing thirty clappers and other components of the Burton Tower carillon this summer. Boing!
I couldn’t find a link to the full performance of the composition that won U-M alum Gabriela Lena Frank the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for music, so this WHYY report in which she explains it when it debuted last year will have to suffice.
U-M says Coke is it.
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| | | Mani Osteria owner envisions French-style bistro: Adam Baru tells Dave Algase in the May issue of the Observer that his next venture will be Le Mec inside a building at W. Liberty and S. First that he’s long coveted and where several other restaurant concepts have come and gone, most recently Aroma Indian Cuisine. He bought it for $1.3 million, and now he’s crafting a “focused and specific” menu that will be highlighted by burgers in house-baked buns and served with house-cut fries.
Yet another new Yemeni café coming: Shibam, at 414 S. Main, will be the fifteenth in a national chain when it opens in June, MLive reports. Co-owner Amjed Oudeif of Ypsilanti Twp. says his family has been working on building out the site since last summer.
A trio of closures: Algase also writes about the final days of the gift boutique and beauty supply store Della’s after owner Sheena McCullers decided she needed a breather before her next venture. Also closing recently: DXL Big + Tall at Washtenaw Crossing after decades in business and J&S Jewelers at Briarwood Mall after being open for just a few months. |
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PTOs make final push for $30K: The AAPS Parent Teacher Organization Council so far has raised $27,272 of its goal via a GoFundMe campaign to provide additional funds for PTOs at the district’s Title I schools. The conceit of the effort, launched in February, was to persuade 1,000 donors to give $30 each, but instead the 242 donations so far have averaged about $113. The biggest donor has been The Little Seedling, which gave $2,000.
Ypsi’s free youth athletics programs grew out of Covid: Concentrate delves into The Village, which has grown from a small group of kids meeting on Saturday mornings into a wide-reaching community initiative serving youth ages five to eighteen. The nonprofit’s director, Mitchell Long, explains, “We’re providing the clinics and everything for free because, during Covid, a lot of people were going through hardship but they still wanted to give their kids opportunities.”
Run and walk honor slain Jewish leader on June 7: In Step with Sam Legacy Run is an annual fundraiser to commemorate the life of Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue president Samantha Woll, who had deep ties to Ann Arbor and has a tree planted in her honor in the Nichols Arboretum. Woll was murdered at age forty outside her Detroit home in 2023; the crime remains unsolved. The event includes 1-mile and 5K run/walks that kick off at 9 a.m. and a half-mile fun run starting at 10 a.m. starting from Burns Park. For more information and to register, click here. Proceeds benefit the Samantha Woll Center for Jewish Detroit. |
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