On Wednesday, for his fourth birthday, I took our son to Parker Mill Park for a few hours. He ran up and down the trails, rolled around in leaf piles, lined up dozens of acorns on a bench, and sat transfixed by the quickening river below from one of the bridges. I’m grateful to have a child who can be entertained without playground equipment, who gravitates to the spectacular scenery that Ann Arbor provides. It was an idyllic reminder to me of why we left the barrenness of the Southwest; what good is an October birthday if it doesn’t feel or look like autumn? 

The news is a bit October-y, too, in as much as there’s a lot going on with U-M football and some road closures to get projects finished before the weather takes a real turn. Otherwise, the lineup is a collection of this and that you ought to know about. 

As I plot out our pumpkin-carving plans, I wish you all a most autumnal week ahead.

–Steve Friess, editor

P.S. My niece and nephew-in-law returned safely from Israel on Saturday night. Thanks to everyone who asked.

Report: U-M football being investigated for signal-stealing scheme: According to Yahoo! Sports, the Big Ten has been informed that the NCAA is probing whether the Wolverines hired someone to attend opponents’ games to track the coaching signs to the players and then, later, line them up with video to decipher what each sign means. It’s a blockbuster allegation that probably won’t be adjudicated this year but could have serious implications for the future of both head coach Jim Harbaugh and possible sanctions for the team. Such an effort would violate an NCAA rule that reads, “Off-campus, in-person scouting of future opponents (in the same season) is prohibited.”

Blake Corum the latest U-M football star to grace Sports Illustrated cover: With the team rocketing through the first half of its season, the running back joins the likes of Mike Hart (in 2007) and Desmond Howard (twice in 1991) as the face of the magazine. Corum is emblematic, journalist Christopher Breiler writes, of the new era of NIL – name, image, and likeness – deals that let college athletes make money endorsing products and making appearances. In another era, Corum would have gone pro this year, but instead stayed to pursue a championship – in part because he could make serious money while still getting his degree. SI has a handy page for Wolverine fans to browse all their U-M covers dating back to 1956.

Athletic directors urge civility as Michigan faces MSU: With the intrastate rivalry football game set for Saturday night in East Lansing, school leaders hope the tensions that resulted in a brawl between players in the tunnel at the Big House last year are a thing of the past. U-M’s Warde Manuel and MSU’s Alan Haller sent a joint email telling fans to “leave the rivalry on the field.” 

More than 1,000 apply for guaranteed incomes: The pilot project run for the city by U-M’s Poverty Solutions team plans to provide $528 a month for two years to low-income entrepreneurs. Only 100 applicants will receive the money, which comes with no strings attached and is paid for from federal stimulus funds. MLive reports that a “not-insignificant number” of the applicants don’t live in the city and are so ineligible.

State grants $8M for affordable housing: That’s the local share of nearly $100 million in grants from the Michigan Economic Development Corp., according to a press release from the governor’s office. Among the projects expected to get a boost are plans for a $3.9 million mixed-use development in Ypsi that would have sixty housing units and a $5 million six-story, sixty-three-unit development on Catherine St. in downtown Ann Arbor.  

Council calls on MDOT not to add lanes to US-23: A resolution passed unanimously on Monday informs the state that the city does not want anything done to encourage additional traffic on the highway. MDOT is considering how to spend a $250 million budget to improve the north-south highway between M-14 and I-94.

Murder, abuse charges dismissed in neglect case: A county judge threw out the most serious charges pending against Karen Wibbeler-Nelson and Robert Dorsey Nelson of Pittsfield Twp. in the 2020 death of Nelson’s seventy-six-year-old father, MLive reports (paywall). The couple were accused of intentionally neglecting Andrew Nelson, who was found in a home strewn by raw sewage and animal feces and crowded by forty-five dogs and cats. The judge ruled that prosecutors failed to prove that the couple caused the death. They still face charges of animal cruelty and fourth-degree child abuse. 

Passenger dies in one-car crash in Scio Twp.: The twenty-three-year-old woman from Royal Oak was killed Sunday morning when the vehicle, driven by a thirty-three-year-old man from Birmingham, veered off the road at Huron River Dr. and Pineview Dr. and into a tree, the Sun Times News reports. The driver was taken to U-M Hospital where he was in critical condition.

300 attend pro-Palestinian march: The demonstrators rallied around U-M president Santa Ono’s campus mansion to show displeasure at his statement offering support and sympathy for Israelis following the recent Hamas attacks, the Michigan Daily reports. Speakers noted that Ono’s statement did not offer similar concern for Palestinians killed and displaced by Israel’s aggressive counterattack on the Gaza Strip. Ono issued another statement two hours after the protests began that included language empathetic to the Palestinians’ plight.

Regents expected to approve $24M to renovate locker rooms: The money breaks down to $14 million to overhaul and expand the football team’s facility at Schembechler Hall and $10 million for the men’s and women’s facilities at the William Davidson Player Development Center next to the Crisler Center. The work will be paid for by donations to the athletics program, but the university is fronting the money to get the work started.

TheRide makes a bet on hydrogen: The bus service’s CEO, Matt Carpenter, announced a proposal to buy two buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells as part of a pilot program that could save 7,000 tons of carbon emissions a year. The plan is expected to cost as much as $7.5 million.

Main Street Ann Arbor ED leaves for DDA: Executive director Sandra Andrade announced this week via email that she took a position with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. The MSAA won’t be leaderless, however; Vicki Joling, now director of a2Tech360 at Ann Arbor SPARK will take over Andrade’s job on Wednesday. 

New signs aim to curb bike crashes: The signs remind motorists to yield to bicycle riders and pedestrians when turning across bike lanes, MLive reports. The first went up at Fifth Ave. and Catherine St. near Kerrytown, where at least two car-bike collisions have occurred.

Liberty Rd. closed starting Friday: Motorists will be detoured around the segment over I-94 for twenty-four hours starting 3 p.m. Friday as crews continue to repair damage done when a semi hit it in March, ClickOnDetroit reports. The complex project could take until December to be fully completed.

Hill St. shut down for repaving Saturday: The busy road will be closed from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. from Washtenaw Ave. to Oxford Rd., according to the city. The work and the closure will be shifted to Sunday if the weather interferes on Saturday. 

Historic Ypsi library struggles to recover from summer flood: July storms caused major damage to the 1914 structure, although staff was able to rescue all but about 100 books, MLive reports. It’s been closed since the flood, with efforts underway to dry it out and remediate mold. Ypsilanti District Library leaders say the branch, which is on Michigan Ave., won’t reopen until at least June.

Observer gains a rock-solid tenant in concrete reinforcer maker: The magazine’s office has been largely vacant since the pandemic because the staff now works remotely, but now Helix Steel has moved in. Most of the company’s 250 full-time employees work three shifts at its Grand Rapids factory, Arielle Kass writes in this month’s issue, but founder Luke Pinkerton says he’s “a little old school” in wanting a space where his growing headquarters staff can be together. Helix’s “micro rebar” grew out of a patent that Pinkerton researched as a U-M grad student and licensed after graduation. A mix-in to concrete that gives the material more flexibility than traditional rebar, it’s been used in almost a billion square feet of concrete slabs worldwide.

A booming business in repurposing vintage wood: Jim Mason of Michigan Reclaimed Barns & Lumber tells Anita LeBlanc in this month’s Observer that his company was born when he was asked to demo an old barn and couldn’t bear to send the beams and siding to a landfill. Now he takes down forty to fifty barns a year, stores it in warehouses in Ann Arbor and Medina, Ohio, and reconditions the wood for use, among other things, in vintage countertops for homes and restaurants.

Yemeni cafe opens on Packard: Three years in the making, Socotra Coffee House stems from co-owner Wazira Alrabeei’s decades-long cottage industry making desserts for her friends and family, Dave Algase writes in this month’s Observer. The business is a family affair; her brother is a co-owner and her son is the manager. 

Online U-M merch vendor launches brick-and-mortar shop: University Vintage, founded by brothers who graduated from Ross School of Business, opened last month on S. State, the Daily reports. The shop, like the site, offers a range of Michiganalia from the 1970s through the early 2000s. The business started as an Instagram page in 2017 and expanded to pop-up shops on campus.

Dexter gets a whiskey tasting room: Highline Spirits opened earlier this month serving up the eponymous and bespoke line of spirits, according to a Facebook post. Highline founder Christi Lower, a Dexter native, has grown her spirits business to distribute in forty-six states. The Dexter tasting room is open Thursdays through Sundays, and a second is due to open in Plymouth by year’s end.

U-M aims for $1.25M in annual United Way push: The fundraising campaign that kicked off Monday and runs through the end of the year asks university staff, faculty, students, retirees, and alumni to contribute, the University Record writes. Donors who give more than $1,000 will be invited to a reception hosted by U-M president Santa Ono. For more information on how to give, click here.

Volunteers sought to assemble 30,000 meal kits on Oct. 28: The three local Rotary Clubs are hosting Send Hunger Packing, making shelf-stable “one-pot dinners” to distribute to food pantries and use in emergency situations like natural disasters, MLive writes. The event is from 9 to 11 a.m. in the cafeteria of Pioneer High School. For information on the partnership with Kids Coalition Against Hunger, click here.

Fresh Start relocates again amid post-pandemic challenges: The nonprofit clubhouse for adults dealing with mental illness moved last month into a new home on Michigan Ave. in Ypsi, Eve Silberman writes in this month’s Observer. Launched as Trailblazers thirty-three years ago in the basement of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, Fresh Start works with members, mostly middle-aged or older, who prepare meals, garden, learn computer skills, and make decisions as a group.

By Jennifer Taylor

Friday: Catch some of Kerrytown Concert House’s 27th Annual Edgefest, which runs through Saturday. DownBeat lists this annual festival, which includes eighteen different shows over four days, as one of the world’s fifty top jazz/avant music festivals. Tonight: James Brandon Lewis & Chad Taylor (7 p.m.), a “virtuosic and formidable” duo with “emotive power,” according to DownBeat. Jason Kao Hwang’s Human Rites Trio (8 p.m.), which ranges from chamber music to blues to powerful abstraction. Hawkins/McPhee/Reid Trio (9 p.m.), an ensemble whose sound draws from both the African diaspora and avant-garde minimalism. Luke Stewart Exposure Quintet (10 p.m.), a group whose often surprising free explorations of jazz motifs are fronted by gifted young bassist Stewart. 7, 8, 9, & 10 p.m., Kerrytown Concert House, 415 N. Fourth Ave. Individual show tickets (price TBA) in advance here and (if available) at the door. $60 to $75 day passes and $200–$350 (734) 769–2999. 

Saturday: Explore Ann Arbor’s west side and see local art at this weekend’s “West Side Neighborhood Art Hop.” More than seventy artists and craftspeople show and sell their work at dozens of homes and studios. Live music at some venues. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Sat.), noon to 5 p.m. (Sun.), start at 700 Mt. Vernon Ave. Free. Venues & map available here. (734) 757–3717. 

Sunday: Do fun activities, take part in a scavenger hunt, and learn about ancient technologies and those used by modern archaeologists at the U-M Kelsey Museum of Archaeology’s biannual Family Day, “The Modern Science of Archaeology.” Kid-friendly docent-led tours of the museum collection highlight shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, how archaeologists document history through new technologies, and the techniques that built the Roman Empire. Also, other hands-on activities for kids of all ages. Noon to 3 p.m., Kelsey Museum, 434 S. State. Free. (734) 764–9304. 

See the Observer’s online calendar for many more local events. 

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