| September 4, 2026Can you guess what’s pictured above? Click the image to find out! |
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| | (Good stormy morning everyone! As a parent who had to weather Thursday’s tornado warning from my car in the parking lot of my kids’ locked-down school at what is usually dismissal time and who is typing on a dying phone in a powerless house, here’s hoping everyone is safe and dry. So far, aside from outages, there’s not a huge amount of reported damage, so the e-newsletter show must go on! —sf)
Growing up Jewish, it confused me why we were the only ones who recognized the New Year in September. Everything important seems to start around now – new school years, new football seasons, new extracurriculars for the kids, and coincidentally for me, often new jobs. (Don’t worry, a2view readers, I’m not going anywhere.) Even political campaigns and baseball seasons feel new and more relevant as they sprint toward their finales.
Our conventional new year, meanwhile, always feels to me more like a letdown than a turning point, a resumption of the doldrums of winter after holiday observances and (perhaps) some time off from work. So as we barrel toward Rosh Hashanah next Friday, I hope you are taking in this period of renewal, too.
Speaking of next week, though, I have a request. Next Friday is also the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11. Where were you? If you were in Ann Arbor and remember something about that day or the days that followed you’d like to share, I’d like to do so in next week’s intro. Write me.
Your news is here. The AAEA is voting on its new contract, the school board rushed through a change to its transgender policies, regent Paul Brown thinks Jordan Acker was badly treated, a Pioneer High alum will star in one of 2028’s biggest movies, and the Ann Arbor News will stop its print edition this fall.
This is last week’s most-clicked link.
– Steve Friess, editor |
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| | | First day of first grade, 2026. Credit: Steve Friess |
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| | | | | | Teacher contract outcome up in the air: Voting closes at 3 p.m. today on a tentative agreement between the Ann Arbor Education Association and the school district. It’s anyone’s guess how it turns out given that the union’s crisis team declined to make a recommendation, according to several teachers who spoke to a2view on condition of anonymity. It was, in part, the crisis team’s virulent opposition to the previous proposed contract that led to a near-unanimous rejection in April; the new version dropped two of the concessions the district requested: increased class size and reduced paid teacher prep time. It offers the same 1.5 percent annual raises but adds an increase in the district’s contribution to health insurance premiums.
Membership appears to be split. Both at the union’s meeting on Monday at Skyline High and in various online forums, some insist the new offer is inadequate while others want to end the uncertainty so the AAEA can gear up for negotiations for the 2028–2030 contract, which start in just a few months. At the meeting on Monday, AAEA executive director George Przygodski warned attendees – to a response of boos – that passing on this offer would probably result in a worse deal later. AAPS teachers have been working under an expired contract since January 1. AAEA president Fred Klein did not respond to requests for comment. |
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| | AAPS tweaks trans policy at Trump’s behest: The school board voted 6–1 last week to alter its language around transgender students to clarify that information about their gender expression and identity is accessible to parents as part of their child’s records. The topic was added to last Wednesday’s agenda just hours before the meeting began. The Department of Education had threatened to withhold as much as $15 million in federal funds were it not done by the first day of school, August 31; the board had to suspend its bylaws requiring such changes to be made via votes at two successive meetings in order to comply.
Only board member Rima Mohammad, who is running for reelection this year, voted against the measure, and several board candidates told a2view they were offended by the speed with which the issue was raised and resolved. “I think there was a misunderstanding about what the policy really said – the community believed that there were some protections there for trans kids in the way of what teachers would or would not say to parents that really wasn’t there anyway,” said candidate Carloyn Siebers, who attended the meeting and believes the board should’ve taken more time to explain that. Brandon Smith, another candidate, agreed: “To hit fast-forward on a policy that is so personal to so many people and overstep community input makes people lose faith in the process,” Smith said. “Special meetings can be called and community listening sessions can be called.” |
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| | Protest could slow council’s plan for Kline’s lot: An agreement to sell the land at 309 S. Ashley to a would-be developer was on the September 8 consent agenda – the part that typically includes routine, uncontroversial items that are voted on without discussion – until downtown business and property owners complained. Now, councilmember Dharma Akmon said via email that she’ll pull it from that section to afford a debate and to consider public input. The property, currently used for parking for the Ark, is likely to be developed for a high-rise residential building. While that may be hard to thwart, as longtime residents and property owners Carolyn and Joseph Arcure acknowledged in an email to a2view, the push to quietly approve the contract without providing the public more information “feels like abdication … It is distressing how few details and exhibits are included for such a complex site.” Akmon, responding to a different objector’s note, wrote: “I’ve also submitted a number of questions to staff ahead of the meeting and responses will be in a memo we get back and that is attached to the agenda the day of the meeting.” |
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| | Regent implies Acker ouster was anti-Semitic: Incumbent Paul Brown, one of the Democratic nominees running for reelection to U-M’s governing body, lamented to the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus on Saturday in Lansing that his “close friend,” incumbent Jordan Acker, was not renominated at the party’s convention in April. Delegates at that convention chose Brown and Dearborn civil rights attorney Amir Makled as the party’s standard-bearers, unseating Acker. Speaking to the group at its post-primary gathering, which a2view attended, Brown said: “You know, I had a colleague that I proudly ran with eight years ago, Jordan Acker, a close friend who ran with me for the endorsement convention and lost. And if you were in that endorsement convention caucus, I spoke there, and I mentioned that other than the fact that he’s younger and better looking than me, our voting records were the same, yet he was targeted. You have to think, there’s a reason for that, that we all recognize, which is sad. He is still a great regent.”
Brown did not respond to requests for comment on what “reason” he meant, but U-M student president and Makled supporter Summit Louth told a2view the implication was that Acker was targeted because he is Jewish. Louth believes Acker was targeted because he’d made hostile statements about even considering U-M divestment of companies that profit from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and had met with the Israeli president. Acker also went into that convention beset by breaking news that he had made lewd remarks about female staffers in a Slack channel. The regent denied the veracity of those resurfaced comments at the time but confirmed they were real and apologized after an outside investigation was launched. Both the Michigan Daily editorial board and the faculty senate have urged Acker to resign, saying his apology was inadequate; his term ends on December 31.
Louth also disputed Brown’s suggestion that he and Acker’s records were “the same.” “Brown was opposed to divestment because he didn’t see that as ‘appropriate’ from a ‘nonpartisan’ institution,” he texted to a2view. “Acker seemed to oppose divestment because he was supportive of the Israeli government’s actions. Only one of those two people defended the actions of the Israeli government. I think that’s what really did him in.” Makled’s campaign declined to discuss Brown’s remarks except to say, “Saturday was about unity, shared purpose, and moving forward together. Our campaign is focused on doing our part to elect Democrats up and down the ballot and delivering a victory for the entire Democratic ticket this November.” |
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| | Democratic U-M regent nominee Amir Makled (at center) is trailed by supporters at the Lansing Center on Saturday during the party’s convention. Credit: Steve Friess |
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| | | | | Board leaders expect to close at least two schools: In a joint interview, president Torchio Feaster and trustees Susan Schmidt and Susan Baskett tell me such consolidation appears imminent and unavoidable given the need to “right-size” amid falling enrollment. Feaster suggests the number of closures could be as high as six depending on what concessions the teachers union obtains in its contract talks, a remark that sparked fury in online discussions of the Observer article. Among schools being considered for closure are Abbot, Haisley, Lakewood, Carpenter, and Pittsfield elementaries, Forsythe Middle School, and the alternative high school Pathways to Success.
Ann Arborite: This month’s profile focuses on Barb Schutzgruber, the seventy-one-year-old chair for the Michigan League of Handweavers 23rd Biennial Fiber Show and Ann Arbor Storytellers’ Guild member whose grandmother taught her embroidery at age six. Schutzgruber tells Patti Smith about how weaving and crafting clothes led to basketry and how all of it has been interwoven into her life as a raconteur. She’ll appear at the Ark’s Storytelling Nights on September 8. Her repertoire includes about 200 folk tales where women use their skills at weaving, spinning, and dye work to get out of a tangled situation. Schutzgruber calls this the heroine’s journey: “Something happens that causes her to leave for a better life. Her life only gets a little better, so she must leave again, and so on until she gets to where she needs to be.”
Concerts that break down barriers: Ally Choi writes about the four-year-old Unison Chamber Music Collective, which performs monthly concerts at a circuit of unusual venues – Shelter Association of Washtenaw County, Salvation Army Harbor Light, the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, FCI Milan Correctional, and the addiction recovery center Dawn Farm. UCMC founder and executive director Allyson Cohen envisions a world where “everyone has access to exceptional musical performances and feels included and valued in classical spaces. … I really wanted to bring music to people who have never been to Hill Auditorium to see a concert, who would not even think to buy a ticket because they can’t afford it or because they don’t know what to wear.” |
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| | | HOMES Brewery’s response to the stupidity of renaming Lake Ontario was perfect.
Regents confirmed the selection of Vanderbilt provost C. Cybele Raver as U-M’s next president. Her five-year contract, effective in December, includes a starting salary of $2 million.
U-M football’s new head coach, Kyle Whittingham, is under fire for allegedly pushing injured players back on the field too soon at his old gig in Utah. That hasn’t stopped Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom from calling Whittingham the “fresh start Michigan needed” after the coach impressed him, uh, with his office.
Speaking of moving right along, U-M will pay $1.2 million to settle a claim by a woman who accused a football staffer of rape.
Also, MLive scoops that the university’s ex-CFO Geoffrey Chatas was under investigation for alleged financial mismanagement when he left for Yale in October. A $1 million outside probe found no evidence of wrongdoing.
MLive had a good week, getting ahold of some details as to why Chelsea fired its city manager after just six months on the job.
On the other hand, MLive Media Group also announced this week it would stop publishing its print editions, including the Ann Arbor News, in December. Be honest – most of you didn’t even know they had print editions anymore, amirite?
The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office is investigating whether it was necessary to throw a Detroit man to the ground in Ypsilanti Twp. last week when he was arrested for allegedly speeding through a security perimeter. There’s cell phone video suggesting he was cooperating with police.
Pioneer High and U-M alum Maya Boyd has been cast as Storm in an upcoming X-Men movie, due in theaters in 2028.
Bridge Michigan’s Isabella Figueroa Nogueira does a very nice job explaining where a lot of the anger over data centers across the state is coming from: a feeling of powerlessness.
That’s certainly likely to be a sentiment expressed at the town halls scheduled by U-M on its supercomputing joint venture with Los Alamos National Laboratory to be built in Ypsilanti Twp. The first one, set for Wednesday (September 9) is full up, so U-M scheduled a second one for October 1. You can watch the Wednesday one online here.
Meanwhile, the editorial board at Crain’s Detroit Business warns that blocking that U-M facility will lead LANL to build in North Carolina or Texas. Evidently, they haven’t heard that data centers and their kin are wildly unpopular everywhere. Even Texas and North Carolina.
No, the crane-scaffolding mishap on the thirteenth floor of the Rambler on Monday didn’t cause collapsed floors. Luckily, too, nobody was hurt.
The Division Street Bikeway Extension – which would extend the two-way bike path from Division at Catherine over the Broadway Bridge and up to the Broadway–Plymouth Rd. intersection – has some people excited and others frustrated.
Metal Frat, a frat house–turned–“queer, co-ed alternative music hub,” has been shut down by alumni because they admitted women and non-binary members.
A DTE-funded group is appealing after a judge tossed its lawsuit seeking to disqualify a question approved for the November ballot asking city voters to establish a municipal energy utility.
AADL’s Summer Game is over and the record-breaking 20,285 players have until Monday (September 7) to cash out their points for prizes. Also, not to brag but 839 people redeemed a2view’s 150-point code!
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| | | Orijin Bakery reflects renewed faith in downtown: Restauranteur Sava Farah is behind the shop that replaced Molly’s Cupcakes on Liberty, a joint venture with former Boro executive pastry chef Jin Gorian, Dave Algase writes in this month’s Observer. Farah, who owns Pulpo Group, says she had doubted she’d open any more businesses downtown after the pandemic but that she’s “glad we changed our tune with that because Ann Arbor needs people like me to invest and … inject talent and design and style and character to this town.”
Fountain Square Shopping Center to get BurgerFi: The national chain is planning to open this fall in Ypsi, its second Michigan location, WhatNow Detroit reports. The fast-casual brand was acquired by Happy Group in December 2024 to emerge from bankruptcy; Happy also owns Savvy Sliders, Happy’s Pizza, and Fat Boy’s Pizza.
Shalimar for sale for $1M: The Indian spot on Main is listed by Collier’s Ann Arbor as a “stabilized, income-producing restaurant in Ann Arbor’s most desirable restaurant location.” It is currently owned by chef Samir Patel, who took it over from original owners Purnima Baluja and Indertej Reen. In November 2020, Patel opened a gift shop next door that closed by the following summer. |
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| | | PTO Thrift Shop has raised $3.8M for AAPS schools: Just in time for the new academic year, CBS Detroit tells the story of how the 22,000-square-foot store came to be more than thirty years ago. The idea came, one of its eight founders explained, from a similar operation in Chapel Hill, NC.
AAUW’s three-day book sale opens on Sept. 11: The massive annual event, which takes over WCC’s Morris Lawrence Building, raises money for college scholarships. This year’s sale is particularly notable because the usual summer collection site at Veterans Park became unavailable after the spring tornado, so the Ann Arbor branch of the American Association of University Women instead used a defunct Rite Aid on Packard to collect book donations. Doors are open to the public from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on September 11 and 12 as well as 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on September 13.
Rapellers set to scale EMU’s Hill Hall for Friends In Deed: The Ypsi-based poverty assistance nonprofit once again will raise money from folks who have collected or given at least $1,000 and want to descend from the top of the eleven-story building in the Over The Edge challenge. This year’s event is September 12; so far Friends In Deed has raised over $50K of its $100K goal. |
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| | | Friday: Dance to tunes spun by local electronic musician Ki5 and transmitted to your headphones (provided) at an Ann Arbor District Library “Silent Disco.”
Saturday: Watch live outdoor wrestling matches at the Ypsi Rumble of the Bumble, a street festival highlighting environmental issues which also features a puppet parade, street performers, games, and more.
Sunday: Hear three ten-minute academic lectures followed by a ten-minute improv comedy set on the topic by experienced improvisers at Hear.Say Brewing + Theater’s “Extra Credit.”
Monday (Labor Day): Join a slow/moderate-paced twenty-three-mile ride to Independence Lake on mostly dirt roads with the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society.
See the Observer’s online calendar for many more local events. |
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