The county’s Covid-19 snapshot reports 1,763 cases in the two weeks ending yesterday. The weekly case rate per 100,000 residents rose to 335, and the test positivity rate to 9.3 percent. Worst hit again are elementary aged children, at 751 per 100k, up from 480 last week. The county remains at the “medium” CDC risk level.
U-M is making masks optional in classrooms and on its buses starting Monday, the Michigan Daily reports. Masking in class will still be required in the Law School and Medical School until the end of term, as well as at Michigan Medicine, but the move brings most instructional spaces in line with the university’s decision last month to lift the mandate in most spaces, despite rising case numbers across the county.
TheRide is asking voters for one of the largest property tax hikes in recent years, MLive reports. On the ballot this August is a proposal to increase the 0.7-mill tax last approved in 2014 by 1.68-mill for five years starting in 2024. The tax would raise an estimated $22 million in the first year to maintain and expand local transit services, but faces opposition from officials in Ypsilanti Township, the county’s second-largest community.
The ballot for August’s partisan primaries is official, MLive reports. Eleven candidates are competing for city council seats, all as Democrats but largely split between factions supporting and opposing mayor Christopher Taylor, who is facing off against former council member Anne Bannister in his own re-election bid. A dozen Democrats and half a dozen Republicans are competing for their parties’ nomination to the county’s redrawn Michigan House and Senate seats, and two Republicans want to challenge incumbent US rep. Debbie Dingell in the new 6th Congressional district.
The city’s proposed $525 million budget includes a number of new initiatives, MLive reports, including more money for road maintenance, equity and sustainability measures, a re-examination of city zoning, a potential Sustainable Energy Utility, affordable housing, and more.
Ann Arbor landlords are finding workarounds for the city’s new early leasing ordinance, the Michigan Daily reports, including charging prospective tenants a $2,000 “holding fee” and warning tenants that if they don’t “reserve” their unit months in advance, it may be rented to someone else.
A Medication Take Back Day is scheduled for Saturday, ClickOnDetroit reports. Five drive-thru locations will accept pills, capsules, and patches from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Needles, syringes, liquids, or lancets won’t be accepted.
City council extended hours at downtown’s social district, MLive reports. Since December, people have been allowed to walk around designated areas with alcoholic drinks from 4 to 11 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Now it’s legal from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.
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