In the News
Correction: Last week’s issue included a broken link to our feature on software company NewFoundry. Click here to read the article by the Observer’s Trilby MacDonald.
Cleanup complete, visitors return to Leslie Science and Nature Center. After learning in June, 2019 that a site on the property planned for a Nature Playscape was contaminated with heavy metals, the LSNC closed to the public to undergo soil remediation. According to a September 18 press release from the City of Ann Arbor, which owns the site and is responsible for cleanup, all contaminants have been removed to “below the most stringent criteria developed” and outdoor programming can now resume. “I’m thrilled to re-open the LSNC site for programming this fall, and break ground on the Nature Playscape project,” says executive director Susan Westhoff. “This news came just in time to plan for our beloved annual event, Animal Haunts, coming back on October 23, 24 & 30!”
Public Q&A on the Gelman Plume. Tonight at 6:30 p.m. the public will have a chance to ask questions about the proposed settlement of the lawsuit over cleanup of the Gelman Sciences dioxane plume. The agreement comes after a years-long court battle over how to remediate 1,4 dioxane that the now-defunct company discharged beneath its Scio Township plant between 1966 and 1986. The plume has been moving towards the Huron River, threatening Ann Arbor’s drinking water. Click here to participate. If you have questions, send them to gelmanquestions@A2gov.org. In addition, there may be a special city council meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept 30 to give residents an opportunity to speak with council members about the agreement. Check the City website for details.
A two-year road project is finally nearing completion. Fuller Rd. has been closed all summer to complete the Southside Interceptor Sanitary Diversion Project, designed to prevent sewage overflows in heavy rains. Delayed last year by an Amtrak review, the work is now complete except for final paving. Observer.
City council votes to decriminalize magic mushrooms. On Monday night, city council voted unanimously to decriminalize growing, transporting, selling, or consuming entheogenic plants including psilocybin mushrooms, commonly known as “magic mushrooms.” Council had declined to take up the proposal from the group Decriminalize Nature Ann Arbor earlier in the year, but were persuaded by recent mental health treatment research. MLive.
Review concludes the U-M faculty senate no confidence vote in president Mark Schlissel’s leadership passed. The Sept. 16 vote was extremely close: 957 in favor, 953 opposed, and 184 abstaining. At the time, it was ruled to have failed because abstentions were counted as No votes, making the Yes votes a minority of the 2,094 total. But two days later, senate chair Colleen Conway announced that “Abstentions should not have been counted as votes, and (the no confidence vote) should have passed.”
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