Government

Library Vote

Library Vote

Aug 25, 2025 | , |

The August 5 special-election ballot consisted solely of two city charter amendments: Proposal A authorized the city to sell the air rights above the underground Library Lane parking structure to the Ann Arbor District Library for $1 for a “mixed-use development that includes additional library services, housing, retail and programmable open public space.” Proposal B repealed a 2018 amendment that had reserved the structure’s ground-level roof for “an urban park and civic-center commons.” Both got about 58 percent of the more than 23,000 votes cast. 

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Screens vs. School

Screens vs. School

Aug 25, 2025 | , , , |

Pioneer High at 3:01 p.m. has the feel of a busy commuter airport. Students pour out of classrooms shouldering backpacks, swinging musical instrument cases, laughing and chatting. Many are holding cell phones.
Those phones are a point of contention at all levels of the education system: from individual classrooms to the school district, and all the way up to the Michigan legislature.

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Voters Approve Library Proposals 

Aug 6, 2025 | , |

On Tuesday, Ann Arbor voters headed out to the polls to cast their ballots on Proposals A and B for the special 2025 August election.  After a heated race marked by lawsuits, lawn signs, and fervent online discourse, early...

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Target: Medicaid

Jul 25, 2025 | , , |

Mates watched the passage of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” in July with alarm. It will slash Medicaid funding by about $1 trillion over ten years—and the “big juicy target” is support for people with disabilities like her son Corbin.

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Savit’s Run

Savit’s Run

Jul 25, 2025 | , |

As a lawyer for the City of Detroit in the 2010s, Savit says, “I saw the ways in which President Trump’s policies had harmed communities—and I also saw the ways in which state attorney generals were uniquely equipped to fight back.” People had been asking him if he planned to run for higher office ever since he was first elected in 2020, and Trump’s return was the tipping point.

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Election Update

Election Update

Jun 25, 2025 | , |

One would repeal a 2018 charter amendment that reserves the space above the Library Lane underground parking structure for an urban park and civic-center commons called the Center of the City. The other would transfer the air rights to the Ann Arbor District Library next door for $1. Together, they’d enable construction of a new downtown library in a high-rise spanning both parcels.

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Wage War

Wage War

May 24, 2025 | , , , |

The wage war began in 2018, when One Fair Wage, a national coalition of activists, workers and organizations fighting for a higher minimum wage for tipped employees, gathered 370,690 signatures to put the decision up to voters. If the measure had passed, the wage paid to tipped workers, then set at $3.84, would gradually be increased to match the statewide hourly minimum wage—which the same proposal would increase to $12 by 2022 and thereafter index to inflation. 

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Small Town / Big City

Small Town / Big City

May 24, 2025 | , , |

Supporters argue that the city needs  that “densification” to allow more people who work in the city to live here, to bolster the property tax base eroded by the U-M’s expansion, and repair economic and racial inequities caused by past “exclusionary zoning.” Opponents question whether growth on that scale is necessary or even likely. But if it does come to pass, they predict, it will  be at the expense of the city’s neighborhoods, as apartments and condos crowd out single-family homes.

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Target: The Arts

Target: The Arts

May 24, 2025 | , , |

Without waiting for Congress to act, his appointees cancelled NEA grants that had already been approved—including $30,000 for the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The 2025 festival was in March, and “I had already submitted our final report and payment request,” says executive director Leslie Raymond. 

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Runway Reconsideration

Runway Reconsideration

Apr 25, 2025 | , |

Since city council decided not to expand the primary runway at the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport last December, some are asking questions about the future of the property.

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August Election

August Election

Apr 25, 2025 | , |

City council voted unanimously in March to hold a special election on August 5 to consider two city charter amendments. Together, they’d enable construction of a new downtown library in a high-rise spanning the existing library parcel and the “Library Lot” above the underground parking structure. 

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Target: DEI

Apr 25, 2025 | , , |

Schools throughout the country responded, some by shuttering diversity programs, some by renaming webpages to make their pursuit of DEI less obvious, and some by resisting. 

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The New MRF

The New MRF

Apr 25, 2025 | , , , |

On December 1, 2021, Recycle Ann Arbor unveiled Ann Arbor’s revamped materials recovery facility (MRF). Their predecessor, ReCommunity, had trashed it back in 2016, and the upgrades came with a hefty price tag. RAA secured two grants but still had to take out $5.9 million in loans. 

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Pickleball NIMBYism

Pickleball NIMBYism

Mar 25, 2025 | , , |

Ann Arbor’s parks and rec department has opened multiple courts at Leslie Park, two at Burns Park, and single courts at several others. Hunt Park is not among them—yet several years ago, pickleball lines appeared on its tennis court.

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Salty Streams

Salty Streams

Mar 25, 2025 | , , |

It was a snowy winter, and Ann Arbor used a lot of road salt to clear its streets: 4,057 tons as of March 19, according to city communications specialist Robert Kellar. That’s 656 tons more than last winter, though still around 1,800 tons shy of the most recent high in the winter of 2021–2022. Along with ice-melter applied by contractors and homeowners, some of it ends up in storm sewers and the Huron River tributaries they feed.

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Target: Farmers

Target: Farmers

Mar 25, 2025 | , , |

At risk are dozens of conservation easements, grants, and farm programs worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In Michigan, 90 percent of USDA funding is allocated to commodity conservation, leaving new farmers and small agricultural businesses particularly vulnerable.

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Target: Immigrants

Mar 25, 2025 | , |

At U-M, ICE agents aren’t supposed to enter residence halls or locked class buildings without a warrant, and students are advised to contact the Division of Public Safety & Security if they encounter an agent in a public space. But it’s not clear how much protection the university can provide. 

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