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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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.
Read MoreAt 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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The Trump administration’s plan to slash payments on research grants has put thousands of U-M jobs at risk. But other local researchers are in even more immediate jeopardy: those who work directly for the federal government, at the EPA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL).
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“We’re dealing with an insane amount of mental health issues and anxiety from our residents,” says Derrick Miller, executive director of the Community Action Network. CAN’s seven community centers provide everything from after-school programs to housing support and emergency food pantries, and its clients are reeling from the Trump administration’s budget cuts.
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On October 7, 2023, as Jon Mallek married first-term state representative Jason Morgan in matching navy suits with teal bowties under a trellis draped with eucalyptus leaves, the thought of running for office himself was the furthest thing from his mind.
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No need to look out the window—just sign up for A2 Fix It, the app and website where residents report problems online. After a mid-January snowfall, most of the complaints were about people who hadn’t cleared their sidewalks.
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In recent years, public works has cleared only “major” streets. But in December, city council approved a contract with Saline’s KBK Landscaping for up to $500,000 worth of “supplemental plowing” whenever four or more inches of snow are predicted.
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“Law enforcement tows” by the sheriff’s office and AAPD generated $436,500 in fees in 2023, not including extras like storage. “They make so much freaking money off towing,” says Clayton. “And we regulated how much they could charge for this and that. Enough for ’em to make money—they’re all making a ton of money—but they’re not gouging the people” whose cars are towed.
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Prop C, which would have eliminated partisan labels and primary elections, earned just 28 percent of the vote. Prop D, to create public funding for council and mayoral candidates, went down 30–70 percent.
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More than ten years after the first complaint on A2 Fix It, a sidewalk on Third St. will finally be fixed next year.
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The 22nd Circuit Court’s Tim Connors’ term expires in January and the 15th District Court’s Joseph Burke plans to retire at the end of December. Both seats are for six-year terms, but the job usually winds up being for life or until mandatory retirement at seventy, because sitting judges seldom face challengers. When they do, they almost never lose.
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Wilczewski, a vendor at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, was responding to a question about the latest plan to “reenvision” it. Indeed they have.
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The historic contest between Democratic vice president Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump at the top of the November 5 ballot is expected to draw huge numbers of voters on Election Day. But with no city council seats contested, the most impactful items locally are proposals near the end of the packed ballot—particularly Ann Arbor proposals A, to create a city-owned “sustainable energy utility,” and C and D, which would make city elections nonpartisan and provide public funding for council and mayoral candidates.
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Wozniak is executive director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. It was founded in 1999, she says, “to address some of our state’s most egregious problems regarding the air we breathe, the water we drink, and protecting public health and the natural environment.”
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The U-M’s $631 million dorm complex on the old Elbel Field isn’t even finished, and Evan Pratt is already worried about its future. That’s because Allen Creek flows underground beside the property—and with Ann Arbor getting wetter, the county’s outgoing water resources commissioner says, it’s getting harder to keep it there.
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That quote from a 2023 memo by then-deputy city administrator John Fournier has since become the unofficial motto for Ann Arbor’s new $5.25 million election center and studio space for Community Television Network.
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Morgan Foreman handily won the Democratic nomination to replace Felicia Brabec as representative for Michigan House District 33—and she did it with half as much money as her opponent, Rima Mohammad.
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Despite little sleep and no coffee, Dyer was “very excited” the morning after the election. “It took until late that night for the county clerk to determine the winner,” she says, and when she finally learned she’d won, it “was just such a relief!”
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