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).
Read More
“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.
Read More
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.
Read More
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.
Read More
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.
Read More
“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.
Read More
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.
Read More
More than ten years after the first complaint on A2 Fix It, a sidewalk on Third St. will finally be fixed next year.
Read More
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.
Read More
Wilczewski, a vendor at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, was responding to a question about the latest plan to “reenvision” it. Indeed they have.
Read More
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.
Read More
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.”
Read More
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.
Read More
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.
Read More
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.
Read More
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!”
Read More
In June, the Ann Arbor Office of Sustainability and Innovations (OSI) celebrated the fourth anniversary of A2Zero. The $1 billion climate action plan, which aims to attain community-wide carbon neutrality by 2030, was approved unanimously by the city council after Ann Arbor declared a climate emergency in 2019.
Read MoreLarry Kestenbaum was first elected clerk in 2004 by defeating the Republican incumbent, and he’s defeated every challenger, Democrat or Republican, since then.
Read More
Felicia Brabec, who represents Michigan House District 33, is stepping down after two terms to prepare to run for state senate in 2026. That leaves the district encompassing southern Ann Arbor, the city of Saline, and all or portions of Pittsfield, Saline, Lodi, York, Bridgewater, and Scio townships open for a new representative.
Read More