WCC Millage 2016
The speakers at Washtenaw Community College’s June board of trustees meeting couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about the college’s millage renewal and restoration on the August 2 ballot. Representatives from...
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First Steps
In the past five years, three Ann Arborites were murdered. In that same time span, six pedestrians and bicyclists were killed by motor vehicles.That alone could explain why no one running for city council in August’s...
Read MoreSnowflake Wanted
In May, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners voted 6-1 (with two absences) to launch a new search for a county administrator. The lone dissenter, Dan Smith, was unhappy that “we never did take a formal vote”...
Read MoreMoney and Authenticity
Two of Ann Arbor’s three seats in the state house are up for grabs this year. In the deep-blue Fifty-Third District, Jeff Irwin is term-limited out. In the swing Fifty-Second, Democrat Gretchen Driskell replaced a...
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Millage Attack
With no declared opposition to the Washtenaw Intermediate School District’s special ed millage, the red-and-white signs outside polling places announcing “It’s okay to vote no” took many voters by...
Read MoreHistoriography
The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey was originally published in four hardback volumes between 1942 and 1958, followed by one-volume updates in 1977 and 1981. The new edition, scheduled for completion in time for...
Read MoreChalking Politics
One evening in May, Susan Fecteau was clomping back and forth on her kneepads on the sidewalk outside Literati bookstore, writing her latest missive to Rick Snyder. A passing couple paused to ask what response she’d been...
Read MoreSwift Change
Jeanice Swift was the school board’s second choice. On July 28, 2013, the board learned that Brian Osborne, the New Jersey superintendent they’d wanted to hire, had turned them down. Three days later, they offered...
Read MoreSpecial Ed Millage
On May 3, the Washtenaw Intermediate School District will ask county voters to increase the special education tax from 3.9 to 5.4 mills. If approved, it will cost the owner of a home with a taxable value of $100,000 an...
Read More“I Love the Deer.”
City council directed staff to study culling the city’s resident deer herd in May 2014. It voted to create a “deer management program” in August 2015. But David Silkworth and Tanya Ridella-Mehlos didn’t...
Read MoreDeveloping Dexter
In 2015, Jen and Charlie House moved from Milan to Dexter. Jen, thirty-eight, says Milan lacked a sense of community and a vibrant downtown. In Dexter, she “feels like I’m living in a Norman Rockwell painting,”...
Read MoreACLU vs. Snyder
Kary Moss, an Ann Arborite, is just back from a recent speaking engagement. And she was talking about Flint because the constitutional rights group played a decisive role in uncovering the city’s water crisis.In 2013, Moss...
Read MoreDiversity Deferred
An academic star in his Detroit charter high school, driven and confident, Darren Gordon felt “a little annoyed” to learn that his acceptance at the University of Michigan was contingent upon attending...
Read MorePolice Report
“City Council and I have invested a significant amount of time preparing for and commissioning an independent review of the Saline Police Department,” mayor Brian Marl announced in his January State of the City...
Read MoreFilling the Vacuum
“It is critical that we address the vacuum of leadership at city hall,” Third Ward councilmember Zach Ackerman said late last year. “That has to be one of our priorities for the new year,” agreed his...
Read MoreBernietown
“It probably adds up to 1,000 people,” says Alexander Deatrick, tallying local volunteers for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. A former star of Huron High’s chess club, Deatrick, eighteen, is...
Read MoreBeating the Curve
“Our enrollment for winter matches last year,” says Washtenaw Community College VP Evan Montague. “Our peer institutions are down. We feel really good about sustaining that enrollment.”Holding steady in...
Read MoreCleansing the Waters
The biggest public works project in the city’s history–a $94 million reconstruction and renovation of the wastewater treatment plant–is almost done, and it smells marvelous.That’s the first thing to...
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