News

Life, Death, and Madness

This September, 2002 Ann Arbor Observer feature addresses some of the questions raised by the January 8, 2011 shootings in Arizona. For a more recent, and encouraging, account of the local response to mental illness, see this...

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Borer Blessing?

Until now, no one in the city has had anything good to say about the emerald ash borer infestation.The Japanese beetle, named for its color and diet, invaded Michigan in 2002. In Ann Arbor alone, it has killed 22,000 ash trees,...

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Crime and Overtime

When Jerry Clayton became the new county sheriff two years ago, the board of commissioners told him to cut the department’s $38 million budget by half a million dollars in his first year in office. That seemed like a lot...

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182 Days

Governor-elect Rick Snyder spent the evening of November 2 celebrating his victory with his wife, Sue, their three children, and supporters at a downtown Detroit hotel ballroom. The next morning, he headed to Lansing to start a...

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Mutually Beneficial

Did someone just mention money?For fifteen minutes, DDA executive director Susan Pollay has led the Mutually Beneficial Committee through the first draft of an agreement between the city of Ann Arbor and its Downtown Development...

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Storm Over Huron Hills

John Updike wrote about the “peculiar bliss” of golf, of how players can be so caught up in the game that they neglect even their most basic needs. He attributes golf’s power to its “immensities of space,...

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The AASO Bounces Back

Times are tough in the classical music world. The musicians of the ­Detroit Symphony Orchestra went on strike over management’s proposed 33 percent pay cut before the current season started—and remain on strike two months...

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Your Tax Dollars at Work

Whether you hate it as a boondoggle or hail it as a blessing, there’s no question that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was good to Ann Arbor. Between February 2009 and May 2010, the financial stimulus gave local...

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Cities vs. Townships

It’s official: a sheriff’s deputy costs Washtenaw County $176,108 per year. That includes $74,000 in salary and $45,000 in fringes, plus indirect costs like $20,000 for central dispatch—but not the average $10,000 in...

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A worrisome spate of robberies

That’s what AAPD chief Barnett Jones calls the recent rash of armed robberies at local businesses. Between the stickups at Schlanderer’s jewelry store, a second-floor marijuana clinic downtown, the Bank of America on...

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The Wild West

Even before a Main Street store was robbed at gunpoint in September, people were describing the medical marijuana business as the Wild West.The new frontier opened when voters passed the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act in 2008...

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Ping-Pong

“I was crying in front of the county building–and nobody sees me cry,” recalls Jessica Ping of the day she decided that her pregnancy trumped another term as District 3 county commissioner. “My shoulders...

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Chemistry vs Experience

At his first press conference of the 2010-2011 basketball season, Michigan head coach John Beilein was asked about the “ancillary advantages” of the his team’s quick summer jaunt to Belgium. “The biggest...

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Nightmare on Main Street

Barclay’s clerk Liz Igbawua remembers being a little perplexed when the teenage girl gleefully piling tops and dresses over her arm didn’t bother to try any of them on. But the girl’s indulgent dad murmured...

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Elephant Rampage?

“It’s a bad year for Democrats,” says Bill Ballenger of Lansing, publisher of Inside Michigan Politics and onetime Republican state senator. Washtenaw County Clerk Larry Kestenbaum, a Democrat, agrees:...

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Reinventing Rick Snyder

When Rick Snyder announced he was running for governor in July 2009, he was almost unknown outside Ann Arbor. Though he holds three U-M degrees and was well respected in business and technology circles, even here he could pass...

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The Worst Punk Week Ever

City officials say the ninth annual Punk Week was the worst ever.”It was bad last year, and it was worse this year,” says city administrator Roger Fraser. “We’ve got a problem with a group of unruly...

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A Traveler’s Tale

When Melissa Lyon, twenty, left 14th District Court on September 1 she literally let down her hair–she took off a blond, pony-tailed extension to reveal that half of her scalp was shaved. Her attorney, Michele Kelly, had...

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The Year of the Bedbug

This past summer, the New York Times ran fifteen stories about bedbugs. The tiny parasites, which feed on human blood, have launched a panic by turning up everywhere from a Manhattan Victoria’s Secret store to the Brooklyn...

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Planting Groundcover News

Ann Arbor’s newest newspaper may not have the budget or coverage of AnnArbor.com, but it does have at least one motivated vendor and a lot of heart.The first issue of Groundcover News came out in mid-July. It has news,...

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