The city’s proud of the Argo Cascades–and why not? Since it opened last spring, the aquatic playground has won two design awards and proven enormously popular. River trips increased 57 percent last year, despite low...
Read MoreJun 7, 2013 | News |
“I’ve had a lot of adventures in my life, but I could have done without this one,” says Tom Fournier, eighty-seven. As he cleaned up his kitchen one night last month, he noticed light flickering outside his...
Read MoreJun 4, 2013 | News |
Alarmed by the school district’s deepening financial hole, the twenty-two-year-old Ann Arbor Public Schools Foundation recently hired its first full-time director, Mary Cooperwasser. “It is time for all of us to...
Read MoreJun 2, 2013 | News |
“One minister called our wind turbine our steeple,” says Hannah Hotchkiss, welcome ministry coordinator at the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor (UU). Across the country, thousands of faith...
Read MoreMay 29, 2013 | News |
On a sunny Wednesday morning in late March, a friend and I set out to explore the Bluffs Nature Area. The city parks website gives 1099 N. Main as the Bluffs’ address and includes a link to a park map. The map shows a...
Read MoreMay 28, 2013 | News |
The recession was a rollercoaster ride for Washtenaw Community College. Income from local property taxes shrank by $9 million between 2008 and 2012, lopping nearly 10 percent off this year’s $95 million budget. As laid-off...
Read MoreMay 22, 2013 | News |
At a talk at the Ann Arbor City Club in February, new Michigan Supreme Court justice Bridget McCormack said she’d enjoyed her first weeks on the bench and that her new colleagues had all been warm and helpful. But she...
Read MoreMay 11, 2013 | News |
In February, Michelle Rogers’ position of managing editor of Heritage Media-West was eliminated. Rogers oversaw eight Heritage weeklies, including the Chelsea Standard, Dexter Leader, and Saline Reporter. She says that she...
Read MoreMay 6, 2013 | News |
The abrupt resignaton of schools superintendent Pat Green may give pause to school board members who, in November 2010, decided to dramatically raise the superintendent’s salary. Green’s predecessor, Todd Roberts,...
Read MoreApr 26, 2013 | News |
New residents recolor Western Washtenaw’s political map”He looked unbeatable,” recalls Dexter Township supervisor Pat Kelly. Going into last fall’s campaign against Saline mayor Gretchen Driskell, Kelly...
Read MoreApr 21, 2013 | News |
After 200 permit parkers moved from Liberty Square to the new Library Lane garage last year, the Downtown Development Authority reopened Liberty Square for hourly parking. But as the change rippled through its computer payment...
Read MoreApr 8, 2013 | News |
A drug developed in Japan in the 1980s could be the long-awaited answer to the obesity epidemic.The drug, amlexanox, has been found by researchers at the U-M’s Life Sciences Institute to be effective in reducing fat...
Read MoreMar 31, 2013 | News |
Two longs, one short, one long. That’s the drawn-out melancholy whistle you hear twice almost every night if you live near one of the eighteen places in town where the Ann Arbor Railroad crosses a city street. The whistle...
Read MoreMar 29, 2013 | News |
For years, my family had Christmas Eve dinner in the Japanese steakhouse side of the old Champion House at Liberty and Fourth Avenue. My kids loved the whole show, with its flaming food and flashing knives. But the last few...
Read MoreMar 21, 2013 | News |
Public libraries are often centers for local history research, but the Ann Arbor District Library is going a step further. In 2010, the AADL took custody of the archives of the defunct Ann Arbor News–a vast collection of...
Read MoreMar 10, 2013 | News |
When Barnett Jones ended his six years as Ann Arbor’s police chief last March, no one really expected him to stay retired.But who thought the fifty-nine-year-old would get two new jobs, as Flint’s public safety...
Read MoreFeb 27, 2013 | News |
“Today went fine,” John Shea says, after a long pause and a deep sigh. “Probably better than expected.”Shea is on his cell phone, talking as he drives back to Ann Arbor after what the media are calling...
Read MoreFeb 26, 2013 | News |
For the first time since taking office in 2000, mayor John Hieftje faces a skeptical city council. In two successive primaries, Second Ward voters turned out two of his closest allies, Stephen Rapundalo and Tony Derezinski....
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