“Look at him working the room!” an audience member marveled. Congressman John Dingell, eighty-seven, wearing a navy suit and leaning on a crutch, was moving from table to table at the Kensington Court Hotel, greeting...
Read MoreLyndon Township is between a rock and a hard place.McCoig Materials, which operates seven concrete plants in the Detroit area, wants to open its first sand and gravel mine on 158 acres across from Green Lake. The site is smack...
Read More“I did everything I set out to do,” says mayor John Hieftje of his seven terms in office.Sitting in city hall’s south-facing first-floor conference room the day after the winter’s heaviest snowfall, Ann...
Read MoreThe number of burglaries on the Observer’s Crime Map for December was so low it looked like a misprint: just eleven in the entire month, compared to seventy-nine in December 2012. It’s vivid proof of the old adage...
Read MoreWith serious crime near an all-time low (see Up Front, p. 9), city council voted to add $125,000 to the police department’s budget in December. The money is buying about 70 hours a week of police overtime for traffic...
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In November, Jane Lumm and Kirk Westphal spent over $40,000 between them in Ward Two. Their total nearly doubled last year’s second-most-expensive contest, the $21,000 Democratic primary between Jack Eaton and Marcia...
Read MoreThe city has a water problem: the southwest side floods during rainstorms—and the bigger the storm, the bigger the flood. The county has a solution: spend $8.6 million to dig three water retention ponds along Scio Church Road....
Read MoreIn January, U-M English prof Anne Curzan attended the annual meeting of the American Dialect Society, where the country’s top linguists and graduate students present their academic papers–and vote on the Word of the...
Read MoreJust after Thanksgiving, engineering Professor Fawwaz Ulaby posted an open letter to the U-M administration, protesting a plan to eliminate more than 300 jobs in the university’s departments and schools. The online...
Read More“I found out when everybody else did,” says mayor John Hieftje of fire chief Chuck Hubbard’s abrupt announcement that he will retire at the end of January. “I don’t know why. I suspect he’ll...
Read MoreLast fall, an Ann Arborite noticed that the city was using a rented truck to pick up compost in his neighborhood. Moreover, he noted, it was an older-style rear-loading truck with a crew of three–while the city’s...
Read More“Our fingers are crossed that we won’t have to borrow [to meet] December payroll,” says Ann Arbor school board president Deb Mexicotte.Ten years ago, the public schools had a $40 million savings account. But as...
Read MoreWhen Congress couldn’t reach a budget deal at the end of 2011, it triggered an automatic 5.1 percent across-the-board spending cut. Local governments worked hard to blunt the impact of “sequestration” on human...
Read MoreFor the past year, Steve Kunselman has been using the city’s Downtown Development Authority as a political punching bag.Asked why, the Ward Three councilmember answers with a question of his own: “Why did mayor John...
Read MoreThe tide has gone out on the council majority of seven-term mayor John Hieftje.When Republican Ingrid Sheldon decided not to seek reelection in 2000, Hieftje, a first-year councilmember, ran for mayor and won. Within five years,...
Read MoreSix years ago, the funds that pay for employee pensions and retiree health care for Washtenaw County employees were nearly balanced: they held $215 million in assets against what staff estimated to be $225 million in...
Read MoreGilded quad: Thanks to a $116 million makeover, the seventy-four-year-old East Quadrangle, home of the U-M Residential College, now boasts a two-level atrium, handsome new furnishings, and air conditioning. But that didn’t...
Read MoreDexter Village voters will soon make their biggest political decision since the town was settled in 1824: to be or not to be a city. And the clock is ticking: as the Community Observer went to press, voters were selecting nine...
Read MoreEven in an election year with no national or state offices at stake, ten candidates are competing November 5 for five seats on city council. It’s the most heavily contested council race in the last ten years.Because only a...
Read More“There’s 100 people in the waiting room right now!” says Ellen Rabinowitz, director of the Washtenaw Health Plan.More than 8,500 low-income county residents get health care coverage through WHP. With the advent...
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