Fundraising’s New Wave
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...
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Green Religion
“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 MoreThe North Main Puzzle
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 MoreFailure to Communicate
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 MoreA New Path for State Supremes
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...
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An Editor’s New Role
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 MoreCan’t Buy Me Love
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 MoreTurning Blue
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 MorePuzzled parkers
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 MoreResearch Shortcut
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 MoreThe Little Railroad that Could
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 MoreDead Flies in Tequila
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 MoreShared Custody
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 MoreDouble Life
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 MoreJohn Shea’s Big Case
“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 MoreThe Great Train Station Debate
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....
Read MoreManpower’s Womanpower
Stenographers–those gals (rarely guys) trained in something called shorthand–were in demand when Manpower, Inc., opened its doors locally fifty years ago. The area’s first temp agency sent them out wearing...
Read MoreTouch screens from scratch
On devices from smart phones to iPads, touch screens have become ubiquitous in the last five years or so. And that has an Ann Arbor company, Dynics Industrial Computer Solutions, riding a wave of touch-screen mania.”Four...
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