News

Family Feud

Ray Herrick—a master toolmaker and close friend of Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, and Thomas Edison—started Hillsdale Machine & Tool Company in 1930. Four years later, it was on the brink of bankruptcy when the town of...

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Walk signs and candles

Q: Several stoplights seem now to be out of sync with the pedestrian crossing signal. For instance, when you are headed west on William and waiting for the light at Main Street, pedestrians get the white OK-to-cross sign while...

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The Death of the News

The trio might have been candidates campaigning as they smiled, shook hands, and spoke to half-empty auditoriums around Ann Arbor in April. Instead, they were publishing executives working for the Newhouse family, and their...

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Medical Marijuana

On April 6, Renee Wolf was chauffeured to suburban Lansing. At a cyber cafe there, she and others boarded a bus to the Michigan Department of Health. She rolled into the building in her wheelchair, deposited some forms in a box,...

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Stimulating Bridges

Will the feds pay for new bridges on East Stadium Boulevard? Homayoon Pirooz, head of the city’s Public Services Department, sure hopes so. He points out that January’s economic stimulus bill includes “$1.5...

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Journalists haven

In the nightmarish milieu of twenty-first-century journalism, the Knight Wallace Fellowship is a sweet dream: a $70,000 stipend, a chance to study whatever you want at the U-M, lots of schmoozing, and even some expense-paid...

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Campaign, campaign, campaign!

“I made a mistake,” admits Ravi Nigam. “I didn’t campaign.” The lawyer/engineer was widely expected to win a school board seat in this month’s election. His only opponent, grad student Adam...

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Shakeup in 48105

The Green Road post office in northeast Ann Arbor eliminated two delivery routes in March. After an evaluation that included counting every piece of mail handled and every step walked, the thirty-one remaining routes were...

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The Big Chill 2009

“I have been looking for a job since I got back to school this fall and have yet to find one,” says 2009 grad Mallory Bradford.”There’s a lot of anxiety,” says Bradford. “I worked so hard to...

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Safe as Houses

A philanthropist who lost megabucks in the Bernie Madoff scam has found a more tangible investment: homes in Ann Arbor Hills. The Observer has learned that at least four houses in the affluent east-side neighborhood have been...

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Vault Vents and Islands

Q: What are those poles on the street that are green or blue and have little cone-shaped hats on top? Some of them are in pairs.A: Once aware of these poles, one spots them in many places around town, for example, on the...

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Snooze Election

What if they held an election and nobody came? That’s the situation for the school board vote scheduled for Tuesday, May 5. Incumbents Glenn Nelson and Irene Patalan are unopposed for new four-year terms. Board president...

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The Flow Never Stops

“In my business, we always need three pumps–two pumps and a standby,” says Mike Amicangelo. “And we get very nervous when one of the two pumps goes down and we’re running on...

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Crime Map: February 2009

Click here to view this month’s Crime Map.Burglaries, sexual assaults, and robberies were all down slightly in February 2009 compared to the same month a year earlier, while vehicle thefts rose. #PAGEBREAK#February 2009...

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Laid Off – Again

The bar area of Mélange Underground Bistro is dark, crowded, and buzzing. But only a few of the well-dressed people here are sipping drinks. The rest are waiting, nervously or confidently, for the opportunity to pitch their...

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Taxation with Representation

On April 15–Tax Day–two hundred people gathered on the Diag to protest taxation. We called five county commissioners to ask if they’d been persuaded to cut taxes. With the county facing a projected $26 million...

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Pricey Parking

The city’s first underground parking garage will be expensive—but also bright and cheery.So promises architect Carl Luckenbach, designer of the structure the Downtown Development Authority will build beneath the current...

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Buy of the Century

The U-M made out like a bandit on its purchase of the former Pfizer research complex. In 2001, the university sold fifty-five vacant acres near North Campus to the drug giant for $27 million, and the company announced plans to...

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Foreclosures Go Through the Roof

Foreclosures reached record levels throughout Washtenaw County last year—and the biggest increases were in the Community Observer’s backyard. In 2008, the number of homes sold for delinquent mortgages doubled in the...

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Sandy Rupp’s Challenge

“My heart just went to my toes,” says Sandy Rupp. The date was January 22, 2007, and she’d gotten word that Pfizer was closing its Ann Arbor labs. The year before, the pharmaceutical giant and its 2,100...

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