Residents Fight the Power—and Win
Activist campaign prompts Consumers Energy to abandon plans for a gas-fired plant in Lima Twp.
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Chelsea
Murder Most Charming
Murder is not often described as charming, but Purple Rose Theatre’s latest production manages to...
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State Budget Slashes Great Start Collaboratives
Washtenaw County will continue to offer services, but others weren’t so lucky.
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Where the Car Is King
I’ve never been much interested in the inner workings of a car dealership, and since watching the Purple Rose Theatre’s latest play, The Classic King, I can’t say that has changed. The comedy, which runs until March 15, follows four car salesmen on a mission to save their failing dealership. Directed by Jeff Daniels, the show is a world premiere and the first professionally produced play by Richard Johnson. Johnson began playwriting after retiring from a career as an automotive journalist, including serving as editor of Automotive News.
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Rode To Hell
It was a bright autumn morning for the more than 100,000 people driving to the Big House for the University of Michigan’s October 4 homecoming game against Wisconsin. Some sixteen miles west, about 250 others gathered at Chelsea Community Fairgrounds for a very different athletic contest: the annual Rode To Hell gravel bike race.
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Newspaper Rescue
Ann Arbor businessman Nagabhushanam “Bobbi” Peddi has purchased the Sun Times News, a weekly paper covering Dexter, Chelsea, Milan, and Saline.
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Trade Off
On November 4, voters decide whether to raise property taxes by 1 mill for the next decade. The money raised—$25 million the first year—would support CTE programs like this one. Administrators can talk ad nauseam about the power of giving young people a variety of opportunities for instruction in specific career fields, but it’s student testimonials that have been front and center in the campaign to push through the millage. Yet the debate over the ballot question isn’t so much about support for or opposition to CTE as it is whether a new tax ought to pay for it.
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From Confinement to Connection
Something was off about Kevin. He was affectionate and cheerful like most toddlers, his mother Kerry Kafafian recalls, but “he was doing a movement which we later understood to be a seizure.” A pediatric neurologist determined that he had Lennox–Gastaut syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy that causes severe cognitive impairment.
Read MoreCD Top Shelf Expands to Chelsea
In September, hockey dad and entrepreneur Matthew Kavanaugh opened CD Top Shelf bar and grill in Arctic Breakaway’s former space upstairs in Chelsea’s ice arena. Kavanaugh says the restaurant will “focus on fresh,” and include pizzas, plus chopped sandwiches and salads.
Read MoreIn Chelsea, the Joy of Books and Painting
“It was completely bonkers!” recalls Michelle Tuplin, owner of Serendipity Books, about how her store’s April move from Middle St. to Main went viral.
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The Coulsons Open Main Street Provisions
On a September weekday at lunchtime, husband-and-wife chefs Phil and Vanessa Coulson work side-by-side near the front windows of Main Street Provisions. Open since February, the shop offers artisan cheeses, meats, and gourmet food items in the Sylvan Building, next door to Agricole Farm Stop.
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A Woodshop in Chelsea
On a September morning, Susan Kizer opens the door to the cheerfully cluttered brick carriage house behind her Main St. home. There’s a light layer of sawdust on her work tables, and wood of all varieties—from South American purpleheart to a maple burl she discovered in an antique shop—surrounds her. Anchoring the space is “Tinkerbell”—her nickname for the 750-pound lathe she uses to create her one-of-a-kind wood pieces.
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Football Families
At dusk, on fall Fridays across the county, the world of high school football comes back to life, like a prep sports version of Brigadoon. The marching bands. Singsongy cheerleader chants. An announcer’s booming voice. Armored athletes crashing into each other. And the bleacher crowd’s claps and jeers at the action unfolding before them, on 100 yards of astroturf.
Read MoreChelsea Outfitters Moves and Grows
Megan Trenary, who opened Chelsea Outfitters last year with her husband, Matt, has quadrupled the general store’s space with their move across the street to the historic Kempf Bank building on the corner of Main and Middle. Chelsea Outfitters’ move created an opening for Richelle Reese to realize her longtime dream of launching her own shop, Reese Chic Boutique.
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All in the Family
Steve Lesko and his younger sister Ciara attended Chelsea Public Schools, where Lesko played the violin starting in fifth grade. By freshman year of high school, he’d “burned out” on classical music and joined the Chelsea House Orchestra. That was where “I fell in love with Celtic music,” says Lesko.
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Dan Kolander Is Back in Town
Husband-and-wife team Dan and Sarah Kolander—longtime owners of Dan’s Downtown Tavern in Saline—purchased Chelsea Burger, in the space formerly occupied by Seitz’s Tavern. In an interview before a planned late-September opening, Dan Kolander says they’ll serve a “simple, easy menu” of burgers, sandwiches, wraps, and weekly specials—and they’ve applied for a liquor license.
Read MoreChelsea Alehouse and Nevermore Are Gone
Chelsea Alehouse Brewery closed in May after eleven years in business. Nevermore Decor Store, Amanda and Briston Bamm’s gift and home decor store on E. Middle that opened last November, closed in February.
Read MoreChelsea Home Replaces Whitetail
Whitetail, Mary Baude’s design, home, and lifestyle shop on S. Main, closed in April. She’d launched her business in Dexter in 2016, and moved it to Chelsea in 2022; in March 2024, she announced her retirement on Instagram. Chelsea Home, interior designer Kitty Golding’s boutique, is set to open by November 8 in Whitetail’s former space.
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Zoom Readings
It was July of last year, and she had to finish What Springs Forth for a Zoom reading. It would be her first chance to hear her play—about “middle-aged friends who head for what they think will be a spa retreat and wind up battling [the elements], each other, and their inner demons”—read aloud.
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Harmonica Master
Peter “Madcat” Ruth was fifteen when he first heard blues duo Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry on...
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