Jul 9, 2016 | Community |
Scot Graden, superintendent of the Saline Area Schools, took nothing for granted when the district decided to ask voters last fall to pay more taxes to help finance $67.5 million in school improvements.It had been fifteen years...
Read MoreJul 6, 2016 | Community |
Karl Fink and John Hansen arrive right on time for a Thursday morning interview at Dexter’s Joe and Rosie coffee shop. But it takes them a moment to get to the table. First, they’ve got to greet just about everyone...
Read MoreJul 5, 2016 | Marketplace |
Detroit Dog Co. closed its doors in downtown Saline in early April but will soon open two new venues and a food truck. “All three are in the works,” says owner Catrina Vlisides, reached by phone, her seven-month-old...
Read MoreJul 4, 2016 | Marketplace |
We received only 29 entries correctly identifying the Fake Ad for Manning Farm and Home on page 27 of the Spring Community Observer.The ad featured driverless tractors, leading several Fake Adders to comment on the feasibility...
Read MoreJul 2, 2016 | Community |
One December day when Susan Lackey was about ten, she took a ride with her father, a farmer in western Michigan. As they passed a sign that read “Under it all is the land,” her father turned to her and said,...
Read MoreJul 2, 2016 | Marketplace |
It’s worth embracing the old adage “the road to success is always under construction.” Michiganders take it literally, knowing that with the last frost and the promise of spring come construction projects both...
Read MoreJun 24, 2016 | Marketplace |
Douglas Fitzgerald Owen didn’t have much to say about closing his fine jewelry store D. Fitzgerald’s at the corner of Main and Broad streets. By now it will be too late for customers to cash in on the 30- to...
Read MoreJun 23, 2016 | Marketplace |
It used to be Rockefeller’s, a–what else?–rock shop on Jackson Rd., near the I-94 Fletcher Rd. exit, right on the border of Dexter and Chelsea. Then, the nineteenth-century brick farmhouse sat vacant for a...
Read MoreJun 18, 2016 | Marketplace |
On a Friday afternoon at Serendipity Books, soft jazz music plays over the speakers, and strands of twinkling white lights accent rows of neatly shelved used books as Lucy Jimison-Silverio leads a tour of her cozy shop. Since...
Read MoreJun 7, 2016 | Marketplace |
Jason Povlich and business partner Jason Bendinelli–who run Chelsea’s Jet’s Pizza and also owned Back to the Roots until it closed in 2013–have launched a new venture. In May they opened the Rumpus Room,...
Read MoreApr 20, 2016 | Marketplace |
When Michelle Ingalls closed Reincarnations Resale last summer and relocated to Texas, it left a gap for those who relish an afternoon of thrift and consignment shopping in downtown Saline. Enter Donna and Lisa Southwick....
Read MoreApr 19, 2016 | Marketplace |
“She started talking about retirement last summer,” said Scott Thomas, of his neighbor Theresa Bell, who owned Main St.’s Dexter Flowers for a number of years. Thomas owns the barbecue joint next store, Hotel...
Read MoreApr 16, 2016 | Marketplace |
“In retail, you can’t sit still too long,” explains Jennifer Fairfield, owner of the Garden Mill, who reopened her Main St. shop February 6 after a month-long renovation. A handcrafted twig arbor now greets...
Read MoreIn 2015, Jen and Charlie House moved from Milan to Dexter. Jen, thirty-eight, says Milan lacked a sense of community and a vibrant downtown. In Dexter, she “feels like I’m living in a Norman Rockwell painting,”...
Read MoreMar 28, 2016 | News |
“City Council and I have invested a significant amount of time preparing for and commissioning an independent review of the Saline Police Department,” mayor Brian Marl announced in his January State of the City...
Read More“The Dexter Wellness Center is a tremendous facility,” says Dexter’s mayor, Shawn Keough.That’s the one thing everyone agrees on in the dispute between Dexter’s Downtown Development Authority and...
Read MoreDec 20, 2015 | Featured |
“This place was born the day twenty-two-year-old Jeff Daniels started his apprenticeship at the Circle Repertory Theatre Company in New York,” Guy Sanville says, sweeping his arm around the Purple Rose Theatre during...
Read MoreDec 19, 2015 | Featured, Marketplace |
More than 146 years ago Dexter townsfolk enticed a Detroit printer to move to their village and start a newspaper. The Dexter Leader made its debut in 1869. The Chelsea Standard appeared in 1889, but later boasted the 1871...
Read MoreDec 16, 2015 | Community |
Julie Jones and Kevin Taylor come from generations of farmers. They consider themselves, Taylor says, “stewards of the land.” So it seemed a bit of kismet when two towering bur oaks on Macon Rd. in Saline beckoned...
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