On October 9th I posted a grilled entrée titled, “A2, Have a Funny Feeling? It’s County Commissioner Conan Smith’s Hand in Your Pocket.” In that piece, I wrote about the Washtenaw County Ways and Means Committee meeting at which all four of Ann Arbor’s Commissioners voted to support a new millage to raise funds for local [...]
Remember George W. Bush and his “Faith-Based Initiatives?” I know it was a long time ago, in a place far, far away, when we had a Republican president reviled by a significant portion of his own citizenry, and many of the world’s leaders—with the exception of Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. How can Berlusconi, a 60-year-old man [...]
Speaker Pro Tempore Pam Byrnes, a graduate of the University of Michigan, has lived and worked in Washtenaw County for over 34 years. A well-known attorney who practiced in Ypsilanti, Saline and Ann Arbor for more than 25 years, Byrnes is serving her third term in the Michigan House of Representatives. Her colleagues unanimously elected [...]
At the October 19th City Council meeting, Third Ward City Council member Christopher Taylor announced that he intended to create a city ethics policy for Ann Arbor’s elected and appointed officials. That’s nice, dear. However, I have just one tiny, little, niggling question: Why? Has Council member Christopher Taylor demonstrated the ethical substance, style and leadership [...]
AnnArbor.com’s Ryan Stanton reported Sunday that some private citizens have taken it upon themselves to FOIA six years of emails sent by our City Council members to each other during open meetings. The Ann Arbor residents involved have undertaken the task because on September 21st Council voted down a resolution put forward by Fifth Ward Council [...]
Note: Incumbent Marcia Higgins was invited to participate in this interview, but neither she nor her campaign manager, Leah Gunn, responded to repeated efforts to contact them. Da’ud (David) in Arabic means “beloved.” Whether Fourth Ward challenger Independent candidate Hatim Elhady, Da’ud, can take down the Fourth Ward’s five-term Goliath, Marcia Higgins, is a battle [...]
Marcia Higgins launched her web site. County Commissioner and campaign Treasurer Leah Gunn announced the big debut of Fourth Ward Council member Higgins’s web site in a modest post to ArborUpdate. The announcement bespoke the quality and content of the web site. Modest. Well, bare bones would be another way to put it. After a [...]
There is a loophole in the City’s zoning laws (interestingly) that allows our City Council to use parkland for transportation purposes. In a piece I wrote about a joint venture between the city and the University of Michigan to put a parking garage (as a part of the larger FITS project) on the current parking lot [...]
One of the tots got into a fight at school. With the teacher. About the millage proposed by the Washtenaw Intermediate School District (WISD). Education has changed since I was a kid. My teachers talked about things like the beauty of long division and the evils of sloppy cursive. The tot related the story to [...]
Ed Vielmetti is writing this great new Friday feature over at AnnArbor.com called FOIA Fridays. Vielmetti’s feature is even better than buffalo wing Thursdays, half-price Bloody Marys, and Ladies Nights. In a moment, I’ll get to the particular lady on City Council who suggested Ann Arbor citizens make use of FOIA if they want access [...]
