by P.D. Lesko It’s no surprise Republican Rob Steele couldn’t unseat Representative John Dingell in 2010. However, Steele’s run, which campaign emails intimated would be financed with the doctor’s own “fortune,” rattled Team Dingell. Former President Bill Clinton came to Michigan and stumped for the Dean of the House prior to the November election. It’s [...]
by P.D. Lesko Despite her continued opposition to the city’s Greenbelt millage, money that city officials have used to purchase thousands of acres of land (tip o’ the keyboard to Rita Mitchell), including farmland, in the area surrounding Ann Arbor, The Sierra Club, Huron Valley Group, and Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter today announced its endorsement of [...]
by P.D. Lesko Make no mistake. One look at the last three years of audited financial statements of Recycle Ann Arbor, and the company’s losses make it clear that CEO Melinda Uerling was struggling to keep the company, controlled by the Ann Arbor Ecology Center, afloat. Most recently, city staffers went before Council with a [...]
A2PNotes: This is filed under “Scoops & Scores” because you read it here first by P.D. Lesko Collectively, Ann Arbor residents own about 2,000 acres of parkland. A conservative estimate of the value of the land, according to city officials, is anywhere from $600 million to $1.5 billion dollars. Now a question. Barton Pond, Bird [...]
by Pete Nicely It was H.L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis or some other dead white Anglo Saxon who once sort-of said, “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross.” Or maybe it was Ryan Seacrest who said, “When Lady Gaga shows up at the MTV Video Music Awards, it will [...]
To listen to Michael Garfield, head of the Ecology Center tell the story, Recycle Ann Arbor, which is controlled by Garfield and the Ecology Center, has been the victim of “miscalculation made in the 2010 contract” between the City of Ann Arbor and Recycle Ann Arbor. That’s why RAA needs $1.07 million more from Ann [...]
Residents of Ann Arbor have twice defeated attempts to dispose of Huron Hills Golf Course. A2Politico reported on the efforts here, where residents retained a lawyer and alleged that Mayor and Council were breaking the law in attempts to outsource course operations. A2Politico also interviewed a member of the A2P2 neighborhood group formed to combat the [...]
A2Politico has been consistently critical of the city’s move to single-stream recycling, interviewing and quoting national experts who dubbed the move “environmentally regressive” and a “waste of taxpayer money.” A2Politico questioned the rosy collections projections of city staff, consultants and local politicos who used their support of single-stream recycling in the 2010 City Council and Mayoral [...]
The cash cows who live in Ann Arbor have a record of voting to nickel and dime themselves to death, literally. The city’s property tax bill, thanks to “supplemental” millages, has come to resemble a check in a French restaurant where everything is ala carte. The nickels and dimes have, over the past decade, added [...]
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that: “Western universities dominate the first-ever ranking of bike-friendly institutions by the League of American Bicyclists, with Stanford University taking the only platinum honors and two University of California campuses—at Davis and Santa Barbara—following with gold.” According to the League, “The program recognizes colleges and universities that create exceptional environments [...]
