Archive for February, 2009

The Writing Events blog has a post about upcoming tutoring workshops by Washtenaw Literacy. Called Power Tutoring, it is “a free day-long series of workshops designed to help tutors advance their effectiveness and learners continue to improve.” The event is on Saturday, Feb. 21 on the WCC campus.  [Source]

The Ann Arbor News reports that Shaman Drum Bookshop is at risk of closing, and is seeking investors to keep it afloat. It’s in the process of becoming a nonprofit, but the IRS hasn’t yet signed off on that change. Says owner Karl Pohrt: “This is my hour of need.” [Source]

Joel Goldberg

Marlena Studer sports a moniker that sounds like she might have a career promoting Piesporter or Lowenbrau. But after spending 10 years in academia with a sociology PhD, the Ann Arbor transplant became a wine entrepreneur, creating and importing the Solterra label of Chilean wines since the 2001 vintage.

Last football season, it was difficult to miss the banners, store displays and tailgate parties all over Ann Arbor to promote Bo Merlot, the wine named for legendary Michigan football coach Glenn “Bo” Schembechler. Studer quarterbacks the diverse team that runs the project, which includes Bo’s widow, Cathy, local wine distributor Doug Wanty, sportscaster Jim Brandstatter, and Dr. Kim Eagle, director of UM’s Cardiovascular Institute, which receives a $2 donation from each bottle sold.

Around the same time, I found myself temporarily banished from Studer’s friends list after I called Bo Merlot a “gimmick wine” in a web article. So when we recently sat down to talk, picking that scab seemed like an optimal place to start. Here’s how things went. [Full Story]

The Detroit Metro Times’ Music Blahg posts 25 things (a la Facebook) about local musician Matt Jones. No. 4: “Matt was caught playing basketball in a priest uniform by a priest. He was then fired.” [Source]

Norbert Schwarz, a UM psychology professor, is quoted in a New York Times article about the impact of color on mood and behavior. Says Schwarz: ”When you feel that the situation you are in is problematic, you are more likely to pay attention to detail, which helps you with processing tasks but interferes with creative types of things.” By contrast, ”people in a happy mood are more creative and less analytic.” [Source]

The Ann Arbor Police Department has released its crime bulletin for the last week in January (a PDF file). Incidents include a homicide on Allen Drive (with an arrest already made), a stabbing on the 100 block of South Fourth (with arrests made), a larceny in the 2900 block of Fernwood (with a suspect identified), and a breaking and entering at a video store at 2100 Packard. [Source]

When all you've got's a hammer, everything looks like a nail, er, drill. The drilling operation was a soil bore to test bearing capacity in connection with the underground parking structure to be built under Fifth Avenue and the library lot. Parking rate increases will help fund the project.

Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (Feb. 4, 2009): “Let’s plunge into the most controversial part,” declared Roger Hewitt, chair of the DDA board’s operations committee, at Wednesday’s meeting of the full board. The controversial part was a resolution to increase parking rates in downtown Ann Arbor, starting July 1, 2009, which represented a delay compared with the originally planned schedule. After plunging in, the board voted to approve the rate increase schedule and sent it along to city council. Council will review it at its Feb. 17 meeting – along with the site plan for the Fifth Avenue underground parking garage, which the parking rate increase will help fund.

In other business, the DDA board approved its 2009-10 and 2010-11 budgets, approved a management incentive for Republic Parking, and received updates on a variety of ongoing projects and initiatives. As part of his monthly update from the Downtown Area Citizens Advisory Council, Ray Detter alerted the DDA board to an apparently downward trend in the quality of the property management for residents of Courthouse Square. [Full Story]

In writing around the actual words of a wise-crack made by Russ Collins at a DDA board meeting, we erroneously compared the remark to a line made famous by Bill Murray on Saturday Night Live.  The line is associated with Dan Aykroyd. We note the mistake here and have corrected it in the original story.

In relaying Mayor John Hieftje’s self-described recycling credentials from a recent city council meeting report, we miscalculated the 20-year difference between 2009 and 1989 – when he served as chair of Recycle Ann Arbor’s board  – as “nearly a decade.”  We note the error here, and have corrected it in the original report.

Developer Alex de Parry said at the time that if the PUD for City Place on South Fifth Avenue was turned down by city council, he had a “matter of right” project he could build there, too.  The first public meeting on that will be held on  Feb. 11, 2009 at the Ann Arbor Public Library at the corner of E William Street and S. Fifth Avenue beginning at 6 p.m. [Source]

The Kitchen Chick writes about a holiday party catered by Jay Haamen and Brendan McCall of A Knife’s Work, who made “a trio of molecular gastronomy appetizers, complete with live demonstrations….They started our tour with a savory ‘cookie’ made of duck and topped with an orange-ginger gel. Followed it up with tropical fruit ‘caviar.’ For a desserty finish, they assembled three-layered chocolate bites with chocolate cake base, chocolate gelatin, and chocolate crumbles on top.” [Source]

The Morning Sun, a central Michigan newspaper, published an Associated Press article about the state House of Representatives approving a 10% pay cut for lawmakers, the governor and other elected officials. Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, D-Salem Township, cast the lone “no” vote: ”There is no language for implementation in this bill. To decrease the salaries as proposed requires a constitutional change, which consequently requires a public vote. It is a real shame that we advocate transparency in government and then we put forth a resolution like this one designed to pull the wool over the public’s eyes.” [Source]

USA Today publishes a letter by Rev. Michael P. Orsi, a research fellow at Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, who responds to a previous op/ed about Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to to lift the excommunications of four bishops, including a Holocaust denier. Writes Orsi: “It’s a pastoral action designed to bring the recalcitrant group back into the church. It in no way gives approval to their personal beliefs, which fall outside the church’s theological or moral expertise. Although Bishop Richard Williamson’s statement denying the extent of the Holocaust might have been stupid, stupidity is not grounds for excommunication. If that were the case, most of us would be under the penalty.” [Source]

County administrator Bob Guenzel is interviewed by WEMU reporter Andrew Cluley during a break at Wednesday night's board of commissioners meeting.

Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners (Feb. 4, 2009): Faced with sharply lower revenues in the coming years, Washtenaw County government will be dealing with staggering budget deficits and must start making some tough decisions about where to cut costs. At their Wednesday night board meeting, county commissioners heard that grim report from county administrator Bob Guenzel, who estimates the budget deficit in 2010-11 could reach $28 million under a worst-case scenario. And it likely won’t end there. “We don’t know when we’re going to hit bottom,” he said. “It’s just too hard to predict that.”

Guenzel called the financial situation the worst he’s seen in his 36 years with the county, but noted that this was a nationwide crisis. Falling property values and a sluggish housing market have eroded tax revenues – property taxes and fees related to building inspections, real estate transfers and other housing-related services account for roughly 75% of the county’s general fund, he said. [Full Story]

Brian Hinz in the role of Baptist Minister, rehearsing "The Laramie Project" at Huron High School.

The stage in Huron High School’s theater is stark, as is the play that students are rehearsing: A community coming to grips with the murder of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay college student who was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming, 11 years ago.

“The Laramie Project,” which opens Friday, was a choice that several students in the Huron Players theater group advocated for, says director BJ Wallingford, and one that he’s personally wanted to do for years. The play is not without controversy – it’s one that is frequently protested by the ultra-conservative Westboro Baptist Church, and were it not for efforts by the Ann Arbor Police Department, protesters would have descended on Huron High as well. More on that later.

At a rehearsal on Monday, actors went through their paces and the technical crew worked out glitches in lighting and audio in the school’s new theater, which opened last fall. The play itself is powerful, a challenge for both actors and the audience in confronting people with attitudes and beliefs that often differ fundamentally from their own. [Full Story]

Bikes at the 4th & Washington parking garage sport fuchsia notices warning of possible impoundment on Feb. 5, 2009.

Bright fuchsia cards printed with the Ann Arbor Police Department seal have been threaded through the spokes of the wheels on nine bicycles locked to the hoops at the 4th & Washington parking structure. The cards weren’t placed there as decoration, but as a warning: these bicycles face possible impoundment starting Feb. 5.

What’s the problem with people locking their bikes to the hoops provided for exactly that purpose? As the notices say, “Your bicycle may be impounded as provided by city ordinance when it has remained unattended on public property for a period of more than 48 hours after a written notice has been affixed to the bicycle.” The notices reflected that they were written on Feb. 3 and indicated a possible impoundment date of Feb. 5. [Full Story]

The blog Lupin’s Hideaway posts a photo taken in 1966 of a reported UFO in Washtenaw County.”This photograph is widely held as one of the best, clearest images ever taken of a UFO. Of course it has had its debunkers, but remains today as genuine proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life.” [Source]

Matt Naud, environmental coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor, is interviewed by Bob Eccles on WEMU’s Issues of the Environment, discussing the future of the Huron River. [Source]

The blog Ann Arbor Schools Musings has a post about the need to review policies and procedures in the wake of  several recent tragedies that have affected the schools. “It’s bad timing that these all happened in a few short weeks, but it does lend some urgency to my questions. There are several areas to look at. Working backwards – how was the crisis response after the fact? For the student who died in the school, how was the crisis response during the event? And last, but definitely not least, what kind of prevention activities are going on around domestic violence and suicide?” [Source]

The BetterWorld Telecom blog has a post about a trip to Ann Arbor for training with Zingerman’s: “Paul Saginaw, one of the co-founders and current partners, guided me through a day of discovery – not only of the culinary kind, but seeing first-hand how a business can be run with employees and the community as top priorities, while being a raging success at the same time.” [Source]

The state has approved several tax credits and brownfield projects, according to the Freep. Locally, they include: a tax credit for the consulting firm Atwell-Hicks to expand, and brownfield project approval for the former Michigan Inn site in Ann Arbor and for two unused elementary schools in Ypsilanti. [Source]

The  Jan. 31 Lucy Ann Lance Show on WLBY 1290-AM features a performance by the Saline Fiddlers, and interviews with Diane Durrance of the Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest, entrepreneur Aaron Nelson, Pioneer High student Nick Kern, Brent Lofgren of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory and several others. Midway through the third hour, Lucy Ann’s guests are Mary Morgan and Dave Askins of The Ann Arbor Chronicle. [Source]

In the write-up of council’s Feb. 2 meeting we mispelled the name of one of the speakers who’d signed up for reserved time, and spoke to the issue of the Farmers Market renovations.  Her name is Chris Hildebrand.  We note the mistake here and have corrected it in the original report.

Ann Arbor City Council (Feb. 2, 2009): “This is one of the most significant things we’ll do this year,” councilmember Leigh Greden said. But he wasn’t talking about the final budgetary approval of construction on the municipal center project (also known as the police-courts facility), which will likely see shovels hitting the ground in two months. Greden was talking about the commercial recycling program, which was passed on its first reading Monday – there’ll be a public hearing and second reading before it receives its final vote. In other business, council tabled indefinitely the resolution authorizing the budget for renovation of the Farmers Market, passed a raft of resolutions connected with the city airport renovation project, and gave approval to a planned project with smaller setbacks than current code allows. [Full Story]