Archive for April, 2009

Marquee at the Michigan Theater on Sunday, April 5

Marty Stano, director of the film “Taffy, Cigarettes,” called The Chronicle a couple of weeks ago – he wanted to know if we’d be interested seeing a screener DVD of the 12.5-minute effort in advance of its premiere on Sunday, April 5 at the Michigan Theater.

The name “Stano” sounded familiar. I’d seen it somewhere. Ah yes, I’d edited a piece for The Chronicle on the 2009 Millers Creek Film Festival – Stano won an award for his “Runoff Lemonade.”

So, sure, I’ll look at a screener DVD from an award-winning director. [Full Story]

Marcia Higgins reviews the map showing the street frontage in the South University area as Christopher Taylor (background) proposes an amendment on street frontage.

Ann Arbor City Council Meeting Part I (April 6, 2009): At city council’s meeting Monday evening, there was a clear consensus among councilmembers that they wanted to amend the rezoning package for the downtown that had been recommended by the planning commission. The consensus was to include an absolute building height limit. The deliberations thus focused on the exact nature of the limit and where it would apply.

The outcome of those deliberations was that the final version of the rezoning package – which council will consider for a final vote on June 1, 2009 – will include a 180-foot height limit, roughly 16 stories, for the core downtown (D1) zoning. Exceptions include the South University character area, which was amended on Monday to be split into two different character areas – South U. 1 and South U. 2, to be zoned D1 and D2, respectively. In contrast to other areas zoned D1, South U. 1 is now proposed to have building heights capped at 150 feet.

The second exception to the 180-foot limit is the East Huron Street 1 character area – East Huron was also split into two different character areas last night, but is still zoned D1 in both. For the East Huron 1 area, which is the north side of Huron Street between North Thayer and Division, the building height limit is now also proposed  be 150 feet. [Full Story]

Bob Dascola of Dascola Barbers on South State.

In the old days, downtown was divided into three parts: Main Street (called Downtown), State Street (called Uptown), and South University (called Campus). Each area was different, but all were part of downtown Ann Arbor.

During my early days while attending Angell School on South University, I remember my mother giving me money so I could go have lunch at the Dugout restaurant on South U, owned by the Klepac family (their daughter was in my class), then pick up some ice cream at Miller’s before returning to school. As I grew up I used to hang out at Beaver’s Bike and Hobby on Church Street (owned by Fred Beaver), learning how to repair bicycles from Bill Loy (now owner of the Student Bike Shop).

I remember when the students left at the end of the school year in April, the local business owners wanted more people to come into the campus area during the summer, so Joan Beaver and a couple of her art friends invented the “Art Fair.” Wow, that really worked. Just look what everyone else in town has done with it! [Full Story]

The Lansing State Journal reports that Renee Wolfe of Ann Arbor was the first to submit an application on Monday at the state Department of Community Health in Lansing during a registration effort organized by the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association. Wolfe helped lead a campaign that resulted in voter approval last year authorizing the use of medical marijuana. Says Wolfe: “We made it. I am so overjoyed (at the turnout). I knew that I wasn’t the only one that I was helping.” [Source]

The Freep reports on a UM study that looked at the role of parents in teaching children to delay gratification, finding that children who learn these lessons are less likely to be overweight. Says Julie Lumeng, coauthor of the study and a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at the UM Health System: ”Moms who are overweight themselves have kids that are less able to wait. No study like this one can prove causation, but there’s an association.” [Source]

A post on Maize n Brew considers the future of sports reporting and blogging in the absence of the Ann Arbor News or other traditional print media: “For myself, the disappearance of the Ann Arbor News will make Michigan Athletics much harder to cover. The News had access to the little things we as readers take for granted, but cannot obtain ourselves. Say what you will about some of the columns or pieces written by the News, but their ability to obtain quotes, injury reports, and insight into the performance of Michigan athletes was second to none. With its disappearance, that information will be harder to come by.” [Source]

Ann Arbor City Council Sunday caucus (April 5, 2009): Like the Michigan State Spartans basketball team practicing  a fast break, Ann Arbor city councilmembers quickly handled their caucus discussion of possible amendments to the planning commission’s A2D2 zoning recommendations, which could be brought forward at their Monday night meeting.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) called for the ball to address a repaving contract on the agenda, as well as to float the idea of a parliamentary alternative to formal discussions –  ideas that are still rattling around the rim.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) arrived just as the 20-minute session concluded; he was not asked to run punishment laps around council chambers. An informal shoot-around, in the form of conversational pods among some councilmembers and members of the public, persisted until nearly 8 p.m.

Council’s Monday meeting starts at 7 p.m. on CTN’s Channel 16, which allows at least 2 hours and 21 minutes of council viewing before the NCAA finals begin.

After the break, we provide viewers with a playbook of sorts to follow the action in council chambers. It’s a set of 12 possible amendments to the zoning recommendations passed by planning commission that have been compiled by city staff. [Full Story]

The Sunday Artisan Market banner, made by artist Cheri Reiman, who sells tie-dye clothing at the market.

Maybe it was pre-FestiFools roaming, or maybe it was spillover from the NCAA tournament in Detroit – whatever the reason, crowds were bigger than on any previous opening day at Ann Arbor’s Sunday Artisan Market, according to the group’s vice president, Joan Hutchinson. It wasn’t clear whether those people were actually buying, though – vendors we talked to had mixed experiences.

Kate Kehoe, whose notebooks made from old video box covers are the reporter notebooks of choice for The Chronicle, said she was having a pretty good day. Some of the people who’d passed through included a group decked out in Tar Heels regalia, she said. (The University of North Carolina team beat Villanova on Saturday and faces Michigan State University in Monday’s championship game.)

Mike Grady, who makes wood-turned objects, said he’d sold exactly one corkscrew all day. The cold weather, the economy – who knows what makes people spend their money, or not? He hopes next Sunday will be better. [Full Story]

Gulliblurr (Pat Oleszko) visits the PeePee Distillery in the A-cad-dummy of Sciences.

Regular Chronicle readers know we’re  big fans of the odd and inexplicable. That served us well on Saturday night, when we attended a performance by Pat Oleszko, visiting artist at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design.

In fact, “Gulliblurr Travels: A Space Oddity” drew a lot of other Ann Arbor absurderati to the Duderstadt Center’s Video Studio, including Dave Devarti, Elaine Sims (of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission), and Shoshana Hurand (one of the lead FestiFoolers, taking a break before Sunday’s main event). We’d been alerted to this one-weekend-only show by Kath Weider-Roos, director of UM’s PLAY Gallery – she and her husband John Roos (of Roos Roast) were also in Saturday’s packed audience.

So what did we all see? [Full Story]

The Chronicle's favorite FestiFool puppet. What can we say ... we like watches and clocks. Look at our logo.

From 4-5 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, as the skies achieved a spitting sprinkle, but did not ever achieve a steady rain, the puppets of FestiFools cavorted at street-light level for the crowd that was several people deep along Main Street.

We were there to look at the puppets, but without even trying, we saw any number of people that Chronicle readers might recognize, just standing in one spot at Main and Liberty. [Full Story]

Audio clips from the April 4 Lucy Ann Lance show on WLBY include interviews with Washtenaw County commissioner Mark Ouimet, Hash Bash organizer Adam Brook, and Stefanie Murray and Lon Horwedel, both of the Ann Arbor News. [Source]

On the blog Information Systems for Environmental Sustainability, an Ann Arbor homeowner posts information about his home’s water and energy usage: “My water meter pings the city every day, which packages and presents that data to me online. We used 86.5 gpd in the most recent period, despite reductions from one year earlier (I think we had a slow water leak last year that caused this). Time to buy a shower timer, or limit showers to 3 ipod songs, or something.” [Source]

[Full Story]

If you missed The Chronicle’s coverage, check out this video of the Arbor Art Car, posted on the UM School of Art & Design’s Play Gallery site. [Source]

Phil Power talks to UM students on Friday afternoon as part of the MPowered lecture series on entrepreneurship.

Here’s what Phil Power believes: “There is nothing in life that is more challenging or more of an art form than being an entrepreneur.”

The former UM regent and newspaper publisher was talking to a group of University of Michigan students on Friday afternoon, giving them some insights on his own experiences founding Hometown Communications Network as well as his newest venture in social entrepreneurism, the Ann Arbor-based Center for Michigan. His talk was part of a series hosted by MPowered, a student entrepreneur group.

Power said he’d read Friday’s Detroit News article reporting that more than half of UM’s graduates leave the state after graduation. People have told him there’s nothing here for them in Michigan, he said, “which I think is a load of bull.” [Full Story]

Crain’s Detroit Business reports that several directors of Borders Group have purchased blocks of stock in the struggling Ann Arbor-based bookstore chain. Borders stock was trading at 63 cents a share when the purchases were made on Friday, according to the report. [Source]

Joel Goldberg

Our dinner group was chowing down at the home of former City Council member Steve Kunselman, who wandered over as I discreetly nibbled on a chicken leg.

“This afternoon I was in Village Corner and saw they had a great wine selection,” Steve said. “I wanted to try something new, but it seems like whenever I look for a bottle around ten bucks, I always end up buying brands I already know – Glen Ellen, or sometimes Meridian, because I don’t know which others are good.”

I’m convinced that refrain is hard-wired into the Y-chromosome. Males are constitutionally incapable of advice-seeking for snippets of “guy knowledge” we don’t innately possess. The same guy who drove around lost in pre-GPS days instead of asking for directions feels Y-shamed to walk into a wine store and own up to an inability to intuit which bottle among the hundreds on display he should purchase.

Even flying solo, Steve probably didn’t risk beverage purgatory. In today’s hyper-competitive wine marketplace, thousands of labels from around the world scramble for scarce shelf pace. Truly vile bottles rarely make the cut at credible wine stores. [Full Story]

Rob Cleveland

I held back submitting this monthly column until the end of March to see what latest theatrics would wash over the auto industry. I wasn’t disappointed. The Obama administration looked over the homework submitted by GM and Chrysler – homework designed to demonstrate how they were going to get out of their collective messes – and sent them back to detention to do it over again.

On top of it all, long-time CEO at GM Rick Wagoner was summarily dismissed, as if one lone auto executive had been responsible for creating an unworkable fiscal structure and a corporate culture developed over decades of booms and busts in the auto business. And just for good measure, the government is insisting that Chrysler and Fiat hook up – something they were bound to do anyway – making this requirement the equivalent of forcing children to eat dessert. [Full Story]

The poor condition of the pavement on Miller Avenue in Ann Arbor is the primary impetus behind the project, which could include many other improvements.

There was grumbling among some residents before the meeting even started: “They’re going to do what they’re going to do, it’s already a done deal.”

But the half-dozen city staffers who met with neighbors at Forsythe Middle School last Wednesday presented a variety of different options for how the resurfacing of Miller Avenue between Maple and Newport roads could be undertaken. Construction on the project could begin as soon as 2010, but far more likely is a 2011 start, according to project manager Nick Hutchinson, who’s a civil engineer with the city.

Some irritations from neighbors did surface in the course of the meeting. But reached by phone after the meeting, Hutchinson said he thought it was a healthy exchange and that the project team had been able to collect a lot of useful information. [Full Story]

"Betty Anne Waters" filming in Chelsea. (Photos courtesy of Qin Li)

Filming of the movie “Betty Anne Waters” continued in the environs of Ann Arbor this week. The Chronicle was not out in Chelsea to see it for ourselves, but resident Qin Li emailed some photos and called in a report from her family’s encounter with the movie crew. She and her husband, Vinay Joneja, and son, Dave (five years old), enjoyed a pleasant day of shooting with their house as the backdrop.

In the scene, Betty – played in the movie by Hilary Swank – drives up and picks up two kids from the house. In response to our question, Qin Li said there was no crying or yelling, or high drama involved. [Full Story]

The Wall Street Journal’s Auto Industry Tracker reports that Ford Motor Co. unveiled a family-friendly delivery van today at the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum. ”The Family One concept transforms the delivery-van-like Transit Connect vehicle into a family car tricked out with technology, two DVD screens and blue neon trim around the air vents. The back of the van was transformed into a ‘clubhouse,’ with a place to hang scooters and a wireless electronic identification system that harried parents can use to tag various items. If a tagged item, such as a stroller, isn’t in the vehicle, the driver will be alerted.” [Source]

Matt Kraner, Tony Dearing and Laurel Champion talk about their plans for AnnArbor.com at a community forum on Thursday.

For nearly two hours on Thursday afternoon, three people leading the new online venture formed to replace the Ann Arbor News fielded questions at a public forum, trying to assuage concerns over news that shocked this community when announced last week.

“Community” and “local” were two words frequently repeated by Matt Kraner, Laurel Champion and Tony Dearing of AnnArbor.com, which is gearing up for a late July launch. “Local journalism is not dead in Ann Arbor,” said Champion, current publisher of The News who’ll be executive vice president for the new company. “We’re just serving it up in a very, very different way.” [Full Story]