Archive for October, 2009

At Wednesday’s Ann Arbor Farmers Market, customers were asked to answer questions by using sticky dots. (Photo by the writer.)

Ann Arbor Public Market Advisory Commission meeting (Oct. 6, 2009): Shoppers at Wednesday’s Ann Arbor Farmers Market might have encountered a few things they hadn’t seen before: 1) Five easels with questions about how customers use the market, 2) three new vendors and 3) a film crew for the movie “Naked Angel.”

The first two were among several items discussed at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Public Market Advisory Commission. The group also talked about Halloween plans for the market – it falls on a Saturday this year – and reviewed its recent working session, which focused on policy issues and outreach. [Full Story]

The Wall Street Journal highlights UM’s first India Business Conference, held on Oct. 9-10 in Ann Arbor. Ritesh Bawri, vice president (east) of the UM Indian Alumni Association, writes: “We are now days away from the opening keynote. As people prepare themselves from across the world to engage and participate in the conference, it is hard not to marvel at what technology has done for us. Video conferencing, blogs, podcasts and that now almost quaint in-person discussions. Michigan prepares itself to once again play crucible to thought and action. Go Blue!” [Source]

A post on Live Design takes a behind-the-scenes look at “Jonesin’,” a UM student play produced last season. Sound designer Henry Reynolds described some of the challenges: “We decided to be literal with the soundscape for real events and to create an emotive soundscape for the imaginary parts. It was partly to help the audience with where the heck we were, which wasn’t always clear.” [Source]

The Paper Trail blog by the staff of U.S. News & World Report picks up a Michigan Daily article about the resignation of the UM College Republicans president Gordon Chaffin: “Chaffin caused some ‘internal strife’ among College Republicans when, on Facebook, he expressed support for President Obama’s healthcare reforms.” [Source]

While state Rep. Rebekah Warren (D-District 53) addressed the Ann Arbor city council, laying out the budget situation in Lansing, a meeting attendee read the Detroit Free Press editorial: "How Michigan can find billions for the budget." (Photo by the writer.)

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (Oct. 5, 2009): State Rep. Rebekah Warren (D-District 53) addressed the city council at the start of the meeting, bringing the council up to date on the state budget that had passed, but which she’d voted against. Over the next year, there will be $1.16 million less in  revenue sharing paid to the city of Ann Arbor, starting with an October check that will be around $200,000 less than last year. This outcome is on the optimistic end of the projected range provided to the city council several weeks ago by Tom Crawford, the city’s chief financial officer.

Before the public hearing began on the proposed new building design guidelines for downtown, Mayor John Hieftje indicated his and other councilmembers’ strong preference for a set of guidelines that were integrated into a required process as a part of a project review. So the several members of the public who spoke on the issue knew there was support on council for their view.

And University of Michigan student life was a part of the meeting in several ways – seen and unseen. The seen part included students who spoke against recent increased ordinance enforcement activity in the Hoover Street area on homecoming weekend. They announced a protest march.

The unseen part included an item stricken from the agenda that would have allowed the city to generate revenue from parking cars in Frisinger Park on home football Saturdays. And it included a closed session on a lawsuit stemming from the tasering of a UM student by Ann Arbor police in 2005. The incident arose out of the student’s arrest for having an open container of alcohol. A recent opinion from the U.S. District Court (Eastern Division) on a motion from the city for summary judgment found that the police officer was entitled to qualified immunity on the first application of the taser, but not on the second. [Full Story]

Sign at Fresh Seasons Market on West Liberty. (Photo by the writer.)

It’s hard to keep something under wraps when your landlord’s real estate agent puts a “For Lease” ad on the front page of the local newspaper. That ad ran last Thursday to solicit a new tenant for the building at 2281 W. Liberty, where Fresh Seasons Market has been located for about 20 years. And it prompted the grocery’s customers to ask: What’s up?

“We’re not signed, sealed and delivered yet,” said Fresh Seasons general manager Jan DeMunnik, referring to their new, undisclosed location, which she characterized as “very close” to the current store. They hadn’t planned to announce the move just yet, she said, but the real estate advertisement forced their hand.

Since then they’ve put a notice about the move on the sign outside their business, and are passing out flyers to customers that explain the situation – and to make sure people know that they are not closing. [Full Story]

The Detroit Free Press reports that the Washtenaw County prosecutor’s office is not filing charges of ethnic intimidation in the case of a 16-year-old Skyline High student, who alleged that she was beaten and insulted by other students because of her ethnicity and religion. The article quotes prosecuting attorney Brian Mackie: “Had there been ethnic intimidation, that would have been charged…(but) there was no ethnic intimidation charge.” Nabih Ayad, an attorney for the family of the Muslim girl, said, “You have a group of kids jumping another individual, and calling her names because of her religious garb and her ethnicity. That’s clearly ethnic intimidation.” [Source]

On the Huffington Post, Chris Savage gives an extensive report on the Oct. 3 annual dinner of the Washtenaw County Democratic Party, including experts from several speeches and a slide show: “Three U.S. Congressmen were in attendance. The first was freshman Representative Mark Schauer, a young, vibrant and optimistic Congressman. The second was Representative John Dingell, the longest-serving member in Congress today and a man who has introduced a single-payer health care bill every year for 52 years. The third was a pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement, a man jailed over 40 times, beaten and bloodied for his views and actions, Representative John Lewis from Georgia. He attended President Obama’s inauguration as the only living speaker from the civil … [Full Story]

The Associated Press reports that Ann Arbor-based Borders Group is producing and co-sponsoring a series of online interviews conducted by Mitch Albom with authors, celebrities and others. The first interview features actress Drew Barrymore, whose recent film “Whip It” was partially shot in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. [Source]

On his blog A Heuristic Viewoint of Life, Raghu Kainkaryam describes the Oct. 2 speech by economist Paul Krugman at UM’s Hill Auditorium: “The talk focused on ‘trade clusters’ – places where certain businesses flourish, sometimes due to historical accidents. He used the interesting example of the Dundee jute industry to highlight this phenomenon. The topic was poignant in light of the failure of a local cluster, the Detroit auto industry. Several audience questions were related to the possibility of Detroit’s revival and the value of protectionist measures to jump-start it. Krugman wasn’t upbeat about the long-term survival of Detroit’s manufacturing hub and tried to end on the hopeful note that Ann Arbor might turn into the center of a … [Full Story]

UM president Mary Sue Coleman, center, talks with some of her staff before her speech. The small, round disk protruding from the speaker's right side of the podium is a cupholder. (Photo by the writer.)

On Monday afternoon, the University of Michigan’s president, Mary Sue Coleman, gave a state-of-the-university speech, summarizing some of the institution’s recent accomplishments, challenges and new initiatives.

Highlights of her remarks are below, and the full text of the speech is posted online. The same text was handed out to the media immediately prior to her presentation. It is not, however, exactly the speech she delivered. More on that later.

The speech was widely covered: The Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Michigan Daily, Crain’s Detroit Business and AnnArbor.com all filed stories. Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, also attended the event – a crew from the PBS show is in town shooting footage and doing interviews for an upcoming segment.

Despite the press coverage, the event did not draw a large crowd to the new Blau Auditorium at the Ross School of Business – the venue seats about 500 people, and it was less than half full. For those who couldn’t make it, here’s a look at what you missed. [Full Story]

The New York Times Economix column by Nancy Folbre looks at how many states are cutting funds to support public universities. The piece quotes former UM president Jim Duderstadt: “We used to be state-supported, then state-assisted, and now we are state-located.” [Source]

From the public notices published in the Oct. 1, 2009 edition of the Washtenaw Legal News: "Ann Arbor City Notice, Notice of Public Hearing on Proposed A2D2 Downtown Design Guidelines."

Ann Arbor City Council Sunday night caucus (Oct. 4, 2009): At its Sunday night meeting attended by only three councilmembers – Mayor John Hieftje, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Mike Anglin (Ward 5) – downtown zoning was again center stage.

A dozen or so residents attended the caucus and many of them addressed the changes that can be traced in the draft documents for A2D2 downtown building design guidelines from Oct. 15, 2007 to April 30, 2008, to Aug. 28, 2009, and most recently in the Sept. 30, 2009 version of the document.

The council will open a public hearing on the proposed guidelines on Oct. 5, but is not scheduled to vote on the matter until at least Oct. 19. At caucus, Hieftje said that the public hearing might be left open until Oct. 19 and that it was possible that no vote would be taken then – there was “no rush,” he said.

The complaint of many of those who addressed caucus was this: A commitment to the design guidelines as a compulsory part of project review had been gradually written out of the various drafts.

The challenge in following the changes to the draft was made more difficult, some speakers contended, by the fact that the city had altered its strategy for publicizing public hearings. That’s a strategic necessity driven by the fact that the closing of The Ann Arbor News leaves The Washtenaw Legal News as the only local “newspaper of general circulation.” [Full Story]

Reporting on Eclectablog, Mr. E. gives a detailed account of the Washtenaw County Democratic Party Dinner held on Saturday night.  He quotes featured speaker, Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who is the only living speaker from the rally at the March on Washington in 1963: “[H]ealth care is a right and it’s not a privilege but a right. And that the quantity and the quality of a person’s health care should not be decided by the size of their personal wallet, that person’s bank account or the zip code that that person lives in.” [Source]

By the end of their five-hour retreat last week, board members for the Ann Arbor District Library had heard from library staff about hundreds of projects that have been accomplished over the past six years since their last strategic plan was crafted.

Josie Parker, director of the Ann Arbor District Library, speaks to the crowd at the Oct. 1 groundbreaking for the “Library Lot” underground parking structure. The project, located next to the downtown library on Fifth Avenue, is being undertaken by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. (Photo by Dave Askins.)

The long list included construction of three new branches. But the board’s discussion kept circling back to one huge undertaking that hadn’t been completed: Building a new downtown library.

When that project was halted last November, the board had considered it as a detour or a pause.  What they’d done up to that point, including about $900,000 worth of architectural and consulting work, was to be set aside and used in the future.

But during Wednesday’s retreat it became clear that with so many variables in the air – including the unanswered question of what might be built on top of a new underground parking structure next to the downtown library – the board would need to start anew if and when they decided to undertake the project again. [Full Story]

The Detroit Free Press takes a look at Medicare reform being proposed as part of a broader health care package in Congress, noting that seniors are concerned about possible changes to the plan. The article quotes John Birkmeyer, a UM health policy expert: “What gets lost is the implicit assumption that everything is great now. In many ways, things are not great now.” [Source]

The New York Times reports on the transition at the NCAA in the wake of former president Myles Brand’s death. The article quotes UM president Mary Sue Coleman, who says the next NCAA president should come from a Division 1 institution, and who notes that being a former university president would be a plus: “I think that having a president brings a level of respect from the (NCAA executive) board. It’s knowing how to run a university, how to run an athletic program in the context of a university.” Coleman, whose name has been floated as a possible candidate for the job, tells the Times she’s not interested: “I am deeply engaged at the University of Michigan.” [Source]

Ben Finegold, who lives in Ann Arbor, last week earned the rank of chess international grandmaster at the Spice Cup Chess Festival in Lubbock, Tex. Finegold documents the success on his own blog [Source]. The New York Times also took note of the achievement in its Sunday edition. [Source] Congratulations to Ben.

[Full Story]