2013

IT’S USUALLY DEATH and taxes that define the inevitable. However, in the city’s 2013 National Citizen Survey, comments about roads and taxes dominated the open-ended question responses. Respondents were asked to record their opinions about…

THE ANN ARBOR Indepdendent accepts no advertising from local, county or state government, local universities or the Ann Arbor Public Schools. It is a policy that takes direct aim at bolstering the newspaper’s editorial independence. The…

WARD 2 COUNCIL  member Jane Lumm ran for re-election in 2013 on a a platform that included improving the transparency of city government. She was not only talking about the need for city government to do a better job of sharing information…

THE 2013 NON-MOTORIZED Transportation Plan (NTP) should make the average driver pull over and take notice. The NTP lays out plans for  so-called “road diets,” whereby some of the city’s busiest streets—such as Jackson—are slimmed from four…

SPENDING ON LOBBYING was down across the board in 2012, but  the education industry led the way in tightening the purse strings. According to OpenSecrets.org, “In 2011, the industry, which includes both for-profit and nonprofit colleges and…

by Judd Legnum IN A MEDIA environment increasingly dominated by celebrity, scandal and the political horserace, many of the most important stories receive scant coverage. Here are nine hugely important things that happened in 2013 that…

ACCORDING TO 2011 data supplied by University of Michigan officials to the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) and published by AUTM in its 2012 survey, U of M spent $1.23 billion dollars on research and earned $15.6…

MIDWESTERNERS HATE conflict more than we hate freezing rain, haughty vegans and screaming kids/ineffectual parents in the grocery store. We smile. We’re solicitous. We want to get along. We want other people to get along. The truth of the…

IN CASE YOU haven’t noticed, January 12-17 is Ann Arbor Restaurant Week, an event put on by the Main Street Area Association. It’s the fifth winter Ann Arbor Restaurant Week, and 57 restaurants are participating; that’s up from 26…

FORMER REPRESENTATIVE Pam Byrnes has taken aim at the U.S. Congressional seat held by Republican Tim Walberg. Byrnes, back from two years in China working as the Executive Director at the University of Michigan Shanghai Jiao Tong University…