The Ann Arbor Independent Editorial Team 2249 posts 224 comments

ANN ARBOR CITY Attorney Stephen K. Postema has represented the City Council as its legal eagle since 2003. He advises the Mayor, City Council, City Administrator and oversees the City Attorney’s Office, with a staff of 10 attorneys and a…

MAYOR JOHN HIEFTJE’S propensity to populate the city’s boards and commissions with what City Council members allege are his political cronies has long irked political insiders. This, among other reasons, is why there is a quiet movement…

by Joseph DiSano THE BIGGEST PARLOR game played among political observers is “Will John Dingell retire?”  And this year is no different — except there actually may be some merit to the speculation. It will be a sad day when the…

AT THE END of October, a federal judge denied a request from the Justice Department to dismiss a lawsuit aiming to block health care subsidies in states not running their own healthcare exchange sites. Put another way, if the plaintiffs in…

DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY Board members Joan Lowenstein and Keith Orr took to the blog-o-sphere to endorse their candidates for Ann Arbor City Council. The irony of DDA Board members endorsing in local elections is as rich as Devon…

IN SEPTEMBER 2011 former Ann Arbor News government reporter Tom Gantert filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information concerning the compensation of then AATA managers. The FOIA revealed that while AATA was running a deficit of…

OVER THE PAST dozen years there has arisen what one City Council member recently referred to as a “professional class” of people who are appointed time and again to serve on Ann Arbor’s boards and commissions. These people are sometimes…

ON MAY 14, 2012 the University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital released the results of a National Poll on Children’s Health which asked parents of middle- and high-school-age children nationwide about participation and cost of school…

Editor’s Note: Representative Jeff Irwin contributes to the newspaper’s “House Calls” column. 52nd District State Representative Gretchen Driskell is planning to run for re-election in 2014. Over the past year, Representative Driskell…

by Dan Spellman With the success of the Kindle Fire, I thought it would be fun to write a little bit sci-fi and imagine what the publishing market will look like in the next ten or so years. I’m a strong proponent of the ebook and, as…