The Ann Arbor Independent Editorial Team 2257 posts 224 comments

by Manny Lopez Scrutiny and sunshine are great ways of keeping government officials honest. But the effort doesn’t come without occasional conflict. That’s especially true today given the advances in technology and ease with which…

MAYOR HIEFTJE HAS repeatedly told the public that the cost of police and fire service is a strain on the city’s budget. In a 2012 interview he said this about the city’s safety services budget, “...All the water has been wrung out of the…

WARD 1 CITY Council member Sumi Kailasapathy is a CPA. It was Kailasapathy who pushed the Council’s Audit Committee to investigate further after it was revealed City Attorney Stephen Postema had allegedly “double-dipped,” in accepting a car…

A DECADE AGO, the University of Michigan waged a successful U.S. Supreme Court fight to save affirmative action. Now Michigan is learning to live without it. Three years after the court allowed race-based admissions, Michigan voters…

WARD 1 CITY Council challenger Jeff Hayner has landed the quiet support of several City Council Democrats. Ward 2 City Council incumbent Jane Lumm has the unabashed support of several City Council Democrats. So why are card-carrying members…

WARD 2 CITY Council challenger Kirk Westphal sent out a fundraising letter that includes several interesting claims, one of which is he is the "only Democrat" running in the Ward 2 November general election. Well, yes. For those who were…

by P.D. Lesko In 2009, AnnArbor.com Kontent King Tony Dearing announced the "future of journalism in Ann Arbor": "Ding. Dong. The Witch is dead," wrote an A2Politico reader in response to a December 2012 piece about the falling…

THE DICTIONARY DEFINES propaganda as the deliberate spreading of information, ideas, or rumors in an effort to either help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, or nation. Most commonly propaganda is used in the political arena.…

The only former Ann Arbor City Council member having a worse time of it politically than Downtown Development Authority Board member Joan Lowenstein (former Ward 2 Council member) is former Ward 3 Council member Leigh Greden. Lowenstein,…

On August 20th, John Hieftje announced his intention to appoint Albert McWilliams to replace Newcombe Clark on the Board of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. McWilliams, who works for Quack Media, is in his 30s and a self-styled…