ANN ARBOR SPARK officials have refused to provide audited financial statements to the public and elected officials. When Governor Rick Snyder and MEDC CEO Michael Finney headed the organization, the Annual Report claimed that over 12,000…

Editor’s Note: Kai Petainen serves on the Editorial Board of The Ann Arbor Independent. THESE ARE THE facts: 1.  Between June 2009 and November 2013, the City of Ann Arbor gave Ann Arbor SPARK $5.1 million dollars from its General…

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…

by P.D. Lesko Groupon was founded and is headed by graduates from the University of Michigan. In January 2012, former AnnArbor.con business reporter Nathan Bomey wrote a glowing piece about Groupon, its founders and their connection to the…

by Rob Smith The 1 percent here in Ann Arbor are just different than us. They look at out-of-work folks and hungry children, homeless men and women tossed out of Camp Take Notice, struggling small businesses and cash-strapped school…

by Rob Smith In the March 13th issue of the New York Times there is an article about the severe economic problems that face Italy. That country, like Michigan, has been in one of the deepest recessions on record. Unemployment in Italy last…

by P.D. Lesko Guess what you can get in Michigan for a $10,000 donation to Rick Snyder's campaign? You can get $18,000,000 in state money to bail you out when your project crashes and burns just 10 months after it's launched. You can also…

by P.D. Lesko Michigan has bled jobs, and the state's residents have suffered Depression-era unemployment levels. The Detroit Free Press recently concluded in its report card evaluation of Governor Rick Snyder that Snyder's first year in…

by P.D. Lesko I read a Tweet from Ann Arbor SPARK on November 17th: "Paul Krutko, Ann Arbor SPARK's CEO, speaking at the VC breakfast in San Jose, California. http://twitpic.com/7felds." Krutko was the Chief Development Officer for the…

Legend has it that Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, on the other hand, has a  "job creation" strategy that has launched a recall effort. It's a strategy that has resulted in Snyder…