Opinion

THIS NEWSPAPER DOES not endorse in races for elected office. As such, we offer no opinion whatsoever concerning the best candidate for the probate judgeship vacated by Nancy Wheeler Francis. That being said, the appointment of Referee Julia…

by Mary Giliberti IMAGINE FILLING OUT college applications with your child one day and then watching him or her be admitted to a psychiatric hospital the next. That was reality for National Alliance of Mental Illness member Dawn Brown,…

by John Schneider I’LL KEEP MY college commencement speech brief. Dear graduates: Quit whining about your debts. You’re smart people. You were aware of the options. You made the calculation that an education was worth the financial…

ANN ARBOR CITY Council members recently passed a resolution urging the State’s Attorney General to stop defending Michigan’s ban against gay marriage. In 2011, Ann Arbor City Council went on the record objecting to a Republican-backed drive…

Protected Bike Lanes As long as I’ve lived in Ann Arbor, I’ve found most in-town bicyclists to be self-centered, stupid and dangerous. Most of the “facts” in your article are cherry-picked and irrelevant to local conditions. The only…

CITY ADMINISTRATOR STEVE Powers was hired in 2011. His job performance during the past 3 years has not yet been evaluated by City Council. The Charter requires Council to evaluate both the City Administrator and the City Attorney annually.…

by Steve Rosenfeld WHAT COULD HAVE been done? What can be done now? These are the questions on most people’s minds after another senseless mass shooting, this one near the University of California, Santa Barbara, in Southern California…

LANSING REPUBLICANS DODGED what their leaders believe was a bullet in raising the state’s minimum wage from the current $7.40 to $9.25 by 2018 and indexing it to inflation thereafter. The minimum wage for tipped employees rose from $2.65 to…

By P.D. Lesko LOOKING FOR WHAT is called a reliable voter? Look for a white woman aged 70 and above (a Baby Boomer), according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Looking for the least reliable voter on whom a candidate should think twice about…

THE CITY’S ROADS are a wreck despite an additional millage dedicated to street repair that generates between $8-11 million annually. Our city’s water and sewer infrastructures have been allowed to crumble, with large portions of those…