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Ann Arbor Government
Six Candidates Now Poised to Run For Mayor & City Council
by P.D. Lesko
It's February, and in another 60 days or so those in the mood to run for mayor and City Council as Democrats or Republicans will have gone to the City Clerk's office and taken out petitions. Those running as Independents have…
Residents Say “No Go” to Mayor’s Plan To Pay For County-Wide & Regional Transit With City Millage
by P.D. Lesko
The public speaker, an older woman who rides the bus regularly, recounted a conversation with a friend who lives outside of Ann Arbor: "My friend said to me that she wished the AATA buses would run near her house so she could…
MoveOn.org Urges Ann Arbor Residents to Run for Local Office To “Fight Cuts to Crucial Services”
by P.D. Lesko
MoveOn.org sent out a mass email this afternoon to thousands of members of the group's Ann Arbor email list. The first sentence of the email reads: "If you were mayor of Ann Arbor, what would be the first thing you'd do? Make…
Council Members in Open Revolt: Challenge Mayor & Insist Transit Proposal Is Seriously Flawed
by P.D. Lesko
Third Ward Council member Stephen Kunselman has been a pain in John Hieftje's butter dish ever since Kunselman knocked off Leigh Greden in the 2009 stunner of a primary election. While Kunselman won by a 6 vote margin, Greden…
Head of AATA Admits in Email That “Many Folks” Prefer That Millage Money Fund Existing City-Wide Transit, Not Proposed County-Wide Plan
by P.D. Lesko
In September 2011, former Ann Arbor News reporter Tom Gantert did what he does best: published the truth. In point of fact, writing for Michigan Capitol Confidential, Gantert published information about the pay of staffers at…
Politico Who Understated City Debt By $215,000,000 In Open Letter To Newspaper Complains About “Misinformation”
by P.D. Lesko
Fifth Ward Council member Mike Anglin sent out an email on January 15, 2012 in which he urged Ann Arbor residents to vocally oppose John Hieftje's proposal that Ann Arbor enter into a regional transportation agreement under…
Via Email Blast Local Politicos Urge Public To Rise Up & Stop Mayor’s Anti-Democratic Scheming
by P.D. Lesko
In 2004, the Ann Arbor News Editorial Board published an endorsement of Hieftje's mayoral opponent that included this zinger, preserved for posterity by Google:
“Hieftje’s largest failure is not one of vision, but leadership.…
Look Out Boys! The Über Spinster Lets Down Her Hair
by P.D. Lesko
I read it, and I laughed. Out loud. I read it again, and laughed even more. I kept reading. Sometimes, I get bored and quit in the middle. Other times, reading this stuff is like taking flax seed oil. It's good for me, so I…
A Local Political Machine Gets Sabotaged From Within — Again
by P.D. Lesko
How many direct hits from within can the Hieftje-Hive-Mind-Collective Cube withstand?
In summer 2009, the Cube took its first hit from within: Ann Arbor residents woke up to a front page piece in the Ann Arbor News that was…
Local Politico to City’s Voters: You’re “Xenophobic,” “Old,” “Selfish” and “Stingy.”
by P.D. Lesko
DDA Board member and former Second Ward City Council member Joan Lowenstein (right) is having a really tough time of it, politically speaking. Should you care? Absolutely. It's a better show than "Real Housewives," but with…