In 2012, Council Decimated the Forestry Dept., Officials Now Ask for “Patience” as Branches Remain Uncleared
The City of Ann Arbor has contracted Davey Tree Expert Company to augment city staff efforts to pick up branches from the recent ice and snow storms. Streets, sidewalks, trash collection, trees in the right-of-way, water and sewers are all…
City Council Votes to Crack Down on Scofflaws Parking in Bike Lanes–Including Delivery Drivers
by P.D. Lesko
Ann Arbor recently applied for and was awarded Gold-level status by the League of American Bicyclists. Cities self-report bicycling infrastructure (i.e. whether bike lanes are cleaned and plowed) in an application for…
Foolmoon Celebration to Return to Kerrytown on April 7
Correction: Jennifer Goulet did not found the WonderFool Productions. She was the organization's Executive Director.
by Stephanie McIntyre
The foolish fun kicks off with a “Month of Making” – March is full of workshops and…
Sen. Jeff Irwin’s Proposed Elimination of “Assets Based Test” for State Food Assistance is Not Good Enough
Note: According to a Feb. 27 article in MLive.com, "Senate Bill 35 introduced in January would delete the asset testing requirement used by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) to determine eligibility for the…
DTE Can’t Tree Trim its Way to Reliability
After ice storms and thundersnow cause mass outages, DTE must admit: Burying power lines underground is the answer
By James David Dickenson
DTE will never trim enough trees to avoid mass power outages in Southeast Michigan.
Every…
Michigan Senate Passes Historic LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Protections
by Laina Stebbens, Michigan Advance
A key civil rights bill on Wednesday cleared the Michigan Senate, marking a key step toward solidifying protections for LGBTQ+ Michiganders that advocates have been waiting for decades to see adopted.…
U-M Grad Students Ask for $14,500 Pay Raise, and President Santa Ono Counters With a Wage Cut
by Lily Zhao and Matthew Brennan
Over 2,000 graduate student workers at the University of Michigan have been negotiating for a new three-year contract since November 2022. Their current contract expires on May 1. On Tuesday, an…
Ann Arbor Superintendent Refutes “Learning Loss” Among Ann Arbor Students
Superintendent Jeanice Swift disputes value of the term “learning loss,” admits COVID affected “trajectory of growth”
by Jaime A. Hope
The superintendent of Ann Arbor Public Schools says students who were locked out of classrooms for…
Seven Days After Ice Storm 11K DTE Customers in County Still Without Power –Who’s to Blame?
by P.D. Lesko
As of Feb. 28, DTE's outage map showed that 5.24 percent of its customers in Washtenaw County--some 8,836 customers--are still without power as a result of a record-breaking Feb. 22 ice storm that knocked out power to over…
Watch: Why’s the County Prosecutor on a Black Men’s Health Panel Hosted by a Child Sexual Predator?
Note: These videos contain profanity, marijuana use and may not be suitable for children.
The Ann Arbor Independent's "Urban Exile" columnist Shannon McFall lives in Pittsfield Township and vlogs about race, local, county and national…