Adam Zemke

ANN ARBOR OFFICIALS who serve in Lansing recently voted on reform bills that require those who apply for welfare and unemployment benefits to be tested for illegal drug use. Those who test positive for illegal drug use would be denied their…

Editor’s Note: Representative Jeff Irwin contributes to the newspaper’s “House Calls” column. 52nd District State Representative Gretchen Driskell is planning to run for re-election in 2014. Over the past year, Representative Driskell…

Editor’s Note: Kathy Griswold is the Chair of The Ann Arbor Independent’s Editorial Board. THE WASHTENAW BIKING and Walking Coalition, a small local alternative transportation advocacy group, recently launched an online petition drive to…

Editor’s Note: Katherine Griswold is the Chair of The Ann Arbor Independent’s Editorial Board. WARD 1 COUNCIL member Sumi Kailasapathy conducted an email exchange this Fall with city staff, including the city’s transportation project…

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.…

Ward 1 City Council incumbent Sabra Briere has started her re-election campaign. Challenger Jeff Hayner, an Independent, is taking issue with allegations made about him in Briere's fundraising. Among those claims, Briere tells prospective…

Politicos who miss campaign finance deadlines often make headlines. How politicos handle their own campaign finances is seen as a relevant gauge to determine how honest and responsible they'll be if put in charge of taxpayer money and…

Ward 1 City Council member Sabra Briere recently voted to kill a resolution intended to protect parkland from de facto sale through leasing—a strategy being used by John Hieftje and his Council pals to try to "repurpose" a several acre…

by P.D. Lesko In Ann Arbor it's often tough to decide who's more addled, the politicos or the voters. In August of 2010 Ann Arbor County Commish Barbara Levin Bergman actually spoke in favor of hiring of sexual predators into county jobs.…