Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Protests in Lansing this week

15. March 2011 • Josh Steichmann
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Hey folks,

Don’t interpret this as a return for ArborUpdate (the once and future king of Ann Arbor), but I saw this press release sent to the group email, and wanted to post it up here:

Tuesday, March 15, protesters will begin to gather at Michigan’s Capitol in protest of Governor Rick Snyder’s Emergency Financial Manager Bill. This protest is to include a camp-in and is scheduled to run well into Wednesday. Those present are both native and non-native Michiganders who have come together through numerous Facebook groups. While spurred originally by the events in Wisconsin, it is our state’s own legislation that has resulted in this mass protest. It is the desire, the goal of many of these protesters to bring the fight in Wisconsin to our Capitol with similar numbers and just as much notice taken at local, state, and national levels. This is in response to the aforementioned bill stripping citizens of their rights, dissolving elected official, and eliminating union bargaining rights. This protest has nothing to do with political affiliation and all are welcome to join the protest.



  1. A worthy reason to bring back a breath of life into ArborUpdate.

    I do think the state has a mess on it’s hands, but I do wish that the governor’s “shared sacrifice” didn’t put most of the sacrifice on the poor. See the Michigan League for Human Services for details.

    Most of the solutions I’d like to see would require constitutional change, including:

    1. Allow a graduated income tax;
    2. Fix the Prop A/Headlee trap that local government because when property values go up, the taxes don’t, but when they go down the taxes go down and stay down.
    3. Give local jurisdictions more control over how they generate revenue. Let municipalities (with voter approval) levy local sales taxes or gas taxes.


       —Chuck Warpehoski    Mar. 15 '11 - 07:00AM    #
  2. Wow! You are back!


       —Mark Koroi    Mar. 15 '11 - 10:17AM    #
  3. I don’t agree with many of Snyder’s proposed cuts. Ideally, the system will change, but that process can take longer than the local governments have. However, the state provides substantial financial support, especially to school districts. There needs to be some structure of responsibility when local elected officials are unable to manage within the paramaters set. I had the opportunity to hear directly from Robert Bobb about some of the administrative changes he made (auditors, prosecutors, financial models), and they were common-sense, professional improvements that the school board did not have the experience to demand.

    Re. protest, U-M announced Snyder as this year’s commencement speaker today. There’s an online petition for U-M affiliates making the rounds, and as of 11:00pm, signatures were coming in at a rate of about 3 per minute. It seems odd that we’d invite someone who is planning on cutting public higher eduction funding by 15-22% to end our year.


       —Matt Hampel    Mar. 15 '11 - 04:25PM    #
  4. God I miss this place.
    That is all.


       —TeacherPatti    Mar. 15 '11 - 05:53PM    #
  5. UAW is sending buses, info on http://www.michaelmoore.com/


       —Scott T.    Mar. 15 '11 - 07:00PM    #
  6. Sen.Joe Hune of Hamburg Township and other GOP members of the Michigan Senate have expressed opposition to taxation of pensions.

    Gov. Snyder cannot pass his budget as long as a sufficient number of Republican senators oppose such proposed taxation.


       —Mark Koroi    Mar. 15 '11 - 09:25PM    #
  7. Good story.


       —Mark Koroi    Mar. 15 '11 - 10:08PM    #
  8. Check out Ari Paul’s Al Jazeera editorial –

    http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/20113993351529356.html

    Nice to see ArborUpdate dusted off!


       —MarkDilley    Mar. 15 '11 - 10:55PM    #

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