Arbor Update

Regional

Judge strips U.S. citizenship of ex-Nazi

Posted by MarkDilley on 3. March 2005

“Detroit, Michigan – A former Nazi concentration camp guard has been stripped of his U.S. citizenship and may be deported after living 56 years in the country.”

via Bombs and Shields

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Regional

A Detroit Gem, endangered

Posted by MarkDilley on 3. March 2005

“The Belle Isle Aquarium gets a 60-day reprieve. Might be essentially meaningless.”

One of the best things about Detroit is the nations first public aquarium. It costs $500,000 to maintain, and officials think it is a good idea to axe it to help defer the cities multi-million dollar deficit. Friends of Belle Isle Aquarium are trying to raise money to keep the place open.

via Detroitblog

Local

Greden's Second Budget Letter

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 1. March 2005

In his second, detailed budget letter to constituents Councilperson Leigh Greden (D – 3rd Ward) lists the City’s recent efforts to trim the budget without reducing services.

According to the Michigan Municipal League, cities and counties throughout Michigan are suffering the worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression. 70 Michigan cities are on the verge of bankruptcy. Cities including Grand Rapids, Livonia, Plymouth, Ypsilanti, and Warren are closing senior centers and swimming pools, reducing solid waste services, and laying off police officers and firefighters.

Ann Arbor has avoided such draconian cuts. Indeed, we have not eliminated any major City services despite the ongoing budget crisis. We preserved City services by downsizing the City bureaucracy and implementing cost-saving program changes. We will continue to “trim the fat� wherever possible to avoid cutbacks in programs and/or tax increases, but those options remain limited. In this message, I will outline steps the City has taken in recent years to reduce spending without eliminating any major City services.

This letter is a follow-up to his earlier city budget overview.

Comment [16]

Local

Massive Downtown ... Paint Job?

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 1. March 2005

Sunday’s Ann Arbor News front page proclaims Massive downtown complex planned. The story leads:

McKinley, a national real estate firm based in downtown Ann Arbor, is buying TCF Bank’s local headquarters and three nearby parcels, planning a new, massive complex that will change the northeast end of downtown Ann Arbor.

The changes in store include the eventual vacation of long time tenant TCF, the conversion of the first floor of the building (and some parking spots) to retail and/or restaurant space, the conversion of the TCF single story training center to a restaurant, new landscaping and a paint job on the building.

So, basically, they’re banking on the increased State & Liberty population (due to the new dorm, Corner House Lofts and the “we’re really hip, really” LoFT 322) to drive up first-floor rents to the recent heights of South State Street. But does a paint job, some landscaping and a change in tenants a “massive downtown complex” make?

Comment [3]

National

Intellectual Diversity Crisis?

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 27. February 2005

Following a survey showing only 13% of Stanford’s faculty are Republican, Aaron Swartz discovers that Republicans aren’t the only underrepresented ideologues and intellectuals at Stanford:

Scary as this is, my preliminary research has discovered some even more shocking facts. I have found that only 1% of Stanford professors believe in telepathy (defined as “communication between minds without using the traditional five senses”), compared with 36% of the general population. And less than half a percent believe “people on this earth are sometimes possessed by the devil”, compared with 49% of those outside the ivory tower. And while 25% of Americans believe in astrology (“the position of the stars and planets can affect people’s lives”), I could only find one Stanford professor who would agree. (All numbers are from mainstream polls, as reported by Sokal.)

This dreadful lack of intellectual diversity is a serious threat to our nation’s youth, who are quietly being propagandized by anti-astrology radicals instead of educated with different points of view. Were I to discover that there were no blacks on the Stanford faculty, the Politically Correct community would be all up in arms. But they have no problem squeezing out prospective faculty members whose views they disagree with.

> Intellectual Diversity at Stanford
> via BoingBoing

Comment [1]

Site Announcements

Site Malfunctions Resolved

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 27. February 2005

Last month we moved this site to a new server. Due to a relatively obscure underlying configuration difference between the old and new server, some aspects of this site were not functional (e.g., Search, “Contact Us” page, etc.). This has now been remedied.

Also, it recently came to our attention that if a commenter gave her email address when posting a comment, the site would publish the email address as a “mailto” link, which was counter to our policy of keeping email addresses of posters private. I have since reconfigured the software to prevent this. We regret this oversight.

Thank you for your patience and understanding while we resolved these technical difficulties.

Local

A2News scabs confirmed at Youngstown Vindicator

Posted by Murph on 24. February 2005

The Michigan Daily is leading today’s issue with an article on the Ann Arbor News employees serving as scabs at the Ohio paper, the Youngstown Vindicator. We previously noted a snippet from the MetroTimes on the arrangements, simply stating that they were suspected, but the Daily has more details in their lead article and today’s editorial, particularly with regards to compensation of the scabs.

From the editorial,

Management counters that the paper is losing money and cannot afford the pay increases. Its actions during the strike, however, speak otherwise. In addition to paying for private security guards, the company has lured reporters and editors to cross the union’s picket line for two-week stints by reportedly offering a per diem bonus of $75 and by paying hotel expenses and on top of an hourly rate of $20—greater than the union’s top pay scale of $17.82. Replacement workers are also allegedly being paid by their home papers for the two weeks they are away. Scabs have come from as far away as Massachusetts, New Orleans and, unfortunately, Ann Arbor.

And the article,

According to Shaulis, the Ann Arbor News staffers served two-week terms and each returned to Ann Arbor last week. They made $20 per hour and $30 per hour for overtime, including free lodging, gas mileage and a $75-per-day stipend, in addition to their salaries from their regular papers. Over half of the union workers make less than $9 per hour.

UPDATE, 1pm, 25Feb: Daily Editor-in-Chief Jason Pesick has issued a correction to the article mentioned above:

The story named four Ann Arbor News employees; however, it should not have named sports writer Antoine Pitts. There is not only scant evidence to suggest that he was in Youngstown, but there is significant evidence suggesting that he was not there.

The error in judgement was my own, not that of the reporter or any other editor. I have taken Pitts’s name off of the online version of the story.

Comment [3]

Campus

Most U-M Students from Well-off Families

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 24. February 2005

This Sunday’s AA News article, U-M aims to increase student financial aid includes statistics on the household incomes of U-M students. 55% of current U-M students come from households with incomes over $100,000/year. Over 12% (1 in 8) come from households with income in excess of $250,000. And the disparity appears to be getting worse:

The most common income level for families of freshmen entering U-M last fall was from $100,000 to $149,000, the range that applied to about 24 percent of the class. The next highest group, for about 15 percent of the freshmen, was family income of between $75,000 and $99,999. The third largest group, about 13 percent, was families with incomes of more than $250,000.

Which explains the U-M’s stated effort to do more to encourage low- to middle-income students to come to the University. Michigan’s median household income is around $45,000/year. The US median is around $43,000/year. (Stats from the US Census Bureau

Local

AK-47 Gun Shots Near Campus

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 24. February 2005

From the AA News, Police investigate gunshots, 911 calls

Several 911 calls came in at about 6:20 a.m. from residents on Wilmont and Elm streets reporting shots fired, Lt. Mark Hoornstra said.

...

Officers found a live round and shell casing in the area that appeared to be fired from an AK-47 assault rifle or similar weapon, Kinsey said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Ann Arbor Police at (734) 994-2911 or the tip line at 996-3199.

[map via Google Maps ]

Comment [4]

Regional

Michigan's Amtrak routes: ridership up 14%, funding down 100%

Posted by Murph on 24. February 2005

The Detroit News discusses this impact of President Bush’s proposed cuts to Amtrak funding, noting that (along with the rest of the Amtrak system), Michigan’s routes would cease to exist.

At several points in the article, the News implicitly contradicts the idea that Amtrak should be treated as merely a business whose only value is in making money.

The article starts with an anecdote on the role of Amtrak in providing mobility to citizens who cannot drive,

For Romanek, 74, of Westland, trips to see her kids in Chicago will end. “That’d put a real dent in my life, I think,” she said. “At my age, I’m not going to be driving by myself.”

It next mentions a ridership group of particular interest to Ann Arbor – college students in this town, East Lansing, and Kalamazoo. Students seeking to travel to Chicago or between cities served by Amtrak within Michigan would lose that option, and, in the News’ words, be left “looking for a new way to get around.” Undoubtedly, cutting the non-car options available for students to travel to and from Ann Arbor would encourage more of them to use cars to get to town, even if they only used those vehicles at the beginning and end of semesters and left them parked in between – and, of course, a student who owns a car and has it on campus can be expected to use it for local trips during the semester, even when using a car for those trips is not necessary.

Finally, the article notes an economic development incentive for passenger rail,

half [of Amtrak riders] said that if it were not for the train, they would not make the trip they were currently on. “It takes away a travel option, and more choices make cities better places to work, live and invest,” said John DeLora, executive director of the Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers

Only at the end of the article, after touching on the impact of losing Amtrak such as decreased mobility for the transit-dependent, increased ownership and use of personal cars (leading to increased traffic and parking congestion), and on Michigan’s cities in general, does the News mention the argument in favor of cutting Amtrak funding – that Amtrak should be “run like a business” and should be forced to run at a profit. Though the article does not make the final connection, it is clear that its writers consider Amtrak to have positive externalities – benefits even for non-riders – providing an economic argument in favor of public funding.

[ Image via Flickr user fallsroad ]

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