The Center for Michigan’s 2012 Michigan Scorecard, compiled in partnership with Data Driven Detroit, shows there’s still plenty of reinventing to do.

Although Michigan’s economy has performed a U-turn from a decade of job losses, most other measures on the scorecard show the state is essentially running in place.

Of the 28 areas assessed in the scorecard, five showed improvement, five went backward and 17 experienced no change. Another category, environment, is being reviewed under a standard this year than was used in the 2010 scorecard.

“It’s no surprise that results would be mixed, especially when you consider that Michigan is still overcoming the fiscal and economic challenges of the past decade,” said Snyder administration spokesman Ken Silfven. “That’s reflected on the state’s own dashboard as well.”

“The Michigan Scorecard benchmarks the state’s performance on measures citizens deem most important for the state’s transformation to a new era of prosperity,” said John Bebow, the center’s president and CEO.

Those benchmarks encompass three broad areas:

* Talent and education;

* The economy and quality of life;

* Effective, efficient and accountable government.

Statistics used in the ranking come from the latest available public data, as of January.

Economy rebounding

If there’s one area where life is getting better for Michigan residents, it’s the economy. Employment, personal income and exports all have improved since the last scorecard in 2010.

Personal income and employment jumped from “poor” in 2008 and 2010 to “average” in this year’s assessment. And data released since the scorecard was compiled has shown the momentum is continuing.

Michigan per capita income rose 5.2 percent last year, slightly above the national average of 5.1 percent. That was the fifth-fastest increase among the states.

But Michigan’s per capita income of $36,533 last year still was only the 36th highest in the country. Michigan ranked 19th in per capita income as recently as 2000.

Update: Michigan has added about 160,000 payroll jobs since the state economy hit bottom in December 2009. That’s mostly a result of a recovery by the auto industry and the broader manufacturing sector. Still, the state is down about 700,000 jobs from its May 2000 high of nearly 4.7 million payroll jobs.

Alabama and Michigan tied for having the biggest unemployment rate drop in the nation, with each state posting a 2 percentage-point decline between March 2011 and this past March.

Update: Michigan’s unemployment rate has fallen from a recent high of 14.2 percent in August 2009 to 8.3 percent in April. But the April jobless rate still is substantially higher than it was throughout most of 1990s, prior to what some called Michigan’s “lost decade” of economic decline.

“The glass is getting fuller, but it still has a lot of emptiness,” said Michigan State University economist Charles Ballard, an expert on the state economy.

State slips on ‘knowledge’ front

Michigan, though, has slipped in the scorecard’s measure of economic transformation, falling to “average” from “good” in 2010 and 2008.

The downgrade was due mainly to a sharp drop in knowledge economy employment.

Michigan still ranks 12th among the states in the number of knowledge-economy businesses — and the jobs they create. But Michigan is not keeping pace on creating more such jobs.

Knowledge jobs fell 5 percent between 2008 and 2010, the latest period available, plunging Michiganto a “growth” ranking of 47th nationally.

Michigan’s economy is still heavily dependent on doing what it has done for more than a century — making things. A study released this month by the Washington, D.C.,-based Brookings Institution found that since 2010, Metro Detroit had the second-highest percentage increase in manufacturing jobs of any metro area in the country.

Snyder’s focus on boosting Michigan’s economy has centered on restructuring the tax code, in part by giving businesses a $1.7 billion tax cut.

The state’s business tax climate ranks 18th this year, down from 17th in 2010, according to the Tax Foundation. But the ranking does not reflect the switch from the Michigan Business Tax to a 6 percent corporate income tax, which took effect in January.

the Tax Foundation lauded the MBT repeal and said the switch to the simplified corporate income tax will improveMichigan’s ranking next year.

Poverty rate climbs

Despite the state’s economic recovery, Michigan has made no progress in alleviating poverty, according to the scorecard.

Overall, the percentage of Michigan residents living in poverty jumped from 13.5 percent in 2006 to 16.8 percent in 2010. No Great Lakes state had a higher proportion of its residents living in poverty.

Although it doesn’t exactly qualify as good news, 33 states had faster rates in the growth of poverty than Michigan between 2009 and 2010.

Higher education becomes flashpoint

Major concerns remain about the state’s ability to attract talent and educate its citizenry for a more complex, technologically advanced economy revealed in the scorecard.

Michigan gets “poor” grades in K-12 investment, student performance, higher education investment, college affordability and college graduation rates.

Those grades roughly track with the Snyder administration’s dashboard indicators of progress in education.

“We’re not vaulting to the head of the class in terms of our educational outcomes,” MSU’s Ballard said. “That’s a concern for the long run.”

Snyder and the Legislature took $1 billion from the School Aid Fund last year to fund higher education, drawing sharp criticism from local school districts.

Business Leaders for Michigan, a group of the state’s top business and university leaders, is calling for a greater investment in higher education. Currently, the state spends $1.1 billion a year on its universities, compared to $2.5 billion by North Carolina.

“Our state cannot afford to continue to continue its recent trend of declining investment in the talent pool of tomorrow,” Domino’s Pizza CEO J. Patrick Doyle said at a recent BLM conference on higher education, according to the Associated Press.

“Michigan faces a very real shortage (by 2025) of nearly 1 million workers with a two-year degree or better, so we need to think about educating and developing our workforce,” Doyle said.

But allocating significantly more money for higher education is likely to be a tough sell in the Republican-controlled Legislature, where many lawmakers view the universities as wealthy, free-spending institutions.

The ‘good,’ the ‘poor’ and otherwise

The scorecard assigned “good” grades to high school completion rates, research and development, exports, the percentage of residents owning a home, philanthropy, the environment, government efficiency and voter participation.

Among the 14 areas rated “poor” were availability of venture capital, population growth, public safety, arts and culture, infrastructure and political leadership.

The political leadership grade reflects low job approval ratings for Snyder and the Legislature.

Snyder started his term in 2011 with relatively strong ratings; 44.5 percent rated his job performance as good or excellent in MSU’s State of the State survey.

But by fall of last year, Snyder’s approval rating had slipped to 19 percent, about where former Gov. Jennifer Granholm stood near the end of her term in 2010.

Ballard, who leads the MSU survey, attributed Snyder’s poor rating to frequent attack ads being run against him by Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel Moroun and Snyder’s unpopular first budget, which extended the personal income tax to pensions.

And in the latest survey, released Wednesday after the Scorecard had been compiled, the percentage of voters rating Snyder’s work as good or excellent had climbed back to 33 percent.

The Legislature had a 48 percent disapproval rating in the Marketing Resource Group’s Mood of the Michigan Electorate poll in 2011. In February 2012, Publlic Policy Polling found that only 20 percent of voters approved of Republicans in the Legislature, while 36 percent approved of the Democrats.

Even with the political numbers, Silfven said the center’s Michigan Scorecard provides valuable information to guide policy-makers and citizens for the future.

“These types of measurements are helpful in gauging how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go,” he said. “We know the work that still lies ahead. So it’s up to all of us — policy-makers and stakeholders — to rise to the challenge.”

Rick Haglund has had a distinguished career covering Michigan business, economics and government at newspapers throughout the state. Most recently, at Booth Newspapers he wrote a statewide business column and was one of only three such columnists in Michigan. He also covered the auto industry and Michigan’s economy extensively.

The 2012 Michigan Scorecard ranked exporting as “good,” up from “average” in 2010.

But the state’s performance in selling Michigan-made goods around the world has improved even more since the 2012 Scorecard data was compiled.

Michigan exports of goods last year totaled $50.8 billion, a 55 percent increase since 2009, when the future of the state’s auto industry was in doubt.

State exports grew from $32.7 billion in 2009 to $44.8 billion in 2011, years measured in the 2012 Scorecard.

Michigan was the seventh-largest exporting state in 2010, but slipped to eighth last year. Louisiana jumped to seventh place as oil exports recovered from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The majority of Michigan’s exports last year were cars, trucks and motor vehicle parts. But experts say the Great Recession forced many smaller companies to look for new global markets.

A total of 11,210 Michigan companies — 10,169 of them small businesses — were engaged in exporting in 2009, the latest available data from the U.S. Commerce Department.

“Companies realized in the downturn that they don’t have much choice anymore but to export,” said Patrick McRae, director of international programs at the Prima Civitas Foundation in Lansing.

Exporting supported 6.2 percent of all Michigan jobs in 2009 and 26.9 percent of all manufacturing jobs in the state, according to the latest Commerce Department figures.

Michigan’s agricultural exports grew from $1.18 billion in 2006 to $1.75 billion in 2010, a 48 percent increase, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Michigan is the nation’s 25th largest agricultural exporter.

Demand for Michigan soybeans and other commodities is likely to grow as the economies of China and other developing countries expand.

“The world is hungry,” said Jim Byrum, president of the Michigan Agri-Business Association “We will see new markets develop for Michigan producers.”

McRae, a former U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service officer, said Michigan is benefiting from a renewed focus by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. on helping smaller companies export.

“The MEDC completely rebuilt its export promotion department,” he said. “They’re providing assistance in conjunction with the U.S. Export Assistance Centers” in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Pontiac and Ypsilanti.

But more awareness of those services is needed by small businesses that want to start exporting, according to a recent Michigan State University survey of 66 companies in several economically distressed, Northern Michigan communities.

The survey found that 73 percent of those companies were unaware of federal agencies providing free and low-cost exporting services.

“If companies knew about these resources and used them, it would make a big difference,” said J.D. Snyder, a researcher in MSU’s Center for Community and Economic Development.

The survey also found that 90 percent of those companies want to export more of their goods and services.

MSU created the International Business Center in its Broad Graduate School of Management in 2010 to help Michigan businesses get started in exporting. It has provided assistance to about 50 companies.

Rick Haglund has had a distinguished career covering Michigan business, economics and government at newspapers throughout the state. Most recently, at Booth Newspapers he wrote a statewide business column and was one of only three such columnists in Michigan. He also covered the auto industry and Michigan’s economy extensively.

Michigan’s economy bottomed out near the end of 2009, and employment and incomes have been creeping upward ever since.

But so has poverty.

The share of Michigan residents living in poverty jumped from 13.5 percent in 2009 to 16.8 percent in 2010, the latest available Census Bureau data.

Michigan had a higher poverty rate that year than any of the surrounding Great Lakes states. The state’s poverty rate in 2010 was the highest since 1984.

“Here, as elsewhere, when we say the economy is recovering from the recession, that recovery is not spread evenly, said Charles Ballard, a Michigan State University economist. “People at the bottom are not doing very well.”

Michigan’s efforts to reduce poverty were rated “poor” by the 2012 Michigan Scorecard, as they were in 2010 and 2008.

Contrary to the popular notion that poor people are sitting at home collecting welfare checks, 41 percent of those living in poverty worked during 2010, according to the Michigan League for Human Services. And many more could not find jobs in a weak economy.

Child poverty is particularly alarming. Nearly a quarter of all children in the state were living in poverty in 2010.

More than 31,000 children are homeless and more than 700,000 are receiving food assistance, according to a December report on poverty by the Michigan League for Human Services.

Child poverty has touched every region of the state. Oakland, long the state’s wealthiest county, saw its child poverty rate jump by more than 50 percent between 2006 and 2010, according to census data compiled by the League.

At the same time, the state has cut assistance to the poor.

Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation in September that enforced a strict, 48-month limit on cash assistance benefits.

“We are returning cash assistance to its original intent as a transitional program to help families while they work toward self-sufficiency and also preserving our state’s integral safety net for families most in need,” Snyder said in signing the bill. “Affected recipients are able-bodied and have had at least four — some as long as 14 or more — years to transition to independence.”

Bridge Magazine reported earlier this year that as many as 16,000 families already have reached the 48-month cap and have been kicked off welfare. An estimated additional 7,130 families will be dropped from cash assistance in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

Snyder and the Republican-controlled Legislature also cut the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit — seen by many as an effective poverty-fighting tool — from 20 percent of the federal credit to 6 percent this year.

And Snyder signed legislation last year that cuts payment of unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks, the shortest benefit period of any state in the country.

Last year the state said those with vehicles valued at more than $15,000 could not receive food stamps. But it later reversed the decision, exempting one vehicle per family from the restriction so that food stamp applicants could get to work, school and job interviews.

Still, “much of the social safety net has been reduced,” Ballard said.

Republicans said the state’s previous welfare and unemployment benefits were too costly and served as a disincentive for those receiving them to work.

But advocates for the poor say the new standards are punitive and are actually slowingMichigan’s economic recovery.

“Poverty has a huge impact on the ability of Michigan’s economy to recover,” Melissa Smith, the Michigan League’s senior policy analyst. wrote in the December poverty report. “When people have less disposable income, consumer spending goes down, forcing businesses to lay off workers or shut down entirely.

“This means less revenue for the state as incomes decrease and the tax base shrinks,” she wrote.

Rick Haglund has had a distinguished career covering Michigan business, economics and government at newspapers throughout the state. Most recently, at Booth Newspapers he wrote a statewide business column and was one of only three such columnists in Michigan. He also covered the auto industry and Michigan’s economy extensively.

The state’s highly successful Pure Michigan tourism advertising campaign showcases many of them, including the Great Lakes, forests, rivers and the rugged beauty of the Upper Peninsula.

But just how well are we caring for those irreplaceable resources?

Using as the basis of its review a in-depth state report, the 2012 Michigan Scorecard has evaluated environmental protection and ranked the state’s stewardship of its resources as “good.”

The ranking is based on “The State of Michigan’s Environment 2011” a comprehensive, 82-page report that assesses the condition of wildlife populations, water quality, forests and other natural resources.

It also addresses the threats from pollution, invasive species and other environmental hazards. The report is required by the Legislature to be published every three years by the Departments of Natural Resources and Environmental Quality.

“The idea is that by documenting changes in environmental indicators like animal and fish populations, state forests, land cover, air quality and surface water, we can identify trends and craft policies to ensure that our natural treasures remain intact for our kids, their kids and beyond,” Gov. Rick Snyder said in the report’s introduction.

Air quality in the state has seen a “marked improvement” over the past 40 years, the report said. But with advances in air quality science leading to more stringent standards, challenges remain.

Michigan is replenishing its forests, with forested acres at the highest level since the 1930s. Prior to that time, forests were devastated by over-cutting and fire.

“The state will never again see the vast forest acreages or the old-growth forests that once were present,” the report said. “However, recent inventory data indicate the state’s forests have been steadily recovering over the past century.”

Toxic chemical releases and the amount of Canadian trash entering Michigan are both down, while the number of corrective actions at hazardous waste sites is up.

Many wildlife populations, including bear, wolf, eagle and moose, have grown considerably in recent years.

Fish populations are mixed, though, depending on species and location, and mercury levels in fish remain high.

Invasive aquatic species also are a continuing threat to the Great Lakes. More than 160 exotic specifies were introduced to the Great Lakes between 1980 and 1999, mostly from ballast water released from ocean-going cargo ships.

The report does not specifically mention Asian carp, which have yet to reach the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River system. But the species is regarded as one of the most serious threats to the Great Lakes ecosystem in decades.

Under pressure from Michigan’s congressional delegation and others, the federal government said this month that it would step up efforts to keep the carp from entering Lake Michigan through Chicago’s waterways.

James Clift, policy director at the Michigan Environmental Council, said he generally agreed with the findings in the state’s environmental report card.

But he said there are a number of concerns not adequately addressed in the report, including cleanups of “legacy” industrial sites, nutrient runoffs into the Great Lakes and disease-causing funguses, viruses and invasive insects entering the environment.

“I think what the report misses most is the lack of progress in tackling legacy problems,” he said. “We’re finding as many new contaminated areas as we cleaning up old ones.”

A recent Bridge Magazine analysis reported that Michigan has 9,100 leaking underground storage tanks, but little money to clean them up.

Clift said he concurs with the scorecard’s “good” ranking on the environment, but with reservations.

“I would say good, but at risk,” he said. “If we don’t take steps to fix some of these problems, we’re going to lose this ranking.”

Rick Haglund has had a distinguished career covering Michigan business, economics and government at newspapers throughout the state. Most recently, at Booth Newspapers he wrote a statewide business column and was one of only three such columnists in Michigan. He also covered the auto industry and Michigan’s economy extensively.

“Our infrastructure is in terrible shape,” said Michael Nystrom, executive vice president of the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association, a trade group.

“There is a unanimous recognition of the need among elected officials,” he added. “But no one can really figure out where we go in finding solutions.”

Michigan has the second-worst roads and bridges in the nation, second only to Pennsylvania, according to the most recent data available and compiled for the 2012 Michigan Scorecard.

Thirty-seven percent of the state’s roads are in poor condition and 30 percent of Michigan’s bridges are structurally deficient, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Keeping transportation funding at current levels would result in 65 percent of the state’s roads falling into poor condition by 2018, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Michigan’ transportation infrastructure was given a “poor” rating this year by the scorecard, which also graded infrastructure as “poor” in 2010 and 2008.

A statewide survey released in March by the Michigan Environmental Council found that 87 percent of Michigan residents think the state’s roads are in fair or poor condition. Sixty-four percent of those polled said they would pay more to fix and improve the state’s transportation infrastructure.

In a special message on infrastructure last fall, Gov. Rick Snyder proposed spending an additional $1.4 billion a year to fix roads and bridges.

“Michigan’s infrastructure is living on borrowed time,” he said. “We must reinvest in it if we are to successfully reinvent our economy.”

Snyder proposed raising the additional money by replacing the state’s 19-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax with a wholesale tax on fuel and raising the vehicle registration fee by $120 a year.

Although bills have been introduced to do just that, they are going nowhere in a Republican-controlled Legislature loathe to raise taxes.

Some critics of the funding plan, including the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, say the state should first reprioritize funding, such as eliminating subsidies for city bus systems.

But the politically powerful Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which generally opposes tax increases, supports Snyder’s plan.

“The quality of a state’s transportation system has a major impact on economic growth and Michiganmust make the smart investments to reinvent Michigan,” Chamber President Rich Studley said last fall. “Doing nothing is not an option.”

But Nystrom said he doesn’t see any action happening this year because of the November election to select a new House of Representatives. Raising taxes in an election year is all but unthinkable.

Lawmakers also dealt Snyder a blow last year when they refused to approve a new bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor. Canada had offered to pay for Michigan’s $550 million share of the bridge cost, which Snyder said could be used as Michigan’s match for additional federal highway funding.

Nystrom said the introduction of funding bills in the Legislature is at least a start toward addressing the state’s needs for repairing roads and bridges.

“Some momentum is building,” he said. “The leadership knows something needs to be done. The introduction of bills opens dialogue and debate.”

Rick Haglund has had a distinguished career covering Michigan business, economics and government at newspapers throughout the state. Most recently, at Booth Newspapers he wrote a statewide business column and was one of only three such columnists in Michigan. He also covered the auto industry and Michigan’s economy extensively.

Municipal employees pick up your trash, sweep your neighborhood street, collect your ballot on Election Day, assess your house, inspect that the new water heater was installed correctly and park a patrol car in your kid’s school zone to keep traffic speeds in check.

If you renew your vehicle registration by mail, keep under 80 mph on the interstate and don’t visit a Michigan state park, you are unlikely to encounter a state employee. State government is an abstraction to some; a waste or a critical safety net provider to others.

What it has proven not to be is a reliable partner. Be it revenue sharing, road funding, even fire protection for major state-owned facilities, the state government, during a decade of plummeting local property values, has reneged.

Gov. Rick Snyder’s 2013 budget departs little from past practice in recommending that cities, villages and townships receive $361 million in statutory revenue sharing, instead of the $1 billion the law calls for. Municipalities received $3 million less in PA 51 street funding — $326 million — in FY 2011 than they did in 2001 because lawmakers have refused to consider raising gas taxes and registration fees.

Though there is widespread agreement that the personal property tax is difficult to administer and that its application on industrial equipment makes the state less competitive with its neighbors, the question always has been how seriously lawmakers would handle the revenue loss side of the equation.

Cutting taxes is easy; paying for them is hard. Two decades ago, eliminating the property tax as a primary revenue source for K-12 schools required a year of negotiation and two statewide elections to secure legislative and voter approval for the replacement revenue.

The PPT reduction package wipes out the tax on commercial and industrial equipment with a taxable value of less than $40,000. It creates a new category of manufacturing equipment that will be exempt from all PPT effective in 2016. But, as it cleared Senate Finance Committee on May 2, it contained few assurances that local governments would be reimbursed for the revenue loss.

Faced with complaints from angry mayors across the state, Senate Republicans short of votes for passage were forced to tighten it up.

Lost personal property tax revenue that exceeds 2 percent of a local unit’s total “general fund” would be eligible for reimbursement by the state. PPT revenue loss that’s less than 2 percent of a local’s general fund revenue would not be replaced by the state. That’s better than the introduced version and it means that more local units would qualify for cash back. How much back remains unclear. Before lawmakers take another vote, it only makes sense that the specific impact of the plan on each community be available. That wasn’t the case during Senate deliberations.

Whatever the reimbursement, municipal budgets would take an overall operating revenue haircut of as much as 2 percent. Now a growing economy would ordinarily help offset local revenue loss from the business tax cut, but Proposal A’s constitutional cap will restrain real property tax collection growth for years to come.

As amended on the Senate floor, reimbursement would begin in 2013, instead of 2016. Mindful of last year’s big shift in tax burden from Michigan business taxpayers to individual personal income tax filers, stronger guarantees are in place to prevent automatic increases in local debt millages on homeowners to compensate for reduced PPT collections.

That’s if the package delivers on its assumption the state will annually reimburse local units. The overhaul still neither earmarks where the money to fill that fund would come from and, like any law, lacks the authority to dictate to a future Legislature that money be appropriated towards it.

Legislative intent language identifies expiring alternative energy and other business tax credits as a revenue source for the Department of Treasury’s new PPT reimbursement fund. Treasury calculates the value of those expiring credits to be $137 million in FY 2016, of which $57 million would be needed to pay the locals. But that $137 million, which is estimated to balloon to more than $300 million by FY 2020, represents additional revenue to state coffers, not the expiration of an existing appropriation. An economic downturn that depresses overall business tax collection means the additional money wouldn’t necessarily exist at all.

The so-called “poison pill” amendment added on the Senate floor does present future lawmakers a painful choice. They can fulfill the obligations made by the 96th Legislature to local governments. Or they can anger every small business in the state with a reinstatement of the personal property tax and the administrative headache that would entail. Once you pull a tax out by the roots as the Legislature did with the MBT, and would be the case with the PPT for most firms, it’s pretty tough to replant it.

So a third alternative for, say, the 99th Legislature, would be to simply excise that poison pill, 31 words, out of the law. Problem solved. Excuse municipal officials when they say they’ve seen that movie before.

Peter Luke was a Lansing correspondent for Booth Newspapers for nearly 25 years, writing a weekly column for most of that time with a concentration on budget, tax and economic development policy issues. He is a graduate of Central Michigan University.

* Here’s a thorny one: Some Great Lakes shoreline property owners want to be able to groom the section of beach between the water’s edge and the ordinary high water mark without first getting state AND federal approval. Advocates argue that this would help combat invasive species. The state DEQ and environmental groups fear that a change in the approval process would limit public access. The Michigan Senate is considering legislation:

http://record-eagle.com/statenews/x610438375/Group-pushes-beach-grooming-law

* A lesson in reading beyond the headlines. The Detroit Free Press reports on a state audit of the Bureau of Elections that more than 1,000 dead people have been voting in Michigan, not to mention 100 prisoners. Republicans have been pushing for tighter rules on getting a ballot in Michigan. Please note, though, “A total of 1,236 of the recorded votes, or 90%, were by absentee ballots, while 145, or 10%, were cast in person, according to the audited records.” So, assuming the audit is correct, is the problem a matter of Election Day plotting? And is anyone really going to get tough on absentee ballots — the ones routinely used by grandma and grandpa? Believe it when you see it:

http://www.freep.com/article/20120515/NEWS06/120515017/-1/7daysarchives/Dead-people-prisoners-casting-ballots-Michigan

* Michigan’s marriage rate of 5.5 per 1,000 people in 2010 places the state on the low end of the marriage spectrum. Michigan’s marriage rate was 8.2 per 1,000 back in 1990. The decline mirrors a national trend. Michigan’s divorce rate in 2010 was 3.5 for every 1,000 people, putting it in the bottom 20 for divorces, as well:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/map_of_the_week/2012/05/marriage_rates_nevada_and_hawaii_have_the_highest_marriage_rates_in_the_u_s_.html

* Bridge Magazine’s recent coverage of how high schools prepare teens for college has prompted a great deal of commentary over the responsibilities of schools, students and parents. For those who argue that students might not be stepping up, the following link may put your teeth on edge:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Case-for-Breaking-Up-With/131760/

* The summer driving season approach-eth, and gas prices already have flirted with the $4 mark in Michigan this spring. But, in pursuit of a more robust, honest debate about energy policy, it’s important to consider the economics behind gas prices and oil exploration. The major point in this link: A surge in domestic U.S. oil production will not turn the tide on gasoline prices. Why? Well, everyone wants — and uses — oil:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/05/10/domestic_oil_production_is_irrelevant_to_oil_prices.html

* We in the media know we have a bit of an image problem with the public. But there’s a reason that freedom of the press  and a healthy press are so essentially to the maintenance of a democratic republic. Ask yourself: If a media outlet (in this case, the Chicago Tribune) had not put in this effort to tell us about the rather grim truth behind the “science” and the politics of flame retardants, who would have?:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/flames/ct-met-flame-retardants-20120506,0,3214816,full.story

Our state’s leaders must stop dithering and approve the regional transit authority bills (Senate Bills 909, 911-912) before the Michigan Legislature. An RTA matters for the entire state.

It would control transit tax expenditures in Southeast Michigan, cut duplicative service, force efficiencies and offer a higher level of transit service. It does not raise taxes one cent.

Old animosities that persist today have hindered progress in unifying our region and state for far too many decades. The current RTA legislation is the 24th attempt.

Timothy R. Fischer is deputy policy director with the Michigan Environmental Council.

It has — so far — avoided a long history of pitfalls, and it includes necessary compromises in order to get regional leaders on board. It is a huge step in the right direction. Its benefits far exceed its shortcomings.

In short, an RTA would create the framework for a more streamlined and effective transit network. It’s the type of framework that enables places such as Chicago, Denver, Washington, D.C., and almost every other city which beckons our daughters and sons to construct and operate comprehensive transit services.

These services get workers to jobs and shoppers to stores. They foster economic corridors that many Michigan developers are hungry to build. An RTA will force transit providers to coordinate service, cutting out existing duplication. It will force transit agencies to plan, and to plan together, to receive money.  This will lead to a higher level of coordinated transit service.

The legislative proposal includes rapid transit routes. These express routes would connect the residential suburbs to Detroit’s commercial and recreational districts. This rapid transit technology is best described as trains on tires. The advance ticket purchasing, comfortable seating, safe stations, and dedicated travel lanes are similar to train travel at a considerably lower cost.

Michele Hodges is president of the Troy Chamber of Commerce.

An RTA will ensure that our tax money headed toward public transit is used much more efficiently than today — with less waste and duplication. It is common today to see a SMART bus and a DDOT bus driving down Woodward Avenue in Detroit together.

And each might be half full.

That’s not the best way to do business. However, existing law prohibits SMART from picking up passengers along most of Woodward Avenue in the city. The RTA legislation provides a fix.

If the RTA bills don’t pass, the transit agencies will still receive money — they will just not have the incentive to use it more wisely and efficiently. The RTA forces these efficiencies.

Again, these bills do not increase taxes one cent. They put the power to raise money in local hands. Taxpayers in the four counties and Detroit– not Lansing politicians — will decide whether they want to raise revenue locally to pay for public transportation upgrades.

Please urge your state legislators to vote yes on SB 909, 911-912.

“This is the center of the farm,” he said, gazing over the corner of Warren and Grandy on Detroit’s near east side at a vacant lot waving with overgrown grass on a windy spring day. Not long ago, it was where Northeastern High School stood. Today, it’s ground zero in an agreement Wozniak hopes to make with Detroit Public Schools and the city to convert it to one of the city’s most ambitious urban agriculture projects — one that will eventually encompass everything from organic fruits and vegetables to an indoor tilapia farm in an abandoned municipal garage.

Yep, you read it. Fish, farmed, in a garage, in Detroit.

Wanna see more?

Hops growing on trellises surrounding an abandoned factory? Sure.

Plastic-wrapped hoop houses yielding fresh spinach in the midst of a Michigan winter? Why not?

And all of it to be run by recovering addicts — providing stability, job training and income, in a self-sustaining model.

“The farming is really a small piece of the pie,” said Wozniak. “I’m really interested in food-system development.” That is, creating new, shorter lines between where food is grown and where it’s consumed, mitigating such related headaches as pollution and poor nutrition.

It’s almost insanely ambitious, but the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation of Bloomfield Hills recently announced a four-year, $1 million grant to RecoveryPark, the umbrella  organization for Wozniak’s plan. RecoveryPark is, technically, a redevelopment project, but what a redevelopment.

In a three-square-mile piece of one of the city’s most abandoned neighborhoods, Wozniak proposes taking it more or less full circle, bringing back not just farming, but 19th-century farming – labor-intensive, small parcels, minimal processing. Not giant combines and acres of soybeans, but food, healthy food, for people.

“This has really made me see the ‘power of we’ like never before,” Wozniak said.

Raising opportunities with the food

“Power of we” is a phrase from the recovery movement, something Wozniak knows well, having flushed his young adulthood away with cocaine and found his way back as an addiction counselor; he ran SHAR, Self Help Addiction Rehabilitation, an intensive residential treatment program for addicts, for many years. Rehab is a trail fraught with setbacks, and one of the biggest obstacles is finding meaningful work for clients, many of whom have other problems as thorny as their drug use.

“Most of them are over 40, they’re felons, functionally illiterate,” Wozniak said. “They’re not easy to place.”

But given the right structure, they could work in an environment with their peers, a type of sheltered workshop where they’d gain skills, new habits and produce something in demand in and out of the city. Wozniak wants to make them farmhands in the RecoveryPark urban agriculture experiment; he expects it to provide 15 to 17 jobs per acre, with 20-30 acres planted, winding through the RecoveryPark footprint “like an amoeba.” It will wind around and through the sparse remaining housing and few commercial buildings still left, making an unprecedented cityscape in the modern United States.

When Wozniak first proposed his idea to his board in 2008, “they wanted to drop me (to take) a urine test.” But perhaps because so few of the urban revitalization strategies imagined for Detroit over the years have come to anything — and perhaps because the local-food movement has come on strong across the country — the idea of converting the city’s vast open spaces into productive farmland doesn’t seem so crazy now.

“The city has land, buildings and water infrastructure,” said Wozniak, adding it also has a ready supply of unskilled, unemployed residents in need of job training.

It does have some policy hurdles to overcome, however. While the city abounds in gardens and truck patches — a glance around the Eastern Market on a Saturday reveals many sellers of Detroit-grown produce — it doesn’t have an ordinance regulating urban agriculture. Yet.

The term itself is undefined, said Kathryn Lynch Underwood, city planner. An urban agriculture work group recently drew up, after input from stakeholders across the board, a draft ordinance that will “legalize what’s already happening,” she said.

The problem has been that local ordinances are trumped by Michigan’s right-to-farm law, which was written to protect existing farms from nuisance suits filed by those living in encroaching suburbia. Urban agriculture hadn’t yet appeared on the radar when the bill was written in 1981. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is working on an exemption for larger cities’ urban-agriculture plans, which has given the work group the confidence it can move forward.

Underwood also is confident the city ordinance, once it passes the Detroit City Council (in early fall 2012, she hopes) will give the city’s farmers solid legal footing for next year’s growing season.

Wonder where the fish are

Wozniak’s ideas really take off when he visits the abandoned municipal maintenance garage near the Eastern Market where he plans his fish farm. The graffiti-covered walls? They’ll be preserving those, with a coat of polyurethane. The roof? Not a problem — fish don’t really like light, anyway. The tanks? Made from fiberglass, 13 feet high, each holding 35,000 fish, with a goal of 5 million pounds of fresh tilapia (a mild freshwater fish widely farmed around the world) to be sold throughout the region. The fish farm would be a joint venture with an Ohio company looking to expand in the Michigan market.

The product, he said, would be a fresher, healthier alternative to the frozen tilapia found in many grocery stores, much of it produced in Asia under conditions that landed it on the “avoid” list of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.  And the revenue would underwrite the rest of the farming operation, perhaps even encourage food-product entrepreneurs — such as makers of small-batch cheeses and salsas — in an incubator.

John Erb, president of the foundation that is seeding the farming operation, said the plan dovetails with the foundation’s interest in Great Lakes water quality.

“We don’t see urban agriculture as curing all the needs Detroit has, but it’s an added benefit to Detroit, or whatever community (where it’s practiced),” Erb said. “It’s ridiculous that lettuce is grown in California and shipped cross-country. You can grow lettuce here 10 months out of the year, and don’t have to have such a carbon footprint.”

Dan Carmody, president of Eastern Market Corp., is interested in seeing how the plans work out.

“It’s a big vision that breaks down into component parts. What I like about Gary is, if all the parts don’t work, some do,” he said.

In the 19th century in this country, farm-hand work was a traditional trade for the unlettered and semi-skilled. In a way, RecoveryPark brings this neighborhood full circle, to a time before the industrial age transformed Southeast Michigan.

“The fish don’t care if you can’t read or write,” he said. “The fish don’t care if you have felonies.”

Staff Writer Nancy Nall Derringer has been a writer, editor and teacher in Metro Detroit for seven years, and was a co-founder and editor of GrossePointeToday.com, an early experiment in hyperlocal journalism. Before that, she worked for 20 years in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she won numerous state and national awards for her work as a columnist for The News-Sentinel.

Dr. Hayg Oshagan, a professor at Wayne State University, looked at the outlets and had a vision:

What would happen if they were brought together?

So, in 2005, he met with editors from the News, Press and Chronicle — and the Korean Weekly and the Arab American News. These five papers have a combined circulation of more than 130,000, and a readership reach above 400,000. And while circulation declines have bedeviled the mainstream newspaper world — a 30 percent drop nationally between 1990 and 2010 — some of the these properties (Arab American News, Latino Press) are showing surprising resilience in their subscriber ranks.

Together, they are now New Michigan Media.

Oshagan’s goal was to make issues and concerns of ethnic and minority communities more visible to the surrounding community — to make minority communities more visible to one another and to promote their contributions to the region.

“Minority interests have been largely ignored by mainstream media,” said Oshagan. “The collaboration aims to change the existing narrative by bringing to light issues as a group — and making people see the economic, social, moral argument of immigration to this nation and region.”

Oshagan is not the only Michiganian thinking about immigration. However, Oshagan and the editors at each of the papers want to offer a new narrative, a new way to think about immigration.

“This country is made up of immigrants and the face of American is changing,” said Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News. “It is not just a melting pot; it is more like a salad bowl with each person having their own characteristics mixing with others.”

And the newcomers inevitably will play a major role in their communities. Almost one-third of current population growth in the U.S. is due to immigration, the Census Bureau reports. Further, the bureau projects that almost all population growth by mid-century may be tied to the effects of immigration.

“We need to make sure that people understand the economic opportunities that come with immigrants,” said Arthur Horwitz, the publisher of The Jewish News, “who, by the very nature of leaving a place and coming to a new place are entrepreneurs, are risk-takers.”

Oshagan said NMM is on the forefront of this effort, in part, with stories focused on success.

The faces of entrepreneurship

Latina business owner Maria Marin-McInturf is one of the many entrepreneurs featured on NMM’s website. Born in Nicarauga, Marin-McInturf moved to the United States in 1984 with a goal and a dream: to work hard and become successful. With a passion for the environment and a desire to make a difference, she founded Unlimited Recycling.

Marin-McInturf, who started her business 13 years ago as a solo operation, now employs a staff of seven. She said immigrants bring to this country passion and a hard work ethic.

“We know that we have to work hard to succeed, said Marin-McInturf. “We are thankful for what we have, and do not take anything for granted. We work hard to learn the (English) language, the (American) culture, and to be who we are.”

Marin-McInturf’s story may never make the front page of the New York Times, but, through NMM, her story is heard.

Oshagan wanted NMM to not only make others aware of immigrants’ contributions, but make themselves aware of each other.

“A great deal of business comes from the minority community,” said Oshagan. “For instance, there are 15,000 Asian businesses in Michigan; there are 10,000 Latino businesses in Michigan; the Arab-American community brings in $600 million each year in tax revenue for the state.”

Siblani agrees and cites Dearborn as a model of immigrant success.

Osama Siblani

“Almost every city (in Michigan) has lost population except for Dearborn, which has increased,” said Siblani. The reason, he said, is because immigrants not only live there, but have revitalized it. The business district that once suffered from neglect is now vibrant with restaurants, offices and shops. 

“Dearborn is hustling and bustling,” he said. “Today, you cannot find a place to rent. It is very expensive to rent there because of what immigrants have done. They have injected new blood into the area. There is a misperception that immigrants come in and take jobs.  That is not true. They come and offer jobs.”

Publishers as advocates

In addition to featuring stories on entrepreneurial success, each NMM publisher is trying to be an advocate in their respective communities. Arthur Horwitz, publisher of the Jewish News said, “Editors in ethnic minority media are like unelected mayors in their community. They are people who live and are known in their communities, and people turn to them in difficult situations.”

Elimelech Goldberg is a former rabbi in the Detroit area, a black belt in karate and the founder and executive director of Kids Kicking Cancer, a nonprofit committed to help children use martial arts therapy to help take control of pain. Goldberg said Horwitz is involved in so much of the community structure that at any given time, there is a non-stop line at his door.

“He has an open-door policy,” Goldberg noted. “Just the other day I was sitting with him in his office. He was helping our organization strategize on growing the business. He suggested a number of people to meet. He is a gentleman who knows how to get things done.”

In fact, publishers of the minority press are often looked to in order to solve community issues, such as discrimination and government bureaucracy. Siblani said Arab-American residents often contact him to help with immigration problems.

“I will either direct them to the right place,” said Siblani, “to an immigration attorney (for instance) or, I will write a letter for them to a congressman or senator.  Sometimes I write directly to immigration myself.”

Elias Gutierrez, publisher of the Latino Press, is often called on to help clean up the mess left in immigration cases. He recalls one case in which a family was swindled out of $20,000 with a promise, by a so-called lawyer, to secure their immigration documents.

After paying the money the family worked to save, Gutierrez said, “immigration officers showed up to their homes and they were deported. The lawyer knew from the beginning that this would happen. They legally robbed them.”

Since issues of concern in the ethnic/immigrant communities can go unreported in the mainstream press, media that serve their individual communities have taken the lead. For instance, the Arab American community faces problems with profiling at airports, said Oshagan, an issue that is rarely reported in the press.

In the Latino community, underreported issues include complaints that range from supermarkets that sell spoiled meat with altered expiration dates, to scammers who prey on immigrants, said Gutierrez, who added, “That is why, as media, (the minority press) are the only ones to report or seek solutions to those involved.”

Dana Hollowell is the first holder of the Center for Michigan’s student fellowship. An award-winning journalist, she has experience in the broadcast and print media. Hollowell grew up in the Detroit metropolitan area.