“At the end of the day, we’ll be a stronger, more vibrant state,” Gov. Rick Snyder asserted a year ago in his first State of the State speech that offered the first outlines of his 2011 legislative agenda. But he didn’t say what day that would be. As he prepares to deliver his second “SOS” […]
Deja vu: Biz tax cuts head agenda in Lansing
Posted inPeter Luke: Eye on the Capitol
Snyder will dance with social conservatives in 2012
Gov. Rick Snyder’s quest to reinvent Michigan apparently won’t be extended to his own Republican Party. Given the chance to confirm the suspicions of cultural conservatives that he’s a different kind of Republican far more concerned with rebuilding the economy than deploying government force to advance a social agenda, Snyder punted at the end of […]
Posted inMichigan Government
County official 'recycles' Emmet Co. culture
Elisa Seltzer figured she’d serve five years as Emmet County’s director of public works — just long enough to get a recycling program up and running. That was 21 years ago. Seltzer has created a self-supporting recycling program that includes 13 drop sites, curbside collection for 60 percent of Emmet Countyand more than 250 businesses, and […]
Posted inTalent & Education
'Common app' hits star student with uncommon adversity
Danny Schrage is cruising into the home stretch of his high school career with an impressive resumé in hand. He scored a 30 on his ACT and earned a 3.91 grade-point average through his junior year, with 17 honors-level or Advanced Placement classes. He’s president of Grosse Pointe North High School’s National Honor Society, and […]
Posted inQuality of Life
When MLK came to Grosse Pointe
Three weeks before he was assassinated in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. made one of his last speeches to a Michigan audience. And not just any audience; he went deep into the belly of the segregated beast, speaking to an audience at Grosse Pointe High School (now Grosse Pointe South) on March 14, 1968. At […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Senate Dems toss hat into college costs debate
College would be cheaper for Michigan families under a proposal made in Lansing the day after Bridge Magazine published an analysis of public university costs. That analysis, published Tuesday, found that Michigan families pay more to attend their state’s public universities than do families in almost any other state. Twelve of Michigan’s 15 public universities […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Trading business pinstripes for another kind
First things first: The photo making the rounds of social media, the one with Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun sitting gape-mouthed, eyes upturned, as though someone has just gut-punched him, is not the moment Wayne County Circuit Judge Prentis Edwards dropped the bomb. Video clearly shows that when Edwards told Moroun that he and […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Budget numbers improve; does it matter?
On Friday, the financial experts in the legislative fiscal agencies and the Department of Treasury will meet to agree on a new snapshot of Michigan’s economic and fiscal situation — and the trend lines for the near future. Based on these early House and Senate releases, the news should be quite positive — if you […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Parting gift for college grads: $25k in debt
Clark Eagling has $45,000 in student loans — and he’s the lucky one in the family. His wife, Aimee Kessel, owes $90,000 for her undergraduate and graduate college education. The debt is so large that the couple may be collecting Social Security before they finish paying for college. “We’ve both essentially said that we don’t […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Student debt snapshot for each Michigan university
Is Michigan experiencing an unsustainable student loan bubble? Students at Michigan’s 15 public universities took out nearly $2 billion in student loans in the 2009-10 school year. That one-year, statewide student debt load increased $600 million – or 49 percent – in just three years (from 2007 to 2010). Click on the university names at […]