Ron Mead doesn’t think teachers – or anyone else, other than police – should be allowed to carry guns in schools. “To me, that’s just inviting trouble,” he said. “We want schools to be something comforting and inviting.” PHYSICAL REMINDER: Ron Mead, shown in a 1998 photo directing traffic at Chelsea High, is now retired. […]
Gov. Rick Snyder
Posted inPhil's Column
Snyder tries to sell long-term investment strategy to Michigan
Give a man a fish, and you feed him a day; show him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Gov. Rick Snyder unveiled his proposed state budget for the next two years last Thursday. If there is a core idea in his $50.9 billion budget message, it’s the distinction between investments […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Gun bill questions go unanswered
Why? Why would a young man enter a school and kill 20 children and the adults who sought to protect them? What, if anything, can be done to stop America’s recurring nightmare with public massacres at the hands of crazed shooters. Those are nearly universal questions across America now. Questions made even more timely in Michigan with […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Snyder veto sought on gun-zone changes
School, religious and hospital leaders plan to continue their opposition to pending changes to Michigan’s concealed weapon law this week by asking Gov. Rick Snyder to veto Senate Bill 59. That bill, passed in the last hours of the recent “lame-duck” legislative session, would allow certified concealed weapon permit holders to carry weapons into schools […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Snyder's legislative rocket slows in year 2
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder started his term in Lansing in 2011 on a hot streak. For six months, he consistently won quick legislative approval of his prime agenda items, capped by a $1.7 billion business tax cut and a balanced state budget months ahead of expectations. In the nine months since, however, Snyder’s rocket has slowed. […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
“I have approximate answers and possible beliefs in different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and of many things I don’t know anything about, but I don’t have to know an answer” — Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning American physicist. * Michigan’s local governments were collaborating and sharing services […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers” — Alfred Lord Tennyson, 19th century English poet * What’s going on inFinland? The Center forMichigan is engaged in a statewide round of community conversations on how to improve K-12 education. Our outreach coordinator, Courtney Thompson, tells us that in sessions so far, one nation keeps cropping up for praise: […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Michigan's surrounded — and it's a good thing
Business Leaders for Michigan, a group of some of the state’s most progressive, far-seeing corporate chiefs, has released a new 2012 Michigan Turnaround Plan – and it’s worth checking out. It lays out a far-reaching, long-term agenda that Michigan’s leading CEOs say would create nearly 500,000 jobs and increase per-capita incomes by $18,000 within 10 […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom” –Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 19th century English poet. * We in Michigan all know that Gov. Rick Snyder is ga-ga over “dashboards” — sets of figures that show progress, or lack thereof, on economic or government service matters. Snyder wants to use state money […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Truth Squad tackles 'State of State' speech
In Michigan in 2012, there’s really only one issue on the radar: jobs. How does the state get more of them? How do residents fill them? How much do they pay? In the hours leading up to Gov. Rick Snyder’s second State of the State Address, some notable numbers came in: Michigan’s unemployment rate in […]