Crain's Detroit Business, October 24, 2022, issue

Apartment building Duggan wants to demo in foreclosure.

Radical sabbatical

Dug Song leaves Cisco to contemplate next act (and catch up on skateboarding)

BY| NICK MANES

Dug Song might be Michigan’s biggest entrepreneurial success story in recent years, but these days he’s spending much of his time looking after a puppy and teaching his 17-year-old son to drive.

Song, 47, along with co-founders, sold Ann Arbor-based Duo Security to technology giant Cisco Systems Inc. in 2018 for $2.35 billion. It’s one of the most notable sales of a homegrown Michigan startup in the history of the emerging technology economy.

Following the acquisition, Song stayed on as an executive at the San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco, most recently as chief strategy o cer for Cisco’s security division.

But Song, in an exclusive interview with Crain’s, said he feels the time has come to move on and that he left Cisco earlier this fall, saying the company and team he helped build is “in good hands.”

A spokesperson for Cisco conrmed to Crain’s that Song had taken a “leave of absence” from the company and thanked him “for his leadership and his many contributions to the team, our customers and partners.”

With that, Song says he’s shifting into a period of change that’s he’s not quite accustomed to.

Is Big Rapids big enough for Gotion?

Filling more than 2,000 jobs could be challenge

BY RACHEL WATSON

As Gotion Inc. plans to build a massive electric vehicle battery plant near Big Rapids, locals agree there will be strong demand for the hightech, high-wage jobs it would create. But some question whether the city of about 8,000 has the readymade automotive workforce to support it.

27%

The population decline in Big Rapids from 2010 to 2020.

Gotion, a California-based subsidiary of a Chinese EV company, and e Right Place, the Grand Rapids business group who helped it win $715 million in tax incentives, said they conducted three employment studies before proposing the $2.4 billion undertaking, codenamed “Project Elephant” in early documents.

All three studies found a “major” potential labor force within 45 miles

of the build site to ll Gotion’s 2,350 promised jobs, the groups said.

But e Right Place declined to share copies of those labor studies, citing their “con dential” nature — and some have called their ndings into question.

Paul Isely, a longtime professor of economics at Grand Valley State University, pointed to U.S. Census data showing stark population loss in Big Rapids over the last decade (though the latest estimates point to a slight recovery).

FORUM I ELECTIONS

Most states that allow early voting also start counting early. Should Michigan?

STARTS ON PAGE 8

TRANSIT Wayne, Oakland Macomb set to vote on transit millages.

CRAIN’S LIST

Largest health insurers and managed care plans.

Duo Security co-founder Dug Song with his 10-month-old cockapoo, Milo, on his backyard skateboarding ramp. NICK MANES/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

See SONG on Page 16

` CARVANA’S MICHIGAN LICENSE REMAINS SUSPENDED

THE NEWS: A Michigan court denied Carvana Co.’s request to block the state’s Oct. 7 suspension of its operat ing license over titling and registration issues. In an opinion, state Court of Claims Judge omas Cameron wrote Carvana’s bid for a temporary re straining order against Michigan Sec retary of State Jocelyn Benson failed to demonstrate “su cient danger” of the suspension causing irreparable harm to its reputation and operations.

WHY IT MATTERS: Cameron wrote it is unlikely Carvana would lose its mar ket foothold or see its competitors at tempt to “replicate” its purchasing process in the short time span cov ered by a temporary restraining order.

` TRINITY, UM HEALTH SIGN DEAL TO EXPAND PEDIATRIC SERVICES

THE NEWS: More University of Michi gan Health pediatric physicians will see patients at Trinity Health Oak land Hospital in Pontiac, after the two systems signed a joint operating agreement this week. Under the deal, which was approved by the UM board of regents on ursday, UM Health will open C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital pediatric urology and or thopedic clinics at Trinity’s Pontiac hospital in November and a pediatric surgery clinic in January.

WHY IT MATTERS: Expanding services to reach more patients has become crit ical for health systems as losses mount in 2022 due to high labor costs and in ation.

` STATE TO PAY $20M TO PEOPLE WRONGLY ACCUSED OF FRAUD

THE NEWS: Michigan lawmakers agreed to set aside $20 million to set tle a lawsuit by thousands of people who were wrongly accused of fraud when seeking unemployment bene ts. e money was included in a larger bill recently signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. It followed an agreement reached by the attorney general’s o ce and law yers for people who said their consti tutional rights were violated.

` LOCAL GIRL SCOUTS TO SEE MILLIONS FROM SCOTT

THE NEWS: e Girl Scouts of South eastern Michigan will see $2.4 mil lion of the $84.5 million philanthro pist MacKenzie Scott donated to the national organization this week. e Detroit-based a liate is one of 29 councils around the country to share in the larger gift from Scott, the exwife of Amazon founder Je Bezos.

WHY IT MATTERS: Michigan nonpro ts that have disclosed their gifts from Scott so far have received at least $96.4 million since news of her donations rst became public in December 2020.

` UM SPINOUT ALERTWATCH SOLD

THE NEWS: Ann Arbor health care tech nology company AlertWatch Inc., a UM spin-out dating back to 2012, has been acquired by BioIntelliSense Inc., a Den ver-based health monitoring and clini cal intelligence company that boasts a strategic partnership with Medtronic PLC, the more-than $100 billion Min neapolis medical device giant.

WHY IT MATTERS: e case got a boost in July when the Michigan Supreme Court said they could seek nancial relief from the state, breaking new ground with a 4-3 summer opinion, saying state government can be held liable when constitutional rights are violated.

WHY IT MATTERS: While a relatively small holder of the equity in AlertWatch, the sale of the company makes for an over all win for UM’s tech transfer e orts. e department reported three exits — IPOs, acquisitions or mergers — last year, according to a report.

CRAIN’S EVENT

Khaldun: Equity must be embedded in health care

` Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, a face of Michigan’s public health response to COVID-19, said health care organizations must be purposeful about tackling health disparities in all that they do and not view the problem as something to be solved only with one-o xes.

Khaldun, who became CVS Health’s vice president and chief health equity o cer a year ago after serving as the state’s chief med ical executive during the rst year-and-a-half of the pandemic, called health inequities a “crisis.”

“You really have to be intentional when it comes to health dispar ities and driving health equity forward,” she said during a keynote address at the Crain’s Health Care Leadership Summit ursday. “If you’ve got a health equity o ce and they’re running (a) program that’s going to serve 100 people this year, you’re doing it wrong. You have to integrate health equity in how you just do your everyday work. You have to have buy-in.”

In a question-and-answer session following her keynote, she said she joined CVS — whose subsidiaries include Aetna and CVS Care mark — to “do things big ... at scale. We serve over 100 million peo ple every single day.” She also still works part time as an emergency room doctor at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

WITH AN EYE ON WHAT’S NEXT

Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, chief health equity o cer at CVS Health, addresses Crain’s Health Care Leadership Summit. | BRETT MOUNTAIN/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

GOING IN A NEW DIRECTION?

Oakland, Macomb, Wayne counties will all vote on transit this election

MINNAH ARSHAD

As the November election looms, one issue is on the ballot in Oak land, Macomb and Wayne coun ties: public transportation.

Since 1995, Wayne, Oakland and Macomb have passed transit mill ages in four-year terms to sustain the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, or SMART.

One county commission is now seeking to extend its public transit system to address what advocates call a “patchwork” of transit ser vice.

e contentious opt-out clause in some counties’ transit millages allows communities not interested in funding SMART to stay out of the tax.

For the rst time since instating transit millages, Oakland County eliminated its opt-out option this year, meaning public transit will extend throughout the county if voters pass the millage next month.

Megan Owens, executive direc tor of Detroit-based nonpro t tran sit advocacy organization, Trans portation Riders United, told Crain’s that the opt-out option means some communities are out

Pollution complaints at Stellantis plant persist

Fix is still awaiting state approval

KURT NAGL

e handling of persistent air pol lution at the Stellantis Jeep plant in Detroit has raised concern and anger among residents and environmental activists who are speaking out against a proposed deal between the auto maker and the state.

Stellantis said more than 10 months ago that it found the x for air pollution at Mack Assembly Plant on the city’s east side. But the Michi gan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy still has not approved the solution, which it said would not be implemented until next summer.

e delay has sparked questions and concerns that were voiced Wednesday during a public hearing hosted by EGLE on a proposed con sent order between the automaker and the state. e order, which calls for a ne and compliance plan, could be ap proved as soon as early November.

“I’m not very happy, because this project has used Beniteau (Street) residents as a guinea pig with all these retro ts, whether they’re going to work...it’s really frustrating,” said Binh Phung, who identi ed himself as a resident near the plant during the public hearing. “I don’t see any

of bounds for people relying on public transit to get there, includ ing essential workers.

“Even if someone doesn’t per sonally depend on transit, our economy and our communities do depend on having this service,” Owens said.

Oakland initiative

e Oakland County Board of Commissioners approved a .95-mill levy to be placed on the November ballot by a 13-7 vote in August after heated public debate and attempts from some commissioners to bring

back the opt-out clause. at millage rate would cost the owner of a home with a market val ue of $300,000 about $140 a year.

Melanie Piana, Ferndale mayor in Oakland County, told Crain’s she was in favor of the millage.

“I support the longer duration of the millage that is more consistent over time of how we pay for transit,” Piana said.

e ballot issue would approve the transit millage for 10 years rath er than the previous four-year terms.

It is expected to generate $66.1 million in its rst year if adopted.

SMART would receive $33.3 million to maintain service and expand routes in high-demand areas. ree other public transportation agen cies in the county would also re ceive funding: Older Persons’ Com mission, which provides shared ride services to people 60 and older, would get $1 million, and the North and West Oakland Transportation Authorities, which provide trans portation for senior residents and people with disabilities, would re ceive $2 million each, according to commission documents.

Bank report: Workforce

inequity cost nearly $28B

Shows cost in one year in unrealized GDP

Racial gaps in wages and em ployment have cost metro Detroit billions, according to a new report.

reason why they’d be able to operate a paint shop at this time because there’s been so many violations in 13 months.”

Air quality problems at the plant began shortly after production launched in late 2019. e facility has racked up six air quality violations in the past year, including a citation two weeks ago for “persistent and objec tionable paint/solvent and chemical odors of moderate intensity,” accord ing to a state report of the investiga tion.

In 2018, racial gaps in wages and employment cost the region nearly $28 billion in unrealized GDP, ac cording to a JPMorgan Chase & Co.-funded study released Sept. 29.

Consumer spending in metro Detroit has recovered to pre-pan demic levels, and overall job post ings were up 11 percent this April compared to January 2020. Howev er, the increased labor demand is mostly for low-paying jobs, result ing in a “lopsided labor market re bound driven by low-wage and low-opportunity occupations,” the report said.

e Advancing Workforce Equity in Metro Detroit study is the most recent of nine regional analyses conducted as part of a multi-year

partnership e ort between Detroit Area Workforce Funders Collabora tive, National Equity Atlas — a part nership between PolicyLink and the University of Southern Califor nia Equity Research Institute — and labor market data analytics rm Lightcast, backed by funding from JPMorgan.

e demographic makeup of en trepreneurs in the city points to a racial divide, according to the re port. While Black people account for more than three quarters of De troit’s population, they account for only 10 percent of businesses, the report said, most of which are mi crobusinesses or sole proprietor ships.

e racial and economic imbal ance across metro Detroit commu nities is one catalyst of workplace inequity.

A SMART bus is parked at the State Fair Transit Center in Detroit in 2021. | NIC ANTAYA/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

The EPA is investigating the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy for an emissions tradeo deal involving the Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant in Detroit.

BLOOMBERG

MANUFACTURING

ECONOMY

MINNAH ARSHAD

Apartment building Duggan wants to demo now in foreclosure

A rundown apartment building sandwiched between the old Whittier Hotel and Owen Park on the east Detroit riverfront has fallen back into the hands of a lender.

e former River Plaza Apartments, a two-building property at 8430 E. Je erson Ave. and 8434 E. Je erson Ave., went into foreclosure with Columbia, Md.-based Enterprise Community Loan Fund Inc., which issued a $1.65 million mortgage in December 2016.

e property, owned by longtime Detroit developer and landlord Kathy Makino-Leipsitz, became the target earlier this year of an e ort by Mayor Mike Duggan to rid the city of buildings his administration has deemed as blighted.

It was one of 100 such properties, owned by a variety of landlords, singled out by Team Duggan for demo, my former Crain’s Detroit Business colleague Annalise Frank and I reported in March.

It’s not clear whether the administration is still pursuing demolition. A spokesperson said the city’s Demolition Department did not have an update on the plans.

A source familiar with the matter said the buildings were anticipated to be turned into a mixed-use project with a ordable apartments and commercial space, but Makino-Leipsitz wasn’t able to secure nancing for the project and the properties struggled with property tax payments and blight violations, among other issues.

A foreclosure sale was originally scheduled at the end of December but was postponed multiple times, ultimately taking place in late August, according to the sheri ’s deed, which was posted on CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service.

Makino-Leipsitz, who heads up Detroit-based Shelborne Development, has until Feb. 25, 2023, to redeem the properties, the deed says.

at’s something she plans on doing, she said in an email.

“ is loan simply matured,” she said. “It was not in default at the time of maturity, but unfortunately the loan came due and the lender would not extend it any further.”

“We de nitely still plan to close on

the restructure of the underlying debt and move forward on development plans after spending the past six years investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into the plan for ‘Plaza on the Park.’ I sure wish we would have been able to move forward back in 2015/2016 with our plan for the rst urban vineyard in the nation to be located on Owen Park with some of the rst oor space of the buildings being used as wine production/tasting room and a bistro with a boardwalk down to the river for the residents and public space. I could just see it becoming a destination and a beautiful wedding venue.”

Depending on how it all shakes out in the next few months, she may be able to get the property back — or it may end up in the hands of a new owner.

If the city doesn’t raze it rst, that is.

Otus Supply puts building up for sale

e owners of the Otus Supply restaurant and music venue property at 345 E. Nine Mile Road in downtown Ferndale have put the property on the market for sale.

Michael Scheid, president of Bloomeld Hills-based omas Hospitality Group, which has the listing, told me that the business itself is not for sale — just the building.

e asking price as part of a sale-leaseback is $3.7 million although marketing materials say the owners “would consider other models involving ownership participation in the business.”

e materials also say $4 million in revenue “the rst year should be at-

tainable into the future.”

Scheid said the ownership group, called Black Owl Properties LLC, would use the proceeds “to further grow the business by expanding their musical concert o erings in the Parliament Room and adding breakfast” service.

ree years ago, the Detroit Free Press reported that Otus Supply was facing nancial challenges, with payroll checks bouncing as well as those to Detroit-based Del Bene Produce, and others alleging nonpayment for services. Scheid said Tuesday morning that the nancial issues have since been resolved and that employees are being paid on time.

Eastland Center art update

For those of you who have been wondering we have a better indication of what’s going to happen with some of the beloved art from the former Eastland Center mall in Harper Woods.

Tim Conder, vice president of development for Kansas City, Mo.-based NorthPoint Development LLC, said in an email last week that company’s foundation took ownership of sculptures “ e Lion and the Mouse” as well as a large hippopotamus.

e NorthPoint Foundation then donated them to the Detroit Historical Society, Conder said.

Jeremy Dimick, director of collections and curatorial for the society, said the foundation made the donation last fall and the pieces are currently in storage

Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB

The former River Plaza Apartments on the east Detroit riverfront has fallen into foreclosure.

| KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

A sculpture called “The Lion and the Mouse” inside the Eastland Center shopping center in Harper Woods before the mall was razed to make way for a new industrial/ warehouse development.. | KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Kirk PINHO

Nonpro t gets started on state’s rst 3D-printed house

Project to result in new home in Islandview

BY ARIELLE KASS

In a Southwest Detroit warehouse Tuesday, a robotic arm wove back and forth in a continuous pattern, spewing a stream of concrete that, by the end of the day, would be the rst wall of Detroit’s rst 3D printed house.

e demonstration project will result in a new home in the Islandview community this spring that will be sold to someone who makes 80 percent of the area median income, or $50,160 for an individual. e single-story house, on land bank property, will be about 950 square feet.

“It’s awesome,” said Je Russell, the project’s general contractor, as he watched the arm deposit layers of concrete on its way to building that rst wall. “It’s cool. Who’s doing this? It’s super innovative. It’s going to change a lot of things.”

Citizen Robotics Founder Tom Woodman is who’s doing it, and Woodman said he sees 3D printing of homes as a possible solution to longstanding problems with workforce availability and housing a ordability that contribute to the housing shortage nationwide and in Detroit.

“3D printing is the easy part,” he said. “ e hard part is land acquisition, permitting, nancing something innovative.”

Woodman spent more than a year building a coalition to support his project before he even got the technology — a nine-year-old former welding robot, acquired from Chicago for a quarter million dollars — that could be retro tted for his purpose. Woodman, a software developer by trade, said if he wants a movement to form — and he does — he needed to do more than just start building.

e Ford Foundation is on board, as is the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. Neighborhood buy-in was key, he said and Citizen Robotics is acting as a nonpro t to continue to build support and raise money for the cause.

ere are about 100 3D printed homes in the world so far, Woodman said, and hundreds more in the works. He said with billions of dollars in federal funding available to help expand housing availability, the ability to build houses using robots has come “just in time.”

“For decades now, the construction workforce has gotten older and older,” he said. “We need to take up the tools of advanced manufacturing and apply them to home building. We need robots.”

People are excited about the technology’s possibilities, said Pierre-Denise Gilliam, a specialist in MSHDA’s Neighborhood Housing Initiatives Division. She said MSHDA had put $159,913 in grant funds to the rst home, but there are no plans yet for a second.

Still, there’s a lot of optimism for the project. Tonya Joy, the director of MSHDA’s Neighborhood Housing Initiatives Division, said it’s harder to build just one house using the technology than it is to build many. As the project progresses, she said, MSHDA is trying to determine whether it’s viable to do such work in Michigan.

She said after three years of discussions, it was “amazing” that the project was moving forward.

“I’m so excited,” Joy said. “ is could be really big for Michigan.”

Woodman said the sustainability of such work is also key. ere is no way to make a 1920s home airtight, he said, but 3D printed houses could help with climate concerns, as well as cost.

e Citizen Robotics house could be built with just two or three people and machinery, said Russell, who owns JL Russell & Associates. He said it would take about three and a half hours to print the 52-inch wall; two of them would be stacked on top of each other in the completed home. As the wall was printed, Russell and Fernando Bales, Citizen Robotics’ lab manager, measured the progress, added rebar to the concrete and separated some pieces that will be transported separately to the site, though they are printed

together.

Russell said there was still a lot to learn about the process, but he anticipated it would be easier to entice people to jobs in this kind of building environment, rather than traditional construction.

“In a few years, it’ll be a really great way to build,” he said. “It’ll get better and better.”

e concrete takes 27 days to cure before it can be transported; because of that, Russell said the home needed to be built in a controlled environment, instead of on-site.

Openings in the walls will be lled with spray foam; he said it acts “like a Yeti cooler” in terms of the house’s ability to maintain temperature. e pieces, cut apart, will be caulked together and a stucco nish will be put on the outside.

“It’s going to change a lot of things,” Russell said of the project.

Bryan Cook hopes it does, as well. Cook, the CEO of Develop Archi-

tecture and the president of the Detroit chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects, said he sees 3D builds as a way to get young architects closer to their creations. His model is what’s being printed larger — he’s not working on a small piece of a large project, unable to see his contribution, he said.

Normally, Cook works on building out retail space, but he said the ability to work on something brand new enticed him. Now, he said, he’s “super excited” about the mission.

He said he pushed the technology in his design, adding a slight curvature to the walls. e e ect is subtle, but he said any e ort helps improve the understanding of what can be done.

And one of the beauties of 3D printing homes, Cook said, is that the design can be easily tweaked from one house to the next, allowing variety in the built environment similar to what people are used to seeing in neighborhoods now.

He said in the future, it may not make sense to print every wall. But as a way to compete with stick-built construction, there are a lot of bene ts. e technology, he said, will continue to be re ned.

“It’s successful once it’s out there on the site, once it’s built,” Cook said. “ e rst success is that we’re here, it’s permitted. It’s a slow, slow process. is is really new.”

Contact: arielle.kass@crain.com; (313) 446-6774; @ArielleKassCDB

Citizen Robotics lab manager Fernando Bales oversees the 3D printing of a wall of the home. | ARIELLE KASS / CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Bryan Cook, the CEO of Develop Architecture and the president of the Detroit chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects, shows o his design for the 3D house for Citizen Robotics.

| ARIELLE KASS / CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

COMMENTARY

Does crime pay in the regulated weed market?

Now that recreational marijuana prices have collapsed and margins have evaporated, Michigan’s legal marijua na industry is all in on rooting out bad seeds.

Pressure on the Cannabis Regulatory Agency is on the rise from the state’s largest growers and retailers to identify and elimi nate illegal marijuana making it into the legal market. at pressure boiled over when CRA founding executive director Andrew Brisbo “resigned” from the post earlier this year and was quickly replaced by a Michigan State Po lice crime analyst favored by the Michigan Cannabis Manufacturers Association, an ad vocacy group representing some of the larg est marijuana operations in the state.

We’ve already seen some action being tak en under new Director Brian Hanna. On Oct. 10, the CRA announced a 30-day license sus pension of Detroit dispensary e House of Mary Jane after a random compliance visit discovered du el bags and backpacks of sus pected illegal market marijuana in the store.

“ e concern for the industry is now even licensees are starting to participate in the il legal market,” said Shelly Edgerton, board chair for the MCMA and chief of legal compliance and government relations for Chicago-based marijuana company PharmaCann Inc. “Il

licit product is potentially unsafe product and it puts jobs and opportunities at risk. Every one has an interest in making sure we don’t have illicit product entering the marketplace.”

e size of the problem, however, is com pletely unknown. It’s not unreasonable to think these large growers and retailers, who are investor-backed, are using the illicit mar ket as an excuse for not turning the hefty pro ts they once were. ey can’t le bank ruptcy, as it’s a federal code and marijuana is still a Schedule I illegal drug, so they are like

ly returning to investors with hat in hand and a straw man.

But it’s absolutely clear some illegal mari juana is getting into the market. Lansing’s Anderson Economic group in 2020 estimated roughly $2.1 billion of cannabis sales coming from non-retail sources — either from home grows, medical caregivers and the illusive il licit market.

e number of active marijuana plants be ing grown in the licensed market grew 120 percent between August 2021 and August 2022, just above sales growth of 103 percent. Yet, licensed market inventory, by pounds, grew more than 400 percent during the same 12 months.

Some of that could be explained by an oversupply of marijuana in the market by growers simply getting better at growing marijuana, producing higher yields — the in dustry is currently pushing proposed legisla tion to tamp down growing through a license moratorium. But it’s likely unreasonable to assume that grower skills account for all of the large inventory growth. It’s most likely a portion of that total is not being grown in li censed operations and being folded into the legal market.

e problem is how illegal marijuana is getting into the regulated market is virtually unknown to regulators and the state police.

When asked about illegal marijuana activ ity, the MSP told Crain’s to ask the CRA and that “if anyone has illegal activity to report, they should contact authorities.” e CRA said in a statement it’s trying to gure out all this illegal activity stu too.

Expanded transit can link businesses with workers

Public transporta tion is a vital ser vice that connects doctors with patients, employers with employ ees and businesses with customers.

It also drives our econ omy in Oakland County and makes us more com petitive by helping us at tract new businesses. at’s why I am urging residents to Vote “Yes” for the Oakland County Public Transporta tion Millage on the Nov. 8 ballot.

e Oakland County Transportation Pro posal will support the SMART bus service as well as the North Oakland Transportation Authority, the Older Persons’ Commission and the Western Oakland Transportation Authority.

It supports existing services and expands new transportation choices and options for all Oakland County residents.

is countywide public transportation millage proposal replaces our current SMART millage and builds upon the success of the SMART program by maintaining, im proving and expanding services to all our communities.

Here are three reasons why I am urging residents to Vote “Yes”:

` Public transportation helps vulnerable res idents.

ousands of seniors, veterans and peo ple with disabilities rely on public transpor tation because they can no longer drive or a ord a car. Low-income residents and working parents also use public transporta tion to get to and from work every day. By voting “Yes” on the Oakland County Public Transportation millage we are helping vul nerable members of our community get to and from work, school, doctors’ appoint ments and the grocery store.

` Public transportation boosts our local economy.

Research shows public transportation is a vital component of thriving communities and is critical for attracting new businesses, growing our economy and connecting peo ple to jobs. With every $1 invested, $4 is cre ated in economic output by attracting new businesses and expanding the talent pool for our local employers. SMART bus routes pro vide access to more than 67,000 businesses and 850,000 jobs. But many job centers like Novi and Rochester Hills are not accessible.

By supporting this millage we’re also helping essential workers — who we all depend on — get to critical jobs in our hospitals, grocery and retail stores and child care and nursing home facilities around our community.

` Public transportation is a ordable, trans parent and scally responsible.

e Oakland County public transporta tion millage is a ordable, transparent, and accountable. If passed, it would cost just $9 per month for the average homeowner in Oakland County. Ev ery dollar collected or spent will be tracked publicly on line to ensure tax payer dollars are spent wisely and transparently with all funds subject to annual independent audits to promote scal responsibility.

And 100 percent of funds generated by the millage will stay in Oakland County, ensuring they directly help our residents and community.

In Oakland County, we are focused on creating jobs and opportunities. We’re in vesting in the future. By voting “Yes” for the Oakland County Public Transportation Proposal on Tuesday, Nov. 8, we can help ensure vulnerable residents in our com munities continue to have access to safe, reliable public transportation and we can help ensure that our economy continues to grow.

Write us: Crain’s welcomes responses from readers. Letters should be as brief as possible and may be edited for length or clarity. Send letters to Crain’s Detroit Business, 1155 Gratiot Ave, Detroit, MI 48207, or email crainsdetroit@crain.com Please include your complete name, city from which you are writing and a phone number for fact-checking purposes.

Sound o : Crain’s considers longer opinion pieces from guest writers on issues of interest to business readers. Email ideas to Managing Editor Michael Lee at malee@crain.com.

GETTY

IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

IT’S ABSOLUTELY CLEAR SOME ILLEGAL MARIJUANA IS GETTING INTO THE MARKET.

Dustin WALSH

DAVID COULTER

David Coulter is Oakland County executive.

IT DRIVES OUR ECONOMY IN OAKLAND COUNTY AND MAKES US MORE COMPETITIVE BY HELPING US ATTRACT NEW BUSINESSES.

Tuition proposal bad idea for state nances, education

With culture war issues like LGBTQ training videos and par ticipation in girls’ sports dominat ing the education debate in the race for Michigan gov ernor, the possi bility that a school vouch er-like tuition tax credit plan may become law re gardless of whether Gretch en Whitmer or Tudor Dixon wins is gaining comparably little at tention.

e Betsy DeVos-backed Let MI Kids Learn proposal, which due to a quirk in Michigan lawmaking could be passed by a Republican legislature — the current one or the next, if the GOP retains control — without the governor’s signature, would provide scholarships for educational expens es paid for by donations from indi vidual or corporate state tax-paying entities.

ese donations would be fully re fundable up to 100 percent of tax lia bility under the current proposal.

It’s a dangerous plan and would directly threaten Michigan’s scal and economic health. For one thing, where it’s been tried in other states — including next door in Indiana and Ohio — it’s had disastrous e ects on student learning, as large and up to twice the size of pandemic learning loss itself.

For a state in which business lead ers have stressed education success as critical to economic growth, that alone would be a huge setback.

But the problem doesn’t stop at student achievement. e plan would be capped in its rst year at $500 million in spending, and be cause donations are 100 percent re fundable, that money would eventu ally have to come from the state general fund.

And it would grow. If expenditures exceeded 90 percent of that cap in its rst year the cap would be automati cally be raised 20 percent to $600 million the next year, and so on. Within 3 years the state could be los ing $1 billion in tax revenue simply by fully refunding tax liabilities for donations to the voucher-like pro gram.

Central to the plan would be the creation of private vendors distribut ing the vouchers after receiving each individual or corporate donation. But up to 10 percent of each donation could be withheld by each vendor for administrative costs. at’s up to $50 million in the rst year that each ven dor could pocket simply by being a pass through between donor and re cipient.

And while the state Treasurer would be required to oversee this whole system of tuition rebates, it would have little authority under the current proposal to monitor for ven dor or private school fraud. is is by design. In New Hampshire, for exam ple, which just passed a similar law in the fall of 2021, Republicans recently defeated a new amendment that would have required the voucher vendors to report potential fraud to the state Attorney General.

Even without vendor fraud in Michigan, the data in other states suggest this tuition plan would subsi dize private school failure. In Wis consin’s voucher system, for exam ple, 40 percent of private schools receiving tax funding failed and shut down during the life of the program — 12 percent of total tax spending on private tuition. Voucher schools in that state often teach creationism and score in the bottom 10 percent on science-related exams — not a recipe for economic growth.

ese voucher and voucher-like plans in other states also tend to sup port school choices that are already occurring. In Arizona, New Hamp

shire and Wisconsin more than 75 percent of tax-funded scholarship us ers in each state were in private school already before the program began.

In Michigan 1 in 4 kids are already in public schools outside their resi dent districts, either though Schools of Choice or our charter school sys tem — our state tax dollars already follow our kids between public schools.

For all of these reasons, a tax-sup ported private tuition plan would not only be unnecessary, it would be a major blow to the state budget, our public investments in education, and the opportunities of the children whose parents opted to use it.

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GETTING A

HEAD START

INSIDE: A closer look at Proposal 2 and the changes and rules it would enshrine into the state constitution.

11

INSIDE: Political violence remains a concern; plus, pro and con viewpoints on Proposal 2.

12

At 7 a.m on Sunday, Nov. 6, clerks in nearly 200 Michigan cities and townships can begin opening millions of envelopes containing absentee ballots. ey will check to make sure each ballot, while still inside a secrecy sleeve, matches the number on the outer return envelope. en they will store the inner envelope and ballot in a sealed container for one or two nights. Not until 7 a.m. on Election Day can they tear o each stub, remove the ballot, atten it and feed it into a counting machine.

e undertaking known as preprocessing, clerks say, will save some time and is better than the prospect of having to wait until Nov. 8 to begin handling a torrent of ballots that have been mailed, placed in drop boxes or cast in

| BY DAVID EGGERT

their o ces. But it will be an ine cient, more costly process for which not enough time is allotted, they contend, ensuring that results are delayed until well after the polls close.

at, “as shown in the aftermath of the 2020 election, can stoke the ames of mis- and disinformation,” according to a September report from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Many election o cials want Michigan to join 26 states where ballots can be scanned into tabulators before Election Day. e list includes blue and red states along with fellow battlegrounds like Florida, Georgia and Arizona.

Making clerks wait to fully process absentee ballots is a “total sin” and “not with the times,” said Chris omas, a respected expert who led the

Michigan Bureau of Elections for 36 years and helped the Bipartisan Policy Center survey preprocessing policies nationwide and make recommendations. “It’s so common sense. It’s just part of business in those states.”

Absentee voters accounted for a record 3.3 million, or almost 60 percent, of Michigan’s record 5.5 million-plus voters in 2020. e number of absentee ballots tripled from 2018 after voters’ legalization of no-reason, or no-excuse, absentee voting. e secretary of state expects at least half of all ballots to be absentee this fall.

If Michigan allowed full processing before Election Day, omas said, ofcials could start releasing uno cial results for almost all absentee ballots on election night.

“ en you’re just waiting for the pickup of ballots that are in drop boxes and the last mail that came in that day and then your precinct votes. So by 10 or 11 o’clock, it should all be in the can.

Ballot return envelopes at the clerk’s o ce in Ann Arbor and a voting station. Michigan allows early absentee voting, but ballots can’t be counted until Election Day.

Ann Arbor City Clerk Jacqueline Beaudry watches as Chief Deputy City Clerk Steve Gerhart inserts a ballot into a tabulator during ballot testing last week.

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PHOTOS BY NIC ANTAYA/

CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Absentee-ballot preprocessing time has expanded in Michigan, but counting can’t start until Election Day. Should early votes get tallied earlier?

“WHAT WE REALLY NEED TO BE DOING IS TABULATING (VOTES) BEFORE ELECTION DAY.”

—Lansing Clerk Chris Swope

VOTING

From

if they vote absentee at a clerk’s o ce.

“I stand very rmly aligned with what the clerk community wants,” she said. “ ere is varying consensus among the community about the im portance of tabulation and an over whelming awareness that if we go into early tabulation it has to be done with some security provisions in place. So if we can get there and if we can build consensus around that, then I would support that.”

Rep. Ann Bollin, a Republican who chairs the House Elections and Eth ics Committee, was Brighton Town ship’s clerk for 16 years before be coming a legislator.

Two days of partial processing “is more than adequate,” she said. She ex pressed frustration with clerks who for years advocated for no-reason absen tee voting only, she said, to raise con cerns about being able to manage it.

“Were they not thinking that, con sidering that, when they were pro moting it?” Bollin said.

She expects the number of mailed ballots to dip as the pandemic fades and if voters approve Proposal 2.

“We’re going to have less and less reliance and reduce the number of actual absent voters ballots that need to be processed on Election Day be cause the voter will be going in early to vote, where they actually place their ballot in the tabulator,” Bollin said. “Nothing gets tallied before

Michigan voter turnout

GUBERNATORIAL YEARS

Election Day, but they will have the ability to deposit their own ballot.”

Still, absentee voting will remain a popular option.

In Detroit, 36,753 people cast an absentee ballot in the low-turnout August primary, more than triple the 11,626 who voted absentee in the high-turnout 2018 general election. Two-thirds of voters, 166,178, voted absentee in the 2020 election.

e city’s absentee ballot counting board, located at what was then called the TCF Center, was a scene of chaos in 2020. President Donald Trump’s campaign unsuccessfully sued to stop counting ballots in the Democratic stronghold amid his false claims of a stolen election. Joe Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes.

Detroit did not nish reporting re sults until around 9 p.m. Wednesday night, 25 hours after polls closed.

omas, who advises Detroit Clerk Janice Winfrey, said he has heard op ponents of early tabulation say it could lead to results being released ahead of time. He called it a non-is sue and said states with full process ing make it a felony to leak results.

Vote-tabulation systems have au dit trails that would show any time anyone reported results, he said, in cluding who did it and when — “the whole nine yards.”

“ ere are no results at an absent voter counting board that anybody sees. ey might see a ballot here and there. ey might see a lot of them if they want to. But there’s no tabulation that prints out that anyone can see how they’re being tabulated,” omas said. “Until you turn the election o and it spits out the tape, nobody can see it. ose workers can’t see who’s winning. ey have no idea.”

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Post-election policies should focus on microbusinesses

development policies that don’t account for their speci c needs and challenges.

Policy geared toward microbusiness is proven, long overdue

While there’s no doubt that in ation and a looming recession are top of mind this election, one area of nearly unanimous consensus is ying under the radar: support for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Nothing is as popular across political and demographic lines. According to a recent poll from the entrepreneurship advocacy organization Right to Start, 94% of Americans believe “it is important to America’s future that citizens have a fair opportunity to start and grow their own business.”

Those numbers hold true for Republicans, Democrats and Independents, as signi cant majorities from all three groups would be more likely to support a candidate who emphasizes making it easier to start and grow new businesses.

That’s a policy platform that candidates should be running on and we should be building our economy around.

Here in southeast Michigan, the New Economy Initiative — an initiative of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan — is working to help small businesses survive and thrive despite the

volatile economic climate. NEI’s mission is to grow an inclusive culture of entrepreneurship and small businesses that bene ts all residents and strengthens the regional economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of supporting small businesses and the impact they have on the local economies. This an issue that needs to be at the forefront of all policy discussions.

Microbusinesses don’t dominate the headlines, but deliver jobs

Positive views of small businesses shouldn’t come as a surprise – every elected of cial attends ribbon-cutting photo-ops for small businesses in their community. It’s also why you never see “anti-small business” campaign bumper stickers. But what is surprising is the lack of a global focus on supporting microbusiness and an in-depth policy platform to support their success in creating jobs.

Unfortunately, microbusinesses — those with 20 or fewer full-time employees — draw far less attention than large factory openings. Yet, these small businesses make up 89% of the total businesses in this country, according to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council. Because they don’t have the political clout of larger companies, they often are left out of broader economic

That’s not to disparage traditional, large-scale business attraction efforts. But if we’re allocating billions of dollars in incentives and tax breaks to global companies that employ more than 500 but comprise less than 1% of our total businesses, we have an equally important duty to create policies that serve the needs of the other 99%, who employ more of us than any other type of business.

Getting this right requires de ning microbusinesses so that our strategies don’t fall victim to one-size- ts-all “small business” policy that treats companies with 499 employees the same as those with just one.

Strategies for microbusinesses need to be different because they have different needs. Yes, access to capital is a common challenge. But it varies based on size and the age of the business. A large, established employer might not inch at the $1,000 licensing fee from a local health department. But, for a startup small food business trying to build a customer base without bank nancing and pay a handful of employees at a competitive hourly rate, that’s cost-prohibitive and kills jobs before they’re even created.

Building the post-pandemic economy starts with small business

Throughout the pandemic, many microbusinesses lacked pathways to access

incentives and support. However, those in neighborhoods where NEI and our partners have built a strong support network fared far better. This was also true for small businesses operated by people of color or other historically excluded communities who were hit inequitably by the pandemic.

The past three years have proven that NEI’s model for building a resilient new economy through small, inclusive business growth works. But it requires intentional efforts to provide support, technical assistance and access to capital in communities where traditional lenders and economic development organizations have not or cannot.

After the election, as attention shifts back to policy, we need to refocus on how to work together to build a more resilient economy.

The answer is already proven, and it is undeniably popular. It starts with a statewide strategy that supports microbusinesses and unleashes the talent and potential of, collectively, our largest employer –Michiganders in every corner of the state.

Visit neweconomyinitiative.org to learn more about the New Economy Initiative at the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

Ric DeVore is president of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan. Wafa Dinaro is executive director of the New Economy Initiative.

SOURCE: MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE’S

Lucas

Kennedy

Richard Nixon

A volunteer processes absentee ballots for the 2020 presidential election at the TCF Center in Detroit on Nov. 4, 2020. BLOOMBERG

Proposal 2: How it would change elections

Initiative includes early in-person voting, automatic absentee ballots and rules on photo ID

BY| DAVID EGGERT

Michigan voters on Nov. 8 will decide the fate of Proposal 2, which would make it easier to vote. The two most signi cant changes, clerks say, would institute nine days of early in-person voting and let voters automatically get an absentee ballot every election without having to submit an application each time. The measure also would enshrine existing law, including rules that allow voters without photo ID to cast provisional ballots, in the state constitution, insulating them from future legislative modi cation. The initiative is Michigan's second voting-related ballot issue since 2018. A look at Prop 2:

Early voting

Michigan has absentee voting, which allows voters to submit a ballot starting 40 days before an election. They can do so by mail, drop box or in person at their local clerk's o ce.

The initiative would create early voting sites where voters could cast a regular ballot just as they do on Election Day, allowed in 34 other states, according to the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan. Each site would be open for at least nine days before the election, for a minimum of eight hours each day, beginning two Saturdays before and ending the Sunday before. No results could be reported until polls close Election Day. Municipalities in the same county could choose to share early voting sites.

One application

Voters could sign an application once to have a ballot mailed to them before all future elections. Currently, people on permanent absent voter lists — if their city or township maintains one — are sent an application each election and must mail it back before receiving a ballot.

The right to get future absentee ballots could be rescinded only under four conditions: the voter requests it, is no longer quali ed to vote, moves or fails to vote for six consecutive years.

Postage

The state would be required to cover postage costs associated with returning absentee ballot applications and ballots. Some communities o er free postage, but many do not.

Military and overseas voting

Military and overseas voters would have a right to have their absentee ballot counted if it is postmarked by Election Day and received within six days after the election. Ballots currently must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Certi cation

Following then-President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 result, the amendment would add this sentence to the constitution: "The outcome of every election in this state should be determined solely by the vote of electors casting ballots in the election."

Existing laws

Prop 2 would protect existing election laws that Republican legislators want to amend by directly passing a 2024 initiative known as Secure MI Vote. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who vetoed similar bills, could not stop them from adopting the initiated bill.

In-person voters without photo identi cation could continue to sign an a davit and vote a regular ballot, not a provisional ballot that would count only if they produce a photo ID within six days.

Absentee voters could keep proving their identity with a signature on the application and ballot, not — as the GOP has proposed — by also adding their driver's license number, state-issued personal ID number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

Donations

Counties, cities and townships would be given authority to use publicly disclosed charitable and in-kind donations to conduct elections. Republican legislators want to prohibit such funding after hundreds of local governments applied for and got 2020 grants from a nonpro t backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Ballot tracking

The state would be required to operate a system so voters can track their absentee ballot application and ballot, and be noti ed of any issues with either. The state currently has such a system, but it is not mandated.

Drop boxes

Local governments now have discretion over the availability, number and placement of absentee voting drop boxes. Prop 2 would require the state to supply every municipality with at least one secure box, including one for every 15,000 registered voters.

Funding

Promote the Vote 2022, the ballot committee backing the measure, had raised more than $8.3 million as of July 20. More than half was from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based group backed by anonymous donors on the left. The biggest Michiganbased contributors were the Gerald Beckwith Constitutional Liberties Fund ($82,500); Mark Bernstein, president and managing partner of the Sam Bernstein Law Firm and a University of Michigan regent ($50,000); and Our Water Our Democracy ($50,000).

Secure MI Vote, which had raised more than $5.2 million in direct or in-kind contributions from conservative groups to collect signatures for its ballot drive, is spending to defeat Prop 2. So is at least one other group, which was formed in September and does not have to report its nances until Oct. 28.

Support

Supporters say Prop 2 would modernize elections, protect the fundamental right to vote, provide voters more exibility and ensure every vote is counted.

Former state election director Chris Thomas said the early voting and one-time absentee application provisions are "big." "Signatures will still be checked on every ballot, if returned, but the application process will be abbreviated. I think that makes a hell of a lot of sense," he said.

The measure is supported by groups including the ACLU of Michigan, labor unions, the League of Women Voters of Michigan, the NAACP Michigan State Conference, the Michigan Democratic Party and the Detroit Regional Chamber.

Opposition

Republicans say the state should toughen its voter ID requirement, not cement a "weak" one in the constitution. They also say election changes should be done legislatively, not through a constitutional amendment that would make it di cult for revisions later.

State Rep. Ann Bollin, a former Brighton Township clerk, criticized the ability to request an absentee ballot for all future elections. It "is one of my primary objections to Proposal 2," she said. "It creates a much greater opportunity for fraud, for people to take somebody's ballot."

Political violence has no place in our elections

Elections are contentious, but in recent years they have gotten ug lier, with the rise in political vio lence polluting our democracy.

Public o cials and civil servants in creasingly see political violence — vio lence or threats of violence intended to in uence a policy or an election — as a major problem. In the weeks leading up to the midterm elections, it contin ues to impact poll workers and other election o cials who are rightfully worried about their safety. More than half of election administrators said in a national survey that they have experi enced threats personally and fear for the safety of their colleagues. A report from the National League of Cities found harass ment, threats, and violence directed at local o cials is rising at an alarming rate.

Locally, the University of Michigan’s state wide Public Policy Survey found a majority of elected and appointed government o cials ex perienced harassment, threats or even violence. is is not unique to big cities or small towns, it is an everywhere problem a ecting red, blue and purple communities.

is threat to our democracy is unsustainable and must be addressed if we hope to continue having safe, accessible elections.

In addition to government and elections o cials, regular citizens have similar, dire concerns about political violence. A recent CBS News poll found 72 percent of Americans believe democ racy and the rule of law are under threat, includ ing concerns about potential violence. Numer ous other studies have also raised alarms about the number of people who hold extremist ideol

COMMENTARY

ogies and see violence as a legitimate means to advance their political be liefs.

As part of e Joyce Foundation’s e orts to understand and address ris ing political violence in the Great Lakes region, we, in conjunction with Trusted Elections Fund and the Klar man Family Foundation, funded a four-month public opinion research project that asked real people in Mich igan and nationwide about this grow ing problem and what solutions they support to address it.

A majority of Michiganders — 72 percent — believe political violence is a problem.

Large majorities, in Michigan and nationally, believe political violence is never or almost nev er justi ed, and this holds true across a variety of demographics including political party, race and gender, and among gun owners. e survey also tested whether support for political vio lence was conditional by asking if it was justi ed in certain circumstances. In every example, in cluding a range of hot-button issues aimed at the right and the left, a majority said no, including, notably, if your party or candidate loses the elec tion.

Not only does the public see political violence as a serious problem, they want government to do something about it. e promising news is that there are already policies and practices in place to mitigate political violence, and there is broad, bipartisan support for policymakers to advance and enforce them. Our national and Michigan-speci c surveys found more than 80 percent supported making it a felony to threaten

election o cials, school board members, or poll workers; more than 60 percent support restrict ing guns in sensitive places like polling stations; and a whopping 86 percent of Michiganders want prosecutors to bring charges against those who commit acts of political violence.

e desire of the public and policymakers to confront and ultimately eradicate this problem is clear, and there’s so much that all of us can do to safeguard fair, safe and accessible elections. e Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law School has com piled state-by-state fact sheets and guidance about laws already on the books that can combat political violence and protect democracy and fu ture elections. e Association of Prosecuting

Changes needed to speed up results

Michigan citizens voted over whelmingly and across party lines in 2018 to give every voter the right to vote absentee. e constitutional amendment made our elections more accessible for all citi zens, and they embraced the time-tested and secure practice of voting by mail in every subsequent election.

But the state’s legislative leaders failed to get on board. Instead of pass ing laws to support the voter-ap proved update to our state constitu tion, for years they dragged their feet.

Now barely a month before the Nov. 8 gener al election they nally passed bills to enable some clerks to begin processing absentee bal lots before Election Day. For voters to get elec tion results on election night, this pre-Election Day preparation of absentee ballots is critical.

And while the bill they passed is a step in the right direction, it’s so last minute in delivery that many clerks won’t be able to implement it this year. at means Michiganders should not expect complete election results until about 24 hours after polls close.

is is because we’ll see more absentee bal

lots cast than ever before in a Michi gan gubernatorial election — possi bly more than 2 million — and absentee ballots take more time to process than ballots voted at polling places.

At polling places, voters ll out their ballot and slide it into the tabu lation machine. But for absentee bal lots, clerks must rst ensure the sig nature on the ballot envelope matches the signature the clerk has on le for them. en they remove the ballot from the outer envelope while leaving it in the secrecy sleeve. en they con rm the number on the ballot stub matches the number on the ballot enve lope. And then they remove the stub, while the ballot remains in the secrecy sleeve, to protect the privacy of the voter. en, nally, they re move the ballot from the secrecy sleeve, atten it, and put it in the tabulator.

e national best practice is to provide clerks seven days to do most of this before Election Day, so that then all they have to do is run the ballots through the tabulators. e new law gives Michigan clerks two days for preprocess ing, and they’re not allowed to go further in the

process than checking the ballot number on the ballot stub. And preprocessing is only al lowed in cities and townships with populations greater than 10,000.

Clerks and I asked state legislative leaders for much more, and it’s disappointing that law makers did so little so late.

For years I’ve also asked state legislators to enable military service members and their spouses and dependents deployed overseas to return their ballots electronically. I saw rst hand how important this is when my husband was deployed and attempted to mail back his ballot, only to have it returned to our home un counted long after the election was over.

at’s why I was thrilled last term when law makers on both sides of the aisle passed a bill that would have enabled military service mem bers and their spouses overseas to return their ballots electronically. But lawmakers then de cided to play games. ey never gave the bill to the governor for signature, and now the Legis lature has passed a version that cuts out mili tary spouses, forcing them to continue to rely on notoriously unreliable international mail. is is wrong, and I’m glad that in signing the bill Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pledged to contin ue working, as I will, for equal ballot access for

Attorneys recently issued a report o ering rec ommendations to address political violence against public servants and poll workers. Addi tionally, a wide range of other bipartisan and nonpartisan organizations like the States United Democracy Center, Protect Democracy and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU have recom mended solid state and federal policy reforms.

When we launched this research project, we were worried that talking about political vio lence could have a chilling e ect and scare peo ple away from voting, volunteering as a poll worker or participating in other civic activities. Not so.

e national survey found that talking about political violence did not make people less likely

overseas military spouses and dependents. I will also continue to ask state legislators to improve upon the preprocessing law. My ad ministration implemented best practices across the state’s election system in recent

Jocelyn Benson is Michigan’s 43rd secretary of state.

Carrie Davis is e Joyce Foundation’s democracy program director.

Voters cast ballots for the 2020 presidential election in Detroit.

| BLOOMBERG

Demonstrators gather at a pro-Trump rally during the presidential election outside the TCF Center in Detroit on Nov. 5, 2020.

Supporters of President Donald Trump protested against the absentee ballot-counting process after a state court judge blocked an e ort by the campaign to stop tallying votes. | BLOOMBERG

Detroit Chamber: Prop 2 good for democracy and Michigan business

Proposal 2 is good for democ racy, and a strong democracy is good for business.

Healthy democracies marked by election integrity and strong voter participation contribute to a host of economic and societal bene ts like more predictable business cli mates, less corruption, greater wealth and higher levels of educa tion, among others.

At the Detroit Regional Cham ber, we strive to be a model of civic leadership that businesses and or ganizations in communities across Michigan can emulate. at’s why we are urging all Michigan busi nesses and employees to vote yes on Pro posal 2.

A nonpartisan initiative, Proposal 2 starts with a simple premise: Michiganders de serve secure and accessible elections that protect the right of eligible voters to cast their ballots, no matter what they look like or who they support. In endorsing Proposal 2, the Chamber re ects Michiganders’ belief that voting is a right for all Americans.

ment leaders.

e same focus on great custom er service and experience that businesses employ should be ap plied to voters and the election process. Proposal 2 will enshrine common-sense policies into our constitution, like Michigan’s cur rent, e ective voter ID require ment that ensures election integri ty. is encourages robust voter participation and increased visi bility of the issues most important to them.

e proposal will establish new procedures that would bring Mich igan in line with other states. For instance, military members defending our democracy abroad will have a grace period of six days after Election Day to have their mailed ballots counted to ensure their votes are included.

to participate in civic activities — and in Michigan, talking about the issue actually increased commit ment to voting. Yet, the survey also found many people were not paying attention to the issue of po litical violence until asked about it. We need to talk about this more, not less.

We also need to underscore that political vio lence and threats of violence are unacceptable. Re mind friends and family that there are more con structive ways to express political views. Hold public o cials accountable to condemn violent or threatening rhetoric, and urge them to support policy solutions that keep our democracy and our elections safe and accessible for everyone.

e Joyce Foundation is a sponsor of Crain’s Fo rum.

Proposal 2’s nonpartisan approach em phasizes protecting individuals’ right to vote as well as election integrity to ensure voters’ needs — whether regarding health care, in frastructure, business regulations, etc. — are heard and entrusted to trustworthy govern

Further, Proposal 2 will allow for nine days of early in-person voting, giving work ing parents more exibility to cast their votes in a convenient way. Voters can apply once for an absentee ballot and be regis tered for all subsequent elections. Proposal 2 also requires secure drop boxes and audits conducted by election o cials, not outside third parties.

By clarifying who can vote, when and how, Proposal 2 creates certainty for voters,

supports our election infrastructure and protects individuals from harassment and intimidation.

Proposal 2 comes at a crucial time in our history and passing it protects every eligible voter’s right to be counted while securing the foundations of our economy for longterm and sustained growth. is is essential to the future health of elections, democracy and business in Michigan.

years, and lawmakers should meet the same stan dard and get voters their election results on elec tion night.

at’s what Michigan’s voters and democracy deserve.

COMMENTARY

County clerk: Proposal 2 changes too dramatic, harmful for Michigan

As former chairwoman of the House Elections Committee, I led e orts to adopt rules en suring Michigan has secure, free, and fair elections. Now as Kent County clerk, I make certain the rules are ap plied so voters can be con dent in the outcome. Voters must decide on Proposal 2, which makes dramatic, harmful changes to our constitution regarding Michigan’s elections.

Touted as its major selling point, Proposal 2 would “recognize the fun damental right to vote without ha rassing conduct.” Certainly, we all agree on this basic principle, which is why our right to vote free from harassment and intimida tion has long-been enumerated in Michi gan’s constitution and laws — not to men tion the U.S. Constitution and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

What Proposal 2 really intends is to elim inate and prevent measures that uphold integrity, enhance security and protect vot ers. Proposal 2 is crafted so that any chang es in election policy could be deemed an interference or burden to the right to vote and thereby ruled unconstitutional.

Promoters of Proposal 2 know this, and they’re selling the constitutional right to vote as a new and necessary concept so they can prevent protective measures they oppose from ever becoming policy. Chang ing the constitution is more di cult than the legislative process, where policymaking belongs; they’re hoping we’ll be distracted enough by our universal support for the

right to vote that we’ll give up our ability to enact laws through our elected Legislature, to se curely and fairly administer elections and protect voters.

Polling has shown nearly 80 percent of Michigan voters sup port showing a photo ID to vote. Proposal 2 indeed includes a provision for voter identity veri cation, and the insinuation is it will require all voters to show ID. is is disingenuous. In ac tuality, Proposal 2 mimics Michigan’s current, weak voter ID law by allowing a signed statement in lieu of photo ID, e ectively ensuring no voter would have to show an ID to receive their ballot and count their vote. We should be strengthening Michigan’s voter ID law, not cementing it in the constitution.

Proposal 2 also allows corpo rations, special interests and wealthy elite to help fund elec tions. Election administration is a core government function, and the gov ernment alone must be responsible for its funding. Any other mechanism or grant scheme could call into question whose in terest is really being served in the election process. Ever-changing election laws, tech nological advances and ensuring security have strained our election budgets. Howev er, private funding for public elections is not the answer; the solution is holding the federal, state, and local governments’ feet

to the re and demanding ample funding for 21st century elections.

e most compelling reason to vote NO is this: Proposal 2 dismantles a crown jewel of checks-and-balances. Michigan has al ways been able to boast that we don’t send absentee ballots to voters unless they’ve submitted an application. Applications in clude voters’ signatures, which clerks verify using the signatures in the voter le before ever issuing a ballot. Under Proposal 2, with just one application, voters can auto matically receive an absentee ballot for ev ery single election in the future. In 2020 Jocelyn Benson sent absentee ballot appli cations to voters statewide, and applica tions arrived at homes for voters who hadn’t lived there in years. Imagine if those applications were actually ballots. Elimi nating this important security measure is dangerous.

Proposal 2 contains additional concern ing and costly provisions. e proposal’s wrapped in sweet-sounding rhetoric, but don’t take the bait. It’s veiled as “pro-voter,” an irony since it degrades law-abiding vot ers and jeopardizes election security and integrity. Michigan voters deserve secure, transparent, fair and accurate elections.

Vote NO on Proposal 2.

Lisa Lyons is Kent County clerk.

THE MOST COMPELLING REASON TO VOTE NO: PROPOSAL 2 DISMANTLES A CROWN JEWEL OF CHECKS-AND-BALANCES.

Brad Williams is vice president of government relations for the Detroit Regional Chamber.

NIC ANTAYA/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Let’s keep chaos out of election process

Twelve years ago this November, on Elec tion Day, I got up before dawn, dressed in my dorm room at the University of Michi gan Law Quad, and ventured out to start my rst-ever shift as a poll challenger. Poll challeng ers are registered Michigan voters who volun teer, with our political parties and other organi zations, to monitor and help ensure our electoral system functions properly. And I have worked to do that in every election cycle since 2010.

Early on, the job, while important, was straightforward. I made sure the polling loca tion I was assigned to was open on time, talked to the precinct chairperson if I saw a voter not being treated fairly, and reported long lines to clerks to see if addi tional sta could be brought in. I enjoyed this work, and these experiences drove me to become Michigan state director of All Voting is Lo cal, a nonpartisan voting rights organization working to ensure that every Ameri can has access to the ballot box. Now with a statewide lens, I have learned in the last couple of years that what was once straightforward is now di cult — and more important than ever.

As we approach this year’s Election Day, elec tion deniers are once again trying to cause chaos and interfere with normal election processes. In 2020, we saw some bad actors repeatedly hassle election workers to stop them from counting, try to take pictures of election materials in violation of a voter’s constitutional right to a secret ballot, and absurdly challenge the use of voter registra tion information to verify absentee ballots. Just last month, CNN reported that leaders in the election denial movement encouraged their vol unteers to break election rules. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is being sued as she attempts to put some guardrails in place.

Despite these obstacles, there are steps clerks and the Legislature can independently take to prevent the chaos of 2020 from becoming a rou tine occurrence.

Clerks have broad discretion to act to “main tain peace, regularity and order” at voting sites.

Clerks should utilize this discretion to put in place clear procedures to prevent poll challeng ers from harassing election workers.

Clerks can also use this discretion to ban poll challengers from bringing their cellphones to an absentee counting board before polls close. e longstanding ban on videography and pho tography, dating back to at least the days of Re publican Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s ten ure, gives clerks the right to ban any device capable of taking pictures and video.

State law explicitly forbids poll challengers from making challenges “indiscriminately and

without good cause.”

Poll challengers have a clear duty to learn what the law is and what it is not. Ignorance is not an excuse. Challenges that do not follow this standard arguably violate the law and are de signed to frustrate the process. Clerks should not hesitate to remove poll challengers who en gage in this behavior.

But clerks should not be alone in safeguard ing democracy. After the election, the Legisla ture should nally pass a bill, along with the funding the governor has asked for, which man dates training for poll challengers. e Legisla

ture must take a more active role in funding elections. Currently, the Legislature directly funds only the administration of presidential primaries and special constitutional amend ment elections. is is irresponsible and unacceptable. Election administration can be straightfor ward once again.

We should all want a system that allows each American to have a say, and to have that say re spected. Poll challengers can be guardians of such a system. It is up to all of us, working to gether, to make that happen.

Vote for fair, secure and accessible elections

As a clerk with over 16 years of experience in adminis tering and overseeing elec tions, I strongly support Proposal 2 because it will help ensure we have more secure and more acces sible elections across Michigan.

For local clerks and for voters across Michigan, there is a great deal to like about Proposal 2 re gardless of your political party.

If passed, Proposal 2 would ush er in a series of long overdue non partisan reforms and improve ments to our elections that would support local clerks and build upon our successful track record of safe, secure and accurate elec tions in Michigan.

Here are some key highlights of Proposal 2: ` Proposal 2 ensures our fundamental right to vote without harassment or intimidation. Pro posal 2 protects the right of all eligible Michi gan voters to have their voices heard and their votes counted regardless of the political candi date or party they support, where they live or

what they look like.

`

Proposal 2 protects the voices of our military members serving overseas by requiring their ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received within six days. Sadly, in many municipalities, ballots received a day or two late from our brave men and women serving their country overseas are not counted. at’s wrong and Pro posal 2 xes this problem.

` Proposal 2 will improve the integrity and security of our elections. It does this by ensuring election results are de termined based solely on the votes of Michi gan citizens whose identity is veri ed prior to counting their vote, whether they are voting in person or by mail.

In fact, Proposal 2 would enshrine our cur rent e ective voter ID law into Michigan’s con stitution, while providing safeguards for peo ple without an ID to sign an a davit. Proposal 2 simply codi es current law in our state, which is comparable to or stricter than 37 oth er states across the country.

` Proposal 2 expands early voting options, which will give working parents, the elderly, voters with disabilities and those living in ru ral areas greater access to participate in our democratic process. It does this by providing nine days of early in-person voting — some thing many other states have been doing since the 1980s.

been utilizing for some time, I am con dent Michigan local clerks like myself will be able to implement these positive changes for Michi gan voters with relative ease.

`

Proposal 2 will also allow municipalities from the same county to share early voting lo cations to reduce costs and increase e ciency to taxpayers. is will also ensure voting is ac cessible to more Michigan voters who may not be able get to their polling place on Election Day.

During the 2018 election, Michigan voters overwhelmingly passed anoth er ballot initiative that created no-rea son absentee voting and expanded voter registration options. Clerks were able to adapt and implement these important policy changes, and the same will be true for Propos al 2 on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Because Proposal 2 incorporates early vot ing and several best practices other states have

Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to rely on the Michigan Legislature for real solutions or support for local clerks. Too often the de bate gets mired down by partisan politics. Pro posal 2 rises above the partisan fray with non partisan elections reforms embraced by people in both parties.

And the people of Michigan get to decide this question for themselves.

As a local clerk, I urge you to vote “Yes” on Proposal 2 because it protects our fundamen tal right to vote and ensures the votes of our military members are counted, and it will make our elections across Michigan more se cure and accessible.

Aghogho Edevbie is Michigan state director for All Voting is Local.

Chris Swope is the Lansing city clerk.

FOR LOCAL CLERKS AND FOR VOTERS, THERE IS A GREAT DEAL TO LIKE ABOUT PROPOSAL 2 REGARDLESS OF PARTY.

Volunteers process absentee ballots for the 2020 presidential election at the TCF Center in Detroit. | BLOOMBERG

to

people with

workforce.

Hamtramck co-working space aims to give Muslim women an outlet

BY JAY DAVIS

Sisters Aliyah, Laila and Taqwa Mahdi started e Social Loft out of necessity.

e three Muslim sisters during the coronavirus pandemic were searching for a women’s-only co-working space but weren’t having any luck.

So they opened their own.

e Social Loft is a dedicated space aimed at helping Muslim women to work, meet and stay healthy. e 2,400 square-foot space, located at 3002 Carpenter Ave. in Hamtramck, o ers 8 by 10, private o ce spaces for entrepreneurs to run their businesses at a rate of $350-$400 a month. Geared toward Muslim women in Hamtramck, the space is available for all women, Laila Mahdi said.

Aliyah, Laila and Taqwa pooled their own money to lease the space.

e Social Loft, a for-pro t business that opened in April 2021, also features space for women to rent on a daily basis. Two studios are available at $50 an hour for a minimum of two hours. Both studios can be had for $90 an hour.

e business, which even includes a dedicated kid’s room full of bright-colored toys, also features a space for events. A ladies’ lounge gives women a space to relax. Mom pods, 8 by 10 rooms available to rent on an hourly basis, give women a chance to catch up on reading or simply catch their breath.

e Social Loft also includes a health aspect — with a gym featuring treadmills, bikes, and resistance training equipment. e venue has hosted kids summer camps and offered a twice-monthly homeschool program.

e idea came from the sisters’ history of organizing events. Opening e Social Loft allows the Madhi sisters to operate in one central location.

“We grew up in Hamtramck, went to school here, so we wanted to do this here,” Laila Mahdi said. “A lot of the women in our community walk, or their husbands drop them o , so we wanted to be a short walk or drive away for them.”

Taqwa Mahdi said access was a driving factor behind the venture. Aside from the bene ts of having a co-working space, e Social Loft’s health element gives Muslim women a chance to stay healthy, while giving them a sense of privacy other gyms can’t.

“Muslim women are modest, so we give each other the chance to work out and keep that modesty intact,” Taqwa Madhi said.

“We grew up in a Muslim environment,” said Aliyah Madhi, a mother of three. “ ings in our culture are separate — men and women. Having this space allows us to keep that in place, but gives women an outlet to work and do things that make them feel good about themselves, and give them con dence.”

Laila Madhi, also a mother of three, estimates e Social Loft has upwards of 15 members, who each pay a monthly membership fee of $35 for teens, $45 for seniors and $55 for other adults.

Detroit resident Habiba Allen rents a space to operate her hair braiding business, Wasi Braiding.

“Working out of my house, you would have my kids asking me for something, my husband asking me for something. Now I’m able to just work and give my clients the feeling of being in a nice space and it’s a better way for me to o er my services,” Allen said.

“I think ( e Social Loft), for a lot of women gives them a chance to do some things they otherwise wouldn’t because there aren’t a lot of outlets like this for Muslim women.”

Contact: jason.davis@crain.com (313) 446-1612; @JayDavis_1981

play in a

of the

and

Join us at this event to learn about an untapped, skilled talent pool that can complete your equity equation—neurodivergent individuals. Enjoy a spirited experience and a special thank you right from the heart of Detroit!

Register now!

Sisters Laila, Aliyah and Tawqa Madhi own and operate The Social Loft — a co-working space and event venue for Muslim women in Hamtramck. | JAY DAVIS/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

PEOPLE

ACCOUNTING

Schlaupitz Madhavan

Schlaupitz Madhavan announces Lauren Debay as shareholder.

Lauren Debay has more than a decade of experience and focuses on taxation consulting and accounting issues facing privately held companies. As a licensed CPA, Lauren works closely with clients to build proactive tax strategies that help support their nancial goals.

ACCOUNTING

Fenner, Melstrom & Dooling, PLC

FMD has welcomed tax attorney Greg DiCenso, Esq. to its talented team. DiCenso has exited the practice of law and joined a team of experienced tax professionals within the rm. DiCenso brings over 45 years of experience in estate and trust tax planning and strategy. DiCenso earned his undergraduate degree from University of Michigan, graduate degree from Wayne State, and a law degree from University of Utah. He has also served as adjunct professor at Wayne State Law and Walsh Business School.

HEALTHCARE / PROVIDER

PsyGenics, Inc.

We are excited to share that Danielle Duckett has been selected as the Clinical Program Manager for PsyGenics, Inc. She is responsible for developing and guiding all programs and services performed by clinical supervisors, team leads, and staff at each of our four clinics to ensure consistency in the quality care provided. Danielle has over 10 years of mental health experience with 7 years of experience in program management, clinical supervision, and workforce development.

SONG

“It’s interesting to sort of feel not needed,” Song said with a laugh during an interview last week in the backyard of his Ann Arbor home while Milo, the family’s 10-monthold black cockapoo, ran around.

ACCOUNTING

Schlaupitz Madhavan

Schlaupitz Madhavan has promoted Carrie Hammons to shareholder. With more than 15 years of experience, Carrie Hammons has deep expertise in audits of privately held businesses and nancial statements in various industries. With comprehensive acumen relating to employee bene t plans, she has been instrumental in enhancing the rm’s Employee Bene t Plan audit practice since joining Schlaupitz Madhavan in 2019.

ARCHITECTURE

HKS

Global design rm HKS has announced Betsy Williams as Studio Design Leader. Based in the Detroit of ce, Williams will contribute to the rm’s Health focused design practice, expand its regional Commercial/Mixed Use sector, and help steward an engaged, research-based, and inclusive design process. Williams’ experience spans multiple sectors, and she is passionate about solving problems and improving well-being at all scales.

NONPROFITS

The Children’s Foundation

Steve Jbara, President and Founder of the Grand Rapids Gold recently joined The Foundation’s Board of Trustees. In addition to leading the NBA G League team, Jbara also owns his own advertising agency called Atomic Honey, is Co-Owner of Green Door Distillery Kalamazoo, and has a background of starting and selling various startup companies. His entrepreneurial expertise will be an asset to The Foundation’s continued growth across the state as it continues to seek opportunities to expand its reach.

So now, as Song moves out of the hyper-charged life of startup founder and cybersecurity executive, he says he’s trying to take it slowly and be in tentional about whatever comes next.

In part, that appears to include philanthropist, startup mentor, in vestor, husband of a politician and someone who says he hates golf but is nding more time to skateboard.

A new phase

While Song has long been viewed as the most visible example of a startup founder success story, he now appears to be moving into something of an elder statesman role within the state’s continually emerging startup and venture capi tal “ecosystem.”

And while the entrepreneur, hus band (his wife Linh is a member of the Ann Arbor city council), dad to two teenagers and skateboarder — he has a half-pipe in his backyard — says he has no formal plans for a second act at the moment, he’s helped develop multiple pieces of infrastructure that can bolster the region’s startup community, entre preneurial experts say.

ers can exceed their user limit to support an increase in remote work ers, and new customers can access a free license,” Gee Rittenhouse, Cis co’s then-senior vice president and general manager of the Security Business Group, wrote in a blog post on March 10, 2020, right as lock downs were taking hold around the country and working remotely be came critical.

Philanthrophy and investment

In the just under two months since he wound down his time at Cisco, Song noted that he’s traveled to the San Francisco Bay area, Washington, D.C. and overseas. He’s taken part in multiple confer ences in Detroit and elsewhere, and has been visiting with other found ers who have exited their compa nies and have charted various paths having done so.

e Duo Security founder said both his recently launched family foundation and the Michigan Founders Fund, a nonpro t net working and support group for founders and VCs, are taking up a good chunk of his time as well.

e Song Foundation has made a handful of grants in recent months, Song said. ose have been done anonymously and focused around “equity and access” to entrepre neurship in cities like Detroit.

So would the serial entrepreneur consider starting a new company in this new period of relative downtime?

ACCOUNTING

Schlaupitz Madhavan

Alan Salomon has been named shareholder at Schlaupitz Madhavan. Salomon has more than three decades of public accounting experience. He specializes in creating business valuations for closely held businesses to inform mergers and acquisitions, nancing, estate and gift tax, built-in gains, owner disputes and insurance company settlements. In addition to his role as a CPA, Alan is Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) and is a Certi ed Valuation Analyst (CVA).

ARCHITECTURE

McIntosh Poris Associates Award-winning architecture rm

McIntosh Poris Associates announces the promotion of Laurie Hughet-Hiller, AIA, to Principal. Her diverse experience in design and leadership for hospitality, retail, education, and corporate projects has transformed Metro Detroit. Since 1994, the rm has worked for a variety of clients across the U.S to deliver creative, interactive buildings in the communities they serve. MPA has won more than 120 design awards, including 30 regional and national AIA awards.

e role Song can play within the startup and VC community is “abso lutely essential,” according to Chris Rizik, the CEO of Ann Arbor-based Renaissance Venture Capital.

“Lots of places around the coun try have great universities and great technology. Often the last thing to come is great C-level talent that knows how to take an idea and turn it into a successful startup,” Rizik said. “So people like Dug are sort of the linchpin in what makes one place successful as a startup ecosys tem that other places don’t yet have.”

Duo’s sale to Cisco in 2018 for $2.35 billion is believed to be the biggest ac quisition of a venture capital-backed startup in Michigan history.

In the months that followed the acquisition, Duo’s product — de scribed as cloud-based uni ed ac cess security and multi-factor au thentication — was touted by Cisco executives as the company’s “high est growth product.”

Early on in the pandemic, as more workers went remote and companies needed to beef up cy bersecurity protocols, Cisco cited Duo as one of its main o erings for customers.

“With this o er, existing custom

“I never say never,” Song said.

An outspoken advocate for vari ous progressive politics and eco nomic policies, Song said this new period has led to him going some what “outside my lane” and invest ing in some real estate and private equity deals.

Speci cally, Song said he’s joined in some deals of the Michigan Op portunity Fund, a PE venture backed Michigan business titans such as Doug DeVos and Roger Penske.

Run by Grand Rapids-based Auxo Investment Partners and focused on acquiring Michigan companies to keep them locally owned, the mis sion is one Song said he supports, de spite having little political agreement with many of the others involved.

Taken together, Song is busy at the moment, even without a tradi tional day job. And that is sort of the goal, he added.

“I don’t have any kind of plans or intent,” Song said. “I feel like I really need to play out my second career right now in service and giving. I sort of feel like I have a responsibili ty to do so.”

Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes

Dug Song speaks at Michigan Tech Week. | NICK MANES/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Waste Management aims to make Detroit a regional recycling hub

Plan is in response to increased demand for recycled products

MINNAH ARSHAD

Detroit will soon serve as a recy cling focal point for Michigan’s Low er Peninsula for the country’s largest waste hauler.

Houston-based Waste Manage ment Inc. plans to break ground on its rst Detroit materials recovery fa cility, or MRF, at the end of 2022. e facility will serve surrounding com munities, process materials from WM’s six transfer stations in the re gion and serve as the hub for two fa cilities that process limited commer cial recycling, according to a news release.

e $35 million project is slated to be complete by the end of 2023 and will serve industrial, commercial and residential customers, the release said.

John Roach, the city’s media rela tions director, told Crain’s that the facility will be located west of St. Aub in Street between East Ferry Street and I-94 on land that WM currently owns. Roach also said WM has not applied for any tax incentives to build the facility.

e Detroit plan is in response to an increased demand for recycled

—Aaron Johnson, Great Lakes area vice president, Waste Management Inc.

products, a WM spokesperson told Crain’s in an email.

“Our intent with this investment is to position Detroit as a recycling hub for further sustainability progress in the State in Michigan,” WM Great Lakes Area Vice President Aaron Johnson said in the release.

WM, which reported $5.027 billion in revenue in the second quarter, stated in its release that the Detroit facility will generate about 50 jobs and create opportunities for Michi gan businesses to expand commer cial recycling and use recycled mate rials.

nology, the facility will process mixed recycling and source-segregated cardboard at the rate of up to 40 tons an hour, the company said.

“ e City of Detroit looks forward to supporting WM’s investment in a state-of-the-art recycling facility,” Mayor Mike Duggan said in the re lease. “ is project will drive eco nomic growth in our great city by cre ating career opportunities for Detroiters, and positioning Detroit as the epicenter of a circular economy for Michigan business.”

WM is the largest waste-man agement company in North Ameri ca. It operates 49 single-stream re cycling facilities, 27 commercial facilities, 11 other facilities, nine construction and demolition recy cling facilities, 26 composting facil ities, five organics material recov ery facilities, four green waste processing sites and four wood waste processing sites, a spokes person told Crain’s in an email. WM has added five MRFs in the past two years and plans to up grade 30 MRFs by 2025.

Detroit’s Sphinx Organization set to make international debut

SHERRI WELCH

e Detroit-based Sphinx Orga nization and its premier touring en semble is making its international debut Monday in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

e 18-member, Sphinx Virtuosi ensemble of Black and Latinx string musicians from around the U.S. is traveling to the South American country to perform in its main con cert hall as part of the Tucca Inter national Concert Series.

e Sao Paulo concert comes less than two weeks after the ensemble performed at Carnegie Hall.

e musicians, who are in their late 20s and early 30s, will perform music by Black composers and per form with Brazilian composer and violinist Ricardo Herz as a guest so loist performing his own pieces.

Herz, who specializes in incor porating Brazilian folk music into classical music, wrote some pieces speci cally dedicated to Sphinx, said Afa Sadykhly Dworkin, the or

ganization’s president and artistic director.

e Sao Paulo engagement is a paid performance that is also sup ported by a $50,000 sponsorship from Bank of America to o set costs, she said.

Dworkin and Sphinx’s director of artist engagement will travel with the ensemble.

“ is is historic for us...it’s occur ring during a milestone year for our 25th anniversary, and we’re looking at it as such a milestone, iconic oc currence because it’s also a time where our premier touring ensem ble is actually breaking ground abroad,” Dworkin said.

e international performance is also notable in that it signals “there’s such a resonance and in terest in kind of a concept of both excellence and diversity working on stage together,” she said.

Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch

To

DETROIT RIVERFRONT CONSERVANCY - MARKETING MANAGER POSITION

WALSH

From

“We have heard the complaints and the comments, and we are com mitted to determining if illicit mari juana is making its way into the li censed system — and if it is, how it’s happening,” David Harns, spokes person for the CRA said in response to emailed questions. “Acting Direc tor Hanna has been clear with stake holders in his rst few weeks that his two priorities are (1) continuing the CRA’s history of transparency and communication with stakeholders and (2) determining if and how illicit marijuana product might be making its way into the regulated system.

rough the use of paper screen ing, optical sorters and other tech

Contact: minnah.arshad@crain.com (313) 446-0416; @minnaharshad

businesses play by the same rules.”

Growers and retailers in the indus try have plenty of theories on how it’s getting here.

The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy (DRFC) seeks a Marketing Manager to help tell the story of this “world-class gathering space for all.” The DRFC is celebrating it’s 20th anniversary as a 501(c) (3) org w/the mission of developing access to the Detroit International Riverfront. The Marketing Manager will be responsible for connecting the mission & vision to broad audiences, managing & creating all social media content & reaching new audiences, content generation and strategic positioning, set & implement the strategy for all marketing activities & budgets while articulating the DRFC mission & vision. The Marketing Manager, reporting to the President & CEO, will work closely with the fundraising, programming & public relations teams, help to communicate organizational information to a diverse network & constituent base, including stakeholders, funders, & residents. No phone calls please. Find more information at https://detroitriverfront.org/careers-marketingmanager22

Andrew Sereno, CEO of Manches ter-based grower Glacier Farms, told Crain’s the variability of output, and skill, among growers makes it almost impossible for the state to determine how much product should come from a plant. Without a somewhat standard yield, how can regulators begin to know whether all the prod uct coming from a grower was grown legally?

from the regulated market. “ ey are trucking in this shit,” the retailer said.

e theory is that distillate — re ned cannabis resins used in edibles, tinctures and vape cartridges — is being produced in illegal states with out the interference of regulatory hurdles for much cheaper, such as Oklahoma, and then shipped in to be sold on the legal market at a higher price.

e anonymous retailer said a liter of illegal distillate is $500 but is retail ing for about $1,700 in Michigan.

DETROIT RIVERFRONT CONSERVANCY - MARKETING MANAGER POSITION

Licensees who are not in compliance with the statutes and the administra tive rules will be held accountable — it is important that consumers have faith in the legal market and that all

“It is very easy for a bad actor grower to “harvest” some plants and then have outside material enter in at that point,” Sereno said. “Who is to say whether they actually had a 20-, 40- or 60-pound harvest?”

e head of a large retailer, who asked to speak anonymously, said the amount of marijuana oils for sale in the state couldn’t possibly all come

Where there’s money to be made, there will be those who are operating outside the con nes of the law. After all, marijuana is a 200-plus-year-old industry in the U.S. is legal stu is new and so are regulators’ and the law’s attempts at curbing the activity.

Contact: dwalsh@crain.com; (313) 446-6042; @dustinpwalsh

The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy (DRFC) seeks a Marketing Manager to help tell the story of this “world class gathering space for all.” The DRFC is celebrating it’s 20th anniversary as a 501(c) (3) org w/the mission of developing access to the Detroit International Riverfront. The Marketing Manager will be responsible for connecting the mission & vision to broad audiences managing & creating all social media content & reaching new audiences, content generation and strategic positioning, set & implement the strategy for all marketing activities & budgets while articulating the DRFC mission & vision. The Marketing Manager, reporting to the President & CEO, will work closely with the fundraising, programming & public relations teams, help to communicate organizational information to a diverse network & constituent base, including stakeholders, funders, & residents. No phone calls please. Find more information at https://detroitriverfront.org/careers marketingmanager22

A Waste Management recycling facility in Salt Lake City. The company plans to build a similar structure in Detroit.| WASTE MANAGEMENT INC.

“OUR INTENT WITH THIS INVESTMENT IS TO POSITION DETROIT AS A RECYCLING HUB FOR FURTHER SUSTAINABILITY PROGRESS IN THE STATE IN MICHIGAN.”

The Sphinx Organization performed at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 13. | BRIAN HATTON PHOTOGRAPHY

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UPPER PENINSULA HEALTH PLANLLC 853 West Washington St., Marquette49855 906-225-7500; uphp.com

UNITEDHEALTHCARE 26957 Northwestern Highway, Suite 400, South eld 48034 800-842-3585; uhc.com

for

MICH. ENROLLED MEMBERS 2021/ 2020

MICH. ENROLLED MEMBERS 2021/ 2020

MICH. ENROLLED MEMBERS IN HMO/ DHMO, PLAN

MICH. ENROLLED MEMBERS IN PPO PLAN

MICH. ENROLLED MEMBERS IN POS PLAN

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$32,500.0 $30,100.0 8.0%$32,500.0 $30,100.0 4,632,657 4,686,762 4,632,657 4,686,762 1,155,2533,353,0270124,378PPO, HMO, HSA-eligible products, Medigap, Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, commercial prescription drug plans, dental and vision bene ts, Medicaid HMO

$5,769.7 $5,138.8 12.3%$1,215.9 $731.7 1,213,655 1,200,000 305,000 300,000

595,000NANANAHMO/PSO, Medigap, PHIC, Medicare Advantage, Medicare PDP, Medicaid, selffunded

SeanKendall plan president and CEO $2,793.3 $2,248.8 24.2%NA NA 623,977 588,093 623,977 588,093 623,977NANANAMedicaid, Medicare, Marketplace

MichaelGenord president and CEO $2,139.7 $2,072.3 3.3%$2,105.9 $1,523.6 398,387 402,787 248,712 244,193 193,25783,87910,013111,238HMO, PPO, EPO, Medicare, Medicaid, DSNP, MedicareMedicaid dual eligible (MMP), ASO/self-funded, network lease

ChristineSurdock president $1,985.4 2 $1,685.0 2 17.8%NA NA 428,377 2 399,622 2

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GoranJurkovic president and CEO $1,975.1 $1,708.5 15.6%$933.5 $839.7 5,776,317 5,675,924 2,657,181 2,583,776 0 4,761,34001,014,964Delta Dental Premier, Delta Dental PPO, Delta Dental EPO

NancyJenkins president and CEO $1,065.9 $863.8 23.4%$1,065.9 $863.8 304,897 279,997 52,350 52,500 18,234NANANASmall Group; Rewards: Platinum, Gold, Silver; Standard: Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze; HSA: Bronze ; HRA: Gold - Large Group; POS; HMO; HSA; HDHP - ASO; ASO Captive Arrangement

Beverly AnnAllen president RandyHyun CEO

RyanZikeli market VP, employer group sales

KathieMancini president, East Central Medicare region

$490.2 2 $382.5 2 28.1%NA NA 72,852 2 59,489

$353.4 2 $295.5 2 19.6%NA NA 27,328 2 22,934

MelissaHolmquist CEO $352.6 2 $304.3 2 15.9%NA

DustinHinton CEO, UnitedHealthcare Michigan and Wisconsin $326.8 $340.5 -4.0%NA

56,983

NANANAAetna Better Health of Michigan and Aetna Better Health Premier Plan

NANANAMedicare, Medicaid

NANANAMedicaid, Medicare

Exclusive Provider Arrangement (EPA) - Similar to an HMO.

Point of Service Plan (POS) - Members

Administrative Services Only (ASO) - O ered by

NOTES:

the full

must choose a

who

a primary care physician but can go outside the

to self-insured

on

version of this

and

for

hospital

From Department of Insurance and Financial Services.

— and every list? Become a Data Member: CrainsDetroit.com/data

INEQUITY

From

e U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey reports that the total Detroit population is 77.1 percent Black. However, according to the Downtown Detroit Partnership, downtown Detroit, the most a uent part of the city, is only 40 percent Black, a di erence of about 37 percentage points from the city overall.

Wealthy neighborhoods bene t from better funded schools and the “social capital” of well-connected networks for professional develop ment, the report said, while families in lower funded school districts face education gaps, placing them behind the curve from an early age.

“A good job can have a multiplying e ect in our communities, but we know pathways to these opportuni ties are out of reach for too many De troiters,” Jason Tinsley, Michigan market manager for JPMorgan, said in a news release. “ ese data-driven insights are critical to help advance the sustainable change needed to en sure that Detroit is a place where ev eryone can prosper.”

e racial divide in development is also seen in graduation rates. While statewide data shows improvement in the last few years, the report stated that the Detroit Public Schools Com munity District has seen graduation rates fall four years in a row.

Currently, people of color account for one third of the regional work force, the report stated. However, that number is expected to increase as the older generation retires and younger workers age in. According to the report, people of color account for 41 percent of the “emerging work force,” or people under age 25.

“Meeting the needs of the diverse youth population and ensuring that they have the resources, supports, and opportunities necessary to enter and thrive in the workforce is essen tial to the region’s future prosperity,” the report stated.

To move toward workplace equity, the report compiled ve action items for policymakers, employers, educa tors, funders and community organizations: help people navigate sup port and training services, strengthen education, workforce and wrap around services, support “worker power and advocacy” to raise base salaries on low-paying jobs, and build a database and measurement tools to guide next steps.

To support the emerging work force, the report recommended sup porting existing programs in the re gion such as Grow Detroit’s Young Talent and Detroit Public Schools

Community District’s career acade mies. Researchers also pointed to ex panding apprenticeship opportuni ties, where minorities are underrepresented due to “recruit ment mechanisms and the role of so cial capital and professional net works in securing such positions.”

e study also found unionization was a potential contributing factor to equalizing opportunities.

“Not all unions embrace racial eq uity goals and strategies, but union membership has been shown to in crease worker pay and narrow racial wealth gaps, and worker organizing is a critical lever for improving other dimensions of job quality, such as fair and safe working conditions, worker protections, and fair promo tion practices,” the report stated, adding that supporting worker advo cacy and organizing was especially crucial due to “policy constraints” that stop local government action to

support the labor force.

Also, since a college education is linked to “high-quality employment,” closing racial gaps in higher educa tion is also a key step to nancial eq uity. e report pointed to one exist

ing program, Detroit Drives Degrees, a Detroit Regional Chamber initia tive that aims to connect people with education opportunities.

Heidi Alcock, director of grant de velopment and communications at

McGregor Fund and co-chair of the Detroit Area Workforce Funders Col laborative, said in the release, “Now is the time to align the e orts of gov ernment, business, nonpro ts, and philanthropy, and elevate the voices

and expertise of workers of color, for solutions that work.” e full study is available online.

Contact: minnah.arshad@crain.com (313) 446-0416; @minnaharshad

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It would also allocate $20.4 million for new services, including $3.2 mil lion for paratransit, $3.5 million for microtransit, $12 million for more routes and $1.7 million for improve ments on existing routes.

Owens advocated for a variety of public transit options that t the community’s needs rather than a one-size- ts-all approach.

“We really need to have a whole menu of mobility options available throughout our region for people to really be able to succeed.”

Jared Denton, a 22-year-old Mil ford resident, uses the public trans portation service People’s Express to get to Colasanti’s Market in Highland Township, where he’s been working for the past year. Because he has an intellectual disability, public transit has been essential in having access to equal opportunities, his mother, Mindy Denton, said.

“It’s another opportunity for him to be more independent and more involved in the community,” Mindy Denton said.

Jared Denton also attends a voca tional program twice a week and a Saturday social program at the Living and Learning Enrichment Center, a disability services and support orga nization in Northville, which is cur rently out of Milford’s public transit bounds, Mindy said. Driving Jared around is di cult for two working parents and stunts his indepen dence, Mindy said.

However, some of the more rural communities have been resistant to funding countywide public transit. Milford residents have voiced strong opposition to the upcoming millage proposal, stating that its current sys tem, People’s Express, does the job and further expansion is not cost-ef cient, worrying that most of the funds will go to more populous areas. Others argue that a system that only routes through the community blocks access to other parts of the county and region.

“ e lack of transportation oppor tunities is a real barrier in the disabil ity community,” Mindy told Crain’s.

Macomb County

Macomb County is the only one of the three metro counties that has

STELLANTIS

From

“ at’s nearly two years of pro duction with improper ventilation and odor mitigation rather than im mediate correction,” according to a media advisory from community ac tivist group Justice for Beniteau.

Stellantis said it applied in May for a regenerative thermal oxidizer — its x for the air issues — and has been waiting on approval from EGLE.

“We recognize that EGLE has an obligation to address any com plaints or potential violations while we work with them on the permit ting required to implement our ulti mate solution to the issues,” Stellan tis spokeswoman Jodi Tinson said Wednesday in an email. “We are all aligned on the importance of com pleting construction on the new emissions control devices and are working to get that done as quickly as possible.”

EGLE said the permit to install has not been issued because there

never included an opt-out option since it began its transit millage in 1995.

is year, the county’s Board of Commissioners narrowly passed the ballot initiative onto the November ballot in July for the .95 mill rate to support public transportation, in cluding SMART, in a 7-6 vote. In 2018,

voters passed the county’s transit millage by only 39 votes, the Detroit Free Press reported.

e major change to Macomb’s millage this November is a term ex tension of the millage from four years to ve years. ere was also a slight reduction from a .9615- to .95-mill rate.

e millage is expected to raise $31.1 million in its rst year, accord ing to commission documents.

Wayne County and Detroit

Wayne County is looking at anoth er four-year approval of a .99-mill levy for SMART service in opt-in communities.

Owens said her organization isn’t spending a lot of time on advocacy in Wayne County, since communities that opt in have historically been very supportive of the SMART service. Whether she thinks a four-year mill age is the best way to get the funds is a di erent story.

“It doesn’t make a ton of sense, but it’s the system we’ve had,” Owens said.

Since public transit is a long-term service that requires a wide geo graphical reach to be truly useful, other major metro areas have ap plied a sales tax to pay for the service, Owens said. In that system, out-oftown visitors also pitch in.

Some metro areas have varying rates, so the communities using pub lic transit the most are putting in more money. However, current Michigan laws don’t allow counties to add to the 6 percent sales tax. Un less that changes, Owens said the millages are the region’s only option to fund public transit.

“Right now, if any of these don’t pass, a year from now, SMART ser vice could very possibly cease to exist in those counties,” Owens said. e city of Detroit also operates on an unusual funding basis compared to other large metro areas in the na tion. e Detroit Department of Transportation, the public bus oper

“Warren Truck, which is owned by Stellantis, is out of compliance,” Greenberg said. “So, part of the pro cess to issue the (regenerative ther mal oxidizer) at Mack is to have War ren Truck on a path to compliance before we can issue the permit ... at Mack.”

Adding another layer of complexi ty is a federal civil rights complaint alleging racial discrimination by EGLE over the original permits it is sued for the Stellantis complex in De troit. e complaint, led last No vember by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center to the Environmental Protection Agency, is still in review.

ator in the city, relies on the general fund. Detroit City Council decides every year when drawing up the bud get how much funding it will receive.

Earlier this year, DDOT also re ceived $6.9 million in federal grants to get electric buses and upgrade in frastructure.

rough the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency has struggled with scarce labor and rolled out a bonus program earlier this summer for drivers to in centivize sta to show up to shifts on time.

Owens said the funding requests this election are to sustain the most basic level of transit on a local level, which she said is especially neces sary during a labor shortage.

“We need to have every possible worker connected to the jobs in our region, and transit really is that basic lifeline for employers to have that connection to a greater workforce.”

Contact: minnah.arshad@crain.com (313) 446-0416; @minnaharshad

lem will be xed is a major concern. “ e most important question I need to be able to answer to my resi dents is when,” Tlaib said during the public hearing. “Is this going to be years, is it going to be a year? Why can’t we say this has to be done by this date? My residents have been liv ing with no pollution controls for two years.”

are other variables at play, including a request by the automaker to in crease particulate emissions and to have control over when to run the regenerative thermal oxidizer.

“It’s complicated. Stellantis is ask ing for more than just the (regenera tive thermal oxidizer),” EGLE spokes woman Jill Greenberg said in an email. “ is includes particulate emissions increases not associated

with the RTO … Stellantis wants ex ibility on when they would operate (it). EGLE is pushing for operation at all times, while Stellantis wants more operational exibility.”

Greenberg said the permit for the equipment is also subject to “major nonattainment permitting,” which requires all sources owned and oper ated by the company in Michigan to be in compliance.

“ e Title VI civil rights complaint has entered an informal resolution process led by the EPA,” said Andrew Bashi, sta attorney at the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. “We’re hopeful that, in the end, the agency will compel EGLE to rectify their discriminatory permitting prac tices, preventing the creation of more sacri ce zones.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib said the lack of clarity as to when the pollution prob

As part of the proposed agreement with EGLE to resolve the air pollution violations, Stellantis agreed to pay a $62,863 ne to the State of Michigan General Fund and spend at least $212,000 planting trees and making improvements for a local high school. Residents have said the penalty is not enough.

“Considering EGLE pursues air quality enforcement actions so rarely, we’re glad that they’re doing so in this case,” Bashi said. “Sadly, the proposed supplemental environmental projects will not speci cally address the very real impacts this facility has had on residents and their community.”

Contact: knagl@crain.com; (313) 446-0337; @kurt_nagl

Public transportation is on the ballot in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties in November. | NIC ANTAYA/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

The Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant in Detroit in February. MATTHEW HATCHER/BLOOMBERG

Jared Denton used public transit in Millford to get to work. | MINDY DENTON

BIG RAPIDS

From 2010 to 2020, Big Rapids’ pop ulation declined from 10,601 to 7,727, about 27 percent. Meanwhile, Mecos ta County’s population declined 7.2 percent, from 42,798 to 39,714, com pared to a statewide loss of 1.9 percent during the same period.

Manufacturing and agriculture layo s at least partly contributed to the exodus, local o cials previously told Crain’s.

By Isely’s math, the 2,350 jobs Gotion promises would require 10 percent of Mecosta County’s working-age popula tion. But only 1,200 people are actually unemployed there as of August’s Bu reau of Labor Statistics estimate. If the unemployment rate stays steady, Go tion will need to lure workers from neighboring counties like Isabella, Montcalm, Newaygo, Lake, Osceola and Clare.

Isely said there may be an appetite for manufacturing employment in Montcalm County, which lost about 5,000 jobs between the closure of a Greenville Electrolux refrigerator plant and associated suppliers in 2005. But whether those workers would be willing to drive an hour and back each day is another question.

“(Gotion is) having to make a bet that Big Rapids has the amenities set that people want who are going to work in this type of industry,” Isely said. “Ei ther you’re going to be able to convince people to come there, or you’re going to draw from a wider set, so you’re go ing to be pulling people in from Lake or Oceana or other places where there are higher unemployment rates.”

Adding to the concern is whether West Central Michigan has enough skilled manufacturing workers to ll high-tech automotive jobs.

Jon Eppley, a Big Rapids city com missioner and marketing manager for Michigan Works! West Central, called the area’s manufacturing in dustry “very diverse.” It includes shoe and furniture makers, dairy process ing facilities, logging equipment manufacturers and machine shops.

But there are only two major auto suppliers: Federal Screw Works in Big Rapids, which makes automotive bolts, and Ventra Evart Products in Osceola County, which provides plastic exterior parts to the Big ree and Tesla (and which has been beset by layo s and worker strikes over the past few years).

ere was a third major automotive employer until recently: Fluid Routing Solutions, which shifted its fuel line tubing production from Big Rapids to Mexico this year, laying o 60 workers between June and September.

Among them was Linda Ensing, 51, a production supervisor whose last day at the plant was July 8. She’s still looking for a job, but said Gotion’s in vestment probably will come too late for her. e company expects to begin its rst hiring wave in 2024, with the plant fully online and sta ed by 2031.

Ensing said the Gotion project could be good for Big Rapids, but she’s skeptical that the promise of high pay will come to fruition.

“It would be wonderful if they came to Big Rapids — nothing against that — but in order for that to happen, they’ll have to pay decent wages, or you will not get anybody to stay,” she said. “I worked at Fluid Routing Solu tions, and our pay scale was ‘zip’ for our employees. It was like a revolving door. We went through more employ ees in a month than I can even count.”

When she started at FRS seven years ago, her pay as a line worker was just over $10 per hour. is year, the starting rate was $13.

As far as Ensing is aware, the em ployees who worked under her at FRS have found new manufacturing jobs in Big Rapids, Reed City or Evart. Some older employees chose to retire, but others have years left in the workforce.

“A lot of them wanted to stay local ly because of the gas prices and the wages — so 90 percent of them, I be lieve, stayed local,” she said.

In Ensing’s eyes, rising in ation has led to even two-income house holds working overtime and strug

gling to make ends meet, leading to a feeling of hopelessness in the city.

If Gotion does set up shop in Big Rapids, Ensing believes the area’s natural amenities could help with worker recruitment.

“For one, you get the Muskegon River. at’s a big thing — you can tube, canoe. You’ve got a lot of recre ational parks around here, a lot of campgrounds everyone comes to. We’ve got quite a bit,” she said. ere’s also plenty of retail poten

Area manufacturers

A rundown of manufacturers left in greater Big Rapids — and those no longer there.

IN BIG RAPIDS:

` Fluid Routing Solutions (gasoline tubes auto supplier — CLOSED)

` Federal Screw Works (automotive bolts)

` Hamtech Inc. (metal cutting job shop)

` Haworth Big Rapids Components Wood Plant (furniture)

` Pippin Custom Barrels (furniture)

` Islands R Us (furniture)

` Original Footwear (shoes)

` Simonds International (saw blades)

` Hanchett Manufacturing (saw ling and knife grinding)

` Cook’s Blacksmith Welding (industrial welding and repair)

` Big Rapids Box Co. (pallet supplier)

NEARBY:

` Ventra Evart Products (auto supplier, Evart)

` Leprino Foods (cheese maker/dairy processing, Remus)

` Ice Mountain (bottled water plant, Stanwood)

` Trelan Manufacturing (tree chippers, Remus)

` Omega Manufacturing (metal work and welding, Baldwin)

` Peacock Industries (industrial machinery, Baldwin)

tial, she said — more than a few emp ty buildings downtown and not many shops except cannabis dispensaries and a couple big-box stores.

“We have like 16 or 17 pot shops in Big Rapids,” she said, attributing the demand to students at nearby Ferris State University — Big Rapids’ largest employer with 1,400 workers.

Ensing’s primary hope is that Go tion will treat its employees fairly.

“I hope it works out for them,” she said. “I hope they pay (well) and lis

ten to their employees — don’t just push them underneath the rug.” ere’s also fear that Gotion’s ar rival will reshu e the labor force rather than grow it.

Big Rapids employers have strug gled to compete for workers since the pandemic began, said Eppley, of Michigan Works!. ere’s “a real con cern” that Gotion will pull workers away from existing manufacturing jobs, he said.

“We have been in communication with a lot of our local manufacturers to make sure that their hiring needs are lled, and they do stay viable if some of their employees leave for po sitions at Gotion,” he said.

At the same time, Michigan Works! expects to work with Gotion to help it recruit workers from outside the area, which could help the local economy, Eppley said.

“ e new positions created through this project will increase the number of competitive job opportunities in the region, which in turn will increase the number of people who commute to the area and attract new individuals and families to the region who wind up attending class in our schools, shop ping in our stores, eating in our restau rants, taking advantage of the beauty of West Central Michigan and so much more,” he said.

A decade is also a lot of lead time.

Since news of Gotion’s plan broke, Eppley’s organization has rushed to address the company’s workforce de velopment needs.

“ e No. 1 thing that we have talk ed about is their hiring needs, (as) 2,300 jobs is a very large number,” Eppley said. “Many of those employ ees are going to need training, so we have been in contact with our local training providers at Ferris State University, local high schools and CTE (career and technical educa tion) programs, to work with them to develop training programs that are as short as six to 12 months to get those employees that will be hired ready to work on Day 1.”

Contact: rachel.watson@crain.com (989) 533-9685; @RachelWatson86

Big Rapids saw a population decline of over 27 percent between 2010 and 2020, and the downtown, shown here, has “quite a few” empty storefronts, said nearby resident Linda Ensing. PHOTOS BY BRYAN ESLER/SPECIAL TO CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

The Big Rapids Airport Industrial Park sign is shown across a wide expanse of empty parking lot in Big Rapids Township. The parcel is one of several targeted for Gotion’s battery plant campus.

A statue of the Ferris State University Bulldog mascot is shown in downtown Big Rapids. Ferris State is Big Rapids’ largest employer, with 1,400 workers. The school is expected to be the primary pipeline of workers for the planned Gotion battery plant.

Hospitality guru George Aquino on pickleball as a side venture

George Aquino, vice president and managing director of the DeVos and Van Andel-owned AHC Hospitality company, recently turned his passion for pickleball into a side venture. Born in Manila to Filipino parents and raised in Manila, Aquino now lives in Grand Rapids.

He's worked at AHC, the hotel and restaurant subsidiary of the Amway/Alticor empire owned by the DeVos and Van Andel families, for over 30 years. He’s seen downtown morph from a nine-to- ve business district to a growing place for entertainment and night life during his tenure. In 2018, the Grand Rapids Pickleball Club introduced a new tournament to Grand Rapids: Beer City Open, which brings pickleball players from all over the country to compete at Belknap Park on the north edge of downtown. AHC is the primary sponsor of the tournament.

Aquino, a tennis a cionado in his youth, decided during the pandemic to take up the similar sport of pickleball. He grew to love it so much that in summer 2021, he and his friend Stephanie Hino launched 20x44 Sports, which runs private lessons, drills, tournaments and more.

BY| RACHEL WATSON

` I did not know you had this side venture. What can you tell me about it?

We’re a pickleball hospitality company. We host camps, tournaments and corporate teambuilding. With that gig, my partner and I also run the facility here at the Amway Grand Plaza (RoofTop Pickleball, a court on the fourth oor of the hotel’s glass tower).

We’ve hosted events here at the hotel for corporate groups that include spa packages, hotel rooms and movies, of course, but they’re always looking for something else to do. Pickleball is so hot right now that we’re looking at expanding it to the winter. I just got back from a meeting with a (company) that can provide an indoor court facility for the winter.

` How did you get into this sport?

I started playing pickleball two years ago, when we decided to turn our tennis courts at (AHC’s) resort in the British Virgin Islands on Peter Island into pickleball courts. I was like, let me gure out this sport. I played a lot of tennis when I was younger — competed and taught tennis — so I thought this would be a really nice gig. About a year and a half ago, (Hino) and I decided to take pickleball seriously and started practicing, and I got certi ed as a coach. We started this company last summer. We did two camps and some private lessons last fall, and then when we opened the pickleball courts here at the Amway Grand in July, we just kind of ramped up the services. We’re doing corporate camps, beginner camps and tournaments. Next year, our goal is to do a pickleball trip to Tokyo.

` Where have you hosted all the camps and lessons so far? Right now, we’re hosting it all at the

Five years ago, a lot of the top pros were older, like 50 and up. But in the past three years, it’s grown so fast, especially within the 19- to 20-year-

What do you think caused that spread to the next generation? Part of it is COVID, with people trying to nd things to do outside. And part of it is pickleball is an easy sport to get into — easier than tennis, for sure. You can get a quick lesson and start playing right away. It doesn’t require real athletic skills and a lot of training. And most people play doubles, so it’s not as rigorous as playing

How are you funding this? We’re self-funded. We don’t have massive goals of conquering the pickleball world. Primarily, we have our day jobs. … Our role, really, is to grow the company within the con nes of the city, and then hopefully be able to plan some trips that we can host. We’re working with venture capitalists that are looking at possibly expanding the courts here in Grand Rapids. I’ve been very actively trying to grow the sport, along with the city … to give people another reason to visit Grand Rapids. It’s great for food and beverage and hotels. Beer City Open, we sold out (the tournament) within 13 minutes and attracted players from 34 states and six countries. The impact for us (AHC) was over 500 (individual hotel stays), and I think $1.2 million in revenue between the restaurants and hotels. We’re realistic about the growth that we want, and it’s just exciting because pickleball is still in

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RUMBLINGS

Judy Zehnder Keller, owner of Frankenmuth’s Bavarian Inn, dies

JUDY ZEHNDER KELLER, president and owner of Frankenmuth’s beloved Bavarian Inn Lodge, died Wednesday at 77 after a battle with lung cancer.

She was the oldest daughter of Bavarian Inn founders Tiny and Dorothy Zehnder. Zehnder Keller, a graduate of Frankenmuth High School and Michigan State University, worked at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant for 25 years before developing the nearby land where the Bavarian Inn Lodge now sits.

e hotel now features 360 rooms,

an indoor waterpark, conference space and restaurants. e lodge, established in 1986, has undergone six expansions under Zehnder Keller’s leadership, according to its website. Zehnder Keller also helped develop and manage other Frankenmuth businesses such as the Schnitzelbank Shop, Covered Bridge Shop, Frank’s Muth and various retail stores in the Frankenmuth River Place Shops.

She owned the Frankenmuth Cheese Haus, which in 2018 expanded to a new location on Fran-

kenmuth’s Main Street. In June, Zehnder Keller designed and donated Frankenmuth’s Sister City Chair, which commemorates the city’s 60year relationship with Gunzenhausen, Germany.

Zehnder Keller’s death came just three days after the passing of Irene Bronner, matriarch of Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth. Bronner, 95 at the time of her death, married Christmas Wonderland founder Wallace Bronner in 1951, six years after he founded the holiday store.

Crain’s Detroit Business is published by

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Chairman, Editor Emeritus Keith E. Crain

Vice Chairman Mary Kay Crain

President and CEO KC Crain

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CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS ISSN # 0882-1992 is published weekly, except no issues on 1/3/22, 7/4/22, 11/21/22 nor 12/26/22, by Crain Communications Inc. at 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit MI 48207-2732. Periodicals postage paid at Detroit, MI and additional mailing o ces.

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Judy Zehnder Keller