2019-10-03 by The Michigan Daily

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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The B-Side

Celebrating paper, through the lens of The Daily

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Center of the City Task Force plans State budget to ramp up community engagement includes small Group’s 5th meeting focuses on involving stakeholders in planning process

increase for universities

U-M to receive total allocation of $373 million across three campuses LEAH GRAHAM Daily News Editor

University of Michigan campuses will see a slight increase in funding under the state budget Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law on Monday. The budget includes $322.8 million for the University’s Ann Arbor campus, a 0.6 percent increase from the previous fiscal year, with $26.3 million allocated for U-M Dearborn and $23.9 million for U-M Flint, 1 percent and 1.3 percent increases respectively. The funds contain a stipulation that tuition for in-state undergraduates does not increase by more than 4.4 percent or $587, depending on which is the larger amount. The budget is the result of a months-long standoff between Whitmer and Republicans in the state legislature over the governor’s signature campaign promise to fix Michigan’s worn down roads and infrastructure. Whitmer signed the budget for

fiscal year 2020 hours before the deadline to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. She issued 147 line-item vetoes to slash $947 million from the 16 budgets sent to her desk. The cuts included $38 million in higher education tuition grants for private colleges and universities in the state and $150,000 for a program that supports students who are pregnant or parenting children. In a video posted to Twitter on Monday night, Whitmer explained why she made the cuts. “I took my role as governor very seriously,” Whitmer said in the video. “I had to use the line-item veto to try to clean up budgets that were a complete mess, built on phony numbers, using funds in the wrong way, usurping executive power. These are important things that I had to eliminate from these budgets. I’m always going to put the safety and the health and the welfare of the people of the state of Michigan before anything else.” See BUDGET, Page 3A

Design by Christine Jegarl

ALEC COHEN/Daily Members of the Center of the City Task Force at a meeting in Larcom City Hall Tuesday afternoon.

KATHERINA SOURINE Daily Staff Reporter

The Center of the City Task Force met at Larcom City Hall Wednesday afternoon to advance their public engagement plan. It was the fifth task force meeting for the 10-person municipal committee, created after local voters approved Proposal A to designate the library lot between Fifth Avenue and Division Street for plans to become a park and civic center commons.

Community member and Pioneer High School senior Miles Klapthor is not a member of the task force but led the meeting in place of committee chair Meghan Mussolf. He explained his interest in this project as an Ann Arbor native who wants to see the land put to good use. “I first got involved with the task force after reading about it in the newspaper. I thought it was pretty interesting, the idea of having public input for how lands going to be used around downtown and down the block,” Klapthor said. “A lot of

the time people my age, students in high school and students in college too, don’t really have a whole lot of input in the planning process in a lot of cases. Considering so much of the use of the area is centered around both the University, and a lot of high school students that are there, it’d be important to have some ideas brought to the table by people like me.” The committee discussed the most effective method to reach members of the community, weighing the general efficacy of universal mailing versus targeted

mailing, keeping in mind cost, likelihood of engagement and other factors. Committee member Alan Haber was the most vocal supporter of universal mailing, claiming it reached every stakeholder in Ann Arbor, while others proposed decreasing the scope of mailing lists to encourage specific feedback. “I do not believe our primary mode of communication with the public should be social media,” Haber said. See TASK FORCE, Page 3A

Professor Panel examines impact of opioid awarded crisis for those with chronic pain ‘Genius’ Event addresses effect of stereotypes, difficulty of navigating medical system fellowship ACADEMICS

JASMIN LEE

Elizabeth Anderson given MacAurthur grant for dedication, originality in her work ALEX HARRING Daily Staff Reporter

Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan professor of philosophy and women’s studies, was named a MacArthur Fellow last week. Anderson is one of 26 “Genius Grant” winners whose work displays “extraordinary originality.” In addition to Anderson, who is known for her work in political philosophy and social epistemology, this year’s MacArthur Fellowship class includes writers, artists and urban planners. The fellowship comes with a $625,000 grant to be distributed over five years. The Foundation was created by insurance businessman John MacArthur in 1970. The award is commonly known as the “Genius Grant” — against the wishes of the MacArthur Foundation itself — though Anderson said, in an interview with The Daily, she does not consider herself a genius in her field. Anderson pointed to research showing women are less likely to go into fields where one must be considered a “genius” rather than a hard worker. See MACARTHUR, Page 3A

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For The Daily

A panel titled “Unintended Consequences: Panel on the Impact of ‘Opioid Crisis’ Messaging on Those with Chronic Pain” kicked off Disability Community Month Wednesday. Disability Community Month is sponsored by the University of Michigan Human Resources department, Michigan Medicine and University Health Service. Around 30

people attended the event, held at Hatcher Gallery, and many of them were graduate students supporting Shanna Kattari, the event coordinator and assistant professor in the School of Social Work. Kattari was a panelist in the event, in addition to two other women, Emma Garrett and Clarissa Love. One additional panelist was unable to attend the event because she could not find a handicap accessible parking spot close to the Hatcher Graduate Library. Before the

panelists shared their own stories, Kattari shared stories of people who could not attend the panel due to their own chronic pain. Kattari shared one story about a Vietnam War veteran whose insurance stopped paying for the pain medication he had been taken for decades. When his children stopped hearing from him, they went to visit him and were shocked by what they discovered. “He was a mess,” Kattari said. “Turns out, after decades of being on medication,

his providers cut him off cold turkey... They told him to work on mindfulness exercises to handle it, but he was completely depressed. He never moved from his armchair, except maybe to use the bathroom, and slept in that chair all the time, depressed. He was embarrassed… because he was ashamed he couldn’t make due about the medication.”