pete in a first round to secure a
spot on one of the competition’s four
mentor-led teams. As on “The Voice,”
the mentors select students for their
team who they believe have the
most potential.
During three additional rounds,
teams and mentors work closely
to prepare for the next challenge
and to advance their team’s pro-
posal. Attendees at “Entrepreneur-
ship Hour,” an event held through
the CFE every Friday, will vote to
eliminate a team after every round.
The final remaining team will be
crowned “The Startup.”
Sarah Bachleda, communication
and marketing maven for the CFE,
said in addition to working closely
with team mentors, students will
also gain increased operating capi-
tal as they make it past each round.
She added that the winning team
will not only win the title “The
Startup,” but also earn a grand prize
to continue building their business.
“The rounds will take place live
in front of our Entrepreneurship
Hour students, giving these teams
a ton of visibility as well,” she said.
“It will take place semester-long,
providing an engaging structure
and space to truly advance the
startups.”
Amy Cell, vice president of the
Michigan
Economic
Develop-
ment Corporation, will serve as a
team mentor for the competition.
Cell said “The Startup” is a great
opportunity to explore a business
idea in a fun, accelerated way.
“I’ve been involved with CFE
since the beginning, and I’m con-
tinually amazed with the energy,
creativity and passion of the pro-
grams that they put together,”
Cell said. “As an economic devel-
oper for the state of Michigan, I
understand the critical impor-
tance of innovation and entrepre-
neurship.”
Cell said the program will not
only serve as a learning experi-
ence for students, but also for the
mentors involved.
“I hope to find people that I
can follow and support for years
to come,” she said. “I also hope to
find startups that can start having
a near-term impact on Michigan.”
Applications to participate in
the program are due Friday.
of Homeless Camps in Ann
Arbor” is intended primarily to
allow for debate on the matter,
as opposed to propose a specif-
ic action of the Council.
Kunselman stated he intends
to vote against this resolution.
In the release, Kunselman
also said various volunteers
and city officials have ensured
there is enough funding and
capacity for every homeless
person, making camps that
pose the threat of hypothermia
obsolete.
“My position on homeless
camps is no different than
that of Mayor Mike Duggan
of Detroit, who just last week
successfully led the effort to
dismantle a homeless camp
and find safe and legal shelter
for all the homeless involved,
all of whom were very grateful
to have warm shelter,” Kunsel-
man said. “Homeless camps
are
dangerous,
unsanitary,
illegal and unnecessary given
the high quality of homeless
services available to the home-
less to live safely and legally in
Ann Arbor.”
In an interview Wednesday
evening, Councilmember Sabra
Briere (D–Ward 1) said while
she has not reviewed the reso-
lution proposed by Kunselman,
her initial reaction was one
of concern as to whether this
discussion would be helpful in
solving problems of affordable
housing in Ann Arbor.
“While I understand that
he is annoyed, I am sorry he
thinks doing this is a solution
to anything,” Briere said. “I
don’t think it moves us toward
finding a solution to the need
for affordable housing, but I
haven’t seen the resolution yet
and I have no idea where things
will head, I have no opinion
right now about whether I will
support this.”
Wednesday evening, Coun-
cilmember Julie Grand (D–
Ward 3) said she would like to
see more constructive solu-
tions
to
the
disagreement
between Kunselman and the
housing group.
“Councilmember
Kun-
selman is going to be up for
reelection in August, so if
there’s a group that’s not sat-
isfied with his performance,
then they have every right to
run a candidate in the August
primaries or in the November
general election,” Grand said.
“I think that’s a more effec-
tive way to address the issue
certainly than with a recall.
Ultimately, the most effective
way to address the issue is to
work for issues that address
our housing and homelessness
situation. There’s not a magic
bullet, but if there was we cer-
tainly would have implement-
ed it already.”
Mayor
Christopher
Tay-
lor (D) declined to comment
Wednesday evening.
Daily Staff Reporter Emma
Kinery
contributed
to
this
report.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, January 15, 2015 — 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
WINDSOR TOWNSHIP, Mich.
State police move
headquarters from
Lansing to suburb
Michigan State Police head-
quarters is leaving Lansing for the
suburbs and taking 400 jobs with
it.
State police director Col. Kriste
Kibbey Etue said Wednesday that
the move will start in September
and take two years.
She says the new headquar-
ters will be in the State Second-
ary Complex in Eaton County’s
Windsor Township, southwest of
Lansing.
Caleb Buhs is a spokesman
for the Michigan Department of
Technology, Management & Bud-
get and says the move is part of
a shuffling of state agencies that
is expected to save the state $30
million over 10 years.
Buhs tells the Lansing State
Journal
that
the
Michigan
Department
of
Community
Health will move into the current
state police headquarters.
CORONADO, Calif.
Michigan RNC
representative
censured by panel
The
Republican
National
Committee’s executive commit-
tee voted to censure Michigan
Republican David Agema for
what it calls “harmful rhetoric”
about gays and Muslims.
At the outset of the RNC’s win-
ter meeting near San Diego, the
panel said Michigan Republican
National Committeeman Dave
Agema’s history of “harmful and
offensive rhetoric” has no place in
the party.
Last March, Agema posted
on Facebook an unsubstantiated
claim that gays account for half
the murders in large cities. Last
month, he told a Michigan county
GOP committee that gay Ameri-
cans tried to obtain health insur-
ance because they risk contracting
AIDS.
Agema also came under fire
from the Council on American-
Islamic Relations for a Facebook
posting this month questioning
Muslims’ commitment to char-
ity.
BUCYRUS, Ohio
Man pleads guilty
to killing four
while on cocaine
A man on a cocaine binge
fatally beat or strangled four
others at their homes — in one
case, using his own shoestrings
— then walked into the police
station to confess after recog-
nizing one victim’s relatives in
a newspaper photo, a prosecutor
said Wednesday after the defen-
dant was sentenced to life in
prison without parole.
Donald Hoffman apparently
was high and looking to steal
money for more drugs when he
killed the men last fall in the
small, north-central Ohio city of
Bucyrus, Crawford County Pros-
ecutor Matthew Crall said. Hoff-
man used whatever means were
available, stomping on one man’s
throat and striking another with
a bottle, Crall said.
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone
Hopeful president
predicts no new
cases of Ebola
Even as his country regis-
tered 19 new Ebola cases over a
24-hour period, Sierra Leone’s
president is predicting there will
be zero new confirmed cases by
the end of March.
President Ernest Bai Koroma
also predicted that his West Afri-
can country — one of three hard-
est hit by the outbreak — would
be Ebola-free by World Health
Organization standards by May.
Koroma made this pronounce-
ment during town hall meetings
this week in the northern Dis-
tricts of Port Loko, Tonkolili, and
Bombali.
—Compiled from
Daily wire reports
the expansion of services for
the homeless who frequent the
Ann Arbor District Library.
During his campaign, Taylor
said one of his priorities was
to expand public transporta-
tion such as the Ann Arbor
Area Transportation Author-
ity. He said the city is currently
examining potential sites for a
new train station, which could
include the renovation of a
pre-existing Amtrak station at
Depot Street.
However, the project would
likely involve the purchase of
adjacent property from DTE
Energy. The city is waiting on
environmental impact reports
for other potential sites before
moving forward.
Another initiative in the
works is fixing Ann Arbor’s
roads. In September, Washt-
enaw County voters approved
a 0.5-mill tax to provide for
improvements to existing roads
and infrastructure. Taylor said
he expects the next year to
include several construction
projects to fix roads in the area.
He added that the millage will
yield repairs on 6.4 miles of
roads.
So far, Taylor said his larg-
est challenge has been deal-
ing with the repercussions of a
November 2014 police shooting,
in which a 40-year-old woman
was fatally shot by an Ann
Arbor police officer.
“The shooting obviously took
place in the context of an impor-
tant and justifiable national con-
versation and so dealing with
that in the city has been probably
my most challenging area,” he
said.
Taylor noted that the Michi-
gan State Police have been con-
ducting an investigation in the
case. Ultimately, findings from
the investigation will be given to
the Washtenaw County Prosecu-
tor’s Office, who will then decide
whether or not to indict the offi-
cer in question.
“It’s very important for us to
reflect from what happened
once we have the full and final
facts and to make sure we can
do everything we can to protect
public safety,” he said. “Our
officers … I think do a great job
at that. They are a professional
and dedicated police depart-
ment.”
In response to the pending
case, and other similar inci-
dents nationwide, City Council
passed a resolution in Decem-
ber to implement the use of
body and in-car cameras for the
Ann Arbor police officers.
Taylor said outfitting offi-
cers with body cameras had
been in the works for months
prior to the shooting.
He also said he is now focused
on
preparing
Ann
Arbor’s
upcoming budget proposal, set
for release in April, which will
play a significant role in shap-
ing the city’s agenda.
many of you here seek to engage
in public policy for the public
good,” Napolitano told the audi-
ence.
She attributed this problem
to political partisanship, the
media’s focus on negativity,
potential candidates’ concerns
about intrusions into their pri-
vate lives and lack of commu-
nication about the importance
of politics. She added, however,
that this should not mean that
people exclude themselves from
political life.
In an interview with The
Michigan Daily after the event,
Napolitano expanded on that
idea adding if individuals want
to affect change, running for
office is the direct way.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s great
to be a civil servant, a policy
adviser,” she said. “Those are all
wonderful things. But the way
our government is organized, it’s
the elected official who makes
the decision. So if you want that,
then at some point you need to
do it yourself.”
She also touched specifically
on female leadership, telling the
attendees that though women
have proven that they can suc-
cessfully run for office without
help from men and party boss-
es, they often still choose not
to run for elected office.
More generally, she said
politics must become a more
attractive engagement for citi-
zens.
“We
need
to
reset
and
reboot how we view political
leadership in this country and
enlarge the pool of talented
individuals who are willing to
engage in elected politics,” she
said.
Napolitano
also
fielded
several questions after the
speech about her time in
office, including her knowl-
edge of the National Security
Agency wiretapping programs.
Though she declined to discuss
the level of intelligence she to
which she had access, she did
say both the president and the
Senate, who have oversight
responsibility of the NSA, need
to have greater oversight of the
intelligence gathering process.
However, she acknowledged
that she does not know if the
situation has changed since
her departure from the Obama
Administration.
In the interview, Napoli-
tano also discussed what pub-
lic universities can do to cope
with reduced state funding, a
prevalent issue in both Michi-
gan and California. The UC
system recently proposed rais-
ing tuition by 5 percent yearly
to cope with reduced funding.
She noted that universities
can reduce costs internally
and discussed UC’s Working
Smarter initiative that aimed
to reduce costs within univer-
sities.
“We have identified $660
million in costs,” Napolitano
said. “We didn’t replace certain
people who were in manage-
ment or administration when
they retired. So we actually
have fewer senior managers
now than we did in 2007, 2008.
And we really worked to bring
down administrative overhead
on students, so all those things
go together.”
Napolitano
addedthat
decreased state funding and
efforts to persuade the state
to reinvest in higher education
has been her biggest challenge
since becoming UC president.
She said she intends to use her
bully pulpit both in California
and Washington D.C. to sup-
port the role of public higher
education as means for creat-
ing opportunity for students.
In
Michigan,
Republican
Gov. Rick Snyder enacted cuts
to higher education in the
first years of his term. Though
recent budgets have included
funding increases for higher
education, the funding has not
been restored to its former lev-
els. In June, the University’s
Board of Regents enacted a 1.6
percent tuition increase for in-
state students and 3.4 percent
for out-of-state students.
State investment, she said,
is key for schools especially
for increasing a student body’s
socioeconomic diversity. She
said universities both need
build pipelines between high
schools in poor areas and pub-
lic universities and establish
robust financial aid policies,
adding that schools need to be
conscious of the burden that
tuition increases cause for
middle-class students.
She cited the UC system as
an example — where students
with
families
making
less
than $80,000 annually receive
free tuition — though she said
tuition increases remain a con-
cern, particularly for middle-
class students who just miss
the threshold.
“(The policies) are an engine
of social mobility,” she said.
“We want to keep that up. But
we can’t provide (students)
with the quality of education
that their predecessors got,
and do that, without some more
money getting into the system.
And the more money either has
to come from the state or needs
to come from tuition, from
those who are paying tuition.”
even want to reproduce and bear
children,” she said. “I don’t want
my children to feel the terrible
feelings I feel being Black every
day.”
Participants also discussed
the relevance of the incidents
in Staten Island and Ferguson,
where grand juries chose not to
indict officers who had killed
unarmed Black men.
University faculty and staff
were also present to share their
experiences and thoughts on
police brutality. One faculty
member shared a story of how
her Black colleague, a doctor-
al student, was often stopped
by police when riding his bike
around campus.
A portion of the discussion
was also dedicated to brain-
storming ways in which stu-
dents, faculty and University
police can work to create a posi-
tive and safe environment on
campus. Ideas discussed includ-
ed ensuring University crime
reports are more specific and
encouraging University Police
becoming involved with the
#BlackLivesMatter
campaign
and other events on campus.
In recent months, members
of the University and Ann Arbor
community organized several
events to call attention to police
brutality, including “die-ins”
on the Diag and in front of the
Crisler Center following Winter
Commencement.
University Police Chief Rob-
ert Neumann was also present
at the event. Though he did not
participate in the discussion, he
took notes as students offered
ideas to improve the quality of
policing on campus. In an inter-
view with The Michigan Daily,
Neumann said having the dis-
cussion was essential in devel-
oping a positive relationship
between the police and commu-
nity.
“It’s critical that the com-
munity and the police have an
open and trusting and trans-
parent relationship,” he said.
“The police are here for the
community, we have to always
to remember that. Good police
administration seeks out input
from the community.”
Neumann also said working
to improve public safety on cam-
pus is a process that will require
continued support and coopera-
tion from the campus commu-
nity.
“We will never rest on what
we’ve done in the past, in terms
of community outreach,” he
said. “We are always looking for
news way to engage our com-
munity, because our community
is evolving and we must evolve
with it.”
LSA senior Geralyn Gaines,
BSU vice speaker and a CSG
representative, helped plan the
event. She said hosting the dis-
cussion was vital to sparking
more of a reaction from the Uni-
versity community to nationally
recognized instances of police
brutality and bringing attention
to the issue as a whole.
“As a student body, I don’t
feel we have had enough of a
response in regards to what’s
going around in the U.S. where
there are victims of police bru-
tality,” Gaines said. “I think that
it’s really important to address
these issues and continue to
have these dialogues where peo-
ple can express themselves.”
The BSU will host a follow-up
event Wednesday evening titled
“Know Your Rights” at the Trot-
ter Multicultural Center.
SPEAKOUT
From Page 1A
NAPOLITANO
From Page 1A
KUNSELMAN
From Page 1A
CFE
From Page 1A
TAYLOR
From Page 1A
JOIN THE DAILY
MASS MEETINGS AT 7:30 P.M.
AT 420 MAYNARD ON
Wednesday, Jan. 21
Thursday, Jan. 22
Sunday, Jan. 25
Monday, Jan. 26
SEE YOU THERE