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. 

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thursday, October 3, 2019

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

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.” 

Sarah Jones doesn’t want to 
stop fighting.
“I’m fighting to keep my son 
alive,” Jones said. “It’s been 
a nightmare every day since 
we’ve been here.”
On Saturday, Sept. 21, her 
son, 14-year-old Bobby Reyes, 
went into cardiac arrest after 
suffering an asthma attack 
while she was driving him 
home in Monroe County. He 
was immediately transferred 
to 
C.S. 
Mott 
Children’s 
Hospital in Ann Arbor, where 
doctors declared him brain 
dead.
After conducting a series 
of tests, doctors announced 
to the family Reyes would 
not recover, and they would 
be taking him off of his life 
support 
Friday, 
Sept. 
27. 
In response, Reyes’ family 
contacted 
an 
attorney 
to 
issue a court order that would 
extend his time on life support. 
On 
Monday, 
Washtenaw 
County’s 22nd Circuit Court 
ordered Michigan Medicine to 
delay taking Reyes off of life 
support. 

GOT A NEWS TIP?
Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail 
news@michigandaily.com and let us know.

INDEX
Vol. CXXIX, No. 4
©2019 The Michigan Daily

N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

CL A SSIFIEDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 B
michigandaily.com

For more stories and coverage, visit

State budget 
includes small 
increase for 
universities

U-M to receive total allocation of 
$373 million across three campuses

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. 

Professor 
awarded 
‘Genius’ 
fellowship

ACADEMICS

ALEX HARRING
Daily Staff Reporter

Panel examines impact of opioid 
crisis for those with chronic pain

Event addresses effect of stereotypes, difficulty of navigating medical system

Hospital 
ordered to 
keep boy on 
life-support

MEDICINE

LEAH GRAHAM, 
MADELINE MCLAUGHLIN 
& ALEX HARRING
Daily News Editor &
Daily Staff Reporters 

Follow The Daily 
on Instagram, 
@michigandaily

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.”

Panelists discuss the impact of the opioid crisis for those who deal with chronic pain at the Hatcher Gallery Wednesday afternoon. 

Center of the City T
ask Force plans 
to ramp up community engagement

Group’s 5th meeting focuses on involving stakeholders in planning process

See LIFE-SUPPORT, Page 3A

LEAH GRAHAM
Daily News Editor

Mother, community 
advocate for 14-year-
old deemed brain- 
dead by University 

KATHERINA SOURINE
Daily Staff Reporter

JASMIN LEE
For The Daily

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

See BUDGET, Page 3A

Elizabeth Anderson 
given MacAurthur 
grant for dedication, 
originality in her work

See TASK FORCE, Page 3A

See MACARTHUR, Page 3A

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

KEEMYA ESMAEL/Daily 

Design by Christine Jegarl

Thursday, October 3, 2019

The B-Side
Celebrating paper, through 
the lens of The Daily

 » Page 1B

