The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
2 — Wednesday, January 26, 2022

GOVERNMENT

BUSINESS 

Over 20 members of the Ann 

Arbor for Public Power (A2P2) 
protested in front of Larcom City 
Hall Tuesday night ahead of an Ann 
Arbor City Council vote to implement 
a feasibility study in creating a 
municipal energy utility. The non-
profit organization advocates for 
the city to municipalize its energy 
utilities, meaning ensuring energy 

resources are owned and operated 

on and for the city instead of a 
private company. 

The organization is supporting 

the replacement of DTE Energy — 
the only energy service provider 

in Ann Arbor — with alternative 
methods of public power. The city 
of Ann Arbor has been working 
with private utilities like DTE 
to deliver power while pursuing 
its carbon neutrality plan, which 
was criticized by the protestors 
Tuesday night. Seventy percent of 
DTE’s power is derived from non-
renewable sources — specifically 
from coal. 

AA Public Power was formed 

last summer after frustrations 
surrounding multiple DTE power 
outages throughout Ann Arbor 
and in the state of Michigan due to 
thunderstorms. 

LSA senior Zackariah Farah, 

one of the protest’s lead organizers, 
explained that switching to public 

power would allow the city to make 
improvements in energy resources 
that DTE does not support. In an 
interview with The Michigan Daily, 
Farah said the improvements would 
include resilient infrastructure, use 
of solar and wind power in Ann 
Arbor and purchasing power from 
renewable sources both within and 
outside the state of Michigan. 

“We’re hoping that under local 

control, we’re going to be able to do 
a lot of the things that DTE doesn’t 
allow us to do, like make sure that 
our infrastructure is resilient so 
it doesn’t fail every time the wind 
blows,” Farah said. “It will allow us 
to create solar and wind farms right 
here in Ann Arbor and to purchase 
selectively power from renewable 

sources around the state and even 
outside of the state. So that’s why 
this group (A2P2) was formed.” 

Farah said the organization has 

spent a year requesting that the 
city’s Energy Commission fund and 
authorize a feasibility study that 
would provide data on the transition 
from nonrenewable to renewable 
power. 
When 
the 
commission 

met on Dec. 14, they unanimously 
recommended that City Council 
approve a feasibility study.

“The University’s buying a lot 

of dirty power from DTE because 
there’s no other choice,” Farah said. 
“DTE is a monopoly.” 

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Ann Arbor for Public Power rallies in front Larcom before unanimous vote for feasibility study

Community members protest for municipal 
energy utilities ahead of City Council vote

NIRALI PATEL & CHEN LYU

Daily Staff Reporters

TESS CROWLEY/Daily

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

LSA senior Zackariah Farah speaks at a rally organized by Ann Arbor for Public Power outside City Hall before the City Council’s Tuesday night meeting. The Council plans to consider 

a municipalization feasibility study 
resolution at the meeting.

Public policy experts talk redistricting process, gerrymandering 

Ford School hosts event analyzing, reflecting on 

new Michigan district maps

The Ford School of Public Policy 

held a virtual discussion Wednesday 
evening reflecting on Michigan’s 
citizen-led redistricting process and 
discussed how lessons from that 
process could be applied to the rest 
of the United States.

This event was hosted by the Ford 

School’s Center for Local, State and 
Urban Policy, the civic engagement 
organization Voters Not Politicians 

and Michigan State University’s 
Institute for Public Policy and Social 
Research. Wednesday’s discussion 
was the final webinar in a series of 
events on redistricting hosted by 
Ford and was moderated by Matt 
Grossmann, director of the Institute 
for Public Policy and Social Research 
at Michigan State University. 

The lengthy process of creating 

new district maps for Michigan 
ended on Dec. 28 of last year when 
the Michigan Independent Citizen 
Redistricting Commission (MICRC) 
voted to adopt new congressional 

and 
state 
legislative 
districts. 

The commission, made up of 13 
randomly selected applicants, was 
established after Michigan voters 
approved a 2018 constitutional 
amendment. Proponents of the 
amendment 
argued 
it 
would 

combat political gerrymandering 
by 
preventing 
elected 
officials 

and 
other 
influential 
partisan 

figures from participating in the 
redistricting process.

David Daley is the author of 

bestseller “Ratf**ked: The True 
Story Behind the Secret Plan to 

Steal America’s Democracy,” a book 
credited in helping spark the recent 
movement to push back against 
gerrymandering in the U.S. Daley said 
the state’s redistricting process was a 
highlight among the nation’s ongoing 
efforts to combat gerrymandering. 
He compared the successful citizen-
led redistricting commissions of 
Michigan, Iowa and California to 
those in less-successful states such as 
Utah, Ohio and Virginia.

IRENA LI

Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Get to know the incoming leader 
following Schlissel’s sudden firing 

Who is Mary Sue 

Coleman? Re-

introducing the U-M 
Interim President

GEORGE 

WEYKAMP

Daily News Editor

After the University 

of 
Michigan 

Board 
of 
Regents 

fired 
now-former 

University President 
Mark 
Schlissel 
for 

an 
inappropriate 

relationship with a 
subordinate Saturday, 
the board announced 
President 
Emerita 

Mary Sue Coleman 
would serve as interim 
president 
while 

the board searches 
for 
a 
permanent 

replacement.

Coleman 
wrote 

in an email to the 
campus 
community 

Sunday 
that 
while 

she 
was 
saddened 

by the unfortunate 
circumstances 
bringing her back into 
the president position, 
she hopes to use her 
experience to make 
a positive impact on 
campus. 

“I have spent my 

entire academic career 
at or advancing public 
research institutions 
and their teaching 
function,” 
Coleman 

wrote. “My deep and 
profound 
belief 
in 

the students, faculty, 
staff and alumni of 
this institution’s three 
campuses gives me 
great confidence that 
we will come together 
during this period to 

Tucked 
between 
South 

University Avenue’s Starbucks 
and Pancheros Mexican Grill 
now stands a 60-square-foot 
pizza vending machine, available 
for order at all hours of the day.

The 
PizzaForno 
“24/7 

automated pizzeria” offers eight 
menu items available in both 
hot and cold varieties, costing 

anywhere from $10 to $13. Once 

loaded, the machine requires 

no human staffers and prepares 
hot pizzas for its customers 
in under three minutes. It 
also offers frozen pizzas for 
customers to cook at home.

Since its development by 

Italian businessman Claudio 
Torghele in the mid-2000s, 
different iterations of the “mini-
pizzeria” have since spread to 
Japan, the United Kingdom, 
Croatia and now Ann Arbor.

Headquartered in Toronto, 

PizzaForno made its American 
debut in Jackson, Mich. early 
last year as the nation’s first-
ever pizza vending machine. 
Business partners Tim Ekpo 
and Adam Page own the Jackson 
unit, as well as four other units 
across the state of Michigan. 
The South University location is 
their newest installation.

Pizza vending machine pops-up near Diag, 

customers surpsied about quality

KEITH MELONG/Daily

$11 pies ‘decent,’ provide all-hours convenience on late nights

IRENA LI

Daily Staff Reporter

LSA senior Zackariah Farah speaks at a rally organized by Ann Arbor for Public Power outside City Hall before the City Council’s Tuesday night 
meeting. The Council plans to consider a municipalization feasibility study resolution at the meeting.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com

NEWS

NEWS

