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Editorials and columns

Someone you know is struggling

We support the Northeast Michigan Community Mental Health Authority’s plans to host a number of events this month to raise awareness both of the number of Northeast Michiganders struggling and the resources available to help them. The truth is, it’s likely you know someone who’s ...

Turning away scholarships

If you build it, they will come, but, if you offer high school kids a hefty bonus for going to college, many won’t come. Such is the rather amazing finding that, despite a state scholarship program dangling upwards of $5,500 a year for those who attend a four-year university, 62% of last ...

Higher tax bills could kill tax proposals

It’s a bittersweet thing, we suppose. Houses, much in demand in Northeast Michigan, are selling like hot cakes. Often — usually, perhaps — houses are going for more than the asking price. That drives up the prices of other homes around the area and drives up the values of homes not ...

Free time fleeting, but that’s OK

It is an interesting juxtaposition that, as humans, we all do many of the same things. We go to work or school. We cook and eat. We focus on cleaning our house or maintaining our yard. We go to the store. We go to dinner or get ice cream to mark special occasions. But, outside of those ...

Discouraged needs exceed means for youth and rec

The grant requests received this year by the Alpena County Youth and Recreation Committee equal roughly double the amount of money the committee has to give. That’s discouraging, and we hope those who don’t get money from the committee can find other sources of revenue to make their ...

Know your newspaper to know your city

“We have to think instead of the city as a process of economic development, as a generator of the middle class, and as the primary location for the exercise of robust self-government.” — Richard Schragger I’ve recently given a few speeches around Northeast Michigan about the future ...