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Letters to the Editor

A Warm and Friendly Port

A few years into the new airport terminal now and the interior is still about as sterile and stark a public space as can be imagined. The contrast with Pellston is startling. Pellston says “Welcome to Northern Michigan and all we have to offer: and Alpena says “You have arrived in Anytown, USA. There is nothing special here.” This would seem to be a perfect blank canvas for our various civic organizations and businesses to display what Alpena is all about and educate visitors about the community and local region. Instead we have bare walls and open floor space. Decent ...

APS Board Critics Are Leaving Out The Facts

There’s been a lot of noise around the APS board lately, and I get it, change makes people uncomfortable. But what some folks aren’t saying is that this board has actually been asking the hard questions no one else wanted to ask. And honestly, it’s about time. For too long, things just got rubber-stamped with little thought. Test scores have been dropping, and no one seemed willing to admit the system wasn’t working. This board is finally pushing back and trying to do what’s best for district, students, and the community — not just what’s easy. Take the rain garden, for ...

What Workers Need!

Workers deserve fair pay, safe working conditions, affordable health care and the freedom to retire with dignity. We deserve the right to join unions that give workers a voice; an economy that works for all families, not only the wealthy; and a democracy where every voice is heard and every vote counts. Workers and families deserve fully funded public schools that are safe, welcoming, relevant and engaging, as well as higher education that is accessible, affordable and free from political intrusion. President Donald Trump campaigned on making life better and more affordable for ...

Test Scores Don’t Tell the Whole Story

I want to address recent school board conversations around test scores, specifically the M-STEP, and the concern that these results warrant greater micromanagement of our schools. I’d like to offer some context and perspective as a former Title I teacher. M-STEP is a once-a-year assessment. It provides a snapshot, not a full picture. Educators are doing the real, day-to-day work of identifying and supporting students who are struggling. There is regular collaboration using data from NWEA and DIBELS assessments, tests that give us more timely, actionable information, to make sure ...

Let The School Board Do Their Job

Why do teachers/retired teachers care so much about bids for snow removal, paving of parking lots, bids to service toilets, policies for media usage, etc. Isn't that the School Board’s job? DISTRACTION. They are trying to DISTRACT the voters/parents/students away from the real issues at APS, which are illiteracy rates, poor test scores, truancy and even discipline. According to the teachers, they are not effective because parents are (and I quote from a FB discussion with teachers AT APS… "loud and bossy,” "uncaring,” "don't care about their kids,” "lazy,” "we are ...

Protect Our Roadless Spaces

I think we can all take comfort in the fact that we have protected natural spaces in the United States, mandated to be free from roads and from timber harvest. This protection comes from a piece of legislation called the Roadless Rule. A rare protection of the wild world. In June of this year, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins declared plans to end the Roadless Rule. 45 million acres of public land, our backcountry spaces, will be opened up to traffic and to logging. Brooke Rollins claimed the repeal of the rule was an attempt to reduce fire risk, claiming the roads would ...