Time running out on Sugar Loaf

Glen Arbor Sun

Liko Smith sets June 1 deadline for deal with Kate Wickstrom: Red Ginger fundraiser a flop

The window for the mysterious West Coast businessman Liko Smith to acquire and re-open the Sugar Loaf Resort and ski hill appears to be closing — and fast. Smith wrote on his blog’s “Weekly Update” (www.likosmith.com/friends.html) three days ago, and confirmed during a phone conversation yesterday that June 1 — next Tuesday — may be the date when he decides to pack up and leave Leelanau County for good.

“I’m losing my window here,” Smith said, while driving downstate. “I’m gonna take a look at my projects in Las Vegas the first week of June. Because if (Kate Wickstrom) doesn’t sign by June 1, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ve got a lot of stuff coming in on Wednesday. … There are so many deals and opportunities in Vegas. I can spend the next year playing softball with my kid and still make a decent living.”

Smith’s bid to acquire the hotel and ski hill from Wickstrom — and the Sugar Loaf golf course, sewage treatment plant and accompanying real estate from businessmen Ed Fleis and Brian Sculthorp — has encountered a series of snafus this month. The 39-year-old former Samoan boxer now says that he has scaled back his plans and only intends to buy from Wickstrom.

As Smith puts it, Fleis and Sculthorp have stonewalled him with strategies similar to their negotiations, and ultimate rejections of deals, with previous bidders for Sugar Loaf. ‘We’ve done this two times before with two other buyers, we’ll keep doing it until we get paid,’ Smith quoted them as saying. In his lengthy blog post (it felt like reading “War and Peace”) Smith also narrates how Fleis, Sculthorp and Wickstrom have played financial and legal hardball against each other for the past decade, which has doomed Sugar Loaf’s chances of reopening.

A deal with Wickstrom was supposed to be inked on May 5, but that date has come and gone. Since then, Smith says, Wickstrom has made numerous additional demands of him, resulting in what he calls “a Mexican standoff.” On May 5, Smith says he brought in a salvage crew to clean up the hotel and turn on the electricity and water, but Wickstrom refused to sign the deed because “she believed she was not going to make any money on the sale.” The crew was turned away.

Smith says that he offered Wickstrom half the salvage proceeds in cash ($50,000 according to his estimates), a 10-percent share in Sugar Loaf (which he valued at $10 million), lifetime employment as an onsite maintenance man for her father Wally, and that he would rename the “Top of the Loaf” bar “Wally’s”. Through her attorney, Wickstrom has asked Smith for $200,000, and $3,200 to reimburse her father Wally to cover gas and expenses for seven visits he made to the resort.

In short, Wickstrom and Smith have engaged in a standoff for most of this month.

Smith says that recent phone calls with former Sugar Loaf owners John Sills and Remo Polselli (a longtime business associate of Smith’s, and convicted felon for tax evasion) encouraged him not to give up on the deal. “You have to see it as a ski resort first and a hotel second, and you have to market heavily to bring in the business, but re-use the exiting lifts, and you’ll see it come back,” Smith quoted Sills … though he admitted during our phone conversation that the equipment is probably worthless and may not even be licensed in October.

But for the first time this week, Smith’s words, both in person and online, have adopted an air of defeatism — that the deal might not get done, and that he might not be a Leelanau County resident for long. “Unless Sugar Loaf is opened this year; it will most likely not open for another 10 years and maybe never again,” he wrote on his blog.

Liko Smith and his young wife Sarah (they say they first learned of Sugar Loaf while on a honeymoon in northern Michigan in March) recently moved into a townhouse next to the vacant resort, which describe as a ghost town:

“Every night, I see a closed-down hotel and ski resort 100 yards from my front door. I am forced to experience it every night. … It is sad at best, and absolutely heartbreaking at worst. … The town of Cedar is a ghost town in the evenings. I walk the town of Cedar every day and in the evenings I sit at the Tavern and skull a few beers. Until you’ve done this, you can’t see the gravity of the situation.”

The couple describes their living situation at the townhouse as reminiscent of that of a developing country: “Kate Wickstrom has made no repairs to the water well that also feeds the town homes for over six years,” Smith writes. “So there is sand seepage into the water system and it is in dire need of repair and upgrade. When we turn the water on here, it is white with sand and we have to boil it out of the water in order to make soup or use the water for pasta.”

Red Ginger flop

But when it comes to ugly standoffs after reneging on financial agreements, Wickstrom, Fleis and Sculthorp are not alone. Liko Smith held a fundraiser on April 30 at Red Ginger, a restaurant next to the State Theatre in downtown Traverse City, which he hoped 100 potential investors would attend and fork over $100 per person to hear “his vision” for Sugar Loaf.

By all accounts, the Quad Fund mixer in the restaurant’s Lotus Room was a flop. Smith estimates that 40 people attended: Red Ginger puts the tally at closer to 20.

A Red Ginger representative, who insisted on remaining anonymous, said that Smith initially sought to rent out the entire restaurant (on a busy Friday night) and take control of it — this after using Red Ginger’s logo on his blog and invitations, which made it look as if the restaurant was backing Liko Smith (a charge it categorically denies).

Instead, Red Ginger suggested its banquet facilities upstairs, for a renting price of $1,500. The restaurant required a deposit before the event, but according to the representative, Smith said that, at the time, he had no cash, no checkbook, no credit card, and that he had just lost his debit card.

“I told him I’d never done this before where I haven’t taken someone’s money, but I asked him to sign the contract and guarantee me that you’re good for that minimum amount,” said the representative.

Attendance at the fundraiser was a disappointment, Smith refused afterwards to pay the $1,500, a near shouting match ensued (alleges Red Ginger), and Smith was ultimately banned from the restaurant. Red Ginger ultimately reclaimed over half of that amount — in part because it collected the credit card charges from people paying $100 at the door.

The Red Ginger representative said he was baffled by Smith’s initial refusal to pay a deposit. “Liko, you told me you own hotels,” the representative said. “So this idea of signing a contract with a minimum amount due is nothing new to you, right?”

During a phone interview yesterday, Smith said that Red Ginger didn’t provide the food service that it had promised. “There were a bunch of California rolls, and not many people drinking,” he said. “It was the cheapest [crap] they could put out. … It was nowhere near $500 in food value. … They said they’d provide three different types of appetizers, drinks, and that would guarantee 100 people.”

“They told me ‘You’re talking a $10 million deal (for Sugar Loaf), but you can’t even pay us $1,500?’ But I’m getting tired of people expecting me to throw money around, just because I’m from Vegas and California. … I’m here to say that I’m not an outsider now. I live in Cedar; I drink at same tavern, I golf the same courses.”

The question is: how much longer will Liko Smith stick around in Cedar? And more importantly, will Sugar Loaf ever re-open?

New kids on the block

Glen Arbor Sun

Glen Arbor now boasts pottery, Pilates, a ringmaster and Chinese dominoes

Here’s a vacation dilemma: Lets say you and the family have spent four days baking on the beach, soaking in Sleeping Bear Bay, dining at all the fine restaurants around Glen Arbor, and shopping for everything from t-shirts to cherry salsa. Your sunburned hide won’t let you return to the water’s edge. So what do you do next?

You visit Campfire Pottery. On the eastern edge of downtown Glen Arbor, across M-22 from Riverfront Pizza and Crystal River Outfitters, Katy Wiesen has furnished a colorful and eclectic, family-friendly paint-your-own pottery studio in the space formerly occupied by Maybings. This is Campfire Pottery’s third summer, but first in this ideal location.

Family reunions, ladies nights out, birthday parties — even teenagers who are too cool to visit galleries with their parents — will enjoy painting and decorating glasses, bowls, wine chillers, piggybanks or toy boats on the nearly dozen tables inside the shop or while sitting outside. And yes, you’re allowed to get messy. Paper napkin rolls at every table await your creativity.

Katy says that some customers paint for half an hour, others return day after day, before their work bakes in the kiln for 10 hours. Once cooled, Campfire Pottery will ship your new mug or bowl home for a minimal fee and guarantee a five-day turnaround.

The idea for Campfire Pottery sprung from her husband Matt’s trips as a child to visit his grandmother in Naples, Fla., where he and his siblings looked forward to visiting a paint-your-own pottery studio there. Now they’ve brought this dynamic form of family entertainment back home to Michigan, and they hope to make Campfire Pottery a destination to which people return over and over again, and one that will stay open on weekends during the winter holidays.

Matt owns Crystal River Outfitters across the street (they’ll supply, and transport, many of the kayaks used during this year’s M-22 Challenge), and the young couple hopes their ventures will increase walking traffic on this side of town.

Working the core

Considered fringe or at least relatively unknown until last decade, Pilates is now found in towns across America (and not just California, or New York City, where German immigrant Joseph Pilates landed in 1925). Pilates was born a sickly child but worked to become a gymnast and boxer. He opened his first Pilates studio in the Big Apple in 1926 and helped elite dancers recover from injuries. Not until his protégés fanned out across the country following his death did Pilates begin to be understood by the mainstream. The activity works the body’s core muscles, and unlike yoga, which stresses repetition, this workout calls for only six-eight reps through hundreds of different exercises, either on mats or on an elaborate wunda chair.

Lorie Osinski’s studio in Glen Arbor’s Village Sampler Plaza offers six classes per week: beginner classes on Mondays and Fridays at 8:30 a.m., intermediate classes on Tuesdays at 8 and 9:15, and resistance and core classes on Thursdays at 8 and 9:15 (private lessons are also available). Lorie recently sold her studio in Findlay, Ohio, and now teaches exclusively in Glen Arbor. Regulars at the Glen Arbor Athletic Club will remember her from past summers. Lorie holds a personal trainer certification from the American Council on Exercise. She recommends taking her hour-long classes twice a week to work on the body’s rings of powerhouse muscles, which she likens to a tree’s rings.

Don’t “Wear” it out

Sue Jameson isn’t really “new” in Glen Arbor. She just took a six-year hiatus, after selling her store, Bay Wear, in the Village Sampler Plaza, to David Marshall who renamed it Dune Wear. Marshall, now a Leelanau County Commissioner and President of the Glen Lake Chamber of Commerce, sold the store back to Jameson and her husband Wayne late last year. (David’s wife Christy officiated Sue and Wayne’s wedding last August.)

As a girl Sue worked for her dad’s store Harbor Wear in Petoskey and Charlevoix. He gave her the opportunity to expand the chain, which is known especially for its line of sweatshirts that sport the name of the given town. The company has had as many as 32 locations at one time, spanning northern Michigan, and today boasts 22 outlets, each owned individually by members of Sue’s family.

Compared to 2004, Sue says that Glen Arbor seems even more alive than it did then. She adds, the stores are nicer, and the public bathrooms at the Glen Arbor Garden are a great addition. Equally as important, the Glen Lake Chamber of Commerce’s desk remains at Bay Wear. “We’re pretty friendly about giving out directions anyways,” says Sue, “so we might as well distribute walking maps” that the Chamber desk offers visitors.

Lord of the ring

Bob Vertel’s departure from Becky Thatcher Designs after 23 years of making fine jewelry created a new opportunity for the 57-year-old craftsman. A connoisseur of the martial arts and of Zen Buddhism, Vertel moved into the shop formerly occupied by Hepburn Holt, on M-109 on Glen Arbor’s western edge, and named it Dokan — a combination of “Do” and “kan” which thus means to “the way of the ring”.

Bob is excited about his budding partnership with Paul Mihelcich of Eagle Harbor in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to make fine jewelry out of green stones that Paul harvests from abandoned mineshafts in the Kewana Peninsula. Bob had read in the Detroit Free Press about Paul’s unique venture and left him a message late this winter. Two months later, while shopping at Menards in Traverse City and unsure of what lay ahead for his jewelry career, Bob got a return phone call. The two men discovered they were the same age, boasted the same values and ambitions, and talked for an hour and a half. In Glen Arbor, Bob is currently working on prototypes with fiery green Chlorastrolite stones that Paul sends him.

Next door to Dokan, Grace Dickinson has teamed up with Shawn Ricker, a New Yorker who summers in the Glen Arbor area, to open a photography studio that displays and sells Grace’s father Frederick’s historic local prints. Shawn says that she and Grace put their heads together, spent the winter sorting and sifting through stacks of prints, and have now framed iconic pictures of dune buggies atop Sleeping Bear Point in 1939, a coast guard boat launching into the bay and Leland’s Fishtown in black and white.

The Padma Lakshmi-Glen Arbor connection

Big things are happening for Great Lakes Tea & Spice. Heather and Chris Sack’s brainchild, which started four years ago in a 12-by-12-foot shack behind Roger Vanderwerff’s veterinary clinic, has moved into the 700-square-foot space formerly frequented by ailing animals (Roger’s operation moved to nearby Maple City). Great Lakes Tea & Spice now sells its teas, herbs and rubs in two satellite locations: wellness-oriented Henry Ford Hospital in West Bloomfield, and the Cleveland Clinic.

But that’s not the best part. Last July at the Fancy Food Show in New York the Sacks met Padma Lakshmi of the TV show “Top Chef” fame. The stunning Indian-American actress, celebrity and cookbook author has twice advertised their products on the Home Shopping Network — albeit under an Easy Exotic Line but with “Great Lakes Tea & Spice” and “Glen Arbor, Michigan” written on the label. Heather and Chris visited Padma in her Manhattan apartment, and found her welcoming and down-to-earth.

In their new and improved location, the Sacks plan to offer tea sampling and demos on how to use their rubs. They’ll also sell chocolates and tea truffles from Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate in Empire. Great Lakes Tea & Spice will feature a garden in front of the store along M-109, and will provide outdoor seating behind the store where visitors can play mahjong Chinese dominoes. The tearoom will host a grand opening on July 3 from 3-9 p.m.

Speaking of celebrity chefs …

Just because Don Sielaff no longer owns the Foothills Café and Motel in Burdickville doesn’t mean that you can’t continue eating his delicious Norwegian Eggs Benedict. Sielaff is now cooking breakfasts at the Western Avenue Grill (every day until 2 p.m.), and the popular restaurant in downtown Glen Arbor all but brought Sielaff’s popular a.m. menu along with him. Foothills fans (that’s you, coach Don Miller!) still salivate over The Big Glen breakfast, the Huevos Rancheros, and the Farmers, Western, South Bar and Greek Omelettes. Or, if you didn’t get enough asparagus at the Empire festival two weeks ago, try Sielaff’s Veggie Omelette, packed with asparagus, tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms and cheese.

To complement Sielaff’s menu, the Western Avenue Grill also $6 breakfast cocktails, including fruit mimosas, margaritas and martinis. Manager Bill Skolnik says that Sielaff has already made the restaurant a small fortune in increased breakfast sales. Now doesn’t that sound delicious?

The Poisoning of Puerto Rico

The U.S. Navy left Vieques, but for many, the cancer remains.

In These Times magazine

Vieques, Puerto Rico — on March 31, retired Sgt. Hermogenes Marrero was told during a visit to the Veterans Affairs (VA) outpatient clinic in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, that he didn’t have cancer — or at least, his official VA computer file no longer showed any record of cancer.

But Marrero was not relieved. He had been diagnosed twice before with colon cancer and suffers today from a dozen other illnesses, including Lou Gehrig’s disease, failing vision, a lung condition that keeps him on oxygen around the clock, not to mention tumors throughout his body. The terminally ill and wheelchair-bound, 57-year-old veteran immediately suspected that the U.S. government had manipulated his medical record.

Marrero is the star witness in a lawsuit filed in 2007 against the U.S. government by Mississippi attorney John Arthur Eaves on behalf of more than 7,000 residents of the picturesque, yet heavily polluted, Puerto Rican island of Vieques. From 1941 until 2003 the U.S. Navy operated a base here, conducting bombing runs and testing chemical weapons for use in foreign wars, from Vietnam to Yugoslavia to Iraq.

The three-quarters of Vieques’ population listed as plaintiffs in the suit blame the billions of tons of bombs dropped by the Navy on Vieques’ eastern half, and the toxic chemicals released into the water, air and soil during that period, for their physical and psychological illnesses. Viequenses today suffer 30-percent higher cancer rates than other Puerto Ricans, 381-percent higher rates of hypertension, 95-percent higher rates of cirrhosis of the liver and 41-percent higher rates of diabetes. Twenty-five percent more children die during infancy in Vieques than in the rest of Puerto Rico.

Early in World War II, when fortunes looked grim for the Allies, the U.S. Navy occupied three-quarters of Vieques, which sits eight miles from the Puerto Rican mainland, moved one-third of its population to the nearby Virgin Islands, and planned to relocate the entire British fleet there in the event of a German invasion of England. Instead, Vieques became the U.S. testing ground for nearly every weapon used during the Cold War.

Though Marrero spent only 18 months on Vieques during his tour in the early 1970s, the Special Forces Marine suffers today from many of the same medical conditions as the local population. The Puerto Rican native, raised in Queens, N.Y., arrived on the island in 1970 with the task of guarding the vast array of chemical weapons the Navy stored and tested there. Marrero was exposed to toxics, including napalm and Agent Orange — which at the time he thought was weed killer. He developed massive headaches, bled from his nose, and suffered nausea and severe cramps. “I witnessed some of the most awesome weapons used for mass destruction in the world,” Marrero says. “I didn’t know how dangerous those chemicals were, because it was on a need-to-know basis.”

Today Marrero waits in the city of Mayaguez in western Puerto Rico for his chance to testify in court against the U.S. military for poisoning the people of Vieques and U.S. soldiers based there.

“These are American citizens, yet we violated their human rights,” says the humbled former Marine. “This would never have been allowed to happen in Washington or Seattle or Baltimore.”

The king can do no wrong

Before John Arthur Eaves’ lawsuit can be heard, however, it must first be approved by the First Circuit Court in Boston after the suit was rejected on April 13 by federal judge Daniel R. Dominguez, who sits on the U.S. District Court in San Juan. Eaves will officially appeal the case to the First Circuit Court early this summer. But the U.S. Navy has invoked sovereign immunity, a strategy that comes from the monarchic period when kings were immune from being sued. Unless a federal judge in Boston rejects sovereign immunity, no scientific evidence will ever reach the courtroom.

“The U.S. government wants the case to be dismissed — the ‘king can do no wrong’,’ ” says Eaves. “We claim their actions should not be protected under sovereign immunity, because when the government steps outside its discretion, its actions are no longer protected. We know that in at least one year the Navy violated the Environmental Protection Agency’s [EPA] standards 102 times.”

Washington rejects allegations that the Navy’s activities on Vieques poisoned residents — even though the government has admitted the presence of napalm, agent orange, depleted uranium, white phosphorous, arsenic, mercury, lead and cadmium on the former bombing range. In February 2005, the EPA identified Vieques as a Superfund site, which placed the cleanup of hazardous sites in federal hands.

In its defense, the U.S. government cites a controversial 2003 study by the Centers for Disease Control’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). But Arturo Massol, a biologist at the University of Puerto Rico who has studied toxic contamination on Vieques, calls the ATSDR study unscientific, if not outright criminal.

“A battalion of researchers came here and used poorly designed scientific experiments to conduct a political assessment that intentionally covered up reality,” Massol says. “The Navy is gone, but these agencies should be charged as accessories to murder because preventative policies could have been established after 2003.”

The bombing range on eastern Vieques was indisputably subjected to more than 60 years of non-indigenous chemicals, Massol says. There are no other sources of industrial pollution on the island. Those toxic metals accumulated in the biomass of plants and were eaten by grazing cows and fish. Once pollution reached the vegetation and the base of the food chain, it was transferred into humans. Massol and other independent scientists found that Vieques animals had 50 times more lead and 10 times more cadmium than animals on mainland Puerto Rico.

Under President Barack Obama, however, the U.S. government has shown signs of changing its tune. A U.S. congressional investigation last May into Hurricane Katrina trailers contaminated with formaldehyde accused the ATSDR of colluding with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to “deny, delay, minimize, trivialize or ignore legitimate health concerns.” When the Vieques case resurfaced, a team of ATSDR scientists began re-examining environmental health data on the island.

On Feb. 12, 2008, during his heated primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, then Sen. Obama wrote a letter to Puerto Rican Governor Acevedo Vila, stating that, were he to be elected president, “My Administration will actively work with the Department of Defense as well to achieve an environmentally acceptable clean-up … We will closely monitor the health of the people of Vieques and promote appropriate remedies to health conditions caused by military activities conducted by the U.S. Navy on Vieques.” Yet today, the Obama White House remains silent on the issue.

Living in the line of fire

Nanette Rosa, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, remembers what daily life was like in the Vieques village of Esperanza when the Navy airplanes took off from the island’s west coast and flew overhead to drop bombs in the east.

“When the wind came from the east, it brought smoke and piles of dust from where they were bombing,” Rosa says. “From January until June, they’d bomb every day, from 5 a.m. until 6 p.m. It felt like you were living in the middle of a war.”

Her neighbors in Esperanza developed breathing problems and skin rashes. Then in 1993, Nanette traveled to the port town of Fajardo to have her fourth child, Coral. The girl weighed only four pounds and doctors diagnosed her with “blue baby syndrome” (a result of high nitrate contamination in the groundwater, which decreased her oxygen-carrying capacity). Doctors in San Juan performed a colostomy on Coral, and when she was six-months-old, they found eight tumors in her intestines and stomach. The day before Coral’s first birthday, Nanette was told to celebrate because this would be the baby’s last.

Instead, in January 1995, Nanette sold her new house for a $600 plane ticket and flew to Brooklyn to seek help. Doctors at Kings County Hospital removed half of Coral’s intestines and stomach, which saved her life. Broke and without financial support, Nanette spent three months sleeping on a bench in the hospital.

Miraculously, Coral is alive today and about to turn 17. Her cancer is in remission, but doctors recently found three lumps in one of her breasts. Coral’s younger sister Ainnanenuchka, 14, has been diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma (cancer in her blood and bones), and part of her leg was removed and implanted in her chin.

“I’m 100 percent confident that the lawsuit will succeed, because the Lord told me so,” says Nanette, now 38 and a Pentecostal optimist. “I read in the Bible that every damage caused to the Earth has to be repaid.”

And if the lawsuit doesn’t succeed?

“I leave it in God’s hands. If I have to go to jail, it’s worth it to save my daughters’ lives.”

Obama brings full house to the Big House

Absolute Michigan

ANN ARBOR — President Barack Obama took a break from the constant political storms in Washington, D.C., to address the University of Michigan (U-M) 2010 spring commencement ceremony today. And thunderstorms rolling across the Midwest rewarded him with a break in the weather, as nearly 85,000 graduating seniors, U-M students, families and well-wishers enjoyed overcast skies and a humorous, but reflective speech on American politics that could well have been delivered in a political science lecture hall.

The crowd that packed into Michigan Stadium — the gridiron popularly known in Ann Arbor as the “Big House” — more than doubled that of typical commencement ceremonies, in no small part because of Obama’s popularity and intrigue among this student body, and young Americans in general. Early morning showers dropped spring rains on southeast Michigan, but the precipitation stopped in earnest by 9 a.m., two hours before the ceremony was to begin.

Adhering to a punctual schedule, Obama entered the stage shortly before 11 along with Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (a close ally of the President who may someday seek a cabinet position or a Supreme Court nomination once term limits end her governorship) and U-M President Mary Sue Coleman, and took a seat between the two. School of Music, Theatre & Dance senior Mary Martin then opened the ceremony with a performance of “The Star Spangled Banner,” followed by a Reflection from Samir Mohammed Islam, a senior from the College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA, which is U-M’s largest school).

Following remarks by esteemed faculty members, the spotlight turned to LSA Senior Alex Marston, a D.C. native and third-generation Michigan student whose grandparents met in Angell Hall during the 1940s. His speech on the topic of “change” seemed fitting with Obama just feet away from him, and the cameras focused on Mr. Change whenever the word was used.

“We desire change, but we fear it too,” Marston said. “After (Obama) took office, he found resistance to change,” at which the President whispered something to Gov. Granholm and laughed. Marston alluded to changes in U-M’s football program, a new coach and the team's fall from grace over the past three years. The senior also lamented that, for today’s graduates, change will mean no more visits to the popular Ann Arbor bar Good Time Charlies, or Zingerman’s Deli, and its world famous pastrami sandwiches. “But still, we must embrace change and follow the lead of Michigan graduates to change the world.”

Coleman then honored the nation’s 44th President with an Honorary Doctor of Law degree before thanking Obama for making the trip on Air Force One: “Congratulations to a group of graduating students so exceptional that we had to show you off to the President of the United States. … President Obama, welcome to the Big House,” she said to thundering applause.”

Just after 11:30, Gov. Granholm took the podium (adorned with the President of the United States seal) and applauded Obama: “On behalf of our 10 million citizens, thank you for supporting our auto industry — Ford, General Motors, Chrysler. They all have bright futures now, whereas one year ago much darker clouds than these loomed overhead.” Granholm mentioned a recent visit by Vice President Joe Biden to promote Michigan’s electric battery sector. “We could not change Michigan from the rust belt to the green belt without your support, Mr. President,” she continued.

About 10 minutes later Obama rose and drew nearly 30 seconds of applause before opening his speech. He smiled, answered, “I love you back” and then pronounced, “It’s great to be here in the Big House. Go Blue,” admitting that he wanted to start things off with a cheap applause line.

Political science

Obama began his speech on a humorous note: “I am happy to join you all today, and even happier to spend a little time away from Washington. Don't get me wrong — it's a beautiful city. And it sure is nice living above the store; can't beat the commute,” he joked. “It's just that sometimes, all you hear in Washington is the clamor of politics — a noise that can drown out the voices of the people who sent you there.”

He reads 10 letters a night from ordinary citizens, including one from a kindergarten class in Virginia, which asked the leader of the free world a series of innocent questions. “One asked, ‘How do you do your job?’ Another asked, ‘Do you work a lot?’ Somebody wanted to know if I wear a black jacket or if I have a beard — clearly getting me mixed up with that other tall guy from Illinois. And then there was my favorite: ‘Do you live next to a volcano?’”

But after tickling the crowd’s funny bone, Obama adopted the conciliatory, unifying stance of the change-maker he’s aspired to be in the White House. He admitted that the debate over the size of government is a legitimate one that has existed since this country’s beginnings; he called on cable news pundits and others to keep the political debate civil, and he admitted that these issues of political tone are nothing new.

“Before we get too down on the current state of our politics, we need to remember our history. The great debates of the past all stirred great passion. They all made some angry. What is amazing is that despite all the conflict; despite all its flaws and frustrations, our experiment in democracy has worked better than any other form of government on Earth.

Obama’s call for a good government, of the people, seemed suitable for a political science class, if not a campaign rally: “Government is the police officers who are here protecting us and the service men and women who are defending us abroad. Government is the roads you drove in on and the speed limits that kept you safe.”

And then the President made perhaps the only allusion to the stormy issues of the day that are certainly on his mind as he flies back to Washington.

“Government is what ensures that mines adhere to safety standards and that oil spills are cleaned up by the companies that caused them. Government is this extraordinary public university — a place that is doing life-saving research, catalyzing economic growth, and graduating students who will change the world around them in ways big and small.

Shortly after noon today, Obama wrapped up his speech, calling on U-M’s graduates to be tomorrow’s leaders, and protectors of democracy. And after the seniors filling the football field in a sea of black gowns were officially declared graduates, they honored tradition and tossed their black caps into the air. Formal above the waist, many graduates wore tennis shoes — even Bermuda shorts — below.

U-M a collegiate leader

President Barack Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to deliver a graduation commencement speech in Ann Arbor, following Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and George H. W. Bush in 1991. Johnson used this setting to outline the pillars of his Great Society legislation, which marked the 1960s. Bill Clinton also spoke to U-M’s graduates after he left the White House. Video images of Johnson and Bush both appeared on the jumbotron during today’s ceremony.

Though they weren’t commencement speeches, John F. Kennedy stopped for a midnight rally at the University of Michigan 50 years ago while on the 1960 campaign trail and introduced the Peace Corps. (“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” he said in that recognizable Bostonian accent.) And U-M alum and Grand Rapids native Gerald Ford (the only Michigan native to sit in the Oval Office) launched his unsuccessful re-election campaign here in 1976.

While U-M has taken its lumps on the gridiron in recent years, and all but ceded state basketball bragging rights to Tom Izzo and Michigan State, the university continues to be a national collegiate leader. University president Mary Sue Coleman, who took over the reigns in 2002 following Lee Bollinger’s tenure, launched “The Michigan Difference” campaign, which raised $3.2 billion — the most ever by a public university.

The university’s value to the state of Michigan is equally immense. The U-M Health System, which serves 1.7 million patients each year, boasts a medical school, three hospitals and more than 120 health centers and clinics. U-M spends over $1 billion annually on research, which has resulted in 2,521 discoveries, 1,184 patent applications and 83 startups. U-M is part of the University Research Corridor, a collaboration with Michigan State and Wayne State universities to accelerate statewide economic development.

Michigan Stadium, which opened in 1927 and was the first college stadium to use electronic scoreboards, holds a capacity of 106,201.

No to Coal

The Chicago City Council unveils legislation to clean up South Side power plants

Mindful Metropolis

There are killers loose on Chicago’s South Side. Two coal-fired power plants—located in the heavily Latino neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village, and owned by the energy company midwest Generation—spew soot and other pollutants into the air that cause approximately 41 premature deaths, 550 emergency room visits and 2,800 asthma attacks every year, according to a 2001 Harvard study. The Chicago Clean Power Coalition estimates that the Fisk plant in Pilsen and the Crawford plant in Little village have released 45,000 tons of pollution in the past three years alone.

Frustrated by the slow pace of action on the federal and state levels, Alderman Joe Moore of the 49th Ward teamed up with four co-sponsors in mid-April to introduce a Chicago Clean Power ordinance in the City Council. Moore led a spirited press conference on the second floor of City Hall on April 13, where he shared the microphone with Sandi Jackson (7th Ward), Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward), Eugene Schulter (47th Ward), Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) senior attorney Faith Bugel and Brian Urbazewski from the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago. Nearly 200 environmental activists gathered with signs in support of the legislation.

“This ordinance will require Chicago’s two coal-fired power plants to clean up their act, to reduce the amount of particulate matter and carbon dioxide they spew into the air,” said Alderman Moore. “When this legislation passes, Chicago will do what no other large city in America has had the guts to do — clean up a dirty power plant within its jurisdiction, and thus protect the health and welfare of its residents.”

The lawmakers going to bat on behalf of Pilsen and Little Village residents represent a broad geographical area of the city, because pollution doesn’t stop at ward borders.

“The soot and the particulars go across this entire city, they go across the Midwest, they go across the entire world,” said Alderman Waguespack. “And that’s what we’re trying to stop here. We need to hold these people accountable now.”

One alderwoman viewed the effort to clean up the south side polluters not just as her legal responsibility, but as her parental duty.

“This is very personal to me because my two children have asthma,” shared Alderwoman Jackson. “So every time I drive, and I put them in the car with me, they’re struggling to grasp for breath. If we’re not fighting every day to ensure that the breath our children breathe is clean, then shame on us, shame on us.”

Predictably, Midwest Generation answered the proposed legislation with a press statement saying that current regulation standards were adequate and that more regulation would only cost jobs: “Given the existing state and federal regulations protecting health and the environment, an additional layer of regulation in Chicago is unnecessary and overreaching. … It’s only real impact will be to risk the shutdown of these plants, and as a result, reliability of the electric grid and the loss of hundreds of good union jobs.”

But the company has all but ignored a federal Clean Air Act provision requiring coal plants to upgrade their pollution controls, and a lawsuit filed last year by the Environmental Protection Agency could take years to resolve. Midwest Generation has agreed to install pollution control “scrubbers”, but not until 2015 in Pilsen and 2018 in Little Village.

“We are here to act more quickly, to fill in those gaps," said Faith Bugel of ELPC.

At the City Hall press conference, Alderman Moore lashed out at Midwest Generation for using scare tactics.

“Before they’ve even read one word of this legislation, the power company executives are already threatening us. They say, rather than clean them up, they’ll shut them down. They say workers will lose those good union jobs. … I’m sick and tired of corporate executives scaring people about job loss just to try and save the bottom line. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some power company executive … divide the workers and their families from those of us who care about their health.”

Jacob Wheeler is a freelance journalist, editor and publisher who hails from the cobblestone streets of Copenhagen and the forests of northwest-lower Michigan, where he publishes the Glen Arbor Sun (GlenArborSun.com).

Think Beyond Recycling

"Junk artist" Gabriel Dishaw's exhibit, (Not So) New Shoes, runs through May at 360SEE Gallery in Bucktown


Mindful Metropolis

Ever refused to purchase a pair of beautiful new Nike sneakers because you knew that the Honduran workers who made them didn’t earn anything close to the $100 price tag on the shoes? Well, now you can buy those shoes, and do so without violating your conscience.

Self-proclaimed “junk artist” Gabriel Dishaw sculpts trendy sneakers out of reclaimed computer parts, electronics, metal, wire and plastic. The Indianapolis-based artist’s show “(Not So) New Shoes” runs through the month of May at 360SEE gallery (www.360SEEgallery.com) in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood. Each pair of Nike reproductions is built to scale and matched with a vintage piece of luggage that Dishaw retrofits into a custom-label shoebox.

Granted, most of the shoes are to be viewed, not worn. But Dishaw has also designed three wearable custom designs of Nike’s “Air Force One” brand, which come in green, orange and copper colors, and include an external cutout from a computer’s motherboard in the shape of the Nike swoosh. Dishaw captures the shoe’s details, down to the logo, laces, Velcro and loops on the back. Best of all, you can wear these on the basketball court.

“My passion for working with metal and mechanical objects has been crucial in the evolution of my art,” Dishaw writes in a press release. “It provides an avenue for me to express myself in a way that both satisfies my love for creating art while re-using items that would otherwise end up in a landfill.

“I create sculptural objects that not only promote visual and tactile interest but provokes others to really appreciate how much we dispose of each day and the impact that our behavior has on our environment. I want to inspire others to think beyond the conventional route when it comes to recycling.”

All proceeds from Dishaw’s Air Force One shoes will be donated to the Earth Day Network, which recognizes 360SEE gallery and director Jordan Witkov as part of its “Artist for the Earth” Earth Day 40th anniversary initiative. This month you can also bring old laptops, personal computers, typewriters and other electronic components to the gallery, located at 1924 N. Damen Ave., for Dishaw to use in future sculptures.

The sustainability-minded media gallery will celebrate two years at its Bucktown location in July. Witkov, a North Shore native who returned to Chicago after receiving his Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in painting and printmaking at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, believes that 360SEE gallery is one of a kind. He works with artists all over the world, exhibiting everything from furniture, to paintings, to design.

“All artists we work with use responsibly-sourced materials,” explains Witkov, who turns 30 in June. “Some artists use (sustainable) materials because they find 150-year-old wood very beautiful, as opposed to having an environmental motivation. Others make a conscious choice to use sustainable materials.”

Witkov emphasizes that the 1,200-square-foot, two-story gallery is not just the next passenger on the green bandwagon.

“Sustainability is important to me, and it’s a great talking point for (the artists). But if the work is not formal and well done, visually and conceptually compelling, no one will buy it. We’re a serious gallery — not just the new eco gallery on the block.”

360SEE is inviting and unpretentious, with a name that suggests a closed-loop, full circle perspective. When I visited in early April, Witkov’s dog Homer greeted me at the door. The bulldog sported brightly colored balloons on his feet (to prevent the dog from sucking its toes) and proved to be a pleasant companion while escorting us on our gallery tour, which last month featured “Arrested Moments,” early 20th-century mug shots that were hand-painted onto brown paper bags by Seattle artist Chris Crites. Remarkably, most of the criminals were better dressed than the Bucktown hipsters around all us.

Jacob Wheeler is a freelance journalist, editor and publisher who hails from the cobblestone streets of Copenhagen and the forests of northwest-lower Michigan, where he publishes the Glen Arbor Sun (glenarborsun.com).