Village Life: Can water be made holy again?
By Jan Worth-Nelson In the bleached and bleak light the morning after the Rachel Maddow show, I wake up torpid and head-achey with depression. I know the signs. When I get so down, the molten lava flowing just under that lethargy usually comes down to one hot origin:...
At Luigi’s, Eastsiders “incensed,” “Flint Strong” as Dan Kildee offers hope
Editor's note: EVM board member and contributing writer Bob Thomas was at Luigi's for the "after party" following the Rachel Maddow taping. Above...
Flint’s Water Crisis Followed Us Across the Country
Here is a piece Jan Worth-Nelson submitted to The Daily Breeze in L.A. after arriving in San Pedro last week. .http://www.dailybreeze.com/environment-and-nature/20160119/flints-lead-water-crisis-weighs-on-san-pedro-snowbirds
Literacy Tutor Training Sessions Set
By Anne Trelfa An opportunity to become a certified literacy tutor is being offered by the Genesee County Literacy Coalition starting Jan. 30. The Coalition will train volunteers to help adults learn to read, finish their GED process or learn English as a second...
Free course on water crisis offered by UM – Flint
By Anne Trelfa A free course focused on the Flint water crisis begins Thursday Jan. 21 at 4:30 in the UM – Flint Northbank Center. The UM-Flint Department of Public Health and Health Sciences is offering 8 sessions initially throughout the winter semester. Planners...
Global Film Festival resumes, also features Kildee, Ramsdell, Rao
By Andrew Keast The Global Issues Film Festival continues as usual this month, with another set of cinematic views on people and problems not often covered in the popular media. This, the second half of the Festival’s 14th season, will be held at the McKinnon Theater...
Book Review: Demolition Means Progress: Flint, Michigan and the fate of the American Metropolis by Andrew Highsmith
By Robert R. Thomas Like a twisted love affair in which things are not what they seem, living in Flint can be an extremely disorienting hall of mirrors. For 10 years I have been researching Flint’s history, trying to understand my hometown roots and my current...
Cultural Center plan: Sarvis demolition, Sloan expansion, downtown links
By Nic Custer The Flint Cultural Center Corporation (FCCC) recently updated its master plan with recommendations to demolish the Sarvis Center and several underutilized buildings, connect the street grid, renovate the Sloan Museum, and redesign public spaces between...
Wat’er we expecting for Flint’s water in 2016? Words for the good news and bad
Let’s hope 2016 is the year we drain the lead out and mop up the water mess – so we won’t be flooded with washed-up water metaphors. (Maybe they’ll just dry up and blow away?)
Village Life: One sign leads to another, but does “Love Trump Hate”?
By Jan Worth-Nelson Just to be clear, I can’t stand Donald Trump. Back in the late 80s when I’d just started working at UM-Flint, a colleague of mine and I bonded over our extreme disdain for The Donald – we called him The Fat-fingered Vulgarian. We used to stop each...
“Tens of thousands” damaged by Flint water crisis, class action lawsuit attorneys contend
By Stacie Scherman A class action lawsuit against key figures in the State of Michigan and the City of Flint is likely to ultimately include up to 30,000 households and tens of thousands of residents seeking compensations and damages from the Flint water crisis,...
Village Life: There’s no avoiding family life this season
Column by Jan Worth-Nelson The trouble with holidays, really, is families. The trouble with holidays is how society arm-wrestles us into facing who begat us. Sitting around various dining room tables, the menu rife with clichéd dishes and family histories – and so...
ISIS: What it is–and what it isn’t
By Paul Rozycki Editor's Note: Paul Rozycyki offered EVM this "bonus" column as a local response to the Paris attacks. In light of what happened in San Bernardino and the President's remarks in his Sunday night address to the nation, Rozycki's comments take on even...
The 12 (or 13) Days of Christmas: a wish list for Mayor Weaver
By Paul Rozycki As Mayor Karen Weaver begins her first 100 days in office with a list of ambitious plans for the city, she and the citizens of Flint have a long list of hopes for the upcoming holiday season and beyond. In that light, here’s a proposed wish list...
Crews, supporters determined to save, restore Whaley Historic House
By Jan Worth-Nelson Cleanup crews, conservators, restoration experts and numerous volunteers and supporters of the Whaley Historic House Museum have been busy almost around the clock since the beloved Kearsley Street mansion accidentally caught fire and...
After 10 years of Land Bank efforts, Flint’s a demolition “rock star”
By Nic Custer More than 890 Genesee County Land Bank-owned homes in Flint will be demolished over the next two years thanks to $11.45 million recently authorized from a final round of Michigan State Housing and Development Authority’s Hardest Hit Fund. This will bring...
Transformed by water and politics, Walters fights on
Interview by Ashley O'Brien LeeAnne Walters was once a stay-at-home mother of four. But she was transformed into an advocate for water safety in Flint and across the country after her four-year-old son Gavin got sick—the numbers on his blood tests clearly in the...
Library millage win means modernization, “new service focus”
By Nic Custer The Central Park Neighborhood Association October meeting covered a Flint Public Library millage ballot proposal, neighborhood blight, the Investor’s Committee, and upcoming elections. Director Kay Schwartz, Flint Public Library, shared information about...
Welcome To Our Village!
Thank you for joining us here at the exciting opening of our new website. We are so grateful to be back online after months of repairs and redesign. It has been a tumultuous year for us, beginning with the death of our founder, Gary Custer, in January, and the crash...
Local news still matters, even as the “how” changes
By Jan Worth-Nelson I just lost my temper. The trigger was an early morning solicitation to subscribe to the Flint Journal -- our hometown paper, right? I asked the young voice with a Southern accent where she was calling from. Missouri, she said. Missouri?...
Is restoring trust as easy as turning a faucet?
By Paul Rozycki Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships -Stephen Covey Success has a thousand fathers. Failure is always an orphan. -attributed to Tacitus...
Restoring a duck decoy
Restoring a duck decoy By Grayce Scholt I touch acrylic paint to neck, to wing following my father’s curve of knife, of brush; I daub an even falser life on this that sixty years before bobbed Judas-like on a Lake Erie bay and living wings would swoop to join the...
Bicycle culture rolling around new spokes in Flint
By Andrew Keast and Jan Worth-Nelson If anybody provides evidence that Flint might be transforming itself – from the wheels up -- into a bicycle-friendly culture, it’s Danny Moilanen, 28, owner of Vehicle City Tacos and a self-described “social cycler.” In 2012, he...
Atwood hosted decades of Thanksgiving sports dramas: ice, snow, mud, diversity, dancing
Atwood hosted decades of Thanksgiving sports dramas: ice, snow, mud, diversity, dancing By Lawrence R. Gustin Editor’s note: Gustin, a Flint native, writer and much-published historian of Flint’s automotive past, agreed to contribute this reminiscence of Atwood...
