Last November the Metropolitan Organizing Strategy for Enabling Strength (a.k.a. MOSES), a neighborhood-based group representing more than 50 Detroit-area churches, gathered 1,000 of its members in Detroit to rally for increased public transit funding. Akey member of the Institute's statewide transportation reform coalition, MOSES thus pulled off the largest organizing meeting for anti-highway activists in Michigan since the 1970s protests over extending I-275 through western Oakland County.

Do Tell
The Michigan Auditor General is expected to release a report this Spring on the state Department of Agriculture's oversight of environmental problems at livestock factories. The year-long investigation was prompted by Patty Cantrell's reporting in the Great Lakes Bulletinabout how the department consistently ignored mismanagement of animal wastes, causing toxic manure spills and chronic water contamination.

Done Deal
Last December the Michigan Public Service Commission issued its formal, absolutely final denial to Gaylord businessman Walter Zaremba's plan to drill for natural gas in the 22,000-acre Jordan Valley, one of the state's most beautiful natural areas. When Mr. Zaremba first made his proposal in 1996 it launched a wave of public protest that succeeded in convincing state policymakers and the Governor to enforce a 1975 management policy to keep the Jordan free of any industrial development.

Changing Lanes
The latest Engler Administration official to trade on his government contacts and take a lucrative job with an industry he once oversaw is Gary Naeyaert, former director of communications at the Michigan Department of Transportation. He began in his new position as director of government and public relations for the Michigan Road Builders Association last month. MDOThas budgeted more than $2 billion on new and wider roads over the next five years, and is studying plans for $3 billion more.

First Reserve
The serene dunes and forests of Ludington State Park may soon be off limits to oil and gas drilling. Activists became alarmed in 1997 when the Department of Natural Resources proposed to lease the minerals beneath the park for energy development, and the next year helped pass the State Land Reserve Act. Last month, after a year of organizing, Hamlin Township and property owners around Hamlin Lake petitioned the Natural Resource Commission to make the park Michigan's first to be protected from industrial development under the new law. Adecision is expected in April.

Redefining Progress
Congratulations to the Milan Area Concerned Citizens, a grassroots citizens group in rural Monroe County southwest of Detroit, for opening a new discussion on preventing sprawl in Michigan. In February Milan Township property owners overturned a decision by the township board to rezone 1,000 acres of farmland to build an automobile shipping facility.The victory was the result of six months of effective organizing led by area residents. They were assisted by the Institute, which prepared a financial evaluation concluding that the proposed facility would have added more than $1,600 a year per household -- for 20 years -- in tax and fee payments to cover the cost of a new water system and other services.

Road Runaround
The Grand Traverse County Road Commission voted in February to recommend building a $25 million bridge and connector roads, a key link in the proposed $300 million Traverse City Bypass. The Road Commission is seeking to circumvent local voters, who rejected the plan in a millage vote ten years ago, by tapping federal funds. Despite appearances the project is far from a done deal. The Institute and the Coalition for Sensible Growth, a local citizens group, are organizing for the next round of reviews by state and federal agencies. This time the focus is on the weaknesses in the Road Commission's environmental studies, including the failure to thoroughly assess how the project would promote sprawl.

To find out more about these and other issues and how you can get involved, call Mary Ellen Pattyn at the Institute, 231-882-4723.