
3 minute read
Best of the Rest
from MT 04/13/22
NEWS & VIEWS
A protester camped high in a tree to protect a forested section of Ann Arbor from being cleared for a luxury homes project.
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Best of the Rest
Forest defender sits in tree to protest luxury homes development in Ann Arbor
By Steve Neavling
A self-identified “forest
defender” camped high in a tree Monday morning to protest a planned development of luxury homes in a forested section of Ann Arbor.
The protester, who goes by the name Nuthatch, plans to sit in the tree inde nitely to prevent the removal of hundreds of trees to make way for the Concord Pines development site at 660 Earhart Road in northeast Ann Arbor.
The developer, the Toll Brothers, plans to build 57 luxury homes on a 39-acre site.
“We don’t do this for fun,” Nuthatch said in a statement. “Certainly, being up here in the canopy and surrounded by the sounds of the forest is a lovely place to be. But please believe me that I wish with all my heart that we could nd an easier way besides facing o against police day after day. But we can’t stop. e aren’t just ghting Toll rothers we’re ghting the systems that support them, the systems of white supremacy, capitalism, and oppression of all kinds.”
The Ann Arbor City Council approved the development with an 8-3 vote in October 2021.
Crews plan to plow down more than 750 trees.
Last month, members of the protest group FIGHT Concord Pines locked themselves to construction machinery, and at least two of them were arrested.
The land also has connections to indigenous people, protesters said.
“The land itself was traditionally stewarded by the Wyandot and the Bodéwadmi peoples, many of whom waged immense resistance battles against their forced removal to Kansas and Oklahoma in the 1800s,” they said. “Despite a record of nearby burial mounds and remains, Toll Brothers have not provided any details on their plans to involve the Bodéwadmi or Wyandot should remains, cultural artifacts, or other signi cant items be discovered at the site.”
In a statement Monday morning, protesters said they don’t plan to back down.
“There is no time left to stop the climate crisis by appealing to weak-willed government officials, protesters said. “Direct action must be taken to stop the destruction of our planet.”
Fundraiser seeks to help struggling exDetroit Tiger who never gave up on baseball
A fundraiser has been launched to help Ike Blessitt, a former Detroit Tiger whose struggles were highlighted in a recent Metro Times story.
The GoFundMe campaign seeks to raise $50,000 for Blessitt, who is among an estimated 179 former professional baseball players who weren’t on a major-league roster long enough to qualify for a pension or health care.
As of Monday afternoon, $7,750 had been raised.
The fundraiser got a bit of a boost Monday after rock star Jack White’s baseball company Warstic shared the fundraiser on its social media pages.
Prior to 1980, players weren’t eligible for bene ts unless they played for four years. But that changed in 1980, when the players union negotiated a new contract with Major League Baseball that allowed players with at least one day of service to receive medical bene ts and players with at least days of service to get a pension. But the pact wasn’t retroactive.
In 2011, pre-1980 players with more than days on the active roster began receiving a modest annual stipend.
Blessitt, who paid union dues at the time, was on the roster for just one month.
Blessitt said he was yanked from the roster in 1973 after confronting then-Tigers manager Billy Martin for hanging out with an underage girl at the Leland House hotel in Detroit.
Blessitt never made it back to the big leagues but played baseball in Mexico for about 15 years before returning home to Detroit, where he volunteers and continues to give batting lessons to teenagers.
Blessitt was active on the Navin Field Grounds Crew, a group of volunteers who tended the eld at the site of Tiger Stadium after it was demolished, and the Hamtramck Stadium Grounds Crew, which helped revive the former Negro eague ballpark and eld where Blessitt played in high school.
“His major-league career didn’t last that long, but baseball has been his entire life. He has been a big part of the game,” Tom Derry, founder of both grounds crews, tells Metro Times. “He would show up and do what he could to help us out. He was a big supporter of ours. Our grounds crew is our family, and Ike is part of our family.”
—Steve Neavling
COURTESY PHOTO
