That's my big news for this week: We're having TWO out-state meetups, for the first time ever! One will take place on Friday, August 14th, around 4:00 PM, in Benzie County (exact time and location yet TBD.)
Another will take place on Saturday, August 15th, starting at 2:00 PM, at a private residence in Holland, MI. (RSVP for the address.)
The Holland meetup will be the first get-together for West Michigan Kos. We're on the verge of pulling that together as the first out-state group for that sector of Michigan. At the moment, we are defining the geographical catchment area as anywhere south of Ludington, west of Lansing, and north of Benton Harbor/St. Joseph--with those cities included, at least for now. Or, the area bounded by I-94 to the south, I-69 and US-127 to the east, and US-10 to the north, with our beautiful Lake Michigan to the west. (This is a big state, isn't it?)
The area a little north of that, with the meetup in Benzie County, isn't quite ready to consolidate. But for the time being, we're thinking of it as including north of US-10, west of US-127 up to Grayling,and then south of the (rough) line from Grayling to Traverse City and then up into the Leelanau.
We're not sure yet what will happen for the rest of the Lower Peninsula, or for the Upper Peninsula, for that matter. If you, reading this, have any suggestions, I'm all ears!
We will have more details and more reminders about both of these prospective meetups in the next three weeks. Meanwhile, please feel free to RSVP yes in the comments or via Kosmail to me. These are NOT closed groups; anyone is welcome to attend, even if you live in, oh say, Port Huron. We'd give you some sort of a prize for driving that far, I can promise that. ;)
I wrote a really long diary last week for this Open Thread. This week, I just don't have the time. But I do want to raise some issues, with the hope that someone else will take them and run in the next few weeks.
* Michigan Pipelines, especially Line 5 across the Mackinac Straits
* MI Petition Drives, current and proposed
* War over Water updates: The latest from Detroit is that the City Council rolled over and approved significant rate hikes. I'm not pleased with the prospects of equity in the near future.
Please let me know if you're interested in writing for the Weekly Open Thread.
We're here to talk about All Things Michigan. The floor is yours.