Soutas-Little, the incumbent, is challenged by Republican Dale Schaub in District 5, which represents Leland and Centerville Townships.
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The streets of downtown Glen Arbor are packed these days with tourists, beachgoers, and shoppers. The tills hum at apparel shops, rented bikes and kayaks roll off the assembly line at Crystal River Outfitters, and there’s a hungry line out the door at Art’s Tavern. But “help wanted” signs on storefronts, restaurant entrances and social media appeals, have become as ubiquitous in our tourism boomtowns — in Glen Arbor and up and down the Lake Michigan shoreline.
If you want to solve Glen Arbor’s affordable housing problem, some say look no further than Empire. Here, the Sun speaks to several prominent village citizens who have varied responses to the issue of affordable housing. All, however, agree on one thing: they love Empire.
Skyrocketing land prices and high taxes have priced Glen Arbor out of the market for most service workers and working professionals like teachers and emergency medical workers. Over the past five years, we’ve lost countless professionals who have moved to other areas. But it’s not hopeless, say some.
Glen Arbor needs help — hired help, the kind that works for wages. Although the community turned itself inside out to help one another after the recent superstorm, the devastation left in its wake after the tree and power line pros left highlights a pre-existing problem. We who are of a certain age (and I do speak for myself) need young, able-bodied workers — desperately.
Many of Glen Arbor’s employers can’t find employees, and if things don’t change, some foresee the area’s economy drying up. Last year, three major Glen Arbor businesses — Cherry Republic (CR), Anderson’s IGA, and Leelanau Vacation Rentals (LVR) — were short an estimated total of 100 summer employees.
Ever wonder why so few young families live year-round near Glen Arbor? Here’s the story of one couple who tried to live here just last year and couldn’t.
From staff reports The Leelanau County Commission — reshaped by a watershed 2014 election that saw Democrats on the board nearly pull even with Republicans — is stepping up to solve the county’s affordable housing crunch. The board voted 4-2, in mid-June, to form a volunteer task force that will study the issue of affordable […]
Affordable housing in Leelanau County is in short supply. That isn’t actually burning news. It wasn’t even news in 1995, when I became an Americorps worker whose mission was to help start a five-county housing nonprofit organization called HomeStretch. What makes it relevant, even urgent, today is that housing in the county—for workers with college degrees, skills and good jobs, families, people with low incomes, seniors, young adults—is evaporating more quickly than the water levels on Lake Michigan. When the basic needs of a community aren’t met—whether through a confluence of circumstances, lack of initiative, an adverse business climate, or refusal by its members to take action—then the whole community suffers.