Ypsilanti Township

It's our Best in Business Tour with the Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley.

And rock the block, we are out in the Sugarbrook neighborhood in Ypsilanti Township.

And we are right at the Family Community Center.

And this has been such a great day today to see all these volunteers out there.

Novel concept.

Port Lake Dam is owned and operated by Ypsilanti Township.

It's a hydroelectric facility with federal regulatory responsibilities involving operations, safety, and environmental compliance.

So the dam isn't some decorative wall holding a really big pond.

And identify who does.

That alone would improve the public trust.

If we're talking infrastructure, who should be there? The university? Los Alamos? Ypsilanti Township? DTE? DTE gas when appropriate.

ITC.

The result was a nigh unstoppable arsenal of democracy that ultimately swamped the wartime economies of Germany, Italy, and Japan and guaranteed Allied victory.

But one American wartime factory stood out among the rest, Air Force Plant 31 in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, better known as Willow Run.

At peak capacity in April of 1944, a complete B24 Liberator heavy bomber was rolling out of this facility's doors every single hour, a staggering feat of industrial production that has yet to be matched.

This is the story of the greatest factory ever built.

Recognizing the inherent logistical difficulties and damage risk of transporting parts and subassemblies such long distances, Ford pushed hard to have all stages of manufacture, from raw materials to finished aircraft, consolidated under one roof, a feat of vertical integration Ford had previously achieved in 1928 at its massive River Rouge automotive plant in Detroit.

For the moment, however, the company was forced to go along with the government's distributed production scheme.

To build Sorensen's mega factory, Edsel Ford chose the site of the Willow Run Boys Camp near Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, which, being fully owned by the Ford Motor Company, avoided any potential land acquisition issues.

The site also lay close to key rail lines and highways connecting the site to Detroit and Ann Arbor.

Then the next question isn't, why won't you commit? It's, who can? Exactly.

Who possesses the authority to negotiate for the university? Who can approve a binding community benefit agreement? Who can approve an annual payment? Who can approve a long-term community fund? Who can approve enforceable performance standards? And why isn't that person already at the table? The University of Michigan's current fact sheet says it will work with local leaders and residents to identify meaningful long-term value for Ypsilanti Township.

But the current

public FAQ doesn't specify a dollar amount or a binding community benefits agreement.

Who provides it? Who borrows it? Who receives it? Who owns what? Who pays it back? That's stakeholder communication.

Not another 47-slide presentation whereby slide 32, everybody's trying to remember what slide 6 said.

And collaboration must include Ypsilanti Township officials, residents, and businesses in a meaningful way.

Not just as an audience.

We'll get to all of it, but first, uh, wanna get to this.

Uh, a major vote in Wayne County is keeping alive a proposed data center, a Google data center development, in Van Buren Township.

WJR's Marie Osborne brings us those details.

Happy Friday to you, Marie.

Commissioners stress that the vote does not approve construction of the data center itself.

Instead, it focuses on the county's role in providing incentives tied to the development.

One commissioner whose district includes Van Buren Township said he changed his stance after learning more about the project's potential economic impact, and that included the possibility of union jobs.

Evans continues to, uh, raise concerns.