YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP — If University of Michigan officials believed they would have a conversation with deeply angry and frustrated Ypsilanti Township residents after announcing they would move forward with their planned “high performance computing facility” — they were wrong.
Since the scale and scope of the site was announced, Ypsilanti Township residents have been at the least wary of the university’s intentions. But as time went on and residents felt ignored and steamrolled by officials who did not include them in the planning and implementation of the development miles from their homes, a sense of urgency and betrayal grew. This, along with decades of animosity and distrust toward the university, created the perfect storm for a meeting full of residents venting and yelling insults at the panel of officials.
Dozens of residents spoke during the hours-long public comment portion of the town hall centered around the university’s planned computing facility in partnership with national security laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory. Not a single resident spoke in favor of the project, and when university officials spoke and answered questions, they were met with jeers from the crowd…