The new dine-in Mexican restaurant, 4445 E. Bluegrass Road, opened its doors to customers Aug. 9. Manager Luis Viurquiz said they wanted the name Los Aztecas, which means “the Aztecs,” to be fully represented by the decorations as well as the food — everything they make is cooked fresh and made “from scratch” by their cooks.

“We don’t buy cans,” the Cadillac resident said. “We make everything from scratch – chips, salsa, beans, rice – everything is homemade.”

Manager Ben Burklow is also the manager of Herra Duras, a Mexican restaurant in Cadillac. He said the owners’ idea to build a restaurant in Mount Pleasant came about because of an abundance of Central Michigan University students who frequented the Cadillac restaurant.

Cook Oscar Santos looks at a recent order pinned up along a clothes line by clothes pin on Friday at the restaurant.

“A large amount of people come from Mount Pleasant saying they are looking for good, authentic Mexican food,” he said.

Burklow said everything he has tasted so far at Los Aztecas has been as good, or better than the food at Herra Duras, so he has high hopes for the success of the restaurant.

“The food (at Herra Duras) is excellent,” he said. “But everything I’ve tried here is exceeding what I’ve had there.”

Viurquiz said they tired to find property to open Los Aztecas in Mount Pleasant for “the last couple of years.” They have been in the building for the last three to four months and he is happy they finally opened.

“We were supposed to be open on the 24th (of July),” he said. “We just had to wait for the last inspections.”

Viurquiz said they are still waiting for their liquor license to be finalized, but plan to have a full bar. Los Aztecas has a unique homemade margarita, along with many other drinks that he hopes will make the bar a popular spot for students.

The restaurant should have their liquor license approved and the bar opened in the next several weeks, he said.

Burklow hopes the restaurant will be a hot spot for both local residents and students.

“Our goal is just to make people walk out the door either ready for a nap because they’re too full or smiling because they enjoyed the food,” he said.

People enjoying the food might be the easiest of their goals. Rebecca Lutsic visited Los Aztecas and thought the food was good, but the service was lacking.

“Bring your Spanish-English dictionary,” the Dearborn senior said. “The food was good, but the service was iffy.”

With Michigan’s Senate Appropriations Committee recommending a 3.1 percent cut in appropriations to higher education, CMU administrators outlined their plans for budget cuts Monday in the Bovee University Center Auditorium.

Burdette, vice president of Financial and Administrative Services, presented budget models for the 2010-11 budget year based on anywhere from 5 to 20 percent cuts in state appropriations. By the models shown, if the cuts remain at or below 5 percent, CMU could afford its predicted budget without raising tuition.

“While we may get a 3 to 4 percent reduction in state appropriations, that would be great because we modeled for a 20 percent reduction,” he said. “We have built a very conservative model.”

He also said officials plan to freeze the amount of money allocated to utilities over the next three years.

Burdette also laid out models for next year’s budget based on a “modest” 2 percent increase in undergraduate tuition.

Provost Gary Shapiro said officials have not yet decided what the actual tuition increase will be.

“As challenging as the budget is, we are not alone,” said University President George Ross. “There are 15 colleges in this state and we are all challenged.”

Ross said major plans for cuts include salary restraint, spending out of the reserve account and cutting maintenance and utility costs.

There should be no layoffs of any current faculty or staff over the next year based on what they know, Ross said.

Dealing with cuts

Kathy Wilbur, vice president of Government Relations and Public Affairs, said she does not blame the Senate for proposing the cut and said Michigan is facing a $1.7 billion deficit.

Although the House of Representatives has not discussed the budget yet, they will probably consider a similar cut to appropriations, she said.

“I think they were being very pragmatic,” Wilbur said. “I actually think 3.1 percent is almost nothing compared with what I think they really could do.”

Shapiro said state appropriations for 2010 is set at $80,064,200, about $400,000 less than it was in 2000. However, he said this amount means a lot less now as CMU has more students, and bills and expenses have increased greatly.

The funding the university receive from the state now is about $4,285 per student, compared with about $4,900 in 2000. Shapiro said this has led CMU to raise tuition over the years to make up for the difference.

“We cannot continue to raise tuition in a competitive sense,” Shapiro said.

Some might say much has not changed despite that fewer drills are cropping up over the region’s many fields. Jack Westbrook, author of “A History of Michigan Oil and Gas Exploration and Production,” said 64 of the 68 counties in Michigan’s lower peninsula have had oil drills headquartered in Mount Pleasant.

“Though later years have seen the intensity of field activity shift elsewhere in the state,” he said. “Mount Pleasant remains a viable center of petroleum industry activity with 98 business entities with Mount Pleasant addresses.”

Westbrook said a lot of people do not realize Mount Pleasant is still referred to as the oil capital of Michigan.

The Oil & Gas Journal reported in January that 2009 was a “roller coaster drilling year,” with the number of rigs in the U.S. down 42 percent from 2008.

The number of wells in the nation this year was estimated at 38,238 amid predictions in 2006, according to the American Petroleum Institute. That is down by about 55 percent from 1981, when the number of wells was counted at 84,983.

Far from dead

Steve Bigard, president of Bigard & Huggard Drilling Inc., is one of only two drilling contractors still based in Mount Pleasant. This number, he said, was about 25 in the 1980s.

The industry, however, is far from dead.

Bigard’s company, 5580 Venture Way, recently activated two oil wells just north of the Isabella County Fairgrounds in December and January of this year.

“We’ve felt the cycles depending on oil pricing — 2007 and 2008 were strong years, while 2009 was a little weaker,” Bigard said. “We’re optimistic for the future in 2010.”

Scott Bellinger, managing editor of Michigan Oil and Gas News, said companies are active in the community and have applied for new drilling permits.

Because of this, he believes there will continue to be more activity for at least this year and possibly next.

“On a broader scale, Mount Pleasant has been considered the oil capital of Michigan because of the activity and many companies base here based on this central location,” Bellinger said. “It’s geographically motivated.”

Westbrook said the ups and downs in the industry are mostly because of companies’ worry over new regulations going through the national government.

President Barack Obama’s support for the Cap and Trade bill, which would steadily decline the limits on the amount of carbon dioxide a company is allowed to emit, has many players in the industry apprehensive about beginning new rigs until they know how the legislation will affect them.

“Right now, there a temporary lag in exploration because of uncertainty in regulation aspects,” Westbrook said. “We’re in a valley but, if you look at a long-term graph of the oil industry, every time we hit a valley, we come back and hit a peak higher than the one before. The oil industry should overcome it.”

A long history

The first oil field was struck on Feb. 27, 1928, in Mount Pleasant.

Westbrook said this oil strike by the Pure Oil Company ended up being the fourth largest in Michigan history.

He considers it a rich history for Mount Pleasant. In the early 1900s, many oil companies came to Michigan to explore the land in search of the black gold. Between 1900 and 1925, 80 wells had been drilled in the state, but they had little success and many of people began to think the idea of the state being a big producer was wrong.

Faith was restored in Michigan’s oil potential in 1925, when oil was struck in Saginaw. After Pure Oil Company found the Mount Pleasant Oil Field in 1928, Westbrook said the city was booming with production almost overnight. He said the field ended up producing 29 million barrels of oil altogether.

“The Mount Pleasant Field is credited with essentially shielding the town of Mount Pleasant from the Great Depression,” he said.

Between 1929 and 1941, the brunt of the Depression, Michigan produced 160 million barrels of crude oil, producing $166,592,000 for the Michigan economy.

But the industry’s growth still held consequences — seven people were killed in July 1931, when an oil well exploded over a crowd of 2,000 people.

In February 2002, a Mount Pleasant man was killed in a drill-related accident. According to previous Central Michigan Life reports, Earl Wilson III, 31, was killed when a spinning power shaft attached to a drill caught his clothing.

A companion of Wilson’s told CM Life he loved the oil industry.

George Fulton, director of UM’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics, said he has been forecasting economic trends since 1952.

Fulton said Michigan will experience job growth for the first time in 10 years when he made his predictions earlier this month. He said the state should add about 20,400 jobs altogether next year.

“Forecasting is hardly an exact science, so there is always risk that we can miss the mark by some degree,” he said. “Our forecast record is fairly good, though.”

Brian Anderson, president of the Middle Michigan Development Corporation, said he was very happy to hear Fulton’s predictions and he hopes they turn out to be true. He said his organization does not make economic predictions, but he knows Fulton’s group has a good reputation.

“I really hope this signals that we’ve finally hit the bottom,” he said. “A growing job base means it will be easier for investors to choose Michigan because we will no longer be viewed as a ‘sinking ship.’”

Fulton said predictions for Michigan is consistent with, and probably a product of, a positive outlook on the U.S. economy. He said it will be a factor of an increasing automobile market and less trouble in the housing market.

The main job growth, he said, will come from about 26,000 jobs added in health care, business and professional services, and private education in 2011. He also said manufacturing will begin to stabilize, as he predicts a loss of 9,000 jobs in 2010 and then a gain of 9,000 in 2011.

“The turnaround in business services reflects an improving commercial environment,” he said, “including a more favorable scenario for a temporary help industry that struggled until late 2009.”

Still far away

Fulton does, however, predict a loss of jobs in the public sector for next year.

He said between 2010 and 2011 the public sector should lose about 17,000 jobs, including those in local units of government and public schools.

Anderson said even with a positive projection for the near future, Michigan is still “far from where we need to be.” He said the state’s citizens still have a lot of work to do to get back to a stable economic level.

Fulton also said it will be a while before Michigan is back to the economic level the state was at a decade ago, before the long streak of job losses.

“We don’t forecast out (past next year),” he said. “I can say with some confidence, though, that we will not return to the job levels we saw in Michigan in 2000 until at least some year in the decade of the 2020s.”

The Morey Foundation is making a flat donation of $1 million to the museum and pledges it will match up to $500,000 of any additional donations made by other organizations or individuals in the community.

It will donate $2 for every dollar made by a school or church organization, according to a foundation press release.

Lon Morey, president of the Morey Foundation, said he wants to encourage schools and churches to get involved because children will benefit most from the museum — so he wants them to be able to help create it.

“The more we can get them involved in the building of it, the more they can feel an ownership of it,” he said.

Jennifer Fields, chairperson of the Mount Pleasant Discovery Museum board of directors, said churches and schools will be more likely to organize fundraisers if they know their donations will end up being tripled.

“People with little kids can’t write $25,000 checks usually, but they can hold bake sales or hold car washes and make triple the money they would normally make,” she said. “So they don’t feel like, ‘Oh, it’s just $100.’ It turns into 300.”

Fields said their ultimate goal is to raise between three and four million dollars, so The Morey Foundation’s donation could provide about half of it.

She said the money will be used for pre-construction of the children’s museum, including design, architectural services and hiring staff. According to the Mount Pleasant Discovery Museum’s website, the group hopes to have the children’s museum open in 2011.

Morey said he is confident his donation will have a positive effect on the community and he has a lot of faith in the organization’s leaders.

“I met with them three or four times and their enthusiasm is as strong today as it was in the beginning,” he said. “I think this was sort of a pipe dream at first and now they can see it becoming a reality, and they’re really excited.”

The Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association, an organization that includes all auto insurance companies in Michigan, adds a solid fee to each vehicle owner’s insurance costs. This year, the fee is being raised to $143.09 from $124.89 in 2009.

“The last couple of years, investment returns have been less than anticipated,” said Jim Lunsted, controller of the MCCA. “Also, there has been an increase because of the inflation rate.”

He said this new price will take effect July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011.

Macomb sophomore Nicole Seiberling said she is unsure whether she supports the idea of paying extra to reimburse someone else’s insurance company for injuries another person incurred.

“I think it’s just the risk insurance companies take when they insure someone,” she said. “There is always a chance that they will have to pay for a catastrophic accident, and they should be responsible for it.”

Illinois graduate student Kevin Murphy drives an ‘88 Chevy Caprice Classic, which is his solution to insurance costs. He has Public Liability and Property Damage (PLPD) insurance that only covers liabilities.

“Maybe everybody should just drive junkers and get PLPD,” he said, “that’s what I do.”

Expected deficit: $2 billion

Lunsted said the price was determined by their organization’s databases, which take into account every insurance company’s accident reports from the previous year, along with inflation rates.

“All companies report the rise in their number of claims for cars to us and we assess the costs for each company,” he said. “We have a database it’s all entered into and we have consultants that analyze these statistics.”

According to an MCCA news release, $811 million was paid out in claims in 2009, which equals about $115 per insured driver. He said the MCCA is expecting its deficit to rise to $2 billion this year.

The release stated of the $143.09 charge per driver this year, $116.84 will go to cover new claims, $26.00 to pay off the deficit and $0.25 to administrative costs.

Lunsted said it is predicted there will be 1,200 accidents next year that will require help from the MCCA.

The MCCA was created in 1978, five years after state legislature passed the Michigan No-Fault Act, which requires insurance companies to cover all damages and medical expenses to their own insurers in an accident, whether it was their fault or not.

The act requires that these companies cover life-long medical expenses that may occur as a result of an accident, with no cap on the amount they will spend.

- Senior Reporter Maryellen Tighe contributed to this report.

Two recently opened businesses are offering students options so they can choose the atmosphere that fits for them.

The Smokers Club, 100 S. Mission St., is adding two rooms to its establishment that will be used as hookah lounges and should be open by the end of the month. The S.I.X. Lounge, 1901 S. Mission St., opened last fall.

Smokers Club owner Dave Sprunger said he thinks hookah is becoming more popular because it is the cleanest way to smoke. He said as people become more aware of the dangers of smoking tobacco products, they are turning to hookah as a safer option.

“You still get the nicotine, which is why people smoke,” he said. “But it uses steam and water vapor, so there’s no tar.”

Some college students, he said, might see it as a way to get around smoking bans in apartments.

Sprunger knows a lot of students who smoke hookah because it does not leave stains and a strong smell like tobacco does, and users can choose from a variety of flavors.

The Hookah Lounge, inside the Malt Shop, 1088 S. University St., is Mount Pleasant’s oldest hookah hangout.

Owner Rosie Haddad said she thinks hookah has always been popular among students, but other business owners are just now starting to realize the potential of the lounges in a college town.

“We’ve been here for five years, and business has been about the same for the last four years,” she said.

Haddad is not concerned with the addition of competing lounges, and said “there’s enough business for everyone.”

The addition of the other lounges, she said, just gives students a chance to pick which atmosphere is a better fit.

A ‘nice social activity’

Travis Smith, a St. Johns junior, and Jacquelyn Simon, a St. Johns sophomore, said they like smoking hookah because it is a nice, relaxing way to spend time with friends.

“I like the atmosphere,” Simon said. “It’s a nice social activity.”

Smith and Simon said they go to The Hookah Lounge about once a week.

Haddad said her business is not dependent on hookah sales, since hookah is only a portion. The Malt Shop, she said, has been in business for 40 years selling food, coffee and smoothies.

Sprunger said The Smokers Club also is not dependent on the hookah, since it also offers all kinds of tobacco products. However, he wants to make hookah a bigger part.

He said he is in the process of acquiring new lines of hookah from Las Vegas so he can offer the latest trends along with traditional flavors.

Hookah sales have been up since the addition began, he said, and he expects them to go up even more once it is finished.

A psychic fair there featured five psychics hosted by the Central Michigan University Program Board.

They used various forms of divination to read fortunes, including palm reading and tarot cards.

Flushing freshman Andrea Conquest said it was eerie to have her fate foretold by psychic Anne Karpiak.

“It wasn’t her directly telling me — it was figuring stuff out on my own,” Conquest said.

Karpiak let Conquest draw her own meaning from the stones spread across a sheet of runes — ancient Norse symbols. It was the first time she had ever experienced fortune telling.

Conquest said she enjoyed herself and would like to come back for a palm reading, though much of the psychic wisdom likely comes from good old fashioned observation.

“I think she takes what you say and builds upon what you think,” Conquest said.

Foxfire, a psychic from Indiana, said she uses a combination of tarot cards; psychometry, the use of senses and psychology; and clairvoyance, the use of spiritual and paranormal senses, to tell fortunes.

Each student had 10 minutes for their reading, she said, and they could ask one question about any aspect of their life.

With limited time, the psychics had to gauge their energy before using the tarot cards to hurry the process along.

“We had to rely a lot on clairvoyance,” she said. “Usually a sense comes through before they even walk up to the table; it’s an energy exchange.”

Russell Pfafflin, the special events chair for Program Board and an Allen Park junior, said the group has been bringing psychics to campus for three years.

Pfafflin said they are always popular with students.

“We usually have around 200 to 250 people,” he said. “It’s been busy.”

The group of five was part of Psychic Caravan, an organization that sends psychics to events throughout the country.

The library, located at 301 S. University Ave., had not been renovated since 1985, said Lise Mitchell, executive director of library services for the Chippewa River District Library. She noted many reasons for the project.

“Part of it was improvement of systems like heating, lighting and computer wiring,” she said. “It started as internal renovation, but we decided to take the opportunity to make some cosmetic changes too.”

Mitchell said the changes to the facility’s electric and lighting systems are not only more efficient, but they also will save the library about $7,000 per year.

The changes to the computer wiring and Internet systems, she said, will make the computers faster and more convenient for patrons.

Patrons seemed most excited for the updated layout and overall appearance of the library.

The library had a small children’s section on the main floor before, now downstairs in a larger area with chairs, tables, a play area and a story time rug and chair. A self-checkout station and bathrooms also were added to make it more convenient for families with small children.

Melanie Strawn of Mount Pleasant brought her 2-year-old twins, Drew and Ellie, to the opening. She has occasionally brought the twins to story time on Mondays since they were 1.

Strawn said she is part of a group called Moms of Mount Pleasant and thinks the new children’s section could be a convenient place for them to meet.

“It’s a great facility,” she said. “I’m hoping, maybe, we can meet here a couple times a month now.”

New colors

Other changes to the layout include the addition of a new closed-off teen section, two new study rooms and a relocation of the adult fiction section and newspapers and magazines.

The newspapers and magazines were moved to a section by the windows with tables and chairs, Mitchell said, so people could take advantage of the lighting and view while enjoying their morning paper or favorite magazine.

“We’re trying to get different groups of people using the library and make everyone happy and coexistent,” she said.

Mitchell said the library also added a family lab and moved the main computer lab to a bigger room to fit 20 computers instead of 10. She said classes in the computer lab are free to the public, and this change will increase the capacity for these classes.

Sandy Ackerman said she and her husband have been regulars at the library for 20 years. Over that time, the library has greatly improved.

“I love it,” the Mount Pleasant resident said. “It’s so bright, and I love the colors.”

Mitchell said the library used to be all gray but, now, the walls are bright yellow and the lighting is brighter, giving it a more cheerful look.

The renovation was perfect timing for the library, as their re-opening was held on its 100th anniversary.

“That’s the goal we gave the contractors, and they did a great job of coming through,” she said.

The Mount Pleasant resident has since run three 5-kilometer races and one Bump ‘N’ Run, a 3.5-mile combination of running, swimming and miscellaneous abdominal workouts.

Trisel said she started training with Blaine Gebhardt and Kristin LaBelle, owners of Fit 4 U!, 1620 S. Mission St., a little more than two years ago. Since then, she has lost shed almost 28 inches from her waistline and said she feels more physically fit than ever.

“I’m 45 now, and I never thought in my 20’s it would ever be feasible to do these things,” she said.

No memberships here

Gebhardt has worked as a personal trainer since 2003 and in Mount Pleasant since 2006. LaBelle has three years of experience as a trainer.

The trainers celebrated the grand opening of their new fitness center, Fit 4 U!, Saturday. Although the building officially opened last weekend, Gebhardt and LaBelle already have generated strong interest.

“We have a good base,” Gebhardt said, “but we do have room for growth.”

Mount Pleasant residents Katy Cox (left) and Leanne Worgess workout in pairs during a cardio strength interval fitness class at Fit 4 U, 1620 S. Mission St. Fit 4 U celebrated their grand opening on Feb. 26 with a ribbon cutting ceremony. The fitness center offers a variety of programs including one-on-one training, group training, and active isolated stretching. (Paige Calamari/Staff Photographer)

She said Fit 4 U! does not offer memberships but, instead, classes and personal training.

Trisel said she tried working out at different fitness centers before she went to Gebhardt and LaBelle.

“I had no sense of direction,” she said. “I wasn’t disciplined enough.”

Trisel works out with Gebhardt one-on-one twice a week for core strengthening and attends the trainers’ cardio classes twice a week.

“If you work out for a while, it can get kind of boring,” she said. “One thing about working out with Blaine and Kristen is that they always keep it exciting.”

Personal training

Katy Cox, 39, of Mount Pleasant has worked out with Gebhardt for four years.

“Every class is different,” she said. “When you show up, you have no idea what to expect.”

When she started, Gebhardt only did personal training, but Cox said she talked her into starting classes.

Cox said she left for a month for a weight-loss boot camp and, when she came back, she wanted to maintain a routine similar to her experience there. Classes, she said, were a way for her to do that. She talked Gebhardt into starting them.

“I wanted something that could be in my life every day and I could fit into my routine,” she said.

Cox now attends personal training and classes five days a week. Her two sisters, Leanne Worgess, 40, and Laura Zurawski, 41, and her mother, Shirley Jenkins, 64, all work out with her.