Laryn Kuchta

Madison Ring (and her 3-year-old son, Grayson) spoke in favor of the millage proposal. Ring said it would help support children and the people paid to care for them. “They’re being paid typically less than $13 an hour,” she said. “We need to up their pay. There’s no other way around it.” Photo by Laryn Kuchta. A child care millage will be on the ballot for Kalamazoo County voters to decide on come August 4, 2026. The county board of commissioners voted Wednesday to move the proposal forward.

Photo courtesy of Quinn Dombrowski and used under a Creative Commons license. Meg Zopf’s search for child care began four months before her due date. “We knew pretty quickly that we were going to have to start looking early,” she said. She and her partner – a student at Western Michigan University – were initially optimistic, though: the university’s College Assistance for Parenting and Education (CAPE) program would cover much of the cost based on their income.

Portage city council members and mayor don’t decide federal policies, but residents are impacted by them. So, we asked candidates in the Nov. 4 election about issues ranging from the principles of democracy, deployment of federal law enforcement, and upholding the rule of law, to how they would respond to an increased demand for services as federal funding is cut for social safety nets.