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The Council Party vs. the Ann Arbor Townies

December 10, 2011

How often have we heard it?  “Ann Arbor in Amber”  (refers to the fossilized resin, not the fictional kingdom), the place where townies “don’t want to change”.  As we said in our earlier post, What Does It Mean to be an Ann Arbor Townie,  this is really a reflection of two different visions for our town.  Here’s what we said then:

Perhaps this is what is really at the bottom of the current political divide in Ann Arbor.  It’s the townies vs. the economic development visionaries.  Or as a friend recently put it, the Community Party vs. the Council Party.  There is a segment of city movers and shakers who would like to see Ann Arbor become a metropolitan center, with  higher density, intense economic development, and more opportunities for wealth generation.  They openly resent the “neighborhood types” (aka current residents) who oppose change that threatens their own neighborhoods and quality of life.  (As former city councilmember Joan Lowenstein so aptly put it, we get sulky.)

This has been a tough year for the Council Party.  They have learned yet once again that elections are the check on unbridled power.  Here’s the problem: voters are residents who have a vested interest in the circumstances that actually affect life in the city.  But the Council Party is often working on behalf of a future vision that doesn’t include those troublesome residents.  Thus, the CP suffered significant defeats in both the primary and general elections of 2011.  (Links are to Ann Arbor Chronicle roundup of those elections.)

In the primary elections,   the CP mounted challengers to two incumbents (Mike Anglin and Steve Kunselman) who have been a thorn in their side.  As we noted at the time, the Fifth Ward race in particular was a direct contest between two views of how Ann Arbor should be governed. As reported by AnnArbor.com, challenger Neal Elyakin rang all the CP bells,  with support for the Fuller Road Station, “dense downtown development and a future economy that supports job creation” and, infamously, a reference to “naysayers”.  In the Third Ward, challenger Ingrid Ault also made statements that could be regarded as pro-development and was endorsed by CP stalwarts such as kingmaker Leah Gunn, Joan Lowenstein, and CM Sandi Smith.  Both challengers were qualified, generally well-regarded in the community, and raised a decent amount of money.  But they were both decisively defeated.  Here are the results of those primary elections.

Council Party incumbent Stephen Rapundalo easily defeated a novice political challenger.  But Tim Hull’s determined campaign did serve notice that Rapundalo might be vulnerable, and thus one of the more remarkable chapters in Ann Arbor political history began.  Former councilmember Jane Lumm was persuaded to come out of political retirement to run as an independent in the general election.  Though a Republican, Lumm was supported by many Democrats as well as Republicans in an upwelling of electoral enthusiasm that can only be described as “post-partisan” in its breadth.  Lumm’s positions were antithetical to the Council Party’s on nearly every point.  She won decisively.   Here are the results of the contests of interest in the November 2011 general election.

Incumbents in two wards were scarcely contested. Sabra Briere (not of the Council Party) had no opposition at all and Marcia Higgins (a CP stalwart) faced an opponent who ran as a Republican but who was rather quirky and apparently entirely self-funded. So if we are keeping score, the total for the season is Council Party 1: Community (or townies) 4.

Take That!  And That!

Clearly this year’s elections were going to be disappointing for the group of insiders who have been running the city for the last 10 years.  Now a defender has emerged to score the upstarts.  Former councilmember Joan Lowenstein has written an article that appeared in the December print edition of The Ann, a magazine that is furnished as an insert in several other print vehicles in Ann Arbor.  The article has now been made available online ( thanks to the publisher) though now formatted as a “letter”.  Lowenstein, who served as an enthusiastic Council Party Council Member until stepping down to run as a judge in the 15th District Court (2008) and who now serves as DDA chair, has a long history of “dissing” residents.  I can’t possibly do better than A2Politico’s summary of that history.  But she has really outdone herself with this one.  Her article combines disinformation with outright insults, and is even politically incorrect.  (Since when is it okay to attack people on the basis of age?)  She specifically calls out Lumm, Anglin and Kunselman as “antis”.

In Lowenstein’s current piece, she accuses townies of opposing the pedestrian crosswalk ordinance (it was not a campaign issue as far as I am aware), and the pedestrian path along Washtenaw.    Though some of Lumm’s voters might have been unhappy with that path because it took a swath out of their property and required some assessments, no mention of it is on her website, and it has certainly not been much discussed citywide.  She appears to attribute opposition to the Fuller Road Parking structure to fear of outsiders.

“A transportation center would bring in more people, and people are dangerous if you want to huddle in a corner and hold on to what you have”

Lowenstein goes on to imply that Community voters are against culture because they think government should provide “only” basic services, interested in “shrinking government so that it provides nothing but water, sewers, roads and police” but not in “public art, concert halls,  theaters and libraries”.    This is due to our crabbed age-related tendencies, when we need to “attract young, industrious, intelligent and civic-minded people”.  Yes, the problem is that “people get more conservative as they age”, and she has already explained that the “antis” are “Most…not only in the category of older but in the subset of elderly”.

What this is all about is the “development to bring in young talent”  idea that has been a consistent element of the Council Party’s world view for some years.  (See our post of almost two years ago with a summary of the arguments.)  So if you care about your neighborhood and want a decent quality of life in your city, you are somehow preventing the young from establishing a foothold.  Framing the argument  as a generational war is hurtful and untrue.  Many of the neighborhoods of Ann Arbor are home to young families and even young single people need reliable water and sewer, safety as provided by police and fire protection, roads that can be traveled, and like to visit parks.  Many of the disputed issues (such as the Justice Center that many of us opposed and the Fuller Road Station) would in fact burden a future generation with debt when the “subset of elderly” will be beyond caring.  Using labels like those in Lowenstein’s article to dismiss those who have a different vision of the future is at first laughable, but finally, disturbing because it attacks community cohesion at a basic level.

Disclosure: I both endorsed and contributed to Anglin, Briere, Kunselman, and Lumm in the last election season.

UPDATE:   AnnArbor.com chose to make Lowenstein’s column and this response into a news story.   It elicited many comments, most of them critical of Lowenstein but some supporting her viewpoint.  The poll appeared to be almost evenly divided, though like so many AnnArbor.com polls the choices were poorly stated.

NOTE: The link to Lowenstein’s column in The Ann is broken.  I cannot identify a source of the original column. (October 16, 2016)

 

Categories: Basis, Neighborhoods, politics

Comments: 18 Comments

Is Regionalism Really a Good Thing?

November 27, 2011

Regionalism has become the guiding force behind many initiatives – but is it good for Ann Arbor?

A group of happy people gathered last Monday (November 21, 2011) to hear an important announcement. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regional administrator Antonio Riley was there to announce a Sustainable Community grant award to Washtenaw County and there were a number of elected officials basking in the glow.  But the real star of the show was an idea, not a person.  It was Regionalism.

Many recent initiatives in Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, and Michigan have been organized around regionalism, in which the role of traditional jurisdictions like cities, villages and townships is diminished in order to operate within much wider boundaries.

The idea has a lot of appeal on the face of it. The reasoning behind it has several arguments.

  • One is that certain functions, like transportation, naturally occur over larger geographical areas than the traditional political boundaries describe.
  • A major impetus is that it is “good for business” because of efficiency in organizing and delivering services and administering policies (and business does not have to deal with “a patchwork” of regulations and politics).
  • Perhaps the most persuasive to many is the opportunity to distribute benefits and services more evenly across boundaries, with less regard to the affluence of each locality.  It  is the basis of many of our Federal and state programs, where citizens are guaranteed certain benefits and protections whether in the poorest or most wealthy states or counties.

Tony Derezinski at a recent Ann Arbor council meeting. Courtesy of Ann Arbor Chronicle (photo has been cropped).

This last is a strong moral argument that speaks to “our better angels” and our sense of community when it is being broadly expressed.  It is an argument that lies behind some of the acceptance of the Reimagining Washtenaw Avenue project, which this grant is intended (even designed) to support.  The siren song of intergovernmental cooperation and collaboration speaks in part to our response in Ann Arbor to the knowledge that Ypsilanti (city and township) is our sister urban area that is not as wealthy as fortunate Ann Arbor.

One of the enthusiastic speakers at the announcement was Ann Arbor Councilmember Tony Derezinski, who has been the promoter of Reimagining Washtenaw Avenue since its inception.  CM Derezinski is also a committed supporter of the concept of regionalism.  As he said at the event, “We are a region, we are not just Ann Arbor”.  And then he misquoted (with apologies) poet John Donne in saying, “No municipality is an island unto itself”.  Here is the full quotation of the actual poem (really from a long essay).

In other words, are we not responsible for each other?  This is an easy emotional and empathetic argument which, unfortunately, runs into some practical and political brick walls on close examination.

If you examine the history of humankind even at a superficial level, you will note that it consists of waves of geographical consolidation, followed by periods of revolt in the name of self-determination.  The thing is that natural human communities are self-limiting.  Right now, Europe is trying to work out how much member states will take on in respect of each other. In the United States, we are still arguing the dynamic of federalism vs. states’ rights.

Michigan resolved this question constitutionally as Home Rule.  The  review of this principle by the Michigan Municipal League quotes the 1908 constitution as saying, “each municipality is the best judge of its local needs and the best able to provide for its local necessities.” As the review indicates, the principle of home rule for Michigan municipalities has been eroded in recent years by state law overriding the ability of local units (note that “municipalities” is a basket term for cities, villages, townships, and counties) to regulate a wide variety of issues.  Only this week, as reported by the Ann Arbor Chronicle, the Ann Arbor City Council was grappling with a proposed state law that would prevent Ann Arbor from extending anti-discrimination protection to people on the basis of sexual preference.  The ingrained belief in the home rule principle persists in the Michigan psyche, especially as it comes to taxes.  Some Washtenaw County townships still have a local tax limitation for local services of 1 mill, and they are proud of it.  (Charter townships may tax up to 5 mills.  Special ballot issues don’t count.)

So if we are to extend authority across established jurisdictional lines, two things happen.  One is that local control of just what services and options are offered is limited.  Another is that one jurisdiction may find itself paying, at least potentially, for services received by another.

With Reimagine Washtenaw, if it is fully fleshed out and enacted, four municipalities (Ann Arbor city, Pittsfield Township, Ypsilanti city, Ypsilanti Township) will surrender much of their sovereignty within the Washtenaw corridor to a new entity, a Corridor Improvement Authority. (For good reviews, see the Ann Arbor Chronicle’s report of a public meeting and coverage of a BOC working session.)

There are some other examples of regionalism that specifically affect the City of Ann Arbor:

The move to a countywide transit system.  We have a number of posts about this, including the most recent on “Where the Money Is” .  The decision was made a couple of years ago to emphasize commuter access to Ann Arbor rather than to optimize within-city service.  Now Ann Arbor taxes are being used to pay for express buses to Chelsea and Canton, as well as enhanced service to Ypsilanti.

The Governor’s transit plan. As we reported earlier, Governor Snyder has proposed a Regional Transit Authority that includes Washtenaw County.  If enacted fully, it would draw all Federal and state transportation funds to itself, contract local bus service to AATA and other local entities, but emphasize major routes for the movement of workforce toward the Detroit Metro area, probably by use of Bus Rapid Transit technology.  This would handicap the ability of local transit authorities like AATA to innovate and serve new needs locally.

The Urban County.   Ann Arbor was one of the first Block Grant communities in the state, and for many years was the only community in the county with Federal CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funds to spend on human services and housiing.  Washtenaw County formed the Urban County to make CDBG-funded services available to other communities.  As described on the county website, the city’s Community Development department was merged with the county’s department and finally the City of Ann Arbor joined the Urban County.  One consequence was that Ann Arbor lost nearly $400,000 a year in human services money that had been grandfathered in.  As the memorandum provided to Council explains, this was to result in an increase across the Urban County of $100,000 in HUD-supplied funds.  But those funds would be directed toward other uses (not human services).  An increase to the county  of $100,000 in Emergency Shelter Grant funds was expected to offset this somewhat.

So while Ann Arbor formerly had human services money from a Federal grant and an independent Housing and Human Services Advisory Board to administer them, the City Council has been obliged to supplement human services from the Ann Arbor general fund in the last several budget years.  This has led to heart-rending presentations from non-profit organizations that serve the needy and their clients.  A search in the Ann Arbor Chronicle archives has many reports of such moments, including the one with paper cranes.  At the same time, general fund support for human services from Washtenaw County has also been cut severely in the wake of County budget problems.  In a triumph of bureaucracy, the County approved a Coordinated Funding model for distribution of services in 2010.  This funnels all funds, including those donated to the United Way, through a goals-and-objectives process that is supposed to be more efficient.  (An astonishing document prepared by Community Development touts the economic “return on investment” for nonprofit funding, quite a change in emphasis from human needs.)  One result was slashing the funds allocated to the Delonis homeless shelter from $160,000 to $25,000 (see the account by the Chronicle).  On an announcement that this would result in closing the “warming center” in which homeless individuals not in residence at the shelter can find protection on coldest nights,  both the County and the City of Ann Arbor found some stopgap funds, just for this year.

The A2 Success project and SPARK  This is regionalism on steroids.  The A2 Success project was begun approximately in early 2009 and has a number of economic development projects for the “Ann Arbor region” (which is essentially Washtenaw County with some incursions into Wayne County).  SPARK, which began as a merger of the former Washtenaw Development Corporation and the Smart Zone, now styles itself  “Ann Arbor, USA” and has been consuming ever more and more general fund support from both the City of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County.  Now a revived millage tax levied by the county will give SPARK over a quarter of a million dollars next year.

Regionalism Rules – but what about Localization?

Clearly the concept of regionalism has the support of most of our political leaders, and it has a powerful and persuasive voice.  But does it really benefit the community that we have within our City of Ann Arbor?  Or is it actually an effort to exploit the resources that we have, including our educated population,  our positive image countrywide,  our strong cultural environment, and most of all our tax base? In other words, is regionalism at the expense of Ann Arbor taxpayers supportable only for altruistic reasons?  Or does it bring our actual community actual benefits?

You wouldn’t expect a blog called Local in Ann Arbor to espouse regionalism, and you are right.  As we said in our first post, we support something of an opposite concept: localization.  In “What Does It Mean to be an Ann Arbor Townie“,  we tried to put forth the case that we have an unusually desirable place to live because of our special local character.  But it goes beyond that to a belief that a successful, resilient community is built on interdependence at a local level. To some extent, we must be an island  – and island economies are notably self-sufficient.

Localization is a world-view, a prescription for living, and a field of academic study.  I’m looking forward to the coming book on the subject,  The Localization Reader, by UM professors Raymond De Young and Thomas Princen.  You’ll hear more on this from us another day.

UPDATE:  This post is not the place for a full discussion of allocation of costs in AATA’s regional outreach.  However, the attached Report to the Treasurer from last year (it does not include the special service to Ypsilanti) shows the contribution of Ann Arbor taxpayers to the Commuter Express projects.  The University of Michigan does not contribute directly to this service (as stated in a comment below), but rather compensates employees for the cost of their fares.  The report indicates that 31% of this service (to Chelsea and Canton) is paid for by Ann Arbor taxes, and 26.4% by fares.  The remainder is picked up by State and Federal operating assistance.

NOTE: Readers of this post may also find discussions of governance in this post on regional transit plans and its sequel of interest.  The two posts discuss governance issues for regional authorities.

NOTE: We have now begun a new series on this subject, beginning with Regionalism Reconsidered.

 

Categories: Basis, civic finance, Neighborhoods, politics, Regional, Sustainability, Transportation

Comments: 15 Comments

Transition Exits Ann Arbor

October 3, 2011

A little more than two years after Transition (a worldwide movement) introduced itself to Ann Arbor,  the local group has announced (via its email listserv) that it is disbanding.

After much deliberation and collective soul searching, we are writing to let you know that the initiating team of Transition Ann Arbor is officially disbanding.   We believe it is important to announce this widely so that we can release the effort into the hands of others, should there be a future groundswell of committed individuals.  

Some challenges we faced were the usual ones, such as personal time constraints and life circumstances. But there were other challenges that we didn’t anticipate, such as the fact that the Transition model has proven difficult to implement in a city the size of Ann Arbor without staff or a strong ties to an existing 501c3 nonprofit.  

We are excited to see the growth of Transition-related efforts in the Ann Arbor community and region. We continue to believe that there is a role for an umbrella organization that strengthens these efforts and develops cohesive plans, action groups, programs, and messages that help our community prepare for the long emergency–the impacts of peak oil, climate change, and economic instability. Unfortunately, we don’t have the necessary resources (or person-power) to make this happen. We have a wealth of accumulated knowledge and lessons learned from our efforts over the last 2 years, including the beginnings of an energy descent action plan. To improve future organizing, we would be happy to share our insights and resources with anyone interested in picking up similar work.

As might be understood from this statement, Transition was founded to support the worldview of those, such as former Environmental Commission chair and mayoral candidate Steve Bean, that we in Ann Arbor (the country, the world) are facing a future singularity in which conditions of life will change drastically.  (The reference to the “long emergency” is a direct reference to the dystopian classic, The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler.)  Transition Ann Arbor has been especially notable for its “reskilling festivals” in which such skills as sock darning, keeping bees, and other domestic crafts are taught.  According to the announcement, these will continue under the guidance of their organizer, Laura Smith (lolo730@yahoo.com).

A core concept that Transition and similar efforts are based on is “peak oil”, a belief that the world economy and our very way of life will shift dramatically once the cost of energy increases because of dwindling oil supplies.  The data for peak oil are fairly unambiguous and (discounting the possible effect of shale oil) it appear that the point at which oil supplies begin to dwindle is in the next decade (by 2020).   Lester Brown and the Earth Policy Institute have been promulgating news of this and related impending disasters (most having to do with resource depletion of various kinds) for years.  Yet there are doubters and deniers like Michael Lynch (though these arguments are rebuttable).  Problem is, a worldview in which a collapse is imminent definitely undercuts the current growth paradigm and interferes with business as usual.  We’d really rather not be bothered as long as it looks as though things will go along much as they have since most of us can remember.

We all got a bit of a wake-up call with the economic cataclysms of 2008 and 2009. Though Kunstler has not changed his views or his predictions,  what seemed so imminent during the few months following the crash of 2008 now seems to have retreated a bit over the horizon.  It’s a little hard to get excited over darning your own socks when socks made in East Asia are still available at discount stores at pretty decent prices.  Admittedly, lots of people are out of a job, but gas prices seem to have stabilized.  And though food prices have gone up a little, we can still get most of everything we want and the expensive restaurants in downtown Ann Arbor seem to be doing a booming business. This means that choosing “local food” and making your own still appears to be just that—a choice.

Since one of my own interests and concerns is community food security, I was glad to see that Transition Ann Arbor is passing along its modest treasury to Growing Hope.  But otherwise we are left with pale washed-out “sustainability” efforts like the Ecology Center’s 350.0rg  and the UM’s “M Planet Blue“, which basically tinker around the edges with time-honored environmental fixes (all good).  It’ll perhaps be a little while longer before we have a group in Ann Arbor that really sounds a singular alarm.  If that is going to be you, you are invited to contact Jeannine Palms (jeannine@wetmeadow.org), one of the organizers and a longtime community activist.

Categories: Basis, Sustainability, Trends

Comments: 14 Comments

What Does It Mean to be an Ann Arbor Townie?

August 16, 2011

The local is the only thing that is universal.  William Carlos Williams, quoted in The American College Town,  Blake Gumprecht.

Recently, we have been hearing about the phenomenon of  “Ann Arbor townies”, with a story on AnnArbor.com  (really a Lucy Ann Lance interview).  This seems at first glance to be pretty trivial stuff, but it is deeper than that.  Here’s my take on the idea.

My Bezonki Award – a Townie Distinction!

I arrived in Ann Arbor as a foreigner.  We drove in from California on a day in early March, just in advance of a heavy snowfall.  After a day of hurriedly picking up a few groceries and buying paint, we finished painting the living room ahead of the moving truck and fell asleep exhausted on our sleeping bags, to be wakened in a dark morning by the noise of our new neighbor operating a snowblower on our driveway.  He explained that he thought being snowed in was a poor beginning to living in Ann Arbor.

In the following days, as I was navigating the one-way streets and other peculiarities of Ann Arbor traffic patterns (just because the two main roads Stadium and State cross on the map doesn’t mean that they intersect), I wondered at the sullenness of the clerks in stores and elsewhere.  It seemed Michigan was a land of glum unhappy people.  (Now I have the same demeanor in early March after yet another snowfall.)  It took a year before I got the hang of the seasons.   I got involved in politics and a job search.  I worked for a couple of years at Parke-Davis and was appointed to the Solid Waste Commission.  But I was still a foreigner.   I moved from the east side of town to the west side.  But I was still a foreigner.  I ran for the office of county commissioner.  But I was still from somewhere else.  Something happened over the last 10 years, though, and one day I woke up to the fact that I had become an Ann Arbor townie.

Actually, that term has only come into use relatively recently, around here at least.  People started organizing “Townie Street Parties” and the like.  Some have said that the term originates with the town-and-gown dichotomy, the idea being that you are either of the University of Michigan or of the town.  But many Ann Arbor townies either work at what some call “the U”  or know lots of people who do.   I think being a townie means that you have lived here long enough that you have absorbed a sense of the place into your pores and it has become part of your own identity.  It means that you often meet someone at a store or a public event whom you once knew well in a completely different context, and when you meet, you don’t just see the person but a long telescoped story of their life standing before you.  It means that when you walk along a downtown street,  you see not only the current storefronts but the ghostly images of the places you used to visit at that location.  (I still have to blink to realize that Jo Jo’s is gone – where I so often enjoyed chicken lemon rice soup before county meetings.)  It means that when you go to your neighborhood hangout (which may be Sweetwaters or Fraser’s or Knight’s or Northside Grill or Benny’s), you are likely to run into someone you know. And it means that you become fascinated with the details of what happens daily in our own little corner of the universe.  (See for example the Ann Arbor Chronicle, especially the Stopped Watched feature, or most of the news items in the Ann Arbor Observer.)  You breathe the seasons of the place, so you know to do your chores during football games and so stay out of traffic jams, and to go to Blimpy Burger after the students leave for the summer.

Nostalgia comes into play, even prospectively. If you are a townie of some duration (which almost defines the state), you probably still miss the original Borders book store and hate that the A&W on West Stadium was replaced by an oil-change shop.  I came too late for the Quality Bakery, but I do miss Doughboys.  Zingerman’s has taken up much of the oxygen for local bakeries, but a variety of options is nice.  One of our earlier blog posts celebrated the concept of “funky” in maintaining the character of Ann Arbor and we often make what the development community consider an undue fuss about keeping favored landmarks around.  (As of today, the Ann Arbor DDA’s advertisement celebrates this quality: “One of the best things about living in Ann Arbor is our fabulous, funky and always interesting downtown”. )  It’s about quality of experience, character, and the familiar all at once.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t like new things.  Mark’s Carts has received an enthusiastic reception.  (Note the hyperlocal and personal/spontaneous nature of this multilayer enterprise.)

And it means that you rejoice in the whimsy and spontaneity of truly community (townie) sponsored events, like FestiFools and the Water Hill Music Fest.  You may even dote on fairy doors (though some people find them saccharine).  Whimsy?  Where else would you have someone named David Julius Caesar Salad who does poems on commission?  (Here is his ode to townies.)  And the deliciousness of the political satire of the Ann Arbor Newshawks? And a guy called Homeless Dave who interviews people on a teeter totter?  (The name itself is an in-joke; it derives from a careless comment made by a non-townie who mistook the beard for a marker.)  HD has now morphed into Tireless Dave with his indefatigable reporting on the Ann Arbor Chronicle.

So does all this sound rather silly?  Maybe – but there is something behind it that is not silly at all.  It is this type of private conversation that binds groups together.  In other words,  shared experiences and even jokes help to create community cohesion. I’m sure that anthropologists and sociobiologists could go to town (pun intended) with this – probably everything from coming-of-age rituals to oxytocin secretion is involved.  I have only the intuitive understanding that we need ways to identify ourselves as part of a group, and these little bits of ephemera are helpful in doing that.

Another thing that we know as townies is that our local environment is what supports us.  For that reason, though we certainly do patronize chain stores and fast-food outlets, we are likely to aim at local businesses when feasible.  So we’ll likely buy appliances at Big George’s , hardware at Stadium Hardware or Ace Hardware, housewares at Ace, and gardening supplies at Downtown Home and Garden (though Target and Home Depot are doing well).  We’ll veer toward the Produce Station and Arbor Farms when we can (though Kroger and Whole Foods are doing fine).  We’ll eat in one of the local hangouts or in a Main Street restaurant (and there seem to be not too many restaurant franchises except in the campus area and near the malls). And of course many of us are likely to patronize one or more of the local farmers’ markets or join a CSA.  Without thinking it through too much, we realize that we are interdependent and the physical, economic and social structures of the town all support us.

General note in advance of comments: I realize that every generalization I have made will be challenged and that many townies prefer other stores, hangouts, etc. than those mentioned, and some may live exclusively on McDonald’s fries.  Also, some people will have spent their entire life obsessing about UM sports and avoiding the Art Fair.  Further, our community connections range from Kiwanis to church to Transition Ann Arbor.  I’m not trying to limit anybody.  It’s all good.

Part of my acculturation to Ann Arbor was the experience of being a county commissioner and meeting people from all over Washtenaw County.  This gave me an opportunity to see our town as others see us.  The general opinion outside the “walls” (the freeway ring) is that we Ann Arborites think we’re pretty special.  (And they don’t particularly agree.)  And yes, everything that I just said shows that there is a certain self-satisfaction and self-absorption involved.  But actually, we are pretty special.  I’ve got documentary proof.

No no, I’m not talking about the endless stream of awards that our Mayor has applied for and frequently brags about, or that we are #whatever on various meaningless lists. (Currently we are even bragging that we didn’t make the All America City award, but we were at least considered for it!)

The nature of our city has been the subject of a couple of recent studies.  One was the Patchwork Nation project, published in summary as a book.  (See HD’s Teeter interview with the author.)  The author, Dante Chinni, unfortunately interviewed very few people, including Mayor John Hieftje and Jesse Bernstein (the then Chamber of Commerce president).  He classified us as “Campus and Careers” and much of the chapter enthuses (a word I detest, but it fits here) about our future as a high-tech center (“The Base for the New Economy…Campus and Careers communities are primed to become economic drivers”) and quotes Hieftje at length about our environmentalism.  Other than a reference to “lattes and liberalism”,  it says little about the nature of the actual community where people live.

Blake Gumprecht did a better job, I think, in his book The American College Town. (See John Hilton’s excellent review.)  He identified Ann Arbor as one of a very few select, and unique, communities in the United States and perhaps the world.  They are all smallish towns and small cities that host a major university.    Gumprecht is an academic geographer so is well situated to turn an analytical, yet sympathetic, eye to the special characteristics of such towns.

He chooses relatively few college towns for explicit review, though several others (including the site of my graduate alma mater, Madison, Wisconsin) are mentioned in context a number of times.  Ann Arbor is singularly honored – sort of.  The title of the chapter is “High-tech Valhalla” and he confesses that he almost didn’t include us in the book because our essential identity as a college town is getting blurred by the ambitions of those who would make us a high-tech success center.

I like high tech.  My husband moved here (and brought me along) because of it.  I rejoice in the incubators like Dug Song’s Tech Brewery and the many startups and young or older companies that have given this town employment and vibrancy.  But Gumprecht’s point is that high-tech growth changes a college town and he highlights some of the conflicts that it causes.  Since we are now living in a state governed by a graduate of our high-tech industry who also shaped much of our local economic development push, it gives one pause.  Gumprecht’s book has a long and interesting history of Ann Arbor light industry and its interaction with the UM.  (Think Power.  Think books.  Think University Microfilms.)  He also points out that many high-tech ventures have left Ann Arbor once established.  His conclusion is that the movement has altered the city, and whether that is good or bad is left as a matter of opinion.

But his discussion of the general characteristics of college towns strikes some important chords. College towns are unconventional places, “full of eccentrics, activists, and others who reject mainstream values”.  They are full of NPR listeners.  Quality of life is high.  “College towns are known for having lively downtowns, picturesque residential neighborhoods, unusual cultural opportunities for cities so small, ample parks and recreational facilities, safe streets, and good schools.  They rank high on lists of the best places to live, retire, and start a business.” “College towns with flagship universities are more likely than other college towns to have bookstores that cater to non-mainstream tastes, lively arts scenes, ethnic restaurants, and movie theaters showing offbeat films.” “Residents of flagship college towns also tend to be worldly and aware.” “All of these characteristics make college towns…desirable places to live for educated, liberal, hip young people and older adults.”  In short, we have it really good here.  And we’d like to keep that.

Perhaps this is what is really at the bottom of the current political divide in Ann Arbor.  It’s the townies vs. the economic development visionaries.  Or as a friend recently put it, the Community Party vs. the Council Party.  There is a segment of city movers and shakers who would like to see Ann Arbor become a metropolitan center, with  higher density, intense economic development, and more opportunities for wealth generation.  They openly resent the “neighborhood types” (aka current residents) who oppose change that threatens their own neighborhoods and quality of life.  (As former city councilmember Joan Lowenstein so aptly put it, we get sulky.)

This is truly a divide, not merely of “politics”, but of the vision for the future of the city.  Community activists don’t simply say “no”.  They say “yes” to the many qualities of our city that are valuable and enhance our lives.  On the other hand, we townies aren’t opposed to change on principle, and we certainly want a thriving economy.  We just don’t want to be displaced to achieve it.  We love our town.

UPDATE: See the Ann Arbor Chronicle’s account of their first annual Bezonki awards for a true townie immersion.  They celebrate people who have supported them and to the “the interplay of fine lines that define our community”.

END OF THE BEZONKI ERA   Now that the Ann Arbor Chronicle is closing, the last Bezonki awards have been made.   Here are pictures and a history of the awards.

Categories: Basis, Neighborhoods

Comments: 7 Comments

Public Process and Governance in Ann Arbor

July 23, 2011

Whereby the primary for the 5th Ward Council seat is a test of theory of governance.

Ann Arbor is and has been going through a Big Changes moment.  There have been a lot of decisions that involve not only notable sums of money but the way our lives are lived in a day-to-day sense.  Part of this has been an aggressive push for development in the downtown and elsewhere.   Both the money issues and the development issues have inspired a smallish group of actively participating citizens (the cast changes depending on a specific issue) who lobby and write their council representatives, and appear at public comment times.  Sometimes contrary viewpoints expressed by citizens have succeeded in modifying Council’s actions, sometimes not.  Sometimes a minority of council members have succeeded in recruiting just enough support to alter the course of a project or issue.  Sometimes the Council has voted in near unanimity for a particular measure regardless of the loud protests coming from the peanut gallery.  But unexpectedly, this engagement by citizens in issues before our local government has become a campaign issue in the August primary for the council seat in the 5th Ward currently held by Mike Anglin.  (Note: I am supporting Anglin for re-election.)

Anglin’s challenger, Neal Elyakin, has been said to have the support of Mayor John Hieftje. As reported in the Ann Arbor Observer of  July 2011 (the Observer does not customarily put its stories online until the next printed issue comes out),  “Hieftje is in many ways a crucial part of the election.  He’s endorsed Rapundalo outright and come close with Ault and Elyakin.  If all three win, the council’s balance of power will shift further towards the mayor.”   And indeed, Elyakin’s positions appear to be the straight Council Party line.  He has particularly endorsed development; from the July 13 League of Women Voters debate, “I know that we can keep that homey Ann Arbor attitude and still have the big-city infrastructure that attracts world-class opportunities”.  He promises to be a champion for the Fuller Road Station (apparently dreams of trains),  a major objective for the Mayor.

Elyakin lays claim to a style that helps to foster consensus on issues.  From his website: “I bring disparate groups together toward problem solving and consensus building.”  But perhaps his true objective was made a bit more clear with his closing statement at the LWV debate (reported both by the Ann Arbor Chronicle and by AnnArbor.com):

“A few naysayers – while I applaud every person’s right to speak up and speak out – should not hold the city hostage, whether they are in the audience or sitting on council.”  (Italics added.)

Elyakin apparently feels things haven’t been going well in the development department. On his campaign website, he says,  “My neighbors speak about city development, and raise concerns that the city must have a better decision making process regarding reasonable development”. But what does he mean by that?  When has the city been “held hostage” by a few naysayers?

I can think of a couple of examples of when the public became very vocal on a development issue.  One example is the two PUD projects proposed for the Germantown neighborhood.  The Heritage Row project (the Chronicle had a recent update) has had nearly a cat’s allowance of lifetimes but is currently in limbo.  The Moravian, a hotly debated (citizens appearing on both sides of the issue) PUD for nearby, was defeated April 5, 2010; the account by the Chronicle explains that though the project attracted 6 votes, it required 8 to pass (an aspect of special rules governing PUDs, or planned unit developments).  In both cases, a majority of council members voted for projects but a minority was able to defeat them because of the city’s ordinances and regulations, which they followed.

The “robust public process” that is now being called for emerged where there was a confluence of big public expenditure and development on the Library Lot Conference Center issue. In that case, a group of citizens kept a consistent watch on the fine points of the question, through RFP advisory committee meetings and as consultant’s reports and independent studies (carefully sliced and diced by the watchful citizens) surfaced.  The group, Citizens Against the Conference Center, formed in the latter days when it appeared that Council was really going to pass the thing through (the scheduled date was April 19, 2011).  In about three weeks, the group raised $3000, produced yard signs that were distributed all over Ann Arbor (a number were still undistributed when the issue closed down early), and rained a steady downpour of emails upon Council. On April 4, 2011, a resolution sponsored by several council members, including some who had supported the project, closed off the subject.

Is this a model for how citizens should interface with their local government?  Not really.  It was a substitute for orderly discussion and public interaction with decision-makers throughout that long process.  To their credit, council members tried to make it a better process at times, CM Sandi Smith introducing an RFP where it appeared the project was just going to be built through administrative fiat, CM Rapundalo making an effort to open up the RFP Advisory Committee process and promising a public hearing.  I’ll always be grateful to Mayor Hieftje for seeing the writing on the wall (or the yard signs) and cutting the thing off cleanly.  But was it a case of the city being held hostage by a small minority?  Hardly.  (For a couple of weeks after the decision, checks to pay for the campaign were still coming in and being returned;  people were flocking to the campaign website and asking for signs.  As much a mass movement as we’ve seen for a while.)  Yet somewhat inadvertently, Elyakin’s campaign has seemed to indicate that he thinks that was an example of a process gone wrong (comment by Gustav Cappaert on the Chronicle: “Why does suggesting that someone build something where the library lot provoke so much ire?”).

Much of what is at issue here boils down to this:  What is our concept of governance? And what place does dissent hold?

Governance is a tough issue.  We now live in a state where a state official can dissolve a local government.  We are seeing a total failure of governance in the US Congress.  In many ways we are very fortunate because we have a council that does, on some level, care what its constituents say.  But there has been a disturbing direction over the last few years of defining the ideal governance model in Ann Arbor as being…let’s all go along with the direction coming from the top.  No dissent, please.

As we reviewed in a post over a year ago, in general we are searching for a thing called “consensus”.  But consensus does not mean that everyone agrees.  It means that people in general will go along with a decision they dislike.  If a decision makes a noticeable fraction of people really, really upset (as would have been the case in the Library Lot Conference Center), things fall apart.

We’ve been told from time to time that we have a thing called “representative government”. Here is a quote from that earlier post:

In the article linked to here, both city administrator Roger Fraser and then-CM Chris Easthope both cited the concept of “representative government”.  According to them, this concept means that once you vote an official into office, you have to accept any decision he makes.  Of course you can throw him out of office at the next election, but meanwhile he is free to make all decisions without any input from you.

Well, that’s one concept of public process.  But the “representative” is also supposed to listen to constituents and at least factor that into his thinking.  Having been on that side of the desk, I know there are times that a representative has to make an unpopular decision and then risk the judgment of the voters.  I don’t actually believe in government by referendum.  We’d have never passed the Civil Rights Act if it had been presented for a public vote.  But when the issue is not so morally weighted, we expect those we elect to listen to us.

The current discussion about a “robust public process” is exploring what the appropriate, and useful, role of the public in making decisions should be.  I’m encouraged by comments from the DDA’s meetings and council action that this is being considered seriously, and will be writing more about it later.

But meanwhile, we are coming up to a point of the only public referendum that really counts, namely elections.

Mike Anglin has sometimes been a lone dissenter, and often if not always a member of the minority on council.  But he has, in doing so, clearly been representing his constituents, to the extent that he hears from them.  Two years ago he won re-election by a 65% margin against a Council Party nominee. (See our analysis.)  Sometimes his lonely vote has been something, that in retrospect, looks pretty good.  Consider that he was the only vote against the Big Hole (the parking garage under the Library Lot). We strenuously argued against it at the time and those arguments have only been augmented by recent developments.  Whether the benefits of this project are in confirmation of its initiation or not, it seems clear now that it deserved more scrutiny.  In any event, would we have been better off if he had raised no objection at all?  Did his objection at least put the matter on the table for discussion?  I think so.  And his recent objection to the Fuller Road sewer improvements surely falls into the same category. (See the AnnArbor.com account.)

Can Anglin have been said to “hold the city hostage”?  Clearly not, since he didn’t prevail in those cases.  Now, he has been a member of that council minority who have denied the CP a supermajority (8 votes) for certain projects.  Perhaps that is what Elyakin is getting at – that he wants to eliminate those minority votes and thus promote what he terms “reasonable development”.  His endorsement by one of the most pro-development members on Council, Sandi Smith, would seem to support that.

It should be emphasized that Anglin’s votes have been (WAG) 95% with the rest of council— and with the Mayor.  Some of his votes (both for and against) have been in a direction I didn’t like personally.  But I think Elyakin’s criticism of him as a “naysayer” indicates a greater divide – the question of whether dissent and discussion have a place in governance in Ann Arbor.  I think they do.

UPDATE: Anglin won and so did Kunselman, both by about 2-1 margins.  (Kunselman’s numbers were slightly confused by a third candidate in the race.)  The third incumbent in the race, Stephen Rapundalo (a founding member of the Council Party),  suffered some incursions by a novice politician with little funding, Tim Hull.  Here are news accounts, from the Ann Arbor Chronicle and AnnArbor.com.

Results summarized (write-in votes omitted):

The August Democratic primary election has become, like it or not, the only referendum on our local government that we have.  This was a clear result of Council Party 1: Dissidents 2.  It is notable that the Fuller Road Station became one of the main subjects discussed during the campaign.  I would claim that this result shows a lack of enthusiasm for that project.

Categories: Basis, Neighborhoods, politics

Comments: 4 Comments

Glorious in Ann Arbor

April 5, 2010

It was a glorious afternoon.  In trying to take it all in, I was inspired to try a haiku (a form I’ve never before employed):

Lunch by chance on State

Old stone cut by green space and bells

Goofy smiles on faces

Why do we love Ann Arbor?  It is a mix of experience and circumstance, individual to each of us.  But this afternoon exemplified it for me.

First, in anticipation of a matinée, we tried a new restaurant near State Street, Tian Chu  (they show the two syllables joined or separate in different applications).  It has been reviewed elsewhere but we had wandered in just as they opened.  Because the proprietor seemed so proud of it earlier, I chose the Bamboo Tofu and my husband chose the Bulgogi lunch box.  As noted by the linked review and our earlier chat with the proprietor, this family has lived in China (as Korean minority persons) and operated a Korean restaurant in Hungary.  They are truly cosmopolitan and the menu is an intriguing mixture of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese specialities, blended without apology as appropriate.  So my husband had as part of his Korean (main dish) meal, egg drop soup (Chinese) and I chose the miso.  Then we shared three Korean-style side dishes as appetizer, a clearly homemade kimchi (yes, Napa cabbage), mung bean sprouts with sesame oil dressing, and a light pancake with scallion.  My bamboo tofu was delicate, served in a bamboo section.  It was vegetarian, with a light broth (seasoned with chili and sesame), silken tofu, bamboo sprouts, and thin slices of green squash (zucchini, I think).  His bulgogi came with rice (as did my dish) but in the lunch box (a Japanese construct) were included a sweetish pickle and soybean sprouts, plus a slice of vegetable/egg sushi (Japanese) and two deep-fried dumplings (he said they were like Chinese spring rolls) and a sauce for dipping.  It all came with a special tea that the waitstaff said was based on several grains.  This in a tranquil peach-colored interior and with a ceremonial presentation.  Next time I want to try the Tonkatsu lunch box (a Japanese specialty) and then maybe the Mapo tofu (a Chinese dish I crave sometimes).  It was a lovely leisurely lunch.

We emerged into one of those magical spring afternoons. Early April and sunshine.  Some chain restaurants were closed for Easter but we were able to obtain ice cream at Amer’s, picking our way over the trash left from Hash Bash.  But who cared?  It was a lovely afternoon, everyone of every age I passed seemed to be in a daze and many of us returned smiles to one another.

Then slowly, slowly to the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater in the Michigan League.  We reminded ourselves that this building originated as the women’s union when the male undergraduates wouldn’t let them into the Union.  But let’s put all that behind us.  It was too early to go in for our matinée performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers, so we wandered about the Burton Tower area.  I realized that one part of the charm of the UM campus is that it provides copious amounts of green space.  I imagined myself as an undergraduate lolling on the lawn or leaning against a tree with a book (there were one or two but most gone for the holiday).  The UM provides allées, majestic sculptures and fountains (donated, not from taxpayer dollars), sweeping plantings, benches, and green, green, green. The buildings themselves have a monumental quality, set off by their surroundings.  I realized that nearly every building has either a major open space in its vicinity or a particular one closely associated with it.  There is a nice little area just at the Lydia Mendelssohn end of the League that has some benches, some plantings not yet in flower, and a winding path.  Some people in my general age range (plus) were clustered there enjoying the sunshine.  Meanwhile Burton Tower chimed the quarter-hour, then the half-hour.  There were not many other people around but whether they were pushing strollers or warming old bones, virtually every one had the same rather goofy smile that I’m sure I was displaying.  It was just a lovely afternoon.

Then to the performance.  It was another UMGASS production.  The University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society has been active since 1947.  I’m a member of FUMGASS (Friends of…).  There is a whole network of G&S societies across the United States and elsewhere.  It is a perfect fusion of students, University personnel, and community members in a labor of love and delight.  The artistic director  (Joshua Borths) of this particular performance wrote a preamble to the program explaining the ongoing importance of G&S in this time of troubles. “For me, the operettas of G&S convey life at its most innocent and love at its purest…the experience for the audience becomes one that isn’t found in the rest of our popular culture – an experience of pure joy”.

But another aspect is that this is one of the purest community endeavors that I am engaged with.  The audience is a wonderful intergenerational mix.  But the cast and production is all “amateur” (a term incorporating “lover”) – unless you count the budding professionals from UM musical studies who will add this to their portfolios.  Many members, though, are UM students or staff who have been appearing in these performances for years though their specialties are in other fields.  Others are simply members of the community at large.  From the staff and cast bios: “major in UM Vocal Performance and Musicology at UM” “Student services coordinator in the College of LSA” “Master’s Candidate in Orchestral Conducting” “Wildlife Biologist” “UM Professor Emeritus” “vocal performance and neuroscience major”  “a graduate of UM with majors in linguistics and physics, now in his 13th semester with UMGASS” “A mom, singer, and server from Philadelphia” “retired lawyer and law professor”.  I’ve left many out, apologies.  A longtime presence has been the Zinn family, including Karl Zinn in production and David Zinn, the local illustrator whose drawings have graced many environmental and governmental publications as well as UMGASS programs over the years.

This was one of the best-performed UMGASS productions that I’ve attended for a long time. (Not that I’m complaining.) All the principals were very good, managing the trademark G&S patter song beautifully, with good strong voices.  And the joy and pride were evident.

All in all, the day typified what is glorious about Ann Arbor.  Local quirky but serious business effort.  Community-based cooperative effort to celebrate a long-term tradition.  Beautiful campus opening even to us townies.  And the sunlight.  And the goofy grins.

Categories: Basis, Local Food

Comments: 2 Comments

Young Talent, Innovation, and the Growth of Ann Arbor

March 7, 2010

Introducing a meditation on the underlying themes in a discussion of  the future of Ann Arbor.

Concentrate, the online magazine that has a strong pro-development stance, recently (March 4, 2010)  sponsored a speaker event called “Downtown Development – a Generational Divide”.  The intro on the website was ominous. “Who decides what Ann Arbor’s downtown looks and feels like? Are we making it a place where young and talented people want to be? Is density good for our community?”  Many of us who are tired of being called “NIMBYs” for supporting neighborhood integrity and historic preservation found ourselves on the defensive, since it seems to imply that the old folks better get out of the way and let development blossom, because that’s what the young want.  (Some of the comments on AnnArbor.com’s story reflected this defensiveness.)  But the talk wasn’t like that, and the panel, which consisted of two “younger generation” and two “older generation” types, avoided all the pitfalls and pointed the way to a number of discussions that we are having and should continue to have.  The evening also highlighted the need to examine the underlying assumptions that are guiding much of the talk about Ann Arbor’s future.

Dan Gilmartin, executive director of the Michigan Municipal League, was the speaker.  He has apparently been giving the same talk all over Michigan.  (The MML is an educational organization that promotes the causes of cities.)  His message is blunt: Michigan is sinking fast, and it’s never going to be the way it was.  We have to change.  But much of this was predicated on the loss of the auto industry, less of an issue for the Ann Arbor area.  (We are the company town for the University of Michigan, which looks as though it is staying put.) Still, he made an important point.  It is important for a city, including ours, to attract and retain young people who will bring their vitality and creativity to bear on making new kinds of economic opportunity.

Gilmartin was supporting a campaign that has come out of Detroit, called Let’s Save Michigan. A handout passed out at the talk had the following bullets, not visible yet on the website.  I wish they had done a little copyediting before putting it out.

What We’re For

  • Attracting and keep (sic) a talented/educated workforce by offering livable communities, green jobs, vibrant downtowns, and arts and culture.
  • Targeted economic incentives by bringing jobs to cities and urban areas.
  • Improved quality of life by promoting bars and restaurants, parks, and museum in walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.
  • Innovative job creation by incentivizing entrepreneurship and small business.
  • Smart city redevelopment by rebuilding downtowns and repopulate mixed-use areas.
  • Sustaining and improving existing infrastructure by maintaing (sic) and improving public transit in urban areas.
  • Appropriate taxation policies that reflect our modern economy and promote better use of existing infrastructure.

The language is garbled and sometimes opaque on careful reading, but the theme is a familiar new urbanist one with a strong dose of “Cool Cities” (what the points about economic incentives indicate are a mystery).

Gilmartin’s talk was easier to understand and well-presented.  He started right off by saying that there was a cultural and attitudinal divide in discussions of Michigan’s future.  “Michigan is in such a funk.”  Everyone in Michigan is, he said, basically managing the decline, right down to the municipal level, where we talk about how many police and firefighters to lay off this year or next (sound familiar?).  He urged us to change the conversation.

Much of the talk was around the idea that Michigan has to move beyond the old paradigm of a one-industry state where people could get a good job without a college education to one that entices the young talent to stay here and create a new economy.  In 2008, Gilmartin said, Michigan was 37th among the states in per capita income.   Meanwhile, the young Millennials (defined here as young adults under 35) are not staying; 46% leave Michigan after graduation.

Now here is where we get to the crux of his thesis.  He says they are not leaving because they don’t have jobs, but because they don’t find the experience of living here sufficiently enticing.  While in the old paradigm, people moved to where the jobs are – now (young) people move to where they want to live, then create the jobs.

“Place attracts people.”  With the global economy, knowledge-based industries are the future and people can work anywhere because of the Internet and general connectiveness.  So young people will choose where to live first, then look for work. They are choosing urban centers.  Citing a study in Fast Company magazine, he said that the young innovators choose “fast cities” like London, where one out of eight work in a “creative industry”.

What this means about jobs is that we are relying on these young innovators to create them. “We need to measure job creation in ones and twos instead of thousands.”  So for job growth, we have to bring the creative innovators here, where they will make the jobs.

And what do the young creative innovators want?  A sense of place. An urbanized area where they run into lots of others like themselves (but not too much like, they treasure diversity).  Open space. (Hooray for the park on the Library Lot!) Museums and cultural opportunities.  Walkable communities. Cafés. Bike paths. Informal “third places” where they can gather (Commons, anyone?). Green design.  They want communities built around happiness and well-being, that aim for excellence, not mediocrity.  Accessibility.  Sociability.  Much of this is about what commentator Alice Ralph later characterized as “density of experience”:  what Gilmartin called “1000 nights” worth of activities.  (That’s two nights a week for 50 weeks a year for 10 years, after which the Millennial gets married and moves to the suburbs.)

Except maybe for the 1000 nights concept, there is little here that any thinking sensitive person would contest, and it seems that Ann Arbor already fills a lot of those criteria.  But then we launch into a new discussion: the role of density in achieving all this.  As Gilmartin said, we hate two things: sprawl and density.  “You gotta figure that out.”

It was clear that moderator Jeff Meyers and the institutional host of this talk, Concentrate, wanted to make the discussion about density and development, though that was not the major focus of the talk.  The panel, Anya Dale (a planner who works for Washtenaw County), Ray Detter (of the Downtown Citizens’ Advisory Council), Richard (aka Murph) Murphy, (a founder of Arbor Update and until recently the Ypsilanti city planner), and Alice Ralph (a civic activist who most recently wrote the Commons proposal) neatly side-stepped most of his efforts to make the subject contentious on a generational level, as the title implied.

In answer to a question about whether the Millennials felt too entitled, the panel agreed that we need a diversity of options for all ages, including more housing choices (other than, as Dale said, single-family houses or expensive downtown condos).  Meyers then asked who gets to define the character of a neighborhood (and, he added, is this question too focused on aesthetics);  he interrupted Ralph to ask whether that should be current or “future” residents.  The panel generally answered that the “neighbors” (current residents)  should decide, regardless, as Murphy said, of age and tenure (he left the operational question of contacting future residents aside).  Detter also made the point that increased downtown density should not extend to the near-downtown neighborhoods that come under the Central Area Plan, where scale and character were considered important by the plan and the residents alike. (This was not a direct answer to the question but met the implied challenge, since much of the recent controversy has been about the near-downtown Germantown area, where one of Concentrate’s principals has an interest in the Moravian project.)  Ralph made the insightful comment that the presentation was about encouraging a positive social development, not about encouraging business, commercial and development interests to create more of what they already have. Murphy observed that some near-downtown neighborhoods (the Old Fourth Ward) already were quite dense (density being defined as number of housing units per area) and that other near-downtown neighborhoods could help meet the challenge of increasing density without altering scale or character by allowing accessory apartments.  This would acknowledge that many households are quite small now (1-2 people) and allow more people to live in that area.

Meyers then asked if you couldn’t have medium-size buildings in between, but Dale said that is not how a successful community works; the solution is transit.  There was then a turn of the discussion to improving transit, so that (young) people can live many places in the area (not just downtown) and get places they need to go efficiently.  Murphy mentioned that there are areas elsewhere besides downtown that could accept a lot more density (State Street/Eisenhower being an example); if good transit systems exist, this is a good workable solution.  All four panelists agreed that regional transportation as well as local transportation was important.

So the panel was able to show pretty fair unanimity on this question: how do we create more diverse housing and greater residential density in our community?  But some of the underlying questions were not addressed.

1. Does the thesis put forth by the speaker that we can and should intentionally create a community that will draw young talent to Ann Arbor in order to provide for a future economic benefit make sense?

2. If so, is residential density at all part of the strategy?

3. What is the current state of that demographic in our city?

4. How does this idea fit into our overall hopes for Ann Arbor’s future and where we go from here?

UPDATE: Jeff Meyers, the editor of Concentrate, wrote a lengthy comment and rebuttal to much of this post, which I have posted below under comments.  (It was sent to our gmail address after he was unable to post a comment in the ordinary way on the site.)  I won’t comment on his statements except to acknowledge that I was evidently in error regarding Newcombe Clark’s current involvement with Concentrate, for which I apologize.

SECOND UPDATE: Crain’s Detroit Business has a story about 20-somethings who have come back to Ann Arbor – for the quality of life, among other things.

Categories: Basis, Business, Neighborhoods, Sustainability, Trends

Comments: 19 Comments

Local in Ann Arbor Politics

February 10, 2010

When I began this blog (the first post is dated April 14, 2009), it was not with the explicit aim of writing about politics in the narrow sense.  It was intended as a celebration and an examination of our local community.  But as I said, “It is also about how our town will face the challenges in our future.”   Unfortunately, local politics is at the heart of that commitment.  Unavoidably, coverage of local races and the workings of local government has crept in.  (I have stayed pretty much with City Council and have not so far attempted to cover other local governments like Washtenaw County or the Ann Arbor Public Schools.)  Since our community has been careening from crisis to crisis, it seems that for the last few months the conduct of council has become the major theme. I hope that this can abate so that other topics can be considered.

There are some pitfalls to maintaining a political blog.  One is that readers may question the blogger’s motivation.  So much political discourse these days is “spun” and selective that we have grown accustomed to discounting much of what is written as simply manipulative.  Of course, I have my point of view and very definitely a vision of where we should be going, and I feel privileged to be able to express it.  But I also wish to adhere to some journalistic standards in my writing.  So I’ve come to a point where I want to lay down some open guidelines for how I will be covering politics.

I will admit to being something of a political junkie.  As I have written earlier,  I became involved in local Democratic politics within the first month of arriving in Ann Arbor.  I have served on a number of important committees and on the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners (1997-2004).  When I left the BOC I had every intention of getting out of politics altogether, but the dire state of my beloved adopted hometown drew me back in.  It is just impossible to be concerned about a community without addressing the decision-making process in government.  There are too many consequences to what is done in City Hall.  I ran for council in 2008 and came within a hairsbreadth of winning.  I’ll admit that I have often entertained the thought of a rematch over the last year.  But I came to the conclusion some weeks ago that becoming a candidate again would conflict with my true objective, that of fostering a successful local community in Ann Arbor.  On January 11 I sent out a press release announcing that I would not run for office this year.  This non-news was not picked up by the general media.  As the press release says,

“I ran for Council in 2008 because I was very concerned about a number of directions that the Mayor and Council majority were taking the city.  I remain concerned about those issues, but believe that I will be more effective as a citizen advocate rather than as a candidate.”

Especially because another political blogger has recently announced her candidacy, I am repeating the announcement here.  I will not be a candidate for any office in 2010.

I may support candidates in local races.  But I don’t intend to use this blog as a platform for those campaigns.  I will not endorse candidates through this blog.  If I do write about a specific race, I will attempt to be reasonably even-handed.  I will not engage in personal attacks (though I may certainly comment on persons) and I will delete or edit comments that are personal attacks.

All that said, you are likely to hear a good deal more from me about our city council and its decisions.  I will also continue commenting on the mechanisms of governance.  But I hope that those observations can be taken at face value, and not merely as “political”.

UPDATE: Talk about blogging as an entry to politics, I thought this story on AnnArbor.com about the former A2Politico’s campaign for mayor was extraordinary.  (That’s Pat Lesko, who is now maintaining her blog with open support for her campaign.)  I can’t imagine this story making it to the old Ann Arbor News.  Red meat, anyone?

Categories: Basis, politics

Comments: 1 Comment

The Tipping Point

December 6, 2009

In the summer of 2008, I mailed a postcard as part of my primary campaign for city council.  It was titled “Ann Arbor at the Tipping Point”.  (It is now out of date, but if you are curious, it can be seen here.)  It exemplified my general campaign message that we were overspending on big buildings and “special” projects (often vanity items for the mayor) while making it less and less affordable to live in Ann Arbor and receive the services that we expect as residents and taxpayers.  These trends were clear to me but in that warm sunny summer I had trouble making the points resonate.  I found that as I went door-to-door, eyes would glaze over when I started to talk budgets and services.  It was much nicer to hear my opponent’s happy talk.

Some have said that “no one could have predicted what was coming”.  Pardon me, but that is simply not true.  This article from early 2007 states that Michigan was then in a “one-state recession” after “six consecutive years” of sliding employment.  And we knew in January 2007 that Pfizer was closing and we would be losing those tax revenues. Property values in the region have been declining for some time, though Ann Arbor has been somewhat favored. (The Assessor’s data show a decrease in the rate of increase since 2003.) At the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, I heard as early as 2003 that the state was cutting state shared revenues and we began laying people off because of it.  Cities are under a somewhat more favorable formula, but the loss of those revenues have been a problem for some time now. (The mayor now says that they may go away entirely. ) I got quite tired in that summer of 2008 of going around to interviews and campaign stops and having to talk about the impending economic doom.  But I saw the storm coming, as anyone should should have.

Yes, the city hall is history.  But we are continuing to make imprudent decisions, like taking on more debt for a huge underground parking structure and diverting money from basic operations through the Percent for Art program.

Well, folks, the storm has rolled in.  At the council’s annual budget retreat, (December 5, 2009) city administrator Roger Fraser laid out the grim news and the grimmer suggestions about the city’s financial state and possible fixes.  (A nice overview is on AnnArbor.com.)  Councilmember Stephen Rapundalo summarized it nicely at the beginning and near the end when he spoke of having to “amputate part of this institution”.  (The second mention was to say we had to figure out which fingers, toes, or bigger parts would go.)  There is a list of fairly stringent short-term cuts and then some really scary longer-term changes.  But left undiscussed was the role of taking down the city’s fund balance by millions of dollars to purchase a really big new addition to city hall.  (Irony: much of the justification was to give the police better quarters, and now police have been laid off and are facing more cuts.)

Of course, I had to say “I told you so” to city chief finance officer Tom Crawford during a break.  But he advanced the same argument that was brought up several times during the day: it doesn’t matter how much you have in reserve funds, that is, in the bank.  It is operational cash flow that matters.  As was often said, “you can plug the hole today but it will still be there tomorrow”.  So in Crawford’s and Fraser’s view, the loss of millions of dollars from the city fund balance, used for such things as the city hall and the down payment on the Fuller Road Station (its former name, abbreviated FITS, worked better for me), is irrelevant; you need to get the ordinary cost of doing business down to the same level as the revenue coming in.  So – if tax collection is down, let’s get that saw out and start amputating services.

Much of the problem, as I see it, is that we are operating the city like a business.  Many seem to think that this is the right model, but I think that it ignores the very reason that we have local government.  Business is all about the bottom line.  You build each department like a separate company subsidiary and make it pay its way.  If it is not profitable, axe it.  So some services that are loss leaders have to go (be shut down) and others get shifted into a branch of the company that has a better revenue stream.  Or – some are sold off at a loss to someone else that wants to operate it. (In government, we call this “privatizing”.) Above all, you want to be able to skim the cream for your own use.

But I think we should be running our local government like a household.  In a household, you save money during the good times so that you can tide yourself over during the bad times.  If one of the children is at an age when he costs a lot (maybe he is outgrowing his clothes too fast), you don’t jettison him, but cut the rest of the household expenses (hamburger instead of steak) to support him.  You certainly don’t buy a Mercedes, then complain about how much that kid costs.

Perhaps a better analogy is to consider our community as an ecosystem.  We are interdependent on each other in ways that may not be easily defined or predicted.  Why does a particular local business fail? What impact does that have on the lives of those who used the products and services it produced?  And on the businesses that its employees patronized?  And on the other businesses that were suppliers to it?  If residents find that the cost of services are higher than they can afford, did they cut purchases at that business?  Do they give less to a local charity on whom others are dependent?  And so on.  Our sense of community, the physical and mental health of individuals, and ultimately our prosperity are to some extent dependent on maintaining this ecosystem.

We should be deciding what kind of community we want, what services we think are important to our sense of who we are and what we expect from our government.  The priorities in the way we spend money define us.  Government should be seeking to fill the needs, both physical and, if you like, spiritual, of all who comprise the community, not just those who can pay.  This last is where the business model really breaks down since it wishes to make each activity pay for itself, and that often means fees.  Whereas taxes are usually based on some measure of ability to pay (whether income, property value, or whatever), fees are collected from all regardless of financial status.  In other words, they are regressive and make life less affordable for those of limited incomes who are living in our community. One of the aspects of community in Ann Arbor that appeals to me is the diversity of its people and the possibilities that this creates in our networks of affiliation and interest.  I don’t like to see policies that seem to imply that people with more limited income are unwelcome.

One of the good things that were said at the budget retreat was when Fraser openly challenged the council to decide how they want the city to look in terms of the services it offers.  He stated that he was expecting that council had little or no interest in a “revenue option”.  But some members said yes, that should be on the table.  (Two options discussed were an income tax and a Headlee override, both of which would require a vote of the people.)  I agree that some hard discussion is needed of the kind of community we want and what we expect from our city – and from ourselves to maintain it.

A disturbing theme of the retreat was that many suggestions offered by administration were not merely budget cuts but radical restructuring.  In other words, not just amputation but detaching large body parts and stitching up the body in a different way.  I’ll go into those (which include solid waste, transportation, and parks) in detail in a later post.  But we have to be sure that we do not produce a Frankenstein’s monster.  I hope that the council will not move precipitately.

UPDATE: The Ann Arbor Chronicle now has a very thorough report on the retreat.

SECOND UPDATE:   CM Sabra Briere sent out an email with her summary and analysis of the budget retreat.  I think it is quite good.

Categories: Basis, civic finance

Comments: 5 Comments

Small Is Beautiful and Local Is Even More So

May 11, 2009

We have a rare opportunity on Tuesday, May 12 to hear Michael Shuman speak.  The lecture is free and open to the public, 7:30 p.m. in the Rackham Building.  Shuman is to goods-and-services-oriented businesses what Michael Pollan is to agriculture.  In his book, The Small-Mart Revolution, he sets up a dichotomy between “local ownership and import substitution” (LOIS) businesses, and the globalized “there is no alternative” (TINA) businesses that have taken over so much of American life.  His thesis is that we can live better and happier by supporting community-based enterprises and that the TINA businesses are responsible for many of our modern (economic) ills.  He calls the economy based on TINA “Wreckonomics”. The book was published in 2006, but remarkably enough says this in its first chapter:

“One of the central paradoxes of contemporary American life is that despite so much wealth and progress, we have never been so insecure.  Millions of middle-class Americans have taken advantage of low interest rates and borrowed their way to short-term stability, but we know that sooner or later this will come crashing down…Many of us are no further than one layoff, one major illness, or one national calamity away from plunging into a personal economic tailspin.”

He has many examples and prescriptions, and has continued the fight in many forums, as documented in his blog.  I’m looking forward to hearing him in person.

Categories: Basis, Business
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