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Ann Arbor and the Rail Station Gamble

May 28, 2017

The leaders (movers, shakers, and Council majority) of Ann Arbor celebrate the notion of Ann Arbor exceptionalism.  This evidently extends to invulnerability in times of uncertainty.  While the nation and even the world wait to see what will unfold with the Trump presidency, we are ready to bet on future Federal dollars to achieve our dream of a new train station.  On June 5, 2017, City Council will be asked to pay an additional $137,026 toward the new station.  (The last vote was in January, to put money into a contingency fund for this purpose.)  This money is intended to allow the City to collect the last part of a planning grant for a new station. Yet, it appears unlikely that Federal funds will be available for actual construction of a station.  And even more significantly, the contracted work may not be finished in time to be reimbursed under the current grant.

A good summary of the situation was provided by Ryan Stanton, writing for MLive.com (Ann Arbor News).   Stanton has been following this issue closely and earlier submitted a FOIA to see the document that the City sent to the Federal Railway Administration (FRA) for review.  All in all, the City of Ann Arbor has qualified for an award in non-transparency with regard to this project. You may remember the famous picture of the email with all lines redacted.  It has released no public documents about the project since September 2016. (All public documents are available on the City’s Ann Arbor Station page.)

Timeline on Ann Arbor City website for grant acceptance

But the project is running up against a brick wall.  The grant funds expire (gone back to the Treasury) as of September 30, 2017 (end of FY 2017). The schedule published on the City web page indicates that the required public hearing and 30 day review of public comments was to take place in December 2016, with final approval of the EA in January.  But the proposal has languished in some void between the FRA and the consultants.  Now it appears increasingly difficult to fit in all the tasks needed before expiration of the grant funds.  That would leave the City liable for all the costs that have been incurred since this phase of the work began.

As the City Administrator, Howard Lazarus, noted in a letter to Council members,

FRA has expressed some concern over the City’s ability to complete the work within the grant funding period. To that end, FRA has authorized a “tapered match” approach, in which the City can access the federal funds first. Staff believes under this structure, we can advance the majority of the PE effort before the end of July. Council should note that the FRA cannot guarantee that invoices sent to them after June 30th will be processed prior to their mid‐September cut‐off for FY17 funds disbursements.

Lazarus is asking Council to approve an amendment to the consultants’ contract that appears to extend their tasks beyond the original contract. One could speculate that some of this is to answer questions from the FRA in their response to the previous submission.  There is a slight pleading quality to Lazarus’ letter to the FRA. (Note: full-size text may be viewed by clicking on these illustrations.)

From Howard Lazarus to FRA Midwest Regional Manager May 26, 2017

An odd note is that the project is not shown in the attached schedule to be completed until October 2017.  How does that reconcile with a September 30 deadline, much less a June 30 deadline?  Yet presumably the City would not pay the consultants in advance of their work.  (The usual approach is that consultants issue invoices as work is done, and the City sends them to the FRA for reimbursement of the grant amount.)  It appears that the City is proposing to make itself responsible for completion of the work past the grant deadline.  All of this seems to be very creative accounting practice.

What’s  the Problem?

We recently alluded to the history of former Mayor John Hieftje’s vision with reference to the grant that was awarded for the first phase of planning a new train station.  Like most Federal grants from those golden days, this ARRA grant of $2.8 million (from the Obama stimulus of 2009) is for 80% of the cost – in this case, for the Environmental Assessment under NEPA, and some preliminary planning and engineering.  It has been the expectation that a future grant for actual construction would follow that same 80% Federal – 20% local rule.  But even 20% of a multimillion dollar building is a big bite for a small city.  So originally, the promise from Mayor Hieftje was that the City would put in NO GENERAL FUNDS.  Instead, the local match was to be picked up by the University of Michigan in a joint project, the Fuller Road Station. (Here is a post in which that promise was made explicitly). That deal fell apart and UM built a parking structure elsewhere.  Ann Arbor had already expended a fair amount of money on early planning, but that work was not accepted as a local match toward the grant, so the money was essentially wasted and new cash from the General Fund had to be invested in order to stay in the running for the grant.  The City has now spent over $1 million just in matching funds for the grant (most of this went to consultants and planners), though much more has been spent that doesn’t apply directly to that grant now.  And now it could be liable for all the sum left (about $750,000), including the 80% Federal match.

Predicting the Future of a New Station

Much of the uncertainty has been in the Federal budget process itself.  As we explained in some detail earlier, transportation funding is complex.  Part of it is based on the Highway Trust Fund – a dedicated source of revenue.  The rest is dependent on the dispensation of Congress, in money from the General Fund or from new sources of revenue.  Much of that was hanging by a thread until recently because all Federal funds were dependent on passage of a continuing resolution – which happily was passed on April 28 and signed by the President.  Here is a summary of transportation funding under that resolution. Note that some important items, namely TIGER grants and New Starts, that were to be eliminated according to the President, were saved in this extension.

Meanwhile, the President, or more accurately, the White House, presented Congress with an Executive Budget. As has always been true of Presidential budgets, this is more a policy document than an actual description of how money will finally be allocated.  Only Congress gets to appropriate money.  But it is important because it shows President Trump’s priorities and thinking.  And those priorities do not include handing money out to little cities.  Here is a revealing summary of the “Infrastructure Initiative”.  From the summary:

The flexibility to use Federal dollars to pay for essentially local infrastructure projects has created an unhealthy dynamic in which State and local governments delay projects in the hope of receiving Federal funds. Overreliance on Federal grants and other Federal funding can create a strong disincentive for non-Federal revenue generation.

Instead, the White House would move to a model in which private investors would enter into partnership with states and local governments to build or improve projects that have a revenue generation capability.  So – toll roads, transit prices high enough to pay a profit, fees for using anything. The Feds would simply facilitate all this.  The idea is so potent that investment funds along these lines have already attracted Saudi investors.

Under the very best of scenarios, Congress will pass a budget for FY 2018, to begin October 1.  All current funding will expire as of September 30.  In the past few years, Congress has failed to pass a budget at all and instead has relied on a series of continuing resolutions, which generally hold most budgets where they began, with a few small changes.  But let’s assume that they make it this time. (After all, one party controls both houses of Congress and the Presidency.)  What are the chances that discretionary spending on transit will be included in the new budget, given the strong leanings by the White House and the tax-cutting mood of Congress?

A Double Gamble

So it appears that the City of Ann Arbor is placing bets on its cards for two outcomes:

  1. That it can recoup all the grant monies for the current project, against a very tough timeline
  2. That this will somehow result in the future in a new train station.

But it also appears that there is a mood of desperation at the possibility of having the effort collapse.  From Lazarus’ letter to Council:

From Howard Lazarus to Ann Arbor City Council

Rather high-stakes cards, and to my risk-averse eyes not a good bet.  Will Council raise, or fold?

 

 

 

 

Categories: civic finance, politics, Transportation

Comments: 6 Comments

Core Spaces and The Soul of Ann Arbor

April 16, 2017

It seems to have gone on forever.  But really, only for about a decade.  Now here we are, once again deciding on the fate of the Library Lot – that small precious piece of real estate next to the Ann Arbor District Library.

Rendering of proposed Core Spaces building as proposed to Council.

The Ann Arbor City Council will vote on this resolution on April 17, 2017.   It either will or will not award development rights for the Library Lot (retaining ownership of the actual land) to Core Spaces, which describes itself as “a full‐service real estate development, acquisition and management company”, and further identifies its target markets as “educational”, in other words, student-oriented.  The result will be a 17-story building, bigger than anything we could have imagined 10 years ago.

Feelings are running high and the volume of email to Council must be stupendous.  Just to make the drama more intense, because the resolution disposes of city property, it requires 8 of 11 Council votes (counting the Mayor).  Three CM have made their dislike fairly public (Eaton, Kailasapathy, Lumm).  So each one of the remaining 8 can be the one to make or break the deal.  It is generally understood that Mayor Taylor favors it.  Are all the rest committed to support it, in the face of a great deal of public opposition?  Some, especially those who are new to Council or up for re-election, are likely feeling the heat.

Why is this so important to so many?  Its importance (as measured by heat and light generated) is far more than most tall building development projects downtown.  There are many facets to the issue.  But most of all, this decision is symbolic about the direction that Ann Arbor is headed.  In many ways, it is a battle for the soul of Ann Arbor.

What Do We Want To Be?

This article from the Ann Arbor Observer (2005) outlined many issues and described the Calthorpe public process. (Click for link.)

The battle for the future of Ann Arbor has been the underpinning of our politics for over 10 years. One could argue that it began with the election of John Hieftje as Mayor in 2000, or the renewal of the DDA Charter in 2003.  That launched an emphasis on downtown development that has changed not only the appearance of Ann Arbor’s downtown, but its perceived purpose and use. There was also a shift in the objectives for the city as a whole.  We have often thought our city to be rather special, in a community-supportive, casually fun but also fairly intellectual, colorful but not in an overly contrived sort of way. See our post, What Does it Mean to be an Ann Arbor Townie. In other words, a city to serve its citizens and welcome visitors on our own terms.  But in recent years, a new agenda has been espoused by the majority on our City Council.  This is spelled out at length in The Placemaking Agenda and Ann Arbor Politics. Briefly, it is to transform the city into a cradle of entrepreneurship and enterprise, especially by attracting “talent” (young people who can start or sustain high-tech enterprises).  Much of this is based on the concept of the “Creative Class”, as described by the urbanist Richard Florida in his 2002 book.

One could argue that Ann Arbor is doing very well and is succeeding in this talent-seeking strategy.  We are listed over and over again on national lists as in the top 10 for various qualities.  Maps showing economic success usually show our Washtenaw County as standing out.  But interestingly, Richard Florida himself has had something of a change of heart. Florida’s recent book, The New Urban Crisis, recognizes that the type of “success” we have enjoyed has come with a cost to whole swaths of demographics.  As he says in a recent article,

 As techies, professionals, and the rich flowed back into urban cores, the less advantaged members of the working and service classes, as well as some artists and musicians, were being priced out….I found myself confronting the dark side of the urban revival I had once championed and celebrated…As the middle class and its neighborhoods fade, our geography is splintering into small areas of affluence and concentrated advantage, and much larger areas of poverty and concentrated disadvantage.

And a summary from another article :

America today is beset by a New Urban Crisis. If the old urban crisis was defined by the flight of business, jobs, and the middle class to the suburbs, the New Urban Crisis is defined by the back-to-the-city movement of the affluent and the educated—accompanied by rising inequality, deepening economic segregation, and increasingly unaffordable housing.

Sure enough, a graphic from the article shows that Ann Arbor is #11 on his “Urban Crisis Index”.  Do increasing economic inequality, loss of affordability in housing, and racial/class segregation sound familiar?  Washtenaw County paid good money a couple of years ago for a consultant to tell us this about ourselves.  So, Ann Arbor is succeeding as a business proposition.  Is it losing what makes it successful as a place to live?  As a community in the whole?

(Florida will be keynoting this year’s SPARK meeting on April 24.  It’ll be interesting to hear what he says about our local situation.)

The Importance of the Library Lot

So what does the Library Lot have to do with all this? Because the Library Lot belongs to the entire City of Ann Arbor, and thus presumably its public, and because the project is so wildly out of scale with the downtown historic districts that supposedly make our downtown successful, not to mention the residential neighborhood immediately to the south, and because while this is a public asset, the benefit to the Ann Arbor public has not evidently been a consideration. (No public process has been employed to arrive at this use.) For all these reasons, the debate has been more passionate than for other downtown projects.  The Ann Arbor public continue to assert ownership.  For that reason, it stands as a symbol of the decisions to be made about our downtown, and thus our city.

But many other interests have eyed this choice little bit of real estate for particular ends.  The DDA has had a single-minded intent to increase the magnitude of development in the downtown, generally.  A group of influential insiders put forth a plan as early as 2008 to build a hotel and conference center on the lot, with the DDA’s assistance.  The Library Lot Conference Center controversy and battle is recorded in this series of posts.  The effort was finally killed by Council resolution in April, 2011 after a public campaign by concerned citizens.  Meanwhile, the DDA had constructed an underground parking structure in which part of the structure was specifically reinforced to support the intended hotel.

Projection of desired building density (700 F.A.R) for Library Lot in DDA study, 2013. Purple area is unreinforced “plaza”.

Things slowed down for a bit while the Ann Arbor District Library planned to build a new library.  The new building would not have been on the Lot (the current building would first have been demolished) but doubtless the Lot would have been used for staging.  However, that bond proposal was defeated in November, 2012.   The DDA sprang to the task of planning the immediate area in a project called “Connecting William Street”.  They used a pseudo-public approach (online surveys, public meetings) which unsurprisingly arrived at the conclusion that a tall building was needed on the lot.  The plan met with derision in some quarters and the City Council declined to adopt it.  It was added to the “resource documents” for the Planning Commission in March, 2013.

In a memorably feckless act (thank you, CM Kunselman), Council passed a resolution in April 2014 to hire a real estate broker.  They put the Lot up for sale.   Although the resolution cites the Connecting William Street project, no further effort was made to establish what the Ann Arbor public saw as the best use for this site.   Further, it accepted the notion that the reinforced portion of the lot would be used for building.  So here we are.

From page 42, Downtown Development Strategies, Calthorpe Associates, 2005

The Calthorpe process, 2005, is often cited as demonstrating that there was a public process followed for the fate of this parcel.  There was a report on Downtown Development Strategies issued (many recommendations have been ignored).  It does not make a specific recommendation on the Library Lot.  However, it calls for building height to be stepped down toward the residential neighborhoods, especially that last block before William.  And it calls for a Town Square.

ADDENDUM: The Library Lot was briefly, but seriously, considered as a site for a new City Hall, a.k.a Municipal Center, in 2006.  Here is the task force report. Community Security and Public Space 2006 The report specifically notes the importance of “an outdoor gathering place” and put the Library Lot high on the alternatives for a new Municipal Center that would include a public space.

 

It’s Not Just About a Park

Admittedly, the idea of a downtown “Central Park” (or Town Square) has been a major theme of the disputes about the Library Lot.  The Library Green Conservancy has been advocating vigorously for a park on the portion of the lot without special reinforcement, and there was that whole problem with collection of signatures on petitions. The DDA has been trying to put a damper on that idea for years.  (The Connecting William Street exercise did not even acknowledge the possibility.)

It’s Not Just About the Parking

The deal has serious implications to downtown parking.  It would give away a substantial part of this expensive structure to a private enterprise. (Some historical details are here: note we will be paying interest for many years to come.)  There are also legal questions that have not been satisfactorily answered.    Read it here.  Finally, it will reduce access to downtown by its customers. Downtown business organizations have objected.

It’s About Our Downtown, Our City

Our social media and comment pages are flooded with anguished complaints and worries about this project.  It is clear that our citizens do not believe this will enhance our experience of our city and that it will likely damage the downtown.  The comments shown below are from my personal social media feeds (Facebook, Nextdoor) and are unedited but anonymous because I don’t wish to make the writers’ identity the issue.  (Click on the boxes to read at full magnification.)

 

 

 

 

 

Note that these comments are all about quality of life and the viability of our downtown businesses.  There is a concern about the resilience of this part of our community, and of course the Downtown is still the center of town, and a location that affects us all.

If Council does vote to approve this deal, they will be going against the express wishes of a substantial number of their constituents.  Based on comments in the media, it seems that they are dazzled by the cash offer.  A complication is that it will supposedly be an assist to “affordable housing”.  But the benefits in that regard are modest.  (One scenario even has the City paying over a million dollars back in order to obtain more units.)  We have not really had a city-based discussion about what we want in “affordable housing” or what our best means of achieving that are.  It seems imprudent to sell off one of our choicest assets for this purpose, especially since so many questions persist about the effects of the parking on both businesses and city finances.  If our city finances are so challenged (and they do not seem to be) we should be looking at savings or new taxes instead of selling off our real estate.

Or – is Council going to go ahead with this because of the dogma of dense development?  In that case, are they considering the health of our present community?  Or are they aiming for a different one?  If the latter, they’d better consider more carefully the consequences of their actions.  A city is a complex ecosystem.  The Council has a solemn duty here.  I hope that they vote to preserve our community.  It has so much good, still.

ADDENDUM: Here is the Ann Arbor News preview of tonight’s vote. “And the consequences of whichever way the council votes could last for generations.”  Yup.

UPDATE: The Council voted to sell the lot, 8-3.  All the usual suspects voted as anticipated.  Here is what Mayor Taylor had to say about it.  

“I love Ann Arbor the way it is. We are not Chicago or Detroit, and I don’t want to be. ”

 

 

 

 

Categories: Basis, Business, Downtown, politics, Sustainability

Comments: 7 Comments

Ann Arbor’s Fading Dream of Trains and Rail Systems

February 12, 2017

The Mayor of Ann Arbor, John Hieftje, held a convocation of area leaders on June 15, 2006, in which he outlined a broad vision of transportation for Ann Arbor and the region.   As he explained (press release), the vision would bring environmental benefits (lessen air pollution), enhance quality of life, and increase the region’s economic competitiveness.  The vision was named the Mayor’s Model for Mobility.  Its elements were an East-West Transit (commuter rail) to link communities in Southeast Michigan, as well as a North-South Rail.  There would also be a local connector system to link up the two railroads, and a streetcar system that would encompass the many sprawling campuses of the University of Michigan.  The plan was illustrated by a sketch that is positively jolly.

Mayor's_Model_for_Mobility_20060008The vision was bold and in those heady days before the economic meltdown that affected local property values (and thus local property tax revenues), it seemed not unlikely.  Hieftje at that time was at the height of his influence, with a City Council that was solidly behind him.   He had the power of appointment to the board of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, the ear of our Congressman, John Dingell, and a strong relationship with the administration of the University of Michigan.

Since then, a lot has happened.  The economic collapse affected not only Ann Arbor, but Michigan and the nation.  There have been significant shifts in Congress and in attitudes toward transportation funding.  Prospects rose (with Obama’s election) and sank (Tea Party).  AATA (our local transit authority) put major effort into a countywide transit plan, which failed.  Then a smaller local urban transit millage succeeded.  A Regional Transit Authority centered on the Detroit Metro area was created.  Its millage failed and that effort is now in limbo.  (Some, but not all, of this history, is recorded in our posts on The Transportation Page.)

The remarkable thing is that, over a decade later and despite many discouragements, the current Mayor (Christopher Taylor) appears to be bent on fulfilling the original vision.  And its elements, especially those relating to rail travel, remain at the top of Ann Arbor’s priorities, as reflected by the Capital Improvements Plan.  But these are extremely expensive and rely on the assumption that there will be Federal grants to pay the major portions.

Looking At It With Clear Eyes

In light of recent changes, both in current transportation funding, and in the change of emphasis in the Presidency (as we indicated in the last post, the ground has shifted), how realistic is this vision now?  And how does this affect the rest of our local government initiatives, since we are presumably setting aside considerable funds in order to accomplish these decade-old objectives?

The timelines and priorities for some of the rail projects, such as the North-South rail (WALLY) and the East-West commuter rail, are more distant.  But the rail station (the Ann Arbor Station) is priorities # 1,2 and 3.  Also a very high priority is the Connector, a light rail system that will connect the UM campuses.  While the commuter rail projects and the Connector have other possible participants, the rail station is our very own.

First Comes the Train Station

The train station was part of a grant awarded to the State of Michigan from President Obama’s stimulus program.  That program, ARRA (American Resource and Recovery Act) was launched in 2009 and the availability of the funds is ending in May 2017.  Actually, the grant awarded is only to pay for the initial assessment of the site and preparation of a preliminary design and engineering review.

Mayor Christopher Taylor has consistently placed the Rail Station at the top of his list in importance for Ann Arbor.  In a recent article in the Ann Arbor News, he argued for its importance as he anticipates an increase in rail travel, including a new commuter rail service.  As described in a second article , Taylor was able to persuade a majority of his City Council to provide funds for work that cannot yet be done.

Council voted at the meeting of January 17, 2017 to allocate another $151,600 (matching funds for the ARRA grant).  As the background for the resolution states, availability of those funds is ending in May 2017.   This is awkward because the City is still awaiting a ruling from the Federal Railroad Administration as to the preferred site for a new station.  (The selection process has been arduous and there have been many delays.  More detail is available on the City website.  The two possibilities being considered are Fuller Park and the current site on Depot Street.) (Additional information and viewpoints are on the All Aboard on Depot Street website.)  Basically, the Council has now authorized funds for a contract which cannot be fulfilled at this moment but must be invoiced by May 2017.  (This is about 3 months from now, and critical information is not available.)

Money and Timelines

As always with government, much comes down to money.  How much will it cost? Where will it come from? When will it be spent?  The answers to some of these questions are in that Capital Improvement Plan mentioned earlier.  Staff takes all the information given to them and assembles timelines and cost estimates.  They also indicate some of the expected sources of the money.  But here are some important points to keep in mind.

The General Fund is the checkbook for the City’s cash flow.  It is the amount of money from property tax each year.  Most other funds in the budget are restricted to specific uses, such as roads from the road millage. If Council spends money on special projects, it is from the General Fund.  The General Fund revenues for 2016 were $83,617,342.  That’s $83.6 Million for the whole city.

Another important point is to recall that we are currently in Fiscal Year 2017.  It ends on June 30, at which point we will be in FY 2018.  Council is currently working on the budget for that FY, which will be passed in May 2017.  (Again, three months from now.)

Now look at this information from the CIP.  Note that some activities are already in process (2017).  But we have some big-ticket expectations, in a relatively short time.

Amounts from the FY 2016-2021 Capital Investment Plan. WALLY omitted.

Amounts from the FY 2016-2021 Capital Investment Plan.   WALLY omitted.

According to this, we’ll be building a train station in the next fiscal year (begins in July 2017)   And we’ll put more than 10% of the General Fund into this one project.

I don’t believe it either.  And there are other details.  The remainder of that $44.5 million is supposed to come from a Federal grant.  (Money has not been allocated.)  And I’m guessing that part of our General Fund amount is hoped to come from the State of Michigan.  AAATA is being tasked with a grant for some of the Connector expenses, but they have a hard time making all their current expenses.  The University of Michigan, on the other hand, has committed to major expenditures for the Connector, but this is not shown here.  Still, the mere scale of these commitments is breathtaking.

In the next post, more details about transportation funding as it might affect this project.  But meanwhile, all this is hard to take in.  Will we really rearrange our city priorities to accommodate this heavy a drain?  Are the uncertainties being considered?  How will it affect the budget (that has to take in all other City considerations) that is under preparation?  How much will this vision affect our reality?

UPDATE: At the February 13, 2017 Council Working Session, the City Administrator, Howard Lazarus, presented a slide showing new projections for the CIP.  It indicates $500,000 for the Ann Arbor Station for FY 2018 and $13 Million for FY 2019, with the cryptic notation, “New revenue or financing”.  For the Connector, it shows $600,000 for FY 2019, with nothing for FY 2018.  For FY 2020 and beyond, we now see $10 Million for the City alone, with the funding noted as “tbd”.

Categories: civic finance, politics, Transportation

Comments: 11 Comments

So Where are We Now with Ann Arbor’s Deer?

December 30, 2016

The last three years have been the Early Period for Ann Arbor’s deer debate.  Now there is a coherent plan for deer management and a page containing historical documents on the Ann Arbor City website – quite a long story.  We posted extensively about this issue through 2015. 2017 will be busy. In a special session on November 14, 2016, Council approved several resolutions to make the management plan operable.   According to the Ann Arbor News, officials are still awaiting permit approvals by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR).  Maps showing where a sterilization program will be conducted have also been published.

For several decades, the white-tailed deer have been appearing around the edges of the city. But as of early 2014, they became numerous enough to be real pests.  As the numbers of the animals began to intrude on more and more human lives, there was an organized effort to limit their effects on gardens, natural area vegetation and automobile crash incidents.  Their impact on parks and natural areas in Washtenaw County was recognized by the WC Parks & Recreation Commission in early 2014. In May 2014, Ann Arbor’s City Council directed the City Administrator to prepare a report on deer management in partnership with other entities.

Numbers of DVDs in Ann Arbor City between 2005 and 2015. Source: Michigan Traffic Crash Facts.

Numbers of DVCs in Ann Arbor City between 2005 and 2015. Source: Michigan Traffic Crash Facts.

As the account in the Ann Arbor Chronicle about that Council meeting indicates, one impetus to raising the problem of the increasing deer population was the slow increase in the number of deer-vehicle crash incidents.  These are reported in Michigan via a website, “Michigan Traffic Crash Facts“, whose data is from safety (law enforcement) personnel.  (There is always a delay after the end of a calendar year in publishing the totals for the previous year, so as of today’s writing we must wait for a couple of months before we know the totals for 2016.)  By 2014, DVCs in Ann Arbor had increased by 30% from the previous decade.  Last year, there was a major jump in numbers of crashes.  We’ll be watching to see if 2016’s number indicates a trend or that this was an aberration.

A single doe and her offspring over 5 years. Males are not shown.

A single doe and her offspring over 5 years. Males are not shown.

So why do we need a deer management program?  Because of their explosive reproductive capability.  As we explained in detail in our post, Deer and the Numbers Explosion, deer will increase their numbers exponentially if left unchecked.  In the early years, one only notices that there are more deer around than in the past.  Suddenly 10 deer are camping out in your backyard.  This increase in numbers has many effects on the immediate territory.

The common white trillium is used as an indicator of deer herbivory. Photo by B. Ball, courtesy of the UM Herbarium.

The common white trillium is used as an indicator of deer herbivory. Photo by B. Ball, courtesy of the UM Herbarium.

  1. Plant herbivory: Most plants (or at least their edible parts) are consumed.  This causes damage to gardens and landscapes, and natural areas where native plant communities are being maintained are severely altered. As we explained in Deer and the Flowers of the Earth, wildflowers are beautiful and a source of delight for visitors, but they are also extremely important in the survival of the entire wild community.   Plants are “foundational” in a wild ecosystem and without them, nothing lives, even the deer.  Fifth Ward councilmember Chuck Warpehoski has expressed this beautifully in his recently updated post.
  2. Deer-vehicle crashes: As we have already noted, DVCs increase with increasing population.  To date, we have not had any crashes locally where a human has been killed, but there has been considerable dollar damage to automobiles and the potential for human injury is certainly there.
  3. Lyme Disease:  Deer have a complex relationship with this disease.  They provide a blood meal for black-legged ticks, the vector for this bacterial disease, and help carry the tick into new territory.  Also, their plant herbivory often favors an understory full of Japanese barberry.  Deer don’t eat this thorny shrub and it provides an ideal habitat for the white-footed mouse, the main host for the tick.  Mice multiply under the canopy of the low shrub and help carry the tick and its bacterial rider into new territory.

Lyme disease is known as an “emerging disease” in Michigan.  It has been moving into new areas of the state. When the deer problem was first highlighted in 2014, it was thought to be a couple of counties west of Washtenaw.  Now there are recognized cases in our county.  We are all at risk.   I hope that our governments provide adequate education so that people can recognize the disease and seek immediate treatment.   Here is a good place to start.

2016_lyme_risk_map_485658_7

UPDATE:   The City of Ann Arbor has now posted an explanation of the 2017 deer management program.  A somewhat more easily accessed account was published by MLive. 

Here is the deer management map.  Note that some residential areas are targeted for participation in the nonlethal program. Also note that without fanfare, some UM properties have been included in the lethal culling program.

SECOND UPDATE: The University of Michigan made some of its properties available for the cull for the first time this year, eliciting some cries of anguish from the opposition.  Here is an explanation from the University Record of the program from the UM perspective.

THIRD UPDATE: On March 8, 2017, there will be a lecture program addressing the problem of deer herbivory from an experimental and data-oriented viewpoint. The two presenters are both experienced with direct testing of deer-wild flora interactions.  Jacqueline Courteau is a wildlife biologist and consultant, and Paul Muelle has been the manager of natural resources at a major park (Huron-Clinton Metroparks) through a time that culling and vegetation assessment have been practiced to maintain the parks’ resources.  Here is the full announcement about the talk.  It will be at the Matthei Botanical Gardens, 6:45 p.m. on March 8.

Categories: Neighborhoods, politics, Sustainability

Comments: 4 Comments

From Drama to Melodrama: Washtenaw County and Conan Smith

October 2, 2016

This thread began with the startling announcement on Mary Morgan’s Facebook page about a letter she had written to the Board of Commissioners about (Commissioner) Conan Smith’s application to the open position of County Director of the Office of Community and Economic Development.  In the letter, she pointed to a substantial conflict of interest when a sitting commissioner applies for a county position.  Smith soon resigned his seat, but retained his place on the November ballot.  We discussed those implications at some length.  Now the BOC has moved with some alacrity to resolve part of the tangle, by setting a firm schedule for choosing a County Administrator.

But as we pointed out in our previous post, this leaves a big piece of what one might term the “County leadership puzzle” yet to be resolved:  the OCED post to which Smith applied.  Now we know even more of that picture, especially regarding Conan Smith’s trajectory to this point, thanks to the continuing journalistic inquiries by Dave Askins (late of the Ann Arbor Chronicle).  Dave now publishes via Twitter (do consider following him – the jokes are good too) and posts documents in Dropbox.  Most recently, he obtained a number of key documents by FOIA to Washtenaw County and the City of Southfield.  (Southfield is one of the cities represented on the Board of Metro Matters/Michigan Suburb Alliance.) It is evident from them that this story has gone from high drama to outright melodrama.

Conan Smith in Large Outline

I have been observing Conan Smith (or just “Conan” – as everyone calls him) ever since he ran a primary against me in 2002 for the County Commissioner seat I occupied at the time.  I defeated him handily but chose not to run in 2004.  He won in a three-way primary and has occupied that seat ever since.  Here are the things I know about him.

Official BOC portrait of Conan Smith. Date of picture is not known.

Official BOC portrait of Conan Smith. Date not known.

(1) He is very deeply affected by his family history and frequently cites it as his motivation and also as a reason why he should be supported politically.  His grandfather was Al Wheeler, who is a civil rights icon in Ann Arbor. He was the first and only Black mayor and Wheeler Park near Kerrytown is named in his honor.  Conan’s mother, Alma Wheeler Smith, has served in many elected and appointed offices, and is well known and well respected in Washtenaw County.  His aunt, Nancy Wheeler (known for most years as Nancy Francis) was a much beloved, though sometimes controversial, juvenile court judge.

Conan Smith image used in social media

Conan Smith image used in social media

(2) He is a committed regionalist.  In 2002, he joined the fledgling Michigan Suburbs Alliance  (MSA) as its Executive Director. This was a nonprofit that allied the suburbs surrounding Detroit for mutual benefit.  In 2010, as that history describes, the organization began rethinking its relationship to the City of Detroit (which has, notably, been undergoing a renascence) and has been rebranding to Metro Matters. Conan has employed all of his resources, including his role as a County Commissioner (and Chair of that BOC), connections through the MSA, and his wife (Senator Rebekah Warren), to bring about the Regional Transit Authority.  (Here is a post with some historical information about the genesis of the RTA.)  Originally, the RTA was intended to include only the three metropolitan Detroit counties (Oakland, Wayne, Macomb) and the City of Detroit. With Senator Warren’s assistance, Washtenaw County (where Conan had an important seat) was added.  The Metro Matters website celebrates the RTA as one of its signature accomplishments.  Quite recently, Metromode online magazine (a collaborator) highlighted Conan and his regional vision. In that article, Conan proposes a similar tax-sharing program to one used in the Twin Cities (Minnesota) area, where a new tax base in one municipality generates new taxes for use by other municipalities.  This will be a very tough sell in Michigan, where border controls on tax redistribution are set into our constitution.

Conan Smith at BOC May 7, 2014 (Ann Arbor Chronicle photo)

Conan Smith at BOC May 7, 2014 (Ann Arbor Chronicle photo)

(3) He is confident in his vision and in his judgment.  Sometimes this can lead to impetuous statements. In addition, he often dismisses the need to satisfy other parties or reach a consensus if the raw exercise of power can be used instead. Here is just one example, from 2014, where the BOC was considering whether to place a tax for roads before the public or to use an obscure pre-Headlee law simply to impose a tax on Washtenaw County citizens, including his own constituents. (From the Ann Arbor Chronicle archives.) (In the end, the tax was simply imposed.)
conan-quote-on-road-tax

Another notable example was Conan’s push for Act 88 taxation. As related by the Ann Arbor Chronicle, he was the instigator to have this tax administered by OCED, and he caused the rate to be increased to homeowners.  The tax has funded mostly economic development projects, especially Ann Arbor SPARK. This was another example of a practice by the BOC in recent years to impose taxes without a public vote.  That practice has now been challenged in court (someone did decide to sue).  This week the BOC will likely act to cease collecting the tax.  The memo from the Interim Administrator lays out the circumstances fully.

And Then One Day It All Came Apart

The position with Michigan Suburbs Alliance seemed to be secure.  It was formalized in 2003 as a coalition of Detroit-area suburbs, to solve suburban problems.  But as time passed, it also seemed to be passing MSA by. With the resurgence of the City of Detroit, all the glamour and excitement became invested in the big city.   Conan Smith posted an announcement in February 2015 that the organization would be renamed “Metro Matters”.

msa-to-metro-matters

Portrait on the staff roster for Metro Matters

Portrait on the staff roster for Metro Matters

A major impetus for this was evidently Smith’s hard work putting the RTA together.  “We sat at the table to write the legislation that established the RTA, an historic achievement that brings us closer to bridging the city/suburb divide. ”  His announcement points out the success in getting the M1-rail project (now known as QLine) together. But that is a central Detroit project, sponsored by Detroit business interests. The Board of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance is made up of suburban officers, and the suburbs have been the major source of funds for the organization.

We don’t have the financial records to explain what happened, but Conan gave a decent explanation to his Board in December 2015, via a memo.

…over the past several months in particular, we have failed to generate the financial support necessary to sustain the operations of the organization at the high level we anticipated. As you can see from our most recent financial statements, our overall position is strong but the statement of cash flows shows us spending far more than we are taking in.

A poignant indicator was that the December Christmas party was cancelled within hours of its scheduled time.  (A reminder had gone out that same day.)  This is well explained with the continuation of that Board memo:

What this means directly is the laying off of our staff throughout the month of January and the closure of our physical office. I will continue to work on behalf of the organization to get a stronger funding base underneath us, and Rick Bunch will continue to lead the Energy Office, which has strong prospects coming off a major victory at MPSC. Hayley Roberts and Ellen Vial will be retained on a small contract basis to see through two of our grant-funded projects. The balance of the staff’s positions will likely be eliminated.

By March of this year (2016), it is evident that the Board is not happy.  Steve Duchane, city manager of Eastpointe, was fairly explicit:

The reformation of what was once a collaboration of the inner ring suburbs and then in my opinion worth the time as a municipal official to participate in has been a smoke and mirrors grad project for a long time. When we actually did represent the common shared interests of the metro area suburbs we were a vehicle of advancement and a leader in efficient suburban government, interests and needs that exist today that is not served.

Emails from Conan through March are an attempt to explain matters to his Board.  Evidently they had demanded more direct oversight of the finances of the organization.  There is also one sorrowful email from a vendor who had not been paid.  It is also made clear that by this time Conan and his chief deputy have been serving without paychecks, and she (Hayley Roberts) was evidently leaving to a paying position.

The County Presents an Alternative

In the context of all this, the option presented by the OCED department director position (posted August 1, 2016) must have seemed like a godsend. Conan sent a letter of application  dated August 11, 2016.  He must have talked to someone before sending it, because Mary Morgan sent her indignant letter to the full BOC as of August 15. Conan announced that he was resigning his seat (but not his place on the ballot) on August 16.  Conan communicated with his Board on August 17 that he would be applying and “If I am chosen, I will need to give my notice to Metro Matters.”

Things moved rather precipitously.  Edward Klobucher, City Manager of Hazel Park and the Chair of the Board, scheduled a Board meeting (to which Conan was not invited) for August 26.  “We will discuss the current situation with Metro Matters and hopefully chart a new course for the future.”  Klobucher met with Conan on August 30 to inform him that he was suspended and required to turn over all materials.   The last email available from Dave Askins’ FOIA indicated that the Board’s attorney (Brandon Fournier) had met with Conan’s attorney (David Blanchard) and they were discussing a separation agreement, with no comment for the media.

A Question of Leadership Style

As we reviewed in the previous post, there are two leadership styles that an administrator may adopt.  One is to make the mechanism run smoothly and see that everyone in the organization functions well and happily.  The other is to be the Big Picture, Big Ideas person, who seeks new frontiers and incidentally a certain place in the limelight.  There are, of course, overlaps; Big Picture people may run a perfectly good organization and good managers also have new ideas.  But the style will influence the direction of the organization profoundly.  It is clear, if not already from his history, then from his letter of application, that Conan Smith is the Big Picture – Big Ideas man.  The header of one important paragraph is Strategic Leadership to Achieve Big Goals.  The entire letter (except for the first three paragraphs, which are about his family history) fairly sparkles with his ambition and wish to grasp the department and even the entire County by the shoulders to rush up that mountain.  He also touts his extensive connections within the community.  Clearly he sees himself as a major player in the County and in the region.  It could be a very large presence for a new County Administrator to share space with.  I hope that the Board of Commissioners has the wisdom (and the votes!) to pass the resolution on next week’s agenda that will ask the Interim Administrator to hold off filling the position till a new Administrator can be named.

NOTE:  I did not include a link to the email texts that Dave Askins obtained by FOIA.  These are contained in Dropbox files and are somewhat difficult to read (they are text files, in Notepad).  Because of some comments, it seems that I need to provide substantiation for the statements that are based on these files.  This pdf has hyperlinks to the files, and also a summary of their content.

UPDATE: Mary Morgan will be publishing a follow-up to her previous letter in The Ann.  Presumably this link is to the article in the upcoming print edition.  (I have not received my copy, which is usually distributed in the New York Times, yet.)  She includes more inside information about the Conan Smith machinations and the County OCED position.  She also has some very apposite opinion points to make.

SECOND UPDATE: Today (October 12, 2016) Conan Smith notified officials at Washtenaw County that he was withdrawing his application to the OCED position.  As has been the case throughout this story, the former Chronicle personnel broke the story.
askins-tweet-out

THIRD UPDATE: Now the “official” version (Ann Arbor News, October 13, 2016).  Note that it states that there is only one other person under consideration for the post.

FOURTH UPDATE:  A new article, Ann Arbor News, October 17, 2016, includes an interview with the Chair of the BOC re the tangle surrounding the OCED position.

FIFTH UPDATE: An article by Mary Morgan in the October 2016 issue of The Ann magazine discusses a number of points at length, including more background, the ethics of the situation, and the effect on local civic participation. http://www.theannmag.com/drowning-in-a-shallow-candidate-pool/   It ends with a plea to vote on November 8.

SIXTH UPDATE: Andrea Plevek has been named the new OCED Director; here is the formal announcement from Washtenaw County.

Conan Smith was re-elected to his seat on the Board of Commissioners. He received 17029 votes (90.56%) to the 1776 write-in (Jen Eyer) votes (9.44%).

Categories: politics, Regional

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The County Leadership Quandary

September 30, 2016

Much of the current confusion on the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners comes down to this: they are attempting to resolve what the future direction of the County is, and what type of leadership should be on board to take it there. 

As we have remarked, the BOC failed to choose between two top candidates for County Administrator, and terminated the process in April 2016.  The resolution to do this  has a useful description of the quandary the BOC found themselves in. They had a “leadership assessment” done for each of their two top candidates, and then failed to reach a consensus among themselves as to which “style” was right for the County.  There was no indication that both candidates did not have the requisite experience and qualifications.  Rather, it had to do with the character of leadership each would bring to the position.

The resolution also includes a significant bit of history: the BOC first “spent a number of months looking at the various types of County government to insure that an appointed County Administrator was the best type of government for the citizens of Washtenaw County”.  In other words, whether to continue with the current structure in which an Administrator is hired by the BOC and answers to them; or an elected Executive who answers only to the voters county-wide.  (Washtenaw County has several top administrators who are elected county-wide, including the Treasurer, the Sheriff, the Prosecutor, and the Water Resources manager.)  Only a few counties in Michigan have an elected County Executive.  This has most often resulted in a near fiefdom and often the BOC has relatively little influence on policy.  L. Brooks Patterson, the CE of Oakland County, is the most notorious example.  Most other Michigan counties have the same structure as Washtenaw. Evidently the BOC decided to stay with the current structure.

So what would be the factors that might enter into the “leadership” question?  There are two choices:

Should our County government concentrate on fulfilling its obligations (the county has a mandate to provide most state- and Federal- directed and funded programs) and providing services to its residents and taxpayers?, or

Should the direction be to make the County Be Something – a more muscular approach in which the County sets a regional direction, initiates new programs, is the leader among local governments, gets noticed regionally, statewide or even nationally for innovation and economic success?

The leadership style of the executive is crucial to these two very different visions of what the county should be.  Do you want a good administrator who keeps the mechanism running smoothly, or a “big picture” person who is restless if not pursuing new ambitions and garnering new influence, new achievements, new visibility for the county and him/herself? Often the second version opens up opportunities for others and can contribute to growth and economic development.  But such leadership can be ruthless in where priorities are assigned, and it is often not to simple service delivery.

The decision looms

If the BOC is trying to choose between those two styles of leadership, no obvious choice for the aggressive leader jumps out from their four top candidates.  Those are Bob Tetens, the current head of Parks and Recreation; Muddasar Tawakkul, Director of compliance and purchasing for the Detroit­/Wayne County Mental Health Authority; Gregory Dill, the current Interim Administrator; and James Palenick, currently Director of economic & business development for Fayetteville, NC.  All of them have solid administrative credentials.  Tetens has a planning background and was previously the director of WATS (the body that oversees transportation planning for Washtenaw County).  He has been a well-respected top administrator at the County for well over a decade and can be expected to have a breadth of understanding of County government.  Dill has been in a variety of County administrative positions, including with the Sheriff’s department, and at one time was in charge of building programs in the County.  Tawakkul is an attorney and has had a number of high-power assignments; his technical knowledge is evidently impressive.  Palenick has a long varied resume from many locations (he has moved around a lot) but at one time long ago was the Dexter Village manager.  It is difficult to see why any of them should be the “visionary” type of manager, though Palenick hints that he views himself that way; “I sincerely believe that I can bring the kind of innovative and strategic leadership that Washtenaw County needs and demands at this time in its organizational evolution”.

As we have detailed, the process is now on fast track and a decision will be made on October 19.

Another piece of the puzzle

But another factor in County leadership is still pending.  That is the opening for the Director of the Office of Community and Economic Development.  As described in the last two posts, the conclusion of that search is still pending.  The question was partly whether Greg Dill, as the Interim Administrator, would choose to fill it before a final decision on the County Administrator.

The OCED position is one of the most powerful of the appointed department chairs.  It is the result of combining three former departments and administers a great many Federally funded programs.  Its previous director, Mary Jo Callan, exerted a great deal of leadership and caused the County to conduct a major study of inequality (of income, housing, circumstance) in the county which has been used as a basis for new policies.  The director of this department, if appointed prior to the hiring of a permanent administrator, could compete with a new administrator in setting directions.

Conan Smith’s application for this position has brought the decision into high focus, as already described, partly because he was a sitting Commissioner.  Smith has been influential on the BOC in the past; he has been Chair in a couple of terms. Now he has resigned his seat – but may be re-elected come November! and meanwhile, it is evident that he has also lost his long-time (well-paid) position as the executive director of a nonprofit organization (Michigan Suburbs Alliance).   All of this is happening in the mix of decisions to be made about the direction of the County as determined by choice of its chief Administrator.  More detail on this melodrama in the next post.

 

Categories: politics, Regional

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The County Saga Continues: the Search for a County Administrator

September 19, 2016

Washtenaw County’s Board of Commissioners are finding themselves in the public view.  Now they are providing more transparency about the County Administrator search.

In our last post, Breaking News when the News is Broke,  we tell how Mary Morgan broke the story of the vacant opening for a high-paying, high-responsibility County staff position (Director, Office of Community and Economic Development, or OCED) and the effort by a sitting commissioner, Conan Smith, to apply for that position while retaining his seat as a commissioner, with her open letter to the BOC, posted on Facebook.  As we commented in a series of three posts about the difficulty in getting local news in Ann Arbor, it has been difficult to learn what is happening at the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, at least through news media.

Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, 2014-2016. Conan Smith at far right with mouth slightly open.

Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, 2014-2016. Conan Smith at far right.

Possibly because of Mary’s coverage (and we helped publicize it), the BOC seems to have wakened up a bit and they are now addressing some pending issues with alacrity. Things happened pretty fast after the potential conflict of a sitting commissioner applying for a staff job was highlighted on social media.  Conan Smith resigned as the Commissioner for District 9. (Coverage by the Ann Arbor News.) The BOC held a very open process for applications to fill the seat.  Jen Eyer was appointed by a unanimous vote.  (See previous post for updates.)  But whoops.  Smith is still on the ballot for November.  As detailed in the followup in the News,  he could still be the District 9 commissioner in January.  The newly appointed commissioner and possibly some others will be on the ballot as write-ins.  Whether Cmr. Eyer can surmount the considerable obstacles to winning as a write-in in a Presidential year (especially since Michigan has a straight-party option for voters) is yet to be seen.

The Search for A County Administrator

The question of Conan Smith’s seat as a County Commissioner has been resolved for the near term. But the matter of timing and overlap into next year still persists with respect to the conflict of interest between his appointment to the OCED position and the appointment by the BOC of a new County Administrator.  As things stand, Acting Administrator Greg Dill could at any time propose to hire Smith into the lucrative staff position.  (We explained the different roles of the BOC and the Administrator in the last post.)  But Mr. Dill is himself subject to review and appointment by the BOC if he is to be hired as the permanent Administrator.  So this presents a couple of scenarios:

I would like to make it clear that I am not alleging in what follows that Greg Dill would behave unethically by making such an appointment solely with regard to his own advantage.  In fact, this situation puts him into a difficult position.

  1. Dill makes a decision about the OCED position before January.  He chooses Smith.  Smith will then resign his seat as a commissioner in January and the BOC will appoint his successor.  Smith himself has no influence on whether Dill is hired before or after January.
  2. Dill makes a decision about the OCED position before January. He chooses another person to fill the position other than Smith. Smith resumes his seat as Commissioner.  He has a role in the decision to hire Dill after January, but not if the Administrator position is filled before then.

Actually, Scenario 1 is not without its dangers for Dill.  The other commissioners will presumably evaluate his handling of this situation as they make a decision about the Administrator position.  (Until recently, it was not known whether Dill was a candidate for the permanent Administrator slot.)

Note: the position description for the OCED position is no longer on the County website, and the other applicants for the job are not publicly known.

Down to Business

Fortunately for all around, the BOC has moved with some alacrity to resolve this situation.  On September 14, they voted in a resolution that will resolve the question of the County Administrator with a definitive choice by October 19, 2016. A position vacancy was opened August 13-September 13.  There were quite a few applicants. Greg Dill is one of them. Application packets and information about the process are posted here. 

The process calls for Corporation Counsel (Curtis Hedger) and Human Resources (presumably Diane Heidt) to do a first-round elimination of some candidates from the list. (Such initial sifting usually is done on the basis of obvious suitability in terms of background and experience for the position.  It is usually quite neutral with regard to personal attributes.)  The survivors will then be scored according to qualities pertaining to six aspects of performance.   The BOC will vote to include 4 finalists on September 21, presumably at their regular business meeting.  (It has not yet made it onto the agenda.)  Meanwhile, there is an effort to obtain public comment.

Interviews with the finalists will be at a special meeting on October 15.  (Begins at 8:00 am. The public is invited!)  The commissioners will, wisely, not vote on that day.  The interviews will evidently be taped and made available for viewing.  On October 19 (a regular scheduled meeting), the BOC will “vote” on the four finalists.  The mechanism is very subtle – rather than a show of hands at the meeting, each Commissioner will submit his/her top choice to the Clerk ahead of time.  If no candidate has the majority of the “votes”, the BOC will continue with a straw vote (show of hands) until a majority is reached for a candidate.  They will then vote on the formal resolution to hire a new County Administrator and direct the Corporation Counsel to negotiate an employment contract.   Neat and tidy!

The list of applicants to be considered is long – very long.  There are 31. List here. I’m curious about how the notice was phrased and how it was distributed.  Some of the applicants are startlingly under-qualified.   “Cashier at CVS in Southgate” “Maintenance/grounds employee for University of Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods”.  Some candidates evidently have more suitable backgrounds, but perhaps a spotty job history.  “Not currently employed. Former city administrator for several Michigan communities, including Ecorse, Middleville, Homer and Battle Creek.”  But there are a number of suitable candidates, including the former top two finalists (Muddasar Tawakkul and Bob Tetens) and the current Interim Administrator (Greg Dill).  There are also Michael Norman , County administrator for Branch County, Michigan, and Larry Collins, City of Ann Arbor Fire Chief (oh oh).  I’m not listing several others who might pass that first filter; evidently the BOC will have a good list of finalists to choose from.

It will be a relief to see the resolution of this first half of the uncertainty around the situation created by Conan Smith’s move to secure a high-placed County position.  It’s good to see the Commissioners move so resolutely.

UPDATE: An item has been added to the Board of Commissioners agenda for September 21, under Report of the Chair:

D. A resolution to address the hiring process surrounding the Director of Washtenaw County’s Office of Community and Economic Development

NOTE: Apparently this was postponed till October 5, per Mary Morgan’s post from the September 21 meeting.

We’ll stay tuned.

A list of top candidates with scores made by Yousef Rabhi

A list of top candidates with scores made by Yousef Rabhi

SECOND UPDATE: (September 21, 2016)  A conversation on Facebook (where else?) reveals the top 4 candidates for County Administrator.  It includes the former top two contenders along with the current Interim County Administrator.  The image is of the candidates ranked by scores, from the hand of Yousef Rabhi (posted on Mary Morgan’s Facebook post).  They’ll be interviewed on October 15 as described above.

THIRD UPDATE: (September 26, 2016) Those who follow Dave Askins’ Twitter account were treated today with access to images of the letters of application to the OCED position.  Dave had done a FOIA to obtain them and he has now made them available on DropBox.  We will try to provide detail in another post.  NOTE: See From Drama to Melodrama: Washtenaw County and Conan Smith.

POSTSCRIPT: (October 20, 2016) The BOC met as scheduled and selected Greg Dill as the permanent administrator.  Here is the Ann Arbor News report.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories: politics

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Breaking News When the News is Broke

September 5, 2016

All about a major political tangle that has scarcely been noted in the news.  But consequences for the future of our local Washtenaw County government could be profound.

As we’ve been saying – we are sadly short of local news coverage now.  In the last post, we suggested that a number of sources can be consulted to learn what is happening locally.  Some may have thought that the suggestion of Facebook was a bit ridiculous.  But in fact, that was the source of breaking news about local politics just recently.   And Twitter followed after.

OK, to some extent this was cheating.  Remember the much lamented Ann Arbor Chronicle?  Apparently, though Mary Morgan and Dave Askins have closed their newspaper, they haven’t quite given up on local news.  Mary has, in fact, founded a new enterprise,  The CivCity Initiative, which aims to engage citizens with their local government.  The methodology is complex but the point is that citizens will be informed and will then involve themselves in issues, and will vote reliably in local elections.  Dave has other pursuits but, based on his tweets, has not lost his curiosity or his reporter’s habit of burrowing down under the surface.  So both of them are remaining connected to the currents running through our local governments.  (That is, the Ann Arbor City Council and the Board of Commissioners [BOC] of Washtenaw County .)

Washtenaw County is a layer of government that was seldom covered by the Ann Arbor News.  It was the “invisible layer” of local government until Mary Morgan offered full reporting on the Chronicle.  Evidently she has not lost an interest in the County, and has retained some of her contacts. Thus, it was on Facebook that Mary first revealed her letter to the BOC about a strange situation. She had learned that Conan Smith, who for some years has been the commissioner representing the west side of Ann Arbor (District 9), was evidently maneuvering to be appointed to an open staff position.  In the letter, she expressed in the strongest terms how unsuitable it is for a sitting commissioner to be applying for a highly-paid staff position while also serving as an elected commissioner. “It is an obvious ethical problem when an official seeks a publicly funded, highly compensated staff job while still in a position of power and authority over the person responsible for hiring that job”.  Within a few days,  Smith announced that he was resigning from his seat. (This one event was reported by the Ann Arbor News, though without the background.)

The position Smith is applying for is as the Executive Director of the Office of Community and Economic Development.  This is one of the most powerful and important offices in the County.  It also carries a salary in the neighborhood of $120,000 per year.  The department was the result of merging three different County departments in the not too distant past.  It dispenses Federal grant dollars to many disparate programs, especially in housing and economic development.

It is necessary to understand the power relationships in order to comprehend all facets of the situation.  The BOC has the power to hire exactly one person at the County: the County Administrator.  All other hires are the responsibility (and under the authority) of the County Administrator.  The County Administrator runs the mechanism of the County.  In theory, he/she can be fired by the BOC if the job is not done well.  (Hardly ever happens; this is the “nuclear option”.)  But this time is different.

The last County Administrator, Verna McDaniel,  retired early last year.  She then spent some months as a consulting replacement, supposedly while the BOC found a replacement.  Indeed, the BOC interviewed candidates and narrowed to two.  (The current acting administrator, Gregory Dill evidently applied but withdrew, probably because he was not encouraged to continue.)  Then, in an outstanding failure of leadership, the BOC failed to choose one of the two candidates.  In a special meeting (translation: one in which the public was not adequately informed), they abandoned the search process and appointed Gregory Dill as interim acting administrator.

So here is the situation: Greg Dill can be terminated at any time by the BOC.  But he is likely the person who would choose the ED for the OCED.  And if he tries in the near future to be hired by the BOC as the permanent County Administrator, one of their number who has been quite influential in the past is the leading candidate.  There is a Chinese finger puzzle element to this.

So why would Conan be so anxious to obtain this position?  One can only speculate that not all is going well in his current job.  He has since 2002 been the ED of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance.  (Recently, the organization has been transmogrifying itself into “Metro Matters”.  Detroit is much sexier now than “the suburbs”. ) His salary there has been in the neighborhood of $120,000 – about the same range as the OCED spot.  I’ve often wondered why the Detroit suburbs were willing to support this organization, which is basically an economic development shop paid for from municipal budgets of several Detroit-area communities.  Possibly it is getting shaky.

All in all, a questionable situation and one that should not be supported by the BOC.  But that body has shown some pronounced tendencies recently toward cronyism and has failed to act in a number of high-responsibility situations (the administrator position being only the most recent).  Mary Morgan, in her letter, said it best:

Over the years I’ve frequently observed the willingness of public officials to look the other way when someone who’s part of their political or social network crosses ethical lines. When this kind of casual corruption takes place at the local level – when there are no repercussions – then such behavior becomes part of the accepted political culture. It spreads to all levels of government, and leads to even greater corruption, which correlates with distrust and disengagement of the electorate. When we see it happening, we must speak out.

The Ballot Issue

So has Conan Smith resolved ethical conflicts by resigning his seat?  Not quite.  Because he announced this after the August primary (in which he was unopposed), his name is still on the ballot for November.  So by doing nothing, he will once again be a County Commissioner in January.  He has risked nothing.  If he gets the OCED job, he can resign in January and the BOC can appoint a replacement.  If he doesn’t get it, he is back in his seat – and in a position to make a decision as to whether Greg Dill can succeed to a permanent position as County Administrator.

Meanwhile, the BOC (as they must) announced that Smith’s seat was open for appointment.  A number of District 9 residents have announced their interest.

Bob King

Michael Miller, Jr.

Charlotte Jameson

Elizabeth V. Janovic

Jen Eyer

Jeremy Peters

Daniel Ezekiel

Mike Henry

According to the initial announcement, this appointment is to be made on September 7.  But a review of the BOC agenda does not indicate that this decision is on the agenda.  There is a rumor that there may indeed be a special session in place of the Working Session (September 8).  Oh, the odor of gunpowder.  Those who are familiar with the Ann Arbor community will recognize several of these names, and there will be organizing on behalf of some of them.  Of course, since the meeting is not being properly noticed, only those who are “in” will know to be there and involved.

But once appointed, what will this newly seated commissioner do about January?  If Conan Smith doesn’t get his desired job, he’ll be the commissioner again.  If he once again resigns, the BOC will have to go through the appointment routine.  Could politics cause a switch-out?

Could a write-in candidate win?

District 9 mapOne option would be for aspiring commissioners (appointed or not) to declare themselves as write-in candidates on the November ballot.  This is not a hopeless situation.  I myself was involved in a race where the write-in won.  But it takes organization.  Campaigning in District 9 would be necessary, and the public would really have to be informed of the situation, as well as about the candidate.  How does one get the word out, in a town with no news coverage?

Put it on Twitter, of course.

LWV District 9UPDATE: In response to the posting of this article on Nextdoor, LWV-AA President Nancy Schewe provided confirmation and scheduling for the forum.

lwv-sched-ndSECOND UPDATE: The BOC has now posted a notice of a special meeting on September 8 at 6:35 p.m.  “The Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners will be interviewing applicants for,
then selecting and appointing a sole candidate for District 9 Commissioner.”  There was a Working Session scheduled at 6:30; it is likely they will convene it, then vote to adjourn in favor of the special meeting.

THIRD UPDATE: Dave Askins kindly supplied this link to the application materials from candidates for the District 9 position.

NOTE: The letter written by Mary Morgan to the BOC (August 15) appeared in the September issue of The Ann magazine as a commentary.  Good to see it in a print medium.

FOURTH UPDATE: The Ann Arbor News woke up and covered the BOC meeting where candidates were interviewed and spoke.  They appointed Jen Eyer, a former reporter for the News.  Notably, the News deleted two comments that I made on a previous story to link to this blog post.  Could there be a little sensitivity there?  I have been critical.

FIFTH UPDATE: (September 30, 2016) Dave Askins has published (via Dropbox, on Twitter) a set of excerpts from a FOIA he sent to the City of Southfield.  Southfield has been one of the funders of Conan Smith’s long-time agency, the Michigan Suburbs Alliance.  The FOIA includes a number of emails to and from Conan Smith by the MSA board.  They document thoroughly that his employment with that organization is at an end.  Most of the emails are procedural (the correspondents are mostly bureaucrats).  But some colorful expression breaks through.  From Steve Duchane, City of Eastpointe: “when I examine the record of deliverables over the past three years it is impossible to find one solid accomplishment while records of money spent on pizza are clearly available”.

 

Categories: politics

Comments: 5 Comments

The Placemaking Agenda and Ann Arbor Politics

July 30, 2014

The Placemaking Agenda and its corollary, the New Economy Paradigm, are on the Ann Arbor ballot this August.

For a decade or more, Ann Arbor’s city politics have been driven by two contrasting views of its future. While political contests have sometimes revolved around personalities and personal loyalties, the crucial question underlying almost every race has been that of what kind of community Ann Arbor will be in the future and who (or specifically, what groups) will benefit from that future direction.  At the heart of this divide is the emergence of the Placemaking Agenda.

As has been well discussed here in the past, the traditional party divide (Democratic vs. Republican) is of little value in understanding Ann Arbor politics, since nearly all the action takes place in the Democratic primary.  But there is a real divide, not only in ideology but in the political actors.  This has been thrown into sharp contrast by a recent analysis in the Ann Arbor Chronicle.  What is unusual about this analysis is that, rather than displaying the candidates and those who donated to them, it lists prominent political actors and their donations to individual candidates.   The Chronicle, true to its fastidious ways, avoids attaching labels to the two factions.  But it does note that the candidates of one faction are endorsed by the Michigan Talent Agenda.

Michigan Talent Agenda endorsed candidates:

Christopher Taylor – Mayor

Don Adams – 1st Ward

Kirk Westphal – 2nd Ward

Julie Grand – 3rd Ward

 

The Talent Agenda

Lou Glazer is the founder of Michigan Future, Inc.

Lou Glazer is the founder of Michigan Future, Inc.

This sounds off-hand like something related to the entertainment industry.  But actually it is related to a drive to replace Michigan’s fading manufacturing-based economy with a “knowledge-based”, i.e., information technology-based, digital-age economy. This has been very clearly enunciated by a recent report, The New Path to Prosperity, from Michigan Future, Inc.  What Michigan Future says directly that it wants to achieve is a high personal per capita income, and not a high employment rate. From the report:

Our answer: a high-prosperity Michigan—a place with a per capita personal income consistently above the national average in both national economic expansions and contractions…Places with low unemployment rates, but also lower personal income, aren’t successful to us.

How is this to be achieved?  By bringing in the young “talent” who can participate in the knowledge-based economy, either as entrepreneurs or simply the needed workforce.  The key is to make our area a place where they want to be.  By increasing the attraction of the place, it will be transformed into a New Economy.  That is the kernel of the Placemaking Agenda.

Placemaking

The origins of the placemaking conception are lovable and sweet.  As explained by the Project for Public Spaces, placemaking as a word and concept grew out of the movement to create shared public spaces where a sense of community could be built.  It comes from the environmental movement and emphasizes a connection with nature and other people.  It calls for places where people can move around freely (pedestrian access), with shared activities, often artistic, joyful, and nurturing.  Pictures usually involve lots of young children. It is about places where the human family is at home.  A good Ann Arbor representation of this would be FestiFools, which takes over Main Street for a couple of days each year.

It also connects to the idea of the sense of place.  As we described in our previous post, this is a consciousness of what our community looks and feels like in a whole sense. This comprehensive environment can affect our experience of life.  A recent MIT review has an excellent history of placemaking as part of the evolution of an urban sensibility (see the second chapter).

But the word has been taken over to mean a formula to create an attractive location that has economic benefits. Michigan State University has established an entire department, the Land Policy Institute, around this concept.  As one would expect, it has generated a number of academic studies, workshops, etc. A substantive data-driven study by LPI, Drivers of Economic Performance (BIG file!) lists a number of elements as increasing desirability of a location.  It also unequivocally pairs placemaking with the New Economy (emphasis theirs).  “…the New Economy has created a scenario where people move to places with high endowments of amenities, and jobs follow.”  LPI has now published a study on placemaking that contains this triumph of plannerspeak:

Placemaking can be defined as the development or redevelopment of value-added real estate that integrates essential elements of local and regional allure (e.g., mixed use, walkability, green spaces, energy efficiency) to generate an improved quality of life, a higher economic impact for the community, enhanced property tax revenue and better return to the developer and investors, while minimizing negative environmental and social impacts.

(You’ll notice that we have shifted ground from the soft and fuzzy to the real estate.)

Beginning with Jennifer Granholm’s Cool Cities campaign (2003), the emphasis has been on making cities places that will attract the young, especially young professionals who are members of what Richard Florida called the “creative class”.  The idea was that if you make the city a place these valued workers want to live, they’ll flock in and create a positive economic environment for all.  Here are some of the most commonly cited attributes:

  • Walkability
  • Transportation alternatives (transit, bicycling)
  • Third places (places to hang out; cue the “vibrant downtown”)
  • Green infrastructure (parks, etc.)
  • Active public spaces with things to do
  • Cultural amenities, including public art
  • Attractive built environment (including historic buildings)
  • Environmental sensitivity, such as energy efficiency

Want to hear this beautifully explained by a current candidate?  Here is Christopher Taylor’s statement on behalf of  “the young”.

Glazer and his group have been very influential in setting the state agenda for economic development based on Talent.  Governor Rick Snyder, whose professional career was grounded in the field of information technology (he was the Chairman of Gateway Computers, which he left in 1997), has embraced the objectives and language of this “New Economy” effort.   The core concept is that Michigan must create the types of communities and regions (through Placemaking) that will attract Talent.  As MIPlace.org (supported by a consortium) highlights, Snyder has emphasized “place-based governance”, or more simply, “placemaking” from the beginning.  Here are some excerpts from his address to the Legislature in 2011:

Today, I am announcing our next steps to help communities build the kind of places that will enable them to compete in a global economy.

  • Establish a process for evaluating the performance of economic development and placemaking activities.
  • Encourage new initiatives that support local and regional programs involved in economic development and placemaking.
  • Promote best practices for local and regional economic development and for placemaking activities.

Michigan government has indeed gone through some realignment in these directions.  Here is an interview on Bridge Magazine of Gary Heidel, “Chief Placemaking Officer” of MSHDA.  He explains:

The idea behind placemaking is simple: By improving the quality of life in downtowns and neighborhoods you will create more walkability, which will attract talent, creating jobs and economic development…Quality of life investments from both the public and private sectors focus on housing, mixed use, transportation, public spaces and recreation, entrepreneurialism, historic preservation, arts and culture.

Now MSHDA, the Michigan State Housing Development Authority,  is the state agency that is supposed to “create and preserve safe and decent affordable housing”.  But it is now providing personnel and funds to promote placemaking.  It is, for example, one of the supporters of Concentrate magazine.  We reviewed a speaker event that was sponsored by MSHDA via Concentrate in 2010.  Here is a report from MSHDA that seeks to integrate MSHDA’s traditional responsibilities with placemaking.

Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. It influences business development and expansion decisions, inspires downtown revitalization and historic preservation, builds community identity and pride of place, promotes diversity and stimulates the growth of creative enterprise. Placemaking has long been a key organizing idea behind MSHDA’s community development projects. Together with our many partners, we invest in Michigan communities to:  Enhance the quality of life of our residents; To attract and retain businesses, entrepreneurs and workers throughout the state. Place-based economic development—creating vibrant, sustainable communities—is a winning economic strategy that will provide the foundation for a new Michigan.

If one skims through the numerous memos available on the MSHDA website, it is evident that this “placemaking” dictum has penetrated even to the most basic of affordable housing funding applications, including the CDBG and LIHTC.  The 2015-2016 Qualified Allocation Plan description lists “A strengthened focus on project location and placemaking concepts” as the first item in priority changes.  To that end, it indicates further in the document that projects will have to submit WalkScores (walkability) and distance from the nearest transit stop.

The MSHDA details are illustrative of how a ruling paradigm can overtake an entire governmental substructure.  There are many more examples and policy issues that could be brought forward.  Quite a few of them can be seen resonating through Council actions of the last decade.  Just one example: Percent for Art was launched with many public statements that Art would make us into a community that would attract the Right People. (As the guy said in the movie, “but that’s another story”.)

The Golden Future – but for whom?

As with any political agenda, there are likely to be winners and losers with this one.  While not voiced fully, those opposing the “talent agenda” candidates have identified some of the issues.  Who will benefit from bringing in this favored demographic via the potential cost in public money and altered community priorities?

Some of the supporters of the “talent agenda ” candidates have derided opponents as being old fuddy-duddys who don’t want anything to change.  Joan Lowenstein, for example, is the gift that keeps giving.  From labeling residents as “sulky”,  and then elderly, she has now moved on to “prissy”.  But doesn’t classic economic theory suppose that people act according to their own best interests?

There are many more reservations about the “talent agenda” than a simple resistance to change or the wish to be able to stay in one’s home in a nice community.  What kinds of people do we want to support in Ann Arbor?  Do we only want to make this an affluent community or do we want to retain our diversity of incomes and occupations?  This is a regional question as well as a city-based one, but one reason I personally moved to the 5th Ward is its yeasty mix of all kinds of people.  I love our little houses (and bigger houses) with people from all walks of life.

Why am I bringing out this populist theme?  Because the New Economy folks are pretty unambiguous that the point is to make wealth, not to make a diverse community.

The report from LPI cited above also has this paragraph:

Increased creative class employment is associated with positive population change and higher per capita income. This is consistent with previous findings (Adelaja et al., 2009). However, creative class employment is associated with a lower resident employment level. This indicates that the greater the percentage of professionals employed in the creative class, the better the community’s potential for future population and income growth, but not resident employment levels.  (see p. 44)

Get that? Current residents will not see a positive increase in employment.  This is consistent with an article by Richard Florida (yes, the Creative Class guru).  What is now being called “talent clustering” is beneficial to the talent class but not to service and blue-collar workers.  Indeed, they suffer because of higher housing and other costs.  Florida concludes,  “It’s not just a vicious cycle but an unsustainable one — economically, politically, and morally.”  And this is the guy who originated the whole Creative Class idea!

If you reread the statement by Glazer and Grimes, you’ll note that  the point is not jobs, not employment, but an opportunity for high levels of personal wealth.  (Note that a high per capita income is an average and can be driven by a small percentage of very high incomes, while a median income figure would better denote the income status of the population as a whole.)  So it appears that the “Talent Agenda” is quite inequitable.

Something to think about before voting in a Democratic primary.

NOTE:  All but one of the “placemaking” candidates won the primary (Don Adams did not succeed in toppling the First Ward incumbent, Sumi Kailasapathy).  Like every political race, reasons for these results are complex and vary with each contest.  For example, Christopher Taylor far outspent any of his rivals, and there was a three-way race in the Third Ward.  We can’t draw any conclusions about the weight of the placemaking agenda in this outcome.

UPDATE: A post by Washtenaw County planner Nathan Voght, writing on Concentrate magazine, makes a forthright argument for placemaking.

Why is creating “places” a key to transformation of the corridor? Millennials and Baby Boomers together make up the largest segment of the population. Attracting and retaining these age groups is critical to building communities now and in the future, as Millennials will make up most of the work force and represent the future of the economy, and Boomers are downsizing, looking for walkable places with amenities, and have disposable cash. These segments are driving a shift in housing and quality of life that “places” provide, where access to transit, downtowns, and walkable communities is the highest priority.

Voght is the manager for Reimagine Washtenaw, which has incorporated plans for transit-oriented development of denser housing alongside the corridor.  However, it seeks to create the walkable community in an area where most people will be living only to travel elsewhere (downtowns and employment centers) to work and shop.

SECOND UPDATE:  A thoughtful article in The Guardian warns against the cool city push (another way to express the placemaking agenda).    It calls this “policy-making by tribalism” and points out that often tangible benefits to people who actually live in a city are ignored.  From the article:

Those benefits are the heart of the matter, though, and city planners should not limit themselves to the things that will attract young, well-educated people. Their central focus should be to make their cities more affordable and diversified than they were before. When the focus of city governance shifts away from winning spots on magazine lists and towards useful service provision for as many constituents as possible – cool people, uncool people and the vast, middlingly cool majority – the US will finally have the urban renaissance it has been promised.

THIRD UPDATE: An article in Bridge online magazine updates some of the demographics (yes, young people are moving out of Michigan).  The reason could be – jobs!  Some interesting comments also point to Michigan politics and lack of civic infrastructure.

 

Categories: Basis, politics

Comments: 7 Comments

Moving Us Forward: The Urban Core Expansion Plan

October 26, 2013
Click on the thumbnail to see both sides of flyer. Similar flyers for other wards.

Click on the thumbnail to see both sides of flyer. Similar flyers for other wards.

The Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority is moving forward with a new Five-Year Plan for expanded services.  They describe this plan on their recently remodeled website and have been conducting public meetings all over Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. In the meeting I attended, emphasis was given to local (5th ward) routes and enhancements in detail.  The flyer at the right lists many specific route changes.  (There was a surprisingly vigorous discussion, with one current bus user objecting to some of the “enhancements”.)  Clearly, much planning and fine-tuning has gone into the proposal.

The map below shows detail about enhancements in the Ann Arbor area.  (Similar maps are available on the website for the Ypsilanti and Pittsfield areas.)  Here are a few quick points about the changes:

  • New routes are shown in blue, old ones green.  Express Routes purple.
  • Note that most of the new routes are on the west side of Ann Arbor.  (These have letter designations instead of numbers, but this is temporary.)
  • Routes “leak” outside the borders of the City of Ann Arbor, with excursions into Scio and Pittsfield Townships. Scio Township is not participating in the Urban Core plan but a bus would run along Jackson Avenue to Zeeb Road.
  • There is no expanded service into Ann Arbor Township on the northeast side, despite the complex of medical services and offices at Domino’s Farms in that area.
  • There are several Express Routes shown, including the present ones to Chelsea and Canton, and new ones to Belleville and the Walmart/Saline complex on Michigan Avenue.
Proposed enhancements for Ann Arbor area. Click for larger image.

Proposed enhancements for Ann Arbor area. Click for larger image.

In my judgment, there are many reasons to say this is a lovely plan on functional grounds.  For example, the plan allows people from Ann Arbor to seek employment at Meijer and presumably makes all the commercial and nonprofit  (like the family shelter) opportunities accessible.  Some of the commercial spots in Pittsfield, like Costco and Walmart, plus the Pittsfield library branch, are also made accessible.  It is rather concerning, however, that the northeast side of Ann Arbor and the WCC/St. Joe’s area appear to be receiving no enhancements.

So, as is always the question: how will this expanded system be paid for?  As we indicated in our previous post, the City of Ypsilanti has joined the authority and Ypsilanti Township has requested to join.  Pittsfield Township and Superior Township will apparently just maintain their current POSA contracts, while Scio Township and Ann Arbor Township have declined to play.  The City of Saline is also a nonparticipant.

As was explained at the meeting, a major cost of implementing the plan will be buying new buses.  Most of the buses in the existing fleet were purchased with Federal funds, but for a variety of technical reasons those won’t be available to expand service. improve and expandAll this will not happen without a major infusion of cash.  As we reported earlier, there was an informal consensus at the “Urban Core Meetings” that the “Improve & Expand” option was to be selected.  According to the description offered, that option will require an annual additional revenue of $5.4 million by 2019 (the last year of the Five-Year Plan). (Since Pittsfield and Saline are not participating, the actual figure is not clear.)  Much money is needed to start up. The planner, Michael Benham, stated, “We’re using every cent we’ve got right now.”   So where will the cash come from?

It is an open secret that AAATA hopes the answer will be a new authority-wide millage.  (The authority is expected to include Ypsilanti Township, along with Ann Arbor and the City of Ypsilanti, the two current members of AAATA.)  The number mentioned is 0.7 mills, to be approved by voters in May 2014.

So as explained in the public meeting, Year One of the Five-Year Plan will begin in August 2014, assuming that a millage passes through the entire authority in May 2014.  This was not obvious, since the assessment and tax cycle has various milestones.  A November millage vote would not provide revenue until the succeeding year.  However, since taxes are paid every July, the May vote will deliver the needed revenue in the same year as the ballot.

AAATA is currently on a charm offensive, with many meetings with local officials and the public meetings.  Although officials have been careful to say that the AAATA board has not yet authorized a millage vote, it is clear that that is in our future.  But the outcome is not certain.  Will voters endorse the plan with their dollars?

UPDATE: AAATA has now released electronic versions of flyers for all Ann Arbor wards.  Here they are.Ward 1 Ward 2  Ward 3  Ward 4  Ward 5

NOTE: A list of previous posts on this topic can be found on the Transportation Page.

Categories: civic finance, politics, Regional, Transportation

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