A2Politico: Ann Arbor Politics Grilled To Perfection

February 8, 2010

The Politics of Priorities: Firefighters, Police or Capital Improvements?

Filed under: money — Tags: A2Politico, AnnArbor.com, Budget Impact, Economic Development Fund, Eli Cooper, Fuller Intermodal Trasportation Station, Mayor Hieftje, Patricia Lesko, Roger Fraser, Securities and Exchange Commission — A2 Politico @ 10:13 pm

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On Sunday February 7, 2010, citizens read in AnnArbor.com that our City’s General Fund is projected to come up $5.2 million dollars short due to falling property tax revenue. The bulk of the cuts proposed to close the fiscal gap will impact public safety. City officials informed taxpayers that, “On the chopping block are 20 positions in the Fire Department and 17 in the Police Department.”

Cutting emergency and other citizen services is an absolutely unacceptable and unnecessary solution to closing this projected gap in the budget. We should also remember that since 2003 City Administrator Roger Fraser has repeatedly predicted there will be losses in the General Fund, and when the actual numbers have come in, the city’s General Fund has registered surpluses. The only exception was 2009, when Fraser projected a $10.4 million dollar General Fund deficit related to the early retirement of 27 police officers, and the cost of the police/courts building. That projected loss was inflated by $2 million dollars. Such consistent inflation of losses brings into question the budgeting processes used, as well as the fiscal assumptions relied upon by the City Administrator when making budget predictions. This is a serious issue that needs to be resolved.

I have over 20 years of experience in finance as the CEO of a national higher education publishing group headquartered in Ann Arbor. I’ve studied the City’s budget, its audited financial statements, as well the Budget Impact document released to City Council members on Friday February 5th. There’s an obvious alternative to cutting services in order to close that budget gap.”

Cut Capital Improvement Projects NOT Police and Firefighters

The City’s Economic Development Fund is slated to contribute over $5 million dollars for the Fuller Intermodal Trasportation Station (FITS). Thus far, the only source of revenue for the Economic Development Fund has been a $2.1 million dollar transfer from the General Fund. The City’s General Fund pays for our emergency services. FITS was described in the Ann Arbor Observer by the city’s Transportation Director, Eli Cooper, and by the Mayor, as a gamble. I’m not a gambling woman when the safety of our citizens and the jobs of our police and firefighters are on the line. At the moment, FITS is a proposed 1,000 car parking garage for U of M, bus stop, and parking for a few bikes. Our city doesn’t have the cash on hand to partner with the University on the FITS project. It’s irresponsible to lay off police and firefighters so that millions can be diverted from the General Fund to the Economic Development Fund to pay for a parking garage for U of M employees and visitors. The remaining money in the Economic Development Fund should be transferred back to the General Fund.

When the current administration approved the police/court facility bonds in 2008, Ann Arborites were assured the projected expenditure wouldn’t impact the delivery of services. Today, thanks to the city’s inability to sell a parcel of land included in the project’s financing package, the project faces a $3 million dollar shortfall. In 2009, Ann Arbor lost 27 police officers through $6.7 million dollar early retirement offer—some of our most experienced police officers. It’s time to economize significantly, wherever possible, on the design, finishes and furnishings of the police/court facility, and to look for additional savings on that project. In addition, the downtown library underground garage project should be suspended. It represents an absolutely unnecessary capital expenditure.”

If elected, I will work to pull the plug on the downtown library lot garage and re-purpose the bond money to rebuild the Stadium bridges. According to what I’ve been told by state-level officials on the Transportation Committee, there is simply no money coming out of Lansing for that bridge reconstruction project. According to officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission, those bonds can be re-purposed. If we suspended the library underground garage project, we could use part of the bond money to repair the Stadium bridges, invest, then repay the remaining bond money after the mandatory five-year waiting period. Road millage money would then be freed up for rebuilding our crumbling streets. Ann Arbor has the third worst roads in Michigan.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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February 6, 2010

The Politics of the PTO: A Stranger Is Just A Friend You Haven’t Met

Filed under: boards and commissions — Tags: boards, commissions volunteers, Mayoral appointments, PTO — A2 Politico @ 7:00 am

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Several years ago, when my eldest first began grade school, I attended a PTO meeting, looked around the table, and didn’t see a single parent of color among the six or seven people there. Since the school has a large non-white population, I wondered why there seemed to be little PTO participation from the wider community of parents, not just parents of color, but people from the larger community of parents from U of M’s North Campus Housing, folks from around the world. When it came time to rustle up volunteers for an upcoming event, I said I would stand in front of the school, if need be, and buttonhole parents as they dropped off their kids. I did just that, and found that most of the parents whom I approached were willing (if not always able).

I soon came to realize that the problem wasn’t a lack of interest on the part of the school’s parents, but that the long-time volunteer PTO parents were so busy keeping the PTO afloat, that reaching out to people other than those whom they knew was forever falling to the bottom of the to-do list. It happens in organizations and groups all the time. A few long-term volunteers do all the work and, when volunteers don’t just step forward, begin to believe no one is interested in helping them.

Well, I’m a problem-solver. I got a copy of the PTO bylaws and read the rules on PTO elections. I volunteered to Chair the PTO Nominating Committee (the first one formed in, literally, five years). Getting more people involved, I reasoned, would be as simple as following the bylaws and election rules. The bylaws called for the formation of a Nominating Committee to put together a slate of candidates. The project involved lots of elbow grease. The Nominating Committee collected names of potential PTO officers and members-at-large. In fact, I phoned over 300 parents over the course of a month to ask if they’d like to be involved in the PTO as officers or a members-at-large.

It was a great experience for me, personally. I spoke with a huge number of parents, and together with the other members of the Nominating Committee, put together a slate of candidates that, in effect, tripled the number of parents involved in PTO leadership, and drew in parents from the various communities of parents in the school. I did this, because I wanted to see a wider range of people have a voice at the table, and to have the PTO representative of the community at the school.

Not everyone was happy, though, with having to follow the bylaws, or with the fact that I had asked practically every parent in the school to participate—strangers to those who’d been involved for years.

It’s understandable, but isn’t a stranger just a friend you haven’t met before?

This same thing has happened in our city government. At a recent City Council meeting, as the Mayor prepared to read a list of his nominees to several boards and commissions, he chuckled and said to the Council, who would vote on his nominations, “Several of these names will be familiar to many of you.”

There are about 270 hard-working volunteers on the city’s boards and commissions. Some people have asked me whether I think the number of boards and commissions could be reduced. To be sure, past administrations have combined, created, and purged boards and commissions as the need arose. However, participation in city government should be a grassroots affair.

There are, however, a couple of things I’d do differently with respect to Mayoral appointments to boards and commissions: Let me elaborate.

1. Having individuals serve on multiple boards is not a practice I would continue unless there were a compelling reason to do so. Just like the PTO, it’s going to take elbow grease and a commitment to recruitment and reaching out to potential volunteers. I would like to see an annual open house for Ann Arbor folks interested in serving on the city’s many boards and commissions, just as the School Board does for its potential board candidates.

2. The appointment application process is relatively straight-forward. There’s an application form for Mayoral appointments (available online). I’ve spoken to many, many people who’ve submitted an application to serve on a board or commission, and heard nothing. Not a peep one way or the other. It’s crucial to make sure all applicants get treated respectfully.

3. Mayoral appointments are just that—made at the pleasure the Mayor and voted on by Council. I would like to see Council bring multiple recommendations to the table in addition to the Mayor’s, and to have deliberative, open discussions concerning Mayoral appointments. There are emails that were released to the public as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests made by citizens and various media outlets that show board and commission candidates questioned via email concerning how they would vote on particular issues. That kind of questioning, if pursued, must to be done openly.

4. I will, if elected, make bipartisan appointments to all of the city’s boards and commissions. I intend to encourage diverse points of view.

Citizen involvement is democracy, and can get messy. However, I believe increasing the transparency of the appointment process, along with the number, and expanding the diversity and viewpoints of folks involved on our boards and commissions is well worth the time and effort.

Popularity: 24% [?]

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February 5, 2010

The Politics of Neighbors: You Don’t Get What You Deserve. You Get What You Negotiate.

Filed under: Mayor Hieftje, money — Tags: Ann Arbor, payments in lieu of taxes, PILOT, University of Michigan — A2 Politico @ 9:16 am

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This piece was originally published in February 2009 by the Ann Arbor News.

In January 2009, the Ann Arbor News reported that: “The University of Michigan wants to help the local economy, but giving the city an in-lieu-of-tax payment isn’t the way to do it, U-M President Mary Sue Coleman said.” Mayor John Hieftje responded to Coleman’s comment by assuring taxpayers: “We’re going to continue to work on that.” He’s had a decade to “work on that,” however. Other members of City Council, such as Fourth Ward’s Council member Marcia Higgins, and Margie Teall and Second Ward’s Steven Rapundalo have had almost that long to “work on that.”

While the current administration accepts fiscal policy dictates from Dr. Coleman, Ann Arbor taxpayers pay for the bulk of municipal services provided to the University of Michigan. To be fair, U of M does pay for a fraction of some of the services it receives. For instance, in 2008 U of M paid $808,232.78 for fire protection. That amount reimbursed taxpayers for about six percent of the total $13 million dollars spent on fire protection.

Pushing nonprofits to make payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) is nothing out of the ordinary. Around the U.S., college leaders and city councils have hammered out agreements—under the auspices of so-called PILOT Programs—that provide those communities with millions in annual payments. In some communities, PILOT payments are adjusted annually for inflation. Harvard contributes yearly PILOT payments to the cities of Cambridge, Boston and Watertown. The annual $2.8 million dollar Cambridge-Harvard PILOT payment agreement has been renewed every decade since 1968. MIT has made PILOT payments to Cambridge since 1928.

Nearby Boston has one of the most aggressive PILOT programs in the United States. Officials there believe that if nonprofits can afford to build or expand, they can afford to contribute generously toward municipal services. Over 50% all land in Boston is controlled by non-profits, and in 1999 Harvard agreed to pay that city $40 million dollars over the next 20 years in PILOT payments. In smaller cities, such as Urbana, Illinois, elected officials have crafted PILOT programs to counteract the erosion of their tax bases when colleges and other nonprofits purchased additional property. This is what recently happened when U of M purchased the Pfizer buildings and land, a 170-acre parcel; officials estimate that the city will lose 4-5 percent of its total tax base. The $83.7 million dollar general fund, from which our municipal services are funded, will lose $1.4 million per year in tax revenue beginning in 2010.

Dr. Coleman suggests the Pfizer facility may create 2000 new jobs over the next ten years. However, before the city recoups any lost property tax revenue from home buyers who may move to Ann Arbor for those jobs, the purchase will allow University of Michigan to expand opportunities to increase revenue from patents and licenses that result from its research activities.

In 2004, U of M spent $752,527,056 dollars on sponsored research expenditures, according to the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). That same year, U of M filed 149 patents, executed 73 licenses and options, and took in $10.6 million in patent revenue. That revenue places U of M solidly among the top 20 university patent revenue earners in the U.S. Thus, the Pfizer facility purchase has the potential to catapult the University of Michigan further up the AUTM’s patent revenue list, perhaps closer to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which earned $47.6 million dollars in revenue from patents and licenses in 2006.

John F. Ryan is a Property Tax Policy consultant who helped the city of Springfield, MA craft its PILOT program in 2005. Ryan says, “Some organizations recognize the value of services they receive from the local government and are willing to pay their fair share of those costs.”

According to Mr. Ryan, Dr. Mary Sue Coleman’s response to elected officials who recently called for U of M to make payments in lieu of taxes was, well, predictable. Dr. Coleman insists, “the best way for the university to help the city and local economy is to attract new employees who will buy homes in the area and boost business near the Pfizer property.”

Mr. Ryan explains: “For their part, tax exempt entities generally resist calls to begin or increase their contributions to local jurisdictions. They often respond by enumerating the positive beneficial impact they have on the locality, including creating jobs, making local purchases and paying miscellaneous taxes and fees….”

In Providence, Rhode Island, elected officials aggressively pursued PILOT agreements with four local universities while lobbying for legislation that would have changed the state’s tax-exemption law. Today, Providence collects $3.8 million annually from the University of Rhode Island, Brown, and the Rhode Island School of Design.

In the Midwest, according to a piece in the New York Times, the City Council in Evanston, Illinois “caused a stir when it adopted a tuition tax of $15 a quarter on students at Northwestern University and three other colleges to help pay for city services.” Northwestern officials immediately met with city council members to devise other ways the university might help defray costs associated with the municipal services it receives.

“In many cases…a nonprofit only negotiates a PILOT or some other voluntary contribution after being…faced with the prospect of some other, mandatory tax or payment levied by the local government,” says Mr. Ryan.

Strategies used by elected officials in Cambridge, Providence, Boston and even New Haven, CT, where Yale officials make annual PILOT payments of $2 million per year, demonstrate that Ann Arbor needs elected leaders who can and will craft an aggressive PILOT program. For many years, we’ve been misled into thinking that it simply cannot be done because, according to the fractured logic circulated, the University of Michigan cannot be taxed thanks to its autonomy granted by the state’s Constitution.

A PILOT program is not a tax. It would allow our city government to pursue “good neighbor” payments not just from the University of Michigan, but from other large non-profits in town, as well. For Ann Arbor taxpayers, a PILOT program could very well mean we could see some respite from shouldering the heavy financial burden of having nonprofit neighbors with big plans for everything, in particular, expansion. PILOT payments are voluntary payments, and a PILOT program could bring in $4-$6 million dollars in additional revenue to Ann Arbor.

A little bit more….

The simple truth is that a PILOT can be negotiated.

It has been asserted that Ann Arbor has no leverage to negotiate a PILOT. As someone who has spent two decades negotiating agreements with colleges and universities, as well as Fortune 100 companies, I can tell you that’s simply untrue. The truth is that negotiating with the University presents difficulties to certain Council members, and especially the Mayor: they are employees of the University. The Mayor, for instance, is employed as a temporary, part-time lecturer, his wife as a part-time accompanist at the School of Music. Exerting the necessary leverage to win a yearly $4-$6 million dollar payment from the University might very well cost them their part-time, temporary jobs, and the almost $40,000 U of M pays them each year.

I taught at U of M many years ago after graduate school, and after several years of teaching in Italy. It was a wonderful experience that I have no desire to pursue again, and certainly not while Mayor. Ann Arbor desperately needs a PILOT program, and has needed one for a decade. Our city can have one when the roadblocks to exerting the necessary leverage needed to negotiate one are eliminated.

Popularity: 37% [?]

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February 4, 2010

The Politics of Financial Football: Throwing The Hail Mary Pass in the First Quarter

Filed under: campaigns, money — Tags: AnnArbor.com, Christopher Taylor, Leigh Greden, Marcia Higgins, Mayor Hieftje, Mike Anglin, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere, Stephen Rapundalo, Steve Kunselman, Tom Crawford — A2 Politico @ 11:55 am

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On February 2, 2010, the day I declared to run for mayor, AnnArbor.com posted this piece: “Roger Fraser tells Ann Arbor City Council to set aside politics to make budget decisions.” The City Administrator is quoted in the piece as saying to Mayor and Council:

“I understand that these are politically difficult things to talk about,” Fraser said. “I understand that we have elections every year. I understand that six of you are up for election this year. But I also understand that we’ve got some major issues that need to be resolved in terms of our budget, and something’s got to give.”

Well, yes. Something’s got to give. Rather, someone’s got to give: the taxpayer. Roger Fraser is pushing to have Council members put a city income tax on the ballot. At the January 19, 2010 Budget Committee meeting, Fraser suggested to the members of the Committee, First Ward’s Sabra Briere, Fifth Ward’s Mike Anglin, Second Ward’s Stephen Rapundalo, Fourth Ward’s Marcia Higgins and Third Ward’s Christopher Taylor, that they had an obligation to float the question of a city income tax.

The Mayor, in attendance, thus making the meeting a quorum, and subject to Open Meetings Act requirements, had this interesting tidbit to add. Whether the question was floated on the August primary ballot or on the November general election ballot would have little impact on how soon any city income tax could be implemented. Well, yes. That’s true. However, we know that in Ann Arbor, mayor and council races are decided in August, in the primary, not in the November general election.

Former Third Ward council member Leigh Greden, who ran opposed, and Second Ward’s Stephen Rapundalo who ran unopposed, tempted the tax gods by coming out in favor of a city income tax during the 2009 primary season. This video comes from AnnArbor.com, and was shot before the August 4, 2009 primary. Note that Roger Fraser says there are 75,000 people who commute into Ann Arbor daily. On January 31, 2010, the Mayor was quoted in AnnArbor.com as saying, “…Ann Arbor has an estimated 70,000 daily commuters.” These numbers come from the July 2009 Plante Moran Income Tx Feasibility Study. In that study, on page 26, the authors document that there are 20,000 commuters who come to work at U of M. The study then concludes there are 54,000 additional people who commute into the City. There is, however, no source for where that number comes from. Furthermore, the study concludes between 2011 and 2015, Ann Arbor will add 4,000 jobs for people to commute to. Between 2006 and 2009, Ann Arbor added a total of 600 jobs.

Roger Fraser estimates that a city income tax could “could raise $7.6 million a year in additional revenue for the city,” according to AnnArbor.com. Of course, there was a July 2009 study to support the idea of putting a city income tax to a vote. In that study by Plante & Moran, the authors write, “Using growth rate assumptions made by City personnel, we projected revenue that would be generated from the current property tax system over the next five years….The analysis has been developed using the best available information concerning financial and demographic trends and conditions. As mentioned above, each model was developed using certain key assumptions and should not be evaluated without a thorough understanding of those assumptions. The assumptions and the accompanying rationale are documented in later sections of this report….”

Here’s where we all need to sit up and pay very close attention: “All assumptions are the responsibility of the City of Ann Arbors’ management based on their best judgment at the time of the study. It is possible that the forecasted results may not be achieved because events and circumstances frequently do not occur as expected.”

In other words, Roger Fraser’s revenue estimate is not even an estimate. It’s a prognostication in the grand tradition of prognosticators. Plante and Moran predict that the assumptions of growth made by city staff, and on which the study is based, “frequently do not occur as predicted.”

If that doesn’t give you a cold grue, it should. The Plante and Moran study begins with a caveat that explains, quite clearly, that a city income tax is not the panacea for the budget woes of Ann Arbor. In fact, the move to a city income tax could end up providing Ann Arbor less revenue than the current property tax model. And there we’d be, still, facing the alternatives the City Administrator often presents to the people of Ann Arbor through City Council: freeze to death or burn to death. Sell parkland, raise taxes, cut services, or increase water and sewer fees.

Mayor Hieftje took himself off of the Budget Committee. Margie Teall stepped down, as well. However, their decision to try to distance themselves from the disaster that it the city’s fiscal situation is a day late and several million dollars short.

It’s quite clear that for the past several years, the Budget Committee on which they sat, and Council, simply followed the direction of the City Administrator and CFO without question and without performing the due diligence required. For instance, the City Charter mandates monthly statements be delivered to the Budget Committee that summarize the City’s financial position. They were never requested or delivered. Yet, the Mayor and his hand-picked Budget Committee crafted policy, recommended program and service cuts, and made recommendations for the expenditure of over $1.5 billion in tax dollars and fees over the past five years without ever knowing exactly how much money the City had in any given month.

Thanks to the urging of Third Ward’s Steve Kunselman, city staff will be producing monthly reports. According to the AnnArborchronicle.com, this is what long-time Budget Committee Chair, Fourth Ward’s Marcia Higgins, had to say when it was suggested that the monthly reports be delivered directly to all Council members.

“In discussing how the monthly report should be disseminated, Roger Fraser suggested that it be sent directly to all councilmembers. However, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) weighed in in favor of first having the budget committee review it before disseminating it to other councilmembers. She reasoned that the rest of the council might not understand what they were looking at, and that budget committee members would then be in a position to help others on council.”

Is it any wonder Roger Fraser is pushing, shoving and trying to drop-kick a city income tax? At this same meeting, he suggested that City Council survey voter attitudes – such as the survey conducted by AATA concerning that group’s fantasy of a county-wide millage. The City Administrator called allocating money for such a survey “due diligence.”

Due diligence? I call it a waste of time and taxpayer money. Those are marketing surveys designed to find out how to best phrase the ballot question so that the voters will support the measure.

There are three steps that must be taken before we can ever entertain the notion of a city income tax:

1. As I wrote in an earlier entry (“The Politics of Cooking the Books: Ann Arbor as a French Restaurant”), total city revenues are up significantly since 2006. So are total expenses. It’s time to examine every possible opportunity for savings. Overhead is the place to begin. The cost of running City Hall has risen 35 percent since 2006. That is a rate of increase that far outpaces both inflation and the cost of living combined. Over-spending must be checked immediately. There is no moratorium, for instance, on meals out and travel for city staff, while at the same time those same staff bring scenarios to Council and the public to raise revenue by selling parkland and cutting services.

2. All City Council members must be given extensive training in reading and understanding financial statements. It’s no sin to be incapable of understanding a cash flow analysis, and such training would benefit not only the Council members, but the public they serve, as well. It is a sin to vote on the allocation of funds without having first examined and understood the financial situation of the City. All Council members have to know the right questions to ask in order to have the ability to oversee city staff in their use of the tax dollars given them.

3. It’s time for a Mayor who will send Ann Arbor City Administrator Roger Fraser, and CFO Tom Crawford back to sharpen their pencils and to prepare two scenarios: under the auspices of the first, they cut 10 percent of the city’s expenses. Under the second, they cut 20 percent of the city’s expenses.

There’s only one rule: not a single city service may be impacted adversely by the cuts.

Popularity: 31% [?]

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February 2, 2010

A2Politico For Mayor

Filed under: best of A2Politico, campaigns — Tags: A2Politico — A2 Politico @ 5:22 pm

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I have some news to share with the 4,400 people who have become regular readers of this blog over the past six months. First, I want to tell you why I started this blog in September 2009. I have always been interested in politics. As you may remember from other entries, I was raised in a family of Republicans, and voted for Ronald Reagan. Twice. As I’ve written, my grandmother referred to Franklin Roosevelt as “that man.” In my 20s, the Democratic party won me over. Nonetheless, I was raised in a blue collar family, factory workers, small business owners, tradesmen. My father was a sheet metal worker with an 8th grade education who helped build the Glass House—Ford World Headquarters, in Dearborn. My mother was awarded a full scholarship to attend Wayne State University, but her parents forbade her to go because it was the middle of the Great Depression, and they needed her to work to help feed her four younger siblings. My mother went to college when she was 45.

When I was in high school, I became intensely interested in politics thanks to having one of those teachers. You know the ones. They reach and inspire you. I took political science in college, and hated the class. I had one of those other teachers. The ones who are singularly capable of making what should be riveting material, dry, boring and uninspiring. I look back now, after having had the experience of teaching in the college classroom for a number of years, and realize that faculty members who do that to course material do more harm than is ever calculable.

Regardless, I finished college with a desire to enter government service. I wanted to join the State Department, and someday run for political office. I went so far as filling out an application for employment. That was a sobering experience, and one that changed the course of my life for 25 years. There were questions on those applications that made me realize that regardless of a desire to serve my government, I couldn’t.

It was 1983, and I’m gay.

So, when I was in my 20s, I gave up on the idea of both government service and ever running for political office. I won’t bore you to death with many more personal details, because over the next six months, you’re going to get a heaping dose of A2Politico.

We’re going to keep the bipartisan, spirited and much-needed conversation about local politics going, but in a much more immediate way. Today, I declared as a Democratic candidate for the office of Mayor of Ann Arbor, Michigan. If I win, I will be only the third woman to serve in that office since Ann Arbor was incorporated in 1851. I will be only the second openly gay mayor in Michigan, and one of only twenty-one openly gay mayors in the United States.

My campaign platform is simple: this campaign is about refocusing our city government on its core mission: people, services, infrastructure and responsible spending. My web page (http://www.VoteLesko.org) will be up on February 6th. Check out the site for more details.

My name is Patricia D. Lesko, and I am the A2Politico. Thanks to the almost 4,400 people who read this blog, as well as to those who have passed along the link to friends, colleagues, enemies, former spouses and other politicos.

Click here to download my press release sent out to media this afternoon. Visit my Facebook page (Patricia Lesko) and let’s become even friendlier. Twitter? Gotcha covered. You’ll find campaign tweets at http://www.Twitter.com/PatriciaLesko.

Popularity: 94% [?]

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The Politics of Falling From Grace: An Interview With DDA Board Member Jennifer Santi Hall

Filed under: boards and commissions — Tags: AnnArborChronicle.com, Christopher Easthope, Doug Cowherd, Eric Lipson, Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, Greenbelt Advisory Commission, Jeff Irwin, Jennifer Santi Hall, Kim Groome, Leigh Greden, Marcia Higgins, Mayor Hieftje, Noah Hall, Planning Commission, Rene Greff, Steve Kunselman, Tim Colenback, Tom Crawford — A2 Politico @ 9:59 am

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Jennifer Santi Hall was never convinced Ann Arbor needed an underground parking garage and more parking. As a board member of the current Downtown Development Authority, her opinion is akin to heresy.

Santi Hall has spent the past seven years serving on various city boards and commissions. After Mayor Hieftje’s 2008 re-election, she wrote a glowing blog entry about Mayor Hieftje’s work as an environmentalist. The post appears on the Great Lakes Law blog, authored by Hall’s husband, Noah Hall. Detractors, in fact, refer to Jennifer Hall as John Hieftje in a skirt for her perceived unquestioning support of his initiatives. Hall writes in the August 2008 blog entry, “In 2003, he led a successful campaign for a dedicated millage to create a greenbelt of farmland and open space around Ann Arbor, including significant portions of the Huron River watershed. Leader of the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club, Doug Cowherd, will tell you he easily spent 1,000 hours crafting the greenbelt resolution and championed the cause well before Hieftje came on board.

Then, came the February 2009 letter of intent to file suit against the city. The lawsuit aimed at derailing the Library Lot underground parking lot project was filed by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. The Law Center is headed by Jennifer Santi Hall’s husband, Noah. According to an entry about the lawsuit posted to the AnnArborChronicle.com, on August 13, 2009, “the complaint alleges violations of the Michigan Environmental Protection Act, the Michigan Open Meetings Act, as well as nuisance and trespass violations.”

Then came a public accusation made by Mayor Hieftje at the May 2009 DDA Board retreat that Jennifer Santi Hall had “a cloud hanging over her head” thanks to the lawsuit. The cloud over her head was interfering with the ability of a joint City Council-DDA committee moving forward with negotiations between the DDA and the city. City Council members refused to work with Hall, and the Mayor was disinclined to force the issue.

In an October 2009 A2Politico interview with former DDA Board member Rene Greff, Greff said, “At our annual Board retreat, I pressed the Mayor until he finally admitted publically what I had been saying for months, that the reason they were stalling on putting together their committee was that “some members of Council” didn’t want to negotiate with Jennifer and me.”

There are some who are betting that Jennifer Santi Hall’s political career in Ann Arbor is over so long as Mayor Hieftje remains in office. A2Poltico caught up with Jennifer Santi Hall and asked her about her time on the DDA Board, the pending lawsuit, why she doesn’t support the Library Lot underground parking garage, and whether she will lose her seat on the Board of the Downtown Development Authority this summer, when her term ends.

1. When Kim Groome left Ann Arbor, and the First Ward City Council seat became open, you were in the running for appointment to that seat. After all, you had been Chair of the Planning Commission, a Board Mayor Hieftje uses as a stepping stone for those whom he’d like to see on City Council. I’ve heard Groome’s vacant First Ward Council seat was promised to you, and that at the last moment, a friend of Council member Christopher Easthope’s was appointed instead. A very short time later, Mayor Hieftje appointed you to the Greenbelt Advisory Commission and then, almost a year to the day after you were passed over for that First Ward Council seat appointment, you were appointed by the Mayor to the DDA. Forgive me, but it looks suspiciously as if those two Board appointments were rewards for you having taken “one for the team,” when Chris Easthope’s college friend was appointed to the City Council seat promised you. Comments?

First, a couple of clarifications to your statement above. I don’t think it’s quite accurate to say that the Planning Commission has been used by Mayor Hieftje as a “stepping stone for those he’s like to see on City Council.” In the 7 years I’ve been serving on city boards and commission, I can only recall two planning commissioners who have run for Council – Eric Lipson (ran against Marcia Higgins in 4th Ward, not endorsed by Mayor Hieftje) and Steve Kunselman (don’t recall if he was endorsed by the Mayor in 2006, not endorsed in 2009).

Another clarification, I was appointed to the Greenbelt Advisory Commission upon its creation in May of 2004; Kim Groome left Council sometime in July or August of 2005.

If the Mayor thought he was giving me a seat on the DDA board as a reward for “taking one for the team,” he certainly didn’t let me in on his thought process.

As the end of my 3 year term on Planning Commission approached in spring of 2006, I scheduled a meeting with Mayor Heiftje. I told him that I didn’t want to be presumptuous in thinking he would offer me a second term on Planning Commission, but in case he was thinking of reappointing me, I wanted to let him know that I wasn’t interested. I was pregnant and then later a nursing mom during my term on Planning Commission and my husband and I were thinking about another child for our family, and I just couldn’t envision surviving the late night meetings during another pregnancy and infancy. I was quite surprised when the Mayor asked if I would be interested in a citizen seat on the DDA. He told me my background and also my experience on Planning Commission would make me a good fit for that board.

I don’t believe that I was ever “promised” the seat vacated by Kim Groome, but it is true that Leigh Greden (former Third Ward Council member) encouraged me to put my name in the running for the vacant seat and then gave me some advice about how to prepare and present myself during the process. Up to a point, I believe he was actively lobbying his colleagues to appoint me. I don’t know all of what happened behind the scenes except that there were some on Council who didn’t want to see Tim Colenback appointed (who was really the Ward 1 favorite). I had never met Tim and knew little of his background and involvement in city issues. Thanks to our mutual friend Jeff Irwin, Tim and I got to know each other better during the appointment process. I wish that I had been introduced to Tim before I put my name forward for the seat —I certainly would have made a different decision. I think Tim would have made (or someday will be) a great Councilperson.

I am actually quite happy that I was not appointed to that seat. My time serving on city boards gave me great experience with policy issues, but I wasn’t as involved in the city politics. Looking back, it’s clear that the council majority wanted someone that would simply go along with their agenda, and that’s not what the voters of the 1st ward wanted and not what I would have done.

2. You were appointed to the DDA in 2006, and former Board member Rene Greff told A2Politico that she holds great stock in your abilities as a Board member. One of the reasons Greff got booted was her outspoken defense of the DDA as an independent Board, both procedurally and financially. Some say the DDA Board must submit to the will of City Council. Others disagree because the DDA is an entity established and supported by City Charter, just as is the City Council. What is your view of the relationship between Council and the DDA? Who’s the alpha dog, as it were, or are there two packs at work here?

The Ann Arbor DDA was created in 1982, under the authority of the State of Michigan Act 197 (passed in 1975). The State wanted to give municipalities a tool for downtown urban renewal—a way to combat the economic decline and structural demise that was affecting downtowns all across America. In creating the DDA in Ann Arbor, the City Council recognized the extreme importance that a downtown district has to the whole city’s vitality. The downtown belongs to the entire Ann Arbor community and as such would benefit from a designated stream of resources to protect and nurture it. I was excited by an opportunity to serve on the DDA because I fundamentally believe in the general purpose of DDAs and the mission of the Ann Arbor DDA. I am a true lover of downtown urban areas. I like the excitement, the crowd of people, the entertainment, and cultural offerings. Having all these things located close together means that they are very accessible to everyone. Vibrant downtowns are an important component to my environmental ethic —I believe a density of residents, employment, and activity is the only sustainable way to construct a city and to make transportation between work, home and play not dependent on an automobile.

I totally agree with Rene that the DDA should be an independent authority. City Councils must make decisions about many areas of the city and appropriate resources across all types of competing community interests. The DDA exists with a board independent from City Council expressly to protect the DDA area from having to compete with the rest of those interests. That being said, I don’t believe the DDA has unchecked authority. It is created by the City, overseen by the City, and can be dissolved if the City Council so desires.

The DDA has money (from the tax capture and from parking revenues) and the Council has the statutory oversight of our appointments, changes to our bylaws, approval of our budget. Further, any infrastructure work we want to do in the downtown requires their approval because the city owns all the property (roads, parking structures, alleys, etc). So the politics begins. Some politics have a purpose, those games I understand. Some other politics make no sense.

I wish Council provided the kind of oversight, check and balance that an independent agency such as the DDA (or AATA or any other authority) should have. But they don’t always do that. They don’t really look into our bylaws and make sure that we aren’t abusing our power. They just won’t approve them (DDA sent bylaw changes to Council about 2 years ago and they were never placed on a Council agenda for approval) because some board members want them changed and certain council members don’t want those board members to have something they want.

If the City Council wants unquestioned access to the DDAs resources, then it should disband the DDA. It has the ability to do so, but if you were to look closely at the numbers, you would see that it would not make financial sense for the city to do so. The DDA’s TIF capture comes from not only the City but also the County, AAPS, AADL, and WCC. The DDA has given the City more than its share of TIF capture back in grants and other expenditures (like rent for the parking meters – the original source of the $2million question).

3. Mayor and a group of Council members including Leigh Greden, Margie Teall, Marcia Higgins, as well as Ann Arbor’s CFO Tom Crawford, have been pressing the DDA over the past 24 months for larger financial contributions to the City’s sagging General Fund. The DDA Board agreed, for instance, to pay $500,000 per year toward the cost of the bonds issued to build the new Court house. A past DDA member described this to me as an outrageous misuse of DDA funds. You voted in favor of the DDA-city bond repayment obligation, but against the underground parking garage project. Why should taxpayers care if Council demands millions from the DDA to put into the General Fund? It’s the city’s money, anyway, right?

I truly believe in the purpose and mission of DDAs. The DDA exists to protect and nurture a communal resource. If the City continually uses politics to coerce resources out of the DDA, I think our whole community loses. I believe there are 3 big reasons why our community should care how the DDA spends its resources (and why we should care if those resources are given to the City’s General Fund).

1. TIF money doesn’t just come from the City of Ann Arbor;

2. Parking system revenues should be used for transportation; and

3. It’s disingenuous to have a DDA and then take the resources for other purposes.

All DDAs across the state are structured and financed differently. In the case of Ann Arbor’s DDA, some of the funds come from the TIF captured by the DDA and some (a much larger amount) of funds come from parking revenues. The DDA has maintained separate purposes for these funds – parking revenues support transportation (including operation and maintenance of the parking system and support for alternative transportation efforts like getDowntown and goPasses) and TIF funds are used for other work of the DDA (alley improvements, Fifth/Division, LED lighting, energy grants, and projects like the municipal center).

The question presents 3 different and distinct issues regarding the use of DDA funds. First, there’s the financial support the DDA gave to the municipal center project came from TIF funds. The DDA was asked by the City for a certain amount of money (something like $8 million) and we decided it would be easier for us to contribute the money on a yearly basis (rather than in a lump sum cash payment) and so it made sense for us to pay the yearly bond payments. I supported the DDA’s contribution to this project because I felt that was a good investment in the downtown. It was very important to me to keep City Hall and city workforce downtown. And the urban streetscape improvement the building addition makes to Fifth Ave. was really important to me as well. I think public investment in downtown municipal buildings (city halls, librarys, court buildings, etc) is incredibly important to a vibrant, functional downtown. I also supported the green elements the City added to the building.

The second issue is the parking garage. The DDA is paying for most of this project out of parking revenues, although some of the aspects of the project are paid out of TIF funds. I voted against the parking garage for a several reasons:

1.  I don’t believe we need more parking at this time in downtown;

2.  I think we can create more parking supply by increasing our investment in alternatives and managing our parking supply differently (the DDA is already doing this and I argued that we should wait to see the results of these investments and operational changes BEFORE building more parking, especially with such a big price tag);

3. I felt that investing $50 million in more parking was a bad environmental choice – think of what $50 million could do to create modern efficient transit choices; and

4.  I didn’t support how the project was being financed.  I’m disappointed that there was not more vocal opposition to the parking structure during the year or more that the DDA was designing and discussing the options and project details.

There were a few voices questioning the giant parking garage (Steve Bean, chair of the city’s environmental commission for one) but not as many as there are now that the giant hole is being dug. The City is on the hook for the bonds—so if parking demand should change, and we rely on revenue from all these new spaces to pay for the bonds, and there’s no revenue because we have too much parking supply, then what?

The third issue has been dubbed the “$2 million question.” I would call this a raid on DDA resources.

A bit of abbreviated history —5 years ago the DDA took over management and operation of the on-street parking meters. The city was looking for more money for the General Fund at this time, and negotiated a deal with the DDA (I was not on the DDA at that time) in which the DDA would operate/manage the meters (and take the revenues – coins, not fines) and pay the City a “rent” payment for the use of the meters and other parking facilities in the amount of $1 million per year for 10 years.

The City also negotiated an option to take $2 million per year for 5 years. It is my understanding that the City had proposed eliminating the downtown beat cops due to budget limitations and the DDA felt that this rent payment would ensure that those needed cops wouldn’t go away. Nothing about the cops was written into the agreement, however. 2009 was year five of this deal and the city took its last $2million and they are now left with five more years of a “rent” agreement with no more rent to be paid. Rene Greff and I had been quite vocal in saying that it is unfair for the city to ask for more money for an agreement that has been fulfilled on our part. This rent money comes from parking revenues. I am totally OK with beginning a new discussion with City Council about another mutually beneficial agreement that the city and DDA could make—something whereby the DDA pays the city money in exchange for something that benefits the downtown or DDA.

This big, heated discussion of the $ 2 million has quieted down as of late and I think there are a couples of reasons for that. Leigh Greden is no longer on City Council and he was very interested in getting another $2 million yearly payment out of the DDA. Also, I think that City Council is looking for smaller ways to find mutually beneficial agreements with the DDA (or raid the DDA bank, if you will). For example, a month or so ago, the City directed the DDA to give them the revenue from the old Y lot. And that’s what the DDA did (I was absent from that meeting so didn’t participate in the discussion).

So, getting back to your question: Why should taxpayers care if Council demands millions from the DDA to put into the General Fund? It’s the city’s money, anyway, right? Taxpayers should care because not all the TIF money comes from the City. Some comes from the library, the schools, the county, the AATA. These entities have given up some of their tax capture to support the DDA and are not demanding the DDA support their straining budgets. The DDA has always maintained that parking revenues should support transportation purposes. I have no problem with starting a new discussion about parking revenues supporting some other purpose in the city—but I absolutely do not think that parking revenues should be used to bridge a gap in the City of Ann Arbor’s General Fund. Do people who park in Ann Arbor want to pay higher rates to support the city’s administration budget? And lastly, if the City desperately needs the DDA’s money, then it should disband the DDA and take back the parking system and TIF capture and redistribute it as it best sees fit. It’s disingenuous to create a DDA under State Law to do one thing, and then take the money for the City’s general fund.

4. Let’s talk about the library lot underground parking garage. You voted against that project. However, it was the lawsuit filed by two downtown businesses and the Great Lake Environmental Law Center that has resulted in some intensive political backlash against you from City Council members, DDA Board members and the Mayor. Did you expect your political career to be hobbled? One would imagine you’d seen what happened to others who “dissented,” or rocked the boat.

First, let’s just be open and clear about this. My husband is currently serving as the Executive Director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the City. The bad feelings toward me started long before the lawsuit was filed. I started “rocking the boat” not long after I joined the DDA board.

From day one, I was skeptical of the need to build more parking, and continually pushed the DDA to invest more money into alternative transportation. I was also a huge supporter of the DDA’s Fifth and Division improvement project (it was one of the projects I was most excited to join the DDA to work on). For some reason, there was a lot of political maneuvering on Council about this project. I don’t really know why some on Council didn’t support the project and why others on DDA who were supportive got cold feet. When the first vote for the project came up at DDA (maybe only a few months after I started on the board), the Mayor called me before the meeting and asked if I would support a postponement of the project.

He said he supported the project, but the timing wasn’t right and that maybe we could do it cheaper. I told him I couldn’t support a postponement. The DDA had worked very hard on this project, it had very popular community support and if this wasn’t the right time to invest in downtown, then when would be the right time? Fortunately for the project, the move to postpone was defeated and the project moved forward at DDA. Only to be stalled for over a year at City Council.

Council refused to put the project on an agenda, knowing that it had broad community support and not wanting to have to cast a vote against it at the Council table. After some time, Rene and I strategized about how best to move this project forward. We asked our staff to organize another public meeting to bring the project some current attention (the meeting was very well attended). And we lobbied City Council, a lot, especially Rene. She was great. All this time, the DDA was working out options for building more parking and then designing plans for the library lot underground structure.

So, I’m outspoken about Fifth and Division to Council and very vocal in my opposition to building more parking. I’m already a dissenter. The letter sent by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center (along with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and several local residents) to the city raising concerns about the environmental impacts of this project, the FOIA requests made by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center for council meeting emails, and the subsequent lawsuit filed by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and neighboring businesses was just the icing on the cake. I don’t really think my political career has been hobbled. I don’t really envision that I have a political career. I don’t know what the next phase will be for me—but it can’t happen if I compromise my goals or my principles.

5. With Leigh Greden gone, do you think the relationship between the DDA and Council will change in any way? If so, how?

I think it’s fair to say that Leigh supported the basic premise behind having a DDA—invest in downtown and it will remain vital and prosperous. Many people can support that general concept and all have a different set of priorities and a different way of implementing that agenda. I believe that Leigh primarily saw the DDA as a big piggy bank for his priorities and did not respect the priorities or the autonomy of the DDA board.

As a member of the Council budget committee, Leigh was the most vocal Councilmember in wanting to continue the $2 million payments from the DDA to the City (something I don’t support as a “blank check” payment). He was very instrumental in getting the DDA to contribute to the Police/Courts building. He even came to our board meeting the day we approved the contribution. My most frustrating interaction with him during my time on DDA was his opposition to the 5th and Division streetscape improvements. Of course, his opposition was never made public. Instead, for over a year, he prevented the project from being placed on a Council agenda for consideration.

So—yes, I think the relationship between DDA and Council will change now that Leigh is no longer in office.

6. Mayor Hieftje has been accused of stacking the DDA Board with appointees who will rubber stamp his ideas and simply do his bidding. In your opinion, who are the voices of dissent on the DDA Board. Is it necessary to have voices of dissent on the DDA Board do you think?

One of the powers given to Ann Arbor’s Mayor is his/her ability to make appointments to boards and commissions. Not all of them, however. City Council gets to make nominations to other boards, such as the Greenbelt Advisory Commission and Environmental Commission. Ever wonder about the politics involved in creating those boards and why that authority wasn’t given to the Mayor? The Mayor selects people that he thinks will be most sympathetic to his interests. Even so, the vast majority of people that serve of city boards and commissions are independent minded, dedicated, and put a tremendous amount of work towards serving the city. Even when I disagree with them on a specific issue, I respect their service and work.

Dissent, conflict, and differences of opinions are what lead to good public policy in my opinion. The big questions are: how loud does it become, what are the politics involved, how personal does it get, and is it effective at serving a public good? I have witnessed several situations which lead to dissent on city boards.

1.  The Mayor appoints new people to a board to replace those appointed by the previous Mayor.  That’s what happened when I was appointed to the Planning Commission almost 7 years ago.  I suspect that people are feeling more homogeneity of appointments of late because the Mayor has been in office for so long that ALL of the people serving on board and commissions have been appointed by him (or re-appointed in some cases).

2.  The Mayor misjudges a person’s goals and support for certain issues.  Or more significantly, the person has a stronger independent voice than thought.  It’s totally understandable.  You don’t take a test of loyalty or an oath to do whatever he says when you’re offered an appointment.

3.  The Mayor appoints someone he knows may be a voice of dissent, but does it as a token offering to a certain interest group he wants to make favor with.  (I think Dave DeVarti’s tenure on the DDA and Eppie Potts’s appointments to the Planning Commission illustrate this point)

4.  The Mayor actually changes his goals or maybe not his goals, but the priority of those goals, and his appointments no longer match those interests. (I think Fred Beal and Rob Aldrich are good examples here – they were good appointments when the primary issue of the day for the Mayor was downtown density, but not so much when the big issue of the day became getting another $2million from the DDA, so he didn’t reappoint them).

If it’s of interest to your readers, here’s a detailed sketch of my own relationship as an appointee with the Mayor to illustrate my points above. I have spent 7 years on 4 different boards and commissions: 1 term on Planning Commission appointed my Mayor Hieftje (appointed in 2003, confirmed by City Council on a 6-5 vote); a year or so on the Environmental Commission (filling a spot designated for a planning commissioner, I was nominated by the Planning Commission and confirmed by City Council); in my 3rd term on the Greenbelt Advisory Commission (appointed in 2004, nominated by Council); and serving in my 4th year of my first term on DDA (appointed in 2006 by Mayor Hieftje and confirmed by City Council —not sure of the vote).

When I was first appointed to the Planning Commission in 2003, the Mayor was looking for someone who would sympathize with neighborhoods disgruntled with development, oppose tall buildings in the downtown, and someone who would be an environmental voice on the Planning Commission. It was thought that I would do all these things (I was recruited for the position by Doug Cowherd and Bill Hanson, who were at the time close advisors of the Mayor, because of my background with conservation planning working for The Nature Conservancy.) The vetting process for appointments is not all that rigorous (you don’t have to submit to any tests, go through days and days of Senate-like confirmation hearings or give over your first born child), and of course, it’s hard to know exactly how someone will think or grow as they get more knowledge and experience under their belt.

I do have a strong environmental ethic, but as it turns out my self-defined environmental goals support some increased density in the downtown. Funny thing is, the Mayor changed his mind about density in the downtown. Downtown density (and some issues surrounding the formation of the Greenbelt Advisory Commission) fractured the relationship between Doug, Bill and the Mayor. The Mayor later became more closely allied to Leigh Greden (who also was a proponent of downtown density).

And what happened to me? I ended up on the Greden/Heiftje “team” partly because they saw me as an ally to their position and partly because I was “shunned” and “demonized” by others in this town for my position about downtown density and other development issues. It’s important for me to emphasize here that I never chose any of these teams. My beliefs have never changed—although they have grown and been refined by experience and knowledge. And I don’t mean to say that I’ve only been a pawn in all of this political shifting. I have strong opinions and I’m not shy about stating them and working the issues. I’ve used and I’ve been used and that’s all part of the game.

I believe the Mayor appointed me to the DDA because I was an advocate for downtown density, but also because I was a supporter of alternative transportation, something also promoted by the Mayor. After a few months on the DDA, the Mayor called me and asked if I would support delaying the decision on the 5th and Division project. He felt the timing was bad and the project cost too much money. I didn’t agree with him—5th and Division was one of the DDAs projects that I was most excited about joining the board to work on. This was a turning point in my relationship with the Mayor. I also didn’t support the parking structure project, advocating for more than a year that we do more transit demand management and invest more in alternative transportation before we spend so much money to build more parking. Then I vocally opposed the city taking $2 million from the DDA for no express purpose. Then the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and other environmental groups (with my husband as the lead attorney) started raising legal issues with the parking structure and that’s when things really changed and the true hostilities started.

I think all boards need different opinions. A good fight makes sure that an issue is really thought about before it’s done. Debate and conflict are what make good public policy. Some on DDA recall a happier time when the DDA was a “consensus board.” I don’t think that made for good public policy. I’m glad that there are voices of dissent, on any issue, even ones I support. But, I think the dissent needs to be philosophical or pragmatic in nature. Arguing for politics sake just wastes everyone’s time.

7. Rene Greff assumes you will not be reappointed to the DDA Board when your term expires. Is her assumption correct, do you think? Have you spoken to the Mayor about this? Do you want to be reappointed to the DDA Board?

As I said above, it is really up to the Mayor to decide if he wants to reappoint me to the DDA Board. Given the chilly feeling I get from him, it certainly seems that Rene’s assumption is a good one. I have a seat on the DDA board that is reserved for a citizen representative (other seats are reserved for downtown business owners and employees and one seat for a downtown resident). I think it’s important to fill the citizen seats with people who do not also have a business or residential interest in the downtown. The DDA was created in recognition that vibrant, successful downtowns benefit the whole of Ann Arbor, and it’s funded using tax money that could otherwise have a different public purpose.

It’s important to me that the citizen representatives on the DDA not only serve the mission of the DDA, but are mindful of the broader context for that mission.

Popularity: 56% [?]

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February 1, 2010

Weekend Poll: Mayor Hieftje “Considers” A Run…For the Mayor’s Office. Again. Will He Get Your Vote?

Filed under: Mayor Hieftje, campaigns, weekend poll — Tags: 52nd District House seat, A2Politico, AnnArborChronicle.com, Judy McGovern, Mayor John Hieftje, Ned Staebler, weekend poll — A2 Politico @ 8:04 am

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Rating: 5.0/5 (2 votes cast)

I’m reposting this poll in light of the Mayor’s recent celebrated performance in front of the Ann Arbor Rowing Community on January 28th. Can I just say, “I told you so?” He’s out of his little Burns Park bubble and running for re-election. He’s glad-handing all over town. What follows is a piece I wrote in October 2009. Below that is a poll posted in October. At the moment, A2 politicos who’ve voted are looking to see the end of Mayor Hieftje’s reign, so cast your own vote. Maybe for you, he’s the only person for job.

In September, free-lancer Judy McGovern caught up with Mayor Hieftje in the course of her coverage of the state legislative candidates. In a piece posted to AnnArborChronicle.com on September 12th, McGovern writes:

Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje says he’s been asked whether he was interested in either the Senate race or the chance to run for the House seat being vacated by Warren.

Although he said in 2008 that the mayoral race could be his last, Hieftje seems less ready to leave the job today. “Things are very difficult for local government in Michigan and I feel a responsibility,” he says.

Pursuing the Senate seat would presumably present a challenge for the five-term mayor, who would run up against out-county voters and their views of Ann Arbor liberalism.

Hieftje told McGovern he would decide by the end of October.

In early-October, Ned Staebler threw his hat into the ring for the 53rd (tip o’ the keyboard to David Cahill) District House seat, and held a pricey fundraiser right in the Mayor’s backyard. Many of those whom the Mayor would have had to count on to support any bid he would make for the seat turned up on the guest list for Staebler’s fundraiser. I wrote about Staebler’s posturing in Ives Woods event here.

So, John Hieftje being, well, John Hieftje, the Mayor never announced anything about a run for state office in October. Then again, he didn’t specify by which October he would decide. It’s entirely possible that in October of 2010, Ann Arbor’s Mayor will issue a press release to alert everyone that he’s decided against running for the 53rd District House seat.

As it turns out, Mayor Hieftje did issue a press release of sorts. He mentioned to a local politico on whom he could rely to leak the convo to at least 30,000 other people that Hizzoner is definitely not running for the 53rd District seat but “is considering” another run for the Mayor’s office. To say that John Hieftje “is considering” another run for the Mayor’s office is somewhat like hearing that Representative John Dingell “is considering” another run for the United States House of Representatives. Does either of them really have any other job?

Thus Mayor Hieftje provides A2Politico with some fodder for the Weekend Poll. When he does run again, will you vote for him again (presuming you did the last time), or has Mayor John Hieftje worn out his welcome?

Popularity: 77% [?]

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The Politics of the Inquisition: Kunselman Has Kwestions

Filed under: money — Tags: A2Politico, Ann Arbor Airport, Budget Committee, Capital Improvement Plan, FITS, Marcia Higgins, Mayor Hieftje, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere, Steve Kunselman — A2 Politico @ 8:00 am

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Rating: 5.0/5 (3 votes cast)

Alright, someday I’ll stop with the K, but for now it’s amusing. Since this is a blog, I figure I should get to amuse myself every now and again. I’ve been impressed with the “new” Third Ward Council member Steve Kunselman. He’d say it was the old Steve Kunselman, but I’d have to disagree. The new Steve Kunselman is coming to City Council with a lists of pointed questions. The latest list concerns the Capital Improvement Plan submitted to City Council for its edification (the usual) and approval (the foregone conclusion) without much real questioning.

Until now.

City Administrator Roger Fraser hasn’t answered this many pointed questions in public since, well, the last time Steve Kunselman asked for specific information.

“So,” you may be muttering, “just what in the name of Frank Lloyd Wright is a Capital Improvement Plan?”

Excellent question. I’m glad you asked.

It’s a fantasy list of building projects on which the City Administrator and staff want to spend millions of our tax dollars. Little kids call their Capital Improvement Plans “Letters to Santa Claus.” Sometimes, staff use the Capital Improvement Plan to let taxpayers in on their behind-the-scenes machinations, such as the expansion of the Ann Arbor Airport. Mayor and Council oked a loan from the General Fund (about $1 million dollars), and that money was used to new build hangars at the Ann Arbor airport. Not just new hangars, but big, new hangars. The kind of hangars that can house corporate jets.

So, you might ask, can a DC-9 land at the Ann Arbor Airport? Why, no, a DC-9 cannot land at our airport. The runway is not long enough. However, page 22 of the CIP includes the airport runway expansion as a FY2011 expense and describes it as urgent. Urgent? Does approval of the CIP mean our City Council is approving the controversial runway expansion? Here’s another bit of CIP info. for taxpayers to chew on, FY2015 includes $800,000 for a terminal expansion to be paid from the airport fund. Airport revenue is down, down, down. Why spend $800K on expanding the terminal?

Here’s one for Sherlock Holmes from Page 23 of the CIP. FITS: This project is labeled as funded. The plan claims $5,365,000 will be paid from the Economic Development Fund in FY2011 for Fuller Road Station (FITS) design construction. Well, the Economic Development Fund doesn’t have $5 million dollars in it, and money for that fund is taken from the General Fund. Where will the Economic Development Fund get the money to pay for this project? I’ll tell you. We’ll be treated to another emergency meeting of the City Council Budget Committee, and the City Administrator will give the depressing news to taxpayers there’s a $5.3 million dollar deficit in the General Fund.

Can you smell the firefighters burning, and taxpayers being given the option of a city income tax, or closing pools, ice rinks, and community and senior centers?

The FITS project is anticipated to cost $14.68 million total and, remember, it’s marked as funded. Where is the $14.68 million in non-city funding coming from? The Mayor was quoted recently in the Ann Arbor Observer as saying the city did not have that money.

Below are the questions Third Ward’s Steve Kunselman appended to the agenda for the Monday City Council meeting for City Administrator Roger Fraser to sing and dance about in public:

Question: The project identified as “800′ Runway Safety Extension” is listed as “urgent” for FY 2011. In addition, approximately $1.4 million of outside funding is proposed. Therefore,

1. Please explain the nature of “urgency” for the Airport runway extension.

2. Will this project allow for heavier and larger aircraft to utilize the airport?

3. Will this project allow for an increase in frequency of flights by existing aircraft utilizing the airport, including aircraft that presently take off with weight limitations (i.e. fuel carrying limitations) at the airport?

4. Has this project been presented to the Pittsfield Township Board of Trustees and Planning Commission?

5. Is the primary source of outside funding from the Federal Government? If so, what are the ramifications to the City’s control of airport operations if such funding is accepted? What are the City’s obligations to the Federal Government if such funds are accepted?

Question: The project identified as “Model for Mobility: Fuller Road Station Phase 1 Design/Construction” is listed as “urgent” for FY 2011. In addition, $5,365,000 of funding is estimated to be appropriated from the Economic Development Fund where such funding does not presently exist. Therefore,

1. Please explain and identify why
A). This project is urgent, and

B). The source(s) of the proposed fund transfers to the Economic Development Fund. Do these proposed fund transfers include General funds? Do these proposed fund transfers include funds that are presently intended for mass transit (i.e. AATA)? Do these funds include funds presently in or proposed to be transferred to the Alternative Transportation fund? If so, are any of these proposed funds General funds?

2. Please identify if any funds presently existing (as of FY 2010) in the Economic Development Fund are proposed to fund this project? If so, are these funds “unobligated” and not necessary for Google Parking payments?

In plain English, Steve Kunselman is asking, in public, where the money for this pie-in-the-sky wish list of items is going to come from, because we all know the city’s budget is in deficit, and the cost of simply running our city’s government has risen by $33 million dollars since 2006.

Kunselman’s kwestions are a good start, but without change on Council—Council members equally committed to asking such questions, getting answers, then making capital improvement decisions based on reality, and not the fantasy of spending $300 million in AnnArboropoloy money, our City Administrator and city staff will never be directed to focus less on crafting letters to Santa, and more on where they will find the money to fund maintenance on the buildings and crumbling infrastructure we already have.

It’s the job of Mayor and Council to direct the City Administrator and city staff. For the last decade, as our city’s budget slid into deficit, our infrastructure continued to crumble, and Ann Arbor’s roads earned the dubious honor of being classified as the third worst in the entire state of Michigan, Mayor and Council demonstrated little understanding of the implications associated with over-spending, and over-leveraging. If a single one of them had ever taken an introductory course in economics at college, they would have learned, as students, that economies are cyclical.

Mayor Hieftje, Fourth Ward’s Marcia Higgins, and First Ward’s Sabra Briere have all said in public, or written to constituents that the economic downtown caught them as a surprise that could not have been anticipated.

Adam Smith, of course, is frowning down on them from that big lecture hall in the sky. Taxpayers and voters are frowning down from slightly closer quarters.

Popularity: 54% [?]

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January 28, 2010

The Politics of Unscrambling Eggs: Hieftje, Teall & Hohnke Push $6.4 Million For Environmentally Regressive Single Stream Recycling

Filed under: Uncategorized, best of A2Politico — Tags: A2Politico, Carsten Hohnke, dual stream recycling, Margie Teall, Mayor Hieftje, Resource Recycling Systems, single stream recycling, Susan Collins, The Container Recycling Institute, Tom McMurtrie — A2 Politico @ 2:31 pm

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When Mayor Hieftje speaks, he likes to tell city taxpayers life is tougher elsewhere in Michigan. Life’s tough in Haiti and sub-Saharan Africa, too.

When Hizzoner plays this game, it’s like when your mother used to remind you at dinner that there were starving kids in India so you should darn well pipe down, eat the creamed spinach served to you, and be grateful for her cooking. A few months ago, the Mayor of Ann Arbor sent around an email to his electronic friends giving those select few forwarders of mayoral missives an update of how things were going in Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and Troy. In those cities, they’re having real problems, not like here in Ann Arbor. Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.

“We live in truly challenging times,” the Mayor wrote. What he forgot to mention is that the challenges we face are, in part, a direct result of his votes, policy initiatives, and development decisions. Ah, well, that’s why A2Politico exists.

The latest effort to waste our money comes to us thanks to Mayor Hieftje, Ward Four’s Margie Teall and Ward Five’s Carsten Hohnke. I’m talking single-stream recycling. Perhaps recycling is not the religion at your house that it is at ours thanks to my conversion at the hands of a fanatical recycler whom I got hitched to almost 20 years ago. Actually, to say that recycling is the religion at our house doesn’t do justice to the term “worship.” For those readers who are slightly less fanatical, let’s do some quick recycling review.

The chart below taken from the city’s web site shows quite clearly that the number of tons of material recycled in Ann Arbor has remained virtually unchanged for a decade, whereas materials put into the landfill has increased slightly in each of the past three years, as have materials composted (albeit slightly). To be sure, comparing 1991 and 2006, there are 15 fewer tons of materials going into the landfill overall. However, between the same time period, tons recycled did not increase proportionately. The most impressive growth, in fact, came in the composting program, with the tons of material composted rising from 4 tons in 1991 to 12 tons in 2006.

Compost

In 2008, 41 percent of the Ann Arbor waste stream was diverted from the landfill – either composted or recycled. The U.S. EPA has recognized Ann Arbor as one of the top recycling and composting communities in the country for having such a high recovery rate. The U.S. recycling rate, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office, is 32 percent.

In cities such as Minneapolis and Philadelphia, financial incentives are used to achieve high recycling participation, rates higher than Ann Arbor’s. Minneapolis residents who actively participate in the city’s recycling program through processing, sorting, separating, and bagging their recyclables receive a $7 credit in their monthly garbage (solid waste) bill. In Philadelphia, households participating in the RecycleBank program receive up to $25 per month in coupons—based on the weight of their recyclable materials—that can be redeemed at major retailers. In 2006, Berkeley diverted 57 percent of its solid waste from their landfill. By 2010, the city has a goal of diverting 75 percent of its solid waste.

Enough numbers. On to your part in this drama.

At present, the city has the cooperative volunteer effort of thousands of citizens (you, for example) to separate their recyclable containers from paper and cardboard. The items are collected separately, a system known as dual stream recycling.

However, our City Council members now believe we should mix recyclables so that they can pay people to separate them later. According to a 2007 study done by the California Department of Conservation that focuses on moving from dual stream to single stream programs, single stream programs “dramatically increased internal costs because poorly sorted materials demand new and upgraded feedstock cleaning systems, increased maintenance, and more frequent equipment repair and replacement….”

Is single stream better for you? Of course. Throwing everything that’s recyclable into the same container is right up there with the delicious evil pleasure of leaving your socks on the floor, and having someone come along and pick them up. Single stream recycling is like a night in The Big Easy. Lots of feeling good.

There’s just one little problem associated with living it up, and that’s the hangover. With respect to single-stream recycling, more compliance actually leads to problems. According to the same 2007 study done by the California Department of Conservation, “However, the introduction of single stream collection systems has not had such uniformly positive results for recycled product manufacturers. Instead, it has accelerated an already pronounced slide towards poorly sorted recovered materials, with glass, plastics and metals being delivered to paper mills in bales of fiber, the wrong types of fiber going to paper mills that can only use specific grades, and increased contamination, as well as materials lost to plastics, glass and aluminum manufacturers. Recyclable materials that were recovered for recycling in community programs but then sent to the wrong types of manufacturers generally end up in landfills….”

At the moment, single stream recycling actually leads to more materials ending up in landfills. Recycling experts are confident this won’t always be the case, but until the quality issues are resolved, single stream recycling is ecologically regressive. Perhaps this is because single stream innovations were first introduced by collection companies, and collection is where the efficiencies and cost savings are concentrated. However, the result is that the recycled material from single stream processing is of a much lower quality than from dual stream processes. The lower value of the material offsets the greater volume that may be recycled.

Yet another study, this one by The Container Recycling Institute (CRI), recently concluded that single stream recycling is often more expensive and less desirable for the environment than dual stream. The reason is simply that it is difficult to separate the streams. The Executive Director of CRI, Susan Collins, puts it this way: “you can’t unscramble an egg.”

The CRI study also concluded single stream was less desirable for the environment. The reason is that single stream results in greater contamination of the recycled material and subsequent down graded use. Explained simply, the most environmentally desirable use of a bottle is to refill it as a bottle. This does not require new raw materials and uses the least energy. The next most desirable use is to remelt it to make another bottle. This uses more energy, but no new materials. The least desirable is to use the material as fill. In this case new raw material and the greatest amount of energy is required to make the next container. The difficulty of separating of containers in single stream recycling lead to more material being used as simple fill. In some cases the contaminated recyclables are simply sent to the land fill.

How much is the Teall & Hohnke Single Stream Show costing Ann Arbor Taxpayers?

Carts $1,428.000
New trucks to collect material from the carts $1,156,000
Additional Material Recovery Facility Equipment $3,250,000
Expansion of the Material Recovery Facility $500,000
Contract to Resource Recycling Systems $103,000
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $6,437,000

In addition to wasted tax dollars, citizens will suffer reduction in recycling service. The city’s single stream recycling project Manager, Tom McMurtrie, has said that the curb-side recycling program will no longer collect engine oil, batteries or florescent lights. Citizens can still drop these off at the recycle center, but there is a $3 charge for each vehicle entering the center as well as a fee for taking these hazardous materials.

People will, of course, simply put these hazardous materials in the solid waste cart and send them to the land fill. That’s what those who’ve studied single stream recycling tell us.

We are told that single stream recycling will be a benefit, because the city will now collect additional types of plastic containers. Recycled plastics have the lowest resale value. Besides, the city could simply accept these same plastics under the auspices of the present dual stream program. Citizens will send the most toxic materials to the landfill, and in exchange Ann Arbor will keep inert plastic from going to the landfill. That is an exceptionally poor environmental trade-off.

So who does benefit? The recycling collection industry and the city staff. The recycling industry is having a difficult time being profitable. People aren’t buying as much ’stuff.’ When they don’t buy ’stuff,’ they don’t discard as much ’stuff.’ With less material to process the recycling industry is looking for a source of more revenue. Mixing the recycling streams, and then paying the industry to separate the materials increases revenue.

The consultants benefit. Resource Recycling Systems prepared the presentation to Council recommending the transition to single stream recycling. They were subsequently awarded a six-figure contract to help implement the single stream system. We should be very concerned about the objectivity of a recommendation, when the entity making the recommendation has a strong economic interest in the outcome.

The city management benefits because they now have a larger program to manage. They will collect more tonnage than before, that is often the measure of the success of a municipal recycling program. In short they have better bragging rights. (See chart above.)

Spending over $6 million of the solid waste fund to implement single stream recycling is an environmental step backward for Ann Arbor. The sheer number of tons diverted from our landfill doesn’t mean single stream is good for the environment. The contaminated bales of recycled materials end up in other landfills. Well, at least when the three of them run for re-election this August, you can toss their campaign literature right into the cart along with the literature of the other Council candidates who voted to waste $6.4 million on sending more recyclables to the landfill. Save the literature of candidates who will vote to suspend single stream recycling until the program matches dual stream in quality, cost and efficiency.

Popularity: 80% [?]

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January 27, 2010

The Politics of Parks: It’s Not the Just The Grass That Needs to Be Cut

Filed under: money, parks — Tags: Craig Covey, Food Gatherers, Gathering Gardens, Jayne Miller, Margie Teall, Meredith Wilson, Roger Fraser — A2 Politico @ 12:32 pm

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As always, with thanks to American lyricist Meredith Wilson:

There’s trouble in River City. That’s trouble with a capital T that rhymes with M and that stands for mowing.

(chorus) Mowing. Mowing. Mowing. Mowing.

I say there’s trouble, right here in River City. That’s trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Plowing.

(chorus) Plowing. Plowing. Plowing. Plowing.

As you may remember (or not) this week the financial services department presented our City Council members with a list of suggestions concerning how our city could save money on park upkeep. Two of the solutions were to stop mowing certain areas in certain parks, and to stop plowing certain areas in certain parks.

In going through the document presented to Council, I read this:

Issue: Discontinue maintaining some parks; which ones would be recommended?

Response: Approximately 40-50 acres of parkland has been identified where mowing can be eliminated or reduced. Cost savings related to this are difficult to estimate, as there will still be partial mowing at most of the park sites. There will still be fixed costs associated with travel time to each park location, equipment costs, and other costs associated with the FY10 estimated per acre mowing costs of $4,000/acre, per year. A variable cost such as fuel would be reduced.

So, we have the financial services staff telling us we can save money by reducing mowing and plowing in our parks. You bet your grass-catcher we can. The City’s Community Services Area Manager Jayne Miller has been squeezing $4,000 per acre for mowing costs out of Ann Arbor taxpayers. That means for the city’s Park’s Department to come and mow your one-quarter acre lot would be $1,000 per year. So, I decided to look around at what other cities pay to mow their parks and whether they do it at all.

Let’s start in Kansas, Dorothy.

The city of Newton, Kansas, a bedroom community of Wichita (population 361,000), took 112 acres of parkland off of its mowing schedule, not by simply eliminating mowing. The town decided to plant the land with a combination of native grasses and hay. The calculated yearly mowing savings for the 112 acres was $75,985. That’s a yearly per acre mowing cost of $678 dollars.

In December of 2009, it was reported that Des Moines, IA (pop. 197,000) city council decided to allow the parks department to stop mowing about 100 acres of the city’s 3,200 acres of parkland for a savings of $235,000 per year. That’s a yearly per acre mowing cost of $2,350.

In Berkeley, California, they use (I kidd you not) sheep and goats at $500-$800 per acre to keep park lawns trimmed. Just like beekeepers who truck in bees to pollinate crops, herders go into Berkeley parks with their flocks of goats or sheep (sheep are used in areas with landscaping, as they stick to the grass; goats will eat anything).

With respect to Jayne Miller’s $4,000 per acre per year mowing costs, I haven’t seen such shocking math since City Administrator Roger Fraser and the City Treasurer went before Council with their comparison “study” on parking fine data to justify jacking up parking fines. In Ann Arbor we’re paying more per hour to park on street than residents of L.A., and costlier expired meter parking fines than residents of Seattle. Park mowing costs? We’re paying more per acre per year to mow our parks than taxpayers in cities half the size of Ann Arbor and twice the size of Ann Arbor.

If our mayor and council people could learn one lesson, it’s to take the costs for municipal services presented to them by city staff, and do some serious comparison shopping. Can you imagine Fourth Ward’s Margie Teall paying $4,000 per acre to mow at her house? She asked for a year to refund to the city the under $500 pay cut she recently volunteered to take. As much as I’m appalled that no one on Council questioned the $4,000 per acre calculated cost for mowing, I have to say I’m completely behind community services policy changes for city park mowing for some big picture ecological reasons.

Let’s look at mowing from an ecological perspective. At our house, we use a reel mower, and have used one for a decade. The youngest tot did some grass patrol last summer, and learned the art of using the hand-trimmers, as well. No gas-powered weed-whacker at the ChezA2Politico The sweat equity in the yard was a revelation for the tot. Here’s some information that may be a revelation for you. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a traditional gas powered lawn mower produces as much air pollution as 43 new cars each being driven 12,000 miles. Gas-powered mowers produce 5 percent of the the nation’s air pollution according to the EPA. Well over 5 million gas powered mowers are still sold in the U.S. every year. A typical 3.5 horsepower gas mower, for instance, can emit the same amount of VOCs —key precursors to smog — in an hour as a new car driven 340 miles, say industry experts.

Gas-powered mowing of our parks should have been completely phased out years ago, certainly when gasoline hit $5 per gallon, because at $2.80 a gallon it’s no bargain when you use thousands of gallons every week to maintain 2,000 acres of parkland. Zero emission lawn care isn’t a trend; it’s a health, financial and environmental no-brainer. Would you give up your gas guzzling lawnmower in exchange for a subsidy from the city? In 2009, Craig Covey, Mayor of Ferndale, pushed a program (no pun intended) for residents so they get a subsidy for turning in their gas powered mowers and purchasing electric or reel mowers. It’s voluntary, and has been very successful. Ann Arbor should implement a similar program for its residents.

Had Jayne Miller recommended to City Council five years ago that Ann Arbor invest in electric mowing technology (or had anyone on Council had the ecological good sense to suggest it), the significant savings in gasoline and diesel fuel each year could have been reinvested in native planting plugs and the creation of prairies at parks, further reducing the need for mowing. Savings could have been invested, as well, in expanding the plowing of bike lanes and walking paths to encourage biking and walking.

How about this idea? The city could partner with Food Gatherers to take grass that needs to be mowed out of parks, and put Gathering Gardens in to feed the hungry. The city would up its human services contribution in tangible goods. Lease 25 percent of the parkland identified as infrequently used and in need of mowing to Food Gatherers for Gathering Farms. The 1/2 acre farm on Dhu Varren produced 30,000 pounds of produce this past year.

Food Gatherers, alas, has no interest in partnering with the city on such a project. FG’s leaders have no desire to work with the current bureaucratic leadership in Ann Arbor. That’s s shame, and needs to change if elected officials are serious about partnerships and cooperation as cost-saving strategies.

Back to the $4,000 per acre charged to taxpayers to mow our parks and golf courses: I have another suggestion to financial services staff. Bring the per acre mowing costs in line with what is paid for the same service in other similarly-sized cities as opposed to cutting services. To get staff to do this, Council members are going to have to educate themselves, and be prepared to push staff to justify the shockingly high municipal charges for park maintenance.

It also means rewarding staff for coming up with long-term creative solutions to save on costs associated with the municipal services provided. City Administrator Roger Fraser’s management style is neither creative nor compensatory. What if we offered staff members a one time payment of 5 percent of all savings solutions they devise? Perhaps one of our city’s parks workers would have suggested zero emissions landscaping years ago.

Instead, Ann Arbor taxpayers routinely suffer the results of the least imaginative management strategy possible: service cuts.

Popularity: 83% [?]

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