A2Politico: Ann Arbor Politics Grilled To Perfection

WARNING: Only Read If A Fan Of  Tragic (or political soap) Opera

“Conan ‘di Lammermore‘ Smith & the AADem Web site,” a tragic opera in three acts.

The Cast of Characters

Conan Smith: County Commissioner, Chair Ann Arbor City Democratic Party elected November 2008

Barbara Petersen, Vice Chair for Communication, Ann Arbor City Democratic Party, City Council campaign treasurer for Joan Lowenstein

Joan Lowenstein, DDA Board member, ex-City Council member, defeated 2008 judicial candidate, defeated for the position of Ann Arbor City Democratic Party Chair by Conan Smith in November 2008. 

LuAnne Bullington, Vice Chair for Organization, Ann Arbor City Democratic Party, retired IT Project Manager for the University of Michigan’s School of Business. Served as Vice Chair for Communication in 2008. Ran for Third Ward City Council seat in 2009.

GoDaddy, Web hosting company 

The Ann Arbor City Democratic Party is a clubby little group. With over 90,000 registered voters in Ann Arbor, and about two-thirds of them registered Democrats, the local Ann Arbor City Democratic Party full email list has 600 members. The drama that follows may serve as a possible explanation for why the Ann Arbor City Democratic Party is such a small and insular group.  

Monthly Saturday meetings are, generally, attended by fewer than 75 people. There is an Executive Board consisting of a Chair, eight Vice Chairs, Secretary and Treasurer. There are Ward Chairs for each of Ann Arbor’s five Wards.

There is, of course, a web site, and this is where our story begins.

Libretto: A Feud Between Two Families

ACT I—10 Months Ago (Ravenswood Castle aka A2 Community Center)

County Commissioner Conan Smith beats out judicial candidate, and ex-City Council member, Joan Lowenstein for the position of Chair of the AA Dems. Lowenstein’s City Council campaign treasurer Barbara Petersen is elected Vice Chair for Communication, a position that had been held by recent Third Ward City Council candidate LuAnne Bullington. The Vice Chair for Communication manages the AA Dem’s web site, email list,  and its member communications (notices of candidate debates, AA Dem meetings, the annual September fundraiser picnic, etc….)

The plot twist: Petersen, unfortunately, takes the job without knowing a URL from Uranus. Bullington, a former IT project manager at the University of Michigan’s Business School, does know a URL from Uranus and then some. Bullington, when she turns over the keys (passwords) to the AADems web kingdom to Petersen and Smith offers to help them acquaint themselves with the web resources. 

Bullington sings in an email to A2Politico:

“I told them to call me anytime. They never did. I saw them at monthly meetings. They never asked for help with the web site.”

Act II—September 2009 (Wolf’s Crag aka the Bullington Abode)

Then the HTML hits the fan. With his term ending, Conan Smith demands the login password to the GoDaddy master account. That password would allow Smith access to Bullington’s credit card information, as well as the ability to move the AADems.org domain to a host other than GoDaddy. Bullington balks. The GoDaddy account is paid through 2012, and Smith has just two months left in his term. Where, wonders Bullington, is the fire?

Smith initially and somewhat foolishly claims that without the password to the domain account, he and Petersen can’t update the AADem.org web site.

On September 30th, Petersen sings plaintively in an email to Bullington:

“Just for the record, though I was given a piece of paper last December with a series of IDs and passwords, even as recently as 10 days ago, I’ve never been successful in getting through to the existing A2Dens Web site. I gave the Chair a copy of those codes and he, also, has been unable to get through. I think the basic issue here is that the Chair’s request for Web Domain access is perfectly reasonable….I am presently creating a Web site for our group that will support all the various committee functions. Accordingly, all I need now is what Conan has long been requesting — access to the Web Domain itself so that we can take down the old site and upload the new site.”  

Bullington asks half a dozen friends to log on to the AADems.org site using the information she’d given Smith and Petersen.

One of the testers sings sweetly in an email to Smith and Petersen, “No problems logging in, and no problems retrieving files or uploading files to your AADEMS server. You can, of course, completely redesign your site through uploading files using the FTP login above.”

Conan Smith changes tactics. He sings sternly, chest puffed out, in an email to Bullington:

“LuAnne….It is not up to you to determine how communications are handled.  That is the role of the Vice Chair for Communications, the Secretary and the Chair of the Party.  We wish to recast the website through a new provider.  We wish to implement a new system for internal communications.  Both of those activities require access to and management of the domain aadems.org.  We are not talking about the capacity to update the website, rather, very specifically, the capacity to manage the domain. Your refusal to provide that to us has consistently impeded our ability to conduct communications in the way that we see fit.” 

Bullington stands firm. She sings in an email to A2Politico:

“Conan has a server account the password to which he has shared with none of the other officers. When it came time this past July to send out notices to members about the AA Dem Third Ward City Council candidate debates, Conan was out of town. Conan has never given anyone the password to the VerticalResponse account used to send emails to the membership. The Vice Chair for Communication didn’t have it. What’s to say he won’t do the same thing with the AADem.org account information? It’s happened before. Chairs come and go. The web resource belongs to the membership, not Conan Smith.”

Act III—October 10th Showdown between Smith and Bullington

Conan sings ominously in a late-September email to LuAnne:

“For your benefit, I seriously do not want to have to make this an issue for the membership.  You have become an obstruction to the Vice Chair for Communications to be able to do her job.  We have been working around and through you for the past eight months and my frustration has peaked.  Please relinquish the username and password for the GoDaddy account…If you do not quickly and completely remove yourself as the intermediary between our communications team and this essential tool, I will be compelled to take alternate actions to ensure that you no longer impede our ability to manage the communications of the organization.”

An email arrives in early October from the AADem Chair to all members announcing an October 10th AADems meeting. Conan places the following governance resolution on the meeting agenda:

“A resolution to ensure the smooth transfer of power between officers is offered, directing the current Vice Chair for Organizing to provide access to and control over the Party’s web domain, aadems.org, to the current Vice Chair of Communications within the coming week.”

An imagined ending: Bullington flatly refuses the demand, and Smith becomes slowly demented over the final two months of his term in office as a result of the refusal.

A probable ending: Bullington flatly refuses the demand, and Smith becomes slowly demented over the final two months of his term in office as a result of her refusal.

Note: Tickets to the show are free. The performance will take place on October 10th at 9:30 in the Kuenzel Room of the Michigan Union (floor plan). There is an AADem new member orientation.  The AADem meeting begins at 10:00. Any Dem may vote on the resolutions.

Orchestra circle seating still available. Black tie optional.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Related Grilled Entrées

• What Begins With F, Has Four Letters, and Is A Very Dirty Word In Certain Political Circles?
• The Politics of Modern Drama: The Ann Arbor Crucible, or Which Witches Should Be On Trial?
• The Politics of the DDA: Time to Clean House
• County Commish Barbara Levin-Bergman Serves Up La Vengeance Froide And Ends Up With Egg On Her Face