A2Politico: Ann Arbor Politics Grilled To Perfection

July 16, 2010

The Politics of Taking Credit For Everything: A Look at the Incumbent’s Web site

Filed under: Mayor Hieftje, city services, elections — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 7:57 am
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On May 30, 2010, AnnArbor.com’s Ryan Stanton sent me a private email telling me that I should let him know what I thought my opponent should be “called out on.” It would be patently unethical for me to email back and forth privately with Stanton concerning what I think the Mayor needs to be called out on, so I thought I would include the several thousand people who read A2Politico in the discussion. 

On June 29, Wendy Cooper, a writer evidently fed up to the gills with what she referred to as “some of the worst reporting I can remember,” posted “Bias in Coverage of Mayoral Race Unconscionable” to AnnArbor.com. Last August, AnnArbor.com claimed a Sunday circulation of about 52,000. In less than a year, 10,000 paying subscribers have jumped ship, right along with the accompanying annual revenue. Tony Dearing reported to the Yale Forum on Climate Change in April 2010 that AnnArbor.com attracts 200,000 unique visitors per week, the same number of uniques he reported in January 2010 to A2Politico.com. 

While doing A2Politico.com, I have several times scooped AnnArbor.com. The first time was when Mayor Hieftje made his perpetual claim that “crime was down,” and I went to the FBI web site and provided links to crime statistics that contradicted the Mayor’s claims. That September 14, 2009 blog entry was picked up by AnnArbor.com. 

Since Ryan Stanton asked, let’s look together at John Hieftje’s web site. The site is up. Well, mostly. Someone commented to me recently that he thought the mayor was waiting for federal and/or state funding to get construction on his web site finished.  

From the incumbent’s web site: “I led City Council in setting the policy for the complete re-organization of the City bureaucracy, now saving taxpayers over $15 million per year.”

IRS tax returns show that Ann Arbor paid the same in wages to its employees in 2009 as it did in 2003—except we’re paying more money to 200 fewer employees. Furthermore, vested employees who are taken off the city’s payroll, move to the city’s pension fund, where there is now a $190,000,000 unfunded liability. 

The incumbent’s reorganization of the “bureaucracy” (really the City Administrator’s reorganization, but as James Leonard wrote recently in the Ann Arbor Observer, Mayor Hieftje doesn’t have any problem taking credit for the work of others) has resulted in exploitative hiring and employment practices. Ann Arbor hires full-time temps by the dozen (lots of them women), pays them low wages, gives them no benefits and keeps them out of city unions which would bargain better working conditions and pay. Thanks to the incumbent’s “reorganization,” Ann Arbor city government has become Walmart on the Huron. The National Organization of Women slammed the retailer for: “sex discrimination in pay, promotion, and compensation, wage abuse…and discouraging workers from unionizing.” The same thing is happening in our town, encouraged by our City Administrator, and embraced as a political plus by the incumbent and Fourth Ward Council member Margie Teall (who is also taking credit for spearheading the “reorganization” and for millions in savings on her web site).

Exploitative hiring and employment practices have a human impact. I recently met a full-time temporary city employee. A single mom, the woman has worked for Ann Arbor for several years and earns $10 per hour without benefits, or the hope of a raise in pay. Her job has been posted year-after-year, so there is no question that the city needs an employee to fill the position on a regular basis. It’s time to revoke our city’s exemption from its own living wage ordinance. Either we admit openly that our city is choosing to engage in exploitative hiring and employment practices, or we must put an end to the practice of relying heavily on full-time temporary city employees, and relegating them to the ranks of the working poor.  

Then we have this claim: “We developed one of the best recycling systems in the nation, thus reducing landfill waste and saving taxpayer funds”

One of the best recycling systems in the nation only processes 35 percent of its materials from the city of Ann Arbor. The rest come from surrounding communities. As for the incumbent’s claim of reducing landfill waste, the city’s own website and a June 2010 piece in the Ann Arbor Observer by Dave Gershman, make clear that in Ann Arbor the amount of material going to the landfill has increased since 2004. This graph is from the city’s web site:

Compost

According to the chart above, the total number of tons recycled has stagnated since 2002. Let me put this another way, the total number of tons hauled by Recycle Ann Arbor hasn’t increased substantially since 1998.

The taxpayer funds saved as claimed by the incumbent? 

Ann Arbor taxpayers foot the bill for the trucks, fuel, and repairs of Recycle Ann’s Arbor’s collection vehicles, purchased for $225,000 each in 2004. 

Look again at the chart above at the number of tons recycled.

By 2008, the cost to taxpayers to have Recycle Ann Arbor haul virtually the same number of tons of material to the MRF that the company hauled in 2003, had risen from $766,000 to a whopping $1.6 million dollars. City Council approved the payment of $1.8 million dollars to Recycle Ann Arbor for fiscal year 2010. It’s time to stop the practice of awarding no-bid contracts, such as the one awarded to Recycle Ann Arbor. No bid contracts don’t benefit taxpayers.

From the incumbent’s web site: “Fought successfully to increase new bike lanes and sidewalks, thereby enhancing pedestrian access and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Ann Arbor’s bike lane system grew by 600 % in just 5 years with more miles coming on line each year.”

Here’s a photo of a bike lane on Wall Street.

Compost

When John Hieftje was elected, Ann Arbor, which is 27.7 square miles, had 8 miles of on-road bike lanes. There are 42 miles of bike lanes, now. Boulder, Colorado boasts 300 miles of bike lanes, and the island of Manhattan, at 22.9 square miles, has gone from 200 miles to 400 miles of bike lanes since 2006. Both Hieftje and Fifth Ward incumbent Carsten Hohnke are taking credit for the expansion of the bike lane system. Neither, of course, is taking responsibility for the sorry state of the either the roads or the in-roads bike lanes, such as the one above. We need to not only repair our roads, but examine the policies in place that shape the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), policies that have resulted in CIPs that have neglected the Stadium bridge, and resulted in our city having the third worst roads in Michigan. We also need to re-open the current CIP and focus more of the money allocated to road repair.

The incumbent claims he:

Championed the Greenbelt initiative. 

500 volunteers worked on the Parks and Greenbelt Millage initiative, and the incumbent, according to Greenbelt organizers, dropped not a single piece of literature, nor did he make any donations to the Greenbelt initiative that he “championed,” according to donor statements filed with the State of Michigan. He was described by those who did champion the Greenbelt as having done “very little work.”

This next claim is classic Hiefje:

Established budgets that have allowed City Government to weather the long recession with a millage rate that is lower today than it was 10 years ago;

He has repeated this over and over during our debates. Technically, it’s the truth. So why are our property tax bills up, up, up? Because as any good politico knows raising taxes will get you bounced out of office during the next election cycle. Raising fees for services, water, sewer, storm water and solid waste, however, will provide millions yearly in additional revenue, while allowing the incumbent to take credit for “a millage rate that is lower today than it was 10 years ago.” 

Fee hikes have been substantial:

2002 Water charges to residents: $13.262 million

2006 Water charges to residents: $16.881 million

2009 Water charges to residents: $18.971 million

 

2002 Solid Waste charges to residents: $7.3 million

2006 Solid Waste charges to residents: $9.6 million

2009 Solid Waste charges to residents: $12.1 million

Here is a list of the various departmental fund surpluses from the city’s most recent audited financial statement:

Water — $9.3 million

Sewer — $44.7 million

Street Repair Millage Fund Balance — $19.4 million

Stormsewer — $5.2 million

Solid Waste — $8.9 million (allocated to the single-stream recycling conversion)

Fleet Surplus — $7.5 million

IT — $4 million

Project Management — $1.5 million

Central Stores — $1.6 million

Total unrestricted fund surpluses: $93,100,000

It’s time to roll-back water, storm water management, sewer and solid waste fee increases, and return as much as possible of the millions built up in those various funds to the General Fund, and directly to the taxpayers.

This next one is, perhaps, most indicative of the lengths the incumbent will go to stretch the truth:

Has been a champion for the Allen Creek Greenway. The City is working with the Arts Alliance and the Allen Creek Greenway Conservancy to create a Community Art Center and Greenway Park out of the old county and later, city maintenance yard at 415 West Washington.

At a June meeting of the Greenway citizen volunteer group and candidates running for office, Margaret Wong, an architect and long-time Greenway supporter, did a very thorough presentation about the Greenway, and explained that the Greenway group has “partnered” with the city for five years. Partner means little more than politicos take credit for being “champions” of the Greenway that doesn’t exist. Wong explained that several of the parcels necessary to complete the Greenway had been for sale within the past few years, but that city officials, such as Greenway “champion” Mayor Hieftje, had passed on the chance to allocate Greenbelt money on making the Greenway a reality. When he tried to take credit for having passed a “resolution” that dedicated three city parcels necessary to complete the Greenway, he was quickly corrected by a Greenway citizen volunteer that his resolution had been “non-binding.”

The Ann Arbor Skatepark group is now in the purgatory that is the dreaded city “partnership.”  That partnership is two years old. Fifth Ward incumbent Carsten Hohnke at debates this election season has twice trotted out “city support” of the skatepark. 

Both the Greenway and Ann Arbor Skatepark projects should be accreted by the city and funded. The skatepark could be funded through the parks millage. The Greenbelt millage money should be used to complete the Greenway. 

This last bit of political exaggeration on the part of the incumbent is, perhaps, the most egregious of all. During our debates, the Mayor has, repeatedly, taken credit (as has First Ward Council member Sandi Smith) for “doubling the number of beds at the shelter.” Officials at the Delonis Shelter estimate they serve 1,500 homeless individuals per year. The “emergency” funds allocated by both Ann Arbor City Council and the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners provided shelter to a fraction of the 3,000 people in need throughout the county. (The County financed shelter for 10 families, and the City allocation bought 60 more beds.) The “emergency” funding left the majority of the homeless out in the cold, literally. Finally, the money used to double the beds was a one-time allocation. John Hieftje and Sandi Smith take political credit for “doubling” the number of beds at the shelter, but conveniently neglect to mention the doubling was funded just once.

Over the past 4 years, Ann Arbor has built just 15 new units of affordable housing per year. The Chair of the Ann Arbor Housing and Human Services Board, Ned Staebler told City Council in last Fall, “This [Ann Arbor] is not the kind of place where we let people freeze to death on the streets.” Since 2007, he has been the Chair of the city’s Housing and Human Services Board. Staebler’s Board advises City Council on the “needs of the city’s low income residents.” Evidently, adequate housing and a significant bump in the number of shelter spaces were not among the pressing needs of low income residents in Ann Arbor this year. Or last year. Or the year before that one. 

The best way to avoid crises, is to anticipate potential problems. It’s a simple management strategy applicable to the most complicated of situations, such as flood risk management, homelessness, infrastructure fiascos such as the Stadium bridge, and our crumbling roads.

For instance, it’s going to get cold again. So, city government needs to be talking about how we’re going to deal with the ever-increasing problem of homelessness now. There are cities, such as San Francisco, that have a 10-year plan to abolish chronic homelessness. The plan may not be perfect, but at least there is one. We need a similar plan, and the same kind of proactive government that routinely takes responsibility for missing the mark, and gives credit to those who’ve earned it for real successes, not invented ones, such as “doubling the beds” at the homeless shelter, and “reducing waste to the landfill.” 

I went to the Georgetown Mall Citizens Committee meeting recently and read among the materials that at the April 2010 meeting of the group, the city attorney present had been tasked with bringing to the next meeting samples of blight ordinances which might be used to force the property owner to clean up the six acre Georgetown Mall mess. Three months later, the attorney showed up with not a single sample ordinance. Neither the Mayor, nor Fourth Ward Council member Margie Teall, both of whom attended the meeting, found the lack of follow through worth an apology to the many citizens gathered around the table. These people are concerned with blight and rising crime at the deserted Georgetown Mall. What neighborhood residents achieved at their meeting with the Mayor, Teall, a city planner, and a city attorney was, exactly, zero concrete action on the part of city government to help rectify the problem.

Then, again, the six acre parcel at Lower Town on Broadway has been allowed to remain blighted for years. There is obviously more concern on the part of current elected officials with downtown, than with the city areas outside of downtown, or the city as a whole. This has led to the south side of Ann Arbor looking more and more like Flint, and is again, indicative of a style of governance that is myopic and reactive, instead of responsive and planned. Downtown vibrancy is important, but not to the exclusion of entire swaths of our city and the people who live there. The incumbent has an entire section of his web site devoted to “Downtown” in which he proclaims: “In his next term, Mayor Hieftje will continue to work closely with locally-owned merchants to insure a vibrant downtown that is easy to access for residents.”

What he suggests is a roadmap to socio-economic segregation and eventual economic disaster for our city, as the number of blighted areas outside of downtown increase and those already blighted remain blighted. The site permits, TIF zones, and zoning changes made to facilitate the failed pie-in-the-sky developments at Georgetown Mall and Lower Town need to be rescinded. Without a helping hand from the local politicians, the developers will feel more pressure to sell the parcels, perhaps at a loss, but that’s why they call it speculative development. Is it more important that the Mayor’s political donors recoup their investments, or that blight in Ann Arbor is eradicated and sustainable development encouraged? I know my answer to that question.

Oddly enough, it was a politico to whom Hieftje gave a glowing endorsement in 2009, former Third Ward Council member Leigh Greden, who best summed up the incumbent’s penchant for self-aggrandizing in a December 17, 2007 mid-Council meeting email to Christopher Easthope titled: “The script is back….But short.” Greden writes an invented dialogue that includes this bit of actual insight and foreshadowing:

John Hieftje: “I call this meeting to order. I just returned from an important conference of Mayors in Oscoda. I was the only attendee. I gave a speech to myself praising Ann Arbor’s LED and rail programs. If the Mayor of Grand Rapids had been there, he would have praised me.”

At the recent July 1st NCPOA debate, according to coverage from the AnnArborChronicle.com, the incumbent opens the debate thusly:

Hieftje also began with thanks all around. He then said that he would tell the audience a little bit about “what he’d been up to.” He’d begun the week on Monday with the Urban Core Mayors. [The Urban Core Mayors is a forum developed in 1992 and includes the mayors of the following cities: Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Bay City, Dearborn, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Muskegon, Pontiac, and Saginaw.] He said that the mayors of the cities sat around and talked about what’s going on in their cities….

Of course, on his web site the incumbent assiduously avoids pointing out what is actually going on in the city he had led for almost a decade. He does the same thing at debates. The millage is down. The LED lights are up. Life is good. So go bag your leaves and count yourself among the fortunate. There are, after all, cities with no leaf collection at all. 

There’s no need to point out that the cities without leaf collection service are in the tropics.

Popularity: 50% [?]

May 10, 2010

The Politics of the DDA: Time to Clean House

Filed under: DDA, money — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 10:17 pm
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Rene Greff and Jennifer Santi Hall are spilling the beans about the down and dirty inner-workings of the Downtown Development Authority to Ann Arborites, and anyone else who would care to know. At the most recent DDA meeting, at which Russ Collins, Leah Gunn, Roger Hewitt, Mayor John Hieftje, Joan Lowenstein, John Splitt, and City Council Member Sandi Smith supported siphoning off $2 million to prop up the city’s leaky bucket of a budget, Santi Hall alleged “secret” back room wheeling and dealing. She is quoted in a May 5, 2010 post to Ann Arbor.com as saying:

DDA board members and Ann Arbor City Council members who worked out the framework for the $2 million transfer behind closed doors during the last year. Hall said the meetings of the working group should have been open to the public, but even some DDA board members were kept away from sitting in on the discussions. ”I don’t support this type of conduct,” Hall said. “I find it sneaky, and underhanded, and corrupt, and possibly illegal, and in violation of the public trust in our government. Obviously not everyone is in agreement with me on this or things would have happened in a different way. But at the very least you should be able to understand why I’m so angry today.”

Not to be overly cynical, but I have to wonder if Hall was present at the January 20, 2009 meeting called by First Ward Council member Sandi Smith. It was revealed in FOIAed emails that Smith had invited everyone on Council over to the DDA office to discuss what should be built atop the underground parking garage planned for the Library lot. This was, of course, seven months before July 2009, when City Council actually issued the RFP to solicit proposals from developers interested in building atop the Fifth Avenue parcel. There was no public notice of the January 20, 2009 meeting, nor were minutes kept. Just City Council and DDA Board members alone in a room deciding what should be built on land owned by the public. If Jennifer Hall was at that meeting, her outrage at the behavior of her colleagues and City Council members over being excluded from meetings concerning the ultimate disposition of the $2 million dollars requested by the city from the DDA, seems somewhat staged. Then again, if she wasn’t at the January 20, 2009 meeting called by Smith, the outrage seems somewhat puzzling. 

The DDA only posted its annual budget to its web site in 2008. While running against Sandi Smith for the First Ward City Council seat (Jennifer Santi Hall was Smith’s campaign manager), I questioned why the DDA’s financial information wasn’t readily available online, and why the noon-time meetings weren’t televised. In the midst of that election season, the annual budget was posted to the group’s web site in .pdf format. DDA meetings have only just begun being televised. These were two very important steps toward transparency, and I’m delighted I helped bring them about. However, surely Santi Hall knew that the DDA Board members cut a $10 million dollar back-room deal with former Council members Leigh Greden and Christopher Easthope in exchange for Main Street beat cops for a decade (a promise that the City Council broke after taking the DDA’s money), according to Rene Greff, in an October 2009 interview she did for A2Politico.

Thus, the current ruckus over how, when and by whom it was decided that the DDA would hand over $2 million dollars to the city with no strings attached demonstrates quite amply that the politicization of the group as evidenced by changes to its mission in the DDA’s 2003-2033 early renewal, has worked against its initial mission, tending to Ann Arbor’s downtown. The DDA’s renewal includes the following objective areas:

Identity
Infrastructure
Transportation
Business Encouragement
Housing
Development Partnerships
Community Services
Sustainability

All are laudable goals, of course, but most involve influencing or changing the course of the city’s public policy. That’s the job of our elected officials. In other towns, including Royal Oak, the budgets of their DDA’s must be approved by elected officials. Ours is not. In fact, First Ward Council member Sandi Smith has argued that the City Council has no business sticking its collective nose in DDA parking policy, and members of the DDA Board have argued that the entity is autonomous. Jennifer Hall, in her interview with A2Politico said that: “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.” 

The DDA Board is abusing its power. The Board recently voted to expand its own state-mandated boundary so as to be able to give a $500,000 tax dollar giveaway to the Near North project, located outside the long-established DDA boundary. Then there is the recent $2 million dollar giveaway to the city of Ann Arbor. County officials are investigating the legality of that transfer, because it involves tax capture money that would, otherwise, go into Washtenaw County coffers. The DDA Board recently cost the taxpayers $500,000 when the project manager it chose to oversee the construction of the underground parking garage awarded a $22 million dollar contract to its own subsidiary. The Christman subsidiary bid was $500,000 higher than the lowest bidder. This prompted an editorial in the AnnArbor.com titled “Concrete deal for DDA underground parking structure a bad deal for taxpayers.” In that editorial, Tony Dearing writes:

“It looks bad and raises serious questions when a company managing construction of a major public project rejects a lower bid from a competitor and awards the work to its subsidiary….We have spoken to many experts who find it hard to believe that a public entity would allow such an outcome, but this now appears to be a done deal. Because of the DDA’s autonomy on this project, we are not aware of any other entity that has the ability to step in after the fact and give this questionable bid award the level of review or scrutiny that the DDA failed to provide.”

But there is an entity that can step in: City Council. Just as the group recently dismissed the entire Housing Commission Board, the City Council could vote to dismiss the entire DDA Board, and direct the newly appointed replacements to suspend the Christman contract, and give the questionable bid award the scrutiny the previous DDA Board obviously failed to provide.

Though this is the obvious solution to the DDA’s failure to act in the best interests of the taxpayers whose money they have access to through the TIF capture, it won’t happen as long as the incumbent remains in office. Why? Because over the past half a dozen years, the DDA Board has been stacked with friends, donors and political pals. It’s tough to tell a group of people whose combined donations during your last campaign totaled close to 25 percent of the donations you took in, that their services are no longer needed because, well, they cost the taxpayers half a million dollars. 

That’s why Mayoral appointments of friends, political pals and donors to city boards and commissions has to end. In addition, there are members of city boards and commissions who have overstayed their welcome. 

For instance, County Commissioner Leah Gunn has served far too many terms on the DDA, having been appointed when George H.W. Bush was president. The quality of her recent work shows why she is no longer an asset, and a look at the Mayor’s 2008 campaign finance forms will make clear exactly why he will never replace her. She has donated thousands in in-kind goods, services and monetary donations to his campaigns over the past half a dozen years.

To justify the $2.28 million dollar purchase of additional parking kiosks, Gunn went before the DDA Board and gave the jolly explanation that they should pony up the money for the detestable and over-priced kiosks because, “We have found that everybody likes them.” How she knew that for a fact remains a mystery, as the DDA conducted no user study, and Gunn’s colleagues neglected to stop for a moment before writing the check to enquire just how she came to that blowsy conclusion. Then, on May 8, 2010, she was quoted in AnnArbor.com as saying that a proposal to use DDA money to return the Beat Cops to Main Street:  ”…needs…a lot of homework done. There’s a lot of data that needs to be collected and a great deal of discussion that needs to be held.”

Seriously? With six police officers patrolling all of Ann Arbor on any given morning she thinks returning the Beat Cops to Main Street needs lots of data collected and a great deal of discussion? As you can imagine, she found support from Mayor Hieftje. He called the proposal to fund beat cops on Main Street “premature,” and said “beat cops might not be the best way to police downtown.” I’m not sure what he thinks might be the best way to police downtown, but at the moment whatever it is it involves cutting more police to fund a parking garage on Fuller Road for his friends at the University of Michigan, and to pay for cost over-runs on the price-”guaranteed” Police-Court facilty. Those cost over-runs have cropped up in the 2010-2011 proposed budget. Suddenly, the “guaranteed” cost of that capital project is, well, is fungible, as they like to say on Council.

Every Main Street business owner whom I’ve spoken to wants that police protection back. In October of 2009, just three months after Council adopted a budget that cut Beat Cops from downtown, the Chief of Police went down to the Main Street Area Association and offered to return the Beat Cops in a pay-for-policing offer. I wrote about that here. Was Chief Barnett Jones just trying to up sell our Main Street Merchants police coverage like so many matching handbags, police protection they didn’t need? I doubt it. Here’s a better question: Should the appointed officials on the DDA Board be deciding whether Ann Arbor’s downtown needs police protection? Absolutely not.

City Administrator Roger Fraser suggested in December of 2009 that we dissolve the DDA in order to return some $2.4 million dollars per year to our city’s General Fund. If elected, I want to actively pursue Roger Fraser’s suggestion. Until then, I think it’s time for the DDA to immediately make as much of its financial information available online as possible. That information should include previous year’s budgets going back to 2000, parking data, monthly budget statements, quarterly budget statements, audits, and the DDA’s check register. 

Appointed officials have no business dictating police coverage, wasting half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money through lack of oversight of a contractor, extending their own boundary as they see fit so as to facilitate tax giveaways to private developers partnered conveniently with local non-profits. Appointed officials and elected officials on the DDA Board have no business holding “work sessions” so that their decisions can be formulated out of the public eye, and away from the coverage of the local press. Our DDA’s appointed officials have no business setting transportation policy, housing policy, or spending parking/tax dollars on private developments. Subverting the Open Meetings Act simply makes the public more wary and mistrustful of whatever good deeds such an entity could (and does) accomplish.

Be that as it may, public money must be controlled by elected officials, not appointed ones. It’s time to clean house at the DDA through Mayoral appointments made not as recompense for political support, but rather for the good of the downtown and in support of our local merchants. I agree with Roger Fraser that we have to reassess whether the entity should exist in its current form, or dissolve the DDA and form an Advisory Commission with absolutely no access to public money. We’ll lose the TIF capture, but that money will go back to the city’s coffers, county’s coffers, schools and libraries, institutions that service the entire community.

Finally, and most importantly, the contract between the city and the DDA that established the DDA as the entity that oversees our parking program should be bid out competitively. Until we make parking revenue neutral, alternative/mass transportation programs and initiatives in Ann Arbor will remain political step-children dragged out every election season to be used as bullet points on political web sites. 

Ann Arbor taxpayers deserve accountability, and in the case of the DDA, and every other board and commission in Ann Arbor, the City Charter provides City Council with the mechanism to make sure the members of boards and commissions are held accountable. Whether Mayor and Council will continue to appoint friends, donors and political pals to our city’s boards and commissions, or choose to give the taxpayers in the fifth largest city in Michigan the accountability they deserve is another matter that will be decided August 3rd.

Popularity: 54% [?]

February 2, 2010

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

Filed under: boards and commissions — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — 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. 

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December 7, 2009

The Politics of Money: City Council About To Give Away A Golden Egg In Exchange For A White Elephant

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The previous Ann Arbor City Council majority (Second Ward’s Stephen Rapundalo and ex-Council member Joan Lowenstein, Third Ward’s ex-Council member Leigh Greden, Fourth Ward’s Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall, Fifth Ward’s ex-Council member and now judge, Christopher Easthope, and Mayor John Hieftje) brought us the concept of Ann Arbor development projects propped up by taxpayer subsidies (so-called public/private partnerships), dubbed in a May 2009 article in the Atlantic Monthly as “crony capitalism” by Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund during 2007 and 2008. 

Here in A2 no outlandish redevelopment project backed up by fantasy financials fails to excite a Council majority and Hizzoner, the Mayor. First there are kisses, then Council member Marcia Higgins does her dance of the special TIF zone, then, before you know it, the crony capitalism project is stalled, bankrupted and/or both. Need some examples?

First there was the First Ward Lower Town re-development project (now stalled for over half a dozen years). Next the previous Council majority brought us the Fourth Ward Georgetown Mall redevelopment project (bankrupt in less than 12 months after approval). Then, they “redeveloped” the Fifth Avenue former YMCA site, opposite the Main Library (once 100 units of affordable housing, and now a parking lot). The new Council majority (First Ward’s Sandi Smith, Second Ward’s Rapundalo and Tony Derezinski, Third Ward’s Christopher Taylor, Fourth Ward’s Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall and Fifth Ward’s Carsten Hohnke), are just as enthusiastic about crony capitalism (evidence their undying love and support of Ann Arbor SPARK and the LDFA). They  have schemed for 18 months to set the stage to give away another of the city’s golden eggs—the land atop the as-yet-unbuilt $55 million dollar underground parking necropolis, to be built next to the Main Library on Fifth.

As per crony capitalism etiquette, they’re also going to ask you to sign for the loan for the project so their developer friends are in no danger of losing money thanks to their land speculation. We can’t have that in Ann Arbor; it’s too politically important to have “redevelopment” projects. No matter that the projects end up in acres and acres of blighted land dotting the neighborhoods around town. 

At the moment, there are technically six projects under consideration for the library lot site, but before you get your bets down on the table meine Damen und Herren, let me tell you something— life’s a Cabaret my friends and the fix was in at the beginning of January of 2009. That was when City Administrator Roger Fraser brought the proposed design of one of those six development projects to the City Council retreat and pitched Council about “a little convention center.” Public present at the retreat were refused access to the plan presented. 

The cards were marked and the dice weighted—a “committee” was formed to “evaluate” the six proposals submitted. It’s probable that up to six of these people had already seen the proposal pitched by Fraser to Council 12-18 months before the sealed bid envelopes were ever slit open:

Margie Teall – Council Member, Ward 4
Stephen Rapundalo – Council Member, Ward 2
Eric Mahler – Planning Commission
John Splitt – DDA
Sam Offen – Resident & PAC Member
Roger Fraser – City Administrator
Jayne Miller – City Staff
Matt Kulhanek – Manager, Ann Arbor Airport
Susan Pollay – DDA

The committee met on December 4th, and will recommend to City Council which of the six projects should be built atop the Library lot. Go ahead. Toss the dice as many times as you like, and watch a recommendation for a hotel/convention center come up.

The preferred crony capitalism strategy in Ann Arbor is for a small group of Council and staff to keep the details under wraps until just before the City Council vote. However, that standard operating procedure was disrupted by the leak of the secret convention center plan presented to Council last January—a development plan that has been in the works since before the city’s official issued the Request for Proposals—a Request for Proposals brought to us by Marcia Higgins and Sandi Smith that was strangely tailored to the details of the Valiant group’s conference center/hotel plan.

Once the proposals were in, city officials refused to release the information to the public. While AnnArbor.com filed its FOIA, which city officials duly delayed, on November 20th A2Politico was the first site to post the PDF summary of the library lot proposals, thanks to a Whisper by an A2 politico. That summary included a proposal from the Valiant group, whose backers have had regular email contact with members of the DDA (including one person on the evaluation committee) and City Council members (as revealed in FOIAed Council emails).

Public pressure has now forced more of the details into the open.

The City recently published the project cost proposals on its web site. They make for some interesting reading, especially if you get excited by fantasies and bondage. The proposals with the most answers about funding and who would pay are The Dahlmann proposal for a park, and the convention center proposals from Valiant and Acquest.

Local developer Dennis Dahlmann’s proposal is simple:

He’ll write a check to the city for $2.5 million dollars or more to build the planned park he has proposed. The City would be responsible for operating costs, but the site could generate revenue from skate rentals, the proposed restaurant, and possibly other retail activities. 

The hotel/convention center proposals read like the Lower Town and Georgetown redevelopment scripts which were both based on that great 1991 movie with Danny DeVito, “Other People’s Money.” The conference center developers want taxpayers to pony up. The Acquest group writes that they “anticipate funding for the hotel will involve some type of public/private partnership.” The conference center mooches also don’t want to pay for the land until the city (well, taxpayers, actually) pays to builds them a conference center to subsidize the proposed hotel.

Since the Valiant group has an 18 month head start, their taxpayer subsidy proposals are more specific. While claiming they can get conventional financing for their hotel and condos, they prefer getting subsidized loans. The four Princes Valiant also have a detailed plan to finance the 37,000 square foot conference center. It’s really simple; you’ll love it. Taxpayers take all the financial risk, and the Princes Valiant get all the profits. How? The city will borrow the money by issuing bonds, backed by our property taxes. As explained in the Valiant proposal, it’s unreasonable to ask the developer to pay for the conference center because “Conference Centers rarely generate enough revenue to cover debt.”

That’s also why the conference center will be owned by the city or a non-profit controlled by the city. Surely, no one expects the developers to be responsible for the money losing dog they propose. That would be a financial risk for the developer. As First Ward Council member Sandi Smith has been quoted as saying, “mitigating the risk” for developers is why the Good Lord placed taxpayers on this Green Earth.

Valiant’s land purchase proposal gets an A+ for making a frog look like a prince through creative accounting and fantasy projections. Their proposed land purchase price is based on a combination of the sales price of the 12 luxury condos ($750,000 to $1,250,000 a pop) they’ll build, coupled with the amount of profit the hotel is projected to make when it is fully operational. They claim that formula will result in a minimum purchase price of the public-owned land of $5,259,796 dollars. The amount is bolded in the proposal so readers don’t miss it (It’s just scary to envision Stephen Rapundalo drooling).

Absent from the proposal is a discussion of what happens if the luxury condos can’t be sold for a big price, or even for the outstanding loan balance. You see, the city (i.e. you and me) doesn’t get one thin dime for the land until those ridiculously-priced condos are all sold. Most of the pretend $5.3 million dollar land sale price comes from a formula based on the operating profits from the hotel in year three, when it is assumed to be fully operational. Here’s where the Princes Valiant get really, well, creative. The Valiant developers predict a rosy future of 76 percent hotel occupancy. (They predict world peace and an end to world hunger, as well.)

Those know-it-alls at PricewaterhouseCoopers, who have been tracking hotel occupancy rates over the past 50 years, predict this about future hotel occupancy:

“According to the PwC forecast, 2008 RevPAR will decrease by 0.8 percent, primarily due to a 3.7 percent decrease in occupancy, the highest annual decrease in occupancy since 2001. In 2009, demand is forecast to decrease by 2.0 percent, which, when coupled with a 1.6 percent increase in supply, is expected to further reduce occupancy to 58.6 percent, the lowest since 1971.”

“The deteriorating outlook for the economy is impacting travel habits and spending, and hotels are expected to experience reduced occupancy levels, and to a lesser degree, some room rate erosion through 2009,” said Scott Berman, principal and U.S. Leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Hospitality and Leisure practice.”

Of course, if the projected hotel profits in year three are less than those projected, the city gets less for the land. If the hotel is losing money in year three, the city gets zip, zilch, nada for the land. Valiant pays taxpayers for our land only if their hotel is profitable. Valiant also wants a 20-year payment plan, and wants the city to subordinate the land payments to the construction loans. Worried yet? Relax. The developer’s spreadsheet with the big profits looks so alluring, sexy even, how could this project lose money? Besides, a rosy economy for Michigan, and especially Ann Arbor, is just around the corner, right?  (The mental image of Margie Teall drooling over this S & M financial fantasy is even scarier).

The most interesting aspect of the Valiant profit projection is comparing it to the Acquest profit projection. Acquest proposes a bigger building (180,000 square feet, compared to 143,000 square feet) and more hotel rooms (190 compared to 150), but the Acquest group projects less profit when fully up and running ($2.4 million compared to $3.5 million). Valiant is more profitable even though it’s sales and administrative costs are $1 million more than Acquest’s. Valiant’s more profitable bottom line is because it expects a higher occupancy (76 percent compared to Acquest’s 67 percent). The Valiant group expects to charge more for its rooms ($209 average daily rental compared to $149). Valiant’s daily average room rental rate fantasy  is on par with that of hotels in Chicago and Boston.

Again, according to those know-it-alls at PricewaterhouseCoopers, “Only the Budget category of U.S. hotels will see increases in both occupancy and average daily room rates.” Apparently Valiant expects to rake in the dough from all those folks attending conferences at the taxpayer-subsidized convention center. Of course, in my experience, conference attendees have the annoying habit of shopping around for hotel rooms, and expecting more than one hotel choice.

The politicos and city staff (City Administrator Roger Fraser) preparing to cram the convention center boondoggle down the throat’s of unsuspecting taxpayers, claim a conference center will add to the tax base. Of course, they also claimed not to have known Michigan’s economy was in the toilet before authorizing $80 million dollars in taxpayer-backed bonds for the police-court facility and the underground parking garage. First Ward Council member Sabra Briere and Marcia Higgins have both told constituents that the current fiscal crisis facing Ann Arbor was the result of a sudden change in economic conditions that could not have been anticipated. 

Alas, the shrinking tax base will not be fattened up by either Acquest or Valiant. Neither appear to be planning to pay much in real property taxes. The Valiant group projects less than $200,000 in taxes paid per year, even though the project should generate $1.4 million in taxes if it were assessed at the $43 million they claim it is worth. Acquest projects paying about $310,000 in taxes, even though they claim the development project will will cost close to $30 million. Interestingly, both developers appear to have included generous tax breaks in their projections. 

Usually, it’s polite to ask for a discount, but this convention center is not about good manners. It’s about a small group of people who want to impose their “vision” of how public land should be developed come hell, high water, fairness,or honesty. Here’s where Ann Arbor taxpayers bend over and plan to ask for another, Ma’am: 

Read slowly—Valiant’s projected property taxes will not cover the taxpayer-backed bonds they want issued to cover the cost of their project. 

So what’s it gonna be? A downtown city park and skate rink fully financed by the developer, or a risky convention center and hotel development project paid for by the taxpayers, and backed up with financial projections that read like the latest fiction best-seller? The game was rigged by Council and Roger Fraser 18 months ago. The outcome was assured. Until now.

The public was never supposed to have the proposed plans or the financial projections before the committee made its recommendation to Council. It took a leak, a Whisper, and a FOIA to blast open the game.

Mayor Hieftje, Roger Fraser, former Chamber of Commerce Chair Jesse Bernstein, members of the board of Downtown Development Authority, and City Council majority members Margie Teall, Marcia Higgins, Stephen Rapundalo, Tony Derezinski, Sandi Smith, Carsten Hohnke and Christopher Taylor have all been big rollers with our tax money. They’ve been using their loaded dice, and cheating ways of misleading the public, and hiding information from the public.

That’s changed now; we’re all insiders and players is this crooked downtown development game now. It’s time to switch out the dice, and for Ann Arbor taxpayers to take charge of the croupier’s stick. It’s the only way our public land will be developed in the best interests of the people who own it.

Popularity: 27% [?]

December 3, 2009

WHISPER: FOIAed Emails Show Mayor Hieftje Threatened Into Withholding Veto of Police-Court Project In Secret Meeting With Council Majority

Filed under: City Hall, Mayor Hieftje, Whisper, best of A2Politico, city council, politics, taxes — Tags: , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 4:37 pm
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In 2007, the city had money and the City Council majority wanted their new Police-Court facility, Daddy. And they wanted it now. The 103,000 square foot building was slated to cost $47 million dollars in principal and interest. The city’s financial officer and city administrator worked out the funding piece-by-piece, including selling city land to raise $3 million dollars of the funding package. Well, it’s almost 2010. Ann Arbor’s budget looks like a pimple on the arse of a very ugly ogre. This coming Saturday at 8 a.m., Council members and the few members of the public who want to attend, will have a retreat to focus on city finances. The city land didn’t sell, and one imagines soon we’ll be hearing that the Police-Court facilty is over budget. 

The 90,000 square foot Ann Arbor News Building across the street from the Temple-to-be is on the market for $9.7 million dollars. 

Some may remember that at the Ann Arbor City Council meeting of March 5, 2007, Mayor Hieftje threatened to veto the Council’s 7-4 vote in favor of paying an architect $1 to design the building, according to a piece published on March 6th in the Ann Arbor News. On March 6, 2007, Andrew Cluely of WEMU reported that:

“Ann Arbor’s Mayor is threatening to use his veto power for the first time, after city council approved a one-million dollar contract to design a new court and police facility next to city hall. Council voted seven to four Monday night to hire Quinn Evans Architects for the project. Mayor John Hieftje says his concerns about the city’s finances has him considering a veto of the council’s action. Hieftje has 72 hours from the time he receives the minutes of the meeting to veto the measure. City council member Chris Easthope says he hopes to persuade the mayor not to veto the project. He says the new facility is needed and will only cost more the longer the city waits.”

On March 10, 2007, Mayor Hieftje announced to the Ann Arbor City Democratic Club that he was prepared to veto the project. At the Dem meeting, those gathered offered a resolution commending the Mayor for his promised veto. At the meeting, Hieftje said he did not want the AADems resolution passed. He told those 40-odd people present that he preferred to work with Council on these issues, and the resolution failed. After you read what’s written below, you may understand better exactly what game John Hieftje was playing at the March 10th AADems meeting, and why he didn’t want a resolution commending his “promised” veto to pass.

Hieftje, of course, did not veto the police-court facility, but rather voted in favor of it and issued the following statement to the public in early-April 2008, when the bonds for the project were approved:

Even though Washtenaw County has repeatedly said the City Courts must vacate the County Courthouse, I have not voted in favor of a new Courts/Police Building because for a long time I thought we could find another, less expensive way to solve the court’s problem and then tackle the police space situation separately.

I have not vetoed the proposal because I have no viable alternative to constructing a new police/courts building.

I spent over a year searching for an alternative to a new building but could not find one. We have investigated existing buildings both on the edge of the city, in the Pfizer Complex and in the downtown but none have met the stringent requirements for a secure courthouse, even with extensive, and expensive renovation. We investigated building on the Library lot and the Ann Arbor News Lot.

Over and over again I discussed the court’s puzzle with different members of the County Commission, some of whom I know well. I am convinced the County will not change their position because the Circuit Court Judges will not budge on this issue and it is clear to me that they are calling the shots in regard to the courthouse.

The county would probably agree to a little more time for quite a bit more rent money but not a long term solution in the existing courthouse. I am doubtful the judges would sign off on sharing space for long, certainly not without extensive renovations and an addition. Even still, this would require the same costs for construction as on the Larcom site and whatever the city would save from shared hallways and security, would be lost to ever rising rents.

This remotely possible solution does nothing for the AAPD and everyone who tours their section of Larcom believes they needed a new headquarters many years ago. If we do not go forward now, the city would still be renting from the county long after a new building on the Larcom site would be paid off. Rent for the courts space is going up at 9% per year. Going forward would create a large savings from bringing staff back into Larcom from rented space in the City Center Building when the AAPD moves next door. This money would be applied to make the bond payments along with the money saved from the courts rent.

My opposition to the project has diminished with the realization that each time we stop/start the endeavor, it costs time and money. Hundreds of hours of council and staff time have been invested in the project; $4 million (8.5% of the project) has already been allocated and is rapidly being spent. Last year there was no clear financing plan; now there is and it appears it can be done within existing and projected revenues and to actually save the city money over the long term.

I have not vetoed the proposal for a new Courts/Police Building because: 

I have worked for several years with the “veteran” majority on City Council that is supporting the Building. They are thoughtful individuals who have been working on a solution to this problem for years.

Do we all always agree? Of course not, but we respect each other’s judgment and work together.

Together we directed a complete reorganization of the city bureaucracy. City Government is working much more efficiently than before. Despite successive years of state revenue sharing cuts and health care cost increases that were out of the box, the budget is stable and the reserve fund is healthy and growing. There was a sizeable surplus last year. All but one of the union contracts is settled and city services have been maintained despite the revenue sharing cuts.

A veto would make it harder for me to work with the majority of council members on other issues. Frustration over this issue could spill over into other council business even more than it already has. A cohesive majority has a much better chance of coming together around solid solutions than a fractured council. 

The Courthouse/Police project has the support of a majority of Council Members and is going forward. I can pout about it for a couple of years or work to reduce the future operating costs by increasing energy efficiency to make the new building something of which we can all be proud. This last option will be easier if I am not continually throwing stones at it.

As always I am happy to meet with any resident who would like to discuss this or any other issue. Simply call and arrange for a time slot during my weekly office hours.

So what happened to change Hieftje’s position? On March 5, 2007, during the City Council meeting as the Mayor spoke about the possible veto, former Third Ward Council member Leigh Greden sent the following email to Christopher Easthope (now Judge Christopher Easthope, soon-to-be resident of the Temple), Fourth Ward Council members Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall, Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo and ex-Council member Joan Lowenstein, who currently sits on the DDA Board (and who ran against Easthope for a chance to occupy the Temple).

From Greden, Leigh
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007, 9:52 PM
Subject: Proposal

Here’s what I propose. We schedule a meeting with him [Hieftje] this week. We say the following:

“You did not do us the courtesy of alerting us to your possible veto in private. Instead, you chose to announce it in front of the cameras and the press. We will treat you with more respect than you treated us, and thus we are here, in private, to tell you the following:

This project [the Police-Court facility] is the right thing to do. It is on the City’s best long-term interest. We believe you agree, and that your opposition to the project is based solely on grandstanding. To the extent you do not agree, you don’t understand the merits. Either way, your job as Mayor is to lead. It’s to lead against misconceptions, and it’s to lead in support of meritorious projects

If you follow through with your veto, we are prepared, as a group, to vote against all committee appointments, Agenda items, resolutions, budget amendments and other projects you bring to the City Council for the foreseeable future. We constitute a working majority of City Council. We will not announce this to the public in order to give you the chance to do the right thing w/o our position being made public. The choice is yours.”

Extortion, of course, is rarely announced to the public. Neither are meetings between Council and Mayor that clearly violate the Open Meetings Act. That’s like going to the Police to file a complaint against the person who stole your illegal drugs from you. What is abundantly clear is that our Mayor, of course, put his own political career before the best interests of the city and its taxpayers. What is also clear is that those Council members used threats to stop Hieftje’s veto.

Had Mayor Hieftje stood up to the Council majority, our city’s budget would be in much better shape, and our city would not, perhaps, have been forced to give early retirement to dozens of police and, in 2010, to lay-off at least 14 firefighters. In February 2007, John Hieftje told Ann Arbor, the Police-Court facility would tie the city’s hands financially for decades to come. The fiscal squeeze is beginning now.

On March 5th, John Hieftje could have stood up on behalf of the people of Ann Arbor in the face of an out-of-control group of City Council despots who wanted what they wanted when they wanted it. 

For the next 30 years, we’ll all pay, literally, for John Hieftje’s political betrayal and broken promise.

Popularity: 43% [?]

November 8, 2009

The Anonymity Thing Is Killin’ ‘Em

Filed under: on blogging — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 11:00 am
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If Leigh Greden can cash out his chips at his final Council meeting by talking about the elephant that “lives in his room,” I thought A2Politico might do the same. I have to say that when I launched this blog, I thought about doing it several different ways. I ended up doing some research on blogging, and settled on the format you know and love (or hate). One aspect of the blog I never waffled on was whether I would do it anonymously. The reason for this was quite simple: The current Mayor and long-time politicos such as Leigh Greden, Stephen Rapundalo, Margie Teall and Marcia Higgins (those whom Arbor Bewing Company owner Rene Greff referred to as a “cabal” in her interview with A2Politico), have a singular tactic to deal with dissent. It is to attack the character, intelligence and/or intent of the individual making the political waves. 

Evidence Sabra Briere’s Golden Vomit award from Leigh Greden, announced via email to the rest of his Council pals (though not to Briere, of course), as well as constant references among those same Council members to Fifth Ward Council member Mike Anglin (who holds a graduate degree in Education) in their emails to each other as “the moron.” Thus, any political dissent becomes subsumed by an insanely twisted psycho-social dynamic present among those on City Council. Put simply, those endorsed by Hieftje and elected to lead in August of 2008 quickly became followers, and adopted the tactic of assassinating the character of those unwilling to agree with them. In a small town with a pliant Press, it turned out to be a particularly successful strategy. It was by no means a strategy limited to the current Council members. Former Council member and now Judge Christopher Easthope and former Council member Joan Lowenstein were both revealed through FOIAed emails to have participated in similar behavior. 

So when I pondered the best way to keep the focus on the political issues and debates, as opposed to having the conversation routinely maneuvered around to be about who was bringing up the issues, anonymity was the obvious answer. 

I get emails every so often from people convinced they know who writes A2Politico. I get emails from people who think the blog would be more credible if signed it. I get emails from people who promise never to tell another living soul if I’ll just tell them who I am. I’ve heard a certain County Commissioner has used her formidable psychic powers to figure out who’s holding her sensible pumps, and the feet in them, to the fire. Heavy nips of cooking sherry can lead some people to believe they’re omniscient narrators in the book of life.

Really, it’s primarily the politicos who are having the worst time with the anonymity of the blog. There were a couple of readers who objected, and posted comments about it here. 

I have concluded that the fact the blog is unsigned is even more difficult for some of the politicos to deal with than the actual issues that find their way into the posts. One person who commented recently referred to as A2Politico as a blog “without a conscience” for “ripping” into people. Alas, the poster misses the point, I think. Here’s a Wikipedia definition of political satire: “Political satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly forbidden.”

A2P is definitely out to loosten the death grip the current Mayor and Council have on the political news, information and spin that leak out from the depths of City Hall. After years of watching the Ann Arbor News writers cover politics with little zeal, I became convinced that satire was going to be the most effective way to blog about the local political scene. Why? Well, partially because of just how brazen Mayor and Council members can be in their attempts to convince the people of Ann Arbor that snagging 500 votes in a two-person primary, then getting 2,000 votes in an uncontested November election, give them a “mandate” to rule the roost anyway they see fit. 

The bottom line, actually, is that local politicos are consistently saying and doing things that one would refer to as incidents in which life is stranger than fiction.

Take, for instance, the behavior of Margie Teall at the Council meeting linked to above. Holding back tears, Teall looks longingly at Greden and tells all present, “It’s been a wonderful six years. Your constituent services were unsurpassed, you are smart, and you are smart enough to get us all in trouble.” Get us all in trouble? In trouble? 

Evidently, these days “getting into trouble” is what we’re calling lawsuits filed against the City as a result of Teall’s mid-meeting emails to Greden and other Council members discussing the library lot underground parking garage. I can’t wait to see how Margie T. refers to being deposed by opposing counsel. “A sticky wicket?” What euphemism will the Fourth Ward’s teary-eyed one use to describe testifying in open court when the lawsuit over her emails goes to trial? “Sit-down comedy?”

Well, now that I’ve brought up the African elephant, feel free to let me know what you think about A2Politico and how it’s written. Someone this weekend will post the 700th comment. As I posted to another thread, I have been consistently amazed by the focus on the issues people who’re visiting the site bring to the discussions here. Thanks.

Popularity: 22% [?]

November 6, 2009

The Politics of Art: Council & The Giant Phallus

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A giant phallus? We’re taking, of course, about the Dreiseitl art project that is planned for the new Temple on the corner of Fifth and Huron dedicated to our 15th District Court (tip o’ the keyboard to David Cahill) judges: the Honorable Christopher Easthope, the Honorable Julie Creal, and the Honorable Elizabeth P. Hines, and one appointed magistrate, M. Colleen Currie. The Honorable Christopher Easthope sat on City Council and fielded mid-meeting emails from ex-Council member from the Third Ward Leigh Greden. Emails such as, “Me want drinkey.”  Easthope responded to Greden immediately with the email: “Me have plans.”

When caught by a 2009 FOIA by the Ann Arbor News of 2008 Council emails planning his campaign for the bench with his campaign manager (Greden) during a 2008 Council meeting, the Honorable Christopher Easthope told the Ann Arbor News reporter who called for a quote (I paraphrase) “Me no talky about that.”

It is only fitting, then, that the piece of art funded by the City’s Percent For Art Program to be placed before the Temple of Dionysus in which the Honorable Christopher Easthope will preside, from the seat he won by hook and crook through working on his campaign for the bench during City Council meetings, should be a Jiant Johnson. The Honorable Chick Judges and magistrate are getting the shaft, alas. The Dreiseitl project incorporates no symbolic gestures to the female anatomy, unless one counts urolagnia. (If you do, by all means leave a comment using the name of some famous sexologist—or your own). 

The Dreiseitl project is now over-budget (closing in on $800K, not including the extra salary paid to the “part-time administrator” of the Percent for Arts Program). Katherine Talcott, hired as a part-time, contract worker in March 2009 as Ann Arbor’s Administrator for the City of Ann Arbor’s Percent for Art Program, recently told AAPAC’s (Ann Arbor Public Art Commission) commissioners that, in addition to the 20 hours per week that  she’s paid as the city’s part-time art administrator, she has been working between 10-20 additional hours specifically on the Dreiseitl project. Talcott said those extra hours are being authorized by Sue McCormick, the city’s director of public services. The funds are coming from the City’s water & sewer budget (seriously). Every time you flush, you’re paying for Talcott to work on the Dreiseitl project.

It’s a fitting metaphor considering that the whole AAPAC situation stinks to high heaven.

Dreiseitl’s budget, presented to the AAPAC commissioners scribbled in orange crayon on the back of a postcard of the once magnificent Berlin Wall, (built with funds from the East German Percent for Art Program) was suitably vague enough to arouse the suspicion of every CPA within 1,000 miles, but to elicit the following chipper response from Margaret Parker, who chairs the AAPAC: “We feel confident that before he  [Dreiseitl] leaves, our questions will be answered.” Needless to say, they weren’t.

The AAPAC small town rubes have put themselves at the mercy of a world-class artistic huckster. The artist’s “proposed budget estimate” is proof enough of that. Who in their right mind accepts a proposed budget estimate? Budgets are based on actual and projected costs. An estimate is a guess. Period. Only a fool planning to part with his money would mistake a “budget estimate” for a projection of actual costs, which could then be negotiated for caps on overs and recoveries of unders. 

The artist’s “Proposed Budget Estimate”:

  1. Water basin: precast concrete = $57,000
  2. Water elements: rotating, stainless steel = $21,000
  3. Outdoor sculpture: element base = $57,000
  4. Indoor sculptures (2) = $75,000
  5. Sculpture: configuration, spotlight, lighting, water supply, lighting control, programming = $225,000
  6. Water technology, basin, drain, filter, water treatment, control = $120,000
  7. Contingencies = $40,000
  8. Artistic design and supervision = $55,000
  9. Design development, construction documentation, services during construction = $70,000
  10. Change orders = to be discussed

I like art as much as the next person who has a Rembrandt in the powder room. What I object to is the AAPAC going over budget and paying a part-time administrator a full-time salary to supervise the Dreiseitl project. I object to fact that the AAPAC didn’t follow the city’s own ordinance when selecting an artist.

However, I do think Sue McCormick’s idea to pay Talcott’s salary from the water & sewer fund opens up more creative uses of the city’s water and sewer money. What about taking money from the fund to replant all of the 10,500 trees lost to Emerald Ash Borer disease in 2007? Without those trees, billions of extra gallons of water flow into the storm sewer system every time it rains one inch. Money from the fund could be used to pay for City Administrator Roger Fraser’s frequent lunch meetings at local restaurants with city staff. Everyone could get a glass of water with their taxpayer-paid meal. Instant write-off.

Sometime in November, City Council members are going to have to face the Phallus and vote to approve and fund the project. They should turn the AAPAC’s recommendation down. As I wrote, the AAPAC never followed proper procedure when formulating and promulgating guidelines for the project: 

The Public Art Ordinance, chapter 24 in the City Code, requires that the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission shall “Promulgate guidelines, subject to the approval of city council, to implement the provisions of this chapter, including procedures for soliciting and selecting public art and for determining suitable locations for public art”.  Section 1:837(2)(A) (tip o’ the keyboard to David Cahill).

Council never approved any such guidelines.

When this was pointed out to Mayor Hieftje by a reporter, the Mayor said something like (I paraphrase) “I don’t think anyone has a problem with that. Adhering to City ordinances is for the little people who elect us.”

Yo, Big John. There’s a problem with spending taxpayer money without following the law. It makes you and your Council buddies look like a bunch of crooks.

The Percent for Art program should be suspended by Council, and Margaret Parker should be sent back down to the farm team. She’s not ready for the big leagues. Ann Arbor doesn’t have the luxury or the money to fund such a program at the moment. Besides, the money comes from the bonds floated for the individual projects. That means the one percent is actually one percent plus interest for 30 years. Thus, the $800,000 Dreiseitl project will cost taxpayers $1.6 million dollars when all is said and done, plus the cost of Talcott’s “part-time full-time” pay.

According to a piece posted to AnnArbor.com in July, “The Public Art Commission said that speed was necessary due to limited time for the project, and that Dreiseitl was chosen for his expertise.” Right. In a bureaucracy, speed is applied in direct proportion to the desire of those politicos involved to subvert the rules and undermine the public process. In Ann Arbor, rushing through, cutting corners, sneaking around, and pissing off the public who expect tax dollars to be spent responsibly and with absolute transparency has been elevated to an art form. 

Who needs Herbert Dreiseitl and his Jiant Johnson, when we have our own Mayor and Council comprised of more than a few experienced con artists?

Popularity: 16% [?]

October 19, 2009

What Begins With F, Has Four Letters, and Is A Very Dirty Word In Certain Political Circles?

Filed under: city council, political reporting — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 12:00 pm
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AnnArbor.com’s Ryan Stanton reported Sunday that some private citizens have taken it upon themselves to FOIA six years of emails sent by our City Council members to each other during open meetings. The Ann Arbor residents involved have undertaken the task because on September 21st Council voted down a resolution put forward by Fifth Ward Council member Mike Anglin and First Ward Council member Sabra Briere to release the emails to the public on the City’s dime.  (I wrote about that here.) City officials, including Attorney Stephen Postema and CIO Dan Rainey, broke out the old abacus and calculated that it would cost $45,000 in city man power to retrieve the emails from the server, examine and redact the materials. (I wrote about a way to get the job done more cheaply here.)

Since Council members and Mayor Hieftje felt that $45,000 was too much tax money to waste on the project, the resolution was voted down 8-3. Of course, it could also be that there are members of Ann Arbor City Council who would rather have bamboo shoved underneath their fingernails than to have any more of their puerile, arrogant and embarrassing emails released to the public. It could also be that there were emails sent between Council members during open meetings over the past six years that, say, are clear violations of the Open Meetings Act, or provide even more examples of our Council members vote-rigging, scripting debates and behaving like a bunch of graduates of the Tammany Hall School of Politics. It could also be that there are other past Council members— some big cheese local politicos—such as Christopher Easthope (now Judge Christopher Easthope), Joan Lowenstein (former Second Ward Council member and current Board member of the DDA), Wendy Woods (former Fifth Ward Council member and current member of the Planning Commission), Jean Carlberg (former Third Ward Council member and present member of the Planning Commission) and Heidi Herrell (former Third Ward Council member and current Third Ward Chair of the Ann Arbor City Democratic Party) whose emails could potentially involve them in the scandal.

There are a million reasons why this lot of politically connected people want their emails sent while they served on City Council kept out of the public eye, and why they want  the media coverage of those same emails to just dry up and blow away. After all, wasn’t the sacrifice of Third Ward Council member Leigh Greden to the gods of the email scandal payment enough for the rest of them? They’re feeling Leigh’s pain, really they are. Sometimes, alas, the gods can’t be appeased by the take-down of a ring-leader. The gods can be dastardly in their demands of repayment when the bar tab for a decade of bad political karma comes due.

Call the group of people filing the FOIAs whatever you like: vindictive, crazy SOBs, or citizens devoted to transparency in local government, but the emails will come out, just as surely as Kwame’s (tip o’ the keyboard to Larry Kestenbaum) text messages did. Frankly, I hope we don’t have to read about Joan Lowenstein rigging any more votes (in July of 2009, the Ann Arbor News nabbed Lowenstein rigging the vote over her own proposed pay raise), or that Jean Carlberg and Leigh Greden wiled away time at Council meetings trading snotty emails about First Ward Council member Kim Groome, and scripting debates together. Will we read more about Christopher Easthope, getting caught by the newspaper working on his campaign for the bench via email with Leigh Greden in the middle of City Council meetings?

The people involved in this scandal are big fish in the small political pond that is Ann Arbor. What they got caught doing was embarrassing to them. It would be embarrassing to anyone who’d been foolish enough to engage in such stupid behavior at their jobs. However, to classify the pursuit of the remaining emails as a mere attempt to “embarrass” these people is to conveniently personalize the actions of those who seek nothing more than to have access to public documents created during public meetings by elected officials. That’s the right of a citizen.

To a certain extent then, when Council members voted down the resolution to release the emails, they set into motion what became the the duty of those residents who are filing the FOIAs to have the Council emails made public. After all, it was President Theodore Roosevelt who said in a speech delivered in January of 1886 that, “The first duty of an American citizen, then, is that he shall work in politics.”

These Ann Arbor residents who’ve filed FOIAs for the release of the Council emails back to 2003, LuAnne Bullington, Libby Hunter, Lynn Meadows, Phyllis Ponvert, Doug White, Karen Deslierres, Shirley Zempel, Daniel Cunningham, Gordon Bigelow, Peggy Rabhi, Laura Lee Hayes, Jack Eaton and Josephine Rood have all taken Roosevelt’s advice to heart.

There is have one more name to add to the list of those who will FOIA the Council’s emails back to 2003: AnnArbor.com. I’ve been told, has plans to FOIA all of the emails requested by the Ann Arbor residents listed above. Looks like we can all expect more dirty talk about the F-word and Council emails in the local newspaper sometime in the near future.

Popularity: 16% [?]

September 18, 2009

City Council Axes Neighborhood Watch Funding….Then Reaches Out To….Block Captains

Filed under: Mayor Hieftje, crime, police, political reporting — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 6:36 am
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From Mayor Hieftje’s web site: “The reorganization of City government increased efficiency and saves more than $10 million per year….”

Neighbor’s dog driving you crazy? Sorry. Ann Arbor Police Dept. has no more animal control officer.

Spouse or partner beating you to a pulp? Sorry. Ann Arbor Police Dept. has no more domestic violence investigators.

Crime on the rise in your neighborhood? Waiting for an alert from the police to your Block Captain? Sorry, Grannie. The neighborhood watch block captain program was cut two years ago.

The elimination of these and many other citizen service programs was made quietly over the course of the past three years by Police Chief Barnett Jones. Well, Chief Jones can’t take all the credit for eliminating the programs and keeping mum about it. He had help from some Little Elves on City Council, and on the City Council Budget and Labor Committee. Over the past four years, the City Council Budget and Labor Committee members have crafted the city’s budgets and in doing so repeatedly slashed funding for emergency services to levels considered dangerous by Ann Arbor’s ex-Police Chief Dan Oates, as well as soon-to-be retired Ann Arbor Fire Chief Samuel Hopkins.

So, who sits on the B & L Committee and crafted budgets for Council that included gutting our emergency services? There is Ward Four Council member Margie Teall, Ward Four Council member Marcia Higgins (Committee Chair), Ward Three Council member Leigh Greden, Ward Two Council member Stephen Rapundalo and, of course, the Proud Government Reorganizer Himself, Mayor Hieftje.

Note: Little Elves Joan Lowenstein and Christopher Easthope served on the B & L Committee while on Council, as well. 

As you may have read on this blog, in the newspaper, heard on the radio, or seen on the television, Ann Arbor is having itself a little crime wave. Evidently, the Ann Arbor Police Department has pulled the Neighborhood Watch Block Captain Program out of cold storage. On the heels of a September 14th posting on A2Politico about a sharp increase in certain kinds of crime in Ann Arbor, the following message went out from the AAPD to the city’s Neighborhood Watch Block Cappies—a citizen service program cut from the budget years ago:

Dear Neighborhood Watch Block Captains:

Our department will be holding a public meeting to discuss the Home Invasions which have been occurring on the West side of the City and address your concerns. Chief Jones has asked that you be invited to attend and has asked that you extend the invitation to your neighbors. Please forward the information as soon as possible to allow people to make arrangements to come. Please keep in mind that there is no parking in the lot at 727 Miller as that is resident parking only. You will need to park on a side street and walk into the meeting.

Date:    Saturday September 19, 2009

Time:   9:00 AM

Location: Miller Manor Conference Room. 727 Miller Rd

John Hieftje’s “reorganization” of city government has become his political mantra. He’s going to talk it to death if he runs for the House in Lansing next year. However, finally, we’re all clear on exactly what it cost in human terms to give Mayor Hieftje his $10 million dollar bullet point for his political résumé. 

I wonder how many email bounces Chief Jones got when he reached out to his Neighborhood Watch Block Cappies? After all, he never told them the program had ended. He just quit calling.

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September 15, 2009

WHISPER: Why Margie Teall Jumped from the Good Ship Lollypop

Filed under: Whisper, city council, money, politics — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 8:00 am
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WHISPER: On Tuesday September 8th, Fourth Ward City Council member Margie Teall resigned from her spot on the City Council Budget and Labor Committee. She jumped from the Good Ship Lollypop, and Leigh Greden wasn’t there to catch her. He’d jumped first, mooning the entire crew of the Council Love Boat on his way down to the depths of a post-political life. So, Margie resigned? Who cares anyway, right? Sweetie, this is just what makes local politics so very, very interesting. It’s all about the dirty pretty money.

Here’s what the Budget and Labor Committee does:

The Committee members work with City Administrator to advise about City labor issues. To advise the Mayor, Council and City Administrator on matters relating to the City’s comprehensive annual financial report, audited statements and management letter; appointment of independent auditors; the City’s financial condition including revenue issues; financial investment policies and procedures; short- term and long-term borrowing policies and proposals; matters relating to the budget process, implementation and administration; and short-term and long-term financial polices and plans.

Here’s how we know B & L is where the power is:

When asked about the work of the Budget and Labor Committee by a constituent at an August caucus meeting, Mayor John Hieftje explained, “…that the budget and labor committee had five members, and that the committee did not make decisions, but rather only made recommendations. He characterized much of the work as dealing with the labor section of things.” 

Shucks, Aunt Bea, here in Maybury R.F.D., Barney Fife could sit on B & L and “make recommendations with the labor section of things.” How about Floyd the Barber, too?  No decisions. Are you laughing yet? That Committee “recommends” to Council how every single dollar of the City’s $390 million dollar budget is spent. 

According to an August 2009 piece in the AnnArborChronicle.com, “When first established as such in December 2005, the council’s Budget and Labor Committee consisted of John Hieftje, Christopher Easthope, Leigh Greden, Marcia Higgins, and Joan Lowenstein.” Mao and his Gang of Four re-educated a billion people, but the Chinese Central Committee could take lessons on obfuscation and secrecy from Hieftje and his Gang of Four on the City Council’s Budget and Labor Committee.

For close to a decade now, new Council members have been told (at least two Council members by City Attorney Stephen Postema) they were barred from meetings of the Budget and Labor Committee because six Council members would make (gasp) a quorum. That would necessitate an open meeting, agenda, and minutes. 

So why did Margie jump ship?

Mayor Hieftje recently announced the appointments of Ward Five council member Mike Anglin and Ward One council member Sabra Briere to the Council’s Budget and Labor Committee. Sabra and Margie were never BFFs. However, after Margie got caught via email awarding Sabra the Golden Vomit Award, and emailing Leigh Greden to “make” Sabra take an assignment on some third-class Council committee, the girls’ relationship—which reminds one of the 2004 teen movie “Mean Girls“—became even more strained. Let’s just say Margie and Sabra are never going to the mall, do lunch and get a mani-pedi together. Ever. With Greden gone from the B & L Committee, one imagines Margie saw a political life devoid of BFFs to whom she could “pass notes,” during those terribly boring Council committee meetings where the city’s financial future was being decided.

Here’s another bit of tofu to chew on: Margie’s involvement with the email scandal, and now the lawsuit against the City over violations of the Open Meetings Act, must be giving her politico hubby Graham Teall political heartburn in a big way.

A2Politico Extra Credit Question: Mayor Hieftje is grooming a replacement for Margie Teall. Who is it? Dazzle us with your guesses. Come on! Don’t be shy.

Have a “whisper” to share? Click here to send it along to me. I’ll keep the sources of all “whispers” confidential, naturally. To send a whisper anonymously, click this link to use an email remailer that will hide your identity.

Send Whispers to: umgrad1234 AT yahoo.com.

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