Christopher Taylor « A2Politico: Ann Arbor Politics Grilled To Perfection

September 1, 2010

The Politics of Twins: Separated at Birth?

Filed under: city council, politicians — Tags: A2Politico, Ann Arbor City Council, Ben Quayle, Christopher Taylor — A2 Politico @ 8:00 am

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Ben Quayle, a 33-year-old lawyer who is running for Congress in Arizona, has revealed that he used to contribute to a website about nightlife in the Arizona city of Scottsdale. Quayle’s comments are said to have included lines such as “My moral compass is so broken I can barely find the parking lot.”

Third Ward Council member Christopher Taylor, an entertainment lawyer who was just re-elected to his second term on Ann Arbor City Council, also wrote a couple of “fictional pieces”—though not for a satirical web site, and had a bit of trouble with the needle on his moral compass. In 2009, Taylor sent an email to Third Ward constituents which consisted of a glowing self-evaluation of his work-to-date. Needless to say, he found his performance on Council a spectacular success. Interestingly, First Ward Council member Sandi Smith bragged to voters during her recent bid for re-election that, “I’ve sponsored a lot of legislation. If you go to Legistar, you can search by name and see how many different things I’ve done. I’ve noticed that there are people who have less than I have.” Slamming her colleagues on Council and her opponent, Smith demonstrated that she’s prepared to hold on to that Council seat by trashing anyone.

Taylor’s penchant for writing emails during meetings, and his faulty moral compass were commented upon in an editorial by the local press. To make up for goofing around on the job, literally, Taylor has been working on building a moral compass for everyone on City Council since shortly after he was discovered wandering around town searching for a parking lot. To read about Taylor’s not-so-Herculean efforts to craft an ethics policy, click here, and here. To vote in a poll on whether our Council members have what it takes to craft an ethics policy for themselves, click here.

Ben Quayle, a Republican, and Chris Taylor a Democrat, may not be from the same political party—though there are some in Ann Arbor who have openly suggested several of the “Democrats” on Council are DOCs (Dems of Convenience), but there are some striking similarities between Quayle and Taylor.

I’ll leave it to you to decide. Ben Quayle. Christopher Taylor. Political twins separated at birth?

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August 6, 2010

The Politics of Irony: Dim Bulbs

Filed under: campaigns — Tags: A2Politico, Christopher Taylor, ethics, Eva Rosenwald, John Hieftje, Steve Kunselman, Tappan Middle School — A2 Politico @ 6:18 pm

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At every voting place in Ann Arbor, there was a 100 foot line drawn and marked plainly with yellow signs. Inside that area, those working the polls for their candidates were not allowed to campaign. Rules, however, are often for the little people:

I recently received the following email from a Ward Three voter:

Dear A2P,

Third Ward Council member Christopher Taylor and his wife, Eva “The Diva” Rosenwald were at Tappan Middle School standing right at the front door of the school, campaigning for John Hieftje. What’s with the standing inside the 100 foot line and scaring up votes?

Sincerely,

A Third Ward Voter

Dear TWV aka Dim Bulb,

You must have missed the Ann Arbor News coverage of the email Taylor sent to his friends on Council awhile back in which he referred to you Third Ward voters as “dim bulbs.” He obviously thought you weren’t bright enough to notice he was standing within the 100 foot area in which campaigning was prohibited. However, be of good cheer, soon, very, very soon, your Council member Christopher Taylor will finish his magnum opus, the Council Ethics Policy he’s been uh….uh….uh….formulating with the utmost large verbage and uh….uh….uh….big-eyed sincerity for months and months and months. The more cynical types out there could conclude that figuring out what’s honest and ethical has been an impossible challenge for him, based on the amount of time Taylor has been at work on the Ethics Policy. I’ve heard he actually refuses to show his work thus far on the Council Ethics Policy to other Council members. Does he think they’re going to copy his work? I’d only worry about copying the work of others and passing it off as his own with one particular Council member. Then again, to be fair, Third Ward Council member Steve Kunselman has had a year to make good on his campaign promises regarding Council ethics, as well. Well, TWV, maybe Taylor’s ethics policy will address breaking the rules during working at polling places. Maybe it will address making campaign promises then welching on them. (Don’t hold your breath, though. I’m expecting the CliffsNotes version of Council Ethics from Mr. Taylor.)

Christopher Taylor’s wife, of course, would be exempt from Council rules. This would mean that she’d possibly continue to stand within the 100 foot line at Tappan Middle School on, near, after or on any day but election day. Divas are notorious for outlandish, yet amusing, behavior. Then again, why complain? They held the door open for a dim bulb like you, right?

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March 7, 2010

The Politics of Negotiating: You Never Get What You Deserve

Filed under: city council, city services, fire, police, unions — Tags: Administration and Labor Committee, Budget and Labor Committee, Carsten Hohnke, Christopher Taylor, Ed Pierce, firefighters, Jerry Jernigan, Lou Belcher, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall, Mayor Al Wheeler, Mayor John Hieftje, Nicholas Nightwine, police, Sandi Smith, Stephen Rapundalo, Tony Derezinski — A2 Politico @ 6:50 am

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The following was posted to AnnArbor.com on February 28, 2010:

City officials say it’s been a challenge getting the needed concessions from labor unions, specifically with the police and firefighters unions, whose members enjoy premium-free health insurance.

“We are still struggling with labor contracts that were heavily one-sided that were decided back in the ’70s and ’80s,” said Mayor John Hieftje. “We’ve been working very hard to try to do more. Employees are contributing more to their health benefits, but not nearly what they need to be.”

So, the current serious problems between the current City Council, Mayor and City Administrator and our unions are really the responsibility of Mayor Al Wheeler—D (1975-1978), Lou Belcher—R (1978-1985), Ed Pierce—D (1985-1987) and last but certainly not least, Jerry Jernigan—R (1987-1991)?

Bollocks.

Fantasies come in all shapes and sizes, and some are more elaborate than others. Mayor Hieftje’s latest fantasy is that our city “is still struggling with labor contracts that were heavily one-sided that were decided back in the ’70s and ’80s” and that he’s been “working very hard to try to do more.”

Let’s make something very clear: The longest serving members of Council, Mayor Hieftje, Fourth Ward’s Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall, along with Ward Two’s Stephen Rapundalo, have among them a collective 30+ years sitting on the former City Council Budget and Labor Committee. In case you’re wondering, that’s the committee that, until this year, oversaw negotiations with the city’s unions. Oh, those elected officials didn’t position themselves across from the union representatives and hammer out agreements. That’s the responsibility of the City Administrator. So, naturally, he relies on a lawyer to do the actual negotiating. A lawyer from the City Attorney’s office? Nope. Ann Arbor’s Mayor and City Council have approved hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past decade to hire consultants to negotiate with the unionized employees.

We’ve certainly gotten what we paid for, if the Mayor is to be believed: one-sided labor agreements. You know why? For starters, until recently the city’s labor union PACs could be counted on for political donations. In summer of 2008, First Ward’s Sandi Smith, Second Ward’s Tony Derezinski, Third Ward’s Christopher Taylor and Fifth Ward’s Carsten Hohnke, all put their hands out and took, collectively, thousands from the firefighter’s PAC. Taking money from a local union group with which you’re expected to negotiate and vote on contracts is a conflict of interest. The donations were perfectly legal, mind you. However, the Council members should have exercised better judgement, propriety and common sense.

The other reason that we’ve ended up with one-sided labor agreements is that the Mayor, City Council, the City Administrator and the contractors hired to “negotiate” our union labor agreements have negotiated one-sided contracts, and voted to approve one-sided contracts. This comes from a piece about the city’s union woe’s posted to AnnArbor.com on February 28, 2010:

AFSCME President Nicholas Nightwine, who heads up the city’s largest labor union, acknowledged his bargaining unit historically has shared little of the cost of health benefits. For instance, AFSCME employees never paid deductibles for their health insurance until their last contract—and they still don’t pay premiums.

“But when we negotiate a contract, both sides sign off on the agreement,” Nightwine said. “So the city has not given us anything that they have not signed off on giving us. We don’t make our own wages or benefits.”

Nightwine is absolutely right: it’s a well-established rule in business that you never get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate, and our city’s unions have negotiated our City Administrator, Mayor, City Council, and their highly-paid hired negotiating guns right under the bargaining table. In turn, the results of those “negotiations” have been approved by the City Council’s Budget and Labor Committee members above, then by the other City Council members.

At any time in the process, any of our elected officials could have spoken up and asked why the contracts on which they were voting to approve allowed AFSCME employees to skip making contributions to their health care premiums. Of course, that would’ve required studying the contracts to understand them. It might take a law degree to write a labor contract, but it doesn’t take a law degree to read and understand a labor contract. It takes a command of English, patience, and the ability to use a table of contents to get to the juicy parts, such as wages and benefits.

Yes, it would have caused a ruckus to have pointed out problems in the proposed final versions of the contracts brought to Council for approval, and it certainly would have left the City Administrator red-faced, but what’s more important than negotiating an equitable contract on behalf of the taxpayers? For some, it’s more important to try to sell the public a bill of goods that the problem with union contracts reaches back to the days of platform shoes, Casey and the Sunshine Band, and President Ford.

Is the cause of the city’s financial mess the result of the pay and benefit packages of some current unionized employees? No, of course not. Overhead unrelated to those salaries and benefits has risen 35 percent ($34 million dollars) since 2006. Annual debt payments have ballooned from $950,000 per year in 2005 to $3.9 million dollars per year in 2010.

Are the city’s unionized employees a bunch of spoiled brats with outsized pay and benefit packages? As someone with extensive experience analyzing labor agreements for both employers and employees, I can tell you the responsibility for the final version of any contract between our city and its unions rests with Mayor, Council and the City Administrator. Nick Nightwine is absolutely right that AFSCME doesn’t make its own wages and benefits. The union negotiated them. AFSCME officials negotiated the pants off of Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall, Mayor Hieftje, Stephen Rapundalo and Roger Fraser. Not a single other Council member over the past decade has been willing to say that the members of the City Council’s Budget and Labor Committee had no clothes.

The Budget and Labor Committee was recently split into two entities. Mayor Hieftje took himself off the Budget Committee, but remains a member of the newly created Administration and Labor Committee, along with Tony Derezinski, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall and Stephen Rapundalo. And now we have the absurd assertion from the five of them that they have “been trying to do more” to bring down costs of unionized labor. Four of them couldn’t do it as long-time members on the Budget and Labor Committee, and Council member Derezinski has the worst attendance record of any member of City Council; he can’t be counted on to show up to meetings, or important votes.

The firefighters recently gave voluntary salary concessions, and then woke up to read in the newspapers that the deal was for six months, and that there are still layoffs planned to close the ever-present “budget gap.” Negotiating in bad faith, and with more hubris than verifiable factual data, will do little than destroy any hope of working with our city’s organized labor. I expect the City Administrator and current lot of Council members to have little luck winning voluntary concessions from any of the city’s other unions.

Why should we care if our unionized employees are utterly disgruntled? The Dickensian model of employee management went out with the Triangle Factory Fire, and management science studies from the 1920s that first definitely linked employee morale with productivity. Put simply, low employee morale costs our city millions every year in decreased productivity. The damaged relationships with our unionized employees cost additional millions, because those employees are disinclined to give salary and benefit concessions voluntarily, or to open their contracts in times of serious and real fiscal emergency.

Since 2003, (with the exception of 2009) city staff has sent budgets to Mayor and Council, and our elected officials have approved budgets year after year which have had projected inflated deficits in the General Fund. When the actual numbers came in, there were General Fund surpluses. The inconceivable consistency in miscalculating General Fund revenues aside, unionized employees are asked to rely on this data during negotiations. It should come as no surprise that they are increasingly disinclined to do, and suspect they are being deliberately fed inaccurate financial information.

There is binding arbitration in the case of police and fire union negotiation impasses, but in reality Act 312 is a dangerous spin of the Roulette Wheel for any Michigan city. Act 312 does not allow the units to strike. Instead, there is a legally-mandated arbitration procedure. In 2009, Ann Arbor’s patrol officers union went to binding arbitration and won $673,000 in pay raises.

So what’s the solution? It’s going to take some significant changes in how our city approaches labor negotiations. It’s going to take hard work to repair the severe damage done to the relationships between Ann Arbor and its labor unions. On the up side, there’s a pretty simple formula to ending up with equitable union contracts: first, City Council members must make sure that the City Administrator negotiates equitable labor agreements, then Council members will have to read the agreements carefully before voting in favor of them.

Instead of doing the Hustle, it’s time for elected officials and city staff to take responsibility for the labor agreements they negotiated then voted in favor of supporting.

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February 4, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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January 21, 2010

How Cheaply Can A Councilmember Be Bought Off?

Filed under: campaigns, politicians, politics — Tags: A2Politico, Amanda Maxwell, AnnArborChronicle.com, Christopher Taylor, Leslie Morris, Liz Brater, Richard F. Winters, Sabra Briere, Steve Kunselman, Vivienne Armentrout — A2 Politico @ 2:14 pm

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We live in a small town. There are about 56,000 adult, non-student residents in Ann Arbor. That’s a relatively small political gene pool. I know of someone who won’t run for City Council simply because the Council member against whom he would have to run is his neighbor.

If you’re A2P, you think, “So what? May the best neighbor win.” However, we’re also midwesterners. Nice midwesterners. Well, mostly. There are some Council members, including the one referenced above, whom an investigative piece published in the Ann Arbor News last June showed to be well, not so nice.

In a comment on another post, local blogger and former county Board politico Vivienne Armentrout suggests that it’s absurd to think a local politico can be bought off for $100. Former City Council member Leslie Morris writes over at AnnArborChronicle.com (where there was a rousing discussion of a post about First Ward Council member Sabra Briere on A2Politico) that local politicos can’t be bought off for $500.

Morris writes: “The notion that an Ann Arbor city council member could be bought (or even alter a vote or position) for a $500 campaign contribution is ludicrous, insulting and demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the way our local political process operates. I spent six years on city council, worked on many campaigns for local office, and attended city council meetings as a citizen for years. During that time I observed (and participated in) many serious fights over controversial development projects, budget decisions, etc. As strange as it may seem to a naive and suspicious observer, the various participants in these fights actually believe in the positions they take, and are convinced that their opponents are wrong. City council members sacrifice huge amounts of their time, and considerable amounts of money to do their jobs. I have disagreed vehemently with many of them on numerous issues. I have even disliked some of them. But the thought that even a single one of them (including the ones I disagree with or dislike) could be bought for $500 is just plain silly.”

But that Leslie Morris and Armentrout were right. The truth is that Ann Arbor politicos can be impressed with miniscule amounts of money and opportunities to rub elbows with fat cat developers, state-level politicos, and the titled royalty who inhabit the University of Michigan. In our small town, it’s more about moving up the social pecking order than actual graft.

First off, let’s define by what we mean as “bought off.” Does this mean that the politico in question votes in favor of a particular project, or votes in favor of throwing city work to a particular individual? Does it mean that the politicos give political favors to their donors? Yes. Yes. And yes. Are we talking Blago-sized portions? Nope. I’m willing to bet the ranch that no one in local elected office is selling anything for $50,000 servings of greenbacks.

Third Ward’s Steve Kunselman ran for re-election to office on “ethics” and bringing back integrity to City Council. He has been in office since November, and the only guy singing and dancing about ethics is Third Ward Council member Christopher Taylor. I sent Kunselman an email asking where he is on his campaign promise to bring integrity back to Council. His answer?

“I ran. Chris championed. We’re meeting.”

Does that answer mean Steve Kunselman considers ethics and integrity little more than convenient friends while campaigning? I hope not. It’s not good enough for him to say he ran on the issues and Chris Taylor is the one who will “champion” ethics. As I’ve written before, Chris Taylor has absolutely no standing to champion ethics for his colleagues on Council. Furthermore, these are the same people who simply broke every rule they wanted to before being caught by FOIAed emails. They won’t adhere to an ethics policy; it’s clear the veteran Council members believed for years, literally, they were above common sense, common courtesy, common decency, Open Meetings Act laws and their own Council rules already in place.

Council’s self-appointed ethics expert (thanks to his experience as an entertainment and intellectual property attorney, and his experience getting fingered by the Ann Arbor News in June of 2009 for, well, behaving rather unethically during City Council meetings) demonstrated more hubris than ethical behavior. So where’s Council member Kunselman on ethics? Voters have come to expect empty promises, but it is particularly dangerous to run on ethics, get elected, and then go mute on the subject.

Lord knows the Mayor isn’t going to bring up ethics anytime soon. He’s too busy cashing his checks from the Univeristy of Michigan. It could be argued that the University of Michigan saves millions every year by giving the Mayor and his wife jobs that pay, in total, under $40,000 per year, almost equal to the salary paid to the Mayor by the city. The Mayor has pointed out that current Michigan State Senator Liz Brater worked for U of M when she was mayor of Ann Arbor. As my mother might have said to Hieftje, “Yeah, well, and if Liz Brater jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?” It was just as unethical for Brater to cozy up to U of M as it is for our Mayor. At least Brater had a beard—her husband, Enoch, a tenured professor. Universities routinely hand out lecturer jobs to the spouses of tenured faculty. In the case of Mayor Hieftje, he has neither the tenured spouse nor the academic qualifications to teach graduate school at Michigan. So why is he there? Because he’s the Mayor of Ann Arbor, and it benefits the university of have our myaor in their pocket.

Luckily for local developers, and others who come to town to build, not to mention the University of Michigan, our local politicos are cheap dates. Small-town, small-plan, small-potato politicos who are happy with burger and fries-sized “donations” from people who make hundreds of boatloads of money off development deals.

Dr. Mary Sue Coleman, with her doctorate in playing hardball with our Mayor and City Council, has said that voluntary payments to the city in lieu of the millions in property taxes her non-profit doesn’t have to pay, just ain’t never gonna happen. (Coleman, of course, didn’t use the words “ain’t” or “gonna.”) Thus, for the Mayor with a B.A., a chance to teach at the University and pretend to be a “professor,” the chance to rub elbows with Deans and other titled nobility at U of M, and $16,000 a year is enough to co-opt him. The results of this relationship between our Mayor and the University? As opposed to negotiating with the university in the best interests of citizens, he recently gave U of M parkland on which to build a parking desk near U of M hospital. He even offered up $14 million dollars to help U of M build the parking garage. Ann Arbor citizens will not, however, be allowed to park in it “at first,” according to a a news piece about the parkland giveaway.

For Marcia Higgins, a $2,500 donation from the Firefighter’s PAC, while she chairs the Committee that negotiates labor contracts, doesn’t ring any ethical fire bells for her. However, that $2,500 donation was a huge amount of money in a campaign where the average donation was $50-$100. In Higgins’s campaign that PAC donation represented 40 percent of the total money she raised. In an Ann Arbor race, a $1,000 donation from a PAC is as close to feeling like a big-time player as any of our local politicos are ever going to get.

Interestingly, the Firefighter’s PAC stiffed Marcia Higgins this past August when she ran for re-election in a contested race, and soon thereafter found themselves threatened with layoffs, and subsequently forced to swallow a steep pay cut in exchange for a six month breather. Come June, the firefighters will find themselves once again the target of lay-offs or further reductions in salary and benefits. I’ll be watching their PAC donations closely this summer during campaigning season.

Add to this the interesting fact that Ann Arbor fits the profile developed by two researchers from Dartmouth of places where political corruption flourishes in the United States. Authors Amanda Maxwell and Richard F. Winters write in their paper “Political Corruption in America” that cities, “with well-informed and highly participant political cultures have lower rates of corruption.” In Ann Arbor’s last August primary election, fewer than 10 percent of registered voters went to the polls city-wide.

Of course, fitting a profile doesn’t mean there is political corruption. On the other hand, watching the Library Lot RFP twist & shout currently going on makes it hard to give Mayor and Council the benefit of the doubt. One of the six bidders had an 18-month head start and opportunities to pitch their “concept” in private to our Council members prior to the March 2009 vote to create the RFP to solicit proposals for the 1.2 acre Library Lot site. I wrote about the bidder’s contact with city staff and Council members here.

Perhaps what Ann Arbor suffers from most is advanced Cronyism. As I written before, the Mayor collected 35 percent of his campaign donations the last time he ran from those whom he’d appointed to the city’s many boards and commissions. In Illinois, that’s referred to as pay-to-play, but in Ann Arbor the amounts are so ridiculously low that to label it corruption seems a misuse of the term.

As always, I’d be interested to know what other A2 politicos out there think about the subject.

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December 12, 2009

The Politics of Pay Cuts: Flat Rate or Graduated?

Filed under: Mayor Hieftje, city council, fire, police, taxes — Tags: A2Politico, Alma Wheeler-Smith, Ann Arbor City Council, Ann Arbor City Employee Retirement System, AnnArbor.com, Blue Ribbon Benefit Committee, Carsten Hohnke, Christopher Taylor, Karen Sidney, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall, Mayor Hieftje, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Steve Rapundalo, Tom Crawford, Tony Derezinski — A2 Politico @ 2:55 pm

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Mayor Hieftje is getting warmer. As he feels his way like a political blind man toward reigning in spending at City Hall, he recently suggested an “across the board three percent pay cut” for all non-unionized employees. That’s about 190 people, and an across the board three percent pay cut would save $1.5 million dollars per year. It sounds fair. Everyone who’s a non-unionzed employee sacrifices 3 percent of a pound of flesh to the God of Capital Projects. You see, if Hieftje had vetoed the Temple to the Three 15th District Judicial Dieties (the so-called Police-Court facility) as he threatened to in March of 2007 (read about how council members “blackmailed” Hieftje into withholding his veto here), we’d have $1.5 million dollars less to pay in bond payments.

Then, if our Merry Band of spend-a-holics had attended a 12-step meeting as opposed to voting 10-1 (Fifth Ward’s Mike Anglin voted no) to spend $55 million on an underground parking garage, by jingo, we’d be very close to having the $3 million dollars City Administrator Roger Fraser told Ann Arbor City Council on December 5th had to be cut from the budget within 30 days. The Veruca Salt action figures on Council are careening together down the mountain pass of capital improvement while their public service coach-and-four falls to pieces. VS Action figures include: Mayor Hieftje, Sandi Smith, Sabra Briere [voted no on the Temple then yes on the Necropolis], Steve Rapundalo, Tony Derezinski, Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall, Marcia Higgins and Carsten Hohnke.

Thus, to pay the bond payments for the Temple and the Parking Necropolis, Roger Fraser continued service cuts by sending layoff notices to 13 free range, organic, fire-roasted firefighters.

At the same time last week, Mayor Hieftje came forward with the proposal to cut three percent from the salaries of those 190 employees at City Hall. It’s so French, Sweetie. It’s so liberté, so égalité, so fraternité. Everyone takes one for the Republic. However, in this case, it’s the Republic led by Sith Lords. The Siths, of course, are characterized by their single-minded pursuit of power and disdain for sentient life. Sound familiar? (See A2Politico entries on recently proposed and implemented Council “solutions” to helping the homeless this winter.)

Back to the proposed pay cut. First of all, the 3 percent cut would apply to about one-quarter of the city’s total number of employees. I imagine that, after watching City Council give early retirement packages that resembled wet kisses and lap dances to 25 police officers, some employees at City Hall might be feeling a tad, well, postal at the moment. Every time Roger Fraser mentions the early retirement packages, he makes sure to say that more officers took advantage of the open-ended offer than expected would and, thus, cost the city more money than expected. He suddenly joins the ranks of the “shocked, simply shocked,” that the early retirement cost a bundle. Local activist and CPA Karen Sidney went before Council and, in essence, laid out the numbers for them like 2nd grade math. Sidney explained that the early retirement was going to cost a bundle the city didn’t have and would require eventual service cuts.

Council members responded to Sidney’s comments that Ann Arbor had to offer the early retirement packages to the police officers to save money. Yeah, right.

Roger Fraser could have issued layoff notices to those 24 police officers. However, somehow I suspect that had Fraser and Council done that, Police Chief Barnett Jones wouldn’t have gone before Council in May 2009 and assured everyone that the retirements would have “no impact.” He would have turned up in full S.W.A.T. regalia with tales of cannibalism from somewhere deep in Ward Four. He would have told Council Godzilla had been spotted crossing the Stadium Bridge headed toward Fifth and Huron (thus explaining those stress fractures to the bridge’s beams).

In exchange (one imagines with an imagination like mine) for those 24 golden retirement parachutes, in July, as panhandling on Main Street skyrocketed, Jones told the AnnArbor.com site that, “Ann Arbor is just as safe as it was before. I am tired of people saying our community is not going to be safe. We’ve got police officers here that are stepping in and filling the gap. We’ve been cutting police officers since 2000, and has crime run amok because people are leaving? No.”

By September of 2009, when the FBI crime statistics came out, Hieftje and Jones were still telling people the same story about low crime and public safety. A2Politico told the truth here and AnnArbor.com picked up on the story.

So now the fiscal shitzu is hitting the fan. We are literally starting to pay for Council’s over-spending over the past six years, and under-planning. The three percent plan may seem like a good idea on the surface, but it’s not. Like any flat tax, it pummels the people at the bottom of the pay scale, and barely puts a dent in the paychecks of the people at the top of the pay scale. Like Representative Alma Wheeler-Smith’s graduated income tax proposal, Hieftje should propose a graduated scale for pay cuts. Those earning $90K and above should see a 10 percent cut. Those earning less than $40K per year should see a 2 percent cut. Council can duke it out over the people earning between $41K-$89K per year. Council members should stop drawing paychecks.

Then, City Council needs to slay the dragon. They need to adopt the recommendations of the 2005 Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Benefit Committee. Mayor Hieftje and our current Council veterans have avoided this political hot potato long enough. The Ann Arbor City Employee Retirement System is a bank vault overseen by a bunch of foxes. Ann Arbor’s Chief Financial Officer Tom Crawford and Roger Fraser make decisions about their own pensions and those of their employees as trustees of the board. It’s time to revise and redesign oversight, benefit provision and administration of one of city’s largest budget line items: Ann Arbor City Employee Retirement System.

Stephen Rapundalo is setting himself up as the next little Greden. However, it’s time for Hieftje to lead. It may be his last chance, because he will surely be challenged for his seat the next time around, and a credible candidate will surely take him out thanks to the financial quagmire and service cuts he’s going to be held responsible for.

Popularity: 25% [?]

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December 10, 2009

Rapping Kouncilmember Kunselman’s Knuckles. Krack.

Filed under: boards and commissions, city council — Tags: AATA Board, Ann Arbor SPARK, Bonnie Bona, Christopher Taylor, David Nacht, David Stead, Environmental Commission, Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan, Mayor Hieftje, Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Ned Staebler, Percent For Art Program, Sabra Briere, Stephen Kunselman — A2 Politico @ 11:50 am

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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.’—”The Raven,” Edgar Allen Poe, published 1845

Mayor Hieftje’s “facilitation” of City Council meetings reached a new low on Monday of this week. If there is a hell for meeting facilitators who consistently allow bad process to get in the way of the actual business of a meeting, John Hieftje will go there on a very, very, slow train that will make hundreds of stops. The train will almost arrive at the station, but will be diverted. Hieftje will descend slowly into madness.

On December 5th, Roger Fraser had warned all of the City Council members that unless they instructed him to do otherwise at the Monday December 7th meeting, he would immediately issue layoff notices to 14 of the city’s firefighters. At the Monday meeting, our Council member little old ladies fretted, worried and picked nits for, literally, hours over changing the Percent for Art Program to the “Half-A-Percent for Art” (until 2012, when the program will revert to the Percent for Art Program). Those micro-managers extraordinaire then spent more time than it took Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to figure out how the Percent for Art program actually works. Yes, they sat in their little oval and tried to puzzle out how a program worked that all but Kunselman had all voted to implement over 14 months ago, and to which over $1 million dollars in tax money has already been funneled.

Talk about fiddling while Ann Arbor burns. The watch word of the evening was anything except “firefighters.” Our Council members and Mayor wasted endless hours of public time and money to avoid the tower truck in the Council Chambers.

Then, they spent hours wringing their hands over the difference between “adopting” and “accepting” a series of recommendations called the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan.

This was actually when something interesting happened at the meeting. Third Ward Council member Stephen Kunselman asked how David Stead, the Chair of the HRIMP committee, could possibly hope to lead the group toward a consensus decision about how to best manage the Huron River. Since we know that Mayor and Council have a devil of a time finding people among the city’s 112,000 residents to serve on the city’s boards and commissions, they frequently appoint one person to multiple boards and commissions. David Stead is one of those people. He sits on the Ann Arbor Environmental Commission. You may also remember Stead from such classic films as, “I proposed the resolution to remove the Argo Dam.”

Kunselman spoke up and suggested that, perhaps, David Stead might be biased in his opinions about how to best manage the Huron River in his position as Chair of the HRIMP committee.

The Council School Marms picked up their rulers and closed in on Stevie K.

First up was that bias/conflict of interest expert, and Fifth Ward School Marm, Carsten Hohnke. Hohnke said it was “absolutely inappropriate to suggest the chair [of the HRIMP committee] had a bias.” Hohnke warned councilmembers to be careful about questioning the characters of members of the community who volunteer to serve the city.

Hohnke, after all, has no interest in discussing bias or conflicts of interest unless, of course, he benefits personally.

Carsten Hohnke was appointed to the Ann Arbor SPARK Board this past summer. Know how he got the appointment? If you guessed cronyism, you get a fabulous prize. Later. Hohnke also has a new job at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation in Lansing. Does the MEDC sound familiar? It should. It’s where 53rd District House wanna-be Ned Staebler works as a VP. Staebler’s Inspire Michigan PAC donated to Hohnke’s 2008 City Council campaign. The MEDC job given to Hohnke was never posted to the public. It was a cozy little give-away to Carsten.

The next School Marm up with a ruler was Kunselman’s Third Ward Council colleague Christopher Taylor. Taylor told all present that he felt “like some folks’ integrity had been impugned” based on very little evidence. Taylor said that for Kunselman to imply David Stead had a bias suggested “duplicity and conniving.” Taylor said he’d seen no evidence of that. Bias, of course, does not suggest either duplicity or conniving. Taylor’s deliberate misuse and incorrect definition of the word “bias” to make Kunselman appear as though he were suggesting David Stead was duplicitous and/or conniving was, of course, deliciously duplicitous and conniving behavior on the part of Council member Taylor.

The last School Marm to rap Kunselman over the knuckles for suggesting David Stead might be biased toward, oh, removing the Argo Dam as opposed to keeping it because Stead sponsored a resolution to remove the Argo Dam, was First Ward’s Sabra Briere. She told all present that questions brought before Council needn’t be answered quickly, but they did need to be answered “civilly.” I have to wonder if Sabra Briere was listening during Taylor’s comment when he used the words duplicity and conniving.

In March of 2006, the Ann Arbor Environmental Commission passed a resolution that created the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP) Committee. The committee was charged with developing recommendations for managing the Huron River. Steve Kunselman was absolutely right to point out the potential conflicts with having David Stead Chair the HRIMP committee. Stead wants the Argo Dam out, and voted at the May 2009 Environmental Commission meeting in favor of removing the dam. The HRIMP committee’s job was to come up with a “committee vision” on best practices to manage the Huron River.

David Stead’s vote to remove the Argo Dam and subsequent chairing of the HRIMP committee is actually the least of the conflicts and biases on which we should focus, however. The appointment by Mayor and Council of the same individuals to multiple boards and commissions in Ann Arbor should attract our undivided attention. The political gene pool has been limited, unnecessarily, by this political ploy. The Mayor uses the strategy to groom his Council candidates of choice, and help them “build” résumés.

Another issue to focus on is our Mayor’s nasty habit of appointing citizens to boards and commissions after receiving campaign donations from them. Law enforcement agencies refer to this as “pay-to-play.” For instance, in 2003 David Nacht was appointed to the AATA Board for a 10-year term after a 2002 campaign donation to Mayor Hieftje. Nacht is not alone, of course, and shouldn’t be perceived as the only example of this pattern.

Yet another issue to focus on is the awarding of city contracts to the companies of individuals appointed to “serve” the city by sitting on boards and commissions. Planning Commissioner (appointed in 2007) Bonnie Bona recently sent out an email to potential customers that used her company’s 2005 Argo Park redesign work as a sample of her company’s design capabilities.

There are knuckles that need to be rapped, but not Steve Kunselman’s for bringing up potential biases or conflicts of interest.

Popularity: 31% [?]

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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

Filed under: city council, developers, money — Tags: A2Politico, Acquest group, Ann Arbor City Council, Carsten Hohnke, Christopher Easthope, Christopher Taylor, conference center, Dennis Dahlmann Susan Pollay, development, Eric Mahler, Jayne Miller, Jesse Bernstein, Joan Lowenstein, John Hieftje, John Splitt, Leigh Greden, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall, Matt Kulhanek, Renovation Zone Bonds, Roger Fraser, Sam Offen, Stephen Rapundalo, Tony Derezinski, Valiant group — A2 Politico @ 1:21 pm

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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.

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November 30, 2009

The Politics of Semantics: Chris Taylor “Looks Forward” to Not Being a Ball Hog

Filed under: city council — Tags: A2Politico, Christopher Taylor, Leigh Greden, Marcia Higgins — A2 Politico @ 5:25 pm

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Since October 20th, A2Politico has been writing about Third Ward Council member Christopher Taylor’s attempt at a miraculous political transformation from one of the Hieftje Eight—a Council member caught via FOIA by the Ann Arbor News ostensibly calling his constituents “dim lights,” playing right along with awarding Golden Pandys for pandering to unsuspecting constituents during commentary, and trading infantile emails during Council meetings at which he was being paid by the taxpayers to pay attention, to Christopher Taylor: the go-to ethics guy who will craft an ethics policy for all to pay to play by.

I wrote in “Why Is Christo T. So Hot to Create A City Ethics Policy?” on October 20th: Has Council member Christopher Taylor demonstrated the ethical substance, style and leadership during his short year on Council sufficient to take the lead in creating an ethics policy for the Hieftje Eight to which he was named a full partner? The Hieftje Eight are the eight Council members outed by the Ann Arbor News in two separate feature articles last June and July for having the ethics of a pack of hyenas. Taylor was caught by the News playing right along with his Council buddies in their sad and possibly illegal little email games. He paid for it by waking up on a fine Sunday morning in June to see his picture on the front page of the newspaper under a headline that questioned the “appropriateness” of emails he sent during open Council meetings. He, along with Fourth Ward Council member Margie Teall, Third Ward Council member Leigh Greden and Fifth Ward Council member Carsten Hohnke were lambasted for their actions in a biting editorial cartoon.

On October 25th, I posted a Weekend Poll: “Can Council Craft An Ethics Policy For Themselves?”

Of the over 400 people who responded to the poll, 73 percent said, “You’re joking right? No way, José”

In November, I got an email tip from a citizen who’d spoken to Taylor about the ethics policy project, and the citizen was told by Taylor the intrepid Council member had no plans to include a citizen’s advisory committee in his Big Ethical Production Number. Too many ethicists will spoil the soup, alas. So, on November 25th I posted, “Sinatra, I Mean Taylor, Does the Ethics Policy His Way.” In that posting I wrote,

“If Christopher Taylor is serious about breaking the pattern of deception and disdain for the public good that runs through our current Council Majority (and he may well be), he will ask the Mayor to appoint an advisory committee that does not include Hieftje’s or Council members’ political donors, political cronies, ex-lovers, and/or blood relations. Council member Taylor will turn to the public, as well as religious leaders and academic experts on ethics in public policy and public service for guidance, input and help.

“If he doesn’t, he’ll have taken an opportunity for real change, put lipstick on it, and we’ll end up with a pig of a policy that won’t change anything. It will be enforced by the same Council Majority caught repeatedly in FOIAed emails during open meetings demonstrating the ethical depravity of Mao and his Gang.”

Three days later, on November 28th, Council member Taylor sent out an interesting email to his Third Ward constituents. It was a one-year review of himself, by himself, for his own political gain. To his credit, he sent it out and outlined what he believes are his most important accomplishments. My Council members have never thought to self-evaluate, or provide any such substantive information about their work. I give him high marks for his initiative. This email is much like the one he sent to Ward Three constituents concerning the Percent for Art Program eliciting feedback (albeit limited since Taylor’s email list is just a few hundred people out of the thousands who live and vote in Ward Three).

That being said, I must also point out that there are some very troubling issues with Taylor’s self-evaluation related to his inability to, well, tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

In the introduction Taylor writes, “Were ours a formal employment relationship, there would be an evaluation process whereby we would reflect upon this goal, discuss achievements, disappointments, and plan for the future. I would like to replicate that system somewhat here and hope that you find the following information useful when you review my performance during next year’s election.”

Were ours a formal employment relationship? Whom does Christopher Taylor thinks he answers to? His Higher Power? The relationship between an elected official and the electorate is a formal employment relationship. That tidy little monthly paycheck for the council work he outlined in his email comes from the taxpayers.

The “evaluation” email goes on to list Taylor’s “achievements” and “disappointments.” Among the “disappointments” is the Council email scandal. Taylor’s November 28th email makes it appear as though he was wrongly accused of participation, and subsequently apologized to and vindicated. His misleading characterization is a lesson in careful wording, twisted logic and deception. Taylor writes to his Third Ward constituents (whom he truly must believe are “dim lights”):

“As you may know, in a March (2009) meeting I paused for a moment between speakers to rib one of my colleagues via email. The Ann Arbor News printed this correspondence and stated that the jibe was an expression of disrespect to the Old West Side. This charge was false, and I demanded a retraction. The paper published an apology and admitted their error.”

A momentary lapse? Sound Gredenesque? Taylor sent dozens and dozens of emails back and forth during open meetings. Just like Taylor’s ex-Council colleague Leigh Greden, whom Ward Three voters tossed out on his ear thanks to the email scandal, Taylor minimizes his full, frequent, and free participation in the scandal. He also neglects to list among his “disappointments” the lawsuit filed this Fall against the city as result of Council members’ allegedly deliberative emails sent during open meetings, and revealed by FOIAs.

Under the “In Progress” heading in the email to his constituents, Christopher Taylor lists this project he’s working on:

CONFLICT OF INTEREST / ETHICS POLICY. The City Council does not have a formal Conflict of Interest / Ethics Policy. The presence of a reasonable, rigorous policy is a part of good government. In view of my legal training and my seat on the Council Rules Committee, I am working to develop such a policy and look forward to working with my colleagues and members of the public (A2Politico’s emphasis) to bring it to fruition.

He looks forward to working with his colleagues and the public when, exactly? When he’s good and ready? When the Messiah comes? Looking forward to working with the public is nice, warm and fuzzy. The wording makes you feel like Taylor will pick up the phone at any minute and check in with his peeps—the public. As much as warm, fuzzy and nice make everyone feel tingly all over, that Christopher Taylor “looks forward” to working with members of the public and his colleagues is nothing but political malarkey.

Furthermore, to recommend himself as the arbiter of ethics thanks to his standing as a lawyer is absurd. Christopher specializes in intellectual property law. If someone’s scamming you out of your book royalties, he’s the guy to see. As for being a member of the Council Rules Committee: that’s the Marcia Higgins-led group that did nothing for years while Council members broke every rule in the book of manners, netiquette, and, quite possible, the Open Meetings Act. I’d rather he not remind me he belongs to that 12-step group of the ethically challenged.

His November 28th email provides even more proof that Christopher Taylor is absolutely the last person who should put himself forward as the best person to craft an ethics policy for Ann Arbor City Council and Ann Arbor staff. His November 28th email with its smarmy rationalizations, careful semantics and outright deceptions are ample proof that he really does need to be held to a reasonable and rigorous ethics policy. He should stop, however, pretending he’s the best person to write one for his dear friends on City Council.

I’m looking forward to hearing that Christopher Taylor has asked the Mayor to appoint a Citizen’s Advisory Board on Creating an Ethics Policy. I’m also relying on Taylor to make sure the advisory board is not populated by the usual suspects who can be relied on to dutifully kiss ass, kiss the ruby rings of their Council dons, and tell the real public to kiss off until the public hearings.

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November 25, 2009

Sinatra, I Mean Taylor, Does The Ethics Policy His Way

Filed under: boards and commissions, city council, politicians, politics — Tags: Bonnie Bona, Carsten Hohnke, Christopher Taylor, DDA, Historical Commission, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall, Mayor Hieftje, Mike Anglin, PAC, Planning Commission, Ryan Stanton, Sabra Briere, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Sandi Smith, Stephen Kunselman, Stephen Postema, Stephen Rapundalo, Tony Derezinski, University of Michigan Musical Society, weekend poll — A2 Politico @ 9:52 am

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On October 20, 2009, I wrote about Third Ward Council member Christopher Taylor’s ants-in-his-pants rush to start crafting an ethics policy prior to the return to City Council of third Ward’s Stephen Kunselman (Kunselman, you may remember (or not) ran on a platform of returning integrity, honesty and ethics to City Council.): “Why is Christo T. So Hot To Create A City Ethics Policy?” On October 25, 2009, I also posted a Weekend Poll which asked the question: Can Council Craft An Ethics Policy For Themselves? So far, the nays have it; A2 politicos don’t believe our Council members can craft an ethics policy for themselves. I can’t say the poll results are a great shock.

It has been suggested to Council member Taylor that he should include a citizen’s advisory committee in the process of crafting the ethics policy. I know! How about one of those famously stacked citizen advisory committees? Taylor is a lawyer who, according to his bio on the Butzel Long web site, “is a shareholder practicing in Butzel Long’s Ann Arbor office. He represents businesses, institutions and individuals that wish to exploit, defend and protect their intellectual property, including technology startups, Fortune 100 manufacturers, universities, application service providers, software developers, film producers, television and radio stations, record labels, and authors.” At the moment, it appears he also fancies himself the Saint Thomas Aquinas of Ann Arbor City Council.

For Mayor and Council to appoint a Committee to Advise on an Ethics Policy for Ann Arbor City Council would be as easy as rounding up nine of their friends, work colleagues and political donors. Hell, Mayor Hieftje has been appointing his BFFs and cuddies to the DDA, PAC, Planning Commission and Historical Commission for a decade. Why do it differently when appointing an advisory committee to look into creating an ethics policy? There’s something to be said for consistency in cronyism. If appointing political donors proved too blatant a move, Mayor and Council could simply appoint their business associates, siblings and spouses to the proposed advisory committee on ethics.

Alas, none of these trusted, tried and true methods of putting together an advisory committee appealed to Council’s Taylor, the newly ordained resident Dominican friar and expert on ethics. He has brushed off citizen suggestions for citizen input, and is doing the ethics policy his way. Sinatra would be proud. I’m sure the Council Rat Pack is relieved not to have meddling civvies involved in shaping and discussing Council ethics. That’s way too personal a topic to have civvies butting their long noses into.

Taylor is using as his launching pad an ethics policy drafted by the Michigan Attorney General’s office. Thus, it would appear as though Taylor’s policy were aimed at all city employees (when it rains ethics, it pours) and not just at himself and his ethically-challenged pals Fifth Ward’s Carsten Hohnke, Second Ward’s Stephen Rapundalo and Tony Derezinski, Fourth Ward’s Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall and First Ward’s Sandi Smith.

The ethics policy on which Taylor is hard at work in his monk’s cell goes on ad infinitum about gifts. It’s not clear whether the policy includes intellectual gifts. I’m going to inch out on a limb and say it’s safe to assume that Taylor’s constituency, the so-called “dim lights” who teach at U of M, and whom Taylor swears to the gods of the underworld he never meant to refer to as “dim lights” in that Council email that was published in the Ann Arbor News, have nothing to fear from the “gifts” clause of the ethics policy. Cash gifts to your Council member are out, Sweetie. I wonder if that includes the finder’s fees being collected by one of the real estate pros on Council from local developers? How about tickets to Michigan football games and University of Michigan Musical Society events, and the ever popular breakfast meetings at the Northside or Broken Egg?

The ethics policy also cracks down on leaks. Thank the artist formerly known as Prince (or whichever god you worship). I’m not talking about the roof of the Larcom Building that leaked for years, and was used as a pretense to spend $40 million on the new Temple to the Three judicial deities. I’m talking about disclosing information before disclosure is “authorized.” This seems particularly important to the current Council majority, the lot of whom were nabbed conducting business in secret via email, and whose penchant for withholding information that should have been made public has resulted in a lawsuit against the City for violating the Open Meetings Acts.

Thus, stopping up leaks is crucial to this City Council. First Ward City Council member Sabra Briere will, of course, be routinely subjected to interrogations using sodium pentathol, and chocolate truffles of her own creation. Fifth Ward Council member Mike Anglin will get the sodium pentathol treatment minus the truffles. Staff will simply be given routine lie detector tests (certain high-level staff will, however, be exempt, as it is written into their job descriptions to spin information to deceive the public, as well as withhold information from certain sodium pentatholized Council members ).

Yes, plugging “leaks” seems a crucial part of any ethics policy crafted by Taylor for use by our Ann Arbor City Council members.

Pay-to-play? In Illinois the pay-to-play game got Blago impeached. In Ann Arbor, the Mayor looks forward to collecting regular campaign “donations” from about 35 percent of the people he appoints to boards and commissions, from people to whom city contracts are awarded, and various “colleagues” at the University of Michigan, where he and is wife were given high-paying part-time jobs some years ago. Pay-to-play is not addressed in Council member Taylor’s ethics policy. Thank goodness, too. Mayor Hieftje would have to run his campaigns on 35 percent less money, and you know what that would mean, don’t you? He’d actually have to fundraise from the rabble.

Friar Christo’s ethics policy doesn’t touch on the issue of conflicts of interest, either. Again, this omission is for the best. Repeat after me slowly, while staring at a shiny object: “The are no conflicts of interest among the members of Ann Arbor City Council. The are no conflicts of interest among the members of Ann Arbor City Council. The are no conflicts of interest among the members of Ann Arbor City Council or city staff.”

It’s a coincidence that our Mayor, with a BA, is one of the highest paid lecturers at the University of Michigan School of Public Policy. That slacker in the department with the MacArthur Genius Award on his mantle can’t hold a candle to Mayor Johnny H. It’s a coincidence that Hieftje’s wife landed a part-time job at the University after her husband was elected to office. It was a coincidence that the most recent $36,000 consulting contract went to the law firm where City Attorney Stephen Postema once worked. It was a mere chance that Mayoral appointee Bonnie Bona’s design firm was awarded the 2005 contract to redesign the Argo Pond Park shelter, landscaping and building. I could go on, but that’s a whole different blog entry I’m saving for later.

Christopher Taylor is plowing ahead with his ethics policy like a pot-bellied ball hog paying the whole outfield at a Sunday afternoon softball game. His actions are a bush league attempt to have an issue to run on next summer when his constituents are reminded of his part in the City Council email scandal, and his part, perhaps, in giving one developer a huge leg up over five others in a supposedly “fair” bidding process to choose what get built atop the public land next to the library.

“But I crafted an ethics policy that was adopted by Council,” Taylor will repeat ad infinitum between the months of April and August 2010 as he runs for re-election. In reality, closing out the public demonstrates quite clearly that what he’s doing is simply using ethics for his own political gain. It’s an egregious ethical lapse, and it can still be remedied.

If Christopher Taylor is serious about breaking the pattern of deception and disdain for the public good that runs through our current Council Majority (and he may well be), he will ask the Mayor to appoint an advisory committee that does not include Hieftje’s or Council members’ political donors, political cronies, ex-lovers, and/or blood relations. Council member Taylor will turn to the public, as well as religious leaders and academic experts on ethics in public policy and public service for guidance, input and help.

If he doesn’t, he’ll have taken an opportunity for real change, put lipstick on it, and we’ll end up with a pig of a policy that won’t change anything. It will be enforced by the same Council Majority caught repeatedly in FOIAed emails during open meetings demonstrating the ethical depravity of Mao and his Gang.

Saint Thomas Aquinas believed that truth is known through reason. I can see no reason, to tell you the truth, for Council member Christopher Taylor to exclude the public from this important policy decision.

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Older Posts »

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September 1, 2010

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August 6, 2010

The Politics of Irony: Dim Bulbs

March 7, 2010

The Politics of Negotiating: You Never Get What You Deserve

February 4, 2010

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

January 21, 2010

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December 12, 2009

The Politics of Pay Cuts: Flat Rate or Graduated?

December 10, 2009

Rapping Kouncilmember Kunselman’s Knuckles. Krack.

December 7, 2009

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

November 30, 2009

The Politics of Semantics: Chris Taylor “Looks Forward” to Not Being a Ball Hog

November 25, 2009

Sinatra, I Mean Taylor, Does The Ethics Policy His Way

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