A2Politico: Ann Arbor Politics Grilled To Perfection

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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