A2Politico: Ann Arbor Politics Grilled To Perfection

May 10, 2010

The Politics of the DDA: Time to Clean House

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

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

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

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

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

Identity
Infrastructure
Transportation
Business Encouragement
Housing
Development Partnerships
Community Services
Sustainability

All are laudable goals, of course, but most involve influencing or changing the course of the city’s public policy. That’s the job of our elected officials. In other towns, including Royal Oak, the budgets of their DDA’s must be approved by elected officials. Ours is not. In fact, First Ward Council member Sandi Smith has argued that the City Council has no business sticking its collective nose in DDA parking policy, and members of the DDA Board have argued that the entity is autonomous. Jennifer Hall, in her interview with A2Politico said that: “I wish Council provided the kind of oversight, check and balance that an independent agency such as the DDA (or AATA or any other authority) should have.  But they don’t always do that.  They don’t really look into our bylaws and make sure that we aren’t abusing our power.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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February 2, 2010

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

Filed under: boards and commissions — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 9:59 am
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Jennifer Santi Hall was never convinced Ann Arbor needed an underground parking garage and more parking. As a board member of the current Downtown Development Authority, her opinion is akin to heresy. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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


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


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

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

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

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

 

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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


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


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


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


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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

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October 13, 2009

The Politics of the DDA: An Interview With Rene Greff

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Arbor Brewing Company co-owner Rene Greff served two terms (9 years) on the Board of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. The Board expects to control an approximately $22 million dollar budget during 2009-2010. About $18 million dollars of that money will come from parking fees, and the rest will come from tax revenue captured by the DDA under the auspices of a tax increment financing (TIF) scheme written into the City’s Charter. Rene Greff was replaced on the DDA by Concentrate Publisher, and real estate developer, Newcombe Clark.

A2Politico enjoys a pint of micro-brewed beer every now and again, and does frequent ABC, but caught up with Rene Greff via email. 

 

Question 1.  Let’s dive right in, shall we? You served on the Board of Downtown Development Authority (DDA) for two terms. Here you are, a woman who bikes to work (or so I read), who won a Washtenaw County Environmental Excellence Award in 2000, who has described herself as “committed to environmental protection and the preservation of greenfields and environmentally sensitive areas.” The DDA does not concern itself, primarily, with what you describe as your core interests. PAC seems more where you ought to have ended up. Why did you agree to sit on the DDA Board in the first place? What did you hope to accomplish on the Board?

RG:  I am committed to those causes, but I am also committed to many other things, as well, such as homeless and housing issues, alternative transportation, good government, access to education and healthcare, the importance of arts and culture to a community, international diplomacy, and the polar ice caps to name a few—and I also believe strongly in the important role downtowns play in the overall health and vitality of a city. 

I first became acquainted with the DDA in 1996 when, a year after opening our doors at ABC, I learned that the city had condemned the 4th and Washington parking structure, and that it was going to be demolished.  At the time, we were struggling mightily to keep our doors open and the last thing we needed was to lose 245 parking spaces that we specifically cited in our business plan, and where we knew the majority of our customers parked.

Then I heard that the city was not planning to replace the parking so I started lobbying Council and DDA.  What I discovered was shocking.  There were some members of Council who literally said, “Let the parking structures crumble to the ground and it will force people to take the bus.” and “If businesses need parking so badly, then they should pay for it —they’re the ones making all the money downtown.” At the time we were paying way more in taxes to the city than we were taking home, and I spent many hours in open-book meetings with Council members trying to educate them about the daily struggles small businesses face in our downtown just to pay the bills. Worse yet, there were also DDA members who didn’t want to replace the parking (or who wanted to build it elsewhere).  After months of debate DDA and the City finally decided to replace the deck, and I was asked to sit on a citizens advisory design board. 

At the beginning of 2000 I became president of the Main Street Area Association.  Some of the issues on my agenda were:

A.       getting the DDA to assume responsibility for the parking meters to  make sure that money from the parking meters was reinvested in the parking system or in the downtown;

B.       changing the fee and licensing structure for outdoor seating (the city was and had been for many years breaking the law by overcharging businesses to rent their sidewalks for outdoor seating.  Since the property is owned by the property owner with a right or way easement to the municipality, the municipality may not make a profit on license fees for the space – so the city should only have been charging enough to cover enforcement but they were charging several times that);

C.       coming up with a better way to deal with downtown snow removal than plowing it all onto the curb which blocks the meters, hinders pedestrian access, and is surely in violation of the ADA;

D.       making sure the community policing program was a priority in the downtown and had a sustainable funding source;

E.       reviewing downtown storm water retention (the city required developers to provide on-site retention but exempted it’s own projects);

Then in July there was a vacancy on DDA and Mayor Ingrid Sheldon asked me if I would be willing to serve on the Board.  I was already quite involved with a lot of efforts that overlapped the work of the DDA so it seemed like a good way to work toward some of the goals we had set out for the MSAA.  Plus, I was interested in pushing more of a green agenda on DDA with things like supporting business recycling and composting, building DDA projects to LEED standards, and assisting businesses (and the city) in transitioning to more green and sustainable goals and practices.  I also wanted to make sure that small independent businesses had a strong voice at the table.

I think that when I first joined the Board, I wasn’t sure what could be accomplished because I didn’t yet understand the full scope of their work.  But during my time on the Board, I developed interests that included:

A.       Promoting honesty and transparency in government (I could write a novel about that one!)

B.       Responsible expenditure of tax dollars (I fought against things like lavish give-backs to big developers, using tax dollars to sweep sidewalks in front of individual businesses, and funding board-member feel-good pet projects that are certainly worthy projects to support as individuals, but not the role of the DDA.

C.       Creating programs to help retain the small independent businesses that give downtown Ann Arbor its unique character

D.       Making sure we have a responsible plan for ensuring a sustainable and adequate parking system by re-investing parking dollars back into the parking system

E.       Maintaining infrastructure like alleys and sidewalks

F.       City should hold itself to its highest standard—not exempt itself from rules and goals it imposes on businesses and residents—for example if the City is really committed to alternative transportation, it should stop providing its staff with free parking.

G.       Supporting alternative transportation in everything from working with AATA (we created the getDowntown program and helped with the funding of the Link) to installing bike lanes and improving bike parking, to improving the safety and comfort of the pedestrian experience

H.       Encouraging green building and energy in the downtown (we funded the solar panels at the farmers market, helped to pay for the LED lights downtown, created the energy audit and green energy grant programs, made green building a requirement for funding requests, etc)

I.       And I fought hard and will continue to fight for a Board that is autonomous and mission-driven though it feels like a losing battle at this point

Question 2.   You said you earned Leigh Greden’s enmity when you backed Rebekah Warren in the 2006 53rd District Michigan House race. You said Council and “Greden’s caucus” stopped coming in to ABC. You must have known this would happen. In our small town, people take the political way too personally. However, in 2007 and 2008 you still opened the doors of ABC for political fundraisers and events for candidates (Carsten Hohnke and Sandi Smith) backed by Council’s majority. You donated money, as well. You got snubbed, yet you kept on giving. How come?

RG:  Believe it or not, I am an eternal optimist and really don’t hold a grudge.  I still believe that Sandi is going to be a great Council member.  During our time together on DDA, I found her to be thoughtful, honest, courageous, and independent.  I think she is still feeling her way forward on Council, but as she gains experience I think she will be a strong leader and an advocate for everything from smart well-planned development of city land and for a greater focus on environmental sustainability.  And she is committed to a lot of the same goals as I am. 

Carsten came recommended by a mutual friend, and I was led to believe that he was a new urbanist and understood and respected the work of the DDA.  I have been disappointed in his lack of partnership with DDA (things like moving to turn the 1st and William surface parking into a park without even mentioning the idea to DDA even though that parking is in the contract we have with the City. A responsible leader would want an analysis of the possible ramifications of a proposal like that before charging forward.) Though he did reach out recently to discuss Council’s blockage of DDA-recommended changes to our bylaws.

But to your question, I continue to host events and support people, because I want good leadership and I feel like citizens in a democracy have a responsibility to be engaged in the political process.  I don’t give for political patronage and never feel like I am personally owed anything but someone’s best effort to be an honest, informed and effective public servant.  And frankly I don’t care where Council-members choose to go on election night.  We’re packed with progressives regardless of where the Mayor and Council decide to go. 

And I mis-spoke.  I actually earned Greden’s enmity before his primary with Rebekah—when he introduced the 2-site plan, and I began publically challenging him every chance I got for reneging on our deal. But backing Rebekah is what caused Council’s election-night exodus from the brewpub since we hosted Rebekah’s election-night event.  But many Council members, as well as the Mayor also chose to stop by the pub that night to check in—though not Mr Greden to be sure.  And while the caucus no longer has post-meeting beers at the brewpub, I get along quite well with almost everyone on Council and see just about everyone at the pub from time to time.

 And as for knowing what would happen—primaries are often difficult but it has been my experience that people generally come back together after the primary behind shared goals.  And my support of a given candidate is always about who I think would be good in office and not some political calculation about what’s in it for me or my business in the future.  Plus I have to say that council was actually very supportive this year in allowing us to block off the street for Oktoberfest on a football Saturday (which is normally not permitted) since there were home games every week in September this year.  So I think it’s fair to say that those who supported Leigh Greden in the past and even those who disagree with me about a lot of city/DDA issues were able to put those differences aside when considering my request.

Question 3.    You said “I have been the one consistent voice on DDA willing to publically challenge the Greden-Teall-Higgins-Hieftje cabal.” Can you give a couple of examples that stand out to you as how, exactly, you challenged them?

RG:  I should note that just a few years ago I was one voice among many. The DDA was pretty united, and had a very clear sense of our mission.  I should also say that there are others on DDA who respect the DDA’s mission and autonomy and are consistently on what I would call the “right side” of the issues I care about—Jennifer [Santi Hall], Gary [Boren], and usually Joan [Lowenstein] and Sandi [Smith]. Jennifer has really gotten her footing over the past year is an intelligent and thoughtful voice of opposition.  I know she’ll fight the good fight until she gets the boot next July when her term is up.  And there are a couple of others whom I think share my philosophy, either because they are new to DDA and don’t have the same institutional knowledge, or because their personalities are confrontation averse, they can’t always be counted on. But I think since I had the longest DDA tenure among “our caucus” and because I am, by nature, outspoken, I tended to be the one to mount challenges—though I rarely stood alone. Sadly though, in my opinion, the Mayor has removed many very smart, qualified, and hard-working voices from the DDA over the years, and is effectively working toward creating a rubber stamp board more interested in winning the approval of Council than fighting for the issues facing the downtown.

But to your question—it’s difficult to lay out nine years of history in an email so I’ll try to give you a demonstrative example:

In anticipation of our Board retreat, I created a powerpoint presentation to document the development of the parking agreement between the City and DDA and to try and persuade my fellow DDA members and the public that it would go against core DDA principles to funnel $2 million a year from the parking system to the General Fund, and would be unfair to the other taxing authorities, and perhaps contrary to the DDA enabling statute to transfer TIF funds to the City (especially since the amount they want is more than we capture from City taxes). 

Leigh Greden promised that if the DDA increased our rent amount to the City in order to generate $10 million over ten years, that would ensure the beat cops for ten years, and the City would approve our three site plan which would have created enough additional revenue in the parking system to cover the increase in the DDA’s payment to the City. We approved the contract revision—which I bitterly regret.  I don’t regret helping the City, but I do regret not specifying where the money would come from and how it would be spent. It was a huge mistake for so many reasons. Unfortunately I, like so many others after me, believed Leigh when he said:  ”This is the best way to accomplish these goals and trust me, I have the votes if we do it my way, but your way will never work.” Needless to say, as soon as we approved the $10 million, Chris Easthope and Greden proposed a ridiculous two site plan….It wasn’t a plan at all, the financials didn’t work, and it didn’t accomplish the goals of the three site plan.

So anyway, I took my show on the road and made presentations to the Downtown Marketing Task Force and the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce to try and raise awareness about what was happening.  When I presented my slideshow to the Downtown Marketing Task Force,  Greden, [Margie] Teall, and Hieftje showed up to the meeting to challenge me.  They knew what was in the presentation, because I made the same presentation to the DDA at our Board retreat, and supplied Council with a copy of it. After I presented the facts at the meeting, they tried to correct me by saying there was no quid pro quo. I said: “You know perfectly well that there was no official quid pro quo, because you specifically said that the Council couldn’t be on record agreeing to a quid pro quo–as it turns out because you needed to maintain plausible deniability. But what you did say is that even if we don’t publically link the three site plan with the $10 million, you said Council was going to approve it.”

When delivering the same presentation to the Chamber, I challenged Tom Crawford, who is on their Board, when he said the City understands that the DDA is an autonomous Board with control of its own budget. I asked why he thought it appropriate to include DDA money in the city budget without discussing it with our Board.

I challenged the legality of Greden showing up at a DDA board meeting to vote in place of the Mayor in an effort to influence our officer elections—I think this exchange is on the video from our first or second televised board meeting.

I drafted a DDA resolution requesting that all funding requests that come from Council come as a Council resolution so that DDA could clearly differentiate between requests from individual Council members or staff members, and official requests from the City, and also so that all funding requests would be part of the public record. And I vigorously debated Leah Gunn and Roger Hewitt who opposed it because, I felt, they wanted to be able to continue to cut backroom deals with a certain segment of Council.

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. Leigh calculated correctly that if Council waited until July, when I was gone and John Splitt was the new Chair, they would have a better chance of getting a DDA committee that would roll over and give the city its $2 million a year with no strings attached.

At a Board/council dinner, I called on the Mayor to admit that he had replaced [Shaman Drum owner] Karl Pohrt because he had challenged the Mayor. Until then, he [Hieftje] had been saying that he didn’t want anyone serving more than two terms—even though he’d re-appointed Dave DeVarti and Leah Gunn to third terms (before giving Dave the boot last year).  He did admit it at the dinner.  Karl was a great DDA board member who fought for progressive values and the interests of small independent locally-owned businesses. His voice and thoughtfulness were sorely missed.  I always thought that if the Mayor was unhappy with someone’s performance, he should come out and admit it so I always pressured him to do so over the years.

I’ve actually worked quite collaboratively with Margie [Teall] on a few issues.  But I thought that she, like a lot of Council members, was negatively impacted by Leigh’s election because he is such a behind-the-scenes deal-maker.  Since he only works half-time, he has lots of time to devote and effectively set himself up as gatekeeper for Council’s agenda among other things. He did the homework so they wouldn’t have to, which meant that he could spin things the way he wanted and most members of Council would blindly follow without doing their own homework.  I think he really changed the way Council did business. But I also debated Margie plenty too in committee meetings when we were discussing the $8 million for the City Municipal building.  When Margie said that Greden wanted to get the $8 million question off the table, I said that after the 3 site plan, I didn’t trust them to follow through. I said that the DDA needed to be clear in the public record about our expectations whenever we negotiated with Council.

But since Leigh tends to be the spokesman as well as the strategist for the group, most of the confrontation has been with him.

Question 4.  You also said, “When I serve on a board I am committed to the mission of that Board. I am perfectly comfortable standing up to and outing Council members, as well as other Board members for what I see as lies and hypocrisy.” In March 2009, you had a bit of a dust-up with the Mayor over “transparency” concerning the City’s desire to draw down  DDA funds into the General Fund. So, which times in your mind stand out as significant episodes of you having to out Council members, and to call DDA Board members for things you saw as “lies and hypocrisy?”

RG:  Again, long stories, but here is the bullet list:

  • Roger Hewitt when he was trying to exert undue influence by concentrating the power of the chair;
  • Roger Hewitt when he tried to use an incident that happened in a parking deck to further one of his agenda items that had already been dismissed by the Board;
  • Roger Hewitt and Tom Heywood for having a goal of undermining and discrediting the DDA director so she could be replaced with someone more amenable to good old boy negotiations;
  • Leigh Greden when he stood in the way of DDA bylaw changes that would prevent the kind of shenanigans his pal Hewitt was attempting and did it by misrepresenting to the Council the nature and implications of said changes;
  • Leigh Greden whenever he lies about the deal he and Chris Easthope struck with the DDA for the $10 million;
  • Leah Gunn for saying we might as well give the $2 million to the City because the work of the DDA will be complete after they build the new underground deck—that may be all she had on her agenda but mine was far from complete;
  • The Mayor for not being honest about his reasons for giving very hard-working board members the boot;
  • The Mayor for not being honest about stonewalling the Council/DDA negotiation process;
  • The Mayor for taking credit for DDA initiatives that he opposed.

Question  5.  The Mayor sucker punched you at the DDA retreat when he told the rest of the DDA Board (and the Press present) that, in essence, you were perceived by “some” Council members as having a “chip on your shoulder.” In essence, he said in public Council members didn’t want to work with you, and he wasn’t inclined to force the group to put the good of the City ahead of their personal grudges. You knew this was a result of your conflict with Leigh Greden. However, the press recorded no response from you at that meeting. Did you try to resolve the issue with the Mayor at some later date?

RG:  As I alluded to above, it was not a sucker punch at all, but something I had been trying to get him to admit for months.  And I was shocked and pleased that he finally fessed up especially in such a public forum.  Greden had been publically lying about it for months.

In fact when I pressed him at that Downtown Marketing Task Force Meeting about why the committee hadn’t been formed he said, “I’m too busy to deal with it right now.”  

I said, “Really, I didn’t know you were in charge of Council’s agenda.” – though I did know he was, actually. 

So anyway, I thought it was great that the Mayor said it out loud and in front of local media, and I even called Dave Askins [editor of AnnArborChronicle.com] to make sure he got it on his tape recorder.  The Press didn’t record, but I stated that I knew exactly which Council member didn’t want to work with me and why. We battled it out at DDA meetings, and I publically challenged the Mayor at every meeting to seat the committee, and not to include DDA dollars in their budget before the committee met and had worked out a deal.

I think what needs to happen (but never will) is that the DDA Partnerships committee needs to take this on rather than a hand-selected subcommittee.  And the Council can send whomever they want to weigh  in, discuss, debate and try and influence the committee.  That is the most fair and transparent way to handle this important negotiation.  But in the end, the DDA needs to work out the details of a proposal that they can justify to their downtown constituents and taxpayers.   

Question 6.  You got a rather public heave-ho from the Board of Ann Arbor DDA, yet you expressed interest in, perhaps, volunteering to serve on the AATA Board. Why would you think you would be treated any differently, and why do you think the Mayor would appoint you? He doesn’t need anyone on AATA who is going to challenge the wisdom of the unfunded WALLY, moving the Blake Transit Center out of downtown, or the FITS project—a birthday present of 900 parking spaces to the University of Michigan, built on city parkland.

RG:  I actually didn’t express an interest in serving on AATA though a couple of people floated my name (one of whom earned your derision because you evidently perceive me as “more of the same”), and not because I wouldn’t love to, but just because I don’t have time to take on anymore board work right now.  I am on the Washtenaw Community College Foundation Board, the Growing Hope Capital Campaign Committee, the Ypsilanti DDA, and the ATHENA committee, in addition to running two breweries, teaching a series of beer tasting classes through Washtenaw Communtiy College Lifelong Learning Program, and consulting on a brewpub franchise project in India. 

But I would definitely serve on an Ann Arbor board again if my time were freed up in the future and I were asked to do so.  My heave-ho was public because I wanted it to be. The way it usually happens is that after months of speculation the person being replaced reads about it in the paper after the replacement has been named.  So, I was actually quite appreciative of the fact that the Mayor asked me to lunch to let me know that he was committed to replacing me with another voice from the Main Street Area, and getting my feedback on the skills needed.  (Though he did it after I told Dave Askins that I was not going to be reappointed which prompted him to pose the question to the Mayor.)  I will continue to be outspoken in the fight for the mission-focus and integrity of the DDA because I think their work is more important to the health of the downtown and the city than a lot of people understand.  But I am not at all bitter.  I got to serve nine years, feel like we accomplished a lot in that time, and thoroughly enjoyed most of it.  It is a huge time commitment and I was, quite honestly, ready to move on.  I didn’t fight to stay on DDA, I just fought to make my removal public in the hopes of calling attention to the appointment process. 

Question 7.  I know you’re supporting Sabra Briere in the First Ward Council race. Whom are you supporting in the Fourth Ward race? Coming out against Marcia Higgins, whom you referred to as a member of a “Council cabal,” means coming out against Leah Gunn, your DDA colleague and a local political power broker. Will you do it, or will Rene Greff,  self-descibed boat-rocker, sit this one out?

Again, I want to reiterate that while I am willing to rock the boat, it is not my goal in life.  It is not my goal to be contrarian and confrontational.  I much prefer working collaboratively and have no problem reaching compromise.  But when I feel strongly about something, or when I think someone is being disingenuous, I have to speak up.  My goal is to help bring about positive change in my community and sometimes to do that you have to rock the boat.  But I hate the stone-throwers who just sit on the sidelines and criticize everything that the people who are actually willing to volunteer their time and efforts are doing.  That is definitely not my intention.

 I think the cabal has already started to break up with Greden’s defeat. He was the power-broker and deal-maker. As I mentioned above, a few days after his loss I was contacted by Carsten to get together and talk about that bylaws issue I had brought up before.

I have to admit I don’t know much about [Marcia Higgins's challenger] Hatim Elhady.  But I would definitely not endorse Marcia Higgins.  In my last meeting with her,  she said she didn’t support the Fifth and Division improvements because of the bike lanes—she said she hates bikes downtown!  I also don’t think she has shown a lot of respect for the work of citizen boards and commissions. Sometimes just getting a fresh independent voice on Council can help to shake things up and fight against group-think.  But in the end, it’s not like my “endorsement” of anyone means anything.  I’m not an elected official with a large constituency.  And I can’t even vote in Ann Arbor. As for coming out against a power-broker —Leah [Gunn] and I have increasingly been on opposing sides on DDA. I don’t think that any endorsement on my part would alter the nature of our relationship one way or the other. Fortunately since I never plan to run for office, I don’t need to be in the good graces of power-brokers.

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