Sabra Briere « A2Politico: Ann Arbor Politics Grilled To Perfection

August 27, 2010

The Politics of Culture: Ann Arbor Launches the National Pilot Fish Fry Festival

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I like Constance Crump’s thoughtful writing. I particularly like writers who, with a simple question, can get me all tangled up in trying to figure out the answer. I first read Crump’s blog post a few days ago. Initially, I didn’t get hooked. Who cares if Austin has music, Sundance has film, Aspen has comedy and the Bay Area has, well, I don’t know how Crump zeroed in on the single festival she chose? Then, Connie Crump Cicked the ball through the uprights when she wrote, “Ann Arbor has football as our signature event, culture-vulture yearnings to the contrary…what brings most people here on a most consistent basis is football.”

Football is our signature event? Our. Signature. Event. Football is the signature event of the University of Michigan. To say football is our signature event is, well, some very co-dependent reasoning. It’s kind of like saying: My neighbor’s a doctor, so medicine is my forte. Before you slacker profs. employed to teach 9 hours per week, 8 months per year—when you’re not on sabbatical or spring break—get your leather briefcases in a bunch, I’ll make sure to give lip service and say what Crump didn’t. Graduation, not sports, is the signature event at colleges and universities. Allegedly.

Now, I’m going to let those of you who aren’t among the inside Scrabble players in higher education in on a dirty little secret: fewer and fewer colleges students are graduating. That’s right, after spending an average of $11,000 per year on tuition, room and board, close to half of America’s 18,000,000 undergraduate college students never reach the promised land. If you really want to ferret out a possible explanation for why Americans ages 15-24 read, on average, one book per year, or seven minutes per day, look at graduation rates. Then, consider student-athletes. At some schools, non-white athletes have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than earning an undergraduate degree. Before you feel smug, because, obviously, those colleges are all nestled in states that backed coach Jefferson Davis, hold on to your maize and blue butt-warmer. At the University of Michigan, 83 percent of students graduate, and on average, 73 percent of athletes do. A look at the school’s football program should sober you right up. In that program, 58 percent of the white student-athletes graduate, but just 38 percent of the black players do, according to data from Black Issues in Higher Education.

So it is a big deal that only 38 percent of black football players at U of M graduate? Hell yes it is. According to data from the 2000 Census, someone with a bachelor’s degree earns nearly $1 million more over his or her lifetime than a high school graduate. Census Bureau data show a college graduate can expect to earn $2.1 million working full-time between ages 25 and 64, which demographers call a typical work-life period. A master’s degree-holder is projected to earn $2.5 million, while someone with a professional degree, such as a doctor or lawyer, could make even more — $4.4 million. In contrast, a high school graduate can expect to make $1.2 million during the working years.

Could it be different? You bet. At Boise State University, 24 percent of students graduate, and 54 percent of student athletes graduate. In that school’s football program, 57 of black athletes graduate, and 47 percent of white football players do.

In the higher ed biz, that’s called the “graduation gap,” and excepting Boise State’s record, black student-athletes generally graduate less often than their white teammates. Every time the geeky editors The Chronicle of Higher Education or, (please, God, no) Black Issues in Education feel the need to kick-up some sand at the beach, they publish features about athlete graduation rates in higher education.

Those of you wearing your rose-colored glasses, and who are under the impression that many of the student-athletes who don’t graduate end up turning pro, here’s what The Christian Science Monitor has to say about that:

21% of Division I male athletes want to turn pro.

1% of college athletes go on to play at the professional level.

Football at the University of Michigan, Crump’s so-called “signature event” of Ann Arbor, is about exploitation and big money for the patricians who can afford the tickets, transportation, housing, and who make money off of the people who come to town for the football games, etc.., and not the Saturday afternoon gladiators who play the game. The next time you get invited by Dr. Coleman to one of her comfy lairs at the various stadia, where she hosts donors, politicos and other bigwigs like you, casually bring up the subject of graduation rates of the black athletes. Then run. Fast. Because the burly, yet erudite Deans of the School of Student-Athlete Tutoring will be chasing you. You see, U of M football generates piles of cash for the university and the town on the backs of oodles of black athletes, 62 percent of whom will never enjoy the lifetime earnings income boost an undergraduate degree provides. In her piece, Crump quotes Mary A. Kerr, president of the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau: ”It [U of M football] brings in $80 million for eight home games a year. 60 percent (of people who attend) come from outside of Washtenaw County.”

So why doesn’t Ann Arbor have a nationally-recognized festival all its own? Partially, I think, it has to do with this mentality that the University of Michigan is us. And the fact that there are way too many politicos in office who would kill to get an invite to Coleman’s private viewing box, blaxploitation be damned. The University has never been us, and never will be. The University is the shark, circling, swimming, feeding, hunting for great land deals, like our parkland for U of M’s Fuller Road parking garage. Thus, Ann Arbor serves as a Pilot fish of a town, swimming into the shark’s mouth to clean the predator’s teeth. The Stadium bridges fiasco rests squarely on the shoulders of the current mayor and Council as they approved staff-generated Capital Improvement Plans that did not include the replacement of the crumbling bridge. When City Administrator Roger Fraser went to our university neighbor to ask if, perhaps, U of M could chip in on the Stadium Bridge replacement tab—after all tens of thousands visitors travel over the bridge on their way to football and basketball games—the answer was a resounding “No.” Pilot fish, you see, get little in return for their efforts. Pilot fish should be happy they don’t get eaten, right?

Outside Magazine did a feature recently about the 25 best cities to live in, and in Michigan the magazine editors chose Grand Rapids. The editors wrote: “Where do you end up when you want a community with incredible access to the outdoors, affordable homes, and solid jobs?” Here’s how they described GR:

Michigan’s second-largest city will surprise you. For starters, the regional economy is both more diverse and more robust than Detroit’s—and includes everything from furniture (Herman Miller and Steelcase) to health and beauty (Amway) to footwear (Wolverine Worldwide). Plus, despite the state’s overall woes and high unemployment, G.R. is, dare we say, thriving. In the past few years, it’s gained a riverfront luxury hotel, a medical school, and the world’s first LEED-certified museum. What’s more, the county recently set aside 1,500 acres for a downtown park, and Grand Rapids’ newly established ArtPrize competition—the largest art contest in the world by prize money—resulted in 1,200 works of public art on display throughout downtown.

Connie Crump recognizes that Grand Rapids hit gold with ArtPrize:

Sadly, Hash Bash and the Naked Mile compete with Tree Town athletics and arts events for regional and national attention. Thankfully, both are endangered or extinct. Plenty of other local festivals fill the calendar but none have taken the crown as ArtPrize has done for Grand Rapids. After only one year, ArtPrize has established an indelible community identity for the city.

Compare how GR put together its ArtPrize competition with how Ann Arbor launched its Percent for the Arts Program, and chose its first project and artist. About GR Crump writes, “Total community involvement was the key to success for ArtPrize in Grand Rapids last year, says the program’s executive director, Bill Holsinger-Robinson. Having a $250,000 first prize and a total $449,000 purse doesn’t hurt, either, he adds.” At just about the same time GR was putting together its ArtPrize competition, Ann Arbor was appointing a group of insiders to the Public Art Commission, people who would have no problem with a Task Force comprised of hand-picked Municipal Center “stakeholders,” recommending the first project be awarded to a German artist. The city’s web site explains away the hiring of the German artist this way:

Because the water-related project had to be designed in time to be incorporated into the basic infrastructure of the building, the Public Art Task Force decided to commission one artist to begin working on a design immediately. It recommended Herbert Dreiseitl.

Thus, Ann Arbor used a selection process that enraged local artists and shut out, rather than encouraged the participation of large numbers of artists and citizens. Meanwhile, Grand Rapids devised ArtPrize with a process that was described by the program’s executive director, Bill Holsinger-Robinson thusly, “A lot of what we did last year was based upon one-on-one outreach, really — and a lot of trying to stay out of the public’s way and (let them) determine how they were going to participate. Even though art was the focus of the event, the community played on the main stage. We make everything as accessible to participate in as many ways as possible.”

Grand Rapids is becoming a cutting edge community, and Ann Arbor is becoming Little Southfield, a bugie bedroom berg.

Yet, here in A2, our Pilot fish Mayor and Council act as though they could show those Grand Rapids Gramublicans a thing or two about how a cool, cutting edge city works. [Please note: Versions of this same clever strategy are currently being used to try to privatize Huron Hills Golf Course, and to dispose of public land next to the Library downtown.]

First, John Hieftje creates and hand picks a National Festival Task Force from among Hizzoner’s political pals, donors, present political appointees or, better still, his basketball buddies.

Next, Council quickly rubber stamps all of the appointments.

Second Ward Council member, Stephen Rapundalo, when running for re-election in 2011, will refer to the rubber-stamping of mayoral appointments as an example of “efficiency in city government” which he “spearheaded.” Ann Arbor CFO Tom Crawford will be quoted by Rapundalo as swearing to Zeus that rubber stamping board and commission appointments saves someone, anyone, everyone, really, $15 million dollars. Rapunds will boast (modestly) that the $15 million in savings is, well, “a conservative estimate. It’s probably more, like a brazilian million.” Fourth Ward Council member Marcia Higgins, in her campaign for re-election, will claim to have spearheaded the same rubber stamping initiative, and to have saved the same brazilian million dollars. For good measure, she’ll claim to be safeguarding the money by keeping it in her purse. Third Ward Councilman Steve Kunselman, in his bid for re-election in 2011, will rail ad infinitum against rubber stamping and promise to end it. Someday. Soon. Really. Fifth Ward Councilman, Mike Anglin, will present a resolution to end rubber stamping—only to lack a second. First Ward Council member Sabra Briere will explain in such a way that only the reporter from the AnnArborChronicle.com can understand, why she couldn’t second Anglin’s resolution to end rubber stamping of mayoral appointments. “I was possibly, probably, rarely in favor of Anglin’s proposal,” Briere will email later to confused constituents to whom she’d spoken in support of the resolution.

Next, the National Festival Task Force will meet monthly, and the city staff assigned to “help” the group will decide exactly what kind of festival Ann Arbor should have. This will be done without ever having to bother with a single public hearing. Yet evidence of more efficiency in government, Stephen Rapundalo/Marcia Higgins will claim on their campaign literature. CFO Crawford will tell the eager local press that public hearings cost the city exactly $15 million dollars per year, or at least he thinks they do. Could be more. Could be less. “I’m just not sure I understand the definition of the word ‘cost,’” Crawford will explain.

Then, once festival plans have been finalized, the National Festival Task Force will be replaced by the Ann Arbor National Festival Commission. (For an appointment to this commission, please see above and start practicing your jump shot or starting saving your money). A National Festival Administrator will be hired full-time, and the Administrator’s salary, benefits, private school tuition for up to three children, retirement, vacation, car and clothing allowances would be paid out of the Economic Development Fund, Water and Sewer Fund, with a dash of cash from the Fleet Fund.

Four years later, the Ann Arbor National Festival Commission will announce to a stunned public who’d forgotten there was a National Festival Commission, that the first annual Ann Arbor National Pilot Fish Fry Festival is scheduled to be held on Whitsuntide in the spacious party room at Arbor Brewing Company, with entertainment provided by the members of the Downtown Development Authority, who are renowned for their ability to tell stories, sing, dance and play jokes on taxpayers.

Connie Crump may wonder why Ann Arbor has no national festival to call its own, but in reality the answer is as plain as the fried Pilot fish on her plate.

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April 8, 2010

The Politics of Compulsive Gambling: Shooting Snake Eyes With Public Safety

Filed under: Uncategorized, city services, fire, money, police, taxes, unions — Tags: Ann Arbor Airport, Ann Arbor City Council, Budget Committee, Chief Barnett Jones, FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, Fleet Department, Mayor Hieftje, Officer Sam James, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere — A2 Politico @ 11:58 pm

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I got up, had breakfast and was at the Police Station on Fifth Avenue by 7 a.m. on the dot on Wednesday April 7th. Officer Sam James arrived from the Wheeler Center by 7:15. He showed me around the Fifth Avenue station, or at least what’s left of it as the construction and reconstruction continue apace. Chief Barnett Jones has moved on up to an office on the 6th floor of the Larcom Building. Equipment is stashed in corners, interrogation rooms are still cramped and shabby, crime scene evidence is scattered in secure rooms in city buildings throughout town. The basement is closed off, and the detectives whose offices were down there have long since vacated the Larcom Building. Patrol staff remain at the Fifth Avenue station, and that is why Officer James and I met there for my morning ride around.

In the main office area, where the front desk reception area is, we stopped in front of a large map of the city divided into four quandrants: A (Adam), B (Baker), C (Charlie), D (David). In each of those areas, Ann Arbor police divide up the work of patrolling the 27.7 miles of our city and protecting the 112,000 people who live here. On the morning shift on April 7, 2010, there were exactly seven sworn police officers patrolling our city: 1 double patrol (2 officers in a patrol unit) in the Adam section, and 5 single cars (1 officer in a patrol unit) divided among the other three sections of town. And me. Seven sworn police officers on patrol to answer calls from dispatch, write traffic citations, parking tickets, sort out domestic disturbances, and keep some 17,700 acres of area policed. Our patrol was quiet. The rain spattered the windshield as Officer James pointed out individual homes that had been broken into, or where he had responded to calls from residents. On one street in the Burns Park student section, Officer James said every single house had been broken into. Pairs of old tennis shoes dangled from the telephone wires overhead as we cruised slowly past houses with open windows and, Officer James assured me, open doors.

There is a computer in each patrol car for which the city’s IT department charges the Police Department almost $5,000 per year (the police officers’ union had a devil of a time getting that information from the city that employs them). Officer James was adept at typing in information, and tapping at the touch screen as calls were relayed from dispatch, and he drove through the Charlie section of Ann Arbor, an area that includes the north side of the city where our family lives, as well as Arborland and everything in between. In a typical shift, Sam James will drive 60-70 miles in what amounts to a large loop. He’ll be dispatched to check out tripped home alarms, and look for speeders by flicking the radar on as cars he thinks are going well over the speed limit approach from the opposite direction.

Had something serious been called in, a situation that demands two officers to respond, and had Officer James responded first, he would have had to wait for one of the other single patrols from across town to arrive on the scene before proceeding. It used to be the norm for every patrol car on the road to have two officers assigned to it. Just a few years ago, there were double the number of patrol cars out on the road each day, as well as staffed police sub-stations around town, before the City Administrator, Mayor and Council launched their grand plan to “streamline” city government by gutting our public safety services.

The Mayor and City Administrator recently had one of their clever semantic moments when John Hieftje turned to Roger Fraser at a City Council meeting and asked whether Ann Arbor had ever lost police officers to layoffs. Fraser, ever the straight man, indicated that Ann Arbor had never lost police officers to layoff.

Evidently, the lost officers had simply evaporated.

Actually, many civilian employees of the Department have been lost through lay-offs. The police officer positions have been eliminated through attrition and, most recently, a $6 million dollar early retirement buy-out the City could ill afford. Ann Arbor taxpayers now pay $80,000-$100,000 per year for sworn police officers to catch dogs and write parking tickets. According to the city’s own audited financial statements, in 2002, Ann Arbor taxpayers paid $37.2 million dollars for public safety. In 2009, the budget called for taxpayers to fork over $56.7 million dollars for public safety services provided by dozens fewer police and firefighters.

The City Administrator explained in an April 8, 2010 post to AnnArbor.com, “As we talked with council about this, it was their belief and it’s my belief that we didn’t want a community that was strictly police and fire — that we cherish our parks and we cherish a lot of things that we do. We need still to do code enforcement, we still need to do good planning — we need to do a lot of those things — and so this is an effort in some ways to catch up, because safety services now represents about 52 percent of our total budget. It used to be closer to 40 percent.”

How can the amount necessary to pay for police and fire have gone from 40 percent of the General Fund to 50 percent of the General Fund. Well, first of all, the General Fund is shrinking. If the exact same amount allocated for police and fire in 2009 were allocated in 2010, it would, of course, be a larger percentage of the smaller General Fund. When Mayor and Roger Fraser simply point to percentages as the reason to target police and fire for cuts they assume City Council members will not recognize the the fallacy being presented to them. However, there is a very different reason that the cost of public safety has increased 47 percent from $37.2 million per year in 2002 to $56.7 million dollars per year in 2009.

Here’s a clue. The $50 dollar windshield wiper.

Officer James told me that the windshield wiper on his car had been broken in the course of responding to a call. The City’s Fleet Department then charged the City’s Police Department $50 to put a single wiper on Officer James’s cruiser. When I accused him of exaggerating, he pulled up the official report (thanks to that handy $5,000 per year city IT Department-provided computer in the front seat) listing the damage to his cruiser, and the name of the Fleet Department Supervisor who’d sent along the notice of the $50 price tag for the repair.

I found wiper blade sets for James’s cruiser priced online from $5.95 on Amazon.com, to $17.95 at the Auto Parts Warehouse.

The City Administrator’s newest budget unveiled calls for the elimination of 20 jobs in the police department, 12 more sworn officers and 8 staff. It also calls for the elimination of 20 jobs in the fire department again, also a combination of firefighters and staff. There’s a budget “deficit.” Again. Why? According to a piece posted to AnnArbor.com, the City Administrator blames the budget woes on anything and everything except bloated overhead, such as the $5,000 per year IT Department provided computers, the $4,000 per acre per year cost to mow our parks, and the $50 wiper blade. Ryan Stanton quotes Roger Fraser as explaining:

The city’s reliance on property taxes continues to increase as other forms of revenue — such as state-shared revenue — decrease or remain flat. At the beginning of this decade, the city received more than $14 million annually from the state. By last year, that had dropped to about $10.7 million, then down to $9.1 million this year. Fraser’s budget has that going down to $8.2 million next year.

Compounding the city’s problem, Fraser said, property tax revenue is on a decline driven by a negative inflation rate, a weak real estate market resulting in lower taxable values, and the removal of the former Pfizer property from the city’s tax rolls due to its acquisition by the University of Michigan.

In addition, the city will see increased costs for retiree pensions and health care next year, Fraser said.

It’s crucial to remember that since 2003, Roger Fraser has miscalculated (inflated) General Fund deficits in every budget cycle and the City Council’s Budget Committee, which has included the Mayor and Margie Teall until just this year, didn’t challenge Fraser to present more accurate data. With the exception of 2009, when the actual numbers have come in, our General Fund has actually finished with modest surpluses. This is a very important fact that would give anyone with experience in budgeting and finance ample reason to question Mr. Fraser very closely when presented with financial data. Yesterday evening Mayor Hieftje and the City Administrator presented the 2010-2011 budget and the fait accompli is that Ann Arbor taxpayers will not be spared from service reductions this time around.

Since when have they spared us from service reductions and fee hikes in other budget cycles?

City Council member Sabra Briere, at the request of a First Ward constituent, forwarded that constituent’s email to Roger Fraser enquiring about the number of police officers on patrol. Here is the constituent’s email that Briere forwarded to Fraser:

Today I ran into an old friend who’s on our police force. We had an in-depth discussion of the current situation. The bottom line is that we’re in danger now.

Yesterday, afternoon shift had only six officers on patrol. That is six to cover the whole city. Afternoon shift (2-10) is the busiest one. All the officers just went from call to call to call, often being told to ignore one call because a more important one had come in. If a major crime happened, such as a bank robbery, all six of them would have gone to that scene and would not have been able to respond to anything else that happened. On the warmer days, there is noticeably more activity for the police. It is expected that there will be a crime wave when the good weather is here to stay.

Here is what Mr. Fraser wrote back to Council member Briere:

Thanks, Sabra, for sharing this. As with so many of these reports, there is a fraction of truth that attempts to justify the suppositions. Today, we have the essentially the same number of people on patrol as we previously had. Even several years ago, our officers have had days when they run from call to call, and yet there are also many shifts in which boredom is possible. That is the very nature of the safety business. The good news is that crime rates in our city continue to drop and public safety has not diminished.

You, personally, know the arguments well. We have very few choices as we work to balance services with declining revenues.

Roger Fraser, of course, never mentions numbers and implies the constituent is making “suppositions” that aren’t accurate. A source within the police department gave me the following information directly from the duty rosters:

On any given morning, there are between 6-10 police officers responding to calls from the people who live in Ann Arbor. On the afternoon shift, there are between 6-10 police officers on patrol. On the midnight shift, when most serious crime happens, in Ann Arbor there are 10-12 police officers on patrol.

The Mayor was quoted in the AnnArbor.com piece as saying since 2003 crime is down 15 percent. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, crime in other towns the same size as Ann Arbor is down more than it is in our town. On March 5th, I wrote about that fact here with links to the statistics:

While comparing Ann Arbor to itself is a somewhat useful exercise, an even more complete picture emerges when we compare Ann Arbor to other communities. First, when you look at the drop reported in the unofficial crime statistics released by our Police Department as compared to FBI data gathered from towns with similar populations, there’s a different and more complete story that emerges. For example, in cities with populations between 100,000 and 249,999, in 2009 arson was down 10.2 percent, whereas in Ann Arbor arson is up by 7.5 percent. Nationwide, in cities the size of Ann Arbor, robbery was down 9.3 percent, but down by 6.5 percent in our city. Rape was down 3.1 percent nation wide, but in Ann Arbor it’s down 1 percent. On the other hand, assaults and motor vehicle theft in Ann Arbor were down significantly more than in other similarly sized cities around the U.S. Wait before you breathe a sigh of relief. When we look by region, Ann Arbor’s drops in crime play out even less impressively. In the Midwest, rape dropped 7.5 percent and motor vehicle theft dropped 21.4 percent. Had Ann Arbor crime rate decreases kept pace with regional drops, we would have had fewer motor vehicle thefts than reported in 2009, and fewer burglaries.

The University of Michigan has 55 sworn officers to patrol its 3,000 acres and 350 buildings. If Roger Fraser’s budget is approved by our City Council members as is, Ann Arbor will go down from 99 sworn officers to 87 sworn officers to patrol 17,700 acres and respond to calls from the city’s 45,000 residences. On any given day in Ann Arbor, 6-12 sworn officers patrol a city that is 27.7 miles in size, and respond to the emergency calls of some 90,000 adults, including the 29,000 of U of M’s 41,000 students who do not live in campus housing. For Roger Fraser to write to Briere that “Today, we have the essentially the same number of people on patrol as we previously had” hides an ugly reality.

Crime is down by 15 percent says the Mayor. So we can afford to lose 12 more police officers. The Michigan Theatre hasn’t burned to the ground yet, so we can afford to lose more firefighters. Hardly.

Our City Council, City Administrator and the Mayor have decimated the ranks of our police and firefighters, and in doing so put the lives and property of 112,000 city residents on the line every day. I actually believe not a single member of City Council knows that, at times, there are only six police officers patrolling our city. I also believe not a single one of them knows that by cutting safety services, they are going to force every single resident, business owner and home owner in our town to pay higher auto, renter, home and business insurance rates which is what happens when public safety service response times go outside of federally mandated guidelines.

To lead the way out of this year’s alleged budget “deficit” the City Administrator, once again, recommends to City Council that they cut police and fire positions. Roger Fraser wrote to Sabra Briere, “we have very few choices as we work to balance services with declining revenues.”

By feeding such tripe to Council members, and by being allowed to decimate the human capital of our city, Roger Fraser has found millions to feed to his burgeoning bureaucracy and coven of consultants. In exchange, the politicos get bullet points for their résumés and web sites such as this old chestnut you may recognize: “The reorganization of City government increased efficiency and saves more than $10 million per year…With more efficient delivery, city services have been preserved.”

Few choices? Hardly. Council members can choose to direct Roger Fraser to justify why the Fleet Department charges $50 to replace a single wiper blade on one of our police cars. At $50 per wiper blade, that would put a $30 oil change performed by the city’s Fleet Department at $400. A brake job done by the Fleet Department would cost as much as a vacation to Europe. Council could direct the Administrator to justify why it costs $5,000 per year for each police cruiser to have a computer tended to by the city’s IT Department. City Council members can choose to direct the City Administrator to reduce by half the $4,000 per acre per year the city charges itself to mow the grass in our parks. They can direct him to return to the General Fund a portion of the the Solid Waste Fund’s $10 million dollar surplus. They can ask the City Administrator why he loaned the money-losing Ann Arbor Airport over $1,000,000 dollars to build hangers for airplanes that can’t land there unless the runway is lengthened.

There are lots of choices that involve sending the City Administrator and CFO back to the drawing board to trim overhead, track down and account for what must surely be $20-$30 million dollars in fund surpluses throughout the various departments of our city, and stop using accounting methods that make it appear as though money-making entities within the city are losing money (such as our golf courses), so as to justify selling off our assets to private companies, and making money-losing entities look as though they are holding their own (such as the Airport) so as to justify additional investments of tax dollars.

That’s just for starters. Odds are there are many more choices than Roger Fraser would like to be directed to make.

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March 8, 2010

The Politics Of Hide & Seek: Finding Money in Plain Sight

Filed under: money — Tags: Ann Arbor City Council, Mayor, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere — A2 Politico @ 5:53 pm

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At the moment, because Ann Arbor City Council and Mayor have for so long rewarded the City Administrator with generous raises, lump sum payments and the ability to turn unused vacation days into big bucks, despite the fact that Ann Arbor’s budget has been sliding inexorably into structural deficit, we have a City government that is run like Italy before the unification of 1860. We have the Republic of Solid Waste complete with a Doge. There is the City State of the City Fleet, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilys (Water & Sewer). At the moment, the City Administrator Roger Fraser and CFO Tom Crawford present Mayor and Council with financial data designed to help Council members decide whether it’s better to burn to death or freeze to death. (Just for the record, I’m never one to just choose from such false alternatives.) My First Ward Council member Sabra Briere recently circulated a budget priority “survey” that let participants choose between being subjected to the Iron Maiden, the rack, or thumbscrews. Reading her “work” took me back to a bone-chilling exhibit of implements of torture I saw once while living in Rome.

The correct answer when presented implements of torture is to choose none of them, right?

But that Mayor and Council members would study their budget documents more closely, as well as the more easily understood CAFR statements, the city’s audited financial statements. Alas, there is a long-standing tradition among our elected officials that they simply choose from among the implements of torture presented to them as the City Administrator and CFO seek to plug the “budget gaps,” even when it ultimately turned out there were no budget gaps in the General Fund, as was the case in 2003-2008.

Let me tell you a little secret. There are millions of dollars sitting around in the funds of the various city-states of our city government.

But we can’t touch that money, right? Wrong. Council can pass resolutions to move money among and between the majority of the city’s funds. The exception are funds created for money generated by millages for specific purposes, such as the parks and streets millages. Of course, in 2007, Mayor and Council members did vote to take parks millage money and use it, for instance, to pay for police to patrol the parks. The local chapter of the Sierra Club went at City Council with ergonomically designed pitchforks, and forced the politicos to return the hundreds of thousands of dollars snatched from the parks millage fund. As an example of the penchant they have for moving money between funds, Council and Mayor ”seeded” the city’s Economic Development Fund (created in 2007) with $2.1 million from the General Fund to pay for 400 parking spots for Google—400 parking spots for the 200 employees they’ve hired, as opposed to the 1,000 jobs they promised to create by 2011.

Council may move money legally and quickly from among many other non-millage funds. It’s just that the political will is weak, and in the case of most of the current Council “majority,” basic understanding of finance is even weaker. If your Council member starts taking about “buckets,” that is fiscal malarky spoon fed to them by the City Administrator. So it would be entirely possible for Mayor and Council to order the return of tens of millions in fund surplus money to the funds from which the money was allocated, including the General Fund.

Want a couple of examples from the FY 2011 budget and the city’s audited statements? Of course you do, because it’s almost too incredible to believe.

According to the FY 2011 budget, at the moment, there is a $10 million dollar surplus sitting in the city’s Solid Waste Fund. Yep. Just sitting there, waiting to be spent. How’d the surplus get built up? Solid waste service fees have increased 40 percent since 2006. That $10 million dollar surplus came from overcharging taxpayers. The Water and Sewer Fund is sitting on an equally large surplus, but that surplus can’t be returned to taxpayers because the system has outstanding bonds to pay off. However, Council can certainly decrease the fees charged to residents for water, sewer and storm water service until such time as the surplus is significantly reduced.

This last example is the best one. When you’re strapped for cash, and up to your neck in budget “gaps,” what’s the first thing you do? If you answered, “Spend $6 million dollars on brand new cars and trucks,” you win a new pick-up with those cool rims that spin backwards. In fiscal year (FY) 2009, the city’s Fleet Fund was appropriated $6 million dollars for new motorized bling. Coincidentally, in the same month and year, that’s almost exactly the same amount that was spent to fund the early retirement of 25 of the city’s most experienced police officers in order to “save” money. In FY 2011, the Fleet Fund is asking to spend $8 million dollars on some new, cool rides. According to the FY 2009 audit, the Fleet Fund had a $10 million fund balance, with about $8 million of the fund balance in cash and investments. That’s $10 million just sitting there waiting to be spent.

That’s a cool $20 million dollars sitting in the treasuries of the various Ann Arbor city government city-states.

You know what I think? It’s time to return these surplus millions to the various originating funds from which they were allocated, including the General Fund. Then, more importantly, it’s time to unify the city-states under a central government through which funds are allocated much more judiciously, and with exponentially more financial savvy. Until these financial and managerial fiefdoms are disbanded, and the departmental multi-million dollar fund surpluses dealt with as equitably as possible, the bureaucracy will do whatever it is allowed to do to feed itself and protect its fund surpluses, including cutting services, raising taxes and selling parkland.

Freeze to death or burn to death? Neither, thanks.

I’d start by making a list of all of the departmental fund surpluses and crafting a plan and a resolution to lower fees so as to make sure departments don’t build up future multi-million dollar surpluses. Surpluses, such as those from the Fleet Fund, and other similar fund surpluses, should be immediately moved to the General Fund, and from there used to fund public safety services. As for the Republic of Solid Waste, I’ll work to return the multi-million dollar solid waste surplus money to the taxpayers in the form of a one-time credit (about $200 per residence). Then, we’ll figure out why solid waste expenses are up by 50 percent since 2005, but our services have been reduced.

There’s lots to do, but there’s also lots of money to fund our services. It just takes the financial savvy to know where to look. Before Council votes to cut a single service, they need to focus on reallocating the fund surpluses that are sitting there in plain sight.

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February 4, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Popularity: 30% [?]

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February 1, 2010

The Politics of the Inquisition: Kunselman Has Kwestions

Filed under: money — Tags: A2Politico, Ann Arbor Airport, Budget Committee, Capital Improvement Plan, FITS, Marcia Higgins, Mayor Hieftje, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere, Steve Kunselman — A2 Politico @ 8:00 am

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Alright, someday I’ll stop with the K, but for now it’s amusing. Since this is a blog, I figure I should get to amuse myself every now and again. I’ve been impressed with the “new” Third Ward Council member Steve Kunselman. He’d say it was the old Steve Kunselman, but I’d have to disagree. The new Steve Kunselman is coming to City Council with a lists of pointed questions. The latest list concerns the Capital Improvement Plan submitted to City Council for its edification (the usual) and approval (the foregone conclusion) without much real questioning.

Until now.

City Administrator Roger Fraser hasn’t answered this many pointed questions in public since, well, the last time Steve Kunselman asked for specific information.

“So,” you may be muttering, “just what in the name of Frank Lloyd Wright is a Capital Improvement Plan?”

Excellent question. I’m glad you asked.

It’s a fantasy list of building projects on which the City Administrator and staff want to spend millions of our tax dollars. Little kids call their Capital Improvement Plans “Letters to Santa Claus.” Sometimes, staff use the Capital Improvement Plan to let taxpayers in on their behind-the-scenes machinations, such as the expansion of the Ann Arbor Airport. Mayor and Council oked a loan from the General Fund (about $1 million dollars), and that money was used to new build hangars at the Ann Arbor airport. Not just new hangars, but big, new hangars. The kind of hangars that can house corporate jets.

So, you might ask, can a DC-9 land at the Ann Arbor Airport? Why, no, a DC-9 cannot land at our airport. The runway is not long enough. However, page 22 of the CIP includes the airport runway expansion as a FY2011 expense and describes it as urgent. Urgent? Does approval of the CIP mean our City Council is approving the controversial runway expansion? Here’s another bit of CIP info. for taxpayers to chew on, FY2015 includes $800,000 for a terminal expansion to be paid from the airport fund. Airport revenue is down, down, down. Why spend $800K on expanding the terminal?

Here’s one for Sherlock Holmes from Page 23 of the CIP. FITS: This project is labeled as funded. The plan claims $5,365,000 will be paid from the Economic Development Fund in FY2011 for Fuller Road Station (FITS) design construction. Well, the Economic Development Fund doesn’t have $5 million dollars in it, and money for that fund is taken from the General Fund. Where will the Economic Development Fund get the money to pay for this project? I’ll tell you. We’ll be treated to another emergency meeting of the City Council Budget Committee, and the City Administrator will give the depressing news to taxpayers there’s a $5.3 million dollar deficit in the General Fund.

Can you smell the firefighters burning, and taxpayers being given the option of a city income tax, or closing pools, ice rinks, and community and senior centers?

The FITS project is anticipated to cost $14.68 million total and, remember, it’s marked as funded. Where is the $14.68 million in non-city funding coming from? The Mayor was quoted recently in the Ann Arbor Observer as saying the city did not have that money.

Below are the questions Third Ward’s Steve Kunselman appended to the agenda for the Monday City Council meeting for City Administrator Roger Fraser to sing and dance about in public:

Question: The project identified as “800′ Runway Safety Extension” is listed as “urgent” for FY 2011. In addition, approximately $1.4 million of outside funding is proposed. Therefore,

1. Please explain the nature of “urgency” for the Airport runway extension.

2. Will this project allow for heavier and larger aircraft to utilize the airport?

3. Will this project allow for an increase in frequency of flights by existing aircraft utilizing the airport, including aircraft that presently take off with weight limitations (i.e. fuel carrying limitations) at the airport?

4. Has this project been presented to the Pittsfield Township Board of Trustees and Planning Commission?

5. Is the primary source of outside funding from the Federal Government? If so, what are the ramifications to the City’s control of airport operations if such funding is accepted? What are the City’s obligations to the Federal Government if such funds are accepted?

Question: The project identified as “Model for Mobility: Fuller Road Station Phase 1 Design/Construction” is listed as “urgent” for FY 2011. In addition, $5,365,000 of funding is estimated to be appropriated from the Economic Development Fund where such funding does not presently exist. Therefore,

1. Please explain and identify why
A). This project is urgent, and

B). The source(s) of the proposed fund transfers to the Economic Development Fund. Do these proposed fund transfers include General funds? Do these proposed fund transfers include funds that are presently intended for mass transit (i.e. AATA)? Do these funds include funds presently in or proposed to be transferred to the Alternative Transportation fund? If so, are any of these proposed funds General funds?

2. Please identify if any funds presently existing (as of FY 2010) in the Economic Development Fund are proposed to fund this project? If so, are these funds “unobligated” and not necessary for Google Parking payments?

In plain English, Steve Kunselman is asking, in public, where the money for this pie-in-the-sky wish list of items is going to come from, because we all know the city’s budget is in deficit, and the cost of simply running our city’s government has risen by $33 million dollars since 2006.

Kunselman’s kwestions are a good start, but without change on Council—Council members equally committed to asking such questions, getting answers, then making capital improvement decisions based on reality, and not the fantasy of spending $300 million in AnnArboropoloy money, our City Administrator and city staff will never be directed to focus less on crafting letters to Santa, and more on where they will find the money to fund maintenance on the buildings and crumbling infrastructure we already have.

It’s the job of Mayor and Council to direct the City Administrator and city staff. For the last decade, as our city’s budget slid into deficit, our infrastructure continued to crumble, and Ann Arbor’s roads earned the dubious honor of being classified as the third worst in the entire state of Michigan, Mayor and Council demonstrated little understanding of the implications associated with over-spending, and over-leveraging. If a single one of them had ever taken an introductory course in economics at college, they would have learned, as students, that economies are cyclical.

Mayor Hieftje, Fourth Ward’s Marcia Higgins, and First Ward’s Sabra Briere have all said in public, or written to constituents that the economic downtown caught them as a surprise that could not have been anticipated.

Adam Smith, of course, is frowning down on them from that big lecture hall in the sky. Taxpayers and voters are frowning down from slightly closer quarters.

Popularity: 30% [?]

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January 25, 2010

The Politics Of Email “Revelations”: Taking A MacBook To A Knife Fight

Filed under: Sabra Briere, city council, developers, politicians — Tags: A2Politico, AnnArborChronicle.com, Jesse Bernstein, Karen Sidney, Lady Gaga, LocalAnnArbor, Marcia Higgins, Mayor Hieftje, Michigan Open Meetings Act, Mike Anglin, Pam Byrnes, Rene Greff, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere, Stephen Postema, Stephen Rapundalo, Steve Kunselman, Vivienne Armentrout — A2 Politico @ 8:00 am

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Ann Arbor is bleeding money.

Since 2006, the cost of running our city government has increased $33 million dollars, or 35 percent. We have fewer police and firefighters than we did in 2005, but pay $13 million dollars per year more than we did in 2005 for the dregs of the emergency services Mayor Hieftje and Roger Fraser haven’t “streamlined” yet. We’re stocking up on water buckets at our house. We’ll toss water at the fire until the two fire boys in the truck get here.

There are some people who have been trying to get this message out to the general public for several years now. Want some insider baseball? Of course you do. Why else are you frittering away time on this blog, right?

The once-derided political “conspiracy theorists” in Ann Arbor have the cred now, and the politicians are scrambling to pick up the broken shards of their integrity before the summer campaigning season is upon us. The AnnArborChronicle.com photo of political activist Karen Sidney chatting it up with State Senate wanna-be Pam Byrnes says it all. In a May of 2009 piece, the Ann Arbor News political writer Judy McGovern described Sydney as “a regular critic of City Council.” Read: crackpot complainer.

Sydney

Photo by David Askins, AnnArborChronicle.com

One short month later, in June 2009, thanks to a FOIA of Council emails, readers of the Ann Arbor News discovered that there was a conspiracy. There were vote-rigging, scripted debates, time spent on Facebook and planning judicial campaigns in the middle of City Council meetings.

Unfortunately some people never learn. Our local politicos are trying to defend their integrity by using the same old strategies they used before Ann Arborites read in June and July 2009 in front page stories in the Ann Arbor News about emails between Council members during open meetings that were, well, less than professional and, a pending lawsuit alleges, illegal under the auspices of the Michigan Open Meetings Act. Our Mayor and Council members are rationalizing, dissembling, and ignoring mounting citizen concerns and criticisms of the process under the auspices of which the Library Lot RFP proposals have been evaluated. That’s always the best way to inspire confidence. Even the newspaper weighed in with an editorial in which the writer hoped the RFP process would be “open and honest.”

It is a serious allegation to say that city officials colluded with a developer. It is equally serious to allege that city officials conducted a sham RFP process to develop the Library Lot parcel in order to cover up the collusion. First Ward Council member Sabra Briere recently circulated an email containing “clarifying information” to a select group of people hoping, of course, the email would be forwarded. In that email, she makes allegations that well before there was talk of issuing an RFP to solicit proposals to built atop the 1.2 acre Library Lot parcel, Mayor Hieftje, former Chamber of Commerce Jesse Bernstein and City Administrator Roger Fraser, settled on the idea that Ann Arbor needed a convention center.

Here’s a sad truth: she compounded the problem for citizens concerned about the transparency and honesty of the RFP process, not to mention the propensity of our elected officials to sneak around. Briere chose the worst possible medium for disseminating her allegations—an email sent to 120 people. There are 96,000 registered voters in Ann Arbor. She disseminated her “clarifying” information in such a way that allows those whose actions and motives she questions, to continue on, unfettered. The email leaves Briere free to throw up her hands and say, “But I told everyone what I knew!”

Feeling used and manipulated yet?

Briere did little except launch an email shitzu storm. Elected officials with integrity, and who believe they have allegations of wrong-doing, launch investigations. Yes, it would have been Briere’s word against the words of the Mayor, Bernstein and Fraser. However, that’s why the FBI has been showing up in towns across the U.S. (including cities in Michigan) to objectively investigate allegations of corruption in local government. This is from the FBI web site:

Does the FBI investigate graft and corruption in local government and in state and local police departments?

Yes. The FBI uses applicable federal laws, including the Hobbs Act, to investigate violations by public officials in federal, state, and local governments. A public official is any person elected, appointed, employed, or otherwise has a duty to maintain honest and faithful public service. Most violations occur when the official asks, demands, solicits, accepts, receives, or agrees to receive something of value in return for influence in the performance of an official act. The categories of public corruption investigated by the FBI include legislative, judicial, regulatory, contractual, and law enforcement.

There’s even a list of hotlines on the FBI web site that citizens can call to discuss their concerns about allegations of corruption on the part of local politicos.

People who have commented on the post in which I simply reproduced Briere’s email seem to have taken exception to the fact that I couldn’t seem to find the good in Briere’s release of the “information.”

Is it me? What information?

You can read Briere’s email here. She also shared it with AnnArbor.com. So far, none of those whom Briere fingers in her email have come forward to refute her claims. My guess is that none of them will. Why should they? They don’t have to say a word, and the train will just steam on down the track.

It would have been infinitely better for everyone if City Council member Sabra Briere had brought up her issues at a public City Council meeting. Those about whom she writes in her email would have, I’m sure, had something to say about the allegations had they been made during an open meeting. Then, the public and law enforcement agencies would have had a videotaped record.

Right now, what we have is an email from Briere sent to a limited group of about 120 people on her email list alleging, well, that Chamber of Commerce President Jesse Bernstein was upset because he thought the Valiant Group’s proposal should be fast-tracked. Briere writes, “At our meeting, Bernstein said he felt betrayed. He said that Valiant’s proposal for a conference center was a consensus project, and that it was not fair that Valiant should have to jump through all of these hoops.” Jesse Bernstein is free to feel betrayed about anything. Heck, he can feel betrayed because Lady Gaga won’t write a song for him and perform at his next birthday party, or because the democratic process slows down those with the belief that they know what’s best for everyone else. I think the term for people who find the democratic process way too inconvenient is “French aristocrat,” but I’ll have to check with one of my therapist friends. The real term may be something like “delusions of grandeur.”

Briere then alleges a June 14th meeting with Mayor Hieftje about which she writes, the Mayor “…loaned me a copy of a proposal titled ‘Ann Arbor Town Center’ from Valiant Partners LLD, dated May, 2009. On its cover was a green and white sticky note stating ‘Thanks, John. This is pretty interesting. Sandi.’”

Well, boychics, Briere ain’t got bubkas, so say the nice ladies at the Maj games going on around town. How my mother phrased it was slightly more prosaic: “She ain’t got diddly squat.” What we have, again, is Council member Briere’s word in an email against the Mayor’s, and no green and white sticky note, or copy of the proposal he gave to her.

Had she kept the proposal the Mayor gave her, and gone to the Press with it, or showed up at the next City Council meeting with it and asked just what in the name of Boss Tweed was going on with circulating such a proposal to City Council members from a group for a development project two months before the actual RFP was issued, we would be having a much different discussion in our city at this moment. One comment from my original post on the subject of Briere’s “clarifying” email was: “While I wish Council Member Briere had disclosed this information sooner, I believe the article focuses too much attention on that delay rather than on the content of her message. While it is perplexing why she might have held this information so long, it is wildly outrageous that others may have engaged in assisting one of the RFP developers over the last couple of years….Please provide more coverage of the misdeeds of those who seem to have made up their minds on building a conference center before releasing the RFP.”

Alas, timing is everything in this situation. It’s Briere’s delay that is the issue because the delay allowed those who were sneaking around behind the public’s back to keep doing so without being exposed or challenged by a member of the governing body on which they all sit. The public can come and speak before Council until we’re blue in the face (and regularly do), but it’s another matter entirely to have a member of City Council go on the record, in public, with the concerns that Briere chose to circulate via email to the people who will donate to her next campaign, or potentially vote for her in her next election.

It’s Sabra Briere’s delay and the way in which she “leaked” out her “clarifying information” that weakens the effectiveness of any coverage of the misdeeds of those who seem to have their minds made up on building a conference center before releasing the RFP.

I pieced together chain of repeated contact between RFP Advisory Committee members and the Valiant Group’s partners from FOIAed emails. The post is circumstantial evidence that city officials worked diligently to help the Valiant Group prepare its proposal, because it was the Valiant Group’s proposal City Administrator Roger Fraser, Chamber of Commerce former president Jesse Bernstein and Mayor John Hieftje wanted to have built—perhaps the three even promised the partners of the Valiant Group that their proposal would be built. LocalAnnArbor blogger Vivienne Armentrout has written on the RFP subject, and has provided what amounts to more circumstantial evidence that the RFP process was rigged. Armentrout writes about the Valiant Group as having had the “inside track.”

Sabra Briere, as her email shows quite clearly, had access to the people involved, and information circulated, that no regular citizen had. She chose to keep quiet because, one might posit, in June she was concerned with protecting her own political hide. Why? Because the deadline for filing petitions to run in the August 2009 City Council race was June 22, 2009. Briere ran unopposed from the Mayor’s camp. He showed her the proposal she mentions in her email on June 14, 2009.

So why send her “clarifying information” email in January 2010, an email that hangs Hieftje, Smith, Fraser and Bernstein (currently on the AATA Board) out to dry? My guess is that either Briere is entertaining the notion of running for Mayor, or that it has finally become clear to her that playing along with the Council majority will get her little, politically. Perhaps she has realized that she has alienated a growing section of her political base. Thus, Sabra Briere has, once again, become the Council member “concerned” enough about possible collusion, and alleged back-room deals to “expose” them. Sabra Briere wants her peeps to know she is not a part of the “Council cabal,” as former DDA Board member Rene Greff described Mayor Hieftje, Margie Teall, Fourth Ward Council member Marcia Higgins and Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo in an interview with A2Politico.

I have to wonder if Sabra Briere shared her the information in her “clarifying information” email with any Council members other than Stephen Rapundalo in January 2010, some seven months after she was shown the Valiant Group’s proposal with a note that, purportedly, shows that Sandi Smith had been shown the proposal, as well. Did she talk to Third Ward’s Steve Kunselman or Ward Five’s Mike Anglin about the information in her “clarifying information” email?

Did Sabra Briere take her concerns to City Attorney Stephen Postema and ask for a written opinion on the legality of the Mayor showing around the Valiant Group’s Proposal to Council members months prior to issuance of the public RFP, and months before she could, potentially, be expected to vote on a proposal from the same group?

Sabra Briere’s “clarifying information” email did little for me except bring up a slew of discomforting questions. Furthermore, unless those named in her email are challenged directly during an open Council meeting by Council members with the cajones to do it, we can all look forward to business as usual: Mayor and Council will continue to run hell bent for leather to commit taxpayers to several more major multi-million dollar construction projects our city call ill-afford before August comes and, perhaps, people go to the polls with a “throw the bums out” mentality.

Popularity: 34% [?]

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January 22, 2010

The Politics of Captain Renault: Sabra Briere Is “Shocked” About Secret Backroom Dealing (With A Poll)

Filed under: Sabra Briere, city council, developers — Tags: A2Politico, Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce, Chuck Skelton, Hospitality Advisors Consulting Group, Jesse Bernstein, Mayor Hieftje, Northside Grill, Peter Allen, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Stephen Rapundalo, Valiant group, Vivienne Armentrout — A2 Politico @ 8:00 am

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This dialogue is from the movie “Casablanca,” 1942

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
[aloud]
Captain Renault: Everybody out at once!

First Ward Council member Sabra Briere recently sent around an email titled “clarifying information” to a group of her constituents and others whom (one imagines) she considers important disseminators of such emails. On the surface, it looks as though Briere is providing the public with insider details concerning the Library Lot RFP process, and the Mayor’s potential collusion with the Valiant Group. One could argue that based on Briere’s email that Mayor Hieftje, Roger Fraser and Jesse Bernstein planned to help the Valiant Group get their project built, and Mayor Hieftje stayed silent as a sham RFP process was initiated to mask the back-room deal struck by the men and the developers.

One does wonder why Briere stayed silent concerning plans she knew were in the works for a conference center when she cast her vote in favor of floating $45 million dollars in bonds to build the Library Lot underground parking garage.

Is Briere’s email breaking news? Nope. Not even close.

On April 19, 2008, Ann Arbor News reporter Judy McGovern published a piece in which she writes:

“The notion that Ann Arbor needs a large conference center comes up every now and then – and most recently, it happened on New Year’s Eve at Cafe Verde. Early that day, Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce President Jesse Bernstein and Washtenaw County Administrator Bob Guenzel were chatting over coffee. Guenzel said he’d like to see plans for an Ann Arbor conference center take shape. Bernstein agreed. And that got the ball – at a public standstill since 1989 – rolling again.”

The email is remarkable in the fact that Briere is hanging out to dry any number of local politicos, beginning with Mayor Hieftje, former Chamber of Commerce leader, Jesse Bernstein, City Administrator Roger Fraser, and Briere’s First Ward Council colleague, Sandi Smith.

Here’s is Briere’s January 18, 2010 email in its entirety:

Dear neighbors,

I know the RFP for the Library Lot isn’t the most important issue for everyone. In the past day, I’ve met twice with citizens to discuss the budget and learn from them more about the quality of information I should be receiving and the best ways to get the answers to my questions.

In government, transparency is important. Today’s coverage in the [Ann Arbor] Chronicle about last night’s Caucus and the Library Lot RFP once again makes that clear — but it’s hard to know when to tell something that isn’t your secret. Some of the things I’ve learned along the way as a member of Council haven’t been mine to share, but I’m happy to discuss everything I know about the proposals for the Library Lot.

Here’s some clarifying data for you, in case timelines help:

At our City Council retreat on January 10, 2009, Roger Fraser showed us some ‘preliminary’ drawings for a conference center. We were not provided copies of these drawings. Later requests for copies or any further information was denied — their very existence was denied — by the FOIA officer at the City.

On Sunday, June 14, 2009, at the end of Caucus, Mayor Hieftje asked me to come to his office so he could show me something. At that time, he loaned me a copy of a proposal titled “Ann Arbor Town Center” from Valiant Partners LLD, dated May, 2009. On its cover was a green and white sticky note stating “Thanks, John. This is pretty interesting. Sandi”.

I returned the original document to him the next day.

This is the same proposal that was later publicized as the “secret plan” for the conference center by Vivienne Armentrout on her blog, Local in Ann Arbor, in August, 2009.

The RFP for the Library Lot was issued in August [2009].

I heard nothing more about the cenference center until December 3rd, 2009. At the Holiday Breakfast of the Main Street Merchants’ Association, Jesse Bernstein, the former president of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce, expressed his displeasure at the Library Lot RFP process and Council’s inability to ‘make up its mind’. He said there he, the Mayor and Roger Fraser had worked hard to get the deal for the conference center proposal, and now we were sending mixed signals to the developers. He said that everyone agreed that this was what downtown needed. I said I didn’t. We agreed to meet for breakfast.

On December 11, 2009, at 7:30 am, we met at the Northside Grill. Among other discussed items, Bernstein said he, Fraser and Hieftje had met with people from Valiant. The Valiant people had asked what they could do for the City. The ‘vision’ that had emerged from this meeting was that the City wanted a conference center. I do not know the date of that meeting, except that it had to have been prior to December, 2008. I also do not know if there was more than one meeting.

At our meeting, Bernstein said he felt betrayed. He said that Valiant’s proposal for a conference center was a consensus project, and that it was not fair that Valiant should have to jump through all of these hoops.

On Saturday, January 9, 2010, I spoke with Council member Stephen Rapundalo, who is the chair of the RFP advisory committee. I reported on all of the above.

I also said that, as part of the mandatory RFP process, Valiant had signed a proposal statement which said, in part: “The undersigned acknowledges that it has not received or relied upon any representations or warrants of any nature whatsoever from the City of Ann Arbor, its agents or employees, and that this Proposal is based solely upon the undersigned’s own independent business judgement.”

I said to Rapundalo that I questioned the validity of this acknowledgment since Fraser had participated in the design of the plan.

On Thursday, January 14, 2010, I met with Chuck Skelton, president of Hospitality Advisors Consulting Group, a firm that performs site analysis, feasibility and valuation of hotels all over the country. Peter Allen was also at our meeting. He had set up the meeting at my request.

Skelton said that he had met with Valiant principals in January, 2009 to discuss a hotel/conference center larger than the one currently before the RFP committee.

Skelton said that in a small market like Ann Arbor building a hotel/conference center would be impact on existing businesses. Typically, if the prospects were economically sound the City would not have to provide financing assistance.

Near the end of the meeting, Peter Allen asked, “ You mean there is no way a hotel can be successful? How about a boutique hotel?” Chuck responded by saying, “It is doubtful at this time given these market conditions.”

Sabra

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January 21, 2010

How Cheaply Can A Councilmember Be Bought Off?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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January 6, 2010

The Ladies Doth Protest Too Much: “There is No ‘Predetermined’ Outcome,” Claim Rapunds and Margie T. (With Poll)

Filed under: DDA, boards and commissions, developers — Tags: Bruce Zenkel, Carsten Hohnke, Fritz Seyferth, Library Lot RFP Advisory Committee, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall, Michael C. Ortleib, Mike Bailkin, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Stephen Rapundalo, Susan Pollay, Tony Derezinski, Valiant group, Vivienne Armentrout — A2 Politico @ 8:00 am

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At the January 4, 2010 City Council meeting, First Ward Council member Sabra Briere put forth one of her classic “resolutions.” She told the Press she didn’t want to step on the toes of anyone on the Library Lot RFP Advisory Committee, City Council, Santa and his elves, the Five Families of New York, or the entire populations of China and India combined. Sabra’s a politician, after all, careful never to step on anyone’s toes. Well, except the toes of those she represents in Ward One. Those toes get trampled regularly by Briere’s inability to represent the best interests of her constituents first, and worry about all those other toes at some other point in time. Lord knows Marcia Higgins isn’t worried about Briere’s toes. Higgins referred to Briere’s resolution as “insulting.” Briere wanted to have Council directly re-examine the two open space projects that were eliminated by RFP Advisory Committee.

The resolution was insulting and worthless. Worse still, Briere had all the evidence she needed to bring forth a different resolution. A resolution that would have shown her to be a leader and not scared of her own political shadow.

Briere could have come forth with a resolution to immediately disband the RFP Advisory Committee, rewrite the RFP with public input, and reissue it. She could have brought this resolution forward on the grounds that there is ample evidence that members of the RFP Advisory Committee, and members of our City Council engaged in ongoing private meetings and passed information to members of the Valiant Group—one of the six groups that submitted proposals. These discussions and meetings went on for months prior to the issuance of the RFP. Briere could have brought forth this resolution, based on the fact that there are members of the RFP Advisory Committee who, because of their ongoing communications with members of the Valiant Group, should not have been allowed to evaluate the proposals due to conflicts of interest.

Marcia Higgins called Briere’s ineffectual and completely ridiculous resolution insulting, and then Marcia Higgins pulled the “trust” card.

Higgins lectured that Council and the public need to trust that the RFP Advisory Committee.

This advice came from a woman caught via FOIAed emails rigging votes for her own Council pay raise. Trust Margie Teall? Trust Stephen Rapundalo, Chair of the RFP Advisory Committee? That ship left the dock in June 2009 when the Ann Arbor News fingered Teall and Rapundalo (along with Higgins, First Ward Council member Sandi Smith, Third Ward’s Chris Taylor, Second Ward’s Tony Derezinski and Fifth Ward’s Carsten Hohnke for allegedly deliberating via email during open Council meetings. The city is now embroiled in a lawsuit as a result of Teall, Taylor, Higgins, Derezinski, Rapundalo, Hohnke, and Smith’s alleged repeated violations of the Open Meetings Act.

Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo and Ward Four’s Margie Teall both told their colleagues on Council, and the turnips watching on CTN, that “the process” of selecting the proposal to recommend to Council is totally unbiased. The thought that the procedure is rigged or “fixed” is ridiculous, Teall and Rapundalo both said.

The Process Queens doth protest too much. Here’s why.

Let me introduce you to the cast of characters on the RFP Advisory Committee:

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

Here’s the language from the resolution approved by Council on July 6, 2009 that outlines who will serve on the RFP Advisory Committee: The authorizing resolution (R-09-268, passed July 6, 2009) contains the following Resolved

RESOLVED, That the Mayor, prior to the deadline for submission of RFP’s for this project, will appoint an RFP Review Committee consisting of two members of City Council, one member of the Planning Commission, one member of the Downtown Development Authority, and one resident to review all properly submitted proposals. This committee will conduct a public meeting to solicit public input on the desired use of the site, as is consistent with current City practice.

Anyone notice that all the members of the RFP Advisory Committee are appointed commission members or council members? If you did, move to the head of the class. Anyone notice the four staff who were magically added to the committee? Give yourself a gold star.

This change to the composition of the RFP committee was never brought to City Council for approval.

At the January 4, 2010 Council meeting, Rapundalo, Higgins, Teall, Smith, Hieftje, Derezinki and Hohnke, all of whom voted against Briere’s resolution, talked about how important it was to respect the “process” and follow the rules.

Again, the Ladies doth protest too much.

This simple timeline taken from FOIAed emails should demonstrate just how our Mayor, City Council members and City Administrator have rigged the RFP process, and why it won’t be a shock if one of the losing groups files a lawsuit against the city.

January 2009: City Administrator Roger Fraser presents Council members with a plan for “a little convention center” at the Council’s retreat. The Ann Arbor News later reports that the plan is from the Valiant Group, of which Fritz Seyferth is a partner. According to Valiant’s proposal, Seyferth stands to split a $1 million dollar developer fee with his partners should the Valiant Group’s proposal be selected.

Setting the stage for the Valiant Group: Ann Arbor City Administrator Roger Fraser was in contact with the Valiant Group at least 9 months before the City Council voted to issue the RFP to develop the Fifth Avenue parcel. RFP Advisory Committee Council members Teall and Rapundalo were shown the Valiant Group’s plans for a convention center 9 months before the formal RFP was issued, and 13 months before the group’s proposal was submitted to the RFP Advisory Committee.

January 20, 2009: Via email Sandi Smith invites the Mayor, everyone on Council and Roger Fraser to a meeting at the DDA to talk about what they want to build atop the parking garage. No meeting agenda. No meeting minutes. No public notice of the meeting.

February 2009: Mayor Hieftje emails a constituent concerned with what will be built atop the underground parking garage. Hieftje writes that it will probably “be years” before anything is built on the Fifth Avenue parcel owned by the citizens of Ann Arbor.

February 11, 2009: Fritz Seyferth, partner in the Valiant Group, emails DDA representative and future RFP Advisory Committee member Susan Pollay. He writes,

“Susan,

Please call with any feedback you got on the meeting re what may go above the parking structure. We have received a more positive feedback from our concept from some on Council, so that is good.”

March 2009: Sandi Smith announces to Council that she plans to bring an RFP to Council for the group’s approval for the development of the Fifth Avenue library lot parcel.

April 6, 2009: Fritz Seyferth writes to DDA representative and RFP Advisory Committee member Susan Pollay:

“Susan -

Hope you are well.

Bruce Zenkel and Mike Bailkin (Seyferth’s Valiant Group partners) will be in town for University meetings. We would very much like to meet with you if you have time.

We would like to give and get updates on where we are on our projects…..

It was suggested I touch base with Sandi Smith….Any thoughts?”

Conflict of Interest/Ethics: Either Seyferth is lying to Pollay, or the Valiant Group met with “members” of Council and presented the Valiant Group’s “concept” for what was to be built atop the library lot months before the RFP was written and issued. Furthermore, Susan Pollay, a member of the RFP Advisory Committee, had contact with Seyferth prior to her appointment to the RFP Advisory Committee.

April 6, 2009: Susan Pollay schedules a meeting with the Valiant Group partners for April 21st or April 22nd.

April 21, 2009: Susan Pollay emails Fritz Seyferth:

Current design details [of the proposed underground parking garage] for your use….It was good seeing you earlier today. I look forward to talking to you again in a few weeks after your team has had another chance to meet with city folks.

May 5, 2009: Susan Pollay emails (in PDF format) Fritz Seyferth a dozen structural schematic drawings for the underground parking garage for use in preparing the Valiant Group’s RFP. The drawings were provided by Michael C. Ortleib of the Carl Walker Company.

July 2009: Ann Arbor City Council approves the issuance of an RFP for the development of the Fifth Avenue parcel.

Who were the members of Council with whom Seyferth met last February? Rapundalo? Teall? If so, neither has any business on the RFP Advisory Committee. Will those Council members with whom Seyferth met identify themselves? The DDA’s Susan Pollay should be replaced immediately, as should Roger Fraser, both of whom had extended and extensive contact with the Valiant Group’s partners prior to the issuance of the RFP.

Local blogger Vivienne Armentrout writes about the Valiant Group’s ongoing contacts with the Downtown Development Authority’s staff member Susan Pollay, as well Roger Fraser, City Council members, and other city officials. She refers to the contact as “the inside track.”

The inside track refers to a race where all of the runners start at the same time and one runner draws the inside lane. The Valiant Group was given a year-long head start in the race. The six proposals that came in on November 13th were, presumably, compiled between August 14th when the RFP was published, and November 13th, when it was due. Except for one, the Valiant Group’s.

All of this adds up to a rigged RFP process. It was rigged either through duplicity or sheer stupidity. Either way, Higgins’s demand that we trust the “process” is for suckers. The citizens of Ann Arbor deserve an honest RFP be written with public input, a fair and honest RFP competition be held, and an honest evaluation of the proposals submitted by a Committee comprised of individuals as per Council’s original July resolution, and headed by politicos we can respect and trust. That list certainly does not include Stephen Rapundalo or Margie Teall…..or Marcia Higgins, Carsten Hohnke, Christopher Taylor, Tony Derezinski or Sandi Smith—whose alleged Open Meetings Act violations for deliberating in secret via email during public meetings have plunged the city into a lawsuit.

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January 5, 2010

The Politics of Parking: Free Downtown Parking For Residents in Towns Large and Small Across the Country (Why Not In A2?)

Filed under: best of A2Politico, boards and commissions, city council, money, transportation — Tags: A2Politico, Ann Arbor City Council, AnnArbor.com, DDA, Downtown Development Authority, Fire Chief Sam Hopkins, Leigh Greden, Marcia Higgins, Mike Anglin, Paul Saginaw, Roger Fraser, Sabra Briere, Stephen Rapundalo's, Steve Kunselman, Tom Crawford, Tony Derezinski — A2 Politico @ 8:00 am

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At the December 21st City Council meeting, First Ward Council member Sandi Smith introduced a resolution to extend parking meter enforcement to 10 p.m. M-Sa. in order to keep parking meters our of First and Fifth Ward neighborhoods.

Here’s the real question: Why are people people of Ann Arbor always given the option by our City Council members of burning to death or freezing to death? Extend parking meter enforcement or put meters in First and Fifth Ward neighborhoods. How about some creative leadership?

There are so many place for Council to look in the budget to find the $90,000. Heck, there are places to find $9 million dollars, if Council members would just stop eating the financial rice cereal fed to them by City Administrator Roger Fraser and City Financial Officer Tom Crawford. The last bowl of rice cereal for the Council babies came in the form of a list of 18 program and service cuts proposed by Fraser at the December budget retreat to close a $3 million dollar budget gap (interestingly almost exactly the amount over budget the new Police-Court facility happens to be at the moment). The list included the immediate layoff of 14 firefighters. You gotta ask. When it was time to trim the number of police down 175, Roger Fraser and Council members told the public early retirement was the way to go. In fact, Police Chief Barnett Jones was quoted in AnnArbor.com in July of 2009 as explaining that, ”the early retirement plan spared the police department from lay offs that would have been far more detrimental. Communities that lay off cops have problems recruiting experienced officers in the future….”

So firefighters looking for jobs must be addled from all the heat? Communities that lay off firefighters don’t have the same problem recruiting experienced firefighters in the future? Not a single soul elected to our City Council thought to ask that question, alas. Such a question would require putting two and two together and coming up with something rotten in the State of Denmark. Early retirements to the tune of $6 million for the police and pink slips for the firefighters? What’s it gonna take for Fifth Ward’s Mike Anglin, Third Ward’s Steve Kunselman and Chris Taylor, and Ward One’s Sabra Briere to wake up and smell the fiscal bullshit? Of course, maybe the firefighters got the bum’s rush because former Ann Arbor Fire Chief Sam Hopkins couldn’t be persuaded to tell reporters that without the 14 firefighters everything would be swell. At the time of the early retirements, Police Chief Jones was quoted in that same AnnArbor.com piece as saying, “Ann Arbor is just as safe as it was before. I am tired of people saying our community is not going to be safe. We’ve got police officers here that are stepping in and filling the gap. We’ve been cutting police officers since 2000, and has crime run amok because people are leaving? No.”

The early retirement of two dozen officers was followed by a sharp rise in crime in Ann Arbor, a wave of break-ins, and FBI crime statistics that showed a sharp rise in violent crime in our city.

With their bibs tied on firmly in place, Council members sat quietly and swallowed what they were fed. Roger Fraser even issued a dare: Unless they told Fraser otherwise at the following Council meeting, he was going to lay off firefighters. Only Third Ward’s Steve Kunselman tried to stray from Fraser’s list. Kunselman was re-strapped into his highchair by city CFO Tom Crawford and the feeding continued. The city’s $7 million dollar IT department couldn’t be cut because the department had won “awards,” Crawford said. Second Ward’s Tony Derezinski (who miraculously showed up for the budget meeting—Derezinski is quickly closing in on Marcia Higgins [her recent absences aside] for the prize of Council member with the worst attendance record at committee and Council meetings—said that outsourcing the City’s $2.5 million dollar legal department was “off the table.” Off whose table?

With the political implosion of Third Ward Council brat Leigh Greden, Ann Arbor ’s Mayor and City Council members are being exposed as terribly inept at crafting and implementing policy. Leigh Greden was their beard for half a dozen years, and now that he’s gone, the veteran Council member group (Teall, Higgins, Rapundalo and Hietje) is foundering badly. And thus we come to Sandi Smith’s resolution to extend parking enforcement until 10 p.m. I wrote about Smith’s resolution here on December 20th.

Several Council members claimed Smith had broadsided them with the resolution, and the ensuing discussion was comical in its sheer lack of, well, intelligence. One reporter at the Council meeting tweeted that Council members were attempting to craft a resolution “on the fly.” Those are always the best bits of legislation: the ones done with little forethought, planning, or research. At one point during the discussion of her resolution, Council member Smith railed against the “micromanging” of the City’s parking policies by City Council members. The micromanagement of parking, Smith claimed, was the sole discretion of the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), on which she sits. Smith’s comment showed her to have about as much understanding of the political chain of command as a Lance Corporal complaining about the “micro-management” of her superior officers. DDA members are appointed by our elected officials who, in turn, answer to voters.

City Council members do tend toward comical micromanagement, discussing the dimensions of trash carts and wasting the city’s time, money and staff resources on Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo’s grandstanding and useless “plastic bag ban” resolution, are classic examples. However, the oversight of boards, commissions and committees, such as the Downtown Development Authority, not to mention the questioning of resolutions brought to Council that address issues related to the DDA and parking, (particularly those sponsored or so-sponsored by Smith & Mayor Hieftje as both serve on the Board of the DDA as well as City Council) are not only appropriate, but crucial.

FOIAed emails revealed Sandi Smith called a secret meeting in January of 2009 at the DDA office and invited City Council and city staff. At that meeting, she wanted to discuss what was to the built atop the underground parking garage. A few months later, it was Sandi Smith (along with Fourth Ward’s Marcia Higgins) who brought us the famously “tailored” RFP for proposals to build atop the as-yet-unbuilt garage. Anything built on the Fifth Avenue parcel had to bring a financial return to the city, so demanded the RFP. That parking garage was never meant for the people of Ann Arbor; it’s for the use of the developer of the convention center or hotel that Council members want built atop that garage.

So, on the one hand, we have Paul Saginaw co-founder of Zingerman’s working himself silly on programs to rally support for local business. On the other hand, we have Sandi Smith trying to force people to get up in the middle of dinner at Zingerman’s to run outside to feed the meters until 10 p.m. I ask you: who’s the more committed individual to downtown business? If you answered Sandi Smith and the DDA Board, stay after class for some electroshock therapy. While our DDA Board members and City Council propose policies to bilk the parking system and local residents to get millions to support Roger Fraser and Mayor Hieftje’s out-of-control building and construction habit, other towns with more responsible and creative leadership are rallying behind local business with programs to get residents downtown and make shopping not predicated on feeding a meter. Other cities are crafting and implementing free parking downtown parking programs for residents.

What follows is an example of what a DDA can do to actually support downtown businesses. It comes from Sausalito, California, and programs like it are spreading across the United States—in cities of all sizes.

Read about these programs and weep. Then wipe your tears and email your Council members and Mayor Hieftje. Ask why it costs more per hour to park on street in Ann Arbor, Michigan than it does in Los Angles, California. L.A. City Council recently rolled back parking to $1.00-$1.25 per hour to foster downtown business. People with hybrid cars park for free in cities across the country, as well. Here’s a link to an NPR program on the trend.

In towns large and small across the United States, DDAs and Urban Renewal Agencies are crafting and implementing free parking programs for residents to bolster local downtown businesses. Frederick, Maryland (pop. 59,000) has a free parking programs for residents, and Seattle is going to allow residents free parking near its light-rail stations for the next two years. In San Jose, California (pop. 948,000) residents get two hours of free parking through a downtown parking validation program. Medford Oregon’s (pop. 460,000) Urban Renewal Agency has a similar free parking program, as well.

We need to ask our elected officials (particularly Mayor Hieftje and Sandi Smith, who sit on the DDA and who led the way in raising parking rates by 40 percent this past August, and who are directly responsible for recommending parking policies to City Council—and then voting in favor of their own DDA recommendations) why Ann Arbor’s DDA doesn’t immediately craft a program for residents and downtown businesses similar to this one in Sausalito.

SUPPORT YOUR DOWNTOWN SAUSALITO BUSINESSES !!!

3 Hours FREE Parking Downtown with a Residential Proximity Card !!!

A Residential Proximity Card entitles you a total of three hours free parking in the Municipal Parking Lots #1 & #3 per calendar day between the hours of 8:00 am and 6:00 pm, and unlimited parking from 6:00 pm from 8:00 am. Time accumulates for multiple visits, so be careful to park less than 3 hours total. (Please note that you will be charged at the regular hourly rate if you stay for more than 3 hours between the hours specified)

When you enter either of the parking lots, just waive your card in front of the sensor and the entrance gate will open. To exit, just waive your card again and the exit gate will open. It’s that easy. Just remember: Don’t take a ticket when you enter !!!

Cost: Free to residents of Sausalito !!! Cards may be obtained at Municipal Parking Lot #1 (next to the ferry landing) between the hours of 9am and 8 pm weekdays or between 9am and noon on weekends. A $10.00 non-refundable fee and valid ID showing your Sausalito address is required, along with your vehicle registration.

THIS RESIDENTIAL PROXIMITY CARD IS ONLY GOOD IN THE MUNICIPAL PARKING LOTS #1 and #3.

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