Stephen Rapundalo « 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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August 25, 2010

The Politics of Punks: The “Keep Ann Arbor Clean Campaign”

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Alex de Perry, Ann Arbor Police Department, Avalon Housing, Bandemer Park, Carsten Hohnke, Chief Barnett Jones, Dan Pampreen, David C. Munson, Downtown Development Authority, Dr. James O. Woolliscroft, Gen Y, Google, Ira Levin, Jr., Main Street Ventures, MichBio, Michigan League, Modern Language Association, Orville Hubbard, Punk Week, Roger Fraser, Roger Hewitt, Sergey Brin, Stephen Rapundalo, Valiant Partners — A2 Politico @ 8:00 am

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I paddle my kayak regularly from Bandemer Park, the site of a Punk Week gathering that made big news in this town of ours. I wasn’t there the afternoon the Ann Arbor Police Department car responded and the officer found himself out-numbered. Of course, given the fact that there are only 5-7 officers patrolling the entire town on a given day, with a single patrol car cruising Charlie Sector (the part of town in which Bandemer is located), the officer inside the patrol car would have expected to be out-numbered. That’s why the officer called for back-up. There was chicken on the grill and swimming going on at Bandemer. Someone was, perhaps, even swimming without the benefit of a bathing machine. The delicate Victorian sensibilities of some passerby at Bandemer that afternoon were offended. Evidently, the police showed up because some local prude had dimed out the Punk Week rabble gathered at the park.

Here’s the Ann Arbor definition of Punk Week:

That’s when a 25-year-old woman puts in her earbuds, turns up her iPod, and pays AATA to haul her from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor to some low-paying job for some high-earning bugie business owner who lives in Pittsfield Township.

Oh, sorry. Our punk should not be living in Ypsilanti. She should be living in some ramshackle Ann Arbor rental house owned by Dan Pampreen with 15 other Gen Y punks. The house will have been last inspected by City inspectors when Old Hickory was president. (Being super-tight with Fifth Ward Council member Carsten Hohnke has to have some perks, doesn’t it?) Our punk will be hopping on one leg, dying to rent “work force” housing brought to her by local developocrat Alex de Perry or the develop-beard Avalon Housing that will be, they promise, swear to Dog, the shit (not to be confused with shitty). After all, if they’re not working for Google billionaire Sergey Brin for $40K per year, or waiting tables for $30,000 per year at some downtown restaurant owned by Downtown Development Authority authority Roger Hewitt, or the fine folks at Main Street Ventures, what the hell good is a Gen Y punk? Heck, what good is anyone who’s not white (or who talks white really well), upper-middle class, and who feels virtuous that they’re over-filling their single-stream recycling container every single week?

Wake up and smell the idea that Ann Arbor is an urban center distinct from Detroit (or so goes the fantasy). That, after all, is the goal of the present batch of politicos in office. That’s why we desperately need a convention center. Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo is the MichBio CEO about town, and he does natter on about the fact that there’s no place is this God forsaken berg to host a conference with 500 attendees. Really? I think what he means is that there is no Ann Arbor taxpayer-direct subsidized place to put on a conference with 500 attendees. No matter that the Michigan League has ample space to host a meeting with 500 attendees and then some.

In a post from December 2009, I wrote:

As expected, the conference center proposal from Valiant Partners closely follows the proposal that was secretly circulated and pitched by City Administrator Roger Fraser to City Council members in January 2009 at the City Council’s retreat.

The proposal includes two letters of recommendation from University of Michigan deans. The first is Dr. James O. Woolliscroft, MD, Dean. Is it me, or does his letter of “endorsement” sound like it was written while sitting under a naked bulb with water boarding apparatus nearby? The two sentence (seriously, two sentence) letter says, “A conference center that will allow Ann Arbor to host large events is desirable, and I support efforts to make this reality.” Replace “conference center” with bawdy house, and we have a space to meet Dr. Woolliscroft’s needs, n’est pas? The other “endorser” was the Dean David C. Munson, Jr., Dean of Engineering. “We have a strong need for a space for plenary sessions with 500 participants and break-out sessions of 75 participants,” writes the Dean of Engineering. Oh, it should be “centrally” located, as well. Yo, Dr. Munson, the Second Floor Ballroom at the Michigan League holds 500 nicely. In fact this handy room capacity document shows that the Michigan League has all the space for which Dr. Munson says Ann Arbor has a “strong need.” Thus, why he “strongly endorses the need for a conference center” remains a mystery….or not.

We need more conference attendees in Ann Arbor, not Gen Y punks. Wait, what about brainy Gen Y punks who attend conferences? Well, all the brainy Gen Y punk grad students are at the Modern Language Association conference in ______________ (fill in the name of a fun, large, metropolitan area that Ann Arbor will never be able to compete with). They’re wearing impossibly small glasses, fretting about post-deconstructionism, and attending guerilla workshops on what to do when your thesis advisor repeatedly hits on you (Hint: sexual harassment charges are tiresome and bad for one’s academic career, that is the academic career of the individual who levies the charges).

The not-so-brainy comments at AnnArbor.com from the site’s devoted readers who live in Howell, Brighton, Dexter, Chelsea, Saline and out-of-state were full of reasons why punks are unwelcome in Ann Arbor. Punks smell. Punks do drugs. Punks listen to music in public. Punks swim naked. Punks grill chicken without a permit. Punks look unkept. Punks are dirty. Punks are not gainfully employed. Punks are, well, punks. I’m really not sorry to have to burst the bubble of so many small-minded individuals at once, but the above complaints apply to just as many tenured faculty at the University of Michigan as they do to the Gen Y attendees of the impromtu Punk Week festivities. There’s a physics prof at U of M with a wicked reputation amongst the librarian folk as an individual not to be trifled with unless one has a completely stuffed up nose.

The Bandemer Park Punk Week dust up was proof positive that Ann Arbor is becoming a community the likes of which we last saw in that Ira Levin book. Ann Arbor is no more a Midwestern bastion of progressive liberality, where creative thought and actions are embraced, than is Pyongyang. The AAPD has launched an internal investigation thanks to a complaint filed shortly after eight people were arrested for “resisting officers” on Sunday August 15th. The police charged the people with refusing to leave the park. Maybe Ann Arbor’s mayor should just adopt the tactics of Dearborn’s segregationist hero Orville Hubbard. For decades under Hubbard’s “Keep Dearborn Clean” campaign, non-residents were barred from the city’s parks, pools and recreational facilities. Non-residents could be tossed out of parks by police in Dearborn, just as the AAPD officers tried to toss out non-residents from Bandemer Park. How would the Dearborn police identify non-residents? The same way the AAPD identified the Punk Week participants. They were the people who looked “different.”

As usual, on AnnArbor.com, just as we saw in the old Ann Arbor News, we hear absolutely not a single peep from the Mayor and City Council members save a comment that, maybe, “permits” need to be issued the next time punks want to grill chicken and swim in the Huron. Then again, when the political shitzu hits the fan, we don’t have elected politicos in Ann Arbor. We have a head-less horseman whose job it is to scare the locals into staying inside unless they pay for a permit. The local news outlets sweetly perpetuate this myth by failing to point out that the Chief of Police answers to the Mayor and City Council. Chief Barnett Jones, after all, went before Council and assured everyone that the AAPD could handle policing with a force that has been severely reduced.

Now, drive your Volvo/Subaru/Prius to Bandemer Park, throw some $20 per pound, free-range, organic chicken on the grill, strip to your 100 percent organic cotton skivvies, hop in the river, and imagine the AAPD responding to a disturbance the size of the one at Bandemer Park times 10 or 100. Stop screaming. No one can hear you. No one wants to hear you. Repeat after John Hieftje: “Crime is down. Crime is down. Crime is down. Crime is down.”

I was told by AAPD police officials that our police department simply won’t ever be able to respond to any kind of a large disturbance. Of course, voters re-elected a mayor who assured them that if crime ever goes up (as if crime is a generic noun) he’ll look into beefing up the police force. Will that be before or after you or someone you know gets assaulted, I wonder? Well, if the Bandemer Park fiasco demonstrates one thing quite clearly it should be that it won’t be a little old crime spree that obviates the need for more than 5-7 patrol officers on duty during any given day.

As for the Gen Y punks, professionals, plebes and poseurs, they need to get a clue and realize that the new urbanista Boomers in Ann Arbor—this Mayor and Council—don’t welcome change or Gen Y with open arms. Our little slice of Ira Levinville craves and obsesses about well-behaved, well-mannered, well-heeled “young professionals,” who will bend over, smile and support the well-connected, well-mannered (at least to your face, mostly), much better-heeled business owners, local developers, and local politicos.

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March 24, 2010

The Politics of Singing and Dancing: Eli Cooper’s $14 Million Dollar Variety Show

Filed under: city council, taxes, transportation — Tags: A2Politico, AATA, Amtrak, AnnArborChronicle.com, Eli Cooper, Henry Ford Museum, Jayne Miller, Jim Kosteva, John Hieftje, Leigh Greden, Park Advisory Commission, Roger W. Fraser, SEMCOG, Stephen Rapundalo, Sue F. McCormick, trains, Wolverine Service — A2 Politico @ 11:56 am

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By now, if you haven’t already read it, SEMCOG announced that there is no money for commuter train service between Ann Arbor and Detroit. The transportation cognoscenti around town have been saying this for the past 16 months. So why no cash for the commuter line? According to a March 19, 2010 piece in Crain’s Business Weekly, “A $100 million federal transportation funding earmark for the project was made in 2005, but studies show the route’s cost-per-rider ratio of more than $70 remains too high for SEMCOG to qualify for the money.”

Read that last sentence again. The cost-per-rider ratio of a commuter train between Ann Arbor and Detroit is more than $70. Put another way, it would be cheaper to hop on a Southwest Air flight, to well, any one of a dozen destinations. There are just not enough people who would ride a commuter to make the cost-per-rider costs reasonable enough for the project to qualify for available federal funding.

According to Crain’s, “The hope has been that the demonstration line would encourage additional ridership, and linking the route to a proposed regional mass transit system of bus and train routes would boost usage and bring down the cost so that SEMCOG can get the federal funding.”

The result? No new target date for the daily service has been set.

The only trains that will run will be operated by the company that has been running an east-west train service between Ann Arbor and Detroit for 40 years: Amtrak. Heck, you can hop on the Ann Arbor-Detroit Amtrak train today, if you like. It will take about an hour to get to the Detroit train station, located at 11 West Baltimore Avenue, near the Cass Corridor, and about a mile from the Wayne State University campus and the DIA.

Since the demise of commuter rail, the new idea is “special” trains. For instance, there will be a special train between Ann Arbor and Detroit for the Thanksgiving Day Parade. If you’ve never been, go, but drive your car, because the train station is, literally, miles from the parade route. There’s always loads of free on-street parking within one block of the parade. Hit Lucy & Ethels diner, located at 400 Bagley Street, for lunch after the festivities.

We’ll see you there.

There will also be “special” trains for University of Michigan football games. In other words, Amtrak will schedule service to coincide with Michigan’s home football games. We need a new train station for that? I think not. We need to be exponentially more concerned with how AATA is going to haul the people who take the trains to the games to Michigan Stadium from the Amtrak station. At the moment, Michigan Stadium is not a choice on the AATA Trip Planner page, and “Stadiums” is not an option in the drop down menu. Those are easily remedied issues, of course.

However, there are other more complicated issues associated with “special” trains bringing people to U of M football games: AATA. Buses in our city currently run infrequently on the weekends, and Saturday service ends early. Unless every Michigan fan who takes the “special” train to Ann Arbor and then takes an AATA bus to the Stadium is charged enough to cover the actual operating expenses incurred by AATA for the service, Ann Arbor taxpayers who pay the AATA’s millage, will be subsidizing the University of Michigan as it earns tens of million of dollars in football revenues each Saturday.

One solution would be for U of M to assess a transportation fee on the tickets it sells to football games and give that money to AATA. It’s either that, or the University of Michigan should use its own buses to transport its football fans to and from its stadium and the train station on Depot Street. I would argue that it’s a stretch to ask taxpayers to provide train service to the football games of one university in the entire state of Michigan.

At the March 16th Park Advisory Commission (PAC) meeting, a commission member asked the city’s Transportation Program Director, Eli Cooper, a very important question: Is the Fuller Transportation Station a transportation center or a parking structure? “I believe it’s a little of both,” Cooper said. Cooper went on to explain that “the project began as a transportation center then turned into a parking structure to meet the short-term need—while at the same time proving to potential partners, such as the federal government, that Ann Arbor is serious about commuter rail.”

Seriously? Public servants serious about representing the best interests of their constituents don’t allow city staff to throw away tax money, give away parkland, or cut police and fire service to build the University of Michigan a parking garage for its “short-term need.” Because that’s the “short-term need” to which Cooper is referring—the University of Michigan’s growing need for more parking for its employees.

So, why are our elected officials still allowing city staff to steam down the tracks and spend money on the “multi-phase” Fuller Transportation Station? The “joint” venture with the University of Michigan looks suspiciously like the scrawny kid (Ann Arbor) being taken for $14 million dollars in lunch money by the neighborhood smooth talker (U of M). The latest plans for the transportation station shown at the PAC meeting include exactly one edifice: a parking garage to be used by the University of Michigan.

At the March 16th PAC meeting, Eli Cooper explained exactly why he needs $14 million dollars the city doesn’t have to build a train station that we don’t need, and for which SEMCOG has made clear commuter trains will never stop. Cooper was quoted in the AnnArborChronicle.com as telling the city’s PAC members that:

…Amtrak anticipates doubling its ridership in the next 25 years. That’s not including potential commuter or high-speed rail. Right now, the Ann Arbor station, located on Depot Street, has 75 long-term parking spots. Their current location won’t accommodate future growth, Cooper said. He noted that the Ann Arbor station is the second busiest one on the Chicago-Detroit route – only downtown Chicago is busier. The Fuller Road Station is also intended to be an alternative for driving to the Detroit Metro airport, Cooper said. And though the Fuller Road Station didn’t get chosen in the latest round of federal funding, the project was approved, he noted – the feds just ran out of money.

First of all, Cooper’s explanation directly contradicts the March 19, 2010 Crain’s Business Weekly coverage that cited the cost-per-rider ratio as the reason the Ann Arbor to Detroit commuter project was turned down for federal funds. Next, in January 2010, the federal government awarded $40 million dollars to Amtrak to renovate two of their stations on the Detroit-Chicago route. Read about the allocations here. The Ann Arbor station was not selected; stations in Battle Creek, Dearborn and Troy will get money for the kind of expansions that Eli Cooper, Mayor and City Council are demanding that Ann Arbor taxpayers foot the bill for. The $40 million dollar federal allocation includes building a new train station, as well—just not in Ann Arbor, but rather near the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn.

Evidently, the federal government is not prepared to spend money for a new train station in Ann Arbor despite Cooper’s assertion that Amtrak needs one “because Amtrak anticipates doubling ridership in the next 25 years.” Perhaps this is because there are people in the federal government who are perfectly aware that Cooper’s assertions are patently absurd. In Michigan, specifically, on the Detroit-Chicago route, Amtrak officials do not expect ridership will double. Amtrak has not experienced ridership growth over the past three years. In fact, between 2007 and 2009, ridership of the Wolverine Service route between Detroit and Chicago dropped by 7.1 percent, according to ridership and revenue data from Amtrak provided to Trains Magazine and which the magazine published on November 20, 2009. Revenues on the Wolverine route dropped 7.8 percent ($1.4 million dollars) during the same period. Between 2008-2009, Amtrak lost 1.6 million riders costing the company a total of $140,000,000 in revenue.

So I ask, once again, why are Ann Arbor taxpayers being asked to pay the University of Michigan to build a parking garage on public-owned land that overlooks the Huron River? According to Eli Cooper it’s a multi-million dollar gamble to prove we’re “serious” about a commuter line between Detroit and Ann Arbor.

Let me tell you what I’m serious about: holding city staff accountable for their work and the taxpayer money they want to spend. The city needs to withdraw from the “joint” partnership immediately, and refund all of the money taken from the General Fund for the Phase I concept plan. I’m serious about putting an immediate stop to the use of any more taxpayer money for the construction of a 1,020 car parking garage for the University of Michigan on valuable river-front property owned by the people of Ann Arbor.

On November 5, 2009, former Third Ward Council member Leigh Greden, Mayor John Hieftje and Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo presented Council with the Resolution to Approve Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan for the Development of the Fuller Road Station. See a video of the Council’s discussion of the MOU here. You will hear U of M’s spokesman Jim Kosteva tell Council that the parking garage for the University of Michigan is a “city-owned project.” The one-sided MOU was prepared by Eli Cooper, reviewed by Sue F. McCormick, Public Services Administrator and Jayne Miller, Community Services Administrator, and approved by Roger W. Fraser, City Administrator.

Our city officials landed none of the money they went before Council and said could be landed for commuter rail. Michigan received none of the $8 billion dollars in federal stimulus money for high speed rail between Detroit and Chicago. Does that mean we never will? Of course not. Does it mean we should give away parkland and spend millions to build U of M a parking garage to “prove” we’re “serious” about commuter rail? Wisconsin was awarded $810 million to upgrade and refurbish train stations and install safety equipment on the Madison-to-Milwaukee leg of a line that stretches from Minneapolis to Chicago. Elected officials in neither Madison nor Milwaukee spent a dime proving that their cities were “serious,” about rail prior to receiving the federal funds.

The Fuller Transportation is not a collaboration between Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan; it’s a giveaway of public land and public money to an entity that has already amassed over 1,700 acres of land in our city, and pays just a fraction of what it should for the city services it receives now. The MOU is a poorly negotiated, one-sided agreement supported by Greden, Hieftje and Rapundalo, and then unanimously approved by Council.

The MOU should have never been approved at all. Now that it’s clear that those citizen activists who said many months ago that there was no money to operate a commuter train were absolutely correct, it’s time for Council to step up and represent the best interests of the people of Ann Arbor. Those interests are in no way best represented by participating in a one-sided arrangement that seeks to give away our prime river front land and our money to our university neighbor.

If this is a “city-owned” project, as U of M’s Jim Kosteva said at the November 5, 2009 City Council meeting, City Council, by refusing to approve further funding and construction will, effectively, kill it.

Popularity: 49% [?]

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March 11, 2010

The Politics of Playing to the Crowd: Ready For Straight Talk?

Filed under: politicians, politics — Tags: Ann Arbor Human Relations Commission, AnnArbor.com, city council, Downtown Development Authority, Dr. Samuel Eldersveld, Fair Housing Center, Pam Kisch, Stephen Rapundalo, Tony Dearing, Tony Derezinski — A2 Politico @ 12:15 pm

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I had a great lunch yesterday with someone who has quite a bit of experience serving Ann Arbor as a member of several city boards and commissions. We had a rousing debate about the Downtown Development Authority, economic development, and leadership. What my lunch companion is looking for in a local politico is, well, someone who’s just willing to up and make a decision already. We disagreed about the recent cell phone ban sponsored by Second Ward Councilmembers Stephen Rapundalo and Tony Derezinski (I consider the ban a waste of taxpayer money and staff time—a politically motivated resolution that, once again, diverts focus from the serious issues that face the city). However, we both agreed that it was nice to see a decision made by Council in a timely manner. The board member brought up Argo Dam, and bemoaned the fact that there have been wasted, literally, years of citizen time trying to make a decision about the disposition of the dam.

“Just make a decision!” my companion said. “Base the decision on one set of the facts that have been presented by the two advisory boards that studied the situation, and decide.” People might not agree with the decision, the board member reasoned, but would respect the fact that a decision was being made.

I couldn’t agree more.

Decision-making for some politicos gets clouded over by a fear of angering the electorate, and getting tossed out of office. In other words, holding onto the elected office becomes the primary goal. As a result, straight talk, up and down votes, open debate, and “just making a decision,” as the board member said, fall by the wayside. I once had a chat with a Council member, and was told that this person would not push for greater transparency in local government out of the fear that it would anger certain members of the Council majority, and the Council member would, then, be challenged in the primary. A primary challenge was to be avoided at all costs.

No one who runs for office wants to lose the election. However, as I told a group of city employees whom I spoke with, I’m not a career politician. I don’t aspire to spend life in elected office. I’ve worked at my job as a Publisher and CEO for two decades; I have an exit strategy, as the saying goes. Serving in elected office won’t be a stepping stone for me to do anything except return to my current job. That gives me a huge advantage I think. It will certainly free me up to be creative, collaborative, make decisions, and get our city government refocused on its core mission.

Former Ann Arbor Mayor Dr. Samuel Eldersveld recently died at the age of 92. He was elected as a Democrat in 1957, beating out a 12-year Republican incumbent. Dr. Eldersveld was described in his obituary as “an absolute giant” in the field of political science at the University of Michigan, where he taught for five decades. During his time as Mayor, Eldersveld biked to City Hall, then to his university job, then back to City Hall. It was, I imagine, a demanding schedule. He returned to university teaching and research after just two years in office. But what he aimed at in his two years!

Eldersveld supported the Civil Rights movement, and created the Ann Arbor Human Relations Commission. The Commission aimed to eliminate racial discrimination is housing, banking, education and business in the city, a move that was not universally supported by any means in conservative-leaning Ann Arbor of 1957. He was considered, according to his obit, “a pioneer in ending racial discrimination in the city, and was the first Ann Arbor mayoral candidate to campaign in the city’s African American neighborhoods and churches.” I wish we could say that Dr. Eldersveld’s work ended racial discrimination in Ann Arbor, but anyone who follows the good work of my friend Pam Kisch in her job at the Fair Housing Center knows there’s still work to do. In July 2009, AnnArbor.com posted a piece about a three-year investigation and subsequent federal lawsuit filed by the Fair Housing Center against an Ann Arbor apartment complex.

In fact, as Tony Dearing of AnnArbor.com wrote in a January 2010 editorial, “We’d like to see the City Council be less worried about banning plastic bags and cell phones in cars and bicycles on sidewalks until it’s successfully addressed far more serious issues.”

To refocus government on the basics, to tackle the serious issues is going to mean making some tough decisions, but more than that it’s going to mean pulling together to get the work done. I know I’m ready. There are candidates who’ve entered the First and Fifth Ward City Council races who are ready.

Are you?

Popularity: 37% [?]

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March 7, 2010

The Politics of Negotiating: You Never Get What You Deserve

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

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

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

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

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

Bollocks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Popularity: 35% [?]

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February 21, 2010

The Politics of Money: Capriccio Economico

Filed under: economic development, money, taxes — Tags: A2Politico, Ann Arbor News, Ann Arbor Public Schools' Orchestra Night, Ann Arbor SPARK, AnnArbor.com, Carsten Hohnke, LDFA SmartZone, Michael Finney’s, Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Ned Staebler, Pioneer High School, Rick Snyder, Skip Simms, Stefanie Murray, Stephen Rapundalo — A2 Politico @ 1:36 pm

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*Capriccio

February 18th was Ann Arbor Public Schools’ Orchestra Night. All of the middle and high school orchestras came together for a music student-a-palooza that began at 7 p.m. and finished with the last note from the Pioneer High School orchestra at 9:30. My middle schooler’s orchestra played the first notes of the evening. The entire week before, he’d been coming home with tales from the practice room that the orchestra teacher was driving the kids like musical mules in a field of flats and sharps. Evidently, she was making them rehearse and practice—making them play the first measures of their opening piece, Capriccio Espagnol, something like 5,000,000 times. Pre-teens somehow suddenly lose the ability to count: they start at 1 and jump from there to 5,000,000.

However, my bassist had not exaggerated a bit. He and his orchestra mates nailed the opening of the piece. In fact, they played the entire piece with a level of technical precision I never expected—there was no fuzzy fingering from the violinists, and nary a missed beat from the basses and cellos. Their orchestra teacher is a young woman who, in my opinion, is one of those teachers. You know the ones. They inspire, push and take a genuine interest in their students. Every school district needs more teachers like her, and to compensate them generously for their devotion to their students, teaching, and the results they get.

Unless you just got back to Ann Arbor from your isolated private island in the Pacific, you know that the AAPS is facing a multi-million dollar deficit. There is a passionate and wide-ranging debate as to why there is a deficit. There is a passionate and wide-ranging debate about how to close the budget gap. District officials floated the idea of privatizing several hundred union jobs. According to a piece posted to AnnArbor.com on February 17th, there are several companies “vying to replace the district’s custodians, maintenance workers and bus drivers, it could save nearly $2.4 million a year.”

I’m going to switch classrooms now. Walk with me.

I was going through the City’s checkbook register, which is now online, and saw a $75,000 withdrawl from the General Fund for Ann Arbor SPARK. I have written about Ann Arbor SPARK several times over the course of the past months. Click here to read my most recent entry about SPARK. Ann Arbor SPARK was created to “incubate” start-up businesses in the Ann Arbor area. It was headed by Republican Gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder for several years. Our tax dollars don’t fund SPARK directly. That’s what the (Local Development Finance Authority) LDFA is for. Here’s a good description of the LDFA from a January 2009 piece in the now defunct Ann Arbor News, written by Stefanie Murray, “The LDFA is an Ann Arbor City Council-appointed committee that oversees the capture of part of the property taxes from Ann Arbor’s downtown development district. It gives some of that revenue to Spark and is responsible for overseeing how Spark spends it.”

Sounds pretty innocuous, huh? “The capture of part of the property taxes from Ann Arbor’s downtown development district.” No harm. No foul.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The LDFA was formed to divert taxes from a single sector: public education. It contracts with Ann Arbor SPARK to “provide services.” In fact, the bulk of the money the LDFA diverts from our public schools goes to Ann Arbor SPARK. Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo sits on the LDFA Board. Fifth Ward Council member Carsten Hohnke sits on the SPARK Board. In November 2009, I wrote about the resolution which Rapundalo brought to Council: “Resolution to Amend the Fiscal Year 2010 SmartZone LDFA Budget for Increased Business Accelerator Services.” In my November 2009 post I wrote:

“Ann Arbor SPARK is the public-private boondoggle supported by Mayor and Council with your tax dollars that has created no new jobs that would not otherwise have been created, according to an April 2009 statement before City Council by the Chair of the LDFA, Richard King. And SPARK has done it all for you since July 2006 for a mere $3+ million dollars. Who could want less for more? It’s a Bernie Madoff Special—no actual job creation in return for millions in public money. How long will it take the public to realize that they’re being robbed?”

Both Carsten Hohnke and Stephen Rapundalo voted in favor of giving the LDFA $205,000 additional dollars to pass on the Ann Arbor SPARK. Those were dollars taken from the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Here is a link to a video from the City Council meeting at which Council voted 11-0 to give the LDFA and Spark more tax money. You’ll see Skip Simms from SPARK tell Council that all of SPARK’s “incubator” money comes from the LDFA. All of the LDFA’s money is diverted directly from the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Do you understand the connection now?

According to the city’s budget, in fiscal year 2009, the LDFA SmartZone diverted $1.1 million dollars in property taxes from new development downtown. In fiscal year 2010, that amount increased to a projected $1.27 million dollars, and in 2011, the LDFA expects to divert $1.4 million in property tax dollars from our public schools to give to SPARK.

In this piece, I wrote about the $753,000 in salaries paid to just five employees of SPARK.

Now, we have the Ann Arbor Public Schools poised to cut over 200 union jobs to save $2.4 million dollars. If the Mayor and City Council dissolve the LDFA immediately, and Ann Arbor SPARK is spun off, in 2010-2011 the AAPS will collect an additional projected $2.67 million dollars in tax revenues. That money, along with some good faith bargaining for concessions from the unions involved could save the jobs of hundreds of long-time employees—custodians, maintenance workers and bus drivers in our community.

Public schools, or so said my son’s orchestra teacher, reflect the soul of a community. I agree with her. Right now, our soul is troubled. Business investment is important, but it can’t come at the expense of our own public schools. It’s time to stop diverting property tax dollars away from the public schools, and realize that owners of established small and medium-sized businesses choose to relocate to communities with exceptional schools, and residents choose to stay in communities with exceptional public schools.

Either our public schools can be given back the LDFA’s $2.67 million dollars and retain hundreds of jobs for custodians, bus drivers and maintenance workers, or Mayor and Council can continue to support a failed economic development system under the auspices of which no jobs have been created that wouldn’t have otherwise been created. Mayor and Council can continue to give public school tax dollars to the LDFA to dole out to Ann Arbor SPARK—an organization that paid five of its employees over $753,000 in salaries in 2008.

To me, the choice is clear. The time has come to shape new economic development programs that will give taxpayers objectively verifiable and carefully tracked returns on all tax dollar investments—something that has not been done over the past five years. It’s time to get back to the basics, and for our local politicos to face the music: they’ve diverted millions from our public schools to fund the LDFA and, in turn, Ann Arbor SPARK. Dissolving the LDFA and spinning off Ann Arbor SPARK could, actually, save hundreds of existing jobs in our community, and benefit our public schools.

Popularity: 43% [?]

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February 18, 2010

The Politics of Parks: Spin, Subsidies and Mulligans

Filed under: money, parks — Tags: A2Politico, Ann Arbor Golf Association, Bona & Kolb, City Planning Commission, Dan Rainey, Downtown Development Authority, Golf Advisory Task Force, Jayne Miller, Mitchell & Mouat, Stephen Rapundalo, Tom Crawford — A2 Politico @ 8:21 am

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One of the jobs I had as I worked my way through college was at a very exclusive country club that shall remain anonymous. I worked in the kitchen, and the tots love to hear me tell stories about the members, kitchen staff, and preparing and serving meals to some of the richest people in metro-Detroit. They love the story about the world-famous architect who got so loaded at his daughter’s wedding that, while swinging a Samurai sword around over his head (don’t ask why he brought one to his daughter’s wedding), lost his grip, and the sword ended up piercing the bass drum of a very surprised band drummer. There was the fellow who made millions in the auto industry who almost decapitated a foursome of club members when he landed his helicopter on the 1st green. He’d dropped in for a cool drink, a pack of cigarettes and to schedule his Saturday tee time. I met Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Ben Crenshaw when they were in town to play in a major tournament at another country club.

One of the perks of working at the club was that on Tuesdays, when the club shut down, staff had the opportunity to golf free of charge. When my papers were written, and math problems finished, I golfed in the nice weather. Lefty. My handicap was, well, my inability to get out of the sand traps without taking way too many mulligans.

Yesterday morning, I attended a meeting of the city’s Golf Advisory Task Force. Tee time was 8 a.m. on the 6th floor of City Hall. On the agenda was Huron Hills Golf course. The course, open to the public since the 20s, is in deficit. Again. It was in deficit in 2008, and as a result elected officials and city staff tried to shop the land to developers. When Ward 2 residents and golfers descended on City Council meetings, putters hefted, Mayor and Council promptly claimed no one was shopping anything to anyone (insert innocent looks here). Then the paperwork authorizing the shopping around of said golf course surfaced and, as you can imagine, there were several elected officials with egg on their faces and lots of lost credibility.

Yesterday morning, Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo, was questioned by members of the Ann Arbor Golf Association concerning Huron Hills’ projected $380,000 deficit. As a result of the projected deficit, the Golf Advisory Task Force has been charged with turning a double bogey into a birdie. According to Rapundalo, Council members believe that we can keep Huron Hills open with no “subsidies” from the General Fund. One way to do this would be to make it a “public-private” course. City staff will prepare the requisite RFP, and a vendor will ride into town in an electric golf cart with a plan to balance the course’s budget. This way, no further “subsidies” would need be given to the Huron Hills facility.

Let me state quite clearly that Council’s notion that that city’s recreational facilities are “subsidized” with money from the General Fund is absurd. We don’t “subsidize” recreational facilities; we support them with our taxes. Ann Arbor citizens pay some of the highest per capita property taxes in Michigan.

As it turns out, the last time Huron Hills was profitable was at least a decade ago, so said the city staff member whom I spoke with. For those who feel up to a little morning challenge, here ’s a puzzle for you. The problem? “Why is Huron Hills golf course losing money?” Here are some facts shared by the city staff members in charge of the course who attended the meeting:

1. Huron Hills is projected to have a 3 percent increase in overall revenues.

2. The numbers of golfers using the facility is increasing.

3. There are plans for an education program for kids and teens at the course.

4. There are funds earmarked for radio/billboard marketing

5. Huron Hills was given a liquor license.

So, why is the course losing money? Please choose one answer from below.

A. It’s a complete mystery that will never be solved.

B. The cost of golfballs has skyrocketed.

C. There is a $380,000 municipal service charge levied on the course’s operations.

If you chose “C”, please bring your irons to the club house for a free cleaning. What is a municipal service charge? It’s the total cost of running City Hall divided by every single department in the city. For instance, the golf staff member explained quite cogently that the city’s IT department sets its budget (at $7.2 million dollars, currently twice the budget of IT departments in similarly-sized cities across the country) and then “charges” departments for its services, network, etc… In fact, in some departments it costs $4,000 per computer per month to support IT. That’s just the beginning. Huron Hills golf course is also charged for $14,000 of the funds budgeted to support the Mayor’s office.

To make a long, and very simple story complicated, Huron Hills golf course is being smothered in municipal service charges. The cost of running City Hall in Ann Arbor has increased by 35 percent since 2006 ($34 million dollars), according to audited statements from the city’s web page. Virtually the course’s entire $380,000 “deficit” is the result of being forced to carry around part of the city’s bloated operating expenses.

So what should be done? If you replied “cut operating costs,” please report immediately to the aversion therapy office in City Hall.

The “correct” answer is for City Council to form a citizen task force, hold monthly 90 minute meetings that use up precious staff time, and charge the poor citizens who actually care about the city’s recreational facilities with performing a religious miracle, to make Huron Hills “profitable.” The next part of the plan is to have Council members tell citizens that City Council members have no further interest in “subsidizing” golf. Well, that should actually come as no surprise, they have no further interest in “subsidizing” police and fire services, either.

The city staff member repeated one “fact” several times during the 90 minute meeting at which just two agenda items were discussed: there is nothing that can be done about the municipal service charge. Is it any wonder, then, that funding recreational facilities and senior centers is referred to by those on Council as “subsidizing?” By jingo, we’re “subsidizing” the retirees. We’re “subsidizing” swimmers. We’re “subsidizing” numerous services for all of the freeloading taxpayers in this city.

Most of us know there are numerous strategies that can be employed to cut “municipal service charges.” Our family, for instance, eats out less often. City Council could put moratoria on consultant contracts and direct the City Administrator, CFO and IT Director to bring the cost of IT services into line with that of other similarly-sized cities. The mantra that nothing that can be done about the heft of the municipal service charges levied is wrong-headed, and a symptom of wide-spread and systematic fiscal dysfunction on City Council and at City Hall.

Reining in the cost of operating City Hall and, as a result, significantly reducing the service charges levied on Huron Hills is, in fact, is the answer to the problem, instead of the “inevitable” solution that the city needs to craft the requisite RFP, and hire a private contractor to run the course.

As for the Golf Advisory Task Force, coincidentally, there is a member of the group who has had informal discussions with city officials to have his company take over Huron Hills. The representative from the Ann Arbor Golf Association took exception to this situation, and was roundly thrashed (in Midwestern “nice-ese”) for implying that there might be a conflict of interest involved in having someone making decisions about the fate of Huron Hills whose company has had “informal” discussions with staff member Jayne Miller about taking over operations of the course.

I won’t imply it. I’ll say it. The practice of awarding city contracts to those who serve on boards and commissions must be examined closely to rule out conflicts of interest. At the moment, this issue is ignored completely by Council. This practice needs to end.

Eighteen months ago, Council authorized a $300,000 contract for capital improvement projects with Bona & Kolb, as well as Mitchell & Mouat, and two other firms. Bona Chairs the City Planning Commission, and Mouat sits on the board of the Downtown Development Authority. On February 16, 2010, City Council recently amended the original contract to add $100,000 to the contract. The names of the firms appeared nowhere on the Council agenda.

Mitchell & Mouat were contracted to design the FITS, as well. Are we hiring the most competent contractors, and negotiating the contracts in the best interests of taxpayers, or are we giving city works to the political donors, friends and work colleagues of our elected officials? It’s a question that needs to be asked and answered definitively every single time a contract is awarded to the business of someone who serves on a city board or commission.

To whit, that member of the Golf Advisory Task Force should, indeed, resign. He has tremendous expertise to share, and one hopes he would attend all of the meetings as a citizen. Furthermore, as a citizen, he would be free to meet with city staff to pitch his company and his business plan for a public-private development for Huron Hills golf course. As a member of the Task Force, he has no business pitching his company’s services, and city staff have no business listening to his pitches “informally.”

In the meantime, it’s time to start the heavy lifting of questioning the City Administrator, IT Director Dan Rainey and CFO Tom Crawford and have them explain why it costs $4,000 per month per computer supplied by the IT Department, and why a city golf course should be charged $14,000 of the cost of running Mayor Hieftje’s office.

Popularity: 40% [?]

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February 15, 2010

The Politics of Grandstanding: The Three Percent Solution Resolution

Filed under: city council, money, politics — Tags: Budget and Labor Committee, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall, Mayor Hieftje, Mike Anglin, Roger Fraser, Stephen Kunselman, Stephen Postema, Stephen Rapundalo — A2 Politico @ 3:30 pm

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Between 2004 and 2009, Fourth Ward Council member Marcia Higgins, Mayor Hieftje, Fourth Ward Council member Margie Teall, and Second Ward’s Stephen Rapundalo voted, as Chair and members, respectively, of the City Council’s Budget and Labor Committee to give City Administrator Roger Fraser the following salary increases, lump sum payments and cash-outs:

In December 2004, Fraser received a 3 percent raise of his $133,000 salary retroactive to July 2004. ($3,990)

In December 2005, he received a 3 percent raise retroactive to July 2005 and 10 extra vacation days, which can be exchanged for cash. ($4,109)

In February 2007, he received a one-time payment of $8,479, plus a life insurance policy worth twice his salary.

In November 2007, the City Council approved a lump sum payment of $4,361 and five extra vacation days.

In October 2008, the council approved giving Fraser another lump sum payment of $3,634 and the ability to cash out 150 hours of vacation, sick or personal time.

This past November 2009, Fraser’s contract was revised again to include a clause that allows him to cash out an additional 120 hours of paid time off before June 30, 2010.

Since 2004, Council members Higgins and Rapundalo have voted to raise Mr. Fraser’s salary by $8,099 dollars, and given him lump sum payments equal to $16,744 dollars. That’s a total of $24,843 in cash. They then added the option for Mr. Fraser to cash-out 275 hours (6.8 weeks) of paid vacation, sick and personal time, worth over $18,800. In total, then, Mayor Hieftje and Council members Teall, Higgins and Rapundalo voted to give our City Administrator raises, lump sum payments and cash-outs equal to $43,643. This amounts to a 35 percent increase in his initial $133,000 salary. Ironically, this is exactly the same percentage that overhead has grown in our city’s budget since 2006. In my experience, outside of Wall Street, an employee under whose management overhead costs increase by 35 percent ($34 million dollars) does not get rewarded with a pay package increase equal to 35 percent of her/his starting base salary.

Council members Rapundalo and Higgins are now co-sponsoring a resolution that, according to a piece posted to AnnArbor.com, “…asks that the base salary of both Fraser and City Attorney Stephen Postema be reduced by 3 percent, starting July 1. It also asks that the base salaries of all other non-union employees be reduced by 3 percent.” A draft of the resolution also asks that the remaining two council members who did not voluntarily reduce their own pay by three percent this year do so—Fifth Ward’s Mike Anglin, and third Ward’s Stephen Kunselman.

On the surface, their resolution appears sensible and equitable, even responsible. However, upon closer scrutiny it is quite the opposite. It is neither a resolution worth supporting, nor a resolution that treats the city’s 765 employees equitably. The proposed three percent reduction in Mr. Fraser’s salary leaves him with a net 32 percent increase in his pay since 2004. Further the Higgins-Rapundalo resolution links their proposed three percent reduction to the proposal that all of the city’s non-unionized employees to accept a lifetime three percent pay reduction. The Higgins-Rapundalo resolution penalizes the lowest paid city employees and protects pay gains given to the highest paid city employees over the course of the past five years.

Council members Higgins and Rapundalo agreed to a voluntary three percent pay reduction. However, Council members Higgins and Rapundalo would do well to remember that they were caught via FOIAed emails published in a piece in the Ann Arbor News rigging the vote for the three percent pay raise they voted to accept in 2007. Mayor Hieftje and Council would do well to remember that their voluntary pay cut is, in essence, a one-time give back. The give back being asked of current unionized, as well as non-unionized employees is for the rest of their tenure as employees of the City of Ann Arbor.

It’s time to stop political grandstanding that accomplishes little than further angering already demoralized city staff and union members. It’s time to get down to the hard work of rolling back the $34 million dollars in overhead increases that Council members Higgins and Rapundalo allowed to slip past them unquestioned, over the past four years. Council needs to direct the City Administrator and CFO to devise a plan to reduce staffing costs that is truly equitable and reflects a commitment to tie compensation directly to performance and the fiscal health of the City.

The current Higgins-Rapundalo proposed resolution reflects precious little understanding of pay equity, and sends the message that our City Council cares little about the lowest paid city employees, and instead intends to protect tens of thousands of dollars in raises they’ve awarded to those highest paid city managers.

It’s good politics and terribly regressive leadership. In short, once again, it’s business as usual.

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February 4, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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January 26, 2010

The Politics of Cooking the Books: Ann Arbor As A French Restaurant

Filed under: best of A2Politico, money — Tags: A2Politico, Dan Rainey, Leigh Greden, Liz Brater, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall, Mayor Hieftje, Pam Byrnes, Rebekah Warren, Roger Fraser, Stephen Kunselman, Stephen Postema, Stephen Rapundalo, Tom Crawford — A2 Politico @ 2:00 pm

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The city’s General Fund is a train wreck.

Property tax revenues are tumbling down like the walls of Jericho.

Housing prices are falling.

Ok. That last one is true. A2Politico being, well, A2Politico, and having a suspicious, cynical and curious nature, I went to the city’s web site, and took a look at the most recent audited financial statement. It’s a 100+ page document, and the best reading for understanding the overall picture of the city’s financial situation is in the section titled, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis.” During the last City Council races, self-proclaimed “budget expert,” Third Ward’s Leigh Greden (defeated by Stephen Kunselman in August 2009) harped on the fact that the state shared revenue is down, kind of like a wind-up doll.

Hizzoner is also fond of pointing out the woes associated with the city getting less revenue sharing from the state. As we can see from the chart I made, state shared revenues are down. Time to take our state representatives, Pam Byrnes and Rebekah Warren not to mention our state senator, Liz Brater, out back and rough the girls up a bit, maybe break their eyelash curlers.

State shared revenues have fallen by 50 percent since 2002. What’s up with the shared revenues? Well, partially, the state isn’t collecting as much revenue to share. Partially, our state legislators are playing hardball with municipalities and not doling out the same percentage of revenues, but rather holding on to them and using that money to shore up the state’s leaky tub of a budget. We could talk about the fact that the tub is leaking because there are state legislators with gold-plated augers, who went about creating the holes, but let’s stick with Ann Arbor for the time being. Take a look at the chart below. All the information is from CAFR statements posted to the city’s web site:

Year	Property Tax Revenue	State Shared Revenues	Business-type Activities	Total Revenue	Total Expenses	Total Debt Service
2002	58,095,088	21,877,296	46,978,051	155,479,402	135,016,056	1,029,598
2006	62,017,866	12,604,477	73,539,483	176,649,150	144,522,183	1,539,263
2009	69,994,107	11,102,183	68,882,686	190,244,281	184,811,290	3,229,523

You’ll note that between 2002 and 2009 property tax revenues rose. Now, look right to the “Business-type activites” column. First, you’re thinking, “what the hell are ‘business type activities’ that bring revenue to the city?” Good question, I’m glad you asked. Try to keep the swearing to a minimum. Those activities include: water, sewer, parking, Farmer’s Market, golf courses, airport, stormwater management. and solid waste (i.e. trash and recycling) removal.

On the Mayor’s website he croons: “At the root of my work as mayor is the desire to protect and improve the quality of life in my hometown. This includes holding down the city portion of taxes to make life here more affordable while at the same time delivering services as efficiently as possible.” I don’t know what kind of “root” he’s referring to, but I think it might be something like Devil’s Claw.

Now, if you’re a clever one, and I think you are, you’ll understand how the Mayor, that Demublican teller of half-truths, can claim on his web site, in his campaign literature and speeches to have “held down the city portion of taxes.” Anyone? Anyone? You, in the back? Mayor and Council have voted to raise the cost of those “business-type activities” provided to taxpayers by 65 percent since 2002. Con artists call it the Old Shell Game. Mayor Hieftje calls it, “holding down the city portion of taxes” to make Ann Arbor more affordable. Right. Here’s another fairy tale for you: Santa Claus is a jolly old fat man who lives at the North Poll with Mrs. C., Rudolph, and the elves.

Now, those of you who are on a tight budget, perhaps, Krogering more often than you used to, and bypassing Plum Market and Whole Foods, look at the total expenses line. As revenues rose, expenses rose, as well, despite the drop in state revenue sharing. In other words, those in charge of the city’s budget, City Administrator Roger Fraser, City CFO Tom Crawford, not to mention Mayor and City Council who are supposed to oversee the work of city staff, went merrily along and lived large, larger and, by 2009, largest. In other words, the more revenues that could be squeezed out of taxpayers through back-door taxation (raising the rates for those business-type activities), the more Mayor and Council allowed city staff to spend.

It’s really that simple. In business terms, under the current Mayor and City Council’s direction, they allowed the city staff to take the city backwards financially, to raise revenues significantly, and to spend, spend, spend.

Now, let’s throw in the debt service, which has more than tripled, since 2002. It’s clear that by allowing expenses to rise at the same pace as revenues, (referred to as “spending every dime you earn and then some,”) our city had no real money to make debt payments out of revenues.

What would you do at your house? Would you build an underground parking garage and incur more debt? Would you build a new city hall and incur more debt? Would you rein in expenses related to running government, and defer non-essential capital improvements?

What’s the answer? First off, anyone who has ever touched a checkbook knows that it’s neigh on fiduciary negligence that no one on the Council Budget and Labor Committee over the past five years (Ward Four’s Marcia Higgins, and Margie Teall, Mayor Hieftje, and Stephen Rapundalo), ever bothered to bring to Council the issue of the unsustainable yearly rises in spending.

Instead, city staff were allowed by the City Council Budget Committee’s inattention or sheer ignorance, to bring budget proposals to Council to cut high profile programs and services, such as human services funding, Mack Pool and the Burns Park Senior Center. Meanwhile, the cost of running city government was raging out of control. Now we have the proposal to sell parkland. City income tax or sell parkland? Burn to death or freeze to death? Those are always the only options given Ann Arbor taxpayers.

All of this leads us to Grandpa. He’s on life support. On January 25, 2010, financial services staff presented Council with a document that outlines pulling the plug on Grandpa. To pay the bills they’ve been allowed to run up, city staff have come up with the brilliant idea that we can sell our parkland. No matter that it’s the worst possible time to sell land since the Great Depression. We need to the money, Daddy. You’ll be terrified to know that in the meantime, A2P hears Hizzoner is all over town glad-handing, telling would-be voters that ”At the root of his work as mayor is the desire to protect and improve the quality of life in my hometown. This includes holding down the city portion of taxes to make life here more affordable while at the same time delivering services as efficiently as possible.”

If the chart above should make anything clear, it’s that for the past ten years John Hieftje and City Council members have kicked back, collected paychecks, and let city staff spend every dime they could squeeze out of the city’s overburdened taxpayers. Do we want to live in a city where citizen services are provided like side dishes in a French restaurant?

Are you prepared to hear the following:

“You want solid waste service? Zat is extra, mon petite tax vache.”

City services in Ann Arbor, a city with some of the highest per capita property taxes in the state, are slowly becoming ala carte items on the bureaucrats’ menu.

Unless we get a new head chef, and send John Hiefje packing, we can look forward to being pitched a city income tax along with the sale of parkland. Here’s a better pitch. We need to elect a mayor and council who will make the financial services staff put together a scenario that reduces city operating expenses by 20 percent without a single cut to city services.

Can you hear the screaming? That’s Roger Fraser— upon learning his car allowance has been eliminated and his salary reduced by 10 percent, and IT Director Dan Rainey upon learning that his $ 7 million dollar IT budget has been reduced by 30 percent. We can’t hear City Attorney Stephen Postema’s screaming. His $2.5 million dollar department was outsourced.

Popularity: 44% [?]

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

January 26, 2010

The Politics of Cooking the Books: Ann Arbor As A French Restaurant

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