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.

Popularity: 13% [?]

March 26, 2010

The Politics of The Party Line: Out With The Old. In With The True.

Filed under: Mayor Hieftje, city council, city services, money, parks, police, taxes — Tags: , , , , — A2 Politico @ 8:12 am
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Be prepared to hear this mantra from certain candidates over the next four months: “We [the city of Ann Arbor] have lost millions of dollars in revenue due to state cuts, the university’s purchase of the Pfizer facility, and massive local property devaluations. As a result, the city must reduce services.” 

As I wrote on January 26, 2010, in “The Politics of Cooking the Books: Ann Arbor as a French Restaurant,” Third Ward Council member Leigh Greden ran his unsuccessful re-election campaign based on the premise presented above. Without talking about the actual numbers, though, it’s easy to hear that explanation of why “the city must reduce services,” and simply accept the inevitable: paying more and getting less is just what happens when Pfizer up and closes, and the city loses “millions of dollars in revenue due to state cuts.”

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. However, overall city revenues are up, up, up. 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 are ‘business type activities’ that bring revenue to the city?” Good question, I’m glad you asked. Those activities include: water, sewer, parking, Farmer’s Market, golf courses, airport, stormwater management. and solid waste (i.e. trash and recycling) removal. 

As I wrote in the January 26th entry: 

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? 

Voters have a choice this election season, and it’s a simple one: voters can choose to elect candidates with the education, decades of real-world experience in financial management, and the skills to rein in spending, reduce debt and the back-bone to ask staff to budget so that services are funded first, or accept the political fairytale that the Stadium Bridges were allowed to deteriorate and fall down because Pfizer moved, and the State of Michigan gave Ann Arbor $1.5 million dollars less in revenue sharing between 2006 and 2009. 

Our elected leaders are choosing to reduce services at the urging of city staff, as opposed to urging city staff to rein in spending on the cost of operating our city government. In just 4 years, operating expenses in our city rose by $34 million dollars, or 35 percent. At a recent neighborhood gathering, I asked if anyone owned a business, and one woman raised her hand. I asked her what would happen to a business whose overhead rose 5 percent in one year. The woman, a long-time owner of a downtown landmark eatery, replied that such a rise would be cause for immediate action. I then asked what would happen to a business whose overhead rose 35 percent in four years. She answered without hesitation: the business would be at significant risk of going under. 

In this election season, we’re going to hear that our city is facing a crisis, that Ann Arbor stands at the edge of a precipice into which many cities in our state have fallen. Our city is facing a crisis, a fiscal and management crisis created over the past decade by elected officials who neglected to apply even the most basic fiscal controls, or adhere to even most basic principals of sound management as they went about shaping policies and spending the billions in tax revenues generated by charging us some of the highest per capita property taxes in our state, then by hiking our fees for services such as solid waste, sewer and water. Ann Arbor isn’t experiencing serial budget “gaps” because we’ve lost less than 1 percent from our annual revenues from reduced state profit sharing, or even because Pfizer left town and took its tax revenues with it. 

What’s the real reason our “city must reduce services?” Quite simply, our elected officials have not fulfilled the single most important task charged them by our city’s Charter: they have not held the City Administrator Roger Fraser accountable. Instead, at the urging of a small group consisting of the Mayor and four Council members, year-after-year they voted to reward our City Administrator with generous salary and benefit increases even as he allowed overhead costs to skyrocket out of control. Between 2004 and 2009, Roger Fraser was given a total 35 percent increase in his compensation package. In 2009, the City Administrator was rewarded with the option of cashing out 150 hours of vacation time worth around $7,500. Mayor and Council have rewarded our City Administrator as if the name of our town were AIG instead of Ann Arbor. Now, they are choosing to bridge budget “gaps” by “reducing” city services and rationalizing the cuts as necessity born of a “revenue shortage.”

I’m sure we’ll hear some candidates this election season tell us Ann Arbor is at the edge of a precipice, and that politicos with “experience” can keep Ann Arbor from falling over the edge like Flint, Troy, Kalamazoo and (the perennial scare-fest favorite) Detroit. Audited financial statements linked to above show quite clearly to those with the skill to read and understand them that Ann Arbor is not at the edge of a precipice, but rather that our city has more than enough money to fund services—more than enough money to support our parks, pools, and senior centers, and fill our numerous potholes. Ann Arbor has more than enough money to provide citizens with the services which we should be able to expect in exchange for the taxes we are asked to pay.

Our city is not at the edge of a precipice; we’re at the end of an era. Come August we’ll have a chance to vote to end out-of-control staff spending that has gone virtually unquestioned and unmonitored by Mayor and Council. We’ll have an opportunity to begin a new era in which Mayor and Council perform the single most important and the most basic task the Charter requires them to do: hold the City Administrator accountable for the performance of his job as the chief executive of our town. 

Popularity: 47% [?]

February 18, 2010

The Politics of Parks: Spin, Subsidies and Mulligans

Filed under: money, parks — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — 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% [?]

February 14, 2010

The Politics of Assumptions: Maybe Money Does Grow On Trees

Filed under: city services, developers, money, police — Tags: , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 6:11 pm
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I was never a fan of the new Police/Court facility. I thought it unwise to spend $47 million dollars in the midst of an economic meltdown rather than to renovate the old facility, and find new leased facilities for the 15th District Court (who, it was claimed, had to move from their space leased from the County). I toured the police facilities in 2008, and was appalled at the condition of the space in which the police were expected to work. Why hadn’t their space been renovated years ago? Why couldn’t city officials just find another rented space for the judges? For that matter, why couldn’t they re-up the lease on the current space occupied by the 15th District Court?

There is ongoing debate about whether County officials were willing to allow the 15th District Court to remain in its rented digs. There are Council members who swear that there was an opportunity to extend the $750,000 per year lease. There are others who swear that the lease simply could not be extended and that to have done so would have been a waste of money.

All of that is moot now. 

The bottom line is that we are building a new 103,000 square foot Police-Court facility.

Now we’ll take a commercial break for a short review: 

June 2008: Council approves bonds to build 103,000 square foot Police-Court facility. Public is assured by Mayor, staff, and Council members that the construction project will not impact city budget or services. Project is presented as fully funded.

May 2009: City Administrator, City CFO and City Council Budget and Labor Committee (Greden, Teall, Higgins, Hieftje, Rapundalo) present 2009 budget to Council for its approval. Budget projects a structural deficit, and 1-3 percent declines in revenues “for the foreseeable future.”

July 2009: As a necessity to balance the budget, 25 police officers retire early at a cost of $6 million dollars to taxpayers.

February 2010: CFO Tom Crawford tells AnnArbor.com that, “The premise of this thing [the Police-Court building] was we needed to build this within the resources we had. Now we’ve got less resources coming to the city than we had then, but we didn’t know that.”

In a February 14, 2010 piece about the Police-Court building project by AnnArbor.com’s Ryan Stanton, the City Administrator is quoted thusly:

“Fraser acknowledged the project budget is dependent on $3 million from the sale of city property at First and Washington – a deal that has stalled because the developer, Village Green, has had trouble coming up with financing. Fraser said the city continues to operate under the assumption that the sale eventually will happen.”

Then, we have the City’s CFO who, in June of 2008, allegedly had no idea the economy was tanking. In his February 2010 piece, Stanton quotes CFO Tom Crawford as explaining that, “The premise of this thing was we needed to build this within the resources we had. Now we’ve got less resources coming to the city than we had then, but we didn’t know that.”

To the extent that his explanation can be understood, I find it incredible that he would fall back on “We didn’t know that.” The 2009 budget had a statement on page 2 of the Administrator’s Budget Message that says, “Despite efforts to contain and reduce expenses, the city is still facing a structural deficit. For the foreseeable future, we will continue to experience 1-3% revenue shortfalls.” That Budget Message is dated July 2, 2008. Of course our City’s CFO and Administrator knew the city would have less money coming in. The two of them projected decreased revenues in the budget they worked to prepare months before Council voted to issue the bonds to build the Police-Court facility. 

In February of 2009, according to a piece posted to the AnnArborChronicle.com, during a City Council meeting, Fifth Ward Council member Carsten Hohnke asked CFO Crawford this question: “Will the funding of the building come from a reduction in services? Crawford’s Answer: Over the last five years, the city has become more efficient and the building’s funding comes from savings through efficiency, and through debt services with existing cash flow.”

Audited financial statements from the City’s web site show that between 2006 and 2009, the cost of running city government increased by 35 percent, or $34 million dollars. The city had not become “more efficient,” as Crawford claimed, and the Police-Court building’s funding was coming from savings accumulated from service cuts and hikes in fees rather than efficiency. Between 2004-2009, for example, funding for culture and recreation fell from $10 million per year to $5 million per year. The cost to provide solid waste services rose 40 percent.

The construction project remains, in essence, $3 million dollars short until that First and Washington parcel sells. That’s about 6.5 percent of the $47.4 million dollar total price tag. So what’s the plan to replace the $3 million should the sale not ”eventually happen?” ”Value engineering” is a slick term for cutting construction expenses on the fly. Is there a plan to replace the $3 million that really has no impact on the city budget or services? If there’s not, there should be.

In addition, there are some hard questions that need to be asked about how financial information about this project was presented to Council and taxpayers. Why? First of all, Mayor and Council are legally obligated by the City Charter to hold the City Administrator accountable in the performance of his job. In addition, the next time we undertake a large capital project, and city staff make assurances to Council and taxpayers that the project won’t impact services, those assurances need to be absolutely true and backed up by accurate financial data. Lastly, to have the city’s CFO claim in the Press in 2010 that, in essence, he didn’t know the City would be bringing in less revenue is simply shocking. He presented a budget in July of 2009 that projected reduced revenues. His 2010 comment brings up some disturbing questions about the quality of the financial data prepared and presented by the CFO to Council and the public.

What our city staff need to focus on is a $3.3 million dollar “value engineering” plan that has a drop dead date by which the plan will be implemented. To simply plow ahead and spend money that we don’t have under the “assumption” that a parcel of land appraised for $3 million dollars 18 months ago will sell, is yet another emergency “budget shortfall” waiting to happen. Furthermore, it’s folly to imagine that the parcel is still worth $3 million dollars.

While we can’t get back the $47 million dollars budgeted for this project. We can “value engineer” the project down by $3.3 million dollars, so that if the First and Washington parcel doesn’t sell, or doesn’t sell for $3 million dollars, our city services won’t be impacted by any shortfall. We can also take away from this experience the clear understanding that city staff must be held to much higher standards, and be expected to present financial data that are absolutely accurate. Otherwise, Council members and taxpayers can’t make informed decisions about how best to spend the money we have, or the money we borrow.

Popularity: 31% [?]

February 4, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Popularity: 30% [?]

February 2, 2010

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

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Jennifer Santi Hall was never convinced Ann Arbor needed an underground parking garage and more parking. As a board member of the current Downtown Development Authority, her opinion is akin to heresy. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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


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


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

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

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

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

 

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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


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


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


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


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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

 

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


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

 

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

Popularity: 37% [?]

January 26, 2010

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

Filed under: best of A2Politico, money — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — 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% [?]

January 5, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

SUPPORT YOUR DOWNTOWN SAUSALITO BUSINESSES !!!

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

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

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

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

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

Popularity: 22% [?]

December 12, 2009

The Politics of Pay Cuts: Flat Rate or Graduated?

Filed under: Mayor Hieftje, city council, fire, police, taxes — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 2:55 pm
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Mayor Hieftje is getting warmer. As he feels his way like a political blind man toward reigning in spending at City Hall, he recently suggested an “across the board three percent pay cut” for all non-unionized employees. That’s about 190 people, and an across the board three percent pay cut would save $1.5 million dollars per year. It sounds fair. Everyone who’s a non-unionzed employee sacrifices 3 percent of a pound of flesh to the God of Capital Projects. You see, if Hieftje had vetoed the Temple to the Three 15th District Judicial Dieties (the so-called Police-Court facility) as he threatened to in March of 2007 (read about how council members “blackmailed” Hieftje into withholding his veto here), we’d have $1.5 million dollars less to pay in bond payments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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December 9, 2009

The Politics of Thuggery: City Administrator Negotiates With Firefighters’ Union Like Don Vito Corleone

Filed under: city council, fire, politics — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — A2 Politico @ 10:31 am
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“I’m gonna make him an offer he won’t refuse. Okay?”—Don Vito Corleone, “The Godfather,” 1972.

City Administrator Roger Fraser’s rattling war display was the December 5th City Council budget retreat. Technically, it was not a retreat, but rather an extended meeting of the Council’s Budget and Labor Committee. At the meeting, Mr. Fraser handed the 10 elected City Council members and Mayor Hieftje a menu of items from which to choose in order to cut $3 million dollars from the city’s budget in the next 30 days. Evidently, our elected officials thought they were in a four star  French restaurant, because no one batted an eyelash at the menu that didn’t have prices affixed to all of the items (only to the items which Mr. Fraser would like to see cut). Furthermore, only Third Ward Council member Steve Kunselman was gauche enough to try to order off the menu and suggest that some of the money from the economic development wet kiss giveaway to Google be taken back and redistributed. After all, Kunselman pointed out, Google has not come through with the 1,000 jobs promised, and nonetheless the company is still being given the economic development money from the city’s coffers.

As if Sergey Brin needs the corporate welfare. Google’s co-founder is the 26th richest person in the world. I’m sure he would never have missed Kunselman’s suggested $1 million dollar take-back.

Nonetheless, Ann Arbor’s Chief Financial Officer, Tom Crawford, called Kunselman’s suggestion a bad idea, then quickly changed the subject to whether Tiger Woods had really been beaten with his own 3-iron. Mayor Hieftje moved the meeting along at a brisk pace that left no room for Council members to ask many questions or even speak. A public meeting about the city’s faltering budget, after all, is the last place where Council members might want to speak. They can always email or phone each other later. Maybe they use iChat. Or maybe they can just do what Roger Fraser tells them to do because, after all, it’s still 1954 and Father Knows Best. 

One topic brought up at the retreat-a-palooza was what to do about those bad boys & girls of A2—the firefighters. Since water boarding the lot of them isn’t an option yet (Fraser’s equipment is on back-order), he recommended to Council to immediately lay-off 14 of the city’s firefighters. As I wrote in a Whisper posted on December 7th, those cuts pose a potential threat to life and property, according to former Ann Arbor Fire Chief Sam Hopkins. Hopkins told city officials in April 2009 that to axe any more firefighters would be to take our fire services below a level that Hopkins deemed capable of protecting life and property.

Fraser told Council those unionized brats have not been cooperating at the bargaining table, so what remains is the nuclear option, layoffs. Alas, I trust the President of Pakistan with the nuclear option more than I trust Roger Fraser. Here’s why.

The same day I posted the Whisper referred to above, AnnArbor.com kindly loaned their site to Fraser to propagandize about why the firefighters would have to be let go. Reporter Ryan Stanton writes: “Raising his voice several times, Fraser spoke bluntly and criticized the union’s leadership for refusing to realize the need for change in light of the current financial crisis facing the city.”  The city’s hired hand then went on to tell the 11 people elected to oversee his work and represent the best interests of the taxpayers and citizens that, they (Council and Mayor) were being ….”naive if they…[put] off tough decisions about public safety.”

Naive is one word for balking at Fraser’s crazy advice. “Judicious” and “prudent” are a couple of synonyms I think work better. Know why?

‘Cause as usual, there’s a twist to this fractured fairytale from our City Administrator: The City Council’s Budget and Labor Committee, the committee tasked with the oversight of Roger Fraser and contract employees (lawyers) who negotiate contracts with our city’s unionized employees (i.e. the firefighters), hasn’t met in weeks. Maybe without the late-great spinmeister Leigh Greden and Fourth Ward’s Marvelous Margie Teall, the other members of the B & L Committee (Fourth Ward Council member Marcia Higgins, Mayor Hieftje and Stephen Rapundalo) just don’t have the will to oversee the budget or the City Administrator and his negotiations with the firefighters’ union. The new members recently appointed to the Budget and Labor Committee, First Ward’s Sabra Briere and Fifth Ward’s Mike Anglin, are eager to meet, I’ve heard. In reality, the responsibility lies with Mayor Hieftje and with the Chair of Budget and Labor Committee, Marcia Higgins. Higgins is shirking her role as Chair of the committee. It’s her responsibility to call regular meetings so Council can be apprised of the negotiations with the firefighters’ union.

Let me flesh out a not-so-far-fetched theory: This past summer, the Ann Arbor Firefighters’ PAC stiffed Higgins in her run for Council. The last time she ran opposed, the PAC donated 40 percent of her campaign funding, over $2,000. The PAC also stiffed Higgins’s BFF Leigh Greden, during his primary bid in August, after donating a cool $1,000 to his 2007 campaign. Could Marcia Higgins have played a game of political retaliation with the firefighters and put payback ahead of the safety of Ann Arbor’s citizens? Did the Chair of the B & L Committee hang the firefighters out to dry because they didn’t give her money when she ran for Council this past November?

Without oversight, Roger Fraser is free to treat the firefighter’s union to negotiating tactics Don Vito Corleone would love. The City Administrator, who has had a raise every year for the past three, and who sweely volunteered to freeze (not cut) his own pay just this year, offered our firefighters a 25 percent pay cut. Sit quietly for a moment and imagine what you would do if you got “offered” a 25 percent pay cut. Then, Roger Fraser offered them another treat: that they should pay for more of their health insurance premiums.

Why not just deliver severed horse heads to all the fire stations around town?

“Fuck” is an acronym. It’s short for “Fornication Under Consent of the King.” That’s exactly what’s happening to our city’s firefighters. The City Council’s Budget and Labor Committee members represent the King, and by not holding meetings (or in the case of Anglin and Briere by not demanding that meetings be called regularly), they have given their tacit consent to Roger Fraser to F.U.C.K. the people who drive the trucks that begin with F and end with K—not to mention the people who live in the city and rely on emergency services.

A council member at the meeting suggested making cuts in the city’s IT department’s budget. CFO Tom Crawford thought that was a bad idea, too. After all, the IT department has recently won an award. Then, Crawford quickly changed the subject to whether Tiger Woods had really been beaten with his own putter.

The inmates, my fellow A2 politicos are running the asylum. Roger Fraser is being allowed to negotiate with our firefighters’ union in bad faith. The firefighters want buy-outs like the police got. They shouldn’t get them. The Police officers shouldn’t have gotten them. Buy-outs pay employees more not to work. Our city can’t afford to do that.

It’s time for us to force our Council members to stop rubber-stamping and start serving the public. It’s time for them all to quit with the resolutions that are little more than fauxgressive horse manure (Council member Rapundalo’s “plastic bag ordinance” comes to immediately to mind), study the budget as if their lives depended on it (and all of our lives do, really), and serve up Roger Fraser with a different list of items to cut to save $3 million dollars. If some of them, as I suspect, can’t read or understand the city’s budget (Mayor Hieftje, Teall and Higgins relied on Leigh Greden to do that for them), I’ll bet Council member Steve Kunselman would be delighted do a tutorial. 

As for the negotiations with the firefighters’ union, Council members who continue to allow our City Administrator to negotiate like a mafia don must realize it makes the lot of our elected officials look as if they approve of thuggery as a method of management and negotiation.

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