by P.D. Lesko

Dan Rainey, the City of Ann Arbor’s IT Director, raked in a six-figure salary as one of the highest paid employees in the city. Now, he’s off to work for former Ann Arbor Director of Public Services, Sue McCormick. Shortly after former City Administrator Roger Fraser took his pension and decamped for a six-figure job with the State of Michigan, McCormick decamped with her pension for a six-figure job with the City of Detroit. Former Ann Arbor Police Chief Barnett Jones “retired” with his pension to a six-figure job as the Police Chief of Flint and a six-figure job with Sue McCormick at the Detroit Water and Sewage Department leading the office of (seriously) Integrity and Security. That bit of double-dipping resulted in front page headlines in the Detroit newspapers. After the scandal broke, the Michigan Department of Treasury, where Roger Fraser works (Fraser recommended Jones for the Flint job to that city’s Emergency Financial Manager), inserted language in future EFM contracts that says “emergency financial manager appointees can not engage in other employment, unless approved by the EFM.”

As it turns out, Dan Rainey will fit right in with McCormick and Jones at the Detroit Water and Sewage Department. Ann Arbor’s most recent audit  revealed that while Rainey’s Department had $150,000 dollars allocated to projects such creating and implementing a disaster recovery plan, in the event that the city’s computer data were lost, no such plan had ever been created or implemented. The IT Director sat on the allocated $150,000 for over two years, according to the city’s March 2013 Revenue Budget Performance report. In fact, a list of special projects were funded, including money for contracted services, but never completed under Rainey’s tenure:

Jury Management System ($5,000 allocated)

Disk Array/Disaster Recovery ($150,000 allocated)

Project Management Business Improvements ($17,000 allocated)

Barton Canoe Livery Asset Management System ($25,000 allocated)

Kiosks ($55,000 allocated)

Tax Assessing Software Upgrade ($20,000 allocated)

Then, there are the contingency funds. Under Rainey, the IT Department sat on hundreds of thousands of dollars in “just in case we want to spend it money.” This money includes a $65,000 contingency fund for software purchases, a $60,000 contingency fund for “business intelligence,” and a $50,000 contingency fund for “intrusion prevention.” This bit of mad money is particularly amusing given the fact that the 2012 audit dinged Rainey and his department for not requiring computer passwords to be changed regularly, and for neglecting to set up computers so that screens lock when employees leave their work stations. The IT Department’s budget includes $75,000 in contingency funds for a Water Data Mart project that wasn’t done.

In 2009, Rainey, ever the generous ITsar came to the attention of A2Politico when he “volunteered” taxpayer-funded IT services to his professional association which needed it website redesigned, a project that can cost a company anywhere from $20,000-$100,000. In 2009, A2Politico posted this piece:

Looking though the City’s web site where recruitment listings are posted, evidently, has the draw of a great garage sale to some people. You never know when you’re going to find something fascinating. According to someone who regularly enjoys a good rummage through the City’s online resources, on August 28th, the City of Ann Arbor posted a job for an unpaid intern to work on the redevelopment and launch of a new web site. The unpaid intern would report directly to the City of Ann Arbor’s Chief Information Officer and IT Director Dan Rainey.

No news scoop there. Unpaid internships are de riguer in this economic climate. Heck, AnnArbor.com relies on loads of unpaid “contributors” to produce their editorial content. Unpaid workers are in, Sweetie.

Back to the City’s unpaid internship. The job advertisement begins innocently enough:

“The City of Ann Arbor is committed to providing excellent municipal services that enhance the quality of life for all through the intelligent use of resources while valuing an open environment that fosters fair, sensitive, and respectful treatment of all employees and the community served.”

So far so good. Then the intelligent use of resources hits the fan, as it were.

The August 28th job description continues: ”We currently have a great opportunity for an Information Technology Intern for fall semester 2009. This is an unpaid internship.The primary project will involve redevelopment and launch of a new website for the Metropolitan Information Exchange (MIX) organization (www.mixnet.org), a national group of public sector Chief Information Officers. Reporting directly to the City of Ann Arbor’s CIO, You will be given lots of support and direction with this highly visible project. This is a great way for you to showcase your talents and get some great exposure to various public and private sector organizations.”

Ann Arbor’s CIO Dan Rainey, who oversees an IT department that is budgeted to cost taxpayers $7.4  million dollars in 2009, is seeking to hire an intern to redevelop a web site for the Metropolitan Information Exchange. There are several obvious problems with Rainey’s scheme, not the least among which is that employing an IT intern under the auspices of the City of Ann Arbor to do work wholly unrelated to the city’s IT needs amounts to cheating the taxpayers. The intern will use city resources (office, computer, software, phone, office supplies, etc….) to do the work and CIO Rainey, who earns $160,000 in salary and benefits, will supervise the intern’s work on behalf of MIX.

After A2Politico revealed the CIO’s scheme to “donate” IT services to MIX, the announcement for the internship was quietly removed from the city’s website.

Then, there’s the IT Fund. Certain city departments and even millage funds are being assessed proportionally higher IT Fund charges, specifically the city’s Park Maintenance & Capital Improvement Millage Fund, the Parks & Rec Department, the AAPD and the AAFD.

In 2012 Argo Canoe Livery paid $10,320 to temp. workers, employees who rent canoes, sell concessions, teach summer camp classes, and tend to the equipment. That same year, Argo livery was charged $12,041 by the IT Fund. Gallup Canoe Livery was charged the same amount by the IT Fund. The Ann Arbor Senior Center, threatened with closure for the want of operating funds, was assessed $18,825 for the IT Fund, or 10 percent of the Senior Center’s $188,000 annual expenses. The Field Operations Department oversees Parks Operations, which spent $180,360 in 2012. Of that amount, $57,713 was turned over to the IT Fund, 33 percent of the total. According to comprehensive  budget documents posted to the city’s website, in 2012 taxpayers spent $12,129 for chemicals and $14,716 for water for Fuller Pool. Fuller Pool pool was also assessed $11,700 for Rainey’s IT Fund. Mack Pool paid $18,814 for electricity and was soaked $17,391 for the IT Fund. The Leslie Golf Course spent $12,639 on water, $26,502 on retiree medical insurance and was chipped for $36,824 for the IT Fund. Huron Hills Golf Course was assessed a whopping $60,000 for the IT Fund in 2012.

The Park Maintenance & Capital Improvement Millage Fund, which raises about $5 million dollars per year from taxpayers, is paying high IT Fund assessments, as well. In 2012, the Maintenance & Capital Improvement Millage Fund was assessed over $167,000 for the IT Fund. The Open Space & Parks Acquisition Millage was assessed $10,412 for the IT Fund, but the Natural Area Preservation program was charged $67,959 for the IT Fund, 25 percent of NAP’s $268,069 expenditures. Neither the Street Repair Millage Fund nor the Art in Public Places Millage Fund paid anything into the IT Fund in 2012.

Like the parks millage, the Parks Department is expected to pay a relatively high IT Fund assessment in 2013, $179,000. Conversely, the City Attorney’s Office is budgeted to pay $152,800 to the IT Fund and the Solid Waste Department is budgeted to pay $143,000 to the IT Fund, respectively, in 2013.

The Downtown Development Authority, on the other hand, is budgeted to pay no IT Fund assessment in 2013 and paid none in 2012.

Like the city’s parks, preservation and open space programs, safety services are assessed significantly higher IT Fund charges than other departments. Ann Arbor employs 124 police officers. The Police Department paid $1.32 million dollars to the IT Fund in 2012, $100,000 more than the AAPD is projected to pay to fund retiree medical insurance in 2013 and $300,000 more than the AAPD is projected to spend in 2013 on medical insurance for its active patrol officers. The Ann Arbor Fire Department, with 90 officers, was assessed $338,000 for the IT Fund, or triple what is budgeted for maintaining and repairing the city’s firetrucks in 2013.

What can be done? A Council member suggested that it’s time to “go after fund balances” such as the “contingent” money that sits in the IT Department’s budget and other city funds. Stephen Lange Ranzini is the president of a local bank and, for the past 12 months has been vocal in his support of emptying what he calls the city’s “buckets.” In December 2012 Ranzini wrote this in response to a piece about budgeting by city officials: “Some (city) funds are overstuffed with cash (for example the 1% for art fund), overall the city has over $100 million of cash trapped in various buckets not restricted by millage or the source of the funds but “restricted” *only* by vote of city council, while the mayor and city manager assert that the general fund *only* has $15 million in cash and therefore doesn’t have enough funds to properly staff the fire fighters and to keep all five fire stations open. Overall the city’s many funding buckets earned over $30 million last year, but we have “no money” to find basic priorities like fire, police and roads! Drain the buckets!”

by P. D. Lesko

The City of Ann Arbor cut the collection of Christmas trees to save $34,000—a move that has led to Christmas tree dumping in parks and even in the Huron River. The city also stopped leaf collection to save $280,000. In 2011, A2Politico wrote about the fact that city managers were pushing service cuts while compensating themselves with millions from the city’s General Fund for car allowances, cell phones, expensive meals out and travel to luxury resorts, such as various spas, as well as the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. In that 2011 piece, Third Ward Councilmember  Stephen Kunselman commented that the issue of whether city staff should enjoy such a wide variety of perks costing taxpayers millions has already been addressed. He commented via email on the issue of perks for city staff members in light of cuts to police, fire and other citizen services: “I have been under the impression that these issues have been addressed where needed; if they haven’t then they will be if there is any impropriety.”

A search of the Council minutes back through 2008 revealed no resolutions by any City Council member related to the issue of staffer perks such as meals out, stays as luxury resorts and spas, car allowances to staffers with desk jobs, or the cell phone spending. In response to questions about the cell phone allowances paid out between 2009 and 2012, Kunselman did not respond to a request for comment.

The fact is that there have been improprieties. The city’s auditor has repeatedly caught Ann Arbor’s CFO Tom Crawford (total cell phone allowance $6,528) sleeping on the job. In 2006 and again in 2010 the auditor cited Crawford’s department for sloppy controls over city-provided credit cards. The auditor randomly sampled charges paid, and found that 25 percent of the time there was no documentation. In 2013, the city’s new auditor found that employee expenses were being paid without documentation, and that city employees with car allowances were also being reimbursed for mileage (double-dipping). It was revealed that City Attorney Stephen Postema (total cell phone allowance $5,712) was among those bilking taxpayers. In a 2013 letter, Crawford assured auditors that “controls” had been put in place to keep double-dippers from repeating their scams. However, years earlier the city’s auditor had caught then City Administrator Roger Fraser misusing his city-issued credit card and charging the city for mileage while receiving a $400 monthly car allowance.

Fifth Ward Council member Mike Anglin is running for re-election. He had this to say in response to A2Politico’s questions about the cell phone perk: “As Ann Arbor moves towards spending reductions, all items of the budget need to be examined as to their benefits. A guide in this direction would be a commitment to providing services to the tapayers. Spending that does not meet this criterion needs to be examined and discussed through the Budget Committee, and City Council at large. As a member of the Budget Committee I will bring these issues before the City’s CFO so that other Council members can be aware of them and take needed actions. Savings to the Budget will allow for increase in services to the community.”

Anglin’s newly-elected Ward 5 colleague responded quite differently. Chuck Warpehoski wrote in an email: “According to the City Administrator, the City does have a cell phone and pager policy. I believe that there are valid reasons for some City employees to have cell phones, and I believe that the Section Area Administrators are better positioned to evaluate a particular employee’s need for a cell phone than is Council.”

It’s 2013 and despite continued cuts to services, cuts to police and fire, and hikes in fees for parking, parking fines, water, sewer, solid waste and city programs, cell phone allowances for city staffers, many of whom have desk jobs, continue to be paid out. In fact, between 2009 and 2012, the amount paid annually for cell phone allowances almost doubled. According to data provided by city officials in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from A2Politico, between 2009 and 2012, Ann Arbor taxpayers forked over $683,352 to city employees for cell phone allowances alone. According to city records, 196 of the city’s 709 full-time employees receive a monthly cell phone allowance. To view a list of city employees who received cell phone and car allowances between 2009 and 2012, click here. The monthly allowance, however, is only the beginning. The city’s six monthly cell phone bills run 200 pages, and include charges for data, texting, calling packages and any overages incurred.

Verizon currently charges $40 per month for 700 minutes of calling, with texting and data extra. Texting and data plans cost between $70-$100 per month, depending on the number of texts sent and the amount of data transferred (uploaded and downloaded). Thus, each city-owned cell phone could be costing in excess of $1,680 per year in addition to the phone allowances. What this means is that taxpayers could be paying, in addition to the $218,702 in phone allowances paid out on 2012, an additional $329,280 in calling, texting and data charges. Conservative estimates would, then, put the total amount spent on city-owned cell phones given to staffers in 2012 alone between $420,000 and $520,000 per year.

Newly-elected Ward 2 Council member Sally Hart Petersen, who ran a campaign for office that stressed her business background, as well as her desire to push fiscal responsibility, thinks paying for cell phones and pagers “reasonable.” She wrote in response to an email asking where she stands on the issue: “The city does have a 9-page policy regarding city-issued cell phones and pagers. Generally, employees who must be available 24/7, or those who must be away from their office to perform their jobs (such as Park and Rec employees) are issued phones or pagers. I assume that employees who must be available 24/7 include senior and middle management. This is reasonable to me.”

Petersen’s Ward 2 colleague Jane Lumm, an Independent, whose popularity is enormous thanks to her consistent and outspoken support of fiscal responsibility and funding citizen services, when told of the amount being spent on cell phone allowances, texting, data and calling plans sighed deeply and said, “Seriously? You’re joking, right? That’s ridiculous!”

The $420,000 to $520,000 paid out of the General Fund for the cell phone perk corresponds to a significant portion of the $2.4 million dollar 2009 budget deficit Ann Arbor CFO Tom Crawford used to justify service cuts and fee hikes built into the budget he’d prepared along with then City Administrator Roger Fraser. In fact, in 2010 Fraser recommended eliminating 14 firefighter positions to save the city $400,000.

When A2Politico asked City Administrator Steve Powers via email whether it was his opinion “that increased spending on cell phone allowances and other cell phone costs and car allowances for city staffers is an expense that should be continued?” He replied that, in essence, the cell phone allowance policy and implementation had little to do with him. He wrote, “As most of the time period of concern predates my arrival in Ann Arbor, I can’t answer your specific questions at this time. When are you planning on running your piece?” When it was pointed out the number of city staffers given cell phone allowances had increased by 25 percent in 2012 (he took over from Roger Fraser in April 2012), Powers back-tracked, again via email: “I believe cell phone expenses should be paid by an employer for employees whose job responsibilities require 24/7 access or being away from their offices to perform their duties. The administrative policy in effect since 2009 provides the purpose and procedures for the city-funded mobile communication expense. I have eliminated vehicle allowances for service area administrators.”

It appears, however, that Powers and the managers whom he supervises aren’t adhering to the 2009 administrative policy. Cell phone allowance money has been paid to 15th District Court Judge Christopher Easthope, a former Ann Arbor City Council member. Easthope, in fact, is among the top three in cell phone allowance pay-outs since 2009, some $6,258 dollars. The administrator of the 15th District Court, Keith Zeisloft, has collected $6,392 in cell phone allowance money. According to officials at the 15th District Court, Easthope is not expected to be on call 24/7, and has never been expected to be on call 24/7 during the course of his duties. Easthope’s colleagues on the bench, Judges Elizabeth Pollard Hines and Joseph Burke got on the cell phone allowance gravy train in 2012. It ‘s not clear whether these taxpayer-funded allowances began before or after Steve Powers took over for Roger Fraser. The list of city employees receiving cell phone allowances includes the names of dozens of staffers who work 9-5 shifts in their offices each day, who are not required to be on call 24/7.

Ward 1 Council member Sumi Kailasapathy is a CPA. She is focusing her efforts on hunting down waste and finding savings in the city’s $320,000,000 budget in order to restore lost services. When asked about whether she supported the expenditure of money from the General Fund for cell phone allowances and city-owned cell phone expenses, her answer was clipped. “No. Send me that information. I want to see it.” Ward 1 Council member Sabra Briere forwarded A2Politico’s email sent to her requesting a comment to the City Administrator, and never responded.

Finding out how much the city is spending each month on calling, texting and data plans for those 196 cell phones is complicated by the fact that according to city officials bills for texting and data plans are not combined, or tracked in a unified spreadsheet. No one at City Hall knows exactly how much General Fund money, total, is being spent to provide 196 city employees with cell phones. A2Politico originally filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the city-owned cell phone text and data plan charges paid between 2009 and 2012. City officials responded that the request would involve combing through, at minimum, 9,600 pages of material to find the texting and data charges and to redact information, as necessary, from the materials related to phones provided to police.

While Ann Arbor city staffers continue to be allowed to spend General Fund money on themselves like there’s no tomorrow,  throughout the country, cities and counties are trying harder than ever to make ends meet. The day after Democratic Governor Jerry Brown took office in January 2011, he asked department heads to collect 96,000 state-provided cell phones. A June 17, 2011 piece published in the Long Beach Post reports that, “The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors directed county department chiefs to review their respective cell phone and data card use following an audit of the Department of Child and Family Services identified $514,000 wasted on phones and devices that were never used or used for what was deemed ‘questionable’ purposes, such as calling other countries.”

In June of 2010 Jim Fouts, Mayor of Warren, Michigan cut the cell phone allowances of all the 125 municipal city employees who had been receiving the money. Fouts also eliminated the monthly car allowances paid to city employees. Fouts told the Macomb Daily, “These are austere times, and sacrifices have to be made by everyone.”

In 2009, Washtenaw County Commissioner Kristin Judge turned in her county-provided cell phone and suggested that Washtenaw County could save $350,000 per year by cutting the cell phone perk. Ann Arbor County Commissioner Conan Smith accused Judge of “grandstanding.” In an October 2009 interview with A2Politico Judge said, “In my opinion, the cell phone budget is one of the most obvious places to find immediate savings. As much as I dislike this statement, ‘Everything is on the table,’ I will continue to look at the entire budget line by line. Some people think commissioners should not look at each line of the budget, but I disagree. I have been accused of micromanaging because I want to see where all the money is going, but I will not vote on $1 unless I understand the purpose of the spending and what we get for that $1. The people of Washtenaw County expect and deserve that from their elected officials.”

by P.D. Lesko

“Hieftje gives out seats on city boards and commissions at parties, like they were candy,” says a political insider. John Hieftje’s propensity to populate the city’s boards and commissions with yes men (and women) and unqualified political cronies has long irked political insiders and haunted city residents, whose input and feedback Hieftje’s cronies often blatantly ignore. Hieftje’s short-sightedness is now coming back to bite him in the political posterior. Most recently, the Board of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA) Board, comprised of political cronies, several of whom don’t live in Ann Arbor, and most of whom never regularly take the bus, wasted millions on a spectacularly embarrassing failed bid to hijack AATA millage money to pay for buses to run to out-county communities, and commuter rail between Howell and Ann Arbor. Hieftje was forced to humiliate himself and sponsor a resolution for the city of Ann Arbor to withdraw from his own transportation scheme after virtually all of the county’s elected leaders failed to sign on.

The comments on AnnArbor.com that call for the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA) to be “dissolved,” “disbanded,” “fired” and “junked,” are strident and virtually non-stop. The DDA’s unelected Board members are treated to equally pointed criticisms by readers of the news site. Joan Lowenstein, a libel lawyer and  former City Council member, was appointed by Hizzoner to the DDA Board after she lost a bid to sit on the 15th District Court. Lowenstein is often mocked by AnnArbor.com readers as politically arrogant. Then again, Lowenstein has mocked and insulted Ann Arbor residents and voters in videos, at open meetings, as well as in print.

The DDA, as well as several of the organization’s Board members (including John Hieftje and Lowenstein) backed the failed Ann Arbor District Library millage proposal.  Ellie Serras, who headed the “Our New Downtown Library” committee told a local news blog after the millage went down in flames, “I think there were implications that the library was involved with the city and the DDA (Downtown Development Authority) in some way…and the community responded.” The support of the DDA and endorsement of DDA Board members of the library millage proposal was a serious negative in the eyes of “the community.”  Ouch. With a couple of exceptions, the DDA Board members are routinely criticized as arrogant, out-of-touch cronies who thumb their noses at the public through profligate spending of tax dollars. The following comments come from recent stories about the DDA on AnnArbor.com:

• I can’t recall electing any of the members of the DDA. How in the world can the council even consider giving them this kind of power? It’s bad enough that they control the money from PUBLIC parking.
• These are the same groups of people that want a conference center with no actual business proposal on how to pay without city funding/backing.
• Abolish the DDA. We don’t need an unelected shadow government.
• ….I thought the DDAs were city development arms for re-energizing downtowns and were never to be revenue collectors nor service providers. Seems Ann Arbor’s DDA has gotten off its leash and now runs its own little self-financed business club – often at “human value” expense and minority position against voters. The Library lot convention center, the Library, new vamprise funding/discounts, AATA programs including one ugly and unnecessary station, Too much!

As a result of the almost constant public pounding, perhaps, the DDA Board members look for ways to make it appear as though they are competently managing the city’s 7,145 parking spaces and the public’s $17 million in parking revenues. It’s a losing battle. At the most recent DDA Board meeting, Board member Roger Hewitt (a restauranteur) told the public “…not to evaluate whether an individual structure is making money but rather whether the parking system as a whole is working. And the net annual income is nearly $800 per space ($784).” He said it as if bringing in $784 in annual revenue per parking space should be something to write home to mother about.

As it turns out, bringing in $784 in annual revenue per parking space is something to write about, because it’s 98 percent below the national per parking space average, according to the most recent data compiled by the National Parking Association. The National Parking Association represents 2,300 members, 715 Companies and organizations serving the corporate and small business owners/operators of parking operations, as well as institutional, government and educational entities.

The AnnArborChronicle.com ”chronicled” the December meeting of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority where Hewitt shared that information. Once again DDA officials took the opportunity to pass off poor performance as an achievement worth noting, and did so unchallenged. It is also worth noting that the DDA is a regular advertiser on AnnArborChronicle.com. Without comparing Hewitt’s (and the DDA’s) annual income per space to the annual income per space generated by other similarly-sized parking systems, Hewitt’s statement is little more than a useless factoid. When DDA’s revenues and expenses are compared to national averages, it becomes clear that the DDA Board overseeing an organization is delivering results well below national averages where revenues are concerned, and well above national averages where overhead, debt load and project costs are concerned.

Perhaps calls to dissolve the DDA aren’t so off base, after all.

After reading Hewitt’s boast, A2Politico contacted the National Parking Association. The group puts out an annual report titled Parking in America. It includes data from 47 states, 91 cities in the U.S. and Canada. Participants own or operate more than 28,000 parking facilities with more than 10.7 million parking spaces.

Here are some key findings:

• Mean maximum 12-hour daily rates charged in the operator’s facilities cost $13.19 in 2012.

A2P Notes: In Ann Arbor’s attended lots, it costs $17 to park from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

• Monthly permits in Ann Arbor garages cost $140-$195  per month.

A2P Notes: According to the 2012 Collier’s Parking Survey, Ann Arbor monthly parking permits cost more than those in much larger cities such as Portland, San Diego, Denver and Minneapolis. Monthly parking permits in Atlanta, Georgia and Columbus, Ohio cost between $75 and $125 in 2012.

• The average on-street metered parking for one hour in the city/metro area is an average of $1.35 cents per hour.

A2P Notes: Over the past 24 months, the DDA and City Council have doubled the rate of hourly metered parking from $.75 cents to $1.50 per hour.

• The average net revenue per parking space is $1,510.

The DDA’s abysmally low revenue per space is primarily due to the organization’s long-term build up of structural debt. The DDA’s fund balance is down to $4 million, and if the organization’s finances dip into the red, state law would require the DDA to be disbanded, or for the city’s taxpayers to raise revenues sufficient to bail out the organization. The DDA’s per parking spot operating expenses are also significantly higher than the national average, according to the NPA officials.

Ann Arbor’s current Hieftje-appointed DDA Board cronies (including a woman appointed when Barbara Bush was First Lady, an architect, two bar owners, a libel lawyer, a theater director and the owner of a dry cleaning shop) oversee a parking system that takes in 98 percent less net revenue per parking spot managed than other similarly-sized parking systems in the United States surveyed by the NPA.

Ward 3 Council member Stephen Kunselman has been taking political swipes at the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority Board and its members (including John Hieftje) for almost two years. Kunselman has been quoted in the media as saying he has “lost confidence” in the DDA’s Board, and that the DDA is a “shadow government.” When Kunselman last ran for re-election in 2011, at a candidate debate sponsored by the local chapter of the League of Women Voters, Kunselman suggested that John Hieftje’s administration has a serious problem with cronyism.

Prior to 2001, the city’s parking system employed a unionized workforce. Shortly after John Hieftje took office, he pushed to have the DDA control parking. In turn the unelected DDA Board members broke the union, and tossed out the unionized workers. Republic Parking was hired, and under the terms of its current contract is paid a $150,000 management fee, plus the $50,000 “performance-based” fee which DDA Board members have repeatedly referred to as a “tip”—a 30 percent tip, paid for with taxpayer funds. The Ann Arbor DDA Board’s “tips” paid to Republic Parking by the DDA Board members are split among Republic Parking executives. Republic executives take in “tips” from other city’s parking systems they manage, as well.

In 2009, when the DDA Board members were criticized in the Ann Arbor News for giving Republic Parking executives a $45,000 tip, then DDA Chair Roger Hewitt characterized the “tip” as giving the DDA some “clout.” Hardly. In a February 2001 study published by Cornell University researchers who studied tipping, the researchers discovered “… that people are poor at identifying the causes of their own actions. (O)ne should regard with skepticism, then, consumer reports that they tip as a reward for good service.” The Cornell researchers conclude that “the tipping- service relationship can only be described as weak.” Thus, people will give, say, a 20 percent tip regardless of service, and a large tip will have little impact on the overall quality of the service provided. Like Wall Street executives who received “tips” even when their “service” resulted a national economic collapse, there is typically little correlation between tips and better-than-average job performance. Republic Parking Systems, Inc. is one of the largest privately held parking management services companies in the country, with revenues of $360 million a year and about 2,600 employees.

The company’s parking attendants average $8-$12 per hour, plus benefits. By law, Republic Parking employees in Ann Arbor must earn an hourly rate at least equal to the living wage ordinance requirement, $12.17 per hour. Unionized parking lot attendants at the University of Michigan earn $31,824 per year, or $16.57 per hour before taxes, plus benefits. In 2008, the Charleston, South Carolina City Council members slammed Republic Parking for paying its employees “slave wages,” in some cases as low as $5.85 per hour. The Council members voted to allocate $300,000 to raise the wages of the Republic Parking workers, and when the city’s contract with Republic Parking was next approved those council members instructed Republic to raise the pay of its lowest paid workers by $1.15 per hour.

In Western Washington, where Republic Parking is contracted to handle parking for the cities of Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane and Bellevue, its rating with the Better Business Bureau is a D+, with complaints outstanding and unresolved. The BBB in that state has identified “a pattern of complaints from consumers alleging customer service and credit or billing issues. Consumers allege they pay, but later receive a ticket in the mail stating they have not paid for service, and late fees are incurred.” The new five-year contract between the DDA and Republic Parking calls for Republic to install new automated payment equipment in some of the city’s parking structures. The new equipment will allow motorists to check themselves out and will allow the use of credit cards for payment. The BBB in Western Washington has warned drivers away from Republic Parking and its automated payment equipment.

In July 2012, DDA officials borrowed $1.3 million from Republic Parking officials at 6 percent interest to fund the installation of new automated pay equipment in the city’s parking garages. This is the same kind of equipment that has led to consumer complaints against Republic Parking in Washington State and elsewhere. In 2009, Republic Parking  accidentally “reprocessed” the credit cards of Seattle customers who’d used the company’s automated pay equipment. Republic Parking blamed a computer glitch for the overcharging error, but the 12,000 reprocessed transactions topped $100,000, and the company sent out no warnings to consumers that their cards may have been “fraudulently charged,” complained one Seattle resident to a local news station. One question that surfaced during that investigation was why Republic Parking was storing the credit card information of short-term parking customers.

In Denver, Colorado, Republic Parking customers who’d had problems with the automated parking machines took to Yelp.com to voice their complaints. Republic Parking has a 1 star (out of 5) on Yelp.com Denver. One customer writes:

Stay away from these parking lots – their machines are always broken so you can’t pay for parking – then they never issue a ticket.  Their MO is to send you a letter two months later from some cheesy so called Lawyer (Byron somebody) totaling $55. If you try and dispute it they just don’t respond – even if you call or send written correspondence. I had to search on their website to find someone to talk to about the issue.  They asked me what time I called to report the problem.  Why is it my responsibility to report their issue when most of the time the machines are broken?  One time I even got my credit card stuck and had to stand there while my friend went and bought tweezers to get it out.  Seems to me like I’m doing a lot of work to pay them for a crappy service.

They don’t maintain their machines and then they are impossible to get anything resolved.

Terrible company.

It’s possible Republic Parking and the DDA will work together to avoid these pitfalls. Then again, hell could freeze over, pigs could fly, and The DDA’s $784 in revenue per parking space could be “chronicled” so that it appears as though John Hieftje and his DDA cronies are doing a fantastic job running the city’s parking system on behalf of taxpayers footing the bills.

by P.D. Lesko

Freedom of Information Act requests are governed by the notion that public government has the obligation to err on the side of transparency. It is also governed by the principle that if public records released would benefit the public, then those records should be released. In other words, when a FOIA request is refused and the argument goes to court, the government entity holding the requested public records must prove to the judge why it’s best for the records to remain, well, secret. That’s a tough sell, and FOIA appeals upheld in court include the requirement that court costs and attorneys fees be paid by the governmental entity that refused the initial request for public records.

The Ann Arbor Public School’s Superintendent Patricia Green suggested, incredibly, that anyone interested in getting public documents from the AAPS should just FOIA them. In case you’re wondering how much AAPS employees dropped on eating out in 2011, and you want to see the District’s credit card statements, that’ll cost you around $750, or so replied AAPS FOIA officer Liz Margolis when A2Politico filed a FOIA for the information. (Never fear, we got the information and are busy crunching the numbers for a future entry.) If you’re curious about how much money Ann Arbor Transportation Authority chief Michael Ford and John Hieftje’s hand-picked cronies on the AATA Board blew on the political bomb that was “county-wide” transit, that information will cost you over $1,500. Yep, it will cost as much as a month’s salary for an employee who earns about $30,000 per year to find out how much public money AATA officials frittered away trying to jam through a county-wide transit boondoggle in 24 county townships and municipalities whose elected officials and taxpayers, it turns out, had no interest.

Did AATA blow $1 million dollars? Did the AATA Board spend $10 million dollars on the county-wide transit plan practically no municipalities or townships in the county wanted?

One reason some business people are interested in finding out how much the AATA Board sunk into Hieftje’s county-wide  transit folly is because the former Chair of AATA’s Board and the Chair of the AATA committee charged with shaping the financial plan to pay for county-wide transit was Jesse Bernstein (left). He was appointed by Hieftje to the AATA Board in 2008, even as he led the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce into a financial mess, or so say members of the Chamber who are still upset with Bernstein’s leadership of the organization. Anyone who has studied the tax returns of the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce may wonder what exactly qualified Bernstein as AATA’s funding “expert.” According to tax documents filed with the IRS, in 2007, 2008 and 2009 (Bernstein resigned in late-June 2009), the Chamber of Commerce lost money and gross revenues fell from $1.2 million to $975,000. Incredibly, in 2008 under Bernstein’s leadership, the group spent 70 percent of  its $1.03 million in revenue on salaries, benefits, travel, and office space. Under Jesse Bernstein’s leadership, the money-losing local Chamber of Commerce was in the business of being in business to provide Bernstein with a job and a six-figure salary. When asked in August 2011 what level of millage it would take to fund the first five years of AATA’s transit master plan vision, Bernstein replied: “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Bernstein holds a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from State University College in New York and a masters in social work in casework and community practice.

When the AATA Board decided to pursue a $500,000,000 county-wide transit plan that would include converting AATA into an U196 entity—an organization whose Ann Arbor-paid $8 million dollars in annual funding could be skimmed for trains—the digital screaming on AnnArbor.com started. The screaming didn’t end even after Ann Arbor ignominiously opted out of Hieftje’s own county-wide transit scheme just this month. The reality is that Hieftje, Ann Arbor City Council members, AATA’s Michael Ford and his Board members knew in 2006 that county residents were decidedly unenthusiastic about the idea of county-wide transit or a county-wide millage to fund it. A 2006 AATA survey affirmed residents’ lack of support. A subsequent 2009 survey that asked the same questions produced similar results: only 17 percent of 940 county respondents said they would “definitely” support a county-wide millage to pay for county-wide transit. In response, Michael Ford explained that, perhaps, county residents were not in favor of county-wide transit because AATA officials needed to do a “better job of talking with residents about the future of transit in Washtenaw County.” In 2009, Ford told AnnArbor.com, “AATA is hiring a consultant to get the community involved in creating a vision for that plan and identifying service needs throughout the county.”

That one consultant cost $240,000.

After the recent Ann Arbor District Library bond proposal failed, AADL Board prez Margaret Leary explained, “It means we didn’t make our case to the voters….”

Answers such as these demonstrate why Michigan ended up among the top five states in a 2011 study by a pair of profs from Columbia U—a state-by-state study which ranked local and state politicos in how often they ignore public opinion. Two professors from Columbia University who study how well elected state and local officials translate public opinion into policy, determined that Michigan ranked fourth in the nation among states in which elected officials are most likely to shrug at what the people want, then make policy decisions to suit their personal, ideological and political agendas. Dr. Jeffrey R. Lax and Dr. Justin H. Phillips study “how well states translate public opinion into policy. Using national surveys and advances in subnational opinion estimation, we estimate state-level support for 39 policies across eight issue areas, including abortion, law enforcement, health care, and education. We show that policy is highly responsive to policy-specific opinion, even controlling for other influences,” according to their paper published in June 2011 and titled “The Democratic Deficit in the States.”

The AATA Board, Michael Ford and John Hieftje’s refusal to heed to the results of the 2006 AATA survey and the results of the 2009 AATA survey would be recognized by Professors Lax and Phillips as symptomatic of an ongoing and significant “democratic deficit” in Ann Arbor.

These are the public records A2Politico asked AATA to provide (a list suggested by a former member of the AATA Board of Directors):

1. Copies of all payments made by AATA to all vendors made during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 related to the Countywide Transit Master Plan.

2. Copies of all payments made made by AATA to consultants during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 related to the Countywide Transit Master Plan.

3. Copies of all payments made made by AATA to advertising firms during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 related to the Countywide Transit Master Plan.

4. Copies of all payments made to by AATA legal firms during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 related to the Countywide Transit Master Plan.

5. Copies of all payments made by AATA during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 related to the Countywide Transit Master Plan for studies.

6. Copies of all payments made by AATA during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 related to the Countywide Transit Master Plan for surveys.

7. Copies of all payments made by AATA during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 related to the Countywide Transit Master Plan for literature.

8. Copies of all payments made by AATA during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 related to the Countywide Transit Master Plan for AATA personnel overtime.

9. Copies of all payments made by AATA for travel, meals and lodging during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 related to the Countywide Transit Master Plan.

Michael Ford sent along the following response to the FOIA:

Note the first sentence of Ford’s letter in which he claims that AATA needs an extension to “search files” to determine how many documents will have to be provided. Yet, in the third paragraph, Ford writes: “The anticipated cost of providing the information is $1,538.50,” including “50 hours of labor” needed to photocopy “500 pages” of materials. First, Michael Ford asks for more time by claiming he has no idea how many relevant files he has, and then asks to be compensated for 50 hours of labor and 500 pages of photocopying.

In response to a request that the materials be provided to A2Politico free of charge because A2Politico is a news gathering source, and doing so would greatly benefit the public understanding of AATA’s work relevant to transit, Ford offered to charge half of the original $1,538.50, still without explaining why it would take an AATA secretary over a week of 8 hour work days to locate electronic and paper files from 2012, 2011 and 2010, and then redact and copy the materials.

A2Politico responded with a letter which reads, in part: “Finally, I would appreciate an explanation of why my request for waiver of the search, review and copy costs was denied. Section 4  provides for waiver of costs if that ‘waiver or reduction of the fee is in the public interest because searching for or furnishing copies of the public record can be considered as primarily benefiting the general public.’ I hope that you agree that the public would benefit from knowing the full costs of planning the countywide transit system and that withholding this information from the public is at odds with your obligations to serve the public, especially the taxpayers who support AATA through the Ann Arbor transit millage.”

AATA officials have been giving similarly dodgy responses to Ann Arbor City Council members who’ve asked for detailed information about how much was spent by AATA staffers and the AATA Board in pursuit of the failed county-wide transit debacle. Even if county-wide transit is dead, it’s important to know just how much taxpayer money was poured into a plan that had been criticized as ill-conceived and poorly executed. In 2010, Michael Ford received no raise in his base pay, but rather a lump sum “bonus” equal to 4 percent of his $160,000 salary. In 2011, Ford’s contract was extended by one year, and the AATA Board members awarded him a 3 percent pay hike. This would seem to indicate that the AATA Board members thought their plans for a county-wide transit authority and AATA’s eventual participation in that authority (including turning over AATA’s assets to the new authority’s board), were progressing smoothly. Were they simply deluding themselves? Possibly.

However, given the intense political embarrassment the failure of the county-wide transit plan has caused AATA’s Board, as well as John Hieftje, who appointed all of the AATA Board members and gave them their marching orders, Ford should be prepared to be thrown under the wheels of the bus when next his contract comes up for renewal. He was hired in 2009 to finagle millage and taxpayer funding for Hieftje’s train fantasy under the guise of “expanding” county-wide bus transit. That scheme failed spectacularly and visibly. In the space of three weeks in October 2012, politicos county-wide opted out of participation in the transit scheme one after the other in what turned into a delectable bad news buffet for Hieftje’s many critics. Under the terms of his contract, Michael Ford gets a $10,000 car allowance. Local politicos predict that by as early as summer of 2013, Ford will be driving his taxpayer-provided car away from Ann Arbor on his way to another  job. Politicos and residents who have been vocal in their support of expanding AATA’s local transit service hope to see the AATA Board members responsible for the county-wide fiasco strapped to the roof of Michael Ford’s car as it speeds down the highway.

In the meantime, A2Politico awaits Michael Ford’s response to our FOIA letter.

by P.D. Lesko

On November 6, 2012 the firmament trembled in Ann Arbor—the political landscape opened up and swallowed local politicos and their monied donors whole, casting the owner of Main Street Ventures, members of the Downtown Development Authority Board of Directors, and local political bigwigs down to Dante’s 4th Ring of Hell, where the avaricious suffer their punishment, as they roll weights back and forth against one another. They share eternal damnation with others who lived greedily and insatiably. The proposal to float a $65 million dollar bond to raze and rebuild the downtown library was defeated by a vote of 41,359 to 33,604.

The local political Hive Mind Collective, along with the monied drones who make the (modest four-figure) donations to fund the politicos’ ALEC-inspired public-private partnership schemes, took a brutal beating at the polls in Ann Arbor on November 6th. The Our New Library PAC pulled in almost $71,000 as of October 26, 2012. A2Politico is willing to bet the farm that when next we read campaign finance disclosure forms from the group they will have amassed and spent over $100,000 on an effort to milk taxpayers out of $100-$130 million dollars for a library without a plan. The Our New Library PAC, formed in July 2012 to support a $65 million dollar bond proposal to raze and rebuild Ann Arbor’s downtown library, was funded with a potentially problematic (to the IRS) $25,000 from the Friends of the Ann Arbor Library, as well as $5,000 from Main Street Ventures doyenne Ellie Serras, $5,000 from narrowly re-elected AADL Trustee Prue Rosenthal, $5,000 from the AADL’s legal firm Dykema Gossett (which stood to benefit from the project in the form of legal work necessary to complete the proposed project), and even $5,000 from Zingerman’s Bakehouse. This was one of the more interesting donations, and one that offered up a fun game of connect-the-political-dots. Follow closely. In October 2010, Zingerman’s owners raked in $1.1 in publicly-funded brownfield tax credits from the Michigan Economic Development Authority to subsidize their expansion.

In July 2010, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority $407,000 in support of Zingerman’s brownfield development plan, which would reimburse Zingerman’s $817,265 through the money generated from the tax-increment increase on the expanded deli’s higher property taxes. The brownfield money funded by taxpayers helped Zing’s recapture costs associated with the demolition, underground water retention and improvements to the existing facilities. Taxpayers also footed the bill for Zingerman’s $100,000 tab for LEED certification—which is purchased, not magically bestowed by the U.S. Green Building Council, as local politicos prefer to have taxpayers believe. The AADL project raked in thousands more from local developer Peter Allen, $2,500 from Edward Surovell Realtors, $1,000 from the library’s own Executive Director Josie Parker.

However, it is the PAC’s July 2012 Quarterly Statement, filed shortly after the Our New Library PAC was formed that tells the real story of who was behind the brilliant idea to tear down a perfectly good building, the majority of which was updated in 1991 with taxpayer funds, and provide the community with a 400-seat auditorium, and video production lab, a catering kitchen, and a cafe, among other “possibilities” listed on the Our New Library’s website, as well as the AADL’s own website. Never mind that the AADL’s own 2012 survey revealed the majority of patrons borrow books, DVDs and CDs and that visits to the downtown library remained static—600,000 per year—between 2008 and 2012. In July 2012, the Our New Library PAC was funded with a modest $7,500 donated by DDA Board member Leah Gunn, Maria Serras, and former Washtenaw County Drain Commish Janis Bobrin. Gunn, or so, a Board member from the Friends of the Ann Arbor Library explained, pushed the nonprofit’s Board to cough up $25,000 for the Our New Library PAC. It’s a donation equal to 16 percent of the group’s 2011 revenues, according to 990 tax forms filed with the IRS—an amount critics claim skirts awfully close to violating IRS rules governing what a non-profit may spent in support of a ballot proposal. The $25,000 donation was made without consulting the group’s membership, and without the benefit of a public hearing. It infuriated some local donors to the group, and it remains to be seen if the Friends of the Ann Arbor Library will see a backlash.

While the large donors are interesting, donors who contributed smaller amounts to the PAC contribute to the story of the continued political slide of the Hive Mind Collective. These are the political appointees, and political hangers-on—locals who can be counted on for $50-$100 donations to Borg Queen John Hieftje, as well as to the campaigns of the drones he supports for election to City Council, drones whose candidacies have been, for the most part, unsuccessful—beginning with the 2009 defeat of Ward 3 Council member Leigh Greden. Since his embarrassing defeat as a result of his own unprofessional conduct and misuse of Council email, that resulted in an Open Meetings Act lawsuit that taxpayers were forced to settle, Greden has been careful about keeping political contributions to his friends hidden. However, the Our New Library PAC scored a $100 donation from the former Council member who was caught crowing to colleagues via email during an open meeting that all he cared about was “money and buildings.” Trevor Staples, a Ward 5 drone on whom Hieftje has relied to vocally support challengers to Council incumbent Mike Anglin (with whom Hieftje has a strained relationship), donated to the PAC.

Joan Lowenstein, a former Ward 2 City Council member and current DDA Board member donated $100 to the Our New Library PAC. Lowenstein, in response to the ouster of former Council colleagues Stephen Rapundalo in 2011, published an essay in The Ann in which she called Ann Arbor voters “old, stingy, xenophobic and Republican.” In April of 2010 when JoLo spoke in support of a development project, she stepped forward to urge City Council members not to give in to the 5th Ward “sulkers.” In 2011, she endorsed Ward 5 City Council challenger Neil Elyakin against incumbent Mike Anglin. Elyakin, evidently, had no clue that the “sulkers” in his Ward might not take kindly to being insulted by his political supporter.

Ray Detter and Eunice Burns each donated $25 to the PAC. Detter is up to his neck in local politics, as a Hieftje appointee to the Downtown Citizens Advisory Council. The group, not surprisingly, has rarely met a downtown development project it couldn’t support. Well, until a huge development project was proposed for the corner of Division and Huron, in Detter’s own backyard. Former Ward 1 Council member Eunice Burns was appointed by Hieftje to a seat on the innocuous-sounding Local Officers Compensation Commission. It was Burns, in 2003, who helped more than double John Hieftje’s salary from $18,800 to $40,000. In 2009, Burns voted to raise Hieftje’s salary again to $42,436. Laura Rubin heads the Huron River Watershed Council, and she donated $50 to help the AADL sell its millage proposal to taxpayers.

Jeremy Peters came through with a modest $25 donation in September 2012. However, taking a page out of Joan Lowenstein’s book, Peters took to the Web with an October 3, 2012 blog post for Concentrate Media’s online magazine—a company funded, in part, by the MEDC—that purported to objectively examine the “real cost” of political obstructionism. In his piece Peters writes, “It would behoove those in local government inclined to nitpick and place barricades in front of progress to realize the effect of their actions “ The November 6th vote was, then, was a barricade to Peters’ thesis statement and his head, tossed by the “nitpickers” who, he whined, “come to the table hell-bent on the goal of preventing a certain thing (be it a train station, an apartment complex, a structure, a park, or an improvement) from happening.” Peters ended his blog post with this: “I don’t pretend to think that each representative isn’t doing what they think is in the best interests of all of their constituents (not just the vocal ones) but another head check would serve us all, and our futures (and those of our children) well.” Warm, fuzzy, almost, well, Republican in its understated appeal to “family” and “family values.” Peters, an openly gay man, has no children.

DDA staffer Susan Pollay came through with $100, as did DDA Board member John Splitt. Public-Private Partnership Sugar Daddy former Ward 2 Council member  Tony Derezinski, tossed out of office by his constituents in the August 2012 primary election, gave $100 to the Our New Library PAC, as well.

Together with the implosion of the multi-million dollar AATA county-wide transit debacle, and the ouster of Council members Leigh Greden in 2009, Stephen Rapundalo in 2011 and Tony Derezinski in 2012, the defeat of the AADL bond is yet another crippling blow to the battered local Demublican Cube and the drones who inhabit it. If you need more proof that the Hive Mind is rattled, A2Politico was told that long-time Ward 4 Council member Margie Teall, who escaped defeat at the hands of neighborhood activist Jack Eaton by only 18 votes in August 2012, has taken to attending neighborhood meetings. Alas, A2Politico was also told that her own constituents rarely recognize her or realize that their City Council member is in attendance.

So what does the defeat of the AADL bond proposal mean? It means that in August 2013 City Council members who have regularly voted with the Hive Mind in support of trains, new taxes, and against public services, parks, the environment and local transportation (Ward 1: Sabra Briere, Ward 4: Marcia Higgins) may well find themselves targeted by the same group of city-wide political activists who targeted Leigh Greden, Stephen Rapundalo and Tony Derezinski. For taxpayers this means more Council members committed to improving infrastructure, providing services, funding parks, improving local transit and protecting the environment, before funding corridor studies aimed at using local tax dollars to fund development and transportation schemes.

This is another huge win for determined neighborhood activists, people who care deeply about environmentalism, fiscal responsibility, education, and who are willing to put up their own money and weather the sloppy reporting of AnnArbor.com to inform voters about the issues. Ward 2 resident Kathy Griswold (left) spear-headed the effort to help Ann Arbor residents understand that there were viable options (renovation) to the AADL bond request. Griswold, who put up $7,000 of her own money charged to a credit card, along with a small group of volunteers, helped initiate and sustain a city-wide debate about whether the AADL Board and the AADL Executive Director were engaged in what can only be described as empire-building and “mission creep.” Does a public library provide reading materials or does a public library provide double shot espressos and iced lattes? It was a robust debate, and voters came down on the side of caution, despite a very slick six-figure marketing campaign disguised as a hipster grassroots movement in support of technology, LEED certification and more space for “the kids.”

Did the Friends of the Ann Arbor Library violate IRS rules in donating $25,000 to the Our New Library PAC? Did Josie Parker violate the AADL privacy policy and misuse the AADL resources and patron list to send out uniformly favorable ”information” about the bond proposal? Did Our New Library PAC media company Elevated Works and owner Peter Baker engage in media manipulation by posting dozens and dozens of comments in favor of the AADL, its Board and the bond proposal to AnnArbor.com posts about the bond proposal before Baker was outed on October 26, 2012 when campaign finance forms revealed he and his company had been paid over $32,000 by the PAC for media work? It’s unclear if anyone will file complaints with the IRS or FTC against the Friends of the Ann Arbor Library and/or the AADL and Executive Director Josie Parker in response to alleged violations of federal law in the course of this campaign.

One thing is clear, local politicos, including the DDA and developers, the AADL Board and Josie Parker wanted to get this $65 million dollar bond passed, and they were stopped short by a determined woman willing to weather intense criticism aimed at her by the local media, the opposition, and their monied supporters. Library supporter Kathy Griswold came to the table hell-bent on the goal of educating voters. This is just the kind of story about neighborhood activism one imagines the Chicago neighborhood activist Americans re-elected to the White House yesterday would be delighted to hear. It’s a story worth re-telling.