by P.D. Lesko

Ann Arbor voters have been surly as of late. They want the potholes filled, their leaves collected, and their safety services funded. They don’t want their parkland used for parking. They don’t want to pay $45 million to build a train station. They don’t want Huron Hills Golf Course operations outsourced. They don’t want a convention center; they want open space or a downtown park. They don’t want to pay $500 million for county-wide transit. They’ve tossed out of office three long-term local incumbents, and long-time incumbent Ward 4 Council member Margie Teall held on to her seat by only 18 votes in August 2012. This past November, voters threw proposed millages to raze and rebuild the downtown library, and fund the politically toxic Percent for Art program back in the faces of the politicos who’d incautiously supported the tax hikes— cream pie messages in the stunned political kissers of people unaccustomed to being humiliated by the rabble whose wishes they routinely ignore, according to a recent study.

Julie Grand has pulled nominating petitions in order to run for City Council in the Third Ward. Grand chairs the Parks Advisory Commission and is term-limited. When asked why she was running, Grand, in essence, replied that it was the next logical step for her. She offered no reason for running other than she thought she could work better with Ward 3 Council member Christopher Taylor than incumbent Stephen Kunselman. Unlike Kunselman, Grand told a local blog, she was a consensus decision maker.

Grand didn’t point to any votes Kunselman had cast with which she disagreed. However, there are plenty of issues that Grand and Kunselman view differently. For starters, in August 2012 PAC Chair Grand shared her vision of what should go atop the library lot and it wasn’t a park. “My vision is to emerge from the library and have other moderately-sized buildings in that area, with a coffee shop and other retail.” Grand, who is supposed to be a champion of the city’s parks, added that “it’s also important to think about what problems a park there might cause for the library.” The self-proclaimed consensus decision maker went on to sharply criticize citizen activists: “Library Green advocates are lobbying for a park on the Library Lane site in particular because they’re angry about the potential of something larger being built there.”

Gwen Nysteun, a long-time Democratic political activist, and PAC member, is a fierce supporter of the city’s parks. It was Nysteun who spearheaded the push against using fragile riverfront parkland on Fuller Road for parking/transit. Doing so put her squarely at odds with John Hieftje, who wants to use parkland for transit. In September 2011, A2Politico revealed that Hieftje and his Hive Mind Collective on Council had targeted several popular parks for transit development:

Barton Pond, Bird Hills Nature Area, Barton Nature Area, Bandemer Park, Furstenberg Nature Area, Gallup Park, Huron Hills Golf Course, and Forest Park Nature Area all have one thing in common. Can you guess what it is?

In 2007, each of the parks above was evaluated for potential development and use for a so-called “intermodal” facility that would, so the story goes, eventually serve as a train station with bus stops and bike racks. A recent piece posted to AnnArbor.com points out that the “intermodal” project has turned out to be little more than a 900 car parking garage for the University of Michigan that is being financed, in part, with taxpayer money and being built on a parcel of river side land that belongs to the public, and is valued at somewhere between $4-$10 million dollars.

Nysteun and Grand worked to craft a resolution under the auspices of which PAC would have urged City Council to stop the Fuller Road project. Hieftje showed up at a PAC meeting in May of 2010, and urged “unity” on the Fuller Road project. Hieftje claimed “There’s no other location that offers the synergy and impact of the Fuller Road site.”

In response, Gwen Nystuen was blunt. She told Hieftje: “There hadn’t been any public input on deciding to locate the structure at the Fuller Road site. In addition, the large parking structure had nothing to do with a rail station. It’s commuter parking for the university,” she said, “and that’s not a parks use. ” She went on to point out that the choice of the parkland was Hieftje’s, and then the kicker. Gwen Nystuen played the “take it to the voters” card, Hieftje’s least favorite. She said, “if Fuller Road parkland is the best location, why not go through a public process to arrive at that conclusion? Then perhaps they’d decide to sell the land, or have people vote that they no longer want to use it as parkland.”

While Julie Grand assured PAC members “we don’t have to do what” Hieftje wants, Grand went on to vote to gut her own resolution, and came out in favor of using parkland for parking, provided some of the parking revenues were given over to the parks system. It was as close to parkland prostitution as you could get without having sex with a tree and taping a $100 bill to the trunk afterwards.

By summer 2012, Gwen Nysteun had been term-limited off of PAC (as is Julie Grand in 2013) and Independent Jane Lumm had been elected to Council from Ward 2. In July 2012, to continue the effort to protect parkland from development, Lumm, Ward 5 Council member Mike Anglin proposed a Charter amendment that would have put new restrictions on repurposing parkland (tip o’ the keyboard to an anonymous reader). It would have forced a vote on using the Fuller Road parkland for transit. The Council members proposed putting the question of the Charter amendment to the voters in November 2012. Hieftje wanted the “advice” of Grand and PAC on the proposed Charter amendment to protect parkland from “repurposing” without a citizen vote.

On August 8, 2012, Julie Grand voted against Kunselman’s proposed Charter amendment that would have given citizens a vote on whether parkland can be repurposed for transit. Grand voted “against recommending to the city council that it place a ballot question before citizens in November that would amend the city charter’s language about protections for city parkland,” according to a snippet posted to the AnnArborChronicle.com.

The “I’d Like to Run for Mayor” Curse 

In February 2012, Former Ward 2 Council member Tony Derezinski told AnnArbor.com that he was interested in running for mayor in 2014. He said, “I have been thinking of it. It’s certainly something I am considering, My immediate concern right now is getting re-elected to the City Council, but down the line it’s something I’m very interested in.”

Six months later, Derezinski’s constituents tossed him out of office in favor of a “fresh voice,” political newcomer Sally Hart-Petersen.

In January 2013, Ward 3 Council member Stephen Kunselman announced in the Ann Arbor Observer that he was planning to run for Mayor in 2014. Kunselman, a Democrat who frequently votes in opposition to Hieftje and his Council cronies, was targeted for defeat by Hieftje and his Hive Mind supporters in 2008. The Hive Mind recruited Christopher Taylor. Kunselman was relentlessly attacked by challenger Christopher Taylor as a political light weight. Then someone at City Hall leaked to the Ann Arbor News information about a grievance a city union had filed against Kunselman. The paper’s editorial leaders chose to use the information to smear Kunselman in the paper’s 2008 glowing endorsement of Taylor:

However, Kunselman sometimes approaches his job in a way that we feel is inappropriate for a council member, tending toward micromanagement rather than policy-setting. If each council member second-guessed decisions made by staff on a regular basis, city operations could screech to a grinding halt – or professional staff would start looking for employment at places where they were treated with trust and respect.

As one example, earlier this year Kunselman met with some of the city’s unionized public services employees, where he used an expletive to criticize their performance in the winter’s snow removal. When asked by an employee about the automated compost pickup, Kunselman said, “You guys are getting lazy,” according to a letter of complaint from the union president to City Administrator Roger Fraser. That letter ultimately led to a formal apology from Kunselman.

The Ann Arbor News characterized Taylor as “professional” and “businesslike.” Their assessment turned out to be laughable. Ten months later, Taylor was lampooned as a baby in an editorial cartoon published by the newspaper in response to information that the new Council member (in fact every Council member the Ann Arbor News had endorsed in its 2008 primary election editorials) had been caught using email during Open Meetings in ways that were not only unprofessional, but which were allegedly illegal. The behavior forced the city to settle an Open Meetings Act violation lawsuit.

In 2009, Kunselman ran against one of the Hive Mind who had engineered his 2008 outster: Ward 3 Council member Leigh Greden. Greden, who had been snared in the same email scandal that snared Christopher Taylor, got the endorsements of Hieftje, Representative John Dingell and a host of local politicos in his effort to keep his Council seat. Kunselman played the “ethics” card in his campaign, and vowed to craft an ethics policy—a promise that, sadly, turned out to be empty. Kunselman beat Greden, who garnered just 36 percent of the vote in a three-way race, but went on to deliver a lackluster performance, partially due to the fact that Hieftje and his Council cronies made it virtually impossible for Kunselman to work with them by excluding him from the inner circle.

In 2011, the Hieftje crowd backed Ingrid Ault against Kunselman, who had begun to openly complain about the cronyism perpetuated by Hieftje with his appointments to boards and commissions, and in particular Hieftje’s appointments to the Downtown Development Authority Board. Kunselman coined the term “shadow government” when referring to the DDA Board’s and its unelected political insiders. DDA Board members Joan Lowenstein, Sandi Smith (then a City Council member) and County Commissioner Leah Gunn helped Ault and funded her campaign. Ault, who looked great on paper, proved a somewhat prickly candidate who openly attacked Kunselman in a League of Women Voters debate in July 2011. Ault complained: ”One of the things I find distressing is there have been a lot of promises made by Stephen Kunselman over the last two years, including an ethics policy that he championed the last time he ran for office, and he’s done no action.” Ault went on to use Christopher Taylor’s tactic that worked against Kunselman in 2008: ”Pretty much chickens is what Stephen is known for, and I don’t mean to be negative here, but it’s distressing to me that communication is a key that’s been ignored.”

While her observations about the ethics policy were true, her criticisms were just what AnnArbor.com political reporter Ryan Stanton likes to writes about in the .com’s quest for clicks. Stanton’s headline screamed: “Ault goes on attack against Kunselman….”

Can Julie Grand Succeed Where Ault Failed?

Julie Grand told AnnArbor.com that: ”I think the mayor has good ideas, I think he tends to be a little more visionary than I am perhaps about certain issues, but I don’t think I will always agree with the mayor. I will probably agree with the mayor more times than my opponent will, though.” Grand then said, “I think I do have the mayor’s support in this race, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m his lackey or his puppet.”

Grand is somewhat less concerned about the mayor’s “visionary” desire to repurpose the city’s river front parkland for transit, parking towers and train stations. Since 2010, Grand has used her position on PAC to help Hieftje avoid public votes and continue to target parkland for development. Her votes while the Chair of PAC betray a deep cynicism about whether parkland belongs to the people, and whether the public’s Charter-mandated control of the city’s 2,000 acres of parkland should be ceded without a vote in exchange for promises of money.

Her attacks on parkland protections via her votes on PAC suggest Julie Grand’s motives are mainly political. One wonders whether there was a political deal struck between Grand and Hieftje in August of 2012 when Grand voted against the proposed charter amendment to expand protections of parkland. Regardless, her claim that “there’s not one particular issue on which she’s running” is utterly disingenuous. Since 2010, Julie Grand has voted on PAC in support of John Hieftje’s desire to prostitute the city’s parkland. Grand said of the incumbent, ”I think we have a different approach to government. I’m concerned about the divisiveness on Council.” She’s right. Lumm, Anglin and Kunselman have consistently worked to protect our parkland against Hieftje’s efforts to prostitute it—an effort shored up by the votes, alas, of Julie Grand, Chair of the Parks Advisory Commission.

by P.D. Lesko

Bernie Madoff sold a “sure thing.” He went to prison for life. Single-stream recycling was sold as a “sure thing” by Ann Arbor city staffers, politicos and their cronies. It would double collections and save taxpayers millions. Since its launch in July of 2010, it has, in fact, done neither. According to a draft five-year solid waste plan released on January 7, 2013 by city officials, a plan cooked up by the same city staffers who brought us the multi-million dollar boondoggle that is single-stream recycling, the number of tonnes of material sent to the landfill after the city’s switch to single-stream recycling has risen significantly. Single-family diversion rates remain stalled at 50 percent, where they were in 2006, when residents paid just half of what they pay now for solid waste service.

The draft plan reveals the failure of single-stream to meet any of its goals, yet lays out a plan to increase spending. The draft plan also suggests that taxpayers pay “as they throw”—pay for garbage collection and, yes, spend more millions to relocate and build a new drop-off station. The plan, in short, proposes providing fewer services for significantly more money.

Between 2010 and 2012, Berkeley, California, Walpole, Massachusetts, Auburn, Maine, and Concord, New Hampshire, among other U.S. cities have voted against moving to single-stream or abandoned single-stream recycling, according to a 2012 study by the Container Recycling Institute. Ottawa and Toronto both decided against single-stream recycling, as well, after factoring in environmental and financial costs. One town in England discontinued single-stream recycling and saw a 20 percent increase in landfill diversions in just two years. So why did Ann Arbor fall for the single-stream boondoggle? People trusted the “local” waste management experts and “environmentalists” who pushed it on behalf of their political friends—friends who, it turns out, were shoveling millions of dollars into the pockets of the local waste management experts and environmentalists. It’s a familiar tale of ineptitude, greed and unscrupulousness.

The story starts curbside, with a struggling Recycle Ann Arbor, a subsidiary of the Ecology Center—run by Michael Garfield. In 2008, Recycle Ann Arbor began to lose money. Between 2008 and 2011, Recycle Ann Arbor lost over $700,000 and started having problems paying its bills.

Susan V. Collins heads the Container Recycling Institute. She explains who pushes single-stream recycling and why: “Single-stream was created by the waste management sector in an effort to reduce their high collection costs.” In 2009, Recycle Ann Arbor (and Garfield) jumped on the single-stream recycling truck. Garfield sent out emails to Ecology Center members extolling “Single Stream 2.0″—refuting critics who claimed single-stream recycling was environmentally regressive, too expensive and wouldn’t deliver the promised results.

Several concerned citizens spoke against single-stream recycling at a March 2010 City Council meeting. The comments are prescient, in light of the failures of the single-stream system to deliver the promised increases in collections and savings:

One resident told Council that “…the current two-stream system is working, and that she was not aware that it was deficient. The cost savings associated with a single-stream system, she said, were offset by the need to purchase new cards, trucks, and add staff at the materials recovery facility. The current economic down time was the wrong time to undertake this system.” Another resident pointed out that, “Council…would save up to $6 million by voting no. Use the funds instead for police services and park maintenance.” Finally, one commenter responded to the idea that the time has come for single-stream recycling. He suggested that it “had come … and gone. After careful study, Berkeley, Calif. decided to retain its two-stream system. The University of Colorado had also recently concluded that the negatives associated with a single-stream system outweigh the benefits and had made a decision to stick with the two-stream system.”

All of the comments were right on the money, as it were.

On March 13, 2010 Garfield blasted out an email to Ecology Center members titled: “Take Action: Support Single Stream Recycling!” He was, in essence, lobbying for a contract to be awarded to a company under his control (Recycle Ann Arbor), but making it appear in his email that the Ecology Center simply favored single stream recycling. In his email Garfield writes:

Some of you have been recycling in Ann Arbor for almost 40 years, and after sorting one recyclable from another all this time, it might seem wrong to put it all in one cart. After all, we’ve been telling you how important it is to sort your papers separately from your containers. (Some of you may even remember when we sorted green glass from brown glass from tin cans, and so on!) Less than ten years ago, the Ecology Center opposed single-stream collection programs.

But times have changed, and new sorting technology at the materials recovery facility —what we call Single Stream 2.0—makes the extra sorting at the household unnecessary, without compromising the quality of the recyclables.

When the City Hall PR machine was rolled out in October 2009 by John Hieftje, Fourth Ward Council member Margie Teall and former Fifth Ward Council member Carsten Hohnke, the three-co-sponsors of the resolution to move the city to single-stream recycling, Ann Arbor residents were promised multiple benefits from single stream recycling including reduced program costs, less waste going to the landfill and even a “multi-million dollar economic stimulus for Ann Arbor” from the RecycleBank Rewards program. The promised savings would come from two sources:

1. Recyclables would be collected using curb carts, which was supposed to allow the recyclables to be collected in less time.
2. The expanded material recovery facility (MRF) would allow the private operator to process recyclables from other communities, which would increase the city’s share of revenue from sale of recyclables.

Susan Collins goes on to explain why single-stream rewards the waste management sector. “Single-stream requires capital investment for wheeled carts, automated vehicles and sorting facility.” It does not increase collections, and in fact produces low-quality recyclables that are more difficult to sell, and more frequently end up being landfilled by purchasers than recyclables produced by the multi-stream recycling systems favored in European countries such as Germany.

The same month (July 2010) Ann Arbor switched to single-stream recycling, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education released the results of a six-month case study conducted at UC-Boulder that looked at single-stream versus dual stream recycling. That six month study concluded, “Collection costs were not significantly decreased due to the single stream routing. Revenues from selling materials as single stream were significantly less than when they were marketed as separate grades of paper and containers.”  In fact single-stream has an end product contamination rate that is 15 percent, while dual stream’s contamination rate is just 2 percent.

When Council was asked to approve $3.4 million in spending to upgrade the city-owned materials recovery facility to single stream in November 2009, they were told it would result in a $450,000 annual increase in the city’s share of revenue from sale of recyclables. It hasn’t. The $3.4 million to upgrade the MRF was on top of $4.7 million to upgrade the MRF approved by Council in September 2004. Council approved an additional half a million in spending in July and November of 2010 bringing the total to $8.6 million. The total cost includes over $600,000 in payments to Resource Recycling Systems (see the chart, below), which were not competitively bid. RRS is owned by David Stead, who also sits on the Board of Recycle Ann Arbor, and who is a member of the city’s Environmental Commission (to see exactly how tangled the web is of the Green Industrial Complex is in Ann Arbor, check out the relationship map below). The remainder of the $8.6 million was paid to the MRF operator, FCR, without competitive bidding. The money to pay for the upgrades came from city taxes.

As the chart below shows, Ann Arbor’s 2010 move to single-stream recycling involved cronyism aplenty.

When the wheels began coming off the recycling container cart and collections came up 40 percent under projections made by David Stead’s company RRS, there was finger-pointing. Tom McMurtrie, the city staffer who oversees the management of the recycling program, who approved the estimates made by a consultant from a company owned by a member of Recycle Ann Arbor’s Board of Director’s, blamed RRS, the consulting firm. Recycle Ann Arbor’s former CEO Melinda Uerling blamed city officials whom she claimed never allowed Recycle Ann Arbor to have input concerning the wildly off-base estimates of projected increases in collections. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of perfectly good recycling carts were discarded so that the city could purchase new matching containers. They were junked in a pile that was 300 feet long by about 50 feet wide, according to a disgruntled city staffer who took photos of the approximately 45,000 perfectly useable, discarded bins.

When Recycle Ann Arbor came hand in hand for a taxpayer bailout in 2011, John Hieftje rallied behind Recycle Ann Arbor as a “local” company that needed the city’s support. There was, of course, no mention of the political favors that had been given to politicos who ran for re-election in 2010. Michael Garfield, head of the Ecology Center, the company that controls Recycle Ann Arbor, gave glowing political endorsements to Fifth Ward Council member Carsten Hohnke, as well as John Hieftje, both of whom voted to repay Garfield’s characterization of them as forward-thinking environmentalists with a multi-million dollar taxpayer bailout.

Between 2000 and 2009, while the cost of solid waste removal in Ann Arbor doubled, the number of tonnes collected by Recycle Ann Arbor stagnated, as the graph, below, from the city’s web site, clearly shows.

The new five year solid waste plan that seeks to charge for garbage collection was cooked up by city staffers Tom McMurtrie, Matt Naud and Ward 1 Council member Sabra Briere. The graphs, below, come from the draft plan. The first graph shows that between 2010 and 2012 total trash sent to the landfill increased from 55,000 to 62,000 tonnes, and total recycling has stayed virtually the same, despite the expenditure of millions on single-stream and promises aplenty.

In July of 2011, when it was revealed that single-stream collections projections made by David Stead’s company RRS were off by some 40 percent. McMurtrie, attempting to lessen the sting, told AnnArbor.com, “the actual tonnage collected is still a 20 percent increase over the number of tons that were collected in the previous year with two-stream recycling.” In 2002, shortly after John Hieftje took office, city officials announced a goal of diverting 60 percent of solid waste collected from the landfill. Eleven years and almost $180,000,000 million solid waste tax dollars later, the city’s Five Year Solid Waste Plan “Waste Less” confesses, “The city’s (2002) diversion goal of 60 percent has not yet been reached, as the single-family diversion rate remains around 50 percent.” It has remained at 50 percent since 2006, with minor ups and downs.

There is one area where we have seen a dramatic increase with respect to recycling: the amount of money taxpayers spend on our solid waste millage, and the amount spent to pay Recycle Ann Arbor to haul our recyclables. That amount has skyrocked since 2004, when the City of Ann Arbor granted the non-profit a 10-year contract to haul our materials. That merit-based contract called for the City to pay Recycle Ann Arbor $766,000, according to minutes from the December 15, 2003 City Council meeting. Ann Arbor taxpayers foot the bill for the trucks, fuel, and repairs of Recycle Ann’s Arbor’s collection vehicles. Look again at the chart above at the number of tons recycled. In 2012, taxpayers purchased new trucks for Recycle Ann Arbor to use. By 2008, the cost to taxpayers to have Recycle Ann Arbor haul virtually the same number of tons of material to the MRF that the company hauled in 2003, had risen from $766,000 to a whopping $1.6 million dollars. City Council approved the payment of $1.8 million dollars to Recycle Ann Arbor for fiscal year 2010.

While Ann Arbor’s single-family diversion rate remains stalled at 50 percent, cities large and small have moved well past that (now modest) goal. In 2011, Seattle’s diversion rate for single-family homes topped 70 percent. In Boulder, the single-family diversion rate is 60 percent. San Francisco diverts 80 percent of all of its waste from its landfills. To be fair, a diversion rate above 40 percent is laudable. However, the drop in total diversion to 30 percent puts Ann Arbor at the bottom of the recycling food chain. Knoxville, Tennessee has a total diversion rate of 67 percent, and cities in the south don’t push recycling nearly as aggressively as cities in the Greal Lakes region. To rub salt in some wound somewhere, Ohio State University reports that its football stadium, a venue that seats 105,000, people diverts 98 percent of the waste produced from local landfills.

According to a 2012 report produced by the University of Michigan, “in 2009, total university waste was 17,355 tons, an overall addition of nearly 4,000 tons from the 13,833 reported for the 2004 fiscal year representing an absolute growth rate of 25.46 percent.” Officials there have suggested the goal of increasing the university’s diversion rate to 55 percent by 2020. It’s probably no coincidence that Harvard already has the highest recycling rate in the Ivies, diverting 55 percent of the waste the university produces from local landfills. Ann Arbor’s draft five year plan proposes strategies to increase the city’s overall diversion rate from 31 percent at the present to 40 percent by 2017. However, there’s a catch: This five year plan to build a new recovery facility and then charge even more for solid waste services is being “sold” by the some of the same hucksters who promised us single-stream was a “sure thing.”

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, call me an Ann Arbor taxpayer.

by P.D. Lesko

On June 30, 2012, the The Sierra Club, Huron Valley Group, and Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter announced that the groups had bestowed one of the most sought after political endorsements in the United States onto Fifth Ward Council candidate Vivienne Armentrout (left), a Democrat who spent four terms as a Washtenaw County commish focusing on water quality issues. For the past several years, the Michigan Sierra Club has refused to endorse John Hieftje or any of the City Council candidates he has backed, including Armentrout’s opponent, Chuck Warpehoski. The spin from Hieftje and his supporters is that the Michigan Sierra Club endorsement is withheld because of petty jealousies between Hieftje and members of the local chapter of the state Sierra Club.

Perhaps the answer is less complicated—that the Michigan Sierra Club endorses candidates who care about the environment. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data and analysis reveal that the air and water in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw county are dirty. Really dirty. In fact, Washtenaw county and Ann Arbor have some of the dirtiest air and water in the state of Michigan, according to the EPA. Ann Arbor has been singled out by the EPA for its failure to meet federal clean air standards since 2005. Add to this the fact that over the past decade miles driven within Ann Arbor rose by a whopping 47,481,632, and well, suddenly the refusal of the Michigan Sierra Club to endorse Hieftje or the candidates he endorses looks less about a personality conflict and more about the Sierra Club having standards. The EPA data also raise questions about the Michigan enviro groups who have given Hieftje and his local, county and state political cronies awards and endorsements over the past decade.

Matt Grocoff makes a tidy living off of living the “green” lifestyle. According to his own bio., Grocoff is Founder and CEO of GreenovationTV, LLC, a broadband television channel to empower homeowners to make their homes net zero energy, water and waste. Based on his bio., one would imagine Grocoff could pick a political candidate whose experience and support of sustainable policies were in line with what would be seen by the Sierra Club as best serving Ann Arbor.

Turns out, he can’t.

Like Hieftje, Grocoff endorsed Chuck Warpehoski for the Ward 5 City Council seat.

Armentrout will tell you that she spent much of her four terms on the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners working on what is commonly known as the Gelman/Pall Plume. The Plume is a wide ribbon of 1,4 dioxane contamination running through the county/city water table. 1,4 dioxane is a carcinogen. Ann Arbor resident Charles Gelman’s manufacturing company pumped contaminated water containing 1,4 dioxane into holding pits. The pits leaked, and an environmental disaster for Washtenaw County and the City of Ann Arbor was born.

The plume is working its way toward Barton Pond, from which Ann Arbor gets most of its drinking water. Clean-up efforts on the part of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) have infuriated county residents who see the efforts as relatively ineffective. The City of Ann Arbor has already closed one drinking water well that was contaminated by the 1,4 dioxane plume. If this is the first you’ve heard of the Gelman/Pall plume, check out this MDEQ website. The problem is simple: where the MDEQ finds 1,4 dioxane in the groundwater, use of that contaminated groundwater is then prohibited.

Should the plume hit Barton Pond, Ann Arbor residents will find themselves faced with some ugly choices, and uglier questions for politicos who sat back and watched the plume spread instead of fighting the MDEQ tooth and nail to clean up the contamination.

As a county commissioner, Vivienne Armentrout worked for many years to get Ann Arbor City Council members interested in partnering with the county to come up with a plan to deal with the growing contamination. Armentrout says, “I asked John Hieftje directly to appoint someone. (He usually ran away when he saw me coming at parties.) He finally appointed (Ward 1 Council member) Kim Groome, who did make a game effort but was completely ignored by her colleagues.” What then-County Commish Armentrout did accomplish was this: She revived the intergovernmental partnership whereby all affected units of government met regularly to address strategies for dealing with the Gelman Plume contamination, and she was able to get county funding for several appeals to the Attorney General and the head of DEQ.

Her opponent espouses lofty ideals, but has no boots-on-the-ground experience. It may be why he lists his paid job as one of three “community service” gigs on his campaign website.

Like Grocoff and John Hieftje, Mike Garfield, head of the Ann Arbor Ecology Center, endorsed Warpehoski, as well. It’s the “local environmentalist” trifecta. However, just what does hitting this trifecta mean?

Garfield endorsed Hieftje in 2006, 2008 and 2012 with this pithy quote: “John Hieftje has the strongest environmental record of any Mayor in the Midwest. He’s championed the city’s Greenbelt, the clean energy initiative, commuter rail, bicycling and our terrific parks system. These programs set Ann Arbor apart. John’s leadership has set the standard for progressive mayors everywhere.”

However, between 2005-2012, Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County have been on the EPA’s list of state areas defined as “nonattainment” with respect to air quality standards tracked and measured by the organization. In fact, Washtenaw county’s air pollution is so pervasive it has been identified by the EPA as contributing to the poor air and water quality in neighboring Wayne County. In light of Ann Arbor’s poor air and water quality, Garfield’s cloying endorsement of Hieftje reads like a mother’s blurb about her son’s B movie.

The EPA data should lead local voters to question whether “local environmentalists” base endorsements on the health of the local environment, or on candidates’ environmental accomplishments.

Dirty air and dirty water have won Hieftje endorsements from “local environmentalists” such as Garfield, as well as awards from the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, a small organization that, like Ann Arbor’s “local environmentalists” obviously did not take the state of the environment into account when deciding to honor Ann Arbor’s mayor.

While Warpehoski is relying heavily on endorsements to flesh out a very thin record of public service, Armentrout, with years of experience as an elected official, is shying away from relying on endorsements. While Warpehoski is running hard on the names of his endorsers, Armentrout is running on a record of public service and, now, has an endorsement that puts her in some very rarified company. Along with urging local voters to elect Vivienne Armentrout, the Michigan Sierra Club has also endorsed President Barack Obama and Senator Debbie Stabenow, but not Representative John Dingell.

In neither 2012, 2010 nor 2008 did the Michigan Sierra Club endorse Dingell—the politico whose name appears at the very top of Warpehoski’s list of supporters. Like Warpehoski himself, as well as many of his endorsers who hold elected office, including Hieftje, and current Ward 5 Council member Carsten Hohnke who is stepping down, they have had absolutely no luck convincing one of the nation’s oldest, largest and most influential grassroots environmental organizations that their records as environmentalists are worthy of endorsement.

Along with Ward 5 Council candidate Vivienne Armentrout, the Sierra Club is urging Ann Arbor voters to support Democrats Jack Eaton in Ward 4, Sally Hart Petersen in Ward 2 and Sumi Kailasapahy in Ward 1.

by P.D. Lesko

The Sierra Club, Huron Valley Group, and Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter announced on June 30, 2012 that the groups had bestowed one of the most sought after political endorsements in the United States onto Fourth Ward Council candidate Jack Eaton, a Democrat challenging long-time incumbent Ward 4 City Council member Margie Teall. The Sierra Club, an independent and highly respected environmental group, is urging Ann Arbor voters who care about the environment to go to polls and toss the incumbent out on her political keister.

Meanwhile, Teall claims on her campaign website: “Margie Teall is endorsed by our community’s environmental leaders.” There are no actual endorsements from any environmental leaders on her site, just her claim that they all endorse her. Well, not all of them, evidently.

For the entire time Teall has been in office, including 9 years on the City’s Environmental Commission, the Michigan Sierra Club has stubbornly refused to endorse the politico who claims that her uber-environmentalism is the reason she “is endorsed by our community’s environmental leaders.” The spin from the Hieftje Hive Mind Collective, of which Teall is an important drone, is that the Sierra Club endorsement is withheld because of petty jealousies between Hieftje, his political allies, including Teall, and members of the local chapter of the state Sierra Club.

The real reason may this: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data and analysis reveal that the air and water in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw county are dirty. Really dirty. In fact, Washtenaw county and Ann Arbor have some of the dirtiest air and water in the state of Michigan, according to the EPA. Ann Arbor has been singled out by the EPA for its failure to meet federal clean air standards since 2005. Add to this the fact that over the past decade miles driven within Ann Arbor rose by a whopping 47,481,632, and well, suddenly the refusal of the Michigan Sierra Club to endorse Teall looks less about a personality conflict and more about the Sierra Club having standards. The EPA data also raise questions about the Michigan enviro groups whohave given Hieftje and his local, county and state political cronies awards and endorsements over the past decade.

Furthermore, it’s no secret that the leadership of The Sierra Club, Huron Valley Group, and Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter are at odds with Teall over her attacks on funding for local parks, including an accounting scheme used that has diverted millions of dollars from the Parks Maintenance & Repairs Millage, her support of targeting of over a dozen local parks for leasing and development, including Gallup Park, and most recently the her multiple votes in favor of a plan to lease Fuller Road parkland abutting the Huron River for a parking garage to be used by University of Michigan.

In addition, Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County face serious environmental issues that Teall has not worked to remedy.

For instance, according to officials in the Washtenaw County Department of Environmental Health, the county has no comprehensive surface water monitoring program. There’s no money to do it, county officials claim. Yet, in 2009 the county received part of a $1.7 million dollar grant from the EPA to the state to be used for water management programs. The Huron River Watershed Council received over $185,000 of the total $1.7 million dollar grant from the EPA. In bordering Wayne County, the Water Quality Management Group provides water resource management to that county’s municipalities. In Oakland County, the Health Division regularly monitors surface water.

The lack of a comprehensive and strategic program greatly inhibits the overall assessment of water quality in Washtenaw County.

According to data compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the county’s water sources contain over twice the number of contaminants found in water sources state-wide, starting with a 1,4 dioxane plume that is creeping toward the Huron River. According to the city of Ann Arbor web site, “Laboratory studies show that exposure to 1,4 dioxane over a lifetime causes cancer in animals. 1,4 dioxane may likewise cause cancer in humans. Laboratory studies show that repeat exposure to large amounts of 1,4 dioxane in drinking water, in air, or on the skin causes liver and kidney damage in animals.” Data gathered by the state and the EPA reveal that Washtenaw County, including Ann Arbor, has one of the most impaired watersheds in Michigan, with 15.3 percent of the total surface water not meeting Clean Water Act standards. In Wayne County, one of the dirtiest counties in the country according to the EPA, 17.22 percent of all surface water fails to meet Clean Water Act standards.

Between 2005-2012, Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County have been on the EPA’s list of state areas defined as “nonattainment” with respect to air quality standards tracked and measured by the organization. In fact, Washtenaw county’s air pollution is so pervasive it has been identified by the EPA for contributing to the poor air and water quality in neighboring Wayne County.

In May 2011, a piece in Forbes by writer Kai Petainen, a local who pens a column for the mag., addressed the green elephant in the living room:

After losing the local paper newspaper, environmental issues in Ann Arbor get very little press, and are sometimes narrowed down to a paragraph or two.  Stereotypes about a city can be rather misleading.  Ann Arbor is supposedly known for environmentalism, but it doesn’t take long to find a town that is not known for its environmentalism, doing much more with alternative energy than Ann Arbor.  When one drives to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a first impression of the city can be one of steel plants and paper mills.  Drive outside and around the city, and one finds a number of alternative energy sources.  It doesn’t take long to notice that the Soo is becoming a hot place for clean energy, as it has large-scale wind and solar power facilities, a hydro plant and progress on biomass power.

Petainen then goes on to write about the green elephant in the aquifer:

Does Ann Arbor have any other pollution issues?  Yes. Although I focused in on a smaller unsolved spill, Ann Arbor has a much larger ‘spill.’  There is a 1,4 dioxane plume that has entered the groundwater and residents are clearly upset with the cleanup effort.

In October 2011, the Sierra Club endorsed against incumbent Second Ward City Council member Stephen Rapundalo, who went on to lose his seat to independent candidate Jane Lumm. In the press release accompanying Lumm’s endorsement, the Sierra Club’s local chapter ended the announcement with a promise: The Sierra Club will lend its volunteer strength to Ms. Lumm’s campaign. ”We pledge to do all we can to help ensure Jane Lumm is elected to council.”

The group’s endorsement did, indeed, help Lumm dislodge a member of Council who had been in office for six years. Will anti-environment Hieftje crony Margie Teall pay the price of voting in support of parks as “profit centers?” Will her many votes in support of using fragile river front parkland on Fuller Road as a construction site for a 1,000 car parking tower—despite strong opposition from the local chapter of the Sierra Club—mean an end to her political career? Can The Sierra Club, Huron Valley Group, and Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter shoot down yet another of Ann Arbor’s faux environmentalist politicos?

While Ward 4 incumbent Margie Teall claims that all of the city’s environmental “leaders” endorse her, but has no actual endorsements on her campaign website, Jack Eaton’s campaign website includes several endorsements from respected local environmentalists. Treasurer of the Michigan Sierra Club Political Committee, Former Ann Arbor Parks Advisory Commission member Gwen Nysteun penned this: “I have known Jack Eaton for several years now. In that time, he has been a staunch advocate for our city’s parks. Jack is an exceptionally well-informed and reliable leader who has tirelessly attended innumerable City meetings representing the concerns of his own and other city neighborhoods. He has made information on City laws, ordinances, planning process, and procedure much more accessible and frequently advocates for neighborhoods before Council. Without question he is most highly qualified to be on Council, and will be an outstanding member. I am pleased to support him and ask you to do the same when you vote on August 7th.”

Ann Arbor Environmental Commission member Dr. Rita Loch-Caruso has this to say about Eaton’s support for sound environmental policies: ”It has been my pleasure to know and work with Jack on neighborhood and environmental concerns, including several related to watershed management and protection. In particular, Jack demonstrated outstanding leadership working with the neighborhood to protect Dickens Woods. He is an outstanding listener, a tireless advocate for citizen involvement in city actions, and strongly committed to environmentally sound city policies.”

If you’d like to to know more about Eaton’s support of the environment, you may download his answers to the Sierra Club Endorsement Questionnaire (PDF).

Eaton, in announcing the endorsement at a June 30th campaign event, told supporters he was “very proud of the support of the The Sierra Club, Huron Valley Group, and Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter.”

He’s in excellent company. In Michigan, the Sierra Club endorsements for 2012 include President Barack Obama and Senator Debbie Stabenow. The Sierra Club endorsed against both incumbents on Ann Arbor City Council running for re-election. Then again, both Teall and Ward 2 Council member Tony Derezinski have voted repeatedly against the environment and parkland, including the opportunity to green up the new downtown underground parking garage (another project Teall enthusiastically supported which will, potentially, keep miles driven in Ann Arbor rising) by topping it with a public park.

by P.D. Lesko

“John Hieftje has the strongest environmental record of any Mayor in the Midwest. He’s championed the city’s Greenbelt, the clean energy initiative, commuter rail, bicycling and our terrific parks system. These programs set Ann Arbor apart. John’s leadership has set the standard for progressive mayors everywhere.”

—Mike Garfield, Environmental Activist

So why has the Michigan Sierra Club, for almost a decade, stubbornly refused to endorse the politico who “sets the standard for progressive mayors everywhere, and has the strongest environmental record of any Mayor in the Midwest?” The spin from Hieftje and his supporters is that the Michigan Sierra Club endorsement is withheld because of petty jealousies between Hieftje and members of the local chapter of the state Sierra Club.

The real reason may this: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data and analysis reveal that the air and water in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw county are dirty. Really dirty. In fact, Washtenaw county and Ann Arbor have some of the dirtiest air and water in the state of Michigan, according to the EPA. Ann Arbor has been singled out by the EPA for its failure to meet federal clean air standards since 2005. Add to this the fact that over the past decade miles driven within Ann Arbor rose by a whopping 47,481,632, and well, suddenly the refusal of the Michigan Sierra Club to endorse Hieftje looks less about a personality conflict and more about the Sierra Club having standards. The EPA data also raise questions about the Michigan enviro groups who have given Hieftje and his local, county and state political cronies awards and endorsements over the past decade.

Michael Garfield is the Executive director of the Ecology Center (which in turn controls Recycle Ann Arbor). Lisa Wozniak is the Executive Director of the tiny Michigan League of Conservation Voters. Former Ann Arbor City Council member and state politico Chris Kolb heads the Michigan Environmental Council, a statewide coalition of 70 environmental, public health and faith-based nonprofit groups. Laura Rubin leads the Huron River Watershed Council.

Each of them is involved in a tangled web of campaign donations, political appointments, public money and endorsements. The voting public is led to believe that Michigan enviro-endorsements doled out locally reflect progressive politics and environmentalism. If the EPA data are any indication, enviro-endorsements by the Huron River Watershed Council, Michigan League of Conservation Voters, the Michigan Environmental Council, as well as the Ecology Center, have little to do with the actual health of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw county’s air and water.

According to officials in the Washtenaw County Department of Environmental Health, the county has no comprehensive surface water monitoring program. There’s no money to do it, county officials claim. Yet, in 2009 the county received part of a $1.7 million dollar grant from the EPA to the state to be used for water management programs. The Huron River Watershed Council received over $185,000 of the total $1.7 million dollar grant from the EPA. In bordering Wayne County, the Water Quality Management Group provides water resource management to that county’s municipalities. In Oakland County, the Health Division regularly monitors surface water.

The lack of a comprehensive and strategic program greatly inhibits the overall assessment of water quality in Washtenaw County.

According to data compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the county’s water sources contain over twice the number of contaminants found in water sources state-wide, starting with a 1,4 dioxane plume that is creeping toward the Huron River. According to the city of Ann Arbor web site, “Laboratory studies show that exposure to 1,4 dioxane over a lifetime causes cancer in animals. 1,4 dioxane may likewise cause cancer in humans. Laboratory studies show that repeat exposure to large amounts of 1,4 dioxane in drinking water, in air, or on the skin causes liver and kidney damage in animals.” Data gathered by the state and the EPA reveal that Washtenaw County, including Ann Arbor, has one of the most impaired watersheds in Michigan, with 15.3 percent of the total surface water not meeting Clean Water Act standards. In Wayne County, one of the dirtiest counties in the country according to the EPA, 17.22 percent of all surface water fails to meet Clean Water Act standards.

Washtenaw county’s lack of a comprehensive and strategic surface water monitoring program makes it much easier for the Michigan environmental groups referred to above to be used as environmental shills, providing political endorsements to a tight-knit group of local, county, state and national politicos even while Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County’s air and water quality standards, as documented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, failed to meet national standards year after year over the past decade.

Between 2005-2012, Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County have been on the EPA’s list of state areas defined as “nonattainment” with respect to air quality standards tracked and measured by the organization. In fact, Washtenaw county’s air pollution is so pervasive it has been identified by the EPA for contributing to the poor air and water quality in neighboring Wayne County.

In May 2011, a piece in Forbes by writer Kai Petainen, a local who pens a column for the mag., addressed the green elephant in the living room:

After losing the local paper newspaper, environmental issues in Ann Arbor get very little press, and are sometimes narrowed down to a paragraph or two.  Stereotypes about a city can be rather misleading.  Ann Arbor is supposedly known for environmentalism, but it doesn’t take long to find a town that is not known for its environmentalism, doing much more with alternative energy than Ann Arbor.  When one drives to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a first impression of the city can be one of steel plants and paper mills.  Drive outside and around the city, and one finds a number of alternative energy sources.  It doesn’t take long to notice that the Soo is becoming a hot place for clean energy, as it has large-scale wind and solar power facilities, a hydro plant and progress on biomass power.

Petainen then goes on to write about the green elephant in the aquifer:

Does Ann Arbor have any other pollution issues?  Yes. Although I focused in on a smaller unsolved spill, Ann Arbor has a much larger ‘spill.’  There is a 1,4 dioxane plume that has entered the groundwater and residents are clearly upset with the cleanup effort.

So guess who wouldn’t talk to Petainen about the 1,4 dioxane plume? “I was unable to get a comment from Pall Corporation, or the Huron River Watershed Council (a “Coalition of governments, businesses, and volunteers dedicated to protecting, sustaining, and rehabilitating the Huron River system.)”

In 2006, 2008 and 2010, while the Ecology Center’s Michael Garfield trumpted Hieftje as having “the strongest environmental record of any Mayor in the Midwest,” the city completely failed to meet national PM-2.5 air quality standards. According to the EPA:

Particulate matter, or PM, is the term for particles found in the air, including dust, dirt, soot, smoke, and liquid droplets. Particles can be suspended in the air for long periods of time. Some particles are large or dark enough to be seen as soot or smoke. Others are so small that individually they can only be detected with an electron microscope.

Many manmade and natural sources emit PM directly or emit other pollutants that react in the atmosphere to form PM. These solid and liquid particles come in a wide range of sizes.

Particles less than 10 micrometers in diameter (PM₁₀) pose a health concern because they can be inhaled into and accumulate in the respiratory system. Particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM_2.5) are referred to as “fine” particles and are believed to pose the greatest health risks. Because of their small size (approximately 1/30th the average width of a human hair), fine particles can lodge deeply into the lungs.

In 2008, when Wozniak’s League of Conservation Voters awarded Hieftje an “Environmental Leadership Award” for his environmental achievements, the city was on the EPA’s list of areas nation-wide where air quality was classified as “nonattainment.” Nonattainment areas are where residents are at the greatest health risk thanks to “fine” particles in the air. In that same year, the city also made the EPA’s list for areas that failed to meet the agency’s 8-Hour Ozone standards, as well. Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County were number 6 the list of Michigan counties where a large percentage of surface water sources failed to meet federal Clean Water Act standards.

In 2010, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters endorsed local political Democratic insiders including then state representative Rebekah Warren, Ned Staebler, Hieftje and Christine Green, a candidate for the 52nd District state seat that went to Republican Mark Ouimet. The group also endorsed Republican Rick Snyder.

A look at the Board of Directors of Ecology Center, Michigan League of Conservation Voters, the Huron River Watershed Council and the Michigan Environmental Council, and it becomes clear that there is a tangled web of influence that reaches from Ann Arbor to Lansing and back again—influence that has been used to bestow awards and green cred on local politicos whose environmental records include EPA warnings of consistently poor air and water quality.

For example, Chris Kolb, Executive Director of the Michigan Environmental Council, sits on the board of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. Lisa Wozniak, Executive Director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, sits on the Board of the Huron River Watershed Council. Wozniak also sits on the Board of Kolb’s Michigan Environmental Council. 2010 State House candidate Christine Green, who scored an endorsement from the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, serves as an at-large member of the Michigan Environmental Council Board. She also sits on the Board of Michael Garfield’s Ann Arbor Ecology Center. Phil Roos, an Ann Arborite, sits on the Boards of both the Michigan Environmental Council and the Board of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. Hieftje sat on the Board of Garfield’s Recycle Ann Arbor, as well as Rubin’s Huron River Watershed Council.

Between 2006 and 2010 these enviro groups and “environmental activists” have given the Green Thumb’s up to local politicos who tried to sell parkland, and went on to try to lease river front acreage for use as a construction site for a 1,000 car parking garage. During Michigan’s “Greenest mayor’s” years in office, Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) for the City of Ann Arbor increased by 9.8 percent from 2000 to 2010, from an estimated 481,607,203 miles to 529,238,685, according to data compiled by WATS.

As with Hieftje and his political cronies, Rep. Dingell has found The Sierra Club endorsement virtually impossible to land.

Nonetheless, Michigan-based enviro groups controlled by Ann Arborites have stepped in to fill the void for a Congressman who has been called an “environmental demon.” Chris Kolb recently penned a treacly endorsement of Rep. John Dingell’s environmental “achievements.” Lisa Wozniak was on hand to laud Mr. Dingell Environmentalist when he kicked off his 2012 re-election campaign. Never mind that when Rep. Dingell was ousted from his chairmanship of the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce, progressive media outlet Mother Jones cheered. ”Huge news. Great news. Michigan Representative John Dingell, who has spent over 50 years in the House of Representatives being the auto industry’s babysitter, has lost his position as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to the younger and more liberal Henry Waxman.”

EPA data reveal Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County have seriously and chronically dirty air, contaminated surface and underground water sources. Yet, Michigan and Ann Arbor enviro groups and their leaders continue to bestow glowing endorsements on the same tight-knit group of local, county, state and national politicos who run as “environmentalists.” The Gospel according to the EPA is that Garfield’s “strongest environmental record of any Mayor in the Midwest” has in reality accomplished little, according to EPA data from the past decade, to clean up our county’s air and remediate surface and water table water contamination. Hieftje, however, is far from alone in his abuse of the title “environmentalist.”

In the movie classic “The Godfather,” an undertaker aptly named Bonasera comes to Don Vito Corleone and asks a favor, murder, as payback for the brutal beating of his daughter during an attempted rape. The Don grants the man’s request, in part, with this caveat: “Good. Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.” Of course that day comes. It always comes. The chance for local and state enviro groups and their leaders to “do a service” for their Dons will come sooner rather than later—first we’ll see a new batch of enviro endorsements just in time for the August Democratic primary election, and then again in November.