Archive for October, 2010

Ashley & Liberty

Tailgate at Downtown Home & Garden; Mark Hodesh produced corn chowder while Big Green Egg produced tasty brisket.

A2: Gubernatorial Race

The Lansing State Journal reports on a discussion that GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder of Ann Arbor had with the newspaper’s editorial board, when he described how he’d work to lower the state government’s payroll: “One of the toughest issues the next governor has to address is the topic of public employee compensation. That’s a topic that has to be on the table … (But) we have to understand we are talking about people and families. You have to treat it with sensitivity.” [Source]

Column: Practical Ideals and the Peace Corps

Fifty years ago this week, I was a few days away from ending nine months of gestation in my mother’s belly – which is to say, on Oct. 14, 1960 I wasn’t among the throngs gathered in front of the Michigan Union at 2 a.m., enduring fatigue and drizzling rain to hear John F. Kennedy give a campaign stump speech.

Mary Morgan Peace Corps

A photo taken in 1985 with the Moudyoutenday family at the start of my Peace Corps experience in the Central African Republic. I'm the one looking the least dignified.

But 25 years later, my life was tightly intertwined with that speech, though I didn’t know it at the time. In October of 1985 I was a Peace Corps volunteer, fumbling my way through the first few weeks of life in a mud hut, learning to accept rats and roaches as daily encounters, realizing how much I missed American toilets – teaching English, of all things, to youngsters in the impoverished Central African Republic.

It was a transformative two years for me – but not in the way that recent hagiographic celebrations of the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary might have you believe. In fact, I emerged from the experience with ambiguous feelings toward the Corps, and specifically toward the mythos that’s arisen around it.

I was struck by that ambiguity again on Thursday morning, as I listened to speakers on the steps of the Michigan Union describe with such certitude the pivotal role that the Peace Corps plays in fostering world peace. It gets to the crux of my discomfort with this message: While I believe wholeheartedly that the program benefits the mostly single, middle-class, recent college grads who make up its ranks, I’m much less convinced of its lasting positive impact on the countries where volunteers serve. [Full Story]

Fourth & Washington

Group of bicyclists in front of Rick Snyder’s campaign headquarters to convey disappointment over remarks Snyder made during a recent televised debate. Snyder cited a new bicycle and pedestrian bridge over US-23 at Geddes as an example of inefficient spending on transportation in the state. [photo] [.pdf of press release]

Connected to bridges, but separate from the demonstration, city of Ann Arbor engineer Michael Nearing walked past, apparently on his way back from lunch, and confirmed that he was very happy today – Ann Arbor was awarded $14 million from the  TIGER 2 federal grant program to repair its bridges on E. Stadium Boulevard.

UM: Cheerleaders

The Wall Street Journal reports on the increasing trend of alumni cheerleaders returning to their schools decades later to continue their tumbling tricks. Dick Kimball, a former UM cheerleader, plans to attend this Saturday’s UM football game and recreate his cheerleading days. At 75 years old, Kimball will launch into a backwards somersault from the sidelines. Many alumni attempt now-banned tricks – another of Kimball’s planned tricks, a “toe pitch,” was banned from UM years ago, and the university said they are not liable for alumni safety. [Source]

Liberty & Ashley

Mark Hodesh of Downtown Home & Garden picking up trash and using the leaf blower on the sidewalks outside his business.

Column: College Football Beats the Pros

John U. Bacon

John U. Bacon

Last Saturday, the Michigan State Spartans beat the Michigan Wolverines in the most anticipated rivalry game in years. But that was overshadowed just one day later by the Detroit Lions, who pulled off one of the great upsets of the NFL season, when they … beat someone. Anyone. Doesn’t matter. At football!

Hard to believe it was just two years ago the Lions became the first NFL team to lose all 16 games. And now, here they are, standing tall at 1-5.

That’s why their victory was such big news. I hear from my friends who have real jobs that it was bigger talk around the office water cooler than the Michigan-Michigan State game – and that’s saying something.

It just proves my theory that Detroit really isn’t Hockeytown. It’s a football town. Whenever the Lions so much as show a pulse, the locals go loco.

But I’m still not biting. Not just on the Lions, but on pro football itself. [Full Story]

A2: Theater

The Detroit News publishes a review by Lawrence B. Johnson of Performance Network Theatre‘s “Sonia Flew,” calling it “one of the most potent theater productions I’ve seen anywhere in some time.” The show at the Ann Arbor theater is a “dark story about a Cuban-born woman looking back on the life-changing hour when her parents shipped her off to the United States, at age 15, in hope that she might live free and find a better future,” Johnson writes. Performances run through Oct. 24. [Source]

Column: Debate on Watches, Authenticity

About 20 years ago, after a stint in graduate school, I found myself faced with the challenge of learning some basic Chinese to prepare for a teaching appointment at the English Language Institute of Xi’an Medical University. So I drew on my previous experience learning a foreign language – German.

clock-watch-chinese

Chinese characters produced by Google Translate for "clock" and "watch" – useful for debates on the merits of timepiece size when traveling in the Middle Kingdom.

For eighth grade German class, I had memorized a conversation between two old friends, Hans Köhler and Walter Fischer, who accidentally bumped into each other in Berlin. Here’s how it started: “Ach, du, Walter! Du bist in Berlin?!” “Ja, ich bin zur Messe hier.” “Und deine Frau?” “Sie ist in Hamburg.”

Loosely translated: “Dude! It’s you, Walter!” “Yeah, I’m in town for a convention.” “What about your wife?” “She’s in Hamburg.” Hilarity ensued as the architect Hans Köhler and the businessman Walter Fischer regaled each other with tales of derring-do. The whole thing concluded with Hans showing off his car to Walter: “Dort ist mein Wagen!” [There is my car!]

So I found a book of Chinese dialogues, with the same expectations of success I’d had with German. My favorite one was called: “A Debate on Clocks and Watches.” To be perfectly honest, I don’t remember much of it  – there were no compelling characters like Hans and Walter. And the “debate” wasn’t really much of a debate. The controversy, as best I recall, involved opinions about the size of watches – are big watches or small watches better? And the two parties to the debate weren’t really committed to their positions. As best I recall the concluding line was: “Da biao, xiao biao – dou hau!” “Big watches and small watches – they’re both good.”

That’s not a conclusion to an authentic “debate” in any reasonable sense. I bring up these foreign language dialogues from my distant past, because I was reminded of them last Thursday morning at the regular meeting of the Main Street Area Association, which took place at Conor O’Neill’s. The MSAA gave all five city council candidates an opportunity to introduce themselves and take questions from the assembled Main Street merchants.

Attending for Ward 2 were: Tony Derezinski, the Democratic incumbent, and Emily Salvette, who is the Libertarian challenger. Attending for Ward 5 were independent Newcombe Clark, Republican John Floyd and Democratic incumbent Carsten Hohnke. [Full Story]

A2: Dominick’s

A feature article in Michigan Today looks at the history of Dominick’s, the Monroe Street eatery that Dominick DeVarti bought in 1959 and turned into a pizzaria and bar. “A Connecticut native, DeVarti had been a bomber-navigator in World War II. He came to Michigan for an engineering degree on the G.I. Bill, then worked for Kaiser Industries in Ypsilanti, then shifted to construction. He bought and sold three pizzerias (one of them, in Ypsi, to Tom Monaghan; it became the first Domino’s, its name inspired by the original owner), and ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Ann Arbor on the Republican ticket in 1957.” [Source]

A2: Ignite

Ryan Burns, organizer of Ignite Ann Arbor, posts some charts on attendee data from last week’s event: “It’s interesting to note that only 268 of the 500 RSVPs are from Ann Arbor proper. We’re considering doing away with RSVPs entirely for next time. Because it’s a free event, the attrition rate is pretty high, there are a lot of no-shows, and twitter is awash with people saying they wished they could come but couldn’t get a ticket.” [Source]

Geddes Road WB

Geddes Road going west: Signs say road closed, take the detour. But the road is open; three roundabouts later, I’m on my way.

UM Diag

Wednesday afternoon: Fraternity members taking shifts on a teeter-totter for 36 hours, fundraising for Mott Children’s Hospital.

A2: Jayne Miller

KARE-11, the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis, reports that the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board commissioners unanimously voted to approve the hiring of Jayne Miller as the system’s next superintendent. Miller, who until earlier this year was a top administrator for the city of Ann Arbor, had taken a job as director of the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority. After holding that job for just over six months, she resigned in September. She currently serves as president of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission board, a volunteer position. [Source]

West Park Art Project Nears Completion

Ann Arbor Public Art Commission meeting (Oct. 12, 2010): In a meeting notable for its brevity – lasting one hour, or about a third as long as typical AAPAC monthly meetings – commissioners got updates on several projects, including the Herbert Dreiseitl water sculpture at the municipal center and a new public art installation at West Park.

West Park bandshell

New curving seat walls for the West Park bandshell have already been built, and await the public art installation – two metal tree sculptures to be installed on the ends.

The West Park project is expected to be installed later this month, as part of a major overhaul of the park that’s still in progress. The artwork by Traven Pelletier of Lotus Gardenscapes includes two metal trees that will bookend one of the seat walls facing the park’s bandshell. According to a budget summary distributed at Tuesday’s meeting, the project cost $12,375.

As for Dreiseitl’s piece, the bids from fabricators who’ll actually build the sculpture came in over budget, so to cut costs it will now be made of bronze rather than weathering steel. Quinn Evans Architects, the Ann Arbor firm that’s overseeing the project on contract with the city, also has suggested creating a $12,180 contingency – above the $737,820 budget that city council has approved – to cover potential, additional unbudgeted costs.

At Tuesday’s meeting, commissioner Cathy Gendron announced plans to revamp AAPAC’s page on the city’s website, and said that the public relations committee decided not to renew the URL for its external website – annarborpublicart.org – which had been maintained by a volunteer. That site is now defunct. Commissioner Elaine Sims noted that the University of Michigan recently launched a website for its public art efforts, and wondered if AAPAC’s page could contain similar elements. “It’s a wonderful site, but we just can’t do that,” Gendron said, adding that they’re constrained by the template used by the city. They can be more flexible on AAPAC’s Facebook page, she added.

There was some discussion about recruiting new commissioners, and it was noted that mayor John Hieftje recently made a nomination to fill an AAPAC vacancy – not all commissioners had been aware of this action. Though he wasn’t mentioned by name during Tuesday’s meeting, that nominee is Malverne Winborne, director of Eastern Michigan University’s Charter Schools Office, with a background in organizational development. The city council is expected to vote on his appointment at their Oct. 18 meeting. AAPAC will have an additional vacancy when Jim Curtis resigns – he announced his intent to step down in July and has stopped attending meetings, but hasn’t yet officially resigned. [Full Story]

Medical Marijuana Zoning Heads to Council

Ann Arbor Planning Commission meeting (Oct. 5, 2010): Zoning for medical marijuana businesses was the main agenda item for the commission’s Oct. 5 meeting. The issue drew more than a dozen people to council chambers, and six people spoke at a public hearing on the topic.

Jill Thacher, Bonnie Bona

Jill Thacher, left, of the city of Ann Arbor's planning staff, has been the point person in drafting a zoning ordinance to address medical marijuana businesses. She outlined changes to the draft ordinance at the Oct. 5 planning commission meeting. Next to Thacher is planning commissioner Bonnie Bona. (Photos by the writer.)

The draft ordinance that was ultimately approved unanimously, and forwarded to the city council, contained several changes from the version that the commission considered at its Sept. 21 meeting. During the Oct. 5 deliberations, commissioners also approved three out of four proposed amendments, some of them in response to input from the public.

In a separate vote, the commission approved a motion to recommend that the city council institute a medical marijuana business license. Eric Mahler cast the lone vote of dissent. There was little discussion and no details about what the license would entail, aside from a general intent “to address issues that fall outside the scope of the zoning ordinance, such as building security and code compliance for electrical use, fire suppression, and ingress/egress.”

Commissioner Jean Carlberg questioned Kristen Larcom of the city attorney’s office about whether the license would only apply to dispensaries, or if it would be required of cultivation facilities and “home occupation” businesses as well. In reply, Larcom said she didn’t know – they hadn’t yet drafted it. Commissioner Kirk Westphal asked if the license might include a cap on the number of dispensaries in the city – Larcom said that it might.

In their final item of business, planning commissioners unanimously agreed to reconsider a petition they had rejected at their Sept. 21 meeting – to a special exception use that would allow for the expansion of Arbor Dog Daycare, a business located at 2856 S. Main St., near the corner of Eisenhower. They then immediately tabled action on the item until their Oct. 19 meeting. The owners spoke during public commentary urging commissioners to reconsider, but later in the meeting commissioner Jean Carlberg said she’d spent more than an hour in the neighborhood near the business, and was disturbed by the level of noise coming from barking dogs there. [Full Story]

Main & Ann

In front of the county administration building, Bill Riney and fellow protesters staff a hot dog stand and await results of the election commission decision on a petition to recall all Ypsilanti Township elected officials. They’re protesting the amount of money that township officials have spent on attorney fees. [photo] [photo]

800 W. Huron

Signs for Carsten Hohnke and Newcombe Clark side-by-side in the yard.  Don’t know whether to feel left out, or amused at the owner’s ambivalence. [Editor's note: For the benefit of future historians, Hohnke, Clark, and the observer of this item, John Floyd, are all contesting the Ward 5 Ann Arbor city council seat on Nov. 2.]

UM: Peace Corps

Activist Tom Hayden, writing on The Huffington Post, describes his experiences at UM in 1960, when he served as editor of the Michigan Daily: “Sometime that year, Al and Judy Guskin came to see me at the Daily asking to print a letter to the editor about their peace corps idea. I not only said yes, but I committed the Daily to backing their efforts with continuing coverage. And I agreed to give a speech, the first of my life, 19 single-space pages, to their group, ‘Americans for World Responsibility.’ I became the Guskins’ mouthpiece.” Hayden tells how the Guskins’ idea got passed along to John F. Kennedy, who mentioned it during his presidential campaign speech at the Michigan Union … [Full Story]

UM: Memory

ABC World News reports on a recent study by researchers at UM and the RAND Center for the Study of Aging that provides a link between better memory and later retirement. Americans, who often retire at later ages, did comparatively better on certain memory tests than their French, Spanish, and Italian counterparts. Dr. Richard Suzman of the National Aging Institute says, “The big difference here is that people spend thousands of hours at work, and work can be a very powerful environment. It may be that you need this intensive and long exposure.” [Source]

Washtenaw: Cycling

The Tree Fort Bikes blog posts an interview with Ann Arborite Rob Pulcipher about his new book, “Dirt Road Washtenaw: Biking the Back Roads.” Among other things, Pulcipher describes how cycling on unpaved roads changes your perspective: “Sometimes you’ll come off a dirt road on to a paved road, and don’t even know where you are. All of sudden you realize you are on a road you’ve ridden all the time, but you just didn’t look at it the same way. The more I wandered, the more I found. The county just kept opening up, and it blew me away how many dirt roads we have.” [Source]

Economy Teeters: We May(or) May Not Be Set

By

[Editor's Note: HD, a.k.a. Dave Askins, editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, is also publisher of an online series of interviews on a teeter totter. Introductions to new Teeter Talks appear on The Chronicle.]

The crash of the financial markets in the fall of 2008 was the best thing that ever happened to the Teeter Talk interview series. Why? Because the word on everyone’s lips two years ago was … “teeter,” which gave the awkward and vaguely dirty-sounding word some well-deserved airtime. On Oct. 12, 2008, the BBC reported the remarks of Dominique Strauss-Kahn this way [emphasis added]: “The world financial system is teetering on the ‘brink of systemic meltdown,’ the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned in Washington.”

Steve Bean

Steve Bean, independent candidate for mayor of Ann Arbor.

Closer to home, a week earlier, on Oct. 3, 2008, a dozen distinguished alumni from the University of Michigan Department of Economics had gathered for a panel discussion focused on the financial crisis. Linda Tesar, department chair and professor of economics, stated that “the financial markets are teetering.” [Chronicle coverage: "Economists Gather, Talk About Markets"]

That same financial crisis still persists, and it’s occupying a lot of Steve Bean’s attention. Bean is an independent candidate for mayor of Ann Arbor – the election takes place on Nov. 2. We talked recently on the totter, a few days after the League of Women Voters mayoral candidate forum. During our talk, he spoke about the need for the city to prepare for various worst case financial scenarios on the national financial scene – dramatic inflation or deflation. The coming decade could be worse than the last one, he believes, and that could be exacerbated by diminished worldwide capacity for oil production.

So if there’s a large theme to his campaign, it’s about the challenge of translating national issues to the local level in a way that best prepares our community for whatever unfolds in the next 10 years. Presumably, the way that Ann Arbor prepares for the next decade might look different from the way other communities prepare. Bean and I touched on that idea in the context of some recent environmental commission deliberations. Bean chairs that city commission.

At their Sept. 23, 2010 meeting, the commission discussed a recommendation to the city council to create a task force to educate the community about peak oil. [Peak oil is the idea that worldwide oil production capacity will soon peak, if it has not already peaked, and then begin to taper off.] The resolution got support from only three commissioners – Bean, Kirk Westphal, and Anya Dale – and did not pass. One of the suggestions during commission deliberations was that commissioners could simply read the reports that other communities had produced about what local strategies would be appropriate – instead of asking the city council to appoint an Ann Arbor task force.

Portland, Oregon, is one such community that has produced such a report. But Portland’s population of more than half a million residents – compared to Ann Arbor’s 114,000 or so – makes Portland a substantially different kind of community from Ann Arbor, doesn’t it? Well, buried in the appendix of a new book – “Our Patchwork Nation” written by Dante Chinni and James Gimpel – is a way of looking at Portland and Ann Arbor that makes the Ann Arbor-Portland comparison … still seem a little crazy, but perhaps a little less so. [Full Story]

Ypsi: Photos

The Michigan Exposures blog posts a series of photographs taken recently in Ypsilanti, including shots of the Peninsular Paper building, the Huron River, the Ypsilanti water tower and buildings on the campus of Eastern Michigan University. [Source]

A2: Gubernatorial Race

The Detroit Free Press looks at the issue of outsourcing jobs to China – a charge that Virg Bernero, the Democratic candidate for governor, has levied against GOP candidate Rick Snyder of Ann Arbor: “The Michigan Democratic Party has spent $2.4 million on ads accusing Snyder of shipping jobs to China when he was with Gateway – a charge Snyder denies. But – unlike four years ago when polls showed Granholm’s China spin working – Bernero’s attacks haven’t. An EPIC/MRA poll last week shows the Lansing mayor still trails Snyder by 20 percentage points.” [Source]

UM: Law Clinic

The National Law Journal reports on a $300,000 grant that the UM Law School received to establish a human trafficking clinic at a law school in north central Mexico. The grant is funded by the U.S. Department of State and will fund the program for two years. The university also offers a clinic in Ann Arbor, but the director of the program, Bridgette Carr, admits its limitations: “The part that I’m excited about is that here in the U.S., we can do a lot as far as assisting prosecutors and victims of trafficking. What we can’t work on as much is prevention, because we’re sitting here in Ann Arbor. The goal is to not have clients.” [Source]

A2: Film

Writing on FORMzine, Liz Parker describes the recent opening night at Michigan Theater for “Answer This!” – a film by Michael and Chris Farah that was shot in Ann Arbor and on UM’s campus. “This was the first film ever in recent history that had the university’s full cooperation and was allowed to actually mention it as its setting; although Ann Arbor has been used a lot recently in films, the university has never been featured so prominently. … In my opinion, the film will do well, because it is enjoyable even if you don’t recognize the university landmarks in it, but I suppose the ‘true test’ will be how it does in other states and cities outside of Ann … [Full Story]

Washtenaw Launches OpenBook Website

Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners working session (Oct. 7, 2010): At its recent working session, the board heard presentations on two topics: 1) a new initiative called OpenBook, which is making more of the county’s financial information available online, and 2) an update on efforts to create a coordinated funding model involving the Washtenaw United Way, Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, Washtenaw County, the city of Ann Arbor and the Urban County.

Screenshot of Washtenaw County's OpenBook website

A screenshot of Washtenaw County's OpenBook website, which launched this week. (Image links to ewashtenaw.org/openbook)

Mary Jo Callan, director of the Washtenaw County/city of Ann Arbor office of community development, gave the coordinated funding update and fielded several questions from commissioners. She’d given a similar presentation at last month’s meeting of the Urban County executive committee.

Andy Brush, the county’s webmaster, made a presentation on the OpenBook project, which launched to the public on Friday. Commissioner Conan Smith questioned the amount of staff time involved in the initiative, and asked that they monitor usage of the site, to determine whether it’s worth the resources they need to invest. His comments earned a sharp rebuke from commissioner Kristin Judge, who has spearheaded the project. Minimal staff time is involved, she said, and taxpayers have a right to this information, noting that the push to transparency was a directive from President Barack Obama. Both Judge and Smith are Democrats. [Full Story]