Archive for February, 2011

On the Friday Fish Report post, Mike Monahan of Monahan’s Seafood Market announces a photo contest of dishes prepared with seafood from his shop: “Lately we’ve been getting some emails with photos from customers who send in great shots of some of the amazing dishes that they’ve prepared at home with our fish or shellfish. I got to thinking that we maybe we should have a little photo contest. I know that it might be a little difficult to judge because not everybody has the same equipment to work with but I think it will be fun.” First prize will be a dinner for four, cooked by Monahan at the winner’s home. [Source]

Actor and Chelsea resident Jeff Daniels isn’t happy with Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposal to eliminate Michigan’s tax credits for filmmakers, the Detroit Free Press reports. Daniels said Snyder talked to him about reducing the percentage, but not cutting the entire program: “It’s really disheartening. It’s not what he told me privately, so to be honest, I guess he’s a politician after all. Say one thing, do another.” [Source]

Last week my beloved television went Poof! It’s seven years old – or, 14 in sports writer years.

So, what great sports events have I missed? Well, I can’t be sure, of course, but I’m willing to bet: Not many.

Sports writers complain about the dog days of summer, when all we have to write about is tennis and Tiger and the Tigers – and, well, that’s about it.

But there’s a lesser-known slow season for sports scribes, and it’s called February. College football picked its champion more than a month ago, the super-hyped Super Bowl has finally blown over, and baseball is still a solid six weeks away from opening day. And that leaves basketball and hockey. [Full Story]

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The University of Michigan’s Center for Afroamerican and African Studies (CAAS), an institution founded in 1970, will be reorganized into the Deptartment for Afroamerican and African Studies, part of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. UM regents approved the change at their Feb. 17, 2011 meeting. The new status aims to strengthen the undergraduate program, allow the unit to develop additional graduate studies, and aid in recruiting and promoting faculty. No financial costs are anticipated as a result of the change, which would take effect on Sept. 1, 2011.

This brief was filed from the regents boardroom in the Fleming administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

A $1.85 million renovation project at the University of Michigan School of Social Work was approved by UM regents at their Feb. 17, 2011 meeting. About 18,400 square feet in the atrium of the building – located at 1080 S. University Ave. – will be renovated into a new clinical suite to allow students to practice and observe clinical approaches, and to accommodate expanded continuing education programs. The project is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2011.

This brief was filed from the regents boardroom in the Fleming administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

The University of Michigan board of regents, at their Feb. 17, 2011 meeting, approved a $2 million renovation project on the fourth floor of the C.C. Little Science Building, located at 1100 N. University Ave. The roughly 10,600 square feet of renovated lab and support space will be used by recently recruited faculty for the Dept. of Geological Sciences. Construction is expected to be finished by the fall of 2011.

This brief was filed from the regents boardroom in the Fleming administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

At their Feb. 17, 2011 meeting, the University of Michigan board of regents officially named the law school commons in honor of Robert B. Aikens. A 1954 graduate of the law school, Aikens gave the university a $10 million donation for the school’s current expansion and renovation project, which includes the new commons. It’s the largest gift ever given to the law school by a living individual, according to Jerry May, vice president of development.

This brief was filed from the regents boardroom in the Fleming administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

The regular monthly meeting of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board – scheduled for Feb. 17 at 6 p.m. at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library – has been cancelled. The reason for the cancellation is that, due to illness, the board does not expect to be able to achieve a quorum of its seven members.

The current intent is not to reschedule the meeting, but rather to move this month’s agenda items to the next board meeting, scheduled for March 17. The two items of February business included: (1) an application to the Michigan Dept. of Transportation for state funding; and (2) a contract for media services. [.pdf of board meeting packet]

Fox News Detroit reports that an Ypsilanti woman, Melanie Wheeler, is upset that her mother showed up on the “People of Walmart” website. From the report: “Wheeler said her mom was shopping at the Ypsilanti Walmart on Ellsworth Road, but did not realize someone had snapped her picture and was shocked to find it on the internet. ‘The picture’s of … like the back of her right shoulder, so they were doing it … about stomach level where no one would see that they were holding a camera up to do it. She was upset about it.’” [Source]

Ann Arbor planning commission meeting (Feb. 15, 2011): Planning commissioners unanimously recommended approval of the city’s Parks and Recreation Open Space (PROS) plan on Tuesday, and gave parks planner Amy Kuras a round of applause for her work updating the document over the past year.

Earlier in the evening, the plan was also approved by the city’s park advisory commission. Both groups suggested minor revisions, and the document will next be forwarded to the city council for final approval in early March.

Updated every five years, the PROS plan is a comprehensive look at current assets and future needs. The current update spans 2011 through 2015. It’s a document required by the state to qualify for grant funding.

Discussion of the PROS plan was the main agenda item at Tuesday’s meeting, which lasted less than an hour. The commission also set a public hearing for its March 1 meeting, regarding a request by Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity to convert the church at 730 Tappan Ave. into a fraternity house.

During his communications, commission chair Eric Mahler reported that the city’s Library Lot review committee – the group that’s evaluating potential development atop the city-owned underground parking structure being built on South Fifth Avenue – will meet next on March 3. Tony Derezinski, who serves as the city council’s representative to the planning commission, highlighted two upcoming public forums regarding a Washtenaw Avenue corridor improvement authority, set for Feb. 23 and March 2.

No one spoke during public commentary on Tuesday, but nine students from Skyline High School attended the meeting as part of a class assignment.  [Full Story]

Ann Arbor park advisory commission meeting (Feb. 15, 2011): In their main business of the afternoon, park advisory commissioners signed off on the city’s Parks and Recreation Open Space (PROS) plan – an item it had postponed from its January monthly meeting.

Before approving the plan, the commission heard public commentary on the issue, as well as an update from park planner Amy Kuras about how some concerns had been addressed in revisions to earlier drafts. Later in the evening, the city’s planning commission also signed off on the plan. The PROS plan is set to come before the city council on March 7.

Heard during public commentary was criticism of the PROS plan for language it contains describing public-private partnerships for park services. One example of a potential partnership arose later in the meeting, when parks and recreation deputy manager Jeff Straw outlined a request for proposals, currently in draft form, that would explore interest from vendors in providing food concessions at park facilities.

The commission also approved a recommendation to raise fees slightly at the city’s golf courses for some items. Consideration of the fee increase came prior to the year’s regular budget decisions, so that the city council can consider and give final approval to the fee increases before the city’s golf courses open for play in the spring.

Also at the meeting, parks and recreation manager Colin Smith reviewed the parks budget presentation that had been made at a Jan. 31, 2011 city council work session. Smith also gave commissioners an update on two items concerning Argo Dam. He described how intake lines for a well that’s used for measuring water levels in the pond – so that the dam gates can regulate that level – had become clogged, and had ultimately required hiring a diver to unclog one of them.

The second Argo-related item was an update on the planned bypass channel which was recommended by the city’s park advisory commission and approved by the city council last year. Insurance issues are still being worked out with the contractor, Smith said, and construction will not start as early has had been hoped. Construction is not expected to be complete before the end of the construction season – in November.

Commissioners also agreed that before the city council approves the operating agreement between the city and the University of Michigan for the planned Fuller Road Station, they would like an opportunity to review that agreement.

At the meeting, commissioners also heard about a setback in a construction project that’s already nearing completion – renovations to the drainage system in West Park. Eight swirl concentrators were installed as a part of the project – four near the north Seventh Street entrance and four near the south entrance on Seventh. Craig Hupy, head of systems planning for the city, reported that four out of the eight swirl concentrators were in some state of failure, and that one of the four had experienced a catastrophic failure. The other four are also suspected to have problems. [Full Story]

At its Feb. 16, 2011 meeting, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners passed a resolution permitting the county treasurer to borrow against the amount of delinquent property taxes in all 80 taxing jurisdictions throughout the county, including cities, townships, schools systems and libraries, among others. After March 1, these jurisdictions turn their delinquent taxes over to the county, and are reimbursed for that amount. The county treasurer then assumes responsibility for collecting these delinquent taxes. This is a standard procedure that’s conducted annually at this time of year – the borrowed funds are used for cash flow purposes, to fund operations for the first half of the year.

In a cover memo accompanying the resolution, county treasurer Catherine McClary reported that the amount of delinquent taxes turned over to her office for collection has more than doubled in the past seven years. And for the last two years, the county was not able to self fund the delinquent taxes. McClary expects a small increase in delinquent taxes this year, but asked to borrow the same amount as last year – an amount not to exceed $50 million. However, she expects interest rates to be higher this year than last year, due to the tightening credit markets.

This brief was during the county board of commissioners meeting at the Washtenaw County administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

At its Feb. 16, 2011 meeting, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners appointed three representatives to a review committee that will help award human services funding to local nonprofits through a coordinated funding approach. The appointees are: Hazelette Robinson, community relations director for the Washtenaw Community Health Organization; Susan Sweet Scott of the county’s Employment Training & Community Services (ETCS); and Michael Smith of the county’s veteran affairs office.

The funding process coordinates the efforts of five major funders: the city of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, the Urban County, Washtenaw United Way and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. It is being managed by the joint county/city of Ann Arbor office of community development, led by Mary Jo Callan, who gave a presentation to county commissioners at their meeting.

This brief was filed from the county board meeting at the Washtenaw County administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

The Washtenaw County board of commissioners, at its Feb. 16, 2011 meeting, gave final approval to a memorandum of understanding with the Washtenaw Trial Court, outlining the rights and responsibilities of each unit of government. Initial approval was given at the board’s Jan. 19, 2011 meeting. A previous MOU expired in December 2010. As part of the agreement, the county will fund operations of the trial court in four “lump sums,” allocated separately to: (1) the 22nd Circuit Court (including circuit court administration, juvenile-general fund, friend of the court and community corrections); (2) Probate Court (estates & mental health); (3) 14-A District Court; and (4) the child care fund. The county will not have line-item budgeting authority, but the trial court has agreed to submit a bi-annual line-item budget, and provide quarterly financial projections. The amount of the lump sum payments has not yet been determined.

This brief was filed from the county board meeting at the Washtenaw County administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

The Washtenaw County board of commissioners, at their Feb. 16, 2011 meeting, gave initial approval to create a new full-time position – a veterans relief program specialist – as part of a minor restructuring in the county’s veterans affairs department that includes downgrading an administrative assistant position to office coordinator. The moves are expected to result in about $20,000 in structural savings for the department. The board will likely take a final vote at its March 2 meeting.

The new position is estimated to cost $75,000 and will be funded from the Veterans Relief Fund, which gets proceeds from a dedicated millage and has a fund balance of $250,000. The job will entail coordinating the county’s veterans relief efforts and doing public outreach activities.

This brief was filed from the county board of commissioners meeting at the Washtenaw County administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

In our most recent city council meeting report, we gave the wrong date for the council’s next meeting. Due to President’s Day, the meeting is shifted from Monday to Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011. We note the error here and have corrected the date in the original article.

Editor’s note: Owners of new phones nowadays are as likely to think about the first photograph they’ll take with it as they are to contemplate the first words they’ll say into it. But Laura Bien’s local history column this week serves as a reminder that sometimes first words spoken into a phone get remembered in the historical archives. Given what she’s unearthed from the archives this time, it’s not clear why Chicago is known as the “city of broad shoulders” instead of the “city of big-footed girls.”

Quiz a friend or two about who popularized the type of electricity we use today – go ahead, get your geek on – and a few would correctly name Nikola Tesla. Then ask who invented long-distance telephony.

Probably no one would answer correctly.

It wasn’t Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, or any other celebrated name from the late 19th century’s feverish and fertile age of invention.

Like his renowned contemporary, Tesla, the inventor of long-distance telephony was an electrical engineer. Unlike Tesla’s numerous, sophisticated, and lasting inventions, his were few, crude, and transient.

But they worked – and brought him temporary fame.

Just as Tesla’s brilliance and legacy weren’t fully appreciated until long after his death, so too should be remembered the legacy of his humbler brother inventor whose name once graced the New York Times: Ypsilanti engineer Webster Gillett. [Full Story]

Bloomberg is among several media outlets reporting that Ann Arbor-based Borders Group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as anticipated. From the report: “Borders will shut about 30 percent of ‘underperforming’ stores and restructure with $505 million in so-called debtor-in-possession financing from lenders led by GE Capital, according to a statement. The 40-year-old chain listed debt of $1.29 billion and assets of $1.28 billion as of Christmas 2010 in its Chapter 11 petition filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The company plans to restructure and continue to operate.” [Source]

At its Feb. 15, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor planning commission voted to recommend approval of the Park and Recreation Open Space (PROS) plan. The park advisory commission made a similar recommendation at its meeting earlier in the day. The PROS plan provides an inventory, needs assessment and action plan for the city’s parks system, and is updated every five years – this version of the planning document covers 2011 through 2015. The updated document is required by the state in order for the city to be eligible to apply for certain grants. Final approval will be needed from city council – it is slated for the council’s March 6 meeting.

This brief was filed soon after adjournment of the planning commission meeting at the Washtenaw County administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

Editor’s note: The Ann Arbor city council has held two retreats to discuss the city’s FY 2012 budget – one in early December 2010 and another in early January 2011. A summary of the material covered in those retreats is provided in previous Chronicle coverage: “Ann Arbor: Engaging the FY 2012 Budget.”

Leading up to the city administrator’s proposed budget in April, the city council is also holding a series of work sessions on the budget. Their typical scheduling pattern is for the weeks between council meetings. That was the case on Jan. 31, 2011 when the council held its budget work session on the community services area, which includes human services, parks and planning. Another session was held on Feb. 7, prior to the council’s regular meeting, regarding the 15th District Court. A report on the Feb. 14, 2011 session, which focused on police and fire, will follow.

The Ann Arbor city council’s budget work session on Jan. 31, 2011 covered a broad range of topics – from the city’s affordable housing stock, to planning and development, to parks and recreation (including golf courses), to human services funding. All these issues fall under the city’s community services area, which is led by Sumedh Bahl.

In a budget year where maintaining the same level of activity in every department is projected to result in a $2.4 million shortfall, city departments have been given reduction targets between 2.5% and 4%. Targets vary across departments depending on health care costs for employees in those departments.

So at their work session, councilmembers heard from heads of individual departments about the specific ways those targets might be met.

For example, Mary Jo Callan, who’s head of the city/county office of community development, told councilmembers that an unrealized $98,000 federal grant would pose an additional challenge. All other things being equal, Callan would meet the reduction target by reducing the city’s allocation to nonprofit human services agencies by $116,714 – from $1,275,744 to $1,159,030. The budget is planned in two-year cycles, even though it’s adopted just one year at a time, so Callan’s reduction strategy for next year’s FY 2013 budget would be to reduce the nonprofit allocation by an additional $48,700.

The planning department plans to meet its reduction target in part by charging the construction fund for 10% of the historic district coordinator’s time, factoring in projected revenue increases due to increased development activity, and leaving a rental housing inspector position vacant. The rental housing inspection activity would be maintained at appropriate levels by using construction inspectors for rental housing inspections as needed.

The city’s housing commission – which maintains more than 350 units of public housing throughout the city – is not proposing to meet reduction targets, but rather to hire what officials say are two crucially needed positions: a financial analyst and a facilities maintenance manager, which together are expected to cost an additional $154,000 per year.

Parks and recreation would meet their targets in part through savings derived from energy improvements that have been made to various recreational facilities over the past few years.

The council focused some of its session on the city’s golf courses, with a council consensus seeming to emerging that for the next two years, the council will be content to stick with the status quo – operating the Leslie Park and Huron Hills facilities as golf courses, and not changing them to other uses.

But the council was also asked to consider a question on which it could be harder to achieve consensus: Should the city continue to help fund park operations, as it has for the last four years, by tapping the city’s general fund reserve for $287,000 annually? The history of the issue dates back to the parks capital improvements and maintenance millage, which was approved in 2006, and which was followed by the council’s approval of its FY 2008 budget the next spring.

That history is rooted partly in a question that the city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, addressed in a straightforward fashion at the work session: What exactly does it mean for a department to have a budget reduction target of 2.5%?  [Full Story]

The Wall Street Journal reports that Alison Davis-Blake has been hired as dean of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, the first female dean in the school’s history. From the report: “Michigan is looking to Ms. Davis-Blake for some fresh thinking. She’s expected to increase the school’s global presence, which has lagged behind other business schools and recruit more executives to its executive M.B.A. program. Between 2008 and 2009, executive M.B.A. applications fell 40%, mostly due to the decline of the area’s auto industry. Applications were up 28% in 2010, due to an increase in interest from out-of-state companies.” [Source]

At its Feb. 15, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor park advisory commission voted to recommend several fee increases at Leslie Park and Huron Hills golf courses. Power golf cart rentals for 9 holes would increase from $7 to $8; for 18 holes, the rental fee would increase from $13 to $14. Staff estimates these changes will generate $25,000 in additional revenue per season. Weekend fees for 9 and 18 holes at Leslie Park Golf Course would increase by $2 and $1, respectively, and the twilight fee would increase to $16, up from $15. These changes would generate an estimated additional $12,500 in revenue per season. In addition, the commission approved raising the senior citizen qualification age to 59 for the 2011 season.

This brief was filed from the park advisory commission meeting at the Washtenaw County administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

CBS Detroit reports that six teams of undergraduate students will compete on Friday for a $100,000 prize in the Clean Energy Prize competition at the University of Michigan. Gov. Rick Snyder and DTE CEO Gerard Anderson will present the award to the winning team. The Clean Energy competition was established in 2008 to encourage the development of clean energy technologies and entrepreneurship in Michigan. While the event is being hosted at UM, the teams include students from Wayne State and Western Michigan University as well. [Source]

At its Feb. 15, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor park advisory commission voted to recommend approval of the Park and Recreation Open Space (PROS) plan. The plan provides an inventory, needs assessment and action plan for the city’s parks system, and is updated every five years – this version of the planning document covers 2011 through 2015. The updated document is required by the state in order for the city to be eligible to apply for certain grants. The city’s planning commission is expected to vote on the plan at its meeting later on the evening of Feb. 15. Final approval will be needed from the city council – it is slated for the council’s March 6 meeting.

This brief was filed from the PAC meeting at the Washtenaw County administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]