Archive for April, 2011

The April 13 study session of the Ann Arbor Public Schools board was highlighted by an update on the district’s efforts on equity initiatives, as well as some blunt discussion about race in the Ann Arbor public schools. Study sessions are meetings of the board scheduled as needed to gather background information and discuss specific issues that will be coming before them in the future.

The session included a presentation from Glenn Singleton, a facilitator for the Pacific Educational Group (PEG). PEG was hired by AAPS in 2003 to assist in the district’s efforts to close the achievement gap – a disparity in academic performance between minority students and other students.

Singleton, who led a majority of the discussion, criticized the board on a number of points, contending that a lack of continuity in leadership has impeded progress in closing the gap. He also said the board has not shown full support for closing the achievement gap, resulting in uncertainty for principals, administrators and other building leaders as to the board’s commitment to solving the problem.

Interim superintendent Robert Allen was on hand and provided background on the district’s involvement with PEG. Allen said that Singleton was touching base with the district and visiting AAPS schools. Singleton was doing walkthroughs to evaluate the district’s progress on closing the achievement gap using techniques suggested by PEG.

“At this point we can have a meaningful evaluation of where we are with the equity work and what we’ll need to do to achieve our goals,” Allen said. The study session focused on lack of board support, failures in leadership structure and the need for “courageous conversations.” [Full Story]

Koleman Karleski, a managing director at Chrysalis Ventures, writes a guest post for the Wall Street Journal’s VentureWire blog, arguing that a focus on Detroit has obscured news of economic growth in other parts of Michigan: “So how do local innovation hubs develop? Most often, they coalesce around a top-notch research institution. In Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan fills this role. U of M is currently among the top 10 universities for spinning new technologies into start-ups, according to the university’s technology transfer office. In fact, Ann Arbor has one of the highest rates of patent density – a rough measure of how much innovation is taking place in a given area – in the nation.” [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports that Dr. Lazar Greenfield, a University of Michigan emeritus professor of surgery, may lose his status as president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, a national surgeon’s group. Greenfield has recently come under fire after writing a Valentine’s Day editorial in Surgery News that argued semen is a positive mood-enhancer for women. Using rates of depression among college-aged women, Greenfield wrote that those who had unprotected sex were “significantly less depressed” than their counterparts who used condoms. Greenfield has resigned as editor of Surgery News and he may be forced to resign as president-elect of ACS. [Source]

The April 19, 2011 Ann Arbor city council meeting agenda – moved to Tuesday to accommodate Passover – will include an item appointing an interim city administrator. The same item will authorize a job description for the city’s soon-to-be open position.

The job opening will be be created by outgoing city administrator Roger Fraser, who announced his resignation publicly at the end of a Feb. 28 city council work session on the city’s budget. In early May, Fraser will be taking a job as a deputy treasurer for the state of Michigan.

The recommendation to be considered by the council at its April 19 meeting will come from a search committee, which was appointed at the council’s March 21 meeting. The committee was tasked with recommending an interim administrator and with presenting a plan for a selection process to hire a permanent administrator. The plan is to provide for internal as well as external candidates for the permanent job.

The interim job was open just to internal candidates, with the stipulation that the interim administrator would not be considered for the permanent job. Although the wording of the April 19 council resolution is not yet final, the process for making the permanent hire is expected to begin with a job posting immediately following the council’s April 19 meeting. The committee’s recommendation on base salary will be to target recruitment in the $145,000-$150,000 range.

At the March 21 council meeting, mayor John Hieftje indicated that he would like to see the hiring process completed by late summer, or mid-summer if possible. To meet that goal, an ideal timeline would leave the posting open for 30 days, with basic vetting of candidates completed during that time. Also during that period, starting in early May, the search committee will be recommending that a consultant – Scott Reilly with Affion Public – make a site visit to Ann Arbor for a day and a half of meetings with various constituencies, to gather input on the “intangible” aspects of job qualifications that are expected of the successful candidate.

The ideal timeline would use May and June to winnow the field of candidates and to interview finalists. The city’s human resources department would collaborate with Affion throughout the process. An offer would made at the beginning of July, and the new permanent city administrator would start at the beginning of August.

At meetings held on Wednesday and Friday morning – April 13 and 15 – the search committee discussed goals for the interim administrator, salary range for the permanent job, the public process, and how the city’s human resources department will work with an outside consultant. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council special meeting (April 11, 2011): This week the Ann Arbor city council held its second special meeting in the last two months, both in connection with the city’s planned East Stadium bridges replacement project. At the April 11 meeting, a provision common to three separate easements granted by the University of Michigan, and previously approved by the city council at its April 4 meeting, was deleted from those easement grants by request of the Federal Highway Administration and the Michigan Dept. of Transportation.

The easements are necessary for the city to proceed with its plan to replace the East Stadium bridges over State Street and the Ann Arbor Railroad tracks. The city has been awarded a total of $13.9 million in TIGER II federal grant funding to pay for the project, which has an estimated total cost of $23 million. Factoring in $2.87 million in state funds, that leaves the city of Ann Arbor’s share for the bridge replacement at $6.2 million. The federal funds require that at least 20% of the funding for the project come from non-federal sources.

Easements approved by the council include: a road right-of-way easement from the University of Michigan for $563,400; two utilities easements from UM totaling $426,650; and an unrecorded water utilities easement.

The deleted provision in the easements had provided for a relocation of facilities, but only if it were allowed by law and specifically approved by the Michigan Dept. of Transportation – otherwise, relocation was prohibited. Because relocation is prohibited by law in any case, MDOT took the view that the provision should not appear in the contract; hence, the change to the wording was requested. It is an administrative change, not a substantive one.

By holding a previous special meeting on March 16, 2011 to sign necessary documents, the council was able to get $800,000 of TIGER II federal funds formally “obligated” for the first right-of-way phase of the project. The remaining $13.1 million in TIGER II funds is expected to be obligated sometime in May. [Full Story]

On the Whole Brain Group blog, Kyle Stuef writes about the “great divide” between Ann Arbor and the rest of metro Detroit, and offers some ideas for making better connections: “What are you doing to help build our community? Not the Detroit community or the Ann Arbor community – the Michigan community. I’m starting in May. Along with Tiffany Risner, we will be launching Tweetea Ann Arbor. With the help of the other Tweetea locations, I’ll be doing my part to make a connection between the people I’ve come to love and the resources I know should be working together. What are you doing to bridge the gap between communities in metro Detroit?” [Source]

Last year, Michigan’s men’s hockey team was in danger of breaking its record 19-straight appearances in the NCAA tournament – a streak that started before many of the current players were even born. They were picked to finish first in the league – but they finished a disastrous seventh, unheard of in Ann Arbor.

The only way they could keep their streak alive was to win six league playoff games to get an automatic bid. Oh, and they’d have to do it with a back-up goalie named Shawn Hunwick, a 5-foot-6 walk-on who had never started a college game. Things looked bleak, to say the least.

But the kid caught fire. The Wolverines actually won all six games, they stretched their streak to 20 straight NCAA tournaments, and Hunwick won the league tournament MVP award. He was like Rudy – with talent.

But there are no sequels for Cinderella. One run is all you get. [Full Story]

The Detroit News reports on Borders Group’s efforts to revamp executive bonuses as the Ann Arbor bookseller continues to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In a New York bankruptcy court hearing on Thursday, the bookseller asked to adjust its retention bonus policy, but the hearing adjourned and no agreement was reached with the judge. The article quotes University of Michigan law professor John Pottow, who says the outcome is not a good sign: “It means someone ganged up on them, and they lost credibility with the judge. They’re going to have to go back to the drawing board, and they’re going to have to do it quickly because the executives aren’t going to work for free.” [Source]

Ann Arbor planning commission working session (April 12, 2011): Moving ahead on a project they’ve discussed for more than a year, planning commissioners gave feedback on a draft request for proposals (RFP) for a South State Street corridor study.

The RFP, which will likely be issued next week, will solicit a consultant to develop a comprehensive plan for the 2.15-mile section between Stimson Street to the north – near a railroad crossing and the Produce Station – and Ellsworth to the south.

The corridor is the city’s main gateway from the south – the stretch includes an I-94 interchange, entrances to Briarwood Mall, and other retail, commercial and office complexes. Although there is one large apartment complex along that road, it is not a densely residential area.

Also at Tuesday’s working session, commissioners and staff discussed plans for an April 26 retreat that will focus on another major corridor: Washtenaw Avenue. [Full Story]

A post on the Motown to Tree Town blog provides commentary on a recent Washtenaw County board of commissioners meeting that focused on the county’s transit master plan, being developed by the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority: “AATA needs to assume it is facing an uphill battle, and it should prepare for some pretty close votes both before the county commission and countywide voters. The fact is that the majority of voters in the county do not reside in the core service areas of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. AATA should be very careful about when the millage is put on the ballot. If possible, it needs to be put to a vote in November 2012, when turnout … [Full Story]

[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, like this one, also appear on The Chronicle's website.]

“I don’t want to be another city. I resent the fact that we are compared to other cities when projects are being proposed.”

That was Ali Ramlawi, owner of the Jerusalem Garden on South Fifth Avenue in downtown Ann Arbor, addressing the April 4, 2011 meeting of the Ann Arbor city council. He was criticizing the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, and advocating against a proposed conference center and hotel project on the Library Lot – the council voted the project down later that evening.

“Ann Arbor will change … but it won’t become Detroit.”

That was Dante Chinni, while riding the the teeter totter on my front porch last Thursday afternoon. Chinni has made it part of his job to compare communities like Ann Arbor – Washtenaw County, actually – to other places in the country.

Who is Dante Chinni? And why should Ann Arbor care what he thinks?

On his website, Chinni describes himself as a “a card-carrying member of the East Coast Media Industrial Complex.” The part of his job that lets him compare one place to another – in a statistically sophisticated way – is a project Chinni conceived called Patchwork Nation. It’s funded by the Knight Foundation. The effort has already produced a book, which he co-authored with James Gimpel: “Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth about the ‘Real’ America.”

Washtenaw County is featured in the chapter that introduces readers to the concept of a “Campus and Careers” community type. The classification, as well as a read through Dante’s Talk, confirm that mostly what defines Ann Arbor – at least for people on the outside looking in – is its place as the home of the University of Michigan. And certainly for people on the inside, it’s difficult to argue that UM isn’t currently the single most important institution in the community.

But some insiders – and by this I mean not just people who live, work and play here, but actual Ann Arbor insiders – are starting to float the question of what else Ann Arbor might aspire to be besides home to “the most profound educational institution in the Midwest.” [Full Story]

Editor’s note: Next month, in May, Ann Arbor’s getDowntown program will promote its annual commuter challenge – an effort to encourage downtown workers to try an alternative to driving a car to work. This week, local history columnist Laura Bien takes a look back to “commuting” habits of Ypsilantians a hundred years ago.

A tiring commute to a job sometimes far from home is taken for granted today.

In 1910 Ypsilanti, commuting for work outside the city was almost unknown. The few exceptions included traveling salesmen, one or two businessmen with interests in other cities, and a scattering of “factory girls” who commuted by rail to a Detroit mill after the local underwear factory closed.

Aside from that small number and farmers coming into town from Augusta, Superior, and Ypsilanti townships to sell produce, eggs, and dairy items, the city was a largely self-contained unit of local labor. Nearly every working resident commuted to work nearby within town. Most went on foot, with many returning home for lunch (a welcome break in what was then a standard 10-hour workday). The pattern was the norm for everyone from bank presidents to day laborers.

Who were the Ypsilantians of the walk-to-work era? [Full Story]

The Detroit News reports that 47 corporate employees at Borders Group have left the Ann Arbor-based company since it filed for bankruptcy in mid-February: “As a result of the departures, the cost of Borders Group Inc.’s bonus retention plan is dropping at least half a million dollars, Borders’ attorneys indicated in the (court) filing. Borders is seeking permission to provide up to $8.3 million in compensation to remaining employees, a move it says is critical to retaining talent as it reorganizes. A bankruptcy judge is scheduled to hear arguments about the plan at a Thursday hearing in New York.” [Source]