Comments on: Ward Changes Paused, No Recycling Pay Hike

By: Dave Cahill

Dave Cahill — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:59:08 +0000

The medical marijuana resolution makes it mandatory, not merely permissive, for the City to claim an exemption for these materials under the Freedom of Information Act: “Ann Arbor city staff *shall* treat the foregoing information as exempted from disclosure….”

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:51:02 +0000

I would like to commend the Mayor and Council for voting to reconsider the Fuller Road Station utilities issue. It allowed for a full discussion on the issue, which frankly seemed to validate the point that this work is not necessary at this time and is aimed primarily at preparation for construction of a project (Fuller Road Station) that has not yet received a public hearing or a Council vote. Mr. Bergmann’s memo was very persuasive and staff attempts to justify this work rang hollow to my ears.

Not reported here are the comments made by several councilmembers and the Mayor that if this helps along Fuller Road Station, that is a good thing, because it is a fine project. CM Derezinski even stated that he saw this reconsideration attempt as a “backdoor way” to stop the Fuller Road Station. (Irony, that.)

The Chronicle is too modest regarding the assumption by many of us that there would be a working session on the station project, since it was rather authoritatively reported here.

By: Karen Sidney

Karen Sidney — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 23:07:06 +0000

The Fuller Road Station sewer work has some odd timing. According to the invitation to bid on the city’s website, the bids were opened Friday afternoon (June 17) but the resolution approving the contractor was added to the Council June 20 Agenda on June 15, two days before the bids were opened.

The invitation to bid is over 200 pages long so it’s hard to see how staff had adequate time to evaluate the bidders. The contract was based on a revised invitation to bid. According to the city website, staff had selected Dan’s Excavating as a result of evaluating responses to the original ITB but Hoffman got the contract under the revised ITB. It’s not clear to me why a revised ITB was necessary. Maybe someone with an engineering background can shed some light.

I wish Stadium bridge were as high a priority. The engineering services contract went to council 1 1/2 months behind schedule.

By: Mark Koroi

Mark Koroi — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 21:50:58 +0000

Tom Wieder is absolutely right, as is the ACLU.

It’s a matter of fundamental fairness to keep the same ward boundaries until the election cycle is completed.