Comments on: More Transit Plan Challenges at County Board

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:25:43 +0000

Thank you, Alan. The sharpness of my response was probably because of reading too many comments on the other online news source. I get so tired of anonymous commenters continually taking shots at any and all public people. We don’t know whether Brian works or used to work for the county, for example. The automatic tendency these days seems to be to throw out an imputation of wrongdoing at every opportunity. I don’t know whether this is cynicism or just bad will towards all.

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:44:47 +0000

Just so there is no confusion, I admire and respect Vivienne’s writing and reporting. My point wasn’t Ms. McDaniel so much as the lack of a local media climate where such things didn’t surface because of a weak local media. It’s why I tossed in the good reporting comment for the Chronicle…I’m curious about the 200K in legal fees, but in all fairness, most of those if not all were contracts BEFORE McDaniel was in her current job. I’m not defending the process, just wondering why it takes a FOIA request to gather this information.

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:42:19 +0000

“Good scoop, Chronicle.”

I agree. Thanks for the reporting!

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:40:38 +0000

I don’t know Ms. McDaniel but Federal Employees who make contracting and financial decisions are required to file Finance Disclosure Statements on a yearly basis. Does anyone in the County Government do that? Does Ms. McDaniel? Does Conan Smith? I’m more upset at reading this in the Chronicle (and it IS a valid question) and not having a newspaper that should be doing this reporting too than I am with the vague details of Ms. MaDaniel’s possible conflict. If my asking about ONE contract disables ‘the very government that is supposed to be working for us’ then there’s something very wrong.

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:05:50 +0000

I know Verna McDaniel to be a conscientious careful public servant. (Yes, I worked with her over 8 years as a commissioner.) Let’s not jump all over her because she is also married to a professional who obtained one contract from the county. Why not explore possible conflicts of interest of various officials with Dykema Gossett, who were paid a much larger sum? I don’t know the details of that one contract but I suspect that it was a case where Mr. McDaniel’s particular expertise was called for. This is a cheap shot.

Anyone who has followed my history will know that I am as skeptical and questioning about the conduct of local government as anyone. But when we allow cynicism to substitute for vigilance, we disable the very government that is supposed to be working for us.

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:03:28 +0000

“Seriously? County’s administrator is directing taxpayer legal fees to her husband? Who does the county corporate attorney report directly to? Yep – the county admin.”

One big happy place here in Ann Arbor, where there are no conflicts of interest worries, Commissioners can thumb their noses about paying back looted expense funds and the local ‘newspaper’ is staffed by writers investigating lost laundry at the local dry cleaner. And congrats to AnnArbor.com on their Mlive driven “makeover” of the print edition. Guessing the great ‘blog’ experiment is in its final days and Mlive will be in driver seat very soon.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:52:04 +0000

Seriously? County’s administrator is directing taxpayer legal fees to her husband? Who does the county corporate attorney report directly to? Yep – the county admin.

Has this clear conflict ever been discussed by the board in an open meeting? Better than $200,000 isn’t chump change. Curious to know past and current year’s amounts. Guessing way more than that.

Good scoop, Chronicle. Seems if you dig a little you’ll find this place is falling apart. How many scandals does that make in the last few years?

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:38:04 +0000

Thank you very much for linking to the data on ridership. I’m happy to see that my local route has increased by more than 10% in total ridership and riders per hour since FY 2007.

As you note, this is very granular and trying to analyze usage and need by simple statistics may miss the point. For example, how many people are left behind in buses running at peak usage times? But people won’t use the bus at all if hours are too circumscribed, so the system must be run at low-usage times as well as highly impacted ones. I know that AATA has spent much staff time on trying to study these data.