Possibly many of these datasources now exist online, but it requires searching. With a good atlas, you can just flip the pages.

I’m a lover of archival research. Sometimes you discover things you didn’t know you were looking for.

Have you been to the new Steven Clark Library on the UM Campus?

[link]

They have a huge collection of old atlases and maps – not all digital.

And, while I have easy access to that venue, I wouldn’t say that everyone who lives in Ann Arbor would find it easy to find parking and walk to the Graduate Library and explore the collection.

So, we do need a central library. Let’s hope the library folks figure out how to modify their space to accommodate a library of the future.

Several DDA board members strongly supported the library bond, with the DDA chair actually calling the building a “disgrace.” Other bond advocates spoke of the positive impact of the library on the downtown economy. The DDA has given several downtown businesses and developers grants and tax abatements citing economic development, jobs, and attraction of visitors/residents. For the same reasons, I suggest the DDA also consider voting to allow the library to keep all the annual tax revenue it would normally be entitled to.

Helping the library stay open and fund incremental improvements instead of closing for 2-3 years for total reconstruction (or to simply deteriorate) would allow the library to keep attracting its thousands of downtown visitors per month. These visitors also patronize downtown businesses and feed parking meters. Permanent library jobs would also be retained.

The taxes captured by the LDFA don’t come for the AADL’s tax levy but rather from school taxes, which are sent to the state for re-allocation across all school districts in the state, under Michigan’s system for funding local school districts. Part of the argument for this approach to funding the LDFA is that it has a de minimis impact on funding per student, once all the students in the state are put in the denominator. For Ann Arbor’s LDFA, the amount per student came to under a dollor back in 2002 when Ann Arbor’s LDFA was established [That doesn't figure in the impact of other LDFAs in the state of Michigan.] The LDFA was established only for a period of 15 years, so it will run through 2017. The choice of “only” is based on the contrast to the 30-year period for the DDA, which ends in 2033.

The DDA’s tax capture does apply to the AADL’s tax levy. Ignoring the conflicting views on the part of the AADL and the DDA about how the tax capture should be calculated, here’s one way to ballpark the annual amount of AADL tax captured by the Ann Arbor DDA. The DDA’s 2013 budget calls for a total of about $3.9 million in tax capture. That’s based on a total of about 27.8 mills of taxes for all jurisdictions in the DDA’s district. The library levies 1.55 mills. (1.55/27.8)*3900000 is about $218,000 annually.

This is an issue worth revisiting. Just how much DOES the DDA skim off the top from dollars that would have gone to the Library?

However well-intentioned, Ed Surovell’s campaign for a downtown architectural monument, with ~$14 million in extra interest expenses (from a financing decision that Mr. Surovell also championed) was rightly rejected.

I don’t think that a better-informed electorate would have supported the bond proposal. The AADL Board needs to pay attention to actual voter priorities, and change their plans and tone to fit those.

There are many of us who would not object to the library collecting the full amount of the millage that is already in place to fund these improvements. That $1.6 million, especially if combined with an end to the diversion of tax revenues from the library to the DDA and LDFA, would give the library a substantial annual cash flow to spend as needed.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; like it or not, the downtown library serves this City as a defacto, unfunded, daytime warming shelter for the homeless. This has been very convenient for the Mayor and Council for years, as they’ve chosen to fund train stations, new underground parking, a city hall addition, SPARK, and Percent for Art, instead of more shelter space and warming centers. The least they could do in return is to lead an effort to fully fund the library.