Actually, it is the Chronicle that has championed openness and disclosure. I would point you to Dave’s 1/31/10 Column: “Getting Smarter About City Charter” [link]

While I agree with the idea that the City Attorney’s written advice should be available to the public, I think it is the Chronicle who deserves credit for raising the issue.

Postema’s work as City Attorney should be remembered when he runs for higher office–something that’s virtually guaranteed after his kiss kiss profile ‘local boy makes good’ piece in the January Ann Arbor Observer.

Thank you for the link to the analysis of the legality of the One Per Cent For Art ordinance.

“…….our continual assurance that our city attorney has declared the program legal without any explanation of how this conclusion is justified.”

I agree. Also recall the Open Meetings Act controversy which was dubbed “E-mailgate”. The City Attorney had cheerfully taken the position that no laws were violated and many were asking whether the City Council ever received any legal guidance about using computer communications during City Council sessions without a Jumbotron or other manner of contemporaneously disclosing to the public these e-mail correspondences between council members. This cntroversy likely caused Leigh Greden to lose his council seat. Despite the City Attorney’s position that no Open Meetings Act violations occurred, the City of Ann Arbor quickly settled the lawsuit spearheaded by Noah Hall and local store owners without a court battle. If Steve Postema was so certain of his position, he should have explained it in a detailed manner.

This also brings me to Jack Eaton’s repeated call that the City Charter provision that City Attorney opinions be filed for public inspection with the City Clerk be observed. The lack of public transparency serves to erode public confidence in local government.

http://www.kickstarter.com/

..and inform the public about THAT?

There, they could list the pending projects and the qualified, relevant proposals and those who wanted to participate/vote on/contribute to, could do so.

The last ballot proposal drew (I believe it was) 44% support for the “Percent for Art” program (if you can read those results that way) so that means there are plenty of people in Ann Arbor willing to support public art. This would eliminate MOST of the current controversy.

People would still complain about what was chosen, naturally, but it would certainly be more popular than having some mayor-appointed cabal of lofty brahmins (although I’m sure they are all nice people! More a complaint about the way they are appointed) seizing tax money meant for water and sewer projects, foisting expensive debacles on the public- in places most of the public hope they never have to visit.

So the fiasco continues. Art gets approved, we (Council–what was the actual vote again?) approve it behind a security checkpoint in a private area few people will see, with the assumption we can move the checkpoint, have no funds to move the checkpoint, so now we want to shift the project that we THOUGHT was a Per Cent Project but wasn’t into a true Per Cent Project so we can spend art funds to move the checkpoint so the public won’t have to go through a metal detector to view the art. And the AAPAC is confused. Film at 11:00. Lol.

It continues to be a source of amazement to me that the city persists in thinking that tacking up a notice in the city hall lobby is sufficient to notify the public of a public meeting.

I’d also like to repeat that I respect and admire the effort the citizens serving on this body have addressed to their responsibility. I’m sorry that the issue is so muddled.

Apparently there is a lot of interest in this question. I noticed in the last few days that one of my old blog posts [link], which discusses legality of the Percent for Art program, has been getting a lot of hits.

While I’m giving thanks, I’d like to include CM Briere and CM Kunselman for their work on this. I like the idea of the Justice Center being more open to public view, and asking the State Attorney General for an opinion is much more definitive than our continual assurance that our city attorney has declared the program legal without any explanation of how this conclusion is justified.

We have a number of policy muddles in Ann Arbor right now, but I’m so grateful for the civil behavior and thoughtful approach that we enjoy on the part of elected and appointed officials who are making an honest effort to work things out. This sounds smarmy, but I am sincere. We have a good community.