Describe what you see, but only what you can see.

Description. Analysis. Explanation. Remember those three concepts.

Last month I participated in a video teleconference with students who are members of Bowling Green State University’s Online News Association. It’s a group that’s advised by department of journalism and public relations faculty member Dave Sennerud. The focus that evening was on hyperlocal news sites, which is a specialty of BGSU’s Mike Horning. Horning recently completed a dissertation on that topic at Penn State University.

I view any interaction like that video conference as a chance to evangelize a bit about The Chronicle’s approach to writing the news – which prioritizes description over storytelling. And that chance came when a general question was posed about advice to journalism majors who will be entering the field.

My advice: Got a journalism degree? That’s great, but I’d prefer that you were a scientist.

As we used to say back in Indiana, that is currently a mute point. Right now, although the amount of advertising and individual subscriber support continues to increase each month, not enough readers subscribe voluntarily and not enough advertisers purchase ads for us to contemplate hiring additional full-time staff. But that’s the direction we’re working towards, to supplement our freelance reporters and to make our own workload more sustainable.

So while we’re not in a hiring mode now, we do anticipate a time when we’ll be making those decisions, and it makes sense to think about the type of skills we’d like a reporter to have.

The main skill a Chronicle reporter needs – and the one I think the entire field of journalism has largely forgotten – is the ability to describe, in detail, an event or an issue in a way that is designed mostly to engage the intellect of readers, not their emotions. It’s actually a scientific skill. But that approach to writing the news contrasts with the way institutional journalism has evolved to train its next generation of practitioners.

If basic description is a part of traditional, institutional journalism, it’s typically well-hidden, behind attempted analysis and attempted explanation – in the form of “stories.” And when I write the word “stories,” I put those scare quotes around it consciously. That’s so it’s not confused with other ways of referring to items that might appear in a journalistic publication, like “articles,” “briefs” or “reports.”

Most items that are written by traditional journalists these days are attempts at “stories” in that term’s literal sense – a narrative with a conflict, a plot, and characters who say interesting and provocative things. But as a reporter, if you begin with the idea of a story you want to tell, you’ve ordered your task backwards.

As a reporter, if you’re injecting description (i.e., facts) into your story only in service of your preconceived narrative, then you might miss the fact that a complete and comprehensive description actually contradicts the conclusion of the story you decided in advance you wanted to write.

As a reporter, if you’re asking yourself, “Can I get a ‘story’ out of this board meeting I’m attending?” then you’re asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is, “Should I write up a report of this board meeting from the notes I’m taking anyway?”

As a reporter, if you’re idling at a public meeting waiting for the participants to say something quotable, so that the characters in your “story” have interesting lines to deliver, then you’re probably squandering an opportunity. That’s the opportunity to write down and describe all the boring and not-very-quotable, possibly even barely coherent remarks of public officials. Writing all that down could inform a far richer and deeper understanding of your subject matter – for yourself and for your readers.

Now, reports filled with description are not typically rewarded within the field of journalism. But competent news writing depends on the ability to render comprehensive description in the same way that good science depends on good data. Good science understands the difference between description, analysis and explanation. And most science consists of the work of description, which many people find boring.

I’d like to illustrate more specifically what that means by taking a look at two scientific fields – linguistics and chemistry.

Linguistics: Descriptive Work

My experience in the field of linguistics culminated in a failed (undefended) dissertation with the title, “Syllables, Schmyllables.” Among other ideas, it proposed a theoretical notion of the “schmyllable” in addition to the more familiar “syllable.” The schmyllable, I argued, could help analyze familiar phonological puzzles in a way that actually explained the existence of sound patterns across several different languages. It was filled with all sorts of “mathy” talk about sets and 1-1 correspondences and partial orderings.

While that work was long on attempted analysis and attempted explanation, it was short on description. It introduced no new data. It relied exclusively on examples in the published literature. But that’s not what doomed the dissertation to languish undefended.

In fact, based on what I saw – from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s – the field of linguistics actually preferred attempted analysis and explanation over “mere” descriptive work. That’s partly based on a “story” in the form that I recall hearing it from Philip LeSourd. At the time, I was a graduate student and he was a visiting professor at the University of Rochester sometime in the mid-1990s.

In the narrative I’ve preserved in my head, LeSourd had worked on a dictionary project for the Native American language called Passamaquoddy. Now, along the continuum of description, analysis and explanation, creating a dictionary is closer to the descriptive end. For example, the work involves describing the set of sounds used in the language, cataloging them, inventorying words and the like. That’s not to understate the fair amount of analysis required as well. For example, should we consider those noises as one sound that has two predictable variants? Or should we consider them as two separate sounds, which we represent with separate symbols in the alphabet?

But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did not deem that descriptive endeavor to merit the award of a dissertation, and LeSourd had to produce additional analyses of Passamaquoddy – in the predominant formal phonological framework of the day – in order for the work to qualify as a significant contribution to the field of linguistics.

It’s from David Perlmutter – now professor emeritus at University of California, San Diego, who was one of LeSourd’s mentors – that I learned to appreciate the difference between description, analysis and explanation. I remember it, because he would often say to me things like, “See now, there’s description, analysis, and explanation. Which, if any, of those things are you trying to do here?”

For readers who are unaccustomed to thinking of linguistics as a science, it’s worth considering a field more commonly thought of that way, like chemistry.

Chemistry: What Do You See?

The lab manual for my first course in high school chemistry was called “Merrill Laboratory Chemistry,” co-authored by my teacher, David Haines. As I recall it, the first laboratory experiment involved lighting a candle and then watching it burn for an entire class period. The laboratory task was to record in the lab manual just what we saw happening.

That was a quintessentially descriptive task. And it’s not as easy as you might think, once you grasp what’s meant by “description” in this context.

For example, here’s the effort of a hypothetical student at this descriptive task:

Candle is burning.
Burning candle, wax is starting to melt.
Liquid wax is dripping down the sides of the burning candle.
Candle is getting shorter.
Flame is flickering.

I think it’s a poor effort. It’s not a poor effort by dint of a lack of detail. It’s a poor effort because it uses words that are already analytical, instead of purely descriptive. A possible commentary on that “description”:

You’ve used this word, “burning.” What do you mean by that? Do you mean to be talking about phlogiston leaving the candle? Or do you mean to be referring to a chemical reaction involving oxygen? Do you really mean to be describing the three-dimensional orangish, yellowish area above the white cylinder that’s shaped roughly like a teardrop and that moves around a bit?

Or take these words “melt” and “liquid.” What’s that exactly? Why are you convinced that the translucent stuff you’re seeing at the top of the white cylinder that tends to move around a bit is made of the same stuff the white cylinder is made of? Is that something you can see? Or have you already analyzed this situation, because you think you know what’s going on? What if that translucent stuff is being created by the orangish area out of some stuff in the air and deposited there on top of the white cylinder?

Of course, any words we might choose as a description are likely vulnerable to the criticism that they reflect some prior analysis that we’ve brought to the exercise. “Orangish,” you say?

Journalism: Let’s Be Scientists

The point of the candle-burning example is not to encourage journalists to start describing burning candles as “white cylinders with three-dimensional orangish areas above them.”

The point is that journalists need the ability to recognize where their language sits along the continuum  of description, analysis, and explanation. For most general purpose descriptive writing, “burning candle” is probably perfectly benign.

It’s a sorry reflection on the profession that people who are trained as scientists have a better shot at grasping the difference between description and analysis than people who are trained only as journalists.

So when we start hiring reporters, the main question I’ll have is not about an applicant’s ability to write or to tell a good story.

The question I need answered is this: How good a scientist do you think you can be?

About the writer: Dave Askins is editor and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle. The Chronicle could not survive to describe, analyze and explain each milestone without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of local government and civic affairs. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

Before the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority's April 9 budget presentation to the Ann Arbor city council, DDA executive director Susan Pollay rolls up her sleeves as she chats with councilmember Marcia Higgins (Ward 4). (Photos by the writer.)

The meeting took place against the backdrop of the DDA’s budget presentation to the city council the following week – on April 9 – and various other ongoing projects. So the board’s agenda consisted of a collection of regular committee updates and status reports.

Those included an update on the Connecting William Street project – an initiative to explore alternative uses of a limited set of city-owned parcels currently used for parking. The DDA embarked on the project at the direction of the Ann Arbor city council in a resolution it approved about a year ago – on April 4, 2011. The DDA had wanted the ability to lead that exploration, partly in exchange for renegotiating a contract under which the DDA operates the city’s public parking system. That new contract was finally settled on May 31, 2011, and features a clause that provides the city of Ann Arbor 17% of gross revenues out of the public parking system.

Total parking revenues for fiscal year 2013 are projected at around $18 million in the budget approved by the DDA board at its meeting the previous month, on March 7, 2012. That budget was presented by the DDA at a city council work session on April 9. The budget presentation featured a review of the DDA’s history of infrastructure investment and impact on the downtown district since its formation in 1982 – over $100 million of DDA investment, accompanied by $300 million in private investment and an increase in taxable value from $89 million to $386 million.

Another work session highlight was a series of questions posed by councilmember Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) about compliance with Ann Arbor’s ordinance that regulates how the tax increment finance (TIF) tax capture works for the DDA district. Last year, the city’s financial staff pointed to Chapter 7 of the city code, which appears to limit the amount of taxes the DDA can “capture” from the other taxing units in the district. The DDA board agreed with the city’s interpretation, and returned $473,000 in combined TIF revenues to the Ann Arbor District Library, Washtenaw Community College and Washtenaw County.

Subsequently, the DDA reversed its position and gave a different interpretation to Chapter 7. Responding to Kunselman at the work session, DDA board chair (and retired Washtenaw County administrator) Bob Guenzel told Kunselman that the DDA had informed other taxing units of the DDA’s revised position, which was not to say they agreed with the DDA, he said.

Also the focus of TIF monies captured by the DDA is a proposed development at 618 S. Main, which received a positive recommendation from the Ann Arbor planning commission on Jan. 19, 2012. The 7-story building would include 190 units for 231 bedrooms, plus two levels of parking for 121 vehicles. The developer of the project, Dan Ketelaar, has estimated that the tax on the increment between the current valuation of the property and the final built project would yield around $250,000 a year in TIF revenue to the DDA.

Ketelaar is was initially asking that in addition to reimbursement of certain costs (at around $1.4 million) within six months of the project’s completion, the DDA pledge 80% of its TIF capture money for six years – an additional $1.3 million – to support certain aspects of the project in connection with the state’s Community Revitalization Program. But subsequently, Ketelaar revised the request to include just the TIF reimbursement. So the total request, over six years, is $1.3 million. The CRP is the successor to the brownfield and historic preservation tax credit program. In order to approve the tax credit, the state would like to see a commensurate commitment from local units – and Ketelaar is proposing that it take the form of the DDA’s support.

Ketelaar has pitched his idea to the DDA board on several occasions now – first at the full board meeting on Feb. 1, 2012, and at three subsequent DDA partnerships committee meetings. DDA board members are cautious about the precedent that such a pledge might set, and the appropriateness of the DDA’s role at this early stage in the project. (Ketelaar has not yet acquired the land.) At the March 28 partnerships committee meeting, DDA board member Newcombe Clark expressed concern that, depending on the precise role defined for the DDA’s participation, the DDA could effectively be artificially inflating land values.

This report takes a look in more detail at Connecting William Street, the DDA’s April 9 budget presentation to the city council, the lingering TIF capture issue, and the 618 S. Main project, as well as odds and ends from the April 4 DDA board meeting.

April 4, 2012: DDA Board Meeting

The board’s meeting featured its usual updates related to the parking system, as well as one item that involves a project meant to find alternative uses to parcels currently used as parking facilities.

DDA Board Meeting: Parking System Report

An update on the performance of Ann Arbor’s parking system is a point of every DDA board meeting agenda. The DDA operates the public parking system under a contract with the city of Ann Arbor. The following week, on April 9, when Roger Hewitt presented the DDA budget to the Ann Arbor city council, he was asked about the parking system performance. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) wanted to know the basis of Hewitt’s assertion that there was increasing demand for parking in the public parking system.

Hewitt appealed to the two data points that the DDA tracks for the parking system, and which had been presented at the DDA board meeting the previous week: Revenue is up, and hourly patrons are up. Revenue has increased around 16% ($1,362,989 in February 2012 compared to $1,173,568 in February 2011) and the number of hourly patrons is up around 5% (174,492 in February 2012 compared to 165,778). Hewitt told Taylor that the revenue increase outpaced the parking rate increase. Over the last two and a half years, here’s the data on parking revenues and patrons:

Ann Arbor public parking system revenue. Compared to February 2011, February 2012 showed a 16% increase in revenues. (Charts by The Chronicle from DDA data. Image links to higher resolution file.)

Ann Arbor public parking system hourly patrons in structures. Compared to February 2011, February 2012 showed an increase in the number of hourly patrons of about 5%. Due to leap year, there was one more business day for February 2012. (Charts by The Chronicle from DDA data. Image links to higher resolution file.)

DDA Board Meeting: “Library Lane Parking Structure”

During Hewitt’s presentation to the city council on April 9, he showed a slide referring to the new underground parking garage on Fifth Avenue as the “Library Lane Parking Structure” – picking up on the name for the new mid-block cut-through between Division Street and Fourth Avenue, which has been called “Library Lane” from the beginning of the project.

View from the bottom floor of the underground parking garage on Fifth Avenue in downtown Ann Arbor – the light is sunlight filtering down. The garage is nearly completed and is expected to be open at the end of June or the beginning of July. (Image is from a DDA slide presentation to the Ann Arbor city council on April 9, 2012.)

What’s somewhat new is the extension of that name to the structure. Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, told The Chronicle after the work session that for now the DDA will call it the Library Lane Parking Structure, but they would be sensitive to modifying that name depending on what people wind up calling it, after construction is complete and people start to use it.

At the April 4 DDA board meeting, John Splitt led off the regular update on the new underground parking garage with an allusion to the nice weather: “It’s a beautiful day to apply waterproofing.” He said the construction is moving along nicely – the concrete pours for the walls are complete, which means that the structural parts are now done, he said.

The surface waterproofing started a couple of weeks ago, Splitt said, and that’s the next step toward getting the surface concrete poured. Elevators have been installed, and the other mechanicals continue to be installed.

Splitt reported that the target date for re-opening Fifth Avenue is still May 20 – but he’s still saying Memorial Day (May 28). The garage itself is expected to be open by the end of June or the beginning of July.

DDA Board Meeting: Connecting William Street

At the April 4 board meeting, Joan Lowenstein gave an update on the Connecting William Street project – an initiative to explore alternative uses of a limited set of city-owned parcels currently used for parking. The DDA embarked on the project at the direction of the Ann Arbor city council in a resolution it approved about a year ago, on April 4, 2011. The DDA had wanted the ability to lead that exploration, partly in exchange for renegotiating the contract under which the DDA operates the city’s public parking system. That new contract was finally settled on May 31, 2011.

Scenario development process being used by the DDA for the Connecting William Street project. (Image links to larger resolution file.)

Parcels included in the area are: the Kline’s lot (on Ashley, north of William), Palio’s lot (at Main & William), the ground floor of the Fourth & William parking structure, the old Y lot (Fifth & William), and the top of the Fifth Avenue underground parking garage, which is nearing completion.

Lowenstein reported that a survey circulated to solicit input had generated around 2,000 responses whereas only 1,000 had been expected. Lowenstein characterized the clear message from the results as indicating a strong desire for a vibrant sidewalk experience in the William Street area, with attention to good building quality and design. She also said the results indicated a desire for economic development, housing and open plaza space. The full set of responses, including free responses, is available on the DDA website: Connecting William Street survey responses.

[By way of illustrating the responses to the survey (not meant to cover the range or complexity of the answers given) when asked to share additional extremely important goals for the project area, responses included: "MORE FRICKING PARKING!!!!!" and "Provide natural (i.e., 'green') open space as part of a broader design for public activity and use downtown."]

The DDA is partnering with Concentrate to host a speaker series, Lowenstein said, to explore ways to achieve some of the goals of the project. She called the first event a big success. The speaker was Dan Gilmartin, from the Michigan Municipal League, who has authored a book called “The Economics of Place.” She said the event was very well attended, with practically standing room only at Conor O’Neill’s on Main Street. The next speaker event will be on April 19 at 5:30 p.m. also at Conor O’Neill’s, she said, and will focus on activating sidewalk space. [The speakers will be Kirk Westphal, a member of the city of Ann Arbor planning commission, and Bob Gregory, president of the Detroit 300 Conservancy.]

Lowenstein also reported that the DDA’s leadership and outreach committee had worked with land-use economist Todd J. Poole of 4Ward Planning, who has already made a visit to Ann Arbor. Poole’s work is being funded by the grant that the DDA has obtained for the project, as part of a larger federal grant from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to Washtenaw County.

Of the $100,000 Connecting William Street project budget, $65,000 will come from a community challenge grant awarded recently as part of a larger $3 million HUD grant received by Washtenaw County. The remaining $35,000 will be made up by DDA cash (no more than $20,000) and DDA in-kind contributions of staff time.

At the DDA’s partnership’s committee meeting on April 11, DDA planning and research specialist Amber Miller indicated that the report from Poole would be received around mid-May. She also described how the steps forward will include focus groups and the use of the survey results to start creating an initial iteration of scenarios. That work will take place in the context of understanding the significance of anchor institutions in the study area – the Ann Arbor District Library and the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s Blake Transit Center.

A final recommended scenario is expected sometime in August, Miller said, and that will be forwarded to the city council.

April 9, 2012: DDA at Council Work Session

At the DDA board’s April 4 board meeting, John Splitt noted that DDA board member Roger Hewitt would be delivering a budget presentation to the Ann Arbor city council at a work session the council was holding on April 9. Splitt encouraged other board members to attend.

By way of background, the DDA has in recent years not made such a budget presentation to the council. However, at a March DDA partnerships committee meeting, Ward 2 city councilmember Jane Lumm had asked about a possible presentation by the DDA to the council on its budget. Lumm serves as a city council representative to that committee. There was also support from other councilmembers for having such a presentation from the DDA. The DDA board had already approved its budget for fiscal year 2013 in March.

Council Work Session: DDA Background and Budget

The budget that Roger Hewitt presented to the city council at the work session was the same one that the DDA board had approved over a month earlier, at its March 7, 2012 meeting. It was prefaced by several slides reminding councilmembers of the impact the DDA has had on downtown Ann Arbor since its formation in 1982.

That includes over $100 million in investment by the DDA in various infrastructure, according to the DDA’s presentation. Also since 1982, the private sector has invested more than $300 million in downtown construction, which has added more than 3 million square feet of floor area. The DDA district’s taxable value grew from $89 million to $386 million over that period, Hewitt told the council.

Hewitt highlighted the fact that since the DDA took responsibility for management of the public parking system in 1996, two structures had received major repairs or renovations (Maynard, and Fourth & William) and another two had been demolished and rebuilt (Fourth & Washington, and Forest).

To that list Hewitt added the First and Washington structure, which needed to be demolished because it was failing structurally. The site is currently under construction by the developer Village Green, and will include a parking deck on the bottom floors of the City Apartments residential project – a parking deck the firm is developing in partnership with the DDA.

Highlights of the budget itself include:

FY 2013 DDA Revenues
===========
$ 4 M TIF Capture
$18 M Parking Revenue
-----------
$22 M Total

FY 2013 DDA Expenses
===========
$ 6.7 M Debt Service
$ 7.5 M Parking Operations
$ 3.6 M Capital Costs
$ 1.5 M Grants & Transfers
$ 0.7 M Administration
$ 0.4 M Professional Services & Insurance
$ 0.5 M City Municipal Center Grant
$ 3.1 M Parking Revenue (17%) to City
-----------
$24 M Total

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That difference in revenues versus expenditures means that the DDA will be tapping its fund balance reserve for around $2 million in the next fiscal year. As Hewitt explained to the council, this was a planned use of the fund balance and reflects the fact that the DDA is a capital-project driven organization. The pattern is to build up a fund balance in preparation for a project, which is then drawn down as projects are built. Hewitt told the council that the long-range planning is accomplished through a 10-year plan, which is updated quarterly.

Factoring in coverage of this year’s (FY 2012) use of fund balance and next year’s planned use of $2 million, the DDA will have a total fund balance of $4.38 million at the end of FY 2013, or an amount equal to about 18.2% of expenses [.pdf of FY 2013 budget]. Asked by Jane Lumm when the “floor” of the fund balance reserve will occur, Hewitt indicated that it would be this year or next.

By way of background, in the context of last year’s renegotiation of the contract under which the DDA operates the city’s public parking system, part of the DDA’s negotiating strategy was to point to its fund balance. The DDA warned that the contract terms the city wanted would lead to a precariously low fund balance in its 10-year forecast. The DDA board only agreed to the final term – a payment to the city of 17% of gross revenue from the public parking system – when the city of Ann Arbor agreed to backstop if the DDA’s fund balance fell below $1 million.

Council Work Session: Other Council Questions

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) wanted to know when the parking demand management, which the DDA had talked so much about, would be implemented. Hewitt told her that to some extent the DDA had begun to implement the pricing-by-demand model, but that it had really taken a backseat while the DDA completed the new underground parking structure on Fifth Avenue.

Briere also expressed her hope that the DDA would transition all the on-street parking meters to the kiosk-style electronic meters. Hewitt told Briere that if it were up to him, it would be done tomorrow. [The DDA had envisioned completing the transition, based on the positive results for the initial rollout of new meters in several locations. However, partly due to terms of the new parking contract with the city, the DDA has indicated that it does not have financial resources to make the upfront capital investment right now.]

Hewitt noted that about 70% of the payments made by new meters is via credit and debit cards.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) expressed some dissatisfaction that the budget forwarded to the city council by the DDA did not include the “actuals” from prior years – like every other component of the overall city budget. Kunselman felt including those actual expenditures and revenues from prior years was a requirement of state law – that everything be in the same format. Ann Arbor’s chief financial officer Tom Crawford came to the podium and provided an assurance that the DDA figures from prior years could be provided.

Council Work Session: TIF Questions

Of the questions put to representatives of the DDA by the city council, those posed by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) about TIF capture were the most pointed. The basis of his questions can be traced back to an issue that arose a year ago, when the city of Ann Arbor financial staff pointed out the impact of the city ordinance that lays out how the DDA’s TIF capture is determined.

Council Work Session: TIF Questions – Background

A tax increment finance (TIF) district is a mechanism for “capturing” certain property taxes to be used in a specific geographic district – taxes that would otherwise be received by the entity with the authority to levy the taxes. So in the DDA’s TIF district, the DDA doesn’t levy taxes directly. Rather, a portion of the property taxes that would otherwise be collected by taxing units (like the library, community college and the county) is instead used by the Ann Arbor DDA for improvements within a specific geographic district, covering about 66 city blocks downtown.

What is the portion of the property taxes that is captured by the DDA? The captured tax is only that which applies to the difference between (1) the baseline value of the property when the district was first formed, and (2) the value of the property after new construction or improvements to the property. That difference is the “increment” in “tax increment finance.” Subsequent appreciation of property value due to inflation, after it’s been constructed or improved, is not included in the Ann Arbor DDA’s TIF capture.

Chapter 7 of the city of Ann Arbor’s city code lays out how the tax capture of the Ann Arbor DDA is limited, or capped. The mechanism used to cap the amount of tax that can be captured by the Ann Arbor DDA is the projected value of the increment in the TIF district, as laid out in the TIF plan – a required document under the state enabling legislation for DDAs (Act 197 of 1975). From Chapter 7 [emphasis added]:

If the captured assessed valuation derived from new construction, and increase in value of property newly constructed or existing property improved subsequent thereto, grows at a rate faster than that anticipated in the tax increment plan, at least 50% of such additional amounts shall be divided among the taxing units in relation to their proportion of the current tax levies. If the captured assessed valuation derived from new construction grows at a rate of over twice that anticipated in the plan, all of such excess amounts over twice that anticipated shall be divided among the taxing units. Only after approval of the governmental units may these restrictions be removed. [.pdf of Ann Arbor city ordinance establishing the DDA]

The TIF plan includes a table that lays out the projected valuation of the increment in the district, starting in 2003. The table includes three scenarios for the projected valuation: “realistic,” “optimistic” and “pessimistic.” They’re each based on a constant percentage increase each year. So the three different scenarios are generated from three different estimates of the percentage increase each year. [.pdf of DDA TIF plan appendix]

In May 2011, the DDA initially agreed that based on Chapter 7, the excess TIF money needs to be reimbursed to taxing authorities in its district, for excess TIF that had been captured since 2003. Those taxing authorities include the Ann Arbor District Library, Washtenaw County and Washtenaw Community College, and they were reimbursed a total of $473,000. The city of Ann Arbor was due to be reimbursed for $712,000, but the city council waived that amount.

Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority: Bond payments and TIF capture. (Image links to higher resolution file.)

Subsequently, the DDA reversed its legal position, and currently contends that Chapter 7 does not indicate a clear limit on its TIF capture and that the money it returned last year need not have been returned.

The DDA’s position on the Chapter 7 issue is reflected in a chart included in Roger Hewitt’s budget presentation to the city council.

The chart plots the DDA’s bond payments against its TIF revenues. The DDA contends that as long as its revenues from TIF capture (unlimited by Chapter 7) do not exceed its bond payments, it’s not required to apply the calculations in the ordinance – which last year were interpreted to place a limit on the amount of TIF money the DDA captured in the first place.

The DDA’s position relies on a subsequent portion of the ordinance, which reads [emphasis added]:

Tax funds that are paid to the downtown development authority due to the captured assessed value shall first be used to pay the required amounts into the bond and interest redemption funds and the required reserves thereto. Thereafter, the funds shall be distributed as set forth above or shall be divided among the taxing units in relation to their proportion of the current tax levies.

Complicating the issue is the fact that the bonds the DDA has historically used to finance parking structure construction and renovation have relied on revenue from the parking system – not TIF capture – to ensure that the debt service can be covered. [Editor's note: But see Comment 3 below] And it’s not the DDA that issues the bonds, but rather the city of Ann Arbor, which issues the bonds on behalf of the DDA. So in the DDA’s accounting system, the DDA itself does not maintain bond reserves. The DDA’s annual reports consistently show $0 for “bond reserve.” [.pdf of DDA annual reports from past years]

If Chapter 7 is interpreted to mean that any bond payments are first in line to be paid – before any other use can be made of TIF revenues – that could have an unintended impact on the DDA’s payment of roughly $500,000 a year to the city to support the new police/courts building, now called the Justice Center. The city uses that contribution from the DDA to help make payments on bonds it issued to build the Justice Center.

When Newcombe Clark was appointed to the DDA board in 2009, one of the first things he insisted on was to classify that police/courts payment to the city as a “grant” and not a “bond payment.” If it’s not a bond payment, then on the DDA’s current interpretation of Chapter 7, it’s not clear how the DDA could make that payment to the city out of its TIF revenues – because there would be other, outstanding debt that would have to be paid first, and there would not be any left over to make the $500,000 police/courts payment out of the TIF fund. However, the DDA could conceivably make the police/courts contribution from parking system revenues.

At the city council’s April 2, 2012 meeting, Kunselman had brought forward a resolution – which he could not persuade enough of his colleagues to pass. It would have directed the city financial staff to analyze the TIF capture according to Chapter 7, based on last year’s interpretation of the ordinance.

Council Work Session: TIF Questions – How Does this Work?

With that as background, Kunselman led off by asking whose responsibility it is to calculate the TIF. Hewitt told Kunselman that the DDA does not calculate the TIF capture.

Before the start of the April 9 DDA budget presentation to the Ann Arbor city council. Foreground: DDA board member Bob Guenzel talks with Ward 4 councilmember Margie Teall. Background: Ward 3 city councilmember Stephen Kunselman talks with assistant city attorney Kevin McDonald.

Kunselman ventured that he had a different understanding, based on conversations with the city treasurer’s office. Hewitt deferred to Bob Guenzel, who is now chair of the DDA board. Guenzel served many years as Washtenaw County administrator until he retired in May of 2010.

In broad strokes, Guenzel explained that the DDA receives a check from the city of Ann Arbor treasurer’s office. Joe Morehouse, deputy director of the DDA, confirmed that’s how it works, from the DDA’s vantage point. Kunselman went on to raise the possibility that the DDA might need to be prepared to receive a different amount than the full TIF capture it had used to plan its FY 2013 budget – if the city treasurer were to reach a different conclusion than the DDA about how Chapter 7 applies.

Guenzel responded to Kunselman by summarizing the DDA’s legal position. As a legal matter, he said, the DDA believes that as long as there’s outstanding debt that exceeds the amount of the full TIF capture [as in the "DDA TIF and Bond Payments" chart], there’s no obligation to distribute TIF back to the other taxing units. Guenzel noted that the DDA had advised the taxing units in the district of the DDA’s position, which was not to say that those taxing units agreed with it.

618 S. Main Street

Related to TIF capture is the 618 S. Main project. Developer Dan Ketelaar is asking that the DDA use part of the TIF capture that would come from the new project to pay for certain elements of the project that he contends have a public benefit.

618 S. Main Street: Background, Proposal

The 618 S. Main project is a 7-story building, which would include 190 units for 231 bedrooms, plus two levels of parking for 121 vehicles. It received a unanimously positive recommendation from the Ann Arbor planning commission on Jan. 19, 2012. The developer of the project, Dan Ketelaar, has estimated that the tax on the increment between the current valuation of the property and the final built project would yield around $250,000 a year in TIF revenue to the DDA.

Ketelaar is was initially asking that in addition to reimbursement of certain costs (at around $1.4 million) within six months of the project’s completion, the DDA pledge 80% of its TIF capture money for six years – an additional $1.3 million – to support certain aspects of the project in connection with the state’s Community Revitalization Program. But subsequently, Ketelaar revised the request to include just the TIF reimbursement. So the total request, over six years, is $1.3 million. The CRP is the successor to the brownfield and historic preservation tax credit program. In order to approve the tax credit, the state would like to see a commensurate commitment from local units – and Ketelaar is proposing that it take the form of the DDA’s support. The costs for which Ketelaar is seeking reimbursement include various standard infrastructure components, green infrastructure components (for example, a rain garden for stormwater cleansing) and streetscape improvements from Mosley to just south of William Street.

Ketelaar has pitched the idea to the DDA board on several occasions now – first at the full board meeting on Feb. 1, 2012, and at three subsequent DDA partnerships committee meetings. Two of those committee meetings took place in March. Ketelaar and his team also discussed his proposal at the April 11 meeting of the partnerships committee. Ketelaar has a purchase option on the land through July, so he has an interest in seeing the financing for the project come together in the next few months. Based on partnerships committee discussions, the city council would prefer not to vote on the project until the issue of the state tax credits is finalized.

At the DDA’s April 4 board meeting, in reporting out from the downtown citizens advisory council (CAC), Ray Detter expressed support for the project, noting that both the CAC and the Old West Side Association strongly supported it. He said they wanted the project to be built. However, he cautioned that the CAC also supported consistent and careful planning. And he expressed caution about the DDA offering its support in the form that Ketelaar is requesting.

Detter pointed out that the CAC had been involved in creating the partnership process that the DDA has used in the past – for the first time in 1999. That had included support to Syndeco Realty, the development arm of DTE Energy, for the Ashley Mews project on Main Street. In all of the cases when the DDA had provided support, Detter said, the DDA had made sure to follow rules and procedures that were consistent and applied equally to all applicants. All those projects also involved some public benefit that might not otherwise have been achieved. So Detter stressed that the DDA should continue to insist that all DDA decisions on supporting 618 S. Main should be made based on the principles that the DDA has always supported. He wanted to make sure that no unfair precedent was set.

618 S. Main: History of DDA Project Support

By way of background, the board approved a $589,800 grant for the construction of pedestrian improvements associated with the Ashley Mews project, located at Main and Packard streets. The grant was for streetscape improvements along South Ashley and South Main streets, as well as on the pedestrian walk-through from Main to Ashley. The board also approved a $75,000 grant from its housing fund, to support affordable housing as a part of the project. [.pdf of Oct. 6, 1999 board minutes]

In his remarks to the DDA board at the April 4 meeting, Detter recalled the DDA’s support of the Ashley Mews project as well as other projects. Those include some that were eventually built, as well as some that were not ever built, he said. He mentioned the Village Green City Apartments project [which just recently started construction at First and Washington], Liberty Lofts [which completed construction in 2006 at First and Liberty] and Kingsley Lane [which was never built]. From a handout provided at a March DDA partnerships committee meeting, here’s a quick overview of the history of support to different developments made under the DDA’s partnerships program:

• 1999: Ashley Mews – $589,800 and $75,000. Reason: affordable housing/help the city of Ann Arbor sell Main & Packard.
• 2004: Kingsley Lane [not built] – 20% of the TIF for 10 years. Reason: first downtown residential project after greenbelt millage approval.
• 2005: Liberty Lofts – $600,000 ($300,000 for stormwater management, $250,000 for pedestrian improvements, $50,000 for parks). Reason: historic preservation/dense residential.
• 2006: William Street Station [not built] – 20% of the TIF generated over 10 years (maximum $500,000), waive meter bag fees (up to $100,000). Reason: help to preserve 100 very affordable housing units.
• 2007: Tierra on Ashley [not built] – 25% of the TIF generated over 10 years waive meter bag fees (up to $18,000). Reason: Platinum LEED construction.

In 2008, the DDA discontinued the partnerships grant program, because the board believed that development interest in downtown Ann Arbor was strong enough that such grants were no longer needed to help spur investment. [.pdf of March 5, 2008 DDA board resolution] From the board’s resolution:

Whereas, Development interest in the downtown is currently very strong, and the Partnerships Committee no longer believes that DDA Partnerships Grants are needed to foster development;
RESOLVED, The DDA resolves to eliminate its DDA Partnerships Grant Program, but will retain its other economic development tools to support downtown development including its facade loan program, provision of parking contracts, provision of parking assistance to lessen pedestrian impacts during construction and support for public infrastructure expansions.

Before discontinuing the grant program, the DDA has offered some support to two other projects, but not through that partnerships grant. And since the discontinuation of the program, the DDA has offered substantial support to one project – the Zingerman’s Deli expansion project at Detroit and Kingsley. The DDA voted on July 7, 2010 to support that project with an amount equal to the estimated amount of taxes on the increased value of Zingerman’s property, that the DDA would receive through its TIF capture for the first 15 years after the project is completed. That amount is $407,000.

The board approved the request from Zingerman’s by passing a resolution that specified “improvements to sidewalks and sidewalk curb ramps in the area near the Deli, providing additional wayfinding, providing funding for actual LEED certification costs, and providing contractor parking and staging …”

Here’s a summary of non-partnerships grant support to downtown projects:

• 2005: Denali/322 E. Liberty – 11 spaces in the South Fifth Ave. lot for 1 year (~$50,000).
• 2007: Mayer Shairer – reimbursement of $40,000 (fire hydrant).
• 2010: Zingerman’s Deli brownfield – $407,000 (for sidewalks, wayfinding, etc.). Reason: Jobs, anchor business, national attention.

618 S. Main: Review of DDA Board Discussion

At the DDA board’s April 4 meeting, Sandi Smith (co-chair of the partnerships committee and a Ward 1 city councilmember) reviewed the request that Ketelaar was making. She reported that there’d been a need to clarify how the DDA TIF capture works for Ketelaar’s project team. In calculating the total dollar amounts of TIF capture that the DDA would be pledging, the project team had factored in inflationary increases as a part of the increment on which the DDA could capture tax. The Ann Arbor DDA, in contrast to many other downtown development authorities, captures taxes only on the initial increment between the property value before improvements and the value after improvements. The DDA does not capture taxes on the additional value the property might accrue through inflationary pressures of the real estate market.

At the March 14 meeting of the DDA partnerships committee, Dan Ketelaar pitches his proposal for the DDA to support his 618. S. Main project.

Smith noted that the committee had reviewed the history of support that the DDA had given to projects and discussed whether 618 S. Main was an “extraordinary” project that the city needed and offered a specific public benefit. That discussion would continue, Smith said, at the next partnerships committee meeting. Part of the discussion, she noted, involves the project’s location in the South Main Street corridor.

At the partnerships committee meetings in March, as well as the committee meeting on April 11, after the board meeting, Ketelaar has stressed the location of the project as a key reason that the DDA should support it. It anchors the edge of the DDA district, could serve as a gateway to downtown, and has the potential to spur the revitalization of Main Street between Mosley and William along Main, Ketelaar says.

At the March 28 partnerships committee meeting – convened as a special meeting just to discuss Ketelaar’s proposal for 618 S. Main – Smith noted that the part of the proposal that resonated with her was the idea that the strip between Ashley Mews southward to the 618 S. Main location would become more attractive through making streetscape improvements. However, she expressed some hesitation about the timing, saying that she wished the DDA could take the time to make a plan for what that road should look like, so that it doesn’t get “piecemealed” together.

Also at that meeting, Newcombe Clark expressed concern that the “urgency” of the issue was being placed upon the DDA by the fact that Ketelaar’s purchase option for the land went only through July. He said he’d feel differently about it, if the land had already been acquired. Given that the land had not yet been purchased, Clark was concerned that the DDA’s support of the project could translate to artificially increasing the cost of real estate in downtown Ann Arbor. If Ketelaar’s project did not go forward, Clark wondered if there could be other developers lined up behind Ketelaar who’d be willing to purchase the land – perhaps for less than Ketelaar was offering – and to build a different project that did not require the kind of support Ketelaar was requesting.

There’d been some question about whether streetscape improvements for the entire stretch between Mosley and just south of William would be considered as a “local match” from the perspective of the state’s Community Revitalization Program. At their April 11 meeting, Nathan Voght, of the Washtenaw County office of community and economic development, indicated to the DDA partnerships committee that based on a conversation with a state official, he believed that the streetscape improvements would count for local match purposes.

Also at the April 11 partnerships committee meeting, DDA board members concluded they’d need to schedule another special meeting to continue the discussion of the 618 S. Main proposal. It will take place on April 25 at 9 a.m. The April 25 meeting will mark the fourth partnerships committee meeting that has featured the 618 S. Main proposal on its agenda.

Present (April 4 board meeting): Nader Nassif, Bob Guenzel, John Splitt, Sandi Smith, Leah Gunn, Keith Orr, Joan Lowenstein, John Mouat.

Absent: Newcombe Clark, Russ Collins, John Hieftje, Roger Hewitt.

Next board meeting: Noon on Wednesday, May 2, 2012, at the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301. [confirm date]

The Chronicle could not survive without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of public bodies like the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

This taxicab meter reads "VACANT" – just like two seats on Ann Arbor's taxicab board.

This little taxi ride is going to start where Mary Morgan’s milestone column last month left off – she drew a comparison between news media choices and transportation choices.

This column also will deliver readers to a destination that asks them to consider applying for a mayoral appointment to Ann Arbor’s taxicab board.

If you’d like to take a shortcut, then go ahead and download the application form for the city’s boards and commissions, and return it to the mayor’s office. The address is printed right on the form.

But the longer route will include some discussion about who’s paying the fare for this media cab we call The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

Last Friday evening, Mary Morgan and I ordered an actual cab to cover the 3/4 mile from our Old West Side neighborhood to the near edge of downtown Ann Arbor. Who on earth orders a cab to cover that short a distance? A journalist who needs a piece of art for a column involving taxis, that’s who. The trip required a detour from the planned route. That’s because Washington Street between Ashley and Main was closed for the FoolMoon festival – which we were headed downtown to see.

The taxicab driver circled around to have another go at it from Huron Street.  And he told us he’d knock a quarter mile off the final distance on the meter. He could exercise that discretion, because taxicab drivers function essentially as independent contractors, who lease the vehicles from the taxicab company each night.

There’s a limit to a cabbie’s discretion. I’m guessing he wouldn’t earn a livelihood if he decided just to let passengers ride for free, for as long as they liked, and expect that they might later send him an equitable fare. Yet if operating The Chronicle were like driving a cab, that’s what the voluntary subscriptions part of our business model would look like. 

The Chronicle Cab

So The Chronicle’s business model is different from that of a taxicab.  But when Mary Morgan drew an analogy in last month’s column between media choices and transportation choices, I asked myself: If The Chronicle were a transportation option, which form of transportation would it be – pedestrian, scooter, bicycle, car, bus, train, dirigible or something else?

And I concluded that reading The Chronicle is in many ways similar to taking a ride in a cab.

Cab drivers are stereotypically a talkative bunch. And I think that The Chronicle’s reports of public meetings that routinely exceed 10,000 words qualify us as a “talkative” publication. On a personal level, let’s just say I generally achieve some fairly robust words-per-mile statistics. Plenty of people can vouch for that – for example, anyone who has been trapped in a conversation with me, and has simply walked away to get me to stop talking.

For those who’ve never met me, I’ll offer this vignette by way of illustration. A few weeks ago, I bumped into the city’s transportation manager, Eli Cooper, on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue, between Huron and Washington, across the street from the offices of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. Early in that conversation, Amber Miller, who’s a planning specialist with the DDA, walked past. It was around lunch time, so I imagine she was headed to lunch. Later in the conversation, she walked past us in the opposite direction. Cooper had stood his ground for a whole lunch period!

It’s worth noting that Amber exchanged pleasantries with us, but she had the sense not to stop and chat. She’s been there before. And she learns fast.

I think all those words The Chronicle uses to describe what goes on in our community are also probably a little bit like getting into a cab with a driver who wants to show a tourist the scenic route – the path through every back lane and alleyway of the city. It’s a path that does not use the major thoroughfares that would get you to a destination fastest. You know, the larger avenues, with names like Story-Telling Street, Conflict Crescent, Bombast Boulevard, and Rile’em-Up Road.

Unlike the stereotypical cabbie, who might be using the scenic route to add miles to the meter to boost the fare, we’re not adding those words to increase revenues. The scenic route doesn’t cost extra for a passenger in The Chronicle cab. To those Chronicle riders who send in a regular voluntary fare, thank you.

Taxicab Board

Close readers of The Chronicle will have noticed that Stephen Kunselman announced at two recent city council meetings (Dec. 19, 2011 and March 5, 2012) that the city’s taxicab board has some vacancies. Kunselman is the city council representative to that body, which consists of seven members total, two of whom are non-voting ex officio members.

Before pitching readers the idea of at least considering an application for an appointment to the taxicab board, here’s a question: How would anybody know about vacancies on city boards and commissions if they weren’t announced at city council meetings and reported by The Chronicle? During public commentary at the council’s Dec. 19 meeting, resident Michael Benson pointed out that the city’s online Legistar system did not at that time accurately reflect the full range of vacancies on city boards and commissions.

But since then, the Legistar system has been updated. It’s currently possible to generate online a list of all boards and commissions with vacancies. [The vacancy indicated on the AATA board is not accurate, but I believe the others to be true indications of vacancies.]

Back to the taxicab board. With two vacancies on a board of five voting members, the board needs perfect attendance to achieve a quorum. Recently the board needed to hold a special meeting – at a different time from the usual 8:30 a.m. on the last Thursday of the month – just to make sure it could achieve a quorum.

I’m not suggesting that a Chronicle reader apply for a mayoral appointment to the taxicab board just to fill the seats, or out of a sense of civic duty. There’s a place on the application labeled “Reasons for Seeking Appointment (Areas of Interest, Goals, etc.)” So you should have something sensible to write in that space.

Maybe you’re interested in mobility issues, and you see the availability of taxicabs that are safe, efficient and well-regulated as an important piece of a transportation system for the city. Maybe you have legal expertise and are attracted to participation in the hearing and grievance procedure for revocation of licenses. For any applicant, it’s probably worth reading through the taxicab ordinance. That’s the piece of legislation the board is responsible for administering. [.pdf of taxicab ordinance]

Taxicab board membership is not compensated. So what reward do you get for your three-year term of service? I think you might get some potential social capital out of the deal – you’ll expand your network and at least increase the number of “weak ties” you have in the community. With the other citizen members of the board, you never know who you’ll get, but right now they include a former candidate for city council (Tim Hull) and an attorney (Tom Oldakowski).

Also baked into the taxicab board membership are a city councilmember (currently Stephen Kunselman), and two ex officio non-voting positions – the city’s chief financial officer (currently Tom Crawford) and a representative from the police department (currently William Clock).

In the end, someone will need to step forward to serve on the taxicab board to pay the “civic fare” for the rest of the community. That someone could be you. Or maybe you know someone who might be interested. Thanks in advance for helping fill those slots.

And to the folks who help pay The Chronicle’s fare for the rest of the community, thanks for your support too. We’d love to have more of you on board with that in the future.

About the writer: Dave Askins is editor and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle. The Chronicle could not survive to count each milestone without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of local government and civic affairs. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

A car pulls into West Stadium Boulevard from a driveway next to the former Sze-Chuan West restaurant. The Ann Arbor planning commission recommended approval of a proposal to tear down the structure and build a Noodles & Co. restaurant there. (Photos by the writer.)

Much of the discussion about the Tim Hortons site focused on a proposed roundabout at that intersection. Though the coffee and donut shop will likely be built by late summer – about a year before the roundabout is expected to be in place – a spokesman for the company said they’ll be designing the site with the roundabout in mind.

Commissioners also recommended approval of a new AAA branch on South Main, across from Michigan Stadium. The plan calls for rezoning a portion of the site to accommodate more parking than the current office zoning would allow – a total of 35 spaces. That’s a reduction from the amount of parking currently on the site, which was approved in the mid-1970s, but it no longer conforms with existing zoning.

Commissioners Bonnie Bona, Erica Briggs and Kirk Westphal expressed concerns about rezoning an area along Main Street for parking. They also wondered whether 35 spaces were necessary, especially when there are alternative parking options – at a park-and-ride at Pioneer High, and in the nearby neighborhood. Briggs noted that it ran counter to the city’s efforts to encourage alternative transportation. Those three commissioners voted against the rezoning, but the resolution passed on a 6-3 vote. It will still require city council approval.

Also at the March 6 meeting, commissioners postponed action on a request from owners of the Shell service station at the northeast corner of Ann Arbor-Saline and West Eisenhower Parkway. Owners of the station hope to build additions onto the existing 1,000-square-foot convenience store, but planning staff recommended postponement in order to gather additional information and analysis about the plan.

AAA Branch Proposal

Site plans and rezoning for two Main Street parcels owned by the Automobile Club of Michigan – where an AAA branch is currently located – were on the agenda for the March 6 meeting.

City planner Alexis DiLeo gave the staff report. The requests relate to 1100 and 1200 S. Main, across from Michigan Stadium. An AAA branch built in the 1950s is located there. The owner wants to build a new branch on a different part of the site, tear down the existing building, and reconfigure parking spaces.

The two parcels are part of a 1.5-acre site containing four parcels owned by the auto club and all zoned O (office). Located on the 1200 S. Main parcel is the current one-story branch building with walk-out basement and 36 parking spaces, with exits onto South Main, Berkley and Potter.

The 1100 S. Main site is a surface parking lot, which has 72 spaces and exits onto both Potter and Keech. The owner is requesting to build a one-story, 5,443-square-foot new branch building on the northeast corner of that site, with parking for 21 spaces. A second phase of the project would include an eventual 2,230-square-foot addition to the south side of that building. There are six landmark trees on the site, and the plan would require removal of two that are located along South Main, near Keech. Other trees would be added elsewhere on the site.

Looking north on Main Street at the AAA Michigan branch in Ann Arbor.

After the new structure is completed, the old building at 1200 S. Main would be torn down and a 14-space parking lot would be put on that parcel. To do that, the proposal asks that the northern 123 feet of that parcel – about half of the parcel – be rezoned from O (office) to P (parking), so that parking could become the principal use for that site. A site plan for that parcel is also required.

The owner’s overall plan called for a total of 35 spaces – a reduction from the current parking on the site, which was approved in the mid-1970s but is no longer conforming with existing zoning. The 35 spaces would be four more spaces than the 31 maximum number permitted under the O (office) zoning, based on the new building’s square footage in both phases. That’s why the owner requested that a portion of the overall site be rezoned for parking – in the P (parking) district, there is no maximum.

Planning staff had previously recommended postponing action on the request, so that the owner could include the possible future addition as part of the site plan, to reflect parking needs better. However, because the planning commission did not achieve a quorum for its Feb. 23 meeting, no action was taken. Revised plans were subsequently submitted, and the planning staff recommended approval.

AAA Branch Proposal: Public Hearing

One person spoke during the project’s public hearing. Chris Arnold of NSA Architects spoke on behalf of the owners, and said the entire team – including legal counsel, designer, civil engineer and landscape architect – were on hand to answer questions. He said they did a study to see whether to remodel. The existing building has more space than the branch needs, and is configured so that the bottom level is not handicap accessible. The building is also not energy efficient, he said. Meanwhile, the auto club has developed a new brand and image for its offices, so the decision was made to rebuild.

Arnold cited several features of the plan, including a reduction of parking from nearly 100 spaces to a proposed 35 – a rather large and significant reduction, he said. The plan will reduce pervious pavement by about 40%, and eliminate curbcuts onto South Main. The building will also target LEED certification, he said.

Commissioners had several comments and concerns. This report organizes their discussion thematically.

AAA Branch Proposal: Commission Discussion – Construction

Tony Derezinski said he was curious about the construction phases. When would the second phase be built? He joked that Main Street does have some activity, especially in the fall – an allusion to the Saturday football games at Michigan Stadium, located across the street from the AAA branch.

Responding to Derezinski, Alexis DiLeo said that depending on when approval is granted, construction for the first phase would likely begin in late summer or early fall.

John Chamberlain, an attorney representing the owner, said there are no plans yet regarding the second phase. It’s not anticipated that the first phase would require any closure of Main Street due to construction.

Later in the meeting, Derezinski pressed for more details on the project’s second phase – not having a solid timeframe was a concern to him. Chamberlain said he wished he could be more specific, but it’s unclear when expansion would be appropriate in Ann Arbor. Nationwide, AAA is expanding. In some locations, the company is opening bank branches. There’s one in Dearborn, and the second phase of the Ann Arbor branch could accommodate a bank branch, he said. But their plans are flexible, with no certain schedule at this point.

AAA Branch Proposal: Commission Discussion – Landscaping, Stormwater

Wendy Woods asked about the portion of the parcel at 1200 S. Main that would not be used for parking. Would the landscaping be upgraded? Chamberlain said the plan calls for turf grass with perimeter landscaping. It would be an increase over the amount of impervious surface at the site now, he said – about 55-60% of the parcel will be grass or landscaping.

Evan Pratt asked about the soil type on the site – it’s Miami loam, DiLeo said. Pratt highlighted the fact that a bioswale is proposed on the southern side of 1100 S. Main.  Usually, inclusion of a bioswale means that the design relies on water to infiltrate, he said, but there’s also an underground detention chamber on the site. Steve Sorensen, the project’s civil engineer, confirmed that the intent is for water to perc down through the bioswale.

There are pervasive water problems along the Allen Creek, Pratt noted, so it’s beneficial to take runoff off-line, out of the city’s stormwater system. He observed that another recent project – a residential development at 618 S. Main – plans to handle all its stormwater runoff on the site, with zero percent added to the stormwater system. The commission liked that approach, he said.

Pratt encouraged the use of pervious pavement, whenever possible, saying that it’s a benefit to the owners because it requires less maintenance than traditional impervious pavements. He also liked the fact that the curbcuts onto Main Street would be removed. However, he said he was scratching his head “trying to figure out how we can get a little silk on the sow’s ear here.”

AAA Branch Proposal: Commission Discussion – Parking

Kirk Westphal asked whether other options were considered – such as a “planned project” – instead of rezoning a parcel for parking. Alexis DiLeo indicated that several options had been discussed. The owners originally were seeking a variance for the additional parking. Wendy Rampson, the city’s planning manager, noted that the city’s zoning board of appeals doesn’t have the authority to grant a variance for a use that normally isn’t allowed. Because parking would be considered the principal use for this parcel, she said, the only option was to rezone it for parking.

Rampson said the other strategy that was discussed was to keep the existing building or put another development on the site, so that there could be shared parking with the new branch building. The owners looked at that possibility, but decided that their mission wasn’t to create new office space and become a landlord.

Rampson noted that in an earlier proposal, the owners had requested that the entire 1200 S. Main parcel be rezoned for parking. But that request had been modified to ask for rezoning only on about half of the parcel.

Bonnie Bona, right, was one of three planning commissioners who voted against a proposal to rezone part of the AAA branch parcel from office to parking. To the left is Alexis DiLeo of the city's planning staff.

DiLeo explained that a planned project wouldn’t be an option, because it allows only for zoning modifications related to setback and height, not parking.

Westphal asked whether this rezoning would complicate future development, if the land changes hands. DiLeo replied that if it’s rezoned as parking, then that’s what the parcel must be used for. If the entire site were to be redeveloped, it would likely have to be rezoned again.

Erica Briggs also expressed concern about rezoning for parking, especially given that the site is located on Main Street. It doesn’t seem to be in line with the city’s plans for that area, she said.

Bonnie Bona noted that some of the auto club’s parking demand relates to occasional special meetings that are held there. She wondered about the availability of nearby parking in neighborhood streets. Is there any residential pressure that would prevent daytime parking there?

All of the side streets in that area – including Keech, Potter and Berkley – have on-street parking, DiLeo said. It’s used to some extent by people who work in downtown Ann Arbor or at the University of Michigan, she added, but not at levels like you’d find in Kerrytown or on the Old West Side. She did note, however, that before the AAA branch added parking in the 1970s, residents complained about the on-street parking situation.

John Chamberlain, legal counsel for the auto club, explained that the larger meetings held at the branch were usually marketing- and travel-related, such as information meetings about cruises, for example. Bona said that where she works, when they need to hold a large meeting they find a venue with parking that can accommodate it.

Bona also noted that since this AAA site is in an urban setting, alternative methods of getting to work should be encouraged. Is it located on a bus route? she asked.

Yes, DiLeo said. Two bus routes emanate from the south stop at the nearby Pioneer High School park-and-ride, then go past the AAA site and into downtown.

Diane Giannola asked whether the maximum amount of parking allowed on the site takes into account whether the parking is needed for employees or customers. DiLeo wasn’t sure, but said there are different requirements for retail districts compared to office districts – more parking is allowed for retail. Regarding the possible future AAA bank branch at that location, DiLeo later clarified that financial institutions require between 4.5-5.5 spaces per 1,000 square feet of floor space. That compares to general office use, with a requirement of 3-4 spaces per 1,000 square feet.

Referencing the initial phase of the project, Giannola said she understands that the AAA branch is considered an office, but it’s not a typical office – more customers tend to come and go.

Wendy Woods asked whether there are restrictions on who can use the AAA parking lot after-hours. No, Chamberlain said, anyone can park there. Woods noted that if UM decides to hold more night games at Michigan Stadium, additional parking in that area might be useful. Chamberlain reported that on football Saturdays, the branch lets a local Boy Scout troop sell parking on the lot and keep the proceeds. That relationship will continue, he said.

Westphal noted that there is, in effect, overflow parking in the neighborhood, which he said the city subsidizes. He pointed to the parking study of the site as summarized in the staff report, which stated: ”Between 14 and 18 parking spaces were occupied for multiple hours without turnover, which is attributed to employee vehicles.”

He asked how long it would take to walk from the Pioneer park-and-ride lot to the AAA branch. About 5-7 minutes, DiLeo estimated. In that case, Westphal said, he’d feel comfortable about possibly deferring action on the extra parking that AAA says it needs for the second phase of its project.

Briggs agreed, saying it’s hard to see the need for rezoning part of the parcel for parking.

AAA Branch Proposal: Commission Discussion – Parking, Rezoning Deferred?

Westphal wondered whether it made sense to consider the rezoning proposal later, but move ahead on the site plans. Would that throw a wrench into the overall project?

DiLeo said the rezoning takes longer to move through the approval process, because it requires two readings at city council. If the commission postponed or tabled the rezoning, the site plan for 1200 S. Main couldn’t move forward because the two proposals are linked, she said. On the other hand, even if the commission voted to deny any of the proposals, the owners could still move the project to the city council. It would simply move forward with a recommendation of denial.

Wendy Rampson said the reason that planning staff presented three different proposals to vote on was to allow for some flexibility. But if the commission denied a recommendation to rezone the parcel, they should also make it clear that they’re recommending approval only of the first phase of the overall project, she said. That would be the most expeditious way to allow the owners to move forward to the city council.

Westhphal explained his main concern: If AAA never moves ahead with its second phase, there will have been no reason to rezone land on Main Street for parking. He didn’t think it was onerous to ask AAA to bring back the rezoning request whenever they’re ready to do the second phase of the building.

Planning commissioner Eleanore Adenekan.

Giannola reminded commissioners that the current proposal reduces parking on the site significantly from the amount that’s there now. It’s an improvement, she said, so it’s more of a win-win, even if it’s rezoned for parking.

Briggs said she agrees 100% that the proposal would be better than the existing site. But there’s never a justification to rezone for parking, she said. Residents pay taxes to support the park-and-ride lots, and the neighborhoods. There is parking capacity in those locations, she said. If AAA ever decides to build the second phase, they can ask for more parking. She observed that the current proposal requests rezoning to allow for just four extra spaces.

Rampson clarified that the parcel would have to be rezoned for parking no matter how many spaces were actually on it, because without a building there, parking would be its principal use.

Bona agreed that the proposal was a huge improvement, “but that doesn’t mean it’s enough improvement.” If the rezoning occurs, Bona said she assumed the owners could leave the existing building in place and use the parking that’s currently there. But could they tear down the building and keep the parking for it?

No, DiLeo said, because without a building, parking would become the principal use and it would need to be rezoned. She said the staff had talked to the owners about keeping the current building and renting it out, but AAA doesn’t want to be a landlord, she said. They could leave the building vacant, but they can’t demolish it.

Woods said she wasn’t sure it was fair to tell a business to ask clients or employees to park on the neighborhood streets. Then the problem spills over into the neighborhood. She noted that if an office is eventually built on the 1200 S. Main parcel, then a portion of the lot would be used for parking anyway. So she wasn’t sure it was fair to prevent parking on that site now.

Giannola agreed with Woods. It’s unfair for the parking to spill into the neighborhoods. And it doesn’t seem necessary, she added, given that the site is being improved. AAA is a special kind of office, and needs more parking than just for employees. It’s important to have temporary parking for customers, she said.

Derezinski said he echoed those comments, and added that the building AAA plans to put up is very nice. He objected to making the company return a second time for approval of the next phase, saying that approach is more expensive and therefore would be less likely to happen.

Briggs said she was likely beating a dead horse, but that she lived on the city’s west side and didn’t mind when non-residents parked in the neighborhood. It meant there were more “eyes on the street.” If more parking is provided on the site, she said, then of course it will be used. But if the city wants to encourage alternative forms of transportation, like biking and walking, then they need to plan parking accordingly. These goals are stated in several of the city’s planning documents, she concluded, including the transportation plan and non-motorized transportation plan, among others.

Outcome: Three separate votes were taken. The vote to recommend rezoning of 1200 S. Main to P (parking) passed on a 6-3 vote, with dissent from Bona, Briggs and Westphal. Those three commissioners also voted against the site plan for 1200 S. Main, but that resolution also passed on a 6-3 vote. The site plan for 1100 S. Main was unanimously approved. The proposal will be forwarded to the city council for approval.

Noodles & Co. Site Plan

Commissioners were asked to consider a plan for a new Noodles & Co. restaurant at 2161 W. Stadium Blvd. – site of the former Sze-Chuan West, a building adjacent to Bell’s Diner and Stadium Hardware.

City planner Alexis DiLeo gave the staff report. The proposal calls for demolishing the existing 4,300-square-foot restaurant and building a new 2,679-square-foot one-story restaurant with a 615-square-foot enclosed patio at the front of the building. The 1.15-acre site is located on the west side of West Stadium, south of Liberty. The project would also reconfigure the existing parking lot and provide additional landscaping.

The site plan approval would be contingent on a land division request that’s currently being reviewed by the city’s planning staff. The division would separate the restaurant parcel from a larger parcel at 2151 W. Stadium, where the Big M car wash is located. Both parcels are owned by Chuck Gallup of Gallup Properties.

Another contingency relates to an easement that allows the site to access West Stadium. Currently, there’s a 10-foot access easement to the north – a shared driveway with 2163-2177 W. Stadium, where the building that houses Bell’s Diner and Stadium Hardware is located. However, the owner of that property is unwilling to expand that easement. Instead, a permanent access easement across the adjacent property to the south – where the Big M car wash is located – will be required.

In their staff memo, planning staff noted that the redevelopment is consistent with the city’s master plan and would improve the aesthetics of the West Stadium corridor. The project had originally been on the planning commission’s Feb. 23 meeting agenda, but because commissioners lacked a quorum, no action could be taken and it was rescheduled for the March 6 meeting. Staff had recommended the project for approval.

Noodles & Co. operates two other restaurants in Ann Arbor – at 320 S. State, near the University of Michigan campus; and at Arborland on Washtenaw Avenue, on the city’s east side.

Noodles & Co. Site Plan: Public Hearing

Only one person, Todd Quatro, attended the public hearing – he spoke on behalf of the owner. Quatro said DiLeo’s report covered the highlights of the project. The plan is to demolish the existing building and put up a new one, with additional landscaping, stormwater detention and other features. A new fire hydrant will also be installed, he said.

Noodles & Co. Site Plan: Commission Discussion

Diane Giannola asked if it’s common to have a parcel with two different types of zoning for the same parcel. [The site at 2161 W. Stadium Blvd. is zoned C3 (fringe commercial) at the front, where the restaurant is located, and C2B (business service district) at the rear.] DiLeo said it’s not a common situation, but it does occur – the AAA branch site is now an example of that, she added.

Wendy Woods told Quatro that the pavement between the car wash and the restaurant building is “a little rough.” Quatro replied that it will be repaved, and widened slightly.

Bonnie Bona raised the issue of the driveway between the proposed Noodles site and the building to the north. She noted that driveway is wide and people were accustomed to parking next to the restaurant, but all the parking spaces for the new restaurant will be in the back. The excess pavement in the driveway might attract parking, and create a problem, she said.

Quatro said communication has been difficult with the property owner to the north. [City records show the property is owned by Renken Associates. Duane Renken, the firm's president, had sent a letter to the city planning staff stating that an access easement would not be expanded or modified.] A meeting is scheduled next week with the owner to talk about the construction sequence, Quatro said, and he hoped that would open a little conversation between the parties. Wendy Rampson, the city’s planning manager, also indicated that the staff were somewhat frustrated about the lack of communication, and hoped that the meeting would improve the situation.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously recommended approval of a site plan for a new Noodles & Co. restaurant at 2161 W. Stadium Blvd. The recommendation will be forwarded to the city council for consideration.

Tim Hortons on State Street

A site plan for a new Tim Hortons at 3965 S. State St. was on the agenda for the March 6 meeting. The site is located on the east side of the street, near the intersection of State and Ellsworth.

Mark Kellenberger, a representative of Tim Hortons, addressed the March 6 meeting of the Ann Arbor planning commission. In the background is Dave Dykman, a project manager with the city, who was on hand to answer questions about a roundabout planned for the intersection of South State and Ellsworth, near the proposed Tim Hortons site.

City planner Chris Cheng gave the staff report. The plan calls for demolishing a vacant building on the 2.23-acre site where previous restaurants, including Enzo’s and Gallagher’s, were located. In its place, a one-story 1,953-square-foot restaurant with a single-lane drive-thru would be built on a 1.18-acre site divided from the current parcel. An outdoor seating area is proposed on the east side of the building.

The building would face West Ellsworth and use an existing shared drive on South State, as well as a relocated drive onto West Ellsworth, which will be shifted to the east.

The property is zoned C3 (fringe commercial), which allows for construction of a drive-thru restaurant. The planning commission’s recommendation would be contingent on two issues: (1) submission of a tree health evaluation form, and (2) approval of the parcel’s land division, prior to the city’s issuance of permits for construction of the new building.

Cheng noted that some aspects of the proposed drive-thru don’t conform with draft amendments to Chapter 59 of the city code, which the commission had voted to recommend at its Dec. 6, 2011 meeting and which were given initial approval by city council at their March 5 meeting. The Tim Hortons proposal includes a 5-foot-wide pedestrian link from the Ellsworth sidewalk to the outdoor seating area – crossing the drive-thru lane. But the link is not raised, and no bollards are proposed at each corner to alert drivers to the pedestrian crossing – both of these measures would be required by the code, if the council gives final approval to the amendments. Cheng said Tim Hortons is open to making changes in the color or materials of this sidewalk link, and to placing two bollards at the south side corners.

Much of the discussion among commissioners focused on the proposed roundabout at State and Ellsworth, which Cheng described as a “fluid situation.” He noted that the plan at this point calls for an 8-foot-wide nonmotorized path along the north side of Ellsworth, approaching State and adjacent to the Tim Hortons site.

Mark Kellenberger, representing Tim Hortons, was the only speaker during a public hearing on the project. He said they’d found out about the roundabout plans late in the process, but are working to integrate their own plans to accommodate it. He indicated that if the company gets approval from the city, Tim Hortons hopes to open the location this August. Construction for the roundabout is expected to begin in the spring of 2013, with completion in the fall of that year.

Tim Hortons on State Street: Roundabout – Background

To put the roundabout issue in context, The Chronicle attended a Feb. 29, 2012 public forum about the project at Pittsfield Township Hall. The effort is a collaboration of the Washtenaw County road commission, Pittsfield Township and the city of Ann Arbor. Project manager Mark McCulloch told the crowded forum that the project is being driven in large part by the new Costco store, which is expected to open this summer just northwest of State and Ellsworth. That store will add traffic to the already congested intersection.

The roundabout would be funded by a $1.4 million federal grant from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) program. Costco also plans to contribute $500,000. Building a roundabout is seen as a better alternative to accommodate increased traffic flow than widening the roads.

There are a few roundabouts within the city of Ann Arbor, including at the intersections of Huron Parkway and Nixon Road, Maple and M-14, and Geddes and US-23. The latter two were built in partnership with the Michgan Dept. of Transportation, which handles major trunklines through the city. Outside of the city, the road commission oversees road construction, and is handling the Ellsworth and South State roundabout. It previously built a roundabout in Ypsilanti Township, on Whittaker Road at Stony Creek Road.

Looking south on South State Street, at the intersection of State and Ellsworth.

The Feb. 29 forum included opportunity for questions and comments, and while some people supported the roundabout, many expressed a general dislike for the approach, based on their personal experiences and on concerns about its effectiveness. One resident asked how the roundabout would deal with 100,000 people on a football Saturday, for example. He said when he encountered a roundabout in Ontario, he was at a standstill for five minutes because he could not change lanes.

Some residents were concerned about how the roundabout will affect people using the Pittsfield Township senior center, which is located at the southwest corner of State and Ellsworth. One woman who spoke said she was an employee at the center, and asked if there would be information circulated to senior citizens. She said that understanding the project is crucial “to ease their worries, which will make them less scared.” McCulloch said he indicated he’d be willing to do both formal and informal Q&A sessions with seniors in the future.

Another concern raised at the forum related to the roundabout’s design. One man said he had used roundabouts for many years, having traveled in Asia, Europe, and South America. “The concept is good,” he said, “but size is the problem.” He argued that the proposed roundabout was too small.

Proposed location of Tim Hortons is indicated with the magenta arrow. (Image links to .pdf file.)

McCulloch replied that “we’ve tried to find a balance point.” A small roundabout means that vehicles will travel at a lower speed, which is good for safety. A roundabout that’s too large could be more dangerous, he said.

Another man also argued that the project was much too small. He asked if any thought had been given to widening Ellsworth. McCulloch said the road commission had “no jurisdiction over the city of Ann Arbor.” Ellsworth is located within the city.

Some residents at the forum expressed frustration that the decision to build a roundabout had already been made. “Is there anything I can do to stop this madness?” one woman asked. After laughing, McCulloch answered, “All you can do is tell my managers.”

She asked if she could circulate a petition. McCulloch answered that she could do that, but he indicated that he couldn’t promise any change in the plans.

Tim Hortons on State Street: Commission Discussion – Roundabout

At the March 6 planning commission meeting, Tony Derezinski asked whether the ingress and egress from this site has potential to conflict with the proposed roundabout at State and Ellsworth, especially during busy times of day.

Dave Dykman, a project manager with the city, told commissioners that a consultant team is looking at that issue now, particularly the access onto South State. They’re looking at the possibility of allowing only right turns out of the site, he said. They might also put in a northbound-to-southbound crossover in the median on State north of the intersection, which would allow cars going northbound on State to access the southbound lane. Now, there’s a southbound-to-northbound crossover on State just south of the Research Park intersection. Making lefthand turns out of the Tim Hortons site wouldn’t work, he said.

Dykman also said a short left turn lane from southbound South State is being considered for the turn into the Tim Hortons site.

Mark Kellenberger, the representative from Tim Hortons, said the last thing he wants to do is build a Tim Hortons on the site and have it functionally obsolete as soon as the roundabout is built. Although the business has other locations in this area, the location at State and Ellsworth will be the first free-standing Tim Hortons in Ann Arbor. They’ve been working with the county road commission to get the most updated roundabout plans and respond to those in the design, Kellenberger said. That’s their goal.

Diane Giannola noted that other roundabouts in the city don’t have businesses nearby. She wondered if it’s unusual to have a business near a roundabout. Dykman replied that it’s common in other parts of the country. He noted that one community in Indiana has more than 60 roundabouts. [That town is Carmel, a northern suburb of Indianapolis. A report on Carmel's roundabouts aired last year on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360.] A roundabout at State and Ellsworth will significantly improve traffic at that intersection, Dykman said.

Wendy Woods asked about the timeline for building the roundabout. The tentative start date for construction is in the spring of 2013, Dykman said, with completion in September of that year.

Tim Hortons on State Street: Commission Discussion – Pedestrian Access, Site Design

Kirk Westphal said it’s great that the company is adhering to requirements that are not yet in place, referring to the Chapter 59 amendments to the city code. He wondered whether a raised crossing would be possible, and asked if it could be designed with slope that’s gentle enough not to cause drivers to spill their coffee.

From left: planning commissioners Tony Derezinski, Evan Pratt, and Kirk Westphal.

Mark Kellenberger with Tim Hortons said the design is somewhat limited by where the patio area is located. The crossing from the Ellsworth sidewalk to the patio is only about 13 feet, so it’s not far to cross, he said. They’ve discussed striping it and putting in bollards, but not raising it.

Bonnie Bona suggested using something textural for the sidewalk, like brick or stamped asphalt. The Starbucks on Washtenaw has a pedestrian crossing that works well, she said. Painting stripes tends to look out of scale for pedestrians, she observed – it’s as though the stripes are sized for a semi-truck.

Erica Briggs wondered if there was an pedestrian walkway planned from South State into the site. Cheng replied that there are sidewalks along State, and the Tim Hortons building will have bike hoops and a bike locker. But there isn’t a pedestrian path from State to the building.

So if someone were walking along State and wanted to go to Tim Hortons, Briggs asked, they’d need to walk along the driveway into the site? Yes, Cheng said. Briggs asked if any accommodation could be made to separate the drive from a place for pedestrians to enter. Kellenberger said he wasn’t sure how they’d do that, given the amount of room they have to work with and the landscaping that would be required.

Wendy Woods asked about the number of cars that the drive-thru is designed to accommodate – a queue of 11 vehicles. That seemed like a lot, she said. If she saw 11 cars in the line, that would be a disincentive for her to stop in.

Kellenberger said Tim Hortons prides itself on quality and fast service. You might be the 10th car in line, but it would only take a couple of minutes before you’re served, he said.

Derezinski asked about plans he’d heard for Tim Hortons in other locations. He recalled approving a plan for a Tim Hortons at the intersection of Washtenaw and Huron Parkway a few years ago, but that project never materialized. Kellenberger said that project didn’t work out for a variety of reasons.

In response to another query from Derezinski, Kellenberger said the timeline for construction is to begin in early May, assuming approvals and permits are received from the city. That could lead to an August 2012 opening, he said. He told Derezinski the shop is expected to be open 24 hours daily – that’s what the business is proposing.

Outcome: Commissioners voted unanimously to recommend the site plan for a Tim Hortons shop at 3965 S. State, near Ellsworth. The recommendation will be forwarded to the city council.

Revised Shell Station PUD

Commissioners were asked to consider a request regarding the Shell service station at the northeast corner of Ann Arbor-Saline and West Eisenhower Parkway.

City planner Chris Cheng gave the staff report. Owners of the station are asking for revisions to the site’s planned unit development (PUD), which would allow them to build additions onto the existing 1,000-square-foot convenience store. The new additions would total 4,089 square feet, including 2,189 square feet to the north and east of the store. Their plan also calls for converting the 900-square-foot carwash area into new retail space. The existing access drive to the carwash would be landscaped, and the parking lot would be reconfigured for a new total of 16 spaces.

Cheng noted that although the current plan shows a proposed cut-through between the site and the adjacent Cranbrook Shopping Center, the grade change is too steep between the two parcels, and that part of the plan will be removed.

Planning staff had recommended postponement because additional information and analysis was required, including: (1) a trip-generation evaluation, with a statement on the impact to the adjacent intersection (West Eisenhower and Ann Arbor-Saline); and (2) an evaluation of sewer flow data comparing the proposed flow (as a result of this project) to the existing flow. If the proposed flow is greater than the existing flow, the increased flow must be mitigated.

In addition, planning staff are writing an amendment to the PUD’s current development agreement to remove limitations on uses allowed at the site. Instead, the limitations would be handled in supplemental regulations to the PUD.

Revised Shell Station PUD: Commission Discussion

No one spoke during a public hearing on the proposal.

Evan Pratt noted that commissioners had provided feedback at a Dec. 13, 2011 working session, before the owners submitted this proposal. He wondered if that feedback had been incorporated into the proposal.

Wendy Rampson, head of the city’s planning staff, suggested that commissioners review changes in the PUD’s supplemental regulations. Planning staff had drafted some design guidelines for the site, to provide direction for future development. It would be helpful for commissioners to provide feedback on that draft, she said. [.pdf of supplemental regulations] Beyond that, there haven’t been any changes since that December session.

Bonnie Bona noted that she’d asked that accommodations be made in the plan for the location of propane tanks and ice chests. If those are located in front of the building, access ramps would be blocked.

Erica Briggs wondered why vehicle access between the site and Cranbrook Shopping Center is no longer included. Cheng said there’s a severe drop between the Shell site and Cranbrook, and a cut-through wouldn’t be possible, given the grade. Briggs asked whether a pedestrian passage could be built. Cheng agreed to explore that possibility, but noted that it would likely require steps.

Outcome: Commissioners voted unanimously to postpone the request for PUD revisions for the Shell service station at Ann Arbor-Saline and West Eisenhower Parkway.

Present: Eleanore Adenekan, Bonnie Bona, Erica Briggs, Tony Derezinski, Diane Giannola, Eric Mahler, Evan Pratt, Kirk Westphal, Wendy Woods.

Next regular meeting: The planning commission next meets on Tuesday, March 20 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor. [confirm date]

Chronicle intern Hayley Byrnes contributed to this report. The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of public bodies like the city planning commission. If you’re already supporting The Chronicle, please encourage your friends, neighbors and coworkers to do the same. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle.

Dream Nite Club door sign. Reflected in the glass is the AATA bus stop next to the Blake Transit Center, across Fourth Avenue from the bar. (Photos by the writer.)

At their meeting, also attended by several city staff, the trio set in motion a process by which the licenses of Dream Nite Club (314 S. Fourth Ave.) and Rush Street (312 S. Main St.) might not be renewed by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC).

The committee had begun the work at its previous meeting, on Feb. 7. City staff from various departments – building inspection, police, city attorney’s office and treasurer’s office – identified around a dozen establishments with problems ranging from delinquent taxes to building permit issues. Those businesses were sent letters notifying them of the problems. The majority of those businesses took steps before the Feb. 23 meeting to rectify their situation.

Left unresolved were licenses for two businesses. So the committee voted to recommend to the city council that licenses for those businesses not be renewed – Dream Nite Club (for maintaining a nuisance) and Rush Street (for delinquent taxes) – with a hearing on the matter to be set for March 19. That recommendation will appear on the city council’s March 5 agenda.

After the council authorizes notification of the licensee, and is followed by the hearing, the recommendation of the hearing officer will be forwarded to the council for its meeting that same day, on March 19. The hearing officer, previously appointed by the council, is chair of the liquor license review committee, councilmember Tony Derezinski.

The council will then need to confirm Derezinski’s recommendation at its March 19 meeting. The timeline is determined by the MLCC’s March 31 deadline for the city council to submit an objection to the renewal of a liquor license. The Ann Arbor city council’s last regular meeting before then is March 19.

Also discussed at the committee meeting was the Elks Lodge on Sunset Road, which holds a club liquor license. The regular entertainment that takes place at the lodge is a violation of the residential zoning of the parcel, according to city planning staff. The city has sent a letter to the Elks Lodge in an effort to bring the Elks into compliance with zoning regulations. Added on March 5, 2012 after initial publication of this article: [.pdf of letter from city of Ann Arbor to the Elks Lodge]

Introduction to the Meeting

After approving the minutes from the previous meeting and the agenda, committee chair Tony Derezinski welcomed several students from Skyline High School, who were completing a course requirement for a government class.

The Feb. 23 Ann Arbor liquor license review committee meeting. Starting with committee chair Tony Derezinski at the head of the table, in the foreground, clockwise around the table are: city clerk Jackie Beaudry, city treasurer Matt Horning, councilmember Mike Anglin, city council administrative coordinator Anissa Bowden, deputy treasurer Mike Pettigrew, assistant city attorney Bob West, assistant city attorney Mary Fales, city councilmember Jane Lumm, Lt. Bob Pfannes of the Ann Arbor police department, and the city's chief development officer Ralph Welton.

Derezinski sketched out what the students would witness. One was a fairly typical issue for the committee – a liquor license transfer.

The second agenda item, said Derezinski, was the continued review of the roughly 120 liquor licenses in the city for compliance with various requirements in the context of the annual renewal of those licenses. The committee would make recommendations to the city council, he explained – ordinarily the council would go along with the committee’s recommendations. The committee, he said, does “the spade work.”

Derezinski described the committee and the council’s recommendations on liquor license renewals in the context of a perception that there’s a lot of movement at the level of state government to “buck more authority down” to the local units. But Derezinski noted that the ultimate decision on license renewals rests with the Michigan Liquor Control Commission.

License Transfer: Mélange

Before the committee for consideration was the proposed transfer of a liquor license to Mélange Bistro LLC located at 312 S. Main from the previous owner of the restaurant – 314 S. Main LLC (resident agent Dilip K. Mullick).

Asked by Derezinski to summarize and review the transfer to Mélange, city clerk Jackie Beaudry led off by noting that the committee had considered the item at its previous meeting, but had postponed it. She said she was not sure the item was ready, but the committee had wanted it on the agenda.

Sign for Mélange on Main Street in Ann Arbor.

The committee had asked that the staff follow up on a letter received from the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) outlining violations related to the way that some of the ownership interest in the license had been transfered. Bob Pfannes, of the Ann Arbor police department, described the communication from the MLCC as a vaguely-worded letter on some issues the MLCC was looking into regarding the transfer of ownership.

And because of that letter, Pfannes wanted further clarification before he gave the police department approval. He reported that he’d spoken with the MLCC investigator. The issues identified by the MLCC are separate issues from the transfer, he said. Regardless of what the local recommendation was, the MLCC would finish up with their investigation. The MLCC was focused on the previous owner. So, if all the other city departments have signed off, Pfannes felt like the license transfer could move forward. He would not withhold his approval – because of what he’d learned from the MLCC investigator, he said.

Linda Mayer, attorney for Mélange, attended the committee meeting and was asked if she wanted to comment. She essentially confirmed the description that Pfannes had given, saying the issue that’s pending with the MLCC involves the current owner of the licensed business, who transfered membership interest without prior approval from the MLCC. She wanted to be clear that it’s the seller’s violation, not the buyer’s. She was asking the local review committee to move ahead, because the MLCC won’t put Mélange on its docket until it has local approval. She wanted to assure the committee that the local body was not at risk.

Derezinski also noted that two assistant city attorneys were present – Bob West and Mary Fales. Neither commented on the statements that had already been made.

Outcome: The committee unanimously approved a recommendation for transfer of a liquor license to Mélange, and had it placed on the city council’s March 5, 2012 agenda.

Annual Review of Licenses

City clerk Jackie Beaudry reviewed how the committee at its previous meeting, on Feb. 7, 2012, had gone over most of the businesses for on-premise licenses – they’d met all the city requirements and had been approved. There were, however, quite a few businesses with outstanding issues – with the building department or with the treasurer’s office, due to failure to pay taxes.

At the committee’s direction, the city clerk’s office had sent letters to those businesses, Beaudry said. After receiving the letters, many of the businesses had rectified their outstanding issues, but some remained.

Annual Review of Licenses: Clarion Hotel

Clarion Hotel is still an issue, Beaudry said. The hotel, located at 2900 Jackson Road, had paid delinquent taxes ($2,070.97), but Ralph Welton, the city’s chief development officer, still had some issues with a building permit. Welton indicated that he’d now been contacted by Clarion and he was dealing with it. He called it a “weird situation” because there was another hotel that had started construction on the same site with the same address. That was something he would not allow to happen, he said. Some of the open permits are for that other construction. But there are also some open permits on the Clarion itself, he said. He felt the fact that Clarion has been in contact with him is enough to move it forward. Once his department is in the loop, compliance can be gained, he concluded.

After checking with city treasurer Matt Horning, Tony Derezinski allowed a motion to recommend renewal of Clarion Hotel’s liquor license.

Outcome: The committee unanimously recommended Clarion’s license be renewed.

Annual Review of Licenses: Rush Street

City clerk Jackie Beaudry characterized Rush Street as having the largest tax delinquency of all the licensees, at $8,040.42. Just that day, the letter that the city had sent to Rush Street had been returned as undelivered. She said her recollection was that the city had the same difficulty the previous year – the city had sent it to the business address and that mail was returned.

Beaudry wondered if city treasurer Matt Horning had the same experience with property taxes. Beaudry said the treasurer’s office notifies delinquent accounts monthly, so she felt the business was aware of the delinquency. But the letter that the city clerk’s office had sent was returned, she said. Assistant city attorney Mary Fales asked Horning if the treasurer’s office had records indicating whether mail has been returned – yes, but Horning didn’t know the status of the Rush Street parcel.

From left: city treasurer Matt Horning and city councilmember Mike Anglin, who represents Ward 5 and serves on the liquor license review committee.

Tony Derezinski wanted to know what happened last year. Beaudry indicated that Rush Street was delinquent last year, but they finally paid – they’re perpetually a year behind. Horning, having checked his records, indicated that 210 S. Fifth is the address where his office sends the tax bill. That’s the address where it’s legally required to be sent – the owner’s address of record, which comes from the assessor’s database. If it’s returned, Horning continued, his office sends it to the address of the property addressed to “current occupant.”

Beaudry indicated that the clerk’s office had been using a different address, the address of the business – 314 Main St. Derezinski asked what Beaudry’s recommendation would be, noting that the time for sending another letter was getting short.

Beaudry suggested that one option would be to advance Rush Street to a hearing on non-renewal of the liquor license. Her recollection was that a city clerk staffer last year had walked down to Rush Street and handed the letter to someone at the bar. Fales acknowledged Derezinski’s point that time was tight – the city council’s recommendation needed to go to the MLCC by March 31. Fales suggested that given the amount of taxes owed, the committee could move for non-renewal of the license, and that would still allow Rush Street time to correct the tax issue.

Derezinski recollected that last year, there were some businesses who rectified their taxes, once they got the notice of an actual hearing. He said he felt it’s important to send the hearing notice to both addresses and have someone go down to the business. He ventured that he “would undertake the burden myself” but he couldn’t go that night.

Some back-and-forth between Fales and Beaudry established that the hearing date could not be set sooner than 10 days after notification for the hearing, and that would take place on March 5, when the city council was advised of the committee’s recommendation for non-renewal.

Mike Anglin ventured that based on his experience in the District of Columbia, the onus is on a business owner to keep their contact information up to date. Jane Lumm said that hand-delivering a notice seemed like it was “bending over backwards.” Derezinski allowed that it shouldn’t be necessary, but that every effort needed to be made to make sure that the business was notified.

Outcome: The committee unanimously approved a resolution to set a hearing on its recommendation for non-renewal of Rush Street’s liquor license for March 19, 2012.

Annual Review of Licenses: Yamato Not Zal Gaz Grotto

Next up was Yamato, which had a tax delinquency of $710.06. Beaudry said she was not sure where the error arose, but on a list maintained by the city, Yamato was listed immediately above Zal Gaz Grotto. So the city had incorrectly identified Zal Gaz Grotto as the delinquent party. That’s why Yamato, a Japanese restaurant in Kerrytown, was not notified in the original cycle.

Based on her conversation with the city treasurer’s office, due to the lack of notification by the city, and because it’s such a small amount, Beaudry would suggest the treasurer continue to pursue compliance. However, the committee could simply approve a recommendation for annual license renewal. And if Yamato did not pay the taxes, they would automatically appear next year on the list for possible non-renewal.

Outcome: The committee unanimously approved a recommendation for the annual renewal of Yamato’s liquor license.

After the vote, Beaudry stressed that, for the record, Zal Gaz Grotto‘s status with respect to its liquor license is fine. The club is located at 2070 W. Stadium Blvd.

Annual Review of Licenses: Misc.

The committee then considered in one group nine business that had been notified of various issues: Live at PJs, Fraser’s, Mediterano, Paesanao’s, UMI Sushi, Ashley’s Miki Japanese, Theory, and West End Grill. Beaudry summarized the issues as either delinquent taxes that have been paid, a transfer of ownership issue, or building department issues that have now been cleared up. Staff had no remaining objections, Beaudry said.

Outcome: The committee unanimously approved a recommendation for the annual renewal of liquor licenses for the nine businesses.

Annual Review of Licenses: Elks Lodge

Assistant city attorney Mary Fales reported that the city was aware of potential zoning violations by the James L. Crawford Elks Lodge, located at 220 Sunset Road. She described the violations as stemming from “uses currently being activated at the site” that are not in conformance with the residential zoning of the site. Zoning compliance issues are initially handled by the city’s planning staff, but the planning staff hadn’t given notice to the Elks. However, it’s their intention to do so, said Fales.

On the liquor license issue, Fales said she was recommending approval of the license renewal, and the planning staff could then conclude their communication with the Elks Lodge. If the Elks Lodge is not complying with the constraints of their zoning, then they’ll come back on the list next year, she said.

Tony Derezinski asked if any other representative of different departments had any objections. They did not. He noted that the Elks Lodge would be sent a letter on the zoning issues. The zoning is one thing and the liquor license is another, he said. He said that recommending approval of the liquor license renewal gets the process going and doesn’t hold up the liquor license.

Mike Anglin asked what the activities were that the Elks Lodge was engaged in that had drawn the planning staff’s attention. Fales clarified that the Elks Lodge is located in a residential district, and the Elks are engaged in activities there that are not authorized under the city’s zoning code for residential districts. The planning staff, said Fales, would like to bring the Elks into compliance. Anglin asked what type of license the Elks held – was it the same or different from Zal Gaz Grotto?

City clerk Jackie Beaudry clarified that the Elks Lodge holds a club license similar to the kind held by the Performance Network Theater, The Ark, or Zal Gaz Grotto. Jane Lumm charcterized it as a “relatively minor zoning issue.”

By way of additional background, the Elks Lodge hosts an event with food and live jazz every Thursday–Saturday, from 6-10 p.m. and a DJ with dancing from 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Based on the listing in the printed edition of the March 2012 Ann Arbor Observer events calendar, most events don’t have a cover charge – but occasionally a cover of $3 or $5 is charged.

Outcome: The committee unanimously approved a recommendation for the annual renewal of the Elks Lodge’s liquor license.

Annual Review of Licenses: Dream Nite Club

Assistant city attorney Mary Fales reported that the police department has updated the violation list for the club. The police and the city attorney are recommending non-renewal, she reported – on the grounds of maintaining a nuisance, a pattern of patron conduct, numerous police reports, and specific liquor code violations. Bob Pfannes of the Ann Arbor police department noted that the department had documented details of the violations under Chapter 109, Rule 406 of the liquor control act. The club is located at 314 S. Fourth Ave., across from the Blake Transit Center.

City treasurer Matt Horning noted that Dream Nite Club had no delinquent taxes, so he had no objections to renewal of the club’s license on those grounds. But he concurred with the city attorney’s recommendation.

Tony Derezinski explained that with a recommendation of non-renewal, a hearing would need to be set. He described the hearing as a careful process where the committee provides the owner of the license with due process. The hearing is set up under the rules in the city ordinance, he said.

Mike Anglin noted that there’s just one hearing officer – a role to which Derezinski had been appointed by the city council. Anglin wanted to know if the hearing would be open to the public. Derezinski confirmed that such hearings are indeed open to the public. Last year, he said, there were attorneys and witnesses present. The owner of the license has a right to present evidence and to question the evidence that’s submitted. A recommendation goes from the hearing officer to the council, he said.

Back-and-forth between Fales and city clerk Jackie Beaudry established that the city council needed to be presented with a recommendation from the committee for non-renewal, then council would formally authorize notification of the licensee about the hearing (to be held no sooner than 10 days after notification). That would be followed by the hearing, and a recommendation would then come back to the council. [.pdf of Chapter 109 Section 9:79] The council would at that point be able to make a recommendation to the MLCC for non-renewal.

By way of background, the confusion on the sequencing of events likely stemmed from the fact that last year, the committee itself set the hearing on the recommendation for non-renewal and forwarded the final recommendation to the council only after the hearing. The language of the city’s ordinance indicates that it’s the city council that needs to serve notice to a licensee about a potential non-renewal recommendation: “… the city council shall do the following: Serve written notice on the licensee, which shall include: Notice of the proposed action and the reasons for the action …”

Outcome: The committee unanimously approved a recommendation for non-renewal of the Dream Nite Club’s liquor license and set a hearing date for March 19, 2012.

Next Steps

The timeframe in which the liquor license review committee is operating will be tight. The city council will have the recommendations for non-renewal – for Dream Nite Club and for Rush Street – on its agenda for the Monday, March 5 meeting. As of the morning of March 3, the item had still not been added to the agenda, but it’s expected that it will appear before the Monday meeting. The hearings associated with those non-renewal recommendations will be held March 19.

As the hearing officer, Tony Derezinski will need to turn around a recommendation to the council on the day of the hearing – March 19 is also the last regular city council meeting before the MLCC’s March 31 deadline.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of local government and civic affairs. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

In this month’s Chronicle milestone column, I’d like to talk about options, and how some recent experiences with transit caused me to reflect on the current somewhat chaotic media landscape.

This Ruckus scooter is only slightly older than The Chronicle, and over the last four years it has logged over 3,700 miles around Ann Arbor.

In my household, a few years ago we made a decision to get rid of our one car. So when I need to go somewhere, a car parked in my driveway is not the go-to option. Instead, I choose to walk, ride my Ruckus, take the bus, use a Zipcar, or on rare occasions, bum a ride from a friend or call a cab.

Generally, I don’t miss having a car. But so far this year, I’ve had occasion to get smacked by our decision not to use our community’s mainstream mode of transportation. At times like those, I fantasize what it would be like if car ownership weren’t the norm in most of America, including Ann Arbor. Surely the options we have would become more second nature to everyone, and there would be sufficient demand to support better service and access. Everyone would develop different expectations, and habits.

By way of analogy to media, the decision about a mainstream mode has already been made for us here in Ann Arbor. The media “car” – the one daily newspaper that most people received because there were no other options – has been pulled off the road. But for some of us, our expectations and habits haven’t fully adapted, and the alternatives can seem confusing, disjointed and unreliable.

I (still) regularly hear complaints that Ann Arbor lacks a “real” newspaper, and I react in two ways. First, I do feel nostalgia for the Ann Arbor News – I spent a good chunk of my life there, after all. I miss a daily local newspaper, too. But what I really miss is the ideal of a daily local newspaper – and that’s something I’m not sure The News, at least in its final years, actually delivered.

In its place is a collection of options for news and information, some better than others. I would expect to see even more in the coming years. The Chronicle is certainly one of those options, but will not satisfy the full range of our community’s information needs. Still, I’d argue that The Chronicle’s focus on local government provides Ann Arbor residents with far better coverage of local government than it’s enjoyed in the nearly two decades I’ve lived in Ann Arbor.

I’d like to circle back to the topic of media options later in the column.

But first, my transit tales.

Two Transit Tales

On Jan. 21, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners held a half-day retreat to talk about their goals for the upcoming year. They decided to hold it at the offices of the county parks & rec department, at County Farm Park near Washtenaw Avenue and Platt. Normally, the county board meets at the administration building boardroom on Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor, within walking distance for me. Though theoretically I could walk to County Farm Park, I wasn’t particularly interested in the hour and a half hike it would entail.

That distance is well within range of my scooter, a sturdy red Honda Ruckus. But it had snowed the night before, and despite its beefy tires and off-road vibe, the Ruckus isn’t safe for icy, snow-covered roads.

My next option was the bus. But a quick look online to check the route revealed that bus service didn’t begin early enough on a Saturday to get me there on time. I could take it home – and I did – but getting there wasn’t going to work.

My fourth option was Zipcar. I use this car-sharing service for trips that are generally longer distances than I feel comfortable traveling by scooter, for occasions when the extra time of a round-trip bus ride isn’t feasible, and for periods that are relatively short in duration – a couple of hours, max. It costs about $8 an hour, which I find extremely reasonable for the convenience. But since in this case I’d need the car for about five hours, it seemed too extravagant an expense.

So I turned to my final option – a taxi. Although I called an hour ahead of my pick-up time, it was late and I had to call again – apparently the dispatcher hadn’t sent out the request. The taxi finally arrived about 20 minutes after the time I’d requested. But the driver – an engaging man from Senegal, who advised me that Air Africa has the cheapest fare and a direct flight to Dakar – made an extra effort and I arrived on time. It cost me $13.50 plus tip.

Transit Tales: Something Odd Afoot

The following week, on Jan. 27, I had another encounter with the challenges of cultural expectations for transportation. It was the morning that President Barack Obama spoke at the University of Michigan, an event held at the Al Glick Fieldhouse on South State. His speech began at 9:30 a.m., but the media were told to arrive by 7 a.m., so that our equipment could go through a security check.

It was one of those days when no snow had been forecast, but when I got up there was a light covering. Still, I thought I’d try my Ruckus – only to wipe out at the end of our driveway.

When I called for a taxi, the dispatcher actually laughed – with Obama in town, they were already backlogged. It would be at least an hour, probably more.

And so I walked – I was lucky that this was an option.

The trek from my home to South State takes about 30 minutes. I was cutting it close, but I arrived at the intersection of State and Hoover at around 7 a.m. and thought I’d be fine. As I approached, I saw that the street was closed there for security. The media entrance was only a few yards away, but the officer at the intersection wouldn’t let me through.

Why? Because members of the media were entering from a parking lot at Crisler Arena, southwest of the fieldhouse. None of the communications from the White House or UM had indicated that it was mandatory to drive to the event – it just never occurred to anyone that someone might walk. And security folks don’t like anomalies.

The officer directed me to walk down State Street to Stimson, another 10 minutes at least. (Though the street itself was blocked off, the sidewalk on the east side was open to pedestrians.) There would be a Secret Service agent at State and Stimson, she said, and he would have to be the one to let me through.

As I walked down State Street, it was maddening to see the entrance I needed just across the street. There was another security checkpoint there, with metal detectors, so it seemed unlikely they’d be taking a risk by letting me through to that point. But no.

I eventually found a Secret Service agent, who seemed skeptical that I was with the media. He asked me where I had parked – it seemed to him questionable, if not bizarre, that I had walked. He asked for my media credentials for the event. But of course, it was exactly those credentials that I’d be picking up at the media entrance – the place I needed to go.

Finally, I pulled out a scrap of paper from my back pocket. Before leaving home I’d scrawled down the name and cell phone number of a White House press contact. Incredulously, I watched as a glimmer of recognition crossed the agent’s face – he knew this guy, apparently. And that random, wrinkled paper was my ticket. He allowed two Ann Arbor police officers – polite, professional and aware of the weird situation – to escort me back up State Street to the media entrance. [Here's a link to what happened inside later that morning.]

Transit Tales: Takeaways

I draw several conclusions from these experiences. First, there’s a long way to go before public transit – be it bus or rail – is a viable option, or let’s say a preferable one, for most people. The infrastructure just doesn’t support it. Nor does our culture. The county board retreat was organized by board chair Conan Smith, one of this region’s more vocal advocates for public transportation. I don’t know if it occurred to him to hold the retreat in a location that would be accessible by bus. To make that a priority, it first has to occur to you that someone coming to the retreat would use the bus to arrive there. Despite its reputation, Ann Arbor remains a car-centric city.

Another conclusion relates to privilege. Even though I don’t own a car, I made that decision by choice, not necessity. And I have options that many people do not enjoy. One fundamental option is my ability to live in a place that accommodates my transportation choices. Most of my work – attending public meetings of local government – is within walking distance from my home. That’s because 14 years ago, we could afford to buy a house in this neighborhood. I also can afford the yearly Zipcar membership of $50.

Perhaps more importantly, I have the luxury of being my own boss – though there are many days I wouldn’t describe it that way. That affords me the flexibility of making decisions on how to spend my time. But if I had to travel to a job across town, and had to arrive at a certain time each day or risk getting fired, I’m pretty sure that taking the bus would not be my first choice. Even less so if kids were in the mix.

Even with a lifestyle that’s amenable to the kinds of transit options I’ve chosen, it definitely requires more planning, mindfulness, time and overall effort than stepping out my back door whenever I want, walking 10 feet to a car, getting in and driving away. There are good reasons why many people can’t imagine giving that up.

Transit as a Metaphor

Not so long ago, many people couldn’t imagine giving up their daily newspaper, either. For anyone who grew up with it, getting a physical, printed newspaper dropped on your sidewalk or porch every day was a common ritual and an anchor to the community like nothing else. People might not have lived in the same neighborhood, or worked at the same company, or worshiped at the same church or temple or mosque – but you could be pretty sure they at least skimmed the same newspaper that you did.

It was something taken for granted – until suddenly, it was gone.

Just as I no longer have a “standard” mode of transportation, many people in this community no longer have a standard mode of getting local news, though not by choice. And just as it takes more planning, mindfulness, time and overall effort to deal with an array of transit options, the same is true for managing new options of getting news and information.

If you aren’t accustomed to managing those options, confronting more of them makes life more complex, at least initially. You have to figure out which sources you trust, where you can find certain kinds of information – sports, crime, politics, business, entertainment, etc. – and how you can actually get your hands on it, literally or electronically. And if that’s not how you want to spend your time, it’s annoying. Or if you don’t feel equipped to seek out this information yourself, it’s frustrating. That’s why some people are angry – still, nearly three years after the owners of the Ann Arbor News announced plans to close in 2009.

I’ve felt angry too. But being angry is exhausting and, frankly, futile.

We gave up our car by choice, while this community was forced to give up its daily printed newspaper involuntarily – but in both cases, our reality shifted and habits had to change. I believe that eventually, we’ll emerge from this transitional period into an era of a better informed community.

It might be because technology makes it possible to get information directly from a source, rather than filtered through a third party. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen “news stories” from other publications that mirror, sometimes verbatim, the press releases I’ve received earlier in the day. Press releases – whether they originate from a business, government or nonprofit – certainly shouldn’t be a community’s only source of information. But I’d rather read the original press release than have it rewritten by a “digital journalist” and repackaged as “news.”

The Chronicle has built a reputation for providing in-depth coverage of local government and civic affairs. I can envision other locally-owned publications emerging to focus on different areas that aren’t currently well-served, either based on geography or topic. In unsettled times, there are myriad opportunities.

I’m not suggesting that any of this will be easy. It is, in fact, quite messy right now – for residents seeking information, for organizations trying to get the word out about their news and events, and for those of us who are trying to serve what we see as specific needs in this community. In The Chronicle’s case, nearly four years ago we saw the need for more basic information and analysis of our local taxpayer-funded entities, and that’s what we’re providing.

The other big piece of this is the business model, of course. Are people willing to support the information they find valuable? Can it be done without relying on media conglomerates that have very little, if any, connection or commitment to our communities, beyond sucking out advertising revenue? My husband Dave Askins, The Chronicle’s co-founder and editor, wrote about this issue quite elegantly exactly two years ago, in The Chronicle’s March 2, 2010 milestone column. If you haven’t read his column – “How Much Would You Pay for That?” – I’d highly recommend it.

Having made a transition away from the status quo in another way – by ditching the car – I’m optimistic about making this media transition as well. I believe we’ll eventually learn to change our habits, manage our media options, and even figure out a better way to build the kinds of connections we relied on the daily newspaper to make in the past. In some ways, we’re building a road as we’re driving along – or walking or taking the bus – while we’re not even sure of the destination.

It’s time to get comfortable with that, and settle in for the trip.

About the writer: Mary Morgan is publisher and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle. The Chronicle could not survive to count each milestone without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of local government and civic affairs. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

David Erik Nelson

This installment of the column is published in two parts. Mostly that’s because Nelson wrote too many words this month. Part 1 of the column documented Nelson’s experience with AT&T customer service, as he attempted to get an unjustified service call charge removed. Nelson was ultimately successful in getting the charge removed.

Left unpaid, Nelson would have faced the standard legal methods available to businesses to recover payment from non-paying customers, including being turned over to a collection agency. 

I hate to be accused of mincing words, so I’m gonna put aside my usual genteel beat-around-the-bushiness and just say it: What AT&T is doing is straight up extortion.

A person [1] with whom I have a very shallow business relationship sends me a letter demanding money, either in the form of cash, or in a greater sum of my time. If I don’t pay up, he is going to pass my name to his “collection agency,” who will then hound me until I give them the money they want, and do me lingering economic harm even after they get the cash.

Stealing Time

In a universe where everyone is an employee – which is what America largely became by the end of the 20th Century – we were basically willing to accept this deal because there was a way for us to offset the cost: I could either pay AT&T $60 from my pocket, or waste an hour or two of my employer’s time sitting on hold. AT&T, in effect, developed a business model whereby they could risk an hour of some other big corporation’s time against the possibility of getting $60 for doing no additional work.

Because we, as human consumers, could likewise offload that risk, we accepted the deal as a “cost of doing business in modern America” – and generally ignored the fact that this represented a real loss in overall productivity for our economy, and thus a hit to our communities. Ask a farmer to waste an hour of daylight sitting on hold, or for a welder to step away from the line for 45 minutes and instead listen to “Little Spanish Flea” over a crappy phone connection, and it’s obvious that AT&T is reducing the number of cars or beets we see come to market. But when all the “good” jobs are service and management positions in cubicles, it becomes harder to see how AT&T’s business practices are actually damaging the GDP.

A lot of our modern life presupposes stealing time: when I spend an hour on the phone to straighten out a bill, the tacit assumption is that I’m also in a cubicle somewhere. One corporation cuts costs by offloading the time suck to another corporation. But those days are over: Fewer of us are employees, and so AT&T is no longer asking Amalgamated Corporate Holdings to subsidize their crappy billing systems and obtuse Customer Service Call-Center protocols.

Readers who’ve been following this column know that I myself work freelance, and have to hustle to make up for any further reduction to the teaching salary of my Lovely Pregnant Wife or other losses; lost productivity doesn’t get absorbed by thousands of shareholders or reflected in a four-cent increase in the cost of a sack of Pioneer Sugar; lost productivity gets absorbed by me, my five-year-old, my exhausted wife, and the potential human growing strong by sapping her precious vital nutrients.

Seriously: Over the course of my very banal billing Odyssey, I spent at least a quarter hour simply repeating my name, address, phone number, and “account number” (which is basically just your phone number again). No one was paying me for that time – ergo, I paid me $13 to say my name, address, and phone number aloud; I could buy a damn pizza for that.

Last week, following Part 1 of this column, a local government worker contacted me and mentioned that his agency spent three years sorting out just such an AT&T-created problem. How much did we, as taxpayers, invest in that? When fellas like Rick Santorum and Mitt(ens) Romney stump about “cutting government waste” by shifting services to the private sector, do they take into account how much of the “waste” comes from private corporation’s self-serving share padding?

Free Market Failure

While I haven’t been overwhelmed with Free Market Evangelists on Ann Arbor Chronicle comment threads, we can all certainly frame the Free Market Cowboy response to my extended whinge: Like it or lump it, bub! If you don’t like the pizza at this place, go down the street and buy a slice from someone else!

I want to take a few moments to enumerate why this (1) isn’t just a matter of not liking the pizza at Little Caesars and thus ordering Domino’s instead, and (2) is a perfect example of the sorts of marginal, small-potato situations government is designed to fix.

Although Comcast keeps reminding me that they offer a phone-and-broadband package, these aren’t interchangeable goods in the way slices of pizza are. As may already be abundantly clear, I hardly use my landline at all. I honestly can’t recall the last time I placed on outgoing call using the damn thing; why bother? I have a phone in my pocket all the time – and come nowhere near using up my allotted minutes each month. Why get off the sofa to order Chinese food? At that point, I might as well just plug in the rice cooker and heat up the wok myself.

The only real value of my landline is that it’s the same number I’ve had for over a decade, and the only one that’s successfully percolated out to the un-Facebookable outer-reaches of my extended family. Also, for whatever reason, it is the only number that the Ann Arbor Public Schools will consistently use to contact me [2].

So, first, losing my number is a hassle, and hassles are, by their nature, costly. Additionally, there are likely a few hundred dollars in installation, set-up, and equipment fees that come along with the switch to Comcast (since we don’t have functional cable now). And don’t forget that all of this means spending more time wrangling with AT&T to cancel my old service and Comcast to get some human to my house and set up the new service; time spent monkeying with AT&T cannot be spent contributing to the economy, or my community, or my family.

And, finally, none of this is a matter of my preference: I’m not dissatisfied (per se) with AT&T’s service in and of itself; I’m dissatisfied with being bilked. There is a real and legitimate question as to whether a crime is being committed here, or if these billings just constitute a series of whacky misunderstandings. This is the job of government: To keep the peace by sorting out honest mistakes from nefarious hijinks.

Moral Hazard

There’s sort of an obvious moral hazard here: AT&T has little motivation to fix a billing system that erratically favors them. Just limiting the conversation to AT&T high-speed customers (which is what I think of myself as; I pick up the phone itself less than a half-dozen times per month) they stand to benefit tidily: AT&T has 17.8 million broadband accounts. If they “accidentally” nick just 1% of their customers for $60, and if 99% of those folks complain, but 1% say “Christ; this isn’t worth my time!” and just pay the stupid bill, AT&T sees over $100,000 for, literally, doing nothing.

Of course, if that same .01% of AT&T broadband customers instead yell “Christ! I’m not paying this bullshit charge and I’m not wasting my time defending myself from such fuckery!”, then that’s another 1,700 Americans who will see their credit score dinged, which will likely bung up a future loan, mortgage, credit card, FAFSA application, or even a job opportunity. Screw a thousand folks, make a hundred grand – and that’s just a .01% nibble of the broadband slice of AT&T’s pie! We aren’t even mice scurrying around the feet of an elephant; we are bacteria under the toenails of a callous God. No wonder they could give a crap less if your broadband actually works. Who wonders about living conditions under their toenails?

But there’s also a more insidious moral hazard, and it’s one that I have to negotiate: In the end I spent at least $100 in time to straighten out a $60 billing error. In a strictly economic sense, it would have made more sense for me to pay the stupid bill and go back to earning money. I wasted Time – and thus Money – in chasing this down, and there was really never any benefit to me or anyone else: I resolved one isolated billing problem.

As near as I can tell, that does nothing to prevent me or anyone else from having to go through the exact some stupid hokey pokey next month, or the month after, or the month after that. In other words, AT&T has created a situation where the rational actor has an economic incentive to pay thieves to only rob him/her a little. I can think of other very similar business models, where the pain of acquiescence is outweighed by the pain of standing up for oneself.

But I’d hate to draw an unfair parallel and insult the integrity of hard-working mafiosi by associating them, by way of analogy, with AT&T.

[1] ‘cause recall: corporations are people, my friend.

[2] My cell phone has a Metro Detroit area code, and I suppose is a long distance call from here, which strikes me as almost unthinkably arbitrary today – seeing as how AT&T rules both regions, and it’s hard to believe that it costs more to bounce a photon to Detroit than it does to Ypsi, relativistically speaking. That Detroit is currently “long distance” is even more bizarre in light of the fact that, until the mid-1990s, Detroit and Ann Arbor were in the same damn area code. All hail the 313!

About the author: David Erik Nelson has written columns previously for The Chronicle on topics like medical marijuana and glass-eating clowns. Nelson is the author of various books, including most recently, “Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred“. His Nebula-nominated novella “Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate” is now available for Kindle.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of local columnists like David Erik Nelson. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

David Erik Nelson

This installment of the column will be published in two parts. Mostly that’s because Nelson wrote too many words this month.

Listen: I’m fully aware that a healthy, employed man in a functioning industrialized democracy kvetching about his phone service is basically the canonical First World Problem.

In my defense, this is illustrative kvetching; c’mon, it’ll be fun!

I have AT&T for my home phone and high-speed Internet service. In September last year this service took a nose dive; suddenly my Internet connection would suffer hours-long periods of dropping, negotiating, reconnecting, then dropping again – a process that I could readily monitor, since my phone line was now so lousy with modem whistles that I could hear little else (although callers could hear me with crystal clarity, which made me sound somewhat prematurely demented as I hollered for them to speak up over all the damn noise).

My Struggle

Despite my better judgment I delved into the AT&T Customer Service [1] voicemail system. The first human I spoke with … well, I wasn’t precisely sure it was human. On the one hand, the oddly mechanical voice did guide me through a complex tango of unplugging, replugging, reporting the status of various blinkenlights, powering things down, powering them back up, hooking them to my computer, going to specific IP addresses, reading what the screen says, unplugging the first thing again, plugging it back in, putting the modem on my head, taking off my shirt, looking in the mirror, taking a picture of myself, shaving my chest, taking another picture, texting both pictures long-distance to some number with a +234 country code – basically standard AT&T Customer Service stuff, except for those last few items, which I clearly just made up.

But the cadence of this voice was an odd, off-kilter lilt, and either our connection was terrible or the rep was enrolled in some nation’s witness relocation program, because the voice sounded insanely autotuned.

After we finished the power-button-and-ethernet-cable hokey pokey – all of which, incidentally, I’d already done on my own before calling AT&T – the Nameless Being with the Robotic Larynx established it could not help me and transferred my call.

I’d been on the phone for around 45 minutes by this stage.

After just a few dozen minutes in limbo my call was picked up by “Sherise in Atlanta.” This connection sounded much clearer, and I did not doubt that Sherise was a human female, nor that she was indeed in Atlanta. Sherise asked for all of the information that I’d already given the Offshore Robot – information I’d given the voicemail system itself to begin with – and then started guiding me through the same ethernet-and-power-cable dance.

I explained that I’d already done this dance. Sherise tried several things “at our end” (what this could mean perplexes me) to no avail. We discussed what was possibly at issue: (1) There was a problem with the DSL modem, which I would have to pay to replace; (2) There was a problem with my home wiring, which I would have to pay to repair; or (3) There was something amiss between their hardware and my house, which they would handle at their expense.

We set an appointment for an AT&T line worker to come to my house the next week; he’d check their equipment from the multiplexer to my house. Provided he never entered the house, this would cost me nothing. She asked for a number where I could be reached, and I was careful to give her my cell phone number, because my home phone wasn’t really functional, which is why I’d called Customer Service to begin with.

I never got that call – and never really noticed, because as I was walking home from my son’s school bus stop on the morning of our telephone appointment, my Lovely Pregnant Wife called from work, and I spent the remainder of the day at University of Michigan hospital [2].

When I finally got home there was a hang-tag on my doorknob indicating that the line worker had come, called the phone number he was there to fix, no one had picked up (duh), no one had answered the door, he’d checked their equipment, found nothing wrong, and left. Nonetheless, our DSL and phone service was nominally better-ish, so I called it good enough and considered the matter an annoying wash.

November Surprise

When I received my bill for that period in November, I was surprised to find a $60 charge for a service call. I again embarked on a journey into AT&T’s fascinatingly dysfunctional phone system. While on hold and shuffling my papers, I realized something interesting: This charge wasn’t even for my September service call; the date of service for this charge was in the second week of October, another occasion on which I hadn’t been home (and, dammit, had at least a dozen witnesses to confirm it). As there was no evidence of forced entry at my house – and no improvement in my spotty Internet connection – I was given to assume that AT&T representatives had not entered the premises to render services.

Voicemail eventually spat me out on “Donna’s” desk. Donna asked for all of the information I’d already given the voicemail system [3], and agreed that this charge was illegitimate, explaining that my “case had been inadvertently escalated by the system.” She agreed that AT&T would “be more than happy to remove that charge” and transferred me to “Michelle.”

I gave Michelle my name and phone number and contact information and confirmed the last four digits of my wife’s SSN – which I was now doing for the third time in the course of the same phone call. Things went downhill. Michelle could not find my bill in her system – which they were “upgrading.” I suggested they call the Offshore Robot or Sherise or Donna, all of whom had no problem finding my bill.

Michelle was quiet. I pointed out that the charge was totally illegitimate – I hadn’t even been home to let a worker in – and that Donna had already said the charge would be removed; I wasn’t even sure why I was on the phone at this stage, wasting my own billable hours helping them troubleshoot their software and customer service systems free of charge. Michelle found my bill in the system and, apparently, wrangled a manager who was walking past. They had some sort of confab sotto voce. She indicated that she’d issued a refund.

At this stage I was a little lathered – I’d already wasted half an hour on this call alone; I had my own work to do. I asked Michelle to whom I should issue my invoice, fully expecting her to balk so that I could go on a rant about how I worked freelance, and it wasn’t like I was sitting in a cubicle somewhere wasting company time: The time I spend politely asking AT&T to stop picking my pocket is time I can’t bill out; it’s food off my table, heat from my house, and hours that need to be made up that night to keep on top of projects.

But I didn’t get a chance to do any of that, because Michelle quietly told me to include my invoice in the envelope with my next payment. So I did.

Christmas Comes Early

In December, I was a little let down that AT&T hadn’t paid my invoice. I was also infuriated to find that I was still being charged $60 for a service call that never happened – and which AT&T readily admitted was, at best, a strange fever-dream of their mid-upgrade computer system – plus a $7.57 late fee. Two days before Christmas, first thing in the morning, I called AT&T again, entered the voicemail, came out unscathed, where I spoke with “Sherika.”

Sherika leveled with me: She understood my frustration, but if I wanted to talk to anyone who could actually do anything, there was a two hour wait. Without screaming at all, I pointed out that was absolutely insane. She suggested that she could take my name and number (how is it that the phone company never has my number?), and that a manager would “return your call before 2 p.m. today.” Twelve hours later I hadn’t heard from AT&T and was about to leave town for a dozen days. I didn’t want the damn bill hanging over my head, so I paid the legitimate portion, and enclosed my invoice (again) and a letter explaining why my check was made out for less than their suggested payment.

Thirteen days later, Sherika still hadn’t called back. I was concerned that we’d parted ways on bad terms, and that AT&T – or it’s quixotic, uncontrollable, unpredictable computer system – was subsequently going to treat me as a delinquent account and send thick-necked line men to bust down my door and wreck up my credit rating. [4]

So I called AT&T voicemail again, this time choosing “Fraud” from the voicemail menu, more or less on a lark. The hold music was insanely over-amplified, rendering the ‘80s soundtrack guitar power-ballad muzak a clipped, fuzzy, heaving wash of modulated noise that, more than anything, sounded like waves crashing on a distant beach as heard through a 13-foot-long cardboard tube. After just a couple minutes on hold I was talking to “Tanisha,” who validated my frustration, apologized, and made a “realtime adjustment” to my account.

She then gave me her user-identification number (“TR4213”) so that I could later confirm this, if I so wished. She empathized with my frustration again, and apologized for AT&T. This took a total of twelve minutes. The charge was gone when my January statement arrived, although my invoice remains unpaid.

Lessons Learned

First and foremost, I am by no means unique: Over the course of the full fiscal quarter I spent kvetching about AT&T’s billing insanity, whoever I was chatting with in the normal course of my life would invariably have a nearly identical anecdote of either a mysterious, fraudulent charge originating from AT&T, or of a promotional price “not sticking to an account.” A quick Google search uncovered at least three years of these anecdotes from strangers.

My research here is by no means rigorous – or even vaguely statistically meaningful – but my guestimate is that the average customer spent no less than one solid working-hour straightening out these “unfortunate errors.” Oddly, although customers who’ve found themselves randomly dinged for $30 to $120 abound, I’ve had trouble locating any AT&T customers who’ve mysteriously received a $60 credit on their account. What an oddly consistent software glitch.

Second – and I offer this because it seems likely some of you are wrangling with AT&T right now – when you are calling about a billing problem, choose “Fraud” from the voicemail. As near as I can tell, Tanisha TR4213 at Fraud can execute magic fu that is beyond the reach of any member of the management team in any other sector of the company. She may, in fact, be the cyborg imbued with the deathless spirit of Alexander Graham Bell, condemned to wander the copper and fiber lo these many years. I don’t know.

What I do know is this: If there is a single human-like entity in the entire AT&T corporate hierarchy who I would not invite to fight a tank of sharks drunk on methylenedioxypyrovalerone and cough syrup, it is Tanisha TR4213. I’m not joking right now: The gratitude I feel toward Tanisha TR4213 for being so magnanimous as to stop trying to rob me is actually embarrassing.

Third: Although the billing practice used by AT&T seems obviously fraudulent – AT&T operators admitted as much from the start – my legal counsel [5] indicates that it’s hard to determine when this behavior actually rises to the level of actionable mail fraud. For this to qualify as mail fraud, one would need to be able to demonstrate either (1) that these baseless, hard-to-resolve charges are intentionally being applied to customer accounts, or (2) that these “billing errors” (which invariably seem to favor the billing party) could be easily remedied, but are instead ignored. Shy of government intervention, guys like us just ain’t ever gonna be able to suss any of that out.

Next Week

Tune in next week, when we’ll explore what AT&T is really stealing, why we were basically OK with that for so long, and how the occult hand of the Free Market can’t really do much to fix this.

[1] Note my restraint in not waxing megasnarky about the irony of that department’s name.

[2] Don’t worry: Wife wasn’t in labor, and both she and our Potential Human were just fine; the ultimate diagnosis was “shrug You’re pregnant; how should we know what’s up in that joint?”

[3] Why does the phone company need to ask me my phone number at every step? Can they not afford the caller ID service they sell? That’s sad, somehow; the cobbler’s children go barefoot.

[4] This might sound silly, but two years back I was unable to refinance my home – in which we had actual equity at the time, and on which we’ve never missed a payment – because a decade ago a hospital in metro Detroit inadvertently passed me to a collection agency when I failed to pay a $50 bill that they’d never sent me. This dropped my FICO score just low enough that, today, the only thing Bank of America is willing to offer me is a swift kick in the nuts (which they happily administer on the first of each month).

[5] Who, yes, is both non-practicing and a blood relative; I’m not dropping another $250 to chase this rabbit around the track, folks.

About the author: David Erik Nelson has written columns previously for The Chronicle on topics like medical marijuana and glass-eating clowns. Nelson is the author of various books, including most recently, “Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred“. His Nebula-nominated novella “Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate” is now available for Kindle.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of local columnists like David Erik Nelson. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

The Ann Arbor Chronicle currently has no plans to implement a choice of "skins" for the website, especially not one that would allow readers to view the publication as if it were printed on the scales of a dragon we slew.

Some eagle-eyed regular readers might have noticed that in the spot on the “masthead” where the current date used to sit are now four links: Civic News Ticker • Stopped. Watched. • Comments • Events. We’re also expecting the sad grey box at the top of the left sidebar to be retired sometime soon.

This does not signal that a major design change is in the offing. We have no plans, for example, to implement a choice of “skins” for the website, especially not one that would allow readers to view the publication as if it were printed on the scales of a dragon we slew.

That initial change – swapping out the masthead date with links we’d like to highlight – was prompted by some confusion that resulted from the appearance of a current date … on the same page as an article originally published three years ago.

It’s actually somewhat encouraging that The Chronicle has now been around long enough that this kind of confusion could result.

What I’d like to share with readers this month is a little vignette from the city council’s last meeting, which concluded near midnight – so I was draggin’ tail. And the vignette itself is a little dragon tale.

The last thought that registered in my head at the end of the council’s Jan. 23 session, which included more than 50 turns of public commentary, was this: Well, you know, dragons live in caves and breathe fire! It was a perfectly natural thought to entertain sitting there in the council chambers, filing the final briefs from the meeting for The Chronicle’s Civic News Ticker.

It was a thought prompted by Alan Haber’s public commentary at the end of the meeting. He’d addressed the council on the topic of a fundamental human right – to come in out of the cold and sit in the cave by the fire. The dragon connection was easy, because Thomas Partridge had preceded Haber at the public commentary podium and alluded to Ward 2 councilmember Jane Lumm, contending she had a “dragon lady” attitude.

And that served to reinforce the dragon-themed wishes that came from Ward 1 councilmember Sabra Briere over four hours earlier, near the start of the meeting – she’d wished everyone a happy Chinese New Year. It’s the year of the dragon, folks.

So in terms of the Chinese zodiac, this is my year. From the two years Chronicle publisher Mary Morgan and I spent living in China, I have a vague recollection that it’s a hugely positive thing to be born in a dragon year. Apparently it’s a pretty big deal, and Mary is awfully lucky to be married to someone who’s described by one authoritative source this way: “And due to their hunger for power, Dragons are not well suited to growing old. The prospect of losing power, the helpless feeling of youthful strength ebbing away is unbearable to them. Irritable and stubborn, the Dragon is a real big mouth and his words often outrun his thoughts.”

Words outrunning thoughts is a pretty apt description for this month’s milestone. So I’ll conclude by echoing Sabra Briere’s thoughts: Happy Chinese New Year!

About the writer: Dave Askins is editor and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle. The Chronicle could not survive to count each milestone without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of local government and civic affairs. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

Not long after midnight, the Kerrytown neighborhood was treated to several tunes played by a group of folks Joe O'Neal had gathered up. Among the songs was "Danny Boy," performed by Chronicle editor Dave Askins. Joe's daughter, Heather O'Neal, guided performers by pointing to the notes as they played.

The Chronicle spent part of its New Year’s Eve – the midnight part – at a small gathering in Kerrytown Market & Shops. Owner Joe O’Neal credits Mary Cambruzzi, proprietor of FOUND Gallery, with the idea: Open up the building for a few people to toast the new year with champagne or sparkling juice, and give people a chance to ring in 2012 by playing the carillon.

We were able to join the small event, because earlier in the day on New Year’s Eve, I happened to run into Joe at the Ann Arbor farmers market.

As Joe and I chatted, he showed me a new alcove outside the building – with benches and a plaque – honoring Ginny Johansen, a former Ann Arbor city councilmember and farmers market supporter who died last year. We also talked about the success of this year’s KindleFest, which on one night in early December drew several thousand people to Kerrytown. The regular stores stayed open late, and the farmers market was filled with vendors – selling everything from holiday greenery to glühwein. The energy of the crowds was exhilarating, and made me wish for more events like that.

In that context, Joe mentioned the New Year’s Eve gathering later that night, and invited us to drop by and play the carillon. Though it’s been a small affair for the past couple of years, he sees the possibility for more. His vision 10 years from now is to draw 10,000 people to Kerrytown on New Year’s Eve. Maybe someone could build a sort of reverse Times Square ball, he said, that would shoot up instead of dropping down. There could be fireworks. And carillon-playing, of course.

His vision made me think of how some of the most special things in this town start small, with one or two people thinking just a little bit bigger. So in this month’s Chronicle milestone column, I’d like to share a few thoughts on that as we head into the new year.

Making Connections

Since launching The Chronicle in 2008, I’ve been struck by how our publication’s narrow focus – covering local government and civic affairs – actually cuts across a relatively large cross-section of this community. At some point, even people who have no ongoing interest in local government have some reason to brush up against it.

That interaction with government might stem from dissatisfaction about some action the city council or staff has taken – like eliminating the service of Christmas tree pickup. Or it might be prompted by someone’s desire to encourage the city council to take future action – like maintain funding for public art.

People who might otherwise never contemplate attending a public meeting might be drawn to attend a forum to find out what changes the city staff have planned for their neighborhood park. Folks who would ordinarily never show up to listen to city council deliberations might find themselves at a meeting being recognized with a proclamation honoring their achievements.

As we arrived at Kerrytown near midnight on New Year’s Eve, I thought about the cross-section of the community we typically chronicle. Joe is not exactly a usual suspect at public meetings, but we’ve encountered him for at least two reasons over the last three years. In his role as owner of O’Neal Construction, he was drawn to the community discussion of the future of the Argo dam – he was vocal about the fact that the concrete and steel dam his company reconstructed back in the early 1970s was still in good condition. Joe is also a driving force behind the Allen Creek Greenway Conservancy, and serves on its board.

The conservancy board’s president, Jonathan Bulkley, also attended the New Year’s Eve gathering at Kerrytown, along with his wife Trudy. Bulkley had been honored at a Sept. 6, 2011 city council meeting – the mayor read a proclamation honoring Bulkley’s contributions to the University of Michigan, the state of Michigan, the Great Lakes region and the nation. And Sept. 9, 2011 was proclaimed Jonathan Bulkley Day in Ann Arbor. Trudy has made her own mark in town – as “Mother Goose,” she regularly holds children’s storytelling events at Kerrytown Market & Shops.

Also participating in the Kerrytown gathering was Amy Kuras, an accomplished cellist who also rocked the carillon on New Year’s Eve with Auld Lang Syne. But regular Chronicle readers will probably recognize Amy’s name from our coverage of the park advisory commission – as a city park planner, she often gives reports to the commission at its monthly meetings. She also frequently leads public forums for special parks project in the city, like one held last year in preparation for work at Riverside Park.

The Next Big Thing?

So the cross-sectional slice of the community that Chronicle readers encounter isn’t as narrow as you might think, given the narrowness of our focus to local government and civic affairs. But events that include a wider swath of the community are invigorating, when people come together who might not ordinarily cross paths. That’s the appeal to me of events like KindleFest. It’s also the appeal of Joe’s vision – that a fairly intimate gathering to play the Kerrytown carillon could grow to a public New Year’s Eve celebration at Kerrytown.

Last year’s Water Hill Music Fest is an example of something that started with a small concept, and turned into an absolutely inspiring phenomenon. Paul and Claire Tinkerhess had a vision for a joyful neighborhood celebration, but their efforts crescendoed into a major community event. The day-long festival drew hundreds of people to that area to hear musicians who lived there perform on their front porches. It became an “instant classic” – it earned Paul and Claire one of The Chronicle’s inaugural Bezonki Awards. It also gave their neighborhood a name that both reflects and shapes its unique identity. And you couldn’t walk down the streets at Water Hill Music Fest without running into someone you knew – even if you didn’t live there.

I’m not a believer that big is inherently better. That’s one reason why I like the concept of Small Giants, Bo Burlington’s movement that encourages companies to be great instead of gigantic.

But a sense of connectedness – important for a strong, healthy sense of community – requires shared experiences. And I’m guessing that, for the most part, I won’t be able to get everyone in Ann Arbor to share the experience of sitting on a hard bench through an entire city council or county board of commissioners meeting.

So instead, I hope Joe follows up on his vision for a public New Year’s Eve bash. I’ll try to find a way to help make that happen.

About the writer: Mary Morgan is publisher and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle. The Chronicle could not survive to count each milestone without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of local government and civic affairs. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!