Included in this year’s proposed CIP was a plan for a runway extension at the city’s municipal airport, an item that the council had voted to remove last year before last year’s CIP was finally adopted. This year, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) raised the same objection about the runway that he had voiced the previous year, and the council again removed the item by a narrow 6-5 vote.

The city’s planning commission recommended adoption of the CIP at its Jan. 4, 2011 meeting, when commissioners discussed in detail how the plan was developed and how public input was sought. [Previous Chronicle coverage of the possible airport runway extension: "Ann Arbor Airport Study Gets Public Hearing"]

This brief was filed from the boardroom in the Washtenaw County administration building, where the council is meeting due to renovations in the city hall building. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) listen to a presentation from the Committee for the Preservation of Community Quality at the city council's Sunday night caucus. (Photo by the writer.)

The Committee for the Preservation of Community Quality gave a presentation of their response to the recently conducted environmental assessment of a possible runway extension at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. And residents expressed concerns about the proposed Fuller Road Station and its location on city-owned land designated as a park in the city’s PROS (Parks and Recreation Open Space) Plan.

By the time questions about the possible upcoming budget amendments were raised, the number of councilmembers attending the caucus had dwindled from four to two. Mayor John Hieftje, Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), and Mike Anglin (Ward 5) were there through most of the meeting, but it concluded with just Briere and Anglin.

And at the tail end of the gathering, the residents who attended weighed in on the nature of caucus itself. They offered their perceptions of the value of discussions among councilmembers at the caucus versus their own remarks. They’d prefer to see councilmembers in action and would be willing to trade some of their own time for watching the work of council.

The Nature of the Sunday Night Caucus

The relatively brief discussion of the function of caucus evolved from a conversation about possible amendments to the city’s budget that might be undertaken before it’s adopted. The public hearing on the budget is May 3, but it won’t be adopted until the council’s May 17 meeting. Asked if the council would be circulating proposed budget amendments beforehand – as they’d done with the A2D2 downtown rezoning project – Sabra Briere (Ward 1) replied that she did not foresee that happening.

There was, said Briere, no “leader of the Senate” for the council, so it was unlikely that the wisdom of the council would be pooled together beforehand for presentation at the May 17 meeting. And if the council were to do that, she cautioned, there would be a perception that they’d held closed meetings.

Asked if some of the discussion of amendments could be undertaken at a council working session, Briere noted that the topic of the working sessions is typically set by the city administrator. The next available slot for a working session is May 10. “What about the caucus itself?” Briere was asked. Briere observed that the open discussion among councilmembers at a caucus was limited by the number of councilmembers who attended. [Attendance by councilmembers other than Hieftje, Kunselman, Briere, and Anglin is a relative rarity. Some councilmembers have enjoyed perfect non-attendance at the caucus for nearly a year.]

Resident Ethel Potts observed that for councilmembers to have a discussion amongst themselves at the caucus on their upcoming business would be a challenge, because “we take up most of your time.” [The caucus has evolved to be, practically speaking, an additional opportunity for public commentary by residents, not the kind of event described on the city's website:  "... meetings of the mayor and members of council to discuss and gather information on issues that are or will be coming before them for consideration." Chronicle commentary: "Column on Caucus: Make It a Real Event"]

Asked if she’d be willing to trade some of the opportunity for the public to comment at the caucus for watching the council engage in discussion amongst themselves, Potts allowed that she would. The same three-minute time limit that is enforced for public commentary at regular council meetings would be fine, she said.

Budget Amendments, Cash from the DDA

As The Chronicle reported last week, the operations committee of the Downtown Development Authority will be bringing forward a resolution to the full DDA board at its Wednesday, May 5 meeting, calling for the DDA to pay the city $2 million. [Chronicle coverage: "DDA to Tie $2 million to Public Process"]

Up to now, there has been no formal request from the city council to the DDA for a payment in a specific dollar amount. There is also not a way to enforce, from the city’s side, the commitment to a future public process for negotiations between the city and the DDA, which the DDA’s draft resolution calls for. The last opportunity before the DDA’s May 5 meeting  for the council to pass a resolution of its own addressing the $2 million question would be at the council’s May 3 meeting.

Although there is currently one DDA-related item on the council’s May 3 agenda, it does not concern the $2 million payment, but rather the approval of the revised DDA bylaws, which the DDA board adopted at its Feb. 3, 2010 meeting.

Asked if they foresaw the possible $2 million from the DDA being used to avert layoffs in safety services – police and firefighters – both Briere and Anglin indicated they felt that was likely. Anglin said that cuts to police would make it a reactive rather than a proactive force. Briere noted that the city is not a business, but rather a service organization. The city employs people to provide services, she said. And because of that, to reduce costs meant looking at cutting people. But she said if police and firefighters were cut, residents would find that they were not happy with the level of service they were being provided.

So if the DDA board approves the $2 million payment, it appears there is at least some support on the council for using it to avert safety services layoffs.

Fuller Road Station

[For The Chronicle's most recent coverage of Fuller Road Station: "AATA Gets Its Fill of Fuller Road Station"]

Resident Nancy Kaplan expressed two points on the proposed Fuller Road Station. First, she contended that it’s “for sure city parkland.” To say that it’s already used for a parking lot because of a mistake in the past does not mean, she said, that the city should continue with that mistake. Second, she pointed out that the University of Michigan had not promised not to build the two parking structures on Wall Street in exchange for construction of the Fuller Road Station. Rather, she pointed to the memorandum of understanding, which says that the university will suspend those plans “at this time.”

Regarding the status of the land, the city’s transportation program manager, Eli Cooper, had pointed out at his recent presentation to the AATA board that the public land zoning designation has many possible uses, according to city code:

5:10.13. PL public land district.
(1) Intent. This district is designed to classify publicly-owned uses and land and permit the normal principal and incidental uses required to carry out governmental functions and services.
(2) Permitted principal uses.
(a) Outdoor public recreational uses, such as: playgrounds, playfields, golf courses, boating areas, fishing sites, camping sites, parkways and parks. No structure shall be erected or maintained upon dedicated park land which is not customarily incidental to the principal use of the land.
(b) Natural open space, such as: conservation lands, wildlife sanctuaries, forest preserves.
(c) Developed open space, such as: arboreta, botanical and zoological gardens.
(d) Educational services, such as: public primary and secondary schools, and institutions of higher education.
(e) Cultural services, such as: museums and art galleries.
(f) Public-service institutions, such as: hospitals, sanatoria, homes for the elderly, children’s homes and correctional institutions.
(g) Essential services, buildings containing essential services and electrical substations.
(h) Municipal airports.
(i) Civic center.
(j) Government offices and courts.

The list of possible uses does not currently specify a transportation facility like the Fuller Road Station. However, at its May 4 meeting, the city’s planning commission is scheduled to hold a public hearing on a text amendment to that section of the city code that would replace “municipal airports” with “transportation facilities.”

At the caucus, Kaplan went on to say that there were other ways for UM to address its parking needs. She pointed to the fact that the facility had been divided into two components – the train station and the parking deck with bus bays. The project currently has nothing to do with rail transportation, she said. [The project has been divided into those two components and staged chronologically, with the train station in a later phase.]

Briere told Kaplan that whatever happened with Fuller Road Station – whether it’s built or not – she hoped Kaplan would remember her passion. She said she wanted Kaplan to remember how she feels now, and that in case UM in the future decided to build parking decks on Wall Street, Kaplan would let her voice be heard. When UM wanted to build parking decks on Wall Street earlier, Briere said, Kaplan’s voice was silent.

Kaplan countered that just because she’d not spoken up against the proposed Wall Street parking decks did not mean that she could not speak up now. Briere clarified that she did not mean that Kaplan should be silent now, but that if UM resurrects its plans to build Wall Street parking structures, she hoped Kaplan would weigh in.

Kaplan then noted that the situation felt as if one part of the community was being pitted against another and that she felt like this happened fairly often. Briere allowed that Kaplan was “quite right” about that.

Mayor John Hieftje weighed by ticking through the standard talking points on the rationale for locating Fuller Road Station where it’s proposed: east-west rail is key to the region’s future success; the UM hospital employs 20,000 employees and has 2 million visitors per year; the site is consistent with a possible north-south intra-city connector being studied for the Plymouth-State corridor.

Hieftje indicated that Obama’s University of Michigan commencement address the previous day had provided an occasion for him to talk to U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and Congressman Sandy Levin about possible federal support for the Fuller Road Station. [The Levins were among a slew of dignitaries in attendance at UM commencement.]

Hieftje asked Kaplan where she would put parking for the university. She responded by saying that just because she objected to a parking deck at one location did not obligate her to provide the solution. Briere then drew out from Kaplan that Kaplan objected to a parking deck at the Fuller Road location, and also objected to a train station there, though Kaplan said she supported the idea of rail transportation.

In light of Kaplan’s objections to a train station at that location, Briere encouraged Kaplan to think about where she would put a train station, working under the relevant constraints. Specifically, it would need to be next to the railroad track, and the land would need to be already city-owned or else acquired. Briere told Kaplan she was not asking her to solve the problem, but rather just asking her to think about it.

Asked if there was some possibility of putting a ballot question before voters in November on the sale of the land where the Fuller Road Station is proposed, Briere figured that would not happen. Once a proposal to sell land was put on the ballot, she said, that would be seen as a step away from the assurances that many councilmembers have given over the years that they were not thinking of selling parkland.

Briere then recounted some to the history of the charter amendment passed in 2008 requiring a vote of residents before any parkland could be sold. She noted that former councilmember Bob Johnson, who “sat in this chair before me” representing Ward 1, had been the father of the “we-will-not-sell amendment.” And Johnson – who was no longer on the city council, but provided advice to Briere on the wording of the amendment – had said that it should not include leasing. That is, leasing without a voter referendum would be allowed.

Airport Runway Extension

The caucus was led off by a multi-person presentation by the Committee for the Preservation of Community Quality. The committee gave their response to the environmental assessment (EA) recently completed on a proposed runway extension at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. [Chronicle coverage of the public hearing on the EA: "Ann Arbor Airport Study Gets Public Hearing"] Kathe Wunderlich introduced the group.

Barbara Perkins led off by saying that she hadn’t attended a caucus in a long time, but she’d been active in local politics 40 years ago, when she first moved to Ann Arbor and when the airport runway was an issue. She said she never thought she’d have to be back in the 21st century to argue against the extension again.

Perkins called the airport layout plan a “disaster” and criticized the EA for failure to address issues like the potential impact on the city’s water supply. She said that after passage of the airport layout plan in 2007, the city staff had been called upon to gather public input, but that had not happened. She said that she’d requested to meet with her Ward 4 city council representatives [Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall] on the issue and that they’d arranged to meet, but the chair and the vice-chair of the city’s airport advisory committee had attended, and her city council representatives had left, saying,”These gentlemen will answer your questions.”

The bulk of the presentation was delivered by Andrew McGill, based on a spiral-bound 60-page document that was the group’s formal response to the Michigan Dept. of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration on the EA.

Key points presented by McGill from the report:

I. The project’s stated purpose and need is unsupported by the evidence.
A. The EA supports neither the problem it aims to solve nor its purported solution.
B. The EA incorrectly relies on total annual operations to support the proposed runway extension.
C. Shifting Runway 6/24 150 feet to the southwest will not achieve an additional margin of safety.
D. The EA falsely intends to convey rural setting in a densely populated area.

II. The EA does not consider all reasonable alternatives.

III. The EA fails to adequately analyze or disclose the project’s air quality impacts where it fails to address or determine the project’s Clean Air Act conformity.
A. The EA fails to establish that the project is exempt.
B. The EA fails to establish that the project is presumed to conform.
C. The EA fails to establish the project’s conformity status.

IV. The EA fails to account for wells on airport property.

V. The EA fails to analyze the presence of hazardous wildlife near the airport and fails to present any mandatory mitigation measures.

VI. The EA does not acknowledge or analyze the project’s manifest growth-inducing impacts.

VII. Political jurisdictions that proposed action or alternatives would impact.

VIII. Noise modeling for the project failed to include increased jet aircraft and nighttime operations in developing noise contours.

IX. Procedural justice

Key among the many conclusions presented by McGill was that there is a habitat at the airport  conducive to Canada geese – which are numerous enough to warrant goose-crossing signs on nearby roads. The FAA requires appropriate mitigating measures if a habitat that could cause movements of hazardous wildlife (Canada geese) into the approach and departure airspace is located within five miles of the airport. The cost of those mitigating measures, McGill felt, would be prohibitive.

Sol Castell, a commercial airline pilot, addressed the issue of whether a longer runway would mean that heavier aircraft could take off and land there. For him as a pilot, he said, it was clear: a longer runway allows heavier aircraft. He then cited a landing-distance chart showing that prescribed landing distances increase with increased weight.

As a part of his recurrent pilot training, Castell said, they distiguish between managing threats and managing errors. Managing errors, he said, is managing the past. You manage the future by managing threats. The threat of heavier aircraft flying at low altitudes over residential areas, he said, could be eliminated by not extending the runway. The idea that runway overruns could be addressed by a runway extension was, said Castell, “managing the past.” The accident reports for the runway overruns, said Castell, showed that the incidents were attributable to pilot error in failing to control the direction of the aircraft.

There is no action currently before the city council – or scheduled to come before the council – regarding the proposed runway extension. The Committee for the Preservation of Community Quality does not expect any action to be brought to the council, because they see the EA as flawed in so many ways.

Jon Von Duinen, of the consulting firm URS, points to the "run up" area which would be located at the spot where the existing runway ends. Under the recommended option in the environmental assessment, this would put the "run up" area 950 feet from the end of the extended runway. The "run up" area is where aircraft bring their engines up to full power to test that everything is in working order. (Photos by the writer.)

And on Wednesday evening, from 4-7 p.m. at Cobblestone Farm, a combination of a dozen government officials and consultants held an open-house style public hearing on the draft report of that environmental assessment.

At any given time, during the hour The Chronicle spent at the public hearing, the hosts outnumbered visitors. In a phone interview the following day, Molly Lamrouex – with the aeronautics division of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) – told The Chronicle that around 20 people had filtered through Cobblestone Farm over the three-hour period.

The time for submission of written comments on the environmental assessment has been extended from April 12 to April 19 at 5 p.m. Emails can be sent to lamrouexm@michigan.gov.

In the context of the controversy about the runway extension – which has played out at Ann Arbor city council meetings over the course of the last year – the public hearing was somewhat subdued.

Who We Met

On arrival outside the barn, The Chronicle met Rick Olson, who had already touched base inside at the open house and was heading for the parking lot where his pickup truck was parked. The truck had a large campaign sign in the bed – Olson is a Republican candidate for state representative in the 55th district.

Olson stopped to chat with Andrew McGill, who was also headed to the public hearing. McGill has spoken against the proposed runway extension at multiple city council meetings over the last year.

After spending a bit over an hour at the open house, The Chronicle left to find a small cluster of people mingling outside in the warm breezy evening air. Among them was Kathe Wunderlich, with the Committee for Preserving Community Quality, which can be considered organized opposition to the runway extension. She was talking with Barbara Perkins, who served three three-year terms on the city’s airport advisory committee – she was first appointed by Mayor Albert H. Wheeler, who served from 1975-78.

Perkins told The Chronicle that she lived in the Georgetown area, which meant that the flight path for aircraft using the Ann Arbor municipal airport went right over her neighborhood. She recalled how the proposed airport runway extension had been a controversial issue dating back to the 1970s.

Perkins said she didn’t consider the open house format to be a proper public hearing – there was no opportunity to hold forth publicly. [Verbal comments were taken in a 1-1 session with a court reporter.] In past decades, Perkins said, over a hundred people had shown up and spoken about the runway extension at public hearings in the city hall chambers.

Who We Missed

Perkins and Wunderlich both had words of praise for current county commissioner and Ann Arbor resident Leah Gunn, who has opposed the possible airport extension over the decades. Email exchanges between Margie Teall (Ward 4) and then councilmember Leigh Greden at the city council’s March 16, 2009 meeting show that Gunn’s current opposition to the proposed runway extension is considered significant by Teall:

——————–
From: Leah Gunn
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 3:31 PM
To: Hieftje, John; Briere, Sabra; Smith, Sandi; Rapundalo, Stephen; Derezinski, Tony; Greden, Leigh; Taylor, Christopher; Teall, Margie; Higgins, Marcia; Higgins, Marcia; Anglin, Mike; Hohnke, Carsten
Subject: airport expansion

I have placed in your mailboxes a memo from me concerning airport expansion. I have also attached it here for your convenience, without the supporting newspaper articles.
You need to look VERY carefully at what you are doing, or you may be stuck paying for something for the next twenty years that you will have trouble justifying. There has never been a good time to lengthen the runway, and I believe that you have been given misleading information by certain advocates.

…

Leah

——————–
From: Teall, Margie
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 7:26 PM
To: Greden, Leigh
Subject: FW: airport expansion

What do you think? She is going to be very upset with Marcia and me. (She already is.)

——————–
From: Greden, Leigh
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 7:28 PM
To: Teall, Margie
Subject: RE: airport expansion

I sent it to Mark. I think the bottom line is bigger planes: can they come or not? If so, we’ve got a problem. If not, this entire organized opposition campaign is nothing but hot air.

——————–
From: Teall, Margie
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 7:37 PM
To: Greden, Leigh
Subject: RE: airport expansion

And I would say nothing but hot air, except for Leah and Bob Gunn…that worries me more.

——————–
From: Greden, Leigh
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 7:47 PM
To: Teall, Margie
Subject: RE: airport expansion

Leah’s email contained the boilerplate language. If she’s right, they’re all right. If she’s wrong, they’re all wrong.

——————–
From: Teall, Margie
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 7:56 PM
To: Greden, Leigh
Subject: RE: airport expansion

I don’t think it will matter to her.

——————–
From: Greden, Leigh
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 7:58 PM
To: Teall, Margie
Subject:RE: airport expansion

Probably right, but at least we can look consistent and appropriate.

It turns out that Gunn also attended the March 31, 2010 open house – The Chronicle left just before she arrived. In a follow-up email, Gunn concurred with Perkins’ view of the public hearing’s open house format, calling it a “sham.”

Open House Format for Public Hearing

The open house format at Cobblestone Farm consisted of a series of posters on easels positioned on the perimeter of the room, with government officials and consultants scattered throughout, available to introduce the content of the posters to visitors and to answer questions. Comment boxes were available for written statements. A court reporter was available to take down spoken comments. The criticism  about the format was based on the idea that there was not an opportunity for people to deliver remarks to an assembled public audience.

Comment box at the March 31 open house at Cobblestone Farm.

Molly Lamrouex, with the aeronautics division of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), told The Chronicle that the format was a standard one, which had been used for the six years she’d been at that job. The Federal Aviation Administration had concurred with the open house format for that public hearing, she said. She added that the citizens advisory committee (CAC), which was formed as part of the process for the environmental assessment, had not raised objections to that format.

Voices among members of the  public in support of the runway extension over the last year have been somewhat rare, but not completely absent. One possible explanation is that people who support the extension are not entirely comfortable speaking publicly in a room filled with organized opposition.

In that context, Andrew McGill – part of the organized opposition – discussed with The Chronicle the public hearing format. McGill allowed that it could be daunting to speak in a room filled with other speakers who mostly disagree with your position. This is part of the rationale for a format that allows people to convey their views essentially in private to a court reporter. He also agreed people should be able to express their point of view without any kind of harassment. He concluded that both alternatives should be offered – a chance to speak to a public audience, as well as an opportunity to convey a point of view more privately.

The written comment submission form offered at the Cobblestone Farm public hearing specifies that name and address are not required.

The Draft Report

Much of the basic material in the draft report was presented in poster format at the open house.

Build Alternatives: No Build

Jon Von Duinen, of the consulting firm URS, walked The Chronicle through the basics of the four “build alternatives,” displayed on two posters. The “no build” alternative is one that would not change anything. On that scenario, there’s no environmental impact to assess. However, leaving the runway at its current length of 3,500 feet – instead of lengthening it to 4,300 feet – would not meet the need that has been identified in the draft environmental assessment report:

The existing runway length does not allow for the critical aircraft (B-II) to operate at their design capabilities without weight restrictions.

Here, “critical aircraft” is a technical term, which does not mean, as the phrase might suggest, “most important airplane.” The term refers to the most demanding kind of aircraft that regularly uses the airport. And “regularly use” means that it’s a kind of aircraft that is expected to have at least 500 operations (takeoffs and landings) at the airport per year.

For the Ann Arbor airport, the “critical aircraft” was determined to be a B-II. From the draft environmental assessment report:

A recent Airport User Survey has confirmed that the critical aircraft classification for  ARB is “B-II Small Aircraft” (MDOT, 2009). Aircraft in this category have runway  approach speeds between 91 and 120 knots, wingspans between 49- and 79-feet, and  maximum certificated takeoff weights of 12,500 lbs or less.

In the appendices to the environmental assessment, the case is laid out for consideration of B-II as the critical aircraft for Ann Arbor’s airport. It’s based on data from 2007 that is a combination of FlightAware information, showing 507 total operations of B-II aircraft, plus information from other sources that brings the total to 760. Those other sources include AvFuel, an Ann Arbor company that bases a Citation 560 Excel jet at the airport, and reported 211 operations in 2007.

Screen shot of FlightAware realtime flight tracking. KARB is the Ann Arbor municipal airport. (Image links to live tracking site.)

Overall, the number of operations across all aircraft types at the Ann Arbor airport has shown a decline over the last two decades. [FAA operations data is available online.]

From 1991-2001, there were at least 100,000 operations at the airport in every year except for 1996, when the figure dipped to 99,590. Since 2001, the number has declined most years, and by 2007 the total number of operations had dropped to 72,853. By 2009 it had further dropped to 57,004, a 22% decrease over the most recent two-year span.

If the 22% decrease is applied to the 760 operations of B-II aircraft in 2007 and projected to 2009 data, it would translate to 585 operations, which still exceeds the minimum FAA threshold of 500 to consider B-II aircraft to be the “critical aircraft.”

The FAA circular on recommended runway lengths for different kind of aircraft provides guidance based on altitude of the airport and temperatures during the hottest period of the year. Ann Arbor is 829 feet above sea level and has average July temperature of  83 degrees.

According a FAQ provided on the city of Ann Arbor website, the increase in runway length to 4,300 feet would not allow larger kinds of aircraft to use the airport than already do – an increase to 5,000 feet would be necessary for that. But the increase to 4,300 feet would allow the kinds of aircraft currently using the Ann Arbor airport to operate without weight restrictions.

Allowing the current kinds of aircraft to operate there without weight restrictions would, according to the report, lead to an increase in the amount of interstate commerce to the Ann Arbor area.

Although improvements in safety are cited throughout the report as a benefit to the runway extension, there is not a safety finding that is driving a requirement that the runway be extended. From the report:

Although justification for the proposed project has been substantiated according to current MDOT and FAA standards associated with runway length recommendations, neither agency requires that the runway be extended. It is ultimately – and entirely – the decision of the city of Ann Arbor whether to not to proceed with the development of the project.

Build Alternative: Build 1, 2 and 3

The first alternative considered in the environmental assessment was one in which the runway was rotated 5 degrees counterclockwise, with an 800-foot extension to the southwest. The idea behind Build 1, explained Von Duinen, was to give as much consideration as aeronautically possible to the subdivision west of Lohr Road.

In terms of the environmental impact, that’s an alternative that would have required clearing 15 acres of trees, and the enclosure of 660 additional feet of a stream inside a pipe. It would have also had an impact on 1.3 acres of wetland, and required the removal of three buildings. Due to those impacts, that alternative was not recommended.

Jon Von Duinen, points out the location of the control tower at the Ann Arbor municipal airport.

Build 2, said Von Duinen, was the alternative that was the simplest to implement from a construction point of view. It entailed adding 800 feet to the southwest end of the runway, but leaving the angle of the runway the same. That alternative was rejected on the basis of its failure to meet the purpose and need of the project.

Build 2 left two issues unaddressed. One is the lack of a sightline between the control tower and the northeast end of the runway. The second unaddressed issue is the short distance between the northeast end of the runway and State Street [which becomes State Road], running north-south on the east side of the airport property. The current configuration meets requirements, but if State Road were to be widened, as suggested in a 2006 State Road corridor study, the end of the runway would be too close to the road to provide adequate height clearance between road traffic and aircraft.

Build 3, which is the preferred alternative in the report, would address the end-of-runway-control-tower sightline issue by moving the northeast end of the runway 150 feet to the southwest. This would also address the State Road issue.

However, Build 3 requires that the effective 150-foot shortening of the northeast end of the runway be compensated by adding 950 feet – not just 800 feet – to the southwest end of the runway.

If a “run up” area on the Build 3 scenario were built at the end of the newly extended runway, it would be that much closer to the residential subdivision on the west side of Lohr Road. [The "run up" area is where aircraft bring their engines up to full power to test that everything is in working order.] So the “run up” area in Build 3 is proposed not at the end of the new, extended runway, but rather at the spot where the existing runway ends – to reduce the potential impact of noise on the surrounding area.

Noise

The noise analysis for the study was performed by Daniel Botto of URS, who works out of Florida. Chatting with The Chronicle, he allowed that he enjoyed his four days in Ann Arbor working on the project, but that he was not tempted to relocate here from Tampa.

Botto said his work depends on computer modeling of noise data for a particular airport configuration.  The information loaded into the model includes recorded noise data from various kinds of aircraft, runway locations and angles, flight tracks of aircraft, and average daily use by different kinds of aircraft. Botto indicated that for busier airports, the flight track data would be drawn from radar records, but for the Ann Arbor study, the flight tracks were estimated and then confirmed for general accuracy by control tower staff in Ann Arbor.

The relevant statistic for noise modeling around airports is the day-night average sound level (DNL). It’s described this way in the draft environmental assessment:

DNL is a 24-hour time-weighted-average noise metric expressed in A-weighted decibels (dBA) that accounts for the noise levels of all individual aircraft events, the number of times those events occur, and the time of day which they occur. In order to represent the added intrusiveness of sounds occurring during nighttime hours (10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.), DNL penalizes, or weights, events occurring during the nighttime periods by 10 dBA. This is due to the increased sensitivity to noise during normal sleeping hours and because ambient (without aircraft) sound levels during nighttime are typically about 10 dB lower than during daytime hours.

The conclusion of the environmental assessment was that the Build 3 alternative would not cause the levels above the threshold of 65 DNL to extend beyond the airport property.

Birds

At its March 15, 2010 meeting, the city council authorized payment for the environmental assessment, and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) asked for clarification from Ann Arbor airport manager Andrew Kulhanek about the absence of Canadian Canada geese in the report – an issue that had been raised by Andrew McGill during public commentary. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) drew out the fact that the report does not seek to inventory all the birds in the vicinity of the airport, but rather to identify which, if any, endangered species of birds are in the vicinity of the airport.

At the Cobblestone Farm public hearing, MDOT’s Molly Lamrouex confirmed that understanding. The section of the report that addresses endangered species of birds identifies two species:

Henslow’s sparrow, state endangered, (Ammodramus henslowii) and Grasshopper sparrow, state special concern, (Ammodramus savannarum) are known to occur on or in the vicinity of the area. The presence of these species has been confirmed by the Audubon Society during their annual counts at ARB over the last three years.

The Build 3 alternative, recommended in the report, is not projected to have a negative impact on the two species:

ARB revises the boundaries of this mowing annually with the Audubon Society, based on their most current bird count data. There would be no grading within agreed upon restricted mowing areas during the breeding season for either species which extends through late August for Henslow’s sparrow and mid-July for Grasshopper sparrow.

However, there are other parts of the report that include field observations of various wildlife that are not endangered species. And it’s these field observations that McGill points to when questioning why Canada geese are not mentioned in the report, when they are prevalent enough to warrant goose-crossing signs on some of the roads surrounding the airport. From the report’s description of “Biotic Communities”:

Several examples of wildlife were observed, including robins (Turdus migratorius), goldfinch (Carduelis tistis), purple martins (Progyne subis), killdeer (Charadrius viciferus), and a mating pair of redtail hawks (Buteo jamaicensis). Other observations include evidence of rodent tunneling (field mice or voles) and pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) that were heard calling. Airport staff stated that coyote (Canis latrans) and white tail deer (Odocoileus virginianus) have been observed on the airport property as well as wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo). A comprehensive list of all the bird species observed by the Audubon Society at ARB is included in Appendix F.

The Audubon Society observed-species list in the appendix, which includes several common varieties of birds – like the American robin – does not include Canada geese.

Next Steps

Written comment on the draft environmental assessment can be submitted through April 19 to:

Molly Lamrouex
Airports Division
MDOT Bureau of Aeronautics and Freight Services
2700 Port Lansing Road
Lansing, MI 48906
lamrouexm@michigan.gov
FAX: 517-886-0366

Once all the comments from the public have been compiled, the issues raised in that commentary will be evaluated and a response to those issues will be prepared. After review of the response to comments and the draft report are evaluated by the FAA and MDOT, the final environmental assessment can be printed.

The final assessment will be distributed to all the various resource agencies like the state Department of Natural Resources and Environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. All the surrounding local municipalities will also receive a copy.

The creation of the final environmental assessment does not clear the actual project for takeoff. The project itself would be subject to authorization by the Ann Arbor city council, which just recently, at its Feb 1, 2010 meeting, struck the airport runway extension from the city’s capital improvements plan (CIP). The council adopted the CIP, without the runway extension, at its Feb. 16, 2010 meeting.

Sol Castell was asked to the podium by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) to give an alternate view on the need for a runway extension at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. The topic came up during discussion of the city's capital improvements plan, which wound up being postponed. (Photos by the writer.)

But trains weren’t the only transit-related thread. The city’s bicycle ordinances were updated after having been postponed for a couple of meetings, and a revision to the city’s bicycle registration procedure was tabled and now appears to be on indefinite hold.

The council also approved on first reading a revision to its taxicab ordinance, designed to enforce expectations of larger cab companies.

Also related to transportation was discussion of an item in the capital improvements plan (CIP) for a runway extension at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. After Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) got his colleagues’ support to amend the CIP to delete the item, the council then voted, with some grumbles of dissent, to postpone consideration of the CIP.

Times and dates for upcoming meetings on the budget were also reviewed, with city administrator Roger Fraser telling councilmembers that the list of possible areas for cuts that city staff had generated were not the only items that could be considered. He challenged councilmembers to come up with their own ideas as well. The council received specific recommendations for budget strategies for the senior center and Mack Pool.

In Part I of the report, we restrict our focus to transportation and budget issues. In Part II, we’ll cover land use issues – including the resolution on 415 W. Washington, which we previewed in our report on the Sunday night caucus, plus a postponement on a greenbelt acquisition.

We begin this portion of the report with some public commentary on Ann Arbor’s bus system.

Buses

Jim Mogensen: During public commentary reserved time at the beginning of the meeting, Jim Mogensen asked why we keep encouraging sprawl.

He alluded to a photo of Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber in the newspaper, standing in Depot Town next to the rail station. Mogensen contended that when the 21-month purchase-of-service agreement between the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority and Ypsilanti runs out, Ypsilanti would lose its bus service, despite the planned east-west commuter rail service. [See Chronicle coverage: "Buses for Ypsi and a budget for AATA"] Why? Because Ypsilanti is not a part of anybody’s plan, Mogensen contended. “Not even a lunch-counter moment would change it,” he said.

Mogensen noted that since the new park-and-ride lot at Plymouth Road and US-23 had opened, bus service on the Green-Baxter bus line had been reduced to once an hour. Further, he said there was an asterisk (*) indicating that it was only available when the University of Michigan was in session. What other urban service would need to be reallocated, Mogensen wondered, in order to make the Fuller Road transit station service work? The city is encouraging people to live in the suburbs, Mogensen said, and our community continues to chip away at the benefits that exist in urban areas. It’s going to cause us trouble, he concluded, and it’s wrong.

Tim Hull: During the time for public commentary at the end of the meeting, Tim Hull, a masters student at the University of Michigan, spoke on the issue of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. Hull said he hoped to stay in Ann Arbor after graduating, and described the AATA’s service as “pretty good, but falls short on weekends and at night.” He criticized service changes for the bus system as being made largely by bureaucrats. He asked that in future appointments to the AATA board, consideration be given to people who actually ride the bus. Currently AATA board members did not ride the bus – he compared it to executives at Ford Motor Co. driving Toyotas instead.

Bicycles

A substantial revision to the city’s bicycling ordinances had been postponed from the previous meeting amid concerns expressed by Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) that the relevant laws that would now apply from the Michigan Vehicle Code were not explicitly referenced in Ann Arbor’s city code. [See previous Chronicle coverage of the Jan. 19, 2010 city council meeting, and the Jan. 4, 2010 city council meeting.]

From left: Tom Crawford, the city's chief financial officer, and Eli Cooper, the city's transportation program manager.

At Monday’s meeting, city attorney Stephen Postema clarified that the best way to present the information was to link to the Michigan Vehicle Code, and in that way there would be no lag time between the updating of the city’s code, if the state statute were to be changed.

Also postponed from a previous meeting had been a revision to the city’s procedure for registering bicycles.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) reported that some additional data called the actual value of the registration program into some question, and he convinced his colleagues to table the measure. The additional information was this: From September of 2007 to the present, 39 stolen bikes had been recovered and returned to their owners – but in none of those cases had the bicycle registration program been instrumental. The return of those bicycles had been the result, Hohnke reported, of regular police work. There was also some question in the bicycling community, Hohnke said, of the perceived value of registering one’s bicycle. He wondered if it was not simply a holdover from years gone by.

Outcome: The revision to the bicycle ordinances (which repealed city ordinances in favor of allowing the prevailing Michigan Vehicle Code to apply) was approved on second reading. Bicycle registration procedures were tabled.

Taxicabs

The city revised its taxicab ordinance with an eye towards making sure that basic taxi service would continue to be provided. The city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, explained that the ordinance revision was meant to guard against the possibility that a large company could come in and provide service only on the most profitable routes – for example, from the city to the airport – and put smaller companies out of business that provided a full range of services within the city.

What the ordinance does, Crawford explained, was require that large companies – operating more than 10 cabs – be full-service. Here, “full service” means that service needs to be provided 24 hours round-the-clock, that a lost-and-found be available, and that it be possible to file a complaint with someone other than the driver during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Crawford said that the new ordinance would affect three or four companies.

Outcome: The taxicab ordinance was unanimously approved on its first reading.

East-West Commuter Rail

A presentation to the council at the start of the meeting on the east-west commuter rail project was followed up by discussion by councilmembers

East-West Commuter Rail: Presentation

Carmine Polombo, transportation planner with the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG), gave the council a presentation on proposed commuter rail service between Detroit and Ann Arbor.

Polombo pointed the council to SEMCOG’s website, where monthly updates on the east-west Detroit-to-Ann Arbor commuter rail project could be found. He described the project as a partnership among various government entities including SEMCOG, the Michigan Department of Transportation and the governor’s office. Certain elements of the project had started to become concrete, he reported, which include the leasing of locomotives and the award of a contract to refurbish nine train cars for the east-west project, plus an additional six cars for WALLY – a separate north-south commuter rail project. Refurbished cars, Polombo said, would start rolling off the line by June of this year: “That’s a go,” he said.

Two additional stations, he reported, would need to be constructed – one in Depot Town in Ypsilanti, and the other in Westland. Of the six environmental documents required by the Federal Railroad Administration, Polombo reported that four had been completed. He described how computer simulations that had been run – in order to minimize potential conflicts between the commuter service and other existing service – had shown that even a five-minute window adjusted in one direction or another could mean the difference between needing to add more track and not.

He stressed the importance of the need to coordinate with other transit agencies so that passengers could get access to the stations, and from the stations to their final destination. He described it as needing to make sure that we can “feed this beast.” The linchpin to the system, he said, is in Detroit – there is a section of track that goes from two tracks down to one track, and back to two tracks again – that would need around $12 million worth of improvements, he said.

As far as next steps, he said, finding more money to fund the project was crucial. The Federal Railroad Administration had awarded through the stimulus package some money to construct two new stations. But Polombo said that they were “sort of hoping for a few more dollars.” They would, therefore, be exploring plans B, C, D, and F. He alluded to the federal TIGER grants (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) that involved the awarding of $1.5 billion nationally – announcement of those grants is expected by Feb. 14. In addition, he said they were preparing for the possibility of yet another stimulus package being offered by the federal government.

They have secured a request for proposals to select an operator for the service – the contract cannot just be given to Amtrak, he said. Because of the federal dollars being used, a bidding process for the service was necessary. Later, in response to questions from council members, Polombo said that the Detroit railroads might have issues if anyone other than Amtrak were awarded the contract to operate the service.

East-West Commuter Rail: Deliberations

Mayor John Hieftje led off conversation among councilmembers by stating that he had been receiving regular updates from SEMCOG. Hieftje then prodded Polombo to express some confidence that the service would actually begin this year. Polombo confirmed that something would be rolling, but seemed interested in lowering expectations of what the early service might look like.

Polombo described it as involving individual day trips – University of Michigan football games, events like Restaurant Week in Ann Arbor, Thanksgiving day, or trips to the Henry Ford Museum. Polombo also stressed that the Norfolk Southern part of the route needs track work. What is really important, Polombo said, is reliable, safe, on-time service.

Hieftje then stated that he had been part of those conversations for a long time, whereas some people have not. Hieftje said he appreciated the idea that the strategy would be to grow into the service, not start it all at once.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked about a $3.5 million federal earmark for the project, which required a 20% match. She asked where the match would come from. Polombo explained that one possibility would be that the Michigan Department of Transportation would provide cash for the match – that would be the best possible situation. However, another strategy would be to use a “soft match” – the construction of stations in Westland and Ypsilanti, which would not be done with federal funds, could be used as soft match money.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) asked about some preliminary awards for high-speed rail links that had recently gone to other parts of the country – were we now excluded? Polombo said no, there was still a possibility for that.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) asked if the proposed Fuller Road transit station would qualify as a soft match. Polombo’s answer was that the station had been submitted as part of a TIGER grant and that it would all depend on the timing. The point is, Polombo said, we have a station now [the Amtrak station], we can use it, and make it work. If the new station were to be built, he said, the service can be made to work there, too.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) asked Polombo about the challenge of getting people the last mile to their destination – Ann Arbor had a plan that involved construction of the Fuller Road station. What are other communities doing, wondered Hohnke. Polombo described how SMART, the metro Detroit transit agency, was mapping their services – in Dearborn for example.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) asked what discussions with Amtrak had been like. Polombo said that Amtrak had been a partner from the start of the project and that they would like to be a service provider for the project. But because the project was using a substantial number of federal dollars, the contract for operation of the service would need to be bid out. One potential problem, he said, was that the Detroit railroads say that if the service provider is not Amtrak, they might have a problem.

Airport Runway Extension and the CIP

Consideration of the city’s capital improvements plan (CIP) generated much discussion about one item in the plan – a project to extend the runway at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. Discussion of that project resulted in postponement of the plan, and elicited discussion among councilmembers about the role of the CIP.

Public Comment

Andrew McGill: During public commentary reserved time at the start of the meeting, Andrew McGill urged the council to act against the $37,250 item in the capital improvements plan (CIP), which represented the city’s portion for funding a runway extension at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. He told the council that they had previously said they had approved only an environmental assessment, and were not considering a runway extension.

McGill also reminded them that some of their recent election campaigns had relied on stated opposition to a runway extension. If they were neither considering such an extension and would oppose one if it were considered, McGill wondered why the money was included in the capital improvements plan to add 800 feet to the runway, making it 4,300 feet long.

Council Deliberations on CIP

The city’s capital improvements plan had been postponed from consideration at the council’s previous meeting. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) led off deliberations on Monday by proposing an amendment that deleted the 800-foot runway extension project at the city’s municipal airport.

After Kunselman had made the proposal, mayor John Hieftje remarked that he had been planning to ask someone to move that amendment from the floor.

In response to a request from Tony Derezinski (Ward 2), Cresson Slotten, who’s a senior project manager with the city, described what had been approved and programmed with respect to the municipal airport runway.

In the last capital improvements plan, Slotten said, the environmental assessment had been included as part of an airport layout plan – which he described as similar to other master plans that the city used, like the central area plan. The environmental assessment, he reported, has begun. Part two of the program, he said, would be to move forward with the runway extension, if the environmental assessment indicated it would be appropriate. And that is why the project is in the 2011 CIP. Slotten clarified for Derezinski that the project was for implementation and not merely for a study.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) weighed in by saying that the capital improvements plan is a set of placeholders – it’s a needs analysis, and does not compel the city to follow through on anything in the plan. Slotten confirmed that Rapundalo’s understanding of the CIP was correct.

Mark Perry, chair of the airport advisory committee, was asked to explain what exactly had been approved to date. Perry said that in January of 2007, the city council adopted the airport layout plan. Perry described three problems that the airport layout plan was meant to correct: (i) problems with the “Obstacle Clearance Surface” [cf. FAA Part 77] associated with the possible widening of State Street, which runs north-south on the east side of the airport, (ii) line-of-sight issues between the control tower and one of the runways, and (iii) an abnormal number of runway overruns.

On the question of runway overruns, five had been identified in FAA records, Perry said, but further investigation had revealed that there had actually been 11. That compared with only one other such incident in all of the rest of Michigan. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) elicited the fact that the overrun incidents had happened over the period from 1998-2008.

Hieftje asked Slotten if there would be a problem to put the project back into the CIP after deleting it. Slotten said it be possible – it would depend on the proper needs assessment. Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) seemed somewhat surprised that the $37,000 would be able to address all three of the problems identified, saying “it seems like a bigger project.” It was clarified that this was only the city’s portion of the project, which amounted to 2.5% of the whole project. The rest would be funded by the state and the FAA.

In light of the complexity of the problem, Sandi Smith (Ward 1) suggested the possibility of postponing consideration of the CIP.

An Alternate View on Runway Overruns

Kunselman asked Sol Castell to the podium, who is a former member of airport advisory committee member of the citizens advisory committee to the environmental assessment process. Castell introduced himself as a pilot for a major airline and stated that none of the 11 incidents cited as runway overruns were in fact runway overruns. Instead, he said, they were simply pilot error. Four of the incidents, he said, were so blatantly pilot errors that they were not even reported to the FAA, because the pilots did not want the FAA to know about them. He said that there was plenty of runway for landing and taking off. He felt that the environmental assessment would pass as a rubber stamp, which was not a wise spending of $300,000. He said he was prepared to go through the incidents described as runway overruns one by one with the council.

In a  follow-up phone conversation with The Chronicle, Andrew McGill said that with respect to the “runway overruns” it was worth distinguishing between significant incidents and insignificant events. As insignificant, he described a situation where a student pilot and an instructor were in a plane unequipped with a set of brake pedals for the instructor. After the plane landed and slowed, the student did not brake properly, and the resulting tangle of legs trying for the brake pedal had resulted in a runway light getting hit.

An incident described as significant by McGill was one where a student pilot with less than 200 hours of flying time had made his first touchdown halfway down the runway and wound up going 20 feet off the end of the runway – he should have gone around and tried again, said McGill.

Even with the “significant” events, said McGill, the primary cause of overshooting the runway was not the length of the runway.

Preliminary outcome: The roll call vote on Kunselman’s amendment deleting the runway extension project was opposed by Smith, Derezinski and Rapundalo, but still passed.

What’s the Role of the CIP?

After Kunselman’s amendment passed, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) then suggested it might be time to look at each line in the CIP one by one if they were going to pull out the airport runway extension, and moved to postpone consideration of the CIP.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) supported Higgins’ motion, saying that he had voted no on Kunselman’s amendment, not as a matter of the commitment of dollars but rather on the point of process. The CIP items, he stressed, were meant simply to put items on the radar of the council. He echoed Higgins sentiment that if the council considered one item like the airport extension, then all items should be handled in the same way. He said he felt it set a bad precedent. He felt strongly enough about it, he said, that he would contemplate not voting for the entire CIP based on that principle.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) also objected to the idea of pulling out a single line item in the CIP. He used a similar analogy to the one he had adduced in describing his colleagues’ attempts to amend a recent major rezoning initiative: It’s like pulling strings off of a tightly wound ball, with the risk that it would all unravel.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) said he appreciated his colleagues’ concerns about process. He also said that based on his experience training and flying out of the Ann Arbor municipal airport, he felt that if pilots were going off the end of the runway, that truly meant they had simply been making bad decisions. He also pointed to the fact that the council had heard from significant parts of the community that there was a concern. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) then called the question on the vote of the postponement.

Outcome: The vote on the CIP was for postponement, with dissent from Derezinksi, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), and Margie Teall (Ward 4).

Budget

The looming budget was again front and center in council business on Monday. Councilmembers received an update from Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation manager, on two city task forces.

From left: Colin Smith, the city's manager of parks and recreation, and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) chat before the start of the meeting.

And city administrator Roger Fraser gave the council an update on the upcoming process.

Mack Pool and Ann Arbor Senior Center

The council heard presentations on the city’s park advisory commission recommendation about Mack Pool and the Ann Arbor Senior Center. The recommendations have grown out of work over the last six months by two task forces, one for each facility. The task forces had been established after the facilities closure had been called for in the fiscal year 2011 budget plan. Although budget plans are not the same as the adopted budget, it establishes a probability of what will likely happen, unless some other means of cost savings can be found. Hence, the establishment of the task forces. [See Chronicle coverage from the park advisory commission: "Also, proposals for Mack Pool, senior center approved"]

Budget Process

Roger Fraser made some extended remarks on the budget process for the year. He clarified a concept that he has introduced on a few occasions before – budget preparation would proceed along two tracks. The two tracks were: (i) consideration of big ideas, and (ii) the regular budget preparation.

Regular budget preparation was typically done, Fraser said, by specifying percentage targets to hit and simply trimming to hit those targets. The basic premise for that process is that the city would continue to do the same things but with less money. Considering the fact that the July 2012 budget was expected to be 30% less than the July 2009 budget, Fraser said that the typical process of trimming a few percent would not work.

Roger Fraser, city administrator.

The question the city needed to ask itself was this: “What services can we do without?” He told the council that he believed that voters valued everything that the city did, but that it was a matter of tolerance. He then challenged the council to do their part by saying that staff had come up with an extensive list of ideas, putting everything on the table. Now, he said, “We expect you to come up with other ideas.”

Fraser said he recognized that many of the decisions would be politically difficult and at that six councilmembers were up for reelection this year. However, he warned that the city could become so thin on certain services that they simply would not be able to do them well. He said he did not think they wanted the city to be an organization that provided half-baked services. Fraser warned that even with an anticipated recovery, there would be a 2-3 year lag before property values started to bounce back.

When he solicited questions, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) raised her hand, and Fraser indicated he’d expected a question from her. She wanted to know if budget impact sheets would be available before the Feb. 8 city council meeting on the budget. Fraser said they’d try to get them prepared as soon as possible.

Present: Stephen Rapundalo, Mike Anglin, Margie Teall, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Kunselman, Marcia Higgins, John Hieftje, Christopher Taylor, Carsten Hohnke.

Next regular council meeting: Tues., Feb. 16 , 2010 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

Left to right: Brian Nord and Caleb Poirier (back to camera), who are both advocates for Camp Take Notice, a self-governed encampment of homeless people. Also Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Mayor John Hieftje. (Photo by the writer.)

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (Nov. 5, 2009): Meeting on Thursday due to the elections, instead of in its usual Monday slot, Ann Arbor’s city council moved ahead on two major initiatives that will eventually have a significant impact on Ann Arbor residents.

The council approved a memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan to move forward on joint development of the Fuller Road Station, which offers the university an alternative to construction of a parking deck on Wall Street. The first phase of the project is anticipated to be completed in mid-June 2012.

Also given a green light was a conversion to single-stream recycling – a single cart will be distributed to residents to replace the twin totes currently used for curbside pickup. The new carts will be rolled out in June 2010.

A more immediate impact will be made by a council decision to allocate a combined $159,500 to the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County and the Interfaith Hospitality Network – the funds will increase the sheltering capacity by 50 spots for individuals through the winter, starting Dec. 1, and provide housing vouchers for eight families for a year.

In other business, the council approved an agreement with Pittsfield Township and a deed restriction regarding the airport property, and approved the consolidation of the city of Ann Arbor’s master plans. In a special meeting held just before the regular meeting, the council went into closed session to review the performance of the city attorney and the city administrator. The outcome of that review was to accept the offer from both of them to maintain the same base salary they currently earn, without the one-time bonus they’ve been given the past few years.

Councilmembers also bid farewell to Leigh Greden (Ward 3), who was attending his final meeting after a narrow, 6-vote  defeat in the August Democratic primary by Stephen Kunselman. Kunselman was unopposed on the November ballot.

Support for the Homeless Shelter

The council considered a resolution that awarded a $30,500 contract with the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County and a $129,000 contract with Interfaith Hospitality Network. The money was to provide case management and staff support for 25 additional beds at the Delonis Center and 25 additional beds in the rotating shelter program, as well as housing vouchers for eight families.

The council had received a presentation on the homelessness crisis at its Oct. 19 meeting from Mary Jo Callan, who is head of the county/city community development department. She had alerted them to the likelihood that a funding request would be coming to them at a subsequent meeting. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Increased homeless sheltering effort needs volunteers"]

The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, at its Nov. 4 meeting, had authorized $20,000 to cover the “hard costs” – i.e., the actual beds – in connection with this initiative, which is seen as a short-term solution in the face of approaching winter weather.

During public commentary reserved time at the start of city council’s meeting, two people spoke in support of the funding. Brian Nord, an advocate for a self-governed homeless encampment called Camp Take Notice, expressed his support for the short-term measure to be considered by the council, but asked, “What about the long-term tomorrow?” He indicated that he’d be working to help the people out there that he knew would still be out there – in tent communities or under bridges – to find a “warm, flat place to lie down.”

Seth Best introduced himself as a former resident of the Delonis Center for part of last year. With winter approaching, he said, the funding that council was being asked to authorize was important – he’d spent last winter in the cold because there was no room for him at the Delonis Center, he said.

Council deliberations

Council deliberations began with Sandi Smith (Ward 1), who co-sponsored the resolution with her Ward 1 colleague, Sabra Briere, and Mayor John Hiefte. She clarified the dollar amount, amending the language to reflect a total appropriation from the housing fund balance of $159,500 throughout the resolution.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) said that to her, the amount seemed like a drop in the bucket. “What else are we doing?” she wanted to know. Mary Jo Callan allowed that it was a drop, but pointed out that it was one piece of the whole strategy of intervention. She said that a large part of that strategy was preventing homelessness in the first place, through the mortgage foreclosure prevention program. She also said that there was around $800,000 available through the HPRR (Homelessness Prevention & Rapid Rehousing) program, which would be used to help keep people in their homes.

Higgins pressed Callan: “What about people who are already homeless?” Higgins suggested it was time to start looking at things differently. “It’s time to start to look outside the box.”  She suggested exploring partnerships that might not be “normal partnerships.”

Hieftje reiterated some of the background for the resolution that council was considering – it’d come about from a working group that had met several times beginning in August. That group included Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Sandi Smith (Ward 1), Ellen Schulmeister (director of the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County), Susan Pollay (executive director of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority), Jennifer L. Hall (housing program coordinator in community development), Andrea Plevek (human services analyst), Deb Pippins (program administrator for the Homeless Project Outreach Team, or HPORT), and Hieftje.

Hieftje also drew the distinction between “affordable housing” (units that have low enough rents to make them accessible to low-income people) and “supportive housing” (units that come with case management services to support people who have more challenges, in addition to limited funds).

Briere observed that government is not here to solve all problems, but that it is able to focus on a crisis.  Briere’s remarks could be seen as a response to the frequent criticism that the city has yet to replace the 100 units of affordable housing that were lost when the old YMCA at Fifth and William streets was demolished.  It’s not good enough for many people, she said, that the city had maintained 219 units of affordable housing and constructed 60 additional units. But, she said, “It’s never good enough.” The council needed to find ways to diminish need, she said.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the emergency funding to increase sheltering capacity for individuals and provide housing vouchers for families.

Single-Stream Recycling

After hearing a presentation at a recent work session about single-stream recycling, the council considered a resolution that approved $3.25 million for an upgrade to the city’s material recovery facility (MRF) and  $102,950 in consulting fees for Resource Recycling Systems (RRS) to implement single-stream recycling. The program would provide residents with a single cart to replace the two totes currently used for curbside collection – one for paper goods and the other for containers. It also includes an incentive program that rewards people for putting out their recycling cart for pickup. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Work Session: Trains, Trash, and Taxes"]

Public comment on single-stream recycling

Kevin Bolon: A Ph.D student at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, Bolon spoke against the move to single-stream recycling. He reported that he’d spoken with representatives of Westland, a community where single-stream recycling had been implemented, and had not been impressed with the technical capabilities. Ultimately, they have people who do the sorting, with the aid of magnets and electrical currents, he said. He expressed concern that the quality of the recycled goods would suffer and affect the price that the MRF could get for them, citing as an example that office paper from UM could be spoiled and degraded in value.

Bolon expressed skepticism that the barrier to Ann Arborites diverting more of their waste stream away from the landfill was really the need to put their recyclables into two different containers. He questioned whether the ability to implement a reward system was dependent on a single-stream approach. He suggested that a reward system could function based on alternating weekly pickups for containers and paper.

Council deliberations on single-stream recycling

During council deliberations, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) asked the city’s solid waste coordinator, Tom McMurtrie how confident he was that recycling rates would increase in a single-stream system. McMurtie said that moving to a single-stream system would be accompanied by the ability to process more kinds of materials – almost all types of plastics, with the exception of #3 tubs. What would really boost the recycling numbers, however, was the incentive program, McMurtrie said.

Jim Frey of RRS told the council that average annual weights were now around 400 pounds per household and that in 25 other communities where systems were in place that are similar to the one Ann Arbor was seeking to implement, the per-household figure ranged between 700-1,200 pounds. Hohnke noted that Ann Arbor had a “proud tradition” of being ahead of the curve in the area of recycling, so he asked if the 25 comparable communities included any that had a long tradition of recycling like Ann Arbor. Frey’s answer: Yes. Ann Arbor’s recycling rate was great, he said, but it could be higher.

Hohnke then asked if it was possible to achieve the increased recycling rates without investing in infrastructure upgrades at the MRF: Why can’t we just mix the streams and process the material with the current MRF capabilities? Answer: The anticipated increased volume, together with the mixed stream material, would require better automated sorting equipment. Frey also noted that no other communities are trying to implement a rewards program with a two-tote system.

Hohnke then declared his support for the program, saying it was a small step forward. He contended that it would make lives easier because it wouldn’t be necessary to separate the materials at the household level.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) reported over 100 emails on the topic from constituents with only about 5 of those against it. Those opposing the initiative, she said, were concerned about the degradation of paper quality that could result in diminished sale value of the paper. McMurtrie addressed Smith’s concern by saying that technology has evolved significantly in the last 10-15 years, which allowed the achievement of a 5% residual rate.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked about a concern that #7 plastics aren’t actually worth very much, and wasn’t it better to discourage the creation of them. She wanted to know what would happen to the new kind of  plastics that would now be accepted. McMurtrie explained that it was, of course, always their wish to reduce the amount of waste, but they needed to deal with it once it’s there. Frey reported that there is an emerging market for the material and that it was actually worth more per ton than paper.

Briere asked McMurtrie to address complaints about the carts: (i) storage space is a problem, with some households now expected to make room for a garbage cart, a yard waste cart, and a recycling cart; and (ii) they’re too heavy and unwieldy for some people to manage. McMurtrie said he recognized that there could be space constraints.

Mayor John Hieftje got confirmation from McMurtrie that the blue automated carts that had been rolled out a few years ago for trash collection had, in fact, reduced costs. An apparent increase in cost was due to the increased capital expense incurred on initial investment in the program.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) asked how the proposed system would affect personnel. Answer: At the MRF, the increased volume would be handled through improvements in automated equipment, so that more material would be processed with about the same number of people. On the collection side, he said, there would be savings in the form of the elimination of one route out of seven.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) asked for clarification on the rewards program. McMurtrie compared it to a frequent-flyer program – people got points for putting out their carts and credit for the weight collected on the whole route. In other communities, the average annual reward was worth around $240, with a maximum of a little over $500.

The new carts will be available in June/July 2010. The old totes can be recycled.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the contracts necessary to implement a single-stream recycling program.

Fuller Road Station

The council considered two resolutions related to the Fuller Road Station, a project that was presented at its recent work session, and for which the council had already authorized a contract with the firm JJR for $541,717. Of that original contract, the University of Michigan’s share had been $327,733.   [Previous Chronicle coverage: "UM helps start analysis phase for Fuller Road transit station" and "Work Session: Trains, Trash, and Taxes"]. Formerly known as FITS (Fuller Intermodal Transit Station), the project has been divided into two phases.

Fuller Road Station Phase One (Image links to higher resolution .pdf file)

The first phase of the project will include a bus transit center with covered passenger boarding areas and an indoor waiting area, a parking structure for 1,020 vehicles, covered bicycle hoops and lockers. Phase One will also include on-grade parking for an additional 50 vehicles, and infrastructure to support a possible future bicycle station. If built, Phase Two would include a train station.

One council resolution added $111,228 to the professional services agreement with JJR, while the other was a memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan outlining how the partnership would work.

Some key points from that memorandum:

• The funding burden will be proportionate to the allocation of spaces: 78% for UM, 22% for the city of Ann Arbor.
• The December 20, 1999 agreement between the city and the university on the Forest and Willard parking structure, which was a joint city-university project, will be a model for the yet-to-be negotiated parking agreement for Fuller Station.
• An agreement by UM to suspend Wall Street as presently authorized and programmed is baked into the memorandum.
• Phase One is intended to be ready for use by June 15, 2012.

Public comment reserved time included a rendition by Libby Hunter of lyrics set to the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” which was critical of the Fuller Road Station as merely a UM parking structure.

Council deliberations

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) described the memorandum as the next step moving forward, specifying “who brings what to the table.” Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said she supported the shared vision of the city and the university, and was pleased by the collaboration on solutions to traffic and congestion.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) wanted clarification on how much the memorandum bound the two parties. Specifically, she wanted to know whether it was the city’s or the university’s policies that would prevail with respect to issues like the required public participation, the living wage, and the Percent for Art program. Jim Kosteva, the university’s director of community relations, was on hand to give an unambiguous answer: “This is a city project on city-owned land.”

Fuller Road Station Phase Two (Image links to higher resolution .pdf file)

Smith also reiterated a concern she’d expressed previously that the design of the Fuller Road Station be “significant.”  Her remarks connected to a sentiment expressed by Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) that the station would be a new welcome center for the city.

Mayor John Hieftje elicited from Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, a description of a “bicycle station,” which could be a part of Phase Two, if it is built. Cooper explained that such a facility would include indoor, monitored storage, lockers, and showers.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) inquired of Cooper what his confidence level was about trains ever running along that route and the construction of Phase Two. She noted that he’d been hesitant to commit at the council’s work session. Was he just being careful, or was it something else, she wondered. Cooper allowed that he preferred to be careful.

He did note, however, that SEMCOG (the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments) still planned to have demonstration east-west rail service up and running by October 2010. Cooper also said that the level of excitement and enthusiasm at the federal level when Phase I is complete would likely increase. Ann Arbor, he reminded the council, was the second-busiest Amtrak station between Chicago and Detroit (after Chicago), but he didn’t want to oversell it.

Derezinksi alluded to the fact that the Fuller Road Station is part of the Michigan Department of Transportation’s application to the U.S. Department of Transportation for establishment of a high-speed rail corridor. If the Detroit-Chicago corridor is chosen as a high-speed rail corridor, Cooper said, then there would be federal dollars available for improvements needed for the dedicated track.

Derezinski  wanted to know how the station would connect to downtown. Cooper said that in the short term, there would be AATA buses available to provide the service. In the future, the Fuller Road Station reflected a possible opportunity to connect a regional system to a high-capacity local system – in the form of the north-south connector, which is currently being studied in a four-way collaboration among the city of Ann Arbor, UM, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, and the Ann Arbor DDA.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) and Briere both expressed concern about automobile access to the station. Cooper assured Higgins that during construction and undertaking of the improvements to the Fuller-Maiden Lane intersection, traffic would continue to flow. It’s not clear that Higgins was completely convinced that access would be easy: “That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence,” she said. Cooper replied that he heard her concern “loud and clear.”

Briere’s worry was for the section of Fuller Road east of the VA hospital – it narrows from that point eastward. Cooper said that improvements at the Geddes-US-23 and Geddes-Earhardt intersections, as well as the synchronization of signals, should allow the existing system to accommodate demand.

Outcome: Both resolutions in support of the Fuller Road Station passed unanimously.

Argo Dam Attorney Fees

An item on the consent agenda authorized payment of $38,000 to pay the law firm Bodman LLP for representing the city in a contested case dispute with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. The item was separated out from the consent agenda at the request of Leigh Greden (Ward 3), on behalf of Margie Teall (Ward 4), who had not arrived to the meeting by the time the consent agenda was considered.  [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Still No Dam Decision" and "Finally a Dam Decision on Argo?"]

After brief discussion of when to slot it into the agenda so that Teall could address it when she arrived, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) suggested that the proper mechanism would be to lay the item on the table and then, at some point after Teall’s arrival, take it off the table and consider it. [Editorial note: From a parliamentary point of view, this is a classic application of a tabling motion – unlike the arguably inappropriate application of such a motion at the council's previous meeting. At that meeting, the motion to table the resolution to repair the Argo Dam toe drains stemmed not from a desire to deal with other matters first, but rather from a desire to avoid voting on the resolution.]

Later in the meeting after Teall arrived, she got clarification that the money for the attorney fees would be paid out of the fund that pays for maintenance and operation of the city’s dams – the water fund. Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) asked where the money in the fund came from. City administrator Roger Fraser explained that it came from the sale of water – that is, from residents’ water bills.

Fraser indicated that while there’d been discussion of putting the maintenance and operation of Geddes and Argo dams into the parks and recreation budget instead of the water fund, at this time it was the water fund that currently supported those dams. The maintenance and operation of those dams is built into the fee structure for water, he said. In response to a question from Higgins, he allowed that changing the funding to the parks and recreation budget should have an effect – how much was hard to say – on calculating the water rate structure.

Outcome: The resolution to spend $38,000 on legal fees related to the city’s dispute with the MDEQ over Argo Dam was unanimously approved.

Airport Wells and Layout Agreement

Also related to the city’s water system were two of three resolutions related to the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport. They related to the need to construct a new raw water transmission main from wells located on the airport property. One resolution authorized the contract for the existing water main’s repair – it was described as in danger of imminent failure. That contract was worth $1,087,393. The other resolution authorized deed restrictions required by the Federal Aviation Administration in connection with the work.

City administrator Roger Fraser explained that the wells were used for temperature modulation of the city’s main water source, which is the Huron River. The chemical processes work best within a specific temperature range, so the well water is used to raise the river water temperature in the winter and cool it during the summer to get the city’s drinking water to within the optimum range.

The third airport-related resolution approved an agreement with Pittsfield Township that resolved a years-long legal dispute over the application and enforcement of building codes and zoning ordinances on the property. The measure had appeared on the agenda earlier in the year, but was pulled without council consideration.

The earlier version of the agreement had been controversial, because of a clause governing notification of the township of pending airport activity. According to Kathe Wunderlich, who works with the Committee for Preserving Community Quality, the CPCQ had signed off on the final wording before the council on Thursday night:

4. If a modification of the Airport Layout Plan is proposed, Ann Arbor will give notice to Pittsfield’s Building Official or such other person as Pittsfield designates in writing, of the intent to modify the Airport Layout Plan at least 30 days before authorizing a professional services agreement for the modification. At least 30 days before submitting a modification of the Airport Layout Plan for approval by the Michigan Aeronautics Commission or the Federal Aviation Administration, Ann Arbor will provide Pittsfield’s Building Official with copies of the documents to be submitted to those bodies. After approval of a modified Airport Layout Plan by the Michigan Aeronautics Commission or the Federal Aviation Administration, Ann Arbor will provide Pittsfield’s Building Official with a copy of the proposed modification at least 30 days before the Ann Arbor City Council meeting at which it is to be submitted for approval.

In council deliberations, Leigh Greden (Ward 3) gave credit to Pittsfield Township supervisor Mandy Grewal and to Sue McCormick on the city’s side for getting some resolution to the dispute – McCormick is the city’s director of public services.

Outcome: All three resolutions related to the airport were unanimously approved by the council.

Planning: Master Plan Consolidation and CVS

The council considered a resolution that consolidated the city’s master planning documents into a single document. The consolidation was not meant to change the substance of any of the documents, with those kinds of changes intended for a subsequent phase of the process.

Former planning commissioner Ethel Potts expressed concerns during the public hearing on the matter, saying that some of the changes were in fact substantive. She challenged councilmembers to take one of the area plans and identify those elements they thought were most important and then to try to find those elements in the consolidated version.

Also during the public hearing, Karen Sidney expressed the concern that consolidation and simplification might become a one-size-fits-all strategy. What makes Ann Arbor strong, Sidney said, was the diversity of housing options.

During his turn at the public hearing, Thomas Partridge said that the city council should turn back  approval of the consolidation for the same reason that President Obama would have turned back a similar proposal back when he got his start as a political organizer in the disadvantaged areas of Chicago.

During council deliberations, city planner Jeff Kahan said that the integrity of the various area plans had been respected, with particular attention paid to the central area plan. He reported that Ray Detter, of the Downtown Area Citizens Advisory Council, had agreed that the consolidated document didn’t step on the toes of either the downtown plan or the central area plan.

An additional, but separate planning-related resolution considered by the council was the approval of the site plan for the new CVS pharmacy on State Street. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) said she was pleased that the historical front of the building would be preserved. She said that the need for a downtown pharmacy was tremendous.

Outcome: The consolidation of the city’s master plans and the CVS site plan were unanimously approved by the council.

Attorney and Administrator Performance Review

The city council held a special meeting an hour before its regular meeting started in order to undertake a performance review of the city attorney, Stephen Postema, and the city administrator, Roger Fraser. The Open Meetings Act has a provision that can allow for that review to take place in a closed session. And in fact, the council undertook that review in a closed session – one at which Postema was told by Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) that they’d conduct without him to start.

While the council was in closed session discussing his performance review, city administrator Roger Fraser signed some forms for students in a government class to attest they'd been there. (Photo by the writer.)

The council went into another closed session towards the end of its regular meeting – this time to “discuss pending litigation and attorney/client privileged communication and/or land acquisition.” discuss the performance evaluations of the city attorney and the city administrator. After returning to open session, Leigh Greden (Ward 3) then introduced two resolutions from the floor, to approve the employment contract for Postema and Fraser, respectively.

According to Greden, both Postema and Fraser had volunteered to accept no increase in base salary and no one-time cash payment as they’ve been given in previous years when there’d been no increase in their base salary. The only revision to their contracts was a clause that allowed them to cash out an additional 120 hours of accumulated paid time off before June 30, 2010.

Last year, Fraser earned $145,354 and Postema made $142,000. They received lump-sum payments of $3,640 and $3,900, respectively.

In describing their compensation, Greden said that they hadn’t received an increase in four years. The city administrator made less that the superintendent of the Ann Arbor Public Schools, the CEO of the AATA, and the county administrator, Greden said. The city attorney, Greden contended, could make 2-3 times his salary as city attorney working in the private sector.

Greden’s Final Meeting

Having been defeated in the August Democratic primary by Stephen Kunselman, Leigh Greden attended his final city council meeting on Thursday – for at least another year, barring unforeseen circumstances – as a Ward 3 representative.

Leigh Greden (Ward 3) delivered farewell remarks at Thursday's council meeting. (Photo by the writer.)

Towards the end of the meeting, his council colleagues took turns summarizing his service to the city – a common theme was the hard work and energy he brought to the position. Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) got a laugh out of Greden when he suggested that he figured he’d be seeing Greden around – in coffehouses and in church. Christopher Taylor, Greden’s Ward 3 colleague – who earned a seat at the council table by defeating Kunselman in the August 2008 Democratic primary – said that Greden had not shirked his duties to council after losing the primary, but rather had “sprinted to the finish and accelerated through the tape.”

Margie Teall (Ward 4) fought back tears in saying farewell to Greden: “You are smart, and smart enough to get us all in trouble.”

Neither Mike Anglin (Ward 5) nor Sabra Briere (Ward 1) made remarks during the round of farewells.

In giving his own farewell, Greden began by allowing that it had come too late, but that he owed an apology for the emails he’d sent during Ann Arbor city council meetings. “I owe you each an apology,” he said, continuing, “I owe a particular apology to Mike Anglin and Sabra Briere.” [Among the emails sent by several members of the council during city council meetings, some of Greden's were particularly disparaging of Anglin and Briere. See Chronicle column: "Email and Open Meetings"]

Greden thus became the first councilmember to give an apology in council chambers during a council meeting for emails sent during previous meetings. The city council emails are still the subject of pending litigation that alleges some of the exchanges violated the Open Meetings Act.

Stephen Kunselman will be formally installed as a councilmember at the council’s next meeting on Nov. 16, along with Anglin (Ward 5), Higgins (Ward 4), Rapundalo (Ward 2), and Briere (Ward 1). But he will likely appear in a council seat at a work session scheduled for Monday, Nov. 9 – the Ann Arbor city charter specifies that “Such term shall commence on the Monday next following the regular city election at which such officers are elected.”

Communications from Council

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) announced that the Malletts Creek coordinating committee had made a recommendation to increase stormwater control when adding more than 200 square feet to a building. There would be a public meeting to present and discuss a proposal to amend the city’s stormwater ordinance, Hohnke said. The meeting will take place Thursday, Nov. 19, from 7-9 p.m in council chambers.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) announced that a planting of 52 trees would take place at Virginia Park on the morning of Saturday, Nov. 7 at 9:15 a.m.  More information is online at the Ann Arbor Tree Conservancy.

Public Comment

Several speakers address the council on a range of topics. Among those not mentioned already in the report:

City Priorities: Global Warming

Kermit Schlansker began by saying that the city’s first job is to fight global warming and that three minutes was too short a time to describe everything the city needed to do. Yet he ticked through several suggestions, including the planting of 100,000 trees. He specifically suggested planting fruit and nut trees in parks – smaller, cheaper trees.

Pedestrian Safety

Kathy Griswold addressed the council during public commentary reserved time and again at the conclusion of the council’s meeting, when speakers can address the council without reserving time. She expressed disappointment that the council had undertaken no action during their meeting, which she’d asked for at the start of the meeting [as well as at several previous council meetings and caucuses.] The matter of concern to Griswold is a mid-block crosswalk across from King Elementary School that she contends should be moved from mid-block to the street intersection.

Affordable Housing and Economic Stimulus

Thomas Partridge called on the council to use all available funding to stimulate the economy of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, and the entire region. He contended that funds should be spent not on buying land for the greenbelt but rather on people’s needs, like affordable housing in the city.

Library Lot

Alan Haber delivered remarks to the council that were similar to those he’d made the previous day at the meeting of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. He was speaking for the Ann Arbor Committee for the Commons, which was advocating for the space above the proposed underground parking structure to become open space, a focal point for community gathering. Haber invited anyone interested to come to a meeting at 310 S. Ashley starting at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8.

Palestine

Henry Herskovitz alluded to his remarks at the previous city council meeting in October, when he’d suggested that there was a fundamental difference between the U.S. and its ally Israel, and that this difference was rooted in the separation of church and state. The U.S. honored that separation, but Israel did not, he had said. He reported that his characterization of a fundamental difference between the U.S. and Israel had been met with the criticism that the two nations were not really all that different when considered in the context of the U.S. “ethnic cleansing” of native Americans. In response, Herskovitz said that he and others had come up with several reasons why this context did not warrant drawing a parallel between the two countries. Among them, he said, was the fact that Israel’s creation came after the U.N. declaration that no land should be taken from indigenous people. Another of the several reasons, he said, was that the U.S. Constitution provided justice for all, with no special privileges for any one particular ethnic group.

Ann Arbor Housing

Based on his remarks, Sacha Platt lives in an Avalon Housing unit. He said that he’d had his life threatened several times over the last three years by another tenant. He reported that a fellow tenant had called the police 32 times with a complain about noise, that this had resulted in a criminal conviction, and that this had wrecked his plans to attend law school. He had asked for mediation, but had not received any satisfaction.

Stadium Bridges

Arnold Goetzke spoke to the council, criticizing their failure to consider an at-grade crossing for the intersection between Stadium Boulevard and State Street, instead of replacing the bridges there. He told them he’d been to Lansing that day for the hearing by the Local Bridge Advisory Board, where Ann Arbor had been awarded no money for the Stadium bridges replacement. [See Chronicle coverage: "State Board: No Funding for Stadium Bridges"]

Present: Mike Anglin, Sabra Briere, Tony Derezinski, Leigh Greden, John Hieftje, Marcia Higgins, Carsten Hohnke, Stephen Rapundalo, Sandi Smith, Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall. [Teall and Derezinski arrived somewhat late and were not there for the initial roll call of council.]

Next council meeting: Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

Transportation: Connector Study

Before council was a study for a proposed north-south connector along the Plymouth Road and State Street corridors. Four different entities are partnering on the feasibility study: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, and the city of Ann Arbor. The study proposal has been in the works since at least the fall of 2008. Discussion over the months among the various partners has centered around total cost and the share to be paid by each partner.

The initial proposal, based on a cost estimate by city staff of $250,000, had the AATA paying $100,000 and the other three partners equal $50,000 shares.When the $250,000 estimate proved dramatically low upon sending the proposal out to bid, a revised proposal with a total cost of $640,000 called for the four partners to share equally in $160,000 shares. The DDA’s discussions of the issue reflected the view that the DDA, the city of Ann Arbor and the AATA were essentially all the same source – Ann Arbor taxpayers – so should not be considered separate partners in the financial equation. Further, the primary beneficiary was seen to be UM, for connecting its north campus area with its central campus.

The proposal before council on Monday night specified the following financial arrangement: city of Ann Arbor, $80,000; AATA, $320,000; UM, $160,000; DDA, $80,000.

At council’s Monday meeting, Sandi Smith (Ward 1), who also serves on the DDA board, suggested a postponement until the DDA had a chance to vote on the new proposal.

Outcome: Postponed.

Transportation: Plan Update

Before council was a resolution to adopt the city’s transportation plan update.

Jim Mogensen: At the public hearing on the transportation plan update, Mogensen noted that he was the only member to weigh in at the planning commission’s public hearing on the transportation plan update. He said that wasn’t too surprising, but also said that transportation is a big issue in Ann Arbor. Every controversy in Ann Arbor has something to do with the word “park,” he said: parking structure, parking meters, Parke-Davis. [Parke-Davis was acquired by Warner-Lambert in 1970, which in turn was bought by Pfizer in 2000.] Mogensen said that the transportation plan update was basically saying that the population in Ann Arbor wasn’t going to increase, but there were a number of employment generators which were going to need ways to bring workers into the city. The plan talks about connectors from Canton, and Chelsea and Ypsilanti Township. Somebody has to pay for it, he said. As an example, he asked council to look at their DS-7 agenda item, which had to do with the funding strategy for a north-south connector study. He noted that the University of Michigan is among the entities involved [UM, AATA, DDA, city of Ann Arbor], adding that UM doesn’t “contribute,” but rather “invests in an outcome.” He pointed out that when UM invested in the M-Ride program [sponsoring fares for UM affiliates so that they board buses simply by displaying their M-Cards] it became harder and harder for other people to use the bus. For the route that he uses along Plymouth, Mogensen said, he can’t use the bus unless he modifies his travel schedule around the heavier commuting times. The people who are going to pay for the enhanced transit, he said, would not be the people in the townships or the outlying areas, but rather the taxpayers in the urban areas.

Thomas Partridge: Partridge said he supported the city’s planning for integrated county regional transportation plan, providing connectors to townships within the county and throughout the region. He noted, however, that despite the fact that transportation planning has been going on for decades, there’s been a dearth of issues on the ballot. No amount of money will create a system, he said, unless there’s a coordinated region-wide plan. To do that, he said, we needed an elected transportation authority, not an appointed one. [The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board is appointed by the mayor of the city of Ann Arbor.]

LuAnne Bullington: She identified herself as a Ward 3 resident and a member of the local advisory committee of the AATA. Bullington spoke to the issue of gaps in the sidewalk system. Ann Arbor has great bike paths, she said, but where we’re falling down is in sidewalk gaps. Where Ferdon crosses into Burns Park, she said there are whole blocks without a sidewalk. Students at Pattengill Elementary School and Tappen Middle School can’t walk to school, she said, even though they’re in the heart of the city. She said she would like to see part of the plan update include a non-motorized plan. She noted that it’s not easy for a wheelchair to cross a grassy stretch where there’s no sidewalks. She suggested that when Stephen Rapundalo’s (Ward 2) basement flooded, the city installed sump pumps for people, and that we might take a similar approach to sidewalks.

Council Deliberations on the Transportation Plan Update: Council deliberations centered around the revisions suggested by planning commission and the comments on the plan by the city’s environmental commission. The planning commission’s recommendation, which included their amendments, was attached to the council agenda. The environmental commission’s report, however, was not. Councilmember Margie Teall indicated that the environmental commission’s commentary should have been included as an H-Item (in the city clerk’s report of communications) so she had emailed it to councilmembers.

[Editorial Aside: There's no internet access provided to the public in council chambers. Access to the internet in chambers can be achieved by using a wireless card (a USB device that affords access via a cell phone carrier like AT&T or Verizon). There's a single power outlet for any members of the media or public who'd like to use a laptop computer to document or follow council proceedings. The result is that access to the environmental commission's commentary, which council had before it and was discussing, was not easily accessible to members of the public and the media who attended the meeting.]

The planning commission’s commentary is here. The environmental commission’s commentary is here. At issue was whether the environmental commission’s commentary was reflected in the plan and what the implications were for sending the transportation plan update back to planning commission for incorporation of those comments.

There was a fair amount of discussion about possibly postponing the adoption of the plan, which ultimately did not lead to postponement.

Salient in transportation program manager Eli Cooper’s description of the transportation plan was the process by which SEMCOG – the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments – dis-aggregates regional estimates of growth in jobs and population. The initial estimates by SEMCOG showed little growth in jobs or population for the Ann Arbor area. Local municipalities have the opportunity to “appeal” SEMCOG’s analysis, which the city of Ann Arbor did. The successful case was made to SEMCOG that health care and higher education would be tremendous growth areas in the economy, areas that would have an impact on Ann Arbor jobs (through the University of Michigan). As a consequence, the SEMCOG projections from 2005 to 2035 show job growth of 18,000. Cooper said that a corresponding case made to SEMCOG for population growth was not successful.

Outcome: The transportation plan was adopted unanimously.

Transportation: East Stadium Bridge

Arnold Goetzke: Speaking during public commentary, Goetzke said that after he’d left the previous council meeting at which he spoke on the East Stadium bridge, he’d been provided with a study talking about why the bridge was needed and analyzing the no-bridge option. He said that the hypothetical costs for the no-bridge option were questionable. As one example, he cited $7.4 million of present net worth for adding a stoplight at Stadium Boulevard [calculated over the 75-year study period based on accidents at a signalized intersection]. He noted that there were potentially stoplights that could eliminated: Stimpson & State; Industrial & Stimpson; Stadium & Industrial. A fourth stoplight, at Granger & Packard, also had some potential to be eliminated if an at-grade crossing were established at Stadium & State, where there’s now a bridge. He concluded that the study had done a good job focusing on the negative. Another example he cited was the $14.8 million cost because of the extra fuel consumption while vehicles idled at the State & Stadium intersection. Motorists cut through the Burns Park area at Golden and Park, where there are two one-way streets, he said, which could be eliminated. There would be gas savings, he said, by not having to take a left onto Stimpson, and a left onto Industrial, and a left onto Stadium, when motorists get onto Stadium Boulevard from State Street. Goetzke mentioned a website he would be creating to lay out further details of the problems with the study and its conclusion against a no-bridge option.

Before council was a resolution to approve submission of an application under the State of Michigan Local Bridge Program. City engineer Michael Nearing was on hand Monday night to provide an update on the status of the bridge, which continues to be monitored. While the bridge has stabilized, he said, its poor condition [2 on a 100-point scale] could mean that it could require closure with very little notice.  The city is developing traffic rerouting plans for that eventuality, which will also have to be put into place when reconstruction begins.

Outcome: The resolution to ask for funding was approved.

Transportation and Planning: Airport Runway

Andrew McGill: Speaking during public commentary reserved time, McGill said he was there to ensure that council did not make a misinformed vote to extend the primary runway at the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport. He was there, he said, representing several hundred well-organized citizens who were concerned about the safety of such an extension. McGill stated that he loved the airport and, in fact, learned to fly there. He said he did not believe that council said to themselves before the meeting, “How can I make some lousy decisions tonight.” [Later during council communications, Leigh Greden (Ward 3) would clarify that there would be no vote on the airport that night or anytime soon.] In that light, McGill said that he and his colleagues would begin appearing to make clear how council had been mislead by airport authorities. Based on material they’d obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, he continued, council would become conviced that the current proposal to extend the runway is dangerous, deficient and would have “precarious budgetary implications” because of the airport’s declining use. The environmental assessment began today [May 4, 2009], he said, and after the current budgetary issues are resolved they’d be hapy to meet with council. He noted that similar proposals have been rejected on four attempts over the last 30 years. Free federal dollars today, he warned, carried with them the unspoken pricetag of committment to operate the airport for 20 years, regardless of its worth.

Planning: R4C Moratorium

Tom Whitaker: Speaking during public commentary reserved time, Whitaker introduced himself as the president of Germantown Neighborhood Association. He began by stating: “Ann Arbor’s zoning ordinance is a mess.” He identified R4C districts as a particular concern. He described his role and that of other members of the association as “citizen zoning administrators,” who had identified places in the ordinance where developers had exploited the code. There are missing definitions for “dormer,” “roof,” “kitchen” and “common facilities.” He also called attention to definitions that exist but contradict each other. As an example, he gave “required setback” versus “required open space.” He concluded by calling for a moratorium on construction in R4C zoning districts until the problems with the zoning ordinance could be addressed.

[Subsequent to Monday's council meeting, Whitaker has circulated an email identifying a missed point in the due process for the site plan review of a recent project brought "by right" under R4C zoning recommended by planning commission: City Place. The requirement identified by Whitaker that was missed involves the necessity of providing site plans in a location at city hall that is accessible to the public 24/7 for a full week in advance of a plan's review by planning commission or council. In the current configuration of the Larcom Building – changed due to construction – the table with the drawings for site plans is located just to the left of the Ann Street entrance.]

Thomas Partridge: Speaking during public commentary reserved time, Partridge introduced himself as a Democrat of Scio Township and member of the local advisory committee to the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. He addressed council on the subject on the need for a master plan for Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County to end discrimination in the area of housing, healthcare, transportation, and education. He contended there isn’t affordable public or private transportation, housing, healthcare, or education in the city or the region. Even though the county is blessed with two of the most prominent, prestigious universities in the state [University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University], he said that the region was behind the times in requesting funding to provide for tuition and living expenses on campus. He called on the council to carry out the Michigan Promise for an undergraduate or graduate degree or a profession degree for anyone who was willing to work for it. He called on council to move from the status quo to work on progressive reforms.

Resolution: New Liquor Code

For several months now, on most occasions when a liquor license award or transfer has come before council, Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) has indicated that a complete overhaul of the city’s liquor code would be forthcoming. On Monday night it came forth.

The idea is to repeal the entire old chapter on liquor in the city code and replace it with a new one. Rapundalo described the key elements of the new code as providing for an annual review process, clarifying standards for application, and giving the liquor committee greater ability to track on- and off-premises violations.

Outcome: The new code passed unanimously on its first reading. All ordinance changes require two readings before council.

Present: Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Rapundalo, Leigh Greden, Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall, Marcia Higgins, Carsten Hohnke, Mike Anglin, John Hieftje

Next Council Meeting: Monday, May 18, 2009 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]