Former Washtenaw County administrator Bob Guenzel and Ann Arbor city councilmember Sabra Briere (Ward 1) were among five panelists at a Feb. 27 forum on privatization. The event was organized by the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor area and held at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library. (Photos by the writer.)

The membership of the national League of Women Voters is studying the issue of privatization, with the eventual goal of developing a position statement, based in part on feedback from local leagues. Susan Greenberg, who moderated the Feb. 27 panel in Ann Arbor, said they’ll be looking at the factors that governments use to determine which services are privatized, the policy issues that are considered, how privatization impacts a community, and what strategies are used to ensure transparency and accountability.

Panelists all had experience in public sector leadership: Lois Richardson, Ypsilanti city councilmember and mayor pro tem; Bob Guenzel, former Washtenaw County administrator; Sabra Briere, Ann Arbor city councilmember; Andy Fanta, Ypsilanti public schools board member; and Susan Baskett, Ann Arbor public schools board member.

Panelists gave examples of how privatization is being used locally – such as curbside recycling in Ann Arbor and garbage pick-up in Ypsilanti – but generally expressed caution about the practice. Fanta was less circumspect, describing privatization as capitalism eating its entrails. [All of the four elected officials are Democrats.]

The forum also included time for questions from the audience. Topics ranged from the impact of Proposal A – which shifted control of funding for K-12 schools from local communities to the state – to comments about national funding priorities.

The event was co-sponsored by the Ann Arbor alumnae chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, and held at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library. A videotape of the panel will be posted on the AADL website.

City of Ypsilanti: Lois Richardson

Lois Richardson, Ypsilanti’s mayor pro tem and a city councilmember representing Ward 1, began by saying that she’d asked to speak first so that she could give some background on the issue. Several years ago, she said, Michigan’s state and local governments started struggling with the public’s demand for better services. At the same time, governments faced diminished financial resources. One response was to privatize certain government functions, she said, by transferring services to the private sector.

Richardson then described four types of privatization: outsourcing, asset sale, commercialization, and vouchers.

Lois Richardson, Ypsilanti mayor pro tem and city councilmember representing Ward 1.

With outsourcing, Richardson said, the government remains fully responsible and maintains control over management decisions, but a non-governmental entity carries out the work. This is something the city of Ypsilanti has used, she said – specifically, the city outsources its garbage pickup. City officials feel this is done in a way that doesn’t hurt the department of public services, she said.

For an asset sale, the government relinquishes that asset when it’s sold to a private entity, Richardson said, so there’s no longer any control over that asset. Commercialization occurs when the government simply stops offering a service, and citizens must turn to the private sector instead.

Vouchers are government subsidies that can be used to purchase services in the private or public sector, Richardson said. Most commonly this is seen with school vouchers, which can be used with charter schools – Richardson said she’s not a big proponent of that approach.

Richardson said she’s also not a supporter of privatization in general. Outsourcing garbage pick-up has worked well for Ypsilanti, she said, but the city still has a functioning department of public services, too. One reason she generally doesn’t support privatization is that it takes jobs away from the city and the community. When a service is privatized, employees can live anywhere, she said. However, most of the employees that are contracted to do Ypsilanti’s garbage pick-up live within the county, she said, so that’s working well. It saves the city money and the service is good, she said.

Asset sales – like those that are happening in the city of Pontiac, which is selling off property – destroy a community, Richardson said. For her, community is important. She also didn’t support commercialization of services. There are certain things that the government has a responsibility to provide, she said.

The state of Michigan has engaged in several privatization efforts over the years, Richardson said. In 1992, Gov. John Engler created the Michigan Public-Private Partnership Commission, to analyze whether competition from the private sector could result in state services being handled more efficiently. Richardson said it’s still a question for her as to whether a private company can do the work as well as the government for a reasonable amount.

Washtenaw County: Bob Guenzel

Bob Guenzel told the audience he’d worked with Washtenaw County for 37 years – 22 years as an attorney, and 15 years as county administrator before retiring in May of 2010. He said he knows the county well, and has dealt with contracting. His perspective will be different from the other panelists, he said, because he’s not an elected official, and he’s the only one who’s been an administrator.

Guenzel said he’s among those who believe in the nobility of public service, and that public entities can best provide certain services. For him, it’s also a matter of community. In most cases, he wouldn’t favor outsourcing, and he thinks his successor as county administrator, Verna McDaniel, feels the same way. Privatization feels like failure.

Erane Washington, a candidate for on the 22nd circuit court, talks with former Washtenaw County administrator Bob Guenzel after the Feb. 27 privatization forum.

Having said that, Guenzel said, there’s an obligation to examine different methods of providing services, to determine whether the government is doing it in the most effective and efficient way. That’s especially important for human services, he added, because every dollar that you don’t spend on overhead is a dollar you can spend on services – in some cases, saving someone’s life. There’s also been added urgency starting in 2008, Guenzel said, when the economic crisis really hit. Washtenaw County is better off than other areas, he said, but it was still affected.

Guenzel outlined several factors to consider for deciding whether to privatize. The first is accountability. A public body can’t give up accountability, he said, even if the services are contracted out. For Washtenaw County, about 80% of the services it provides are mandated, Guenzel noted.

Another issue relates to labor and keeping jobs. Michigan is a strong labor union state, and most union contracts require that if a unit of government decides to contract out work, that action can’t result in layoffs for government employees. There are ways around that, Guenzel said, but obviously it’s a strong restriction. Labor unions are strong and have political clout, he noted. Many governments also have living wage requirements, which is a factor in contracting out services, he said.

Washtenaw County government has contracted out certain services for so many years that they “don’t think twice about it,” Guenzel continued. He cited the example of contracting with local nonprofits to provide human services, like help for people with substance abuse or mental health problems. The county also contracts out for janitorial, towing and ambulance services, he said. These are all well-accepted now. Legal counsel is another service that the county contracts out, he noted – before he was hired as a full-time employee, he had worked on a contract basis for the county, doing legal work. The idea is that in some cases, you’ll need advice only on occasion, he said.

But most legal services are best kept in-house because they are mandated, Guenzel said. He pointed to the public defender’s office, led by Lloyd Powell, which Guenzel described as one of the finest in Michigan. For years, some people have argued that those legal services should be provided on a contract basis, he said. But the county leadership felt it was important that the role of public defender be performed in a professional manner, and not by contracted attorneys who would just try to dispatch the cases as quickly as possible. There are many issues that weigh into the policy decision about contracting out services, he said.

The idea of sharing services among government entities is becoming more attractive, Guenzel said, and that’s where he thinks government leaders should be focusing. He gave the examples of the county partnering with the city of Ann Arbor for joint police dispatch services and a combined office of community and economic development.

Opportunities are out there, Guenzel said, and as a public servant, you can’t be blind to alternative ways of providing service. But overall, he said, his preference is for keeping services in-house.

City of Ann Arbor: Sabra Briere

Sabra Briere began by noting that while she hasn’t been in public view for 30-plus years like Bob Guenzel, she has lived in this community longer than that. She now serves on the Ann Arbor city council, as a representative for Ward 1. Briere said when she asked city staff about the issue of privatization, she received a bit of a blank look, because the city doesn’t do much of it. She discussed with staff whether contracts were considered privatization. The city does contract out for janitorial work, she noted, but the biggest area of privatization relates to solid waste services.

Ann Arbor city councilmember Sabra Briere, left, checks her messages prior to the start of the Feb. 27 privatization forum. Seated next to her are former Washtenaw County administrator Bob Guenzel (center) and Andy Fanta, a local attorney and Ypsilanti public schools board member.

In 1991, Briere said, the city awarded its first private contract for recycling to Recycle Ann Arbor (RAA), which had been providing curbside pickup to a portion of the city since 1978. Periodically the city has issued a request for proposals (RFP) to solicit other bids, but the city has always decided to award the contract to RAA.

The next contract related to solid waste was for building the city’s materials recovery facility (MRF). Normally, Briere said, this type of project would have been handled in-house, but the city staff didn’t have the expertise to do it.

Then in 2010, the city contracted with a company to run Ann Arbor’s compost facility, which has previously been managed by the city. This was the first time that Briere, who was first elected in 2007, voted on a contracting item.

Briere offered examples of ways the staff had not managed the compost facility well. The contract displaced three city workers, but they didn’t lose their jobs – they were given other jobs within the city. Briere noted that this contract isn’t saving the city a lot of money, because the company – WeCare Organics – is being held to the city’s own employment standards. She also noted that Ann Arbor has a living wage ordinance that contractors must abide by.

Briere said it seems to her that the city doesn’t have clear policies about privatization. There are master plans that recommend looking into it, and city staff will put out RFPs to compare costs of a private sector provider with what it costs the city to do internally. Twice the city has put out an RFP for trash pickup, and twice they’ve decided that the city can still do a better job less expensively, she said. The city also continues to pick up compost, though they’ve hired a company to manage the compost facility.

Briere said she has a soft spot for Recycle Ann Arbor, but the city awards its contract to RAA because it’s the best bid. There’s now more competition for that bid, she noted, but that’s why the contract is for a long period – 15 years – so that RAA doesn’t have to worry about making investments in its services, only to have the contract withdrawn after a short time.

In addressing the issue of privatization’s impact on the community, Briere observed that Ann Arbor isn’t an inexpensive place to live. Far too few of the city’s employees can actually live within the city, she said. But residents want to be able to know that if there’s a problem getting their garbage picked up, for example, they’ll be able to complain and get a response. Briere said her experience with contractors has been that when they hear about a problem, they fix it right away.

Ypsilanti Public Schools: Andy Fanta

Andy Fanta, a board member for the Ypsilanti public school district, told the audience that he’d like to frame the issue in a different way. Briere had mentioned that privatization can save money. It reminded him of an Oliver Wendell Holmes quote, Fanta said: “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”

Fanta described how he’d become politically aware when he was in third grade, and had been sent to the principal’s office for some “gross class disturbance.” When the principal had told him to hold out his knuckles to be hit with a ruler, and said it would hurt him more than it would hurt Fanta, Fanta replied, “Then let me hit your knuckles!” This resulted in a call to Fanta’s mother, he recalled, but it taught him that there was a political world out there.

He grew up in Ohio and moved to Ann Arbor in 1970, then moved to Ypsilanti in 1993.

Andy Fanta, a local attorney and board member of the Ypsilanti public school district.

Fanta expects privatization to increase in velocity and expand in focus. He advocated for moving the word back into the political realm, and described it as capitalism eating its entrails. He said he’s not paranoid, but privatization is leading our country to a world that “I’m not sure I want to live in.” That’s because privatization erodes community, and community comes first for him, even before family. If that weren’t the case, he and his family would be living in a shack on the prairie, he quipped.

It doesn’t take much to imagine Google taking over the digitization of court records, he said, removing the government employees who are accountable for that job now. Those records might be stored in Bombay – would they be as accessible as they are now, if handled by a private firm?

Fanta again said he sees privatization as a political issue. Saying he’d be the last person to offer advice about what to do politically, he suggested seeking counsel from someone like Congressman John Lewis, who could share experiences from the civil rights era.

Our government is being hollowed out from the inside, Fanta said. Who could have imagined if this meeting had been held 20 years ago, and someone suggested that the U.S. government could outsource the feeding, clothing and transport of our armed forces to a private corporation? There would likely have been skepticism that it could happen, he said, yet these and other services are now privatized. Fanta said he wasn’t sure any money was actually saved.

Ypsilanti schools are struggling, Fanta said. But the question is how to politicize the citizens of Michigan to say that it’s a good thing to adequately fund public education? It goes back to a community’s core values, he said. There’s a lot to be proud of in this county, but with the recent unprecedented number of retirements, a lot has changed. In the courthouse, Fanta said, he used to be able to file a case quickly – in five minutes, including three minutes to chat with the staff about their families. Now, it takes him 20 minutes and instead of dealing with one person, the staff are like interchangeable parts, he said.

These issues need to be discussed in a holistic way, Fanta concluded. For him, the discussion needs to move back to the political realm.

Ann Arbor Public Schools: Susan Baskett

Susan Baskett, who was first elected to the Ann Arbor Public Schools board of education in 2003, began by saying she wanted to keep her personal politics out of the discussion. Everyone is challenged economically, and they don’t make decisions about privatization lightly, she said. It’s just one of many ways to decrease labor and program costs. A major expense relates to retirement funds, she noted, adding that the local districts don’t have control over that, except for paying the bills.

From left: Susan Baskett, Ann Arbor Public Schools board member; and Lois Richardson, Ypsilanti city councilmember and mayor pro-tem.

The challenge for AAPS is that the district is facing a $14 million deficit, Baskett said, even after several years of cutting millions of dollars out of the district’s operating budget. Funding has declined while costs have increased.

Baskett ticked through several different definitions of privatization, and looked at those definitions in terms of the impact on school employees. One definition is to change from governmental or public ownership to a private enterprise, she said. This usually means that government employees would be replaced by workers in the private sector.

Another type of privatization is outsourcing or contract services, Baskett said. AAPS typically retains control or responsibility for the services in this case, she said, and there’s less of an impact on employees.

AAPS also hires private contractors to design and build or renovate facilities, Baskett said. This occurs when the staff doesn’t have the expertise to do this work, she said, though district employees do provide project oversight. Finally, she noted that partnerships are another way to provide programs or services, with both parties typically assuming some kind of shared responsibility.

Baskett then listed eight specific examples of how AAPS has used these approaches:

• Substitute custodians: AAPS contracts with DLS Services, which provides substitute custodians when full-time custodians – who are district employees – aren’t available. An eight-year contract with DLS expired in June of 2011 but was not renewed, she said. The firm paid its custodians $9.06 an hour, without benefits – Baskett noted that this is far less than the city of Ann Arbor’s living wage of $13.19-per-hour (without benefits).
• School improvements: In 2004, Ann Arbor voters approved a $255 million bond and sinking fund to use for school improvements, including the construction of Skyline High School. The district has contracted with multiple companies for these services, Baskett said. The largest two firms have been Granger and Barton Malow.
• Substitute teachers: Professional Educational Services Group is a firm that manages substitute teachers and other substitute positions for many schools in this area, including AAPS. The Ann Arbor district began using this service in 2007, Baskett said.
• Food service: In 2007, AAPS outsourced its food service to Chartwells, and the private company now handles all food service in the district. She said that in exchange for its contract, Chartwells pays the district a “sizeable” amount each year. [The board discussed its most recent contract renewal with Chartwells at its June 8, 2011 meeting.]
• Transportation services: Busing and other transportation services are being handled by the Washtenaw Intermediate School District for Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Willow Run. This consolidation began in 2010, she said, and was seen as a way to prevent bus drivers from losing their retirement benefits – as WISD employees they would keep their state pension, Baskett explained. But there’s been high turnover, so she doubted that the strategy had been effective.
• Journeyman HVAC services: Last year, AAPS contracted with the firm D.M. Burr to provide heating, cooling, and ventilation services for the district. This was an option taken rather than add another union employee, she said.
• Parking at Pioneer High: The district has hired Great Lakes Environmental to manage events parking at Pioneer High School, including parking for games at Michigan Stadium.
• UM-Scarlett Middle School partnership: Baskett characterized this as her favorite partnership, a collaboration with UM’s School of Education for a “lab school” at Scarlett Middle School and Mitchell Elementary School.

Baskett concluded by noting that there are future opportunities that AAPS might explore, related to custodial services, maintenance, clerical services, school security, child care, and human resources. She noted that there’s even pending state legislation that would allow for the outsourcing of teachers. She did not indicate support for any of these actions, however.

Questions & Comments

During the last part of the forum, panelists fielded questions and commentary from the audience. This report summarizes the questions and presents them thematically.

Questions & Comments: War & Greed

Comment: Each panelist indicated that the real economic crisis began in 2008, and that crisis had a major role to play in conditions for local governments. There are larger problems that need to be addressed, like the billions of dollars that the federal government spends on war – what if that money had been invested in local communities? The mortgage foreclosure crisis was caused by corporate greed. Rather than contacting a congressman to help solve these problems, we should ask people on the ground, like those involved in the Occupy Ann Arbor or Occupy Ypsilanti movements.

When the moderator, Susan Greenberg, asked if the speaker had a question to pose, he said no – he just wanted to make his opinion known.

Questions & Comments: Middle Class

Comment: I’m a retired state corrections officer, and have some knowledge about privatizing in that sector. As an example, when a minimum-security prison was privatized in southern Ohio, the community tried to ensure it would remain a minimum security facility. The state wrote certain guarantees into the contract. But later, the firm started bringing in high-security prisoners from all across the country, which created a hazard for the community. The local government ended up filing a lawsuit. When considering whether to privatize, the long-term costs and impact should be factored in to the decision.

Bob Guenzel said he agreed that cheaper is not always better. It’s important to look at the full costs, including the long-term consequences and risks, he said, not just the short-term savings.

Sabra Briere noted that when you’re the person who makes policy – like a city councilmember – you rely on the recommendation of staff, or you argue with that recommendation. It’s difficult to get accurate, competing information when the staff recommends something, she said. Your gut reaction might be that it’s a bad idea, but unless you’re more knowledgeable than the staff, it’s difficult to argue against. Briere also observed that staff is generally trying to please the policymakers, but those policymakers might be people who left office years ago – it takes a long time for these things to work through the system.

Government is a service organization, Briere said, and service organizations are people-heavy, with salaries and benefits. And if people want more services, that comes at a cost – that’s true whether you’re talking about your local gym or your local government, she said.

Andy Fanta said he liked to anchor things in “the great sweep of history.” The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as president was as revolutionary as the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt had been, Fanta said. (Or of Abraham Lincoln, Briere added.) Reagan began the steady dissemination of the belief that government is the problem, and that it doesn’t work. That set the stage for where the country finds itself now, Fanta said.

When local public bodies measure outcomes or costs, the decisions are contained in a very small universe, he said. Instead, the dialogue should be this: What do we want our government to do for us? Fanta said he could look back to the civil rights movement – before the government acted, there were actions by the people that touched the country’s moral fiber. The issue was raised as to whether all children had the right to a good education, and finally the government acted.

Fanta said he’s suggesting that privatization is just the tip of the iceberg, and it’s futile to discuss the issue in isolation. That’s not an effective way to carry this dialogue forward, he said.

Questions & Comments: Sharing Services

Question: I believe governments do many things very well. Could you elaborate on the issue of shared services?

Sabra Briere noted that Bob Guenzel had previously mentioned the consolidation of dispatch services, between the city of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, as well as the city/county consolidation of the office of community and economic development, which manages funding for human services. Often when you talk about sharing services, she said, you’re talking about saving money to do the same work. It’s also a kind of triage, she noted – if there’s a limited amount of funds for human services, for example, you can either spend it on parallel jobs in different government units, or reduce the staff and spend that money on direct services.

Jeanine DeLay, founder of A2Ethics and a member of the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area, asks a question during the privatization forum.

The same is true for police dispatch operations, she said. The city of Ann Arbor has faced budget challenges in recent years, and has decreased its police force to the point where the department isn’t as effective. The question was how could the city afford all of the officers it needed? One aspect of the solution, Briere said, was to consolidate dispatch services.

Andy Fanta cited several examples of inefficiencies. He observed that in driving along I-94 between Ann Arbor to Detroit, you’ll pass through about 15 separate political jurisdictions. He said he lives in a part of the county where the city of Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township can’t seem to work together.

Fanta also said he doesn’t believe the 15th District Court needs three judges – he’s felt that way since he arrived here in 1970. There’s the need for a flexible, mobile judiciary, he said, giving the example of circuit court judges in northern Michigan who are responsible for holding court in multiple counties. That should be encouraged, he said. However, he also cautioned that a risk of consolidation is in losing community contacts within an organization, which “chips away at who we are.”

Fanta concluded by saying that elected officials have been fobbing off their responsibilities. As a school board member, he was aghast to learn that the Ypsilanti school district had hired someone else to provide curriculum services. Wasn’t that the role of the district’s curriculum director? He indicated that public bodies like school boards and city councils have a responsibility to question these actions.

Susan Baskett said there are several areas that seem to be working for local public schools. The contract for substitute teacher services – with the firm Professional Educational Services Group – is working for the several school districts that use that service, she said. Baskett also cited the international baccalaureate program, offered through a consortium of local schools.

Ypsilanti has been working on sharing services for many years, Lois Richardson said. She pointed to the city’s reciprocal agreements with fire departments in other jurisdictions, as well as partnerships with Eastern Michigan University.

Questions & Comments: Proposal A

Question: What has been the impact of Proposal A?

By way of background, Proposal A is a 1994 statewide ballot initiative that shifted responsibility for K-12 funding away from local communities and created a system whereby local tax dollars are funneled to the state, which in turn redistributes the funding back to school districts statewide. Among other things, it puts a cap on how fast a property’s taxable value can increase. That cap is 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. [For a detailed view of how Michigan's public schools are financed, see Chronicle coverage: "Does It Take a Millage?"]

Andy Fanta began with a one-word answer: “Disaster.” Susan Baskett agreed, saying “it’s leaving us short.”

Fanta then elaborated. He noted that Proposal A has prohibited the citizens of Ypsilanti from raising money for their schools, even as expenses escalate. When he first joined the school board in 1998, the district’s share of retirement costs for its employees was less than 5%. In the coming year, he said, it’s possible that those costs will be as high as 37%. But because the retirement system is handled by the state, local districts have no control over those costs, he said. Fanta concluded by saying that Ypsilanti citizens would vote to support schools financially, but they can’t.

Weighing in from the audience, Glenn Nelson – another Ann Arbor school board member – commented that unfunded liabilities for public pension funds are an enormous problem. The rate is very high, he said, and going up very fast. The League of Women Voters should look into this question too, Nelson said.

Questions & Comments: Chartwells

Question: I come from Arkansas, and the university there also used Chartwells. How is it that the Ann Arbor schools gets paid by the company?

Susan Baskett said she didn’t know the details of the contract, but said she wanted to be clear that Chartwells is a profit-making business. She said she thought the question was going to be about how the school system evaluates Chartwells’ performance. She learned the hard way that an evaluation can’t be done in-house, she said. The staff and the company will give you answers that they think you want to hear, she said, so the evaluation needs to be done by a third party.

Later during the Q&A session, a woman addressed the panel by saying she was a recently retired AAPS teacher, and she had experience with Chartwells. She said the company had displaced some wonderful food service workers in the schools – people who knew the kids and who were dedicated to their jobs. The people that Chartwells hired didn’t know what they were doing, she said, and didn’t stay long. The woman also criticized the privatization of custodial services, and the quality of substitute teachers that are used in the Ann Arbor schools.

Questions & Comments: Legal Services

Question: Does Washtenaw County have an attorney to look over contracts, and are there legal procedures that take place when someone doesn’t do the job they’ve been contracted to do?

As former county administrator, Bob Guenzel fielded this question. He noted that all units of government employ attorneys and staff to review contracts, making sure the documents “are as tight as they can be.” He said he served as a legal consultant to the county before he was hired as the county’s corporation counsel, a full-time staff position. Sometimes it’s difficult if you have to terminate a contract, then find another entity to do that same work. Contracts also don’t address “soft skills,” Guenzel said, like worker attitudes.

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Ann Arbor medical marijuana licensing board at its Jan. 31, 2012 meeting. Left to right: Sabra Briere, Jim Kenyon, Patricia O’Rorke, John Rosevear and Gene Ragland. (Photos by the writer.)

Both issues – the award of the licenses and the changes to the ordinance – will be up to the city council to decide. The licensing board’s recommendation and report had been due to the city council by Jan. 31, according to the council resolution passed in conjunction with last year’s enactment of the licensing ordinance. But at the city council’s Jan. 23, 2012 meeting, Ward 1 representative Sabra Briere gave her colleagues a heads up that the medical marijuana licensing board would be submitting its recommendations in early February instead.

The legislation enacted by the council on June 20, 2011 included provisions for licenses and zoning requirements. The zoning requirements played a role in the recommendation to award one of the 10 licenses conditionally. Treecity is located in a district zoned for office use, which does not permit medical marijuana dispensaries.

On Jan. 25, 2012, the city’s zoning board of appeals (ZBA) turned down Treecity’s appeal of the city’s decision to deny Treecity’s application for a zoning compliance permit – a necessary component of a license application. At the same meeting, the ZBA granted the same kind of appeal to another dispensary – Green Planet (700 Tappan St.).

The tension between the board’s work and the city attorney’s office is reflected in the fact that even as the board recommended the conditional award of a license to Treecity, the city attorney has served a lawsuit against the dispensary.

The tension was also reflected during the meeting itself, as assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom reminded the board that their purview, according to the city’s ordinance, is [emphasis Larcom's] to “send to City Council a proposed resolution recommending either approval or rejection of each complete license application.”

In the city’s view, Treecity’s application is not complete, because the city has denied a zoning compliance permit to the dispensary. However the board appeared to rely on the subsequent sentence of the ordinance: “A recommended resolution may set conditions for approval.”

Also at its Jan. 31 meeting, the licensing board recommended that the initial licensing fee be established at $1,100 with the annual renewal fee set at $350.

Licenses Recommended

Businesses recommended to be awarded a license under Ann Arbor’s local ordinance were: (1) Green Planet, 700 Tappan St.; (2) TreeCity Treecity Health Collective, 1712 S. State St.; (3) Ann Arbor Health Collective, 2350 E. Stadium Blvd.; (4) OM of Medicine, 112 S. Main St.; (5) People’s Choice, 2245 W. Liberty St.; (6) Greenbee Collective, 401 S. Maple St.; (7) Ann Arbor Wellness Collective, 321 E. Liberty St.; (8) MedMarx at Arborside, 1818 Packard St.; (9) Medical Grass Station, 325 W. Liberty St.; and (10) PR Center, 3820 Varsity Dr.

The city of Ann Arbor received 10 applications from businesses seeking to be licensed as medical marijuana dispensaries. Their locations are indicated with the green pushpins. On Jan. 31, 2012 the medical marijuana licensing board recommended granting licenses to all 10 – two of them conditionally. (Image links to dynamic Google Map)

The licensing board required little time at its Jan. 31, 2012 meeting to review and deliberate on each application – most of the review had been completed at previous meetings. [See previous Chronicle coverage: "Medical Marijuana: Local Board Eyes 2012" and "Medical Marijuana Board Straw Poll: Yes"]

Recommendations for Treecity and Greenbee were made conditionally – Greenbee must secure adequate parking, and Treecity must move to a location allowed under the city’s medical marijuana zoning rules.

At the board’s December 2011 meeting, it was discussed that Greenbee has only 8 of the needed 14 parking spaces for its intended use of the space as a medical marijuana dispensary. At the Jan. 31, 2012 meeting, the board’s discussion suggested that perhaps only five additional spaces were needed.

Treecity is currently located on a parcel zoned office (O), which is not one of the zones designated for medical marijuana dispensaries. In Ann Arbor, medical marijuana dispensaries can be located only in those districts zoned as D (downtown), C (commercial), or M (industrial), or in PUD (planned unit development) districts where a retail use is permitted in the supplemental regulations.

Of the licenses recommended, nine were made for businesses considered to be operating before the Ann Arbor city council imposed a moratorium on Aug. 5, 2010 for 120 days. The moratorium prohibited any additional uses of property inside the city for cultivation facilities or dispensaries. The moratorium was extended several times in the course of the council’s consideration of the medical marijuana issue.

The timing of the application process for pre-moratorium businesses for the first year’s applications was slightly earlier than for businesses established after the moratorium. And the maximum number of licenses available in the first year is a function of the number of applications received from pre-moratorium businesses – which the city determined to be nine. Those nine plus 10% (rounded up) yielded the total number of licenses available – 10. The one post-moratorium business recommended for a license is Grass Station.

The owner of the Grass Station had previously argued for inclusion for consideration as a pre-moratorium business. And previously, it appeared that possibly two dispensaries would be considered as post-moratorium applicants – Grass Station and PR Center. That would have set up a situation where the board needed to choose between dispensaries for which it would recommend a license.

However, PR Center was ultimately considered as a pre-moratorium business. The initial analysis as a pre-moratorium business had resulted from the fact that PR Center has more than one location – one of which is in a township island.

Zoning Board of Appeals

The licensing board’s report on recommended licenses and changes to the licensing ordinance was due to be submitted to the city council on Jan. 31. One reason the board did not meet until that day to take a final vote on its recommendations was to allow time for a decision by the city’s zoning board of appeals (ZBA) on two cases involving dispensaries: Treecity and Green Planet. The ZBA met to hear those two appeals on Jan. 25.

At issue in both cases was a decision by the city to deny a zoning compliance permit to the dispensaries, on the grounds that the businesses are not located in one of the zones enumerated in the city’s zoning code: D (downtown), C (commercial), or M (industrial), or in PUD (planned unit development) districts where a retail use is permitted in the supplemental regulations. Such a permit is a requirement for a medical marijuana dispensary license application.

On a unanimous vote, the ZBA overturned a decision by the city to deny a zoning compliance permit to Green Planet. And on a 5-1 vote, the ZBA upheld the decision by the city to deny Treecity’s zoning compliance permit.

Zoning Board of Appeals: Green Planet

Green Planet is located in a PUD (planned unit development ) zoning district. The PUD includes supplemental regulations that lay out types of uses allowed in the district:

a. Restaurants and Catering Businesses.
b. Grocery, prepared food and beverage sales, including retail sales of non-food items typically associated with groceries and food preparation. Examples include cookware, glassware, linens, books, kitchen utensils and implements, and small kitchen appliances.
c. Classrooms and educational instruction.
d. Tanning, massage and beauty salon.
e. Business offices, medical or dental offices, professional and non-profit organization offices. Examples include real estate and insurance agencies, attorneys and law firms, accountants, architects, engineers, travel agencies, consultants, and property management firms.

The language of the medical marijuana zoning ordinance states:

Medical marijuana dispensaries shall only be located in a district classified pursuant to this chapter as D, C, or M, or in PUD districts where retail is permitted in the supplemental regulations.

Green Planet had argued, in part, that because specific kinds of retail uses are permitted in the PUD’s supplemental regulations, they meet the ordinance description of a “PUD district where retail is permitted in the supplemental regulations.” In rejecting Green Planet’s application for a zoning compliance permit, the city argued that the kind of retail uses described in the supplemental regulation do not include marijuana dispensaries, because marijuana for medical use is not an item “typically associated with groceries and food preparation.”

Green Planet's Michael McLeod distributes handouts at the Jan. 25 meeting of the zoning board of appeals. Seated at left are Ben Carlisle and Sabra Briere.

The ZBA’s decision relied on the intent of the planning commission as reflected in that body’s deliberations on the zoning ordinance at its Oct. 5, 2010 meeting. Green Planet noted that the language on PUDs had been added as an amendment at that meeting and adduced the minutes of the meeting, the video, as well as The Chronicle’s reporting ["Medical Marijuana Zoning Heads to Council"] to argue its case. Green Planet argued that it had not been the intent of the planning commission to ask property owners to revise the supplemental regulations of a PUD in order to specifically allow dispensaries.

The vote by the ZBA to overturn the city’s decision on Green Planet was unanimous among the six members attending the meeting of the nine-member board. Absent were Carol Kuhnke and Wendy Carman. Jason Boggs recently resigned, leaving a current vacancy. [An application form for appointments to city boards and commissions is available on the city's website.] Attending his first meeting as a member of the ZBA was Ben Carlisle, who replaced long-time member David Gregorka.

Chairing the ZBA meeting in Kuhnke’s absence was Erica Briggs, who also serves on the city’s planning commission. As a planning commissioner, she’d actually voted on Oct. 5, 2010 against the inclusion of PUDs among those districts that are allowable zones for medical marijuana dispensaries. But given that the majority of her colleagues on the planning commission disagreed with her and the city council eventually enacted the zoning code to include PUDs, she told The Chronicle after the hearing that she was compelled to vote in favor of Green Planet’s appeal.

Zoning Board of Appeals: Treecity

Treecity is located in a district zoned as office (O), which is not one of the zoning districts allowed for use as a medical marijuana dispensary. Treecity’s appeal was based in part on its contention that a legal, non-conforming use of the property as a medical marijuana dispensary had been established before the zoning laws were passed.

The city’s position relied in part on the general principle of Ann Arbor’s zoning ordinance that: “Uses not expressly permitted are prohibited.” So the city of Ann Arbor argued that there was no legal use of a parcel within the city as a medical marijuana dispensary before the enactment of the zoning ordinance on June 20, 2011. Although several ZBA members expressed sympathy for Treecity’s situation, only one member – Sabra Briere – voted to overturn the city’s denial of the zoning compliance permit.

Treecity’s ZBA denial marked the third key disappointment for Treecity in its effort to keep its business at the 1712 S. State St. address. At the Oct. 5, 2010 meeting of the planning commission, Treecity’s attorney Dennis Hayes had unsuccessfully advocated for the inclusion of office districts as a possible zone for dispensaries. Then the planning commission (on Aug. 16, 2011), followed by the city council (on Oct. 3, 2011) both rejected Treecity’s request to be rezoned from office to C1 (local business).

At the licensing board’s Jan. 31 meeting, assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom reported that the city of Ann Arbor had actually filed a lawsuit a few months ago against Treecity, but had not served it until after the ZBA hearing. Dori Edwards, an employee who does public relations work for the dispensary, said that Treecity had been served on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. The lawsuit, filed in the 22nd circuit court and assigned to judge Donald Shelton, alleges three counts of nuisance.

Other Recommendations

The city council resolution enacting the licensing ordinance, approved by the city council on June 20, 2010, directed the licensing board to make recommendations to the city council for any changes to the ordinance by Jan. 31, 2012. The ordinance itself also provides for regular communication from the board to the council – beyond an annual recommendation for approval or rejection of license applications. The board is also charged with reviewing and recommending licensing criteria, the number of licenses and the fee structure.

Other Recommendations: Completeness, Conditions

The issue of completeness of applications is one that has been a chaffing point between the board and the city staff. City staff have been reluctant to present the board with license applications that it does not consider complete. For example, one of the elements of an license application is a zoning compliance permit, for which the city has a separate application.

Assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom.

A zoning compliance permit has long been a standard part of the city’s review process, and is not peculiar to medical marijuana dispensaries. For two dispensaries (Treecity and Green Planet), the city denied had the permit because the city determined they were located in the wrong zone. So the license applications were considered to be incomplete.

Until Green Planet’s denial was overturned by the ZBA on Jan. 25, the licensing board had not reviewed and evaluated that dispensary’s application for a license. At the board’s Jan. 31 meeting, Green Planet’s Michael McCleod described how the city planning staff had subsequently been very helpful in assisting him in identifying any other gaps in his license application materials. The application requires, for example, evidence of operation before the moratorium was imposed on Aug. 5, 2010, and statements about any felony convictions for dispensary owners and operators.

So at the Jan. 31 meeting, board members reviewed the Green Planet application and came to a quick consensus that the dispensary should be recommended for a license.

At the same meeting, Dori Edwards of Treecity indicated that she’d not known she should contact city staff for help in reviewing any missing materials. But Treecity’s ZBA appeal had been turned down, so from the city staff’s perspective, the application was fundamentally not complete and Treecity had exhausted all possible avenues for making it complete. And as the board mulled the question of how to deal with Treecity’s application, assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom said she wanted to remind the board that its purview was to evaluate and make a recommendation on each complete application.

Larcom allowed that the ordinance does provide for conditional approvals, but indicated that a possible condition would not extend to the issuance of a zoning compliance permit – having that permit was a matter of completeness of the application.

Medical marijuana licensing board members Sabra Briere and Jim Kenyon.

Sabra Briere told Larcom point blank: “I disagree with you.” Briere is the city council representative to the medical marijuana licensing board. And Briere said that during deliberations on council, the council didn’t talk about why there’d be conditional approvals or limits on those conditions.

So the board forged ahead and included Treecity as a recommended license – with the condition that it obtain a zoning compliance permit. That would mean the business would need to move from its current location.

The attorney for Treecity, Dennis Hayes, wrote in an email to The Chronicle that he hoped the lawsuit the city has filed against Treecity would be resolved by Treecity finding a new location.

Edwards indicated at the Jan. 31 board meeting that she’s actively seeking an alternate location and hoped to sign a lease within a week or two. After that it would take perhaps a month to complete a move, she said.

Larcom stressed that for now, the dispensary use that Treecity wants to make of its current location is not legal – other aspects of the business could possibly persist, but the dispensary use violates zoning. And the city is required to uphold the zoning law – that’s why a lawsuit has been filed, Larcom said.

Related to the issue of completeness, the licensing board agreed at its Jan. 31 meeting to recommend that the explicit role of city staff in determining completeness of applications be struck from two places in the ordinance [added language in italics; deleted language with strike-through]:

7:504 (4) Following official confirmation by staff that the applicant has submitted a complete application City Council approval of the issuance of a license, a new license shall not be issued to a medical marijuana dispensary until the applicant for the license complies with all of the following requirements…

7:505. If the applicant has successfully demonstrated compliance with all requirements for issuance of a license within 10 weeks (70 calendar days) after the date of City staff’s official confirmation that the application for a license was complete City Council’s approval of a license, the city administrator or designee shall grant renewal of an existing or issue a new license…

At the board’s Jan. 18 meeting, the idea was entertained to remove staff from part of the process, by requiring that all the application materials be forwarded directly to the board, instead of to the city planning staff. Jill Thacher is the city planner who’s shouldered that task for the first year’s round of applications. Ultimately, the board weighed the volume of actual work it would take for board members to handle application materials, concluding it was more than a clerical task.

But related to the issue of what can constitute a condition on granting a license, the board agreed to a recommendation making explicit that there is flexibility in the kind of conditions that can be set.

7:502 (7) … The Board shall annually send to City Council a proposed resolution recommending either approval or rejection of each complete license application. A recommended resolution may set conditions for approval. The conditions may include a waiver by City Council of any provision or provisions of the licensing ordinance, and/or the imposition of a new provision or new provisions, if the public interest so requires.

Other Recommendations: Entry for Inspection

Licensing board member Patricia O’Rorke was particularly concerned about a provision in the ordinance that requires dispensaries to consent to inspection. The board agreed to recommend a change that makes explicit that requests from the city to inspect a dispensary would be complaint-driven:

Pursuant to a complaint, an authorized person shall consent to the entry into a medical marijuana dispensary by the Building Official and zoning inspectors for the purpose of inspection to determine compliance with this chapter pursuant to a notice posted in a conspicuous place on the premises two (2) or more days before the date of the inspection or sent and by first class mail to the address of the premises four (4) or more calendar business days before the date of the inspection.

When asked if she saw any problem with the “pursuant to complaint” language, city planner Jill Thacher said, no – that’s the way city staff handles issues like that anyway.

In weighing whether the notice given should be done by posting and mail, a brief discussion unfolded about the merits of certified mail versus first class mail and the future of the U.S. Postal Service.

Other Recommendations: Number of Licenses, Frequency of Recommendation

At its Jan. 31 meeting, the licensing board grappled with the tension between having a single annual recommendation on licenses (as the ordinance now specifies) versus a rolling recommendation as applications are submitted. Board member Jim Kenyon said he liked the idea of being responsive and meeting regularly. However, he noted that if there are a limited number of licenses available, a rolling recommendation process would result in giving privilege to those applying first.

Board members Jim Kenyon and Patricia O'Rorke.

Kenyon gave the example of the University of Michigan, which he said had wound up admitting nearly its entire freshman class through the early admission this year. “The music stopped and there were no chairs,” he said. That does not necessarily result in the most qualified applicants being admitted. On the other hand, he said, he did not want to make people wait a calendar year to have their application for a dispensary license processed.

During the board’s discussion, Sabra Briere noted that as far as evaluating one dispensary against another, the board had not faced that situation this year, and had not applied qualitative criteria to the evaluation. The board had essentially made its criteria for recommendation a matter of whether a dispensary had “jumped through all the right hoops.”

The board mulled what the number of licenses should be. With respect to potential demand, city planner Jill Thacher reported that before the city council passed its licensing and zoning ordinances, she’d fielded numerous phone calls from out-of-state people interested in setting up shop. After the Ann Arbor legislation was passed, she said, the phone calls had fallen off precipitously.

Board member Gene Ragland suggested that it should be possible to work out the math of the demographics of patients and calculate the potential consumer demand. Local attorney Dennis Hayes, who attended the meeting, ventured that there were perhaps 50,000-60,000 registered patients who did not have caregivers – that might be a way to gauge potential consumer demand. Kenyon said that he himself would not use a caregiver to obtain medical marijuana, if a dispensary were an option.

Ultimately, the board settled on capping the number of licenses at 20, which is the maximum number specified in the ordinance for the first year.

… but not more than 20 medical marijuana dispensary licenses shall be issued in the first year and shall be capped at that number.

The board also agreed not to suggest changing from the process described in the ordinance as an annual recommendation for the award of licenses. Also recommended was a standardization of the timing requirements for applications – in some places there’s a 70-day condition but in others it’s a 90-day condition. The board agreed to recommend making that timing requirement uniformly 90 days.

Other Recommendations: Operation in Compliance with MMMA

The board also recommended striking a clause in the zoning ordinance as superfluous:

5:50.1.4(k) Medical marijuana dispensaries and medical marijuana cultivation facilities shall be operated in compliance with the MMMA.

The discussion at the board’s Jan. 18, 2012 meeting on this issue included concern expressed by dispensary owner Chuck Ream, that deleting the phrase could cause alarm and attract unwanted attention to Ann Arbor if it were incorrectly perceived as sending a message that Ann Arbor’s dispensaries would not be following Michigan’s medical marijuana law.

Other Recommendations: Licensing Fee

The final issue on which the licensing board needed to weigh in was setting the licensing fee for medical marijuana dispensaries – which is separate from the application fee of $600. One point of comparison for the board was neighboring Ypsilanti’s $2,500 initial license fee, with a $1,100 renewal each year. Patricia O’Rorke was inclined to set them much lower. Sabra Briere joked that perhaps Ann Arbor’s fees should be higher because Ann Arbor was “more prestigious.”

Medical marijuana licensing board member Gene Ragland.

Jim Kenyon said he felt the goal of the fee should be to make it high enough to prevent someone from applying “casually.” He continued by saying that the $600 application fee, plus a $1,100 initial licensing fee would do that.

Gene Ragland, who fills the physician’s slot on the licensing board, noted that his narcotics license cost him only $350. But Briere wondered how much Ragland’s medical education had cost. Ragland offered that when he’d finished medical school, he’d owed $8,000 in loans – and he’d paid those off in two years. But that was long ago, he allowed.

Based on Ragland’s narcotics license, the board agreed to recommend the annual license renewal fee be set at $350, to go along with a $1,100 initial license fee.

Next Step: City Council

Even if granted a local Ann Arbor license, dispensaries in Ann Arbor would still need to operate in conformance with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, which was enacted by statewide voter referendum in 2008. The city has explicitly required applicants for dispensary licenses to explain how their business conforms with the law, including an Aug. 23, 2011 court of appeals ruling that has been interpreted by many authorities to mean that no medical marijuana dispensaries are legal. [.pdf of the McQueen case ruling].

Ann Arbor’s city attorney, Stephen Postema, is open to the possibility that dispensary business models may exist that do conform to the McQueen case ruling, but Postema has not issued a written opinion describing business models that he believes conform. The city council will receive advice from the city attorney before it votes on awarding the licenses that the board has now recommended. Any vote by the council would come at the earliest on Feb. 21.

At the Jan. 31 meeting, dispensary owners felt it was important for Ann Arbor to demonstrate a working model for local licensing – it would provide a basis for state legislation, which may be introduced soon, that would explicitly enable local options for regulation of dispensaries.

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Businesses recommended for a license under Ann Arbor’s local ordinance are: (1) Green Planet, 700 Tappan St.; (2) Treecity Health Collective, 1712 S. State St.; (3) Ann Arbor Health Collective, 2350 E. Stadium Blvd.; (4) OM of Medicine, 112 S. Main St.; (5) People’s Choice, 2245 W. Liberty St.; (6) Greenbee Collective, 401 S. Maple St.; (7) Ann Arbor Wellness Collective, 321 E. Liberty St.; (8) MedMarx at Arborside, 1818 Packard St.; (9) Medical Grass Station, 325 W. Liberty St.; and (10) PR Center, 3820 Varsity Dr.

The recommendations for Treecity and Greenbee were made conditionally – Greenbee must secure adequate parking, and Treecity must move to a location allowed under the city’s medical marijuana zoning rules.

On June 20, 2011 the Ann Arbor city  council enacted a zoning and a licensing ordinance regulating medical marijuana businesses – which included the establishment of a five-member licensing board. The council had imposed a moratorium on Aug. 5, 2010 for 120 days – it prohibited the future use of property inside the city for cultivation facilities or dispensaries. The moratorium was extended several times in the course of the council’s consideration of the medical marijuana issue.

The timing of the application process for pre-moratorium businesses for the first year’s applications was slightly earlier than for businesses established after the moratorium. And the maximum number of licenses available in the first year is a function of the number of applications received from pre-moratorium businesses – which the city determined to be nine. Those nine plus 10% (rounded up) yielded the number of licenses available – 10. The one post-moratorium business is Grass Station.

The city had received a total of 10 applications. A zoning compliance permit is a requirement for application, and the city initially denied such permits to Treecity (1712 S. State Street), which is in a district zoned as O (office), and Green Planet (700 Tappan St.), located in the Casa Dominick PUD (planned unit development) district. Both businesses appealed to the zoning board of appeals. And at its Jan. 25, 2012 meeting, the ZBA granted Green Planet’s appeal, overturning the decision of city staff.

However, the ZBA rejected Treecity’s appeal. The rejection of Treecity’s appeal by the ZBA resulted in the recommendation of a conditional license.

Ann Arbor’s local laws require that businesses operate in conformance with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, which was enacted by statewide voter referendum in 2008. The city has explicitly required applicants for dispensary licenses to explain how their business conforms with the law, including an Aug. 23, 2011 court of appeals ruling that has been interpreted by many authorities to mean that no medical marijuana dispensaries are legal. [.pdf of the McQueen case ruling].

Ann Arbor’s city attorney, Stephen Postema, is open to the possibility that dispensary business models may exist that do conform to the McQueen case ruling, but has not issued a written opinion describing business models that he believes conform.

Also at its Jan. 31 meeting, the licensing board recommended that the initial licensing fee be established at $1,100 with the annual renewal fee set at $350. More coverage: [link]

The form of the poll strongly resembled a vote by the board to recommend the dispensary for a license, leading some observers to conclude that the recommendation had been made. But a subsequent email from board member Sabra Briere indicated the board had voted that it “would have recommended MedMarx for a license, if they were making recommendations at that meeting.” Once the board takes a formal vote on the recommendations that it wants to make to the city council, the city council will still need to vote as well, in order for the license to be awarded.

Ann Arbor medical marijuana licensing board members (left to right): John Rosevear, Gene Ragland and James Kenyon. They're perusing a letter from MedMarx at Arborside Compassion to the city of Ann Arbor, stating the dispensary's position on its compliance with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act. (Photos by the writer.)

Ann Arbor’s medical marijuana licensing board was established as part of an ordinance regulating licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries, enacted by the city council on June 20, 2011.

The licensing ordinance was enacted at the same time as a zoning ordinance, which regulates where such businesses can be located in the city. The two pieces of legislation were enacted after more than a year of consideration and deliberations by members of the city council.

On Wednesday, the board considered seven out of a total of 10 license applications that had been submitted to the city. The remaining three are for businesses located in areas not zoned for medical marijuana businesses. However, at least two of those intend to ask for a review of the city’s decision to deny a zoning compliance permit (required as part of the license application) by the city’s zoning board of appeals (ZBA).

Besides the one application on which the board voted, four of the other six applications were determined to have met the requirement demonstrating that they were in operation before the council enacted a moratorium. That moratorium was established on Aug. 5, 2010 and prohibited establishment of any additional medical marijuana businesses in the city.

The board’s work on Nov. 30 came as attitudes on medical marijuana nationally, at the state level and locally are in flux. Nov. 30 was the same day that governors from the states of Washington and Rhode Island signed a petition appealing to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to reclassify marijuana has a drug having medical uses.

And the licensing board meeting came at the conclusion of a series of day-long seminars in different Michigan cities given on Nov. 16, 17, 29, and 30 by staff of Michigan State Attorney General Bill Schuette on how to enforce the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act. The seminars included the case law that has evolved – including the McQueen case, in which a Michigan court of appeals found that at least one business model for operating a dispensary is not consistent with the MMMA.

According to a report from The Saginaw News, Schuette’s “Clearing the Air” seminars were closed to the press. The materials provided at the seminars include a range of legal tools the attorney general believes can be used to prevent medical marijuana dispensaries from doing business. One of those tools is to apply laws on public nuisances to such businesses.

The city of Ann Arbor has sent cease-and-desist letters to medical marijuana dispensaries in the city threatening to take action against them as public nuisances. Cease-and-desist letters were received by a business as recently as Nov. 8. [.pdf of letter to zoning-non-conformant business][.pdf of letter to zoning-conformant business]

During public commentary at the licensing board meeting, local attorney Dennis Hayes noted a disconnect between (1) letters sent by Ann Arbor city attorney Stephen Postema to businesses threatening to shut them down, and (2) a licensing board that is implementing the new city ordinance on allocating licenses to medical marijuana businesses. Hayes described the situation as the “right hand doing something very different from the left hand.” Hayes encouraged the licensing board to move its “right foot to drag the left foot along.”

The board’s next scheduled meeting is Dec. 14 at 4 p.m.

Brief Background

The Michigan Medical Marijuana Act was enacted by statewide voter referendum in 2008.

The Ann Arbor city council enacted zoning and licensing requirements for medical marijuana businesses on June 20, 2011. That came after more than a year’s consideration of the issue by city councilmembers. That consideration included a moratorium on the future use of property inside the city for cultivation facilities or dispensaries, which was imposed on Aug. 5, 2010, for a period of 120 days. The moratorium was extended several times in the course of the council’s work.

On Aug. 23, 2011, two months after the enactment of Ann Arbor’s local legislation, a Michigan court of appeals ruled on the McQueen case in a way that has been interpreted by many authorities to mean that medical marijuana dispensaries are not legal. [.pdf of the McQueen case ruling]

Undeterred by the court ruling, at its Sept. 6, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council confirmed appointments to the city’s medical marijuana licensing board.

But the McQueen case still had an impact in Ann Arbor. Wendy Rampson – head of the city’s planning staff – told city planning commissioners at their Sept. 8, 2011 meeting that applicants for licenses were welcome to submit information to the city in connection with license applications, but that staff had ceased their review activity pending further direction.

Already on July 1, the city had sent a letter to known dispensaries demanding that they provide proof of operation before the Aug. 5, 2010 moratorium. [.pdf of July 1 letter] The issue is important because the licensing ordinance distinguishes between businesses in operation before the moratorium (and allowed to continue operations during the moratorium) and those not in operation before the moratorium. The ordinance gives priority to those dispensaries that had pre-moratorium operations. The number of licenses to be issued by the city is also contingent on the number of applications submitted to the city by pre-moratorium businesses.

An affidavit was not considered adequate proof of pre-moratorium operations, and the city sent follow-up letters asking for “specific proof” of operation before the moratorium. [.pdf of follow-up to July 1 letter]

By Sept. 30, the city staff’s position had evolved to include a requirement that license applicants would need to provide a statement explaining how their business conformed with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, including the McQueen case, as part of an application for a zoning compliance permit. A zoning compliance permit is a requirement for a license. [.pdf of Sept. 30 letter]

By Oct. 18, the city had made explicit on its webpage on medical marijuana that an application for a medical marijuana dispensary license needed only to include an application for a zoning compliance permit and an application for a re-occupation permit, not the permits themselves.

Dating from mid-August 2011, an apparent point of tension between the city staff and the licensing board concerned whose purview it was to determine the completeness of an application with respect to specific pieces of information. Based on the Nov. 30 meeting of the licensing board, weighing the evidence of pre-moratorium operations became an issue determined by the board, not city staff. But applications from dispensaries in areas of the city not zoned for medical marijuana dispensaries were not put before the board for its review.

Much of the board’s Nov. 30 discussion was framed by the specific points of application requirements as listed out in the ordinance:

7:504. Application requirements for new annual license or renewal of existing license; license requirements for new license and for renewed license.
…
2. Application Requirements for New Licensee. An application for a new annual license for a medical marijuana dispensary shall be submitted to the City Clerk on a form provided by the City for preliminary review by City staff to confirm that the applicant has submitted a complete application, which shall fulfill all of the requirements indicated on the form, including but not limited to:
(a) If the medical marijuana dispensary commenced operation prior to passage of the moratorium by City Council on August 5, 2010, then proof of the date on which the medical marijuana dispensary commenced operation shall be provided.
(b) The name and address of the medical marijuana dispensary and any other contact information requested on the application form.
(c) The name and address of all owners of the real property where the medical marijuana dispensary is located.
(d) Name, street address, and other contact information of all owners of the medical marijuana dispensary and, if the owner is a corporation, limited liability company, partnership, or sole proprietor with an assumed name, of all directors, officers, members, partners, and individuals, all of whom are considered collectively to be the applicant for the license.
(e) Name and address of all business managers.
(f) A statement with respect to each person named on the application whether the person has:
(i) Ever been convicted of a felony involving controlled substances as defined under the Michigan Public Health Code, MCL 333.1101, et seq., the federal law, or the law of any other state and, if so, the date of the conviction and the law under which the person was convicted;
(ii) Ever been convicted of any other type of felony under the law of Michigan, the United States, or another state, and, if so, the date of the conviction and the law under which the person was convicted.
(g) Proof of applicant’s ownership or legal possession of the premises.
(h) A zoning compliance permit that shows the proposed medical marijuana dispensary is located in a zoning district that would permit its operation.
(i) A temporary certificate of occupancy that shows the structure for the proposed medical marijuana dispensary meets the requirements of the applicable use group under the Michigan Building Code.
(j) Payment of a non-refundable application fee, which shall be determined by resolution of the City Council. Fees for zoning compliance permits and certificates of occupancy shall be separate from the application fee, but shall be the same amount and shall be paid pursuant to the same procedures as applied to applications for zoning compliance permits and certificates of occupancy for other uses. [.pdf of complete Ann Arbor medical marijuana licensing ordinance]

Public Commentary

The Nov. 30 meeting began with an opportunity for public participation.

Local attorney Dennis Hayes indicated that a number of dispensaries have applications on file with the city’s zoning board of appeals (ZBA) because they’ve been turned down by the planning department for a zoning compliance permit. Part of the procedures for filing an appeal with the ZBA is a meeting with city staff, he said.

Left to right: Dennis Hayes (standing), Mark Passerini, and Chuck Ream.

So far, Hayes contended, the city has been reluctant to set up meetings.

Later during the licensing board meeting, in response to a question from board member Gene Ragland, city planning manager Wendy Rampson said that of the three excluded applications, two were located in office (O) zoning districts, one was in a planned unit development (PUD) zoning district – in a building where retail was not allowed, according to the PUD. She said that of the seven applications being reviewed by the board, all meet the zoning requirements. One doesn’t have adequate parking. The standard is one off-street parking space per 310 square feet, Rampson said, noting that parking requirements are not a function of zoning, but of a property’s use. If the business is in the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority district, it’s exempt from parking requirements, she said.

During his public commentary, Hayes said all the people whose businesses are in areas not zoned for medical marijuana dispensaries believe they have claims to a non-conforming use. The procedure to appeal the city’s decision not to grant a zoning compliance permit is through the ZBA. Hayes said he feared substantial additional delays, because the ZBA meets only once a month.

Hayes asked the licensing board to move its “right foot to drag the left foot along.” People currently serving patients are in “ZBA limbo” for the time being, he said. If the ZBA were to accept the non-conforming use, then those dispensaries would be “back in the licensing line.”

Hayes noted that there have been a number of letters sent to cease and desist from doing business – on the assumption that those businesses are in violation of the McQueen decision, even to businesses that are appropriately zoned. A lot of effort on the city’s part has been put into preventing people from applying for licensing, Hayes said. He characterized it as the right hand doing something very different from the left hand.

Rhory Gould reported that the city staff member responsible for issuing certificates of occupancy (COO) said he’s not allowed to issue a certificate to any dispensary. Yet Gould observed that having a COO is a requirement for applying for a license. Licensing board member Patricia O’Rorke assured him: “We get it.” [The city's position is that an application for the COO, not the COO itself, is what's required for the dispensary license application.]

Preliminary Board Discussion

Sabra Briere is the city councilmember representative to the five-member licensing board. She acknowledged the difficulty of the task for evaluating the applications by saying, “I’d like to drag us into what we’re going to try to accomplish today.” There are problems in trying to move forward smoothly, she allowed, but said, “We’re going to move forward.”

Briere noted that there were seven applications present in the room, but board members had before them just a staff summary of each application. [Three city staff attended the meeting: City planning manager Wendy Rampson, city planner Jill Thacher, and assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom.] That was an effort to honor the confidentiality of information included in the applications, Briere said. She noted that board members could ask questions and get clarification from staff.

Asked if city staff could tell the board if staff would have recommended approval of an application, Rampson answered no. To create the staff report, she said, staff went through the applications and indicated whether the applications met the requirements for completeness. Thacher put together the staff summary – but here’s no recommendation on approval, Rampson said.

Assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom and medical marijuana licensing board member John Rosevear share a light moment before the Nov. 30 meeting started.

Thacher clarified that there were a total of 10 applications – seven are summarized and evaluated with respect to zoning. The other three were turned down, because the zoning compliance certification was turned down. Thacher said she’d talked to representatives for two of the three rejected applications, and they’d indicated they were going to appeal through the ZBA.

Briere drew out the fact that the cost to appeal is $500. Board member John Rosevear asked what the basis is for the $500 fee. Briere noted that this is the standard ZBA filing fee. Rampson explained that the fee covers the city’s costs in processing the appeal, which includes a mailing to nearby property owners notifying them of the appeal.

Licensing board member James Kenyon clarified with Thacher that just because the staff report indicates the requested information has been provided in an application doesn’t mean it’s passed muster, just that there’s enough information to decide.

Briere asked why staff didn’t evaluate whether an application passed muster on a particular point, if everything was complete? Thacher told Briere that Thacher’s understanding was that planning staff members were not doing that evaluation on their own and that staff would not express their opinion. Briere ventured that it was a matter of fact, not opinion. Thacher indicated it was not as straightforward as that. For example, on the issue of determining whether a dispensary was in operation before the Aug. 5, 2010 moratorium, Thacher said, a variety of different kinds of proof were presented by applicants that they were in business before Aug. 5.

MedMarx at Arborside Compassion

The board considered MedMarx at Arborside Compassion first, because licensing board member James Kenyon asked if there might be one application that would give the board a “smooth first look.” Thacher indicated that two applications were more complete than others. First up was MedMarx at Arborside Compassion – known as Arborside, and located at 1818 Packard just south of Stadium Boulevard. The site is zoned commercial (C1) and the business is not proposed to be a cultivation facility, Thacher noted. Cultivation facilities are not a part of the licensing program – that’s a zoning issue, provided only as background, Thacher said.

MedMarx at Arborside Compassion: Pre-Moratorium Status

The board first considered the ordinance requirement under Section 7:504(2)(a): proof of operation before the council established the moratorium on Aug. 5, 2010.

Thacher said it’s the one item that applicants in general had submitted the most information on, and that of those applications, Arborside was one of the most voluminous, she said.

City planner Jill Thacher shows licensing board members what some of the supporting application materials looked like.

Licensing board member Patricia O’Rorke asked if each piece of evidence submitted was to be considered adequate on its own. Thacher indicated that, no, they’re all “pieces of puzzle.” Asked if there were guidelines, Thacher said there were not. She told licensing board members that they would see that some pieces of documentation offered as evidence of being in business before the moratorium date were supportive, but others were not.

Kenyon ventured that the board was not faced with a situation as straightforward as the criteria for the I-9 Employment Eligibility Form. [That form includes three lists of specific kinds of supporting documents (A, B, and C) and a complete form must include a document from list A, or else two documents – one from list B and one from list C. ]

Thacher agreed with Kenyon’s assessment, saying the board would see a range of different documents, from the minimal – affidavits – to more robust information. Thacher indicated she’d asked for additional clarification from four dispensaries over the last two weeks about information they’d submitted.

Arborside had submitted an affidavit from its president and director, Thacher said. She drew the distinction between an affidavit – a signed sworn statement that’s notarized – and a written statement. Also included were statements from four Arborside employees indicating pre-moratorium dates of employment. Some payroll records had also been submitted.

Sabra Briere focused on the affidavits. Is that not considered sufficient by itself? Thacher told Briere the city had asked for more proof than that. Thacher said the city had asked for an affidavit and had sent out a sample affidavit for people to use.

Thacher then reviewed a timeline of city communications to dispensaries, dating from the approval of the medical marijuana licensing ordinance on June 20, 2011. The first step, she said, was to try to figure out who was in operation before the Aug. 5, 2010 moratorium. The city sent letters to those it knew were in operation, and asked for evidence they were in operation before Aug. 5. That’s because there are two application processes – one for pre-moratorium businesses, and one for post-moratorium businesses. Later, on Sept. 30, an additional letter was sent saying that in light of the McQueen case, the city requested a statement from dispensaries explaining how the dispensary complied with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act. Letters were sent to seven dispensaries, but the city received a response only from one, she said.

The statements from employees of Arborside on Packard, Thacher said, were on letterhead and stated that they were employees before the moratorium.

Assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom and Chuck Ream talk after the licensing board meeting.

The payroll records, Thacher said, were hard to evaluate – yes, they looked like payroll records. O’Rorke asked what would constitute proof. Briere noted that after this first year, it won’t even matter – the issue of pre- and post-moratorium is relevant only to the first year’s licensing cycle.

Kenyon wondered what any other businesses would use to demonstrate they were in operation – quarterly tax filings? Briere observed that taxes could be filed without having a payroll. From the audience, Chuck Ream ventured that a lease would be evidence. Briere told Ream that a lease just shows access to a building – it doesn’t show you’re in business.

Continuing with information submitted by Arborside, Thacher ticked through other documentation meant to establish that Arborside was in operation before Aug. 5, 2010: a waiver from a contractor; a Chase checking account statement from July 13, 2010; an undated application for workers compensation insurance; an email from a commercial broker about a lease term; an April 22, 2010 lease agreement; a building inspection notice and building permit for work on the building; articles of incorporation dated June 18, 2010; and an IRS tax ID number.

Kenyon asked if there were more applicants than fit the slots for pre-moratorium businesses. Briere said that if there were only seven applications, then no. Kenyon ventured that the issue of pre-moratorium operation was moot. Thacher told Kenyon she felt he wouldn’t think it’s moot, when the board considered some of the other applications.

Weighing the documentation Arborside had provided, Kenyon said it might not establish beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law that it was in operation as a medical marijuana dispensary before the moratorium – the business could have been selling matchbox cars versus dispensing. But he concluded that “it sure looks like it was in business.” Thacher then indicated that Arborside had also submitted a handwritten ledger of dispensing.

Briere noted that Kenyon’s question about the pre- versus post-moratorium status of businesses relates to the total number of licenses that would be granted by the city. The number of license applications from pre-moratorium businesses sets the number of total licenses available.

About Arborside, Kenyon asked: “So does this one look reasonable?” Thacher indicated yes, and it was somewhat easier to evaluate, because the city staff had known about this dispensary before the moratorium.

Briere indicated that she would accept the following as proof: the affidavits, the dispensing records, and at least one other piece of information. She said the board might discuss whether that third piece of information could be the payroll records. “Does that seem like a reasonable threshold?” she asked her board colleagues.

Gene Ragland wondered what the consequence is of signing a false affidavit. Assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom told Ragland: “Not much.” She allowed that the city could revoke the license. But the penalty for a false affidavit per se is not like making a false statement under oath in court. Larcom went on to state that it’s hard to say what proves anything – the city had created an affidavit template as a suggestion, but was not necessarily saying that’s enough. Larcom said that staff did not assume people are going to be dishonest, but staff would like to see more evidence beyond the affidavit. It’s up to the licensing board to decide whether the documentation is sufficient to make the recommendation for granting a license, Larcom said.

Kenyon ventured that if city staff knew about Arborside before the moratorium, that seemed reasonable. Briere noted that the goal was to find objective criteria.

O’Rorke wondered if the way they were discussing Arborside was an example of how the board would eventually discuss applications. Briere clarified: “We’re doing it now.”

Kenyon agreed with the three-point assertion Briere had made about why she felt Arborside had adequately documented it was in operation before the moratorium.

MedMarx at Arborside Compassion: Other Application Requirements

Thacher continued with other points of the application: Section 7:504(2)(b) name and address of dispensary and contact information – yes; Section 7:504(2)(c) name address of property owners – yes.

For Section 7:504(2)(d) – the names of all owners of the business including all directors and officers of an LLC, Thacher said, “This tripped up quite a few people.”

Based on board and staff discussion, the ownership of Arborside had apparently changed. Kenyon wanted to know if the pre-moratorium status of a business could be transfered to the new owners of a business? He also wanted to know if the sale was an administrative sale – with the same principals – or if there were new parties involved.

Briere asked Rampson to put it in the context of a proposed development: If someone were applying for a zoning or building permit, would the transfer of ownership matter? Rampson ventured that a rough analogy might relate to the legal authority of someone to sign a development agreement being contingent on ownership or control of land. But Rampson brought the focus to the rationale for wanting names of all business owners. She noted that the reason for the requirement is to find out if someone who is associated with the business has a felony conviction.

Continuing through the list of items that Arborside had submitted, Thacher arrived at Section 7:504(2)(f), the statements from everyone named on the application – business owners and managers – that they did not have a disqualifying felony conviction. Ragland wanted to know if a background check had been run on each person. Larcom told him the best they could do is send a request to the Michigan State Police, because LEIN (the Law Enforcement Information Network) couldn’t be used.

Briere noted that licensing eligibility requirements are silent with respect to non-drug-related felonies like robbing a bank or committing a murder. Information on all felonies is required to be submitted as a part of the application, but it’s a discretionary decision by the board and the council as a whole for those felonies not involving drugs.

Later during the meeting, John Rosevear initiated a discussion on the merits of the drug-related felony exclusion – did it matter if a conviction had taken place in the early 1970s?

Speaking to the set of applications as a whole, Thacher said that some were missing a person or two for the set of statements about felonies. One had a record that would be forwarded, but had not yet been provided.

The set of application materials required in the licensing ordinance calls for a zoning compliance permit: Section 7:504(2)(h). Ragland ventured that the city had added a requirement that compliance with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act be demonstrated, including the McQueen decision.

Rampson observed that compliance with the MMMA was in the ordinance language, and after the McQueen case, the city sent out letters requesting that dispensaries explain how they were in compliance with the MMMA, including the McQueen case. Briere asked if the decision had been made at the staff level not to grant a zoning compliance permit? Thacher responded by indicating that Arborside had sent a letter on that topic to the city and that it’s in the city attorney’s office. Thacher said that compliance with zoning is noted as staff comments. She noted that Arborside has a certificate of occupancy.

Briere then asked her board colleagues: “What would you like to know that you don’t see here?” She herself said she found the application compelling, but said she’d like to see the letter that’s in the city attorney’s office explaining how the business complies with the MMMA.

The letter from Arborside to the city stating how its business conformed to the MMMA, including the McQueen decision, was examined in turn by members of the licensing board.

After the letter was passed around from board member to board member, Briere ventured that maybe it would be good to have a shredder next time. Multiple copies could be created and then shredded at the conclusion of the meeting. It’d be a waste of paper, she allowed, but would be more convenient. Rampson noted that no copies had been made of the applications themselves but that Thacher had drafted the staff reports so as not to use any names. Rampson suggested that if multiple copies were created, they need not be shredded – staff could collect and store them.

Kenyon indicated that he wanted to get through at least one application that day. Given Briere’s comments about Section 7:504(2)(a), the application from Arborside looks complete, he said. Arborside would not go to this trouble to be dishonest, he said. Ticking through all the requirements in the application, Kenyon moved to recommend a license for Arborside. After getting a seconding motion from Rosevear, the board voted.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously that it would recommend that the city council award a medical marijuana dispensary license to MedMarx at Arborside Compassion. Once a year, the board is supposed to make its license recommendations and suggestions for ordinance changes – that will occur in January 2012.

OM of Medicine

The board began its deliberation on OM of Medicine with the issue of the pre-moratorium status of the business – Section 7:504(2)(a) of the ordinance.

OM of Medicine: Pre-Moratorium Status

Briere said she would consider the affidavits of the business owner, property owner and the receipts of membership applications as evidence of pre-moratorium operation.

Ragland said he felt there were a lot of parts of the elephant in the materials and if you put them all together, there’s an elephant. Briere responded by saying the board was trying to establish minimum standards for the requirement. Kenyon agreed with Briere’s set of evidence, but added the bank statements. Asked for clarification of the bank statements, Thacher indicated that the statements were records of deposits and debit card withdrawals. Kenyon said that receipts from purchases would be compelling – you don’t buy vaporizers if you’re not going into business, he said. Briere said that “inventory” would be an item she felt the board should count.

OM of Medicine: Other Application Requirements

Considering other elements of the application in more detail, Briere said it looked like there are essentially three partners who consider themselves the business owners. Thacher noted that some additional information – indicated as still requested on the staff report – now has been provided. The entity is a nonprofit, which in turn is managed by the LLC. The required information has been provided for the nonprofit entity, but not the LLC, Thacher said. Briere ventured that what the city now needed is a list of LLC members.

Thacher responded by saying that the additional information had just been received that day. Turning to Larcom, Thacher said she didn’t want to put Larcom on the spot, but she was not sure if the LLC members needed to be named in the application, given the arrangement between the nonprofit and the LLC. Larcom indicated that the city could not get all the owners’ names associated with the LLC from the state – that needed to come from the applicant.

In the board’s discussion of the application, it emerged that another missing piece in the application was under requirement Section 7:504(2)(h) for a zoning compliance permit. The city now expects an explanation of the conformance of the business with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, including the McQueen case, as part of an application for a zoning compliance permit.

Licensing board member Patricia O'Rorke and Mark Passerini of OM of Medicine talk after the Nov. 30 meeting.

In the audience, Mark Passarini Passerini of OM of Medicine indicated he wanted to address the board for clarification. He was told he was not required to do so, but volunteered to step forward. He told the board it appeared to him that in the board’s view, his application was missing two things: (1) a membership list in the LLC; and (2) a letter describing the dispensary’s conformance with the McQueen case.

He told the board that by Thursday morning the letter would have arrived in the mail to the city. As for the LLC, he said the LLC manages the nonprofit. In response to a question from Kenyon, Passerini stated that the nonprofit pays rent to the LLC. He felt that the names for the nonprofit owners was all that’s necessary, but that he didn’t have a problem providing the ownership information for the LLC as well.

Briere asked Larcom if receiving rent from the nonprofit counts as being involved in the dispensary operation. Passerini clarified further that the LLC doesn’t own the real property. Larcom ventured that if the LLC has some other role than being the real property owner, then as long as Passerini didn’t have a problem with it, she felt it was “better safe than sorry.”

Rosevear sought to summarize: “What does he have to do?” Passerini assured the board: “We can get you what you need.” Briere indicated that they needed the names of the LLC owners, plus a statement from each owner with respect to felony convictions. Larcom asked Passerini if that made sense to him – yes, he replied.

Outcome: The board did not vote on OM of Medicine’s application.

General Consideration of Pre-Moratorium Status

For the remaining five of the seven applications, the board then settled on a strategy of looking just at the requirement in Section 7:504(2)(a) – pre-moratorium status.

Ann Arbor Wellness Collective had submitted affidavits and articles of incorporation for a nonprofit dated May 11, 2010. It also submitted evidence of web hosting set up before the moratorium. Following the three-item guideline that Briere had floated earlier in the meeting, Rampson asked: “Which are the three items?” Briere said she was happy with the two affidavits, but would like to see transactions or receipts. O’Rorke indicated she was content with the two affidavits and the web hosting. Briere felt that establishing the web hosting might be too close to the moratorium date.

Ragland felt the two affidavits were fine. O’Rorke suggested that Rampson “throw in” web hosting as well.

For the Medical Grass Station at 325 W. Liberty, there were apparently no affidavits filed as a part of the application. Briere indicated she did not believe there was a business at that location before the moratorium.

From the audience, Dennis Hayes ventured that the Grass Station’s application had been stalled by the city’s historic district commission – the business is located in the Old West Side historic district. Briere stressed that the question the board was looking at was whether the business was open before the moratorium. Back and forth among Hayes, staff and Briere indicated that the Grass Station was meant to be a successor to a business at Fourth and Washington. Rampson confirmed that there were no affidavits included in the application and there were different names on the two businesses. Briere said she felt the Grass Station’s application could not be considered except as a post-moratorium applicant.

Kenyon wanted to know what the acceptable business transitions were. As an example, Kenyon gave Amazing Beans, which was previously roasting coffee beans in Ann Arbor. Mighty Good Coffee bought that business, Kenyon said. It was not the same business, he said. The consensus on the board was that the Grass Station application would need to be considered as a new business established after the moratorium.

For the Greenbee Collective, Keynon felt that having patient records is good, but not having them is not bad. Briere indicated that she would accept patient records and affidavits.

For People’s Choice, Rampson said the location for the application was new – it had started out originally on Main Street. Briere wanted to know if any of the ownership had changed. Rampson said that People’s Choice had not yet provided all information about its directors. It had provided articles of incorporation dated July 12, 2010 and patient sign-in sheets signed on Aug. 3, 2010.

For PR Center LLC, affidavits had been submitted, along with a client code of conduct and patient sign-in sheets. Kenyon asked what the significance of the affidavit of a former property owner was. Briere noted that the business had also moved.

The consensus of the board was that PR Center and Grass Station’s applications would be considered as applications from businesses that were not in operation before the moratorium.

Summary of Application Status on Nov. 30

Summarizing the board’s discussion, Briere said that of the seven applications, five were eligible to move forward and one of the five had received the board’s consensus for eventual recommendation for approval.

Licensing board members Patricia O'Rorke (left) and Sabra Briere (right) check their calendars to confirm the next meeting time. Briere is the city council representative to the medical marijuana licensing board.

For the other four, the city is in the process of getting a complete application for elements other than requirement in Section 7:504(2)(a), which the board had concluded the four applicants had satisfied – being in business before the moratorium.

Rampson would continue to work with applicants to get information, and Rampson confirmed that the board would receive revised staff reports for its next meeting.

Next Steps

The medical marijuana licensing board meets next on Dec. 14 at 4 p.m., when it will continue its review of the license applications. Board members discussed the fact that by the city’s ordinance, it will need to report to the council in January 2012 with its recommendations for licenses and recommendations on any revisions to the licensing ordinance.

Based on the cease-and-desist letters sent by the city and the city’s requirement that dispensaries explain – as part of their zoning compliance permit applications – how they comply with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, including the McQueen decision, the city’s implicit legal position may be that it’s not technically possible for a medical marijuana dispensary to conform with the state law.

That position would inform any legal advice that’s provided to the city council before it votes on any recommendations it receives formally from the medical marijuana licensing board.

Present: Patricia O’Rorke, James Kenyon, John Rosevear, Gene Ragland, Sabra Briere. Also: city planning manager Wendy Rampson, city planner Jill Thacher and assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom.

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A sign directing voters at Angell Elementary School, where two precincts for Ann Arbor's Ward 2 are located. As of 7:05 a.m., five voters had arrived. It's unlikely the one-voter-per-minute pace will continue, but poll workers expect a higher turnout than the 68 people who voted here in the August primary.

If you’re still researching the candidates for the school board or for the city council, check out Chronicle coverage of the candidate forums.

City of Ann Arbor voters will also be presented with three ballot proposals, two of them involving approval of taxes for street and sidewalk repair. Proposal 1 would renew an existing street repair property tax at a rate of 2 mills. [A mill is $1 for every $1,000 of a property's taxable value.] Assuming Proposal 1 is approved, Proposal 2 would levy an additional 0.125 mills – for sidewalk repair. If Proposal 2 is approved by voters, the city would not start a new 5-year inspection cycle. Under that inspection program, property owners are formally notified that sidewalks adjacent to their property need repair and then must undertake those repairs themselves.

Attitudes of city council challengers towards the sidewalk millage are negative. Some current city councilmembers have offered only reluctant support for the sidewalk millage or else have a complete lack of a position on the question. Mayor John Hieftje, who is not up for re-election this year, has clearly stated his lack of a position on the sidewalk millage.

Proposal 3 is less controversial, enjoying solid support among councilmembers and challengers. It would change the makeup of the retirement system’s board of trustees so that fewer beneficiaries of the system are included on the board.

Polls are open today from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. A good place to get partial unofficial results (that are as close to official as you can get) is the Washtenaw County clerk’s office election results website.

To find your polling place, type in an address on the My Property page of the city of Ann Arbor’s website, and click on the Voter tab.

The Chronicle has established somewhat of an Election Day tradition: We tour as many precinct locations as we can through the day and file mini-reports from the polls. So we’re off – check back throughout the day for updates, appended after the jump. Add your own observations from the polls in the comments.

7:35 a.m. Ward 3, Precinct 3 (Tappan Middle School, 2251 E. Stadium Blvd.): So far 12 voters have passed through – including two who were waiting outside when the polls opened at 7 a.m. That’s a brisker pace than the August primary, which averaged about 15 voters per hour, according to the precinct chair. But now, there’s only one voter in the school cafeteria, where the polling place is located. She was allowed to bring in her dog, since there was no one else around to possibly disturb. The dog, Kiley, seemed somewhat disinterested in exercising its democratic rights.

8:07 a.m. Ward 1, Precinct 3 (Community High School, 401 N. Division): Among the other standard signs planted in the lawn is a handwritten campaign sign for Larry Murphy, in child’s handwriting. It invites people to “Vote for my dad.” Claire Dahl, precinct captain, says that voting in person is “good for your soul.” Two people have voted so far. A third arrives. Small talk among poll workers includes weather (“Is it still raining outside?”) and the merits of lining baking pans with parchment paper versus aluminum foil.

8:15 a.m. Ward 3, Precinct 4 & Ward 3 Precinct 7 (Allen School, 2560 Towner Blvd.): Continuing a trend spotted at Tappan, a voter brought his dog along to the polls – Daphne is watching other voters enter the school as her owner reviews a sample ballot before going in to cast his vote. About three dozen voters have showed up during the first hour – one of the more recent voters to pass through is former city councilmember Leigh Greden.

8:37 a.m. Ward 2, Precinct 9 (Thurston School, 2300 Prairie St.): Sign in the elementary school hallway leading to cafeteria, where polls are set up, admonishes that directions given by adults are to be followed the first time they’re given. Voter nearly leaves without receiving “I Voted” sticker. As the 8:45 bell goes off (wonder if that’s recess already?) 50 voters have cast their ballots here. Standard election inspector joke: “You can vote at any booth you like, except one that someone’s already standing in.” Election inspectors experiment with turning off the lights to save energy, but decide that it leaves things too dim for voters to read their ballots.

8:40 a.m. Ward 4, Precinct 5 (St. Clare Church/Temple Beth Emeth 2309 Packard St.): No voters are here – it’s been slow, poll workers say, with 21 voters so far. They expect it will pick up later in the day, when people get off work. One worker points out that this precinct, which includes a stretch of South Industrial, covers a large section that’s not residential. To kill time, one poll worker is knitting a scarf. “It’s boring,” she says, describing the relative challenge of her handiwork. The same description likely applies to the roughly 11 hours left until polls close at 8 p.m., unless turnout improves.

9:19 a.m. Ward 1, Precinct 9 & Ward 2, Precinct 6 (Clague Middle School, 2616 Nixon Rd.): Before leaving Thurston, overheard arriving voter say he’d initially gone to the wrong precinct – Clague Middle School, which is just behind the street where he lives. On Praire Street, between Thurston and Clague, about a dozen signs for Rapundalo, zero for Lumm. Not surprising, given that it’s Rapundalo’s home turf. Woman with dog responds to query about whether it’s registered to vote with a deadpan: “No. But she is very interested in sidewalks.” The woman departed before it was properly parsed as a joke (which it clearly was … sidewalk repair millage …). At this combined precinct location, 122 people have voted so far.

A tow truck driver hooks up an illegally parked car in front of the Mary Street polling place in Ann Arbor. Three spaces are reserved for voters on election day, and three cars parked in those spots had been ticketed after receiving warning notices over the past few days.

9:35 a.m. Ward 4, Precinct 2 (Mary St. Polling Place, 926 Mary St.): Two tow trucks are on site – three cars have been parked in the spaces reserved for voters in front of this polling location. Multiple warning notices over the past few days are evidenced by soggy green, yellow and red flyers stuck under the vehicles’ windshield wipers. One young woman walks up just as the tow truck driver has hooked up her Jeep. She gets her vehicle, but has to pay the ticket and a hook-up charge – still, it’s less than the impoundment fee. There’s far less action inside the polling station, where three people had voted so far out of the 840 registered voters in this precinct. The place smells like bleach. Normally it’s used by the Bird Center of Washtenaw County, and is scrubbed down by the center’s volunteers before election day. This small building is the only remaining city polling place that’s still in use for its original purpose.

10:04 a.m. Ward 2, Precinct 8 (St. Paul’s Lutheran School, 495 Earhart Rd.): Retracing route along Prairie Street southward from Clague, two Lumm signs spotted – how were they missed on the way north? Here at St. Paul’s, Ren Farley invites a voter to “feed the monster” – insert the ballot into the machine. So far, there have been 76 voters.

10:29 a.m. Ward 2, Precinct 7 (King School, 3800 Waldenwood Ln): So far 84 people have voted. Election inspector volunteers that there are 2,260 registered voters in his precinct – she’d looked it up for someone earlier, not that she carries that information around in her head. Signs are being added inside the school building for people who wander in through an entrance that was anticipated to be locked. Child care that’s being offered resulted in that door being unlocked. Poll worker comments on the durability of his phone, which will stand up to being dropped off a roof.

11:04 a.m. Ward 2, Precinct 1 (Northwood Community Center, Family Housing, 1000 McIntyre Dr.): Discussion between pair of young people in the lounge outside the smallish voting room centers on the rules for Twister. Are there teams? How many can play at a time? Will people naturally laugh while playing? Inside the voting room, nobody is playing Twister. So far 37 people have voted.

11:45 a.m. Ward 2, Precinct 5 (Ann Arbor Assembly of God, 2455 Washtenaw Ave.): Minor confusion between mother and son. Responding to him, she insists it doesn’t smell bad in the precinct. He explains that he’d said something about “voting” here, not that it’s “moldy” here. Business is brisk right now. So far 172 people have voted. Woman arrives with three kids and a dog. The canine Coco sits properly and is well behaved. Qualifications for voting are explained to the kids as “you have to be a grownup.” No one takes advantage of that opening to make a joke. Kids all receive stickers. Time it took to vote from start to finish was under five minutes.

1:20 p.m. Ward 1, Precincts 1 & 2 and Ward 4, Precinct 1 (Michigan Union, 530 S. State St.): These two polling stations are by far the best smelling – scent of flavored coffee from Amer’s in the lobby, and warm meat from The University Club. Out of 1,286 registered voters, one person has showed up so far for Ward 4, Precinct 1. Around the corner and down the hall in another room, the combined precincts of Ward 1 have by comparison been super busy – with 13 voters, out of around 4,000 registered. Poll workers note that most students don’t ask to be removed from the registered voter lists after graduating and leaving town.

1:23 p.m. Ward 5, Precinct 1 (Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave.): Arriving at the bicycle racks, Newcombe Clark – an Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board member and Ward 5 independent council candidate one year ago – is spotted. He and a colleague from MyBuys are the 19th and 20th voters at the library. The 21st voter is inside the polling station, which is on the bottom floor of the building. Adorning the walls are pieces from the Michigan Quilt Artist Invitational Exhibit, which runs from through Nov. 29. One of the quilted pieces of art includes this saying: “Wear pearls with your apron, you’re dressed up enough.” Poll workers are organizing their staggered lunch breaks.

Cherry Westerman outside the UM Coliseum polling station.

1:45 p.m. Ward 5, Precinct 6 (Eberwhite School, 800 Soule Blvd.): A minor glitch in the voting booth – the pen doesn’t work. Solution was easy – to remove the cap. So far 97 people have voted. Poll workers characterize that tally as “slow.” Small talk among the poll workers includes a side-by-side comparison of travel coffee mug technology. Also: thermostat settings. A strategy by one worker of 65 F during the day and 58 F at night is rejected by another as “too cold.” As temperatures outside the school approach the mid 60s, it’s now slightly cooler inside the gym.

2:10 p.m. Ward 4, Precinct 3 (UM Coliseum, Fifth Ave. & Hill St.):  Unlike the August 2010 primary, this polling station is no longer sweltering inside. Poll workers report they’ve had 91 voters, but very few students.

Outside, Cherry Westerman is collecting signatures for a petition drive – the effort is to force a referendum election to repeal Michigan Public Act 4 of 2011, better known as the emergency fund manager act. If successful, it would put the issue on the November 2012 ballot for voters to decide. She’s collected 16 signatures in the 2.5 hours she’s been outside the polling station, which she figures is a fairly high percentage of the voters who’ve passed through. Westerman is a retired teacher – her husband is the first cousin of Scott Westerman, former superintendent for the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

2:50 p.m. Ward 4, Precincts 4 & 8 (Pioneer High School, 601 W. Stadium Blvd.): About 220 people from two Ward 4 precincts have voted in the small gym at Pioneer – a poll worker describes the pace as steady. She still has time for a crossword puzzle, though – she says it’s easier to be interrupted from that than from reading a book. The six doors that serve as entrances to the gym have different words etched in frosted glass above each door. The word over the door that’s open is “team.”

David Zinn sidewalk art.

5:25 p.m. Ward 5, Precinct 2 (Bach School, 600 W. Jefferson St.): It’s dusk. A guy is taking photographs of something on the sidewalk, just outside the entrance to the school. That “something” turns out to be sidewalk chalk art, and the “guy” is David Zinn, whose work has been noted previously in The Chronicle.

He hopes to use the photos for his Christmas card, and was working against the threat of rain. Missed an obvious opportunity to ask him what he thought about the sidewalk millage. Inside, the line is four voters deep – about 230 people had come through so far, out of about 2,600 registered voters.

5:50 p.m. Ward 5, Precinct 4 & Ward 5, Precinct 5 (Slauson Middle School, 1019 W. Washington): The school parking lot is packed, but it turns out there’s another event going on – not all these vehicles are carrying voters. Inside, the polling station with combined precincts has logged over 525 voters today – a precinct chair estimates that’s about 15-20% of registered voters.

However, she cautions that the percentage is difficult to estimate, because a certain number of registered voters no longer live in this area but are still in the books. The day is winding down as it began, with sprinkling of rain.

That’s it from the polls for today, which are open until 8 p.m. If we have any results to share before they’re posted to the Washtenaw County clerk’s office election results website, we’ll make them available on our Civic News Ticker.

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The arbitration panel worked through the binding arbitration procedure for labor disputes in police and fire departments, which in Michigan is governed by Act 312 of 1969.

The new contract is retroactive for the period from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2013. In an email to The Chronicle, Tom Crawford, the city’s CFO, wrote that the panel’s determination does not include any liability for the city dating back to the start of the contract.

Highlights of the new deal include a redesigned health care plan which offer options for health care contributions, based on a calendar year. For single-person coverage, for example, the “low plan” would include no monthly premium but a $1,000 deductible. The “high plan” would include a 10% monthly contribution with a $300 deductible.

The new contract includes no across-the-board wage increases.

Pension contribution by employees would increase from 5% to 6% of pay on a pre-tax basis starting Jan. 1, 2012. Employees hired after Jan. 1, 2012 would not be vested in the pension program until 10 years, and their final average compensation (used to determine pension benefits) would be based on the last five years of service. Retirees would have an access-only type retiree health care plan with a retiree health care reimbursement account. Each employee would receive a one-time deposit of $500 in a health retirement account on Jan. 1, 2012.

In Ward 2, Stephen Rapundalo received 232 absentee votes (60%) compared with Tim Hull’s 155. In Ward 3, Stephen Kunselman received 159 absentee votes (56%) compared to 120 and 7 for Ingrid Ault and Marwan Issa, respectively. And in Ward 5, Mike Anglin received 298 absentee votes (72%), compared with Neal Elyakin’s 117.

Absent voter count board totals reflect absentee voting totals across all precincts in the ward. Those totals are thus not as susceptible to reflecting an advantage a candidate might enjoy that is peculiar to just one precinct. Still, to a certain extent, these voters self-select to vote using an absentee ballot, and as a group are not a random sample of voters in the ward. So some caution is warranted in drawing conclusions based on these totals.

The other two city wards did not have contested Democratic primaries. No city ward had a contested Republican primary.

Stuart Berry received 2 votes – he was the only choice on the Republican side of the ballot.

O’Dell, an Ann Arbor resident, currently is chief of police and executive director of public safety at Eastern Michigan University. He holds a juris doctorate degree from the University of Toledo College of Law and a bachelor’s degree from EMU. He is also a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the EMU school for police staff and command, according to a UM press release.

O’Dell will oversee a department that employs 80 people, including 55 sworn police officers. The campus area faces heightened security in the wake of a half-dozen recent assaults on women in downtown Ann Arbor.

The position of UM police chief had been in limbo since the previous chief of university police, Ken Magee, went on medical leave in October 2010. Magee was hired in 2008. He was the subject of public commentary at the January 2011 board of regents meeting, with questions raised about his departure. The university posted the position in February 2011.

At their meeting last week on May 18, Washtenaw County commissioners had postponed action on a request to approve a $1 million loan application to the state Dept. of Environmental Quality for brownfield cleanup at the former Georgetown Mall site. Developers were asking to use the county’s full faith and credit as a guarantee for the loan – a request that caused concern over entering into a relationship with a private developer that might pose a financial risk for the county.

The board was expected to take up the request again at their June 1 meeting, along with consideration of a broader public-private investment policy they’re developing, which was also postponed from the May 18 meeting. But now that there’s no loan in play, commissioners seemed inclined to defer action on the policy as well, giving the county’s attorney more time to analyze the issue.

Other items previewed from the June 1 agenda include: (1) five drain projects in the city of Ann Arbor that require bonds backed by the county’s full faith and credit, totaling $6.54 million; (2) acceptance of $455,000 in federal stimulus funds for the county’s weatherization program, which has already received over $4 million in grants over the past three years, and (3) approval of a new public health medical director. The current director, Diana Torres-Burgos, recently announced her resignation – she’ll be leaving her job at the end of June.

Agenda Briefings Resurrected – For Now

Tuesday’s briefing, attended by five of the 11 commissioners, marks a modified resumption of sessions that were previously held prior to every board meeting to review the upcoming agenda. Those administrative briefings were eliminated in February of 2011, after some commissioners objected to the fact that they weren’t sufficiently in public view.

Even though the informal briefings were public meetings, properly noticed under the Michigan Open Meetings Act and attended regularly by The Chronicle, they were held in a small conference room and – unlike other meetings of the board – were not televised.

Earlier this month, the board resurrected the briefings – at least for the summer – with the first one held on Tuesday to preview the June 1 agenda. In the summer, the board works on a reduced schedule, holding its Ways & Means Committee, regular board and working session meetings only once a month, rather than the twice-monthly schedule that’s in place the rest of the year. Additional briefings for the summer meetings are set for June 28 and July 26. The board will decide later whether to continue the briefings into the fall.

The briefings begin at 4 p.m. in the county boardroom at 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor, and are recorded for broadcast on Community Television Network and on the county’s website.

Packard Square Loan, Public-Private Policy

At Tuesday’s briefing, the draft agenda for the June 1 meeting still included an item to vote on the public-private partnership investment policy being developed in large part to address the Packard Square loan request. When commissioners were told that the developers no longer planned to seek the state loan, the question became this: Did the board still want to keep the policy item on the agenda?

Board chair Conan Smith asked what the implication would be to eliminating the state loan – the brownfield plan approved by the board on May 18 assumes the $1 million loan will be part of that project. Commissioner Yousef Rabhi, who serves on the county’s brownfield redevelopment authority board, said the developers would need to seek a private loan if they intended to keep the brownfield plan as is – otherwise, they’d need to seek approval from the board to amend the brownfield plan.

Regarding the public-private policy, Curtis Hedger – the county’s corporation counsel – told commissioners that he’d sent the draft policy to John Axe for review. Axe, of the Grosse Pointe Farms law firm Axe & Ecklund, provides bond counsel and other legal services to the county on a contract basis. Hedger said Axe would be providing feedback, but couldn’t attend the June 1 meeting – he’d be celebrating his wedding anniversary.

Leah Gunn questioned the need for the policy at all. Aside from Packard Square, she couldn’t remember the county ever being asked by a developer to back a loan. Typically, the county’s full faith and credit is used for public projects.

Hedger cited the Broadway Village at Lower Town project in Ann Arbor as a similar situation, but noted that it didn’t move forward. He clarified that with the Packard Square loan, the county wouldn’t have been entering into a direct relationship with a developer – it’s illegal to extend the county’s full faith and credit to a private entity, he said. Rather, the relationship would have been between the county and the state, which was providing the loan through a program for brownfield projects. The county’s involvement benefits the developer only indirectly, he said.

County commissioner Leah Gunn, after the May 24 agenda briefing. She recently announced her intent not to run for re-election in 2012. Redistricting would have put her into the same district as incumbent and fellow Democrat Yousef Rabhi, whom she says she'll support in his re-election bid.

The county needs to make sure that whatever policy is adopted is crafted precisely, Hedger said, so that they deal with any type of public-private partnership legally.

Gunn said she didn’t think they should waste time on developing a policy – they won’t be encountering this type of situation regularly. “It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” she said.

Smith observed that he’d made a considerable time investment in it so far – after a special working session on May 17 to discuss the issue, he’d worked up a draft policy that was brought to the May 18 meeting, though it was ultimately postponed.

“Sometimes you have to let it go,” Gunn advised.

Rolland Sizemore Jr. speculated that there will likely be more public-private projects proposed in the future. He wanted to make sure they didn’t create a policy too quickly that would hurt the county down the road. He said he wasn’t in a mood to rush it through.

The consensus among commissioners who attended the briefing was to pull the item from the June 1 agenda, and possibly bring it back to the board at a later date.

Full Faith and Credit – Public Works Projects

The issue of full faith and credit came up again in relation to five requests from the county’s water resources commissioner, on the June 1 agenda for initial approval. The projects, which require the county to back bond payments totaling up to $6.54 million, are all located in Ann Arbor:

• Allen Creek drain cistern installation, downspout disconnection and tree planting – up to $330,000.
• County Farm drain stream bank stabilization – up to $1.2 million.
• Malletts Creek drain/Burns Park porous alley; Malletts Creek cistern installation, downspout disconnection, and tree planting; and Malletts Creek stream bank stabilization – up to $3.48 million.
• Swift Run cistern installation, downspout disconnection, and tree planting – up to $75,000.
• Traver Creek cistern installation, downspout disconnection, and tree planting; and Traver Creek stream bank stabilization – up to $780,000.

Bonds would be repaid from special assessments to the city of Ann Arbor. For the County Farm, Malletts Creek and Traver Creek projects, special assessments would also be made to the state and county.

Rolland Sizemore Jr. asked why the city of Ann Arbor couldn’t guarantee the bonds with its full faith and credit, since the projects are all located in that city. Conan Smith explained that these improvements are being made to county drain systems within the city. As such, the county is allowed to create special assessment districts, like any other public works project, he said.

Smith added his thanks to the staff of the water resources commissioner for preparing these projects in time for the June 1 meeting. He said that he and Sizemore had made a commitment to ensuring that – as much as possible – items didn’t get considered for initial and final approval on the same night.

Agenda items are first brought to the Ways & Means Committee, chaired by Sizemore and consisting of the entire board, for an initial vote. They are then forwarded to the regular board meeting, chaired by Smith, for a final vote. The meetings are held back-to-back, but items from Ways & Means typically aren’t considered on the same night – they are forwarded to the board meeting that’s held two weeks later – or, on the summer schedule, a month later. The intent is to allow for more time for commissioners to reflect on the items between casting their initial and final votes.

Departmental Reorganization

An effort is in the works to consolidate three county departments: the office of community development (OCD), ETCS (the employment training and community services department) and the economic development & energy department. Commissioners were briefed on this reorganization at their May 5, 2011 working session, with the expectation that it would be brought to the board for approval at the June 1 meeting.

At the May 24 agenda briefing, however, Joanna Bidlack – a county administration staffer who leads the briefings – said the item had been pulled from the June 1 meeting. She reported that Diane Heidt, the county’s human resources and labor relations director, had met with union leaders earlier in the day and they had asked for more time to assess the change. Now, the plan is to bring the reorganization to the board’s July 6 meeting for initial approval, with a final vote on Aug. 3.

Community Corrections Grant

Commissioners will be asked to approve a grant application for the county’s community corrections program, operated by the sheriff’s office. The grant of $421,801 – for the period from Oct. 1, 2011 through Sept. 30, 2012 – is only a portion of the program’s $1.01 million budget. Other revenues include $215,983 from the county’s general fund, $76,386 from the program’s fund balance, and an estimated $295,890 in program-generated revenues, including fees from tethering and drug testing.

Programs run by community corrections are designed in part to provide sentencing alternatives to the Washtenaw County Trial Court. Programs include pre-trial screening, drug testing, electronic tethering, supervised release, and educational efforts, such as the “Thinking Matters” program offered in partnership with the nonprofit Dawn Farm.

Weatherization, Food Grants

Two items on the June 1 agenda relate to the county’s employment training and community services (ETCS) department.

Commissioners will be asked to accept $455,000 in federal stimulus funds – from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) – to pay for weatherization assistance. The funds were originally granted to other municipalities but weren’t used, and are being redistributed.

Washtenaw County has already been granted $4.3 million in weatherization funds from 2009-2011, and has finished work on 611 residences. The new funding will pay for about 70 additional residences. The services – including home inspections, refrigerator efficiency testing and consumer education – are available to residents with an income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. That’s $23,448 for a single person, or $45,088 for a family of four.

ETCS is also asking the board to approve a grant application to fund a summer food program for children. Nearly $116,000 in federal funds, distributed through the state Dept. of Education, are available to pay for breakfasts, lunches and snacks to low-income children at 30 sites throughout the county. Kelly Belknap, interim deputy county administrator, told commissioners that more details about the exact sites will be available by the June 1 meeting.

Public Health Medical Director

Diana Torres-Burgos, the county’s public health medical director, recently announced her resignation – she’ll be leaving her job at the end of June.

On the June 1 agenda is an item asking commissioners to approve the hire of a new medical director. However, there were no additional details available at the May 24 briefing. The board will be asked to make both an initial and final vote that same night.

[After the briefing, interim deputy county administrator Kelly Belknap told The Chronicle that interviews with three finalists are being held this week – no decision has yet been made on a hire.]

Conan Smith objected to the process, saying it was a nightmare to handle it this way, because it gave the board and public no opportunity to vet a senior level staff position. Leah Gunn pointed out that no one from the public ever comments on the medical director appointment. It’s not a nightmare, she said. Smith allowed that perhaps he was just in a grumpy mood.

Belknap explained that the public health department needs a doctor on staff – if they don’t get final approval at the June 1 meeting, the appointment would have to wait until the July 6 meeting, and there’d be a gap between the departure of Torres-Burgos at the end of June. Medicare services provided by the county – including immunizations and the maternal infant health program – require that a licensed medical doctor on staff bill Medicare, via the state, for reimbursement.

Next regular board meeting: Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at 6:30 p.m. at the county administration building, 220 N. Main St. The Ways & Means Committee meets first, followed immediately by the regular board meeting. [confirm date] (Though the agenda states that the regular board meeting begins at 6:45 p.m., it usually starts much later – times vary depending on what’s on the agenda.) Public comment sessions are held at the beginning and end of each meeting.