Stories indexed with the term ‘city-university relations’

On the northeast corner at the intersection of State and Hill streets in Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan’s Weill Hall stands majestically as a landmark building, establishing the southwest corner of the UM campus.

Following State Street north up the hill towards downtown will lead you to the intersection with Monroe Street. Turn right on Monroe, and you’ll wind up at Dominick’s, a local watering hole, majestic in its own right.

One parking option for patrons of Dominick’s is that first block of Monroe Street east of State. And what better topic to discuss over a pitcher of beer, sitting at a Dominick’s picnic table, than Ann Arbor parking rates. How much should it cost to use an on-street parking space on Monroe in that one block between State and Oakland?

Here’s a different question: How much for the whole damn block? I don’t mean just the parking spaces. I mean the whole right-of-way.

That question is part of a current conversation among public officials from the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. The university is not interested in parking cars on that block. In fact, it’s the university’s desire that the thoroughfare be blocked to vehicular traffic. Permanently.

By tackling this topic, I’d like to achieve a two-fold purpose. First, I’d like to promote the daylighting of conversations now taking place out of public view. Second, I’d like to provide a rational way to approach calculating the value of city right-of-way, specifically in the general context of city-university relations.

Otherwise put, I’d like to sketch out a kind of Monroe Doctrine for Ann Arbor, which might in some ways mirror the message in the original Monroe Doctrine, set forth by President James Monroe in his address to Congress, on Dec. 2, 1823.

I’m not going to suggest including the part that talks about when “our rights are invaded or seriously menaced …” [Full Story]

In a press release issued late on Friday, Aug. 26 by the city of Ann Arbor communications unit, the city of Ann Arbor announced that the city and the University of Michigan had reached an agreement on football game day traffic control. Under the agreement, the university will reimburse the city for costs of providing traffic control services on home football Saturdays.

The agreement came after the Ann Arbor city council passed a resolution at its Aug. 15, 2011 meeting directing its city administrator not to provide traffic control services unless the university reimbursed the city for those costs in the same way the university reimburses costs for police and fire protection on game days.

However, the agreement will mean a … [Full Story]

Editor’s note: The Ann Arbor city council has held two retreats to discuss the city’s FY 2012 budget – one in early December 2010 and another in early January 2011. A summary of the material covered in those retreats is provided in previous Chronicle coverage: “Ann Arbor: Engaging the FY 2012 Budget.”

Leading up to the city administrator delivering a proposed budget in April – for FY 2012, beginning July 1, 2011 – the city council is also holding a series of work sessions on the budget. Their typical scheduling pattern is for the weeks between council meetings. Previous work sessions have taken place on community services, as well as the 15th District Court and police and fire services. On Feb. 28, the council held its final budget work session of the season – on public services and the city attorney’s office. [.pdf of  combined public services budget impact sheets provided on the city of Ann Arbor's budget impact web page.]

Streets, sidewalks, trash collection, trees in the right-of-way, water and sewers are all included under the general label of “public services” in the city. At Monday’s budget work session on those kinds of activities, public services area administrator Sue McCormick did not present the council with any news more dramatic than Roger Fraser did when he announced at the conclusion of the session that he’d be leaving his job by the end of April.

But McCormick did present the council with options for meeting reduction targets that would, if enacted, have a significant impact on the range of services offered by the city. In at least one case, the range of service would expand – the city (instead of adjoining property owners) could assume responsibility for sidewalk repair and replacement.

In another case – which McCormick stressed was not a recommendation, but rather just an informational ballpark amount for potential annual savings to the city ($2.1 million) – the city would get out of the business of trash collection. In another month, the city expects to give the council a report that provides more detail on possible alternatives to having city workers perform that task, including some kind of franchised trash collection operation.

Many of the specific reduction target tactics presented on Monday evening involved assigning costs to a unit outside the general fund. While the city’s total budget includes around $340 million in expenses, the annual discussion typically spotlights the general fund, which gets revenue from the general operations millage [listed on tax bills as CITY OPER] – and is currently levied at a rate of roughly 6 mills. The widely reported projected deficit of $2.4 million for the city’s budget is for the general fund.

During the work session, the assignment of costs to other funds caused Sandi Smith (Ward 1) to wonder if it was just a matter of “shuffling” money from one bucket to another. The answer she heard was: No – it’s a matter of assigning costs appropriately to whatever fund should properly bear the cost of a particular activity.

One of the largest instances of such a cost reassignment would use the stormwater utility fund, instead of the general fund, to pay for forestry operations for trees in the right-of-way. That move would save the city’s general fund around $660,000 a year.

Another example of that kind of “shuffling,” albeit with a smaller dollar figure ($35,000), was a proposal from the city attorney’s office to charge capital projects part of the cost of a paralegal specializing in easements, instead of burdening the city attorney’s budget with that expense. The city attorney’s reduction strategy, which had originally been scheduled for a prior work session, was also part of Monday evening’s presentation. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission working session (June 1, 2010): Members of the Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission took another crack at drafting a resolution regarding the proposed Fuller Road Station, softening some of the language that had previously called for city council to abandon the project. The station includes a large parking structure, bus depot and possible train station for commuter rail, to be built in partnership with the University of Michigan near the UM medical complex.

The changes are in response to a plea for unity by mayor John Hieftje, who had attended PAC’s May 18 meeting where he spoke with commissioners for an hour about their concerns. He told commissioners that the city has a better chance of getting federal funding for the project if they show a united front.

PAC members have been concerned that if the project moves forward, the city would receive less revenue from UM for parking than it currently gets from the surface lots it leases to the university on Fuller Road. Those revenues support the city’s park operations. Among other issues, some commissioners are also troubled that the structure is to be built on land that’s designated as parkland, and that there’s been limited opportunity for public input.

Immediately following a June 1 meeting of PAC’s land acquisition committee, which includes all members of the commission, PAC members stayed for a working session on the Fuller Road Station. Chair Julie Grand brought a revised resolution to consider, and the group thrashed through issues and language to come up with a draft that will be discussed at PAC’s June 15 regular meeting.

In addition, commissioner Tim Berla plans to propose an alternative resolution, which he emailed to other PAC members on Monday. His resolution focuses on process – asking that the city council and staff be fully transparent in providing details about the agreement to the public. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission meeting (March 16, 2010): Fuller Road Station was the focus of this month’s PAC meeting, including a presentation by Eli Cooper and others on the project’s team. Five people spoke on the topic during public commentary as well – all of them concerned about the proposed parking structure and transit center.

Several commissioners had pointed questions for Cooper. Sam Offen pressed him on the issue of revenues, noting that when the parking structure is built, the university might have no need for the spaces it leases from the city on the opposite side of Fuller Road – resulting in a loss of about $38,000 per year to the city.

Also attending the meeting was Greta Brunschwyler, the new executive director at the Leslie Science and Nature Center, who started the job on March 4 and came to introduce herself to park commissioners and staff.

Leslie Science and Nature Center is where Jason Frenzel’s office is located. Frenzel, volunteer and outreach coordinator for the city’s Natural Area Preservation program, gave a brief presentation about volunteer opportunities.

Scott Rosencrans, PAC’s chair, wasn’t able to attend the meeting, which was led in his absence by vice chair John Lawter. Lawter announced that Rosencrans has decided not to seek reappointment to PAC when his term ends in mid-April. So not only will PAC need to elect a new chair, Lawter said, there will also be an opening on the commission. [Full Story]

The city of Ann Arbor’s attempt to start accumulating cash to replace the East Stadium Boulevard bridges failed on Thursday when a statewide board appropriating money for large bridges declined to give the city a share of the available dollars.

City officials had hoped to secure a portion of the $5.7 million in federal and state dollars awarded by the Local Bridges Advisory Board on Thursday at a meeting in Lansing.

But with a limited pot of money, and applications for projects totaling tens of millions of dollars, the eight-member board opted to put the resources behind smaller-ticket bridges.

“Throwing a little bit at that big a problem isn’t going to get people anywhere,” said board chairman Robert Clegg, the city engineer in Port Huron. [Full Story]

“Car number 4 wins, Pete, that’s car number 4!” declared Ben Kaufman into his walkie talkie. “Pete” was Kaufman’s Phi Delta Theta fraternity brother, Peter DiLeo, who needed that information to keep track of the brackets for 16 cars in a double-elimination soap box derby held Saturday morning.

To organize the ALS fundraising event on the South University Avenue hill just east of the Phi Delta Theta house, the University of Michigan fraternity had joined with Ann Arbor Active Against ALS [A2A3] a local nonprofit that launched last November.

The mechanics of the fundraising effort were laid out for The Chronicle by the captain of a pirate-boat car, Cameron Kortes. It cost $25 to race a car of your own construction, $75 if you wanted Phi Delta Theta or A2A3 to build a car for you to race, or $100 to have a car both built and raced for you. Kortes said that for this inaugural year of the race, the emphasis was not on raising as much money as possible, but rather to establish it as an event that would attract the interest of the community as well as members of the fraternity internally. [Full Story]

At planning commission’s working session on Tuesday night, held in the 6th floor conference room of the Larcom Building, representatives of the University of Michigan described a request for permanent closure of Monroe Street, between Oakland and State streets. Previously, The Chronicle covered the proposed Monroe Street closure as part of UM’s early December 2008 meeting with neighbors, which is now required under the city of Ann Arbor’s citizen participation ordinance.

Sue Gott, university planner, and Jim Kosteva, director of community relations, made the presentation to the commission’s working session for the permanent street closure, which would not come before the commission as a formal request until April 21 at the soonest, according to Connie Pulcipher, senior planner with the city of Ann Arbor, who attended the working session. [Full Story]

Christopher Taylor, one of two Ann Arbor city council representatives for Ward 3, rode the totter a couple of weeks ago. His conversation is ready to read.

I would highlight the discussion of city-university relations as a topic of broader significance that was touched on while teetering. For details, read Taylor’s Talk.

Other topics on the totter included the orange mug he drank from on the occasion, the CTN mugs from his recent appearance on CTN’s Conversations, getting stuff done at the individual constituent level, snow removal in Ann Arbor, and how Taylor came to live in Ann Arbor. [Full Story]