Stories indexed with the term ‘Huron River’

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission meeting (Dec. 15, 2009): If projects discussed by the city’s park advisory commission move ahead, next year will bring a series of art installations to the Huron River, and turn two city parks into parking lots for University of Michigan home football games.

This image shows how wire sculptures on the Huron River might appear, if a public art project proposed by a University of Michigan visiting professor gets approval from the state and city. (Image courtesy of William Dennisuk.)

At its Dec. 15 meeting, park commissioners raised concerns but ultimately signed off on a city staff proposal to use parts of Allmendinger and Frisinger parks for football parking during the 2010 season. The plan could raise an estimated $34,000 in net revenues for the city.

In a separate move, the commission gave the go ahead for UM to apply for a state permit that’s needed to install a series of wire sculptures at four locations along the Huron River, from Argo to Gallup. It’s an ambitious project by UM visiting artist William Dennisuk, designed to bridge the town/gown communities – assuming that the project itself gets approval from the city and state.

Commissioners also got a budget update from Jayne Miller, the city’s community services director, who told them to anticipate additional cuts over the next two years, and described how that might affect parks and recreation. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (Dec. 7, 2009) Part I: Based on dialog at the city council’s budget retreat on Saturday, and the absence of any action at Monday’s council meeting to prevent it, layoff notices to 14 firefighters will be sent sometime this week.

Mayor John Hieftje also gave some additional detail on a proposal he’d mentioned at the council’s budget retreat on Saturday: an across-the-board wage cut of 3% for all city employees, which would include councilmembers.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) presents his case for having a plan for the Huron River. (Photos by the writer)

Though the topics of firefighters and wage cuts were mentioned during the council’s communications section of the meeting, what pushed the meeting to nearly midnight were deliberations on two resolutions: (i) a three-year reduction of the Percent for Art program to effectively a “Half-Percent for Art” program, and (ii) acceptance of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP).

Both resolutions passed, though the HRIMP resolution was heavily amended. The material effect of the amendment was that it was not technically “accepted” by the council, but rather remanded to the city’s park advisory commission and the environmental commission. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council Sunday caucus (Dec. 6, 2009): At the Sunday night caucus of the Ann Arbor city council, looming budget decisions were front and center as topics, just as they’d been the previous day at the council’s day-long retreat. [Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor City Budget: Cuts Begin Now"]

Residents who attended the caucus expressed concerns about probable firefighter layoffs, possible threats to city parks, and a Monday meeting agenda item approving $895,000 for an accounting system overhaul. In responding to residents, councilmembers mentioned an idea that Mayor John Hieftje had briefly floated at the council’s budget retreat: an across-the-board wage cut of 3% for all city employees.

Besides the accounting system overhaul, the other Monday meeting agenda item residents spoke about was the council’s “acceptance” of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan. Representatives of the Huron River Watershed Council encouraged the council to accept the plan. That discussion led to the topic of the city’s Percent for Art program and its legal status. The council has an item on its Monday agenda to reduce the percentage reserved from 1% to a 0.5%.

On the council side, the caucus was attended by Hieftje, Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Mike Anglin (Ward 5), Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3). [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission (Nov. 17, 2009): With the golf season coming to an end, the city’s Park Advisory Commission got a status report from Ann Arbor’s director of golf, Doug Kelly. He did not, however, provide a recipe for his chicken salad, which he added to the menu this summer at the two city-owned courses. Then again, no one asked – but someone did ask when the golf courses were expected to break even.

The sign for the city's Huron Hills Golf Course at the corner of Huron River Parkway and Huron River Drive. Though the city's Leslie Park Golf Course closed for the season on Sunday, Huron Hills will be open "until the snow flies," according to its website. (Photo by the writer.)

Also at the meeting, PAC honored Roger Wykes, the 2009 Natural Area Preservation volunteer of the year. Wykes helps out with the city’s breeding bird survey – commissioners heard details about that project from ornithologist Dee Dea Armstrong.

And an artist who’s spending this year as a visiting lecturer at the University of Michigan made a pitch for an art installation along the Huron River – a project that he envisions will help build a bridge between the university and the community of Ann Arbor. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council Meeting (Nov. 16, 2009) Part II: The length of Monday’s city council meeting, which did not adjourn until nearly 1 a.m., might be blamed on the lengthy public commentary and deliberations on downtown zoning and design guidelines.

Left to right: Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) getting ceremonially sworn in at the start of council's Nov. 16, 2009 meeting. Standing to the left out of frame are Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) and Mike Anglin (Ward 5). (Photo by the writer.)

But it would have been a long meeting even without the downtown planning content, which we’ve summarized in a separate report: “Downtown Planning Process Forges Ahead.”

Before postponing the acceptance of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP), the council got a detailed update on how things stand on the city’s dispute with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) over Argo Dam.

An agenda item authorizing capital improvements in West Park prompted a lengthy discussion of how the Percent for Art program works.

Some public commentary calling abstractly for greater support for inventors and entrepreneurs was followed later in the meeting by an appropriation from the city’s LDFA to Ann Arbor SPARK to fund more business acceleration services.

A consent agenda item on the purchase of parking meters was pulled out and postponed.

The council also heard a detailed report from the city administrator, which covered emergency response time to a recent house fire, ADA-compliant sidewalk ramps, responses to the library lot Request for Proposals, updates on the task forces for Mack Pool and Ann Arbor’s senior center, staff reductions in planning and development, the East Stadium bridges, as well as the upcoming budget retreat on Dec. 5.

Stephen Kunselman’s (Ward 3) use of attachments to the agenda to document questions for city staff received some critique.

Also worth noting, the five winners of recent council elections were sworn in, and Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) was elected as mayor pro tem. Those topics in more detail below. [Full Story]

Graph of Huron River water levels on June 18, 2009 when the dam gates were opened. Late on June 19, it started raining hard. (Image links to higher resolution graph. )

Back in mid-June, Paul Christensen, who’s president of the Huron River Fly Fishing Club, gave us a heads up that some fishermen plying their craft in the waters downstream from Argo Dam – himself included – had been surprised the previous morning by a rapid rise then fall of the water levels.

Real time data on river levels and flow rates is available online from the U.S. Geological Survey website, along with archived data and a charting tool. That allowed us to get a visual snapshot of the event as measured by the gauge.

We later headed off to the dam to get a closeup view of the dam’s gates – the incident had been caused by an opening and closing of those gates. But before photographing the gates, we swung by the NEW Center, where the Huron River Watershed Council offices are located, just upstream from the dam. There we touched base with Laura Rubin, executive director of HRWC, to see what she knew about the event.

In the course of that conversation, Rubin suggested that when we went down to take our photos, we look for a new yellow buoy among the familiar line of orange buoys just in front of the dam. More on what the yellow buoy is for, plus an explanation of the gate opening-and-closing event, after the break. We’ll also give an update on where things stand with the future of Argo Dam. [Full Story]

Book cover of "Riverwalks" by Brenda Bentley.

[Editor's Note: HD, a.k.a. Dave Askins, editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, is also publisher of an online series of interviews on a teeter totter. Introductions to new Teeter Talks appear on The Chronicle.]

There’s been an unintended two-month hiatus in tottering. Talking on the totter resumed last week with Brenda Bentley.

I met Brenda around this time of year standing on the Broadway Bridge – the one over the Huron River, not the one over the railroad tracks. I first thought it was last year, but my recollection is hazy.

Through that haze, I think I remember the reason I was hanging out on a bridge that’s not in my neighborhood: I was waiting for Liz Elling to pass through during her swim along the length of the Huron River.

Elling swam around a 100 miles down the Huron in July 2007. So it’s actually been two years since I first met Brenda.

On that occasion, she was taking notes for a book she was writing about walking routes that lead to the river. Consistent with my habit, I invited her to come ride the teeter totter once she completed the book. [Full Story]

After hearing residents passionately argue both sides of the issue at its Tuesday meeting, the Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission voted 5 to 4 to recommend keeping Argo Dam in place.

The question of whether to remove or repair the dam has been debated for more than three years, with several hearings and public meetings. Now, the issue could be decided within the next month or so. The city’s Environmental Commission is expected to vote on its own recommendation at its May 28 meeting, with Ann Arbor’s city council ultimately deciding the issue, perhaps as early as June. [Full Story]

Matt Naud, environmental coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor, gives the universal gestural sign for Whoah-there-fella, as Steven Yaffee of the UM School of Natural Resources & Environment looks on.

At the first of three public meetings on the future of the Huron River held Wednesday evening at Forsythe Middle School, the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP) committee’s vision for the Huron River’s future was presented. It reads in part: “The river and its publicly-owned shoreline and riparian areas create a blue and green corridor across the city that contains restored natural areas and adequate, well-sited public trails and access.”

It was that sentence that prompted the first whispered interactions between The Chronicle and other folks at our table: What, exactly, does “riparian” mean? Russ Miller, a rower who’s now hooked on the sport after taking it up only a couple of years ago, had a notion that it had to do with the place where the water meets the shore, but it was his PALM handheld computing device that provided a definitive answer: interface area between land and a stream.

The Forsythe meeting itself could fairly be described as an interface between two groups as different as land and water: people keen to see Argo Dam preserved, and those who wouldn’t mind seeing it disappear. [Full Story]

Pat Cody looks a bit cold working on the drilling rig in the Pioneer High School field diagonally across from Michigan Stadium.

When Steve Bean filed a Stopped. Watched. item reporting a drilling rig putting holes in the Pioneer High School lawn, The Chronicle sprang into action. We figured we already knew what it was about: a project to improve the water quality of the Allen Creek watershed, which the Ann Arbor city council had approved at its Nov. 17 meeting. Just the same, the possibility of a giant drill in action is hard to resist.

Bean’s description was dead-on. … [Full Story]