Stories indexed with the term ‘incentive’

DDA Awards Incentive to Republic Parking

At its Feb. 1, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board approved a management incentive under the terms of its contract with Republic Parking, which manages day-to-day operations of the public parking system. The board voted to award $45,000 out of the $50,000 that it can award on a discretionary basis. The other $150,000 of the $200,000 total incentive is not discretionary, and is paid to Republic monthly.

The management incentive is paid based on customer satisfaction surveys and independent inspections of the parking facilities. The free responses section of the survey included a range of sentiments, from enthusiastic praise of specific Republic Parking employees (“Staff is always very friendly” and “Teri and Cathy are the greatest!!”), complaints about employee … [Full Story]

Column: Recycling Virtues and MORE

The city of Ann Arbor made a recent decision to convert to a single-stream curbside recycling system, plus implement an incentive coupon reward system to encourage people to participate in the program.

apple and orange

Orange (left) and apple (right). The orange is larger than the apple. Its skin is bumpy in contrast to the apple's smooth covering. Also, the apple has a stem. (Photo by the writer.)

The decision came under some criticism for its initial capital costs, the possible reduction in quality of the resulting recycled material, as well as for its emphasis on coupon rewards for recycling more – which some people feared could feed back into a loop causing more consumption.

I think there are fair questions that can be asked about cost and quality.  What I missed, however, was a convincing sales pitch – one that included options within the basic idea of a single-stream system with an incentive program. In this column, I take a look at what I’d have found to be a more convincing sales pitch. [Full Story]