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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Democrat Yousef Rabhi, left, and Republican Joe Baublis, seated, await the start of the Sept. 27, 2010 League of Women Voters forum. CTN producer Tim Nagae, right, hooks up a microphone on the set. (Photos by the writer.)

On Sept. 27, the League of Women Voters held a forum for candidates in the other three Ann Arbor districts – 8, 9 and 11. Four of the six candidates participated: Incumbent Democrat Leah Gunn of District 9; Republican Melinda Day, who’s challenging incumbent Democrat Barbara Bergman in District 8; Democrat Yousef Rabhi and Republican Joe Baublis, who are vying for the District 11 seat vacated by Jeff Irwin. Bergman had a scheduling conflict and didn’t participate. Republican Mark Tipping, who’s running against Gunn in District 9, did not respond to the League’s invitation.

The forum took place at Community Television Network studios and is available online through CTN’s video-on-demand service.

The hour-long event, bookended by the music of John Philip Sousa’s El Capitan, was moderated by Nancy Schewe. Questions covered a broad range of topics related to county government, including how to address upcoming budget shortfalls and the role of county government in providing police services. This report presents candidate remarks in the order that candidates responded.

Opening Statements

Candidates were given one minute to make an opening statement.

Day’s Opening Statement

Noting that she is a University of Michigan Ph.D. student in life sciences, Melinda Day said that “in a perfect world, I wouldn’t be here right now.” There’s an epidemic of unemployment among young people, she said – people her age. They’re accumulating large debts for degrees that are quickly losing their value. There are no jobs available, she said, and their future success has been diminished. This is what has motivated her to move beyond the lab and run for county commissioner. We can’t continue down a road of fiscal irresponsibility, she said. The county is facing revenue shortfalls over the next several years, and the board needs new people to work diligently to balance the budget. She said she’ll work hard to have a county government that’s efficient and that keeps taxes down.

Gunn’s Opening Statement

Leah Gunn began by thanking the League for hosting the forum. She noted that the county has always had a balanced budget– it’s the law. Last year, they closed a $30 million gap by a unanimous vote of the board, she said. It’s difficult to make the decisions they need to make, but she said she’s very proud to be part of that process. It takes working together, both parties, to do what they need to do, Gunn said, adding that she has the experience and core values of the community to make the right decisions.

Baublis’ Opening Statement

Joe Baublis said he was here to encourage viewers to vote for him. He said he has actual experience dealing with federal, state, county and local bureaucracy. He has superior credentials, more education, and more licenses. He said he brings alternatives to the status quo. As an example, he said his priority is to protect the taxpayers – that priority does not even exist on the current board’s list. He said it means that if you’re a homeowner, or rent a home, or own a business in Washtenaw County, you get protection from him. Without him, he said, these taxpayers are not a priority. “I will make your concerns, my concerns.”

Rabhi’s Opening Statement

Yousef Rabhi thanked the League, saying this was an important community forum and that it’s important to inform the voters about the different levels of government. He said he’s running because he believes that human services are the core of what the county provides, and they need to be protected. The county is seeing a decline in revenue because of the state and local economy, and it’s hard to balance the budget while keeping human services a priority. The board has been doing a pretty good job of that, and he intends to continue that strong tradition. He also said he’s running to forge a sustainable future for the county. They need to look for ways to make their carbon footprint lower, and to find ways to make the economy resilient. He said he’s the best candidate because he’s bringing “positivism and energy that can’t be beat.”

Police Services and the Sheriff’s Department

Question: Ypsilanti Township is negotiating for Ypsilanti to provide police services, instead of the Washtenaw sheriff’s department. Is it the role of the county government to provide patrols to the townships? If Ypsilanti can provide patrols at a lower cost, should the county adjust the amount it is charging the townships, in order to keep the contract?

Leah Gunn: incumbent Democrat, District 9

Gunn on Police Services

There are two kinds of county services, Gunn noted – mandated and non-mandated. Ypsilanti Township sued the county and the county spent millions of dollars in legal fees over the issues, she said. The Michigan Supreme Court, the appeals court and the circuit court have all ruled that sheriff patrols are a non-mandated service, Gunn said. The county is not obligated to pay for police services in any township. Residents in the city of Ann Arbor are paying twice, she said: For their own police department, and to subsidize township contracts with the sheriff. If Ypsilanti Township can get cheaper services from Ypsilanti, Gunn concluded, “I say, go for it, because it will mean that we do not have to pay that service.”

Rabhi on Police Services

There are multiple takes on what’s going on with police services, Rabhi said. Everyone should have to pay their fair share to have the sheriff’s patrols in their community, he said. Whether everyone is paying their fair share now is open to debate, he said. He’s seen the numbers, and they aren’t as comprehensive as he’d like to see. More research needs to be done. Regarding Ypsilanti Township and Ypsilanti working together, Rabhi said he’s an advocate for governmental efficiency and looking at ways to save money. If it in fact saves money for the township, that’s what they should be doing, he said.

Baublis on Police Services

Baublis said that one of the things he regretted was the fact that Ypsilanti Township felt it was necessary to sue the county. “This is crazy for our governments to be suing each other,” he said. Regardless of the outcome in the state Supreme Court, let’s look at the costs in the townships and the county just for having the lawsuit, he said. Everyone would have been better off settling the lawsuit, and the savings would have probably paid for a considerable amount of the sheriff’s duties now, he said. His advice would have been to settle the lawsuit as soon as possible, and get on with the business of protecting the people.

Day on Police Services

Day said she’s a firm believer in public safety. It’s the right of voters and taxpayers in each locality to decide who is best to provide that service, she said. Further, taxpayers should only be paying the price for what it costs to provide those services, she said, and not pay any kind of inflated amount that the board decides on. So if Ypsilanti can provide the services to Ypsilanti Township at a lower cost, Day said she’s all for that – let them make that decision.

Washtenaw Avenue Corridor

Question: The county is working with seven other governmental agencies to develop a plan for the Washtenaw Avenue corridor, to improve its appearance and function. Would you approve a corridor improvement authority, that would oversee development from East Stadium Boulevard to the Ypsilanti water tower? If so, should the authority have the ability to capture future tax increases that result from development of that corridor?

Joe Baublis: Republican candidate, District 11

Baublis on Washtenaw Avenue

This would be a public benefit, Baublis said, but the people affected would be the businesses that are trying to operate along that corridor. Those people are suffering because so much disorganized work is occurring. So on the one hand, it would be good to coordinate improvement efforts, he said, but that should be done with significant input from the businesses there. He said he’d want to see input from businesses to supplement whatever the authority comes up with.

Rabhi on Washtenaw Avenue

Rabhi said he’s a firm believer that government should engage people as much as possible in the process of making their communities a better place. If an authority is formed, they should ask residents and businesses for input, he said. It’s also good to think on a broader scale, he added – a corridor seems somewhat limiting, but it’s a good start. They need to look more comprehensively at the systems at work in their urban areas. In addition, if an authority is formed, it should look not only at how to make transportation more efficient, but also more environmentally friendly. Run-off systems need to be in place to prevent pollutants from running into our waterways, he said. We need to encourage sustainable cities, and this is one way to do it.

Day on Washtenaw Avenue

Day said she didn’t believe an authority is needed for this. There’s already plenty of business along the Washtenaw Avenue corridor, she said. Yes, some firms are going out of business there – one famous example is the Hollywood video store, she said. But private citizens are more than capable of developing that corridor, she said. If there comes a time when they need to look at traffic flow and transportation there, then they should do it. But right now, considering the budget shortfalls they’re facing, she said this is an example of government inefficiency.

Gunn on Washtenaw Avenue

It’s worth talking about, Gunn said. It doesn’t have anything to do with government inefficiency, she said. She said she agreed with Baublis and Rabhi – getting input from businesses and residents is important. That is something that government can help do, she said. It’s not a huge number of local entities to coordinate. They need to see what the people in that area think, and if there’s no interest, they should back off. But if people there are interested, she said, then government should assist them in making a plan that will benefit everybody.

Consolidation of Services

Question: In an effort to save money, several school districts are consolidating services, such as substitute teacher placement and transportation, through the Washtenaw Intermediate School District. Do you see any area where services provided by local governments could be consolidated through the county?

Melinda Day: Republican candidate, District 8

Day on Consolidation of Services

Yes, Day said, there are areas where they can make things more efficient and consolidate services. If you look at the county itself, she said, there are several departments that are funded separately and that could be pushed together into one single budget. She gave the example of police services, and said the county and city of Ann Arbor could form a combined call center. A supply store used by multiple government entities is another example, she said. There are many areas where local governments could work together, she said, to spread the cost over several governmental entities.

Gunn on Consolidation of Services

Washtenaw County is already doing that, Gunn said. She pointed out that there is a combined dispatch for the sheriff and city of Ann Arbor, located in Ann Arbor. There’s also a combined data center for information technology (IT) services. The county has also taken over the labor negotiations and human resources for the county road commission, she said, because it’s cheaper and more efficient for them to contract with the county for those services. Pittsfield Township and Ypsilanti also contract with the county for IT services, she noted. There’s a lot of consolidation going on, she said, and they are working toward more.

Rabhi on Consolidation of Services

Rabhi said that during his primary campaign, he promoted three ways to save money, and the No. 1 way was to work with other units of government. The county can and does play an essential role in uniting those local units of government, he said. Referring to the examples cited in the question with the school districts, he said he’s gotten feedback that if not treated the right way, consolidation can be bad. It can often be used as a union-busting strategy, he noted. “We don’t want to consolidate services and fire a bunch of people,” he said. There are ways to consolidate services without harming people in the community, he concluded.

Baublis on Consolidation of Services

Regretfully, Baublis said, there will be more consolidation in future years. If you look at the country, state and county, we’re running out of money, he said. Some parts of the government have led people to believe that they can rely on the government, he said. Now, the reverse is needed – we need to get people to rely on themselves, their own communities and families. How do we do that, and where do we make cuts? First, remember that the government is spending the people’s money, not its own money, he said. And it’s wasting money. Baublis said that he’s looked at minutes from meetings of the county board and sees that they’ve been selling bonds to pay off debt. Let’s look at saving the people’s money as a prelude to consolidation, he said, and get the people prepared for less government.

Funding for Human Services

Question: The continuing recession is hard on everyone, especially on the unemployed and underemployed. Is the county doing an adequate job of meeting the human needs of its citizens, in the areas of housing, health – both mental and physical – food and transportation? If not, what more should be done?

Gunn on Funding for Human Services

The county is trying its best, Gunn said, but it’s very difficult for county government because these areas are non-mandated services. The county allocates about $1 million annually to human services, she said. They’ve been having meetings for integrated funding of human services, meeting with the city of Ann Arbor, the Urban County, Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation and United Way of Washtenaw County. They’re looking at consolidating funding for nonprofits, looking at how to make them accountable and to make sure that services are delivered. She said she’s been very committed to this stated that community consolidation will work wonders. However, the county doesn’t have enough resources – “and we never will,” she said. “We have to look out for each other.”

Baublis on Funding for Human Services

Baublis said he recently read a report in the Federal Reserve Review indicating that the government isn’t as efficient at providing services as private industry. Housing could be a private industry, he said – why is the government involved? What has the government done nationwide to the housing industry? he asked. The government caused the housing collapse, he said, because they were promoting political agendas. We should leave housing and other private industries to the private sector, he said. We should focus the government’s efforts on what the government must do. These would be essential services, he said, and housing is not one of them. There are people in Ann Arbor living in tents, he noted, because there’s not enough room at the Delonis Center, the local homeless shelter. “That’s something that private business could fix.”

Rabhi on Funding for Human Services

The beauty of government is that it’s where people come together and take charge of their own destiny, Rabhi said. Funding for human services is an example of that, he said. We can always do more to take care of those in need, and we need to do more. “In no world do private companies take care of homeless people,” he said. That doesn’t fit in to the free market system. That’s when governments step in, he said, to take care of people who need help. We need to provide enough resources to make sure that people aren’t going hungry and they aren’t without houses. We need to make sure the people in this community are well-cared-for, he said. “We can make our community an attractive place for businesses to invest in if we invest in our people.”

Day on Funding for Human Services

Government actually gets in the way of helping people succeed, Day said. The best thing to do for underemployed or unemployed people is to find them a job. That’s what people are completely forgetting about, she said. The question shouldn’t be “What services can we provide while these people are unemployed?” We should ask how to make these people productive members of the community, so that they’ll in turn give back tax revenue through their employment. They need to look at how to bring businesses into the county. What red tape is involved when someone wants to open up shop? What gets in the way? Are there issues with zoning laws or building codes? How can we make it easier for employers to hire people in the county? she asked. That way, they wouldn’t need to worry so much about providing services to the unemployed. “And then charity, and the gracious heart of the American citizen would be more than capable of taking care of those who are less fortunate.”

Increasing County Revenues

Question: County tax revenues continue to fall. Do you see any way to increase revenues?

Yousef Rabhi: Democratic candidate, District 11

Rabhi on Increasing County Revenues

Step one, Rabhi said, is to look for efficiencies and ways to continue to save money. Consolidation of services is one way to do that. In addition, it’s important to find efficiencies in electrical usage, water usage and fuel usage, he said. That’s not only a sustainability improvement, it’s a financial improvement. There are other ways to save money, he said. For example, instead of putting someone in jail, the sheriff can put them into a community work program. The way to increase taxes would be to put it to a vote, but people aren’t likely to support a tax increase in the current state of the economy, he said. That’s the conundrum – people don’t want to raise taxes, but the county needs tax revenue to provide services that an increasing number of people need.

Baublis on Increasing County Revenues

One of the reasons revenues are down is because businesses are fleeing from our county, Baublis said. Property values are down – he said he knows this because he’s a real estate broker and a licensed appraiser. What can the government do about that? he asked. Nothing – it’s up to the people. How can we get people to invest in a county that’s going broke? he asked. Why would a business want to come here, knowing it will be on the hook to pay taxes for services that are inefficient? We need to scale back government taxes, he said, and get the government on a balanced budget. Then maybe we can entice businesses with employment to come back to the county.

Day on Increasing County Revenues

If you put people to work, they can produce more and contribute by buying a house and paying property taxes, Day said. She said she’d like to reexamine the tax sources for the county. One revenue issue is tied to the fact that there are a lot of tax-related foreclosures, she said. When you buy a house and pay off your mortgage, you should actually own the property, she said – you shouldn’t be paying rent to the county, in the form of taxes. That’s basically what our tax system is, she said. If you don’t pay your taxes, you’re evicted. But in general, the county needs to bring in more businesses, she said, change the zoning laws and the building codes so that it will be easier to open a business in the county and get more people employed.

Gunn on Increasing County Revenues

State law requires the county to levy property taxes, Gunn said – there’s no choice. If they want that changed, they have to go through the state legislature, she noted. “And at this point in time, I would say good luck.” As far as creating work, the county has a workforce development department that’s federally funded, she said. The county also runs the local Michigan Works office, which is the state’s job training program. The problem is there are not enough jobs available. The automakers and auto suppliers operating in this county went belly up, she said. It’s the worst economy they’ve seen since the Great Depression, she said, and the county government is doing the best it can to serve the people.

What County Services to Save or Cut

Question: Which of the county services would you go to the mat to protect, and which ones would you suggest phasing out?

Day on What County Services to Save or Cut

Day said she’s a big supporter of public safety. A bad habit of local government is that budgets get balanced on the backs of public safety officers, she said. They’re the people keeping us safe, and they should be a priority. She’d go to the mat for the sheriff’s department and anyone related to public safety. Regarding things to let go, she said she’d like to examine the nonprofits that the county is funding. There are a lot of nonprofits, like Planned Parenthood, that are controversial, she said. Since she wants to represent everyone, she said, that’s something that could be let go.

Gunn on What County Services to Save or Cut

Gunn said she’d go to the mat for human services, including the county’s prenatal grant to Planned Parenthood. It funds prenatal care for low-income women who can’t get it elsewhere, she said, and resulted in over 1,000 healthy babies. The nonprofits deliver services very efficiently, she said. She said she wanted to emphasize again that police services provided under contract with the sheriff’s department are not mandated, “and we paid a great deal in legal fees to find that out.” They need to find a different way for townships to police themselves, she said, because people in the city shouldn’t have to pay twice.

Baublis on What County Services to Save or Cut

Baublis said he was a little disappointed with the assessors’ offices and equalization department. In his work as a real estate broker and appraiser, he said, he’s finding that across the county they’re over-assessing properties. “I think they’re ripping off people who own property,” he said. We’re not getting justice out of the state law, and the assessors aren’t helping the people. Regarding cuts, Baublis said he’d start with top-level salaries – for example, judges, assessors, and the drain commissioner. Let’s start cutting there, he said, rather than at the lower levels.

Rabhi on What County Services to Save or Cut

Rabhi said he’d go to the mat for a lot of services, especially for mental health care and the county’s health plan. Those are important programs to a lot of people, and there are long waiting lists. When it comes to public safety, he said, it’s the responsibility of public officials to make sure everyone has the safety they need. People need to have police patrols in their neighborhoods, if that’s what they want. He said they should work toward making the entire county run more efficiently, so that they could offer most of the services they offer now. He added that he’d also go to the mat for the drain commissioner [Janis Bobrin], because she’s done a lot of work to make the county run more sustainably, especially regarding water issues.

Transportation Needs

Question: What are the county’s most pressing transportation needs, and how would you address them?

Gunn on Transportation Needs

Gunn began by saying she wanted to correct some things, referring to statements made by other candidates. Judges’ salaries are set by the state, she said. And in the last budget round, every county employee got a pay cut by taking eight furlough days, she said, and non-union workers now pay part of their healthcare costs. We have cut salaries, she said.

Regarding transportation, Gunn noted that the transportation authority is the AATA [Ann Arbor Transportation Authority], which operates the bus system. She’d like to see the Fuller Road Station built, because she thinks the north/south rail and east/west rail projects will happen. We need help getting workers into Ann Arbor – 50,000 people drive into the city every day, she said. She said she’s been working with the AATA in helping design the new Blake Transit Center, and working with the board to decide how they can best provide transit. Most immediately, they need an express bus from Ypsilanti to the University of Michigan medical center, she said.

Rabhi on Transportation Needs

Transportation is an issue of sustainability and social justice, Rabhi said. We need to ensure that everyone has access to all locations in the community. Beyond that, we need to make sure that we’re connected to the communities around us, including Detroit. He said he wants to be able to go to Detroit without driving his car, because he wants to spend money there, and he wants people from Detroit to come and spend their money here. Tourism is important to this community and to the state as a whole, and transportation is part of that. There are too many people driving and too few people taking buses, trains and biking. Transportation is also crucial for employment – people need to be able to get to their jobs, he said.

Day on Transportation Needs

The big thing now is the commuter rail project, Day said, adding that it isn’t sustainable. Even New York City can’t sustain its subway system, she said – the ticket sales don’t support the cost of running it. Locally, we don’t have the population numbers to sustain a rail system between here and Detroit, she said. It would be a money pit. The city of Ann Arbor does have a good bus system, she said – as a student at UM, she enjoys it quite a bit. It’s important to look at ways to expand that service that will still be sustainable, in terms of ticket sales.

Baublis on Transportation Needs

Baublis said he’d like to withdraw his earlier comment about reducing salaries, but he wanted to make it clear that “everybody on the totem pole is invited to the dinner party,” and we shouldn’t make some people more important just because of their elite status. As for state mandates on the county, he said, the county should begin to think of some new alternatives, such as independence. Maybe a few actions of independence might be a good way for the state to get the message that we need to take care of ourselves, “and if the state’s not helping us do that, we may have to take matters into our own hands.” Regarding transportation, Baublis said he loved biking and other means of transportation, but the fact is that the government isn’t an efficient mechanism for providing transportation. Private industry would do a better job, he said, and we should look at that as an option.

Economic Development

Question: What would you do as a county commissioner to bring more businesses to this area?

Baublis on Economic Development

It’s hard for a business to want to invest here, in light of the county’s projected debt, Baublis said. Take Pfizer, he said, as an example. He said he chatted with some Pfizer executives, who told him that the company was going to Ireland because taxes are lower. They save billions and billions of dollars by leaving, he said, and look what happened to our community. We lost jobs, the housing market went down and we lost tax revenue from all the employees. Let’s be more encouraging of the large and small businesses, he said. Having a county debt and a city debt isn’t going to help. Having payroll taxes and income taxes – he noted that the city of Ann Arbor has considered an income tax – won’t help either. Encouraging business means having fewer regulations, lower taxes and a balanced budget, he concluded.

Rabhi on Economic Development

We need to start thinking about our local economy before thinking about the global economy that we’re a part of, he said. We need to think about how to make sure local businesses are succeeding, and the best way to do that is to invest in them – to invest in businesses that invest in us. That’s a top priority for him, Rabhi said. Secondly, businesses are attracted by tax incentives, he said, but they’re also attracted by liveable communities. They know that liveable communities are where happy employees live. Creating liveable communities means investing in amenities like parks and programs that make your community a good place to live, he said.

Day on Economic Development

Noting that she’d already touched on this issue a couple of times, Day said they could look at things the county could do quickly, like looking at zoning regulations, building codes and other red tape – the amount of bureaucracy you have to go through to open a business here. But we also need to look at the overall state economy as well, she said. There’s only so much that Washtenaw County can do to bring business from other parts of Michigan, but that won’t help if we keep driving companies to southern states, like Texas or Florida. We need to put pressure on the state government to change the income tax, the business tax and labor laws. All these things play a role in economic development, she said.

Gunn on Economic Development

Gunn said the county can’t do anything in terms of building codes or zoning, because the county has absolutely no jurisdiction over those particular laws. We can encourage, talk and negotiate, she said, but those are the sole purview of townships and cities. Michigan has “home rule,” she explained, which gives that authority to townships and cities. The county invests in economic development by investing in Ann Arbor SPARK, Gunn said, and the Eastern Leaders Group, as well as the county department of energy and economic development. “We are there – we are helping,” she said.

Challenges and Strengths

Question: What are the primary challenges that the county will face in the next two years, and what strengths would you bring to solve those problems?

Day on Challenges and Strengths

The revenue shortfalls are the biggest challenge, Day said, and they’re expected to last several years. A big part of it is related to union contracts, she said – employees account for a large percentage of the budget. They can’t do anything about downsizing government without first looking at those union contracts. Day said she has the fortitude to stand strong on behalf of the county’s taxpayers when it comes to negotiating with union bosses. She said she’s done it with the graduate employees organization at UM, and she’s more than happy to do it for the county.

Gunn on Challenges and Strengths

Day is absolutely right, Gunn said – the county faces tremendous revenue shortfalls next year and in 2012 and 2013. The county is not getting any revenue sharing from the state, she said, so they need to look at themselves. Union contracts are part of that, and they can ask employees to do more. But there comes a time when they’ll need to say that there are programs they can’t do anymore, she said. Gunn said that she has the experience and core values that reflect the community, so that she can say, “This is the right decision.” It’s really tough, she said, but someone has to do it, and she’s there and willing to do it.

Rabhi on Challenges and Strengths

There are two main challenges, Rabhi said: the budget, and sustainability. People have already mentioned the budget, he noted. Regarding sustainability, he said we need to start thinking about how to become independent of fossil fuels in this community. We need to become self-sufficient, he said. We need to grow our own food, and get around our community without depending on fossil fuel. Turning back to the budget, Rabhi said we need to start making priorities, and thinking about what it is that we need to be doing. We won’t do ourselves any favors by getting rid of our union workers, he said. Those are jobs in our community, he noted, and tax dollars. They are people who are working hard to make our community a better place. That’s not a way to address the budget issue.

Baublis on Challenges and Strengths

The budget is a problem, Baublis said, but perhaps a more significant challenge is the spirit of Ann Arbor. It’s spoiled by divisive rhetoric and inflammatory comments, he said. Day did not say that she wanted to get rid of all the unions, he said. There will always be a place for the unions at the table, he said: “We did not say that the unions will be kicked out.” However, he added, the union and salaried employees must face the same cutbacks that the residents and taxpayers are facing. If it’s fair and equal across the board, he said, we can learn to live together.

Closing Statements

Each candidate had two minutes for final remarks.

Rabhi’s Closing Statement

Rabhi again thanked the League of Women Voters for hosting and CTN viewers for watching. He said he was running for county commissioner to protect human services, to work toward forging a sustainable future for our community, and to think about how we can become more economically resilient. Also, he wanted to look out for the people in our community and address social equity issues. He said he was born in Ypsilanti and grew up in Ann Arbor. “This is my home,” he said.

Rahbi said he always admired the spirit in this community to be resilient, and he believes we can get past this difficult time to a place where we don’t have to worry about the budget, where we can think about things to add to what the county does. We need to be looking at how to become more self-sufficient, how we can reduce our carbon footprint and grow our own food. “When you go to the polls in November, I want you to think about that,” he said. Rabhi encouraged voters to do their research, check out both his website as well as his opponent’s website, and “make a good decision on Nov. 2.”

Baublis’ Closing Statement

Baublis began by thanking Rahbi for his comments, saying they were very generous. He said he’s been a resident of the county for nearly 50 years, and when he heard that the county had a nearly $34 million deficit and additional deficits were projected for the coming years, he became concerned about the future of the county. As he reviewed the minutes from meetings of the board of commissioners, he became even more concerned. In light of the city, state and federal government deficits, he said, and the wholesale flight of business out of our county, business as usual in Washtenaw County isn’t sustainable. “It’s got to change,” he said.

The city, state and county governments are broke and can’t pay for the services they’ve promised to the people, and they can’t pay for the benefits they’ve promised themselves. But each level of government has power, he said, and they will use that power to come after all of us for taxes. “Who is going to protect you?” he asked. “I will.” If voters want a man at one level of government, whose priority is to protect taxpayers, they should vote for him. He noted that he has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree, and is licensed as an appraiser, a broker and a contractor. He said he’s also been to every corner of every city and township in this county, and he has a long track record of battling government bureaucracy. If you vote for him, Baublis said, “I will make your concerns, my concerns.”

Gunn’s Closing Statement

Gunn thanked the League of Women Voters for holding the forum. She said that one thing hadn’t yet been mentioned, and that was environmental protection. The county’s Natural Areas Preservation Program has a millage that’s up for renewal this year, and she urged viewers to vote yes for Proposal A. The millage has allowed the county to preserve over 1,300 acres of beautiful, natural areas, she said, and it adds tremendously to the quality of life here.

In closing, Gunn said her goal is to continue what she’s been doing – to preserve services, and maintain long-term fiscal stability.

Day’s Closing Statement

Day also thanked the League for holding the forum. She said the election is about two choices: Continue the status quo and elect the same people who have allowed the county to slip into an economic malaise, or choose to change things for the better by voting in new people on the board of commissioners. We have large economic shortfalls due to the business flight from the county, she said. Highly educated young adults are fleeing the county in droves because they can’t find jobs. The current situation cannot continue as is, she said.

“I am not a career politician,” Day said. “I’m a scientist who has become concerned by the clear lack of common sense shown in the running of our government.” The government has promised us a lot of things, she said, and it’s never been more clear that they can’t deliver on all those promises. We need people who understand this simple fact, and who are willing to do the hard work to get us back on a sustainable path, she said. We need to find ways to stretch our tax dollars, and make the government more efficient to better meet our responsibilities. She said she promised to lead by example – if elected, she would take a cut in the reimbursement that county commissioners receive. As a scientist, she said she has the skills to meet the goal of fiscal responsibility. She promised to look at all facets of an issue, delve into underlying causes and work to implement solutions. She urged viewers to vote for her and usher in a new day for Washtenaw County.

CTN producer Tim Nagae, standing, clips a microphone on Ann Arbor District Library board candidate Ed Surovell. Candidates Barbara Murphy, far left, and Jan Barney Newman participated in the forum, as did (not in this frame) Nancy Kaplan and Vivienne Armentrout. (Photos by the writer.)

Nancy Kaplan, Lyn Powrie Davidge and incumbent Carola Stearns are running for one two-year term. Vivienne Armentrout and incumbents Ed Surovell, Jan Barney Newman and Barbara Murphy are vying for three four-year terms. Five of the seven candidates attended the forum – Stearns and Davidge were out of town and unable to participate.

Terms for the three other current board members – Rebecca Head, Margaret Leary and Prue Rosenthal – expire in 2012.

The forum took place at Community Television Network studios and was recorded – it is available online through CTN’s video-on-demand service.

The hour-long event was moderated by Nancy Schewe, and questions covered a broad range of library-related topics, from the fate of the downtown building and thoughts on the next-door Library Lot, to issues of noise, security and technology. This report is presented in the order in which candidates responded.

Opening Statements

Each candidate began with a 1-minute opening statement. Moderator Nancy Schewe began by reading a statement from Lyn Powrie Davidge, which stated that Davidge was in Salzburg, Austria on a trip she’d planned for more than a year.

Vivienne Armentrout

Armentrout’s Opening Statement

Vivienne Armentrout said she’s lived in Ann Arbor since 1986 and most of that time has been involved in community service, either as a volunteer, appointee to a commission or committee, or as an elected official. Most recently, she served as a Washtenaw County commissioner from 1997-2004. She said she’s running for the library board because she sees this as a public service and that her prior service will help her be an effective board member. The library is an essential part of the community, Armentrout said, and it’s an institution we can be proud of. “I would be honored to help support the work of the library,” she concluded.

Surovell’s Opening Statement

Ed Surovell stated that he’s been a library trustee since 1996. “I’m the last of the original trustees,” he said, referring to the group who were elected when the library became an independent entity – it was previously part of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. The library has grown enormously during this period, he said, noting that he and the other trustees have been part of that growth. Surovell said the trustees’ job is to support the library’s director and staff, and to expect and demand fiscal conservatism and discipline. He said he has a personal commitment to that fiscal responsibility and to “programmatic adventurism.” Surovell said he was extremely proud of the enormous growth in services over the past 14 years, such as programs for non-English speakers.

Murphy’s Opening Statement

Noting that she’s served two terms on the board, Barbara Murphy said she’s learned a lot and feels she’s contributed a great deal to changes that the library has made over the past 10 years. That’s why she’s running again. Libraries are crucial to any democracy, she said. Having a literate, informed public is the only way to ensure that people can make wise choices when they vote. Unfortunately, she said, voting levels aren’t very high. The library tries to increase literacy, she said. She cited work the library has done with Washtenaw Literacy, the Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled, and the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library, and mentioned that the library has taken responsibility for the archives of the former Ann Arbor News.

Newman’s Opening Statement

Jan Barney Newman noted that her colleagues have already covered a lot of ground, and it would be hard for her to expound on that. She said she’s only been on the board for one term, and she is very proud of their accomplishments in the last four years. They completed construction of the  Traverwood branch, saved the county’s Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled, and saved the Ann Arbor News archives. All the while, she said, they have operated very sensibly with reduced revenues for the library, and no layoffs. She said she is very proud of that.

Kaplan’s Opening Statement

Nancy Kaplan thanked the League of Women Voters for hosting the forum. The library is a key community-based resource. Her goal is to contribute it its innovative growth and development to meet the needs of current and potential users of all ages and abilities. If elected, she said she’d have opportunities to guide the board to include input from the wide diversity of current patrons, and reach out to gain new community involvement. She said she had a broad range of professional, volunteer and community experiences, and that she’s confident she can successfully represent the interests of both the library and the community.

Downtown Library Building

Question: In November of 2008, the library board voted to postpone expansion of the downtown library. When would the library be ready to reconsider the project? Do you think plans will need to change? What’s your vision?

Nancy Kaplan

Kaplan on the Downtown Library Building

What was stopped was the decision to build a new library, Kaplan noted. The discussion should be opened about whether to renovate or to build a new library, she said, and she would like the discussion to be open to the public – to go beyond the staff, board and the Downtown Development Authority. Hopefully the discussion will be reopened in the new year, she said, and will include input from citizens about what it should look like and what services to offer. She said they need to understand what the building doesn’t have now – it’s not meeting the needs of the disability community, for example. She restated that the discussion should be reopened now.

Armentrout on the Downtown Library Building

Armentrout said the library board was very wise in calling off the project, and that it’s unusual that anybody can stop and take a deep breath and hold up on something they’ve invested so much time on. Our economic circumstances haven’t improved since then, she said, and she thinks that as a country and a city we’re facing a very uncertain economic future for years to come. She said she wouldn’t currently support planning to build a new library downtown. She would support renovation instead, and making the current building as good as it can be. This topic has already come up, she noted, citing the building’s chiller that recently needed to be replaced. “We’ll have more of those,” she said.

Murphy on the Downtown Library Building

Murphy said this issue of whether to build or renovate will come up quite soon. The board did have a very public process last time, she said – it was not limited to the board, administration and DDA. The process included outside consultants and a large number of focus groups, she said. Based on that, they came to the conclusion to build. Then they decided to halt that project when the bottom fell out of the economy, she said. Given the amount of time that’s passed, Murphy said, they need to look at it again. They might not need to repeat everything they did before, but they will have to update some things. She said she’s looking forward to finding out how the community feels. “I hope that we can have a library that’s worthy of the 21st century,” she said.

Newman on the Downtown Library Building

Newman said that Murphy touched on an important point. They aren’t building or renovating for the moment – it’s for the future. They have to keep the library great for now, but make it right for tomorrow. It’s a little hard to know what tomorrow is, she added, given what’s happening in the publishing industry and the technology that’s impacting the disbursement of knowledge. They’ll have to look at the plans again, she said. The cost of maintaining an old building is a factor as well, she noted. They’ve had a lot of expenses in replacing elevators, air handlers and a cooler. They have to evaluate where they are now, she said, and how that impacts the decisions they’ll make.

Surovell on the Downtown Library Building

The decision to terminate the building project was based on a national financial crisis in November 2008, Surovell said. The decision was made based on the reality that bonds in Michigan could not be sold, he said. At that moment, it was a wise move to stop. Parts of the downtown building are 58 years old, he noted, which is older than the Carnegie Library building was when it was abandoned for the current building. Many parts of the current building are in deplorable condition, he said, and during the board’s review of the building they discovered that the cost of renovation and replacement were pretty much the same. At that time, they chose to rebuild. Surovell said he believes they are likely to make the same decision again, but it will have to be reviewed.

Library Lot Development

Question: Recognizing that the library doesn’t own the Library Lot underground parking structure next door to the downtown library building, how could the site be developed in a way that would enhance the library?

Barbara Murphy

Murphy on Library Lot Development

It’s clear that we need parking, Murphy said, and that’s being built underground. It’s also clear that whatever is built next door to the library has to enhance the whole street, not just the library. Whether it’s a park or a hotel or something else, she said, it’s most important that it be kept up and run by people who are cooperative and who can work well with the library – people who understand how important it is for the library to have a safe, comfortable area for their patrons. “I’m not sure what I want next door,” Murphy said, acknowledging that there’s a lot of controversy in the community about it. “Whatever it is, it’s got to be something we can work with.”

Newman on Library Lot Development

Newman said that Murphy’s answer was very good. “We are not in change charge of that project,” she said, nor do they have a say in it. “A skunkworks could go in there next door, for all we know.” But whatever is done, it has to be maintained by another entity. It can’t be up to the library to plan the activities of a park, she said, or to deal with problems created by whatever is there. She said they are very interested in a development that would enliven the street and the downtown, and that would bring a healthy commercial development to the town.

Surovell on Library Lot Development

Surovell reiterated that the library does not own the lot. “What would I like to see there personally? A frozen custard stand, but I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he quipped. He noted that it’s the largest block in the city of Ann Arbor, and only one business on it collects sales tax. It should be vibrant and help the entire city, he said, and shouldn’t be looked at as just what’s good for the library. What’s good for the city will also be good for the library. City officials seem to be struggling with the issue, he said, but as a library trustee, he’s not been inclined to comment on the city’s business. He said he hopes the city makes a good decision that will be good for Ann Arbor.

Armentrout on Library Lot Development

Armentrout said that although the library doesn’t have a say, it is considered a stakeholder. As a stakeholder, the library has an interest in what happens in that entire area, she said. The library and other stakeholders should be involved in discussing the whole configuration of the area – the Blake Transit Center is also being rebuilt, she noted. The library board would want to see how that affects their patrons. Personally, she said she favors a civic open space on the site that would have active uses, such as events and opportunities for theatrical use. Armentrout also envisioned passive uses there, so that library users could read a book under a tree, if they wished.

Kaplan on Library Lot Development

It’s true that the library doesn’t own the land, Kaplan said, but they do have input about what goes there – for example, Library Lane and how the building can be accessed from the parking deck. She said they need a robust discussion, with input from the community as to what they would feel comfortable with. This is their library – what would they like to see in the neighborhood? She said she favors something that’s open and friendly and very welcoming, as the library will be facing whatever goes on that lot.

Digital Technology

Question: How do you see the library of the future interfacing with print-on-demand products, like Kindle, and other digital products? What services do you see the library of the future offering to its patrons?

Kaplan on Digital Technology

Kaplan said the library is on target with the databases and technology it already offers. The staff is working very hard at that, and as a board member, she’d support it too. There’s a director in charge of technology, she noted, who is doing a fine job. [Eli Neiburger is AADL associate director of IT and production.] She’s sure they will keep up with technology. Kaplan noted that there’s a cost to keeping up databases and other technology, so the library will need sufficient funding to do all that they’d like to do.

Jan Barney Newman

Newman on Digital Technology

Newman said the library has a “very technologically astute” director of technology. As it becomes possible to do more, she said she’s sure they will. A lot of things they can’t predict, she added. The library’s mission is to disseminate knowledge to the community. Whatever the technology or method, they will continue to do so, she said. It’s very important to stay alive to those options, which the current administration does, Newman said. “I’m more of a Luddite than probably a lot of people in the community,” she said, “but I’m very sure we’ll keep up with the technology and the ability to serve the public in that way.”

Surovell on Digital Technology

Surovell noted that the University of Michigan has a machine that will print on demand any book that you want. But the question of books on demand – whether they be electronic or printed – is only part of the question, and in many ways it’s a red herring, he said. The library provides so much more to the community, he said. “Ask yourself whether you’d want to live in a place that didn’t have a library, of any description.” It isn’t whether you can get books on demand or whether books will be replaced, he said. The library is the center of education for the entire community, not just for those in school or for seniors or a limited number of groups. There’s an enormous range of people studying, reading, and participating at the library, Surovell said, and there are art exhibits and a whole world of cultural excitement there. “To ask just about books is a mistake.”

Armentrout on Digital Technology

Armentrout said she listened to the AADL director, Josie Parker, make a presentation earlier in the day via streaming video, and heard her say that Amazon won’t let them have Kindle, “so I guess Kindle’s out.” [Amazon's Kindle is a device for reading electronic books and other digital products.] The library’s collections, and the distribution of those collections to the public, is their core business, she said. That’s why libraries were created. She said she would like the library to retain its collection, to the extent that it’s practical. She has great confidence that the library is already planning to move in correspondence to the technology, as it changes. But technology shouldn’t lead the changes, she added – it should accommodate them.

Murphy on Digital Technology

Libraries are so much more than just books, Murphy said. It’s the librarians themselves. The staff of the library has a role in working with patrons of all ages. They teach people how to find information and how to determine if it’s reliable. You can find anything on the web, she noted, but the library has lists of sites that have been vetted. There are things besides books, she said, such as story times, teen events, and speakers. The library has turned into more of a community resource and community center, Murphy said, than just a place to pick up a book. Whatever happens to printed media – and she hopes it will still be around – Murphy said the library and librarians have a lot more to offer.

Privatization of Libraries

Question: A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in many cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas. What’s your opinion about privatizing libraries? Do you foresee privatizing any library services – and if so, what?

Ed Surovell

Surovell on Privatization of Libraries

Saying he’d answer the last question first, Surovell said that answer is no. He doesn’t foresee a privatization of services as they directly affect the public. But he noted that many of the library’s services are already privatized, such as the sourcing and selection of many materials. Privatizing a library system isn’t within reason for Ann Arbor, but it might be for some communities, where resources are scarce and where for various reasons they haven’t been able to maintain a library. There are many municipalities in Michigan that have shut their libraries. “Is a privately operated library better than the library in Troy that doesn’t exist? Yes,” he said. Surovell said he’s sure that won’t happen in Ann Arbor, which has a “wonderful, vibrant, economically healthful system.”

Armentrout on Privatization of Libraries

First of all, no to privatization, Armentrout said. But it would be unlikely to happen in Ann Arbor, she added, because we’re fortunate to have a perpetual millage for the library system. In fact, the current board hasn’t chosen to use the entire amount that’s available, she noted. In some states and other parts of Michigan, Armentrout said, there isn’t a district library millage as Ann Arbor has. So a lot of decisions about privatization are probably driven by funding. For example, if municipalities are funding the library out of their general fund, it could lead to drastic measures, like privatizing. “But I see no reason to meddle with a very good system that we already have,” she said.

Murphy on Privatization of Libraries

It’s not clear what privatization means, Murphy began, noting that she had read the New York Times article to which the question referred. Like Surovell, she noted that some things are already privatized, such as payroll and certain mailings. The real issue, she said, is that they retain control of the content and operation of the library. If privatization means turning it over to a company and that people would have to pay to use the library, then no, of course not, she said. But it’s a different story if you look at things like payroll services or putting labels on books. To say that privatization is good or bad is almost meaningless, Murphy said. You have to define what it means. But largely, she added, she’s against it.

Newman on Privatization of Libraries

Newman said she doesn’t think this issue is a factor for Ann Arbor’s library system. Ann Arbor has a perpetual millage that accommodates the library’s needs, and a very efficient administration that’s operating even with reduced revenues and keeping a fully employed staff with no layoffs. There’s no way a private firm could come in and do a better job, she said. Newman said the New York Times article was very interesting, and that this is a very current question. The library administration has to be fast in adapting to change, Newman said – that’s one thing the board should be very appreciative of.

Kaplan on Privatization of Libraries

Kaplan said she appreciates the outsourcing of peripheral things, which are not core to the library’s mission, but she would be against privatizing anything that’s core to the mission. “We want public ownership of the materials, so if privatizing means giving up ownership, I’d be against it,” she said. She noted the system’s perpetual millage, and said that the library and its director have managed very well and been very frugal. There should be no reason that such a dire circumstance, like privatization, should occur, she said.

Security

Question: In the last two or three years, the downtown library has added security personnel. Are you happy with that decision? Do you feel that it’s interfered with the privacy of patrons? Do you foresee the need for security at any of the other branches? [AADL director Josie Parker, who attended the forum as an audience member, later clarified that there has been security at the downtown branch for at least a decade, and that there's been no increase in security in recent years.]

Kaplan on Security

Kaplan said she’d have to support what the board and director had done – there must have been a reason, she said, because she knows that privacy is a key issue and that the library and the director attend to that. So there must have been incidents or issues that concerned the patrons, and that those concerns were conveyed to the library. Kaplan said she would not be against increased security, if they feel it’s needed. And if they feel security is needed at the branches, then there is probably a reason. And even if it’s implemented, that doesn’t mean it will always be there. It would probably come up for review, she said.

Armentrout on Security

Armentrout said she hadn’t been aware of the library instituting more security, but she’s sure it was for a very good reason. She would support the decision that had been made. She said she doubted that there’s the same issue with branch libraries. Downtown has a different urban population, she noted.

Murphy on Security

Murphy said that, in her experience as a patron and board member, the security personnel in the library are wonderful – they don’t invade the privacy of patrons. They help people when there’s a problem. They enforce the library’s rules, whether it’s talking too loudly or sleeping or spilling a drink. They’re there because there are rules to enforce. She said she didn’t understand the question about invading people’s privacy. If security has increased, she said, she would point out that the library’s collections have increased, the number of patrons has increased, and programs at night have increased. They’ve also added the Library for Blind and Physically Disabled. Any additional staffing is in order to keep up with these increases, she said.

Newman on Security

Newman said she was not sure exactly when an increase in security occurred – it seems to have been there a long time, she noted. There has been an increase in security in all public buildings, she said, so it’s part of that same precaution. She hasn’t received any complaints about it invading personal freedoms or liberties. A lot of structural things have changed because of security issues, she noted. The stacks aren’t as high as they used to be because the staff needs visibility throughout the room, for example.

Surovell on Security

The security is there because the needs are there, Surovell said. The library is an inviting place for displays of temper, “which are not infrequent, I’m sorry to say.” In the winter, the library is warm, he said, and in the summer it’s dry. The library attracts people with their own agendas. Most public libraries have these issues, he said. Ann Arbor has big city crime, he added. There have been drug problems at times, as well as acts of violence – patron against patron, or sometimes against employees. Security is necessary and appropriate, he concluded.

Noise in Libraries

Question: In the past, libraries were places of silence and whispers, but they’re much noisier now. Is that a problem? What’s the solution to accommodate the needs of all patrons?

Murphy on Noise in Libraries

Libraries, and especially branch libraries, serve the population surrounding them, Murphy observed. The Pittsfield branch has lots of children from the surrounding subdivisions and tends to be noisier. The downtown building tends to be the quietest. Noise levels change because the times change, she said. They are no longer places just to read books. They are now places where you learn computing, take art classes, or to go story time. They’ve built each new branch with a quiet reading room, and in the newest branch, they’ve put the children’s room at the far end of the library, apart from the quiet reading area. Across the system, patrons can find whatever noise level they want, she said. They try to keep the noise level appropriate, she said – they don’t want people screaming, for example.

Newman on Noise in Libraries

Newman said she thinks the noise level is very healthy, because it reflects enthusiasm. They have a lot of young people using the library – for example, junior high kids come to play computer games, and they’re not going to be quiet. But they’ll be in a place that won’t disturb others who want quiet, she said. That’s part of the vibrancy of what’s offered to the whole public. The library has to respond to the community, Newman said, and they accommodate the needs of those who want quiet, as well as those who want activity.

Surovell on Noise in Libraries

Just as the saying goes, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile,” Surovell said, “so it is not your parents’ library.” People who wonder about the loss of quiet are thinking of a library that’s in the past. A library is not a place for quiet contemplation and books anymore, he said. It is supported by all citizens and there’s vibrant, sometimes raucous activity. They’ve had rock bands, band wars, games sometimes so rackety that they have to be out in the parking lot. A library is where things happen, he said, and sometimes it’s noisy. They try to put the children’s area apart from the reading room, he said, but sometimes they merge.

Armentrout on Noise in Libraries

It’s already been mentioned that the solution is to separate uses and users, Armentrout said. She said she thinks some parts should remain quiet enough so that people can access materials and do research. But in the Malletts Creek library, for example, there are individual rooms that people can use to study or hold tutorials, so it sounds as though efforts have already been made to separate users, putting the quiet uses in one area and the more interactive uses in another. That seems like a good solution, she said.

Kaplan on Noise in Libraries

The libraries seem to be divided quite well, Kaplan said, so that you can find a quiet area – even for those who want to come and read a book or do knitting by the fireplace. There needs to be a quiet area, she said, and the libraries all seem to have it. Especially in the downtown branch, there are plenty of quiet areas, as you ascend the floors. The library can accommodate both the noisy and the quiet, Kaplan said, and everybody can find their place to be comfortable.

Challenges and Strengths

Question: What are the primary challenges that the library will face in the next four years, and what strengths do you bring to the board?

Kaplan on Challenges and Strengths

The challenges are interwined between giving the services the library wants to give, Kaplan said, and having the financial resources to do that. The library needs the funds to do all it wants to do. Regarding her strengths, Kaplan said she has run a department, so she’s had to deal with a budget. She also cited experiences working with people in the library and said she understands the needs of its many users. So from understanding the many needs of the library, combined with the financial needs, “I think that I can be of help,” she said.

Newman on Challenges and Strengths

The library has to have the funds to do what needs to be done, Newman said. The needs are great, because they may have to deal with the declining building, which will have to be renovated or replaced. She said she’s very interested in providing services to the community. She said she’s a former teacher and a former business owner, so she’s had the experience of managing funds and teaching children. She’s very excited about what the library can do on both of those fronts, given declining revenues. Newman said she’s not sure she’s particularly crucial to the library, because its administration is very capable. “But I’m very excited to be part of the decisions that will be made.”

Surovell on Challenges and Strengths

Surovell said the issues over the next four years are, first of all, the stability of revenues. Revenues have been declining and will continue to decline, and he said he’s in a position to understand that. Another issue is to finish the process of re-examining the main branch. But most of all, the main challenge is to maintain the vibrancy and stability of the existing staff, he said, to support the direction that the library’s been taking, and to maintain its agility in a rapidly developing world of intellectual and cultural change, in a community with dozens of languages, many different populations, and a continuing turnover of patrons – to make certain that the Ann Arbor District Library remains the Ann Arbor District Library.

Armentrout on Challenges and Strengths

Clearly, Armentrout said, the fate and resolution of how to deal with the downtown library is going to be a central issue. Related to that, another issue is how to navigate the next few years, given all the construction in the area, and how to maintain the functions of a library in the context of what’s happening in that end of town. She also expects there will be some discussion of how to maintain the library’s collections of books and other materials. Her understanding is that demand on those is already so great that there’s some talk of shortening the period of time that materials can be kept out. She said she has a breadth of experience in different kinds of government and would emphasize public input. Armentrout also said she understands that the board is not an operational board – it’s a policy board.

Murphy on Challenges and Strengths

Murphy said that to build on Armentrout’s statement, as a policy board, their most important task is to hire a director and make sure that things run smoothly, and to oversee the budget. She said she thinks they did a very good job in hiring a director. She believes her experience on the board over the last two terms is very valuable for her next term. There is a long learning curve in understanding how the library works, how the budget works, how the millage works. She noted that she was present during the building of two branches, and has learned about the library’s facilities. It’s been fun to learn, Murphy said, and now that she’s learned it, she wants to continue to share that knowledge with the board and the library. Before retiring, her previous experience was in finance, personnel, organizational development and information technology (IT). Understanding IT especially, and where technology is going in the future, will be crucial to the library, she said.

Closing Statements

Each candidate was given two minutes for a closing statement.

Kaplan’s Closing Statement

Kaplan described herself as an enthusiastic supporter of the Ann Arbor District Library. She’d be a link between the library and the community. “I will advocate for the library and be the voice of the community,” she said. Her ideas for the library include enhancing communication and interaction between the board and the public. She’d advocate for televising board meetings and providing drive-up book depositories. She said she’d promote creating advisory committees to represent the diverse community, including seniors, young parents, teens, and those with disabilities. The goal is to have active dialogues among the community, the board, director and staff on the vision for the library and its evolving role.

They’d also benefit from an open dialogue about the aging Fifth Avenue library and what to do about this building – renovation or rebuilding. The benefits and risks should involve a robust discussion with the public, Kaplan said. The public should also be involved in the library’s vision for its neighborhood, she said. What are good neighbors for the library? “The well-being of the Ann Arbor District Library is essential to our democracy and our creative future,” Kaplan said. She said she’d be an advocate for the library and would work collaboratively with district residents to develop a vision for the library as a community center for multi-faceted learning, interaction and personal growth. She referred voters to her website for more information, and thanked the League of Women Voters for hosting the forum.

Newman’s Closing Statement

Newman said she ran for the library board four years ago because she’d been involved with the library a long time, even when it was part of the Ann Arbor public school system – she had been an ex-officio member of the library board because of her participation in the Ladies’ Library Association, which was a precursor to the current library. Since being on the board, she said she’s learned so much about how the library operates and all that it offers. It’s become very important to her to stay with it. She said it’s a matter of the continuity she can provide, along with her incumbent colleagues.

To that end, she said, she wanted to mention Carola Stearns, who’s running for a two-year term. Stearns is a geologist, Newman said, who’s taking a group of geologists on a trip to the Grand Canyon’s Supai Gorge. The trip was long-planned. Stearns is a makes a lot of contributions as a board member, Newman said, and a good advocate for the library. Newman said she’d like to see the library continue in the direction it’s going – while staying open to new directions. The other issue is the maintenance and husbandry of the downtown library, she said, which will be a challenge. They need to be aware of the needs of the community, and of the special needs of the neighborhood. The library offers a vibrancy to the downtown community, she said.

Murphy’s Closing Statement

Murphy said she agreed with Newman and reiterated her comments about Stearns, saying Stearns was a good board member and always asked very cogent questions. Her forced absence shouldn’t mean that her name isn’t heard. For her own part, Murphy said she thinks she’s been a contributing member of the library board as well, and has worked hard on the committee that helped develop the library’s strategic plan. It’s been a pleasure to watch as it’s been implemented.

The library’s biggest problem in some ways will be its growth, Murphy said. In the 2008-09 fiscal year, they had 9 million checkouts and renewals. That shows how many people like and use the library, and that’s going to increase as more people turn to the library for things other than books. She said she would like to continue to see how to achieve growth, given the financial situation that the library faces. The downtown building will be an issue – the library has become a community center, and its rooms are filled to overflowing. Another thing they’ll need to look at is how to accommodate larger groups for lectures, theater pieces and classes. All of these things she finds very exciting, Murphy said. She’d like to continue working on them, “and I hope that I have your vote to do so.”

Surovell’s Closing Statement

Surovell said that during the 14 years he’s been a library trustee, a study was done that led to the decision to replace and expand their facilities. Three new libraries have been constructed, services have been dramatically expanded, and the library is now open on Sundays – it’s open 74 hours a week, he said. One year, the Ann Arbor District Library was library of the year for the entire United States. It’s a record of which he’s personally proud, but he’s most proud of the staff and the director, “those people who have made the Ann Arbor District Library an internationally known facility, and a leader in public library service, wherever libraries are known.” His hope is that he’ll be able to continue to contribute his past experience to the future of the library.

Armentrout’s Closing Statement

Armentrout said she believes libraries are the foundation of a democratic society, and she would like to see the library continue its successful outreach to all members of the community. There are many things to be proud of in the library. It’s well-managed, and has moved forward on many important fronts. The library assumed responsibility for the Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled when the county stopped supporting it. As a part-time writer, she said, she especially appreciates the library’s archiving of local history.

The library has been an essential anchor to the downtown and to the civic life of our city, Armentrout said. It’s encourageing encouraging that the library has been able to do all this within a prudent budget. She said she’s glad that the main library will remain at the downtown location, though she also enjoys the convenience of her local branch. She doesn’t support a new downtown library building, and would prefer to see it renovated and repaired. The library has been identified as a stakeholder for the Library Lot site, and she said she does not support building a hotel and conference center there. She appreciates the library’s efforts to move forward with changes in technology and publishing approaches, but she also thinks a high priority should be placed on maintenance of a wide collection of books and materials. There’s a lot of demand for that, and it’s what most people think of when they think “library,” she said.

In contrast to other members of the city council, which represent one of five wards in the city, Ann Arbor's mayor is elected by all Ann Arbor voters. Kudos to any reader who can recognize the location of this sign.

By way of general background, in Ann Arbor, the mayor is elected for a two-year term and is a member of the 11-member city council. The other 10 members of the council come from the city’s five wards – each ward has two seats on the council, one of which is elected each year for a two-year term. In addition to the rights and responsibilities of a councilmember, the city charter assigns the mayor other rights, including: a veto power, the responsibility to make appointments to committees, certain powers during emergencies, and the responsibility to preside over city council meetings. The management of the city is handled by a city administrator [Roger Fraser], who is hired by the city council. The mayor’s annual salary is $42,436.

Hieftje has served as mayor for the last 10 years, first elected in 2000 after serving half a term on the Ann Arbor city council representing Ward 1. At the League’s forum, Bean highlighted his own record of 20 years of service to the city on the energy and environmental commissions – currently chairing the environmental commission. Board and commission service for the city is not compensated.

The two men share many similar views – they occasionally expressed their agreement with each other’s views during the forum. They get along well socially – in fact, they carpooled together to the League of Women Voters event. Still, it’s possible to discern some differences between the two candidates on local issues as well as in their national perspective.

For example, Bean’s take on the proposed Fuller Road Station is that a citizen vote is needed and that the accompanying parking deck doesn’t move us in the right direction of alternative transportation. Hieftje, on the other hand, promoted the location as the best place in all of Michigan for a transit center. Hieftje’s focus on the city’s budget is to continue to find efficiencies to reduce expenses in the face of declining state and federal revenues, while Bean’s perspective seems to include more prominently the possibility of a severe national financial crisis that could be further complicated by declining world oil production capacity.

Bean and Hieftje’s responses are described in greater detail below.

Opening statement

Each candidate made a 1-minute opening statement.

Bean’s Opening

Steve Bean said that the reason he’s running for mayor is to bring to our local government the context of climate change, peak oil and a future financial crisis. He said he didn’t feel like we take that broader context enough into consideration at the local level. He noted he has more than 20 years of experience in local Ann Arbor government, serving on the environmental commission – for the last five years as chair – and also the energy commission prior to that. He said that if people didn’t hear their questions answered that evening, to contact him and he’d be happy to respond.

Hieftje’s Opening

John Hieftje thanked the League of Women Voters for hosting the event. He said that the last decade has been a tough one for the country and the entire world and certainly for local governments in Michigan. He allowed that cuts have had to be made, but said that Ann Arbor has done this through finding greater efficiencies – he contended that about the same work is done by the city as was done 10 years ago, but with many fewer people. He said that while other cities in Michigan have had to raise taxes, the millage rate in Ann Arbor is slightly lower now than it was 10 years ago. Ann Arbor will need to focus on finances, he said. He said he felt that Ann Arbor will be able to “keep all the balls in the air” as we move forward with the various initiatives that the city has in place.

Challenges

Question: What challenges specifically will the city face in the next two years?

Hieftje on Challenges: Financial challenges are major

John Hieftje said that every city needs to be focused most acutely on the bottom line financially – we don’t know what to expect from the state in terms of state revenue sharing, he said. He noted that the state has recent cut state revenue sharing as well as funding for roads, funding for the arts, and funding that was previously available for affordable housing. Federal funding has also decreased, he said. Finances will continue to be a major chore, Hieftje said, and he thinks that the city will continue to do a good job of that. That doesn’t mean the city can’t continue to look at alternative transportation and be one of the nation’s leaders in environmental issues, he said.

Bean on Challenges: Financial challenges will become more serious

Steve Bean said that he largely agrees with Hieftje – that the financial situation is already a challenge. He said he felt that we’d see rising gasoline prices, which will dampen economic growth. We’re in a situation where we can’t expect to get out of the recession very soon, Bean said, so we’ll likely go into a deeper recession. We have an opportunity to continue to be creative and innovative in continuing our quality of life, he said, but it will be very challenging and we need to be open to exploring alternatives.

Mayor’s Role

Question: What role does the mayor play in a city manager type of government such as we have in Ann Arbor, and what strengths would you bring to that role?

Bean on Mayor’s Role: Leadership

Steve Bean said that the mayor plays primarily a leadership role, both on the city council and in the community. The 11-member council develops policy for the community and directs administration and staff, and it’s the mayor’s role to guide that process. It’s also important for the mayor to play an educational role in the community about what we’ll likely face in the future – about budget issues as well as opportunities.

Hieftje on Mayor’s Role: Evolution of role due to electronic communication

John Hieftje said that as the system is set up, the city administrator handles the day-to-day activities and makes sure the garbage gets collected. The mayor and the city council hire the city administrator and the city attorney, he said. He compared the mayor to the chairman of the board of directors, but said that there’s a lot of room for the mayor to be more active or less active – he characterized his own approach as more active.

He said that the role of mayor and the city council had changed over the years, particularly with the growth of electronic mail. People take advantage of the fact that the mayor and city council members are very accessible through electronic mail. As a result, the mayor and the city council are the liaison to the community, which is as appropriate, he said. The role of the council has expanded, Hieftje said, and in the past decade it has taken a greater role in watching over city finances and making sure that the work that’s done throughout the city meets the expectation of the residents. There’s been an evolution in the roles of mayor and city council, he said, compared to the way they’ve been set up in the city charter.

Parks: Golf

Question: Are the city parks under threat? For example, what should be the future use of Huron Hills golf course?

Hieftje on Golf: Huron Hills needs to pay for itself

John Hieftje characterized Huron Hills as a beautiful piece of property. He said the city has been struggling for a couple of years to see if it can be made to pay for itself, so that golf is not taking away from the general fund budget. Golf seems to be on the decline as a sport, he said, with many golf courses built over the last several years going out of business or being converted to other uses. If Huron Hills can make a go of it as a golf course, he said, that would be a great thing.

Hieftje mentioned that the city has put out a request for proposals (RFP) on the course to try to get some new ideas, but that it would certainly remain a park. He said the golf task force had made a lot of progress and Huron Hills is a better course than it was before – it’s less expensive to play. If it turned out that it could not be made to be viable as a golf course, there could be some other park use for the land.

Bean on Golf: Why not Leslie, too?

Steve Bean said that for the short term it would be preferable for it to be a viable golf course. In the future, he said, he agreed with Hieftje that if it can’t be viable as a golf course, it should remain a park. He asked, however, if we are exploring the possibility of making Huron Hills viable with a private operator, why we are not doing the same thing with the city’s other golf course – Leslie Park golf course. He said that we are not being consistent in that respect.

Parks: Fuller Road Station

Question: Is a parking garage and transit station an appropriate use of Fuller Park?

Bean on FRS: Citizen vote is needed

Steve Bean said he tended to look at the question as: Is a parking structure appropriate at all? The concept for Fuller Road Station, he said, is to develop a train station, but a parking structure is not moving us in the direction of alternative transportation or in bringing in commuters on a train line. He said there’s an agreement with the community regarding how to use park land in the long term – it’s a matter of semantics, he said, and he felt it should be put to a vote and get community buy-in before going forward.

That’s especially true, Bean said, because there is no commitment beyond a parking structure at this point. In order to get the long-term commitment for a transit station with trains and buses, we need to get the community’s full support, he said.

Hieftje on FRS: Full support

John Hieftje said that while the place where there’s a paved parking lot at the base of the University of Michigan hospital is “technically park land,” it’s been a parking lot since 1993. There was a land swap with the university, he said. The key point, he said, is that the location is possibly the best place in the state of Michigan for a transit station. There are 18,000 people who go there every day, Hieftje said, 12,000 of whom work there and 6,000 who are patients and visitors. There are 4,000 people with an Ypsilanti zip code who work there. He described a train that would allow them to commute to UM as a huge economic development tool for Ypsilanti. He said that like Bean, he’d like to see the number of automobile trips into the city limited, but he does not think they should be trying to “starve” the most vital employer in the city. As far as the park question, it has not been what we think of as a park for a very long time, he said.

Development

Question: Development is always a hot topic in Ann Arbor. There may be an attempt to bring back Heritage Row/City Place to the city council. Which of these projects do you think would be the best use of the property: Heritage Row or City Place?

By way of background, Heritage Row is 154-bedroom residential project, which would have been located on the block of Fifth Avenue, south of William Street. Heritage Row was rejected by the council at its June 21, 2010 meeting, on a 7-4 vote in favor of it, falling one vote short of the super-majority needed to approve the planned unit development (PUD) project. The super-majority was needed because of a protest petition filed by nearby property owners.

Heritage Row was brought back for reconsideration at a subsequent council meeting on July 6, 2010, but again failed, that time on a 7-3 vote. It was nearly brought back a third time – on that same evening. But Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) abandoned the effort in the middle of a parliamentary procedure that had appeared momentarily would result in another vote, this time with Hohnke providing the deciding vote in favor of Heritage Row. Hohnke had voted against the project on both previous occasions.

The developer of Heritage Row, Alex De Parry, has an already approved “matter of right” 144-bedroom project in the same location as Heritage Row – called City Place. Approved last year, the City Place project contrasts with Heritage Row in that it would demolish seven existing houses and replace them with a streetscape consisting of two buildings separated by a parking lot. In the Heritage Row project, the seven houses would be renovated, and three additional buildings would be constructed behind them, with parking located under the site. At a recent Sunday night caucus, the prospects for Heritage Row getting a third consideration by the council looked slim [Caucus Chess Talk: Building City Place].

Hieftje on Development: Heritage Row would be better

John Hieftje noted that the proposal for a historic district in that area failed. [Hieftje voted for the district.] That means, he said, that the developer could choose to pull a permit for demolition of the houses next week if he chose to do so – the houses belong to him. He said he’d prefer to see Heritage Row than City Place, because Heritage Row would preserve the seven houses. He noted that he’d voted for it at the last council meeting.

He then said he wanted to “drop back” to the question about the Fuller Road Station question and said that he’d agonized over the project. He contended that you’d be hard pressed to find a mayor who had done more for parks. The Fuller Road Station situation would be different, he said, because the university would be a user and the city would also be a user, and eventually Amtrak would be a user. We have an opportunity to use the university’s investment to make the entire match that’s required for federal money, he said. That’s why the city is continuing to pursue that project, he said.

Bean on Development: Let’s reflect on the accumulation of lots

Steve Bean said that Heritage Row is definitely a preferable option between the two – Heritage Row and City Place. But he said he didn’t see those as the only choices. He noted that The Moravian had also been proposed in the same neighborhood.

Both Heritage Row and The Moravian were planned unit developments, he said, where the developer had accumulated multiple lots and put them together for the project. Bean said that he did not feel that the PUD process or the zoning for that neighborhood [R4C – multi-family dwelling] anticipated that kind of proposal. He said it’s inappropriate for the city to accept those kinds of proposals until we define what constitutes a public benefit in those kinds of areas. He called for a community discussion about the near-downtown neighborhoods and whether we wanted to expand the downtown.

Development: Washtenaw Avenue Corridor

Question: Would you favor the development of a corridor improvement authority for Washtenaw Avenue that would oversee development from East Stadium Boulevard to the Ypsilanti water tower? If so, should the authority have the ability to capture future tax increases that results from new development along Washtenaw Avenue?

Bean on Washtenaw Avenue: Support for an authority

Steve Bean said that such a corridor improvement authority was very appropriate, because that might be the only way development would occur along that transit corridor the way we’d like it to. It’s an important connection between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, he said. It’s currently not very pedestrian-friendly – the street width and the setbacks are not helpful in that sense and it’s not safe to bicycle on. Bringing buildings closer to the street – along the lines of the new area, height, and placement changes – would help, he said. Bean said that the authority should include stakeholders along the corridor, in particular those in Ypsilanti.

Hieftje on Washtenaw Avenue: Not sure about tax increment financing

John Hieftje said he felt that Bean had described it very well. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done there, which currently has a strip mall kind of look to it. He said he had some questions about establishing a tax increment financing (TIF) zone out there – that would need to be looked at very carefully. But he suggested that some kind of mechanism was needed to help finance improvements in the corridor.

He then said he wanted to go back to the previous question about Heritage Row and City Place. He said it was important for people to understand that because the historic district had not been approved, it leaves it open for City Place to be developed. He noted that seven city councilmembers, including himself, believed that Heritage Row would be a better way to go. The developer might have to go through with the City Place development, he said, which would be a shame, because it would remove the seven old houses, completely changing the look of the street.

Budget: Expenses or Revenue?

Question: Looking at the city budget, what further cuts, if any, would you favor? Should the city look for additional sources of revenue – and if so, what?

Hieftje on Budget: Additional cuts will be needed

John Hieftje said that the last decade had been the worst financially of any decade since the 1930s. Unlike other cities, Ann Arbor has not raised taxes, he said, with a millage rate a little bit lower than it was 10 years ago. The city would continue to look for efficiencies without targeting any one thing, he said. The last fiscal year, ending on June 30, had finished with a modest surplus, he said. He characterized the general fund reserve as adequate and said that compared to other cities, we’re doing very well.

Hieftje said we’d probably need to make some additional cuts this year and the year after that, and they’d watch the state budget to see what happens there. He said he didn’t want to put a finger on any one area to see where to make cuts. Up to now, the city had been trying to find efficiencies through the whole system. He concluded by saying that he was sure they’d get through the next budget year.

Bean on Budget: Need to prepare for crisis of inflation or deflation

Steve Bean said he agreed with Hieftje that we shouldn’t choose winners and losers about where to make budget cuts. He anticipates that we will need to make further cuts. The next decade might be worse than the previous one, he warned. He said he’d encourage the city administrator to develop a budget that anticipates either inflation or deflation in the future. We need to be prepared for more volatile financial situations. What he’d prioritize, Bean said, was ways to transition away from reliance on fossil fuels. Services that involve moving a lot of trucks around, he said, we need to think of ways to reduce. He suggested we could put more police on bicycles or think of other ways to move in that direction.

Business Climate

Question: How would you rate the business climate in Ann Arbor? Is there anything we can do to make it better? If so, what?

Bean on Business: Generally good climate, energy improvements can help

Steve Bean said the business climate is relatively good, considering the broader context of the state and the nation, where the climate is not so good. He said he serves on the board of Think Local First and certainly supports local and independently owned businesses, and through that effort we can cooperate more at the local level and find ways for local businesses to be more successful.

The property assessed clean energy (PACE) program could be helpful in that sense, he said, where low-interest loans could be extended to businesses to help finance energy improvements. Hopefully down the road, he said, homeowners would also be able to take advantage of PACE. It would help them to be more energy efficient, so that their money stays in the local economy and supports it rather than going to fuel sources outside the state and the community.

Hieftje on Business: Quality of life is key

John Hieftje said that Ann Arbor has one of the best business climates in the state. He also said that Ann Arbor competes with cities around the world for top-level researchers and other talent. He said he believed in continuing to invest in and improve Ann Arbor’s quality of life, because it’s an attractant to the best talent in the world – that’s an accepted theory about attracting the creative class, he said. He suggested continuing down that road. We have beautiful parks and a clean, green environment, stable finances, a good public school system, a great university. He also cited awards won by the city.

Closing statements

Each candidate gave a 2-minute closing statement.

Hieftje’s Closing

John Hieftje said it’s vitally important to continue to improve our quality of life. The city continues to win many awards, he said. He distanced himself from the idea that the awards have literal significance but said that winning them was better than not winning them and they indicated we’re moving in the right direction. The fact that Ann Arbor is an attractive place to live is our economic calling card, he said. We’re also doing many things to move towards sustainability. This year, he said, Ann Arbor had achieved 20% renewable energy for the municipal government. A lot of that had been achieved through reducing energy use. The city’s work for the environment, as well as his own work, has been recognized, citing his endorsement by environmentalists locally and various organizations.

He also said that the financial picture is very important – that’s the bottom line.

Bean’s Closing

Steve Bean said that he’s very much in agreement with Hieftje about the quality of the community, its residents, the university, and the resources we have, including the people. He said that he wanted to say a bit about himself, because people might not be familiar with him. He said he’d live in Ann Arbor for 28 years, came to study physics as well as ecology and environmental policy, and decided to stay. While still a student, he said, he’d become involved in city issues around recycling, and since then he’s served for over 20 years on city commissions – the environmental and energy commissions.

Bean also noted that he’s served as a park steward, served on the Think Local First board, volunteers with a number of nonprofits, works for a small business in the city, and was married for a time to a small business owner on Main Street. So he has familiarity with the downtown and the local business situation, he concluded. His focus, he said, is not just on what we’ve been doing so well, but to look at the challenges we face if the financial situation get worse, if oil prices go up – now that we’re probably past the world’s peak capacity to produce oil. We need to transition away from fossil fuels, he said, and be creative and innovative. To do that, we’ll need to work together, he said. We need to be open to other possibilities without believing we have all the answers, he said.

Chase Ingersoll, Republican candidate for District 53 Michigan state representative, at the Sept. 28 League of Women Voters forum. Jeff Irwin, the Democratic candidate, did not attend. (Photo by the writer.)

At the Sept. 28 League of Women Voters forum, however, Ingersoll was the only candidate to appear, and after waiting 10 minutes past the scheduled start time, organizers decided to carry on without Irwin.

“We hope nothing untoward has happened,” said Sue Smith, League president. She noted that in Irwin’s absence, they’d be following the “empty chair” format, meaning that the timing for each question would be the same, and the forum would simply be half as long. It lasted 15 minutes.

Questions were selected by a committee from a pool of questions submitted by community members. The forum, held at the studios of Community Television Network, was moderated by Judy Mich. The event was recorded and is available online through CTN’s video-on-demand service.

Irwin later emailed The Chronicle saying he had apologized to the League – he had thought the forum was on the following night. Irwin’s views on some statewide issues can be found in a Chronicle report of a June 2010 candidate forum during the Democratic primary between Irwin and Ned Staebler.

Opening Statement

Chase Ingersoll had one minute for an opening statement. He suggested that viewers read his candidate profile on AnnArbor.com, then said “let’s go right into questions.”

Michigan’s Water Resources

Question: Do you see Michigan’s water resources threatened in any way? What legislation and/or enforcement is needed to protect Michigan’s water?

Ingersoll said he thought it was a really broad question that was best answered in philosophical terms. The federal government should have absolutely no say about the water in Michigan. How the state’s resources are used should be determined by people in Michigan. That being said, he added, from that principle follows that people in Washtenaw County should determine how water in Washtenaw County is used.

Partisan Deadlock

Question: Outside of one party having total control, give three specific ways that you’d try to surmount the legislative deadlock that has immobilized the state.

If you think of the principle “He who governs least, governs best,” then perhaps we’re better off if the legislature isn’t up in Lansing passing laws, Ingersoll said. Philosophically, he said he looked at it this way: The country started out with a pretty good code – the federal constitution, and a state constitution. But over time, a lot of people with their petty or particular interests have built bad code, or outdated code, on the original code. Coming from a family of computer programmers, he said, you’re not better off investing a lot of time and energy into new code – that just creates additional problems. We may be at that point, he said.

Regardless of party affiliation, you have to look at each specific piece of legislation that’s being considered in its own right, rather than the party origin, Ingersoll said. The biggest problem right now is that people simply aren’t reading the bills, he said.

State Budget

Question: Budget deficits are plugged by increasing revenues or decreasing expenditures. What sources of increased income would you would support, or what expenses would you eliminate?

Regarding increased income, if you’re talking about taxes, Ingersoll said, all you’ll do is have businesses head over to Ohio or Indiana. For example, if a small transportation business in Michigan decides to title and register its vehicles in Ohio, it saves thousands of dollars compared to doing that in Michigan. Why is that? he asked. Has Ohio found a way to be more efficient in its costs and fees than Michigan? He said he really didn’t have an answer, other than philosophically, everyone’s going to have to “take a haircut.”

Educational Funding Priorities

Question: Like many states, Michigan is facing a shortfall of funding for education, resulting in teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, a shortage of materials, deteriorating buildings and so on. Where does K-12 education rank in your funding priorities? How much would you devote to post-secondary educational support? Are there further economies possible, or must the state change its taxation formula?

Ingersoll said he disagreed with the premise that not enough money is being spent on education. He sees a “bubble” in the price of education in the same way there was a bubble in the housing market. There’s plenty of education out there, just as there was plenty of housing out there, he said. But what we have is a financing scheme for education that has resulted in prices going up.

He said he remembered what it cost to go to a private or public college in the past, and those costs have gone up exponentially – not because of inflation, or the cost of personnel, or the cost of the physical structure of a university, or even because of the cost of the K-12 physical plant. Especially in the university environment, Ingersoll said, costs went up when they increased lending. If you look to what happened in the real estate market, he said, that explains what’s happening in the post-secondary education market.

Constitutional Convention

Question: Voters will be asked on Nov. 2 to decide whether or not to have a constitutional convention. Do you favor a state constitutional convention?

Ingersoll said he doesn’t think the average voter in Michigan understands the law, or would put in enough time to understand the process or the laws or the outcome of a constitutional convention. They would be qualified to elect representatives to actually go to a constitutional convention, and have something that would actually work. On the one hand, he said, you’d love the thought of democracy and people getting together at the convention. But he said he thinks the Michigan voting populace is completely unqualified to actually do that.

Michigan Infrastructure

Question: Michigan’s roads, bridges and drains all need reconstruction. Has the federal stimulus money all been spent in the state? Do you have a priority list for future projects? We might put off projects to reduce our children’s debt burden, but what kind of state will we bequeath to them? What are your priorities in fixing up the state?

The question is too long to answer in one minute, Ingersoll said. The stimulus was a boondoggle, and we’re not getting the correct technology, materials or work effort in repairing the roads. Take Washtenaw Avenue, for example. “I’ve been in Michigan four years, and every year they’re working on Washtenaw,” he said. “It’s either poor materials or poor workmanship. That wouldn’t be tolerated in other places.”

Closing Statement

Ingersoll was given two minutes to make a closing statement. Philosophically,  he said, it doesn’t make any sense for Michigan to be sending money to the federal government, and then to have the state ask the federal government how we can spend it. Likewise, it’s not appropriate for Washtenaw County or the local townships or governmental units to be sending money to Lansing, then putting our hand out and asking Lansing to send it back to us with a list of rules on how it can be spent. Anybody who has bought into that paradigm or way of thinking, “I just don’t get them,” he said.

“Are we in Washtenaw County too stupid to figure out how we should spend our own money and what we should spend it on?” Ingersoll asked. “Or are we somehow benefiting in sending it up to a legislature that brings in many of the crooks and thieves from Detroit, who are elected by crooks and thieves in Detroit, and then they dabble around and help articulate the rules that we in Washtenaw County then have to live by.”

“I think we need to take care of our own here at home,” Ingersoll concluded. “And I think we’d be better off if basically Lansing ceased to exist and if the federal government ceased to exist. We’re big enough to handle it ourselves.”

City of Ann Arbor Ward 2 is the magenta wedge of the pie in this map on the east side of the city.

While the five candidates for the two wards participated in the same 45-minute forum, this report covers only responses to questions from Ward 2 candidates – incumbent Tony Derezinski, who is the Democratic Party nominee, and Emily Salvette, the nominee of the Libertarian Party. Responses from Ward 5 candidates Carsten Hohnke, John Floyd and Newcombe Clark are reported in a separate account.

As stipulated in the city charter, Ann Arbor wards divide the city into roughly pie-shaped wedges. Ward 2 is a wedge covering roughly the area between the 1 o’clock and 4 o’clock positions on the “city pie.” Each ward is represented on the city council in two council seats, one of which is up for election each year for a two-year term. Stephen Rapundalo serves in the Ward 2 seat that’s not up for election this year.

The four questions posed by the League were confined essentially to two topics: the budget and parks. Candidates uniformly identified the most important challenge facing the city as the budget, and that fit thematically with a specific question about the budget. The remaining two questions focused on specific parks: Huron Hills golf course, which is currently the subject of a request for proposals for private management; and Fuller Park, part of which is a proposed location for a new parking deck to be built primarily for the University of Michigan, and which has a possible future as a train station.

Both Derezinski and Salvette acknowledged the difficulty of the financial situation faced by the city. Salvette focused on her basic philosophy of limited government, stating that she was not in favor of new taxes. Salvette cautioned against an approach of “tinkering around the edges,” instead calling for reducing employee costs.  Derezinski noted that the number of employees has been reduced considerably in the last decade through attrition and early retirements. He warned that if additional cuts could not be made, it might be necessary to think about changing the tax structure. He did not explicitly call for the citizen vote that would be required to levy a city income tax.

With respect to the city parks, Salvette stressed the importance of putting the future use of Fuller Park to a vote – she isn’t opposed to the university purchasing the land for use as a parking deck, but expressed skepticism about the viability of a transit station use. She felt that Huron Hills should be left the way it is. Derezinski expressed his support for the plan for Fuller Road Station, and stressed that Huron Hills would continue to be used for golf, whatever the outcome of the current request for proposals is for the privatization of operations there.

Opening Statements

Each candidate began with a 1-minute opening statement.

Opening: Derezinski

Tony Derezinski led off his remarks by saying that his first two years of service on the city council representing Ward 2 had been an interesting time. He ticked off his council committee assignments: city planning commission; labor and council administration committee; board of insurance administration; WATS alternate; Washtenaw corridor study technical committee; Ann Arbor housing commission; SEMCOG delegate. He then cited the Arbor Hospice Foundation board and membership in Rotary Club as other civic involvement. He cited a credential of a master’s degree in urban legal studies from Harvard University’s law school and 25 years of private practice in the area of municipal law.

Opening: Salvette

Emily Salvette thanked the League of Women Voters for the opportunity to address voters and for the work the league does in the community. She stated that she thinks it’s bad that we have only one political party running the city – all 11 members of the city council are Democrats, she said, and that’s how it’s been for a while. That’s not good for democracy, she said – we need some honest debate at council meetings.

Salvette said she believes in limited government, focusing on the basics: protecting people from violent crime and providing basic infrastructure like roads and water. Then government should step back and let people go about their business, she said. She also said that she thinks government should be fair, open and honest. The government, she said, should follow its own rules. She invited people to find out more by visiting her website: emily4a2.org

Challenges for Next Two Years

Question: What are the primary challenges facing the city council in the next two years and what strengths would you bring to that role?

Derezinski on Challenges: Services in a tough economy

Tony Derezinski identified the first challenge as continuing to provide quality municipal services – that’s a challenge, he said, because of the economic times. The city has had to make painful cuts. The second challenge he identified is planning for the future. Ann Arbor is in a position to keep and improve on its remarkable culture, he said. The question is how to do that during tough times and in collaboration with surrounding communities. He talked about the need to meet challenges in the context of the entire state and cited his experience in the state Senate.

Salvette on Challenges: Debt, employee costs

Emily Salvette stated that the city’s debt is obviously the biggest challenge – the city is spending too much money. She said that city costs need to be brought under control, and the biggest area where more control is needed is in employee costs. She said we need to “look hard” at union contracts, hiring and firing decisions, and make sure we’re running a sustainable operation. This is not the time for new taxes, she said. Spending needs to be brought under control. Her focus on limited government, she said, would help, because she does not always want to use government to solve every problem – it won’t grow under her watch, she concluded.

Parks: Golf

Question: Are Ann Arbor’s city parks under threat? For example, what should be the future use of the Huron Hills golf course?

Salvette on Huron Hills: Leave it publicly operated, the way it is

Emily Salvette said she didn’t necessarily think that the city’s parks are under attack. However, she said a couple of things bother her about the plans for the development of the Fuller Road transit station. If we have a rule that park land can’t be sold without a vote of the people and we enter into a long-term lease – that is for all intents and purposes, for those here today, a sale – then that’s not playing by the rules, she said. Government should be held accountable and be honest about what it’s trying to do, and should live by its own rules. With respect to Huron Hills, she said, as a Libertarian, she supported privatization as much as the next person, but she’s listened to what neighbors of the course have had to say. She does not think that contracting out in this situation is warranted. Huron Hills should be left the way it is right now.

Derezinski on Huron Hills: Consider privatization to make it break even

Tony Derezinski began by calling the city parks one of the “great strengths” of Ann Arbor. The parks are beautiful. He said he lives near Huron Hills golf course and plays it 4-5 times a year – not well, but he tries, he quipped. What the city has done so far, he said, is simply to issue a request for proposals (RFP) to see how Huron Hills could be managed better. The RFP is very specific, he said, that the land would be managed as a golf facility. It’s important to make that inquiry in tough times, he said, to see if there’s a way to do it better. It’s a great facility, but it could be better, and the city needs to make it at least break even, he said. The parks are safe, he said, and they’ll continue to be one of the great strengths of the city.

Parks: Fuller Road Station

Question: Is a transit station and parking structure an appropriate use of Fuller Park?

Derezinski on FRS: Full support

Tony Derezinki began by reacting to the description of the land as a “park” by saying, “I think you mean a ‘parking lot,’ which is what it is right now.” He went on to say that it’s been a parking lot for quite some time. He stated that he felt that a transit station and parking structure was an appropriate use of the land. The Fuller Road Station would be a lot more than just a parking structure – it would become an intermodal transportation hub where many different types of transportation come together.

There are around 30,000 people who come into the city every day – most of them to the university hospital system, Derezinski said. The University of Michigan had planned to build a couple of decks near Broadway and Wall Street, but gave up that plan when the opportunity came to build on Fuller Road. The plans, he said, call for a bridge that goes from the parking structure straight to the medical center, and would eventually include a train station. The current Amtrak station is inadequate, he said, and if high speed rail comes to Ann Arbor, the structure at Fuller Road will be the station for it. It will be a lot more than just a parking structure, he concluded.

Salvette on FRS: Open to purchase by UM, but need a citizen vote

Emily Salvette said that the city has to be open and honest about what should happen with that land – it should go to a vote. She does not think it’s necessarily a bad thing to have a parking lot for the University of Michigan – if they need it, they should buy it. She said she had strong concerns about planning for “transit schemes” that she thinks are unsustainable and impractical and will cost a lot of money. Rail as a transportation option is currently not viable, she said. To build a “dream transit station” in order to get ready for that happening, she said, is “folly.”

Budget

Question: Balancing the budget is a continuing challenge. Do more cuts need to be made – if so, what? Are there additional sources of revenue, and if so, what?

Salvette on Budget: Employee costs are most crucial

Emily Salvette said that it would not be helpful to tinker around the edges with small cuts here and there, especially with popular programs and services. What we should really tackle, she said, are things like employee costs – pension, and health care contributions. We need to get these employee costs under control, she said. There are fewer employees today than there were four years ago, yet the city’s costs are 25% higher, she said. It’s important to get employee costs in line with the private sector, she said – there are taxpayers who are suffering, while city employees have very generous benefit packages.

Derezinski on Budget: Alternative to more cuts is to change tax structure

Tony Derezinski characterized the budget cuts as among the most difficult decisions he’s had to make in his first term and he hears about them – things like leaf collection and paving of roads. Those are essential services, he said, that he as a representative of Ward 2 is concerned about. In the last 10 years, the number of city employees has decreased by 25%. Those are difficult cuts, he said, but they’ve been achieved through attrition and early retirements. At the same time the city has kept up its AA+ bond rating. In the future, he cautioned, the alternative is to cut more or to look for additional funds. That would mean some tough choices or else a change in the structure of the tax system.

Closing Statements

Each candidate gave a 2-minute closing statement.

Salvette’s Closing

Emily Salvette began by thanking the League of Woman Voters for the opportunity to be there. It’s been five years, she said, since there were two names on the ballot in a Ward 2 city council race. It’s been five years since a party other than the Democrat Party was on council. Yet she knows there are different points of view on issues in Ward 2, because she talks politics with her friends and neighbors all the time. Many of them feel that city government is too big, and is pursuing ill-advised projects. She asked her friends and neighbors to seize the opportunity to make a difference in Ann Arbor – put some diversity into the debate on the city council. She suggested that voters could find out more about the Libertarian Party by visiting lp.org

She allowed that voters might not agree with her on every issue, but guaranteed that she would be an independent voice. She would listen, ask questions, and demand answers from city officials. She’d base her decisions on what she heard from voters, what she believes is right and what promotes fair, open and honest government in Ann Arbor. Her decisions would not be based on what she’s been told to do at a party caucus, she said. It’s time for an independent voice in Ann Arbor government, she said, and that’s why she’s running.

Derezinski’s Closing

Tony Derezinski quipped that it’s great to be the last person speaking and said it’s been a pleasure to represent Ward 2 over the last two years. Two years ago, when he ran, his campaign theme had been: “Let’s make this great community even better.” He said he still has faith we can do that, though he allowed it’d been a “tough slide” for the last couple of years due to the financial situation. He assured people that we would get over that crisis. Times are going to be better and we have to plan for them, but right now there are tough decisions we have to make. We have to continue to provide services, he said.

He pointed to the work the planning commission has been doing to rezone parts of the community, because the zoning laws are outdated. He also pointed to the Washtenaw Avenue corridor study technical committee he’s on as a collaboration of four communities: Ann Arbor, Pittsfield Township, Ypsilanti Township, and Ypsilanti. That’s the kind of thing we need to do more of, he said. We need to look to the future, he said, and declared that he is optimistic. He said he refused to attack city government and that we can make it better by good planning, by thinking about our goals for 25 years from now and working towards those goals. He concluded by thanking the League of Women Voters.

City of Ann Arbor Ward 5 is the yellow wedge of the pie in this map on the west side of the city.

The respective incumbents in Wards 1, 3 and 4 – Sandi Smith, Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall, who are all Democrats – are unopposed.

This report includes just the Ward 5 candidate responses – independent Newcombe Clark, Republican John Floyd and Democratic incumbent Carsten Hohnke. Ward 2 candidate remarks are reported in a separate acccount.

As stipulated in the city charter, Ann Arbor wards divide the city into roughly pie-shaped wedges. Ward 5 is a wedge generally covering the area between the 8 o’clock and 10 o’clock positions on the “city pie.” Each ward is represented on the city council with two council seats, one of which is up for election each year for a two-year term. Mike Anglin serves in the Ward 5 seat that’s not up for election this year.

The four questions posed by the League were confined essentially to two topics: the budget and parks. Candidates uniformly identified the most important challenge facing the city as the budget, and that fit thematically with a specific question about the budget. The remaining two questions focused on specific parks: Huron Hills golf course, which is currently the subject of a request for proposals for private management; and Fuller Park, part of which is a proposed location for a new parking deck to be built primarily for the University of Michigan, and which has a possible future as a train station.

The report is organized chronologically by candidate response. After the candidate responses, we offer some background on a few of the candidates’ remarks, including: the closure of one of the city’s fire stations, a tax “loop hole” identified by Newcombe Clark [about which he has issued a written clarificational statement], short- versus long-term public service, and participation in candidate forums.

Opening Statement

Each candidate began with a 1-minute opening statement.

Clark’s Opening

Newcombe Clark offered thanks all around: to the League of Women Voters for hosting, to CTN for use of the studio, and to the audience. He began the substance of his remarks by saying that he was humbled to be there to “interview for the job” of Ward 5 representative. He expressed his hope that over the next hour, the audience would learn a little bit more about him and some of his ideas that could “make this great town a little bit better.”

Some of his ideas, Clark said, were new and creative, while others would just seem like a common sense approach to tackling current challenges. He stated that there are two kinds of politicians: those who want to be something and those who want to do something. Clark promised that he’d work hard to do something. He said he was committed to running for only one two-year term, and said that he intended to donate his council salary [around $16,000 annually] to charity. He said he would add a new skill set to the leadership that already did a great job of serving the city.

Floyd’s Opening

John Floyd began with a series of questions: Have you ever wondered who will pay to park at the very bottom of the new Library Lot parking garage? Have you ever wondered who will pay for the bonds used to build the garage, if enough people won’t pay to park that far underground? Have you ever wondered why – when Ann Arbor has a bit more than half the number of police officers it had 10-15 years ago, and it’s short of cash – that this is the time that the city council chose to build a new police station? Have you ever wondered why the new station needs a $1 million fountain?

The questions, he said, may have reasonable answers. But over the last two years, he said, he had not heard the council ask probing questions about big-money issues. He concluded that he wanted to represent Ward 5 because he wanted to make sure that probing questions get asked routinely.

Hohnke’s Opening

Carsten Hohnke thanked the League of Women voters for organizing the forum. He noted that he was the nominee of the Democratic Party and had served Ward 5 over the last two years. He described himself as “gratified” by what they’d been about to accomplish together. He’d focused on working with the community to find solutions that impact people’s everyday lives, he said – keeping Mack Pool or the Westside Farmers Market open, improving pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, expanding the recycling system. These are things that make Ann Arbor “a better place for everybody,” he said.

Hohnke observed that cities across the state are facing historic budget challenges. He described himself as a businessman, a scientist and an economic development professional who understands that investments in public infrastructure are critical. He said that he looked forward to continuing to work to represent citizens and that he’d be honored to have their support.

Challenges

Question: What are the primary challenges facing the city council in the next two years and what strengths would you bring to that role?

Clark on Challenges: Property tax revenue – real estate experience

Newcombe Clark said that in the short term it would be difficult – as it has been for the past year and the past decade. What he could contribute in the short term, he said, is an understanding of the city’s main source of revenue, which is property tax revenue. Based on what he’s seen working in the real estate industry for the last 10 years is a city that has spent money, as the bubble has grown.

Now, the city has to figure out how to get that back in line, either by creatively finding new revenues – closing loopholes in the tax laws that we already have – or by finding a way to be more austere. In the next two years, we’ll see more painful decisions, he cautioned, but he promised to be honest about those decisions, both in terms of the condition of our infrastructure and the projections – both the “rosy and the scary.” He said that his financial experience in real estate and as a business owner would help.

Floyd on Challenges: Debt and its impact on services – accounting experience

John Floyd said that he agreed in part with Derezinski and Salvette – Ward 2 candidates at the event – who talked about providing services in the current economic climate as being an important priority and a big challenge the city faces. The level of debt the city has taken on, he cautioned, impedes the city’s ability to provide services.

What he could bring to the table to help solve the problem comes from his experience as an economist, and accountant and a public policy analyst, as well as his work in government, the private sector and the not-for-profit world. He suggested that the city needs to look at the acquisition of land by the University of Michigan inside the city – every time they buy a piece of land, the city’s tax base goes down, without a corresponding decrease in expenses.

Hohnke on Challenges: Budget – scientist, businessman, economic development professional

Carsten Hohnke said he thought there is no question that the continued pressure on the city’s budget would be the primary challenge in the future. Employee benefit costs are a problem faced by all cities across the country, he said. Finding ways to collaborate with regional partners, to leverage technology, and to make sure that the work force is flexible and coordinated will all be important.

In Ward 5 in particular, Hohnke said, we need to keep an eye on the advancement of the dioxane plume – he spends time with Gelman and the city staff to review that quarterly. He then repeated his description of himself from his opening statement as a scientist, a businessman and an economic development professional, as evidence of a background that would help with all the challenges the city faces.

Parks: Golf

Are Ann Arbor’s city parks under threat? For example, what should be the future use of the Huron Hills golf course?

Floyd on Golf: Citizen vote on Huron Hills

John Floyd stated that the future use of Huron Hills should be put to a vote of the citizens. The city has a plan now, he said, to lease the riverside portion of the park to private developers to raise money. Given the times we’re in, he allowed, “that’s not crazy.” But he said he feels it deserves a vote of citizens – that’s how it should be resolved.

Hohnke on Golf: Examine ideas for privatizing

Carsten Hohnke said he did not feel the parks are under threat in the way that Floyd did. Parks, like all areas of the city, are under budgetary pressure, he said. Mowing in parks is not as frequent, he said, but an effort was made to ensure that parks are maintained in a way that’s enjoyable for everybody. He described the city’s park system as “world class” and said that there’s a strong consensus across the community that we want to continue to invest in it.

With respect to Huron Hills golf course, Hohnke insisted there is no plan to lease land or to develop anything. There has, however, been some discussion by the city staff, he said – who understand the operations of golf at Huron Hills – to convert the front nine at Huron Hills to a driving range. That’s being examined, he said, by asking people for good ideas about keeping the parks funding at a level that’s appropriate.

Clark on Golf: Parks as capital assets

Newcombe Clark described the parks as a “unique form of capital assets” that the citizens own. As such, he said, we have a responsibility to be prudent with that asset. When a resident thinks about their lawn, they think about its size, how often they want to garden in it or mow it, and then plan accordingly.

The problem he sometimes sees, he said, is that there’s a zero-sum game when it comes to parks, where some people think the parks in their part of the city are more important than the parks in other areas. They then lobby hard to protect their parks in tough budget times. He said he believes in advocacy and in listening to people, but he also believes in inquiry. He hopes that all of the city’s capital assets are viewed as such. And as a capital asset, Huron Hills falls into that category. It’s common sense, he said, that if you have a park, you hope you can pay for it.

Parks: Fuller Road Station

Question: Is a transit station and parking structure an appropriate use of Fuller Park?

Hohnke on FRS: Fully supportive

Carsten Hohnke said that a multi-modal transit station as a replacement for a large cracked-asphalt parking lot that’s been there for 20 years would be a significant improvement. He described it as exciting and appropriate and a good investment in the future: the university will fund 75-80% of the construction; funds leveraged through the federal government will pay for the remaining cost; it provides Ann Arbor with an asset; it adds bus bays and pedestrian improvements; it provides a potential connection to the federal high-speed rail investments.

Clark on FRS: Who will handle this asset?

Newcombe Clark said that as a Downtown Development Authority board member, he has a “love-hate, enabling co-dependent relationship” with the city’s parking decks. He said he obsesses about them, and has a lot of questions about the proposed Fuller Road deck. He noted that the city does not have the best track record in running parking decks.

Until there’s a clear understanding of who will be handling the asset, he said, including reserving adequate reserve funds, concerns will exist. He said he also had concerns about the location. He allowed that something better is needed, but it’s not entirely clear how to connect the deck to the downtown, thus making it an asset for more than just the university. Basically, he said, “I want to know more.”

Floyd on FRS: Deserves citizen vote

John Floyd began by cheerily announcing that “I think that someday we may have rockets flying to other planets from that center, so I think we should call it an ‘interplanetary transit center.’” That’s about how likely he feels it is that we’ll see rail travel from that center. He said that one could make the case that Fuller Road Station is the greatest civic improvement since Rome built the Colosseum, but he still thinks that citizens deserve a vote on the use of their park land as the city charter calls for. Calling it a “lease” or a “joint use agreement” is not playing straight with the citizens of Ann Arbor and is “not Ann Arbor at its best.”

Budget

Question: Balancing the budget is a continuing challenge. Do more cuts need to be made – if so, what? Are there additional sources of revenue, if so what?

Clark on Budget: Short-term revenue by eliminating fraud

Newcombe Clark began by saying, “This is where I’m not going to make any friends in my profession.” He reported that few weeks ago at a bar, he and a colleague had put together a list of about $4.5 million in fraud. These are not people who are behind on their taxes, he said, but who have exploited some loopholes in the tax system that still exist for moving properties around without paying the taxes that are due. He suggested that if he and a colleague could identify $4.5 million “on the back of a napkin,” who knows how much else there could be. He called for a full audit of commercial properties, suggesting that they could find a lot of money that could help us through the short term. [Clark, on Friday, Oct. 1 issued a written clarificational statement.]

Floyd on Budget: TIF and UM purchases need a look

John Floyd said we needed to wait to see what revenue projections are before we can know what specifically to do about the budget. He noted the city has already closed one fire station and sent about half of the police force home – he didn’t think that’s the place to look for additional spending cuts. He said he hated to say it, but that we just might need to let the grass grow in the parks a little longer before it’s cut, rather than make further cuts to public safety.

Floyd also said the level of debt that’s issued needs to be curtailed – it’s a constraint on the city’s ability to provide services. He also said we need to look at the city’s use of tax-increment financing (TIF) as a way of taking money from the general fund and putting it into projects that aren’t required to go through the same budget process that other money is put through. Lastly, he said we need the university to consider the effect of buying city land on the city tax base and the effect of that on the quality of Ann Arbor as a place where their faculty live.

Hohnke on Budget: Pension, health benefits need focus

Carsten Hohnke allowed that the budget is a challenge and there’s a lot of pressure on it. Responding to Floyd’s remarks, he noted that in the last two years, the city has not laid off any police officers or closed any fire stations. Hohnke contended that he’d led an effort to protect police and fire services.

The big challenges in the future, Hohnke said, would be in how the city handled pension and health benefits for employees. The costs to the pension system due to the downturn in the market in late 2008 would require “serious ground” be made up as those costs get amortized over the next five years. As of the end of fiscal year 2010, he said, the pension fund was 94% fully funded, but that would go down over the next five to ten years to perhaps 2/3, all other things being equal. How that’s managed will be important, he said.

Closing Statements

Each candidate made a 2-minute closing statement.

Clark’s Closing

Newcombe Clark summed up with thanks. What’s going on, he said, is that we’re at the down cycle of 30 years of unprecedented growth. He pointed out that he would turn 30 in a few weeks. He said in the 30 years he’s lived in Ann Arbor, he’s seen an incredible expansion. He grew up on welfare close to downtown and watched his mom’s home equity grow to a point where she could afford to give him a middle class lifestyle. The school system gave him the opportunity to attend UM as a undergraduate on an academic scholarship.

Looking at the demographics of the town in the year he was born, 1980, 50% of the population was age 20-35, while now that number is about 6% – he wonders what the next 30 years will look like. If the decisions we’ve made over the last 30 years have been to plan for 8% economic growth, what do we do if we have 2% or -2%, as we’ve seen in the last couple of years?

Over the last 10 years, Clark said, he’s served on a variety of boards in the city: Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Theater, University Museum of Art, Peter Sparling’s Dance Gallery Foundation, and the Main Street Area Association. That service, he said, gave him a good idea of what’s going on in the city. He described himself as “worried, but I’m also optimistic.”

Clark said he’d be graduating from the UM Ross School of Business in the next couple of years, and that he’s looking forward to the next 30 years that he has to live in Ann Arbor. He said he hopes there are opportunities for him and people like him to find value and raise their own families here.

Floyd’s Closing

John Floyd began his closing statement by saying that three years ago, partly out of concern over the possible sale of Huron Hills golf course, Ann Arbor citizens passed a charter amendment requiring that park land sales have to be approved by citizen referendum.

He then posed a series of questions, as he had in his opening statement. Have you ever wondered why the city council is choosing a lease as its transaction form when it’s proposing to give developers access to Huron Hills? Have you ever wondered why now, when the city wants to transfer land inside Fuller Park to the university for a 1,000-car parking garage, it’s calling this a shared use agreement instead of a sale? Have you ever wondered why the council calls it an “intermodal transit center” instead of a “university parking garage with bike racks and a bus stop”?

Ann Arbor’s issues are not necessarily partisan, he said, but years of one-party government have not helped public discussions or encouraged accountability. Given the city-manager form of government, asking probing questions with good will is our part-time council’s job, he said. The current council’s job seems to discourage probing questions, he said, and it is time for different voices to be heard.

He described Carsten Hohnke as likable and well-educated and said that he’d done some great “ombudsman work” on issues like Westside Farmers Market, Mack Pool, and the skatepark. However, Floyd suggested that Ward 5 residents could use a different skill set in their city hall representative: asking questions outside of the city council’s current mindset. He thanked the League of Women Voters for sponsoring the debate and to his opponents, “for showing up.”

Hohnke’s Closing

Carsten Hohnke said that being on the council involved big ideas and he enjoyed “engaging on those.” He characterized the vast majority of the work as helping the people of the community with everyday problems. He said it’d been his honor to serve Ward 5 constituents for the last two years and he is proud of what they’d accomplished together. He said he’d provided effective leadership to protect police and fire services, expand the recycling program, and implement the first ever management plan for the Huron River.

Hohnke said he was also proud of making the city’s streets safer and more enjoyable for bicyclists and pedestrians and making it easier for local merchants to do business downtown. There is a lot left to do, he cautioned. The country is struggling through the most difficult environment it’s seen in many years, he said. That has a real impact on our ability to make investments. The hard, serious work that needs to be done will require effective leadership, he said, getting things done day-to-day.

Hohnke said his record demonstrated he could do that. We need to look to the future and make long-term commitments that will allow us to make investments in the community that reflect the values we all share. We need a dynamic economy that provides opportunity for everyone, and a more sustainable multi-modal transportation mix, he said, along with environment that is healthy and diverse. He then ticked through a number of endorsements he’s received. If he’s elected, he said he’d work tirelessly on behalf of the residents of Ward 5, he said.

Backgrounder

We offer background on some of the candidate’s remarks.

Background: Closure of Fire Stations

Floyd was correct in stating that the city has closed a fire station, and Hohnke was correct in saying that it had not happened in the last two years. From reporting by Amalie Nash for The Ann Arbor News on June 13, 2004:

The announcement never officially came, but Ann Arbor’s Fire Station No. 2 has been closed.

It started with a staffing model to reduce overtime costs, and the station at Packard Street and Stadium Boulevard was closed on days when minimum staffing levels couldn’t be met without using overtime. That proved to be nearly every day.

By November, it wasn’t staffed at all. The trucks were moved to other stations , and when firefighters were asked to bid on station assignments, that location wasn’t an option.

Firefighters were notified this month that a contractor for the city’s automatic meter reading capital project soon will be moving into the first floor of the station . The contractor, which was promised city space as part of its agreement, is expected to be there more than a year, Fire Chief Joseph Gorman said.

“Station 2 was closed a long time ago, but I can’t say exactly when,” Gorman said. “There aren’t any plans to reopen it in the future at this point, because we don’t have the funds to staff it.”

The city has five remaining fire stations:

Locations of Ann Arbor's five current fire stations. Colored shading corresponds to wards. The circle with the slash is the location of former Station 2. (Image links to higher resolution file.)

Background: Tax collection

The “tax loophole” to which Newcombe Clark alluded is based on Clark’s experience in the real estate field, which includes past employment with Oxford Company, Bluestone Realty Advisors, and currently Jones Lang LaSalle. In his written statement issued a few days after the League of Women Voters forum, Clark attempts to put distance between his remarks made at the event and any allegation of specific fraud, and calls on city officials with the authority to pursue the issue to do so:

While I am aware that taxes may not currently be properly assessed in certain instances, I am NOT accusing any individual or organization of fraud. I am not a tax assessor or hold any authority to investigate tax abuses. Any possible case of misrepresentation or impropriety should be fairly investigated by a city commission set up for the purpose. …

I, my associates, and my clients are not to my knowledge currently party to, or have ever been party to, any instances of tax fraud or evasion in regards to any real estate transaction.

The kind of “tax loophole” in question relates to real estate transactions involving companies that own companies, which in turn own real property – where the transaction itself is not directly about the real property, but which have the end effect of transferring the ownership of that property.

In a court case from 2006, Signature Villas v. City of Ann Arbor, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that in a transaction involving ownership of a company that, in turn, owns real property, the transaction meets the state statutes definition of a “transfer of ownership.”

From the court’s opinion [emphasis original]:

Petitioner asserts that § 27a(6)(h) only applies to the conveyance of ownership interests in legal entities that own property, and does not apply to the conveyance of the ownership of a company that owns a company that owns property. We disagree.

Whether a transfer of ownership has taken place is important, because when a transfer takes place, the effect of Proposal A [passed in 1994] – which limits the rate at which taxes on a property can increase – is undone. From previous Chronicle coverage on tax issues:

When a property is purchased, the taxable value is reset to be equal to assessed value. And the assessed value is an amount set at roughly 50% of market value. But in years subsequent to that purchase, the assessed value of the property will increase or decrease, depending on overall market conditions.

If the market goes up after the purchase, then the assessed value goes up, and intuitively, taxes paid on the property (that is, the taxable value) should increase, and they do. But Proposal A puts a cap on how fast the taxable value can increase. That cap is 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.

Suppose you buy a home for $200,000. If you’re paying the “right” price, based on the assessor’s assumptions, then the assessed value and the taxable value would be $100,000. Further, suppose that the following year, the properties in your neighborhood appreciate by 10%, putting the assessed value at $110,000. And suppose that inflation for that period is right at 5%. The difference between the 10% appreciation and the 5% overall inflation means that for that year the taxable value can’t increase to match the assessed value . Due to Proposal A, the maximum taxable value for the property would be $105,000. On that scenario, the property would have an assessed value of $110,000 and a taxable value of only $105,000.

If a property’s assessed value is currently greater than its taxable value, then a transaction involving that property will reset the taxable value at an amount greater than its current taxable value – so there’s an advantage to the purchaser if that transaction could be analyzed as not an actual transfer of ownership. That’s the kind of analysis the Court of Appeals ruled against in 2006.

For the city of Ann Arbor, then, the question is: How realistic is this idea that there could be $4.5 million in additional property taxes that are currently not being paid, because there were transactions since 2006 that were not property analyzed and reported as transfers of ownership?

Background: Doing, Being

Newcombe Clark’s pointed contrast during the event focused on “doing” something as opposed to “being” something, as well as his assurance that he would only serve a single two-year term, is a possible allusion to a belief among many in the community that Hohnke’s political aspirations extend beyond service on the city council. When asked by an audience member at a Democratic primary event in July, held at the home of Tamara Real, if he considered himself to be a career politician, and how long he wanted to serve on the city council, Hohnke appeared to try to distance himself from that idea. From The Chronicle’s report of that forum:

Question: Would you describe yourself as a career politician – why or why not? How long are you looking to serve on the city council?

[Though candidates were allotted five minutes for their closing remarks, Hohnke tried to wrap up his comments quickly to allow time for additional questions. The question about being a career politician thus came directly from an audience member and was asked only of Hohnke. Possible background to the question is some speculation that Hohnke might be interested in eventually running for mayor.]

Hohnke said it never occurred to him to think of himself as a career politician. He said he’d become involved in his community at a young age, growing up in Ann Arbor. He gotten involved in PIRGIM and then went off to graduate school working on affordable housing solutions. He said said he’d always thought of himself as “one to be engaged in my community.” A couple of years ago, he decided that the way he thought he could do that best and the “way the stars aligned,” he said, took him to the city council.

He said that he was really excited at the actual change he’d been a part of, citing the pedestrian island at 7th and Washington, and getting halfway to adding a skatepark to the city’s recreational facilities. He said he’d be happy if the residents of Ward 5 would continue to support him on the city council. He concluded by saying he didn’t think of himself as a career politician.

Background: Showing Up

John Floyd’s thanks to his opponents for “showing up” is a possible allusion to the fact that Carsten Hohnke has indicated that he will not participate in an Ann Arbor Chronicle-hosted event for Ward 5 candidates, in the third week of October. He’s also shown a reluctance to participate in a forum hosted by AnnArbor.com. After a few weeks of emails among the three candidates and The Chronicle, Hohnke confirmed in a face-to-face conversation with The Chronicle on Monday, Sept. 27, 2010 that he would not be participating in The Chronicle’s candidate event, not due to scheduling issues, but because he didn’t feel he needed to participate in any more events than are already on his calendar.

Details of that event will be forthcoming, with one highlight being that it will be “task-oriented,” with candidates challenged to complete a series of specific tasks in cooperation with each other.

The League welcomes submission of possible questions for candidates through Monday, July 20. [See previous Chronicle coverage of the candidate forum hosted by the Ann Arbor City Dems divided by Ward 5 and Ward 3 candidates.]

After the break, The Chronicle provides some questions we’d like to hear candidates answer.

About You

Q: Serving on city council requires a significant time commitment. For non-incumbents: If you are elected to city council, what specific commitments will you give up in order to serve? For incumbents: If you are not re-elected to council, how specifically will you use the time you currently allot for your city council service?

Development

Q: In your vision for Ann Arbor in the context of southeast Michigan, do you see it as one of several regional economic and population centers, or do you see it as the main economic and population center? Or do you see it as something else entirely? However you see Ann Arbor in a regional context, what specific policies do you think are important to implement in order to realize that vision?

Q: For site plans, a planning commission recommendation for approval or for denial is currently given whatever importance an individual councilmember assigns it. In the end, the city council makes the final decision. Would you be in favor of giving more strength to the planning commission recommendation? For example, one could imagine this requirement: In order to contravene a recommendation on a site plan by the planning commission, the city council would need an 8-vote supermajority.

Finance

Q: What material impact would a successful GO Ask Voters petition have, and do you support that petition?

Q: Within the county’s board of commissioners, its ways and means committee is a “committee of the whole” that meets immediately before the regular board meetings. Much of the board’s work occurs during ways and means, which is open to the public and broadcast live on CTN. Would you support a city council rule change that would make the city council’s budget and labor committee conform to this model?

Q: What’s your view on the appropriate relationship between the city and the Downtown Development Authority, specifically with reference to the parking agreement that is to be renegotiated in the coming year?

Q: In anticipation of a tough budget year in FY 2011, what specific areas would you direct city staff to analyze starting now, with a goal of reducing expenses? Besides a city income tax, what specific areas would you direct city staff to analyze with a goal of increasing revenue?

Q: In anticipation of a community discussion on the possibility of a city income tax to replace the general operating millage property tax, what are the specific questions about a city income tax proposal that should frame our community discussion?

Environment

Q: In thinking about Argo Dam, which one of the following considerations has been most important in framing your thoughts on the issue: (i) economics, (ii) deferred maintenance, (iii) environmental impact, or (iv) public sentiment? If it’s some other consideration, feel free to say.

Q: Which of the following community environmental goals would you support, by directing city staff to mount a concentrated public relations campaign to achieve it? Why or why not? Reduction by 2015 of our per-capita …

• … total waste stream by N%
• … water usage by N%
• … wastewater throughput by N%
• … electric/gas by N%
• … vehicle miles traveled by N%

Q: What’s your understanding of the possibility of using greenbelt millage money to protect land inside the city limits? What’s your view on how greenbelt money should be used?

Public Input

Q: For Ward 5 candidates Mike Anglin and Scott Rosencrans: You both attended the June 29 meeting at Slauson Middle School between residents and city staff on the topic of the city’s tree management policies. What did you find encouraging or disappointing about that meeting?

Q: By the time an issue reaches the point of a public hearing or otherwise comes before council, councilmembers will likely (though not necessarily) have been exposed to all the relevant facts and arguments on all sides of an issue. At such meetings, the material impact of the public input might be argued to be this: The actual deliberations on the issue by councilmembers are abbreviated due to the fact that their mental and physical stamina has been sapped by the lengthy public commentary. Do you have any ideas to maintain the ability of the public to provide their input, while giving councilmembers the ability to enter their deliberations in a fresh mental and physical state?

Transparency and Openness of Government

Q: Consider this hypothetical scenario: A company, XYZ Consultants, under contract with the city, produces a report that contains information not covered under the exceptions to the Freedom of Information Act. Would you support a city data policy that would entail the posting of that report on the city’s website as a standard first step when it’s received from XYZ Consultants? Why or why not?

Q: Do you think that the city council needs to develop a “Code of Ethics”? If so, give concrete examples of what specifically should be in such a code.

Q: Not all conflicts of interest meet the technical requirements of council’s rules on financial conflicts. Do you think  it is important for councilmembers to state all conflicts of interest on every occasion they come up at the council table – whether or not the conflict requires recusal? Or is it sufficient that councilmembers’ connections to a particular issue be a matter of public record somewhere?

Q: Do you think the Sunday night council caucus is even worth holding? If it’s worth holding, then what specific changes would you make to the caucus in order to encourage a meeting where the “main event” is frank, open and conversational exchanges of information among councilmembers on upcoming council business, and not just another one of myriad opportunities for residents to communicate to councilmembers? Feel free to include ideas on day, time, and venue.

Q: Currently on council, Mike Anglin (Ward 5) – and to a somewhat lesser extent Sabra Briere (Ward 1) – are “outsiders” on the body on which they represent residents of the city. What specifically would you do to create a city council culture that embraces healthy and open dissent, without destroying the possibility of collaborative work?

Mechanics of Council

Q: An apparent lack of interest in the Democratic Party’s local organization was reflected by the attendance of only 3 out of 11 of current city councilmembers at the Dems’ recent candidate forum. Would you support conversion to non-partisan elections for city council seats? If not, what specific ideas do you have to make the candidate recruitment process more a function of Democratic Party organizational structure (ward chairs and precinct delegates and the like) and less a function of informal non-Party-based discussions?

Q: The current rotating system for the start of the roll call vote was implemented fairly recently in the wake of dissatisfaction among councilmembers with the previous system in which the roll was called from Ward 1 through Ward 5, with the mayor voting last. The fact that some councilmembers are now concerned about where the roll call starts at any given meeting suggests further refinements might be worth considering. What suggestions do you have for changes in process that would encourage councilmembers to determine independently how to vote, without regard to how other councilmembers vote on the issues?

Q: Council rules specify that speaking on any motion be limited to two turns for any councilmember: 5 minutes for the first turn and 3 minutes for the second turn. Roberts Rules of Order provides an option for more conversational interaction that does not require speakers to be recognized by the chair and automatically allows for multiple speaking turns. What do you consider to be the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?

Where to Watch

CTN will air several rebroadcasts of the debates on Channel 19. The debates will also be available through CTN’s Video on Demand online service.

The three candidates running unopposed for the Ann Arbor Public Schools board at a League of Women Voters forum Monday night at CTN studios. From left: Glenn Nelson, Irene Patalan, and Ravi Nigam.

On May 5, voters in Ann Arbor will choose three people to serve on the Ann Arbor Public Schools board. Actually, “choose” might not be the operative word: All three candidates are running unopposed.

Two incumbents – Glenn Nelson and Irene Patalan – are running for four-year terms. Ravi Nigam, a local attorney who has not previously held an elected position, was originally running against Adam Hollier for a two-year term. Hollier has dropped out of the race, though his name will still appear on the ballot.

So rather than the debates they typically hold before local elections, the League of Women Voters instead held a forum Monday evening for the three candidates, asking their opinions on the budget, technology, the achievement gap and a range of other topics. The hour-long event was broadcast live from the Community Television Network studios on South Industrial, and is available to view online.

The league had asked Chronicle readers to suggest questions for the forum, which moderator Judy Mich incorporated to some extent. Here’s a summary of candidates’ responses.

Technology

What’s the status of technology in the schools, and how is it being used? What options for online studies are currently available, and what does the future hold in that regard?

Nelson: A bond passed by voters in 2004 allowed the district to upgrade technology in the schools, Nelson said, but it will soon be time to make another update. The state House of Representatives recently passed legislation that would expand the ability of districts to use sinking fund millages for broader purposes, including technology. [Last year, voters approved an extension of the AAPS sinking fund millage, which is used for building remodeling projects.] Nelson urged residents to contact their state senators (in Ann Arbor, that’s Liz Brater) to push for passage of the bill in the Senate.

Patalan: All students are required by state law to have some kind of online experience, Patalan said, and AAPS is way ahead of the game in that regard. She said staff would be giving a presentation at the April 22 school board meeting about a program that allows students to take online courses. [Patalan did not describe the program in detail, but she was referring to the Ann Arbor Options Program offered by Community High, which allows students who live in the AAPS district to take certain courses online.] She thanked the community for approving the bond to fund technology purchases.

Nigam: Because two of his children graduated from Huron High, and another child is in elementary school, Nigam said he has a good sense of how technology is used in the schools. The district could do a better job of using all it has to offer, he said, which might mean more teacher training. He supports the use of online courses as an alternative approach to education.

Communication & New Media

Candidates were asked to comment on how they would communicate with the public in light of the closing of the Ann Arbor News this summer. How will they develop effective communication with new media?

Nigam: Web 2.0 technologies can help push out information to the public, Nigam said, but the changing media environment requires that the schools figure out different ways to disseminate information. The board will need to learn to use new technologies and interact with new media.

Nelson: Liz Margolis, AAPS director of communications, is putting together a group to strategize about communication issues, Nelson said. He gave out her phone number – 734.994.2236 – and urged people to contact her if they are interested in getting involved.

Patalan: There are many ways for the public to find out information about the schools, Patalan said, such as watching school board meetings on CTN, listening to local news reports on WEMU, or getting information from the AAPS website. She said communication was a “two-way street” between the schools and the public – it’s not just the schools’ responsibility.

Skyline High School

Now that Skyline is completing its first year in operation, Mich asked the candidates to assess how it was doing.

Zoe Behnke, Judy Mich and Barbara Clarke – members of the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area – confer before the start of Monday night's forum, organized and moderated by the league and held at Community Television Network studios on South Industrial.

Patalan: Ten years ago, Patalan was part of a group of parents who pushed to build Skyline, and she says she’s proud of the school. Freshmen attending Skyline this year got a taste of its magnet programs, she said, which will continue to be developed. [Patalan didn't name the focus of the magnet programs, but they are in 1) health and medicine, 2) design technology and environmental planning, 3) communication, public policy and media, and 4) marketing, business and information technology.]

Nigam: Saying he didn’t know much specifically about Skyline, Nigam said in general he supports the idea of smaller-sized high schools, noting that the purpose for building Skyline was to reduce overcrowding at Pioneer and Huron. He also thinks that magnet programs are important and he’d like to do more of them – it’s one way to retain and attract students who might otherwise go to charter schools or private schools, he said.

Nelson: Skyline is a big success, Nelson said, and its existence improves conditions at all of the high schools by allowing teachers to do things that they couldn’t have done when class sizes were larger. He also noted that the bond that paid for Skyline has funded other projects, too – like the new AAPS Preschool and Family Center on Boardwalk.

Economic Stimulus

Is AAPS getting its fair share of federal economic stimulus dollars? On a related note, President Obama’s education plan calls for merit increases. What’s your opinion of that?

Nigam: Nigam said he knew the AAPS administration was working on getting funding through the stimulus package, but that he didn’t know the details. Regarding merit raises, he said those would be difficult to institute, given the constraints of union contracts. However, coming from the private sector, he said he does believe in merit increases. If students get shortchanged in the education process, parents will move them out of the system, he said. Teachers who aren’t working up to the district’s standards should get training they need to improve.

Nelson: Merit pay is a topic that should be discussed at the board level, Nelson said. It should be a partnership between the administration and teachers, to find a way to recognize good teachers. Rather than looking at federal funding, he said it’s important to understand the lack of state funding and the challenges that presents. State appropriations in 2001 for K-12 education equaled 3.65% of state personal income. If the current budget is passed as proposed, that percentage would be 3.28. If the level had remained at 3.65%, they’d have $804 more for every pupil in public and charter schools statewide, he said. “I think it’s very disturbing and the answer to us in our community is we need to pick up the slack.”

Patalan: Gov. Granholm had originally proposed cutting $59 for each student in the state – “the stimulus package saved that,” Patalan said. But federal stimulus dollars are only a short-term aid – the district still has to balance the budget, she said, while costs are rising and revenues are flat. She said she’s grateful for the stimulus money, but the state needs to find a way to fund education appropriately. She did not address the merit pay issue.

Financial Background

What challenges does the district face financially? What business and financial skills do you bring to the table?

Nelson: Nelson is an economic consultant, and much of his work focuses on Social Security reform. He suggested that people could Google “Glenn Nelson” and “Social Security” to see examples of his work. (We did, and came up with a policy brief comparing rural and urban communities, among other reports.) As for the budget, “we’re challenged,” Nelson said. If spending is kept at the same levels, the district faces a $6 million deficit in 2010, which grows to $9 million in 2011 and $12 million by 2012. (See Chronicle coverage of an AAPS budget forum in March.) As state aid declines, the community needs to take more responsibility for funding schools, he said. That’s why he supports a countywide enhancement millage, which local districts are discussing.

Patalan: Her background as a small business owner gives her experience in dealing with financial issues, Patalan said. She said the budget is the district’s biggest challenge, and they need to consider asking voters to support an enhancement millage. Other groups, like the AAPS Education Foundation and the Michigan Parents for Schools, which is based in Ann Arbor, are working to find solutions, too. “It’s not just the board – it’s all of us,” she said.

Nigam: The district has to both live within its means and seek other funding sources, Nigam said – they can’t count on the state for increased funding. In addition to considering a countywide enhancement millage, he suggested holding regular fundraisers, similar to those held by National Public Radio. His experience working for a large computer manufacturer during a time of downsizing gave him perspective on working with dwindling resources. The important thing is to focus on the district’s core mission of education.

Achievement Gap

Is the achievement gap racial or economic? How can the district successfully address this problem?

Patalan: They’ve been talking about the achievement gap for at least 20 years, Patalan noted. The district’s strategic plan is achievement gap-oriented, she said, trying to address the problem early. She’s pleased with the focus that AAPS has placed on reading, for example, through its Read 180 program. They’ve been courageous in starting conversations about equity, Patalan said, but biases are still holding some students back.

Nigam: The achievement gap has both racial and socio-economic causes, Nigam said. Everyone has to be involved in addressing it, he said, but the onus is on parents and students to take advantage of the resources that are available to them.

Nelson: In the early 1990s, Nelson was on the district’s equity audit committee, and noted that it was his first volunteer experience with AAPS. Though the gap disproportionately affects low-income African American and Hispanic students, there are a lot of white students struggling too, he said, and even students from middle- and upper-income families. The district needs to identify and work with any students who are struggling academically, he said. They’ve made some progress, but are a long way from closing the gap.

Ten-Year Vision for AAPS

What’s your vision for the district in 10 years?

Nigam: The district is starting from a good foundation, but Nigam would like to see more progress in addressing graduation rates and the achievement gap. They’ll face challenges in the economy and changing technology, but need to keep providing a broad-based education so that students will be able to perform in the economy and in the country as citizens.

Nelson: The district should provide continued excellence in education, where students get the kind of experience that launches them into a fruitful life, Nelson said, no matter what their interests. Ann Arbor should be known as a place where every student has access to that excellence, and aren’t excluded because of their family’s income or background.

Patalan: Noting that she was part of a team that helped write the district’s strategic plan, Patalan said that plan was a good guide for the future. They need to continue partnering with the University of Michigan – an example was the world language program that launched last year, she said. The goal is to have healthy, happy, challenged children who can ask the right questions, she said, so that as a society, we can take care of each other.

One final note: An explanation

This election, two seats carry four-year terms, while the third seat is for a two-year term. Here’s why: In 2003, voters approved a plan to switch the board from a 9-member group elected to three-year terms, phasing it into a board with seven members serving four-year terms. Since 2003, the board has been making that transition, but this is the last election in which a member will be elected to a shorter term (Ravi Nigam is running for the two-year position). Starting with the May 2010 election, all terms will be for four years.

This year, the league is asking Chronicle readers to help come up with questions for the board candidates.

On Monday, April 20 at 7 p.m., league members will interview incumbents Glenn Nelson and Irene Patalan, who are running for two four-year terms. Because their race is uncontested, the format for that CTN broadcast will be a Q&A, according to Jeanine Delay of the League of Women Voters.

On Thursday, April 23 at 7 p.m., the league will host a debate between Adam J. Hollier and Ravi Nigam. They are running for a two-year term, to fill the seat currently held by board president Karen Cross, who is not seeking reelection.

Each of the broadcasts will last 30 minutes. More information about the board and its responsibilities can be found here.

If you have suggestions for questions to board candidates, 1) leave a comment here, or 2) go to the league’s website and click on “Contact us” – there you’ll find a link to email league members. The deadline for submitting questions is Wednesday, April 15.

In Ann Arbor, there are no other races for public office or ballots proposals for the May 5 election. Information for other municipalities is on the Washtenaw County clerk’s website.

As a reminder, April 6 is the last day to register for the May 5 election. Ann Arbor voters can get more information about registering to vote from  the Ann Arbor city clerk’s site.