Stories indexed with the term ‘Stephen Rapundalo’

At its Dec. 5, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council made three appointments to the board of the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti SmartZone local development finance authority: former councilmember Stephen Rapundalo, current councilmember Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), and Eric Jacobson.

Of the positions on the 9-member LDFA board, the city of Ann Arbor appoints six and the city of Ypsilanti appoints three. One of the six Ann Arbor spots is for a member of the Ann Arbor city council, which had been held by Rapundalo, until he was defeated in the Nov. 8 general election by Jane Lumm (Ward 2). Taylor is thus replacing Rapundalo as the city council representative. Rapundalo’s appointment is to fill an existing additional vacancy on the board. Jacobson was also appointed to the LDFA to fill a vacancy on the board.

The local development finance authority is funded through a tax increment finance (TIF) mechanism for the same geographic district as the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti downtown development authorities. The LDFA currently receives no revenue from the Ypsilanti portion of its district. The taxes on which the increment is captured are local school taxes. The impact of the LDFA tax capture is spread across school districts statewide, due to the way that local school taxes are pooled by the state of Michigan and redistributed to local districts.

Based on data available through A2OpenBook, in fiscal year 2011, the LDFA generated $1.475 million in tax capture. The LDFA contracts with Ann Arbor SPARK to operate a business accelerator.

This brief was filed from the city council’s chambers on the second floor of city hall, located at 301 E. Huron. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

Editor’s note: For actual coverage of the Ward 2 Ann Arbor city council election, see The Chronicle’s “General Election 2011: Results Roundup.”

[Full Story]

On a rainy Wednesday evening late last month, around 55 Ann Arbor residents gathered inside the Thurston Elementary School media center to hear Ward 2 Ann Arbor city council candidates respond to questions. This year, the general election in Ward 2 is contested between three-term Democratic incumbent Stephen Rapundalo and independent challenger Jane Lumm, who served on the council as a Republican from 1994-1998.

Rapundalo has made the city’s past and future a central theme of his campaign, and the Oct. 26 event amply reflected that. Rapundalo spent much of the evening trying to characterize the city councils of the 1990s, on which Lumm served, as unable to work cooperatively as a group. That contrasts with his own approach and that of the current council, said Rapundalo, which is based on consensus and cooperation, even if councilmembers don’t agree on everything.

Even as Rapundalo appealed to the past in criticizing Lumm – for supporting what he called luxurious labor contracts during her tenure of service – he also criticized what he perceives her attitude to be towards the future. He calls it a “hunker down” mentality, which he says doesn’t take into account the steps the city needs to take to ensure future generations have what they need.

For her part, Lumm tells a narrative in which city government has become, since the time she served on the council, disconnected from the priorities of residents. She wants to restore community input and open conversation back to city government, which she contends is now lacking. At the Thurston forum, she responded to Rapundalo’s criticism about her prior service as a councilmember by saying she welcomed the comparison between “the bad old days” and now. She characterized herself as a fiscal watchdog, who pressed financial issues, even if there was not the same appetite for that on the rest of the council.

Certain aspects of Lumm’s record are portrayed on Rapudalo’s campaign website in a way that could fairly be described as out of context. [A closer examination of Rapundalo's portrayals based on city council minute archival material is included in The Chronicle's write-up of the League of Women Voters forum, earlier in the campaign: "2011 Election: Ward 2 City Council"] At the Thurston forum, however, Rapundalo was right about a point of contention that emerged over whether Lumm had enjoyed a Republican majority on a city council committee. The city council archives show a 3-2 Republican majority on the labor negotiating committee in 1996.

The forum was hosted by the Orchard Hills/Maplewood Homeowners Association, moderated by Peter Mooney, who’s president of that group. Rapundalo is a member of the association, and Thurston Elementary is in Rapundalo’s neighborhood. But if there was a general leaning among the assembly, it seemed to be in favor of Lumm – based on response to a few laugh lines sprinkled throughout the forum.

The format of the event contrasted with many other similar events, in that it featured no rigid time constraints on candidate responses – just a general guideline from Mooney to try to limit responses to around three to four minutes.

Mooney took questions written by audience members on cards and synthesized them into prompts for the candidates. Paraphrased questions and responses below are summarized in the order they were given. [Campaign websites: Jane Lumm , Stephen Rapundalo] [Full Story]

For nine candidates in Ann Arbor city council races this year, Oct. 28 was the pre-election campaign filing deadline.

In an uncontested Ward 1 race, documents filed with the Washtenaw county clerk’s office show Democratic incumbent Sabra Briere raised $3,640 from 48 donors since the primary election (which for her was also uncontested).

In the contested Ward 3 race, Democratic incumbent Stephen Kunselman raised an additional $20 from one donor, bringing his total to $4,045 for this year’s election cycle. Kunselman prevailed in a three-way primary in August. Kunselman’s Republican challenger David Parker filed a waiver request – which is allowed if a candidate expects to spend less than $1,000.

In Ward 4, Democratic incumbent Marcia Higgins raised $1,075 from seven donors, compared with no contributions raised by her Republican opponent Eric Scheie. Scheie filed a negative balance (–$1,173.73), which earned him a notice of error from the county clerk’s office – the source of funds used to pay for expenditures must be given, even if it is a loan by the candidate to the campaign.

In Ward 5, Democratic incumbent Mike Anglin, who also had a contested primary, raised an additional $185 from three donors to bring his total this year to $7,405. Anglin’s Republican challenger Stuart Berry filed a waiver request.

In Ward 2, filing documents for Stephen Rapundalo show he raised an additional $4,420 since the primary, which was a contested race for him, bringing the total indicated on his paperwork for this year’s campaign to $8,505. [The Chronicle's arithmetic calculates $4,380, not $4,420, for this filing period.]

Independent challenger Jane Lumm, who of course did not participate in a partisan primary, outpaced all other candidates’ combined totals since the primaries by raising $18,950 from 193 donors.

After the jump we break down the Ward 2 contributions with charts and maps. [Full Story]

Independent Jane Lumm is challenging Democratic incumbent Stephen Rapundalo in the Ward 2 Ann Arbor city council race, and they both participated in the recent candidate forums hosted by the local League of Women Voters (LWV).

The forums on Oct. 5, 2011 were held for all four of the city’s five wards that have contested races. Replays are available via Community Television Network’s video on demand service. [Ward 2 CTN coverage]

The Ann Arbor council is an 11-member body, with two representatives from each ward, plus the mayor. All members of the council, including the mayor, serve two-year terms. In a given year, one of the two council seats for each ward is up for election. In even-numbered years, the position of mayor is also up for election.

This year, the general election falls on Nov. 8. Readers who are unsure where to vote can type their address into the My Property page of the city of Ann Arbor’s website to get that information. A map of city ward boundaries is also online.

Of the four contested races this year, the Ward 2 contest likely poses the greatest chance for a challenger to take an incumbent’s seat. Lumm previously served on the city council in the 1990s, has been active in the community, enjoys good name recognition and has achieved a broad coalition of support across party lines. She served previously on the council as a Republican. Lumm’s supporters include some who previously supported Rapundalo as recently as in the August Democratic primary.

One measure of Rapundalo’s own perception that Lumm poses a significant threat is the tenor of his campaign – as reflected in his website as well as his closing comments at the LWV debate. In those comments, he attempted to paint Lumm – and the city councils of the 1990s – as having created a mess that he’s had to clean up. Specific votes cast by Lumm are described and criticized by Rapundalo on his website without their full context. The context for some votes by Lumm – votes that are cited and criticized on Rapundalo’s website – reveal a kind of garden-variety fiscal conservatism that Rapundalo is also known for.

Topics addressed by the two candidates, presented in chronological order below (annotated to include historical context), include the proposed Fuller Road Station, the retirement board charter amendment, street repair millage, finance, human services, public art, and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. [Full Story]

In an email sent to several people on Aug. 10, local developer Ed Shaffran has encouraged support of Jane Lumm’s candidacy for the Ward 2 Ann Arbor city council seat in the Nov. 8 general election.

The email was sent not long after news broke that Lumm had filed the necessary petitions to qualify as an independent candidate for the Ward 2 race. That race will now be contested between Lumm and Stephen Rapundalo, who won the Aug. 2 Democratic primary against Tim Hull. No Republican filed petitions to appear on the Ward 2 ballot. Both Lumm and Rapundalo have previously run for office as Republicans.

Shaffran’s support for Lumm is somewhat significant, because he previously had urged support … [Full Story]

Earlier this month, the local League of Women Voters hosted forums for candidates from each ward with a contested Democratic primary election for Ann Arbor city council. That included Ward 2, where incumbent Stephen Rapundalo and challenger Tim Hull are both seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination. The primary elections this year fall on Tuesday, Aug. 2.

Because no Republican challenger filed by the May deadline, the winner of the Ward 2 Democratic primary will likely be the Ward 2 representative to the city council. Some uncertainty surrounds that conclusion, however, because the filing deadline for non-partisan, independent candidates is not until Aug. 15. And Ward 2 has a recent election history that includes write-in candidate Ed Amonsen’s effort in the 2007 general election, which nearly won him a seat on the council. Amonsen’s write-in campaign earned him 790 votes (48.4%) to Rapundalo’s 843.

In their opening and closing statements, the candidates reprised the themes they’d introduced at a previous forum hosted by the Ann Arbor Democratic Party in June. Rapundalo stressed his experience and leadership as essential in trying economic times to find solutions in the area of cost containment and “revenue restructuring.” Rapundalo is president and CEO of MichBio, a biosciences industry trade association. First elected in 2005, Rapundalo is seeking a fourth two-year term on the city council.

For his part, Hull focused on budgeting that is based on community needs, not politics, and stressed that he would protect those things that make Ann Arbor unique. Hull is a programmer at the University of Michigan’s Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics. He serves as a member of the city’s taxicab board.

The two candidates dealt with the full range of topics covered by LWV questions – from public safety cuts to their thoughts on the hiring of the new city administrator.

The LWV forum was filmed at the Community Television Network studios on South Industrial Highway. After the break, The Chronicle presents paraphrases of questions posed to the candidates and their responses to them, as well as some highlights from the candidates’ remarks broken down in a bit more detail. [Full Story]

For the seven Democratic candidates in three different wards, Friday, July 22 was the filing deadline for pre-primary campaign contributions in Ann Arbor city council races. The primary election is on Tuesday, Aug. 2.

Six candidates filed the necessary paperwork, which is available from the Washtenaw County clerk’s office website. [Type in the candidate's last name for links to scanned .pdf files of campaign finance reports.]

For itemized cash contributions listed on Schedule 1-A, The Chronicle has compiled the data for all six candidates into a single Google Spreadsheet – in order to get a statistical overview of the candidates’ respective contributions and to map out the distributions of contributions geographically.

Ward 5 incumbent Mike Anglin’s total of $6,850 was the largest of any candidate. His challenger Neal Elyakin filed $5,923 worth of contributions.

In Ward 3, Ingrid Ault has raised $4,031, compared to incumbent Stephen Kunselman’s $2,750. According to Washtenaw County clerk staff on Tuesday morning, Ward 3 candidate Marwan Issa had not filed a contribution report by the Friday deadline. He’d also not submitted a waiver that can be filed if contributions total less than $1,000. The fine associated with not filing is $25 per day, up to a maximum of $500.

In Ward 2, incumbent Stephen Rapundalo filed $2,950 worth of contributions compared with $2,075 for challenger Tim Hull.

Collectively, the six candidates recorded $24,579 on their statements.

After the jump, we chart out the contributions to illustrate how candidates are being supported – through many small-sized donations, or by a fewer larger-sized donations. We also provide a geographic plot, to illustrate how much financial support candidates enjoy in the wards they’re running to represent. [Full Story]