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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At its Aug. 15 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council passed a similar measure urging county commissioners to levy the tax.

For the last two years, the county board has levied the tax – at a rate of 0.043 mill. (One mill is $1 for every $1,000 of a property’s taxable value.) Because Act 88 predates the state’s Headlee legislation, the county board does not need to put the issue before voters in order to levy the tax. The county board could, by the Act 88 statute, levy such a tax up to 0.5 mills, or more than 10 times the amount it has chosen to levy the last two years.

In November 2010, the county board approved the Act 88 tax with just a six-vote majority on the 11-member board. Kristin Judge, Mark Ouimet and Wes Prater dissented. Jessica Ping abstained, and Rolland Sizemore Jr. was absent from that Nov. 3, 2010 meeting.

For 2011, the allocation of the roughly $611,266 raised by the countywide Act 88 tax broke down as follows: $200,000 to Ann Arbor SPARK; $50,000 to SPARK East; $100,000 to the Eastern Leaders Group; $144,696 to the county’s department of economic development and energy; $15,000 to fund a Michigan State University Extension agricultural innovation counselor for Washtenaw County; $27,075 to fund horticulture programming for the Washtenaw MSUE horticulture educator; $59,229 for 4-H activities, including allocation to the Washtenaw Farm Council for operating the Washtenaw County 4-H Youth Show & 4-H agricultural programming for the 4-H extension educator; and $15,000 to support the work of the Food System Economic Partnership (FSEP).

This brief was filed from the DDA offices at 150 S. Fifth Avenue, where the board holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

The goal is to develop a plan to provide better health care for the county’s low-income residents, the uninsured and people on Medicaid – prior to changes that will be mandated by the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The Washtenaw Health Initiative (WHI) is a collaboration led by retired Saint Joseph Mercy Health System chief executive officer Bob Laverty, former county administrator Bob Guenzel, and retired University of Michigan treasurer Norm Herbert. The effort is jointly sponsored by the UM Health System and Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, and faciliated by Marianne Udow-Phillips, director of the Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation – a joint venture of UM and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Several other groups, including Washtenaw United Way and the county public health department, are also involved.

Organizers say they hope this initiative will become a model for other communities nationwide that are facing similar issues.

Details of exactly what kind of services will be provided, what funding and other resources will be tapped, and how a coverage plan will be implemented haven’t yet been determined. Initial steps that could occur as early as this year include reaching out to enroll about 6,000 county residents who are eligible for Medicaid but not currently signed up for that coverage. Another project that could be implemented this year entails coordinating local dental clinics to offer sliding scale fees for low-income residents.

More information is available on the initiative’s website. [.pdf of WHI press release] [.pdf of Washtenaw County health care overview]

A Washtenaw County 911 dispatcher. Ann Arbor and county dispatch operations are currently co-located at Ann Arbor's Fire Station #1 on Fifth Avenue. (Photo courtesy of Washtenaw County sheriff's office.)

Also not cited as an example of possible future city/county collaboration was police dispatching. However, the topic did at least receive a passing mention by Ward 3 incumbent Stephen Kunselman, who told the audience that his grandmother was a police dispatcher in the late 1950s for the East Ann Arbor police department.

A recent city press release – sent out the Wednesday before the June 11 candidate forum – described a renewed effort to consolidate Ann Arbor’s 911 police dispatch functions with the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office.

So The Chronicle sat down with Ann Arbor chief of police Barnett Jones and Washtenaw County sheriff Jerry Clayton to walk through the possible consolidation, under which the city would contract with the county for dispatch service. Based on that interview, it’s clear that it’s not just talk.

The city and county dispatchers are already working in the same building in the same room –  on the second floor of Fire Station #1, across Fifth Avenue from the new municipal center at Fifth and Huron. Clayton has developed a staffing model for implementation. And over the next few weeks, Jones will be sitting down with the police officers union – dispatchers are members – to discuss the proposal. Jones said that from the standpoint of collective bargaining, a consolidated dispatch operation could not be blocked by the union.

But Jones and Clayton will not have the final say. That decision will be made by the Ann Arbor city council and the Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

Co-Located Dispatch: Preparation

The physical stage for the consolidation of county and city dispatching operations was set more than a year and a half ago, when the Ann Arbor city council authorized the remodeling of the dispatch room on the second floor of Fire Station #1. Previous Chronicle coverage from the council’s Dec. 9, 2009 meeting:

The city of Ann Arbor has agreed to co-locate its 911 dispatch with the county’s operation – that will take place at the city’s existing location in Fire Station #1, across from city hall. The cost of the remodeling will be $48,183, but will be reimbursed from the 800 MHz public safety communications millage fund.

At Monday’s meeting, chief of police Barnett Jones called the co-location a “dream come true.” The expectation is that co-location will eventually lead to consolidation of the operations.

The cooperative effort with the county on 911 dispatch, Jones said, was part of an effort to regionalize services, which already included SWAT, K-9, and training. [See also: "County Reorganizes 911 Dispatch"]

And a month later, the city council authorized the purchase of a new phone switch as part of the dispatch co-location effort. They heard from a deputy police chief that evening that the idea of an eventual consolidation of operations was not new. It had been discussed for a couple of decades. Previous Chronicle coverage, from the Jan. 19, 2010 meeting:

The resolution before the council on Monday was to approve the purchase of a 911 phone switch for $258,983.

During the brief deliberations by the council, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) elicited from deputy police chief Greg Bazick that the consolidation has been talked about for almost as long has he’s worked on the force – 19 years. The cost savings would lie in the ability to eliminate duplicative technology costs.

City administrator Roger Fraser pointed out that for now, the arrangement would allow the city and county to work side-by-side, which was more economical, because by state law if they made it one operation, they would have to pay the more expensive of the two labor contracts.

A couple of months earlier, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners had completed its piece of the co-location arrangement by voting unanimously to approve a reorganization of the county’s central dispatch and emergency services division. The board’s resolution included eliminating four supervisory positions (including one that was already vacant) and creating four different positions at lower pay grades. Previous Chronicle coverage, from the county board’s Nov. 4, 2009 meeting:

Over the years, [Marc] Breckenridge [director of emergency management and homeland security] added, co-location will save in the cost of doing business, because of shared technology expenses. A lot of technology is duplicated among various units of government, he said.

Clayton said the whole project was an example of the county and city of Ann Arbor’s willingness to work together, leveraging resources with the goal of improving public safety.

Cost, County Role, Staffing Model

When The Chronicle met with Clayton and Jones earlier this week, Clayton indicated that the next step to full consolidation of the dispatch operation – now that co-location has been implemented – would not result in further cost savings to the county. Technology-based savings to the county, now and into the future, are a function of the co-location itself.

Consolidation of the dispatch operation – by using county dispatchers to handle Ann Arbor’s 911 calls – would be implemented on a contractual basis that would be cost-neutral to the county, Clayton said. So it’s not something he’s trying to push onto the city of Ann Arbor or other units of government in the county.

The sheriff was keen to stress during the interview that consolidation of dispatch operations is also not any kind of a first step towards consolidating services of individual police departments in the county under the sheriff’s office.

Clayton’s concern can be traced partly to a recent working session of the county board, when county commissioner Wes Prater had voiced the idea that only two police departments were necessary in the county: the Ann Arbor police department and the sheriff’s office. That comment prompted Clayton to assert that he had no interest in absorbing other police departments in the county. It also prompted other commissioners to take turns going around the table expressing their support for the independent police departments in their respective districts. Clayton also weighed in with support of Ypsilanti’s police force as an independent agency – commissioner Ronnie Peterson, whose district includes Ypsilanti, was absent from that meeting.

Contracting dispatch service is conceptually a different proposition from the way that some local units of government contract with the county to provide police services – deputy road patrols – for their communities. They contract for a specific number of deputies.

For that kind of service, the county distinguishes between the “cost” of a deputy and the “price” charged to a township for that deputy’s service – the difference is “contributed” by the county. Setting the cost and price has a long and contentious history, with the final dollar amount in the settlement of a related lawsuit still not determined. But based on the board’s unanimous initial vote at its June 1, 2011 meeting on the price to be charged for deputies, far greater consensus has been achieved on this issue. That price had emerged from work done by a police services steering committee over a period of more than a year.

For dispatching, it’s not some number of dispatchers for which the city of Ann Arbor would be contracting, but rather for the dispatching service. So there would be no distinction between cost and price.

The county currently employs 17 dispatchers plus a coordinator for a total of 18. The staffing model Clayton has put together to absorb the Ann Arbor dispatching workload would include 30 dispatchers plus two supervisors and one coordinator, for a total of 33. So Clayton would need an additional 15 bodies to staff the county’s dispatching room, in order to handle the additional workload.

The most natural extra bodies would be Ann Arbor police dispatchers – there are currently 21 of them. So not all of them would be needed.

The impact of the fiscal year 2012 budget approved by the Ann Arbor city council on May 31 already included the layoff of two of those 21 police dispatchers starting July 1. Those two [not all 21, as reported elsewhere] have been sent layoff notices, according to Jones. Robyn Wilkerson, head of human resources for the city of Ann Arbor, told The Chronicle that all the dispatchers were sent a communication – a copy of the press release outlining the potential city/county consolidation.

When Jones and Clayton spoke with The Chronicle earlier this week, Jones said he’d met with both laid-off dispatchers, and that he was working with Wilkerson and interim city administrator Tom Crawford to try to find a “softer landing” for them in some other city position. Jones recalled his own past career experience in Oakland County getting laid off as a sworn officer. He’d been offered a job at one-third the pay – either working in the morgue or serving process papers. He’d opted to work as a process server, and eventually was hired back.

For those who are hired into a consolidated dispatch room, Clayton described how they and the current sheriff’s dispatchers would make a gradual transition. Ann Arbor dispatchers would initially take all the Ann Arbor calls. They’d need to then start learning the rest of the county. And current sheriff’s dispatchers would need to learn the city of Ann Arbor. That would be accomplished partly by dispatchers pairing up on computer screens, but also by doing ride-alongs – actually riding with sheriff’s deputies and Ann Arbor officers out on patrol.

If the consolidation of dispatch operations is implemented, the math doesn’t work in favor of the Ann Arbor police dispatchers. Of the remaining 19 dispatchers (after the two layoffs), Clayton would use only 15 of them, leaving an additional four dispatchers out of a dispatching job. That corresponds roughly to the annual $400,000 savings (described in the city’s press release) that would be realized through the consolidation.

City of Ann Arbor Budget: Timeline for Consolidation

How does that $400,000 savings fit into the city of Ann Arbor police department budget planning?

While the city of Ann Arbor adopts its budget one year at a time, it plans in two-year cycles. After meeting a reduction target of $1 million for the 2012 fiscal year, Jones is looking at an additional $1 million reduction target for FY 2013.

For FY 2012 – which begins on July 1, 2011 – six police officer positions were eliminated through a combination of layoffs and vacancies. And the plan for FY 2013, which Jones put in front of the city council at a work session held in February 2011, would call for the layoff of as many as eight additional sworn police officers in FY 2013. That work session scenario – outlining two different budget reduction strategies – did not include the consolidation of the dispatching operation with the county. From the worksheet presented at the February work session:

Police Services Reduction Strategies
------------------------------------------------------
2.5% SCENARIO

2012            2012           2013            2013
Action          Dollars        Action          Dollars
------------------------------------------------------
LAYOFF                         LAYOFF
2 Dispatchers   162,659        1 Dispatcher     97,810
2 Plc Offcrs    221,332        4 Plc Offcrs    470,272
1 Plc Svc Spcls  90,246
                               REDUCE RANK
ELIMINATE VACANT               1 Lt, 2 Sgt      24,274
1 Telecomm       78,374
1 Plc Offcr     115,521        MAT/SUPP         31,723
1 Plc Prof Asst  79,144
                               Addtl Svngs      22,981

Subtotal Svgs   747,276                        647,060
2.5% Target     666,049                        638,802

------------------------------------------------------
4.0% SCENARIO [in addition to 2.5% savings]

2012            2012           2013            2013
Action          Dollars        Action          Dollars
------------------------------------------------------
LAYOFF                         LAYOFF
3 Plc Offcrs    339,365        4 Plc Offcrs    479,235

                               Addtl Svgs       14,334

Grand Total   1,086,641                      1,140,629
4.0% Target   1,049,330                      1,091,071

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The 2.5% budget reduction scenario is one that would entail police officers adopting the city’s benefits package, which would include a contribution by employees to their health care costs. The 4.0% reduction scenario is what would have to be achieved if police officers do not adopt the city benefits package.  The city’s contract with its police officers expired on June 30, 2009 and the union has filed a request for arbitration under the state’s Act 312. The 2.5%/4.0% alternative is part of an attempt the city has used explicitly to align its budget strategy with its labor strategy.

Based on the worksheet, in FY 2013 the impact of the $400,000 savings through dispatch consolidation would translate roughly into the preservation of slightly more than three police officers on patrol. For Jones, it’s a matter of weighing the dispatchers who could lose their jobs as dispatchers, against the police officers who’d remain on patrol. On that balance test, it’s police officers on patrol that take priority.

For Jones, the deadline for dispatch consolidation is a little less than a year from now, when the FY 2013 budget is approved. The $400,000 in savings will clearly help meet the reduction target, but it still leaves him around $600,000 short. And Jones is looking ahead to FY 2014 and FY 2015 when he expects further reductions will be necessary. So even while one argument on the city’s side for consolidated dispatch is budgetary – it’ll save $400,000 annually – the move is not a complete solution to funding police services in Ann Arbor.

Public Policy Arguments for Consolidation

Jones can make a budgetary argument to the Ann Arbor city council in favor of consolidated dispatch. But Clayton allowed that the consolidation itself (as opposed to the co-location) is a cost-neutral proposition to the county. He went on to describe how consolidated dispatch would add employees and increase the challenges and workload for the sheriff’s office. But he concluded: It’s what the sheriff is supposed to do – provide a blanket of support.

Asked by The Chronicle how he planned to sell the idea to the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, Clayton stated that it was simply good public policy – from the point of view of the collaboration between public entities as well as the perspective of coordinating public safety operations.

Jones agreed that the budgetary argument is not the only one. He’d worked in Oakland County where regionalized dispatch is the norm. And both Clayton and Jones pointed to Livingston County as an example where all dispatch is done through the sheriff’s office.

When The Chronicle phoned Mimi Yenshaw, administrative supervisor of Livingston County dispatch, she described how her department performs dispatching services for nine different police departments, 10 fire departments and one ambulance service located in the county. She indicated that there are some minor variations in how calls are handled for each of those agencies – differences that are incorporated into dispatcher training. For example, each fire department stipulates what kinds of medical runs its firefighters will go on. Dispatchers have a grid that lists out which fire departments will go on what kinds of calls.

The consolidated dispatch operation in Livingston County launched on Memorial day in 1999. Yenshaw has been part of the operation since that time and said, “It works very well for us. I can’t say how it would work for Ann Arbor.”

Within Washtenaw County, the city of Ypsilanti consolidated its dispatch operation with the sheriff’s office just last year. Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber told The Chronicle in a phone interview that there’s one extra technical step that’s now required when calls are dispatched, but that’s “a very quick step,” he said. From his perspective, the consolidation is working. Four police and fire dispatchers were folded into the county’s operation, and did not have to lose their jobs, Schreiber said. The value of the contract with the county is $149,000 annually, and that reflects a savings to the city of $89,000, Schreiber wrote in a follow-up email.

Calculations on savings and costs are affected by police service answering point (PSAP) funding – which is collected by the state treasury from communication service suppliers/resellers and commercial mobile radio service suppliers, and then distributed to local units. PSAP funding is not enough to cover the complete cost of dispatching, but the funding is allocated to the unit providing the answering point, i.e., the dispatching service.

While the budgetary impact is positive, a staff memo written by then-acting Ypsilanti chief of police Paul DeRidder also described a potential negative impact: “Some negative impacts to the YPD will be: increased operational workload for existing employees, loss of independence, loss of tailored or customized services.” In his phone interview, Schreiber allowed that the consolidation meant the loss of some amount of control. It’s a matter of weighing how much control you are willing to lose, he concluded.

In the same memo, DeRidder also described the public policy benefits of the consolidation beyond the cost savings. The consolidation would improve service, he wrote, by “providing a single point of contact for all emergency service requests (regional concept), the reduction of misdirected calls, inter-jurisdiction cooperation, enhanced information sharing, and expanded supervision to assure continued high quality service delivery.”

It’s these kinds of public policy benefits that chief Jones and sheriff Clayton both identified as arguments for the consolidation of Ann Arbor’s dispatch with the sheriff’s office.

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Scio Church Road: Two Barns (Images by Chuck Bultman, link to higher resolution file.)

Bultman also wrote that he’d noticed a hole in the roof of one of the barns: “So I tried to reach the owners to let them know that their asset is at risk. And so far, I have not heard back – maybe something is being planned and workers are lining up to repair it or salvage it, but I do not know, and it is not for me to decide.”

But over the spring, a decision was made – which a week ago led to a Friday evening gathering of Bultman’s friends and associates at the site of those barns. One of the barns stood with its siding removed, its frame laid bare. Wrote Bultman in an email to me: “It is our plan to toast this barn’s first life, and consider its second.”

Its second life will begin in the Pittsburgh area, where Bultman will help transform the re-assembled timbers into a home for one of his clients. The disassembly of the frame and restoration of the wood will be handled by Rudy Christian and his wife Laura, whose shop is in Burbank, Ohio.

Although Bultman had speculated that the two barns on the property were built at the same time, Christian estimated that the barn he’s dismantling dates to the 1830s, while the other one is post-Civil War.

Chronicle publisher Mary Morgan and I took a break from writing about local government to join Chuck on that Friday, and documented the occasion with some photos.

Barn Photos

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Ladder in the Scio Church Road barn.

Scio Church Road barn.

Roof ribs of the Scio Church Road barn.

West face of the Scio Church Road barn.

Scio Church Road barn.

A dusty old dictionary abandoned in the basement of the Scio Church Road barn.

Final approval is expected at the board’s June 1 meeting. A public hearing on the millage rates will also be held at that time.

This brief was filed from the boardroom of the county administration building at 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor. A more detailed report will follow.

Reynolds’ paid leave is related to post-military issues. In his most recent military experience, Reynolds was deployed to Iraq in 2004 with a Marine Corps reserve unit, and was a senior officer leading civil/military operations in Al Anbar province. Diane Heidt, the county’s human resources and labor relations director, said that Reynolds is expected back on the job after he returns from medical leave.

Kelly Belknap, the county’s finance director, has been named interim deputy administrator, and was introduced with that title at a May 5, 2011 board working session. Pete Collinson, finance accounting manager, is now interim finance director – a role he held for several months following the retirement of Pete Ballios in 2009.

Reynolds has been on the job just under a year – the county board of commissioners approved his hire at their June 2010 meeting, and he started work on June 21, 2010, with a salary of $138,000. Reynolds was the first hire of McDaniel, who was deputy administrator under Bob Guenzel. Guenzel retired as county administrator in May 2010, and the board of commissioners promoted McDaniel into that job. Before coming to Washtenaw County, Reynolds was the administrator for Chippewa County, Wisc.

The board’s approval also includes the extension, through 2015, of the contract for a network manager job that’s shared between the county and city. That contract, first signed in 2008, expires in June of 2011. The two entities save about $78,000 $81,577 annually because of the shared position. Also approved was a lease extension through 2015 for shared data center space – that lease is set to expire in 2013.

In addition, the board gave initial approval to share costs with the city for a deal with the firm EMC, paying for storage area network and backup services. The county now pays $387,924 annually for these services, and would expect to save $212,000 annually by sharing costs with the city. The deal would also allow the county to increase storage capacity, giving it the ability for future potential technology collaborations with other local units of government and community partners.

This brief was filed from the boardroom in the Washtenaw County administration building, 220 N. Main St., Ann Arbor. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Three members of the Washtenaw County apportionment commission, which is tasked with redrawing districts for the county board of commissioners based on 2010 census data. From left: Cleveland Chandler, Washtenaw County Democratic Party chair; county treasurer Catherine McClary; and Mark Boonstra, Washtenaw County Republican Committee chair. Other members are county clerk Larry Kestenbaum and Brian Mackie, the county's prosecuting attorney. (Photos by the writer.)

Eight people addressed the commission during the hearing, which lasted about an hour. Some argued for a reduction in the current 11 districts, saying it would save costs and make for a better functioning board. Others suggested keeping the same number or increasing the number of districts slightly, for better representation.

It’s likely there will be some changes of district lines, even if the number of districts remains the same. The county’s population grew 6.8%, from 322,895 people in 2000 to 344,791 people in 2010, with some parts showing dramatic population shifts. Ypsilanti’s population decreased 12.6%, while several townships – including Saline, Scio and Webster – saw double-digit growth. The city of Ann Arbor accounts for about a third of the county’s population – its population dropped 0.6% to 113,934. [.pdf file of population data for Washtenaw County]

Commission members indicated that they haven’t yet completed any redistricting proposals, though Larry Kestenbaum – the county clerk and chair of the apportionment commission – said he’s developing one for 12 districts. One speaker at the hearing expressed disappointment that proposals weren’t yet available, saying he had hoped to give feedback on specific redistricting plans.

The apportionment commission met for the first time on March 31, when members set a schedule for the process. Its members, determined by state statute, are: The county clerk (Larry Kestenbaum), county treasurer (Catherine McClary), county prosecuting attorney (Brian Mackie), and the chairs of both the county Republican and Democratic parties (Mark Boonstra and Cleveland Chandler). All but Boonstra are Democrats.

Saturday’s public hearing had a lower turnout than the first hearing, which took place on April 9 at the Pittsfield Township hall – 16 people addressed the commission then, according to draft minutes of the meeting.

The next public hearing is set for Thursday, April 21 at 5:30 p.m. at Webster Township hall, 5665 Webster Church Road. A week later, on April 28, the commission meets again and is expected to present redistricting plans and possibly select one. That meeting, which will include time for public commentary, begins at 5:30 p.m. at the county administration building’s lower-level conference room, 200 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor.

The Work of the Apportionment Commission

Larry Kestenbaum, who chairs the apportionment commission, was a few minutes late to the April 16 public hearing – so it was Mark Boonstra who called the meeting to order. He said that at the request of a member of the public, they would begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Catherine McClary suggested that they dispense with other agenda items aside from the public hearing, but that it would be good to provide an overview of the criteria the commission must use to complete the redistricting process.

Boonstra briefly outlined the charge of the apportionment commission: To take the new 2010 census data and redraw districts for the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, taking into account population changes in the townships, cities and villages, and in the precincts within those municipalities. For a county the size of Washtenaw, there can be no fewer than five districts, and no more than 21. Currently there are 11 districts – 10 years ago, there were 15. [.pdf map of current districts for the Washtenaw County board of commissioners]

Evaluation criteria for redistricting, as dictated by statute and case law, include:

• Districts must be of substantially equal population. Specifically, each district’s population size must fall within the range of 94.05% to 105.95% of the “ideal” population. The “ideal” district population is calculated by dividing the county population by the number of districts. Washtenaw County’s population is 344,791, based on 2010 census data.
• Each district is represented by a single commissioner – there are no at-large commissioners.
• All parts of a district must be contiguous.
• Districts should be as compact and in as much of a square shape as practical.
• No township or part of a township should be combined with a city or part of a city unless required to meet the population standard.
• Townships, villages and cities should be divided only if necessary to meet the population standard. The same approach applies to precincts.
• Districts should not be drawn to provide a partisan political advantage.

The statute that dictates the apportionment process for county boards is Act 261 of 1966.

Boonstra concluded by saying they won’t be able to satisfy all these criteria completely – it’s a balancing act.

April 16 Public Hearing

Kestenbaum then opened the public hearing portion of the April 16 meeting. Eight people commented, some of them speaking multiple times.

Timothy King of Ypsilanti Township told the commission that he’s been a precinct delegate in the past, and he asked that the redistricting plan not split townships into different districts, if possible. At the least, he hoped the commission would try to keep school districts within the same county board district. When polling stations for two different precincts are located in the same school, “it’s a big hassle for the (poll) workers,” he said.

Christina Lirones of Pittsfield Township, speaking at the April 16 public hearing of the county apportionment commission.

Christina Lirones, former Pittsfield Township clerk and treasurer, advocated for fewer commissioners than the current 11. She said she differed from her [Democratic] party on this point. The county board could function well with nine commissioners, she said, noting that she’s served on various boards with seven members that function quite well.

[In December 2010, the Washtenaw County Democratic Party passed a resolution in support of keeping the current number of districts. The resolution noted that when the county board had 15 commissioners, two of them were minorities – now, there's only one minority commissioner, Ronnie Peterson of District 6 in Ypsilanti. One of the resolution's whereas clauses states: "It is obvious that a reduction in the number of Board of Commissioners and a subsequent redistricting would very possibly eliminate the number of minorities on the Washtenaw Board of Commissioners." .pdf file of WCDP resolution]

Lirones reported that she’d spoken with a current county commissioner who said that with fewer districts, the rural districts would be even larger geographically, making them harder to represent. She said she’d hate to see that consideration as the main driver of the redistricting decision. Noting that in the past, District 7 – which covers Pittsfield Township – had previously included parts of other townships, Lirones said the larger district added diversity of perspectives. In concluding her remarks, she said that cost savings and a better functioning board are reasons to have fewer districts.

Dan Benefiel told the commission he’s lived in Ypsilanti Township for nearly 20 years, but just recently got involved in politics. When he ran as a Republican candidate for county commissioner last year, he said he knocked on about 10,000 doors in District 5. [That district is currently represented by Democrat Rolland Sizemore Jr.] People there have a lot of problems, Benefiel said, and they appreciate a close association with their commissioner. From his own association with county commissioners, he said he found them to be reputable individuals with concern for their constituents.

Benefiel said he didn’t want to impugn the reputation of anyone on the apportionment commission. He recalled that when he was in graduate school, he asked the chair of his department whether he would be evaluated objectively. The chair told him that everything was political. Since then, Benefiel said he’s learned that everything is political, but everything doesn’t have to be partisan. “Everyone in this county, everyone in this township has their eyes on what you do here,” he told the commission. He then asked the commission how they were selected to serve – what was the makeup of the commission based on? He also asked how the public can be assured that though the positions of the apportionment commissioners might be slightly political, they would not be partisan.

John Taylor of Dexter Township said he wanted to reiterate what he’d said at the previous public hearing – he hoped that the number of districts would stay the same, or increase slightly. Though there’s a lot to criticize about this country’s government, he said, one of the good things is that it’s representative. Some of that representation would be taken away if there were fewer commissioners, who would each have to represent a larger part of the population. Having more commissioners is one expense that the county should be willing to pay for, he said.

Three current Washtenaw County commissioners attended Saturday's public hearing on county redistricting. From left: Dan Smith (R-District 2), Kristin Judge (D-District 7), and Wes Prater (D-District 4).

Wes Prater, a current county commissioner representing District 4, said he didn’t want to repeat what he’d said at the previous public hearing, noting that most of the speakers there had expressed preference for keeping the same number of districts, or increasing them. Since then he’s talked to several of his constituents, and they basically have the same view, he said. Of the 15 or so people he’s talked to about it in the past week, only one has supported reducing the number.

Referring to Lirones’ point about cost, Prater – a fellow Democrat – said that the expense of county commissioners is only a small percentage of the overall county budget. Cutting costs isn’t a good reason to reduce the number of districts, he said, especially since that makes it more difficult for citizens. He said he thinks of himself as a working commissioner. Since the last public hearing, he’s received two requests from citizens that he’s responding to – increasing the size of a district will make it more difficult to help constituents.

Lirones then asked to respond to Prater’s comments. She described her interactions with county staff as phenomenal. She said she’s had direct contact with staff in the clerk’s office, the treasurer’s office, and several departments, and has never needed her county commissioner to act as an intermediary. [District 7 covers Pittsfield Township, and is represented on the county board by Democrat Kristin Judge, who attended Saturday's public hearing.]

The county board sets the budget, Lirones said, but beyond that it has few statutory duties. Washtenaw County has an excellent administrator and staff who are extremely accessible, she said. While commissioners can be helpful, she added, they provide very little of the service that residents get from the county.

John Taylor said he wanted to offer a bit of a rebuttal. Because county commissioners do set budgets, he said, they’re making decisions about spending priorities and which departments to fund. With more districts, the size of each district is smaller and commissioners are more accessible – that’s important, because funding decisions will directly affect the services in those districts, he said. “The more representation, the better.”

Prater then took the floor again, saying he wanted to give some examples of the work that commissioners do. He reported that he, commissioner Kristin Judge and former commissioner Jessica Ping had initiated the process of getting the county to sponsor a drug discount card for residents. They were motivated after learning from the county’s public health department that roughly 11% of residents don’t have health care and prescription drug coverage, he said. [The program, offered through CVS/Caremark, was the subject of a heated debate among commissioners, but ultimately won approval by the board in May 2010.]

There was no statutory requirement to push for a program like this, Prater said, but obviously there’s a certain segment of the community that can benefit from it. He said that he personally has handed out about 8,000 discount cards since the program was adopted, and he continues to get calls about it.

As another example, Prater cited a situation in Ypsilanti Township on Burns Street, where two registered sex offenders live. Some senior citizens in that area are “having a fit,” Prater said, and are having trouble finding out what’s going on – they’re frustrated and need help. He said they need someone to turn to, and it’s an appropriate role for the county commissioner to help them.

Timothy King thanked Prater for mentioning some of the problems that township residents are facing. He said there are a lot of issues in the township and county. On his street, the sewer system is collapsing – something needs to be done about the county’s infrastructure, King said, noting that he’s sure there are similar problems in other areas.

Bill Bigler of Ann Arbor expressed disappointment that no redistricting plans had been proposed yet – he was hoping to be able to respond to the proposals. He urged the commission to keep township splits to a minimum.

Commissioner Response to Public Hearing

All five of the apportionment commissioners addressed issues raised during the public hearing.

Brian Mackie began by responding to Dan Benefiel, saying that whether or not people trust the apportionment commission is “really your choice, isn’t it?” Mackie said that in his view, the county board typically works by consensus, and is not extremely political. In the same way, he said, “I think this (apportionment) group will be nonpolitical in their decisions.”

Mackie recalled that when they went through this process 10 years ago, they also held three public hearings that were well-attended. People expressed a lot of different viewpoints, ranging from a desire to have fewer than five districts to more than 21 – neither of those options were legal, he pointed out. One person wanted to return to having a board of supervisors, which also isn’t legal, Mackie noted. [Prior to 1969, counties in Michigan were governed by a board of supervisors made up of one representative from each township and two or more persons from each city in the county.]

At the time, one argument for increasing the number of districts had been that the county board provides training for serving in higher office, Mackie recalled. Noting that two current state representatives had recently served on the county board, Mackie said he nonetheless does not think the board should be viewed as a proving ground for politicians. [He was referring to former county commissioners Mark Ouimet and Jeff Irwin, who were elected last fall to serve as state representatives in District 52 and 53, respectively.]

Catherine McClary addressed the question of how members of the apportionment commission were selected. Membership is set by state statute, she noted. The county treasurer is required to serve, she said, “otherwise, I would never ever volunteer for this job.”

Commenting on the difference between a political and partisan process, McClary said she served on the county commission when it had been a more even Democrat/Republican split. [Currently, the 11-member board consists of eight Democrat and three Republican commissioners.] While issues can be contentious, McClary said, generally the tensions are geographical rather than political – between urban and rural districts, for example. That’s not necessarily the case for state or Congressional districts, she noted, where politics plays more of a role. But for county redistricting, with a premium placed on districts of roughly-equal populations, “we’re constrained by the numbers,” she said.

Washtenaw County treasurer Catherine McClary, left, and county clerk Larry Kestenbaum at the April 16 apportionment commission public hearing. Kestenbaum chairs the commission.

Larry Kestenbaum recounted that he was a county commissioner 10 years ago, when redistricting reduced the number of seats from 15 to 11 – he decided not to run again, rather than compete against the other incumbent in that redrawn district. [That incumbent was Leah Gunn, who continues to serve on the county board.] Having served on a 15-member board, and having closely observed the 11-member board, he said, “there’s no question it works better at 11 than 15.” He allowed that part of the difference might be due to the personalities on the board.

There’s a lot of argument in favor of the status quo, Kestenbaum said, but that’s really not possible. Ann Arbor now accounts for about one-third of the county’s population, he noted, suggesting that the total number of districts should be divisible by three – creating possibly 9 districts, or 12. Kestenbaum said he’s putting together a plan for 12 districts that maintains the current districts roughly as they are now, but adds a new district for Scio Township. [Currently, parts of Scio Township are in several county board districts.] He said they’ll present specific plans at a later date – he didn’t think anyone had finished their proposals yet.

As for trusting the apportionment commission, Kestenbaum said that in addition to their roles on that group, all of them were elected by people in the county, and entrusted with other responsibilities. [The positions of clerk, prosecuting attorney and treasurer are elected countywide. The positions of Democratic and Republican party chairs are elected by their respective party membership.] If citizens of Washtenaw County trust them to carry out their other duties, he said, “I think it would follow that you trust us to do the redistricting.”

Kestenbaum also pointed out that in Washtenaw County, there’s no question of which party is in the majority. When redistricting is contentious, it’s usually because a change can cause a shift in political power – that’s not the case here, he said.

Cleveland Chandler spoke next, saying he was new to this process, but that he was working with Julia Roberts, the support staff hired for this project, to come up with a plan.

Echoing earlier comments of other commissioners, Mark Boonstra said none of them volunteered for this job – they were all conscripted. They hadn’t looked at any redistricting plans yet, but that would come soon, he said. Boonstra, the lone Republican on the commission, said there was no reason to think that there was inappropriate partisanship in the process.

Boonstra also commented that he had read something suggesting that he and Chandler had a disagreement at the previous public hearing on April 9. That’s not true at all, he said. The Democratic Party had recommended that the number of districts remain at 11, he said, but that was before they’d had a chance to look at the data. “I think we’re all on the same page and going in the same direction of trying to do this appropriately and within statutory requirements,” Boonstra said.

[A column by Joe Baublis, a member of the Washtenaw County Republican Committee who ran for county commissioner last year in District 11, was published on Friday, April 15 by Heritage Newspapers. In the column, Baublis describes the apportionment commission's April 9 public hearing in Pittsfield Township. In part, he writes: "The issue regarding the distinction between the fact finding of the Democrat Party chairman and the Republican Party chairman led to some heated debate. A member of the public asked how two men could look at the same facts and draw entirely different conclusions."

Draft minutes of that public hearing indicate that Chandler and Boonstra addressed the issue of population shifts and redistricting at the April 9 public hearing. According to draft minutes of that hearing, Chandler stated his preference for keeping the number of districts the same and not shifting boundaries, if there's not enough population shift to make a difference. Boonstra said they need to look at the data to see how the population changed within the current districts, and that he suspected there have been some changes.

The April 9 draft minutes indicate that Baublis, during public commentary at the end of the meeting, said he noticed a difference between the opinions of Boonstra and Chandler. Chandler responded by saying he has no problem working with Boonstra, and that the commission will work to come up with a consensus. According to the draft minutes, Boonstra again stated that he suspects there have been some population shifts, and that he didn't think Chandler was saying anything differently.]

Additional Public Commentary

An opportunity for additional public commentary was provided at the end of the meeting. Three people spoke.

Mary Lirones said she lives in Saline, which is part of one of the larger districts. [Saline is in District 3, represented by Republican commissioner Alicia Ping and covering the southwest portion of the county.] In talking with her friends and others, Lirones said, most people are amazed that they have a county commissioner, and certainly don’t know who that person is. None of them feel the need to contact their county commissioner, she said. Lirones said she’s in favor of reducing the number of districts, and certainly doesn’t want to see an increase.

Wes Prater commented on the advantages or disadvantages of having an even or odd number of districts. From his perspective, having an even number of commissioners isn’t a negative. If there are 20 commissioners, then you need support from 11 of them to get something passed, he noted. “I kind of like it,” he said. “It may be a bit weird, but I think it would work.”

Bill Emmerich of Ypsilanti Township, a member of the Washtenaw County Republican Committee who was a candidate for county commissioner last year in District 5, said he agreed with Prater. He also voiced support for reducing the number of districts.

Next Steps

Two additional meetings are scheduled: (1) a public hearing on Thursday, April 21 at 5:30 p.m. at Webster Township hall, 5665 Webster Church Road; and (2) on Thursday, April 28 at 5:30 p.m. at the county administration building’s lower-level conference room, 200 N. Main St., Ann Arbor.

The apportionment commission is expected to present redistricting plans and possibly select one at the April 28 meeting, which will include time for public commentary.

Resources for designing a redistricting plan – including population data and a blank county map – are available on the apportionment commission’s website.

An amendment offered by Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) prioritized the skatepark project over the Gallup renovations – based on the opportunity to leverage $400,000 of matching funds from the county, which will soon expire.

At the same meeting, the city council also acted on a recommendation from Ann Arbor’s greenbelt advisory commission (GAC) to send a letter of support for an application from Washtenaw County to the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund. Through its natural areas preservation program, the county hopes to secure matching funds from the state to help purchase a parcel in Ann Arbor Township now owned by a subsidiary of Domino’s Farms.

At its most recent meeting, GAC had recommended that the city council consider a letter of support, after Hohnke, the council’s representative to GAC, had cautioned against GAC’s sending such a letter letter before confirming that the county’s application would not dilute the city’s own chances to win grant funding. [Chronicle coverage: "Greenbelt, County Look to Partner on Farms"]

This brief was filed from the boardroom in the Washtenaw County administration building, where the council is meeting due to renovations in the city hall building. A more detailed report will follow:[link]