Comments on: Town Hall Begins Budget Conversation

By: Julie Roth

Julie Roth — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:16:41 +0000

OK, fair enough. I guess I just feel like these cuts are so egregious and upsetting that I would expect something plastered across the front page of the Ann Arbor News, with subsequent letters to the editor, etc.

By: my two cents

my two cents — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:56:38 +0000

Exactly how was this buried? The cuts for the senior center and Leslie science center will not take place for a year. The intensity of your responses makes it seem like this is being voted on next week.

I think a year is plenty of time to discuss these issues. The city explained this issue at a public townhall where they gave ample notification.

You might not like what they are proposing for the 2011 budget, but I have not seen the city try to to hide the budget cuts. That is just rheteric.

For those interested in these issues, make a case for it and present it to the public and city council. You have a year.

By: Julie Roth

Julie Roth — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:52:54 +0000

Agreed, Barbara, about burying the info about the Senior Center. And even MORE buried is the cutting off funding to the Leslie Science and Nature Center, and Project Grow! Seriously, these are the things that make Ann Arbor worth being here…. and that support community here, which we need now more than ever. I am so disheartened.

By: Barbara Annis

Barbara Annis — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:30:55 +0000

Thank you once again for getting the word out. Burying the closing of the senior center in discussion of road grading and snow removal overtime is no accident. We were not meant to know about it until it was done. I hope this generation of seniors, raised with a history of civic involvement, will not sit back and let it happen.

By: Bob Martel

Bob Martel — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:11:24 +0000

The long term problem that no one wants to talk about is that just like the US auto companies which are little more than a glorified pension/health plan with an auto company coincidentally attached to it, due to the promises made to past and current employees, municipal governments are also becoming pension plans that happen to also have some governmental responsibility. This problem is just starting to surface and is being magnified by an eroding tax base. Until municipalities either switch to defined contribution plans or the citizens agree to be taxed to support these obligations, municipal budgets will die a death of a thousand cuts…..