Archive for June, 2009

Here we go again. After spending years trying to unsuccessfully prop up two stagnant automobile companies using various tactics, corrective action by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court has now sent Gov. Granholm and her economic team scurrying off on a new and different project.

Earlier this month, the politicos did a groundbreaking for the $44 million I-94/Westnedge Avenue road widening project. Vice President Joe Biden espoused the view that “we are quite literally paving the road to recovery right here in Kalamazoo.” From one lifelong Democrat to another: Say it ain’t so, Joe! $44 million won’t do it, and this project – while offering temporary construction jobs – is just another “plug the dike” tactic as Michigan searches for political leadership that will offer a sound long-term strategy for economic growth in Michigan. [Full Story]

The Chronicle has previously written about local internet security firm Arbor Networks in connection with their work against the Conficker virus. Now they’re looking at the situation in Iran through the window of internet security, up to and following the recent elections there.  Craig Labovitz  has written a piece on the  Iranian firewall. And Jose Nazario has posted an article on Iranian DDoS activity.

On the Trusty Getto blog, Cameron Getto posts an open letter to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who cited the $500,000 in stimulus funds earmarked for Ypsilanti’s Freighthouse renovation as one of the 100 worst projects being funded. Getto writes: “Those of us here in Ypsilanti who pay our taxes and love our Freighthouse deserve better. You owe everyone in my community an apology, sir. If you are the ‘watchdog’ you claim to be, and if you take your elected position seriously, you will re-check the basis for every single criticism in your report and issue a correction for every error you find. Moreover, you will remove the Ypsilanti Freighthouse from your list, and you will admit that the project is … [Full Story]

John U. Bacon’s commentary on Michigan Radio this week looks at the aftermath of a gender discrimination lawsuit against the Michigan High School Athletic Association, which resulted in some girls’ sports changing seasons: “Once lawyers determine that something is legally defensible, nothing else seems to matter – including the law of unintended consequences. High schools across the state are now struggling to find enough coaches, referees and facilities to meet the demands of running boys and girls teams in the same season. Some schools have to schedule three boys and three girls basketball teams for one gym every day – which means someone has to start practice at 10 p.m. on a school night.” [Source]

A Wall Street sign at the intersection of Canal.

Amid a slew of multimillion-dollar projects that Tim Slottow presented to the University of Michigan regents on Thursday, one was notable for not moving forward – a controversial parking structure and office building previously proposed for Wall Street.

Slottow, UM’s chief financial officer, told regents at their monthly meeting that the university’s purchase of the former Pfizer property – a deal that closed on Tuesday – resulted in enough additional parking spaces to meet their current demands for the medical campus. Regents had given initial approval for the $48.6 million parking project at their September 2008 meeting, despite vocal protests from residents in the Wall Street neighborhood. It would have been a structure with 500 parking spaces and offices for UM’s Business Engagement Center, which now leases space at 1214 S. University Ave. Slottow characterized the project as being on a “pause” indefinitely. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (June 15, 2009): The council covered a lot of ground at its Monday night meeting, much of it related to streets and transportation. Besides dealing with a raft of garden-variety street closings that generated some unexpected “controversy,” the council put in place a plan to delay the installation of some parking meters in near downtown neighborhoods, launched a safety campaign, and funded a bike path, pedestrian amenities and the city’s portion of a north-south connector feasibility study.

But it wasn’t the bike path that drew more than 20 people to speak at a public hearing. That turnout was for the adoption of the Downtown Plan. It was ultimately adopted as amended by the city’s planning commission so that the D2 buffer in the South University area is a small area in the southeast corner.

The expected vote on the City Place project along Fifth Avenue was delayed again after additional technical errors by planning staff were discovered related to the planning commission’s April meeting. That project will now start over with the planning commission public hearing.

Audience members who waited until the end of the long meeting heard Mayor John Hieftje appoint a subcommittee of councilmembers to meet with the DDA’s “mutually beneficial” committee to discuss the parking agreement between the city and the DDA.  In the discussion after the jump, we provide a record produced in the preliminary response to a Chronicle FOIA, which dates the renegotiation of the parking agreement to as early as September 2008 and connects it to discussions between the mayor and a candidate for the DDA board, Keith Orr, who was eventually appointed to the board.  The record shows that his appointment was not contingent on a commitment to a particular vote on the parking agreement. [Full Story]

Photographer Mark Bialek, whose work can often be found in the pages of The Ann Arbor Observer, has released a new series of photographs of Ann Arbor at night. The genesis of the project can be dated back to at least two years ago, when Bialek discusses it in an interview.   [Source for Ann Arbor Nights]

The momentous mixed with the mundane on Tuesday, as a phalanx of attorneys and real estate professionals converged on the Washtenaw County Clerk/Register of Deeds office to file paperwork for Pfizer’s sale of its Ann Arbor property to the University of Michigan.

From right: At the counter of the county clerk’s office on Main Street, senior clerk Susan Bracken Case reviews documents from UM’s purchase of the Pfizer property, while chief deputy clerk Jim Dries, Liberty Title co-president Tom Richardson and Liberty Title vice president Matt Keir look on.

Because documents for the sale of Chrysler’s Chelsea Proving Grounds were also filed that day in a separate transaction – a coincidence of timing – it marked the largest amount of transfer tax ever recorded in a single day for the county. Neither the purchase prices nor the taxes paid for those deals were disclosed. (See the end of this article for more information about how the real estate transfer tax works.) But for the Pfizer sale, the check received by the county was enough to make senior clerk Susan Bracken Case gasp, then grin. [Full Story]

The Detroit News publishes a feature on the Heidelberg’s Club Above in downtown Ann Arbor: ”The Club Above has live music on Thursdays and Saturdays under the name Rock and Roll Circus, which is booked by (Claudia) Leo’s company No Fun Entertainment. The Circus includes everything from live rock, rockabilly, punk and pop to DJ-ed dance parties. Leo says she also wants to add other unique elements to the live shows. ‘We are going to have a Reverend guitar night in August,’ she says. ‘Reverend guitars are made in Michigan, so they are close to the community.’” [Source]

Dick Sampier behind the counter at his vacuum sales and repair shop at 2165 W. Stadium Blvd. in Ann Arbor.

Boxes upon boxes filled with vacuum parts and accessories pack Dick Sampier’s small shop behind Stadium Hardware, a shop so off the beaten path that it might go unnoticed unless you were looking for it. But customers find it because they are looking for it – Dick Sampier Vacuum Sales and Repair is one of the last remaining vacuum repair stores in the Ann Arbor area.

Sampier, who opened the business in 1985 and is the sole employee, can often be found in the back of the store, either answering customers’ questions or working on one of the 10 or so vacuums he fixes each day. Sampier says he considers himself more of an artist than a mechanic, and he’s earned a reputation as someone who can fix even the most tricky mechanical problems.

So how does someone end up starting a vacuum repair business, and then stick with it for nearly 25 years? [Full Story]

Jean Jennings, editor of Ann Arbor-based Automobile Magazine, reviews P.J. O’Rourke’s collection of essays, “Driving Like Crazy”: “The infamous and ill-fated Baja road- trip story, now titled ‘A Test of Man and Machines That We Flunked,’ has an introduction that’s longer than the entire original crazy story. I was in the car with O’Rourke – both of us puffing away on Marlboros and wondering aloud how everyone else could stay awake without smoking – when we crested a hill and found tech editor Csaba Csere standing, dazed, in the middle of the road next to the Dodge 600, steam pouring from the radiator. ‘I never ducked,’ he said. ‘I never ducked,’ he repeated. He’d hit a cow, which did a horn … [Full Story]

USA Today reports on protests by Iranian students studying in the U.S., who are angered by the recent presidential election in their homeland. The article quotes a UM graduate student, who helped organize a protest in Ann Arbor: ”We definitely think the results were a fraud. It’s not a legitimate election and didn’t reflect the will of the people.” [Source]

Reuters takes a look at the Obama administration’s regulatory overhaul of the banking industry, and quotes UM law professor Adam Pritchard: “Legislators may make it clear that the systemic risk regulator’s authority trumps other agencies. It is possible to avoid constitutional issues by allowing the president to select the head of the uber-risk regulator, subject to Senate approval.” [Source]

A little more than four hours after the Ann Arbor city planning commission meeting had started, planning commissioners voted – to extend their deliberations past 11 p.m.  And a bit before midnight, the body voted on the Near North planned unit development project proposed for North Main Street. Although the vote was 5-2 to recommend approval to the city council, that outcome counted as a “technical denial.” At least six votes are required in order for planning commission to make a recommendation to council.

After the meeting, developer Bill Godfrey told The Chronicle that he intended to bring the project forward to the city council despite the technical denial, pointing out that two of the commission’s members had been absent for that evening’s vote – Craig Borum and Tony Derezinski. Derezinski (Ward 2) is the city council’s representative on the planning commission.

The meeting marked the final planning commission meeting for Ethel Potts, who has served two 3-year terms on the body.  [Full Story]

Iranian students protest on the Diag. On the right is Eugene Dariush Daneshvar.

The Chronicle first met Eugene Dariush Daneshvar in the context of “home” – he attended a Wall Street neighborhood meeting we covered in December 2008, where he was concerned about how his home in the Riverside Park Place condominiums would be affected by a University of Michigan building project.

On Tuesday evening we encountered him again, also in the context of home – this time, he was on the Diag with about 100 other Iranian students and faculty, protesting voter fraud in recently held elections in their homeland. [Full Story]

Detroit News columnist and Ann Arbor resident Michael Hodges writes a profile of the Washtenaw Dairy: “Tucked on a corner behind an unpretentious cement facade and surrounded by clapboard homes, the dairy has for generations been the defining element in its turn-of-the-century neighborhood – a vestige, if you will, of an older America, before modern zoning codes banned businesses in residential areas.” [Source]

The blog for the Huron River Paddlers has a post and photos of an event on Saturday, June 13 that aimed to highlight whitewater kayaking: “The potential to create a whitewater feature such as a standing wave or hydraulic could exist if Argo Dam is removed. Argo Pond occurs along one of the steepest drops of the entire Huron River watershed.” [Source]

June 17, 1969: Officers confer as the crowd swarms on to South University. (Photo courtesy of Jay Cassidy.)

Ann Arbor, like many college towns, is usually a quiet place during the summer months. Most of the students are away on break, the university goes into hibernation, and a calm descends upon the city as residents sit back to enjoy a few months of peace and quiet.

During the turbulent 1960s the summer break was even more eagerly anticipated, offering as it did a brief respite from the regular succession of student-led sit-ins, protests, demonstrations, and strikes that occupied the fall and winter months. But the influx of large numbers of non-student “street people” (i.e., hippie youths) in the closing years of the decade made those last few summers of the ’60s decidedly less peaceful.

Forty years ago this week, the normally sleepy summertime streets of Ann Arbor were violently awoken by a series of violent and occasionally bloody clashes between police and a motley crowd of hippies, radicals, teenagers, university students, and town rowdies. Ostensibly at issue was the creation of a pedestrian mall, or “people’s park,” on South University Avenue – a four-block shopping district adjacent to the University of Michigan campus that caters primarily to a student clientele.

Even in those “interesting” times, the violence in Ann Arbor attracted national attention – including that of J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI. After the fighting was over, the national press lost interest and moved on to other, juicier topics. But on the local scene the repercussions of that summer would reverberate for years after.

The Detroit Free Press would refer to the four nights of conflict as “The Battle of Ann Arbor.” [Full Story]

The Washington Post publishes an article exploring the possibility of election fraud in Iran, and quotes Walter Mebane Jr., a UM political science professor and an expert on detecting electoral fraud: ”There are suspicious elements here, but there’s no solid evidence of fraud.” [Source]