Archive for November, 2009

Writing on Time magazine’s The Detroit Blog, Kristy Erdodi gives her take on the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry: “I began to dislike the entire state of Ohio (with the exception of Sandusky, which I still prefer to think of as its own separate Cedar Point-owned territory). I even began preparing for the last game of every year by playing Ohio State myself, via NCAA Football on PlayStation 2. Oh, and I found a boyfriend who used to play football for Michigan – a crucial component in my decision to commit to him. When he surprised me with tickets to my first Michigan bowl game, I knew it was love.” [Source]

In advance of the Michigan-Ohio State game, Brian Cook of MGoBlog riffs on misplaced optimism, living in Ireland, the World Cup, and the pain of being a Michigan fan at this moment in time: “But what I said after the Notre Dame game still holds, even if it’s cast in a different light by the events that followed: this is Michigan now. Though they’re still plainly deficient, they’ll be there Saturday. I don’t know if things are going to be all right anymore. But I’ll be there, too, and God help anyone who talks about ‘heart’ within earshot. Saturday contains itself. For three hours, let hope bloom, and think about the consequences afterward.” [Source]

The Tampa Bay Business Journal reports on questions being raised about 83 Degrees, an online publication recently launched in the Tampa Bay area by Detroit-based Issue Media Group. Issue Media also owns Concentrate, a similar venture in the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area. From the report: “Seen as a way to spread an upbeat message about the wider positive assets that comprise Tampa Bay and its business community, 83 Degrees is generating discourse because of its rather unusual approach at financing its operation: It uses money from government sources and quasi-public agencies, along with annualized advertising contracts with private companies, to fund its operations, including staff salaries.” [Source]

In a recent report on a city council meeting, we mis-reported the amount of the Local Finance District budget amendment approved by the council.  The correct amount is $205,000.  We note the error here and have corrected it in the original report.

Ann Arbor City Council Meeting (Nov. 16, 2009) Part II: The length of Monday’s city council meeting, which did not adjourn until nearly 1 a.m., might be blamed on the lengthy public commentary and deliberations on downtown zoning and design guidelines.

But it would have been a long meeting even without the downtown planning content, which we’ve summarized in a separate report: “Downtown Planning Process Forges Ahead.”

Before postponing the acceptance of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP), the council got a detailed update on how things stand on the city’s dispute with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) over Argo Dam.

An agenda item authorizing capital improvements in West Park prompted a lengthy discussion of how the Percent for Art program works.

Some public commentary calling abstractly for greater support for inventors and entrepreneurs was followed later in the meeting by an appropriation from the city’s LDFA to Ann Arbor SPARK to fund more business acceleration services.

A consent agenda item on the purchase of parking meters was pulled out and postponed.

The council also heard a detailed report from the city administrator, which covered emergency response time to a recent house fire, ADA-compliant sidewalk ramps, responses to the library lot Request for Proposals, updates on the task forces for Mack Pool and Ann Arbor’s senior center, staff reductions in planning and development, the East Stadium bridges, as well as the upcoming budget retreat on Dec. 5.

Stephen Kunselman’s (Ward 3) use of attachments to the agenda to document questions for city staff received some critique.

Also worth noting, the five winners of recent council elections were sworn in, and Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) was elected as mayor pro tem. Those topics in more detail below. [Full Story]

Michigan plays Ohio State tomorrow, for the 106th time. The Buckeyes have already wrapped up the Rose Bowl, while the Wolverines are fighting to secure a bowl bid. But ESPN viewers still consider this rivalry the greatest in American sports. What most sports fans don’t know is, this one goes back before football even existed.

In 1833, Michigan was still a territory, while Ohio had already been a state for three decades. When Michigan started making its pitch for statehood, the surveyors had to figure out exactly where Michigan ended, and Ohio began. They soon discovered they’d gotten it wrong the first time: Toledo should have belonged to Michigan all along.

No big deal, you say? Well, don’t forget: at that time, the main thoroughfare between the Northeast and the Midwest was the Erie Canal – and Toledo was a major stop.

When Michigan claimed it for its own, Ohio blocked Michigan’s bid for statehood. Former president John Adams, who had returned to Congress, wrote, “Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other.” [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board meeting (Nov. 18, 2009): At its Wednesday meeting, the AATA board took the first of the steps that CEO Michael Ford had recommended at their meeting on Oct. 29: adopt a vision statement and start developing a plan for a countywide system. The board will continue to address Ford’s recommendations by holding  a special meeting on Dec. 8, at 5:30 p.m. at AATA headquarters to discuss formation of an Act 196 authority.

The board’s resolutions were complemented by a treasurer’s report from Ted Annis that laid out a possible budget within which the countywide system could be designed. Presentation of that report revealed some conceptual differences among board members in their preferred approach to engaging an outside consultant to do the countywide system design: (i) Here’s a budget, now design the system; or  (ii) Design us a system, then tell us how much it would cost.

Key to the budget that Annis proposed was the assumed elimination of Ann Arbor’s transportation millage – on Annis’ assumption, Ann Arbor residents would pay the same countywide millage as other county residents if such a millage were approved.

In other business, the board approved service changes to Route #2 in northeast Ann Arbor.

Also generating discussion was the plan to repair, refurbish or reconstruct the Blake Transit Center in downtown Ann Arbor, which was described as “dilapidated.”

The board also received an explanation for the decreased ridership compared to last year, and a report on the move to different office space by the getDowntown program. [Full Story]

Motor Trend magazine reports on a new form of concrete being developed by UM researchers, called Engineered Cement Composite (ECC): “With traditional brittle concrete, a structure would become unable to carry a load when the concrete has been stretched just 0.01% beyond its original size. Cracks form, the concrete fails and the structure collapses. ECC, however, stays together and is even safe to continue using when stretched up to 5% beyond its original size. That’s the equivalent of taking a 100-foot long slab of concrete and stretching it five feet longer.” [Source]

A post on UMTailgate.com looks ahead to Saturday’s Michigan/Ohio State game: “I watched a mashup of Michigan highlights against Ohio State on YouTube yesterday. The video quality was really poor. I thought about how somebody should remix the videos in HD to make it more pleasing to the eye. Then I realized that the videos were so bad because there hasn’t been a highlight of a Michigan-Ohio State game that Michigan has won that was shot in HD. That’s how long it’s been. Incoming freshman at the University of Michigan were in 7th grade the last time Michigan beat Ohio State. ” [Source]

The Eastern Echo, Eastern Michigan University’s student newspaper, publishes a review of Garam Korean Restaurant, a Korean restaurant near EMU’s campus in Ypsilanti: “The last main dish that was sampled was the restaurant’s take on Mandookuk, another soup dish that is on a milder note comprised of a lighter bean paste or miso base. The soup featured around six or so mandu, or Korean style pork dumplings, as well as ample amounts of carrots and rice cake slices. The dumplings also had a sort of side dipping sauce that offset the soup’s neutral flavors. The dumplings were rather large, which is a plus for the price point, but kind of a tricky thing to maneuver if you aren’t quite accustomed … [Full Story]

The Chronicle incorrectly stated that the Ann Arbor District Library will pay to move the archives of the former Ann Arbor News. The move will be paid for by the Herald Publishing Co., which owned the newspaper and is granting the library rights to digitize a large portion of the archives. We note the error here, and have corrected it in the original article.

Ann Arbor District Library board meeting (Nov. 17, 2009): Board members were briefed on Monday about a pending deal with the Herald Publishing Co., owners of the former Ann Arbor News, which is allowing the library to digitize the newspaper’s archives of photographs and newspaper clippings dating back decades. The 174-year-old Ann Arbor News closed in July of 2009.

Josie Parker, AADL’s director, said that accepting the agreement is likely the most important decision the board would make during its tenure, and could serve as a model for other libraries in the future. She also cautioned that though the library isn’t paying for the collection, it’s not free. “From the moment we get it, it’ll cost us,” she said.

Several library employees who are keen to get started on the project attended the meeting, including one librarian who gave Parker a high five when the meeting ended, to celebrate the board’s decision to move ahead with the project.

The board also spent a portion of the meeting reviewing and modifying a draft of its strategic initiatives, and got an update on AADL’s financial performance via a report on the financial audit for fiscal 2009. And performance of a different sort was reflected in two awards that the library recently received, which Parker described to the board, earning her and the rest of the staff a round of applause. [Full Story]

The Michigan Daily held its first student beer-brewing competition on Sunday at Arbor Brewing Co. The 25 entries were judged by ABC owner Matt Greff, Jolly Pumpkin owner Ron Jeffries, and Alex Petit of the Ann Arbor Brewers Guild. According to the article, the student newspaper “held this contest to create a forum for what seems to be a growing number of students who are taking up brewing as a hobby.” [Source]

Larry Krieg, writing on his blog “Wake Up, Washtenaw!” addresses the question of whether a countywide public transit system is affordable by calculating how much residents would save if they gave up one of their cars: “Supposing every household that could, would give up one car and use transit. The theoretical savings for Washtenaw County would be 1,038,286,200, though of course that is unrealistic. Instead, let’s suppose 20% of multi-vehicle households decided to get along with one less. The resulting county-wide savings would be $207,657,240.” He argues that a portion of what individual households save could support a countywide system. [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports on GM’s plan to potentially move 1,500 employees out of its downtown Detroit Renaissance Center headquarters, and what that might mean for the city’s economy. The article quotes Christopher Leinberger, a UM professor of real estate: “GM moving out some office workers will be a blow to the office market downtown, but it should have a pretty nominal effect on the rest of the revitalization effort in downtown Detroit.” [Source]

Local candidates for the Michigan legislature are jumping into races for both the state House and Senate, making for a potentially crowded primary season next summer – and creating openings in elected offices closer to home.

Most notably, as many as four Washtenaw County commissioners could leave the 11-member board to seek state office in 2010.

In this report, we’ll give an update on the 18th District state Senate race, as well as House races in the 52nd, 53rd, 54th and 55th districts. You’ll find out who’s running as the “hot dog man,” which political rumor is described by an elected official as “funny,” how many candidates have Facebook groups, and who expects to spend more than $65,000 on his campaign.

All of this and more, after the jump. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (Nov. 16, 2009) Part I: The Ann Arbor city council’s Monday night meeting, which started at its usual 7 p.m. time, stretched to almost 1 a.m. before it concluded. In this part of the meeting report, we focus on planning and development issues, which contributed to the unusually long meeting.

On the main planning question before the council – the A2D2 rezoning package for downtown Ann Arbor – the council approved the zoning package with its two basic categories of D1 (core) and D2 (interface) zones.

Neither the effort to postpone consideration of the zoning ordinance – led by Sabra Briere (Ward 1) – nor the attempt to reduce maximum height limits in the South University area – led by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) and Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) – met with any success.

The maximum building height for the majority of D1 areas is thus 180 feet, with the exception of a swatch along East Huron and in South University, which have maximums of 150 feet. D2 areas have a maximum  building height of 60 feet.

There were also no amendments passed to accommodate the request to change the proposed zoning of an individual parcel at 1320 S. University from D2 (interface) to D1 (core), or to change the proposed zoning of an area along East Huron Street from D1 to D2. [Full Story]

The Washtenaw Voice – Washtenaw Community College’s student newspaper – reports that WCC’s board of trustees have approved an $11 million, 600-space parking structure, which could be completed in 2011 to help relieve the parking crunch on campus. The structure would be located behind the Occupational Education Building, next to the Liberal Arts and Science Building, according to the article. [Source]

Monday night’s meeting of the Ann Arbor city council was a test of stamina, with a public hearing and council deliberations on the A2D2 zoning ordinances pushing the meeting’s end time well past midnight.

The Chronicle’s meeting report will be presented in a separate article. [Spoiler: The A2D2 zoning ordinance was eventually passed – with an unaltered maximum building height limit of 150 feet in the D1 areas of South University.] In this piece, we highlight how readers who are interested in a blow-by-blow account of those deliberations will now more easily find the exact spot in the online video where those deliberations take place. [Video for the Nov. 16 meeting has not yet been uploaded.]

We then use the indexed video links to aid in our presentation of an uncorrected error in the Nov. 5 meeting minutes, which were accepted by the council last night – an error that in this case could amount to a violation of the Open Meetings Act. On a related issue, we use the embedded indexed video links to highlight an additional possible Open Meetings Act violation in the official noticing of a special meeting that immediately preceded the regular meeting of the city council on Nov. 5. [Full Story]