Archive for August, 2010

A brownfield plan for the Zingerman’s Deli expansion in Ann Arbor was approved by the Washtenaw County board of commissioners at their Aug. 4, 2010 meeting. Approval means that the business will be eligible to seek up to $817,000 in Michigan Business Tax brownfield redevelopment credits. The Ann Arbor city council has already approved the brownfield plan, as well as the project’s overall site plan. However, because the site is located in the Old Fourth Ward, the city’s historic district commission will also need to give its approval for the site plan, in order for the project to be built.

This report, filed live from the county board meeting, will be followed by a detailed article: [link]

At their Aug. 4, 2010 meeting, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners unanimously approved a brownfield plan for the Near North affordable housing development in Ann Arbor. The project, located just north of the Ann Arbor DDA district, is eligible for brownfield status because of cleanup needed on the 1.19-acre site along 626-724 N. Main St., south of Summit. Gaining brownfield status will allow the project to seek up to $720,000 in Michigan Business Tax brownfield redevelopment credits.

This report, filed live from the county board meeting, will be followed by a detailed article: [link]

Voters will be making a choice in November about whether to renew a tax to support Washtenaw County’s natural areas preservation program. At their Aug. 4, 2010 meeting, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners voted unanimously to put the NAPP millage renewal on the Nov. 2, 2010 ballot. The 10-year millage was first approved by voters in 2000, and will have generated about $27.5 million by the time it expires. The 0.2409 mill tax is expected to raise roughly $3.5 million in annual revenues if it passes.

This report, filed live from the county board meeting, will be followed by a detailed article: [link]

Kelly Belknap was approved as Washtenaw County’s new finance director at the county board of commissioners Aug. 4, 2010 meeting, at a starting salary of $110,000. The vote was unanimous. She replaces Pete Ballios, who retired after 38 years with the county.

This report, filed live from the county board meeting, will be followed by a detailed article: [link]

Ford Motor Co. plans to hire 27% more UAW workers for its U.S. plants than originally anticipated, according to a Bloomberg report – including more union workers at its Rawsonville plant in Ypsilanti Township. The company had previously agreed to employ 1,559 UAW workers to replace work traditionally done by suppliers, but has now added an extra 416 jobs. Ford attributes the increase to flexible labor contracts, which allowed the company to hire union members at a lower wage. Gov. Jennifer Granholm says of the auto industry, “We can’t claim victory yet, but I’m really pleased we’ve started to emerge from a very, very difficult period of time.” [Source]

Detroit Free Press columnist Tom Walsh considers Ann Arbor businessman Rick Snyder’s recent Republican primary win for governor. Walsh compares Snyder, a former Gateway CEO, to 2006 Republican candidate Dick DeVos, an even wealthier businessman. While DeVos aligned himself as staunchly conservative, perhaps Snyder has a more centrist perspective that may aid him in the general election, Walsh writes. Sandy Baruah, president of the Detroit Regional Chamber told Walsh, “What Michigan needs is somebody who can bring the state together and create jobs.” [Source]

In an election report that included results from the city council race in Ward 1, we transposed results for challenger Sumi Kailasapathy in precinct 9, where she outpolled Sandi Smith by 190 to 126. The mistake meant that we also slightly inflated Smith’s overall percentage-wise margin of victory, which was in fact 55% to Kailasapathy’s 45%. We note the error here and have corrected the original report.

Yousef Rabhi outpolled three rivals to gain the Democratic primary win for the Washtenaw County board of commissioners District 11 seat, according to unofficial results from the county clerk’s office. He received just one more vote than his closest competitor, Mike Fried.

In District 10, incumbent Democrat Conan Smith defeated challenger Danielle Mack, taking 66% (2,563) of the votes.

There are four districts on the county board that represent parts of Ann Arbor. In the other two districts – 8 and 9 – incumbent Democrats Barbara Bergman and Leah Gunn were unopposed in the primary. [Full Story]

The Detroit News publishes the text of Rick Snyder’s victory speech, after the Ann Arbor businessman secured the Republican primary win in the gubernatorial race: “For people who believe our government system works well, our political system works well, vote for the other candidate. For people who believe our government is broke, our political system is broke, it is time for a catalyst. I want to represent you, as someone from the real world showing up to Lansing with real worlds results.” [Source]

With final unofficial results now tabulated on the Washtenaw County clerk’s website, results for the four contested city races in the Democratic primary show clear wins for all incumbents: John Hieftje for mayor, Sandi Smith in Ward 1, Margie Teall in Ward 4, and Carsten Hohnke in Ward 5.

The closest of the races was in Ward 1, where challenger Sumi Kailasapathy polled 42% of the vote to Smith’s 58% (769 to 1,068 votes) 45% of the vote to Smith’s 55% (833 to 1,004 votes).

In the two other contested council races, challengers received roughly 30% of the vote. In Ward 4, challenger Jack Eaton received 31% to Teall’s 69% (642 to 1,448). In Ward 5, Lou Glorie received 28% to Hohnke’s 72% (933 to 2,415).

In the mayor’s race, however, the margin was even greater. Hieftje took 84% of the vote to challenger Patricia Lesko’s 16% (10,058  to 1,869).

In November, Hieftje will face independent challenger Steve Bean.

In Ward 5, Carsten Hohnke will face John Floyd, who won the uncontested Republican primary on Tuesday, along with independent Newcombe Clark. Teall and Smith are unopposed in November. In Ward 2 and Ward 3, incumbents Tony Derezinski and Christopher Taylor did not face challenges in the Democratic primary and will also be unopposed in November. [Full Story]

In two tight races, Rebekah Warren and Jeff Irwin are winners of the Democratic primary for state legislative seats in districts representing Ann Arbor.

Warren outpolled rivals Pam Byrnes and Thomas Partridge with 55.58%  – or 13,113 votes – in the race for state Senate District 18. Byrnes came in with 40.43% (9,539 votes), with Partridge at 3.85% (908 votes). The district covers the cities of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and the townships of Ann Arbor, Augusta, Dexter, Freedom, Lima, Lyndon, Northfield, Salem, Scio, Sharon, Superior, Sylvan, Webster and Ypsilanti. It’s currently represented by Liz Brater, who is term-limited.

Irwin’s race was even closer – he won his race against Ned Staebler with just 51% of the votes cast and, if elected in November, will be representing District 53 in the state House. Irwin brought in 5,051 votes compared to Staebler’s 4,845. The district, currently represented by Warren, takes in Ann Arbor and parts of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield and Scio townships.

In the governor’s race, Rick Snyder of Ann Arbor – who carried the field statewide for the Republican nomination – did well in Washtenaw County, getting 49% of the votes in the GOP primary. Democrat Virg Bernero beat Andy Dillon with 65% of the votes in Washtenaw County – he won the statewide nomination as well.

In November, Warren will face the winner of the state Senate Republican primary, John Hochstetler, who beat rival Gary Wellings with 59% of the votes (7,973). For the state House race in District 53, Irwin will go up against Republican Chase Ingersoll, who was unopposed in the primary. [Full Story]

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Rick Snyder of Ann Arbor will win the GOP gubernatorial nomination: “Snyder held a 10-point lead over U.S. Rep Pete Hoekstra, 37% to 27%, in the five-way GOP race, according to a Detroit Free Press/Channel 7 results from a sampling of 79 key Michigan voter precincts around the state. Attorney General Mike Cox had 22%, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard had 13% and Sen. Tom George had 2%. Snyder will face Democrat Virg Bernero, who topped Andy Dillon in the Democratic primary, according to the precinct survey.” [Source]

In two Ward 4 precincts, incumbent mayor John Hieftje beat challenger Patricia Lesko by a wide margin: 360 to 51 in Precinct 4, and 133 to 23 in Precinct 8. The city council incumbent for Ward 4 – Margie Teall – also won over challenger Jack Eaton: 291 to 101 in Precinct 4, and 118 to 31 in Precinct 8.

In state races, Ned Staebler edged out Jeff Irwin in both precincts in the race for state House District 53: 211 to 182 in Precinct 4, and 79 to 63 in Precinct 8. Rebekah Warren beat Pam Byrnes in the state Senate District 18 race: 278 to 108 in Precinct 4, and 82 to 62 in Precinct 8.

Incumbent Ann Arbor mayor John Hieftje received decisively more votes than challenger Patricia Lesko in Ward 1′s Precinct 5 (267 to Lesko’s 61) and Precinct 6 (118 to Lesko’s 26). For the city council race in those precincts, incumbent Sandi Smith outpolled challenger Sumi Kailasapathy by a narrower margin: 184 to 139 in Precinct 5, and 80 to 62 in Precinct 6.

For the state House District 53 race, Jeff Irwin beat Ned Staebler in both precincts: 197 to 110 in Precinct 5, and 73 to 60 in Precinct 6. In the race for state Senate District 18, Rebekah Warren won decisively in the precincts against Pam Byrnes: 239 to 71 in Precinct 5, and 115 to 21 in Precinct 6.

AmericaJR.com reports on sales at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, based on interviews with artists. The answers varied, without any clear consensus. Stormy weather and temperatures reaching 90 degrees dogged the last two days of the fair, traditionally the time when sales are highest. Ceramic artist Jack Charney said sales were unequivocally down, while fiber artist Michael Kensinger commented, “Oh, it’s dandy, it’s fine. A lot of my regular customers are back, a lot of the friendships over the years that I’ve developed here.” [Source]

The Thomas More Law Center, based in Ann Arbor, has filed a brief supporting Arizona’s immigration law. Hours before the announcement, federal District Court Judge Susan Bolton had ruled to block the law’s most important conditions. Richard Thompson, the law center’s president and chief counsel, said, “This is a matter of America’s sovereignty and security, and every patriotic American must get involved. If we can’t defend our borders from attack by illegal immigrants, in time we will lose our country.” [Source]

The Chronicle will be spending this primary election day visiting as many of the 30 polling places in wards 1, 4 and 5 as we can – those are the wards in which city council races are being contested this year among Democrats.

Sign outside the Michigan Union Building.

[If you're still doing your homework on candidates, click here for The Chronicle's election coverage to date.]

Polls are open until 8 p.m. We’ll report results as we hear about them, filed on The Chronicle’s Civic News Ticker.

If you see us out and about, give a shout. We’ll shout back. The fun starts after the jump. [Full Story]

It’s primary election day. No doubt every one of you Chronicle readers is voting today – if you haven’t already done it by absentee ballot. However, you can almost bet that many of your neighbors won’t.

Home plate at Allmendinger Park. It's been scuffed up, even though it hasn't endured a primary election.

On Monday, Washtenaw County clerk Larry Kestenbaum told The Chronicle that he didn’t have a specific forecast in terms of percentage turnout, but he noted that the relatively high turnout he’d been expecting didn’t seem to be panning out in the absentee ballot application and return rates. For the city of Ann Arbor, we’ve been tracking the city clerk’s absentee ballot return reports, and through July 31, 3,092 had been returned for today’s election. That compares with 2,578 absentee ballots cast in August 2006 and 2,803 in August 2008. It’s certainly an upward trend.

But we’re more interested in draft-horse governance than thoroughbred races (and I promise we won’t beat that analogy like a dead horse too much longer). So we decided to see what kind of base-level knowledge people in Ann Arbor had about their elected officials. Base level, as in: Who represents you on the city council?

And what better day than election day to present the results of our admittedly informal survey.

We didn’t ask about the mayor-ship in our survey, or state-level races. But this column is as good a venue as any to speculate about how the gubernatorial horse race on the Republican side might affect the Ann Arbor Democratic primary for mayor.

That’s like suggesting that the games in the American League West Division could have an impact on the outcome of games in the National League East. But there’s got to be a way to transition out of this awful horse race analogy. And a pennant race, yeah, that just might be the ticket. [Full Story]

The cardboard box sat on the counter of the Ann Arbor planning department’s sixth floor city hall offices, stuffed with copies of the Fuller Road Station site plan, which was submitted to the city Monday morning.

Multiple copies of the site plan for Fuller Road Station were filed this morning with the city's planning department. The hand in the photo belongs to Matt Kowalski of the city's planning staff. (Photos by the writer.)

The submission of the site plan – 44 oversized pages of details about the project’s engineering, architecture and landscaping – marks the start of the formal approval process with the city, after months of debate and discussion. The $46 million project is proposed for city-owned property south of Fuller Road and north of the University of Michigan medical campus. The site plan is for the first phase of the project – a five-level parking structure and bus depot. Officials envision that a later phase will include a station for commuter and high-speed rail, though funding for that is still uncertain.

Jeff Kahan, the city planner who’ll be shepherding the project through the approval process, told The Chronicle that it will be on the planning commission’s agenda no earlier than Sept. 21. [Full Story]

The Detroit News reports on the sensitivity of social media sites for employees and employers. With the rise of Facebook, YouTube, and other sites, employee’s complaints about their employers can become public. Domino’s, the Ann Arbor-based pizza chain, handled such a situation last year, when one employee filmed another putting cheese in his nose and saying the food would be delivered to customers. Domino’s believes the incident led to a 1% to 2% drop in sales nationwide. While businesses see benefits to social media, such as reaching out to customers, they also see its damaging effects on a firm’s reputation. Domino’s spokesman Tim McIntyre commented that “silly things can come back to haunt you.” [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports that two Michigan students — Allen Kim and Daniel Pearson — were chosen as finalists in a national competition by Entrepreneur Magazine. Kim, a UM senior, created an online rental store for baby clothing. Pearson, a Central Michigan senior, introduced a hybrid smart card that technologically combines multiple credit cards. Doug Neal, managing director of UM’s Center for Entrepreneurship, said that such interest in entrepreneurship may be inspired by Michigan’s economy: “As economic conditions deteriorate and unemployment rises, people take those opportunities to strike out on their own. They end up taking charge of their own destiny as opposed to having things happen to them.” [Source]