In Ann Arbor, is it legal to have a name and a face as cool as yours? Are they both real?

Thanks for actually taking time to give your insights. Not many people would do that, especially for someone to whom they are unfavorably inclined. I have never met someone who had nothing to teach me. Your comments have already been helpful. Further meditation on them will help me even more, I’m certain.

The Candidate Profile I created on AnnArbor.com might speak to some of your concerns, should you care to look.

If you believe your taxes are being wisely spent, and you like the direction that the city is taking, you probably ought to support the incumbent.

Thanks again for your comments,

John Floyd
Republican for Council
5th Ward

Generalities are always dangerous in this area since the data tend to be quite granular.

Here is why I think you would be disasterous:

First, your notion that you would be a lone 1/10th vote is hogwash. There are already two distinct “camps” on council that disagree with each other all the time. It is my impression that you intend to come to council NOT to be a public servant and make reasoned decisions, but because you are pissed off about two or three things that effect you personally.

Second, in my view you won’t be elected because you are running a negative campaign based on several narrow issues. Everything you say is “against” this, and “against” that. Politics 101…nobody likes a crybaby. Your issues are anti-Fuller, anti-Huron Hills RFP, anti-library lot. Anti, anti, anti. I don’t want to vote for anti, I want to vote for something I believe in…someone with a vision.

Third, as a citizen, I don’t want to vote on Fuller or the Huron Hills RFP or most other stuff either. That’s why council people are elected. They have to make the difficult decisions that inevitably make some people unhappy. If you want citizen votes for all this stuff, then I will absolutely not vote for you.

The last reason is that I view you as one of the city council citizen gadflies that come and speak every week about one thing or another. Some may view that as a positive thing…someone who is engaged, etc. I view that as someone who has an opinion on a lot of things, wants to hear themselves speak, and is wasting valuable council time.

This is only my opinion. I’m sure your message plays quite well with the Lesko crowd. I wish you the best of luck in the rest of the campaign.

Mr. Clark is correct that Washtenaw County underwent a tremendous growth spurt in the decade beginning with 2000 (and before). This can be attributed in some large proportion to urban sprawl and the housing bubble. We had migration of people from Wayne County and other points east coming here to buy large houses on large rural lots. I wouldn’t think we would want to repeat that. It will be interesting to see the results of the 2010 census.

Your calcs seem to be based on two different things which you both wrote but most people skip right over. Mr Clark clearly wrote ‘Metro Ann Arbor’ which includes the surrounding townships.

drdata wrote ‘city of Ann Arbor’ this does NOT include the townships.

Switching between thes two stats lets you prove two different ‘truths’.

My age demographics are based on Metro Ann Arbor population data, which has close to doubled in in the past 30 years. I point out the drop in percentage of youth not to indicate that there are significantly less (there aren’t numerically), just that the population has become much more homogeneous. Most studies of growth and prosperity say that’s not a good trend.

1) I never claimed that the parks were in danger, as Mr. Hohnke stated that I did. Perhaps that idea came from his script. I stated that we should vote on whether or not Huron Hills should be made available to a private developer, because I think that the charter calls for it. I did express simpathy with the idea that the city needs money, and recognized that this was one way to get it.

2) I dd not make any statement regarding police “Layoffs”. I said that we have “sent policemen home” without specifying the manner, or timing, of departure. Perhaps Mr. Hohnke’s script required him to deny layoffs, as well. It is true that the city has not “laid off” policemen during Mr Hohnke’s term in office. It is also true that Mr. Hohnke voted to spend $7 million of your dollars to get 16 officers to retire two years before they were otherwise eligible to retire. This is included in what I meant by “sending people home”, it happened during Mr. Hohnke’s tenure, and he voted for it. BTW, Mr. Greden stated at the time that the financial break-even point on this retirement offer would occur two years after the officers were eligible to retire anyway. Seemed to me like we could wait two years, see who took early retirement, and then offered buyouts to whoever was left over. We might spend less money, and get more police services to boot. I asked to see the data used for the budget analysis, and received no response.

I did not ever suggest that the fire station was closed during Mr. Hohnke’s tenure in office. He seems defensive about this.

3) Mr. Hohnke claims that the University’s garage will be an “asset” for the city. If citizens cannot park in the University’s garage (except as employees or customers of the U), and receive no rent for the building, in what sense is it an asset for city residents, regardless of who’s name is on the deed?

4) Should Amtrak ever gain control of the Norfolk & Southern tracks, should Amtrak ever decide to designate Detroit-Chicago as a high-speed rail corridor, and should Amtrak have the money to build the rails and re-build every grade crossing from Detroit to Chicago, and should Amtrak decide to build a new passenger station in Fuller Park, it still will have no relation to the University’s commuter car garage – unless sharing a bus stop is an “innovation”.

I suggest that two weeks with a backhoe, and two more weeks of a land scape crew, would leave no trace of a parking lot behind. If the lot is “unsightly”, as Mr. Hohnke claims, a parking garage is far from the only possible other use of the land.

The U’s commuters have to park somewhere. It may well be that this spot is the best location for a commuter garage. The extraneous baggage being ladled onto this possible garage, and the pretence that the land is NOT permanently transferred to the U, make me wonder why its supporters apparently believe the garage cannot stand on its own merits.

@1 Mr. Dory
We agree that ” John Floyd has come across as the best candidate, although Newk has made some very good points” (-: Newk and I disagree a lot, but I love Newk’s energy and creativity – and I respect that he is a straight-shooter. I wish he were running in a ward with an uncontested election.

We also agree that the 5th Ward needs to come to the poles 30 days from now.

Thanks for your support.

@2 Mr. Face
The one thing certain about seeking/holding pubic office is that a sizable portion of the population will despise you, no matter what you do or say. As they say, “If you want to be loved, get a dog”.

I occasionally really do run into people (universally democrats,’till now) who believe that my (potential) one vote on an eleven-member council could, by itself, bring the city to a grinding halt (one person told me to my face that she FEARED I would be both correct and persuasive – huh?) This assertion of my personal potency flatters me, I’m not sure how grounded in reality it is – I’m not sure that Steve Rapundallo, e.g., is losing sleep wondering what i might do or say. Do you have any insights you can share about what would make people think of a 1/11th vote as potentially dangerous or disasterous? Or is it that my intention to ensure that probing questions are asked routinely. in public, about council’s grandiose spending plans seems “disasterous?”.

For what it’s worth (not much, I guess), two years ago one of the things I ran on was development of Washtenaw from Arborland to downtown Ypsi, a la Tony Deriziski. Unlike Mr. Derizinski, Tax Increment Financing strikes me as the wrong way to fund almost anything because it adds overhead while reducing accountability and insuring that the city’s finite financial capital will be mis-allocated. I wonder if that, or my continued assertion that The Charm Zone – historic neighborhoods that ring downtown, plus the historic parts of downtown itself – is one of the city’s key economic development assets, is what makes you think me “disasterous”. Let me know.

@3 Rob
I appreciate your support, and am flattered by your enthusiasm. Let’s see if I can get elected dogcatcher first. Next, I have to do a good job of BEING dogcatcher…and then decide that I like it. No reason to think that 2011 – or 2012 – will be less ugly than 2010 for our budget, that would be enough to occupy me for a while.

@4 Dr. Data
Thanks for checking the numbers. 35% is more in line with my experience. Mr. Clark’s a smart guy, and must be a good student to be in the B-school. Wonder where he found his figures.

John Floyd
Republican for Council
Ward 5