Archive for September, 2011

At a special meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners approved new agreements with three unions representing county employees, including its largest employee union, AFSCME Local 2733. Commissioner Dan Smith (R-District 2) cast the lone vote against the agreements. The deals affect 675 employees, and will help the county reach its goal of gaining $8 million in labor concessions for 2012 and 2013. The county faces an estimated $17.5 million deficit over that two-year period.

In addition to the agreement with five bargaining units of AFSCME Local 2733, agreements were reached with: (1) the two bargaining units of TPOAM (Technical, Professional and Officeworkers Association of Michigan), representing 27 employees; and (2) one of two bargaining units of … [Full Story]

The Guardian reports on a lawsuit that’s been filed by an international group of authors against five universities – including the University of Michigan – for copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges that the universities received unauthorized scans of 7 million copyright-protected books from Google, which were then collected in a repository called HathiTrust, another defendant in the lawsuit. HathiTrust is a partnership of universities and research institutions that is administered and partially funded by UM. The lawsuit refers to these actions as “one of the largest copyright infringements in history,” according to The Guardian. [Source]

Washtenaw County board of commissioners meeting (Sept. 7, 2011): Coming off their pared-back summer schedule, county commissioners faced a heavy agenda at their first meeting in September, with several items related to budget and labor issues.

At left: Andy LaBarre talks with county commissioners Rob Turner (R-District 1) and Barbara Bergman (D-District 8). Bergman is not planning to run for re-election in 2012, and LaBarre is expected to be a candidate in her district, which is being reconfigured as part of a countywide redistricting set earlier this year and implemented for the 2012 elections. LaBarre, a former aide to U.S. Rep. John Dingell, attended Wednesday's meeting in his role as vice president at the Ann Arbor Ypsilanti Regional Chamber of Commerce, to support the proposed economic development tax.

After an executive session early in the meeting, the board approved a contract with the Michigan Nurses Association-Unit II, representing two county employees. It’s the second of 15 union agreements being negotiated as part of the 2012 and 2013 budget cycle, with the hopes of securing about $8 million in concessions over the two-year period.

Throughout the evening, hallway conversations took place among various county administrators who were involved in labor talks that same night. And later in the meeting, the board voted to set a special meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 13 at 4 p.m. to discuss proposed labor agreements. It was expected that additional deals would be announced at that time.

One of those deals was confirmed on Monday, Sept. 12, by county administrator Verna McDaniel. She reported that the county’s largest union – AFSCME Local 2733, representing 644 employees – has ratified a new contract that will coming to the board for approval on Tuesday.

Commissioners dealt with a range of other budget-related items at last week’s meeting. They gave initial approval to budgets for the public health and CSTS (community support & treatment services) departments, which include about a dozen job cuts and a raft of new and increased fees. And two taxes – to support services for indigent veterans, and for economic development and agriculture – received initial approval from the board. Nine people spoke during public commentary and a public hearing on the economic development tax, all urging the board to support it. However, three of the 10 commissioners present voted against it. Final votes on both millages will be taken at the board’s Sept. 21 meeting.

An item that drew the most discussion among commissioners was a resolution to suspend the county’s use of Construction Unity Board (CUB) agreements, pending the outcome of litigation that’s challenging the validity of the state’s Public Act 98. The resolution passed, but with four commissioners dissenting. The dissent came from two differing perspectives, however. Two Republican commissioners – Dan Smith and Alicia Ping – objected to an amendment that affirmed the value of these agreements. Two Democratic commissioners – Kristin Judge and Conan Smith – voted against suspension because they wanted to keep the CUB agreements in place. A final vote on that issue will occur on Sept. 21.

Commissioners dispatched with several other agenda items, giving initial approval to: (1) appoint Jeffrey Jentzen as the new medical examiner; (2) authorize the issuance of $2.7 million in bonds to help pay for a $3.2 million facility operated by the Western Washtenaw Recycling Authority; and (3) amend a contract regarding the distribution of the county’s accommodation tax.

Several items were also brought up as communications from commissioners and the administration. Among them, commissioner Rob Turner gave an update on the situation in Sylvan Township, which has been struggling with $12.5 million in bonds issued to build a water and wastewater treatment plant intended to serve future development. It’s expected that the township won’t be able to make its May 2012 bond payment. Township officials are putting a millage proposal on the November 2011 ballot to raise funds to repay the county, which will be asked to cover the future bond payments. Information forums for township residents are planned for later this month and early October. [Full Story]

The largest union for Washtenaw County employees, AFSCME Local 2733, has ratified a new contract, according to county administrator Verna McDaniel. AFSCME Local 2733 represents five of the county’s 17 bargaining units. Members ratified their new contract with the county by a 2-to-1 vote.

Local 2733 represents 644 workers. The contract will be presented to the county board of commissioners for approval at a special meeting called for Tuesday, Sept. 13 at 4 p.m. in the county administration building, 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor.

In an email to The Chronicle Monday afternoon, McDaniel praised the employees, noting that they had also made concessions during the previous budget cycle. She said the board will be asked to exempt the county employees who … [Full Story]

In this 8-minute video, Al Gallup talks about the genesis of “The Rock” at Hill and Washtenaw, which his father Eli Gallup – Ann Arbor’s superintendent of parks from the 1919 through the early 1960s – found in a gravel pit at what’s now Olson Park. The video includes footage from 1932 of WPA workers removing the rock from the pit, loading into a truckbed, then transporting it down Main Street and over to its current location. Gallup notes that his father collected metal for the plaque from local dumps – the metals were used by University High School students, including Al Gallup’s brother, to cast the plaque. [Source]

Editor’s note: Jennifer Coffman covers Ann Arbor Public Schools board meetings for The Chronicle.

Patricia Green is the new superintendent of the Ann Arbor Public Schools, a job she started this summer. (Photos by the writer.)

To develop additional background understanding of the board, she attended a recent forum for candidates in the Nov. 8 school board elections. The forum was hosted by AAPS staff. Other media reports from that forum raised questions about what was actually said at that meeting. So The Chronicle asked Coffman to write up her notes from that forum. 

Four of the six candidates running for AAPS school board met with top AAPS administrators for an informal question-and-answer session held at the Balas administration building on Aug. 23, 2011.

After brief introductions, Patrick Leonard, Larry Murphy, Ahmar Iqbal, and Albert Howard asked administrators for more information about a variety of topics.

Those topics ranged from busing, to the district’s role in school board elections, to prayer in public schools. The two incumbents in the race – board secretary Andy Thomas and trustee Simone Lightfoot – did not attend the forum. [Full Story]

CNN publishes a lengthy piece about the trajectory of the Borders bookstore chain, from its early days as a single college-town shop, its culture, its growth into a national powerhouse, and its ultimate demise – the No. 1 flagship store on East Liberty closes today. The article quotes University of Michigan history professor Jonathan Marwil: “Borders used to be chockablock with books. It has increasingly looked less like a bookstore than a bowling alley, with its wide-open spaces. Now they’re selling children’s dolls on the front counter. It’s really pretty grim.” [Source]

Ann Arbor planning commission meeting (Sept. 8, 2011): At its Thursday meeting – held later in the week than usual because of the Labor Day holiday – commissioners had two main business items on the agenda, and did not recommend in favor of the petitioner for either of them. In one case the commission put off a decision, and in the other commissioners took a vote on the issue.

Walt Hansen, co-owner of Biercamp Artisan Sausage and Jerky, retrieves a copy of the agenda before the start of the Sept. 8 planning commission meeting. (Photos by the writer.)

The commission put off a decision on a proposal from University Bank to increase the number of allowable employees from 50 to 59 at its headquarters on Washtenaw Avenue and to add 14 parking spaces to a new lot on the site. The headquarters is located in what’s known as the Hoover Mansion.

In October 2010, the commission had put off a decision on University Bank’s proposal as well, faced with a recommendation against approval from city planning staff and opposition from some neighbors. This time around, a consensus appeared to have been reached – among planning staff, neighbors and bank officials – to accommodate neighbors’ concerns. However, the commission was reluctant to make a recommendation, because the final site plan had not yet been submitted. The consensus had been achieved only a week ago, on Sept. 1. The vote to postpone, likely until the commission’s next meeting on Sept. 20, was unanimous.

The commission did make a recommendation on a proposal from Walt Hansen and Hannah Cheadle – the owners of Biercamp Artisan Sausage and Jerky – to rezone the property at 1643 and 1645 S. State St., south of Stimson and next to the Produce Station. The parcels currently house the couple’s sausage business as well as an auto repair shop and furniture manufacturer. The commission found the proposed rezoning inconsistent with the city’s master plan and recommended against it.

In connection with the property’s annexation into the city from Ann Arbor Township, the Biercamp owners had wanted to rezone the property to C3 (fringe commercial district). That zoning designation would allow their business to sell a wider variety of merchandise, in addition to the sausage and jerky products they make on site. The recommendation against approval will be forwarded to the city council.

Commissioners offered a glimmer of possibility that commercial zoning for the Biercamp parcel could result from a study of the entire State Street corridor and a revision to the city’s master plan.

At the meeting, commissioners also got an update on future planning-connected events, including a Grand Rapids planning conference that commissioners might want to attend, and visitors from Indonesia that the city is hosting through an International City/County Management Association (ICMA) sustainability fellows program.

The commission also received a heads up that on their Sept. 20 agenda would be a proposal for The Varsity at Ann Arbor, a proposed 13-story, 173-unit, 178,380-square-foot apartment building for approximately 418 students. It would include 77 parking spaces, and would replace the two-story office building and parking lot currently on the site. [Full Story]

Columnist John U. Bacon is interviewed outside the gates of Michigan Stadium for a Sports Illustrated video report on the history of the University of Michigan/Notre Dame football rivalry. Bacon talks about his research for his new book, “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football,” due out Oct. 25. After getting a close-up look at the lives of UM coaches and players, Bacon tells SI that “the best thing to be in college football is a fan.” [Source]

In a video posted on YouTube, Ann Arbor musician Dick Siegel performs his song “Tumbling Down” about the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, with a montage of images from that day 10 years ago. [Source]

Chronicle readers will no doubt have their own memories of the events of Sept. 11, 2001 – how it affected their own lives and the lives of others they know or knew.

On Sunday morning, Sept. 11, 2011, Ann Arbor firefighters and police officers paused to honor those who lost their lives on 9/11 ten years ago.

I remember hearing the news while working the receiving dock at Busch’s Main Street grocery store – smatterings of information relayed from various delivery drivers.

My job as a receiving clerk was to be generally skeptical of this group. I was trained to ask basic questions. Where are the stale loaves of bread you say you pulled off the shelf and put on the outgoing racks? Where are the five cases of olive oil that your invoice says are supposed to be on this incoming pallet?

And through the day, the stories of news reports they’d heard or seen were just inconsistent enough that I felt certain that when I arrived home after my shift, I would learn that it was something else that had actually happened, instead of airliners crashing into the World Trade Center towers, causing them to collapse.

Of course, it was not something else.

So now, 10 years later, we owe it to those who lost their lives, to those who saved some of those lives, and to ourselves, to pause briefly … before we continue going about our business, doing those things that make us who we are.

Part of what makes songwriters who they are is to write songs. So Kitty Donohoe wrote a song on that day: “There are No Words.” And she was invited to perform it at the Pentagon memorial dedication three years ago on Sept. 11, 2008. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor city council meeting (Sept. 6, 2011): Ordinarily the slot on the council’s agenda for nominations and appointments to various boards and commissions generates little conversation during the meeting – by the public or by the council.

Jonathan Bulkley gently shushes his granddaughter as mayor John Hieftje reads aloud a proclamation honoring him. Bulkley is a long-time University of Michigan professor and board member of the Allen Creek Greenway Conservancy. (Photo by the writer.)

However, considerable public commentary at the council’s Tuesday meeting – held a day later than usual due to the Labor Day holiday – was connected to appointments to the city’s medical marijuana licensing board. Advocates for access to medical marijuana tied their remarks to that agenda item, though none of the speakers had any apparent issue with the proposed constitution of the board. Instead, they expressed concerned that a recent court of appeals ruling makes the legality of certain dispensary operations uncertain.

On the council’s side, the unusual focus on appointments came during the usually perfunctory vote on the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority appointments. That vote was drawn out by a request from Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) to separate out the three appointments for separate roll-call votes. The votes on the reappointment of John Mouat and the new appointment of Nader Nassiff were unanimous. But Kunselman wanted to cast a lone vote of opposition against the reappointment of Joan Lowenstein to the board.

The other non-unanimous vote of the evening came on the reconstruction of a pedestrian bridge over Malletts Creek in the Lansdowne neighborhood. Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) asked his colleagues to indulge him in a two-week postponement on that project, so that he could achieve a clearer understanding of the public-private character of the project and its potential legal liabilities. His colleagues, who indicated they were already familiar with the longstanding issue of the bridge, were disinclined to grant the postponement. So Derezinski voted against the $120,000 project, which will be paid out of the city’s major street fund.

In other street fund expenditures, the city council approved a roughly $550,000 increase in the amount of its contract with Barrett Paving Materials Inc. to undertake additional street repair projects in the 2011 construction season. Progress on the scheduled projects had been sufficiently rapid that it was possible to add the additional work.

Land purchase and lease was the topic of three items on the agenda. In one, the city authorized a $100/month month-to-month lease of part of the city-owned 415 W. Washington building to the Kiwanis Club for storage for the club’s warehouse sale. The council also approved the use of $82,500 from the city’s open space and parkland preservation millage to purchase an Eden Court parcel located next to the Bryant Community Center. And the council held a closed session under the exemption in the Open Meetings Act that allows for such a session for the purpose of land acquisition.

In other business, councilmembers gave initial approval to a change in the city’s pension ordinance, approved the allocation of some money already budgeted for human services, and OK’d the allocation of community events funding.

In his communications time, Kunselman foreshadowed an upcoming issue for the council – the relationship between the street millage and the public art program. First Kunselman offered to fill the slot as council liaison to the Ann Arbor Housing Commission. Derezinski had stepped out of that role in order to serve on the city’s public art commission. At Tuesday’s meeting, Kunselman also reiterated his position that the city’s public art program takes money from dedicated millages in a way that is not legal. In response to his comments, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) encouraged Kunselman to take the action he felt was appropriate to rectify that situation.

Among the proclamations made at the start of the meeting was one honoring Jonathan Bulkley for his service to the University of Michigan, the state of Michigan and the nation. Bulkley had addressed the council at its Aug. 4, 2011 meeting in support of the council’s resolution on the greenway – he’s a board member of the Allen Creek Greenway Conservancy. [Full Story]

The New York Times profiles University of Michigan football coach Brady Hoke, as a preview to Saturday’s face-off against Notre Dame in the first night game of UM’s history. The article focuses on the role that his marriage to Laura Hoke has played in his success: ”Every night when either Brady or Laura Hoke finishes with tooth brushing, one makes sure to put toothpaste on the other’s toothbrush. It is a small sign of the bond between a couple that met in seventh grade, married in college and have thrived while hopscotching through places like Yorktown, Ind.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; and Corvallis, Ore., where life’s consistency came from the soundtrack of marching bands. All along a nearly 30-year trail through college football, … [Full Story]

The city of Ann Arbor’s automatic email delivery system sent a message today that the developer for the City Place residential project on South Fifth Avenue has submitted proposed revisions to a site plan already approved by the city council on Sept. 21, 2009.

The development calls for the demolition of seven houses and the construction of two apartment buildings separated by a parking lot, with 24 total dwelling units – each with six bedrooms.

In a telephone interview, Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city, indicated that the revisions currently proposed can be approved administratively, without coming before the planning commission or the city council. Pre-construction meetings were held two weeks ago, she said, and the intent is to begin … [Full Story]

On Saturday, Sept. 10, Main Street in Ann Arbor will be closed between Pauline and Stadium Boulevard from 5 p.m. until the conclusion of the football game at Michigan Stadium. A press release issued Friday morning by the city of Ann Arbor cited security concerns due to the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks coinciding with the University of Michigan’s first night football game, to be played against Notre Dame.

Starting at 5 p.m. on Saturday, northbound Main Street traffic will be detoured from Stadium Boulevard to 7th Street, and from 7th to Pauline, then back to Main. Southbound Main Street traffic will be detoured from Pauline to 7th Street, and 7th to Stadium, then back to Main. Main Street … [Full Story]