Archive for September, 2011

John U. Bacon

Steve Kampfer grew up in Jackson, and learned to play hockey well enough to earn a scholarship to the University of Michigan. He was a good student and a good player on some very good days, but few expected Kampfer to make it to the NHL. I confess that I was one of them.

What chance he had seemed to vanish on an October night in 2008, when he was leaving a campus bar. He started jawing with another student, who happened to be on the wrestling team. Things got hot, but it was all just talk, until the wrestler picked up Kampfer and turned him upside in a single, sudden move – then dropped him head first on the sidewalk.

Kampfer lay there unconscious, with blood sliding out of his mouth. His stunned friend thought he might be dead.

They rushed Kampfer to the hospital, where they discovered he’d suffered a closed head injury and a severe skull fracture, near his spine. He woke up on a flatboard, his head in a neck brace and tubes running out of his body.

His coach, Red Berenson, talked to him about the possibility – even the likelihood – that he would never play hockey again. The goal was simply to make a full recovery, but they wouldn’t know that for three months.

Kampfer was a student in my class at the time, which met twice a week at 8:30 in the morning – not the most popular hour for college students. Just one week after the incident, at 8:30 Monday morning, Steve Kampfer walked back into my class, wearing a neckbrace. He never discussed the injury. He never made any excuses. He never missed a single class. [Full Story]

The city of Ann Arbor has issued a press release reminding football fans and city residents to expect longer than usual football game day traffic delays for the Saturday, Sept. 3 game featuring Western Michigan University against the University of Michigan. The game starts at 3:30 p.m.

Before the game, police will manually manage traffic at the Stadium Boulevard & Main Street intersection starting two hours before game time. But all other intersections along Ann Arbor-Saline Road will operate by traffic timed according to the normal weekend schedule. The State Street corridor will also be managed with traffic signals timed according to the normal schedule.

After the game, Ann Arbor-Saline Road will be one way, heading south to I-94 … [Full Story]

Ann Arbor city council special meeting (Aug 29, 2011): In a 5:15 p.m. special session convened specifically for the purpose of ratifying a new agreement with the city’s largest union, the Ann Arbor city council approved a new contract for its American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 369. It’s a roughly 2.5-year deal, lasting through Dec. 31, 2013.

The city of Ann Arbor held a special meeting on Aug. 29, before its next regularly scheduled meeting on Sept. 6. The urgency to hold a special meeting was based on a typo in a legislative staffer's early draft of a subsequently corrected memo, not based on the actual date in the state's new employment health care legislation. (Simulated correction "illustration" by The Ann Arbor Chronicle)

Key features of the agreement with the 230-member union include: no across-the-board pay increases for the duration of the agreement; employees will make greater contributions to their pension and health care plans; a 10-year vesting period for the pension plan; and an access-only style plan for retiree healthcare benefits.

Council deliberations were relatively brief, with remarks focusing on praise for the city and the union’s respective bargain teams and details of the agreement. Almost equal time was given to the manner in which the special meeting was noticed to the public.

Though questions were raised by The Chronicle through the day on Monday about whether the city had met its obligation to provide notice to the public under the Michigan Open Meetings Act, city attorney Stephen Postema relied on a recent unpublished court of appeals opinion, which is not binding on other courts and which included a strong minority dissent, to justify the city’s failure to meet a basic noticing standard set forth in an opinion from Michigan’s attorney general.

That AG’s opinion – which is also not binding on courts, but which has guided the conduct of public bodies in Michigan for over 30 years – requires public bodies to post physical notice of special meetings in a way that makes the notice publicly accessible for the 18 hours preceding the meeting.

The council’s urgency in approving the contract, reflected in the calling of the special session, was based on recently passed state legislation that limits the amount that public employers can contribute to employee health care costs. Ann Arbor’s contract with AFSCME does not conform to the limits set forth in the legislation. So the council was keen to approve the contract before the effective dates stipulated in the legislation, and did so with only seven of its 11 members able to attend the meeting.

The legislation itself specifies Sept. 15, 2011 as the relevant date; however, Ann Arbor city staff appeared to rely not on the legislation, but on an early draft of a memo drawn up by a legislative staff aide to state senator Mark Jansen, which contained a typo. Although the draft was corrected immediately after its limited initial distribution, the original draft’s stipulation of “Sept. 1″ instead of “Sept. 15″ spurred the city of Ann Arbor to convene the special meeting. The council’s next regularly scheduled meeting is on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011 – well before the actual Sept. 15 date in the legislation.  [Full Story]

Law school enrollment is declining, due in part to a lack of jobs after graduation, according to an Associated Press report. The article quotes Sarah Zearfoss, assistant law dean and admissions director for the University of Michigan Law School, which saw a 14% drop in new student enrollment: “This year, people realize that this is not a one-year economic decline. It seems to be a much longer-term problem. … Now that people are aware it’s not a cakewalk to get a big salary, they’re thinking more carefully and a little more rationally about making this choice.” [Source]

The No Depression website posts a review of Ann Arbor musician Chris Bathgate’s new album, “Salt Year”: ”Salt Year is Bathgate’s fifth album and his best effort to date. Inspired by a dark and tumultuous time in his life, this is a record full of wistful songs about lost love, heartbreak and time’s effect on love. And despite the album’s heavy theme, it never comes off as oppressive or tiresome, but, rather, captivating and loose. Every song is a richly complex and brilliant arrangement with common threads evenly moving the album from beginning to end. Musically, the album is transcendental. But, its Bathgate’s vivid lyrical snapshots combined with his confident yet vulnerable vocals that make Salt Year a masterpiece.” [... [Full Story]

The Wall Street Journal reports on a slight rise in housing prices nationwide, and quotes Vance Shutes, an associate broker for Real Estate One in Ann Arbor: “The pace of sales is better than a year ago. In our northern suburbs, where the automotive companies were just decimated, those markets are now rebounding strongly as the auto companies have started bringing people back after five years of shedding them.” [Source]