Comments on: Ann Arbor Park Improvements In the Works

By: Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:43:01 +0000

The city routinely does not report committee meetings minutes to city council in a timely manner. If you look for taxi cab minutes, historic district commission minutes, zoning board of appeals minutes, sign board of appeals minutes, and doubtless several others, you will find a long delay between meeting date and meeting minutes publication.

By: Luis Vazquez

Luis Vazquez — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:00:56 +0000

Thank you Edward, I am familiar with the FOIA process in regards to getting draft minutes, but what I am talking about is that there were no minutes posted for the whole latter part of 2011, presumably after minutes of previous meetings had been approved. The city is just not doing things in a timely fashion when it comes to the market, but then I guess that is because there is such a lack of interest in this town in market matters. The lack of transparency with the Farmers Market is disturbing, the age-old problems and issues with Operating Rules have never been dealt with, cheating vendors are still allowed to operate, and now the Market Manager is leaving under what I think are very suspicious circumstances. I want to know who threw Mollie under the bus, and why.

By: Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 02:16:18 +0000

Meeting minutes for city boards and commissions are routinely unpublished until they are approved by the boards. If you want to see a copy of the draft minutes, file a foia request. It is tedious but it works.

By: Luis Vazquez

Luis Vazquez — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:24:11 +0000

One question on my mind is: why is the Market Manager leaving the market after only 4 years? Is she leaving of her own accord, or is there some deeper issue the city refuses to talk about? Also, the February 23rd Market Commission meeting was cancelled at the last minute, and PMAC meeting minutes for the latter part of 2011 had not been posted on the City’s website last I checked (last week). My impression is that something fishy is going on, and the Ann Arbor Chronicle should dig into it.

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:35:20 +0000

“The council rescinded its CUB resolution because state Act 98 of 2011 – which became effective July 19, 2011 – prohibits municipalities from including as a requirement in a construction contract anything that would either require or prohibit contractors from entering into agreements with collective bargaining organizations. The act also prohibits discrimination against contractors based on willingness or non-willingness to enter into such agreements.”

Silence from local Democrats on this issue when Rick Snyder and his ‘Republican’ rammed this anti-worker bill through Lansing last year is more evidence that either the local Democratic Party stands for nothing or have no problem with union and worker bashing. Too busy defending ‘art’ and babbling that West Park flooding is the cause of global warming and not incompetent project management. Apparently not one committee member here spoke out about this issue either. Pathetic.

By: cosmonıcan

cosmonıcan — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:09:45 +0000

Regarding the issue of porous pavement — I have never seen local mention of the type of technology shown here: [link] There are a lot of different manufacturers of this type of product, I only chose that site to illustrate the concept. It is basically an open grid of plastic or metal, which resembles the inner part of an old style ice cube tray, an open waffle that can be laid on dirt fields with minimal prep or grading, when filled with dirt it will support a vehicle yet allow grass to grow through. When not in use it just looks like a grassy field, not a parking lot, and can be used on playing fields too. The army invented this for instant landing strips back in WWII. Drop a roll of that out of an airplane, spread it out, bingo, instant ‘concrete’. Handy if you need to build an airstrip on a volcanic island with no materials for making cement. Just curious, have they ever looked into it?