Archive for July, 2012

Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board meeting (July 2, 2012): In its one action item, the DDA board approved a new contract with Republic Parking, which includes a roughly $1.5 million purchase of new automated payment equipment for several of the city’s parking structures. Of that amount, close to $1.3 million will be bought with a loan from Republic Parking to the DDA.

The DDA manages the city’s public parking system under a contract with the city of Ann Arbor – which stipulates that the city receives 17% of gross revenues from the system. The DDA in turn sub-contracts out the day-to-day parking operations to Republic Parking. The relationship between the DDA and Republic goes back to 2001. The contract ratified on July 2 is for five years through 2017, with two one-year options to renew.

For the first year of the contract with Republic, the DDA board will be led by Leah Gunn. She was elected board chair at the DDA’s annual meeting, which took place after the regular monthly meeting concluded. Outgoing chair Bob Guenzel, who will continue to serve on the board, was thanked for his service. Sandi Smith was elected vice chair.

One of the major tasks on the DDA’s work plan in the coming year will be to continue the Connecting William Street (CWS) planning effort. It’s a project the city council directed the DDA to undertake in early 2011 – to explore alternative uses for city-owned surface parking lots in the rectangle bounded by Division, William, Ashley and Liberty streets.

At its July 2 meeting, the DDA board got an update on that planning effort, which has reached the point of three draft scenarios for the five parcels in question. When the three draft scenarios are settled and shared with the public through an outreach process, a preferred scenario will be developed – not by selecting one of the three scenarios in its entirety, but in a “Mr. Potato Head” fashion, choosing features from each scenario on a parcel-by-parcel basis.

The study area of the CWS effort includes the top of the new underground parking garage, now dubbed the Library Lane parking structure – named after the new mid-block cut-through that connects Division Street and Fifth Avenue. [Despite the name, the Ann Arbor District Library does not own the garage or the lane.] The grand opening of the garage is set for Thursday, July 12 at 5 p.m. A significant number of the new spaces in the structure will likely be occupied by monthly permit holders who work for Barracuda Networks, a company that’s moving into the former Borders corporate offices on Maynard Street.

Also located in the CWS study area is the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s Blake Transit Center (BTC), which is set for reconstruction starting this fall. Michael Ford, CEO of the AATA, gave DDA board members an update on that construction project, which will see the center relocated from the Fourth Avenue side of the block to the Fifth Avenue side. Ford told the DDA board he hoped for a positive outcome on the BTC site plan at the city planning commission meeting on July 17, and at the city council’s Aug. 20 meeting. He hopes to break ground on the new BTC in September or October, with completion before the 2013 art fairs, which are held annually in July.

At its July 2 meeting, the board was also updated on some grant requests – one for a bike-sharing program and another for a transportation alternatives analysis study for the corridor starting at US-23 and Plymouth, extending southward to State and continuing to I-94. During public commentary, the board was also pitched the idea of supporting an online “tech bounty board” to match small technical projects with people who can do the work. [Full Story]

Tova Neugut and Kate Rosenblum of the University of Michigan’s Strong Families program are among the co-authors of a guest commentary in the Detroit Free Press that suggests ways to support Michigan veterans and their families: “Consider signing up and offering a few hours of your time volunteering with one of the handful of nonprofit organizations in Michigan that are working hard to bridge this disconnect between our civilian and military families.” [Source]

It’s hard to know whether the candy-tossing, pamphlet-proffering politicians in this year’s Ann Arbor July 4th parade were as popular as the backwards clown brigade or the Ann Arbor Derby Dimes. But what politicians or political hopefuls lacked in entertainment value they made up for in volume: This year, 19 of the 84 entries in the Ann Arbor parade were political – candidates running for local, state or national office, current elected officials, and political parties.

It was likely the last parade as an elected official for Janis Bobrin, the Washtenaw County water resources commissioner who has served for more than two decades but is not seeking re-election.

This year is unusual because two judicial races are being contested in the 22nd Circuit Court, and three of the six candidates had entries in the parade.

The July 4th parade is organized each year by the Ann Arbor Jaycees. As parades go, it’s a relatively low-key affair, but this year included a rarity for the Ann Arbor parade – a marching band, from Skyline High School. Miss Washtenaw made an appearance, as did baton twirlers, boy scouts, the Masons, and an assortment of other groups representing a wide swath of this community.

Many of those groups are included in the photo essay below. But the photographs also include candidates for office, whose willingness to stand for election is a testament to our representative democracy, which we celebrate each year on this date.

If you’re not yet registered to vote, here’s a reminder that the last day to register for the Tuesday, Aug. 7 primary is nearly here – July 9. Information on voter registration can be found on the Washtenaw County clerk’s elections division website. To see a sample ballot for your precinct, visit the Secretary of State’s website. The last day to register to vote for the Tuesday, Nov. 6 general election is Oct. 9. [Full Story]

Four nominations to three different commissions were confirmed by the Ann Arbor city council at its July 2, 2012 meeting. Ken Clein and Kirk Westphal were confirmed for the city planning commission. John German was confirmed for the city’s environmental commission. And Archer Christian was confirmed for the greenbelt advisory commission. All appointments were made on unanimous votes by the council, which is typical.

The nominations for all four appointments were made at the council’s previous meeting, on June 21, 2012. The city planning commission nominations are made by the mayor, which is the case for the vast majority of board and commission appointments. Nominations to the environmental commission and the greenbelt advisory commission are made by the council as … [Full Story]

At its July 2, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council approved a contract with the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office that will cost $187,000 annually to provide weapons screening services for the 15th District Court, located inside the city’s new justice center building at the corner of Fifth and Huron.

The contract pays $25.25 per hour per officer, with the number of officers estimated to be roughly three each day. Currently, the weapons screening takes place at metal detectors at the entrance to the building.

The city council engaged in lengthy deliberations at its April 2, 2012 meeting about the placement of the security check. The context of those deliberations was a vote on the acquisition of Ed Carpenter’s proposed “Radius” sculpture, at a cost … [Full Story]

At its July 2, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council voted to set a public hearing under Michigan’s Act 198 of 1974 on establishing an industrial development district for 317 Maynard St. in downtown Ann Arbor. Setting the hearing – for Aug. 9, 2012 – is the first of several actions that will be necessary to grant a tax abatement to Barracuda Networks, which is relocating from Depot Street to the downtown property owned by First Martin Corp. A letter dated June 1, 2012 from First Martin to the Ann Arbor city clerk requested the establishment of the district.

After the public hearing on the district, the council will need to vote on establishing the district. Then Barracuda Networks will need … [Full Story]

At its July 2, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council directed city staff from a range of different departments to work with the environmental commission to develop a “green streets” policy.

The policy would formalize an approach to stormwater management that would allow street projects to incorporate an “array of products, technologies, and practices that use natural systems – or engineered systems that mimic natural processes – to enhance overall environmental quality and provide utility services …” The goals of developing and implementing the policy include a reduction in the amount of untreated stormwater flowing from streets directly to the city’s stormwater system and into the Huron River. By implementing systems like bioswales, for example, a portion of the stormwater runoff … [Full Story]

At its July 2, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council passed a resolution that allows the city of Ann Arbor to become a member of the Washtenaw Health Initiative (WHI). The resolution altered the budget for fiscal year 2013 (which began July 1) by adding $10,000 of general fund money to the budget for the office of community development – to cover the membership fee for this year. The resolution also recommends consideration of renewing the membership next year. [The city of Ann Arbor adopts budgets only one year at a time.]

A goal of WHI is to help local health care providers handle an influx of an estimated 50,000 newly insured patients when federal health care reforms take … [Full Story]

At its July 2, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council voted to direct the city planning commission to start a process to adopt 16 sustainability goals as part of the city’s master plan. While that master plan review process is underway, the council’s resolution directs the city administrator to apply the 16 goals in staff work. [.pdf of 16 sustainability goals] [File was updated after initial publication to replace an earlier draft of the goals]

The sustainability goals are divided into four categories: resource management; land use and access; climate and energy; and community. By way of illustration, from the land use and access category, one of the goals is: “Establish a physical and cultural environment that supports and … [Full Story]

At its July 2, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council gave final approval to a request to revise the zoning regulations associated with the parcel on the northeast corner of Ann Arbor-Saline and West Eisenhower Parkway, where a Shell service station is located.

The city planning commission had previously voted unanimously to recommend approval of the zoning changes at its  April 17, 2012 meeting.

Owners of the station are asking for revisions to the site’s planned unit development (PUD), which would allow them to build additions onto the existing 1,000-square-foot convenience store. The new additions would total 4,089 square feet, including 2,189 square feet to the north and east of the store. Their plan also calls for converting the 900-square-foot carwash area into new … [Full Story]

The Ann Arbor city council has until its second meeting in August to put various questions before voters on the Nov. 6, 2012 ballot. At its July 2 meeting, the council heard from Jane Lumm (Ward 2) that she and Mike Anglin (Ward 5) are working to bring a ballot question to Ann Arbor voters that would further tweak a city charter provision about the sale of parkland.

The charter provision had been approved in November 2008 by a 81%-19% margin (42,969 to 9,944). The tweak would involve adding actions like “lease,” “license,” or “re-designate” to the set of actions on city parkland that would require a voter referendum.

The 2008 ballot question had asked voters if they wanted to add a clause to … [Full Story]

In a post on his blog, Jeff Masters of the Ann Arbor-based Weather Underground announces that the business has been sold to The Weather Channel Companies. He writes: “As one of the founders of Weather Underground, I am excited about embarking upon this new chapter in our company’s history. Having the infrastructure, resources, and content of The Weather Channel Companies will enable wunderground to create some great new products, and improve the quality and reliability of our existing content. We will now be called Weather Underground, LLC, and will maintain the wunderground.com web site as it is.” The post also provides some history about the founding of Weather Underground.  [Source]

Ann Arbor public art commission meeting (June 27, 2012): A written report from the public art administrator – explaining why there’s been no water in the Dreiseitl sculpture in front of city hall – led to a broader discussion at AAPAC’s June meeting about that signature piece of public art.

Commissioned by the city from German artist Herbert Dreiseitl and dedicated in October of 2011, the work was designed to use rainwater collected from the roofs of city hall and the adjacent Justice Center. But water has flowed through the fountain only sporadically. The original water pumps clogged and malfunctioned, and are being replaced with a new pump. Yet even when that new pump is functioning, the two tanks, which can hold a total of 2,300 gallons of water are currently dry, and no water is available at this point to run through the sculpture.

Saying that people have asked him why the fountain isn’t working, commissioner John Kotarski asked whether Dreiseitl intended the sculpture to reflect the seasonal rain cycle. Kotarski said he previously hadn’t heard that narrative applied to the sculpture, until it was mentioned in the report by Aaron Seagraves, the city’s public art administrator. Kotarski was appointed to AAPAC well after the sculpture was approved.

Cathy Gendron, who was serving on AAPAC when the project was recommended for approval in 2009, said her expectation had been that water would be a standard part of the piece. She wondered whether something had changed during the engineering process. She noted that it was the first project undertaken by the commission after its formation as part of the city’s Percent for Art program. [It is also the city's largest public art expenditure to date, costing over $750,000.]

Kotarski praised the project, calling Dreiseitl a world-renowned sculptor and noting that Ann Arbor now has something in its public art collection that other cities would love to have. But he called for a full report of the project ”with all of its glory and all of its warts,” so that AAPAC could find out and learn from what has happened.

Commissioners agreed to compile a list of questions to be forwarded to the project’s design team. There was no formal action taken regarding the kind of report that Kotarski requested.

Later in the meeting, commissioners did take action on two items related to AAPAC’s mural program: (1) approval of the final design for a mixed-media mural at Allmendinger Park; and (2) approval of a statement of qualifications (SOQ) to seek potential artists for future murals.

Also at the June 27 meeting, AAPAC vice chair Malverne Winborne made a strategic planning proposal that he had first floated at the commission’s retreat in February. The idea is to approach a plan for public art by looking at quadrants of the city, to help guide the selection of projects and ensure that all parts of the city are represented. Commissioners were supportive of the general concept, but ultimately tabled the item for further discussion at their July 25 meeting.

Two other items were tabled until that July meeting: (1) a discussion on a possible endorsement policy for privately funded art projects; and (2) action on two new proposed public art projects, at the Forest Avenue Plaza in the South University area, and at the future roundabout at South State and Ellsworth.

Commissioners also discussed plans for AAPAC’s participation in the July 16 Townie Street Party. The event is hosted by the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair as a kickoff to the annual art fairs, which run this year from July 18-21. AAPAC has a table in the “Creative Connections” tent. Hannah Nathans, a University of Michigan student intern with the city, has painted a five-foot-tall poster evoking a well-known mural on East Liberty Street by Richard Wolk. It’s intended to be an interactive feature – people can poke their faces through cut-out holes and get their pictures taken. [Full Story]

At its annual meeting on July 2, 2012, held immediately following its regular monthly meeting, the board of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority elected its officers for the coming year: Leah Gunn, chair; Sandi Smith, vice chair; Keith Orr, secretary; Roger Hewitt, treasurer. The DDA thus followed its custom of electing its current vice chair to serve as chair for the next year.

DDA board members serve four-year terms. Reaching the end of their terms this year on July 31, 2012 are Roger Hewitt, Sandi Smith and Keith Orr. Smith is not seeking re-election to the city council representing Ward 1 city, but has indicated she’d like to continue to serve on the DDA board. It would be her third … [Full Story]

At its July 2, 2012 meeting, the board of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority voted to renew its contract with Republic Parking for the management of operations for the city’s public parking system. The renewal is for five years through 2017, with an option to renew twice for a year each time. The renewal of the contract includes a five-year $1.5 million loan to the DDA from Republic Parking to cover upfront costs for installing new payment equipment.

The DDA has contracted with Republic Parking since 2001. The contract covers Republic’s costs, plus a $200,000 annual management incentive, of which $50,000 is discretionary. Over the last few years, the DDA board has consistently awarded $45,000 of that amount.

It’s the DDA … [Full Story]

In a comment on last month’s milestone column, reader Jim Rees wrote, “If I had a million bucks to endow a reporter’s desk at the Chronicle, I would ask that Bill Treml be hired for the crime desk.”

For readers who are not familiar with Treml, he was a long-time reporter for the Ann Arbor News. Some of Treml’s work is already part of the Ann Arbor District Library digital archives project.

From the lede of a piece by Treml, “Police Believe Several People Saw Murder Victim Enter Car,” published on July 10, 1968: “Police hopes of solving the Joan E. Schell murder case spurted sharply upward today with the revelation that as many as three persons may have seen the Eastern Michigan University coed get into a car on the night of June 30.”

While The Chronicle doesn’t currently cover crime, we do reflect occasionally on possible models for covering that topic – as a contingency for an unexpected million-dollar endowment. Several possible newer approaches are sketched out in a recent piece by Jonathan Stray for Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab: “Beyond the Crime Scene: We Need New and Better Models for Crime Reporting.”

As Stray notes, police departments no longer need to rely on third parties like newspapers, radio and television stations to disseminate information about crimes that have taken place. A police department can communicate directly with the public about those crimes – using its own website and RSS feed, for example. The University of Michigan department of public safety maintains a crime alerts public data feed and a daily incidents log like that. The Ann Arbor police department contracts through crimemapping.com to provide publicly accessible basic information about crime location, type and time, which is updated once a day. And the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office uses the Nixle service to let people sign up for crime alerts and other information, delivered via text message or email.

For this basic “spot news” type of information, public safety agencies are a single-point source of authoritative information, which they can share directly with the public. It’s authoritative, because a police department has unique access to basic descriptive information about crimes.

Now, I’m going to draw an analogy that might seem at first like a non-sequitur: A police department’s unique access to descriptive information about crime events is comparable, I think, to a party host’s unique access to details about an upcoming party. And that has consequences for a reasonable model of at least one small component of crime reporting. [Full Story]

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