@5: I don’t think the disagreement is on whether to have a bus system, but whether we should be spending AA dollars on how to extend into Ypsi and beyond, whether we should be helping to fund a connector between Briarwood and North Campus, whether we should be pursuing WALLY, whether we should be pursuing a new train station (and where), etc. In other words, an expansive transit focus (“Magnet Party”) or a “keep the buses running” focus (“Knitting Party”).

@6: I agree that many voters hold visions other than the two I outlined, but it does seem that you can break down the current council between two camps: Those who are inclined to say “yeah sure, that’s a nice to have, but we have to concentrate on the basics first” and those who are inclined to say “we have concentrated on the basics and it’s important to do some of that other stuff now”. Deciding whether we’ve done enough on the core stuff really seems like the dividing line on council. But, as I said in my previous comment, I’m sure my own biases are showing and there are other breakdowns and other names that would be more appropriate.

Here’s a test of any such hypothesis: Read a Chronicle article about any council meeting and try to guess the vote breakdown on each major topic before the end of the section. I think its’ pretty easy to do with the division I posited ((with the exception of Councilmember Briere, and I mean that in a complimentary way), but there could definitely be better models.

The partisan primaries effectively prevented students from running for City Council since few would consider running as Republicans and filing as a Democrat might force them to have to campaign during the summer when they most likely would not be in Ann Arbor and the student electorate was likewise away.

Hatim Elhady ran as an independent against Marcia Higgins in 2009 based upon his perception that he would draw significant student votes in the November election. A Fourth Ward Democratic Party co-chair advised me that any chance he had at beating Higgins was dashed by his not filing for the Democratic August primary ballot.

Higgins also benefitted from this in 2003 when two U-M students and a recent alumnus filed to run against her under the Green Party and Libertarian tickets and as an independent. The three combined to garner an impressive 47% of the November vote but Higgins retained her seat.

On the other hand in 2008, over 10,000 students filed in Ann Arbor just before the deadline to vote in the November election during that presidential cycle. A campaign organization I was affiliated with was aware of this so we targeted student precincts and it paid off on Election Day.

The ward system also is disavantage to students contrasted to at-large voting as a student running for office would only need to finish in the top ten in the November election to win a seat on City Council and likely could have a good shot at doing so with a city-wide student electorate backing him. The ward system dilutes the student vote to the ward the student resides in.

These are clever electoral mechanisms employed by the powers that be to prevent students from enjoying their full voting rights and to see fellow students elected to local office.

Marcia Higgins only faced one Democratic Party primary challenge during her long tenure on City Council – in 2005 when Rosewood Avenue’s Eric Lipson was defeated in a race that was not a blowout but not very close either. Higgins went on to a razor-thin victory over Jim Hood, Jr., chair of the Ann Arbor Republican Club, in November – Marcia received only 50.7% of the vote.

To me its all to clear that students are effectively frozen out of local political office by both the August primaries and the ward system.

My first and final reaction: Oh, piffle!

First of all, the reason an August partisan primary is unusual is that very few Michigan municipalities have partisan city councils.

Second, the importance of the Democratic primary only surfaced after the national (and state) Republican party moved so far to the right that it stranded most of Ann Arbor’s moderate Republicans. Until the mid-2000s, the November general election was where the action was. Some very credible Republicans went down to defeat beginning in 2004 when Ann Arbor became overwhelmingly Democratic. Then, after a couple of years in which Council (Democratic) incumbents seemed to be elected for life, some competition in the August Democratic primary began, notably with challenges against incumbents in the 5th by Sonia Schmerl and Mike Anglin.

So while August primaries may be inconvenient to students, they were never “designed” to frustrate them.

The idea that student candidates could do better if only the major contest was in November was thoroughly tested by Hatim Elhady in 2009. I’ve told this story in detail [link). Hatim (though a Democrat] chose to run as an Independent and ran an explicitly student-oriented campaign (though his campaign also contacted other residents). He was well liked on campus. But though given a chance to rise up in a November election, the turnout in student precincts still resulted in relatively few votes.

The August partisan primary is unusual in local Michigan politics, but in A2 is designed to disenfranchise the student vote.

The students used to have the Human Rights Party in the 1970s and got several elected to City Council in both Ypsi and A2.

The Mixed Use Party is expected to field candidates this fall as independents. Jaclyn Vresics is planning to oppose Sabra Briere in the First Ward. This party holds meetings on the last Sunday of each month.

Sadly, the GOP and Huron Valley Greens do not usually field City Council candidates in Ann Arbor as they did in the past.

At this point in time, my personal belief is that basic services are what we pay for with taxes. Care of trees, parks, water, sewer, solid waste, recycling, composting, library, street repair, infrastructure, safety, buses, etc. Only when these are managed well should city government dabble in other areas.

Also, by becoming a fully functioning city government (I can dream!), some of the things you mention in your 2nd vision begin to be taken care of.