Comments on: Aug. 19, 2013 Ann Arbor Council: Final

By: Mark Koroi

Mark Koroi — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 21:48:36 +0000

@Mary Morgan:

You are correct. Thanks for the information.

By: Mary Morgan

Mary Morgan — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 19:06:28 +0000

Re. "Upon checking the city’s website, it does indicate that Manildi’s seat expired in May." Her term expires next May, according to the city's website – on May 5, 2014. [link]

By: Mark Koroi

Mark Koroi — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 18:00:32 +0000

@Mary Morgan: My source for that statement was the Hooper Hathaway law firm page for Ms. Manildi: "Marta is also active in community affairs, and is currently serving as President of the Housing Commission Board of Commissioners." See: [link] Upon checking the city's website, it does indicate that Manildi's seat expired in May.

By: Jack Eaton

Jack Eaton — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:19:05 +0000

The City’s Boards and Commission web page does not list Mr. Greden as a current member of the Housing Commission. Looking at the “Past” terms of service, the site notes that his term on that Commission began 1/3/2011 and ended 4/30/2013.

By: Mary Morgan

Mary Morgan — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 12:45:23 +0000

Re. “Manildi is now the president of the Housing Commission…”

She has served as president in the past, but the current president is Ronald Woods. Greden is vice president. Woods is married to Wendy Woods, a former councilmember who serves on the planning commission. There are only two other housing commission members: Gloria Black, a resident representative, and Christopher Geer, who was appointed in December 2012 to replace Andy LaBarre after LaBarre was elected to the Washtenaw County board of commissioners. Geer is married to Jennifer Geer, who was recently appointed to the city’s park advisory commission.

By: Mark Koroi

Mark Koroi — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 05:41:06 +0000

@John Floyd:

Leigh Greden was appointed several years ago to the Housing Commission.

So was Marta Manildi, who was a donor to Greden’s prior runs for political office and who toiled at the same Miller Canfield law firm as Greden. Manildi is now the president of the Housing Commission and is currently a partner at the Hooper Hathaway law firm. Manildi is the spouse of Paul Courant, who previously served dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and has close ties to the Mayor.

By: John Floyd

John Floyd — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 04:04:22 +0000

“Leigh Greden has been nominated for re-appointment to the Ann Arbor housing commission.”

Did I read this correctly? Is this most-hateful recent member of council really ALREADY “serving” on a city board? Who’s idea was it to put him on a board in the first place, much less to re-nominate him?

Were there any remaining doubts about the absence of judgement, prudence and discernment in our council, this clears those doubts up.

By: Murph

Murph — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 00:03:38 +0000

If I were trying to draw a conclusion about “areas that are less safe for pedestrians”, I’d want to know the rate of crashes involving a pedestrian normalized for pedestrian volume, yes, but I’d also want to look at crashes that cause serious injury or fatality: 1 pedestrian fatality per million pedestrians would be a much more “dangerous” area than 1 no-injury-reported crash per million pedestrians.

Looks like there have only been 3 pedestrian-fatal crashes within the freeway ring in the last 8 years — one downtown (Huron near Fletcher, at night, Dec. 2007) and two outside downtown (S. Main / Scio Church area). For “incapacitating injuries”, there appears to be a decent downtown concentration, particularly along Packard, Liberty, and South Main.

I don’t see an easy way to permalink these queries on the MTCF site, though.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 20:53:47 +0000

Regarding traffic accidents involving a pedestrian, mapping out each incident [using data from Michigan Traffic Crash Facts] shows a clear clustering in the downtown and specifically at intersections. That squares up with a mapping of the counts of pedestrians [using data from the city of Ann Arbor's non-motorized counts, which come with a number of caveats] on a gradient of light red to dark red. So the areas where most of the traffic accidents involving a pedestrian take place correspond to the areas where pedestrian activity is also high. To conclude that these geographic areas are less safe for pedestrians, however, I think would require an analysis that showed the number of traffic accidents involving pedestrians is disproportionately higher in these areas than in other areas.

By: Mark Koroi

Mark Koroi — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 17:33:30 +0000

8:26 p.m.?

Can you believe it?

Great job in keeping a City Council meeting short.

One thing though, what about the Mayor’s “policy” against appointing City Council candidates to boards and commissions?

Did Sally Petersen not get a nomination voted upon to the Disability Commission on August 9, 2012 while she was a candidate for a City Council seat in the November election?