Comments on: Council, Mayor Primary Election Lineups Set

By: Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson — Fri, 02 May 2014 02:23:11 +0000

Wikipedia, though, isn’t the authoritative source on the legal definition of “mineral.” The U.S. Code (Title 30, §21a) defines it as “all minerals and mineral fuels including oil, gas, coal, oil shale and uranium.”

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Thu, 01 May 2014 21:05:03 +0000

Re: “Natural Gas and Crude Oil/petroleum are not minerals so would they actually fall under this prohibition?”

From Chapter 56:

The locating, sinking, drilling, casing, deepening or operating of oil wells, gas wells, and oil and gas wells and test holes for the location of natural crude oil or natural dry gas, or both, in the City of Ann Arbor is hereby prohibited.

By: Pinch

Pinch — Thu, 01 May 2014 20:23:47 +0000

“Warpehoski pointed out that the city of Ann Arbor already bans fracking, through its prohibition on mineral extraction through drilling (Chapter 56: Prohibited Land Uses).”

Natural Gas and Crude Oil/petroleum are not minerals so would they actually fall under this prohibition?

Wikipedia presents this (typical) definition: A mineral is a naturally occurring substance that is solid and stable at room temperature, representable by a chemical formula, usually abiogenic, and has an ordered atomic structure.

NG/Crude Oil are NOT solids, NOT stable at room temp., and have NO Ordered atomic structure. With regard to representable by a chemical formula, they can be, but highly variable.

I have not read this section of the Code, but it would appear to fail as a “fracking” prohibition based on this condition. Dissolution mining for NaCL would be prohibited, but this is not a concern at the moment.

By: Mark Koroi

Mark Koroi — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 04:20:02 +0000

What I find as surprising is that no one other than current City Council members are running for the mayor seat on the Democratic primary ballot.

This leaves the race wide open for an independent to file to run against the eventual Democratic nominee in the November general election.

The McMullen candidacy is interesting in that the last time Ann Arbor had a student on City Council was in the late 1980s – but had several serve in the 1970s under the Human Rights Party ticket. Kathy Kozachenko, a Human Rights Party member, was the first openly lesbian candidate elected to public office in the U.S.

By: SingleGal

SingleGal — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 18:14:11 +0000

“actually had to go back to work”…that statement reeks of a privilege that I am not comfortable with. It’s good for her that she married “well” but I’m not sure how the wealthy wives will understand concerns of someone like me….

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 12:47:28 +0000

Mr. McMullen's statement that road repair is one of the main responsibilities of local government caused me to chuckle. One thing that all parties at all levels of government agree upon is that the roads are terrible. I've reviewed the very complex nature of road funding in my post [link] where I also touch on efforts to address this at the county level locally. But the City Council is probably at the bottom of the list of responsible parties who must address this problem.