Stories indexed with the term ‘Ann Arbor city charter’

A successful election lawsuit filed against the city of Ann Arbor led last month to city council action to place a charter amendment in front of voters on Nov. 4, 2014. The amendments – which establish eligibility requirements for elected and appointed officials – were placed on the fall ballot in a July 21, 2014 vote of the council.

And now the ballot language for the two proposed Ann Arbor city charter amendments has been certified by Michigan’s attorney general as meeting the requirements of the Home Rule City Act. The AG’s office communicated its conclusion in an Aug. 8, 2014 letter to Gov. Rick Snyder’s office.

The existing charter language imposes a one-year durational requirement of voter registration on … [Full Story]

A decision handed down by federal district judge Lawrence Zatkoff on May 20 had an immediate impact on Ann Arbor city elections: Bob Dascola’s name will now appear on the Ward 3 city council Democratic primary ballot, alongside those of Julie Grand and Samuel McMullen.

Even though the immediate issue appears to be resolved, a longer-term question is still open. That’s because the result of the federal court ruling is that the city of Ann Arbor has no legally enforceable eligibility requirements for service as mayor or city councilmember.

Anyone at all is now eligible to serve – even youngsters under 18 years old, who would not even be allowed to vote for themselves in the election – just as long as they submit the minimum number of signatures on nominating petitions.

So it’s time for the council to put a charter amendment on a future ballot that would establish some sort of eligibility requirements for elected officials. The council has a choice about what kind of requirements to put on that ballot for voters to decide.

In broad strokes, I think the eligibility requirements for elected officials should pose only a minimal barrier to the ballot. It would be perfectly adequate if the requirement were something like the following: To be an eligible elected official, a person must be a registered voter in the geographic area the person seeks to represent, from the time that person files their paperwork to qualify as a candidate.

Before making a case that this is a perfectly reasonable and adequate requirement, it’s worth considering how we arrived at a place where the city now has no legally enforceable eligibility requirements for elected officials. [Full Story]

The Democratic primary ballot for the Ward 3 Ann Arbor city council race will now include Bob Dascola, in addition to Julie Grand and Samuel McMullen. That’s the result of a ruling from federal district judge Lawrence Zatkoff – in a lawsuit filed by Dascola against the city of Ann Arbor: The city cannot bar Dascola from the Ward 3 city council Democratic primary ballot based on city charter eligibility requirements that were ruled null and void in the early 1970s.

At issue were city charter durational requirements on voter registration and residency – that require city councilmembers to be registered to vote in the city and to be a resident of the ward they want to represent for at least a year prior to taking office.

Dascola contended he met the residency requirement, but conceded that he fell short of the voter registration requirement. He did not register to vote in the city until Jan. 15, 2014. Dascola submitted sufficient signatures to qualify, so the impact of the ruling is that Dascola will appear on the Ward 3 ballot.

Dascola was represented in the case by local attorney Tom Wieder.

Both of the Ann Arbor city charter requirements were ruled unconstitutional, null and void in federal cases from the early 1970s. But the city of Ann Arbor sought to enforce those charter requirements against Dascola based on subsequent decisions on eligibility requirements in other jurisdictions in the intervening period. Those included an Ann Arbor case in 2002 (Wojack v. City of Ann Arbor) that resulted in a finding by the local state circuit court upholding the residency requirement. But that finding came only after Republican Scott Wojack was allowed on the Ward 1 city council ballot – a race he did not win. Wojack’s attorney was Tom Wieder.

Based on subsequent case law and a shifted standard of judicial review, one-year durational requirements of the kind that the Ann Arbor city charter includes would almost certainly be found constitutional, if the 1970s cases were to be litigated today. But the May 20, 2014 ruling by Zatkoff found Dascola’s argument convincing: That in order for the city to enforce the charter requirements – which had been found unconstitutional, null and void in separate rulings in 1971 – it would have needed to re-enact those requirements.

From the opinion: “Plaintiff [Dascola] has provided compelling evidence that Defendants [the city of Ann Arbor] have used void provisions of the Charter in an attempt to preclude him from running for City Council. Further, remedies available at law would not compensate Plaintiff for his inability to run for City Council. Finally, as established above, the balance of hardships between the parties – and the public interest at large – warrant this Court enjoining Defendants from enforcing a void law when the City has failed to re-enact that law.” [Dascola v. City of A2: Opinion] [Dascola v. City of A2: Judgment]

That means all the Aug. 5, 2014 ballots for partisan primaries for Ann Arbor mayor and city council are finally set. On the non-partisan side, Bryan Kelly took out petitions for city council in Ward 1, but was informed by the city that he did not meet the charter’s durational eligibility requirements. The ruling on the Dascola case would clear the way for Kelly to run. And as an independent, he’d have until July 17 to submit signatures. But in responding to an emailed Chronicle query, he indicated that he’s content with the representation of Ward 1 on the city council, saying they are “good people,” and he is no longer contemplating running at this time.

The city does have the option to appeal the ruling, but council sources indicate that is not probable. More likely is that the council would vote to place a charter amendment on the ballot this fall so that voters could ratify some set of eligibility requirements. The May 20 ruling from Zatkoff permanently enjoins the city from enforcing either of the former charter requirements prior to re-enacting them.

The background of the case and a review of the opinion are presented below, as well as the complete set of briefings from the case. [Full Story]

The lineups for all the Ann Arbor city council primary races on Aug. 5, 2014 have now been finalized – except for Ward 3. Whether Bob Dascola’s name will appear alongside those of Julie Grand and Samuel McMullen will depend on the outcome of a lawsuit that has been filed in federal district court.

The Chronicle has previously covered the various lawsuit filings in a fair amount of detail. The central issue in the case is whether Ann Arbor city charter requirements that were struck down as unconstitutional and declared null and void in 1972 can still be applied today.

While we’re waiting for a decision to be handed down, we thought it would be useful to get a possibly more accessible, spoken-word treatment of the lawsuit’s subject matter. To that end, we talked with Dascola’s attorney, Tom Wieder.

Wieder litigated a case similar to Dascola’s back in 2001.

Some highlights from the conversation include the fact that Wieder thinks the city council potentially has a role to play in the city’s handling of the case – based on the fact that the city attorney is accountable to the city council. The city’s legal stance should be determined by the council, Wieder says, not by the city attorney.

And Wieder talks about the fact that a council controlled by Democrats should allow the Democratic Party principle of free and open access to the ballot to guide their thinking on this matter – given that there are at least two plausible points of view on the enforceability of the city charter’s eligibility requirements.

The council’s particular responsibility as a group of Democrats leads to some discussion of the idea that Ann Arbor Democrats, who dominate city politics today, might be a different stripe from the Democrats of the early 1970s and 1980s, who fought for fewer eligibility requirements on candidates for city office.

It’s fair to point out that that Wieder was involved in two key changes to Ann Arbor’s electoral process that could reasonably be analyzed as leading to Ann Arbor’s current political life being dominated by Democrats: (1) redrawing ward boundaries in 1991; and (2) shifting elections from April to November.

Wieder also ventures that the Democratic dominance of local city politics might have lessened an historically strong Democratic interest in the value of process, and not just doing the right things, but doing things the right way: “… I think the fact that the Democrats have now been in charge pretty much for a while, there may be less self-examination when it comes to process and basic political principles than when somebody else was controlling those levers.”

Asked what he thinks the eligibility requirements for city council and mayor should be, Wieder suggests these requirements: At the time of filing petitions for office, a mayoral candidate should be a registered voter in the city; and at the time of filing petitions for office, candidates for city council should be registered voters in the wards they seek to represent.

One unsuccessful attempt to clean up the city charter – so that there are clear and constitutional eligibility requirements – was made in 2003. No matter how Dascola’s lawsuit turns out, Wieder thinks the city council needs to make a better effort to clean up the city charter – by establishing clear and constitutional eligibility requirements for mayor and city council. The council could propose different charter language on eligibility requirements for elective office and place a charter amendment before voters.

During the conversation, Wieder describes how the Wojack case led the city to print up two different sets of ballots, one with Wojack’s name and another set without it. If the Dascola case is resolved by early June, that contingency would not be necessary this time around.

The conversation with Wieder is presented in Q & A format below, with some re-ordering and editing.  [Full Story]

On Friday, March 28, 2014, the Ann Arbor’s city clerk staff validated 103 signatures for Bob Dascola’s attempted candidacy to represent Ward 3 on the Ann Arbor city council.

That same day, Dascola filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Michigan’s U.S. District Court to assert his right to compete in the Aug. 5 Democratic primary election. [.pdf of March 28, 2014 complaint Dascola v. City of Ann Arbor]

Even though Dascola has more than the required 100  signatures to stand for election, the city clerk previously informed Dascola that he does not meet the city charter eligibility requirements for candidates.

And city clerk records still indicate in red type that Dascola does not meet the eligibility requirements.

The city has two different eligibility requirements for city council candidates. The first requires one year of residency in the ward that a candidate seeks to represent, prior to election. The second requires one year of voter registration in the city of Ann Arbor, prior to election.

Dascola’s lawsuit is based in part on the fact that each of Ann Arbor’s charter requirements were explicitly struck down in federal court in the early 1970s. [Feld v. City of Ann Arbor] [Human Rights Party et al v. City of Ann Arbor]

The complaint indicates that the city apparently believes Dascola doesn’t meet either of the requirements. Dascola contends that he actually meets the city charter’s residency requirement.

Previous coverage from The Chronicle includes: “Dascola to Assert Right to Run in Ward 3.” [Full Story]

Last spring, The Chronicle began systematically publishing detailed previews of Ann Arbor city council meeting agendas. Part of that effort includes pointing readers to the city’s online agenda management system, which is hosted on a software platform called Legistar.

Legistar is an information-rich archive for upcoming as well as past meetings. I’ll grant you, it is not perfect. Legistar can at times be sluggish to respond or counterintuitive in its user interface. But Legistar will mostly cough up what you’re looking for.

The city of Ann Arbor has been using Legistar as part of its record management for Ann Arbor’s government for six years. By now I’d guess residents have figured out for themselves as much as they need or want to know about Legistar. So my purpose in writing is not to provide a tutorial on its use.

In this column, I’d like to focus on one feature of Legistar: the ability to classify meeting agenda items by category. The city of Ann Arbor’s Legistar system is set up so that an agenda item can be classified as: appointment, introduction, minutes, ordinance, proclamation, public hearing only, report or communication, resolution, resolution/public hearing, work session. Of those categories, I’d like to focus on just one: introduction.

I think that a more robust and meaningful use of “introductions” by the city council could lead to better public notice of upcoming council work, and more efficient use of limited city staff resources.

The change I have in mind wouldn’t be difficult to implement, and wouldn’t require changing the city charter to do it. But I’ll wrap up this column by noting how a change to the council’s approach to “introductions” could help get the ball rolling on a possible effort to review the city charter. [Full Story]

At a recent forum for Democratic primary candidates for the Ann Arbor city council, Ward 5 incumbent Mike Anglin expressed a generally positive outlook about the direction the council and the city are headed. But Anglin did not have praise for the level of participation in primary elections: “Our turnout in a primary election is devastatingly low. It’s embarrassingly low. And our community cannot be proud of that at all.”

How bad is it? The August 2012 Democratic primary featured contested races in four of the city’s five wards – with voter turnout ranging from a high of 13.9% in Ward 5 to a low of 8.2% in Ward 1.

In Wards 1 and 4, the winner received less than 1,000 votes. That compared to a citywide turnout of 56.2% in the November 2012 mayor’s race.

What about the Republican primary? If you’re not familiar with Ann Arbor politics, that’s a punch line.

Only in Ward 5 did voters have a choice of city council candidates in November 2012 – Republican Stuart Berry or Democrat Chuck Warpehoski. And 62% of the ward’s voters turned out to choose Warpehoski – by a wide margin. In the other wards, the decision had already been made – in August, by fewer than 10% of registered voters in those wards. In Ward 3, no candidate stepped forward as an alternative to incumbent Democrat Christopher Taylor, in either the primary or the general election.

While Anglin recently lamented the lack of participation in the Democratic primary, I don’t think that exhorting residents to vote on Aug. 6 is likely to bump participation to anywhere near the level we might see in November. So the decisions about who represents Ann Arbor residents on the city council will likely again this year be made when less of the electorate will head to the polls – in August, not November.

But Ward 2 will be a definite exception. That’s because voters will choose between two formidable candidates in November: Democrat Kirk Westphal (unopposed in the primary) and incumbent Jane Lumm, who’s indicated she’ll again be campaigning as an independent. They might be joined by independent Conrad Brown, if he submits enough signatures by the August deadline.  Still, in Ward 2, there’s no question the choice will be made in November, not August.

In Wards 1, 3 and 4, other independent candidates affiliated with a University of Michigan student group calling itself the Mixed Use Party have taken out petitions. None have yet filed the required signatures. But to the extent they prove to be serious candidates, voters in those wards might also feel they were offered a legitimate choice in November.

But when three legitimate candidates take out petitions, why are we forcing a selection between just two of them – precisely at a time of year when few voters turn up at the polls to make that selection?

Take Ward 3 as an example. Julie Grand, current chair of the city’s park advisory commission, and incumbent Democrat Stephen Kunselman are solid choices. They’ll be offered to voters in August. Only one will advance to the November general election. And as voters get to know him, independent Sam DeVarti – if he files his nominating petitions – could also prove to be another solid choice in November.

If they’re all three credible candidates, I think a more rational approach to an August primary would be to use that initial election to winnow the field of all three (or more) candidates down to two. That way the important choice, between the two finalists, would come in November, when more voters participate. Or all the candidates could be offered to voters in November, with no primary election at all.

It’s fairly common now for a city council election to draw only two candidates, both Democrats, who compete in August. If there’s no other candidate in the race at all, it would be more rational to offer those same two candidates to voters in November, when many more voters participate.

That kind of rational approach to candidate choice would be possible if Ann Arbor city council elections were non-partisan.

But under the city charter, Ann Arbor city council elections are conducted on a partisan basis.

Last year around this time, former city attorney Bruce Laidlaw wrote two op-eds for The Chronicle, the first explaining the historical background for Ann Arbor’s partisan system, and the second making a case for changing the city charter to provide for non-partisan elections.

There seems to be at least some interest this year in moving the idea forward. One indication came in a response to a recent Ward 2 resident satisfaction survey. An open-ended question asked respondents to identify the one issue that councilmembers should focus on in the next six months. Among the question’s many responses was this one: “Implement a non-partisan election process for city council and mayor.”

A question about non-partisan elections also was posed this week to Ann Arbor mayor John Hieftje, who spoke at a Rotary Club lunch. [Full Story]

At its April 2, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council rejected a resolution on a 3-7 vote that would have directed the city attorney to provide a written legal opinion on the transfer of funds from the dedicated street millage fund for use in the city’s public art program. The city’s Percent for Art ordinance stipulates that 1% of all capital project budgets be allocated for public art, up to a limit of $250,000 per project. The legal basis for the program, which relies on taking monies from dedicated millages and fees to serve the purpose of public art, has been sharply questioned.

Since being hired as city attorney, Stephen Postema has circumvented Ann Arbor’s city charter requirement that written legal opinions … [Full Story]

“Pie lovers … unite!”

As over 50 people throw their fists into the air, the contest resembles a superhero’s meeting more than a pie competition. On Sunday, July 24, Slow Food Huron Valley (SFHV) hosted its 5th annual Pie Lovers Unite! event at the Ypsilanti Ladies Literary Club. Most participants easily fit the “pie lover” label, considering themselves connoisseurs of crusts and aficionados of fillings.

But consistent with The Chronicle’s appetite for all things government-related, we could not simply let them eat pie. Instead, we brought handmade cardboard cutouts of Ann Arbor’s five wards and asked a roomful of pie enthusiasts which ward most resembles a slice of pie.

Why?

At its July 5 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council discussed redrawing the boundaries for the city’s five wards. And the city charter states: “The five wards should each have the general character of a pieshaped segment of the city with the point of such segment lying near the center of the city …” That discussion revealed that at least one councilmember holds some reservations about whether the current wards really are pie-shaped wedges of the city.

Kim Bayer, the program coordinator of Pie Lovers Unite!, began the night’s festivities by articulating the event’s mission beyond eating pie: “To strengthen our region’s food system, build community food security, and preserve our culinary heritage.”

She continued, saying, “When something is made from love, you can taste it.” [Full Story]