Stories indexed with the term ‘Ann Arbor police department’

Ann Arbor city council meeting (Dec. 16, 2013): The city council’s last regular meeting of 2013 pushed well past midnight. And toward the end of the meeting, councilmembers batted around the idea of asking the city clerk to enforce the council’s rule limiting councilmember speaking time. It’s an issue that will be taken up by the council’s rules committee.

In some of its more significant business of the night, the council voted unanimously to deposit almost $1.4 million into the city of Ann Arbor’s affordable housing trust fund. The council’s final vote was unanimous, although Jane Lumm (Ward 2) offered an amendment to cut that amount in half, which failed on a 2-9 vote. Jack Eaton (Ward 4) joined Lumm in supporting that failed amendment.

The dollar figure of $1,384,300 million reflects the $1.75 million in gross proceeds, less brokerage fees and seller’s costs, from the sale of a downtown city-owned parcel known as the old Y lot. In 2003, the city paid $3.5 million for the property, located on William Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues. The council approved the sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting. The city has made interest-only payments on a $3.5 million loan for the last 10 years.

Public commentary during the meeting was dominated by residents advocating in support of the Y lot resolution – several on behalf of the homeless community. A current point of contention for several of the speakers is the fact that the Delonis Shelter does not operate a warming center during daytime hours. Instead, the center allows the homeless to seek refuge there during the day when the temperature or wind chill drops to 10 F degrees. Addressing that issue is one of several possible ways to spend the money from the affordable housing trust fund. Others include using it to renovate properties managed by the Ann Arbor housing commission.

Two items in which the council also invested considerable time at its Dec. 16 meeting involved traffic safety. The council wound up adopting unanimously a resolution that directs city administrator Steve Powers to present a strategy for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan, by specific dates starting next year. The final version adopted by the council reflected a compromise on the exact wording of the resolution – which among other changes eliminated explicit mention of any specific technology. The original resolution had specifically cited rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFBs), as does the non-motorized plan.

Thematically related to the funding plan for non-motorized transportation improvements was a proposal to allocate $125,000 from the current general fund reserve to pay for police overtime for traffic enforcement. The debate on police overtime centered on the question of whether chief of police John Seto had a plan to spend the money, which equates to about 70 additional hours a week for the remaining six months of the fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2014. The resolution eventually won the support of all members of the council except for mayor John Hieftje.

The police overtime item was sponsored by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2), who were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – which eliminated a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who were at the curb but not within the crosswalk – was subsequently vetoed by Hieftje. The text of that veto was attached to the council’s Dec. 16 meeting agenda as a communication.

The council’s focus on traffic and pedestrian safety will continue next year, on Jan. 6, when the council is supposed to make appointments to a pedestrian safety task force, which it established at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

Also generally related to the public right-of-way on streets at the council’s Dec. 16 meeting was an item that was postponed from the Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. The council was asked to consider assigning a specific cost to the removal of an on-street parking space caused by a development: $45,000. The original postponement stemmed from a desire to hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action. One person spoke at the public hearing on Dec. 16, and the council deliberated about a half hour before deciding to postpone again.

The council voted unanimously to make a roughly $65,000 allocation from the solid waste fund balance to pay for an initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds will cover an increased level of service at the compost processing facility – daily versus weekly grinding. The funds will also cover the cost of counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage, and a subsidy for the sale of additional brown compost carts. Some of that allocation is expected to be recovered through reduced landfill tipping fees.

Also on Dec. 16, the council accepted a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service to be spent on a tree pruning initiative focused on the city’s largest street trees.

The council metered out its time generously on items involving large and small dollar amount alike at its Dec. 16 meeting. So nearly a half hour of deliberations went into a resolution that directed the city administrator to include $10,000 of support for the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair as he develops next year’s (FY 2015) budget. The council voted unanimously to support that resolution.

The council postponed an item that formally terminated a four-year-old memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan on the demised Fuller Road Station project. It had been added to the agenda the same day as the meeting, and that was the reason it was postponed. However, it was clear from remarks at the meeting that when the council takes up the resolution next year, it will have support. [Full Story]

After 45 minutes of Ann Arbor city council deliberation, an additional $125,000 has been appropriated from Ann Arbor’s general fund balance to fund police overtime for traffic enforcement. The item had conceptually been described by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) as a $500,000 allocation, but he and co-sponsors Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Jack Eaton (Ward 4) arrived at the conclusion that $125,000 would be a more reasonable amount to spend.

The additional money was allocated at the council’s Dec. 16, 2013 meeting on a 10-1 vote. Dissenting was mayor John Hieftje.

The three co-sponsors were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – … [Full Story]

Editor’s note: This “Live Updates” coverage of the Ann Arbor city council’s Dec. 16, 2013 meeting includes all the material from an earlier preview article. We think that will facilitate easier navigation from live-update material to background material already in the file.

The Ann Arbor city council’s last regular meeting of the year, set for tonight, features an agenda with about a dozen substantive voting items.

Added to the agenda on the Friday before tonight’s meeting is an item that relates to proceeds from the city’s sale of property known as the former Y lot. The sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003.

The item added to the Dec. 16 agenda would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

That would reflect a departure from the policy set in a 2012 council resolution, which called first for reimbursement of costs out of the proceeds, including interest paid over the last 10 years, before depositing those net proceeds into the affordable housing trust fund.

Although the city administrator is not required to present next year’s FY 2015 budget to the council until April 2014, at least three items on the council’s Dec. 16 agenda could have an impact on preparation of that budget. Some of those items relate to mobility and traffic issues.

First, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the FY 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair.

Second, the council will consider directing Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Thematically related to the funding plan for non-motorized improvements is a third budget item: a proposal to allocate $125,000 from the current general fund reserve to pay for police overtime for traffic enforcement.

That item is sponsored by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2), who were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – which eliminated a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who were at the curb but not within the crosswalk – was subsequently vetoed by mayor John Hieftje. And the text of that veto is attached to the council’s meeting agenda as a communication.

Also generally related to the public right-of-way on streets is a Dec. 16 item that was postponed from the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. The item assigns a specific cost to the removal of an on-street parking space caused by a development: $45,000. The postponement stemmed from a desire to hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action.

Several of the other Dec. 16 items relate generally to the theme of the environment. In the area of solid waste management, the council will consider a roughly $65,000 allocation from the solid waste fund balance. That allocation will pay for an initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds will cover an increased level of service at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The funds will also cover the cost of counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage, and a subsidy for the sale of additional brown compost carts. Some of that allocation is expected to be recovered through reduced landfill tipping fees.

Other solid waste items on the Dec. 16 agenda include one to allocate about $63,000 to rebuild a baler at the city’s materials recovery facility. And the council will consider an amendment to the contract with Waste Management, which provides commercial waste collection services – to factor in special event service pricing on Sundays for up to five collection containers that are otherwise serviced daily. The council will also consider authorizing the purchase of about 150 300-gallon carts per year ($42,000) for the next four years – which will be used as part of the city’s commercial and multi-family recycling program.

Also part of the environmental theme on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that accepts a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service to be spent on a tree pruning initiative focused on the city’s largest street trees.

Additional items include two standard rezoning approvals in connection with annexations from townships into the city. The recommending body for zoning approvals is the city planning commission. Also on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that asks the council to approve changes to the planning commission bylaws. Those bylaws changes relate to the required notice for special accommodations like a sign-language interpreter – changing the notification requirement from 24 hours to two business days.

This article includes a more detailed look of many of these agenda items. More details on other meeting agenda items are available on the city’s online Legistar system. Readers can also follow the live meeting proceedings Monday evening on Channel 16, streamed online by Community Television Network.

The Chronicle will be filing live updates from city council chambers during the Dec. 16 meeting, published in this article below the preview material. Click here to skip the preview section and go directly to the live updates. The meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Updates might begin somewhat sooner. [Full Story]

The Ann Arbor city council’s last regular meeting of the year, set for Dec. 16, 2013, features an agenda with about a dozen substantive voting items.

Added to the agenda on Friday before the Monday meeting is an item that relates to proceeds from the city’s sale of property known as the former Y lot. The sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003.

The item added to the Dec. 16 agenda would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

That would reflect a departure from the policy set in a 2012 council resolution, which called first for reimbursement of costs out of the proceeds, including interest paid over the last 10 years, before depositing those net proceeds into the affordable housing trust fund.

Although the city administrator is not required to present next year’s FY 2015 budget to the council until April 2014, at least three items on the council’s Dec. 16 agenda could have an impact on preparation of that budget. Some of those items relate to mobility and traffic issues.

First, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the FY 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair.

Second, the council will consider directing Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Thematically related to the funding plan for non-motorized improvements is a third budget item: a proposal to allocate $125,000 from the current general fund reserve to pay for police overtime for traffic enforcement.

That item is sponsored by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2), who were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – which eliminated a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who were at the curb but not within the crosswalk – was subsequently vetoed by mayor John Hieftje. And the text of that veto is attached to the council’s meeting agenda as a communication.

Also generally related to the public right-of-way on streets is a Dec. 16 item that was postponed from the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. The item assigns a specific cost to the removal of an on-street parking space caused by a development: $45,000. The postponement stemmed from a desire to hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action.

Several of the other Dec. 16 items relate generally to the theme of the environment. In the area of solid waste management, the council will consider a roughly $65,000 allocation from the solid waste fund balance. That allocation will pay for an initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds will cover an increased level of service at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The funds will also cover the cost of counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage, and a subsidy for the sale of additional brown compost carts. Some of that allocation is expected to be recovered through reduced landfill tipping fees.

Other solid waste items on the Dec. 16 agenda include one to allocate about $63,000 to rebuild a baler at the city’s materials recovery facility. And the council will consider an amendment to the contract with Waste Management, which provides commercial waste collection services – to factor in special event service pricing on Sundays for up to five collection containers that are otherwise serviced daily. The council will also consider authorizing the purchase of about 150 300-gallon carts per year ($42,000) for the next four years – which will be used as part of the city’s commercial and multi-family recycling program.

Also part of the environmental theme on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that accepts a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service to be spent on a tree pruning initiative focused on the city’s largest street trees.

Additional items include two standard rezoning approvals in connection with annexations from townships into the city. The recommending body for zoning approvals is the city planning commission. Also on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that asks the council to approve changes to the planning commission bylaws. Those bylaws changes relate to the required notice for special accommodations like a sign-language interpreter – changing the requirement from 24 hours to two business days.

This article includes a more detailed preview of many of these agenda items. More details on other agenda items are available on the city’s online Legistar system. The meeting proceedings can be followed Monday evening live on Channel 16, streamed online by Community Television Network. [Full Story]

In a press release issued around 5 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2013, Ann Arbor police chief John Seto has announced that three suspects have been arrested in the Paul DeWolf homicide. From the press release:
On July 24, 2013, the Ann Arbor Police responded to the 200 block of N. Ingalls where Paul DeWolf, a U of M medical school student and Air Force Second Lieutenant, was found deceased in his apartment. An autopsy revealed that he died from a gunshot wound. No firearm was recovered from the scene and his death was investigated as a homicide.

After an intensive investigation, the Ann Arbor Police Department has made three arrests. No other suspects are believed to be outstanding. There does not appear … [Full Story]

The city of Ann Arbor recently won a technology achievement award from The Public Technology Institute – for the city’s integration of a piece of software called CrimeView Dashboard into police operations. The distinction was mentioned in city administrator Steve Powers’ Sept. 3, 2013 written report to the city council, which was attached to the council’s packet as a standard part of the agenda template.

CrimeView Dashboard is an Omega Group software product used internally by the Ann Arbor police department to help solve crimes. CrimeView is far more robust than Omega Group’s publicly available, web-based crimemapping.com, which provides citizens with crime maps based on data from the most recent six months.

In a phone interview with Chris Baldwin, Omega Group account manager for Ann Arbor, he told The Chronicle Omega views the company’s relationship with AAPD as a partnership. The publicly available crimemapping.com tool, Baldwin said, is relatively lightweight compared to the tools available in CrimeView, but is still useful for educating and informing the public.

As one example of the difference, crimemapping.com gives locations by street blocks, whereas the AAPD has access to the exact street address.

Through CrimeView, AAPD officers also have access to data on all calls for service, not just on the verified incidents. In a telephone interview, AAPD deputy chief Greg Bazick explained that a call for service is not automatically logged as an incident. The call initiates the report, but then it’s reviewed and validated – which means that, in the view of AAPD staff, an incident meeting the description took place. It’s those validated incidents that appear on crimemapping.com

CrimeView allows officers to set up and save standard data queries so that trends and patterns can be spotted, which can drive decisions about how to deploy resources with an eye toward solving crimes. Bazick described how CrimeView played a supporting role in a recent series of home invasions (breaking and entering). That effort involved sharing information with Pittsfield Township,, which also uses the CrimeView Dashboard.

CrimeView was used to plot reported crimes by date, time and location. Because AAPD had the suspect’s home address, known associates, and knew the suspect had no regular access to a vehicle, AAPD could identify the pattern of home invasions geographically, by day of week, and hour of the day, Bazik said. While CrimeView didn’t itself solve the crime, it saved a lot of time compared to the effort it would have taken to compile the information manually.

Bazik described the AAPD as still in the early stages of learning and using the CrimeView Dashboard tool. It’s part of the AAPD’s broader effort to take a data-driven approach to decision making.

That broader effort includes a project that takes a digital approach to officer activity reports. Having easily analyzable data about how officers are spending their time will allow the AAPD to provide a metric that’s important for measuring success in public safety as defined by the Ann Arbor city council. The description of public safety success, developed by the council at a December 2012 retreat, reads in part: “Police officers have between 25-30% of their time available for proactive policing.”

The AAPD started using electronic data sheets for officer activity logs around the beginning of the year. At the council’s July 15, 2013 meeting, AAPD chief John Seto told councilmembers that the department was doing the initial analysis of data that’s been recorded so far. Responding to an emailed query in late August, Seto wrote to The Chronicle that the analysis of timesheets would be reported to the city council sometime in the near future.

At the July 15 council meeting, Seto also briefed councilmembers on the somewhat downward trend for overall crime for the first six months of 2013, compared with the first six months of 2012. For example, based on the publicly available data from crimemapping.com for the additional month of July, The Chronicle counted 249 breaking-and-entering (forced and unforced entry) incidents from January-July 2013, compared to 295 for the same period in 2012.

Slightly more detail on the breaking-and-entering data is provided after the jump. [Full Story]

City streets on three sides of the University of Michigan football stadium will have traffic restrictions on game days in 2013. The Ann Arbor city council action authorizing street and lane closures came at its Aug. 8, 2013 meeting.

Vehicle access on the fourth side of Michigan Stadium, on university property, will also be restricted.

The street closures are new security measures. According to the staff memo accompanying the resolution, it’s … [Full Story]

The Detroit Free Press is among the media outlets reporting that a University of Michigan medical student’s death is being investigated as a homicide. Paul DeWolf was found dead in the Phi Rho Sigma house on Wednesday morning, July 24. If you have information about the incident, contact the Ann Arbor police department’s tip line at 734-794-6939 or tips@a2gov.org, or call Crime Stoppers at 800-773-2587. [Source]