Mouat is a partner in the downtown firm of Mitchell & Mouat Architects.

Other officers elected by the board included Roger Hewitt as vice chair, Rishi Narayan as treasurer, and Keith Orr as secretary. Outgoing chair Sandi Smith was thanked for her service. She presided over the annual meeting until the end, as Mouat’s term began at the conclusion of the meeting.

In other business at the annual meeting, the board dissolved its two existing committees – partnerships/economic development/communications and operations, replacing them with a total of four different committees: (1) marketing, (2) partnerships/economic development, (3) finance, and (4) operations (parking/transportation/construction).

The committees are “board committees” as defined in the DDA’s bylaws:

Committee members shall be members of the Board, any board member may serve on any committee of the Board. The Chair of the Board shall appoint the members and select the chair of the Board committees and will solicit volunteers to chair the standing committees. The committees may be terminated by vote of the Board. At the annual meeting, the committees will be evaluated and reappointed or dissolved.

The four new committees have the following membership:

• Marketing committee: Al McWilliams (chair), Rishi Narayan and Sandi Smith.
• Partnerships/economic development committee: Joan Lowenstein and Al McWilliams (co-chairs),  Bob Guenzel, John Mouat, Rishi Narayan, Keith Orr, Sandi Smith, John Splitt. Listed as “committee participants” of the partnerships/economic development committee on the agenda are: Ken Clein (city planning commission); Jane Lumm and Margie Teall (Ann Arbor city council); Charles Griffith (Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority); and Jason Morgan (Washtenaw Community College).
• Finance committee: Rishi Narayan (chair), Bob Guenzel, Roger Hewitt, John Splitt and Keith Orr.
• Operations (parking/transportation/construction) committee: John Splitt (chair), Bob Guenzel, Roger Hewitt, Joan Lowenstein, Rishi Narayan, Keith Orr.

The committee chairs were appointed by outgoing DDA board chair Sandi Smith. Committee members were selected on a volunteer basis. Two board members – Cyndi Clark and Russ Collins – were absent, and will likely be joining one or more of the committees.

This brief was filed from the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301, where the DDA board holds its meetings.

Griffith is climate & energy program director for the Ecology Center. He has already served for seven years on the AAATA board, and his current appointment lasts another three years. He was re-appointed to the board on May 2, 2011 to another five-year term after first being appointed on Sept. 19, 2006.

Griffith’s election was uncontested, as officer elections on the AAATA board typically are. Other board officers elected at the Sept. 26 meeting were Eli Cooper as treasurer and Anya Dale as secretary.

The AAATA board has two standing committees – the planning and development committee, and the performance monitoring and external relations committee. Griffith noted that new board member Jack Bernard had been assigned to the PMER committee. That results in the following committee composition:

• planning and development committee: Sue Gott (chair), Eli Cooper, Gillian Ream Gainsley, Eric Mahler
• performance monitoring and external relations committee: Roger Kerson (chair), Susan Baskett, Jack Bernard, Anya Dale

Also at the meeting, the board approved its regular meeting schedule for fiscal year 2014, which runs from Oct. 1, 2013 through Sept. 30, 2014. The basic pattern of meetings is every third Thursday of the month. [.pdf of 2013 meeting schedule] Meeting start time is 6:30 p.m.

This brief was filed from the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library at 343 S. Fifth Ave., where the AAATA board holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Griffith is climate & energy program director for the Ecology Center. He has already served for six years on the board, and his current appointment lasts another four years. He was re-appointed to the board on May 2, 2011 to another five-year term after first being appointed on Sept. 19, 2006. Members of the current seven-member AATA board will likely become members of the new Washtenaw Ride countywide authority’s 15-member board – which is not yet incorporated.

But the AATA board has called a special meeting for Oct. 2, 2012 to make a formal request of Washtenaw County to file the articles of incorporation for the new authority – under Act 196 of 1986. The incorporation of the new authority has statutory as well as contractual implications.

On the statutory side – because the incorporation by Washtenaw County of a new transit authority will include by default all the jurisdictions in Washtenaw County – the filing of the articles opens a 30-day window for jurisdictions to opt out of the arrangement. That can be accomplished through a vote of a jurisdiction’s governing body.

The contractual side would already be reflected in the filing of the articles. That is, the request made by AATA to Washtenaw County to file the articles of incorporation would be handled under a four-party agreement – which was ratified earlier this year by the AATA, Washtenaw County, the city of Ann Arbor, and the city of Ypsilanti. That same contractual agreement would then govern the transition from the current AATA to The Washtenaw Ride. The transition would potentially not take place at all, unless a voter-approved funding source for the expanded services were identified by the end of 2014.

The AATA has indicated that a possible scenario is to ask voters in Washtenaw County to fund the new transit authority with a property tax of 0.584 mills – in an election that could come as early as May 2013. For a house worth $200,000, with a state-equalized value of $100,000, an 0.584 mill transit tax would cost that property owner about $58 per year. For an Ann Arbor resident with a $200,000 house, adding the 0.584 mill tax to the existing city transit tax of roughly 2 mills works out to a transportation tax burden of about $258 a year. Under the four-party agreement, the city of Ypsilanti’s transit tax would also be a part of The Washtenaw Ride’s funding.

The idea of putting a transit millage question before voters as early as May 2013 was not met with a universally positive reaction at a Sept. 25 meeting of Ann Arbor’s district advisory committee (DAC), which helps advise the as-yet-unincorporated authority. Tom Heywood, director of the State Street Area Association, feared that a millage would not pass if voted on that soon – because he thought there would not be adequate lead time to mount an effective millage campaign.

At the Sept. 25 meeting, DAC committee member Terri Blackmore, who’s executive director of the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study, was more sanguine than Heywood about the May 2013 timing. Also more positively inclined toward that timeframe was current AATA board chair Jesse Bernstein, whom Griffith is replacing as chair.

Bernstein has served the past two years as the board’s chair. His appointment to the board goes through May 1, 2013.

Other officers elected at the AATA board’s Sept. 27 meeting included David Nacht (treasurer) and Anya Dale (secretary). Determining membership on the planning and development committee and the performance monitoring and external relations committee was put off for the time being.

This brief was filed from the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library, where the AATA board holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

The board had been without a chair, because board member Gary Boren, who had been elected to that post by his board colleagues at their July 6, 2011 meeting, was not nominated by mayor John Hieftje for reappointment to the board after his term expired on July 31. Boren was replaced on the board by local attorney Nader Nassif.

Guenzel, who retired last year as Washtenaw County administrator, was elected vice chair of the board at the July meeting and, according to the bylaws, would perform all the duties of the chair. Gunn’s other public service currently includes representing District 9 on the Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

The evening before, at the Sept. 6 city council meeting, three nominations to the DDA board were on the agenda for confirmation: Joan Lowenstein (reappointment), John Mouat (reappointment), and Nader Nassif (new appointment replacing Boren). The nominations had been announced at the council’s previous meeting, on Aug. 15.

At the council’s Sept. 6 meeting, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) made the rare request that the council’s confirmation of the mayoral nominations be done separately on roll call votes for each nominee. The votes on the appointments of Mouat and Nassif were unanimous. However, Kunselman voted against the reappointment of Lowenstein. All other councilmembers present voted for her.

This brief was filed from the DDA offices at 150 S. Fifth Ave., where the board holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]