The Ann Arbor Chronicle » boards and commissions

Council OKs Appointments: Planning, Taxicab

Chronicle Staff — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 05:41:51 +0000

Several appointments to boards and commissions were confirmed by the Ann Arbor city council at its June 17, 2013 meeting.

First, the council extended the appointment of the councilmember representative on the city planning commission. Sabra Briere (Ward 1), who’s served in that capacity since November 2012, had her term extended from June 30, 2013 through Nov. 7, 2013. At that point the membership on the new, post-election city council will be settled. Briere is unopposed in the Democratic primary. An independent candidate, Jaclyn Vresics, has taken out petitions for that seat but has not yet filed them with the city clerk’s office. The deadline for independent candidates to submit petitions is Aug. 7.

Also confirmed to the planning commission as a re-appointment was Bonnie Bona.

Although Tony Derezinski had appeared on the list distributed to the council at its June 3 meeting as a nomination to the city planning commission – and was reported (mistakenly) by The Chronicle as having been nominated – Derezinski’s name was not actually read aloud that evening. The Chronicle has now learned that there was pushback on the council about Derezinski’s nomination for re-appointment. He was filling out the remainder of Evan Pratt’s term – through June 30, 2013. Pratt was elected as Washtenaw County water resources commissioner in November 2012 and resigned from the planning commission at that time.

At the council’s Nov. 8, 2012 meeting, councilmembers had voted – over dissent from Jane Lumm (Ward 2) – to appoint Derezinski to that partial term. Up to that point, he’d served as the city council’s representative to the planning commission. However, he did not prevail in the August 2012 Democratic primary in his Ward 2 race against Sally Petersen.

On June 17, Jeremy Peters was nominated to replace Derezinski on the planning commission. Peters works in creative licensing and business affairs with Ghostly Songs. A council vote to confirm his appointment will occur on July 1.

Other appointments made on June 17 included members of the downtown area citizens advisory council. They had been re-nominated at the council’s June 3 meeting, having first appeared on the council’s May 13, 2013 meeting agenda for re-appointment. The names had not been presented to the council for confirmation on May 20. The terms of all the members had expired.

At the council’s June 17 meeting, LuAnne Bullington’s nomination to the taxicab board was confirmed, having been nominated on June 3. Bullington had submitted an application to serve on the board of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority earlier this year, which resulted in a divided vote by the council on the nomination that was put forward by mayor John Hieftje – Eric Mahler. But Mahler was confirmed on a 7-4 vote as the AATA board appointment at the council’s May 13, 2013 meeting. He is currently ending service as a planning commissioner.

In the last few months, the council has taken an increased interest in mayoral appointments. That’s reflected in a change recommended by the council’s rules committee – to move the mayor’s communications time closer to the start of the meeting, instead of near the end. The mayor’s communications include nominations to boards and commissions and the council’s confirmation votes.

This brief was filed from the city council’s chambers on the second floor of city hall, located at 301 E. Huron. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Wiki Wednesday: Washtenaw Boards

Dave Askins — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:12:17 +0000

It’s Wiki Wednesday again, an occasional series in which The Chronicle reminds readers of the online encyclopedia, ArborWiki, to which they can contribute their knowledge of the community. On Wiki Wednesdays we try to offer a clear path for contribution to ArborWiki.

After featuring city boards and commissions recently, we offer equal time this week to county boards and commissions. The county maintains a membership lists on a directory of boards, committees and commissions, and external agencies to which the board appoints representatives. The directory is searchable by name and by date of term expiration. So typing in “Driskell” yields a result showing that Gretchen Driskell serves on the Accommodations Ordinance Commission and the Southeastern Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG).

This week, we’re suggesting that Chronicle readers focus on the names of these boards and commissions. In most cases, the directory listing for individual boards and commissions contains some useful information about the body. And that’s a good start for an ArborWiki entry, not to mention the people who are currently serving on that body. Note that in some cases, the county’s website listing is limited to the county’s representation on a body, and does not include other membership (e.g., the Ann Arbor SPARK board of directors).

Links below lead to the ArborWiki pages, which in almost every case still need to be created – something that can be done by clicking on the “edit this page” option after following the link:

There’s lots of names of people floating around those boards and commissions. As always, we encourage the creation of ArborWiki pages about people. Creating a new ArborWiki page about a person is straightforward, starting from the main ArborWiki page.

Wiki Wednesday: Boards and Commissions

Dave Askins — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:28:13 +0000

This week we focus on city boards and commissions.

A standard criticism sometimes heard about Ann Arbor’s city government is that it does not include adequate input from citizens. A standard response to that criticism is to point towards the more than two dozen boards and commissions in the city’s organization on which over 200 citizens serve. But who are the people who serve on those boards and commissions? How long have they served? When do their appointments expire? What boards and commissions exist? For a given person on a given board, on which other boards, if any, do they serve?

Here at The Chronicle, we found it a bit easier than expected to find answers to those kinds of questions on the city’s website. When we inquired with city clerk Jackie Beaudry, she said the increased ease comes from upgrades last month to InSite (the online version of Legistar – the software for minutes and agenda creation).

We found the functionality for exporting the data to .pdf or to .xls files to be not yet implemented – only blank pages seem to be generated. However, the onscreen functionality of report generation allows the questions posed above to be answered in straightforward fashion. It’s easy to get a list of the 220 people who serve on various boards and commissions.

City of Ann Arbor website.

Clicking on a name in that list generates a report of all the boards and commissions on which that person serves. Clicking on the name of a board or commission generates a list of the board or commission’s membership, complete with contact information, and date of their appointment’s expiration. It’s possible to sort the list onscreen by the date when an appointment expires.

That’s useful, for example, if a citizen were interested in serving on a commission. One way to approach it would be to send an email to the next person on the commission up for re-appointment and just straight-out ask: “Are you planning to seek re-appointment? Either way, would you mind meeting with me to talk through what serving on the commission is like?”

What’s the Wiki Wednesday connection? We’d like to offer a suggestion more concrete than simply, “Add the boards and commission information from the city’s website to ArborWiki.” One way to start building out ArborWiki’s information on boards and commissions is to start with the people. More specific than that, we’d suggest starting with the people on a particular commission.

Take the environmental commission, for example, which we’ve copied and pasted below from a report generated from the city’s website. Follow the links from the names. You’ll be taken to a page that either exists on ArborWiki or doesn’t. If it exists, add the “appointed on” and “term ends on” dates for the environmental commission – if no one has already done that. If the page doesn’t exist, you’ll be presented the option to create one. It’s not much to know about a person that they served on the environmental commission in the mid 2000s. But it’s more than nothing. So it’s time to do some Wiki Wednesday work.

Kirk Westphal 2/2/2009 6/30/2009
D. Malama Chock 9/6/2006 9/5/2009
Margie Teall Councilmember 12/5/2005 11/9/2009
Carsten Hohnke Councilmember 11/18/2008 11/9/2009
Steven Bean 8/7/2007 8/6/2010
David Stead 8/7/2007 8/6/2010
Anya Dale 2/20/2008 2/20/2011
Summer Tucker 5/19/2008 5/18/2011
David A. Wright Energy Commission Rep. 2/23/2005 6/2/2011
John German 7/3/2006 8/7/2011
Rita Loch-Caruso 4/17/2006 8/7/2011
Matt Naud Ex-Officio non-voting 10/29/2007 no end date

It would be useful to have a page about the environmental commission itself, with its current membership.

Reminder: Pages for other people or commissions can also be created using the form at the bottom of the ArborWiki home page.