Municipal Facility: Public Commentary

The majority of speakers signed up for public commentary at the start of the meeting were there to address the question of the police-courts facility. Council was considering the construction manager agreement for $35,874,422, representing the final step to approving construction on the facility, which will house the 15th District Court and the Ann Arbor Police Department.

Stewart Nelson: Nelson characterized the building as large and unnecessary. He acknowledged that the police department needs renovation,  so confined his remarks to the courts component of the project and the  $26 million in interest payments the project would require.  He said that the project meant that the city and county would duplicate services like security for the courts, and suggested that the city revisit the county’s offer to re-engineer  government in a collaborative way. Nelson was disappointed that the cost reductions sought in the new building were driving consideration of the possibility that the LEED Gold standard wouldn’t be met.

Harvey Kaplan: Kaplan said he was against moving forward with the police-courts building, citing sinking employment and decreasing general fund revenues. It was not the time to rush ahead with a new police-courts building, he said. Kaplan said that double-digit deficits in the years to come will  lead to cutbacks in services and layoffs in personnel. The current recession was not merely a bump in the road, he said, but rather had no end in sight. He said  we need public discussion on the state of our city economy and that it was a  time for dialogue between citizens and our government.

Virginia Simon: Simon said we can’t afford a project this big at this time, saying that a struggling economy had placed a burden on our citizens, and that the new building will place an additional burden. She characterized it as a luxury we really don’t need,  and that we really can’t afford.  She acknowledged that the current situation is not ideal, but said that it is working. If  it’s a good project, she said, and thoroughly thought out, it’ll go forward, eventually. But now is not the right time, she concluded.

Patricia Lesko: Lesko said that she grew up in Dearborn, where pools and other recreational facilities were free. But Ann Arbor was a municipality that didn’t even plow the snow downtown, she said, citing an Ann Arbor News editorial on the topic. She then quoted extensively from  the campaign literature of current councilmembers that reflected their commitment to basic services. A sampling here. Carsten Hohnke: “We have to get the basics right.” Tony Derezinski: “The fundamental responsibility of the city is municipal services.” Sandi Smith: “The key issue is maintaining the quality of services.” Christopher Taylor: “If you want a council representative who will think long term, vote Taylor. It’s simple – we must live within our means, we cannot spend what we do not have.”

Karen Sidney: Sidney said that the public had heard that the building would make government more efficient,  but she conveyed skepticism at the claim by asking if the city does a better job of plowing streets after construction of the new Wheeler Service Center. Sidney said that the city does not have the down payment on the building in hand, because the $3 million from the sale of the First & Washington parcel has not been transacted. She said that the repayment schedule required by the bonds does not equal the amount the city currently spends on leases. Based on her analysis, an additional $1.1 million  is needed, and when factoring in utilities, the shortfall rises to  $1.5 million. That would mean service reductions, said Sidney. She warned that if council thought a 5% budget reduction is hard right now, that in  2012 and 2013, the city’s projections show a 10% reduction, or 15% if a recommended additional pension fund contribution is made. At that point, if a new building is sitting on the lot, she wondered if the public would think that council had made a wise choice.

John Floyd: Floyd began his remarks by citing a headline in The Onion recently: “Black Man Given Worst Job in America.” He used that to segue to an Ann Arbor News report on collaboration and regionalism in government: “Thank you!” he said. He allowed that it could be that court functions aren’t amenable to consolidation, but that there must be a strong case to make, and asked council to  please make it. “No doubt you believe you’ve made the case, and God in heaven might agree with you,” Floyd said, but several thousand Ann Arbor voters [who signed the Ask Voters First petition] didn’t think they’d made the case. He asked council to sell the case to the public before proceeding.

Municipal Facility: Council Deliberations

Councilmember Marcia Higgins led off council discussion by expressing a desire that the expenditure of contingency funds in the project budget be brought back to the building committee before being spent, and asked city administrator Roger Fraser if council needed to pass a resolution or could just “give direction.” Fraser said he’d interpreted her remarks as such direction. In similar fashion, Higgins asked that the community meeting room option not be further pursued, with Fraser confirming that it was “not a part of the mix.”

Much of council’s deliberations were questions of staff meant to elicit information that was likely not new to councilmembers. Councilmember Stephen Rapundalo asked the city’s construction manager on the project, Bill Wheeler, about pricing for construction and labor. Wheeler said that costs are low now, but can be expected to go up when the federal stimulus package starts to generate many other projects and the labor market tightens up.

Rapundalo asked what would happen to the bonds if they elected not to build, given that they’d already been floated. Paul Stauder, the city’s bond advisor, said the bonds had been been issued at 4.77% and would be called in 2018. To defease them would cost something like $6 million, Stauder said. Defeasement would entail taking the $26 million from the bond issuance and putting the amount in interest-bearing Treasury securities, which currently yield between 2 and 3% – less than the 4.77% payments the city would need to make on the bonds. The difference between 4.77% and the lower percentage means, said Stauder to council, “you’d be under water,” to the tune of around $6 million.

At the conclusion of the meeting during public commentary, the suggestion was made to simply “buy back the bonds.” Reached by phone the day after the meeting, Stauder clarified that while this was technically a possibility that could be pursued, its outcome was unknown. The bonds are not callable until 2018, which means that they could almost certainly not be bought back from the bond holders at face value – the people who bought the bonds would expect a premium. So while the city could make an offer to buy back the bonds from those who purchased them, there is no way to force a bondholder to surrender their bonds at any price. If the city were to tender such an offer, some bond holders might accept while others might not, in which case the city could, as one option, choose to buy back those bonds from holders willing to sell, and defease the rest.

Rapundalo elicited from Crawford some discussion of the cost savings through collaboration with the county on a combined data center. Crawford said that the county would be paying around $35,000 a year in rent, and that the county’s IT services would be moved into the Larcom Building by the end of this month, then eventually re-locating to new police-courts building.

From city administrator Roger Fraser, Rapundalo elicited the lack of any communication from his counterpart at the county, Bob Guenzel, about the possibility of continuing to lease space for the 15th District Court on a long-term basis. Fraser said that in conversation, Guenzel had indicated that the county’s space needs hadn’t changed.

Councilmember Mike Anglin indicated that he’d been against the project all along. The council does a lot of talk about affordable housing and diversity, he said, but are pulling the bar higher and higher. He noted that the CFO of the city, Tom Crawford, had told council about the possibility of a 3% deficit by 2010, rising to 7% by 2011. It wasn’t the time to undertake a building project like this, Anglin said. He asked that the city continue to negotiate with the county, even in the 11th hour. Every argument that councilmembers present as a positive, Anglin said, was countered by citizens who had a different perspective on it. He said that he supported the need to renovate the police facilities. He noted that the library board had the wisdom to pull back from their planned building project and that council might do well to follow their example.

Mayor John Hieftje weighed in by noting that in the summer of 2008 the city’s bond rating had been improved, reflecting confidence of the market that the city was fiscally responsible, and that Moody’s (the bond rating agency) knew full well at that time the city was moving forward with this project. From Tom Crawford, Hieftje elicited a cost of not moving forward at $10 million: $6 million for the bond defeasment, plus $4 million in design costs already paid. Not moving forward would, said Hieftje, leave $10 million on the table.

Councilmember Margie Teall asked Wheeler to clarify whether the construction contract had been awarded as a no-bid contract. Wheeler said that they’d hired Clark Construction in a quality-based selection process. Clark would take bids on the subcontracting work, and those bids would be presented as if they were the city’s bids. Greden asked for clarification about the “quality-based selection process.” Wheeler said that they’d started with six firms, winnowed it down to three and determined that Clark was the most able of  the three. If someone were to claim that it was not a competitive bidding process, asked Greden, “That would be a false statement, isn’t that right?” Wheeler allowed it was a competitive process but it wasn’t a lowest bid process. At the conclusion of the council meeting during public commentary unreserved time, Karen Sidney would tell Greden that the bidding process would not meet the standard for competitive bidding required by the school system.

Councilmember Sandi Smith took up the question raised by Stew Nelson during public commentary about the LEED Gold status being in jeopardy. Wheeler said that one cost-saving option would be to make it a less green building. “We rejected that idea,” he said, because council gave the staff the direction to make it an environmentally-friendly building.

Anglin asked Wheeler to specify what areas of the construction would be the first targeted for cost cutting. Answer: They would talk to the mechanical and electrical contractors about “value engineering.” Anglin said he hoped that other improvements not included in the project might be procured through the existing contracts, like a new roof on Larcom, and a new power supply.

Concilmember Carsten Hohnke sought clarification about how much money the project budget was for new furniture. Wheeler said they’d be using existing furniture and equipment, and that there was no money in the budget for new furniture and fixtures.

Hohkne asked Crawford if the funding of the building would come from a reduction in services. Answer: Over the last five years, the city has become more efficient and the building’s funding comes from savings through efficiency, and through debt services with existing cash flow. Crawford said that over the last four years, the project has shrunk in size every year. In the initial vision, the Larcom building (city hall) was going to be knocked down, Crawford said.

In response to the question of what the city would do in December 2009 if they didn’t move forward with the building project, Fraser said, “I don’t have  a good answer to that.” Fraser said they’d spent over 2 years exploring alternatives inside and outside downtown. A task force had spent 10 months looking at 11 alternative sites downtown. The conclusion of that effort was the recommendation that they need to build something. Fraser noted that the city still needed to negotiate the lease with the county to get through the construction period, but that negotiating it into the indefinite future was not a real possibility.

Hieftje challenged those who opposed the building to look at where the city is today having already issued the bonds and spent money on design. If we back away, he said, that leaves $10 million left on the table with nothing to show for it. He compared the construction project with what the new president is asking the country to do: put money into the economy and put people to work. Hieftje said that the last he’d heard from Bob Guenzel was that the city needed to move the courts out of the leased space. Hieftje said he ran into county commissioners as a part of his job all the time and that not once had he heard that the county had changed its mind about where the courts are going to be. For his part, Hieftje said, “I think it’s clear cut.”

Councilmember Sabra Briere did not see it as clear cut. “A voice of dissent is never bad in a democracy, and it’s not irresponsible to be that voice of dissent.” [Editor's note: In council deliberations on the 42 North project, Hieftje had said that voting against it was "irresponsible." Briere voted against approval of 42 North.]

Briere said she wasn’t sitting at the council table when the project was first discussed, but rather at her dining room table and she’d read about it in the newspaper. She said she thought that repairing the existing city hall was more cost effective than constructing a new building. Investing in staff improves morale, she said, and improves services.

Briere noted that the city had submitted its wish list for the stimulus package, and she was startled to see that this project was among those proposed. We’ve been told we have sufficient funding, she said, from a mix of bonds, sale of property, and lease payments. Why, then, is this project included in the stimulus package wish list, she wondered. “Have we been misled?” she asked. She said the city should have specified that they needed $30 million to help improve the project instead of asking for $65 million as indicated on the wish list. She concluded by saying that she was not opposed to it because of the current economic circumstances, but rather that she’d opposed it consistently all along.

Councilmember Christopher Taylor focused his comments on addressing the issue of the current economic situation: How can we go forward on this? Why aren’t we spending it on snow removal or parks? Taylor sought to refute the natural (but incorrect) assumption that we’re dealing with a big pile of cash that can be used for anything. The analogy Taylor drew was to home ownership: “Our rented house is falling apart and our rents are rising.”

The money to pay for building something new, Taylor said, came from the bonds – comparing it to a homeowner’s mortgage. The down payment had come from savings. To raid that money for operating expenses would break faith with council’s predecessors, Taylor said, and saddle those who come after us with the problem. “The price is large, and is enough to make anyone reasonably blanch,” he said, but is commensurate with the value offered.

Councilmember Leigh Greden echoed Taylor’s sentiments. He also acknowledged Briere’s question about the project’s inclusion in the the stimulus package as fair. He clarified that the $65 million figure specified in the “wish list” included both Phase I and Phase II, noting that the current construction project would only be for Phase I. Phase II included a re-skinning of the exterior of the Larcom building.

Saying that Briere’s comments had been reasoned, Greden explicitly declined to assign the same description to some comments from the public voiced that evening or via e-mail. He ticked through some of them. The claim that the contract had been awarded in a no-bid process was false, he said, pointing to information elicited earlier in the deliberations. The idea that we can’t afford it at this time, said Greden, was countered by the fact that labor is cheap right now, and that soon the effect of the stimulus package will be to increase the cost of labor and supplies. As for more collaboration with the county, Greden said, they have their own plans for the space. Alluding to Anglin’s earlier comment about the library board having the wisdom to pull back from their project, Greden said they’d held back because they needed to raise taxes to execute their project, plus they had no credit. Greden concluded by saying that to delay would result in reduction of general fund services, but taking action would not.

For his part, Rapundalo echoed Greden, saying that “as usual” Greden had been extremely thorough. Rapundalo stressed the financial implications, which he felt were not understood by those who were opposed to the project. The city is obligated for the bonds, he said, and would take a penalty there by defeasing them. He noted that we’d also incur extra construction costs by any delays and pointed to the economic opportunities for local trades people. There are no definitive alternatives, Rapundalo concluded.

Briere, for her second speaking turn, reiterated the theme of the importance of respect for dissent. “I want to just remind my colleagues that a voice of dissent is to be respected,” she stated, because a “no” vote represented people in Ann Arbor who wished her to vote “no.” As for the jobs creation benefit, she noted that it would provide employment for construction workers for a year or so, and noted, somewhat dryly, that the city had already employed some architects for $4 million. She noted that one detriment to the building was its design: “It’s a big forbidding building. It would not be a pleasure to enter.”

The critique of the building’s aesthetics caught Teall’s ear. She said that while she respected Briere’s decision to vote against the building, she took issue with her assessment of the building’s aesthetics. She said it would be a beautiful, welcoming space for thousands of people, that it had been designed thoughtfully, and that the public art is going to be amazing.

Councilmember Smith concluded deliberations by responding to Briere’s question about why the project wound upon the stimulus package wish list. She attributed it in part to the shovel-readiness required by the stimulus package. There’s not a project 90 days away from being shovel-ready that isn’t fully funded – it’s in the nature of the request.

Outcome: Passed, with Anglin and Briere dissenting.

Commercial Recycling Program

After Margie Teall proposed some amendments adjusting the time frame for exemptions from the new recycling program – which were quickly passed – councilmember Leigh Greden invited Bryan Weinert, solid waste program coordinator for the city, to step forward. Weinert was asked to give a brief overview of what’s being proposed with the creation of the commercial recycling program and to describe the public process for what Greden characterized as “one of the most significant things we’ll do this year.”

Weinert reported that it had been a two-and-a-half year process, which included business interests plus the city’s environmental commission. It was spurred in part by the lagging recovery rate in the commercial sector compared to residential: Ann Arbor recovers 50% of residential waste as recycled material verus only 20% of commerical waste. Weinert described a variety of public forums as opportunity for feedback. And when queried by councilmember Mike Anglin, Weinert described in more detail that there had been breakfast forums, presentations to business associations, information sent out via the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce, as well as peer-to-peer strategies. He said they’d been very pleased with the willingness of the commercial sector to work with the city.

So what does the new commercial recycling program do? Weinert said it created a structure for building recycling services in the community, offered through the city or through other private haulers. The key feature is the creation of franchise authorities for collection of waste in the commercial sector. Franchises are designed to provide lower cost, and a cost structure that incentivizes recycling. The way Weinert described the predominant current model, once a contract is in place, you’ve got an 8-yard container, say, and you have to pay for it anyway, so that encourages waste. The new program allows for reductions in container sizes, hence reduction in costs, as businesses reduce the amount of waste and increase their recycling.

Carsten Hohnke agreed with Greden’s assessment of the significance of the program, saying: “I think this is going to be one of the more important things we do this year.” Hohnke gave it as an example of how a smart green policy can be the best economic policy. He cited the 60% recovery goal as both environmentally sound, plus leading to better revenues from the recycled material. He said the new program would be strengthening a key asset: the materials recovery facility.

Teall had thanks all around for everyone who’d worked on the program, from Weinert to Steve Bean, who chairs the city’s environmental commission. She noted that it had been a long haul with her first emails on the topic dating back three years.

Mayor John Hieftje took a cue from Teall’s reference to the history of the work on the new commercial recycling program to cite his own recycling credentials which date back nearly more than a decade to the time when he served as board chair at Recycle Ann Arbor. He said that one of the goals back then was to cut down on the amount of material going into the landfill and he characterized the new program as the next big step.

Related to the recycling theme, though not restricted to the commercial sector, were the remarks during public commentary of UM student Alex Levine, who gave council an update from last council meeting on his vision to see No. 6 plastics recycled. He said that he’d talked to some councilmembers, heard that it’d been investigated, but that it was problematic because the companies identified that might process the material wound up shipping the material overseas. Levine said that he would be doing further research and that he hoped council would take another look at the matter when he presented what he’d found.

Outcome: Passed unanimously on first reading. (There’ll be a future public hearing and second reading.)

[Editorial aside: At the beginning of the meeting, Christopher Taylor took some gentle teasing from fellow councilmember Sandi Smith as he returned the council chamber's trash container to its place: "Taking out the garbage?" To which Taylor replied, "I do what I can," but with no apparent winking emphasis on the word "can." A missed opportunity that the Ward 3 representative might well regret, when it comes time to count the best council quips for the year.]

Farmers Market Renovation

The Farmers Market renovation had been postponed from last council meeting, and it had been indicated at caucus the previous evening that the project, which had grown to include a storm water treatment component (possibly in the form of a fountain), would be tabled. That’s in fact what happened, with the motion to table coming from Sabra Briere, getting a second from Stephen Rapundalo. Marcia Higgins got clarification that the tabling would be indefinite. Hieftje alluded to a memo that everyone had received from staff on the subject. Council voted without further discussion.

During public commentary reserve time, Chris Hildebrand addressed the issue of the renovation by alluding to the adage: If all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When the administration of the Farmers Market transferred to the city’s parks department, she said, it looked to them like a park. “It’s not a park,” she said. The function of the market is to provide access to fresh food and as a part of that access, parking places are inherently necessary, as contrasted with a park. She said that we should be discouraging birds and rodents from the Farmers Market, not encouraging them to appear. “I simply beg you to keep it a Farmers Market,” she concluded.

Outcome: Motion to table indefinitely passed unanimously.

Wintermeyer Office Building Planned Project

This agenda item attracted the attention of Tom Partridge, who spoke against it during the public hearing, saying that the proposal would demolish two houses, with no provision that affordable housing be built in its place.

It had already drawn scrutiny the previous evening at caucus from councilmember Sabra Briere, who was concerned that the requested smaller setback in the front of the building reflected a desire to build to a new standard for area, height, and placement that had not yet been approved by council.

At the council meeting, Briere asked Mark Lloyd, head of planning for the city of Ann Arbor, to clarify. Lloyd said that the project does conform to the proposed (but as yet not approved) standards for the front setbacks, but that on the other sides, the project conforms to existing code.

Lloyd said that what might be overlooked in reflecting on this issue is that the direction from planning commission and from council to the planning staff has been to make sure that they adhere to sustainable development strategies, and that pedestrian access, reflected in smaller front setbacks, is one example.

Lloyd said that designs with a parking lot in the front are a standard suburban design technique and are consistent with current code, which has a more suburban character. Even though the new standards are not in place, the project is in line with what has been proposed, and the reasons for wanting to create the smaller setbacks go beyond the fact that it’s contained in a proposed document.

Briere also took up Partridge’s issue about the demolition of the houses on the site, and asked Lloyd to clarify for the public whether their current use was residential. Lloyd said that they were not currently, and that it wasn’t clear when the last time the structures had been used in that way.

Outcome: Approved unanimously with 7 members at the table (councilmembers sometimes filter away and back).

City Airport Environmental Impact Study

Council got a description of how the environmental impact of the planned reconfiguration of the city’s airport runway will be studied. Matt Kulhanek, the manager of the airport, introduced Molly Lamroeux, of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), who described how the project would conform to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and would include the formation of a citizen advisory group. There would be a noise impact analysis study as well as other impact studies. There would be no less than a 30-day public comment period after the conclusion of the study, which would take 6-9 months. The anticipated date of the public hearing would be fall 2009, she said, with the design work completed in early 2010.

Kulhanek also introduced Amy Eckland of the consulting firm JJR, who described in more detail what the public process would be like. Key would be the formation of the citizen advisory committee (CAC). The CAC would consist of 12-14 people, who would meet throughout the project, providing the team with feedback. The CAC would include a wide array of people, Eckland said, with the requisite expertise so that they can provide feedback: adjacent property owners, business owners, pilots and homeowners, from Pittsfield Township as well as from Ann Arbor. There would be three meetings by the project team with CAC: (i) beginning, (ii) middle, and (iii) end. The final meeting in the fall would be a preview of the public hearing, Eckland said.

Council considered a host of separate resolutions authorizing funding for the project.

Councilmember Leigh Greden sought clarification on the funding sources. Answer: 80% federal dollars,  17.5%  state, and 2.5% from the city’s airport enterprise fund.

Outcome: Passed unanimously.

Golf Fee Modification for 2009 Season

In this case “modification” is not a euphemism for “increase.” A scanned PDF of the Golf Fee Modification Schedule 2009 shows that many of the changes from the 2008 fee schedule reflect decreases designed to make the city’s two golf courses more competitive with other facilities in the market.

However, the increase in the senior citizen qualification age from 56 to 57, with a planned increase each year until it reaches 62, drew the criticism of Tom Partridge during the public hearing on the matter. Partridge characterized the change as discriminatory on its face, and said that it had been brought to the public without any explanation as to why it’s on the agenda, let alone why it should be passed. Partridge characterized the resolution blatantly discriminatory based on age, and asked that the proposed increase be struck down.

Outcome: Passed unanimously with no council discussion.

Tom Partridge

In addition to the public hearings mentioned above, Tom Partridge weighed in, as he often does, at public commentary reserved time, as well as during the unreserved time at the end of the meeting. He called on the mayor, the city council, and all other levels of government to end discrimination in all facets of services in the city, the county and the state – starting with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. “I am a victim,” he said, of being cut off from AATA group ride services to the 148-apartment affordable housing development where he lives, off of Jackson Road. Since the AATA stopped serving the area west of Wagner and Jackson, he had no access to service.

At the conclusion of the meeting, he used his time  to talk about regionalization of services countywide and throughout southeast Michigan. Regionalization should focus on transportation, housing the homeless, and extending healthcare that is now unavailable to the most vulnerable. He said it was gratifying to find out that an Ann Arbor News reporter had witnessed his calls for regionalization. But, he said, the AATA board, which had been appointed by Mayor Hieftje, with the consent of city council, continued to provide service on a discriminatory basis. When Partridge talked through the 3-minute time clock beep, Hieftje admonished Partridge: “Sir, your time is up.” At this, Partridge gave his standard call for the time limits on public speaking to be waived for senior citizens [Partridge is a senior]. Hieftje tried again with, “Your time is up, would you please stop!”

Partridge finished and council went into closed session to discuss land acquisition.

Misc. Communications

Councilmember Christopher Taylor advised that the Burns Park Players production of “Annie Get Your Gun” would begin on Friday, Feb. 6, continuing with performances the following weekend as well. Taylor, who has performed in past productions but not this one, said that Eva Rosenwald, his wife, had been selected to play Annie.

Councilmember Margie Teall announced that the Dicken Woods annual candlelight walk would be held on Tuesday, Feb. 3.

Present: Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Stephen Rapundalo, Leigh Greden, Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall, Marcia Higgins, Carsten Hohnke, Mike Anglin, John Hieftje

Absent: Tony Derezinski

Next Council Meeting: Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

The gentle brown S-curve in the diagram denotes a "social street" which is envisioned by the Old West Design Group to connect Washington and Liberty streets as part of a re-development plan for 415 W. Washington. Margaret Wong spoke at council against the idea of a motorized vehicular connection between Washington and Liberty. (Image links to larger resolution file.)

City Council Meeting (Jan. 5, 2009, Part II) This article reports the portion of council’s Monday evening meeting that did not relate to the City Place PUD, which is covered in Part I.

This piece is organized thematically, not chronologically.

• Laptop computers – what do they cost the city?
• Liquor – why do they get a liquor license, when we’ve heard so much negative news about them?
• Easement for public utilities – what, if anything, do the public schools have against electricity?
• Public Art Commission – an unexpected wrinkle in a garden-variety appointment.
• City Income Tax – a previous study to be updated.
• Streets and Snow – includes a ride-along in a snow plow reported by councilmember Marcia Higgins; also Stadium & Pauline and Huron Parkway & Nixon have construction planned starting in the second half of April 2009, to be completed by end of August 2009.
• Waste – commercial recycling and wastewater treatment (can you say “bio-solids”?)
• Public Commentary – against a street, for social justice, and for unbiased reporting on the bombing of Gaza.

Laptops

This resolution was originally on the consent agenda as CA-1, but councilmember Sabra Briere asked that it be separated out for discussion. It called for up to $95,500 to be authorized for personal computer replacements.

Briere called Dan Rainey, the city’s director of information technology, to the podium and asked him to convey orally the answers she’d already received from him by email in response to some questions she’d asked. Rainey gave a cost breakdown for the approximately 25 desktop and 36 Hewlett Packard laptop computers that the money was being used to purchase. The cost per laptop was $1,625, which included a 19-inch monitor, keyboard, mouse, docking station, and monitor stand. For desktops the cost was $931. There was, said Rainey, a $1,307 contingency for unplanned purchases because of breakages.

Councilmember Leigh Greden thanked Briere for eliciting the information and said that it opened a larger dialog that they need to have. To many people, said Greden, the IT departement and its budget and inner workings remains a mystery, because it’s its own internal service fund. As council enters the two-year budget cycle, said Greden, it’s important to take a very close look at IT. He characterized IT as a critical investment, but said that it was also critical to not feel like money is disappearing someplace. Briere followed up by saying that when they make technology buys, they need to buy the best that can last the longest time. She stressed that she was confident in the IT department, but the public needed explanation about where these big-ticket items go.

Liquor

Agenda item D-2 dealt with the transfer of ownership of a 2007 class C liquor-licensed business with dance-entertainment permit, located at 314-316 S. Fourth doing business as Studio 4. Councilmember Stephen Rapundalo, who chairs the liquor license review committee, reported that the committee had voted 2-1 not to recommend the transfer.

Rapundalo wanted to make clear to his council colleagues what the vote reflected: a certain amount of frustration about the number of incidents reported through the media at Studio 4 that seems higher than similarly-sized establishments downtown.

Despite that frustration, said Rapundalo, the conditions for rejecting the transfer consist only of a failure to pay property taxes: the assessor’s office determines whether there’s something delinquent. In this case the establishment had a clean bill of health. The police department looks at Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) code violations, fire code violations are considered by the fire department, and the planning department looks a building code violations. With regard to MLCC violations there were a few cases of minors in possession of alcohol.

Regarding the number of incidents, Rapundalo said in some cases it was hard to discern whether it involved an action inside or outside. [Editor's note: Ann Arbor District Library's online archive of Ann Arbor News articles provides examples over the last year of incidents ranging from shots fired outside the bar to an underage girl found passed out in a booth inside the bar.]

Rapundalo said that the new owner is the manager of the establishment. With regard to the issue of property taxes he has a clean bill of health, reported Rapundalo. He had also provided a plan to address safety, which included hiring private security guards. Rapundalo said that the liquor license review committee had put Studio 4 on notice that they would be diligent in reviewing the establishment.

Part of that diligence, continued Rapundalo, was to develop specific criteria by which to deny these transfers (beyond delinquency on property taxes), which are currently not in place.

After the resolved clause was changed to reflect approval (as opposed to denial) of the transfer of ownership, the transfer was unanimously approved.

Public Utilities Easement

Agenda item DS-8 was a resolution accepting a public utilities easement from public schools for the Miller-Maple transmission water main project at Forsythe and Wines schools. Mayor John Hieftje recalled there being an objection on the part of the public schools to having an electrical conduit installed that was connected to a windmill that generated power – something that city staff confirmed had not been done. Because he was curious to know what the source of the objection was, Hieftje asked that the item be postponed, which it was.

Public Art Commission

At the Dec. 15 council meeting, the following nominations for the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission were placed before council for consideration:

• Marsha Chamberlain re-appointment (Jan. 5, 2009-Dec. 31, 2011)
• Cheryl Zuellig replacing Tim Rorvig (Jan. 5, 2009-Dec. 31, 2011)
• Connie Rizzolo Brown serving out Elaine Sims general public term (Jan. 5, 2009-Dec. 31, 2009)
• Elaine Sims replacing Larry Cressman – U/M Representative (Jan. 5, 2009-Dec. 31, 2011)

Confirmation of such nominations is usually perfunctory. In this case, councilmember Marcia Higgins, seeing that Zuellig’s address was listed as Ypsilanti, asked, “Why is someone from Ypsilanti sitting on our commission?”

The explanation that Hieftje offered was that there was a UM connection, which was important to maintain, because UM had not yet committed in the same way as the city of Ann Arbor had to allocating a percentage of its construction project budget for public art, notwithstanding the many large public art pieces UM had installed.

It was pointed out that a different person was spelled out in the nomination (Sims) as the UM-connected replacement. Councilmember Briere noted that Zuellig was an employee of JJR, as a reminder of who was who. [Editor's note: Zuellig was slated to replace Tim Rorvig, also of JJR. The art commission meets at the JJR second-floor conference room, at 110 Miller Ave.]

Hieftje then said he’d like to withdraw Zuellig’s name. The other three nominees were unanimously confirmed.

City Income Tax and Other Taxes

During communications from council, Stephen Rapundalo made a request of city administrator Roger Fraser that the 2004 city income tax study be “dusted off” and distributed. Rapundalo introduced the request in the context of UM’s purchase of the Pfizer site [which removes the property from the city's property tax rolls, because UM does not pay property taxes]. Rapundalo said he would like staff to see what needs to be updated and bring it back at an appropriate time and manner.

Greden echoed the need for the 2004 study to be looked at again and updated, noting that he’d received emails from constituents on the topic. [Editor's note: Ann Arbor does not currently collect a city income tax.]

Related to taxes – in the form of a kind of exemption – was a public hearing on the application of Edward Brothers Inc. for an Industrial Facilities Exemption Certificate. One member of the public spoke, John Floyd, who said that every time we give someone a tax exemption, everybody else has to pay: either services go down or taxes go up. Overall prosperity, Floyd said, depends on keeping tax rates low.

Streets and Snow

Based on the number of comments on a Dec. 29 Chronicle column about snow removal in Ann Arbor, it is a topic of keen interest to Chronicle readers. Count councilmember Marcia Higgins as someone who’s interested in snow removal as well. In her communications from council, Higgins reported on a Dec. 19 ride-along with a snow-removal crew. She spent 4.5 hours with a crew, and said that she was impressed by the finesse used – from moving tons at a time to just rolling the snow gently without flooding the sidewalks with snow.

Years ago, she said, the city did curb-to-curb plowing, which is no longer the practice. She said it became apparent during the subsequent warming trend that we have compacted snow against storm drains, which results in flooding.

Higgins reported seeing such flooding on Stadium Boulevard, where million of dollars had been spent on storm drain improvements. She wondered if, as we change snow-plowing practices, we are changing the way we build roads. She concluded by thanking the crew: “These guys do a fantastic job!” She said that it was an eye-opening experience to see them drive the truck, adjust the blade, spread the salt, and pay attention to traffic.

Besides possible flooding in connection with snow plowing, Stadium Boulevard came up in the context of improvements planned at the intersection of Pauline Boulevard. Agenda item DS-1 was a resolution to approve an agreement with the Michigan Department of Transportation and amend the project budget for the West Stadium Boulevard at Pauline Boulevard improvement for $1.51 million.

The breakdown provided by Homayoon Pirooz, head of the city’s project management unit, was $850,000 from a grant, $904,000 from the street millage, $250,000 from the water main fund, and $356,000 from the storm water fund. He explained that the curb-to-curb width would be virtually the same, widened only by a few inches.

Bike lanes would be achieved by decreasing existing lane widths from 12 feet to 11 feet, Pirooz said. Responding to the issue of the impact of snow plowing, he said there’s no good solution: “It’s been a challenge forever.” Councilmember Mike Anglin wanted to know if the possibility of locating underground storm water detention tanks had been explored with adjacent property owners. Pirooz replied that for residential properties it had not been explored, and that when the city had attempted to reach an understanding with the commercial owners of parking lots, ultimately there had been no understanding reached. Councilmember Higgins expressed concern about the replacement of three cobra-head street lights with 11 new lights as a part of the project: Would there be an impact on nearby residential areas?

The timeline for the project would have it beginning in the second half of April 2009 and to be completed by the end of August 2009.

The same timeline was indicated for improvements in the area of a second intersection: Nixon & Huron Parkway. Agenda items DS-2, DS-3, and DS-4 related to the Nixon & Huron Parkway project. The agreement with Michigan Department of Transportation and amendment of the project budget was made for $909,174. Council also approved $196,370 for construction engineering services from Orchard Hiltz & McClient Inc. and $39,680 for construction materials testing by CTI & Associates Inc.

Other road corridors discussed at council were not being improved through construction, but rather by adding them to the SCOOT (Split Cycle Offset Optimisation Technique) system, a traffic signal control system that is already deployed on (i) Plymouth Road from US-23 into the city, (ii) Washtenaw Avenue between US-23 and S. University, and (iii) Eisenhower between Main and US-23. SCOOT optimizes signals in real time based on information received upstream from induction loops under the pavement. Les Sipowski, traffic engineer for the city of Ann Arbor, was on hand to explain the system and to offer his observations about its performance: when there was an accident on US-23 causing traffic to divert to Plymouth Road (one of the locations where SCOOT is installed), he could see that from a driver perspective the length of delays was not increased, and that means it’s working.

In agenda items DS-5 and DS-6, council approved $479,339 for expansion of SCOOT to Ellsworth Road and S. State Street and $210,722 for SCOOT on Ashley and First streets.

Streets also came up in the context of re-development proposals for 415 W. Washington. The Chronicle has recently reported on the current status of that process: the review committee has recommended that the RFP be refined and re-issued to the proposers with the hope that they will discuss a joint proposal amongst themselves.

Sue McCormick, public services area administrator for the city of Ann Arbor, plus Scott Rosencrans, a member of the Park Advisory Commission, made themselves available at the beginning of the meeting to answer any questions. McCormick said that what staff was looking for from council is concurrence with the committee’s recommendations, under which staff would revise the RFP. The committee, she said, has expressed a willingness to continue its service.

Rosencrans said it’s not a very easy piece of property to develop. The committee, on which he served, wanted to give council the opportunity to revise the RFP so that applicants can come closer to meeting the recommendations in it. One of those recommendations was that the greenway area (which had been stipulated in the original RFP to include the entire floodway area of the parcel) remain under public ownership. Another recommendation was that there be a connection between Washington and Liberty streets. [In previous coverage, The Chronicle reported that the Old West Side Design Group had used a "social street" to make this connection.]

During the public commentary reserve time at the beginning of the council meeting, Margaret Wong spoke to the issue of a street connection. She appeared on behalf of Allen Creek Greenway Conservancy, and was responding to the 415 W. Washington’s RFP recommendations report.

Wong said the ACGC fully supported the finding statement: “Preservation of floodways as open space in public ownership or control is considered a best management practice for flood risk mitigation, and none of the proposals would be negatively impacted by retaining the floodway portion of the site in public ownership.” The conservancy supported the recommendation of public ownership, she said.

However, she said that it cannot support a vehicle connection between Liberty and Washington, saying that it would disrupt the free flow of non-motorized traffic envisioned for the greenway. The greenway was meant to promote a healthy community by creating non-motorized options for travel, as well as to reveal a neglected creek valley, she said. Part of the goal of the greenway was to remind us why Ann Arbor was sited where it was sited. We should set the bar high, Wong said, and “aim for the most we can achieve, not the least we can get away with.”

Waste: Water, Commercial Recycling

Agenda item DS-10 was a resolution to award a contract to SG Construction Services for $42,444,927 to construct a residuals handling improvements project at the wastewater treatment plant. Earl Kenzie, unit manager of the wastewater treatment plant, was on hand to explain what the project included.

Kenzie explained that it would replace 30-year old equipment that was at the end of its useful life. According to Kenzie, the project would take 2.5 years to complete. Mayor Hieftje elicited an explanation of why methane extraction from bio-solids was not currently feasible onsite at the wastewater treatment plant (although it had been explored and tested). Fleming Creek, Huron River, and the railroad tracks bound the treatment plant’s facility, Kenzie explained, so there simply is not enough space to undertake it. Hieftje expressed his hope that new technology might make it possible to implement using less space. The resolution passed.

Also related to waste was agenda item DC-1, which was a resolution to accept the report of commercial recycling implementation recommendations. This report came from the commercial recycling implementation committee, which was created by the city’s environmental commission to make those recommendations. The environmental commission had accepted the recommendations at its Dec. 4 meeting.

Councilmember Higgins led the discussion by clarifying a procedural matter regarding the “multi-stakeholder oversight committee” to be created “to assist the staff in the development of a solid waste collection rate schedule, which would be adopted prior to the July 1, 2009 start-up date for the solid waste franchise and the commercial recycling program, and that includes, at a minimum, a review of the frequency of pickup, the number of containers per pickup, and the weight of waste material per waste container.”

The original language of the resolution called for the environmental commission to create the oversight committee, but at Higgins’ suggestion it was revised to assign that role to city council. Higgins solicited agreement from council’s two representatives to the environmental commission, Carsten Hohnke and Margie Teall, to take responsibility for the oversight committee.

On the substantive matter of the recommendations, Higgins led the discussion with staff as well, bringing out the key feature of the recommended program (which is intended to increase commercial recycling by 50% and to save money for businesses): it will rely on a franchise system with a vendor selected by the city (Waste Management), which businesses would be required to use. Higgins said that she’d heard from a couple of businesses to the effect that they thought their existing arrangement was more economical than the rate schedules being proposed, and asked what options they might have. Staff indicated that they felt that the vast majority of businesses would have cost savings, but acknowledged that in a few instances it could go the other way. It was identified as a matter to bear in mind going forward.

Public Commentary

Besides Margartet Wong, whose comments are reported above in connection with the general topic of streets, two other citizens appeared to speak during reserved time.

Tom Partridge: Partridge addressed his remarks to the mayor, city council, the public attending and watching. He identified himself as the author of four resolutions passed at last August’s Washtenaw Democratic convention calling for countywide public transportation, the ending of discrimination against seniors and handicapped people, the creation of a universal healthcare program, and for creation of housing commissions through all regions of the state. He asked council to pass a resolution calling for economic expansion in the city, county, state and nation.

Henry Herskovitz: Herskovitz said it’s hard to know where to begin in describing the all-out assault on the “world’s largest concentration camp – the Gaza strip.” Noting that the Israeli military had dubbed their operation “cast lead,” he said it should instead be called the “Hanukkah massacre,” because it happened during Hanukkah and was, in fact, a massacre.

He conveyed to councilmembers (via the city clerk) a quarter-page information sheet that included the ratio of killed Palestinians to killed Israelis, which was 100 to 1. He then addressed the coverage of the Israeli military assault in the media. In discussing one headline, “Israelis move into Gaza,” he noted that it was accurate, because they had in fact moved into Gaza, but said that an equally valid headline would have been “Poorly-Armed Hamas Girds for Invasion by Superpower.” Another headline that began “Israeli weighs goals in Gaza” focused attention on Israel, Herskovitz said, and leads readers to believe that Hamas is the problem. We are supposed to get the who, what, when, where, and why from the media, “But where’s the why?” he asked. Part of the why, he said, was included: “Eight days of punishing air strikes failed to halt rocket fire.” But the why of the rocket fire was not there, he said. He offered that the why of the rocket fire had to do with an illegal blockade that forces people in Gaza to eat grass and eat bread made from animal feed.

Present: Sabra Briere, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Rapundalo, Leigh Greden, Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall, Marcia Higgins, Carsten Hohnke, Mike Anglin, John Hieftje

Absent: Sandi Smith

Next Council Meeting: Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]