Ann Arbor police department old-style, manual officer activity reports (bottom) contrasted with a newer-style, digital records system.

It deprived me of my favorite way give a poke in the ribs to Dan Rainey, who heads up the city’s IT department: “A top 10 finish, huh? So what went wrong? Why not first place?”

Of course, a top ranking on the Digital Cities Survey is not a terrible thing. And by rights, as part of the Dec. 3, 2012 city council meeting report, Chronicle readers might have reasonably expected to see some mention of that first-place award.

That was the meeting when Rainey announced the award, and invited IT staff to the podium to talk about some projects they’ve been working on. Those included a project involving traffic and signal systems that’s connected to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute’s smart-vehicle research study. They also talked about a project that will integrate three major software systems at the city: asset management, finance and payroll.

None of that award talk made it into the Dec. 3 meeting report.

Last year, when the merely fifth place Digital Cities ranking was announced, it was also not included in The Chronicle’s council meeting report. As a partial explanation for that omission, I wrote in a subsequent column: “But one reason I don’t mind omitting that kind of award from a meeting report is that it really does not matter to me where Ann Arbor ranks on that survey. What matters to me is the fact that the city’s investments in the realm of digital technology make life in Ann Arbor as a local journalist easier than it would be otherwise.”

That column put a spotlight on some of the city’s digital tools I use on a regular basis that make my life as a journalist easier. This year, I’d like to highlight three digital projects that I think will make life easier and better for citizens and policymakers, too. None of these three projects were mentioned at the Dec. 3 meeting – which is to say that I stumbled across them in my regular travels.

Those three projects are: (1) the transition to a digital platform for submitting site plans to the planning and development department; (2) the integration of a simple button push that Ann Arbor firefighters can use to record timestamps at key points during their response to calls; and (3) conversion of pen-and-paper police department officer activity reports to a digital format.

It’s the third project I am particularly excited about – because of its potential to provide data that will directly affect policy choices made by the city council. That optimism is based in part on the fact that it was cited specifically at a recent city council planning session. The question it will help answer is this: How much time do Ann Arbor police officers have available for proactive policing? 

Plan Submissions

On the north side of the recently renovated city hall lobby stands a folding table laden with sets of drawings that have been submitted to the city’s planning and development department. The table has replaced the more substantial pre-renovation pedestal.

Plans under review sit on a table in the Ann Arbor city hall lobby, next to the glass cases that hold public notices.

Ann Arbor residents who followed every twist and turn of the City Place project’s approval process back in the summer of 2009 might recall that the accessibility of such drawings to the public isn’t just a courtesy, but an ordinance requirement.

In the course of that project’s approval process, it was questioned whether conformance had been achieved with the ordinance, which required that the drawings be kept up to date as revisions were made. As a result, City Place was sent back to the planning commission for re-review, just as the city council was poised to vote on it. Subsequently, on July 6, 2010, the city council revised the ordinance, so that the plans and drawings in the lobby needed to be current only at the time of placement. Subsequent revisions are available in the planning offices, according to the amended ordinance.

During deliberations on the initial approval of that ordinance change, on June 21, 2010, the idea of using digital technology to solve the problem was floated. From Chronicle coverage of that meeting:

[Councilmember Sabra] Briere wondered why more time had not been invested in coming up with something more cutting edge, instead of just adding a restriction. [Planning manager Wendy] Rampson said she believed that the lobby display of plans had become somewhat outdated – up until a few years ago, it was the only way to see the plans. But now, she said, all the plans are included as .pdf files as a part of the Legistar system available on the web. So for those who have computers, they can access the information that way. For those who don’t have computers, the public library has public computers available, she said.

If that ordinance change two and a half years ago could be considered a step backward for public accessibility to planning documents, then city council action a few weeks ago, on Dec. 17, 2012, could be considered a step forward. The council  approved a $61,000 contract with CRW Systems Inc. in a total project budget of $90,000 for implementing a digital system to submit plans to the city’s planning and development department.

The council’s conversation that night focused on the cost savings for those submitting plans and time savings for staff – who could make comments on a single set of drawings without needing to transcribe the same comments onto a second set. But in the staff memo was a note that the budget includes a kiosk for public viewing of documents. That means the lobby access point for the documents can provide the most up-to-date version to those who use it.

Responding to an emailed query from The Chronicle, city planning manager Wendy Rampson indicated that while no specific hardware had been identified yet, the intent was to replace the table and paper drawings with a kiosk. She wrote: “It might actually turn out to be a flat screen, rather than a traditional kiosk.”

Fire Department Timestamps

A second digital initiative not mentioned during the Dec. 3 Digital Cities presentation was the deployment of software and hardware made by ADASHI. The new technology will allow Ann Arbor firefighters responding to calls to record key time points in their responses.

Instead of radioing Huron Valley Ambulance dispatchers that they are leaving the station, and having the HVA dispatchers log the time, firefighters can simply push a button on their firetruck console that will record that timestamp. And when they arrive on scene, another button-push records the firefighter arrival time into the system.

Recording these time intervals accurately is crucial to evaluating how well our fire protection system is meeting national standards for key intervals: call processing time (from the 911 call to the point when the alarm is sent), turnout time (from the alarm time to the time the truck leaves the station) and travel time (from the fire station to the scene).

Radioed communication between firefighters and HVA dispatchers has not always resulted in accurate times being recorded into the computer-aided dispatch system – based on records The Chronicle has reviewed and reported on previously.

And a clear picture of response times – that everyone can agree actually depicts the activity of dispatchers and firefighters during their response to emergency calls – is crucial for evaluating the adequacy of staffing and the deployment of those staff to different fire stations. [See previous Chronicle coverage: "A Closer Look at Ann Arbor's Fire Station Plan."]

One piece of the ADASHI implementation that was reportedly still having some wrinkles ironed out in mid-December was the automatic transfer of the timestamps into official fire department reports.

Once those wrinkles are ironed out, I think this time-stamping system will be a benefit to firefighters and residents alike.

Police Officer Activity Reports

Also related to public safety is the Ann Arbor police department’s implementation in 2013 of a digital, database-driven approach to officer activity reports. Previously, officers recorded their activity manually, with pen and paper.

Interior of Ann Arbor police patrol car with the computer hardware they’ve been equipped with for many years. The new activity reports will be logged using this hardware. (Photo by AAPD)

The image included at the top of this column shows the contrast between the two kinds of reports. For readers who’d like to look at contrasting samples in more detail, here’s a manual log compared to the digital version: [.pdf of pen-and-paper officer activity report] [.pdf of digital officer activity report]

The advantage of the digital reports is not just that they’re neater. More importantly, they allow for easy tracking of how our Ann Arbor police officers are spending their time.

It’s not important to know, for example, that Officer X, on one shift, had 24% of his time unassigned and that on another shift 32% of his time was unassigned. But over the course of the next year, if officers generally have between 25-30% of their time available for proactive policing and community engagement, then that’s part of what public safety success looks like – as defined by the Ann Arbor city council at a recent planning session.

At that planning session, the council achieved a consensus that the public safety policing priority should be defined this way:

Public Safety (Final Version): Police

What is the problem we are solving? There’s inadequate police staffing resources to do proactive and consistent enforcement and community outreach.

What does success look like? The success statement has three parts:

1. Part 1 crime rates (major crimes) show Ann Arbor is among the safest 20% in the country.
2. The community perception of safety is high.
3. Police officers have between 25-30% of their time available for proactive policing.

This definition of the priority – together with easily accessible data about how officers spend their time – could allow city councilmembers to break out of the fairly unproductive conversational pattern that has repeated itself over the last several years:

A: We have way fewer police officers than before. We need to hire more of them.

B: But crime is down. We don’t need more police officers.

A: Why don’t you care about public safety?

B: I care as much as the next guy.

A: But not as much as I do.

We have the potential to replace that pattern with one that could go like this:

A: Our police officers on average have only 24% of their time available for proactive policing and community engagement. I want to hire two more officers.

B: But we’re within 1 point of our goal. Do we really want to consider that falling short of our goal?

A: Are you asking if 24 is less than 25? Yes, it is. So let’s hire two more officers.

B: Okay, I’m willing to acknowledge the need to hire additional officers to meet our proactive policing target. But I don’t think we have the money this year to do it.

A: That’s where we disagree, then. I’m voting to add to police officers.

This second kind of conversation is one that I think is more productive and fruitful than one that makes staffing levels a proxy for the actual issue we should focus on: Do current staffing levels allow police officers to do the things we want them to be able to do?

The new reports don’t just allow us to discern how much time is available for proactive policing. They allow an analysis of very specific kinds of activities. For example, when dedicated downtown patrols were eliminated a few years ago – in favor of officers occasionally swinging through downtown, parking their patrol cars and using their out-of-car time to walk downtown – some merchants were skeptical. Now it should be possible to measure easily how much time officers are spending on these impromptu downtown foot patrols.

In this report, 22 minutes were logged on downtown foot patrol.

Any conversation about downtown foot patrols  can be based on arguments about how well the current strategy is actually working. What’s the average total time spent policing downtown on foot? What hours of the day is that covering? That strikes me as a more productive way to talk about policing than one that never moves past the sentimental: I really miss seeing the bicycle-mounted cops downtown – why can’t we bring them back?

Responding to a query from The Chronicle, IT manager Dan Rainey explained that the digital officer activity reports stemmed from work being done in the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office. And through collaboration with the city and the county, the system was presented to CLEMIS (Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information System), a multi-jurisdictional consortium for southeast Michigan managed by Oakland County. The system is being piloted by three agencies, and on completion of the pilot, the more than 80 other policing agencies that are members of CLEMIS will be able to use the system.

Parting Thoughts

I expect that for 2013, the city of Ann Arbor will again rank highly on the Digital Cities Survey. And it will again be announced at a city council meeting. And I look forward to not including that announcement in The Chronicle’s meeting report, so that I’ll have an excuse to write something longer about the city’s digital technology initiatives.

And if the ranking is second place, instead of first place, I also look forward to asking Dan Rainey: So what have you been doing wrong that are we are now slipping?

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Screenshot from the city of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County mapping website. It shows the new floodway and floodplain boundaries for the new FEMA maps, highlighting the buildings and parcels that are no longer in the floodplain, according to the new maps. The parcel with extra highlighting (yellowish green) is one of special interest for this column.

Yet among the nearly 12,000 words in The Chronicle’s report from that meeting, there’s no mention of the city’s Digital Cities award. The decision not to include that award in the meeting report was not one about which I agonized; it was not made on the basis of some high-minded journalistic principle. From a purely practical point of view, the award was likely a victim of my finite stamina for writing about a city council meeting.

But one reason I don’t mind omitting that kind of award from a meeting report is that it really does not matter to me where Ann Arbor ranks on that survey. What matters to me is the fact that the city’s investments in the realm of digital technology make life in Ann Arbor as a local journalist easier than it would be otherwise.

And that, I think, is best illustrated with a specific example. It’s an example I stumbled across a couple of months ago. But because it overlaps with two agenda items on the city council’s next meeting, on Feb. 21, I thought now would be a good time to share it with readers. One of those agenda items involves demolishing derelict houses, and the other involves the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood maps.

This tale begins on Facebook and ends in the bucket of a big yellow backhoe.

City Council Agenda: Feb. 21, 2012

First, let’s preview two agenda items related to the big yellow backhoe. The city council’s Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012 agenda, like all upcoming meeting agendas, is available online through the Legistar system. The regular meeting schedule for the council calls for meetings to start at 7 p.m. on the first and third Monday of the month. But this week was a holiday, Presidents Day, and the meeting day shifted to accommodate it.

Live streaming of the meetings is available online via CTN’s channel 16. Depending on your connection, you’ll experience a delay of 3-5 seconds after the page loads before the video begins streaming.

City Council Agenda: Flood Maps

On Tuesday’s agenda is consideration of an ordinance change that will adopt new flood maps.

By way of background on those maps, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) makes flood insurance available for properties in participating communities – Ann Arbor is a participant. If a building has a federally-backed mortgage and it’s located within the “1% annual change floodplain” (previously called the “100-year floodplain”) then flood insurance is required.

Ann Arbor’s most recent Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) dates from Jan. 2, 1992. In 2004, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) began a map revision process for Washtenaw County. Various drains in the city were re-analyzed, using updated data, and on July 27, 2007, FEMA issued preliminary maps. After the required public review, appeal and revisions, on Oct. 3, 2011, FEMA issued a letter with a final determination, indicating that the new maps would be become effective on April 3, 2012. [.pdf of Oct. 3, 2011 letter] [.pdf of Dec. 20, 2011 reminder letter]

Compared to the previous 1992 maps, 321 parcels are no longer analyzed as lying within a floodplain. However 116 parcels that were previously not analyzed as in a floodplain are now in a floodplain, according to the new maps. Building-wise, 452 structures are no longer analyzed as lying within a floodplain, while 88 buildings are now in a floodplain, according to the new maps. Watershed-by-watershed, here’s the breakdown.

Parcels Into Floodplain        Parcels Out of Floodplain      

Allen Creek      45            Allen Creek      199
Huron River       5            Huron River        9
Mallets Creek    24            Mallets Creek     10
Millers Creek    16            Millers Creek      0
Swift Run        11            Swift Run         84
Traver Creek     15            Traver Creek      19
Total           116            Total            321

Buildings Into Floodplain      Buildings Out of Floodplain      

Allen Creek      46            Allen Creek      204
Huron River       5            Huron River        6
Mallets Creek    23            Mallets Creek     48
Millers Creek     3            Millers Creek      0
Swift Run         2            Swift Run        171
Traver Creek      9            Traver Creek      23
Total            88            Total            452

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The council will be asked on Feb. 21 to give initial approval to a change to the city’s building code to specify the zones in the new maps as flood-prone areas. The entire city code set is available online through the city clerk’s gateway. (Scroll to the bottom of the page, past the privacy policy.)

As an ordinance change, the council is required by city charter to give an initial approval (first reading) followed by a final approval at a subsequent meeting.

City Council Agenda: Demolition Fund

The second agenda item of interest for this tale is one that establishes a $250,000 allocation for the demolition of buildings that the city deems dangerous under Chapter 101 of the city code. The city would like to target buildings that are diminishing the quality of neighborhoods, dragging down property values and attracting nuisances. The appropriation is from the city’s general fund, and thus requires an 8-vote majority. The city expects to be able to reimburse the general fund from the proceeds of a lawsuit settlement related to the old Michigan Inn property on Jackson Avenue.

The issue of dealing with abandoned and derelict buildings is one that has been pushed by Ward 3 councilmember Stephen Kunselman. By way of example, at the council’s May 16, 2011 meeting, Kunselman questioned the prioritization of neighborhood stabilization funds for the demolition of three houses on the site for the proposed Near North affordable housing development (on North Main Street, south of Summit). [No demolitions have yet taken place.] From The Chronicle’s meeting report:

Kunselman noted there are lots of blighted properties in the city that could use these funds. Why were these houses on North Main selected and not others? Why wouldn’t the developer be responsible for tearing down the houses? [Mary Jo] Callan told Kunselman those were great questions. The funds have a time limit on them, so part of the reason to use them on the Near North demolitions is that it’s a project ready to go, there’s a clear owner, a clear title, and there are no potential delays. In addition, NSP funds can only be used on certain census tracts.

Kunselman wanted to know if a lien would be placed on the property and how the Near North developer would pay it back. Callan said that certain liens are forgiven. But if the property were sold, it would have to get paid back. Kunselman concluded from what Callan said that the money for demolition is a grant. Callan told him, “It’s an investment in permanently affordable housing.” The expectation is that the housing will be permanently affordable. The city’s strategy is not heavily weighted towards “recycling” the money, as Kunselman was suggesting: use money for demolition; place a lien on the property; the property sells; the lien is paid back; and the money becomes available for demolition of another blighted property.

Kunselman asked community services area administrator Sumedh Bahl how many blighted properties the city’s nuisance committee had identified. Bahl said the committee is prioritizing a list and in the next few months, that list would be shared with the council. Kunselman wondered if the city would have any money to undertake demolitions. There was a house torn down in his neighborhood where the money was paid back. Was there any way to make sure the North Main property owner does pay it back?

And it was Kunselman who was responsible for the origin of this column – in a Facebook comment he left about a link pushed out on The Chronicle’s Facebook network.

Ann Arbor Housing Commission

On Jan. 6, 2012, The Chronicle published an article based on a meeting of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission board. Newly-hired executive director Jennifer L. Hall described for the board a possible plan for the acquisition of additional property. The location of the property was not disclosed – it was discussed in a closed session with the board. Discussion of land acquisition is an allowable use of closed sessions under Michigan’s Open Meetings Act.

Kunselman's Facebook comment about The Chronicle's reporting on the possible acquisition of additional property by the Ann Arbor Housing Commission.

Kunselman wrote on a Facebook post containing a link to the article: ”The last time the AAHC bought land, the city became the owner of a blighted house that had to be torn down after years of sitting empty.”

Following up with Kunselman, he described the general location as being on Platt Road, north of Verle.

From there, I checked out the maps available online through the joint city/county geographic information service. I clicked around on likely-looking parcels using the “point identify” tool.

Satellite image of 3432 Platt Road from 2010.

It’s a tool that displays information about whatever parcel a user clicks on. I was able to identify 3432 Platt as a parcel owned by the city of Ann Arbor. And by adding the satellite imagery to the layers I was viewing, I was able to verify that there was no building on the property. Checking with Kunselman, he verified that this was the parcel he had in mind.

Kunselman also subsequently mentioned to me that one of the issues associated with the property was its location in a floodplain.

By searching the city council minutes on Legistar for “3432 Platt,” I was able to verify the history of the parcel as described by Kunselman. From the Oct. 7, 1996 minutes:

Whereas, The Ann Arbor Housing Commission purchased the property at 3432 Platt Road (parcels A, B, C, D) on January 30, 1992 for the amount of $99,500.00 to be used for the new development project with property’s owner identified as the City of Ann Arbor acting by and through the Ann Arbor Housing …

Whereas, After the purchases were completed, it was determined that portions of the properties are in the 100-year flood plain and HUD determined that it would not give final approval for these properties nor reimburse the Housing Commission for the purchase price of the properties;

Whereas, Efforts by the Housing Commission to sell these properties have been unsuccessful;

Whereas, The Housing Commission is now asking that the properties be conveyed back to the City in exchange for a reduction of the debt owed by the Housing Commission to the City; and Whereas, The Housing Policy Board at its meeting on June 19, 1996, recommended that the City take title of the Platt Road properties from the Housing Commission and credit the debt owed on the properties;

RESOLVED, That City Council approve the transfer of the above described properties from the Ann Arbor Housing Commission to the City of Ann Arbor; …

Three years after that, on May 3, 1999, the council passed a resolution authorizing the disposal of the property as “excess city property.”

What’s happened since 1999? A Google search confined to just the city’s website turned up the city’s 2007 flood mitigation plan. In that plan, various options are presented for the parcel, located in the Swift Run watershed. Those options include selling the structure if possible, or demolishing the house. Most of the scenarios involved describe an outcome of demolishing the house.

The plan also states:

For some policy goals, the City may consider commissioning hydrologic studies of these areas. For example, a new study of the Swift Run floodplain and floodway may show that the Springbrook parcels (3432 Platt, etc.) are outside the floodplain, or at least the floodway.

And it turns out the new FEMA maps that the council is being asked to approve no longer show the property in the floodplain.

By way of background, a “regulatory floodway” for FEMA means “the channel of a river or other watercourse and the adjacent land areas that must be reserved in order to discharge the base flood without cumulatively increasing the water surface elevation more than a designated height.” A “floodplain” is described in the metadata associated with the floodplain map files in the city of Ann Arbor Data Catalog as “That portion of the river valley, adjacent to the channel, which is built of sediments deposited during the present geological / climatic regime. Based on statistically derived hydrologic recurrence intervals, a portion of the land adjacent to the watercourse experiences bank full overflow during flood stage episodes.”

Here are some images captured from the city-county online FEMA maps that show the changed status of 3432 Platt Road. The mapping interface allows users to toggle layers on and off, to view the 1992 floodplains and floodways, and contrast them with the 2012 floodways and floodplains. [For other Ann Arbor maps options, start here: Ann Arbor maps. Those maps provide answers if you're ever curious about locations of all the streetlights or trees in the city.]

3432 Platt highlighted in yellow. The 1992 floodplain is indicated with green hatching. The parcel is indicated as being mostly inside the floodplain.

3432 Platt highlighted in yellow. The blue region is the 2012 floodway. The green region is the 2012 floodplain.

Among the layer options that users can toggle on and off is one showing buildings (dark green areas) and parcels (light green areas) that were previously but are no longer classified as within the floodplain.

The last image in that set contains a piece of information that probably needs to be updated. It indicates a building at the 3432 Platt location. We’ve already seen a satellite image (above) from 2010 showing just open space – so the house did, in fact, get demolished just as Kunselman had written. In fact, Sumedh Bahl, the city’s community services area administrator, added confirmation by writing to The Chronicle that as near as he could determine, it was general fund money that had been used for the demolition.

But when did the demolition take place?

Based on the 2007 flood mitigation plan, the house was still standing in 2007. Given that the city-county online mapping service actually includes layers for historical satellite imagery, I figured I could identify the last year in which a house appeared in the satellite image, and narrow down the timeframe. The 2009 imagery shows open space. The 2008 imagery still shows a house. But it shows something else, too. In the image below, that sure looks to me like a yellow backhoe and a dumpster. Demolition day was also satellite flyover day:

2008 satellite imagery for 3432 Platt Road (Image links to animated sequence of satellite images from 2005-2010.)

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