Although the fare increase was one focus of the meeting, the upcoming public interviews (March 25) of the two final candidates for the AATA’s executive directorship also occupied board members’ attention. The upcoming hire had an impact on planned consideration of the organization’s vision statement, which the board had been scheduled to work through as a full group Wednesday evening. That item was tabled in the interest of receiving the input of the new executive director, when he is hired.

For the same reason, another agenda item was pulled, which would have entertained the possibility of the AATA reforming itself under Act 196.

The interviews will take place starting at 7:30 a.m. at AATA headquarters on Wednesday, March 25. (Read previous Chronicle coverage of the executive director search here and here.) There’s also a social gathering of AATA board members and the two finalists at Mediterrano restaurant, 2900 S. State, on March 24 at 5 p.m. The event has been noticed according to the Open Meetings Act, in case any AATA-related matters arise.

Wednesday’s board meeting also included approval of a contract for unarmed security guard services, a wording revision to the FY2010 application to the Michigan Dept. of Transportation, an announcement of a meeting related to WALLY (the proposed north-south commuter rail) taken by the board chair, a pitch from a company touting its fueling robots, some upcoming events sponsored by the Center for Independent Living, and news about the local advisory commission – past and present.

Fare Increases

Board chair David Nacht opened discussion on the fare increase by describing the full-cash fare of $1 as “what most people pay,” which led to clarifications from the manager of community relations, Mary Stasiak, seated at the back of the room next to the AATA’s controller, Phil Webb. The average fare that is paid per ride is 71 cents, she said.

Background

The issue of how much the individual user of AATA’s services is charged for a ride versus how much money is received by the AATA to fund that particular ride is a theme that has run through some of the public commentary at board meetings over the last few months, as well as during the forums on the fare increases held by the AATA. For example, the AATA receives money from the Downtown Development Authority through the getDowntown go!pass program, which sponsors the rides of downtown workers (with $5 per year from those workers’ employers). Go!passes allow them to ride AATA buses without paying a fare themselves. And the AATA receives money from the University of Michigan and grants from the state that support the rides of UM affiliates, whose M-Cards allow them to ride AATA buses without paying a fare themselves. [The UM blue buses are free to university affiliates as well as to members of the general public. In computing the fare box recovery ratio, the money received from the DDA and UM to pay for these rides counts as part of the fare box component.]

During public commentary at Wednesday’s board meeting, two members of the public addressed parts of the fare increases related to aspects other than the basic $1 fare.

Public Commentary

Susan Farley: Farley said she thought that the idea of making the fares free [for fixed route service, i.e., the regular bus] to Green and Gold Card holders was a “fabulous idea, and that’s all I wanted to say.” [The fare changes eliminate what is now a 25-cent fare for  seniors and those with disabilities for rides on the regular bus. The changes also eliminate the cost of the corresponding monthly Liberty Pass, which is currently $10.]

Thomas Partridge: Partridge addressed the situation with rides provided by the AATA to those who are not physically able to ride the regular bus. [The AATA calls this para-transit service the A-Ride.] Partridge introduced himself as a para-transit rider with an A-Ride Green Card, who was also a senior citizen and a grandfather. He pointed out that the para-transit service provided by the AATA is required under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The act requires that equivalent para-transit service be provided wherever there is regular bus service. Partridge said that there was other service in the county located beyond the AATA service area, including the People’s Express in Northfield Township, as well as WAVE (Western-Washtenaw Area Value Express), headquartered in Chelsea.

[Reached by phone, Doug Anderson, director of People's Express, explained that it's a 15-year-old program formerly funded by Northfield Township's human services, but is now an independent 501(C)3 nonprofit agency. As a transportation agency, as opposed to an "authority," the service crosses county lines and provides services in the near corners of Oakland and Livingston counties, as well as Washtenaw County. Within Washenaw they serve the townships of Ypsilanti, Pittsfield, Superior, Salem, Northfield, Ann Arbor, Bridgewater, and York. It's a dial-a-ride service, which in many cases means door-to-door service. In the context of an expansion of AATA's service to include a greater geographic reach, Anderson said that People's Express would continued to play a similar role – that of a connector to other services and to fill in gaps where no services exist. They cannot duplicate service already provided. To reserve a ride with People's Express, the number is 877.214.6073]

Asked by board chair David Nacht which agenda item he was addressing, Partridge cited the vision statement and the fare increases. Partridge called for the immediate expansion of countywide service as a part of the vision statement, and said that the fare increases were unnecessary. If revenues needed to be increased, he said, that could be achieved with surcharges on other segments of the AATA community like the University of Michigan. Partridge said that the fare increases were discriminatory, because the increases asked the members of the community least able to afford it – disabled people and seniors using the para-transit program – to pay 200-300% more than riders of the fixed-route service. [With advanced reservation, senior taxi rides will rise from $2 currently to $3 in 2010; same-day rides will rise from $3 to $4.]

At the conclusion of the meeting during time allotted for public commentary, Partridge again addressed the board on the topic of the fare increases they’d already passed, asking them to take back the increases.

Board Deliberations

After the clarification about the cost of rides, Nacht continued deliberations by the board by asking about the income requirements for reduced fares based on income-level.  Stasiak clarified that the AATA itself does not “qualify” them (i.e., does not perform a check on income levels to makes sure those who receive reduced fares qualify for them.) The qualification of riders for reduced fares is handled by various government and nonprofit agencies, explained Stasiak, including the Veterans Administration, SOS Community Services, Co-occurring Disorders Treatment Services (CSTS), and Ozone House, among others.

In describing the change now from $1 to $1.25, and next year to $1.50, Nacht said, “That’s a significant increase.” For a “not poor, but not comfortably middle-class family who relies on transit day-in-and-day out,” Nacht said, “we’re talking about placing a substantial burden on a lot of families by increasing the fares this much.” But Nacht continued, “We offset this with a large number of reduced fares.”

Still, he said, it was incumbent on the board to address the question of whether they were comfortable making such a significant increase over the course of two years.

Nacht invited board member Rich Robben – of the planning and development committee, which made the recommendation for the fare change proposal – to explain the basic rationale. Robben said that (i) comparison to peer organizations showed that AATA’s fares were low, (ii) there had not been any fare increase in a long time ,and (iii) without a fare increase, a structural deficit was projected.

Board member Charles Griffith said that he’d like to see rapid implementation of some  discounted fare passes for a limited number of days, without a need to purchase a pass for an entire month.

Nacht asked what the outcome of public feedback had been on the fare increase proposal. Stasiak said that the four public hearings had attracted a total of 25 individuals. She said that there were a very limited number of people who attended the forums in Ypsilanti. Asked about letters and emails that might have been received from the public that had not been included in the meeting packet already  available on the web, Stasiak said there was more material that could be provided to the press. Board member Sue McCormick suggested that the responses to specific issues raised should be included, and that those responses needed to go out to the people who raised the issues as well. Nacht compared it to the suggestion board at Whole Foods: “I like it.”

Nacht asked the board: “Would anybody like to offer an amendment and garner support?” No one offered an amendment.

Nacht began his own comments by saying that he was comfortable with the process. He expressed a certain lack of comfort with the increase from $1 to $1.50 over the course of two years. But the increase was justified, he felt, because of how long AATA had waited to raise the fares. Riders needed to pay more than a token percentage of the cost it took to provide the service, he said, which was now 15%.

[For The Chronicle, Stasiak broke down the current 15.7% overall fare box recovery ratio as 21% for fixed-route service and 12% para-transit door-to-door service. The fare increase is projected to add an additional $314,000 in revenue in the first year with $226,000 more in the second year (for a total in the second year of an additional $540,000). In the second year, this would bring the overall fare-box recovery ratio to 17.9%. That projection includes a 5-10% loss of ridership, because demand could be slightly elastic. ]

Outcome: the fare increases and adjustments were approved unanimously.

AATA Funding

Fare box revenue as compared to other funding of the AATA also came up during the meeting in the form of a wording change asked for by the Michigan Department of Transportation in the AATA’s application – a regular notification in which the AATA announces its intent to provide transportation services and to apply for state assistance.

MDOT had asked AATA to include the following clause, which the AATA has not included for the last five years without objection from MDOT:

Whereas, the AATA has reviewed and approved the proposed balanced budget and funding sources of estimated federal funds $2,383,200, estimated state funds, $6,681,400, estimated local funds $10,926,588, estimated fare box $4,517,000, estimated other funds $149,000, with total estimated expenses of $24,657,188.

Outcome: The revised application was approved unanimously.

Procurement Manual

At its last meeting, the adoption of the procurement manual had been postponed, pending further review with attention to clearer policies on potential conflicts of interest. Nacht asked that the performance monitoring and external relations committee continue to work on improvements to the manual with respect to various controls.

Outcome: The procurement manual was approved unanimously.

Unarmed Security Guard Services

Requests for proposals were sent by AATA to 29 different firms and they received responses from 11 of those. Advance Security was recommended for a contract anticipated to cost (based on hourly rates) around $137,000 annually. Queries by board chair Nacht indicated there seemed to be some unclarity about communications on whether Advance Security was the low bidder, and if there was a different low bidder, which firm that might have been.

Nacht cast a “no” vote on the contract, saying it was to express his desire in the future to have information about low bids included in the information provided to the board. Interim executive director Dawn Gabay assured him it would be.

Outcome: Contract approved with dissent from Nacht.

CIL Events

In the public commentary time at the conclusion of the meeting, Carolyn Grawi of the Center for Independent Living followed up on the unarmed security guard contract item by stressing the importance that employees of Advance Security be trained to understand the range of individuals who ride the bus and their range of needs. Nacht agreed that it was important that security guards be appropriately trained so that respect and dignity was preserved, and ventured that one example of the kind of thing that Grawi might have in mind would be the mis-analysis of someone with a mental illness as causing a disturbance when they were, in fact, just trying to catch the bus.

Grawi also mentioned the Let’s Get Moving day in Lansing, which will take place on April 21. She encouraged people from the Ann Arbor community as well as throughout Washtenaw County to go to the event to show state legislators their support for continued funding of transportation services. One of the goals of future transportation was the seamless public transportation from county to county. Ann Arbor, she said, could be a leader in that. She encouraged the board to think about how the stimulus funds might be best spent to bring the area’s transit from “middle of the pack” to a point of leading.

Grawi also made the board aware of two CIL workshops. The first, to be held on April 9, is called “Disability Awareness and Sensitivity Training for Business Owners and Employers.” The second is on April 23 and called “Disability Accommodations and the Law: What You Need to Know about Responding to Employee Requests.” More information on both events at 734.971.0277. Responding to Grawi’s suggestion that AATA staff take advantage of the workshops, Nacht said that the second of these was being handled by two of the attorneys from his own office, and expressed some concern about a possible conflict of interest. Grawi said that the cost of the workshop paid only for the lunch and that there was not a conflict of interest.

Pitches:  WALLY and Robots

Board chair David Nacht, in his communications to the board, announced that he’d been contacted by a planner named Carlisle who’s a member of “a group with a numerical name, something like 301,” who was interested in expressing support for the WALLY project. [WALLY is a north-south commuter rail project connecting Howell with Ann Arbor. AATA has taken responsibility to be the authority for WALLY.]  Nacht said that he was communicating to everyone that he’d agreed to take the meeting, that he was conveying what he’d heard from some very strong proponents of the WALLY project.

What they’d laid out, he said, was the fact that to add a lane to US-23 would cost around a half billion dollars. And whatever WALLY cost, they said, it would not come near that amount – more likely closer to a tenth of that. The additional people that an extra lane could carry, they said, would be comparable to what WALLY could carry. [see comment left below:  http://208group.com/about/]

Making a pitch at the board meeting itself were two representatives of TransAmerican Robotic Fueling, a company based in Okemos, Mich., which is bringing technology already prevalent in Europe to the U.S. It’s currently capable of fueling diesel and bio-diesel vehicles, with liquid natural gas and compressed natural gas in development. The idea was not, they said, to eliminate jobs, but rather to make the fueling process more efficient.

Local Advisory Council

Nacht began the board’s meeting by noting the passing on March 15 of a former chair of the local advisory council, Sam Breck. Nacht had praise for Breck, who “said what he thought.” Funeral services would be sometime in April, he reported. Nacht concluded, “We will miss him.”

The local advisory council is described as follows on the AATA website:

The Local Advisory Council (LAC) provides scheduled monthly meetings for people with disabilities and senior citizens interested in AATA services. Meetings are open to anyone. Anyone who attends is welcome to participate.

All meetings are from 10:00 a.m. to noon on the second Tuesday of the month (except July) at the AATA main office, 2700 S. Industrial Hwy. in Ann Arbor. You can call to receive a meeting agenda or a meeting notice by calling 973-6500.

During public commentary time at the conclusion of the meeting, Rebecca Burke, who chairs the LAC, reported that little got done at its last meeting, and she had written a letter to the board asking that Thomas Partridge [who is a member of LAC] be asked to convey his thoughts in writing to the LAC, but no longer be welcome to attend meetings, as his presence could be disruptive. At this, Partridge interjected that Burke was making malicious comments about him, and raised the possibility of litigation. Nacht quickly restored order by declaring the two would not address each other. After the meeting Nacht briefly talked with Partridge and Burke, and the two also continued their conversation on their own. Outcome unknown.

Present: Charles Griffith, Jesse Bernstein, David Nacht, Paul Ajegba, Rich Robben, Sue McCormick

Absent: Ted Annis

Next regular meeting: Wednesday, April 22 at 6:30 p.m. at AATA headquarters, 2700 S. Industrial Ave. [confirm date]

Special meeting (Executive Director Interviews): Wednesday, March 25 7:30 a.m. at AATA headquarters, 2700 S. Industrial Ave. [confirm date]

• Carl Jackson, currently general manager and CEO of the Macon Transit Authority in Macon, Georgia.
• Michael Ford, currently with MG Ford Consulting in Camas, Washington, formerly assistant general manager and COO of the San Joaquin Regional Transit District.

Interviews of Jackson and Ford by the full AATA board will take place on March 25.

Left to right: AATA board members Sue McCormick, Jesse Bernstein (speaker phone), Paul Ajegba, Rich Robben. They met Friday morning as the search committee for AATA's executive director.

“Good morning, everybody!” came the voice over the speakerphone. Executive assistant Karen Wheeler, of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, had just dialed up board member Jesse Bernstein so that he could participate in the executive director search committee meeting Friday morning at AATA headquarters on South Industrial.

Bernstein, along with other committee members Sue McCormick, Paul Ajegba and Rich Robben, met to formally vote on forwarding to the full board the names of two final candidates for the executive directorship of the AATA. The Chronicle previously reported that the number of candidates has been winnowed down to five. That position has been open since Greg Cook’s resignation in early 2007.

At the meeting, in the resolution on which the committee voted, the candidates were referred to as [A] and [D]. Ajegba, chair of the search committee, explained that everything the committee had done in the process was meant to strike a balance between the privacy requests of the applicants with the requirements of the Michigan Open Meetings Act. He described the challenge as “walking a fine line.” Reference to the candidates by letters was part of that balance, he said.

Queried by The Chronicle, Ajegba said that none of the local candidates for the position had been selected by the committee to be among the top five, which had been narrowed by the search committee from 10 selected by the headhunting firm out of a total field of 62. The reduction of the set of candidates from five to two had been made at a meeting of the full board on March 11, which falls under the requirements for public notice specified by the Michigan Open Meetings Act. Asked by The Chronicle how that public notice was made, the committee deferred to Dawn Gabay, interim executive director of the AATA, who said that it had been posted on the bulletin board at the front door of AATA headquarters.

Questioned by John Mulcahy of the Ann Arbor News about why the candidates’ anonymity was more important than the public’s interest in knowing their names, Ajegba said that for one of the candidates [D] there was some question as to whether the candidate would continue as a candidate after discussion with his current employer.

AATA bulletin board where notices of public meetings are posted.

Out of respect for the possibility that the candidate could lose his job over publicly being announced as a candidate, and still not be offered the AATA position, leaving him jobless, Ajegba said the AATA was not releasing his name. He also asked the media present to “help us out” and not publish the name if we did manage to find it out. [Editor's note: At the time of typing this sentence, The Chronicle is not aware of the candidate's name.]

In the event that candidate [D] chooses not to continue, another candidate, [C], will be substituted, because the committee wishes to have two candidates for final consideration.

What’s next? The full board, at its next regular meeting on March 18, will formally vote on whether to accept the committee’s recommendation of the two candidates. At that point (but possibly sooner) the names of the two candidates will be announced.

Interviews of the candidates by the full board will take place on March 25, a meeting which will be open to the public. Specifics of the interview format have not yet been determined, said Ajegba.

Gabay has told The Chronicle that she will give us and other media a call before next Wednesday as soon as the candidate’s names are available – possibly as soon as this afternoon (Friday).

An Editorial Note on the Open Meetings Act: The posting of a notice on its front door bulletin board at least 18 hours in advance of a special meeting of the board satisfies the AATA’s legal obligations under the Open Meetings Act. However, it’s not a place we visit except once a month for the regular board meetings. And we think that whether The Chronicle is alerted to such a meeting should not depend on whether someone on the AATA staff remembers or decides to notify us – why should they alert us as opposed to any other media outlet or the general public? And it should not depend on staff remembering or electing to send out a general press release.

So we have now filed the required written request with AATA, as specified in the Michigan Open Meetings Act, in order to ensure that in the future The Chronicle is notified in a timely way of special meetings of the board. Here is the relevant section of the act:

15.266 Providing copies of public notice on written request; fee.
Sec. 6. (1) Upon the written request of an individual, organization, firm, or corporation, and upon the requesting party’s payment of a yearly fee of not more than the reasonable estimated cost for printing and postage of such notices, a public body shall send to the requesting party by first class mail a copy of any notice required to be posted pursuant to section 5(2) to (5).
(2) Upon written request, a public body, at the same time a public notice of a meeting is posted pursuant to section 5, shall provide a copy of the public notice of that meeting to any newspaper published in the state and to any radio and television station located in the state, free of charge.

Mission, Vision, Values

The relatively unassuming item in the agenda of “Consideration of Resolution Adopting Mission, Vision and Values Statements” led to some of the richest back-and-forth among board members since The Chronicle began covering AATA board meetings in the fall of 2008.

For readability, we divide the board’s deliberations on the single resolution on the three statements (mission, vision, values) by individual statement. Why? When there appeared to be difficulty reaching a consensus on wording for the mission and values statements, the idea of tabling the resolution adopting the three statements was briefly contemplated. But Sue McCormick weighed in for splitting the resolution so that the board might adopt at least one or two of the statements, if not all three. Much of the content of the deliberations reported below on the separate statements was chronologically intertwined, and came before the decision to split the resolution into three parts.

Intermediate outcome: The resolution to adopt the mission, vision, and values statements was split into a separate resolution on each statement.

On the Word “Options” and “Cost-Effective” in the Mission Statement: The board’s discussion of the resolution to adopt mission, vision and values statements began on a wording issue to which Jim Mogensen had drawn attention during public time at the start of the meeting.

Jim Mogensen: Mogensen noted that mission statements are always fun to create and oftentimes when they’re revised, the text just gets reused and edited as opposed to recreating them from scratch. He said he’d noticed that “cost effective” had replaced the word “affordable” in an earlier version of the AATA mission statement. Mogensen said that even though you could think of them as synonymous, they’re really quite different things: Cost-effective has to do with how much things cost, whereas “affordable” has to do with whether people are able to pay for those things. So, “attractive transportation services at competitive prices” – a quote from the proposed vision statement – might not actually be “affordable,” said Mogensen.

Mission Statement (adopted)

It is the mission of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority to provide useful, reliable, safe, environmentally-responsible, and cost-effective public transportation options for the benefit of the greater Ann Arbor community.

Responding to Jim Mogensen’s comments during the public time, board member Ted Annis said that the previous version of the mission statement  didn’t say “cost effective” but rather “cost optimized.” Annis said that it was meant to be a statement  about operating  buses at the least possible cost. Board member Charles Griffith also tied the discussion back to Mogensen’s comments, saying that the benefit of operating the buses at the least possible cost is supposed to be affordability.

When giving his summary of planning and development committee activities earlier in the meeting, Ted Annis had mentioned that he’d be offering a  friendly correction when discussion of the mission statement took place:  the elimination of the word “options”  in the phrase “public transportation options.” When the discussion unfolded, Annis said the AATA doesn’t provide the options, it provides the transportation. A potential rider has options, like a car, a bike or a bus, said Annis, but the AATA doesn’t provide the options of a car or a bike – it provides the bus.

Sue McCormick’s take on the word “options” was that it was somewhat ambiguous, but that when she read it, she took it to allude to the idea that the AATA aspired to be more than just a bus company.

Paul Ajegba, who served on the ad hoc committee charged with formulating the various statements, urged some reflection on why the word “options” was there in the first place, instead of simply striking it. Charles Griffith said that the rationale for “options” had to do with the fact that the AATA acted in some cases as a conduit for pass-through funds, as opposed to providing the transportation directly. Griffith pointed to the contrast made in the vision statement – which the board was also considering – between providing transportation directly and indirectly: “… AATA will be the primary provider or facilitator of public transportation.”

A motion to strike the word “options” found support only from Annis and McCormick, and thus failed.

Outcome: The resolution adopting the mission statement passed, with dissent from Annis.

Vision Statement: Small, Medium, or Large: It was Charles Griffith who first  opened the question of what the vision statement was supposed to accomplish. He assessed the draft this way: “As a vision statement, it’s not very visionary. It says what we do, but not where we are going.” He said that the vision statement should ideally outline a strategy for moving forward as opposed to saying what we’re doing now.

The planning and development committee had vetted the various statements being considered by the board. Its chair, Ted Annis, made two brief points. First, the language for the various statements came from the ad hoc committee and for that reason, the planning and development committee had taken a fairly hands-off approach to redacting any language. Second, said Annis, from his perspective he would just get rid of the vision statement.

McCormick was quick to reply that the AATA needed a vision statement, but that it needed to be clear and concise, as opposed to the somewhat lengthy draft the board was considering. McCormick outlined what the point of a mission and vision statements were: The mission statement should say why the AATA was created; the vision statement should say what the AATA wants to do. The vision statement is about direction, while the mission is about identity, she said.

Rich Robben disagreed with McCormick’s assessment that the vision statement needed to be short and concise and that in his experience vision statements could be quite lengthy.

For his part, board chair David Nacht declared, “These exercises are generally stupid. In our case, however, we’re actually grappling with what our vision is.” He concluded by emphasizing that it was an extremely important process  for the AATA. Robben supported Nacht’s assessment by saying that if what the AATA wanted was to change its culture, it was  important to have a vision statement and actually to reference it in day-to-day operations.

McCormick suggested  postponement. Griffith supported the idea, saying he was somewhat caught by surprise and he felt it required a bit of time to further digest.

Annis wanted clarification about whether the planning and development committee would be charged with the task of making revisions, and indicated that he was willing to shorten up the text. [The AATA board has moved increasingly to a committee-based work structure over the last few months.]

Nacht floated the idea that “figuring out who we are and where we want to go is perhaps one thing that we could do as a committee of the whole, as all seven of us together – we never do anything together anymore.”

Outcome: The vote on the vision statement was postponed to the next board meeting, where the wording would be discussed.

Jesse Bernstein emphasized that it was important in advance of the next board meeting to determine what kind of statement they would be trying to craft: a long, medium or short kind of statement. In contemplating how to collaborate in advance of the meeting, Nacht said that HyperOffice software employed by the AATA  probably wouldn’t be suitable as a mechanism to conduct discussion, because the public would not have access. He suggested e-mailing and CC-ing messages to Dawn Gabay so that they could be easily provided in response to a FOIA request.

Vision statement (postponed to March meeting)

The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA) will be the primary provider or facilitator of public transportation for those without access to a private vehicle within the greater Ann Arbor community. It will be a viable, valuable and frequently-used transportation option for those able to choose between private automobiles and other transportation modes. AATA will be responsive to its customer needs.

AATA will increase ridership by offering attractive transportation services at competitive prices using the highest professional standards, collaborative efforts, public relations and customer interactions to remain responsive to the transportation needs of the community and encourage the use of alternative transportation options.

AATA will be an excellent steward of public funds and resources and will foster collaborative transportation partnerships with public and private entities for the benefit of its customers and the community.

AATA will provide frequent, customer friendly, reliable, safe, and convenient transportation services that are environmentally conscious and contribute to the reduction of climate changing emissions and vehicle miles traveled.

AATA will contribute to the enhancement of the quality of life and the economy of the greater Ann Arbor community while improving air quality, decreasing traffic congestion, and reducing dependence on foreign energy sources.

AATA will support a variety of size and type of land development and redevelopment within transit service areas to foster walking, bicycling, carpooling, and vanpooling, thereby enabling the residents, workers and visitors to the Ann Arbor community to be closer to transit facilities and services.

AATA will actively pursue opportunities for joint development that can benefit the community as well as its ridership and system goals.

AATA will respect and value its stakeholders, customers and employees and will recognize and celebrate the great diversity within the Ann Arbor community. It will encourage its employees to do their best work and will provide the tools, training, and environment to enable them to excel.

Values Statement: Nacht read forth the values statement.

Outcome: The values statement was unanimously approved with no significant discussion.

Values Statement (adopted)

The core priorities guiding the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s conduct toward its customers, stakeholders, employees and the entire greater Ann Arbor community are embodied in the following values:

SAFETY from harm, injury, or loss.

RELIABILITY based on consistent performance over time.

CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SATISFACTION due to providing the highest level of service.

RESPECT resulting from attentiveness, consideration, and courtesy.

INCLUSIVENESS without discrimination.

COOPERATION toward the common good.

RESPONSIBILITY by being accountable for both actions and conduct.

INNOVATION aimed at improving efficiency and effectiveness.

FLEXIBILITY to adapt to new, different, or changing conditions.

INTEGRITY from incorporating principles of right and wrong into principles of moral behavior.

ENVIRONMENTALISM centered on a concern for the conservation and improvement of the environment.

Executive Director Search

The AATA has had an unfilled executive director position since the resignation of Greg Cook in early 2007. At the beginning of the meeting Nacht announced that he’d received a letter, whose lead author was Nancy Shore (former AATA board member and current director of the getDowntown program), about the executive director search. The letter, said Nacht, contained thoughts about the executive director search – things that the board should be thinking about in connection with it.

Asked to provide the letter to The Chronicle, Shore sent it along, and we include a link to a text file with its contents. Signatories to it besides Shore were Richard Sheridan (Menlo Innovations), Jeff Irwin (Washenaw County Board of Commissioners), Conan Smith (Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners), Chuck Warpehoski (Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice), and Joan Lowenstein (Jaffe, Raitt, Heuer & Weiss, P.C. and Downtown Development Authority board member).

The first point made by the letter is one that the board grappled with Wednesday evening: the importance of a vision.

The search committee, reported Nacht, had identified five finalists, but noted it would be inappropriate to comment further, because none of the finalists had been notified yet. There were 62 candidates in all, which were narrowed to 20 by the headhunter, and further winnowed down to 5 by the AATA search committee, which is chaired by Paul Ajegba.

Remarks from the Mayor of Ypsilanti: Paul Schreiber

At the meeting partly in order to speak to the board about the executive director search was Paul Schreiber, who is mayor of the city of Ypsilanti. He encouraged the board to keep working hard on the executive director search and to identify somebody who has the know-how to work constructively with the community.

He also asked the board to continue to work towards creating a countywide authority, because the purchase-of-service agreement model doesn’t allow forward-looking thinking. He characterized the current system as somewhat of a piecemeal approach.

When Schreiber concluded his remarks, board member Jesse Bernstein asked if he could depart from the usual protocol of not having a back-and-forth with public speakers, given that Schreiber is the mayor of Ypsilanti. After a quick check with the rest of the board, Nacht gave Bernstein the green light. Bernstein curious to know if Schreiber had any specific thoughts on an equitable way of financing the countywide authority. Schreiber said that he did not have a specific proposal, because he didn’t have an in-depth understanding that would really allow him to offer such an opinion. However, he did note that Ann Arbor was a leader in this area with its  transportation millage.

Schreiber also said he expected that the demand for transit was only going to increase, citing as an example the fact that the city of Ypsilanti  had received two offers for parts of the Water Street property along Michigan Avenue. He said this reflected the fact that developers are starting to give up on green field space – as opposed to already-built infrastructure. And that meant that the area would need to find ways to provide more mass transit – for people to get from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor and from Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti. As an example of the latter, Bernstein offered: “To go have have dinner at Haab’s.” To which Paul Schreiber added, “And breakfast at Beezy’s.”

Committee Updates and Communications: Crisis Contingencies and WALLY Update

Nacht solicited two-minute updates from committees. The governance committee, which he chairs, did not meet since the last full board meeting because he’d been sick.

Planning and Development Committee: Ted Annis reported that the committee had met two times since the last full board meeting. He said that they had worked on the countywide authority formation under Act 196 but there was no news yet to report. At another point in the meeting, interim executive director, Dawn Gabay, indicated that the two attorneys, Jerry Lax and Jeff Ammon, who’d been engaged as consultants on the matter would soon be providing some more concrete options.

Another main focus of the committee had been on contingency planning, said Annis. He said the idea was to develop a contingency plan that would be ready to use in the event of an adverse economic situation – which he felt we would in fact be facing. So AATA staff had been asked to develop responses in the event of 10%, 20%, and 40% revenue losses. And he said there would be a report forthcoming divided essentially into three parts: (i) revenues, (ii) services that would be cut, and (iii) the internal cost cuts that would be undertaken. Annis said the idea was to figure out how to get the cost per service hour down from its current level of $103 per hour to the $77 per hour that Grand Rapids runs its system on.

Performance Monitoring & External Relations Committee: Sue McCormick reported that the committee had met the previous Friday. She said they had focused on performance criteria and taking an exceptions-based approach to them. That is, they had set up a system to review the performance data that would call their specific attention to items that fell outside of expected ranges. She said that the same exceptions-based approach was being applied to the financial piece of performance.

Federal Transit Administration: AATA’s interim executive director, Dawn Gabay, reported that the tri-annual review by the FTA would be happening on May 26-27. At the time of the AATA’s last review there had been no findings, she said.

North-South and East-West Commuter Rail: Nacht asked for an update on the north-south WALLY commuter rail project. Gabay said Tom Cornillie (AATA staff) was working out the scope of work for services. The planning and development committee had directed staff to look at the east-west commuter rail project, which is being headed up by SEMCOG, and that had temporarily shifted its focus from the north-south WALLY initiative.

Nacht noted that as a board they had voted to have staff “work it up” to have a policy consideration. They’re not taking a position that they’re necessarily heading down that path, no matter what, he said. Nacht reiterated later in the discussion with respect to WALLY: “We’re not backing off from that.” He said that a vote had been taken on WALLY, and they’re not trying to slow it down, they’re going to do it right. The idea behind taking a look at the east-west commuter rail project was to get an idea of what kind of resource commitments would be required for that project, so that AATA could assess better the ramifications on the WALLY project, he said.

In the context of the balance of commitments to the east-west project versus the north-south WALLY project, Bernstein emphasized that the role of the AATA in the east-west project was as a “connector” to the project, not as the entity running the project (as with WALLY). McCormick said that the east-west rail was much closer to reality than the north-south one, which was another reason it was worth putting some time into now. “About the east-west rail, we hear dates,” she said. Those dates are fall 2010 for a demonstration project, and in that light, she said, we need to know how the AATA is going to connect with that service.

Part of what had prompted the east-west rail conversation was Nacht’s introduction of the topic of AATA service to the Detroit airport. In response to a query from Nacht, Gabay said that  in 2002-03, they had approached the airport for consideration of east-west service and determined that it was at that time not feasible. Nacht asked if it had to do with a charge for entry to the airport facility. Gabay said there would be no charge for entry. What was the barrier then, wondered Nacht. Gabay said there was a possible lack of a state match, because operating east-west service to the airport might be taking business from a private operator already providing that service.

Nacht then noted that AATA routes had been altered to support a private service, and Gabay confirmed that the AATA routes had been changed to go closer to Wolverine Tower.

Nacht then declared that he would like to have active consideration of providing the Ann Arbor community with bus service to the airport. He said that he didn’t want to hear back simply, “It’s too expensive,” which prompted Ajegba to observe that this seemed contradictory to the mission statement to provide service in a cost-effective manner. Griffith said Nacht wasn’t saying the cost doesn’t matter, which Robben agreed with, saying  that it was a question of not wanting to dismiss it out of hand. Gabay said that the timing of such a service needed to be coordinated with east-west rail that might be going in.

Resolutions: Procurement Manual and Project List

Besides the item on mission, vision, and values statements, two other resolutions were on the agenda, the first concerning the adoption of a procurement manual, which came out of McCormick’s performance monitoring committee. The procurement manual was postponed after Nacht asked that it be systematically reviewed with an eye towards ensuring that potential issues of inappropriate influence and conflict were adequately addressed.

The remaining resolution concerned the adoption of a revised project list in light of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) a.k.a the “stimulus package.” It was approved unanimously by the board. Under the provisions of ARRA, the AATA expects to receive around $6 million, to be administered through the Federal Transit Administration. Of that amount, at least 50% of the funds allocated to AATA must be obligated within six months and the remainder within a year. The AATA has identified the following projects for implementation within 180 days:

• Construction of a park-and-ride lot on Plymouth Road at U.S. 23
  Expected cost: $1.4 million
  Expected contract award: July 2009
• Purchase of 4 hybrid-electric buses
  Expected cost: $2.1 million
  Expected contract award: March 2009 (option on existing contract)
• Improvement of the safety and accessibility at selected bus stops
  Expected cost: $0.2 million
  Expected contract award: June 2009

Public Time: Reflections on Buses that Don’t Stop

Jim Mogensen: Mogensen’s comments on the mission statement, reported above, came at the start of the meeting when comments are supposed to focus on topics related to the agenda, which the mission statement was. At the end of the meeting there’s time for the public to weigh in on whatever topic they like.

At the end of the meeting, Mogensen reported that on Jan. 29 he took the No. 4  bus to Arborland intending to transfer to the No. 22 to get back home. But the No. 22 bus drove past without stopping. He then had to transfer back to the No. 4. But because he had ridden the No.  4 he had to pay another dollar fare – because you cannot “transfer” to  the same bus. He said that the experience had reminded him of a few policy issues: (i) In the Ride Guide there is no prominent printing of a telephone number for complaints, (ii) the signage on major routes needs to be somewhat better so the drivers can more easily spot where to stop, and (iii) the transfer policy has impacts on short trips. When Mogensen concluded his remarks, board chair David Nacht said: “I’m sorry on behalf of the organization.”

Present: Ted Annis, Charles Griffith, Jesse Bernstein, David Nacht, Paul Ajegba, Rich Robben, Sue McCormick

Next meeting: Wednesday, March 18 at 6:30 p.m. at AATA headquarters, 2700 S. Industrial Ave. [confirm date]