At the Oct. 19 meeting, commissioners cited Hall’s knowledge of affordable housing in the community, and her relationships with community members and elected officials as an asset that outweighed her lack of experience with HUD regulations compared with another candidate, Damon Duncan. As a plus for Hall, commissioners also cited a  perception that she was committed to the position on a longer-term basis.

The board had put off a decision at its Oct. 12 meeting, when they could not come to a consensus for Hall, despite the fact that four out of five commissioners had ranked Hall as their first choice on an initial straw poll. Commissioner Ron Woods had ranked Hall third, behind finalists Damon Duncan and Bill Ward.  The commission decided to proceed with reference checks on three of the four finalists: Hall, Duncan and Ward. Both Duncan and Ward have more extensive public housing experience than Hall, primarily with the Detroit housing commission.

Woods cast the dissenting vote at the Oct. 19 meeting. He made an effort to persuade his commission colleagues of the value of selecting a candidate like Duncan – Woods felt Duncan had the capability to have a transformational impact on the Ann Arbor housing commission. Board president Marta Manildi called Woods’ remarks moving, but said that she felt that Hall, too, had the ability to be inspiring.

The housing commission will now enter into conversations with Hall to discuss compensation terms.

The fourth finalist, Nick Coquillard, has served as deputy director of the Ann Arbor housing commission and is now interim director. Coquillard was not included in the final consideration.

The Chronicle has not observed any mention of this transition at public meetings of the Ann Arbor city council. The June 2011 AAHC board minutes record that Novak had tendered her resignation by that commission meeting, with AAHC deputy director Nick Coquillard appointed as interim at the July 2011 AAHC board meeting.

As recently as Sept. 23, 2011, the AAHC website read: “The Board of Commissioners announced that the Executive Director of the AAHC, Margaret Novak, has accepted a position with an affordable housing investment firm and has tendered her resignation effective July 29, 2011. The Board praised Ms. Novak’s service and observed that she leaves the AAHC in a strong position to attract interested candidates for the Executive Director position.” That text was recovered from Google’s cache memory of the page, but the current page does not include that material. Board meeting minutes reflect that the job was posted and a search committee has been formed.

Novak was hired for the permanent job in May 2010 after serving as interim for 10 months. That hire came less than two months after the city council voted, at its March 15, 2010 meeting, to dissolve the housing commission board and appoint new members. Among other issues, the city administration was dissatisfied with the board’s progress towards hiring an executive director.

The city council’s liaison to the AAHC through that transitional period was Tony Derezinski (Ward 2). He recently stepped down as liaison in order to serve on the city’s public art commission after Jeff Meyers resigned from that group. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who had previously served as council liaison to AAHC, publicly offered to replace Derezinski, but at the council’s Sept. 19 meeting, mayor John Hieftje indicated he would be nominating Margie Teall (Ward 4) to that position, instead of Kunselman.

In a telephone interview with The Chronicle, Kunselman confirmed that he was aware of Novak’s resignation when he offered to serve as liaison to AAHC, and that it had been one reason he was interested in serving in that role.

The Chronicle learned about Novak’s resignation while confirming the back story for a one-man downtown protest. The protest, which consisted of an AAHC property resident waving a large American flag, was observed by more than one Chronicle reader over recent days [at Packard & Main, Main & Liberty and Fifth & Huron]. A similar protest was staged last year in March. The AAHC property in question is Baker Commons, located at the intersection of Packard and Main streets. The man’s current complaint relates to a window replacement project at Baker Commons that is behind schedule.

In response to a phone message with a query about the status of the window replacement project, Coquillard clarified that the window replacement was, in fact, delayed and had turned out to be a very technical project. However, AAHC is almost ready to post bids for the project, he said.

In checking the AACH website to get contact information to inquire about Baker Commons, The Chronicle noticed that the staff directory listing for AAHC showed the executive directorship as vacant, with Coquillard serving as interim executive director.

Michael Ford's interview by the full AATA board. From left to right: Ted Annis, Charles Griffith, Jesse Bernstein, Michael Ford, David Nacht, Paul Ajegba, Sue McCormick, Rich Robben.

The board of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority met at AATA headquarters on South Industrial Wednesday morning to conduct public interviews of the two finalists for the executive directorship of the organization. The field had been narrowed down to two candidates after interviews of five finalists two weeks ago: Carl Jackson, currently general manager and CEO of the Macon Transit Authority in Macon, Georgia; and Michael Ford, currently with MG Ford Consulting in Camas, Washington, and formerly assistant general manager and COO of the San Joaquin Regional Transit District.

No decision has been made to make an offer based on the interviews. Ford is to be re-interviewed either in Ann Arbor,  by video conference, or some other means with a timetable as yet undetermined.

The Chronicle was able to observe the hour-long session with Ford, which started around 8 a.m., but due to other commitments could not stay for Jackson’s interview. Touching base with board member Jesse Bernstein later in the day, he said the questions put to both candidates were the same. Various follow-up questions asked of Ford may not necessarily have been asked of Jackson. In all cases, the phrasing of the questions reflects a paraphrase by The Chronicle, not necessarily an exact quote. The questioning proceeded from right-to-left (audience perspective) around the board table:

Interview Questions Asked by AATA Board

• How would you deal with a management subordinate who is not performing up to expectation? (Rich Robben)
• What have you done in your last position to improve cost effectiveness? (David Nacht)
• Have you ever looked at metrics like dollars-per-service-hour or dollars-per-service-mile? (Nacht)
• Have you had to deal directly with elected officials? How would you go about creating a constructive relationship with them? (Sue McCormick)
• If you were in this position, how would you propose to keep the board informed? (McCormick)
• How do you prefer that the board communicate with staff? (McCormick) Follow-up from Bernstein: How would you feel about a member of the board going directly to maintenance staff about the issue of cleanliness of the buses?
• The board expects the CEO to be responsive to the community. How would you get out into the community? (Paul Ajegba) Followup from McCormick: Given that you need to be the “face of the AATA,” how would you approach doing that in the first 30 days on the job?
• Suppose there is a situation where you are right and the board is wrong. How would you handle that situation? (Ajegba) Followup from McCormick: What one word would you use to describe the relationship you want to have with the board?
• What legacy are you going to be leaving behind at your last job? What would people at that job say about your leadership style? (Nacht) Follow-up from Nacht: What’s one thing you left behind that’s there because you were there?


Before the board entered the room to conduct the interview, Michael Ford, sitting alone at the board table, reviewed material in front of him. Something he saw caused him to break a smile.

• In an environment of service changes and tight budgets, there may be pressure on board members to try to micro-manage AATA decisions. How would you handle the board’s expectations? (Nacht)
• The AATA is “governed” by a seven-member board appointed by the mayor of Ann Arbor. Please define what “governed” means as it applies to the board’s authority and responsibility. (Bernstein)
• How do you measure the success of your transit organization? Are there key indicators that are relevant to evaluating performance? (Bernstein)
• Given what you know about our transportation system here and your experience, what have you done that would help us here? (Charles Griffith)
• Under normal circumstances, what kind of decisions would you delegate to staff and which kind would you reserve for yourself? (Griffith)
• How would you use the comparative database of national transit data in evaluating AATA? (Ted Annis)
• What is your biggest concern in lack of experience for this particular job? Where will your steepest learning curve be? (Nacht)
• What were your annual travel budgets in your previous position? (Annis)
• What is your general rule-of-thumb approach with staff to industry participation? (McCormick)

In our phone conversation with Bernstein, he noted that for any job and any pool of candidates, “there’s never any perfect candidate.” In explaining that the board had not yet made an offer,  he said that they wanted to collect additional information before doing so. That will start with a re-interview of Michael Ford.

Bernstein said that the board would like to make an offer as soon as possible.

Previous reporting by The Chronicle includes an article on the announcement of the two finalists.