The Huron Street project is receiving a $390,000 grant. It’s an extended-stay hotel, which will be built by First Martin Corp. at the intersection of Huron and Ashley streets. The new building will be an 88,570-square-foot structure with a ground-floor restaurant or retail space. The extended-stay hotel will occupy the upper five levels and will be be operated by Marriott. The city council gave approval to the site plan at its June 16, 2014 meeting.

The $390,000 breaks down like this:

$340,000 New 12” water main on Ashley Street, and related hardscape 
$ 10,000 Sidewalk enhancements on Ashley Street 
$ 40,000 Right-of-way landscape maintenance (20-year commitment) 

$390,000 TOTAL

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The $390,000 amount is to be distributed over three years – $100,000 (Year 1); $145,000 (Year 2); and $145,000 (Year 3).

The maximum amount that can be awarded to a project under the DDA grant policy – adopted by the DDA board at its June 2, 2014 meeting – is 25% of the tax increment capture due to the project that the DDA receives for the first 10 years after the project is built. That amount is about $390,000, according to First Martin Corp. based on an annual figure of $156,515. But the DDA’s resolution indicates the figure has not yet been verified by the city assessor. Grants are not awarded until after the taxes are paid.

Mike Martin and Darren McKinnon attended the meeting and gave a brief presentation about the project.

The 618 S. Main project is an apartment complex that Dan Ketelaar’s Urban Group Development Co. intends to market to young professionals. The 7-story building would include 190 units for 231 bedrooms, plus two levels of parking for 121 vehicles.

The original $650,000 grant to the 618 S. Main Street project was approved by the DDA board at its June 6, 2012 meeting, a week before the city council gave its approval to the project on June 18, 2012.

The $650,000 total breaks down as follows:

 $85,000 Streetscape costs (sidewalk adjacent to project on Mosley/Main)
$384,500 Streetscape costs (sidewalk on west side of Main north of project)
$100,000 Rain garden to infiltrate stormwater, rather than detain and release
$ 80,500 Upsizing the water main under Ashley Street to a 12” pipe

$650,000 TOTAL

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That total is to be disbursed over four years in the following amounts: $100,000, $225,000, $225,000, and $175,000. None of the money is to be awarded before the taxes are paid each year. The DDA will use the tax increment finance capture from the project to make the grant payments.

Without an extension of the grant, it would expire automatically. The length of the extension, to receive all construction permits and to complete the project, is one year. The project has been delayed by the harsh winter.

The vote on the 618 S. Main grant was unanimous. Al McWilliams abstained on the vote for the First Martin project, but did not indicate why.

This brief was filed from the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301, where the DDA board holds its meetings.

The state grant program, which has historically varied in amount from year to year, was enacted to address the fire protection costs incurred by local municipalities that are home to state-owned institutions – like the University of Michigan. State law sets forth a formula to set funding levels for all Michigan municipalities where state-owned facilities are located. But the law also allows the legislature to fund only a percentage of the amount that results from the formula-based calculation.

The council’s March 3 resolution encourages Gov. Rick Snyder, state senator Rebekah Warren (D-District 18), and state representatives Jeff Irwin (D-District 53) and Adam Zemke (D-District 55) to explore creative ways to fund the state’s fire protection grant program for municipalities like Ann Arbor, which host state-owned facilities.

By way of additional background, state-owned institutions like the University of Michigan, located in Ann Arbor, do not generate property tax revenue, which is used to pay for fire protection, among other basic services.

UM does not operate its own fire protection service, but Ann Arbor’s fire station #5 is located on university property, for which the university does not charge rent, utilities, or maintenance costs. UM estimates the annual value of that arrangement to the city at about $230,000.

In general, however, the Michigan legislature recognizes that municipalities hosting state-owned facilities face a burden of providing fire protection for such facilities – without receiving property tax revenues to pay for that fire protection.

So the legislature enacted a law to award fire protection grants from the state of Michigan – which are dependent on an allocation from the state legislature each year. The allocation is governed by Act 289 of 1977. [.pdf of Act 289 of 1977] The statute sets forth a formula for a state fire protection grant to all municipalities that are home to state-owned facilities – a formula that attempts to fairly determine the funding allocated for fire protection grants in any given year. The fire protection grant formula is defined for any municipality in terms of the relative value of the state-owned property in the municipality.

More precisely, the percentage in the grant formula is the estimated state equalized value (SEV) of state-owned facilities, divided by the sum of that estimated value and the actual SEV of the other property in the community. For example, in Ann Arbor, the total SEV of property on which property tax is paid is roughly $5 billion. The estimated value of state-owned facilities (primarily the University of Michigan) is around $1 billion. So the percentage used in the state fire protection formula for Ann Arbor is about 16% [1/(1 + 5)].

The percentage in the formula is different for each municipality. That percentage is then multiplied by the actual expenditures made by a municipality for fire protection in the prior fiscal year.

The formula can be described as equitable among municipalities – because the grant amount depends in part on the relative value of state-owned facilities in a given municipality. All other things being equal, a city with a greater number of state-owned facilities receives more fire protection grant money than one with a small number of state-owned facilities. The formula can also be described as equitable to the state of Michigan, because the formula calibrates the state’s investment in a municipality’s fire protection to the level of funding that a local municipality itself is willing to provide.

The roughly $14.8 million in a provisional budget request from the Ann Arbor fire department for FY 2015 would translate to a state grant of roughly $2.3 million.

But the state statute explicitly provides for the possibility that the legislature can choose not to allocate funds sufficient to cover the amount in the formula [emphasis added]:

141.956 Prorating amount appropriated to each municipality.
Sec. 6. If the amount appropriated in a fiscal year is not sufficient to make the payments required by this act, the director shall prorate the amount appropriated to each municipality.

Since 1996, the legislature has funded the grants at amounts as low as 23% of the formula to as high as 68%. For the five-year period from 2007 through 2011, the legislature funded the same dollar amount of about $10.9 million statewide, but that translated into diminishing percentages over the five-year span. In the last three years, the program has been only 40-55% funded.

State of Michigan Fire Protection Grants: Actual Dollars. (Data from state of Michigan, chart by The Chronicle.)

State of Michigan Fire Protection Grants: Percentage of Formula Funded. (Data from state of Michigan, chart by The Chronicle.)

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

The grant will pay for training of food council members, a “foodshed mapping” project, and development of an educational and public outreach effort. The grant will be administered by a staff member of the county’s public health department, who has a seat on the council. The department will provide a $15,571 in-kind match for the grant.

The food policy council was created by the county board on March 21, 2012. Most of its members – including Rabhi – were appointed on June 6, 2012, when the county board also approved the council’s bylaws. [.pdf of food policy council bylaws] The council aims to support local small and mid-sized farmers by fostering policies that encourage local food purchasing and production. Council activities might include: recommending policy changes at the local, state and national levels; providing a forum for discussing food issues; encouraging coordination among different sectors of the local food system; evaluating, educating, and influencing policy; and launching or supporting programs and services that address local food needs.

County board chair Yousef Rabhi, who also serves on the food policy council, had informed the board on March 6, 2013 that the county would be applying for this grant. At that meeting, commissioner Ronnie Peterson had expressed interest in having a broader discussion to develop a process for seeking funds for projects that other commissioners might want to bring forward. That discussion has not yet occurred.

This brief was filed from the boardroom of the county administration building at 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

For example, this year the program includes 11 replacement buses, five buses for expanded service and 25 vans for the van pool program. Two of the new buses for expanded service are related to increased frequency of service on Route #5. Notable in the program is that except for $20,000 allocated in 2014, no funds are programmed for dedicated park-and-ride lots. Based on minutes from the Jan. 10, 2013 meeting of the board’s planning and development committee, the lack of funding for park-and-ride lots drew concern from AATA board member Eli Cooper, who is also the transportation program manager for the city of Ann Arbor.

This brief was filed from the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library at 343 S. Fifth, where the AATA board holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

According to the staff memo accompanying the resolution, there are 10-15 separate agreements between MDOT and AATA. A staff analysis of the resolution allows that there’s a risk to the practice – that the board might not be aware of the contracts that the CEO is executing. That risk is meant to be mitigated by a new practice of reporting all such contracts to the board’s performance monitoring and external relations committee.

Also approved by the board at its Sept. 27 meeting was a grant agreement with MDOT for a contract of over $1 million. MDOT is providing the local match, which totals $2,414,000 for AATA’s FY 2012 federal Section 5307 grant. [.pdf of FY 2012 expenditures for Section 5307 program]

This brief was filed from the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library, where the AATA board holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

The grant was discussed at a working session of the Ann Arbor planning commission earlier this month. Matt Naud – the city’s environmental coordinator – told The Chronicle that the city will likely file the grant application in early December.

Ann Arbor’s Current Sustainability Efforts

The topic of sustainability has emerged in public discussions more frequently over the past year or so, and both city staff and appointed members to some of the city’s commissions have begun to focus on the issue. The city’s environmental commission has a “sustainable community” committee, formed in 2008, which has discussed ways to expand the city’s goals to include social equity and economic vitality, in addition to environmental considerations. Steve Bean, Anya Dale and Kirk Westphal serve on that committee, with staff support from Naud.

More broadly, an April 2010 joint working session of the city’s planning, environmental and energy commissions was convened to discuss ways that the city could work toward building a more sustainable future. From Chronicle coverage of that meeting:

The discussion touched on the conceptual as well as the concrete, with some commissioners urging the group to tackle practical considerations as well. The chairs of each commission – [planning commission chair Bonnie] Bona, the energy commission’s Wayne Appleyard, and Steve Bean of the environmental commission – set the stage by talking about the roles of their appointed public bodies, and how sustainability might be incorporated into their work.

Specific ideas discussed during the session included financing energy improvements in households through a special self-assessment on property tax bills, and tapping expertise at the University of Michigan.

More than midway through the meeting they were joined by Terry Alexander, executive director of UM’s Office of Campus Sustainability. He described UM’s efforts at implementing sustainable practices on campus as well as creating a living/learning environment for students, teaching them what it means to be a “green citizen.”

Toward the end of the meeting, Bona noted that the issue extended far beyond the three commissions gathered around the table. Housing, parks and other areas need to be involved as well, she said, if they were truly to tackle the three elements of sustainability: environmental quality, social equity, and economic vitality.

The topic of sustainability also had been part of the discussion at a March 2010 retreat of the planning commission. One of the aspects of that discussion included the need to define what sustainability means. From Chronicle coverage of the March retreat:

Jean Carlberg asked Bonnie Bona what she meant by sustainability, which Bona had brought up in the brainstorming session. Bona replied that it was something the community needed to decide: “That’s the first question – what is it?”

She added that sustainability is an all-or-nothing concept – something is either sustainable, or it isn’t. Bona also identified three elements of sustainability: environmental quality, social equity, and economic vitality. “I don’t think we look at any one of them as a planning commission,” she said. …

Kirk Westphal said that tangentially, the commission does deal with those elements of sustainability. He also stressed the importance of looking at a “sustainability watershed” – that is, a broader geographic area within which a community is sustainable. For example, adding another resident to the city increases its carbon footprint, he said, but “do we take one for the team?” Westphal also noted that even the worst non-LEED building in the city is better than the greenest structure five miles outside of town, if you have to drive there.

The concept of sustainability also touched on fiscal impacts of development. Westphal noted that when he talked about “the city’s money” earlier in the discussion, Pratt had remarked that it’s everyone’s money. Pratt is right, Westphal said – it’s taxpayers’ money. But the positive aspects of adding to the tax base through development are rarely mentioned. People talk about “greedy developers,” but they don’t look at how the taxes generated from a development go toward plowing the streets, for example.

Pratt noted that as the tax base shrinks, the current levels of service are no longer sustainable – unless people are willing to pay more for the same services.

Later during the March retreat, Wendy Rampson – head of the city’s planning staff – asked whether the commission wanted to make sustainability a staff priority. Commissioners indicated that while it was worth having more discussion about it, other issues took higher priority at that point.

The Home Depot Foundation Grant

At the planning commission’s Nov. 9 working session, Matt Naud told commissioners that while sustainability is an aspect of several city efforts – including its State of Our Environment goals and indicators, the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan, and the Parks and Recreation Open Space Plan – there isn’t a specific sustainability plan that brings all of these elements together.

Naud said the Home Depot Foundation has up to $100,000 available for developing a sustainability plan, one that would incorporate the city’s existing efforts into a more cohesive approach. The city’s proposal would likely entail hiring someone to take on the project for a year, he said. One aspect might be to do a gap analysis – what are the city’s current sustainability goals, and what needs to be done to reach them? He asked commissioners for their feedback about what elements to include in making the grant application.

Home Depot Grant: Commissioner Discussion

Jean Carlberg noted that cost always seems to be absent from discussions of sustainability. Almost all sustainability efforts are costly – and for the individual homeowner, she said, it’s generally too expensive. Bonnie Bona responded to that observation, saying that to take a house to “net zero” – a term indicating that the house uses only energy generated on-site – could be a 40-year process, with expenses spread out over that period. Naud noted that costs to achieve net-zero status are coming down. Just 10 years ago, it would have cost significantly more than today.

It would be more affordable using tools like the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, Bona said, or if homeowners set aside money they see from energy savings to make additional energy-related modifications.

In a PACE program, the city could use municipal bonds to fund the upfront installation of a solar system to a resident’s home, for example. The resident would then pay the city through self-assessed property taxes, probably over 15 to 20 years. Enabling legislation for PACE sponsored by state Rep. Rebekah Warren of Ann Arbor passed the House earlier this year, but a Senate version scaled back the program to cover only commercial properties. That bill passed the state Senate in September, but hasn’t yet been acted on by the House.

During the Nov. 9 working session, Eric Mahler, chair of the planning commission, suggested that they needed to come up with a working definition of sustainability. The best one he’d heard, he said, described sustainability as meeting the community’s current needs without impacting the needs of future generations.

Bona referred to the discussion at the April joint working session, and said she walked away from that meeting with the sense that people were interested in setting targets and measuring outcomes related to sustainability. Naud said they didn’t want to propose a pie-in-the-sky project, but rather they could assess where the city stands now, envision where they want to be, and identify specific goals to get there.

Naud said that in the past there had been discussion of setting broad sustainability goals, but there’d been some pushback to that. Instead, the environmental commission and staff developed a set of environmental goals that were easier to measure, he said. With this Home Depot Foundation grant, there’s the possibility of developing a framework for the city’s sustainability efforts, Naud said. That would allow the city to pick three or four specific goals to work toward, then build funding for those efforts into the city’s two-year budget cycle, he said.

Rampson gave the example of looking at land use through a framework of sustainability, which might include issues of transportation access, or the balance of housing in relation to employment centers. That kind of framework could be used when looking at development along one of the city’s main corridors, like Washtenaw Avenue or South State Street.

Saying that the prospect of getting grant funding for this initiative sounded great, Mahler wondered whether the project would have the support of city council. Carlberg pointed out that councilmembers were unlikely to turn down money. Rampson noted that some city councilmembers – including mayor John Hieftje, Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) – had been involved in the round of interviews that Home Depot executives had conducted this summer for the $1 million sustainability project.

Commissioners suggested pulling in other groups – Bona noted that at the April working session, Hieftje had expressed the importance of working with neighboring communities in whatever sustainability initiative the city might take on. She also said they had discussed working with the city’s park advisory commission and housing commission, in addition to the planning, energy and environmental commissions. Carlberg added that UM should be involved too.

In making their current proposal, Rampson said, they need to identify a project that the Home Depot Foundation could use as a case study. It needs to be something the city can do within the grant budget and timeframe, she said. A project that seems achievable is looking at all the city’s master plans, finding the elements of sustainability that already exist, and developing that into a usable framework. After that, it would make sense to pull in UM and other groups, Rampson said, like the Washtenaw Urban County. The Urban County is a consortium of local governments – including Ann Arbor – that receives federal funding for low-income neighborhoods, and could help address the social equity aspect of sustainability, she said.

Home Depot Grant: Next Steps

In a phone interview last week with The Chronicle, Naud said that city staff are still finalizing the application. He’s working with Rampson and Connie Pulcipher of the city’s systems planning unit, and they’ll be talking with representatives from the Home Depot Foundation on Dec. 9 to present a draft of their proposal. The city is already involved to some degree in the foundation’s sustainability efforts – Ann Arbor is among the cities profiled on the Sustainable Cities Initiative website, funded by the Home Depot Foundation.

Part of the grant proposal could include figuring out how to engage the community, Naud said, likely by developing a website to educate people about what’s already happening, to solicit ideas and to give people a voice who might not have the time or inclination to attend public meetings.

Naud, Rampson and Pulcipher will also be working with the city’s environmental commission in shaping the sustainability project, Naud said – he noted that it’s the only city commission in which the city code specifies sustainability as part of its mission. Under the section of city code that establishes the commission, among its powers and duties are:

(g) To advise the City Council and City Administrator on all matters related to sustainable development, clean production, and environmental technologies.

Meanwhile, there hasn’t been additional action taken as a result of the three-commission sustainability working session in April. In a recent email to The Chronicle, Steve Bean – chair of the environmental commission – said the next step could include drafting sustainability goals and getting feedback from members of all three commissions and those goals, and about how to proceed. That could happen sometime early next year.

University Townhouses, the polling location for Precinct 5 in Ward 3, had specific improvements made under a 2005 grant. (Photo by the writer on Sept. 7, 2009; links to higher resolution file.)

In a letter dated Sept. 1, 2009, addressed to Ann Arbor’s city clerk, Jackie Beaudry, the nonprofit Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service Inc. gave the city a Sept. 15 deadline to respond to its concerns about accessibility to polling locations in Ann Arbor.

The response deadline comes two weeks ahead of the expiration of a grant for which the city was approved in 2007 under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The grant was for improvements in accessibility to Tappan and Eberwhite schools.

Lansing-based MPAS is concerned that the city has not submitted work for reimbursement under the 2007 grant. And that would put in jeopardy the city’s 2009 grant application for improvements to five additional locations – Northside, Dicken, Lawton, Lakewood and Pittsfield elementary schools. The MPAS letter paints a picture suggesting the city has not made progress towards addressing problems that the city itself identified in 2004 at 21 of the city’s 48 precincts.

However, after checking into the matter with MPAS, the state’s Bureau of Elections, and Ann Arbor city staff, The Chronicle has concluded that: (i) the situation with the 2007 grant is a matter of non-communication and paperwork follow-through, (ii) that prior to 2007, the city of Ann Arbor completed work under HAVA grants, with some reimbursements already made, and other payments still in process, and (iii) the city’s strategy for ensuring access uses a variety of temporary measures on election days, as well as a work plan for more permanent fixes.

Where The Chronicle Started

The letter from MPAS cites 2005 as the year when the city of Ann Arbor identified polling places in need of accessibility improvements. A phone call to MPAS pointed us to a 2005 HAVA grant award for specific improvements to be made at three different polling places: University Townhouses (Ward 3), Ann Arbor Community Center (Ward 1) and the Second Baptist Church (Ward 5).

If MPAS was contending that 2007 grant money hadn’t been used, we wondered: What about the 2005 grant? So we began with those 2005 locations.

We had recent familiarity with those places. The Chronicle had toured all polling locations in Wards 3 and 5 during the Aug. 4, 2009 Democratic primary elections – which included the Second Baptist Church and University Townhouses. The Chronicle also covered the city Democratic party candidate forums held at the Ann Arbor Community Center.

Second Baptist Church in Ward 5 (Photo by the writer on Sept. 7, 2009; links to higher resolution file.)

It had been our recollection that those three locations had some kind of ramps and signage – but it takes more than some ramp or sign to meet accessibility requirements. So we elected to return to those locations as part of this report to document photographically their outside entrances. The Ann Arbor Community Center didn’t appear to have had any work done recently. But the Second Baptist Church and University Townhouses showed signs of having recent work completed.

Was it enough to make the locations accessible? Had the city of Ann Arbor sought and received reimbursement? If so, was MPAS aware of the city’s past HAVA record?

First, though, what is the Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service and the Help America Vote Act?

Background on MPAS and HAVA

The outcome of the Gore versus Bush 2000 presidential election was controversial – due to how ballots were counted and evaluated initially and during recounts. At least partly in response to that controversy, the Help America Vote Act was passed in 2002. Goals of that legislation included improvements in voting systems (how voters actually indicate their vote) and the overall administration of elections.

As a part of that act, funds were made available for improvements not just in voting equipment, but also to make improvements in the accessibility of polling places. In Michigan those federal funds are provided in the form of grants awarded and administered by the state Bureau of Elections. The award of a grant does not mean that funds are transferred – the work must be completed and paid for, and is then reimbursed.

Physical access to polling sites is supported by federal laws: the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act (VAEHA) of 1984, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires access to places of public accomodation. The ADA requires removal of architectural barriers to the extent that such removal is readily achievable, but the act does not require structural changes if other methods can accomplish the same goal.

Where does the Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service fit in? MPAS is an entity designated by the governor to advocate for people with disabilities. And with respect to HAVA grants, MPAS verifies that the polling places identified by a municipality are, in fact, currently deficient. A HAVA grant award is made to a municipality based on a recommendation from MPAS.

That’s what happened in 2005 when Ann Arbor was awarded $16,750 that it could claim in reimbursements. In the press release from Sept. 30, 2005, issued by the state Bureau of Elections, Beaudry is quoted as saying, “The polling place improvements made as a result of this grant award will provide for greater independent access to the precincts and the voting process for all residents of the city of Ann Arbor.”

Improvements at Ann Arbor Polling Places

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2005

Returning to the apparent improvements that The Chronicle had noticed at the Second Baptist Church and University Townhouses: Was any of the 2005 HAVA grant money spent on those projects?

According to the state Bureau of Elections, out of the $16,750 awarded that year, $4,450 was paid. The rest of these funds were canceled and a new application processed. Those remaining funds would have gone to reimburse work at the Ann Arbor Community Center – but around that time, in the summer of 2006, the future use of AACC as a polling place was uncertain. The center faced a financial crisis described in a June 28, 2006 Ann Arbor News article [this link goes to the Ann Arbor District Library archive, which requires free registration]. The article states:

Barring a major infusion of cash, the center at 625 N. Main St., which specializes in serving the black community, had faced the possibility of closing Friday. But in an emergency meeting Tuesday, its governing board set up a plan for the center to operate with limited hours starting next week.

On the phone this week with The Chronicle, city clerk Jackie Beaudry recalled how in November of 2006, Precinct 4 in Ward 1 had moved its polling place to Community High School, doubling up with Precinct 3. Given the uncertainty of the center’s future, Beaudry said, the grant application was withdrawn. Reapplication would be made in 2007.

2006

In the 2006 HAVA grant cycle, Ann Arbor was awarded $15,300, with $2,400 paid to date. According to the city of Ann Arbor, and confirmed by the state Bureau of Elections, that grant was for work at King, Tappan, and Eberwhite elementary schools. The work at King was completed, but extensions were requested for Tappan and Eberwhite to the summer of 2009.

According to Beaudry, the work for Tappan and Eberwhite was completed by the Ann Arbor Public Schools in the summer of 2009. We can lend partial support to that contention, based just on our Aug. 4, 2009 primary elelection report, for which we toured all the precinct locations:

3:05 p.m. Ward 5. Eberwhite Elementary. Lots of construction around the school. Sidewalk repairs and whatnot. Ann Arbor Public Schools seems to have a capital maintenance program running up til the opening of school session.

It’s the fact that the Tappan and Eberwhite grants are still open that eventually led to the current focus and scrutiny by MPAS. The Sept. 30 deadline in the MPAS letter comes from the Bureau of Elections, which wrote in an email to The Chronicle: “We are waiting to hear what they [the city of Ann Arbor] want to do with this money prior to September 30, 2009.”

2007-2009

In October 2007, with the Tappan and Eberwhite grants still open, Ann Arbor applied for three additional grants:

1. Slauson Middle School (elevator, parking)
2. Clague Middle School (exterior ramps)
3. Ann Arbor Community Center (reapplication for parking, sidewalk, door and vestibule)

But according to Wendy Rampson, who’s head of planning and development with the city, Ann Arbor didn’t receive any official notification about those applications from the Bureau of Elections.

So in May 2009, city staff requested official responses on the 2007 applications. There’s been no response from the BOE to date, according to Rampson. Also in May 2009, the city applied for five additional grants, and has not yet received official notification from the BOE:

1. Dicken School (parking, thresholds)
2. Lakewood School (thresholds)
3. Lawton School (parking, thresholds)
4. Northside School (parking)
5. Pittsfield School (thresholds, vestibule)

Open Grants: Source of Friction

Because the Tappan and Eberwhite grants are still open, the Bureau of Elections did not respond to Ann Arbor’s 2007 grant request, nor to the followup in 2009, which included additional grant requests. For Beaudry, the BOE’s non-response on the matter didn’t communicate what was really happening – BOE was not responding due to the failure to close out the Tappan and Eberwhite grants.

Given that the work at Tappan and Eberwhite has recently been completed, Beaudry is now working with the Ann Arbor Public Schools to get receipts for the work, so that those grants can be closed. Ideally, she says, she’d like to be able to tell MPAS by their Sept. 15 deadline that the receipts have already been submitted for reimbursement. Beaudry says that in any case she’ll be meeting with a representative of MPAS to talk about how the city of Ann Arbor approaches accessibility to its polling places.

Ongoing Polling Place Improvement Process

Part of Ann Arbor’s approach to accessibility to polling places can be seen in a 2004 list of locations [link to Excel spreadsheet] identified as needing improvements. MPAS confirmed that they’d also visited those locations and agreed with the need to make improvements. On that list, 21 of the 48 precincts in the city of Ann Arbor were identified by the city as needing work. Because four locations serve as polling locations for two precincts each, the total number of different locations identified as needing improvements was 17.

The Chronicle has merged the 2004 list with the city’s current list of all polling places – provided by Rampson – together with their current accessibility issues and grants into a single spreadsheet [link to Excel spreadsheet].

Selecting out those on the 2004 list and sorting by precinct gives a good overview of what’s been happening with the 2004 problem locations over the last five years. In the list, each location is preceded by its [Ward]-[Precinct]:

• 1-04 Ann Arbor Community Center 2005 grant (parking, sidewalk, door and vestibule improvements) Grant turned back due to financial issues at AACC; reapplication in 2007 (parking, sidewalk, door and vestibule); 2009 requested response
• 1-05 Northside Elementary *Grant Requested* 2009 applied (parking)
• 1-06 Northside Elementary *Grant Requested* 2009 applied (parking)
• 1-07 UM Bursley Hall
• 1-08 Ann Arbor Open Elementary *Accessible*
• 1-09 Clague Middle School *Grant Requested* 2007 applied but no BOE response (exterior ramps); 2009 requested response
• 2-02 UM Mary Markley Hall
• 2-06 Clague Middle School *Grant Requested* 2007 applied but no BOE response ( exterior ramps); 2009 requested response
• 2-07 King Elementary *Accessible* 2006 grant (parking, ramp) – completed in 2007
• 3-01 UM East Quad
• 3-02 UM East Quad
• 3-03 Tappan Middle School *Grant Approved* 2006 grant (parking, door hardware, threshold) – extension requested to complete in summer 2009
• 3-08 Pittsfield Elementary *Grant Requested* 2009 applied (thresholds, vestibule)
• 4-01 UM South Quad
• 4-07 Dicken Elementary *Grant Requested* 2009 applied (parking, thresholds)
• 4-09 Lawton Elementary *Grant Requested* 2009 applied (parking, thresholds)
• 5-04 Slauson Middle School *Accessible* 2007 applied but no BOE response (elevator, parking); 2009 requested response
• 5-05 Slauson Middle School *Accessible* 2007 applied but no BOE response (elevator, parking); 2009 requested response
• 5-06 Eberwhite Elementary *Grant Approved* 2006 grant (parking, ramp, door improvements) – extension requested to complete in summer 2009
• 5-07 Dicken Elementary *Grant Requested* 2009 applied (parking, thresholds)
• 5-08 Lakewood Elementary *Grant Requested* 2009 applied (thresholds)

The gaps in activity on the list have a clear pattern – Bursley, Markley, East Quad, and South Quad are University of Michigan residence halls.

Asked about that pattern, Beaudry said that conversations with the University of Michigan were ongoing about “possible polling place relocations.” In addition to accessibility concerns, Beaudry reported, UM has other concerns about the future use of the residence hall sites due to campus safety and security.

The collaboration with the Ann Arbor Public Schools, Beaudy said, reflected a certain commitment to the long-term use of the sites as polling locations.

For sites like UM residence halls – which show no grant activity to support accessibility improvements – or for Ann Arbor school sites, which have improvements pending, how accessible are these locations on election day?

The spreadsheet of polling locations includes a description of temporary measures that are implemented at each polling location on election day, to ensure that people can access the polls. For example, for East Quad, the notation is that “No accessible parking space available.” The remedy is specified as follows: “On Election Days, bag metered on-street parking space near intersection curb ramp for accessible space.” The responsibility for that is assigned to the city clerk.

The goal, says Beaudry, is to achieve permanent solutions to accessibility at polling places. That’s a goal supported by the Center for Independent Living, she explained. The CIL works along with the city of Ann Arbor, the city of Ypsilanti, the Washtenaw County clerk’s office and the Ann Arbor District Library on the Voter Access Committee.

Photos: Ann Arbor Community Center

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Ann Arbor Community Center in Ward 1. Entrance from parking lot. There are issues with the ramp and the signage, as well as the door frame. (Photo by the writer on Sept. 7, 2009; links to higher resolution file.)

Ann Arbor Community Center entrance on North Main Street. (Photo by the writer on Sept. 7, 2009; links to higher resolution file.)

Ann Arbor Community Center sidewalk from front entrance down to entrance off parking lot. (Photo by the writer on Sept. 7, 2009; links to higher resolution file.)

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Photos: University Townhouses

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University Townhouses (Ward 3) entrance. (Photo by the writer on Sept. 7, 2009; links to higher resolution file.)

University Townhouses entrance door. (Photo by the writer on Sept. 7, 2009; links to higher resolution file.)

University Townhouses ramp with handrails. (Photo by the writer on Sept. 7, 2009; links to higher resolution file.)