Seven documents constitute the city’s master plan: (1) sustainability framework, adopted in 2013; (2) parks and recreation open space (PROS) plan, as adopted in 2011; (3) land use element, as adopted in 2013 to add the South State corridor plan; (4) downtown plan, as adopted in 2009; (5) transportation plan update, as adopted in 2009; (6) non-motorized transportation plan, adopted in 2007; and (7) natural features master plan, adopted in 2004.

There is also a list of resource documents that are used to support the master plan. [.pdf of resource document list]

The commission had held a public hearing on suggestions related to the master plan on May 21, 2013. That hearing drew six speakers on a range of topics, including development in Lowertown, a park in downtown Ann Arbor, and adequate sidewalks, cleared of vegetation, so that kids can walk to school safely. On May 21 commissioners also discussed possible revisions, primarily related to supporting documents. However, on the advice of planning staff, commissioners postponed action until their June 18 meeting.

On June 18 the commission adopted a revised list of resource documents, with three new additions: (1) the Downtown Vision and Policy Framework (known as the Calthorpe study), adopted in 2006; (2) the Huron River Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP), as adopted in 2009; and (3) the Allen Creek Greenway task force report, adopted in 2007. The greenway document was amended into the list during the June 18 meeting, at the suggestion of commissioner Bonnie Bona.

Earlier this year, on March 5, 2013, the planning commission had voted to add the Connecting William Street study to the list of resource documents – a move that generated some controversy.

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

Members of the Ann Arbor planning commission, from left: Eleanore Adenekan, Kirk Westphal and Diane Giannola. At the right is Wendy Rampson, head of the city's planning staff. Commissioners were attending the March 8, 2012 meeting of the master plan revisions committee. (Photos by the writer.)

The Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan, known as HRIMP, was completed in 2009. But in large part because of controversy related to Argo Dam – centered on whether or not the dam should be removed – none of the 30 other recommendations were implemented.

Only one of the HRIMP recommendations relates to land use, and is therefore in the purview of the planning commission. That recommendation calls for limited commercial development – such as a restaurant or other publicly-used entity – in the Broadway bridge/Argo area.

Much of the discussion at the March 8 committee meeting centered on the property now owned by MichCon, a subsidiary of DTE Energy, located north of Broadway Street, between the Huron River and the railroad tracks that run past the Amtrak station. A state-supervised cleanup effort is underway at that site, but its future use – including the possibility that it could be acquired by the city and turned into a park – is unclear.

Remediation of the MichCon site was also a topic at the March 12, 2012 Ann Arbor city council work session, where the property’s potential future use was discussed. That presentation also included an update on a whitewater river feature that DTE Energy is paying for. The whitewater section to be built in the Huron River was originally part of the same project as the city’s Argo Dam bypass reconstruction. The bypass, which has been recently named the Argo Cascades, is nearly complete.

This article includes a summary of the council working session related to the MichCon cleanup, as well as a report on the master plan revisions committee meeting. Based on discussions at that committee meeting, it seems likely that a proposal will be forwarded to the full planning commission to add the HRIMP recommendation to the city’s master plan. Any changes to the master plan would also require city council approval.

Background: HRIMP Report

The Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP) committee was established by the city’s environmental commission in March of 2006 to develop a plan for protecting and maintaining the portion of the Huron River that flows through the city of Ann Arbor. Beginning in early 2009, a series of public forums were held as the committee entered the final stages of its work. [See Chronicle coverage: "Not So Gently Down the Stream"]

The Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan produced by the committee contains 30 recommendations labeled “consensus recommendations,” with two others on which there was no consensus. [link to .pdf of full HRIMP report] The two non-consensus resolutions contradicted each other, with one calling for the removal of Argo Dam and the other calling for its preservation. Much of the public engagement focused exclusively on the dam-in/dam-out question.

Part of the context for that question was a problem with toe drains, identified by the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality, in the earthen embankment adjacent to the concrete and steel dam, which separates the headrace from the river. In May of 2009 the city’s environmental commission voted in support of dam removal, while the city’s park advisory commission voted for its preservation. [Chronicle coverage: "City Council To Weigh Mixed Advice on Dam"]

The dispute with the state related to Argo Dam was ultimately resolved when the city council approved a $1,168,170 project at its Nov. 15, 2010 meeting to build a bypass that replaced the headrace and eliminated the portage previously required by canoeists and kayakers. Final work is being done on that bypass – including installation of a new pedestrian bridge – and it’s expected to be open later this spring.

There was no action on the “consensus” recommendations, however. A resolution to accept the HRIMP committee’s plan was first considered at the council’s Nov. 16, 2009 meeting, but postponed until Dec. 7. At the council’s Sunday caucus prior to that Dec. 7 meeting, the focus of discussion was on the difference between “approving” the plan and “accepting” it, with the option of “receiving” it also thrown into the mix. [Chronicle coverage: "Huron River Plan, Percent for Art Program also Discussed"]

After considerable deliberation and public commentary at the council’s Dec. 7, 2009 meeting, the council voted to remand the 30 consensus recommendations to the park advisory commission and the environmental commission, asking those groups to develop options for implementation. No further action has been taken.

Master Plan Revisions Committee & HRIMP

The planning commission’s master plan revisions (MPR) committee is charged with reviewing possible changes to the city’s master plan, which are in turn considered by the full commission and eventually require approval by city council. The current MPR committee members are Eleanore Adenekan, Erica Briggs, Diane Giannola, Evan Pratt and Wendy Woods.

Planning commissioner Kirk Westphal had expressed a desire to revisit the recommendations of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP) that related to planning issues, so planning staff scheduled that topic for the March 8 MPR meeting. In addition to Westphal, three other commissioners attended: Adenekan, Giannola and Pratt.

Wendy Rampson, head of the city’s planning staff, began the meeting by very briefly reviewing the development of the HRIMP, noting that the city council didn’t adopt or even accept it. “Basically, they said thank you for your work,” she said. Most of the discussion in the community and by the council centered on the most controversial aspect, she said – whether to remove the Argo Dam. [The council never voted on that issue either. But by not taking action, councilmembers made the de facto decision to leave the dam in place for at least the foreseeable future.]

Aside from the dam, the other HRIMP recommendations are equally if not more important, Rampson said.

Westphal, who serves as the planning commission liaison to the environmental commission, said it seemed to be a natural fit with planning to have a discussion about the HRIMP’s land use recommendation. He noted that it’s a dynamic situation, given MichCon’s cleanup efforts along the river, but it’s an opportunity to open up discussion on those HRIMP recommendations that didn’t get much traction. The HRIMP committee spent a lot of time and thought on the project, he said, “and it seemed like something we should pick up.” Personally, he said, he’d love to see more people at the river.

MichCon Property Remediation

Much of the MPR committee discussion focused on the MichCon property that’s located north of Broadway Street, between the Huron River and the railroad tracks that run past the Amtrak station. MichCon is a subsidiary of DTE Energy – DTE also owns property on the opposite side of the river, south of Broadway, where it plans to build a new electricity substation. [An item related to the substation was discussed at the Feb. 28, 2012 meeting of the city's park advisory commission. A site plan for the project will be on the planning commission's April 3 agenda.]

Diane Giannola asked about the status of a cleanup project at the MichCon site. Planning staff said they didn’t know details.

However, at a March 12, 2012 working session, the Ann Arbor city council was briefed about the future of the former coal gasification site. The cleanup and remediation operation is being handled by MichCon, and overseen by the state of Michigan’s Dept. of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).

Craig Hupy, the city’s interim public services area administrator, introduced the presentation, telling councilmembers that its purpose was to give them a heads up before the mandatory public meetings start happening. MichCon would also be returning to the city council to get access to the sanitary sewers during the cleanup. MichCon will also need to coordinate with the city’s park operations staff, Hupy said.

The timeline for the project would see construction wrapping up in October of 2012:

• November 2011: pre-design studies report – submitted to MDEQ
• February 2012: response activities plan – submitted to MDEQ
• February 2012: construction permit application – submitted to MDEQ
• March 12, 2012: Ann Arbor city council work session – presentation
• March 20, 2012: parks advisory commission – presentation
• March 2012–July 2012: pre-construction activities and engineering
• April 11, 2012: MDEQ public meeting/public hearing
• June 2012: receive MDEQ plan approval and permit
• July 2012: contractor bid and selection
• August–October 2012: (2.5 months) construction

Presenting on behalf of MichCon was Shayne Wiesemann, a senior environmental engineer with DTE Energy.

MichCon Property Remediation: Background

Wiesemann told the council that MichCon had been working diligently with Michigan’s Dept. of Environmental Quality, as well as the Huron River Watershed Council and Ann Arbor city staff.

Aerial view of MichCon property. (Image links to dynamic Google map.)

Wiesemann thanked the city staff for their help over the last few years – they’d had weekly meetings or phone calls. He named city staffers Colin Smith (manager of parks and recreation), Sumedh Bahl (community services area administrator), Matt Naud (environmental coordinator), Craig Hupy (head of systems planning and interim public services area administrator) and Cresson Slotten (manager in systems planning).

Wiesemann ticked through a quick overview of the history of the site. It was developed as a coal gasification plant in 1900 by the Ann Arbor Gas Company, and the gas produced there was used by Ann Arbor residents for the next 50 years – for cooking, heating and lighting. As natural gas began to be supplied to the city in 1939 (which is a relatively cleaner fuel), use of manufactured gas diminished. By the late 1950s the gas manufacturing facility was decommissioned.

By then MichCon had become the owner of the facility, and in the early 1960s the MichCon service center was constructed. The property was used to dispatch crews to customers for another 50 years. MichCon merged with DTE Energy in 2001, becoming a subsidiary of the energy utility. In 2009, MichCon’s Broadway service center was deconstructed.

MichCon Property Remediation: Site Investigation

Wiesemann explained that residuals from the gas manufacturing process remained at the site. When the service center was demolished, MichCon investigated the site, he said. That site investigation is now completed.

Yellow areas are locations where soil is to be excavated and replaced with clean material. (Image links to .pdf of slide presentation with higher resolution images.)

He described how MichCon had excavated 1,680 cubic yards of contaminated soil from the western parcel and another 4,340 cubic yards from the eastern parcel. MichCon had installed a groundwater treatment system, and established routine groundwater monitoring and reporting. In total, Wiesemann told the council, MichCon has spent $2.6 million on the site investigation cleanup so far.

The investigation, Wiesemann continued, had provided a rich set of data with thousands of test results. The extent and nature of the environmental impacts at the site are now known, he said, and there’s no immediate risk to human health or the environment. There are still some structures on the site that are slated for removal, which have contamination. He showed the council a PowerPoint slide that indicated areas in yellow where structures and soil would be removed. One elongated area adjacent to the river is an area of impacted shallow soil and sediment – which will be excavated and replaced.

MichCon Property Remediation: Implementation

The success of the remediation plan, for which MichCon is now seeking approval from MDEQ, Wiesemann said, would lie in its implementation. He then sought to assure the council that impacts to Ann Arbor residents would be minimized. He told the council that MichCon has a lot of experience doing these kinds of remedial excavations – having completed dozens of them over the decades.

MichCon will use site controls like a security fence so that trespassers or children won’t wander onto the site. Surface water protection will be critical, he said, and a variety of tools will be used, including coffer dams, soft booms, and hard boom. Monitoring of the river water during the excavation would take place both upstream and downstream, he said. Odor-suppressing mist and foam would also be used, he said.

Wiesemann allowed that the impact of up to 20 trucks a day entering and leaving the site could be significant. Wheel washing would ensure that the trucks were not tracking sediment out of the site. MichCon would also plan to optimize the scheduling of truck traffic. In coordinating with the city, he said, MichCon had been advised, for example, that the Beakes and North Main area is not the best place to try to bring trucks through.

Wiesemann also pointed out the short-term economic gain due to the remediation activity and the long-term benefit of the environmental remediation. In addition to that, he reminded the council that MichCon will install and pay for the whitewater feature in the Huron River that was originally a part of the same project as the city’s planned Argo Dam bypass construction. The bypass, which has been named the Argo Cascades, is nearly complete.

MichCon Property Remediation: Whitewater Feature

Some councilmembers expressed concern about the impact of the excavation work on recreational users of the river. Wiesemann explained that the work would start on the upstream side and proceed downstream. By the time the work gets to the entry point from the Argo Cascades into the river, he said, it will be after Labor Day. After Labor Day, the Argo livery only offers weekend trips, which will coordinate well with MichCon’s weekday excavation activity. He allowed that it would not prevent someone from using their own canoe, instead of renting from the city’s livery. The fact that MichCon’s work will take place during the summer months, when the river will be relatively low, will also aid construction, he said.

Schematic showing the placement of the planned whitewater amenity in the Huron River, upstream from where the Argo Cascades enters into the river. (Image links to .pdf of slide presentation with higher resolution images.)

In connection with construction of the whitewater feature, councilmember Sabra Briere (Ward 1) questioned the placement of the feature that was indicated in the slide Wiesemann had shown, saying the rocks were not in the same place the council had previously been told they would be. It appeared that canoeists and kayakers who wanted to paddle through the planned whitewater amenity would need to navigate down the Cascades bypass, then paddle upstream through the whitewater and then reverse course, she said.

Wiesemann confirmed that was the planned implementation was as Briere described it. He indicated that this approach had been vetted with the city’s park and recreation staff. Colin Smith, city parks and recreation manager, confirmed that understanding, telling the council that Cheryl Saam, manager of the canoe livery, had been consulted as well. The idea was to make sure that the swifter water was well away from the entry of the Cascades into the river – to ensure that novice paddlers did not encounter the whitewater. It would also mitigate against any congestion between user groups. [That is, experienced users looking to spend the day paddling up and down through the whitewater feature would not interfere with novice paddlers who would be descending the Cascades and continuing on a leisurely float down the Huron.]

MichCon Property Remediation: Future of the Site

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) wanted to know what the future of the parcel was after the remediation was complete. Wiesemann indicated it was not clear. MichCon recognized that there was a lot of potential on the site for redevelopment. Talks had just started to take place with interested stakeholders in the community. But at this point, he said, it would be premature to speculate on the end use. But he allowed that the MichCon leadership does see the parcel as “a catalyst for economic growth and public enjoyment within the community.”

Mayor John Hieftje weighed in with his hope that DTE Energy would collaborate with the Wolfpack, to add the parcel to the city’s park system. [The Wolfpack is a conservancy group associated with the National Wildlife Federation, co-founded by local attorney and former Clinton advisor Paul Dimond and retired Ford executive Ray Pittman. (.pdf file of Wolfpack members)] Hieftje described how he could imagine tiered seating installed on the river bank opposite the whitewater feature so that people could come out and watch the kayakers navigate the rapids.

Hieftje confirmed with Wiesemann that even factoring in significant delays, the whitewater feature would be available for recreational users in the spring of 2013.

HRIMP and Land Use: Master Plan Revision?

At the March 8 master plan revisions committee meeting, Wendy Rampson – the city’s planning manager – noted that the Parks & Recreation Open Space (PROS) plan puts a priority on acquiring land along the Huron River. It indicates the goal of acquiring the entire MichCon parcel, Rampson said, but she’s not sure that’s realistic. The city’s Central Area Future Land Use map – part of the city’s master plan – shows the western portion of the site as parkland, and the eastern half for commercial/office use. Currently, the site is zoned M1 (industrial). Jeff Kahan of the city’s planning staff pointed out that much of the property lies within the floodway, which would limit development.

Rampson noted that there is only one HRIMP recommendation related to land use – the section on commercial development in the Broadway bridge/Argo area. From the HRIMP report:

Encourage limited development of a restaurant and/or other public-use facilities where the public congregates and can enjoy the river in the Broadway Bridge/Argo area, especially if it generates revenue for river planning and implementation.

Rampson asked whether the committee wanted to start working on a master plan amendment to incorporate this recommendation, or to propose something that makes the expectations for this recommendation clearer.

Evan Pratt, who had served on the HRIMP committee, said discussion on this topic among HRIMP committee members had centered mostly on the idea of having a restaurant in that area. He cited the example of Zingerman’s coffee and baked goods being sold at the cafe in Gallup Park – that’s an example of a business and park co-existing, he said. The idea was that it would be desirable if someone wanted to have a business that was related to the river area and that didn’t undermine the city’s canoe livery – like a bicycle rental business. So the zoning for that area shouldn’t allow large operations, but something more in keeping with drawing people to the river, Pratt explained.

Diane Giannola asked whether something like miniature golf would be appropriate. Is the idea to create an entertainment area, like a boardwalk?

Pratt replied that they don’t want anything like a San Antonio River Walk, but rather something for people to do that will open up the Huron River. Kirk Westphal added that a lot of ideas were discussed, including a paddle-up microbrewery, but a restaurant seemed to be the most common suggestion.

Rampson noted that while many people talk about a restaurant located right along the river, the topography would make that challenging. If the MichCon parcel becomes available, a building along the west end near the river isn’t possible, because the property is in the floodway. It would be possible to develop something on the east end of that property, she said, “but that doesn’t have the lovely views.”

Giannola noted that a raised structure could be built on the west portion of the property, but Rampson said that’s not what most people seem to envision – the preference is to be next to the river, not looking down on it. Westphal said there’s still a view of the river on the east end of the property, closer to the bridge. It’s not a wide-open vista, he said, but it’s nice.

Westphal wondered whether it would be possible to have a restaurant near the Argo livery, on land next to Argo Pond. Rampson said the HRIMP report wasn’t explicit about recommending anything in that area. Pratt weighed in that the spirit of the HRIMP committee discussions had focused on the Broadway area.

One issue with a restaurant near the Argo livery is that it’s located in a quiet residential area, Rampson noted. The lodge for the Society of Les Voyageurs is located there too. The question is whether introducing this type of new land use into that area is appropriate, she said.

A detail from the Central Area Future Land Use map, part of the land use section (Chapter 5) of the city's master plan. The large green and red section north of the railroad track and northwest of Broadway Street is the MichCon property. The property is zoned industrial, but the future land use indicates the western portion (green) for parks and open space, and the eastern portion (red) for commercial/office use. The Huron River runs to the north of the property. (Image links to .pdf of full Central Area Future Land Use map)

Rampson pointed out that for years, there have been efforts to revitalize the Lowertown area, east of the Broadway bridge. Perhaps a project on land near the bridge and the river could serve as a catalyst for development in Lowertown, she said. Rampson quipped that there’s a question about whether any land will be left after the University of Michigan finishes its projects in that area. [UM has been acquiring property along Wall Street, where its Kellogg Eye Center is located. The area is near the university's large medical complex.]

Rampson asked commissioners how deep they wanted to explore these options. A mini-study would be one approach, she said, or staff could work with commissioners to develop a set of recommendations. She asked whether they were interested in looking at just the site near the Broadway bridge, or if they wanted to focus on a broader area.

Giannola expressed support for looking at the entire Broadway/Lowertown area, not just one site.

City planner Jeff Kahan noted that there are several master plan-related efforts in the works right now – including studies of the Washtenaw Avenue and South State corridors – and the staff needs to strategize about how to use its limited resources. People might wonder what’s triggering an effort related to the HRIMP recommendations now, he said.

Rampson replied that there’s interest in the MichCon property, and in what DTE’s plans are for the property after they finish remediation work there. They could either put it on the market or ask the city to make an offer, she said. So you could argue that it’s timely to look at future land use for that area.

Kahan wondered whether it would “muck up the works” to go through a master plan and possible rezoning process that ends up doubling the value of that MichCon property, especially since it’s not yet clear what the company plans to do. He also noted that transit-related plans are unfolding quickly, and there’s uncertainty about that too. [The Fuller Road Station, a proposed parking garage and transit center located in that general area, has been paused – see Chronicle coverage: "UM, Ann Arbor Halt Fuller Road Project"]

Finally, Kahan said, if a drain is dug underneath the railroad, the floodplain lines could change yet again – that’s another factor that could have an impact on the area. [Earlier in the meeting, Rampson had mentioned that the city is issuing a request for proposals (RFP) to possibly build a drain underneath the railroad to relieve flooding. The project might include a pedestrian underpass.]

Pratt noted that the city has three plans, each recommending three different types of land use for the Broadway bridges and Argo Dam area: (1) the HRIMP, which recommends commercial development; (2) the property’s current zoning, for industrial use; and (3) the master plan’s future land use map, which shows a combination of parkland and commercial/office use. Each of those land uses reflect different levels of intensity, he observed.

Rampson said she doesn’t think anyone is talking about rezoning at this point. The master plan could simply be amended to indicate a preference for the type of use on that property. Then if the property changes hands and is sold to a private developer, there would be guidance if the developer proposed a project there that required rezoning – which would be likely, she said. It would be less of a problem if the property is acquired by the city, she said, and becomes zoned as public land.

The MichCon property has a high recreational value, Kahan said. It’s a critical piece of the puzzle for creating a pathway system of parkland along the river, and the city has acquisition funds available for parkland. It would be good to have a conversation with Ginny Trocchio about that, he said. [Trocchio is the Conservation Fund staff member who manages the city's greenbelt and park acquisitions program, under contract with the city.]

Kahan said it goes back to his earlier point – should the city take action that might have an impact on the property’s value, by potentially increasing an appraisal of the land?

For now, Rampson said, the simplest approach would be to insert the language of the HRIMP recommendation into the city’s master plan. That way, there would be guidance regarding future use of the property in that area.

The committee discussed where the language might be inserted – in the master plan’s Lowertown section, or the central area section. [link to .pdf of the master plan's chapter on land use] Kahan wondered whether the HRIMP should be added as a supporting document to the master plan, as part of this change. Rampson advised against that, noting that it might open the Argo Dam question. “I’m not sure you really want to go there,” she told commissioners.

Pratt said he recognized that revisiting HRIMP could be opening a can of worms. But at the least, he said, getting HRIMP’s land use language into the master plan, as it relates to commercial development near the Broadway bridge and Argo, will help safeguard the future of that area.

The committee’s discussion will be taken up by the full planning commission at an upcoming, to-be-determined meeting.

Present: Planning commissioners Eleanore Adenekan, Diane Giannola, Evan Pratt and Kirk Westphal. Also city planners Wendy Rampson and Jeff Kahan.

Dave Askins contributed to the reporting of this article. The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of public bodies like the city planning commission and the Ann Arbor city council. If you’re already supporting The Chronicle, please encourage your friends, neighbors and coworkers to do the same. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle.

This image shows how wire sculptures on the Huron River might appear, if a public art project proposed by a University of Michigan visiting professor gets approval from the state and city. (Image courtesy of William Dennisuk.)

At its Dec. 15 meeting, park commissioners raised concerns but ultimately signed off on a city staff proposal to use parts of Allmendinger and Frisinger parks for football parking during the 2010 season. The plan could raise an estimated $34,000 in net revenues for the city.

In a separate move, the commission gave the go ahead for UM to apply for a state permit that’s needed to install a series of wire sculptures at four locations along the Huron River, from Argo to Gallup. It’s an ambitious project by UM visiting artist William Dennisuk, designed to bridge the town/gown communities – assuming that the project itself gets approval from the city and state.

Commissioners also got a budget update from Jayne Miller, the city’s community services director, who told them to anticipate additional cuts over the next two years, and described how that might affect parks and recreation.

Budget Update

Jayne Miller, Ann Arbor’s community services director, spoke to commissioners to give an update on the city’s budget. Her responsibilities include supervising parks and recreation.

The city has a two-year budget cycle, Miller explained. Typically, the city council will adopt the budget for the first year and approve the second-year plan, which will later be adjusted as necessary. Usually, those adjustments for the second year are minor, Miller said. “That’s not the case this year.”

Last year, the city council dealt with budgets for fiscal years 2010 and 2011. The city is currently in the middle of FY 2010, which ends June 30, 2010. Staff is starting to work on revisions to the FY2011 budget plan, which begins July 1, 2010. Miller told commissioners that starting in January, Colin Smith – manager of parks and recreation – would be working with them on budget recommendations to send to the city council by April.

Also starting in January, the city will be implementing $3.3 million in cuts to the current general fund budget, Miller said. In addition, they’re looking to cut an additional $5.4 million in FY2011, she said. From FY2010 through FY2012, the city will likely need to make as much as a 30% reduction in its general fund budget. “I wanted to set the tone so you understand the magnitude of the challenge,” Miller said.

Parks programs will be affected in several ways. Miller noted that Mack Pool and the Ann Arbor Senior Center are slated to close as of July 1. [City council appointed task forces earlier this year to work on ways to keep Mack Pool and the senior center open. See recent Chronicle coverage: "Task Force Tries to Save Senior Center" and "More Options for Ann Arbor's Mack Pool"]

In addition, mowing cycles for parks will be extended from 14 days to 19 days, starting in the spring. And the city is eliminating hand-trimming contracts in the parks, to save about $140,000 annually.

Like other areas supported by the general fund, the parks and recreation unit is being asked to cut 7.74% from its FY 2011 budget, Miller said. Some of the possibilities to explore, she said, included asking voters to rescind or re-purpose the parks millage, forming a public/private partnership for Huron Hills Golf Course, discontinuing some maintenance in the parks and getting more volunteers to help with that, or selling some parkland, among other things. Responding to a query from commissioner David Barrett, Miller said the city would be open to exploring a public/private partnership for the city-owned soccer fields as well.

Another possibility is some sort of collaboration with the Ann Arbor Public Schools and Washtenaw County, Miller said.

Mike Anglin, a city councilmember representing Ward 5, said he thought working with the schools and county was a good approach, but that there will be cuts as well. “Bottom line, there’s going to be a lot of hurt, and services will disappear – and that’s the reality of it,” he said.

Christopher Taylor, another city councilmember (Ward 3) who like Anglin serves as an ex-officio member of PAC, said the commission can help by providing guidance to city council.

Commissioners also discussed how a focus on the budget would affect staff time and other projects. Smith said he was still trying to prioritize, but that he would need to spend the majority of his time on budget-related issues and task forces. That meant some projects would be put on hold, he said.

Football Parking at Two Parks

Under direction from city council, the parks and recreation staff explored the possibility of having parking in city parks during University of Michigan home football games. Staff proposed allowing parking in two parks – Allmendinger and Frisinger – during home games this fall. At its Dec. 15 meeting, the park advisory commission discussed how this would work, raised some concerns, but ultimately approved the proposal, which will now be forwarded to city council.

[A resolution allowing parking at Frisinger appeared on, but was subsequently yanked from, the city council's Oct. 5, 2009 agenda. Opposition to parking at Frisinger Park can be anticipated from Margie Teall (Ward 4), in whose ward it's located. Parking at the two parks is not a part of the resolution on parking to be considered at the city council's Dec. 21 meeting.]

Public Commentary

During the time set aside for public commentary, two people spoke about the football parking proposal.

Nancy Leff, chair of the Lower Burns Park Neighborhood Association, said she was opposed to this proposal. She asked that the city consider a range of questions: How much will the city net in revenues? How much will they have to pay attendants during the games? How will cleanup occur? What kind of overtime will be incurred for city staff? Whenever tailgating occurs, there’s a tremendous amount of trash generated, she said. Additionally, if the weather is bad, vehicles will tear up the ground. Most of all, she said, she’s concerned that residents won’t have access to these parks for eight Saturdays during the fall. Asking whether the city has done a cost/benefit analysis, Leff wondered if the revenue raised was really worth it.

Helen Cerey also spoke against the proposal. The parks are a great refuge for neighbors, she said, especially during football games. She described herself as a walker, and said she walked on sidewalks that were supposed to be maintained by the city, but weren’t. Given an even further reduction in the city budget, she wondered whether there would be sufficient resources to return the parks to their proper condition each week, so that they would be usable for residents, especially children.

Staff Report

Colin Smith, the city’s manager of parks and recreation, told commissioners that earlier this year, city council had directed staff to explore the issue of football parking in the parks. In putting together this proposal, several people and groups were consulted, he said, including Matt Warba, the city’s supervisor of field operations; Jessica Black, who supervises events planning; the city forester, Kay Sicheneder; the police department;  and community standards personnel.

Based on that feedback, the staff proposed allowing parking in Allmendinger and Frisinger parks during the seven home UM football games next fall. Game days in 2010 are Sept. 4, 11 and 25, Oct. 9 and 16, and Nov. 6 and 20.

Staff estimate that Allmendinger – bounded by Pauline, Edgewood, Potter and Hutchins streets – would accommodate 350 vehicles at $15 each. Frisinger, at East Stadium and Woodbury, would park 200, with a proposed fee of $10 each.

The proposal calls for four people to work during game day at each park, to oversee the parking. Smith also provided a list of recommended guidelines. They include:

The city won’t be responsible for the loss or damage to vehicles or their contents parked for football games.

The city prohibits possession of open intoxicants and the consumption of alcoholic beverages within Allmendinger and Frisinger parks.

Spaces are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Spaces may not be reserved for later-arriving vehicles.

Vehicles may begin parking at 8 a.m. on home football game days. Overnight parking is prohibited. All vehicles must vacate the parks within two hours after the end of the game or vehicles may be towed.

No RVs or buses are allowed.

Parking area personnel will have final decision on the location of vehicles.

There will be no parking on days where there is high likelihood of rain or the prior inclement weather has rendered the parks unsuitable for parking vehicles. Final decision of parking and rain will take place on the Friday before the game and will be posted on the city’s website, Twitter account and Facebook account.

The following breakdown of revenues and expenses assumes parking during all seven games.

Frisinger:     Expenses       Revenues
Vehicles
  200 @ $10                    $14,000
Porta-Johns (4)  $1,320
Trash barrels      $325
Trash pickup     $1,260
Site prep          $532
Materials          $500
Site restoration   $685
Staff            $2,394
Total            $7,016         14,000

NET REVENUE                    $ 6,984
-

Allmendinger:  Expenses       Revenues
Vehicles
  350 @ $15                    $36,750
Porta-Johns (6)  $1,980
Trash barrels       520
Trash pickup      1,610
Site prep           840
Materials           950
Site restoration  1,184
Staff             2,394
Total             9,478         36,750

NET REVENUE                    $27,272

-

Inclement weather was factored into estimates of revenues, Smith told commissioners. If parking occurs during only six games, due to bad weather, net revenues would be $22,714 at Allmendinger and $5,528 at Frisinger. For only five games, Allmendinger would net $18,156 in revenues, with $4,180 from Frisinger.

Combined revenues are estimated to be as high as $34,256 for all seven games, or as low as $22,336 is the parks are used for only five games.

Commission Deliberations

Commissioner concerns had several themes, including safety and liability, impact on the parks and residents, and the “worth it” factor – whether the effort and impact to the city was worth the additional revenues.

Sam Offen asked who would enforce the no-alcohol policy – that’s an issue for parking at the Pioneer High School property too, he noted. Smith responded that they’ve talked with police, who suggest putting up signs and having literature on hand describing the policy. Each park will also have four staff members on site, he added, who can watch out for alcohol use. If there’s a problem, staff would call police. In response to a query from Christopher Taylor, Smith said that non-alcoholic tailgating would be allowed.

Offen also wanted to know if children would have access to the playground area on football Saturdays. Yes, Smith said. Matt Warba, the city’s supervisor of field operations, said certain parts of the park were out of the mix – there’ll be no parking in the playgrounds, he said, nor underneath the drip lines for trees in the park (the area underneath a tree’s canopy).

Tim Berla expressed concern about the ability of staff to clean up the parks in a timely way. If it’s going to be a problem, he said, it wasn’t worth doing – the city’s parks are too valuable to risk damaging. Warba said it was not unlike managing other large events that happen on a regular basis at city parks. Smith added that in many cases, big events are held at the parks that staff doesn’t know about in advance, but they respond with clean-up as soon as possible. In the case of football Saturdays, he said, they’ll be prepared and can staff appropriately to handle the job.

The staff knows they’ll be under a microscope on this, Warba said, adding that there will likely be residents going to the parks on Sunday mornings just to check on the aftermath.

Berla suggested doing outreach to residents in the neighborhoods served by Allmendinger and Frisinger, by providing phone numbers of people to call if there’s a problem on game day or with clean-up. Smith said they could also include information about nearby alternatives to those two parks, such as Woodbury Park.

John Lawter applauded the staff’s creativity, but said he’d had experience with this kind of thing in a different city, where they eventually pulled the plug on parking. “Tailgating is nasty,” he said, with charcoal ashes and chicken bones getting buried in the ground. He suggested that staff do an evaluation after every game – it might not be worth the negative publicity. Smith said they were only looking at the 2010 for just that reason – they would evaluate how things went, and that would determine whether they continue the program in 2011.

Offen wanted to know why the parking rates were so low. Warba allowed that they were being conservative in their pricing, and that they could probably get more out of both locations. Taylor said he imagined that residents who had parking on their property wouldn’t be pleased to be undercut by the city. Smith said that in the past, the city had been overly optimistic in its estimates and he didn’t want to get into that situation again. However, he agreed that they didn’t want to undercut, either.

Taylor also asked whether it would be possible to allow parking, but not tailgating. The majority of concerns seemed to human-based, not car-based, he said, and “we can set the rules.” Smith said that tailgating is a reality of pre-game parking, especially if you’re in a park. It’s easier for staff to plan for that than to try to enforce a no-tailgating policy, he said.

Offen offered that perhaps selling reserved spots would be a better approach. That way, the city would know exactly who’d be parking there – people would get a dependable spot, and the city would know who to contact is someone caused a problem. Jessica Black, who supervises event planning and scheduling for parks and recreation, said they’d talked about using the city’s booking system for selling reserved spots. They decided that they’d revisit that possibility after seeing how the first season unfolded – it would be a bit of a challenge to set up, she said.

David Barrett commented that they were in an awkward position, given that the “Poseidon Adventure” wave was about to hit the city. “This wave is coming to shore, and I applaud you for trying to get out in front of it,” he told staff.

Smith said that $30,000 might not seem like a lot, but as an example, it’s almost exactly the amount of the gap between revenues and expenses to operate Veteran’s Memorial Park ice arena.

Outcome: The resolution recommending that parking be allowed in Allmendinger and Frisinger parks during 2010 Saturday home games for UM football passed, with Scott Rosencrans and Doug Chapman dissenting. City council will take up the issue at an upcoming meeting.

Art in the Huron River

The park advisory commission has heard from William Dennisuk at its previous two meetings, on Oct. 20 and Nov. 17. Dennisuk lives in Finland but this year is a visiting artist and lecturer through the University of Michigan’s Witt Residency program. He’s proposing an art installation in and near the Huron River, as a way to conceptually bridge the town and campus communities.

Public Commentary

Dennisuk did not attend PAC’s December meeting. However, two other people, both with the University of Michigan, spoke in support of his project.

Chrisstina Hamilton, director of visitors programs at the UM School of Art & Design, told commissioners that she runs the popular Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Visitors Series and the Witt Residency program, which is supporting Dennisuk this academic year. Hamilton said the university is in full support of his project – it’s being supported with $35,000 in funds from the Witt program. She described his project as a great way to engage the Ann Arbor community. After talking with city staff, the student component has been removed from the piece of the project that connects with the city, she said – student work will be placed on university property, in Nichols Arboretum and Matthaei Botanical Gardens. She said they looked forward to working with the city, and that the university would be flexible in responding to the city’s concerns.

Heather Blatnik, with the university’s environmental permitting program, explained that in order for the project to proceed, they needed to apply for a permit from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. As part of the application process, MDEQ required a signature from the city, which owns property along the river where Dennisuk is proposing to place his artwork.

Staff Report

Amy Kuras, a city park planner, reported that she’d talked about the project with Bob Grese, director of Nichols Arboretum and Matthaei Botanical Gardens, and Laura Rubin, executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council, as well as other city and university staff. City staff thought it was an exciting proposal, she said, and were generally in favor of it.

There were some concerns, however. Putting anything in the river could be controversial, Kuras said, adding that there was discussion about the need for a process to ensure the public was on board. City staff also had questions about who’d be checking the installations to make sure they weren’t vandalized or filled with garbage. Curiosity from the public can be both a benefit and a drawback, she noted. And if one of the works were vandalized, it’s still not clear how that would be handled. Some of the other concerns had been addressed by Dennisuk in a packet provided to the commission. [.PDF file of material related to Dennisuk's project]

Commission Deliberations

Scott Rosencrans, who chairs the commission, said he’d had several questions that Dennisuk had answered – the questions and answers were provided in the commission’s meeting packet. Tim Berla asked whether staff felt confident that the installations wouldn’t have a negative impact on canoeing, rowing or kayaking. Colin Smith reported that Cheryl Saam, facilities supervisor for the city’s canoe liveries, was on board with the project and the proposed locations – in Argo Pond, near the Broadway Street bridge, in Nichols Arboretum and in Gallup Park. However, Smith said he’d just recently talked with the head of a rowing team that uses Argo Pond, and the location there will have to be reconsidered. Right now, it’s proposed for an area that rowers use to turn their boats. [.PDF file showing proposed locations for the river art project]

Several commissioner mentioned the need to inform the public – Kuras said the staff had discussed the idea of holding a series of public meetings about the project.

Commissioners also questioned what authority they had to act. In response to a statement from Rosencrans, Kuras clarified that city council doesn’t need to sign off on the request to apply for an MDEQ permit.

Kuras noted that even if the university applied for and received a permit from the MDEQ, that doesn’t mean the city would be forced to give its permission, too. Hamilton said that at this stage, the university was simply asking the city – via PAC – for permission to apply for the MDEQ permit. That allows MDEQ to start the process. If at any point the state or the city says no, then the project is “off the table,” she said.

Hamilton further assured commissioners that the university’s insurance would cover this project, that they’re also paying for materials, installation and maintenance, as well as signs and literature promoting the project.

Several commissioners expressed support for the project, at this stage. There was some discussion about the level of detail needed in a resolution giving permission to apply. They settled on a fairly short resolution with this resolved clause: “Be it resolved that the Ann Arbor park advisory commission endorses the University of Michigan’s making of an application to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for approval of the project.”

Outcome: The resolution endorsing the university’s making of an application to the MDEQ for a permit for William Dennisuk’s public art project on the Huron River was unanimously approved.

City/Parks Agreement Renegotiated

An agreement between the city of Ann Arbor and the Ann Arbor Public Schools’ Rec & Ed program – governing the use of city-owned fields – expired in November. According to a memorandum from Colin Smith, the city’s manager of the parks and recreation, the new agreement differs in the following respects. The new agreement:

• Covers all AAPS use of park space for sports including, but not limited to, soccer, field hockey, flag football, and lacrosse. The expiring agreement pertained only to baseball, softball, and kickball.

• Better outlines City responsibilities for baseball field conditions.

• Allows for AAPS to groom any designated park space for the purposes of preparing the field for interscholastic baseball or softball games.

• Provides for supplies of infield material to be stored at fields so that on-going field maintenance may occur.

• Allows the City and AAPS to renew this agreement if mutually agreed upon in writing.

• Allows the City greater flexibility in scheduling and programming events on certain City Parks by better reflecting AAPS usage levels.

[.PDF file of full agreement]

Commissioner Sam Offen asked whether money would be changing hands. Smith said that fees for third-party users hadn’t changed. There’s no set amount mentioned in the agreement for Rec & Ed’s payment to the city, he added, because Rec & Ed collects fees during the season, and their payment to the city depends on usage. The same applies to Rec & Ed’s payment for ballpark lighting.

Outcome: The commission unanimously passed a resolution recommending that city council approve the agreement.

HRIMP Report Redux

During the section of the meeting reserved for communications from commissioners, Christopher Taylor reported that city council, at its Dec. 7 meeting, had voted to ask the park advisory commission and the environmental commission to review the 30 recommendations in the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan, known as HRIMP. [Those had been considered consensus recommendations and did not include the two conflicting recommendations related to Argo Dam – the HRIMP committee could not agree on recommending that the city remove the dam or keep it in, and that question remains unresolved.]

Now, PAC and the environmental commission are being asked to identify which of those 30 so-called consensus recommendations could be implemented with little or no cost to the city. The council would like a plan for implementation within a year, Taylor said. He noted that council had a “fulsome discussion” about the report, and that there was no longer a sense that the recommendations reflected a consensus.

Scott Rosencrans, PAC’s chair, took issue with the characterization of the 30 HRIMP recommendations as not reflecting a consensus. After a healthy debate, they were submitted by a unanimous vote, he said. Taylor responded that the public conversation has evolved since then, to the point that city councilmembers no longer felt comfortable giving their imprimatur to the consensus.

PAC won’t be able to get to the task for a few months, Rosencrans said. It would be valuable, he added, if the commission could get some criteria from council for doing the review, as well as information about funding sources. Taylor stated that the request is to review the HRIMP report regarding recommendations that can be implemented with little or no cost.

Public Commentary: Misc

John Satarino, a former park advisory commissioner, said he represented hundreds of activists and thousands of taxpayers, park users and staff who’ve created a beautiful and utilitarian park system. He wanted to share concerns about the Fuller Road Station project. Since the ’70s, he said, activists have worked to keep the Fuller Road corridor a green, rolling vista – but the University of Michigan has never fully bought into that view. He said that appeasing the university or anyone who has designs on the city’s parkland or park resources sets a dangerous precedent. He urged the commission to take a long look at the proposal for the transit station, and to consider the benefits for the average park user. There aren’t many, he said. Satarino also asked the commission to help disseminate information about the proposal and hold a public hearing on it. [The Fuller Road Station is a proposed UM/city project that includes building a parking structure for 1,020 vehicles on city-owned property that's designated as parkland. Most recently, at its Nov. 5 meeting, Ann Arbor city council approved two resolutions related to the project, including a memorandum of understanding with the university. UM currently leases a portion of the site for a surface parking lot.]

David Walsh told commissioners that he was representing both himself and his neighbors. On Oct. 31, the neighborhood suffered a loss, he said. A house at 1701 Waverly Road burned, killing three people. He reported that the city finally cleaned up the lot, and that the neighbors are hoping it can be turned into a community garden or park.

Present: John Lawter, Gwen Nystuen, Sam Offen, David Barrett, Scott Rosencrans, Julie Grand, Doug Chapman, Karen Levin, Tim Berla, Mike Anglin (ex-officio), Christopher Taylor (ex-officio)

Next meeting: Tuesday, Jan. 19 at 4 p.m. in the Washtenaw County administration building boardroom, 220 N. Main St. [confirm date]

Mayor John Hieftje also gave some additional detail on a proposal he’d mentioned at the council’s budget retreat on Saturday: an across-the-board wage cut of 3% for all city employees, which would include councilmembers.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) presents his case for having a plan for the Huron River. (Photos by the writer)

Though the topics of firefighters and wage cuts were mentioned during the council’s communications section of the meeting, what pushed the meeting to nearly midnight were deliberations on two resolutions: (i) a three-year reduction of the Percent for Art program to effectively a “Half-Percent for Art” program, and (ii) acceptance of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP).

Both resolutions passed, though the HRIMP resolution was heavily amended. The material effect of the amendment was that it was not technically “accepted” by the council, but rather remanded to the city’s park advisory commission and the environmental commission.

In a similar parliamentary move, but with no discussion, the council also returned the area, height and placement (AHP) project to the planning commission.

The council postponed its appointment of new council committees, as well as a resolution to purchase parking meters to be installed on Wall Street. That was the second time the parking meter resolution had been postponed.

In other business, the council approved a move to new accounting software, two greenbelt acquisitions, and funds for remodeling the city’s 911 dispatch center so that it can accommodate co-location with the county’s dispatch center.

Council also authorized a change order to the Buhr ice rink project that illustrated the crunch currently being experienced by the city’s planning and development staff.

Two resolutions were passed in support of affordable housing: one to exempt eligible nonprofit housing providers from property taxes for up to two years, and another expressing support for the efforts of the Inter-Cooperative Council to secure federal funding.

The council also authorized the city attorney to take the action he’d recommended in a closed session held to discuss the pending lawsuit the city faces over the underground parking garage that is starting construction at the Library Lot.

Balanced against some of the bleaker and contentious items on the agenda was a mayoral proclamation honoring Pioneer track coach Don Sleeman, who has some interesting connections to personalities at the city of Ann Arbor.

In Part I of this council report, we handle the HRIMP resolution, the Percent for Art resolution, and budget issues (a possible 3% across-the-board wage cut and firefighter layoffs.)

HRIMP Resolution

In the course of council deliberations on the HRIMP resolution, much of the history of the HRIMP committee’s work and its context emerged, which we present here in summary form.

The HRIMP committee was established by the city’s environmental commission in March of 2006 to develop a plan for protecting and maintaining the portion of the Huron River that flows through the city of Ann Arbor. Beginning in early 2009, a series of public engagements were held as the committee entered the final stages of its work. [Chronicle coverage: "Not So Gently Down the Stream"]

The Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan produced by the committee contains 30 recommendations labeled “consensus recommendations,” with two others on which there was no consensus. The two non-consensus resolutions contradicted each other, with one calling for the removal of Argo Dam and the other calling for its preservation. Much of the public engagement focused exclusively on the dam-in/dam-out question. Part of the context for that question was a problem with toe drains, identified by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, in the earthen embankment adjacent to the concrete and steel dam, which separates the headrace.

In May of 2009 the city’s environmental commission voted in support of dam removal, while the city’s park advisory commission voted for its preservation. [Chronicle coverage: "City Council To Weigh Mixed Advice on Dam"]

The city council held a work session in July at which they received the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) flips through a copy of the HRIMP report.

In October, the council considered, but ultimately tabled, a resolution that called for the city to repair the toe drains in the earthen embankment adjoining the dam. [Chronicle coverage: "Still No Dam Decision"]

Repairing the toe drains would have addressed the dispute between the city and the MDEQ over the drains. A temporary understanding between the city and the MDEQ was reached in late October, which resulted in the closure of the headrace next to the dam. [Chronicle coverage: "City, MDEQ Agree: Argo Headrace Shut"]

At the Nov. 5 city council meeting, the council approved $38,000 in attorney fees to support the contested case the city was pursuing against the MDEQ.

The resolution to accept the committee’s plan was first considered at the council’s Nov. 16 meeting, but postponed until Dec. 7. At the council’s Sunday caucus on Dec. 6, the focus of discussion was on the difference between “approving” the plan and “accepting” it, with the option of “receiving” it also thrown into the mix. [Chronicle coverage: "Huron River Plan, Percent for Art Program also Discussed"]

During council’s Dec. 7 meeting, the resolution would be amended by Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5), who’d co-sponsored the resolution with Margie Teall (Ward 4). The original “Resolved” clauses were as follows:

RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Council accepts the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan and the 30 consensus recommendations in the Plan;

RESOLVED, The Ann Arbor City Council supports the establishment of a River Stewardship Committee (RSC) to provide oversight to the implementation of the Plan;

RESOLVED, That the RSC should be created with representatives from the Environmental Commission, Energy Commission, and Park Advisory Commission and others appointed by City Council with expertise in river science (e.g., ecology, hydrology) and river recreation (e.g., canoeing, rowing, angling, and other user groups);

RESOLVED, That the RSC is to be supported by staff from Systems Planning, Natural Area Preservation, Field Operations, and Parks and Recreation Services;

RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Council shall appoint the members of the RSC, including one Council representative, within the next 60 days;

RESOLVED, The Ann Arbor City Council directs the RSC to provide an implementation plan with funding needs and proposed funding strategies, including language for a river millage, within 6 months;

RESOLVED, The Ann Arbor City Council recommends that operation and maintenance of the recreational dams (Argo and Geddes) not be funded from the Drinking Water Enterprise Fund; and

RESOLVED, The Ann Arbor City Council recommends that funds currently used for the operation and maintenance of the recreational dams from the Drinking Water Enterprise Fund be reallocated to implement the Source Water Protection Plan to protect Ann Arbor’s Drinking Water.

In the course of the meeting, when Hohnke’s amendment removed mention of the funding shift, mayor John Hieftje stressed that the intent to shift dam maintenance funding out of the water fund to parks and recreation was part of the budgeting plan for FY 2011. The reasons why it’s a potential legal problem to fund dam maintenance out of the drinking water fund were explored to some extent at the council’s caucus the night before.

Several speakers during public commentary reserved time at the start of the meeting commented on the resolution.

Public Commentary on HRIMP

A common theme among those who spoke against the resolution was that the consensus recommendations did not actually reflect a consensus of the 18-member HRIMP committee.

A member of the HRIMP committee, Michael Taft, told the council he had represented the “rowing community” on the committee, which was not, he stressed, a single entity. He reported that he felt like the outcome of the committee’s work was “predetermined” and that not all information was allowed to be used. Based on some of the scientific data that had emerged subsequent to the completion of the committee’s report, he believed that today there would not be consensus on all of the 30 “consensus” recommendations.

Another member of the HRIMP committee, David Barrett, contended there was not a consensus on the committee for a shift in the dam maintenance funding source from the drinking water fund to user groups. That was a something that had been put through by the committee’s chair, David Stead, at the very last meeting of the committee in April, Barrett said.

Jeff DeBoer, who actually led off public commentary on the HRIMP resolution, also focused on the possible funding shift to rowers as a user group. He is president of the Pioneer Rowing Club. It was the suggestion of David Stead, the chair of the HRIMP committee at the last meeting of the committee, who had made the suggestion, he said. He offered the council a videotape he’d made of the meeting. At an annual cost of $60,000 for dam maintenance, he said, that amounted to a per capita cost of around $0.50 a year, which was reasonable.

It was an email from the Huron River Watershed Council advocating for shifting dam maintenance costs – from the drinking water fund to user groups – that Tony Iannone said prompted him to come speak. He questioned how that related to the HRWC’s mission of protecting the river and suggested that the city’s $10,000 contribution to the HRWC be cut. He asked why the embankment had not been properly maintained, and contended it was unfair to target user groups with fees.

Some speakers were more supportive of accepting the HRIMP report. Elizabeth Riggs noted that the recommendations had been accepted by the city’s park advisory commission. She asked the council to accept the plan, which would direct the protection of the river. It would allow the next steps of the implementation to begin. She also posed some questions. Given that the drinking water fund was not an appropriate source of funds for maintenance on a recreational dam, she asked: Who should pay? She asked how and when the dam-in/dam-out question would be answered. She also questioned why the city was spending $38,000 on legal fees to contest the MDEQ order.

Justin Heslinga, who introduced himself as an ecologist for the Huron-Clinton Metroparks, said that he lived a two-minute walk away from Argo Dam and was a strong advocate for dam removal. He pointed to the gains in parkland that would result, as well as the cooling effect that would result, which would improve the habitat of smallmouth bass.

John Rubin identified himself as a rower, but argued that the Argo Dam should be removed. He said that dams were inherently bad for rivers, and that the removal of Argo Dam specifically was supported by six different environmental groups. He also contended that in the longer run of 5-15 years, it would be $2-3 million cheaper to remove the dam. He pointed to the 28 acres of additional parkland that would be gained. He said that according to a Michigan Rowing Association study from 1983, Argo Pond was only seventh best out of nine locations.

Council Deliberations on HRIMP

-

Meta-Discourse on HRIMP

The council’s deliberations reflected some of the same themes as the public commentary. In particular, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) picked up on the point that there had been perhaps less consensus on the HRIMP committee than the phrasing “consensus recommendations” reflected.

He also suggested that the chair of the HRIMP committee, David Stead, may have had some bias  – Stead serves on the city’s environmental commission, and introduced the resolution passed by that body recommending removal of the dam. Kunselman questioned how the person who was supposed to be leading the effort to build consensus on the HRIMP committee could then propose a resolution to remove Argo Dam.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3).

In separate speaking turns, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) took up the issue of the “consensus” nomenclature and the overall tenor of discourse – both of which, he allowed, were meta-issues that did not necessarily speak to the substance of the resolution.

On the use of “consensus,” Taylor urged that it be seen more as a “label” in the report that might not necessarily have its full meaning attached to it, so that it was not an obstacle to the council’s acting on the report in some way.

As for the suggestion of bias on the part of the HRIMP committee chair, Taylor declared that he felt like some folks’ integrity had been impugned based on very little evidence. To contend “bias,” he said suggested duplicity and conniving, but he’d seen no evidence of that. To bring a resolution as an environmental commissioner, he said was “entirely right for our commissioners to do.”

Earlier in the deliberations, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) had said it was “absolutely inappropriate to suggest the chair [of the HRIMP committee] had a bias.” And he cautioned that councilmembers should be careful about impugning members of the community who have put time and effort into service for the city.

Taylor lamented the fact that over the course of long community discussion, both sides had accused the other of being driven by a special interest and that this did not advance the conversation.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) echoed Taylor’s sentiments, saying that the dam-in/dam-out question did not need to be answered quickly, but it did need to be answered civilly.

Mayor John Hieftje followed up Taylor’s remarks by saying that the Huron River Watershed Council was responsible for delivering the cleanest urban river in Michigan, and that speaking ill of the HRWC doesn’t advance a speaker’s cause. He added that he would vote to keep the dam, if the vote were to be taken that night. [This was a hypothetical – the dam-in/dam-out question was not on the agenda.]

Parliamentary Issues with HRIMP

Similar to the Sunday night caucus discussion, council deliberations were dominated by what it meant to “accept” the plan. On Monday, Kunselman said he was content to “receive” the plan, but not to “accept” it. Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) also indicated that what he’d been prepared to do was to acknowledge the receipt of the plan. Briere pointed out that the council had already received the plan – they had it in their “hot little hands,” she said.

Among their options was “adopting” it, Briere said, which was not what they wanted to do, because that implied implementation, together with the costs of that implementation. They also had the option of simply “rejecting” it, she said, which was also not what they wanted to do.

In addition to “accepting” the plan, the original set of resolved clauses essentially asked the park advisory commission and the environmental commission to proceed on a specific set of the recommendations in the plan – which Hohnke stressed did not speak to user fees nor to the dam-in/dam-out question.

However, there was concern that the “acceptance” of the plan, together with the specific direction to PAC and EC to engage in specific activities, implied a willingness to invest money – which was not available, given the current budget crisis.

From the floor, then, Hohnke proposed an amendment to the resolution that wiped out all the original resolved clauses, replacing it with a single clause giving the two commissions a more general task, and inserted a whereas clause to make clear that the “receipt” of the plan had already happened.

So what was left was a general remanding to the two commissions, with no “acceptance” of the report.

That amendment would be subjected to further alteration, so we present the version of the amendment that eventually was incorporated into the resolution that passed:

Whereas, On July 6, 2009, the Ann Arbor City Council received from the Environmental Commission the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan and the 30 consensus recommendation contained therein; and

RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Council directs the Park Advisory Commission and Environmental Commission to evaluate the 30 consensus recommendations, and to present options for implementation to City Council for those that can be acted upon at little or no cost; and

RESOLVED, That the Park Advisory Commission and the Environmental Commission complete their recommendations and report back to Council within one year.

Merits of Remanding: How the Amendment Was Altered

Hohnke’s initial amendment, which had a date certain for completion of the two commissions’ work of March 31, 2010, was first altered through a “friendly” amendment from Briere to have no reference to a date at all.

That had been prompted by concern expressed by Mike Anglin (Ward 5) and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) about the workload of the park advisory commission. One aspect of that workload is their budgetary responsibility – given the tough budget year, Rapundalo and Anglin wanted the PAC focused on that issue in the coming months. The PAC is also currently revising the Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) plan, which Rapundalo said he knew was a time-intensive project, having chaired the endeavor back in 1998.

The resolution without its date certain, however, lost the support of mayor John Hieftje, who said that the Huron River was too important to leave out there “in the ether.” It also failed to win the support of Anglin or Rapundalo. Kunselman was the fourth vote against the amendment. He criticized the vagueness of the term “little or no cost” and called into question why the HRWC’s stewardship was not adequate to address the need for a river plan – Hohnke had compared the importance of a river plan to a non-motorized plan, or a downtown plan or a parks plan. Kunselman pointed out that the city paid dues to the HRWC for that purpose.

Kunselman also questioned whether sending it back to those commissions had a reasonable chance of building consensus, when they had not been able to achieve that consensus thus far.

With four votes against it, that left six votes in favor, which meant that the amendment passed.

Hieftje then asked that an additional resolved clause be added to provide a one-year time frame. That request was  accommodated by a unanimous vote. The resolution as amended was then voted and approved.

Outcome: The city council voted unanimously to remand the 30 consensus recommendations to the park advisory commission and the environmental commission, asking those groups to develop options for implementation.

Percent for Art

The city of Ann Arbor has a Percent for Art program, which reserves 1% of the cost of any capital improvement project for public art up to a maximum of $250,000 per project.

Much of the council deliberations focused on how the program actually worked and what constraints existed on it. Deliberations also led to some insight into how the city attorney sees his duties vis-a-vis the city charter.

In the context of looming budget cuts because of a down economy, Sandi Smith (Ward 1), who co-sponsored the resolution on the Percent for Art program with mayor John Hieftje, said that everything had to be looked at. “These are extraordinary times,” she said.

The text of the resolution read:

… provided that for the period January 1, 2010, through December 31, 2012, the percentage shall be reduced to and be one half percent (½%). Where a capital improvement project is only partly funded by the city, the amount of funds allocated for public art shall be one percent (1%) of that portion of the project that is city-funded, up to a maximum of $250,000 per project; provided that for the period January 1, 2010, through December 31, 2012, the percentage shall be reduced to and be one half percent (½%).

In making the case for the resolution, Smith pointed out that the program would continue, which she wanted. It would also resume at its full 1% level after three years, with no council action required.

This isn’t the first time a reduction in the percentage in the program has been floated. In February 2009, at a Sunday night caucus, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) had mooted the idea of modifying the Percent for Art ordinance. From Chronicle coverage of that caucus ["Discontent Emerges at Caucus"]:

One Percent for Art? Really??

Higgins also called into question the need for construction projects to allocate a full 1% for public art, noting that around $1 million had already accumulated in the fund in the year since the program was adopted. She wondered if perhaps a half percent would be a more appropriate level.

Councilmember Christopher Taylor noted light-heartedly that “A Half-Percent For Art!” just doesn’t have quite the same ring. But on a more serious note he suggested that monies are being accumulated faster than they’re being allocated because a mechanism for distribution is still getting up and running.

In deliberations, every councilmember who spoke acknowledged the importance of art in the culture and economy of the Ann Arbor community.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) said that this was the first of many tough issues the council would face: “If you won’t vote for a cut, which ones will you vote for?” he asked. This one was not one he wanted to vote for – not at this time. He also said he felt like three years was a long time.

Margie Teall (Ward 4) said she appreciated that the resolution did not demolish the whole program.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) said that so long as the city’s revenue fails to meet its full aspirations, they’ll face difficult choices.  He said that based on the cross section of the community he’d heard from on the issue, it was apparent that the community values art but acknowledges that these are difficult times. The resolution, he said, was consistent with the cry for the balance of those ideas.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) pointed out that the amount that the city would save was an intangible amount – the council had discussed at their budget retreat the idea of delaying certain capital improvements. If the capital improvements didn’t happen, then no money would be allocated to the Percent for Art program. Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) also focused on the uncertain nature of the dollar amount to be saved, saying that he preferred to focus budget savings efforts on amounts that were fixed.

In response to the “uncertainty of amount” argument, Smith offered as a reference point that in the FY 2011 capital improvements plan (CIP), there were $519,000 eligible – so that the savings were around $260,000.

Hieftje asked for clarification from Sue McCormick, the public services area administrator, about how much money the general fund had contributed to the public art program. She clarified that the $12,500 figure she’d given at an earlier meeting had been the result of erroneous inclusion of some Act 51 funds for a non-motorized capital project. So over the first three years of the Percent for Art program, no money from the general fund had gone towards the program, she reported.

Hieftje had wanted to dispel the myth that money spent on art could instead be spent on salaries in the fire department.

Following up on Hieftje’s question about the general fund, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) asked if there were any funds that can’t contribute to the art program. McCormick distinguished between two types of restrictions: those built into the Percent for Art ordinance about the kinds of capital improvement projects, and those stemming from the source of funds. For example, the ordinance itself, she said, rules out “projects” that consist of a property purchase. And a project that uses Act 51 funds as a source are not eligible – the act provides money for operations and maintenance of streets.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) asked McCormick who on staff determined the legality of a capital improvement project’s contribution to the art program. Her answer: the city attorney’s office. She explained that in crafting the ordinance, the city attorney had been asked for an opinion. Kunselman followed up by asking, “Why wouldn’t the public know the attorney’s opinion?” [The Ann Arbor city charter has a provision that requires the city attorney to file any opinions with the city clerk's office.]

McCormick referred Kunselman’s question to Stephen Postema, the city attorney. He contended that what he’d sent to council was an “advice memo.” Kunselman pressed the issue by noting that McCormick, as a department head, could request advice that would need to be filed as an opinion.

The city charter reads in relevant part [emphasis added]:

The Attorney shall:
(1) Advise the heads of administrative units in matters relating to their official duties, when so requested, and shall file with the Clerk a copy of all the Attorney’s written opinions;

Based on the charter provision, “an advice memo” could be analyzed as synonymous with “an opinion.”

Also related to funding sources was an amendment to the resolution proposed by Briere that would have stipulated that “projects shall not be restricted by funding source in determining the type or subject matter of the art.” The need for art from the street reconstruction millage to involve projects like pressed pavement, she said, had led her to propose the amendment.

The amendment garnered only Briere’s vote, and failed.

Rapundalo laid out a case for art as a key factor in economic development – attracting and retaining talent. In support of that, he cited his professional work –  as president of  MichBio ["Mission: Drive biosciences industry growth in Michigan"].

Mike Anglin asked for an example of a project that had been completed with Percent for Art funds. McCormick explained that none had been completed yet. The first one is associated with the new municipal center under construction. [The expected Dec. 7 council vote on that project was again delayed – until Dec. 21. Chronicle coverage: "City Council Vote on Dreiseitl Delayed"]

Outcome: The council approved the resolution on its first reading to reduce public art funding from the 1% reservation of capital improvement projects to 0.5% for a three-year period, from 2010-2012. Dissent came from Rapundalo and Derezinski. The resolution must be approved on its second reading before council as well, and will include a public hearing.

Budget

-

A 3% Across-the-Board Wage Cut?

The initial public mention of a possible across-the-board wage cut had come from mayor John Hieftje at the council’s budget retreat conducted on Saturday, Dec. 5.

At Monday’s meeting, councilmembers and the city administrator alike expressed satisfaction with the format of the retreat. Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) said that it was “the best one we’ve had – because of the council discussion amongst itself.” He noted that it serves as the beginning of the budget season.

Hieftje then put Ann Arbor’s budget difficulties in the context of other cities in the state. Grand Rapids faces 150 layoffs, he reported. Lansing is laying off 14 police officers. And in Troy, he said, one-third of the work force could be laid off if a special millage does not pass.

He introduced again the 3% across-the-board wage cut that he’d mentioned at the budget retreat and also discussed the previous evening at caucus. The idea, he said was for all city councilmembers to accept a 3% pay cut and for all city workers to do the same. For workers whose salaries are paid out of the general fund, he said, that would save $850,000 per year. If all workers citywide were added in, it would amount to a savings of $1.5 million.

The 3% corresponds to concessions made this year by unions representing most of Washtenaw County government employees, but in that case it reflected forgoing a contracted 3% wage increase, not making a cut. [Chronicle coverage: "AFSCME union concessions help, but other issues remain"] In the case of the city’s unions, it would mean a cut.

[Otherwise put, in the case of the county, a worker making $100,000 – with a scheduled raise to $103,000 – was left at the $100,000 level. That's a different proposal from asking a worker making $100,000 to accept $97,000 instead.]

Hieftje said he wanted to take the proposal to the unions. He noted that 48% of the general fund is accounted for by safety services – police and fire.

Firefighter Layoffs

At the budget retreat, city administrator Roger Fraser indicated to councilmembers that unless they directed him otherwise, layoff notices to 14 firefighters – part of mid-year cuts necessary to achieve a balanced FY 2010 budget – would be sent this week.

Fraser was asked to address an issue that had been raised by a city resident at the Sunday caucus: How does the three-person truck crew figure into the safety protocol that requires four people on scene before someone can enter a burning structure?

Fraser began by saying that there are any number of variables that go into any response to a fire call. But national standards, he said, require at least two firefighters to enter the building together, with two remaining outside – a total of four. Fraser said that with layoffs, there could be longer times to get four people to the scene. He said that greater detail would be forthcoming about how the deployment would work.

Hieftje said he was particularly interested in hearing how the extra person – in addition to the three on a truck crew – would get to the scene.

Council took no action on the firefighter layoffs.

Present: Stephen Rapundalo, Mike Anglin, Margie Teall, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Kunselman, John Hieftje, Christopher Taylor, Carsten Hohnke.

Absent: Marcia Higgins

Next council meeting: Monday, Dec. 21, 2009 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

Residents who attended the caucus expressed concerns about probable firefighter layoffs, possible threats to city parks, and a Monday meeting agenda item approving $895,000 for an accounting system overhaul. In responding to residents, councilmembers mentioned an idea that Mayor John Hieftje had briefly floated at the council’s budget retreat: an across-the-board wage cut of 3% for all city employees.

Besides the accounting system overhaul, the other Monday meeting agenda item residents spoke about was the council’s “acceptance” of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan. Representatives of the Huron River Watershed Council encouraged the council to accept the plan. That discussion led to the topic of the city’s Percent for Art program and its legal status. The council has an item on its Monday agenda to reduce the percentage reserved from 1% to a 0.5%.

On the council side, the caucus was attended by Hieftje, Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Mike Anglin (Ward 5), Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3).

Firefighter Layoffs: Negotiations, Safety

Karen Sidney addressed the caucus on a range of topics, including the pending layoff of 14 of the city’s 94 budgeted firefighter positions. At the budget retreat the previous day, city administrator Roger Fraser and Mayor John Hieftje had maintained that the firefighters union had been unreceptive to a proposal to accept a wage cut in exchange for preserving jobs.

At the caucus, Sidney said she’d heard that the wage cut proposed to the union had been 25%, which she said was not a reasonable proposal.

Sidney also suggested that the city’s plan to provide fire protection services in the face of firefighter layoffs would have a negative impact on the fire department’s ability to rescue people from burning buildings. Based on the safety protocol for firefighters described by safety services area administrator Barnett Jones at Saturday’s budget retreat, firefighters cannot enter a burning building without a partner, and without having two coordinating staff remaining outside – a total of four people are required on scene.

Based on the standard staffing of a three-person crew for a truck, and Jones’ description of planned delays in sending a second truck, Sidney reasoned that this would have to mean delays in the fire department’s ability to send firefighters into burning buildings to rescue people trapped there.

Across-the-Board Wage Cut for City Staff?

Nancy Kaplan asked councilmembers if – in the spirit of everything budget-wise being on the table for consideration – the city administrator’s salary was also on the table. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) replied that she didn’t mean to seem defensive about it, but that the city administrator, Roger Fraser, had not had a raise in at least three years.

That led Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) to mention that the mayor had proposed at the budget retreat a 3% across-the-board pay cut for all city employees – something he said had not been reported in the newspaper account of the retreat. Asked for clarification at caucus about whether this was a serious proposal, or just an idea, Hieftje said that it was a proposal and that there was support on the council for it – but that council didn’t have control to make it happen. That was something the unions would have to agree to do, he said.

The 3% corresponds to concessions made this year by unions representing most of Washtenaw County government employees, but in that case it reflected forgoing a contracted 3% wage increase. [Chronicle coverage: "AFSCME union concessions help, but other issues remain"] Hieftje said he didn’t have the exact dollar figure the move would save, but would have the number by Monday’s meeting.

Asked if the council might implement the 3% cut for at least the non-union employees, Hieftje said that implementing the wage cut for just that group would not have as strong an effect. Resident Karen Sidney pointed out that the city had 190 non-union employees.

In an earlier comment, Sidney had noted that historically, union jobs at the city had been cut more than non-union jobs. In 2002, she said, there were 205 non-union jobs compared to 190 now, for a reduction of 7.5%. In contrast, she said, 696 union jobs in 2002 have decreased to 571 union jobs today, for an 18% decrease.

Accounting System Overhaul

Given the budget crunch, Karen Sidney asked the council to delay spending $895,000 to overhaul the city’s accounting system – an item that’s on Monday’s agenda.

The overhaul includes new software, management of its installation, and programmers to move the legacy system, which is based in part on COBOL, an older programming language. The business case for the expenditure provided with the council’s meeting packet projects a return on the investment to be realized in two years and eight months. The new system is seen as easing use of the accounting system for people who don’t have a deep understanding of accounting, for increased transparency of the system.

Sidney pointed out that the business case also contains a description of risks associated with the project, which include budget overruns and the possibility of project failure. She concluded that the expenditure should be delayed.

In a later discussion, Sidney asked that the monthly financial reports that Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) said the budget and labor committee received also be posted on the city’s website. Mike Anglin (Ward 5) reported that such reports had been very helpful for members of the park advisory commission – a body on which he represents the city council.

Parks and the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan

Gwen Nystuen, who is a member of the city’s park advisory commission, appeared before the caucus saying that she’d come because she’d been alarmed about what she’d read in Sunday’s paper about possible cuts to the park program. Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) said that what had been printed was a verbatim presentation of the PowerPoint slides shown at the budget retreat, but stressed that the context of the slides was to provoke the council to rethink everything. There was, Rapundalo said, little appetite on the council for selling parks.

Glenn Thompson appeared at caucus to express his support for keeping the Argo Dam in place. He allowed that there’d likely be a reduction in the water temperature by a half degree or so, but that this benefit to the river needed to be balanced against the potential for hydropower to be generated by the dam. The electricity that could be generated by the dam, he said, would save 1,000 tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere, when compared to the same electricity when generated by a coal-fired plant.

Laura Rubin, the executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council, came to caucus to make the case that the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan committee had not been “stacked,” as some in the community have contended. She said that over the course of three years, the city’s environmental commission had engaged in a painstaking process of identification of stakeholders. It was important to have a river plan, she told the council, just as it was important for the city to have a transportation plan, a parks plan, and a city master plan.

Rubin said she hoped the council would “approve” the plan and that it would not languish. This prompted Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) to stress that the council would not be “approving” the plan, but rather “accepting” it. That is, there was no implication attached that the recommendations would be implemented. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) suggested that he wasn’t sure that “accept” was the right word either, saying that “receive” might be better. In any case, Rapundalo said there was simply not money to commit to anything in the HRIMP at this time, and the same sentiment was echoed by Sabra Briere (Ward 1).

Scott Munzel introduced himself as a Ward 5 resident of Ann Arbor, who also serves on the board of the watershed council. He noted that the purpose of the HRWC was to advocate for the river and that it was thus fitting and proper for its executive director, Laura Rubin, to weigh in on the Argo Dam question. She did so, he said, with the support of the board.

If the council decided to leave the dam in place, he said, he hoped that they would take seriously the question of how much it costs to maintain, which he said was around $50-60,000 per year. Currently, he said, that is paid out of the drinking water fund, which was not just inappropriate, but possibly even illegal, based on the Bolt v. City of Lansing case. That case involved a stormwater fee, which in the view of the court amounted to a tax. The court established criteria distinguishing a fee from a tax as follows [from the Michigan Municipal League summary]:

1. a user fee must serve a regulatory purpose rather than a revenue-raising purpose;
2. a user fee must be proportionate to the necessary costs of the service; and
3. a user fee must be voluntary – property owners must be able to refuse or limit their use of the commodity or service.

Responding to Munzel, Mayor John Hieftje noted that the intention was to rectify the funding source issue when the next budget is prepared.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) was curious to know from Munzel, who’s an attorney, if he had any thoughts on the legality of the city’s Percent for Art program in the context of the Bolt v. City of Lansing case. Munzel did not offer a legal opinion on the matter.

The Percent for Art program is on the council’s agenda in the form of a resolution brought forward by Sandi Smith (Ward 1) to reduce the percentage reserved for public art from 1% to 0.5%.

Kunselman followed up on Munzel’s comments on the advocacy role of the HRWC by saying that the advocacy made him a little “squeamish” given that the city of Ann Arbor paid $10,000 a year to the HRWC as a member organization. Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) then asked if HRWC was a 501(c)(3) or a 501(c)(6) organization. Rubin replied that it was a 501(c)(3) – the nonprofit status that allows contributions to be deducted from income tax.

Rapundalo’s response to Rubin’s answer was: “Well, then you can’t lobby.” He cited his own experience setting up a parallel 501(c)(3) organization to a 501(c)(6), saying that he was well aware of what was allowed under each organization.  Rubin countered by saying that the HRWC had relied on their legal counsel as far as what their advocacy role could be and that the issue had been looked at in detail. [While there are contraints on 501(c)(3) organizations in how they lobby, they are allowed to do so: NP Action]

Left to right: Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) getting ceremonially sworn in at the start of council's Nov. 16, 2009 meeting. Standing to the left out of frame are Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) and Mike Anglin (Ward 5). (Photo by the writer.)

But it would have been a long meeting even without the downtown planning content, which we’ve summarized in a separate report: “Downtown Planning Process Forges Ahead.”

Before postponing the acceptance of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP), the council got a detailed update on how things stand on the city’s dispute with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) over Argo Dam.

An agenda item authorizing capital improvements in West Park prompted a lengthy discussion of how the Percent for Art program works.

Some public commentary calling abstractly for greater support for inventors and entrepreneurs was followed later in the meeting by an appropriation from the city’s LDFA to Ann Arbor SPARK to fund more business acceleration services.

A consent agenda item on the purchase of parking meters was pulled out and postponed.

The council also heard a detailed report from the city administrator, which covered emergency response time to a recent house fire, ADA-compliant sidewalk ramps, responses to the library lot Request for Proposals, updates on the task forces for Mack Pool and Ann Arbor’s senior center, staff reductions in planning and development, the East Stadium bridges, as well as the upcoming budget retreat on Dec. 5.

Stephen Kunselman’s (Ward 3) use of attachments to the agenda to document questions for city staff received some critique.

Also worth noting, the five winners of recent council elections were sworn in, and Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) was elected as mayor pro tem. Those topics in more detail below.

Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan

On the council’s agenda was a resolution to accept the Huron River and Impoundment Mangement Plan (HRIMP) from the HRIMP committee, along with 30 of its 32 recommendations. The HRIMP contains two different resolutions on the disposition of the Argo Dam – one to remove it and the other to maintain it – because the committee could not reach a consensus on that question.

HRIMP Public Comment

During public commentary reserved time at the start of the council’s meeting, Russ Miller acknowledged the HRIMP committee’s hard work, but expressed some concern about the resolution the council was to consider. First there were two different drafts of the HRIMP attached to the resolution – one from April 24, 2009 and the other from Nov. 12, 2009. The more recent version, he said, contained some data that was different. Neither version, he contended, was the version that the city’s park advisory commission, environmental commission, and energy commission had voted on.

A second issue addressed by Miller was the quality of the data in the report. Miller mentioned a list of items identified by Sue McCormick, director of public services for the city, that would cost around $185,000 in order to gather data on – temperature, dissolved oxygen, sedimentation rate and flow fluctuations. Some of that data, he said, already existed at least in pilot form.

Argo Dam and Embankment Update

During communications from council, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) – who co-sponsored the HRIMP acceptance resolution along with Margie Teall (Ward 4) – clarified that the costs mentioned by Miller related to costs associated with the management of the dam, and were not part of the consensus recommendations in the report.

Hohnke asked McCormick to give the council a status report on the situation with Argo Dam. [See previous Chronicle coverage: "MDEQ to Ann Arbor: Close Argo Millrace" and "City, MDEQ Agree: Argo Headrace Shut" and "A2: Argo Spillway"]

McCormick ticked through Argo Dam’s recent history. On Aug. 6, 2009, the MDEQ had ordered the city to take certain actions, which included closure of the headrace and dewatering of it by Nov. 1. The order also included a requirement for the city to have evaluated its options by April 30, 2010. If the city opted to keep the Argo Dam in place, then repairs to the adjacent earthen embankment needed to be completed by Dec. 31, 2010. If the city opted to remove the dam, then its removal needed to be completed by Dec. 31, 2012.

McCormick said that calculating backward from those dates left a short time frame in which to work. To issue requests for proposals (RFPs) and to undertake additional studies, she said, would entail a 15-18 month timeline to get the studies done. She characterized the situation as a “conundrum.” That was one reason the city had challenged the order, she explained.

In response to the city’s formal challenge, the MDEQ granted a 90-day stay on all elements of its order except the one to close the headrace. The city has stopped the flow, McCormick said, but has not pumped out the remaining water.

The hope, explained McCormick, is to convince the MDEQ that the earthen embankment is, in fact, stable. Over the 90-day period of the stay, she said, there’d be a technical discussion with the MDEQ. [The city has installed monitoring devices on the earthen embankment to aid in that discussion: "Finally a Dam Decision on Argo?"] And the city hoped that they would be able to restore the flow back into the headrace as a result of that discussion, said McCormick.

Then the city would be able to go through a thorough process for evaluating the dam – a process that could take two years.

To the two-year time frame, Hohnke offered some resistance, saying that he hoped that the list of tasks to be completed could be re-examined in the interest of reducing that time frame.

HRIMP Resolution

When the resolution on accepting the HRIMP report came up for discussion, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) proposed an amendment – which was approved by his council colleagues with dissent from Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) – to revise the language in the resolution so that a councilmember would be appointed at the same time as the other members of the RSC.

The resolution charges with RSC with implementation of the HRIMP, as well as identification of funding sources, including the development of language for a river millage:

RESOLVED, The Ann Arbor City Council supports the establishment of a River Stewardship Committee (RSC) to provide oversight to the implementation of the Plan; …

RESOLVED, The Ann Arbor City Council directs the RSC to provide an implementation plan with funding needs and proposed funding strategies, including language for a river millage, within 6 months;

[A river millage could possibly make for a ballot with several millages if it's brought forward in November 2010, where it could join a second attempt for the WISD school millage, a county human services millage, and a county transportation millage.]

The resolution references funds in the budget for dam operations, which had prompted Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) to ask if the resolution was a budget item requiring an 8-vote majority. The clarification that it was not such an item was based on the fact that it was a recommendation to no longer fund the dam operations from the water fund, not a decision:

RESOLVED, The Ann Arbor City Council recommends that operation and maintenance of the recreational dams (Argo and Geddes) not be funded from the Drinking Water Enterprise Fund; and

RESOLVED, The Ann Arbor City Council recommends that funds currently used for the operation and maintenance of the recreational dams from the Drinking Water Enterprise Fund be reallocated to implement the Source Water Protection Plan to protect Ann Arbor’s Drinking Water.

Higgins moved for a postponement until Dec. 7, in light of the documentation issues raised during public commentary.  Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) supported the postponement, saying that it was not clear whether the council was “accepting” the plan or “adopting” it.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) also supported the postponement, saying that when they were last confronted with the issue, the council had focused exclusively on the dam-in/dam-out question and may not have given the other 30 recommendations attention.

Hohnke then sought to be recognized to speak again, but was not seen by Mayor John Hieftje. Hieftje asked for the vote, which was taken, with the council approving the postponement. As the vote was taken, Hieftje then noticed Hohnke’s frustration, thus went back to Hohnke for further deliberations on the postponement.

Hohnke said he did not understand the concerns about “accepting” versus “adopting.” He noted that the HRIMP report has “been out there for a long time.” He encouraged his colleagues who had any questions to raise them with the city staff.

As Higgins and Hieftje weighed in on the merits of the resolution and which reports were attached to it, Rapundalo called for a point of order: The deliberations weren’t related to the question of postponement.

Outcome: The acceptance of the HRIMP report was postponed until the council’s Dec. 7 meeting.

West Park Improvements: Percent for Art

The resolution before the council on stormwater improvements generated a lot of discussion, but not on the stormwater improvements per se. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "West Park Improvements Get Fast-Tracked"]

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) noted that he’d attached to the agenda questions related to the West Park improvements:

Are funds from the voter approved Park Millage being used for this project? If so:

Are any funds from the Park Millage being directed to the 1% for Art Fund? If so:

Please provide the voter approved Park Millage language that authorizes said funds to be directed to public art. If such language is not explicit, then, please provide a written legal opinion that substantiates the Administration’s position that voter approved Park Millage funds can be directed to other uses such as public art by Council majority approval.

If such is the opinion, is it legally defensible for the City to adopt a 1% for the Homeless program using the same rationale?

Are funds from the Stormwater Fund, a utility enterprise fund, being directed to the 1% for Art Fund? If so:

Please provide a written legal opinion that substantiates the Administration’s position that utility enterprise funds, including loans from the State, can be directed to public art by Council majority approval. If such is the opinion, is it legally defensible for the City to adopt a 1% for the Homeless program using the same rationale?

Kunselman indicated that he’d received a response to his questions from the city attorney, but that he could not share it with the public – it had been marked confidential.

Abigail Elias, of the city attorney's office, is more likely to be explaining legalities of Percent for Art allocations to Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) than she is to be demonstrating proper technique for fielding a punt. (Photo by the writer.)

However, he did indicate that $16,000 from the park millage and $13,000 from the storm water fund would accrue to the public art fund under the Percent for Art program as a result of the West Park improvements.

Kunselman allowed that he had served on the city council in 2007 when the Percent for Art program had been approved by the council and that he’d voted for it.  But he said that he did not realize at the time that the program would pull money from what he thought were restricted funds. The $16,000 for art that would come out of the parks budget, he said, could pay for a thermal blanket for Mack pool – which is one of the ways the Mack Pool task force has explored to help reduce energy costs.

Mayor John Hieftje weighed in, saying that the Percent for Art money that drew from the parks budget would be spent on art in the parks. Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) pointed out that art for West Park [the exact art project has not yet been determined] could be a teaching tool to educate people about storm water. The art paid for by the Percent for Art program was meant to serve the purpose of the fund it came from, said Higgins.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) sought clarification on the amount of public art funds that come from the street and road repair millage – was it really the $500,000 that Kunselman had mentioned? Sue McCormick, director of public services for the city, clarified that the figure was actually $285,553.

By way of background, here’s a budget summary as of Oct. 1, 2009 for art in public places:

               Transfers/Revenues  Expenditures   Available Balance
General Fund      $ 12,325         $    804       $  11,520
Street Millage     285,553            9,344         276,208
Parks Millage       20,235              657          19,577
Solid Waste         31,040              331          30,708
Water              289,693            8,459         281,233
Sewer              562,302           24,939         537,362
Stormwater          44,480            2,859          41,622
Airport              6,520              103           6,416
Court/PD Facility  250,000.         109,886         140,114 

Total Available
for Capital /Art  $1,502,150.00    $157,387      $1,344,762

-

As Sabra Briere (Ward 1) brought out later, the $500,000 figure was actually related to the sewer fund. Rapundalo asked McCormick how the principle of the art serving the fund from which it came would apply to something like the street and road repair millage. McCormick said that the art could be incorporated into the streets. She noted that ADA compliance required use of textures on sidewalk ramps, which had potential for art. Use of surface treatments to designate a historic district was another possibility, she said. McCormick also alluded to providing, through art, a visible way of finding the greenway.

Hieftje asked McCormick about the general fund contribution to the art fund, and McCormick said that there was a variance between $850 and $12,000 depending on how Act 51 money was analyzed. The city uses Act 51 money to construct non-motorized facilities, as opposed to just repairing a facility, and as such would fall under the Percent for Art program.

Kunselman concluded that it sounded like the accounting was difficult. He requested in the future that staff provide with each project the contribution that would be made, if any, to the Percent for Art program. McCormick indicated that this would not be possible, because a piece of art was not necessarily associated with a project at the time a project was approved. There was some back and forth between Kunselman and McCormick that ultimately did not appear completely resolved.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the West Park stormwater improvement project.

Increased Budget to Local Development Finance Authority

During public commentary, Kermit Schlansker introduced himself as a former aerospace engineer for Allied Bendix. He contended there was no good avenue for developing good ideas for inventions – he had several but figured he’d die with them. He called for greater support for entrepreneurs and inventors and for local action to fight global warming.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), who serves as the city council’s representative on the Local Development Finance Authority (LDFA), suggested during his communications to council that there was an agenda item related to Schlansker’s point. The item increased the LDFA budget by $255,000 $205,000 for additional support to Ann Arbor SPARK’s business accelerator. The increased support – which will allow the hiring of a new full-time manager of the business incubator and an additional .75 FTE of Phase II consultants, spread over two people – is contingent on persistence in increased demand for business accelerator services.

When the item came before the council, Skip Simms, who’s the managing director of entrepreneurial business development at SPARK, answered a few questions from councilmembers, including one from Sandi Smith (Ward 1) about how much of SPARK’s business accelerator is funded by the city of Ann Arbor. Simms clarified that the business accelerator is funded solely by the LDFA. [The LDFA is a tax increment financing district, like the Downtown Development Authority, and captures taxes that would otherwise go to the taxing authorities that levy property taxes in the area. In the case of the LDFA, the taxes captured come from Ann Arbor's downtown area.]

At Mike Anglin’s (Ward 5) invitation, one of the business accelerator clients, Cesar Nerys, talked a bit about his company Boomdash, which had used SPARK’s incubator services. Nerys described the concept underlying Boomdash’s business, which was to allow local advertisers to take advantage of Boomdash’s online advertising platform, but kept Boomdash’s presence in the background through “white labeling.” [According to a Detroit Free Press article from July 2009, Boomdash closed earlier in the year due to a lack of venture capital: "Boomdash's Dreams Go Bust"]

Outcome: The resolution amending the LDFA budget by $255,000 in order to fund expanded SPARK business accelerator services was approved unanimously.

Parking Meter Purchase

The resolution to purchase parking meters, a part of the consent agenda, was separated out from that group of items at Sandi Smith’s (Ward 1) request. [The consent agenda items are by definition moved and voted together, unless an item is specifically singled out as this one was.]

The parking meters were to be installed along Wall Street as part of an effort to generate up to $380,000 connected with the FY 2010 budget, which the city council adopted earlier in the year.

At Monday’s meeting, Smith expressed skepticism that the projected extra revenues would materialize, even if the meters were installed. [Smith has been working to find revenue replacement, to avoid installation of parking meters in neighborhoods near downtown.]

In her remarks about the parking meters, Smith gave a response to Lynn Meadows, who during public commentary had asked about an email exchange from January 2009 among Smith, Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) and Susan Pollay, the executive director of Ann Arbor’s Downtown Development Authority. That email exchange had been produced by the city as a part of a FOIA request. In the exchange, the three had arranged to take a tour of areas around downtown, with Derezinski driving. Meadows wanted to know what the nature of the trio’s discussion was.

In responding to Meadows, Smith said that the city’s budget proposal – which included the installation of parking meters in neighborhoods near downtown – was exactly why three people might be prompted to get in a car together and drive around to look at the specific areas that would be affected.

With Mayor John Hieftje’s encouragement to postpone the resolution until council’s Dec. 7 meeting, when Smith would be bringing a resolution of her own related to parking revenues, Smith moved the postponement.

Outcome: The resolution to purchase parking meters was postponed.

Updates from the City Administrator

City administrator Roger Fraser gave updates on a range of topics, both during the slot on the agenda labeled for his own communications, as well as when he was called on by councilmembers during the time allotted for their own communications. In response to a question early in the meeting from Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) about sidewalk replacement, Fraser quipped, “Thanks for springing that on me!”

Sidewalk Slab Replacement

Higgins reported several phone calls from residents who were curious to know why sidewalk slabs were being replaced by the city at intersection corners, extending as far back as 20 feet from the curb. Fraser explained that the work had been prompted by a settlement reached not just by Ann Arbor, but by many municipalities, with the advocates of people with disabilities –  to bring about ADA compliance with sidewalk ramps at intersections. He said that this would entail replacement of slabs 10 feet back from the curb, but said it typically shouldn’t require 20 feet. However, due to differences between state and federal requirements on accessibility, in some cases the concrete that had been poured as recently as a year ago was being broken up and re-poured.

As a followup, Higgins wanted to know if there was going to be a sidewalk installed around Allmendinger Park. She noted that there were curb cuts being installed, and if there were to be sidewalks installed to accompany them, she wondered who would be responsible for shoveling the sidewalk. For her part, she said, she would not be shoveling it.

Emergency Response Time

A recent house fire at 1710 Waverly, which killed three people, had raised questions among Ward 4 residents, said Higgins, about the emergency response times by the fire department. Fraser reported that the first call had come in at 2:53 a.m. from someone who had smelled smoke, driven into the neighborhood, and identified a house with excessive smoke coming from a chimney on Greenview, which they believed to be the source of the smell. Two trucks were dispatched to the Greenview location.

Meanwhile, a second call came in from a resident who described the fire they’d spotted as “east of” their Waverly location.  The location of the first house reported, on Greenview, was also east of Waverly. The first call with a definitive location of the fire came in at 3:06 a.m., said Fraser, and from that point the police response time was one minute and the fire department response was two minutes. When they arrived, the house was already engulfed in flames.

Library Lot Request for Proposals

Fraser reported that the request for proposals (RFP) for the top of the city-owned underground parking garage, which had a deadline of Nov. 13, had actually yielded eight proposals, but two had been disqualified because they were late.

To clarify when the proposals would be unveiled to the public, Fraser said that before public consumption, they would first be vetted by the technical review committee, then sent to the advisory committee.

Scott Rosencrans, who chairs the city’s park advisory commission, had originally been appointed by city council to the RFP advisory committee. However, he informed the council of a scheduling conflict, and Sam Offen, also of the park advisory commission, was appointed on Monday to replace Rosencrans. The makeup of that review committee is now: Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), Margie Teall (Ward 4), Eric Mahler (planning commission), John Splitt (DDA board), and Sam Offen (park advisory commission).

The technical review committee consists of the following: Jayne Miller (the city’s director of community services), Matt Kulhanek (manager of the Ann Arbor municipal airport), Kevin McDonald (a senior assistant city attorney specializing in planning and development issues), Wendy Rampson (the city’s interim director of planning and development services),  Cresson Slotten (a city senior project manager in systems planning), Alison Heatley (a city senior project engineer), Mike Pettigrew (deputy treasurer for the city of Ann Arbor), Jessica Black (supervisor for the city’s parks and recreation customer service unit) and Susan Pollay (executive director of the DDA, which is building the parking structure).

Stadium Bridges and Task Forces

Fraser also gave updates on the East Stadium Bridge situation, and the task forces charged with studying Mack Pool and the Ann Arbor Senior Center. [Recent Chronicle coverage of those issues: "State Board: No Funding for Stadium Bridges," "Task Force Floats Ways to Save Mack Pool," and "Seniors Weigh in on Fate of Center"]

Use of Council Communications

During the council communications at the end of the meeting, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) indicated to his council colleagues that he would in the future be using the agenda attachments to the “communications from council” to record questions on agenda items, as he had for that meeting. He cited the desire to get information out in the open so that it did not need to be requested under the FOIA.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) told Kunselman that she understood what his intent was, but contended that section of the agenda is not designed for what Kunselman had in mind.

What the council rules actually specify:

Communications from Council

This place on the agenda is reserved for Council Members to make announcements, request reports and speak on subjects, which they deem important, report out on committees and give notice of future proposed business.

Inasmuch as Kunselman’s attached questions can be construed as a request for reports, his use appears consistent with the council rules.

Public Commentary

Public commentary not already mentioned above included the following:

John Floyd: Floyd posed two questions. The first concerned the willingness of Washtenaw County officials to entertain discussions on the lease to the city for housing the 15th District Court: Did the city receive any communication on or around April 17, 2008 from the county concerning the possibility of reopening an extension to the city’s lease for court space, if the city would submit such a request in writing? Floyd’s second question was addressed to Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) in reference to a quote by Mayor John Hieftje in an Ann Arbor News article from two years ago, when he included Hohnke as sharing a “big picture” vision of Ann Arbor. Floyd asked if Hohnke meant that Ann Arbor should emulate other cities like Boulder, Portland, and Seattle, or if there was some other big picture vision he had in mind. Later in the meeting, Hohnke would respond by suggesting that he did look to those cities for inspiration, and cited a specific example of recent work in Ann Arbor to look at the pedestrian right-of-way ordinance, which was being informed by ordinances in those cities.

William Hampton: Hampton congratulated councilmembers who had won election and to Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) for her election as mayor pro tem. He introduced himself as the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, noting that the local chapter was celebrating its 60th anniversary, and the national organization was celebrating its 100th anniversary. He reported on the annual Freedom Fund dinner held recently, which honors students who maintain at least a 3.2 grade point average. [Chronicle coverage of that event: "Ann Arbor NAACP Honors Academic Success"] He thanked Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) for their support, and Mayor John Hieftje for his welcoming address at the Freedom Fund dinner.

Andrew McGill: McGill appeared before the council to thank them, on behalf of the Committee for Preserving Community Quality, for passing the resolution at their previous meeting that called upon the city of Ann Arbor to notify Pittsfield Township of any master plan changes to the Ann Arbor airport, before submitting them to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Thomas Partridge: Partridge called on the mayor, the city council, and the public at large to take cognizance of issues like free and open access to information. He called for integrated countywide public transportation.

City Budget Retreat on Dec. 5

City administrator Roger Fraser announced that the council’s budget retreat would take place on Dec. 5 at the Wheeler Service Center, 4521 Stone School Road. He put it in the context of last year’s two-year plan, which took 10% out of the budget, spread over two years. Now, he said, there needs to be another 11% taken out of the budget on top of that, in order to balance this next year’s budget. He said it would be an “interesting discussion.” The retreat is open to the public.

Present: Mike Anglin, Sabra Briere, Tony Derezinski, John Hieftje, Marcia Higgins, Carsten Hohnke, Stephen Kunselman, Stephen Rapundalo, Sandi Smith, Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall.

Next council meeting: Monday, Dec. 7, 2009 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]