The Ann Arbor Chronicle » human services

Women’s Center of SE Michigan to Re-Open

Chronicle Staff — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 20:48:50 +0000

The Women’s Center of Southeastern Michigan, which had closed its doors in mid-June, is planning to re-open later this week.

Logo for The Women’s Center of Southeastern Michigan.

According to former executive director Kimberli Cumming, the first priority will be to resume services to existing clients. The center provides affordable personal counseling, job coaching and divorce support, among other services.

On June 12, the board of the Ann Arbor-based nonprofit emailed a message to supporters announcing that the center would be closed. From the email: ”The loss of grant support for the types of services we offer has led the Board of The Women’s Center to decide to close the doors. Although our women-focused approach and support for emotional and economic well-being are unique and very much needed in this region, the economic reality of our current grant funding – and future prospects – make it impossible to continue operations.” The email stated that the board would be working with the center’s academic partners “to ensure that clients will continue to receive uninterrupted counseling services through the interns that they have been seeing at The Women’s Center.” [.pdf of June 12 email]

Board members at the time included: Cindy Straub, Claire Hogikyan, Sarah Williams, Lori Bestervelt, Elise Buggs, Jennifer Cornell, Sharon Ragland-Keys, and Jackie Jenkins.

Since the announcement, supporters have been working to figure out a way to fund and resume services. As of the afternoon of July 1, that June 12 message was still posted on the center’s website. Cumming indicated that more details will be posted on the website soon, as well as on the center’s Facebook page.

Cumming, who earlier this year took a job as director of executive transition services & associate teams with the Nonprofit Association of Oregon, emailed this statement to The Chronicle:

The Board and long-standing supporters have been working with client services staff on a transition plan with a new a new business model that balances earned-revenue now possible from the ACA with an ongoing commitment to those not covered by insurance. The newly constituted Board will include two Board leaders who will continue on, its (now-former) clinical staff, The Center’s founding Board Chair, and its long-term executive director [Cumming]. The team supporting the re-launch includes devoted volunteers representing clinical/client-services expertise, business planning, and philanthropy.

The Women’s Center was founded in 1977 as a nonprofit called Soundings: A Center for Women. It later merged with other nonprofits and became HelpSource, then in 2000 restructured to form The Women’s Center of America. In 2006, the nonprofit was renamed The Women’s Center of Southeastern Michigan to reflect a regional focus. Then in 2011, the center honored Jean Ledwith King’s advocacy for gender equity by becoming The Jean Ledwith King Women’s Center of Southeastern Michigan.

Funding OK’d for Court Programs

Chronicle Staff — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 05:04:34 +0000

Several items related to the criminal justice system, specifically for some of the specialty courts operated by the 15th District Court, were given approval by the Ann Arbor city council at its June 16, 2014 meeting.

As part of its consent agenda, the council approved an amendment to a $76,242 contract with Washtenaw County Community Support & Treatment Services – for mental health treatment services to people who are participating in the sobriety court and the mental health court.

The council also approved a $44,200 amendment to a contract with the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office to provide drug abuse screening and monitoring services for the mental health court. Also getting approval on June 16 was a $108,174 amendment to a contract with the nonprofit Dawn Farm for drug abuse counseling and rehabilitative services.

And finally, the council approved a $40,000 amendment to a contract with Reiser and Frushour PLLC to provide legal representation as court-appointed counsel to indigent defendants. On that vote, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) requested that the council allow him not to participate in the vote, which they agreed to do. Taylor, an attorney with Hooper Hathaway, provides legal services to Reiser and Frushour. He took a seat in the audience during the vote on this item.

This brief was filed from the city council’s chambers on the second floor of city hall, located at 301 E. Huron.

Ann Arbor OKs FY 2015 Human Services Funding

Chronicle Staff — Tue, 20 May 2014 01:46:32 +0000

Funding allocations to nonprofits have been approved by the city of Ann Arbor for the 2015 fiscal year. The roughly $1.2 million in general fund money was allocated as part of a coordinated funding approach for human services, in partnership with several other local funders.

The city is one of the original five partners in the coordinated funding approach. Other partners include Washtenaw County, United Way of Washtenaw County, Washtenaw Urban County, and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. It began as a pilot program in 2010.

City council action came at its May 19, 2014 meeting.

This year, 105 applications were submitted by 50 local organizations totaling $8,732,389 in requested funding, according to a staff memo. A review committee recommended that 57 programs receive a total of $4,321,494 in available funding. Of that amount, the city is providing $1,244,629.

FY 15       Funding Source                                        
$1,244,629  City of Ann Arbor General Fund                    
$1,760,708  United Way of Washtenaw County                    
$1,015,000  Washtenaw County's General Fund                   
$  274,907  Washtenaw Urban County CDBG funds                 
$   26,250  Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation senior funds 
========== 
$4,321,494  TOTAL

The coordinated funding process has three parts: planning/coordination, program operations, and capacity-building. The approach targets six priority areas, and identifies lead agencies for each area: (1) housing and homelessness – Washtenaw Housing Alliance; (2) aging – Blueprint for Aging; (3) school-aged youth – Washtenaw Alliance for Children and Youth; (4) children birth to six – Success by Six; (5) health – Washtenaw Health Plan; and (6) hunger relief – Food Gatherers.

In 2012, TCC Group – a consulting firm based in Philadelphia – was hired to evaluate the process. As a result of that review, several changes were recommended and later authorized by the city council at its Nov. 7, 2013 and by the Washtenaw County board on Nov. 6, 2013. One of those changes is that funding would not necessarily be allocated to the six priority areas based on the proportion of funding allocated in the past. Instead, allocations among the six priority areas would be based on identified community-level outcomes, the strategies that align with them, and how each are prioritized. An additional change would broaden the pre-screening process so that smaller nonprofits could be accommodated.

Funding for this cycle will start on July 1, 2014. In addition, the RNR Foundation – a family foundation that funded TCC Group’s evaluation of the coordinated funding approach – will now be an additional funder in this process.

The RNR Foundation funding will go toward the planning/coordination and capacity building components of the effort, so their funding is not listed among the items in the program operating component.

Here’s a breakdown of how the program operating component of the city of Ann Arbor’s share will be allocated:

   
   FY 2015  Agency
   $20,000  Barrier Busters 
   $30,000  Peace Neighborhood Center
   $35,069  Ozone House Inc.
   $54,168  Domestic Violence Project Inc. dba SafeHouse Center
   $56,396  UM Regents (Community Dental Center, Housing Bureau for Seniors)
   $85,500  Avalon Housing 
   $90,786  Child Care Network
  $102,156  Food Gatherers
  $115,558  The Salvation Army of Washtenaw County
  $122,095  Washtenaw Community Health Organization
  $160,761  Shelter Association of Washtenaw County
  $164,660  Community Action Network
  $207,480  Legal Services of South Central Michigan
$1,244,629  Grand Total

That compares with the current fiscal year as follows:

 
  FY 2014   Agency
   $4,561   HIV/AIDS Resource Center     
  $12,772   Washtenaw Association for Community Advocacy     
  $14,282   Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan     
  $17,139   Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County
  $19,835   Barrier Busters     
  $23,719   UM Regents - Ann Arbor Meals on Wheels     
  $27,369   The Women's Center of Southeastern Michigan     
  $63,419   Home of New Vision
  $91,645   Interfaith Hospitality Network of Washtenaw County     
  $94,490   Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw     
  $95,171   Food Gatherers     
 $104,944   Community Action Network
 $109,851   Perry Nursery School of Ann Arbor     
 $142,851   Avalon Housing Inc.     
 $177,052   Services of South Central Michigan
 $245,529   Shelter Association of Washtenaw County
$1,244,629  Grand Total

The coordinated funding approach sometimes results in the same programs being funded – but by different funders. This year, the city of Ann Arbor is funding a program for Peace Neighborhood Center; last year Washtenaw County provided funding ($19,995) for Peace Neighborhood Center. And last year, the city of Ann Arbor funded a University of Michigan meals-on-wheels program; this year, United Way is funding that program.

Recipients of funds in one year are not guaranteed funding the following year. An example of that is the Women’s Center of Southeastern Michigan, which received $27,369 from the city of Ann Arbor last year for a mental health program, but is not receiving funds as part of the coordinated funding program this year.

This brief was filed from the city council’s chambers on the second floor of city hall, located at 301 E. Huron.

May 19, 2014: Council Live Updates

Dave Askins — Mon, 19 May 2014 20:29:09 +0000

Editor’s note: This “Live Updates” coverage of the Ann Arbor city council’s May 19, 2014 meeting includes all the material from an earlier preview article published last week. The intent is to facilitate easier navigation from the live updates section to background material already in this file.

Results on the outcome on many individual agenda items can be found published as separate briefs in the Civic News Ticker section of the website. A summary of the FY 2015 budget deliberations will be available here, when its is published: [link]

The council’s second meeting in May is specified in the city charter as the occasion for the council to adopt the city administrator’s proposed budget with any amendments. If the council does not take action by its second meeting in May, the city administrator’s proposed budget is adopted by default. The Chronicle has previously reported a preview of some possible budget amendments: [here].

The sign on the door to the Ann Arbor city council chamber includes Braille.

The council’s May 19 meeting agenda includes more than just the adoption of the budget.

Related to the setting of the annual budget are items like setting fees associated with the public services area (for example, site plan review) and the community services area (for example, farmers market stall fees), as well as rate increases for water, sewer and stormwater utilities.

Also related to the budget – and not just for this next year – is an agenda item that will revise the city’s policies for contributions to the city’s pension system and retiree health care. In broad strokes, those revisions are meant to accelerate contributions during a strong economy and maintain contributions at least at the level of the actuary-recommended amount during weaker economies.

Another budget-related item on the May 19 agenda is one related to the social infrastructure of the community – allocation of general fund money to nonprofits that provide human services. The city approaches this allocation through a process that is coordinated with Washtenaw County, the United Way, the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation and other partners. The total amount allocated for the operation of programs is about $4.3 million. The city of Ann Arbor’s general fund contribution is about $1.2 million, which is the same amount that has been contributed for the last several years.

Related to human services support is an agenda item that would accept a $113,154 planning grant from the Michigan Supreme Court to establish a specialized mental health court.

Along with social infrastructure, the council will also be asked to approve an allocation that includes utilities infrastructure, to address the needs that resulted from the harsh winter. The resolution that the council will consider would allocate money from the fund balance reserves from three sources: $1.7 million from the major street fund, $638,000 from the local street fund, and $666,000 from the water fund. Those amounts include $461,171 from the state of Michigan.

The council will also be asked to approve money for building new physical infrastructure – about $2.6 million for the reconstruction of a segment of Pontiac Trail. The segment stretches north of Skydale Drive to just south of the bridge over M-14/US-23. The street reconstruction project also includes water mains, sanitary sewer, and construction of new sidewalk along the east side of Pontiac Trail, and installation of bike lanes.

Special assessments to pay for three other sidewalk projects also appear on the council’s agenda in various stages of the special assessment process. Those future projects are located on Barton Drive, Scio Church Road, and Newport Road.

The council will be asked to approve the city’s application for federal funding to support the acquisition of development rights in Superior Township for two pieces of property on either side of Vreeland Road. The properties are near other parcels already protected as part of the city’s greenbelt initiative.

The city council will also vote on the confirmation of two appointments: Katherine Hollins to the city’s environmental commission; and Bob White, as a reappointment to his fourth term on the city’s historic district commission.

This article includes a more detailed preview of many of these agenda items. More details on other agenda items are available on the city’s online Legistar system. The meeting proceedings can be followed Monday evening live on Channel 16, streamed online by Community Television Network starting at 7 p.m.

The Chronicle will be filing live updates from city council chambers during the meeting, published in this article below the preview material. Click here to skip the preview section and go directly to the live updates. The meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.

Fees and Rates

On the council’s agenda are rate increases for utilities (water, sewer and stormwater) as well as fee increases for the public services and community services area.

Fees and Rates: Water, Sewer, Stormwater

Water rates are proposed to increase across all tiers of consumption. For the first 7 “units” of water, the charge is proposed to increase from $1.35 to $1.40. For the next 21 units, the charge is proposed to increase from $2.85 to $2.96 per unit. And for the 17 units after that, the increase is proposed to be from $4.88 to $5.08. A unit is 100 cubic feet, which is 748 gallons.

Sewer rates would increase from $3.65 to $3.85 per unit. And stormwater fees would increase for all tiers of impervious service. For the middle tier – for more than 2,187 square feet but less than or equal to 4,175 square feet – on a quarterly basis, the increase would be from $24.85 to $26.32.

According to the staff memo accompanying this item, the recommended rate changes in water, sewer, and stormwater would increase revenues to the water, sewer, and stormwater funds by $765,119, $1,171,931 and $410,235 respectively. The reason given for the rate increases is to cover maintenance and debt payments, and to maintain funding for capital improvement requirements. The city calculates the impact to be an additional $6.25 per quarter or $24.98 per year for an average consumer, which is a net increase of 4.2%.

Water consumption for a typical single family is assumed at 19 units per quarter.

History of city of Ann Arbor water rates. The city converted to a tiered system 10 years ago in 2004, based on usage. The 2015 amount is proposed.

The utility rates are part of a city ordinance. So the council will be considering initial approval at its May 19 meeting, with final approval to come at its first meeting in June – on June 2.

Fees and Rates: Community and Public Services Area

Fee increases in the community services area and the public services area will be considered by the council at its May 19 meeting.

For community services, increases are being proposed for stall fees at the Ann Arbor public market (farmers market). Currently, the basic annual fee for rental of a stall is $300. It’s proposed to be increased to $450 – a 50% increase.

If approved by the council, the fee increase would be projected to generate $26,000 in additional revenue. However, this additional revenue has not been assumed in the proposed FY 2015 budget.

According to the staff memo accompanying the agenda item, “market fees were last increased in 2009 and have not kept pace with the overall increase of annual operating costs during this same time period.” A comparative analysis of Ann Arbor’s fees also showed that Ann Arbor’s fees are well below those of comparable markets.

Comparative chart of stall rental rates, including three in other states. Ann Arbor’s current rate is the leftmost blue bar. Ann Arbor’s proposed market stall rental rate is shown in green. The red horizontal line is the average. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

Comparative chart of stall rental rates, excluding those in other states. Ann Arbor’s current rate is the leftmost blue bar. Ann Arbor’s proposed market stall rental rate is shown in green. The red horizontal line is the average. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

In the public services area, fees for a variety of services are being considered – for such items as site plan review, soil and sedimentation control. According to the staff memo accompanying the agenda item, the increases consider labor, material and supplies, equipment, and overhead cost and are aimed at full cost recovery. The increases are generally in the range of 1% to 5%.

Pension and VEBA Funding Policy

The council will be considering policies for making contributions to the pension and retiree health care plan that is supposed to ensure that the plans are eventually fully funded. The policy would set the funding at the higher of two different figures: (1) the Actuarial Required Contribution (ARC) rate; or (2) the existing level of contributions adjusted for the change in general fund revenues. That would have an impact of establishing a minimum increase in funding of 2% per year.

The operative language in the policy is:

If the General Fund revenues are projected to increase less than 2%, the city’s contribution shall increase 2%; thereby establishing a minimum increase of 2% per year.

Social Infrastructure

The council’s agenda includes two items that can be characterized as funding social infrastructure: the annual general fund allocations to nonprofits that provide human services; and the acceptance of a planning grant for the 15th District Court to establish a mental health court.

Social Infrastructure: Coordinated Funding

The council will be asked at its May 19 meeting to approve funding allocations to nonprofits as part of a coordinated funding approach for human services, in partnership with several other local funders.

FY 15       Funding Source                                        
$1,244,629  City of Ann Arbor General Fund                    
$1,760,708  United Way of Washtenaw County                    
$1,015,000  Washtenaw County's General Fund                   
$  274,907  Washtenaw Urban County CDBG funds                 
$   26,250  Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation senior funds 
========== 
$4,321,494  TOTAL

The RNR Foundation funding will go toward the planning/coordination and capacity building components of the effort, so their funding is not listed among the items in the program operating component.

Here’s a breakdown of how the program operating component of the city of Ann Arbor’s share will be allocated:

   
   FY 2015  Agency
   $20,000  Barrier Busters 
   $30,000  Peace Neighborhood Center
   $35,069  Ozone House Inc.
   $54,168  Domestic Violence Project Inc. dba SafeHouse Center
   $56,396  UM Regents (Community Dental Center, Housing Bureau for Seniors)
   $85,500  Avalon Housing 
   $90,786  Child Care Network
  $102,156  Food Gatherers
  $115,558  The Salvation Army of Washtenaw County
  $122,095  Washtenaw Community Health Organization
  $160,761  Shelter Association of Washtenaw County
  $164,660  Community Action Network
  $207,480  Legal Services of South Central Michigan
$1,244,629  Grand Total

That compares with the current fiscal year as follows:

 
  FY 2014   Agency
   $4,561   HIV/AIDS Resource Center     
  $12,772   Washtenaw Association for Community Advocacy     
  $14,282   Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan     
  $17,139   Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County
  $19,835   Barrier Busters     
  $23,719   UM Regents - Ann Arbor Meals on Wheels     
  $27,369   The Women's Center of Southeastern Michigan     
  $63,419   Home of New Vision
  $91,645   Interfaith Hospitality Network of Washtenaw County     
  $94,490   Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw     
  $95,171   Food Gatherers     
 $104,944   Community Action Network
 $109,851   Perry Nursery School of Ann Arbor     
 $142,851   Avalon Housing Inc.     
 $177,052   Services of South Central Michigan
 $245,529   Shelter Association of Washtenaw County
$1,244,629  Grand Total

Social Infrastructure: Mental Health Court

The council is being asked to approve the receipt of a planning grant of $113,154 from the Michigan Supreme Court State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) to fund the planning for a mental health court program.

According to the staff memo accompanying the item, mental health courts are problem-solving courts “that focus on therapeutic treatment for offenders with mental illnesses whose crimes are a result of their mental illness.”

The memo continues:

Eligible defendants are diverted into judicially supervised, community-based treatment to address the underlying problems. The program uses a team approach to address the participant’s needs for mental health and/or substance abuse treatment while also linking the participant with ancillary services such as education, housing, job skills or other individualized assistance. The goal is to assist participants in bettering their lives while also benefiting the community by reducing jail time, recidivism rates, and court docket congestion.

The 15th District Court already operates several specialized courts – a sobriety court, a homeless court, veterans court and domestic violence court. The mental health court would be operated in addition to those other specialized courts.

For background on the 15th District Court’s specialized “problem-solving” courts from last year’s Chronicle reporting, see: “Round 1 FY 2014: 15th District Court.”

Physical Infrastructure

Physical infrastructure appears on the council’s May 19 agenda in several forms: an allocation of money to deal with damage to systems from the harsh winter; a Pontiac Trail street reconstruction project; and several sidewalk projects.

Physical Infrastructure: Winter Damage

The council will be asked to approve an allocation that includes utilities infrastructure, to address the needs that resulted from the severe winter weather.

According to the staff memo accompanying the resolution, compared to last year there was a 36% increase in water main breaks and a 950% increase of broken water services. Compared to the previous two years winters, the 2013-14 winter had 272% more snow and a 450% increase in required plowing. That meant additional use of materials like ice-control salt, sand, cold-patch, pipe, repair clamps and fittings – in addition to higher-than-anticipated work hours and overtime, and increased equipment costs.

The resolution the council will consider would allocate money from the fund balance reserves from three sources: $1.7 million from the major street fund, $638,000 from the local street fund, and $666,000 from the water fund. Those amounts include $461,171 from the state of Michigan.

The work will include frozen service line repairs, pavement marking, and road surface repair. The work is not anticipated to be completed until well after June 30, 2014 – the end of the current fiscal year.

At a May 12 city council work session, public services area administrator Craig Hupy presented the council with some data on the age of the city’s piping system, saying that for the water pipes, those that were constructed in 1950s, 1960s and 1970s are more problematic than those built before and after that period. Still, he indicated that the city’s breakage rate was considered low for a system that is as old as Ann Arbor’s.

Ann Arbor Sanitary Sewer System by Year of Construction. (Data from the city of Ann Arbor, chart by The Chronicle)

Ann Arbor Water System by Year of Construction. (Data from the city of Ann Arbor, chart by The Chronicle)

City of Ann Arbor Water Main Breaks by Year. (Data from city of Ann Arbor Comprehensive Annual Financial Report)

Physical Infrastructure: Pontiac Trail

The council will consider two resolutions in connection with a street reconstruction project on Pontiac Trail.

The first is a $2,605,190 contract with Evergreen Civil LLC for construction of the project. According to the staff memo accompanying the resolution, the project includes reconstruction of Pontiac Trail beginning north of Skydale Drive to south of the bridge over M-14/US-23. The project also includes extending water mains and sewer pipes, as well as construction of new sidewalk along the east side of Pontiac Trail, and installation of bike lanes. The memo also indicates the project will include stormwater infiltration trenches, edge drains, and the addition of a small section of curb and gutter. The project is expected to begin in June of 2014 and be completed by fall of 2014.

The other contract to be considered by the council in connection with the Pontiac Trail project is $46,879 for Professional Services Industries Inc. for materials testing.

Responding to a query from The Chronicle, city project manager Nick Hutchinson indicated that the council would be presented at its June 16 meeting with the next in a series of resolutions on special assessment to help fund the sidewalk portion of the Pontiac Trail project. The council had voted at its Jan. 21, 2014 meeting to direct the city administrator to prepare plans, specifications and a cost estimate for the Pontiac Trail sidewalk project. The special assessment process requires the setting of an assessment roll and the holding of a public hearing before a special assessment can be imposed.

Physical Infrastructure: Sidewalks

Three other sidewalk projects that are further along in the special assessment process than Pontiac Trail are also on the council’s May 19 agenda: Barton Road, Scio Church and Newport Road.

Physical Infrastructure: Sidewalks – Newport Road

A public hearing on the Newport Road sidewalk special assessment, which started on May 5, will continue at the council’s May 19 meeting. For the sidewalk segment on Newport Road, the council had approved at its April 21, 2014 meeting a resolution directing the city assessor to prepare a special assessment roll of properties to be assessed. The council took action to set the public hearing on the Newport Road special assessment for May 5.

The total amount to be special assessed for the Newport Road project is $49,746. But residents of the Newport Creek Site Condominium – who would not ordinarily be assessed, as their property isn’t adjacent to the sidewalk – have volunteered to contribute $10,228 to the project to help offset their neighbors’ assessments. Details of that arrangement are being finalized.

However, several residents spoke at the May 5 public hearing, opposing the special assessment.

Newport Road sidewalk stretch.

Physical Infrastructure: Sidewalks – Scio Church

Again on the city council’s May 19 agenda are resolutions to set the assessment roll and set a public hearing (to be held June 16) for the special assessment of a Scio Church Road sidewalk. Action on the Scio Church sidewalk project special assessment had been postponed at the council’s April 21, 2014 meeting until May 19.

For this sidewalk project, the total cost is expected to be $365,100. Of that, about $164,000 will be paid from a federal surface transportation grant. The remaining $201,100 will be paid out of the city’s general fund and by the special assessment of just $1,626. It was the size of the total amount of special assessment that led to the postponement. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) argued at the April 21 meeting that the amount to be assessed was not worth the staff time to follow all the bureaucratic procedures involved in implementing the special assessment. He also called for 80% of any sidewalk project to be funded through non-special assessed funds.

Purple indicates stretches of Scio Church Road where no sidewalk exists.

Physical Infrastructure Sidewalks – Barton Road

On the city council’s May 19 agenda are resolutions to set the assessment roll and a public hearing (to be held on June 16) for the special assessment of a Barton Drive sidewalk. The sidewalk to be special assessed was part of an approval given at the council’s April 21 meeting: The council approved $177,100 of city funds for the construction of the Scio Church Road sidewalk and for an additional sidewalk on Barton Drive.

The cost of the Barton Drive sidewalk has been calculated to be $80,606. Of that, about $36,000 will be paid from federal surface transportation funds. Of the remaining $44,606, the city’s general fund would pay $42,626, leaving just $1,980 to be paid through the special assessment.

Location of proposed Barton Drive sidewalk.

By way of additional background, approval of the design contract for the Barton Drive and Scio Church Road stretches of new sidewalk had been approved by the city council at its March 3, 2014 meeting.

And at its July 15, 2013 meeting, the council had approved $15,000 for preliminary design of a sidewalk along Barton Drive. Even earlier – at its Nov. 19, 2012 meeting – the council approved $15,000 for preliminary study of a sidewalk to be constructed along Scio Church, west of Seventh Street. On Nov. 7, 2013, the council approved another $35,000 for Scio Church sidewalk design work. The design contract for the Barton Drive and Scio Church stretches of new sidewalk drew on the previously authorized funding.

The preliminary planning budget of $15,000 for the Newport Road sidewalk gap was approved over a year ago by the council at its Jan. 23, 2013 meeting.

Greenbelt

At its May 19 meeting, the city council will be asked to consider approval of application to the federal Agricultural Land Easement (ALE) program to protect 260 acres of farmland located in Superior Township. The ALE program now includes what was previously known as the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program (FRPP).

The farm parcels consist of property on either side of Vreeland Road, which is currently in agriculture production. Additional properties under the same ownership, adjacent to the farmland parcels, are also being considered for inclusion in the city’s greenbelt program, and the Vreeland Road properties are near other properties already protected as part of the greenbelt – the Meyer Preserve, the Jack R. Smiley Preserve and the Schultz conservation easement. Cherry Hill Nature Preserve is located just north of the property. [.jpg of greenbelt properties as of May 2014]

Here’s a dynamic map of properties outside the city already protected under the city’s greenbelt program. A 30-year open space and parkland preservation millage, which voters approved in 2003, funds both the greenbelt program as well as land acquisition for city parks. The border indicates the area where greenbelt funds can be spent to protect properties.

Appointments

The city council will also vote on the confirmation of two appointments: Katherine Hollins to the city’s environmental commission; and Bob White, as a reappointment for his fourth term on the city’s historic district commission.

Hollins is a staffer with the Great Lakes Commission. She’s being appointed because David Stead’s lengthy service on the commission – dating from 2000, when the commission was established – had generated opposition among some councilmembers. Nominations to the environmental commission are made by the council as a whole, not by the mayor. In offering the substitute nomination, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) indicated in an email to other councilmembers that “David Stead has decided that his life is busy enough he cannot do justice to serving on the commission.”

White was appointed to the historic district commission for his first three-year term in 2005.

4:39 p.m. The staff’s written responses to councilmember questions about agenda items are now available: [.pdf of May 19, 2014 agenda responses]

4:55 p.m. The final versions of possible budget amendments are now available. [.pdf of possible amendments to FY 2015 budget]

6:53 p.m. Pre-meeting activity. The scheduled meeting start is 7 p.m. Most evenings the actual starting time is between 7:10 p.m. and 7:15 p.m.

6:54 p.m. Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2) have arrived. City administrator Steve Powers is also here.

6:56 p.m. McKinley CEO Al Berriz is in attendance. Ann Arbor SPARK CEO Paul Krutko is also here – as he’s signed up to address the council during public commentary. One possible budget amendment is to eliminate $75,000 of annual funding for SPARK in favor of allocating that sum to human services. Skip Simms from SPARK is also here.

6:57 p.m. Eaton is quizzing high school students who are here to satisfy a class requirement. He lobs a softball: Do we live in a democracy or under a dictatorship?

6:58 p.m. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) has now arrived.

6:58 p.m. Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1) is also here, talking to people in the audience.

7:02 p.m. Remaining councilmembers are filtering in. Not yet spotted are Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1).

7:13 p.m. Call to order, moment of silence, pledge of allegiance.

7:13 p.m. Roll call of council. All councilmembers are present and correct.

7:14 p.m. Approval of agenda.

7:16 p.m. Sally Petersen (Ward 2) wants to move the LDFA budget amendment to the start of the amendment sequence. Teall moves DS-12 after DS-2. DS-12 is the human services allocation.

7:16 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to approve its agenda.

7:17 p.m. Communications from the city administrator. City administrator Steve Powers notes that on Memorial Day there will be no garbage pickup. That’s also the day the city pools open.

7:17 p.m. INT-1 Volunteer of Month: First Martin. First Martin Corp is being recognized for the work it did on the roundabout garden at Huron Parkway and Nixon. First Martin also maintains Liberty Plaza downtown and Wheeler Park on Depot Street.

7:17 p.m. Public commentary. This portion of the meeting offers 10 three-minute slots that can be reserved in advance. Preference is given to speakers who want to address the council on an agenda item. [Public commentary general time, with no sign-up required in advance, is offered at the end of the meeting.]

Eight people are signed up to speak on the issue of the FY 2015 city budget: Ray Gholston, Greg Pratt, Zoltan Jung, James Billingslea, Marc Bleckmann, Diane Kreger, Paul Krutko, and Tim Marshall. Alan Haber is signed up as an alternate to talk about the budget. Kermit Schlansker is signed up to talk about global warming and poverty. And Thomas Partridge is signed up to talk about the critical need for increased funding for human services and supporting Mark Schauer’s candidacy for governor of Michigan.

7:20 p.m. Thomas Partridge introduces himself as a Ward 5 resident and a recent candidate for various public offices. He’s here to talk about the critical need for affordable housing and affordable transportation. The city has come up with a formula for dividing up money for human services, which is very complicated, he says. Overall there’s not a high enough regard for human services, affordable housing and transportation, education or health services for the most vulnerable residents of the city. He tells the council they need to go back and come up with a better formula to support expanded funding for human services.

7:23 p.m. Ray Gholston introduces himself as a local human rights activist. He thanks the council for its concern and consideration of a resolution that would support a warming center. He says the Delonis Center has been doing a good job for over a decade, but they should not have to shoulder the burden alone.

7:26 p.m. Greg Pratt says he’s excited about Amendment 15, which would mean a $75,000 jump in human services funding. He’s supporting that. There’s been a glut of “corporate” welfare, he says. He allows that subsequent speakers might have a different perspective. But it’s important to have a stream of funds that support those who need it. He also supports Amendment 9, which he describes as “seed money.”

7:28 p.m. Zoltan Jung lives on Barton Drive. He’s talking about traffic calming. He puts it in the context of livability. Many residents have seen their livability decrease due to speeders and reckless drivers. He lives on Northside Avenue where kids can’t play on the street, because people use it as a cut-through. Traffic calming isn’t an end unto itself, he says. On Wells Street, the measures aren’t integrated into the Burns Park Elementary situation, he says. If you put a bump somewhere, that can just displace the problem. So traffic calming can’t be done in isolation.

7:31 p.m. James Billingslea is a Ward 1 resident. He’s speaking on behalf of bicyclists and pedestrians, who use his street. Cars have lost control on nine occasions, he says. His neighbor Joyce had nine cars wind up on her yard in a two-month period this winter, he says. At 25 mph, it takes 23 seconds to go down the entire street. They have to be constantly vigilant. Simply deploying more police officers or deploying traffic calming solutions is not going to solve the problem, he says. Cars are currently designed to help cars travel quickly, he says, not for the benefit of the community.

7:34 p.m. Marc Bleckmann lives on Northside Avenue. His kids attend Northside Elementary, which is a 10-minute walk to the school. But unfortunately that walk can be dangerous. He says that commuters “fly down the hypotenuse” of Northside Avenue when they use it as a cut-through. It’s one of many dangerous pedestrian situations, he says. He calls on the council to improve the livability of Ann Arbor by addressing this kind of problem.

7:35 p.m. Diane Kreger hopes it’s not redundant for the council to hear again from a resident of Northside Avenue. But she supports the budget amendment that would put more money toward traffic calming. [The amendment would reduce public art administration from $80,000 to $40,000 and allocate $40,000 to traffic calming.] She calls for effective traffic calming measures.

7:38 p.m. Paul Krutko is CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK. He discourages the council from passing Amendment 1 and Amendment 15. He points to the partnership among various municipalities that supports SPARK. Last year, the council’s support resulted in $21 million worth of projects and created 752 jobs, he says. He points to the re-occupancy of the former Borders building in downtown Ann Arbor, he says. He’s proud of the business development work SPARK has done, he says.

7:39 p.m. Tim Marshall is not here.

7:41 p.m. Kermit Schlansker says that the conservative’s cure for poverty is to ignore it. The liberal’s solution is to get someone else to pay for it, he says. Neither is a good solution. He calls for land to be made available to poor people so that they can grow their own food. He calls for multi-purpose clusters of people. In the fall, city people should go out and help with the harvest, he says. He describes how the poor can eventually pay off their debt and own their own land. Land should belong to people who till it, not those who mow it, he says.

7:45 p.m. Alan Haber says he’s here to provide his usual alternative view. He’s going to be away for much of the summer, so he won’t be here to remind the council about the importance of the community. It’s important to have a human resource, he says. He feels like he’s not been getting through to the council. Haber is talking about the works of Peter Linebaugh. He wants the council to have a conversation about what a community commons is. It’s not just about the money, it’s about the human part, he says.

7:45 p.m. Communications from the council.

7:47 p.m. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) thanks the city attorney’s office for issuing cease-and-desist letters to Uber and Lyft. There’s a meeting of the taxicab board this Thursday at 8:30 a.m., he says. He offers his condolences to the family that lost one of their own in a fire on Shady Lane last week.

7:48 p.m. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) highlights the fact that there are three vacancies on the environmental commission. She encourages people to apply. She also says that housing and human services advisory board also has some vacancies.

7:48 p.m. MC-1 appointments. The council is being asked to confirm the re-appointment of Bob White to the historic district commission for a fourth three-year term.

7:48 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to confirm Bob White’s re-appointment to the historic district commission.

7:48 p.m. MC-2 nominations Larry Eiler is being nominated to the Economic Development Corporation, replacing Daniel Blakemore. Andy Baker-White and Amanda Carlisle are being nominated to the housing and human services advisory board. A vote on their confirmations will come at the council’s next meeting.

7:48 p.m. Public Hearings. All the public hearings are grouped together during this section of the meeting. Any action on the related items comes later in the meeting. There’s no action item associated with tonight’s only public hearing – on a special assessment to be levied to help pay for the a sidewalk along Newport Road. This public hearing is being continued from the council’s previous meeting, when several property owners spoke against it. [For background, see Physical Infrastructure: Sidewalks – Newport Road above.]

7:50 p.m. PH-1 Newport Road sidewalk special assessment. Eric Preisner is a resident of Ward 1, representing the Riverwood subdivision homeowners association. As a group, they’re in support of the proposal. The affirmative vote was 75% in favor, he says.

7:55 p.m. Thomas Partridge says there should be consideration given to some of the property owners, including a church that will be special assessed, he says. Those who have special hardships or circumstances should not be pressed into a one-size-fits-all special assessment, he says.

7:55 p.m. A resident who spoke last time asks to speak. His question is going to be handled by public services area administrator Craig Hupy away from the podium.

7:55 p.m. Consent agenda. This is a group of items that are deemed to be routine and are voted on “all in one go.” Contracts for less than $100,000 can be placed on the consent agenda. This meeting’s consent agenda includes:

CA-1 Approve contract for construction materials testing with Professional Services Industries Inc. for the Pontiac Trail improvements project ($46,879). [For background, see Physical Infrastructure: Pontiac Trail above.]
CA-2 Street Closing: N. Fourth Avenue and E. Ann Street for the 19th Annual African-American Downtown Festival (Friday, June 6, 2014 to Saturday, June 7, 2014).
CA-3 Approve April 24, 2014 recommendations of the board of insurance administration.

7:55 p.m. CA-1 Approve contract for construction materials testing with Professional Services Industries Inc. for the Pontiac Trail improvements project ($46,879).

7:56 p.m. Briere says she’s gotten a lot of questions about whether the city monitors the quality of the materials used for street improvement project. This resolution shows that the city does monitor material quality, she says.

7:57 p.m. Outcome: The council has completed its approval of the consent agenda.

7:57 p.m. C-1 Amend Sections 2:63, 2:64, and 2:69 of Chapter 29 (Water, Sewer, and Stormwater Rates). These are the annual rate increases for water, sewer and stormwater. [For background, see Fees and Rates: Water, Sewer, Stormwater above.]

7:59 p.m. Lumm says that the utility rates aren’t something that the council discusses a lot. These increases will increase city revenues by a total of $2.3 million, so it’s worth talking about, she says. There are significant capital needs, she says. She’s comfortable that the increases are needed, she says. Based on her experience on the board of insurance review, it’s clear that the city’s utility infrastructure is aging, she says. This kind of rate increase has been imposed in recent years in an attempt to level out the needed increases, she says.

7:59 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to give initial approval to the increases in utility rates.

7:59 p.m. DC-1 Environmental commission appointment. This resolution would appoint Katherine Hollins to the environmental commission. Hollins is a staffer with the Great Lakes Commission.

8:00 p.m. Briere says she has little to add except that Hollins would begin her service on June 1.

8:00 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to appoint Hollins to the environmental commission.

8:00 p.m. DC-2 Authorization to join amicus brief in Deboer v Snyder and Schuette. This resolution follows on a resolution approved at the council’s April 7, 2014 meeting to ask that Gov. Rick Snyder and attorney general Bill Schuette not appeal the ruling of judge Bernard Friedman on the Deboer et al v Richard Snyder et al case – that the Michigan statute on marriage impermissibly discriminates against same-sex couples in violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. This resolution authorizes adding the city of Ann Arbor to a list of municipalities supporting an amicus brief, as the case now is being heard before the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

8:02 p.m. Taylor reminds the public of the council’s previous resolution urging the dropping of the appeal. He says that it’s not surprising that Snyder and Schuette have gone ahead with the appeal. Even though the city is not a litigant, it’s common that parties who will be affected by a decision will weigh in with an amicus brief, he says.

8:02 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously to authorize adding Ann Arbor to a list of municipalities supporting the finding that Michigan’s definition of marriage discriminates impermissibly against same-sex couples.

8:02 p.m. DC-3 Remove funding in CIP for city hall reskin. This resolution would recommend to the planning commission that the six-year capital improvement plan for FY 2017 and FY 2018 be revised to remove the $4.4 million that is included for the city hall re-skinning project. The planning commission is the body that approves the CIP. The council has budgetary discretion to fund projects in the CIP or not.

8:03 p.m. By way of background, the “reskin” would eliminate the stairstepped shape of the Larcom Building by dropping the exterior straight down from the top floor, thereby adding square footage to the lower stories.

8:04 p.m. Lumm is arguing that the reskin “might be nice” but that there are other more pressing capital needs.

8:06 p.m. Petersen characterizes the project as mostly cosmetic, although there are some energy efficiency components. She wants to retain those aspects of the project. Lumm says that the kind of amendment that Petersen is indicating isn’t possible because the amounts aren’t known. Hieftje says that this isn’t timely and that there’s a lot on tonight’s agenda. He thinks it should be postponed.

8:09 p.m. Briere notes that the resolution asks the planning commission to remove funding, which it’s not empowered to do. Teall moves for postponement until June 2.

Lumm is arguing for her proposal to remove the reskinning. Kunselman supports the postponement. He characterizes the CIP as a “wish list” and notes that the council controls the funding. He’s not worried about the fact that the reskinning project is in the CIP. The planning commission is putting the CIP together based on its statutory responsibilities, he says.

8:10 p.m. Kunselman says he’s willing to postpone it, but asking the planning commission to remove it doesn’t really do much.

8:10 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to postpone the item on the city hall reskinning until June 2.

8:10 p.m. Opposition to oil drilling. This resolution would oppose the oil exploration and drilling proposed by West Bay Exploration under MDEQ permit application #AI40053. The drilling would not take place inside the city limits, as the city is empowered by the state to prohibit drilling, which it does through the city code. However, the location in Scio Township is within two miles from the city limits and less than a mile from the Huron River, which is the source of the majority of the city’s drinking water.

The state zoning enabling act, as revised in 2006, deprives townships and counties of the ability to regulate drilling. Opposition to the drilling is grounded in concerns about the impact on the drinking water supply of the city, especially in the context of a 1,4 dioxane plume in the area of the proposed drilling activity.

In addition to expressing opposition to the proposed drilling in the shorter term and in the future, the text of the resolution requests that the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality require an environmental impact assessment, including impacts to surrounding natural resources and public health, before making a decision. Further, the resolution calls on state legislators to revise the state’s zoning enabling act to provide townships and counties with the power to regulate drilling activity.

8:11 p.m. Warpehoski, the resolution’s sponsor, is providing the context of this item. He has consulted with community activists and notes that city administrator Steve Powers has sent a letter to the MDEQ. He’s reviewing the specific content of the resolution.

8:13 p.m. Warpehoski notes that the city has language in its city code prohibiting drilling, but townships don’t have the power to enact such a prohibition. He says he considered putting off the resolution, given the full agenda tonight, but the time constraints of the permitting process were fairly tight, he said. Taylor offers remarks in support of the resolution.

8:13 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted approve the resolution in opposition to drilling.

8:13 p.m. DB-1 Approve grant applications for USDA support for purchase of development rights (PDR). This resolution would approve application to the federal Agricultural Land Easement (ALE) program to protect 260 acres of farmland located in Superior Township. The ALE program now includes what was previously known as the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program (FRPP). The farm parcels consist of property on either side of Vreeland Road, which is currently in agriculture production. [For background, see Greenbelt above.]

8:15 p.m. Taylor, who serves on the greenbelt advisory commission, is describing the content of the resolution. He says it’s a very useful and important source of funds to help leverage the city’s greenbelt dollars. Lumm asks that a map be provided – which it turns out was added late. Lumm asks if the city anticipates other funding sources besides the federal grant and city greenbelt funds. Community services area administrator Sumedh Bahl says that Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation and Superior Township might contribute funds.

8:15 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to approve the grant application to the USDA program for purchase of development rights in connection with the city’s greenbelt program and properties in Superior Township.

8:15 p.m. DS-1 Scio Church sidewalk special assessment resolution No. 2 ($1,626.00). This resolution would direct the preparation of the special assessment roll. [For background, see Physical Infrastructure: Sidewalks – Scio Church above.]

8:17 p.m. Kunselman says this had been postponed so that the city attorney could provide some clarification on equity issues. He’s willing to support this, but says it’s foolish to be special assessing that small an amount. City attorney Stephen Postema says that that analysis was provided to the council. He says the de minimus issue Kunselman had asked about is not a recognized method of dealing with an exception.

8:20 p.m. Lumm says that even though it’s a small amount, the city needs to be consistent and the rules need to be followed. She doesn’t know what to do about situations where a federal grant is available for some cases and not others. Eaton says that the legal analysis was actually that there’s no case law that’s on point. He says that the houses that haven’t had a sidewalk for some time wouldn’t suffer a detriment. The whole neighborhood is getting a benefit, and the three properties that are being special assessed would not get a special benefit, he says.

8:20 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to direct preparation of the assessment roll for the Scio Church sidewalk project, over the lone dissent of Eaton.

8:20 p.m. DS-2 Scio Church sidewalk special assessment resolution No. 3 (set public hearing). This resolution would set the public hearing on the Scio Church sidewalk special assessment for June 16, 2014.

8:20 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to set a public hearing on the Scio Church sidewalk special assessment for June 16, 2014.

8:21 p.m. DS-12 Approve FY 2015 and FY 2016 allocations to non-profit entities for human services ($1,244,629). This year, 105 applications were submitted by 50 local organizations totaling $8,732,389 in requested funding, according to a staff memo. A review committee recommended that 57 programs receive a total of $4,321,494 in available funding. Of that amount, the city is providing $1,244,629. [For background, see Social Infrastructure: Coordinated Funding above.]

8:23 p.m. Lumm is thanking staff and everyone who worked so hard on this. There’s a very robust and through process in place to ensures that money flows to those in most need. Teall says it’s a very complex process and not everybody will end up happy. Mary Jo Callan and Andrea Plevek – staff with the county’s office of community and economic development – are at the podium to describe the process of coordinated funding.

8:24 p.m. Callan is noting that there was a little less funding this year, with a lot more requests for a lot more money.

8:25 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to approve the human services allocations made through the coordinated funding process.

8:25 p.m. DS-3 Award contract to Evergreen LLC for Pontiac Trail Improvements Project ($2,605,190). According to the staff memo accompanying the resolution, the project includes reconstruction of Pontiac Trail beginning north of Skydale Drive to south of the bridge over M-14/US-23. The project also includes extending water mains and sewer pipes, as well as construction of new sidewalk along the east side of Pontiac Trail, and installation of bike lanes. The memo also indicates the project will include stormwater infiltration trenches, edge drains, and the addition of a small section of curb and gutter. The project is expected to begin in June of 2014 and be completed by fall of 2014. [For background, see Physical Infrastructure: Pontiac Trail above.]

8:26 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to award the contract to Evergreen LLC for the Pontiac Trail improvement project.

8:26 p.m. DS-4 Appropriate funds from major street ($1,700,000), local street ($638,000), and water funds ($666,000) to address severe winter expenses and damage. This resolution would allocate money needed to pay for added expenses resulting from the severe winter. According to the staff memo accompanying the resolution, compared to last year there was a 36% increase in water main breaks and a 950% increase of broken water services.

Compared to the previous two years winters, the 2013-14 winter had 272% more snow and a 450% increase in required plowing. That meant additional use of materials like ice-control salt, sand, cold-patch, pipe, repair clamps and fittings – in addition to higher-than-anticipated work hours and overtime, and increased equipment costs. The resolution the council will consider would allocate money from the fund balance reserves from three sources: $1.7 million from the major street fund, $638,000 from the local street fund, and $666,000 from the water fund. Those amounts include $461,171 from the state of Michigan. [For background, see Physical Infrastructure: Winter Damage above.]

8:29 p.m. Briere says that her understanding is that this money comes from fund balance. City administrator Steve Powers tells Briere that over $400,000 came from the state of Michigan through an emergency appropriation. Craig Hupy says that there were more than 100 water main breaks but that still puts Ann Arbor in the better half of municipalities. Lumm says that the council knew this was coming but didn’t know what the price tag would be.

8:31 p.m. Kunselman says he appreciates the description of the water main breaks as “average” but he wants to know about the geographic distribution of those breaks. He wants to know if the breaks were in the areas where the mains were built in the 1950s and 1960s. Hupy says that analysis hasn’t been done. Kunselman says he wants to see the geographic distribution of the breaks.

8:32 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to allocate the additional funds from various sources to cover the expenses associated with the severe winter.

8:32 p.m. DS-5 Approve mental health court planning grant contract ($113,154). The council is being asked to approve the receipt of a planning grant of $113,154 from the Michigan Supreme Court State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) to fund the planning for a mental health court program. According to the staff memo accompanying the item, mental health courts are problem-solving courts “that focus on therapeutic treatment for offenders with mental illnesses whose crimes are a result of their mental illness.” The 15th District Court already operates several specialized courts – a sobriety court, a homeless court, veterans court and domestic violence court. The mental health court would be operated in addition to those other specialized courts.

8:33 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to accept the planning grant for a mental health court.

8:33 p.m. DS-6 Barton Drive sidewalk special assessment resolution No. 2 ($1,980). This resolution would set the special assessment roll for the Barton Drive sidewalk project. [For background, see Physical Infrastructure Sidewalks – Barton Road above.]

8:37 p.m. Briere wants to note that much of the cost is being borne by the city and federal government, but there’s a small assessment for owners on Barton Drive. This is something that people in the Northside neighborhood have been demanding for a long time, she says. Kunselman says he’s appreciative of the fact that the city and federal funds are covering much of the cost. The resulting amount of the special assessment is very small and it’s just a couple of parcels that are carrying the burden for a greater community benefit, he says. For the next meeting, he’ll be requesting that the city come back and pay for the Barton and the Scio Church special assessments.

8:37 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to direct the setting of the assessment roll for the Barton Drive sidewalk project.

8:37 p.m. DS-7 Barton Drive sidewalk special assessment resolution No. 3 (set a public hearing). This resolution would set the public hearing on the Barton Drive sidewalk special assessment for June 16, 2014.

8:38 p.m. Briere makes two points. She’d like to have a longer discussion about whether it’s rational for the city to special assess individual property owners for a larger community benefit. She also asks that the wording be corrected to fix a copy-paste error.

8:38 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to set a public hearing on the Baron Drive sidewalk special assessment for June 16, 2014.

8:38 p.m. DS-8 Adopt revised funding policies for pension and VEBA. The council will be considering policies for making contributions to the pension and retiree health care plan that are supposed to ensure that the plans are eventually fully funded. The policy would set the funding at the higher of two different figures: (1) the Actuarial Required Contribution (ARC) rate; or (2) the existing level of contributions adjusted for the change in general fund revenues. That would have an impact of establishing a minimum increase in funding of 2% per year.

8:39 p.m. Lumm is reviewing the content of the resolution and how the minimum contribution is 2%. She says she supports this resolution 110%.

8:40 p.m. Kailasapathy notes that there’s about $100 million in unfunded pension liability and about $160 million in unfunded VEBA. So this is an important resolution, she says.

8:40 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to adopt the revised funding policies for the pension and VEBA plans.

8:40 p.m. DS-9 Approve FY 2015 fee adjustments for public services area. These are the fees in the areas of project management, systems planning, field operations and customer service.

8:41 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to approve the fee adjustments for the public services area.

8:41 p.m. DS-10 Approve FY 2015 fee adjustments for community services area. The proposed increase this year involves raising farmers market fees. [For background, see Fees and Rates: Community and Public Services Area above.]

8:43 p.m. Lumm focuses on the increases for the stall rental at the farmers market. She’s concerned about the impact on vendors. She calls the staff analysis of the comparative rates at other markets very helpful. She says that the process was followed correctly. She’ll support this, but still has some concerns, she says.

8:43 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to approve the fee adjustments for the community services area.

8:43 p.m. Recess.

8:50 p.m. Here’s a number list of possible amendments the council will consider when the meeting resumes. [.pdf of possible FY 2015 budget amendments]

8:55 p.m. Jane Lumm is passing out Keebler cheese and crackers to colleagues during the break.

8:58 p.m. We’re back.

8:58 p.m. DS-11 Adopt FY 2015 city budget. For background on the budget and possible amendments, see: “Budget Debate Preview: Cops, Leaves.” For final versions of possible amendments to the budget – numbered in a way that councilmembers will likely reference during tonight’s deliberations – see: [.pdf of possible FY 2015 budget amendments]

9:01 p.m. Budget amendment: LDFA, Ann Arbor SPARK. This proposal would eliminate some increases in the budget of the local development finance authority (LDFA) – of $30,000 in incubator operating expense, $20,000 in direct staffing expense, and a $75,000 increase to Ann Arbor SPARK’s marketing plan. So the resolution would decrease the expenditure by $165,379 to the prior year’s level of $1,814,892. The unspent funds would instead be reserved for “future infrastructure improvements.” (Kailasapathy, Eaton, Anglin)

9:03 p.m. Kailasapathy is reviewing how the LDFA funding has increased as a result of the TIF (tax increment finance) capture. She says that SPARK has had a 70% increase in funding from the LDFA in the last few years.

9:04 p.m. For Kailasapathy, government is all about sharing, she says. When there’s additional windfall revenue, that should be shared, she says.

9:05 p.m. The money should be used for community-based development like high-speed telecommunications. She’s only asking that the budget be capped at $1.814 million, with the rest to be used for infrastructure that will benefit the community, including startups. She’s not taking all their money away, she says.

9:07 p.m. Eaton will support this. Setting aside some of the new TIF capture is consistent with the LDFA foundational documents, which highlight the possibility of adding infrastructure – in the form of high-speed fiber connections. If we want downtown to be a high-tech center, he says, it’s something that could be aimed for. This could be a good start, he says.

9:09 p.m. Petersen says she feels like this budget amendment misses the point. The revenue should be going up, if the LDFA is doing its job. The reason why the LDFA is getting more is because they are giving more, she says. With respect to the fund balance, it’s an incremental increase of $415,000, and the LDFA had decided only $165,000 would go to SPARK and the rest would go to the LDFA fund balance. If there’s a specific recommendation the council wants to make, she’d like to see that as a separate resolution.

9:10 p.m. Anglin notes that earlier in the meeting, utility fees went up for residents. The LDFA is being asked to support infrastructure improvements, he says.

9:12 p.m. Taylor says SPARK is an entity we’re fortunate to have, and SPARK does good things for entrepreneurs and growth. He doesn’t believe the proposal is wise and thinks that SPARK should be given as many resources that they can be legally provided to continue their work.

9:14 p.m. Hieftje gets clarification from Petersen that she’d like a resolution from the city council simply recommending that the LDFA pursue a high-speed fiber network. Petersen indicates that the LDFA board has not gotten to that level of granularity. High-speed fiber is one option, she says. She would love to see a resolution from the council directing the use of fund balance for high-speed fiber. [Petersen serves as the council representative to the LDFA board.]

9:15 p.m. Lumm thinks that the direction Petersen is talking about could be incorporated into this amendment. Lumm notes that the economic collaborative task force, which Petersen led, recommends investment in a high-speed fiber network.

9:15 p.m. Lumm is working on a possible revision to the amendment.

9:17 p.m. Eaton says that the language Lumm is trying to add is already in the last resolved clause – so he doesn’t think Lumm’s revision is necessary. Briere asks for someone from the LDFA to come forward.

9:20 p.m. Carrie Leahy, the chair of the LDFA board, and former councilmember Stephen Rapundalo, who’s a member of the LDFA board, are at the podium to field questions. They’re describing how the LDFA relies on SPARK to provide required reporting, that could be driven by the extension of the LDFA (by 5 or 15 years). SPARK had asked for additional marketing funding to market the message of the LDFA to the community.

9:21 p.m. Rapundalo says that the additional money is in response to growing demand. They’ve heard that the message is not getting out enough throughout the entrepreneurial community what the LDFA has to offer.

9:23 p.m. Rapundalo says the LDFA has considered infrastructure needs nearly every year. When the city was applying for the Google Fiber initiative, LDFA had promised $250,000 if the city had been awarded the Google grant. There has not been much demand for the infrastructure, he says, but rather on the programming side.

9:26 p.m. CFO Tom Crawford is clarifying that what the council can do is affect the bottom line of the budget, but not the individual expenditures. Briere ventures that about 60% of the “windfall” is already being reserved in the fund balance. Rapundalo says the board has been judicious over the years. He says that the LDFA has not always acceded to SPARK’s requests.

9:29 p.m. Eaton asks if there have been any infrastructure projects over the years. Rapundalo points to the possibility that the LDFA entertained with the Google Fiber initiative. He also characterizes incubator space as infrastructure, but Eaton appears not to accept that as “infrastructure” in the sense that it’s meant in the LDFA foundational documents.

9:31 p.m. Lumm is returning to the topic of the economic collaborative task force and the inclusion of high-speed fiber in the final report of that group.

9:32 p.m. Hieftje says that the council should follow Petersen’s suggestion to pass a resolution at the next meeting to ask the LDFA to work on a high-speed fiber network.

9:33 p.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment on the LDFA by a 5-6 vote. Voting for it were Eaton, Kailasapathy, Kunselman, Lumm, and Anglin.

9:35 p.m. Budget amendment: Human Services, SPARK. This proposal would eliminate the city general fund allocation of $75,000 to Ann Arbor SPARK and put that money toward human services. (Kailasapathy, Eaton, Anglin)

9:35 p.m. Eaton is arguing for this amendment, saying that the $75,000 is a pittance compared to the amount SPARK receives from the LDFA. He also points to increased funding SPARK has received from the county – through Act 88.

9:37 p.m. Kailasapathy is contrasting this amendment with a different one on the list that would form a warming center from money drawn from the affordable housing trust fund. She calls Briere’s approach a status quo approach – taking money from a needy population and giving it to a different needy population. So she prefers that this amendment on SPARK pass. She appeals to councilmembers to support this because it’s not a big amount for SPARK but is a big deal for a population that needs to be taken care of.

9:38 p.m. Anglin says that back in 2008, many nonprofits disappeared. SPARK should share some of what they have for those who are less fortunate, he says. Economic development goes with social development, he says.

9:42 p.m. Petersen has invited Tim Marshall – chair of SPARK’s board and CEO of the Bank of Ann Arbor – to the podium to explain the difference between the LDFA funding of SPARK and the city’s funding of SPARK. The difference, he says, is that the LDFA is funded through the state. That’s the entrepreneurial side. The $75,000 goes for attraction and retention, he says. Attraction and retention requires skilled people, he says. You can’t say that SPARK should lose on the general fund contribution because it won on the LDFA side. He claims that the return on the investment is about one job for every $100 of investment.

9:44 p.m. Petersen says that the $75,000 is the only line item in the budget that is solely dedicated to economic development, and given that the council has said that’s a priority, she doesn’t know why the council would eliminate that funding. She’s now reviewing what the scope of services is that SPARK provides.

9:46 p.m. Petersen says that the council has gotten 752 new jobs for its $75,000. SPARK does not just share the wealth, it creates wealth, Petersen says. When SPARK helps to occupy empty buildings, that increases the value of the property and that increases revenue to the city, Petersen says.

9:48 p.m. Prompted by Lumm, Marshall is explaining the difference between the city’s general fund contribution to SPARK and the LDFA funding of SPARK.

9:55 p.m. Kunselman goes back to the $250,000 that comes from the county, which Eaton had mentioned. Marshall acknowledges that contribution and calls it a wonderful private-public collaboration. He says there are about 35-40 private companies, including his own Bank of Ann Arbor, that contribute to SPARK.

SPARK CEO Paul Krutko says that Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Ypsilanti, Superior Township and Ypsilanti Township all make contributions. Kunselman asks about expansion to other areas – to Livingston County. With all the contributors, how does the city of Ann Arbor know that Ann Arbor is priority one? Marshall says that you have to look at the report card every year. Are there winners and losers every year? Kunselman asks. Krutko says that it’s a regional issue – the boundaries are not important, he says. This region is in competition with the rest of the world, he says.

9:55 p.m. Eaton asks if SPARK has ever had an independent audit of its jobs claims.

9:59 p.m. No, says Krutko. But SPARK has had independent audits of it finances. Eaton says he’s troubled that SPARK only recently provided those financial audits. Why is it so hard to get information from SPARK – on finances or on audited jobs figures? Eaton asks. Krutko says that this region has outperformed every other region in the country.

10:00 p.m. Kailasapathy asks for the amounts that the other municipalities contribute. Krutko doesn’t have that information, but can get it to Kailasapathy later. She comes back with: “We vote today!”

10:04 p.m. Krutko is describing SPARK’s approach as creative – because it combines entrepreneurial support, with retention and attraction, and marketing. Petersen is now describing the activity of the economic development collaborative task force. That task force is done and the next step is to form a policy group, she says.

10:06 p.m. Kunselman suggests reducing the amount to $50,000, so that $25,000 would be available for human services. That’s the amendment that’s on the floor. Kunselman says he’s not an expert on economic development, but he’s a keen observer of his surroundings. He ventures that most of the growth in jobs is simply backfilling existing space. Most of the activity is driven by the University of Michigan, Kunselman says.

10:07 p.m. Kunselman is willing to support SPARK’s retention efforts and recognizes the importance of being a good partner. He appreciates the county’s contribution.

10:11 p.m. Petersen responds to Kunselman’s remark about backfilling commercial properties. When that happens outside the DDA district, that incremental revenue goes to the general fund. Kunselman responds by saying that’s a broad statement. When a commercial building becomes vacant, the taxes are not automatically decreased, he points out. To say that the development that backfills property space adds to taxable value isn’t necessarily true, Kunselman says. He ventures that the real property tax for the Borders property downtown did not decrease when it went vacant.

10:14 p.m. Taylor calls this an unwise proposal. The city needs to make sure that the city is supportive of SPARK. The city should not freeload, he says. To pull money out is penny-wise and pound-foolish. Warpehoski notes that it’s the Red Queen dilemma – the city needs to run as fast as it can just to stay in place. He shares some of Eaton’s concerns about SPARK’s transparency. For the $75,000, Warpehoski feels like it’s a worthwhile investment. So he’ll oppose the amendment.

10:17 p.m. Briere says that this particular amendment is emblematic about why she doesn’t like to defund one thing to fund another thing. She notes that the discussion so far has not focused at all on the need to increase funding for human services – because it’s focused only on SPARK. If human services is a value, that’s what the council should be talking about. She’d spoken to Kailasapathy about the need to have additional money for human services. The way the resolution reads now, she says, is that it would put $25,000 toward a warming center. That would not work, she says.

10:20 p.m. Briere says she can see a lot of positive impacts. She can’t attribute it all to SPARK, but she feels like SPARK plays a role in that. She feels like the human services part was like a poker chip, and that the real intent was to defund SPARK. Teall agrees that it’s all about defunding SPARK and not about human services. She’s frustrated that councilmembers don’t see the connection between the increased economic activity and the ability of the city to fund those things it wants to fund. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” she says. She also has an issue with the idea that Ann Arbor is competing with other communities and ventures that Kunselman has a very strong competitive nature.

10:23 p.m. Hieftje pleads with the council to move to a vote, saying that at this rate we’ll be here until breakfast. Lumm wants another turn. She says no one would be against economic development. Lumm wonders how much of the economic development SPARK is responsible for.

10:25 p.m. Eaton says it’s not an effort to defund SPARK, pointing out that SPARK is going to receive a lot of money. He points out that SPARK will still get the $50,000 from the general fund (as revised by Kunselman) and Ann Arbor residents pay the county’s Act 88 tax as well, he points out.

10:26 p.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment on SPARK by a 5-6 vote. Voting for it were Eaton, Kailasapathy, Kunselman, Lumm, and Anglin.

10:27 p.m. Budget amendment: Police staffing – decrease. This proposal would increase the number of sworn officers by two officers instead of three, with the savings allocated to human services for the purpose of drug treatment and prevention. (Chuck Warpehoski)

10:29 p.m. Warpehoski is recounting his conversation with Jim Balmer of Dawn Farms on the topic of opiate abuse. He’s relating a vignette about someone he knows who sought treatment and had no resources in the city to which he could appeal.

10:30 p.m. Teall asks for Mary Jo Callan, director of community & economic development for the county and city, to approach the podium. Teall wants Callan to talk about how the funds could be allocated for treatment. Callan indicates there’s definitely a need.

10:35 p.m. Eaton wants to know how many people could be housed with $95,000. Callan says that the money might also be used for staff. The AADL and PORT don’t have the staff to deal with all the people who are in need. So one option would be to have a robust presence at the library. One possibility is temporary housing in the form of hotel rooms as a bridge to something more permanent. Callan allows that $95,000 will not solve the problem. It could pay for some staffing and some treatment, and some hotel nights. It would need to be leveraged with other resources, she says.

10:37 p.m. Briere says that, for example, an additional $20,000 for Catholic Social Services could make a big impact – like it could for any of the human services nonprofits.

10:38 p.m. Lumm tells Callan she has huge respect and admiration for her. But she won’t support this amendment. She’s reviewing what the impact would be.

10:39 p.m. This amendment is 180 degrees opposite of the direction the city should be going, Lumm says.

10:41 p.m. Kunselman asks Callan how many people are seeking heroin addiction treatment voluntarily versus through a court order. Callan doesn’t know, but can get that information. Kunselman says he won’t support this resolution. He says that it’s naive to think that people will seek treatment just because someone is there at the library to do outreach.

10:43 p.m. Petersen says she’s struggling to support this. Substance abuse and mental health issues are important, but she’s reluctant to reduce the number of police officers to fund it.

10:45 p.m. Kailasapathy says there’s $235,000 in the fund balance that can be used for treatment and education. She allows that it’s campaign season again and as she talks to people at doors, they don’t talk about crime. They talk about other issues, like trucks speeding down their streets causing their foundations to rattle.

10:45 p.m. It’s hard to make these kinds of choices, Kailasapathy says. But she won’t support taking money from the “underfunded police.” She’s really sorry, though.

10:47 p.m. Teall says she’s going to address Petersen’s concerns. This amendment is going to help the police, she says. It will fund someone to do outreach work that a police officer can’t do, she says.

10:48 p.m. There’s need for outreach on a level that a beat cop can’t do, Teall says. There’s such a need in the community, she adds, and crime is down.

10:50 p.m. Eaton says his recollection was that police chief Seto’s request for additional police officers was not based on the increase in heroin cases. It was based on a broad community need for various kinds of community engagement, he says.

10:51 p.m. Hieftje pleads that the council move to a vote, saying that no one will say anything new on this topic.

10:52 p.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment on 2-9 vote. Voting for it were Warpehoski and Teall.

10:53 p.m. The council has suspended its rule on starting closed sessions before 11 p.m.

10:53 p.m. We’re now in recess.

10:58 p.m. Mayor Hieftje has been ill and his voice is not particularly strong tonight.

11:00 p.m. Hieftje is rounding people up.

11:00 p.m. We’re back.

11:01 p.m. Budget amendment: Community-facing climate action programs. Money for “community-facing” climate action programs would come in part from $50,000 allocated for the Ellsworth Road corridor study. (Taylor, Teall, Hieftje, Warpehoski)

11:03 p.m. Taylor says that Ann Arbor has an ambitious long-range climate action plan. It’s a present and immediate necessity. The energy commission has identified this as a need. The city administrator had been queried how much it would take to get things off the ground: about $125,000. We can’t stop climate change with action in Ann Arbor, Taylor says, but the city must do its part. This is a step in that direction, he says.

11:06 p.m. Briere says that she thinks she knows what “community-facing” means, but asks Taylor to explain that. He says that much of the effort to date has been inward facing towards the city itself and its own buildings and vehicles. This would involve talking to residents and business owners, he says. Kunselman ventures that this would involve hiring a contractor. Powers indicates that’s right: It would involve going out for an RFP (request for proposals) to specify deliverables.

Kunselman says he’s not interested in hiring a consultant at this time. Lumm also indicates that she’s not supporting this, either. She indicates that it basically amounts to an additional position of some fashion.

11:07 p.m. Kailasapathy echoes Lumm’s sentiments – that she’ll support a different amendment, to hire an additional forester. She talks about “consultant fatigue.” She allows that global warming is real, and trees are a good solution to reducing greenhouse gases.

11:08 p.m. Anglin also indicates that he’d rather support something that involves trees – in our immediate environment.

11:12 p.m. Eaton also says he’d prefer to support the amendment on adding a forester. Hieftje says that the climate action program would be far more than what a forester would do. He points to the PACE program, which might have an impact on multifamily housing energy efficiency. This amendment could make a big difference, Hieftje says.

11:14 p.m. Briere asks if additional support is anticipated to be needed next year, or if by next fiscal year it would be self-supporting. He figures that nobody expects the forester position to become self-supporting. Powers says the goal of the climate action programs would be that they’d be self-supporting.

11:15 p.m. Eaton asks what this amendment actually does. Taylor says that there’s no reference to the FTE in the resolution. It’s not to hire an FTE. It’s anticipated that it would be a contractor.

11:19 p.m. Eaton asks if the city would start charging fees to make the program self-supporting. Powers says that he doesn’t have that level of detail tonight. Taylor ventures that there would be grant funding. In the future, if the economic climate improves, he hopes to be able to transition from a contractor to an FTE.

11:19 p.m. Hieftje asks that it move to a vote.

11:19 p.m. Outcome: The council has approved this amendment on 6-5 vote. Voting for it were Warpehoski, Teall, Petersen, Briere, Taylor and Hieftje.

11:20 p.m. Teall floats the idea of recessing the meeting until Tuesday, splitting the meeting into two parts. Brief discussion ensues but councilmembers decide they’ll push through the rest of the amendments.

11:21 p.m. Budget amendment: Police staffing – increase. This proposal would increase the number of sworn police officers by five officers instead of an increase of three proposed by the city administrator. Funding would come in part from a reduction in the 15th District Court budget. The resolution would also reiterate a previous request made last year that the DDA fund three downtown beat cops. (Lumm, Eaton, Kailasapathy, Anglin)

11:21 p.m. Lumm is reviewing her reasons for wanting to increase the number of police officers by more than the three that the proposed budget calls for.

11:24 p.m. Lumm is arguing that the 15th District Court has not been as fiscally responsible as other departments. She’s proposing to fund a portion of the increased cost through a reduction in the court’s budget. She’s also anticipating additional money from the state through state shared revenue.

11:24 p.m. Hieftje is commenting on the idea of comparing the size of police departments in the 1980s and 1990s to current levels. He points to the 55 sworn officers that the University of Michigan now employs that did not previously exist.

11:27 p.m. Police departments were built up to respond in the past to increased levels of crime, he says. But now those levels have decreased. When police officer time is measured, Hieftje points out, they do have a lot of time available for proactive policing. He doesn’t want to put the budget under strain based on revenues that have not yet materialized. He returns to the point of decreasing crime numbers. He doesn’t understand why the goal would be to have a police force at the same level that the city did in a previous era.

11:29 p.m. Eaton says the city is fortunate to have police chief John Seto. Seto is not telling the council that the city has a crime problem, Eaton says. Seto has said the additional three officers are a “good start” toward accomplishing what Seto wants to do in terms of traffic enforcement and community engagement. Adding three officers does not take staffing levels back to the levels of the 1990s or even 2009, Eaton says. It’s an incremental step in the right direction.

11:32 p.m. Teall says she didn’t hear Seto say there were more police officers needed, but rather it was true that more could always be done. She won’t support this. Taylor says he won’t support this amendment, either. He’ll support the additional three police officers, but he rejects the idea that failing to support an additional two officers means a lack of priority on public safety. He points out that after pass-throughs, 57% of the city’s general fund goes to public safety.

11:35 p.m. Taylor is referring to an email from chief judge Libby Hines that rejected the idea that the 15th District Court was not a good steward of public money. The court administrator, Shryl Samborn, is at the podium. She’s talking about the ways the 15th District Court has reduced costs. More police officers means more citations, which would require more court clerks, she points out.

11:38 p.m. Lumm is responding to the court’s cost cutting, tracing the 7% and 9% and 4% general fund increases the court has shown. The court had authorized significant pay increases well above what other city employees had received, she says. Responding to the idea that UM officers should be factored into the equation, Lumm says the UM officers don’t see their job as policing the broader community. “They are not our backup,” she says.

11:41 p.m. Kunselman says that as much as he’d like to support it, he won’t support it. It’s important to work within the city administrator’s budget as much as possible. He’s not confident that the recurring revenues will actually be there, so he feels a little “queasy” about adding police officers. He says he had proposed no amendments, because he was very happy with the city administrator’s budget – because Powers had listened to the council about what it wanted to see.

11:44 p.m. Anglin says that there will be more police required as more people use public transportation. Warpehoski tries to move the council to a vote.

11:45 p.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment on 4-7 vote. Voting for it were Lumm, Eaton, Anglin and Kailasapathy.

11:48 p.m. Budget amendment: Compost/leaf program – restore. This proposal would restore loose leaf collection in the fall and holiday tree pickup in the winter. This would require roughly $406,000 in capital investment and $319,500 in recurring expenses from the millage-supported solid waste fund. (Lumm, Eaton, Kailasapathy, Anglin)

11:48 p.m. Lumm notes that she’s brought forward this amendment the last two years and allows that people might be wondering: When will she give up? She says that she’d give up if she did not hear continually from residents that this is a service that they really use and expect the city to provide. She’s reciting the standard arguments in favor.

Petersen says that as much as she’d like to support this, she thinks that the city should not go back to the old way of doing things, because it was too inefficient. That’s not an appropriate way to restore the service. She mentions vacuum trucks as a possibility.

11:49 p.m. Hieftje says that leaves don’t come down on schedule. Cities across the state have moved away from the old way, he says. The current approach using containers is not perfect but it does work ok, he says.

11:53 p.m. Briere won’t support this restoration of fall leaf collection. She’s advocated for year-round composting because she thinks there are some years when leaves need to be set out after the first of December. Briere is recycling familiar arguments.

11:55 p.m. Lumm is arguing environmental points.

11:56 p.m. Lumm is using the Ann Arbor Newshawks in support of her argument for loose collection. She describes following a truck on its collection route.

11:58 p.m. Warpehoski raises a point of order on the length of Lumm’s speaking time.

12:00 a.m. Kunselman says he won’t support this. He’s not sure the solid waste fund reserve won’t be needed in the future. The last thing he wants to see is the solid waste millage go up. He doesn’t want to tinker with the city administrator’s budget.

12:01 a.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment on 4-7 vote. Voting for it were Lumm, Eaton, Anglin and Kailasapathy.

12:01 a.m. Budget amendment: Retirement plan. This proposal directs the city administrator to develop a revised retirement plan design for new hires that “includes a defined contribution element and results in lower costs to the city.” The new plan design would be presented to the council by Dec. 31, 2014, with the intent that the revised plan would be applied to all employees hired after Dec. 31, 2015. (Lumm, Kailasapathy)

12:02 a.m. Lumm is describing what this resolution does. She allows that she’s brought this up previously. But she laments the lack of progress. So she wants the council to give some direction that it supports this approach.

12:04 a.m. Kailasapathy is explaining the problem with defined benefit plans is that demographics have changed – life expectancy has increased.

12:08 a.m. Warpehoski says he’s voting against the resolution, but doesn’t want that vote to be understood as being against defined contribution plans. He says that the right venue for this kind of thing is negotiated at the table as labor contracts are developed. Lumm responds by saying it’s not a collective bargaining strategy. Nothing has happened in two years, she says. She says the council should provide direction as a council.

12:08 a.m. Teall says she doesn’t support this and so she’s not going to vote to it.

12:10 a.m. Warpehoski references a staff memo that supports his contention that this would impede the city’s general labor strategy. Staff had expressed their concerns about this approach. He’s chaffing under the implication from Lumm that he had not read the resolution, noting that he did read it.

12:13 a.m. Petersen and Powers are discussing how the council best should supply direction on this topic. They’re discussing closed sessions versus open sessions. Anglin says this doesn’t even seem like a budget amendment. It’s more like a general direction.

12:13 a.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment on 3-8 vote. Voting for it were Lumm, Eaton, and Kailasapathy.

12:13 a.m. Policy direction: This proposal would not alter the budget but would ask the city administrator to “study alternatives to increase street funding and present to Council by Sept. 30, 2014 a report outlining options, their financial impact, and the pros and cons of each.” (Lumm, Eaton, Kailasapathy, Anglin)

12:16 a.m. Lumm is reviewing the content of the resolution.

12:16 a.m. Outcome: The council has approved this amendment on a unanimous vote. This prompts an “Oh, my god!” from Lumm.

12:16 a.m. Budget amendment: Animal control. The proposal would eliminate funding for an inventory of commercial signs in favor of animal control for the Human Society of Huron Valley and for deer herd management costs. (Petersen, Kailasapathy, Eaton, Anglin)

12:18 a.m. Petersen recites the content of the resolution. Lumm says she’ll support this amendment as a short-term solution. She’s prepared another amendment involving dog licenses that is meant to address the long-term issue.

12:18 a.m. Kunselman is getting clarification about the total amount that would wind up allocated for animal control – about $100,000.

12:22 a.m. Warpehoski says that when the city was dealing with the digital billboard ordinance, having an inventory of signs was noted as something that was important. So he’s torn about this amendment. Powers is explaining that the sign inventory is important and that’s why it’s in the budget. He can’t say exactly how urgent the work might be. Can it be deferred? Yes, says Powers. Warpehoski says he’ll support the amendment this year, but does want to see the inventory done.

Kunselman draws out the fact that the $75,000 would have been spent on a consultant. He’s not interested in supporting consultants.

12:24 a.m. Petersen, Lumm and Kunselman are doing some wordsmithing about what HSHV will be doing.

12:30 a.m. Hieftje wants to move along to a vote.

12:30 a.m. Outcome: The council has approved this amendment on a unanimous vote.

12:31 a.m. Budget amendment: Warming center. This proposal would allocate $100,000 from the affordable housing trust fund to provide assistance for a warming center. (Lumm, Briere)

12:33 a.m. Briere says that she can find past uses of the affordable housing fund that are consistent with this one. This does not cover 100% of the anticipated cost, but she wants to bring it forward now instead of waiting until October, because it’s possible to anticipate that there will be a winter.

12:34 a.m. Kunselman asks if the source of the funds is all general fund money. Briere explains that there were general fund transfers as well as proceeds from the sale of the former Y lot.

12:37 a.m. Kunselman says he’s not comfortable using money from an affordable housing fund. He’d support a general fund expenditure for that purpose. But he doesn’t think it’s wise to raid the fund for purposes other than providing affordable housing. Eaton says he’s also voting against it. When the council voted to put the net proceeds of the Y lot into the affordable housing fund, he’d been concerned that there weren’t clear criteria for use of the affordable housing trust fund. He calls for development of guidelines for use of funds from the affordable housing trust fund. He’s voting against this.

12:38 a.m. Hieftje says he’s torn on this. He’s concerned about the demand for warming shelter services for people who are not from Washtenaw County. The city needs to work with its partners to figure out how to continue to provide services to people from Washtenaw County. It’s premature to make a decision tonight, he says, because it should be based on a strategy worked out with partners.

12:39 a.m. Lumm is supporting this, and notes that Briere has worked with Mary Jo Callan and Ellen Schulmeister, executive director of the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County. There’s a need for additional capacity for a warming center.

12:41 a.m. Warpehoski says he’ll support the amendment, but with the same reservations that others have expressed. His understanding, however, is that allocations from the affordable housing trust fund need a recommendation from the housing & human services advisory board (HHSAB). Briere says that it’s legitimate for the council to take this action without the HHSAB recommendation. She believes that HHSAB would support it.

12:43 a.m. Taylor says that much of our services go to folks “who are not of us,” which leads to a slippery slope of not being able to serve the “local homeless.”

12:48 a.m. Taylor says that this is an issue that’s more complicated than what can be solved tonight.

12:48 a.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment on a 5-6 vote. Voting for it were Kailasapathy, Briere, Petersen, Lumm, and Warpehoski.

12:48 a.m. Recess. We’re now in recess.

12:55 a.m. Teall is sitting in the mayor’s seat. Not clear if she’s going to take over for Hieftje when we resume. She’s fortifying herself with peanut M&Ms.

12:55 a.m. “Come on folks, let’s go!” says Teall.

12:56 a.m. Teall says we’re on schedule to be out by 4:15 a.m.

12:56 a.m. Budget amendment: 415 W. Washington demolition – pedestrian safety. This proposal would use some of the $300,000 in the general fund budget that’s designated for demolition of the city-owned 415 W. Washington property to fund the pedestrian safety and access task force. (Briere, Warpehoski)

12:59 a.m. Briere says that the pedestrian task force would be funded in two ways – from the $75,000 set aside for a sidewalk gap elimination study and from part of the $300,000 set aside for the 415 W. Washington demolition. Powers confirms that Briere’s description of the way that project management staff are paid is accurate – in that they’re paid by project.

1:00 a.m. Eaton expresses puzzlement, saying he thought this pedestrian safety task force funding had been in front of the council and they’d postponed it, and that staff had identified all the required funding.

1:05 a.m. Craig Hupy, public services area administrator, is at the podium fielding questions from Kailasapathy. The $77,320 in the resolution is for the consultant on the pedestrian safety task force. Warpehoski reviews the history of how the consultant was selected. The task force is eager to have a positive impact on the community, he says. Current staff don’t have capacity to provide the task force support, he says. The task force has participated in the selection of the consultant (The Greenway Collaborative), he says.

1:05 a.m. Lumm is now commenting on the amendment. She’s reviewing how the funding works.

1:06 a.m. Mayor John Hieftje has departed the meeting, and Teall has been presiding over the meeting as mayor pro tem since returning from recess.

1:09 a.m. Kunselman says it seems like the council is picking on the 415 W. Washington demolition funds, when it’s been put of for several years. Powers says that there would need additional preparatory work to make an application to the historic district commission for the demolition.

1:11 a.m. “The building needs to come down,” Kunselman says. “This building is not going to be saved,” because it’s going to cost too much. In the meantime, it’s a blight in the neighborhood, across from the new Y building. It needs to be torn down and the city has been dragging its feet, he says. Now the council is stalling that effort, so he won’t support it.

1:12 a.m. Kailasapathy asks if the amendment can be split into two parts so that the $75,000 portion could be dragged forward from last year’s budget.

1:15 a.m. Briere says that the pedestrian task force was established through a unanimous vote of the council and now there’s an obligation to fund it. She’s continuing to argue by saying it’s important not to just give it lip service.

1:16 a.m. Teall agrees with Briere, saying the council has to support task forces that it establishes.

1:19 a.m. Kailasapathy cautions that she did not vote to sign a blank check when she voted for the establishment of the task force.

1:19 a.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment. [We are tentatively recording this as a 5-5 vote. Hieftje has left the meeting.]

1:20 a.m. Budget amendment: Compost/leaf program – extend. This proposal would extend the curbside compostables pickup from seasonal to year-round so that food waste could be kept out of the garbage stream year-round, at an increased annual cost of $300,000. (Briere)

1:21 a.m. Briere is arguing for her proposal.

1:25 a.m. Petersen and Lumm question whether a reduction in tipping fees would actually be realized. Lumm says that if the city is going to spend $300,000 a year from the solid waste fund, it should be to pick up loose leaves.

1:25 a.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment on a 3-7 vote. It got support from Taylor, Teall and Briere.

1:25 a.m. Budget amendment: Art administration, traffic calming efforts. The proposal is to reduce the amount allocated in the recommended budget for transitional costs associated with the public art program from $80,000 to $40,000. The $40,000 in savings would be used for traffic calming projects in neighborhoods, including but not limited to speed bumps. (Eaton, Kailasapathy, Anglin)

1:28 a.m. Kailasapathy says she’d like to dedicate all $80,000 to traffic calming, but she acknowledges that some councilmembers wanted to fund a transition for art. She’s hearing from her constituents that they want to see traffic calming but not transitional art administration funding. The art administrator can be hired for $40,000 and put efforts into private fund raising, she says.

1:29 a.m. Briere says that last year when she put forward additional money for traffic calming, she had been able to identify exactly what projects would be funded. This proposal is more conceptual, she says. She’d be more comfortable with it if it were more precise.

1:32 a.m. Briere questions whether this amendment is about adding money to traffic calming or “because it looks good.”

1:32 a.m. Lumm is supporting this.

1:35 a.m. Outcome: The council has rejected this amendment on a 4-6 vote. It got support from Kailasapathy, Lumm, Eaton, and Anglin.

1:35 a.m. Budget amendment: Streets – Alt Transportation. The proposal would, for this year, bump the Act 51 allocation for alternative transportation from 2.5% to 5% – which translates to $180,000. The amendment would ask the city administrator to provide information that would help the council determine the appropriate percentage to allocate to alternative transportation. (Briere)

1:36 a.m. Briere had to be encouraged to bring this forward by Eaton, after she said she thought the council was by now going to split 5-5 on everything else (because Hieftje is no longer here). She summarizes why she wants to increase alternative transportation funding.

1:39 a.m. Lumm says she won’t support this because it draws down the general fund. Other councilmembers correct her.

1:39 a.m. Outcome: The council has approved this amendment over the dissent of Kunselman.

1:40 a.m. Budget amendment: 415 W. Washington demolition. This proposal would simply eliminate general fund support for demolition of the city-owned buildings at 415 W. Washington. (Kailasapathy, Lumm, Eaton, Anglin)

1:42 a.m. Kailasapathy says that she had proposed this in response to CFO Tom Crawford’s cautionary remarks from the May 12 work session about the level of the general fund reserves. She says that the money for demolition could be found in the parks maintenance and capital improvements millage, if the property is added to the PROS plan.

1:45 a.m. Briere talks about the amount of process that would need to be engaged in before deciding that it would become a park. She didn’t think it was realistic to demolish the building before the spring of next year. Lumm says this “hits pause” on the demolition of 415 W. Washington to see if alternatives to the general fund can be found to pay for it.

1:48 a.m. Lumm is noting that the open space preservation millage might be a source of funds. Kunselman says he doesn’t support using parks money for a general fund type building. The building needs to come down, he says. It might not come down until next spring, but the money needs to be appropriated at this meeting. The building is an eyesore and is not in any way historic, he says. He won’t support the amendment. He’ll encourage the staff to move ahead in the coming months on getting the building torn down.

1:50 a.m. Anglin is talking about the costs that would be involved in preserving the building. Artists had talked about possibly using it as an art center. It had been studied, he says, and he doesn’t know where the idea came from to demolish the building. The council had not yet heard from the historic district commission, he says.

1:54 a.m. Anglin says there’s an opportunity in this building to make the art community feel welcome. Teall also questions where the idea came from to demolish the building. Briere says that the council had directed the study of the feasibility of preserving the building and the final report had come back. The result of that report was a conclusion that it would take about $3 million to stabilize the building and another $3 million to renovate it. That’s where the notion of demolishing the building came from.

1:54 a.m. Outcome: The council has approved this amendment over the dissent of Kunselman, Taylor and Warpehoski.

1:55 a.m. Budget amendment: Dog licenses. This proposal would encourage educational and enforcement efforts to increase the 7% compliance rate for dog licenses, which currently generates $15,000 in revenue. The resolution states that Ann Arbor is home to 30,000 dogs and that a 50% license compliance rate would result in $105,000 in revenue. But the resolution targets a 30% compliance rate for the shorter term, which would bring in a total of about $63,000. The resolution alters the revenue budget to reflect that amount. The resolution indicates that at least a portion of the additional $48,000 would go toward payment for animal services provided to the city by the Humane Society of Huron Valley.

1:57 a.m. Lumm characterizes this as an effort to identify a recurring source of revenue for animal control. “We have a lot of dogs in Ann Arbor,” she says. It’s thought that Ann Arbor is home to about 30,000 dogs, she says. A 50% compliance rate would generate about $120,000 annually, she says. Currently the compliance rate is only about 7%, she says.

2:01 a.m. Teall asks about increased enforcement and how that would be done. Powers indicated that it would initially be a matter of raising awareness of the requirement. Only about 2,000 dogs are licensed in Ann Arbor. One of the benefits of having a license for your dog is being able to use the city’s dog parks.

2:02 a.m. Briere has no problem with the idea of focusing on enforcement, but is uncomfortable with making it a budget amendment, because it might assume revenues that might not materialize.

2:03 a.m. Briere wonders if it might be possible not to include such a “confident” allocation.

2:05 a.m. Powers says he’ll likely be bringing an agreement between the county and the city that would be the conduit by which HSHV would be paid. Briere says the 30% compliance rate seems ambitious. Petersen asks about a dog census to help compliance. Powers indicates there’s a statutory requirement for a dog census.

2:06 a.m. Warpehoski wants to vote.

2:07 a.m. Lumm reports that she’s talked to the director of the HSHV, and HSHV sees this as a baby step. She says having 23% greater compliance does not set the bar too high. It’s good for pets and pet owners, she says.

2:09 a.m. Taylor says he’d observed that the council was talking about police officers enforcing dog licenses, when previously some councilmembers had objected to the idea of police officers enforcing an outdoor smoking ordinance. Taylor doesn’t object to either kind of enforcement.

2:11 a.m. Kunselman asks police chief Seto if an animal control officer is needed. Kunselman says there’ve been problems in his neighborhood. Seto notes that every police officer is authorized as an animal control officer. That service is probably not provided as well as when there was a dedicated animal control officer, he says. He notes that the city now works with the county on animal control.

2:12 a.m. Outcome: The council has unanimously approved this amendment.

2:12 a.m. Budget amendment: Parks fairness. This is a standard amendment every year to ensure that the parks budget is increased to match any increase in general fund expenditures in other areas.

2:14 a.m. The parks budget needs to be increased by $23,577 as a result of the budget amendments that were previously approved.

2:15 a.m. Teall says she has reservations about it as a practical matter, but wants to go ahead and vote.

2:15 a.m. Outcome: The council has approved this amendment over the sole dissent from Teall.

2:16 a.m. The council is now on the main question of the FY 2015 budget.

2:17 a.m. Lumm says that she didn’t support last year’s budget because it didn’t make progress toward public safety as an area of priority. But this year’s budget does that with the addition of three police officers, she says. So she’s supporting the budget.

2:17 a.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously to adopt the FY 2015 budget as amended.

2:18 a.m. Clerk’s report of communications, petitions and referrals. Outcome: The council has voted to accept the clerk’s report.

2:18 a.m. Public comment. There’s no requirement to sign up in advance for this slot for public commentary.

2:24 a.m. Seth Best is addressing the council. He thanks Anglin for mentioning Camp Take Notice. He invites people to drop by 3501 Stone School Road to visit. He was disappointed with the outcome on the warming center resolution. He was also troubled about the distinction between county residents and non-county residents with respect to the provision of services. He reminds the council of the inscription from the Statue of Liberty.

2:24 a.m. Kai Petainen says he’s not upset about the SPARK amendments, but he’s kind of annoyed by SPARK. They’d shown up to the meeting without answers to the council’s questions, he says. His complaint is about how SPARK treated the council and the public. They weren’t prepared for tonight’s meeting, he says, and thereby demonstrated arrogance and ignorance. He said he doubted that if SPARK didn’t get the $75,000 it would cause companies to leave town.

2:24 a.m. Closed session. Outcome: The council has voted to go into closed session to consider pending litigation.

2:32 a.m. They’re back in open session.

2:32 a.m. Adjournment. We are now adjourned. That’s all from the hard benches.

A sign on the door to the Ann Arbor city council chambers gives instructions for post-meeting clean-up.

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May 19, 2014: City Council Meeting Preview

Dave Askins — Fri, 16 May 2014 13:00:01 +0000

Screenshot of Legistar – the city of Ann Arbor’s online agenda management system. Image links to the May 19, 2014 meeting agenda.

A preview of some possible budget amendments will be reported separately.

The council’s May 19, 2014 meeting agenda includes more than just the adoption of the budget.

Another budget-related item on the May 19 agenda is one related to the social infrastructure of the community – allocation of general fund money to nonprofits that provide human services. The city approaches this allocation through a process that is coordinated with Washtenaw County, the United Way, the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation and other partners. The total amount allocated for operation of programs is about $4.3 million. The city of Ann Arbor’s general fund contribution is about $1.2 million, which is the same amount that has been contributed for the last several years.

Related to human services support is an agenda item that would accept a $113,154 planning grant from the Michigan Supreme Court to establish a specialized mental health court.

Along with social infrastructure, the council will also be asked to approve an allocation that includes utilities infrastructure, to address the needs that resulted from the harsh winter. The resolution the council will consider would allocate money from the fund balance reserves from three sources: $1.7 million from the major street fund, $638,000 from the local street fund, and $666,000 from the water fund. Those amounts include $461,171 from the state of Michigan.

Fees and Rates

On the council’s agenda are rate increases for utilities (water, sewer and stormwater) as well as fee increases for the public services and community services area.

Fees and Rates: Water, Sewer, Stormwater

Water consumption for a typical single family is assumed at 19 units per quarter.

History of city of Ann Arbor water rates. The city converted to a tiered system 10 years ago in 2004, based on usage. The 2015 amount is proposed.

The utility rates are part of a city ordinance. So the council will be considering initial approval at its May 19 meeting, with final approval to come at its first meeting in June – on June 2.

Fees and Rates: Community and Public Services Area

Fee increases in the community services area and the public services area will be considered by the council at its May 19 meeting.

If approved by the council, the fee increase would be projected to generate $26,000 in additional revenue. However, this additional revenue has not been assumed in the proposed FY 2015 budget.

Pension and VEBA Funding Policy

The operative language in the policy is:

If the General Fund revenues are projected to increase less than 2%, the city’s contribution shall increase 2%; thereby establishing a minimum increase of 2% per year.

Social Infrastructure

Social Infrastructure: Coordinated Funding

FY 15       Funding Source                                        
$1,244,629  City of Ann Arbor General Fund                    
$1,760,708  United Way of Washtenaw County                    
$1,015,000  Washtenaw County's General Fund                   
$  274,907  Washtenaw Urban County CDBG funds                 
$   26,250  Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation senior funds 
========== 
$4,321,494  TOTAL

The RNR Foundation funding will go toward the planning/coordination and capacity building components of the effort, so their funding is not listed among the items in the program operating component.

Here’s a breakdown of how the program operating component of the city of Ann Arbor’s share will be allocated:

   
   FY 2015  Agency
   $20,000  Barrier Busters 
   $30,000  Peace Neighborhood Center
   $35,069  Ozone House Inc.
   $54,168  Domestic Violence Project Inc. dba SafeHouse Center
   $56,396  UM Regents (Community Dental Center, Housing Bureau for Seniors)
   $85,500  Avalon Housing 
   $90,786  Child Care Network
  $102,156  Food Gatherers
  $115,558  The Salvation Army of Washtenaw County
  $122,095  Washtenaw Community Health Organization
  $160,761  Shelter Association of Washtenaw County
  $164,660  Community Action Network
  $207,480  Legal Services of South Central Michigan
$1,244,629  Grand Total

That compares with the current fiscal year as follows:

 
  FY 2014   Agency
   $4,561   HIV/AIDS Resource Center     
  $12,772   Washtenaw Association for Community Advocacy     
  $14,282   Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan     
  $17,139   Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County
  $19,835   Barrier Busters     
  $23,719   UM Regents - Ann Arbor Meals on Wheels     
  $27,369   The Women's Center of Southeastern Michigan     
  $63,419   Home of New Vision
  $91,645   Interfaith Hospitality Network of Washtenaw County     
  $94,490   Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw     
  $95,171   Food Gatherers     
 $104,944   Community Action Network
 $109,851   Perry Nursery School of Ann Arbor     
 $142,851   Avalon Housing Inc.     
 $177,052   Services of South Central Michigan
 $245,529   Shelter Association of Washtenaw County
$1,244,629  Grand Total

Social Infrastructure: Mental Health Court

The memo continues:

Eligible defendants are diverted into judicially supervised, community-based treatment to address the underlying problems. The program uses a team approach to address the participant’s needs for mental health and/or substance abuse treatment while also linking the participant with ancillary services such as education, housing, job skills or other individualized assistance. The goal is to assist participants in bettering their lives while also benefiting the community by reducing jail time, recidivism rates, and court docket congestion.

For background on the 15th District Court’s specialized “problem-solving” courts from last year’s Chronicle reporting, see: “Round 1 FY 2014: 15th District Court.”

Physical Infrastructure

Physical Infrastructure: Winter Damage

The council will be asked to approve an allocation that includes utilities infrastructure, to address the needs that resulted from the severe winter weather.

Ann Arbor Sanitary Sewer System by Year of Construction. (Data from the city of Ann Arbor, chart by The Chronicle)

Ann Arbor Water System by Year of Construction. (Data from the city of Ann Arbor, chart by The Chronicle)

City of Ann Arbor Water Main Breaks by Year. (Data from city of Ann Arbor Comprehensive Annual Financial Report)

Physical Infrastructure: Pontiac Trail

The council will consider two resolutions in connection with a street reconstruction project on Pontiac Trail.

The other contract to be considered by the council in connection with the Pontiac Trail project is $46,879 for Professional Services Industries Inc. for materials testing.

Physical Infrastructure: Sidewalks

Three other sidewalk projects that are further along in the special assessment process than Pontiac Trail are also on the council’s May 19 agenda: Barton Road, Scio Church and Newport Road.

Physical Infrastructure: Sidewalks – Newport Road

However, several residents spoke at the May 5 public hearing, opposing the special assessment.

Newport Road sidewalk stretch.

Physical Infrastructure: Sidewalks – Scio Church

Purple indicates stretches of Scio Church Road where no sidewalk exists.

Physical Infrastructure Sidewalks – Barton Road

Location of proposed Barton Drive sidewalk.

The preliminary planning budget of $15,000 for the Newport Road sidewalk gap was approved over a year ago by the council at its Jan. 23, 2013 meeting.

Greenbelt

Appointments

White was appointed to the historic district commission for his first three-year term in 2005.

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Third Year for Coordinated Funding OK’d

Chronicle Staff — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:17:33 +0000

A one-year extension for a pilot program using a “coordinated funding” model to support local human services was given final approval by the Washtenaw County board of commissioners at their Nov. 7, 2012 meeting. An initial vote had been taken on Oct. 17.

The county is one of five partners in the coordinated funding approach. Other partners are the city of Ann Arbor, United Way of Washtenaw County, Washtenaw Urban County, and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. The Ann Arbor city council approved the one-year extension at its Oct. 15 meeting.

The process has three parts: planning/coordination, program operations, and capacity-building. The approach targets six priority areas, and identifies lead agencies for each area: (1) housing and homelessness – Washtenaw Housing Alliance; (2) aging – Blueprint for Aging; (3) school-aged youth – Washtenaw Alliance for Children and Youth; (4) children birth to six – Success by Six; (5) health – Washtenaw Health Plan; and (6) hunger relief – Food Gatherers.

The total process puts $4.935 million into local human services nonprofits. The extension of the coordinated funding approach for a third year means that nonprofits receiving funding currently would not need to reapply for support. The extension by one year would allow for the evaluation process for the pilot period to finish, likely by early 2013. It would also allow a better opportunity to provide the outcome data on the program so far.

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

Ann Arbor OKs Human Services Funding

Chronicle Staff — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 02:24:50 +0000

At its June 18, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council authorized allocations totaling $1,244,629 to different nonprofits that provide human services. The amount was set as part of the FY 2013 budget, which the city council approved on May 22, 2012.

The process of making allocations followed a “coordinated funding” approach, as the city worked in concert with Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, the United Way of Washtenaw County, Washtenaw County, and the Washtenaw Urban County to make the allocations. That approach was approved by the city council on Nov. 4, 2010.

The total amount allocated through the coordinated funding process is expected to be $4,285,089, from the following sources: Ann Arbor ($1,244,629); United Way of Washtenaw County ($1,677,000); Washtenaw County ($1,015,000); and Washtenaw Urban County ($348,460).

Proposals from nonprofits for funding exceeded the amount allocated by $2,295,428. The five priority areas used to evaluate proposals were aging, early childhood, housing & homelessness, safety-net health, and school-aged youth. A sixth priority area (hunger relief), was identified as a “sole-source activity” that’s provided by Food Gatherers, and wasn’t included in the evaluation process.

The largest awards made to 73 different programs included: $276,766 from the United Way to The Corner Health Center’s patient assistance and care management program; $204,892 from the United Way Safety Net Health Services to Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw’s program for maintaining the independence of older adults; $207,551 from the city of Ann Arbor to the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County’s residential program. [Google Spreadsheet of all awards compiled by The Chronicle]

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

Ann Arbor Council Delays Budget Vote

Dave Askins — Thu, 19 May 2011 15:56:45 +0000

Ann Arbor city council meeting (May 16, 2011): Ann Arbor’s city charter requires that the city council amend and adopt a city budget by its second meeting in May. If it fails to act, by default the unamended budget proposed in April by the city administrator is adopted.

During public commentary, Sue Maguire addressed the council on the topic of proposed reductions to the fire department. (Photos by the writer.)

But Monday, at its second meeting in May this year, the city council did not act, choosing instead to recess and continue the meeting the following week, on May 23. The decision to delay was prompted by uncertainty about revenue from the public parking system. The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority and the city were poised to ratify a new agreement on parking revenue on May 2, but that agreement was put off when questions were raised about the DDA tax increment finance (TIF) capture. The DDA later called a special meeting on Friday, May 20 to address that issue.

Even though the council did not act on the budget, most of the evening’s discussion was dominated by budget talk, including extensive public commentary on the proposed cuts in the police and fire departments. The council also got a briefing from its chief of police and interim fire chief, Barnett Jones, who responded to an article published in AnnArbor.com about fire department response times, calling the calculations presented in the piece inaccurate.

In addition to putting off action on the FY 2012 budget, the council also tabled decisions on human services funding, funding for a water system study, and fee increases for next year.

However, the council did transact some business. It authorized an increase in taxicab fares in light of rising gas prices. The council also approved neighborhood stabilization funds for demolition of three houses on North Main Street to prepare the site for construction of the Near North affordable housing project. Two large vehicle purchases – a street sweeper and a sewer truck – that had been postponed from the previous meeting were authorized.

The council also revised its administrative policy on how the 2006 parks millage is to be spent. Funds outside the general fund can count as general fund money for the purpose of the policy, as long as those funds are not drawn from the parks millage. The council also gave initial approval to an ordinance on design guidelines for new buildings downtown.

FY 2012 Budget Decisions

Before the council was approval of the 2012 fiscal year budget that had been proposed by then-city administrator Roger Fraser just before he left that position to take a post as a deputy treasurer for the state of Michigan. The city’s fiscal year starts on July 1.

The city’s charter stipulates that the administrator must submit the proposed budget to the council in April and that the council must approve a budget by its second meeting in May, which this year fell on May 16. If the council fails to approve the budget – with any amendments – by its second May meeting, the budget as proposed by the administrator is adopted by default.

The budget as proposed included $77,900,405 in general fund revenues and tapped the reserves for a total of $1,022,136. The city of Ann Arbor’s total budget, including all of its funds (major street fund, parks millage, water fund, sewer fund, etc.) stands at $312,182,605 for FY 2012.

FY 2012 Budget: Announcement of Delay

At the beginning of the council’s May 16 meeting, mayor John Hieftje indicated that when the council reached the budget item on the agenda, they intended to recess the meeting and continue it the following Monday. The budget was the next-to-last agenda item.

As a reason for delaying, Hieftje cited uncertainty about the status of a new parking agreement with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. Later in the week, the DDA board announced it would hold a special meeting at noon on Friday, May 20 in an attempt to address questions about its TIF capture and to ratify its side of a new parking contract with the city.

Expected amendments to the budget when the council takes it up on May 23 include: (1) use of $90,000 in general fund reserves to add to the parks allocation; (2) use of $85,600 in general fund reserves to add to human services funding; (3) use of a nominal amount of general fund reserves to cover the cost of an additional primary election (as proposed, the FY 2012 budget anticipated primaries in only two of the city’s five wards – there will be primaries in three wards); and (4) elimination of a proposed fee for three-times-weekly trash pickup in the downtown area.

Before the meeting, no budget amendments were anticipated that would change the proposed cuts in public safety positions – 13 in police services and seven in fire protection services. However, at the meeting, Hieftje hinted that some, but not all, of the cuts in police and fire might be avoided.

FY 2012 Budget: Safety Services – Public Commentary

The formal hearing on the FY 2012 budget took place at the council’s May 2 meeting. But several people had signed up for the public commentary reserved time at the beginning of the meeting, including some familiar faces from local government, past and present. [At the council's next gathering on May 23, there will presumably not be public commentary reserved time offered, as it is a continuation of the same meeting.]

Leading off public commentary was Fred Veigel, who serves on the Washtenaw County Road Commission. He introduced himself as president of the Huron Valley Central Labor Council, AFLCIO, which includes 37 local unions with 18,000 members, he said. Terminating police and firefighter positions below national standards would endanger lives and property of Ann Arbor citizens, warned Veigel. Responding to comments by Hieftje at the start of the meeting about the separation of the budget into various funds, he said, “Balderdash!” Money could be borrowed from different funds, he contended, not taken away.

He asked if the last audit of fund balances has been reviewed to see if funds are available for public safety services. The council should cut other services first, he said, like human services. The council should amend the city’s parks policy and let Washtenaw County take over the two city golf courses – that would save several hundred thousand dollars. He said he’d talked with councilmember Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) about enforcing state vehicle codes on unmarked commercial vehicles that don’t pull permits to work in the city – that could generate additional revenue.

Following Veigel to the podium was Wes Prater, who currently serves on the Washtenaw County board of commissioners. He introduced himself as a retired firefighter, and vice president of the Huron Valley Central Labor Council, AFLCIO. He told the city council it was good to be back before them – he hadn’t been there in a while. He asked to council to reflect on some basic points. What services do citizens expect to receive from government? What are the basic quality of life issues? What will ensure sound economic development in the community? What are best practices for re-entry of those who are incarcerated and for dealing with mental health issues? These are all related to the function of the emergency safety system of the city, he said.

For the fire department, eight minutes is too long for a response time – four minutes is recommended by national standards, he said. After four minutes, Prater said, a fire doubles in size every minute. Closing stations and rotating stations gives citizens a false sense of security. The fire department is struggling at this time to provide a basic level of service to the citizens, and the further reductions will make it difficult to answer more than one fire at one time. Multiple fires would require mutual aid from departments in other communities, which would require more than eight minutes, he warned.

Prater noted that according to a recent report from Washtenaw County’s equalization director, Ann Arbor’s property values had dropped less than the values in the rest of the county.

University of Michigan Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) supporters in the audience at the May 16 Ann Arbor city council meeting.

Chelsea Del Rio introduced herself as the vice president of the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) at the University of Michigan. She told the city council that the GEO stands in solidarity with the firefighers. The GEO is concerned about the rotating closure of fire stations, especially when Station 5 on the university’s north campus is closed. It’s a great concern to the UM community, she said. It’s a concern about physical property, ranging from the safety of historical documents to research facilities, as well as a concern about safety and well-being of students, faculty staff and all Ann Arbor residents.

The unions at UM – from lecturers, to building trades, to nurses – have expressed this view to UM president Mary Sue Coleman as well, Del Rio said. She concluded by saying that the members of the GEO stand with Ann Arbor firefighters, and they urged the council to do the same.

Noting that he was a former member of the city’s park advisory commission and the planning commission, James D’Amour told the council that he was speaking to them as a citizen, not as a member of any group. He said he’d seen declines in terms of services and the promise the city was supposed to keep with respect to the parks, but said he might address that issue later. That evening, he said, he wanted to put a face on the important public safety services offered by the city.

D’Amour then recounted how 12 years ago, his second-floor neighbors – he and his wife lived on the third floor – had started a fire through careless behavior. He said that without help from the fire department, his wife wouldn’t be alive today and likely neither would he. He said he’d seen thousands of dollars paid by the city for consultants, parking structures and public art. He concluded by thanking the firefighters who saved his wife’s life 12 years ago.

Lisa Dusseau told the council she was born and raised in Ann Arbor. She was speaking to them for the first time due to the pending fire department layoffs. She said she admired the skill and fortitude it takes to be a firefighter. She said she’d been following the budget discussions on AnnArbor.com. She wondered why it took so long to get the information out. She had concerns about response times and deaths per calendar year. Increased cuts will turn Ann Arbor’s fire protection service into a surround-and-drown department. If she wanted that level of service, she said, she’d move to a township.

Dusseau contended that once staffing levels fell below 100 firefighters, the number of deaths due to fire had started to increase – even one is too many, she said. Non-essentials need to be eliminated from the budget. She’d read that money to supplement the budget was available but not applied for. She said that people wearing swim goggles at the city council was good theater, but doesn’t serve needs of the city as a whole. [This was an apparent allusion to the May 2009 public hearing on that year's budget, which included advocates for keeping Mack pool open. They had worn swim goggles – among them was James D'Amour. ] She told the council to take another look at the budget and not let staffing levels deteriorate.

Standing is Wendy Woods, former Ward 5 councilmember and current city planning commissioner. She was talking to Sandi Smith (Ward 1) before the meeting.

Former Ward 5 councilmember and current planning commissioner Wendy Woods told the council she wanted to address the issue of police and fire fighters. She said the myth needs to be debunked that fewer fires means we need fewer firefighters. The fire department has served our residents admirably, she said. They are first to respond when you’re at the lowest point in your life. They bring a calm reassurance that someone is there to help you.

Woods said she was concerned about protecting lives of citizens and their property, and also about the safety of firefighters. She urged the council to take the steps necessary to bridge the gap between the fire department and city hall. It’s just a street [Fifth Avenue] that separates them, but it might as well be the Grand Canyon, she said. She concluded with three requests: (1) don’t cut the fire department; (2) don’t cut the police department; and (3) keep residents safe.

University Bank president Stephen Ranzini introduced himself to the council as speaking for himself. He noted that he was a member of the city’s economic development corporation board.

He criticized spending $59 million on the Fifth Avenue underground parking garage at around $90,000 per parking spot – he called the project “the Big Dig.” He continued by criticizing the $43 million expenditure on the “Taj Mahal.” [He was alluding to the new municipal center, or police-courts facility, which the city is officially calling the Justice Center. Some residents have tagged the facility with the name "Raj Mahal" after former city administrator Roger Fraser.]

Ranzini said the city had a $29 million net increase in assets in FY 2010 – which the private sector would call a “profit.” He also said the city had $103 million in unrestricted funds, based on the city’s audited statements. He was referring to the city’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) [emphasis added]:

$103,726,801 is unrestricted and may be used to meet the government’s ongoing obligations to citizens and creditors, subject to the purpose of the fund in which they are located. This balance is comprised of $43,955,179 in governmental activities and $59,771,622 in business-type activities. [page 10]

“Governmental activities” include general fund activities such as police and fire protection and parks and recreation. “Business-type activities” include funds like water, sewer, and solid waste.

In light of the increase in assets and the amount of unrestricted funds, Ranzini questioned the need to cut police and fire staffing. There’s only one ladder truck owned by the city that is capable of responding to rescue his family from the 10-story building downtown where his family lives, he said. [The 95-foot ladder truck is deployed at Station 1 on Fifth Avenue, across from city hall.] If that ladder truck is responding to a fire in another part of the city that would have otherwise been handled by a station that is closed, he and his wife and children would die, because they can’t jump to safety, he said.

As a downtown resident, Ranzini said he could tell the council that it’s already unsafe at certain times of the day to walk outside. It’s a hostile environment for pedestrians, he said, because a culture of panhandlers is allowed to operate with impunity. The city had allowed 10 Level IV registered sex offenders to take up residence in the homeless shelter, he said, which is one block from the YMCA, and there is no visible police presence.

Ranzini said his wife is correctly afraid to leave their home by herself at night. It’s not just a rainy day, but a “financial hurricane,” he said, so what else is the $103 million rainy-day fund for, if it’s not for times like now, he asked. People say that the money is in buckets, he said, and that the money in one bucket can’t get access to the money in other buckets. So, he said, “Let’s drain the buckets.” Persisting with the fiction of the various buckets enables claims of poverty, he said.

Ranzini noted that there are “leaks in the buckets,” citing as an example the $12 million in revenue to the general fund – used in part for police and fire protection – which the city has received from the city’s public parking revenue via the Downtown Development Authority over the last six years. If the DDA had not decided to build the Fifth Avenue underground parking garage, he said, more money could have been transferred to the city. He contended that one fund can lend money to another fund. He said the city is very talented at charging fees to funds located outside the general fund. If the leaks in the buckets aren’t enough, then he suggested that the city’s charter be amended to access the money the city needs until the storm passes.

Sue Maguire introduced herself as a life-long Ann Arbor resident. She told the council how she’d been driving down Eisenhower Parkway recently, when her daughter yelled at her to call 911. Why? she asked her daughter. She pointed to the sign on the fire station, which read “Fire station closed. Call 911.” [The city is currently closing some fire stations on a rotating basis. The station near Eisenhower has a Briarwood Circle address.] They got a good laugh out of it, she said, but it really is an emergency – it’s an emergency that the city council has the ability to respond to. She told the council they need to say no to public safety cuts. She said she works in the field of crash research and knows the importance of immediate emergency response. As an Ann Arbor resident who has paid taxes her whole life, she wants public safety service to stay the same.

Thomas Partridge introduced himself as a Democratic Party member and leader. He called on the city council, the public attending the meeting and the community at large to look at major issues and the direct issues. He told them to look at the movement to recall Gov. Rick Snyder. He called on the citizens of Ann Arbor to think creatively when it comes to budgeting and to do it for multiple years, not just a single year. [The city of Ann Arbor's charter mandates that budgeting be done year by year, but the city has a two-year planning cycle.] He asked that responsible business owners think about “adopting” fire stations and police stations. He called for joining the fire departments of Ann Arbor with those of neighboring communities.

FY 2012 Budget: Council Commentary – Municipal Center

After public commentary, several council members used their communications time to discuss budget-related issues.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) said he wanted to address a FY 2011 allocation for non-departmental contingencies – $639,000 in construction overruns for new the municipal center. He said there is money allocated in FY 2012 for asbestos abatement, but he thought the asbestos abatement had already taken place. Funds seem like they’re being shifted, he said. The building is 50,000 square feet over-sized, he said.

Sign on the Huron Street entrance to city hall before the May 16 meeting. As the logistical routines settle into place for use of the new building, staff use practical means to ensure things work as planned.

Anglin suggested that the city should simply complete the work that needs to be done – and not do anything else on the extra 50,000 square feet, until it’s an economically better time. At that point we could put money into it. He noted that this year the city had eliminated the $700,000 economic development fund. [It's been folded into the general fund balance reserve.]

He noted that there was $3 million promised from a developer of the city-owned First and Washington parcel, but the city had not ever seen that money. [The city council extended the purchase option for the developer, Village Green, most recently in August of 2010, through June 1, 2011. The council set in place a series of milestones to be met and amended the development agreement in February 2011.] Anglin said that if he’d been asked in 1990 about building a new building, he’d have been right on board. But now we need to know what we can afford and what we can’t afford.

Responding to Anglin’s remarks about cost overruns with the municipal center, mayor John Hieftje asked interim city administrator Tom Crawford about cost overruns: Were there any? Crawford said that no, he was not aware of any.

Hieftje also clarified with Crawford, who’s the city’s CFO, that it would be possible for the city to amend the budget after it’s adopted if the financial situation changes. Crawford noted that the city council does not do it frequently, but it’s a possibility, and includes bringing back laid-off workers.

FY 2012 Budget: Council Commentary – Funds/Buckets

Mayor John Hieftje asked Ann Arbor’s CFO and interim city administrator Tom Crawford to respond to comments by Stephen Ranzini during public commentary about $103 million being in a rainy day fund. Crawford suggested that Ranzini was referring to the aggregated fund balance. For some of that amount, it’s not appropriate to use it for the general fund, he said, because it comes from ratepayers for utilities.

A lot of that $103 million is reserved for construction of the new wastewater treatment plant, Crawford said. Use of those funds is not a city charter issue – it’s a basic law. Crawford said that he had a lot of concern about the idea of borrowing funds from one fund to another. He allowed that the current situation is painful, but said the city has historically not taken short-term solutions for long-term problems. And that’s the kind of fiscal discipline that has allowed the city to remain financially stable.

Hieftje asked city attorney Stephen Postema to lay out what the legal consequences would be from the state if the city were to take money inappropriately from a utility fund. Postema said he’d have to get back to the council with the specifics on that.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) noted that it was an opportune time to discuss the issue of using restricted funds as they relate to public art. [The city's Percent for Art program allocates 1% of all capital projects for use on public art.] Kunselman said the council had never received a written opinion from the city attorney on that issue, and now was perhaps a good time to get that opinion.

Kunselman asked if it were possible to pass an ordinance to pay for human services in the same way that public art is paid for. Kunselman said that for the public art program, the city is pulling from restrictive funds to build a fountain. [Kunselman has raised this issue previously about obtaining a legal opinion from the city attorney: "Getting Smarter About the City Charter"]

Kunselman wanted to know about possible increases in revenue now being projected by the state. He asked Crawford if the council would receive adjusted revenue projections by their next meeting. Crawford said that would be very unlikely. Of the additional revenue being discussed by the state, Crawford said, it’s not clear how much may roll down to the local level. It will be well past May before that’s clear, he said.

Kunselman asked about the city’s own property tax projection. Crawford told Kunselman that the numbers are pretty solid – he’s not expecting a change.

Marica Higgins (Ward 4) responded to public commentary by saying what she’d heard was not a suggest to take money from one fund and put it into another, but rather to borrow against it. That, she thought, was a fair question. Hieftje said he thought that would not be wise, even if it’s possible.

Kunselman asked about a comment from the city’s public services area administrator, Sue McCormick, to the effect that there is a formula through which the city is paying for police and fire protection from utility funds, not borrowing it. Hieftje commented that the formula-based allocation is made because the city’s public safety area is delivering a service for protection of facilities, given heightened national security concerns. Crawford added that the reason for the safety services fee as applied to utility infrastructure is that the property is government-owned, so there’s no property tax collected. The fee for safety services is a mechanism the city utilities can use to contribute to the city, Crawford said.

FY 2012 Budget: Response Time Reporting by AnnArbor.com

Mayor John Hieftje introduced the topic of an AnnArbor.com article about fire protection in the city that was published over the weekend, noting that for him, it raised more questions than it answered. From the podium at the front of city council chambers, chief of police and interim fire chief Barnett Jones agreed that the article called to mind a lot of questions.

Jones said the information he’d seen in the article was not in the official reports. The article contended that at an April 23, 2010 fire, a father and six-year-old had “jumped” from a roof. Jones said that no indication of that had been made by firefighters in the written report. When he looked at it, it made him wonder, “Where did that come from?”

By way of clarification, an AnnArbor.com article published last year on April 23, 2010 about that fire included the headline: “House fire injures 3 Ann Arbor firefighters; father, child jump from roof to safety.” The first sentence of the article states: “A father and his 6-year-old daughter jumped to safety from the roof of a burning house …” Near the end of the article, the description of the descent from the roof attributed to then-fire chief Dominick Lanza is less dramatic: “Lanza said they had made it off the roof by the time firefighters arrived.”

The AAFD official documentation for that fire includes the reports that people were on the roof, but indicates firefighters were told on arrival that everyone was out of the house:

LADDER FIVE RESPONDED FOR A REPORTED HOUSE FIRE WITH PEOPLE TRAPPED ON THE ROOF. UPON ARRIVAL THE TWO STORY RESIDENCE WAS WELL INVOLVED WITH FLAMES THROUGH THE ROOF AND FIRST AND SECOND FLOOR. A BYSTANDER STATED THEY THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS OUT.

The fire investigation documentation reports an interview with the father of the family as follows:

He went to [the daughter's] bedroom and woke her up to get her out but when he attempted to escape he could not make it down the stairs through the smoke so he exited out the window on to the outside ledge and proceeded to the garage roof and then to the ground.

The Chronicle was not able to identify any descriptions in the report, or attributions to fire department officials in the AnnArbor.com article, that specifically indicate a jump was made from the roof.

Jones said the AnnArbor.com article stated that the response time for that fire was 9 minutes [and 4 seconds], but Jones said that in fact the total complement of firefighters was on the scene in 7 minutes. These are professional firefighters whose reputations could be damaged by what’s in the article, he said. Jones said he wanted to look at the reports and get together with the assistant fire chiefs and reach out to Ryan Stanton, the AnnArbor.com reporter who’d put together the article, and compare it to what’s in the actual reports. The information in the article doesn’t appear to be what the city has in the fire department reports, Jones said.

Hieftje wondered if it would make a difference if six people or four people were staffed – he wondered how they would get to the scene any faster. Jones said that for some of the fires discussed in the AnnArbor.com article, the houses were totally engulfed before the firefighters arrived. They did their best to get there as quickly as they could. So to have information put out in the community that indicated that they didn’t get to the scene fast enough – when the official reports show a different time – that needs to be clarified and corrected, Jones said.

Hieftje asked for a clarification of how “response time” is calculated. Jones said you hear a lot about the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) 1710 Standards. Jones described the standards to the council. The text of the response time standard [emphasis added]:

5.2.4.1 Initial Arriving Company.
5.2.4.1.1 The fire department’s fire suppression resources shall be deployed to provide for the arrival of an engine company within a 240-second travel time to 90 percent of the incidents as established in Chapter 4.
5.2.4.1.2 Personnel assigned to the initial arriving company shall have the capability to implement an initial rapid intervention crew (IRIC).
5.2.4.2 Initial Full Alarm Assignment Capability.
5.2.4.2.1 The fire department shall have the capability to deploy an initial full alarm assignment within a 480-second travel time to 90 percent of the incidents as established in Chapter 4.

Jones told the council that it’s the four-minute “response time” standard they’ve been hearing a lot about. And based on the fire department official reports, Jones said, the fire trucks are covering the distance in the appropriate time from anywhere in the city. He said he believed there are some errors in Stanton’s calculations published in the AnnArbor.com story that need to be cleared up.

FY 2012 Budget: AnnArbor.com Fire Reporting – Background

In terms of the NFPA standards, it’s clear that the “response time” of the fire department is a time interval – with a beginning and an end. The start of the “response time” interval is when the firetruck is on the way (i.e., is en route) to the fire scene. The “response time” interval ends when the truck arrives on the scene of the fire.

This fits with the idea that the “response time” standard is meant in part to address the issue of adequate geographic fire protection coverage, which is related to the number of fire stations, hence to staffing levels. That standard does not address how efficient firefighters are at getting themselves into their gear and onto their trucks after they are notified that they need to roll. And the “response time” also does not include the interval before firefighters are notified – that is, the time it takes the 911 operator and fire dispatcher to deal with a call.

Obviously, the intervals that precede the “response time” interval also matter. And separate standards apply to those intervals. For the interval that starts with the call to 911 and ends with the notification of a fire station that it needs to roll its trucks down the road, the standard is 60 seconds. From the time a fire station receives notification, i.e., is dispatched to the fire scene, to the point when the trucks are actually on the way, the standard is also 60 seconds.

In terms of time points and the intervals between them, this is The Chronicle’s summary of what the NFPA timeline looks like:

Timepoint 1: The time when the emergency alarm is received by the public safety operator.
Interval: 1-2 [Dispatch Time (or Call Processing Time)] 60 seconds
Timepoint 2: The time when sufficient information is known to the dispatcher, and the relevant fire station is notified of the emergency.
Interval: 2-3 [Turnout Time] 60 seconds
Timepoint 3: The time at which a fire truck is en route to the emergency incident.
Interval: 3-4 [Response Time] 240 seconds (4 minutes), 480 seconds for full-alarm assignment of vehicles and personnel.
Timepoint 4: The time when a fire truck arrives at the scene.

Determining the actual intervals for a given fire is a matter of performing the clock arithmetic on the correct timepoints. The reporting in the AnnArbor.com article about the AAFD response times was based on timepoints drawn from AAFD official reports. However, instead of using Timepoint 3 (the actual en route time) for the arithmetic, it appears a different timepoint was used.

The fire reports used in the AnnArbor.com article were uploaded by that publication to a2docs.org:

Based on The Chronicle’s review of the AAFD reports used in AnnArbor.com’s arithmetic, it seems that AAFD’s practice is not to record Timepoint 3 as a separate datapoint, but instead to copy the timepoint labeled “dispatch time” into the report field labeled “enroute time.” From a Sept. 16, 2010 report:

Ann Arbor Fire Department report for Sept. 16, 2010 fire reporting, illustrating the identical timepoint recordings for "notify time" and "enroute time."

If the timepoint labeled “enroute time” is used for the clock arithmetic, ignoring the fact that it’s identical to the “notify time” (an equivalence that seems impossible), the result of the clock arithmetic for “response time” is 4 minutes 9 seconds [05:59:44 – 05:55:35 = 00:04:09], or 9 seconds longer than the NFPA standards that should be met for 90% of fires.

In multiple places elsewhere in the same Sept. 16, 2010 report, a “dispatch time” is recorded as 05:55 – it’s only precise to the minute. And an “alarm time” is recorded as 05:55:35 – which is also identical to the “notify time” and the “enroute times.”

The sum of the NFPA standards for the interval between the dispatch timepoint (Timepoint 2) to the on-scene arrival time (Timepoint 4) is 5 minutes. Based on that interval, the Sept. 16, 2010 “response time” + “turnout time” would be classified as meeting the NFPA standard.

One of the reports used in the AnnArbor.com article does include Timepoint 3 as a separate datapoint – in the form of a screen grab from a dispatcher’s screen. For the April 23, 2010 fire, a separate timepoint – between “dispatch” and “on-scene” – is recorded as “respond.” That’s the timepoint when the firefighters alert dispatchers that they are on the way.

Excerpt from a dispatcher screen grab included in the Ann Arbor fire department report for April 23, 2010. The "respond time" corresponds to the "enroute time," or Timepoint 3, when the firefighters let the dispatcher know they're on the way to the scene.

Using the “respond” timepoint for the clock arithmetic on the April 23, 2010 fire yields a 2 minute 37 second “response time” for the first-arriving vehicle and a 7 minute 6 second response for the fifth vehicle on the scene (including the battalion chief), which is Ann Arbor’s “full alarm assignment.” Both of those “response times” meet the NFPA standard.

In an email to The Chronicle, assistant fire chief Chuck Hubbard noted that sometimes firefighters tell the dispatcher over the radio at the station that they’re responding to a call, then climb aboard the trucks and head to the fire scene, rather than radioing from the truck. That introduces some uncertainty in the response time data.

Assistant fire chief Chuck Hubbard attended the council's May 16 meeting.

While the “response time” standard addresses travel time to a fire scene, and relates to the number of stations maintained in the city and their geographic distribution, the other time intervals relate to call-center efficiency and the ability of firefighters to assemble their gear and start rolling down the road. It’s not clear what accounts for the three-minute interval between “dispatch” and “respond” for the April 23, 2010 fire.

It does seem clear that, without an understanding of actual AAFD operating procedures and how they relate to the data included in official AAFD reports, it’s difficult to draw definitive conclusions from those reports about the actual time intervals that are relevant for evaluating Ann Arbor fire department performance against NFPA standards.

The uncertainty of the data in the reports is supported by a notation in a report made five days after an April 13, 2010 fire [emphasis added]:

04/18/2010 09:51:55 ETAYLOR All individual personnel names were added to each apparatus for complete accountability of who was at the scene. The injury report was updated with the proper age of the firefighter who was injured at the scene. Also wanted to note that some of the times were estimated because of inaccurate times reported by central dispatch.

FY 2012 Budget: AnnArbor.com Community Comparison Reporting

At the council meeting, chief Jones went on to say that a AnnArbor.com article had failed to include in its presentation of data about other Big 10 university communities that some of those fire department have their own ambulances. That requires additional staffing, he said.

Each ambulance would require an additional seven staff, he said. Taking East Lansing as an example [home of Michigan State University], Jones said that if the ambulance personnel were subtracted, it would work out to approximately the same relative staffing level as Ann Arbor.

FY 2012 Budget: Council/Staff Response – Fire Protection

Speaking about the fire protection study that the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) is conducting for the city, chief Jones characterized that organization as the neutral third party that would bring in experts from the fire service profession to do the study. [The contract with ICMA, for not more than $54,000, was authorized at the city council's Feb. 7, 2011 meeting.]

Toward the beginning of the council meeting, mayor John Hieftje had asked interim city administrator Tom Crawford about the status of the fire protection study that the city has commissioned. Crawford said it’s expected to be delivered in July. [In connection with the appointment of the interim administrator from an internal pool of candidates, the fire protection study was one of the major projects identified as important for the appointee to carry forward.]

Chief Jones noted that he’d been working with the two assistant fire chiefs, and he’d be bringing a recommendation to fill the open fire chief position by promoting from within. [Jones is head of public safety services for the city and is serving as interim fire chief in the wake of Dominick Lanza's resignation this spring, after only about a year on the job.]

Ann Arbor is an intelligent community, Jones said, and we need to have the facts in front of us. The ICMA would provide those facts. ICMA would give clear advice so that Ann Arbor is prepared to go in the right direction, he said.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) wanted to know who would be doing the fire protection study – city managers? Who are the actual people who have the expertise to evaluate the fire department, she asked. Jones told her it would be experts from the relevant field of city government. For Ann Arbor’s study, it would be Don James, a firefighter from Florida, who would lead the study. He’d be assisted by a data analyst and a third person who is an ex-fire chief, Jones said.

Higgins asked who would write the report. She wanted to know if it would be filtered. Jones told Higgins, “No, ma’am.” He said a personal friend of his – the fire chief in Troy – had tried to influence that report, and they’d “slapped him” a few times. ICMA will not “water down” their results, Jones assured Higgins.

During his communications time, Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) said he wanted to clear up some misinformation. He said there’s a perception that the city has refused to meet with firefighters to negotiate a new contract. He said that’s clearly not accurate. The city has met at least 16 times with the firefighters’ negotiating team, most recently a week or so ago. A state mediator has participated in meetings on three occasions. Another another meeting was scheduled later this week. The firefighters had filed an Act 312 petition requesting arbitration in March. Among the issues in dispute are wages, pension, rank differential, and staffing levels. All of those have the potential to affect the budget, depending on how the arbitrator rules, Rapundalo said.

Despite the uncertainty of the situation, the city continues to meet and hope that “cooler heads will prevail,” Rapundalo said. He hoped that the two sides can come to an understanding to mitigate some of the cuts.

FY 2012 Budget: Council Deliberations

The decision to recess the meeting and continue it a week later is driven by a city charter requirement that the council adopt its budget no later than the second meeting in May, which began May 16. When the meeting resumes on May 23, it will be considered to be the same meeting.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said she’d looked it up in Robert’s Rules of Order and what should happen is to “adjourn to date and time specific” After clarifying with city attorney Stephen Postema that either the word “recess” or “adjourn” would work, Hieftje noted that the date and time would be 7 p.m. on May 23.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to recess the meeting until Monday, May 23 at 7 p.m.

Human Services Funding

Before the council was a resolution to allocate $1,159,029 in funding to nonprofits in the city that provide human services.

The $1,159,029 amount to be allocated reflects a 9% reduction from FY 2011 human services funding levels. The council had postponed consideration of the human services allocation at its May 2, 2011 meeting in order to explore ways of “finding another dime.”

The city’s support for human services is allocated in coordination with other entities: the United Way of Washtenaw County ($1,677,000), Washtenaw County ($1,015,000) and the Washtenaw Urban County ($363,154).

On Monday, councilmembers were inclined to delay action on all budget-related issues, given their plan to delay action on the FY 2012 budget, which was achieved through a recess of the meeting until Monday, May 23. When the meeting continues at that time, the resolution on human services funding can be taken off the table for deliberation and a vote.

It’s possible that when the budget resolution is considered on May 23, an amendment will be proposed to draw $85,600 from the city’s general fund reserve to increase the human services allocation. That budget amendment is expected to be proposed by Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Marcia Higgins (Ward 4).

Outcome: The council voted to lay on the table the resolution on human services funding. It can be taken up off the table when the meeting resumes on Monday, May 23.

Water System Study

Before the council was a $208,984 contract with AECOM for a study of the city’s water distribution system. The money for the study, which dates from a 2007 request for proposals (RFP), was allocated in the fiscal year 2011 budget of the city’s water fund. The level of service (LOS) study to be done by AECOM will recommend a sustainable level of service for the city’s water distribution system, and determine how much investment it would take to achieve that level. The study would also help the city decide, for example, which water mains should be replaced first.

Water System Study: Council Deliberations

Cresson Slotten, unit manager in the systems planning department, fielded questions from the council on the study. He described it as the second part of a two-part study. The first part had addressed the capacity and technical function of the water distribution system. The second phase looks at the level of services and will involve a citizens group, addressing issues like taste and odor, and will provide cost estimates to deliver the desired level of service.

Mayor John Hieftje pointed out that the money for the study derives from fees paid by water consumers.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) asked Slotten if the four water main breaks in his neighborhood in the last year would be included in the scope of the study. Slotten allowed that this kind of issue is part of the study. Other factors include taste – as pipes begin to age, taste might be affected – color and odor.

Kunselman then noted that the city has a very qualified staff. They know where breaks are, so why can’t the city do this internally? Why do they need to hire it out? Slotten said the city has maintained the system well, but hasn’t gone out to citizens and asked them for their views.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said if she understood the proposal correctly, what the city is seeking is a consultant to communicate better with people who live in Ann Arbor, to ask the right questions and give the staff the information they have to share. Briere said it seems not to be a one-time thing – it seems to be a recurring theme about why the city hires consultants. Is it that the city doesn’t have the capacity to do the work, she asked, or doesn’t have the capacity to communicate?

One thing a consultant brings, Slotten said, is the ability to compare standards to other communities across the U.S. and Canada. The consultant has evaluated assets in communities across the country, and brings that experience and context. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) said the question has come up from residents about the city possibly privatizing its water distribution system. Smith provided the historical note that Ann Arbor had actually purchased its system originally from a private company in 1908.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) asked Slotten to speak to the value of the consultant as it relates to the city’s capital planning. Slotten said that one of the reasons this particular firm was selected is that they use a capital asset prioritization simulator (CAPS) that takes advantage of information that the city is already tracking, like where breaks are occurring.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) said she could appreciate that the city wants to have the study done. However, she had a problem taking on a $200,000 study. She said she was not sure she could support it. She was particularly concerned about the $10,550 contingency. She felt like the city did not do a good job making sure that unused contingencies are returned to fund balances.

CFO Tom Crawford noted that contingencies are used only if needed. Contingencies are reviewed quarterly, he said, and when the project is closed, contingencies go back.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) said he was not for the amendment, saying that if there are concerns about accounting and how contingencies are closed out, then that issue should be addressed directly. Hieftje said he would not support the amendment either, saying the contingency could cover critical work that needs to be done.

Outcome on contingency amendment: Amending out the contingency was approved on a 6-5 vote with support from: Smith, Briere, Rapundalo, Higgins, Kunselman and Anglin.

Hieftje then asked if Higgins perhaps would like to delay a final vote until other budget issues were also addressed. So she moved that the issue be laid on the table.

Outcome: The council voted to lay the resolution on the table. They’ll be able to take it up off the table when the meeting resumes on May 23.

Neighborhood Stabilization Program Funds: Near North Demolition

Before the council was a resolution to add to its neighborhood stabilization program (NSP) budget, and a corresponding expenditure to pay for the demolition of three houses as site preparation for the Near North affordable housing project on North Main.

The addition to the NSP budget came from a reimbursement. The owner of a house paid back NSP money to the city, previously expended to demolish the owner’s property. That reimbursement amounted to $24,135. NSP funds come originally from federal grants allocated through the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA).

In addition, city staff identified an NSP homeowner acquisition and rehabilitation project that was completed under budget by $11,750. Combined, the additional revenue to the NSP budget and the savings on the rehabilitation project amount to $35,885. Of that amount, $33,292 will be used to pay for the demolition of 718, 722, and 724 N. Main St., with the remaining $2,593 going to administration costs in the office of community development, which oversees the NSP. The money will be allocated to the nonprofit Avalon Housing, which is developing the Near North project with Three Oaks.

The city council originally approved rezoning for the project – a four-story, 39-unit mixed use residential building on a 1.19-acre site – on Sept. 21, 2009.

NSP Near North Demolitions: Council Deliberations

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked Mary Jo Callan, head of the city/county office of community development, to explain how the funding worked. Neighborhood stabilization program (NSP) funds received in 2009 were used initially to demolish a residential property. A lien was placed on it for $24,135. When the property was sold, the sale proceeds were used to pay back the city. When the NSP program receives income, the city tries to apply the money to an existing, shovel-ready project, Callan said.

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

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

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

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said she was intrigued that it’s a permanent loan that gets paid back only if a property is sold. She said it’s a disincentive to sell, and a reason to give this kind of grant. She asked if there are other similar situations in the offing. Callan said this is the city’s model for investing in affordable housing. She said the need to repay on sale of the property is absolutely a disincentive to sell, but that Avalon Housing doesn’t need the disincentive in the case of the Near North project, because affordable housing is their mission.

Briere wondered if, generally speaking, NSP funds were not for demolition. Callan explained that demolition is, in fact, an allowable activity for NSP funds – it’s about stabilizing neighborhoods. Although the city has not used NSP funds often for that, she said she’d talked with Margie Teall (Ward 4) about setting aside some of the NSP funds for demolition.

Outcome: The council voted to approve the NSP allocations so that the houses on North Main could be demolished in preparation for the Near North housing project.

Large Vehicle Purchases

Before the council were authorizations for the purchase of two large vehicles – an Elgin street sweeper ($273,300) and a combination sewer truck ($398,806).

The staff memo accompanying the request for the sweeper states: “The sweeper being replaced has been in service ten years and has 5,960 hours of use. Over the last two years, this unit has been taken to Fleet Service for maintenance and repairs 87 times of which 33% have been for breakdowns. The total cost of all repairs over the same time frame have exceeded $113,250.”

About the combination sewer truck: “This truck will replace a 2004 unit with 8060 hours of use. Over the last two years, this unit has been taken to Fleet Service for maintenance and repairs 53 times of which 58% have been for breakdowns. These breakdowns have taken the unit out of service from as little as four hours to as long as two weeks.”

The council had postponed the purchases from its May 2, 2011 meeting with a request for additional information about the vehicles.

Large Vehicle Purchases: Council Deliberations

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) wanted to know if the trucks had any resale value. Craig Hupy, head of systems planning for the city, said they did. The city is known for keeping its trucks in pretty good shape, he said. But the city kept the trucks in service for a longer time than a dealership would be willing to offer a guaranteed buy-back, so the re-sale value depends on the market, Hupy said.

Kunselman asked if the same sewer truck purchase proposal had been brought before the council last year. No, said Hupy. It was in a previous year’s budget. But Hupy described how the city had a desire to do cooperative bidding with other cities and they’d gone together with three other cities to bid for the truck. Agreeing with the other cities on the specifications for the trucks was like “herding cats,” Hupy said, but in the end the city had gotten about a 10% better deal than if it had gone out to bid by itself.

Mayor John Hieftje drew out the fact that the vehicles to be replaced had frequently been out of service, and in the case of the combination sewer truck could delay cleaning out of sewers, which could result in sewers backing up.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) picked up on the idea that the city needs the truck – it’s needed to do sewer clear-outs, which can result in sewer backups for residents if they’re not done. Hearing that, said Higgins, boggled her mind. She said she understood comments by Hupy and Hieftje to mean that if the city doesn’t do sewer clear-outs, it can cause sewer backups in the basement. Hupy allowed that the failure to do sewer clear-outs “can result in” sewer backups – not “cause.” Hupy said it was his understanding that if the city has not performed adequate sewer maintenance and a resident experiences sewer backups, then it can result in a payable claim.

Higgins also wanted to know how the vehicles were being paid for. If a vehicle is not originally paid for out of the fleet fund, does the revenue from resale go back to the fund it was paid out of? Hupy said he’d defer to the financial folks to answer the question – Sue McCormick, public services area administrator. The truck was originally paid out of sewer funds, said McCormick. So money from resale goes back to the sewer fund.

As the city moves ahead, McCormick said, it purchases new vehicles from the fleet fund. So the next time a truck like this is replaced, it’ll be bought out of the fleet fund with money contributed by the sanitary sewer fund. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) wanted McCormick to explain why the city was moving to a strategy of paying for vehicles out of the fleet fund.

McCormick described the history at the city related to pressures on general fund fleet purchases. That had resulted in a very slow vehicle replacement schedule, with older vehicles. And the city wound up with very low reliability on daily production work. So the decision was made years ago to stop purchasing vehicles from the fleet fund and to pay for vehicles through cash flow. The city has now done away with that practice, McCormick said, and is returning to a strategy of paying for new vehicles out of the fleet fund. The reason, she said, is that if you think about paying annual depreciation on a vehicle, as opposed to “cash flowing it,” the cash-flow approach impacts utility rates in the year when the expense is incurred, instead of spreading it over the life of the vehicle. The fleet fund approach is thus more favorable to ratepayers, she said.

Kunselman wrapped up his comments by saying he would be supporting the purchase. He noted there have been four water main breaks within two blocks of his house, and when the city comes with the trucks, they’re right there and they pull everything out of the hole.

Outcome: The council approved both truck purchases on separate votes.

“Parks Fairness” Resolution

Before the council was a proposed revision to the 2006 administrative policy that governs the use of the city’s parks capital improvements and maintenance millage, including how the city’s general fund should support Ann Arbor’s parks.

A key point to the revision includes an additional provision that “for the purpose of this resolution all funds other than the Millage which are used to support Parks and Recreation system activities shall be considered the same as City’s General Fund support.” The proposed budget for fiscal year 2012 calls for using money from the METRO Act fund and the city’s stormwater fund to pay for certain parks operations, which the city would like to count as general fund support.

The new provision in the policy helps the city’s planned budget for FY 2012 conform with another administrative policy requirement – that the amount of general fund parks support not decrease any more than other parts of the general fund.

A further amendment that was before the council on May 16 would have changed the standard of general fund support from one that is based on hard dollars to one that is based on service levels, with FY 2011 as a baseline: “[T]he General Fund budget supporting the Parks and Recreation system for that year may be reduced by a higher percentage than the average percentage reduction of the total City General Fund budget as long as the FY11 level of service within Parks and Recreation system is not materially reduced.”

That second amendment would have helped the city conform with the policy this year, because the proposed FY 2012 budget called for spending $90,000 less on parks than would otherwise be required if the administrative policy were left unamended. The city contends that the $90,000 reduction in expenditures is due to increased efficiency, and would not affect service standards. [Chronicle coverage: "Council to Get Reminder of Parks Promise"]

The city council also revised the 2006 administrative policy during the FY 2010 budget cycle, so that millage funding for the natural area preservation program would not automatically increase by 3% every year.

Parks Fairness Resolution: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) began by introducing the background for the resolution: The 2006 parks maintenance and capital improvements millage was accompanied by a city council resolution outlining how the millage money should be spent. Generally speaking, he said, the resolution was meant to have any reductions/increases in parks funding be on a parallel track with general fund reductions/increases.

Taylor indicated that he’d be suggesting a friendly amendment to a resolution revising the 2006 policy. In the midst of his remarks, which Taylor self-described as a “long and wandering introduction,” Mayor John Hieftje wanted to get the issue of the amendment settled. But Taylor told the mayor that he’d not gotten to the actual amendment yet.

The amendment that Taylor wanted to make to his own resolution was this: Strike the proposed addition of a clause that would establish service levels as the standard that parks spending would be measured against, instead of a hard dollar figure comparison to the general fund. The reason he wanted to strike the clause was that he felt it might be possible to find a way to make up the additional $90,000 for parks in the FY 2012 budget, which the current administrative policy would require, if it were not amended.

Confusion ensued among councilmembers as they struggled to understand what Taylor intended. In sum, the following language from his amendment was stricken, which left that part of the administrative policy intact.

… [T]he General Fund budget supporting the Parks and Recreation system for that year may be reduced by a higher percentage than the average percentage reduction of the total City General Fund budget as long as the FY11 level of service within Parks and Recreation system is not materially reduced.

Surviving amendment was the part of Taylor’s resolution that allowed non-millage funds outside the general fund to count for purposes of calculating the amount of general fund support for the parks.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to revise the parks millage administrative policy to allow non-millage funds external to the general fund to count as general fund money for purposes of the policy.

Taxicab Fares

Before the council was an increase in the allowable fare for cabs operating in the city. The rate increase affects only the mileage component of fares, which were last approved on May 19, 2008.

The mileage increase from $2.25/mile to $2.50/mile had been requested by several taxicab companies in light of rising fuel prices, which are currently just over $4/gallon. The city’s taxicab board has indicated that with this increase, it does not anticipate considering another rate change until the gas prices are over $5/gallon for at least two consecutive months. The board had voted to recommend the change at its April 28, 2011 meeting.

Members of the taxicab board include the city’s CFO Tom Crawford, and William Clock, an officer with the Ann Arbor police department, as non-voting members. [The city's ordinance actually requires that the city's CFO and the chief of police serve as non-voting members.] The five voting members are Stephen Kunselman (representative to the board from the city council) as well as Barbara Krick, C. Robert Snyder, Tom Oldakowski and Timothy Hull.

[Hull has filed nominating petitions to contest the city council Democratic primary in Ward 2 against incumbent Stephen Rapundalo. Kunselman will be running for re-election in the Ward 3 Democratic primary.]

Crawford, who is also interim city administrator, had announced the public hearing on the taxicab fare increase at the city council’s May 2, 2011 meeting.

Taxicab Fares: Public Hearing

Michael Benson introduced himself as a Ward 2 resident and president of the University of Michigan graduate student body. He told the council he wanted to speak about the process for the increase. He noted fuel costs are in fact going up and he understands the need for the increase. But he noted that in the past, a temporary surcharge has been used to address increased fuel prices – why not this time? He asked that the increase be amended with some kind of sunset clause that would require the increase to be reviewed after a certain period, and that a recommendation be brought back to the council.

Thomas Partridge called on the council to postpone the increase. Any increase in rates harms the most vulnerable residents first, he said. Executives in limousines pulling up to Google are not concerned about taxicab rates, he said. He called on the council to table the measure and come up with a better proposal.

Taxicab Fares: Council Deliberations

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) inquired whether a formula been considered that would tie taxicab rates to some objective third-party measure of fuel prices, so that requests for fare increases would come before the council less frequently. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who sponsored the resolution as the city council’s appointee to the taxicab board, responded to Hohnke by saying that other costs have also increased – it’s not just the gas increase that’s driving this. He told Hohnke that no formula tied to fuel prices has been discussed.

In response to Benson’s suggestion made during public commentary to sunset the increase, Kunselman said he was not going to make that recommendation. Taxicab companies are struggling for other reasons. Kunselman amended one of the “whereas” clauses to make it clear that gas prices have now exceeded $4/gallon – they didn’t jump by $4/gallon.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the fare increase.

Downtown Design Guidelines

Before the council was initial approval to an amendment of its land use control ordinance that will establish design guidelines for new projects in downtown Ann Arbor, and set up a seven-member design review board (DRB) to provide developers with feedback on their projects’ conformance to the design guidelines.

All city of Ann Arbor ordinances require approval at an initial first reading before the council, a public hearing, and a final approval.

The project review by the DRB will come before a meeting with nearby residents – which is already required as part of the citizen participation ordinance. While the DRB process is required, conformance with the recommendations of that body is voluntary.

The city council had previously approved the design guideline review program at its Feb. 7, 2011 meeting. The city planning commission unanimously recommended the change to the city’s ordinance at its April 5, 2011 meeting. [Previous Chronicle coverage, which includes a detailed timeline of the design guidelines work, dating back to a work group formed in 2006: "Ann Arbor Hotel First to Get Design Review?"]

Council deliberations were brief. Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) noted that the ordinance now before the council is coming back after being presented at the February meeting. The city’s planning commission had been asked to expedite it, she said, and they had done that. That means that new construction will fall under the ordinance. She urged her colleagues to pass it, saying, “It’s exactly what we wanted.”

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the design guidelines, which will need a final approval before the ordinance is enacted.

Communications and Comment

Every city council agenda contains multiple slots for city councilmembers and the city administrator to give updates or make announcements about important issues that are coming before the city council. And every meeting typically includes public commentary on subjects not necessarily on the agenda.

Comm/Comm: Transformers in Neighborhoods

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) informed his council colleagues that in response to an issue raised in Arbor Oaks subdivision by a city engineer – it concerned electrical transformers in the easements of backyards – he and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) had contacted Paul Ganz, DTE’s regional manager, and DTE had sent crews out to investigate. Everything is safe, he reported, and there is no danger of electrocution. DTE is going to address some of the visual issues that had caused concern.

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

Council meeting to be continued: May 23, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at 301 E. Huron. [confirm date]

County Appoints Coordinated Funding Reps

Chronicle Staff — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 03:06:26 +0000

At its Feb. 16, 2011 meeting, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners appointed three representatives to a review committee that will help award human services funding to local nonprofits through a coordinated funding approach. The appointees are: Hazelette Robinson, community relations director for the Washtenaw Community Health Organization; Susan Sweet Scott of the county’s Employment Training & Community Services (ETCS); and Michael Smith of the county’s veteran affairs office.

The funding process coordinates the efforts of five major funders: the city of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, the Urban County, Washtenaw United Way and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. It is being managed by the joint county/city of Ann Arbor office of community development, led by Mary Jo Callan, who gave a presentation to county commissioners at their meeting.

This brief was filed from the county board meeting at the Washtenaw County administration building. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

County Board Connects, Hard Choices Loom

Mary Morgan — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:50:42 +0000

Washtenaw County board of commissioners retreat (Jan. 29, 2011): A budget retreat for county commissioners last Saturday – also attended by other elected county officials and staff – laid some groundwork for tackling Washtenaw County’s two-year, $20.9 million projected deficit.

At their Jan. 29 retreat, Washtenaw County commissioners, staff and other elected officials gathered to talk about the county's budget priorities. The retreat was led by commissioner Conan Smith, the board's chair, who's sitting in the center of the horseshoe table. Other participants are sitting around the room's perimeter, off camera. (Photos by the writer.)

While no decisions were made, the group took steps toward reaching consensus on budget priorities. They identified among their main concerns: public safety, service delivery and human services. At the end of the five-hour session, several commissioners cited the main benefit of the day as building closer relationships with each other, which they hope will help the board and other elected officials – including the sheriff, prosecuting attorney and treasurer – work together more effectively as they make difficult decisions about programs and services to cut.

The retreat was led by board chair Conan Smith, who structured the day with time for sharing individual priorities and concerns, combined with small group work to discuss specific outcomes the commissioners hope will result from those priorities. For example, if public safety is a priority, a possible outcome might be the goal of responding to a 911 call in 20 minutes or less. The county could then budget its resources to achieve that outcome.

Though these kinds of examples emerged during the retreat, the work of setting priorities will continue. Smith said the goal is to develop a formal board resolution outlining their priorities, to guide the budget-setting process. The board will hold its next retreat on Wednesday, Feb. 9 from 6-9 p.m., immediately following its 5:30 p.m. administrative briefing. Both meetings are public, and will be held at the county administration building, 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor.

The county’s fiscal year mirrors the calendar year, and budgets are developed on two-year cycles. The current budget runs through the end of 2011. While there will likely be some additional cuts this year, most discussions are focused on the 2012-2013 budget, which commissioners will be asked to approve by the end of this year. [For additional background, see Chronicle coverage: "'State of County' Tackles $20M Deficit"]

This report summarizes Saturday’s discussions of personal priorities, aspirations for Washtenaw County, budget priorities, and reflections on the process. For breakout sessions, we covered the group focused on public safety. By day’s end there were threads of optimism – Yousef Rabhi, one of four new commissioners, said he felt inspired that they were starting to work not just as a team, but “almost as a family.” But notes of caution were sounded as well, as veteran commissioner Wes Prater told the group that “the most difficult part is yet to come.”

Setting the Stage: Personal Priorities

After a discussion about what participants hoped to get out of the retreat, Conan Smith asked each person to tell the group why they got involved in county government. Here’s a summary of their remarks. [Unless otherwise indicated, the speakers are county commissioners.]

Kristin Judge (D-District 7): Issues of public safety, and her activism against Walmart – because of the safety issues the store in Pittsfield Township posed – caused her to run for office. Judge said she also got involved in county government to help create the kind of community where she wanted to raise her family, and to show her children that it’s important to be part of the process.

Catherine McClary (county treasurer): McClary said she was motivated to provide services to county residents in a non-bureaucratic way – so that people can access the county’s services without necessarily knowing the right number to call.

Alicia Ping (R-District 3): She noted that her sister Jessica Ping had been involved in county government, and that they talked about county issues a lot. [Jessica Ping, who previously held the District 3 seat, did not run for re-election in 2010. Prior to her election to the county board, Alicia Ping served on the Saline city council.] Services provided by the county are less “in your face,” Ping said, so it’s important to communicate to residents and let them know what they’re getting for their tax dollars.

Conan Smith (D-District 10): For residents of Ann Arbor, county government is largely invisible, Smith said. Six years ago, when he first came into office, he said he couldn’t have articulated all of its services – but he did know that the county did things that were visionary, and that was exciting. Smith cited the blueprint to end homelessness as an example. It was a critical issue then, and now it’s beyond critical – “but we have vision to deal with that,” he said. Similarly, the county has taken the lead in literacy and environmental issues. He didn’t see other governments approaching problem-solving in the same way, and he wanted to be part of that. It was inspirational, Smith said, and “I hope we keep doing that kind of stuff.”

Barbara Bergman (D-District 8): When Bergman worked as a social worker in the 1970s, she said she discovered that if you knew your county commissioner and the federal bureaucrat for your region, “you could get things for kids.” The county had the staff to work through the bureaucracy and get funds for child protection and youth services. That’s an important service, she said.

Yousef Rabhi (D-District 11): Rabhi recalled that when he was knocking on doors during his campaign for county commissioner last year, no one knew what the county did. “That’s a concern for me,” he said, because people need to know how their tax dollars are spent. His hope is to engage the residents in what the county does. The county cares about people – his top priority is providing people-oriented services, especially for people who are struggling. There’s a connection between services that the county provides, and economic growth, he noted. The environment and transportation issues are important, too, and the county plays a role in those as well. Within the county, there are 28 municipalities, Rabhi said. People should be willing to work together for better efficiencies in these areas – that’s the direction they should be going.

Leah Gunn (D-District 9): Gunn said she was first introduced to county government in the “ancient year” of 1972. Over the years she’s seen it become more visionary and proactive. She said she was proud that she worked on the homelessness task force, the blueprint to end homelessness, and the Delonis Center – the county’s homeless shelter. Less well-known is the fact that in 1988, voters in the county approved a millage to build SafeHouse, a shelter for victims of domestic violence. Voters are generous, she said – they created the county’s park system, and its natural area preservation program. But the biggest crisis the county has now is in providing services, Gunn said: “The safety net is full of holes, and we need to do something about that.”

Dan Smith (R-District 2): His concern is the responsible management of “precious dollars” that taxpayers give the county. They need to find a way not to kick the can down the road. It’s their job to provide basic services, the core infrastructure of a county treasurer, clerk, water resources commissioner, and public safety services like the sheriff, prosecutor, and courts. That needs to be the No. 1 priority, Smith said.

Wes Prater (D-District 4): Prater’s primary interest is public safety. To have a decent quality of life, it’s mandatory to have good public safety, he said. The county needs to do a better job of performance management and tracking results – though he added that the sheriff’s office is doing a much better job at that than he can ever remember. The courts are very important, too – most commissioners support the courts, he said, and expect them to do a good job. That’s true for the prosecuting attorney too, he said.

Prater talked about a series of public planning forums that had been organized a few years ago by Tony VanDerworp, director of the county’s energy and economic development department. Feedback from the public was that transportation overall was the No. 1 priority – and the biggest element of that was roads. It’s still a major issue, Prater said, and will become more of an issue as revenues from the state continue to fall. Without state funding, it falls to local government to keep roads from deteriorating further. He pointed out that several municipalities have millages for road repair, which gives them more control. That’s going to become a major issue in this county, he said. He told the group they should keep in mind that unlike Washtenaw County, a number of counties have road commissions that are elected [as opposed to appointed].

Bill Reynolds (deputy county administrator): Reynolds said he still believes in the nobility of public service. County government is about people, he said. As a child of the system, Reynolds said, he fully recognizes the value of having services to take care of people. Every person they lose could be the person who changes the future.

Bob Tetens (director, county parks & recreation): Tetens said he first joined the county in 1978, working in the planning department. He worked on an inventory of county services, and helped develop units of measurement for county services. Over six months of doing the inventory, he said he was amazed on a daily basis with all the things that the county was involved in. It’s rewarding to see the county’s impact on the community. He left county government for several years, but said he returned because he wanted to have an impact. His main concern now is for stability – how do they implement a managed transition?

County commissioners Rolland Sizemore Jr. and Kristin Judge at the Jan. 29 retreat.

Rolland Sizemore Jr. (D-District 5): Sizemore said he doesn’t remember a time when his family wasn’t in politics. Some people in the room have a more formal education, he noted, but he’s got street smarts from the streets of Ypsilanti. He said he likes to consider himself a fixer, and he likes to deal with “little guys and little programs.” He helped set up a place for kids to go after school, and vandalism dropped in that apartment complex. Some people just need a little bit of hope, he said, and that’s what he tries to give them.

Rob Turner (R-District 1): Turner’s main focus is on the local level – he served on the Chelsea school board for nine years, and said he loves serving the public. Former county commissioner Mark Ouimet approached him about running, Turner said, by saying it was an opportunity to serve more people. [Ouimet was elected to the state House in November, representing District 52.] On the school board, they learned how to streamline services with ever-shrinking resources, Turner said. The county government isn’t here to take your money, he said. It’s here to provide services, to help people get back on their feet and be productive citizens, so that they in turn can help others.

Dan Dwyer (Washtenaw County Trial Court administrator and mayor of Plymouth): Dwyer talked about his career – he had worked in probation for the state Dept. of Corrections in Wayne County. That system was geared toward volume, he said – getting people through the system as quickly as possible. In the 10 years he worked there, he said he didn’t get to know the judges or prosecutors. Then he came to Washtenaw County to run probation and got to know judges and others in the system. They were less focused on volume, and more on the quality of service. Next he ran the correctional facility in Ypsilanti, and he was at that job when he got a call from Judge Timothy Connors, for the job of trial court administrator. Dwyer said he’d finally found a place where justice is done the right way.

Brian Mackie (county prosecuting attorney): Mackie started by quipping that his personal priority is “about restoring balance in the universe.” He grew up poor in a rich community, and he hated the government. Every once in a while they’d see a sheriff’s deputy or the cops, usually coming to take a neighbor away. So Mackie said he became what he thought would be a lifelong defense attorney. He worked at the free legal aid office in Wayne County, and described two clients in particular who pushed him toward being a prosecutor.

One was a woman who killed one of her children, and abused her other child. He won her case. Another client murdered someone in a hotel, but pled the charge down to attempted manslaughter – he won that case, too. Mackie said he felt that a lot of people dropped the ball. Balance, he decided, would be restored by getting into prosecution. Mackie reminded the group that there was another motivation they all had: “There’s ego involved – we think we can do a better job.” If they’re going to have a decent community, it needs to be a safe community. He noted that most victims are poor, or just trying to make a living – like the small business owner that gets stuck with bad checks. They have a huge obligation to do the best job they possibly can in serving the county’s 346,00 people, he said.

Jerry Clayton (sheriff): Clayton said he thinks government can work better. He worked in the sheriff’s office for more than 20 years, but said that one of the best things that happened was when he left and saw how the office operated from the outside, and the impact it has on people. He said that part of his reluctance to run for sheriff stemmed from his family. He was born in Alabama, and his grandfather marched with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. When Clayton came to work at the sheriff’s office, his relationship with his grandfather changed. Law enforcement had been the enemy – his grandfather had seen police dogs and fire hoses used against the civil rights protesters.

Clayton said he grew up poor. Similar to Mackie’s experience, from Clayton’s perspective, law enforcement wasn’t engaged with the community, it was punitive. Clayton said his response is that sometimes you have to make change from the inside. It’s easy to sit on the outside and complain – it’s much harder to get involved. He said he doesn’t think public service is noble. “I just think it’s what you’re supposed to do.” If you don’t like what’s going on, be a part of changing it, he said, “or shut up.”

Aspirations for Washtenaw County

Conan Smith asked participants to talk about their aspirations for the county, broadly as well as for the current budget cycle.

Yousef Rabhi: Rabhi said he’d been on a tour of the county jail the previous day, and someone there had pointed out that it’s good to see what the budget numbers actually mean. Every number and percentage they see in the budget connects with something on the ground – “that’s something we can’t forget,” he said. It’s not just numbers, but people. It’s also important to market the county to other units of government – what services can the county provide to them? Rabhi said he as looking at millage rates here compared to other counties, and Washtenaw County’s isn’t that high. He said he’s not proposing anything, but in tough times, millages are something to look at, too. To a certain extent he agrees with people who say the county needs to focus on certain programs and services, but at the same time, he hopes they can continue to provide a breadth of services.

Leah Gunn: Long-term fiscal responsibility is important, and maintaining services. It’s clear they can’t maintain all services, she said, so they need to decide which services are a priority.

Dan Smith: It’s important to be decisive. While they shouldn’t make swift decisions, if there’s something that can be done in March, don’t wait until December to do it, he said. Uncertainty is often worse for people – don’t belabor things. It’s also important to make structural changes in the most humane way possible. That means telling people as early as possible what will happen later in the year, so that they can plan. They shouldn’t wait until the end of the year to make decisions, he said.

Wes Prater: This will be a very difficult process, Prater cautioned. One thing he hopes for is that it be as transparent as possible. He noted that they’ve listened to him talk about complying with the Uniform Budget and Accounting Act. The county always gets a good mark on the audit, but in his opinion, it hasn’t been what it needs to be, in terms of clarity and transparency. They need to get reports on the revenue and fund balances at the beginning and ending of each year. He said he’s still waiting for a printed copy of the 2011 budget.

Bill Reynolds (deputy county administrator): The administration and staff are there to fulfill the objectives of commissioners, he said. But they also have an obligation not to jerk around department heads and employees.

Bob Tetens (director, county parks & recreation): The investments they make as an organization should meet the community’s needs and expectations, though they can’t do everything, he noted. Internally, he hopes for a managed transition as they implement some structural changes. They’ve got to break the cycle of budget deficits.

Rolland Sizemore Jr.: They need to take a look at the county’s buildings and grounds, Sizemore said. Also, programs for kid are important. He said he’ll be jumping up and down screaming about funding for those. His hope is that they can try to combine programs and departments to save positions, rather than cutting.

From left: commissioners Conan Smith, Leah Gunn, Rob Turner and Barbara Bergman during a breakout session at the county board's Jan. 29 retreat.

Rob Turner: As they go through this process, they need to look at costs per service, Turner said. What county programs provide the most services for the least cost? He doesn’t want to cut 20% from all departments – they need to see what’s being done well, with best results and delivered in the most cost-effective way. In the areas where that’s not the case, those programs need to look for ways to restructure. This is a long-term situation – Turner said he recently heard the economist David Sowerby say the economy likely won’t see a turnaround until 2015. But if they prepare now, when money starts coming in again, the county will be able to provide services more effectively. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he said.

Dan Dwyer (Washtenaw Trial Court administrator): Dwyer said they shouldn’t kick the can down the road – government has a habit of doing that, he said. Also, when everything’s a priority, he noted, nothing’s a priority. He said he’s not aware of any service in this county that’s not being done well, but something’s got to be a priority. Also, he hopes there’s an appreciation of both branches of government – the county and the courts. If they can go into budget discussions with mutual respect and appreciation of those roles, he said, they’ll be better for it.

Kristin Judge: Engaging the public and employees is important in these budget talks – Judge said she thinks they missed out on that last time. Forums in the previous budget cycle were more for informing people about decisions, not for getting ideas, she said. And for the past two years, they’ve been dancing around the task of identifying priorities. She hoped this is the start to actually tackling it, noting that they got away with small fixes last time.

Judge agreed that taking a little slice from everyone’s budget isn’t effective. She hoped they wouldn’t use the words “everything’s on table” – if you’re an employee, that just means that everyone’s job is on the line. She also hoped that the process is open and transparent. The board should have this kind of meeting once a quarter, she said. It’s valuable and inspiring to know they have same goals. She also asked that people not dig in their heels and protect their own priority programs. That’s what stymied the board during the last budget cycle – she said she had been doing it, too. If they start by keeping an open mind, they’ll get better results, she said.

Catherine McClary (county treasurer): McClary described how she grew up in Ypsilanti and Augusta Township. Both of her parents were public school teachers – they weren’t paid well, she noted, because teachers weren’t unionized at the time. Her dad moonlighted as a bus driver because those jobs were unionized and he could earn more. Her earliest memories were going door to door to solicit support for a school millage. Turning to the county’s issues, McClary said the new finance director [Kelly Belknap], new county administrator [Verna McDaniel] and deputy administrator [Bill Reynolds] have been great to work with. She gave an example of working through an issue related to bank fees, which have escalated for the county. There are choices to make, and they sat down and talked about their options – because of that, their efforts are better coordinated, she said.

McClary then cautioned commissioners about putting the budget cuts on the backs of the county’s unionized and non-unionized employees. Perhaps they should ask the administrator to look at ways to address poor performance, she said. As the county downsizes and selects programs or services to retain, and as there’s staff attrition, the staff that remains has to be as high-performing as possible. Finally, McClary noted that they hadn’t talked about two elephants in room: (1) state cuts and the reinvention of state government, and what that means; and (2) the denigration of a career in public service. When you adjust for education and experience, public employees do not make more than the private sector, she said. Aside from the question of whether public service is noble or just it’s their job help people, by and large they do it well in Washtenaw County, she said.

Alicia Ping: Saying she agreed with Prater’s comments, Ping added that she does plan to dig her heels in a little bit, when it comes to representing her district. However, she assured her colleagues of her commitment to the board: When they have achieved a consensus on their vision and direction, she’ll stand behind it.

Barbara Bergman: Bergman disagreed with Judge – everything is on the table. They need to do a cost/benefit analysis on county programs, she said. They need to look at the value of what they’re doing, she said, “and sometimes, there isn’t enough benefit.” Bergman said she’s not being glib when she says they can do less with less. But they can’t stress their staff to the point that they’ll implode. Most of the county’s staff is very high performing, she said. But there is a straw that breaks the camel’s back. The county wants their good people to stay.

Jerry Clayton (sheriff): In looking at their budget, they need to think about the state’s budget – the governor has intimated some things that will have impact on the county budget, he noted, like state revenue-sharing. The governor has talked about reducing the Dept. of Corrections – that means pushing people out of the state criminal justice system, Clayton said. But some people can’t be rehabilitated, he noted, and the county will be left having to handle the fallout, adding that there also have been cuts in state police.

Clayton also raised the issue of collaboration, saying that it’s a wonderful thing, and that the county has led the way in many cases. But they shouldn’t be doing it just for the sake of collaboration. They need to ask if they are gaining something by collaborating, if they are delivering services better. He said he’d also encourage commissioners to look outside of the county, if they’re hoping to collaborate – but again, they should be measuring outcomes. This isn’t the last budget conversation they’ll be having, he concluded, so it should set the stage for future budget cycles.

Some of the participants at the Jan. 29 board of commissioners retreat, from left: County treasurer Catherine McClary; county prosecuting attorney Brian Mackie; Tony VanDerworp, director of the county's energy and economic development department; Bob Tetens, director of Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation; and Dan Dwyer, Washtenaw County Trial Court administrator.

Brian Mackie (county prosecuting attorney): Mackie began by saying there isn’t a day that goes by when he’s not glad that Jerry Clayton is sheriff. Clayton’s election ended an “eight-year nightmare,” Mackie said, referring to the tenure of former sheriff Dan Minzey. He also thanked McClary for raising the issue of how public service has been denigrated. He said he works with people who left the private sector to pursue a career in public service, and now they hear people say that they’re the problem. “We need to think a little bigger than that,” he said. Mackie said the false dichotomies of the last budget discussions – setting up human services against law enforcement – left a bad taste. Law enforcement is and always will be one of the first lines of defense for people in crisis, whether it’s your child going wild or your spouse not taking their medication and getting violent. People in crisis don’t call him or a mental health professional, Mackie said. They call 911. Law enforcement helps the mentally ill – it’s not a separate system.

Mackie also urged commissioners to think about the impact of their decisions. He recalled that during the last budget cycle, one commissioner said that due to budget cuts, some people might have to wait a couple of hours to get birth certificate – as though that weren’t a significant thing. That offended him, Mackie said, because for some people, coming to the county clerk’s office is a long trip. They need a birth certificate for some other purpose, he said, and they might be making minimum wage. If it takes them a half day to get what they need, you’re taking money out of their mouths.

Budget Priorities: Community Impacts

Participants were given colored index cards – Conan Smith asked them to think about the 10-20 year impact that current budget reforms might make. What would that look like? They’re setting the stage for future budgets, he said. Think about what you might brag about in 20 years, looking back on the impact of decisions that are made now. Think about what a headline might be in a couple of decades, as the result of decisions made in 2011. How did the community change?

From left: county commissioners Barbara Bergman, Yousef Rabhi, Dan Smith and Wes Prater write down their long-term goals for the county.

These thoughts will help them articulate the outcomes they need from this current budget cycle, Smith said. They need to be able to tell the administration that they want to invest in certain areas, in order to get specific outcomes that will help them achieve long-term community impacts.

After working individually to write down their thoughts, retreat attendees broke up into small groups to try to categorize the ideas on those index cards. They then reconvened as a large group to share the results.

The outcome was a set of six categories: public safety, service delivery, human services/children’s services, fiscal management/responsibility, energy and economic development. Here’s a summary of the long-term community impacts that were grouped into each category. These impacts represent the ideas of individual participants, not a general consensus.

Public Safety:

making the county a safe place to live and work
providing rapid access to mental health services
providing response to emergency calls within 15-20 minutes or less
housing stability
a community where kids don’t use drugs, and parents don’t condone substance abuse
consolidation into only two law enforcement agencies in the county – the sheriff’s office, and the Ann Arbor police department

Service Delivery:

a government that serves people efficiently and collaboratively
a fully integrated partnership of human services and police services
a county that’s a leader in preserving open space, recreation, public transportation, human services, and general quality of life
reduced overlap in government services
a government that’s respected and trusted by all residents
when the public accesses county services, they are directed to the appropriate staff member, regardless of who they originally call or email
a county government that collaborates and consolidates services with cities, townships and nonprofits to enhance services
county investments have created communities that are more economically prosperous, more environmentally sustainable and more socially just
the county’s “systemic” investments focus resources on outcomes across department/agencies

Human Services/Children’s Services:

a safety net for those most in need
all residents are aware of services that will/could impact their lives during good/bad times
homelessness ends
no food scarcity
child abuse is all but gone
early education is promoted and supported so parents have the tools they need to give their children the best possible start to their education
every child in the county has enough to eat, a safe place to live, health care, educational opportunity, and a world-class quality of life

Fiscal Management/Responsibility:

a top bond rating given to the county
a small county budget surplus projected
an increase in structural revenue collection (no “grant chasing”)
never see a headline saying the county loses money in investment or embezzlement
realistic benefit packages
health care benefits not only save money, but also provide wellness and prevention services, resulting in a healthier workforce

Energy:

reduce energy consumption in county buildings by 40%
county government’s energy use is fossil fuel-free

Economic Development:

high employment opportunities
a place that people and businesses want to come to, not leave
local economy grows, thanks to small business owners
tourism becomes a major draw

Breakout Groups: Public Safety

The group then used “dotmocracy” to determine which of the six categories of general services they felt were priorities – that is, each person used colored paper dots to vote for the categories they prioritized. The top four vote-getters – public safety, service delivery, human services/children’s services, and fiscal management – were then chosen as topics for small group breakout discussions.

Each index card indicates a "community impact" goal that at least one person at the county board retreat felt was important. These cards all relate to public safety – the category that received the highest priority after a "dot voting" exercise.

Staff members facilitated these breakout sessions, and four small groups of elected officials rotated through each of the topics for about 15 minutes each. Public safety received the most votes, so The Chronicle observed the breakout sessions for that topic. It was facilitated by finance director Kelly Belknap, who has a personal connection to the issue: Her husband is a sergeant in the Pittsfield Township Dept. of Public Safety.

The question posed for each category was this: What are the direct outcomes you hope to see from the investment of the 2012-2013 budget, that help achieve the county’s desired community impacts?

The public safety community impacts that were mentioned by commissioners and other elected officials included (not in ranked order): (1) making the county a safe place to live and work; (2) providing rapid access to mental health services; (3) providing response to emergency calls within 15-20 minutes or less; (4) housing stability; (5) a community where kids don’t use drugs, and parents don’t condone substance abuse; and (6) consolidation to result in only two law enforcement agencies in the county – the sheriff’s office, and the Ann Arbor police department.

[It's important to note that there was no effort to reach a consensus on these community impacts – they were simply identified by individuals as the impacts they'd like to achieve.]

Public Safety Group 1: Mental Health, Consolidated Services

The first small group included commissioners Barbara Bergman and Kristin Judge, and sheriff Jerry Clayton. Bergman began by saying they needed to provide better services for the mentally ill and substance abusers, especially in the 48197 and 48198 areas – the zip codes for Ypsilanti. She suggested that they should collect better data on the need for such services throughout the county.

Clayton asked how she would propose aligning that with the budget. If it’s a goal of the county to target certain areas for the delivery of services, would the board tie funding to that priority?

Belknap noted that there are two county agencies – the Washtenaw Community Health Organization (WCHO) and Community Support & Treatment Services (CSTS) – that have primary responsibility for mental illness and substance abuse services. In total, they receive about $1.7 million in general fund dollars, with additional revenue from state and federal sources.

Judge raised another public safety issue that was mentioned as a community impact – having fewer police agencies in the county. At this, Clayton responded that the idea would scare the heck out of some people. Already there are those who won’t come to the table to talk about consolidating services, because they think that’s a precursor to getting rid of their own police departments.

Judge noted that they weren’t at the retreat to “hold hands” – there were difficult decisions to make. Clayton observed that the county can’t force Pittsfield or Saline or any other municipality to get rid of its police department – that goal is too presumptuous, he said. However, the county can be a leader in service consolidation, he added – services like dispatch, SWAT, canine units, or computer forensics.

Over time, as budgets shrink, consolidation might happen, he said. But the fear of it, at this point, is already driving some people to their corners. And if the sheriff’s office is out of the conversation, he noted, then they’ll never get anywhere.

Clayton then proposed another outcome: Better integration of human services and public safety. When Bergman observed that cops aren’t social workers, Clayton replied that most of what they do is social work. He noted that they’re now talking with the University of Michigan School of Social Work, to possibly bring in interns to work at the sheriff’s office. The hope is to keep the mentally ill out of the criminal justice system, he said, and get them the services they need.

Bergman said the county needs a drug court on the east side, as part of the 14-A District Court. Clayton asked whether that would be a priority of the board. Having one sure would help, Bergman replied.

Public Safety Group 2: Sheriff’s Road Patrol

The next small group consisted of commissioners Conan Smith, Dan Smith and Rob Turner. Conan Smith started the discussion by saying he wanted to develop a definition and rationale for the county’s support of sheriff deputy road patrols. [Each deputy is known as a police services unit (PSU) – the term refers to a sheriff's road patrol deputy who is under contract with a municipality, with the amount including indirect costs as well as salary and benefits.]

Dan Smith suggested collecting data – things like the number of 911 calls received in each municipality, how many miles of roads there are to cover, what the response times are – then developing metrics to evaluate what services are needed, where services are needed, and who should pay. The outcome is a framework for determining the price of a PSU. What they should try to achieve is an understanding of what drives the cost/price, he said.

Conan Smith noted that there was a process to determine the cost – it had been important to reach agreement on that, he said. [See Chronicle coverage: "Washtenaw Police Services: What's It Cost?"] Now, they need to do the same on price, he added.

Turner raised the issue of the level of service, and how to provide an acceptable level at the most economic price. He said his business is in Dexter Township, and if there’s a break-in, he can get there in 30 minutes, but would wait much longer for a response from law enforcement. Dan Smith said that’s why they need data – if response times are 90 minutes, for example, and they think that’s unacceptable, they could set a goal for better response times, and determine what resources they need to reach that goal. There needs to be a countywide discussion on these issues, he said.

That discussion needs to be about the values around public safety, Conan Smith said, and the metrics behind them. Setting goals will help that conversation, he added. If they can say to a contracting municipality that it will take X number of PSUs to reach the goal of a 45-minute or less response time, then they can shape the conversation around how the county and the municipality can share the cost of reaching that goal.

Public Safety Group 3: Consolidation, Public Education

The third small group included commissioners Leah Gunn and Alicia Ping, and county prosecuting attorney Brian Mackie. Looking at notes from the previous two groups, Gunn said that the discussion needs to include not just issues related to the sheriff, but also the courts, prosecutors and public defenders.

Mackie stated that they want the reality and perception of a safe county, but they might have hit a wall on addressing the public safety issue – police chiefs can only do so much, he observed. Mayors and township supervisors need to start talking about it, too. Gunn asked if Mackie sees turf wars among the police chiefs. Not among them, he replied, but among their bosses. Gunn said the Metro Alliance – a group that brings together leaders from the county’s major municipalities – would be a good place to have those discussions.

We’ve done the easy stuff, Mackie said – the hard decisions, yet to be made, will mean people’s jobs are at stake. Communities want control over how their police services are delivered. So how can you get them to the table to talk about consolidation? he asked. The message has to be that your citizens can get better service for less money.

Ping raised the issue of the cost of a police services unit (PSU). Most citizens don’t know what services they get when their municipality contracts with the county for PSUs, she said. Gunn pointed out that the county’s general fund subsidizes the cost of each PSU by about $25,000, as well as funding 12 “general fund” deputies that are deployed throughout the county, as needed.

Ping wondered how the county can incentivize collaboration related to public safety. Saline Township, for example, doesn’t contract with the county – nor does it have its own police department, as the city of Saline does. But when something happens in Saline Township, those law enforcement entities respond. She noted specifically a mobile home park on the edge of the township that’s a problem.

Overriding everything is public education, Mackie said. He cited the recently released community report by the sheriff’s office as an effort in that regard. [.pdf file of sheriff's office community report] Gunn called the report a “splendid propaganda piece,” adding that she was a Clayton supporter. “He’s very smart, that Jerry.”

Mackie talked about the general climate of public safety. He noted that Michigan has a lower number of police officers per capita than any other Great Lakes state. What goes into the mind of someone who’s thinking of investing here? he asked. They bounce down the roads that are in disrepair – that’s a negative, he said. They look at the schools, they read what’s happening in the news, and if they’re from out-of-state, they probably associate this area with Detroit. Other cities – like Saginaw, Pontiac and Flint – suffer from crime, which in turn has caused property values to plummet. Mackie noted that the FBI has ranked Saginaw the most violent city in America for its size.

In that light, Ping observed that public safety is an important issue for the health of the local economy, and for economic development.

Public Safety Group 4: Homelessness, Levels of Service

The fourth group included commissioners Wes Prater and Yousef Rabhi, and county treasurer Catherine McClary.

In reviewing notes from other groups, McClary agreed that more services were needed for the mentally ill – she suggested adding services for the homeless, too – but disagreed that those services were only needed in the Ypsilanti area. It’s important for the whole county, she said, and pervades everything, from public safety to economic development.

Yousef Rabhi hangs a sheet of paper on the wall that lists county goals for service delivery in Washtenaw County.

When they talk about the cost of police services units (PSUs), Rabhi felt they needed to draw out how much it would cost per deputy for a municipality to fund its own police department. The county’s cost for a PSU should be lower than that, he said.

Prater noted that the state constitution mandates that if a citizen calls with a public safety problem, the sheriff must respond. However, it doesn’t mandate how quick that response must be, he added – it could be minutes, or two hours, or eight hours. Regarding cost, Prater said a study commissioned by the county indicated the county should pay 34% of the cost of a road patrol deputy, with the contracting municipalities paying the rest. Over time, the percentage that the county pays has shifted downward, he noted.

[By way of background, Prater was referencing what's known as the Northwestern study, conducted by the Northwestern University Traffic Institute (.pdf of Northwestern study) (.pdf of Northwestern staffing analysis chart). For more details on the road patrol issue, see Chronicle coverage: "Washtenaw Police Services: What's It Cost?"]

Prater said the sheriff has done a good job at trying to get at the true cost of a deputy patrol. The price charged is about $150,000, while the cost has been identified as roughly $176,000. That means the county is paying about $26,000 per deputy – “which is nowhere near 34%,” Prater said.

McClary again raised the topic of homelessness, saying she felt it should be addressed as a public safety issue. Rabhi noted that homelessness is usually considered in the human services category, which received fewer “dot votes” among the group than did public safety. Perhaps it’s a matter of framing the issue, he suggested. For example, is the Delonis Center – the county’s homeless shelter, on West Huron Street – really a public safety asset? If funding to address homelessness is facing cuts because it’s considered part of human services, maybe they need to look at it as a public safety priority instead.

Breakout Groups: To Be Continued

At the end of the breakout session, the group reconvened as a whole. They were running short on time, so rather than debriefing as a group, Conan Smith asked that each facilitator write up their notes, which will be distributed to the entire group in the coming week. He noted that they’d been missing key voices in the discussion. For example, he said, environmental issues hadn’t been at the forefront, but one of its main advocates – Janis Bobrin, the county’s water resources commissioner – hadn’t been able to attend. They needed to capture the discussions from the retreat and disseminate that information, he said, but also get feedback from a diversity of voices.

Next Steps: Continuing the Retreat

When the scheduled end time of the retreat arrived, the group hadn’t addressed the final agenda item related to structural reform: (1) How should the county assess what their business should be; and (2) how does the board inform the county administration about where they need to make deeper, more structural reforms.

The group discussed the possibility of continuing the retreat – this final topic, as well as further priority-setting discussions – at an upcoming working session. [Working sessions are held twice a month, on Thursday evenings following the board's regular Wednesday meetings. Like its regular meetings, board working sessions are televised on Community Television Network (CTN).]

Rob Turner expressed preference for the more informal setting they’d used at the retreat, rather than sitting around the boardroom table. It allowed them to become closer and get to know each other as individuals, he said – and that makes them more effective working together. In response to a suggestion that they hold the discussion after the working session, but move to a different part of the room, Yousef Rabhi pointed out that it would be odd to start the meeting on-camera, then continue it off-camera.

Wes Prater suggested holding these discussions after their bi-weekly administrative briefings, which are held on the Wednesday a week ahead of the regular board meeting, to preview that meeting’s agenda. The briefings are public but are held in a conference room – they are much more informal, rarely attended by members of the general public and are not televised.

Prater noted that the meetings would need to be noticed to the public. Joanna Bidlack of the county administrative staff said she’d check with Curtis Hedger, the county’s corporation counsel, but she said they’d likely need to notice it as a special meeting.

[They later set the next retreat for Wednesday, Feb. 9 from 6-9 p.m., immediately following the board's 5 p.m. administrative briefing. Both meetings are public, and will be held at the county administration building, 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor.]

Wrapping Up

Before ending the retreat, Conan Smith asked everyone to make a brief statement about the work they’d done during the day.

Several people commented that they had begun the day very skeptical – even cynical – with low expectations regarding the outcome. For some, this was based in part of their negative experiences at the last retreat, held in April of 2009. [See Chronicle coverage: "County Commissioners Review Priorities"] Even those who hadn’t attended that retreat, like Alicia Ping, had heard negative reports on it. But Ping described Saturday’s work as “phenomenal,” saying she got a lot out of the day. Kristin Judge said it was the best day she’s had as a commissioner so far – she took office in January 2009.

Yousef Rabhi said the day had inspired him, making him believe they could work not just as a team, but “almost as a family.” In the toughest of economic times, there are challenges, but also opportunities, he said. “It’s a time for hope, and a time for rebuilding on a foundation that’s stronger than it was before.”

Nearly everyone weighed in that they felt the day was productive. Dan Smith said one reason why it was successful was that it was so well-organized. “We weren’t just standing around the pickle barrel chewing fat.” He was among several people who thanked Conan Smith for his leadership at the retreat – the board chair received a round of applause.

Conan Smith told the group that he was more touched than he could have imagined during the morning session – when people had discussed their personal priorities and aspirations – and he thanked everyone for sharing their passion for county service.

Several commissioners also noted that this is just the beginning. “I just want to caution you that the most difficult part is yet to come,” Wes Prater said. Rob Turner observed that while it looks like they have a lot of common ground, the challenge will be how to implement their priorities. There was a lot of value in the retreat’s conversation, he said, but the long-term value will be in implementation.

Sheriff Jerry Clayton agreed that there was a lot of heavy lifting to do. He said he walked in to the retreat feeling very cynical – he’d told his staff that he was not just nervous, but actually afraid of what the discussions could mean for the county’s employees. Now, he was less afraid – and he credited Conan Smith for keeping the group on task.

Brian Mackie, the county’s prosecuting attorney, said he was glad to hear the board’s support for staff, but that the next steps – putting dollar figures to their decisions – will be the painful ones, “so it’s important that we have our lovefest today.” He noted that in 2009, commissioners were looking for easy answers, and that’s not an option now.

Staff members who attended the retreat also weighed in. Bill Reynolds, the deputy county administrator, told commissioners that employees “need you to succeed.” Commissioners need to deliver their vision for the county. “We’ll get you there,” he said, but “until we have that, we’re just spinning our wheels and going in circles.” The last thing they want to do, he said, is to deliver a plan that isn’t what the board wants.

Reynolds also noted that the 2009 budget cycle took a toll on employees. It was a real negative impact, he said, adding that his goal is to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Joanna Bidlack of the county administrative staff observed that there’d been a lot of dissension on the board recently, and that she’d thought it would be hard to actually get commissioners to talk to each other during the retreat. When there’s dissension on the board, she said, it’s extremely painful for staff – it keeps them awake at night. So it was exciting to see the outcome of the retreat, she added, saying it would benefit the organization.

Kelly Belknap, the county’s finance director, told commissioners that employees can have hope when they see the board working together. She urged them to remember this day when times get tough – “because it will get tough.”

Deputy county clerk Jason Brooks said he’ll be able to give a positive report back to his colleagues and county clerk Larry Kestenbaum – unlike the 2009 retreat, when commissioners just “talked a lot.” He also said he appreciated the lunch. [Conan Smith paid for catering from Zingerman's Deli – he said it was not expensed to the county.]

Smith closed the retreat with an exhortation, verging on a cheer: “Keep the positivity – live the mission!”

Present: Commissioners Barbara Levin Bergman, Leah Gunn, Kristin Judge, Alicia Ping, Wes Prater, Yousef Rabhi, Rolland Sizemore Jr., Conan Smith, Dan Smith, Rob Turner. Other elected officials who attended the meeting: Sheriff Jerry Clayton, county prosecuting attorney Brian Mackie and treasurer Catherine McClary. Several county staff members were also present, including deputy administrator Bill Reynolds; Bob Tetens, director of Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation; finance director Kelly Belknap; and Dan Dwyer, trial court administrator.

Absent: Ronnie Peterson

Next retreat: The discussions that began during the Jan. 29 retreat will continue on Wednesday, Feb. 9 at a special meeting following the board’s administrative briefing, which is held to preview the Feb. 16 board meeting. The briefing begins at 5:30 p.m. at the county administration building, 220 N. Main St. The special meeting focused on the budget is scheduled from 6-9 p.m. [confirm date]