Stories indexed with the term ‘Leigh Greden’

At its Sept. 3, 2013 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council was asked to confirm just three of the four nominations made at the council’s previous meeting on Aug. 19.

Leigh Greden’s nomination to the Ann Arbor housing commission had been withdrawn before the meeting. And one of the remaining three nominations was withdrawn during deliberations. Mayor John Hieftje withdrew Al McWilliams’ appointment to the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority during the meeting. But the dynamic of the meeting, which included the absence of two councilmembers, suggested that McWilliams’ appointment might be brought forward for a vote at a future session.

The two other nominations from Aug. 19 were confirmed: Devon Akmon’s appointment to fill a vacancy on the public art commission; and Logan … [Full Story]

Friday morning in the lower level of the county building at 200 N. Main, Letitia Kunselman held her cell phone out in the general direction of Melodie Gable, chair of Washtenaw County’s board of canvassers. Gable was wrapping up about 90 minutes of ballot recounting from the Ward 3 Democratic primary for Ann Arbor city council. By that time, her official announcement stated an outcome that everyone in the room already knew.

We’d followed the hand recount of paper ballots table-by-table, as one precinct after the other confirmed individual vote totals from the initial Aug. 4 results.

What Gable reported was exactly the news that Letitia Kunselman’s husband Stephen – on the other end of the cell phone line – wanted to hear: his own 511 votes compared to Leigh Greden’s 505 had been confirmed, leaving Kunselman the winner of the primary. The third candidate, LuAnne Bullington, picked up one vote in the recount in precincts 3-4 and 3-7 (these precincts shared a single polling location on election day), bringing her total to 382.

We include in our report the vote totals, some anecdotal bits from the morning recount, but more importantly, a brief look at the impact that Greden’s departure will have on council’s committee composition. [Full Story]

[Note: This column grew out of an analysis of the July 6 Ann Arbor city council deliberations on site plan development for the library lot. At the start of those deliberations, Mike Anglin (Ward 5) proposed an amendment that specified some public participation and eliminated the time frame for a Request for Proposals (RFP).]

Chess players in a tournament have to play a series of games against opponents drawn at random. Top players don’t worry much about the draw – their tournament results ultimately depend on skill, not who they have to play against.

Similarly, skilled politicians are able to work for the public good – no matter who happens to sit across the table from them.

Based on a preliminary examination of the additional corpus of emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Chronicle, it appears that Leigh Greden (Ward 3) would prefer to play his political chess when he can choose his own opponents and arrange outcomes in advance. In his own words, he likes to “script” outcomes for the public. And part of that scripting entails being the casting director – trying to control who sits across the table from him. [Full Story]