The city has already paid Dreiseitl for the design of three pieces for the city’s new municipal center, also known as the police-courts facility, being built next to city hall. But it will only be the outdoor piece – a storm water fountain and sculpture – that city council is expected to vote on at its Dec. 7 meeting.

City council was originally expected to vote on the Dreiseitl project at its Nov. 16 meeting. According to AAPAC chair Margaret Parker, the delay in voting on the outdoor piece, which currently has a budget of $728,458, was due to McCormick’s concern over unanswered questions that require additional input from the municipal center’s architect as well as Dreiseitl. McCormick had pointed to unresolved issues with the two indoor pieces in deciding to leave them out of the vote completely, Parker said.

Parker handled the status report on Dreiseitl’s project in the absence of Katherine Talcott, the city’s part-time administrator for public art, who has been managing the project. Talcott had been impeded by traffic on her way back to Ann Arbor from Pittsburgh, and did not attend Tuesday’s meeting.

Background on Percent for Art and Dreiseitl’s Project

Two years ago, at its Nov. 5, 2007 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council adopted an ordinance that established the Percent for Art program. It specifies in part:

Except as otherwise provided in this section, all capital improvement projects funded wholly or partly by the city shall include funds for public art equal to one percent (1%) of the construction costs identified in the initial project estimate, up to a maximum of $250,000 per project. Where a capital improvement project is only partly funded by the city, the amount of funds allocated for public art shall be one percent of that portion of the project that is city-funded, up to a maximum of $250,000 per project. All appropriations for capital improvements falling within the provisions of this chapter shall be deemed to include funding to implement the requirements of this section 1.

The following is a timeline, in broad strokes, with key dates in the evolution of the Dreiseitl art project:

• September 2008: Dreiseitl visits Ann Arbor, as keynote speaker for the Huron River Watershed Council’s State of the Huron conference. He meets with AAPAC’s muncipal center task force, which then recommends to AAPAC that Dreiseitl be commissioned to design three pieces of art at the municipal center, also known as the police-courts facility.
• October 2008: Art commission recommends commissioning design for three pieces of art at the municipal center – one outdoor sculpture, and two indoor wall pieces.
• March 2, 2009: City council approves Dreiseitl’s design fees at $77,000.
• July 20, 2009: Dreiseitl visits Ann Arbor to unveil his design concepts at a public forum and at city council.
• September 2009: Dreiseitl returns to Ann Arbor to meet with municipal center architects and others.
• Oct. 19, 2009: At a special meeting, the municipal center task force recommends accepting designs for all three pieces.
• Oct. 19, 2009. At a special meeting, AAPAC recommends accepting design for the outdoor sculpture – tabling and placing contingencies on the other two indoor pieces.
• Dec. 7, 2009: Possible vote by the city council on the outdoor sculpture.

Dreiseitl: Why Delay the  Vote?

In explaining why the expected vote at the city council’s Nov. 16 meeting would not happen until Dec. 7, Parker said that more information was needed from Quinn Evans, the architect on the municipal center project, as well as from Herbert Dreiseitl himself. Dreiseitl is currently working on a project in Singapore, was very busy, and it has been difficult for the art commission to reach him, Parker said.

She reported that Sue McCormick, the city’s public services administrator, had put the resolution together that was to come before the city council, and that McCormick’s conclusion was that only the outdoor sculpture could be voted on. “That’s how it’s come down,” Parker said. [For background on the other two indoor art pieces Dreiseitl was commissioned to design, see previous Chronicle coverage: "Dreiseitl Project Moves to City Council"]

The budget breakdown that Parker had from Quinn Evans showed a cost for the outdoor sculpture of $728,458. That was less, Parker said, than the roughly $841,000 price tag on all three pieces.

Commissioner Jim Curtis had a question about the outdoor seating adjacent to the sculpture – is that included in the project? Parker said that everyone has said the seating component will come later, not as a part of the project.

Commissioner Connie Brown asked if the lower budget [$728,458 versus $841,000] reflected any of the suggestions for changes to the outdoor sculpture from the municipal center task force that were intended to reduce costs. Parker said that while there’d been suggestions made, none had been implemented in the design.

Those suggestions had included, Parker said, making the sculpture shorter, eliminating the lighting function, reducing the water flow elements, and eliminating the steel at the base of the sculpture. Curtis elicited the clarification from Parker that the lack of interest in implementing those design changes had not resulted from an inability to contact Dreiseitl, but rather that “nobody wanted to do them.”

Parker reiterated that the task force had vote unanimously for all three municipal center art projects that had been designed by Dreiseitl. Because of questions about the lighting in the lobby piece and the supporting wall in the atrium piece, the art commission had tabled action on one piece and set conditions on the other during a special meeting called on Oct. 19 to vote on the project.

Brown asked what would happen with the indoor pieces. Subsequent discussion by Parker and Curtis suggests that it’s not clear if or how the other indoor pieces could eventually be completed. Curtis expressed hope that the places for their installation could be reserved in the building as available space, even though a blank wall might not look great in the interim.

Parker explained to commissioner Cathy Gendron that the glass walls for the indoor pieces had not, in fact, been ordered, and that Sue McCormick had said there were too many open questions about the indoor pieces to vote on them.

Dreiseitl: Arguments for Voting Yes

Parker distributed to art commission members some talking points in support of the project that could be conveyed to “anyone who’s willing to listen,” which had been sent to city council members:

1. The design integrates a 12′ high steel sculpture, storm water circulation, electrical and computer systems into an interactive water piece that children can play in – $750,000 is a very reasonable price for such a design.

2. 80% of funds will go to Michigan fabricators, contractors, architects and designers – this means art is generating jobs for Michigan workers.

3. Both the Municipal Center Task Force and AAPAC voted unanimously for the aesthetic and civic value of this project.

4. City staff, engineers, architects and designers of the building are all whole-heartedly behind this public art installation.

5. Ann Arbor would become known as the site of a world renowned artist who specializes in environmental art.

6. If the money were not used for this piece, it would go back to the Public Art Fund and could not be used for any other reason. Even if the Percent for Art ordinance were eliminated, the money would go back to the designated funds for the capital projects that generated them – sewer, water, transportation, etc.

7. Because the building is coming along quickly, this project is our only chance to make something that is embedded in the building’s infrastructure. It would take at least another year to come up with another proposal for this primary site, and then it would simply sit in the space, not demonstrate the environmental goals of the building.

8. Art is good business. Grand Rapids proved with ArtPrize that art in public spaces can generate business, public awareness for our city, and community empowerment. This is what this project will do in Ann Arbor, but on a permanent basis. All we need to do is follow through with the two-year project we’ve been working on together.

Dreiseitl: Would/Could the City Council Vote No?

Later in the meeting, commissioner Cathy Gendron commented that it would be shocking at this point if the city council voted down the Dreiseitl project. Parker responded by saying that this highlighted the importance of having a municipal center task force with city council and city staff membership.

That task force consists of: Ray Detter of the Downtown Area Citizens Advisory Council; Bob Grese, director of Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum; Sue McCormick, director of public services for the city; AAPAC chair Margaret Parker; Jan Onder of AAPAC; Laura Rubin, executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council; Ann Arbor city councilmember Margie Teall; Spring Tremaine, a lieutenant with the Ann Arbor Police Department; Julie Creal, a judge with the 15th District Court; and Elona Van Gent of the University of Michigan.

Commissioner Connie Brown noted that the council had already voted on the first piece of the proposal – the concept design. Discussion among Brown, Parker and commissioner Marsha Chamberlin drew out the fact that the council had voted not for a particular design, but rather to commission Dreiseitl to create a design. That had been based, said Parker, on Dreiseitl’s background and expertise.

Brown cautioned that artists who brought projects before AAPAC understand clearly that a “No” was still possible, even if their project survived the selection process and won recommendation to city council for funding. Chamberlin suggested that it was a matter of the culture among artists – architects and real estate developers were used to a tradition of undergoing a long and arduous process, only to have a proposal rejected at the final step. But did artists have the same culture? Brown echoed Chamberlin’s sentiment that developers were used to that kind of rejection late in a process, saying that artists needed to understand that as well.

Parker expressed her feeling that artists were used to the idea that their proposal could be rejected even after having successfully navigated through many steps of a process.

In their deliberations, art commissioners did not mention an email that had been circulated the previous day, Nov. 9, by councilmember Christopher Taylor to his Ward 3 constituents, in which he framed the issue of the Dreiseitl vote as a possible choice between funding public art and funding human services:

I write today to seek your thoughts on a difficult issue that will likely come before Council on [November 16]. [Editor's note: It's now clear that it will likely be voted on at council's Dec. 7 meeting.] The issue is this: should Ann Arbor spend money that it has been saving in its Public Art Fund on public art, or should it spend that money instead on human services.

Without advocating for either position, Taylor discusses in his email the merits and de-merits of arguments both ways, including the possibility that the Percent for Art ordinance be amended so that monies previously earmarked for public art be spent this winter “to provide comfort and security to scores, if not hundreds, of persons during the dead of winter in bleak economic times.”

This isn’t the first time that a councilmember has raised the issue of funding for public art. In February 2009, at a Sunday night caucus, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) had mooted the idea of modifying the Percent for Art ordinance – not to reallocate the money to human services, but rather to reduce the amount earmarked for public art. From Chronicle coverage of that caucus ["Discontent Emerges at Caucus"]:

One Percent for Art? Really??

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

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

Chair’s Report

In addition to discussing the Dreiseitl project, which threaded through much of the other discussion during AAPAC’s Nov. 10 meeting, the commission heard reports from each of its committees and from its chair.

Parker reported that she’d attended a cultural planning session by the Arts Alliance. They’re focused on (i) communications, (ii) capacity building, and (iii) funding. She said she saw an overlap in the missions of the Arts Alliance and AAPAC in that first area: communications. She cited the planned Arts Alliance web portal as an example where public art could have a presence. [At the DDA's October board meeting, Arts Alliance president Tamara Real asked the DDA board to help with the funding of the web portal. At the DDA's November board meeting, the report from its partnerships committee was that the request had been put off for now.]

Parker said she also saw the opportunity to partner on temporary art projects – FestiFools, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, University Musical Society, and artists residencies.

Parker reported that she’d given a talk as part of a brown bag series at the Institute for the Humanities with Larry Cressman, associate professor of art at the University of Michigan (and former AAPAC member) and Elaine Sims, director of UM’s Gifts of Art program and current AAPAC commissioner. The segment will be broadcast on Michigan Television – Comcast Cable channel 24. Parker said that it was striking how the purely civic orientation of art through the public art commission contrasted with the constraints of art that’s installed in, say, a hospital setting. She cited two different UM websites documenting public art. One includes public art in different areas of the UM campus and the other is the UM Museum of Art website.

Present: Connie Brown, Jim Curtis, Marsha Chamberlin, Cathy Gendron, Margaret Parker.

Absent: Jim Kern, Jan Onder, Elaine Sims, Cheryl Zuellig.

Next meeting: Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009 at 4:30 p.m. on the 7th floor of the City Center. [confirm date]

Katherine Talcott, the new part-time administrator for the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission, and commissioner Jim Curtis at Tuesday's meeting.

Public Art Commission (Feb. 10, 2009): With two new commissioners and a newly-hired administrator on board, the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission spent a good portion of Tuesday night’s monthly meeting discussing the need to  communicate better with the public and to educate them about the value of public art in Ann Arbor. That issue was in response to a Feb. 3 Ann Arbor News article – and the comments posted after it by eight readers – about the commission’s decision to enlist German artist Herbert Dreiseitl to design a waterscape installation at the police-court building, which will begin construction in April. The comments from News readers weren’t exactly supportive of that choice, or of the $72,000 that Dreiseitl is requesting for his initial design work, which represents about 10% of the potential $700,000 total price tag.

Margaret Parker, AAPAC’s chair, said she wanted to prepare a packet for city council’s Feb. 17 meeting, where council is expected to vote on the contract with Dreiseitl.

Commissioner Marsha Chamberlin said it seemed like they were moving from Point A to Point D, spending $72,000 without having the design concepts in hand. Commissioner Elaine Sims said that’s the way things go when you work with a high-powered artist like Dreiseitl. “Yes,” said Chamberlin, “but we didn’t know that going in.”

Assuming council approves the contract, the commission will wait until Dreiseitl delivers his design. At that point, a task force – Parker and commissioner Jan Onder – will recommend whether to accept the design, and AAPAC will vote on that recommendation. The commission has set aside up to $700,000 for the project, out of the city’s percent for public art program. That program designates 1% of the cost of any public building project for art, with a cap of $250,000 per project. The Dreiseitl piece, which has been discussed for several months at AAPAC meetings, would be the group’s first major project using the 1%-for-public-art funds.

Later in the meeting the topic resurfaced when commissioner Cathy Gendron gave a presentation about the publicity committee’s work. “I think we need to do a better job of explaining how a percent for public art works,” she said. One of the criticisms from readers of the Ann Arbor News article focused on why money was being spent on art during difficult economic times. “We need to answer those questions.”

Sims said there were two issues: 1) the city has said that art is as important as bricks, and 2) funding for public art doesn’t take away funding for buildings. Commissioner Cheryl Zuellig added that it might be helpful to use a specific project as an example, putting the art funding in context. There are line items for sidewalks, lights, signs – the percent for public art is simply another line item in the project’s budget.

Commissioner Jim Curtis said it was also important to note that the commission encouraged private donations of money and art – they weren’t just passive in receiving funds from the city government.

These are good ideas, Parker said, but “we’re way behind the 8-ball on educating the public. Now we have our first big project, and the public isn’t with us.”

Chamberlin then suggested setting up a blog with a Q&A addressing some of these issues, such as why the Dreiseitl project is important, and how the percent for public art program works. Jean Borger, the commission’s administrative coordinator, suggested posting the group’s meeting minutes as well.

Cheryl Zuellig, one of two new AAPAC commissioners, at Tuesday's meeting.

Community Projects: Updates

Commissioner Jim Curtis gave status reports on several proposed projects – in part his report was intended to bring new commissioners Connie Rizzolo Brown and Cheryl Zuellig up to speed. Projects included:

• SoundFall, a proposed computer-programmed LED light display for the Maynard Street parking structure that can respond to voices and other sounds in the environment. The technology still isn’t there to pull this off, Curtis said, and organizers have a lot of work to do.
• Village Green, a proposed condo building and parking structure at First & Washington. It’s not clear whether this will be built, Curtis said. If it is, the commission would receive funds from the Downtown Development Authority through the 1% for public art program.
• Ann Arbor Skatepark, which is raising money for a site at Veterans Park. It’s not a publicly funded project, but skatepark organizers would like a public art component. They’ll be making a presentation to the committee next month, Curtis said.
• Other proposed projects in various stages include a mosaic work that a private donor would like to fund; a joint project by the youth group Project S.N.A.P. (Share, Nurture, Act, Preserve), the Ecology Center and the city’s solid waste management department, which Curtis said he had no details on; and a query from Magellan Properties, owners of the building at the southwest corner of Washington and South Fifth, who would like to do some kind of mural on the building’s exterior wall.

That last project raised a number of questions, Curtis said: What defines public space? How much control does the city have, via the art commission, over art that goes on private buildings? Cheryl Zuellig wondered whether the city could develop a public mural easement, which would set certain restrictions on that kind of project. Margaret Parker said that Mary Thiefels and Ellie Serras, who are both on the community projects committee, would do some research about how other cities approach this issue, then report back to the commission.

From left: Connie Rizzolo Brown, a new commissioner, administrative coordinator Jean Borger and commission chair Margaret Parker at Tuesday's Ann Arbor Public Art Commission meeting.

Prioritizing Sites, Projects

Commissioner Cathy Gendron leads a committee that’s tasked with identifying and prioritizing potential projects, possible sites where public art should be located, and potential funding sources. She reported that the committee had a brainstorming session to identify “gateways” to the city: Veterans Park; North Main as it comes downs from US-23; Washtenaw as it merges with East Stadium; State and Eisenhower; and the Lowertown/Broadway area, among others. They hope the city can provide a database of parcels that might be suitable for public art, Gendron said. The group also wants to address the issue of coordinating efforts with private property owners.

Parker asked Gendron to report to the full commission each month a list of priorities for each category – site locations, projects and funding. This led to some discussion among commissioners about how to do that, and whether setting priorities would limit their ability to be flexible in taking on projects as the opportunity arose. Parker argued that “sooner or later – and it’s going to be sooner – we need to get specific.”

Cheryl Zuellig suggested coming up with very clear criteria for setting priorities, such has whether the site or project has maximum impact. Asked by Parker if she’d draft a set of criteria,  Zuellig said she would. Parker said the community projects committee, led by Curtis, will take over once projects have been vetted by the other committee.

Separately, Parker said that the commission needed to write a letter to Ray Detter, who leads the Downtown Ann Arbor Historical Street Exhibit program, about how that group and the commission will work together and coordinate their projects. Jim Curtis reported that he’d talked to Detter and that the historic program hopes to install bronze artifacts throughout the city to mark historic structures – for example, putting a full-sized bronze corset in front of a former corset factory on Main Street, and a near life-sized, seated banjo player on North Main, at the site of the former Hill’s Opera House.

Preservation Issues

Margaret Parker said the ceramic reliefs on the Fourth & Washington parking structure are showing more signs of cracks. The pieces had been commissioned by Barbara Bergman, a county commissioner, in memory of her husband, Reuben Bergman.

Marsha Chamberlin said she didn’t want to spend more money on the ceramics because they were too fragile for that site, which is exposed to the elements and to passers-by. One possibility would be to move them to another site, she said. Parker proposed the option of casting some of them in bronze, and said there was still $12,000 in a fund at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation specifically designated for artwork at that location. Parker and Elaine Sims will meet to discuss the issue and make recommendations to the commission.

Parker noted that the community foundation also managed three other public art funds: about $15,000 in a fund for maintenance; about $10,000 set aside for a Fourth Avenue Art Walk project; and about $1,000 for art in the South University area.

The commission is also still looking for a date to hold a party to celebrate the renovation of the Arch in Sculpture Park near Kerrytown, as well as a “welcome to town” party for Katherine Talcott, AAPAC’s new administrator. The decision on when to hold those events was tabled until next month.

Golden Paintbrush Awards

Margaret Parker reminded commissioners that the annual Golden Paintbrush awards are coming up, and that they’ll need to start seeking nominations. She said she planned to nominate Yulia Hanansen’s eight-paneled mosaic mural, located at Matthaei Botanical Gardens. The commission will choose the winners in two months, and they’ll be honored at a city council meeting. Previous winners have included the ArtRide project, Mark Tucker and Shoshana Hurand for the FestiFools parade; and Audrey Hayes and Dan Dever for the Stables on Fourth Avenue.

Looking Ahead

The annual planning process is about to begin, Parker said, noting that she’ll be meeting with Sue McCormick, the city’s director of public services, to talk about funding for 2010. “It’s really fantastic, guys,” Parker told commissioners as the meeting wrapped up. “We’ve done a fantastic job over the past year.”

Commissioners present: Connie Rizzolo Brown, Jim Curtis, Marsha Chamberlin, Cathy Gendron, Margaret Parker, Elaine Sims, Cheryl Zuellig. Others: Katherine Talcott, Bob Dascola, Mary Thiefels, Jean Borger

Absent: Jim Kern, Jan Onder

Next meeting: Tuesday, March 10 at 4:30 p.m. at the Smithgroup JJR second-floor conference room, 110 Miller Ave. [confirm date]

Municipal Facility: Public Commentary

The majority of speakers signed up for public commentary at the start of the meeting were there to address the question of the police-courts facility. Council was considering the construction manager agreement for $35,874,422, representing the final step to approving construction on the facility, which will house the 15th District Court and the Ann Arbor Police Department.

Stewart Nelson: Nelson characterized the building as large and unnecessary. He acknowledged that the police department needs renovation,  so confined his remarks to the courts component of the project and the  $26 million in interest payments the project would require.  He said that the project meant that the city and county would duplicate services like security for the courts, and suggested that the city revisit the county’s offer to re-engineer  government in a collaborative way. Nelson was disappointed that the cost reductions sought in the new building were driving consideration of the possibility that the LEED Gold standard wouldn’t be met.

Harvey Kaplan: Kaplan said he was against moving forward with the police-courts building, citing sinking employment and decreasing general fund revenues. It was not the time to rush ahead with a new police-courts building, he said. Kaplan said that double-digit deficits in the years to come will  lead to cutbacks in services and layoffs in personnel. The current recession was not merely a bump in the road, he said, but rather had no end in sight. He said  we need public discussion on the state of our city economy and that it was a  time for dialogue between citizens and our government.

Virginia Simon: Simon said we can’t afford a project this big at this time, saying that a struggling economy had placed a burden on our citizens, and that the new building will place an additional burden. She characterized it as a luxury we really don’t need,  and that we really can’t afford.  She acknowledged that the current situation is not ideal, but said that it is working. If  it’s a good project, she said, and thoroughly thought out, it’ll go forward, eventually. But now is not the right time, she concluded.

Patricia Lesko: Lesko said that she grew up in Dearborn, where pools and other recreational facilities were free. But Ann Arbor was a municipality that didn’t even plow the snow downtown, she said, citing an Ann Arbor News editorial on the topic. She then quoted extensively from  the campaign literature of current councilmembers that reflected their commitment to basic services. A sampling here. Carsten Hohnke: “We have to get the basics right.” Tony Derezinski: “The fundamental responsibility of the city is municipal services.” Sandi Smith: “The key issue is maintaining the quality of services.” Christopher Taylor: “If you want a council representative who will think long term, vote Taylor. It’s simple – we must live within our means, we cannot spend what we do not have.”

Karen Sidney: Sidney said that the public had heard that the building would make government more efficient,  but she conveyed skepticism at the claim by asking if the city does a better job of plowing streets after construction of the new Wheeler Service Center. Sidney said that the city does not have the down payment on the building in hand, because the $3 million from the sale of the First & Washington parcel has not been transacted. She said that the repayment schedule required by the bonds does not equal the amount the city currently spends on leases. Based on her analysis, an additional $1.1 million  is needed, and when factoring in utilities, the shortfall rises to  $1.5 million. That would mean service reductions, said Sidney. She warned that if council thought a 5% budget reduction is hard right now, that in  2012 and 2013, the city’s projections show a 10% reduction, or 15% if a recommended additional pension fund contribution is made. At that point, if a new building is sitting on the lot, she wondered if the public would think that council had made a wise choice.

John Floyd: Floyd began his remarks by citing a headline in The Onion recently: “Black Man Given Worst Job in America.” He used that to segue to an Ann Arbor News report on collaboration and regionalism in government: “Thank you!” he said. He allowed that it could be that court functions aren’t amenable to consolidation, but that there must be a strong case to make, and asked council to  please make it. “No doubt you believe you’ve made the case, and God in heaven might agree with you,” Floyd said, but several thousand Ann Arbor voters [who signed the Ask Voters First petition] didn’t think they’d made the case. He asked council to sell the case to the public before proceeding.

Municipal Facility: Council Deliberations

Councilmember Marcia Higgins led off council discussion by expressing a desire that the expenditure of contingency funds in the project budget be brought back to the building committee before being spent, and asked city administrator Roger Fraser if council needed to pass a resolution or could just “give direction.” Fraser said he’d interpreted her remarks as such direction. In similar fashion, Higgins asked that the community meeting room option not be further pursued, with Fraser confirming that it was “not a part of the mix.”

Much of council’s deliberations were questions of staff meant to elicit information that was likely not new to councilmembers. Councilmember Stephen Rapundalo asked the city’s construction manager on the project, Bill Wheeler, about pricing for construction and labor. Wheeler said that costs are low now, but can be expected to go up when the federal stimulus package starts to generate many other projects and the labor market tightens up.

Rapundalo asked what would happen to the bonds if they elected not to build, given that they’d already been floated. Paul Stauder, the city’s bond advisor, said the bonds had been been issued at 4.77% and would be called in 2018. To defease them would cost something like $6 million, Stauder said. Defeasement would entail taking the $26 million from the bond issuance and putting the amount in interest-bearing Treasury securities, which currently yield between 2 and 3% – less than the 4.77% payments the city would need to make on the bonds. The difference between 4.77% and the lower percentage means, said Stauder to council, “you’d be under water,” to the tune of around $6 million.

At the conclusion of the meeting during public commentary, the suggestion was made to simply “buy back the bonds.” Reached by phone the day after the meeting, Stauder clarified that while this was technically a possibility that could be pursued, its outcome was unknown. The bonds are not callable until 2018, which means that they could almost certainly not be bought back from the bond holders at face value – the people who bought the bonds would expect a premium. So while the city could make an offer to buy back the bonds from those who purchased them, there is no way to force a bondholder to surrender their bonds at any price. If the city were to tender such an offer, some bond holders might accept while others might not, in which case the city could, as one option, choose to buy back those bonds from holders willing to sell, and defease the rest.

Rapundalo elicited from Crawford some discussion of the cost savings through collaboration with the county on a combined data center. Crawford said that the county would be paying around $35,000 a year in rent, and that the county’s IT services would be moved into the Larcom Building by the end of this month, then eventually re-locating to new police-courts building.

From city administrator Roger Fraser, Rapundalo elicited the lack of any communication from his counterpart at the county, Bob Guenzel, about the possibility of continuing to lease space for the 15th District Court on a long-term basis. Fraser said that in conversation, Guenzel had indicated that the county’s space needs hadn’t changed.

Councilmember Mike Anglin indicated that he’d been against the project all along. The council does a lot of talk about affordable housing and diversity, he said, but are pulling the bar higher and higher. He noted that the CFO of the city, Tom Crawford, had told council about the possibility of a 3% deficit by 2010, rising to 7% by 2011. It wasn’t the time to undertake a building project like this, Anglin said. He asked that the city continue to negotiate with the county, even in the 11th hour. Every argument that councilmembers present as a positive, Anglin said, was countered by citizens who had a different perspective on it. He said that he supported the need to renovate the police facilities. He noted that the library board had the wisdom to pull back from their planned building project and that council might do well to follow their example.

Mayor John Hieftje weighed in by noting that in the summer of 2008 the city’s bond rating had been improved, reflecting confidence of the market that the city was fiscally responsible, and that Moody’s (the bond rating agency) knew full well at that time the city was moving forward with this project. From Tom Crawford, Hieftje elicited a cost of not moving forward at $10 million: $6 million for the bond defeasment, plus $4 million in design costs already paid. Not moving forward would, said Hieftje, leave $10 million on the table.

Councilmember Margie Teall asked Wheeler to clarify whether the construction contract had been awarded as a no-bid contract. Wheeler said that they’d hired Clark Construction in a quality-based selection process. Clark would take bids on the subcontracting work, and those bids would be presented as if they were the city’s bids. Greden asked for clarification about the “quality-based selection process.” Wheeler said that they’d started with six firms, winnowed it down to three and determined that Clark was the most able of  the three. If someone were to claim that it was not a competitive bidding process, asked Greden, “That would be a false statement, isn’t that right?” Wheeler allowed it was a competitive process but it wasn’t a lowest bid process. At the conclusion of the council meeting during public commentary unreserved time, Karen Sidney would tell Greden that the bidding process would not meet the standard for competitive bidding required by the school system.

Councilmember Sandi Smith took up the question raised by Stew Nelson during public commentary about the LEED Gold status being in jeopardy. Wheeler said that one cost-saving option would be to make it a less green building. “We rejected that idea,” he said, because council gave the staff the direction to make it an environmentally-friendly building.

Anglin asked Wheeler to specify what areas of the construction would be the first targeted for cost cutting. Answer: They would talk to the mechanical and electrical contractors about “value engineering.” Anglin said he hoped that other improvements not included in the project might be procured through the existing contracts, like a new roof on Larcom, and a new power supply.

Concilmember Carsten Hohnke sought clarification about how much money the project budget was for new furniture. Wheeler said they’d be using existing furniture and equipment, and that there was no money in the budget for new furniture and fixtures.

Hohkne asked Crawford if the funding of the building would come from a reduction in services. Answer: Over the last five years, the city has become more efficient and the building’s funding comes from savings through efficiency, and through debt services with existing cash flow. Crawford said that over the last four years, the project has shrunk in size every year. In the initial vision, the Larcom building (city hall) was going to be knocked down, Crawford said.

In response to the question of what the city would do in December 2009 if they didn’t move forward with the building project, Fraser said, “I don’t have  a good answer to that.” Fraser said they’d spent over 2 years exploring alternatives inside and outside downtown. A task force had spent 10 months looking at 11 alternative sites downtown. The conclusion of that effort was the recommendation that they need to build something. Fraser noted that the city still needed to negotiate the lease with the county to get through the construction period, but that negotiating it into the indefinite future was not a real possibility.

Hieftje challenged those who opposed the building to look at where the city is today having already issued the bonds and spent money on design. If we back away, he said, that leaves $10 million left on the table with nothing to show for it. He compared the construction project with what the new president is asking the country to do: put money into the economy and put people to work. Hieftje said that the last he’d heard from Bob Guenzel was that the city needed to move the courts out of the leased space. Hieftje said he ran into county commissioners as a part of his job all the time and that not once had he heard that the county had changed its mind about where the courts are going to be. For his part, Hieftje said, “I think it’s clear cut.”

Councilmember Sabra Briere did not see it as clear cut. “A voice of dissent is never bad in a democracy, and it’s not irresponsible to be that voice of dissent.” [Editor's note: In council deliberations on the 42 North project, Hieftje had said that voting against it was "irresponsible." Briere voted against approval of 42 North.]

Briere said she wasn’t sitting at the council table when the project was first discussed, but rather at her dining room table and she’d read about it in the newspaper. She said she thought that repairing the existing city hall was more cost effective than constructing a new building. Investing in staff improves morale, she said, and improves services.

Briere noted that the city had submitted its wish list for the stimulus package, and she was startled to see that this project was among those proposed. We’ve been told we have sufficient funding, she said, from a mix of bonds, sale of property, and lease payments. Why, then, is this project included in the stimulus package wish list, she wondered. “Have we been misled?” she asked. She said the city should have specified that they needed $30 million to help improve the project instead of asking for $65 million as indicated on the wish list. She concluded by saying that she was not opposed to it because of the current economic circumstances, but rather that she’d opposed it consistently all along.

Councilmember Christopher Taylor focused his comments on addressing the issue of the current economic situation: How can we go forward on this? Why aren’t we spending it on snow removal or parks? Taylor sought to refute the natural (but incorrect) assumption that we’re dealing with a big pile of cash that can be used for anything. The analogy Taylor drew was to home ownership: “Our rented house is falling apart and our rents are rising.”

The money to pay for building something new, Taylor said, came from the bonds – comparing it to a homeowner’s mortgage. The down payment had come from savings. To raid that money for operating expenses would break faith with council’s predecessors, Taylor said, and saddle those who come after us with the problem. “The price is large, and is enough to make anyone reasonably blanch,” he said, but is commensurate with the value offered.

Councilmember Leigh Greden echoed Taylor’s sentiments. He also acknowledged Briere’s question about the project’s inclusion in the the stimulus package as fair. He clarified that the $65 million figure specified in the “wish list” included both Phase I and Phase II, noting that the current construction project would only be for Phase I. Phase II included a re-skinning of the exterior of the Larcom building.

Saying that Briere’s comments had been reasoned, Greden explicitly declined to assign the same description to some comments from the public voiced that evening or via e-mail. He ticked through some of them. The claim that the contract had been awarded in a no-bid process was false, he said, pointing to information elicited earlier in the deliberations. The idea that we can’t afford it at this time, said Greden, was countered by the fact that labor is cheap right now, and that soon the effect of the stimulus package will be to increase the cost of labor and supplies. As for more collaboration with the county, Greden said, they have their own plans for the space. Alluding to Anglin’s earlier comment about the library board having the wisdom to pull back from their project, Greden said they’d held back because they needed to raise taxes to execute their project, plus they had no credit. Greden concluded by saying that to delay would result in reduction of general fund services, but taking action would not.

For his part, Rapundalo echoed Greden, saying that “as usual” Greden had been extremely thorough. Rapundalo stressed the financial implications, which he felt were not understood by those who were opposed to the project. The city is obligated for the bonds, he said, and would take a penalty there by defeasing them. He noted that we’d also incur extra construction costs by any delays and pointed to the economic opportunities for local trades people. There are no definitive alternatives, Rapundalo concluded.

Briere, for her second speaking turn, reiterated the theme of the importance of respect for dissent. “I want to just remind my colleagues that a voice of dissent is to be respected,” she stated, because a “no” vote represented people in Ann Arbor who wished her to vote “no.” As for the jobs creation benefit, she noted that it would provide employment for construction workers for a year or so, and noted, somewhat dryly, that the city had already employed some architects for $4 million. She noted that one detriment to the building was its design: “It’s a big forbidding building. It would not be a pleasure to enter.”

The critique of the building’s aesthetics caught Teall’s ear. She said that while she respected Briere’s decision to vote against the building, she took issue with her assessment of the building’s aesthetics. She said it would be a beautiful, welcoming space for thousands of people, that it had been designed thoughtfully, and that the public art is going to be amazing.

Councilmember Smith concluded deliberations by responding to Briere’s question about why the project wound upon the stimulus package wish list. She attributed it in part to the shovel-readiness required by the stimulus package. There’s not a project 90 days away from being shovel-ready that isn’t fully funded – it’s in the nature of the request.

Outcome: Passed, with Anglin and Briere dissenting.

Commercial Recycling Program

After Margie Teall proposed some amendments adjusting the time frame for exemptions from the new recycling program – which were quickly passed – councilmember Leigh Greden invited Bryan Weinert, solid waste program coordinator for the city, to step forward. Weinert was asked to give a brief overview of what’s being proposed with the creation of the commercial recycling program and to describe the public process for what Greden characterized as “one of the most significant things we’ll do this year.”

Weinert reported that it had been a two-and-a-half year process, which included business interests plus the city’s environmental commission. It was spurred in part by the lagging recovery rate in the commercial sector compared to residential: Ann Arbor recovers 50% of residential waste as recycled material verus only 20% of commerical waste. Weinert described a variety of public forums as opportunity for feedback. And when queried by councilmember Mike Anglin, Weinert described in more detail that there had been breakfast forums, presentations to business associations, information sent out via the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce, as well as peer-to-peer strategies. He said they’d been very pleased with the willingness of the commercial sector to work with the city.

So what does the new commercial recycling program do? Weinert said it created a structure for building recycling services in the community, offered through the city or through other private haulers. The key feature is the creation of franchise authorities for collection of waste in the commercial sector. Franchises are designed to provide lower cost, and a cost structure that incentivizes recycling. The way Weinert described the predominant current model, once a contract is in place, you’ve got an 8-yard container, say, and you have to pay for it anyway, so that encourages waste. The new program allows for reductions in container sizes, hence reduction in costs, as businesses reduce the amount of waste and increase their recycling.

Carsten Hohnke agreed with Greden’s assessment of the significance of the program, saying: “I think this is going to be one of the more important things we do this year.” Hohnke gave it as an example of how a smart green policy can be the best economic policy. He cited the 60% recovery goal as both environmentally sound, plus leading to better revenues from the recycled material. He said the new program would be strengthening a key asset: the materials recovery facility.

Teall had thanks all around for everyone who’d worked on the program, from Weinert to Steve Bean, who chairs the city’s environmental commission. She noted that it had been a long haul with her first emails on the topic dating back three years.

Mayor John Hieftje took a cue from Teall’s reference to the history of the work on the new commercial recycling program to cite his own recycling credentials which date back nearly more than a decade to the time when he served as board chair at Recycle Ann Arbor. He said that one of the goals back then was to cut down on the amount of material going into the landfill and he characterized the new program as the next big step.

Related to the recycling theme, though not restricted to the commercial sector, were the remarks during public commentary of UM student Alex Levine, who gave council an update from last council meeting on his vision to see No. 6 plastics recycled. He said that he’d talked to some councilmembers, heard that it’d been investigated, but that it was problematic because the companies identified that might process the material wound up shipping the material overseas. Levine said that he would be doing further research and that he hoped council would take another look at the matter when he presented what he’d found.

Outcome: Passed unanimously on first reading. (There’ll be a future public hearing and second reading.)

[Editorial aside: At the beginning of the meeting, Christopher Taylor took some gentle teasing from fellow councilmember Sandi Smith as he returned the council chamber's trash container to its place: "Taking out the garbage?" To which Taylor replied, "I do what I can," but with no apparent winking emphasis on the word "can." A missed opportunity that the Ward 3 representative might well regret, when it comes time to count the best council quips for the year.]

Farmers Market Renovation

The Farmers Market renovation had been postponed from last council meeting, and it had been indicated at caucus the previous evening that the project, which had grown to include a storm water treatment component (possibly in the form of a fountain), would be tabled. That’s in fact what happened, with the motion to table coming from Sabra Briere, getting a second from Stephen Rapundalo. Marcia Higgins got clarification that the tabling would be indefinite. Hieftje alluded to a memo that everyone had received from staff on the subject. Council voted without further discussion.

During public commentary reserve time, Chris Hildebrand addressed the issue of the renovation by alluding to the adage: If all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When the administration of the Farmers Market transferred to the city’s parks department, she said, it looked to them like a park. “It’s not a park,” she said. The function of the market is to provide access to fresh food and as a part of that access, parking places are inherently necessary, as contrasted with a park. She said that we should be discouraging birds and rodents from the Farmers Market, not encouraging them to appear. “I simply beg you to keep it a Farmers Market,” she concluded.

Outcome: Motion to table indefinitely passed unanimously.

Wintermeyer Office Building Planned Project

This agenda item attracted the attention of Tom Partridge, who spoke against it during the public hearing, saying that the proposal would demolish two houses, with no provision that affordable housing be built in its place.

It had already drawn scrutiny the previous evening at caucus from councilmember Sabra Briere, who was concerned that the requested smaller setback in the front of the building reflected a desire to build to a new standard for area, height, and placement that had not yet been approved by council.

At the council meeting, Briere asked Mark Lloyd, head of planning for the city of Ann Arbor, to clarify. Lloyd said that the project does conform to the proposed (but as yet not approved) standards for the front setbacks, but that on the other sides, the project conforms to existing code.

Lloyd said that what might be overlooked in reflecting on this issue is that the direction from planning commission and from council to the planning staff has been to make sure that they adhere to sustainable development strategies, and that pedestrian access, reflected in smaller front setbacks, is one example.

Lloyd said that designs with a parking lot in the front are a standard suburban design technique and are consistent with current code, which has a more suburban character. Even though the new standards are not in place, the project is in line with what has been proposed, and the reasons for wanting to create the smaller setbacks go beyond the fact that it’s contained in a proposed document.

Briere also took up Partridge’s issue about the demolition of the houses on the site, and asked Lloyd to clarify for the public whether their current use was residential. Lloyd said that they were not currently, and that it wasn’t clear when the last time the structures had been used in that way.

Outcome: Approved unanimously with 7 members at the table (councilmembers sometimes filter away and back).

City Airport Environmental Impact Study

Council got a description of how the environmental impact of the planned reconfiguration of the city’s airport runway will be studied. Matt Kulhanek, the manager of the airport, introduced Molly Lamroeux, of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), who described how the project would conform to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and would include the formation of a citizen advisory group. There would be a noise impact analysis study as well as other impact studies. There would be no less than a 30-day public comment period after the conclusion of the study, which would take 6-9 months. The anticipated date of the public hearing would be fall 2009, she said, with the design work completed in early 2010.

Kulhanek also introduced Amy Eckland of the consulting firm JJR, who described in more detail what the public process would be like. Key would be the formation of the citizen advisory committee (CAC). The CAC would consist of 12-14 people, who would meet throughout the project, providing the team with feedback. The CAC would include a wide array of people, Eckland said, with the requisite expertise so that they can provide feedback: adjacent property owners, business owners, pilots and homeowners, from Pittsfield Township as well as from Ann Arbor. There would be three meetings by the project team with CAC: (i) beginning, (ii) middle, and (iii) end. The final meeting in the fall would be a preview of the public hearing, Eckland said.

Council considered a host of separate resolutions authorizing funding for the project.

Councilmember Leigh Greden sought clarification on the funding sources. Answer: 80% federal dollars,  17.5%  state, and 2.5% from the city’s airport enterprise fund.

Outcome: Passed unanimously.

Golf Fee Modification for 2009 Season

In this case “modification” is not a euphemism for “increase.” A scanned PDF of the Golf Fee Modification Schedule 2009 shows that many of the changes from the 2008 fee schedule reflect decreases designed to make the city’s two golf courses more competitive with other facilities in the market.

However, the increase in the senior citizen qualification age from 56 to 57, with a planned increase each year until it reaches 62, drew the criticism of Tom Partridge during the public hearing on the matter. Partridge characterized the change as discriminatory on its face, and said that it had been brought to the public without any explanation as to why it’s on the agenda, let alone why it should be passed. Partridge characterized the resolution blatantly discriminatory based on age, and asked that the proposed increase be struck down.

Outcome: Passed unanimously with no council discussion.

Tom Partridge

In addition to the public hearings mentioned above, Tom Partridge weighed in, as he often does, at public commentary reserved time, as well as during the unreserved time at the end of the meeting. He called on the mayor, the city council, and all other levels of government to end discrimination in all facets of services in the city, the county and the state – starting with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. “I am a victim,” he said, of being cut off from AATA group ride services to the 148-apartment affordable housing development where he lives, off of Jackson Road. Since the AATA stopped serving the area west of Wagner and Jackson, he had no access to service.

At the conclusion of the meeting, he used his time  to talk about regionalization of services countywide and throughout southeast Michigan. Regionalization should focus on transportation, housing the homeless, and extending healthcare that is now unavailable to the most vulnerable. He said it was gratifying to find out that an Ann Arbor News reporter had witnessed his calls for regionalization. But, he said, the AATA board, which had been appointed by Mayor Hieftje, with the consent of city council, continued to provide service on a discriminatory basis. When Partridge talked through the 3-minute time clock beep, Hieftje admonished Partridge: “Sir, your time is up.” At this, Partridge gave his standard call for the time limits on public speaking to be waived for senior citizens [Partridge is a senior]. Hieftje tried again with, “Your time is up, would you please stop!”

Partridge finished and council went into closed session to discuss land acquisition.

Misc. Communications

Councilmember Christopher Taylor advised that the Burns Park Players production of “Annie Get Your Gun” would begin on Friday, Feb. 6, continuing with performances the following weekend as well. Taylor, who has performed in past productions but not this one, said that Eva Rosenwald, his wife, had been selected to play Annie.

Councilmember Margie Teall announced that the Dicken Woods annual candlelight walk would be held on Tuesday, Feb. 3.

Present: Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Stephen Rapundalo, Leigh Greden, Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall, Marcia Higgins, Carsten Hohnke, Mike Anglin, John Hieftje

Absent: Tony Derezinski

Next Council Meeting: Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

Municipal Facility (Police-Courts)

Three members of the public appeared in order to express their opposition to the construction of the police-courts facility. On the council agenda for Monday is a resolution to approve the $35.87 million contract with Clark Construction, which carries a guaranteed maximum cost of $38,148,745. Construction would begin later this month and be completed in the spring of 2011.

The arguments against it from the public included an analysis of what the community would be sacrificing financially in other areas in order build the project. These members of the public also provided the view based on professional experience on the engineering side, that the “value engineering” process in which city staff are currently engaged always cuts cost to the client, but never cuts profit to the builder. One person compared the situation to a dysfunctional family where one of its members has expensive habits – drugs, alcohol and gambling. When that member is in a bind and has no money for heat in the wintertime, he said, a sob story gets told in order to get relatives to donate money to the cause. In this case, the sob story is that the city of Ann Arbor won’t have money for police and fire protection or trash collection, and the expensive habit is the police-courts facility.

Those members of the public found sympathetic ears in the form of councilmembers Sabra Briere and Mike Anglin, who have long been on record as opposing the project. As an aside, Anglin has already taken out petitions for his re-election and he circulated them Sunday night. On Sunday, Anglin expressed his disappointment that the project had come this far and said he was not in favor of proceeding: “You can’t predict the future, but you can act on the present.”

But it was councilmember Marcia Higgins who led off councilmembers’ discussion of the municipal facility and seemed to express a certain weariness by rubbing her eyes. She said that she’d be pushing for a resolution from council to eliminate the new public meeting space and council chamber from the design: “I would like to suggest that we give Roger [Fraser, city administrator] direction that we don’t spend any more on design.” She stressed that council had never said that this additional space would be paid for out of the bond, and that this was why she was surprised to hear councilmember Leigh Greden (not present on Sunday) suggest at a previous council meeting that it could be – if the bids for the rest of the project came back low enough. The idea that the new space for council chamber and public meetings will not be built is consistent with the memo accompanying the agenda item for Monday’s meeting approving the construction agreement: “As the base project will require virtually the entire budget, we do not recommend further consideration of the New Community Meeting Room alternate.”

Briere said she would not vote for the building but would vote for the elimination of the construction of new council chambers, noting that she had not seen a contingency plan developed.

Stimulus Package and Other Major Construction Projects

The new municipal center project also came up in the discussion of the federal stimulus package wish list.  Briere noted that the city of Ann Arbor’s wish list included the new municipal center ($65 million), plus the waste water treatment facility renovations ($94 million), projects for which the city had budgeted and for which the council had been informed there was money to fund. She said that to ask for money for those projects would make Ann Arbor look greedy, and that she was dismayed by the list. After caucus, Briere clarified that she was not against asking the federal government for money, but that in choosing to list projects for which we’ve said we can pay for ourselves, we miss the opportunity to fund other projects.

During caucus discussion, Briere said that Mayor John Hieftje had given her a wish list of Ann Arbor environmental projects to convey to Michigan representatives on her trip to Washington, D.C. After caucus, she said that she’d managed to talk about the projects with Rep. John Dingell’s staff, Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s staff, as well as Lt. Gov. John Cherry.

One project that Higgins would have liked to have seen on the wish list was the replacement of the Stadium Boulevard bridges across State Street and the railroad tracks. She said that a very recent inspection of an exposed beam on the State Street bridge would necessitate a $0.5 million repair. This, after a plan to replace both bridges, incorporating non-motorized amenities, had been delayed due to lack of funding.  Higgins said she was frustrated that a “basic bridge” had never been designed as part of the city’s approach to the need to replace the State Street bridge. This means that it doesn’t appear on the stimulus wish list – which contains “shovel ready” status columns for 90, 120 and 180 days. Higgins said that Sue McCormick, the city’s director of public services, had told her it would take up to 8 months to design the bridge.

The Stadium bridge has had its weight-carrying capacity reduced over the years as part of a strategy to deal with the fact that it needs to be replaced, Higgins said, but now we needed to begin to face up to the possibility that lack of action would result in closing the bridge. Higgins said she was not happy with McCormick’s response to her query about contingency planning for emergency response, in the event the bridge is closed on the major east-west corridor. Higgins characterized the response as, “We’ll get to that.”

Higgins also indicated at caucus that there would be a motion to table the resolution for the Farmers Market renovation project indefinitely. Its budget had grown from less than $1 million to over $2 million.  She noted that it was important that people understood that the $600,000 that had been described as a “grant” was actually a low-interest loan. The money would go towards the cleaning of storm water retained at the site. At its last meeting, council voted to postpone the resolution.

Fiscal Policy: Capital Improvement Plan and the Budget

Higgins clarified her lone “no” votes at last council meeting on the capital improvement plan and a resolution authorizing the use of around $250,000 of storm water fund money for a tree inventory. She said that she had been working over the last five years or so to make the capital improvement plan a part of the budgeting process, because the CIP is such a huge driver of budget decisions. Now it’s a separate process.

Other matters that Higgins said she wanted to see included in the budgeting process involved fees – storm water rates, sewer rates, water rates. She said that she wanted any fees that were not for recreational activities (which required separate consideration mainly so that publicity materials could be prepared with the accurate amounts printed in them) to be a part of the budget process. Council will be considering a modified fee schedule for golf courses at Monday’s meeting. Briere concurred with the idea that it was important to understand the impact of fee increases on the budget.

Higgins also clarified her vote at the last council meeting against the use of around $250,000 out of the storm water fund to supplement a $25,000 grant to inventory city trees. She said that she would prefer to see that money spent directly on storm water, not on a tree inventory. Briere said that for $25,000, “we could hire Boy Scouts – I’m not kidding.”

Also related to fiscal policy was a question Higgins asked people to start thinking about: Should Act 51 money be tapped to fund street barricades for community events (non-exhaustive list: Rolling Sculpture, Dancing in the Streets, Oktoberfest, 4th of July Parade, Festifools, Taste of Ann Arbor, Art Fairs, Take Back the Night, Summer Festival). She said that state law had required new types of barriers, and that the overhead to transport them from the Wheeler Center had increased slightly, with the overall impact that the cost to community groups for barricading the public right of way had roughly doubled. Tapping Act 51 (transportation) funds was one possibility she saw to help defray those costs.

One Percent for Art? Really??

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

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

Zoning: Area Height and Placement

Discussion among councilmembers at caucus actually began with consideration of a planned project on the agenda for the Wintermeyer Office Building at 2144 and 2178 South State. Briere reported that the existing setback is 37 feet, what is required by current code is 25 feet, and the developer is asking for 15 feet. The proposed setback would be consistent with the revised area, height, and placement standards on all non-downtown and non-residential properties that  came out of planning commission, but which were sent back by council for more public input. So Briere wondered if city planning staff were pushing developers to build to a new standard that had not yet been approved. Along the same lines, Higgins expressed her frustration that planning staff might be saying to developers that council would be approving the new standards and that they should go ahead and build based on them.

Taylor ventured that the new standards had been “vetted to some degree,” but Briere quickly objected that they hadn’t. Taylor rephrased by saying that the standards were not “fresh from the air.” He said that in a situation where the standards are in transition, it seemed reasonable that a developer might hew to the standard that might be approved, if it allowed him to achieve the innovation he had in mind for his project.

Because the project does not meet existing standards, said Higgins, it’s coming before council as a planned project, something that she said council had repeatedly asked planning staff not to do. Planned projects are similar to PUDs in that the city applies certain criteria to projects that do not conform to existing code. But Higgins said that planned projects offer much less flexibility in negotiation than PUDs.

Public Commentary

Tom Partridge: The meeting was bookended, as it often is, with commentary from Tom Partridge. In his turn at the beginning of the meeting he reiterated a challenge he’d made at the last council meeting: for city council to pass a resolution addressed to state- and national-level elected representatives to “protect and save existing jobs in Michigan,” arguing that the economy of Michigan, the midwest, and the entire nation hangs in the balance. Partridge also called on citizens to write, email, call, and demonstrate, saying that the future of the nation is at stake.

In his second turn at the end of the meeting, Partridge responded to news from city administrator Roger Fraser that at next Monday’s (Dec. 8) working session, there would be possible approaches introduced for building 100 units of affordable housing to replace the units that were lost when the YMCA building at the corner of Fifth and William was purchased by the city of Ann Arbor some five years ago. Soon thereafter the building suffered failure in its mechanical systems that required relocation of its residents. Saying that the election of Barack Obama heralded a time of change comparable to that ushered in by Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, Partridge said that council had been sidestepping its responsibility to those less fortunate, and that the 100 units of affordable housing that were to be replaced were not enough.

Andrea Clyne: Clyne updated council on the result of a teen summer program at the Community Action Network that had a focus on developing entrepreneurial skills: production of a calendar featuring local politicians and their pets. Clyne presented councilmembers with calendars and stressed that sale of the calendars is a fundraiser for CAN, a nonprofit that provides support services for local public housing communities, as well as the Humane Society of Huron Valley. Note: Current councilmember Stephen Rapundalo and Ann Arbor mayor John Hieftje are included in the calendar.

Henry Herskovitz: Herskovitz organized his comments by sharing some recent stories from the news, some less recent history, and a Christmas wish. The recent news stories included food trucks and a boat turned away from Gaza by Israeli military, the closure of half the bakeries in Gaza, and the suggestion of a Likud Party member that Palestinean prisoners be used as shields. Herskovitz said the U.S. was responsible for the situation in Gaza: “It is a crime to starve children. And yet, we do it.” The historical perspective introduced by Herskovitz was that outlined in the book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe, with Herskovitz highlighting the book’s indictment of David Ben-Gurion. The Christmas wish that Herskovitz expressed was that somehow the content of Pappe’s book would reach the minds of everyone listening. It was further his wish that this might allow them, when they heard a person say that Israel was attacked as soon as statehood was declared, to tell that person they were wrong.

City Apartments

Jon Frank, vice president of development for Village Green, spoke to council about the project to be built on the southeast corner of First and Washington Streets. He reiterated many of the same themes from the previous night’s caucus and the Nov. 6 city council meeting. These included a focus on the involvement of the community in the design process: the DDA, the Old West Side Association, the Downtown Citizens Advisory Council. Ray Detter, of the Downtown Citizens Advisory Council, spoke in favor of the project, citing the fact that it met all the requirements of the RFP, increased public parking capacity (a total of 244 spaces) and increased the diversity of housing with 10 percent of the housing units for people earning 50-80% of the annual median income.

Tom Partridge spoke at the public hearings both for the PUD and the site plan, criticizing the 10 percent affordable housing as too low and the 50-80% of AMI figure as too high. He called on council to become an example for other city councils across the country by building into the city charter a requirement that any rezoning (as with the PUD) include a requirement for affordable housing and to establish accessibility requirements for residents with physical challenges.

Barabara Hall, of the Old West Side Association board, spoke in support of the project, confirming the claim of Jon Frank that Village Green had worked constructively with the community. She alluded to a letter of support from the Old West Side Association.

Mark Hodesh, owner of Downtown Home & Garden, which is situated across the alley from the proposed City Apartments project, began his comments by saying, “I come as a friend!” He said that in the last 24 hours, a lot of issues had come together. The four issues he’d identified had been, he felt, largely resolved: (i) snow removal had been addressed with Mike Bergren, assistant field operations manager with the city of Ann Arbor, who has elevated the alley to the first of three levels of priority assigned to streets for snow clearing, (ii) the DDA, via its executive director, Susan Pollay (also in attendance at the council meeting), would assure the adequacy of the lighting in the alley as a pedestrian walkway, (iii) traffic would be addressed by moving the loading and unloading signage to the south end of the structure, and (iv) he was content with the four-hour window for trash pick up. Based on conversation with councilmember Christopher Taylor after the meeting, The Chronicle understands that this four-hour window was a part of the construction agreement. We were not successful in locating the electronic version of that document on the city’s website.

On this last point about trash pickup, Frank had expressed some dissatisfaction, saying that this window was a requirement not imposed anywhere else in the city.

Council’s deliberations were mostly congratulatory for the long and hard effort of collaboration that had resulted in the final plan. Councilmember Sabra Briere said that even though she’d not been a part of the effort, which she described as “amazing,” she’d observed it closely and would be supporting it. Councilmember Margie Teall said that she’d seen the project from the perspective of someone who had been involved and that she was impressed with the willingness of the developer to work cooperatively with the community as well as the track record of the developer elsewhere in the country.

Councilmember Christopher Taylor echoed the sentiments of his colleagues, commending the co-working that the developer had done with the community. He proposed two amendments to the development agreement that would address the concerns of Hodesh with respect to the traffic and the lighting. The first amendment would move signage from the north end of the alley to the south. The second one addressed the lighting issues. Both amendments passed unanimously, with councilmember Leigh Greden first confirming that both Hodesh and Frank were amenable to them.

Outcome: passed unanimously

City Place

This was the first reading for the PUD rezoning after it had failed to win the recommendation of the planning commission. Councilmember Carsten Hohnke noted that the City Place development offered some of the same kind of benefits that City Apartments did, but with a key difference: the location of City Place along South Fifth Avenue falls outside the core of downtown.

Hohnke said he felt that the public benefit from the project did not rise to the level that would justify the granting of the PUD re-zoning, but that he wanted to hear from the public, so was willing to move it along to a second reading and public hearing, though he had “significant reservations.”

Councilmember Briere echoed the sentiments of Hohnke and made a point of complimenting the city staff who had prepared the packet, because the write-up on the history of the project and the history of the area made very clear what she was looking at. She expressed the same significant reservations as Hohnke.

Outcome: passed unanimously to second reading

Police-Courts Facility

At the beginning of the meeting, council received a briefing from Kenneth Clein of the Quinn Evans design team on the status of the police-courts project, also known as the municipal center. It’s currently in a phase where bid packages are being developed, with the first of them being issued the following day (Dec. 2). Pending council approval, construction on the project is due to start in March 2009, with a closed building shell for the new addition due by November 2009. Clein walked council through several drawings of the project, including highlights of the north and south courtyard areas.

Council later considered an amendment to the agreement with Quinn Evans in the amount of $411,003.

Councilmember Briere had questions for Bill Wheeler – who is major projects manager for the city of Ann Arbor – related to the $212,790 specified in the amendment for audio visual, telecommunications, and building security.

Where will the audio visual equipment go and what is its scope? Wheeler gave as an example police interview rooms where there is a need to have equipment to fully document conversations, as well as courtrooms where there is a need to have adequate AV support to display evidence such as video shot from a dashboard camera of a police vehicle. Briere got clarification from Wheeler that the dollars for building security were for the Larcom rennovation as well as for the new addition. Councilmember Teall got clarification from Wheeler that the building security included such items as door locks and video monitoring.

Briere noted that the drawings for the public meeting space that would also be the new council meeting space seemed “fully realized.” She asked what would happen if council did not appropriate the money for the additional public meeting area. Wheeler said that the money had already been appropriated and that it was simply a question of whether the guaranteed maximum price of the building – which would be determined when bids came back in January 2009 – is low enough for the city to afford it. If it is low enough, Wheeler, said, then it will become a reality.

This prompted councilmember Greden to clarify that the authorization for construction of the public meeting room, as well as the main part of the new addition, would still need council authorization to move forward. Wheeler acknowledged this was the case, and that the intent was to bring the resolution before council on Feb. 2, 2009 to authorize the construction.

Greden also emphasized that the amendment to the agreement with the architect that council was considering that night did not represent an increase in the size of the project budget and that the funds for that had already been appropriated. Greden also responded to councilmember Mike Anglin’s fiscal concerns that the $144,145 for LEED certification might simply buy the building a plaque to attest to building features that the city was going to implement anyway. Greden stressed that “our friends at the DDA” would be funding that. The substantive part of Anglin’s concern (what does the LEED certification actually buy?) had been addressed by Wheeler, who said the measurement study to confirm that the building was actually using energy in the way that was intended could last a year after completion of construction.

Outcome: passed with one vote against, from Briere, who did not request a roll call vote

Skatepark

The council chambers were almost at capacity due to the large number of supporters of the skatepark proposed for Veterans Park. Trevor Staples and Dug Song, of the Skatepark Action Committee, had front row seats and allowed The Chronicle to squeeze in amongst them because we arrived only minutes before the meeting started. Council passed the memorandum of intent and fund agreement for development of the park. The memorandum does not seem to be included in the electronic council packet available online or anywhere else on the city’s website, but we’re working on tracking that down.

Outcome: passed unanimously without discussion

Continued Financing of Old YMCA Property

The item on the agenda was to approve a continued financing of the property on the corner of Fifth and William through interest-only payments. The Bank of Ann Arbor, which will provide the financing, was one of two out of seven institutions that reponded to the request for bids. The other one was Chase Equipment Leasing, whose bid of a 6.14% interest rate did not compare favorably with the 3.89% offered by the Bank of Ann Arbor.

In deliberations, councilmember Sandi Smith said that she would support the continued financing of the property, because they had no other choice, but that she urged her colleagues to begin thinking of master planning the area so that the city could divest itself of the property as soon as possible. Smith noted that given the $5,000 cost of supporting a homeless person, the interest-only payments could be used to support 27 people. The math goes like this: ($3,500,000)*(.0389)/5,000.

Although Smith introduced her comments by acknowledging that the situation had a long history, predating the service on council of many who were currently at the table, Hieftje began his turn by reminding Smith that she was “not here” when the decision was made to acquire the property, and pointing out that it was only her second council meeting.

Hieftje then said that it was widely acknowledged that the property was worth more than the city had paid for it, and that it would be better to sell it in a more favorable real estate market. Councilmember Greden echoed the mayor’s sentiments, saying that master planning would be difficult now, when it was hard to imagine what might be possible given a different economic climate. Greden also pointed out that the city was getting a very favorable interest rate from the Bank of Ann Arbor.

Hieftje said he was reluctant to part with the property until some arrangement had been made to replace the 100 affordable housing units formerly at the site – either at the same location or some other location. And he indicated that “very soon” there would be a proposal along those lines coming forward.

Outcome: passed unanimously

Main Street Lane Closures

Jim Kosteva from UM thanked council for granting intermittent closures of the eastern-most northbound lane on Main Street between Keech and Stadium. The closures – to allow installation of pre-cast arches on Michigan Stadium – will occur over the next three weeks no earlier than 9 a.m. and no later than 3 p.m., he said, to avoid disrupting rush hour traffic. Councilmember Marcia Higgins expressed hope that the university could figure out a better way to move trucks in and out of the area without backing up – which causes extra noise due to warning beeps that the trucks emit when backing. This will be important to the neighborhood, especially if the city grants a pending request from UM to permanently close that lane in 2010, from March until Art Fairs, held in July.

Communications

The proposal to replace the 100 units of affordable housing at the old YMCA site, to which Hieftje had alluded earlier, took a slightly more concrete form when city administrator Roger Fraser announced that the Dec. 8 council work session would include such a proposal. Also on the agenda will be a discussion of the financials from the past golf season.

Councilmember Hohnke shared with the community the information that Alan Haber had conveyed at caucus the previous evening about an event to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A candelight vigil will be held at Liberty and Main streets in downtown Ann Arbor on Dec. 10 starting at 5 p.m. The vigil will be followed with a teach-in at 7 p.m. in the Anderson Room at the UM Student Union on State Street.

Councilmember Tony Derezinski congratulated Hohnke on the birth of his first child, a boy, Oscar. In response to Hieftje’s light-hearted expression of surprise that Hohnke was even at the council meeting, Hohnke joked that his wife had asked him to get out of the house.

Editorial aside: The Chronicle echoes Derezinski’s well wishes for Carsten and his family.

Present: Sandi Smith, Sabra Briere, Tony Derezinski, Leigh Greden (arrived around 8 p.m.), Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall, Marcia Higgins, Carsten Hohnke, Mike Anglin, John Hieftje.

Absent: Stephen Rapundalo

Next meeting: Monday, Dec. 15 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave.