The solid waste plan includes evaluating methods to increase recycling participation through pilot programs. Among those methods is the introduction of a recycling incentive program for multi‐family housing units. The city council discontinued the RecycleBank incentive program for single-family residential units with a vote on May 22, 2012, which eliminated funding for the RecycleBank program in the FY 2013 budget. After two years of implementation, in connection with conversion to a single-stream curbside pickup program, the impact of the incentive program was not clear.

According to the staff memo accompanying the June 16 multi-family recycling pilot, a manual sort of waste conducted in the fall of 2012 found that only 12% of the trash that single-family residents threw away was recyclable, compared to 26% of the trash that multi-family residents threw away. The completion of the pilot program is expected in December 2016. According to the memo, Recycle Ann Arbor’s proposal includes:

1. Gather information on best multi-family recycling practices in North America.
2. Survey and/or interview key multi-family constituencies in Ann Arbor to better understand the challenges and opportunities for recycling in this sector. Based on feedback received, develop 3 to 5 methodologies for further testing and analysis.
3. Identify pilot parameters and measurement protocols.
4. Identify pilot communities to involve in the pilot programs (ultimately targeting approximately 1,000 units) and ramp up pilot start-up.
5. Implement pilot programs.
6. Analyze results of pilot programs.
7. Provide detailed recommendations to the City on best practices and report results to participating multi-family communities.

Methodologies that will be tested as part of the pilot will include the following:

• Recycling rewards program: Evaluate if a recycling rewards program would be effective in improving recycling participation rates in multi-family locations
• Indoor collection bins: Most multi-family locations share outdoor recycling bins. Determine if the provision of indoor recycling bins would help increase recycling rates.
• Multi-family recycling leader program: Determine if the use of recycling leaders at individual locations would help increase recycling rates.
• 300-gallon recycling cart: Determine if the use of 300-gallon carts instead of the standard 96-gallon cart would help increase recycling.

In other action on recycling issues taken by the council at its June 16 meeting,  a $39,480 reimbursement to Resource Recovery Systems – the city’s contracted operator of its materials recovery facility (MRF) – was approved for repair of the baler infeed conveyor belt. According to a staff memo accompanying the item, the belt was last replaced in 2007, and has worn out. Such conveyors are described in the memo as lasting five to seven years.

At the same meeting, the council also approved a $35,000 annual contract with Recycle Ann Arbor for services associated with the move-out of University of Michigan students. According to the staff memo on the item, RAA’s proposal includes a staffed drop-off location at the corner of Tappan and Oakland streets during student fall and spring move-out periods. The site is also used to collect reusable items (through organizations such as the Salvation Army, Kiwanis, or the Reuse Center), bulky metal items, and recyclable materials.

During council discussions on June 16, it emerged that Tom McMurtrie, the city’s solid waste coordinator, will be retiring. Several councilmembers praised his work. Craig Hupy, the city’s public services area administrator, indicated that a replacement for McMurtrie has been identified.

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

Previously, the drop-off station was supported by three municipalities: the city of Ann Arbor ($30,000), Washtenaw County ($50,000) and Pittsfield Township ($7,500).

According to a staff memo accompanying the resoultion, when Washtenaw County withdrew its support in 2009, Recycle Ann Arbor declined support from the other governmental units – because it would have required tracking where users lived in order to determine the appropriate use charge. Roughly 60% of the users of the facility live outside Ann Arbor. Recycle Ann Arbor now charges a $3 entry fee, in addition to the specific drop-off charges for specific kinds of items. For example, the charge for dropping off a car tire is $5 – with the $3 entry fee, it would total $8.

The previous contract with Recycle Ann Arbor to operate the drop-off facility expired nearly two years ago, on Jan. 1, 2010. The new contract is retroactive to that date.

The staff memo for the agenda item notes some significant sinking of the southeast corner of the building at the facility, but indicates there is no immediate danger. Still, building repairs are recommended.

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

The speaker’s podium at Monday’s meeting was graced with a basket full of buttons stating: I WILL VOTE. The city’s primary election is Tuesday, Aug. 2. The buttons are part of a city clerk’s office effort to increase participation in the elections. (Photos by the writer.)

During the time reserved for council communications at the start of the meeting, councilmembers decided to reconsider a 5-4 vote they’d taken on July 5. That vote, which failed to achieve a six-vote majority, had the outcome of rejecting an increase to Recycle Ann Arbor‘s contract to provide curbside recycling service in the city. After agreeing to reconsider the vote, the issue was again fresh before the council.

Councilmembers then unanimously agreed to postpone action on the contract until the next meeting, which falls on Aug. 4 – after the Aug. 2 city council primary elections. Based on remarks from Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5), it appears likely that the council may discontinue a contract with RecycleBank (an incentive program provider) in order to free up funds to supplement Recycle Ann Arbor’s contract.

Next up was a resolution that had been moved forward on the council’s agenda to a spot before all the consent agenda items. After brief deliberations, the council agreed to offer its open city administrator position to Steve Powers. The decision for Powers over another finalist, Ellie Oppenheim, came after two rounds of interviews on July 12-13, including a televised session on the morning of July 13. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Search Concluding for Ann Arbor City Admin"]

Although Monday’s meeting was brief, the council ticked through a raft of significant votes after those two main business items. The expected start of the East Stadium bridges reconstruction project was reflected in the approval of stormwater control projects near the construction site, and in the approval of a deal to use land as a construction staging area. For a property just down State Street from the bridge, but unrelated to the project, the council approved a sanitary sewer hookup at the location where Biercamp Artisan Sausage and Jerky has opened for business.

Related to the city’s emphasis on the natural environment, the council approved a contract that will allow the planting of 1,200 trees in city rights of way, and added 110 acres of land to the city’s greenbelt program.

The city renewed its membership in the Urban County, a consortium of local governmental entities that allows the city to receive federal funds through a variety of federal U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs. The council also appointed Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) as a hearing officer for liquor license revocation recommendations. Initial approval was also given to two ordinance changes related to employee benefits – one of them for union employee retirement benefits, the other for non-union retiree health benefits.

Only three people addressed the council during public commentary at the start of the meeting. Two of them were the owners of businesses – Earthen Jar and Jerusalem Garden – adjacent to the construction site of the underground parking structure along Fifth Avenue. They reiterated the same theme they’d conveyed to the board of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA) at that body’s July 6 meeting – their business is suffering due to the construction.

And related to the DDA, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) continued a pattern of using his council communications slot to update his colleagues on his campaign to press the DDA to provide more information about its budget. It’s a highlight of his re-election campaign in Ward 3, where he’s contesting a three-way primary on Aug. 2.

New City Administrator

In front of the council for its consideration was a resolution to offer the job of city administrator to an unnamed candidate. The council moved the item towards the start of its agenda on Monday evening and deliberated briefly on the choice. Consideration of the resolution came after two rounds of interviews on July 12-13, with the two finalists – Steve Powers and Ellie Oppenheim – including a televised session on the morning of Wednesday, July 13. During the July 13 discussion among councilmembers who attended those interviews, a preference had been indicated for Powers. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Search Concluding for Ann Arbor City Admin"]

Powers currently serves as county administrator of Marquette County, Mich. – a position he’s held since 1996. Oppenheim most recently served as CEO of the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority.

The city’s chief financial officer, Tom Crawford, has been serving as interim city administrator since April 28 – he was appointed to that position at the city council’s April 19, 2011 meeting. Previous city administrator Roger Fraser announced his resignation at a Feb. 28 city council working session. Fraser took a job with the state of Michigan as a deputy treasurer.

New City Administrator: Council Deliberations

The first part of the council’s deliberations on Monday involved amending the resolution to add a candidate name.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) before the July 18 council meeting started. Higgins is acting alone – it does not take three councilmembers to plug in a computer.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), who chaired the search committee, said a lot of the council’s sentiments on the two candidates had been expressed during the work session held on Wednesday, July 13. She said she felt Powers was a stronger candidate for what the city needs. She cited as a strength the fact that Powers is already familiar with Michigan. She pointed to the very dynamic things he’d accomplished with Marquette County. Higgins described his approach as thoughtful, and reiterated that she felt he was a stronger candidate.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) echoed Higgins’ sentiments. He pointed out that the process had narrowed down 60 applicants to three. The council was very thorough, he said, and had a lot of information. Based on the discussion at the work session, one candidate was favored, he noted. Because Powers had headed a municipal entity for 15 years, he knew how you handle conflicting things, Derezinski said. Like Higgins, he pointed to Powers’ background in Michigan as important. He noted that Powers was trained as a city administrator, but had found his future with a county. Now Powers was coming back to what he studied to be. Either candidate could have done the job, said Derezinski, but Powers was the better of the two.

Sandi Smith before the July 18 council meeting started. The poster in the background exhorting citizens to participate in the Aug. 2 elections has also appeared in the windows of downtown businesses. It’s part of an effort by the city clerk’s office to increase turnout in the off-year election.

Mayor John Hieftje said he’d heard several residents who appreciated the discussion that the council had had. It was a very good discussion about the candidates, he continued. The council had spent a lot of time with the decision, but it was clear to all of the councilmembers that Powers was a better fit. Powers’ desirability was also confirmed by another government, said Hieftje, who noted that Ann Arbor’s hire was close to being on schedule.

[Powers made a list of four finalists for the open county administrator job in Polk County, Iowa, where the city of Des Moines is located. The day after the Ann Arbor city council made its offer to Powers, Polk County added another finalist to their list of interviewees.]

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) allowed that he didn’t attend the round robin interviews on July 12 or the presentation and question/answer session on July 13. But he said he’d had lengthy conversation with both candidates at the July 12 public reception. He was able to review the video of the July 13 session and review the material that the city’s HR department had provided.

Hohnke said the city has a great opportunity to bring someone like Powers into the community. Both candidates had the skills and knowledge to fill the position more than adequately, he said. But for Hohnke, it came down to which candidate that had strengths that matched up with needs of Ann Arbor at this time. Powers’ familiarity with Michigan was appealing to him, as well as his ability to drill down to specific answers to questions. What stood out for Hohnke was Powers’ success at collaboration with his peers, his ability to take input in a sincere way, his ability to be fair and consistent, and his interest in how the city will measure the success of the city administration. Powers was able to dive down and be specific about tracking performance, Hohnke said.

Hohnke continued his comments by saying it’s a great opportunity and he thanked both candidates – it’s a lot of work to apply for a job, he said. He also thanked Tom Crawford, the city’s chief financial officer who has served as interim city administrator, noting Crawford still has some work to do. Hohnke also extended his thanks to the city council search committee.

Outcome on adding Powers’ name to the resolution: The council voted unanimously to amend the resolution by filling in the blank with Steve Powers’ name.

The deliberations on the main motion were brief. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) noted that it was the most important decision the council would make – unlike councilmembers, who might only serve a two-year term, city administrators stick around for more than two years, she said.

Outcome on city administrator selection: The council voted unanimously to extend an offer of the city administrator position to Steve Powers.

The resolution approved by the city council on Monday specifies that the appointment of Powers is contingent on signing a contract. The council’s city administrator search committee had recommended targeting recruitment of a city administrator with a base salary in the $145,000-$150,000 range. Negotiations on the council’s side will be handled by members of the search committee: Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), Sabra Briere (Ward 1), and Christopher Taylor (Ward 3).

Recycle Ann Arbor Deal

At the council’s July 5 meeting, a vote to change the contract under which Recycle Ann Arbor provides curbside recycling service failed to pass. On July 18, the council reconsidered that vote.

Recycle Ann Arbor Deal: Background

The proposal first considered at the council’s July 5 meet was a change to the city’s contract with Recycle Ann Arbor (RAA) for curbside collection of the city’s single-stream recycling carts – from $3.25 to $3.55 per month per cart, for a total of $107,042 annually. The vote was made without any deliberations and resulted in 5 votes for it and 4 against. Voting against it were Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5), Mike Anglin (Ward 5) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1). The 5-4 vote meant that the proposal did not achieve a required six-vote majority, and thus failed.

The city council had voted on March 15, 2010 to adopt the single-stream recycling program, which began exactly one year ago, on July 5, 2010.

At that time, the city approved a contract with RAA that called for a payment of $3.25 per month for each cart that is deployed in the the city (whether it is set out for collection or not), plus a per-ton payment of between $18.74 and $30.00. The amount of revenue RAA has received through these two kinds of payment was less than projected for the last fiscal year. Specifically, the tonnage payments received by RAA for fiscal year 2011 (which ended June 30) for recyclable material were projected to be $406,332 but in fact only generated $187,560 for RAA – only 46% of what was expected. The shortfall was $218,772.

Also, the city expected to distribute 32,779 carts, but it turned out that only 29,734 carts were deployed, or 9.3% fewer than planned. A staff memo accompanying the July 18 resolution explained the reduced number this way: “… many of the smaller multi-family residential units that were previously using the 11-gallon recycling ‘totes’ are able to share recycle carts, resulting in a smaller number of deployed carts.” In terms of revenue, the reduced number of carts meant that RAA received only $1,159,626 compared to the projected $1,278,381 – for a shortfall of $118,755.

Summing the shortfalls in the two kinds of revenue ($118,755 + $218,772), RAA received $337,527 less than it expected for FY 2011. The increase in the monthly per-cart service fee requested (but rejected by the council) – for all five years of the five-year contract – would have worked out to nearly cover the annual shortfall that was due only to the decreased number of carts: $107,042 versus $118,755.

The overly-optimistic projections were made by the city’s recycling consultant Resource Recycling Systems and RecycleBank, a company that administers a coupon-based incentive program to encourage residents to recycle. When the council approved the single-stream recycling contract with RAA last year, it also struck a 10-year deal with RecycleBank, at up to $200,000 per year, to administer a coupon-based incentive program to help boost recycling rates in conjunction with the single-stream rollout.

At the time, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) questioned the length of the RecycleBank contract, and established in the course of deliberations that the city’s opt-out clause would be less costly than the cost of the contract. He was concerned that the city had options in the event that RecycleBank’s incentives did not boost recycling tonnage to the levels that were forecast. [Chronicle coverage: "Council Banks on Single-Stream Recycling"]

Graph 1. Tons of curbside recycling collected by week, from July 2009 through April 2011. The first vertical bar is the first week of July 2010, when single-stream recycling was implemented. The second vertical bar marks the first week in September, when RecycleBank’s contract started. (Data from the city of Ann Arbor. Graphing and any errors in presentation are The Chronicle’s responsibility.) The dip in March 2011 is not yet accounted for. (Image links to higher resolution .pdf file)

According to city of Ann Arbor staff, participation in the RecycleBank program stands at 10,000 of 23,600 Ann Arbor households. In the first five months of 2011, Ann Arbor residents ordered 7,153 rewards. The rewards range in value, generally around $5-20.

Tom McMurtrie, solid waste coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor, provided to The Chronicle truck-level data at the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) for the period July 2009 to April 2011. Graph 1 is the result of filtering that data just for curbside recycling and grouping it by calendar week.

The plot suggests that the increase in curbside recycling tonnage collected – roughly 20% more – was realized with the rollout of the single-stream recycling program, and was not enhanced much by the RecycleBank coupon incentive program. That is counter to the expectation expressed at the council’s March 15, 2010 meeting, when the council approved the RecycleBank contract – at that time they were told that the RecycleBank program is what “gives it that shot in the arm.”

Recycle Ann Arbor Deal: Council Deliberations

Margie Teall (Ward 4) led off the first slot on the agenda for council communications by telling her council colleagues that she was sorry to have missed the last meeting, because there was an issue on solid waste that was voted on. As a member of the environmental commission involved in solid waste task forces over the last few years, she was disappointed not to be able to participate in that vote.

She said she would support bringing that vote back for reconsideration. [Because she did not attend the meeting, Teall could not make the motion for reconsideration herself. That motion must come from someone who voted, and specifically someone who voted with the prevailing side. In the case of that 5-4 vote, the four in the minority were actually the prevailing side, because the motion was defeated for lack of a six-vote majority. Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) voted against the measure, so he was eligible to make the motion for reconsideration.]

Hohnke indicated he would be happy to move to reconsider that vote – it wouldn’t hurt to discuss the issue further. He said he was disappointed that the council didn’t have some of the data from the city staff he wanted to see, because it was not available. He suggested that the council could reconsider and postpone it. He said that if RecycleBank is not benefitting the city, then transferring the money from the RecycleBank contract to Recycle Ann Arbor might be a healthy solution.

Outcome: The motion to reconsider the Recycle Ann Arbor vote was unanimously approved.

With the resolution again before the council, Hohnke said he’d prefer to postpone action, given that there’s an analysis taking place that’s still not available. Tom McMurtrie, solid waste coordinator for the city, was not available at the meeting.

Mayor John Hieftje said he appreciated the reconsideration, because it would allow for some more investigation of the RecycleBank program. Hieftje said there may be some misperception that Recycle Ann Arbor had done something wrong – that was not the case, he said. Instead, Recycle Ann Arbor’s contract was based on incorrect estimates about the number of carts that would be deployed in the field.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) got clarification that the intended postponement was until the council’s next meeting on Aug. 4. Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) was interested in making sure that the council would see the requested data sooner than the council meeting.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved postponement of the Recycle Ann Arbor contract until Aug. 4.

Bridge Project Stormwater Controls

In front of the council for its consideration was authorization of petitions to the Washtenaw County water resources commissioner for the design and construction of stormwater controls as a part of the East Stadium bridges replacement project. The bridge project is expected to start construction in the fall of 2011.

The council authorized two petitions – one for the Allen Creek drainage district ($1,094,059 – with the city’s portion being $1,051,391) and the other for the Mallets Creek drainage district ($1,284,330 – with the city’s portion being $1,188,005).

The stormwater controls will provide for detention to slow the rate at which stormwater enters the two creeks. That will help reduce bank erosion and excessive runoff and washout. In addition, the stormwater controls will help remove E. coli, phosphorus, and other suspended solids that diminish the stream quality.

The city has been approved for a low-interest state revolving fund loan at an interest rate of 2.5%. The projects will be financed over the course of no more than 20 years. [Google Map showing watersheds and bridge construction location]

Outcome: The council voted unanimously, without discussion, to approve both stormwater controls projects.

Use of Parcel for Bridge Construction Staging

The council was asked to approve a $70,000 payment to the owner of the parcel at 1501 S. State St., for use as a construction staging area for the East Stadium bridges reconstruction project. The parcel is located immediately adjacent to the bridge over State Street, east of State Street and south of Stadium Boulevard. The money for the use agreement will come from the city’s street repair millage.

Construction on the bridge project is expected to start in the fall of 2011.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the deal to use the parcel for a construction staging area – it was a part of the consent agenda.

Sanitary Sewer Connection

Councilmembers were asked to consider approval of a sanitary sewer connection to a property – at 1643 S. State St. – that lies in a township island (Ann Arbor Township) within the city. The property, which currently has a septic field, is the location of Biercamp Artisan Sausage and Jerky.

The property is already serviced by city water, which the city of Ann Arbor approved in 1937. The staff memo to the resolution, which appeared on the council’s consent agenda, indicates that all water improvement charges, sanitary sewer charges and sidewalk improvement charges have been paid in full. The owners of the property applied for annexation and rezoning of the property in May 2011.

In the brief deliberations, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) commended the staff for dealing with the parcel, which is currently a township island, in a creative way. Mayor John Hieftje said that the business couldn’t get county health department approval without a sanitary sewer connection.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the sanitary sewer connection.

Tree Planting

In front of the council for its consideration was approval of a $301,475 contract with Marine City Nursery Co. to plant 1,200 trees in the right-of-ways of streets in the Malletts Creek, Allen Creek, Traver Creek and Swift Run drainage districts. [.pdf of map showing areas to be targeted for tree planting]

The money for the tree planting will come from the stormwater fund’s capital budget. The Washtenaw County water resources commissioner has obtained a low-interest loan on behalf of the city through the state’s revolving fund loan and will reimburse the stormwater fund for part of the project. The rationale for use of stormwater funds to plant trees is based on the idea that trees have a positive impact on the volume and quality of stormwater flow.

The city received only two bids for the tree-planting contract, and only the bid from Marine City Nursery Co. was determined to be a responsible bid.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) prepares to take her seat at the council table. In the background is Sandi Smith (Ward 1).

During the brief deliberations, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) highlighted the fact that 1,200 trees would be planted in four different creeksheds. The effort would deal with the loss of many trees from the emerald ash borer. Mayor John Hieftje added that the city knew it was going to take a while to replace all those trees.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) said he was happy the resolution is coming forward. He’s been hearing that sometimes when trees are planted in the right of way in front of someone’s property, people who live nearby don’t water them. He estimated it would cost only $300 for the water it would take to maintain a new tree. He asked that if residents are not planning to water the new trees, to let the city know.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) questioned whether the city asked residents to water trees planted in the right of ways. Hieftje indicated that he believed the city did ask residents to do that.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the tree planting contract.

Greenbelt Addition

On the July 18 agenda was a resolution to authorize of the purchase of development rights for a 110-acre property along Pleasant Lake Road in Lodi Township – the Lindemann-Weidmayer property. The city’s cost for the PDR will be $387,372. The total budget for the project is $699,992, including contributions from other funding sources.

On Feb. 7, 2011 the council had approved a grant application to the federal Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program for the purchase of development rights on the property. And on June 6, 2011 the council approved the acceptance of $312,620 from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture for the purchase. The deal had been recommended by the city’s greenbelt advisory commission, after discussion in a closed session at its Feb. 9, 2011 meeting.

The brief council deliberations included a description by Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) of the parcel’s location. Hohnke is the city council’s representative to the greenbelt advisory commission.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the purchase of development rights for the Lindemann-Weidmayer property.

Urban County Renewal

In front of the council for its consideration was a resolution to join the Washtenaw Urban County for a second three-year period, from July 2012 through June 2015.

“Urban County” is a designation of the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), identifying a county with more than 200,000 people. With that designation, individual governments within the Urban County can become members, making them entitled to an allotment of funding through a variety of HUD programs, including the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships. Those two programs provide funding for projects to benefit low- and moderate-income residents, focused on housing, human services and other community development efforts.

Washtenaw County and the townships of Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Pittsfield, Superior, Northfield, Salem, and Bridgewater got the Urban County designation in 2002. Later, the city of Ypsilanti and Scio Township joined, and in 2009 the city of Ann Arbor – which previously received HUD funding directly – joined as well, roughly doubling the amount of money available in the Urban County’s funding pool. Earlier this summer, the Saline city council also voted to join the Urban County.

Renewal applications need to be submitted to the Detroit HUD Field Office by July 15, 2011 from all participating jurisdictions.

Margie Teall (Ward 4), who serves as the council’s representative to the Urban County, expressed her support for the city’s continued membership in that body. [The Urban County's executive committee meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month. However, its July 26 meeting has been cancelled.]

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve renewal of its membership in the Urban County.

Corrections Grant Application

Councilmembers were asked to approve a $421,801 grant application to the Michigan Dept. of Corrections for the Ann Arbor/Washtenaw community corrections advisory board. The state grant will be supplemented by $295,890 in fees, and a $292,369 general fund match from Washtenaw County, bringing the total program budget to $1,010,060.

The advisory board was established in August 1989 through resolutions approved by the Washtenaw County board of commissioners and the Ann Arbor city council. The purpose of the advisory board is to formulate a comprehensive plan for the development, implementation, and operation of the community correctional services in Washtenaw County and Ann Arbor, and to develop a plan for the administration, monitoring, and control of the community correctional services under the comprehensive plan.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) is the city council’s representative to that board, which includes the county sheriff, Ann Arbor chief of police, a circuit court judge, a probate court judge, a district court judge, a county commissioner, a councilmember, a prosecuting attorney, a criminal defense attorney, and a circuit court probation agent or district court probation officer. The board also includes representatives from the fields of mental health, public health, substance abuse, employment and training or community alternative programs, the business community, communications media, and the general public.

The brief council deliberations consisted of Anglin’s summary of the advisory board’s program. He described the program’s goal as trying to keep people out of prisons. That’s consistent with the ethic in the community that attempts to make people as productive as they can be, he said.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the grant application.

Liquor License Hearing Officer

A resolution on the July 18 agenda called for the appointment of Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) as the hearing officer for all future liquor license revocation hearings – for any reason – conducted by the city on recommendation of the council’s liquor license review committee.

At the council’s March 7, 2011 meeting, councilmembers had already approved Derezinski’s appointment as hearing officer for all future appeals of non-renewal recommendations that arise from the liquor license review committee’s annual review.

The March appointment was somewhat controversial. The appointment of Derezinski as a single hearing officer, in place of the three-member liquor license review committee as a hearing board, came as a floor amendment (during the meeting) to the council’s resolution. Voting against the change to a single hearing officer that night were long-time chair of the liquor license control committee Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), as well as Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3).

Liquor License Hearing Officer: Council Deliberations

Rapundalo noted that this past year was the first year that the establishments holding liquor licenses went through an annual review. A few establishments had required a hearing, and those were disposed of appropriately, Rapundalo said. He continued by explaining that the committee had discovered it didn’t have a process for handling situations between the times of the annual review. The liquor license review committee has adopted some regulations and parameters on which hearings will be conducted for situations not associated with the annual review. Those hearings will be handled to coincide with the appointment of Derezinski as hearing officer.

Rapundalo continued by saying that in the annual review process, $42,000 to $43,000 of back taxes had been recovered that had been in arrears.

Higgins then raised a “housekeeping” question – should Derezinski’s appointment be through Dec. 5 and then added to the council’s committee list, so that the council is reminded each year that the appointment needs to be made? Derezinski responded by saying he’d defer to the city attorney. City attorney Stephen Postema indicated there was not a problem handling the hearing officer appointment that way. Rapundalo felt it was an excellent idea. The resolution was amended to reflect Higgins’ housekeeping suggestion.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5), who serves on the liquor license review committee along with Rapundalo and Derezinski, alerted the public that the committee meetings are public. During the time he’s been on the committee, Anglin said, Rapundalo has done a good job of guiding the committee’s work. Anglin thanked Derezinski for stepping forward to do the work of the hearing officer.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to appoint Tony Derezinski as the hearing officer for all appeals hearings on liquor license revocation.

Local Development Finance Authority

Added to the agenda the evening of the July 18 meeting was a resolution to reappoint Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) to a four-year term to represent the city council on the Local Development Finance Authority board.

The LDFA is funded through tax-increment financing (TIF) in a manner similar to the way the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority is supported. A TIF district allows authorities like the LDFA and the DDA to “capture” some of the property taxes that are levied by other municipal entities in the district. The LDFA contracts with the economic development agency Ann Arbor SPARK for various business development services. [For more background on the LDFA, see Chronicle coverage: "Budget Round 5: Economic Development"]

The appointment to the LDFA board exceeds the length of a city council term, which is two years, because the terms for LDFA appointments are expressed in the LDFA bylaws as only for four years. Based on the brief council discussion between Rapundalo and Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), it appears that an LDFA board bylaws change to address that issue is on the horizon.

The council’s interest is in establishing the LDFA council appointment as a regular, routine part of the council’s committee appointment schedule, which it conducts with each new constitution of the council after November elections.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to appoint Stephen Rapundalo to the LDFA board.

Police Service Specialist Pension

The council was asked to give initial approval to a change in the pension system for members of its police service specialist union. The council had approved the collectively bargained changes at its June 20, 2011 meeting.

Currently union members make a 5% post-tax contribution to their pension. That will change to a 6% pre-tax contribution made by members of the police service specialist union. The change will be effective starting Aug. 14, 2011.

Because the change to the police service specialist retirement package requires altering a city ordinance, it will require a public hearing and a second, final approval by the council at a subsequent meeting.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously, without discussion, to give initial approval to a change in the police service specialist union pension system.

Retiree Health Change

Councilmembers considered initial approval of a revision to the city’s ordinance that covers how a city retiree’s health care is paid for. The revision to the ordinance distinguishes between “subsidized retirees” and “non-subsidized retirees.” A non-subsidized retiree is someone who is hired or re-employed into a non-union position with the city on or after July 1, 2011. In their retirement, non-subsidized retirees will have access to health care they can pay for themselves, but it will not be subsidized by the city.

At its June 6, 2011 meeting, the city council had directed the staff to prepare an ordinance change along these lines. Because it is a change to a city ordinance, the initial approval given to the change in the city’s retiree health system will require a public hearing and a second, final approval at another meeting.

During the brief deliberations on the ordinance, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) said she appreciated the city staff moving the ordinance forward based on the council’s resolution on June 6.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to give the retiree health care change its initial approval.

Picometrix Tax Abatement Public Hearing

On the council’s July 18 agenda was a public hearing on a tax abatement for Picometrix LLC, located at 2925 Boardwalk in Ann Arbor. Picometrix is a supplier of high-speed optical receivers.

The 5-year abatement would apply to $2,434,882 of personal property that Picometrix is acquiring. From the application for abatement: “Due to the projected increase in production volume, the company will need to purchase assets to maximize production and support added staffing.”

The list of personal property included in the application ranges from garden-variety desks and cubicles to digital oscilloscopes and laser beam profilers. If the abatement were approved, it would reduce the company’s annual tax bill for the new equipment by about $16,500 annually. The new personal property would generate approximately $20,700 in property taxes for each year during the abatement period, according to a city staff memo accompanying the resolution.

The industrial development district in which the Picometrix tax abatement is sought was established in 2006.

Thomas Partridge was the only person to speak during the public hearing. He stressed that tax certificates should be considered as IOUs, not unlimited grants.

No council action on the Picometrix tax abatement was scheduled for the July 18 meeting.

Communications and Comment

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

Comm/Comm: Underground Parking Structure Impact

Owners of two local businesses addressed the council about their situation – being located next to the construction site of an underground parking structure on Fifth Avenue, between Liberty and William streets. The two had also addressed the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board at its June 6, 2011 meeting.

[On the opposite side of the block, on Division Street, is another local business, the Mail Shoppe, which also has seen its business drop during the construction period. Mail Shoppe owner Carolyn Hough told The Chronicle her business has been down by 25%, and walk-in business specifically was down 50%.]

At the July 18 council meeting, Pushpinder Sethi introduced himself as the owner of Earthen Jar – he was there to ask for some kind of compensation due to the underground parking garage that’s being constructed next to his business. He described the turmoil surrounding the construction project and how business is going down. It was not expected that the construction project would last this long, he said. His sales are down 50% – he’s losing $6,000 every month. He said it’s hard to survive. He requested some compensation from the city in the form of a tax abatement.

Ali Ramlawi reminded the council that he had attended a city council meeting a couple of months ago, talking about the Downtown Development Authority. The Jerusalem Garden owner said he was not going to go out of business, but that’s because of the University of Michigan [which uses the restaurant's catering business] and the restaurant’s dedicated followers. He said he’d asked the DDA for help one year ago, but that request had been rejected by DDA executive director Susan Pollay, saying it was an ordinary civic construction project. But Ramlawi contended the project is not ordinary – Fifth Avenue has been closed for a year.

Ramlawi told the council he wanted to talk about the role of the DDA and the future of the city. Recently, the city council gave more power to the DDA with respect to parking fees and enforcement and more influence on future development of city-owned parking lots. He characterized it as a transfer of power to non-elected officials. That kind of power transfer needs to go before voters, he contended. There need to be some ballot initiatives to see if people are comfortable with that power transfer. People don’t know what the DDA is, he said. He called for more transparency. The general public doesn’t know how DDA board members are appointed or what they do.

Following their commentary, Mike Anglin (Ward 5) said it’s hard to find the businesses and wondered if some signage might be useful.

Comm/Comm: Kunselman and the DDA

During his communications slot at the end of the council meeting, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) noted that the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has submitted its missing TIF status reports from prior years. He summarized the excess of expenditures over revenues for FY 2008 ($138,000), FY 2009 ($1.9 million) and FY 2010 (3.8 million). He said that FY 2011 had just closed out, but on DDA estimates, the excess expenditures over revenues is $3.9 million. [.pdf of report compilation]

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) settles in before the start of the July 18 council meeting.

Kunselman suggested that the only way to close that gap was to open up the spaces in the new parking garage and increase rates. He characterized the situation as “fiscally irresponsible.”

Kunselman has made the DDA’s financial accountability a campaign theme for his Ward 3 Democratic Party primary election race. He faces two challengers: Ingrid Ault and Marwan Issa.

In an uncharacteristic break from the form of the agenda’s communications slot, mayor John Hieftje responded to Kunselman’s remarks by telling Kunselman that if he felt that way, then he shouldn’t have voted to approve the DDA’s budget back in May. [Hieftje sits on the DDA board and appoints its members, with confirmation from the city council.]

Kunselman responded to Hieftje by noting that the budget books that are presented to the council do not include past years’ information, and it is not presented in a way that highlights excesses of expenses over revenues.

Comm/Comm: First and Washington, Village Green

Interim city administrator Tom Crawford gave the council an update on the Village Green City Apartments project located at the city-owned First and Washington lot. Village Green plans to build a 9-story, 99-foot-tall building on the lot, with 156 dwelling units.

He reminded the council that they’d last heard from him on the subject of a “bathtub” foundation design, which resulted in the council reducing the purchase price for the land by $100,000, from $3.3 to $3.2 million. Design work has been progressing, Crawford said, and a refinement of the interior is being undertaken to provide a best-as-possible parking experience for people. He said it would probably require another 60-day extension on the purchase option agreement. He wanted to give the council a heads up. Village Green is still hoping to start work on the project this construction season.

Comm/Comm: Progressive Agenda, Unity

Thomas Partridge addressed the council during public commentary at the beginning and the end of the meeting. He introduced himself as a Washtenaw County Democrat, a father and grandfather, and an advocate for all those who need government services – a majority of the residents of the state and city. He reminded everyone of the recall effort against Gov. Rick Snyder. The deadline is Aug. 5, he said.

Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, and all local governments in the state are suffering from a reduction in state shared revenues, Partridge said. He called on the city council to act in a progressive, democratic manner with respect to all fees, including water and sewage fees. About all land use, planning, and zoning, and funds spent on capital improvements the council should think progressively, Partridge concluded.

Partridge also reminded the council of the recent death of President Gerald R. Ford’s wife, Betty Ford, of Grand Rapids, Mich. He called on all parties to come together with intelligent compromises and to be aware of the dire state that the residents of Michigan have been put in by the Michigan legislature and Gov. Snyder.

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

Next council meeting: Aug. 4, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the second floor council chambers of city hall, located at 301 E. Huron. [confirm date]

Washtenaw County clerk Larry Kestenbaum was on hand to distribute a written statement encouraging the Ann Arbor city council to wait until after the general election to change the city's ward boundaries. (Photos by the writer.)

It began with public commentary on the topic of a proposed redrawing of the boundaries for the city’s five wards. The city charter requires the wards to be pie-shaped wedges. The redrawing of the lines themselves was not thought to be particularly controversial. But the timing of the redistricting stirred a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union to appear before the council to address councilmembers. Attorney John Shea, speaking for the ACLU, told them they shouldn’t enact boundary changes between the primary and the general elections. Ultimately, the council kneaded the advice into their thinking, and voted to postpone the whole question of redistricting.

The meeting ended with a voting snafu, when the council tried to convene a closed session to discuss land acquisition. So even though the vote was 6-3 in favor of entering into a closed session, a 2/3 majority of members present did not satisfy the statutory requirement of a 2/3 majority of the council’s 11 members. The vote was eventually recognized as only half-baked, and the council came out of their workroom, revoted 8-1 to re-enter the closed session, and completed the meeting without further complications.

Part of the meeting’s creamy dessert filling also depended on a somewhat infrequent parliamentary exercise that resulted in revoting an item that the council had approved two weeks earlier. That vote was on a contract for the reconstruction and relocation of water, sanitary sewer and stormwater lines in the vicinity of the proposed site for the Fuller Road Station. Mike Anglin (Ward 5) brought the resolution back for reconsideration, and council members voted unanimously to roll out the dough again by rediscussing and revoting the issue. The outcome was the same – it was approved – but Anglin registered his dissent this time by voting against it. He told his colleagues that when they’d voted two weeks ago, he had not realized that the project was related to the Fuller Road Station site.

Also part of the council’s meeting was a significant vote that received no discussion by the council. A proposal to voluntarily increase an already-approved contract with Recycle Ann Arbor was voted down 5-4, thus failing by one vote to achieve the six-vote majority it required.

The council also wrapped up a loose end from its previous approval of ordinances related to zoning and licensing of medical marijuana, by approving a non-disclosure policy. The policy ensures that private information of patients and caregivers is not divulged.

In an item added late to the agenda, councilmembers also approved a one-year contract with the city’s deputy police chiefs union.

In other business, the council set a new design review board fee at $500. It also approved three water-related projects: a porous pavement project in the Burns Park neighborhood, a rain garden on Kingsley Street, and a level-of-service study of the city’s water system.

The council also received a presentation from the director of the Ann Arbor District Library, Josie Parker. Highlights included data on the more than 600,000 annual visitors to the library’s downtown location.

Ward Boundary Changes

The council was asked to consider a proposal to redraw the boundaries of the city’s five wards and to make the new ward boundaries effective after the Aug. 2 city council primary elections, but before the Nov. 8 general election. Most of the boundary changes involved reassigning Ward 1 areas to other wards to balance out the population among the city’s five wards.

At left, councilmember Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) talks with city clerk Jackie Beaudry before the start of the July 5 meeting.

By the numbers, if the 2010 census population were distributed perfectly evenly across the city’s five wards (pie-shaped, per the city charter), they would each have a population of 22,787 – the “ideal” number in redistricting terms. Without any redistricting, the imbalance among wards, due to relative population growth in Ward 1 since 2000, breaks down as follows: Ward 1 [24,616 population, +1,829 whole number deviation from ideal (+8.03%)]; Ward 2 [22,419, -368 (-1.61%)]; Ward 3 [22,206, -581 (-2.55%)]; Ward 4 [22,585, -202 (-0.89%)]; Ward 5 [22,108, -679 (-2.98%)].

In 2000, the variance from the ideal for each ward ranged between +1.5% and -1.5%.

As proposed, the city’s redistricting plan would yield the following breakdown: Ward 1 [22,795, +8 (+0.04%)]; Ward 2 [22,739, -48, (-0.21%)]; Ward 3 [22,919, +132 (+0.58%)]; Ward 4 [22,760, -27 (-0.12%)]; Ward 5 [22,721, -66 (-0.29%)]. To restore the balance in the wards, the redistricting proposal focuses on reassignment where the five wedges of ward pie meet, in the center of the city near the downtown. [.pdf of city of Ann Arbor proposed ward boundary changes ] [.pdf of ward boundary changes proposed by councilmember Sabra Briere]

As far as the timing of the boundary change goes, the apparent thinking on the part of the city attorney’s office, which led to the proposal before the council, was that unless this change were made before the general election, the city would be in violation of the state of Michigan’s Home Rule Cities Act 279 of 1908 [emphasis added]:

117.27a Apportionment of wards; definitions.
…
(4) In each such city subject to the provisions of this section the local legislative body, not later than December 1, 1967, shall apportion the wards of the city in accord with this section. In subsequent years, the local legislative body, prior to the next general municipal election occurring not earlier than 4 months following the date of the official release of the census figures of each United States decennial census, shall apportion the wards of the city in accord with this section.

[Previous Chronicle coverage: "Column: Ann Arbor Ward Shifts Should Wait"]

Ward Boundary Changes: Public Commentary

Public commentary included remarks from John Shea – a representative of the Washtenaw branch of the lawyer’s committee for the American Civil Liberties Union – and local attorney Tom Wieder. County clerk Larry Kestenbaum attended the meeting, but did not sign up in time to be included among the first 10 reserved speaker slots. Reserved commentary slots are assigned on a first-come-first-served basis.

Wieder told the council that it’s not always the case that common sense and legal analysis lead to the same place, but they do in the case of the proposal before the council: The council should not change the boundaries between the primary and the general election. It’s a matter of basic fairness that every person should be treated the same. The courts understand that idea and so do the councilmembers’ constituents, Wieder said. Changing the boundaries in the middle of the process is not in the interest of fairness.

Wieder summarized some of the case law on the issue by saying that orderly election processes are not to be disrupted – the courts have said that common sense must apply. From a practical view, he said, if the council does not change the boundaries between the primary and the general election, the city will likely not be sued. And if the city were sued [based on the idea that the city did not adhere to the Home Rule Cities Act and that it left the wards in a disproportionate state for an election cycle], it’s unlikely that the suit would be successful.

But if the council did change the boundaries between the primary and the general elections, it was likely a lawsuit would be filed and it would likely be successful, and that would cost money, Wieder cautioned. Changing boundaries between the primary and the general election would make the city of Ann Arbor’s elections be seen as less legitimate, Wieder said. The common sense solution would be to adopt new boundaries before Nov. 8, but not put them into effect until after the election. That way, the council would meet the strict letter of the statute, but avoid disruption of the process and preserve respect for city elections.

Speaking on behalf of the Washtenaw branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, Shea told the council he’d sent them a letter detailing the ACLU’s opposition to the boundary changes. He made clear that it’s the effective date, not the lines on the map, to which the ACLU objected.

The first objection was based on the idea that when candidates file petitions, they do so with a clear electorate in mind. Changing boundaries could skew who wants to be a candidate in an election. A second consideration is that if a councilmember or a challenger had barely enough signatures on a nominating petition, if some of those signatures were from residents of a different new ward, that could invite challenges. A third consideration is that it would disenfranchise hundreds of voters.

Given the political realities of Ann Arbor’s heavily Democratic electorate, the primary election practically equates to the general election, Shea said. So for people who are redistricted from a ward without a primary into a ward that had a primary but no contested general election, they’ll have no choice in their city council representation. Shea said he had no doubt the proposal had been put forward in good faith. Although everyone knows that redistricting processes can be used for partisan purpose, he didn’t think that was the case here. Still, 10-20 years from now that might become the case. And in the interim, it sets a bad precedent, and that ought to be avoided. The guiding principle of equal protection is rationality. He concluded by encouraging the council to do what is rational.

Kestenbaum handed out copies of a statement to councilmembers. It was made also on behalf of the state elections director Chris Thomas and the county election director Matt Yankee. It urged the council to delay the boundary changes until after the general election:

The proposed boundary changes are minor, but what if they weren’t? There is no bright line between minor changes and changes which have a political impact. And even minor changes will have an impact on the affected voters.

Ward Boundary Changes: Council Deliberations

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) got things started by offering an amendment to the resolution stating that the ordinance would take effect on Nov. 9, 2011, the day following the general election.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said she was happy to support the amendment but would be willing to make the effective date the start of a month, to make it nice and round. Higgins said her point was to make it after the general election, so she did not have problem with Dec. 1.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) said he was happy to support the amendment. He understood the concern that prompted the original proposal to change the boundaries prior to the general election. But he felt it’s fairly clear that if the boundaries were changed before the general election, “we miss the forest for the trees.” He said it’s important to make sure voters are enfranchised and felt that there is greater risk in moving forward with new boundaries before the general election than in waiting. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) also indicated his support and appreciated the way the people who brought the issue forward had done so.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) ventured that his ward would probably be one of those that would would be most affected, so he supported the amendment. [Kunselman faces two challengers in the Ward 3 Democratic primary.]

Outcome on the amendment changing the effective date to Dec. 1: The council voted unanimously to approve the Dec. 1 effective date.

Higgins then noted her disappointment at not being able to attend the June 13 city council working session about how the wards were proposed to be reapportioned. She still had some questions about how the process was working. Noting the city charter requirement that wards be roughly the shape of wedges in a pie, she said that Ward 4 [the one she represents] couldn’t be any more of a “log jam.” She said she’d worked on reapportionment 10 years ago with four other councilmembers. [At that time, Higgins was a Republican – she now is a Democrat.]

At that time, the group had wondered when the city would ever do what the charter states, Higgins said. She was disappointed that the council still hasn’t done that. The new township islands that are likely to be annexed will also be a factor. She said she’d like to see the city staff take a stab at making wards more pie-shaped, given that there was now some additional time to work on it.

Higgins moved for a postponement of four weeks until Aug. 4.  Mayor John Hieftje confirmed with assistant attorney Abigail Elias that this would not cause any problems.

In a back-and-forth between Briere and Higgins, it was confirmed that councilmembers could be consulted in some fashion by the staff, as the proposed ward boundaries are developed.

Taylor said he was unclear about the direction to be given to the staff and wondered what Higgins’ view was of “pie-shaped.” Higgins restated that the charter says the wards should be pie-shaped and the direction to the staff is to ask them to look at the charter. Taylor indicated that he felt the proposed redrawing satisfies the charter, so he would vote against a postponement. Hohnke said he’d be happy to support postponement, because no harm results from it.

Outcome: The council voted to postpone the boundary changes. Dissent came from Taylor. Before the postponement vote, the council had amended the ordinance to make the changes that they eventually agree on effective on Dec. 1, after the Nov. 8 election.

Revote on Sewer Project

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) made a motion to reconsider a June 20, 2011 vote that the council took in awarding a $1,216,100 construction contract to Hoffman Brothers Inc. The project involves relocating a sanitary sewer south of Fuller Road, and east of the Maiden Lane and East Medical Center Drive intersection.

The project includes moving and replacing an 825-foot, 30-year-old section of 60-inch sanitary sewer pipe. It also includes construction of 525 feet of 24-inch stormwater pipe, as well as construction of 925 feet of a new 12-inch water main for service to Fuller Pool. The water main portion of the project will be completed in two phases, the second of which is planned for 2013.

Anglin’s effort to reconsider the motion was based on criticism that the work is being undertaken only because of the planned Fuller Road Station (FRS) in the area – a project  to which he has expressed opposition. Proposed in partnership between the city and the University of Michigan, it calls for construction of a large parking structure, bus depot and possibly an eventual train station. [Recent Chronicle coverage of that project: "PAC Gets Update on Fuller Road Station"]

The motion to reconsider came in the context of a memo written to the council by Dietrich Bergmann, a transportation planning engineer who participated in a 2008 University of Michigan Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation (SMART) conference on the transportation economy. The memo is critical of several aspects of the proposed sewer work, including the idea that 30 years is old for a sanitary sewer: “The city staff has not provided any evidence that the sanitary drain at the site should be moved, absent going forward with the FRS project. The 30-year age issue makes little sense. I suspect that most sanitary sewers in Ann Arbor are older.” [.pdf of Dietrich Bergmann memo]

Revote on Sewer Project: Public Commentary

In addition to sending an emailed message, Dietrich Bergmann also spoke during public commentary to address councilmembers about the issue.

The reason he was asking the council to reconsider their previous vote is that the fundamental project has not yet been approved by the city council, Bergmann said.

Project schematic for sewer and water lines. The pink line indicates sanitary sewer, green is storm sewer and blue is a water main. (Image links to higher resolution .pdf file)

If the council did not know if the city is going to proceed with Fuller Road Station and the parking structure, then it did not make sense to do the work now. He summarized the significance of the schematic he’d provided as an attachment to the letter. On the schematic, pink is sanitary sewer, green is storm sewer, and blue is the water main. Neither the green nor the blue lines are usable until additional work is done, he said. So there’s no point in doing it now – it should be done later.

George Gaston told the council he would spare them his prepared remarks. He wanted to simply stress that there is now a website that details what is going on with the Fuller Road Station project and he would like people to have a chance to see it: protecta2parks.org Other people will talk about the sewer relocations – he hoped the issue will be reconsidered.

James D’Amour told councilmembers that he was once again before them to speak. He said he had a swim meet the next day in Detroit and had not practiced, so he was a little cranky. About Fuller Road Station, he said, ”Let’s call it what it is.” He characterized Fuller Road Station as a parking structure for the University of Michigan hospital expansion. He’d read that 500 new jobs are coming to Mott Children’s Hospital, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As the council looks at the reconsideration, he suggested looking at it in the full context. He allowed that the council was probably favorably disposed to the project, but it needs to be discussed in all its dimensions. The council needs to take a step back, he said. “You’re voting on something before you know what you want to do,” D’Amour cautioned.

Ann Larimore expressed her deep concern about spending $1.2 million on the utilities relocation. Her concern about the expenditure led to looking at the project in context of the city’s stated goals of increasing sustainability and the environment. A 1,000-space, 5-story parking structure will bring thousands of cars into Ann Arbor, she said. The option of using shuttle vans plus peripheral parking lots should be explored instead. Building the parking structure is not in keeping with sustainability, she said. She noted that the mayor annually hosts a green fair, the city is proud of its urban forest and its parks, and the university has launched a campaign for sustainability. In that context, she wondered if building a 1,000-car parking lot could be justified

Revote on Sewer Project: Deliberations – Reconsideration

From a parliamentary point of view, what Anglin was requesting was a reconsideration of a previous vote. Only those who voted on the prevailing side of a vote may make such a motion.

Anglin told his colleagues that he was bringing forward the reconsideration in order discuss with councilmembers what he’s heard from the community about questions to which he doesn’t have answers. He said he’d voted for the contract on June 20, thinking it was related to flooding conditions on the city’s northside. Now he realized the project is for water utilities at the Fuller Road Station site. And in light of an upcoming July 11 work session on that topic, he was hoping other councilmembers would join him to postpone the utilities work. He noted that the city’s park advisory commission had been updated, but the infrastructure project was not discussed by that body.

In response, mayor John Hieftje rejected the idea that there was a work session scheduled on Fuller Road Station, and confirmed with interim city administrator Tom Crawford that there was no new information about Fuller Road Station to provide at such a session.

The issue with the work session stems from an expectation that the council’s addition to its calendar of the July 11 work session would include a presentation on the Fuller Road Station. From previous Chronicle reporting:

At its June 20, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council revised its calendar for the year to include a work session scheduled for July 11. While the staff memo accompanying the resolution indicates only that the additional session is due to “numerous activities developing in the city,” a likely topic to be addressed at the July 11 session is the city’s proposed Fuller Road Station.

…

At the council’s June 6 meeting, the Fuller Road Station had received extensive public commentary, despite the lack of any item on the agenda related directly to the project.

Partly in response to that commentary and to remarks from Mike Anglin (Ward 5), at that meeting Sabra Briere (Ward 1) pushed for a city council working session on the project. From The Chronicle’s report of that meeting: “Sabra Briere (Ward 1) anticipated mayor John Hieftje’s reaction to Anglin’s comments [Hieftje has pushed hard for the project] by telling the mayor that she knew he had a lot of thoughts about Fuller Road Station. But she thought the council should have a working session, so that councilmembers can become more knowledgable about the issue. Hieftje indicated that he would look into adding something to the calendar.”

When the work session was added, many people, including some councilmembers, concluded that the work session would include Fuller Road Station. As of July 10, no agenda had been posted for the July 11 working session.

The council then considered the motion that the previous vote be reconsidered. Before the meeting there was some speculation that the motion would not receive a seconding motion and would die for lack of a second. But Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) offered a second.

Outcome on the motion to reconsider: The council voted unanimously to reconsider the motion to approve the contract.

Revote on Sewer Project: Deliberations – Substance

Anglin led off the discussion by saying he realized it’s out of the ordinary to reconsider the vote. However, on the previous June 20 vote, he thought the resolution to award the contract concerned an area of the city that had experienced mudslides and water damage. The item had inadvertently slid through, he said. If he had known at the time what the resolution was about, he said he would have raised questions.

By way of background, the second line of the staff memo on the resolution states:

The Northside Interceptor Sanitary Sewer Relocation Project is located south of Fuller Road and east of the intersection with Maiden Lane and East Medical Center Drive.

From The Chronicle’s summary of the park advisory commission meeting of May 17, 2011, which Anglin attended as a council representative to PAC:

After the council gives approval, the city would start immediately with work to relocate utilities on the site – bids have already been secured, [city transportation manager Eli Cooper] said. That might start in June or July, although there’s no firm date for council approval.

At the council’s July 5 meeting, Anglin characterized the sewer relocation as putting infrastructure repairs into the future site of the proposed Fuller Road Station. He expressed concern about moving forward on a project that the council has not agreed to. He said the work sessions have been informative on phase one – the parking structure – but not on phase two, which would include a train station.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) told the council she wanted to to address some details and provide some information based on answers to a set of questions she’d sent to city staff.

Some key points from those answers: (1) the 60-inch pipe is a sanitary sewer and deals with human waste; (2) the sanitary sewer portion of the project serves nearly all residents on the city’s north side; (3) city staff acknowledges that if the Fuller Road Station were not being built, the relocation of utilities would not be as high a priority as it is; (4) starting work now would allow the work to be completed by mid-November 2011, which would allow the replacement of the adjacent soccer field next year, instead of delaying another year; and (5) the pipe, which leads under the river, has greater potential for problems due to the high volume of the flow and the turbulent nature of that flow.

In subsequent deliberations, Cresson Slotten – unit manager for the city of Ann Arbor’s systems planning unit – noted that it’s “not a nice, pretty flow, either.” He clarified that the issue is the potential for “scouring” along the bottom of the pipe and that it would gradually be eroded. Part of the project involves installing access panels so that the condition of this critical pipe can be monitored.

After laying out the additional information she’d received from staff, Briere then contrasted her position with Anglin’s. Two weeks ago, she said, she knew what she was voting on. She’d read her packet of background materials provided for that meeting and knew the pipes ran across the Fuller Road Station site. The fact that staff was recommending moving and beefing up the utilities shouldn’t be surprising. She was less inclined to change her vote, she said, because at the previous meeting, “I knew what I was doing.”

Rapundalo, too, said he was happy to have the discussion, but it had been very clear at the previous meeting what was being proposed. He characterized it as an infrastructure improvement that would benefit the new University of Michigan children’s hospital. It was first and foremost an infrastructure in the city’s capital improvement plan (CIP) that the council had previously approved, he said, so he couldn’t support changing his vote.

Hieftje reiterated Briere’s information that completing the work this year means the soccer field replacement can be done in 2013. The utilities work was going to be done anyway, he said, and would benefit 40,000 residents. He also reiterated Rapundalo’s point about the children’s hospital coming online.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) said he wanted to compliment Anglin on his candor – it took a lot to say, “Gulp, I missed it.” He acknowledged the question about whether the utilities relocation is really only about the Fuller Road Station and whether the utilities work is just the beginning of “a rear guard action.” He said he was not at the council meeting when the first vote was taken, but said the staff information was good. He noted that he was getting a chance to vote on it in a roundabout way.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) said he was happy to support the discussion for the sake of understanding the item. He said that on the previous vote, he, too, felt comfortable about what the council was acting on. Early in the text of the staff memo, he noted, was a specific reference to the location of the project along Fuller Road. It’s a mild shift in priority, he said, whether it happens this year or next. It seems like a no-cost option for the ability to consider FRS down the line, and he would not support the postponement, he said.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) pointed to the staff’s acknowledgment that the utilities relocation project had been moved up in priority. So he wanted to know what got moved down. Slotten allowed that off the top of his head none came to mind. The project went through prioritization last fall and winter, he said. Kunselman pressed for any projects that were being deprioritized as a result of this project. Slotten indicated that he couldn’t say for sure if other projects were deprioritized.

Kunselman asked Slotten to describe the infrastructure project’s basic design. The items that are included in the project are in there because of their relationship to one another, Slotten said: a single contractor with the same equipment can more easily work on stormwater, drinking water and sanitary sewer in the same general vicinity. As for the sanitary sewer specifically, it’s been laid out to take Fuller Road Station into consideration. To put it in one location and then move it – that’s not doing a good job of management, Slotten said.

Kunselman drew out the fact that the stormwater aspect of the project would serve the surface parking lot currently at the site, but only later would add flow. His concern was that the project would to some degree make infrastructure improvements that would sit idle. [Essentially, Kunselman was pressing the same kind of issue that Bergmann had raised during public commentary.] Slotten told him that the sanitary sewer part of the project would be active immediately on completion.

Kunselman said he understood Anglin’s issue, because there was not a direct communication in the packet about the project’s connection to preparation for the Fuller Road Station.

Anglin wondered what the risk would be to allowing the utilities to remain in place as they are – right now, those utilities are operating efficiently, he contended. He wondered if the council was now starting a project that the entire council hadn’t agreed to, referring to Fuller Road Station. He called it a “wading in” approach.

Responding to Anglin, Slotten said that the project would extend fire hydrant coverage down the roadway on Fuller Road – there’s currently a gap in fire hydrant coverage with respect to car fires. On the sanitary sewer side, the 30-year age of the pipe had to be put in the context of the amount of flow through the pipe. It’s at a high volume and it’s very turbulent. The pipe can thus be susceptible to scouring and would be worn out from the inside out. By having access panels in the new pipe, the city will be able to monitor that better, he said.

Briere drew out from Slotten why simply lining the sanitary sewer pipe, instead of replacing it, was not a feasible option.

Anglin reiterated his objections, saying that the council was dealing with a park, which is a sensitive area. To him, he said, it seems to be site preparation for the Fuller Road Station. As far as the access panels for monitoring, he said, the city has cameras for doing those kinds of inspections, so he was “not buying that argument at all.”

Outcome: The council voted again to approve the contract for the utilities work, but this time with dissent from Anglin.

Contract Increase for Recycle Ann Arbor

On the July 5 city council agenda was a proposal to increase the payment that the city makes to Recycle Ann Arbor (RAA) for curbside collection of the city’s single-stream recycling carts – from $3.25 to $3.55 per month per cart.

The city council had voted on March 15, 2010 to adopt the single-stream recycling program, which began exactly one year ago, on July 5, 2010.

At that time, the city approved a contract with RAA that called for a payment of $3.25 per month per cart that RAA empties, plus a per-ton payment of between $18.74 and $30.00. The amount of revenue RAA has received through these two kinds of revenue was less than projected last fiscal year. Specifically, the tonnage payments received by RAA for fiscal year 2011 (which ended June 30, 2011) for recyclable material were projected to be $406,332. In fact, tonnage payments only generated $187,560 for RAA – 46% of what was expected. The shortfall was $218,772.

Also, the city expected to distribute 32,779 carts, but only 29,734 carts were deployed, or 9.3% fewer than planned. The staff memo accompanying the resolution explained the reduced number this way: “… many of the smaller multi-family residential units that were previously using the 11-gallon recycling ‘totes’ are able to share recycle carts, resulting in a smaller number of deployed carts.” In terms of revenue, the reduced number of carts meant that RAA received only $1,159,626 compared to the projected $1,278,381 – for a shortfall of $118,755.

Summing the shortfalls in the two kinds of revenue ($118,755 + $218,772), RAA received $337,527 less than it expected for FY 2011. The increase in the monthly per-cart service fee requested (but rejected by the council) – for all five years of the five-year contract – would have worked out to nearly cover the annual shortfall that was due only to the decreased number of carts: $107,042 versus $118,755.

The overly-optimistic projections were made by the city’s recycling consultant – Resource Recycling Systems – and RecycleBank, a company that administers a coupon-based incentive program to encourage residents to recycle. When the council approved the single-stream recycling contract with RAA last year, it also struck a 10-year deal with RecycleBank, at roughly $200,000 per year, to administer their coupon-based incentive program to help boost recycling rates in conjunction with the single-stream rollout.

At the time, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) questioned the length of the RecycleBank contract, and established in the course of deliberations that the city’s opt-out clause would be less costly than the cost of the contract. He was concerned that the city had options in the event that RecycleBank’s incentives did not boost recycling tonnage to the levels that were forecast. [Chronicle coverage: "Council Banks on Single-Stream Recycling"]

As of May 2011, roughly 10,000 out of 23,600 (42%) households have signed up for the RecycleBank program. The city is nine months into the contract, which started September 2010. The termination clause allows the city to end the contract with 30 days notice if funds are not appropriated. However, the contract was presumably funded through FY 2012 as a part of the budget the council adopted in May this year.

Outcome: The council voted 5-4 to increase the amount of the contract, which meant it fell short of the six votes it needed to pass. The vote was made without any deliberations. Voting against it were Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5), Mike Anglin (Ward 5) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1).

Non-Disclosure on Medical Marijuana

Before the council for consideration was approval of a non-disclosure policy on information that the city might collect as part of its medical marijuana licensing and zoning ordinances. The council approved those ordinances at its June 20, 2011 meeting. In relevant part, the resolution states that a long list of various kinds of information “shall be protected against public disclosure in the course of the zoning and licensing process …”

The resolution was also amended to read: “Ann Arbor city staff shall treat the foregoing information as exempted from disclosure …”

A similar non-disclosure policy had been discussed, but postponed, at the council’s March 7, 2011 meeting. When the matter was before the council again, at its March 21, 2011 meeting, the council chose not to pursue that non-disclosure policy. That’s because the amendments to the medical marijuana legislation it approved on March 21 did not include the collection of personal information. So the resolution had been withdrawn by its sponsor, Sabra Briere (Ward 1).

Non-Disclosure on Medical Marijuana: Public Commentary

Not all of the public commentary regarding medical marijuana related specifically to the non-disclosure policy on the agenda, but it fits most naturally into this section of the meeting report.

Gersh Avery said he wanted to let the council know he understands there are supporters among them. He has a sense that people are concerned about the increase in marijuana use in the community. He said he doesn’t believe anyone is trying to attack patients. With respect to the confidentiality section of the ordinance, he noted that former attorney general for the state of Michigan, Mike Cox, had issued an opinion when he was still AG, because he was concerned about farming out the printing of patient and caregiver registry cards. The new attorney general, Bill Schuette, has expressed a similar concern. He cautioned councilmembers that they were essentially asking people to photocopy their information and hand it over.

Charles Ream – alluding to his frequent appearances before them to speak on issues related to medical marijuana – quipped that perhaps soon they’d have a meeting where councilmembers didn’t get to see him. Describing Briere’s proposed non-disclosure policy, Ream said it’s really important: “Let’s do it.” He noted that the policy is what the law says already. He contended there was a discrepancy between the licensing and the zoning: home occupations do not require licenses, but they require zoning compliance permits. People won’t participate in the program if the requirement for zoning compliance permits remains part of the code, he said.

Matthew Abel told the council that he was there as legal counsel on behalf of Rhory Gould with Arborside Health and Wellness. He said he supported the non-disclosure policy, but wanted to speak about the number of licenses allowed by the city’s ordinance. He cited the ordinance language on the cap to the number of licenses:

7.502 (4) The first year’s licenses shall be capped at a number 10% higher than the number of complete applications for licenses submitted to the City in the first 60 days after the effective date of this chapter, but not more than 20 medical marijuana dispensary licenses shall be issued in the first year. Any license terminated during the license year returns to the City for possible reissuance.

He asked if 10% of 15 or 18 would be considered one or two? When the language goes on to say “not more than 20,” it seems that it rewards the “cowboys” who went ahead and started businesses, and penalizes those who waited, Abel said.

He also pointed to the language about the issuance of licenses [emphasis added]:

7:505. Issuance of License. If the applicant has successfully demonstrated compliance with all requirements for issuance of a license within 10 weeks (70 calendar days) after the date of City staff’s official confirmation that the application for a license was complete, the city administrator or designee shall grant renewal of an existing license or issue a new license for a medical marijuana dispensary to the applicant if a license is available.

That sounds like a first-come-first-served approach, he said, and that’s why there’s someone standing in line outside city hall waiting for a license. A different mechanism needs to be created for that, he said. Otherwise, he’d have to advise his client to stand in line.

Non-Disclosure on Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations

Briere led off the discussion by saying that during the last three weeks, since the council had approved the zoning and licensing ordinances, they’d heard from many people about the requirement of a zoning compliance permit. She stressed that this requirement in the zoning regulations is what is required of all home occupations. The council was careful, she said, not to make the requirements any different for medical marijuana home occupations. Still, she said, there was concern about the compiling of lists and making them available. She said she thought the exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) were sufficient to give direction. But she said she also believed in a “belt and suspenders.”

Briere reminded her colleagues that a similar proposal was before them at the March 7 meeting, but she had eventually withdrawn it.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) wanted to know how the resolution overrides the law. Assistant city attorney Abigail Elias indicated that the way she read the resolution was for the city to treat the information consistent with state law. There’s no overriding, said Elias.

Briere offered as a point of clarity that the city would indeed continue to require zoning compliance permits of medical marijuana-based home occupations, but the information wouldn’t be subject to required disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act unless the state law changed. Under the proposed resolution, the information on zoning compliance permits remains private, Briere concluded.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) indicated he understood the intent of the resolution: The city will treat the information as exempt. The way it’s drafted is that it’s already the law, and he didn’t mind it being restated. But he asked for additional clarification. Elias indicated that the resolution can’t create a privacy protection, but gives direction to city staff to consider it in connection with the request for documents.

Taylor observed that as drafted, the resolution is not a direction to the city’s FOIA officer, which seems like what the council is trying to do. Taylor said that’s all well and good, and he agreed that it should be so, but he wanted to amend the language “on the fly.” He offered first something along the lines of: “Ann Arbor’s Freedom of Information Act officer shall treat the foregoing information as exempted from disclosure …”

Briere responded by agreeing that the FOIA officer should be directed, but she wondered about including other city staff. The final version of the amendment was: “Ann Arbor city staff shall treat the foregoing information as exempted from disclosure …”

Outcome: The non-disclosure policy passed on a 6-3 vote. Dissenting were Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2).

It’s worth noting that withholding information under the Freedom of Information Act is optional. The resolution approved by the council appears to confirm only that the information meets the criteria for exempting it from disclosure, but does not establish an administrative policy that states the city will not disclose that information.

In broad strokes, the FOIA says that public bodies must produce information upon request. But certain exemptions apply. The two FOIA exemptions relevant to the council’s discussion include one that allows a public body to withhold information that would represent an unwarranted intrusion on someone’s privacy, and another that allows a public body to withhold information if an exemption is provided by some other statute [emphasis added]:

15.243 Exemptions from disclosure …
Sec. 13. (1) A public body may exempt from disclosure as a public record under this act any of the following:
(a) Information of a personal nature if public disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual’s privacy. …
(d) Records or information specifically described and exempted from disclosure by statute.

The operative verb is “may,” which means that while a public body can choose to withhold certain information, it is not required by the FOIA to withhold it. The attorney general’s outline of the FOIA statute affirms the withholding of information as optional: “A public body may (but is not required to) withhold from public disclosure certain categories of public records under the Freedom of Information Act.” The attorney general’s outline was last updated a decade ago, but the AG’s office has confirmed for The Chronicle that the document is still accurate – in the intervening period, no changes have taken place in the statute or with case law.

Deputy Police Chiefs Labor Agreement

Before the council for consideration was authorization of a collective bargaining agreement with its deputy police chiefs. It’s a one-year deal, expiring June 30, 2012. As part of the deal, the deputy chiefs are exempt as employees under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which means they are not eligible for overtime. The deputy chiefs will also continue on the same health care plan as non-union employees, which requires a contribution by the employee.

In adding the item to the agenda that night, Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), who is chair of the council’s labor committee, lamented the fact that the much larger police officers union had voted down a contract with similar provisions to those accepted by other bargaining units and the city’s non-union staff.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the deputy chiefs collective bargaining agreement.

Water-Related Projects

Councilmembers were asked to approve several water-related items.

Water-Related Projects: Permeable Surface Alley

On the agenda was a permeable surface alley project in the Burns Park neighborhood – the alley connects Wells Street and Scott Court, running parallel to and between Lincoln Avenue and Martin Place. The porous pavement will allow rainwater to soak through the surface, reducing runoff. Money for the $121,139 contract with Audia Concrete Construction Inc. on the $200,000 project will come from the city’s stormwater capital budget. But that will be repaid as a loan from the State Revolving Fund (SRF) and will include 50% loan forgiveness. The use of stormwater funds on road construction was a practice that was criticized during the public hearing held at the council’s June 20, 2011 meeting, on the increase in stormwater rates.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the Audia Concrete contract.

Water-Related Projects: Rain Garden

The council also approved a $25,440 contract with Conservation Design Forum to design and construct a rain garden on the property at 215-219 W. Kingsley St. The rain garden is meant to alleviate some of the flooding that occurs there during heavy rains. The parcel has drawn the curiosity of Chronicle readers due to its boarded-up house and the prodigious amounts of water that accumulate there during heavy rains. At its Nov. 15, 2010 meeting, the council accepted a FEMA grant that will help pay for the demolition of the structure to aid stormwater remediation efforts.

Originally part of the consent agenda (a set of items that are moved and voted on as a group), the rain garden was pulled out for separate consideration by Sabra Briere (Ward 1). Conversation between Briere and Jerry Hancock, the city’s stormwater and floodplain programs coordinator, revealed that the land parcel would be back before the council for actual purchase. Currently the house is not habitable. FEMA is paying 75% of the cost for demolition.

The idea is that instead of filling the hole back in, the city will use the space to alleviate the flooding, Hancock said. The scale of flooding in the area is greater than the area of the house, but the rain garden should provide some relief for some of it, he said. The timing was such that the grading plan for the rain garden would be provided to the demolition contractor. Hancock said he hoped the demolition would take place this fall.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the contract with Conservation Design Forum.

Water-Related Projects: Level-of-Service Study

The council also approved a level-of-service study for its drinking water distribution system with AECOM. The outcome of the study will be a recommendation for a sustainable level of service for the city’s water distribution system, and determination of 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.

The council had tabled the resolution at its May 16, 2011 meeting after amending out a $10,550 contingency in the $208,984 contract. Later in that same meeting, at a session reconvened on May 31, the council took the item up off the table and postponed it until July 5.

In support of the study, city staff prepared additional documentation for the July 5 vote.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the contract with AECOM.

Design Board Review Fee

The council was asked to consider approval of a fee for the city’s new design review process, which is now part of the city code. Projects in Ann Arbor’s downtown area, zoned D-1 and D-2, are now subject to a mandatory process of design review, but compliance with the board’s recommendations is voluntary.

The application fee was proposed at $1,000 – to cover estimated mailing costs of $500 and about five hours of city staff time.

The vote on the fee had been postponed at the council’s June 20 meeting. At that same meeting, the council also had confirmed the nominations for initial membership of the design review board: Tamara Burns, Paul Fontaine, Chester B. Hill, Mary Jukari, Bill Kinley, Richard Mitchell, and Geoffrey M. Perkins.

On July 5, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) led off discussion by saying she wanted to reduce the fee to $500. It’s a new processs, she said, and most of the review is done by the board, not by staff.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) asked Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city, how the $1,000 cost was determined. Rampson explained that part of the cost arose from mailings to people to invite them to the meeting. She estimated it took an hour of staff time to put together the mailing list. For the first meeting that the board had convened, the staff spent a couple of hours at the meeting, plus subsequent time putting together the design review board’s report and posting it on the web.

Rampson concluded that five hours is fairly realistic. She offered that staff could track that time for the next year. She noted that the fee [having been postponed by the council at its previous meeting] wasn’t passed in time to capture any of the costs associated with the board’s review of The Varsity at Ann Arbor.

Outcome: The design board review fee was set at $500. On the voice voice, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) dissented, but did not offer any comment at the council table.

Retirement Benefit Technical Changes

Before the council for consideration was final approval to purely technical changes to its ordinance on retiree benefits for non-union employees. For example, the phrase “three years” was revised to read “36 consecutive months.”

During the public hearing on the issue, Thomas Partridge voiced his opposition to the changes, characterizing them as the downgrading of Ann Arbor retiree benefits. He admonished mayor John Hieftje that Hieftje, as a teacher at the University of Michigan, should understand the connection between political and social issues.

Outcome: The council approved the changes without discussion.

Parks Renovation Projects

On the agenda were two items that had been discussed and recommended by the city’s park advisory commission at that body’s June 21, 2011 meeting.

One was a $166,331 contract with ABC Paving Company to renovate the tennis courts at West Park. The second was a $119,700 contract with Construction Solutions Inc. to renovate locker rooms at Veterans Memorial Park pool.

The council did not deliberate on the items, but at the PAC committee meeting, commissioners had questions about the lack of additional bidders on the tennis court project. Only one firm had responded to the city’s request for proposals.

Outcome: The council approved both parks renovation projects.

Closed Session: Land Acquisition

Near the conclusion of the meeting, some confusion unfolded about whether there would be a closed session.

The council had reportedly planned to convene a closed session on the subject of the ward redistricting, citing attorney-client privileged communication. It did not follow through on that possibility. If the council had convened such a closed session, it would have been the first such session convened since being sued by The Chronicle over a similar session in early September 2010.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) indicated she did not see any closed session listed on the agenda. It was established that a closed session did, in fact, appear on the agenda. However, mayor John Hieftje told assistant city attorney Abigail Elias that he’d received communication from city attorney Stephen Postema (who did not attend the council meeting), to the effect that no closed session would be necessary. But Elias told the mayor that the session was in fact necessary, and that it involved land acquisition.

Land acquisition is within a narrow range of reasons for which a public body may hold part of a meeting out of public view, according to the Michigan Open Meetings Act (OMA). The OMA stipulates that a public body must vote to go into a closed session and that the vote be done in a roll call fashion – i.e. not as a voice vote as one group.

On the roll call vote, Higgins expressed her dissatisfaction by voting against the session, and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) joined her. When Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) added his no vote, the final tally was 6-3, which appeared just barely to satisfy the majority required for action. The council then retreated to their work room.

A few minutes later, a somewhat sheepish group emerged for a revote. The OMA requires that the vote to enter a closed session be at least a 2/3 majority of the members of the entire body, not just a 2/3 majority of those who are present. Although there are certain exceptions to the 2/3 rule for some closed session topics, land acquisition is not one of them.

On the second try, all councilmembers voted to go into the closed session on land acquisition, except for Higgins, who again dissented.

Ann Arbor District Library Update

As part of the scheduled introductions at the start of the council meeting, councilmembers received an update from Josie Parker, director of the Ann Arbor District Library.

Several representatives of the library attended the meeting in addition to Parker. Eli Neiburger, AADL’s associate director for IT and production, was in the audience, as were current board members Nancy Kaplan, Barbara Murphy, Prue Rosenthal, and Jan Barney Newman. Parker also pointed out to councilmembers Don Axon, who was one of the original AADL board members in 1996.

Parker told the council that the information in the presentation was “as upbeat and as positive as it can get.” She began by countering the idea that the Internet had eliminated the need and demand for libraries. Parker said that Ann Arbor proves that claim is patently false. She pointed to Ann Arbor’s recent ranking as the community with the highest per capita circulation: 59 items per capita. The listing was compiled from a 2008 national study by selecting the 549 libraries from that study that serve a population of over 100,000. Ann Arbor also ranked fourth on an Amazon list of most well-read cities. Ann Arbor was one of only two cities on both lists, Parker said. Portland, Ore. was the other one.

Parker emphasized the high number of active library card holders, compared with the total number of households in the community. In the 48103 area code, there are roughly 20,000 active card holders and around 23,000 households. That’s significant, she said, in the context of a system that requires a person to affirmatively obtain at library card – that is, they’re not automatically issued to everyone in the community.

Parker’s update included data on the impact of the library’s Fifth Avenue location on the downtown.

Other highlights of the presentation included the organization’s funding stream, which comes not just from the city of Ann Arbor property taxes. In fiscal year 2010, in addition to the $7,344,364 that the AADL received from Ann Arbor property owners, it also received taxes from Pittsfield Township ($1,849,036), Scio Township ($1,252,179), and Ann Arbor Township ($804,236), as well as other surrounding municipalities.

In 2010, 1,792,526 visits were made to the library’s five branches – 627,196 of them to the downtown location. In 2010, a total of 62,696 visitors attended library events – 23,612 of them at the downtown location. For those downtown events, 79% of attendees arrived to the event by car, compared with 7% by bus, 2% by bicycle and 12% by walking. Of those who drove a car to the event, half parked either at an adjacent surface lot or at the Fourth and William Street structure, and 31% used street parking.

If one-third of all 627,196 visits to the downtown library location are assumed to be made by people who pay to park downtown, then visitors to the downtown library in 2010 generated at least $200,000 in public parking revenue.

The presentation came in the general context of an effort by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, at the direction of the Ann Arbor city council, to start leading a public process to evaluate alternative uses for city-owned surface lots in the downtown area. Immediately to the north of the downtown library location is the construction site of an underground parking garage, expected to offer around 640 spaces. Known as the Library Lot, though not owned by the library, the top of the underground parking garage is one of the pieces of land that the public process is meant to address. [Recent Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor DDA Continues Planning Prep"]

Responding to Parker’s presentation, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) noted that she’d mentioned the Internet won’t result in the death of the library. He asked Parker to share with the council what the current mission of the library is, if it’s beyond books. Parker told Hohnke that the mission of the library is to guarantee public access to facilities for life-long learning, and that hasn’t changed. From the AADL website:

Vision Statement

The Ann Arbor District Library provides collections, programs, and leadership to promote the development of literate and informed citizens through open and equal access to cultural, intellectual, recreational, and information resources.

Mission Statement

The existence of the Ann Arbor District Library assures public ownership of print collections, digital resources, and gathering spaces for the citizens of the library district. We are committed to sustaining the value of public library services for the greater Ann Arbor community through the use of traditional and innovative technologies.

Parker pointed to two significant projects the library had undertaken in the past couple of years that have served that mission. First, AADL had agreed to absorb responsibility for the library for the blind to keep it from being eliminated by the county, which previously supported it. The library had also agreed to preserve the old Ann Arbor News archive to preserve the history of the community as reflected in the newspaper. If the library had not done that, she said, the material would be sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

The library’s commitment requires and uses technology, Parker said. The mission is still about literacy and learning – it’s just that there’s another way to achieve those goals. Hohnke asked if there was any discussion between the library and city about opportunities for consolidating services and for providing greater impact for tax dollars. Parker told Hohnke that this is something that former city administrator Roger Fraser was good about – making sure the Ann Arbor District Library was part of those opportunities. That will continue, she said. Parker pointed to some money saved for the city through the library’s collaboration with the city clerk’s office – the library provides space to test voting machines, and serves as a polling place. No one is reading about those kinds of things, she said, but the library does them.

Parker alluded to other services that libraries in other areas provide to their communities, which the AADL might also explore, but said she was not prepared to name them at that time. [.pdf of AADL slide presentation to the Ann Arbor city council]

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: DDA – Outside the District Investment

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) expressed his satisfaction that TIF (tax increment finance) reports from the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority had been located and submitted to the city clerk’s office. He’d previously complained that the Ann Arbor DDA had not complied with certain reporting requirements of the state’s DDA statute.

But another issue he’d identified, said Kunselman, was a statement on the state tax commission website, a substantial portion of which he then read aloud. From the statement:

Question: Can a DDA or TIFA plan spend revenue outside of its development area?

Answer: According to state law, the plan may spend revenue only for projects described in the development plan and/or tax increment financing plan, and the projects must be allowable under the law. The revenue must be spent for the benefit of the development area. Revenue of one plan may not be used to pay an obligation or expense of another plan. The State Tax Commission’s policy is that revenue must also be spent on improvements or properties located in the plan’s development area. …

The State Tax Commission may waive this requirement for certain infrastructure improvements made in the development plan that must extend outside the development area’s boundaries.

Kunselman said he was interested in finding out whether the Near North affordable housing project has such a waiver. He alerted his council colleagues that he had requested information on that issue.

Left to right: councilmembers Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) before the start of the July 5 meeting.

By way of background, the question of spending TIF dollars outside the DDA district is not novel. The Ann Arbor DDA has its own explicit policy on affordable housing that allows for investment outside the DDA district. A resolution establishing the policy of investing in projects up to 1/4 mile outside the district was approved at the board’s March 4, 2009 board meeting.

When the question of outside-the-boundary investment has been posed at DDA board meetings, the legal position of the board’s legal counsel, Jerry Lax, has been characterized by staff and board members as essentially this: It’s not explicitly proscribed by the state statute. That’s reflected in the DDA renewal plan, which includes explicit reference to spending outside the district in at least two places.

In an effort to accomplish its mission, it is understood that the DDA may elect to participate in important projects outside the DDA District.
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…
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The funds allocated by the DDA are intended to strengthen the downtown area and attract new private investments. This Plan recognizes that solutions to downtown problems (for example, traffic, access, and parking problems) may best be developed by spending funds outside the DDA district.

Comm/Comm: Society in Peril

In the final turn at public commentary, held at the end of the meeting, Thomas Partidge told the council that society is in peril – the mayor and the council have not taken up the question of the immediate danger if Congress fails to come to an agreement on the budget by Aug. 7. Failure by the Congress to adopt a budget would leave a large cross-section of society in peril and at risk for robberies, holdups and murders, he said. Alluding to the city council’s recent approval of licensing and zoning ordinances for medical marijuana, Partridge contended that the city has taken on a campaign to increase drug use. When 911 is called, he claimed, people are too often met with a surly, dismissive response. It leaves the impression that the city does not have a working police department patroling the city.

Comm/Comm: General Disconent

In an earlier turn at public commentary, Thomas Partridge introduced himself as a Washtenaw County and Ann Arbor resident who is an advocate for those being left behind. He said he’s a Democrat dedicated to significant reforms. He supports the recall movement of Gov. Rick Snyder and other members of Snyder’s administration. We should not sit back and go backward in time, he said. The city had suffered undue losses, he said, including in the fire department, the police department, and the civilian work force. As part of the reapportionment of wards, Partridge contended that access to polls for seniors or disabled persons is not taken into consideration.

Comm/Comm: Huron River Day

The mayor handed out a proclamation recognizing Huron River Day on July 17, 2011.

Comm/Comm: Volunteer of the Month

Paul and Tyler Clark were recognized for their efforts in volunteering for the mayor’s annual green fair.

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

Absent: Margie Teall, Sandi Smith.

Next regular city council meeting: Monday, July 18, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the city hall’s second-floor council chambers at 301 E. Huron. [confirm date]

The city council had voted on March 15, 2010 to adopt the single-stream recycling program, which began exactly one year ago, on July 5, 2010.

At that time, the city approved a contract with RAA that called for a payment of $3.25 per month per cart that RAA empties, plus a per-ton payment of between $18.74 and $30.00. The amount of revenue RAA has received through these two kinds of revenue was less than projected last year. Specifically, the tonnage payments received by RAA for fiscal year 2011 (which ended June 30) for recyclable material were projected to be $406,332 but in fact only generated $187,560 for RAA – only 46% of what was expected. The shortfall was $218,772.

Also, the city expected to distribute 32,779 carts, but it turned out that only 29,734 carts were deployed, or 9.3% fewer than planned. The staff memo accompanying the resolution explained the reduced number this way: “… many of the smaller multi-family residential units that were previously using the 11-gallon recycling ‘totes’ are able to share recycle carts, resulting in a smaller number of deployed carts.” In terms of revenue, the reduced number of carts meant that RAA received only $1,159,626 compared to the projected $1,278,381 – for a shortfall of $118,755.

Summing the shortfalls in the two kinds of revenue ($118,755 + $218,772), RAA received $337,527 less than it expected for FY 2011. The increase in the monthly per-cart service fee requested (but rejected by the council) – for all five years of the five-year contract – would have worked out to nearly cover the annual shortfall that was due only to the decreased number of carts: $107,042 versus $118,755.

The overly-optimistic projections were made by the city’s recycling consultant Resource Recycling Systems and RecycleBank, a company that administers a coupon-based incentive program to encourage residents to recycle. When the council approved the single-stream recycling contract with RAA last year, it also struck a 10-year deal with RecycleBank, at roughly $200,000 per year, to administer their coupon-based incentive program to help boost recycling rates in conjunction with the single-stream rollout.

At the time, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) questioned the length of the RecycleBank contract, and established in the course of deliberations that the city’s opt-out clause would be less costly than the cost of the contract. He was concerned that the city had options in the event that RecycleBank’s incentives did not boost recycling tonnage to the levels that were forecast. ["Council Banks on Single-Stream Recycling"]

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]

Tom McMurtrie, left, is the city's solid waste coordinator. Jim Frey, right, is CEO of Resource Recycling Systems, a consultant for the city on recycling.

The two separate resolutions correspond to the two facets of the new recycling system for Ann Arbor, which will be deployed in July 2010.

One resolution revised the contract with Recycle Ann Arbor (RAA) for curbside recycling pickup to reflect the single-stream character of the system. Residents will no longer place paper and containers in separate 11-gallon stackable totes to be hand-emptied by RAA drivers.  Instead, residents will put all their recyclable materials into a single rollable cart with a lid. Drivers will operate a robot arm from inside the truck to lift and tip the single cart’s recyclable contents into the truck.

The other resolution approved by the council authorized a contract with RecycleBank to implement an incentive program for residents, based on their participation in the recycling program and the average amount of materials recycled on their route.

Both the conversion to the new system and its associated incentive program came under criticism  during public commentary. During council deliberations it was the incentive program that was given the most scrutiny by councilmembers – with Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) voting against it. The contract with RAA was given unanimous support from the nine councilmembers who were present.

The arrangements with RAA for collection and with RecycleBank for the incentive program are separate contracts with separate entities – the single-stream system could be implemented without the incentive system. But it became apparent during council deliberations that the idea that the city council might opt for a single-stream system without the incentive program was not something city staff had planned for: The single-stream carts are already molded with labels “Earn rewards for recycling.” [Clarification: The authorization for the in-molded cart labels had not been made before the council approved the incentive contract.]

Background on City Council History with Single-Stream

Monday was not the first time the city council had contemplated the single-stream issue. The council heard a presentation at its Oct. 12, 2009 work session on the approach, including the incentive program for residents to set out their new single-stream carts for collection.

There was some initial confusion in the community about how the carts equipped with RFI (radio-frequency identification) tags would factor into the incentive program. Trucks will not weigh each individual cart as its contents are collected. The RFI scan simply measures participation of a household on any given day, and that participation is then assigned the average weight of all participating carts when the truck is weighed at the materials recovery facility (MRF).

At its Nov. 5, 2009 meeting, the council authorized upgrades necessary for the materials recovery facility (MRF) – some additional processing will be required to separate the materials, given that items will arrive mixed together. And at its Dec. 21, 2009 meeting, the council authorized the purchase of four new trucks, plus 33,000 carts equipped with RFI  chips.

The authorized total of capital investments – around $6 million – was made with reserves from the solid waste fund, which receives revenues from a dedicated millage. The increased volume of recycling expected from the single-stream system is expected to benefit the city’s balance sheet in two ways.

First, every ton that can be recycled instead of landfilled will save roughly $25 in tipping fees at Woodland Meadows in Wayne, Mich., where the city buries its trash. Second, the more recycled material that the city can collect, the more material it can sell on the recycled materials market. The estimated payback period for the investment is contingent on how the market for recycled materials plays out. The city is projecting that if the market stays in the mid-range for performance, the payback period for the investment will be about six years.

Who’s Who in Ann Arbor Recycling

At the podium at different times during the city council meeting were a range of people representing various organizations. Tom McMurtrie is the city’s solid waste coordinator. He was joined much of the time at the podium by Jim Frey, CEO of Resource Recycling Systems, a consulting firm.

John Getzloff is the representative of RecycleBank, which will have the contract to administer the incentive program. RecycleBank’s parent company is called RecycleRewards, and reference by speakers at the meeting varied between these two entities.

Melinda Uerling is the executive director of Recycle Ann Arbor – its current contract for dual-stream collection was amended Monday night to accommodate single-stream recycling collection. Recycle Ann Arbor is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ecology Center, an Ann Arbor nonprofit.

Single-Stream Public Commentary

Kathy Boris spoke against the adoption of a single-stream curbside recycling system. She said that the true business of the city government is to provide services, which included collection of recycled materials, and that the current system is providing good service. She contended that the current two-stream system is working, and that she was not aware that it was deficient. The cost savings associated with a single-stream system, she said, were offset by the need to purchase new cards, trucks, and add staff at the materials recovery facility. The current economic down time, she said, was the wrong time to undertake this system.

She cautioned the council that the point of recycling is not to achieve great volume, it’s to be able to sell what you have collected so it can be manufactured into products that people will buy. She warned that even with additional processing of the material that is mixed through the single-stream approach, you will still get contamination. She questioned whether it was in the best interest of the city to sacrifice quality in the interest of increased volume – it jeopardized the city’s ability to close the recycling loop by selling the material.

Rita Mitchell began her remarks on the single-stream recycling system by saying that she had found some money for the budget – she asked the council to vote no on the two resolutions before them concerning single-stream recycling [One resolution authorized a contract with Recycle Ann Arbor to perform the curbside collection, while the other authorized a contract with RecycleBank, the vendor that will be implementing the incentive program.]

Mitchell told the council that they would save up to $6 million by voting no. She suggested using the funds instead for police services and park maintenance. Mitchell acknowledged that adding additional types of plastics to the set of materials that are accepted is a good idea, but not one that is worth the $6 million investment. She also asked what would happen to the batteries and the oil, which are currently picked up curbside. With the $3-per-car entry fee now imposed at the city’s drop-off station, she warned that batteries and oil would wind up going to the landfill.

Mitchell cautioned that the incentives offered through RecycleBank could lead to increased consumption of unnecessary things, which was counter to the goals of recycling. She also objected to the roughly $200,000 annual cost to administer the program. She characterized the incentive program as a marketing project for tracking consumer behavior. Comparing RecycleBank’s slogan of “recycle, redeem, reward” to the one that’s more familiar to recyclers, she asked, “What happened to ‘reduce, reuse, recycle?’” She cautioned the council that they needed to look at the entire waste stream picture and that the goal needed to be a reduction both in solid waste and recycling.

Responding to the idea that the time has come for single-stream recycling, Glenn Thompson allowed that it had come … and gone. After careful study, he said, Berkeley, Calif. decided to retain its two-stream system. The University of Colorado had also recently concluded that the negatives associated with a single-stream system outweigh the benefits and had made a decision to stick with the two-stream system.

Those decisions, he said, were made this year, based on the quality of the resulting materials. Thompson reminded councilmembers that Ann Arbor has a 90% participation rate in curbside recycling for its two-stream system and has a 50% diversion rate. At the same time that the council was planning to spend $6 million on a speculative program, it was considering canceling loose-leaf collection, eliminating holiday tree collection, and had already imposed a $3 fee to enter the drop-off station. Thompson, like Mitchell, characterized the RecycleBank incentive program as a “marketing campaign.” Thompson called on the council to make this the watershed issue, the one where the council says no to an unnecessary “pet project.” He asked the council not to spend $6 million to benefit consultants and contractors.

Lou Glorie during public commentary on single-stream recycling.

[Later, during council deliberations, Sandi Smith (Ward 1) would question the connection that was made by some speakers during public commentary between the elimination of the loose-leaf collection and holiday tree pickup on the one hand, and the implementation of single-stream recycling on the other.]

Lou Glorie made her remarks during public commentary reserved time in the form of a skit in which she played both roles. It was a household conversation about recycling after conversion to a single-stream system. She included a mixing bowl as a prop, into which she dumped various materials. She then mixed them together, symbolic of what would happen to materials in a single-stream system.

RecycleBank’s Incentive Contract

Councilmembers had several areas of concern – from the 10-year length of the contract, to the need to have an incentive program at all. From the staff memo providing the rationale for the incentive program:

Based on data collected from comparable communities around the country, it is estimated that the single-stream program without RecycleBank would increase recycling rates about 28%, from 357 pounds per household per year to 457 pounds. This increase will be due to both the convenience and higher capacity of the new single-stream cart, as well as the additional materials that will be collected in the program. For example, all plastic bottles and tubs (except #3 and styrofoam) will be accepted under the new program.

With the RecycleBank incentive program, it is estimated that those same recycling rates will increase from 357 pounds to 752 pounds, or over 200%. The attached chart compares that 752 pound figure with other similar communities that are currently enrolled in the RecycleBank program.

Even at 752 pounds per household per year– a 200% increase in volume compared to current levels – Ann Arbor would be a fairly middle-of-the-pack RecycleBank client.

Here's how Ann Arbor's recycling performance is projected to stack up against other communities after implementation of the RecycleBank program. Ann Arbor's is the leftmost column. (Image links to higher resolution file.)

A chart supplied by RecycleBank shows five other cities that collect more than 800 pounds per household per year.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) led off council deliberations with a question about the length of the contract for RecycleBank: Why was it a 10-year contract for something that’s a new program?

Tom McMurtrie, the city’s solid waste coordinator, explained that it was based on the significant investment in technology and capital equipment required to install the RFID recognition equipment. Higgins also pointed out that the contract was for $200,000 per year over the course of the 10-year contract. She asked, “Why do we feel like we need to have this?” She put her question in the context of the already high rates of participation and recycling by Ann Arbor residents.

McMurtrie allowed that Ann Arbor residents did in fact have a high rate of participation. But he pointed out that communities like Rochester Hills and Westland, which had implemented single-stream cycling together with the incentive program associated with RecycleBank, now surpassed Ann Arbor residents – measured in terms of pounds of recycled material per household.

Jim Frey said that the length of the contract was related partly to the interest in cultivating the long-term loyalty of merchants who participated in the incentive program through coupon offerings. The idea was to use the incentive rewards to lower the cost of living for residents. The idea was also to have a longer-term relationship between residents and merchants.

In terms of Ann Arbor residents’ recycling performance, said Frey, they are no longer in the top 25% – “really not that great, to be honest with you.” The idea was to bring the performance, measured in terms of pounds per household, back into the top 90th percentile. He concluded by saying that Ann Arbor did have good participation rates, but that the performance was not as good as communities that had implemented incentives with RecycleBank.

Higgins asked if those other communities that had implemented RecycleBank, like Rochester Hills and Westland, had also converted to single-stream recycling. Frey confirmed that those two communities had implemented single-stream along with RecycleBank.

Higgins wanted to know if Ann Arbor’s recycling performance could be expected to bump up some anyway, just due to the implementation of the single-stream system, independently of any incentive program. She wanted to know what Rochester Hills’ and Westland’s performance in its two-stream system looked like before implementing the single-stream system, plus the RecycleBank incentive system.

Rochester Hills’ numbers for the two-stream curbside system were around a 30% participation rate, with around 150-200 pounds per household, Frey said. Now their participation rate was around 80%, with around 650 pounds per household. Westland, which previously had no curbside recycling, is now showing recycling levels of 800 pounds per household – roughly double the amount recycled in Ann Arbor, he said.

Higgins responded to an example from Frey of a community going from 30% to 80% participation through RecycleBank by pointing out Ann Arbor’s 80-90% participation rate with the two-stream system. Tom McMurtrie countered that it’s not just about participation but rather the amount of materials. Higgins asked when the 80-90% participation rate had last been measured for Ann Arbor in a two-stream curbside recycling program. McMurtrie told her it had been several years ago.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) focused on the idea that there will be an increase in recycling performance simply due to the conversion to a single-stream system, but there will be an additional increase from the RecycleBank incentive rewards system. McMurtrie confirmed that the conversion to single-stream itself – which included more kinds of materials (plastics), and increased volume of the curbside container – would result in some gains. But the incentive program, said McMurtrie, which really “gives it that shot in the arm.”

Noting that Ann Arbor was not the first to lead the way by implementing an incentive program like RecycleBank, Hohnke asked what that boost actually looked like. John Getzloff of RecycleBank reviewed the Westland and Rochester Hills program and added the example of Cherry Hill, N.J., which had increased its recycling levels from 600 pounds per year to 900 pounds per year. Getzloff told the council that RecycleBank operated in 20 states across the country, including large cities like Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Chicago.

Frey suggested that in analyzing Ann Arbor’s situation, they estimated that 500 pounds of recycling per household could be attributed perhaps to just having a bigger container. There were many communities that had implemented single-stream recycling with carts only, and generally they achieved between 450 and 550 pounds of recycled materials per household. Hohnke then concluded from that discussion that the city could be confident there would be some additional boost from having the RecycleBank incentive program.

But he noted that the incentive program came with a cost – $200,000 per year. Against that cost had to be weighed the savings in tipping fees for the landfill. Asked Hohnke, “If you do the math, how do they compare?” Frey indicated that for every additional ton of material that was recycled, a savings of $25 would be realized. Through the sale of the material, there would be a benefit, as well. They projected that over the next five years, the incentive program would cover its costs.

In addition to that, Frey said, the value of the incentive rewards to each household would average around $250 worth of rewards a year. With 28,000 carts, that reflected a $7 million benefit to the community, he said. Hohnke concluded from this that implementing the incentive program over the course of five years would save the city money.

Higgins wanted to know what the ratio of renters to homeowners was in the communities that had been used for comparison, noting that there were 45% renters in Ann Arbor. Getzloff explained that the benefit of the rewards program came to the resident, not necessarily the property owner. If people moved within the city of Ann Arbor, they would take their accounts with them.

Higgins also came back to the fact that it was a very long contract. What if, two years into the contract, it is not working for the city, she wondered? McMurtrie replied that RecycleBank had been around since 2004 and therefore they had a history. Higgins came back with the point that it was not as long a history as the contract the council was being asked to sign. McMurtrie noted that the city had the ability by the terms of the contract not to fund the program.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) noted that on the chart that had been provided to councilmembers, curbside recycling levels increased dramatically but flattened out rather quickly over the five-year period that was estimated. Frey accounted for that by saying that there was a built-in conservatism in the estimates.

Smith asked about the possibility that utilization rates did not improve over time. Getzloff indicated  in that case, they would do additional outreach in the community. Frey pointed out that it could be a very targeted outreach because they would know exactly which households were not participating in the program. Smith elicited from Getzloff that the merchant partners for the incentive program would be a combination of national and local partners and that there would be a $540 cap on benefits to any one particular household. The cap is a way to prevent people from trying to cheat the system – by loading their carts with materials other than recyclables.

Mayor John Hieftje said he was intrigued by the incentive program and wondered if it would be possible for the community to use the coupons to support local nonprofits like Food Gatherers. Getzloff indicated that RecycleBank’s main focus was on their Green Schools program and other national charities. Support for local charities was not in the contract that the council was considering. Hieftje characterized the incentive program as a good investment.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) asked who collected the data on recycling tonnage. McMurtrie clarified that it’s collected by trucks and is then uploaded to RecycleBank’s system.

Kunselman reflected on the fact that the roughly $200,000 per year over the life of the 10-year contract represented $2 million. He established that the escape clause for not funding the program was slightly less than $200,000 a year – to cover the under-appreciated capital investment in the trucks. In light of that, Kunselman wondered why it was necessary to have a 10-year contract. Getzloff indicated that there were a variety of term lengths for RecycleBank contracts and that the best price came with the longest one – a 10-year contract.

Kunselman returned to the topic of Ann Arbor’s already high 80-90% participation rate. Based on the chart that had been handed out to councilmembers, Kunselman wanted to know how much of the doubling of recycled tonnage could be attributed just to the implementation of the single-stream system independently of the incentive program.

Frey went through a chart that showed how estimates of the current level of 5,084 tons – for single households in Ann Arbor – would rise to 10,708 tons in the second year of the program. Of those 5,624 extra tons, fully 4,201 were attributable to the incentive program.

Kunselman also questioned whether the city would in effect be paying twice for the educational efforts of both Recycle Ann Arbor and of RecycleBank. McMurtrie replied by saying that “We’re all in this together.” RecycleBank, McMurtrie indicated, is simply a new layer.

Kunselman then asked whether there were examples of RecycleBank in other college towns. Kunselman said that he was not sold on the idea that the city needed incentives as opposed to more education. Getzloff said that the incentive program educated people by keeping the idea of recycling foremost in their minds. Kunselman responded by saying that he had a difficult time believing that with a 80-90% participation rate by people who were conscientious about recycling, that a dramatic gain like Getzloff was describing could be possible.

Frey indicated that he’d been in the business of recycling almost 30 years and that communities spend millions of dollars in education, and that it’s different for each person and different for each household. What’s different about the incentive program, he said, is the common interest that it defines. He stressed that it works, and it’s amazingly effective.

Frey indicated that there were University of Michigan students who were really interested in doing a pre-test and post-test of the system. So Kunselman asked if it was possible to delay implementation of the incentive system for one or two years to see how well the conversion to single-stream worked with just the educational efforts of Recycle Ann Arbor.

McMurtrie responded by saying that the city council had already approved a purchase order for 33,000 carts and that the carts have in-molded labels saying that there would be rewards. Kunselman expressed his objection to the idea that they were putting advertising for RecycleBank on the carts. McMurtrie indicated that it was not advertising, but rather the phrase: “Earn rewards for recycling.”

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) clarified that the escape clause in the contract was designed to cover an investment that had not yet depreciated. He wanted to know how much that investment was. It boiled down to $20,000 per truck, plus installation of equipment at the materials recovery facility (MRF) – a computer that would download data to Recycle Ann Arbor. The cost of recruiting incentive rewards merchant partners, sending a team to educate people and funding the Green Schools program is just the cost of doing business, confirmed Getzloff.

Taylor then segued into a discussion of what exactly RecycleBank’s business model is. He wondered how they could offer $7 million in benefits based on a $200,000 per year payment from the city. Getzloff clarified that the $7 million reflected a co-spend, and that it was essentially costless to them. The parts of the incentive program that cost RecycleBank money are gift cards, movie tickets and the Green Schools program, Getzloff said. Taylor concluded from Getzloff’s remarks that the primary benefit to RecycleBank is from having the contract with the city. The heart of RecycleBank’s business model was the customer satisfaction of the city of Ann Arbor, Taylor said: “We are your customer.”

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) offered an amendment that stipulated that in three years after implementing the program, the city administrator would report back to the council on its effectiveness. Higgins’ amendment was unanimously approved.

Mayor John Hieftje asked McMurtrie if there was any reason to believe that the incentive program would cause people to buy more stuff. McMurtrie said he could not see that happening. He noted that there is a cap on how much you can earn from the rewards program. He stressed that the city’s first message was to reduce.

Outcome: The contract with RecycleBank for an incentive program for recycling in connection with the city’s new single-stream program was approved, with dissent from Stephen Kunselman.

Recycle Ann Arbor Contract

Also before the council was a contract revision with Recycle Ann Arbor, which currently collects recyclables curbside in a two-stream system. The key revisions to the contract are as follows:

The contract currently pays $19.30 to $102.58 per ton (depending on the annual tons), as well as $2.41 per service unit, with a total of 48,886 service units.

The proposed amendment modifies the provisions for compensation to RAA and extends the contract for an five additional years. The amendment will pay a revised rate of $18.74 to $30.00 per ton, as well as $3.25 per cart, which will replace the per service unit fee. The number of carts in the city will be lower than the number of service units because most multi-family service units will share carts. It is estimated that the new program will start with 32,800 recycle carts.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) led off the counci’s deliberations by reading a statement of support for the resolution from Margie Teall (Ward 4), who could not attend the council meeting.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) raised the issue of the connection that some of the public speakers had drawn between the implementation of a single-stream system and the possible elimination of the city’s loose-leaf collection program and its holiday tree drop-off. She asked for confirmation of her understanding that the leaf collection program was simply inefficient.

Tom McMurtrie, the city’s solid waste coordinator, confirmed Smith’s understanding of the loose-leaf collection system. Sue McCormick, public services area administrator, said the loose-leaf collection system was something the city had talked about for a number of years – it generated a very large number of complaints, due to the fact that there were challenges inherent in timing the collection to coincide with the dropping of leaves from trees in any given season.

The unpredictable first snowfall was also a factor, said McCormick. Raking leaves into the street for pickup – a key feature of the loose-leaf collection program – in areas where there was on-street parking was particularly problematic, McCormick said. [At the council's budget retreat in December 2009, McCormick had said about the loose-leaf collection program: "We cannot do it well."]

A second reason for eliminating the loose-leaf collection program, said McCormick, was to contain costs – the city expected around a $450,000 reduction from the solid waste millage revenues in the coming year. It would be somewhat cheaper – by about $100,000 per year – to move to a containerized system for leaf pickup. Smith drew out the fact that the city would continue to pick up leaves, but simply require that they be placed in paper bags or in one of the city’s compost carts. McCormick said that some residents had found it useful to place leaves in the compost carts over several weeks, instead of the all-at-once approach inherent in the loose-leaf collection program.

The rationale for the single-stream system, said McCormick, was to provide a higher degree of service with a payback period of around six years for the capital investment. Each of the programs – loose-leaf collection and single-stream – stood on their own, she said.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) said the initial approvals for the switch to single-stream recycling [authorization for the MRF upgrade, for example] had come in November 2009, before he served on the city council, so he wanted to get a clearer understanding of the general issue.

How do we have employees of a private vendor driving a city truck with a mechanical arm to pick up recycling, and also city workers driving city trucks with mechanical arms to pick up solid waste, Kunselman asked. He said he was a former driver for RAA and just wanted to get a clearer understanding. Kunselman also wanted to know: When did the contract actually end, given the five-year extension?

Tom McMurtrie, the city’s solid waste coordinator, said that until 1991, when he first began working for the city, the contract with RAA was sole-sourced. In 1991, the two-stream system was implemented – McMurtrie said he went out to bid for that system. In the time from 1991 to 2003, that contract was bid out three times. In 2003 they converted to the current performance-based contract, which ends in 2013. The extension for five years would put the end date in 2018.

The compensation for RAA drivers compared to city workers, McMurtrie said – once the better benefits for city workers were factored in – worked out roughly as follows: $19-20/hour for RAA drivers; $35/hour for city workers. McMurtrie said that the city was looking at the idea of privatizing the solid waste collection system as well. Melinda Uerling, executive director of RAA, confirmed McMurtrie’s information on lesser benefits associated with RRA driver compensation – there are health benefits, but no retirement system.

Melinda Uerling, executive director of Recycle Ann Arbor, and Tom McMurtrie, the city's solid waste coordinator.

Hohnke addressed the concern about the possibility that RecycleBank incentives would cause greater consumption, so he drew out the fact that RAA’s message continued to be to reduce, reuse, and recycle, with recycling one of a three-part strategy. Uerling confirmed that this was part of RAA’s message. They focused their message on recycling, she said, whereas RecycleBank would be focused on their rewards system.

Hohnke said there were financial, environmental, and quality-of-life benefits to the single-stream system and he would be supporting the move.

Prompted by Hieftje to explain the change in compensation in the RAA contract, McMurtie said that there was previously a rapid step-up in the per-ton compensation after 10,000 tons, with the idea that RAA would need to add staffing after that tonnage level. With the new single -stream system, he said, they will have already achieved those efficiencies, and it would not be necessary to ratchet up the compensation rate at such a fast rate.

Hieftje also elicited from Frey the fact that the market for recyclables was starting to recover and that Ann Arbor was able to move all of its collected material on the market.

As an example, Frey said, cardboard was in the low 100s [dollars per ton] before the market crashed, and now it was in the 150s.

Hieftje also elicited from McMurtrie and Frey the fact that batteries would no longer be collected curbside under the single-stream system. This is a function of the fact that drivers will no longer be climbing outside of the trucks to pick up batteries and oil.

Hieftje said that one of the advantages of the carts for recycling, as opposed to the two-stream totes, would be an improvement in the “clean look” of the city. He said that in his neighborhood, residents had started setting out their two-stream totes for collection that evening, and there was already cardboard that was starting to blow around.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) asked about the fact that around 35% of the materials that go through the MRF come from the city of Ann Arbor. The other 65% come from other communities. Frey indicated that in the future the city’s tons would amount to a greater percentage and that the merchant tons would need to find another facility. The MRF would continue to be a regional facility, Frey said, but the relative proportion of the city’s material would increase.

Kunselman asked if monthly data on the materials collected could be provided so that the city could “see how we’re doing.” McMurtrie indicated that more frequent reports on the data was an issue he’d been thinking about – currently the figures are reported annually as part of the city’s State of Our Environment Report.

At the conclusion of the deliberations, Kunselman and Hieftje engaged in a bit of recycling one-upmanship. Kunselman had previously cited his experience as an RAA driver. Hieftje cited his service on the RAA board. Hieftje then quoted an unnamed person who had helped to start RAA – to the effect that recycling needs to be as easy as putting out the trash. Kunselman noted that the unnamed person was his ecology student teacher at Pioneer High School – he’d been inspired by him at a very young age.

Outcome: The contract revision with Recycle Ann Arbor for curbside recycling was approved unanimously.

A Question To Be Recycled

Publication of this part of the meeting report was delayed while The Chronicle sought the answer to a question related to the incentive program – which is still not answered, but we plan to cycle back to it at a future date.

The question relates to how well Ann Arbor residents stack up against other communities that have a RecycleBank incentive program. While the 90% participation in Ann Arbor’s curbside program is high, Ann Arbor’s per-household figure of 357 pounds per year doesn’t stack up favorably with the more than 600 pounds that Rochester Hills residents are achieving.

What was not part of the council deliberations, or in the information that city staff provided to them, however, was the pounds-per-household data for material that goes into the landfill.

When comparing Rochester Hills to Ann Arbor, the 600 pounds versus 357 pounds is part of the story. The other part of the story is the X pounds per household that Rochester Hills throws into the landfill, versus the Y pounds per household that Ann Arbor throws in the landfill.

Our question, currently being handled by city staff, is this: What are X and Y?

To see that getting the answer to the question is not just a matter of diversion rates, consider two communities, City A and City B. City A recycles 500 pounds per household and throws 1,000 pounds into the landfill. City B recycles 750 pounds per household and throws out 1,250 pounds into the landfill. City B outperforms City A in terms of its pounds recycled per household (750 is more than 500) and also outperforms City A in term of diversion rate (37.5% is better than 33%).

Yet there is some sense in which City B is doing a “better job” with resource management – there’s only 1,500 pounds of material carted away from the curb in City A, versus 2,000 pounds in City B.

From Rochester Hills we obtained the roughly one year’s worth of data since April 2009, when the city implemented its RecycleBank program: 6,054 tons of recycling, 16,261 tons of landfilled trash, and 6,397 tons of compost. Those amounts are collected from 19,350 households.

In the most recent article for The Chronicle written by Matt Naud, the city’s environmental coordinator, on the city’s environmental indicators, the breakdown for Ann Arbor’s residential waste only was 28% recycled, 46% landfilled and 26% composted.

Based purely on that breakdown, it looks like Ann Arbor’s performance on diversion rates might be better than Rochester Hills, even though its pounds-per-household recycling numbers are not as good. What we’re still checking is whether the Rochester Hills data we have and the numbers from Naud’s article really reflect an “apples-to-apples” comparison. To the extent that Rochester Hills data might include commercial waste, along with the residential, its diversion rate would be skewed lower.

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

Absent: Margie Teall, Sabra Briere.

Mayor John Hieftje announced that councilmember Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Margie Teall (Ward 4) were absent due to the flu. Later Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) had to leave the meeting somewhat early to tend to a sick family.

Next council meeting: April 5, 2010 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

Infrared scan of light switch plate on the interior of an outside wall. The scan was made during a homeowner energy audit. Cold-to-hot on the color scale is: black, purple, dark blue, light blue, green, yellow, red. The scan, made during a blower test that caused air to infiltrate the house at a high rate, shows that there are significant air leaks around the plate.

Most homeowners would say that they’d love to save a few dollars on heating their houses. And caulk is cheap, right? So why would a homeowner who feels a draft hesitate to invest in a caulking gun and a tube of caulk? One possible reason: To do a really good, comprehensive job sealing up a whole house could require a $3,000 investment – in labor, caulk, spray foam, weatherstripping, and other materials.

So if  homeowners are going to spend a few thousand dollars to improve the energy efficiency of their houses, maybe there’s a more cost-effective investment they could make – like throwing $2,000 worth of extra insulation in the attic.

The city of Ann Arbor has a similar challenge – if it receives more than $1 million in federal stimulus funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to invest locally. Andrew Brix, energy coordinator for the city, and other city staff need to answer the question: How do you spend that money in the most cost-effective way for the community?

Their tentative answer could include financial help for homeowners in the form of loans set up through a self-assessment energy financing district – help for homeowners like the one faced with the $2,000-for-air-sealing versus $3,000-for-attic insulation question.

The Chronicle didn’t pull those numbers out of a hat. We pulled them out of a Matt – as in Matt Naud’s energy audit report. Naud is the environmental coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor, and he agreed to let us shadow the Recycle Ann Arbor energy audit team as they conducted their analysis of his house.

When The Chronicle arrived last Tuesday morning at Naud’s house in the Lakewood neighborhood of Ann Arbor – just south of Jackson Road near Weber’s Inn – he was already sitting at the kitchen table getting quizzed by Eric Bruski and Jennifer Eschelbach. They work for Recycle Ann Arbor conducting energy audits for homeowners. The RAA energy audit program was recently expanded from a grant-funded program – one that covers 100 homes – to a fee-for-service arrangement.

Under the program, homeowners can get an onsite analysis of their energy use for $399, with as much as $200 of that recoverable through DTE rebates.

Among Bruski’s questions posed at Naud’s kitchen table: How many cycles does the household run the dishwasher daily? How many loads of clothes get laundered per week? Are there opportunities for line-drying of clothes? How many computers and TVs are there in the house and how often are they used? Is there any special-use equipment like power tools and space heaters?

As one might expect, for $200 after rebates, the audit is more than just a questions administered at the kitchen table. There’s gadgets and gear. There’s air pressure to measure. There’s infrared thermal scans to make.

The Energy Audit: Blower Door

So after the questions, Bruski broke out the door blower test kit and the infrared camera.

Eric Bruski, of Recycle Ann Arbor, switches on the blower door test unit for and energy audit. (Photo by the writer.)

The door blower test set up consists of wedging a fitted fabric frame into a outside doorway – there’s a hole in the fabric to accommodate a fan that sucks air from inside the house and vents it to the outside. The test is conducted with all other windows and doors closed.

If the house were a perfectly sealed container, and the fan and blower door frame fabric were infinitely strong, once the fan is turned on, the air inside the house would be emptied out and the inside pressure would drop to zero. Of course, even a really well-constructed house isn’t perfectly sealed – some air will leak in through cracks and crevices.

So the pressure inside the house won’t drop to zero when the fan is turned on. But it will drop below the outside air pressure. In an industry-standard blower door test, the fan rate is adjusted to achieve a pressure difference of 50 pascals.

With an air flow rate derived from the fan speed, and a known pressure difference of 50 pascals, it’s possible to calculate the cumulative size of all the little holes through which the outside air is infiltrating the house. Knowing how much air is infiltrating naturally is key to deciding whether or not it’s worth trying to seal up some of the leaks.

During a blower door test, then, the house is sucking air in from the outside through various leaks at a much greater rate than during normal circumstances.

The blower door test makes drafts easier to feel – and if it’s a chilly day like it was last week, it makes the colder air easy to see as well, as long as you’ve got an infrared camera. [If you don't have an infrared camera, but you've got some exposed black film and an ordinary digital camera, you might consider: DIY infrared camera.]

The hand-held infrared camera, which shows heat loss along ceiling joists. The cold areas are dark. (Photo by the writer.)

The Energy Audit: Infrared Images

Once the blower door test was started, Bruski fired up his infrared camera. His hand-held unit displayed the images in black and white, which are later converted to color images.

After first demonstrating that the unit could pick up his thermal hand print from the wall, he began working his way through the house. In some cases, he was able to confirm for Naud, the homeowner, what he already suspected: The recessed lighting cans were a source of heat loss. They’re not well-insulated or sealed.

The camera also pointed towards a temporary window installation that was actually leaking quite a bit of air around the edges – despite the fact that it’d been installed with prodigious amounts of silicone caulk, Naud reported. Feeling by hand confirmed: there was cold coming from somewhere.

The Chronicle had to leave before the auditors headed for the attic. But Naud forwarded us the report he received from Recycle Ann Arbor.

The Energy Audit: The Report

From the audit report, here’s the set of possible measures for the homeowner to take, with those that are recommended indicated with an asterisk (*). The estimated payback is measured in years.

Energy Conservation          Est.       Est. Ann.   Est.
Measure                      Cost       Save        Payback

**Line dry clothes during    $     0    $ 17.50      N/A
the summer months 

Comprehensive air sealing    $ 3,200    $ 66.55      48.08
package to reduce the air
infiltration rate in your
house from 3900 to 3240
cubic feet per minute at
50 pascals of pressure.

Install ENERGY STAR          $25,000    $185.29     134.92
qualified windows
throughout house 

Install Serious Materials    $35,000    $465.52      75.18
(.09 U factor) windows,
or equivalent, throughout
house 

**Increase insulation in     $ 2,200    $120.83      18.21
ceiling from R-19 to R-49 

**Upgrade 4 showerheads from $   240    $ 40.00       6.00
2.5 gallons  per minute to
2.0 gallons per minute or
less 

**Install 7 faucet aerators  $    35    $ 16.48       2.12
to reduce flows from 2.0/2.2
gallons per minute to 1.0
gallons per minute or less 

**Insulate the first 4 feet  $    10    $  2.06       4.85
of the hot water outlet and
cold water inlet lines with
foam pipe insulation 

**Replace 38 incandescent    $   239    $131.00       1.82
lamps with compact
fluorescent bulbs where
possible 

Upgrade to 16SEER AC Units   $ 5,000     $80.57      62.06 

**Totals                     $ 2,724    $327.87       8.31

-

So what about that $3,000 air sealing package and the $2,000 worth of attic insulation that we were wondering about? In the report, the air sealing package isn’t recommended as a priority, but the attic insulation is. But it’s not because $2,000 is less than $3,000. It’s because the payback on the air sealing package is almost 50 years, compared to the roughly 20-year payback for the extra attic insulation.

How to Pay for Home Energy Improvements

Andrew Brix, energy coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor, sketched out two basic schools of thought in approaching energy improvements: (i) keep it simple, and (ii) be comprehensive. Being comprehensive can be an expensive proposition, as the energy audit report shows.

So Brix told us about a program the city has applied for through the U.S. Department of Energy: the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG). The $1.2 million the city has applied for would be divided among a few different projects: (i) Phase II of the LED streetlight replacement, which would replace all streetlights outside of downtown with LED lights, (ii) some small renewable energy demonstration sites for photovoltaic panels, solar hot water, and windmills, and (iii) a community program to assist homeowners in making energy improvements.

That third component would take about $760,000 of the grant. Here’s a sketch of how it might work:

1. A home or business owner pays for an energy audit similar to the one that Naud had done – it wouldn’t have to be done by Recycle Ann Arbor. Several businesses provide that service, too.
2. The audit provides a list of recommended improvements.
3. The city provides a list of qualified contractors.
4. The city sells bonds to lend the home or business owner the money to cover the cost of the audit plus the improvements.
5. The energy improvements are done.

As No. 4 on that list makes clear, the Department of Energy grant wouldn’t pay directly for energy improvements.  Instead, the grant money would pay to support a program to lend the money for those improvements.

That lending program would depend on the creation of a self-assessment energy financing district – a notion that doesn’t yet exist in the state of Michigan. In some other states, however, such mechanisms already exist to allow local governments to issue bonds to fund energy projects – for example, in California (Berkeley and Palm Desert), Colorado (Boulder County) and New York (Babylon).

Eric Bruski placed his hand on the wall briefly, then used his infrared camera to show us where it'd been. We contemplated using our finger to write "The Chronicle was here" on the wall and asking Bruski to look at it through the view finder, but it turned out we were too bashful to make that request. (Photo by the writer.)

How exactly would the financing work? The money that’s lent through the issuance of the bonds would be repaid over a period of time through a special tax or “assessment” on the property tax bill of just those property owners who’d been lent money for the energy improvements. Because it’s a tax, the collection mechanism is already built into the system. In case of foreclosure, it would be paid along with other taxes before other claims on the property.

In addition to the built-in enforcement mechanism of the tax collection system, there would be a “securitization  pool” as a backstop to give the purchaser of the bonds additional confidence –  around $400,000 of the grant to Ann Arbor would be used for the securitization pool.

The remaining $260,000 from the grant would fund two years to staff the program – one full-time employee, plus an intern. Once it’s up and running, the goal would be to build in administrative costs to help build a fund to sustain those positions.

But if the concept of a self-assessment energy financing district doesn’t exist in Michigan, why even bother to contemplate it as a possible use for an energy grant? Even though it doesn’t exist now, it could be introduced soon, although the timetable is uncertain. The Chronicle confirmed with the office of state Rep. Rebekah Warren (53rd District) that she is currently working on legislation to enable the creation of such energy districts in Michigan.

Mike Garfield, director of the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor, speaking at the nonprofit's annual meeting on Thursday in the Michigan Union.

Green was the operative word at Thursday night’s annual meeting of the Ecology Center, where around 100 people  heard about initiatives that this Ann Arbor nonprofit is leading to build a greener world, and about the challenges in reaching that goal.

They heard about a multimillion-dollar grant recently awarded to Recycle Ann Arbor, with The Ecology Center as a partner, to install green energy technologies at schools and colleges statewide.

They heard from board chair Roger Kerson, director of public relations for the United Auto Workers union, who assured the audience that the center doesn’t spend a lot of money – as in, not a lot of green – on lavish salaries. (This comment drew laughs from the staff.)

And finally, John Warner – who founded and leads the world’s first green chemistry institute – gave a speech that was part tutorial, part pep talk about the benefits of that approach to product design.

So What’s Up at the Ecology Center?

Mike Garfield, the center’s director, began his remarks by referring to an article by Alan Glenn, published in The Ann Arbor Chronicle on April 22, 2009, which traced the role of University of Michigan students and other activists in the first Earth Day – an ambitious movement from which the Ecology Center was born.

Garfield expressed optimism that Michigan has started to take some important steps toward building a green economy. Gov. Jennifer Granholm has begun championing the role of clean energy in the environment, for example, though at the same time eight coal-fired power plant projects have been proposed. He said Granholm’s executive order, issued earlier this year and requiring these proposals to go through a special environmental review, has resulted in the withdrawal of one of those proposals.

Garfield ticked through a long list of projects the center is working on. Related to one of those efforts, he said that on Earth Day this year they took a 25-foot tall yellow rubber ducky to Lansing to raise awareness for the Safe Children’s Products Act – proposed legislation, sponsored by Rep. Rebekah Warren, that would require disclosure of toxic chemicals in children’s products. Garfield noted that local legislators – including state Sen. Liz Brater and Rep. Pam Byrnes, who both attended Thursday’s meeting – were great friends of the environment. He also talked about the databases that the center has developed – focused on toys and cars – to expose the kinds of toxic chemicals in consumer products. The center’s research, he said, is starting to change the way that manufacturers make products.

In addition to national and statewide projects, the Ecology Center is working on several different fronts in Washtenaw County. Those include support of commuter rail proposals, expansion of business recycling programs, and land preservation efforts that they’ve taken the lead on over the past 15 years, such as the Ann Arbor greenbelt and the county’s Natural Areas Preservation. Today, Garfield said, these land preservation initiatives are virtually the only buyers of land in the market, giving them the opportunity to preserve even more land around the county. What’s more, they can use some of this land to build a local, sustainable food system, he said.

Garfield highlighted three new initiatives in which the Ecology Center is playing a part:

Promoting healthy food in hospitals: The health care industry is huge, Garfield said, and hospitals serve an enormous amount of food. Getting the industry to embrace a local, sustainable food supply is the focus of an upcoming conference in Detroit – FoodMed 2009 – which is organized in part by Healthcare without Harm. (Tracey Easthope, the Ecology Center’s environmental health director, is a founding member of that group.)

Energy conservation and renewable energy: Melinda Uerling, Recycle Ann Arbor‘s CEO, spoke briefly about the $3.5 million grant from the Michigan Public Service Commission that was awarded in April, with her agency taking the lead role in a partnership called Energy Works of Michigan. They will conduct energy audits, install renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies like wind and solar power, and provide the curriculum for educational institutions, including K-12 and college-level. Uerling said the grant was a return on the investment they’ve made on the Environmental House Energy & Green Building Resource Center, known as the EnHouse. EnHouse is a model used to promote green building, energy efficiency and renewable energy techniques.

Green chemistry: Tracey Easthope spoke about the state’s push for progress in green chemistry, noting that though Granholm signed a green chemistry executive directive in 2006, there was no money to take action. Now, however, the program has several initiatives, said Easthope, who is a member of the state’s Green Chemistry Roundtable. (Another member is Rebecca Head, an Ann Arbor resident, director of the Monroe County Health Department and chair of the Ann Arbor District Library board.) They have an action plan to accelerate research and education in that field, and Michigan will be the first state to have an award recognizing innovations in green chemistry. That award will be presented in September.

Better Living through Green Chemistry

Easthope introduced the evening’s speaker, John Warner, by describing him as an artist, dreamer and visionary, though he’s best known as a scientist and champion of green chemistry. Turns out he’s also a raconteur. In the course of an hour or so he weaved the narrative of his own life with insights into the field of chemistry, showing how he came to believe in the need for the industry to transform.

John Warner and Amy Cannon at Thursday night's annual meeting of the Ecology Center. Warner was the event's keynote speaker. He is married to Cannon, who received the world's first Ph.D. in green chemistry.

Much of his talk focused on the lack of education that chemists receive about the impact of their work. He described how his two-year-old son died from a liver defect, and how he wondered whether his own work in some way caused the disease. By that time in his career he had synthesized 2,500 compounds and had achieved success in his field, but he had never taken a course in toxicology or environmental hazards. “It’s not part of our educational system,” he said.

After working as leader of a research group at Polaroid, Warner went to the University of Massachusetts and started a green chemistry Ph.D. program. The idea is to create a field of science focused on making safe materials. But not just making materials more environmentally benign than the alternatives – the goal is to make them perform better and be more economical as well.

He had 120 students pass through the Ph.D. program and the average time it took them to get a job after graduation was three days, he said. “Industry wants this – this isn’t a hard sell.”

One reason that industry wants an alternative is related to the cost of the current approach – that approach tries to mitigate the effect of the chemical “nasties” by controlling exposure. That’s led to regulations and expenses for storage, transportation, worker health, liability, community relations and more. “Who in their right mind wouldn’t want an environmentally benign technique?” Warner asked. “I really do believe the next generation wants to do this.”

He also argued that science should be apolitical. (He showed a slide of himself standing next to President George Bush – Warner won a 2004 presidential award for science mentoring – and said “I don’t know which one of us looks more frightened.”) A molecule’s not a Democrat or Republican, not liberal or conservative, he said, and green chemistry should be viewed as just another criteria in product design.

One of the first steps, though, is to overcome the arguments that it’s not possible to make nontoxic chemicals. “Of course it is,” Warner scoffed. “But if we don’t acknowledge it’s possible, we’ll never do it.”

Frustrated by declining enrollment in the field of chemistry at a time when even more scientists are needed, Warner left UMass and founded the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry and the nonprofit Beyond Benign. While the institute is focused on nontoxic, environmentally benign approaches to product development, Beyond Benign targets science education. “If a child isn’t interested in science by 8th grade, they never will be,” Warner said.

Warner’s goal is to make the term “green chemistry” obsolete – it should simply be the way science is done, he said. He believes it’s possible to achieve that goal: Society wants safe materials. Industry wants to make safe materials. And students want to learn how to do it. “Our job is to give them the skills and together, save the world,” Warner said. “That’s green chemistry.”