The vote on the resolution was unanimous.

The ruling in question was issued by federal judge Bernard Friedman on Friday, March 21, 2014 in the case of Deboer v. Snyder. In that ruling, Friedman found that Article I, Section 25 of the Michigan Constitution – which limits the benefits of marriage to unions between one man and one woman – did not advance any legitimate state interest. So the ruling had the effect of making same-sex marriages legal in Michigan.

But the day following the decision, on March 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a temporary stay on Friedman’s ruling. Michigan’s Gov. Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette are appealing Friedman’s decision.

The council’s resolution reads in part:

RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Council urges Governor Snyder and Attorney General Schuette to immediately suspend all efforts to appeal or otherwise contest Judge Friedman’s Ruling…

Before the stay on Friedman’s ruling took effect, Washtenaw County clerk Larry Kestenbaum opened his office for business on Saturday, March 22, and issued 74 marriage licenses for same-sex couples in Washtenaw County. The county board had already set the stage for those couples to receive what practically amounts to a fee waiver for the expedited processing of a license, which ordinarily takes three days. The “fee” approved by the board at its Feb. 19, 2014 meeting reduced the usual fee from $50 to 1 cent.

The resolution passed by the county board on Feb. 19 allows the county clerk, consulting with the county administrator, to establish a “fee holiday” on the day preceding a period during which the office’s vital records division would be closed for four or more days, or when an unusual number of marriage license applicants are expected to appear. During a “fee holiday,” the charge for immediately processing a marriage license is 1 cent.

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

The ruling in question was issued by federal judge Bernard Friedman on Friday, March 21, 2014 in the case of Deboer v. Snyder. In that ruling, Friedman found that Article I, Section 25 of the Michigan Constitution – which limits the benefits of marriage to unions between one man and one woman – did not advance any legitimate state interest. So the ruling had the effect of making same-sex marriages legal in Michigan.

But the day following the decision, on March 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a temporary stay on Friedman’s ruling. Michigan’s Gov. Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette are appealing Friedman’s decision.

The council’s resolution reads in part:

RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Council urges Governor Snyder and Attorney General Schuette to immediately suspend all efforts to appeal or otherwise contest Judge Friedman’s Ruling…

Before the stay on Friedman’s ruling took effect, Washtenaw County clerk Larry Kestenbaum opened his office for business on Saturday, March 22, and issued 74 marriage licenses for same-sex couples in Washtenaw County. The county board had already set the stage for those couples to receive what practically amounts to a fee waiver for the expedited processing of a license, which ordinarily takes three days. The “fee” approved by the board at its Feb. 19, 2014 meeting reduced the usual fee from $50 to 1 cent.

The resolution passed by the board on Feb. 19 allows the county clerk, consulting with the county administrator, to establish a “fee holiday” on the day preceding a period during which the office’s vital records division would be closed for four or more days, or when an unusual number of marriage license applicants are expected to appear. During a “fee holiday,” the charge for immediately processing a marriage license is 1 cent.

The resolution expected to be considered by the Ann Arbor city council at its April 7 meeting currently has four sponsors: Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Margie Teall (Ward 4), Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5).

The resolution’s one resolved clause states:

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, such funds from state surplus should be used in part for roadway maintenance using the fair formula allocation as prescribed by Public Act 51 of 1951 to ensure Washtenaw County benefits fairly from surplus use. [.pdf of resolution]

At the board’s Jan. 22, 2014 meeting, Alicia Ping (R-District 3) had indicated the likelihood of this resolution coming to the board. She reported that a subcommittee that’s exploring the future of the Washtenaw County road commission had met prior to the county board meeting on Jan. 22. The subcommittee, which Ping chairs, had voted to ask the county board to pass a resolution urging Gov. Rick Snyder to allocate the state’s budget surplus for road repair, distributed to local entities using the current state formula for road allocations.

The resolution states that the Washtenaw County road commission maintains about 1,654 miles of roads, including 770 miles of gravel roads. It also is responsible for 111 bridges and more than 2,000 culverts, and is contracted by the Michigan Dept. of Transportation to maintain about 580 lane miles of state trunkline roads. Road commissioners have indicated that there are several million dollars worth of needed repairs that are unfunded.

In a statement issued earlier in the day on Feb. 5, Snyder released some details for a fiscal 2015 budget proposal, including $254 million “to match federal aid and maintain Michigan’s roads and bridges, transit services and aeronautics projects across the state.”

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

David Erik Nelson

My first job out of college was teaching humanities at a Hippie School for Troubled Youth here in Ann Arbor. Soon after being hired, I attended a school mixer where the dean cornered me in the kitchen and explained that some trucks hauling radioactive waste were scheduled to cut through downtown Ann Arbor.

She suggested we go down and protest by lying down in Main Street and generally boondoggling things up and teaching those bastards a valuable lesson about hauling nuclear waste down our streets [1].

At the time I was lightly anti-nuke. I had been militantly opposed just a few years earlier – and even protested Fermi II in the early ‘90s, when it was in disrepair and operating with questionable regard for public safety – but had since calmed down and learned a bit more about the costs and benefits of various kinds of power generation [2]. Nonetheless, even in my decidedly less-nukes mindset, I was still struck with how backward this protest plan seemed.

It’s no secret that Ann Arbor is a sorta foot-draggy, NIMBY kind of town [3]. Most of us came here from somewhere else; we loved this quaint little town when we landed here in 1975, or ‘85, or ‘95, and we basically don’t want it to ever change (except for the streets getting cleaner, the stores better stocked, and the parking both cheaper and more plentiful – but for God’s sake don’t tear anything down or build anything tall to do it. Also, could you do something about those football games? So loud, and the crowds – UGH!).

NIMBY Nukes

The proposed anti-nuke-waste-trucks sit-in would have been a classically NIMBY maneuver: There was no discussion of eradicating nuclear energy in general, just keeping this waste from traversing our streets.

From an economic standpoint, the bulk of such NIMBY maneuvers are classic zero-sum games: The gains on one side translate to losses for someone else. Take this nuke-hauling hypothetical [4]: If there had been nuclear waste and if we had protested it by generally bolloxing up Main Street, that wouldn’t have made the radioactive waste cease to exist; it would have simply shifted the hauling to a community with fewer resources – not just fewer resources to rouse the rabble on that day, but fewer resources to respond to an emergency if one occurred, and less mind-share to grab the national spotlight in the case of such an incident. For the sake of comparison, which story do you think is more likely to start a media scrum:

Mishandling of Radioactive Waste Contaminates Michigan Football Stadium

or

Concerns Over Nuclear Mishaps in Covert Township

Extra points if you know that the Covert Township in my fake headline is the name of a real township. And a special bonus if you know where it is without Google Maps. And a bonus point on top of that if you know it refers to real problems at Michigan’s Palisades facility, now rated among the nation’s worst nuclear reactors.

Sure, keeping nuclear waste trucks off your streets is textbook MBA-style risk management – i.e., offload as much risk as you can while retaining as much benefit as possible – but it’s shitty neighboring.

If I Had No Peanut Butter

In December, I was reminded of the NIMBY nuclear waste that didn’t get trucked down Main Street. WARNING: This is gonna seem very left-fieldy; just play along for about a paragraph or so and it’ll all come together. December is when Gene Marks – a white, middle-aged, well-meaning contributor to the Forbes blog – basically painted a big dumb Internet bulls-eye on himself with a very earnest, profoundly uninformed column called “If I Were a Poor Black Kid” [5].

The Forbes blog post is very short and very earnest, but just in case you don’t want to click through and read it yourself, the nutshell is basically everything any other clueless, well-meaning, affluent white technologist would advise a child in a socio-economic situation he (the technologist) clearly cannot begin to fathom: Study hard! Buy a cheap computer! Try to get a scholarship to a private school! Build a time machine, go back to December 1997 and buy lots and lots of Apple stock!

To be fair, Marks doesn’t offer that last nugget, but he might as well. When I think about the kids to whom Gene Marks is offering his advice, I think about the kids in the school where my wife teaches. It’s a basically functional school in metro Detroit, serving the children of the faltering middle class (many black, many white, some “other”). Every weekend her school distributes backpacks to just the sort of kids Marks is talking about (not in terms of race, but in terms of socio-economic prospects). These backpacks contain food to carry those kids from Friday to Monday.

Food. Just plain, old, basic food: mac & cheese, bread, apples, tuna. Donations to support this program – which come largely from the immediate community – were down in December, so her school had to stop including peanut butter in those bags.

Again, this is a basically functional community, and these are the “poor black kids” in question, and you’re telling them: Buy a computer (?!?). You’re telling them: Somehow get yourself up to Bloomfield Hills and try to talk someone into giving you one of the handful of scholarships to Cranbrook-Kingswood or Detroit Country Day (?!?). Pardon me, Mr. Marks, but if those same kids respond by telling you to fuck off with your earnest, stupid, insulting advice, I’m just gonna have to take my Cranbrook-educated booksmarts and assert that – aside from falling prey to the sophomoric tendency to use strong words to cover weak writing – they have a valid point, sir.

Why, Maybe, There’s No Peanut Butter

Setting aside the stupid, patronizing, totally uninformed advice, the real problem with a column like “If I Were a Poor Black Kid” is that it implicitly insists that whatever the problem is, it’s that black kid’s problem. It insists that the conditions that make Detroit unlivable (or West Philly or wherever) originate in Detroit (or wherever). Isn’t that akin to believing that some big swaths of forest in northern Ukraine and southern Belarus spontaneously became dangerously radioactive, as though some occult hand smote them, independent of human influence?

Perhaps the violence, joblessness, squalor, drugs, and crime of Detroit (or wherever) did not spring spontaneously from those vacant, poisoned lots. Maybe we exported all of that from our own affluent communities (see, e.g., the drug trade; at least where I grew up in the metro area this was a business operated in Detroit, Southfield, and Oak Park – i.e., economically depressed post-industrial husks – for the benefit of Farmington Hills, Bloomfield Hills, and Birmingham).

This, then, is the dark harvest of our NIMBYism, which at its heart is a heartless, but perfectly above-board, corporate-style cost shifting: We force the weak to accept our risk while we strip the value out of their communities.

Back In MY Backyard: IMBY

Fortunately, now that the problem becomes visible, the solution is clear: Going IMBY.

Isn’t that the most ethical path? Shouldn’t we perhaps insist that the most dangerous or challenging problems stay in our backyards, where we with the clout and wherewithal are best able – and most motivated – to address them? And, oh crap, what do those solutions look like?

Is it really telling a kid who can’t afford peanut butter to go buy a computer? Is it empowering families to flee “failing” schools rather than asking all of us – those using the schools, and those of us simply benefiting from their continued existence – to maybe pony up and fix the damn things? Is it protesting the trucks and reactors even while burning the coal keeps killing asthmatics? Is it protesting the coal while the solar cells are built in China by underage workers?

Or is it suddenly protesting revisions to an emergency manager law in Michigan, even while we’ve been content for decades to let some of our Michigan cities rot from the top down? Is Detroit’s real problem whatever emergency manager might come, or the fact that the rest of us spent forty years insisting that the D wasn’t in our backyard at all?

Anyhow, radioactive toxic waste in my backyard is what I think about when our political action takes the form of protesting in front of a rich dude’s house in Ann Arbor to register our distress about a law some other rich dudes passed in Lansing to govern some way of fixing what’s wrong in Flint, Benton Harbor and Detroit – where the poor black kids can’t afford peanut butter, but sure better study hard, buy a computer, build a time machine, and stay the hell out of our backyards.

[1] I recognize that there are some problems with this anecdote, the first being: If you’re afraid of nuclear contamination, it sorta makes more sense to usher the trucks through your community with due haste, not waylay them for hours while a shaggy guy with a bullhorn argues with cops. (This was back before universal police militarization; when I protested at Fermi II the cops who showed up did get in fistfights with some of the more aggressive protesters. But those cops were wearing day-to-day uniforms and plain old hats, wielded no clubs or chemicals, and mostly rolled their eyes and asked what we thought we were accomplishing by blocking the delivery gates on a Sunday.)

But, more to the essence, why would anyone voluntarily haul any rig down Main Street? It’s narrow, heavily trafficked by pedestrians and possible terrorists, there is no way to avoid being snared by every damn traffic light, and you average a swift walking pace. Of course, this was all long before we entered Terror Reality (!!!), so no one was worried about suicide jihadi movie-plots, but still: From where to where would you need to haul what, in order for Main Street Ann Arbor to be the shortest path? There are only three civil reactors in Michigan: Fermi (in Monroe), Cook (near Bridgman), and the Palisades facility (near South Haven).

I believe this no-nukes educator may have been thinking about the Ford Nuclear Reactor (aka, “The Phoenix Reactor”), University of Michigan’s training reactor (which was active until 2003), but it still seems hard to believe that the Department of Energy would ever chart the shortest path from North Campus to the freeway through the most densely populated corridor in the county. (As an aside to this aside, my dad was purportedly misplaced into some sort of reactor maintenance course in the 1960s. Being an art and architecture student, he was both unqualified for and uninterested in this course of study. Being a college kid in the ‘60s, he also neglected to straighten out this scheduling error prior to the end of add/drop. According to family lore he ultimately almost caused a small meltdown. I believe he failed the course.)

[2] At the risk of pushing too many hot buttons and totally derailing our discussion, I have to confess that, having put together a classroom reference book on the Chernobyl disaster, I’m now hesitantly slightly pro-nuke, if only for the following grim calculus: If we have a major nuclear disaster, there may be hundreds of deaths, as well as long-term lingering health repercussions for life in the immediate geographic area. Burning coal always and annually results in tens of thousands of deaths and major health problems for those in the immediate area of normally operating facilities. This is depressing math, but it is certain. Given the choice, you definitely want a normally operating nuclear reactor in your backyard instead of any sort of hydrocarbon operation.

[3] “Not In My Backyard!” As in, “Yes, we badly need a new homeless shelter. I totally support a referendum, too – hold up … you wanna build it where? But my property values!”

[4] And hypothetical it was: No action was ever taken – heck, I couldn’t even establish if anything remotely radioactive was ever hauled down Main Street. Later I learned that the dean in question was quite possibly inebriated during our discussion, which sort of reframed everything.

[5] Pundits large and small consequently piled on to Marks with glee throughout the holiday season. Much of that was standard rebuttals and tear downs, but Marks also inspired some excellent – if chilling – responses. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s sticks out as the best, and legitimately qualifies as a broad-reaching must-read. If you’ve ever looked at any historical injustice and thought something like “What the hell was up with you, Germany? I would have been Righteous Among the Nations had I been there!” then you really need to take Coates’s claim to heart.

About the author: David Erik Nelson has written columns previously for The Chronicle on topics like medical marijuana and glass-eating clowns. Nelson is the author of various books, including most recently, “Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred“. His Nebula-nominated novella “Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate” is now available for Kindle.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of local columnists like David Erik Nelson. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

Many Michigan residents will be paying higher taxes this year, thanks to tax hikes championed by Gov. Rick Snyder.

According to Daily Beast correspondent Howard Kurtz – a venerable Washington insider who is supposed to know such things – the greatest fear among certain Republicans in Congress is not that they might stumble during the current game of fiscal chicken and send the nation into default.

They are more worried, writes Kurtz, of being “targeted for defeat by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist.” Which is what they dread will happen if they agree to anything that would provide the federal government with a single penny of additional revenue.

This leads me to wonder: Has anyone inside the Beltway taken a look at the tax increases Norquist signed off on here in Michigan?

Norquist, who has famously declared that his long-term goal is to shrink government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub,” runs an outfit called Americans for Tax Reform. Never at a loss for a sound bite, he has gained outsized media attention with a demand that candidates for state and federal office sign an anti-tax pledge. The state version calls on candidates (and incumbents) “to oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.”

The wrath of Grover, apparently, was not sufficient to intimidate Michigan Governor Rick Snyder or GOP majorities in the state House (63-47) and state Senate (26-12). They passed a budget this spring, ahead of schedule, and they balanced it the old-fashioned way: They raised our taxes.

State tax hikes will cost me and my family, I figure, about $1,500 a year. As a whole, individual Michigan taxpayers will pay $1.42 billion in new taxes, including a substantial bump in the Michigan income tax rate – which was supposed to fall to 3.9% over the next few years – to a higher, permanent level of 4.25%. There’s also a tax on a whole new category of income – pensions – which used to be exempt from state taxation.

Increased tax rates and new categories of taxation usually get ol’ Grover pretty red in the face, so I gave his office a call to see if he was planning to stage a recall campaign against Snyder, or to run primary candidates against offending legislators. Or maybe have some people shot at sunrise, which is the sort of thing he likes to say. (No wonder he gets on TV all the time.)

Apparently, Norquist was too busy torpedoing federal budget talks to spend any time with me. I was handed off to a press aide named John Kartch, who declined to return my calls or emails.

To be fair, if I were Kartch, flakking for a red-meat right-wing lobbying shop, I wouldn’t call me back either, given the type of people I usually hang around with.

To be even more fair, I didn’t need an interview with Kartch or Norquist to find out if they felt my pain last month, when the first installment on my higher state tax bill was due. (I’m self-employed, so I have the joy of writing checks to Uncle Sam and Uncle Rick four times a year, instead of just once.) Americans for Tax Reform issued a press release in April, when the Michigan House passed an early version of the tax hikes (different in degree, but not in kind, from the final measure.) Norquist didn’t attack the idea – he endorsed it.

Snyder, a former hi-tech executive who lives in Ann Arbor and ran for office as “one tough nerd,” is much more inclined to get tough on wage-earning Joes and Janes than with his former – and future – peers in the business community. While you and I are shouldering an additional $1.42 billion in tax hikes, Michigan businesses will get $1.64 billion in tax cuts. Some 95,000 businesses in Michigan will not have to pay any taxes at all.

Since the total tax increases you and I will pay are outweighed by lower taxes for businesses, state government winds up with less money – about $224 million a year less by 2013. That’s four tenths of one percent of the total state budget, which weighs in this year at $47 billion. I’m not sure this qualifies as drowning government “in the bathtub”; it sounds more to me like “throwing a little water up government’s nose.” But it was good enough for Grover. In his April 28 press statement, he ordained the Michigan tax package as a “net tax cut, it is consistent with the pledge.”

Even better, it will “help to end Michigan’s lost decade of high unemployment … lower the barrier for employers to start-up, expand and invest, inevitably creating more jobs across Michigan.”

We should check back in a few years to see how the “inevitably” thing is working out. I liked Republicans better back when, like Richard Nixon, they were all Keynesians. So I have a hard time figuring out how any jobs will be created when millions of families lose disposable income through higher taxes, just to provide tax breaks to a much smaller number of businesses. (If we were investing the added revenue in public infrastructure to enable private profits, like roads, schools and bridges, it would be a different story.) To whom are Michigan businesses going to sell their goods and services, when me and everybody else in the state has to fork over all our extra cash to Rick Snyder?

The pretzel logic asserting that my tax increase isn’t really an increase because somebody else is getting a bigger tax cut is easily exposed: If I tell the Michigan Department of Treasury I don’t intend to pay the $1,500 the new law says I owe because “Grover Norquist told me I was getting a net tax cut,” I’m pretty sure things won’t turn out very well for me.

Things won’t turn out very well for any of us if the entire country continues to be held hostage by a single Beltway operative with a big Rolodex and an oversized obsession about the size of his tax bill. Even right-wingers used to understand this, as the left-wingers over at TalkingPointsMemo.com have demonstrated, with graphs showing that both Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher addressed budget deficits by raising taxes while in office.

But you don’t have to go back to the 1970s or 1980s to find a conservative icon who supported a tax increase. You just have to go a little bit west, and pay us a visit here in flyover country. Rick Snyder raised taxes and not only lived to tell about it – he even got a pat on the back from America’s angriest anti-tax ayatollah.

Me? I couldn’t even get a return phone call. Thanks a lot, Grover.

Roger Kerson, creative director at RK Communications, is a media strategist for labor unions, environmental organizations, and green businesses.

Washtenaw County board of election commissioners, left to right: Larry Kestenbaum, Catherine McClary, Donald Shelton. (Photos by the writer.)

Washtenaw County’s election board held the hearing because the petition must be filed in the county where the subject of the recall lives – Snyder is an Ann Arbor area resident.

Around 20 people attended the hearing, many of whom wore yellow buttons with language indicating support for the recall. Four people addressed the board during the public participation part of the agenda, including Snyder’s legal counsel, John Pirich, of the law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn. Snyder – who is giving the commencement speech at the April 30 University of Michigan graduation ceremonies – did not attend Friday’s hearing.

The board of election commissioners consists of (chair) Donald E. Shelton, chief judge of the Washtenaw County Trial Court; (secretary) Larry Kestenbaum, county clerk; and (member) Catherine McClary, county treasurer. Kestenbaum and McClary were elected clerk and treasurer as Democrats. Shelton was elected judge on a non-partisan ballot, but in the past has run for office as a Democrat.

The vote on the clarity of the language was 2-1. McClary’s was the dissenting vote.

The language that the board found to be sufficiently clear was as follows: “Richard D. Snyder has requested from the legislature, approved and signed various laws that take authority and funds from local governments and school districts and vest them with the state. He has obtained for himself, through his appointed Emergency Financial Managers, the power to invalidate legal and binding contracts entered into by properly elected local authorities. He has sought tax increases upon retirees and lower income families, but instead of addressing the deficit, he has sought large new tax cuts for corporations and businesses.” [.pdf of proposed recall ballot language]

Under Michigan’s state election law, the finding at a clarity hearing can be appealed to the Circuit Court within 10 days of the finding by the petitioner or the officer. As of late Friday, April 29, Snyder had not made a decision whether to appeal.

Snyder’s office issued this statement: “The Governor remains fully committed to making the tough fiscal and policy decisions that have been put off for far too long. He knew full well that it wasn’t going to be easy. His budget and tax plan was a comprehensive approach to hit the ‘reset’ button and tackle the state’s structural deficit once and for all, grow Michigan’s economy for more and better jobs, ensure core and safety net services, and build a strong foundation for the future.”

After public participation, the deliberations by the board of election commissioners on the clarity of the language lasted about 10 minutes, with the entire session lasting around 20 minutes.

Background

The petition language was submitted on April 18, 2011 by Gerald D. Rozner from the city of Monroe. Rozner attended the clarity hearing. The recall effort is being organized by a group called Michigan Citizens United. By state election law, the board had a window between 10 and 20 days after the petition during which to complete the clarity hearing. If no hearing had been held, the default finding is that the language is sufficiently clear.

If there is no appeal or if the petition language survives any appeal, the recall effort would need to collect signatures equal to 25% of the number of votes cast for the office of governor in the general election – about 800,000 signatures would be required. By law, the petition itself can’t be submitted until six months after the recall subject takes office – that means the recall petition could be filed no earlier than July 1, 2011.

Hearing Introduction

About 10 minutes after 9 a.m. when the hearing was scheduled to begin, Catherine McClary told the audience that the election board would wait until its chair, Judge Donald Shelton, arrived – he’d indicated he was on his way.

When Shelton arrived a few minutes later, he described the purpose of the hearing – for the board to determine if the reasons for the recall stated in the petition are of sufficient clarity to enable both the officer [Snyder] whose recall is being sought and the voters to identify the course of conduct that is the basis of the recall.

Shelton stressed that the board was not there to “talk about, rule on, or otherwise discuss the truthfulness or falsity” of the statements in the proposed petition. He reiterated that the purpose of the hearing was only to determine if the statements are clear enough for the officer to understand them and for voters to vote on them.

Shelton allowed that several people who wished to speak might well have strong feelings about whether the statements are true or not true, but that’s not the question to be decided, he said.

Public Participation

Shelton first invited the proponents of the petition language to make a statement, if they wished to do so. Three members of Michigan Citizens United identified themselves as present. After a brief consultation among themselves, Tim Kramer approached the microphone.

Public Participation: Petitioner

Shelton asked Kramer if he’d like to speak to the language in the petition. Kramer told Shelton that he felt the language was clear. Marion Townsend asked if they were required to make a statement, or if they could let the words in the proposed petition stand for themselves.

Shelton told them that they could absolutely do that, but he was making sure they were provided with an opportunity to make a statement. Townsend said they were willing to “let it ride” pending further discussion.

Public Participation: Legal Counsel for Snyder

When Shelton invited further commentary from the public, the legal counsel for Snyder – John Pirich, of the law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn – then addressed the board. He argued that the language was not clear. He began by citing the relevant section of the Michigan State Election Law, which requires that each reason given for the recall be of sufficient clarity to enable the officer and the electorate to identify the course of conduct that is the basis for the recall. From the Michigan State Election Law (Act 166 of 1954):

168.952 Recall petitions; requirements; submission to board of county election commissioners; determination; notice; meeting; presentation of arguments; appeal; validity of petition. Sec. 952. …
(3) … that each reason for the recall stated in the petition is of sufficient clarity to enable the officer whose recall is being sought and the electors to identify the course of conduct that is the basis for the recall.

Pirich then highlighted three parts of the recall petition language that he argued did not meet the statutory standard of clarity. He focused first on the introductory clause:

Richard D. Snyder has requested from the legislature, approved and signed various laws that take authority and funds from local governments and school districts and vest them with the state.

“Quite honestly,” Pirich said, “I don’t know what they’re referring to.” He noted that there is no specific legislation referenced by the petition. Further, he said, he knew of no legislation that had been enacted by the legislature that had been signed into law. He allowed that there may eventually be some enactment, which at some point might be complained about – but there has not been an enactment of any of the laws that are referenced in the petition.

Pirich then argued in a way that county clerk Larry Kestenbaum would later note, during his deliberations, inaccurately characterized the language of the petition. Pirich contended that the petition language alleged that the state had somehow “improperly” taken funds from local units of government or vested funds improperly or illegally, which Pirich said was not reflective of reality. The state has not taken anything away, Pirich said – it is an appropriations budget.

Pirich then moved to the petition language that refers to the appointed emergency financial managers:

He has obtained for himself, through his appointed Emergency Financial Managers, the power to invalidate legal and binding contracts entered into by properly elected local authorities.

Pirich contended that there are no emergency financial managers who have been appointed. He allowed that former Gov. Jennifer Granholm had appointed emergency financial managers in the past, but there have been none appointed by Snyder. It was therefore not just factually incorrect, said Pirich, but a non sequitur. He continued by saying that emergency financial managers are appointed in areas that are under some kind of financial distress, but there is no reference to that in the petition language.

Pirich then focused on the third sentence of the recall language:

He has sought tax increases upon retirees and lower income families, but instead of addressing the deficit, he has sought large new tax cuts for corporations and businesses.

“It’s just not factually or legally accurate,” Pirich told the board. Even if you look at the proposed legislation, which has not yet been enacted into law, it specifically revolves around modifications to tax credits or tax incentives – but there are no tax increases, he said.

Legal counsel for Gov. Snyder John Pirich, left, and Washtenaw County clerk Larry Kestenbaum, right, a member of the county board of election commissioners.

As for the tax cuts for corporations, there is no reference to any such action, Pirich argued. And whatever legislation that might eventually be enacted would include both increases and decreases, but that’s not what is referenced in the petition, he said.

Pirich concluded by pointing to the constitutional requirement for a balanced budget for each fiscal year. How that budget is balanced each year depends on that process as it unfolds, but that process has not yet happened, Pirich said. So at this stage, it’s premature to base a petition on those events, because they have not yet occurred. Pirich requested that the petition be denied based on the failure to meet the requirement of clarity.

In wrapping up his comments, Pirich offered to discuss the case law on the issue, in particular the Donigan v. Oakland County Election Commission case. In that case, Pirich said, the Michigan Court of Appeals specifically looked at references in a recall petition that related to bills that had been introduced into the legislature and specifically referenced in the recall petition – but that is not what the petition to recall Snyder has in it, he said.

Background: Donigan Case Referenced by Pirich

The 2008 Donigan case to which Pirich referred involved Marie Donigan, the state representative from the 26th House District. The stated reason for recall was: “Voted yes on 2007 House Bill 5194 to increase the income tax to 4.35 percent, and voted yes on 2007 House Bill 5198 to impose new 6 percent taxes on certain services.”

The Oakland County board of election commissioners found on a split vote that the language was sufficiently clear. Donigan appealed the ruling to the circuit court and won. But the court of appeals reversed that decision and found that the language was in fact sufficiently clear.

The standard applied by the court of appeals in that case was:

The standard of review for clarity of recall petitions has been described as both “lenient,” and “very lenient.” “Thus, recall review by the courts should be very, very limited.” A meticulous and detailed statement of the charges against an officeholder is not required. It is sufficient if an officeholder is apprised of the course of conduct in office that is the basis of the recall drive, so that a defense can be mounted regarding that conduct. “Where the clarity of the reasons stated in the petition is a close question, doubt should be resolved in favor of the individual formulating the petition.”

Public Participation: Rebuttal

Kramer asked for an opportunity to rebut the arguments made by Pirich. Kramer simply noted that what is at issue is not what is factual or legal, as Pirich had argued, but the clarity of the language.

Tim Kramer, with the recall petitioners.

Another member of the public, Charles Williams, echoed the sentiments of Kramer – that Pirich had spoken to the issue of facts (what is true and not true) and had not spoken to the clarity of the language.

Marion Townsend told the board that in accordance with a document describing the recall process, provided by the state of Michigan’s website, it clearly states that only the clarity of the language is subject to the board’s review. So she asked that arguments made by Pirich not be taken into account as relevant to the clarity of the language.

Townsend told the board that her understanding of the law was that the petition could say something like, “We don’t like Mr. Snyder, because he parts his hair on the left.” As long as the language is clear, she said, the petition should go forward.

Election Board Deliberations

Deliberations were straightforward, with each commissioner taking a turn. Kestenbaum went first. McClary followed next, and made a motion to find that the language was not sufficiently clear. The motion died for lack of a second. Shelton weighed in last.

Deliberations: Kestenbaum

Kestenbaum led off the deliberations by the board by saying that he’d been looking forward to what was going to be said at the hearing. He reiterated that the question of truth or falsity was not before the board. He noted that Pirich had referred to the petition claiming that Snyder had done something “improperly.”

But Kestenbaum observed that the petition does not contain the word, “improperly.” He said the board typically sees recall language about actions that are taken that are perfectly valid legally – money was expended, or ordinances were passed, for example. The fact that a recall petition is premised on those actions, Kestenbaum said, does not mean that those actions are alleged to be improper or illegal.

It’s a central premise of the structure of government in Michigan, Kestenbaum continued, that local governments are creatures of the state. So in his opinion, Kestenbaum said, there’s no constitutional issue. He said the reasons cited for recall in the petition are valid. His only issue with the clarity was with the word “vest,” which he was not sure would be understood by everyone, but other than that he was content that the language was clear.

Shelton responded to Kestenbaum by quipping that anyone who has a retirement plan probably understands what “vest” means.

Deliberations: McClary

McClary allowed that she was the only person who was not an attorney so she wouldn’t get into the legal aspects of it. She did note, however, that she’d unfortunately had to attend a lot of clarity hearings on recall petitions. She said she didn’t care whether the statements were true or untrue.

Washtenaw County clerk Larry Kestenbaum and Washtenaw County treasurer Catherine McClary, both of whom are members of the three-member Washtenaw County board of election commissioners.

Responding to Townsend’s observation that the petition could very well say, “We don’t like Mr. Snyder, because he parts his hair on the left,” she said that would be clear to her.

But she noted that there are misplaced commas in the language. She also said she’d circled the word “vest.” She said that in the phrase, “he obtained for himself,” it’s not clear whether that means for himself personally or for himself as the governor.

As for “he requested from the legislature, approved and signed,” McClary said she doesn’t know what he approved and signed. As for, “he sought tax increases upon retirees and lower income families,” she said she personally knew that to be true. But the way the sentence continues, with “instead of addressing the deficit,” it just doesn’t hang together, she said.

So McClary moved that the recall language was not of sufficient clarity to identify the course of conduct in a recall election. The motion died for lack of a second.

Deliberations: Shelton

Shelton said his own observations stemmed from the lawyer in him, but quipped that some people say a judge has not been a lawyer in a long time.

Shelton said he tends to look at the “operative words, the verbs” that are used to describe the conduct. In this case, it states that Snyder “requested, approved and signed.” Shelton said he thought those words speak for themselves.

The next sentence states that Snyder “has obtained” the power to invalidate contracts. Whether that is true or not, Shelton said, he thought people would understand what that means. Finally, Shelton observed, the language states that Snyder “has sought” tax cuts – those are the operative words.

Shelton said it was possible to have a lot of discussion about whether Snyder has in fact requested, or has in fact approved or signed the described laws. But Shelton said he believed those are questions of fact. The role of the board is to determine whether people walking into the voting booth will understand what the allegations are.

If the recall language appears on the ballot, a response from Snyder will also appear on the ballot, Shelton explained. The officer has the opportunity to submit a response. The purpose of that, Shelton explained, is to provide the officer with a chance to say, “That’s not true, I didn’t do that, I did do that, but here’s why.”

Judge Donald Shelton reviews documents just before calling the hearing to order, as county treasurer Catherine McClary looks on.

Shelton said his view is that some deference must be given to the voters, and unless the language is so unclear that it’s confusing, then the electorate has to be trusted to read the petition, decide if they want to sign it, and if it achieves enough signatures, then read it in the voting booth.

Shelton clarified that any decision to approve the clarity of the language is not a decision about the format of the petition papers. What the petitioners had submitted would not be acceptable, Shelton said, and he asked deputy county clerk Matt Yankee to explain. Yankee said there was no such thing as a recall petition for an entire county along the lines that they’d formatted their petition sheets.

Yankee was alluding to the following section of the Michigan State Election Law:

168.958 Recall petition sheet; signature of qualified and registered electors; location for signing; signature of person not qualified and registered elector. Sec. 958. A petition sheet shall contain only the signatures of qualified and registered electors of the city or township listed in its heading. For recall of a village officer the petition shall be signed by qualified and registered electors of the village.

Representatives from Michigan Citizens United said they were aware of the issue and would rectify it before going to the printer.

Another technical question from MCU concerned the possible use of 2D barcodes on the petitions – they’d like to use them for tracking purposes. Shelton deferred to Yankee, who directed them to the State Bureau of Elections to get information on that. They responded by saying that even that limited direction was already more information than what they’d previously been given.

Kestenbaum moved that the language in the petition was sufficiently clear. Shelton seconded the motion.

Outcome: The Washtenaw County board of election commissioners voted 2-1 to find that the recall petition language meets the statutory clarity standard. McClary cast the dissenting vote.

The board of election commissioners consists of (chair) Donald E. Shelton, chief judge of the Washtenaw County Trial Court; (secretary) Larry Kestenbaum, county clerk; and (member) Catherine McClary, county treasurer.

The vote on the clarity of the language was 2-1. McClary’s was the dissenting vote.

The language that the board found to be sufficiently clear was as follows: “Richard D. Snyder has requested from the legislature, approved and signed various laws that take authority and funds from local governments and school districts and vest them with the state. He has obtained for himself, through his appointed Emergency Financial Managers, the power to invalidate legal and binding contracts entered into by properly elected local authorities. He has sought tax increases upon retirees and lower income families, but instead of addressing the deficit, he has sought large new tax cuts for corporations and businesses.” [.pdf of proposed recall ballot language]

Under Michigan’s state election law, the finding at a clarity hearing can be appealed to the Circuit Court within 10 days of the finding by the petitioner or the officer. New recall ballot language can also be submitted.

The petition language was submitted on April 18, 2011 by Gerald D. Rozner from the city of Monroe. The effort is being organized by a group called Michigan Citizens United. By state election law, the board had a window between 10 and 20 days after the petition during which to complete the clarity hearing. If no hearing had been held, the default finding is that the language is sufficiently clear.

If there is no appeal or if the petition language survives any appeal, the recall effort would need to collect signatures equal to 25% of the number of votes cast for the office of governor in the general election – about 800,000 signatures would be required. By law, the petition itself can’t be submitted until six months after the recall subject takes office – that means the recall petition could be filed no earlier than July 1, 2011.

The brief was filed from the Washtenaw County board of commissioners boardroom, 220 N. Main St., Ann Arbor, where the clarity hearing was conducted. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

City of Ann Arbor planner Jeff Kahan explains that even though the proposed district boundaries of a Washtenaw Avenue corridor improvement authority would, at its western end, not include properties adjoining the right-of-way, the right-of-way could still receive the benefit of improvements. (Photos by the writer.)

That’s what the public hearing was about. The Ann Arbor city council is considering whether to work with the other three communities to establish a corridor improvement authority (CIA) along Washtenaw Avenue. Schreiber was at Ann Arbor’s meeting to encourage the council to consider forming a CIA, thus joining with his city and the two other municipalities along Washtenaw. The council took no action on March 7 – by state statute, they cannot take the step to establish a CIA until 60 days after the public hearing.

A corridor improvement authority is a tax-increment finance district, similar to a downtown development authority – but specifically designed for commercial corridors instead of downtown areas. [.pdf map of proposed Washtenaw Avenue CIA district ] At the March 7 public hearing on establishing a Washtenaw Avenue CIA, Schreiber was one of only two people to speak.

But five days earlier, on March 2, around 20 people attended a presentation by city of Ann Arbor planners at Cobblestone Farm. And they were joined late in the meeting by Stephen Rapundalo, who represents Ward 2 on the Ann Arbor city council. Washtenaw Avenue is a boundary between Ward 2 on the north and Ward 3 on the south. Some of those 20 residents aired their criticisms as well as support of the CIA proposal. In addition to some concerns about the administration of the authority, attendees expressed disagreement with each other about the kinds of solutions the corridor needs.

Some agreed with the conclusions of a joint technical committee that’s been working on the issue: The corridor would benefit from added transit infrastructure and greater accessibility to non-motorized transportation, as well as increased residential density. Others saw that stretch of Washtenaw Avenue as needing mainly additional lanes in the roadway to improve traffic flow.

On the administrative side, city planner Jeff Kahan explained that the possibility of establishing a CIA along Washtenaw Avenue would be greatly helped by a revision to the relatively new state statute that allows such CIAs to be created – a revision that would explicitly articulate that the four jurisdictions could form a single authority. As the statute is currently written, four separate authorities would need to be formed, and then operated under some kind of inter-governmental agreement.

So where did this idea come from that four separate units of government might collaborate on creating a corridor improvement authority for Washtenaw Avenue? It pre-dates by at least two years Gov. Rick Snyder’s recent call for greater collaboration among government entities. But Snyder was at least indirectly involved in providing some impetus behind the effort.

Origin of Concept: Ann Arbor Region Success

City planner Jeff Kahan began his presentation to the Cobblestone Farm audience by describing how the Washtenaw corridor improvement concept had evolved out of a planning effort called Ann Arbor Region Success. The effort involved 70 different community leaders, he said.

By way of additional background, the group of 70 people formed back in 2008 and divided into smaller work groups to focus on specific areas to develop long-term success strategies for the region. The group was led by six co-chairs: Martha Bloom, vice president of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation; Jeff Irwin, then chair of the Washtenaw County board of commissioners; Mark Ouimet, then a Washtenaw County commissioner; Rich Sheridan, president and CEO of Menlo Innovations; and Larry Voight, executive director of the nonprofit Catholic Social Services.

In November 2010, Irwin, a Democrat, and Ouimet, a Republican, were elected to represent District 53 and District 52, respectively, in the Michigan state House.

Also now in Lansing, and listed on the “leadership team” of the Ann Arbor Region Success group (as CEO of the venture capital firm Ardesta) is Rick Snyder – a Republican who was elected governor of the state of Michigan in November 2010.

The Ann Arbor Region Success initiative included a housing and land use work group. Richard Murphy, who was then a planner with the city of Ypsilanti and now works for the Michigan Suburbs Alliance, was part of that work group. Responding to a Chronicle emailed query, Murphy reported that the work group had identified several themes that eventually worked their way into the concept for the Washtenaw corridor: walkability, high-quality transit, and a range of choices for housing, transportation mode, and destinations. Infill development was identified as a tool for achieving some of those goals.

[Murphy's colleague at the Michigan Suburbs Alliance, Sam Offen, attended the Cobblestone Farm meeting. Offen's name is possibly recognizable to readers as a member of the city's park advisory commission; he also serves on the Library Lot RFP review committee.]

An “action team” then took the Washtenaw Avenue corridor as a specific area of focus, which led to the formation of a joint technical committee, composed of around 30 members of various governmental and private groups drawn from the four communities crossed by Washtenaw Avenue. [.pdf of the action team report on Washtenaw Avenue]

The joint technical committee, which included many of the members of the action team, eventually recommended that the four communities along Washtenaw Avenue collaborate in forming a corridor improvement authority under the state’s enabling legislation [.pdf of Public Act 280 of 2005] [.pdf of the joint technical committee report]

At its December 20, 2010 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council passed a resolution of intent to collaborate with the three other municipalities along Washtenaw Avenue to form a CIA.

Problems with Washtenaw Corridor

At the Cobblestone Farm meeting, Kahan reviewed the characteristics of the corridor that the joint action team and the technical committee had identified as problematic. They include:

• Expansive, carless parking lots
• Frequent traffic congestion
• Higher-than-average crash rates
• Inadequate pedestrian crossings
• Missing sidewalks
• No amenities for bicyclists
• Numerous vacant parcels
• High vacancy rates of commercial storefronts

Formation of the Authority: TIF

Kahan explained to the group at Cobblestone Farm how the joint technical committee had proposed a Corridor Improvement Authority (CIA) as a financing mechanism to pay for solutions to the various problems it had identified along Washtenaw Avenue.

A CIA, Kahan explained, is a tax-increment finance district – similar to a downtown development authority, but specifically designed for commercial corridors. A tax-increment finance (TIF) district is a mechanism for “capturing” certain property taxes to be used in a specific geographic district – taxes that would otherwise be used by the entity with the authority to levy the taxes. [In the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority TIF district, for example, a portion of the property taxes that would otherwise be collected by the Ann Arbor District Library and other taxing entities are instead used by the Ann Arbor DDA for improvements within the geographic district of the DDA.]

Not all the taxes in a TIF district go to the TIF authority. Instead, as Kahan explained, upon creation of a TIF district, a baseline is defined for the current taxable value, and it’s only the difference (the increment) between the baseline value of a property and the increased value of a property in the future – say, through redevelopment – that would be subject to tax capture through a TIF authority like a CIA.

In discussion with the Cobblestone audience, Kahan indicated that the exact definition of the TIF capture for a Washtenaw CIA was somewhat of an open question. It’s not settled, for example, whether the increment to be captured would include the increased value of a property due to simple appreciation (inflation), without any investment or improvement in the property. The enabling legislation would allow inflation to be included or not, depending on the exact tax increment financing plan of the CIA. [The Ann Arbor DDA tax capture is defined so that the initial increment between the baseline property value and the value due to an external improvement is captured by the DDA, but subsequent appreciation on that added value reverts to the original taxing authority.]

Corridor improvement authorities cannot capture certain kinds of taxes. For example, taxes collected under the state education act (Public Act 331) or by an intermediate school district are exempt from capture by a CIA. In addition, the governing body of an entity that levies taxes in a CIA’s district has the opportunity to opt out. From the state enabling legislation for CIAs [.pdf of Public Act 280 of 2005]:

(5) Except for a development area located in a qualified development area, not more than 60 days after the public hearing on the tax increment financing plan, the governing body in a taxing jurisdiction levying ad valorem property taxes that would otherwise be subject to capture may exempt its taxes from capture by adopting a resolution to that effect and filing a copy with the clerk of the municipality proposing to create the authority. The resolution shall take effect when filed with the clerk and remains effective until a copy of a resolution rescinding that resolution is filed with that clerk.

Forming an Authority: Cooperation Required

Before the Cobblestone meeting started, Kahan told The Chronicle that using the existing state statute, which is relatively new, could pose a challenge to the kind of CIA that Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Township and Pittsfield Township would like to form. The act provides for a way for each of these local units to form a CIA and a way for them to operate them jointly. From the statute:

A municipality that has created an authority may enter into an agreement with an adjoining municipality that has created an authority to jointly operate and administer those authorities under an interlocal agreement under the urban cooperation act of 1967, 1967 (Ex Sess) PA 7, MCL 124.501 to 124.512.

What is not completely clear is how the interlocal agreement would work. For example, under the statute each CIA needs to have a governing board with at least five, but no more than nine members. If a governing board for all four CIAs were formed as the simple union of all the boards of the four municipalities, then the resulting board would consist of at least 20 members, exceeding the limit of nine specified in the statute.

Kahan said the joint technical committee has been working with Jeff Irwin, an Ann Arbor Democrat who now represents District 53 in the state House, to explore the possibility of an amendment to the statute. An amendment could provide for the direct formation of an authority by multiple municipalities.

In a followup phone interview, Irwin told The Chronicle that he’d forwarded an amendment request to the House Legislative Services Bureau, and that it had been returned with further questions. Right now, his understanding is that there’s a dual-track approach: (1) amend the statute – which would move only at the pace of the state legislature; and (2) sort out the board membership issue with respect to collaboration between the four municipalities.

Forming the Authority: Upsides, Downsides

At the Cobblestone Farm meeting, Kahan sketched out the basic advantages and disadvantages of using the CIA as a tool to address problems in the corridor. The mechanism of the TIF district keeps the additional tax revenue generated by increased development inside the corridor’s district, and the idea is that this helps to attract additional private investment as well. While this helps to focus funds on the area where problems have been identified, Kahan allowed that these funds could otherwise go to municipalities where the challenges in balancing budgets are getting greater every year.

Kahan continued by saying that the collaboration and cooperation required by this particular CIA would likely be looked on favorably by Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration. Snyder’s administration has sent a clear message to local units of government that the state expects them to demonstrate efforts to collaborate and consolidate in order to qualify for various kinds of state aid.

In a phone interview with The Chronicle about the CIA, Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber remarked that this kind collaboration has been happening long before Snyder started talking about it. In addition to the four-way collaboration on the CIA, he pointed to the Ypsilanti Community Utility Authority (YCUA), which provides drinking water or sanitary sewer services to the city of Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Township, Pittsfield Township, Augusta Township, Sumpter Township and Superior Township.

Schreiber also pointed to the current discussions between the city of Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township to collaborate on police services.

As one of the initial downsides to a CIA, Kahan cited the increased layer of administration – it could take a while for the TIF to generate much money for the CIA. And during that initial lean period, there would be costs – perhaps for an executive director, for legal services, office space, secretarial services and the like. It might be necessary for the four municipalities to provide financial support for the CIA’s administrative needs until the CIA started receiving enough revenue from its TIF to become self-sustaining, Kahan said.

What’s an Improvement?

The kind of infrastructure improvements the joint technical committee has recommended for the corridor include many projects that could be summarized under the general rubric of “complete streets.”

A public meeting on the possible formation of a corridor improvement authority held at Cobblestone Farm on March 2, 2011. Standing is city of Ann Arbor planner Jeff Kahan. Seated, in blue vest with white sleeves, is Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city.

At its March 7, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council passed a resolution affirming its commitment to “complete streets” – the idea that streets should be constructed to accommodate a full range of users, from pedestrians, to bicyclists, to public transit vehicles, to privately owned automobiles.

For Washtenaw Avenue, that would include a bike lanes, installation of sidewalks where they are missing or broken, and creation of transit nodes with bus stops that have amenities like benches, shelters and arrival information.

These are the kind of improvements that resonated with several people in the audience at Cobblestone Farm, including Larry Krieg. As a planner with Ypsilanti Township, Krieg is a member of the joint technical committee. Krieg has also championed the idea of Washtenaw Avenue as an important corridor in remarks he’s made while addressing the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board. Krieg maintains the blog Wake Up, Washtenaw!

Krieg told the group gathered at Cobblestone Farm that Washtenaw Avenue was seen as a potential talent corridor, a geographic location with the potential to attract 20-40 year olds to stay in the area. Krieg described how many younger people can’t imagine why they should be required to have an automobile in order to do ordinary things in life, and are interested in living in places where they can get where they want to go by using public transit.

Responding to Krieg was resident Vic Elmer, who said that what Krieg was describing was simply not reality – “that’s not the way America works right now,” he said. If a road has been properly designed, he contended, traffic will flow smoothly. What Washtenaw Avenue needs is an expansion of car lanes, not additional bike lanes. He characterized the configuration of some local bike lanes as poorly engineered, saying that he’d witnessed several near-accidents. If bike lanes were considered all that important, he said, why doesn’t the city plow snow all the way to the curb? [The city of Ann Arbor's snow plowing strategy is not curb-to-curb, but its goal includes clearing snow from bike lanes.]

Bing Maps Birdseye view of Huron Parkway and Washtenaw intersection. The bus in the righthand lane is likely a #7 AATA bus ready to turn east onto Washtenaw Avenue from Huron Parkway.

Elmer, along with others who attended the Cobblestone Farm meeting, pointed to the intersection of Washtenaw and Huron Parkway as particularly problematic. Cars stack up there, they said. They suggested that what’s needed is a larger right-of-way at that intersection.

Some at the meeting saw the introduction of transit nodes and pedestrian amenities like crossings and sidewalks as just more obstacles for cars to traverse, slowing down automobile traffic. The joint technical committee’s report actually concurs with the view that there are too many bus stops along the corridor – but they are necessary because the lack of sidewalks makes it unreasonable to expect bus passengers to get very far by walking. So part of the proposed concept is to install complete sidewalks along the corridor, which would allow the consolidation of multiple bus stops into single transit nodes. These nodes would then have better amenities – benches, shelters, and arrival/departure information.

One step towards providing pedestrian access along the corridor will start construction this year, without a CIA. That project is for a non-motorized path along the north and east sides of Washtenaw Avenue, from Tuomy to Glenwood. The Ann Arbor city council approved a special assessment on adjoining property owners to construct the path late last year. At the Cobblestone meeting, Kahan explained that a special assessment can be used only to construct a new amenity like the non-motorized path, but not to repair an existing one like broken sidewalks along other parts of the corridor.

The role of US-23 in the corridor was drawn out by someone in the audience who asked the rhetorical question: What kind of vehicles would be exiting from US-23 onto Washtenaw Avenue – bicycles and pedestrians? The point was that key to the corridor’s economic health is automobile traffic. When another attendee somewhat whimsically posed the question of what it would take to relocate the exit ramps to some location other than Washtenaw Avenue, Wendy Rampson – head of planning for the city of Ann Arbor – said she didn’t think businesses currently located along Washtenaw Avenue would appreciate that.

Beyond Improvements

While much of the focus of the conversation at Cobblestone Farm focused on the kind of infrastructure improvements that might be undertaken to help the corridor, Kahan and Rampson also pointed to the possibility that a CIA could help create a more uniform zoning and permitting process along the entire corridor, to help expedite development. The city of Ann Arbor recently approved revisions to its area, height and placement (AHP) zoning code that are intended in part to help support the kind of pedestrian-friendly and transit-oriented development that the joint technical committee has recommended for the corridor.

Revisions to Ann Arbor’s AHP zoning includes provisions that encourage increased residential density through mixed use – something that was met with some resistance at the Cobblestone Farm meeting. Wouldn’t more people living along the corridor translate into even more congestion and curb cuts? Kahan explained that part of the goal of the zoning and planning piece of the joint technical committee’s recommendation is to reduce the number of curb cuts by providing appropriate zoning regulations.

In his phone interview with The Chronicle, Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber said that coordinating the zoning and permitting requirements along the corridor was something worth pursuing in itself, even if infrastructure improvements might be a longer time coming.