Hourly temperature data from WeatherSpark for part of November and December 2013. Chart by The Chronicle. Yellow horizontal line is 25 degrees. The red horizontal line is 10 degrees. The “weather amnesty” threshold – when the Delonis Center shelter opens for daytime hours – is 10 degrees. Advocates for the homeless community spoke at the city council’s Dec. 16 meeting in favor of a 25-degree threshold.

In some of its more significant business of the night, the council voted unanimously to deposit almost $1.4 million into the city of Ann Arbor’s affordable housing trust fund. The council’s final vote was unanimous, although Jane Lumm (Ward 2) offered an amendment to cut that amount in half, which failed on a 2-9 vote. Jack Eaton (Ward 4) joined Lumm in supporting that failed amendment.

The dollar figure of $1,384,300 million reflects the $1.75 million in gross proceeds, less brokerage fees and seller’s costs, from the sale of a downtown city-owned parcel known as the old Y lot. In 2003, the city paid $3.5 million for the property, located on William Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues. The council approved the sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting. The city has made interest-only payments on a $3.5 million loan for the last 10 years.

Public commentary during the meeting was dominated by residents advocating in support of the Y lot resolution – several on behalf of the homeless community. A current point of contention for several of the speakers is the fact that the Delonis Shelter does not operate a warming center during daytime hours. Instead, the center allows the homeless to seek refuge there during the day when the temperature or wind chill drops to 10 F degrees. Addressing that issue is one of several possible ways to spend the money from the affordable housing trust fund. Others include using it to renovate properties managed by the Ann Arbor housing commission.

Two items in which the council also invested considerable time at its Dec. 16 meeting involved traffic safety. The council wound up adopting unanimously a resolution that directs city administrator Steve Powers to present a strategy for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan, by specific dates starting next year. The final version adopted by the council reflected a compromise on the exact wording of the resolution – which among other changes eliminated explicit mention of any specific technology. The original resolution had specifically cited rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFBs), as does the non-motorized plan.

Thematically related to the funding plan for non-motorized transportation improvements was a proposal to allocate $125,000 from the current general fund reserve to pay for police overtime for traffic enforcement. The debate on police overtime centered on the question of whether chief of police John Seto had a plan to spend the money, which equates to about 70 additional hours a week for the remaining six months of the fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2014. The resolution eventually won the support of all members of the council except for mayor John Hieftje.

The police overtime item was sponsored by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2), who were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – which eliminated a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who were at the curb but not within the crosswalk – was subsequently vetoed by Hieftje. The text of that veto was attached to the council’s Dec. 16 meeting agenda as a communication.

The council’s focus on traffic and pedestrian safety will continue next year, on Jan. 6, when the council is supposed to make appointments to a pedestrian safety task force, which it established at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

Also generally related to the public right-of-way on streets at the council’s Dec. 16 meeting was an item that was postponed from the Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. The council was asked to consider assigning a specific cost to the removal of an on-street parking space caused by a development: $45,000. The original postponement stemmed from a desire to hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action. One person spoke at the public hearing on Dec. 16, and the council deliberated about a half hour before deciding to postpone again.

The council voted unanimously to make a roughly $65,000 allocation from the solid waste fund balance to pay for an initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds will cover an increased level of service at the compost processing facility – daily versus weekly grinding. The funds will also cover the cost of counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage, and a subsidy for the sale of additional brown compost carts. Some of that allocation is expected to be recovered through reduced landfill tipping fees.

Also on Dec. 16, the council accepted a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service to be spent on a tree pruning initiative focused on the city’s largest street trees.

The council metered out its time generously on items involving large and small dollar amount alike at its Dec. 16 meeting. So nearly a half hour of deliberations went into a resolution that directed the city administrator to include $10,000 of support for the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair as he develops next year’s (FY 2015) budget. The council voted unanimously to support that resolution.

The council postponed an item that formally terminated a four-year-old memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan on the demised Fuller Road Station project. It had been added to the agenda the same day as the meeting, and that was the reason it was postponed. However, it was clear from remarks at the meeting that when the council takes up the resolution next year, it will have support.

Y Lot Proceeds

The council considered a resolution that deposits the proceeds of the sale of the city-owned former Y lot into the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

Affordable housing fund activity.

The approved $5.25 million sale price of the former Y lot will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003. The original resolution on the council’s agenda designated $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Later, before the meeting started, a revision was made to the resolution, which reduced the amount to $1,384,300 to accommodate the seller’s closing costs at well.

The specific connection between the affordable housing trust fund and the former Y lot is the 100 units of single-resident occupancy housing that previously were a part of the YMCA building that stood on the site.

Various efforts have been made to replace those units over the years. [See, for example, Chronicle coverage: "The 100 Units of Affordable Housing."] Recently, the Ann Arbor housing commission and its properties have started to receive more attention from the council as an integral part of the city’s approach to providing housing to the lowest income residents. The council approved a series of resolutions this summer that will allow the AAHC to convert many of its properties to project-based vouchers.

The history of the city policy on proceeds of land sales goes back at least 20 years.

The most recent history includes the following:

• Oct. 15, 2012: City council approves a policy that ultimately leaves the policy on the use of proceeds of city land to case-by-case decisions, but indicates that for the Y lot, the proceeds will:
  

  … first be utilized to repay the various funds that expended resources on the property, including but not limited to due diligence, closing of the site and relocation and support of its previous tenants, after which any remaining proceeds be allocated and distributed to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;”

• Nov. 8, 2012: City council transfers $90,000 from proceeds of the land sale to Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority into the affordable housing trust fund.
• March 4, 2013: City council directs the city administrator to select a broker for the Y lot.
• July 3, 2013: City administrator Steve Powers announces that he’s selected Colliers International and local broker Jim Chaconas to handle the marketing of the property.
• Nov. 18, 2013: City council approves the sale of the former Y lot for $5.25 million to Dennis Dahlmann.
• Dec. 4, 2013: Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board waives its claim to reimbursement from the sale of the Y lot.

The Dec. 16 resolution reflected a departure from the most recent policy adopted by the city council – which called for reimbursements for various costs before net proceeds of the Y lot sale would be deposited into the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

But the resolution eliminates any wrangling between the city and the Ann Arbor DDA over how much in reimbursements might be owed for various purposes. The city has calculated, for example, that $365,651 in interest reimbursements could be owed, as well as $488,646 for the relocation of residents of the former Y building. The DDA has calculated $1,493,959 in reimbursements that it thinks it could claim – for interest payments and cost of demolition, among other items. But the DDA board has voted essentially to waive that claim.

It’s not clear if the DDA can waive all of that claim in light of the fact that the DDA used at least some TIF (tax increment finance) funds to pay for items like demolition and some of the interest payments on the loan. [.pdf of DDA records produced in response to Freedom of Information Act request by The Chronicle] If that were analyzed as a distribution of TIF to the city of Ann Arbor, then under state statute, the DDA would need to distribute a proportional amount to the other jurisdictions whose taxes are captured in the DDA district.

Y Lot Proceeds: Public Commentary

During public commentary reserved time at the start of the meeting, several people addressed the council in support of the council’s resolution on the proceeds from the Y lot sale. Several of them mentioned the 10-degree threshold used by the Delonis Center shelter to determine when the homeless can seek refuge during the day.

Ray Gholston expressed his support for the allocation of funds from the proceeds of the Y lot sale to support affordable housing.

Tracy Williams introduced himself as a resident of Ann Arbor. He said that 700 people died from exposure last year, at least one of them here in Ann Arbor – someone who was a friend of his. “Shorty was a little guy but had a big heart,” Williams said. People like “Shorty” need more help, he added. The agencies who work in this area are doing the best they can, he said, but the Delonis Center weather “amnesty” of 10 degrees is too cold.

Mary Browning spoke on behalf of Religious Action for Affordable Housing. She said she was talking about affordable housing at the 30% of AMI (area median income) level, not 80% AMI. Folks who get help from the shelter need a place to go, she said. She strongly urged that the funds from the Y lot sale go toward affordable housing.

Ryan Sample told a story from three months ago, before the warming center opened. He was sleeping at the Baptist Church. He had to give his blanket to someone who needed it. Even at 40 degrees, when your clothes are wet, there can be the potential for hypothermia, he said, which isn’t covered by the “weather amnesty” of 10 degrees at the shelter. He wished he had a job and was able to work, he concluded.

Jim Mogensen spoke in support of the council’s resolution. The whole process has seemed endless, he said. He recounted the history from the mid-1980s, when the YMCA decided to create the 100 units of SRO housing, and tried to do that with conventional bank loans. That’s why the city of Ann Arbor had become involved, he said – to sign for the loans. And that’s why the city of Ann Arbor had a right of first refusal. The Y had not finally repaid what it owed the city until 2009, he pointed out. He wanted the council to think about those historical lessons as they thought about how to use the money that’s in the affordable housing trust fund.

Former city councilmember and former planning commissioner Jean Carlberg said that Mogensen had given a good history. She served on the city council when it faced the challenge of how to preserve the housing on the Y lot. The council felt it was in the public interest to exercise its right of first refusal on the Y lot, when the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority wanted to purchase the property. She urged the council to allocate the proceeds of the sale of the Y lot to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. With the loss of the Y housing, that increased the need for units – as determined in the Blueprint to End Homelessness – from 500 units to 600 units. The city council on which she served, she said, never expected the city to be repaid from the proceeds. It’s a chance to create a “pile of money” to be used for affordable housing.

Suzanne William was there to support her friends and family in the homeless community. She’d heard about and experienced the homeless situation in Washtenaw County for a long time, and said she supported the council’s resolution. She has a job in downtown Ann Arbor, she said, but can’t afford “affordable housing.” She told the council she earns $150 a week. It’s just absurd, she said, that the Delonis Center’s “weather amnesty” has a threshold of 10 degrees. She recalled curling up in a cardboard box even in the summer at 40 degrees and was cold. People are out there trying, she said, and they’re really hard workers. She suggested some counseling for those housed in affordable housing units.

James Hill asked all those who supported the agenda item on the Y lot proceeds to stand. At least 25 people stood up. He said that the council shouldn’t “skim off the top” for financial accounting reasons. He asked the council to inquire why the weather amnesty at the shelter’s warming center has been reduced from 25 degrees to 10 degrees.

Y Lot Proceeds: Weather Amnesty

During council communications, which came after the public commentary, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) talked about the “weather amnesty” that many public speakers mentioned. The Delonis Center had experimented with changing it from 10 degrees and making it 25 degrees last year. So the change to 10 degrees is the reversion to the previous policy, she explained. Briere’s reporting was based on talking to Ellen Schulmeister, head of the Delonis Center. [The Delonis Center operates an overnight warming center from mid-November to mid-March. It has a capacity of 65 beds, with another 25 spots in a rotating shelter. The discussion at the Dec. 16 council meeting focused on the possibility of a daytime warming center.]

Later, during public commentary at the end of the meeting, Seth Best allowed that the homeless community might have a short memory with respect to the weather amnesty policy changes, but he pointed out that when you’re homeless, you’re in survival mode, thinking about what to do tonight.

In a follow-up phone interview, Schulmeister confirmed Briere’s understanding – that the 25-degree weather amnesty for the daytime warming center was tried briefly last year, but that the 10-degree threshold had been a long-standing policy.

Schulmeister told The Chronicle that the experience they’d gained from the brief trial last year of a 25-degree weather amnesty policy was that it basically translated to operating an ongoing daytime warming center. [That conclusion is supported by hourly temperature data. Google Spreadsheet charting out hourly temps for 2013] She has estimated the cost of operating a daytime warming center at the Delonis Center at $160,000-$180,000 from November through March. The bulk of that cost would be for staffing, she said, though some would be needed for items like bathroom supplies, and increased water and electricity usage.

Y Lot Proceeds: Council Deliberations

During council communications near the start of the meeting, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said she should have alerted the public to a revision to the dollar amount on the Y lot proceeds. The actual amount available is estimated to be $1,384,300, she said. The amount is an estimate, because the sale has not yet taken place, she stressed.

From left: Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1), Sabra Briere (Ward 1), and Sally Petersen (Ward 2).

During mayoral communications, mayor John Hieftje invited Jennifer Hall, executive director of the Ann Arbor housing commission, to the podium to address the council. She described the single resident occupancy (SRO) units at the former Y. It had a staffed front door and a desk, and was actually a “hotel,” she said. The front door staffing helped the residents maintain their tenancy, she noted. Hall described working with the nonprofit Avalon Housing, Washtenaw County’s Community Support and Treatment Services (CSTS), and others to convert an AAHC property, Miller Manor, to a front-door staffed facility.

Hall said they’re working on a plan right now to secure the funding. She would be requesting some of the proceeds from the Y lot to make those services at Miller Manor happen. The maintenance area at Miller Manor is being converted to offices to facilitate the front-door staffing arrangement, she told the council.

When the council reached the resolution on its agenda, Briere reviewed how much money is in the affordable housing trust fund. She noted that the council still hasn’t heard from the Shelter Association – which runs the Delonis Center – about what it needs to get through the inclement weather. In the past, the council has used money from the affordable housing trust fund to support the shelter’s warming center, she said. [At its Oct. 17, 2011 meeting, the council authorized $25,000 in stop-gap funding for the shelter's overnight warming center – from the city's general fund reserve.]

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3). In the background is Dave DeVarti, former city councilmember and former Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board member who has been a staunch advocate for affordable housing.

Briere noted that the city has not been effective at putting money back into the affordable housing trust fund. The strategy of having PUDs (planned unit developments) contribute to the trust fund has not been used much recently, she said.

Jane Lumm (Ward 2) asked for city CFO Tom Crawford. She said it’s a significant amount of money, and asked Crawford to walk the council through how much has been committed to affordable housing compared to the other council priorities.

After some back-and-forth between Lumm and Crawford, Briere pointed out that Crawford was talking about new and unique expenditures. Briere then reviewed various expenditures from the affordable housing trust fund.

Mayor John Hieftje said he’d support the resolution. Given the history of the property, it’s a relatively happy end to the story, he said.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) wanted clarification of why eight votes were required. He wanted to know what would happen if this resolution failed. In broad strokes, Crawford explained, most of it would go to the general fund. Kunselman said he’d support the resolution, venturing that most of the money would go to support the Ann Arbor housing commission.

Lumm characterized the amount as a huge transfer from the general fund to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Crawford replied that it’s important to weigh all the city’s needs. He described how much general fund balance would remain if the resolution passed.

Lumm asked for an amendment to reduce the amount of the transfer by half, to roughly $692,000.

Y Lot Proceeds: Amendment to Reduce by Half

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) responded to Lumm’s previous point about how much is spent on the council’s different priorities, by talking about how much the city spends on public safety compared to affordable housing – pointing out that the city spends $39.5 million a year on public safety.

Warpehoski’s remarks:

We say one of our budget priorities is police and fire. That gets $39.5 million dollars in our budget. It’s the biggest chunk of our budget. We say it’s a priority and that’s where we are putting our money – in police and fire. Infrastructure is one of those – roads is $14 million. We say it’s a priority, we are putting most of the money in those areas. But we say affordable housing is a priority – compared to the big ones, it’s minuscule. If this is a priority, let’s fund it. When the Y came down, there were two big losses to the community. One was the hundred units.

But the other loss we heard was the one that Jennifer Hall was telling us about. We lost the site that best served our most needy community members, by providing them a site that had a safe, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week staffed front door – for long-term housing. We don’t have anything else that does that. So for people who are hard to house – fighting addiction, worried about getting abused by people in their lives – they can walk in and they’ve got somebody stopping, watching their back when they get to the door, so they don’t get bullied or re-victimized and hurt. That’s the other thing we lost.

And that is why I was so delighted when I talked to Jennifer all last week, and she said: We have a plan [for converting Miller Manor to a front-door staffed facility] … Compared to what else we’re spending, we’re not putting the same money that we’re putting onto what we’re doing on the other priorities. … It still doesn’t help us move forward in terms of providing beds for those people we heard from who don’t have a warm place to sleep – tonight or when the warming shelter isn’t open. And so I think we need to be looking for other opportunities….

When I voted yes to sell the Y site to Dennis Dahlmann, I wasn’t doing it just to get the debt off the books – that was a good thing. I certainly wasn’t doing it to help him have one more property that wasn’t going to be a hotel to compete with him. I was doing it because I thought it was going to be a path to get money to fund affordable housing. This is our opportunity. We’re not going to get a lot of opportunities like this to put some money aside for affordable housing. We’ve got the needs. The 11 of us will all have a warm place to sleep tonight. We have a responsibility to do what we can to provide that for the rest in our community. Thank you.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) followed Warpehoski with three words: “What he said.” Briere was nearly as brief in saying she wished she could have said it as well as Warpehoski.

Lumm responded by expressing concern about the pressure that this would put on the general fund, saying she felt torn.

Outcome: The amendment to cut the amount in half failed on a 2-9 vote. Only Jane Lumm (Ward 3) and Jack Eaton (Ward 4) voted for it.

Y Lot Proceeds: More Council Deliberations

Lumm noted that the council reached a different conclusion about what the policy should be last year after a long discussion – that there would be reimbursements. So she was torn, she said.

Eaton said he’d support the resolution, but he expressed concern that the city hasn’t approached the policy questions adequately. He allowed that more should be done for affordable housing, but said the city needs to “aim at the right targets.”

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5).

Kunselman pointed out that the money is not actually being spent by passing the resolution. Rather, it would go into the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Kunselman noted that previous councils have made decisions about this policy, but this council will make its own decision. The council has heard a lot of voices calling for the council to do something to support affordable housing, he said. The money is not going anywhere until the council spends it, he concluded.

Briere ventured that more than 30% of funding for affordable housing has been cut – by the federal Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and by the state. That came in response to Lumm’s citing the percentage reduction in funding and staffing levels for the Ann Arbor police department.

Briere allowed that Lumm’s point about 10% of proceeds that the council set as a policy last year is accurate for city-owned properties – but she pointed out that the resolution separated out the Y lot from other downtown properties. Briere noted that if the city tried to repay the reimbursements, there wouldn’t be much left. She also pointed out that this is the last year that this trust fund will exist separately as a fund – due to new accounting standards. In the future, it will simply be general fund money that’s allocated to affordable housing. It will no longer be a separate fund, she said.

By way of more specific background, city finance director Karen Lancaster explained in an emailed response to a Chronicle query that the relevant standard is GASB 54. The standard states, among other things, that if transfers from the general fund are the primary revenue source, then that fund must be displayed as part of the general fund.

During council deliberations, Briere noted that currently, the city’s housing and human services advisory board must make a recommendation on how money in the affordable housing trust fund is spent. She was not sure how that will play out in the future.

Hieftje then talked about how federal funding for affordable housing has been drying up. He didn’t think it was appropriate to include the public safety budget in this discussion. He called the recent turnaround at the Ann Arbor housing commission spectacular.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to deposit $1,384,300 million – the entire proceeds, less brokerage fees and seller’s costs – from the sale of the former Y lot into the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

Y Lot Proceeds: More Public Commentary

During public commentary at the end of the meeting, four people addressed the council with remarks related to the vote on the Y lot. Dave DeVarti thanked the council for their unanimous vote. He pointed out the property has never been on the tax rolls, because the Y is a nonprofit. He asked the council to look at the tax receipts from that property and consider using that revenue to fund supportive services.

By way of additional background, during his period of service on the DDA board, DeVarti was a staunch supporter of funding for affordable housing. DeVarti was not reappointed, and in late 2008 Keith Orr was appointed to replace him. After DeVarti left, board members sometimes have quipped that they were “channeling Dave DeVarti” when they spoke in support of affordable housing.

Caleb Poirier.

During public commentary at the DDA board’s Nov. 6, 2013 meeting, DeVarti had addressed the topic of the former Y lot, suggesting that the DDA purchase the lot outright, so that the need to repay the loan would be removed as the impetus for selling the lot. That approach would give the city a lot more flexibility, he had argued.

During the final public commentary at the council’s Dec. 16 meeting, Seth Best wished the council happy holidays. He thanked councilmembers for their vote on the Y lot. He invited councilmembers to participate in national homelessness awareness day, on Dec. 21. He told the council that the homeless community operates in “survival mode.” When the “weather amnesty” temperature changes, they have a short memory, he said, because they are thinking about what they have to do tonight. He talked about the proposal from McKinley for affordable housing on South State Street – which considers “affordable housing” to start at $900 a month.

Caleb Poirier updated the council on a property that the homeless community has acquired. He alerted councilmembers that there will eventually be requests coming to the council in connection with that property.

Non-Motorized Transportation Plan Funding

The council considered a directive to the city administrator to provide a funding plan for elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan.

The council approved the updated plan at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

The new document is organized into three sections: (1) planning and policy updates; (2) updates to near-term recommendations; and (3) long-term recommendations.

Additional flashing beacon locations identified in Ann Arbor’s non-motorized transportation plan.

The Dec. 16 resolution – which is co-sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) – was structured in part based on those main sections.

Among other specific instructions, the resolution directed city administrator Steve Powers to present a strategy for funding the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB).

Examples of planning and policy issues in the non-motorized transportation plan include design guidelines, recommendations for approaches like bike boulevards and bike share programs, and planning practices that cover education campaigns, maintenance, crosswalks and other non-motorized elements for pedestrians and bicyclists.

For example, the update recommends that the city begin developing a planning process for bike boulevards, which are described as “a low-traffic, low-speed road where bicycle interests are prioritized.”

Sections of West Washington (from Revena to First), Elmwood (from Platt to Canterbury) and Broadway (from its southern intersection with Plymouth to where it rejoins Plymouth about a mile to the northeast) are suggested for potential bike boulevards.

Near-term recommendations include lower-cost efforts like re-striping roads to install bike lanes and adding crossing islands.

Longer-term projects that were included in the 2007 plan are re-emphasized: the Allen Creek Greenway, Border-to-Border Trail, Gallup Park & Fuller Road paths, and a Briarwood-Pittsfield pedestrian bridge.

The city’s non-motorized transportation plan is part of the city’s master plan. The planning commission adopted the updated plan at its Sept. 10, 2013 meeting. [.pdf of draft 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update]

Non-Motorized Plan Funding: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) led things off by reviewing the content of the resolution. Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1) asked for systems planning unit manager Cresson Slotten to field questions. She first got confirmation from Slotten about a correction to the plan – that there are supposed to be only 20 RRFBs in the plan, not 24. She asked how the RRFBs were determined as the technology to be deployed as solutions. Slotten regretted that transportation program manager Eli Cooper was out of town, because Cooper could give a more detailed answer.

But Slotten assured Kailasapathy that a detailed analysis had been done. He allowed that Pat Cawley and Les Sipowski, city traffic engineers, had been involved in the determination of the RRFBs as solutions and their locations.

Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1).

Kailasapathy wanted to propose an amendment to make clear that traffic engineers would be involved in the final determination, which she then moved.

Jack Eaton (Ward 4) ventured that the sponsors of the resolution had not contemplated any other engineering solutions other than RRFBs. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) responded to Eaton by asking Slotten a series of questions.

Briere asked if it’s always the case that when a city plan calls for putting some type of infrastructure in a location, that the infrastructure specified in the plan is always installed. Slotten described how there’s a lot more detailed analysis when a project is actually measured out in the field. Briere asked who would do that work. Slotten said that city traffic engineers working with in-house surveyors would probably do that work. In response to another question from Briere, Slotten allowed that sometimes the final project is not the same as what was in the plan.

Mayor John Hieftje then engaged in some back-and-forth with Slotten to establish what the role of traffic engineers is in determining RRFBs as a solution in a particular location. Margie Teall (Ward 4) said she wanted to know that staff has the latitude to determine the exact locations and details. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) ventured that a plan is a plan, and that plans change. Kunselman got confirmation from Slotten that there could be conditions that warrant looking outside the plan for a solution. Kunselman supported Kailasapathy’s amendment.

Taylor noted the “juicy bit” that the council was talking about removed specific reference to the RRFBs. The idea is not to predetermine what engineering features go into any particular crosswalk, Taylor said – which made sense to him. So Taylor indicated support for at least part of Kailasapathy’s amendment.

Kailasapathy explained that she wanted to avoid creating the impression for staff that there is a “mandate” for RRFBs. Briere said that plans are not solid but rather a little “squishy.”

Briere cited some of the specific words from Kailasapathy’s amendment: “implement recommendations of the city’s traffic engineers.” Briere ventured that “as applied by the city traffic engineers” could work.

City administrator Steve Powers weighed in by suggesting that if the direction from the council is to revisit previous evaluations and recommendations that are contained in the non-motorized transportation plan, then that direction from the council needed to be made clear.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) noted that a lot of improvements had been made in engineering technology. Anglin asked if the locations designated for RRFBs are not eligible for HAWK signals. He contended that RRFBs ask motorists to interpret a yellow light as requirement to stop. He appeared to be advocating for HAWK signals instead of RRFBs. Anglin said he’s heard that HAWK lights are too expensive, but asked what the cost of safety should be.

Hieftje responded to Anglin by venturing that the city traffic engineers are up to date on the latest technology. Sally Petersen (Ward 2) raised the question of how this resolution relates to the establishment of the pedestrian safety task force.

Eaton said his understanding is that there’s no detailed and particularized engineering study that’s been done of the general locations of the RRFBs in the non-motorized plan. He wanted to make sure it’s done right.

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) noted that there were three elements to the amendment offered by Kailasapathy: (1) it should be technology neutral; (2) traffic engineers should be involved; and (3) the downtown is highlighted specifically. Warpehoski said he was fine with (1). He thought (2) was redundant but didn’t have a problem with it. He had some ideas about (3).

At that point the council decided to recess to hammer out some language they could all agree on. The language the council considered after emerging from recess was as follows:

RESOLVED, That the City Council directs the City Administrator to report to City Council by January 1, 2014, his plan to enhance and improve traffic enforcement at and around crosswalks;

RESOLVED, That the City Council directs the City Administrator to report to City Council by March 1, 2014, his plan to fund, effect, and otherwise implement the 2013 Update to the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan’s actionable recommendations to improve midblock crosswalks;

RESOLVED, That the City Council directs the City Administrator to report to City Council by April 21, 2014, his plan to fund, effect, and otherwise implement actionable Near-term Recommendations of the 2013 Update to the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan;

RESOLVED, The City Council directs the City Administrator to report to the City Council by March 1, 2014, his plan to direct the City’s traffic engineers to recommend solutions to improve pedestrian safety in downtown;

RESOLVED, That the City Council directs the City Administrator to report to City Council by June 30, 2014, his plan to fund, effect, and otherwise implement actionable Long-term Recommendations of the 2013 Update to the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan; and

RESOLVED, That the City Council desires that the foregoing plans include elements of the 2013 Update to the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan related to pedestrian, driver, and cyclist education; improved signage; improved engineering of pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle interface zones; and increased enforcement attention to pedestrian safety.

Kunselman said he wanted remove the dates specified in the resolution, saying that he wanted to give the city administrator more flexibility. He pointed out that the city’s transportation program manager, Eli Cooper, would have a lot of responsibility for the implementation of the non-motorized plan. Kunselman took the occasion to reiterate the fact that he dislikes the fact that Cooper serves on the board of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority.

Kunselman said he’d prefer that all of Cooper’s energy go into his responsibilities as transportation program manager and none of it go into the AAATA. [Kunselman voted against Cooper's appointment two years ago at the council's Dec. 19, 2011 meeting.]

In response to a question from Hieftje, Taylor said that the dates in the resolution were characterized by the city administrator as “feasible.” Lumm indicated support for the amendment, saying she’d support it.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to direct the city administrator to present a funding and implementation plan for the city’s non-motorized transportation plan. The version passed by the council was amended at the table. [.pdf of amended non-motorized implementation resolution]

$125K for Traffic Enforcement

The council considered an allocation of $125,000 from the general fund balance to pay for police overtime required for additional traffic enforcement. The item began conceptually as a $500,000 allocation described by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who was persuaded by co-sponsors Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Jack Eaton (Ward 4) that $125,000 would be a more reasonable amount to spend.

Data from the city’s most recent comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR), compiled with previous CAFRs, shows that traffic citations have continued for the past three years at significantly lower levels than previously:

Ann Arbor traffic violations. (Data from city of Ann Arbor CAFR. Chart by The Chronicle.)

Some insight into the question of how much time AAPD officers have available for proactive policing activities – like traffic enforcement – has been provided to councilmembers in the form of timesheet data that officers have been logging since the beginning of 2013.

In the charts below (by The Chronicle, with data from the city of Ann Arbor), green shading indicates unassigned time and time dedicated to proactive policing activities. Dedicate policing activities include: bicycle patrol, business contact, check person, citizen/motorist assist, code citation, community event, community meeting, downtown foot patrol, extra patrol (general), extra patrol (parks), felony, impound, liquor inspection, misdemeanor, parking citation, property check, recontact, traffic enforcement (general), traffic enforcement (laser), traffic enforcement (radar), traffic problem, and traffic stop.

Ann Arbor police department timesheet analysis. AAPD provided a range of time periods, to cover for the data entry training period, as officers learned the new system and became accustomed to coding their activities in a standard way. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

In a memo to the city administrator dated Nov. 4, 2013, chief of police John Seto indicated that he’s already begun to assign additional proactive duties to officers, based on the results of the timesheet analysis:

As a result of this data, supervisors and officers have been identifying additional dedicated proactive policing activities to engage in for the remainder of 2013. Staffing modifications will also be taking place for 2014. An additional officer will be assigned to Special Services to address traffic complaints. The distribution of Patrol Officers will also be modified to increase the number of officers assigned to the swing shift, where the volume of calls for service is greater.

$125K for Traffic Enforcement: Council Deliberations

During council communications at the start of the meeting, Mike Anglin (Ward 5) reported on a meeting on traffic safety held at Bach Elementary School the previous week. His remarks were largely positive.

From left: Mike Anglin (Ward 5) and city administrator Steve Powers.

About 100 people attended, he said. This is the kind of approach the city should be taking, he said, noting that the meeting was well attended by staff. Three councilmembers attended, he said, including Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1)

When the council reached the item on the agenda, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) led things off by quipping that the discussion should be short, because the resolution was short. He allowed that he’d wanted to put a lot more funding in police chief John Seto’s hands than the $125,000 that’s in the resolution. Revenues have been down from traffic citations, he noted. And there’s a need to curtail motorists from speeding. Things like cars passing stopped school buses have also been raised as concerns, he said.

Lumm thanked Kunselman for leading this effort. She thought everyone could support the idea that increased traffic enforcement is an important part of improving traffic safety.

Mayor John Hieftje said he understood the motivation for the resolution. But it’s unusual to give staff money to spend without asking how staff would specifically solve the problem the council has identified, he said. He also pointed to the timesheet breakdown for police officers showing that officers may have time to implement additional traffic enforcement within the existing staffing levels, without using overtime.

Briere wanted Seto to explain how this money would be spent. Seto said there’s not a specific plan for using this overtime money. There are various general ways: individual officers assigned to specific locations, or officers can be dedicated to a promotion and educational effort. Briere asked Seto if he could provide a specific plan and a budget for implementation by Jan. 22, the council’s second meeting in January. “It depends,” replied Seto.

Briere observed that even if Seto just followed the simple resolution, he’d still have to come up with a plan. She wanted Seto to tell the council how much it might cost to implement increased traffic enforcement. She ventured there might be various levels of implementation – which could cost even more than $125,000. She wanted Seto to develop a specific plan for implementation.

Seto said that if the council directed him to do so, he could come back with a specific traffic enforcement enhancement plan. He said that the $125,000 translates into 1,800 additional hours and indicated a lack of certainty that it could all allocated right now. Briere asked if Seto could come back with the cost for a plan that he would implement.

In a reference to a remark by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) from a previous council meeting, Kunselman exclaimed: “Talk about micromanaging!” He noted that the $125,000 figure came from the city administrator. Seto didn’t have to spend it all, Kunselman said. He called it a small amount in response to community concerns. He allowed that it would require eight votes to pass [because it was a budget amendment] and he invited those who wanted to vote against it to do so.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) thanked Seto for attending the Bach Elementary School meeting on traffic safety. He ventured that Seto has heard directly about some of these citizen concerns.

Responding to Sally Petersen (Ward 2), Seto said that $125,000 translates to 26 weeks of eight 8-hour shifts.

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) indicated he’d support the resolution, citing concerns that were reflected in the recent National Citizens Survey. [For the open-ended response survey item, which asked respondents to identify the city leaders’ top three priorities to maximize the quality of life in Ann Arbor, public safety was one of the top three items, with 19% of the open-ended responses identifying safety, crime and police as a concern. Also cited in 19% of responses were government, taxes and communication. However, the dominant concern in the open-ended responses was mobility issues – as 57% of responses were coded as related to roads, transportation, traffic, traffic enforcement, bikes and pedestrians.]

Warpehoski said that traffic safety is the one area where increased investment in safety services is justified. He said he was frustrated that he wasn’t able to get benchmark data about traffic safety. The question Warpehoski had submitted to staff before the meeting and its response was as follows:

Question: Do we have any data by which to benchmark Ann Arbor’s traffic safety compared to other communities (e.g. within the SEMCOG region, peer cities of similar size, or other appropriate comparisons)? In particular, I would like to see data for accidents per vehicle miles traveled, excluding freeways such as I-94, US-23, and M-14. (Councilmember Warpehoski)

Response: We do not have data on vehicle miles traveled within the City of Ann Arbor.

Taylor said that he didn’t disagree that traffic enforcement is deeply important. But he thought that the resolution the council was considering amounted to pre-funding a plan that’s not yet in front of the council. [He was referring to the council's direction to city administrator Steve Powers, taken earlier in the meeting, to develop an implementation strategy for the non-motorized transportation plan.] Taylor wanted to postpone until the next meeting.

$125K for Traffic Enforcement: Council Deliberations – Postponement

Petersen punched the air, raising her hand to be called on. She argued against Taylor’s contention that this resolution was somehow at odds with the previous resolution on the non-motorized transportation plan. She contended that this police overtime actually strengthens that resolution “I don’t know why we wouldn’t do this now,” she said.

Mayor John Hieftje.

Kailasapathy said that this resolution is basically choosing something that seems reasonable – echoing Warpehoski’s sense that this amount is roughly the equivalent of adding an FTE for traffic enforcement. She said she’d support the resolution.

Responding to a question from Hieftje, Seto said there are currently four traffic enforcement staff, plus one administrative position. On Jan. 1 Seto was already planning to assign an additional person to traffic enforcement. This resolution would essentially bring the total to six.

Eaton said that it’s important to be safe – not just from rapes and murders. He described some neighborhoods where cars speed so fast that they leave the roads and run into people’s houses.

Hieftje said he wanted to hear the plan before the council throws the money at it. He supported the postponement. Lumm said she wouldn’t support the postponement. She talked about the overall staffing levels of the AAPD, noting that the number of sworn officers currently is down to 119. She cited the number of emails that she receives asking for more traffic enforcement.

Kunselman said he wouldn’t support a postponement, contending that Seto has already described a plan. He indicated that success will be measured by the number of traffic citations issued.

Taylor pointed out that the previous resolution on implementation of the non-motorized transportation plan does address enforcement around crosswalks.

Outcome on postponement: The motion for postponement failed with support only from Hieftje, Briere and Taylor.

$125K for Traffic Enforcement: More Council Deliberations

Warpehoski noted that the “results” that Kunselman had highlighted are in terms of revenue and citations, but Warpehoski wanted results measured in a way that’s related to traffic safety. He didn’t think police services should be treated as a cash register.

Hieftje said one reason that traffic citations are down is that penalties – for drunk driving, for example – are harsher and people pay more attention. Hieftje said he didn’t want to just throw money at a problem.

Teall echoed Hieftje’s sentiments. She was concerned about a possible backlash from increased enforcement. Briere affirmed there are as many people who are angry about lack of traffic enforcement as who are angry about too much traffic enforcement. Briere described herself as not very gung ho when it comes to rules, but she believed in traffic enforcement. She’d prefer that Seto tell the council how much money he needed, rather than the council tell the chief.

Briere asked Seto if 70 additional hours a week in traffic enforcement is actually feasible. Seto described how his intent would not be to just implement some speed traps – saying that high crash locations can be targeted using a new city system. Seto said he can start this additional enforcement on Jan. 1. Petersen said she couldn’t think of a better day to start than Jan. 1, because of the NHL’s Winter Classic that’s planned for that day.

From left: Jane Lumm (Ward 2), Christopher Taylor (Ward 3).

Petersen asked for and received confirmation that the figure of $125,000 had been vetted with the city administrator and that Seto had called it feasible. Kunselman followed up on Petersen’s remarks by saying that not only had the number been vetted, but Seto had also described a plan for implementation. He agreed with Warpehoski’s point that revenues are not the only measure of success. He said he wouldn’t mind hearing complaints about too much traffic enforcement.

Taylor allowed that the $125,000 had been “vetted.” He asked Seto if the plan that starts Jan. 1 will cost about $125,000. Seto replied: “It could.” Taylor allowed that the existence of a budget doesn’t necessitate the spending of that budget. Seto agreed that it might not be necessary to spend all of that $125,000.

Taylor concluded by saying “I think this is sloppy,” pointing out that the council is a couple weeks away from having a plan with a dollar figure on it [an allusion to the non-motorized transportation plan implementation strategy the council had voted to direct the city administrator to develop earlier in the meeting]. It’s not a professional way to approach things, Taylor said. But he had a lot of confidence in Seto’s ability to produce a plan the city is proud of – a plan that will be effective and not just burn through the money just because it is there.

Outcome: The council voted over the lone dissent of mayor John Hieftje to approve $125,000 to pay for overtime so that Ann Arbor police officers can provide additional traffic enforcement.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth?

Postponed from the council’s Dec. 2 meeting was a resolution that would define how much developers would need to pay the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority if a developer’s project requires removal of a metered on-street parking space. The proposed amount is $45,000 per space. The payment would go to the Ann Arbor DDA because the DDA manages the public parking system under a contract with the city.

The rationale for postponing the item – offered by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) at the council’s Dec. 2 meeting – was that because it amounts to a fee, a public hearing should be held on the matter before the council votes.

In this matter, the council would be acting on a four-year-old recommendation approved by the Ann Arbor DDA in 2009:

Thus it is recommended that when developments lead to the removal of on-street parking meter spaces, a cost of $45,000/parking meter space (with annual CPI increases) be assessed and provided to the DDA to set aside in a special fund that will be used to construct future parking spaces or other means to meet the goals above. [.pdf of meeting minutes with complete text of March 4, 2009 DDA resolution]

The contract under which the DDA manages the public parking system for the city was revised to restructure the financial arrangement (which now pays the city 17% of the gross revenues), but also included a clause meant to prompt the city to act on the on-street space cost recommendation. From the May 2011 parking agreement:

The City shall work collaboratively with the DDA to develop and present for adoption by City Council a City policy regarding the permanent removal of on-street metered parking spaces. The purpose of this policy will be to identify whether a community benefit to the elimination of one or more metered parking spaces specific area(s) of the City exists, and the basis for such a determination. If no community benefit can be identified, it is understood and agreed by the parties that a replacement cost allocation methodology will need to be adopted concurrent with the approval of the City policy; which shall be used to make improvements to the public parking or transportation system.

Subject to administrative approval by the city, it’s the DDA that has sole authority to determine the addition or removal of meters, loading zones, or other curbside parking uses.

The $45,000 figure is based on an average construction cost to build a new parking space in a structure, either above ground or below ground – as estimated in 2009. It’s not clear what the specific impetus is to act on the issue now, other than the fact that action is simply long overdue. In 2011, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research expansion was expected to result in the net removal of one on-street parking space. [For more background, see: "Column: Ann Arbor's Monroe (Street) Doctrine."]

The resolution was sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3). Taylor participated in recent meetings of a joint council and DDA board committee that negotiated a resolution to the question about how the DDA’s TIF (tax increment finance) revenue is regulated. In that context, Taylor had argued adamantly that any cap on the DDA’s TIF should be escalated by a construction industry CPI, or roughly 5%. Taylor’s reasoning was that the DDA’s mission is to undertake capital projects and therefore should have revenue that escalates in accordance with increases in the costs to undertake capital projects.

Based on Taylor’s reasoning on the TIF question, and the explicit 2009 recommendation by the DDA to increase the estimated $45,000 figure in that year by an inflationary index, the recommended amount now, four years later, would be closer to $55,000, assuming a 5% figure for construction cost inflation. The city’s contribution in lieu (CIL) parking program allows a developer (as one option) to satisfy an onsite parking space requirement by paying $55,000. (The other option is to enter into a 15-year agreement to purchase monthly parking permits at a 20% premium.)

The actual cost of building an underground space in the recently completed (2012) underground Library Lane parking structure could be calculated by taking the actual costs and dividing by 738 – the number of spaces in the structure. Based on a recent memo from executive director Susan Pollay to city administrator Steve Powers, about 30% or $15 million of the cost of the project was spent on items “unneeded by the parking structure.” That included elements like oversized foundations to support future development, an extra-large transformer, a new alley between Library Lane and S. Fifth Avenue, new water mains, easements for a fire hydrant and pedestrian improvements.

The actual amount spent on the Library Lane structure, according to DDA records produced under a Freedom of Information Act request from The Chronicle, was $54,855,780.07, or about $1.5 million under the project’s $56.4 million budget. Adjusting for those elements not needed for the parking structure yields a per-space cost of about $52,000. [(54,855,780.07*.70)/738] [.pdf of Nov. 22, 2013 memo from Pollay to Powers][.pdf of budget versus actual expenses for the 738 space Library Lane structure]

The last two month’s minutes from the DDA’s committee meetings don’t reflect any discussion of the on-street parking space replacement cost. Nor has the issue been discussed at any recent DDA board meeting.

By way of additional background, the Ann Arbor DDA’s most recent financial records show that last year, on-street parking spaces generated $2,000 in gross revenue per space or $1,347 in net income per space annually. The contract with the city under which the DDA operates the public parking system stipulates that the city receives 17% of the gross parking revenues. So the city’s revenue associated with an on-street parking space corresponds to $340 annually.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth: Public Hearing

Thomas Partridge introduced himself as a past candidate for public office. To his knowledge, he said, the resolution contained no language specifying how parking spaces should be provided for pickup and dropoff for people with disabilities. He said that the proposal should be referred back to a committee for further review. He said the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has been functioning as a stealth government, an agent of the city of Ann Arbor.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) introduced the item by saying there had been several amendments to the resolution and he hoped that the amendments had been disseminated. [.pdf of amended version of policy]

Taylor then reviewed the resolution: It would charge developers for removing parking meters. He characterized the process as a “long and slow burn.” He called the charge a replacement fee. He argued for having such a fee by saying that the city’s parking system is a finite resource. There’s a choice to allow removal or not, he said. So the amount required to be paid as a fee, he said, is $45,000, which is approximately the cost of creating a new parking space in a structure. There’s a caveat whereby the cost could be waived if the removal is deemed to be a public benefit, he noted.

Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1) asked for staff to approach the podium to answer some questions, and Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, came forward. Kailasapathy said she saw a parking space as a capital asset. She asked if the money that is paid as a fee should be segregated into a separate fund, saying it should not be treated as simple revenue. Pollay replied that this has not yet been thought through in detail, but the DDA’s operations committee would be taking that up. Kailasapathy wanted to add an amendment that would require the segregation of funds into something like a sinking fund.

Taylor had no objection to segregating the funds, but was not sure that the city council should be telling the DDA exactly how to do the accounting. City administrator Steve Powers weighed in, saying that the city could work with the DDA to reserve the funds in some manner.

Jane Lumm (Ward 2) offered some generally supportive comments about the concept of charging some kind of fee. Pollay indicated she understood that the council is keen to see the capital funds set aside and separated somehow.

Sally Petersen (Ward 2) asked if the money that’s paid could be used to build any capital project or if it had to be a parking space. She was worried about having enough critical mass of funding to undertake the building of a new parking structure. Pollay said that this money to be paid would not necessarily be the only money used to build a new parking structure. The money from the fee would be added to the pot when it comes time to build a new parking structure, Pollay said.

Petersen wanted to know if the money could be used to add on to an existing structure. Pollay’s response was affirmative, as she pointed out that the Fourth and William structure had been extended upward.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) said that if the money is earmarked for new construction, that makes accounting challenging because it’s not known when construction will happen. Why not just use the money for debt service on parking structures? he asked. Kunselman asked how many spaces have been removed recently. Pollay told Kunselman that about 50 had been removed in the last five years. She allowed that some on-street spaces have also been added through projects like the Fifth and Division street improvement project.

Mayor John Hieftje asked the council to think about whether the issue could be worked out that evening or if it should be put off. Taylor then read aloud wording of a proposed amendment about “financial controls” to segregate the funds so that they can be reinvested in construction of new parking spaces. Kailasapathy wanted the language to be flexible enough to construct new spaces or also replace existing spaces.

The wording of the amendment, which had been forwarded to the press during the meeting by city clerk Jackie Beaudry on request of the council, was: “Therefore, the City of Ann Arbor and the DDA will establish financial controls to segregate cash flows from the removal of on-street parking in order to reinvest these funds in the creation of parking spaces.”

Hieftje asked again if it might be a good idea to put off the question. Taylor was content to see it postponed, as was Kailasapathy.

Lumm then raised an issue she described as a “nit.” There are references in the resolution to development projects taking spaces out of the system, she noted. Lumm asked if the DDA operations committee would consider describing it differently, when that committee reviewed the policy. Many of the spaces that have been “gobbled up” recently have not been by developers but rather by UM or the city itself, Lumm said.

Petersen then said she had an amendment she wanted to add into the mix. Hieftje told her to send it to the DDA operations committee for their discussion.

Outcome: The council voted to postpone until the first meeting in January a vote on a policy that sets the price for removal of an on-street parking space at $45,000.

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings

The council considered allocating $64,550 from the solid waste fund to support a food-scrap composting initiative. That request came in the context of the council’s recent adoption of an update to the city’s solid waste plan. When the city council adopted the solid waste plan update on Oct. 7, 2013, a modification was made during deliberations.

An inventory of a sample of contents of Ann Arbor garbage trucks showed that about half of the weight is due to food waste. (Chart from the city’s solid waste plan update.)

The amendment undertaken by the council at that meeting eliminated mention of a possible transition to bi-weekly trash pickup or pay-as-you-throw initiatives.

However, one of the recommendations that is thought possibly to lead to a reduction in curbside garbage pickup – which would have been the basis for any decision to reduce the frequency of trash pickup – was left in the plan.

That recommendation is to allow plate scrapings to be placed in residents’ brown composting carts that the city uses to collect yard waste for processing at the city’s composting facility. That facility is operated by a third-party – WeCare Organics. The goal is to reduce the proportion of the city’s landfilled solid waste stream that’s made up of food waste. A recent inventory of the contents of some city trash trucks showed that about half of the weight is made up of food waste.

[Waste Less: City of Ann Arbor Solid Waste Resource Plan.] [Appendices to Waste Less] [Previous Chronicle coverage: Waste as Resource: Ann Arbor's Five Year Plan.]

The $64,550 allocation breaks down this way:

• $14,950 for an increased level of service from WeCare Organics at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The city is estimating no increased net cost for this increased service based on a reduction in landfill tipping fees. The city pays $25.90 per ton for transfer and disposal of landfilled waste. That’s $7.90 more than the city pays WeCare organics ($18 per ton) for processing compostable material. City staff is estimating that the program will divert 2,100 tons from the $25.90 category – for a savings of 2,100*$7.90=$16,590.
• $24,600 for the cost of 6,000 Sure-Close counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage.
• $25,000 for a subsidy to sell an estimated 1,000 additional brown compost carts to residents at a cost of $25 per cart instead of $50 per cart. About 12,000 carts are already in use.

A Doppstadt slow speed grinder/shredder used by WeCare Organics. (Image provided by WeCare)

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings – Public Commentary

Barbara Lucas spoke in support of the expanded food waste composting. Her family had participated in a pilot program. Where she currently lives, there are various wildlife that makes composting food scraps challenging. She said that during the pilot program, there wasn’t a problem with odor. When there’s other yard waste in the composting cart, that helps, she said.

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings – Council Deliberations

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) introduced the resolution. Jack Eaton (Ward 4) confirmed that this resolution would not change the seasonal compost collection schedule. Solid waste manager Tom McMurtrie was invited by mayor John Hieftje to demonstrate the counter-top containers, which would be offered free to residents.

City solid waste manager Tom McMurtrie demonstrates a counter-top food-scrap storage container that the city will be giving away to residents to encourage them to place their food waste in brown compost carts instead of the regular trash.

Eaton asked how many households use a garbage disposal and would not use this service. Jane Lumm (Ward 2) said she thought that the estimates of how many tons would be added to the compost and diverted from garbage are optimistic. She called the giveaways “gimmicky.” But she said it’s not a huge investment to give it a try.

Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1) questioned the viability of the city’s estimates. If the 2,100 ton estimate is not accurate, then the city would pay for the additional service of grinding the compost plus the giveaways, she ventured. McMurtrie allowed that Kailasapathy was right about that.

Kailasapathy wanted to know if a pilot could be conducted, just for Monday route collection, for example. McMurtrie said in such a pilot. it would be logistically difficult to maintain the separation of the material at the composting site.

McMurtrie explained that WeCare set the price for the additional grinding at below its cost, because WeCare wants to see the program succeed. For a pilot, WeCare would need to bring in the equipment for the same frequency – but for a limited pilot, it would be over a much smaller tonnage base.

Briere argued for the resolution. She wondered how residents might deal with raccoons. McMurtrie suggested modifying the compost cart by adding a bungee cord – but cautioned that residents need to remember to take the bungee off when they set out the cart. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) re-confirmed Eaton’s point from early in the deliberations – that compost will still not be collected in the winter months.

Kunselman ventured that a considerable educational effort will be required. He asked about the mention of the MDEQ requirements in the staff memo. McMurtrie explained that the city’s proposal is consistent with MDEQ guidelines. The daily processing is what WeCare views as appropriate procedures for dealing with this type of material, he said.

Kunselman asked about the end product: Will adding food waste have an impact on the quality of the end product? No, said McMurtrie.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to appropriate $64,550 to fund the food-scrap composting initiative.

Tree Pruning

The council considered a resolution accepting a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service – to put toward a tree pruning initiative. The pruning program would target those trees in the public right-of-way that are most in need of pruning (Priority 1). The initiative is also focused on the larger of the city’s street trees – those bigger than 20 inches in diameter. Those are the trees that have the greatest impact on the mitigation of stormwater.

Here’s where the trees targeted by the program are located:

Street trees in Ann Arbor greater than 20 inches in diameter. (Map by the city of Ann Arbor.)

From the city’s online tree inventory, The Chronicle queried those trees greater than 20 inches in diameter and designated as Priority 1 for pruning. A total of 684 trees fit those criteria. Here’s how they broke down by height, diameter and species.

Priority 1 trees by diameter. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by height. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by species. Maples are the dominant species among those that will be targeted by this pruning program. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

Outcome: The council voted unanimously without discussion to approve the receipt of the $50,000 USDA Forestry Service grant for tree pruning.

Killing Fuller Road Station MOU

An item added to the Dec. 16 meeting agenda on the day of the meeting would officially terminate a four-year-old memorandum of understanding between the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan on Fuller Road Station.

Fuller Road Station was a planned joint city/UM parking structure, bus depot and possible train station located at the city’s Fuller Park near the UM medical campus. The council had approved the MOU on the Fuller Road Station project at its Nov. 5, 2009 meeting on a unanimous vote. [.pdf of Nov. 5, 2009 MOU text as approved by the city council] However, a withdrawal of UM from the project, which took place under terms of the MOU, was announced Feb. 10, 2012. So it’s been clear for nearly two years that the MOU was a dead letter.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) sponsored the Dec. 16 resolution. The idea to terminate the MOU has its origins in election campaign rhetoric. He had stated at a June 8, 2013 Democratic primary candidate forum that he intended to bring forth such a resolution to “kill” the Fuller Road Station project. From The Chronicle’s report of that forum:

Kunselman also stated that he would be proposing that the city council rescind its memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan to build a parking structure as part of the Fuller Road Station project. Although UM has withdrawn from participation in that project under the MOU, Kunselman said he wanted to “kill it.” That way, he said, the conversation could turn away from using the designated parkland at the Fuller Road Station site as a new train station, and could instead be focused on the site across the tracks from the existing Amtrak station.

The city continues to pursue the possibility of a newly built or reconstructed train station, but not necessarily with the University of Michigan’s participation, and without a pre-determined preferred alternative for the site of a new station. At its Oct. 21, 2013 meeting, the council approved a contract with URS Corp. Inc. to carry out an environmental review of the Ann Arbor Station project – which should yield the determination of a locally-preferred alternative for a site.

Killing Fuller Road Station MOU: Council Deliberations

Kunselman lead off by saying he would like to postpone the resolution. He indicated that he thought he’d managed to add the item to the agenda on the Friday before the Monday meeting, but it turned out he had not done so. In light of the council’s discussion at their Dec. 9 budget planning session – when councilmembers had said they’d strive to avoid adding resolutions at the last minute – Kunselman said he wanted it postponed.

Mayor John Hieftje and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) both indicated they’d vote for the resolution – but also said they didn’t think the resolution was necessary. They indicated they were willing to vote for the resolution without postponing. Kunselman nevertheless wanted to postpone it, because it was added late to the agenda.

Outcome: The council voted to postpone the Fuller Road Station resolution until its next meeting.

Community Events Funding: Street Art Fair

At its Dec. 16 meeting, the council considered a resolution directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the fiscal year 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. The city’s FY 2015 begins on July 1, 2014.

A memo supporting the resolution noted that the AASAF has run an annual deficit for several years. An email sent to Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2) by Maureen Riley, executive director of the AASAF, specified those annual deficits as follows:

• 2013 – anticipated to be approximately ($8,000)
• 2012 – ($6,316)
• 2011 – ($5,769)
• 2010 – ($6,040)
• 2009 – ($33,693)

Lumm and Taylor sponsored the resolution. Lumm is a former AASAF board member.

The rationale for providing support for the AASAF but not the other three art fairs is based on the additional costs the AASAF has to pay to the University of Michigan, as well as the provision by AASAF of community benefits that reduce its opportunity to gain revenue – including the Demo Zone, Art Activity Zones, Street Painting Exhibition, and the Fountain Stage. The background memo also indicated that the other three art fairs have offered written support for the $10,000 to the AASAF.

The dollar amount roughly corresponds to the allocated cost to the AASAF from the total that is charged by the city for various services to the four art fairs collectively.

At the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting, Taylor had announced his intent to bring forward the resolution asking that an additional $10,000 be included in the city’s FY 2015 budget.

Ann Arbor Street Art Fair: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) led off by reviewing the background of the resolution. He explained why the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair is different from the other art fairs in its revenue challenges.

Margie Teall (Ward 4).

Margie Teall (Ward 4) responded to Taylor by relating her experience in allocating the community events funding serving on the council’s community events fund committee. She was concerned about doing something for one organization, but possibly not others.

Jane Lumm (Ward 2) described her volunteer work with the AASAF and her service on the board. There’s only so much you can raise in booth fees, she said. She then ticked through the specific challenges the AASAF faces. Lumm called the AASAF one of Ann Arbor’s “icons.” She said that $10,000 is a small amount for the city, but is crucial for the AASAF.

Mayor John Hieftje described the AASAF as a special situation, so he’d support the resolution. Hieftje noted that it’s a small item. He then referred to the council budget planning session from Dec. 9, and highlighted the council’s expressed desire at that session to keep its meetings moving along. He hoped this item could be dispatched without a lot more discussion.

Jack Eaton (Ward 4) asked if the proposal is for the support of the AASAF to be recurring. Taylor replied by saying he’d expect it to be reconsidered in each subsequent year.

The executive director of the AASAF, Maureen “Mo” Riley, was asked to come to the podium. She responded to a question by saying that the rent paid to the University of Michigan is about $5,000.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) noted that this approach doesn’t guarantee that AASAF would get the money as a result of the community events funding disbursements. He pointed out that the funds could have been appropriated from this year’s FY 2014 budget and the council would then be done with the issue.

Teall responded to Kunselman’s point by saying that typically when community events are funded, the council would ask what exactly the money would go toward. Taylor responded by ticking through some of the background in the memo. Teall said she can’t not support it, calling the AASAF her favorite art fair.

But Teall said she questioned this resolution partly because the AASAF is required to pay rent to the UM, and she wished UM would “pony up,” too. Sally Petersen (Ward 2) indicated that she considered the art fairs a kind of public art. By way of background, Petersen had submitted a question to staff in advance of the meeting exploring the possibility that public art funds could be tapped. From the staff responses to councilmember questions:

Question: What is the current balance of the City’s various funds dedicated to public art. Can these funds be tapped to support this effort? (Councilmember Petersen)

Response: $1,392,395.72. No. All of these funds are restricted for purposes related to their origin. Most of the funds were derived from the utility funds and streets. [.pdf of staff answers to pre-meeting (Dec. 16, 2013) councilmember questions]

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) pointed out that the community events fund does fund FestiFools, Dancing in the Streets, and other nonprofit events – for the fees that they incur from the city. So he tied the resolution back to that aspect – the fees that AASAF must pay to the city of Ann Arbor for various services.

Lumm spoke again in support of the resolution. Teall said she thought that this should go through the regular community events fund allocation process – through the council’s committee. She was very hesitant. She wanted to see an application from AASAF for the funding.

Responding to Teall, Hieftje said that he thought this was a completely different category from other events. It’s more like the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, he said.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to direct the city administrator to include $10,000 of funding for the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair when he prepares next year’s (FY 2015) budget.

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: Snow Plowing

City administrator Steve Powers invited public services area administrator Craig Hupy to report on the snow plowing activity after the Friday and Saturday snowfall. Hupy summarized the snow accumulation citywide at 5.5-7.5 inches. He said there was some drifting due to wind. The city’s goal is to have all roads plowed within 24 hours. For this storm, it took 26 hours to plow the travel lanes and 30 hours for the cul de sacs, Hupy said.

Comm/Comm: Self-Discipline, Dissemination of Information

The council discussed a couple of issues involving how councilmembers behave during meetings. The first issue involved dissemination of information during meetings and the second involved councilmembers exceeding the time limits on their speaking turns.

During council communications time toward the end of the meeting, Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) said that he had a previous practice of announcing that he was breaking the rules when he disseminates information during the meetings. [Those occasions involve the text of amendments made to resolutions during the meeting, which councilmembers send via email.] He’d missed an instance of that, so he wanted to rectify that by announcing it retroactively. He said that as a member of the rules committee, he will work on an “above-board” ways of disseminating information.

Related to the topic of disseminating information, the staff’s answers to the council’s “caucus questions” – submitted in advance of the meeting – were attached to the city’s online Legistar agenda management system under the city administrator’s communications. [.pdf of staff answers to pre-meeting (Dec. 16, 2013) councilmember questions]

Also during council communications time toward the end of the meeting, mayor John Hieftje took the pulse of the council for their view on managing councilmember speaking time. Under the council’s rules, for each question before the council, councilmembers get two turns – five minutes for the first turn and three minutes for the second turn.

Hieftje raised the possibility of having the city clerk time councilmember speaking turns. [This possibility had been broached at a rules committee meeting last summer on June 13, 2013. The consensus at that meeting had been that it would put the clerk in an awkward spot, and would require her to exercise judgment on whether to start the timer if a councilmember was simply asking questions of staff, or whether the councilmember then also used the time to argue for a position.]

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) ventured that councilmembers should set their own timers. Hieftje said he thought a solution where councilmembers self-policed their speaking time would be best, because it would be a burden on the clerk to ask her to do that. Kunselman quipped that he’d bring forward a budget resolution for kitchen timers.

Comm/Comm: Local Officers Compensation Commission

During council communications at the start of the meeting, Jack Eaton (Ward 4) reported that he was disappointed that the agenda didn’t include any appointments for the local officers compensation commission.

From the LOCC meeting of Dec. 16, which failed to achieve a quorum: Roger Hewitt and Eunice Burns.

The commission has only two members, but it needs four commission members to achieve a quorum, he noted.

He pointed out that the city attorney and several councilmembers had received an email from Dave Askins [this reporter and Chronicle editor] in May of this year noting the vacancies on the commission.

A few minutes later during mayoral communications, mayor John Hieftje reported that the LOCC had met but had not achieved a quorum.

Hieftje said that he saw no harm in not having a quorum this year. [For more background, see "Ann Arbor Mayor, Council Pay: No Action" and " Column: What Do We Pay Ann Arbor's Mayor?"]

Comm/Comm: Rabhi Says Thanks

During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Washtenaw County board chair Yousef Rabhi addressed the council, saying he was attending the meeting as a citizen. But as one elected official to others, he thanked them for serving with honor, dignity and respect. The thoughtful discussion that evening was telling of their willingness to come to the table to work in good faith, he said. As the year wraps up, he wanted to extend a thank you.

Comm/Comm: Blighted Properties

During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Ed Vielmetti told the council about eight properties that were coming before the building board of appeals at its meeting later in the week, on Dec. 19. He said it’s unfortunate that many properties are now in need of demolition.

Comm/Comm: Winter Classic

During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Kai Petainen reminded the council that the NHL’s Winter Classic is coming up. He drew a laugh – because Petainen hails from Canada and has previously plugged the event to the council. He told councilmembers that they’ll need some additional police, but stated “I’m sure the Canadians will be nice.” He told John Hieftje, in a light-hearted way, that it would not be a good idea to meet with the mayor of Toronto if he requests a meeting. Hieftje responded by saying: “He may have smoked crack cocaine, but I believe him when he said he did it during one of his drunken stupors.”

Comm/Comm: Thomas Partridge

Thomas Partridge introduced himself as a recent candidate for various public offices. He said he plans to campaign for office in the future as well – to make sure there’s a candidate committed to protecting the rights of the most vulnerable. He referred to the recent murder of a 71-year-old Ann Arbor resident, saying that residents deserve the respect of the council. Residents deserve discrimination-free planning, he said. If every item on the agenda were passed, there still won’t be any progress in protecting the most vulnerable residents, he said.

Present: Sabra Briere, Sumi Kailasapathy, Jane Lumm, Sally Petersen, Stephen Kunselman, Christopher Taylor, Jack Eaton, Margie Teall, Mike Anglin, Chuck Warpehoski, John Hieftje.

Next council meeting: Monday, Jan. 6, 2014 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron. [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date.]

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The city council’s Dec. 16, 2013 decision to provide $64,550 in funding from the solid waste fund for the initiative comes in the context of the council’s recent adoption of an update to the city’s solid waste plan. When the city council adopted the solid waste plan update on Oct. 7, 2013, a modification was made during deliberations.

An inventory of a sample of contents of Ann Arbor garbage trucks showed that about half of the weight is due to food waste. (Chart from the city’s solid waste plan update.)

The amendment undertaken by the council at that meeting eliminated mention of a possible transition to bi-weekly trash pickup or pay-as-you-throw initiatives.

However, one of the recommendations that is thought possibly to lead to a reduction in curbside garbage pickup – which would have been the basis for any decision to reduce the frequency of trash pickup – was left in the plan.

That recommendation was to allow plate scrapings to be placed in residents’ brown composting carts that the city uses to collect yard waste for processing at the city’s composting facility. That facility is operated by a third-party – WeCare Organics. The goal is to reduce the proportion of the city’s landfilled solid waste stream that’s made up of food waste. A recent inventory of the contents of some city trash trucks showed that about half of the weight is made up of food waste.

[Waste Less: City of Ann Arbor Solid Waste Resource Plan.] [Appendices to Waste Less] [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Waste as Resource: Ann Arbor's Five Year Plan."]

The $64,550 allocation from the solid waste fund balance break down this way:

• $14,950 for an increased level of service from WeCare Organics at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The city is estimating no increased net cost for this increased service based on a reduction in landfill tipping fees. The city pays $25.90 per ton for transfer and disposal of landfilled waste. That’s $7.90 more than the city pays WeCare organics ($18 per ton) for processing compostable material. City staff is estimating that the program will divert 2,100 tons from the $25.90 category – for a savings of 2,100*$7.90=$16,590.
• $24,600 for the cost of 6,000 Sure-Close counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage.
• $25,000 for a subsidy to sell an estimated 1,000 additional brown compost carts to residents at a cost of $25 per cart instead of $50 per cart. About 12,000 carts are already in use.

A Doppstadt slow speed grinder/shredder used by WeCare Organics. (Image provided by WeCare)

The city’s curbside compost collection program runs April through November. The Dec. 16 city council funding decision did not extend the timeframe for that program.

For details about the council’s deliberations on this item, see The Chronicle’s live updates from the Dec. 16 meeting.

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 Ann Arbor city council’s last regular meeting of the year, set for tonight, features an agenda with about a dozen substantive voting items.

The sign on the door to the Ann Arbor city council chamber, installed in the summer of 2013, includes Braille.

Added to the agenda on the Friday before tonight’s meeting is an item that relates to proceeds from the city’s sale of property known as the former Y lot. The sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003.

The item added to the Dec. 16 agenda would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

That would reflect a departure from the policy set in a 2012 council resolution, which called first for reimbursement of costs out of the proceeds, including interest paid over the last 10 years, before depositing those net proceeds into the affordable housing trust fund.

Although the city administrator is not required to present next year’s FY 2015 budget to the council until April 2014, at least three items on the council’s Dec. 16 agenda could have an impact on preparation of that budget. Some of those items relate to mobility and traffic issues.

First, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the FY 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair.

Second, the council will consider directing Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Thematically related to the funding plan for non-motorized improvements is a third budget item: a proposal to allocate $125,000 from the current general fund reserve to pay for police overtime for traffic enforcement.

That item is sponsored by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2), who were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – which eliminated a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who were at the curb but not within the crosswalk – was subsequently vetoed by mayor John Hieftje. And the text of that veto is attached to the council’s meeting agenda as a communication.

Also generally related to the public right-of-way on streets is a Dec. 16 item that was postponed from the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. The item assigns a specific cost to the removal of an on-street parking space caused by a development: $45,000. The postponement stemmed from a desire to hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action.

Several of the other Dec. 16 items relate generally to the theme of the environment. In the area of solid waste management, the council will consider a roughly $65,000 allocation from the solid waste fund balance. That allocation will pay for an initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds will cover an increased level of service at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The funds will also cover the cost of counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage, and a subsidy for the sale of additional brown compost carts. Some of that allocation is expected to be recovered through reduced landfill tipping fees.

Other solid waste items on the Dec. 16 agenda include one to allocate about $63,000 to rebuild a baler at the city’s materials recovery facility. And the council will consider an amendment to the contract with Waste Management, which provides commercial waste collection services – to factor in special event service pricing on Sundays for up to five collection containers that are otherwise serviced daily. The council will also consider authorizing the purchase of about 150 300-gallon carts per year ($42,000) for the next four years – which will be used as part of the city’s commercial and multi-family recycling program.

Also part of the environmental theme on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that accepts a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service to be spent on a tree pruning initiative focused on the city’s largest street trees.

Additional items include two standard rezoning approvals in connection with annexations from townships into the city. The recommending body for zoning approvals is the city planning commission. Also on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that asks the council to approve changes to the planning commission bylaws. Those bylaws changes relate to the required notice for special accommodations like a sign-language interpreter – changing the notification requirement from 24 hours to two business days.

This article includes a more detailed look of many of these agenda items. More details on other meeting agenda items are available on the city’s online Legistar system. Readers can also follow the live meeting proceedings Monday evening on Channel 16, streamed online by Community Television Network.

The Chronicle will be filing live updates from city council chambers during the Dec. 16 meeting, published in this article below the preview material. Click here to skip the preview section and go directly to the live updates. The meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Updates might begin somewhat sooner.

Y Lot Proceeds

The history of the city’s policy on the proceeds of city-owned land and the connection to the city’s affordable housing trust fund goes back at least 20 years.

Affordable housing fund activity.

Some highlights are laid out in a timeline below.

The specific connection between the affordable housing trust fund and the former Y lot is the 100 units of single-resident occupancy housing that previously were a part of the YMCA building that stood on the site.

Various efforts have been made to replace those units over the years. [See, for example: "The 100 Units of Affordable Housing."] Recently, the Ann Arbor housing commission and its properties have started to receive more attention from the council as an integral part of the city’s approach to providing housing to the lowest income residents. The council approved a series of resolutions this last summer that will allow the AAHC to convert many of its properties to project-based vouchers.

The approved $5.25 million sale price of the former Y lot will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003. At the council’s Dec. 16, 2013 meeting, consideration will be given to a resolution that would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

This would reflect a departure from the most recent policy adopted by the city council, but would eliminate any wrangling between the city and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority over how much in reimbursements might be owed for various purposes. The city has calculated, for example, that $365,651 in interest reimbursements could be owed, as well as $488,646 for the relocation of residents of the former Y building. The DDA has calculated $1,493,959 in reimbursements that it thinks it could claim – for interest payments and cost of demolition, among other items. But the DDA board has voted essentially to waive that claim.

It’s not clear if the DDA can waive all of that claim in light of the fact that the DDA used at least some TIF funds to pay for items like demolition and some of the interest payments on the loan. [.pdf of DDA records produced in response to Freedom of Information Act request by The Chronicle] If that were analyzed as a distribution of TIF to the city of Ann Arbor, then under state statute DDA would need to distribute a proportional amount to the other jurisdictions whose taxes are captured in the DDA district.

In timeline overview form:

• April 15, 1996: City council establishes a policy that put half of the proceeds from city-owned land sales into the affordable housing trust fund. The minutes of the meeting show that Jane Lumm (Ward 2) voted against an amendment, made at the council table, to divide the proceeds of land sales (less costs) between “infrastructure needs and the housing trust fund regardless of budget year.” But the minutes show that the vote on the amended resolution was declared unanimous on a voice vote (not a roll call). In 1996, part of the impetus for consideration of a land sale policy was driven by city-owned property at Packard and Main, which eventually became a part of the Ashley Mews development.
• Nov. 5, 1998: City council votes to increase the portion of proceeds of city-owned land sales that would be earmarked for the affordable housing trust fund – from half to all. Lumm joined her Ward 2 colleague David Kwan in voting against this policy shift.
• Dec. 8, 2003: City council approves purchase of Y property – on William Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues – for $3.5 million, financing the purchase with a five-year loan. The Ann Arbor DDA had agreed to pay some of the interest on that loan through an action taken not by its full board, but rather by its executive committee, on Dec. 5, 2003.
• Oct. 20, 2005: Pipe bursts in YMCA building, displacing residents. The building is ultimately determined to be not worth the cost of renovation.
• June 4, 2007: City council votes to rescind the policy that put the proceeds from the sale of city-owned land into the affordable housing trust fund. The policy shift in 2007 took place as part of a relatively small land transaction: The city was selling a piece of land on East Eisenhower for $23,750. The proceeds were earmarked for the construction fund of the new municipal center, built at the corner of Fifth and Huron. But in order to put the money from the sale into that construction fund, the council needed to change the existing policy on land sales. So one of the “resolved” clauses in the resolution was the following:
  

  RESOLVED, That City Council revoke Resolution R-481-11-98 which provided that the proceeds from the sale of excess City property be deposited into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;

  In the course of deliberations, the council agreed to amend the resolution so that the $23,750 in proceeds from this particular land sale would still be deposited in the affordable housing trust fund – but left the basic policy change intact. The council had an eye toward changing the policy anyway – so that the roughly $3 million in proceeds of the sale of the First & Washington parcel (to Village Green for construction of the City Apartments project) could be put toward the new police/courts building.

• Dec. 1, 2008: City council authorizes five-year extension of the renewal on terms from the Bank of Ann Arbor to finance the Y lot loan. During deliberations, some of the focus is on the need to divest the city of the property. Sandi Smith (Ward 1), at her second meeting after winning election to the council a month earlier, put the interest payments in the context of the cost of supporting a homeless person:
  

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

• Sept. 19, 2011: City council approves the sale of a strip of the former Y lot for $90,000 to facilitate construction of new Blake Transit Center by the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority. The total parcel area of the strip was 792 square feet.
• April 26, 2012: Board of the AAATA approves the purchase of a strip of the former Y lot for $90,000 to facilitate construction of new Blake Transit Center.
• Sept. 5, 2012: DDA board passes a resolution urging the city council to dedicate proceeds of the sale of city land to support affordable housing.
• Sept. 5, 2012: Washtenaw County board of commissioners passes a resolution urging the city council to dedicate proceeds of the sale of city land to support affordable housing. [At the time, county commissioner Leah Gunn served on the DDA board, along with former county administrator Bob Guenzel, who continues to serve on the board.]
• Sept. 17, 2012: City council considers but postpones action on a policy for proceeds of the sale of city-owned land.
• Oct. 15, 2012: City council approves a policy that ultimately leaves the policy on the use of proceeds of city land to case-by-case decisions, but indicates that for the Y lot, the proceeds will:
  

  … first be utilized to repay the various funds that expended resources on the property, including but not limited to due diligence, closing of the site and relocation and support of its previous tenants, after which any remaining proceeds be allocated and distributed to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;”

• Nov. 8, 2012: City council transfers $90,000 from proceeds of the land sale to AAATA into the affordable housing trust fund.
• March 4, 2013: City council directs the city administrator to select a broker for the Y lot.
• July 3, 2013: City administrator Steve Powers announces that he’s selected Colliers International and local broker Jim Chaconas to handle the marketing of the property.
• Nov. 18, 2013: City council approves the sale of the former Y lot for $5.25 million to Dennis Dahlmann.
• Dec. 4, 2013: DDA board waives its claim to reimbursement from the sale of the Y lot.

Community Events Funding

At its Dec. 16 meeting, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the fiscal year 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. The city’s FY 2015 begins on July 1, 2014.

The memo supporting the resolution notes that the AASAF has run an annual deficit for several years. An email sent to Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2) by Maureen Riley, executive director of the AASAF, specified those annual deficits as follows:

• 2013 – anticipated to be approximately ($8,000)
• 2012 – ($6,316)
• 2011 – ($5,769)
• 2010 – ($6,040)
• 2009 – ($33,693)

Lumm and Taylor are sponsoring the resolution. Lumm is a former AASAF board member.

The rationale for providing support for the AASAF but not the other three art fairs is based on the additional costs the AASAF has to pay to the University of Michigan, as well as the provision by AASAF of community benefits that reduce its opportunity to gain revenue – including the Demo Zone, Art Activity Zones, Street Painting Exhibition, and the Fountain Stage. The background memo also indicates that the other three art fairs have indicated written support for the $10,000 to the AASAF.

The dollar amount roughly corresponds to the allocated cost to the AASAF from the total that is charged by the city for various services to the four art fairs collectively.

At the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting, Taylor had announced his intent to bring forward the resolution asking that an additional $10,000 be included in the city’s FY 2015 budget.

Traffic Enforcement

On the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that would allocate $125,000 from the general fund balance to pay for police overtime required for additional traffic enforcement. The item began conceptually as a $500,000 allocation described by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who was persuaded by co-sponsors Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Jack Eaton (Ward 4) that $125,000 would be a more reasonable amount to spend.

Data from the city’s most recent comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR), compiled with previous CAFRs, shows that traffic citations have continued for the past three years at significantly lower levels than previously:

Ann Arbor traffic violations. (Data from city of Ann Arbor CAFR. Chart by The Chronicle.)

Some insight into the question of how much time AAPD officers have available for proactive policing activities – like traffic enforcement – has been provided to councilmembers in the form of timesheet data that officers have been logging since the beginning of 2013.

In the charts below (by The Chronicle, with data from the city of Ann Arbor), green shading indicates unassigned time and time dedicated to proactive policing activities. Dedicate policing activities include: bicycle patrol, business contact, check person, citizen/motorist assist, code citation, community event, community meeting, downtown foot patrol, extra patrol (general), extra patrol (parks), felony, impound, liquor inspection, misdemeanor, parking citation, property check, recontact, traffic enforcement (general), traffic enforcement (laser), traffic enforcement (radar), traffic problem, and traffic stop.

Ann Arbor police department timesheet analysis. AAPD provided a range of time periods, to cover for the data entry training period, as officers learned the new system and became accustomed to coding their activities in a standard way. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

In a memo to the city administrator dated Nov. 4, 2013, chief of police John Seto indicated that he’s already begun to assign additional proactive duties to officers, based on the results of the timesheet analysis:

As a result of this data, supervisors and officers have been identifying additional dedicated proactive policing activities to engage in for the remainder of 2013. Staffing modifications will also be taking place for 2014. An additional officer will be assigned to Special Services to address traffic complaints. The distribution of Patrol Officers will also be modified to increase the number of officers assigned to the swing shift, where the volume of calls for service is greater.

Council deliberations on the $125,000 overtime allocation could feature a discussion of the ability of the AAPD to conduct additional traffic enforcement activities, without drawing on overtime.

Non-Motorized Plan Funding

On the Dec. 16 agenda is a directive to the city administrator to provide a funding plan for elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan.

Map identifying geographic areas for improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists, as noted in the 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update.

The council approved the updated plan at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

The new document is organized into three sections: (1) planning and policy updates; (2) updates to near-term recommendations; and (3) long-term recommendations.

And the Dec. 16 resolution – which is co-sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) – is structured in part based on those main sections.

The resolution directs city administrator Steve Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Examples of planning and policy issues include design guidelines, recommendations for approaches like bike boulevards and bike share programs, and planning practices that cover education campaigns, maintenance, crosswalks and other non-motorized elements for pedestrians and bicyclists.

For example, the update recommends that the city begin developing a planning process for bike boulevards, which are described as “a low-traffic, low-speed road where bicycle interests are prioritized.”

Additional flashing beacon locations identified in Ann Arbor’s non-motorized transportation plan.

Sections of West Washington (from Revena to First), Elmwood (from Platt to Canterbury) and Broadway (from its southern intersection with Plymouth to where it rejoins Plymouth about a mile to the northeast) are suggested for potential bike boulevards.

Near-term recommendations include lower-cost efforts like re-striping roads to install bike lanes and adding crossing islands.

Longer-term projects that were included in the 2007 plan are re-emphasized: the Allen Creek Greenway, Border-to-Border Trail, Gallup Park & Fuller Road paths, and a Briarwood-Pittsfield pedestrian bridge.

The city’s non-motorized transportation plan is part of the city’s master plan. The planning commission adopted the updated plan at its Sept. 10, 2013 meeting. [.pdf of draft 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update]

With respect to the adoption of the master plan, the council and the planning commission are on equal footing. That is, they must adopt the same plan. So in this case, the commission is not merely the recommending body.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth?

Postponed from the council’s Dec. 2 meeting is a resolution that would define how much developers would need to pay the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority if a developer’s project requires removal of a metered on-street parking space. The proposed amount is $45,000 per space. The payment would go to the Ann Arbor DDA because the DDA manages the public parking system under a contract with the city.

The rationale for postponing the item – offered by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) at the council’s Dec. 2 meeting – was that because it amounts to a fee, a public hearing should be held on the matter before the council votes.

In this matter, the council would be acting on a four-year-old recommendation approved by the Ann Arbor DDA in 2009:

Thus it is recommended that when developments lead to the removal of on-street parking meter spaces, a cost of $45,000/parking meter space (with annual CPI increases) be assessed and provided to the DDA to set aside in a special fund that will be used to construct future parking spaces or other means to meet the goals above. [.pdf of meeting minutes with complete text of March 4, 2009 DDA resolution]

The contract under which the DDA manages the public parking system for the city was revised to restructure the financial arrangement (which now pays the city 17% of the gross revenues), but also included a clause meant to prompt the city to act on the on-street space cost recommendation. From the May 2011 parking agreement:

The City shall work collaboratively with the DDA to develop and present for adoption by City Council a City policy regarding the permanent removal of on-street metered parking spaces. The purpose of this policy will be to identify whether a community benefit to the elimination of one or more metered parking spaces specific area(s) of the City exists, and the basis for such a determination. If no community benefit can be identified, it is understood and agreed by the parties that a replacement cost allocation methodology will need to be adopted concurrent with the approval of the City policy; which shall be used to make improvements to the public parking or transportation system.

Subject to administrative approval by the city, it’s the DDA that has sole authority to determine the addition or removal of meters, loading zones, or other curbside parking uses.

The $45,000 figure is based on an average construction cost to build a new parking space in a structure, either above ground or below ground – as estimated in 2009. It’s not clear what the specific impetus is to act on the issue now, other than the fact that action is simply long overdue. In 2011, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research expansion was expected to result in the net removal of one on-street parking space. [For more background, see: "Column: Ann Arbor's Monroe (Street) Doctrine."]

The resolution is sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3). Taylor participated in recent meetings of a joint council and DDA board committee that negotiated a resolution to the question about how the DDA’s TIF (tax increment finance) revenue is regulated. In that context, Taylor had argued adamantly that any cap on the DDA’s TIF should be escalated by a construction industry CPI, or roughly 5%. Taylor’s reasoning was that the DDA’s mission is to undertake capital projects and therefore should have revenue that escalates in accordance with increases in the costs to undertake capital projects.

Based on Taylor’s reasoning on the TIF question, and the explicit 2009 recommendation by the DDA to increase the estimated $45,000 figure in that year by an inflationary index, the recommended amount now, four years later, would be closer to $55,000, assuming a 5% figure for construction cost inflation.

The actual cost of building an underground space in the recently completed (2012) underground Library Lane parking structure could provide a more current estimate, but the DDA has not made public a breakdown of how that project’s actual costs lined up with its project budget. The DDA has exercised its statutory right to extend the deadline in response to a request from The Chronicle for that information under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act

The last two month’s minutes from the DDA’s committee meetings don’t reflect any discussion of the on-street parking space replacement cost. Nor has the issue been discussed at any recent DDA board meeting.

By way of additional background, the Ann Arbor DDA’s most recent financial records show that last year, on-street parking spaces generated $2,000 in gross revenue per space or $1,347 in net income per space annually. The contract with the city under which the DDA operates the public parking system stipulates that the city receives 17% of the gross parking revenues. So the city’s revenue associated with an on-street parking space corresponds to $340 annually.

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings

The Dec. 16 city council agenda item – to allocate $64,550 from the solid waste fund to support a food-scrap composting initiative – comes in the context of the council’s recent adoption of an update to the city’s solid waste plan. When the city council adopted the solid waste plan update on Oct. 7, 2013, a modification was made during deliberations.

An inventory of a sample of contents of Ann Arbor garbage trucks showed that about half of the weight is due to food waste. (Chart from the city’s solid waste plan update.)

The amendment undertaken by the council at that meeting eliminated mention of a possible transition to bi-weekly trash pickup or pay-as-you-throw initiatives.

However, one of the recommendations that is thought possibly to lead to a reduction in curbside garbage pickup – which would have been the basis for any decision to reduce the frequency of trash pickup – was left in the plan.

That recommendation is to allow plate scrapings to be placed in residents’ brown composting carts that the city uses to collect yard waste for processing at the city’s composting facility. That facility is operated by a third-party – WeCare Organics. The goal is to reduce the proportion of the city’s landfilled solid waste stream that’s made up of food waste. A recent inventory of the contents of some city trash trucks showed that about half of the weight is made up of food waste.

[Waste Less: City of Ann Arbor Solid Waste Resource Plan.] [Appendices to Waste Less] [Previous Chronicle coverage: Waste as Resource: Ann Arbor's Five Year Plan.]

The $64,550 allocation from the solid waste fund balance on the Dec. 16 agenda would pay for the initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds break down this way:

• $14,950 for an increased level of service from WeCare Organics at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The city is estimating no increased net cost for this increased service based on a reduction in landfill tipping fees. The city pays $25.90 per ton for transfer and disposal of landfilled waste. That’s $7.90 more than the city pays WeCare organics ($18 per ton) for processing compostable material. City staff is estimating that the program will divert 2,100 tons from the $25.90 category – for a savings of 2,100*$7.90=$16,590.
• $24,600 for the cost of 6,000 Sure-Close counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage.
• $25,000 for a subsidy to sell an estimated 1,000 additional brown compost carts to residents at a cost of $25 per cart instead of $50 per cart. About 12,000 carts are already in use.

A Doppstadt slow speed grinder/shredder used by WeCare Organics. (Image provided by WeCare)

Tree Pruning

The council will be considering the receipt of a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service – to put toward a tree pruning initiative. The pruning program would target those trees in the public right-of-way that are most in need of pruning (Priority 1). The initiative is also focused on the larger of the city’s street trees – those bigger than 20 inches in diameter. Those are the trees that have the greatest impact on the mitigation of stormwater.

Here’s where the trees targeted by the program are located:

Street trees in Ann Arbor greater than 20 inches in diameter. (Map by the city of Ann Arbor.)

From the city’s online tree inventory, The Chronicle queried those trees greater than 20 inches in diameter and designated as Priority 1 for pruning. A total of 684 trees fit those criteria. Here’s how they broke down by height, diameter and species.

Priority 1 trees by diameter. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by height. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by species. Maples are the dominant species among those that will be targeted by this pruning program. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

4:31 p.m. Agenda addition: Fuller Road Station MOU termination. An agenda item added this morning, Dec. 16, would officially terminate a four-year-old memorandum of understanding between the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan on Fuller Road Station.

Fuller Road Station was a planned joint city/UM parking structure, bus depot and possible train station located at the city’s Fuller Park near the UM medical campus. The council had approved the MOU on the Fuller Road Station project at its Nov. 5, 2009 meeting on a unanimous vote. [.pdf of Nov. 5, 2009 MOU text as approved by the city council] However, a withdrawal of UM from the project, which took place under terms of the MOU, was announced Feb. 10, 2012. So it’s been clear for nearly two years that the MOU was a dead letter.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) sponsored the Dec. 16, 2013 resolution. The idea to terminate the MOU has its origins in election campaign rhetoric. He had stated at a June 8, 2013 Democratic primary candidate forum that he intended to bring forth such a resolution to “kill” the Fuller Road Station project. From The Chronicle’s report of that forum:

Kunselman also stated that he would be proposing that the city council rescind its memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan to build a parking structure as part of the Fuller Road Station project. Although UM has withdrawn from participation in that project under the MOU, Kunselman said he wanted to “kill it.” That way, he said, the conversation could turn away from using the designated parkland at the Fuller Road Station site as a new train station, and could instead be focused on the site across the tracks from the existing Amtrak station.

The city continues to pursue the possibility of a newly built or reconstructed train station, but not necessarily with the University of Michigan’s participation, and without a pre-determined preferred alternative for the site of a new station. At its Oct. 21, 2013 meeting, the council approved a contract with URS Corp. Inc. to carry out an environmental review of the Ann Arbor Station project – which should yield the determination of a locally-preferred alternative for a site.

4:47 p.m. Council questions. Councilmembers have now received written responses to several questions about agenda items, which they submitted to staff prior to the meeting. [.pdf of staff answers to pre-meeting (Dec. 16, 2013) councilmember questions]

5:01 p.m. Revision to Y lot resolution: The council will be considering a revised version of the resolution previously made public. The revision adjusts the amount of the proceeds from the Y lot sale downward to reimburse not just the broker’s commission, but also the seller’s closing costs. The revised amount to be deposited into the city’s affordable housing trust fund is $1,384,300. [For more background, see Y Lot Proceeds above.]

6:19 p.m. Pre-meeting activity. The scheduled meeting start is 7 p.m. Most evenings the actual starting time is between 7:10 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. Council chambers are empty. The sound of custodial staff vacuuming the second floor clerk’s office lobby area is audible. City clerk’s staffer Anissa Bowden arrives and distributes the council nameplates to their respective places at the table.

Police chief John Seto comes through the chambers and asks Bowden if he can get a copy of the council’s agenda. Yes, she says, they’re coming “hot off the presses” in the clerk’s office. So Seto continues through the council workroom to the clerk’s office. CTN technician is now testing mics.

6:39 p.m. Public art administrator Aaron Seagraves has arrived. He’s setting up a laptop with a presentation on the Detroit DIA Inside|Out program, which is receiving a proclamation tonight. Seagraves ventures that it will be public art commissioner John Kotarski who gives the presentation.

6:41 p.m. Audience members are starting to arrive. About 10 people here so far, most in support of the resolution designating proceeds of the Y lot sale for the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Point of conversation: “the working homeless.”

6:46 p.m. No councilmembers have arrived yet. Check that. Jane Lumm (Ward 2) is the first councilmember arrive.

6:49 p.m. City administrator Steve Powers has now arrived. His neckwear features snowmen and Christmas trees.

6:53 p.m. People are starting to arrive at a brisk clip. Former city councilmember Jean Carlberg, who’s signed up to speak during public commentary reserved time, is among those to arrive.

6:57 p.m. Kotarski has now arrived. His choice of neckwear: bowtie.

7:03 p.m. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) is the only councilmember not yet spotted in chambers.

7:09 p.m. Call to order. And we’re off.

7:10 p.m. Moment of silence, pledge of allegiance, roll call of the council. All councilmembers are present and correct.

7:11 p.m. Approval of agenda. The agenda is approved.

7:15 p.m. Communications from the city administrator. City administrator Steve Powers announces the regular holiday trash collection. He invites public services area administrator Craig Hupy to report on the snow plowing activity after the Friday and Saturday snowfall. Hupy summarizes the snow accumulation citywide at 5.5-7.5 inches. He says there was some drifting due to wind. The city’s goal is to have all roads plowed within 24 hours. For this storm, it took 26 hours to plow the travel lanes and 30 hours for the cul de sacs, Hupy says.

7:15 p.m. INT-1 Proclamation for Detroit Institute of Art’s Inside|Out Program. The mayoral proclamation honors the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum, the Ann Arbor Art Center, and the Ann Arbor public art commission for their collaboration on implementing the Detroit Institute of Arts Inside|Out program in Ann Arbor this past summer. The program features installations of framed reproductions from the DIA’s collection in public places. Volunteer docents led 20 tours that included a total of 150 people, according to the text of the resolution. Chronicle coverage of the public art commission’s meetings on the topic includes the Jan. 23, 2013 meeting. At least one of the tours was noted in a Stopped.Watched. item: “Fourth & Catherine.”

7:16 p.m. Public art commissioner John Kotarski is now at the podium giving a presentation on the Inside|Out program.

7:21 p.m. Representatives of the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum and the Ann Arbor Art Center are now approaching the podium, and mayor John Hieftje is now reading forth the proclamation.

7:22 p.m. Public commentary. This portion of the meeting offers 10 three-minute slots that can be reserved in advance. Preference is given to speakers who want to address the council on an agenda item. [Public commentary general time, with no sign-up required in advance, is offered at the end of the meeting.]

Eight speakers and two alternates are signed up to speak on the issue of the allocation of funds from the proceeds of the sale of the old Y lot: Ray Gholston, Tracy Williams, Mary Browning, Ryan Sample, Jim Mogensen, Jean Carlberg, Suzzanne William, James Hill, Tate Williams and Deborah Clark. Barbara Lucas is signed up to speak about the food waste composting item. Thomas Partridge is signed up to talk about general issues like ending discrimination and to call for the resignation of Gov. Rick Snyder and mayor John Hieftje, as well as the proceeds of the Y lot sale.

7:27 p.m. Ray Gholston expresses his support for the allocation of funds from the proceeds of the Y lot sale to support affordable housing.

7:29 p.m. Tracy Williams introduces himself as a resident of Ann Arbor. He says that 700 people died from exposure, at least one of them here in Ann Arbor, who was a friend of his. “Shorty was a little guy but had a big heart,” Williams says. People like “Shorty” need more help, he adds. The agencies who work in this area are doing the best they can, he says. The Delonis Center weather “amnesty” of 10 degrees is too cold, he says.

7:31 p.m. Mary Browning is speaking on behalf of Religious Action for Affordable Housing. She says she’s talking about affordable housing at the 30% of AMI (area median income) level, not 80% AMI. Folks who get help from the shelter need a place to go, she says. She strongly urges that the funds from the Y lot sale go towards affordable housing.

7:34 p.m. Ryan Sample tells a story from three months ago, before the warming center opened. He was sleeping at the Baptist Church. He had to give his blanket to someone who needed it. Even at 40 degrees when your clothes are wet, there can be the potential for hypothermia, he says, which isn’t covered by the “weather amnesty” of 10 degrees at the shelter. He wishes he had a job and was able to work, he concludes.

7:37 p.m. Jim Mogensen speaks in support of the council’s resolution. The whole process has seemed endless, he says. He’s recounting the history from the mid-1980s, when the YMCA decided to create the 100 units of SRO housing and tried to do that with conventional bank loans. That’s why the city of Ann Arbor had become involved, he says – to sign for the loans. And that’s why the city of Ann Arbor had a right of first refusal. The Y had not finally repaid what it owed the city until 2009, he pointed out. He wanted the council to think about those historical lessons as they thought about how to use the money that’s in the affordable housing trust fund.

7:40 p.m. Thomas Partridge introduces himself as a recent candidate for various public offices. He says he plans to campaign for office in the future as well – to make sure there’s a candidate committed to protecting the rights of the most vulnerable. He refers to the recent murder of a 71-year-old Ann Arbor resident, saying that the residents deserve the respect of the council. Residents deserve discrimination-free planning, he says. If every item on the agenda is passed, there still won’t be any progress in protecting the most vulnerable residents, he says.

7:43 p.m. Barbara Lucas speaks in support of the expanded food waste composting. Her family had participated in a pilot program. Where she currently lives, there are various wildlife that makes composting food scraps challenging. She says that during the pilot program, there wasn’t a problem with odor. When there’s other yard waste in the composting cart, that helps, she says.

7:47 p.m. Jean Carlberg says that Mogensen had given a good history. She served on the city council when it faced the challenge of how to preserve the housing on the Y lot. The council felt it was in the public interest to exercise its right of first refusal on the Y lot, when the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority wanted to purchase the property. She’s urging the council to allocate the proceeds of the sale of the Y lot to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. With the loss of the Y housing, that increased the need for units – as determined in the Blueprint to End Homelessness – from 500 units to 600 units. As a city council, she says, they never expected the city to be repaid from the proceeds. It’s a chance to create a “pile of money” to be used for affordable housing.

7:50 p.m. Suzzanne William is here to support her friends and family in the homeless community. She’s heard and experienced and known about the homeless situation in Washtenaw County for a long time. She’s supporting the council’s resolution, she says. She has a job in downtown Ann Arbor, she says, but can’t afford “affordable housing.” She says she earns $150 a week. It’s just absurd, she says, that the “weather amnesty” is for 10 degrees. She recalls curling up in a cardboard box even in summer at 40 degrees. People are out there trying, she says, and they’re really hard workers. She suggests some counseling for those housed in affordable housing units.

7:53 p.m. James Hill asks all those who support the agenda item on the Y lot proceeds to stand up. At least 25 people are standing. He says that the council shouldn’t “skim off the top” for financial accounting reasons. He asks the council to inquire with the shelter why the weather amnesty at the warming shelter has been reduced from 25 degrees to 10 degrees.

7:53 p.m. Communications from council. This is the first of three slots on the agenda for council communications. It’s a time when councilmembers can report out from boards, commissions and task forces on which they serve. They can also alert their colleagues to proposals they might be bringing forward in the near future.

7:55 p.m. Sabra Briere is talking about the “weather amnesty” that many public speakers mentioned. The Delonis Center had experimented with changing it from 10 degrees and making it 25 degrees. So the change to 10 degrees is the reversion to the previous policy. Briere’s reporting is based on talking to Ellen Schulmeister, head of the Delonis Center.

7:57 p.m. Mike Anglin is reporting out on a meeting at Bach School last week on traffic safety. His remarks are largely positive. About 100 people attended, he says. This is the kind of approach the city should be taking, he says, noting that the meeting was well attended by staff. Three councilmembers attended, he says.

7:59 p.m. Jack Eaton says he’s disappointed that the agenda doesn’t include any appointments for the local officers compensation commission. The commission has only two members, but it needs four commission members to achieve a quorum, he says.

8:00 p.m. Briere says she should have also alerted the public to the revision to the dollar amount on the Y lot proceeds. The actual amount available is estimated to be $1,384,300, she says. The amount is an estimate, because the sale has not yet taken place.

8:00 p.m. Communications from the mayor. Mayoral communications are typically just the nominations and confirmations of appointments to various city boards and commissions.

8:00 p.m. MC-1 Confirmation of Edith Bletcher to the Elizabeth Dean fund committee. This nomination was made at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. Nomination at one meeting followed by confirmation at the next is the standard process for appointments to city boards and commissions. For some historical background on the Elizabeth Dean Fund, see “Dean Tree Fund Committee Changed.”

8:01 p.m. Outcome: The council has confirmed the appointment of Edith Bletcher to the Elizabeth Dean fund committee.

8:01 p.m. MC-2 Nominations. Tonight Kristin Tomey is being nominated to fill a vacancy left by Wiltrud Simbuerger on the Ann Arbor public art commission (AAPAC) and Benjamin Bushkuhl is being nominated for reappointment to the city’s historic district commission (HDC).

8:02 p.m. Hieftje says that the LOCC had met but not achieved a quorum. Hieftje says that he saw no harm in not having a quorum this year.

8:08 p.m. Hieftje has now invited executive director of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission to the podium to address the council. She’s describing the SRO units at the Y. It had a staffed front door and a desk and was actually a “hotel,” she says. The front door staffing helped the residents maintain their tenancy, she says. She’s describing working with the nonprofit Avalon Housing, Washtenaw County’s Community Support and Treatment Services (CSTS), and others to convert Miller Manor to a front-door staffed facility. Hall says they’re working on a plan right now to secure the funding. She’ll be requesting some of the proceeds from the Y lot to make those services at Miller Manor happen. The maintenance area at Miller Manor is being converted to offices to facilitate the front-door staffing arrangement, she says.

8:08 p.m. Public Hearings. All the public hearings are grouped together during this section of the meeting. Action on the related items comes later in the meeting. Three public hearings appear on tonight’s agenda. The first two are standard rezoning requests – from township zoning to city residential zoning. This type of rezoning is a routine part of annexation of property into the city.

The third public hearing is on the cost to be charged to a developer ($45,000) for causing an on-street metered public parking space to be removed. The item was postponed from the council’s Dec. 2 meeting to allow for a public hearing to be held.

8:11 p.m. PH-1 Higgins zoning. Thomas Partridge is addressing the council, saying that he hope the next mayor will not begin every public hearing with a series of warnings. Hieftje responds by saying Partridge has to speak on the topic of the hearing. Partridge says he is doing that. He characterizes the zoning change as involving “redlining.”

8:12 p.m. No one else speaks on PH-1.

8:12 p.m. PH-2 Weller zoning. No one speaks on this public hearing.

8:15 p.m. PH-3 Policy on removal of on-street metered public parking spaces. Thomas Partridge introduces himself as a candidate for public office. To his knowledge, he says, the resolution contains no language specifying how parking spaces should be provided for pickup and dropoff for people with disabilities. He says that the proposal should be referred back to a committee for further review. He says the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has been functioning as a stealth government, an agent of the city of Ann Arbor.

8:15 p.m. Minutes. Approval of the previous meeting’s minutes.

8:15 p.m. Outcome: The council has approved the previous meeting’s minutes.

8:15 p.m. Consent agenda. This is a group of items that are deemed to be routine and are voted on “all in one go.” Contracts for less than $100,000 can be placed on the consent agenda. This meeting’s consent agenda includes an amendment to the contract with Waste Management, which provides commercial waste collection services – to factor in special event service pricing on Sundays for up to five collection containers that are otherwise serviced daily. Also a part of the consent agenda is the authorization of the purchase of about 150 300-gallon carts per year ($42,000) for the next four years – which will be used as part of the city’s commercial and multi-family recycling program.

8:16 p.m. Councilmembers can opt to select out any items for separate consideration. No one does this.

8:16 p.m. The council has approved the consent agenda.

8:16 p.m. B-1 Higgins zoning. This is a standard rezoning request of 0.51 acre from TWP (township district) to R1A (single family dwelling district), for the Higgins property, 2121 Victoria Circle, as a result of annexation into the city.

8:17 p.m. John Hieftje notes that this property is someone’s house. Sabra Briere describes the property as off Newport Road. Recently the city extended sewer and water service. It makes it possible for these properties to be annexed, she says. They’re not affected by the Pall-Gelman 1,4 dioxane plume.

8:17 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to approve the Higgins rezoning.

8:17 p.m. B-2 Weller zoning. This is a standard rezoning request 0.51 acre from TWP (township district) to R1A (single family dwelling district) for the Weller property at 2119 Victoria Circle, as a result of annexation into the city.

8:17 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to approve the Weller rezoning.

8:17 p.m. DC-1 City policy on removal of on-street metered public parking spaces. This resolution would establish the cost for removing a metered on-street parking space at $45,000. [For more background, see How Much Is a Parking Space Worth? above.]

8:20 p.m. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) says that there are several amendments to the resolution and he hopes that the amendments have been disseminated. Here’s the amended version: [.pdf of amended version of policy]

8:22 p.m. Taylor is now reviewing the resolution – it would charge developers for removing parking meters. He characterizes the process as a “long and slow burn.” It’s a replacement fee, he says. The parking system is a finite resource. There’s a choice to allow removal or not, he says. So the amount required to be paid as a fee, he says, is $45,000. That’s approximately the cost of creating a new parking space in a structure. There’s a caveat whereby the cost could be waived if the removal is deemed to be a public benefit.

8:23 p.m. Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1) asks for staff. Executive director of the DDA Susan Pollay comes to the podium. Kailasapathy says she sees a parking space as a capital asset. She asks if this money that is paid should be segregated into a separate fund.

8:25 p.m. Kailasapathy says it should not be treated as simple revenue. Pollay says that this has not yet been thought through in detail, but the DDA’s operations committee would be taking that up. Kailasapathy wants to add an amendment that would require the segregation of funds into something like a sinking fund.

8:26 p.m. Taylor has no objection to segregating the funds, but is not sure that the city council should be telling the DDA exactly how to do the accounting.

8:27 p.m. City administrator Steve Powers says that the city could work with the DDA to reserve the funds in some manner.

8:29 p.m. Jane Lumm (Ward 2) offers some generally supportive comments. Pollay says she understands that the council is keen to see the capital funds set aside and separated somehow.

8:30 p.m. Sally Petersen (Ward 2) asks if the money that’s paid could be used to build any capital project or if it had to be a parking space. She’s worried about having enough critical mass of funding to undertake the building of a new parking structure.

8:31 p.m. Pollay says that this money to be paid would not necessarily be the only money used to build a new parking structure. The money would be added to the pot when it comes time to build a new parking structure, Pollay says.

8:32 p.m. Petersen wants to know if the money could be used to add on to an existing structure. Pollay points out that the Fourth and William structure had been extended upward.

8:33 p.m. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) said that if the money is earmarked for new construction, that makes accounting challenging because we don’t know when construction will happen. Why not just use the money for debt service on parking structures? he asks.

8:34 p.m. Kunselman asks how many spaces have been removed recently. Pollay says about 50 in the last five years. She allows that some on-street spaces have also been added through projects like the Fifth and Division street improvement project.

8:35 p.m. Hieftje asks if this can be worked out tonight or if it should be put off.

8:36 p.m. Taylor reads aloud a proposed amendment about “financial controls” to segregate the funds so that they can be reinvested in construction of new parking spaces.

8:37 p.m. Kailasapathy wants the language to be flexible enough to construct new spaces or also replace existing spaces.

8:38 p.m. Hieftje asks again if it might be a good idea to put it off. Taylor is content to see it postponed, as is Kailasapathy.

8:40 p.m. Lumm offers what she calls a “nit.” There are references to development projects taking spaces out of the system. She asks if the DDA operations committee would consider describing it differently. Many of the spaces that have been “gobbled up” recently have not been by developers but rather by UM or the city itself.

8:42 p.m. Here’s the text of the amendment as forwarded by city clerk Jackie Beaudry: “Therefore, the City of Ann Arbor and the DDA will establish financial controls to segregate cash flows from the removal of on-street parking in order to reinvest these funds in the creation of parking spaces.”

8:43 p.m. Petersen has an amendment she wants to add into the mix. Hieftje says that she should send it to the DDA operations committee for their discussion.

8:44 p.m. Hieftje has been trying to move the council toward postponing this, which seems where it’s headed.

8:45 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to postpone until the first meeting in January a vote on a policy that sets the price for removal of an on-street parking space at $45,000.

8:45 p.m. DC-2 Non-motorized transportation strategy. This resolution would instruct the city administrator to develop a non-motorized transportation plan implementation strategy. Specifically, the resolution directs Steve Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan. [For more background, see Non-Motorized Plan Funding above.]

8:46 p.m. Taylor is reviewing the content of the resolution.

8:51 p.m. Kailasapathy asks for Cresson Slotten to field questions. She says there’s just supposed to be 20 RRFBs in the plan, not 24, which Slotten confirms. She asks how the RRFBs were determined as solutions. Slotten regrets that  transportation program manager Eli Cooper is out of town, because he could give a more detailed answer, but he assures Kailasapathy that a detailed analysis had been done. He allows that Pat Cawley and Les Sipowski, city traffic engineers, had been involved in the determination of the RRFBs as solutions and their locations.

8:53 p.m. Kailasapathy wants to propose an amendment to make clear that traffic engineers would be involved in the final determination. It’s not clear what the exact language of the amendment is, but it’s now before the council for its consideration.

8:54 p.m. Eaton ventures that the sponsors of the resolution have not contemplated any other engineering solutions other than RRFBs. Briere is responding to Eaton by asking Slotten a series of questions.

8:57 p.m. Briere asks if it’s always the case that when the plan says to put some type of infrastructure in a location, that the infrastructure specified in the plan is always installed. Slotten describes how there’s a lot more detailed analysis when a project is actually measured out in the field. Briere asks who would do that work. Slotten says that city traffic engineers working with in-house surveyors would probably do that work.

8:58 p.m. Slotten allows, in response to a question from Briere, that sometimes the final project is not the same as what was in the plan.

9:00 p.m. Hieftje is establishing with Slotten what the role of traffic engineers is in determining RRFBs as a solution in a particular location.

9:01 p.m. Teall says she wants to know that staff has the latitude to determine the exact locations and details. Kunselman ventures that a plan is a plan and that plans change. Kunselman gets confirmation from Slotten that there could be conditions that warrant looking outside the plan.

9:03 p.m. Kunselman supports the amendment. Taylor says the “juicy bit” that the council is talking about removes specific reference to the RRFBs. The idea is not to predetermine what engineering features go into any particular crosswalk, Taylor says, which makes sense to him.

9:05 p.m. Kailasapathy wants to avoid creating the impression for staff that there is a “mandate” for RRFBs. Briere says that plans are not solid but rather a little squishy. Briere cites some of the specific words from Kailasapathy’s amendment: “implement recommendations of the city’s traffic engineers.”

9:08 p.m. Briere ventures that “as applied by the city traffic engineers” could work. City administrator Steve Powers suggests that if the direction is to revisit previous evaluations and recommendations that are contained in the non-motorized transportation plan, then that direction from the council needs to be made clear.

9:09 p.m. Anglin is talking about the improvements in engineering technology. Anglin asks if the locations designated for RRFBs are not eligible for HAWK signals. He thinks that RRFBs ask motorists to interpret yellow as stop. He seems to be advocating for HAWK signals instead of RRFBs.

9:10 p.m. Anglin said he’s heard that HAWK lights are too expensive, but asks what the cost of safety should be.

9:12 p.m. Hieftje responds to Anglin by venturing that the city traffic engineers are up to date on the latest technology. Petersen raises the question of how this resolution relates to the establishment of the pedestrian safety task force.

9:17 p.m. Eaton says his understanding is that there’s no detailed and particularized engineering study that’s been done of the general locations of the RRFBs in the non-motorized plan. He wants to make sure it’s done right.

9:17 p.m. Warpehoski says that there’s three elements to the amendment: (1) it should be technology neutral; (2) traffic engineers should be involved; and (3) the downtown is highlighted specifically. Warpehoski says he’s fine with (1). He thinks (2) is redundant but doesn’t have a problem with it. He has some ideas about (3).

9:17 p.m. The council decides to recess to work out the language of the amendment.

9:17 p.m. Recess. We are in recess.

9:26 p.m. We’re back.

9:30 p.m. The amendment on the floor is now being distributed by Taylor to the other councilmembers and the clerk.

9:32 p.m. Kunselman wants to remove the dates specified in the resolution. He takes the occasion to reiterate the fact that he dislikes the fact that the city’s transportation program manager, Eli Cooper, serves on the board of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority. Taylor says, in response to a question from Hieftje, that the dates were characterized by the city administrator as “feasible.”

9:32 p.m. Lumm says she’ll support it.

9:33 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to direct the city administrator to present a funding and implementation plan for the city’s non-motorized transportation plan. The version passed by the council was amended at the table.

9:33 p.m. DC-3 Street Art Fair community events resolution. This resolution would instruct the city administrator to incorporate $10,000 of funding in the FY 2015 community events funding budget to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. [For more background, see Community Events Funding above.]

9:34 p.m. Taylor is reviewing the background of the resolution. He’s explaining why the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair is different from the other art fairs in its revenue challenges.

9:38 p.m. The resolution on the non-motorized transportation plan was passed in this form, based on what the city clerk has forwarded: [.pdf of non-motorized implementation resolution ]

9:40 p.m. Teall relates her experience in allocating the community events funding. She’s concerned about doing something for one organization, but possibly not others.

9:41 p.m. Lumm describes her volunteer work with the AASAF and her service on the board. There’s only so much you can raise in booth fees, she says. She’s ticking through the specific challenges the AASAF faces.

9:43 p.m. Lumm calls the AASAF one of Ann Arbor’s “icons.” She says that $10,000 is a small amount for the city but is crucial for the AASAF.

9:45 p.m. Hieftje says it’s a special situation, so he’ll support this resolution. Hieftje notes that it’s a small item. He references the budget planning session from Dec. 9, and highlights the council’s expressed desire to keep its meetings moving along. He hopes this item can be dispatched without a lot more discussion.

9:46 p.m. Eaton asks if the proposal is for this support to be recurring. Taylor says he’d expect it to be reconsidered in each subsequent year.

9:47 p.m. The executive director of the AASAF, Maureen “Mo” Riley, says that the rent paid to UM is about $5,000.

9:48 p.m. Kunselman notes that this approach doesn’t guarantee that AASAF would get the money as a result of the community events funding disbursements. He points out that the funds could have been appropriated from FY 2014 and they’d have been done with it.

9:50 p.m. Teall says that typically when community events are funded, the council would ask what exactly the money would go toward. Taylor responds by ticking through some of the background in the memo. Teall says she can’t not support it. She calls the AASAF her favorite art fair.

9:51 p.m. Teall says that she questions this partly because the AASAF is required to pay rent to the UM, and she wishes UM would “pony up” too. Petersen says she considers this a kind of public art.

9:53 p.m. Warpehoski points out that the community events fund does fund FestiFools, Dancing in the Streets, and other nonprofit events – for the fees that they incur from the city. So he ties the resolution back to that aspect – the fees that AASAF must pay to the city of Ann Arbor for various services.

9:55 p.m. Lumm is speaking again in support of the resolution.

9:55 p.m. Teall says she thinks that this should go through the regular community events fund allocation process – through the council’s committee. She’s very hesitant. She wants to see an application from AASAF for the funding.

9:57 p.m. Responding to Teall, Hieftje says that he thinks this is a completely different category from other events. It’s more like the Summer Festival, he says.

9:57 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to direct the city administrator to include $10,000 of funding for the Ann Arbor Street Art fair when he prepares next year’s (FY 2015) budget.

9:57 p.m. DC-4 Resolution to allocate $125,000 to fund police overtime for traffic enforcement. This resolution comes after a long debate about a change to the city’s crosswalk ordinance that resulted in a 6-4 vote at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting – to eliminate a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who are at the curb next to a marked crosswalk, not just within a crosswalk. But mayor John Hieftje exercised his power of veto on that change. So the law will remain intact.

That debate featured support from all sides for the idea that enforcement was an important component of making the city safer for pedestrians and motorists. This item also comes forward in the context of increased concern about motorists speeding on city streets. As a change to the budget, this will require an 8-vote majority. [For more background, see Traffic Enforcement above.]

9:57 p.m. Kunselman quips that the discussion should be short, because the resolution is short.

9:58 p.m. He allows that he’d wanted to put a lot more funding in police chief John Seto’s hands. Revenues have been down from traffic citations, he notes. And there’s a need to curtail motorists speeding. Things like cars passing stopped school buses have also been raised as concerns, he says.

10:00 p.m. Lumm thanks Kunselman for leading this effort. She says that she thinks everyone can support the idea that increased traffic enforcement is an important part of improving traffic safety.

10:02 p.m. Hieftje says he understands the motivation for the resolution. It’s unusual to give staff money to spend without asking how staff would specifically solve the problem the council has identified. He also points to the timesheet breakdown for police officers that showed that officers may have time to implement additional traffic enforcement within the existing staffing levels, without using overtime.

10:04 p.m. Briere wants Seto to explain how this money would be spent. Seto says there’s not a specific plan for using this overtime money. There are various general ways: individual officers assigned to specific locations, or officers can be dedicated to a promotion and educational effort. Briere asks Seto if he could provide a specific plan and a budget for implementation by Jan. 22, the council’s second meeting in January. “It depends,” says Seto.

10:06 p.m. Briere says that even if Seto just followed the simple resolution, he’d still have to come up with a plan. She wants Seto to tell the council how much it might cost to implement increased traffic enforcement. She ventures there might be various levels of implementation – which could cost even more than $125,000. She wants Seto to develop a specific plan for implementation.

10:07 p.m. Seto says that if the council directs him to do so, he can come back with a specific traffic enforcement enhancement plan. He says that the $125,000 translates into 1,800 additional hours and he seems unsure that could be re-allocated right now. Briere asks if Seto can come back with the cost for a plan that he would implement.

10:09 p.m. Kunselman says, “Talk about micromanaging!” He notes that the $125,000 figure came from the city administrator. Seto doesn’t have to spend it all, Kunselman says. He calls it a small amount in response to community concerns. He allows that it will require 8 votes and invites those who want to vote against it to do so.

10:11 p.m. Anglin thanks Seto for attending the Bach School meeting on traffic safety and ventures that Seto has heard directly some of these citizen concerns. Responding to Petersen, Seto says that $125,000 translates to 26-weeks of eight eight-hour shifts.

10:13 p.m. Warpehoski says he’ll support the resolution, citing concerns that were reflected in the recent National Citizens Survey. He says that traffic safety is the one area where increased investment in safety services is justified. He says that he’s frustrated that he wasn’t able to get benchmark data about traffic safety.

10:16 p.m. Taylor says that he doesn’t disagree that traffic enforcement is deeply important. But he thinks that this resolution amounts to pre-funding a plan that’s not yet in front of the council. He wants to postpone this until the next meeting.

Petersen punches the air, raising her hand to be called on. She’s arguing against Taylor’s contention that this resolution is somehow at odds with the previous resolution on the non-motorized plan. She contends that this police OT actually strengthens it. “I don’t know why we wouldn’t do this now,” she says.

10:17 p.m. Kailasapathy says that this is basically like choosing something that seems reasonable – echoing Warpehoski’s sense that this is roughly the equivalent of adding an FTE for traffic enforcement. She’ll support this.

10:18 p.m. Responding to a question from Hieftje, Seto says there are four traffic enforcement staff, with one administrative. On Jan. 1 Seto was already planning to assign an additional person to traffic enforcement. This resolution would essentially bring the total to six.

10:20 p.m. Eaton says that it’s important to be safe – not just from rapes and murders. He describes some neighborhoods where cars speed so fast that they leave the roads and run into people’s houses.

10:20 p.m. Hieftje says he wants to hear the plan before the council throws the money at it. He supports the postponement. Lumm says she won’t support the postponement.

10:22 p.m. Lumm is talking about the overall staffing levels of the AAPD, noting that the number of sworn officers currently is down to 119. She cites the number of emails that she receives asking for more traffic enforcement.

10:24 p.m. Kunselman says he won’t support a postponement, noting that Seto has already described a plan. He indicates that success will be measured by the number of traffic citations issued.

10:25 p.m. Taylor points out that the previous resolution on implementation of the non-motorized transportation does address enforcement around crosswalks.

10:26 p.m. Outcome on postponement: The postponement fails with support only from Hieftje, Briere and Taylor.

10:27 p.m. Warpehoski notes that the “results” that Kunselman has lifted up are in terms of revenue and citations, and he wants results that are related to traffic safety. He doesn’t think police services should be treated as a cash register.

10:28 p.m. Hieftje says one reason that traffic citations are down is that penalties – for drunk driving, for example – are harsher and people pay more attention. Hieftje just doesn’t want to throw money at a problem.

10:31 p.m. Teall echoes Hieftje’s sentiments. She is concerned about a possible backlash from increased enforcement. Briere says there are as many people who are angry about lack of traffic enforcement as who are angry about too much traffic enforcement. She’s not very gung ho when it comes to rules, but she believes in traffic enforcement. She’d prefer that Seto tell the council how much money he needed, rather than the council tell the chief.

10:33 p.m. Briere asks Seto if 70 additional hours a week in traffic enforcement is actually feasible.

10:34 p.m. Seto describes how his intent would not be to just implement some speed traps – saying that high crash locations can be targeted using a new city system.

10:35 p.m. Seto says he can start this additional enforcement on Jan. 1. Petersen can’t think of a better day to start than Jan. 1, because of the NHL’s Winter Classic.

10:35 p.m. Petersen asks for confirmation that the $125,000 number has been vetted with the city administrator and that Seto has called it feasible.

10:37 p.m. Kunselman follows up on Petersen’s remarks by saying not only has the number been vetted, Seto has also described a plan for implementation. He agrees that revenues are not the only measure of success. He wouldn’t mind hearing complaints about too much traffic enforcement.

10:38 p.m. Taylor allows that the $125,000 has been “vetted.” He asks Seto if the plan that starts Jan. 1 will cost about $125,000. Seto says: “It could.”

10:40 p.m. Taylor allows that the existence of a budget doesn’t necessitate the spending of that budget. Seto agrees that it might not be necessary to spend all of that $125,000.

10:41 p.m. Taylor says “I think this is sloppy,” pointing out that the council is a couple weeks away from having a plan with a dollar figure on it. It’s not a professional way to approach things, he says. But he has a lot of confidence in Seto’s ability to produce a plan the city is proud of – a plan that will be effective and not just burn through the money just because it is there.

10:42 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted over the lone dissent of mayor John Hieftje to approve $125,000 to pay for overtime so that Ann Arbor police officers can provide additional traffic enforcement.

10:42 p.m. DC-5 Y Lot proceeds resolution. The sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003. This item, added to the Dec. 16 agenda last Friday, originally designated $1.56 million of that amount – which was all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund. The council will be considering a revised version of the resolution that also subtracts the seller’s closing costs from the amount to be deposited into the city’s affordable housing trust fund. That results in a total amount to be deposited into the trust fund of $1,384,300. [.pdf of revised resolution] [For more background, see Y Lot Proceeds above.]

10:44 p.m. Briere is reviewing how much money is in the affordable housing trust fund. She notes that the council still hasn’t heard from the Shelter Association – which runs the Delonis Center – about what it needs to get through the inclement weather. In the past, the council has used money from the affordable housing trust fund to support the shelter’s warming center.

10:46 p.m. Briere notes that the city has not been effective at putting money back into the affordable housing trust fund. The strategy of having PUDs (planned unit developments) contribute to the trust fund has not been used much recently.

10:48 p.m. Lumm asks for city CFO Tom Crawford. She says it’s a significant amount of money. She asks Crawford to walk the council through how much has been committed to affordable housing compared to the other council priorities.

10:51 p.m. Briere points out that Crawford was talking about new and unique expenditures.

10:57 p.m. Briere is reviewing various expenditures from the fund.

10:58 p.m. Hieftje says he’ll support the resolution and says that given the history of the property, it’s a relatively happy end to the story.

11:00 p.m. Kunselman wants clarification of why 8 votes are required. He wants to know what would happen if this resolution failed. In broad strokes, most of it would go to the general fund. Kunselman says he’ll support the resolution, venturing that most of the money would go to support the Ann Arbor Housing Commission.

11:04 p.m. Lumm says it’s a huge transfer from the general fund to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Crawford replies that it’s important to weigh all the city’s needs. He’s describing how much general fund balance would remain if the resolution passed. Lumm asks for an amendment to reduce the amount of the transfer by half, to roughly $692,000.

11:06 p.m. Warpehoski is comparing how much the city spends on public safety compared to affordable housing, pointing out that the city spends $49 million $39.5 million a year on public safety. The amount that the city spends on affordable housing is miniscule in comparison, he says. He’s pleased with the news shared by Jennifer Hall, executive director of the housing commission, about the plan to convert Miller Manor to a front-desk staffed facility.

11:08 p.m. Warpehoski says he did not vote to sell the property to Dahlman in order to get the debt off the books, or to give Dahlmann a way to avoid competition for his hotels.

11:08 p.m. Taylor follows Warpehoski with: “What he said.” Briere says she wishes she could have said it as well as Warpehoski.

11:10 p.m. Lumm responds by talking about the pressure that this puts on the general fund.

11:10 p.m. Outcome: The amendment to cut the amount in half fails on a 2-9 vote. Only Lumm and Eaton vote for it.

11:11 p.m. Lumm notes that the council reached a different conclusion last year after a long discussion – that there would be reimbursements. So she’s torn, she says.

11:15 p.m. Eaton says he’ll support the resolution, but he’s concerned that the city hasn’t approached the policy questions adequately. He allows more needs to be done for affordable housing, but says the city needs to “aim at the right targets.” Kunselman points out that the money is not actually being spent with this resolution. Rather, it will go into the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Kunselman notes that previous councils have made decisions about this policy, but this council will make its own decision. The council has heard a lot of voices calling for the council to do something to support affordable housing. The money is not going anywhere until we spend it, he concludes.

11:16 p.m. Briere ventures that more than 30% of funding for affordable housing has been cut – by HUD and by the state. This is a response to Lumm’s citation of the percentage reduction in funding and staffing levels for the Ann Arbor police department.

11:19 p.m. Briere allows that Lumm’s point about 10% of proceeds that the council set as a policy last year is accurate for city-owned properties – but she notes that the resolution separated out the Y lot from other downtown properties. Briere notes that if the city tried to repay the reimbursements, there wouldn’t be much left. She also points out that this is the last year that this fund will exist separately as a fund – due to new accounting standards. In the future, it will simply be general fund money that’s allocated to affordable housing. It will no longer be a separate fund, she says.

11:20 p.m. Briere notes that currently HHSAB (the city’s housing and human services advisory board) must make a recommendation on how money in the affordable housing trust fund is spent. She’s not sure how that will play out in the future.

11:21 p.m. Hieftje is talking about how federal funding for affordable housing has been drying up. He doesn’t think that it’s appropriate to include the public safety budget in this discussion. He calls the recent turnaround at the Ann Arbor Housing Commission spectacular.

11:23 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously to deposit $1,384,300 million (the entire proceeds, less brokerage fees and seller’s costs) from the sale of the former Y lot into the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

11:25 p.m. Fuller Road Station MOU termination. Kunselman says he would like to postpone it. Hieftje and Briere say they’ll vote for it and don’t want to postpone it. Kunselman still wants to postpone, because it was added late to the agenda.

11:26 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to postpone the Fuller Road Station resolution until its next meeting.

11:26 p.m. DS-1 Planning commission bylaws. The bylaws change relates to the required notice for special accommodations like a sign-language interpreter – changing the requirement from 24 hours to two business days. The planning commission is currently weighing another change to its bylaws, that’s not a part of this change. [See Chronicle coverage of the planning commission's Nov. 6, 2013 meeting.] That additional change would define speaking turns during public hearings. This change was postponed from an earlier council meeting, with an eye towards having the council approve both bylaws changes at the same time. But the planning commission has not yet taken action on that second change.

11:27 p.m. Briere notes there’s also another bylaws revision possibly pending and indicates a desire to postpone.

11:28 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to postpone the revision to the planning commission’s bylaws until the second council meeting in February.

11:28 p.m. DS-2 Food waste composting. The resolution would appropriate $64,550 from the solid waste fund balance to fund the city’s intiative to allow residents to add food scraps for regular collection in their curbside compost carts. Here’s how the allocation breaks down:

• $14,950 for an increased level of service from WeCare Organics at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The city is estimating no increased net cost for this increased service based on a reduction in landfill tipping fees. The city pays $25.90 per ton for transfer and disposal of landfilled waste. That’s $7.90 more than the city pays WeCare organics ($18 per ton) for processing compostable material. City staff is estimating that the program will divert 2,100 tons from the $25.90 category – for a savings of 2,100*$7.90=$16,590.
• $24,600 for the cost of 6,000 Sure-Close counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage.
• $25,000 for a subsidy to sell an estimated 1,000 additional brown compost carts to residents at a cost of $25 per cart instead of $50 per cart. About 12,000 carts are already in use.

It will require an 8-vote majority. [For more background, see Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings above.]

11:30 p.m. Briere introduces the resolution.

11:30 p.m. Eaton confirms that this resolution would not change the seasonal compost collection schedule.

11:30 p.m. Solid waste manager Tom McMurtrie is demonstrating the counter-top containers, which would be offered free to residents.

11:32 p.m. Eaton asks how many households use a garbage disposal and would not use this service. Lumm says she thinks that the estimates of how many tons would be added to the compost and diverted from garbage are optimistic. She calls the giveaways “gimmicky.” But she says it’s not a huge investment to give it a try.

11:34 p.m. Kailsaspathy questions the viability of the city’s estimates. If the 2,100 ton estimate is not accurate, then we’ll pay for the additional service of grinding the compost plus for the giveaways. McMurtrie allows that Kailasapathy is right about that.

11:35 p.m. Kailaspathy wants to know if a pilot could be conducted, just for Monday route collection, for example. McMurtie says it would be logistically difficult to maintain the separation of the material at the composting site.

11:36 p.m. McMurtrie says that WeCare set the price at below its cost, because they want to see the program succeed. For a pilot, WeCare would need to bring in the equipment for the same frequency – but for a limited pilot, it would be over a much smaller tonnage base.

11:39 p.m. Briere is arguing for the resolution. She wonders how residents might deal with raccoons. McMurtrie suggests modifying the compost cart by adding a bungee cord – but cautions that residents need to remember to take the bungee off when they set out the cart. Kunselman re-confirms that compost will still not be collected in the winter months.

11:41 p.m. Kunselman ventures that a considerable educational effort will be required. He asks about the mention of the MDEQ requirements. McMurtrie says the city’s proposal is consistent with MDEQ guidelines. The daily processing is what WeCare views as appropriate procedures for dealing with this type of material. Kunselman asks about the end product: Will adding food waste have an impact on the quality of the end product? No, says McMurtrie.

11:41 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously to appropriate $64,550 to fund the food scrap composting initiative.

11:41 p.m. DS-3 Accept and appropriate USDA Forest Service grant ($50,000). This resolution would authorize receipt of a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service – to put toward a tree pruning initiative. The pruning program would target those trees in the public right-of-way that are most in need of pruning (Priority 1). The initiative is also focused on the larger of the city’s street streets – those bigger than 20 inches in diameter. Those are the trees that have the greatest impact on the mitigation of stormwater. [For more background, see Tree Pruning above.]

11:42 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously without discussion to approve the receipt of the $50,000 USDA Forestry Service grant for tree pruning.

11:42 p.m. DS-4 MRF baler rebuild. This resolution would reimburse Resource Recovery Systems for the cost of repairing a baler at the city’s material recovery facility, which has already been done. The cost is $62,613.

11:42 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously without discussion to authorize $62,613 for the baler repair.

11:44 p.m. Communications from council. Warpehoski says that he had a previous practice of announcing that he was breaking the rules when he disseminates information from the meetings. He’d missed an instance of that, so he wanted to rectify that by announcing it retroactively. He says that as a member of the rules committee, he will work on “above-board” ways of disseminating information.

11:46 p.m. Hieftje is taking the pulse of the council on the issue of having the clerk time councilmember speaking turns. Kunselman ventures that councilmembers should set their own timers. Hieftje says he thinks that would be best, because it would be a burden on the clerk. Kunselman quips that he’ll bring forward a budget resolution for kitchen timers.

11:47 p.m. Clerk’s report. The clerk’s report has been received.

11:47 p.m. Public comment. There’s no requirement to sign up in advance for this slot for public commentary.

11:50 p.m. Washtenaw County board chair Yousef Rabhi is addressing the council. He’s attending the meeting as a citizen. As one elected official to another, he’s thanking them for serving with honor, dignity and respect. The thoughtful discussion today is telling of their willingness to come to the table to work in good faith, he says. As the year wraps up, he’s extending a thank you.

Dave DeVarti thanks the council for their unanimous vote on the Y lot. He points out the property has never been on the tax rolls. He asks the council to look at the tax receipts from that property and consider using that revenue to fund supportive services.

11:52 p.m. Ed Vielmetti is addressing the council on the eight properties that are coming before the building board of appeals at its meeting on Thursday of this week. He says it’s unfortunate that there are that many properties that are now in need of demolition.

11:55 p.m. Seth Best is now wishing the council happy holidays. He thanks the council for their vote on the Y lot. He invites councilmembers to homelessness awareness day, on Dec. 21. He tells the council that the homeless community operates in “survival mode.” When the “weather amnesty” temperature changes, they have a short memory, he says, because they are thinking about what they have to do tonight. He talks about the proposal from McKinley for affordable housing on South State Street – which considers “affordable housing” to start at $900 a month.

12:00 a.m. Kai Petainen reminds the council that Winter Classic is coming up and draws a laugh. He tells the council that they’ll need some additional police, though he says “I’m sure the Canadians will be nice.” He tells Hieftje, in a light-hearted way, that it’s not a good idea to meet with the mayor of Toronto. Hieftje responds by saying: “He may have smoked crack cocaine, but I believe him when he says he did it during one of his drunken stupors.”

Caleb Poirier follows Petainen by updating the council on a property that the homeless community has acquired. He says that there will eventually be requests coming to the council.

12:01 a.m. Closed session. The council has voted to go into closed session to discuss land acquisition and written attorney-client privileged communication. Briere dissents on the vote, which has no effect.

12:36 a.m. The council has returned to open session.

12:36 a.m. Adjournment. We are now adjourned. That’s all from the hard benches.

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

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Screenshot of Legistar – the city of Ann Arbor’s online agenda management system. Image links to the Dec. 16 meeting agenda.

Added to the agenda on Friday before the Monday meeting is an item that relates to proceeds from the city’s sale of property known as the former Y lot. The sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003.

The item added to the Dec. 16 agenda would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

That would reflect a departure from the policy set in a 2012 council resolution, which called first for reimbursement of costs out of the proceeds, including interest paid over the last 10 years, before depositing those net proceeds into the affordable housing trust fund.

Although the city administrator is not required to present next year’s FY 2015 budget to the council until April 2014, at least three items on the council’s Dec. 16 agenda could have an impact on preparation of that budget. Some of those items relate to mobility and traffic issues.

First, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the FY 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair.

Second, the council will consider directing Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Thematically related to the funding plan for non-motorized improvements is a third budget item: a proposal to allocate $125,000 from the current general fund reserve to pay for police overtime for traffic enforcement.

That item is sponsored by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2), who were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – which eliminated a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who were at the curb but not within the crosswalk – was subsequently vetoed by mayor John Hieftje. And the text of that veto is attached to the council’s meeting agenda as a communication.

Also generally related to the public right-of-way on streets is a Dec. 16 item that was postponed from the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. The item assigns a specific cost to the removal of an on-street parking space caused by a development: $45,000. The postponement stemmed from a desire to hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action.

Several of the other Dec. 16 items relate generally to the theme of the environment. In the area of solid waste management, the council will consider a roughly $65,000 allocation from the solid waste fund balance. That allocation will pay for an initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds will cover an increased level of service at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The funds will also cover the cost of counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage, and a subsidy for the sale of additional brown compost carts. Some of that allocation is expected to be recovered through reduced landfill tipping fees.

Other solid waste items on the Dec. 16 agenda include one to allocate about $63,000 to rebuild a baler at the city’s materials recovery facility. And the council will consider an amendment to the contract with Waste Management, which provides commercial waste collection services – to factor in special event service pricing on Sundays for up to five collection containers that are otherwise serviced daily. The council will also consider authorizing the purchase of about 150 300-gallon carts per year ($42,000) for the next four years – which will be used as part of the city’s commercial and multi-family recycling program.

Also part of the environmental theme on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that accepts a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service to be spent on a tree pruning initiative focused on the city’s largest street trees.

Additional items include two standard rezoning approvals in connection with annexations from townships into the city. The recommending body for zoning approvals is the city planning commission. Also on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that asks the council to approve changes to the planning commission bylaws. Those bylaws changes relate to the required notice for special accommodations like a sign-language interpreter – changing the requirement from 24 hours to two business days.

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

Y Lot Proceeds

The history of the city’s policy on the proceeds of city-owned land and the connection to the city’s affordable housing trust fund goes back at least 20 years.

Affordable housing fund activity.

Some highlights are laid out in a timeline below.

The specific connection between the affordable housing trust fund and the former Y lot is the 100 units of single-resident occupancy housing that previously were a part of the YMCA building that stood on the site.

Various efforts have been made to replace those units over the years. [See, for example: "The 100 Units of Affordable Housing."] Recently, the Ann Arbor housing commission and its properties have started to receive more attention from the council as an integral part of the city’s approach to providing housing to the lowest income residents. The council approved a series of resolutions this last summer that will allow the AAHC to convert many of its properties to project-based vouchers.

The approved $5.25 million sale price of the former Y lot will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003. At the council’s Dec. 16, 2013 meeting, consideration will be given to a resolution that would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

This would reflect a departure from the most recent policy adopted by the city council, but would eliminate any wrangling between the city and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority over how much in reimbursements might be owed for various purposes. The DDA has calculated $1,493,959 in reimbursements that it thinks it could claim – for interest payments and cost of demolition, among other items. But the DDA board has voted essentially to waive that claim. And the city has calculated, for example, that $365,651 in interest reimbursements could be owed, as well as $488,646 for the relocation of residents of the former Y building.

In timeline overview form:

• April 15, 1996: City council establishes a policy that put half of the proceeds from city-owned land sales into the affordable housing trust fund. The minutes of the meeting show that Jane Lumm (Ward 2) voted against an amendment, made at the council table, to divide the proceeds of land sales (less costs) between “infrastructure needs and the housing trust fund regardless of budget year.” But the minutes show that the vote on the amended resolution was declared unanimous on a voice vote (not a roll call). In 1996, part of the impetus for consideration of a land sale policy was driven by city-owned property at Packard and Main, which eventually became a part of the Ashley Mews development.
• Nov. 5, 1998: City council votes to increase the portion of proceeds of city-owned land sales that would be earmarked for the affordable housing trust fund – from half to all. Lumm joined her Ward 2 colleague David Kwan in voting against this policy shift.
• Dec. 8, 2003: City council approves purchase of Y property – on William Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues – for $3.5 million, financing the purchase with a five-year loan. The Ann Arbor DDA had agreed to pay some of the interest on that loan through an action taken not by its full board, but rather by its executive committee, on Dec. 5, 2003.
• Oct. 20, 2005: Pipe bursts in YMCA building, displacing residents. The building is ultimately determined to be not worth the cost of renovation.
• June 4, 2007: City council votes to rescind the policy that put the proceeds from the sale of city-owned land into the affordable housing trust fund. The policy shift in 2007 took place as part of a relatively small land transaction: The city was selling a piece of land on East Eisenhower for $23,750. The proceeds were earmarked for the construction fund of the new municipal center, built at the corner of Fifth and Huron. But in order to put the money from the sale into that construction fund, the council needed to change the existing policy on land sales. So one of the “resolved” clauses in the resolution was the following:
  

  RESOLVED, That City Council revoke Resolution R-481-11-98 which provided that the proceeds from the sale of excess City property be deposited into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;

  In the course of deliberations, the council agreed to amend the resolution so that the $23,750 in proceeds from this particular land sale would still be deposited in the affordable housing trust fund – but left the basic policy change intact. The council had an eye toward changing the policy anyway – so that the roughly $3 million in proceeds of the sale of the First & Washington parcel (to Village Green for construction of the City Apartments project) could be put toward the new police/courts building.

• Dec. 1, 2008: City council authorizes five-year extension of the renewal on terms from the Bank of Ann Arbor to finance the Y lot loan. During deliberations, some of the focus is on the need to divest the city of the property. Sandi Smith (Ward 1), at her second meeting after winning election to the council a month earlier, put the interest payments in the context of the cost of supporting a homeless person:
  

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

• Sept. 19, 2011: City council approves the sale of a strip of the former Y lot for $90,000 to facilitate construction of new Blake Transit Center by the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority. The total parcel area of the strip was 792 square feet.
• April 26, 2012: Board of the AAATA approves the purchase of a strip of the former Y lot for $90,000 to facilitate construction of new Blake Transit Center.
• Sept. 5, 2012: DDA board passes a resolution urging the city council to dedicate proceeds of the sale of city land to support affordable housing.
• Sept. 5, 2012: Washtenaw County board of commissioners passes a resolution urging the city council to dedicate proceeds of the sale of city land to support affordable housing. [At the time, county commissioner Leah Gunn served on the DDA board, along with former county administrator Bob Guenzel, who continues to serve on the board.]
• Sept. 17, 2012: City council considers but postpones action on a policy for proceeds of the sale of city-owned land.
• Oct. 15, 2012: City council approves a policy that ultimately leaves the policy on the use of proceeds of city land to case-by-case decisions, but indicates that for the Y lot, the proceeds will:
  

  … first be utilized to repay the various funds that expended resources on the property, including but not limited to due diligence, closing of the site and relocation and support of its previous tenants, after which any remaining proceeds be allocated and distributed to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;”

• Nov. 8, 2012: City council transfers $90,000 from proceeds of the land sale to AAATA into the affordable housing trust fund.
• March 4, 2013: City council directs the city administrator to select a broker for the Y lot.
• July 3, 2013: City administrator Steve Powers announces that he’s selected Colliers International and local broker Jim Chaconas to handle the marketing of the property.
• Nov. 18, 2013: City council approves the sale of the former Y lot for $5.25 million to Dennis Dahlmann.
• Dec. 4, 2013: DDA board waives its claim to reimbursement from the sale of the Y lot.

Community Events Funding

At its Dec. 16 meeting, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the fiscal year 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. The city’s FY 2015 begins on July 1, 2014.

The memo supporting the resolution notes that the AASAF has run an annual deficit for several years. An email sent to Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2) by Maureen Riley, executive director of the AASAF, specified those annual deficits as follows:

• 2013 – anticipated to be approximately ($8,000)
• 2012 – ($6,316)
• 2011 – ($5,769)
• 2010 – ($6,040)
• 2009 – ($33,693)

Lumm and Taylor are sponsoring the resolution. Lumm is a former AASAF board member.

The rationale for providing support for the AASAF but not the other three art fairs is based on the additional costs the AASAF has to pay to the University of Michigan, as well as the provision by AASAF of community benefits that reduce its opportunity to gain revenue – including the Demo Zone, Art Activity Zones, Street Painting Exhibition, and the Fountain Stage. The background memo also indicates that the other three art fairs have indicated written support for the $10,000 to the AASAF.

The dollar amount roughly corresponds to the allocated cost to the AASAF from the total that is charged by the city for various services to the four art fairs collectively.

At the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting, Taylor had announced his intent to bring forward the resolution asking that an additional $10,000 be included in the city’s FY 2015 budget.

Traffic Enforcement

On the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that would allocate $125,000 from the general fund balance to pay for police overtime required for additional traffic enforcement. The item began conceptually as a $500,000 allocation described by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who was persuaded by co-sponsors Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Jack Eaton (Ward 4) that $125,000 would be a more reasonable amount to spend.

Data from the city’s most recent comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR), compiled with previous CAFRs, shows that traffic citations have continued for the past three years at significantly lower levels than previously:

Ann Arbor traffic violations. (Data from city of Ann Arbor CAFR. Chart by The Chronicle.)

Some insight into the question of how much time AAPD officers have available for proactive policing activities – like traffic enforcement – has been provided to councilmembers in the form of timesheet data that officers have been logging since the beginning of 2013.

In the charts below (by The Chronicle, with data from the city of Ann Arbor), green shading indicates unassigned time and time dedicated to proactive policing activities. Dedicate policing activities include: bicycle patrol, business contact, check person, citizen/motorist assist, code citation, community event, community meeting, downtown foot patrol, extra patrol (general), extra patrol (parks), felony, impound, liquor inspection, misdemeanor, parking citation, property check, recontact, traffic enforcement (general), traffic enforcement (laser), traffic enforcement (radar), traffic problem, and traffic stop.

Ann Arbor police department timesheet analysis. AAPD provided a range of time periods, to cover for the data entry training period, as officers learned the new system and became accustomed to coding their activities in a standard way. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

In a memo to the city administrator dated Nov. 4, 2013, chief of police John Seto indicated that he’s already begun to assign additional proactive duties to officers, based on the results of the timesheet analysis:

As a result of this data, supervisors and officers have been identifying additional dedicated proactive policing activities to engage in for the remainder of 2013. Staffing modifications will also be taking place for 2014. An additional officer will be assigned to Special Services to address traffic complaints. The distribution of Patrol Officers will also be modified to increase the number of officers assigned to the swing shift, where the volume of calls for service is greater.

Council deliberations on the $125,000 overtime allocation could feature a discussion of the ability of the AAPD to conduct additional traffic enforcement activities, without drawing on overtime.

Non-Motorized Plan Funding

On the Dec. 16 agenda is a directive to the city administrator to provide a funding plan for elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan.

Map identifying geographic areas for improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists, as noted in the 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update.

The council approved the updated plan at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

The new document is organized into three sections: (1) planning and policy updates; (2) updates to near-term recommendations; and (3) long-term recommendations.

And the Dec. 16 resolution – which is co-sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) – is structured in part based on those main sections.

The resolution directs city administrator Steve Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Examples of planning and policy issues include design guidelines, recommendations for approaches like bike boulevards and bike share programs, and planning practices that cover education campaigns, maintenance, crosswalks and other non-motorized elements for pedestrians and bicyclists.

For example, the update recommends that the city begin developing a planning process for bike boulevards, which are described as “a low-traffic, low-speed road where bicycle interests are prioritized.”

Additional flashing beacon locations identified in Ann Arbor’s non-motorized transportation plan.

Sections of West Washington (from Revena to First), Elmwood (from Platt to Canterbury) and Broadway (from its southern intersection with Plymouth to where it rejoins Plymouth about a mile to the northeast) are suggested for potential bike boulevards.

Near-term recommendations include lower-cost efforts like re-striping roads to install bike lanes and adding crossing islands.

Longer-term projects that were included in the 2007 plan are re-emphasized: the Allen Creek Greenway, Border-to-Border Trail, Gallup Park & Fuller Road paths, and a Briarwood-Pittsfield pedestrian bridge.

The city’s non-motorized transportation plan is part of the city’s master plan. The planning commission adopted the updated plan at its Sept. 10, 2013 meeting. [.pdf of draft 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update]

With respect to the adoption of the master plan, the council and the planning commission are on equal footing. That is, they must adopt the same plan. So in this case, the commission is not merely the recommending body.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth?

Postponed from the council’s Dec. 2 meeting is a resolution that would define how much developers would need to pay the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority if a developer’s project requires removal of a metered on-street parking space. The proposed amount is $45,000 per space. The payment would go to the Ann Arbor DDA because the DDA manages the public parking system under a contract with the city.

The rationale for postponing the item – offered by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) at the council’s Dec. 2 meeting – was that because it amounts to a fee, a public hearing should be held on the matter before the council votes.

In this matter, the council would be acting on a four-year-old recommendation approved by the Ann Arbor DDA in 2009:

Thus it is recommended that when developments lead to the removal of on-street parking meter spaces, a cost of $45,000/parking meter space (with annual CPI increases) be assessed and provided to the DDA to set aside in a special fund that will be used to construct future parking spaces or other means to meet the goals above. [.pdf of meeting minutes with complete text of March 4, 2009 DDA resolution]

The contract under which the DDA manages the public parking system for the city was revised to restructure the financial arrangement (which now pays the city 17% of the gross revenues), but also included a clause meant to prompt the city to act on the on-street space cost recommendation. From the May 2011 parking agreement:

The City shall work collaboratively with the DDA to develop and present for adoption by City Council a City policy regarding the permanent removal of on-street metered parking spaces. The purpose of this policy will be to identify whether a community benefit to the elimination of one or more metered parking spaces specific area(s) of the City exists, and the basis for such a determination. If no community benefit can be identified, it is understood and agreed by the parties that a replacement cost allocation methodology will need to be adopted concurrent with the approval of the City policy; which shall be used to make improvements to the public parking or transportation system.

Subject to administrative approval by the city, it’s the DDA that has sole authority to determine the addition or removal of meters, loading zones, or other curbside parking uses.

The $45,000 figure is based on an average construction cost to build a new parking space in a structure, either above ground or below ground – as estimated in 2009. It’s not clear what the specific impetus is to act on the issue now, other than the fact that action is simply long overdue. In 2011, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research expansion was expected to result in the net removal of one on-street parking space. [For more background, see: "Column: Ann Arbor's Monroe (Street) Doctrine."]

The resolution is sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3). Taylor participated in recent meetings of a joint council and DDA board committee that negotiated a resolution to the question about how the DDA’s TIF (tax increment finance) revenue is regulated. In that context, Taylor had argued adamantly that any cap on the DDA’s TIF should be escalated by a construction industry CPI, or roughly 5%. Taylor’s reasoning was that the DDA’s mission is to undertake capital projects and therefore should have revenue that escalates in accordance with increases in the costs to undertake capital projects.

Based on Taylor’s reasoning on the TIF question, and the explicit 2009 recommendation by the DDA to increase the estimated $45,000 figure in that year by an inflationary index, the recommended amount now, four years later, would have be closer to $55,000, assuming a 5% figure for construction cost inflation.

The actual cost of building an underground space in the recently completed (2012) underground Library Lane parking structure could provide a more current estimate, but the DDA has not made public a breakdown of how that project’s actual costs lined up with its project budget. The DDA has exercised its statutory right to extend the deadline in response to a request from The Chronicle for that information under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act

The last two month’s minutes from the DDA’s committee meetings don’t reflect any discussion of the on-street parking space replacement cost. Nor has the issue been discussed at any recent DDA board meeting.

By way of additional background, the Ann Arbor DDA’s most recent financial records show that last year, on-street parking spaces generated $2,000 in gross revenue per space or $1,347 in net income per space annually. The contract with the city under which the DDA operates the public parking system stipulates that the city receives 17% of the gross parking revenues. So the city’s revenue associated with an on-street parking space corresponds to $340 annually.

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings

The Dec. 16 city council agenda item – to allocate $64,550 from the solid waste fund to support a food-scrap composting initiative – comes in the context of the council’s recent adoption of an update to the city’s solid waste plan. When the city council adopted the solid waste plan update on Oct. 7, 2013, a modification was made during deliberations.

An inventory of a sample of contents of Ann Arbor garbage trucks showed that about half of the weight is due to food waste. (Chart from the city’s solid waste plan update.)

The amendment undertaken by the council at that meeting eliminated mention of a possible transition to bi-weekly trash pickup or pay-as-you-throw initiatives.

However, one of the recommendations that is thought possibly to lead to a reduction in curbside garbage pickup – which would have been the basis for any decision to reduce the frequency of trash pickup – was left in the plan.

That recommendation is to allow plate scrapings to be placed in residents’ brown composting carts that the city uses to collect yard waste for processing at the city’s composting facility. That facility is operated by a third-party – WeCare Organics. The goal is to reduce the proportion of the city’s landfilled solid waste stream that’s made up of food waste. A recent inventory of the contents of some city trash trucks showed that about half of the weight is made up of food waste.

[Waste Less: City of Ann Arbor Solid Waste Resource Plan.] [Appendices to Waste Less] [Previous Chronicle coverage: Waste as Resource: Ann Arbor's Five Year Plan.]

The $64,550 allocation from the solid waste fund balance on the Dec. 16 agenda would pay for the initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds break down this way:

• $14,950 for an increased level of service from WeCare Organics at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The city is estimating no increased net cost for this increased service based on a reduction in landfill tipping fees. The city pays $25.90 per ton for transfer and disposal of landfilled waste. That’s $7.90 more than the city pays WeCare organics ($18 per ton) for processing compostable material. City staff is estimating that the program will divert 2,100 tons from the $25.90 category – for a savings of 2,100*$7.90=$16,590.
• $24,600 for the cost of 6,000 Sure-Close counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage.
• $25,000 for a subsidy to sell an estimated 1,000 additional brown compost carts to residents at a cost of $25 per cart instead of $50 per cart. About 12,000 carts are already in use.

A Doppstadt slow speed grinder/shredder used by WeCare Organics. (Image provided by WeCare)

Tree Pruning

The council will be considering the receipt of a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service – to put toward a tree pruning initiative. The pruning program would target those trees in the public right-of-way that are most in need of pruning (Priority 1). The initiative is also focused on the larger of the city’s street streets – those bigger than 20 inches in diameter. Those are the trees that have the greatest impact on the mitigation of stormwater.

Here’s where the trees targeted by the program are located:

Street trees in Ann Arbor greater than 20 inches in diameter. (Map by the city of Ann Arbor.)

From the city’s online tree inventory, The Chronicle queried those trees greater than 20 inches in diameter and designated as Priority 1 for pruning. A total of 684 trees fit those criteria. Here’s how they broke down by height, diameter and species.

Priority 1 trees by diameter. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by height. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by species. Maples are the dominant species among those that will be targeted by this pruning program. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

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Over the next three years, the city expects that each year it will need to purchase 1,500 recycling carts, 400 compost carts and 600 trash carts. The contract was authorized by the city council at its Dec. 3, 2012 meeting.

The contract through which the city is purchasing the carts is through the Metro Waste Authority, at a cost for the base carts that is slightly higher than through an alternate agreement that’s available through the National Intergovernmental Purchasing Alliance. When the cost of an RFID tag, labels, assembly and shipping are added in, the difference in the cost per cart in the two agreements is smaller: $55.01 (96 gallon), $49.86 (64 gallon) and $39.97 (32 gallon) in the Metro Waste Authority contract compared with $56.63 (96 gallon), $48.47 (64 gallon) and $39.77 (32 gallon) in the National Intergovernmental Purchasing Alliance.

The cost of adding an RFID tag is $0.75 per cart. The city would like to use the RFID tags to monitor set-out rates for recycling carts, in order to target education efforts and to manage the collection routes.

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]

Orange (left) and apple (right). The orange is larger than the apple. Its skin is bumpy in contrast to the apple's smooth covering. Also, the apple has a stem. (Photo by the writer.)

The decision came under some criticism for its initial capital costs, the possible reduction in quality of the resulting recycled material, as well as for its emphasis on coupon rewards for recycling more – which some people feared could feed back into a loop causing more consumption.

I think there are fair questions that can be asked about cost and quality.  What I missed, however, was a convincing sales pitch – one that included options within the basic idea of a single-stream system with an incentive program. In this column, I take a look at what I’d have found to be a more convincing sales pitch.

First, it’s a sales pitch that could have been more about choices than it was. Choices are a fairly strong value in American culture. It’s a strong enough value that a draft report on parking currently being written by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority includes the assertion that everything in Western culture is about choice. The claim generated some dissenting views at last Wednesday morning’s meeting of the DDA’s transportation committee, but also found strong support.

We begin, though, with another powerful idea in American culture: More is better.

The Psychology of More is Better

The city’s case for single-stream recycling was based largely on the potential for increasing a key statistic: pounds-per-household of recycled material. [That's an argument that feeds into the financial case for the switch to the new system.]

Ann Arbor’s pounds-per-household number stands at 357 pounds of recycled material, compared with something like 600 and 800 pounds in Rochester Hills and Westland, respectively. Both of those cities have implemented single stream-recycling systems with coupon reward programs.

But some folks probably wondered why that statistic was considered so key to the city’s case. Those are the folks who are sometimes labeled the “left flank” of Ann Arbor’s predominantly Democratic political landscape.

After all, that pounds-per-household number for recycling is not included as a key measure in the city’s State of the Environment resource use indicators. Instead, what’s tracked are per capita numbers for landfilled waste. That’s a number that we’d like to see get smaller. Because that’s what recycling is all about, right? It’s about reducing the amount of landfilled waste.

So why were city staff talking about a statistic that they wanted make larger?

It’s actually solidly based on the way we’re programmed as human beings. We respond to the idea of “more is better” in a way that is more powerful than “less is better.” Runners who are trying to lower their times for the 5K will inevitably talk about how many more miles they’ll run in training. Food Gatherers, a local nonprofit trying to reduce the number of people who are hungry, will focus about how many more pounds of food they’ve been able to recover this year than last year.

Put another way, offense is easier to cheer for than defense. When the University of Michigan hockey team scores a goal at Yost Area, the chant goes “We want more goals!” … along with “Sieve! Sieve! Sieve! Sieve! It’s all your fault, it’s all your fault, it’s all your fault,” directed at the opposing team’s goalie. And that seems to be a fairly generic chant for hockey fans everywhere. There doesn’t seems to be generic chant for an incredible save.

On the subject of more-is-less in the environmental movement, in a blog post from three years ago, Seth Godin wrote:

As a marketer, my best advice is this: let’s figure out how to turn this into a battle to do more, not less. Example one: require all new cars to have, right next to the speedometer, a mileage [mpg] meter. And put the same number on an LCD display on the rear bumper. Once there’s an arms race to see who can have the highest number, we’re on the right track.

It’s worth pointing out that Seth Godin is a marketer of more than modest ability. He visited Ann Arbor a few years ago and made a presentation at Michigan Theater. As a result of that presentation, I now own three copies of Godin’s book, “The Dip.” That’s three out of five copies that I originally purchased as a part of admission to the presentation. If I were a better consumer, I would have passed along all five copies to other people as Godin intended, instead of just two of them. But Godin was able to log five more in his “number of books sold” column. Faced with a choice between calling myself an idiot or calling Seth Godin a genius, I’m going with Seth as marketing genius. [No, we're not taking a poll on those choices.]

So using pounds-per-household of recycling is arguably a good marketing strategy to increase recycling performance in Ann Arbor. It taps the powerful “more is better” psychology that makes us tick as human beings. And the city alluded to this idea of competition and group participation as part of the reason it would be effective. But the focus of the sales pitch was the rewards program to be administered by RecycleBank, not the psychology of “more is better.”

Numbers as Their Own Reward

If we focus on the “more is better” psychology, this is a fair question to ask: How much extra recycling behavior do you get just from keeping track, plus the “more is better” psychology? That’s a different question from the one that was actually given some discussion: How much extra recycling behavior is due just to having a larger bin with no requirement of sorting?

An alternative not presented to the city council was this: Bring just the motivational meter to the surface, without coupon rewards, by providing residents with information about how much they’re recycling per household – via the city’s website, for example. Instead, the motivational meter was  linked to the RecycleBank coupon reward system.

Given the size of the 10-year contract with RecycleBank – $2 million over the course of the contract – it’s fair to ask: What is the recycling performance differential between an incentive program based purely on providing numerical feedback to residents, versus one based on providing feedback in the form of coupons? One could imagine the pure numerical feedback approach spurring good-natured competition between people on different recycling routes, or perhaps a mechanism for settling ancient neighborhood grudges. And out of that could come greater recycling performance.

As described by the RecycleBank sales representative at the council’s March 15, 2010 meeting, a large part of what the RecycleBank contract pays for is their efforts to establish partnerships with vendors to provide coupons and to educate residents about the point system and relating it to coupons.

Why isn’t it an option to eschew the coupon program and just focus on keeping numerical track as a feedback loop – and leave RecycleBank out of the picture? It’s partly because RecycleBank equipment is a key part of the technology for keeping track. That equipment includes RFID readers mounted on the trucks – which capture participation information from the RFID tags on every curbside cart – plus the computer installed at the materials recovery center (MRF), for capturing weight data.

This equipment is what’s covered by the escape clause in the RecycleBank contract – it’ll cost the city $150,000 if it decides not to fund the program – the price of RecycleBank’s equipment.

According to RecycleBank spokesperson Melody Serafino, who spoke to The Chronicle by phone, that equipment consists of proprietary hardware and software.

So we’re outsourcing two distinct activities: (i) a proprietary technology installation for keeping track numerically of participation and truck weights, and (ii) a coupon incentive program that ties into a coupon rewards program and merchant partnership program.

Can a city choose to implement just the numerical keeping-track part? Serafino explained that RecycleBank wouldn’t necessarily completely reject the idea forever if a city were to ask for just that module, but stressed that RecycleBank was a rewards and relationships company. Their national partners would like to be a part of the relationship in every RecycleBank community, she explained. What they’re offering, she said, was a way to establish loyalty between residents and  geographically local bricks-and-mortar establishments where residents could, for example, enjoy a $5 discount on some item they’d be purchasing anyway. That would held keep local dollars local, she said.

What I wanted to see in the sales pitch to the city council and to the community was the choice to start off just with keeping track numerically of recycling performance. It would be interesting and potentially valuable to measure the effect on recycling performance when enhanced by just a numerical means of keeping track – with no coupon rewards.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting just converting to a single-stream collection system and stopping there. The idea is that we’d ask RecycleBank for just the counting system, with household data piped straight to the city website where it could be looked up by residents. It would be similar to the system already in place for tracking city water usage. [To view a daily graph of your water usage, get a copy of your water bill so that you can type in your account number, and start with the My Property page of the city's website.]

Keeping a numerical track of recycling performance is not the business RecycleBank is in. They’re in the rewards and relationship business. So keeping numerical track is simply a tool in service of those rewards and relationships. But it seems to me that RecycleBank might discover that the idea of keeping numerical track is a lucrative business, too – maybe more lucrative than rewards and relationships.

If  comparable recycling performance can be achieved just by providing people with numerical feedback on their recycling, RecycleBank could shed all their staff whose function is to establish retail partner relationships, and focus exclusively on hardware and software installations. The benefit to a city would be roughly the same, so a city would presumably be willing to pay roughly the current price. That’d be a win for RecycleBank – although they might need to contemplate a name change.

On the other hand, if RecycleBank can show that numerical feedback alone has a far lesser effect on improving recycling performance than a coupon rewards built on top of the numbers, that would also be a win for RecycleBank. They’d be able to prove: You need our people, not just our technology.

The Sales Pitch I Wanted: In converting to single-stream, we’re going to tap the “more is better” psychology. We can choose to do that in three different ways: (i) provide numerical feedback only, (ii) provide numerical feedback in the form of coupon rewards, and (iii) start with numerical feedback and add coupon rewards later if performance doesn’t meet projections. Which would we like to pursue as a community?

Activities versus Outcomes

The city’s sales pitch to the public for this more-is-better marketing strategy also missed a key point: What’s the evidence that other communities’ bigger numbers for curbside recycling translates into smaller numbers of landfilled waste in those communities?

Consider the analogous question for Godin’s scenario, where every car has a real-time miles-per-gallon indicator on the dashboard and the bumper – call it a Godin Gauge. Let’s imagine every car is equipped with a Godin Gauge, and that people standing around the water cooler brag back and forth about their mileage numbers and drivers’ miles-per-gallon nationwide gets measurably higher. Success? Well, no.

The metric for success, presumably, is still total fuel consumed per capita. And that number might still be going up, despite the Godin Gauge – if people are driving farther than ever … because they feel less guilty about driving at all … because their Godin Gauge tells them they’re getting a whopping 75 mpg.

Or consider the city of Ann Arbor’s efforts to increase bicycle lane mileage. It’s a number we can try to increase, but if our per capita vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) keeps increasing – and it does, according to the city’s State of the Environment Report – then we cannot claim success.

It’s the difference between measuring the activities we do, and measuring the impact of those activities. At the last Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board meeting, board member Sue McCormick, who’s also public services area administrator for the city, nailed this point, when she objected that the goals and objectives for AATA’s CEO were too focused on activities and not enough on outcomes.

Monitoring our Godin Gauges is an activity. Installing bike lanes is an activity. In recycling, the pounds-per-household number is the measurement of an activity. But the outcome we should measure is landfilled waste. Measuring the activity is important, because it’s part of marketing recycling as more-is-better. However, among elected officials with the responsibility for overseeing the $6 million capital investment in single-stream recycling, the focus on the outcome of less landfilled waste was not front and center.

Back to the question that bears on outcomes: What’s the evidence that other communities’ bigger numbers for curbside recycling translates into smaller numbers of landfilled waste in those communities?

In the many months of lead time to the final vote on the single-stream incentive program, I didn’t see any member of the Ann Arbor city council insist on getting an answer to that fundamental, obvious data question. That’s a group that includes two Ph.D scientists in Carsten Hohnke and Stephen Rapundalo.

The day after the city council made the final votes to implement the single-stream plus incentive, The Chronicle posed that question to city staff in the following form:

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?

Total Waste and Apples-to-Oranges

The city, via its consultant, was eventually able to track down some information related to the question – we now have some numbers for Westland, but not Rochester Hills. [Sometimes you go to press with the numbers you have, not the numbers you wished you had.]

Recall that in round numbers Westland generates 443 (800 minus 357) additional recycling pounds-per-household. The total waste comparison between Westland and Ann Arbor looks like this:

Westland
3,117 lbs/household/year total waste (including yard waste)
1,277 lbs per capita waste (2.44 people per household)

Ann Arbor
2,590 lbs/household/year total waste (including yard waste)
1,162 lbs per capita waste (2.23 people per household)

-

Interpreting these numbers is an exercise in keeping the proverbial apples and oranges straight.

Comparing the total-waste-per-household numbers, Westland generates 527 pounds-per-household more total waste than Ann Arbor. Maybe that 527 pounds of total extra waste allows them to achieve more than Ann Arbor in recycling pounds per household? Probably not.

The fact that yard waste is included in the figure clouds the picture – what we really care about is recycled versus landfilled waste, and yard waste is not landfilled. Another apples-to-oranges factor: Westland’s numbers include pickup of “bulky” waste – like old sofas. Ann Arbor’s numbers don’t.

More importantly, comparing the per household numbers presupposes that household size in Westland and Ann Arbor is the same. It’s not. Ann Arbor’s smaller household size means that you’d expect a somewhat smaller total waste number, all other things being equal.

So comparing the per capita waste figures reduces the gap between Westland and Ann Arbor to 115 pounds [1,277 minus 1,162]. Percentage-wise, then, the average Westland household generates 20% more total waste [527 divided by 2,590], but the average individual Westlander generates only 10% more total waste [115 divided by 1,162].

So compared to the average Ann Arborite, the average Westlander has 115 pounds more trash, recycling, and yard waste removed from their curb every year.

The case for single-stream plus coupon rewards, however, was based on per household recycling numbers: 357 pounds per household compared to 800 pounds per household for Westland. Converting those numbers to per capita figures yields: 357 divided by 2.23 = 160 pounds recycling per capita for Ann Arbor; 800 divided by 2.44 = 328 pounds of recycling per capita for Westland.

So the average Westlander recycles 168 more pounds of material than the average Ann Arborite does.

Comparing the Westlander’s waste pile with the Ann Arborite’s, we know that it’s 115 pounds heavier, but the part of it that’s made of recycled material is 168 pounds heavier. So even if all the additional weight in the Westlander’s waste pile is due to recycled material – and we subtract that from the Westlander’s recycling efforts – we’d have equal-weight waste piles, but the Westlander’s pile would have 53 more pounds of recycling in it.

That’s a long story to have to tell to arrive at the conclusion that the single-stream plus coupon incentive program in Westland will improve recycling performance in Ann Arbor and thereby reduce landfilled waste.

The tale would be simpler if we had the X and Y numbers from the question we posed. It would also be simpler if the city had relied on per capita numbers, not per household numbers.

It’s important to acknowledge that apples-to-apples comparisons against other communities are not easy when it comes to solid waste. But when all that’s possible is an apple-to-orange comparison, then we need to acknowledge that.

It’s also important to recognize that the “more is better” psychology that will likely fuel the success of Ann Arbor’s new single-stream program should not be the metric of success. Success should continue to be measured as the city’s State of the Environment Report does it: per capita total waste and percentage diverted from the landfill.

The Sales Pitch I Wanted: We’re going to tap the psychology of “more is better” as a marketing tool, but we’re still going to measure success by per capita landfilled waste. Our per capita landfilled waste right now is X. We expect it to be Y after five years.

The Psychology of Harder is Better

Part of the city’s sales pitch for single-stream was based on ease and convenience – residents will no longer need to sort their recycled materials into two separate containers, and they’ll have a convenience cart with wheels, instead of two totes that have to be lifted manually. The carts won’t be an improvement for everyone – there are surely people who can manage the totes one at a time with a limited amount of material, but who will not physically be able to wrassle the carts over bumpy terrain.

But on average, wheeling a single cart out to the curb, where it will stand proudly at attention next to its blue brother – the trash cart – will make recycling in Ann Arbor easier than before. Not to mention the fact that the comparable size of the recycling cart will now convey a better message than the comparatively tiny totes: Your volume of recycled material should rival your volume of landfilled trash.

I think it would be more effective, however, to talk about how the carts will make life in Ann Arbor easier, rather than how they’ll make recycling easier.

Here’s why. Our basic idea of what makes recycling important has something to do with the fact that we think it’s virtuous. There’s an orthodoxy associated with it. It’s a good thing to do and doing it makes you virtuous. Virtue shouldn’t come easy. Virtue should be at least a little bit hard.

The idea that the things worth doing are those things that are difficult is something baked into our culture. It’s not an accident that John F. Kennedy, in his 1962 speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas, talked about the reasons for choosing to go to the moon and to take on other challenges this way:

… not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Granted, single-stream recycling is a bit remote from traveling to the moon.

However, at least for some of us, part of the reason we engage in an “environmentally friendly” lifestyle choice is precisely because it’s difficult, and we derive some sense of virtue from it. For example, I get around mostly by bicycle, even in the wintertime. There are myriad benefits related to my work here at The Chronicle – I never have to hunt for parking when I attend an event, and when I see sources walking down the street, I can just pull right up and chat.

But mostly the bike is about the fact that it’s hard enough that most people don’t use one for transportation. If it were easy, and half the population rode a bike, I’d probably be far less enthusiastic about it. As it is, though, part of the self-motivating story I can tell myself is that I’ve got a little extra in my pile of virtue, on account of my bicycle riding.

So when we tell old-school “left flank” recyclers that recycling will be easier, part of what they might be hearing is, “You’ll no longer be doing something that has virtue.” Or worse, “That virtuous activity you previously took so seriously, wasn’t really necessary.”

That’s why a “life will be easier” message is, I think, likely to be more effective. Even those of us who believe that certain things should be hard, will find it tough to argue that that life in general should be hard.

The Sales Pitch I Wanted: Life in Ann Arbor will be easier once we convert to single-stream recycling.

The Finances of Easier is Better

Part of that “life will be easier” message, however, needs to include some discussion of financial ease. Included in the council and staff discussion was the projected payback period for the investment in the single-stream infrastructure – carts, trucks, and improvements to the materials recovery facility (MRF). That period is projected to be around 6.75 years in an average market for recycled materials.

After that period the system will presumably continue to show the same efficiencies – compared to the current two-stream system – that allow for the payback on the investment. At the point that the investment is paid off, then, here’s a fair question: Do the increased efficiencies from the implementation of the single-stream system warrant a reduction in the city’s solid waste millage?

The city’s solid waste millage, which is levied at a rate of 2.467 mill, generates roughly $11 million a year. That millage, which appears as “City Refuse” on property tax bills, is enabled by state statute. Under that statute, a city council can enact a tax up to 3 mill in order to fund a garbage collection system.

The capital used to fund the single-stream investment came from laying aside money from this millage as a cash reserve. The October 2009 presentation to the city council put the solid waste enterprise fund at around $9 million.

So what was the capital investment to be paid back?

The October 2009 city council working session presentation gave a payback analysis for the MRF upgrade at $3,500,000  [authorized by the city council at its Nov. 15, 2009 meeting] and cart purchases at $1,281,600 [authorized by the city council at its Dec. 21, 2009 meeting].

The purchase of four additional trucks at a price of $1.2 million was authorized at the council’s Dec. 21, 2009 meeting, but was not included in the October 2009 payback analysis.

Starting in FY 2011, the payback analysis shows net returns to the solid waste fund balance of $625,000, $976,000, $1,046,000, and $796,000 for an average of $860,000 per year. The variation is due to the variability in the market for recycled material.

But taking $860,000 as an average annual savings compared to the two-stream system, we should be able to rely on that savings to persist even after the capital investment is paid back. The $860,000 savings translates into .19 mill in tax. Based on the payback analysis, then, it seems reasonable to make a tax decrease a part of the sales pitch. That’s a tax decrease that should be expected independently of the city’s possible exploration next year of a privatization option for garbage collection, which would be accompanied by a reduction in the solid waste millage.

The Sales Pitch I Wanted: In around six years, life in Ann Arbor will get a little easier due to single-stream recycling, because your taxes will go down … a little.

Cart Coda

Our two-stream recycling totes currently go to the curb about every third week. That’s often enough to keep them from overflowing from their space where the dishwasher previously sat.  I doubt that I’ll put out my single-stream recycling cart for collection every week when they’re issued in July – even though I’d get more coupon rewards for doing that. I think we’re pretty well maxed out on what we recycle. So to me, the ability to put out the recycling only every six weeks or so is reward enough.

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]