The meeting and the letter came after SPARK had declined several previous requests for its financial statements – from rank-and-file residents, journalists as well as elected officials. SPARK’s previous decision not to release past statements became moot when Ann Arbor resident Kai Petainen received the past records on request from the state of Michigan Attorney General’s office.

Ann Arbor SPARK contracts with the city’s local development finance authority – an entity that’s funded through tax increment financing (TIF) – to operate a business accelerator. SPARK also receives grants from several public bodies, including the city of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County. [.pdf of SPARK's 2006-10 audited statements]

Based on Krutko’s letter, it now appears that SPARK will itself be providing past as well as future financial statements on its own website.

Krutko’s letter was included in a message that Rabhi sent to an online group – called “aa better local politix” – with a positive update on what he described as his efforts to increase SPARK’s financial transparency. Rabhi described the Nov. 25 SPARK board meeting as tense, but was positive about the nature of the board’s conversation and the outcome. From Rabhi’s message:

By the end of the meeting, staff were empowered by the board to develop a comprehensive recommendation on how to move forward and to begin with initial implementation. In my perception, staff actually seemed energized by the way in which I framed up the issue and the ensuing discussion at the board table.

Krutko’s letter to Rabhi and Powers cites specific steps that SPARK will now be taking:

• We have posted our most recent financials on our website.
• We are developing a “Frequently Asked Questions About SPARK” summary to be posted on our website.
• We are preparing to post our 2013 Financial Statements upon completion by our Auditors in Spring 2014.
• We are requesting your help in being placed on an upcoming Board of Commissioners and City Council agenda at that time to answer any questions in these public forums about our financial statements.
• We will develop a Use of Funds Quarterly Report to elected officials, on activities supported by public funding provided to SPARK.
• As we have done in the past, we will continue to respond to specific questions from elected officials at any time.

[.pdf of Dec. 4, 2013 letter from Ann Arbor SPARK's Paul Krutko] [.pdf of Dec. 4, 2013 message from Yousef Rabhi]

The state enabling statute allows for either the mayor or the city administrator to serve on the board of a DDA. Mayor John Hieftje has served that role for his 13-year tenure as mayor.

However, discussion had occurred throughout the council’s recent consideration of the city’s DDA ordinance about the possibility of appointing the city administrator instead of Hieftje to serve in the statutory slot on the DDA board. Hieftje has announced that he’s not seeking re-election as mayor in 2014.

Even though the issue was not discussed explicitly by the council at its Dec. 2 meeting, in the document the council approved for its routine annual committee assignments, Powers’ name was indicated as the DDA board appointment. [For additional background on that appointment to the DDA board, see: "Column: Connecting Dots – DDA, FOIA."] [.pdf of all assignments]

FY 2014 Ann Arbor budget box. (Chronicle illustration using city of Ann Arbor budget summaries.)

That hypothetical was part of an April 2 conversation between Powers, chief financial officer Tom Crawford, and Chronicle editor Dave Askins. The focus of the conversation was to confirm and clarify some of the ideas that have been expressed at the city council’s budget retreat and work sessions over the past few months.

Announced by Powers and Crawford at the most recent council work session, on March 25, is the fact that the budget proposal is now essentially “inside the box” – meaning that it falls within the parameters imposed on Crawford by the city council’s adopted fiscal discipline priority. [.pdf of general fund budget summary as of March 25]

The tentative summary of the general fund budget calls for recurring general fund expenditures in FY 2014 of roughly $80.8 million, with $83.6 million in expenditures the following year.

Until March 25, the draft two-year plan had called for expenditures that would have left the city’s general fund unrestricted balance at $13.1 million (16.1% of operating expenses) and $9.7 million (11.5%) for FY 2014 and FY 2015, respectively. In the second year of that plan, the 11.5% left the city well short of the 15-20% currently recommended by Crawford, even though it’s within the 8-12% mandated by city policy.

But on March 25, the revised budget proposal called for unrestricted fund balances of $13.8 million (17%) and $12.1 million (14.4%) for the respective years.

Also up to March 25, the budget proposal had called for a two-year deficit of $252,000 for a specific subset of line items – which included recurring revenues, recurring expenses, recurring new requests and one-time requests. That’s a number that Crawford wants to balance for the two-year plan, even if it doesn’t balance in any one year. On March 25, the new figure was positive at $699,000 – or almost $1 million better than the original proposal.

The conversation between Powers, Crawford and Askins is reported below in more detail.

Pulling out some highlights, the discussion confirmed that this year’s budget won’t include a significant re-thinking of service delivery. Greater efficiencies and improved service could result from taking advantage of opportunities as they arise, but the recent departure of IT director Dan Rainey is not seen as an immediate opportunity for that kind of efficiency  – say, through a further merging of the Washtenaw County and city IT operations. Rainey’s position will be filled. With respect to IT in general, the telecommunications component of the staff’s draft economic development work plan – referred to as “fiber optic to the premises” – is still so conceptual in nature that the question of funding hasn’t been explored in detail.

Communication to the public from the city – in the form of reliable, consistent information about police and fire incidents – is a key part of the council priority that Ann Arbor feel (and be) safe. Related to that priority, the city administrator appears receptive to the idea of a data feed produced by the city containing all the police and fire calls. He indicated that a survey of citizens on attitudes and experience with public safety, as well as a range of other topics, is likely to be included in the FY 2014 budget.

With regard to a tentative proposal to remove funding for re-use of the city-owned 415 W. Washington site, it appears that the change was purely a function of a desire to get the budget “into the box.”

Priority One: Budget Discipline

Askins: I just wanted to start with the very first council priority [budget discipline] and the work plan associated with that – that’s the one that I would characterize as sort of “magnificently boring.” [.pdf of 2014 draft priority area work plans] So it’s basically keep doing what we’ve always done with respect to identifying efficiencies as they come up: We’re not looking to radically rethink the way we’re delivering services this time around. That might be for an off year in the future. But essentially we’re going to continue to exercise our usual good sense with respect to being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars?

Powers: Yes. And continue to review and work on opportunities where services can be delivered differently with the outcomes being: better service, less cost, or both. Opportunities for cooperation with other local governments, for example. The point that was made at the work session is that we don’t have any [additional efficiencies] currently on the shelf, that the staff is actively pursuing. And that was the reason for us calling that out – to make sure that the council understood that. If there were a different direction provided to staff [by the council], we could certainly be more aggressive in pursuing those opportunities.

I don’t know if we would be successful, because as I think Tom [Crawford] articulated very well, those opportunities and those initiatives take time, and for them to be lasting, for them to be sustainable, they really need to make sense for all parties – and not be a forced arrangement that may bring some temporary savings, some temporary benefits, but then fall apart because it really wasn’t built on a solid foundation. Dispatch, for example, I think will last – because it made sense, or if it’s sharing a service, then that lends itself to merge a multi-jurisdictional type of delivery. [Police dispatching for the Ann Arbor police department is now outsourced to the Washtenaw County sheriff's office.]

Askins: But my understanding of the conversation at work sessions is that this year the path to identifying those greater efficiencies is not going to come from the arbitrary imposition of some reduction targets, just to see what the various departments can come up with.

Powers: Correct.

Askins: I think [Ward 2 councilmember] Jane Lumm expressed some frustration about why aren’t we doing that. Why aren’t we identifying some reduction target to hit – because we should always be reducing by some amount to see what the departments come up with in response to that? So it’s my understanding that the push for greater efficiencies and improvements in services will not come from an across-the-board “let’s reduce” but rather from being judicious, and in taking advantage of opportunities when they come up. So, we didn’t anticipate that the set of events would necessarily unfold, but now that they have, we have an opportunity to do something.

Powers: Correct.

IT Operations

Askins: My actual specific question in connection with this issue relates to IT director Dan Rainey’s departure: Does that represent an opportunity to capitalize on the already existing collaboration that the city has with Washtenaw County, with respect to IT?

The city and county share data servers, and there’s some sharing of staff already. There are specific initiatives, like GIS mapping, that happens in collaboration with the county and the city – with fantastic results, from my vantage point. … I don’t think anybody was sitting around saying, “If Dan would only leave, then we could implement some further thing.” But given that he has left the city, does that represent an opportunity to say, Okay, we didn’t necessarily plan for that to happen or even hope for that to happen, but now that it has happened, let’s look at maybe further consolidating IT operations with the city and Washtenaw County? [Crawford has assumed the role of interim director of IT. When former city administrator Roger Fraser left the city, Crawford served as interim of that position, too, until Powers was hired.]

Powers: I am looking at the interim director!

Crawford: At this time … our organization is sizable enough, with unique enough needs, that we are presently planning to seek to fill the position – with the expectation that we continue these productive and mutually beneficial efforts that have been started [with the county].

Askins: Do you have any idea at this point whether that would be an internal hire, or an external hire, or what the timeline would be?

Crawford: I hope to have the position [posted] by the end of the month. It would be posted internally and externally.

Askins: It’s my sense that you already have plenty to do.

Crawford: Yeah, I am not looking to hold onto this long! Fortunately, we have a talented group that can sustain it for the interim period.

Fiber to the Premises

Askins: In connection with IT, and it might be that this is only thematically linked and has no actual practical connection here to real life, but IT shows up in the work plans – in my mind at least – in the form of the economic development piece. Residential fiber is on the list. [It's actually characterized on the list as "fiber to the premises."] In my recollection of the fiber initiative, when Google was offering their program and the city of Ann Arbor applied … former congressman Wes Vivian came and addressed the city council and he said, Listen, if Google doesn’t do this for us, we have got to figure out a way to do this for ourselves. It’s that important.

So what’s your sense of that work item? Are you getting any clear direction from the city council on that? Left to your own devices without any direction from the council, is that something were you would say, Yes, that’s something that really is important that we should pursue, and it’s just that we have to get a way to pay for it?

Powers: That is very important, and I think it’s part of place-making, part of having an environment that’s conducive to businesses and residents choosing to locate in Ann Arbor and stay in Ann Arbor. It’s also an example of the strategic cooperation that I think your earlier question was referring to in the first work area that you described as “boring.” But certainly that partnership with others is a key to having it feasible for us – because I don’t see it as something we could do on our own. It has to be in partnership with others. Our next step at a staff level will be to develop that action item into a more specific recommendation or proposal for the council to consider – and we are not at that point yet. Is there anything you want to add to that, Tom?

Crawford: “Fiber to the premises” is probably a better description than “fiber to the home.” … I think that’s what you’re seeing occurring in different cities. That means it doesn’t pick up just residences, but also businesses. Google is going into the home with their stuff. What you’re seeing other people do is going to the curb – just so you are aware of the distinction. It means different things to the business case and it means different things to the end user and potentially to the community, depending on whether they care about houses versus businesses.

Askins: So in terms of a possible funding sources, at least for the downtown area I would think of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority and the Local Development Finance Authority. And specifically the LDFA, because that’s actually in one of its foundational documents, where it references telecommunications investments as an eligible expenditure. I’ve haven’t checked in recently to see what the LDFA’s finances look like. But the last time I checked in, there was some interest expressed on the LDFA board to make sure that the LDFA was not holding on to excess funds but was actually spending them. The sentiment was: You know, we’re not a savings account. If it’s 15% minimum fund balance that we have to keep, then we keep 15% and not more. [Crawford sits on the LDFA board in a non-voting, ex officio capacity.]

Crawford: That is still fair [to characterize LDFA board sentiment that way].

Askins: And so people were sort of saying: Hey, what about a wet lab? If we have the money, we should be spending it on something – so maybe a wet lab. When I was sitting in that meeting … I was thinking: Wet lab? How about fiber?

Crawford: You asked about funding and that’s relevant when you have an idea that has matured to the point where funding becomes an issue. I don’t think we have a concept that is that mature yet.

Askins: So it’s not even to the point where we have to figure out how to pay for this, because there is no “this”?

Crawford: Well, the [budget] proposal that the LDFA has for this year has not got anything like that included. … If you want to talk concept, yes, then the DDA is a possibility and the LDFA is a possibility. But there are so many steps it’s got to go through. Should public funds be involved? If so, in what way? Those questions have to be addressed. I’ve looked at various alternatives of possible funding for a concept, and I think we will continue to do that.

Askins: The third funding possibility I was thinking of is the cable licensing fees. Currently, by ordinance that has to go to community access television or communications for the city. Communications is a fairly general concept – right now I think it funds 1.5 FTEs – so that’s Lisa Wondrash’s position and Joanna Satterlee’s. My understanding, though, is that you could – or rather, the city council could in its wisdom – change the ordinance to direct cable licensing fees to allow for some other use  … For example, for the sake of argument, the ordinance could be changed so that half of the revenues have to go to community access television and communications, and half could be available for telecommunications-related infrastructure. Just conceptually.

Crawford: I’m aware of that conceptually.

Public Safety Communications

Askins: Related to communications, communications are an integral part of the work plan for public safety – the idea that success looks like this: We perceive the community to be a safe place. One of the action items involves communications, making sure that people have a reliable and accurate information source on which to form their perceptions.

Crawford: And we also have the survey that we’ve talked about.

Askins: At the work session it seemed to me like the idea of doing the National Citizens Survey resonated with the council? [.pdf of 2008 Ann Arbor National Citizens Survey]

Powers: Me, too.

2007-2008 National Citizens Survey Ann Arbor: Public Safety

2007-2008 National Citizens Survey Ann Arbor: Public Safety Benchmark Results

2007-2008 National Citizens Survey Ann Arbor: Reported Crimes

Askins: With the proviso from councilmember [Chuck] Warpehoski that he didn’t just want to do a survey, without saying in advance what we would consider to be good survey results. We don’t want to do the survey and then have people arguing about what it meant – which we will do anyway, of course. But I think that his thought was: We need to decide what success would look like in terms of the survey. Have you given any thought to what success would look like?

Powers: Not yet.

Askins: From my vantage point, I would say, the last time we did it was in 2008 with comparative data for 2007. So this time around I would expect that we would do at least as good or better than the last time around. Whether that’s reasonable or not, I think that’s the expectation that the community will have.

Crawford: Really? That’s an interesting assumption. That was the start of the great recession, with a lot of changes in the world. And a lot of reductions in police nationwide.

Askins: I’m not saying that’s necessarily a reasonable assumption, but I’m saying that this is the expectation I would predict for this community. You know Ann Arbor is a place where it’s always “better, faster, stronger,” so if we did a survey in 2008, and if the percentage of people who feel safe after dark was – let’s say for the sake of argument – 79%, it had better be 79% or above this time around. Or else people will conclude: Well, that just goes to show you that the reduction in police officers had a negative effect. That would be my prediction. I’m not arguing that position. And then there are the benchmarks that are built into the survey itself for the communities. And I would think that for Ann Arbor it would be automatic and axiomatic that of course, we will be better than the benchmark for all categories across the board. That’s just the expectation in the community.

Powers: And if council agrees with the recommended budget, I’ll be very interested in the results of a survey that would allow us to accurately and comprehensively compare Ann Arbor to benchmarks. The interesting discussion could very well be around the benchmarks and our definition of success. I think the problem and success statements from the council developed are a very good start and a nice foundation. And I think the next discussion around those would be that the council considers what questions to ask. For me, a helpful outcome will be: How well do we do, compared with agreed-upon benchmarks.

Askins: But the survey already does supply benchmarks. The results, if you scan through them, scores the outcomes for Ann Arbor … it’ll say it’s above or below the benchmark of other communities. … If we agreed as a community in advance – that we’re willing to say that Ann Arbor is perceived as a safe place if we’re better than the benchmarks measured in this survey – then we’d have a consensus that if we meet that, then the city will have achieved success as council has defined it.

Powers: By one measure.

Askins: One of the action steps for perception of public safety was media articles talking about the successful conclusion of criminal investigations. So as residents of the city – just imagine that you are living in a city and not working for the city: What kind of crime/police coverage would you want to read? Let’s imagine that Ann Arbor had a daily newspaper and a section called “public safety.” If you were the editor of that publication, what kind of thing would you put in that public safety section? I mean, it would be great, right, if every day it was “No Crime, Again Today!”

Powers: I’m kind of leaning the other way – and say ideally it would just be like the daily activity log. The activity log that generated an actual dispatch call or some recordable event. Whether that is realistic for a community our size, I don’t know. For my own personal experience, family experience, that would be of interest to my family – that level of minutia.

Crawford: Kind of like an RSS feed of the calls?

Powers: Yes. I think what chief [of Ann Arbor police John] Seto was thinking in the action items would be: consistent reporting, helped by the city through providing the information. It would be a consistent reporting on the crimes and activities that do generate community and resident interest – as measured by not only our experience, but more importantly as measured by the phone calls and e-mails we receive. And the same types of input that councilmembers receive from constituents. Graffiti, for example. I think the higher profile cases do generate some media coverage – the breaking-and-enterings, the assaults. I think chief Seto recognizes that we need to be taking more responsibility as an organization for sharing the information.

Even with our communications staff, I think we tend to not really share the good work that is done by our employees, and that is being done by the police officers. We just say: That’s part of why we are here – an occasional thank you will suffice, thank you very much. We don’t do as good of a job as we should be doing in sharing the good work and the results of that good work with the community – either through the media, or through the city council, or through our own press releases.

Askins: Let’s go back to the part where you talk about the data feed of just the activity log and the reports.

Powers: It could be a version of [The Chronicle's] Stopped.Watched. Maybe Stopped.Called.?

Askins: Well, to some extent, though, the city already does push information like that out in the form of the … it’s the mapping thing.

Crawford: The website is crimemapping.com.

Askins: That’s already a huge step in that direction, I think. So what I’ve been doing since it launched … is routinely downloading everything. [The site provides data for just the most recent six months, on a forward-moving window.] So we’re getting to the point where there’s two years worth of data. So instead of putting my energy into rewriting city press releases … I can plot by month incidences of property damage against temperature. So that would be the kind of work that I could do as a journalist – analysis of trends as opposed to the daily business of telling people about all the “mayhem” that is happening, when in reality it’s not really mayhem, but just a lot of routine stuff. …

Ann Arbor Reported Incidents March 2011-March 2013: Malicious Destruction of Property plotted against Temperature (Data from crimemapping.com and wunderground.com; chart by The Chronicle)

Ann Arbor Reported Incidents March 2011-March 2013: Malicious Destruction of Property (Data from crimemapping.com; chart by The Chronicle)

Ann Arbor Reported Incidents March 2011-March 2013: Home Invasion Forced Entry plotted against Temperature (Data from crimemapping.com and wunderground.com; chart by The Chronicle)

Askins: So back to this idea of just a data feed. How close would you be to implementing something like that?

Powers: I don’t know. You should ask the IT director!

Crawford: I don’t know either.

Askins: … I would love to be able to just offer readers a display of the standard data feed for the city of Ann Arbor for crime calls and the same for fire calls. So that you get reporting on 100% of fire calls and 100% of police calls.

Crawford: There’s a lot of calls we would have to assess: Are they real or not? … I mean as far as trying to conclude that there is actually an injury or an incident. A lot of calls, to be honest, might just be a cop calling in to get information. … It’s more complex than what’s on the surface.

Powers: What I said was meant to be more the external calls. Someone calls in about kids skateboarding in the parking garage, or suspicious youth near a dumpster and they think it might be graffiti. That’s what we’d share.

Askins: The follow-up piece would be when that incident is resolved, you can imagine a separate sharing of information by the city that this is how it was resolved. And you can go back and link to the original item in the feed. And you start to get a sense of what is normal and what is routine. There’s a certain amount of just background noise that’s happening – whether it’s kids acting up, or vehicles getting broken into, or people getting assaulted, I guess.

But typically what you see is only sort of the dramatic thing, the thing that is meant to scare you or make you concerned, and you get the impression there is bad stuff happening all the time. And it’s just that there is tons of stuff happening all the time, but a range of it.

Powers: Whether there is an objective survey with benchmarks or whether it’s providing the data, my point is that we’re going to be consistent. We’re not the ones alarming or minimizing threats and risks and dangers. If the council chooses, or if individual councilmembers choose to do that, that’s their decision. But from a perspective of the work plan, from the perspective of trying to help council move forward with their success statements, we see providing good comparison data as well as providing good data on activity and outcomes as very important to accomplishing that work plan.

415 W. Washington

Askins: So you mentioned that your perception at the work session was that the citizens survey had resonated with councilmembers. And I think that anybody who was watching the work session would agree that councilmembers seem like they’re interested in pursuing that.

On a different topic, at the work sessions at least, I didn’t really see any explicit discussion by the council – or body language or anything – on the capital budget allocation for reuse of 415 W. Washington [a city-owned property with with one large building and a few smaller structures, as well as an area currently used as a surface parking lot in the city's public parking system.] But that item got revised [between March 11 and March 25, so that the $650,000 originally included in the city's capital improvements plan for reuse of the property has been removed from that year's capital budget.]

So how would that – I would not call it a decision, yet – but how did that tentative proposal evolve? Was that councilmembers conveying their thoughts to you privately? Or was it the result of the physical testing that was done on the property?

Powers: It’s not done yet. So, no on the physical testing. … That project is a good example of Tom primarily – and … Craig Hupy [public services area administrator] – really working hard with discipline to accomplish the success statement that he was given as a part of his budget and financial responsibilities. And specifically, that was to get the fiscal year 2014 and 15 “into the box.” He been sharing with me some earlier drafts of the budget summary and we weren’t “in the box.” … As we came up to the day on March 25, he said, Hey, Powers, we’re really close – what do you want to do? We met with Craig Hupy, and this project was one where there’s some room to help us get into the box. And that’s what we shared with the council that evening. …

In hindsight, I didn’t take the opportunity to communicate it to council – that this is still a fluid project. Perhaps literally – if we get the report back saying that there is water six inches beneath the floor! But it was based on what we know today to help accomplish the fiscal discipline goal. … We also had a discussion with Hupy, about how we have these two properties … 721 N. Main and 415 W. Washington. And as we need to prioritize and focus our resources, as we need to start moving forward … on these parcels and properties that are surplus to the city’s needs, let’s start that through the budget – prioritizing where would I put our resources. That’s where we ended up with 415 W. Washington [not budgeted for reuse in the capital budget].

What’s Next

On April 15, the city council’s second meeting this month, Ann Arbor city administrator Steve Powers will be submitting to the council a proposed budget for fiscal year 2014. The council will have until its second meeting in May to make any amendments. This year that meeting falls on May 20. Those deadlines are set by the city charter. The 2014 fiscal year starts on July 1, 2013.

Through the spring the council has held a series of work sessions on the topic of the FY 2014 budget. It’s been decided that a possible additional city council budget work session for April 8 will not be scheduled.

The Chronicle could not survive without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of public bodies like the Ann Arbor city council. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already providing the kind of support it takes to keep us sitting on the hard benches of city hall, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

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

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

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

This brief was filed from Ann Arbor city council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron. A more detailed report of the meeting will follow.

The cab was driving the two finalists to city hall, where they were interviewed by city councilmembers and senior staff – including Jones – in a round-robin format, cycling through three small groups to answer questions about their experience, abilities and approach to the job. A third finalist, Harry Black, had withdrawn his name from consideration last weekend.

Steve Powers, one of two finalists for the Ann Arbor city administrator job, during an interview with city councilmembers on July 12.

In addition to Jones, conducting the interviews were councilmembers Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), Tony Derezinski (Ward 2), Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), Mike Anglin (Ward 5), mayor John Hieftje, and city attorney Stephen Postema.

Each had been given briefing books prepared by the city’s human resources staff and consultants with Affion Public, a search firm hired by the city. The three panels consisted of (1) Briere, Rapundalo and Postema; (2) Hieftje, Higgins and Kunselman; and (3) Anglin, Derezinski and Jones.

Questions were essentially read aloud as scripts from these prepared materials to ensure uniformity of the interviewing experience. One or two questions were fairly general, for example: What do you think makes a good leader? But the majority were behavioral: Tell us about a time when your leadership skills were put to the test and what the outcome was.

The interviews were part of a two-day process, and included a lunch on Tuesday with staff and a public reception on Tuesday evening at the new municipal center, which featured five-minute presentations from each candidate, as well as time for informal conversations. On Wednesday, the finalists will be interviewed in city council chambers from 8 a.m. to noon. That session, which is open to the public, will also be videotaped and broadcast live on Channel 16 to allow viewing of the interviews by councilmembers and the public who are not able to attend.

It’s possible that a resolution making the appointment could be on the council’s July 18 agenda.

The Chronicle sat in on all interviews held Tuesday morning. This article reports on the responses by Powers. A separate article describes how Oppenheim responded to the interview questions. Because candidates often offered similar examples as answers to different sets of questions, their responses are summarized thematically.

Participatory Management Style? (Question from Candidate)

Towards the end of each of the three interview sessions, time was allotted for candidates to ask questions of the panel. Powers asked all three panels a question about the management style the city of Ann Arbor is seeking. He told them if a county administrator like him was on their short list – he’s been the county administrator of Marquette County, Mich., since 1996 – then that suggested to him councilmembers were looking for someone who had a more participatory, facilitative management style as opposed to a more a strong, CEO-type style.

Participatory Management Style: Background

By way of background, the connection of a county administrator to that management style is related to the nature of county governments as set forth in Michigan state statutes.

As Powers brought out during his interviews, county administrators in Michigan lead organizations that have several department heads who are elected officials, and who are accountable first to voters, not to the county administrator. In Marquette County, those include: the prosecuting attorney; sheriff; clerk; treasurer; register of deeds; drain commissioner, mine inspector; and district court judges. “They don’t have to do what I say,” explained Powers. “They have to be respectful at budget time, but they can do what they want.” In Michigan, county administrators are not strong CEO-types – simply by dint of the statutory structure – even if someone had that type of personality, said Powers.

For that reason, he said, a county administrator has to use a style of persuasion and logic as opposed to “do it because I say so.” Powers described how he had worked to build and maintain trust of the county department heads who are elected officials and the county board. He’d achieved that through respecting boundaries and recognizing the statutory authority of the elected officials. Building and maintaining that trust was something that Powers offered, when asked by the panel to name his “greatest career achievement to date.”

Also related to participatory management style, Powers described how over the last seven to eight years of his 15-year tenure, he has brought his management team into the budget process. “My budget is their recommended budget as well,” he said. The management team is also given “decision shares” on how to move forward.

Participatory Management Style: Council Response

What did councilmembers have to say in response to the question from Powers? Were they looking for a participatory and facilitative management style? Was that the current management culture at the city?

Mayor John Hieftje responded by saying that the process by which the city’s budget is developed has changed, which is indicative of overall changes in the culture, he said. The city administrator previously would just drop the budget in the council’s lap, he said. Now it’s a much longer interaction with the council. Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) added that this year the council is already starting to talk about the next budget.

Responding to remarks by Hieftje and Higgins about the budget, Powers said he’d started paying attention to Ann Arbor in 2009, and using some of the strategies that then-city administrator Roger Fraser had implemented.

On a different panel from Hieftje, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) responded to the question from Powers about the management style that the council is looking for, by saying, “Oh, that’s not easy! There are 11 of us. Each of us will have our own vision.” She told Powers that the council did not collaborate on their vision for a management style, even though they’d put together a job description for city administrator to be posted. There are also 114,000 residents to be considered, she said, or at least 85,000 – even if students aren’t included in the statistic.

Briere told Powers she’s looking for excellent communication skills from top to bottom, with the staff and with the public. The person the council chooses needs to be able to provide background so that the council can make a reasoned decision. The council has tried to talk about setting priorities for the budget, but she allowed: “We’re not there, yet.” However, she cautioned that this doesn’t mean councilmembers want a weak administrator. They’re looking for someone who is strong.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) agreed with Briere. The council is looking for someone with a strong chief executive background, but who can use other qualities as the circumstance requires – someone who has “people skills.” Every day the job will require something a little different, Rapundalo ventured. For someone to come in and say, “This is how we’re going to do it,” Rapundalo told Powers that would not work – “Not in this town!”

Powers followed up Rapundalo’s statement by saying that based on his background study, he had the impression that Ann Arbor city residents value process and transparency. Briere and Rapundalo agreed that was true. Briere joked that if Powers could be made of glass, with every thought, motive and concept completely visible, there are people who would still question whether everything he had done was transparent. Rapundalo also said there are times when you can only take transparency so far, due to other constraints. But he said Briere was right. Briere added it would be good to have the skill to change that dynamic, to create that trust – within the organization and in the community. That would be extraordinarily desirable, she said. Powers replied that it would be a great goal to strive for.

On the third panel, Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) said that Ann Arbor is at a critical threshhold time, though it’s in good shape compared to other cities. Ann Arbor is in a process of change, so it needs “someone who can enhance change and get it going.” Derezinski advised that the new city administrator needs to be able to take some risks: “Not all your decisions will be popular.” The city has had good leadership, he said, but times change and the new administrator needs to help the city manage change.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) responded by saying that he liked what Powers had to say about driving down decision-making to lower levels of the organization. It’s middle management that really runs any good organization, Anglin said. You have to respect staff enough to let them do their jobs. Anglin said he commended Powers, because that’s the approach Powers had expressed to the panel.

Motivation for Ann Arbor Job

A range of questions led to discussion of Powers’ motivation for wanting the specific job of Ann Arbor city administrator.

Motivation for Ann Arbor Job: Timing

Responding to a questions about why he’s interested in this particular position, Powers said he’d promised his youngest daughter that he wouldn’t disrupt her middle school and high school years with a move. She graduated from high school this year, so he’d met that promise. It’s a good time for him to be looking. He pointed to the long tenure of former Ann Arbor city administrator Roger Fraser and said he felt Ann Arbor would be a great place to live for him and his family.

Motivation for Ann Arbor Job: Leaving

The decision to look for other opportunities besides his current position in Marquette was the one Powers named as the most difficult decision he’d made in the last six months – he’d be leaving a good situation.

He said he was very fortunate – on the nine-person county board of commissioners, four were on the board that hired him. The former chair, he would consider a good friend. He has a lot of respect for the people he works with. It would be difficult to leave what he helped to build, especially the professional and personal relationships he had there. And Marquette County is actually looking at a promising economic and budget future – there’s a valuable deposit of nickel there, and Rio Tinto [a mining company] is a few months away from drilling it. That alone could increase the tax base by 50%, he said.

Motivation for Ann Arbor Job: Professional Growth

Powers called the Ann Arbor job an opportunity to grow. He said when he was 20 years old he decided he wanted to be a city manger and he’d attended the best school for that to earn his masters of public administration – University of Kansas. He’s been working in local government for 25 years, so he’s looking at the next challenge – he’s still striving. He told the panel he is 48 years old, so he doesn’t have too many more spots left. He’d always figured he would bounce around staying 4-5 years in a spot, climbing the ladder, but it hadn’t turned out that way, he said.

Motivation for Ann Arbor Job: Ann Arbor Is Ann Arbor

Powers told the panel he knows Michigan, knows the head of the Michigan Municipal League, and knows his way to Lansing. Given that he’d gone to school to be a city manager, “Flopping over to the city side [from the county] has always been of interest to me,” he said. It would be a way to continue to strive and challenge himself and to “recharge my professional batteries.”

He told the panel that Ann Arbor is attractive to him “because it’s Ann Arbor.” Ann Arbor is one of five areas that have done relatively well economically, he said, the others being Marquette, Traverse City, Midland, and Grand Rapids. So while Ann Arbor has challenges, it has opportunities and advantages, too. He pointed to the University of Michigan as a key. He pointed to running out of downtown office space, a problem Ann Arbor reportedly faces, as a great problem to have. To be able to take Ann Arbor forward would be a great professional opportunity, he said.

Motivation for Ann Arbor Job: Ann Arbor Is Not Minnesota

The geography of Powers’ career history also came up in the context of the position he held in Minnesota as coordinator for Martin County, Minn., from 1994-1996. He learned humility at that job, he said. His first task was find his own office – there was no physical office space. He realized he had to do all those things himself. He said when he accepted the job in Minnesota, he was losing his job in Oregon due to reduced funding, which was ultimately related to federal prohibitions on logging in the spotted owl habitat. [From 1987-1994, Powers served as the assistant county administrator and assistant to the county administrator for Jackson County, Oregon. His responsibilities there included managing human resources, labor relations, risk management, and organizational development and training.]

His boss was working with him to give him time to find other work, Powers said. The Minnesota position turned out to be a smaller job and the community was smaller than he’d realized. That’s why he was there only two years. He’d learned to balance urgency and doing his homework, he said. He related the description of his tenure in Minnesota partly due to a remark from Ann Arbor police chief Barnett Jones, who ventured: “Everyone has done something that doesn’t turn out to be right.”

Previous Experience: Parallels to Ann Arbor

In response to a question about how his previous positions related to the Ann Arbor city administrator job, Powers said all of his career stops helped, but the most pertinent was his current one as Marquette County administrator. Despite the smaller size of the community there, he cited the similar community characteristics: (1) a university plays a large role [Northern Michigan University for Marquette, and University of Michigan for Ann Arbor]; and (2) the region lost a major employer [K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base in Marquette, and Pfizer in Ann Arbor].

Previous Experience: K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base – Morale

Kenneth Ingalls Sawyer was a former Marquette County road commissioner who originally proposed an airport for the area, about 20 miles south of the city of Marquette. K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base was used as part of the strategic nuclear deterrent and in fighter-interceptor defense during the cold war era. It was closed in 1995. It previously employed around 10,000 Air Force personnel.

In the course of his responses to several of the questions posed by the interview panels, Powers cited issues related to Marquette County’s involvement with the economic redevelopment of K.I. Sawyer. He described how the county board of commissioners had decided – about a month before he was hired – that the county would play a role in the redevelopment of the base.

It was a controversial decision, he said, with some board members adamantly opposed to the idea that this was part of the appropriate function of a county government. But the board was under extreme pressure to do something. As a result of that decision, there were concerns about financial obligations that would be stretched.

He gave that situation as an example when asked to describe a time when morale was poor and what he did to handle it. He also cited the base redevelopment to illustrate how he kept his direct reports motivated. Morale was low for many county staff due to the extra financial burden and the fact that some felt that air base redevelopment was not part of a traditional county government structure. If morale was not low, Powers said, then staff were not enthusiastic.

What he did, he said, was to say to his staff: This was a decision of the county board and here’s the reasons the board thinks this will help the community if we implement this successfully. He told the staff that he knew the county could implement it successfully, because there was a good team in place. The state was involved for a short period of time, and there were some state staff involved for a while, but ultimately it was county staff who had to step up – the county’s attorney, planner, finance staff and the administrator’s office.

So the first thing to establish was that the policy decision was already made, and it had been made by elected policymakers. Whining and complaining wouldn’t change that. He told his staff that he had confidence in them that they could implement the decision and he would support them, with additional resources or a change in resources. But he told them he expected they’d have to work hard to accomplish it.

It caused some staff to grumble, Powers allowed. But he appealed to a higher calling: Don’t you want to be a part of the biggest challenge this community might ever face and do what you went to school to do? Overall that worked well, he said. But he allowed that a couple of people left.

As the project went along, he said he shared the success with the staff and they saw it was an opportunity for them to grow, a chance to do something different and challenging and to be recognized for the accomplishment. It became an award-winning project and helped the county budget.

Part of the base conversion was to move the county airport out to the location of the base, eliminating county general fund support for the airport. Powers said ultimately he felt like good decisions and recommendations to the county board were made on the reuse of the base – on utilities and housing and the role of the county in redevelopment of the base. More people are working there now than when it was announced for closure, he said. There’s better air service. He concluded: It’s been a successful project. He summarized the approach toward maintaining morale by saying: Tell ‘em why, tell ‘em this is the reality, and keep pushing towards the goals.

Previous Experience: K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base – Unexpected Challenge

Powers also cited the K.I. Sawyer base conversion when asked to give an example of something that was unexpected as far as the scope of challenges. He said his initial thought was: I’ll show these Yoopers how to do an Air Force base conversion! He quipped that he had his International City/County Management Association (ICMA) air base reuse handbook, and brought it to his office and plopped it down. He realized it was bigger and much more complex than he was expecting. He said he learned a better appreciation for knowing what he didn’t know and when to ask those who do know. He learned not to be afraid to look at how other people are doing something, he said.

Previous Experience: K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base – Personal Challenge

Powers also gave the K.I. Sawyer base conversion as the answer to a question about his biggest challenge in his current position. “It was a huge presence,” he said, with its 10,000 active military personnel. And part of the challenge was in handling the dissent from those who did not think the county’s role in the base’s redevelopment was appropriate. The challenge was to get everyone – including elected department officials – to work together on that, he said. It was a multi-year project that consumed most of his time, he said. The county’s probate judge, who is one of the stronger personalities in the community, at one point made the comment that the county was on auto-pilot, because all the focus was on Sawyer, Powers said.

That was a judge who was not supportive of the county’s involvement with Sawyer – he felt the county should have stuck to its knitting. The judge was tired of seeing nothing on the county board’s agenda except the airport. The judge went to the board chair and said Powers should be fired. Obviously, Powers said, he and that judge didn’t see eye-to-eye.

But Powers said that he would talk to that judge and respect his statutory authority. The judge was very data driven and Powers said he tried to relate to him on that level, and on the judge’s interest in the juvenile justice system. Now, 10-15 years later, Powers said he talks to that judge about the budget. Last Friday, the two had met and he shared with Powers what he was planning to say at the budget meeting that Powers was missing to interview for the Ann Arbor job. And Powers shared with him what he would have said if he could have attended.

Previous Experience: Northern Michigan University

Powers was asked about the university’s role in the community. Powers said the president of Northern Michigan University is one of his references – he’s in the Rotary Club with the president. They weren’t linked elbow to elbow, he said, but the two work together on the economic development organization – Lake Superior Community Partnership.

The president of NMU initiated meetings of the mayor, city manager, county board chair, Powers and some of the president’s leadership team to talk about town and gown issues. Powers said he works more closely with some of the university’s leadership team than with the president. The university is active in helping the county with the K.I. Sawyer base conversion.

NMU is looking at moving its aircraft maintenance program out to K.I. Sawyer. There’s a small aircraft maintenance company, a part of American Eagle, that hires every graduate of the NMU aircraft maintenance program. It’s small, but a nice program for getting students placed. One of the retired provosts is active in efforts to promote “green aviation.” There’s been cooperation with the airports in Houghton and in Escanaba on a privately-led effort to develop green aviation industries, and the retired provost is a part of that.

Long before he arrived, Powers said, NMU was established as a successful public safety academy. The sheriff, police and prosecutor are instructors at the public safety academy, Powers said. Powers is an adjunct professor in public administration, and uses interns from the political science, public administration department.

Lack of Communication: Rehiring Retired Employees

Asked to provide an example of a situation when he felt he did not communicate well, Powers described a decision to rehire employees who had previously retired. He gave the same example when invited to describe a time when he had to make a decision, but didn’t have the benefit of plans and policies or complete information.

His recommendation to the county board (which it followed) was to enact a policy of allowing the rehiring of retired employees – back in 2004, when the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System (MERS) dropped its earnings limitation. The county’s HR director came to him, Powers said, and explained that allowing retired employees to be rehired was a way the county could save some money – if a previously retired employee had started drawing their pension, the county didn’t have to make a contribution. Based on that, he recommended the policy to the board. In hindsight, Powers said, he should have taken the time to do additional due diligence. He should also have recognized that he needed to communicate earlier with a stronger effort. Just because he was tired of talking about it, did not mean that it didn’t need to be talked about, he said.

The decision had resulted in a change on the county board and was an issue in the county prosecutor’s race. Asked what the urgency was to make that decision before gathering more information, Powers explained it was the context of needing to get the savings for the 2005 budget. It’s still having repercussions seven years later, Powers said, and it was a decision made without complete understanding that he should have had as the board’s chief policy advisor.

Sense of Urgency, Excitement, Creativity

Asked to describe a time when he had a greater sense of urgency than those around him and what he did about it, Powers described a decision he made to eliminate the position of a department head who oversaw three key departments: building codes, facilities, planning. He said that despite the talk when he’d been hired about the difficult budget situation, he didn’t see evidence of much action on tough budgets.

So when the department head retired, he made the strategic decision to eliminate the position immediately – he didn’t wait until budget time. Because that department head was a good manager, he said, the three lower level administrators of those departments were ready for more responsibility and were ready to step up. Powers described it as driving decisions down to the lowest levels in the organization.

Asked what the immediate reaction was, Powers said it was positive, but allowed that there was some pushback. Sometimes he gets pushback from one of the three department heads. But the decision was certainly positive with the rest of the organization, Powers said, because people saw that he was going to do what he’s said he was going to do when he interviewed for the job.

Asked for an example of a situation where he created excitement about a repetitive routine, Powers described how his basic approach to repetitive routines is to ask: Do we really have to do this? Maybe we don’t have to do it at all, or maybe we can automate it.

But as an example, he said the task of performing inspections for compliance to building codes was perceived as mundane and repetitive by staff. Contractors felt that the county was unresponsive and bureaucratic, he said. There was not an excitement about helping the customer, he allowed. So the board created a task force to look at building codes and see how the county could be more responsive. The recommendation of the task force was to establish 72 hours as a turnaround time. The building codes management was working with the information systems (IS) department to get a new software package, which was exciting for IS. And the 72-hour turnaround time generated excitement for inspectors because they had standards to meet.

Asked for an example of a creative idea that he implemented and its impact on the bottom line, Powers described how he was now collaborating with another county with tax appraisals. There are fewer and fewer people with the necessary formal accounting certification to sign off on the equalization for the county, he explained. About seven years ago, when the equalization director retired, he decided that the county would try to find a retired assessor with the appropriate certification, and offer essentially to pay that person $30,000 a year for their signature. The alternative, he said, was to pay a $120,000 salary with benefits. So that’s what Marquette County did.

Then that person left, and he looked again to obtain the same kind of services. It turned out that the person who fit retired from neighboring Delta County. That left Delta County in the same situation. So Marquette and Delta counties both share the same assessor, both paying essentially for a signature.

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Black currently serves as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Global Commerce Solutions (GCS) Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based government services firm that provides program and project management support services to the public sector. From 2005-2008 he worked as the deputy chief administrative officer/chief financial officer for the city of Richmond, Virginia.

Wondrash was not able to provide any details at this time about the reason for Black’s withdrawal.

Black’s withdrawal leaves two remaining finalists: Ellen Oppenheim and Steve Powers. Interviews for those candidates start on Tuesday, July 12, and are open to the public.

Oppenheim most recently served as president and chief executive officer of the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority (RSCVA) from 2006 to 2011. Oppenheim resigned from that job in February. According to a report in the Reno Gazette-Journal, she cited a need for more time to take care of her mother in Texas, who was ill. The Gazette-Journal reports that under terms of her contract, she remains on the RSCVA payroll until Aug. 10. Her salary in that position is $234,000.

Preceding her resignation, Oppenheim received criticism for her handling of an event involving the American International Choral Festival early this year: “Possible RSCVA Miscalculation Could Cost Local Economy Millions.” Members of the Ann Arbor city council search committee were reportedly not apprised of this negative publicity.

Vetting of Ann Arbor city administrator candidates – through Lexis/Nexis as well as through news media background searches on candidates – was to be performed by a consultant hired by the city, Affion Public, in concert with the city’s human resources department.

Affion Public itself endured some negative publicity earlier this year. According to local media reports in Savannah, Georgia, when Affion conducted background checks on candidates for the city manager job there, Savannah city council members were not apprised of some pertinent information about finalist candidates.  [This op-ed piece published in the Savannah Morning News recounts a series of information gaps: "Affion's Whiffs." A subsequent news report, also published in the Savannah Morning News, discusses an additional issue about one of the Savannah city manager finalists that was not conveyed to the Savannah city council.]

The second remaining finalist for the Ann Arbor city administrator, Steve Powers, currently serves as county administrator of Marquette County, Mich. – a position he’s held since 1996. The Mining Journal, writing about Powers’ interest in the Ann Arbor position, reports that Ann Arbor is one of a few other positions he’s considering: “Eyeing a New Job.” In the Mining Journal article, Powers related the timing for his exploration of other opportunities to the fact that his children have now graduated from college and high school.

The city of Ann Arbor will move ahead with its schedule for candidate visits and interviews early this week. That currently includes round robin interviews with small groups of councilmembers starting at 7:30 a.m. at city hall on Tuesday, July 12. Also on July 12, a public reception for residents to meet the candidates will be hosted in the lobby of the new municipal center at 301 E. Huron from 5:30-7:30 p.m. The reception will feature five-minute presentations from each candidate, as well as time for informal conversations with candidates.

The following day, July 13, candidates will be interviewed in public view in city council chambers from 8 a.m. to noon. That meeting will be videotaped and broadcast live on Channel 16 to allow viewing of the interviews by councilmembers and the public who are not able to attend. Due to family plans, professional committments and health issues, it’s possible that as few as seven out of 11 councilmembers will be present.

Based on a resolution passed at the council’s July 5 meeting, which revised the search committee’s recommended timeline for making the city administrator hire, it’s expected that a resolution making the appointment could be on the council’s July 18 agenda.

The three finalists had been winnowed down from a pool of roughly 8-10 by the city council’s search committee, which met starting mid-afternoon on July 5 to do that work. Members of the search committee are: Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Tony Derezinski (Ward 2), Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) and mayor John Hieftje. The pool from which the search committee selected was identified by the city’s consultant, Affion Public, in concert with the city’s human resources department.

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

[.pdf of city of Ann Arbor press release announcing three finalists]