This transcript has been lightly corrected for obvious mistakes. >> MAYOR JOHN HIEFTJE: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. This forum for the mayoral candidates is an idea of -- well, certainly we talked about it in our class. It started out as something that would occur in the classroom, and as the students began to talk about it and work on it, why not a wider audience. So I think they have done a great job at building the event anding the word out. We want to especially thank Bonnie Roberts in the Ford School's communications office for her work in making this happen, want to thank CLOSUP and if you are in public policy 456/476, raise your hand, a few of them spread around and right up front. The students have done a great job, they have developed five questions which should take, depending on how long our candidates go on, if they have two minutes which will be explained to them, that should take about 40 minutes and then there will be an opening on the floor for more questions, and there are three students, raise your hands. No, no, no, in the second row here. They will be taking the cards which you have available to you, and if you have a question, get it to them quietly. And then we can ask that question perhaps later on in the event. In public policy 456/756, students learn everything about city government. They delve deeply in into the budget. They learn about the issues facing the city, perennial issues and issues dejour. We talk about affordable housing, talk about the wonderful park system, we talk about the fortunate condition our city is to be in pretty good financial shape coming out of the great recession and how part of that has to do with the cities in the creative economy are doing cities that are not part of that economy. So a lot of good information is covered in the class. And the students, I think, have done a great job this semester, did a great job in putting this together. So they have developed the questions. Isaac Epstein, Nick Frost and Katie Hinson are going to be our moderators today. I am going to take a seat in the back and turn it over to them. The council members will rotate. Each of them taking a question first and then moving on to the next one to take the question first and so on around the table. So I will turn it over to Isaac, Nick and Katie right now. And just I wanted to repeat that in case I missed it. The folks on the Michigan Daily live stream it is #A2MayorFordSchool if you want to Tweet a question, #A2MayorFordSchool. >> Okay. Thank you everybody for being here. The current mayor said that we had five questions, we actually have six. (Laughter.) The first one though is kind of a freebie. I have on my sheet, please take one minute to tell us about yourself. Quick introduction. Starting with you, Sabra. >> SABRA BRIERE: Okay. Council member Kunselman and I decided it was more comfortable to use the stand so that is what we are going to do. But we may give up on that, you never know. My name is Sabra Briere, I sit on city council. I have been on council since 2007. I am a neighborhood activist, that is what got me involved in politics and it is what I still am. I have a firm commitment to government that is from the people, not to the people. And so as a person who believes government comes from the -- an educated and engaged populace, my task has always been to try to engage the people of Ann Arbor in what we are doing. I am still trying to do that. And it is a challenge. This is an excellent way to do it, and I thank the class hosting us and I thank all of you out there for attending this class because I think that we should all take some public policy classes from time to time. (Laughter.) >> STEPHEN KUNSELMAN: I am Stephen Kunselman. I was recently reelected to my fourth term on Ann Arbor city council. I grew up in Ann Arbor, graduated from Pioneer in 1981, attended the University of Michigan, graduated with bachelor of science in natural resources, spent the summer of '86 working for the Ann Arbor city forestry department and in '87 I was a driver for Recycle Ann Arbor, went back to school, to the University of Michigan, master's of urban planning and from about 1992 to about 2002, 2003, I worked in local government. I served as environmental planner for six years in Sumpter township which is the southwest corner of Wayne County and rose up to the ranks of township administrator, I worked for seven elected officials for over ten years and I think that is really one of the highlights of my qualifications for running for mayor -- is that I know local government and I understand government and I understand politicians and what we can do and what we cannot do with within the limits of law. Local government is a book of rules and I think it is really important that we abide by those rules. >> SALLY PETERSEN: Hi, I am going to try it this way. Okay. Hi, I am Sally Hart Petersen. I am on my first term on Ann Arbor sit city council. I have lived in Ann Arbor for almost 18 years, I moved here in the summer of '96 from Massachusetts, which is where I grew up. I moved here with my husband Tim so he could attend the university at what was called the University of Michigan business school and I had a five week old baby at the time. As I said I drew up in Massachusetts, my undergrad degree is in psychology from Williams College in Williamstown Massachusetts. I have an MBA from Harvard business school so while I grew up and was educated in Massachusetts most of my professional career has actually been in the midwest, between undergrad and graduate schools I worked for Cummins Engine and after business school when I moved here with my husband I actually had to go back to work full time even though I had a baby and I worked for CFI group, which was named -- and I worked for Abraham business group and most recently in the for profit world I worked for Health media. In 2007 I became a stay at home mom. My kids were approaching middle school years, so I became very involved in the community, and worked -- did a the low of PTSO, PTO work, and then eventually decided, after a couple of years, I would try to run for city council and it has been a great experience. >> Thanks. I am Christopher Taylor, I came to Ann Arbor in 1985 and like many of us for the university, like many of us stayed because I ended up loving the city. I am a four time graduate of the university, two Bachelor's degree, degree in American history and degree in law from the law school here. I am a lawyer, I work at law form of Hooper Hathaway downtown where my representation mostly focuses on local individuals and local businesses. I have -- let's see, a wife and two kids, both go to the public school at Tappan I have been on city council for six years, three terms, and my service on council has been tremendous, I have enjoyed it wonderfully, the problems and challenges of government are to me intrinsically interesting and I have enjoyed so much working with residents and colleagues on the problems and opportunities, problems that confront us and the opportunities that present themselves. I am running for mayor largely because I love the city. And because the city at an important time in its history and it is I think critical that the next mayor have the experience, temperament and judgment to work collaboratively with residents and colleagues and staff of course to work to improve and maintain the quality of life for everyone in the city. It is an important place. It is a special place and it deserves that careful attention. >> I want to thank you -- I want to thank you all again for being here. Could you please tell me what traits you feel are necessary to be a successful mayor and how that relates to your personal leadership style. You have two minutes for each of these questions. >> STEPHEN KUNSELMAN: Well, thank you. First of all I think, you know, experience certainly does come into play and I think that is why all of us are council members presently. We understand what it takes to run local government. So I have, as I mentioned in my opening statement, I have a lot of experience working in local government, I have experience working with staff, working with citizens and then the issue of also being effective, in order to be effective, you have to be able to collaborate, obviously, with everyone. But you also have to have courage. You have to have courage to be able to stand up and take on issues that might be uncomfortable. You have to be able to take on issues that will generate anger among certain people because they don't like the truth. And, you know, I think for my six years on council and for my over ten years working in local government, I have shown that that ability. Everyone here on council I do have the most experience, I have the most experienced person working in local government, and, you know, and also serving on council. I am not so much the tenure, I should say. But then there is also the issue of ethics, okay? And that is where I think it is really important that, you know, we all strive to be very ethical when we are on council, but it is harder to be ethical in local government than to be unethical. And I think that's the many years that I have served on council, I have always taken a -- taken on the very strong hard challenges, and have been, you know, pretty good at accomplishing those tasks. I took on county-wide transit, most recently I spoke with the heroin use that is permeating the downtown we were not necessarily ware of. I took on the taxicab industry when the rogue limos were traveling around our town and we had some issues with students that were in supposedly sexually assaulted because they were unlicensed taxis. So I have taken on some issues, taken a lot of heat. I think because of that, I am still here, and again have just cently been reelected to my fourth term. >> SALLY PETERSEN: So while I may have less experience in local governmentance thran some of the other candidates for mayor, I do have what I feel is a lot of on relevant business leadership experience, professional leadership experience as well as leadership in the community. I feel like I have been here 18 years, I know this community really well. I have been on the board of the the Neutral Zone, been president of the PTO and PTSOs of my kids' elementary school and also a Tappan parent or Tappan graduate parent and involved in high school athletics so I feel like those experiences are very relevant to governing the city. I specifically think my business background and my MBA, my training as an MBA allows me approach the challenges the city faces from a very analytical perspective. I have always approached problem solving by looking at both sides of an issue before I make up my mind. It is so easy to be swayed by a minority or by -- and not so easy to be swayed by a silent majority. I always want to hear from the silent majority but sometimes it is hard to uncover what is going on when you don't hear from people. And so I, you know, I feel like my training in business leadership, and what I call approach to look at problems from a general management perspective and I think that is directly translatable to the role as a mayor. Looking at the issues, looking at the city, honestly I think this city has what I would characterize as a business problem. I wouldn't try to run the city like I would run a business, but I do recognize that the city has a revenue problem where we're entering a period of great economic growth, yet our balance sheet is constrained. We have come out of a period of a decade of cuts and I see growth is coming ahead of us and I think we need a mayor who can translate that growth into better infrastructure and improvements for our taxpayers. >> CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR: Thanks. At the outset, my first statement I referenced I think sort of foreshadowed the answer to this question and that is temperament, experience and judgment. This is what I think a mayor needs to succeed in the city. Temperament. A mayor needs to be able to work well with others, needs to be able to collaborate. Needs to be active in outreach, active in listening, active in collaboration. This is critical to working effectively as a leader in representing democracy, in a dictatorship, temperament is less important to getting things done, but where you have to convince colleagues and staff and even sometimes residents to get behind a program of common action and to yourself be willing to make compromises in order to affect a public good, temperament is crucial. On council I have been able to work well, I believe, with colleagues and staff, and I have also taken affirmative outreach to residents, corresponding with hundreds, thousands of them, seeking their advice an counsel on issues of importance to the city. This is something I think is terribly important and something I would certainly continue to do as mayor. With respects to experience, I have been on council for six years and lived through the great recession, which was certainly a testing time for any elected official, that is the worst -- the worst time of our city. I certainly hope to ever experience. We went through quite a lot. It required a laser-like focus on what is core and important to the city, and I would expect that experience to serve me well moving forward, and finally judgment. It is crucial to listen. It is crucial to educate yourself and others. But ultimately a mayor will need to make a decision that is in the best interests of the long-term. And the long-term best interests of the city, and it is important that the mayor keep that lodestar in mind. >> SALLY PETERSEN: Oh, she hasn't gone yet. All right, Sabra. >> SABRA BRIERE: I am sitting quietly over here so Sally sort of forgot I was here. I don't want you all to forget I am here, though. (Laughter.) Because what you have heard is all their credentials and honestly we are a strong bunch of folk but when we talk about temperament or judgment or all the other things, I want to also talk about independence. So ... it is easy to talk politics in this world and sometimes it is a lot of fun to watch politics happen. My task on council has not been to be part of a group. Or two groups. Or anything else. It has actually been to make up my own mind. That isn't without consultation. When I got on council, I was the first council member to actually actively reach out to the community routinely and ask for advice, comment, input. I meet with my constituents every week. I hold office hours, but I also meet with them whenever it is more convenient for them. This lets me touch what they are concerned about, which is so important to me, because it is easy for me to tell them what's on the agenda and for them to respond to the issues I highlight. It is much more valuable to me to hear the issues that they are concerned about. I listen actively. Not just to the people on council, not just to the people on staff, but to everyone I can. And the end result of that is I learn from every person who touches me. Being on council, being mayor, these take temperament, it takes a passion for government. It takes a commitment to being calm in the storm. Those are things that I bring with me. But it also takes a willingness to admit you're wrong. And that's something that I am free to do, and do when I realize that I made up my mind too early. >> Okay. Hi. So our next question is directly related to students in the audience. We were wondering how you feel that the city can the being work to increase student involvement in elections, politics and local government. >> SALLY PETERSEN: I think any question about town-gown relationships really interests me. It is something that I have been working to improve very early when I started running for city council two years ago. Getting students involved, first of all, it's incumbent upon it is people on city council I think to search out opportunities with students. I spoke actually last September to the central student government, and it was a wonderful experience. I have been in other meetings of town-gown kind of relationships when we talk about life on campus and life for off-campus living. Students who are living off campus and some of the challenges that that presents for the community and I represent Ward 2, which is adjacent, which includes a lot of the fraternity houses so we hear a lot about town-gown issues but getting students involved in city governance I think there is something that there is a lot of room for improvement and I think one of the things we really need to focus on is trusting governments and open and transparent communication. One of the things council member Kunselman mentioned, ethics, one of the things I have tried to show some leadership on city council is taking the first steps towards developing a city ethics policy and I am working right now with the city attorney to develop standards for -- to develop training for standards of conduct and conflict of interest policy. And so I think once we are able to clarify some of the transparency issues, then people feel more welcome to become more engaged in civic activities and to involve students in the workings och the city governance as well. >> CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR: Thanks. Students will be involved in things that interest them and that they believe have a material impact on their lives. I think it is important and useful for the city government and for the mayor to communicate to students that the city does play this important role in their lives when they are here in town whether they choose to stay or whether they are just here for their degree. Obviously while they are here and living on campus and focused on campus, their questions of neighborhood security and maintenance, there are issues of personal safety with respect to police and fire. And also as many of them are renters, also points of interaction with respects to, you know, the inspection of rental properties. These are areas where, you know, students should know what the city does for them and with them and should be able to participate in helping. On some level, I think the -- what the city should do and ought to do is talk to students about why Ann Arbor is a great place and why they should be interested in civic life while they are here and hopefully while they stay. It is so important to Ann Arbor's future that young people find Ann Arbor to be an attractive, vital place to come to the university but also more importantly for my purpose, to stay and build a life, whether it is as a young professional or a young person with a family. This is critical to Ann Arbor's future. I think the city government has a role in communicating that to students. I think it is important to, you know, they can be communicated all they want but if the downtown is not vibrant and active, if there are not cultural and dining entertainment opportunities for young people, if transit is not a fully implemented so that they can get around without a car, these are things that students and young people want in a city. And it is the city's obligation to work to deliver it. >> SABRA BRIERE: So of course, it's not about us involving you all in local politics, it is about you all getting involved in local politics. And students are not kept out. Students may not be invited in enough. And part of that is that you don't see the relevance of local politics as a student, as I have a clear memory that what I focused on national politics and international politics. I cared about foreign wars, I cared about whether or not the Congress could reach a decision. I cared about what the President said. But it took me a while to realize that I should care about what was going on here. How are students engaged already in local politics? There is a large number of students working on environmental issues. They are working on those environmental issues with the city. There is another number of students working to help plan the Allen Creek trail system. There are classes taking that on and they working with the city and they are working with residents. These are opportunities that students like you, like the people who may or may not ever watch this show, actually take advantage of. And that's what we want. There are students who are engaged in attending council meetings, attending board and commission meetings. Reaching out and talking with members of the community to find out everything from the things that to me are obvious, like how does our recycling system work, to what do I do to get this house that I live in inspected because it's really in bad shape. Our task is to welcome that involvement. But also to think about the future of the city. Like everyone else here, including council member Kunselman, at some point I made a decision, I made a decision to be here and having made that decision this is where I was going to live, I delved in and learned how how the community worked. What made me make that decision was my perception that it was a tolerant, open, exciting, interesting place that respected education and respected my ability to do those things. Our task is to do that for you. As mayor, that is what I will be doing. >> STEPHEN KUNSELMAN: I have probably the most seasoned the candidate when it comes to elections, having just been in five primary elections, all contested. My last general election, I was contested by a student and we had a really good time. But this question comes up at almost every election that I have been in. And I look at it in a number of different ways, but one of which is the students can, as I think council member Briere pointed out, students have a responsibility to get engaged if they want to participate. It is not our responsibility to grab their hand and pull them in. It is their responsibility to come and ask and to participate. And they do when they want to. So for example, I serve on the taxicab board and we have students serving on the board with me and they showed up at meetings, at council meetings. They showed an interest. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink, the same thing for students. Having been a student as well as a townie in Ann Arbor, I think in the past I remember our city government providing internships for students. I was an intern on the city forestry department the first when I graduated with my undergraduate degree, we had a robust forestry department. We no longer have that. And I know that we do hire summer interns for our pools and in our park system but not to the extent we did in the past and that is one of the things I would do as a mayor is to promote that kind of opportunity to engage students into our local government because when you have that experience, when you work in the public sector and you feel good for working for the public, that will be an experience that you will be able to take anywhere, okay? It was an experience that I took and basically I have been working in the public sector since I was in -- since 1986. And can still to this day, now for the university, which is the public sector, but students have a responsibility. Just to follow up on the chair of the county commission, Yousef Rabhi was a long-time family friend and was a student when helped on my campaign and again I think it shows students can do it if they have a desire. >> So we have a question related to this on Twitter, we've had a couple people ask if you would be in support of moving the primary from August to a time when there might actually be some students in town, could we get a show of hands how many of you would be willing to support that. >> CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR: These are state law issues as to when primaries are held. >> SABRA BRIERE: We could do that if we didn't hold the elections in November. We can't do it because we do hold the elections in November. It's not a choice. >> Okay. So the next question is, currently about 40% of those receiving shelter services in Ann Arbor are not residents of Washtenaw County. What do you think Ann Arbor can do to ensure that we are prioritizing services for county residents beforer is serving what is clearly a greater -- TAYLOR >> Thanks, so much, a great question. When the DeLonis center was built for the purpose of providing residential services to folks who are homeless in Washtenaw County, at the time much fewer than the 40% figure that you have just cited were served. The reason why that has increased is because of the diminution of need throughout the rest of the region but also because of the state's requirement that in order to receive a certain amount of money, that the Delonis center serve out-of-county residents. If we are going to be able to ourselves distinguish between in-county and out-of-county residents in the provision of residential services and indeed provision of even warming services we will need to either renounce the state money through the public sector or perhaps enhanced grants from the city and the county, or seek to find those funding sources elsewhere. So what can we do about it? We will need to replace state funding for the Delonis center if we are to address that issue. It is an important one. I think it is a conversation we very much need to have. The folks right now, you know, talk to folks down the a the center, church buses from out of the county bring folks in need of services to the center for warming and for residential and it breaks their heart because there is no other place in their local communities to receive these services and so they are brought here. This is -- it is good that these services are available. But it is a real strain and it is contrary, I think, to the intent of the center and the intent of the ongoing local funding for the center that these services be provided to noncounty residents. It is not contemplated that anyone would be turned away in the dead of night. That will never happen, if you are out of county and you need place to be warm in the winter, you will be -- you would be here and you would be served. It would be contemplated however that the next day efforts would be made to work on finding you alternate services in your home jurisdiction. >> SABRA BRIERE: This is an interesting question but it is perhaps the wrong question. It is the wrong question because it focuses on the people who live outside of Washtenaw County as if somehow they were thieves who are taking our valuable services. What they are is people who are hungry and homeless and without services in their home communities. The challenge we face is twofold. Council member Taylor is completely correct, we would have to reject state money in order to reject-providing services for all comers. But we also have to question whether the services that we currently provide meet the needs of the community. Whether providing a very small center, which is what Delonis is, it was intended to house no more than 50 people. It now houses 75. And in cold weather, it has to provide warming service for whoever shows up, which means everyone becomes increasingly uncomfortable and frankly dissatisfied with the services they are receiving. Is this the model that we want to follow? Is this what our community wants? We haven't had that discussion, but we need to. We also need to talk about the fact that providing funds for those who need them used to be something that our tax dollars went to Lansing and came back to us to do. They don't anymore. Increasingly, the city is more on its own than it used to be. It is also receiving increasingly less money, the city and the county are receiving increasingly less money from the federal government to provide services for the hungry and the homeless. It's our challenge, but it is a challenge that every community in Michigan should be picking up and not leaving it to fate to deal with, Ann Arbor does care about the people who have needs, but it is not going to be able to do this in isolation. It is a regional issue. It's not a local issue. And those who think that all the hungry and the homeless live in Ann Arbor are wrong. We have to tackle this on a regional basis. >> STEPHEN KUNSELMAN: Yeah, there is no easy answer. You know it is almost like asking the state if they would put restrictions on the state appropriation to the University of Michigan to only in-state residents, all right, as we have watched the U of M go from a large percentage of in-state residents almost down to what 53%, you know, there is a tie -- there is no tie to the university, so why is there a tie to state funding for our efforts to provide housing for the homeless. So I think, you know, we are kind of ham strung there, our hands are tied behind our back, as they accept those dollars obviously they come with conditions but what we also need to think about is that we can't just keep pumping money to downtown Ann Arbor, the Delonis Center we need to start thinking about diversifying sites, need to think about out county, there is no homeless shelter in the Ypsilanti area, why are there no other communities able to help support those efforts. Ann Arbor, as mayor John Hieftje has pointed out, Ann Arbor is maybe one of two or three communities in the state that actually provides general fund dollars towards this effort, health and human services. And it is a very constrained budget and it is not an easy answer for us to engage with. I don't, as council member Briere pointed out, I don't think it is right for us to turn people away just because they live somewhere else. Ann Arbor is a community of immigrants, right? Almost everybody comes here from somewhere else. My grandparents came here from Adrian and Blissfield back in the 1950s. Others come from other communities. But Ann Arbor has a value of at least doing what we can and doing the best we can to support the-those in need. But it is not an easy answer. Or it is not going to be easily solved and the best thing we can do is just keep plugging away at it. >> SALLY PETERSEN: Yeah, I have to agree that, you know, Ann Arbor is a transient community. We have people coming in and coming out all the time, and in the spirit of inclusion, you know, I would -- if I were mayor of this city, I would never want to turn anyone away whether we had state funding or not. One of the things I have been very pleased about, our council legislation recently, we attributed a lot more money affordable housing and I think that is an important thing that we should keep doing. But funding services isn't-is only one solution. I have spent quite a bit of time in the last couple of months, its over to the new mission house on Stone School Road. And one of the things that I learned is that there is a group of people who actually don't qualify for affordable housing, not because they are low income but because they are zero income. And what I think the source of a lot of the problem is really mental illness and addiction and those are things that we need to start treating and find resources at the federal and state level as well as the local level. The people that live at Mission House are former residents of Camp Take Notice have hard time frankly finding jobs either because of their addiction issues or because of a past felony. And so they are hard to be employed and they are hard to be able to find an income and therefore qualify for affordable housing. So I think the solution is to work together with our state and federal counterparts to really focus on how we solve the problem of mental illness as well as how do we help those people find jobs that they can become part of the affordable housing programs as well. Finally I think, you know, specific to the Mission House, it's an agenda item in our planning commission right now. I think the city needs to think very creatively about how we can zone that so we can encourage more people to live there. >> Thank you very much. I am clearly not very good at using the microphone here,. (Laughter.) Thank you for your answers and your responses. At this time I would like to invite any members of the community who have written down questions on our note cards to hold them up so that our bachelor students can come and collect them for you. (Laughter.) >> Our next question, on economic growth, with several years of significant downtown development, do you feel there is still a need to increase development downtown and the density, why or why not? >> SABRA BRIERE: I don't think -- now, I don't think I have a microphone that's working. Let's see. Is this working? >> No. >> SABRA BRIERE: Okay. This one works. I don't think thats that's a perfect question either, and part of it because it implies that we should stop having changes downtown because we are satisfied with all the changes that have happened. I don't think that is ever going to be the case. Our downtown is thriving and interesting. There is a lot more people on the sidewalk than there were ten years ago. There is a lot more activity after 7:00 at night on a Tuesday than there was ten years ago. There has been a lot of change, but I think the up side of that change has been that there is a lot more interesting activities for people to do. Those activities couldn't be supported by Ann Arbor's residents alone. Those activities require that people come in from out of the city. We could, I suppose, try to become a sleepy downtown again, but part of our efforts have been to have a vital, exciting downtown that people want to come to. To cut that off and say, no more development downtown, does seem short-sighted to me to me. The real issue is is it the right kind? Is it giving us what we want? Are we benefiting as a community or is it just growth for the sake of growth? And so that requires planning and thought. It also requires a certain level of leadership and a conviction that you understand what downtown should be. Downtown is not going to serve our wants -- our needs anymore. It is not going to provide a grocery store, it is not going to provide a big parking lot for us to park whenever we choose for free. It's not that kind of downtown, and it shouldn't be. Because all the things I need I can buy elsewhere and many of them I buy electronically. So does everybody else in our community. Downtown is about providing us with our wants. The things we want to do. The things we want to see, the experiences we want to have. If we don't clue into what those wants are, downtown will fail. And because frankly we are all a little fickle when it comes to what we want, there has to be an opportunity for something new to arrive that we want. Whether that's for us as individuals who live in this council or it is for our guests from out of the city, downtown should change. It should grow. It should provide us with an interesting place, but it should not fail to provide us with places to rest and that's why there has been so much discussion about a downtown park. >> STEPHEN KUNSELMAN: Thank you. Well, first of all that question kind of belies the thought that city council controls development when in fact we don't. We just approve the rules. All right? And we did just change the rules for downtown zoning to make it easier for downtown development of bigger buildings. But what drives our development downtown? Okay? I would say it has been student housing. Okay? If you look at the change in U of M enrollment since 20,000 when we had 38,000 students to 2013 where we now have 43,710 students, that is a change of almost 5,600 students and that means they need beds to sleep in. I have grown up in Ann Arbor with a lot of change. I remember in the seventies when basically nothing was going and the eighties was office building, the nineties, you know, condos and now student housing. The big jump in student housing, all right? But there has been no new office buildings basically built downtown, there is no new One North Main, no new 301 East Liberty, those were done in the eighties. And our city population was 114,000 in 2012 it's estimated to be 116,000, so our population as a whole is not changing much other than students and that is what has been driving Ann Arbor, you know, and that has been one of the concerns I have. Ann Arbor has become more of a company town under the guise of the University of Michigan. They have been buying up more land, taking it off the tax rolls, they are increasing their enrollment and if they continue that trend, yes, downtown is going to be more student action because that is where the action is, we all know we want to be downtown to go to the restaurants, but if you look at the changes council member Briere talked about, it is all turning into restaurants to feed the students but what happens in the summertime? Easily 30,000 students leave and that is a lot of restaurants that are going to be struggling to find clientele, so I think, you know, we have done everything we can as a town, we just have to guide that growth with our rules, our zoning and hope that the community and the university will restrain itself, because this is a finite resource. >> SALLY PETERSEN: Can you read the question one more time? >> Sure. With several years of significant growth downtown, do you still feel there is a need to increase development and density? >> SALLY PETERSEN: I am going to focus a little bit more on the impending economic growth and related to downtown. Growth is happening. And we have heard that property values in Ann Arbor have increased over 6%. We have heard that 12,500 jobs are going to be coming to the county in the next three years. I want those jobs to come to Ann Arbor. But we need to make sure that we have the infrastructure to support thosen jobs, whether they come downtown or they come to the business corridors. One of the things -- one of the things that city council has said in the last two years in our breakout groups is that economic health is a priority. But I quickly found out that in our city budget, we have no staffing or funding specifically or solely dedicated to economic development. The county doesn't have economic development, the DDA does economic development but they do it just for the downtown. SPARK does economic development but they do it for the county. So I took some leadership here and I formed the economic development collaborative task force, with the DDA and SPARK to figure out what should the priorities be to take care of the whole city with regard to economic growth and economic development and one of the things that we realized is that, yes, the downtown is thriving. It's a wonderful place to eat, work and play. The downtown belongs to everybody. Students, millennials, the empty nesters, families and visitors and we need to keep it, we need to make sure that it continues to thrive but I also look the a the business corridors, I look at north main street and I see that it is very underdeveloped. It is kind of an eyesore if you are coming from M-14 heading to downtown and I see that as ripe for opportunity with the right kind of economic policies to stimulate development where we could grow more -- where we could develop it for multi-use to have more office space, to have condos and make that area more symbiotic with the river use as well. >> CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR: Thank you. Downtown density and activity downtown is good for everyone. It is good for the environment, it is good for the economy, and it is good for neighborhoods, for people who live near downtown indeed who are excited about the vitality that the downtown has to offer. We now have, you know, jobs coming to downtown. We have a new tech corridor on Liberty and State. This is absolutely outstanding for downtown's future and downtown density, the growth of residential, the growth of business, the growth of, you know, retail, and the growth of the restaurant entertainment sector is all good. At the same time, we need to understand that Ann Arbor has a particular character. And that character can't be lost because it is important to who we are. It is not sufficient, and it is not immutable, but it is something that we need to recognize, honor and preserve. We need a downtown that is moving forward. The math requires that there be downtown development. And that downtown development will be broadly speaking a benefit because it will increase economic opportunity and increase vitality and encourage people to come and stay and enjoy our wonderful city. But the downtown needs to be a downtown that we all -- that we all recognize. It is the job of the council and city government and of course the mayor to work to preserve that balance, to make sure that the change that inevitably comes does not come as the expense of what we treasure about the place. >> The microphone -- okay. There we go. All right, this will be the last question from our little panel of people up here, so if anyone from the audience has additional questions they want to pass down, now is the moment. We were wondering what you think the role of the mayor is in in promoting public transportation locally and what are the potential economic considerations and outcomes? >> STEPHEN KUNSELMAN: Well, that is a good one. I like that one. (Laughter.) Because you used the word locally, all right? And as the mayor, I think it is important that we stay focused on serving the masses, as I opened up I was one of the few council members originally to speak against the county-wide transit effort being led, because that was basically the idea of sending shuttle buses out to corn fields to provide transportation to communities with wealthier communities than Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor does a very good job supporting transit system, we have a perpetual millage, up with one of the few communities probably in the state that has a millage provides for mass transit. I would reckon that we have a better mass transit than the City of Detroit because our buses run on time. I would also suggest that we need to support that. It all ties into the downtown density. It ties into economic development and it certainly ties assisting those of lower incomes, I represent the side of town over by Packard and Platt and transportation is extremely important, all right? I advocated for a change in a route that gave us the Packard road express so people can get downtown about ten minutes faster than they could with the other routes that were taking them out past Ellsworth or over to Briarwood first. As mayor, we need to support local transit. We need to make it so that it is making sense. And we have to have trust in the system because that is one of the things that we found is that when we start talking about trains to Howell in Brighton, to communities that have no interest in helping to pay for it, or commuter rail to Detroit when we have City of Detroit went from 2 million people down to less than 700,000 or so, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to a broader range of people. In order to support local transit, we have to have lots of trust among the electorate, among those that are paying the bill to help fund it because you got to remember not everybody rides the bus. Probably only what less than 20 percent of the people are using mass transit on a regular basis, but yet we all need to help pay. >> >> SALLY PETERSEN: So as mayor and as city council member I do have the perspective that a robust transportation system is key to have a strong economy in Ann Arbor. I think that almost goes without saying, but as mayor, I -- and again as a city council member I look at transportation as one of those quality of life issues that is of mutual benefit between the city and the University of Michigan. And I know because Jim Kosteva is in the audience, director of community relations, we have had some dialogue about the connector study and what that means to UM, the staff and the city, and something I think we need to explore cautiously together in terms of what that means in terms of providing robust transportation, a piece of quality of life of mutual benefit to both the university and the city. I also want to speak a little bit as a resident. On May 6th I am going to go to the polls and vote either for or against the transit millage. And I want to be clear about how I feel, because -- and I am saying I am leaning towards supporting it right now, but I am a little bit still on the fence. The reason why I would support the millage for the expansion of the five year plan is because I do believe in the first place that urban core and making the connection between Ypsilanti, Ypsi township and city easier and expanding those routes so we have fewer cars on the streets is better for the road, better for the environment and it leaves more parking spaces for Ann Arbor downtown, I also think we need a robust transportation system, for those who can't drive, those who are elderly or have disabilities and I think we need to expand services for that, but I live in a ward where there is quite a bit of opposition to the transit millage and on April 29th, council member Lumm and I are hosting Ward 2 meeting and hear from the AATA, I want to hear from opposition and how TheRide leadership is going to answer some questions before I endorse. >> CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR: Thanks, as mayor it will be-it is the mayor's task I believe to advocate for public transportation. Public transportation is a good, good for the economy, good for the environment, good for the residents' quality of life whether you are a senior whether you are a student, whether you are a worker without a car, whether you would never drive a bus -- never ride a bus in a million years. The decreased congestion, decreased parking, it is a good, and I think it is the mayor's obligation to advocate for it. I believe that since the millage has been raised, I believe that more buses more often is a good and I am a hearty supporter of the upcoming millage. I believe that the five year plan proposed by the AAATA is going to expand services in Ann Arbor for Ann Arbor serve our community ably and noblely. I think also the mayor has a role in supporting and moving forward the conversation about expanded rail services to the city. Expanded rail is something that Ann Arbor's future requires. It requires better transit between major cities, better Amtrak service to the city, and I believe in order to optimize our potential, we are going to need commuter rail to the city. Folks from the west, from the north, coming into town, not driving, coming into employment centers, this is great for us all and we should do everything we can to support it. There has been some question and controversies about where a potential station might go, how it might be funded, a study going right now. For my part, I am open to where the station lies. The federal government is telling us where they believe the optimal location of the station to be. I am not an engineer, I am listening to the traffic engineers, listening to expertise, when that space is identified, when the federal government says we will help you pay for a space at this location providing the financing awards and of course at the time we will see what the ultimate plan. The introduction of meaningful rail to our city is going to be a watershed moment for us and I believe it is the mayor's duty and obligation to advocate for it. >> SABRA BRIERE: On council I just say what he said and let it lie because he is right. It is the mayor's obligation to advocate for public transit. But there is more than that. Public transit is not a local issue. Public transit is a regional issue. It's about people coming to Ann Arbor, people leaving Ann Arbor. It's about the relationships between the various communities in southeast Michigan. And it's about the fact that some of us don't live right next door to where we work, or where we want to go out to eat, or where we want to go to the theater, or the opera, or the museums. The more we can provide alternative transportation to the people who live in our community be for their use as they leave our community, the better service we are doing for everyone. If that also means that the people who live outside our community have better transit here to come to work, to come to eat, to come to play, to come to the museum, to go down the Huron river in a canoe, to rent a bike -- well, this is also a real good, a true good, that we should be embracing. It is the mayor's obligation to see the big picture. To look at the entire issue from 360-degrees, maybe 720-degrees because you should look at it from the top and the bottom and all sides. (Laughter.) And then, if you can't support transit, then there is something really seriously wrong. Now, one of the issues that has come up is about trust. Trust between governmental organizations, and trust is something you build by positive relationships. You don't build it by just assuming it is there. You have to actually work at it. It requires talking, listening, collaborating, arguing. Changing, moderating, in order to develop enough trust that each governmental unit can work together whether it is the University of Michigan, AAATA, the county, or MDOT. Thank you. >> Okay. Here we go. That didn't take too long. Our next question comes Twitter, in December 2012 the city council passed an ambitious climate action plan. Do you think that the climate action plan is feasible and realistic and what will be your priorities in reducing emissions and promoting resiliency as mayor? >> SALLY PETERSEN: I start? Yeah, I think some of our activity -- first of all, it was the right thing obviously to pass the climate action plan, but as we move forward and we look at how we reinforce that, through clean energy, and how we prioritize that, we have to remember, you know, we have two sort of somewhat mutually exclusive goals. On the one hand, we all want to be clean and green. And have clean energy, but it is more expensive energy. On the other hand, we need to be fiscally responsible as well. And there was also a vote last fall about, for example, that we should recommend to the pension board that we divest from fossil fuel companies. And I actually was one of two people who voted against that. Because I felt like it was sending the wrong message. It would have been purely a symbolic message to the pension board. It would not have done any damage to the fossil fuel companies. But it would have been fiscally irresponsible because if they had taken us up -- irresponsible because if they had taken us up on that recommendation, we would have incurred quite a few exorbitant charges to an ununsupported public pension fund so what I recommended was to do both and I have ask the energy commission to come back to council with a recommendation not to divest from fossil fuels but to invest in clean energy like wind companies. I think we need to do both. I think the best way to go forward and to support the climate action plan is to keep both of those objectives, wanting to be clean, having clean energy but also being fiscally responsible. I think we need to do both but I think we need to be very cautious about moving forward. >> CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR: Thanks, the climate action plan is ... very long term and aspirational. And I am delighted that we have passed it. What the city I think needs to do is undertake, you know, short immediate steps and keep working toward longer goal. Immediately, we advocate for expansion of the PACE program, the PACE program assists currently businesses in making their buildings more energy efficient. This is something that through this particular program is excellent for businesses and commercial enterprises. We want, need to expand it. We need to also work with our legislators to make it available to local residents. We also I think need to seriously explore things such as community solar to encourage the use of community farms, solar farm farms to ex-s to expand the energy even in sunny Ann Arbor. We also have an opportunity, I believe, you know, the city has done a great deal on its own for renewable energy but so much of the city's carbon footprint is in the residential sector, with the populace. And the city doesn't have obviously direct control. Doesn't affect building codes and things like that but what the city can do is educate and advocate. And it needs staff in order to do that. There was a request from the energy commission for the council to move forward to invest in a staff member to advocate and educate the public about how they can best conserve energy, how they can best utilize renewable energy. I am delighted to support that. I believe that this is something that is a public good that we need to do for ourselves. We need to do for our, you know, for the people that will follow us. Working on this issue is of vital importance. We can't do it without resources and so I believe that the city ought to spend some money to get it done. >> SABRA BRIERE: The climate action plan is just one component of our serious efforts with the enirnment. Climate action deals with encouragement of alternative fuel sources but we have other efforts going on. I think it is important to note that the University of Michigan students collaborating with the city of Ann Arbor staff have worked together to create a program for rental housing where rental property owners can receive a loan, invest that loan in their building, upgrade the energy systems whether it benefits the resident or it benefits the landlord. Whoever pays for the power is no longer relevant. And then as the property owner pays back the city, it is paid back with interest and it is available to reinvest in the next property. It's an excellent idea and it is something that was done with collaboration between the city and the university. There is also the PACE program which was originally intended to provide support for property owners, single family home owners to invest in their properties and pay back the investment. But because of problems with -- at the federal level, that has not moved forward with residential properties. It has moved forward with commercial properties including large commercial landlords. So those are things that are going on now. Unfortunately, a lot of people are not taking advantage of the PACE program and that's too bad. There is also a variety of opportunities to really look again at who uses energy. The University of Michigan has been a very responsible partner, but it is primarily something that we spend time on looking at residential properties in the city. The city has no program to help fund the cost and maintenance for solar power on individual properties, and that's something that I have been advocating for on the environmental commission and will continue to advocate for as mayor. I think we really need to have zoning and organization and funding supports available for property owners who choose to invest in passive solar, or other forms of alternative energy. >> STEPHEN KUNSELMAN: You know, I think we all recognize that the climate action plan is a statement of values of the city of Ann Arbor, something that, you know, we have held for many, many years, probably going all the way back to the seventies with the big environmental movement and city has taken a lot of steps and I think those steps should be continued. We look at our transportation, our fleets, we have trucks that run on natural gas, we have the bike share program that the city is partnering with the CSC and the university, should be implemented. We have, you know, LED ped lights, LED street lights, all of which need to be expanded upon and I think I would continue with those efforts. Those are things that we can do as the city itself. We have been trying to work with wind energy we take a lot of flak for trying to promote wind energy in the city of Ann Arbor because a lot of people think that it is not worth the money. But yet we still try. We also, you know, with the city energy office, you know, the idea that we can operate our buildings with energy efficiency, is really important, and again I think I would reckon to say that we are one of the few communities that actually has an energy staff person to serve on the energy commission. But there is more to be done when it comes to distributed energy sources and, you know, whether or not we can get more solar panels on our buildings as we have done with the farmer's market, there is an upcoming convention for solar panels that have been put on the Michigan theater. But all of these things are actually very important to me because my job at the University of Michigan is energy conservation liaison, I work in the energy management office for the University of Michigan promoting energy conservation for our students, faculty and staff. Because every little thing that you can do to turn off the energy consumption is money saved and less carbon emissions and so I think it is important, and we will continue to do so. I think all of us will continue to do so to promote those values that are held under the climate action plan. >> Thank you. Our final question for the day, what is one policy that the outgoing mayor's administration passed that you would like to see changed under your administration. (Laughter.) >> CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR: (Didn't hear) is this now off? Now, it is back on. You know, I guess I think it is. The -- this is really a question about the outgoing administration, and one's views about the outgoing administration. I believe that -- you know, with him in the room it is a little embarrassing to say. (Laughter.) But I think the mayor's tenure with the city has been extraordinarily good for the city. When he came in in 2000, the city's bureaucracy was shocking. The union contracts associated with the provision of services were unwieldy. There could be a water main break going on, you know, broke at two in the morning and need to wait for the guy who is authorized to use the big wrench to come in from Dexter. This was no way to run a railroad, and, you know, under the mayor's leadership, this has changed. The city went down from 1,000 employees to, you know, approximately 750 before the great recession. We had cuts afterwards but nevertheless if those changes had not occurred during the course of that tenure, we would have been in desperate straits. I think, too, that the -- work downtown and the creation of the D-1, D-2 zoning regime for the downtown has poised the downtown for vitality and development. Back in 2000 before, the downtown was more tenuous, right now the downtown is thriving and it is one of our primary competitive advantages. That sort of regularization of the process I think also is something that we can and ought to you thank the mayor for. I think, too, that the city's focus on environmentalism is something that has been sort of in the DNA of the city for quite some time but has really been institutionalized and made something in the ordinary course of business under the current administration. I think these are all good. I think that there has been -- and again this is uncomfortable with him here, I think there has been a need for greater push to residents of the things that Ann Arbor is doing. I think lots that Ann Arbor does is truly good for this city, for its residents, for their quality of life in the long term and not enough people sort of understand the complexity to it, why potentially counterintuitive choices are made. There is a long gain here and it is for the best interests of the city. That level of communication, that push, and dialogue is something that I think, if I were elected mayor, that I would truly want to focus on and work on. >> SABRA BRIERE: The mayor has been mayor for 14 years. If none of us disagreed with any of the decisions that council had made in those 14 years, well, then, we weren't paying attention, and we were. Some of us, on council for the last seven years, that -- you took a year off, yes. [spoken to Kunselman] (Laughter.) So-we participated, either on the side that won or the side that lost, on those disputed issues. That's the way politics works. Do I think there are things that the city could do better? Absolutely. And one of those is and remains communication. I am personally so frustrated with the city's website. It is not the mayor's responsibility to talk about the city's website. He doesn't do the website designing. But I have to tell you, the website may win awards, has won awards and is still a terrible website to try to tell anybody how to navigate. I have been frustrated with the office of communication. It is really good at issuing press releases that don't tell anyone anything valuable. I would like to see that we are doing a good deal more in pushing information out to the public. But in the past seven years, that has changed so much that I am -- I can hardly complain. We have much better process now for inviting the community into talk about development than we did seven years ago or ten. We have a better process now for letting people know when their streets are going to be plowed or for that matter when they are going to be repaired. We have done a lot to improve our communication and it's still terrible. So communicating to the residents allows the residents to communicate back to us. And that's what we need to improve in our community. >> STEPHEN KUNSELMAN: Well, John, I am going to say things I have already said to you before so it won't be anything new. (Laughter.) I have been mayor John Hieftje's certainly most ardent critic but when we talk about policies I have already worked to change some those of policies over the years, I was one of the very strongest critics of the percent for art ordinance which did get amended with collaboration from my colleagues, I was the ardent opponent to countywide transit, okay, that again led into the face of major Hieftje's efforts for countywide transit, I led to the reform of the DDA ordinance against significant opposition among council members and John Hieftje's supporters, I led efforts against the Fuller Road Station which was nothing more than a parking lot and bus stop for the University of Michigan. I have been advocating the sale of the Y lot, after ten years we finally were successful in selling the Y lot and I know John was very supportive of that towards the end, but it took a long time to get that debt off our books. I sponsored a resolution opposing the appointments of city staff to boards and commissions, particularly putting the city staff person on the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. That is where it gets back into this issue of trust. A city staff person who doesn't live in the city, should not be representing the citizens of Ann Arbor when it comes to putting a millage on the ballot. That's part of the distrust I spoke about earlier. But the biggest thing that we will be changing one thing I am running is that when you go through a change in political power, political power, all right, and back to my reference to how I worked for seven elected officials, the last two years of that were under a different supervisor and that township supervisor got recalled because of the political power struggle that took place within the community and that political power struggle is taking place here now. We are going to ?? it as part of this campaign and part of the came pains over the summer, but it takes courage to stand up and to talk about these issues and to stay positive on the issues and to stay away from the negativity about the character assassinations. In anything, that is probably one of the reasons I am running because we need to diversify our boards and commissions. We need people on the DDA that are thinking about the community, not just the downtown. And I think that is the important thing. We need people on the AAATA that are thinking of the community, not people in Chelsea and Canton. And that's one of the things that I am bringing to the table. And that is one of the things that probably scares most of John Hieftje's supporters that there could be change and with that change could be diversification and a focus on our neighborhoods because our neighborhoods have not been getting the attention that they need over these many years. >> SALLY PETERSEN: Before I answer the question directly, I do want to acknowledge the component of this question that is about the outgoing leadership. And I do want to say that in the last ten years, the economy has been tough for a lot of people, not just in Ann Arbor but elsewhere and I think the mayor really did lead us through those tougher times having to make some tough cuts with some quiet confidence that really was stabilizing for the community. Granted we did have University of Michigan here also offering stable employment, so the feeling of that great recession was alleviated through that. But I do think the mayor has done a great job in the last ten years leading the city, with a quiet confidence. That said, the one decision that I would -- I guess is the question of would I undo it or wish he hadn't made, and I will be very candid. It was the veto of the repeal of the pedestrian crossing ordinance. That was something that, again, I approached that issue and it came back on to the table with the death of a University of Michigan student on Plymouth Road. Right adjacent to Ward 2, again, city council members and I heard an outcry from the community about doing something about pedestrian crossing ordinance. And I looked at both sides, I met with the opposition and I really felt like we were on the same page in terms of the goals. Everyone wants pedestrians to be able to cross the street safely. But I think what got commingled were issues of pedestrian rights, with pedestrian safety. And when I look at the practical challenge of 70,000 people coming into Ann Arbor from outside Ann Arbor every day to work in Ann Arbor, moving traffic in and out quickly is imperative, but we have to be careful and pragmatic when we talk about pedestrian safety and we need to look at other solutions other than requiring cars to stop for pedestrians waiting on the crosswalk. So that would be one decision that I would like to revisit. (Laughter.) >> MAYOR JOHN HIEFTJE: Well, thank you all very much for coming and thank you to the class and to our graduate students moderators, students, I would like to note that you have the perfect ability to participate here. If you are registered in Ann Arbor, if you haven't registered you can do so. There is an election coming up in the first Tuesday in May. Having to do with transit, something that I am certainly a big supporter of and many are. I would suggest that if you are going to be out of town, very easy to get absentee ballot. If you want to vote in August primary, get an absentee ballot, you can do it from afar, not that hard to participate, so many things on the web nowadays that you are able to keep up with events like this just by tuning in, so again thank you all very much for coming. I can say a word here that I am just really, really glad that I don't have to run a campaign this summer. (Laughter.) Take care and again thank you. (Applause.)