Today we are talking about the next City Council meeting, coming up Monday, May 16th. We talk about the agenda, but the way we do it is that Molly has a rant, Jess has a rant, and then Molly has another rant. At the end of the episode, we’ll be looking ahead to the summer, and talking about some changes that are coming to the pod then and beyond!
Links we referenced:
- This week’s agenda
- Survey is going to be up for just a bit longer. It’s annual, so this is your last shot until 2023…
- Nominate us for Best Local Podcast of Washtenaw;
- That deflection definition;
- And we last talked about the resolution to ask the University of Michigan to build more housing in this episode, if you want to go back and relisten.
Come check out our episodes and transcripts at our website, annarboraf.com. Keep the conversation going with fellow Ann Arbor AFers on Twitter and Facebook. And hey, if you wanted to ko-fi us a few dollars to help us with hosting, we wouldn’t say no. Support the show
Transcript
Jess: Hi, and welcome to this episode of Ann Arbor AF, a podcast for folks trying to figure out what’s going on in Ann Arbor. We discuss current events in local politics and policy, governance, and other civic good times. I’m Jess Letaw, and I’m here with my cohost Molly Kleinman. We both use she/her pronouns. We’re your cohosts to help you get informed, and get involved. It’s your city! Let’s jump in!
Today we’re talking about the next City Council meeting coming up Monday May 16. We’ll be touching on a few interesting agenda items, and when I say touching on Molly has a rant I have a rant and then only has another rant. And then we’ll offer some ways for you to get involved. A quick process note: we record this a few days before the Council meeting, which means there will likely be some changes to the agenda between now and then.
And a special note: at the end of this episode, we’re going to be looking ahead to the summer and talking about some changes that are coming to the pod then and beyond, so please stick around!
Next, let’s talk about the election update. Molly, what would you like to tell us today?
01:19
Molly: yeah it’s a short one this week, the primary is still a ways away so what we want to encourage you to do is read the August ballot. we’re going to link it in the show notes, there are a lot of races on there, we are only talking about a few of them were really focused on like the very.
01:34
Jess: Downest of down ballots.
01:36
Molly: Yes, exactly very bottom up, but there’s stuff at the top, too. August second is the primary. Absentee ballots are available on June 23, but you can start doing your homework now and that way you can be prepared to talk to your friends and family about what’s on the ballot and what you think is important. There are all of these potential and ballot initiatives that that may or may not be on… I think that that’s a future ballot. Leave that aside for now. For this week focus on the August ballot, what’s on there, and this is entirely introvert approved because you can do it all by yourself.
02:07
Jess: Although I heard about something this month that I thought was really lovely: politics picnics! Where apparently there were groups of folks in Ann Arbor who would get the ballot and read up on it and do their homework and then they would have a politic potluck. And then they would have dinner with their friends and actually talk about what was on there and explain and argue and that sounds kind of lovely. So I cannot say whether or not that’s introvert-approved, that depends on you and your particular group of friends, but if you like ballots and food, that could be something for you to do with your friends and your neighbors!
Alright, so getting into the agenda, I wanted to touch on consent agenda item CA-6: Resolution to approve an agreement with the DDA for the South State Street construction project. This is a cost sharing agreement for the work that’s getting ready to start on State Street.
This has been on the horizon for a really, really long time; I’ve been in Ann Arbor for a little bit over a decade, and this has been talked about for longer than that. Most recently, State Street got folded into the DDA’s People-Friendly Streets program, which is a series of projects that prioritizes access to and movement around the downtown that emphasizes the experience of people over the throughput of cars. The reason that this is on the agenda and we’re talking about it is because, after many, many years of discussion (and a lot of community engagement throughout the pandemic, in which both the city and the DDA were kind of inventing some wheels about what virtual and remote community engagement look like), the project is ready to start construction this summer, and I wanted to take a moment to celebrate it! All the work that’s been done to get to this point; the fact that the project is actually going to bridge two construction seasons in order to be able to complete; and the fact that this area of State Street between William and Washington is going to have a significantly different feel once it’s done. It’s going to be curbless; it’s going to continue the bike facilities that we are working on expanding downtown; it’s going to offer business owners more opportunities to use the right of ways, meaning both sidewalks and streets, for retail and dining.
The design process centered the needs of disabled folks and mobility restricted people in the design considerations, so folks who use the walking sticks that have low vision, people who use service animals, people who have maybe hearing disabilities, folks who are not conventionally abled tend to be marginalized in design considerations; in this project, they were centered, and I am really excited to see what that looks like in terms of all of our experiences.
We are also going to be removing parking on parts of the western side of State and moving that all to curbside drop off and pick up and businesses, so you’re likely going to see more restaurants out in the streets, which is fun! –and then moving the loading zones to fixed parking spots on the east side of State bordering the Diag, which will hopefully clear up that western side to be more pedestrian friendly and keep cars out of that zone.
We’re also going to be doing some resurfacing and some water main improvements. But really what this project is is just acknowledging that these sets of intersections which border the Diag and then transition really into Ann Arbor downtown proper is an extremely pedestrian-heavy environment; and there’s more houses coming over there, in the form of a couple of apartment buildings, so that’s going to be even more true. So we’re revising the built infrastructure to reflect and support that, and I think that’s pretty exciting!
05:49
Molly: I’m really excited about this project, too, I think it’s going to be great.
05:54
Jess: Awesome.
05:54
Molly: Alright, so this is my first rant of the episode, this is CA-8: Resolution to accept and appropriate a sub award of federal grant funds $370,738 from the University of Michigan for the “smart intersections paving the way for a national connected and automated vehicle deployment” project. And the thing about this is that it’s fine. And also, I hate it. It’s fine, because this is related to an ongoing partnership that the city has had with the University of Michigan for many years, to create the world’s largest connected vehicle test environment. The city of Ann Arbor itself is a test environment for connected vehicles, vehicles that are able to communicate with each other, able to communicate with traffic lights and other signals on the streets and all that is fine and great, supporting research. Connected vehicles may or may not be the kinds of things that enable, I mean, it is, the connected intersections are going to be the thing that helps us eventually get signal priority for buses. One example of something that a quote unquote smart intersection could do is if it senses that a bus is coming, it can hold the green light longer so that the bus can make it through, which can help improve bus throughput, shorter trips, more frequent buses. My understanding is that the reason we don’t have signal priority in Ann Arbor yet is not actually about the smart intersections at this point, it’s about other aspects of the environment, like, being able to have queue jump lanes so that buses can actually make it to the front. It’s not clear to me if all the buses are able to talk to the traffic lights yet. So anyway, this is fine, it’s more money for this ongoing work fine. I hate this because I hate quote paving the way for national connected and automated vehicles on principle. So, for example, later this month in Ann Arbor there’s going to be a demonstration of new connected bicycles. Now, being a connected bicycle, as I understand it does not help the bicyclists at all, except insofar as it helps them not get run over by a car, because the car senses that they’re there.
08:15
Jess: You’re welcome, bicyclists.
08:18
Molly: Here’s an expensive beacon, so that we don’t kill you. And the idea of having connected bicycles, is that it’s the responsibility of the vulnerable road users to have these beacons so that cars detect them and don’t kill them. And I hate this, because this is just a high tech version of the victim blaming that happens when we ask if a pedestrian was in the crosswalk when a driver killed them or if a biker was wearing a helmet and that’s bullshit. It comes down to this idea that we should be building for autonomous vehicles, which really just demonstrates that autonomous vehicles really are not possible, the sort of full autonomy that we keep being told is 10 years away and we’ve been hearing that for the last 20 years. Full autonomy of a vehicle is not possible, full self driving does not exist, and it can only work if you reshape the environment for the needs of these vehicles. That is the opposite of what we want, we want to reshape the environment for humans and not for cars. So anytime we’re investing money in connected vehicles and autonomous or automated vehicles, that just tells me we’re investing in cars and not people, and so I hate it. So this is fine, I have no objection, we should take this money we’re going to do, the thing. But autonomous vehicles, I mean the other thing is that autonomous vehicles are a pipe dream and they’ve been 10 years away for 20 years so thankfully it’s never actually going to happen and we won’t have to wear beacons on our heads in order to walk down the street. But I just hate the whole principle so that’s my first rant of the day is just about autonomous vehicles and the way we keep investing in them, as if they’re normal and real and a thing that’s —
Jess: And inevitable.
Molly: And inevitable and desirable. Right and I don’t think they’re inevitable or desirable.
10:18
Jess: I think that’s true of any cars. I think one of the things that – I mean, we’ve talked about that, right? the last three months is that people talk about cars as though they’re an inevitability, and not a consumer choice that’s driven by other policy choices that we make, policy and market choices. And cars are not inevitable. Housing is inevitable. Food is inevitable. Connection is inevitable. Cars? are a choice. Mandated, yes, by the land use patterns that we have that were driven by policy decisions that we made on purpose; so it’s not inevitable. We just need a different vision of the future, and different goals and different ways of getting there so connected vehicles are not inevitable. Cars are not inevitable. …I guess I’m just adding a little just seasoning on the rant noodles of Molly’s thing.
11:14
Molly: Right yeah well I mean connected buses are great, I don’t object to all connected vehicles and that’s part of why I think investing in these intersections is, again, fine. But the stuff I care about is things like buses and ambulances, and I do not care about like private vehicles, so and so driving their self driving Audi or whatever like, No thank you. So okay. Rant over.
11:43
Jess: For now.
11:46
Molly: Next up is CA 11, this is real quick, the resolution to appropriate American Rescue Plan funding. So we’ve talked a lot about these ARPA funds. We ended up pretty much feeling good about the way they got allocated but it’s just that it’s only just now that this vote is finally actually happening and the allocations are finalized. So again, as we try to demonstrate the full life cycle of these kinds of things, we are only just now getting to the final vote for the ARPA Fund appropriations. And they’re good and we like them. three and a half million dollars for unarmed response are in there.
12:26
Jess: Lots and lots of money for affordable housing.
12:28
Molly: Yes, good things. All right now it’s time for Jess’ rant.
12:33
Jess: I do have a bit – here come my rant noodles, you guys.
This is agenda item DC-6, the resolution to begin discussions with the University of Michigan of net-zero, affordable, sustainable workforce housing. Title fairly self explanatory, I think? It’s directing the city administrator and staff to talk to the University of Michigan about creating housing. This is version three of a resolution that was first proposed back in January. That resolution I came at both guns blazing because I felt like there was a lot to criticize about employer-provided housing; and calling it workforce, which is a deeply problematic term among folks that work in housing, just scratches the surface of that. I still believe all those criticisms and I’ll post a link in the show notes of that episode on the off chance that you either want to revisit them or didn’t get a chance to hear them the first time.
All those things aside, I want to address something different, which is still this resolution but also specifically my problems with the why and the what. I’ll start with what.
At its core, it is a problem that we are trying to tell the University of Michigan what to do. The most recent example of why this is problematic jumps to mind is, I hate to say it, but that damn bridge, the East Medical Center Dr bridge. The city held all the cards: and we still did exactly what the U wanted. I am unclear what basic facts have changed to make us think that this would be any different.
14:12
Molly: yep.
14:15
Jess: More specifically, I don’t think this is the right ask, though I do think the right ask is embedded in the language of the resolution. I’ll come back to that at the end. I think in asking the University to build housing, we’re jumping too quickly to solutions when what we should be doing is creating a more robust framework in which we work and plan together. The ninth “whereas” states – and you guys know I love me a good “whereas” – “Whereas both the University of Michigan and the city will soon begin a comprehensive planning process and will soon begin their public engagement” – to me, this is the magic! What if, instead of directing staff to tilt at the University of Michigan windmills, what if we ask them instead to explore what conducting those planning processing processes in tandem could look like? Where are the crossovers? Are there opportunities to define vision and values together? To me, that gets really exciting about the opportunity to get on the same page there than much more downstream! Right now, for example, their PCCN, the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality – basically their carbon neutrality report – and our carbon neutrality plan and framework, A2Zero, don’t speak directly to each other. But what if they did? What if our mutual housing goals were being conducted in coordination with each other? What if, instead of trying to go against every single process and system in both of our institutions, what if we went with them, and doing so got us bigger, and better, and longer-lasting gains? I think we need to focus on the planning process, and not on specific outcomes.
Here’s where we get into why. …I have some blood pressure meditations that I’m doing and reminding myself that we talk about love and rage on this podcast: so here comes a whole lot of love you guys.
Love.
All right.
The 11th “whereas” states that “the City of Ann Arbor has also been working to improve housing availability across all sectors: affordable workforce and market rate. For example, by allowing the developing of accessory dwelling units on approximately 22,000 properties; directing that the Affordable Housing Commission pursue the development of affordable and other housing on at least nine city owned properties; and creating transit oriented zoning.”
First of all.
This suggests that Ann Arbor has employing all possible measures to “improve housing availability at all levels of affordability” when a much more accurate description of what’s been happening over the last 10, 20…40, 50 years has been that Council and – I’m really sorry, Ann Arbor, I love us, but much of the city at large – has worked hard to tamp down housing at every opportunity.
The phrase “allowing the development of accessory dwelling units on approximately 22,000 properties” doesn’t speak to the fact that the process has been and remains difficult, cost-prohibitive, and not transparent; and Council has not taken any action to examine where the holdups have been and how to alleviate them. As of a couple of years ago, when the ordinance had been legal for four years, the city had seen a grand total of 23 applications and maybe one or three completions. So I don’t care that it’s legal on 22,000 properties, it is clearly not practical, and we’re not addressing that.
Same for the transit-oriented zoning. This should have been a designation applied to all relevant corridors; but the city was so hesitant about the concept of adding more housing close to jobs and transportation that this designation was only applied to one area of the city.
And while I am so delighted by the work of the Affordable Housing Commission, why do they still have to come back to Council multiple times on every project for process approvals? We should be depoliticizing that at every turn. We’re not doing that.
And I don’t even want to just talk about the language that’s in this resolution, I want to talk about what Council and the city isn’t yet dealing with. If you listen to people working on the climate crisis, they are begging for more housing density to reduce vehicle miles traveled and create more sustainable infrastructure. If you listen to people working on affordable housing, they’re begging for more housing density to reduce the impact of extremely expensive land value on home affordability and accessibility. If you listen to people working on transit, they’re begging for – guess what – more housing density, to be able to expand transit and non single-occupancy-vehicle facilities. If you listen to people advocating for social institutions like schools and libraries – this is gonna come as a surprise, you guys, but…they are begging for more housing density, as the increased taxes permit more programming and better maintenance of existing facilities. And we are still giving adjacent homeowners the power of “No” over low-income, senior, and other housing, especially when it’s apartments.
So this one statement makes it feel like the. resolution is saying: “Look! We have done everything that we can do! It’s time to ask the U for the ultimate solution!” when the reality of the situation is our city has yet to take any of these crises seriously.
Taking a breath now.
19:54
Molly: yeah. I mean everything you just said is true. It’s one tiny piece of this resolution that was not helpful to begin with, but yeah the idea that we’ve done all we can, is really pretty offensive.
20:11
Jess: It is. It is. And it’s not the point of the majority of the resolution, but to me, all of the logic of the asks this resolution makes is faulty. This was the most glaring one and I, as somebody who has lived in Ann Arbor and cares about it, I feel responsible for the fact that we have not done everything that we can do. I wish we would, and we could, and should, and I hope we do.
In the spirit of that, I hope that this specific resolution goes nowhere, but I hope it turns into something better. I understand the aspiration; the aspiration is to get more housing that is more affordable and more accessible to more people. Absolutely! –I don’t think asking that of the University is the right ask.
21:00
Molly: And, given that this is now the third time this resolution has come back and it went out to a bunch of commissions for feedback and updates and this is still what’s coming back to us, it’s likely that this particular resolution is not going to be the thing that gets us to what you’re talking about.
21:16
Jess: I don’t think so. Actually I have a process critique on that as well. (I haven’t slammed on this resolution enough.)
I saw that after the first time it was advanced, it was referred out to something like five commissions: Energy Commission, Transportation Commission, I don’t remember all of them, but it was referred out, that was back in January. It’s now May, and coming back, there’s nowhere that the Commission responses to this resolution are documented within the resolution itself. I’m sure that it comes up on the minutes of the agenda of the relevant Commission where it was discussed; but there’s not a way to track that through the resolution.
And, in the resolution itself, it’s not particularly easy to track changes. There are apparently three versions; I printed out all three. Two and three, as far as I can tell, were near to verbatim with each other. Maybe there was an attachment that was different. Also Jeff Hayner, who had signed on as a sponsor to the original resolution, had fallen off by version two. I don’t take anything from that; this was a very clearly in-process thing.
But between version one and version three, there is a fair amount of language change, although none of the asks have changed. All of the asks remain the same; the whereases have changed. To me that shows – maybe not deep listening? I’m not sure that a Commission would have said “this action seems fine but I’m not sure your ‘whereas’ is totally on point?” I have a feeling that the feedback from commissions would have been along the lines of, “Here’s work that would be productive for us.” But again, it’s impossible to track that in this; so for any other process geeks out there who, like me, love the process: this resolution went through the process that we want things to do, right? It came to the Council table, it was discussed and decided that there wasn’t enough information, so they asked for more information, and it is really unclear how those four or five Commission conversations informed this; I know that it did, but I cannot tell how. The thing that frustrates me about that, Molly is, I know on Transportation Commission you have your frustrations about you guys’ recommendations getting lost in the shuffle; it’s actually easier for me to see now how that happens. Because I’m not sure how your work and how your recommendations actually get translated to Council.
23:55
Molly: yeah it’s something that I think varies a lot by Commission, it depends. I think it rests heavily on the shoulders of the staff of those commissions, the staff who are the liaisons. And those staff are largely very overworked and overstretched. I think, in theory, it should rest on the shoulders of the Council members who are the representatives to those commissions but there’s no regular practice for those kinds of things. Sometimes when something comes to counsel, the representative will say yes, we talked about this in planning and it was unanimous, but that doesn’t that doesn’t happen consistently and I don’t know what the solution is.
24:34
Jess: I mean, if I have a real basic wishlist item specific to this resolution, but also I think it would help in general, it is that Commission recommendations be attached to the resolution when it comes back. It doesn’t have to be the minutes of the full discussion, although, best-case scenario, it would be! Then you’d have everything in one place. But, if nothing else, whatever the recommendations that the Commission made, even if there weren’t any, “We discussed it and made no recommendations,” attaching that to the resolution would be hugely helpful.
25:06
Molly: yeah I mean sometimes when something’s coming to counsel I as the Chair of transportation will send an email to Council being like, “hey we talked about this on Transportation Commission, We urge you to pass it” or “We urge you not to.” Whatever it was like, “This was the vote, these were the things that came up at the table.” I don’t usually hear back, I have no idea if that helps, and I definitely don’t do that every time. I mostly do it when there’s something that I’ve been following closely or something. I do it more now that we’re doing the podcast because I’m more clued into when things are coming back.
25:38
Jess: Yeah. So maybe if there are any Councilmembers out there that are listening, if this could be something that you could ask for or work on? That Commission recommendations for resolutions that you’re working on get attached to those resolutions? That would help towards civic transparency and folks who are trying to follow along – get informed and get involved! All of us know it’s difficult. This is one, not to say that it’s simple, but one fairly straightforward thing that would make it a little easier.
26:09
Molly: yeah. Alright, are we ready for rant number two.
26:13
Jess: No, you have a nice thing to say first!
26:15
Molly: Oh, my gosh I do! I scrolled down, I was getting too excited. Okay so next, I have a short one which is DC 8, the resolution to approve the employment agreement with Milton Dohoney Jr as city administrator. We knew this was coming. Our current administrator is Milton Dohoney. He’s currently interim. We thought when he came here that this was like the thing he did, where he would come in and whip a city into shape and then ride off into the sunset. But we’re actually going to get to have him stay and continue to whip us into shape and so this is the moment that this becomes official. Fingers crossed that this brings us some stability and leadership, which I think are really desperately needed. So that was that, we have a city administrator. It’s going to be Milton Dohoney for a little while now.
27:00
Jess: Yay! Champagne or whatever, if you don’t drink that, because I don’t. Whatever you drink when you’re happy – right now iced tea is nice! Do that.
27:08
Molly: Yes, iced tea.
27:10
Jess: All right. Now I’m ready for it.
27:11
Molly: Okay here’s my rant. This is DS-4, this is the big item on tonight’s agenda. It’s the resolution to adopt the budget. At the last meeting there were the public hearings about the budget, this is the moment when Council actually votes to adopt the budget. Most of what’s in the budget we’ve already covered… well no obviously we mostly didn’t cover the budget because we found it really confusing. One person actually suggested to us that part of our challenge might have been that Ann Arbor is on a two year budget cycle, and this is year two so it’s less involved and that might be why there were fewer opportunities to get informed and get involved. But either way, most of the budget is pretty stable, however, as is often the case, this is the final moment where there’s an opportunity for amendments and I wanted to focus specifically on two competing amendments for how to spend this year’s Marijuana Excise Tax money which is close to a million dollars this year. This is the money that municipalities get when they permit cannabis businesses. Some chunk of the taxes those businesses pay goes back into the city coffers. Not all of the cities in Michigan are permitting cannabis businesses so there’s some demand, as you may have noticed from the bajillion cannabis businesses popping up all over town. So this is some of the money we get from that. Presumably one of these two amendments will pass, they’re pretty similar in some ways, the big major way, and because of that similarity I don’t like either of them. Both of these amendments put over half a million dollars into a deflection program that’s run by the city attorney’s office. So what is deflection? This is sometimes also called diversion or people will talk about diversion and deflection. I found a definition, from what I hope will be recognized as a neutral and perhaps even police-friendly source called the Journal for Advancing Justice, they did a whole special issue on diversion and deflection, and so this is how they define it: “Deflection is a collaborative intervention connecting public safety, such as police and sheriff’s and public health systems to create community based pathways to treatment. For people who have substance use disorders, mental health disorders, or both, and who often have other service needs, without their entry into the justice system…” And I’m going to come back to that piece. “Deflection provides a new third option for police, an alternative to the traditional choices of making an arrest or taking no action, when encountering individuals whose behavioral health conditions may be factors underlying their contact with law enforcement, with or without the presence of criminal activity. Deflection can enable individuals to receive referrals to services without fear of arrest or can be offered in lieu of arrest when charges are present and an arrest would have otherwise occurred.” Okay, so that’s the idea behind deflection. The problem here, the big problem with this definition, is that it says it’s preventing entry into the “justice system”, but that’s not actually true because the moment that you have people interacting with police they have entered into the criminal legal system. I have been learning to call it the criminal legal system, as opposed to the criminal justice system, because it is primarily very unjust. So if you are setting up police to be the entryway or the gatekeeper to services you’re continuing to expose people to the harms of policing in order to access treatment or other services. Instead of connecting them to those services through a pathway that doesn’t include police at all. Furthermore, and this is that little “in lieu of arrest” piece, in many cases, you would be coercing people into treatment in order to avoid arrest and that’s also not preventing their entry into the criminal legal system, that is, in fact, pulling them into the criminal legal system, and this part about where it’s “with or without the presence of criminal activity” so we’re saying that we’re going to be using police in situations where there were no laws being broken as an entry point to supportive services, we know that’s not going to work, that’s not something that we can trust police to do safely or well or at all. I have learned, all of this, this is not an area where I have a lot of expertise, but this is stuff that I have learned from people who know much more than I do about public health, about vulnerable communities, about safety, and I am listening to those people who are saying we don’t want this. Giving money to the police to do this is not going to help and it’s not going to address the problems.
32:03
Jess: $31 million. I just want to remind us that of our general fund budget which is around $110 million, that the police has a third. I know less about the details of these amendments that you do, Molly, but every effort that gives more money to police in policing is offensive to my spirit. It just is. Because, at a third of the general budget, you’re doing everything you can do: let’s fund other people, let’s fund other programs, let’s fund other methods.
32:40
Molly: Exactly and so the premise here is that in 2021, City Council resolved to commit marijuana excise tax funds to spending “that intentionally reinvests in our community, acknowledges the past harm of criminalization, and supports populations disproportionately and negatively impacted by the war on drugs.” So the authors of these amendments are saying that deflection programs meet that standard of reinvestment in our community and acknowledging past harms of criminalization. It sounds to me like another way to pull people into the criminal legal system with a different, friendlier, softer name. So either way if one of these amendments passes we’re going to be investing a serious chunk of our cannabis money into police instead of directly to the people who’ve been harmed by the drug war, so I don’t like either of them. They also do other things which are mostly good, but the bulk of the money, more than $500,000 in both of these amendments would go to this deflection program in the city attorney’s office and I am not a fan. And I do not think that deflection programs align with what City Council has resolved to do with this money. We do not need to be giving the police another cent we really don’t.
34:12
Jess: As you and I were preparing for this episode, I felt like our rants were a little bit similar, where we’re taking what we’re being given and we’re like: No, thank you, I disagree with you on your basic premise and everything you’re trying to do with it.
34:29
Molly: Exactly.
34:29
Jess: The premise –
34:30
Molly: – of this is faulty, yes.
34:35
Jess: All right.
How do you feel?
34:38
Molly: You know.
34:40
Jess: Love, a little rage…these rants: it feels good to get it out, but then also I still got all the bubbly–
34:46
Molly: –feeling so yeah.
34:49
Jess: All right, well, what if I were to tell you, Molly and listeners (this will come as less of a surprise to Molly) that this is the last regularly scheduled Council preview we will be doing?
35:03
Molly: Just felt like a good one to end on.
35:07
Jess: Yeah!
As a little bit of context: we’ve been previewing Council meetings since the very first episode, for the last year and a half. Our tagline for the pod is, “Get informed and get involved, it’s your city!”, and we’ve tried to model what that looks like, including when it’s awkward and cumbersome and doesn’t go quite like you want to.
At this point, we’d like to think that you’re great at this particular thing; and we hope that, when it comes to Council meetings and Council work, that you’ll continue to follow along with the work that you care about.
But we also think that there are ways of expanding how we think about getting informed and involved. So: starting in September we’re going to be bringing a new kind of conversation.
35:51
Molly: I’m really excited about these conversations!
35:53
Jess: Yes! We’re going to keep you in suspense on that a little bit longer, because we’re going to do some other stuff in the meantime.
Next month we are going to take every week and rerun some of our most frequently listened-to episodes from the last year. Will “That Damn Bridge” be on it?? I’m not going to tell you (but obviously it will). And then, when we come back in July, we’re going to do some election-intensive stuff, including a ballot explainer for the August primary and also we’re going to help you work ahead a little bit on November by getting really deep into the climate millage. There is a lot of money, a lot of work, and a lot of community energy at stake there, and Molly and I felt like it was important to really invest in understanding that one; so we’ll be working on that.
Then, we’re taking August totally off! Molly has a birthday, Scott and Jess have plans, and it’s going to be the end of primary season, all of us are going to be wet paper towels: everybody’s going to need a break. And, hopefully, you too! So go play in pools, pat yourself on the back for voting in the primary, and then, when we come back in September: we’re going to have some fun new stuff for you guys!
So keep finding each other on Twitter at the #a2council hashtag; find each other on Facebook in the Ann Arbor Housing For All group; and real life, I hope.
This is also the last call for filling out the survey. We have been getting some amazing feedback on that, so please, if you haven’t yet, please help us get informed by filling out the survey! Annarboraf.com/survey, and, of course, the link will be in the show notes. If you haven’t yet, please go on there! Molly was the voice of reason in the survey; there are a million questions but none of them are required, so you can just pick the fun ones and give us feedback on that. Really and truly, we read every single response, and we adjust how we move forward by what we hear.
So please: get involved by getting us informed!
37:57
Molly: yeah, and this is also yet another, I think it’s close to the last week, finally, for the–
38:04
Jess: 30th is the last day.
38:05
Molly: May 30th. So this is the last episode that we’re recording in which we get to remind you to please nominate us for best local podcast of Washtenaw. At this point, you probably know the drill: go to the entertainment section and scroll down, find local podcast, type in Ann Arbor AF. If we make it to the top six, we will have many more weeks of reminding you to vote for us in the finals.
38:28
Jess: But nominate us! We’d love to be top six. That’d be a fun place to start.
38:31
Molly: would be great, it’d be awesome.
And that’s it for this episode of Ann Arbor AF.
Come check out past episodes and transcripts at our website, annarboraf.com. Keep the conversation going with fellow Ann Arbor AFers on Twitter at the a2council hashtag and Facebook in the Ann Arbor Housing for All facebook group. And hey, if you want to send us a few dollars at ko-fi.com/annarboraf to help us with hosting, we always appreciate it.
We’re your cohosts Molly Kleinman and Jess Letaw; and thanks to producer Scott Trudeau. Theme music is “I dunno” by grapes. You can reach us by email at annarborafpod@gmail.com. Get informed, then get involved. It’s your city!