Today we are talking about the next City Council meeting, coming up Tuesday, February 16th. We discuss site plans, Council shenanigans (again), sidewalk snow removal (also again), and take a little trip back to last week’s conversation on the budget.
References:
– this week’s agenda, including items PH-2/DB-2 (site plans), DC-2 (Council rules reconsideration), and DC-3 (snow removal in the downtown)
– the next Transportation Commission meeting on Wednesday, Feburary 17th, will be talking more snow removal
– Ann Arbor’s Community Academy is accepting applications now through February 19th for this year’s (virtual) cohort. A2AF listeners should definitely apply!
– Also, Ann Arbor’s annual bike summit is on Valentine’s Day. A2AF listeners should definitely dial in! It’s free for everyone.
– the next public hearing on the budget is May 3rd. There will be a lot of work sessions between now and then, but put it on your calendar now if that’s something you think you might want to watch.
We’ve launched a ko-fi! If you’d like to support the podcast beyond listening, you can now send a few bucks our way. The pod will always be free! This just helps defray our costs to broadcast. Thanks to so many of you who have already sent a few bucks our way!
Transcript
MK: hi and welcome to this episode of Ann arbor as 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 molly kleinman and my pronouns are she her.
MH: I’m Michele and my pronouns are she here.
JL: And i’m Jessica Letaw and my pronouns are she her.
MK: we’re your co hosts to help you get informed and get involved it’s your city. Today we’re talking about the next City Council meeting coming up on Tuesday February 16 will be touching on a few interesting agenda items revisiting last week’s working session on the budget and offer you some ways to get involved. A quick process note we’re recording this a few days before the Council meeting so there’s always a chance that something new, will make it to the agenda between now and the meeting next week. We wanted to send out another big thank you to those of you who have donated on our coffee website or coffee account if you haven’t donated and you would like to. You can find us at
those funds are to help us cover the hosting costs for the podcast and the website that we don’t have yet so let’s jump in.
There is almost nothing on this agenda it’s it’s like I there’s nothing there.
JL: she’s laying she’s lean.
MH: there’s a very long, a couple times before, and then we’ve been able to make an entire episode. And we’ll probably do it again, but this is the latest one yet.
MK: The other in terms of actual agenda items for them to talk about there’s very little there, there might be I don’t know if they’re gonna pull things from the consent agenda it’s a long it’s a long sentence agenda.
MH: I looked at the agenda questions, to see if there was anything on there, and it was it just looks like Lisa dish asking like perfectly reasonable questions it’s not there’s no agenda questions that are like How dare they ask for more money for you know which is usually a sign that that’s going to get pulled but.
JL: Like.
MH: Everything on there it’s just standard question and answer like okay thanks yeah.
MK: So we did find some things to talk about so Michelle I think you wanted to talk about a site plan.
MH: yeah, so this is there’s a public hearing about it, so its pH to public hearing to or db to it’s on two places on the agenda because of the public hearing then later on it’ll be discussed by the Council on the agenda and it’s a it’s a resolution to approve a site plan at 907 and 913 South Main Street and they’re just taking down to existing single family homes and combining both lots to construct a 60 unit 36 bedroom rental apartment building and basically, like the reason that i’m wanted to talk about it is that, like this doesn’t require a rezoning i’m nothing that’s out of the ordinary they’re just going to build this building according to regulate things and i’m just kind of like, why is it coming to the city council.
JL: it’s so I just want to call out like I love that we’re like this agenda so small, it could be smaller now.
MH: For like yeah cuz I mean you know it’s small to us because we’re just sitting here, but if you’re trying to build housing, you know that this is adding money for them, they gotta hire a lawyer to show up at these meetings they gotta like.
JL: You know, be and I think kind of implied in what you’re saying is that there’s not a whole lot, the Council can do this is what’s called a by right development. Which means what they’re proposing is consistent with how the site is owned so Council has to vote for it, or voted down and be subject to likely slash almost imminent lawsuit from the developer so like that that sounds pretty grim, but this is supposed to make it easier right like if it’s legal and we know it’s legal you should be able to do it. But in Ann arbor we make this part of the process, go to Council as well, and what you’re saying is that it shouldn’t necessarily have to write.
MH: Like they have the developer, is doing what we asked them to do that’s what that’s what our zoning laws are is this is what we want. And they said okay well here you go and they work it out with the staff already the staff says, this is what we want and so why is the City Council looking at it again. And it’s I guess you know the reason it’s important is that, like these small incremental increases in density are. The sort of things that are going to. You know, increase the density of the city, make it a better place to live with this is the kind of thing we’d like to see is like take away some of these you know to is to is to take away some single family homes and build some larger homes that are still reasonably scaled.Human buildings and.
JL: And this is one of the things that we can do right like folks, we know that Ann arbor is not super affordable. And there’s not a whole lot of leavers, that we have to change that one of the things that we can do is make development, a little bit less expensive.So this is a little bit like if a kid went to their mom and said hey can I do something, and she says it’s fine just ask your dad.
So the kid goes to that and says, can I do something, and he says it’s fine go ask your mom and then you have to go back to home, so like we don’t have to do that if mom dad to guess, we can move forward and that’s a little bit where we’re. At so we could make these houses, a little bit less expensive if we didn’t require extra time and actually go please just like you’re saying.
MH: that’s all I wanted to say about that. And you know I think um yeah and I think yeah, so I think like removing the you know site plan review on by right. On by rate developments is something that our City Council could be doing, you know that could be on the agenda, tomorrow you know. I heard a legend that planning Commission its own planning Commission this little list of things to look at way out in the future of like they’re they’re thinking about like kind of omnibus changes to the way. To the way that site plans and zoning are done, and this is going to be one of those changes, but it seems like such a like. It seems like such a no brainer i’m just kind of like why don’t they do it right now, because yeah we’ve had this before, where the developer proposed by right thing it got voted down the developers sued us, and then we said okay nevermind you can do it, after all, like what was the point of that.
JL: Or we lost the lawsuit.
MH: Right yeah right right. So anyway, that’s all I have to say about what’s next on our. Oh or shenanigans and i’m the shenanigans correspondence so i’m here to talk about the shenanigans. So don’t even know why this is coming back, but we had a discussion at the last City Council meeting about the Council rules, which is how the Council how the how the Council members behave well talking to one another at the meetings. There is some stuff in there about like what is expected of public commenters but and that you know what is expected of public commenters has been a point of contention, a political thing in the past but it’s not actually. The proposed rules from last week didn’t or from last meeting didn’t actually seek to change any of that they only thought to change how Council members related to one another, and it did things like take their. They used to have two instances of three minutes to discuss each resume you know, to discuss each motion on the floor now they’re going to only have two instances of two minutes to discuss sheets motion on the floor and you know that could be like if the meeting is if the meeting, just like goes smoothly, that would mean that, like. You know this rezoning or whatever this the site plan, they would each Council member would have four minutes to talk about it, but there can be motions on the floor like. Oh i’d like to make this amendment i’d like to propose to postpone it, and then that brings that each of those gives two more instances of two minutes to talk about it, and so a lot of these things can add up a lot of time.
MK: And the israel’s past at the last meeting right.
MH: Did they did any of the big changes were you know going down from three minutes to two minutes. And the idea that if you if you have questions for staff, then during the meeting that that counts, against your time the question and the answers, because that encourages the Council members to have done their research and ask questions of staff ahead of time. And then, to make up for that they said that on the you know day of the meeting, or whatever, that you can that the Council members can ask staff to give a presentation in in which they will answer pre written questions. And that’s all supposed to save time and that all past, and I think that’s actually not what is controversial, at this point because what’s happened, the reason it’s back on the agenda is. Ali rum lowery Council members more five is bringing it back for reconsideration and that’s something that Council members can do if they voted on the prevailing site so i’ll leave the room, while we voted yes, and this thing past so from La we voted on the prevailing side, that means that at the next Council meeting he can say wait actually I changed my mind let’s reconsider this and so First they have to pose past this motion to reconsider, which is passed by a majority. Then, if that passes, then the Council is now reconsidering the rules and new amendments can be brought forth and things like that and I don’t know exactly what he has in mind what he wants to change or why you know, like what’s the new information that he’s bringing like Why would Why did he vote yes before and then change his mind like it doesn’t say in this in this thing it just says he wants to bring it back for reconsideration but you’re going to speculate.
JL: shenanigans correspondent and the speculation correspondent.
MH: You also sounded a little bit like statler and waldorf yeah just to speculate based on what i’ve been seeing on the social media. It seems like there was another clause in there that’s not what i’ve discussed already, which is what has some Council members mad, and that is that there is a section about.
MK: If they talk smack about each other.
MH: Like a they’re allowed to call a point of personal privilege and they have time to defend themselves from that smack talking and I think that wasn’t entirely well understood during the meeting they thought they were like wait, we only have like two minutes to defend ourselves and it’s like Well, this is just like this is just stating that, like you already had that privilege and the other thing was that it they wanted to be able to address things that were things that were said about each other on other forums so like if Council members talk smack about each other on city council or on Facebook or on Twitter, then. The Rules allow them to address it and it’s not necessarily going to happen at City Council meetings, it might happen at the Council administration committee. So someone might say hey so and so was talking smack about me on Facebook, can we like write a letter of censure for them and then, like if you know if that pass if that motion passes at the Council administration committee then someone will write a letter saying hey we don’t think it’s cool that so and so said such and such about so and so and like that. So that’s like that’s the worst that could possibly happen, because these are elected officials you can’t really get rid of them unless unless the electorate passes, you know, a recall petition. But they I saw some Council members grousing about this, saying that they were being gagged and censored, and that. You know they weren’t being allowed to speak their minds and stuff like that and. People assuming that it was going to be applied evenly. And that is my speculation about why it’s coming back.
MK: that’s that’s yes, and I know we’re trying not to do too much recapping but right when this was discussed at the last City Council meeting a bunch of different kinds of amendments were proposed, none of which passed. So there were various attempts to change these rules and it none of them passed and the rules. Pass, as they were originally written and at least I think that’s right and so now they’re coming back again and maybe it sounds like another attempt to make some changes. But I.
JL: And for what it’s worth I had the opportunity to talk about this with some like normal I don’t know normal people you know and I we think a lot about the people who don’t necessarily think about Council that much or even know that we have one necessarily them about this, some.
This resolution and they they said something kind of dismissive like you know, are they kindergarteners do they really need this kind of rules. And I was thinking about it and I actually i’m really comfortable with this conversation we’ve had the last four or five years such a norm breaking set of behaviors, especially at the national political level, but not only there and I think taking time to formalize some of those norms kind of helps lower the temperature on policy conversations on online conversations that have nothing to do with policy like I. There was some criticism like I said by the person that I was talking about this with but I Upon reflection and actually glad that we’re having this conversation, and whatever it’s coming back for like I think that’s fine the part of the point of Council is to be able to discuss these things and not necessarily to agree on so i’m i’m glad to see this I don’t understand why it’s coming back, but I don’t have to i’m curious to hear what comes of it.
MH: yeah I guess like that’s you know, I was also talking about this recently in terms of like. Codes of conduct about sexual harassment and in various places like you know computer conferences these to be a not very pleasant place for women to be at because sexual harassment happened and people would just say. What we can do about it, or they would try to do something about it, but have no ideas about what to do about it and so, then they started passing these new codes of conduct and people, you know some people’s initial reactions was Do we really need such specific rules are we kindergarteners and like.
JL: or not, the answer is definitely yes.
MH: yeah like it’s yeah and it’s not a bad thing to have you know, codes of conduct and pre written rules so that we can understand where we’re at and have ideas about what next steps are if things if things go wrong, rather than just assuming that things won’t go wrong ut I do wish that there could be just naturally fewer shenanigans going on at these Council meetings. I don’t know if the new rules are going to change any of that I hope so and I’m just a little bit concerned that what’s gonna happen from this reconsideration is not it’s just more shenanigans it’s just gonna be people saying well why do you want to silence us and things like that and. You know these are people who aren’t level headed discussing level headedness and I hope it goes well.
All right, ah what’s next what’s next. Oh OK. The next thing on the agenda that we wanted to talk about was DC three snow plowing. Molly let’s let’s have you tell us about this snow plowing situation.
MK: Yes, so this is the sidewalk snow removal redux the snow plowing and it’s um, this is a really similar resolution to what we saw two weeks ago with a Council member Chris wells proposal to investigate clearing the soap the snow and ice that plows put onto sidewalks and curb ramps and driveway aprons and that resolution did not pass and Council referred the sort of the question of sidewalk snow removal to transportation Commission.
MH: I think officially what Council did was postponed the resolution indefinitely, yes, but Erica briggs, who is the liaison to the transportation Commission said, you know what i’m just gonna bring this to transportation Commission and the mayor was like that’s fine this is perfectly within the rights of transportation commission to discuss you don’t need direction from Council to do that.
MK: Right, yes, so now let’s come back to transportation Commission and fully disclosing i’m Chair of the transportation Commission, I am not speaking for the Commission i’m speaking only for myself in recounting this whole tale. So councilmember briggs and I worked together and with staff to drafted whole new sidewalk snow removal resolution which is going to come.
MH: Can we back up. Oh yeah can talk about like. What. All right, what was that what was the resolution before that copy pasted to now and then what was changed in the copy paste stunning.
MK: Yes, thank you so there was this, what do we feel about it. We were not fans. Those of you who heard our last episode may recall that we were not fans of the original resolution because it seemed to focus exclusively on snow that came from plows as opposed to snow that came from the sky, there was also the issue of including driveway aprons in the feasibility study and it making the claim that driveway aprons are part of the pedestrian network in places where there are no sidewalks which was a questionable assertion and so now we have, and that was that original resolution was for the whole city city city wide. And now, what we have coming back to counsel this week is a resolution that’s very similar to the one we saw previously, but only looking within the DDA district.
MH: So it narrows it down.
MK: To downtown downtown Development Authority district. And jess was, I think that. talk a little bit about the the downtown aspects of snow removal and sort of the premise for the for this resolution.
JL: Well, I kind of want to skip ahead to the spoiler which is this is duplicative this is really kind of a repeat of the last one and it’s not necessarily like the downtown is a part of the city it’s not separate it’s not a separate governance it’s not separate infrastructure, there are parts of the right of way so both the street and the sidewalks that the downtown manages through kind of consensus with the city. But to have the downtown kind of peeled apart from the rest of the city’s snow removal. I just i’m i’m struggling to understand the logic of it, because at best we’re duplicating you know effort resources staff time. To say pick decide do something for the city and do something for the downtown and at worst we’re actually setting people along two separate paths coming up with separate solutions where this is not the kind of as an economy of scale, if you do them in tandem, instead of together, so I i’m just really struggling to understand the logic behind it.
MH: I also well, I think, for one thing is the since the resolution didn’t pass last time. Like molly’s talking about something that the transportation Commission is working on, but officially there hasn’t been any direction from Council, so I think. In the sponsors minds here they’re like Oh well, if we’re not going to do anything for the whole city, can we at least do something for the downtown.
JL: And that’s fair but to me that kind of speaks to maybe a disconnect from staff or a disconnect from other Council members, so what molly was saying, a moment ago about Erica breaks. And you Michelle Erica breaks being the Council liaison to traffic transportation Commission she’s award five Council member and so is Ali and they actually have relatively decent communication. So i’m curious about this being brought forward without consulting with Erica because I have a feeling, she would have said something along the lines of. You know we’re already, this is already being moved forward, can we figure out a way to fold the sand under work that’s already happening. And again without the advisement of staff, who would have been able to say either at the da da da da staff or city staff would have been able to advise and say this is already being you know this work is already being taken up in this way we let’s do it that way um.
MH: I also wanted to the reason that you’re mentioning Lee from La here is that he’s the sponsor of Jesus of today’s resolution.
JL: Yes, and actually the sponsor of two of the three resolutions that we’re talking about today. So I wanted to call out a couple of the whereas as we’ve talked about you know, whereas unresolved, whereas is why somebody has created this resolution and the resolved is what we’re asking people to do something to do about it. So I it starts really strong pedestrian safety requires that crosswalk sidewalks bus stops across all grants be reasonably clear of snow and ice. The City of Ann arbor has declared a climate emergency and approve the at zero carbon neutrality plan, which includes the strategy to reduce the miles we travel in our vehicles by at least 50%. And then we start, I feel, getting a bit sideways the city, whereas the city of Ann arbor has affirmed the Vision Zero goal of zero traffic fatalities by 2025. I’m unclear what this has to do with snow removal, the majority of traffic incidents that involve pedestrians and bicycles are within the downtown Development Authority district true again kind of unclear about the connection to snow removal.
MK: I mean, I think it’s. This part I I think I think of it as being relevant because you need the sidewalks to be safe and and clear, otherwise you have people walking and biking in the street if they can’t walk and bike in this on the sidewalk um that’s I mean, I think I think that’s where that motivation comes from, or at least that’s how I have thought about it.
JL: I mean that’s fair, I think, just maybe making a little bit more explicit like. The majority of traffic incidents that involve pedestrians and bicycles or within the downtown that’s actually typically not a pedestrian or bicyclist issue that’s typically a vehicle issue and so like you want to regulate the car side of the equation. Not the cyclist and the paid side of the ocean right so that that’s why I get a bit confused if what you’re saying is true.
MH: molly was nodding for the record, record show.
JL: If that’s true, I just wish the whereas was a little bit more complete right so. Whereas the majority of traffic and it’s I don’t even think we need that I say, whereas in the winter if sidewalks are not sufficiently maintain to a particular safety standard. People will make the choice, the rational choice to walk her bike in the street, and that can cause additional issues. I think if that was going to be relevant what i’d like to see in here is, we have really good data on crashes, including crashes with injuries all over the city, but, including in the downtown. I haven’t seen any data breaking it out that it’s worse in the winter than it is any other time of the year and My guess is it’s Probably not. Because the pedestrian and the cyclists behavior goes way down in the winter, because we don’t have safe infrastructure right like it’s a chicken and egg thing, but my guess is that I i’m not seeing here in the resolution. Why that’s please excuse the language why this is a driver for this particular policy, and then the last thing is the last, whereas.
MH: This is a good way to talk about this one.
JL: The downtown merchant associations have lost most if not all revenue which they relied on to clean program and throat downtown areas of our downtown including snow removal in some parts of the downtown. This is there’s a lot wrapped up in the Senate so i’m just going to break it out the downtown merchant associations of which, therefore there’s the Main Street area Association, the carry town district Association, the state street Association and the South, university association have lost most if not all revenue that’s largely true the bulk of the revenue that those associations rely on is from art fair. We had little to no activity on the art fair, I think there was something online right, but without the merchants being here and the revenue that they brought into the retailers and restaurants here, almost all of that was gone so true which they relied on to clean program and promote areas for downtown true including snow removal to my understanding, not true. The snow removal is not managed by the downtown mercy associations it’s managed to my understanding by the business improvement sounds what’s, also known as a biz says, managed by the business. And that’s I think my biggest question about this resolution is we actually need to be talking to the business, not the merchant associations about snow removal and I’m still not clear that any of this is necessary, given that the works moving forward for the whole city under city staff in the transportation Commission so.
MH: Okay, I want you to tell me a little bit more about what the business improvement zones are but also note that, like this is the year that they have no revenue from art fair and yet i’ve seen. Like downtown seems to be continues to be the most consistently cleared place in the city. Right so i’m the i’m happy to come back and talk another time a little bit more about business. But so again the merchant associations and the businesses are different things, and the merchant associations, while they did have almost all of their art fair, if not all of their art for revenue for the year gone. They were subsidized really heavily by the DDA, this year we put in 10s of thousands of dollars Oh, and like molly’s disclaimer earlier. I also am board Chair of the downtown Development Authority, this year, I am speaking in no way in any official capacity, except to somebody who shows up to the meetings on a fairly regular basis. So the DDA subsidized the downtown associations heavily in terms of landscaping in terms of. Well, a lot of things specific to businesses but none of that has to do with snow, so the funding and reimbursement of that would all fall under the business and the PDA hasn’t had anything to do with that and has received now requests. So we think the business improvement sounds you’re doing fine.
JL: That sailing any other information.
MH: Where does their money come from.
JL: As I said, i’m happy to come back to another.
MH: well.
JL: I need a more homework. So what I’m seeing it here is, in general, this resolution seems to be talking at a high level about true things, but not at a specific level about problems. I’m not seeing anything in here about user complaints of sidewalk quality. I’m not seeing anything here about the pedestrian and bicycle incidents being specific to the winter i’m not seeing anything in here documenting actual safety hazards in the downtown i’m not saying they don’t exist, everything can always use improvement absolutely. But i’m saying, this resolution is not giving us the reason to do the work.
MH: Which is, I noticed when I get when I get you know when i’m walking around are pushing my cart and i’m always like Oh, thank God, I made it to the downtown area where sidewalks are consistently cleared.
MK: The curb and that’s you right because this I mean there was this there was the piece of this that I think was motivated, specifically by curb curb ramp and bust up bus stops are an issue I think this was motivated by curb ramp issues and cars, because of the man who died last year falling and snow that was in a curb ramp I believe in cary town which and that.
JL: wasn’t the downtown.
MK: yeah part of the downtown so that happened. Which means at least some of the time, we do have issues with curb ramps and the snow that gets there from the plows but even with all of those things, I still agree with you just that this does not seem to address the the fundamental problems and in a way that’s going to be productive, especially when it’s just about the downtown.
JL: For sure and i’m not saying this work doesn’t need to be done it absolutely does I just feel like it is already being done, and if there’s anything that we need to do that’s downtown specific because the infrastructure is specific how the works gets. How the work gets funded is often different from the rest of city that’s completely fine, but this resolution doesn’t reflect any of that, and so I i’d love to see a tightening in. I would like, for us to pause for a moment on the image of Michelle just kind of like walking around downtown with her little car like that just feels like such a lovely thing to me.
MH: I didn’t use my car today because there was snow on the sidewalks and I didn’t want to I thought it would be too exhausting to push my cart through all the snow on the sidewalks so I you.
JL: know.
MH: I used a frickin car. I wasn’t part of the problem today you.
JL: Were traffic today.
MH: I know, but what am I gonna do when there’s snow on the sidewalks and I gotta push my cart three miles, or whatever you know.
MK: Right, so this gives me a chance to talk briefly about the resolution that we’re trying to put together around sidewalk snow removal, which is sort of this is a preview hopefully for a future Council meeting and we were, I wanted to talk about this a little bit just to talk about. The life cycle of a resolution, so the way this new sidewalk snow removal resolution is is going and we decided since it’s being disgusted Council since it’s February and their snow and so people are paying attention to snow, we decided to sort of run with this alternate approach. we’ve put together a resolution that starts pretty incrementally trying to figure out what the scope of the problem is and price out realistically a few different options for moving at least some responsibility for sidewalk snow removal, to the city. With as far as I’m concerned we’re in agreement that the current state of sidewalk snow removal in the city is not acceptable Okay, things are not it’s not good enough right now. And so the status quo is not like coming back and saying Oh, we should just keep doing what we’re doing, but we should enforce it harder to me that’s not going to be acceptable so we’ve put together this resolution and it’s going to go to transportation Commission this coming Wednesday, which I believe is the 17th of February and we’re going to talk about it a transportation Commission there will probably be more revisions that come out of that the Commission is going to have some some feedback, the resolution will be revised again, at which point it will go to Council hopefully. You know if if transportation Commission recommends it, it might not. I can’t speak for what the Commission is going to do, but. If the Commission says yes city council should pass this resolution then it’s going to go to city council and City Council will consider the resolution and there’ll be another round of attempts to potentially amended revise it and then it will pass or not pass. So that’s the process for the for how.
MK: Do I get written to the point.
MH: to the point where transportation is looking at it was that Erica BATs wrote it or.
MK: That was a collaboration between councilmember breaks and myself, we worked on it together. So this is not how things used to work for the transportation Commission where there’d be collaboration between the chair and the Council REP, I think, in theory, this is one way that resolutions can come to Council. Through the commission’s is that chairs of commissions and Council REPS can work together on a resolution that will go through the Commission and then up to counsel. I haven’t experienced that particular process before but that’s how we’re doing it this time and my sense is that that’s one of the many ways that resolutions get born.
MH: yeah cuz I know from, from my perspective, you know it’s just a it’s just a Council watcher I just the resolutions appear fully formed in the agenda and i’m like whoa where did that come from, but right it’s good to know like where it comes, you know how to get engaged earlier in the process.
MK: Things like yeah and, in this case, it would be to watch the transportation Commission meeting and potentially call in with public comment to transportation commission to voice support or not for municipal sidewalk snow removal. So that’s a whole lot about snow I think next next up we’re going to move away from the agenda, since this agenda was so light and we were going to take a little time to talk about the last the it was the first actually budget work session I think jess is going to lead us through this one. Just as nodding.
JL: This is nodding with her microphone off, which is not super productive. So yes, the last episode that we did was on the city budget we really talked about the process and then noted that the very next Council work session so, not the Council meeting which happens, the first and third Mondays of every month. But they’re alternating Monday work sessions was going to be on the very first work session on the budget for fiscal year 2122 and true to form an arbor af pod all showed up and watch the budget work session which I don’t know about you guys, this was my first one.
MK: yeah it was my first two.
JL: So first one is our veteran meeting. So in this one, the next two months Council is going to hear presentations from departments all over the city on their draft budgets and then the Council works with the city administrator to make adjustments to what’s being proposed, so at the last work session we heard from administration it safety which, in this sense means police and fire. The Community engagement and planning departments parks and recreation and office of sustainability and innovation. And what the departments had been asked for by I know the city administrator I don’t remember if this was a direction from Council but everybody had been asked to make 5% cuts across the board. The departments, none of them operate in a vacuum, so there is a lot of cross talk about priority budgeting within their departments, as well as across their departments so. One department may see more than 5% and other department may see less than 5% another department may actually be increasing their budget for 21 and 22 which we did see. I just wanted to call out a few of the interesting things that I felt anyway, there were interesting from that work session so the first one was. The one department that saying hey we actually need a lot more money is the office of sustainability and innovation, and that makes a lot of sense the carbon neutrality plan was just passed they’re just kind of really getting the work up off the ground and so.
MH: This is a climate emergency.
JL: We declared a climate emergency and, as we said in the last episode, a budget is a moral document so if we feel it is emergent we should put emergent dollars towards it so that’s what the request was there was also all the other departments were proposing budget decreases for 2122 one of the a couple of the interesting spence that I saw his Community engagement efforts around single families owning. The setting aside $100,000 for that effort there’s if you’ve been on next door for 30 seconds you’ve heard a conversation about single families owning. And I think that there’s a lot of kind of ghosts and machine there’s a lot of misunderstandings about what it is, where it came from what it does and where it’s going and the city recognizes that and what they like to do is just kind of set a base foundation of understanding with the Community about this is where it’s been, this is the history as a way of leading up to the upcoming masterplan engagement to help inform conversations about where it’s going to go so i’m excited to see them committing to this i’m also excited to see. Excuse me that the city is planning for a comprehensive strategic diversity equity and inclusion initiative. For 21 and 22 This is something that we’ve talked about on this podcast before that it feels like how the city is going about dpi work feels piecemeal so to see the city approaching it in a more holistic way with dollars behind it feels really good. I did want to call out the police department, so they had talked about reductions of 4.25% so you know we talked about, not all 5%. Not 5% not all departments are going to be. There, but one would kind of hope that if anyone was going to hit the minimum, this would be one one of the ways that they’re getting there is by reducing their budgeted Labor costs their budget and employment cost by 11 was called F T or full time employees. But they are adding tasers not just as a one time cost, but as a recurring costs they’re adding a new bomb dog and bomb vehicle and they’re adding as far as we can tell from the budget one electric bike. So it didn’t feel super promising that the police budget is reflecting Community conversations around policing priorities.
MK: And the one thing I will say about the reduction in FT ease was that they’re not proposing this as layoffs, but there are a lot of retirements on the horizon. And so, these would be as people retire they wouldn’t replace them and that they would shrink the the size of their staff in that way, as opposed to firing 11 people at once, which I think is not what anyone is necessarily looking for.
MH: And so I also can. I wonder if it’s like okay yeah the budget says they didn’t go down low enough to us, but like what, if not everyone retires this year, like it’s not like they’re going to make them and so. You know they’re they’re only proposing a 4.25% budget cut and some of that might not actually materialized is what it looks like to me.
JL: And one of the things we’ve talked about is that defund the police doesn’t look like take away money right it looks like reallocation and we’re not seeing how police dollars are necessarily going towards mental health or other support services or housing or any of the things that contribute to Community safety that aren’t policing so i’m i’m not sure in the budget document that we’ve gotten i’m not sure that we’re seeing the moral statement that we’re hoping for.
MH: Right yeah sometimes before someone to go on that, on the Internet for saying like oh hey there. The police are cutting their budget, this is defund the police, and I said that i’m not really this is you don’t defend the police, just to make up for a budget shortfall, you would be to defund the police to replace it with the programs that we actually need that will will actually promote Community safety right okay.
JL: So that’s just a taste of the budget work session from last week molly’s going to talk a little bit about where it goes from here.
MH: Also, I wanted to point out that 4.25% of good Jillian dollars, is still a bajillion dollars.
MK: Alright, because what we saw was the safe safety combined is by far the largest slice of the city’s budget and police, more so than than fire. So we’re going to wrap it up that’s it for the Council meeting on February 16 2021 we talked about some site plans some revised Council revisited Council rules. Lots of snow removal again and the budget, so if you want to take things a little bit further on your own we’re going to have some links in the show notes there’s that transportation Commission meeting that’s coming up on Wednesday February 17 where we, we are going to be discussing another approach to city sidewalk snow removal. There are going to be many more budget work sessions coming up, culminating in a public hearing on may 3 So if you if you know you want to be calling in and talking speaking to the budget, you can save that date now for may 3. And there’s also a schedule of other budget work sessions, where you can hear about other chunks of the city budget we heard just about the general fund at that first one shovel your sidewalks while we don’t have sidewalks snow removal and we do have snow falling down, please, please shovel. And I think just. One correction for us from a previous episode.
JL: Yes, so I have to say, one of my favorite things about you guys you listeners, is that you let us know when we don’t get things totally right, I really appreciated that I feel like we’re crowdsourcing our collective intelligence and so that’s great. So thank you to the listener, who pointed out that in our last episode on city budgeting we had said, both that the State shared revenue comes from sales tax and income tax it actually only comes from sales tax not income taxes which said one time. Thank you.
MH: Alright well i’ll do the Alto if you want them.
MH: Thanks for listening to Ann Arbor AF. We’re your cohosts Molly Kleinman, Michelle Hughes, and myself, Jess Letaw; and thanks to producer Jarod Malestein. For questions about this podcast or ideas about future episodes, you can email us at annarborafpod@gmail.com. Get informed, then get involved. It’s your city! Thanks for listening to Ann arbor af where your co hosts Michelle Hughes molly kleinman and just lita and thanks to our producer Jared Palestine.
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