Today we talk about the next City Council meeting, coming up Monday, May 3rd. We touch on a few interesting agenda items, including shenanigans, the budget, and healthy streets, and offer some ways for you to get involved.
If you haven’t already, please fill out our listener survey!
Links:
– this week’s agenda
– February city budget presentation (attachment #2), and check out the Deeper Dive episode on the budget for more information on specific line items
– The Dispute Resolution Center (this is the thing we couldn’t remember the name of during the episode) as a possible mechanism for the unarmed responder program
Email your city councilmembers if you have any questions about the budget, as it will be approved at the next council meeting!
Thanks to the generosity of our listeners, we have launched a website! Come find episodes, show notes, and transcripts over at www.annarboraf.com. For our ko-fi donors, thank you for making this possible. And thank you to each one of our listeners. If you’d like to find and talk to each other, come check out the thread for each episode in Ann Arbor Humans Who Wonk.
Thanks to Juliet the Greyhound for her audio cameo.
Transcript
JL: Hi, Ann Arbor AFers. This is cohost Jess Letaw with one more thing. We’ve been talking at you for months – now we’d like to hear from you! What do you like about the pod? What do you wish we were doing more of, or better? What ideas do you have for future episodes? We’ve put up a survey for you to fill out. There’s a link to it in the show notes, or go to annarboraf.com/survey. That’s annarboraf.com/survey. Send us your thoughts, questions, feels and feedback on the pod so far; we want to hear it all. And as always, get informed, then get involved. It’s your city!
MK: 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 Molly Kleinman and my pronouns are she/her, I’m Michelle Hughes and my pronouns are she/her, and I’m Jess Letaw and my pronouns are she/her. We’re your cohosts to help you get informed, and get involved. It’s your city!
Let’s jump in!
JL: Today we are talking about the next City Council meeting, coming up Monday, May 3rd. We’ll be touching on a few interesting agenda items, including shenanigans, the budget, and healthy streets, and 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.
MH: So they were actually in the recording at one day before the Council meeting.
that’s right so.
JL: There will still be changes, though there’s always like horses.
MH: Oh, and we’re going to talk about that.
To.
The Council rules that’s.
JL: Between now and then.
first thing on the agenda is me.
yeah I mean there’s communication number two I mentioned occasionally I am on the board of the downtown Development Authority, the DDA.
And my term is up for reappointment and I haven’t sent anything on fire, or like the stranger recently so i’m being reappointed, that is, the thing that happened in Florida, by the way.
Stranger and got down so.
Like that’s my bar for good behavior know i’m doing fine.
MH: Rather, have some i’d rather have Council members lick people then do what they’ve been doing.
JL: Terrible conversations.
Speaking of shenanigans.
yeah.
So molly you have some thoughts on healthy streets.
MK: Yes, healthy streets is on the consent agenda it’s CA 14, and this is the proposal to actually make healthy streets happen we’ve been talking about it periodically over the last few months, there was an allocation to do.
planning for healthy streets that planning has has happened there is now a plan, and now this is asking for budget approval to actually implement healthy streets and because it’s an off cycle budget allocation it.
Council has to approve it, and it actually needs to get a votes, so I will say here that i’m a little worried about healthy streets this year.
The plans look amazing, and I think they’ve done a really excellent job of addressing the feedback and complaints that they got from last year, but.
it’s a high price tag this year, partly because some of the changes that they are proposing to make would be permanent changes and some of them involve.
Road resurfacing, and so the costs are pretty high it’s a total of over $350,000 and.
So i’m a little worried, however, all that money comes from the activity on gas tax money so like from street What that means is it’s coming from streets funds were the only thing we could spend this money on is streets it’s not coming from the general fund at all.
But you know some of the opposition to healthy streets has been loud and some of those complaints have had a.
sympathetic ear among members of Council and so i’m a little worried about it.
But I do I want to like talk for a minute about the various ways that they have addressed problems from last year because we talked about how how the streets last year it happened, very quickly, it wasn’t perfect.
There were a bunch of problems so some of the changes this year.
they’re looking at implementations that are using what we call paint and post so they’re actually painting new lines on the streets.
they’re using vertical delineates that will get glued onto the road none of like no more construction barrels the look that we had last year were on some of those major streets like on South Packard.
Where it looked like construction and no one was really sure where to go that that’s not happening this year and.
Especially on that stretches out Packard what they’re going to do.
Because they had previously taken away elaine on each side and instead they’re keeping all the travel lanes but they’re narrowing them and they’re able to narrow the lanes, to the extent that you can actually fit bike lanes.
On to that stretch of Packard, so this is Packard from Eisenhower all the way to like almost carpenter I think so basically all the way to the city and limit.
A stretch of Packard that is a really important bike corridor, that does not currently have bike facilities, where a lot of people are biking.
It leads to parts of the Community, where the car ownership is lower so there’s lots of really good reasons to improve biking through that stretch, and so this would be a permanent change and again that’s part of why these are going to be more expensive.
So that’s Packard the neighborhood streets, they are going to have better signage for the neighborhood streets, so that, for some of the streets that are quite long.
There was an issue or like there was a sign at one end and assigned at the other end and then no signs in between, so any streets that intersected there was nothing to indicate that they should slow.
Down watch out and now there will be signage at the feeder streets.
MH: In addition, I like that a lot.
MK: it’s great they really listened like they really, really listened to the feedback I don’t I don’t I can’t think of any complaints that have not been addressed in some way, except for the people who just don’t want them at all, and you know those people are not ever going to be happy.
JL: Well, and part of it was based on the survey data after the projects, last year we got a really good sense that people who use the projects on bike or on foot.
were overwhelmingly in favor and people who didn’t age and use the projects or be only use them in a car we’re in general lesson favor.
And that speaks, I think, to what we’re trying to prioritize right we’re trying to prioritize health and comfort outside of cars, so that privilege rebalancing is going to feel different, so I think it’s important to know where the disagreement is coming from yeah.
MK: I think that’s right.
Another thing to notice about the deployments this year, some of the popular streets from last year are not on this list and that’s because they’re being taken over by the DDA.
So it’s not that they’re not happening, this year, but for one of the most popular routes was on division which is one way northbound and there was a temporary to a bike lane installed on division and.
That was incredibly popular and the DDA has said, we are, we want this bike lane back and we wanted permanent, so the DDA is actually going to be installing a permanent to a bike way on division.
Later this summer yeah.
Oh.
MH: yeah.
MK: No, the reason is not on this list is not because it’s not happening it’s because it’s happening in a different way and happening.
MH: For good that’s great.
Are there any other ones like that.
MK: That is the main one.
This year.
Well that’s a that’s a frickin good one.
yeah and then also the downtown St closures like around the restaurants and things which last year were included under the healthy streets umbrella.
This year are outside of the healthy streets umbrella, so this year healthy streets is really the neighborhood slow streets and.
Just three major street reconfigurations it’s South main and the two chunks of Packard.
And the other chunk of Packard is downtown that Hill and there used to be a bike lane there.
But then during construction it got taken away and they just never put it back, and so this is restoring a bike lane, we used to have, but the issue with that chunk.
And this is something I pointed out, because it used to be part of my commute the place where the bike lane would be on that stretch of Packard is basically one big pothole.
And that section of road isn’t scheduled to be fully resurfaced for another like four or five years.
And so, one of the high ticket like big ticket items in this budget is to resurface just the bike lane section of Packard, which is a thing they did last year for a couple of the deployments, and so this is.
Interesting it’s not like super like out of the ordinary for our kind of thing we might do, but it would resurface those sections, because otherwise you’d have people in the bike lane.
With I think with delineate are sort of keeping them in the bike lane in a place where I usually leave the bike lane because it’s so the panels are.
JL: Over there.
MK: yeah so.
MH: It would, would you say the limiters I like the linear.
MK: yeah dilemma here is, these are the like.
We don’t have a lot of them.
Yet I am hopeful that we will get many more it’s the they’re sort of thin plastic vertical sticks that get glued to the street basically.
MH: yeah that’s great I was, I was worried that some of these things are just gonna we’re just going to be painting pray by.
No means, but these are.
All going to be.
MK: delineated South main it’s going to have delineates for sure.
South Packard I don’t I don’t remember, there was some back and forth about it, I think it’s mostly going to be just paint on South Packard um.
But the thing without Packard is that that whole quarter really needs a reimagining you know, on the scale of like the water reimagined wash it off and.
This is sort of like step one there, there needs to be substantial changes to that whole corridor that we’re not quite prepared to make yet.
But, but this would be a really great start, and it would address a really important corridor again for for specifically bikes Oh, and I forgot I forgot to mention a very important piece of this on South Packard they’re going to narrow the lanes, which means they can lower the speed limit.
And the narrower lanes will help slow down traffic, but then also they can actually lower the Posted speed limit, which will help make it safer for everyone, moving through that corridor.
MH: I like it.
MK: yeah I do too there’s so much there’s so much to love here, but I also understand how there could be some sticker shock with the total price.
MH: yeah and one of the other thing is like you know because it’s because that money can only come can only be spent on road things it’s like.
Always you know all we’re all we would be for going is.
Is some road resurfacing and I know that that’s the top priority of some people is this further roads for us to resurface underneath their cars, but like.
i’m i’ve also heard a rumor that like we spend so much on road resurfacing that like it’s not even possible to spend more because, like there just aren’t the people to do the work the asphalt doesn’t exist, like.
I saw that I think that was like a couple of years ago they added like $5 million from a.
From one of the reserve funds to do extra road resurfacing and they just couldn’t spend it because we were already spending the maximum amount that could be spent that.
MK: That doesn’t surprise me I haven’t heard that but, given there was a there was a long period in the arts where resurfacing wasn’t happening.
And how can we sort of fell into debt on on our road maintenance and this is true statewide, but I think, especially in Ann arbor, and so I that you know that really wouldn’t surprise me.
MH: And I think part of the problem is that just we’ve built for such low density that you need a lot of road per person, and of course that’s going to cost a lot of money yeah.
JL: One of the things that I sorry go ahead.
MK: No, you go ahead.
JL: One of the things that I appreciate about how this is being presented so you’re talking about sticker shock we’re looking at.
A cost of around $350,000 for this year’s healthy streets projects outside of the downtown.
But that a third of that is going into road resurfacing This is consistent, a little bit with how.
The DDA talks about its road project costs, one of the things that we’ve come to understand is that, like you say the sticker shock is there the cost seems high.
But through analyzing the last several years of projects we’ve come to understand that infrastructure updates constitute around 70%.
of our project costs, and so we know streetlights will be improved, we know water means will be upsides we know sidewalks will be improved and that helps kind of make these large project costs feel more palatable.
In a way, that then results in safer streets for people outside of cars and so all i’m saying is I see some consistency and how this has been talked about in a way that, for me, gives it more information and more more friendliness more budget friendliness.
MK: that’s yeah that’s great and I don’t I don’t know that two thirds are all just resurfacing but there’s like the painting it’s the it’s the implementations that are going to be permanent, and then the third one.
Along South main is a real classic road diet so it’s going from two lanes in either direction to one carlene another direction a middle turn lane and bike lanes and the bike lanes.
MH: claims.
MK: will be buffered and or have some vertical.
MH: Vertical please.
MK: yeah and that, I mean that stretch yourself man has been a huge problem for many years going way before the healthy streets and the you know the deployment on self made last year.
had some serious problems that I think this new version really fixes but it’s, but to do it this way is more expensive because you have to repaint all the lines on the road.
But I used to live down there and I stopped biking places when I lived on the other side of maine in that part of town, because it was just like so on friendly.
there’s a really terrifying crossing like on the top of a hill there’s this crosswalk it’s right by the stadium there’s just a lot down there that would be really improved for everyone, especially pedestrians.
by getting rid of a lane of car traffic in either direction so like it anyway, this is all wonderful I love it and I hope that it.
Just stays in the consent agenda and passes, but I wanted to give some details to folks in case it gets pulled and gets talked about and in case you, like me, like the healthy streets and might want to let your Council members know that this that you’re in favor of this plan.
JL: That was definitely you is.
A specific call to action.
MK: yeah like right your Council members call in.
I think there’s going to be a lot of folks trying to call in tomorrow for a few different things, so you know, just a quick email saying I really love to help the streets.
I want to see them come back i’m really excited about them just a nice positive email I don’t know that Council, how many of those Council gets.
MH: definitely do that them know, because this is an eight foot thing and we don’t know who’s who’s going to be that eighth vote I gotta I gotta make someone be paid for.
MK: So i’m going to stop talking about healthy streets now, it looks like we’re moving on to jess and the 1 million public hearings.
JL: that’s right there, there are 10 but it’s a lot more than we usually yeah so I have a couple of public hearing items that are interesting to me the first one.
seemed super interesting, it was a site plan review and approval for 614 South Ashley I opened it up with great appetite nope it’s a 289 square foot second floor edition on a piece of on an office basically.
i’m not sure why it’s coming to counsel, I mean i’m sure that there was some like specific element of the project that triggered Council review.
But this is not something that rises to the level of policy intention so whatever we have in our process that allows this one, to come to Council for vote just.
I think that that needs a little bit of looking at what i’d like to spend a little more time on is the budget public hearing 10.
So it’s the public hearing now with the vote per our city council Charter, the second meeting in May, which is may 17.
That vote will come with amendments that we don’t currently know Council members and the city administrator.
are going to be busy making last minute adjustments to individual line items and service areas and the budget so that now is a good time to pay attention and be asking questions.
A couple of line items that all call out actually before I get into the line items I want to know we did our deeper dive on the budget.
Three or four months ago now, and ever since then I have watched more working sessions on the budget and pay closer attention than I ever have just because I wanted to be able to talk about it cogently on the pod really like this is just kind of homework for me.
Knowing everything that I know opening up this week’s agenda and looking at this particular resolution on the budget.
It is very hard to read this for legible information even having paid attention so i’m just kind of affirming For those of you who are like I don’t understand the budget solidarity man i’m right there with you.
So a couple of line items that are interesting on this that don’t do not show up in the budget, but we will drop a link to this in the show notes to the budget presentation.
That the city did back in February, there have been line item updates since then that do show up in this resolution so there’s not.
A presentation that describes the resolution there’s not a resolution that describes a presentation, but it gives you a little bit more context.
And i’d also encourage you to go back and listen to the to the episode that we did on the budget because we did get pretty deep into different sort of service areas, then.
What we know is that there will be an allocation for the new unarmed responder program if it’s what it was before, and again can’t tell from this resolution, but if it’s what it was before it’ll be 270 $6,000.
Which doesn’t hold a candle to the $31 million bucket that the police currently have.
we’re also looking at this coming fiscal year.
of spending a lot more money on sidewalks and affordable housing, thanks to the villages that passed last year.
we’re also going to be seeing substantial increases in the office of sustainability and innovation, which is where our carbon neutrality plan at zero comes out of.
Again super hard to read the resolution for that, but we do have some really cool work coming forward this year.
there’s also a couple of public hearings on specific areas of fees nothing that’s earth shaking it’s just bringing fees charged by the different service areas of the city in line with the budget changes that are being made.
MH: thoughts and questions from my fellow co host I will, I am i’m just like I feel like I need to call into the public hearing.
Talk about something, because this is the budget, and this is what’s going to be the main thing i’m definitely going to be talking about, we need to be spending more on the on the unarmed responders and less on the police.
yeah it’s.
I I, because it seems like such a paltry amount to spend on that, but I guess I guess they’re thinking we don’t know what we’re doing yet so they didn’t want to commit a whole bunch of money without knowing what they were committing it to but dang.
JL: And we don’t even know where that money is going to get spent under yeah.
MH: Right right, and one thing I hope about that is that I want to make sure that any unarmed responders that we do have are not like part of the police department i’m.
Like I want that to be a whole separate kind of thing.
And then another thing I would say about on our on our end responders is that a lot of people like to conflate it with mental health.
And they say, like all these should be mental health responders and then they’re like Oh, why shouldn’t we just have the county do this because they already have Community mental health, but I think there’s a lot of.
Things that the police respond to that aren’t violent crimes and also aren’t mental health crises and there’s a lot of just like someone is yelling about something what’s the deal like there’s a lot of you know, just like people mad at their neighbor about this and that.
that’s you know, the police, told me that at one of their public meetings they were like the vast majority of their calls are just neighbor disputes and.
JL: You have a Community arbitration Center I don’t know very much at all about how that works, but it’s possible that diverting more funding to them would be productive.
MH: Is that some kind of nonprofit group or something.
JL: it’s, it is a part of the government, I don’t know if it’s like avalon housing where they subcontract out to a nonprofit that’s something that i’m happy for us to look more into like.
MH: I have.
JL: never heard what we do yeah I know we do have that so that’s the thing.
yeah, if you like, Michelle have questions about anything budget related now’s a great time to talk to your City Council member and just ask them what they care about what are they working on.
ask about the things you care about like healthy streets or sidewalks or various fun things.
The art Commission perhaps and and how those things are being budgeted for now is really when that picture is starting to emerge so.
Give a give a drop an email to your City Council member just have some friendly questions about budget speaking of dollar things Michelle you have some things to say about these.
MH: um yeah Okay, so we have a really interesting ordinance coming up for first reading here.
it’s the third party delivery fee ordinance and.
It is a regulation of the market in a way that I didn’t know that our city had the power to do it.
And I think it’s a really interesting application of it, so you know restaurants around here.
have been in a bind because of coven because people can’t come and eat at the restaurant, and so a lot of our beloved.
A lot of our beloved local institutions have gone under and some of them are struggling.
and
So, but a lot of them have survived only by having the ability to deliver food which they’ve never had to do before, and so a lot of them are tuning are turning to.
These third party delivery services.
Things like door dash uber eats grub hub street.
and
So that does get allow the restaurants to sell food to people that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, but they are apparently i’m charging the restaurants extortionate rates.
Sometimes in excess of 30% of the.
Of the fee and.
The restaurants feel like they’re in a bind because they you know it’s either they paid the extortion of fees or they just can’t sell any thing to anyone.
And so.
JL: While we are excited about this resolution coming and Michelle will say more about it and moment, I just want to acknowledge that the heavy breathing is not our excitement it’s that we are being joined by Julia the great.
so excited about reducing restaurant.
fees.
MH: yeah.
So it’s a.
yeah so this some this resolution would limit the fee to 15% but so so door dash or whatever can’t charge restaurants, more than 15% of the cost of the food.
and
it’s another funny thing about it is that it’s a temporary.
ordinance that would go away, after the code regulations are over so once people can eat indoors again.
Then doordash can go back to the charging whatever it wants.
and
MK: there’s another piece of is to write about the inaccurate menus which.
MH: Yes.
MK: I think I get frustrated by as a consumer, when you can’t it’s hard to find a correct menu for a restaurant and so.
Frequently these services will have an out of date menu or an incorrect menu, but then people get mad at the restaurant for not having what they want, and so this ordinance also requires these third party delivers to make sure their menus are correct.
MH: Right.
And it’s kind of funny because, like it, it makes it like a violation of the ordinance to charge more fees.
but also to have an inaccurate menu, and so it would charge, it would charge these delivery companies $500 a day for every day, they have an inaccurate menu, and that sounds that sounds kind of wild like.
I don’t like it sounds difficult to enforce I don’t know it’ll be really interesting to see this happen.
and
One thing that worries me a little bit about it is that it has a club there’s a clause in there.
it’s number to see, I believe.
And so it’s you know we’re talking about they can’t charge more than 15% but if the company signs a specific contract with the restaurant, where the contract agrees to to let them to let the company charge more than 15%.
As long as they like, as long as the delivery companies, including other services such as advertising.
That is totally kosher so I don’t see any reason why these companies wouldn’t just like bust in there and be like well it sure would be bad if you didn’t get listed on our on our APP anymore better better sign this contract.
JL: that’s actually.
That makes me wonder.
I and the first time that I saw this resolution was this morning when we were previewing the but the agenda, so I don’t know anything more about it than you know what we’ve got at the table right now.
This makes me wonder how ruthless, the resolution is because it’s my understanding that a lot of those third party.
delivery services it’s delivery is just one part of what the contract covers the reason that they justify the higher fees and again, this is my understanding, talking to restaurant friends.
Is because of those other services that they’re providing we’re listing you on our website where marketing through our newsletters.
So i’m just wondering like are we posturing on this, or is this a real thing I don’t know the answer I am excited to see this because there has been gouging so if there’s a mechanism to change it i’m glad that we’re taking that on I just wonder.
MH: Because yeah i’m i’m just real worried that what’s going to happen is everyone’s going to just sign sign the contract and this thing means nothing.
Because like yeah it’s tough when when these these delivery companies have such market penetration right now i’ve seen.
The way people i’ve seen the way people use them, they go first to the delivery APP.
You know and and then they’ll start punching stuff into the delivery APP and i’m like did you know that they do that, they also have their own in house delivery why don’t you just order off of their website.
People just go first to the delivery happen, so I think they you know the companies, the rest of the some restaurants might feel like they have to keep.
Paying these extortionate rates, because of the service of being listed on the APP because if if people are only going to buy things they see listed on the APP.
Like I don’t know like that’s that so i’m i’m really worried about that you can sign a contract and nullify this ordinance thing.
JL: And this is really we’re going to be talking a few times today about Council taking positions on issues they’re kind of that scene beyond Council purview this is really the first one.
And this actually transitions a little bit into the next thing Michelle that you would wanted to talk about okay if we get into that one.
MH: Sure yeah that’s going to that one.
boy.
Resolution team.
JL: Welcome to the shenanigans park.
MH: Yes, shenanigans and the shenanigans corresponding.
resolution to improve Council effectiveness performance and communication so.
round about April 11 councilmember Jeff hainer took to Facebook to complain about journalists, which he hates.
and in doing so, he used a homophobic slur he used the F slur and this angered a lot of my LGBT Q friends, because it puts us in danger.
Because you know we have a society in which it is difficult to be an LGBT personally face discrimination, we face harassment, we face.
All kinds of problems we faced with people’s you know families shun their LGBT members and people get kicked out of their homes, we face housing insecurity and so here a Council member comes to throw some more some more insults at us and encourage those people who.
Are who are already hurting us so at the last Council member at the last Council meeting, the City Council responded to that.
By created by passing a resolution to remove Jeff hainer from his committee assignments, which is something that they have the power to do.
From the city charter, because the city charter says that you know committee assignments are made at the behest of Council and any Council member can be removed from India for cars.
And i’m.
It.
It was a brutal one and a half hour discussion a blast Council meeting.
and
A lot of things were discussed and.
The things that were mainly not discussed where the safety of the LGBT community, it was mostly Council members.
Who didn’t want to see this happen, who are supportive of Jeff hanger being able to do whatever he wants to hurt the LGBT community saying how dare you do this to our beloved Jeff hainer.
And and questioning counselors authority to do it, even though the.
Even though the city attorney had said in no uncertain terms that Council has the authority to do this i’m and i’m.
MH: So it was the resolution to remove them from committees was past eight to two with Jeff hainer i’m being called what’s that word, but it will.
JL: Either staining or recusing.
recusing.
MH: And then.
i’m.
So Nelson in Ramallah, we voted not to remove them from committees.
or not i’m sorry.
Remo in gris gris well for the natural movement committees.
Nelson spoke a lot about that this shouldn’t be something that the City Council can do, but then ended up voting to do it.
But it was not the healing that the LGBT community needed.
If people were feeling unsafe approaching their Council members.
That discussion did not help them feel more safe and welcome in public participation.
Now councilmember griswold who voted not to remove hainer from committees is bringing back this resolution, which was postponed on that night, and that is the resolution to improve Council effectiveness performance and communication and.
So.
kind of the whole premise of this resolution is that um.
The response to haters homophobic remarks was disproportionate and that it’s part of factional arguments and not part of it is a genuine desire to help the LGBT community.
it’s this the premise of this resolution is if the Council could just learn to get along, they would have seen that the reasonable thing to do is to let this slide.
And it is my contention that it is not reasonable to let to let homophobia slide and that that’s how we get more homophobia.
And i’m.
So.
This is a resolution that seeks to.
bridge the divide between the factions on the city council.
If it hadn’t been if this had been proposed, not in the context of protecting Jeff hainer from consequences, then I might have a different feel about it, but it was proposed in that context and it contains a.
resolve clause that says that any actions that have been taken against Council members are now.
undone, and instead we’re going to have a mediation process.
So it’s still really reads as a protect Jeff hanneman resolution.
and not an end alike slap in the face the LGBT Q community who.
was hurt by handers actions, and it also.
allocates $20,000 from the budget.
to hire mediators to watch City Council meetings and then meet with Council members afterwards and tell them how they could have done better.
and
I don’t know it’s it seems like a strange it seems like a strange expense in a time when we didn’t really talk about it when we talked about the budget but.
We have a major budget deficit right now on the order of $3 million because of coven um and so we’re borrowing against some of our um.
we’re borrowing against some of our reserve money, just to keep basic city operations going and here it’s talking about you know allocating $20,000.
to teach Council, how to get along um.
and
I don’t think i’m not sure that was the problem in the first place.
MK: yeah I think this is yeah this miss identifies both the problem and the solution.
Is yeah.
I would say um.
No amount of mediation is going to work when both parties are not up when when, at least one party is not operating in good faith.
I think that’s what we’re dealing with here.
JL: So, Michelle and curious if you have a call to action around this resolution.
um.
MH: I don’t I really don’t know how to respond, I guess continue calling your City Council representatives and and emailing them and telling them that the problem was the LG you know LGBT discrimination and the problem is not.
Council effectiveness on the you know, on their factions like i’m.
told okay so like if they could remove the thing that would undo.
The action that they take against Jeff hainer, then we could consider the separately like and.
That was something that griswold said that she would be interested in doing last time, but when they postponed us at the last meeting and.
It came back in its original form, so I don’t know if she’s still intends to do that, but I she very better very much better intend to do that um but still I think it just feels really wrong to ignore the harm to the LGBT community and focus so much on the harm to a Jeff hainer.
Because I don’t know there’s there’s some people out there who love Jeff hater and they’re saying that they feel that their.
representation is being stripped away by having him removed from committees but, like my representation is being stripped away by having him on committees, because i’m not going to talk to a homophobic they get.
And I don’t think that it’s right to.
require LGBT people in our Community, to talk to an LG to talk to a bigot if they want to get things done in these committees.
So another thing about it is that in the $20,000 that it allocates from the budget it’s $20,000 because that’s an amount that won’t require.
eight votes from the.
To pass as a budget resolution.
But Kathy griswold says she’s sure she’s found someone who’s willing to do it for free i’m sure that’ll be great.
i’m a i’ve got it kind of weird to me out that she can just like find someone who thinks they can do it and it doesn’t have and it doesn’t have to go through like.
An rfp process that we’re going to like you know the city administrator is going to find the best mediator available for the money like.
it’s weird that Kathy griswold to just be able to like make some phone calls and assign this to an assignment mediation job to.
Someone so it.
JL: yeah and if that’s the case then then make that what it is make it something that you all and I guess i’m talking directly to counsel here, if this is something that you feel like you need.
i’m not sure that you need public monies or public observation to be able to go through this process you all are humans.
who are working together on a really important job of representing the strategy and policy of a city that we all care about.
To have something like this keep coming back because there’s a failure to be able to do it on your own I just did.
molly’s description of this is wrong problem wrong solution, and this keeps sitting wrong.
Because I just don’t know that this needs to be a Council table discussion I feel like this needs to be happening with your whoa word co representatives with your colleagues, I think, in fact, the further away from an audience that this happens the better.
MH: So I think that’s what I have to say about that i’m going to pass it over to molly talking about something else, but I take a little break.
MK: yeah so this next resolution that we’re going to talk about is DC three, which is a resolution to request em that address frequency of commercial truck crashes on em 14 bridge over the here on river, this has been a known problem spot on am 14.
For many years, and the.
What what I think what precipitated this particular resolution is that there was one day in April, where there were three truck crashes over the course of like a 24 hour period three serious commercial truck crashes.
One of them caused a diesel spill into the river and the other two both involved a rollover of the truck and the trailer.
In a previous year, a driver was killed a truck driver was killed in a in a crash at this spot it’s very unsafe and.
There is a long and sordid history of m dot not caring what.
Municipalities want or need when it comes to safety for the street for the roads and streets that m dot controls, that is, that you know come into cities or are near cities.
And so, this is an issue where m dot has said no repeatedly they’re not going to do anything to fix this location now we’ve had three more Oh, is a 48 hour period, excuse me three more crashes in a 48 hour period.
And the city, I think, is using this as another opportunity to push for changes and I don’t expect this to be a controversial resolution I care more about the the whole m dot dynamic which has been a problem for us in places throughout the city, the reason Washington all.
kind of sucks is because it hasn’t, let us do anything to make it better.
It can take years to get approval for a single traffic light situations like that so that’s what’s happening here.
there’s a really bad spot there were a lot of crashes, the city is trying again to get them to do something about it and.
Hopefully, maybe this time i’ve got well listen, I see in the resolution that they are sending it to the local state legislative delegation and to the governor.
Maybe since there’s been some change of control of the State over the last couple of years, maybe there will be some some new appetite for.
for addressing this this particular spot.
JL: And I will say this is, this is a shout in policy terms, this is a shout typically work with m.is addressed through staff channels so.
Transportation staff DDA staff, whoever would talk to the relevant departments and service units within.
m.in on rare occasions I know the assistant city administrator and city administrator have gotten involved with higher level staff at n dot.
For a policymaker to say something like this, like they they are really trying to get attention and really trying to make a change, so I just want to kind of note that.
MK: yeah that’s helpful so that’s all I had to say about that, and now we’re going we’re sort of I feel like we’re ping pong today between transportation and shenanigans and transportation and.
shenanigans we are back to shenanigans with DC five and the Council rules.
MH: This one really doesn’t have to be shenanigans this is, these are these look like they’re all a bunch of.
These are mostly a bunch of reasonable proposals.
To deal with you know some some reasonable changes to counsel rules.
So the Council rules are the.
How the rules about how the Council governance itself.
MK: And there have been some shenanigans about the Council rules.
MH: There have been.
MK: Yes, you’re using had.
MH: Their numbers well so there’s there’s some of this some of this stuff addresses shenanigans i’ll tell i’ll say that much.
Some of this stuff is indeed a continuance of some shenanigans but there’s a couple things in here that I that I really like okay so same same thing that most of this is good, with probably a exaggeration.
The so one of them is seems like perfectly reasonable and good suggestions me is that.
Anything added to the City Council agenda after 5pm Thursday has to have three sponsors on Council or at the Council meeting, they have to take a majority vote in order to put anything on the agenda.
And that seems reasonable because we.
deal with.
You know that when they put that when they put.
They put the arm the Council agenda in front of the public.
And then we have a chance to react to it, we have a chance to talk to our Council members about it, we have a chance to make podcasts about it, and so, when things come in too late for us to talk about an address as a as a public that does you know hurt our ability to.
You know, have a.
wide ranging conversation, so I think this is reasonable it doesn’t totally forbid things from being added, but it says that it’s got to be a big deal.
In order to do it so that’s that I like.
The.
let’s see.
Oh, but one thing is.
To one thing this will do is that, like to add things to the agenda at the meeting.
So, like if if you’re at the meeting, nothing has ever been on the website no public Member know member of the public has ever seen this thing that’s like that’s the worst time to to add something to an agenda, I think.
And previously that required a three quarters vote to put things on the agenda in that in that way, but this reduces it to a one half vote to just a simple majority.
And that so i’m not sure I like that I like the idea of like.
You know, requiring things that come in late to go on there, but something that’s never been on the website at all, I feel like that should probably still have a three quarters vote.
Like I remember, there was a resolution on a few years ago.
Trying to pass an ordinance about cracking down on protesters against the deer call and it seemed like a pretty big deal to like put new police measures in place to new laws that people could be.
Two things that people can be arrested for.
In place um you know, to put that on the agenda at the last minute, where no one can see it.
and
That was, you know, so I would like, for that sort of thing to require three quarters vote.
But anyway, um that’s one of the things on there i’m mostly good.
Another thing is that another thing that I like is if a Council Member wants to bad mouth, the staff.
Talk to the administrator not to the public.
We.
JL: Something that we’ve heard a lot over the last several years is Council complaining about specific staff about departments about staff in general, and it sets up.
A pretty toxic working dynamic between Council and staff, it also, I think.
creates a more problematic relationship between staff and the general public, because now, people who are listening kind of like you were talking about with a homophobic language.
Not nearly To that extent, but Council or excuse me constituents listening to their Council members talk about staff and really disrespectful ways.
breeds distrust by the general Community and staff, I mean.
i’m not saying, give them a blank check and let them do anything that i’m saying come to it with a working relationship and so asking Council members to bring concerns about staff to their manager, namely the city administrator to me that’s a big one.
MH: yeah definitely yeah I feel like trust in the government faith in the government it’s a really fragile thing it’s something that we need to.
it’s something that we need to work really hard to foster and something that the City Council the City Council shouldn’t be getting up there and telling people not to have faith in their government because, like you know this is.
we’ve we literally had people attempt to overthrow the government couple months ago, faithful.
And so, when Council members get up there and they talk to bad mouth, the staff that feeds into this whole idea that all the government is bad, we shouldn’t even bother, why should I get involved.
And so yeah if and it’s it’s it tends to be like things were Council members want the staff to do a thing, but they haven’t actually brought forward resolution to change the way staff those things, or they have opinions that are beyond their expertise.
You know the Council members have opinions that are beyond their expertise and don’t understand why staff is choosing to do things that way, and so they take it to the public and.
yeah seems like a bad plan.
So another thing there is.
The Okay, so another another thing that I want to talk about is a new a brand new Council rule rule 13.
Council behavioral norms and this is all aspirational language there’s nothing like that Council members can be punished for but.
It.
It is things like you know work effectively with other Council members encourage free expression of opinion on policy issues by all Council members.
Like use use the same cared caution on on.
On on social media avoid derogatory or denigrating language Council member hainer.
and
But then another thing is the I think from some code of ethics that’s for.
city administrators, not for Council members, but they pulled a few things that they liked.
A firm the dignity and worth of local government services and maintain a deep sense of social responsibility as a trusted public servant, I like that um and.
And things like that so that’s you know, an aspirational Council ethics rule 13 Council behavior and norms.
and
it’s hard to argue with because it’s just hey can we be nice and do good, yes, yes, we can.
At least I hope we can we just have to try.
But then the other thing is the much hated um redress of grievances rule 10 enroll 10 it was the thing.
That said, that if a Council member has been has had their motives impugned and there.
And things like that.
Then they can take it to counsel administration committee.
And councilmember from La he.
threatened to sue the city, if he was ever brought up under these rules and you back and he got the aclu to even write a letter saying that.
Saying that.
This word.
chill his speech.
MK: He tell you, though, right like.
MH: No, I would say, was the it was a local aclu lawyers unit.
And it was it was reviewed they wrote a letter, and it was reviewed by the staff by the aclu staff so yeah um.
It was weird so yeah but, so this is so, this change takes that rule out of real 10 and puts it in real 12 therefore satisfying everyone.
i’m and.
It puts it in there in in less specific language but real 12 is Council ethics rules and.
It uh.
It adds that Council members can be.
can be brought up can be what’s it called the foot of the College counseling and.
They call it counseling and.
reprimand and that’s something that could happen now with any conduct that is unbecoming of a Council member so.
it’s something that.
When Jeff hainer was being discussed when when removing it from companies was being discussed.
A lot of the Council members who are supporting him or really confused because there was nothing in count the Council ethics rules 12 preventing someone from.
Using homophobic slurs to attack the LGBT community, so they like you can’t harm him, you know you can’t you can’t take him off the, off the Council committees, because.
it’s not there’s nothing in the Rules, so this would put that in the rules under conduct unbecoming a Council member but.
I also don’t like that phrasing because it’s so vague if.
You know if your counselors.
JL: Because yeah there’s definitely a concern that something like this would be kind of weaponized politically.
Right, so I I disagree with you therefore i’m going to punish you.
And I think that there’s.
room to find a way of making that censure possible without kind of arming it on the political side, I do not know what the answer is here, but I don’t think the answer is to not do it.
MH: right but yeah i’m concerned i’m only concerned about the phrasing of Council conduct unbecoming a Council member, because that sounds reminds me of the red scare like right now that’s that you know that’s not what I would be worried about, but like.
i’m concerned that if norms changed a little bit I would prefer the more specific language that we had before saying what can be.
What can be reprimanded um but another thing is that, like i’m moving moving these concerns into Council rule 12 like um doesn’t take away the council’s ability to remove Jeff Hannah from committees, it adds another thing that the Council could do, which is have the.
Half the administration committee.
rate, a better about it.
So I don’t know it’s a real interesting discussion.
Keep an eye on it talk to Council members about it, read the Rules.
Sometimes.
what’s next.
MK: DC to revolution in support of Michigan senate bill 352 with jess.
JL: And i’m not sure that I would have brought this up, except the context is interesting so earlier, we talked about.
The resolution to request that m dot address the frequency of crashes on a particular strategy and 14 in a moment we’re going to talk about a Council resolution addressing policy far beyond Ann arbor city borders.
This one is in support of as molly said Michigan senate bill 352 which is bill around local gun control.
And I just think it’s interesting the different ways that City Council can take positions on or make statements.
about actions that are happening beyond the beyond the city I don’t think I realized how often they did it until I saw three very different one show up in the same meeting.
This one is pretty straightforward I don’t know that there’s going to be a lot of discussion or any disagreement about it.
Possibly It takes no stance on what the gun control is this particular bill is about moving the power of certain enforcement from the State level to the municipal level.
So I just, I just wanted to call that out that the city has a number of different ways of speaking to issues beyond its borders and this one, I mean it feels appropriate, it has to do with municipal control, and so the city taking a stance on it feels relevant.
not quite the same as DC six.
MK: All right, DC sex.
Resolution for city to hold a Community conversation about the Palestinian people and Palestinian Americans.
we’re not going to spend a lot of time on this one, it felt like we had to at least mention it.
But this is an unserious resolution it’s a distraction, and it is not worth a lot of our time, so I haven’t said, a very brief list of facts that i’m going to read.
And that’s all we’re going to say about DC six today so first of all there’s only one sponsor for this resolution it’s Kathy grizzled.
councilmember rem lolly who is Palestinian American is not a Co sponsor of this resolution.
To Ann arbor has a vibrant Palestinian American Community members of that community have not asked for a resolution, like this.
Three most of the whereas is in this resolution, or about opposition to Israel and not the lives of Palestinian Americans here in Ann arbor.
For there is a small group of people, none of whom are Palestinian or even Arab American who protest every Saturday morning outside of one of our synagogues.
During worship services and also frequently speak at City Council meetings they hold signs with swastikas claim the Holocaust was a hoax and use anti Semitic language like talking about Jewish power they regularly demand that City Council passed a resolution condemning Israel.
I think perhaps they also have asked her resolution, like this, and that is all we’re going to say about this resolution ah.
MH: we’re gonna do a Community conversation about something, why not homophobia.
MK: yeah right, yes, that would be a great thing to have a Community conversation about at this particular moment in time ah, this one is out of left field and i’m not going to talk about it anymore.
So we’re going to move right along this was the last resolution we had on our list for today so we’re going to move into the closing time of our thing it sounds like we don’t have any corrections this week.
JL: All right.
MK: So I will thank all of you, our listeners and those of you who have supported us on coffee if you’d like to send us a few dollars to cover our hosting fees, you can find us at K oh dash F I COM slash Ann arbor a F.
And that’s it for this episode of Ann Arbor AF. We’re your cohosts Molly Kleinman, Michelle Hughes, and myself, Jess Letaw; and thanks to producer Jack Jennings, who’s pinch-hitting for Jarod Malestein. For questions about this podcast or ideas about future episodes, you can email us at annarborafpod@gmail.com. Theme music “I dunno” by grapes. Get informed, then get involved. It’s your city!
JL: Hi, Ann Arbor AFers. This is cohost Jess Letaw with one more thing. We’ve been talking at you for months – now we’d like to hear from you! What do you like about the pod? What do you wish we were doing more of, or better? What ideas do you have for future episodes? We’ve put up a survey for you to fill out. There’s a link to it in the show notes, or go to annarboraf.com/survey. That’s annarboraf.com/survey. Send us your thoughts, questions, feels and feedback on the pod so far; we want to hear it all. And as always, get informed, then get involved. It’s your city!
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