Today we are talking about the next City Council meeting, coming up Tuesday, January 18th. We’ll be touching on a few interesting agenda items, including memos, memos, and more memos.
Links we referenced (or think you might find useful):
– this week’s agenda;
– A Brookings Institute article on workforce housing and middle-income housing subsidies, and a Smithsonian article on company towns; these get at some more reasons why the UM Housing resolutions are problematic that we didn’t get to cover in the episode;
– the local Affordable Housing learning series;
– an article on DTE’s proposed rate increase;
– the City’s sidewalk snow removal report;
– and a love letter (aka Twitter thread full of maps listeners created) of AAPS walk zones.
Come check out our episodes and transcripts at our website, annarboraf.com. Keep the conversation going with fellow Ann Arbor AFers on Twitter and Facebook. And hey, if you wanted to ko-fi us a few dollars to help us with hosting, we wouldn’t say no.
Transcript
Molly: Today we’re talking about the next City Council meeting coming up Tuesday January 18 will be touching on a few interesting agenda items, including memos memos and more memos.
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.
So diving right in with the memos and why are we talking so much about memos the last couple of meetings there’s been a lot of really meaty stuff in the memo section and.
It occurred to us that we should take a moment and explain why like, why do we care about these memos, why are we talking about them they’re not being voted on what’s the deal with the memos.
And the memos are this sort of interim intermediate step in a lot of the work that’s that Council is doing so Council will often pass a resolution asking steph to give them a report of some kind.
That report is often in the form of a memo and then, once those reports come in and those memos come in, frequently they grow up into.
Actions of some kind, by Council there are resolutions that come from these memos and so keeping up with the memos is a way to keep up with.
The activity of counsel beyond the votes that are happening in any given week.
And so they’re really helpful for us to keep up with what’s going on, and then, when something exciting comes to us in a memo we often want to share that with you our listeners so to kick us off, we have the very first memo on this week’s agenda and jess is going to talk about this one.
Jess: yeah and one of the reasons I like this week’s agenda is we are going to be talking about a few different kinds of memos.
and one that grew up into a resolution which is pretty cool So the first month i’m talking about is one from the city administrator and it is fiscal year 22 quarter to the equity and inclusion.
Report, I have criticized this memo before I won’t revisit that but what I didn’t say then and would like to say now is that.
I appreciate one part of the report, but I think that it’s incomplete so at the very beginning, the clerk’s office reports certain demographic statistics.
Regarding board and Commission members specifically their gender and ethnicity, I wish they also reported Ward you know for folks who live in Ann arbor not all board and Commission members do, but the vast majority of them do.
So the ones that live within the borders of the city of Ann arbor I wish they reported board and.
I wish they reported renter and homeowner status, because it would be helpful to highlight.
Physical clumping like where what districts and precincts are kind of over represented on boards and commissions and which ones are we really not hearing from.
And the nearly total disenfranchisement of renters in our local democracy we know it, I think more anecdotally than factually, and this is something that I wish board and Commission members were asked to self report and it was reported out on.
In this memo maybe this is something that the very soon to come renters Commission can get up, so I just wanted to say that molly what’s another memo you think is interesting.
Molly: So this memo is actually from the previous Council meeting, several really exciting transportation related memos dropped on the Monday of the Council meeting.
And so it was too late for us to talk about them on the podcast but I felt so excited about them that I had to bring them all, but I had to carry them over to this week, one of them is.
about the south main road diet, so these were this was a reconfiguration to South Main Street.
That happened as a part of the healthy streets program, but it was designed in to look more permanent so it was done with real paint and.
Prior to the winter, there were also vertical delineate are so sort of a slightly protected bike lane, it was a.
Very classic four lanes to in each direction down to one in each direction and a Center turn lane and bike lanes bro diet.
And the we have some preliminary data, which is that that road diet was really doing its job, and it was doing an incredible job of slowing down.
The pretty high rates of speeding that we had on that section of South main.
And that the slowing down speeds, is one of the key ways to improve safety for everyone so it’s really successful.
It was set up as a pilot but because healthy streets came happen so late due to various delays.
Staff asked to continue what they want to continue the pilot through the winter and they don’t have to ask because it used to be for a brief period that.
Any lane reduction had to be approved by Council we didn’t like that, and now that’s gone and we’re thrilled about that, so they don’t have to ask.
They are telling Council, but their conduct continue this road, diet, through the winter to collect more data with the likelihood that it will continue to be great and it will become a permanent change to South Main Street, which is super exciting.
The other transportation related memo that I was really excited about was about taking the city of Ann arbor taking over control of m dot trunk lines so jess, what do you know about em trunk lines.
Jess: I was hoping, you would ask me that this is the thing I know a one thing about so our former former city administrator Howard Lazarus.
was a dd a board member and in that role, and my role is add a board member, we had a lot of both formal and informal conversations.
About work around the city between the city and other entities and I got to hear, I think, just through that.
board relationship about a lot of things that I wouldn’t otherwise have heard one of the things that Howard really worked on and was frustrated by was a conversation with m dot about a getting them to own their stated.
Commitment to healthy streets which they pretty much never support and be what it would look like if Ann arbor took over.
The streets that are owned and managed by m dot which are the big fat streets right so it’s washing on Jackson and supplement if it’s if it’s chunky and unsafe for bikers that’s probably an end of that road.
Molly: you’re on is another one.
Jess: you’re on right, and so one of the points that he made is that as fiscally responsible city, he didn’t want Ann arbor to take over those roads until and had made typically often very long outstanding repairs.
To those facilities, because he didn’t want us to take on both an asset.
And an unmanned and totally unmanageable liability, and that is the one thing I know.
Molly: that’s like a lot of things.
So.
So right m dot.
which stands for Michigan Department of Transportation manages some of these roads owns and manages some of the roads in Ann arbor and they have been.
A real barrier to making safety improvements so it’s not just that m.is not following their own guidance around.
What they call complete streets but it’s also that, when the city of Ann arbor asks for certain kinds of improvements like.
A crosswalk or flashing lights at a crosswalk m dot says no first and sometimes they say no, over and over again.
Even when there are crashes in a location, even when there are deaths in a location and God has been unwilling to make even really basic safety improvements.
Even when we’re talking about streets that are in the middle of downtown with lots of pedestrians so.
This has been something that i’ve you know i’ve wanted forever i’ve certainly been asking about it periodically and it sounds like we’re finally taking a step towards.
Trying to make this happen, so this is a memo requesting a report, so one of these sort of like we’re going to get some information and then from that information, we will hopefully get an action, and this time it’s about.
taking over these trump lines, which would mean we could do all kinds of amazing things with some of these roads so washing law is sort of the one of the biggest most visible issues, I think, because.
we’ve done this, we did this study, a while ago, or a big report called re envision Washington reimagine reimagine Washington.
And it had all kinds of great ideas for improving the experience for bicycles for buses all of the sort of high speed bus stuff that we want to do we can’t do because of me so there’s lots we can imagine that that would be exciting about about taking over these trunk lines.
And that concludes the DEMO.
portion of today’s episode.
Jess: It doesn’t actually we come back to memos at the very oh.
This portion of that portion of modes and I just want to give an extra plug for reimagine watch that one is one of my favorite city reports.
It just feels so hopeful and it also captures and unusual collaboration of multiple municipalities, including FC city pittsfield township I can’t remember if if the township was in there, a kind of don’t think so.
But just to document the conversations between those municipalities and what they came together to imagine together.
I don’t know it’s like the Mr Rogers of transportation documents it’s really helpful So if you ever want a little bit of optimism in your policy go take a look at reimagine washing our hands Nice.
Alright, moving into the consent agenda.
This isn’t anything that needs to be.
needs discussion, but I just wanted to note that CA six is a resolution to approve the DDA boards higher.
of an executive director, so, as I mentioned a moment ago, I am a dd a board member, I am here absolutely not wearing the hat and just speaking my own wild and wonderful opinions.
But I wanted to call this out because we’ve been working on this higher process for over a year.
It was collaborative it was really in depth and very thoughtful and intentional.
And i’m pleased that we’re bringing a candidate forward to counsel, so I look forward to Jeff watson’s confirmation and assuming he does get confirmed on Tuesday his first day on the job is Wednesday so potentially good luck Jeff awesome.
Alright, if you need a bathroom break if you need a snack now’s a good time to hit pause.
Because we’re going to go on a ride for a minute.
All right, getting into the agenda DC to.
i’ll go ahead and read the long title, so that if you have decided to run to the fridge like you got the time it’s a resolution to begin discussions with you them.
For 2000 units of workforce housing on you events North campus and agreement on additional student and employee residential units commendable with your events growth.
You guys, this resolution is a sledgehammer right at the bulls I have pretty much all of my hot buttons and it’s not just mine, and this is an arrow to the middle of a lot of the city’s most pressing and most painful pain points.
So I wanted to take a few minutes to really unpack this because there’s a lot on the surface there’s a lot under the surface.
And I kind of wanted to think think it through for myself and also bring it to you as something that requires nuanced thinking in order to be able to engage appropriately.
On this pod sometimes we criticize resolutions for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, sometimes we criticize them for doing the wrong thing for the right ones, this one is the ladder, I would say, great motivations wrong execution.
So the text of the resolution, which of course will link in the show notes is us requesting a series of actions by city administrator and say staff, asking them to ask the you to consider creating a lot of housing specific to employee and student growth.
This is a really seductive thing to think about to do to want to do.
The University absolutely has been a driver of local growth they’ve added over 11,000 new faculty and staff positions and students spots over the last decade or so.
We are a city of between 120 and 130,000 people so that is close to 10% that’s not a small number.
it’s also seductive because the institution represents a big fat pot of money it’s got an endowment of $17 billion.
An annual general fund budget on the Ann arbor campus alone of $2.4 billion, which is five times the city of Ann arbor whole budget just their general fund five times our entire city budget.
So the university seems like low hanging fruit and a big easy target to request housing creation.
The problem is those numbers are misleading.
I want us to think about this, not as.
What does the universe university Oh, but what are the potential pitfalls, and one of the pitfalls is having your employer.
Provide your basic needs, we already talked about this with health care right like it is a problem tying your health care to your employer.
it’s also a problem tying your housing to your employer for a lot, the same reasons.
it’s also a problem, because this is a private entity OK, so the University of Michigan is public but for housing purposes it’s private, it is only ever going to provide housing for a certain population.
So they’re going to be using their own internally based merit program to determine who gets housing and that’s really a problem.
For folks who know the you, and that is at least 85,000 of you i’m sure all of you are listening right now.
But let me put this another way you already are familiar, most likely with a scramble for another finite and highly prized resource the parking pass, can you imagine the competition and the bitter politics over housing access.
That kind of monopoly typically produces more problems than it solves.
Molly: You yeah I think the parking pass.
comparison is really helpful I used to work.
For the Medical School and parking up there as we’ve discussed many times is particularly challenging and he was always looking to figure out ways to squeeze more parking and up there, but.
What I learned when I work there is that, so the there are different tiers of of parking pass the blue past is sort of the most common and lets you park in all of the parking structures.
it’s one of the more expensive, but not like the top tier fancy gold pass.
And on the medical campus the blue passes referred to as a hunting license because you are paying for the privilege of driving around hoping, you can find hunting for a parking spot, but you will probably not find so.
The the idea of expanding that to your housing and it’s just it’s I find it slightly terrifying frankly.
Jess: I mean, can you imagine the, especially in this job and Labor market tying your housing to your employer feels especially terrifying and precarious.
But even in the best possible market tying your housing to your employer is is dangerous and precarious, so I want to put a caution in that way.
i’d also like to put another caution in in terms of the mist financial opportunity of this not being regular housing by growing the tax base.
So if we were thinking about the normal modes of housing production we be talking about single family homes duplexes and quad plexus.
And condos and apartments and when we allow folks who own the land to create the homes in those different ways.
We grow our tax base, we grow, the number of people and the amount of dollars that we collect from them, which means more revenue to the city.
we’ve already talked this episode and we’re going to talk more and we’ve talked in every single episode.
about how we sweat to pay for things like sidewalk minutes like city wide bicycle facilities like housing.
and retaining control of that revenue would allow us to do more, of everything, while also creating housing.
Also, you can kind of visualize the mean, this is not how this works, this is not how any of this works like housing by Resolution housing by Fiat is not how this works how this works is master planning.
So at the at the city level what that looks like a comprehensive land use update is Community engagement holistic consideration of that community’s needs.
Reconciling with other strategic strategic documents like Vision Zero and our carbon neutrality plan.
Comprehensive land use planning at the university looks like Community engagement holistic consideration of the community’s needs reconciling with other strategic documents, like its own carbon neutrality plan, as well as its innovation and growth plans.
We need to be accomplishing housing through our comprehensive land use planning process, because otherwise it’s a little bit like saying, I am going to get totally healthy by only eating broccoli.
That may be a good thing to do, but if that’s, the only thing you’re doing that’s kind of a problem.
I also want to know when talking about comprehensive planning at a university.
i’ve had the opportunity and the privilege to be able to talk to a bunch of different university staff at the at the University of Michigan and other large institutions.
Because it turns out the all higher education facilities take an explicit approach they have a very specific philosophy when it comes to housing their students.
They that’s core to their pedagogical principles its core to their land use principles they make the decision early about whether they’re going to how students and which ones.
And then everything that they do isn’t supportive that philosophy, they don’t get 17 years down the road and they’re like oh look We grew how we thought we would should we stick on some housing.
When they create their growth goals they decide whether and who they’re going to house it doesn’t go the other way around, I know that’s a lot of times how cities, including Ann arbor operate.
But thoughtful long term planning doesn’t happen after the fact that happens before and so acknowledging that institutions like the University of Michigan have this philosophy.
And that michigan’s explicit philosophy is mostly not to how students again asking for this by Fiat whether it’s for students or for employees.
is really either ignorant of the fact that they have this philosophy or saying it doesn’t matter, because our problems are so pressing and either way.
you’re probably not going to get the outcome that you want, if you’re not figuring out how to work productively with somebody existing existing planning processes.
I also want to know that asking the university for housing is really only appropriate after and not before.
Our city has taken every measure to attempt to ensure housing and affordability on its own, and even then I would question this as the appropriate forum and format I just don’t know.
That in our City Council resolution to staff to work with university staff, hoping that percolates up to their elected i’m just not sure that this is how that would go even in that situation.
i’m just taking a breath because there’s still more to say.
But, again, I just wanted to make sure I covered.
I care that this happens right like I care that we work on housing doing it the right way, by which I mean it results in housing is important right, so the how is as important as what and why is even more important and i’ll get to that moment.
Molly: I mean this feels like one of those resolutions that you put forward to say you’re.
Jess: working.
Molly: To say you’ve done something without actually having an outcome that looks like the thing you say you’re doing.
Jess: kind of I would actually give this one, a little bit more credit, but also take away credit in a specific way.
Though I think that this isn’t a sticker solution, I think that this is meaningful but it’s also kind of an out.
So if the University of Michigan doesn’t take the actions you hope they take you’re like Oh well, we weren’t able to create housing because somebody else didn’t do it that’s really a cop out so yeah that’s a good point.
Speaking of why this is problematic this this resolution, so it doesn’t exactly commit the University of Michigan to actions what it asks for his city staff to take specific actions in the hope that the University of Michigan will do xyz.
But this is problematic for the same reasons that we talked about in the last episode which is do it us saying a thing, hoping that another entity, will do a thing.
It is usually not super productive, like last time we asked et we there was a resolution potentially asking dt to do some things we talked about that why that was productive or excuse me why that wasn’t productive.
And can be counterproductive and doesn’t make us look like the most professional decision making body.
This one this feels like wishful thinking, dressed in policy, clothing and I think that we need to get at our problems and goals and more meaningful ways.
One thing that I wanted to say about this as why this feels like a challenge and there’s probably for more reasons that i’m not thinking of but I, we can go on to more memos after this.
But i’m also troubled by resorting to thinking of few of them as a solution to our housing was.
When if you’re paying attention to affordable housing documents and talks they keep talking about increase density as a way of alleviating housing affordability issues, and I mean housing affordability for everyone in the city.
i’m trouble that we’re resorting to you, then, when our transportation transportation planning documents.
keep coming up with increased density as a means of making the different modes that we want long to see like better sidewalks and upkeep more bicycle facilities and more transit possible.
i’m troubled by resorting to U of m when our cities carbon neutrality plan at zero sites land use and increase density, as one of the central means for working on carbon neutrality.
Which means reducing vehicle miles traveled which means both increasing and expanding access to different modes of transportation and shortening the distance between people, where people live, and where they do everything else.
So everything that we say that we care about keeps asking us to consider increasing density and it feels a lot like Council keeps going.
let’s do everything else instead of that thing to the point that the carbon neutrality plan a couple of years ago was at risk of not passing because they were explicit about asking for more density.
And, in the end, staff ended up editing that section of the plan to say considering different land use patterns, I think, but they edited out the specific language for density.
So I think we need to be looking at ourselves a lot more critically and be listening to the folks that we say we’re treating as experts.
and say okay well you’re asking for more density let’s talk about what that looks like transit oriented corridors at use.
gentle increase the density in neighborhoods and more aggressive increase of density on transit corridors and then our downtown let’s talk more about that before we wish and hope that you have then does some stuff that may not end up being beneficial in the long run.
Molly: So just instead of putting forward resolutions that ask you them to do things we know they are not going to do, what do we want to be seeing Council do instead.
Jess: that’s a good question and the nice thing is most of the answers to that are things that we’re already doing or things that we’ve said with we want to do.
Last year in the budget process we set aside, I think $100,000 for a Community research and conversation around the racialized origins single families owning.
We really need to talk about that we have an upcoming conference of land use of date at the city and the university.
let’s get it everything at that time, including how do we make small businesses more possible, how do we engage Vision Zero and our strategic the transportation.
update plan update that just happened, how are we incorporating that into our comprehensive land use plan.
let’s go through the whole process and not just try to shoehorn housing as a part of it, we should be looking at are at zero or carbon neutrality plan.
And figuring out how are we going to accomplish those goals through housing absolutely.
When it comes to our relationship with the university i’m not saying don’t do it i’m saying let’s do it through our processes which for us is our master planning process for them, is there a master planning process.
they’re about to go through an update let’s engage we’re one of their biggest stakeholders let’s show up at that table and ask, we also have a great kind of.
fulcrum into that conversation through their own carbon neutrality goals so we’ve talked on this podcast before about the last year’s president’s Commission on carbon neutrality, the PCC in.
Scope one, two and three emissions, I will drop a link to that episodes conversation here because I don’t want to go back into all those definitions.
But essentially scope the city’s scope three emissions goals fall under the city of an arborist purview and so, how can we help them it’s the whole Jerry Maguire thing help me help you how do we help the university accomplish its goals through our policies and executions let’s do that.
i’m also really intrigued so the affordable housing or excuse me, the hhs ab which is health and human services Advisory Board of washtenaw county.
Just kicked off a learning series on affordable housing, which is awesome and i’ll drop a link to those events in the show notes.
The first one was this past week, and our affordable housing Commission Jennifer hall had some really interesting things to say, including.
offering the consideration that if we expand our expand our supply of publicly owned housing, not just for know and low income folks and families, but for people at every level.
What we’re doing is making more kinds of housing available for more kinds of people at every price point so that’s a really interesting consideration really unusual for America for the United States but worth considering.
and the last thing that I wanted to say, which is probably not true, I probably have three last things, but I want to know that.
Talking about the racialized origins of single family zoning talking about conference of land use plans talking about corn carbon neutrality figuring out how to plug into the university’s carbon neutrality plan.
None of this is a satisfying is pointing a finger at a boogeyman like the university blaming them for the problem and making them responsible for the solution, I get it like that feels way better it feels cleaner feels easier feels like we’ve gotten something done.
But the things that we’re already working on and the things that we’ve said, we want to work on, are they more sustainable.
They are are they more likely to result in the outcome, what we say we want, which is more housing and more affordability, they are, are they more inclusive and therefore more likely to be just in the long run, big yes.
here’s my other other other last thing.
I want to note that this is a single sponsor resolution we’ve criticized these on the pod before we will probably continue to do that into oblivion because they’re problematic.
These issues that these resolutions tried to take on are complicated even figuring out how to work on them as complicated doing so in relationship and collaboration in coalition with other Council members and other Community members helps everything be stronger and with less time.
The end for now.
Molly: Alright, so.
we’re going to move on to DC three, which is the resolution to improve the safety and accessibility of sidewalks in the winter my goal in this section is to talk about this without speeding up my speech so fast that it sounds like i’m on fast forward.
Because I have a lot of a lot of things to say, a lot of opinions.
This to sort of.
rewind a little bit, this is the sidewalk snow removal stuff that we’ve been talking about since last winter, there were, it was a series of resolutions some didn’t pass one eventually did that was asking staff to put together a report.
looking into options for municipal sidewalk snow removal, so the city of Ann arbor taking over some or all of the snow removal that currently.
belongs to property holders it’s the property owners it’s the responsibility of landlords Homeowners businesses to clear the sidewalks in front of their property.
Why do we care so much about sidewalks snow removal sidewalks our transportation infrastructure we’re going to keep hammering this home.
snow removal specifically is a major accessibility issue when sidewalk clearance is patchy people who use wheelchairs or other kinds of mobility AIDS.
can’t go anywhere if they if they’re if they need to use the sidewalks they become stuck at home or even were stranded out in the cold on the sidewalk somewhere.
And so it’s a major accessibility issue it’s a safety issue it’s often an equity issue, because the there’s a lot of variation when you rely on individual property owners about.
Where streets are getting clicks sidewalks are getting cleared and where they’re not so.
Taking taking this responsibility from property owners and giving it to the city is one way in theory to improve.
equity and access for everyone in the city, so that everyone can use our sidewalks all year round if we want people to rely on the sidewalks for transportation infrastructure.
We have to clear them and treat them, the way we do our roads, although frankly and I was not that great at the roads, either, but leaving that aside so.
Last winter Council as staff to figure out sidewalks snow removal, there was a memo that I think we talked about when it came out and now we’ve graduated to the next stage, the life cycle of this process, which is a resolution.
And the the memo outlined a few low hanging fruit, there were some like really explained the the costs of really having the city sidewalk snow removal, some of them were very expensive.
Even the cheaper ones were in the like two to $3 million range and they were at a point where there would need to be some serious reallocation or other sources of revenue if we wanted the city to do it.
But the the memo offered some low hanging fruit and this resolution is an attempt to sort of pick all of the low hanging fruit at once.
The problem is that not all low hanging fruit is equally tasty, so there are parts of this that I like and parts that I don’t.
This is all very much my opinion and maybe just as opinion as well, although I don’t even claim speak for jeff’s on this one, just to be very clear about what I have on at the moment, so.
i’m breaking this resolution down by all of its different results losses.
Jess: And listeners, let me just let you know molly is wearing her hand way we had.
Let it be no hands have started it’s true.
Molly: So there are several parts of this that I like.
That are great.
Ah, one of them is that so currently the city’s expectations for clearing its own property are slower than the expectation for privately owned non residential properties so.
The you know this is like sidewalks along city parks and other city on property these often get cleared later than other things, this is a really, we can say to the city.
You need like we, as the city, we have control over these properties, we can prioritize these differently so step one make the city clear its own sidewalks faster than it has been doing awesome love this to.
Do an rfp to determine contractor capacity and interest one big theme in that.
memo and in the presentations that we saw about the memo were real I think legitimate concerns about being able to hire enough people to actually do this work so real Labor concerns, especially in the current market.
So yeah before we make a plan, we should figure out whether we would even be able to hire the people we need.
that’s great love it three, which is not three in the middle and the resolution just don’t get confused.
convening a working group of downtown businesses and other stakeholders to improve the snow clearing downtown, especially with regard to curb cuts, this is fantastic in general, the downtown businesses and the business associations.
Do a pretty good job of keeping the sidewalks clear curb cuts are a real pain point.
Frequently, you know someone will clear their own sidewalk and then the plow comes through shoves a bunch of snow and ice into the curb cut it freezes the curb cuts become impossible.
it’s super dangerous so let’s figure out how to do this better great love it and then last conduct some outreach to the Ann arbor public schools about timely snow clearing on school properties sure terrific.
All of this is recommended, and I think these are great, for you know beginning steps when it comes to sidewalks know removal.
There are also some parts that I don’t like all of them focus on education and enforcement so just we’ve we’ve talked before about the problems with focusing on education and enforcement for all kinds of things.
Okay.
Jess: All kinds of things and all kinds of reasons but yeah the when you’re asking when you’re when you resort to something isn’t working is punishment that means the thing is broken, not the punishment.
Molly: Right and same with education, oh if we just educate people harder, they will stop looking at their cell phones while they’re driving 50 miles an hour, they will do a better job of clearing their sidewalks in a timely manner.
So, and these were things that were suggested in in the memo and I didn’t like them, then and I don’t like them now.
So one of them is about amending the city code to and i’m quoting here to ensure that the city code offers Community standards.
sidebar Community set standards as part of the police department to give Community standards necessary discretion and opportunity to focus enforcement on problematic properties and utilize educational alternatives, while conducting enforcement efforts.
I mean sure if there are especially corporate property owners that are routinely negligent about clearing their sidewalks great yes, we can start by.
ticketing those people finding ways to deal with enforcement, but first of all, I think that that’s likely a pretty small piece of the overall pie.
And second of all anything that says we should send police to deal with it, especially something like snow removal.
Just feels very like that’s not a good match that it’s like you want to match the appropriate person entity to the problem, sending police officers to deal with on on shovel sidewalks.
doesn’t is not going to work out great for us and that’s the other, the other piece of this resolution is working with the police Department on a more robust education and enforcement campaign.
So these things are all about the status quo saying status quo where property owners are responsible for their sidewalks is fine, we just need to educate and enforce harder and that will fix our problem.
When we have no evidence that that is actually true.
So the.
Jess: problem that I have with enforcement in this particular situation is that enforcement means that we already have a problem.
And ticketing doesn’t fix it for the person in a wheelchair, the person in a Walker the kid you know, whoever it is.
That has already found that piece of sidewalk and passable they are already late they’re already stuck they’re already hurt i’m i’m feeling particular.
Urgency around this today because I was driving yesterday on West liberty close to maple and there was a person in a wheelchair, who had successfully crossed the street.
But then couldn’t get up on the sidewalk and he was in a wheelchair no flag no nothing on West liberty going down trying to find a curb cut that was clear enough for him to get up off the street and into a property.
So i’m thinking about education and enforcement specifically enforcement with respect to him and it just feels so irrelevant and pointless.
Molly: yeah exactly when you’re dealing with enforcement you mean that you’re accepting that the problems will continue.
we’re just going to punish people harder about the problems that are okay to have continue, I think that that yeah that’s exactly right and so.
My i’m i’ve been struggling with sidewalks never mobile a for a while, because on the one hand, I think it’s super important.
And i’m seeing this conversation happen all over the country, a lot of like Northern cities are talking about how they can better in the US, I would say how they can better treat the sidewalks is transportation infrastructure all year round.
And it’s I just think it’s so important, and we have to figure out a way to do it, and on the other hand.
The report we got from staff is that this is going to be super duper expensive and it’s going to require a ton of new people and a ton of new equipment and.
i’m there are places in the world that do this well there are like cities all over Europe that.
are responsible for clearing their sidewalks that treat the sidewalks as transportation infrastructure, I was doing some like.
Trying to refresh my memory on some of this and in Sweden, they started doing it specifically because of a gender balanced budgeting initiative that they did.
Because they found that women were much more likely to be using the sidewalks to be walking places for errands with their kids and prioritizing the car part of the road before the pedestrian part of the road.
was like it was related to it basically gender balance, and so they started clearing isn’t that amazing so they started prioritizing clearing the sidewalks before clearing the roads.
And I recognize that, in a city like Ann arbor that’s not gonna fly, and I also recognize that part a big part of our problem is our very suburban style land use patterns in the city and i’m sorry jess I know.
Just just doesn’t like it when I say the Ann arbor suburban but.
You know.
Jess: What is it 70% ivonne suburb sometimes.
Molly: Something like 70% of our land of our.
Whatever properties.
Jess: Right 70% of privately owned land is give her give or take a few percent is given over to single family home use.
Molly: Right so that’s a super inefficient way to house people, and it means that you’ve got lots and lots of sidewalk that without a lot of people moving through.
And lots and lots of road and so, if that’s really different from an old European city where everything is much like much more tightly packed and you’re talking about fewer miles like we have a lot of miles of road and a lot of miles of sidewalk.
And so it’s it’s not an easy problem to solve and I recognize that, but I still feel so urgently that this the city should be doing more of the snow removal and that we should be looking for solutions that are proactive that are faster, so that we can begin to rely on our sidewalks.
The way we expect to be able to rely on our roads.
Jess: Well, and honestly I feel like part of the tension that you’re feeling.
is a result of one of the criticisms that we had the original memo which was that there was no equity dimension to it, none like it was only days and dollars, there was nothing about who’s using what.
And I feel like that’s one of the struggles to prioritize right like with so many miles of sidewalk.
How are we saying you know X is more important than why, how are we saying that this neighborhood should be prioritized over that neighborhood.
Because that’s a crappy thing to say, but once we say you know these cart these neighborhoods are really, really car light or close to cars zero and those do exist in Ann arbor even.
Once we say, these are our lower income neighborhoods these are you know renter rich neighborhoods these are you know xyz neighborhoods.
Then I think it becomes easier to prioritize whereas here, and because we don’t have the equity dimension we’re like I don’t know let’s throw some police that it will get some revenue and hopefully it’ll help right.
Molly: yeah exactly.
and
You know some of the solutions you know if i’ve heard folks talk about a millage and I don’t like the idea of a millage for this, because then we’re taxing everyone.
To like in in pretty unbalanced it yeah it doesn’t feel that doesn’t feel like a great solution to me either Meanwhile, the police budget is $31 million.
I feel like we can.
Jess: have our annual genuine general fund let’s just talk about that again for a minute $31 million.
Molly: yeah so.
And i’m not saying we should be reallocating police money to sidewalks there are lots of other things we can be doing to.
You know dismantle the car several state, but in the meantime we’ve got the snowy sidewalks it makes it hard to get places it’s really an equitable and dangerous.
And I would like us to be working on it more urgently than just educating and enforcing.
Jess: You know what would be a fun back of the envelope calculation to do listeners.
you’re really fun though sometimes we spit ball things and then y’all are like I can make a map of that.
Molly: Yes, i’ve been loving all of those maps I should take a moment to thank the folks who’ve been working on the school the maps of the the school safety improvements and the city also put together a version that has school names on it now so we’re going to have an updated version of that.
Soon yeah so.
Jess: So, apparently, some of you like data nerds and geeks listen and so, if anybody wants to do some math here’s something that I think would be really interesting something that’s been on my mind today.
Is the library line and the 2018 city prop eight which said, in fact, we weren’t allowed to put homes on library lot the parking lot right next to.
The downtown branch of the library, and what that meant we for went was not only a one time $10 million payment 5 million to the general fund and 5 million to affordable housing.
But also two and a half million dollars in taxes, and this is what I was talking about, with the U of m resolution about creating housing.
Is we are finalizing our tax base, when we’re saying that the university is creating those houses, so my question to whoever wants to think about this is how much housing and of what kind we have to create to pay for our sidewalks so it’s $22 million.
Molly: Which is the high that’s like the very high end high end if we want it well that’s what I want to do like I do everything for side.
Jess: So if we’re going to do everything for sidewalks, which is essentially that means treating them like we treat roads, right now, which is why I want to do everything What would it take to raise $22 million in property taxes without a millage so.
Molly: yeah, because if we do all of that, with infill and by increasing our density.
that’s, not a single foot of new sidewalk that needs plowing it’s, not a single foot of new road that needs plowing it sidewalks in the roads, we already have.
And more people who would get to use them, I like that idea just.
Jess: Right.
I don’t know I feel like that wouldn’t be too hard to figure out and yet I know i’m not going to do it so.
If anybody does you know at us on Twitter or on Facebook and let us know.
Molly: Alright, moving on.
From sidewalks to street lights DC for and DC five.
You may recall that at the last Council meeting, there was a resolution resolution regarding streetlight outages that was basically just telling dte to do things.
And that was not great, and it did not it was tabled or postponed, and now we have two different street right streetlight resolutions that are much better.
They are no longer sponsored by only one person, and these resolutions focus on things but city staff can do and things that the city can do rather than.
Trying to volunteer tell dte to do things so these resolutions, because they focus on what staff can do they are in some ways, smaller.
it’s things like quarterly reporting to counsel about streetlight outages doing some research on smart streetlights and intervening and an ongoing dte rate case, so I had to look this one up.
dte wanted to raise its rates by a lot and the Attorney General Dan and nestle intervened and was like no.
And this case is still ongoing, and so we have a resolution that basically says hey city staff, can you please testify in this case against this rate hike because dt is already not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, why should we give them more money.
So i’m fully on board these all seem like reasonable things for us to be doing streetlight averages are a genuine problem so great, this is, this is an improvement and I anticipate that these are going to go through without much trouble.
Jess: cool from streetlights to se us so i’m going to bring us into DC six, which is wrestling resolution pertaining to advancing work around a local municipal sustainable energy utility or icu.
And, most of the reason that I wanted to call this out is that this is a memo that grew up and became a resolution.
talked about this memo on the pod before and I really just wanted to note for folks that are following along with the icu that the work is continuing to move forward and.
To be on the lookout and the listen out for public outreach regarding this because the resolution, the resolution places special emphasis.
on collecting the views of energy users and lower income neighborhoods so be on the list and out in the lookout for public outreach for yourself and for your neighbors.
I think we got everything on the agenda that we wanted to talk about right.
Molly: yep I think that’s it.
Jess: Alright, so before we wrap up, I wanted to send a special thanks to the listener, who, let us know she’s using the pod in her classroom that’s so cool i’m glad that your students are finding the how to read an agenda episode useful.
there’s anything that your class would like us to share out on the pod at the end of the Semester, please, please let us know we’d love to give them a shout out and hey if we can learn from them, that would be great to.
All right, and that’s it for this episode of an arbitrary.
comm check out our episodes and transcripts that our website and our brief calm.
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Where your co hosts just lita and molly climbing and thanks this week to Scott Trudeau for stepping in to help us produce our theme music is identify grapes, you can reach us by email at Ann arbor af con at gmail COM get informed and get involved into your city.