Priorities and Perspectives

An Independent Candidacy

My campaign is not affiliated with a political party.  It includes Democrats, Republicans and Independents all united by the common concern that Ann Arbor’s elected officials, including our 2^nd Ward representative, have lost touch with our community, its needs and its priorities.

We all seem to share at least two common views.  One is that city resources should be re-deployed to those areas residents value most and are willing to pay for.  The other is that our Second Ward Councilmember should be representing our neighborhoods to City Hall, not the other way around.  

Re-Focusing City Spending and Priorities

In today’s fiscally challenging environment, the City must make responsible, often tough choices.  We simply can’t afford everything and to fund every new idea that comes along.

I believe the City must re-focus spending on priority basic services (e.g. police, fire, streets and infrastructure) while maximizing both the leverage of our tax dollars and efficiency of service delivery.  More discretionary and visionary items - such as public art and transit stations - will have to wait until the economic climate improves or external funding sources are clearly and firmly identified.

Public Safety the #1 Priority 

I believe the reductions in police and fire personnel in Ann Arbor have been too severe, placing at risk the safety and security of city residents and the health of our downtown areas.  Safety and security should be Job #1, the most fundamental city service, and I am committed to reversing the decline in public safety personnel.

Over the six years Councilmember Rapundalo has been the 2^nd Ward representative, the percentage reduction in combined police and fire staffing (at 23%) has been almost 3X that of other areas (8%).   

From a somewhat longer perspective, Police and Fire staffing levels have been reduced by 35% (129 personnel) since their peak levels in 2001. Special assignment teams have been eliminated – for example, Downtown Beat Cops, Drunk Driving Unit, Traffic Control Unit -- and there has been an adverse impact on AAPD’s ability to investigate crimes.

We create a “public arts administrator” while we are laying off police and fire personnel.  Does this really represent the priorities of our citizens -- or just those of City Hall?

Infrastucture improvements also a priority……… but not all infrastructure projects are equal

Our infrastructure IS a priority, but we must recognize that there is a difference between infrastructure that benefits us all – like streets, bridges, sewers, and parks—and  infrastructure that only benefits city government – like a new city hall and a new state-of-the-art garage for city vehicles.

In reviewing city hall’s scorecard on infrastructure, we see that over the last few years, the City has spent:

That’s $90 million.  And as these investments were being made, our bridges and roads continued to deteriorate. While I understand that this $90 million was just a portion of the City’s capital investment, it’s not an insignificant sum and should have been used to supplement the City’s capital dollars invested in higher priority public infrastructure needs, such as streets, bridges and water-related utility improvements.

The City’s capital priorities need to change. While state-of-the-art facilities for city personnel were “nice-to-haves”, we must ensure our precious capital dollars are directed at those infrastructure improvements that benefit us all.

    Fewer potholes – not more “public art”

I oppose earmarking any of our precious infrastructure dollars to public art. To date, City Council has diverted $2.2 million to public art – $1.34 million from water utilities funds, $539,000 from street millages, $250,000 from the Municipal Center Fund and another $100,000 from parks and solid waste millages. It has been mentioned by public art proponents than none of the public art dollars are General Fund dollars.  That is not correct. The Municipal Center Fund was initially funded from General Fund taxpayer dollars.

During recent budget deliberations, Councilmembers had an opportunity to cut the public art earmark in half - from 1.0% of capital projects to 0.5% - in an effort to focus the spending on the capital projects themselves.  I would have supported that budget amendment, but Councilmember Rapundalo did not.   

    Millage proposals – Streets and Sidewalks

I do recognize that updating our basic infrastructure (streets, bridges, water-related utilities) will be a financial challenge to be sure – and I support the street millage renewal.  Maintaining streets is one of those basic services residents and taxpayers value and are willing to pay for.  If it passes, and I am elected, I would immediately move that none of the dollars from this millage should be diverted away from streets and toward “public art”.

Regarding the sidewalk millage, Proposal 2 on the ballot, I am not convinced that the current funding mechanism -- assessing residents for actual costs when work is required--is “broken” and needs fixing. I am concerned that this may be simply a way for the City to generate more revenue and with the sidewalk funds combined with the street millage funds, there certainly is a risk the incremental tax revenue will not be used for its intended purpose – sidewalks.

Further, I am also concerned about equity issues with this sidewalk millage. Is it fair to those who have recently paid for their sidewalks, and now must pay for others’?

    Stadium Bridge

The Stadium Bridge situation has been an embarrassment for Ann Arbor and a “poster child” for poor planning.  Our elected officials indicated that they didn’t know how bad the bridge was--and so they had to unexpectedly close lanes. Then the City began to scramble for funding.  Fortunately, Congressman Dingell found Federal dollars to bail us out, but this should have been planned for and handled much, much sooner. 

Listening Matters…… So does Transparency, Inclusion, Open Dialog…….. It’s time to re-connect city government with 2^nd ward residents

I’ve heard from many of you that Ann Arbor’s elected officials today seem intent on selling city hall’s position to you rather than weighing your concerns with an open mind.  City hall’s not always wrong, of course, nor are residents always right, but I want to hear your concerns and ideas.  You will always receive a sympathetic, open-minded reception to your views from me.  Indeed, one of my campaign themes is “representing neighborhoods to city hall, NOT city hall to neighborhoods.”

In my 30 years in Ann Arbor, I’ve been fortunate to serve three terms on City Council and to be actively involved with a wide range of community organizations. Those experiences taught me that Ann Arbor is most effective when everyone’s engaged – not just a select few – and when citizens and government are working together.  I also learned that the fundamental role of an effective councilmember is to listen to constituents and their ideas, to understand their concerns as well as what they value and are willing to pay for.

I’m convinced that transparency, inclusion, and open, honest dialog are essential to good governance, but are missing today in our city government. With your help, I will return these principles and practices to the council table. 

What is perhaps most concerning is that when I ran for Mayor in 2004, I raised these same concerns about the need for more transparency, open honest dialog and stakeholder engagement in decision-making because I believed in them strongly  – unfortunately, the situation has not improved over these past six years.

On Higher Taxes and the Need for Additional City Revenue… First, let’s get the City’s cost structure in line and competitive

I believe the City must address its structural cost challenges before asking residents and taxpayers for more, whether through a city income tax, Headlee override or other mechanism. The City’s progress in fundamental inter-governmental consolidation has been minimal, and the City simply must significantly accelerate the pace of identifying and implementing consolidation and collaboration opportunities.

Further, employee benefit costs remain unsustainable. The large majority of public and private sector employers have moved to defined-contribution/401K-type retirement plans while the City continues to offer the more costly defined-benefit pension plan -- a defined-benefit plan which, earlier this year, Council ensured would be accompanied by annual cost of living increases. While recent changes to the pension plan (vesting period and computation of final average compensation) will result in savings for the City and are a step in the right direction, the basic issue of an unaffordable and unsustainable defined-benefit plan remains unaddressed.

Regarding employee health care costs, the City has been very slow in addressing this issue.  Recent contract settlements finally reflected changes to employee cost sharing formulas and in retiree health care plans. These too were certainly necessary steps, but were only achieved as a result of a gift from Governor Snyder and the state legislature.  In fact, one might question whether last minute contract settlements with more generous benefit levels than otherwise would have occurred under the State’s new health care law were in the taxpayers’ best interests.

Interestingly, Councilmember Rapundalo’s campaign literature says that “revenue re-structuring must be considered alongside cost-containment.”   I do not agree – not yet. Once the City gets its cost structure in-line and more competitive, discussions about new revenue sources might be appropriate -- not before. 

Fuller Road Station….too many unanswered questions

I do not support the proposal as presently proposed.  The $120 million long term vision of a multi-modal station could very well be in Ann Arbor’s best interests, but all that is on the table now is simply a parking structure – a parking structure with a significant city funding commitment (projected at $10 million) without the funding source clearly defined, a business plan, or answers to pretty fundamental questions.

I also am very concerned that the Fuller Station proposal violates the spirit and intent of the city charter amendment overwhelmingly passed by Ann Arbor voters in 2008 – an amendment that allows voters to decide before selling/re-purposing parkland.  The specific charter amendment language is, “The City shall not sell without the approval, by a majority vote of the electors of the City voting on the question at a regular or special election, any City park, or land in the City acquired for park, cemetery, or any part thereof.”

The intent of that language is clear. A long term lease with UM is contemplated for Fuller Station.  And while there very well may be legal distinctions between a sale and a long-term lease, practically speaking, the results are the same.  Only a voter referendum on the proposal would remove any concerns about violating the spirit and intent of the recently approved city ordinance on sale of city parkland.  Ann Arbor citizens should have a vote.

In Phase 1 (the parking structure only), the total cost is projected at $43 million. Although the University will use 78% of the facility (22% city use), the City will own the structure and will be responsible for 22% of the investment and the operating costs.   While the cost sharing arrangement does reflect the proportional usage, the issue for city taxpayers is that the funding sources for both the upfront capital investment and ongoing operating costs have not been clearly identified.

Details of the plan (phase 1 and subsequent phases) have not been forthcoming from city hall. That is not at all appropriate for a proposal of this magnitude.  If the City has the complete details of the funding plans (capital and operating) then they should be shared in a fully-transparent discussion with community.  If the details and business plan do not exist, however, then it would be financially irresponsible to proceed with the project.

In my view, the Fuller Station is a good example of two trends of our elected officials that are particularly concerning in the fiscally challenging environment we’re now experiencing:  (1) not focusing on delivering basic services, but more enamored with the discretionary and visionary and (2) taking on financial risks/exposure for activities outside the core responsibilities of city government.

On August 7, AA.Com ran an editorial saying that the FRS project must proceed with caution.  Specifically, that “given current budget problems, Council should be cautious what it commits to as it considers the FRS plan – though we do find a case for proceeding with the first phase as long as the financing plan for it is completely spelled out and doesn’t require the City to commit general fund money or to add to its indebtedness.”

I agree completely - before embarking on a project/financial commitment of this magnitude, all aspects and phases must be well-understood and backed by firm plans, commitments, and guarantees.  At this point, it isn’t, and I don’t see Council asking the questions, providing the necessary business plans, or getting the guarantees and commitments that would be required to prudently proceed. 

“Buckets”, Financial Stability, and City Hall’s Performance in Dealing with the City’s Financial Challenges

“Buckets” is a term we often hear today from elected officials and in discussions about city government.  When the dollars generated by a certain tax millage or in a certain fund are not available for general use, they are in “buckets”.  Council has not always been consistent in their interpretation and actions regarding “buckets”.  

What I mean is this:

In other words, Council finds the flexibility when they want to.  Public art is the perfect example.  As previously noted, public art is being funded out of the streets millage, parks millage, solid waste millage, and water, sewer, storm and Municipal Center Funds.  It appears that “buckets” matter depending on whether Council is buying or selling.  It is also interesting to note that Council, themselves, exacerbated the “bucket” problem and limited the City’s flexibility with their actions removing departments/functions such as solid waste from the General Fund.  The council approved actions, of course, could be easily reversed if Council were so inclined.  

With public art, Council has even suggested that since they voted in 2007 to earmark 1% of capital project spending on public art, it can’t be changed. This, of course, is not correct – the public art earmark was not a voter approved action, but rather a Council approved action which Council can easily reverse.

I share the concern I’ve heard expressed by many of you about financial sustainability and fiscal discipline – concerns not only about the increasing levels of debt on the City books, but also a willingness to take on financial risk or exposure –  whether it’s the City purchasing private property to hold for a future use, or now, the Fuller station where the City owns and operates a garage where UM is the dominant user (78/22).

The bottom line is that I do not believe the City (including our 2^nd Ward Councilmember) has been particularly effective in dealing with the City’s fiscal challenges. Specifically, the City has:

Ann Arbor is a Special Place ……Let’s Keep it That Way

City parks and recreation facilities ARE special contributors to our quality of life in Ann Arbor.  I believe we should be focusing our energy on adequately maintaining our parks and recreation facilities rather than considering developing or selling them. We are considering expanding the “greenbelt” boundaries at the same time our own parks suffer from lack of funding.  

As a community, we also need to strike an appropriate balance between development and preservation. The solution on development is not all or nothing as proponents and opponents sometimes advocate.  Only through balance can we ensure our neighborhoods and downtown retain their character and charm while the City continues to be economically healthy.     

Ann Arbor residents and visitors all understand that our exciting, inviting downtown area also contributes significantly to Ann Arbor’s being a special place.  I believe maintaining a robust, vibrant downtown is critical to Ann Arbor’s future, both in terms of sustainable, consistent economic health and growth, and for keeping this a wonderfully livable city.

A clear choice for 2^nd Ward Voters

The election to represent the 2^nd Ward on city council is not complicated – there is a clear choice.  If 2^nd ward residents support how city government has been run, how their tax dollars have been spent, and how Councilmember Rapundalo has represented and advocated for them, they should re-elect him.

If 2^nd ward residents believe we should get back to basics in terms of services, priorities, and spending and want someone who will listen to them, advocate for them and dive in to tackle the City’s cost problems, they have an alternative.  Our neighbors will decide and that’s how it should be.