Ann Arbor City Council Endorsements: Part I
WELCOME TO ANN ARBOR CITY POLITICS THUNDERDOME
THIS, EXCEPT MORESO!
I quit playing video games so much this summer and I have definitely not improved my life by reading a bunch of MLive stuff. To my horror, it dawned on me that I was now a Person who had Opinions about Local Politics. The memorial service for my youth is scheduled for about five years ago.
I can think of no revenge better than trying to inflict this curse on others. I'll be less lonely during the next full moon if there are some dudes in "A More Perfect Union" T-shirts at the library as we have impassioned discussions about pedestrian safety. Also it's actually a very important time to get an opinion, city-wise.
But just in case here's a super super early jump.
[After THE JUMP: abandon all hope ye who enter here]
MY GOD IT'S AN OVERVIEW OF ANN ARBOR POLITICS
[Full disclosure: Rishi Narayan, one of the owners of UGP, is on the DDA. This post doesn't discuss the DDA.
First Martin is one of the sponsors of this blog. Despite that this post will advocate for a hotel that will compete with the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown. This post has not been cleared, or even discussed, with First Martin. Sponsoring MGoBlog is fun and comes with no surprises.
As far as my personal views, I was quite libertarian and dead center left/right on that political compass thing when I took it. I am not a registered anything. This should give everyone sufficient reason to hate me.]
Ann Arbor's political scene is at once obvious and nonsensical. Despite being the sort of town in which a Republican has the same shot at winning an election as Rich Rodriguez, Ann Arbor is one of just three Michigan municipalities to have partisan elections. This means almost all of the action takes place during the August primary, which is forthcoming. The sitting councilmember in Ward 2 is an independent and will run in November; everything else is more or less decided in two weeks. (Compounding the bizarre electoral setup: this is an odd year election. Ann Arbor recently changed their setup from two year terms to four; this is the last odd-year election.)
That's the nonsensical part. The obvious part is that Ann Arbor's local government is overrun with folks who pass ordinances requiring closed captioning for public televisions without pausing to consider how often those televisions have the sound up. (Basically never.) Or reaffirming their belief in the Paris Accord, which thanks I guess? They just released drawings of a proposed 60 million dollar "urban trail" that covers all of three miles. Moving forward on this was a unanimous vote. They expected the U would be an enthusiastic participant; they are not. Meanwhile significant sections of Ann Arbor roadways are indistinguishable from Kandahar.
It's Leslie Knopes all the way down. There's a lot of virtue signaling about stuff that's either so negligible it shouldn't be talked about at all (closed captioning on muted TVs) or vastly out of the scope of local government (climate change). I imagine this is all but universal in local governance. It grinds my gears nonetheless.
Without traditional parties to fall back on, battle lines are clearest and most consistent when it comes to development. Team Developer has been on top for most of the last 15 years. They have eight seats on the council including the mayor. Team Stasis has three seats. Certain things need an 8-3 supermajority to pass, so things are balanced on a knife edge.
The approximate teams follow. Folks up for re-election are in bold.
DEVELOPER
- Christopher Taylor, Mayor
- Jason Frenzel, Ward 1
- Kirk Westphal, Ward 2
- Zachary Ackerman, Ward 3
- Julie Grand, Ward 3
- Graydon Krapohl, Ward 4
- Chip Smith, Ward 5
- Chuck Warpehoski, Ward 5
STASIS
- Sumi Kailasapathy, Ward 1
- Jane Lumm, Ward 2
- Jack Eaton, Ward 4
Three of the four races being contested in August are explicitly about development. In three-minute introductory videos hosted by CTV, opponents of Frenzel, Ackerman, and Smith all immediately call out the current council for approving tall buildings downtown, with a particular focus on the 17-story hotel-condo-retail building the council approved on the "library lot" just north of the (yep) library downtown. The fourth race, between Eaton and Jamie Magiera, is less clearly pitched in those terms. Magiera has said he would have voted against the Library Lot. On the other hand, Eaton seems to vote against development more consistently than anyone else running for council.
This is all you get to vote on in Ann Arbor right now. You get foof and development or foof and less development. Even if there were other things to vote on, increasing housing availability (of any variety) in Ann Arbor is vastly more important than all other issues combined. So I'm going to recommend you vote for development.
That means you should vote for Frenzel, Ackerman, Smith, or (less so) Magiera on August 8th.
Here are some words justifying that.
HOT BUTTON ISSUES
this, or a slightly larger park
DEVELOPMENT. Ann Arbor is a very nice place to live, as magazines and websites and home prices keep reminding us. You can't throw an award in this town without hitting another award. The inevitable result: Ann Arbor will grow up, or it will grow out. Preventing high-density housing sends Ann Arbor down the same path San Francisco took some decades ago and will result in the same astronomical prices. This process is already well underway. Average home prices jumped an astounding 11% last year.
Ann Arbor prices have always been out of whack for a Midwestern college town. Almost literally everyone I know who has come to town in the last 20 years has struggled with sticker shock, including myself. Many have relocated to Ypsi because they more or less have to. These people should be part of the future of the city but cannot afford to live in it.
This is in part because there was a near-total cessation of high-density development for 30 years. That started to change about ten years ago and in the last five things have kicked into high gear. This is a good thing. The main problem with the pace of development in Ann Arbor is it is still far short of what's needed to meet demand. Two new dorms and several student-oriented high-rises added about 4000 new beds downtown; this merely kept pace with Michigan's expanding enrollment. Every high rise that goes up immediately fills up. The home buying market is brutal. The rental market is brutal, with renewals expected a few months into year-long leases.
Denying the fact that Ann Arbor will change with weak appeals to parking, traffic, and floodplain development is pure NIMBYism and should be rejected out of hand. Keeping Ann Arbor "funky" or "unique," which seems to be the main goal cited by development opponents, is 1) impossible and 2) detrimental to everyone in the community who isn't already locked into a mortgage they intend to keep until they die.
That's me, now, but getting there was a near thing. We put in an above-asking offer with 20% down and had our offer accepted a day before two higher offers—one 50k higher—were put in. I shudder to think what would have happened if our trigger finger was insufficiently itchy. And this was four years ago. The market has only gotten more vicious since.
Opposing development is selfish, often explicitly:
We have often thought our city to be rather special, in a community-supportive, casually fun but also fairly intellectual, colorful but not in an overly contrived sort of way. See our post, What Does it Mean to be an Ann Arbor Townie. In other words, a city to serve its citizens and welcome visitors on our own terms. [bold mine]
It is elitist (see above). It is inefficient. It excludes renters and condo-buyers from "the community." It forces longer commutes and robs Ann Arbor of tax revenue it badly needs because the university is exempt. Great swathes of the community are housing insecure because of a failure to build. Almost literally every service worker in town can't live in it. Solutions other than letting people build stuff are unicorn fairy dust.
This is the single most important issue facing the city today. Build.
THE LIBRARY LOT ITSELF. The alternative to the proposed development: a park. On top of a parking structure. That was reinforced so that a big building could go on top of it. Dirt, on concrete. Roots gradually growing into said concrete. If there was any thought that that lot should be open green space downtown it flew the coop once the garage was approved ten years ago. Also the proposed development has a public green space barely smaller than the park the lot could awkwardly accommodate—one maintained by the developer, not the city.
Tree Town Down has a level-headed and comprehensive explanation of the situation:
The root of the issue for me comes down to the public space and economics. The library lot isn’t that big, it has a parking garage below it and assorted ramps, elevators and stairwells. It can support a fairly small park that’s really more of a plaza as it’s not built to accommodate large trees or heavy sod and plantings. I’ve advocated for a downtown park in the past, we could use a public commons space in Ann Arbor, but if you’re thinking of this as a central park with all the amenities we need, I’m sorry to disappoint. This is more of an urban plaza, a little larger than Liberty Plaza around the corner which is just over 10,000 square feet. As such, with the Core Proposal you get up to $15 million dollars in a one time payment and up to $3 million per year in property taxes plus a 12,000 square foot park/plaza! The alternative is no money to the city and a 16,600 square foot park/plaza! Money certainly isn’t everything but those economics are tough to ignore. Think about our school, infrastructure and affordable housing needs.
Read that whole thing. I also recommend councilmember Chuck Warpehoski's post on his vote. The only reason to oppose the library lot development is a fear of tall buildings and people living close to their jobs downtown. (Two-thirds of Ann Arbor workers commute in from outside the city.) This is a critical election because either this large, very very useful building will go in or not.
Barracuda Networks is going to hire 120-some engineers. They are coming. They could live downtown. Or they could increase traffic and home prices.
the correct building already exists
THE TRAIN STATION. OTOH, mayoral detractors are right about this one. This is the worst thing the mayor's faction is currently doing. Ann Arbor has a train station. It is a box protected from the elements, and is totally sufficient to meet rail transit needs. Nobody ever transfers, so there are no layovers. You either get on the train, or get off it and go into the city.
For some reason the mayor is trying to hammer through approval for a 50 million dollar replacement for this train station. The justification is a ludicrous study asserting that Amtrak ridership will increase almost tenfold by 2030. (It's down almost 20% in the last four years and has been basically flat for a decade.) This assumed the RTA millage would pass. It did not. It also made a brazillion other assumptions that fly in the face of the uniformly dismal history of light rail.
Hypothetically up to 80% of the money for this will come from the federal government, which means that Ann Arbor will only be paying ten million dollars for a form of transit that will be obliterated by automated driving within 15 years. If they get the money, which is questionable.
Compounding the dodginess of this situation is the council's refusal to be transparent about why they are pursuing a useless building. Councilmembers seeking re-election in this cycle broke down along "party" lines on that vote. If there was any way to signal a desire for development but not a train station I would enthusiastically recommend it. There is not.
THE URBAN TRAIL. I don't think you can vote against this? It wasn't even a part of the candidate forum. : /
AFFORDABLE HOUSING. This is distinct from Section 8 housing, which is aimed at the poor. Generally when people talk about affordable housing in Ann Arbor they're talking about workforce housing.It makes sense that people should live close to where they work, but the simple fact that convenient land in Ann Arbor costs a fortune makes addressing affordability directly all but impossible on a large scale. A recent affordable redevelopment checked in at 320k per unit, which is higher than the average home sale in town. The city is currently putting 400k annually towards affordable housing.
Ann Arbor is mostly accomplishing what minor progress they make by paying developers to include some less than market price options in new buildings. A proposed condo development near the hospital will get a couple million dollars in property tax forgiveness to build 15 units priced for folks with at most 60% of the local median income; the DDA is forking over a similar amount so that the Library Lot development will have a similar subset of affordable housing.
This is fine, I guess, but 15 units here and 15 units there isn't going to dent demand for low-cost housing in Ann Arbor. There are few ideas other than throwing a little cash at developers to create a subset of low-income earners who get a golden ticket. Chip Smith, an urban planner, is the only councilmember who's suggested something concrete and potentially workable:
“The reason that there’s such an emphasis and such a focus on people building bigger buildings with more density downtown is that’s the only place that we let them do that,” he said.
“One of the things that we have to do a much better job of is figuring out how to provide housing that’s close to jobs, have more dense housing in places where it’s appropriate," Smith added. “So one of the things that we’ve been working on, or at least that I’ve been talking with some of my colleagues about, is the idea of a transit-oriented development overlay district at South State and Eisenhower, which is a major job center. And to put a lot of housing units there, you know, removes some of the pressure on downtown.”
Picking a couple transit corridors and blanketing them with 1) dense housing and 2) even more transit is the best bet for actually affordable Ann Arbor housing.
CLIMATE CHANGE. Climate change is a fact. It is also caused by the great sweep of history; nothing a single municipality does will affect it meaningfully either way. Ann Arbor should change its property tax code to exempt solar panels until they've paid for themselves and focus on things local governments can accomplish. This may not be possible under state law unless Ann Arbor gets creative. Try to get creative, and leave solar to private individuals. Again, I don't think there's a way to vote for this without submarining development.
THE FRANKENMILLAGE. The county's planning to put an unholy Frankenstein millage on the ballot this fall. Half of it would go to mental health services the state has cut back. Half would go to county police deputies, which is thinly justified because cops have to deal with mentally ill people. Places with their own police departments would get a refund, which the city council believes they can spend however they want.
In a perfect distillation of the foof aspects of local governance, the council passed a resolution stating they'd use the money thusly:
- 20% for pedestrian safety. The city has adopted a goal of zero pedestrian fatalities by 2025. Advances in technology will do most of this for the city without anyone lifting a finger. Meanwhile it is unclear that any attempted remediation by the city will have an impact on a death rate of less than one per year. Vision Zero's purported successes in New York are stat-juking that tries to piggy-back on normal regression to the mean.
- 40% for affordable housing, about which see above.
- 40% for climate change. See above.
Whether or not this is a breach of civic obligation or not, your imperative as a voter is clear: reject this and make the county come back with a single-purpose millage, not this rotting mess of priorities stuck together to terrify the villagers.
DEER CULL. Ann Arbor is home to an increasing deer population. Deer are large rats that destroy landscaping, carry ticks, get hit by vehicles, and taste good. Cull them. At present there is little controversy about this outside of one "Deer Lives Matter" MLive commenter. In 2015 Mayor Taylor cast a solitary vote against the cull. Everyone else was in favor.
Part two will be a drill-down into the individual council races that will unsurprisingly conclude that you should vote for the four names bolded above.
We need to do something about the Russians.
Let's start with Hotel Putingrad.
It's been getting lax around here with the no politics rule, so it's nice to see it just get completely blown out of the water. The last safe haven I had has now been destroyed.
WD will now start re-posting Trump tweets.
If only there was a way for you to ignore this post.
For the record I've never been an opponent of the deer cull, and in fact my name was adopted as a parody of the people that held the "deer funeral".
Are you the same Mlive commenter? So my world of trolling Mlive has collided with my world of trolling Mgoblog? NOOOOOOO!!!!
I see there are a few on here. I have a question: Why the [redacted] do they put a bus stop 50 ft after a major intersection? This, to me, seems like one of the dumber things people can do.
I didn't mind Brian posting this. But then I was a very long-time A2 resident who had to move when I married and had kids beacuse Ann Arbor just got too expensive - and my wife and I are well-paid professionals.
Just one point on the low-income housing units set aside. It has been my observation that these are typically awarded to senior citizens who, being retired, have low incomes but very high wealth.
They need that "high wealth" to keep generating that low income until they die.
Everyone who does all the stuff that they are supposed to do, and invests all their life for their retirement, should retire a millionaire.
That's exactly what we want. That's why things like 401K's were invented.
So they can fund their own damn retirement, and not rely on the Government to do it. Which it can't.
Every senior citizen should retire a millionaire. So they can pay for their own retirement, and I don't have to pay for it.
Agreed with this last point, as it sort of goes with one of my posts.
And as a related aside, I've been saying for several years now that real tax fairness (not the flat tax or fair tax ideas) would be to tax wealth not income. Very difficult to implement, however. But if you look at how this would change incentives, it would be a beautiful thing.
Great post, Brian. Housing affordability is the crisis of our time, caused by onerous zoning restrictions and years of under-building. Props to your bold stance on a sports blog.
Only quibble is the dismissal of Vision Zero. We are so far away from "advanced technologies" eliminating traffic deaths, given the likely slow adaption by all motorists. We need traffic engineering and enforcement solutions now to remedy all the lives that are needlessly lost on our roadways.
Dominant phenom of our era: Exponentially Accelerating Complexity, which includes exponentially accruing knowledge.
Human reach, power, numbers: Unprecedented.
We've generated novel & alien environs that we can't handle; i.e., we can't process the onslaught of new relationship information.
Exhibits: A: Sky. B: Ocean.
Code & Complexity
Code is fundamental, physics generated and physics efficacious, Relationship Infrastructure in bio, cultural & tech networks: genetic, language, math, moral, religious, legal, monetary, etiquette, software, etc.
“The story of human intelligence starts with a universe that is capable of encoding information.” — Ray Kurzweil -- "How To Create A Mind"
The new relationships sired by exponentially accelerating complexity weaken the efficacy of code attuned to older, less complex variations of network relationships.
Humans aren’t sufficiently coded — biologically, culturally or technologically — to pass natural selection tests in environs undergoing exponentially accelerating complexity for X number of years.
Year X approaches.
Enjoy your cornflakes whilst you got 'em.
...has CC capability for all of these utterly worthless 3 minute intro videos. Morons.
This blog is about to suck.
STICK TO SPORTS (not joking)
Can we at least acknowledge the irony of a libertarian whose entire career and life is built around the existence of a public university that any libertarian would argue against their tax dollars supporting?
Ah this age old argument. Why did Ayn Rand accept the social security dollars (that she was forced to contribute to against her will)? Why do libertarians drive on public roads (that they are forced to support)? Why do libertarians attend public schools (that they are forced to pay for with tax dollars)?
Sorry, it holds no water. We have strong ideals, but have to live within the confines of the state holding a figurative gun to our heads. All we can do is advocate for individual rights across the board one case at a time.
Obviously that's a bit dramatic but you get the point :)
One other point, being a libertarian does not mean you want NO governement or public services, that would be anarchy. LImited does not mean none.
Yet there are a number of prominent (and not-so-prominent) libertarians that are so anti-government that their ideas essentially are anarchy. But, I digress.
This is true, and they are doing a disservice to true libertarians / all proponents of individual rights (and the protection of those rights).
Well put again...there are unfortunately many that use the libertarian title and do a disservice to those who belive that individual right should exist as long as they don't infringe on others.
Brian’s argument (if I am reading it correctly) is that not building the additional housing units in fact is a case where government is limiting both the business opportunity and the opportunity of new residents (and their property taxes) from being able to live in what is one of the best cities in the country.
Change is not a bad thing...
I said irony, not that what he was doing was wrong.
Brian,
I not suprised at all you finally itched the need to address politics, you wrote for the Review as a student, right? However, there are so many ways you could have scratched this itch while maintaining the no politics rule on mgoblog. Write a letter to the editor of the paper, post link on mgoblog. Talk to Rob Goodspeed about partnering to bring back arborupdate.com (he's back in AA and hell, he's even a professor in urban development). Post that you also have info over there about AA issues, but won't address them further on mgoblog. Etc, etc.
I know this is your blog, and I'm sure you thought long about this, but I just can't understand your conclusion to do this when there are so many viable alternatives that achieve your goal of increasing knowledge of the issues facing AA today without endangering mgoblog.
Max clicks, baby!
I really doubt that is Brian's motive here. I actually would enjoy engaging in a discussion on his post, as it hits on a lot of my non-sports interests including transit, NIMBY vs. density, the definition of and pros/cons of libertarianism, etc. I will not express my opinions on those matters here, as that directly contradicts my point.
That point is: it would be great to have a discussion on the political future of AA in a forum where it is welcome, not in a forum where politics have been banned for 10 years. I think Brian could pull that off easily, either through a new blog or guest-posting on an existing blog. In the end, I think he'd end up with more clicks. He'd keep his entire reader base here at mgoblog happy, those here who WANT politics could go to the other forum, and then he'd get to add those who enjoy AA politics and don't necessarily care about Michigan Athletics in this other forum.
It seems he's taking a big risk at killing his golden goose here by directly contradicting a major pillar in his mission statement that's served him quite well for 10+ years. There are many viable alternatives available.
I just don't get it.
Except this is absolutely not the same issue as the "No Politics" rule, which we all know really refers to higher level partisan politics and is aimed at avoiding RCMB-like insults and ad hominen attacks.
Discussing political issues, in a mature matter, that aren't very partisan (and not at all a Rep/Dem issue) and are very important to Ann Arbor are two very separate issues.
Some of you are acting like you just found out Santa Claus doesn't exist because your favorite sports blog has been infiltrated by opinions on local politics. First world problems I guess.
Although I have an Ann Arbor address, I am not an Ann Arbor voter. Still, I work downtown, love Ann Arbor (hell I was born here and was never far away) and have an opinion.
I enjoyed Brian's thoughtful piece but simply disagree with the overly pro-development point of view. Ann Arbor is good BECAUSE of the green spaces, BECAUSE you can walk around in the summer without being in the shadow of some monstrosity, etc. If you want to live in Livonia or Troy, for God's sake move there.
If Ann Arbor continues to be good, it will ALWAYS attract rich people. There's no way around it. And those rich people will price out other people. I don't see how this is avoidable. Get your mortgage now before it REALLY gets out of control.
My own post ignores one important issue. In addition to any number of things, Ann Arbor is also desireable due to the people. And plenty, if not most, of those cool people are not rich. If they get priced out, we lose a significant something.
I suggested there was no way around this, but there is. It has to do with subsidized housing, and the people who receive it. I believe it's kind of a difficult issue when you get into the implementation, but it is certainly a part of a possible solution. Still doesn't require massive ugly buildings blocking all the light.
Rich people can be cool.
As someone who owns (mortgages) a place in Ann Arbor, I benefit from rising home prices and so don't want that harmed by new housing developments. I'm sure there are extremely many who feel exactly the way I do, even if they won't say so publicly. Your author should remember that when telling people who to vote for.
Pro Gun Control
Pro single payer healthcare system
Pro free U-M tuition
Says housing prices are "out of whack" even though they are set by the market.
etc.
I think he meant Librarian.
@ Rufus, ummm.... he explained the housing prices/market issue pretty well. The market is not being allowed to do its work because the local government is preventing the market (developers) from create supply.
Free UM tuition for students coming from the lowest economic backgrounds isn't really a Left-Right issue in my mind. And the new proposal is a gradient, not just a cut off.
Like disapproving readers won't click on the The Story, Previews, and UFR when the season comes around. I skip Draftageddon, soccer, and recruiting posts because they do not interest me, and just as no one is forcing me to click those links, no one is forcing the reader to see Brian's thoughts about AA government. A couple people are acting like this is a covert, underhanded attempt to influence the masses, but he was pretty upfront about the content via title, intro, and inclusion of a jump.
For those clinging to, "NO POLITICS", understand the intent of the phrase which is to limit undeveloped mudslinging about irrelevant issues, national parties chief among them. On the flip side, those that saw this as an opening of the flood gates to air their own grievances, grow up. Some of your comments fly in the face of the even-handed opinion about policy that Brian took.
Would it have been easier for Brian to avoid altogether? Sure, but he's not beholden to readers, just as readers are not required to click every post. On either side...chillllll.
1) this is a vaey Democrat view of the world, not very libertarian (which is fine and petty, but I just wanted to point that out).
2) Like SF, if Ann Arbor gets too expensive, doesn't that help the existing housing and infrastructure of nearby towns, like Ypsi? That's why Oakland, Brooklyn, Jersey City, Hoboken... aren't dumps now. Because the "city" became too expensvie, neighboring cities/ towns moved up as well.
Brian:Libertarianism::Mike Huckabee:Liberalism
I just wanted to correct one glaring inaccuracy. Saying that rail will be irrelevent because of automated driving is both ridiculous and false.
While paying millions for a new train station doesn't sound like smart policy, simply ignoring a mode of transit that can move 600 people (and take 450-ish cars off the road) at once should not be trivialized. Southeast Michigan needs more alternatives for commuting, not fewer.
If everyone has a driverless vehicle it will lead to crippling congestion: there is only so much capacity on a road. Autonomous operations will only work if it shifts behavior toward shared rides that connect to multi-modal hubs ... like train stations.
See? It's not that hard.
I agree with Brian that one of Ann Arbor's biggest problems is the relentless upward pressure on housing prices and the resultant gentrification of the city's population. I think it's actually the city's biggest problem. But the kind of development promoted by the current and former mayor does not solve that problem. It makes it worse.
In the last few years, the high density development downtown has all been at the high end of the market. I'm talking about the $1M condos being built around Kerrytown and the $3000/month apartments, like the Foundry. This is driving up the value of mid-level residential real estate in the subdivisions close to downtown. And this upward trend on mid-range single family homes is being exacerbated by the construction of McMansions in some new developments on the outskirts of town, such as the developments along Nixon Rd. I've lived in the Georgetown/Chapel Hill area for the last 20 years, and this neighborhood used to be pretty solidly middle class. But home values are escalating dramatically because of the high-end development both downtown and farther out, and very soon this neighborhood won't be affordable for families with less than $150,000 in income.
The pro-development crowd in city government just is not doing enough to promote mid-priced housing, including condos and apartments. To be sure, there are some efforts along these lines. There will be some apartment housing in the Nixon Rd. developments, and I don't think it will be high-end. But there is just not enough of this kind of housing. When a developer wants a zoning variance to build 2500 square foot condos with a price of $1M, the city should condition its approval on some kind of companion development that's more affordable. I don't think that's happening often enough. As it is, the only modestly priced housing is coming from the McKinley monopoly and its "workforce" housing (which sounds to me more like a workers' ghetto).
If development continues along its current path, we're going to wind up with the kind of city that John Heiftje dreamed of: a place where single-family residences start at $500K and where the real estate agents (like Heiftje himself) get rich. But the wealthy liberals can assuasge their consicences by pointing to the city's vigorous recycling program and pedestrian-friendly crosswalk ordinance. In the city that the pro-development crowd is building, if you make less than $100,000 a year, Ypsi is your best option for reasonably priced housing.
I'm all for development, but it needs to be managed differently than it has been for the last 10-15 years.
Not bad, Brian.
I haven't been a resident in Ann Arbor for going on 25 years now, so I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I'm for any adminstration that is prepared to bring Blimpy Burger back to the corner of East Madison and Division.
Why would you fear a part 2? Just don't click it.
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