by P.D. Lesko

In 2004, the Ann Arbor News Editorial Board published an endorsement of Hieftje’s mayoral opponent that included this zinger, preserved for posterity by Google:

“Hieftje’s largest failure is not one of vision, but leadership. Few are willing to publicly criticize Hieftje because they expect quick retaliation and there is good reason for that conclusion. He sprints to accept praise. His reaction to disagreement is shrill. Hieftje could not identify one thing he would do differently in his current term as mayor. He was, however, ready to head down a path of identifying the missteps of city employees until he was reminded that the question pertained to his own actions.”

Fifth Ward Council member Mike Anglin sent out an email in which he not only criticizes Hieftje, but calls on Ann Arbor taxpayers to rise up and stop Hieftje’s efforts to hijack millions in millage money dedicated to the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority and bus service. The mass email went out January 15, 2012.

In part, Anglin’s email says, “At the last Council meeting Mayor Hieftje presented a proposal that could have a detrimental effect on the bus service in Ann Arbor….The Mayor’s proposal calls for the City of Ann Arbor to continue to collect this property tax, but in the future it would be transferred to the new County Transit Authority. At present the county does not fund any transit service. Only the cities of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti have transit millages. Ann Arbor collects far more tax revenue than Ypsilanti. Ann Arbor will have representatives on the County Transit Authority, but we will not have a majority. Most important, we will not be able to unilaterally withdraw from the agreement.”

If Hieftje’s attempt to help “repurpose” millions in property tax money meant for bus service is news to you, wake up and smell the axle grease.

Like the City Council’s secretive and failed attempts to sell then lease Huron Hills Golf Course, to jam through a conference center project on top of the new underground parking garage, and build a huge, new city hall we couldn’t afford, there has been backroom dealing aplenty to try to figure out a way to separate AATA from its millage money, and to “repurpose” that money for Hieftje’s favorite fantasy, a commuter train between Ann Arbor and Howell, Michigan.

Hieftje and his hand-picked cronies on the AATA Board, including Hieftje’s recent appointment of a city staffer who lives outside of Ann Arbor to a seat on the AATA Board reserved a city resident, have proposed a 5-year, half-a-billion dollar plan for regional transportation. (Think Wile E. Coyote and a big box from the ACME mail order company.) Hieftje’s recent proposal, which he sponsored by himself and presented at a recent Council meeting, goes like this: the perpetual millage (2 mills) voters pay to support AATA bus service would be “repurposed” for a regional transportation system overseen by a county transportation authority.

It’s kinda like you give your grocery money to those hearty eaters in Washtenaw and Livingston counties who could pay to buy their own food, but who don’t want to. Sound good? Hieftje is sure it does.

Council members Mike Anglin (Ward 5), Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) aren’t so sure, according to the email Anglin sent out: “Jane Lumm, Steve Kunselman, and I do not support this transfer of city taxes to a county wide transit authority. But we are a minority on Council. We need you, the citizens of Ann Arbor to express your opinions to influence the Mayor and others on Council.”

This is all being done under the guise of providing additional service to bus riders outside of Ann Arbor. However, according to a former AATA Board member, AATA already serves two-thirds of Washtenaw County’s residents. So why are Hieftje and the AATA Board trying to spend half a billion dollars of your money to provide “additional” bus service throughout the county when the majority of county residents already have access to it?

Because the real regional transportation plan is not about buses. Hieftje’s move is one of his classic redirects.

Remember, this is the same guy who single-handedly sponsored a Charter amendment to “protect” parkland by requiring a vote of residents before parkland could be sold. Then, 24 months later he turned around a supported leasing a parcel of river-front parkland worth $4-$10 million dollars to the University of Michigan for a parking garage.

U of M officials, who gave Hieftje and his wife jobs after his election, are no doubt delighted to pay less than $50,000 per year for the river-front parcel. Hieftje presented that parking garage deal to Council as a proposed train station. Yes, John Hieftje told Council members a parking garage project for the University of Michigan would, instead, be a train station and parking garage. And a bus station. And have, maybe showers. And bike parking for all the crazy people who would bike from downtown Ann Arbor to Fuller Road, park their bikes, then take the bus back into downtown Ann Arbor.

The Council members of the Hieftje Hive Mind Collective needed to hear no more. They voted yes in lock-step, then proceeded to spend millions of dollars that could have been spent on police and fire fighters on “fleshing out” the project.

Now, Hieftje’s proposing a resolution to sign a deal that will lead to the dissolution of AATA. He wants to give away millions of your tax dollars to county officials by promising the move will increase bus usage.

Yeah, sure.

According to Council member Stephen Kunselman, AATA doesn’t need to be dissolved to expand service. AATA could do everything proposed in Hieftje’s regional transportation dream without changing a thing: what the current transportation authority can’t do, however, is oversee a train system.

Meanwhile, Livingston County politicos told Hieftje to go to Hell, Michigan when he suggested the idea of taxpayers there pitching in to pay for the WALLY, the train he wants run between the metropoli of Ann Arbor, Whitmore Lake and Howell and eventually all the way to Traverse City. Oakland county officials won’t pay toward regional transport, either. So, Hieftje wants to finance train operations with the only transportation money he can get his hands on: AATA’s dedicated millage, which by Charter, is required to go toward bus service.

Just as Hieftje is trying to get around the Charter to lease river front parkland on Fuller Road without a vote, he wants to dissolve AATA and then give that tax money to a county transportation authority, again without consulting voters.

Anglin’s email zeroes in Hieftje’s attempt to shut out voters again: “Tell the Mayor and Council that your property taxes should not be used to fund county wide mass transit. Tell them that you, the citizens, voted for this tax and you expect the right to vote on any transfer of the money to a county authority.”

Hieftje has been trotting out his friends to support regional transportation and the “repurposing” of AATA millage money. Conan Smith, the Washtenaw County Commissioner who took taxpayer money he was not entitled to take and who has refused to pay it back, is solidly in favor of “repurposing” more Ann Arbor taxpayer money. It’s classic Ann Arbor politics to trot out the guy with sketchy morals where taxpayer money is concerned to support a proposal put forth by the guy with sketchy morals where governmental transparency is concerned.

Then, there’s John Hieftje’s funding expert.

Hieftje appointed Jesse Bernstein (right) to the AATA Board in 2008. He was tasked by AATA Board members to co-chair a committee of “funding experts” to find a way to squeeze half a billion dollars out of taxpayers for Hieftje’s scheme. One of the proposals is to raise taxes without a vote through a public-private partnership. All of the proposals are predicated on, you guessed it, the dissolution of AATA and the formation of a regional transportation authority.

Anyone who has studied the tax returns of the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce—which Bernstein headed—may wonder what exactly qualifies him as a funding “expert.” Bernstein spent years losing money at the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce, according to tax documents filed with the IRS. In 2007, 2008 and 2009 (Bernstein resigned in late-June 2009), the Chamber of Commerce lost money and gross revenues fell from $1.2 million and $975,000. Incredibly, in 2008 under Bernstein’s leadership, the group spent 70 percent of  its $1.03 million in revenue on salaries, benefits, travel, and office space. Under Jesse Bernstein’s leadership, the money-losing local Chamber of Commerce was in the business of being in business to provide Bernstein with a job and a six-figure salary and faux cred.

Bernstein recently voted in favor of AATA’s latest budget which allows the bus service to run a deficit, and to continue to spend money on consultants to tweak the new transit plan, and on bus, radio and television advertising to sell a half a billion dollar pipe dream to taxpayers. The budget also continues to allocate money to the WALLY, not so coincidentally.

Now, Hieftje wants Council to approve his proposal to move toward a regional transportation authority despite the fact that the AATA plan to expand regionally has no set funding, and funding for the plan is being overseen, in part, by a “funding expert” who, well, doesn’t seem so expert. It’s the perfect mix of ingredients for a French farce, or maybe one of those Pedro Aldomovar movies, starring Penelope Cruz (she can play Hieftje). In reality, it’s the work of a mayor who, the Ann Arbor News editorial board pointed out years ago, “sprints to accept praise,” is not a leader and is “shrill” and vindictive when disagreements arise.

At the Council meeting where Hieftje introduced his resolution, Second Ward Council member Jane Lumm suggested that the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s current rush to enter into a 4-party agreement that would allow AATA millage money paid by Ann Arbor taxpayers to be handed over to county officials, was the equivalent of “ready, fire, aim — not ready, aim, fire — without having the specifics of the funding plan and the five-year program,”

Lumm told the head of AATA that she still wanted more details: “I hear what you’re saying,” Lumm said to Michael Ford,  “and I know you mean well. But we’re being asked to consider a fundamental restructuring of our public transportation system.”

Hieftje’s response was, well, shrill. According to AnnArbor.com, “John Hieftje suggested at one point that Lumm might be better informed if she wasn’t new to council and had attended previous meetings.”

Lumm took offense at the suggestion that she was uninformed and shot back: “I’ve been trying to do my homework.Frankly, I feel that was a little bit patronizing, Mr. Mayor.”

The promises of increases in bus ridership under a regional system no doubt appealed to those members on Council who believed Tom McMurtrie (tip o’ the keyboard to Vivienne Armentrout), who oversees the city’s recycling program, and who swore on large mounds of compost that single-stream recycling would double the amount of materials collected. Those numbers were off by 60 percent. Not only were staff estimates of huge growth in recycling wrong, Recycle Ann Arbor bellied up to the public funding buffet for an additional $1 million in funding because the contract between the city and the company has not correctly reflected the reality of how many tons of materials would be collected.

Imagine when the regional transportation authority, overseen by county officials who recently refused to cut their own pay, benefits or per diems, says its needs more money and imposes a new transportation millage to stem “unforeseen loses,” the term used when Recycle Ann Arbor came back for more taxpayer money.

Angin’s email ends with the call to action:

Come to the public hearing on January 23, 2012. Tell the Mayor and Council that your property taxes should not be used to fund county wide mass transit. Tell them that you, the citizens, voted for this tax and you expect the right to vote on any transfer of the money to a county authority.

You can also email comments, and I encourage you to do so, especially if you cannot come to the public hearing. Here is a link to the city web page that has email addresses for the Mayor and Council http://www.a2gov.org/government/citycouncil/Pages/Home.aspx Use the link at the bottom of the page to send the email to all of Council and the Mayor.

Please share this email with other concerned citizens If we do not act now, Ann Arbor taxes may be used to subsidize transit in county to the detriment of our city bus service.