Tony D Is Suddenly For Ann Arbor—Crass Political Opportunism Makes A Return

by P.D. Lesko

In November 2011 Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo sent a damaging email to AnnArbor.com in which he painted himself as a disingenuous opportunist, writing that he wanted to “look engaged” prior to the election. AnnArbor.com went on to endorse Rapundalo in the City Council race, but the scathing comments by AnnArbor.com readers left no question as to whether people thought Rapundalo’s email was just a silly mistake that should be forgiven. A2Politico.com asked “Will Ann Arbor Voters Press Delete and Dump Another Politico Because of An Email Scandal?” The answer? In a New York minute.

It would appear that Stephen Rapundalo is not the only opportunist to represent the Second Ward on City Council.

When Second Ward Council member Tony Derezinski ran in 2008 for the Council seat vacated by Joan Lowenstein, he was the perfect (and typical) Hieftje Hive Mind candidate: Derezinski looked good on paper. He’d served in the Michigan Legislature (albeit when Gerald Ford was the President) and on the EMU Board of Regents. He was a lobbyist and a lawyer—just the right Demublican mix. Derezinski ran as a Democrat, with lots of donations and support from Republicans in the city and state (a fact that went unmentioned by the now defunct Ann Arbor News).

Democrat Derezinski’s (left) 2008 campaign finance forms document donations from then Chair of the Michigan Republican Party Ron Weiser ($500), his wife, Eileen ($500), and Mark Boonstra (now Chair of the Washtenaw County Republican Committee). Dem Rene Greff, co-owner of Arbor Brewing Company, donated to Derezinski in 2008, and went on to donate almost $4,000 to Snyder in 2010. University of Michigan Musical Society Director Ken Fischer also donated to Derezinski in 2008 and to Snyder ($300) in 2010.

The editorial board of the newspaper wrote this about Derezinski and his candidacy in a 2008 editorial that now drips with absurdity given Derezinski’s voting and attendance records:

Derezinski isn’t running in protest of a particular project, and doesn’t have an ax to grind with the current administration. Rather, he’s interested in ensuring a transparent, consistent approach to setting policy and deliberating whatever issue confronts the city. He would be a calm, collaborative presence, and a positive addition to the council.

Derezinski ran as the candidate who could “get along,” a dig at his opponent, Stew Nelson. Nelson favored prudent spending and protecting the city’s parks from sale and development schemes. The clueless Ann Arbor News editorial board described Nelson thusly:

…Nelson is sharply critical of city administrator Roger Fraser and Mayor John Hieftje, and is convinced that the city is being run by insiders whose “group think” is undermining good government. It seems to us that this concerns him mostly because he doesn’t agree with the council majority, and that he would come into the job with a chip on his shoulder from the start. That doesn’t strike us as a constructive approach.

Of course, some four years later, it’s very clear that the group think of the Hieftje Hive Mind Collective has seriously undermined good government and the city’s financial health. Hieftje’s administration has tried to establish legal precedents that allow development on parkland, and he had headed a city government that has siphoned millions in parks funding from a dedicated millage through accounting trickery. City debt has quadrupled to over $450,000,000, retiree health and pension funds are short over $220,000,000, safety services have been decimated, (in the case of fire services, to dangerous levels) and in the space of 4 years, Council shenanigans (including Derezinski’s) have provoked two lawsuits in response to allegations of Open Meetings Act violations.

In 2008, it was easy to brand Nelson an “anti”—as Joan Lowenstein referred to certain Ann Arbor residents whom she described as “old, stingy and Republican” in an issue of The Ann magazine. The “anti” crowd doesn’t believe Ann Arbor taxpayers need to spend, literally, billions of dollars to remake a thriving small town into an under-populated, over-built metropolis drowning in bond debt. AnnArbor.com posted a piece about Lowenstein’s rant in The Ann, and the former City Council member and current DDA Board member found herself the butt of dozens of scathing comments by readers, readers who complained about the insiders who are running city government into the ground, comments criticizing the current Hive Mind’s “arrogant” “group think,” Lowenstein included. Had Lowenstein published her somewhat dotty diatribe in 2008, the reader response would, no doubt, have been much less critical of her, Hieftje, City Council and then City Administrator Roger Fraser.

In 2010, Derezinski ran unopposed.

This year, he faces a challenger. Sally Hart Petersen hopes to gather the 100 signatures she needs on her nominating petitions. Petersen confirmed that she is, indeed, circulating her nominating petitions, and is preparing to challenge Derezinski. Derezinski, who has the worst attendance record of any Council member, put up a new blog in March 2012: TonyD4AnnArbor.com. His new blog, alas, mirrors his abysmal Council attendance record. Derezinski’s site was last updated on March 4, 2012, and most of the sections of the blog have nothing in them. His new blog is like a fake building front from an old western. Look behind TonyD4AnnArbor.com, and all a reader sees are electronic tumbleweeds blown about.

Derezinski’s first campaign web site (below) put up in 2008, was last updated on August 5, 2008. Tony D obviously didn’t feel the need to be for Ann Arbor at all—by updating his first blog/web site—over the past 3.5 years he’s been in office.

Derezinski, a polished glad-hander, has made do with intimate soirees at his home and local restaurants and bars, where small groups of insiders gather. The most recent one, on February 23, 2012 is reported, somewhat amusingly in the third person, on his new blog. The meeting was “well-attended,” according to The Derezinski, and resembled a “fundraiser.” Several of the attendees mentioned also appear in the list of folks who endorsed Derezinski in 2008 and in 2010—in other words, it was well-attended by a group comprised of many of the usual suspects.

As well as having attendance and engagement issues, as A2Politico revealed in February 2012, Derezinski is trapped under much of the same political baggage that cost Second Ward Council member Rapundalo his seat in November 2011.

• For example, months after a 40-year friend sent a letter to the editor of the Ann Arbor News that referred to Derezinski as “a man of great integrity with a strong moral compass,” it was revealed that Derezinski has been misusing email during open Council meetings to make fun of constituents, give out awards for pandering to the public, allegedly violate the Open Meetings Act, and rig votes, according to reporting by the Ann Arbor News.
• Derezinski voted to spend $50 million to build the new city hall. He also voted to construct the Fifth Avenue underground parking garage, which will be paid for by property tax dollars and not parking revenues, as Hieftje and others initially told the public.
• In 2010, Derezinski told the Michigan Daily he favored a city income tax. In April 2011, Derezinski told the Ann Arbor Observer that he thought it was “more than fair” for taxpayers to pay a city income tax.
• Derezinski, like Rapundalo, has consistently supported the diversion of over $2.2 million in tax dollars (including money from the road millage and utilities) for Public Art. Like Rapundalo, Derezinski has also consistently refused to vote to reduce the amount of money given over to the Percent for Art program.
• The failed Fuller Road project enjoyed the full support of both Rapundalo and Derezinski. It has been estimated that officials wasted over $4 million dollars in fees to consultants, architects, etc… on an attempt to build a parking garage for the University of Michigan on a river-front parcel of parkland.
• Derezinski has consistently voted in favor of cuts to both police and fire staffing levels, as had Rapundalo.
• Rapundalo and Derezinski voted to approve the wildly unpopular pedestrian crossing ordinance.
• Derezinski, like Rapundalo, pushed to outsource operations of Huron Hills Golf Course, enraging Ward 2 residents who formed a neighborhood group, printed up signs and pressured Council into dropping the plans to hand over operations to the company of a man whom Hieftje had conveniently appointed to the Golf Courses Advisory Task Force.
• Rapundalo and Derezinski spent almost 12 months and thousands of dollars of staff time on a failed effort to ban cell phone use while driving.

The real issue at hand is that, like Hieftje and many other of the Hive Mind Collective members on Council, Tony Derezinski is reaching out to his constituents with a new blog because he wants to use them: their votes, endorsements and donations. TonyD4AnnArbor.com is like Tony D himself—good on paper, but  in practice not-so-good for his constituents or for Ann Arbor.