The Many Faces of Margie Teall

by P.D. Lesko

Fourth Ward Council member Margie Teall has talked a good game for a long time. The incredibly incurious (Ann Arbor News/AnnArbor.com), overly obsequious (Ann Arbor Observer) or just plain naive (Michigan Daily) local media have made it possible for her to talk a good game.

To date, the city’s local media have rarely if ever looked closely at what Teall has said during interviews and while campaigning, and what she has actually done as a member of City Council. When her political chatter and her votes are placed side-by-side, Margie’s talking game falls apart, and it becomes clear that what Teall has most consistently offered to Ward 4 has been empty promises and half-truths.

Let’s start with her claim that she supports “new urbanism.” Teall (with bow, cartoon above) told AnnArbor.com in 2010 that she supports dense development. Well, kinda. In 2010, she described her “accomplishments” as having “sponsored an initiative to down-zone her own Lower Burns Park neighborhood to prevent more single-family residences from being broken up into multiple-family rental units.”

In 2008, she told the Michigan Daily she was: “opposed to the 25-story development planned South University Avenue. Though she said new housing options are always beneficial for students, she said the scale of the construction was too large compared to buildings in the surrounding area.”

Between 2008 and 2010, Teall went on to cast no less than two dozen votes in support of such out-of-scale developments, i.e. The Moravian and Heritage Row. These were not developments in her “down-zoned” neighborhood, however, but rather in other Ann Arbor neighborhoods. Teall often looked on, annoyed, while residents pleaded before Council and argued (sometimes using models built to scale) that the developments proposed were “too large compared to buildings in the surrounding area.”

Then, there’s the Georgetown Mall mess, a six-acre parcel of blight that abuts Packard.

In 2010, it was reported that Teall “sponsored a resolution to create a neighborhood task force to work with city officials to provide oversight and input into the redevelopment of the Georgetown Mall.”

Talking a good game.

The Georgetown Mall became an eyesore because of Teall’s votes in support of a pie-in-the sky development proposal pitched by a developer who trailed a long line of legal problems and failed developments behind him. Craig Schubiner of the Harbor Cos paid $6.1 million for the aging mall. By Fall of 2007, Schubiner had devised a $30 million dollar scheme to demolish and redevelop the Georgetown Mall—to build 90,000 square feet of retail and residential space. Never ones to pass up the advances of a developer with kinky redevelopment ideas that involve financial S & M  (with taxpayers playing the role of the blind-folded and ball-gagged masochist), Council jumped into bed with Schubiner; Teall helped spearhead that effort.

Schubiner’s $30 million dollar plan to redevelop the Georgetown Mall hinged on two details: First, the Kroger executives had to play ball and commit to leasing 45,000 square feet of space in the new development.

Kroger officials wouldn’t pucker up. Quite the opposite, in October of 2007 Kroger officials signaled loud and clear that they weren’t as easy as our City Council.

“What I can tell you is, we will watch to see what the landlords’ plans are and we will continue to evaluate all of our options and opportunities relative to this location,” Dale Hollandsworth, Kroger’s manager of integrated communications, told the Ann Arbor News.

The Harbor Cos. plan revolved around persuading Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall to rezone the Georgetown Mall as a TIF ( tax increment financing) site. If Council would do this, Ann Arbor taxpayers would finance the debt for the redevelopment of his property. The TIF funding would go toward the private improvements. Improvements that Harbor Cos would profit from. The Ann Arbor public  would ‘invest’ in Schubiner’s redevelopment of the Georgetown Mall, and Schubiner would receive the financial return.

In August of 2008 Schubiner was explaining to concerned Fourth Ward neighbors in the Georgetown Neighborhood Association that Kroger officials were “indecisive.” Ultimately, Kroger officials refused to sign a lease as the anchor of the new Georgetown Acropolis.

So, a mere year after Council had approved Schubiner’s plan to demolish the entire mall, and Margie Teall had helped maneuver the rezoning of  the land and the creation of the TIF site, Schubiner’s $6.1 million dollar purchase of the Georgetown Mall was already in mortgage and tax foreclosure. According to a piece in the Ann Arbor News, in January 2009, Washtenaw County threatened to seize the Georgetown Mall over $282,000 dollars in unpaid taxes. In June 2009, the entire wet, hot mess that was Schubiner’s Georgetown Mall entered foreclosure. By then, Schubiner owed $15 million to a New York lender at a 20-percent interest rate. In addition, Schubiner’s unpaid property taxes totaled $485,000.

In 2010, Teall continued to tell the Ward Four voters what they wanted to hear.

Expand the Ann Arbor City Airport runway?

In 2010, while running, it was reported that Teall told the public: “I am opposed to expanding the airport or the runway in any way that will allow larger planes to land. I voted for the environment assessment in order to protect the Steere drinking water wells that are located on airport property.”

A few months later, Teall voted in favor of expanding the runway.

Move the primary election date?

In 2010 the Michigan Daily reported that Teall “expressed an eagerness to move the primary date to a time when students can participate.”

Between 2008-2012, Teall has fallen into line with the rest of the Hieftje Hive Mind Collective behind many of the same initiatives and programs that angered Ward 2 voters enough to toss out incumbent Stephen Rapundalo:

Teall voted to spend $50 million to build the new city hall. She 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 on the DDA initially told the public.

In 2010, Teall told AnnArbor.com she thought a city income tax was an important discussion voters needed to have.

Teall has consistently supported the diversion of over $2.5 million in tax dollars (including money from the road millage and utilities) for Public Art. Teall has also consistently refused to vote to reduce the amount of money given over to the Percent for Art program. She recently voted against asking the City Attorney to issue a written opinion of whether it was legal to skim millage money for art projects under the auspices of the Percent for Art Program.

The failed Fuller Road parking garage project enjoyed the full support of Margie Teall. She told AnnArbor.com in her 2010 re-election bid: “I think it’s an essential project and it is the one spot where you can really unify the university and the city needs for mass transit.” 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.

Since 2002, Margie Teall has consistently voted in favor of cuts to city staffing levels including police and fire staffing levels, while claiming during her 2010 campaign that she helped “maintain core city services.”

An AnnArbor.com comment in response to Teall’s claim is scathing: “You have no clue what CORE SERVICES are. Then again, most of the city council has lost touch with reality, so I guess she’s a perfect fit with that group of misfits.”

At the same time, Teall voted in favor of union contracts that required no co-payments from some city employees, then continued to support pay raises, lump sum payments, perks and benefits for city managers that have cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

In 2010, she claimed to “protect and expand parks,” then she voted multiple times to outsource operations of Huron Hills Golf Course and lease river-front parkland for development.

After Teall wasted 18 months and untold staff hours and taxpayer money on a failed bid to ban plastic bags, in summer 2010 she was back telling voters: “I will continue to strive to make decisions that are in the best interest of the City.”

At a candidate debate in June 2010, Margie Teall told those present: “It was essential to keep the leadership that would keep the city on course. She said that she hoped voters would ‘hire’ her for two more years to keep the city’s ship sailing steady and strong….”

The use of the “hire” line was straight out of Republican Rick Snyder’s book.

In response to a write-up about that candidate debate, a reader quipped: “It was essential, she said, to keep the leadership that would keep the city on course. She said that she hoped voters would “hire” her for two more years to keep the city’s ship sailing steady and strong as the flagship of the state of Michigan Speaking of ships, what’s the difference between Teall’s time on council and the Titanic? The latter had a band.”