Leaf Collection Resolution Goes Up In Smoke But Debate Provides, Literally, Hours of Entertainment

Ann Arbor City Council is, once again, on fire. When Ward 3 Council member Steve Kunselman proposed a change in the fee schedule related to permits for bonfires and controlled burns of prairie grass areas, Council marm Sabra Briere ahemed herself into the conversation to point out that Council rules require amendments to be written. The sound of eyes rolling was auditory. Briere, who sits on the Council Rules Committee, found herself overruled and Kunselman got his fee reductions for people who have bonfires and who want to do controlled burns. In the course of the raging debate over the proposed $50 fees, Ward 4 Council member Marcia Higgins, who also sits on the rules committee, suggested that, perhaps, Ann Arbor needs to impose a $50 permit fee on citizens who use fire rings and the Chimineas. It’s not clear Ms. Higgins realized what she was saying, because she talked about all of the complaints she has fielded from her constituents. Marcia Higgins, who has a well-earned reputation as one of the least responsive members of City Council, is known for rarely answering her email or returning phone messages. It wasn’t immediately clear how constituents had contacted the Ward 4 Republicrat. Perhaps by smoke signal?

Then, it was on to Ward 2 Council member Jane Lumm’s annual runway show for the fall leaf collection. Lumm, peering over her half glasses, reminded her Council colleagues that the amount needed to reinstate leaf pick-up amounted to about 4 percent of the $10 million dollar annual Solid Waste millage. She also pointed out that the City of Ann Arbor charges itself $362,000 to collect its own leaves, more than would have been necessary to relaunch collection for the citizens. Alas, no one suggested the Uber-Environmentalists on Council, including the World’s Greenest Mayor and his Little Green Sprout, Ward 5 Council member Chuck Warpehoski, whose fretting over the environmental impact of Lumm’s proposal was palpable, should bag up all of the city’s leaves and save us all the $362,000 budgeted for the job.

Warpehoski and Hieftje were extremely concerned about possibility of more leaves in the stormwater system—more concerned about the possibility of more leaves in the stormwater system than, say the 1,4 dioxane that is already in the city’s aquifer and headed toward the source of Ann Arbor’s drinking water. The county’s new Drain Commish, Mr. Pratt, sent a letter to Council members in which he officially fretted about the impact on water quality reinstating leaf collection might have. It’s unclear whether Pratt is also sending letters to Ann Arbor City Council fretting about the fact that the county has no comprehensive surface water monitoring program. There’s no money to do it, county officials claim. Yet, in 2009 the county received part of a $1.7 million dollar grant from the EPA to the state to be used for water management programs. The Huron River Watershed Council received over $185,000 of the total $1.7 million dollar grant from the EPA. In bordering Wayne County, the Water Quality Management Group provides water resource management to that county’s municipalities. In Oakland County, the Health Division regularly monitors surface water.

The lack of a comprehensive and strategic program greatly inhibits the overall assessment of water quality in Washtenaw County.

According to data compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the county’s water sources contain over twice the number of contaminants found in water sources state-wide, starting with a 1,4 dioxane plume that is creeping toward the Huron River. According to the city of Ann Arbor web site, “Laboratory studies show that exposure to 1,4 dioxane over a lifetime causes cancer in animals. 1,4 dioxane may likewise cause cancer in humans. Laboratory studies show that repeat exposure to large amounts of 1,4 dioxane in drinking water, in air, or on the skin causes liver and kidney damage in animals.” Data gathered by the state and the EPA reveal that Washtenaw County, including Ann Arbor, has one of the most impaired watersheds in Michigan, with 15.3 percent of the total surface water not meeting Clean Water Act standards. In Wayne County, one of the dirtiest counties in the country according to the EPA, 17.22 percent of all surface water fails to meet Clean Water Act standards.

Someone needs to remind Commissioner Pratt, the World’s Greenest Mayor and the Little Green Ward 5 Council Sprout, that leaves are the least of our worries so far as the local watershed is concerned.

The leaf collection debate, which lasted almost 85 minutes, at one point almost caused Marcia Higgins to have a stroke because, as she snapped at the group, “this is only the first amendment.” John Hieftje, ever the savvy expert in the application of Riggoletto’s Rules of Order, cut off the Mayor Pro Tem and announced that Ward 2 Council member Sally Hart Petersen still had one (insert thought bubble here: “mutherfracking”) turn to speak left. Marcia Higgins, never one to catch up on constituent emails when there are reruns of Ward 1 Council member Sabra Briere speaking at length about nothing in particular to watch on CTN, folded her arms and glowered as Petersen promised to “be brief” then gave an impassioned plea in support of citizen services.

In fact, the comments and body language of Council members during the debate to reinstate leaf collection were an almost too-good-to-be-true window into the nice house where, it is becoming increasingly obvious, fewer people are home than ever.

Sally Hart Petersen, delivered an impassioned speech to her colleagues in which she argued “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Petersen was responding to Ward 3 Council member Christopher Taylor. It was he who suggested that a city with a $350 million dollar budget, 800 employees with a collective 25,000 years of higher education between them will never be able to collect leaves the right way.

“We um just um can’t um get it right,” umed Taylor, an entertainment attorney and CEO of Interlocutors, LLC.

To be fair, Taylor has a point. There are so many things Ann Arbor city government just can’t get right. Oddly enough, Taylor continues to vote in support of most all of them. He has voted for employee contracts that do little more than increase the nine-figure underfunded employee pension and healthcare liability. He voted to give a bonus to the city’s CFO Tom Crawford who, most recently, blamed his own blundering ineptitude as the reason the City Attorney didn’t know he shouldn’t collect a car allowance and ask to have his mileage reimbursed. Christopher Taylor has rarely seen a developer subsidy that he didn’t support, and  has voted to slash emergency services with the regularity of Geritol.

Sally Hart Petersen’s eloquence was, um, lost on Christopher Taylor. Her eloquent urging that city staff must keep trying to use extremely difficult strategies—such as planning ahead—in order to do a better job of collecting leaves was lost on most everyone. Petersen’s comments were most especially lost on the city staffers whose facial expressions made it plain that they would rather have $50,000 for a solid waste consultant shoved under their fingernails than listen to some Council Chick urge them to plan ahead.

Ward 4 Council member Margie Teall’s sum contribution to the leaf collection debate was to remind everyone that the deciders (including her) had decided three years ago that leaf pickup wasn’t necessary. Well, Teall had another tip. For those of you deciding between whether to throw your Christmas tree into the Huron River or into a neighbor’s yard, Ms. Teall has a suggestion for you: leave it in your yard for an unspecified amount of time and then “chop it up and put it into your compost.” This, of course, works well when other items composted include large car parts and small pets, both of which break down significantly more slowly than logs. After four or five years, the four or five Christmas trees will not have broken down completely, but any semblance of a cordial relationship with your neighbors whose yards adjoin yours will have broken down very nicely.

Sabra Briere asked city staffers to remind “us all” why “we” decided to discontinue leaf collection three years ago. Queen Sabra then spent a few minutes waiving to the camera and talking about “us” and why “we” couldn’t support Lumm’s proposed amendment.

“I bag my leaves,” repeated Briere.

Marcia Higgins put something in her mouth that looked suspiciously like a horse tranquilizer. She was still awake as Briere took well over her alloted two minute speaking turn to explain how she bags her leaves.

“It’s a burden,” explained Briere, but “I bag my leaves.”

One was left wondering how long it would take Briere to break down in Margie Teall’s compost pile.

Ward 5 Council member Mike Anglin spoke slowly and used simple words to explain that retired people on fixed incomes have less money than, say, people with more money. Paying for leaf bags and for a service to haul away leaves is, Anglin explained, tough on retired people on fixed incomes.

“We need to provide services to these people,” said Anglin. “They’re asking the city for this help.”

Anglin’s logic was lost on Ward 3 Council member Stephen Kunselman. After asking that burn permit fees for the eight people who pulled permits to do prairie grass burns last year be reduced from $180 to $50, Kunselman announced that he couldn’t support Lumm’s proposal.

“We can’t fund services for just one class of people,” explained Kunselman with a straight face, evidently unaware he had just spent 35 minutes arguing in favor of doing just that in asking that burn permit fees be reduced not across the board, but in just two categories.

Ward 1 Council member Sumi Kailasapahy pointed out that city governments exist to “provide services to the citizens.”

Then she argued that economy of scale was reason enough to reinstate leaf collection. Her questions also forced city staff to confess that the city’s single-stream recycling operation is collecting less material and turning less of a profit than projected because no one anticipated surrounding communities would build their own single-stream facilities and then compete with Ann Arbor for business. The materials recovery facility has gone from virtually around the clock processing to one 12 hour shift.

In the end, Council member Lumm’s annual effort to have fall leaf collection and Christmas tree collection funded again were unsuccessful. The vote was 7-4, with Kailasapathy, Petersen, Lumm and Anglin voting in favor of the proposal.