Local Political Appointees In Electronic Hot Water For Denigrating Women, Voters & Council Members Online
SHORTLY AFTER BEING nominated to serve on the Ann Arbor Planning Commission by Mayor John Hieftje, Jeremy Peters’s credentials were closely questioned by residents and Council members.
Peters (left), Director, Creative Licensing, Business Affairs, & Music Supervision at a local music company, rebutted criticisms by explaining that he has “followed it (the city’s urban planning) closely as a citizen and studied Urban Planning and Environmental Law while in College.”
Taking undergraduate courses, says Peters, “one could argue makes me at least literate when it comes to planning issues and ideals.”
He also pointed out in a piece posted to his personal website that his credentials for appointment to the Planning Commission included the fact he “considered applying for Michigan’s School of Urban Planning.”
According to his online biography, Peters has been a Guest Lecturer at University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, as well as a Professional Vocalist at Christ Church Grosse Pointe.
In August 2012 Jeremy Peters launched The Citizens for Art in Public Places PAC, which supported a failed proposal for a new tax to fund the Percent for Art program. John Hieftje was the lone sponsor of the resolution that established the Percent for Art program.
In September 2013, Peters was nominated by Hieftje to serve on the Planning Commission.
Both prior to and after his nomination Peters slammed city residents (as being conservatives in progressives’ clothing), Council (for its “petty politicking”), as well as criticizing individual Council members in posts to his personal website, as well as on his personal Twitter account.
Jeremy Peters is the only Planning Commissioner to publicly question the political leanings of the city’s residents or to insult Council members—all of whom voted to confirm his nomination. However, Peters is not the only Hieftje political appointee who has used Twitter and/or a personal website to criticize City Council and its individual members. Julie Weatherbee, appointed to the lead the Planning Commission’s R4C/R2A committee, live Tweets City Council meetings using the hashtag #a2council.
Weatherbee has also Tweeted and Retweeted snarky comments about Council members Kailasapathy, Kunselman and Lumm.
Recent DDA Board appointee Albert McWilliams also ran into trouble. McWilliams posted a Tweet in which he referred to Council member Stephen Kunselman as Stephen “Kunt”sleman.
The ensuing debate about McWilliams’s use of the slur “kunt” triggered five votes against the Quack Media! owner’s nomination to the DDA Board. It also resulted in a post to his personal website in which McWilliams complains of being “bullied” by those who objected to his posts of photos objectifying women, use of the word “kunt” and his company’s alleged conflicts of interest with the AAATA.
“If he had used the ‘N’ word or a religious slur instead of the word ‘kunt’ argued one Council member, “we wouldn’t be having this debate.”
I only comment here to point out that incoming CM Eaton said what I tweeted about (He said: “Is she from another planet?”) at a R2A/R4C meeting, which I was in attendance at, held in the basement of the Ann Arbor City Hall, directed at Planning Commissioner Bonnie Bona, not me. I thought it was unbecoming of someone who had expressed issues with the ethics of members of public bodies. He said it out loud, and loudly enough that I could hear it sitting more than a couple feet from him. Mary Morgan can attest to the fact that I was at this meeting (as I was sitting next to her).
Then again, it is his 1st Amendment right to say so, as it is my 1st Amendment right to political speech to comment on the political leanings of those who run for office.