WARD 2 COUNCIL  member Jane Lumm ran for re-election in 2013 on a a platform that included improving the transparency of city government. She was not only talking about the need for city government to do a better job of sharing information with the public. According to Lumm and others, Mayor John Hieftje, his allies on Council Council and even city staff don’t share information equitably with Council members. In addition, according to Lumm and others, important information is often not shared in a timely manner.

The implications of these allegations are serious. City managers  who deliberately withhold information from Council members could be construed as insubordinate though the only city managers supervised directly by Council are the City Administrator and the City Attorney.

Complaints by Council members about city managers who don’t answer Council members’ emails, or who take weeks to respond to requests for information and data are common, particularly from Council members who are not allied with the city’s mayor. Since the 2009 email scandal that triggered an Open Meetings Act lawsuit against the city—a suit settled out of court—several candidates for local office have been vocal in their calls for more  robust governmental transparency.

Ward 5 Council member Mike Anglin, Ward 4 Council member Jack Eaton and Ward 1 Council member Sumi Kailasapathy all stress the need for city government to be open and all stress the need to improve the process whereby public records are released to the public.

In his primary election victory speech, Jack Eaton mentioned the need to make the city’s Freedom of Information Act request system less expensive and less cumbersome.

However, what are elected officials to do when information is withheld from them by the people with whom they serve?

Jane Lumm is unassuming and smiles easily, if even a bit shyly for someone in public office. However, she is politely tenacious. She was first elected to City Council in the late 1990s as a Republican. In 2011, she ran as an Independent, raised over $20,000 for her campaign—mostly from individuals in her Ward—and crushed staunch Hieftje ally Stephen Rapundalo by capturing 60 percent of the vote.

Between 2011 and 2013, Lumm proposed numerous budget amendments to fund safety services. She also  proposed a resolution to restore Christmas tree pick-up and leaf collection. Her resolutions and budget amendments were defeated by a cohort of Democrats allied with Mayor Hieftje. Lumm asked so many questions during Council debates between 2011 and 2013 that in June 2013 the Council Rules Committee entertained the idea of shortening the length of time each Council member had to speak. The change was never adopted, and Lumm continues to press city staff politely for detailed answers and to debate important issues at length with her own colleagues.

The current issue, however, revolves around an overheard conversation between Mayor John Hieftje and Lumm’s Ward 2 Council colleague Sally Hart Petersen that took place at the November 18th City Council meeting. According to Council member Sally Petersen, Hieftje pulled her aside and “whispered” to her the “second-hand” news that a 2.6 acre parcel on south State Street belonging to the Edwards Brothers Malloy printing company was going to be purchased by the University of Michigan.

On November 19th, at 3:45 a.m., Lumm shot off a series of emails in which she alerts her Council colleagues who didn’t know about the University’s offer to purchase the property and expresses frustration that the news was not shared “equitably” with all Council members.

Lumm then discovered that Petersen and John Hieftje had held a meeting with the Edwards Brothers owners John Edwards and Joe Upton on November 27th. In a November 27th email sent to all Council members by Joe Upton, a former Ann Arbor City Council member himself, he writes:

Earlier today, John Edwards and I met with Mayor Hieftje and Councilperson Petersen to share the details of an offer we have accepted from the University of Michigan to purchase our property on South State Street. We recognize that this news is not likely to surprise you, but, as a former City Councilperson, I fully appreciate that you might have questions or concerns about this development.

As you are aware, the City has a right of first refusal on the Edwards Brothers Malloy property, whereby the City has the opportunity to match the terms of any formal offer that we accept. We are happy to sit down with you, just as we did with the Mayor and Councilperson Petersen, to address your questions about the terms of our agreement with the University.

A few moments after alerting Council members, Upton sent a separate email to John Hieftje and Sally Petersen:

John and Sally,

Thank you for taking time today to meet with John and me so that we could share both the background and the terms of the sale of our property to the UM.

I pasted below the text of a message that I sent to each of the members of City Council a few minutes ago. As you discuss your options with your colleagues, if questions should arise that you’d like to pose to us we would be happy to address them.

Neither Petersen nor Hieftje shared the terms of the sale of the property with Lumm. She got the term sheet directly from John Edwards and Joe Upton when she met with them.

“I first found out about the U of M’s offer to buy the Edwards Brothers property when I read Jane’s email on November 19th” said one Council member. “I wasn’t made aware that Jane and John were meeting with John Edwards and Joe Upton on November 27th, either.”

“Withholding information is a hot button issue right now,” said another Council member. “There are those on Council who believe that their colleagues can’t be trusted with sensitive or confidential information. It’s ridiculous. There’s this idea that certain information needs to be kept from certain people.”

The agreement struck between the University of Michigan and Edwards Brothers Malloy was not confidential information, and there is no legal reason for details about the offer to be withheld from Council members or the public. Edwards Brothers Malloy sent out a press release and details of the U of M’s offer would be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Months ago, the company’s printing customers received notice that the Edwards Brothers Malloy would be leaving the south State Street site and consolidating services in the Malloy printing plant, located on Jackson Road near Zeeb.

“The Edwards Brothers issue is the perfect example of why City Council needs to deal with this ‘secrecy’ problem,” said a Council member. “And we will deal with it.”

Meanwhile, a Ward 2 resident was unhappy that Petersen allowed herself to be drawn into what the resident referred to as “the Mayor’s games.”

“Sally is in marketing. Image matters. You don’t want to get mixed up in things like this. The Mayor is on his way out for a reason: There are new people on Council,” said the resident.

For her part, Council member Petersen makes clear November 18th was the first time she heard of the University’s offer to buy the Edwards Brothers Malloy property.

That doesn’t explain why she accompanied Hieftje to the meeting on November 27th without alerting her Council colleagues or inviting them.

“This is about sharing information in a helpful, timely and equitable way.  To do otherwise is unacceptable,” said Lumm in an email. “I would be interested in knowing more about how info. was doled out to certain council members and not others….Sad commentary.”