A2Politico: Voting In Support Of “Sloppy Government”

POLITICAL INSIDERS are playing a game called: “Pin the Campaign Button on the Ann Arbor Mayoral Candidate.” They suggest that the person next elected mayor will serve a long time, thanks to voter apathy and an incurious media (present company excluded). Incumbents are tough to unseat, and running for local office is time-consuming. It involves learning the language of palmcards, lit drops, campaign finance and fundraising. It’s not classical Greek, but it takes careful study and credible instruction to learn how to run for political office.

At the moment, there six people—no fewer than four City Council members—not-so-quietly entertaining the idea of a run for mayor of Michigan’s 5th largest city, according to those in the know. We’ll learn more about the cast of characters in this drama after the New Year. Candidates can’t run for mayor at the last moment; it takes months of planning and includes collecting 50 nominating signatures from registered voters in each Ward.

In addition, there is the question of which candidate will win the support of the Maximum Growth Party and which will earn the support of the Neighborhood Alliance. The Neighborhood Alliance group has forced John Hieftje from office by unseating/replacing his allies on Council. Neighborhood Alliance candidates focus on fiscal responsibility, robust funding for basic services, including police and fire, the need for mindful downtown development, support/improvement of local bus transit and regional transit only with identified sources of funding for both capital and operational expenses.

When a resolution came before Council to allocate an additional $125,000 to the AAPD for enhanced traffic enforcement with an emphasis on pedestrian safety, those who have repeatedly voted against funding for safety services, Sabra Briere, Christopher Taylor and John Hieftje started in on the city’s Chief of Police, our city’s Safety Administrator. Seto is responsible for the administrative supervision and leadership of police services, fire services and emergency management with a combined budget of $38.4 million and 234 employees. In order to give a man responsible for a $38.4 million dollar budget an additional $125K, the three repeatedly urged Chief Seto to come up with a detailed “plan” for the $125K.

Of course Chief John Seto didn’t have a detailed plan for Council concerning the $24.5 million they gave him for police services in 2013. Council members presumed Chief Seto, a 23-year veteran with the AAPD, was competent. At the  December 16th Council meeting, Hieftje, Taylor and Briere treated Chief Seto as if he were looking for an additional $125,000 from the taxpayers to fund more trips to local donut shops.

“We don’t want to just hand out the money,” said Taylor.

Since 2008, Council member Taylor has voted to hand over more than $5 million dollars skimmed from the local public schools to Ann Arbor SPARK without ever having seen an annual audit statement from that organization.

When Ward 3 Stephen Kunselman commented about the micro-management of the Chief of Police, Ward 1 Council member Briere apologized obsequiously to the Chief, then continued to push him for a “plan.” Like Taylor, Briere has voted for years to hand out millions to Ann Arbor SPARK without ever having seen a “plan” for that group’s spending.

Then, minutes after Council member Taylor roundly criticized as “sloppy government” the Lumm, Kunselman, Eaton proposal to fund enforcement of the pedestrian crosswalk ordinance, Taylor voted in favor of the proposal. So did Briere. In fact, everyone on City Council—with the exception of John Hieftje—voted in favor of the .005 percent increase to the Chief of Police’s $24.5 million dollar budget. The final 10-1 vote reflects three facts:

• John Hieftje’s allies on City Council are abandoning the lame duck mayor for greener political pastures.
• Taylor and Briere flip-flopped because they are looking ahead to the 2014. They don’t want to run on the wrong side of the local walking and biking coalition.
• The Neighborhood Alliance Group leaders are successfully forging alliances with Council colleagues.

The 2014 local elections will present Ann Arbor voters with an opportunity to utterly remake city government. Voters will choose between mayoral and Council candidates who have voted to decimate police and fire services and allowed the infrastructure to crumble, and candidates who have voted to use tax dollars to fund basic services, who have voted to repair the crumbling infrastructure and who support fiscal responsibility and local transit.