A GROUP OF Ann Arbor City Council members including Ward 1 Council member Sumi Kailasapathy, Ward 2 Council members Jane Lumm and Sally Hart Petersen, Ward 4 Council member Jack Eaton and Ward 5 Council member Mike Anglin have been vocal in their concerns about board and commission appointees who have either actual or perceived conflicts and who have served multiple consecutive terms. David Stead has served on the Environmental Commission since 2000 and sits on the Board of Recycle Ann Arbor. After questions from Council member Jane Lumm, Stead is no longer under consideration for reappointment.
Prior to 2013, City Council had approved proposed board and commission nominees virtually without question. That practice ended abruptly when Al McWilliams was nominated to serve on the Board of the Downtown Development Authority. Mr. McWilliams’s personal website, populated with photos of large-breasted women, and his Twitter account posts prompted Council members to question whether the 30-something appointee was “mature” enough for the appointment. In a 6-5 vote McWilliams’s nomination was approved, but not before a resident, an older women, stood at the podium in Council chambers and read from McWilliams’s own Twitter account in which he encouraged residents to “shove an ice cream cone” up their asses in celebration of election day.
Mayoral candidates Sabra Briere and Christopher Taylor went on to support McWilliams’s appointment. Ward 5 Council member Chuck Warpehoski voted to appoint McWilliams, as well.
Members of the Environmental Commission are not appointed by the mayor, but rather are nominated by City Council. In late-April, Ward 1 Council member Sabra Briere said she intended to nominate David Stead for another term to the Environmental Commission. He has served on the commission since 2000.
After Briere’s nomination was made public, The Ann Arbor Independent editorialized that:
While Mr. Stead served on the Environmental Commission in 2010, his employer was awarded a no bid contract by the city to consult on the proposed switch to single-stream recycling. Between 2010 and 2014, Ann Arbor paid RRSI (Stead’s employer) $3.69 million. It was the RRSI consultant whom city staff alleged over-estimated by 60 percent the increase in recycling collections we could expect under the auspices of single-stream.
While a member of the Environmental Commission, Mr. Stead served on a subcommittee of that group which recommended Ann Arbor move to single-stream recycling. At the same time, he served as a member of the Recycle Ann Arbor board of directors. The city’s contract extension with Recycle Ann Arbor to manage our single-stream recycling collections and processing was a no bid agreement.
Mr. Stead currently serves on the Board of Recycle Ann Arbor as its “Government Relations” liaison. Not only has Mr. Stead neglected to avoid actual and/or perceived conflicts while a member of the Environmental Commission, his employer, as did a nonprofit he directed, both benefitted financially from his recommendations as a member of the city’s Environmental Commission.
On May 2, Sabra Briere told a reporter that: “David Stead has decided that his life is busy enough he cannot do justice to serving on the commission.”
Council member Petersen said, “We need to work toward a more open and transparent appointment process.”