Highest Percentages of No Votes on AAATA Millage Came From Ypsilanti Township and Ann Arbor

THE AAATA MILLAGE vote was costly. Ted Annis, former treasurer of the AAATA Board of Directors placed the amount spent on the special election, staff time, surveys, consultants, marketing and materials by AAATA at around $1.5 million. Partners for Transit, allied with AAATA in support of the millage, took in over $52,000. With a total of 13,949 “yes” votes cast in three cities, the amount of money spent to win each of those votes works out to more than $111 per voter.

This amount is more than almost every big spender in the nation’s 2012 U.S. Congressional races spent per vote, according to analysis from the non-partisan Sunshine Foundation.  Minnesota Republican Michelle Bachmann spent more —$140 per vote.

A little more than 12 percent of the eligible voters went to the polls to decide the millage.

While the millage passed by a margin of 70 percent to 30 percent overall, breaking down the votes of participating municipalities shows that in Ypsilanti Township, the highest percentage of voters rejected the millage. Ypsilanti Township voters were asked to approve the lowest overall millage amount—a .7 mill assessment, total. In both Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, voters in those cities were asked to increase already existing assessments.

Ann Arbor voters raised the current transit assessment by 34 percent, or between $130 and $300 per household, on average. Ypsilanti voters raised their own assessment from 1 mill to 1.7 mills. While this is the largest assessment by percentage, the value of the median home in Ypsilanti is pegged at $122,000, or about half of the median home value in Ann Arbor ($221,000), according to Zillow.com.