by P.D. Lesko
ONE OF THE first things the mayoral appointees on the Board of AAATA bus system did after spending millions of dollars to pass a $4.4 million annual millage was to raise AAATA CEO Michael Ford’s salary and pay him $174,836 retroactive to October 2012. The Chair of the Board, Charles Griffith, works for the Ecology Center. Anya Dale, Secretary of the Board, is a project manager for the Washtenaw County Economic Development and Energy Department. City of Ann Arbor employee Eli Cooper serves as the Treasurer of the AAATA Board. These three, along with seven other unskilled poker players, obviously believe taxpayer money is for burning on pyres dedicated to the goddess Laverna.
During the millage campaign, Michael Ford applied to lead the under-funded Regional Transit Authority. That entity was brought to Michigan taxpayers by Ann Arbor State Senator Rebekah Warren. The RTA’s former Executive Director John Hertel quit in January 2014, sick and tired of getting nothing accomplished.
In January 2014 Jack Lessenberry wrote in Dome magazine: “In November, Hertel told a suburban newspaper reporter that while he was satisfied with his contract, there was no money available to hire the proper staff. We aren’t talking about secretaries; he needed transportation experts. You don’t design a 110-mile system with special lanes and 23 stations on the back of a legal pad. He needed to hire professionals…and to be able to assure them that they would have a job for a while. Last summer, Hertel told me his guess was that it would cost $2 to $3 million to do that. In state budget terms, that is chicken feed; less than the cost, say, of an addition to an office building. But, the legislature didn’t appropriate the money.”
This was a ham-handed effort by Mr. Ford to hedge his bets should the Ann Arbor millage vote go badly. When he was chosen to lead the RTA, the AAATA Board gave him an immense raise and made it retroactive—while Ford ponders whether to take the RTA’s offer of its Sisyphean job.
In April, The Ann Arbor News published a glowing endorsement of AAATA’s proposed millage. The author writes: “A group calling itself Better Transit Now has criticized the number of executives at the agency and their salaries and the amount spent on advertising and public relations ($577,000 in fiscal year 2012). We agree the agency needs to be cost conscious and as lean as possible and urge the agency to further scrutinize its budget for savings, but so far we haven’t seen evidence of irresponsible spending.”
After offering up uninformed generalities such as that, it should come as no surprise that 60 days after the endorsement The Ann Arbor News published an unsigned editorial in which the writer sounds wounded at having been made to look foolish: “We believe the timing of Michael Ford’s raise is inappropriate and sends a mixed message to residents about the AAATA’s priorities. Whether the compensation increase is merited or not, this move conveys a lack of respect for voters. It also suggests a disconnect between the AAATA board’s message during the election.” I’m glad to see the folks at The Ann Arbor News understand they and voters were taken for a ride.
Based on our analyses of the millage drive’s marketing campaign, the large amount spent on the drive, the double-speak and statistical gobbledygook offered up by AAATA staff at numerous community meetings, this paper editorialized: “AAATA Millage Proposal Drive—Expensive, Deceptive and Manipulative.”
The A2 Indy analyzes data, presents facts and information for voters to use when making their decisions. Overall, it’s a better strategy than writing follow-up editorials that read like letters from a jilted lover who never saw the writing on the bus.