The A2 Indy’s Ann Arbor Locals to Watch in 2014 were: Dr. Jeanice Kerr Swift, Dr. Matthew M. Davis, Council Member Sally Hart Petersen, restaurant entrepreneur Sava Lelcaj, Council member Jack Eaton, County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi, Toymaker Carter Malcolm, Brady Hoke and the University of Michigan’s 14th President. We predicted this season would be Coach Hoke’s Waterloo, and that restaurant owner Sava Lelcaj was going places (she made the Crain’s Detroit 40 Under 40 list). In Sept. Lelcaj opened a grab-and-go grocery store in Nickels’ Arcade. Sally Hart Petersen did, indeed, run for mayor as we posited she would. She lost, and spent $30,000 of her own money, setting a record in Ann Arbor for self-financing by a candidate. Jack Eaton (D-Ward 4) has emerged as a talented deal-maker on a City Council populated by pols with vastly differing opinions on which services to fund, transit and downtown development. Twenty-something Yousef Rabhi was elected Chair of the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners. As for U-M’s 14th president, we predicted that “According to data gathered by the American Council on Education (ACE), the University of Michigan’s 14th president will be a married white male who is 61 years old.” Dr. Mark Schlissel fit that bill almost perfectly. We also predicted he would come from within Academe. He did. This year, we’re serving up more locals to watch in 2015.
Yin and Yang. Recently-elected AAPS Board of Education trustee Donna Lasinski (left) could conceivably be called a Millage Maven. She has worked on every millage proposed by the AAPS over the past half a dozen years, drives that asked parents for an additional $124 million in funding for the public schools. “I really try to listen,” she says. “I try to take complex issues and make then understandable.” Lasinski says she supports zero-based budgeting and putting the AAPS’s checkbook and P-card statements online for parents to see. She supported the proposed annexation of the Whitmore Lake Public Schools. The AAEA teacher’s union refused to endorse her.
Newly-elected trustee Patricia Manley is a former AAPS educator and principal. She will be the third African-American on the seven-member Board and the only former AAPS employee. During her campaign, she focused almost exclusively on student achievement, as opposed to district finances. She did not support the proposed annexation. The MEA teacher’s union and its local AAEA affiliate threw their support behind Manley’s candidacy.
The two new trustees may, routinely, serve as the swing votes on a School Board which has, over time, become increasingly divided over how to make ends meet come budget time.
