A2Politico: Why is Chris Taylor Chatting With “Friends” Behind Our Backs?

by P.D. Lesko

LET’S START WITH the good news: Ann Arbor Mayor Chris Taylor is reaching out to residents and trying to keep in touch about important matters such as city government, transit and public safety and the environment. It’s a heck of a lot more than the former mayor ever did. He never sent out written updates and mostly refused to deliver his state of the city addresses on local public television. John Heiftje preferred instead (when he delivered his state of the city addresses) to gather together Rotarians in meetings closed to the public. That Chris Taylor recently posted a lengthy update about city affairs to his Facebook page is an effort to communicate pro-actively and he deserves credit for that.

Taylor, who was elected by 7,070 of Ann Arbor’s 95,000 registered voters, won a four-way Democratic primary in 2014. He then ran against an independent in the general in a gubernatorial election year. Typically, the majority of voters choose straight ticket Democrat or Republican in such elections. As a Ward 3 City Council member, Taylor represented approximately 16,000 registered voters for six years. Then, he ran for mayor and set up a campaign Facebook page. He had 1,226 “likes” as of February. He has a Twitter account, but his following is negligible.

Posting an “update” to his Facebook page about the city’s safety, bond rating, finances, the Pall-Gelman 1,4 dioxane plume that may eventually threaten 85 percent of the city’s drinking water so his 1,226 Facebook “friends” can read it and congratulate him is absurdly inappropriate. It would be one of those funny political missteps if it weren’t for the fact that Chris Taylor has voted and speechified that he wants Ann Arbor to be a sophisticated city.

Posting an update about city government issues for your friends to read and share as they see fit is fine for an individual. A mayor needs to think more strategically and to understand the purpose and principles of mass communication.

He also produced an update with fanciful facts including “most of our road money comes from the state.”

This is the breakdown from the city’s audit:

Local Streets Fund. This fund receives State-shared gasoline and weight taxes and accounts for maintenance and minor repair on local streets. (2013 revenues: $3.9 million) On an annual basis, City staff allocates state gas and weight tax revenues between the Local and Major Streets Funds, based on need.

Major Streets Fund This fund also receives State-shared gasoline and weight taxes and is used by Ann Arbor for major repairs on City major streets. (2013 revenues: $9.13 million)

Street Repair Millage Fund. This fund receives local property tax revenues (2.0 mills), which are reviewed by voters every five years. (Dec. 2014 reserve total: $16 million) These funds are used primarily for resurfacing or for the local share of projects that are funded federally.

Taylor also danced around the cancer-causing 1,4 dioxane plume which stretches 8500 feet long, 2000 feet wide beneath the city in its aquifer. He writes: “No 1,4 dioxane from the Gelman Plume has ever been detected in Ann Arbor’s drinking water.”

This comes from the city’s website: “During a routine test in 2001, a trace level of 1,4 Dioxane (1-2 ppb/parts per billion) was detected in water from Ann Arbor’s Montgomery well, which was used by the city as a water source during the winter months….The contaminated groundwater exists in several aquifers beneath the west side of Ann Arbor and Scio Township. For a map of the groundwater contamination, see www.srsw.org.”

The plume moves at an estimated rate of 1.7 feet per day and is headed toward the Huron River. A 2003 study by Pall Life Sciences (the company charged with cleaning up the 1,4 dioxane contamination) suggests the plume will miss Barton Pond, which provides the city with 85 percent of its drinking water.

It’s this predilection for singing and dancing around important facts and issues that makes it doubly important that Taylor communicate to a wider audience comprised of people who are not his friends and family. The Pall/Gelman plume, in particular, has not been a subject of interest for local elected officials during campaigns or after election.

The 1,4 dioxane, a known carcinogen, pollutes the ground water beneath Ann Arbor homes. According to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality: “Michigan environmental law requires that persons selling properties with use restrictions related to contamination, disclose pertinent information to prospective purchasers. If your property is within the Prohibition Zone (PZ) and you plan to sell or lease your home or business, you are required to disclose the restrictions to a future owner or lessee.”

This means that every home sold over the past 20 years on dozens of Old West Side and Water Hill neighborhood streets, including the majority of Washington, Ann and Catherine Streets and all of Gott, Miner, Pearl, Orkney, Culver, Wesley and Linwood, Streets and dozens of others should have included a disclosure to buyers that the home sits in the contamination Prohibition Zone. The PZ also includes Longshore, which overlooks the Huron River across from Bandemer Park.

The citizens of Ann Arbor deserve a mayor who will figure out a way to communicate regularly that doesn’t rely primarily on a social media platform populated by his political supporters, family and friends. This poor choice is not entirely Taylor’s fault, however. Taxpayers fork over $7 million for an IT department that offers terribly limited support of Council members’ efforts to communicate with constituents. That needs to change. The city’s IT department should start by taking over the logistics of constituent communications for the mayor. This should include posting his “updates” prominently on the city’s website (after they’ve been fact-checked) and including links in those updates to city resources and information. The city’s Communications Dept. should be responsible for sending updates from Council members to residents and media who have signed up for email alerts sent out by city departments.