Amid Claquers, Boos, Cheers and Political Theater Council Votes 8-3 to Sell Library Lot to Core Spaces

by Patricia Lesko

The 8-3 vote last night to sell the Library Lot, a plot of publicly-owned land adjacent to the Downtown Library on Fifth Ave., will bring in $10 million from the developer, half of which will be deposited into the city’s Affordable Housing Fund. Affordable housing advocates hope the money will fund a variety of new projects as well as improvements in existing affordable housing stock owned by the city. Chances are very good, however, the majority of the $5 million will be used to purchase back the Y Lot across the street from the Library Lot parcel.

Core Spaces’ proposed 17-story building would include approximately 360 apartments, 130 hotel rooms, 20,000 square feet of office space, 3,300 square feet of ground-floor retail, and a 12,000-square-foot plaza along Fifth Avenue. Of the apartments, 9-12 percent of the total will be so-called “workforce housing” with rents of between $922-$1,276 per month. Renters’ incomes, in order to be eligible for those apartments, would be capped at between $31,000-$64,000 per year. Subsidized housing, unlike workforce housing, pegs rents at 30 percent of a renter’s available income. To qualify for low income housing in Ann Arbor a family of four would generally have to earn less than $44,250.

The hours-long Council discussion of the sale was punctuated by boos, applause and cheers from the standing room only crowd. There were admonishments from Council members, including Mayor Chris Taylor. Taylor told audience members that applause after each Council member’s comments would lengthen the proceedings. He then shrugged off the clapping and allowed it to continue.

One reason the Council’s discussion of the Core Spaces resolution (as do many other discussions) went on for so long is that Council rules concerning the amount of time allotted for comments are routinely ignored by Taylor and Council members. Taylor is charged with facilitating Council meetings. The rules state:

Present at the April 17 Council meeting were residents, affordable housing activists and a large group of claquers.

A claque is a group of people whose job is to generate applause. In the description of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, a claque is:

an organized body of professional applauders in the French theatres. The hiring of persons to applaud dramatic performances was common in classical times, and the emperor Nero, when he acted, had his performance greeted by an encomium chanted by five thousand of his soldiers. … The recollection of this gave the 16th-century French poet, Jean Daurat, an idea which has developed into the modern claque. … There are commissaires, those who learn the piece by heart, and call the attention of their neighbours to its good points between the acts. The rieurs are those who laugh loudly at the jokes. The pleureurs, generally women, feign tears, by holding their handerkerchiefs to their eyes. The chatouilleurs keep the audience in in a good humour, while the bisseurs simply clap their hands and cry bis! bis! to secure encores.

When President Trump visited the CIA to give a speech shortly after his inauguration, national media reported that while CIA staffers sat stone-faced, claquers—who’d attended the meeting at the invitation of the President—provided the desired cheers and applause. The Washington Post reported, “an official with knowledge of the make-up of the crowd says that there were about 40 people who’d been invited by the Trump.”

The Ann Arbor Independent spoke with a member of M.I.S.S.I.O.N.’s board about its leaders’ efforts to round up the homeless with whom the organization works into a claque. M.I.S.S.I.O.N. is a small nonprofit that provides temporary shelter, food and transportation for the homeless. According to the group’s 990 federal tax return, its revenue has fallen from a high of $144,000 in 2013 to $66,920 in 2015.

The day before the City Council vote to sell the Library Lot, Caleb Poirier, a founder of Camp Take Notice and a board member of M.I.S.S.I.O.N., posted a claque call to his Facebook page:

“Today I have very new information which puts into jeopardy the possibility of acquiring $5 million for affordable housing. While we have always know that three city council members are against this proposal, the new informations that I have learned is that there is at least three additional councilmembers who are now waffling. This has several different reasons that I will talk about in the attachment to this email for those that are interested in the deep dive into the debate.”

Poirier goes on to write, “Finally: Please come to city council Monday evening. There will be free shish kabobs at 5:55PM by the benches near the water sculpture on the front side of 301 East Huron St.”

The M.I.S.S.I. O.N founder’s Facebook call to action ends with an invitation to participate in the claque: “Are we you willing to speak publicly at City Council tomorrow? We need to do that. Here’s why: We want all the speaking slots to be filled with just our people. The City Clerk will start taking down names exactly at 8AM Monday morning and the more potential speakers that are speed (re)dialing the clerk, the greater likelihood that the roster of speakers will be filled with our people.”

There was plenty of engineered applause for the Council members who favored the sale and who spoke at length to justify their votes to stone-faced residents seated in the first several rows of seats. Many residents held up and waved small signs of protest, much like those seen at the town halls held by Republican members of Congress.

Amid engineered applause from the claque standing in the back of Ann Arbor Council chambers, several of the eight members of City Council who voted to sell the Library Lot stared down at their laptops as they spoke haltingly and read from prepared statements. Ward 1 Council member Jason Frenzel’s (D) hand shook visibly as he stopped in the middle of his comments for a drink of water.

“I was afraid to make this decision,” claimed Frenzel, “but I leaned into the fear and when I do that I generally learn something about myself.”

Frenzel talked about having received hundreds of emails from residents, and claimed his vote would cause anger among his own family.

The dramatics may have played to the claque, but public records show that when appointed by Council in December 2016, Frenzel went on the record in a public interview for the Council seat saying that he would vote to sell the Library Lot.

On the day of the April 17 Core Space vote, three residents took out nominating petitions to run for the Ward 1 City Council seat to which Frenzel was appointed after losing the August 2016 primary election to incumbent Sumi Kailasapathy (D-Ward 1). Former Ann Arbor Democratic Party Club Chair Anne Banister and Rick Keith will run in the August Democratic primary election. Ward 1 resident Jeff Hayner, an Independent, will face the winner of the Ward 1 primary election in Nov. 2017.

Ward 4 Council member Krapohl (D) dressed down the public for not having read or understood the many legal documents related to the sale which “have been publicly available for two years.” Krapohl, who won his 2016 primary for re-election by 93 votes, rebuked the public for being “irresponsible” and talked over Ward 2 Council member Jane Lumm (I), until stopped with a point of order by Council member Jack Eaton (D-Ward 4).

“Mr. Mayor,” said Eaton, “I believe it’s rude for one Council member to interrupt another while speaking.”

Taylor acknowledged the point of order, then suggested Council members not address each other directly. Council rules don’t preclude members from addressing each other by name or directly, but do call for respectful and civil discourse.

In a subsequent comment, Kraphol spoke about how important it was that Council members had discussed the issue, attempting to minimize what his Ward 4 colleague called “rude” conduct.

During his comments leading up to his vote against the sale of the public land, Council member Jack Eaton (D-Ward 4) gave a history lesson that reviewed the decade Ann Arbor residents and their elected officials have been trying to decide what to do with the publicly-owned Library Lot parcel.

In his comments, Eaton criticized the members of Council supporting the sale of the public land as “not listening” to the public.

Council member Julie Grand (D-Ward 3) spoke at length multiple times and twice scolded members of the public present.

Stopping in the middle of her comments, Grand glowered, pointed across Council chambers and snapped, “You. Not you. You.” Grant then said that she expected the public to “keep it civil.” At another point in her comments, when booed, Grand looked up from her comments and, smirking, looked into the audience and said, “Go ahead. I’ll be an adult.”

When characterizing the contents of the many emails she had received from the public concerning their opinions about the development of the Library Lot and the sale to Core Spaces, Grand compared the wishes of city residents expressed in the emails to the irrational demands of her own children.

Kirk Westphal (D-Ward 2) read awkwardly and stumbled repeatedly through an almost seven minute pre-written statement. Likewise, Chip Smith (D-Ward 5) read verbatim from a minutes long written statement prepared in advance of the Council’s vote.

Taylor’s comments were short: “I love Ann Arbor the way it is, but we cannot stop change.”

One day before the vote, former Ward 3 Council member Stephen Kunselman announced his attention to run in the August 2017 Democratic primary election.

In response to concerns voiced for former Council member Stephen Kunselman, Zach Ackerman, D-3rd Ward, proposed making the sale to Core Spaces contingent on an advice memorandum from outside bond counsel. Ackerman’s motion passed unanimously.

Kunselman, in an email to Council as well as in public comments, has said that the Core Spaces sale could threaten the city’s federal Build America bonds used to finance the Library Lane underground parking garage. Core Spaces is expected to lease nearly 200 public parking spaces in the garage. The bonds require the parking garage to benefit the public.

An Ann Arbor resident requested the IRS to audit Ann Arbor’s use of the Build America bond financing, including Council’s desire to lease spaces in the Library Lane garage to Core Spaces for 50 years. Should the IRS find Ann Arbor violated the terms of the Build America bonds, it could impose a penalty and fines.