Who Derailed Ann Arbor’s Plans for an Unarmed Response Program?

by P.D. Lesko

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​In April 2021, City Council voted to adopt resolution R-21-129​ which directed then City Administrator Tom Crawford to implement an “unarmed crisis response program in the City of Ann Arbor.” To date, no such program exists. The City Council’s effort to implement an unarmed response program was initially derailed by the members of City Council even as they publicly voted in support of creating such a program.

Most recently, on Dec. 18, 2023, Ann Arbor city staff (in a secret meeting the minutes of which have been withheld from the public), voted to cancel the most recent Request for Proposal (RFP) for an unarmed response program. This effectively torpedoed what would have been the first alternative policing program in Michigan.

Just months after approving resolution R-21-129 in April 2021, Council members then launched an investigation of City Administrator Crawford. Seven members of Ann Arbor City Council (Taylor, Disch, Song, Grand, Radina, Eyer and Briggs) then voted to end Crawford’s employment based on the results of a June 2021 “investigation” into anonymous complaints allegedly made by five, unnamed City staffers about Crawford’s allegedly inappropriate speech. While the report produced by local attorney Jennifer Salvatore did not recommend Crawford be dismissed, the members of Council, above, chose to do just that. In August 2021, former Ann Arbor City Administrator Tom Crawford resigned.

The City’s efforts to create an unarmed response program were shelved.

In October 2021, Milton Dohoney was hired to replace Crawford. As per City Council’s legislative request, staff did produce an interim report on unarmed policy response​. This report was presented to Council on December 21, 2021. The memo outlined staff research and proposed a way to shape and implement an unarmed response program in Ann Arbor. 

Despite the interim report, in the ensuing years, Dohoney has not implemented Council’s 2021 directive and Council members did not revisit their April 2021 directive except to hire a consulting firm to gather community input.

As directed in Resolution R-21-129, city staff were charged with finding a partner company to provide an unarmed response to public safety calls. Such a program would include partnerships with social and human services agencies. The new crisis response program would handle a portion of non-criminal calls for service that have historically been handled by police officers. 

The City of Ann Arbor hired Public Sector Consultants (PSC), a Lansing-based, nonpartisan research and consulting public policy firm, to help gather input from community members about how to develop and implement this program. City records show the company was paid $82,714 to craft a five-page public survey. In March of 2023, PSC released a 49-page final report which analyzed feedback from 1,546 survey respondents. Of those respondents, slightly more than 1,400 live in Ann Arbor, and 89 percent of the respondents were white.

The survey asked whether the City should create a new department to oversee the unarmed response program. According to the March 2023 PSC report, “The majority of survey respondents (84 percent) preferred that the team be funded through the reallocation of existing city funds. A preference for funding through reallocating existing funds continued regardless of household income, race and ethnicity, and experience with the criminal justice system.”

Since 2019, the City of Ann Arbor has received approximately $6 million annually from the county-wide Mental Health and Public Safety millage. City Council members have repeatedly voted to divert the millage money in city budgets that use the funds for transportation and climate action.

One Response to the City’s RFP

Ann Arbor non-profit Care-Based Safety (CBS) was the only RFP applicant. CBS grew out of the Coalition for Re-envisioning Our Safety (CROS) — a community organizing and engagement non-profit. CBS submitted a 70-page proposal. CBS officials believe the lengthy proposal was not given the attention necessary to understand it.

“CBS submitted a proposal over 70 pages in length, which met all the requirements of the RFP and was overwhelmingly supported by the city,” Alex Parks said. “We know that Council had not seen the proposal before the meeting [on December 18].”

In August 2023, City Council members voted unanimously in support of the RFP to find a partner to provide an unarmed response program. Interviews with applicants were expected to begin in October 2023.

On social media, CBS addressed some of the concerns city officials had with the non-profit’s proposal. However, the city refuses to release the minutes from the closed session on December 18 where staff decided to reject the CBS proposal.

“Getting an unarmed response program in Washtenaw County is important because the people need it, have been asking for it for years, and now we have the money for it,” Parks says. “But it’s also important because it’s the first program of its kind in Michigan. In a lot of ways Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County can be leaders in getting these programs off the ground. Other cities are looking toward us and seeing what is possible.”

Parks has encouraged members of the public to contact City Council members to ask that the staff’s rejection of the 70-page proposal be reversed. Council members have repeatedly voted to reverse staff recommendations over the past months.

In Dec., City Administrator Milton Dohoney said the RFP would be re-opened by the end of 2023. It was not.

A full timeline of the events associated with the efforts to implement an unarmed response program may be viewed here.