A2Politico: City Bicentennial Celebrations Include a “Fun” Opportunity to Pay $795,000 to Pave a Parking Lot

by P.D. Lesko

So far, Ann Arbor’s Bicentennial “celebrations” look like a “delicious” get together planned by out-of-touch, rich, white people: crustless mayonnaise sandwiches, only the best Lipton tea (but a charge for cracked cups for everyone), and a healthy dose of buffants, comb-overs, checked golf pants and hand-wringing about how so very difficult it is to find good help these days. City Administrator and Bicentennial Committee Co-chair Milton Dohoney, in approving the embarrassing, lame-for-pay Bicentennial “celebration” line-up is showing just how little planning expertise and creative leadership we’re all getting in exchange for his $250,000 paycheck. It’s also proof positive that the Mayor and his good friends on City Council could care less about the City’s 200th anniversary.

The Bicentennial “celebrations” kicked off on January 19, 2024 with a fundraiser at the Michigan Theater. Ask not what your City can do for you, but rather ask how much you can donate to your City.

A Bicentennial should be a celebration, fun, opportunities for people to come together to enjoy special events. In Philadelphia, that city’s 1976 bicentennial celebration was held  from January through October with daily events that included free activities such as puppet shows, street theater, and concerts. The week leading up to July 4 was named Freedom Week and featured even more daily free celebrations, street parties, parades, picnics, and concerts.  A 2076 time capsule was buried at Second and Chestnut Streets, a 50,000-pound Sara Lee birthday cake was served at Memorial Hall, and fireworks filled the sky throughout the week.

The January 2024 Ann Arbor Bicentennial kickoff event at the Michigan Theater cost $50 per person. This was the definition of getting off on the wrong foot. It was a fundraiser for the Black Elks Lodge and Southwest (now Bicentennial) Park. According to the City’s February 28 press release, the opportunity to pay $50 to celebrate a milestone event at the Michigan Theater on January 19 was “a night to remember and just the first of many fun, unifying and meaningful activities planned this year.”

If there’s any question as to why the City’s Bicentennial “celebrations” resemble a ticketed tour of Castle Dracula along with “free” “tasting” organized by the Count, a look at who was put on the Bicentennial Committee should answer that: you have a nameless “committee” of city staff, and a small, chummy group of local non-profit leaders, people who suck at the public teat for a living and whose outsized paychecks are funded by taxes, public donations, gifts and grants.

The Ann Arbor Bicentennial Committee has two representatives from Destination Ann Arbor, the local visitor’s bureau controlled almost entirely by white people, but whose website shamelessly features a happy Black couple in a museum. Destination Ann Arbor brings in around $6 million in revenue and has 18 employees, according to its most recent 990 income tax form. Of that $6 million, the seven highest paid employees, collectively, take home a whopping $1.153 million in pay alone.

Other Bicentennial Committee Co-chairs include Russ Collins, CEO of the Michigan Theater, his wife Deb Polich of Creative Washtenaw/Artrain, and Sarah Miller and Amy Karbo of Destination Ann Arbor.

It’s a group of people who, while perhaps well-intentioned, plainly view the Bicentennial as an opportunity to make money for their organizations (many expensive, ticketed events are scheduled to take place at the Michigan Theater) and the City of Ann Arbor. Why has Milton Dohoney allowed Russ Collins’s non-profit to benefit materially from the City’s Bicentennial celebrations? As for the Burns Park Players and their $20-$30 tickets to see neighborhood amateurs put on a play at the Michigan Theater, where is any recognition of the reality that the number of people in Ann Arbor who can’t afford food has risen significantly?

There should be free and reduced price tickets for all ticketed events associated with the Bicentennial.

An email to the Burns Park Players to ask if the group gives away reduced price or free tickets to local school kids went unanswered.

Last year, I won a raffle for free, front row tickets to see “Hamilton” at the Fisher Theater. Had I paid for the tickets, I would have had to pony up $600. To celebrate Ann Arbor’s Bicentennial, the Michigan Theater should have bought 400 tickets ($8,000) to the Burns Park Players 4-day production and given away those free tickets in schools, or in raffles. According to the Michigan Theater Foundation’s most recent 990 tax return, Russ Collins’s non-profit is sitting on $4.7 million in cash and temporary cash investments.

Meanwhile, Ann Arbor’s City Administrator just sent out a list of the March events marking the City’s bicentennial. You ready? To “celebrate” Ann Arbor’s Bicentennial, partiers can pay $795,000 to pave the parking lot at Southwest Park (renamed Bicentennial Park), or pay $500,000 to build a multi-use building at the park. I kid you not.

To the unnamed city staff members who came up with the idea to rename Southwest Park and then ask residents to repave the parking lot, fund a multi-use building and pay $227,000 for a playground, among other “opportunities” to celebrate the Bicentennial: you people have no idea what the words fun, meaningful and uniting mean. When I think of Milton Dohoney asking for $795,000 to pave a parking lot as a “meaningful” way for overtaxed residents to celebrate the City’s 200th birthday, I envision him in a curly orange wig, wearing a giant red nose, floppy shoes and a ruffled, white collar.

If $795,000 to pave the parking lot at Bicentennial Park is too rich for your blood, celebrate Ann Arbor’s Bicentennial by paying $20 to go to a concert to hear people from Ann Arbor sing and play music; Pay. Pay. Pay. Donate. Donate. Donate. It’s a Bicentennial celebration for residents, after all!

City Administrator Dohoney and the nameless city staff on the Bicentennial planning committee obviously forgot that taxpayers pay $10 million to the City’s $200 million General Fund for parks, as well as an additional millage. Berkeley, CA has the same size annual budget as Ann Arbor ($560 million), a 1,000 boat marina and 53 parks, including one that is 2,100 acres. Ann Arbor, in total, has 2,000 acres of parks. In fiscal 2023, Ann Arbor budgeted $10 million for its parks. The City of Berkeley budgeted $53 million.

Ann Arbor has been fiscally mismanaged for decades to the detriment of its infrastructure and its residents; the city’s Bicentennial line up of “unifying” events has put a spotlight on just how completely Ann Arbor has been hollowed out by Corporate Dems who could care less about residents, diversity, affordability or Democratic ideals.

Instead of Dohoney and City staff putting the work, thought and money into planning a year-long calendar of fun, free events in City buildings, parks, at pools and elsewhere around town, Dohoney phoned it in; he put out the call to organizations to “align their events” with the Bicentennial celebrations.

As a result, another super fun, inclusive and meaningful Bicentennial “event” scheduled for March 19 is a Spring Open House at the Ann Arbor City Club. The celebration doesn’t end with the Open House. The 400 member City Club will offer 50% off the cost of a membership priced at $566.50 for 3-months and 50% off a $1,611 Gold Membership for a couple.

In March, there is also a special 5K run/walk opportunity to raise money for the University of Michigan. Why not throw in a special $1,000 per ticket Ann Arbor Bicentennial event to raise money for Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett?

March Bicentennial events also include “hosting a book drive” with the Washtenaw United Way. Who came up with the brainfart that hosting a book drive for a non-profit is fun, and a “meaningful and unifying” way to celebrate 200 years of Ann Arbor? The Washtenaw United Way tax returns show the Board members give grants to evangelical groups, out-of-state non-profits, the Regents of the University of Michigan, and has repeatedly given large grants to its own Board members.

I’ll leave you with City Administrator Milton Dohoney’s almost unintelligible words of wisdom: “Two hundred years ago, Ann Arbor founders’ fingerprints began a community that has evolved over time. The people who came after the founders applied their fingerprints to continue to shape the city, and now it is time for the 125,000 people who call Ann Arbor home to press their fingertips on their city, and supporting a bicentennial project is a great way to do that.”

I can’t afford $795,000 to pave the parking lot at Southwest (Bicentennial) Park, but I’m pretty sure I could raise a few hundred dollars to buy a clown car for Dohoney and the others who are ruining the City’s 200th birthday party.