by P.D. Lesko

Mayor Chris Taylor and his City Council allies voted unanimously on Tuesday March 4 to put what the pols claim are two connected ballot questions (Proposals A and B) on the Aug. 2025 ballot. Voters will be asked to not only repeal the 2018 Ann Arbor Proposal A Urban Park Charter Amendment, but to approve a $1 sale to the Ann Arbor District Library of the public land where voters directed city staff in 2018 a central park and civic center should be created. Both Proposal A and Proposal B have to pass for the Mayor’s plan to move forward.

The Library Board and City Council have a “shared vision,” according to a press release issued on Feb. 24:

• This project will not require any new taxes. 
• The City of Ann Arbor would sell Library Lane Parcel air rights to AADL for $1.
• AADL would build a new Downtown Ann Arbor District Library that would span the Library Lane Parcel and the library’s current site at 343 S. 5th Ave.
• The project would provide new outdoor public open space, improved programming, and managed by AADL.
• Above the new library, the project would provide a mixture of housing types, including artist spaces, condos, affordable units, and market rate units.

It’s a “shared vision” that critics describe as a “pie in the sky” “Ponzi Scheme” idea that won’t increase the City’s tax base and leaves taxpayers to foot the bill for the AADL to develop public land the public voted in 2018 would be public in perpetuity.

AADL Exec. Dir. Eli Neiburger was asked in an email: “The City’s press release claims AADL would provide affordable housing and mixed use development. Do you expect that condition to be in the sale agreement?” Neiburger has not yet replied.

In order to build a new Downtown Ann Arbor Library and develop the now public land, the AADL would need money it presently lacks either in savings, or in annual cash flow from its yearly 2 mil perpetual property tax skim collected from Ann Arbor taxpayers ($18-$21 million).

The AADL’s 2024 federal 990 income tax return shows the non-profit has $32.2 million in assets. The non-profit’s tax return declares the buildings that house its present five branches are, in total, worth $31.9 million, all of its land is valued at $2 million. AADL had, as of 2024, $4.99 million in cash and savings and $4.7 million in stocks and bonds.

To tear down the South Fifth Ave. Main Library and build a new one, the AADL would have to ask voters to approve a bond, possibly a bond for as much as $100 million, on top of the 2 mil perpetual millage already given over to the non-profit each year.

No Community Support For Previous AADL Proposals

Buying the public parcel for $1 before having the funding in place to do what the City’s press release promises the AADL will do, is a dicey strategy for the non-profit AADL. The AADL Board tried to convince voters to approve a $65 million bond for a new downtown library in Nov. 2012. Voters rejected the proposal by a margin of 55.17 percent to 44.83 percent. Those bond payments (projected to cost $2.4 million annually) were expected to be funded by a new 0.5-mill tax.

The AADL’s present plan doesn’t include building on the same site, as it did in 2012. The plan now includes expanding onto the top of the Library Lot parking garage, a significantly costlier proposal.

In 2020, the AADL Board considered a $62.4 million proposal to build a new downtown library as a part of a high-rise, and explored financing the project without raising taxes. As a part of that proposal former AADL Exec. Dir. Josie Parker sought high-rise zoning (D-1 zoning) for the three parcels of land on which the Main Library is situated.

A 2020 community survey done by the AADL found that there was still not community support for an AADL bond proposal. It’s unclear whether the the 2025 proposal is based on a new community survey that shows community support for what is, essentially, a more expensive version of the AADL’s $62.4 million 2020 proposal.

Read My Lips: No New Taxes

The Mayor’s talking point that the project will “require no new taxes” is much like Elon Musk’s claims of billions in DOGE savings, shockingly inaccurate and in need of fact checking.

Taxpayers fund the AADL to the tune of $18-21 million annually through a perpetual millage. The AADL is a non-profit that pays no property taxes. The development of housing on land owned by the non-profit AADL (“condos,” “affordable units”) (just like land on which the University of Michigan builds housing) would result in lost property tax revenue for City coffers; taxpayers would, then, subsidize the AADL’s property development scheme in perpetuity, thus requiring taxpayers to subsidize hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost property tax revenue over time.

If the AADL Board did convince voters to support a bond, it’s clear the cash-strapped AADL would not have funds from its present cash flow (or from its 2 mil levy) to make the bond payments. Then, in 2042, according to the City’s Feb. 24 press release, the AADL would purchase the 8,000 space, $50 million Library Lot parking garage from the City. How the AADL would fund that purchase is not explained in the City’s Feb. 24 press release.

Between 2019 and 2024, the AADL’s 990 federal income tax returns show the non-profit has taken in over $113 million in millage funds from taxpayers (99.2 percent of its total revenue) and had a net loss over the same period. In 2024, the AADL’s form 990 shows the AADL took in $21.28 million from its perpetual millage, spent around $582,000 total on library programming, and lost $1.21 million.

AADL Exec. Dir. Eli Neiburger was asked in an email: “While the press release issued on February 24 promises ‘improved’ [AADL] programming, your 2024 990 shows you spent less than $600,000 total of your $21 million in gross revenue on library programing. Would ‘improved’ mean spending more of your gross revenue on programming?” Neiburger has not yet replied.

As losses mount, the AADL has trimmed its staff by about 9 percent since 2019. Like Walmart and Amazon, to save money the AADL has come to rely increasingly on casual and part-time employees.

As per the MEA union contract between the AADL’s employees and the AADL, the AADL may hire as many “casual” (part-time) employees as it likes. Part-time employees are paid at the same salary rates as full-time employees. However, part-timers don’t earn vacation days, and are not eligible for vacation pay. Part-time employees do accrue 2.08 hours of sick leave per pay period; full-time employees earn 4.11 hours of sick leave per pay period. Health, vision and dental insurance coverage are only available to regular employees who work 30-40 hours per week.

The purchase of a public-owned parcel worth, arguable, tens of millions for $1, and a post-sale development deal would benefit the AADL, almost entirely. The additional money would come in handy to the AADL whose cost-cutting measures haven’t stemmed its financial loses.

The Language of Proposal A is Vague

Former Ward 4 Council member Elizabeth Nelson, in a post published to her website about the Aug. 2025 ballot questions, pointed out: “The language of the amendment in Proposal A does not dictate how the property will be used or developed: there is no requirement for “mixed use” or “additional library services” or anything else, it only directs that the property be sold to the AADL.”

In 2017, City Council City Council voted on a $10 million contract with Chicago-based real-estate firm Core Spaces during its April 17 meeting to sell the Library Lot parcel to that developer to build a 17-story high-rise development, which would have included apartments, hotel rooms and office and retail space.

To support the 2017 sale to Core Spaces, then City Council member Zachary Ackerman touted the $5 million from the sale of the public land that would go into the City’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Open space advocates launched the Center of the City ballot question which, when passed in 2018, forced the cancellation of the Core Spaces project.

A $1 sale to the AADL of a public parcel will not provide any money for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

The Center of the City ballot question, put to Ann Arbor voters in Nov. 2018 (a gubernatorial election year), passed with 53 percent of the vote. Supporters of a “central park” located atop the Library Lane Parking Structure, next to the AADL Main Library on South Fifth Avenue, envisaged a spot where residents could picnic, ice skate, buy snacks from food trucks, celebrate holidays and mark important occasions, such as the City’s recent 200th anniversary.

The 2018 ballot question approved by voters established that, “The City-owned public land bounded by Fifth Avenue, and William, Division and Liberty Streets shall be retained in public ownership, in perpetuity, and developed as an urban central park and civic center commons known as the ‘Center of the City.'”

With the Aug. 2025 Ballot Proposal, Mayor Taylor Ignores 2018 Voter Mandate

Like President Trump, who has shown during his first 100 days in office he views the law, voter mandates and the will of the people as secondary to his own political agenda, over the past six years at the direction of Taylor, City staff have refused to allocate any funding from the City’s half a billion dollar budget to develop an urban central park and civic center as directed to do so by voters in 2018.

Former Ward 4 Councilmember Elizabeth Nelson characterized Taylor’s actions with the sarcastic observation that: “For six years, the Mayor insisted that this property asset was too valuable to be wasted on what the community actually voted for and that City Hall was robbed of $10 million. This week, the Mayor excitedly announced plans to sell the same property for $1.”

In her recent newsletter explaining her vote in favor of asking voters to repeal the 2018 Charter amendment and to sell the Library Lot to the AADL for $1, Ward 1 Council member Lisa Disch referred to the 2018 Charter Amendment as an “unfunded mandate.”

When voters amend a Charter, it is not their responsibility to provide or find funding to implement the legally-required change, but rather the responsibility of elected officials and city staff to fund and carry out the mandate.

The voters approved the 2018 Charter Amendment in Nov. 2018, a gubernatorial election. Ann Arbor Proposal A Urban Park was supported by 26,752 voters and opposed by 23,622 voters, for a total voter turnout of 50,374.

City Council now proposes to seek a repeal of the 2018 Charter amendment in an Aug. 2025 special election, an off year for both gubernatorial and presidential elections. It’s an unprecedented exclusion of the City’s electorate. In the 2022 August primary election (a gubernatorial primary election year), Ann Arbor Mayor Chris Taylor captured 15,144 votes (12 percent of the City’s 126,000 registered voters), Ward 1 Council member Cynthia Harrison captured 2,435 votes, Ward 4 Council member Dharma Akmon captured 2,481 votes and Ward 5 Council member Jenn Cornell captured 4,292 votes.

Former Councilmember Nelson described the Aug. 2025 ballot question timing of the Mayor and Council thusly: “[A]pproval of Proposal B would allow the charter amendment from 2018 to be repealed by fewer people than approved it originally. It could be repealed by a smaller number of people than the number of people who signed petitions to put it on the ballot in the first place. This is the strategy chosen by our elected representatives.”