by P.D. Lesko

Ward 5 City Council candidate Chuck Warpehoski is being endorsed by many members of the local Dem Klan, including John Hieftje, whose 2010 Facebook page described him as “Ann Arbor’s popular mayor.” The Warpehoski race is a replica of the 2008 race run by Carsten Hohnke, the current Ward 5 Council member who decided to step down earlier this year. In fact some of the text on Warpehoski’s campaign web site is lifted from Hohnke’s site—the language is slightly rephrased. Warpehoski, who like Hohnke when he ran in 2008, had no experience as an elected official, is running the “nice guy” campaign. He’s warm, fuzzy, sincere and supports all the right things, including transit. He wasn’t the least bit warm and fuzzy when he published an op-ed dripping with sarcasm and disdain titled, “Three ways to kill improvements in public transit in Washtenaw County.” The piece begins: “Dear transit opponents, even though I’m on the other side of the issue from you, I’d like to offer some advice.”

Comments from readers picked up on Warpehoski’s deliberate failure to engage other perspectives:

“The dripping sarcasm of this op ed does nothing to promote healthy public discussion of the public transportation issue.”

“I know that this opinion is written from a sincere public-spirited conviction, but I regret its negative tone. Mr. Warpehoski should acknowledge that many of us who have raised concerns about the current plan to institute a new regional authority (under Act 196) and transfer AATA’s assets to it are, in fact, transit supporters, not transit opponents.”

Warpehoski has been trying mightily to convince voters he’s not  going to be a Drone-in-waiting for Borg Queen Hieftje, whose plans to blow millions more in Ann Arbor tax dollars on his years-old failed transit scheme, rely on having Council members who will vote the “right way” each and every time they’re asked to do so, as Hohnke has done for almost four years. Carsten Hohnke ran as a get along kinda guy in 2008, someone who would, like Warpehoski claims, “bridge the differences” on Council. That’s what Hohnke told the editorial board of the Ann Arbor News. This is from the paper’s 2008 endorsement of him.

The list of endorsements he’s garnered is impressive – from unions like the Huron Valley AFL-CIO and Ann Arbor Firefighters Association to elected officials at the city and county levels as well as other community leaders. Both candidates clearly have the intellectual clout to tackle this job, as well as the energy and commitment to represent their constituents. However, we believe Hohnke would approach the task with a much more open mind and collaborative spirit. When we asked Hohnke about his views on current council members, he cited specific qualities he admired from nearly every member – Anglin’s exuberance in representing his constituents, Briere’s responsiveness to community members, the hard work that Teall and Joan Lowenstein bring to their committee work, and so on. We believe Hohnke wouldn’t bring a fixed agenda to council, and shows more promise of bridging differences to reach compromise – a valuable skill for this job.

Hohnke did, of course, bring a fixed agenda to Council; that’s why Hieftje and the Hive Mind Collective (and their cronies) supported, financed and endorsed him: in Hohnke’s nearly 4 years on Council, he has voted in lockstep with the Hive Mind virtually 100 percent of the time. He voted in favor of the $50 million dollar city hall addition. He voted in favor of using parkland for parking. He voted to spend $50 million on a new underground parking garage. He voted for every transit scheme Hieftje brought to Council. As for Hohnke’s admiration of Sabra Briere, a year later, in 2009, Freedom of Information Act requests for Council members’ emails sent during open meetings revealed that Mr. “bridging differences” Hohnke had joked right along with former Third Ward Council Leigh Greden, Fourth Ward Council members Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall, Second Ward Council member Tony Derezinski and Third Ward Council member Christopher Taylor in awarding Briere the “Golden Vomit” Award via email during an open City Council meeting. This misuse of email resulted in a lawsuit that alleged violations of the Open Meetings Act—a lawsuit the city was forced to settle.

It’s 2012: The Hive Mind is playing the same-old-broken-record campaign to get Chuck Warpehoski onto City Council. Chuck has garnered an “impressive” list of endorsements, including money and two hammers up from the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters PAC, an organization with a record of strong support for Republican candidates and county Republican organizations. The PAC endorsed Republican Rick Snyder in 2010, and in now in 2012 in addition to giving $1,000 to John Hieftje and $250 donations to the Hieftje slate: Eric Sturgis in Ward 1, Margie Teall in Ward 4 and Warpehoski in Ward 5, the PAC is supporting Republican candidates all over Michigan. Like Hohnke before him, Chuck is dragging out Sabra Briere as his “idol.” Warpehoski recently told the AnnArbor.com news blog: “He’d probably act most like Council Member Sabra Briere, D-1st Ward, if elected. She’s often seen as a swing voter. ‘I see her as an independent who does her homework,’ Warpehoski said. ‘Sometimes she works with the mayor and sometimes she votes with the challengers. In a lot of ways, that independence she’s shown is a model I’d like to emulate if elected.’

Warpehoski is a big fan of Sabra Briere. He’s not a big fan of John Hieftje who the Ann Arbor News once editorialized is “vindictive” and “sprints to accept praise.” In fact, Warpehoski is backpedaling away from Ann Arbor’s mayor just about as fast as his Birkenstocks can carry him. Here’s why, straight from the mouthes of anonymous babes who post to the comment section on AnnArbor.com:

I attended the recent Ward 5 debate hoping to learn enough about Chuck W. and Vivienne A. to decide who to vote for. Early on it seemed clear that Ms. A. was incredibly well-versed in local public policy, has served on many committees, and attended many public meetings. I can’t state strongly enough how impressive her knowledge was.

I’ve read here and on other blogs that the mayor and his supporters criticize people who disagree with their decisions as being “negative.” I was disappointed to hear Chuck W. echo this when he used the word “nitpicking.” But Vivienne A. readily pointed out that nitpicking is what’s needed when making important policy decisions.

Chuck W.’s way of speaking was “politician-speak.” Platitudes. Frequently emphasizing his ability to listen and bring people together. It became obvious during the course of the debate that Vivienne had those qualities without having to say so, and that the content of what she said was much more relevant to important issues, questions being asked, public policy, etc. I learned about city government from her, but only about Chuck from Chuck.

One questioner asked Chuck W. about the mayor’s lack of transparency – and how he felt about being endorsed by the mayor. That was it for me: if he’s endorsed by the mayor, he’s a part of the click which has been making disastrous decisions for A2. My vote will go to Vivienne A., and happily since she’s not only amazingly qualified, but states that she will work to bring government back to working for people and neighborhoods.

However, thanks to thousands in donations from Hieftje cronies and political appointees, endorsements from the local Dem Klan, and PAC money from the same PACs that routinely support Hive Mind Collective members, it’s clear that Warpehoski is tightly tied to Borg Queen Hieftje’s political apron strings. If the reaction of the AnnArbor.com reader above is any gauge of of the political barometer in Ward 5, Warp’s “impressive” list of endorsements, including Hieftje’s, isn’t going to play as well as it did in 2008. In fact, like Greden (defeated in 2009) and Stephen Rapundalo (former Ward 2 Council member defeated in 2011) before him, the “impressive” list of endorsements topped by Representative John Dingell, isn’t going to help much at all. Sabra Briere, far from being the independent she was in 2008, has been consistently voting with Hieftje and carrying enough political water for him to make her supporters back away from her. A look at her 2008 and 2010 campaign finance forms show that the number of individual donations to Briere has plummeted. In 2010, Briere committed a campaign finance violation in taking almost half of the $4,500 she raised from a single local developer. In order to further her political ambitions, Briere has been working hard to assimilate herself into the Hive Mind Collective.

With only a few days before the August 7th primary election, don’t look for AnnArbor.com to endorse Warpehoski. The news blog, hopping around on one journalistic leg, lost Kontent King Tony Dearing and VP Matt Kraner before him, and then scrapped its editorial board. There won’t be AnnArbor.com endorsements of anyone in the 2012 City Council races, according to insiders at the site.