YELLOWSTONE DRIVE is approximately 1/3 of a mile long, a quiet side street located between Green Road and Bluett, on the city’s northeast side. It takes about 10 minutes to stroll from one end of Yellowstone to the other. According to information provided by city officials in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, Yellowstone residents have dealt with multiple water main breaks since 2011. Half of the ruptures were repeat breaks:

• Oct. 2011, 3344 Yellowstone
• Jan. 2012, 3327 Yellowstone
• July 2012, 3327 Yellowstone
• July 2012, 3326 Yellowstone
• Jan. 2013, 3326 Yellowstone
• May 2013, 3330 Yellowstone
• May 2013, 3334 Yellowstone

Likewise, in June, July, September 2012 there were water main breaks at the intersection of Windy Crest Drive and Geddes, across from Gallup Park. Between January 2011 and December 2013, records reveal that there have been upwards of 250 water main breaks, and 15 raw sewage spills in our city.

John Hieftje’s time in office has been framed by those who support him as a “golden age” of environmentalism and new urbanism. There was the passage of the Greenbelt millage, a new $50 million dollar Justice Center, a $1 million rain fountain by German artist Herbert Dreiseitl, a Percent for Art ordinance and in certain categories, crimes rates that have decreased.

Ask Hieftje, and he’ll say his proudest accomplishment has been “making city government more efficient, a feat accomplished by cutting back and reorganizing.”

In a January 2014 “Exit Interview” posted to Concentratemedia.com, an online magazine funded in part by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Hieftje points to his “strong support” from voters over the years.

Hieftje told the Concentrate Media writer Patrick Dunn, “I can remember in the primary of 2006, I was fortunate that the voters backed me strongly. But had someone been able to get 5,001 votes, they would have been the mayor of Ann Arbor because there were only 10,000 votes that year.”

There have been only 10,000 votes, more or less,  almost every year he has run.

While Hieftje talks up his “strong support,” others point out the defeat of his allies on City Council.

“His facade is crumbling,” said one City Council member, “right along with the city’s sewers, water pipes, bridges, side streets and major roads.”

While John Hieftje points to the Greenbelt millage as one of his proudest accomplishments, in reality his real legacy may be leaving taxpayers holding the bag for hundreds of millions of dollars for the repair and replacement of more than two-thirds of the city’s sewer system.

Several  City Council members have openly charged that the city’s infrastructure has been neglected during Hieftje’s 14 years in office.

Ann Arbor’s mayor concentrated on other matters, such as passing and protecting a controversial Percent for Art ordinance. However, in 2011 voters defeated a Hieftje-backed proposal to impose a millage on themselves to fund the Percent for Art program.

In 2011, 2012 and 2013, multiple candidates lost whom Hieftje endorsed and backed for City Council. After he campaigned door-to-door with 14-year incumbent and Mayor Pro Tempore Marcia Higgins in the August 2013 primary election, Higgins lost to challenger Jack Eaton by a two-to-one margin that stunned political insiders.

That race was viewed by many as a referendum on Hieftje’s political future.

In order to explain his inability to get his own political allies elected, the man whom The Ann Arbor News once editorialized was ever ready to “sprint to accept praise” and “vindictive,” told Patrick Dunn, “I think some people went out of their way to create some myths that some people have bought into. One of those was that, somehow, we didn’t have good public safety…. I don’t think there was ever any cabal of council members, which was another myth.”

Former Downtown Development Authority Board member Rene Greff disagreed in a 2009 interview: “I have been the one consistent voice on DDA willing to challenge the Greden-Teall-Higgins-Hieftje cabal.”

The “myths” took hold because, “there was a diminished amount of fact out on the street,” said Hieftje.

Ann Arbor residents see it differently.

“I just don’t see how our terrible roads and unkept bike and walking paths are myths.  Mayor Hieftje chose to sell us an art program that used road repair money on art. Sewage in the Huron River is not a myth by any means,” said Drew Lee.

George Smith agrees. “Jane Lumm won because people want and should be able to expect quality services and that includes police and fire. We want value for our property tax money, and we haven’t gotten that in much too long.”

A City Council member suggested that because there is more “fact on the street” thanks to a variety of local blogs and beefed up local reporting by WEMU, among others, Hieftje and his supporters have found it increasingly difficult to “mislead the public.”

City Council member Jack Eaton points out that, “the Mayor came into my Ward and campaigned against me. I won by a two-to-one margin. My message that we need better services and to rebuild our infrastructure obviously resonated with voters.”

Eaton’s campaign “message” is one of the “myths” about which Hieftje complains.

Fifty-seven percent of written comments on Ann Arbor’s 2013 National Citizen Survey were complaints about the “worst,” “unsafe,” “abysmal” and “terrible” roads. Ward 4 residents, including local lawyer Irv Mermelstein, have banded together to fight the city’s footing drain disconnect program and the flooding in their own homes, streets and neighborhoods.

In the six months prior to Concentratemedia.com’s “Exit Interview” story, the local media documented the neglect and regular failure of the city’s infrastructure. For instance, in June, July, September and November 2013, there were stories of water main breaks. In June, August and September, there were media reports of raw sewage spills, including one into the Huron River.

The August 2013 sewage spill into the Huron River was notable. The  spill poured into the river as it runs through the Nichols Arboretum, and city officials neglected to alert the public until after the spill had been cleaned up and the water tested as within acceptable bacteria and E. coli limits. Residents and visitors continued to use the river even while bacteria and E. coli levels were well above those which will cause human illness.

The canoe liveries were closed, but no signs were posted at the city’s public boat launches, or at the Argo Cascades. At Argo, people launch their own boats and tubes for trips down the river to Gallup Park.

According to data from city officials, more than two-thirds of  Ann Arbor’s 362 miles of sewer pipes were built prior to 1960. About 47 miles of the pipes in use today were built when William Howard Taft was president (1910), and another 50 miles of pipes were constructed between 1920 and 1940.

Only 15 miles of the 362 mile sewer pipe system have been built or rebuilt since John Hieftje took office in 2000.  In comparison, between 1970 and 1990, almost 100 miles of the city’s sewers system were built or rebuilt.

According to officials from the Michigan Municipal League, it can cost between $1-$4 million per mile of sanitary sewer pipe replacement. Thus, replacing the 99.61 miles of sanitary sewer constructed prior to the 1940s could cost taxpayers anywhere between $99.61 and $398 million.

While the city’s Capital Improvement Plan calls for some $29.8 million in sanitary sewer spending in fiscal year 2014, the bulk of that is for facilities renovation ($23 million) and the footing drain disconnect program ($2.5 million).

In 2013-2014, $1.75 million from the sanitary sewer fund is budgeted to pay for to an item called “Model For Mobility.” That’s the $50 million Fuller Road Station that John Hieftje wants to have built on parkland abutting the Huron River. In 2011, Council members—with the exception of Ward 5 Council member Mike Anglin—supported the so-called Northside Interceptor Sanitary Sewer Relocation Project.

Hieftje claimed in August 2011 that the relocation and refurbishment of 825 feet of sanitary sewer to the middle of an empty field on Fuller Road was “something that will provide much better service to residents on the north side of town.” Hieftje added: “Knowing that it is related to the Fuller Road Station would make me want to vote for it all the more, because I believe that is one of the very best projects for the environment and one of the best projects we’ve seen in Ann Arbor for a very long time.”

In 2011, according to city records, there were 90 water main breaks. In May 2011, an overwhelmed sanitary system spewed raw sewage out of manholes in the Division/Hoover/Hill area during a rainstorm. In July 2011, raw sewage flowed into Honey Creek from a ruptured sanitary sewer line that burst and sent waste into a city storm sewer.

In urging his Council colleagues to reconsider the project, Anglin was quoted as saying: “It seems to me that what we are doing in this process right now is starting to put infrastructure repairs into what we perceive to be the future site of Fuller Road Station. I’ve seen us do it before. I call it the ‘wading-in testing of waters’ — where we get in $1 million, we get another $1 million in, and soon we have quite a cost associated with a project that we haven’t really decided we want to do.”

The Northside Interceptor Sanitary Sewer Relocation Project was one of a handful of sanitary sewer refurbishment projects completed in Ann Arbor  between 2011 and 2013.