Browsing Tag
Christopher Taylor
by P.D. Lesko
Petersen, Briere and Kunselman defeated—Sally Petersen slated to step down in November 2014. Stephen Kunselman says he will not run for re-election in 2015. Liksewise, Sabra Briere has suggested she will not seek…
Mayoral Candidate Taylor: OMA Lawsuit, Poor Attendance Record on Council
Christopher Taylor: Campaigning as “collaborative”: Four current Council members endorsed against him.
POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: U-M employs Taylor’s wife, Eva Rosenwald, full-time. Accepted $4,000 campaign donation from U-M…
Mayoral Candidate Snubs Ann Arbor News Endorsement He Competed to Get
NEWSPAPER endorsements are controversial for any number of reasons not the least among which is that readers can interpret endorsements as a paper supporting a particular candidate. Over the past several years, papers from the Chicago…
Mayoral Candidates Have Different Stances on Homelessness
JUST DAYS AFTER Ann Arbor and MDOT officials bulldozed a homeless encampment, four mayoral candidates signed a pledge to end homelessness in the city by 2018. The pledge which they signed reads: “We pledge to commit financial and political…
A2POLITICO: Mayor’s Race: Looking Past the Platitudes to the Voting Records
By P.D. Lesko
IF A PLATITUDE falls from the lips of a political candidate and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? The local media are breathlessly reprinting the platitudes offered up at the many mayoral forums sponsored by…
A2POLITICO: Economic Development Groupies Circle The Bentleys to Defend SPARK
by P.D. Lesko
AT A RECENT mayoral candidate forum, unabashed supporters of “crony capitalism”—what President Obama’s former economic expert Dr. Lawrence Summers called the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s programs—defended Ann…
City Council Members Raise Concerns About City Attorney Eval—Six out of Eleven Completed Online Survey
by P.D. Lesko
THE ANN ARBOR Charter requires City Council members to evaluate two of the city’s 690 employees: City Administrator Steve Powers and City Attorney Stephen Postema. City Attorney Postema, whose total compensation package…
A2Politico: Softball Questions and Myopic Politics
by P.D. Lesko
YOU PROBABLY DON’T know it, but sitting through a candidate forum in Ann Arbor is like watching paint dry. The same 50-60 people (many of whom are candidates in other races, office holders, political appointees or people…
Mayoral Candidate Alleges Opponents’ Affordable Housing Resolution “Pandering” and “Politicking”
WARD 3 COUNCIL member Stephen Kunselman repeatedly alleged that a resolution brought to Council’s June 2, 2014 meeting by Mayor Hieftje, Ward 1 Council member Sabra Briere, Ward 3 Council member Christopher Taylor, Ward 4 Council member…
With Library Lot Sale Vote, Mayoral Candidates Show Support (Or Lack thereof) For Parkland Protections
FORMER WARD 4 City Council member Marcia Higgins, along with Mayoral candidates Christopher Taylor and Sabra Briere all voted to allow the city’s parkland to be “repurposed” for “transit.” It was Higgins who inserted language into a zoning…