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Ann Arbor City Council Preview for Monday, 2023-05-01

The next Ann Arbor City Council meeting will be .

The things I’m most excited about are actually things that will not be voted upon at this meeting.

The first thing I’m excited about is the public hearing about the proposed budget. This is your chance to comment on the budget that was proposed by the City Administrator in his presentation at the last city council meeting. The city council will not vote on the budget at this meeting. This is just a public hearing. They will vote on it at the next meeting and propose amendments. You can also email CityCouncil@a2gov.org with your thoughts. I’m going to call in to this public meeting and mention my thoughts: I don’t want cops on the proposed downtown safety patrols - just EMTs and social workers. And I don’t want the police budget expanded to add 1.75 FTE.

Which brings me to the other thing that I’m excited about at this meeting, which will not be voted on. In fact, it will not even be discussed, unless people call the city clerk’s office to get on the speaking agenda for the meeting.

The other thing I’m excited about is the response from the consultant we hired to help us design the unarmed response program, in which there will be people you can call when there is a crisis, and they will only send a helpful response, and will not send police. Let’s see what the consultant said!

Apr 29, 2023 a2council, preview

Ann Arbor City Council Wrapup for Monday, 2023-04-17

The Ann Arbor City Council met on .

We finally got to see the city administrator’s budget presentation. I’ll walk you through it and give my thoughts. The contract for the comprehensive land use plan update was approved, with strong language about redressing segregation in our new plan, and also with the assumption that we will be creating density. Also, the 415 W Washington rezoning and concept plan were approved.

Apr 19, 2023 a2council, wrapup

Planning Commission Wrap-Up for Tuesday, 2023-04-04

The Ann Arbor Planning Commission met on . This is my wrapup of what happened at the meeting.

I was watching mostly because I was concerned about a proposed new branch of the University of Michigan Credit Union at 2929 Plymouth Road, which is currently a weird dingbat-style office building that I used to work in. It was proposed to be a standalone, single-story bank with a drive-through, which I thought was a horrendous waste of that land, and something that would prolong car culture.

But I think the thing that’s going to have a larger impact on the city overall was the discussion about the development incentives that the city offers to downtown developers, and how they might be changed in order to achieve the results we want, such as more housing downtown.

Apr 11, 2023 planning-commission, preview

Ann Arbor City Council Wrap-up for Monday, 2023-04-03

The Ann Arbor City Council met . This is my wrap-up of what happened there.

As I mentioned in article previewing the meeting, the thing I was most excited about was North Maple Apartments. And that passed unanimously!

Another big thing that happened at the meeting was that $200k was approved to supplement the $250k already spent on post-storm tree cleanup, for a total of $450k. They also announced the launch of a post-storm tree cleanup dashboard where you can see when your neighborhood is likely to be cleaned up.

Other things that were passed at the meeting:

  • Five more parks slated for ADA assessment.
  • Opioid settlement accepted.
  • New ordinance requiring carbon monoxide detectors in apartments.
  • DTE Accountability resolution.
  • Pollinator habitat resolution (it’s the like last year’s “No Mow May”, but moreso).
  • $45m of revenue bonds to maintain the water system (mostly pipes).

Apr 5, 2023 a2council, wrap-up

Planning Commission Preview for Tuesday, 2023-04-04

The next Ann Arbor Planning Commission meeting will be .

There’s a thing on there that I’m worried about: A proposed new branch of the University of Michigan Credit Union at 2929 Plymouth Road, which is currently a weird dingbat-style office building that I used to work in. I think a standalone drive-through credit union is one of the worst possible uses of this land.

Also on the agenda: An interesting-looking discussion about the development incentives that the city offers to downtown developers, and how they might be changed in order to achieve the results we want, such as more housing downtown.

Apr 2, 2023 planning-commission, preview

Ann Arbor City Council Preview for Monday, 2023-04-03

The next Ann Arbor City Council meeting will be .

The thing I’m most excited about is the North Maple Apartments. There is a public hearing about this.

Another big thing on the agenda is spending for post-storm tree branch cleanup.

But mostly, it seems like a light agenda.

… maybe a little too light! I want MOAR housing, and MOAR transitioning away from car culture! We’ve got crises on our hands here, people. We need big systemic changes. I want us to be making such big changes that people start to get uncomfortable! (And not just the people who get uncomfortable at any change).

Mar 31, 2023 a2council, preview

A2Council Wrap-up 2023-03-20

The morning after the Ann Arbor City Council meeting on , I wrote some notes to myself to organize my thoughts while I talked on my radio show about what happened at the meeting. The notes were extensive enough that I thought to myself “I should start writing these up for real and making them into blog posts.” I didn’t fix this one up, though. These are the just the notes to myself. For future meetings, I hope to have more detailed information, but I figured it’d be more helpful than not to put these notes up as is.

See also, the voting chart for this meeting.

Mar 26, 2023 a2council, wrapup