Seasons greetings gentle readers! Tonight is a magical night, the final night of #a2coiuncil for the decade. Here's the agenda.
There is a deep consent agenda with 23 items. Of note: CA-8, the contact for Community Visioning and Master Land Use Plan Services. This is the outreach of the master plan update. At last night's caucus meeting, there was talk of delaying this. So expect it to be pulled. There is also CA-17, which would prepare plans for the Jackson Ave sidewalk gap elimination project.
There are 3 public hearings on the agenda this evening. PH-2/DB-1. This is a resolution to approve the Project Site Plan a project on Hideaway Lane.
DC-1 is a resolution to support center of the city interim use and long term planning. So that could be contentious.
DC-3 is a resolution to endorse HB 4738, which would create a statewide crosswalk law. While this may sound good, it would supersede and weaken Ann Arbor's Crosswalk Ordinance. HB 4738 would make it so that cars must yield to pedestrians within crosswalks. Ann Arbor's Ordinance makes it so cars need to yield to pedestrians waiting to cross at crosswalks. To make cars yield the right-of-way, HB 4738 would make a pedestrian enter a crosswalk. This may seem minor for able-bodied people, but imagine someone who uses a wheelchair, or a parent pushing a stroller to have to put the stroller into the intersection before cars would have to yield. Ann Arbor's Crosswalk Ordinance is about changing behavior, and HB 4738 would weaken it.
Gentle readers, what agenda items are you most interested in? Make sure you tune in to the action tonight 7:00 on CTN and follow along with the #a2council hashtag on twitter.