Ann Arbor City Council Preview: October 19, 2020

Gentle readers, tonight is the final spooktacular #a2council meeting of October. Here's the agenda.  

The evening kicks off with with a modest 11 item consent agenda. Of note, CA-3, a resolution to accept a $300,000 Natural Resources Trust Grant to improve access at the Argo Canoe Livery. 

There are three public hearings on the docket this evening all of which deal with the Veridian at County Farm Park. This is a sustainable subsidized and market rate housing project going in where the old Juvenile Detention Facility was. PH-1/B-1 is on the PUD for the site. PH-2/DB-1 is on the development agreement. PH-3/DB-2 is on the site plan. 

DC-1 is a resolution to rename Rose White Park in honor of the late Ward 4 Councilmember, Graydon Krapohl. 

DC-3 is probably the spiciest chili of the night. Sponsored by lame duck CMs Eaton and Lumm, this is a resolution to return residential water rates from a four-tier structure to a three-tier structure. For a deep dive into this, check out this great article by Erich Z. The tl:dr here is that switching back to a three-tier structure would benefit households that use a lot of water, e.g. people with pools and with lawn irrigation. This would come at the expense of moderate water users. This has been something that Lumm has been really passionate about. In my opinion, regardless of weather you agree with this resolution or not, changing something so substantial when half of the council will be leaving next month. 

As always, gentle reader, I am probably forgetting some very important items here. What agenda items are you most looking forward to seeing. I am guessing that tonight will be another late night around the virtual council table. Hopefully we will see you there. The CTN stream starts at 7 pm. Make sure you follow the action on the #a2council hashtag.

Ann Arbor City Council Preview: October 5, 2020

 

 

Gentle readers tonight is a spooktacular lame duck edition of a2#council. Read the agenda, if you dare.   

The evening kicks off with a brief 9-item consent agenda. Of note, CA-9, the citizen budget priority survey that CM Lumm promised at the last meeting. 

There are two public hearings tonight. PH-1 is a routine township island rezoning. PH-2/B-2 is the second reading of the updated sign ordinance. I don't know a ton about what this changes, but it has been three years in the making. 

Elsewhere on the agenda, DC-1 is an amendment to the recycling plant tours agreement with the Ecology Center. They do tours of the MRF for AAPS students. There was some disagreement about this last time it came forward. 

The real spicy chilis tonight are DC-3 and DC-4. The former directs the city attorney to "File a Written Public Opinion on Dissolution of the DDA." While the latter is a resolution to "Direct the City Administrator and City Attorney to Conduct Due Diligence and Prepare an Ordinance for Dissolution of the DDA." Both of these are sponsored by CMs Bannister and Griswold and were added to the agenda on Friday. In comments to the media CM Griswold said she just wants to start a conversation about this. Seems like a heck of a way to do that. Regardless of what you think of the DDA, the idea of dissolving it during the lame duck session of council, when half of the members will be replaced in November, does not seem like good governance. 

Finally we arrive at DC-5, a resolution "Accelerating Development of the Center of the City Community Commons and Recognizing the Self-Organized Open “Community Commons Initiating Committee” as a Community Partner in the Process." I expect that council will get to this late at night and tempers will be high and that council will re-hash a lot of the debate about the Library Lot. 

As always, gentle reader, I am probably forgetting some very important items here. What agenda items are you most looking forward to seeing. I am guessing that tonight will be another late night around the virtual council table. Hopefully we will see you there. The CTN stream starts at 7 pm. Make sure you follow the action on the #a2council hashtag.