 Your Pioneer is my favorite place. There was a six point buck on Granger on this year. I know. You want a nice place to live if you don't want to. If there's some sand blunts in nature, it's a good place to find a place to live. We're trying your wood thing. We're just going to make sure. Yep. We're just going to make sure everything is fine. Exactly. There's actually water. There's a bunch in nature. Well, hello. Thank you all for coming to this third annual debate, put on by the class members of the board schools 456, 756, local government class opportunity for activism. Throughout this semester, the students have learned a great deal not just about our city, but about other cities. Other cities that face similar challenges and have similar success, economically successful cities that deal with issues like gentrification and what they're doing about those issues. And going forward, as well as all the other nuts and bolts of city government. The students have developed the questions. Three of our students, Anna Foster, David McKenzie, and Sam Gillard will be our moderators today. We will hopefully have an opportunity to take a few questions from the audience. And you'll see three by five cards distributed throughout. The candidates will have a minute and a half to introduce themselves. We ask that they include what they believe is the most important issue facing the city in that introduction. And then they will have two minutes per question. And I think we have a timer set up somewhere. There's our timer right there. And she'll be flashing you a yellow caution with 30 seconds and red when your time is up. Well, again, we thank our candidates for being here. And I will turn it over to our moderators. So we'd like to start off by asking each candidate to introduce themselves. Candidates, you have a minute and a half. And please highlight the most important issue you feel Ann Arbor needs to address in order to be well-prepared for the future. Oh, start it. We'll go alphabetical order. Fabulous. Thank you very much. And thank you, everybody, for joining us. My name is Jason Frenzel. I'm a Democrat running for First Ward. For those of you who notice, I do have a splash of pink in my hair today because I am holding solidarity with a friend who's going through cancer. As a 30-year resident of Ann Arbor, I believe I possess a unique set of skills that allow me to represent the community at whole, at large, at the city council seat. I've worked for the Huron River Watershed Council and the city of Ann Arbor for the past 15 years. My job has been to create positive interactions for citizens, increase citizen voice, bring more people around the table. My job is to increase the pie for everyone to improve their lives. I've worked with thousands upon thousands of students, community groups, and citizens. And I really look forward to working with more. Excuse me. I think the most important issue facing our community currently is the conversational tone that we have. We have issues, strong issues, around negativity. We see online on a regular basis. We see people infighting around issues that I don't believe we need to. We don't need to duplicate what's happening on the national level. We have the opportunity to turn frustration and disenfranchisement into stronger resources, engaging more people in our community, and I have a proven track record doing that. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Diane Janola, and I'm running for one of the seats in the fourth ward. I've lived in Ann Arbor about 20 years. I'm one of those people who came to school here. I stayed a couple years after graduation, left town for 10 years, and then have come back. I've been here for about 12 years since I've come back. I currently work at the U of N as a business administrator. I run the venture accelerator that houses the U of N spin out companies that are based on U of N technologies. Formerly, though, I was a molecular biologist, and I did medical research for 25 years. I'm running for counsel because I really want to be a more effective voice and a more informative voice for the fourth ward and for the city. I believe that people need to hear the meaning of what the issues are. A lot of times, issues get put out there by a lot of special interest groups, and there's extreme sides on all issues. And I really think people need to understand and have a more informative viewpoint about what happens after the vote is taken. So even though people might not agree with me on everything, the way I like to deal with things is to include people in a conversation versus instead of just siding with a special interest group in this town, I'd rather have everybody discuss the issues on an informative and referenced conversation. I know there's a different way than people like to look at things right now. The biggest issue for the city right now, Jason, kind of took my answer, it's really the conversation about the future. I think all the smaller issues in town here have to do with the vision about where we want to go, how we handle growth, how we build up the infrastructure, how do we collaborate with the Detroit area. Sorry. Good afternoon. I'm Julie Grand. Like many of you in this room, I first came to Ann Arbor to attend graduate school, which was 20 years ago. And a few years after finishing my master's, I came back to the School of Public Health and currently teach at the University of Michigan Dearborn in their health policy studies program. I'm also the parent of two elementary school age children, and my husband and I really appreciate the opportunities that are in Ann Arbor. It's a great place to raise a family. And consequently, I spend a lot of time driving kids to those opportunities. Since November of 2014, I've had the privilege of representing Ward 3, which is the southeast side of Ann Arbor. I've really enjoyed helping constituents solve their concerns, and also had the pleasure of collaborating with very talented colleagues, some of whom are at this table, and fantastic city staff. As a part of that service, I currently sit on nine committees and commissions. They focus on issues related to city finance, parks, and green space, affordable housing, and public schools. I think the biggest issue facing our city is that we have to balance the strategies that help us sufficiently fund our basic services and quality of life. Well, at the same time, we have to implement policies that tackle the issue of affordability for our residents. Our community, and you've probably heard about it a lot in this class, expects us to deliver exceptional service based on community input and best practices. So as council members, we have to answer this question. How do you find the revenue to fulfill these expectations, but at the same time, remain accessible to the diversity of residents that help create this unique and inclusive sense of space? Thanks. Hi, my name's Grayton Craple. I'm running for reelection in the fourth ward. I'm currently serving on council. I was actually born in Ann Arbor, spent time growing up here, went to my undergraduate here. I did leave for a significant period of time. I did 30 years in the Marine Corps, both active duty and reserve, where I held a variety of positions in leadership, senior leadership. At one point now, I did the legislative affairs for the Marine Corps, and then also I had extensive tours and recruiting. In my civilian life here, I currently work from Barrett Networks as the director of business operations, where I also teach and lead the executive leadership programs that they offer, and then have a background with various national consulting firms. My family and I moved back to Ann Arbor about 10 years ago because of the exceptional place it is to live in so many ways. I got involved in public life because I believe in public service. Even though Ann Arbor has been very successful and vital in the past, that doesn't mean it's going to continue in the future. One of my biggest concerns for the city is how we think and approach problems. Because I think that shapes the types of solution we'll look at and see in the future. Because I believe if we keep asking the same questions to the same problems, we're just going to get to the same answers. And we need to turn it a little bit, look differently at how we're thinking about issues, and it'll give us new and different answers that will allow us to move forward. Thank you. My name's Will Leaf. I'm running for the First Ford City Council seat. I grew up in Ann Arbor, and then went to the University of Michigan. After graduating, I started a zinc oxide sunscreen company. And what I'm most interested in and what I think the most important issue facing the city is, is population growth. As more people want to live in Ann Arbor, there are certain problems that arise. And it's better than some of the alternatives, like shrinking Michigan cities are facing. But these problems include an increased cost of living, small businesses being displaced, Ann Arbor becoming increasingly expensive. And I think the way the city manages this issue is the most important thing facing the city. I think I'm qualified to try to address some of those issues. I'm most interested in zoning and urban planning. I study that on my own time. I took classes in the planning school here. I've written about zoning for the real estate law journal. And I think there's ways for the city to allow more residents to live within the city limits in walkable areas where they're not causing more traffic. They're not living in the townships, not paying city taxes but using city services. And there's ways to do that while respecting existing residential neighborhoods and not overly upsetting the neighbors and causing neighborhood conflicts. So managing growth in a way that's acceptable to existing residents. And also looking at the bigger picture of the environmental effects of growth and how it affects the cost of living. That's what's most important, I think. Hi, I'm Eric Lipson. I'm running for a Democrat in the fourth ward. I've been living in Ann Arbor for 40 years, plus or minus. And I am interested in issues regarding the environment and the quality of life in Ann Arbor. I graduated from the law school here. I've practiced law, but I've also been primarily involved in non-profit management. I have been in startups and turnarounds and transitions in non-profits from Recycle Ann Arbor's Reuse Center to the cities, to the U of M housing co-ops. I've managed a U of M pilot program for a while now called Deloitte Scholars. And I worked at Student Legal Services. That was my first legal job. I've been one of the usual suspects in town. I've participated in many of this, the public forums. And my big concern with the city of Ann Arbor is maintaining the quality of life which we have come to expect. And I think the big issue there is controlling development. I think the neighborhoods have to come first. The downtown is important, but we live in the neighborhoods. And I look at all this through a lens of environmentalism. The biggest issues that the city faces are really among other things dealing with the Gelman plume. Our flood control policy right now, we are facing some very serious issues with flood control because of global warming. So I think all of these things have to be faced. And I wanna contribute to that. And I'd like to see some more motion on those issues. Also the issue of pedestrian safety, lighting and crosswalk safety. Thank you. My name is Chuck Orpahowski. I'm the incumbent Democrat in Ann Arbor's fifth ward. I'm seeking reelection. For me, I think there are three, we're asked one, but I'm gonna give you three high priority issues that we're facing in our community. The first one is some members have already mentioned is affordable housing and housing affordability. Recently we saw the statistics and even people who are making good paying, working at good paying jobs, doing substitute teaching, working in our community aren't able to afford to live here. And I think that's a real problem from an equity standpoint as well as from a sustainability standpoint for our economy as a whole. The second issue I think we face as a city is, or the other priority I have is around racial justice issues, particularly around police accountability. There's been a national conversation on these issues. And I think this is an opportunity for Ann Arbor and the other communities in the area to look at how can we do policing better in a way that's more equitable and just. We've got some things we're working on right now to improve our training, to address the emerging science around implicit bias and to improve police oversight and accountability. And I think we're out of time that trying to face these issues is absolutely important. Finally, as some people have mentioned, I think the issue of pedestrian bicycle safety is absolutely vital. Just a half mile from my house is one of the white ghost bicycles that marks the site of a bicycle fatality. I think we need to build an infrastructure that works for all of our transit users, all of our transportation users. My background is the director of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice working to bring people together across their differences to make a difference. I think it's made good background in some of the content areas, as well as good expertise on trying to find those common ground solutions. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you again for having all of us here today. I was actually a student in the mayor's class back in my time as a graduate student in urban planning. So this has become a great tradition and I hope that it continues. I'm the incumbent Democrat in the second ward and running for reelection. The second ward is in the northeast and east part of the city. The reason why I want to continue in council and in public service has remained the same for many years. My wife and I moved here in 2004 because of a lot of the qualities that have been mentioned already. Great parks, great transit, great downtown, great schools, great neighborhoods, a diverse population. And those are the things that got me interested in serving on the planning commission back in 2006, as well as the environmental commission and why I have been enjoying my time on council right now. And I'm guessing many of you are here because you'd like to try to distinguish among the candidates. And if you look at our campaign literature, I think a lot of it you'll see is kind of similar. We want great services. We want better roads. We want a healthy environment and all the things that we expect. But when I was challenged with what's the one issue, I think it all comes down to revenue. We can fix any of the problems that we're talking about today if we have the money. And I think there's actually not a whole lot of discord on council right now because the money is very short. There's only so much more we can squeeze out of the organization. It's been cut drastically. We can tax ourselves more, but that gets into the affordability issue and we're already high tax place. And that leaves a discussion about growth and how do we approach that and I look forward to the discussion. We'd like to thank you all for your opening comments and we're going to start with an issue that will pose to all of you on the panel today. And it touches on something that a number of you have already raised. Last year, the council approved a new set of goals to promote more affordable housing in Ann Arbor based on a report commissioned by the Washtenaw County and Ann Arbor Office of Community and Economic Development. If elected, how will you work to implement these goals and what priority will you give them given the competing issues on the council's agenda? We'll start with Mr. Frenzel. I believe last year, Ackerman complained about being the first repeatedly, so I'll do the same. I think that it's very important for us to start off with defining what affordable housing is. It means a lot of different things to different people and in my version, what I explained in my opening remarks, to come to an understanding of where everybody's at, we have to start with the presumption that people are bringing to the table. It's critical to understand if we're talking about affordable housing for people or housing for people who are homeless, housing downtown for workforce housing. Those of us who are getting or have friends like myself who have friends who are getting priced out of the housing that they're in in the near downtown areas or what the price point is on new housing that's being developed in infill. I think each of these components has a suite of potential solutions that have implications against what we all value, what we want to accomplish. I believe strongly that solving homelessness as we've worked on throughout the community for the last handful of years is critical to the health of our community and we've done a lot of work to ensure that that's successful. The housing department has done amazing work in the last few years in leveraging funds across the system and that has helped our system and will help our system into the future for a long time. I think workforce housing is critical for us. We've spent a lot of money and are trying really hard through Spark and through a bunch of other mechanisms to ensure that students are staying here, that we have new innovative growth in businesses. We need to allow those folks a place to stay that is vibrant and accountable to the lifestyle that they prefer and there are lots of studies that show we want to have housing downtown or walkable communities walkable downtown. I think the last issue for me is it's super, super critical to have workforce housing. I hear a lot that people perceive that we push a lot of our downtown workers to live in nearby communities and that's, it's a good solution for people who want to do that but we really need to promote infill and alternative price points in the downtown area also. Thank you. I 100% agree with everything that Jason just said but I'd add on to it that we could encourage other types of housing like micro units or the accessory dwelling units which I know is a controversial issue for some in town here. It's, years ago when it was first brought up it was really controversial actually the most infamous planning issue I guess that's calling me for the planning department. Recently when it's been in discussions again I haven't seen that. I've only heard about it 10 years ago with all the pushback from it and everything that I've seen now it appears that the community is ready for it. So I would actually encourage people to get on board that and see if we can get more in density near the downtown with accessory dwelling units. There's been one development near the downtown that is micro units in it and I know that a lot of the workforce housing people who are for workforce housing really want that so it can be walkable to the downtown smaller units less more affordable. So everything that Jason said about the city encouraging more workforce housing and the homeless, helping out the homeless with the shelter and all that that's exactly what we need. I just really would like to concentrate more on the workforce housing for now. Thank you. It's a great and really important question that study was a real eye-opener for me about economic inequality in our county and how, whether you're wealthy or very poor somewhere in between that inequality impacts all of our lives. And really when we talk about a billion dollars in earnings that are lost because of that economic inequality that's, it's quite significant and something that's going to bring up some uncomfortable conversations. What we should do going forward I, there are lots of strategies. The first one I think we need to do is keep the affordable housing that we have for our most vulnerable residents through our public housing. That's something that I've worked on this last year and the liaison to the housing commission and led a group that looked at how the city is going to finance the housing commission going forward. So that's the first thing that we need to continue to do until they can become a little more economic until they become more self-sustaining economically. The second is accessory dwelling units which I fully expect will pass before anyone at this table is elected or re-elected. And the third is related to the library lot. And in selling, if we can approve a sale for that property at least or almost $5 million will end up in the affordable housing trust fund. I asked our housing director to see how much money that leverages. So often when we think about $5 million you just think, oh, well it's $150,000 per unit and you divide that into $5 million but she estimates that that money can be leveraged as high as 25 to one. So it's a real game changer for the city that $5 million could end up providing a range of housing and allow us to be innovative with many of the strategies that have been discussed in terms of, for our most vulnerable residents to re-workforce housing. Yeah, this is an important issue and it's one that wasn't short in making in terms of time. It's been evolving over the decades. So the solutions we have, there are no short-term solutions in terms of fixing the problem overall and we have to take a long-term perspective I think in looking at the plan and then executing the plan and staying with the plan to actually try and resolve the issues. I think the issues like ADUs and those are good short-term answers but they are, they're just part of the solution that they don't answer the long-term problem that we're looking at. I think the most important thing to do is as we move forward, especially if you look at the next council session coming up in December is to take a look at affordable housing. What's the next logical step? We've worked on one piece of it. What's our next step in moving forward, keeping this conversation going and keeping the initiative going so it doesn't stall with just one simple thing that we're doing. I think the issue, we've worked for housing is significant in that we are pricing out the very people we need to be living in the city and I think add to diversity across the city in terms of our workers and it's gonna take time to fix the problem and I think one of the difficult things in public life is being able to take the long-term solution and having the patience and then dedication to be able to wait and execute those plans as you go forward. Thank you. I think the first question to ask is why is housing expensive in Ann Arbor to begin with? And I think what you'll find is that it's due to expensive land prices. You can buy an affordable house outside of Ann Arbor but once you get inside the city limits you're paying a premium for where you're living. City Council though controls the supply of land to a degree with its zoning and urban planning policies. It can in effect create more and less land for development by regulating density by saying how many units can go in a certain area, how much parking is required. So I think City Council's challenge is to allow the supply of land of buildable space to increase in a way that's acceptable to existing residents. And I think the accessory unit topic is not the solution I would go for. I think it's sort of a token solution. I think it's gonna create several dozen units hopefully but several dozen new units is not gonna have a noticeable effect on the cost of living in the city. A new apartment building, a single building might have more units than 10 years of accessory dwelling building. And it also I think angers people in the neighborhoods for minimal return. So what I would favor instead is rezoning our commercial corridors. Right now we have office industrial and commercial zones right now which are zoned for strip mall style development. They have lots of large parking requirements. They don't allow many dwellings per acre. So I think we could allow more people to live in those commercial corridors and have it be a more mixed use walkable area. I think that would have more of an effect than accessory dwelling units. I also think there needs to be a way to allow in residential neighborhoods where people want neighborhood stores or to allow townhouses, a more cooperative process for allowing those changes to happen. On my website I suggest how that could be affected but the important part is we need to have in our master plan a procedure for when people in a neighborhood want to allow more density to allow it. And the final thing I think is reforming parking requirements which can be done in a way that keeps parking available for residents with a stricter version of the residential parking program that's less harmful than minimum parking requirements. Well I agree that there are a lot of tools that the city can use with zoning as one of them. Increasing density appropriately is one of them along the corridors. I think that's a really good suggestion. And I also think that we have the ability to incentivize those kinds of developments. For example, right now we give certain incentives. We allow buildings to go higher if the developers do certain things which we consider to be socially beneficial. And I think we should add workforce housing to that list of things and try to get more developers to include workforce housing which we all agree is an important one in their housing developments. Homeless housing is another issue which has been raised. It's a very difficult question. We're doing a pretty good job in Ann Arbor and Countywide. And I also think that our housing commission has been under the new leadership of Jennifer Hall, has done an extraordinary job in managing and leveraging federal resources and other resources. And that's gone a long way. But I also think that for me the accessory dwelling unit is something that needs more conversation with the neighborhoods. The whole idea of accessory dwelling units came along a long time before Airbnb did. And now that there is an Airbnb that has the potential to distort that concept so that people will build an accessory dwelling unit in their backyard and then just rent it out on a constant basis. And I think there's a lot of people who have some genuine concerns about that. So I think that in general, one of the things we have to do with these things is have a better community conversation. And in general, having a more robust community process is important for that because I think we all share those. We don't want to see Ann Arbor, we share those values. We don't want to see Ann Arbor become an enclave for the rich. At the same time, we don't want to destroy those qualities that have made it such a great place to live. So we need to balance that. But we definitely do want to figure out ways and zoning is one of those tools that we can use. Thank you. So as we've talked about this issue, there's been a couple of terms we've thrown around. One is affordable housing and the other is workforce housing. Broadly speaking, there is a sector of our population that if we can bring housing prices down to an affordable point, they can afford market rate housing. People are making $16 an hour, $20 an hour. A private developer can make money developing and renting to people making that much, particularly when you get into two family households. For example, we just had approved some new developments up on Nixon Road on the north side of town. You do the numbers on those mortgages. And some of those units are affordable for people making in that sort of workforce housing amount. So one of our goals as several people have said has to be figure out how we get zoning rules set up so that we improve the supply of housing. And it was a very attractive place to live and to work. A lot of people want to live here. That's part of what's pushing our housing prices up. If people are fighting over a very limited supply of units, it's going to push the price up. So getting the rules so that we can have enough supply to help cool that and temper that is part of the solution. Now that's not going to make, that's not going to solve the problem for people who are very low income. People who are working, who are living on SSI disability or something like that. So we also need housing solutions that address very low income people in households as well. Now that's a situation where we can't solve that problem without some form of subsidy. And I think Ann Arbor's a wealthy enough, inclusive enough community that we should be willing to do that. Now, as was mentioned, our finances are tight. We don't have a lot of extra money in our budget to put to us that we've been able to increase the supply through the housing commission's renovation somewhat. But if we're going to really move forward with that, we need to find new resources of revenue or land. One option is to use publicly owned land. Right now the county is looking at providing some affordable units on their site on Platte Road. I've been supporting that effort. Another way to do that is, as council member Graham mentioned, using the sale of city owned land to help fund that. Or a third option might be to look for a bond or a mill to try to get that money. We can let the market solve some of the workforce housing things if we get our rules right. But if we want to make sure that the very low income are attended to, we're going to need to find ways to help fund that and make up that gap. Thank you. Thanks. These have been great answers so far. And I'll echo a couple of them. Basically, we have to address the hurdles of where affordable housing can be built, or affordable market rate workforce housing can be built, and where it's going to go, how it's built and where it goes. And the way you can build it is either a direct subsidy, like through our housing program. You can incentivize affordable units to be built in new developments, although sometimes that gets a little tricky, because then you basically shift the cost onto the rest of the people in the development. And then there's ways to innovate around it. And I think Will touched on one of those, being a zoning fan myself. There are a significant number of folks today who are willing to live car light, and our parking standards are good. They're great downtown, but in terms of outside of the downtown, we're still treading in the dark ages, I think. So being able to look at ways we can house people instead of cars, I think is an important obstacle to remove going forward, just in terms of more affordable market rate housing. The opportunity with the library lot is huge. That could leverage up to 700 new units right there, if we dedicate half of that asset to the affordable housing trust fund, and I'd be willing to do that with every upcoming sale of City Land downtown. I think it's the least we can do to share with those who can't afford to live here now. And another big question it has to do with transit. Affordable housing isn't just your rent, it's how much does it cost to maintain a car? And again, there are people who would gladly trade living near their work, near school, for the opportunity to own a car full-time. So again, that comes down to parking standards and lots of policy issues we have to look at aggressively. This next question is for Mr. Westfall, Ms. Grand, and Mr. Warburowski, and it concerns regional issues. The expansion of the AATA into the ride and the sharing of fire emergency services between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti are two recent examples of regional thinking in the city of Ann Arbor's policymaking. In what ways do you or do you not believe that regionalism can help Ann Arbor in addressing some of its challenges and opportunities? And since you've answered each question last in the first success of ones, let's start with Mr. Westfall. Sure, that's a wonderful question, and you mentioned a couple of areas where I think it's been working well. Transportation does not stop at arbitrary political boundaries. We all know that in practice, it doesn't stop, but in policy and in financing, sometimes it does. So we've been able to overcome that with the ride and to some degree, some safety services. I think one thing we can point to recently was the Reimagine-Washtenau initiative where we're really looking at how people are moving through our communities and how people would like to move through them and how we can all benefit and plan for that. There are some approaches which doesn't affect the city directly, having to do with school districts and looking at what drives people to locate in certain areas. That's an issue that again falls out of the city's purview, but I think there are plenty of opportunities there. Our state, the state of Michigan does not allow or let alone incentivize many tools that are available in other states to get communities to look at problems more holistically. The townships act onto their own. They have their own budgets. They wanna get tax resources just like the city does, and even though it may not be the most efficient use of land or the most efficient use of infrastructure, they will grab that big box store and use that tax benefit. That's not the way that cities work most efficiently. It doesn't give more people access to where they need to go, but unfortunately, I think the reason why you hear so little about regionalism has to do with the fact that our hands are tied when it comes to many regional issues. Thank you. I absolutely think that regional solutions are how we need to address many of the problems. That's why I'm delighted to serve on WADS, the Washington Area Transportation Study, that helps coordinate regional transportation planning across the county, as well as the urban county with Council Member Grant that tries to address some of these housing and human service issues as a county issue. We can't solve these issues just staying in our bubble. And you pointed out to some of the successes we've had, another success I think we've had looking at regional solutions has been around addressing issues around law enforcement. The City of Ann Arbor, the Washington County Sheriff's Department have a very good relationship, a good partnership on working at how do we collaborate on improving training, improving resources, coordinating crisis response teams so that we're able to more efficiently address some of our public safety issues. So I think regionalism is absolutely important. I think one of the areas where we are at our biggest challenge is around some of these land use planning discussions. We're talking to each other about transportation. We're talking to each other about human services. At a staff level, staff are talking to each other about public safety, but we're not talking to each other about how does the zoning that ends at the edge of Ann Arbor fit in with how it starts at the edge of Sioux Township. So I think that's an area we need to do a better job at. As Council Member Westfell pointed out, one success has been the Reimagined Washtenaw Program where we've got the City of Ann Arbor, the City of Ypsilanti Township and Pittsfield Township looking at that Washtenaw Avenue transportation corridor, thinking how can we make it work better for every jurisdiction along there, and then pulling together to try to leverage federal funds to do things like close some of the sidewalk gaps on there that make it so dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists on that corridor. Using this kind of approach to some of our land use questions, I think we'll have a better approach to what can often be a very disjointed and patchwork approach to how our region gets developed. Thank you, great question. We have made some very important steps in terms of saving revenue through safety services. I know that my ward is split between two county commissioners, and I try to keep in regular contact with them about regional issues. I think there are some real opportunities in terms of land use, and recreation. I sit on the Greenbelt Advisory Commission, and we often partner with townships and other communities in the county to buy land for preservation. As Councilman Borobahowski said, we both sit on their Urban County Executive Board, and I found a real spirit on that board of cooperation where there are leaders from around the county that look at regional impact and prioritize using dollars where we can have the greatest regional impact. Councilman Borobahowski actually brought this forward. This summer it looks like we're going to be participating in the Sheriff's Program for Youth Employment, so our Parks Department is going to be providing jobs for at-risk youth within the county, so I think that's a great example. And then sometimes we are asked to lead in Ann Arbor, perhaps with a more progressive policy that if we take the first step, then others in the county will follow. I'm going to be bringing forward in a couple months a policy to raise the age of tobacco purchase to 21, and part of the reason why they asked us to do that is that they felt that if we could take the controversy here first, that it would be easier for other communities where they actually have. There's some communities in Washtenaw County that have pregnant women smoking at rates upwards of 25%, and this is one policy that can help change that going forward. Walkability and safety for cyclists has come up a couple times in answers, so a question to the fourth ward candidates. We'll start with Mr. Lipson. Do you support Ann Arbor's crosswalk ordinance and will you support more funding for improved pedestrian and cycling infrastructure going forward? You've hit my issue. Absolutely am in support of more infrastructure improvements in particular corridor lighting. I think as I said that the downtown is important, but we're ignoring our neighborhoods. The corridor between Packard, excuse me, on Packard between state and stadium is a black hole. Why isn't that being lit better? That's one of the major pedestrian corridors in the city. It's 24 seven because it's full of students and yet it's one of the worst lit areas. We've got these Cobra headed lights that are illuminating the tree tops. We have to do some creative thinking. We don't even have to spend a lot of money to re-aim lights. We just have to concentrate on this. It's the same for bicycles. Paint doesn't cost a lot and it's one of those ways in which we, when I say paint, I mean painting the lines on the road to increase the amount of bicycle lanes, for example. We really have to concentrate on those issues pretty significantly. The other issue, why is it in the fourth ward that one of the biggest high schools in the state, Pioneer High School, has horrible crosswalk markings? Why is it that stadium right now has inconsistent signs between Main Street and Liberty? There have been some serious pedestrian car accidents there and the signage is inconsistent and confusing and inadequate and we have to really pay attention to that and those are some issues which I find to be extremely important because we do wanna create a pedestrian oriented city, a city in which you do not have to rely on the car for everything. Again, we talked about mass transit. That's very important. Density is important but creating an environment where people can walk safely is crucial. To get right to your question, which is do I support the ordinance? I do support the ordinance. I know there's some confusion, there's some people, some people who support me who think that the ordinance is a problem because it differs from state law and I think we have to, and state law is also undergoing some possible changes. So it would be good to sort of coordinate that so we're not confusing drivers but overall I think that concentrating on pedestrian bicycle safety is one of my biggest priorities. We kill more people in Ann Arbor with cars than we do with firearms so I think we have to address that. Thank you. Yeah, I do support it. I think the last year we received the input from the pedestrian safety task force and I think going forward, one of the biggest challenges is counsel what we need to do or one of the things we need to take on is to look at the recommendations that that task force provided and start looking at how do we start implementing them? Where are we gonna prioritize what are some of the most important things? Mr. Lipson hit on, I think especially as a standardization of signage, of how we look at crosswalks, how we designate our signage along roads. I think that's kind of the low hanging fruit that I think we need to take on next and provide guidance to staff to say this is a priority for us as we move forward. I think also though, a long term what we have to do, we have to start thinking about not just our roads, we have to think about the mis-transportation systems. How do we travel? How are people looking to move? And as we look to design and redo, repave our roads, redo things, think of them in a holistic approach. So as we're thinking not only about the roads for cars but we need to think about for transit then how does it impact our cyclist, how does it impact walkers and other users of that because they're no longer just simply a car-centric means for folks to travel. They're multi-modal means and that's the way it's going into the future. That's what is driving folks are looking at especially millennials and we're in that transition point, we're in a paradigm shift of how we're thinking about transportation where people wanna live, how they wanna move. And it's important that we start thinking about that now and designing those roads and those networks for the future in our consideration. And we did that recently at council about how we were presenting the new millage. It's not a renewal, it's a new millage to try and take that holistic approach and how we look at our networks, our transportation networks. Thank you. So yes, I also support the crosswalk ordinance and the non-motorized transportation plan in full where I probably differ than most people though is I think the implementation of the crosswalk ordinance failed when they didn't consider the driver's voice. When they first implemented this a lot of the drivers were saying there's not enough signage, we don't know where the crosswalks are, there's people walking out from bus stops and there was pushback from all sides and it became this huge controversy because the driver was ignored. I was one of those drivers who didn't like people walking out in a crosswalk that I didn't know existed. So we definitely need more signage, we need more training and education. I would like to see some sort of education program with possibly jaywalking tickets for like one month out of the year in September so that we can train people to actually abide by the laws and the ordinances and the rules. I know that's controversial for a lot of the students but it is a driver driving around in the rain or in the dark, we don't see you. So we need people to understand that and to know to use the proper crosswalks, where there is signage and that the driver should have a voice in any of these ordinances that are for the non-motorized transportation plans that are implemented. I very much like the bike lanes. I think it keeps everybody in their place. You have the drivers in one place, the bike lanes in another place. So there are some roads here where I think that possibly the bikes should be on the sidewalks. The Washtenaw is one of them during rush hour. I think it is horrible to have a biker in that lane. In the driver's voice, we've been actually complaining about that for years. Some of the sidewalks in that area are wide enough to be a multi-use path and I wish there was signage there that would have the bikes out of the street there until we can somehow make a bike lane on that lane on that road. So yes, I'm for the crosswalk ordinance. I'm for the non-motorized transportation plan. I just wish the drivers had more of a voice in the implementation. The next question will be for Mr. Warpahowski, Mr. Lief and Mr. Frenzel. Although it's not an immediate threat on the issue of the Gelman-Bachsane plume, one suggestion for assisting in remediation of the plume has been that Ann Arbor should pursue an assessment by the EPA for designation as a superfund site. While a designation would provide federal funding to aid in cleaning up the plume, it may also bring a stigma to our community and affect the city's tax base. Would you support pursuing a superfund designation? Why or why not? We'll start with Mr. Warpahowski. Thank you. The Gelman plume is absolutely one of the, it's a long-term threat that the city needs to take seriously. It goes under my house, it goes under the fifth ward, so it's something that I'm very much concerned about. I think the reason that there's conversation now about looking at a superfund designation is because we have seen so little action by the state courts and by the State Department of Environmental Quality to really do what it's gonna take to address that long-term threat. Previously, the courts had set an obscenely high exposure level for dioxane in the water of 85 parts per billion and had a very minimalistic approach to cleaning up that plume. The State Attorney General's Office, I think, had dropped the ball in terms of properly preparing and taking the case in the courts and advocating their position in the courts. And so I'm very frustrated by what we had been seeing and have been seeing from a lot of our state bodies on addressing this. I'm seeing some signs of improvement. The state recently announced that they're gonna reduce the exposure standard from 85 parts per billion to 7.2 parts per billion, a much higher cleanup standard. And I think that that starts to set things in place where we might be able to see better outcomes working with the MDQ in the courts. I think also we're seeing the judge who had been hearing the case has since retired. That change, we may see something different there. I don't know. So in terms of the question of, this is where we've come from, where are we going now? I think that Superfund designation is something that we need to have on the table. We've asked staff to explore it and to look at some of the trade-offs. I'm not yet at the point of knowing the, having seen that analysis to say, this is the path we should take or that, but we absolutely need to continue fighting, whether it's through the courts and the MDQ or by seeking Superfund says to get this pollution cleaned up before it hits our drinking water. So my answer is it depends. And it depends on whether with this new lowered standard, not, well, it's actually a stricter standard, but now there's a lower limit to the amount of dioxane. It's now a single digit standard. If that allows us to revisit the consent agreement we have with the polluter and force them to clean up at this stricter standard, then no, we shouldn't pursue the Superfund status. We should make sure that the polluter is the one paying for the remediation. If that doesn't work though, if there's delays, if there's just more monitoring and not enough action, then I think we should pursue the Superfund designation. Super. Yeah, so this is a really intricate question that we do not have a crystal ball for the answer to because of the implications in the longterm. My initial reaction to the ultimate question is no, I'm really concerned about Superfund designation and its implications socially for our community. That is not to say, as most of you know me, that is not to say that I don't find the DEQ's actions pretty reprehensible at this point. And obviously they've reacted pretty strongly in the last couple months, but only after we, and some of our amazing community members have really pushed for decades. Unfortunately, I had to take Flint to get this onto the table also. And that is a super, super bummer. The biggest issue that I see is that the DEQ has held back any meaningful interaction with the local communities and with the EPA. They had, they intentionally raised the standard from seven and a half to 85 parts per billion. And now they've moved it back down. And it's still over twice the international limit. Totally, totally inappropriate. The concern that I have is less for our community and more for our neighboring communities. We don't know where that plume's gonna go when it hits the Huron River. There is a likelihood it's gonna flow under the Huron River and go to our neighboring communities and go into a bunch of other people's wells. And that's not okay either. I think it's critical for us to understand that we have a series of other voices and other ways to influence community change. When I worked for the city of Ann Arbor, my job in the city was to represent the community. And when I couldn't answer the question that the community needed, I said, you have elected representatives to help you change the rules if you need to. I think we need to turn the table on this one. We have a lot of community members who care a lot about this issue. We have the opportunity to leverage them to get the state to do more, to get the EPA to do more for us. And I think the voices that we've been bringing to the table while powerful and meaningful haven't been enough and we need to increase the number of people giving those folks a hard time. This next question is for Ms. Gran, Mr. Warbaowski and Mr. Westfall again and it concerns election laws. Given the trend towards lower voter turnout during August primaries, would you be in favor of Ann Arbor changing to a top two primary system where the candidates in contested primaries with the two highest vote counts, regardless of vote share or political affiliation, advance to a runoff November general election? Why and why not? And let's start with Ms. Gran. Thank you. This is an issue that as someone who's run in both in odd and even year that I've thought a great deal about, top two would not be my first choice. I think it would probably be better than what we have. Currently, which I think is disastrous for us as a community to have council members that run into your terms where half the body is running every single year. It impacts the discourse on council. It impacts our ability to build relationships with constituents. I can't tell you the number of people who'd asked me. They just can't believe that I'm actually running again for office because they feel like I just got here. Within a year in my ward, I was the senior member of council on the third ward and that's a pretty steep learning curve. Fortunately, we have great city staff and colleagues to help us along, but it's a steep curve. So my preference would be to have four year terms where we have elections every two years. I don't think that this community has the appetite right now for a nonpartisan system. I think we, even though it's unusual, feel very strongly about our partisan alliances and what that means. I think that has in part to do with the history of actually having a Republican council in not such distant memory. So we know that voter turnout doubles in even years. Just by doing that alone, we would double the turnout for council members and engage a lot more people. I think it also, we might even get better turnout because there's not so much fatigue with half the body running every year. And I think in having those four year terms that would allow us to build relationships with constituents, staff with one another and government is slow. So it would allow us to really dig deep into issues. Thank you. When I look at voter turnout numbers for city elections, I see two things that significantly drop the number of people who participate. One is when we have elections in odd years where the only thing on the ballot, people aren't in election mode. And so we see much lower voter turnout. The other thing is when our elections are in August rather than in November. So I think if our goal is to improve the number and to increase the number of people who are participating in our elections as voters, then moving to elections in even years is going to increase the number, is going to increase the participation. When I go to the election forums that I see happening particularly in presidential but also in gubernatorial years, the Western Washington Business Association is having them. The Black Chamber of Commerce is having them. The Arts Alliance is having them. There are a lot of civic groups making sure that voters are informed of what's going on. When I look at the odd year elections, that conversation isn't happening. So the city conversation is happening in a vacuum and people just aren't tuned in. So as council member Graham said, if we can move our elections to even years, we'll increase voter turnout and participation and I absolutely support that. Now the other thing is I do think that we see lower turnout with our, there ends up being the real election taking place in August. That means here I am at the University of Michigan, not Ross School, that's across the street, Ford School. Ford School and a lot of people in the room aren't in town when the decisive election takes place. That's a systemic disenfranchisement. Some states have gone to what's called a blanket primary system where people can still have the D or the R or whatever it is behind their name but then as was mentioned in the question, the top two vote getters square off in November. My understanding is that is not currently allowed under state law. So I would support changes in state law so that we could go to that system because I do think that for some people that D or that R or that I or whatever it is makes a difference. People should have that piece of information when they enter the voting booth. Since that's not available, the other option would be to go to a nonpartisan system where people would be making the decision without that piece of information. That is something I would support getting the voters on but I'd rather have the state laws that would allow us to have the blanket primary system. Thanks. This is an issue that's near and dear to me. Myself and a few others brought some election reform proposals to council last year. We felt it wasn't ready to put on the ballot that year. I intend to bring back some more suggestions this year. I would love as as Council Member Warbroski said to have a blanket type primary if people wanted to keep their partisan designations. The whole goal for me is greater turnout and how that's done is somewhat secondary. The primary offender for turnout which is almost entirely in the single digits is the odd year August election. We should not be electing council people with single digit turnout. So once you look at that and then you look at all the options then because of state election law you're shuffled into certain buckets. One is to go nonpartisan which I would be in favor of. I would also accept keeping the partisan designation as long as we can move elections either to November or into even years. The issue of four year terms was brought up. That is something that wasn't really an initiative of council but when you look at the way our wards are represented there's two in each ward. If we kept two year terms and moved to even year only that would mean that the current council colleagues would be running against each other. Everybody would be up at the same time and that doesn't feel right to many and I would tend to agree. So going to four year terms which is what most of the cities in the state do would allow you to stagger those four year terms on the even years and capture that higher turnout even if it has to be August rather than November. So there's a lot on the table. I think it's one of the foundational questions of how the city's run. Another question for the ward for candidates this time starting with Ms. Giannola. Ann Arbor built the library lane underground garage with the intention of future development at ground level. A current proposal to develop the property would earn the city $10 million half of which would go towards the city's affordable housing trust fund. The DDA put at least $5 million into infrastructure to support a building and any development will include a sizable park or plaza. Developing the property would also result in increased tax revenue for years to come. Opponents of the development called for the city to instead build a park or plaza covering the whole lot, which would require more funding. Where do you stand on this issue and why do you take that position? Well, so most people who know me know this is my issue. I've been the one advocating for a tax-paying building on the library lot for years now. I adamantly believe that we have to increase revenue in order to have nice things in the city. This is $10 million and to throw it away so that we can expand all the problems that Liberty Plaza just seems foolish to me. I realize there's a group in town here who wants to have a downtown commons in a park down there, but if that was actually wanted or needed, Liberty Plaza could function as that. We do have some events down there, but if there's not a group of people knocking on the door to try to use that plaza at all hours of the day, I think it's more of an anti-development movement for the people who want to push for a park down there. They really want no building. It's been planned for for 10 years. We've had 10 years of public input for this site and what the people of Ann Arbor have said over and over is that they want a building on this site. There are no problems with the neighborhoods around there because there is no neighborhood, it's all businesses. All those reasons that people say they don't want the large buildings on the edge of the city near the neighborhoods don't apply there. We've had so much time and money and public input invested, it seems a waste to just give it up. There's an opportunity in this spot to build a multi-use building that can activate the area. We could have a plaza there that can function just like what the anti-development people want. It'll be a building that can be iconic if we pick the right developer for it. It's really what the citizens of Ann Arbor have asked for for 10 years. So I really think this is the direction we should go. Thank you. Yeah, the library lot is, it's an interesting question. I think I was on the parks commission at the time. They did the study for parks in the downtown area and what was needed and it was looked at. The library was one of the considerations for that. And I think the idea of having a public park there is really, I don't necessarily think it's supportable. Just in how the land is designed, you're not gonna have, because of parking underneath, you're not gonna be able to plant deep trees. You're not gonna be able to have this deep green space, I think that people envision. I think what you're gonna have is an open plaza type space. And I believe that I think development in terms, in conjunction with having a plaza public area is the way to go. We can use the tax revenues good. I think it'll provide a means to activate the space, to have activity there so we can avoid some of the problems of Liberty Plaza. Because Liberty Plaza has been around for a number of years and hasn't met the aspirations, I think originally intended for the park. There's a lot of problems with it and those problems would not necessarily be solved by just putting an open public space in the library of land. I think for a number of reasons, I think the tax revenue would be good for that area. I think with, there is Desgate now 12,000 square feet, for public park there, they would provide public use in an open area that I think would be a minimal to not only the owner of the developer, but also for the library and the other neighbors and other businesses around there in terms of making it a useful and attractive space. So I do support the development of a lot. And again, I think we still have decisions to make on who the developer is in the design. Thank you. I should reveal that I am the treasurer of the Library Green Conservancy, which is the organization which has been activating for a park or a plaza on that space. That said, we're not talking necessarily about no construction on that site, although there is right now a ballot proposal which is, or a referendum which is being, petitions are being circulated, that would in fact put this to the vote of the people. And I think that's what should happen. Now I completely disagree with Ms. Giannola that the people have spoken repeatedly that they don't want a plaza or they want a building on that site. That is not the case at all. During the Mayor Hiftia's time as mayor, there was something that was called the, what was the public process that, that wasn't connecting millions before that, what was it? The Cal Thorpe, thank you, Cal Thorpe. And in that it was the only spot that was designated as a site specific recommendation but all those hundreds of people who participated was to put a common space, a civic gathering space on that site. The Park Advisory Commission did a survey of 1,608 respondents. And here's a little show and tell, these people, 76% said that that space should be a public space. I'm sacrificing the last piece of publicly owned land downtown at the altar of development I think is a mistake. We all agree that we need, we need more workforce housing. We need all sorts of things. And but trying to use this spot, which is as I say the last publicly owned spot for what I consider from what I've seen to be an overly dense development is a mistake. And I think that it should go to a vote of the people. We're going to conclude with a question that we will pose to each of you. It'll only be one minute in response time. There has been quite a bit of enthusiasm from the community recently on issues involving our parks and wildlife. And so, is there a local issue that you feel or would like to see more community involvement related to? We'll start with Mr. Westphal. This is a big one. It sounds like you were setting me up for a dear comment, but I'm going to sidestep that. I think, again, it's tough to boil all this down. I wish there was more community involvement around community involvement. And what I mean by that is, and it's something I've mentioned in my campaign materials and to folks I've interacted with, is being innovative about how we get more people from the community who aren't currently engaged in the political process to be engaged. We consistently have vacancies on different commissions. We have people running unopposed on city council. These are not healthy signs. In addition to election reform and some other things, I think we're nibbling away at it. Staff has been pretty stressed lately, so it's tough, but the idea of having a citizens academy or doing participatory budgeting or having a citizens budget, I think are some ways we can get more involvement from the community. Thank you. For me, I think the biggest issue I'd like to see more engagement around is the issue of diversity. This is something that I think goes well beyond city hall, but we certainly have some challenges to face here at city hall in terms of increasing the diversity representation of our city leadership. I keep thinking back to an incident that happened about a year and a half ago in Oakland County where a 25-year-old African-American was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy because the sheriff's department received a call that he looked suspicious because he was walking around with his hands in his pockets. Now as we look at the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement, even if the sheriff's deputy responded to that call perfectly and did everything right, there's still a problem. Not because of the sheriff's deputy's actions, but because of the issues that triggered that call. I was talking to somebody just today about how he sees on his neighborhood listserv questions of did you see a suspicious black man walking through the neighborhood? We need to deal with this issue of diversity. We need to deal with it as a city, but we also need to deal with it as a community. We need to build relationships of trust and understanding across our differences and really do the hard work to make sure that Ann Arbor is a community for everyone. Diversity is an important issue in our city. That's one of the reasons why I like Ann Arbor so much. The diversity in our school system, while my kids went to the public schools, so I think that those are issues which we have to maintain. And I should not issues. Those are the values that we need to maintain. The issue with Oro Rosser and with, as Chuck has said so eloquently, with the issues of police enforcement and neighborhoods who are paranoid of people who look differently from them. It's something that we have to constantly evaluate and constantly pay attention to. I think we have a pretty professional police force here in Ann Arbor. I think that from what I have personally observed, we have less problems than with other police forces which are more likely to be violating the law and the rights of our citizens based on their race or ethnic origin. So I think that it's one of those things that we constantly have to evaluate and be aware of. I think city council could do a better job of communicating specific proposals to the public. I am running in, here's my basic strategy. I go door to door, I hear what people tell me, what they want in the community, and then I try to propose specific ideas publicly to address those problems and based on my principles and their feedback, what can we do about it? It's not that what I write down and present publicly is necessarily what's gonna happen and I should always get my way, but by putting my proposals forward, it gives people a chance to then comment on it and say, that's a great idea, that's a terrible idea. And then we can work towards specific solutions because what we've heard thus far is I think there's a lot of agreement on the big issues about affordable housing, about making it safer pedestrians to walk, what specifically are we gonna do about it? So I would encourage people to check out the websites and the literature of all the candidates and see what are they specifically gonna do and then I think if we do a better job of presenting that, we'll get a better outcome in the end. You know, I spent the better part of my life in the military defending people's rights to vote and for their right to be able to be civically engaged. And to me, I think that's probably the most important issue to me and I agree with Councilman Westfall that for an activist community, people aren't that active. They don't get out and vote. They don't get out and identify the issues and I'll give a shout out to Mary Morgan, Civ City. I think that's a great initiative to try and get out there and get people involved. And that's the one thing I would hope people would do is take advantage of that. You know, your right to vote, it's a sacred right. And it's something I think, especially in the United States, people take for granted too easily. I mean, there's people in the world who can't vote, who aren't allowed to. And I think it's your right, that's your opportunity to say something to voice your opinion, to let candidates know and elected officials know what you think. Thank you. Thanks. My nearest resolution this year was to legislate more about people than animals. So in response to that, I think what I'd like to see is have us provide more opportunities not just for citizens to tell us what the problems are, but to also help us come up with the solutions. And that's, you know, we have efforts in the community to get that, to go in that direction. We have a couple of big issues that we're gonna be talking about on Council One is about affordability. The other is implementing the recommendations of the Pedestrian Safety and Access Task Force. And as I look towards the community, we have so much expertise here and it's how do we harness that in a positive way so that we can use that expertise to come up with solutions. I agree with everything that Julie just said, except that I actually have a problem a lot with using too many of the so-called experts out in the community. We have a problem here now with special interest groups that seem to slap up a webpage, call themselves an expert and they get special status at the city. I really wanna encourage regular residents who aren't part of any special interest group to speak their mind, to come out and before something instead of just against everything. We never have the people who come out and actually like some of the policies. They don't feel it's needed and I really think they need to be able to just come out and say what they like and that's what I would encourage people to do. Oh, dear. I'm not always punny, but it helps people become more engaged. So I'll address the potential question that you were going to ask. The dear call was really controversial and I don't think it needed to happen that way. I think we had plenty of time to get ahead of that conversation. The staff knew that this was coming long before it became public. I knew about it as a bystander two years before it became a public debate. The staff have the ability, the expertise, the knowledge to deliver high quality services to us. I believe that the laws and the rules that we pervade onto them and that they live within prevent them from actualizing as many tools as they could have in their tool shed. I propose that we bring the citizens and the staff more tools to engage in different meaningful ways, different types of interactions. When I work for the city, I help both the parks planning staff and the planning staff in whole, create new strategies to engage the citizens that were implemented while I was at the city and afterwards and I believe have had meaningful effect. Well, we want to extend our thanks from our class, from myself to all of the candidates here. I thought we had some very concise and thoughtful answers today. Our thanks go out to close up for making this available to people through the live stream and to everyone who attended. We thank all of you for being here this year and we'll be doing this again next spring with the next group of council members and again, our thanks to the council members for participating today. Thank you.