Outreach Notebook

Hello and welcome to #eastannarbor. Thanks for joining us today Sunday March 20. This week’s outreach notebook will cover some of the upcoming county races for the current all Democratic Party Washtenaw County Commission, the county racial equity participatory budget project, and a brief #A2Council primer for the meeting on Monday March 21 at 7pm.

Yep, the outreach notebook this week is a bit light on reports from, what we consider, actual outreach and instead is more a preview of what’s to come. So it goes…

County election pre-preview

In late February of this year current state rep for Ann Arbor, Yousef Rabhi announced he plans to run for what amounts to his old seat on the commission. However, as of this morning when we checked the county spreadsheet of unofficial candidates, he has yet to pull petitions and file to run in district 8. Jason Morgan is currently in that commission seat but is now running for state rep this year in essentially Yousef’s current seat. We say “essentially” because the districts have been altered through the work of the statewide independent citizens redistricting commission (MICRC).

Here’s a screenshot of the spreadsheet linked-to above:

As you can see above, it looks like Caroline Sanders and Justin Hodge have already indicated intent to run again for their Ypsi-area seats. Meanwhile Morgan Foreman has announced for District 6 and looks to be challenging former Ypsilanti City Council member Ricky Jefferson for that seat. You can see an interview with Morgan here with #eastannarbor friends Dez and Alex from a few weeks back on the What’s Left Ypsi Sunday morning chat that typically airs on Facebook live at 11am here.

In fact, you might want to take a break now (if it’s 11am or so Sunday March 20 when you are reading this) and check out their live conversation with Kelsey Heck Wood who’s running for the newly created state senate district covering half of Washtenaw county including parts of the Ypsilanti area. No worries if you miss it, they record and post these Sunday morning chats to the What’s Left Ypsi Facebook page linked-to above.

Others who’ve filed for re-election include longtime commissioner Andy LaBarre from Ann Arbor, who in part represents the geographic area known as East Ann Arbor. Jason Maciejewski is running again in District 1 which covers Chelsea and Scio Township. Katie Scott has thrown in again to represent District 9 on the west side of Ann Arbor. Sue Shink is running for state senate in another newly created district and Crystal Lyte, current Eastern Washtenaw County Democratic Party chair, looks to run in District 2 covering Whitmore Lake, much of Barton Hills and rural Webster Township.

Washtenaw County Participatory Budgeting Project

Much of what these county commissioners do is approve and disperse resources from federal and state sources to different areas of the county. This year, in addition to another set of Federal ARPA funds, commissioners will be moving through the processes for a four-year plan for county budget needs as well as approve the 2023 budget. Some, including yours truly, have had concerns about how the county budgets its dollars in light of specific regional geographic and racial disparities vis a vis poverty, job opportunities and transportation. Survivors Speak, a civil rights organization lead by Trische’ Duckworth, recently led the charge at the county commission to use $8M of the last round of ARPA disbursements to fund grassroots organizations from typically marginalized populations on the east side of our county.

A group facilitated by ICPJ is working to bring community members from marginalized populations together to learn about and advocate for county budget measures that address disparities by race, income, zip code etc. Full disclosure, yours truly is working with ICPJ staff and other local organizers on this project.

Organizing meetings are being held weekly, the next one being this Tuesday March 22 beginning at 515pm. Send a note to: Info@ICPJ.org to sign up for any level of commitment to participate.

#A2Council Preview for Monday March 21, 7pm

Here is the agenda for this week. There are no public hearings this week. However, you can sign up to speak at council general public comment time. Take a look at this document we created a couple years ago to show folks how to sign up to speak during general public comment time.

The resolution with the most significance this week is DC-3 which proposes that Council hire current interim city administrator Milton Dohoney on a permanent basis. In addition to other regular duties, Mr Dohoney has thus far demonstrated a willingness to meet residents where they are at in terms of planning for a new unarmed community crisis response unit. We hope to hear a good discussion of his accomplishments in the 8 months or so he has served in the city’s top administrative position. Ann Arbor has a weak mayor system of government and thus Ann Arbor is poised to put it’s first black administrator in 40 years to the city’s top spot of governance indefinitely.

#eastannarbor friends at Damn Arbor typically publish a council meeting primer the day of the meeting. Look for that tomorrow Monday March 21 on the website linked-to above or on the #A2Council hashtag on Twitter

You can look for a special edition of #eastannarbor about the proposed *re-zoning* of the State St/ Eisenhower Pkwy transit corridor in what would be our first TC-1 district. This change would allow property owners in the 68 identified parcels to build dense, mixed use developments along this key transit corridor. The goal, in part, of implementing this district is to increase available affordable transit options for current and incoming residents. This rezoning ordinance will likely come back to council for a second reading and a public hearing during the April 4, 2022 council meeting. The #eastannarbor special edition should be out a few days prior to this meeting.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to send us feedback, questions/comments to the comment section below or to kulanova at gmail dot com.

We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been there. See everyone next Sunday March 27 with another #eastannarbor outreach notebook.