Outreach Notebook April 10, 2022

Every 2nd Saturday of the month, a collective of local mutual aid organizations, the Washtenaw County Health Department/ Packard Health and the Huron Valley Democratic Socialists of America gather at a local parking lot in Ypsilanti. The Pullover Prevention [POP] event offers those who come out free car maintenance and minor repairs like fixing taillights, Covid testing and vaccines, harm reduction supplies, free meals and tents/sleeping bags/camp gear for folks who are staying outside while waiting for housing in our communities.

Yesterday Saturday April 9 the event was held at Masjid Ibrahim on Ford Blvd. in Ypsilanti Township. Your friend from #eastannarbor was there. We caught up with Pat and Sheri from Peace House, Ypsi who were distributing harm reduction supplies: narcan, condoms and other supplies to help people who use drugs in our community do so more safely and are less likely to contract/spread disease.

Sheri and Lisa [in above image, to Sheri’s left] also coordinate Pet Pals Mutual Aid which distributes pet food and helps local residents either houseless, housing insecure or otherwise lower income feed and care for their pets. Below is a smattering of some of the food and harm reduction supplies they were distributing yesterday.

While #eastannarbor was hanging out talking with folks, we were offered a chicken shawarma sandwich by local organization FED Up Ministries. Delicious. We showed up at just the right time :)

We then noticed the sign below and headed over to the Washtenaw County Health Department mobile unit van. We spoke with Debbie who has been working for the department for some time and who just became an certified Community Health Worker [CHW]. Congrats Debbie! See her in one of the images below ready to engage POP attendees for Covid testing, vaccines and other basic health checks: blood pressure and blood sugar screenings.

Debbie helped #eastannarbor sign-in for a 2nd Covid booster vaccine. They had both the Moderna and Pfizer versions of the vaccine. This service is provided through a collective effort of the Health Department and Packard Health. If you come in May for the next event and want to get a booster, you can bring your vaccine card with you so one of the nurses can update it once you get the shot. But never fear, if you show up for some reason without your card, as did yours truly, they can use the state database to look you up and will give you an updated card with all of the doses/lot numbers etc.

Thanks to everyone involved in POP. Here are the numbers from a post on the Peace House, Ypsi facebook page linked to at the top of this post: “21 cars! 22 vaccines! 11 car seats! 67 meals! 35 people for masks/Covid tests, almost 40 snack bags, countless hygiene kits, socks, wound care kits, Narcan, fentanyl test strips and other harm reduction supplies!”

We are heading into a busy election year. Midterm elections will be held for congressional seats, state reps/state senators, also our local county commissioners and city council elections are on the front burner. There are also several judicial seats open. This year the term of Judge David Sawyer is up and he is unable to run again due to age requirements. His current seat is on The Michigan Court of Appeals District 3, which includes: Allegan, Barry, Berrien, Calhoun, Eaton, Ionia, Jackson, Kent, Mason, Montcalm, Muskegon, Newaygo, Oceana, Ottawa, Van Buren, and Washtenaw counties.

The state court of appeals is the second highest court in our state. There are 25 judges total serving in panels of three. These panels are responsible to ensure that lower courts are applying the law fairly in their decision-making. The last time a new judge was elected in this district was 1995, nearly 30 years ago.

Enter Kerene Moore, a local attorney who has represented over 1K low-income Michigan residents at Legal Services for South Central Michigan as well as managed cases at the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and Washtenaw County Trial Court.

We are headed into the last week to get signatures on her nomination petitions with a final deadline of April 19, 2022 for those to be turned in. She needs 8-10K valid signatures from registered voters within the District 3 counties mentioned above. Kerene is close to the goal, but could use our help with a final push this week.

In addition to being highly qualified for this position, Kerene is also a resident of East Ann Arbor, living over in the Mitchell neighborhood.

Why should we elect Kerene?

Her experiences fighting for low-income residents and work on civil rights alone makes her the best choice for this judicial seat. District 3 also currently has no person of color serving on its bench and only 2 of the 5 judges are women.

You can go here to sign up and volunteer to collect signatures. Kerene is also quick on email so if you prefer, send an email to kmooreforjudge at gmail dot com. Yours truly picked up a couple of petitions to fill right before heading out to Pullover Prevention and will be hitting some neighborhood doors next week.

Addendum: TC1 essay

We published an op-ed essay re: transit corridor development in Ann Arbor last week originally on Damn Arbor, then cross-posted here on #eastannarbor. A reader had a question about support for the claim that more residents living near existing bus service lines would result in more frequent and expanded bus services justified by an increase in ridership.

Most of the evidence of course is in case studies, which can be indicators of trends in different cities. However, we would stop short of claiming any correlation and/or cause/effect relationships. The results in other cities where transit corridor development has occurred can inform our implementation, but won’t be an exact predictor for the effects these zoning districts will have.

Here are some references for cases where other municipalities are working on this same problem:

Above is an excerpt from a slide presentation about Bus Rapid Transit corridor selection for the city of Madison, Wisconsin

Here is an overview of case studies across the US

Here is a case study overview from San Jose State University with recommendations for overcoming land use barriers in the implementation of transit oriented districts.

Finally today, we celebrate one-month of outreach reporting from #eastannarbor. We are grateful for your readership as well as participation in local efforts for justice in our communities. Over the past month we have published an outreach notebook every Sunday as well as a longer form essay on transit corridor development and implications for our city. Fifty-seven [57] people have signed up for a free subscription which brings you this outreach notebook every Sunday by 10am. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so here:

We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been there. See you all next week for another Outreach Notebook on #eastannarbor.