Outreach Notebook Sunday June 19, 2022
Keeping An Eye On Agendas II, Platt Rd Design, A2 To Fund Gap in County New Human Services Partnership, A Smattering Of Live Music
Welcome back everyone to another Outreach Notebook [ON]. This one is for the week of Sunday June 19, 2022. To get ON delivered free to your inbox every Sunday at 10am»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>
NOTE: WE WILL SEND A SPECIAL FATHER’S DAY ADDENDUM AT 12NOON TODAY JUNE 19, 2022. HAPPY FATHER’S DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE!
KEEPING AN EYE ON AGENDAS PART II
Last week we covered some of the online methods of getting to agenda items for Ypsi City Council and for Ypsi Township. This week we look at the County and at Ann Arbor online offerings for private residents and others to track agendas.
WASHTENAW COUNTY
It is fairly easy to get basic info from the main county webpage about upcoming agendas and proposals. It can take a bit of searching and scrolling, however, to find full text of proposals one reads in the agenda items. We may be missing a simple link or something to help expedite this. If you have any handy tips how to find text of current and previous County legislation……
Here is what the county page for “agendas and minutes” looks like when you get to it. To see available items click on the “download” drop down window and then on the files you want.
In order to get to info other than past videos and 400-page pdf packets, you will have to s p e n d t i m e…. We can draw a bit of contrast between access to legislative info on the county webpage vs. the A2 city webpage.
ANN ARBOR
The city uses “Legistar” to file documents, track agendas, live video. While not the most accessible software for folks who are more casual local politics participants, you can more readily find documents and such once you learn how to use the software.
After you click on “Minutes & Agendas,” you’ll be taken to a page that looks something like this. When you first do this, your page will look different because legistar indexes where you last left off using the software. Believe it or not, we were last looking at city council meeting agendas 😮 Yes, shocking…we know.
Take a look below for the above image noting the dropdown windows to find your city body and info for the particular meeting and/or agenda item in question.
- You can configure legistar to your own preferences as well as subscribe for notices about boards you want to follow, e.g., Planning Commission or Housing and Human Services Advisory Board [HHSAB].
- Use this drop down to choose the board whose minutes and agendas you would like to search.
- Here decide the time frame/ year in which you are searching
- Put keywords here
That should get you started on using the city software. It’s a bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, legistar is a fairly useful civic tool.
PLATT RD DESIGN AND REPAIRS
EAA Reader Ed Vielmetti tagged yours truly on a Twitter thread about an agenda item for A2 Council on Tuesday June 21 [Meeting moved from regular Monday 7pm slot in observance of Juneteenth]. There is another otherwise light agenda for which Damn Arbor is sure to offer a preview by the day of the meeting.
Fellow resident Eric posted a thread about item CA-7 Platt Road Improvements City-State Agreement. Start here if you would like to read the entire thread. Eric’s criticism is not so much the dollar amount but instead the likelihood that this is a once-in-a-generarion chance to redesign a poorly designed, car-centric “stroad” that lacks a significant amount of non-motorized transit infrastructure.
What do you think?
A2 FUNDING FOR GAP IN NEW HUMAN SERVICES PARTNERSHIP [NHSP]
Another item we found on the #A2Council agenda for Tuesday June 21, 2022 is CA-5 which looks to be the remaining dollars for the NHSP that was only partially funded at the previous Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners [BOC] meeting.
The proposal before council is for a plan to fund a portion of the ~$1.2M gap in funding for critical life and quality of life-sustaining case management and mental health support services. We expect this should not be controversial, but wanted to note this is happening.
Offered without further comment.
A Smattering Of Live Music
Thanks for reading! We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been there™ See you all next week!
