We endorse Jane Lumm for mayor. Lumm, a Republican, spent five years on the City Council ending in 1998 and understands the complex issues facing Ann Arbor, especially ones tied to spending, revenue and taxation. She knows that the city’s financial problems are as much about spending as they are about lost revenue.
And, Lumm most notably differs from Hieftje in her willingness to be forthright. She would work tirelessly for the good of the city, and has a profound commitment to public participation by residents. She knows how to lead, in part, because she values input.
Hieftje’s largest failure is not one of vision, but leadership.
And it stems from a reflexive defensiveness that too often pushes any dissenting or questioning voices from the table. Instead of building lasting coalitions, Hieftje opts for short-term wins that are relatively easy to accumulate because Democrats hold such an overwhelming majority on the City Council.
Hieftje’s ongoing reluctance to an open, public process was evident during the successful campaign for the Greenbelt. Given the opportunity to pull all sides together, Hieftje instead cast a complex issue in the simplest of terms and treated opponents with legitimate and substantive questions as villains.
—Murph Oct. 24 '04 - 09:32PM #
Hieftje’s campaign site…as far as I can tell doesn’t exist. Googling is giving me links to this site, my site, AAIO, The Bunker, and Goodspeed Update, none of which are as flattering as the mayor would probably want—but I can’t find anything lookin’ like a campaign site.
—Murph Oct. 25 '04 - 12:56AM #
She seems strangely a bit worried about maintaining Greenbelt parcels… seeing as they are supposed to be mainly just purchases-of-development-rights, I’m not sure why the city would have any part in paying for their maintenance: “if we can’t afford to maintain our own city parks, will we fund any maintenance, restoration, or development costs for the Greenbelt parcels.” I think the landowners would be in charge of that, no?
Parks, parks, parks. Why is this town so obsessed with parks? Parks seem to me like a peripheral issue, especially as we seem to have more of them than we know what to do with. They never even seem all that busy when I on occasion visit them… do Annarbourites just like the idea of “green space” in theory because it soothes their white liberal guilt?
—Brandon Oct. 25 '04 - 02:31AM #
“for non-greenbelt funds, we must immediately reassess the allocation of spending between maintenance and acquisition. Also, approval of new acquisitions should be accompanied by a plan and clear understanding of how the maintenance—now and in the future—will be funded. There have been a few instances recently where park and open space acquisitions have been used as a tool to stop development, even though the parks experts (staff and PAC) had indicated the parcels did not include high quality natural features or were not suited for recreational parks. That isn’t sound planning.”
Doesn’t sound to me like she’s planning to go on a mad NIMBY park-buying spree…
—Murph Oct. 25 '04 - 01:21PM #
—Brandon Oct. 25 '04 - 01:30PM #
Now, I too would STRONGLY prefer that she hold Hieftje’s feet to the fire on the density issue rather than the spending-ratio issue, since he’s much more flagrently dropped the ball on density, but I kind of think that, in an election year where tens of thousands of fresh young voters are going to turn out with “Democrat good! Republican bad!” burned into their retinas, Lumm has to be as un-inflammatory as possible. Even still, I think she’s going to lose, both because of this city’s Democratic/Cowherd political machine and because of the current party-line polarity.
—Murph Oct. 25 '04 - 03:10PM #
—Brandon Oct. 25 '04 - 09:02PM #
Baba au Lumm. Bacardi Lumm on the rocks.
...But what’s worse is that she doesn’t even like admitting her Repub identity, see
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-10/109619348671600.xml .
—David Boyle Oct. 25 '04 - 09:26PM #
—Brandon Oct. 26 '04 - 04:31PM #