On January 8, 2025, Ryan Stanton of MLive reported on a $50,000 payment made to former Council Member Zachary Ackerman. He referred to it as a “hiring snafu.”
The snafu unfolded like this: Last fall, Ackerman applied for a job as “Director of Housing and Economic Development” with the City’s Housing Commission. His plan was to continue living in California and travel to Ann Arbor one week a month. Based on conversations with City staff, he believed that he had the job on those terms and gave notice to his then-employer. He was later informed that such an arrangement would violate City policy and he could not be hired. The City gave him a legal settlement of $50,000 based on the misunderstanding.
Not reported by MLive: I filed a FOIA request about this payment two days before Christmas, after my husband happened to find it in the City’s A2OpenBook financial system. Also before Christmas, I reached out to Stanton and asked if he knew anything about the payment; he did not.
Since leaving political office, I have mostly written about local politics in the third person, from the perspective of an outside observer (albeit with relevant experience as a former insider). Much of what I’ve written below is in the first person – I believe it could be instructive for outsiders who are curious to learn more about the work of their local government.
BACKGROUND
The $50,000 payment to Zach Ackerman was published in the City’s online record of spending, called “A2OpenBook.”
Link to A2OpenBook: https://www.a2gov.org/departments/finance-admin-services/financial-reporting/a2openbook/pages/default.aspx (Click on “Vendor Payments A-Z”, search for the letter “A”)
UPDATED LINK: https://www.a2gov.org/finance-and-administrative-services/financial-reporting/a2openbook/vendor-payments-a-z/
The A2OpenBook page on the City’s website is comprehensive: every expense and payment made by the City, under every City department. It is, frankly, more tedious than interesting. Last month, my husband happened to be looking at A2OpenBook, looking for something else entirely.
In browsing A2OpenBook for information, the payment to Zach Ackerman stood out.
Ackerman now lives in California, but he maintains strong connections to the Ann Arbor community and has family here. According to LinkedIn, he consults with Avalon Housing. On October 27, 2024, he was in town and knocked on my door. When I answered, he identified himself as “volunteering for the Harris campaign” and reminded me to vote. According to A2OpenBook, the payment to Zach Ackerman was made on October 11, 2024, a couple of weeks before he knocked on my door.
One detail of the A2OpenBook record – describing that $50,000 as paying for “Legal Expenses” in the “Community Development” service unit – was legitimately puzzling. Ackerman is not an attorney and has no qualifications to provide legal services.
The FOIA request I filed before Christmas was finally available this week. I received 172 pages of materials.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
With a few exceptions, all communications made by City employees and elected officials about City business are considered public records. Anyone can request these public records. For larger requests, the City can assess fees/charges for the time required to find the records and redact personal details from them. The City has an obligation to provide these records in a reasonable amount of time: five business days after receipt, which can be extended to ten business days. (Requests are considered “received” on the first business day AFTER they are emailed.) You can see a history of recent FOIA requests on the City’s website:
https://www.a2gov.org/departments/city-clerk/Pages/FOIA-Requests.aspx
I filed a FOIA request on Monday, December 23, 2024. The observed holidays of Christmas and New Years gave the City extra time to respond, i.e. four days did not technically count as “business days.” On December 30, 2024, the FOIA coordinator emailed me the helpful suggestion that
“Your request will generate a large deposit requirement because of its breadth, in particular the request that all employees search their phones for responsive records. Would you like to narrow the request to specific departments or individuals?”
She referred to a requirement for deposits on FOIA requests that generate a fee/cost. I responded immediately with an edited request.
On January 3, 2025, I was notified that the response time for my FOIA request was extended due to the amount of staff time required to process it. It was estimated to generate a total cost of $168.37 and I would have to pay a deposit of half: $84.19. I delivered a check to the City Clerk’s office the same day.
Earlier this week (January 13, 2025), the City’s response to my FOIA was available as soon as I paid the remaining cost: $84.18. I again delivered a check. The files – 172 pages of documents – were emailed to me within the hour.
I filed a FOIA request on December 23, 2024 and received the results on January 13, 2025: ten “business days” translated to 21 calendar days. MLive published a story last week (January 8, 2025), before any documents were released.
FOIA REQUEST: RECORDS RELEASED
The 172 pages of documents I received this week invite more questions. What I learned:
The Executive Director of the Housing Commission (a City staffer) sent Ackerman details about a job even before it was officially posted. Ackerman continued regular one-on-one communication with the Executive Director throughout the job application and interview process. (In notes below, “City staff” refers to the Executive Director.) Other details:
- The listed annual salary for this job was $100,000 to $120,000, but somehow public advertising and recruitment attracted only two candidates– one other besides Ackerman. Interview notes indicate that her experience was “more HR and internal”; she had “no experience” with zoning and site plan approval.
- In response to Ackerman’s request to “chat through timeline and competition” for the job, City staff responded with “I can call you later today.”
- Four days after his interview, Ackerman contacted City staff (privately) for confirmation that he had the job, with the caveat “I don’t expect any promises.” After a phone call with City staff, he announced that he had given notice to his then employer: “Notice given.”
- Ackerman acknowledged that only the Human Resources department could provide official confirmation that he received the job. Communication between him and City staff includes references to HR: “once I get the letter” and “just an fyi no offer yet.”
- Ackerman was sent information about a “TOD site” project that not even other City employees were involved in: “I have involved Arin and Tom in all of the projects except this one.” (Note: in this context, TOD likely refers to “Transit Oriented Development.”)
- When Ackerman realized he might not be hired, he included Mayor Christopher Taylor in communications. He explained: “I’ve copied Christopher on this since his name was mentioned in the decision marking process [sic]”.
A LEGAL SETTLEMENT
On October 10, 2024, the City signed an agreement for a legal settlement with Zach Ackerman. The agreement included the $50,000 payment as well as these terms:
WHEREAS, The Parties dispute whether Candidate reasonably relied on a verbal offer of employment from the Executive Director who did not, in fact, have such authority to make an offer;
In consideration of the promises and the release of all claims set forth in this Agreement, the City will pay Candidate a one-time $50,000 lump sum payment. Payment will be made within 30 days of the full execution of this Agreement.
Candidate agrees that he will not retain and will take affirmative steps to identify, collect and confidentially shred any and all copies of any City or Ann Arbor Housing Commission documents acquired through the recruitment and hiring process,
WHY THIS MATTERS
The $50,000 payment to Zach Ackerman was mis-identified in A2OpenBook as “Legal Expenses” when it was, in fact, a legal settlement. Talking to MLive, City Administrator Milton Dohoney referred to it as a settlement. That distinction is significant because it is the difference between a payment that appears on a public agenda of City Council and one that does not.
In 2021, Ann Arbor voters approved a City Charter amendment, raising the spending limit for the City Administrator to $75,000. However, that spending limit applies only to the purchase of goods and services:
“The dollar limit within which purchases may be made and contracts for services entered into, without the necessity of Council approval shall, in no case, exceed $75,000.00”
Since that charter amendment, legal settlements for much less have been properly placed on City Council agendas for a public vote of approval. For an example, see this resolution from August 2022:
It’s unclear why a payment as high as $50,000 was appropriate as a legal settlement. Ackerman told MLive that he never threatened litigation. The process of litigation would have forced him to prove that the City was at fault and also prove a measure of damages. The job he was denied paid an annual salary of $100,000 to $120,000, so the settlement he received amounts to five or six months salary. He received this payment about three weeks (22 days) after giving notice to his current employer. Ackerman told MLive that he also has a consulting business (Homeward Advisory) and does work for Avalon Housing. The City seems to have paid him $50,000 to shred and destroy privileged information.
The payment is problematic for other, less legalistic reasons. Our City leaders have professed a commitment to making City employment opportunities available to a more diverse pool of candidates. Just last year, City Council unanimously approved a resolution to implement anonymous hiring practices, so that a diversity of candidates are regularly considered for City jobs and the hiring process is less vulnerable to bias or discrimination early on:
Ackerman’s application for this job was not treated in a way that was even close to anonymous. His near-hiring is much worse than mere bias or discrimination. He was personally invited to apply for the job and had unique individual access to the people making decisions. When problems surfaced, Ackerman apparently hoped for intervention from a friend at City Hall: Mayor Christopher Taylor. Ackerman served on City Council from 2015 to 2020, under Mayor Taylor.
When Taylor is held responsible for things that residents think he should fix, he is quick to point out that we have a ‘weak mayor’ system of government. This is true: the City Administrator, not the Mayor, is tasked with hiring and oversight of City staff. It’s unclear why Ackerman says that Taylor was “mentioned in the decision marking process [sic].”
NEXT STEPS
I have filed another FOIA request, for more communications related to this payment.
I am reluctant to publish all 173 pages of my original FOIA request, because it does include notes about the one other candidate who applied for this job. If you are interested in seeing it, just email me. Alternatively, you can also request it directly from the City. (Once a request for documents has been paid for, it is freely available to anyone else who requests it.) My FOIA request is number 3071 and you can request it here:
https://www.a2gov.org/departments/city-clerk/Pages/FOIA-Request.aspx
I am grateful for donations I have received from readers of this blog. Your donations paid for this FOIA request and also pay for the costs of hosting this website.