On April 28, 2025, MLive published a story about a public comment made at City Council by our current Mayor Christopher Taylor. Taylor made the public comment in 2008, right after he had won a primary election but before he was first seated as a Council Member. A recording of his comment was recently posted on the City’s YouTube cable channel, CTN.
You can read the MLive story here:
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2025/04/ann-arbors-pro-development-mayor-once-had-grave-concerns-about-high-rise.html
You can watch the comment on CTN here: (time stamp 17:43)
https://youtu.be/vLann12aM2M&t=1063
I actually prompted this story, quite unintentionally. I filed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that prompted CTN to post that meeting from 2008.
BACKGROUND
In addition to following the work of elected leaders on City Council, I have been tracking the decisions made by mayoral appointees on our City Planning Commission (CPC). The CPC discusses and recommends policy and ordinance changes that are then sent to City Council for a vote. Tracking the work of the CPC is a sort of “sneak peak” at what Council will soon be deciding.
One policy change recently discussed at the CPC: repealing a requirement that developers of larger projects send postcards to near neighbors and host a meeting to discuss details of what they have planned.
https://a2gov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7251200&GUID=2EC1DE3D-A2D5-4418-9381-6998CF0A88A8
Since 2022, I have aimed to record as many of these meetings as I can (either online or in-person), for the benefit of residents who were not able to attend and anyone else who might be curious to see these developer presentations. You can find my collection of these meetings on my website, under “Public Meetings”:
https://a2council.com/category/public-meetings/
I also have a “Public Meetings” playlist on my YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@a2elnel/playlists
When I noticed that the Planning Commission recommended eliminating the requirement that developers of large projects send postcards and host neighborhood meetings, I was curious to understand the history of the policy. I quickly found the date when it was last discussed: 2008. Detailed meeting minutes of a 2008 City Planning Commission included some familiar names: Eppie Potts, Jean Carlberg, Joan Lowenstein, and Kirk Westphal. City Council meeting minutes from 2008 were less detailed and video recordings of those meetings were not available on the City’s YouTube channel (CTN).
I filed a FOIA request for the two meetings when City Council discussed this policy, at both first reading (August 7, 2008) and second reading (September 8, 2008).
MLive reported on Christopher Taylor’s participation as a public commenter at one of those meetings when he was not yet a member of City Council. Taylor spoke out against a proposed 25 story downtown highrise, advocating on behalf of his own Ward 3 neighbors. He argued that neighborhood concerns were legitimate and should be heard.
I did not even know that this comment existed when I filed my FOIA request for this meeting.
THEN AND NOW
In social media, I’ve seen defensive reaction to Taylor’s 2008 remarks. One current Council Member borrowed language from Sarah Palin, accusing me of “manufacturing” a “gotcha” moment with my FOIA request. Taylor’s 2008 remarks contrast sharply with current political messaging, such as:
- Residents must accept gentrification and disruption for the sake of “equity”
- Community needs are best served by deregulation and the free market (“supply and demand”)
- Public engagement and debate is an obstacle to “efficiency”
- Policy should meet the needs of hypothetical people rather than current residents
- Any thoughtful skepticism around anything is simply selfish “NIMBYism.”
Though MLive reported on only the August 2008 meeting, I would encourage people to watch the September 2008 meeting, also. That meeting includes specific discussion about the public engagement requirements soon to be repealed by City Council (the CPC has already recommended repeal).
At time stamp 1:43:54, former Council Member Sabra Briere introduced the topic, explaining the value of engaging residents, the purpose of requiring those postcards and neighborhood meetings:
https://youtu.be/bxNtNlzXuTo&t=6234
In years past, Ann Arbor embraced a local democracy that included the diversity of stakeholders and perspectives in our community. I have explored this history a little bit in interviews on my YouTube channel. In years past, the exercise of debate in public meetings helped the City anticipate unintended consequences, innovate better solutions, and find compromise. Until very recently, leaders elected from different parts of town regularly offered different perspectives, advocating for the interests of the residents they actually represented.
Since 2022, we approach democracy very differently.
Now, an elected body that votes unanimously 98% of the time – reciting pre-written scripts – claims to offer “good government.” Where previously Council supported policies of oversight in the public interest, they now promote deregulation, to meet the needs of profit interests and investors. We are told that prioritizing residents and the local community is wrong. Some Council Members have suggested they have no particular obligation to prioritize local residents at all. Current elected leaders claim to craft policy for the future, but most especially for the capital interests who want to invest here. The City Administrator now regularly compares City policy to “good business.”
PROBLEM OR OPPORTUNITY?
The last few years have demonstrated how easily elected leaders can aggressively (and successfully) work to reduce transparency and their own accountability to residents.
Decisions have been delegated to the unelected, e.g. site plans and traffic configurations are now approved by mayoral appointees and staff. Decisions have been driven out of the public eye and opportunities for public input have been wholly eliminated, e.g. open public comment was removed from Council meetings and the Brownfield Plan Review committee – which reviews millions of dollars in subsidy for private developments – was dissolved. Policies designed to prioritize neighborhood engagement and neighborhood buy-in have been eliminated. E.g. One elected leader described a requirement for majority approval of local street changes as a “veto.” Up is down and down is up.
In a community like ours, people already tend to be more engaged with and aware of policy happening at the national and state level than they are at the local level. Depending on who we elect, that situation can be viewed as either a problem or an opportunity. In recent years, we have had leaders who, unfortunately, view the lack of engagement as an opportunity.
The “opportunity” for elected leaders: the substance of their work is less visible to the broader community. When the community is less aware, our elections become a contest of money and marketing rather than serious debates about substance and policy.
In the last budget cycle, City Council approved using $100,000 of City budget to market themselves.
This month, residents have received mailers sent by the City to promote current elected leaders to the community. These mailers include lengthy explanation of the work and accomplishments of Council Members and the Mayor. The City intended to send Ward-specific information to each resident, but I know of at least two people who received information about a Ward they do not live in.
For anyone who does not know: you paid for that mailer, it was funded by your tax dollars. It is also something new that the City has never spent money on before. In May 2024, this $100,000 expense was added to the City budget by amendment. The Council Administrative Committee spent months excitedly discussing how to spend this new budget. The expenditure was justified by elected city leaders who now casually compare themselves to State Representatives and members of Congress.
STRATEGIC EXCLUSION
We see plenty of evidence that our leaders would prefer that most residents stay out of the way. Updates to a Comprehensive Land Use Plan have been discussed at meetings dominated by a handful of cheerleaders and campaign donors. Elected leaders urge us to “respect the process” that has managed to exclude thousands of residents who are only just now learning about it for the first time.
In November 2018, more than 26,000 voted to approve a charter amendment to retain a City asset. This August, a tiny fraction of voters will decide whether to repeal that amendment as well as vote to give away a $10 million dollar City asset to private development. The last time the City held an August election in an odd year, a TOTAL of only 10,000 people showed up. City Council intentionally and unanimously voted for a process that will allow a tiny number of voters un-do the decision of a much larger number of voters. Wherever anyone lands on this issue, you should be stunned by this maneuver. Not a single elected representative has expressed any concerns.
WHY THIS MATTERS
As a country, we are noticing what it looks like when politics are less representative, when people don’t participate. We see what it looks like when power is driven by a minority of people behind the scenes but the consequences are felt by a majority.
We now have elected leaders who propose that democracy itself – both representative and participatory – is no longer a value but rather an obstacle. This is not normal and it is not righteous. The 2008 video of Mayor Taylor’s public comments are remarkable because they are a reminder of what democracy is SUPPOSED to look like, when people care about it and understand what it means.
The question for everyone in Ann Arbor: do we believe that our democracy and elected leaders should promote participation and inclusion or do we believe in the kind of political systems – concentrated power, behind the scenes, driven by financial interests – that now pose so many dangers at the national level?