On August 5, 2025, City voters will consider Proposals A and B. Approval of Proposal A will amend the City Charter to allow City-owned property to be given to the library with no strings attached. Proposal B will repeal the City Charter amendment that directed that this City-owned property (“Center of the City”) be developed as a civic commons and urban park.
In March 2025, City Council directed the special election this August for the community to vote on Proposals A and B. The March resolutions clarified the specific language of City Charter amendments and proposed ballot language for each question. Here are links to the Council resolutions for Proposal A and Proposal B
I have previously shared concerns about these proposals without directly stating my position. There are a whole host of reasons for opposing these proposals. Below are mine.
TALKING POINTS VS. REALITY
Proposal A asks the community to approve a City Charter amendment permitting the transfer of City property at 319 S. Fifth to the Ann Arbor District Library. Ballot language includes promises well beyond the City Charter language. If Proposal A is approved, the City Charter would be amended to include only this language:
(g) The City is authorized to sell any of its interest in 319 South Fifth Avenue or 326 South Division Street only to the Ann Arbor District Library by resolution concurred in by at least eight members of the Council.
The question on the August ballot includes additional (unsupported) promises about what will result after the sale: mixed use, additional library services, housing, retail, and programmable open public space. Exactly none of these amenities are prescribed by the City Charter amendment in Proposal A.
At least one Council Member does not understand the significance of City Charter language or what amendments mean. She has publicly stated (incorrectly) that ballot language supersedes City Charter language— that misunderstanding is alarming, but wholly consistent with what has been a very misleading political campaign.
Political campaigns in support of Proposals A and B have leaned heavily on general goodwill for the library, vague expectations presented as commitments. I have seen cheerleading for this plan such as:
“I’m voting YES on Proposals A & B because it means having a downtown public plaza finally, as well as an awesome library for all of Ann Arbor to enjoy, all without increasing property taxes.”
Voting “yes” does not mean what this voter thinks it means; none of that is provided in Proposals A & B. There is no public plaza and no directive for any kind of library (“awesome” or otherwise). The proposals do not technically include a tax increase, but they do extract public value elsewhere: approval of Proposals A and B will give away a community asset that nearly 27,000 voters designated as the location for a public commons and urban park.
TAXPAYER FUNDED POLITICS
A City Charter amendment – often referred to as “Center of the City” – established and directed the development of an urban central park adjacent to the downtown library, at 319 S. Fifth. The “Center of the City” was approved in a high turnout election in November 2018. A vote to repeal “Center of the City” (Proposal B) is happening this August, when turnout is certain to be low. By unanimous vote, City Council directed this timing so that a relatively small number of voters can effectively undo the decision of a much larger number of voters.
Whatever anyone thinks of the proposals, I believe we should all be offended by what is now a pattern of behavior from this City Council: reducing public participation in local government. As directed by City Council, the vote on Proposals A and B adds insult to injury: the August special election generates additional expense. Taxpayers are now directly funding a political strategy for less public participation.
City budget has been used to promote these proposals. This spring, for the first time ever, the City sent taxpayer-funded mailers promoting current City Council Members. Some of these mailers explained the ballot proposals with the laundry list of campaign promises – e.g. new library, mixed use, housing, open space – that do not exist anywhere in the proposed Charter Amendment or any other binding document.
Campaign finance reports include another interesting detail: one of the largest donors in support of Proposals A and B is none other than the City’s own hired lobbyist, Dykema Gossett. The City budget includes a $120,000 annual contract with Dykema Gossett for lobbying services at the state and federal level. This year, those funds are apparently ‘reinvested’ locally— money from Dykema Gossett is now lobbying city residents on behalf of the Mayor’s favored political campaigns.
City taxpayers have directly funded a flawed election process as well as misleading campaign promotions for Proposals A and B.
PUBLIC SUBSIDY OF PROFIT INTERESTS
This issue is most straightforward: Proposal B aims to repeal the directive that a public asset (“Center of the City”) remain in public ownership for a community benefit. Proposal A will allow that public asset to be given away.. An aggressive campaign of soundbites suggests that these proposals will simply transfer a community asset from one public entity to another public entity. While technically true, that is not the whole story.
This year, the Ann Arbor library requested (and City Council approved) a rezoning of the downtown library property, explicitly for the purpose of allowing primarily private use and private ownership of the site.The elected library board who would be gifted “Center of the City” (and ultimately decide its future) includes members who have publicly endorsed the property’s sale for private, market-rate development. Proposals A and B will lead to private high-rise development with only incidental library operations.
In November 2024, the library director presented a plan to expand and improve the downtown library entirely within its current footprint. In a public meeting, he explained that the library had a lot of ‘dead space’ and they simply needed a redesign, which could be funded in a public/private partnership on their own parcel. Proposals A and B will give away City property under circumstances that have little to do with improving our local library. Once transferred, the City and the district library expect and anticipate that the public property at “Center of the City” will be converted to primarily private use.
I believe that public assets should be used for public purposes. I believe that our elected leaders should support policies that elevate public interests rather than profit interests. I do not believe that public assets should be given away when the end result is private use. Public assets should not subsidize the bottom line of profit interests.
For the reasons above, I will not be supporting Proposal A and B this August. To understand more background on the issue of Center of the City, see my video: