Welcome to the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti conference!
 
Anything of local importance is fair game here. Feel free to
enter items regarding local politics, local events, comunity
organizations, local businesses, how you feel about your
neighborhood, or how big the potholes are on your street.

Let's use this conference to make AA/Ypsi an even better place to
live.

15 responses total.

first!

(well, wait...that didn't make this a better place to live.
sorry about that.)

They cleaned our street yesterday.  I think that we were one of the first
ones in the area done.  We got a notice not to park on the street from
7:30 am to 3:30 pm or the car would be towed.  The last time they did this
type of major cleaning Staci and I had a bit of fun watching all the tow
trucks taking all the cars away.  They were pretty much done by the time
I got up yesterday morning so I am assuming that people are finally getting
the idea that they mean it and not many cars had to be towed this time.
This is probably a good thing as people don't come out to go to work or
classes and find their car gone, thus having to pay ransom to get it back,
and the city doesn't have to pay the wrecking company as much or for the
cleaning crews to sit around and wait for the cars to be towed out of the
way.  I was a bit disappointed that they were done before Staci got up cause
we like watching the machine wash the street.

Time and place for a Favorite Gripe. . .when we lived in New Jersey, we payed
lower taxes, had better roads and mail service (I know that's Federal, but when
I get started griping, I cant stop at tax boundaries) but most importantly. our
trasj=h was picked up three (that's right folks. THREE times a week and they
took EVERYTHING.  Also, our streets were plowed by 7 AM the same day it snowed.
 What's wrong with this picture?

They must have been just giving those people something to do.

Would you pay more taxes so that some one would patch the roads two days
per week?  What if you got paid more to work less too?

Are you talking "featherbedding?"  or castigating unions?
If I was paid more to do less I would get bored.

re #3  It all depends on how much money your local government took in. 
Was that area more overall affluent than aaypsi?  If so, you could have
paid lower percentages than here, and still made more revenue for the gov.
MAybe they didn't sink as much into schools, or administrators salaries,
(some of our administrative people make obscenely high salaries, especially
when compared to same size/economic background areas around the country)
Maybe your trash pickup was run by a recycling company, who had id on the
contract, and was making money off it's collections by recycling them. An
And mail?  Well, that's bad everywhere.  Just look at how many of them
shoot each other.  

Bjorn is now confused after reading long responses

Picking right up ... Ok .... anybody located within striking distance of
central Ypsilanti interested in helping Ypsilanti District Library and Huron
Valley Community Network establish a public access terminal? No money. Skill,
and dedication required. They have the computer etc. Why not you?

I get next day mail from Oxford MI to AA.  Usually.

I am not sure that anyone is really going to care about this. But I am 
going to write it anyway, to get out my frustration.
I am a fairly recent employee of U of M who uses the commuter lots down 
near the Stadium.  Over the Holiday break employees and students were 
told that the U of M lots and the meters weren't going to be ticketed. 
This was so that they could use less buses, namely the commuter buses 
wouldn't run. Being as I still had to work I was expected to park near 
central campus so I could walk to work. 
     I am fairly paranoid and did look at the web site to see if there 
were any stipulations about which places meter payments were relaxed. 
None were mentioned. 
     I parked less than 1/2 block from S. University on Tappan st. and 
recieved a ticket.  
     When I complained to Parking services they sent me an email I did 
not recieve for almost a week and a half, to turn it into them. They 
would take care of it. This I did and thought the whole mess was over. 
     Friday when I came home from work I was startled to find the 
ticket enclosed in a U of M envelope telling me they couldn't take care 
of it because it was an Ann Arbor Citation. Now almost a month 
afterwards, I am still stuck with a ticket I got because the U of M 
parking services people thought it inconvenient to put in the fine 
print on their Holiday Schedual. 
      I do plan on taking this to Ann Arbor Parking services, I would 
be interested in knowing if anyone has any other suggestions.  
      Maybe I shouldn't be complaining about a $15 parking ticket but 
the injustice of it is what makes me angry.

You might ask your direct supervisor if there is a way to pay the ticket out
of office funds, because it was an employer-based problem.  

You've learned the hard way that the UM parking and police force are entirely
separate from the Ann Arbor parking and police force.  The only metered
parking that the UM controls is on UM property, not city streets.  It would
be very easy to get confused and think that city streets around central campus
were University streets.  On North Campus, it is more obvious where the campus
begins and the city ends.  

hello guys
pass

Wow...dead cf...  =)

occasional lurkers passing through, looking for stuff, and finding none.

Oh, often finding *something.  Not necessarily anything interesting or
relevant -- but something.  Like this, f'rinstane.  ;)

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