response 25 of 54:

Jun 9 15:23 UTC 2002

(Your response got posted to item 20.)

response 27 of 54:

Jun 10 02:57 UTC 2002

Just to clear up the confusion: The City of Ann Arbor is a home-rule city
within the boundaries of Washtenaw county.  There are several other
city/village entities, like Ypsilanti, Dexter, Manchester, etc.  All the
rest of the land in the county is in one of the townships.  The townships
and cities/villages cover all the geographical area of the county.

A separate set of geographical entities within the county are called school
districts.  School districts are entirely separate from the
city/village/township divisions.  The school districts cover all the
geographical area of the county.  

Both of these sets of governments levy taxes independently of each other,
as do the Washtenaw Intermediate School district, and the Washtenaw
Community College, and the various library districts.  

So the Ann Arbor School district is a very different entity from Ann Arbor
Township, which is a very different entity from the City of Ann Arbor.  And
none of these are identitical with the postal system, which may give you an
"Ann Arbor" address even if you don't live in the city, the township, or
the school district.  

response 29 of 54:

Jun 11 00:23 UTC 2002

It's 20:20 on a Monday evening.  The polls closed twenty minutes ago, and the
results are beginning to come in.  I'm siiting in the main conference room
at Balas, where the Superintendent's office is located, watching the totals
be put up for all to see.  So far, fourteen, out of some forty-three,
precincts have reported.  It's too early to say what the results will be.
Only the School votes are being displayed here, so I'll have to check
elsewhere for the library results.  

response 31 of 54:

Jun 11 00:38 UTC 2002

oof.

With about half the precincts reported, it looks like the bond will fail and
the millage will pass.

I can't count the candidates' votes.

response 33 of 54:

Jun 11 03:16 UTC 2002

So, the final tally for school board is:

        Bamfo           2959
        Cross           5067
        Friedman        3553
        Griswold        4769
        Klipp           3100
        Nelson          3923
        Nigam           1029
        Rice            1142
        Wojack           610

        Bond            3870/6938
        Sinking Fund    7235/3529

So the three electees are Karen Cross, Kathy Griswold and Glenn Nelson.

This is the largest turnout I've seen in a long while.  I figure no one
who voted for Griswold voted for Cross, and vice versa, so it's roughly
9,800 ballots cast, versus 5,000 to 6,000 in recent years.

I just realised that I walked out without a tally for the library board,
so I've no real idea how that turned out. :(  Last I looked, Ms. Winter
was ahead.

response 35 of 54:

Jun 11 04:55 UTC 2002

No, it means that they *don't* get to make them bigger; they are going
to have to figure out a different way to reduce the overcrowding in those
two schools.

Channel 16 is showing the results: Connie Greene, Bill Kincaid, Barbara
Murphy and Connie Powers.  Mr. Kincaid got three votes more than Ms. Winter.

response 37 of 54:

Jun 11 15:10 UTC 2002

Millages hardly ever pass when there's organized opposition.  When I saw
the first "NO SCHOOL BOND" yard sign, I knew the thing was doomed.

I strongly, strongly question the notion that nobody who voted for Cross
voted for Griswold and vice versa.  Voters in real life behave in all kinds
of unpredictable and unideological ways.  Both of them were incumbents.
To get the number of people who voted, look to the poll book total, which
is usually reported.  Or the total of Yes and No votes on either of the
two proposals.

On Michigan political geography: every square inch of land in Michigan
is either in a city or a township.  Villages are subsets of one or more
townships.

The annexation agreement also basically guaranteed that Ann Arbor will
eventually take in everything inside the freeway ring without the
townships fighting it.

The existence of the agreement made it possible for me to successfully argue
(to the county apportionment commission) that the "islands and peninsulas" 
should be included in Ann Arbor county commission districts, so that the
district boundaries could be simple instead of incredibly complicated
(annexation does NOT change the district boundaries, so if the city annexed
a piece of township in a different district, they'd have to provide
different ballots for the annexed area). 

Basically, I thought that county commission districts should be simple
enough that people could figure out what district they were in from the
little map published in the newspaper the Sunday before the election.

response 39 of 54:

Jun 12 02:00 UTC 2002

Thanks for the clarification about villages/townships.  

Yes, the "stop annexations" agreement allowed a phased annexation of
islands and certain peninsulas.  It also disallowed expansion of Ann
Arbor's boundaries, confining the City to (roughly) inside the freeway ring
of US 23, M-14, and I-94.  Most any property outside the freeway is outside
the city of Ann Arbor.  Lakeview subdivision by Weber's is one of the big
exceptions, since it was already in the city.  

response 41 of 54:

Jun 12 03:03 UTC 2002

We really out to look at that judgment.  My memory is that the city was
required to provide sewer and water outside it's boundaries _without_
annexing the property.  Lakewood was city property long before the
boundary lawsuit.

response 43 of 54:

Jun 14 18:30 UTC 2002

I usually vote in these things, though it is a bother with two small 
children.  After spending some time researching things, I decided I 
didn't feel strongly about anything, and most of the things I felt 
weakly about where likely to win anyway.  So Valerie and I skipped the 
vote.

Things turned out much as I expected.

After the election, I started to think I did feel strongly about about 
the High School issue.  I'd been undecided on it.  The expansion plan 
did seem like a practical way to solve the problem, without spending 
excessive resources.  It's obvious that a lot of smart people had spent 
a lot of time trying to find a practical way to build a new high school 
and failed.

But thinking about it recently, I started thinking about it as a purely 
symbolic issue.  Here we have a high-profile question about education 
in Ann Arbor.  It's been in the air for years.  The impact of the 
decision is going to last for decades.  How we decide this kind of 
question will send a big message about the future of public education 
in Ann Arbor.  What message do we want to send?  I want to see a strong 
message of commitment.  Build a nice new school, even if it is going to 
be quite a financial stretch to do it.  We can stretch.  Education in 
Ann Arbor isn't a matter of "what's the minimum we can get by with".  
Heck, parks in Ann Arbor aren't a matter of "what's the minimum we can 
get by with."  More bricks doesn't make better education, but the 
dramatic gesture of building a new school instead of enlarging the old 
ones sends a message to everyone in the education community that this 
city is committed to the best in education, and that does make a 
difference.

response 45 of 54:

Jun 14 18:54 UTC 2002

It was demonstrated long before that.  Large schools are miserable whether
or not anyone gets shot.  We're setting the bar pretty low if a school needs
a body count before we call it bad.

response 47 of 54:

Jun 14 19:16 UTC 2002

I think that's mostly because everyone expects teenagers to be miserable. 

Everyone knows that most cities have neighborhoods that it would be miserable
to live in.  There isn't much public discussion, because everyone expects the
ghettoes to be awful places.  Every once in a while, there's a riot, and we
debate about it for a while.

Columbine was that riot.  But most people seem to have already known, in the
back of their head, that large high schools are pretty bad.

response 49 of 54:

Jun 16 16:20 UTC 2002

I went to two high schools back in my day. They were very different 
from each other. I liked the smaller one better but its size was only 
part of the reason.