At tonight’s Ypsilanti City Council meeting, I found this of particular interest.There are ten candidates running for four positions on Council — three Council seats as well as Mayor. Of those ten, Councilmembers Nickels, Richardson, and Swanson are all running for their seats, or in the case of Councilmember Richardson, Mayor. Of the remaining seven candidates, only three were in attendance this evening. As you can guess, I was there. So was the remaining two mayoral candidates, Paul Schreiber and Steve Pierce. Obviously that means Rod Johnson, David Kircher, Juanita House, and John Bailey were absent.

Maybe that means something to you. Maybe it doesn’t. As someone who attends the meetings as well as reads the minutes when they are available, I can honestly say the minutes hardly tell the whole story. The discussion that took place on the Freighthouse on May 16th, details nothing about the one hour discussion on the issue. There is no record of the Friends of the Freighthouse members that voiced their concerns. You don’t realize that the contract that was voted on for the Condition Assessment Report was supposed to have financial input from both the FoYF and the Depot Town DDA, but the status of that funding was not finalized and therefore the City is on the hook for the entire cost of the study. You don’t understand just how upset the FoYF and some of the Depot Town merchants are at the City.

I think it’s important that candidates are there. I hope you have an opinion on the issue.

Tonight’s Council meeting was rather varied and actually enjoyable. I think I’m allowed to say that.

The rezoning of 539 and 569 South Huron Street from B2 to C/I went down in flames 0 to 7. I’d hate to be part of the Planning Commission that made that recommendation. (I kid! I kid!)

A resolution asking City Staff to begin preparing a ordinance on Urban Chickens also went down 2 to 5 with Councilmembers LaRue and Richardson as the two Ayes. To all of you Urban Chicken proponents like myself, it’s important to consider that the City Manager brought this resolution before Council because he wanted firm commitment that Staff should be working on this considering staffing levels. It’s certainly not the end of the Urban Chicken discussion. Peter Thomason, the leader of the movement, was undeterred by the vote. If he and others want this to come before Council one day, they should do the leg-work and prepare the ordinance language themselves. Take back your government.

The FYE 2006-07 budget was passed with little fanfare. The City’s contribution to the AATA bus subsidy was indeed cut by some $80K, but the AATA vowed to continue the routes in Ypsilanti with no deviations. The AATA will find the money from their budget or reserves to Keep Ypsi Rollin’.