Concerns surround next steps following $2 million transfer from DDA to Ann Arbor

AFSCME President Nicholas Nightwine told the City Council Monday night it would violate union contract if the city transferred downtown parking enforcement to the DDA.

Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com

The committee includes Christopher Taylor, D-3rd Ward, Margie Teall, D-4th Ward, and Carsten Hohnke, D-5th Ward.

The group's task in the coming months is to work out an agreement between the city and DDA covering responsibilities for management of the downtown parking system, parking enforcement, tree trimming, graffiti removal, and a host of other services.

The city is hoping to keep profits from the downtown parking system, which is managed by the DDA, flowing to the city's general fund.

The city has been drawing $2 million a year in parking revenue from the DDA through an agreement now being renegotiated. A framework for those negotiations shows city officials are considering outsourcing the city's downtown parking enforcement, which is currently handled by the police department's community standards officers.

AFSCME President Nicholas Nightwine, head of the labor union representing community standards officers, reminded council members Monday night the collective bargaining agreement between the city and AFCSME states no work will be contracted out by the city as long as the members of the bargaining unit can perform it.

"The deal that the city and the DDA are discussing for parking enforcement is a violation of the contract between AFSCME and the city," he said. "And we will do whatever we can do to fight this decision, and using all legal means that we have."

Nightwine said the men and women of community standards take pride in their work as city employees. He said enforcing downtown parking ordinances is the job of the city, not the DDA.

"The union understands the financial hardship that we're all facing and we understand the need for the $2 million from the DDA," he said. "What we don't understand is why the city feels that they have to give away the union work in order for us to get the money."

Nightwine added the union has not been privy to discussions happening in recent weeks between city officials and DDA members.

Council Member Christopher Taylor said he's excited to get to work on crafting an agreement with the DDA.

Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com

Mayor John Hieftje said he agrees AFSCME should be at the table for the discussions. He also said not all of the proposals in the term sheet drafted by a working group of DDA and city officials will happen.

Rather than taking over community standards to write tickets, Hieftje said the DDA is more interested in training people to be downtown "ambassadors."

"Someone who is more welcoming to the city perhaps than the image that we all have of a person who is writing parking tickets," he said. "They would like to have someone who perhaps is more eyes and ears on the street, who could notify a police officer if they observe aggressive panhandling, for instance."

Hieftje said he believes it would be easiest for the city to train its existing community standards officers to do those duties. The police chief recently said the same.

A resolution drafted by Council Members Taylor and Sabra Briere, D-1st Ward, was approved by the council Monday night to offer clarity on how the deal between the city and the DDA will be reached. After concerns recently that the working group has been meeting outside the public eye, Briere and Taylor made sure meetings of the official Mutually Beneficial Committee will happen in an open public setting.

Taylor, Hohnke and Teall already have been in discussions with DDA board members as part of an informal working group.

"It was a working group," Taylor said. "It was merely people who had gotten together on a subject of mutual interest, of their own volition, to come together and put a proposal forward to the city and the DDA - sort of an imagination project on how the two groups could work together."

Taylor said he's not sure where the committee will meet.

"It will be perhaps where it's most convenient, whether that's at city hall or the DDA," he said. "They will certainly be noticed and will be public in accordance with council resolution, which requires council committees to comply with various elements of the Open Meetings Act."

DDA board member Jennifer Hall raised concerns at a meeting earlier this month that the process to date has not been transparent. She showed up at Monday's council meeting to offer her support for the resolution from Taylor and Briere.

She said she wasn't opposed to the $2 million transfer of money from the DDA that helped the city close part of the gap on its budget this year. She said she only voted against it because she didn't think it benefited the downtown, and the process wasn't transparent.

Jennifer Hall said she was concerned the process up until this point hasn't been transparent.

Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com

Hall said the city's resolution gives her hope, though.

"This will most definitely ensure that the discussions regarding future transfers of money between the DDA and the city have adequate public exposures, including perhaps involving the AFSCME union if necessary," she said. "I offered a similar resolution last week to the DDA's Partnerships Committee in an attempt to restore trust to the process going forward. The committee did not support moving my proposal forward."

Briere said Monday's resolution reminds members of council they are supposed to be putting together a contract with the DDA before this fiscal year ends.

"We have said 'thank you very much for the money,' but with that money comes an expectation that the DDA is doing something, that that money is a matter of earnings that the DDA has, and that they're giving back to the city," she said. "And why are they giving it to the city? There's an expectation there that's implicit. It needs to become explicit."

Briere said she understands the DDA wants to manage the entire parking system downtown.

"They see it as a system of time management and reward and organization, not just a matter of fees and fines, and that's valuable to them because they're trying to get people to park, to use the downtown, to benefit the downtown merchants, to balance daytime and nighttime parking," she said. "For the city, we just want the parking managed and we want the parking structures repaired and we want the parking meters emptied and we don't want to have to do it all."

Taylor said he's excited to serve on the committee.

"I think that the working group has put together a framework that will prove to be a suitable basis for the two organizations — the DDA and the city — to work together to achieve their congruent ends, which are ultimately service to the public," he said.

"I'm excited by the prospect," he added. "I think that the city and the DDA have had occasionally a difficult relationship and I'm excited to be a part of a renewed commitment to cooperation."

Ryan J. Stanton covers government for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529.