Reasonable minds can differ on Arbor South, but Rabhi's opposition ("disgusting," "revolting") is overheated and alarming. In the range of outcomes, a 2nd downtown is a best-case scenario: a boon for residents, businesses, and the tax base. Rabhi would turn that down? Wild. #a2council

A brief history of there isn't enough parking in Ann Arbor #a2council 🧵 (I hope @paulisci.bsky.social doesn't mind that I am stealing his bit)

Never forget, a 13-year study found that protected bike-lanes led to a drastic decline in fatalities for all road users. ALL ROAD USERS. What about painted bike-lanes? No safety improvement at all. For sharrows, it’s actually safer to NOT have them. Via @usa.streetsblog.org @nyc.streetsblog.org

🧵 This is an important and unintuitive point. This does not mean cities should plan to be 4-5x bigger. What is permitted does not dictate what is built. A high-zoned capacity allows for more thoughtful and contextual redevelopment because there are many more development opportunities to meet demand.

When Yousef Rabhi talks about making “historic investments” in public housing and co-ops (instead of just, uh, making it legal to build housing), he’s inviting Ann Arbor to make the same bet: let’s try this unicorn solution, whoops it failed oh well I’m going to inherit my parents’ house. #a2council

oh look at that www.pew.org/en/research-...

#a2council www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

#A2Council Petition to support the excellent housing bills in Lansing. Go sign! c.org/nZNzBmcSNK

I generally really like what Hell Gate is doing, but this post is just flat wrong. I wrote about the problems with this "major new housing study" here: rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/there-i...

🧵 Living in Michigan, if a political issue seems frustratingly impossible to advance, you can almost always find the roots in policies motivated by racial and economic segregation. When you scrape back the "housing theory of everything" you find racism and classism under the hood.

Hope to see you Saturday, #a2Council mailchi.mp/a2jenn/join-...

I grew up in a low-income, single-parent household, raised by a mother who spent much of her life working exhausting hours as a dry cleaner to keep us afloat. We lived in fear of homelessness, empty stomachs, and a lack of basic safety. 🧵

Several LGC board mbrs played key roles in the 2024 cmpn to regulate election finance in A2, arguing that "dark money" and "special interests" had too much pwer. The next year: LGC illegally plowed its (charitably donated) reserves into a losing effort to stop the AADL's library project. #a2council

Here are a few ways to support our immigrant neighbors in Washtenaw County, from the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights (WICIR). #a2council

I believe in a better Ann Arbor — a better tomorrow for all of us. www.mlive.com/news/ann-arb...

Before she was a 1st Ward candidate, Rebecca Arends was a vocal Jeff Hayner defender, even writing a long email to #a2council defending him as "a devoted father, [and] compassionate neighbor" and arguing that his use of a homophobic slur in a FB post was "none of [Council's] or my business."

I am running for #A2Council in the Fourth Ward! Please support our people-powered campaign and help us lead Ann Arbor forward. secure.actblue.com/donate/sova2...

And Joseph came with Mary, great with child, to Ann Arbor. But the Townies turned them away toward Ypsilanti, saying, "The city is full; it is not meet that every man should afford to dwell among us." And they were cast out, for there was no room for the poor in their sight. #a2council

#a2council A friend expressed concern about the loss of single-family neighborhoods in Ann Arbor once the Comprehensive Land-Use Plan and associated zonings are adopted. I made some calculations based on the Portland experience. Here was my response: tinyurl.com/portlandtoa2

The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5

In August and Sept 2021, a group of anti-sidewalk activists lobbied the city to cancel the construction of a sidewalk on the north side of Sunset Road from Brooks to Newport. They argued, among other things, that Sunset is "adequately" served by the single sidewalk on the south side. #a2council

It’s almost as if building bike infrastructure and supporting cycling safety increases ridership. Hmm. #a2council

Yesterday we premiered A RIPPLE IN ANN ARBOR, a 50-minute documentary about Ann Arbor's DNA Dragnet of the 90s, when hundreds of Black Men were profiled and accused of serial rape. It's now available to stream online at aadl.org/arippleinann... . Read on for thanks and acknowledgements!

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply." me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

Tonight’s the night we move on from seven years of waste: wasted time, wasted resources, and wasted opportunities to meet community needs. Let’s turn a parking lot that we don’t need into so many things that we do need. Vote yes on Props A and B. #a2council

The Library Green Conservancy, a 501(c)3 organization, spent $59,000 advocating against Proposals A and B. www.damnarbor.com/2025/07/excl... 👀 #A2Council

Library Green Conservancy’s president, lawyer, and treasurer are spending the final days of the campaign that it will decide its organization’s future by bickering with random people on Nextdoor. #a2council

La vérité blesse.

Today's reminder that Library Green is an unserious organization run by unserious people. Prop A/B stand on their own merits, but anyone on the fence ought to shudder at the thought of giving LG another 5-10 years to cosplay fundraising and park planning. #a2council

Cracking open the Vote No on Proposals A and B campaign finance reports. #a2council

In 2018, we promised voters we would fund a park on the library lot without taxpayer dollars. Instead, we spent our 501c3's money on mailers opposing proposals that'd fund the park for free. Here's why it's everyone else's fault that the parking lot has remained desolate and uninviting. #a2council

“We didn’t fool most people because only some people heard our lies.” #a2council

Just saw all the cool events that @aadl.org has scheduled (in addition to the Summer Game!) and compared that to what the Center of the City/Commons group has going on. Seems as if they can’t even keep a planter looking good. Vote yes on A & B, for crying out loud. This is embarassing. #A2Council

The lawyer for Save Our Heritage Parking Lot has his conspiracy theory to respond to this piece already in the can: Anyone claiming to have soured on parking-lot preservation is a fake or a plant, unless parking-lot preservation bonafides are authenticated with contemporaneous evidence. #a2council

“No one with any authority to speak for the Library Green Conservancy or the Ballot Committee ever made such a promise.” Will Hathaway was LGC’s secretary, treasurer, and public spokesperson in 2018. This is the slide he presented to the public on who would pay for the park. #a2council

And if Mlive is going to finally ask some questions of Library Green, instead of just credulously reprinting the things they're making up to preserve their parking lot, I have some other suggestions. Like why they quietly booted Alan Haber off their board of directors around 2023ish. #a2council

When did LGC first deploy the City Wouldn't Sign Our MOU Chewbacca Defense? Still searching, but here's a 2021 clip of at least two LGC board members begging the city administrator for money in the upcoming city budget while *never once* mentioning a MOU. #a2council youtu.be/X9NoFYUcvxY?...

Library Green, in 2018: "The City is not starved for tax revenue. . . . Ann Arbor’s economic survival doesn’t hinge on the projected revenue from any one development." Ralph McKee, in 2025: "The city is not, in what we call, the best financial shape." #a2council youtu.be/I6fcKxUnadg?...

Mary Hathaway, LGC’s then president, in October 2018: “Nobody will be forced to do anything.” Tom Wieder, lawyer for Vote No on A and B, yesterday: Prop A “direct[ed]” the city to spend millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to build a parking deck park. #a2council

A few takeaways here, 1 of them being: Library Green never cared that much about the park project, so much so that they drafted language they thought to be broad enough to permit AADL to take over the site. They are basically indifferent on what goes there, provided it isn’t housing. #a2council

The group of people currently whinging about “respecting the 2018 election” will file as many vexatious lawsuits as it takes to pause, block, and/or reverse the result of the upcoming August 2025 election. Out of their deep and abiding respect for the will of the people. #a2council

Niche Ann Arbor post: These claims that voting yes on props A and B would amount to "selling park land" are such disingenuous nonsense. Having @aadl.org be able to use the surface of a parking lot (that is *not a park*) for a new library is a win-win.

Guess what? @mgoblog.bsky.social has entered the chat #a2council mgoblog.com/content/yes-...

Library Green recently published a "chronology" of its engagement with the city that *completely omits* 2019 through 2023. Remember that Will Hathaway, who is still on their board, promised voters a completed urban plaza on the Library Lot by 2024. Some omissions are also admissions. #a2council

The rods in Library Green's reactor are made out of grievance, old grudges, and generalized bitterness at a changing community. They held onto their small pile of $ for years, only to enthusiastically deploy it to try to block a public library. Stopping things is all they know how to do. #a2council

Library Green paid a large sum of money to send a notice to the entire city that its popular, multi-term mayor has “always” opposed their organization’s only project, and directly quote him torching that project for specific and sensible sounding reasons. #a2council

As the August 5th election nears, we've been getting a lot of questions from patrons who have heard or read false claims about Proposals A&B. So, we've put together this page with the false claims we've heard and the facts that refute them: aadl.org/morefacts Please share and tell your friends!