City Council creates controversy with hiring and firing

City Council creates controversy with hiring and firing

QUINN DAVIS

Editor

The Ann Arbor City Council voted 8-2 on April 4 to reject the letter of intent from Valiant Partners, denying its proposed construction plan for a hotel and conference center on top of the downtown Library Lot. Only Council members Sandi Smith and Margie Teall voted to accept the letter, a move that Teall admitted “wasn’t the most popular.” Teall explained that this was just a letter of intent, and that despite what many in the community have said about Valiant Partners’ plan, they have the city’s interests at heart. “Indeed the petitioner has been left entirely out of the process for about the last six months, unable to answer any of the questions that have arisen, or any of the really unfortunate comments made by members of the community who propagated select information while ignoring other parts of the proposal,” she said. Many of those naysayers had spoken earlier in the meeting during public comment. Two of them were Ann Arbor activist Alan Haber, original president of Students for a Democratic Society, and Jean Ledwith King, an activist and attorney for women’s rights. In place of Valiant Partners’ plan, Haber and other attendees had a proposed plan for what they would like the space to be used for, and were frustrated that the council was not giving it a fair shake. “That is a disrespect to the work that citizens have done,” Haber said, “a kind of disrespect that citizens feel you have toward the citizenry.” Haber and the citizens with him considered the council’s rejection of Valiant Partners’ letter a victory. However, they were disappointed that the council later voted to give that planning power to the Downtown Development Authority instead of looking at the plan they had created. King also criticized the council, saying that the way they went about the process wasn’t transparent. She also said that the council had the wrong goal in mind. “Instead of measuring it in dollars, measure it in the benefit to the city,” she said. “That is quite different than dollars.”