Page 12-Friday, March 24, 1978-The Michigan Daily
Accusations fly in latest
Wheeler-Belcher debate

By JULIE ROVNER
With staff reports
Accusations flew back and forth, but
for the most part, the issues were the
stars at candidate's night, sponsored by
the Ann Arbor League of Women
Voters.
The mass debate, held last night in
Council chambers, featured the nine
candidates for the five council seats up
for grabs in the upcoming April 3 elec-
tion and Mayor Albert Wheeler and
Republican councilman Louis Belcher,
who are having a run-off election for the
final year of the mayor's term.
WHEELER AND Belcher, old hands
at debating each other, threw a number
of verbal barbs, including Belcher's
spending his entire seven minutes of
speaking time attacking Wheeler's
voting record. The two did manage,
however, to trade views on a number of

issues.
"Let's face it, city government
begins right here," said Belcher. I don't
see HUD or HEW running up and down
the streets filling in our potholes.
Somewhere down the line we've got to
have enough guts to get up and do some
of these things."
Belcher advocated zero-based
budgeting, which involves each city
department justifying every expen-
diture every year as one method of
saving the city money. He also called
for a system whereby waste could be
used to generate energy, a proposal, he
pointed out, Wheeler voted against
when it came up at Council recently.
WHEELER stressed sewage as the
foremost issue. "As unglamourous as it
is, we're going to have to wait until we
get a sewage treatment plant built
before we can do any more building. If
not, we're just going to continue to
pollute the river," he said.
Wheeler chided Belcher and the
Republican dominated Council for
defeating a proposal to require storm
windows in all rental units, something
he said could also save considerable
energy.
Later, after incumbent Republican
Wendell Allen and Democratic
challenger Susan Greenberg, the First
Ward had answered all questions asked
of them, the only thing they agreed on
was that they disagreed with each
other.

objective on Council has been to serve
the people of Ann Arbor," Allen said.
"We've helped assertive types of
projects go. We represent all the
people."
Greenberg chided Allen for his veto
two weeks ago of a new Community
Development Block Grant (CDBG)
funded social services facility, and in a
thinly-disguised slap at council
Republicans, said "I will not allow CD-
BG funds for human services to be
diverted to road repair."
Incumbent Democrat Earl Greene,
uncontested for reelection in the
student-dominated Second Ward,
downplayed the need for downtown
parking in his statement, citing housing
as having a higher priority.
When asked whether he supported
raising taxes to help finance needed
repairs for city streets, Greene said, "I
support anything the citizens are
willing to vote for."
THE TWO novice candidates from
the student-shy Third Ward, Democrat
Patrick Mitchell and Republican Clif-
ford Sheldon agreed that road work
would be the major task facing them as
Council members.
"As far as the financing of these
things, I don't really know," Mitchell
said of the road repairs. He added that
he would like to see a city committee
with various experts in the field in-
cluding engineers and bulldozer
operators look into the problem.
In a surprising switch of party
loyalties, Mitchell said he would favor
increasing taxes to fix the streets while
Sheldon said he would not. Mitchell did,
however, say he specifically does not
want to see any increase in property
taxes.

Daily Photo by ANDY FREEBERG
Democratic Mayor Albert Wheeler makes a point as moderator Myrtle Cox (center), and Republican Louis Belcher (left)
look on. The two mayoral candidates held a heated debate last night in City Council chambers.


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OF DOWNTOWN parking, Sheldon
said he advocates building additional
spaces in the central city area because
"perimeter parking, satellite parking,
and public transportation haven't done
the job."
Out to gain the seat in the Fourth ,
"swing" Ward are Republican David
Fisher and former Democratic Coun-
cilman LeRoy Cappaert. After men-
tioning he had heard very little from his
opponent with the election only 11 days
away, Cappaert said his priority in-
volving city services is garbage collec-
tion. He also stressed the need for road
repair.
FISHER, WHO won the city's only
primary this year, said services were

his main priorities also and the goal of
his campaign is to "bring government
back to the people." Fisher proposed
generating money for road repair by
raising some taxes if the plan takes
more than two years.
The Fifth Ward has Democrat Joel
Goldberg and Republican James
Cmejrek vying for Belcher's old seat.
Cmejrek promised to concentrate on
finding money to repair the streets if
elected. He indicated opposition to the
building of any more public housing
developments in the Fifth Ward, but
said he did support "Section 8" housing,
a program under which the federal
government pays up to 75 per cent of
the housing costs of a qualifying family.
Goldberg also supports Section 8 for
creating mixed income housing in the
downtown area. He complained about
city bureaucracy, citing the recent in-
vestments scandal and the illegal
voters, and added that he has the
management experience to keep city

government running efficiently.
"
This story was written from the
files of Brian Blanchard, Margaret
Johnson, Mark Parrent, Judy
Rakowsky, Keith Richburg, Sue
Warner, and Shelley Wolson.

Hiring freeze
Continued from Page 1)
People are leaving, positions are being
vacated and the work is still going to
have to be done."i
Campus Labor Support Group
(CLSG) founder and City Council can-
didate Bruce Richard said the CLSG
has not yet taken a stand on the issue,
but, he calls the freeze "a plan to save
money by exploiting the workers.
SHAPIRO, WHO said exceptions to
the freeze would be made in unusual
cases, labelled the hiring freeze as
"very unfortunate."


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