The Michigan Daily -Monday, September 9, 1991 - Page 3
I
Committee discusses ways
.to improve city
'by David Rheingold
Daily Staff Reporter
They cautiously came to the discussion
table armed with open minds, economic
theories, and a plethora of ideas about ways
to improve city services.
They left with what committee chair
:Ed Gramlich called "a pretty big list" of
0 subjects.
In its first meeting in the Michigan
League Friday afternoon, the 10 members
of the newly-formed Mayor's Blue Ribbon
Committee on City Finance and Manage-
ment discussed various areas of the city
government that need further study -
ranging from privatization to a city in-
come tax.
Mayor Liz Brater established the com-
rmittee in July. She said she hoped it will be
a "precedent-setting event" for stronger
city-University relations.
"I am optimistic that this will be the
first of many cooperative ventures be-
tween the city and the University to ex-
plore ways of keeping the city of Ann Ar-
bor healthy, well-managed, and financially
viable," she said.
The committee, chaired by Gramlich,
the director of the University's Institute
of Public Policy Studies, consists of a vari-
ety of local experts, including four Uni-
versity professors, an Ann Arbor mer-
chant, a financial analyst, and three city
officials.
The committee met to discuss possible
areas of Ann Arbor's city government,
which graduate students will explore in a
course taught by Gramlich this fall.
After debating whether the city should
compare itself to Michigan cities or simi-
lar-sized college towns in other states,
members brainstormed topics. Some gar-
nered little discussion, some generated a
lot. -
Topics included:
User fees. Former acting City Ad-
ministrator Don Mason originally drafted
the city's 1991-92 budget with a pay-per-
bag garbage fee to bring in about $4 mil-
lion in revenue, but the City Council
quashed the idea;
The Downtown Development Au-
thority. This sector of the city government
has been at odds with the council's
'I am optimistic that this
will be the first of many
cooperative ventures be-
tween the city and the
University...'
- Liz Brater
Ann Arbor mayor
Democrats after they killed a proposed
parking structure behind the Kline's de-
partment store, and;
Parking. Ann Arbor residents have
voiced their dissatisfaction with down-
town parking in a number of surveys. The
demise of the Kline's structure, which
would have provided an extra 650 spaces,
only fueled the fire.
But Gramlich said he hopes the com-
mittee begins with less controversial sub-
jects "before we go right to nuclear war."
Brater stressed that there were "real-
world politics" involved, adding that she
thinks the committee should study expen-
ditures instead of revenues.
Members of the committee mutually
agreed the city needs to assess its entire tax
hi
trvices
system, by first compiling an inventory of
all its taxes.
"People always say we have a higher
tax rate than, say, Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts," Brater said. "Well, Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, may have a sales tax
in addition to property taxes."
State Rep. Perry Bullard (D-Ann Ar-
bor) made a guest appearance at the meet-
ing to address the committee.
Bullard discouraged the idea of a city
income tax, which he said would severely
hurt the lower class, and criticized the
University, which he said "ought to be car-
rying more of its share of services."
Gramlich praised the committee, but
stressed that it not let itself be influenced
by the council's party politics.
"The idea here is that the projects are
going to be non-partisan," he said.
The committee will meet again at 1:30
p.m. on Friday, Sept. 20.
Graduate students enrolled in the Insti-
tute of Public Policy Studies will make up
the committee's staff by writing reports
about public policy in Ann Arbor, as part
of a course titled "Ann Arbor."
Members of the committee are: Ted
Annis, CEO and cofounder of Supply Tech,
Inc.; Brater; Paul Courant, research scien-
tist, IPSS and professor of economics and
public policy; Margaret Dewar, associate
professor of urban planning; Kirk Dodge,
City Council member (R-2nd Ward); Al-
fred Edwards, professor emeritus of busi-
ness administration; Alfred Gatta, Ann
Arbor city administrator; Alan Mandel,
vice president and group manager, Jacob-
son's Stores Inc.; and Janet Weiss, profes-
sor of organizational behavior and public
policy, School of Business Administration,
and associate research scientist, IPSS.
Good 'til the last drop
Ann Arbor Police Officer Tom Butler offers his 4-year-old son Tommy (Jr.) an icy
beverage treat while they enjoy the first annual Fall Fest on South University.
Macedonians vote
on independence
-from Yugoslavia
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BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP)
Macedonia, Yugoslavia's poorest
region, yesterday became the third
republic to hold a referendum on in-
dependence in a vote that places fur-
ther stress on the fragmenting coun-
try.
Slovenia and Croatia declared in-
dependence after their voters ap-
proved similar referendums -
moves that have led to months of
civil warfare. Macedonia was ex-
pected to overwhelmingly approve
secession.
Macedonian President Kiro
Gligorov said sovereignty for his
republic was "not directed against
anyone, but is simply a support to
establishing a new relationship in
0Yugoslavia, the Balkans and Eu-
rope."
Results are not expected before
tomorrow.
In Croatia, the site of the worst
bloodshed, fighting was ebbing yes-
terday, a day after the European
Sf the army doesn't
react, I will declare
that the army's top
leaders are acting
irregularly'
d - Stipe Me sic
head of the collective
federal presidency
Community began its latest effort
to end the violence by opening a
peace conference in the Netherlands.
The head of the collective federal
presidency, Stipe Mesic of Croatia,
said he would ask army units in the
republic to withdraw to their bar-
racks. The presidency nominally
commands the national armed
forces.
"If the army doesn't react, I will
declare that the army's top leaders
are acting irregulrly, and that
means a military coup," Mesic told
reporters in Zagreb Saturday.
He spoke after returning from
the peace conference in The Hague. It
was attended by the foreign minis-
ters of the 12 EC nations, leaders of
Yugoslavia's republics and federal
leaders.
In Macedonia, voters streamed to
the polls to vote on whether their
republic should become an indepen-
dent state, with the option to join a
future alliance of sovereign states.
Lines formed at polling stations
in villages around Macedonia soon
after polls opened at 7 a.m. (1 a.m.
EDT). They closed at 7 p.m. (1 p.m.
EDT).
The Nova Makedonija daily in
the Macedonian capital, Skopje, pub-
lished a poll yesterday showing that
84.54 percent of the 1.4 million vot-
ers favored independence.
The vote will be valid only if 51
percent of voters cast ballots. Of
those ballots, a 51 percent majority
is needed for a mandate to work to-
ward independence.
If Croatia and Slovenia succeed
in leaving Yugoslavia, Macedonian
leaders fear their republic would be
incorporated into Serbia, the largest
republic.
Macedonian nationalists also
fear neighboring Greece and Bul-
garia could raise claims to Macedo-
nian territory because both neigh-
boring countries have sizable ethnic
Macedonian minorities.
Fighting died down yester
day on a strategic stretch of the
Belgrade-Zagreb highway near
Okucani, 70 miles east of Zagreb,
where battles have raged since
Wednesday.
Sniper and mortar fire broke out
overnight in the Croatian-held set-
tlements of Pakrac, 70 miles south-
east of Zagreb, and Sarvas, 150 miles
east of Zagreb, the Tanjug news
agency said.
12 7:30p.m.
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i
THE
LIST
What's happening in Ann Arbor today
Speakers
"Oxygen Atom Transfer Reactions of
Nitrous Oxide (N=N=O)," Prof.
House, 802 Monroe, 8:30-10.
On-Campus Recruitment Program
Information Session. Angell Aud A,
6:10-7.