1ifiCi gan 0ai j ..5aN E-HUND ED ENYTW YFEDTRAFEEO 4 Ann Arbor, Michigan Tuesday, February 7, 2012 CITY TRANSPORTATION At meeting, - council delays vote on transit agreement PILLAR OF EDUCATION michigandaily.com SENATE ASSEMBLY SACUA criticizes handling of porn case A II A mer Cit fcon, res Tra CE cus tra cil pos wh sig mer Yps Cou 5, a An Jan pro pon Ma the tie Cou amE ATA to provide cally postpones a decision on the agreement to March nore details on 19 if AATA fails to present the findings of its county- final plan wide financial task force. Ann Arbor Mayor John By STEVE ZOSKI Hieftje said the amendment DailyStaffReporter would allow AATA to be more thor- At its meeting last night, ough in its mbers of the Ann Arbor work on the 0 y Council once again agreement. 3' vened before Ann Arbor "I under- 0 idents and Ann Arbor stand the s nsportation Authority magnitude 0 Michael Ford to dis- of the task s a countywide public Mr. Ford has in trying to nsportation agreement. get four parties to agree to At the meeting, coun- something like this, but I members motioned to also see no problem what- tpone the decision on soever that if that informa- ether Ann Arbor would tion isn't ready for us, we n the four-party agree- could somehow postpone," nt between Ann Arbor, Hieftje said. silanti, Washtenaw Councilmember Chris- unty andA ATAto March topher Taylor (D-Ward 3) s requested by Ford. said while he would sup- Councilmembers Mike port a delay, the four-party glin (D-Ward 5) and agreement is just a prelimi- ie Lumm (D-Ward 2) nary plan rather than a posed to further post- binding law. ne the decision to a "I'm willing to support rch 19 meeting, before a postponement," Taylor group eventually set- said. "But I think it's impor- d on the March 5 date. tant to note this is not law uncil also passed an we are making here, this is endment that automati- See TRANSIT, Page 8 Faculty question UMHS, DPS after six-month delay in reporting incident By AARON GUGGENHEIM DailyStaffReporter Following the recent announcement that the Department of Education and the Joint Commission will be launching a review of the Uni- versity of Michigan Health System for its six month delay in reporting that a medical resident possessed of child pornography, the Senate Advi- sory Committee on University Affairs used its weekly meet- ing to discuss the role of the Department of Public Safety in criminal incidents at the Uni- versity. Law Prof. Richard Fried- man, a member of the DPS Oversight Committee - a group of faculty, staff and students that advise Univer- sity officials on incidents filed against DPS officers - spoke to SACUA to clarify the role of DPS and the committee in the ongoing investigation. During his address to SACUA, Friedman explained that the Michigan State Leg- islature established oversight committees in 1990 to inde- pendently oversee actions of University police forces. The University's DPS Oversight Committee makes recommen- dations to Timothy- Slottow, the University's executive vice president and chief financial officer, when complaints are filed against DPS. After a female resident dis- covered a flash drive contain- ing child pornography that belonged to former medical resident Stephen Jenson, she reported the incident to hos- pital security rather than DPS. Friedman said security per- sonnel at UHMS are not part of DPS and therefore not under the oversight committee's jurisdiction. "If they are not within DPS, they are just not our job," he said. "They do report ultimate- ly to DPS, but they are not offi- cers, they are employees." In response to members' See SACUA, Page 8 AUSTEN HUFFORD/Daily Art and Design freshmen Audrey Stanton studies outside on North Campus yesterday. YEAR OF THE CO-OP ANN ARBOR CITY COUNCIL A2wastewater system to undergo renovation C $ Jouncil awards city's ailing wastewater treat- ment system. 92.9 million for The council unanimously approved a resolution to ten- construction tatively award a $92.9 million contract to Walsh Construc- By STEVE ZOSKI tion Company to improve Daily StaffReporter aging components of the city's wastewater treatment plant, t last night's meeting, located in Ann Arbor township Arbor City Council took of US-23 near Dixboro Road ajor step in approving a and Geddes Road. sive project to overhaul the The plant - which was orig- inally built in 1936 - currently services about 130,000 people in the city of Ann Arbor and areas of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield and Scio Townships, and pro- cess nearly 19 million gallons of wastewater perday. If a final resolution passes next month, Walsh Construc- tion would be responsible for the demolition of the oldest parts of the infrastructure that See WATER, Page 8 A Ann a m mas TERESA MATHEW/Daily Inter-Cooperative Council members recieved a proclamation from Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje at yesterday's City Council meeting deeming 2012 the 'Year of the Co-op.' GRADUATE STUDENT EMPLOYEES Unionization hearing concludes STATE LEGISLATION Panel discusses Snyder's EMF policy Hanlon, officials tesitfy as GSRAs continue effort By RAYZA GOLDSMITH Daily News Editor Yesterday marked the conclu- sion of another phase in a group of graduate student research assis- tants' campaign to form a union. Wednesday was the first day of a three-day hearing in front of an administrative judge who is set to make a recommendation about the status of GSRAs to the Michi- gan Employment Relations Com- mission by its March 13 meeting. The hearing took place Wednes- day, Thursday and yesterday, and included testimonies by University Provost Philip Hanlon and others called by University lawyers and litigators for the Graduate Employ- ees' Organization - the union rep- resenting GSRAs. Julia Stern, the administrative law judge presiding over the hear- ing, will report back to MERC's three commissioners - Edward Callaghan, Christine Derdarian and Nino Green. Stern's recom- mendation is not binding, mean- See UNIONIZATION, Page8 Michigan Rick Snyder's controversial emergency financial manager leaders debate law. In the forum, hosted by the effectiveness of Undergraduate Political Sci- ence Association,, participants controversial laWe discussed issues surrounding Public Act 4, reformed Michi- By KATIE BURKE gan legislation that outlines Daily StaffReporter protocol for dismissal of city leaders during times of eco- Students lined the hall out- nomic duress and grounds for side the packed Eldersveld appointment of an emergency Room in Haven Hall last night financial manager., to listen to government leaders The panel consisted of State and state officials discuss the Rep. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor), progress of Republican Gov. Howard Ryan, director of leg- islative affairs in the Michi- gan Department of Treasury, Washtenaw County Commis- sioner Conan Smith and Flint Mayor Dayne Walling. State Rep. Mark Ouimet (R-Scio Township)wasunable to attend due to a school board meeting. Public Act 4 was passed last March, and since then emer- gency financial managers have been appointed in Ben- ton Harbor, Three Oaks, Flint, Hamtramck, Ecorse, Pontiac, Detroit Public Schools and the Highland Park School District. See EMF, Page8 -- ------------- WEATHER HI: 35 TOMORROW . , LO: 26 GOT A NEWS TIP? NEW ONMICHIGANOALY.COM Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail My Ann Arbor: Midnight at the Movies news@michigandaily.com and let us know. MICHIGANDAILY.COM/BLOGS/THE FILTER INDEX Vol. CXXII, No. 89 02011 The Michigan Daily michigodaily~com N EW S .......... ............... 2 SU DO KU .... ,............... 5 OPINION..................4 CLASSIFIEDS .................6 SPORTS S........ .... ....5 ARTS .....7 4 A A A.