The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, September 30, 2016 — 3A
implemented, the Republican-
controlled State Senate passed
a bill in May that would, if
passed by the House, bar local
governments from passing such
fees on packaging containers.
This
legislation
represents
the first attempt by any local
government in Michigan to adopt
such an “eco-tax;” however, it
faces great uncertainty in the
hands of state legislatures.
The bill to prevent the passage
of an “eco-tax,” was passed 25-12
along almost entirely partisan
lines.
Commissioner Andy LaBarre
said the “eco-tax” policy is a
result of efforts by the board to
protect the environment and
reduce costs. He estimated the
county will save approximately
$200,000 per year after the
policy is adopted — money
currently spent on repairing
recycling utilities because plastic
bags clog the machinery.
“(The law) is designed to help
minimize the amount of plastic
bags you see floating about in the
environment,” LaBarre said. “It
is also designed to promote the
reuse of plastic bags and paper
bags.”
However, some commissioners
remain opposed. Commissioner
Dan Smith, who voted against
the tax, noted the law was rushed
through without going through
the Board of Public Works and
said it would not effectively cut
costs.
“I’m
the
Board
of
Commissioner’s liaison to the
Board of Public Works and there
were
several
members
that
were rather perturbed that they
hadn’t even had an opportunity
to weigh in on this,” Smith said.
“There was lots of talk made at
the time and I saw a recent news
article about the thing that’s
cost Washtenaw County money.
Well, it doesn’t cost Washtenaw
County
any
money
because
we don’t own any recycling
facilities.”
Smith also charged that the
board does not have the authority
to enact such a law.
“The mechanism that we
came up with is convoluted at
best,” he said. “There is actually
two different attorney general
opinions that call into question
our ability to do this type of
thing
without
explicit
state
authorization.”
Republicans
and
affected
businesses have also argued
that local taxes like this one
create “patchwork legislation”
that make it costlier for big,
multinational
franchises
to
adhere to all laws in every
county.
“Any time you start to see a
patchwork approach … it creates
another level of complexity
that we just don’t necessarily
think
is
the
government’s
responsibility to be doing,”
said
Robert
O’Meara,
vice
president of government affairs
for the Michigan Restaurant
Association, in a press release.
In response to the criticisms,
LaBarre said he thought such
small
policy
changes
were
impactful on these issues.
“This is a good policy and
the
policies
(Republicans)
advocate for are largely bad, and
so I’d rather have a patchwork
good policy doing some good
in some areas than a blanket
awful policy. So they’re entitled
to their opinion; they’re just
wrong,” LaBarre said.
A number of Democrats on
the board have also argued
that
the
Republican
effort
to block the law is simply
aimed
attacking
Michigan
Democrats, and goes against
the
fundamental
Republican
principle of devolving power to
states.
“It is showing that their
advocacy of the principle of
strong
local
government
is
really a bit of a charade, and I
think they are for strong local
governments until they are
not,” LaBarre said. “I think
they’re just being intellectually
dishonest.”
However,
Ken
Kollman,
director of the University’s
Center for Political Studies, said
while many people view the GOP
as a devolution-friendly party,
Republicans
and
Democrats
alike tend to use devolution as a
purely pragmatic tool.
“I wouldn’t take people’s
positions on decentralization
at face value,” Kollman said.
“Very few people in politics
are
truly
principled
about
devolution,
decentralization
and centralization. They tend
to want to centralize policies
when they have control on the
central government and tend
to want to decentralize policies
when they have control of local
governments that are different
in partisanship from the central
government.”
BAGS
From Page 1A
dealers and local manufacturers
have made clear that they oppose
any law that would allow Tesla
to operate in Michigan,” the
statement said. “As one leading
legislator told Tesla: ‘the local
auto dealers do not want you here.
The local manufacturers do not
want you here. So you’re not going
to be here.’ Tesla will continue to
take steps to defend the rights of
Michigan consumers.”
Tesla did not respond to three
requests for comment to its
corporate headquarters.
In
an
interview
with
the
Detroit
News,
Gisgie
Dávilia Gendreau, director of
communications at the Michigan
Department of Human Services,
said Tesla’s business model is
not aligned with state law as the
company does not have a contract
with an auto manufacturer.
“The
license
was
denied
because
state
law
explicitly
requires a dealer to have a
bona fide contract with an auto
manufacturer to sell its vehicles,”
Gendreau wrote in the email.
“Tesla has told the department
it does not have one, and cannot
comply with that requirement.”
Law School Prof. Daniel Crane
noted that the law in question
arrived on Gov. Snyder’s desk two
weeks before his reelection in
November 2014, saying the degree
of influence held by Michigan
automakers and dealerships made
vetoing it a near impossibility.
“The dealers are powerful in
the state — particularly relevant
are GM and Ford,” Crane said.
“The dealers didn’t want to see
Tesla expanding, and so the
governor signed the legislation. It
seemed to be the logical decision
at the time.”
Tesla’s unconventional sales
model
has
been
subject
to
criticism since it first started
selling cars in 2008. Rather
than working with third-party
franchises, the company uses
small storefronts and an online
directory to sell its vehicles
directly to consumers, bypassing
the added cost of dealership fees.
The majority of states have
policies in place intended to
prohibit the presence of stand-
alone stores like the Tesla model,
motivated by what critics cite
as
an
inherent
competitive
advantage
of
employing
the
factory-to-consumer model.
Tesla, however, claims that the
unorthodox approach is less about
cutting cost for the customers and
more about educating the country
about the merits of renewable
energy.
“We want to engage with
people
when
they
are
not
thinking about buying a car,”
George Blankenship, Tesla’s vice
president of sales and ownership
experience, said in an interview
with Autotrader in 2011. “Our goal
is not to sell a person a car, but to
educate them on what electric
cars and, particularly, what Tesla
electric cars can provide. At a
mall, people are already relaxed
and out shopping on their own.
Most of them will likely never
have heard of Tesla, and so we
are becoming part of their daily
routines.”
Crane said Tesla regards the
franchise dealership model as
outdated, noting it has seen
almost no change in the 100 years
of its existence. He added that
Tesla revised its sales model to
best meet the needs of consumers
and eliminate areas of inefficiency
in the sales chain.
“Dealers traditionally make
about a 4 percent margin on car
sales and they make about a 25
percent margin on servicing cars,
so the real money here is the
servicing of the cars,” Crane said.
“Electric vehicles have very little
service component: They don’t
have filters and they don’t have
oil changes. A lot of the servicing
is Tesla downloading something
directly to your car to update
something, just like you would an
iPhone. It’s much less of a money-
making margin than traditionally
it would have been.”
In recent years, the direct
distribution model has been
adopted in a variety of industries,
such as technology, to meet
regulator
requirements.
To
satisfy
both
consumers
and
demanding
state
legislators,
Crane said he expected Tesla to
compromise its stance on direct
distribution.
“If you look at companies like
Apple, you can go to a mall and go
to the Apple Store, and all your
dealings are directly with Apple,”
he said. “Elon Musk — the CEO of
Tesla — in the long run said maybe
he could use a mixed model:
sell cars both in dealerships
and directly to consumers. The
consumer is used to the idea that
you transact business in multiple
different ways. Eventually, the
conversation is going to turn to
whether we should be buying
vehicles at all.”
TESLA
From Page 1A
is funded per each refugee it
resettles.
Additionally, JFS will also no
longer be the sole resettlement
agency operating in the county.
Samaritas — another national
social service organization —
announced in a September press
release that it would be expanding
its Ann Arbor foster care office
and hiring a caseworker to handle
the resettlement of 12 refugee
families in the coming months.
Spokesperson Lynne Golodson
said Samaritas plans to partner
with JFS and other community
organizations to help provide
essential services to new arrivals.
When
refugees
arrive
in
the Ann Arbor area, they and
their families work with a case
manager on a daily basis for the
next 90 days with the goal of self-
sufficiency, JFS case manager
Nathaniel Smith told the Daily in
March.
Assistance
includes
help
with
registering
for
proper
identification, school enrollment,
initial medical screenings and
employment services. Follow-up
English language training and
career services are also available
for up to five years after arrival.
“We address a lot of different
areas of the refugees’ life, getting
them set up with all the things
that they need to start functioning
on their own here,” Smith said in
March. “For the most part, they
are close to being financially self-
sufficient after 90 days.”
The biggest challenge with
quadrupling JFS’s intake in two
years, Eadeh said this week, has
been finding adequate housing
for newly arrived refugees due to
concerns from property owners.
“(Refugees)
have
no
background; they have very low
income,”
Eadeh
said,
adding
that JFS has had several long-
standing relationships with a
number of property managers.
“The next few months I’ll be
reaching out to landlords and
housing management companies
to work with them and ensure that
refugees who come will be able to
receive housing.”
To further meet the demands of
its quadrupled capacity, JFS has
also expanded its partnerships
with community groups, student
organizations
and
faith-based
congregations for volunteers and
donations of food and furniture.
More than 200 volunteers have
been signed up for orientation,
Eadeh said, and will play a role
in sorting donations, helping
new
arrivals
move,
writing
welcome letters and helping with
paperwork in the JFS office.
“Our local elementary, middle
and high schools are trying to
do what they can,” Eadeh said.
“University (students) are pitching
in to help, as well as synagogues,
mosques and churches.”
One of these student volunteer
organizations — the Michigan
Refugee Assistance Program —
was established this semester by
LSA senior Nicole Khamis.
Khamis said she reached out
to JFS in late February to offer
help with fundraising, off-put
by negative political rhetoric
surrounding refugees. During the
summer, she decided to expand
the scope of her organization
following the surge in new
arrivals.
“I began thinking about doing
something like this after the
extremely
negative
rhetoric
about refugees,” Khamis said.
“So I started seeing we could
assist locally in the biggest
humanitarian
crisis
our
generation is facing.”
Khamis said she screened
and selected 40 other University
students to act as volunteers for
JFS. The students will assist
by running errands, acting as
ESL teachers and helping with
appointments. While the student
volunteers are still undergoing
language and cultural training,
Khamis said she hopes the first
volunteer engagement can take
place in the coming week.
In addition to refugee service,
Khamis said an additional aim
of her organization is to raise
awareness of the global refugee
issue on campus through donation
drives, movie screenings and
panel discussions with refugees.
“When
you
don’t
meet
somebody and you only hear
hateful rhetoric about them, you
form an opinion about them,”
Khamis said. “Really I think that
can only be broken by personal
contact.”
REFUGEE
From Page 1A
launched its part of the diversity
plan.
However,
though
LSA
Dean Andrew Martin sent out
an email about the forum dates
on Aug. 30 and the events have
been advertised across campus,
the discussions received only
a
modest
turnout,
with
the
exception of a forum for staff.
About 40 undergraduate students
attended
the
student
forum,
and in total, about 230 students,
faculty and staff attended the four
forums overall. Conversation at
the forums also tended to focus on
a lack of student, faculty and staff
involvement, and general under-
attendance.
In contrast, the protests in
total over the past week have
drawn more than 600. Hundreds
of students, faculty and staff
gathered Monday night to protest
the
racially
charged
posters.
Almost 400 individuals, many
of them University community
members, protested the scheduled
debate about the merits of the
Black Lives Matter movement.
Groups of students have also
chalked the Diag or put up posters
of their own throughout the week.
The discrepancy in attendance
numbers was also present between
the
protests
and
a
college-
sanctioned event for students to
discuss the impact of this week’s
events, which drew roughly 100
community members.
Vikrant Garg, a School of Public
Health first-year grad student,
was one of the organizers for
both protests. He said he did not
attend the forums this September
because he was not pleased with
the how town hall discussions
around the strategic plan last
April and March were conducted.
“I had gone to the ones earlier,
last year before coming back to
campus, and I was not pleased
with one, the way that they were
run, and two, with the way that
the plan was
filled
out,”
Garg
said.
“It
wasn’t
really listening to student voices,
even though it was a town hall for
students.”
Garg
said
while
he
does
not speak on behalf of all the
organizers
that
planned
the
protests, he believes the space
created at the student-organized
protests was specifically for Black
people and other students of color
to talk about their experiences
of racism and discrimination on
campus, adding that those who
live here feel the weight of national
and local events.
“Personally, I think one of
the reasons we shut down the
Fishbowl (during a protest) is
because we often find that the
University addresses the problem
are extremely disingenuous,” Garg
said. “I will say that individually
administrators do care. But I
think that as an administration, it
does not show that,” Garg said. “It
is not something that is translated
beyond
the
individual,
those
reactions feel as if they’re saving
face.”
Elizabeth James, faculty advisor
for the Black Student Union, wrote
in an email interview that isolation
is the main reason people of color
may have not contributed to the
diversity forums
“I really value speaking your
truth. However, when people of
color attend events such as forums,
they often find themselves in the
same situations that they face in
classrooms or at the workplace:
being seen as the “spokesperson”
for your people and representing
a group, rather than yourself as an
individual,” James wrote. “It’s not
fair, but it’s a reality.”
Similarly,
Ross
sophomore
Kyle Trocard said Black students
often also feel defeated by their
circumstances at the University.
“The reason [no one attended]
is that it’s a tough time for us
with all the things going on on
this campus, all the things going
on around this country,” Trocard
said. “We haven’t had time to take
care of ourselves.”
In an interview Wednesday,
University
spokesman
Rick
Fitzgerald pointed to the different
natures of the protest and the
LSA forums as reasons for the
discrepancies.
“I think they’re really two
different events, but, say part of
the LSA strategic planning process
— many of the units have had
specific events that were designed
for
either
students,
faculty
and staff, sometimes all three,
sometimes separately, things that
we’re thinking about doing and
getting feedback,” Fitzgerald said.
However, beyond the events of
this week, students said the mass
attendance at the protests also
illuminated
broader
concerns
with
the
administration’s
approach to campus diversity,
with many citing doubts both
about the University’s ability to
make change and the sincerity of
their desire to do so.
Channey said she attended
both the protests and the the
LSA-sponsored
community
event, but was disappointed that
administrators seemed uncertain
about how to proceed during the
latter.
“I spoke to an administrator
outside
of
those
discussions
about what they plan on doing
in response to, for example, the
fliers, and they say they do not
know,” Channey said.
This, she added, might explain
why Black students feel prompted
to create their own spaces on
campus instead of relying on the
University.
But though the University-
sponsored event did not give
her the experience she was
hoping for, she said as a new
student to campus, she still feels
administration need to continue
trying and they need to create
more spaces for Black members of
the student body to speak out.
LSA freshman Asia Green
echoed Channey’s sentiments,
saying she didn’t feel talking to
administrators was an effective
way to cause change.
“There are not enough events
hosted, not enough forums,”
Green said. “All of the people up
higher always talk about how
they want to promote diversity
and inclusion but nothing is being
done.”
Along
with
criticism,
however, others pointed to a
misunderstanding
between
administrators and students as
the reason for a negative campus
climate around diversity.
LSA freshman Carlena Toombs
said at Tuesday’s protest that
while she appreciates the steps
taken by the University thus far,
she feels the response was not
entirely in line with what the
Black community wants.
“I feel like it’s very hard for
(the administration) to do what
we, Black students, want them
to do, but at the same time, I
appreciate them allowing things
like protests to go on, which I feel
like is as much as they really can
do, politically,” Toombs said.
James also suggested that
the need to speak in front of a
group of strangers during the
forums may be another barrier,
as
a
particularly
vulnerable
experience that students of color
often face.
“After
the
posters
were
sighted on Monday, that evening
hundreds of students gathered
together in DAAS to view the
Presidential
debate,”
James
wrote.
“That
large
number
resulted not just because of the
debate, but I believe it was more
related to a need to feel safe after
a threatening, scary moment on
campus. Some of the students had
never faced blatant racism before
and it was reassuring, for them,
as well as myself, to be together to
commiserate and share time with
our community.”
These issues — administrator
inaction and the relationship
between
administrators
and
students — also figured heavily
into specific criticisms of the plan
itself, much of which has not yet
been released.
Garg said he believes the
plan’s goals are too far reaching
for the current campus climate.
The plan uses the year 2021 as
a benchmark, and community
conversations surrounding the
start of the planning process
asked the community what they
wanted the University to look like
in 2025.
“It doesn’t look at the problems
today and find solutions, they are
reacting in response to things that
are happening they plan on doing
something about this within the
next five years. At the town hall,
they asked “What do you want to
see?” Garg said. “And people came
up with concrete things that could
be done immediately and they
would be like okay, we can include
that in our plan. We can ensure
that by 2020. I’m not even going to
be here in 2020.”
At
Monday’s
protest,
LSA
junior Lakyrra Magee, an event
organizer,
also
criticized
the
long-term focus in the diversity,
equity and inclusion initiative as a
solution to campus climate issues.
“It’s possible to do both,” Magee
said, referring to the University
addressing current events and the
five-year DEI plan. “But they’re
not doing it. We want Schlissel to
address us … about 2017, not 2025.”
Nonetheless,
many
of
the
students interviewed said they’ve
seen traction across the University
since the protests beyond these
incidents, on broader campus
climate issues.
Garg noted that the School of
Public Health is now opening
up a space for students to share
their
experiences,
a
meeting
Tuesday between Angela Dillard,
LSA’s new Associate Dean for
Undergraduate Education, and
the Dean of Students and a
campus-wide conversation on race
recently announced by Schlissel
for Sunday.
Green said the response to the
protests thus far has made her
optimistic.
“The fact that we’ve been
having so much support has
really been making the situation
better, and hopefully we can take
it further in terms of getting it to
higher executives and making
sure people really do feel safe on
campus,” Green said.
In discussing next steps for
the
administration,
Fitzgerald
stressed a campus-wide discussion
on race that is slated to occur
Sunday in response to the events
of this week.
Schlissel
announced
Wednesday the University will
hold a campuswide discussion on
race following the events of this
week on Sunday. Both Green and
Garg said they were planning to
attend Sunday’s event.
“I just know that the event for
Sunday is something I noticed
the president and other senior
leadership are hoping a good
number, and a cross-section of
the entire University community,
will come together and foster
that kind of hearing from each
other and speaking to each other,”
Fitzgerald said.
James
wrote
that
while
diversity, equity and inclusion are
noble goals for any campus, the
small numbers of students,faculty
and staff of color make it hard for
them to feel comfortable, even in
the best of circumstances.
“I believe the U’s diversity
plans are promising and have
great hope that they will result in
a more inclusive university,” she
wrote. “Maybe we just need other
ways of collecting information
about how to make it all come
together. Sometimes I wonder if
smaller focus groups with people
of similar backgrounds wouldn’t
provide richer discussions where
people would feel free to talk, then
later bringing the groups together
to discuss the similarities and
differences could provide a bridge
to connecting the dots.”
PROTEST
From Page 1A