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Thursday, June 28, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS

Ward 1 reps sue city
over $10 million deal

Councilmembers
claim Mayor, City
Clerk violated charter

By ALICE TRACEY

Summer Daily News Editor

Ann Arbor City Councilmembers
Sumi Kailasapathy, D-Ward 1, and
Anne Bannister, D-Ward 1, have
sued the city of Ann Arbor, Mayor
Christopher Taylor and City Clerk
Jacqueline Beaudry over a $10 million
deal regarding the development of
Library Lot. The contract, signed by
Taylor, Beaudry and Chicago-based
developer Core Spaces on May 31,
hands over the development rights
of Library Lot, a parking area next to
the Ann Arbor District Library where
Core Spaces plans to construct a
17-story high-rise called the Collective.
Attorney Eric Lipson filed the
lawsuit on behalf of Kailasapathy and
Bannister June 18 in the Washtenaw
County Trial Court. The lawsuit
accuses Taylor and Beaudry of
violating Ann Arbor’s charter by
signing
a
development
contract

without first consulting City Council.
The council voted 8-3 to sell Library
Lot in April 2017 to Core Spaces, but
the purchase was not finalized until
this year. The lawsuit claims the May
31 contract finalizing the purchase was
not presented to City Council.
According to Kailasapathy, the
Ann Arbor City Charter requires
purchases or sales valued over
$25,000 to be approved by at least
eight councilmembers. She said the
language of the charter is clear and
she therefore feels confident about the
strength of her and Bannister’s case.
“In plain English, it says a contract
has to come, and there’s no way they
can say there was a contract 13 months
before because there was no contract,
there was a resolution,” Kailasapathy
said.
Kailasapathy claimed she and
Bannister sued the city to protect the
interests of their constituents. Ann
Arbor voters trust the City Council
to
represent
their
interests,
Kailasapathy said, so the council
must get a say in financial decisions.

Argus Farm Stop
pioneers new
business model

By SONIA LEE

Daily Staff Reporter

Argus Farm Stop, an Ann
Arbor small business focused on
providing sustainable food for
the community while supporting
local Michigan farms, has proven
a successful experiment in helping
both consumers and producers in
the communal food system.
Founded by Ross M.B.A.s Bill
Brinkerhoff and Kathy Sample in
2014, Argus Farm Stop is a grocery
store and cafe styled as a farmers’
market. The market applies a
new business model, allowing
customers to buy produce, dairy
products
and
meats
directly
from local farmers. With the
knowledge that farmers’ markets,
while having good intentions, are
often inefficient marketplaces for
both consumers and producers,
Brinkerhoff and Sample found a
need in the Ann Arbor community
Argus could solve.
“We knew a lot about local
agriculture because we always
shop at the farmers’ market,”
Sample said. “We knew that
farmers’ markets are a really hard
way for farmers to sell their stuff.
It’s a great community thing, but
it’s a really hard way to sell because
on a nice day they might rather be
out on their farms.”

Brinkerhoff and Sample were
inspired to start Argus after
visiting a similar market and cafe
in Ohio. Part of their business
model included allowing farmers
to
make
deliveries
of
fresh
produce, meat and dairy products
to the farm stop at any time on any
day, softening time constraints
attached to traditional farmers’
markets, as well as eliminating the
need for a middle man.
“We were down in Wooster,
Ohio, and we saw this store called
Local Roots that had this new
model that was an every-day
farmers’
market,”
Brinkerhoff
said. “Where the farmers could
just drop off their stuff and go back
to their farm. We came back to Ann
Arbor with the idea and talked
to lots of people, and there was a
consensus that there was a strong
need in our community to further
make local food economically
sustainable
for
farmers
and
available to consumers.”
The business model prioritizes
bringing a majority of profits back
to producers. Argus maintains
itself as a low-profit limited
liability company, which makes
this model sustainable, Sample
explained.
“If they [local farms] were to
sell through a traditional retailer,
like a grocery store, they would
get around 16 cents on the dollar of

Ross grads launch
local food market

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ALEC COHEN / DAILY
The Argus Farm Stop is located on West Liberty Street in Ann Arbor.

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