T
he
2018
November
election will be closely
watched
across
the
country for the impact it will
have at the state and federal
levels, but even here in Ann
Arbor, voters will have the
opportunity to cast a vote with
a long-lasting impact on our
city. Appearing on Ann Arbor
ballots is Proposal A, which
concerns a city-owned plot
of land, popularly called the
“Library Lot,” adjacent to the
downtown branch of the Ann
Arbor District Library.
The Library Lot is currently
a parking lot, as it has been
for roughly the last 70 years.
In
2009,
an
underground
parking structure was added,
which opened for use in 2012.
Since that time, Ann Arbor
administrators and City Council
have considered various options
for what to do with the land at
the surface. Last year, in an 8
to 3 vote, the mayor and other
members of the City Council
approved the selection of a
proposal from Chicago-based
developer Core Spaces to buy
the land and build a mixed-
use building on it. Though the
paperwork has been signed to
execute it, the sale is currently
on hold pending the outcome
of a lawsuit filed by two of the
other members of City Council
challenging its validity. And
Proposal A would only further
complicate matters.
Proposal A appears on the
ballot as follows:
Charter
Amendment
for
the City-Owned Public Land
Bounded by Fifth Avenue, and
William, Division, and Liberty
Streets to be Designated, in
Perpetuity, as an Urban Park
and Civic Center Commons to
be Known as the “Center of the
City,” by Amending the Ann
Arbor City Charter Adding a
New Section 1.4 to Chapter 1 of
the Charter.
Shall the City-owned public
land bounded by Fifth Ave, and
William, Division and Liberty
Streets be retained in public
ownership, in perpetuity, and
developed as an urban park and
civic center commons, known
as the “Center of the City” by
adding a new section for the
purpose as explained above?
The very first word identifies
a
key
point:
The
proposal
would amend the City Charter,
the
highest-level
governing
document of Ann Arbor and
not somewhere that land use
normally would appear. The City
Charter is at issue here, because
the normal process for land
use has already been employed
(resulting in the mentioned sale
to Core Spaces). By amending
the Charter, Proposal A would
circumvent the normal process
and invalidate the actions of
City Council by removing their
authority to determine how
the property should be used.
One of the reasons that land
use does not typically appear
in the City Charter is that it
tends to change more frequently
than such provisions permit —
City Council regularly votes to
approve leases, easements and
other modifications to land use,
and has bought and sold land
before, unhindered by such
a constraint. But Proposal A
makes clear that its endurance
is intentional by specifying that
the Library Lot would retain its
new status “in perpetuity.”
What, then, is that status?
The proposal would designate
the Library Lot as the “Center
of the City,” an “urban park
and civic center commons.”
While this leaves some room for
flexibility, City Council clearly
does not have plans to realize
such a vision (having instead
made the previously-described
arrangement with Core Spaces),
and, more concerningly, it seems
the
supporters
of
Proposal
A may not either. Leaders
of the group responsible for
organizing this support suggest
the “collective vision” of the
community will drive what is
to be done with the land once it
is secured in the City Charter,
and that there are various
opportunities for securing the
necessary funding to implement
this vision. But we cannot, as
responsible voters, allow our
city’s policy to be permanently
decided based on the hope for
what might be rather than the
facts we have before us.
The
funding
that
would
be necessary to change the
current
surface-level
lot
to
something resembling a park
or commons is not mentioned
in the language of the proposal,
and has not been allocated or
raised in the 70 years during
which the property has been in
its current form. Furthermore,
the proposal does not address
the city’s current plans for the
property. As part of the sale
to Core Spaces, the city would
assign $5 million from the
sale to the Ann Arbor Housing
Commission for the purpose of
supporting affordable housing
elsewhere in the city, and
collect $2.3 million annually
in property taxes from the new
owners. This revenue has no
counterpart in Proposal A.
The facts we’ve laid out are
among the reasons that Proposal
A is opposed by the Ann Arbor
Housing
Commission,
who
recognize the value of both
the housing in the proposed
Core Spaces development and
the additional money it would
provide for affordable housing,
and the Board of the Ann Arbor
District Library, which as the
next-door neighbor to either
a new building or a new park,
stands to be most immediately
affected. Ann Arbor urgently
needs more housing, and the
Library Lot is an appropriate
location for this level of density.
The
resulting
additional
funding for more affordable
housing efforts will ensure that
the entire community stands to
benefit. We oppose Proposal A,
which would pull the rug out
from under the careful process
that led to this plan, and hope
that you will consider doing the
same.
D
uring
senior
year
of
high school, my choir
performed at a conference
in Chicago. Singing was wonderful,
but more importantly, it was a fun
trip for my friends and me as we
wrapped up our final semester.
During some free time, my friend
Jesse and I wandered the streets
around our hotel in search of coffee
and pastries, still thrilled by the
novelty
of
independence,
even
knowing that in a few short months
it would be our new way of life.
We found a coffee shop. We got
drinks and split a peanut butter
banana chocolate scone (it would
be important to him that I include
this detail). Nestled into some high-
backed armchairs by a large window
overlooking the frigid February
streets, we chatted about nothing
in particular, taking bites from the
pastry on the table between us.
Jesse and I have been best friends
since kindergarten. We had most
of our classes together, traveled
together and did all the same
extracurriculars. We hadn’t ever
been apart except for a month every
summer when we attended different
camps.
As we sat and enjoyed the comfort
of being with someone who you
know so well, I was struck by the
transience of such moments. In a
few months, who knew what would
happen? I would be starting school
in Ann Arbor and he would be 6,000
miles away on a gap year in Israel. We
would be in different time zones on
different continents going through
completely different experiences. I
always had an ironclad confidence
our friendship could make it through
anything unscathed. For a moment,
that wavered.
Jesse nudged the plate toward me,
offering me the last chunk of scone.
For some reason, that small gesture
was a sweet reassurance. I happily
accepted, popping the bite into my
mouth and pulling up the Notes app
on my phone. With a smirk, I wrote,
“You know it’s a friendship that will
transcend the distance and the years
and the changes when he gives you
the last bite of his scone.”
I have always been intrigued
by time travel. Not to some distant
historical event or unknown future
world, but rather to somewhere
along my own timeline. I try to find
ways to hop between the years of my
life, showing myself the past or the
future, a reminder of where I came
from and where I might be going.
Sometime in September each year
I flip through all the pages in my
calendar, travelling to the last week
of school, and write myself a note:
“Here is where I am, here’s where
you may be, I guess you know what
I got on the exam I took this week,
huh?” In the spring I find these notes
and smile, finding some nugget of
naïveté within myself from just a few
months before.
In high school, I would write
myself time bomb emails, scheduling
them to arrive one year from that
day. I found it oddly comforting to
read about my concerns from the
year before, seeing them in the wide-
angle lens of hindsight, and knowing
whatever problems I currently had
would be similarly trivial in a year’s
time. By remembering exactly how
it felt to be that girl a year before,
I suddenly become her again for a
moment, and I could see straight
through to the future.
In the other direction, I leave
observational breadcrumbs through
the musings and lines of prose from
which I gained inspiration for this
semester’s column. They allow me to
travel backward, reminding me how
I saw the world at a younger age.
I was thinking about how
reassured I was that day in the
coffee shop as I drove Jesse to
the airport last weekend. He
goes to school in Atlanta, and
had flown up for a visit. We spent
the weekend doing nothing in
particular, talking about nothing
in particular. We just enjoyed the
familiarity that comes from 15
years of close friendship. It wasn’t
sad to say goodbye. I’ll see him
again soon.
As I go through my life, I try to
leave touchstones to which I can
return and mark the passage of
time and the unpredictability of
life’s journey. I have never felt as
though I am only my present self,
but rather like a Russian nesting
doll with past versions saved
somewhere in my head, fitting
into one another seamlessly and
augmenting what was already
there. Like some ancient redwood,
each year I add a new layer of self as
I grow outward into the world. I am
20 years old, but I am 18 and 15 and
11 too, the thoughts, experiences
and perspectives compounding
into one hodgepodge of a person.
As each year passes, I see how
time can strip away whatever is
not tied down tightly. I have lots
of once-close friends with whom I
never speak. I spent hours honing
skills my hands and mind have
since forgotten. I do not mourn
these losses. They are preserved,
if not in the present, then in some
past self. I will relive long gone
friendships and memories with
the next time bomb email. I will
remember how it felt to perform
at a choral conference or do a slide
tackle in a soccer game the next
time I scroll through Notes on my
phone.
More
than
anything,
my
adventures through time have
taught me that a year from now,
everything
will
be
different,
except for the things that won’t.
I’ll always know how to string
sentences together. I’ll always
want to share a blanket with my
big sister on the couch watching
reruns of the “The West Wing.”
I’ll
always
read
before
bed,
have a penchant for righteous
indignation and surround myself
with kind-hearted people. And I’ll
always want to split a scone with
Jesse. I will shed the things I do
not need and hold tightly to those
I cannot live without, and march
forward through time until I can
meet next year’s me.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, November 5, 2018
Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger
DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
WHIT FROEHLICH & AUSTIN GLASS | OP-ED
Vote no on Proposal A
O
n Oct. 25, Steven Crowder
made
a
visit
to
the
University of Michigan,
broadcasting his podcast “Louder
with Crowder” live from the
Power Center of Performing Arts.
Notorious
for
his
unabashed
honesty, one of Crowder’s main
tenants is to break from the
constraints of the “leftist” media
and allow for free, uncensored
speech. This got me thinking
about media bias, something that
has become prominent in the
American political landscape ever
since President Donald Trump rose
to power during his “fake news”
campaign. When you think about it,
though Crowder may have escaped
the liberally-rooted mainstream
media, isn’t his show equally biased
in the conservative direction? Not
having analyzed his show enough,
I’m not necessarily one to say; yet,
with all this attack on the media, I
did begin to wonder: Is there really
anything wrong with media bias?
When it comes to something
as rooted in subjectivity as bias,
it
becomes
very
difficult
to
objectively rate a source based on
this benchmark. Neutral politics
have become quite a rarity in the
mainstream political field, and as
a result, it has become increasingly
difficult to find an easy way to
discover a centrist source that
doesn’t have any allegiance to
either side. That said, however, a
Gallup Poll found that 45 percent
of Americans believe the media is
biased and a whopping 66 percent
believe the news media does not
do a good job separating fact from
opinion. Numbers don’t lie; it’s
obvious that this seems to be a big
problem to many American citizens.
The question then becomes,
is it possible for someone to be
unbiased? Researchers at Carnegie
Mellon University believe bias is
intrinsic and unavoidable. In fact,
it has been known for a while that
everyone pretty much has inherent
biases. Individuals are shaped by the
environments and cultures in which
they were brought up. Each different
person grows up prioritizing some
values over others. In that way, each
person ends up with drastically
different natural biases. As such,
asking for an unbiased news report
is truly impossible. But, asking for
facts and not “fake news” isn’t.
Understanding inherent biases
is a big step in being able to better
make informed decisions on what’s
true and false as well as what’s fact
and opinion. It’s OK for a reporter
to offer his or her opinion on a fact
or a news piece. In fact, this is what
makes up most of the roundtable
discussions
we
see
on
NBC,
CNN, FOX and other major news
networks. However, when a news
source intentionally skews a fact or
even purposefully leaves out some
aspects of the truth, it becomes
detrimental to the integrity of
the media as a whole. This type
of propaganda is what has driven
many Americans away from some
networks that have been blasted
for being unreliable and not based
on true fact. The media is obviously
free to do whatever it wants, but
excessive prejudice can lead to
disillusionment among the people.
We have seen the effects of this; it’s
the last thing we would want.
The virtue of scones and time travel
KENDALL HECKER | COLUMN
Whit Froehlich is a student at
University of Michigan Medical School
and Austin Glass is a student at the
Rackham Graduate School.
Kendall Hecker can be reached at
kfhecker@umich.edu.
O
n Nov. 8, 2016, I fell asleep
early, before the doubt
crept into anyone’s mind,
before
the
results
came in. I fell asleep
sure, as I was sure
about anything, that
I would wake up to
the making of history.
If I had had any
doubt in my mind, I
would certainly not
have found the peace
required to sleep at
such an important
moment.
Sometime around 4:00 a.m.,
I awoke to my TV blaring, still
showing the same pundits usually
on during primetime trying to
explain — if not understand,
themselves — the results of the
election. It was so shocking. So
unpredicted.
So
confounding.
Still half asleep, I struggled to
even catch my breath. It was quite
literally a gut punch, immediately
sending actual, shooting pains to
all parts of my body. Deep in my
bones, I felt a pain so visceral, so
raw, that tears still fill my eyes
and my chest still feels hollow just
recalling that night, even two years
later.
When I was first introduced
to
politics
during
the
2008
presidential election, I remember
remarking to my parents that I
didn’t like then-Senator Barack
Obama, because “He was trying
to take the presidency away from
women.” Of course, I eventually
grew to fall in love with Obama,
but even then, I was thirsting for
a certain recognition. I longed
for an explicit, loud recognition
and celebration of femininity
and my womanhood. The only
way to quench my thirst for this
recognition was for it to be loud
enough to turn enough heads:
the election of the first female
president of the United States.
Suffice to say, eight years
later, deeper into my feminist
awakening,
I
was
positively
desperate for my country to send
some signal — any signal — that
my identity as a woman was a
gift, not a flaw, as it most often
was growing up in conservative
Indiana. When Secretary Clinton
appeared to almost guarantee a
final conquest of the last frontier,
I was elated. Finally! Finally, this
country would see all of the things
women uniquely offered
to leadership. Finally,
little girls would be able
to look up to a woman
in the Oval Office and
dream
big
dreams.
Finally, I would be seen
as fully human, capable
of the same successes as
my foremothers.
And then the worst
happened. Our broken
system
diverted
the
election
of
Hillary
Rodham
Clinton,
arguably
the
most
qualified person ever to run for
president, to someone clearly less
experienced, less qualified and
exhibiting less humanity. I was
simply hopeless.
In the last two years, I have
felt a similar, though not quite the
same, hopelessness. I felt hopeless
after the administration signed
a grotesque executive order to
ban Muslim immigrants from
the country. I felt hopeless after
evil people marched the streets
of
Charlottesville
screaming
“Jews will not replace us.” I felt
hopeless after hundreds of people
in Las Vegas and many students in
Parkland, Fla., were slaughtered.
I felt hopeless when children
were ripped from their parents’
arms and placed into cages. I felt
hopeless when the overturning of
Roe v. Wade was all but guaranteed
after
Supreme
Court
Justice
Anthony Kennedy announced his
retirement, and again when our
government chose to confirm an
unsuitable man to the highest court
in the land after hearing the tragic
testimony of a woman credibly
accusing him of sexual assault
and attempted rape. Now, I feel
hopeless in the days after 11 Jewish
congregants in Pittsburgh were
massacred while they worshipped.
While there have been many
more hopeless moments since
that painful night in 2016, I still
have hope. There are few places
to find hope or joy in these dark
days, but there is so much hope to
draw upon from the hundreds of
women running for office up and
down the ballot, ready to be elected
tomorrow. They will pick up and
carry the torch of righteousness
America dropped on Nov. 8, 2016,
and uphold the legacy of our
foremothers,
including
Hillary
Rodham Clinton.
From Stacey Abrams in Georgia
to Gina Ortiz Jones in Texas to
Rashida Tlaib right here in Detroit,
women, especially women of color,
have put their foot down to limit
the damage this administration
can do to the American people and
stood up to be the next leadership of
this country. Instead of employing
respectability politics and leaning
into the already broken system,
these women have decided to just
take over the whole thing. They
are ready to reject the same old
advice the same old Washington
consultants give them, which is to
just basically conform and contort
yourself into some half-priced,
bargain bin version of a male
politician. They are embracing
their femininity and experiences
related to their female identity to
inform their political choices and
strategies
with
understanding,
experience and, most importantly,
know-how.
They are ready to fight to
make Washington work for the
American people again, not to
give huge tax cuts to the rich
and
corporations.
They
are
ready to fight for health care and
education, especially for those
that need it most. Finally, for all of
the little girls and boys, and even
some of us in our college years,
these women are the beacon of
hope for the future of this country
— our futures.
So when you go to the polls —
and please, vote! — tomorrow,
keep these women in mind
as a unique, improved type of
leadership able to fill the void
in
this
country
by
holding
this
immoral
administration
accountable and working on
behalf of the American people.
While I am literally a card-
carrying
Democrat
excited
about the possibility of a wave of
Democratic candidates on their
way to Washington, I am most
hopeful about the pink wave
coming to defend all of us.
MARISA WRIGHT | COLUMN
The pink wave in the midterms
Drawing the line between media bias and fake news
ADITHYA SANJAY | COLUMN
MARISA
WRIGHT
Marisa Wright can be reached at
marisadw@umich.edu.
As I go through
my life, I try to
leave touchstones
to which I can
return
Adithya Sanjay can be reached at
asanjay@umich.edu.
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