Wednesday, April 15, 2020 — 3A
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Challengers to Eaton include
Jen Eyer, a former journalist for
MLive and the Ann Arbor News,
and Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an
environmental toxicologist.
Erica
Briggs
and
Dan
Michniewicz are running for the
Ward 5 seat, which is currently
occupied by Chip Smith, D-Ward
5. All candidates participated in
the forum.
Jack Eaton, Democrat for
Ward 4
Eaton, who ran unsuccessfully
for mayor of Ann Arbor in 2018,
was first elected to the council in
2013 and then re-elected in 2015
and 2017.
Eaton said he has been working
with various local Ann Arbor
groups such as the Huron Valley
Area Labor Federation and local
civil rights groups to further his
campaign.
“I believe that residents and
voters in Ann Arbor deserve to
be listened to and that the duty
of an elected official is to weigh
all of the diverse opinions that
people have and to do the best to
address the concerns of everyone,
not just their supporters,” Eaton
said. “My core issues have always
been
the
environment,
labor
and employment issues and civil
rights.”
Eaton
said
he
supports
addressing
affordability
issues
in Ann Arbor. To do so, he said
the city must focus on only
constructing buildings that are
needed and should not support
unnecessary housing proposals.
“When we removed all the
barriers
to
development
in
our
downtown
area
without
making
any
requirements
of
the developers, what we ended
up with was high priced luxury
apartments,” Eaton said. “We
have since revisited the zoning
in those areas and required that
tall buildings and dense buildings
include some affordable units and
some other considerations.”
Jen Eyer, Democrat for Ward
4
Eyer said she has worked with
the Michigan Municipal League
Foundation for the past year on
their SaveMICity campaign. She
said
the
campaign
highlights
Michigan’s
broken
system
of
municipal finance.
Eyer also said the SaveMICity
campaign shines a light on how
Proposal
A,
which
addresses
how public schools in Michigan
are funded, and the Headlee
Amendment,
which
placed
limitations
on
the
collection
of
local
taxes
among
other
provisions, have played off of each
other.
“Frankly, the state’s lack of
sharing revenue with cities, to the
extent that they’re supposed to —
those things have all combined
with
Michigan
cities
being
chronically underfunded,” Eyer
said. “ … That’s going to get worse
in the next year because of the
COVID pandemic.”
During
the
coronavirus
pandemic,
Eyer
said
she
is
connecting with citizens, listening
to issues they are facing and trying
to find a solution to their problems.
“I was a journalist for many
years,” Eyer said. “In that role,
it was my job to use technology
to reach out to various people’s
organizations, different segments
of the community and engage
them with our reporting and also
figure out what the issues were
in their lives that we may want to
report on.”
Mozhgan
Savabieasfahani,
Democrat for Ward 4
Savabieasfahani, a contestant
speaking at City Council meetings
and a participant in anti-Israel
protests, said she has heard the
council
talk
about
affordable
housing for as long as she has lived
in Ann Arbor. Despite this ongoing
discussion, Savabieasfahani said
she does not believe affordable
housing exists in the city and
supports the implementation of
public housing.
“I know public housing to the
ear of Americans will sort of
bring in mind dilapidated homes
with crimes, et cetera, et cetera,”
Savabieasfahani said. “But that is
basically because the real estate
industry has been pushing against
public housing and has been very
much against it, and that’s the
result that you see here. However,
public housing is the best way that
we can make sure that people have
a roof over their heads.”
During
the
forum,
Savabieasfahani placed a large
focus
on
the
importance
of
establishing a minimum wage of
$15 per hour. Savabieasfahani said
this will help make Ann Arbor a
more livable city for its residents.
“I am basically saying we must
provide a much better living
environment for our low-income
population. Otherwise, COVID-
19 and many more epidemics that
are on the way are going to break
our back as they are breaking our
backs now,” Savabieasfahani said.
“We need to make sure that people
who work in this town can get $15
an hour.”
Savabieasfahani also mentioned
her platform focuses on making
sure Ann Arbor has enough money
in its budget to run smoothly.
Erica Briggs, Democrat for
Ward 5
Briggs, a walking and cycling
advocate in the city, said she
supports increased density in
places like Ann Arbor. She said
more
density
offers
multiple
benefits, such as better options for
transportation and more housing.
“When you have more people
grouped together, you have more
services,” Briggs said. “I like the
idea of neighborhoods where you
can go to the corner grocery, you
can go to that, go to a bakery, go
to a department store. That’s only
enabled by density.”
Throughout her career, Briggs
said
she
has
worked
almost
entirely in transportation. She
said investing in alternate modes
of transportation will help achieve
the city’s goal of reaching carbon
neutrality by 2030 through the
A2Zero plan, which was launched
March 30.
Briggs also talked about the
coronavirus. She said citizens will
be facing financial distress due
to the pandemic long after the
outbreak dies down.
“Evictions have been put off
for now, but I’m really worried
for when this stay-at-home order
gets lifted. We’ll see hundreds and
hundreds of folks evicted across
our community,” Briggs said. “I
think that’s something that our
city council needs to be working
on.”
Dan Michniewicz, Democrat
for Ward 5
Michniewicz, who is a baker at
Zingerman’s Bakehouse, said he is
currently furloughed from his job
baking bread. He said he has made
a living working in restaurants,
delis and kitchens since living in
Ann Arbor.
“There’s 84,000 people who
commute to Ann Arbor every
day, and don’t you think some of
them would like to live in Ann
Arbor?” Michniewicz said. “And
I say to that, well, I work with
these people. I organize politically
with people of this economic
stature. And we can do a better
job of advocating for our own
interests and advancing our own
causes than our current political
leadership can.”
Michniewicz said his platform
focuses on ecological action and
economic inequality. Michniewicz
also
placed
an
emphasis
on
housing in Ann Arbor and making
sure that all of the land is used to
its full potential.
“I’m
going
to
prioritize
the creation of social housing
like we see through the Ann
Arbor
Housing
Commission,”
Michniewicz said. “I’m somewhat
pleased with the route that the
current city council is taking by
looking at things like surface-
level parking lot property that we
already own, and figuring out how
we can maximize the amount of
affordable housing that we put on
those lots.”
A forum for candidates from
Wards 1, 2 and 3 will be held at
2:30 p.m. on Thursday and will be
broadcast on the CTN Network.
Elections
for
city
council
candidates will be held Aug. 4
along with other statewide races.
Daily
News
Editor
Barbara
Collins can be reached at bcolli@
umich.edu.
Reporter
Brayden
Hirsch can be reached at braydenh@
umich.edu.
FORUM
From Page 1A
In an interview with The
Daily, Sharpton offered advice to
students on how to advocate for
the University to lead on diverse
asset management as well.
“They
should
demand
transparency and they should
demand to know,” Sharpton said.
“If they, in fact, get the data and
there is not enough diversity,
they should demand that there
be an aggressive move to try and
correct that without sacrificing
the return on investment.”
Sharpton told The Daily that
reporting on the diversity of
asset management would help the
University sustain its investments
while growing closer to its core
values of diversity, equity and
inclusion.
“One, it could bring them
people that could perform better,
so they would benefit financially,”
Sharpton said. “And second, it
would show that they frankly
practice what they preach ... It
should be firms that can show that
they can outperform or perform
at the level of those agencies or
companies that they were already
dealing with. We’re not asking for
charity here, but we’re asking for
a lack of exclusion, and there must
be an aggressive move toward
that end.”
Robert Raben, founder and
president of the consulting firm
The Raben Group, founded the
Diverse Asset Managers Initiative
in 2014 and works with NAN to
increase the number of, and assets
under management by, minority-
and
women-owned
asset
management firms, according to
its website. He praised the UC
report for being the first of its
kind among major universities.
“I
give
them
nothing
but
points,”
Raben
said.
“Their
numbers are low and they still
put them out because they want to
improve, whereas Michigan won’t
even engage in the conversation.”
According
to
Raben,
universities are the last major
entity in the economy to widely
release data on asset management
diversity.
“There’s something very odd
going on that an entire field
won’t even talk about whether it’s
working with women or people of
color,” Raben said.
The University’s endowment
was valued at $12.4 billion in
June 2019, the ninth-largest in
the country and third-largest
among
public
universities
nationwide. Sharpton also sent
letters
to
other
institutions
with large endowments such as
Yale
University
and
Harvard
University.
Raben said he believes lobbying
large, established universities will
create a domino effect in diverse
asset management reporting.
“There’s
hundreds
of
billions of dollars in university
endowments,” Raben said. “Our
theory is that if Cal and Harvard
and Michigan and Cornell and
Stanford, Texas, etc. recognize
that they’re missing out on talent
and performance, then the rest of
the field will follow. So, number
one, we’re dealing with Michigan
because of its importance in the
field.”
Student
activism
led
the
University to freeze new fossil
fuel investments in February, a
first for a Big Ten school.
Diverse asset management is not
an easy ask for chief investment
officers, according to Raben. He
said firms that university asset
managers
already
work
with
have an incumbency advantage,
making it hard for diverse-owned
firms to enter investment pools.
“If I was persuaded that I
should work with people of color
or women, it means I would have
to take $100 million or $500
million from somebody,” Raben
said. “There’s no new money. And
so it would mean that the CIO
would have to go to JP Morgan
or Carlyle or KKR or whomever
it’s been working with for 20
years, and say ‘I want to move 100
million or 500 million from you to
a Black asset manager.’”
The
University’s
website
states the endowment is shielded
from “political pressures” and
investment decisions are based
solely
on
financial
factors.
Additionally, Schlissel told The
Daily in a Feb. 25 interview he
doesn’t believe the University
should shift the direction of
endowment funds in response to
the political beliefs of the student
body.
“I
think
that’s
both
inappropriate and very risky,”
Schlissel said. “You know, in a
world where we value free speech
and we value diversity, I think I
can disagree with the owner of a
business but still do business with
the business. So, I don’t think
those things should enter into
investment decisions at all.”
Raben’s
initiative
recently
surveyed the top 30 investment
consulting firms in the nation
on their diversity data. However,
he
said
conversations
with
University
officials
have
not
been as productive as those with
private industry.
“When I talked to (Lundberg)
two years ago, he told me that
he was willing to work with us,
but he also told us that he didn’t
engage in social engineering,”
Raben said. “I took offense to that.
I said, ‘I don’t think working with
talented people of color is social
engineering.’ He said his board,
his Regents instructed him not
to engage in social engineering.
And I said, ‘If you’re only curating
white people, would you consider
that social engineering?’ He did
not respond.”
University spokesperson Rick
Fitzgerald did not offer further
comment on Raben’s conversation
with Lundberg.
Lundberg’s 2019-2020 salary
was $850,000, the sixth-highest
at the University, according to
the
annual
Salary
Disclosure
Report. Raben noted that CIOs
are often among the highest-
paid officials in universities and
said their decisions are typically
unquestioned by asset managers
and trustees.
“This is the mindset of some of
these CIOs, that a conversation
about working with people of color
is some sort of social experiment,
like it’s 1941,” Raben said. “In
every other area of American
economic life, corporate boards,
c-suites, employment — white
people don’t quibble with the
premise of diversity anymore.
Nobody quibbles with whether or
not having Black people, Hispanic
people in your employment is a bad
idea. But in asset management,
and the CIO of Michigan, they
dispute the premise. They don’t
think it matters whether or
not talented people of color are
included. And I’m just astounded
by that.”
Reporter Calder Lewis can be
reached at calderll@umich.edu.
LETTER
From Page 1A