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

