A
s a student at the University of
Michigan over the past year, I
have come to love the natural
beauty of the Ann Arbor region, whether
it be the scenic Huron River winding
through the Washtenaw County coun-
tryside, large expanses of open space
or picturesque farms dotting the land-
scape. Unlike many other cities similar
in size — along with most areas of Metro
Detroit — Ann Arbor’s close proximity
to the countryside in nearly all direc-
tions makes this city a rarity in south-
eastern Michigan. In only a couple
of miles, you can easily travel from
a dense, urban atmosphere to wide,
open fields that give you a longing for
Northern Michigan’s landscape, only a
half hour from Metro Detroit.
These precious lands surrounding
Ann Arbor don’t exist today by accident.
For nearly two decades, the city of Ann
Arbor has led a valuable effort aimed
at preserving the “Greenbelt” around
the city limits in order to protect natu-
ral resources, the Huron River water-
shed and farmland. This effort began
in November 2003, when Ann Arbor
voters approved the Open Space and
Parkland Preservation Millage, also
known as the Greenbelt Millage.
Since then, Ann Arbor has protected
over 6,100 acres of land within the
boundaries of the Greenbelt Dis-
trict, in partnership with Washtenaw
County and surrounding townships.
Far beyond simply preserving the
rural character of the Ann Arbor region
for decades to come, the Greenbelt Mill-
age — which is a 30-year, 0.5 mil tax levy
based on assessed value — has a wide
range of benefits, as Remy Long, man-
ager of the Greenbelt Program for the
city of Ann Arbor, discusses in a video
posted on the Ann Arbor website.
According to Long, “dollars and
acres” are only one way to understand
the far-reaching benefits of the Green-
belt effort. By preserving dozens of
farms, one of the most powerful impacts
of the Greenbelt is increased food securi-
ty and a greater supply of locally-grown
produce for residents in and around Ann
Arbor to enjoy. The Greenbelt program,
as Long explains, also makes it easier
for new farmers to purchase land by
removing the development rights, which
lowers the land value and makes it more
affordable. “Affordable land access is the
number one barrier to starting a success-
ful farm operation,” Long explains. “If
we’ve removed those development
rights from the equation and made it
more affordable for beginning farm-
ers to access, we are helping pro-
mote a new generation of farmers.”
In the nearly two decades that have
passed since Ann Arbor residents
approved the Greenbelt Millage, thou-
sands of acres of farmland and natural
areas have been successfully protected.
According to an MLive report from 2014,
the largest property preserved by the
program is a 286-acre property in Ann
Arbor Township, north of Ann Arbor.
Taking second and third place are cur-
rently a 265-acre property in Webster
Township and a 218-acre property in
Salem Township, respectively. In the
first 15 years of the Greenbelt Program,
more than 5,700 acres of wooded
areas, wetland, prairie and farmland
have been permanently preserved.
Many community members and offi-
cials agree that the Greenbelt program
is so important because it protects the
natural, undeveloped areas surrounding
Ann Arbor from urban sprawl. Urban
sprawl leads to a number of problems,
according to Encyclopedia Britannica,
including “increased energy use, pol-
lution, and traffic congestion and a
decline in community distinctiveness
and cohesiveness.” Without the Green-
belt initiative, many feel that the areas
of Washtenaw County surrounding Ann
Arbor would begin to look more like the
suburbs of Metro Detroit, with miles of
never-ending strip malls and subdivi-
sions. As a result of the millage, “So much
beautiful property has been protected,
and there’s also funding to protect more,
so Washtenaw County is never going to
turn into Oakland County. There’s going
to be viable agriculture and there’s
going to be close-by natural areas for
people to enjoy,” according to Dan Eze-
kiel, former chairman of Ann Arbor’s
Greenbelt Advisory Commission.
While a majority of voters approved
the Greenbelt Millage in 2003 and the
program has proven to show clear ben-
efits for the Ann Arbor community, the
Greenbelt does have critics. One common
concern amongst residents is that the
Greenbelt isn’t the best use of the tax rev-
enue the city of Ann Arbor takes in, espe-
cially since most of the Greenbelt District
is outside of the city limits. While I am not
a taxpayer in Ann Arbor and I understand
these concerns, I believe that the benefits
of this program for the entire Ann Arbor
region as a whole far outweigh the costs.
Not only does the Greenbelt safeguard
natural resources and improve food secu-
rity, but by protecting natural beauty and
open areas, I feel this program is also
beneficial for things like mental health.
According to research discussed by Har-
vard University, there is “a strong con-
nection between time spent in nature and
reduced stress, anxiety, and depression.”
5
Thursday, July 30, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5
OP
OPINION
ON
Ann Arbor invests in its future
EVAN STERN | COLUMNIST
Evan Stern can be reached at
erstern@umich.edu.
KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMNIST
“
If you can sit down with a fam-
ily and see your own family in
them … then you’re going to
work hard for them.” — Barack Obama
With arch-conservative and beer
rights
activist
Brett
Kavanaugh
replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy,
this Supreme Court term appeared
bleak at best for liberals. LGBTQ+
rights, DACA, Trump’s taxes, reli-
gious freedom, abortion, Affordable
Care Act and gun control were all on
the docket this term, so most liberals’
expectations ranged from dismal to
apocalyptic. However, the crisis was
averted, for now, as the four Demo-
cratic appointees found an unlikely
ally in many cases: the umpire him-
self, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.
This term, Roberts sided with the
liberal justices on an array of cases
ranging from one opposing the admin-
istration’s cavalier behavior with dis-
mantling the DACA program to one
protecting a woman’s right to choose
— for now. However, a deeper look into
this surprising term exposes a startling
and revelatory look into the philosophy
of Roberts and his political games-
manship. See, while Roberts has been
reviled by conservatives as a “secret
liberal” and praised by liberals as an
“institutionalist,” this public persona
is a façade to cover partisanship by
manipulating the odd relationship the
Supreme Court has with media, the
public and his own colleagues, and
we cannot allow him to fool us.
Famously, when describing his judi-
cial philosophy during his confirma-
tion hearings, analogizing judges to
baseball umpires, Roberts said, “It’s my
job to call balls and strikes, and not to
pitch or bat.” This bought him the sup-
port of 78 out of 100 senators, with nays
on Roberts’ confirmation belonging to
then-Senators Barack Obama, D-Ill.,
Joe Biden, D-Del., and Ted Kennedy,
D-Mass., along with 19 other votes.
Once Roberts replaced his old
boss — noted segregationist Wil-
liam Rehnquist — as Chief Justice, he
attempted to maintain a low profile,
developing close relationships with his
colleagues and cultivating a reputation
for warmth, wit and good humor. This
reputation for congeniality made Rob-
erts a darling of the media, which lent
the chief both credibility and goodwill.
However, the trait the media did not
give Roberts enough credit for was
his savvy. See, one of the main pow-
ers of the chief justice is to assign the
majority opinions if he or she is on the
winning side, so Roberts has sought to
deflect the media criticism onto other
justices in major rulings like D.C. v.
Heller (2008), which held that the
second amendment guarantees the
right to firearms. While the case
drew the ire of the left, most was
directed toward Antonin Scalia —
who I would normally make a joke
about, but it’s just too easy.
As Roberts became more expe-
rienced, he began employing more
overtly political tactics. For example,
in National Federation of Independent
Business v. Sebellius (2012), Roberts
had the opportunity to deal a death-
blow to Obamacare, but he sided with
liberals, concluding that the law’s
controversial
individual
mandate
was constitutional, which became
the headline. However, the decision’s
arguably more consequential prec-
edent was his conclusion that the
law’s mandatory Medicaid expansion
was unconstitutional, which deprived
millions of people across the country,
especially in red states, of access to
health care. Further, the logic of his
precedent could be applied to many
liberal priorities at the federal level in
the future concerning everything from
clean energy to free college.
While Roberts’ media manipula-
tion and political savvy are signifi-
cant, they are usually overcome by
two things: religion and racism. These
are weak spots in Roberts’ arsenal, as,
since he is a wealthy white Catholic
man, he has never had to consider the
issues of race or imposition of religion
in his daily life, so he simply cannot
relate. Therefore, he is completely
tone-deaf to these issues, which has
never been more apparent than in his
majority opinion in Shelby County v.
Holder (2013) — one of the worst deci-
sions in the Supreme Court’s history.
I could describe the gross incompe-
tence expressed by one of the most
powerful men in this country, but,
honestly, his reiteration from a
2009 opinion does it best:
“Things have changed in the South.
Voter turnout and registration rates
now approach parity. Blatantly dis-
criminatory evasions of federal decrees
are rare. And minority candidates hold
office at unprecedented levels.”
If you don’t speak conservative
nonsense, I can gladly translate.
Essentially Roberts is patting
himself and white people in the
South on the back saying, “Con-
grats guys, we did it. Racism is
no more,” which is just about the
most ridiculous — and statutorily
illogical — point that I have ever
read. Needless to say, this deci-
sion, which gutted Sections 4
and 5 of the Voting Rights Act
of 1965, led to a wave of laws
targeted at decreasing minority
voter turnout across the coun-
try, especially in the South.
With the notable exceptions of
Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which
legalized gay marriage across the
country, and Whole Women’s Health
v. Hellersteadt (2016), which acts to
maintain protections for a woman’s
right to choose, the Supreme Court
tacked conservative in most every con-
sequential case after 2010. While these
small, steady wins satisfied most legal
conservatives, the evangelical base
hungered for further victories. More-
over, many Democrats in the Senate
and on the campaign trail began advo-
cating for altering the structure of the
Supreme Court. This national cli-
mate set the stage for the term in
2020 with Roberts, who is a bona
fide conservative, at the center of
the court and several consequen-
tial cases facing the justices.
This term, Roberts’s cunning was
on full display in several cases, but the
pinnacle of his strategic prowess was
on the issue of LGBTQ+ rights. In Bos-
tock v. Clayton County (2020), despite
the chief voting against gay rights in
Obergefell and other previous deci-
sions, he provided his vote to pad the
6-3 majority. This vote secured the
ability of conservative Neil Gorsuch
to write the narrow majority opin-
ion rather than allowing one of the
court’s liberals to author an expansive
one. Then, in a much lower profile
case, Our Lady of Guadalupe School v.
Morrissey-Berru (2020), Roberts com-
missioned conservative Samuel Alito
— who spent most of the term writing
whiny dissents making me question
his devotion to the rule of law and
overall sanity — to write the opinion
allowing LGBTQ+ individuals to be
fired by religious organizations due
to the ministerial exception. Thus,
he and the conservatives dealt a vic-
tory to liberals, but they strategically
undermined it at every turn, which
is the same pattern that every liberal
“win” this term has followed.
This term, Roberts has played
political games while still making
time to disenfranchise minority vot-
ers and help reintegrate religion into
public life. Despite this, many politi-
cal pundits who either lack expertise
about the court or are too optimistic
to view objective facts as such believe
that this term marks a pivotal change
of heart for Justice Roberts. Spoiler
alert: It doesn’t. Any analysis scratch-
ing even slightly below the surface
of these opinions conveys Roberts’
true motivation, which is to save face
for the court at all costs, even if that
means losing in the short term.
Dear liberals, John Roberts isn’t our friend
Keith Johnstone can be reached at
keithja@umich.edu.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com