Mark Maynard | 2015 | March

State Representative Jeff Irwin on the “frightened patriots” of the open carry movement, forest ecologist Ben Connor Barrie on local trees he’d love to kill, and Matt Siegfried on the racism of Rosie the Riveter… on episode 9 of The Saturday Six Pack

By Mark | March 16, 2015

This is Michigan State Rep Jeff Irwin, my first guest on this past weekend’s episode of The Saturday Six Pack. Our interview, which started off with a weighty conversation on corporate money, gerrymandering, and tax policy, and how, together, they’ve nearly destroyed our state, ended on a significantly lighter note when a caller by the name of Gene phoned in to ask what the Representative meant when he said, “politicians in Lansing deserve a good rimming.” [For what it’s worth, Representative Irwin had said no such thing. The caller, who was listening to the show through his phone, had apparently misheard the word “ribbing.”]

The beverage in Jeff’s hand is Local’s American Lager by Shorts Brewing, which was the beer of choice for this episode of the The Saturday Six Pack. Somewhere toward the beginning of the show, if I’m not mistaken, we give it an enthusiastically positive review… although we had a few questions about the label, which depicts two driverless boats floating eerily on a lake.

[If you would like to listen to the episode in its entirety, you can find it on both Soundcloud and iTunes. Or, if you want, you can just scroll down to end of this post, where you’ll find it embedded.]

As Representative Irwin and I talked for a full hour, we covered a lot of ground. Here, however, are a few of the highlights…

Irwin and I discussed our chances of winning back the Michigan House in 2016 and reversing the disastrous social and fiscal policies of Governor Rick Snyder. We talked at length about the immediate need to increase resources for public education, reverse the misguided “trickle down” tax policies of Rick Snyder, decrease the burden on poor and middle class Michiganders, and bring sanity back to Lansing. [Presently, Democrats hold 47 of Michigan’s 110 House seats. We need to hold our 47 and pick up 9 in 2016 if we want to stop what’s been happening these past several years.]

Speaking of sanity, at some point later in the show, when I ask Irwin what, if anything, he can do to ensure that we don’t lose the right to carry loaded guns in schools, he responds by saying that, of the 42 bills passed this year by the legislature, 11 were laws intended to ease weapons regulations. You heard that right. Over 25% of the laws passed this year in Michigan weren’t about fixing our crumbling infrastructure, or increasing funding for students, but ensuring that we have the right to own more lethal weapons and carry them with us into more places. It’s one of many sobering facts shared by Irwin over the course of our conversation. Oh, and speaking of guns, my favorite quote from Representative Irwin came during a discussion about the folks who insist on walking around the State Capital in Lansing with weapons, just to demonstrate that they can. It’s hard to tell “a violent gunman from a frightened patriot,” he said. [I love the phrase “frightened patriot.” Let’s make t-shirts and hand them out to open carry folks when we see them.]

At some point early on, our friend Pete Larson called in from outside a dance hall in Kenya, where it was 2:00 AM, directing us to play a song that he’d just emailed in. And, once we found it, we did. In the song, Pete outlined everything that he saw as being wrong with Michigan today, from the broken roads to the war on public education. Representative Irwin was offered a guitar to respond in song, but just chose to say, “You’re right, Pete.” [I think this happens at about the 18-minute mark, for those of you who just tune in each week to hear Pete’s contribution from Kenya.]

Representative Irwin and I talked about his support of Proposition 1, which, if passed in May, will raise the sales tax in Michigan to fix our roads. He explained how he would have preferred to raise the gas tax, which hasn’t been raised in Michigan since ’98, but said that Proposition 1 would be better than the alternative, which would likely pull even more money from our schools and local governments. Representative Irwin didn’t like the idea that the legislature, lacking the courage to raise taxes themselves, punted it back to voters, but said that they’d added enough to the bill in other areas to make it palatable. Among other things, the bill, if passed, would put more money into schools and public transportation, and raise the Earned Income Tax Credit, putting money back into the pockets of non-wealthy Michiganders.

We talked about increasing transparency in charter schools, so that Michigan voters, who are currently handing over their hard-earned tax dollars to for-profit charters, could actually see how their money is being spent. [Michigan currently has the most deregulated charter program in the country, which is why we have more for-profit charters than any other state in the country. Not only do we have virtually no oversight of charters, but we don’t even require they tell us how much of the money that they’re given is actually spent of educating out children.]

As Representative Irwin will be term-limited out of office in 2016, we talked about arbitrary term limits, and how, in my opinion, it just gives groups like ALEC more power, as inexperienced legislators look to them for help. As Irwin points out, the State of Michigan is a $53 billion enterprise, which takes a considerable amount of time and experience to master. And, give that, term limits increase the power of lobbyists, who offer to come in with a team of consultants to help draft legislation on complicated issues and get these bills passed. [There doesn’t seem to be any movement to end term limits, by the way, as most voters, even though they typically say they like their own representatives, feel as though legislators are inept and crooked, and want them out of office.]

Here’s Representative Irwin telling us how he got his start in politics, when, as a 22 year old Political Science undergrad at UM, he decided to run for the Washtenaw Country Board of Commissioners.

We talked of areas where he’s been finding common ground with Tea Party Republicans, like on parole and sentencing reform, and with regard to legislation requiring body cameras for police officers. And we talked about the possibility of his getting support from Republicans for his most recent bill, which, if passed, would end daylight savings time in Michigan. [He seemed to think that it might resonate with them if he referred to daylight savings time as “the tyrany of federal time.”]

Oh, and he told us how daylight savings time was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin, who claimed that it would save tons of candle wax. This, he says, could have been a joke on Franklin’s part. [Irwin, for what it’s worth, makes a pretty good case against daylight savings time, which he says not only doesn’t save us any energy, but actually leads to increased traffic accidents and the like.]

The only regret that I have is that I didn’t realize when Irwin was still in the studio that one of the recorded pieces sent in by our man-on-the-street, Chris Sandon, was actually about him. If I’d known, I would have played it when he was in the studio. If you’re interested in hearing people coming out of Ypsi bars sharing their thoughts on Jeff Irwin, you’ll find it at the 1:22-minute mark. [Invariably, they all say that they were heartbroken when they’d heard that he’d been killed by a stingray.]

And that was just the first half of the show.

During the second half, our friend Brigid Mooney from the Wurst Bar brought in a young comedian by the name of Jordan Miller. In addition to telling us about being heckled by a four year old, Miller told us about his dream to one day break out of Ypsilanti and take the stage in the big city of Ann Arbor… Here’s Miller, explaining to us how he came to be living with Saturday Six Pack Music Director Jim Cherewick.

Then local historian Matt Siegfried dropped by at about the 1:14-mark to debut a segment we’re calling the Ypsilanti History Minute. In this first installment, he both celebrates the life of local janitor turned university president HP Jacobs and tarnishes the legacy of Rosie The Riveter, who he says fought to keep black workers out of the Willow Run bomber plant… Here’s Siegfried tearing down old heroes and replacing them with better ones.

And, after that, Ben Connor Barrie came in to confesses to a heinous crime, talk about trees, and give me the gift of lead pellet-filled deer flesh. [Our discussion begins at 1:26, with Ben explaining that he’s not an arborist, but a forest ecologist. An arborist, he says, cares for trees, while a forest ecologist just knows about them, but doesn’t help.] We talk about trees in town that he’d like to kill, the biggest tree-related issues facing Ypsilanti, and the fact that palm trees are not, in fact, trees. The highlight comes at 1:48, when we launch a new segment called Boot Talk… Here’s Ben, asking me about my boots.

Lastly, this was our first episode with a house band, and I think it went really well. It was great having Jim Cherewick on hand to introduce segments and contribute spontaneous songs about various things my guests and I happened to be talking about. Here’s Jim performing a song called Crawlspace, inspired by another interview conducted outside an Ypsilanti bar by Chris Sandon, during which a woman, after noting that she had a “sexual sickness,” discusses at 2:05 how she transmitted it to someone who made the mistake of not just going “downstairs” but into her “crawlspace.” [Chris Sandon, as always, was brought to us by a generous grant from the Facethruster Corporation.]

And, lastly, here I am at the end of the show, reflecting on the evening’s events with Jim, trying to decide where we should take the show in the future…

Speaking of ideas for the future, two have come to me as I’ve been writing this summary. First, I’d like to do more on-air song-writing late in shows, taking song ideas from people in the audience. And, second, I’d like to find a way to cook Ben’s deer meat live in the studio, and then eat it by caldle-light with a lucky listener.

Oh, and this was the episode where we all felt bad for our favorite Saturday Six Pack troll, The Who Guy, who, after a perfect setup, failed to execute due to a technical difficulty… Thankfully, he rebounded later.

AND NOW, THANKS TO SCIENCE, YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE WHOLE THING ON YOUR OWN TIME:

[If you like this episode, check out our archive of past shows at iTunes. And do please leave a review if you have the time, OK?]

[note: All photos by AM 1700 staff photographer Kate de Fuccio.]

Posted in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Politics, The Saturday Six Pack, Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Tagged ALEC, Benjamin Franklin, body cameras, Brigid Mooney, charter schools, Chris Sandon, corporate money, crawlspaces, daylight saving time, dismantling of public education, Earned Income Tax Credit, for-profit charter schools, frightened patriot, gas tax, gerrymandering, guns, guns in schools, HP Jacobs, infrastructure, Jeff Irwin, Jim Cherewick, Jordan Miller, Lansing, Local's American Lager, Michigan House of Representatives, Michigan sales tax, Michigan's roads, open carry, parole, Pete Larson, Proposition 1, ribbing, Rick Snyder, rimming, Rosie the Riveter, school funding, sentencing reform, sexual sickness, Shorts Brewing, Steve Irwin, tax policy, tea party, term limits, threats to public education, war on drugs, Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, Wurst Bar | 20 Comments

The campaign to get Eden Foods products off our local co-op shelves

By Mark | March 14, 2015

Presently there are movements afoot, both in Ann Arbor and in Ypsilanti, to pull products by Eden Foods off the shelves of our respective food co-ops. Following is a conversation with Georgina Hickey, who is leading the charge in Ypsilanti, and Ann Rogers, who is doing the same in Ann Arbor, explaining why, in their opinion, this is the morally right thing to do, given Eden’s position on the reproductive health of their female employees.

MARK: A number of co-ops around the country have voted over the course of the past year to stop carrying the products of Clinton-based Eden Foods. And, as I understand it, you, Georgina and Ann, would like for the Ypsi Food Co-op (YFC) and the Ann Arbor People’s Food Co-op (PFC) to do the same. And, toward that end, you’ve launched petition drives, in hopes of putting the issue before the member-owners of your respective co-ops. Before we get into the specifics of your campaigns, perhaps we should start by discussing what it is about Eden that has people around the country initiating boycotts. My friend Dan Gillotte is the General Manager of the Wheatsville co-op in Austin, Texas, and here’s how they summarized the issue in a recent copy of their newsletter, after members voted 639 to 338 to stop carrying products manufactured by Eden Foods.

Eden Foods is one of the oldest natural and organic food companies in North America and has been an industry leader in maintaining organic standards, directly supporting North American family farms, and providing Non-GMO assurance on all products. The brand’s line of BPA-free canned beans, condiments, soymilk and pastas has been carried at Wheatsville Food Co-op since the 80’s.

On March 20, 2013, Eden Foods filed suit against the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, which administers the Affordable Care Act (ACA), for the right to opt out of contraceptive coverage for its employees. Eden Foods objects to a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires companies, if they choose to offer health insurance to their employees, to include coverage of a wide array of contraceptive choices.

Is that a relatively good summary of the issue as you see it, or are there other factors that I’m not aware of that are motivating this campaign in Ypsilanti?

GEORGINA: Well, it’s a start, but much has happened since then, and it’s an issue that is still unfolding. Eden Foods’ original case argued that complying with the ACA requirements violated their deeply held religious beliefs under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Eden lost its case and its subsequent appeals. In the opinion of the court, the ACA obligated only the company, and did not in any way restrict the religious beliefs of the individual who owns the company.

MARK: But then, after that, we had the Hobby Lobby decision, right?

GEORGINA: Yes, this past summer, there was the Hobby Lobby decision, which suggested that courts might be willing to answer Eden’s questions differently. And, as a result, the Eden decision was vacated back to lower courts… This doesn’t, by the way, mean, “You lost before, but now you’ve won.”’ It basically means, “You can ask your question of the courts again.”

MARK: So Eden refiled?

GEORGINA: Right. Eden had to file their case again, and it’s still making its way through the process. Michael Potter, founder, chairperson, president, and sole shareholder of Eden Foods, has referenced a final decision having come from Judge Denise Hood’s court in Detroit on Feb 12, 2015, but we have not been able to locate any official records referencing a decision from that court on that date. [Michael Potter seen right.]

Potter has given contradictory and inconsistent public statements about the depth of his religious convictions and the real motivations behind his court challenges to the ACA. His lawyer described his views this way: “In accordance with his Catholic faith, Potter believes that any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation, whether as an end or means — including abortifacients and contraception — is wrong.” But in another interview, Potter himself said he cared more about long underwear than birth control, suggesting that his political objections to the mandates of the ACA far outweighed any religious convictions he might have.

Unfortunately, media reports surrounding the issue fell off quickly after the summer, and there has been little pressure on Potter to explain what he and his company are up to, and hold them accountable for the contradictory statements they have given on their case and intentions. We hope that, by raising the issue locally, in the kinds of places that made Eden Foods what it is today, we might help to change that. We want to send a clear message to Potter about his customers’ concerns over his blatant disregard for the beliefs and health of his female employees.

I personally support a boycott of Eden Foods because I think their actions unfairly impact their female employees, and I don’t want to see their actions create a precedent for even more drastic anti-woman actions on the part of other companies to undermine the ACA.

MARK: And where does the YFC Board of Directors stand on the issue?

GEORGINA: The YFC board considered the issue back in July, when it was raised by Ben Miller, a member of the Co-op’s Board of Directors. (See page 3 of the most recent Co-op newsletter for the board president’s summary of the board’s position.) In short, they opted not to do anything at that time, which is part of why we’ve begun a petition drive in order to get this on the annual meeting agenda. Some board members feel they need member desires made clear, others think they already decided, so, in their eyes, this is a petition to reconsider.

MARK: So how did this most recent push to get Eden products off the shelf come about?

GEORGINA: A member of the newly re-forming chapter of Washtenaw County NOW raised the issue with that group (of which I am also a member) after the Ann Arbor People’s Food Co-op seemed to be dodging the issue, and that’s where this new push began. Members of NOW sent letters to both co-ops, and I followed up by attending the YFC board meeting (where I’m a member) and asking for the issue to be put on the annual meeting agenda. I was told, given the bylaws of the Co-op, that it would take 50 signatures to make that happen. So, as a member of the YFC, I started a petition. [If you’re a member of the YFC, you can sign the petition here.]

Washtenaw County NOW has committed itself to this issue. We are appealing to the co-ops, but we’re also planning other actions around raising consumer awareness on the issue and putting pressure on Eden Foods. (Cheryl Farmer is the leader our local chapter.) My take on the NOW position is that we would welcome the opportunity to support this company again as soon as they offer female employees the opportunity to use their healthcare premiums for the treatments they and their doctors deem most appropriate. We do not believe the work that Eden Foods has done to promote sustainable and organic food, while laudable, exempts them from showing this basic level of respect and fair treatment toward their female employees.

MARK: And how about from your perspective, Ann?

ANN: What you and Georgina have written is a very good summary. I would add that Michael Potter is trying to portray this as an affront to his personal religious convictions. However, Eden Foods is for-profit corporation, which makes it a separate entity under the law from Michael Potter, citizen. The corporate form provides a shield for its shareholders from personal liability PROVIDED the corporation interests are kept separate from the personal affairs of the shareholders. This is called the “corporate veil”. So, this argument of Michael Potter’s that Eden Foods, Inc. providing birth control as part of their employee medical plan infringes on his personal religious freedoms doesn’t hold water.

MARK: We heard the history of the at the YFC from Georgina. What’s the background in Ann Arbor, Ann?

ANN: Last July, the Hobby Lobby ruling was handed down, and it appeared that Eden Foods had the Supreme Court on its side. Several Co-op members, including me, attended a board meeting and asked about the process for putting a boycott measure on the ballot. We were told that we could start a petition drive to have it put on the ballot, which would require signatures from 10% (approximately 800) members. The board members seemed to agree that it would be difficult to get that many signatures, and they talked about changing the bylaws to reduce that percentage. A second way to get it on the ballot, according to the PFC bylaws, would be for the board to vote to put it on the annual ballot, which comes out in April each year. The board agreed at their September meeting to put it on the ballot themselves. This did this in part because of the feeling among them that the 10% mark was onerous. The Coop published in the holiday issue of their Connection Newsletter that it would be on the ballot.

After January’s board meeting we heard that they had voted at that meeting to rescind the ballot measure, though. The PFC Vice President told us it was due to ”deeper concerns as a result of placing the boycott question on the April ballot.” (The minutes from that meeting are now available.)

The boycott supporters sprung back into action. Many members emailed their concerns to the board about the democratic process being thwarted. We began an unofficial petition drive and collected 200 signatures from Co-op shoppers to have the measure put back on the ballot. More than 20 supporters attended the February board meeting and requested they put the measure back on the ballot. But the board did not do so. It now appears that the petition drive is the only way to get this put on the ballot, and it will now have to be a special ballot. It won’t be on the April ballot.

I’ve requested that the Co-op notify the membership that this has been removed from the ballot. It has now been 7 weeks since their vote to rescind the measure, and still the Coop membership has not been notified. Currently the only place on their website that this information can found is in the January board meeting minutes.

MARK: Has there been any response from Eden in the wake of Wheatsville and other large co-ops around the country voting to boycott them?

GEORGINA: Indirectly. They put out a statement last July. You can find it here.

ANN: I know that Eden Foods wrote to the Ann Arbor People’s Food Coop in response to their board vote (subsequently retracted) last September to put the issue on the member ballot. In that response, Eden Foods referenced its own statements on the issue, like the one they released in April 2013, which includes the following two quotes.

“We believe in a woman’s right to decide, and have access to, all aspects of their health care and reproductive management. This lawsuit does not block, or intend to block, anyone’s access to health care or reproductive management.”

“Eden employee benefits include health, dental, vision, life, and a fifty percent 401k match. The benefits have not funded “lifestyle drugs,” an insurance industry drug classification that includes contraceptives, Viagra, smoking cessation, weight-loss, infertility, impotency, etc.”

It appears that their argument is that they aren’t trying to block access to health care. Of course they’re not. How could a company possibly keep a woman from seeking medical care on her own time at her own expense? What the company is seeking to do is to not provide for some of that medical care as part of the employee’s compensation package. The effect, then, would be to require women seeking such care to pay for it themselves, thereby reducing the value of her overall compensation package.

[Following is a clip from Eden’s letter to the the People’s Food Co-op. The entire letter can be found here.]

MARK: What’s your sense as to how, if at all, a boycott of Eden Foods may impact the finances of the Ypsi Food Co-op? If I’m not mistaken, quite a few of the Co-op’s best selling items are produced by Eden, correct?

GEORGINA: To be honest, I don’t think it is up to me to answer this question. I’ve asked, and will continue to ask, the Co-op general manager for more information on sales (or at least ordering) stats on Eden Foods products. I think the membership needs this information to make an informed decision about whether or not they would like to take action and, if so, of what sort. We do have a list of Eden products sold at the Co-op and it is lengthy, but that doesn’t mean much without sales (or at least ordering figures).

Like all of the people signing the petition and most of the folks calling for a discussion of the issue at the YFC annual meeting, I’m a member-owner of the Co-op and I very much want to see it continue to succeed. At the same time, I don’t believe that the Co-op just a grocery store. It’s democratically run. It’s a community of sorts. This creates an opportunity for that community to consider the political and ethical ramifications of what we chose to sell.

At least one board member has raised the concern that if we don’t have Eden soymilk and other products on the shelves, customers will go somewhere else. I would like to suggest a different possibility. With the membership behind the decision to boycott (should they choose to go that direction) and solid efforts to reach out to the other customers and explain the situation, I would hope that loyalty to the Co-op would grow from YFC taking a principled stand on the issue. Whole Foods has already passed on requests to boycott. They have no members, no community, to direct their policy — only lone consumers with the power of their individual dollars.

MARK: And how about in Ann Arbor, Ann?

ANN: Co-op board members have lamented at board meetings that they would like to have a more active membership. It seems to me that having the members make a decision about the types of companies they’d like the Co-op to support with their business would be a great way for them to encourage a more fully-committed and engaged membership. I think the process has the potential to increase both loyalty and sales.

MARK: How confident are you that high-quality alternatives to Eden products can be sourced, assuming members agree to a boycott of Eden Foods?

ANN: I have seen that the Co-op has alternatives for Eden Foods product on its shelves from other suppliers. I have checked several times over the past few months, and have been unable to find a product from Eden Foods for which there is not a similar product available from another supplier. Many shoppers are already boycotting Eden’s products. We’ve asked the Co-op to put up educational materials about this issue so that all members can make informed purchasing decisions.

GEORGINA: I’m fairly confident, but, again, this is probably best not done by me. As a member-owner, however, I’m willing to help, and I know others are as well. Let’s start by seeing what we already carry, and then look at what else our distributors offer that we could easily carry. Someone in the community just asked who else packages their products in BPA-free cans. (Eden was a leader in this area, just to give them their due.) A bit of searching turned up the answer that Bionaturae, Westbrae, and Muir Glen also can in BPA-free containers. With a better sense of just which products our customers buy, we could certainly work to identify other options. Some of the macrobiotic products may be harder to replace, which is a shame, but I believe that, if we educate our customers about the absence of these products, they would stand by the Co-op on this.

MARK: Is there perhaps a middle ground, where members could vote to start replacing Eden products over a given period of time?

GEORGINA: Sure. Absolutely. Let’s hear some concrete proposals — getting this at the meeting is all about giving the members a forum to discuss options! Once that is secured, we’d like to spend more time brainstorming a whole host of ways to respond — at the Co-op level, at the community level, at the individual level…

In one case (Central Co-op in Seattle), consumers voted with their dollars first and the co-op took Eden off their shelves after a significant decline in sales. I do not advocate this process for YFC, since it has the potential to stick the Co-op with stock for which it has paid but cannot sell, and therefore stands to hurt our Co-op financially. If we have a majority of members who intend to boycott the products, though, I think it’s in the best interest of the Co-op’s financial health to adopt a boycott and not order the products in the first place.

ANN: The goal is to end the Co-op’s financial support of Eden Foods unless and until the company includes all FDA-approved forms of birth control as part of their employee health care plan at no additional charge to employees. If a phased approach would be effective and would help the Co-op financially, then we would certainly consider that approach. As for being stuck with product, there are already policies in place at the Ann Arbor Co-op about implementing a boycott, and these policies outline what to do with product that has already been purchased. So the products wouldn’t likely be removed from the shelves immediately, and the Co-op certainly wouldn’t be left unable to sell product that it has already purchased. (Policy G.12.8 outlines how the Co-op will return items to the supplier, if possible and, if not, then the purchased stock is to be sold until depleted.)

MARK: Are there lessons to be learned from other co-ops, like Wheatsville, as to 1) how a campaign like this should be waged, and 2) how alternatives are sourced post Eden?

GEORGINA: I’m sure there are lessons to be learned from other co-ops, but, other than what I’ve already noted about the Seattle co-op, and read in the news on the others, I don’t yet have these details. Who wants to help look into this?

ANN: There are many other co-ops around the country that have been grappling with this issue, and we can learn from them. As you noted above, Mark, the Wheatsville co-op has eloquently stated the reasons for their member-voted boycott. And there are lists of alternative products available (usually from co-ops that have a policy prohibiting boycotts).

MARK: Given that they’re a relatively local company, might there be an opportunity to meet and discuss these items face to face? I don’t know that doing so would be fruitful, given comments I’ve read from Eden’s owner, but I don’t imagine it would hurt, would it?

GEORGINA: YFC invited Potter to an education session, to be held at the public library. Potter declined.

ANN: I know that the Ann Arbor Co-op had intended to hold a forum on the boycott issue, had this issue not been removed from the April ballot. Vanessa Marr (vicepresident@peoplesfood.coop) was working in January to line up speakers from both sides of the boycott issue. I don’t know whether she had asked anyone from Eden Foods to participate or not. You might ask her, if she did, what their response was.

MARK: How many signatures to you need to bring this to a vote in Ypsi? And when do you need them by?

GEORGINA: The petition is a means for getting the issue in front of the Ypsi Food Co-op membership for a discussion and possible action. We need 50 signatures of current co-op members, ideally by March 15, 2015. The board needs to verify the signatures and, as specified in the bylaws, appropriately notify the membership that there will be a special meeting on the issue. We are aiming for March 15 so that this “special” meeting can happen in conjunction with the coop’s annual meeting that is already scheduled for Thursday, May 7 at 5:30pm at the Freight House. It is costly for the coop to do extra notifications to members, so we want to use the annual meeting notice that will already be going out.

Posted in Ann Arbor, Civil Liberties, Ypsilanti | Tagged ACA, Affordable Care Act, Ann Rogers, boycotts, Cheryl Farmer, co-ops, contraception, Dan Gillotte, Eden Foods, Georgina Hickey, GMO, Hobby Lobby, Michael Potter, National Organization for Women, NOW, old white men making decisions on women's health, People's Food Co-op, petitions, religious extremism, reproductive justice, soy, soymilk, Supreme Court, Wheatsville, women's health, Ypsi Food Co-op | 70 Comments

State Rep Jeff Irwin, talking trees with Ben Connor Barrie, and the Ypsilanti History Minute with Matt Siegfried… on this weekend’s Saturday Six Pack

By Mark | March 12, 2015

This coming Saturday’s show, as always, will be awesome. We’ll start out by talking with Michigan State Rep Jeff Irwin about raising the sales tax to fix our roads, his apparent disdain for daylight saving time, and anything else you might want to call in about. And then we’ll chat with the likes of Matt Siegfried about local history, and Ben Connor Barrie about local trees, among other things. And, of course, Brigid Mooney will be bringing by one of her favorite regulars from the bar to say hello. And, perhaps most importantly, this will be our fist episode with a house band, thanks to the heroic efforts of Jim Cherewick… And, as always, our intrepid downtown reporter Chris Sandon will be out on the street, looking for action throughout the show, and chasing down any breaking news leads you might call in with.

If you’d like to tell your friends about the show, feel free to share the Facebook event page. As of right now, it looks as though there are only about 30 people who are planning to listen, so there should still be some milliwatts available. (Unless you live really close by, I’d recommend streaming the show online, which you can do either on the AM1700 website or by way of TuneIn.com.)

And for those of you who aren’t yet familiar with the show, you can listen to the entire archive on iTunes.

One last thing. We love phonecalls. So please burn this number into your well-toned torso with a cigarette… 734.217.8624… and call us between 6:00 and 8:00 this Saturday evening. (Don’t make us call you.)

Oh, and if you don’t live close enough to the studio to pick us up on the radio, and you don’t have access to a computer, I’m told that, again this week, the folks at 826michigan will be hosting a listening party at their downtown Ann Arbor Robot Supply Store. So, if you can’t hear it any other way, or just don’t want your neighbors in Ann Arbor to know that you’re listening to The Saturday Six Pack, head over to Liberty Street and knock on the door.

[And, thank you Kate de Fuccio for finally transferring my head to the body of a stylish coke fiend.]

Posted in Ann Arbor, History, Politics, Special Projects, The Saturday Six Pack, Ypsilanti | Tagged AM 1700, Ben Connor Barrie, Brigid Mooney, Chris Sandon, daylight saving time, Jeff Irwin, Jim Cherewick, Matt Siegfried | 4 Comments

Why Ypsilanti’s identity, independent of Ann Arbor, is important…. and why we should fight to keep our Convention and Visitors Bureau

By Mark | March 12, 2015

It was made public today that members of the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners are considering the possibility of forcing a merger between the Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (YACVB) and its counterpart in Ann Arbor. This, as I understand it from my sources, is something that the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (AAACVB) has been trying to see accomplished for over a decade, but it would seem that they may have finally gotten enough support at the County level to make it happen, and it has me wondering what the impact might be for Ypsilanti, which, in my opinion, has been doing an increasingly good job these past few years of promoting itself as a City with its own unique character, independent of Ann Arbor.

[The Ann Arbor News article can be found here.]

The idea behind this – the idea that we should brand ourselves consistently across the County as “the greater Ann Arbor region” – by the way, isn’t new. I can remember back, over a decade ago, when it was decided to replace our regional economic development group, the Washtenaw Development Council, with what we now call Ann Arbor SPARK. The brand that resonates with people outside the region, we were told, wasn’t Washtenaw County, but Ann Arbor, and, given that, we should let them take the lead. We’d all benefit, they said. And, it would seem, we bought into it, thinking that we’d have a better chance of attracting the interest of developers and the like. All we had to do was submit to the all-powerful Ann Arbor brand and become part of “the greater Ann Arbor region.” A dozen years or so into the experiment, I don’t know that we can call it a victory for Ypsilanti. While Ann Arbor continues to grow by leaps and bounds, all that we have, after a decade, is a new dollar store.

Along these same lines, we were told a few years ago that for the sake of efficiency, we should combine our Chambers of Commerce. We were assured at the time that the new entity would maintain a presence in downtown Ypsilanti, and they did… for a little while. Eventually, that office closed. Now, from what I hear, we have one Chamber employee, who can, “every once in a while,” be found at a desk inside SPARK East.

[note: According to Angela Barbash, the founder of Ypsilanti’s Reconsider, the Chamber presence in Ypsilanti is virtually nonexistent these days. “I haven’t seen a Chamber representative at SPARK East for at least nine months,” she told me today. “They don’t even make an appearance at the monthly ‘start your own business’ class that’s held there.” She went on to say, “I should also note that the Chamber was unresponsive to three outreach requests we made last fall when we were launching venture LOCAL. We were definitely disappointed.”]

So, you’ll have to excuse me if I’m a bit skeptical when told that Ypsilanti will come away from a merger better than we went into it. Ceding our uniqueness, I think, to become just another part of “the greater Ann Arbor region,” would be a huge mistake.

With all of that said, however, I do acknowledge that those on the other side of the debate have legitimate points. Following, for instance, are the thoughts of former Ypsilanti City Planner Richard Murphy, who notes, for example, that being a part of the AAATA gives us much better bus service than we could ever accomplish on our own.

I hear your concern about diminishing one channel for community brand identity, though the other side of that is, at what point are things too fragmented and parochial to meet any need beyond “the right name” effectively? Certainly I think the YDDA serves its districts better now than when it was two DDAs failing to effectively work together; the Chamber merger similarly may give Ypsi businesses access to more resources within the larger organization, and more exposure through it. We’re better off as part of AAATA than if we tried to establish our own Ytransit agency.

I think there are cases where it’s important to have a separate organization or institution, and this may be one of them–where the existential purpose of the institution is to promote a specific community brand. However, that’s by no means always the case, and I wanted to provide examples where the *function* of an organization, and the *benefit* it provides to Ypsi may well be improved by aggregating upwards. That’s the question I’d like to see considered here, and in any case: what do we actually gain or lose, and can we talk about that thing, rather than talking about the name per se.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably mention at this point that my wife has, on occasion, been asked to do freelance design work for the Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. (She recently helped them with their 2015 Best of Ypsilanti Guide, a little bit of which can be seen below.) So I suppose, if you were looking to discredit my argument, you could say that I’m just weighing in on this because I have a vested interest. As the YACVB is a relatively small client of hers, though, I don’t think it holds much water, but I wanted to be upfront about it. I will say, however, that, through Linette’s involvement, I’ve come to know the staff at the YACVB to be motivated, thoughtful and competent, and I’d hate to think that any of them might lose their jobs in a merger. Furthermore, I happen to be aware of a current project they’ve got underway with a branding firm, looking at the way we position the City going forward, and I’d hate to think that this work of theirs to really get at what makes us different from the cities and towns around us, may be lost in a consolidation with Ann Arbor.

[note: The following pages look even better in real life. I had to trim the tops because the navigation controls kept getting in the way.]

And, when I say that Ypsi’s identity would be lost, by the way, I’m not just being paranoid. Sean Duval, the board chair of the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau told the Ann Arbor News, “It’s absolutely our vision to see one countywide marketing agency, one voice for the Ann Arbor area.”

How can two completely distinct cities speak with a single voice? And why is it that they should have to? Are people really out there, staring at their computer screens, completely bewildered by the fact that two cities less than ten miles apart define themselves differently? Are there people really out there saying, “Wow, I really wanted to go to Ann Arbor for vacation, but I see that there’s a different town a few miles away with a different name and a different idea as to how to promote themselves, and I’m so damned confused that I’m going to stay home”?

Apparently, in the opinion of Joseph Sefcovic, the president of the Washtenaw County Hotel and Motel Association, the answer is, “Yes.” In a letter sent to the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners on January 22, Sefcovic wrote, “maintaining two CVBs creates an undeniable identity crises and confusion for our region.”

Have you ever met anyone… even one person… who is confused by the concept that Ann Arbor is one city, and Ypsilanti is another?

Before we go one step further, I’d like to ask Duval and Sefcovic to provide examples of this confusion, and evidence that it has cost Ann Arbor tourism dollars. If it’s as big of a problem as they suggest, I don’t imagine it will be too difficult of a task.

Of course, it’s also possible that this has absolutely nothing to do with confusion, and everything to do with money. There is, after all, a lot of money on the table. And it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Ann Arbor’s hotel owners wanted it all for themselves, to promote their message, and to try to pull more big events into their city, at the expense of Ypsilanti. But who would be so cynical as to suggest that?

Following, from today’s Ann Arbor News, are the financials.

…Every hotel bill in the county includes a 5 percent tax–raised from 2 percent in 2009–that is levied to fund the area’s convention and visitors bureaus. The county keeps 10 percent of the funds raised for administration costs, and then splits the remaining 90 percent between the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The AAACVB receives 75 percent of the available funding while the YACVB gets the remaining 25 percent. Revenue captured by the tax has risen significantly each of the past two years. The county collected $4.68 million in 2013 and unaudited figures show the tax generated $5.21 million in revenue in 2014.

Under the current revenue splitting contracts, which expire in 2015, the Ypsilanti area bureau received approximately $1.17 million from the taxes collected in 2014 and the Ann Arbor area bureau received about $3.52 million…

Agreeing to give Ypsilanti 25% of a smaller pie may have been more palatable. But, as the pie gets bigger, I have to think there are people in Ann Arbor who are thinking, “Just imagine what we could do with another $1.17 million.”

So, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners voted on March 4 to call together a task force to look at how the county distributes the monies brought in via the excise tax. They, as I understand it, can’t technically force a merger, but they have the power to shift where the money goes. So, in effect, if they wanted to, they could force a merger to happen, making the members of the Washtenaw County Hotel and Motel Association, and the AAAVCB, very happy… The only people, it would seem, who don’t want this to happen are those of us in Ypsilanti, and it’s not clear to me that we have much power to stop it. Hopefully, I’m wrong about that.

The task force will consist of four Washtenaw County Commissioners; Andy LaBarre (Ann Arbor), Ruth Ann Jamnick (Ypsilanti Township), Ronnie Peterson (Ypsilanti), and Alicia Ping (Saline). If you have an opinion on this, I’d suggest that you write to one or all of them. You’ll find their contact information here.

And here, lastly, are a few random thoughts.

1. The AAACVB gathers sponsors to hosts events (breakfasts, annual dinners, etc). The YACVB, however, actually sponsors events in Ypsilanti. Through their minigrant program, the YACVB sponsors major events, like Elvis Fest, First Fridays, Heritage Fest, etc. If our two organization merge, will the AAACVB contribute money toward these and other events, which are a major economic drivers in Ypsi?

2. The AAACVB charges membership dues. The YACVB, in contrast, provides free services such as photography, consulting, non-membership based listings.

3. The YACVB has a Community Tourism Action Program through which it awards one $10,000 grant to each of our surrounding communities (Chelsea, Dexter, Milan, Manchester, Saline, and Ypsilanti Township) to support new and/or enhanced visitor-based programming. Ann Arbor, I believe, does not do this. Furthermore, the YACVB, over the past year, launched in-depth campaigns for major events in the surrounding areas (i.e. Milan’s Bluegrass Festival, Saline’s Craft Show, seasonal events at Wiard’s in the Township, etc.). These campaigns utilized promoted social media posts, custom illustrations by local artist Caleb Zweifler, Google ad-word campaigns, and microsites on visitypsinow.com, like this one for Dexter.

4. The YACVB has a better social media strategy. Not only does our Visitors and Convention Bureau have a blog, which Ann Arbor doesn’t, but, with one third the budget, they have almost as many social media followers. Ann Arbor has 15K followers, and Ypsi has over 12,500. Why? Because Ypsi has an identity and a large pool of people who care about that identity. And, as for the blog, they have awesome guest bloggers like our historian friend Matt Siegfried. Lastly, after 40 years in business, Ann Arbor has 8 videos on YouTube, whereas we have scores of them, like this one posted a few weeks ago…

Will Ann Arbor produce videos like this for our community? Will they care about the quirkiness of Ypsilanti? Or will we just be a footnote in materials produced about Ann Arbor?

Posted in Ann Arbor, Marketing, Rants, Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Tagged AAACVB, AAATA, Alicia Ping, Andy LaBarre, Angela Barbash, Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce, Ann Arbor SPARK, brand identity, branding, consolidation, consolidation of services, dollar stores, economic development, excise tax, Family Dollar, hotel tax, hotels, identity, Joseph Sefcovic, Linette, mergers, Reconsider, Richard Murphy, Ronnie Peterson, Ruth Ann Jamnick, Saline, Sean Duval, SPARK East, the greater Ann Arbor region, venture LOCAL, Washtenaw County, Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, Washtenaw County Hotel and Motel Association, Washtenaw Development Council, YACVB, YDDA, Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau | 73 Comments

The Six Pack Portrait Project

By Mark | March 11, 2015

Shortly after starting the Saturday night radio show, a local photographer by the name of Chris Stranad reached out to me, suggesting that we find a way to somehow collaborate. He said he’d been listening to The Saturday Six Pack from his studio across the street from the offices of AM 1700, and he wanted to know if maybe he could help out in some way. Well, while we still haven’t come to terms with what that collaboration would look like, Chris has been snagging some of my guests and taking them across the street to his place, to have their photos taken. Here are a few examples. [One is Bee Roll, the woman behind Beezy’s. The other is Paul Saginaw, the co-founder of Zingerman’s. I’ll let you figure out which is which.]

[Hear the episode where Bee wins Ypsilantian of the Year.]

[Hear the episode where Paul tells us about his uncle Chickie.]

As for what we do with these beautiful portraits, and all of them to come, I’m not really sure. I could just add them to the posts that I put up on this site about individual episodes, I suppose, but I’m thinking that perhaps something more is called for… something new and different… Maybe, I’m thinking, we could start a Saturday Six Pack blog, or a Tumblr page, where we just post photos of my guests with quotes from their respective interviews. Or, maybe, at the end of each interview, I ask my guests one final question, and then post their photos along with their responses.

As for what the question could be that everyone responds to, maybe I could ask something Ypsi specific, like “What are the three best words to describe Ypsilanti?” Or, better yet, maybe we should go beyond Ypsi, and ask each of these folks for their thoughts on how to better navigate this world that we’ve all been born into. I could ask something like, “What advice do you wish that you had received earlier in your life?” Or, as I suspect everyone will be smiling in their photos, as everyone smiles on The Saturday Six Pack, maybe I should ask something that’s not as likely to be dark. I could ask, “When was the last time that you laughed uncontrollably?” Or, I could pose a question like, “What’s a memory that always makes you smile?”

As I’m somewhat cynical by nature, I’m not inclined to point these questions in a direction where the resulting responses might be too saccharine. I’m not looking to be the next Mitch Albom, doling out hollow, little platitudes. With that said, though, I do have really cool, thoughtful guests, and I’m genuinely interested to hear what, if any, useful advice they might have to offer. And, I think, it could be pretty cool in aggregate to have a bunch of truly interesting people saying what’s important to them, what makes them happy, how they balance their work and home lives, or whatever. It’s just a matter of finding that right question… something that prompts people for good, interesting, perfectly distilled, truly unique words that others might find value in.

If you have thoughts on this, please leave a comment. I’d appreciate it.

[All above photos by Chris Stranad.]