ann arbor is overrated.

We usually slack off on the endorsement thing, but if you live in the 5th Ward, consider making it to the polls on August 8th and voting for incumbent council member Chris Easthope in the primary. Yes, you read that right — Chris “Greenway Resolution” Easthope, who, along with Leigh “Porch Couch Ban” Greden, has improbably become one of our favorites on the council.

Easthope is running against Sonia Schmerl, who has attempted to paint him as a tool of development interests, pointedly pledging that “she will not accept contributions, meals or gifts of any kind from contractors, developers or lobbyists that do business with the city.” She has not, however, promised to decline contributions from homeowners, neighborhood groups or landlords who may perceive new development as a threat to their own financial interests.

The very first plank of Schmerl’s platform provides a good idea of what she stands for: “Neighborhoods are the fundamental strength of our community. They shouldn’t be cut out of the action on decisions affecting our future.” In the past year or so, neighborhoods have displayed their fundamental strength by opposing public parks, sidewalks, apartment buildings, a high school and the redevelopment of a blighted strip mall. Schmerl is also a fan of “secret meeting” conspiracy theories to explain why the Calthorpe planning process came to conclusions that differ from those of the neighborhoods.

The strange thing is that, a few months ago, no one would have even thought to call Easthope pro-development in the slightest. He voted against the Downtown Development Authority three-site plan and sponsored the famous greenway resolution.

We like Easthope because we watch a lot of council meetings and he seems like a reasonable guy. When Joan Lowenstein argued that an outdoor NCAA celebration might attract underage drinkers, Easthope pointed out that the council had little grounds to disallow the event when it had approved the very similar Oktoberfest. He also supported the lease-postponement ordinance that gives renters more time to assess their options.

We have no idea how strong of a challenge Schmerl presents, but we see her “Real Greenway Now” signs all over our neighborhood. So if you’ve never voted in a local primary before, consider this your chance to unleash your inner political geek.

It’s not online, but anti-Broadway-Village petitioner Laura Strowe has a letter in yesterday’s news that attempts to introduce some novel terminology into the debate:

[Developer Peter] Allen doesn’t like calling it a “gift” because it gets “repaid,” albeit in the form of property taxes. So let’s call it a “wombat.”

Then the question boils down to: Is it worth it to the city to make a wombat of this size? Is this development worth the cost of the wombat? Are about 30 units of affordable housing worth $80 million? Is a parking struture that only serves the development worth $80 million? Is a cleanup of contamination that costs $4 million worth $80 million? … I say no, and I say not even all of them together is worth this wombat.

Reminds us of that famous story about Abraham Lincoln. “If we call the tail a wombat, how many wombats does a dog have? Four. Calling the tail a wombat doesn’t mean it is one.”

[T]he vast majority of the many people who have signed this petition agree with me.

The vast majority of the people who agree with her agree with her. Anyone remember that Onion story, “Dukakis Gets 80 Percent of Dukakis Family Vote”?

Anti-Broadway-Village-development group CARD has its very own website, Lowertown Watch. (We don’t usually do the [via] thing, but here it may be relevant.) Especially worth checking out: CARD activist Karen Sidney’s letter to city attorney Stephen Postema and his hilarious one-sentence response.

“Big trees provoke the pride of the winds,” reads the sign at Ken’s Nielsen Flowers near the site of the controversial proposed Broadway Village development. You could take this a couple different ways. Do the trees (buildings) display hubris by growing so tall, earning a well-justified smackdown from the fury of the howling gusts (Citizens for Responsible Development)? Or is it the winds that are at fault, seeking to cut down anything that dares intrude into their airspace?

Parking space performance art:

You will “rent” the space(s) by paying the requisite amount for the time. This payment should authorize and entitle you to use the space in any way you choose. Why should cars be privileged?

You might think that Calvin Trillin was all over this with Tepper Isn’t Going Out, but, since the title character sits in his car while letting the meter run out, he’s really just co-opting meter rebellion and turning it into something safe and nonthreatening.

And here we’ve been walking through a whole lot of mostly empty spaces on North Campus every day without realizing how privileged those few cars are to pay $1 per hour for the spaces. Next Monday when we get off the bus, we’re going to pay the $8 for a space and do our work there all day. We might get a little sunburned, but it’s worth it to engage in some dope culture jamming and subvert the oppressive assumption that cars are supposed to park in parking spaces.

The News is kind of slacking off on the whole website-updating thing today, but their homepage is still evocative of life in Michigan:

TOP LOCAL STORIES

• DEATHS

• ROADWORK

Urban Oasis has a mordantly funny post on the council’s increasingly common “dog ate my agenda materials” postponements. (Yes, he posted it two days ago, but we wanted to postpone this post until we were sure about the merits.)

Of late, these postponements have become de rigueur — on building downtown, on adding parks to neighborhoods, and putting in sidewalks. Tonight saw a postponement of selection of the Village Green project for the First and Washington site. The (increasingly frequently cited) reason? A councilmember wanted more time to go back and familiarize himself with both proposals and think about their merits … Am I crazy in expecting that city council members will have read and thoughtfully considered all of the material on the agenda for each semi-monthly meeting? Am I alone in not being comforted by the mayor’s reasoning that a two-meeting postponement was not necessary since, if council wasn’t up to speed next time, they could just postpone it again?

Having witnessed the meeting in question, we felt that the vote on the Village Green postponement was premature and that the council should have postponed it until they had a better understanding of whether a postponement was necessary.

At the Democratic primary forum, candidates illustrated what it takes to get elected in A2: “selling points such as ‘I don’t own a car’ or ‘If it helps, I’ve never been inside a Wal-Mart.’” We would have more to say, but this sounds like something you’d have needed a television to watch.

The first less-than-positive take on Google’s A2 announcement has appeared, surprisingly from a non-townie source. “[T]he charm that is Ann Arbor with it’s [sic] quaint houses and shops, and locally unique eateries should be on guard from the demands Google will place on the local economy,” writes the Michigan Review’s Michael O’Brien, invoking every business’s greatest fear: demand. “It’s my guess that part of the reason Google wanted a place here was to take advantage of and enjoy this strong local culture and the University. But let’s be on guard to make sure this culture isn’t mowed over by too strong of influence from Google.”

“Most people know Ann Arbor as a hip college town and the home of Wolverine football,” the AP reports in their Google story. But our neighbors across the pond don’t seem to know A2 at all. “We did a Google search to find out why the search engine might be interested in the area and found out that Michigan is famous for having 120 lighthouses — more than any other state,” the UK’s Inquirer writes. “Google will be joining Bell’s Brewery as one of the significant outfits that have shifted to the state recently. So if managers want to get drunk on the beach while watching the lights, Ann Arbor is the place to go.” Well, except for the beach and lights part.