Liberty [Street] and Justice for All
A centrally located downtown property being turned into a parking lot? It’s not surprising that A2 residents showed up at city council in force to protest.
Oh, wait. The area that councilmember Margie Teall calls “the heart of the city” is already a parking lot. It’s the proposal to turn it into a police station that has Ann Arborites up in arms.
“Liberty will die,” one speaker said about the prospect of “a large city building…put on the library lot.” Well, the News printed the speaker’s words as “Liberty [Street] will die,” but we’re not so sure that they weren’t intended as spoken.
Yeah. I read that, too. The heart of Ann Arbor is a surface lot. How telling.
posted by Young OWSider on November 30th, 2006 at 12:13 pmmakes me glad I live in Ypsilanti…
posted by emp on November 30th, 2006 at 1:32 pmIt’s endlessly facinating that their is money for a police station, but not for police officers. Hmmmmmm……
posted by John Hritz on November 30th, 2006 at 9:11 pmThat’s the county and the Sherriff’s Department with the pending layoffs, not the City of Ann Arbor.
posted by Chris on December 1st, 2006 at 9:18 amAnn Arbor has had a decline in police officers. According to state statistics for 1997 through 2004, the high point for sworn officers was 2000 when the city had 189 sworn officers compared to 159 sworn officers in 2004. Greg O’Dell, who conducted the tour of police facilities, said there are 150 sworn officers today. Decline in sworn officers is somewhat offset by increases in civilian employees from 50 in 2000 to 67 in 2004. State statistics show the high point of crime was 1997 when there were 13,629 reported crimes, compared to 9,525 in 2000 and 7,827 in 2004.
The issue is what kind of service we want from our police and how many people it takes to deliver that service in light of crime and population trends. Until we know the answer to that I don’t see how we can determine how much space the police need.
posted by Karen Sidney on December 1st, 2006 at 11:17 amliberty’s survived so far with a government building right there (FEDERAL BUILDING)
posted by a on December 1st, 2006 at 1:23 pmThe “library lot” does not actually belong to the library, but to the city. I would welcome a police station there to keep lazy library patrons from parking illegally on Fifth Street.
posted by Emily on December 2nd, 2006 at 1:24 pm