My Platform

1. ACCOUNTABILITY

Ann Arbor is in dire straits because of ONE PARTY RULE. Our city council consists of career politicians whose reelections are a formality. I am running as a Republican, but you don't have to like Republicans or agree with me on all the issues to realize that single party rule is not healthy. I promise that if I am elected, I will be your voice, AND I will do everything I can to shine light on the improper and undemocratic secrecy in government which has become so familiar to Ann Arborites.

2. REINING IN EXTRAVAGANCE BEFORE OUR CITY IS BANKRUPT

Ann Arbor's extravagant projects have become so notorious that nearly everyone is talking. Unnecessary (and ugly) art, parks turned into swamps at taxpayer expense, illegal conversion of parkland to other uses, all of this while basic services such as police, fire, and schools are neglected. Voters pass millage after millage, and basic repairs and maintenance are neglected. Stadium Bridge is falling down and potholes are everywhere. Ann Arbor's streets are rated "the third worse in Michigan." All while the city spends millions on non-essentials, and then wants to raise taxes (including a proposal for a CITY INCOME TAX) at every turn. With your help, I promise to do all I can to shine light on this city's waste and shift this city's focus back to the basic services citizens want and need.

3. GETTING THE CITY OUT OF OUR PERSONAL LIVES

The City of Ann Arbor has made the streets more difficult to drive on, and now actually seeks to make it a crime to idle your car! (Never mind that we face harsh winters and blazing hot summers.) Homeowners with houses built before 1982 are being forced to submit to mandatory invasive inspections of footing drains, which are being disconnected with unwanted sump pumps being installed in basements at a very high cost. These are causing basements which were never flooded to be flooded for the first time.

If you are for ending one party rule, stopping higher taxes, focusing on basic city services, and leaving people alone, then I hope you will vote for me.

Want to contact the campaign?

Phone: 734-476-0102

Email: escheie [at] verizon[dot]net

UPDATE: I won 40% of the vote, which is not bad for a Republican running in Ann Arbor and better than incumbent Democrat Stephen Rapundalo.

Many thanks to all who voted for me.

My thanks also to the Michigan Daily for having the courage to endorse a Republican.

Towards Political Diversity

A lot of people have been asking me why I would run as a Republican in such a heavily Democratic city as Ann Arbor. Good question! I am running because there is no real opposition in this town and most of the City Council members end up being the only choice on the ballot. I think that is undemocratic, and I would note that even in countries where opposition is not allowed, voters are often allowed to vote yes or no.

I am also running because "Republican" has become a dirty word in this town. Whether you agree with the Republican Party or not (and I often do not), such a thing is not healthy. We are all human beings, and even if Republicans are a minority in this town, to vilify a minority as evil evinces a lack of respect for human diversity.

I am running because this town is in dire need of POLITICAL DIVERSITY.

I am disappointed that my opponent Marcia Higgins failed to show up at the debate which was sponsored by the League of Women voters. She sent an email stating she had a family commitment, and I honestly hope that this was not meant as a snub. I did my best under the circumstances and I left this comment at A2Politico.com:

Last week the League of Women Voters sponsored a candidate’s debate, to which all eight City Council candidates (four incumbents and their four opponents) had been invited. Marcia Higgins was the only candidate who failed to attend, but she sent an email citing family commitments. This left me (Higgins’ opponent in Ward 4) having to sit there on the stage by myself and answer questions as best I could. I was disappointed. It’s tough debating an invisible opponent.

You can watch the debate here, and the following is the full link:

http://a2cititv.pegcentral.com/player.php?video=eac0fde4ed348c443da574400ceb7995

Even though the debate took place ten days ago, until yesterday, there had been a near total absence of full local media coverage of the Ward Four debate. However, yesterday this thorough discussion and analysis was published at the intrepid A2Politico, and today a full writeup has appeared at Ann Arbor Chronicle.

As I continue getting my message out to Ward Four voters, I appreciate this news coverage.

Who knows? It might be a step towards political diversity!

An idle threat?

Here in extremely liberal Ann Arbor, the city council and its various boards and commissions apparently have nothing better to do than harass citizens for driving. The latest proposal (which is being treated with utmost seriousness) is to make it a crime to idle the engine in your car.

I am not making this up. They really are proposing it, and as is typical of this busybody mentality, they are claiming it's "for the children":

Matthew Naud, the city of Ann Arbor's environmental coordinator, told council members Monday night an ordinance banning "egregious idling" could improve the community's health.

"Recently there's been a lot of data about elevated levels of benzene and particulate matter, especially at elementary schools," he said. "So you have parents waiting and idling to pick up their kids, buses idling right in front of the air intakes at these schools."

Naud said that means "young lungs" are getting exposed to unnecessary vehicle emissions, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shares the same concerns.

The Ann Arbor City Council didn't take any action on the issue at Monday's meeting, but it did receive a report and draft copy of an idling ordinance from the city's Environmental Commission, which is recommending the ban on idling vehicles.

Imagine being a cop and having to enforce such idiocy. Especially in the winter when temperatures stay in the single digits for weeks at a time. Or in the summer when it's 97 degrees in the blasted sun, and the only thing preventing drivers from fainting is the air conditioning in their cars. (For those who are not motor heads, car heaters and air conditioners do not run unless the engine is running.)

You'd almost think the city bureaucrats had nothing to do than cook up schemes to invade the lives of innocent citizens only trying to cope with day-to-day life.

Not that it seems to matter to the arrogant city government, but local Ann Arborites don't like the idea of this ordinance.

Of nearly 2,000 readers who took an AnnArbor.com poll earlier this week, about 77 percent said they think a local idling ban is unnecessary.

I think it is part and parcel of a growing anti-automobile movement, not only in Ann Arbor, but nationwide. Ann Arbor has a so-called "traffic calming" program which puts speed bumps, roadblocks, and other devices on streets where neighbors have the most pull with city hall, and naturally, this only creates increased demand for the devices, because diverted traffic spills over onto other streets. On one such street, they installed at least half a dozen such diverters, and added a sign saying "NO CUT THRU TRAFFIC." I walk by this street (which is near me) almost daily, and I took a picture:



Almost like having your own little gated community right in the middle of the city, eh? What makes that street so damned special that you can't drive on it the same way you can on other streets?

And while I don't like being petty and selfish, the natural reaction to seeing that happen on a nearby street is to say "Why not my street too?"

Nothing calm about it. Oh, and of course the city also wants to cut back on the number of driveways. A recent anti-driveway push ("access management") is part of city's anti-car transportation policy. So is reducing the number of lanes from four to to and adding bike lanes that end up being rarely used. That's called "complete streets." Sounds great in theory, but the traffic snarlups that are being created are anything but calming. And why is it that the speed bumps have a space for bicycles on each side? So that cars are forced to slow to 5 MPH while bikes can zip through? What is "complete" about that? And what is "complete" about closing off dedicated streets to motor vehicle traffic entirely, while allowing bicycles?

Seen in the overall context, the threat to make it a crime to idle your car is anything but idle.

As to protecting the children, I'm not an expert on their tiny lungs, but it strikes me that this child might be safer riding in a car.

Saying "NO" to being screwed

In Ann Arbor where I live, there are potholes galore, and many people complain about the city doing a piss-poor job of fixing them. As one local analyst puts it, "Ann Arbor Has Third Worst Roads in Michigan and Some Seriously Fed Up Residents":

Since 2008, Ann Arbor has been at the top of MITA’s list of cities with the worst roads in the state of Michigan. With its Road Repair Millage that brings in $9-$11 million dollars per year in funds that, in theory, are supposed to be used for road repair, Ann Arbor in 2010, was judged to have the third worst roads of out of Michigan’s 1,800 municipalities.

Local politicos and city staff have tried to float all sorts of “explanations.” Hard winter is generally at the top of the list. As in, “My goodness, this was an exceptionally hard winter and that’s why there’s grass growing in those potholes.”

Fourth Ward Council member Margie Teall blamed Ann Arbor potholes on sloppy drivers. “If people would just drive more lightly on the roads, we wouldn’t have such problems with crumbling road beds,” Teall told anyone who would listen to her.

Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo, with a look of distaste in his eyes, blamed the city’s various union leaders for the proliferation of potholes. “The unions are the cause of the city’s pothole problem. Damn them.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether Rapundalo was damning the union leaders or the potholes.

I don't know how to drive "more lightly," much less persuade the populace to do that, so I have been puzzling over that statement to no avail.

As to how the city might be persuaded to fix the crumbling road beds, perhaps Ann Arbor women could do what the women of Barbacoas, Columbia are doing, and threaten to withhold sex:

Women of Barbacoas, a small town in remote southern Colombia, are using access to their netherregions as a bargaining chip in trying to sex starve the men of town and, by extension, the government into doing something about the sorry state of the road that leads from their hamlet of 40,000 people to the rest of civilization. Mudslides as a result of heavy seasonal rainfall has left the road in such a sorry state that the 35 mile journey from Barbacoas to the nearest town takes nearly 10 hours. The government has promised to fix the road, but so far has not followed through.

On second thought, that might not work in Ann Arbor, for a number of reasons. For starters, the idea would be rejected out of hand as sexist. Not only are there many women who work on road beds, but aren't men just as capable of threatening to withhold sex from women as women are of withholding sex from men? The only way to make a sex withholding plan work in Ann Arbor would be for everyone to threaten to withhold sex until the crumbling road beds are fixed.

You know, like, when you're being screwed, just say no!

More seriously, the main problem with a literal implementation of the Barbacoas plan in Ann Arbor is that "The Men" here are not charged with fixing the roads collectively. To make the analogy work, the taxpayers have to be seen as the women and government as the men, and then the sex withholding threat becomes a tax withholding threat.

In many ways Ann Arbor taxpayers -- and by logical extension oppressed taxpayers everywhere -- are like the oppressed women of Barbacoas!

We need to say no!