The Comprehensive Transportation Fund is critical to any discussion of transit in Michigan. It is the major, if not the only, source for transit funding in the state.  As explained in this guide to Act 51, transit funding is constitutionally limited to 10% of transportation tax revenue.  This memo summarizes the features of the fund.  In addition to the MTF allocation (explained in our previous post), the CTF also receives money from auto-related sales tax.  For FY 2012-2013, estimated revenue from the MTF was $158.155 M and $88 M from the auto-related sales tax.  As the memo (from the excellent House Fiscal Agency) notes, this fund is the source of local bus operating assistance and the total allocated to that purpose has not been increased since FY 2006-2007.  This has created a “zero sum game” for local transit agencies, since they must compete for a limited pot of money.  A complicated funding formula distributes funds in part based on the total operating expenditure for each agency, but there is also a floor created by a 1997 bill.

…the state operating assistance formula rewards local cost participation.  Agencies that pass local transit millages can expand service and effectively use local funding to leverage additional state funding.  Since state funding is capped at the appropriated amount, every additional dollar of state assistance a transit agency can capture comes at the expense of other transit agencies.  Under this formula, agencies in relatively affluent areas…have tended to capture and increasing share of state assistance.

AATA has benefited from this, since our local millage has allowed an expansion of service.   However, DDOT (supported by the Detroit city general fund) received a disproportionate amount of the funding this year (although less in previous years) because of the floor.  (See the report by the Ann Arbor Chronicle and the truly head-spinning explanation of how the formula worked.)  AATA fell short of their expected state assistance by about $800,000; they are hoping that the legislature will make them whole in a placeholder bill that currently contains no provisions but is evidently intended to fill in various budgetary holes around the state.

For the FY2013 budget year (through September), AATA expects to receive $8,301,880 in state assistance out of a total of $32,403,360 in revenue, or about 25.6% of its revenue.

A critical point for the future is that the SE Michigan Regional Transit Authority will now receive the entire CTF allocation for the region, and will distribute that to the different public transit providers under its authority.  This begins on October 1, 2013.  Public transit providers are required to submit applications to the RTA for their allocations.  The RTA will also receive all Federal operating assistance under MAP-21 and distribute that.

In FY2013, AATA expects to receive $5,795,268 from Federal formula funds, about 17.9% of operating revenue.

The Regional Transit Authority

As we just indicated, the emergence of the Regional Transit Authority has brought about a profound alteration in the way AATA will receive operating funds from state and Federal sources.

Here is a guide to the package of bills passed in the last days of the December House session that established the RTA. They have now been assigned Public Act numbers.  (All are “Public Act…of 2012.)  The most authoritative overview of the effect of this package of bills is from the House Fiscal Agency.  Click on the links to individual bills to read their text.

Despite the passage of a resolution by the Ann Arbor City Council on December 10, 2012 and what has reportedly been some vigorous lobbying in Lansing by our Mayor, it appears that Washtenaw County is firmly included in the RTA.  (The urgency shown by the Mayor is presumably related to this item in the RTA act):

Section 6 (3) (b) A board shall provide in its bylaws that the following actions require the unanimous approval of all voting members of the board: (i) A determination to acquire, construct, operate or maintain any form of rail passenger service within a public transit region.

The new board (see the temporary SEMCOG site for pictures) had its first meeting on April 10.  Local (Detroit area) transit advocates were wildly ecstatic.  Here is a live blog account. There is money. The RTA bill appropriated $250,000 which does not expire with the end of the fiscal year but can be carried over.

This may have a number of effects that we can only guess at for the moment. In addition to the routing of state and Federal operating funds through the RTA,  all grant requests for capital projects must also go through the RTA.  AATA has been particularly effective at obtaining Federal grants for capital purchases and special programs.

Among the many questions which we might ask: how does Detroit’s desperate situation play into this?  It is now under an emergency manager and its bus system is supported by general funds.  Will the rest of the region be, in essence, taxed to make DDOT a viable system?  Will the RTA board try to rearrange Washtenaw’s transit plan?  Will it continue to allow UM’s ridership to count toward the state formula requirements for AATA?  But above all, what will be the new funds source for this new layer of transit administration?  Much depends on how much more of Governor Snyder’s transportation proposals are accepted by the state Legislature.  And that is not going too well.

Next: so how is the “hopey changey” thing working out for Governor Snyder on transportation?

UPDATE: The House Fiscal Agency has issued updated discussions of the CTF and the overall state transportation funding structure.

The poor condition of Michigan’s roads and bridges is almost legendary.  I remember my puzzlement on arriving here in 1986 and wondering if I had landed in a third-world country.  This Pure Michigan parody on potholes expresses what many of us have felt at one time.  Legislators have raised alarms.  As a result of P.A. 221 of 2007, a Transportation Funding Task Force (nicknamed “TF2″) was formed and issued a report in late 2008  detailing the many problems.  The task force declared, “Michigan is moving from underinvesting in transportation, to disinvesting in transportation.”  It stated that Michigan was falling short even of enough revenue to provide matching funds to obtain available Federal funds.  (We have not attempted to discover whether this happened.) However, despite the report’s call for more revenue to be raised via several possibilities including vehicle registration fee increases, no new initiatives were taken.

Governor Rick Snyder, who was elected in 2010, has made transportation one of his key issues.  He issued a special message on transportation in October 2011.  He then followed up with his budget message for FY 2014 and FY 2015, which states:

The plan addresses the lack of appropriate road funding by creating a new funding model based on a gasoline and diesel tax of 33 cents a gallon; and increasing registration taxes for vehicles and heavy trucks. This will cost a typical Michigan family an estimated $120 per vehicle each year.

The Governor’s budget (which is his proposal to the Michigan Legislature) thus proposes new revenue. In addition, it proposes a redirection of priorities in transportation.  Here is an excellent summary of the transportation budget recommendations and the changes from prior years.   As it states:

A Long Tradition of Dividing Between Constituencies

Transportation funding is mostly directed by Public Act 51 of 1951, , which dictates how revenue collected from transportation users (including gasoline taxes and vehicle registration fees) are allocated. These are gathered into the Michigan Transportation Fund and then reallocated according to formula.  The MTF is a “restricted” fund that is limited to the uses dictated by P.A. 51.

After several transfers to some specific programs and departments, the balance of the MTF is divided up.  First,  10%  of the balance (approximately 8.5% of the MTF) is transferred to the Comprehensive Transportation Fund (CTF).  (The CTF funds public transit and other non-auto transportation.) Article IX, Section 9 of the Michigan Constitution specifies that  “Not less than 90 per cent. . . . shall be used exclusively for . . . roads, streets, and bridges . . .”  The remainder is divided up as follows:

State Trunkline Fund (STF):     39.1%

County Road Commissions:     39.1%

Cities and Villages:                       21.8%

The portion going to county road commissions is used for county roads and roads in rural and urbanized townships.   It is generally agreed that there is never enough money to do the job.  The Washtenaw County Road Commission  (WCRC) has been the subject of constant complaint ever since I became acquainted with the County.  It has a separate board of three commissioners, who serve for 6-year terms.  The road commissioners are appointed by the county Board of Commissioners, and that is the sole influence the BOC has over them.  (Another constant has been the complaints about Road Commissioner Fred Veigel, who has been reappointed constantly for nearly two decades. He is powerful politically because of his position as the Huron Valley Labor Council head.) Generally, every locality considers that it is being treated unfairly on attention to its roads.  County commissioners are powerless to address the complaints of their constituents.

Thus, Governor Snyder got their attention last year when he signed a pair of bills that empower county boards of commissioners to absorb the road commission within their own shop. The bills, now P.A. 14 and P.A. 15,  set a deadline of January 1, 2015 for this action to take place within a county.  The Washtenaw County BOC has been having a conversation about absorbing the WCRC, according to this report from AnnArbor.com.  Conan Smith, who has expressed interest in doing away with the road commission in the past, is encouraging discussion of a county transportation reorganization.  Some of the themes mentioned, such as a conflation of roads with other means of transportation and a new local tax, are likely to raise hackles, especially in the townships.  From the AnnArbor.com story:

Yousef Rabhi:  “The funding aspect should take a holistic view to transportation”,  mentioning bike lanes, pedestrian access and alternative modes of transportation.

Conan Smith:  “Our transportation system needs to change to meet the needs of a different kind of user.  We’ve focused on transportation too long as roads as primary and public transit as secondary.”

Smith and Rabhi have both been big supporters of the Southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority, which is meeting for the first time on April 10.   Smith has really pushed the envelope with his maneuvers on the RTA, including using his position as the Executive Director of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance and his marriage to Senator Rebekah Warren to shepherd it through the Legislature with Washtenaw County appended to this metropolitan Detroit transit authority.  He also managed to appoint the two RTA board members from Washtenaw just before ending his term as Chair of the BOC.  It is not clear how his notion of having the BOC take on more authority over transportation in the county would integrate with that thrust.

Meanwhile, the talk of more state revenue has caused some excitement at the WCRC itself.  Its managing director, Roy Townsend, is quoted in another AnnArbor.com report as having plenty of ideas on how to spend additional road funds raised by the Governor.  A quick look at the map included in the article seems to indicate that most of the projects are on rural roads.

Clearly, there are very different visions of how additional transportation funds should be spent  – fixing roads? Or more transit?  One complication not always mentioned is that the 10% constitutional limit for transit applies across the board for governmental expenditures on transportation, not just to the MTF.

Next: special aspects of funding for transit.

UPDATE: The House Fiscal Agency has just released an excellent overview of transportation funding, which includes a discussion of  many of the concerns and issues with the gap between funding and needs.

Local taxes and fees that are paid for transportation often are perceived by those paying to be really burdensome, and the related service is considered inadequate. (Key the complaints about the Road Commission and Ann Arbor potholes.) Yet, those are usually only a small fraction of the cost.  The main cost is borne by the Federal Government, and the State of Michigan.

Federal Funding

The Federal transportation bills which provide for transportation are always contentious and provide Congress with some good old-fashioned wrangling, as legislators try to get the best for their own regions.  In spite of this, Congress managed to pass a new surface transportation bill, known as MAP-21, in the summer of 2012.  It expires at the end of FY 2014 (September 30, 2014).  Here is SEMCOG’s page on MAP-21.  MAP-21, or the surface transportation act, is basically what we think of as the “gas tax”.  The formal name is the Highway Trust Fund, and the money available has been shrinking as (believe it or not) total gas consumption has been declining.  There are efforts to recast the funding mechanism but this will be contentious. Much of MAP-21 relates to roads and bridges, but it is crucial to transit systems because this is where Federal formula funds for day-to-day operation, and also capital funds for transit purposes, are allocated.  See a helpful memo by AATA’s Chris White about the effects of MAP-21 on AATA’s finances.

General note: it is helpful to remember that all transportation agencies have fiscal years consistent with the Federal fiscal year, which begins October 1 each year.  Many municipalities in Michigan use either a calendar year FY (January) or a mid-year FY (July).  This can cause some coordination issues.

There are many other Federal transportation funds. This has become very significant because of the Federal funds sequester, which has affected most funds EXCEPT MAP-21.  For a pdf of this chart showing the effects of sequestration on Federal transportation funding,  see here. (Click on the picture to see a larger version.)

Note that most MAP-21 funds were not reduced by the sequester, but others were. Also, a couple of funds that AATA has benefited from in the past did not survive the last Congress at all.  They are the Sustainable Communities grants (which funded ReImagine Washtenaw; see our post) and the High Speed Rail, also known as HSIPR, program.  These were both “zeroed out”.  The grant for design of the Fuller Road Station was from HSIPR.  TIGER grants, which have been used for many capital projects involving transit, have been cut, as was New Starts.  (New Starts is the program that would usually pay for a new rail line or other new transit line.)

In a recent audit of infrastructure by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the country’s roads and transit systems each got a grade of D.  Bridges and rail were upgraded to C+, two of the brightest spots in the overall audit, which is not saying much.  For most observers, the state of the nation’s roads and bridges is a higher concern than transit systems, and most of MAP-21 is directed to roads.

In addition to these funds, transportation projects got a big boost from President Obama’s stimulus program, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, commonly called ARRA.  This was quite a bonanza for local governments.  AATA received $6,474,089 (some of this was spent on Park and Ride improvements, some on the UM transit center, and new buses were purchased; ARRA also helped with some operating funds).  (For an overview of AATA grant proceeds through FY 2011, see AATA Grant History 2007 to 2011.)  It is important to remember that ARRA expired at the end of 2010 and Congress seems unlikely ever to renew it.  Some funds may still be disbursed within separate grant awards, though Congress did withdraw some unexpended funds as part of the budget cuts of 2011.

With MAP-21 scheduled to expire in 2014, and with Federal budget talks continuing, it seems most prudent to assume that current funding may not continue forever.  Here is a provocative article that discusses Federal vs. state and local funding.

Rail Funding

Rail transportation (including passenger rail) is not included in MAP-21.  That has two immediate consequences: one is that rail is more vulnerable to Congressional cuts, and the other is that it is not treated as part of a comprehensive transportation system. (A recent analysis calls it a “blow to multimodalism”.) The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA) governs funding for passenger rail systems, especially Amtrak.  (PRIIA expires at the end of this fiscal year – that is September 2013.)  The biggest shot in the arm for capital projects relating to rail was ARRA (the HSIPR was part of the stimulus.)

Note the distinction between “appropriated” and “authorized”.  Congress appropriates funds within budget bills, but the agency must authorize their use through grants.  As can be seen from this graph from a report of DOT’s Inspector General, the big injection of capital grants ($8 billion) was during the 2009 stimulus, but little has been made available since then.

As shown in the table, Amtrak funding has been cut. PRIIA has changed the rules on funding shorter lines, which include the Wolverine (the line that goes through Ann Arbor between Detroit and Chicago).  Beginning this year, Michigan is obligated to make up the difference between revenue and operation of the Wolverine (the operating deficit).  According to this summary, that is $17 million. (Ridership on the Wolverine has increased 15% since 1997, but that does not erase the operating deficit.)  This is significant to us locally, because though the Governor’s budget calls for rail funding, the revenue to pay for it has not yet been identified.  More on that when we discuss State of Michigan funding.

For a history of passenger rail and much useful data, see the recent Brookings Institution study.

Making Local Borrowing Easy

With the availability of grant funds limited, the Obama administration has been shifting emphasis to loan programs.  These make it easy for local governments to obtain low-interest loans for big projects.  Of course, it also means that these governments can commit to projects that will put them into long-term debt without assurance of success in the final operational mode.  (Even after all the construction is done, there is still a cost of operation – as with Amtrak.)  The best-known program is TIFIA, which “provides improved access to capital markets, flexible repayment terms, and potentially more favorable interest rates than can be found in private capital markets for similar instruments”. As noted, “TIFIA can help advance qualified, large-scale projects that otherwise might be delayed or deferred because of size, complexity, or uncertainty over the timing of revenues.”

President Obama has recently proposed a more expansive approach to offering credit for transportation projects.  “Among other things, new “America Fast Forward Bonds” would help state and local governments borrow money for projects, while foreign pension and retirement funds would have a tax penalty eliminated so they could invest in infrastructure in the United States on a similar basis as American funds.”

AATA has traditionally not used credit (floating bonds, etc.) for projects, but has relied on Federal grants for capital projects.  Those traditional grants required a 20% “local match” but were otherwise found money.  If they began to take on debt (which was proposed in the implementation plan for the TMP), they could encumber fares and tax revenues to pay off that debt.  That could potentially change the landscape quite a bit.

Still to come: State of Michigan transportation funding, still unknown territory.

UPDATE: TIGER Grants

The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants have been an important source of capital investment for transportation projects, and were originally part of ARRA.  However, they have survived, though with reduced amounts, into the present day.

As indicated in the comment, Ann Arbor received $13.9 million in FY 2010 for the Stadium Bridges.  That was very nice, since these grants are highly competitive.  In the FY 2012 round, DOT received 703 applications requesting a total of $10.2 billion.  They awarded 47 applicants grants of a total of $500 million.  In other words, about 1 in 15 applicants received grants.

According to Transportation Issues Daily, 16% of the funding went to transit projects, and 13% to passenger rail projects.  Roads and bridges got 35%, with the rest divided between ports, multimodal (includiing bicycle and pedestrian) projects, freight rail, and special set-asides for rural areas and tribal governments.

The FY 2013 TIGER projects will evidently be advertised in May.  Look for an avalanche of applications.

SECOND UPDATE: Here is an article from the Atlantic with a brief discussion of President Obama’s transportation budget.  Keep in mind that his budget probably bears very little congruence to anything finally approved by Congress.

Any process so intensive as our current tangle of transit proposals must have an energy source behind it, and a mechanism.  In the case of Ann Arbor, it is not that difficult to see that our Mayor, John Hieftje, is the man behind the curtain.  He first laid out his plan, the Mayor’s Model for Mobility, in 2006.  Since then, he has consistently and methodically used every tool at hand (and that is a lot, being the Mayor) to move toward implementing it (we discussed this earlier).  He has seated the entire AATA Board, hired a transportation specialist whose job description is essentially to execute the model, and has pulled every possible political string, including that connected to our sitting Congressman, John Dingell.  The result has been plenty of energy directed at transit.  But most specifically, it appears to be directed at Hieftje’s dream of establishing two commuter railroads.

We have previously discussed the compelling image of trains in our posts, Train of Dreams and Train of Dreams II.

Trains occupy a singular place in our culture’s mind’s eye.  There is a romance, a jumbled set of personal and relayed memories that combine to make just the idea of a train the cause of an emotional rush.

Partly because of this, many of the general public have responded to Hiefje’s vision without much critical attention to practicalities, or to the question of how two new rail systems can be paid for.  And this vision is still driving much planning in the city (only recently, stories have come out about a downtown station for WALLY in which we may demolish a building at 415 W. Washington for a possible station, and the continued existence in the budget of additional funds to plan for the Fuller Road Station).

But how realistic is this apparent obsession? We will attempt to examine factors affecting our current transit proposals, including the trains, in future posts. First, the next post will examine the current state of transportation funding.

UPDATE:  For a review of AATA’s explanation of transit funding, see pages 33-35  of this draft package for a panel discussion on “Urban Core Transit”, held March 28, 2013. Some pages of the draft package were replaced by final text in the package actually handed out at the meeting.

In the first post of this series, we described AATA’s decision to “catapult” the authority into its hoped-for transition to a countywide service by advance implementation of several services.   This meant that AATA passed a deficit budget for FY 2012 (which began in October 2011).  At the time, it was clearly expected that this bold leap would be for one year only.  As we reported at the time, it was evident that the intention was to ask voters to approve a property tax millage in the November 2012 election.  Assuming that was approved, there would have been a funding gap between September 2012 (the last month of that fiscal year) and July 2013 (when taxes for the next year would be collected).  We commented,

But the AATA, which uses the Federal tax year (October-October), would have to pass a new budget in September 2012 in advance of the millage vote.  So not only will the AATA have to pass a new year’s budget without a certainty that a countywide millage will pass, but three-quarters of a year will pass before revenue will be realized from a successful millage vote.

And indeed, September 2012 rolled around and a new budget was passed.   As the Ann Arbor Chronicle reported,  the AATA finished the year with a deficit of over $1 million.  (Note: the deficit is the difference between revenues and expenses; this does not reflect a negative fund balance overall.)

And so the AATA began another fiscal year with a deficit budget (this time the projected deficit is about $300,000).  That was partly because of a reduction in state formula support, as detailed in an expanded report by the Ann Arbor Chronicle.  But they had a bigger problem: the possibility of new revenue had been pushed much farther out toward the horizon than anticipated.  Instead of a November millage vote, they were instead only now preparing to incorporate the Washtenaw Ride (that request to Washtenaw County would take place October 2) and after an opt-out window, would ask countywide voters to pass a property tax millage, perhaps in a May 2013 election.

From the Chronicle’s first brief account:

At the board’s Sept. 27 meeting, board treasurer David Nacht was keen to stress that various initiatives in which the AATA has invested in the past year and in this next year’s budget could not be sustained without the kind of additional funding that could come from a countywide authority.

Of course, just the next month, as we have described, most communities in the county opted out, and the “countywide authority” vanished into a puff of smoke.

What could go wrong?

Reprinted with permission by S. Harris. Copyright by ScienceCartoonsPlus.com

From the beginning, the AATA’s quest for a countywide (Act 196) authority has been powered by magical thinking.  A number of assumptions were made, one of which is that no obstacle was insurmountable. But really, if only one of these assumptions was in error, they were in trouble.  The other items of faith:

Local governments will opt in (didn’t happen).

Voters will support a new millage (irrelevant at this point).

Required documents (4-party, Articles of Incorporation) passed by City of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, along with the City of Ypsilanti quickly, for a November 2012 millage vote (final sign-off by the BOC in September, much too late).

Changes in Federal transit funding would not affect them negatively (see the memo by Chris White; loss of discretionary funds; still some uncertainly with the Federal budget sequestration).

But if not the greatest miscalculation, certainly a major one was the mis-estimation of the effect of Washtenaw County’s inclusion in the Regional Transit Authority for SE Michigan.  As explained here, a package of bills passed in the lame-duck session of the Michigan Legislature and has been signed into law by Governor Snyder.  This is a succinct summary of the main package.    (The detailed discussion of the effects of Washtenaw County’s inclusion will be in a later post.)   We speculated a year ago that then-Board Chair Jesse Bernstein expected that a vehicle license fee associated with this package might serve instead of a millage to fund the AATA’s expanded authority.  He had made some cryptic remarks, like this one at the October 2011 u196 meeting:

“Everyone talks about a millage, but I’m hoping that the Governor will light a candle over the weekend.”

Earlier, there was this exchange at the September 2011 Planning and Development Committee meeting (discussing the deficit budget later voted in by the Board):

Rich Robben: We won’t be able to follow this mechanism (dipping into reserves) next year.  We’d better pull some rabbits out of a hat.

Michael Ford: I’m looking at finding some rabbits.

How SB 910 would have allowed a county vehicle fee (from illustration by Richard Murphy)

All this became clear once the package of bills was revealed in January 2012.   SB 910 provided for any county to assess a vehicle license fee, upon passage of a measure by the county BOC and approval by the voters.  The bill provides for up to $1.80 per $1,000 vehicle list price to be assessed in addition to all other vehicle license fees, and paid to the county treasurer for transportation purposes.  However, if the county were in the RTA, the amount of the fee would be reduced by the fees paid to the RTA.

Right up to the issuance of the final 5-year plan, AATA staff apparently had hoped that this source of revenue might replace the need for a millage.  But the plan acknowledges that the millage appears to be the only option.

From the September 2012 final 5 year plan

Proposed BRT routes into Detroit. Graphic by Dave Askins of the Ann Arbor Chronicle, used with permission. Pointer is Detroit Metro Airport.

The RTA package was delayed past the initiation of Washtenaw Ride, so the vehicle license fee did not materialize in time–or ever.  When the RTA package was finally passed in the last days of the 2012 lame-duck session, SB 910 was not included.  The only vehicle license fee included in the final package is that which will support the RTA itself, most likely to initiate Governor Snyder’s dream of Bus Rapid Transit connector routes.

So – after 18 months of intense effort, the AATA finds itself highly leveraged, over-extended, and with no immediate source of new revenue.  And in addition, it has an extra layer of complication introduced with the inclusion of Washtenaw County in SB 909, establishing the SE Michigan Regional Authority.

Next: What now?

1. The elected officials of all the units of government in Washtenaw County would assent to being included in a new scheme that included a likely new tax and a governance model that left Ann Arbor mostly in charge.
2. Ann Arbor, the city of Ypsilanti, and Washtenaw County would all sign off on a couple of fairly substantial legal documents.
3. The Regional Transit Authority for SE Michigan either would not materialize or would not affect them significantly.
4. The voters across the county would vote in a new property tax, including in both tax-adverse rural townships and the voters of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, who were expected to add this millage to one already existing.
5. Changes in Federal transportation funding would not affect them negatively.

From AATA’s perspective, assumption #1 seemed pretty reasonable to begin with.  From the beginning, staff spent many hours meeting with local officials and holding local public meetings.  They were  assisted by the Executive Director of the Washtenaw Area Transit Study (WATS), Terri Blackmore.  (Blackmore is more or less the godmother of the countywide transit plan and knew many of these officials through her professional activity.)  They received generally a good reception.  A number of local officials allowed the use of their faces in promotional materials and ultimately signed on to serve on the “u196 board”.  The u196 board, who were recruited via the district governance scheme, were all either local officials or very solid citizens who were accustomed to accepting civic responsibility.  Meetings began in November 2011 and the u196 appointees sat solemnly through a number of excellent staff overviews of various topics concerning transit.

(Note that the list circulated at the second meeting does not include any representatives from Ann Arbor.  According to the governance scheme, the u196 board was to have 15 members, 7 of whom would be the current AATA board, representing Ann Arbor.  However, it was decided by leadership that the entire AATA board could not sit on the u196 board, since that would make meetings essentially a meeting of the AATA board and thus come under all the legal requirements of the Open Meetings Act.  Therefore, three AATA board members (the actual individuals who served changed) sat on the u196 board.)

But the acquiescence of u196 board members to discussion was not a promise that the political environment at home in the township would be favorable to an agreement on new taxes.  As we detailed in this post about county politics, many townships have a long tradition of very low property tax millages, and a 1-mill tax would have been doubling tax rates for some townships, a very hard sell.  And AATA leadership ignored the results of their own survey data (results from March 2012).

Results by region: Would you vote for a 1 mill transit tax?

Note that while 68% of respondents in the City of Ann Arbor said they would be likely to vote for a transit tax of 1 mill, and 56% of the urban core communities in Ypsilanti and Pittsfield were positive (combining “definitely” and “probably”), only 48% of those in the City of Saline and eastern townships, and 42% in Chelsea and western townships were positive.  Of those, the greatest proportion were only “probably”.  The overall percentages of respondents in 2011 who said they would be “definitely” vote for a tax was 18%, and 36% said “probably”, for a total of 54% positive responses.  But that overall positive number did not take willingness to participate on a regional basis into account. Further, was this really a very strong positive result, even overall?  Survey respondents are known to tailor responses to what they think the questioner wants to hear.  Who knows what that 36% of  “probable” voters would have done in the privacy of the ballot box?

Somewhat disastrously, AATA appeared to take the position that any negative implications were to be ignored or explained, and positive ones the only to be considered.  When six rural townships withdrew very early even from the planning exercises, AATA leaders like Jesse Bernstein began talking of population numbers and taxable value, in effect arguing that those townships didn’t matter.  But these withdrawals undercut the premise of a countywide authority and set a precedent for non-participation.

One move that AATA did make in the face of these negative indications was to reduce the target millage in an attempt to make a vote for a new tax more palatable.  As mentioned in the last post, the Financial Task Force was able to reduce the proposed millage amount to 0.5 mills by excluding a number of projects from the cost of the plan (though AATA kept them in the plan and continued to spend money on them).  But there was again a political miscalculation here.  It was not a matter of the amount of the millage.  It was the question of any new tax at all for the benefit being offered.

Remaining (green) and opted-out (red screen) communities in Washtenaw County as of October 30, 2012. Dexter Village had not voted.

Ultimately, AATA simply failed to make the sale.  As we attempted to explain in an earlier post, for most sections of the county, the plan didn’t pencil out.  Once AATA sent out letters to municipalities offering a 30-day window from October 3 for opting out (the date was later extended to December 10), there was a rush to the exits.  By October 30, all but four governmental units had formally opted out.

Faced with the likelihood that the new authority was likely to consist of Ann Arbor subsidizing transit for a couple of other nearby communities, the Ann Arbor City Council voted on November 8 to opt out of the Washtenaw Ride and also to cancel the city’s participation in the 4-party agreement.

With Ann Arbor out, remaining communities followed suit.  Dexter Village finally opted out, and Ypsilanti Township and the City of Saline reversed their earlier “opt-ins”.  (See our post,  Washtenaw County Transit – More Outs than Ins for a blow-by-blow account.)

Opt-outs as of December 5. Only Ypsilanti City remains.

By the deadline of December 10, only the City of Ypsilanti remained in the Washtenaw Ride.  As reported by the Ann Arbor Chronicle, the November 18 AATA Board meeting sought to put the best face on what was, in fact, a devastating rejection of their efforts to put together a countywide transit organization.

Next: It’s all about the money.

As we documented early on, the AATA board settled on a plan to launch a countywide transit authority at a retreat in June 2011, and released its first version of the Transit Master Plan in August 2011.  The process laid out was complex. It required participation of all units of government in Washtenaw County to appoint a 15-member board that would serve as an “unincorporated 196 board” (u196), execution of a very complicated legal document that would result in the city of Ann Arbor dedicating its charter transit millage to the new authority, and approval by the voters countywide of a new transit millage.

Roadmap presented to Ann Arbor City Council, December 2011

In September the AATA board approved a deficit budget for the next year (FY2012 started in October 2011).  As the Ann Arbor Chronicle reported, Planning and Development committee chair Rich Robben

“led off deliberations by saying it’s not a sustainable budget. But he said it would catapult the AATA towards a transition to countywide service.”

The “catapult” consisted of advance implementation of a number of new services that were presented as part of the countywide plan.  The choice of term was perhaps unfortunate, since it did indeed “catapult” AATA into its first acceleration to the top of the mountain.

The first jolt was felt in October 2011, with Governor Snyder’s announcement of his new transportation initiative, which included a Regional Transit Authority for SE Michigan.  It would include Washtenaw County.  We reported on this in detail in a post that described the reaction of Albert Berriz, the chair of the Financial Task Force.   The FTF had been appointed by the AATA to come up with a financial plan for financing the TMP.  It had its first meeting on October 28.  Snyder had given his talk on October 26.  Berriz was clearly stunned by the implications of the RTA (especially its control of state and Federal funds) and rather summarily canceled most business of the FTF, postponing the next meeting for a couple of months.

But AATA staff and board seemed sanguine and pressed ahead with their plan despite this large dose of uncertainty delivered by the Governor. They came up with a reassuring interpretation of the effects of the RTA on Washtenaw County’s transit plans as being minimal. Apparently these were based on conversations (the text of the legislation was not yet public). Many details are now clearly understood to be mistaken.  And they pressed on with their original plan.

From a presentation to the Ann Arbor City Council, December 2011

The FTF appointed a subcommittee of very knowledgeable people who did a very high-level job of analyzing finances needed for the TMP.  By considerable fudging (they simply omitted many facets of the plan from the financial estimates) and raising fares, they were able to recommend a county-wide millage of only 0.5 mills (this was later recalculated to 0.584). But just as they were poised to present this to the full FTF, Governor Snyder’s package of bills were made public and the roll-out was again postponed.   Finally, the FTF met on February 29 and released their recommendations.  A complete set of these reports and recommendations is available on our Transportation Page.   The chair, Albert Berriz, wrote a letter to the committee that was telling.

…we don’t know what the Governor’s plan will look like in its final form, and without that information it’s difficult to say that pursuing the track of a countywide millage is the right thing to do at this time.  Therefore, in my opinion, it’s premature to pursue any millage option at this time…as there are too many parts of the current economic model that we have been asked to review that may and likely will change once the final legislation comes into play.

Meanwhile, in the background, serious discussion was going on in Washington D.C. about the fate of Federal transportation funding.  The then-current transportation bill was on life support after many short-term renewals.  Finally, on July 6, 2012, MAP-21, the new transportation bill, was signed into law.  Regulations and funding schedules have been generated on an ongoing basis.  (For excellent coverage, see Transportation Issues Daily’s MAP-21 Learning Center.)  During much of 2012, AATA did not know how Federal funding (a very important component of their overall financial plan) was going to settle out.

So, let’s summarize.  The AATA was proceeding on a number of assumptions.

1. The elected officials of all the units of government in Washtenaw County would assent to being included in a new scheme that included a likely new tax and a governance model that left Ann Arbor mostly in charge.
2. Ann Arbor, the city of Ypsilanti, and Washtenaw County would all sign off on a couple of fairly substantial legal documents.
3. The RTA either would not materialize or would not affect them significantly.
4. The voters across the county would vote in a new property tax, including in both tax-adverse rural townships and the voters of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, who were expected to add this millage to one already existing.
5. Changes in Federal transportation funding would not affect them negatively.

To all of these challenges, the response was to press ahead.  After all, what could go wrong?

In order to pursue the county-wide vision, the AATA invested big.  Over a three-year period, they spent $463,499.66 of Ann Arbor millage money.  The rest of the $1,418,890.15 cost for consultants, survey research, promotional materials and “outreach” was borne by Federal and state funds. See spreadsheet from AATA here.

The effort to get the cities of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners to sign off on both the four-party agreement and the Articles of Incorporation was longer and much more tedious than hoped.  But finally, on September 5, the BOC approved the AOI (account by the Ann Arbor Chronicle).  The AATA immediately (September 7) approved their 5-year plan and launched the countywide plan.  This would presumably lead to starting a 30-day clock for local units to opt out, after which the 196 board could be seated.

File directory of toolkit presented to AATA board on a flash drive

A very thorough campaign was conducted through the u196 members and their associated District Advisory Committees (staffed by u196 members and AATA staff) to convince communities to support the countywide effort.  It included postcards to be sent to elected officials and drafts of emails, letters to the editor, Facebook posts, and letters to officials.

The objective was to build a public pressure to get local governments to sign onto the countywide plan.

Postcards provided in a promotional packet handed to AATA board members and u196 members

Next: So how did that work out?

Note: Posts on this subject and much reference material is on our Transportation Page.

The effort to impose this plan on the citizens of Ann Arbor led to a remarkable uprising of civic fervor.  Its defeat felt like a victory.  But of course that wasn’t the end of the story.  The forces that were behind the idea of a hotel and conference center are still with us.  Now it appears that the concept is about to be brought forward again.

On the same night that Council laid the Valiant proposal to rest, it also passed a resolution directing the Downtown Development Authority to take charge of planning for the disposition of city-owned lots downtown.  This launched what became the DDA’s Connecting William Street process.

Map of the area DDA is planning under Connecting William Street process

I thought that Councilmember Sabra Briere did a good job of putting the history of all this into perspective in her recent constituent newsletter.  Here is some of what she said:

Over a year ago the Council passed two resolutions.  The first one had to do with ending the RFP process for the Library Lot.  This resolution included a statement that any future planning for the library lot would include a ‘robust public process.’  The second resolution requested that the DDA ‘facilitate the process of redeveloping’ five city-owned parcels.  This second resolution outlines a process that the DDA proposed to attempt a consensus on the development potential for each site.  But the final resolution didn’t call for a robust public process, and the Council didn’t question the process outlined in the resolution.  That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a public process, but it does mean that some of us have been dissatisfied with the way that process was conducted.

Amen to that, Sabra.  Not that the DDA hasn’t been working very hard at their task.  They appointed a special committee to review options.  The proceedings have duly been documented at their site on Connecting William Street.  They have conducted a survey and a number of public interaction events.  They employed a consultant (actually, a couple of them).  Here is the overview provided by AnnArbor.com.  But there are some major disconnects with their approach and the “robust public process” that was initially promised.  They have to do with the “the scorpion and the frog” relationship of the DDA and Ann Arbor residents.  The DDA board is composed of people whose primary interest is in developing the downtown to a maximum density and real estate value.  Residents often want a downtown that serves their needs, and consider that publicly owned lots should have a public purpose.   (The group, Public Land – Public Purpose, formed in response to the Valiant proposal, stated the point succinctly.)  These two goals are at odds.   This has been especially evident in the resistance of the DDA to the idea of a downtown park or open space.  (Ann Arbor’s Suburban Brain Problem was an early post with an admittedly snarky tone on that subject.)  In the meantime, a group (the Library Green Conservancy) has been advocating forcefully for open space, indeed, a “central park” in the downtown, on the Library Lot.  At DDA Partnership Committee meetings, the idea of a hotel on the Library Lot has resurfaced.  This is presumably supported by the Lodging_Analysis conducted by their consultant.  (This document appeared on the Connecting William Street web page at one time but has since been removed.)

Here is some more reflection from CM Sabra Briere’s newsletter:

One of the significant conflicts is about ‘density.’  For some, density is a catch phrase that indicates new construction in order to facilitate more folks living downtown.  This increase in the number of people living downtown has been something the City and its residents have talked about for decades.  At first, people talked about loft apartments.  Then, they built more condominiums.  Most recently, the increase in new residents has been due entirely to new student highrises – there are now nearly 5000 people living in downtown Ann Arbor, which is a pretty significant number in the last decade – nearly 2000 more – than there were in 2000.  All of these new residential units are supposed to help provide the means for local businesses to remain open while making the street scene more active and the cultural life more varied.
But most of us don’t really want our downtown defined by student use.  That’s one of the messages I’ve heard in the meetings on Connecting William Street.  We want a downtown that’s a magnet for children and seniors, with places for folks to sit and read their – I almost wrote newspaper – electronic device, buy a pair of shoes, have lunch, sit and watch the world go by, drink our coffee and go to a meeting or a lecture.  We want a downtown that holds events and activities we might want to attend; that we might want to show our guests, that we might want to brag about.
And for some, that means a respite from density – an offset, as it were, that’s cool and green and calm and refreshing.  Something that sounds like a park.

Now the issue (0f how we dispose of downtown parcels) is coming to a potential decision point.  The DDA is poised to present the Connecting William Street plan to a working session of the Council on January 14.

Note that the DDA has two public events scheduled before that:

• Wednesday, December 19th, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at the Downtown Library (343 S. Fifth Ave) in the Multi-Purpose Room
• Thursday, January 3rd, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at the DDA office (150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301)

There will be much to discuss, and a need for citizens to come to attention on this subject.

]]> http://localannarbor.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/public-properties-public-process-and-the-dda/feed/ 6 varmentrout Map of the area DDA is planning under Connecting William Street process http://localannarbor.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/the-se-michigan-regional-transit-authority-in-progress/ http://localannarbor.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/the-se-michigan-regional-transit-authority-in-progress/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2012 21:04:33 +0000 varmentrout http://localannarbor.wordpress.com/?p=4261 ]]> On November 27, 2012, the Michigan Senate passed a bundle of bills aimed at setting up a Southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority.  We previously reviewed this initiative.  The most recent discussion was Regional Transit in Ann Arbor and Beyond: A Matter of Governance.  The bill package languished through the summer, as was somewhat anticipated. As early as last January,  transportation consultants told the AATA Board that these bills were not likely to be taken up before the lame-duck session.  (See account by the Ann Arbor Chronicle.)

Before we get into any discussion about the political and functional implications of the passage of this package, let’s summarize the bills.  Note that serious study would be aided by consulting this authoritative overview of the major bills (SB 909, 911, 912, 967) and the analysis of SB 445 by the Senate Fiscal Agency.

Conspicuously missing from the bill package passed by the Senate was a bill introduced by Senator Rebekah Warren.  Senate Bill 910 and its House counterpart HB 5312 would have allowed counties to levy a vehicle license fee of $1.80 per $1000 of the vehicle’s list price. So, for example, the owner of a vehicle valued at $20,000 would pay an additional $36 a year. Oddly, this money would be paid to the county treasurer, not to a transit authority or any transportation agency.  The fee would be in addition to existing vehicle license fees and in addition to the vehicle license fee assessed on behalf of the RTA.  (That fee would be $1.20 per $1000 valuation, so our hypothetical vehicle owner would pay $24 for the RTA plus the county fee, a total of $60 in new vehicle license fees.)  There would have to be a majority vote on a countywide ballot before the fee could be enacted.

December 5, 2012:  The House Transportation Committee reported the entire package out to the House floor without amendment.

Preliminary reports indicate that the House adjourned without final action on the RTA (December 5).

Here is the story in the Detroit News in which the measure failed to gain enough votes and was withdrawn without a final vote.  Presumably it will be reintroduced.

AnnArbor.com interviews Ann Arbor officials on the status of the RTA package and its likely effects on Ann Arbor.

December 6, 2012: The House of Representatives voted in two of the five-bill RTA package.  These can now go to the Governor for signing.

The two bills, SB 909 and SB 445, passed with bare majorities. There are 110 members, so 56 votes are required. The vote for SB 909 was 57 in favor, 50 opposed, and 3 not voting;  56 – 52 – 2 for SB 445.)  The other three bills appeared to have between 45-50 votes on the board before leadership cleared the board and suspended voting on them.   The two bills were also declared by voice vote to have immediate effect, meaning they will be law after the Governor signs them, rather than in the next legislative session.

Here are comments sent out today (Dec. 6) by Representative Rick Olson, who is retiring from the House at the end of the term.  (Emphasis added.)

If we had amended the Senate bills, they would need to go back to the Senate for concurrence with the amendments, and there are not enough Republican votes in the Senate to do so. So rather than risk losing the RTA opportunity once again, the committee approved the Senate bills as they had passed the Senate. As I am writing this, the main RTA bill (Senate Bill 909) has passed the House.  We are continuing to work on changes to some of the accompanying bills. 

As the bills stand, the bills only enable an RTA to be formed, they don’t form one. The region will need to put a plan together and then pass by a vote of the people of the region the funding mechanism. If the region cannot get its act together, there will not be a regional transit plan. If it can, then the region will be able to join the rest of the major cities in the US in providing convenient transportation to its non-motorized residents.

The Ann Arbor City Council has scheduled a special meeting to discuss the impact of the RTA bills.  Here is the Ann Arbor Chronicle’s description.

December 6, 2012: SB 911 has now been passed with 57 votes.  SB 912 was delayed again. According to MIRS, the House adjourned without action on SB 912 and SB 967. The chair of the Transportation Committee, Rep. Paul Opsommer of DeWitt, seemed to indicate that they will be brought back again.

December 7, 2012: The House is evidently not in session today, as no webcasts are scheduled.  Staff are keeping up with the action on bills.  See for example the page on SB 912, where actions are recorded in the box at the end.

December 10, 2012: The House is not in session until tomorrow.

Murph (aka Richard Murphy) has posted an analysis of why Ann Arborites should not be concerned about the RTA on his blog Common Monkeyflower.  Note that Murph is employed by the Michigan Suburbs Alliance.

The Ann Arbor City Council’s special session today at 4 p.m. has been moved to the City Council chambers from the Jury Room after a question raised about public access and also use of electronic devices (prohibited in the Justice Center).  CTN coverage still TBD.   This session is to consider a resolution asking Governor Snyder to veto the RTA package, or at least SB 909 which causes Washtenaw to be included in the RTA.

Conan Smith’s letter to the Ann Arbor City Council: Hours before the Council meets to consider a resolution calling for the Governor’s veto, Conan Smith, the mover behind Washtenaw County’s inclusion, has sent a letter imploring the Council to step back from the brink.  It had an attached document that explained aspects of the RTA at length.  Conan Smith letter to Ann Arbor City Council

The scope of Smith’s ambition with this measure can be guessed from this sentence:

Ending the balkanization of our transit systems is a fundamental reform if we are to create a system that serves the broadest set of the population and competes successfully against places like Boston, Chicago and San Francisco for federal investments.

Ann Arbor City Council, December 10, 2012 voted to pass the resolution, slightly amended. Discussion was somewhat subdued. According to the Ann Arbor Chronicle, the vote was unanimous. Ann Arbor Chronicle account of the special meeting

The story in AnnArbor.com quotes some officials who have a mixed view of the RTA.

December 11, 2012:

The Ann Arbor City Council’s final resolution regarding the RTA package is now available. DC-1 Protest SB 909 Certified Copy    The resolution removes the issue from the frenetic press of last-minute legislation and pushes it into next term.  It no longer calls on the Governor to veto the existing package.

December 12, 2012: The Ann Arbor Chronicle has now published an article detailing the discussion at the December 10 City Council meeting.  According to the article, as of noon on December 12, Governor Snyder had not signed any of the RTA bills.

December 13, 2012: The final two bills, SB 0967 and SB 0912, have still not passed the House.  (By clicking on the links to the bills, it is possible to see their status.  According to the status update, neither bill has yet been taken up again since December 6.)

Today the Detroit News published an article that quotes Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood as saying that these two bills must pass in order for Detroit and Michigan to receive the $25 million hoped for the M-1 streetcar project on Woodward Avenue. “The legislation ‘is really one of the last pieces that has to be put in place in order for us to give the green light,’ LaHood said.”

What did we tell you?  (Regional Transit in Ann Arbor and Beyond: A Matter of Governance)  It is really all about that M-1 project.

Conan Smith to appoint Washtenaw County Board Members

Smith has informed the Board of Commissioners that he intends to move ahead with appointments to the Regional Transit Authority Board as soon as the RTA bills are signed.   Here is the text of his message:

Members of the Board(s) . . . next week the governor will sign SB 909 creating the Regional Transit Authority, which includes Washtenaw County.  The legislation authorizes the chair of our commission (sic) to make two appointments to the board.  I’ve discussed options with Curt and the incoming leadership team and with their support will be making these appointment before the end of the year.  The general terms are three years, but one of the initial appointment is for a single year, so that one will expire within the purview of the incoming board who can review and reappoint or replace my selection.

• Rolland (Sizemore, Jr.) as the immediate past chair and Yousef (Rabhi) as the (presumed) incoming chair;
• Michael Ford, CEO at AATA, to ensure our transit agency’s perspective is represented;
• Bill Milliken, Jr., to represent the business community; Bill served as the chair of the Washtenaw Development Council for many years and continues on the SPARK board; and
• Carolyn Grawi, Director of Advocacy and Education at the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living, to represent the interests of transit users.

We will post notice today that applications will be accepted through the end of next week.  The advisory committee and I will review those applications and create a short list.  From that list I will select two preferred candidates and one or two alternates.  The advisory committee will interview those individuals on December 27 at a public meeting at LLRC, present their responses to me and I will make the final appointments at that point.

NB: The body that Smith chairs is the Board of Commissioners. It is often informally called the County Commission, but no such body exists in Michigan law. The RTA legislation correctly identifies the Chair of the BOC as the responsible party in this instance.

Governor Snyder signs RTA package of bills

Governor Snyder signed the RTA package and several other bills on December 19, 2012.  Here is a picture.

Note: Subjects in this category are listed on the Transportation Page.

From the presentation of “Full Planet, Empty Plates” by the Earth Policy Institute

Worldwide, food stocks are not meeting demand, and the trends are bad.  Lester Brown’s Earth Policy Institute has published a new book,  Full Planet, Empty Plates (quick facts summary here) that eloquently sketches a picture of increased population and decreased food production, especially where water supply is becoming limiting.  We are used to tales of starvation in countries far, far away, but it used to be said that the problem was one of distribution.  Now it is increasingly a problem of supply.  For example, Saudi Arabia, with its oil wealth, had striven to be self-sufficient in food. Wheat is a critical crop for bread-based diets in the Middle East.  But now that the Saudi water supply has been used, it is becoming almost wholly dependent on wheat imports.  Recently the Saudis have been buying up land in Africa for crop production, displacing native farmers.

Grain to feed animals is an especial problem, since much of the developing world is now demanding a diet higher in meat.  But meanwhile worldwide grain supplies are failing to rise to the demand.  Let’s just look at corn.  According to World Agricultural Outlook Board estimates, the world began 2010/2011 with a stock of 145.29 million metric tons of corn at hand, and ended the year with 127 MMT.  But the projections for 2012/2013 are a beginning stock of 131.54 MMT, ending the year with 117.27 MMT.  The projected decline is doubtless partly due to the drought in the US.  While we began the growing season expecting a yield of 15 billion bushels of corn because of expanded, aggressive planting, recent estimates are that we will have harvested just over 10 billion bushels.  The USDA report says that this is the lowest production since 2006; further, on a per-acre basis, it is the lowest average yield since 1995.  Shamefully, we are set to consume much of this corn in our automobiles.  Despite pleas from state governments, the EPA has declined to waive the mandate for increased ethanol use in automobile fuel.  According to Lester Brown, last year one-third of the US corn crop was used to produce fuel ethanol.   The USDA predicts price increases for consumers of as much as 3-4% next year.  That doesn’t sound like much, but recall that for much of our population, income is likely to stay the same or decrease.

Remember that our commodity crops – even those produced in Michigan – go into the worldwide market.  So as the worldwide supply falls short, we will be competing on a world-wide basis for food – even that produced from American soils.  Lester Brown has summed it up this way:  “Food is the new oil.  Land is the new gold.”

But surely no one is actually hungry in the U.S., right?

So in spite of all these statistics, it is hard to imagine that in a country where most major health problems are now related to obesity, people could actually have difficulty getting enough food. But of course our country has been experiencing a steady growth in income inequality.  (See some chilling statistics from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)  For technical reasons, the word “hunger” is not used.  Instead, levels of  food security are measured.  The USDA has four categories, two of which indicate problems called food insecurity.

Low food security: reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake.  (For example, if you were unable to eat meat more than once or twice a week, and could not afford to eat meals out, but were able to eat a sufficient diet so that you did not actually experience loss of weight or skipped meals.)

Very low food security: Reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake. (For example, food sometimes ran out and you had to skip meals or lost weight because of inadequate meals.)

The graph at right shows that 15% of Americans now experience some form of food insecurity – and nearly 5% say they have to miss meals sometimes.

Now imagine the effect of shortage-induced price rises.

So what are we going to do about it?

One thing is to support our institutions that help people get needed food.  The greatest of these is Food Gatherers.  They serve as a food pantry to get commodities to families in need and do food rescues.  But so often people who depend on food pantries for a substantial part of their diet find themselves eating canned food.  Food Gatherers has launched on an effort to see that fresh healthful food is supplied as well.  Another superb organization is Growing Hope.  They combine education and opportunity to grow your own food with a farmers’ market where several different methods of obtaining food through social programs allows people to have fresh food.   These two organizations keep people from being hungry while also supporting the fresh local food ethic that is what this movement is all about.

Another thing is to support our local farmers.  That’ll be in the next post on this subject.

UPDATE:  Michael Pollan’s tweets served up a report from the Heinrich Böll Foundation on the intersection between climate, politics and hunger.  “The Wheel of Life suggests these complex interactions help explain why, even though economic growth indicators have risen in many countries over the last decade, hunger rates have increased too, especially within the last several years.”  Here is a direct link for a download of the report:  The Wheel of Life: Food, Climate, Human Rights, and the Economy.