Mission Statement
Advance Ypsilanti is a group of citizens with a deep love and respect for the history and future of our city. We believe the electoral process can effectively promote forward-looking ideas and candidates to successfully achieve a healthy and thriving future. To this end, we will identify, develop, and utilize resources to help voters, elected officials and our community’s leaders ensure Ypsilanti’s quality of life.
We applaud the City!
Leaders create a shared vision
Our City Council is united in working to increase revenue to protect our vital city services. AY PAC, along with City Council, recognizes the need to combine cuts with increasing revenue. Cuts only will not be enough, which is clear. In two years, we could close city hall, let all of the city staff go, and not have enough money left to pay for police and fire protection. That alone, illustrates the need for replacing SOME of the revenue we have lost due to many tax cuts over the last number of years.
AY PAC sees this move as the city of Ypsilanti taking control of our own destiny. Rather than waiting vainly for the state to replace some of the massive amount of revenue they have taken from Ypsilanti, along with all municipalities around the state, Ypsilanti is choosing to take control of our own destiny. We will fix our community, our budget, keep our city desirable to live, work and play in.
The Mayor and City Council have gained our respect in their sober assessment of what needs to be done to save Ypsilanti. Their resolve gives us an example of true leadership.
posted by J. Gawlas
an excuse to tinker?
Time for Patience
The city voted to put a commission together and examine our city charter for any needed changes. On the surface, this seems like a good idea, right? A little self examination (and tinkering) is always in our best interests…except when it’s not.
A little back story: The city charter is like our city’s constitution. It is the larger framework within which our city council, mayor, city manager and staff operate. It determines the rule and boundaries of our various commissions, ordinances, and processes. It is a very important document.
It also contains many threads very painstakingly woven together. If you change one part of it, other aspects may be impacted as well. Simply being unsure of how something works is no cause to start tinkering with it. Remember that modifying this document will ultimately affect all citizens either to a greater or lesser extent.
AY PAC talked to many people after the election. The people we talked to who had voted for initiating the charter process seemed to have a general sense of wanting to take a good look at things. They did not have a driving change on their mind. They just thought it was a good idea in the broad sense.
In other words, no general consensus is out there demanding a specific change to our charter. There is not call from the city to make any one or several changes. Just take a look, is what we heard.
Now to the larger picture, these are wild times politically. You don’t have to be a news hound to realize that extreme viewpoints are taking over the political process/discussion, hopefully temporarily. All over the country, in all levels of government, unreasonable people are pushing unreasonable changes. These unreasonable people and changes are not healthy for any community, let alone our little city of Ypsilanti.
Due to no identified need expressed by the citizens or their elected representatives, and in light of the overarchingly dangerous political climate, AY PAC has the following recommendation:
Don’t make any changes at this time. Our Charter is a strong and effective document as it currently stands. Help people to understand what it says and what it does. Then leave it be and let’s focus our attention on the current and future needs of our city, like the budget and saving important city services.
posted by B. Bashert
“If you improve or tinker with something long enough, eventually it will break or malfunction.” – Arthur Bloch