Ward 5 Council Candidate David Silkworth Wants Local Government to “Put People First”

by Patricia Lesko

U.S. Navy veteran and Democrat David Silkworth has pulled nominating petitions to run for Ann Arbor City Council in Ward 5. Silkworth, an insurance executive, must gather 100 signatures of registered Ward 5 voters in order to have his name appear on the August 2017 primary election ballot. In 2016, Silkworth ran as an independent write-in candidate against Ward 5 Council member Chuck Warpehoski. Silkworth came away with 3,382 votes to Warpehoski’s 9,686 in last November’s general election, or 26 percent of the vote.

In 2013, Chip Smith launched a Nov. 5 general election write-in campaign against then Ward 5 Democratic incumbent Mike Anglin. Smith told the media among his reasons for running was that “I think we have a poor level of discourse about some key issues.” He added, “Ann Arbor needs a vibrant street life, we need a range of housing choices, we need transit, and we need to embrace all points of view, particularly those of the millennial generation that is so critical to the future of our city.” Smith attacked the incumbent calling him “seriously bad for the future of Ann Arbor.”

In his own write-in campaign, Chip Smith captured 30 percent of the vote.

This year David Silkworth is running for the Council seat occupied by Charles “Chip” Smith. Smith is a municipal planner. Silkworth says he’s running because he’s an “independent thinker who believes in responsive and responsible city government. I also believe that we need a city government that puts people first.”

Silkworth’s campaign issues include development, pedestrian safety, protecting our watershed, alternative transit and roads.

“I come from a family of Union workers, and I served honorably in the United States Navy and the Navy Reserve.  I moved to Ann Arbor in 1993 to attend the University of Michigan, and I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1998. I stayed in Ann Arbor after graduating because I felt that this community’s values were consistent with my own,” said Silkworth.

On the subject of development, Silkworth says, “Development that is architecturally attractive, socially responsible, environmentally sound and inclusive is desirable.  Most people don’t want hight-rises built next to one or two-story single family homes.” His views on pedestrian safety are unambiguous: “I think that the city should provide funding to either bring all unsafe crosswalks up to minimum engineering safety standards or close them until they can be brought up to those standards.”

Chip Smith, in a comment about his bid for re-election, told MLive he ran for City Council because he wanted to improve basic services and quality of life for everyone in the city. Without providing details of how or which basic services have been improved, Smith went on to say, “We have made many of these improvements.”

Smith Says Basic Services “Improved”—A Claim Examined

Water & Sewer

While Smith has voted to raise water and sewer rates during his tenure on Council, the city’s aging storm water and sewer infrastructure remains largely unimproved. Ann Arbor’s mayor in a Mar. 2016 Council meeting called the system “decades old and in many cases simply inadequate.” City manager Craig Hupy said at the same meeting, “We have parts of our system that date back to the turn of the century, and I don’t mean the turn of the century that just occurred. The turn of the previous century — the 1890s to the 1900s.”

Recycling

Another basic service is the city’s recycling program. The program has been described by Council members as “a mess.” Promises of savings, additional revenue from the sale of recyclables and doubled recycling collection rates were unrealized after the city spent tens of millions in the switched to single-stream recycling collections and processing. In July 2016, the operator of the city’s Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) was fired and a lawsuit ensued. Ward 1 resident, Bobby Frank recently alleged all of Ann Arbor’s glass recycling is being quietly landfilled. Frank made repeated calls to Recycle Ann Arbor and city officials before his suspicions were confirmed by Recycle Ann Arbor. Frank shared his findings on Nextdoor, a website where Ann Arbor locals can connect with thousands of neighbors. In an email, Chip Smith confirmed that he’d been told by city staff in July 2016 that the city’s glass recycling had been landfilled for “a few years.” Ward 4 Council member Jack Eaton, likewise, corroborated Smith’s comments. The precise number of tons of recycled glass landfilled or the exact number of years the recycled materials have been landfilled have not yet been confirmed.

Roads and Pedestrian Safety

Another hot button issue is the city’s roads. TRIP, a national transportation research non-profit partially funded by road builders and labor groups, in June 2015 ranked Ann Arbor among the top 25 mid-sized urban cities in the nation with the highest percentage of roads in poor condition. Since 2008, Ann Arbor has been at the top of MITA’s list of cities with the worst roads in the state of Michigan. Ann Arbor in 2010, was judged by MITA to have the third worst roads out of Michigan’s 1,800 municipalities.

Smith ran in the 2015 primary election and defeated incumbent Mike Anglin. In that election, Smith said he was running because he believed it was “government’s job to solve problems.” Smith said he thought the city could be more proactive about finding solutions.

In one of several 2015 campaign videos on his Facebook page, Smith tells viewers he’s “running to make our streets safer for everybody in Ann Arbor.” In the video titled “Vision Zero,” Smith talks about his plan to find funding to implement the recommendations of Ann Arbor’s Pedestrian Safety Task Force. “We recognize that all traffic-related fatalities and injuries are preventable,” says Smith in his video.

A year later, after a Huron high school sophomore was killed in an unlit crosswalk while walking to school, Smith told the Ann Arbor Observer, “The tragedy is that we’re being reactive to everything. It’s such a terrible thing and so heartbreaking and so preventable. This shows the failure of the infrastructure, and the failure of environment we created. We designed roads so forty miles per hour is an acceptable standard. It’s not acceptable.”

 

Legislative Record

According to city public records, among the 24 resolutions—symbolic and otherwise—Smith has co-sponsored (any Council member may add her/his name to a resolution brought forward by a Council colleague) are:

• a resolution to urge the state to adopt stricter 1,4 dioxane clean-up standards,
• a proposal to include a street and sidewalk millage on the August 2016 municipal election ballot
• a resolution opposing oil transport through the Enbridge Energy Line 5 pipeline
• a resolution to keep the Border-to-Border Trail open during the cull as well as Olson Park and the Argo and Bandemer nature areas
• a resolution directing the City Administrator and City Attorney to report to City Council on issues raised by presidential Executive Order No. 13,768.
• a resolution to correct the street closure for the Townie Street Party on July 17-20, 2016

Smith has co-sponsored two city ordinances:

• June 2016: An ordinance is to prohibit the use and sale of pavement sealant products containing >0.1% Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs)
• December 2016: Safe Passing Ordinance (requiring cars pass bicycles with five feet of clearance)

After voting against a budget amendment which would have provided additional money for streetlights, including near crosswalks, in Dec. 2016 Smith added his name as a co-sponsor to a resolution brought forward by Council member Jane Lumm (Independent-Ward 2) to install a pedestrian-activated flashing yellow light at the crosswalk where the Huron student had been killed.

While Chip Smith is by no means the lone Council member (or politician) to fail to follow through on campaign promises, among those unfulfilled campaign promises Chip Smith made while running for office are:

• Bringing a workforce housing program used in Aspen, Colo., to Ann Arbor. (MLive interview)
• Developing new and innovative training for police officers to discourage use of force in confrontational situations. (MLive interview)
• Establishing performance metrics so that our budget and spending decisions can be evaluated to ensure that taxpayers are getting a good return for the investment. (MLive interview)

The Candidates’ Campaign Finances

Campaign finance forms show that in 2013, Chip Smith loaned his campaign $1,400 then took in a total of $1,700 in campaign donations, the majority of which were donated by supporters outside of Ann Arbor and outside Michigan. In 2015, in the primary campaign against Mike Anglin, Smith’s campaign took in $11,838 in money and $3,585.85 in in-kind donations. His donor list included many of the same individuals who gave to then-mayoral candidate Chris Taylor. As in 2013, Smith’s campaign finance documents show that the majority of his campaign donations came from people living outside of Ward 5 and outside of Michigan. In 2015, Smith once again loaned his campaign $3,585.85 and used subsequent donations to pay himself back. Statements filed after the 2015 general election show that Smith took in a total of $15,818 in money and $5,578.15 in in-kind donations. Smith spent the majority of his money, $9,310.88, on Google adwords buys and Facebook ads.

In his 2016 write-in campaign, David Silkworth raised $16,448 in money and $947.10 in in-kind donations. Like Smith, Silkworth loaned his campaign money, $10,000. The majority of the remaining donations given to Silkworth came from Ward 5 residents. Silkworth spent $6,888 of his campaign money on literature and website design.