001[Music] good evening my name is Trudy Adams and I am a member of the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor area I welcome you to tonight's forum featuring candidates for Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners districts 8 & 9 the candidates will be on the ballot in the general election on Tuesday November 6 2018 we are broadcasting from the studio's of CTN in Ann Arbor the League of Women Voters is pleased to sponsor these forums the league is a nonpartisan civic and political organization that encourages informed and active participation of all citizens in government the league works to increase understanding of major public policy issues and seeks to strengthen and broaden knowledge about our form of government and democracy well the league does not support candidates or parties we do take stands on issues
002we have studied one of the league's most important goals is to assist voters in making informed choices at the polls and thus we bring you tonight's program our moderator this evening is Diana neering who will explain the format and get us started Diana thank you Judy the first thing I want to do is introduce our candidates from district 8 is Jason Morgan and from district 9 is Katie stop Katie Scott Jeff galantine from district 8 was invited and so was Stuart berry from district 9 but they were unable to attend tonight the format is as following each candidate will have an open opening statement of up to one minute each candidate will have a closing statement of 90 seconds I will ask questions that have been submitted from the Washington County community and I will
003read the questions only once each candidate will have 90 seconds to respond the timers will hold up their pallets indicate pedals indicating the remaining time and finally a stop sign please stop when indicated so that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate the order of speaking was determined by drawing before we began and the candidates are seated in the order of the numbers they drew we're going to keep it very simple tonight and the opening statement will start with candidate number one as well the first question and the closing statement and my timers tonight are Nancy Johnson and Paige silence we will hear from Jason Morgan Morgan his opening statement Jason thank you so much so as mentioned my name is Jason Morgan and I'm running for re-election to the Washington County Board of Commissioners
004I'm running for re-election for the same reasons that I ran in the first place I love our community I wanted to give back we have an amazing community here in Washington County and I'm proud to represent a district primarily made up of Ann Arbor but many people they ask what a County Commissioner does and much of our work is behind-the-scenes much of it is unnoticed the primary focus of what a County Commissioner does is serve people in in the ways that you wouldn't otherwise see through human services Public Safety ensuring that our roads are plowed in the out County and ensuring that people are provided a basic social safety net around housing and food support and many of the things that you really don't see until they touch your life so I'm proud to be
005running for election and excited to be with you all tonight thank you so much thank you so first I just want to say thank you to the League of Women Voters and to CTN for this vital service that they're providing to the community we live in the information age but it can be harder than ever to find the right information that we want to make our decisions and so I'm sure I speak on behalf of all Washington County residents for with a gratitude for this service so as you heard my name is Katie Scott I am an intensive care nurse and everyday I advocate for my patients and their families I'm also an active member of my nurses union both on the state and local level so I thereby advocate for my entire profession in
006patients across the state now I'm eager to serve Washington County residents also especially district 9 by hoping to earn your vote to serve you on the Board of Commissioners I believe in transparency and ethics and government creating health justice across the county and putting working families first in order to make Washtenaw County a diverse and open place for all people to live so I'm eager to earn your vote on November 6th and thank you again Thank You Katie the first question that I'm going to ask is specific to your district so in your answer and think about your district we were going to start with mr. Morgan what are the main and unique challenges facing your district within this county if you are reelected how will you plan to address these challenges the the main
007district the main the main challenge of my district is sort of the intersection between the city of Ann Arbor and Washington County the city provides many great services and they they work very closely with the county but the one area where we we work together very close to that we need to do more work on is around affordable housing I think everybody in Washington County knows that it's hard to be poor in Ann Arbor it's hard to make ends meet when rent is very high and the cost of living is much higher and that's an area where the county and the city in particular are trying to invest in affordable housing so one of the most recent things that we did as a Board of Commissioners is invest in affordable housing through the Platt Road
008project which will provide 50 units of affordable housing for 99 years which is something that is is unique and different than any other affordable housing project we've seen in a while on this area and above that above and beyond that is this project will be environmentally sustainable and have just this phenomenal way of ensuring that we provide meaningful affordable housing for those who are most in need and for the longest period of time we can so that's one of the big challenges there are many transportation being a key factor as well so one of my priorities has been working with ata and our other communities as well to improve accessibility to be able to get to Ann Arbor and to get Deb Salani and Chelsea and Dexter in all parts of our county so there
009isn't necessarily one particular issue that just touches my district I'd say it touches the entire county as a whole thank you miss cat so I live in district 9 and district 9 is primarily the west side of Ann Arbor so like Jason really looking at majority of my district in Ann Arbor City we in district 9 are increasingly affected by the Gelman plume that is definitely something that people are interested in district 9 and so that will be something we'll have to look at at the county the county has already party to the lawsuit but we need to be talking especially in district 9 to people about the EPA Superfund and what we can do with that we also have a issue in my area with affordable housing too so I bought my house 10
010years ago and now 10 years later it would be unaffordable for me as a working professional as a nurse and what we need to do is address affordable housing so that people who work in our community can also afford to live in our community I love living in Ann Arbor I have a son who just started middle school and he loves Ann Arbor too he wants to stay in Ann Arbor which might be a short-lived desire of his but for now that's what he wants and I want to keep an arbor someplace where he can come back to and he can stay and live and have that housing be affordable for him and his future family as well we also have to deal with transportation issues and how people are getting around the county and
011finding their way to those jobs that hopefully they have in place as well so a number of issues specific to my district and it's exciting to think about being able to work at those on the county level and address issues across the whole county as well thank you I guess I your the next question any better or not the commissioners are elected from separate districts but are also responsible for decisions that affect the entire county in what ways do the priorities of your districts constituents differ from those countywide issues what ways do they overlap and when priorities differ what is your process in making a decision so that's a really big question to answer in a minute so I'll try to the salient points of that so there's always a tension in some ways between
012thinking about what the district wants and what things happen at the county level but I think you have to think about what drives your motivation to represent people in the first place I feel really confident that the people in district 9 have some of the same values that I do and that what we're looking for is are things like social equity and health justice across the county and that people in district 9 would support that on a county level to be able to represent both my district and the county you have to develop relationships with other people in the county the other commissioners on the county you have to work as a team you have to work in concert with each other I think that it's important that we pay attention to everything in the
013county one of the ideas I've had to think about fostering relationships is sometimes taking those meetings that we have is the County Commission that are a mile from my house so that's really fantastic for me but it would be really interesting to pull some of those meetings into different parts of the county to try to get other people involved take them out to Dexter take them to epsilon II so those communities there can access those meetings and become involved more clearly too and have their voices heard at the county level yeah I think as Katie will articulated it is is hard to sometimes separate you know your districts issues from the rest of the county because we do represent the county as a whole and many of us particularly running you know in our districts
014are are people who believe in social justice and equity and trying to ensure that we are were lifting everybody up and so one of the biggest initiatives that we've passed at the county over the last couple years was an equity policy that Katie was very supportive of and and has been fantastic about but that our job is going to be to implement that equity policy over the next couple years so what that means is that when we're making funding decisions we're not thinking just about our districts we're not thinking just about the city we live in we're thinking about the county as a whole and looking at where the hardest-hit not just cities or municipalities but census tracts so really narrowing in based on data based on they call the opportunity index that you can
015really look at you know what are the health disparities life expectancy asperities it's it's absurd that we are one of the most segregated communities in the in the state and one of the most segregated counties in the in the nation actually around the different parts of a county and how our people are doing so even though we represent districts in Ann Arbor we're going to be trying to help you know census tracts Whitmore Lake epsilon E and rural parts of the county as well as our own districts to ensure that we're focusing our efforts and helping those who need the most help because it's not just blood equality at this point it's about equity and putting the additional resources where it's really needed so I we have a lot of work to do and I'm
016excited to do that Thank You mr. Morgan question number three it is dealing with the Platt Road project but you both have already mentioned but it it's a little more detailed so we're going to ask you to get a little more into the weeds and mr. Morgan you will have an average nose is considering the authorization of to purchase purchase agreements for the county's property and plant road which is in district seven one with thrive collaborative and the other with Avalon housing the proposal is to develop the site for residential housing which will include some low income residential housing thrive has proposed to purchase nine acres of this site for 104 $1,200,000 which is well below market rate what's your position concerning the sale of this property for that amount and what impact do you
017think you will have on countywide you know have on Tony wide yeah this is a particularly interesting issue because it's a well in some respects it was a very easy vote we just passed a through where our Ways and Means Committee which is essentially our Budget Committee last week and next week we will have a final vote on this project it's easy in the respect that it is a a project that looks beyond twenty years it looks to 99 years of affordable housing and we're providing a more meaningful affordable housing for people than we've ever done in our community so these these units will be affordable down to 30% AMI which is sort of the lowest level of portable housing and the hardest to get in Ann Arbor in particular because of the cost of
018land this project also includes all these environmental components it will have five hundred does the the amount doesn't really matter it will include solar a substantial amount of solar energy to power these homes and it will all be electric this entire development which does mean a lot but the other really really important component of this is that this was developed through conversations in that neighborhood and in the community that's right near my house to figure out how do we get residents from being concerned about this not just being a park but being a some sort of you know development that comes in and interrupts and change the culture of the neighborhood this is a really amazing opportunity to really blend those two wants from the community so we're providing meaningful mixed income housing that's done
019in a really smart and an amazing way but also getting some level of benefit to the community as a whole thank you that's a short answer so I'm sorry I can't explain it that's okay well it's a short period of time this guy it's really hard to do this in a minute so I think like Jason I think that the Viridian project is really exciting I have been waiting for a final decision on how they're going to address that Platt Road project as people have been calling it so the new project working with thrive and I believe Avalon builders also is really exciting it's true that the purchase price of 1.2 million is lower than the market value but it has come up from the original purchase price and the impact on the community as
020a whole is going to be felt so having it be below the purchase price but know what good is going to come from this community it's a mixed-use community as Jason said with those 30 those 50 units set aside for affordable housing some of which will be for that 30% of ami is fantastic another really exciting thing about the Viridian project is as Jason also said that that zero energy that they're going to have there so using the solar energy really working how you are coming up with environmental and green solutions and creating affordable housing at the same time is exciting it's going to be a model not only for the state but for the country I think that Washington County is really showing its leadership I am very excited to think about being elected
021and getting to be part of this project going forward thank you Miss Scott question number four comes to you first miss cot the Washington County Road Commission is a semi-autonomous entity which is governed by the Board of Commissioners and important in appointed by the Board of Commissioners it's a three member mission the term for one of the Commission seats is expiring in 2018 what qualities do you think a road commissioner should have and when the Road Commission makes controversial decisions which it does from time to time what role does the County Board have in addressing the constituents concerns with the Commission's decisions so the Road Commission I mean roads are clearly an issue for all campaigns this year in 2018 I think that when I think about the person that should be on the Road
022Commission coming up first of all I think we probably should expand the number of people on that Road Commission right now I think it's three and you probably should have more people there's an interesting intersection with the roads and the county together that limits some of our ability to play the role that I think we should entirely play in the county government but somebody going on to that Commission has to be somebody who is clever and nimble and intelligent and has subject matter expertise in this area I was talking about this before and I said I have a friend who is an engineer and he's either a concrete or cement engineer and he assures me they're very different but I don't know the difference so somebody on the Road Commission should know the difference between
023that they we should have diverse representation there and somebody who is really willing to think about the utilitarian nature of our roads but also some of those roads and the natural beauty that they have in our community so think about those things back and forth and absolutely the Road Commission the road commissioners should be accountable to the public there is there is a lack of accountability that I see right now with the road commissioners and we need to think about how to make that more accessible to people and have that accountability be there thank you yeah absolutely I would agree with many of the comments that Katie suggested there I think we've had a road commission that has done a really good job for a long time the fact that we've we barely thought about
024the road commission in this community until recently is a testament to the the really phenomenal work they've done for many years in particular we have our four year Road millage right now that they're implementing that's they've been implementing and the design and the structure of transparency around that Road Commission to say exactly where the dollars are going to go exactly what projects we're going to do before they're done and to actually note for the public like this this project is funded by Washington County residents is a true testament to the work on the other hand we have a lot of room for improvement and so the particularly around environmental challenges and and sort of our natural beauty of our roads I would love to see us look at more of a an official tree policy
025like some other counties have we don't actually have one of those in Washington County so we don't have a designated manner in which we handle trees along the roadway certainly there are their arguments to say that we have needed a certain amount of footage along the roadway to provide safety for for drivers and you know snowy conditions things like that but there's also a balance there we see a very different clear difference in the way we handle roads in Ann Arbor versus the out County because the community tends to be very vocal in Ann Arbor around trees in particular I would like to see some of that sentiment shared countywide so we can ensure that we're having it a beautiful entire County as a whole and a lot of that rests with the Road Commission
026thank you mister um question number five comes to you again the board is in the process of creating a Washtenaw County Youth Commission in partnership with the neutral zone and corner health do you support this partnership and what do you think the Commission's role should be and how do you anticipate working with them I'm so glad that you asked I was actually very very proud to lead this effort on the County Board of Commissioners to not only eventually hopefully create a Youth Commission but to do something that's even more unique we allocated funding in partnership with the neutral zone and corner health to spend a year facilitating a dialogue run by the neutral zone and corner health because they know more about working with youth than any of us ever will that's just what they
027do every day so they're facilitating a year-long dialogue with young people so that young people will create a Youth Commission and present a proposal to us at the board of commissioners at the end of this year-long process which i think is the only true way to have a Youth Commission that represents youth they need to be involved in not just you know input but actually creating this phenomenal thing that I hope will be a permanent installment in our County so we have young people at the table we're hearing their voices were empowering them to be engaged in local government which heck if they want to just show up I'm happy but I think we'll find some really exciting people who are passionate about this work and actually we have will be reviewing applications on Friday
028and I'm part of that process we have 49 applicants for what we're 10 and hopefully maybe end up 15 positions on this task force to create a Youth Commission for 49 young people that are completely diverse in demographics where they live we've searched for every part of the county because the hope of this Youth Commission is that we have young people from in Arbor Ypsilanti Western Washington County the rural parts of the county young people from every part of our community so I'm very very excited about this thank you Scott so I'm really excited about this too when I first heard about the Youth Commission I wanted to know if my son could do it who is 11 and who has a keen political mind he's just a little bit too young to do it
029right now but I know how engaged he be indifferent issues not only nationally but locally and it's exciting to think about there are kids in the community who want to be engaged and giving them this opportunity to do it I think that when you bring young people together from these diverse backgrounds at this point in their lives you're really going to foster a new spirit of creativity and problem-solving when they have the opportunity to be together and not in their isolated communities of where they are that's a really exciting part of this happening these young people talking to each other I cannot believe there were 49 applicants for these ten spots it's really exciting I think that we have a lot to listen to with the young people in this country right now and and
030that we're doing this on the county level and engaging them and listening to these voices sometimes that are really wise behind their ears and that are thinking in different and creative ways it's very exciting I absolutely support it and I think that the commissioners role is to continue thinking about how we fund that program and how we mentor these young people who are interested in how government works going forward thank you miss Kat okay we've come to the end of the questions and so it's time for statement and as I mentioned it's 90 seconds and mr. Morgan um yeah get the first opportunity thank you so as I mentioned earlier I'm I'm a county commissioner because I love I love this community and I'm so honored to serve and I'm a county commissioner because our
031residents and my constituents elected me but I also say that that my true inspiration to be in public service dates back to when I was 13 years old when I was 13 I was diagnosed with something called Becker's muscular dystrophy muster just B is a neuromuscular disease it impacts your arms your legs your heart most importantly and I was told that I'd lose my ability to walk sometime my mid-20s and to make things worse the life expectancy for Becker's muscular dystrophy is 42 years old I'm doing very well I'm 29 now and I feel very healthy and very happy and very proud to be doing what I'm but when I learned about this diagnosis when I was a kid I at some point realized that the thing that really inspires me to keep going every
032day is the ability to help people and just serve and to do something for others and to make a positive difference in the world we as elected officials have that ability and it's up to us as to how we choose to use that so we can use our ability to empower young people we can use our ability to empower those who are most in need in our community and to give them the tools they need to try and succeed and to have a life that they are proud of so I'm here because it's the thing that inspires me to get up in the morning and I'm so honored to be running again and I'm so honored to be next to Katie and excited about so many amazing candidates running for this office this year thank
033you so I can't believe that our time is up already and that questions are done I want to just echo my statements earlier about my thanks to the League of Women Voters CTN to people watching and to all the other candidates Jason here with me and any candidate who's running in these elections in 2018 it's a scary thing to get up and decide that you're going to run for government and have that scrutiny and and go knock on people's doors who you don't know but every one of us who's doing it is doing it because we believe that we can be a voice to try to make things better in the world I am a nurse so every day when I go to work I advocate for people at the bedside I came this evening
034from negotiations from trying to get a new nursing contract why I'm all in red for red for labor and so advocating for people and speaking up for my community is something that I do and it was something I thought how can I take this skill that I have in advocating for people and do more for my community and that inspired me to think about running for this board position I'm really excited to serve with people who are on the board like Jason hommes who will hopefully be reelected and other members of that board I think that the work that the board is doing now is exciting I am eager to earn your vote going forward and thank you once again for having us thank you Miss Scott thank you the league thanks the candidates for
035participating in tonight's forum to those who contributed questions and to CTN for making this program possible these forums will be rebroadcast on channel 19 a number of times between now and the election they are also available on demand for streaming on your computer and smartphones go to our website l WV Ann Arbor org and look for the link to the programs please urge friends and fellow residents to watch these forums too for additional nonpartisan information on candidates and ballot issues go to vote for one one org the league's voter resource guide covering local state and federal candidates and current proposals that will appear on your ballot information is available please educate yourself and be sure to vote November 6th [Music] [Applause] [Music] you