{"id":73231,"date":"2026-02-27T12:21:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T17:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bridgemi.com\/?p=73231"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:42:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:42:58","slug":"study-ann-arbor-council-most-divided-in-nation-and-thats-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bridgemi.com\/michigan-government\/study-ann-arbor-council-most-divided-in-nation-and-thats-a-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Ann Arbor council most divided in nation \u2014\u00a0and that\u2019s a good thing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>A data company analyzed meeting minutes of 142 municipalities over the past 17 years<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>It found that Ann Arbor City Council had the highest rate of dissent, about 18% of agenda items<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The national rate among studied municipalities is less than 2%<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Ann Arbor \u2014&nbsp;known as <a href=\"https:\/\/parents.umich.edu\/page\/u-m-lingo#:~:text=A2%20=,Arbor%2C%20pronounced%20%22A%20squared%22\">A2<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/uncategorized\/jared-goldberg-welcome-praa\/\">People\u2019s Republic<\/a> \u2014&nbsp;has a new honorific: \u201cThe City that Won\u2019t Agree.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s according to an <a href=\"https:\/\/district.myhamlet.com\/articles\/ann-arbor-divided\">examination of 142 larger cities and counties nationwide<\/a> by data company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myhamlet.com\">Hamlet<\/a>, which analyzed meeting minutes from the past 17 years and found the Ann Arbor City Council has the highest dissent rate nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While most council meetings nationwide are pro forma affairs that end in unanimous approval of agenda items, Ann Arbor meetings can be knock-down affairs that stretch into the early morning,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nationwide, according to an analysis of 8.1 million records, only 1.59% of city council or planning commission agenda items included a dissenting vote.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bridgemi.com\/michigan-government\/want-shorter-lines-on-election-day-its-a-science-and-selfie-stations-help\/\"><strong>Want shorter lines on Election Day? It\u2019s a science, and selfie stations help<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bridgemi.com\/michigan-government\/ex-governors-urge-civility-minneapolis-could-be-any-place-in-michigan\/\">Ex-governors urge civility: Minneapolis \u2018could be any place in Michigan\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bridgemi.com\/michigan-government\/fact-check-are-regulations-to-blame-for-rising-michigan-house-costs\/\"><strong>Fact check: Are regulations to blame for rising Michigan house costs?<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In Ann Arbor, <a href=\"https:\/\/district.myhamlet.com\/articles\/ann-arbor-divided\">it was 18.19%<\/a>. That rate is triple the No. 2, Pima County in Arizona, which includes Tucson.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was really shocking to see just how low (dissent) is in most places,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/sunilrajaraman\/\">Sunil Rajaraman<\/a>, founder of Hamlet, wrote in an email to Bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis indicates to me that most councils just agree on what they are going to vote and act as more of a rubber-stamp mechanism. The real discussions happen outside of council chambers\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ann Arbor hasn\u2019t elected a Republican to <a href=\"https:\/\/annarborobserver.com\/guide\/city-council-mayor\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com\">City Council since 2003<\/a>, prompting progressives to form blocs on specific issues, according to the study that scrutinized 53,207 council votes in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rajaraman said disagreement makes for long meetings but good democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unlike other local governments where decisions are made before public meetings, Ann Arbor\u2019s \u201ccouncil members actually read the 400-page budget packet, show up with amendments, vote no when they disagree and occasionally lose a 5-1 fight over leaf blowers at 11 p.m. on a Monday night,\u201d the study read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you believe meetings should be what they claim to be \u2014&nbsp;open deliberation by elected representatives who disagree honestly and settle those disagreements where the public can watch them \u2014 then Ann Arbor starts to look less like an outlier and more like the only city in this dataset that is actually doing its job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s true that Ann Arbor spent months debating leaf blowers before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.a2gov.org\/sustainability-innovations-home\/sustainability-me\/for-businesses\/gas-leaf-blower-phase-out\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.a2gov.org\/sustainability-innovations-home\/sustainability-me\/for-businesses\/gas-leaf-blower-phase-out\/\">banning gas-powered ones in December 2023<\/a>, but the city has moved onto other issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new hot topic: bike parking, with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wemu.org\/wemu-news\/2026-02-20\/ann-arbor-city-council-wants-changes-to-proposed-new-bike-parking-ordinance\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.wemu.org\/wemu-news\/2026-02-20\/ann-arbor-city-council-wants-changes-to-proposed-new-bike-parking-ordinance\">council last week re-referring<\/a> a regulation overhaul back to the planning commission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The vote to do so, perhaps unsurprisingly, was split, 5-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hamlet is a private civic technology company that uses artificial intelligence to monitor council and commission minutes in 40 Michigan cities.\u00a0Ann Arbor was the only Michigan city included in the analysis of 142 municipalities, Rajaraman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A data company scoured 8 million meeting minutes nationwide over 17 years and concluded that Ann Arbor has the most dissent on its City Council. That makes for long meetings but good government<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1779,"featured_media":73232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-02-27T17:21:29Z","apple_news_api_id":"172b113e-5a6e-415a-a114-acacb84344b8","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-02-27T21:42:57Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AFysRPlpuQVqhFKysuENEuA","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[2445],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[2497],"class_list":["post-73231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-michigan-government","entry"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Study: Ann Arbor council most divided in nation \u2014\u00a0and that\u2019s a good thing - Bridge Michigan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bridgemi.com\/michigan-government\/study-ann-arbor-council-most-divided-in-nation-and-thats-a-good-thing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Study: Ann Arbor council most divided in nation \u2014\u00a0and that\u2019s a good thing - Bridge Michigan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A data company scoured 8 million meeting minutes nationwide over 17 years and concluded that Ann Arbor has the most dissent on its City Council. 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