Loose Tea

In the summer of 2006, during the run up to the last City Council election, Pete Murdock and Grace Sweeney were far away. They took a 4-month summer road trip up through the U.P., across Canada, through the Canadian Rockies and into Alaska. While Ward 3 positioned itself to vote in Brian Robb, a relative newcomer on the political scene, Pete and Grace were roughing it in pristine country with their truck and a two-person LL Bean tent. In a recent interview, their memories of the Alaskan journey remain vivid. They recall the roads on the Alaskan Highway and particularly the Dempster Highway and the portion made of hard slate and a night spent after two flat tires on the rugged roads with a small town's one mechanic patching their tire. They draw out a wilderness journey where they lived side by side with black bears, bald eagles and fauna. A place where celery is sold by the stalk and milk by the glass, where water is supplied not from the ground but in huge cisterns on stilts outside the buildings and where rugged individualism is still the norm rather than the exception.

Not all retirees would embark on this kind of adventure sans a super RV or the comforts of modern times. True, Grace insists they planned out every step of the journey and stayed in a variety of lodgings from motels and hotels, to B & Bs to their tent. But, again, who would decide to leave warmth, cats and comforts of home behind to strike out and meet Alaska head on?

Apparently the same kind of people who would after a long and distinguished career as public servants—where Pete was elected 3 times mayor of Ypsilanti and 4 times Councilmember of the East side before serving as the manager of the Washtenaw County recycling drop-off station—decide to re-engage in the City's political scene to bolster the common good. What is most refreshing is that Pete and Grace's approach is totally lacking in the "been there, done that" attitude. It is as if Ypsilanti is the new Alaska, the new frontier, where Pete and Grace will continue tilting at windmills. In their case, the windmills are sure to be built by working stiffs to generate wind energy and reduce our carbon footprint.

What makes this most surprising is that for all intents and purposes, they seem to truly have been there and done that. Pete came to Michigan in '66 and moved to Ypsilanti a year later to be closer to his job at an auto plant. He and Grace were already activists and in their spare time did the work that led to today's Food Co-Op. After work on Fridays they drank coffee and pulled all nighters to drive with other volunteers in a station wagon, a van and a truck to Detroit's Eastern Market. Arriving between 3:30 and 4 am they would divide up the list of food items for purchase and each proceed to buy what the young, co-op needed from the farmers. Then, they'd have breakfast, drive back and crash, sometimes with blankets in the back of their vehicles. The food would then be sold out of the back of the old AME church on Adams. (It was many years later that the Co-Op had a store front.) When asked why they volunteered for this assignment, Pete talks about how they were all trying to help out the students and city folks who were looking for fresh produce at low cost. Grace says, "Because it was fun and exciting."

It was during these days that Pete and Grace first became involved in the nascent recycling movement, recycling glass in barrels on location. As their interest deepened, Pete and Grace became more and more involved in the recycling movement, trying and succeeding in establishing the first curbside recycling program in Washtenaw County. Again their tactics were drawn out of grass roots activism. Volunteers used their own vehicles to drive through neighborhoods and pick up recyclables.

Of course, Grace and Pete's work with the affordable food movement and recycling barely scratches the surface of their activities through the years. In addition to his work as an elected official for many years, Pete served as union steward, Pete and Grace helped start the East Side Neighborhood Association. They assisted with the establishment of the historic district and worked with the Tenant's Union on affordable housing. In 2005, Pete retired.

Then the City Council proposed to effectively cut bus service for the City of Ypsilanti through withdrawing from its purchase agreement with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA). Pete and Grace leapt out of retirement to join with the Keep Ypsi Rollin group. This activism led to further activism with the Stop the City Income Tax campaign, which, in turn has led to Pete putting his hat in the ring again for a potential fifth term as Council Member for the East side of Ypsilanti.

Pete has a vision for the future of Ypsilanti. He talks of extending a "regional system" developed out of a "bottom up structure." He looks to a day where residents can pitch in and help craft this vision, but stepping into the current leadership vacuum says people "can't get activated until they have something to get activated around." The best bet for putting such a focal point in the hands of the people is likely to be through the "what's old is new" grassroots activist route of Pete and Grace.