We talk a lot on these pages about the news in Dearborn’s west business district but there is a great deal quietly taking place on the east side that sometimes gets overshadowed.

Raad Alawan, editor of Dearborn’s Your Community Voice recently caught up with Michael Boettcher, executive director of the East Dearborn Downtown Development Authority,for a look at what’s happening in east Dearborn. 

Beyond the medical center groundbreaking in May at Michigan and Schaefer on the former Wards site (scheduled for completion in 2010), Boettcher sees the growth opportunity along Schaefer, north of Michigan Avenue, which years ago was the heart of the east Dearborn downtown.

Below are quotes from Boettcher in his interview with Your Community Voice:

• Long term, what I see happening is the head of the district moving to the block of Schaefer north of Michigan Avenue. It’s a little less noisy, busy and congested than Michigan Avenue. Schaefer allows for better window shopping. It could be similar to downtown Ferndale at Nine Mile and Woodward, where they narrowed it to two moving lanes, parking on both sides, and managed to bump out the sidewalks to make enough room for outdoor seating.

• We have a functional downtown with a wide variety of business types. But I think we need the kind of businesses where people like to stroll and do window shopping. That’s what I’d like to see happen on Schaefer, where it can happen most naturally. That may mean some of the service businesses moving back to the upper floors or outer storefronts.

• I think this neighborhood has that much potential. This was downtown for decades. We had three department stores, a movie theater, City Hall of course. We had as much commercial use as a shopping mall. People knew this neighborhood, and still do.

• This past year, we did a promotion campaign with the tagline “See the World in One Mile.” Within walking distance, there’s Italian, Chinese, Polish, Arab, Tai, Greek, and all types of different foods. And the Arab American Museum has all different kinds of concerts on Thursdays. There are a lot of opportunities for a lot of cross-cultural experience in the neighborhood, and that’s what we want to tout. It was pretty successful. We heard back from businesses. Someone went into Alcamo’s after hearing one of the radio spots where they were one of the featured businesses and made a huge purchase. And they had never been there before, loved it, and said they’ll be back.

• From our survey, we found a lot of people go to city hall to pay taxes or take care of other city business. The medical center (at 5050 Schaefer) is a big draw. The museum ranks highly in terms of what people like and reasons to come (downtown). We found others like restaurants, ethnic food and shopping. Kroger was another big draw, until they closed  (in November 2008) at Schaefer and Colson. They didn’t want to operate two stores so close to each other, and Greenfield has better traffic counts than Schaefer. There is specific interest in the Kroger property, but it’s preliminary at this point. I think we need to maintain that as a grocery store. It’s a great anchor.

Escape the winter blahs! – Leave the yard work for next weekend!

Come out to the 6th Annual Dearborn Women’s Expo on Sunday, March 29, 2009. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Ford Community & Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Avenue, Dearborn MI 48126

For more info:  www.showforwomen.com

SPECIAL EVENTS:
• Hourly 50-50 raffles
• “On the Town” Dearborn Raffle valued at $1,000
• Buy a Duck from the Pond and win a prize
• Over 100 silent auction items – fun and practical items- from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
• 11 a.m. Fashion Show presented by RealKids, Inc.
• 12 p.m. Zumba Exercise – sessions for a fitness levels presented by Elements of Exercise
• 1 p.m. Bridal & Prom Show presented by One Stop Wedding Shoppe

$3 admissions – discount coupon for $1 off 1 admission at the door.

Children 12 and under are FREE

Nearly all public school students in the Kalamazoo school district have the opportunity to attend a college or university for free under the Kalamazoo Promise program. Dearborn’s new school Superintendent Brian J. Whiston would one-day like to be able to offer a “Dearborn Promise” for public school students in our city, too.

The idea of providing scholarships to Dearborn school kids so they can attend higher education institutions still is just in the “idea” stages but it is one of Whiston’s plans for the district. In this recent interview with Dearborn Councilman Robert Abraham, Whiston mentions the idea as one of his long-term goals.

Under Whiston’s preliminary plan, students who attend Dearborn schools from kindergarten to grade 12 would be eligible for two years of free school at Henry Ford Community College. Those students with fewer years in the district would be eligible for smaller amounts of financial aid to the community college.

Just how it would be paid for still would have to be worked out. According to school officials, if the district began saving money for this system for the kindergarten class of 2011 and worked out a plan with Henry Ford Community College to lock in a credit hour rate, it could be possible by about 2024. The plan would require the district to set aside and invest a portion of money each year for some 12 years in order to potentially have enough funding to offer free tuition to students who completed K-12 in Dearborn.

There are other challenges, too. Henry Ford, no doubt, might have concerns about having to lock in a tuition rate for students for 12 years in the future.

What is driving Whiston’s idea, no doubt, is the success it has had in Kalamazoo. That city was losing students until the “Kalamazoo Promise” was created, which provided free tuition to colleges and universities in the state to students who went to school in the district. More people moved to the district and home sales increased, too.

Funding for the Kalamazoo Promise came from a group of undisclosed benefactors, which Dearborn at this point doesn’t have. The program works like this: students graduating from Kalamazoo’s public school system are offered scholarships to local colleges and universities. The longer the student is in the public school system, the greater the scholarship. Those who started at the kindergarten level get a full ride scholarship.

Under the Kalamazoo Promise, the scholarships will cover between 65-100 percent of tuition and fees, starting with the class of 2006. Qualifying students will have entered the public school system no later than the ninth grade.

The entire program was geared around the idea of attracting businesses and families to Kalamazoo and improving property values. Could such a program work in Dearborn? As there are so many unknown variables right now, who knows? But it is an interesting idea.

Dearborn Councilman Doug Thomas, long an opponent of paid parking, wants the matter to be put on the ballot again because he says the current setup in west Dearborn isn’t working.

In the event you missed his motion at the March 16 council meeting, we’ve attached a few video clips here from that meeting where Thomas lays out his case for doing away with paid parking and putting it before voters again. It’s classic Thomas, not letting the facts get in the way of the points he wants to make nor explaining how the city would cover its costs for the $10 million it spent to build two parking decks should voters reject paid parking, which we suspect they would this time.

Thomas called for the reintroduction of a Special Assessment District (SAD) – an area where a special assessment is imposed because of a public project that benefits the owners in the defined area. This was supported by Double Olive bar owner Joe Agius who shared his views on paid parking with the council.  With the city’s debt costs for the decks being rolled into an SAD this time around, we wonder whether the costs to business owners in the area would end up making an SAD prohibitively expensive.

“It all started with Jumbo and Dumbo, the white elephants sitting there and how to pay for them,” Thomas said of the city’s two parking decks. “It was put on the bar owners and merchants in west Dearborn, a paid to park scheme. Well it sure didn’t work out there for Jumbo and Dumbo and it’s not working for the restaurant and bar owners in west Dearborn today.”

Thomas does make a few good points, including the suggestion that the entrance to Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, now the Henry Ford, should be off of Michigan Avenue, just east of Brady, rather than Oakwood. If the entrance were on Michigan, merchants in west Dearborn might see additional business come there way. The way it is now, after a visit to the Henry Ford, people just pack into their car and leave, Thomas says.

With each new spring in Dearborn comes the annoying sound of airplane noise overhead. We’ve written on these pages here many times before about the need to notify the Wayne County Airport Authority if residents are bothered by aircraft noise and this year is no different.

To help limit airplane noise over Dearborn residents need to contact the Noise Complaint Hotline at 734-942-3222 or email Michelle Plawecki, noise manager for the Wayne County Airport Authority, at michelle.plawecki@wcaa.us

Dearborn has been battling the noise from Metro Airport since 1989 when the airport began rerouting flight paths over our city.

There may be some relief if recommendations stemming from a legal settlement with the airport and Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) are implemented.

Among the recommended changes the FAA is considering includes shifting aircraft departures to turn east sooner and reducing the number of departing flights over Dearborn. We will believe it when we see it as the FAA and the Wayne County Airport Authority for the last 10 years have done little more than shuffle papers and pretend to care about our noise complaints.

The two agencies continue to promise Dearborn that they are “seriously considering” a continuous descent approach for incoming aircraft, where arriving planes would come in at a higher altitude and then fly in at a continuous descent. Today, Metro air traffic controllers level incoming planes at about 5,000 feet when they are still 15 miles away from the airport, allowing them to essentially buzz all of our homes on the way to Metro and making us deaf in the process.

The reason we remain skeptical of this continuous descent actually taking hold is that implementing such an action would require an investment by the airport for the installation of more sophisticated radar to actually “bring in” a plane by radar. Older aircraft, not equipped with the proper equipment to communicate with the airport, would still have to land the conventional noisy way over our homes.

So for now, all we can do is keep calling the phone hotline and emailing Michelle Plawecki, noise manager for the Wayne County Airport Authority. The Airport Authority and the FAA need to know that Dearborn isn’t going to walk away from this issue any time soon. You’ll want to include in any email the time of day the plane was heard and whether it was a departing flight or an arrival.

MDOT will replace both Michigan Avenue bridges over the Rouge River in Dearborn.

Get ready for some heavy construction and the corresponding traffic tieups along Michigan Avenue in Dearborn when a major project to replace two bridges over the Rouge River begins in a few weeks.

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) tells us that construction on the new Michigan Avenue bridges — located between Evergreen and the Southfield Freeway — will begin once a temporary crossover road is put down. This will allow MDOT to shift eastbound traffic on Michigan Avenue to the westbound side while work on the eastbound bridge begins. Traffic will then shift again as the work is completed on the westbound bridge.

Many motorists have probably seen phone and electric crews working on the side of the road in recent weeks wondering what was taking place. Well, those crews were working to ensure their lines would not interfere with the upcoming construction.

MDOT says the bridge project will be completed by November.

While the bridge work is taking place, MDOT says the resurfacing of Michigan Avenue from Evergreen to Greenfield Road also will get underway. This stretch of pavement is in relatively good shape, but MDOT says they are taking action now to stretch out its usable lifespan (MDOT likely doesn’t want  a repeat of Michigan Avenue in west Dearborn either).

In other construction, part two of the work on the deck of the Evergreen Road bridge over Ford Road kicks off in April and is expected to be completed in July. This year the southbounds lanes of the Evergreen bridge will be replaced, along with entrance and exit ramps. 

Finally, for those of you who travel Telegraph and might be wondering when that bridge work, just north of Warren, will be completed, MDOT tells us it will be in May. That project took four years, double what was expected, because once crews opened up the road they found that the entire bridge structure was rotting.

So rather than minor repairs, all four bridges — two over Hinds Drive and two over the Rouge River — were made new again. With the scope of the project changing so drastically and all new bridge beams having to be ordered, MDOT says the contractor was essentially free to work at his own pace to get the project done.

For the fourth consecutive year, Dearborn’s Solstice Designs Jewelry is leading the efforts on a wonderful event that raises money so kids in domestic shelters can give their mom a handmade necklace on Mother’s Day.

This year Solstice Designs Jewelry hopes to raise more than $7,500 for its Project Mother’s Day Fundraiser, which is being held Friday, March 20 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Dearborn Hills Golf Course Club House, one of the event’s partners. Smooth Jazz V98.7 also is an event partner.

The fundraiser will feature champagne and all things chocolate, a jewelry trunk show and more. Solstice Designs will make, gift-wrap and ship 400 necklaces to honor women in 10 shelters across the country, including First Step of Michigan. Even sheltered women without children will receive a necklace as a special gift from a caring friend.

 Tickets are just $20 in advance online or limited availability at the door. You can purchase tickets or make a donation at www.solsticed.etsy.com

Some good news for Dearborn Hills residents: the traffic signal at Telegraph and Fordson will be returned back to normal operation in about a week.

Longer term, MDOT plans to install a traffic detection camera at Telegraph and Fordson, similar to the one pictured here.

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) tells DeepSaidWhat.com that the Federal Highway Administration this week accepted the state agency’s recommendation that the signal was needed and should remain.

MDOT said while sight distance restrictions justified keeping the traffic signal fully operational, the more than 250 responses from residents requesting the signal stay was a “key part of the decision making process.”

Longer term, MDOT plans to install a traffic detection camera atop the signal for traffic coming from Fordson.

This means the signal will remain green for traffic traveling north on Telegraph until the camera “sees” a vehicle approach Telegraph from Fordson. When that occurs, the light will turn red for Telegraph and green for Fordson motorists, functioning through the normal light cycle. Once Fordson traffic clears, the signal will return to a full green for Telegraph drivers and red for Fordson.

Currently, there is no state funding source for the camera system, which is estimated to cost about $10,000 to implement, MDOT estimates. For the earlier story on this subject, click HERE

Plans call for Dearborn's first-ever dog park and four new soccer fields.

The Dearborn City Council Monday night approved a measure that paves the way for the city to continue to pursue a plan to add four new soccer fields and create the city’s first-ever dog park on a parcel of property along Gulley Road, just behind the Dearborn Racquet & Health Club and adjacent to Crowley Park.

The Council approved a land split in the Gulley industrial park area, giving the city permission to continue with its plans. In November 2008, city council approved purchase for $545,000 an “L” shaped piece of property that was part of the now-closed Michigan Employment Security Commission (MESC) lot and a portion of property behind the Dearborn Racquet club. The health club owners purchased the MESC property as part of their long range planning and then sold a portion of it to the city.

Costs for the fenced dog-park, four soccer fields, proper irrigation, a parking lot and construction of a new access road off of Gulley to the park would be about $500,000, an amount City Council would still need to approve. The funding is currently budgeted in a draft of the city’s fiscal year 2010 budget.

The new soccer fields and the new access road to them from Gulley Road would take some of the pressure off of Crowley Park and neighborhoods on soccer Saturdays in the Oxford and Telegraph area. Currently, there is only one entrance to Crowley Park off of Oxford Road. It would also allow the city to rotate use of the soccer fields as a way to keep them in better condition. To alleviate some of the concerns area residents have about creating a new access road off of Gulley into this park (currently sealed with a brick wall), city officials say the road would be gated, closing at 10 p.m. The road will not be a pass through into Crowley Park, city officials said.

Separately, the Dearborn Soccer Club granted the city $100,000 to repair a comfort station at Crowley Park and build a new 40-foot x 40-foot picnic shelter. The refurbished comfort station and picnic shelter will be opened this summer.

We think the planned soccer fields and dog park would be a nice addition to Dearborn’s current 43 parks. To have so much green space in a city as old and as large as Dearborn really is unheard of and we residents are fortunate.

Dearborn City Planner John Nagy sums the value of our parks up best: “The parks are the lungs of the city.”

The recent arrest of two Dearborn police officers brings to at least six the number of men in blue over the past several years to tarnish the image of our city and our police department, an organization that has a reputation as being a “leader among police agencies in Michigan.”

Now, let’s be clear. We know that these half dozen officers do not represent the more than 200 highly trained and dedicated men and women in Dearborn who work day and night to keep our city safe. And there is no other city I’d rather live in because we have such a talented and hard-working group of officers.

However, these few arrests are a black eye for a police department that was formed in 1929 and today has some of the highest standards around, priding itself on having a response time of less than one minute; a top-notch crime lab; a SWAT team and state-of-the-art police equipment that is the envy of surrounding cities. It’s just sad that so few can tarnish the hard, honest work of 99.9 percent of the force.

Dearborn police who have made headlines recently include:

1. Cpl. Alex Brian Ramirez, 42. He was charged by prosecutors last week with several felonies in connection with a bribery scheme that allegedly involved fixing traffic tickets.
2. Cpl. Gino Soave. He was arrested last week and charged in a Macomb County court with tax evasion and tax fraud over a purchase of a boat. Because Michigan taxes are at issue, the investigation was handled by the Attorney General’s Office and the State Police.
3. In 2008, Sgt. David Marshall was demoted to corporal for taking part of a deck of pornographic playing cards from a man’s home during a routine run in August 2008. “He was in the house, he saw the cards there and he took some of them as a parting gift,” Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly earlier told the Dearborn Press & Guide. “It was a stupid mistake.”
4. Officer Daniel Saab was discharged from the department in June 2007. Mayor Jack O’Reilly said then that his discharge was unrelated to the charges brought against him in a 2005 trial. Saab in 2005 was sentenced to 24 months probation and fined $500 after being convicted of malicious use of a telephone. Saab was accused of making harassing phone calls to former state Sen. George Hart.
5. Police Officer Edward Sanchez, 30, resigned in 2006 after allegedly consuming brownies laced with marijuana recovered from a criminal suspect. In 2007 it was decided that criminal charges would not be filed against Sanchez who admitted to baking brownies laced with marijuana seized from a criminal suspect. Sanchez contacted the Dearborn Heights Police Department on April 21, 2006 and told an emergency dispatcher he thought he and his wife were overdosing on marijuana.
6. Officer David Finazzo was charged in 2005 with two misdemeanors, one count of operating a vehicle while intoxicated and one count of leaving the scene of an injury accident.

We will be the first to say that it’s good that Dearborn is being transparent and bringing these incidents out into the public. Unfortunately, like teachers and firefighters, police officers are held to a higher standard whether on-duty or off-duty giving these types of stories a much higher profile.

However, the question remains, why is this happening in Dearborn and what is being done by our city and police leaders to prevent this kind of behavior from happening in the future?