If you love hand blown glass and want the opportunity to select a unique pumpkin that will last year after year, glass artists of Furnace Design Studio invite you to attend the “Glass Pumpkin Fest & Sale” from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on Sat., Oct. 17.

This one-day event will be held at the Glass Academy, located at 25331 Trowbridge, near Gulley Road and Michigan Avenue, in west Dearborn.  Admission is free.

If you’re looking for the chance to learn a bit more about the 14 candidates vying for Dearborn’s seven city council seats and school board candidates, the League of Women Voters Candidate Forums are now being aired on CDTV, the City of Dearborn’s government cable television channel.

The forums were recorded on Sept. 30 and will air through election day (Tuesday, Nov. 3).

The schedule is as follows:

Ballot Proposals and School Board Candidates Forum:

• Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays: 7 a.m., 3 p.m. and 11 p.m.

• Tuesdays and Thursdays: noon and 8 p.m.

• Saturdays and Sundays: 1 a.m., 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

City Council Candidates Forum:

• Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays: 2:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.

• Tuesdays and Thursdays: 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

• Saturdays and Sundays: 4:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.

The League also is scheduled to hold a forum for the two mayoral candidates, Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr. and Michael J. Prus, which will be broadcast on CDTV beginning Monday, Oct. 19.

CDTV can be found on WOW cable channel 10 and Comcast cable channel 12 in the City of Dearborn.

These forums also are available for viewing on the City of Dearborn website at www.cityofdearborn.org

Dearborn's Automotive Hall of Fame, which opened in 1997, is stuggling to keep its doors open

Dearborn’s Automotive Hall of Fame is struggling to keep its doors open because of a massive budget shortfall that severely jeopardizes its future, according to a leading automotive trade publication.

Southfield-based Ward’s Automotive reports that the Dearborn museum, which opened in 1997 next door to the Henry Ford museum, is struggling because of what is happening to  the automotive industry today. The museum gets most of its funding from auto makers and suppliers.

“We’re a microcosm of what’s happened in the industry,” said Jeffrey Leestma, president of the Automotive Hall of Fame, tells Ward’s. “As the industry goes, so we go.”

Here are some excerpts of what the Ward’s article is reporting:

“Budget reductions have become a way of life at the museum, where some staff cuts have been made and positions eliminated. There are only three paid employees, including Leestma, and a half-dozen volunteers to keep the building open seven days a week through summer and five days a week the rest of the year.

Leestma says his organization is seeking new revenue streams, such as affordable family memberships, and making the building available for private events. But the Hall of Fame can count on only a handful of those a year.

Attendance also is down. Some 20,000 people have visited the hall annually since 1997, but this year Leestma expects about 15,000.

Leestma shudders when asked if the Hall of Fame is at risk of closing its doors.

“I’m not ready to raise the white flag yet,” he says. “The Automotive Hall of Fame is worth saving. The industry is down on its luck, and everyone is feeling it. But this is a great repository of great stories and great people, and it’s worth keeping. If it were to go away, it would go away forever.”

For the complete story from Ward’s, click HERE.

The Dearborn Council of the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) is hosting a city council candidate forum on Wednesday, Oct. 14, from 7-8:30 p.m. at Bryant Middle School, 460 N. Vernon.

This is a good opportunity for residents to hear from the 14 people running for Dearborn City Council.

The PTSA held a school board candidate forum on Wednesday, Oct. 7, at DuVall Elementary School.

The Dearborn Chamber of Commerce’s annual Margaritaville Auction is set for Saturday, Oct. 10.

This is a fun event and well worth attending if you have time Saturday. You’ll enjoy great food, music and have the chance to take part in numerous raffles and bid on silent auction items. You’ll also have the chance to win a prize for the “loudest” Hawaiian shirt and craziest flip flops.

This year’s event again will feature steel drum music and the chance to socialize with Dearborn business, education and probably even some of our elected officials or those seeking office.

The event is being held at the Student Center of the Henry Ford Community College. This annual Dearborn Chamber fundraiser will feature great food donated by local restaurants, including Andiamo, Bangkok 96, BD’s Mongolian BBQ, Big Fish, Buddy’s Pizza, Chili’s, Del Taco, The Dearborn Inn, Dearborn Hills Golf Course, Dearborn Sausage, Fuddrucker’s, Oakwood Commons/Morrison Senior Dining and the Park Place.

Henry Ford Community College is the venue sponsor. Gold sponsors include HFCC Federation of Teachers and Dearborn Federal Savings Bank; Silvers sponsors include Fidelity Bank, AAA Michigan; and University of Michigan-Dearborn. Demorest Law Firm, DFCU Financial, Grit Design, Dearborn Public Schools, Fairlane East Apartments, Henry Ford Medical Center – Fairlane, Karcher Insurance, ASG Renaissance, State Farm-Bob Zakar, Dale Bender CPA, Cyberlink Systems, Kearns Brothers, Adam’s Cleaning and A Victory Inn.

Tickets are $35 per person. For more information or to register click HERE.

Councilman Doug Thomas says he's been a Dearborn resident for 77 years.

Less than 24 hours after having the legitimacy of his Dearborn residency called into question at a city council meeting, Dearborn Councilman Doug Thomas tells Deepsaidwhat.com that he removed the homestead tax exemption from his Florida residence and now only maintains the tax exemption on his Dearborn home.

“The property in Florida is no longer homestead,” Thomas said Tuesday. “I had that eliminated today (Tuesday). I am still homestead in Dearborn where I have been a permanent resident for 77 years. I have never missed an election . . . I am here more than six months out of the year.”

At Monday night’s city council meeting, Dearborn resident and former council candidate Nancy Siwik presented the City Council with documents that she says supports her claim that the legal residency of Councilman Thomas is a condominium in the city of Bonita Springs, Florida, and not Dearborn. Siwik said Thomas was in violation of the City Charter for not being a Dearborn resident and asked the council to remove him from office and his name from the November ballot.

Thomas doesn’t deny owning a home in Florida but he says it is the primary residence of his wife, Jane, who is a Florida resident and works there. Thomas said he and his wife were given bad information by Bonita Springs officials who said she could homestead the property because she is a Florida resident and lives there year round. Doug Thomas said his name appears on the property in Florida simply because the deed lists both he and his wife but his homestead and primary residence has always been here in Dearborn.

“As it stands right now, she should have never applied for a homestead down there,” Thomas said. “I didn’t know I was homesteaded down there.”

Thomas, a Dearborn councilman for 21 years, said the allegations raised by Siwik were indeed politically motivated. He said in 2001, Siwik, then with the backing of the late Mayor Michael Guido, attacked him in that election year and he was unseated coming in eight place. However, he regained his seat on the council after then Councilman Gino Polidori won a seat as a state representative.

“If it wasn’t political why wouldn’t she have raised this before the primary?” he said.

Councilman Doug Thomas

Does Dearborn Councilman Doug Thomas live in Dearborn or Bonita Springs, Florida?

Dearborn resident and former council candidate Nancy Siwik says the councilman is a Florida resident and should be removed from office and erased from the November ballot because he is in violation of the City Charter.

Ms. Siwik presented the City Council with documents Monday evening that she says supports her claim that the legal residency of Councilman Thomas is a condominium in the city of Bonita Springs, Florida, and not Dearborn.

Ms. Siwik asked the City Council to have Dearborn’s legal department look into the matter and remove Thomas from his position as a councilman and from the November ballot because he is not a Dearborn resident, which is a requirement of Dearborn’s City Charter.

Ms. Siwik presented property data that shows Doug and Jane Thomas homestead a condo on 25900 Hickory Blvd., in Bonita Springs, which makes it their principal residence.

At the meeting Monday, Thomas said his Michigan Driver’s license proved he lived at 511 Elmwood in Dearborn, a property currently listed for sale at $239,000, according to documents Siwik presented council members Monday night. Thomas did not deny the existence of a home in Florida but said it was homestead in his wife’s name.

Council President Thomas Tafelski tried to bring the discussion to a close after those remarks from Thomas, saying it was becoming “political.”

Siwik took umbrage with Tafelski’s comment. She came back to the microphone and explained that her actions were not political, pointing out that she no longer was on the ballot for council and that she waited until after her primary loss to bring this news about Thomas into the open.

Before taking her seat, Siwik reminded council members that neither Michigan nor Florida law allows people to list more than one dwelling as a “principal residence” in order to take the tax exemptions that come with such a designation.

What action Dearborn’s legal department now takes next could determine the political career of Councilman Thomas.

Dearborn Mayoral candidate Michael J. Prus said Monday evening he still is very anxious to debate or have a forum with Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., to discuss in public his plans to help revitalize Dearborn.

We wrote here on these pages last week that Mr. Prus was a no-show at a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters (LWV) of Dearborn/Dearborn Heights. At the time, we did not know why Mr. Prus was unable to take part in the forum at Dearborn City Hall.  It turns out the mayoral candidate had a very serious case of bronchitis. The 50-year-old candidate still had a bad cough even when we we finally caught up with him Monday night.

“I was planning to attend all the way up to 2:30 p.m. on the day of the event,” Mr. Prus told us Monday night. “I went to my doctor and he said you have a severe case of bronchitis. When I told my doctor about the forum, he said ‘you aren’t going anywhere. You need to go home and go to sleep. You are contagious.’

“I am not afraid to debate,” Mr. Prus continued. “Why would I want to miss an opportunity like that? That would be political suicide. I was in no condition to do this.”

Mr. Prus said he is sorry he missed the opportunity to tell voters about his plan to revitalize Dearborn but he is hopeful he and Mayor O’Reilly will still have the chance to meet again in person for the benefit of residents. Mayor O’Reilly, in an earlier story in the Dearborn Press & Guide, told the paper he was willing to take part in a debate with Mr. Prus.

“I wish I could debate the mayor,” Mr. Prus said. “I have questions on how our tax dollars are being spent and why we have so many lawsuits against the city.”

Mr. Prus, a Dearborn resident of 40 years and a graduate of Dearborn Divine Child, works for the state of Michigan as a Department Analyst and state fidelity bonding coordinator, helping people who have trouble in their background find a job through bonding. He is married and he and his wife, Libby, have one son.

Dearborn City Clerk Kathleen Buda

Dearborn City Clerk Kathleen Buda is reminding residents that Monday, Oct. 5 is the last day to register to be eligible to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 3. So if you aren’t registered, please make it a point to stop by the Dearborn City Clerk’s office to do so.

Buda says that those planning to vote absentee have until Monday, Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. to cast their ballot. Voters on that day must come to the clerk’s counter in Dearborn City Hall and vote there.

The Dearborn City Clerk’s office will be open on Saturday, Oct. 31 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will be issuing absentee ballots on that day.

The Dearborn Public Schools and the City of Dearborn are offering seasonal flu shots for residents and non-residents alike.

The Dearborn Schools, in cooperation with the City of Dearborn Health Department, will hold two clinics: one on Friday, October 16 and second clinic on Tuesday, October 20, at the Dearborn Public Schools Administrative Service Center, 18700 Audette. Nurses will provide flu shots in Room 12 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on both days. Cost is $20 for adults and $10 for children 6 months to 18 years. Children under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

“It is important for people to understand that this is a clinic to provide protection against the seasonal flu and not the much talked about H1N1 flu,” the school district said in a written statement. “Shots for the H1N1 strain of flu may be available later in October, but right now it is important to take the necessary steps to protect yourself from the seasonal flu.”

Meanwhile, the Dearborn Health Department is offering both flu and pneumonia shots.

Flu shots can be obtained on a walk-in basis at the Dearborn Health Department during regular business hours.

The Health Department is located inside the Henry Ford Centennial Library, 16301 Michigan Ave.

The department’s regular business hours are: Mondays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 1:30 to 4 p.m. The Health Department is closed on Thursdays.

A Health Department nurse will offer seasonal flu shots each Thursday from 9 to 11:30 a.m. in the senior citizen wing of Dearborn’s Ford Community & Performing Arts Center.

If you have Medicare Part B, the cost of your seasonal flu shot will be covered under that plan. Just be sure to bring your Medicare Part B card when coming for a flu shot.

For those without Medicare Part B, the cost for a flu shot is as follows:

— Senior citizens (age 65 and older) – $15 for Dearborn residents and $20 for non-residents.

— Adults (ages 18 through 64) – $20 for Dearborn residents and $25 for non-residents.

— Children (ages six months to 18 years) – $10 for Dearborn residents and $15 for non-residents.

Photo identification is necessary to verify residency status. Payment can be made in cash or by charge (MasterCard or Visa; no debit cards).

For more details, call the Dearborn Health Department at 313-943-2090.