The majority of Dearborn residents rate the quality of life in their city as excellent or good, believe they are getting their money’s worth for their tax dollars and would favor as a cost-save City Hall being open for just four days a week with longer hours, according to the results from a phone survey recently released by the city.

About 400 registered voters took part in the survey, with 83 percent saying the quality of life in Dearborn was excellent or good, while only 1.1 percent found it poor or very poor.

The survey was conducted by Shreck & Associates in February and the results were shared with city council at their Monday meeting. Of those surveyed, about 37.3 percent reside in East Dearborn, 30.3 percent live in Southwest Dearborn, 25.3 percent in Northwest Dearborn, 3.3 percent in Springwells and 4 percent the South End.

According to the survey:

• 41.3 percent were unable to list any dislike with the city or its services
• 6 percent ranked taxes as a dislike
• 5.8 percent ranked culture as a dislike
• 5 percent disliked the rate of commercial development
• 3.5 percent ranked empty houses and home upkeep as a dislike
• 2.8 percent rated parking as a dislike

Concern about crime was minimal, as just 1.5 percent of respondents mentioned it as an issue, according to survey results.

As the survey was conducted via landline phones, residents who only have cellular phone service were not included in the survey.
“This survey is slanted slightly toward an older demographic,” Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., told the Dearborn Press & Guide. “It’s still perfectly valid, but it’s something we need to keep in mind.”

In addition, the survey found:

• 71 percent of those surveyed agreed they get their money’s worth for tax dollars
• 14.5 percent said they did not get their money’s worth
• 13.5 percent were not sure
• 40 percent said the city no longer has the money to provide the services it did in the past
• 84.3 percent would support, as a cost-save, City Hall being open four days a week from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. rather than the current 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days per week.

How could the City save money?

• 4.9 percent suggested reducing city services
• 4.1 percent said eliminate or cut back on underutilized facilities
• 3.4 percent said close pools
• 3.1 percent said eliminate Homecoming
• 2.8 percent said reduce staff
• 2.8 percent said sell or close Camp Dearborn

Those surveyed also rated direct mail as the best way for the city to communicate to residents, with about two thirds saying so. Just 5.3 percent mentioned they wanted to receive more information via the Internet. Some 8.8 percent said they would like to conduct more city business online. Those surveyed under the age of 45 said they would like to use the Internet for City business (18.5 percent), while 62.5 percent of respondents 18 to 25 years said they would.

On Fairlane Town Center residents were split on shopping there when they needed to go to a mall:

• 43.8 percent said they regularly shop there
• 55 percent do not
• 1.3 percent were unsure

When asked why they didn’t shop at Fairlane:

• 11.5 percent said they preferred other shopping venues
• 8.8 percent mentioned crime or safety reasons
• 8 percent don’t drive or get out much
• 7.8 percent don’t like Fairlane
• 6.5 percent mentioned the clientele or culture of the mall as a reason (age, race, ethnicity)
• 3.5 percent simply don’t like malls

What is best about living in Dearborn? According to the survey, city services ranked first (29.3 percent), following by safety and community and then schools.

Get ready for some heavy duty campaigning this summer as enough candidates have filed to serve on the Dearborn City Council to force a primary on August 4.

Below is a list of the candidates as of 5 p.m. Tuesday. The Dearborn City Clerk’s office will spend the day today to confirm the validity of the signatures on the other petitions. Candidates have until Friday to withdraw from the race.

The race for mayor so far includes Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., and Michael Prus. Councilman Doug Thomas did file a petition for the position but the clerk’s office still is checking on the validity of the signatures on his petition. Thomas also filed to run for his council seat. The petition for that position was valid.

For the first time since being elected to City Clerk, Kathleen Buda will be running unopposed after John Jay Hubbard withdrew his petition for the race.

The top 14 vote getters in the August primary will proceed to the general election in November. The council candidates include:

1. Robert Abraham (I)
2. Joseph Agius
3. David Bazzy
4. Terry Burke
5. Khalil Dakhlallah
6. Patrick D’Ambrosio
7. George Darany (I)
8. Mark Dawdy
9. Stephen Dobkowski, Jr
10. Sharon Dulmage
11. Rabih Hammoud
12. George Hart
13. Nancy Hubbard (I)
14. Patrick Kiernan
15. Scott Marquette
16. Brian O’Donnell
17. Suzanne Sareini (I)
18. Ali Sayed
19. Molly Sharp
20. Mark Shooshanian (I)
21. Nancy Siwik
22. Hussein Sobh
23. Thomas Tafelski (I)
24. Doug Thomas (I)
25. Adrenne Wygonik

Tom P. Tafelski has finally made it official, announcing he indeed would be seeking a third term as a Dearborn city councilman.

Currently council president, a position that goes to the highest vote getter, Tafelski is one of the last of Dearborn’s seven member council to officially declare he would seek reelection. (Doug Thomas hasn’t said whether he will seek reelection for his council seat or a run for mayor, yet. He has pulled petitions for both.) The final day to file petitions to run is Tuesday, May 12.

There had been chatter around town that Tafelski might try a run against sitting Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., but at the end of the day that proved to be just that – talk.

On Tuesday we will learn just how many of the candidates who pulled petitions to run for city council will actually remain in the race.

Nancy Siwik, who unsuccessfully ran for council in the last election, appears to be throwing her hat in the ring again. Siwik, an owner of Jedtco Corporation in Westland, is a member of the Dearborn Plan Commission and owns a bed and breakfast at 22331 Morley.

Also said to be gathering the needed 100 signatures to appear on the ballot in November is Joey Agius, owner of the Double Olive bar on Michigan Avenue.

Michael Berry, who ran a solid race for council in 2005 and had pulled a petition to run this time around, is unfortunately said to be reconsidering a run because of job and family commitments. That’s too bad because we think he would have been a strong candidate.

In addition to Siwik, Agius, Berry and the seven council members seeking reelection, the others again include:

1. David W. Bazzy (former Charter Commission member)
2. Khalil Dakhlallah
3. Mark J. Dawdy
4. Stephen S. Dobkowski Jr. (former Charter Commissioner later removed from office because of unpaid property taxes)
5. Sharon Dulmage (former school board member)
6. Andrew Giordano
7. Bradley Hajec
8. Rabih Hammoud
9. George Hart (a former state senator who long ago retired from politics. He turns 82 in May)
10. Trinette L. Jordan
11. Vincent Laing
12. Scott J. Marquette
13. Maureen A. McIlrad-Noland
14. Brian C. O’Donnell
15. Mark. A Otlewski
16. Ali Sayed (runs Hype Athletics in conjunction with Dearborn Rec. Dept.)
17. Kristyn Taylor
18. Raymond T. Trudeau (former Charter Commissioner)
19. Adrenne M. Wygonik (wife of 19th District Judge Richard Wygonick)

Councilman Doug Thomas

So Dearborn Councilman Doug Thomas wants to “keep ’em guessing” on whether he decides to run for mayor or for his current city council seat. At least that’s what he told the Dearborn Press and Guide in its April 29 edition on why he pulled petitions for both positions.

Thomas has until 4 p.m. on May 15 to make a decision, the deadline for candidates to decide.

From where we sit, our guess is that it appears Thomas is setting up his exit strategy from Dearborn politics altogether.

In recent years, Mr. Thomas has had a poor attendance record as a councilman. So much so that the Dearborn Democrats club at a meeting in August 2007 discussed a recall effort because of it. The councilman was spending more time at his Florida home than he was at his elected job in Dearborn or his home here, which he has been trying to sell.

Let’s face facts. Running for mayor against sitting Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., is a non-starter. O’Reilly likely will be mayor until he decides not to. He is just that strong.

So why might Mr. Thomas be considering such a run? Is it a way to go out with a bang, running for the top job in City Hall even though a loss is inevitable? We think it might be. He was elected to his fifth term as a Dearborn councilman in November 2005 and running for a sixth term won’t be a cakewalk.

There could be as many as 26 people running for seven council seats this election. If Dearborn voters head to the polls this November with the mindset that major change is needed in our city, no sitting councilmember will have it easy.

This should be interesting race to watch.

Thirteen more Dearborn residents have pulled petitions to run for Dearborn City Council, bringing the number to date to 26.

When we last wrote about this race on March 4, just 13 had pulled petitions. For that story, click HERE

It isn’t yet clear whether all will run but if the field stays larger than 14, and it appears that will indeed happen, Dearborn will have to hold a primary election for city council in August. The filing deadline for those interested in running for council is May 12.

We will be the first to say that Dearborn residents like their incumbents, which means it could be more of the same. However, if the unhappy mood today from residents about their city government and the state of their city carries into the voting booth in November, we could see a lot of fresh faces on city council.

All of the current council members have pulled petitions to seek reelection, except Tom Tafelski. Odds are he too will seek reelection, although some around town keep dropping hints to us that he is considering a run for mayor.

So the list looks like this: Council members, Robert Abraham, George Darany, Nancy Hubbard, Suzanne Sareini, Mark Shooshanian and Doug Thomas are all in.

Those hoping to unseat this group include:

1. David W. Bazzy (former Charter Commission member)
2. Michael Berry (ran a solid but unsuccessful campaign for council in 2005)
3. Khalil Dakhlallah
4. Mark J. Dawdy
5. Stephen S. Dobkowski Jr. (former Charter Commissioner later removed from office because of unpaid property taxes)
6. Sharon Dulmage (former school board member)
7. Andrew Giordano
8. Bradley Hajec
9. Rabih Hammoud
10. George Hart (a former state senator who long ago retired from politics. He turns 82 in May)
11. Trinette L. Jordan
12. Vincent Laing
13. Scott J. Marquette
14. Maureen A. McIlrad-Noland
15. Brian C. O’Donnell
16. Mark. A Otlewski
17. Ali Sayed (runs Hype Athletics in conjunction with Dearborn Rec. Dept.)
18. Kristyn Taylor
19. Raymond T. Trudeau (former Charter Commissioner)
20. Adrenne M. Wygonik (wife of 19th District Judge Richard Wygonick)

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?

City Wants General Contractor to Repair Water Leak First

The city of Dearborn is withholding about $37,000 in payment to the builders of one of the city’s $12 million parking decks because repairs to stop water leaks in the lower level of the structure have not been repaired since opening more than two years ago.

The waterproofing membrane surrounding the east parking structure is apparently pulling away from the building and causing water to seep into the basement level of the deck. A recent visit to the east deck revealed no water in the parking area or in the nearby mechanical room located in this area. So it appears the leak isn’t a severe one.

Water is leaking into the lower level of the east parking deck.

Dearborn officials say they are trying to determine who is responsible for the repairs to the east structure before the final check of some $37,000 is written to Turner Construction, the general contractor for the parking decks.

One city official says water leaks were noticed immediately after the parking structure opened for use in 2006. The water appears to be coming up from the ground and then into the deck. Construction of the two decks cost $9.8 million and when combined with bond financing and other costs totaled some $12 million in all.

Despite pre-construction site sample evaluations that indicated the ground was free of water, the leaks indicate that there is indeed water deep underground the parking deck, one city official said.

From where we sit, the water leak repair, no matter how minor it might appear to be, is the responsibility of the construction company, particularly since it was noticed once the deck opened for business. The City of Dearborn earlier paid more than $80,000 for the cleanup of contaminated soil found at the site after construction began (this despite samples taken that said the site wasn’t contaminated). But this latest discovery shouldn’t come out of the city’s checkbook.

Wayne County failed to install enough warning sirens in Dearborn.

On Saturday at 1 p.m., Dearborn will conduct its monthly test of its early warning sirens.

Trouble is, if you’re inside your home or in certain parts of the city, you’ll never hear them.

That’s because unbeknownst to Dearborn city leaders, Wayne County disconnected all 28 of Dearborn’s “older” but still-working sirens and installed just 12 new ones to cover the same geographic area.

Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly says the county’s decision to make the change was never communicated to his administration. However, when the first tests were conducted, it was pretty clear to all that something had changed.

“When they did the test, we couldn’t hear them the sirens as well. They left some coverage holes in the city,” O’Reilly said. “It was poorly handled by Wayne County in terms of notice.”

Wayne County has now agreed to install four more swivel head sirens in the city to improve the coverage area. It isn’t yet clear if that will be sufficient. O’Reilly said if it isn’t, Dearborn can install more sirens on its own.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Last year, the city announced that a new state-of-the art siren system was installed at a cost of $250,000, purchased with grant funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security via Wayne County.

Dearborn was one of several communities in Wayne County to get the new siren system. A key feature of the new systems is that they are interoperable. This means that emergency management centers in different Wayne County communities can activate each other’s sirens remotely, if a center in one community were damaged in a tornado or other disaster.  The new system was even touted as being louder, but it isn’t.

O’Reilly said the city’s old system of 28 sirens, still in perfect working order, was designed to emit sounds loud enough for people to hear even while inside their homes. And Dearborn’s older siren system, installed more than 20 years ago, was laid out in such a way to overlap sections of the city to ensure all residents could hear the sirens.

The new siren system doesn’t provide overlapping coverage and is designed to be heard only if you are outside. The sirens are designed to swivel and Wayne County officials were convinced that feature alone would allow them to reduce by more than half the number of new sirens to install.

“Wayne County’s goals and our goals were very different,” O’Reilly said. “The county wanted the most coverage per unit we thought it was better to overlap (sirens) to get better coverage. The county’s coverage was more marginal.”

Luckily, Dearborn doesn’t rely on sirens alone to notify residents of an emergency. In addition to cable TV, Dearborn has an emergency system in place that can telephone all homes automatically. In addition, Dearborn is working on a new system that could call cellular phones, too. Residents would have to register their cell phone number with the city of Dearborn to receive that service.

“Sirens, while still important, are not the principal way to get to people in an emergency,” O’Reilly said.

To date, 13 residents have filed to run for Dearborn City Council.

We’re still eight months away from the November general election but the race for seven open Dearborn city council seats is already heating up with 13 candidates, including three current council members, lining up to run for the more than $14,400 a year part-time job.

What’s interesting is that 10 of those candidates don’t currently serve on the council. Combine that with the remaining four council members who will likely run again and you could suddenly surge to 17 candidates on the ballot. The filing deadline for council is May 12.

Councilmen Robert Abraham and Tom Tafelski told the Dearborn Press & Guide  they would be running for reelection. Councilman Doug Thomas, who was absent from many council meetings in 2008, said he hasn’t made a decision to run yet. Councilwoman Suzanne Sareini also will likely run again.

That means a primary will have to be held in August for the race, further shortening the time candidates will have to campaign.

The candidates so far include:

1. George Darany, current councilman
2. Nancy Hubbard, current councilwoman
3. Mark Shooshanian, current councilman
4. David W. Bazzy, former Charter Commissioner
5. Mark J. Dawdy
6. Sharon Dulmage, former Dearborn School Board member
7. Scott J. Marquette
8. Maureen A. McIlrad-Noland
9. Brian C. O’Donnell
10. Mark A. Otlewski
11. Adrenne M. Wygonick (wife of 19th District Judge Richard Wygonick)
12. Vincent Laing
13. Bradley Hajec

As for mayor, just Dearborn resident Ziad Abdul Malik has pulled a petition to challenge Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly Jr., who also plans to run again.