The Michael A. Guido Theater is located in the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center.

Taking a play from the revenue-generating pages of the Fox Theatre and the Detroit Opera House, the theater in the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center will soon begin offering patrons the option of purchasing beer and wine to consume while watching a show.

Cup holders are in the process of being installed in each of the 1,200 seats at the Michael A. Guido Theater and the plan is to begin sales of beer and wine for the upcoming show season, confirms Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr.

The city already holds a liquor license for the Center for when special events are held at the facility so broadening it to include shows in the theater is a smart financial move. The combination of beer and wine sales along with a show schedule that in recent years has had broader appeal will go a long way to helping the Center generate even greater revenues.

The public is invited to attend Mayor John B. O’Reilly’s State of the City Address on Monday, March 5. It is 7 p.m. in the City Council Chambers of City Hall, 13615 Michigan Ave.

Mayor O’Reilly will review the economic challenges facing Dearborn, the city’s recent accomplishments, and initiatives to keep the community moving forward.

For those who cannot attend, the Address will be shown at a later time on CDTV and will also be posted at www.cityofdearborn.org

Dearborn city officials say a recent online story about the 2011 salaries of City of Dearborn employees is inaccurate and issued a release to share the extensive checks and balances regarding compensation outlined in Dearborn’s City Charter.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy recently posted a story reporting that Dearborn’s top city administrators saw lucrative pay increases while many lower-paid Dearborn employees took pay cuts in 2011.  According to the report, while Mayor John B. O’Reilly’s salary stayed relatively the same — “his gross income increased by $500 in 2011 from the previous year, seven top administrations saw their gross income increase by 8 percent to 12.8 percent from 2010 to 2011.”  See story HERE.

In a release issued Thursday,  Dearborn officials say the City Charter gives the Mayor authority to appoint a chief labor negotiator, who negotiates with unions on the administration’s behalf to determine annual salary adjustments for fulltime city employees. Negotiated settlements must then be approved by the City Council.

Under the City Charter, the Mayor does not have authority to give annual raises to people in appointed positions.

Instead, the City Charter specifies in Section 6.8 that people in appointed positions may receive an average of up to the same annual increases and decreases negotiated with city unions and approved by the City Council.

People in appointed positions wait until multiple union contracts are settled when the average of the annua increases can be determined, city officials explained.

According to the city, appointed employees had not seen an annual salary increase since 2007. Annual salaries for appointed employees stayed the same in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

In 2011, with the resolution of union contracts covering 2008 and 2009, general employees, as well as people in appointed positions, received retroactive pay for those years. This occurred in a single budget year, according to the city press release.

The union settlements meant that from 2007 to 2011, employees’ salaries increased a total of about 3 percent for that period, and therefore so did appointed salaries. There is no salary increase in place for 2012, the city press release said.

However, Dearborn officials say the Mackinac Center’s inaccurate report implied that appointed positions had received double-digit increases in their annual salary in just one year from 2010 to 2011.

The inaccurate report purposely implied that gross earnings and salaries are the same, Dearborn officials said. In reality, gross earnings include other significant factors, like the retroactive payments in 2011.

The city explains that gross earnings in any given year also can include longevity payments to employees serving 10 years or longer, and factors that can vary from year to year, such as overtime for qualified employees, the choice to cash in paid time off (PTO) days, and minor payments, like mileage.

To clarify what the inaccurate online report should have listed as the 2010 and 2011 annual salaries, consider an example of one of the appointed positions featured in that story. Dearborn provided the information below:

The City Charter allows the Mayor, with Council approval, to set the salaries for appointed positions only once at the beginning of each elected term. It is a checks and balance provision that protects the taxpayers and doesn’t make department head salaries a controversial issue, the city states in the release.

According to the city, the last two opportunities to set department head salaries were in 2006 when the late Mayor Guido was in office, and in 2010 after Mayor O’Reilly was elected. However, due to the faltering economy, both Mayors declined to recommend one time increases for department heads as they began their new terms.

Residents in the Dearborn Hills neighborhood affected by the sewer separation project beginning this month can get updates on the construction by visiting a new city website HERE.  

The new website can also be accessed from www.cityofdearborn.org. Look for the Construction icon on the home page.

Residents will find a schedule, answers to frequently asked questions, traffic information, map, project details and timely updates. They can sign up to be automatically notified when new information is posted on the website.

They also have the option of leaving a question of a general nature regarding the construction in the Dearborn Hills area. Answers that will assist other residents with understanding or coping with the construction will be posted for the public.

Residents affected by the sewer separation project are always welcome to call the City’s onsite Construction Engineering Technician, Kelli Moore, at 313.613.1994 or the Project Engineer, Soud El-Jamaly, at 313.801.8578.

The sewer separation project will impact Dearborn residents who live east of Telegraph, west of Outer Drive, south of Cherry Hill and north of the Rouge River well into next year.

The construction is part of the federally-mandated water pollution control project commonly called the CSO project.

Separating storm sewers from sanitary sewers will reduce the amount of untreated sewage that is released into the Rouge River during wet weather events.

Dearborn city officials say the sewer separation will also involve the installation of new water mains and new roads, which will improve the city’s infrastructure.

Property owners in southwest Dearborn receiving letters from their mortgage companies that they now are required to purchase flood insurance should know that the issue may be resolved within four weeks, according to Dearborn city officials.

We received e-mails from several readers who expressed surprise at having to purchase such insurance. One reader on Katherine Street said he was informed by GMAC Mortgage that he now resided in a Special Flood Hazard Area when he began the process of refinancing his mortgage.

Dearborn city officials say these letters from the mortgage companies are prompted by the fact that Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) flood control maps for the Dearborn area, adopted in 1996, expired on Feb. 2, 2012. New maps were adopted on Feb. 2, 2012.

However, there is a process that allows property owners to be exempt from purchasing flood insurance even if their property appears within a FEMA floodplain. That process is expected to be resolved within four weeks.

In the past, many homes now receiving letters from their mortgage company were exempted through Letters of Map Amendments (LOMA), issued by FEMA. Those LOMAs expired on Feb. 2, 2012 when the previous flood control map expired.

From 2000 to 2011, FEMA issued 1,400 LOMAs to property owners in Dearborn whose homes fell within the old flood control map.

In the next four weeks, the City expects that FEMA will revalidate and reissue LOMAs exempting property from the need to buy flood insurance.

Dearborn’s Engineering Division will transmit this information to the affected property owners as soon as the City receives the notice from FEMA.

Goodwill Industries of Detroit is seeking a special land use to open a second-hand store in downtown West Dearborn.

The Dearborn City Plan Commission voted 4 to 4 Monday night on  a request for a special land use from Goodwill Industries to open a second-hand store in downtown West Dearborn.

Like the first meeting, I voted to deny the request for a special land use. Goodwill now plans to come to the Plan Commission for a third time, perhaps as early as next month to seek approval.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t about whether Goodwill is good for Dearborn. It is all about the proposed location. Goodwill could be a good addition to our city. But the building in which it is so aggressively trying to locate its second-hand store is simply not a good fit for our city. There are other locations in Dearborn that are more suitable. But more on that shortly.

The location of the proposed Goodwill store will not encourage other retail to move into the area. In fact, it likely will have the opposite impact and even negatively affect the value of nearby businesses already in this area. Worth noting is that Goodwill said at the last City Plan meeting that it does not plan to install an outside collection bin for people interested in doing after-hour drop offs of used clothing or whatever else they want to purge from their closets. So when the Goodwill store is closed, trash bags will be piled outside for all to see until the store reopens the following day.

In the same two block street that Goodwill wants to locate there are at least three discount stores, including two different types of dollar stores and a Marshall’s, which also sells name brand clothes at deep discounts. Combine that with the fact we also already have places to donate used clothing in our city with ACCESS or easy door pickup with Purple Heart (the Salvation Army is just a short drive away), there really isn’t a need for this type of store in this particular Dearborn location.

In addition, there already are a couple of fantastic second-hand stores in downtown West Dearborn. One is an antique store on Michigan Avenue called Village Antiques, just down the street from the proposed Goodwill outlet. The second is just down the road from the antique store in the Westborn Mall, a second-hand clothing and toy store for children called Sweet Peas Baby Boutique.

Forget the argument that Canton has a Goodwill store on Ford Road. It’s not applicable here. The Goodwill store on Ford Road moved into a thriving retail area. Some of Goodwill’s Canton retail neighbors include Pier 1, Michaels, a stand-alone JC Penny, IKEA and a host of restaurants too numerous to list here.

Contrast that with the Norm Newman owned building here in West Dearborn where Goodwill wants to locate. We don’t have that kind of retail. If we did this would be a different story. Dearborn needs quality first-hand stores to jumpstart our downtown and attract other businesses to come here. For all the good Goodwill does provide, this great non-profit organization isn’t going to draw new retail business to our downtown.

Just like Norm Newman (the landlord of the vacant building Goodwill wants to lease) has made decisions about what he wants in his vacant properties, the City Plan Commission and the City Council (who must also approve this request) must do the same when it comes to taking a longer-term view of what we believe will help downtown West Dearborn in the future.

Norm Newman said at an earlier meeting he “regrets” that he let the restaurant Applebee’s get away when that chain wanted to move into the very location Goodwill now desires. We regret it, too. Same with the others he has turned away, including Merchant’s Fine Wine, who wanted to move into the building and even La Pita, who simply purchased the building of their current location when they couldn’t work out an agreement many years ago.

We have received dozens of emails from readers who agree that the location Goodwill desires isn’t suitable and the second-hand store should look at an alternative location, such as the vacant Border’s book store building on Ford Road and Mercury Drive. The letters we have received are from young professionals, grandparents, nearby residents and local business owners.

Mary Ray, owner of Cambells Paint & Wallpaper, said she does not support Goodwill moving into the proposed location. “I do not support the Inca location for Goodwill,” Ray said in an email. “I am fine with Goodwill locating in Dearborn. I do not believe that this is a good location nor do I think that it is in the best interest of the City and/or the downtown district to allow Goodwill to occupy this particular space. “

Resident Dan Kosmowski, who lives on Nona Street, a couple blocks behind the proposed store location had this to say:

“I oppose the proposed discount store in the former Inca Computer storefront,” Kosmowski said. “At this moment, the area is saturated with discount retailers. I live one block from the proposed store at Nona and Haigh. I enjoy walking to the retailers, including Bellacino’s and Aco, but beyond these choices, I am forced to take my retailing dollars out of Dearborn.

“I understand the community needs affordable retailing options. I formerly worked in the automotive sector before I decided to return to school, leaving my full-time job for a part-time position and shouldering the burden both of a mortgage and tuition on my reduced salary. I must make difficult choices on what I can afford to buy. On a short budget, I know there are plenty of discount retailers nearby. The Dollar Store anchors the opposite end of the proposed discount store. Walking one block to the west, the Westborn Mall houses a Marshall’s, Bulk Food Warehouse, Dollar Tree, Sweet Peas Baby Boutique, Dots Fashions, Avenue, and Payless. Does the community really need another discount retailer?

“Further, I find it a distraction to label the discount retailer “upscale.” By adding the adjective upscale, is somehow the discount retailer converted to an upscale discount retailer really any different from adding another discount retailer to this community? In addition, I do not think that government can enforce “upscaleness” on a retailer; we must take the retailer at their word that they will maintain an “upscale” factor for years into their lease, a chance I am not willing to take.

“Like many residents, I do not want to see space unused, but at the same time, an anything goes mentality is disheartening. Rather than another discount retailer, I would like to see a restaurant (such as Frida’s) or an inexpensive market alternative to Westborn Market (like the Dearborn Farm Market). Surely saturating the area with discount retailers means people who want other goods must go elsewhere. I know that is my situation. My part-time job takes me to Ann Arbor and Troy. I spend my limited dollars in those communities, instead of literally in my own backyard which is disconcerting. Further, working in these far away places, I am exposed to the negative comments regarding Dearborn. I am told often by my peers in Oakland and Washtenaw counties that I should move, like many young professionals, and join them where there are diverse retail options.

“In conclusion, the Inca Computer storefront needs something other than a discount retailer. The area is saturated with discount retailers all within walking distance. I know because I live within a block of the location and I walk to the retail options.”

(more…)

Beginning February 15, and for a limited time, Dearborn residents can order affordable trees that will be planted on the easement in front of their homes.

The City of Dearborn encourages the planting of trees as a way to keep neighborhoods attractive, reduce energy consumption and support a healthier environment.

The annual spring tree planting program is open to Dearborn residents only.

This year trees cost $175 each, and the supply of trees for the program is limited. Trees range in size from 8 – 10 feet in height and are sold on a first come, first served basis through Dearborn’s Department of Public Works.

Residents can choose from an assortment of trees. Each species offered meets American Association of Nurserymen standards and is zone hardy.

To place an order after Feb. 15 or to request a selection guide, residents can call 943.2317 or visit www.cityofdearborn.org.

This year’s selections include: “Ivory Silk” Japanese Tree Lilac, Corktree, Celebration Maple, American Hornbeam, Golden Rain Tree, Corzam or Corinthian Linden, American Yellowwood, Ginkgo Tree/Maidenhair Tree, “Lustre” Allegheny Serviceberry and Sugar Maple “Legacy”.

Homeowners can suggest an easement planting location and city personnel will have final approval.

The area between resident’s sidewalk and curb must be a minimum of 4 feet wide to accommodate a tree. Public Works officials will decide if there is adequate space in the easement of a property owner’s home for a tree. Multiple trees may be ordered if correct spacing is available.

Trees will be planted by a contractor and have a one-year warranty. Planting usually takes place in late April and should be complete by June 1. The contractor is responsible for planting, mulching, staking, pruning, watering and clean up at the time of planting.

At the end of the first year, the contractor will provide a final inspection and remove tree stakes and bracing.

Residents, who are responsible for maintaining the health of the tree through regular watering, will be billed by the City of Dearborn after tree planting is complete, usually in late June or July.

Dearborn City Hall was built in 1922.

For 90 years, the corner of Michigan and Schaefer has been the home of Dearborn City Hall.

Now, it appears that could change.

The Dearborn Press & Guide on Sunday reported that a proposal to combine administrative offices for the city and Dearborn Public Schools is getting serious consideration.

Call us nostalgic, but Dearborn’s City Hall building needs to remain the hub of Dearborn. The building may need repair but it is simply too important of a symbol to this city to simply leave it to others (like an art community) or, worse yet, raze.

Dearborn City Hall was built in 1922. According to Press & Guide editor J. Patrick Pepper, the parking garage behind City Hall is “falling apart and could require a complete rebuild within the next couple years. An addition put on in 1981 that connects the main City Hall building on Schaefer Road to the western annex also is in need of a new roof liner.”

Dearborn Public Schools administration is currently is housed in the 1950-vintage Ten Eyck facility on Audette. The Press & Guide reports that the former school building has “several structural issues that need to be remedied. For one, the roof leaks in some places and needs to be replaced. Even more pressing is a settling foundation on the backside of the building that has started to cause significant cracking in the cinder block walls.”

“Those are very major expenses that will need to be address so if there are opportunities to save money we’re definitely interested in exploring our options,” DPS Spokesman David Mustonen told the Press & Guide.

So where would Dearborn City Hall and the Dearborn School District relocate?

Top on the list is the old ADP Detroit sales headquarters on Michigan Avenue. Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., told the Press & Guide that the property is about to revert to bank ownership and that within the next few weeks it should be on the market at a bargain-basement price.

The building is located across the street from Ford Motor Co. world headquarters and sitting adjacent to a nearly half-mile-long campus of other municipal properties, the move would consolidate all of the city’s biggest entities into one central location, the Press & Guide says.

The idea of combining administrative offices has been on the table for several years and was one of the considerations in 2003 when the city spent $2.3 million to purchase the 5.9-acre parcel between the ADP building and Henry Ford Centennial Library, the paper says. Part of the purchase agreement with Ford Land Development Co. was that the property, which is a grassy field, had to be turned into an office space within 15 years.

The Press & Guide says Dearborn could have a potential buyer for City Hall in the developer ArtSpace, which is looking to establish a live/work facility for artists in Dearborn. The mayor recently gave the Minneapolis-based nonprofit a tour of City Hall. With its big windows and tall ceilings, the Georgian-Revival style building fits a lot of criteria ArtSpace looks for in a redevelopment project.

“The timing of this is extremely good when you look at all the factors from the efficiencies too possible savings,” O’Reilly told the Press & Guide. “But we’ll do a thorough evaluation of it and if it works we’ll pursue it and if it doesn’t we won’t.”

Judge Mark Somers

The Dearborn Press & Guide is reporting that 19th District Court Judge Mark Somers has pulled petitions to run for Wayne County’s Third Circuit Court.

Somers, who has served as one of Dearborn’s three district court judges since 2002, told the paper that he reached the decision over the holidays after speaking with his family.

“With three judges retiring, I don’t know that there will be another opportunity like this in my life,” the paper quotes Somers.

Somers must collect 4,200 signatures by May 1 to appear on the November ballot. He said he plans to start collecting signatures immediately.

The city of Dearborn was awarded a $7.5 million low-interest loan from the State of Michigan to continue the massive federally-mandated combined sewer overflow work that has been going on in our city for more than a decade.

This particular loan will go toward the sewer-separation project south of Wilson Street, east of Telegraph Road and north of the Rouge River, City Engineer Yunus Patel tells DeepsaidWhat. Construction is set to get underway in February. If all goes well, construction of this phase of the CSO product would wrap up in October.

Costs for this part of the project are expected to total about $12 million. These costs and interest on the loan, a 2.5 percent rate, will be paid down through the special CSO millage instituted in 2004. Any other project costs will be paid “using various funding sources”, the Dearborn Press & Guide quotes Dearborn finance officials as saying.

The CSO project is aimed at putting an end to the discharge of untreated sewage into the Rouge River. The cleanup is mandated by the federal Clean Water Act.

Those of you who have been following this project will recall that our elected Dearborn officials first chose to address the problem by approving spending on constructing multi-million gallon containment shafts able to store any excess drain water. But the implementation and construction has been a quagmire of engineering problems, followed by lawsuits.

So in 2010, Dearborn officials decided to abandon the containment shaft and go to sewer separation, which was one of the original ideas proposed nearly a decade ago but rejected for reasons we simply can’t recall. While a little more intrusive to vehicle traffic, separation is less expensive and results in new paved surfaces once the work is completed.

The Press and Guide says that according to the DEQ, from January through November 2011, Dearborn’s CSO Outfall 004, which services the area that will see work beginning in February, there were 27 reported overflow events, which released 45.7 million gallons of untreated combined sewage into the Rouge River. Prior to Dearborn beginning their CSO control program, the total average annual volume of overflows per year was approximately 929 million gallons.