Dearborn City Council Needs to Quickly Reinstate Powell

If the Dearborn City Council doesn’t do everything in its power to make sure Marge Powell is legally able to exercise her duties as a Civil Service Commissioner, residents in this city will be left with the impression that our elected officials do not want the qualifications of potential city employees scrutinized.

At least that’s the conclusion of Morris Goodman, a Dearborn attorney, past president of the Dearborn Democratic Club, a longtime political activist and observer and regular reader of Deepsaidwhat.com.

Goodman’s column on this topic, one we’ve covered earlier HERE, begins below.

Morris Goodman

Anyone who knows Marge Powell cannot understand how there can be any question about her status as a member of the Civil Service Commission. She apparently was not asked to take the Oath of Office within 10 days of her appointment in the spring of 2009, but that problem can be immediately remedied by the City Council by its simply extending the time for the administering of the oath. That is, the City Charter would allow in a circumstance such as this — where through inadvertence an oath was not given in a timely manner — for the time to be extended.

The Council says it needs to have a Study Session on this topic which is scheduled for August 5th. There is no need to study this issue. The City Attorney, Deborah Walling, has made it clear that the Council can take this action. So why hasn’t it done so already?

For the last 17 years, Marge Powell has served with great distinction on Dearborn’s Civil Service Commission and has been elected President of the Commission by her peers many times. Before that she was a City Councilwoman for eight years. If there is anyone who can be called the “Conscience of Dearborn”, it is Marge.

One of the primary reasons that Dearborn has been so well governed for so long is that the Civil Service Commission makes sure that those who are to be appointed to positions of importance are in fact well qualified to do the jobs in question. Marge Powell has been the leader in making sure that Dearborn, unlike so many other jurisdictions (think Detroit, Chicago, FEMA under President Bush), does not have cronies of Mayors and Council people appointed to city positions as a “thank you” for help in getting them elected or re-elected.

So what’s the problem with simply extending the time now for this person who everyone publicly says has done a fine job and should be re-appointed? Well, Council President Tom Tafelski wants to make it “crystal clear that this [situation] is not about Marge Powell or her appointment — it’s about policies and procedures that were in place in the civil service commission itself, where you have to follow certain policies, procedures, and protocols.” The problem for Mr. Tafelski is that in fact Marge Powell has been following “policies, procedures, and protocols” so well that the person he wants appointed to a particular city job did not sail through the Civil Service Commission.

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(Source: Arab American National Museum press release)

SURA Arts Academy, a free, diversity-themed digital photography instruction program for youth run by the Arab American National Museum (AANM), is accepting registrations for its 2010 Summer Camp, which begins on Monday, June 28 and concludes on Friday, July 2. Thirty slots are available at no charge to students in grades six through nine who reside in southwest Detroit, Dearborn and adjacent areas.

SURA Summer Camp registration materials and program details are available for download at www.arabamericanmuseum.org/SURA-Arts-Academy.id.438.htm or by contacting Vanita Mistry at 313.624.0210 or vmistry@accesscommunity.org. Students are loaned digital cameras; lunches are being provided free by Super Greenland Market of Dearborn. The camp is based at AANM, 13624 Michigan Ave. in Dearborn, but includes field trips.

SURA was honored in 2008 by First Lady Laura Bush in a White House ceremony with one of just 15 Coming Up Taller Awards from the President’s Council on the Arts and the Humanities, after emerging from a field of 320 applicants. Coming Up Taller singles out the best arts- and humanities-based youth after-school programs in the United States. Only one other Michigan-based organization, Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, has ever received this award. Read more at www.pcah.org.

SURA is an Arabic word for photograph. In SURA Arts Academy, students are loaned new digital cameras. Photography students from the acclaimed Center for Creative Studies in Detroit then instruct the children on their operation during the five-day camp, which is based at the AANM and includes field trips. SURA also operates during the school year.

However, the camera is also a catalyst for discussion and the exploration of issues such as self-awareness, respect for others and the role of young people in their communities. Exhibitions of student photography are staged every fall at the AANM as the culmination of the previous academic year’s sessions.

“Arts education is increasingly important for youth, especially where school budgets are being cut and such programs are being eliminated from the curriculum,” says Janice Freij, curator of education at AANM. “According to the Arts and Civic Engagement report published by the National Endowment for the Arts, the decrease in arts participation for youth results in decreased exercise, volunteerism, and civic participation. But in our SURA Arts Academy, we’ve noticed increased grades and participation in both school and community activities among our participating students.”

SURA Arts Academy is funded by The Skillman Foundation, Bank of America and the Muna and Basem Hishmeh Foundation, Inc.