With the Aug. 3 Primary Election just around the corner, the League of Women Voters Dearborn & Dearborn Heights (LWVDDH) wants all to know that Voter Guides for the upcoming Primary are available at their website, www.lwvddh.org

The guide from the nonpartisan LWVDDH is helpful because it covers Dearborn and Dearborn Heights candidates for the Michigan Legislature, U.S. Congressional Districts, Wayne County, the Wayne County Transit Authority millage and candidates for Michigan Governor.

Those interested in statewide races can access information through www.lwvmi.org

Hard copies of the Voter Guide may be obtained at the City Clerks’ Offices and city libraries. For more information, please call 313-278-6476.

If you have questions about the Wayne County Commission, County Commission Gary Woronchak will answer them in Dearborn on July 15 at Dearborn City Hall.

The meeting with Woronchak (D-Dearborn) will begin at 10 a.m. in the City Council Chambers.

Meetings of the Wayne County Commission are usually held in downtown Detroit at the Guardian Building.  Some meetings are scheduled in individual commissioners’ districts so the public can more easily attend.

Woronchak arranged for the July 15 meeting to be held in his 13th District, which includes Dearborn, Allen Park and Melvindale.

“It’s not always convenient for residents of my district to travel downtown to see a commission meeting,” said Woronchak in a release, “so I’m glad to be bringing a meeting into the 13th District so people can see the commission do its work.”

The Wayne County Commission is the legislative branch of county government, serving as a check and balance to the executive branch, which is headed up by Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano. The chief role of a commissioner, a part-time position with an annual salary of nearly $70,000, is to adopt a budget and enact ordinances.  The commission also approves contracts and appointments. There are 15 commissioners elected in individual districts.

The city of Dearborn is informing residents that it has a number of “cooling stations” for those troubled by the extreme heat.

Residents are invited to visit the four public libraries and the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center during regular business hours to cool off in the air-conditioned public buildings, the city says in a recent press release.

The Ford Community & Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Ave., is open from 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Residents are invited to sit in the lobby area. Inside the Center, senior citizens are welcome to stay in the Senior Center, which has a lounge. The Senior Center’s regular business hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information, call The Center at 943-2350.

The library locations and their hours are as follows:

 Henry Ford Centennial Library, 16301 Michigan Ave., Monday-Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m.; Fridays 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

 Bryant Branch, 22100 Michigan Avenue; Esper Branch, 12929 W. Warren Ave.; and Snow Branch, 23950 Princeton Ave. Branch hours are Monday and Tuesday 12:30-8:30 p.m.; Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

For more information about the libraries, call 943-2330.

Overdue fines at Dearborn libraries is being increased to 25 cents per day, per item.

The Dearborn Library Commission recently voted to increase overdue fines and increase the daily Internet pass fee to $2 and the annual pass to $20 for all non-resident library cardholders. Overdue fines for entertainment videos and DVDs remain $2 per day.

All increases took effect July 1, 2010, the start of the City’s new fiscal year.

For the first time, through July 16, the Library is offering a Food for Fines program. During this time, patrons may donate non-perishable, non-expired food items and receive $1 reduction in overdue library fines for every item donated. All donated items will be given to the Dearborn Firefighters for distribution to families in need through the Burn Drive program.

For more information, stop by any one of the four Dearborn Public Library locations, visit www.dearbornlibrary.org or call 313-943-2330.

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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Richard Miller

Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., has appointed Richard Miller, a lifelong Dearborn resident and a retiree from the city’s fire department, as Dearborn’s new fire chief.

“I’m pleased to appoint Richard Miller to the top leadership position and know that he will work well with the outstanding men and women of our Fire Department to continue to move it forward,”  O’Reilly said. “His priority is my priority: to keep providing excellent public safety services to the residents of Dearborn. He also has a good understanding of how to maintain that high standard within the economic reality that all cities face today.”

Below is the press release from the City of Dearborn.

Miller retired as senior battalion chief from the Dearborn department in 2007 and moved on to high level jobs in the private sector, where he has been focused on ways to preserve efficiencies while reducing costs or generating new revenues.

Miller also has an extensive education background in fire science. He graduated from Eastern Michigan University’s School of Fire Staff and Command in 2001, from Madonna University in 1984 with a bachelor of science degree in fire science/occupational safety and health, and from Henry Ford Community College in 1980 with an associate’s degree in fire science.

He has professional certifications in many areas from the State of Michigan Firefighters Training Council, including in incident command, tactical operations and hazardous materials and is certified as a fire inspector and an emergency medical technician.

Mayor O’Reilly said he chose Miller from a pool of strong candidates because of his background with the Dearborn department, his education credentials, and his experience in the private sector.

O’Reilly said that Miller’s combined experience can provide a complementary perspective as the city continues to address financial challenges, including the need to increase efficiencies across the board, manage limited resources, and still produce desirable results.

(more…)

In an effort to get Dearborn’s Crowley Park pool open as quickly as possible, Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr. last night authorized the spending of $8,600 to repair water leaks at the neighborhood pool.

The authorization to spend the money for the repairs, without seeking competitive bids, means the pool could open as early as next week, O’Reilly said. Longer term maintenance concerns with the pool will still need to be addressed.

In earlier stories here, the city said the damage to the pool because of water leaks was more extensive than originally believed. You can read an earlier story by clicking HERE.

Residents in the Crowley Park pool area should get their swimsuits and towels ready.

Dearborn Civil Service Commissioner Marjorie Powell will have to wait until at least Aug. 5 to learn whether the Dearborn city council will grant her request for an extension of the time limit to take the oath of office as a commissioner. (See earlier story, HERE.)

Dearborn City Councilman George Darany made a motion at last night’s meeting (supported by Councilman Robert Abraham) to simply approve the extension as more than a month has passed since the request was made by Powell. But his motion was defeated by a 4-2 vote with Tom Tafelski, Nancy Hubbard, Susanne Sareini, and Brian O’Donnell voting no. Mark Shooshanian was absent.

Following the meeting, Councilman Abraham said the whole issue surfaced because of “City Hall politics.”

“The memos sent back and forth should have been addressed to the “commission” or the Board of Ethics to review,” Abraham said.  ”It is disappointing that many have failed to recognize a perfect opportunity to do what is right without consideration political fallout. The Mayor, the Council and the City Clerk had over a month to gather information and discuss this issue with legal counsel, while Mrs. Powell waited with great patience. The moment to correct this mistake was last night when Marge publicly asked us to help her; 4 out 6 said “No” not now. There is no reason to make her wait until August 5 or thereafter; this is absolutely and totally ridiculous. To see politicians drag their feet when they know what is right and fail to act is the real problem (there are many examples in the news, including the BP spill). We need leaders now more than ever that can make decisions, and have the political will power to stand-up for the folks in town that need help, want help, and ask for help, and not tell them to wait until “we” have time to schedule a Study Session” in six weeks.

“Marge is a city volunteer and we should be treating her with dignity and respect. Let’s hope Marge will stay on-board after this mess, because as many of us already know service groups and volunteers are decreasing in numbers at a rapid rate. Marge cannot be easily replaced as some might believe. Thank you Marge for your many years of service! I look forward to working with you for many more years, too.”

Council President Tafelski said the Aug. 5 meeting will be a “study session” on this matter. Unfortunately, that meeting is not televised and does not take place in the council chambers. Instead, that meeting will take place in the council’s cramped meeting room. The meeting will be open to the public but you might want to bring your own chair or be prepared to stand.

Dearborn Civil Service Commissioner Marjorie Powell, a former City Council president, appears to be in the political crosshairs of Dearborn Council President Tom Tafelski. This could make tonight’s City Council meeting interesting as Powell plans to go before the council with a request. But more on that in a minute.

The political squabble appears to stem from an action the Civil Service Commission took by a 3-2 vote that tabled a request from Tafelski to re-assign/classify an employee from the City Council office to the City Clerk’s office as a way to reduce department budgets. Tafelski said if the move didn’t occur it would lead to a layoff and put the city into “receivership” in two years, according to papers surrounding this matter on file with the city.

In her motion to table the request, Powell, who has served 17 years as a volunteer on the Commission, questioned whether their could be a potential conflict of interest with combining the staff of one department charged with the responsibilities of elections with another department that consists of elected officials.

A day after the May 20 Commission meeting where his request was tabled, Tafelski discovered that Powell had not taken an oath for her most recent four-year reappointment, which would be a violation of Dearborn’s City Charter. Powell was reappointed in May 2009. The City Charter requires an oath of office take place within 10 days of an appointment. In his May 21 letter to the city’s legal department, Tafelski asked for a review to determine whether any actions taken by the Commission were in violation of the City Charter.

“I can’t say clearly enough that this is not about Marge,” Tafelski told the Dearborn Times-Herald in a story that carried an element of the squabble. “It’s about the integrity of the system, and we need to make sure that all protocols are followed to the utmost in every situation, but especially with (the commission).”

At tonight’s city council meeting, Powell will request to the council an extension of the time limit to take the oath of office as a Civil Service Commissioner.

Grab some popcorn, this could be interesting.

Residents near Dearborn’s Crowley Park pool will have to find a new place to swim until further notice because of major leaks in the pool’s pipes, Dearborn officials announced Friday.

The costs to repair the pool aren’t yet known but with the city budget already stressed, repairing pool pipes might prove to be too difficult of a task this fiscal year.

City officials say the leak in the Crowley Park pool had been identified and announced earlier this year but the extent of the damage could not be determined until the city began prepping it to open for the season. Two leaks in the hull of the pool were repaired earlier this month.

Dearborn says the new leaks are in the pipes and if not repaired would cause the loss of thousands of gallons of water each day and undermine the integrity of the pool deck. The leaks are in the pipes that are connected to the filtration system, which must be operating for swimmers to use the pool.

The city’s five other outdoor neighborhood pools will open as scheduled tomorrow, June 12. (Levagood and Ford Woods park pools already opened for the season.)

A more extensive evaluation of the situation at Crowley Park pool could take place as early as the week of June 14 by NSA, the engineering firm that has been working with the city to conduct general assessments of all Dearborn city pools.

The city will review NSA’s recommendations and potential cost for repairs before determining a course of action regarding the pool. These discussions will include the timeframe of the repairs and the pool’s possible reopening.

For more information about Crowley Park pool, as well as Dearborn’s seven other public pools, call the Recreation Department at 313-943-2350.