Nowhere to go but up for downtown Ferndale

Downtown Ferndale has nowhere to go but up--literally.  The downtown is land-locked by residences on all sides with virtually no undeveloped land on which to build or pave.  The only way to add more square footage for new businesses, retail, residential, or anything else worth attracting is vertically with taller buildings and dare we admit, taller parking.

Being land-locked, our downtown has only three options; build up, demolish the homes that constrain its growth, or stay the way it is.

Downtown Ferndale is exactly what it is.  A commercial area surrounding the intersection of Woodward and Nine Mile roads, with a mix of bars, restaurants, retail, services, and a few multi-unit, multi-floor condominiums.  With the present restrictions on space, the downtown can only change its face by replacing or reusing existing buildings and parking lots.

The 3-60 Project, which proposes multi-use, multi-story, parking-included developments on both the north and south sides of Nine Mile Road west of Woodward (the green-glass-looking buildings in the picture) proposes a disruptive change to the character of our downtown.  The rub is in speculating whether that change is good for the community or bad for the community.

There are two ways to increase our population.  Increasing the birth rate and subsequently the ratio of persons-per-dwelling, and increasing the number of residential units.  City council and the zoning boards can do little about the former except to have babies themselves.  But government can do something about the latter, increasing the number of residential units, provided they have a partner in the private sector willing to invest in building new residential units--either single or multi-unit.

Office space increases the city's population during business hours, with a little spill-over outside business hours as workers stop for a beer, a yoga class, do a little shopping, or a have their hair done before going home.

But one question that needs to be answered before proceeding with 3-60 (or any other similar development) is what is our downtown's capacity?  And by that I mean, how many people can all our downtown businesses accommodate at one time?  Let's pretend the 3-60 project increases both our city's population and its downtown daytime population--how many seats are available in restaurants?  How many people can shop in its retail?  How many people can fit in a kick-boxing class?  Will our downtown's capacity be overwhelmed?  Are there enough parking spaces for all the new visitors along with the old?

Lastly, it must be admitted that if the 3-60 project proceeds the downtown area will temporarily lose parking spaces it can ill-afford and some businesses may not survive.  Those that do may experience some loss of income.  That's regrettable but unavoidable with any plan.  The potential upside for businesses that do survive, and for new business that replace the old, will be more profitable and durable businesses.

So in the end, city council must decide if they want a new downtown with a new look, but at the expense of some of its existing businesses and its current character.  To protect itself and the community, the 3-60 developers will have to enter some kind of covenant with the city that guarantees the job will be complete.

Before voting one way or another, the council should negotiate that contract and expose it to public comment.

And of course, voters will have the final say on whether they agree with council's decision or not, and will have to live with the consequences either way.

Whatever happens in the short term, this project will finally provide some interesting fodder for this year's council elections.

No goal? No plan? No millage (Part 4)

Whatever other objectives a school system may have, its primary purpose should be to educate children.  It should go without saying that the education a child receives is the foundation they will build their futures on.

It is also important to note that children only get one chance at their education.  They will only pass through elementary, middle, then high school once.  They have as good a chance repeating their education as they do repeating their first day at school.

Because kids only get once chance it's important they get the most out of it as possible.  It is also important that parents and taxpayers know the quality of the education they're paying for when considering whether to support their district administration and school board members.

With those points in mind, let's examine how Ferndale School District (FSD) students perform after 11 years of an FSD education.

According to the ACT test administered to 217 Ferndale High School (FHS) juniors, only 30% of them were proficient in reading, 43% in English, 23% math, and 17% science.  Put another way, our children are 30-45% less prepared for college and their futures than the average Oakland County student--to say nothing of international competition.

FHS is doing an especially poor job of educating its black students.  The district loudly boasts about its diversity in its literature, district reports, and web site, but is less sanguine regarding the academic performance of the high school's black students, many of whom are out-of-district students contributing more to the district's revenue than its academic proficiency.

In the same report mentioned above, white students out-perform black students in reading, math, science, social studies, and writing by 278%, 760%, 760%, 239%, and 310% respectively.  Those numbers are so dramatic every voter in the FSD should demand an explanation from the school board.  Voters should also hope the state committed a huge error collecting the data, and that the margin of error is equally large.

Without another explanation, voters are left to extrapolate the district's intentions from the evidence.  The two most damning pieces of data betraying the administration's objectives are the 46% of out-of-district students worth nearly $1.5 million annually, and the grossly disparate academic proficiency between the two demographics just in the high-school.

The numbers suggest the reason the board of education and administration want a $23 million bond to maintain school buildings with twice the needed capacity is so they can protect or increase the district's $1.5 million annual revenue stream from out-of-district students (1205 from Detroit alone).   A revenue stream so compelling the district considered spending $8 million on the contaminated Hayes-Lemmerz property so it may be converted into an adult-education and charter-school campus capable of housing even more out-of-district students.

The longer voters look at the numbers, the easier it is to reject the school bond, and even easier to reject the school board and the superintendent.

Don't just vote, "No," on Tuesday--vote "Heck no."  And let's begin an honest, open dialog about how our school district may be right-sized, re-purposed, and re-committed to the task of preparing our community's children for the future.

Voting no is the responsible vote.

No goal? No plan? No millage. (Part 3)

Will renewing the bond increase property taxes?

The answer is yes--but it won't increase your tax bill--yet.

Supporters of the bond seem to think taxpayers can be fooled into thinking the $23 million will appear from thin-air.  They want voters to believe they have only to say yes to a $23 million handout, so why would anyone vote no?

Let's use an example to better explain how taxes will be increased, then later visit some legislation that may put Ferndale School District taxpayers at risk for having their taxes increased even more.

A simple example

Let's pretend your monthly mortgage payment (principle and interest) is $1000 and you have only two more years to go before your mortgage is paid-off.  That means that in 24 months your income will increase $1000/month, or $12,000/year.  That's a bigger pay increase than most people will ever see in their lifetime unless they change jobs.

Now, while still two-years away you ask your banker for an $100,000 loan.  Instead of increasing your monthly payment your banker simply adds 10 more years to the end of your mortgage.  Now, instead of getting a $1000 increase in two years you won't be getting it for 12 years.  With interest included you'll have given your banker another $120,000 that would have gone into your pocket.

Did your mortgage go up or stay the same?

For the purposes of this article we'll skip considering that your house is only worth $200,000 and that it's twice as big as it needs to be, your utilities expenses are twice as big as they need to be, your carbon foot-print is twice what it should be, and you spend twice as long cleaning it than you would a home rightsized to your family's size.  Given all that, does it make sense to borrow $100,000 in the first place?

How you may be at risk for increased monthly payments

On December 14, a Detroit News editorial urged readers to keep school bond debt in-check. It starts:

Because of sinking property tax revenues, more and more school districts have turned to a state revolving loan fund to help them meet payments on bonds they sold for new construction or remodeling buildings. Obligations in that fund have shot up to $1.2 billion during the real estate crisis, or the equivalent of $60 per student, and are threatening to more than double in the next 10 years.

Using our example from above, if a school district has to pay $1000/month to its bond holders but when property values drop and the district can only afford to pay $700/month, the state School Aid Fund lends money to the district to make up the $300/month difference.

The money for making up the difference between falling property values, the taxes they generate, and what school districts owe has ballooned to $1.2 billion--and because that money comes out of the school-aid fund, there is $60 less per-student to spend on books, curriculum, equipment, and teachers.  You know, the things that have a far greater impact on our children's education than decorating.

A problem under the existing rules is that school districts can roll their state debt into new bond issues for additional construction projects before the old bonds are paid off. State repayment thus can get extended past 30 or 40 years. The state, meanwhile, has issued general obligation bonds to raise the money it loaned the school districts and long since repaid the general obligation bonds.

That should sound familiar.  The Ferndale School District hasn't paid-off a single single bond since at least 1995, and the proposed bond will extend our indebtedness out 29 years--to 2041.

To keep school district bonds from eating further into per-pupil spending, Lansing is considering new legislation. 

Pending Senate legislation (SB-770)would rein in these practices not just by putting a $1.5 billion lid on the total the state could allow school districts to borrow. 

It also would require school districts involved in the state program to at least once a year recalculate the millage rate they use to pay off their construction bonds. A school district would have to raise its millage rate whenever necessary to meet the principal and interest payments on its bonded indebtedness.  

When asking voters to approve a bond proposal, the school district would have to notify them that the proposed millage rate wouldn't necessarily remain the same, but actually could go higher.

This is an easy law to support.  It would require school districts to actually pay for their renovation projects without borrowing money from students.  The bite is that when property values fall taxpayers may be required to pay more.

Our $1000/month may go up when we can least afford it--when our property values are falling.

Given this background, it's more important than it has been that taxpayers hold their school boards and administrations accountable for student performance.  The relationship between schools and property values is student performance and property values, and a strong inverse relationship between standardized test scores and foreclosure rates--the higher the scores the lower the foreclosure rate.

Without our district's board and administrators having a clear goal to increase our community's student performance, and a clearer goal for achieving that objective, taxpayers should vote no on the new school millage.

No goal? No plan? No millage. (Part 2)

At Sunday's issue forum (now available on YouTube) I recommend voters say, "Not now," as in, "Vote no," on the school millage proposal on February 28th.  I recommend "not now" so voters will have the time to get some important questions answered from both administrators and school board members.

Questions like:

• Why are 1-in-4 Ferndale district students' parents choosing to send their kids to other districts?  Why are the numbers 1-in-10 for Royal Oak and 1-in-25 in Berkley?
• Do (low) district-wide test scores reflect our community's commitment or the district's commitment to educating our children?
• Should nearly half (47%) of our district's enrollment be coming from out-of-district?
• What are the district's objectives for increasing student proficiency and college preparedness?
• What is the district's plan to achieve those objectives and when will students, parents, and taxpayers see those results?

In Rob Bokram's closing remarks at Sunday's forum, he said, "For 40 years Ferndale has consistently supported millages and the citizens have rallied around every single millage proposal because they recognize the value of doing so."

Not true.

In 2003 Ferndale districts taxpayers voted-down a millage proposal, and in doing so, sent a message to the school board, administration, and bond supporters that sometimes more time is necessary to make a better case.  Overlooking 2003's election isn't Mr. Bokram's fault, and I don't point it out to discredit him, but to remind voters they've voted "not yet" before, and should do so again on February 28th.

From Ferndale Patch (13Dec2011)

Since Meier has been superintendent at Ferndale, he has attempted two bonds: one in 2003 and one in 2004. The 2003 bond failed because, he said, there may not have been enough time to get the information into the community.

After giving both voters and the district more time, the bond request passed in 2004 by a 3-to-2 margin.

Now's a better time for Ferndale voter's to repeat their 2003 decision, and vote "No."  Or if you prefer, and I recommend, "Not yet," on Tuesday, February 28th.

Vote "No" on Ferndale School District Millage

With voting day (February 28th) only a couple weeks away, it's time some facts regarding the Ferndale School District are published so they may be discussed and voters' better informed whether raising their taxes to cover another $22.8 million to chase down the $62 million preceding it in recent years is a good investment.. or not.

Watch your porch for this month's issue of Ferndale Friends, which includes two op-ed pieces arguing for and against the millage.  One is from Citizens for Quality Schools' representative Robert Bokram, and the other is written by myself.

Earlier today, The Ferndale Review published excerpts of an email exchange I had with Review reporter Charles Sercombe.  In it I discuss a few reasons I'm opposed to the millage.  More complete (but still word-limited) reasons are in the Ferndale Friends article.

Citizens for a Fair Ferndale is sponsoring a forum to inform voters on the ballot issue this Sunday, February 12, from 2-3PM at the Ferndale Public Library.  You can either wait until then to ask your questions, or post them here or at the Ferndale Review.  If you post them here, I'll do my best to provide timely answers.

To my knowledge the Ferndale Patch has not investigated or reported any anti-millage sentiments.

Most expensive rail in the world?

"And building the 3.4 miles of light rail would cost nearly $300 million."

--  Jeff Gerritt (Detroit Free Press)

The Light-Rail project was canceled recently in Detroit.  Officially, it was canceled due to Detroit's crashing finances and for lack of a regional transit authority.

After reading a Free Press editorial, the real reason is math.

The plan was to spend $300 million dollars on 3.4 miles of track.  That's $88 million-per-mile, or $16,711-per-foot.  Apparently, the tracks are made of precious metal that must be guarded to keep thieves from scrapping it.

Troy's recent decision to cancel its $8 million, 2500 square-feet transit station brought out a lot of comparisons between the Detroit and Shanghai metropolitan areas, mostly about how backward-thinking Troy's city council and other regional leaders are (I'm being euphemistic--the actual statements were much more insulting).

Construction costs for the the mag-lev in China are approximately $28 million-per-mile ($18mm/Km), and could get passengers from Downtown Detroit to Pontiac in less than 10 minutes.  

And according to other estimates--it will be self-funding.

We could go on-and-on about the comparisons, like relative distance between end-points in China and Detroit, the number of people in China and Detroit, the population trends between China and Detroit, the daily ridership, the population density between China and Detroit, and the minimum wage between China and Detroit, but only the minimum-wage is in Detroit's favor.

Oakland County commissioners prove party more important than policy

The Michigan State Legislature recently passed a bill, ready for the governor's signature, that limits the maximum number of commissioners for county's with more than 50,000 residents to 21.


If citizens knew nothing more about that, the major topic of conversation should be, "How does reducing the number of commissioners affect my representation?"


If citizens knew little more than that, but that reducing the number of commissioners might save the county $500,000 in pay and benefits by 2013, and $2.5 million by the next census (the math doesn't work out but I'm quoting here), citizens might amend their first question to, "Is saving $500,000/year in our cash-stretched county worth diluting my potential influence 7.4%?  If so why not cut another two commissioners and save $1 million by 2013?"  Or perhaps declare, "No loss in representation is worth a measly $500,000 by 2013."


But instead of debating policy issues, or whether the number should be reduced at all, or whether having county commissioners responsible for drawing districts as the legislature does for the state is a better idea than a committee that includes two non-elected county party chairs, Democrats are crying about end-runs around the first redistricting plan they've had a majority over in years.


The 25th district is represented by Craig Covey (D), former mayor of Ferndale until his election to the county commission.  Now on the commission, instead of representing his district on the weightier issue of diluting voters' representation for a debatable cost savings, Covey's arguing about which political party is best represented and served by redistricting.

"A years ago, I came here excited and filled with energy — today I'm crushed," said Commissioner Craig Covey, D-Ferndale, minutes before walking out on other votes."

Seven of 10 Democrats on the Oakland County Board of Commissioners walked out of a Board meeting Thursday after failing to get support from their Republican colleagues to oppose a redistricting measure in Lansing that seeks to decrease the number of county commissioners, among other changes.

County Commissioners may not be paid as much as state legislators or City of Detroit councilpersons (one of the few full-time councils even for big cities), but I'm pretty sure voters don't need what diluted representation they do have in government walking out of meetings because they're more incensed at how their political party was "dissed."

Which is really what politics has become about, a myopic take-no-prisoners capture-the-flag by-any-means-necessary battle whose first priority is party-control and thoughtful policy-making and moderates are casualties of war.

Oakland County is the biggest loser in this latest tantrum because it's Oakland County's voters that are being cheated out of the real debate--by all its commissioners.  And instead of discussing public policy like mature adults, our commissioners are arguing which party got the biggest scoop of ice-cream.

Better to repeal campaign finance law than force donations to the black market

A recent protest supporting the 99% movement took place in Downtown Ferndale Friday, and it was covered by The Daily Tribune.


Nancy Goedert was quoted as saying public funding for campaigns is a soapbox issue for her, but I don't think Mrs. Goedert or others that like that idea have thought it through.


Publicly funded campaigns are a closely-related issue to corporate free-speech, and more specifically, corporate funding of campaigns.  But what protesters often forget is many of their favorite organizations, like MoveOn.org, are also corporations that support both financially and otherwise, political campaigns.


As I wrote in February this year,

"MoveOn actually doesn't believe all corporations should be prohibited from free speech.  MoveOn.Org is itself a corporation--though a not-for-profit 501c3, and presumably wants to preserve free speech for itself.  What they must mean, then, is for-profit corporations should be prohibited from free speech, but that would include companies building green-products like wind turbines and solar panels, growing and selling organic foods, and other corporations that are in good standing with MoveOn."

Another complaint against corporate free speech is the amount of money donated, and the many ways corporate donations are hidden--being given to political action committees and other "issue" campaigns, is a by-product (read: unintended consequence) of current campaign-finance laws.  People, corporate or private, will find ways to support their candidates and causes either directly or indirectly.


Rather than create a black market for corporate donations by making direct contributions illegal, why not remove all the limits and let the donations speak for themselves and the candidates?


For instance, if Goldman Sachs wants to contribute $5 million to President Obama's campaign, wouldn't the public rather know that than have Goldman funnel those contributions through an array of grey-market PACs?  At least then we might now exactly who Goldman is supporting and to what amount the candidate may be obligated to return in favors--like bailouts for banks that are "too big to fail."


Or if local attorney-celebrity Geoffrey Feiger wanted to donate $125,000 to John Edward's campaign, instead of (allegedly) requiring his partners to make those contributions he could have made them directly himself and spared himself and everyone else a lot of time (and money) trying to figure out if what he did was legal or not.


The other problem with publicly funded campaigns is trying to figure out which candidates the funds would go to, and what money-raising restrictions would be placed on other candidates.

A lot of 99%ers complain about the failure and dominance of our (predominately) two-party system, but how much money would the government give to the Green, Socialist Workers, Libertarian, or Communist parties?  Should those parties be shut-out?  What of religious parties?  Mightn't contributions to their candidates' campaigns risk violating the so-called separation of church and state?

And who in the government would decide how much money to give to candidates, and how would that person or department be appointed or elected?

No, the better idea is to repeal campaign finance laws and let the public vote with their own dollars.  And if the public really wants to shut-down corporate free speech then they should look for a case to overturn  Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council.

Don't risk losing the news

News can be provocative.  News can be controversial.  Eliminate the provocative and controversial and publications risk eliminating the news as well.  A publication that intentionally avoids potentially contentious news and viewpoints does a disservice to its readers by not informing or exposing them to issues that may require the reader's action, the reader's deliberation, or even the reader to form new opinions or change old ones.

This thought occurred to me after reading an online publication's editorial policy regarding this November's election.

"We believe that objective community journalism should not thrive on drama and comment wars.  We do not run politically divisive stories, nor do we mix news and opinion by allowing comments on the site. 

"[The editor] typically does not vote in local level elections and is committed to her role of remaining politically independent and doing fair coverage."

It is rare for publishers of traditional journalistic properties to deliberately inject drama or hyperbole into articles except that which naturally seeps-in from the writer's or editor's biases.  Most of the drama is introduced by readers commenting on stories, with the worst offenders posting anonymously.

Regardless whether replies are signed or unsigned, they are the opinions of your neighbors.  Whether informed or uninformed, these are the opinions of citizens that may cast votes for or against your candidate or issue.  Readers may choose whether to read comments or not.  Readers choose whether to post their own opinions or keep them to themselves.

Comments, like the articles themselves, belong to the person that wrote them.  A well-written, well-thought-out comment can be as informative as the article itself or provide additional clarity.  As important, a comment might provide a counter-point, keeping both the publication and author honest.

The greatest risk in allowing comments, especially uninformed or vicious comments (or worse, anonymous), is that other readers may not be able to distinguish between good comments and bad, or may form opinions based on rumor or poorly-reasoned arguments.  But if a reader is unable to discriminate between good and bad comments however would the publisher expect them to detect editorial bias or read between the lines?

As valuable and informative as an article may be, as valuable (or disappointing) may be the reactions of your neighbors to the same article.

Granted, not every comment is civil.  Not every comment is kind.  Heck, many comments are barely on-topic.  But comments do reflect, if imperfectly, our fellow citizens.  You may be either encouraged or discouraged by that.

Whichever you are, I encourage you to leave a comment--we're unafraid of controversy.

Why it's important to embrace a 38% increase

Supporters of Ferndale's Headlee override proposal this May shouldn't run away from or deny it's an increase of 38%.  Instead they should embrace it, promote it, and use the magnitude of the remedy as a measure of how crippled the city may become without the millage's passing.

One of my favorite lines from "Clear and Present Danger" occurs when the president's advisors are discussing what to say about the discovery one of the president's close friends was laundering money for a drug cartel.

From FilmSite.Org:

The President's advisors suggested that if the news became public, they could defuse it by downplaying the President's association with Hardin. Ryan suggested the opposite - if the President were to be asked if he and Hardin were good friends, he should answer: "We're lifelong friends...There's no sense defusing a bomb after it's already gone off."

The budget bomb has gone off in Ferndale just as it has the rest of the country.  Pretending the collateral damage is a measly 11% is a whitewash of the problem and insulting to voters' intelligence.

Ferndale's operating millage is currently 14.5448 mills.  If approved, the May ballot proposal will allow council to raise that rate to 20 mills by 2013.  To keep all the deniers honest I'll show my work.

20 - 14.5448 = 5.4552 (the increase)
5.4552 / 14.5448 = 0.375061878
0.375061878 * 100 = 37.5061878% (the percentage)
round(37.5061878) = 38%

Another way we can find this number, or one very close to it, is by figuring out how big the deficit is as a percentage of the revenue Ferndale's general fund receives from property taxes.

According to the budget estimates for fiscal year ending 2012, Ferndale anticipates property tax receipts of $7,573,000.  The budget deficit is estimated in the same document to be $2.3 million.

2,300,000 / 7,573,000 = 0.303710551
0.303710551 * 100 = 30.3710551
round(30.3710551) = 30%

So, which property tax increase do you think has a better chance of covering a 30% hole; a 38% increase or an 11% increase?

Some people confuse my supporting FACT's publishing the millage is a 38% increase over the Yes to Ferndale's Future's 11% increase as evidence my support for the millage is superficial.  What it really demonstrates is my commitment to honesty and integrity, especially when lying is too easily proven by doing simple math (which I think should be a prerequisite to running for office).

Saying the increase is anything other than 38% is an attempt to make the tax increase more palatable to voters.  This is also known as spin, and is disrespectful to voters and property tax payers.

11% is wrong not just because it's unsupported by math, but because it trivializes Ferndale's desperate budget situation.  If the budget was only short 11%, then I'd advocate a NO vote and demand city council find 11% to cut.  An 11% deficit is not an emergency.  An 11% deficit does not warrant a Headlee override.

Instead, our budget deficit is an emergency.  The city can not replace over 30% of its revenue with traffic tickets or parking meter fines.  Our city's obligations to its retirees, whatever voters think of its extravagance or past-councils' approval of such rich benefits, can not be addressed with budget resolutions, wishful thinking, or understatement.

No, our city's deficit is real, it's large, and it requires appropriate and proportionate action to remediate.

There are other problems with both the Yes and No camps' literature and public statements I may address in future posts.  In February I recommended to voters what they should do in both May and November, and unless someone proves my numbers wrong I stand by my recommendations.

Oh, Farmdale is the place to be!

After reading various stories in the Ferndale 115, Ferndale Patch, and The Daily Tribune, I couldn't get this song out of my head.  So the only natural thing to do, was to share it.

(Sing to the tune of Green Acres)


Oh, Farmdale is the street for me
Coops of chickens laying eggs for free
Spreading feces on my garden plot
I'll pretend I'm a farmer and care for my neighbors not

 When I bought my house I felt lucky
Now, I'm living in Ferndale-tucky
I have a chicken coop next door
As if housing values weren't low enough before

.. Group think!
.. The stink!
.. I'll share!
.. Don't care!

 Madison Heights had 'em first
Ferndale couldn't do worse
Oh, Farmdale we are there!

What immigration giveth, emigration can taketh away

[Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2011 edition of Ferndale Friends] 

I promised Ferndale Friends’ interim managing editor I wouldn’t write anything about a specific ballot issue on May’s ballot for which the publish-date of this edition of Ferndale Friends presents an opportune time to promote my position on the subject.

Geography is against me here. The place to discuss the issue I’m not allowed to discuss is elsewhere discussed in this magazine. For this issue, at least, this column’s space has become a don’t-discuss-the-thing-you’re-not-supposed-to-else-you’re-sleeping-in-the-garage zone.

If that wasn’t hint enough, the interim managing editor is my wife, Tiffani (Hi, babe!). So for a while I can get away with admitting I think my boss is hot.

It is Lent, which means that for the 40 days leading up to Easter many Christians will either give something up or try to do something positive so they may become better Christians, or better spouses, students, or maybe just thinner. Many people will take a Mulligan on their New Year’s resolutions.

This Lent, I thought I’d try something similar and not criticize city council or even try writing something nice about each of them. But criticizing government isn’t really a vice and writing nice things about council wouldn’t fool anyone for a minute, so we’ll just see how it goes. I’ll definitely stick with my promise to Tiffani and not discuss the burning question on everybody’s mind as they head out to vote on May 3, “Do I need to bring a #2 pencil?”

The new Jamestown?

The latest census numbers show Detroit lost a quarter of its residents and Ferndale a tenth of its population.

Mayor Bing will likely both challenge Detroit’s numbers in court and go looking for uncounted Detroiters throughout the city’s 139 square miles.

It’s been said the two largest school districts in Michigan are Detroit Public Schools, and Detroit Public School students attending non-DPS school districts.

If estimations of Michigan’s second largest school district are accurate don’t be surprised to find Mayor Bing and DPS Emergency Financial Manger Robert Bobb driving through Centerline, Hazel Park, Ferndale, Oak Park, and other Detroit-bordering school districts looking for Detroiters that have falsified their addresses.

My favorite quote concerning Ferndale’s loss of 10% of its population (2205 people since 2000) came from Ferndale Mayor Dave Coulter in the Ferndale Patch, “"My job is to make the city the best place I can for the people here now.”

(I’m counting that as a nice thing said about council.)

What I like about Mayor Coulter’s comment is its pragmatism. Neither nostalgia nor spin color his perspective. He doesn’t hearken back to images of Ferndale’s past when Irish Catholics bunked children one atop the other in bedrooms and closets.

Pundits, politicians, and cheer-leaders are tripping over themselves in the press, online forums, and Facebook trying to convince the remaining population that losing 10-20% of the population was expected, and that plans are being made to tie meat around south-east Michigan’s neck so Millenials will play with us.

Exactly how many Millenials does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb, replace the economic activity of 2205 residents with beer and Buffalo-wings, or repopulate our school system?
In case you’re unfamiliar with the definition of Millenials, they’re typically described as 20-somethings. But they’re not just in their 20s. Millenials are also in their teens, tweens, and many still have their baby teeth—and Ferndale lost over 1200 Millenials under the age of 18. Statistically, I’m not as confident as Craig Covey that folks in the narrow age range of 18-to-30 exist in sufficient numbers to make up the difference.

(Craig isn’t on council anymore so I don’t count that as a criticism.)

According to a focus group on the Craig Fahle show (March 28) 20-somethings are just as likely to uproot themselves from cool cities after they start families and go on the hunt for high-performing school districts as their parents’ generation did.

For a different perspective on our region’s population loss we need to back up 130 years-or-so to the late 1800s when waves of Italians arrived looking for opportunity, or the Irish before them.

If that’s too far back we can look at what put Detroit on the population map and gave it the one of the nation’s highest median incomes—the auto industry.

Between 1900 and 1930, Detroit’s population ballooned from 265,000 to 1.5 million with immigrants from other states and countries. 100 years later, people are now emigrating to opportunities elsewhere.

Can we blame them? Should we hold them back? Should we discourage our loved ones from seeking their fortunes in the southeast or southwest or anywhere else they’re lured by the century-later equivalent of $5/day?

Not if we want them paying our Social Security and other government health and retirement benefits.

We should be proud of anyone that leaves to seek their fortunes elsewhere. They’ve more in common with the people that came to Detroit 100 years ago and built the Paris of the West than they do the tour guides at The Coliseum.

Well, we’ve made it this far and I’ve kept my promises.

If you have comments or criticisms for me don’t wait for a religious holiday. Write me at tggagne@gmail.com.

Wow, Ferndale's population decline worse than previously reported

More census data is in and the news is worse for Ferndale than previously reported.

The Ferndale Patch reported this morning that Ferndale lost 2,205 residents, over twice the 963 reported earlier in the year.

Complete age break-downs aren't available yet, but the number of eligible voters (18+) has been released and those numbers fell to 16,615 from 17,601 in 2000 or 5.5%.

Apparently, the in-flux of millenials (born between the mid-70s and early-2000s) isn't what we thought it was.

In Ferndale, we hear a lot from politicians and other community activists about how the face of Ferndale is changing because of the increased number of residents under 30.  But is that more propaganda than fact?

65% of Ferndale's population loss, or 1209 residents, were under the age of 18.  Even though they can't vote yet, that's half the Gen-Y population.

There's no data to prove it, but it may be that politicians and others are commenting more on the visitors to Ferndale's downtown than folks that actually live here.  If our downtown's population has increased between the hours of 8PM-2:30AM, it's fair to ask our council persons, DDA, and other armchair policy quarterbacks if that is the population our ordinances, zoning, and budget decisions should be based on.

Strawberry closes, but to the DDA they're just a number

On Friday (2/11), the Ferndale Patch's Terry Paris Jr. reported on the closing of downtown favorite, Strawberry Moon Bakery.

"We just aren't making any money," owner Jon Glab said. "It's difficult and disappointing. We've had a good time in Ferndale. We just can't do it anymore." 

"We lost a lot of customers due to the recession that didn't come back." 

Glab said they stuck it out in the hopes that it might turn around, but it hasn't. 

"It's been rough," he said. "I haven't paid myself in a very long time."

Less than three weeks ago, the DDA trumpted to city council that 40 new businesses came to Ferndale in 2010, helping make-up for 14 that left in the same year and 26 vacancies from the year before (14 + 26 = 40).

Contrary to their boasting about new businesses coming to Ferndale, the DDA's communications and marketing directory Chris Hughes' struck a more sedate tone about Strawberry's closing:

"We're surprised as well as disappointed to see Strawberry Moon close," said Chris Hughes, communications director of the Ferndale Downtown Development Authority. "It's always sad to have a business you know and love (close)."

Hughes said she doesn't think the recent closures are a trend, especially because a few of the spaces have already been leased or sold. 

"Club 9 has been sold and is expected to reopen as another club. Rockin Soul is closed, but the space has been leased. We've learned to stop hitting the panic button."

Not hitting the panic button is a luxury the DDA has that downtown businesses do not enjoy.  The DDA is tax-payer supported and has a  $500,000+ budget that survives whether businesses do or not--as long as there are landlords owning the buildings.

Strawberry's owners hit the panic button--as did the owners of Amoure, Rockin' Soul, Nami, New to You Music, Angel's Cafe, The Chaldean Club, Josephine's and others.

"The bottom line is that businesses come and go, let's not panic," (Hughes) said.

Easy for her to say.  As successful as the DDA may be at recruiting businesses to downtown Ferndale, they seem far less successful at retaining them.  Of course, the DDA isn't necessarily responsible for businesses' success, but it is supposed to be responsible for a healthy business climate--for both bars and retailers.

The DDA has used the number of 210 as the number of core downtown businesses.  40 new businesses represents a turnover of nearly 20% (40/210*100=19.0476%).  If the DDA were a business with 20% turnover in employees, they'd be performing horribly.  But a 20% turnover in office supplies (paper clips, staples, white-out) is OK.

So the DDA's lack of reaction to downtown's turnover may be a good measure of how they regard downtown businesses--easily replaceable.  Better to assign them numbers like farmers do steer and sheep for slaughter so they don't get too attached to them.

Perhaps its simply an occupational hazard (".. businesses come and go..").  I'll believe the DDA has sustainability on the mind when I start hearing from downtown retailers that the DDA is spending more time asking them how they can help their stores (or get out of their way) than bars or the DDA's reputation with the Main Street program.

Municipal Math

[Note: This article originally appeared in the February 2011 edition of Ferndale Friends] 

In June 2007 council approved approximately $39,500 to repair a section of the screening wall around the Winthington parking lot.  Five months later, DPW director Byron Photiades was back asking for another $30,755.

When council asked why it was so expensive he said something about deteriorating caps, expanding rods and a park bench, but wrapped up by saying, “It may sound expensive, but it’s a really nice wall.”

It’s a really nice wall?

Just last June city council spent over $438,411 on new hardware and software to improve efficiencies. The very next month they spent another $447,930 on office furniture and carpeting one council woman (I won’t say which) thought was necessary to make city hall ADA-compliant (that cost was a relatively modest $21,500 – just 5% of the total).

But it’s really nice furniture.

According to (then) city manager Bob Bruner, the investment would save over $150,000/year in efficiencies and pay for itself in three years.

Of course, those savings didn’t show-up in the budget as expense reductions for the Financial Planning Committee to consider.  Why not?  Because the money was already “saved” when council laid-off staff earlier in the year. You can’t save the same money twice—except perhaps at Enron and Ferndale.

Well, not at Enron anymore.

Somehow, this little double-counting slipped past the Financial Planning Committee when their report commended city council for its efforts and encouraged them to keep it up.

And what, triple-count it?

Two council seats are up in November.  Anyone challenging the incumbents should publicize their ability to do math along-side their endorsements and favorite cities other than Ferndale (one of the tougher questions asked candidates for mayor last month).

If candidates avoid discussing their math skills, maybe someone in the audience at a League of Women Voters-sponsored forum can pass a simple multiplication or division problem on a 3x5 card to the candidates.

Here’s a multiple choice math problem you can write down and save for October.

“Ferndale’s proposed 5.45 millage increase was closer to a) 33% increase in city taxes, b) 10% increase in homestead property taxes,  or c) a drop in the bucket.“


Answers: a and b.  C is a quote from Galloway when he favored passing a Principle Shopping District tax in 2008, perhaps to help pay for the screening wall.

DDA Math

How about a story problem?

“If Ferndale’s DDA gets a National Park Service grant for $120,000 to help pay for 36 way-finding signs and kiosks downtown, how many previously unknown bars, salons, and stores might be discovered?”

Actually, that’s not a math question.  Some business owners suspect DDA staff are the only visitors to Ferndale that need a map, as they’ve never visited their stores.

Let’s try another.

“If Ferndale’s DDA gets a National Park Service grant for $120,000 to help pay for 36 way-finding signs and kiosks downtown, how much money did taxpayer’s save?”

With apologies to Adam Sandler’s Water Boy (1998):

“Mama say [sic] that grant money is from magic rays of sunshine that come down when you feelin' blue.”

The correct answer is it didn’t save them anything.  In fact, those way-finding signs will cost taxpayers more than $120,000 because we (the US government) borrowed $48,000 (40%) to pay for them.  And since we’re barely making interest payments on our debt, your children, grand children, and great grand children will be able to enjoy those signs, kiosks, and historical markers AND still be paying for them long after the DDA director and city council have retired.

Remember that when you pass the signs, kiosks, historical markers, and DDA members.

But the real magic is yet to come.

According to the DDA, the city of Ferndale’s $20,000 contribution toward the $262,254 spent on the signs represents an 1150% return on investment.  (Applause--really!  Don’t take my word for it.  Watch the video yourself from the January 24th council meeting.)

With all the laptop computers on city council’s table it remains a mystery why no one on city council laughed out loud or demanded an immediate audit of the DDA’s books.  Or maybe it’s not a mystery if math isn’t a core requirement for urban planning or law degrees.

Independent calculations aren’t able to duplicate the DDA’s numbers exactly, but using DDA math (not taught in Ferndale Public Schools)  if the city’s $20,000 “investment” earned an 1150% return, then the Woodward Avenue Action Association’s (WA3) $10,000 contribution earned 2300%.

If Cristina Sheppard-Decius, the DDA’s director, had pitched-in $100 of her own money hers would have been a 23,000% return.

(More applause.)

Only Bernie Madoff got those returns for his investors.  Well, not anymore.

The only return the city, WA3, and National Park Service got for their money is 36 signs and kiosks that can’t be exchanged for dollars to help balance the city budget.  The only return they got is that way-finding signs will outnumber sidewalk sandwich boards 2-1, and the DDA didn’t need to apply for a variance to the sign ordinance or pay an annual permit like downtown businesses are required to pay.

But they’re really nice signs.

A little information can cause a lot of damage

On January 21, 2011, I received an email from MoveOn.Org urging I contact my senators and congressman to express outrage over the US Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and to support an amendment to the constitution withholding free speech protections from corporations.


I was going to leave the issue alone until I read a letter-to-the-editor in the Ferndale 115.  It is too late to discourage that letter from being written, but I hope this article at least encourages people to pause before following orders sent them by email, Nigerian princes, or voices in their head.


Everyone that watched President Obama's 2010's State of the Union Address may remember the president exercising his free speech displeasure with the supreme court when he said, 

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations (like this?) –- to spend without limit in our elections.

He was referring to a similar issue (and thorn) that MoveOn.org complains about in their email.

MoveOn actually doesn't believe all corporations should be prohibited from free speech.  MoveOn.Org is itself a corporation--though a not-for-profit 501c3, and presumably wants to preserve free speech for itself.  What they must mean, then, is for-profit corporations should be prohibited from free speech, but that would include companies building green-products like wind turbines and solar panels, growing and selling organic foods, and other corporations that are in good standing with MoveOn.


So what we're left with is they must only want to prohibit free speech from corporations whose interests aren't aligned with MoveOn's and concordingly ACORN, Rainbow Push Coalition, and Common Cause--all non-profit corporations that exploit free speech for their own purposes (OK--not so much ACORN since 11/2010's bankruptcy filing).


The hypocrisy of these non-profit corporations claiming free speech should be prohibited to corporations is the subject of James Tarranto's Wall Street Journal article, Everybody Does It?  Really?

"So here we have a corporation (Common Cause) that advertises itself as a "grassroots organization" while exercising its First Amendment rights to advance the position that corporations do not have First Amendment rights, only individuals do. Some individuals, participating in the corporation's "grassroots" rally, exercise their First Amendment rights in ways that harm the corporation's image. The corporation responds by exercising its First Amendment rights to denounce those individuals for having exercised their First Amendment rights. And it does so in its capacity as a faceless corporation, by issuing a statement for which no individual--not even CEO Bob Edgar--takes responsibility."

Unfortunately, too many people don't appreciate the definitions of either "corporation" or "free speech."


Since 1975's Bigelow v. Virginia ruling, free speech includes commercial speech.    According to seven justices, commercial speech is as precious and valuable to protecting liberty as political speech.  Whether you agree with that decision or not, you can thank that court (sans justices Rehnquist and White) not for raising our appreciation of the contributions advertising has brought to humanity, but for lowering the value of Dr. Martin Luther King's "Now is the time!" to Cialis'® "When the time's right."


So does MoveOn, like Obama, want to reverse 41 years of precedent protecting corporate commercial speech, or just corporate political speech--like MoveOn's?

The day after Snyder's state-of-the-state

Rick Snyder, Michigan's freshly-minted new governor, gave his first state-of-the-date address last night.  Other pundits and politicos have picked the obvious parts.  Here's a few of ones you may hear or read less about, but may have a big impact on residents.

[You can read the entire transcript at the Detroit Free Press]

"I will present a summary of this dashboard in every State of the State address I give. It is composed of 21 different measures in five key areas. The dashboard’s designed to give you information at a glance."

Many corporations' have been using dashboards for years.  As soon as they logon to their computers, or visit their company's internal website, they're presented with charts and graphs that show how well the company in terms of customer service, production, revenue, accounts payable, daily sales outstanding, sales, and other indicators of a company's health and trends.

If true to his word, all interested Michigan residents should be anxious to see how the needles have moved at next year's state-of-the-state address.  Rather than hiding behind spin and rhetoric like so many other politicians have, Snyder is proposing to hang it all out in the open.

This is a good thing.

"...by mid-February, we will present a budget to the Legislature. This is one month ahead of the required deadline. We will present a two-year budget. Our budget will include the elimination of the job-killing Michigan business tax and replace that with a 6%...  I will ask that we strive to complete the budget process by May 31."

My father always told me to do my homework and do it early.

Chapter IX, Section 8 of Ferndale's Charter stipulates our budget must be presented by the first regular council meeting in April.  The good news is that'll be approximate six weeks after the governor will present his version of the budget, so council and the city manager will have time to incorporate any drastic changes to state revenue sharing the city may receive.  The bad news is the budget must be finalized approximately six weeks before the state legislature will approve it.

Unfortunately, our state legislature hasn't a good track-record for finishing budgets on-time.  In recent years, the legislature is still burning the midnight oil around Halloween.  Last minute changes to revenue sharing and school funding have perturbed those budgets shortly after the school year has just started.

Even better news is the budget will be a two-year budget similar to how Oakland County does theirs.  And Deputy Executive Richard Daddow said in a meeting before Ferndale's Financial Planning Committee that the county hopes to go to three-year budgets.  It is partially for this reason that the county is better able to manage its finances and maintain a AAA bond rating.

Let's hope Michigan fairs as well.

"Government reform needs to happen at all levels from townships to cities, from counties to the state, to school districts as well. We need to positively encourage our local jurisdictions, both municipal and school, to move to service consolidation and better deliver value for money. To encourage not only service sharing, but best management practices, we’ll ask that revenue sharing be redone with a significant positive incentive for jurisdictions that adopt best practice."

This is a really big paragraph and it deserves some analysis.

Prima facia, the governor is suggesting that cities and schools should consolidate their services. I can think of no other region in the state as ripe for consolidated services as our little corner of SE Oakland County.

As I wrote about last February, the nine cities and one township that make up this little corner of Oakland County could combine into a single city the size of Livonia, save approximately $9 million dollars in redundant payrolls, and have a population of 192,000.

I'm as fond of my city as the residents of other small cities are of theirs.  The question all 192,000 of us must ask is is our parochiality worth the increased taxes required to deliver services inefficiently?  Are ten city clerks necessary?  Are ten libraries necessary?  Ten managers?  Ten (ok, nine) police departments with chiefs, captains, and the rest?  How about ten city attorneys?

If you were the governor of the state of Michigan, or anyone living outside one of these ten municipalities, would you think each of them was spending their share of state revenue as wisely as a larger city may be?  Does Livonia need nine jails?  Does Troy?  True, their populations are smaller (67,000 and 81,000 respectively) than the new consolidated region, but even extrapolated for population we'd need only a little over twice what those two cities combined would need (four libraries, four jails, and slightly more community centers).

The same would go for our schools.  Instead of two partially-filled high schools unable to afford full-time teachers for slower and faster-learning students or other elective courses, there'd be one high school better-able to afford state-of-the-art equipment and the teachers that know how to use it and fewer administrators eating-up educational dollars before they even reach the classroom.

Now, we don't know what definition Mr. Snyder is using for "best practice," but we can be fairly confident it would not be to break-up any larger city into smaller pieces, or to burden any larger school district into multiple districts--each with their own school boards, administrations, administration buildings, and all the costs and higher property taxes attendant to each.

As wonderful and well managed as Ferndale may be, we wouldn't be the model for other cities.  We may be managed and funded as best we can, and should be proud of that, but are we too proud?

The governor didn't say what carrot he'd use to encourage service consolidation (which isn't the same municipal consolidation), but it's easy to think of the sticks he and the legislature may use.

Not to encourage violence or anything, but let's "beat him to the punch" and get consolidating and regionalizing and sharing on our own terms with our neighboring cities before we're forced to on someone else's (or by an even more desperate property-tax situation).

"We will present a special message on education to the Legislature in April. It’s time to start talking about B-20 instead of just K-12.  We cannot leave children behind without the tools for success in their adult lives, but we also need to encourage better and faster opportunities for children that can go farther and faster in our system."

It's difficult to imagine what the costs would be of adding up-to seven additional years of publicly-financed or subsidized eduction for all Michigan students, or to guess precisely what the governor has planned for the first five years, except that pre-school would be involved--but starting at what age?

Certainly, providing additional years of publicly-funded education would be more easily affordable inside bigger districts with more children, but Ferndale is neither large nor bursting at the seams with children.  Perhaps this kind of funding would be one of the carrots the state might use to encourage consolidation of schools.

If schools don't consolidate, then it may be that those early-education programs simply aren't available in all districts.  If Ferndale isn't one of those districts, then it's a safe bet our student population will continue to fall, and it'll be increasingly harder to attract families (or retain them) to the city.

If our district continues to lose students, then our school board will have to resort to more creative ways to afford the programs for the students it does have.  Already, the district has "diversified" its revenue through adult education and University High, with mostly "trust us" consolations to residents and state regulators when its students' below-average test scores are questioned.

Particularly interesting is the last part of the governor's sentence, ".. we also need to encourage better and faster opportunities for children that can go farther and faster in our system."  If this means more advanced and challenging curricula or making college-credit classes conveniently located on high-school campuses, then I'm all for it.  Passing grades in tougher classes from more highly-regarded school systems can only translate into greater opportunities in college admissions, scholarships, internships, and careers than are available to our best and brightest.  A better educated workforce may keep current Michigan employers from having to look elsewhere, and may entice new employers to come here.

Certainly, it is better for our K-12 or B-20 programs to prepare students for college without the need for remedial classes (which increases the cost of college) than to not.  Better to be honest about our children's academic achievement than to artificially lower-the-bar to increase their self-esteem today at the risk of their futures.  Consequently, lowering-the-bar doesn't just make our kids feel better than they should, but it makes teachers and administrators look better than they should and gives parents a false peace-of-mind.

We should be as concerned about the quality of our education as we are our food supply.  We should pay as much or more attention to the high-school syllabus as we do the ingredient labels of SpaghettiOs.

We'll visit the governor's comments on economic gardening in another article.