Downtown newsmagazine | Birmingham/Bloomfield

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APRIL 2021

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DOWNTOWN04.21

36

Suicides among the teen set rising, then came the pandemic The number of suicides among the youth of the country have been on the rise the last few years then along came the pandemic and the lockdowns that kept teens out of school and disconnected from the social life and extra curricular activities that help define them in their formative years.

LONGFORM

46

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), often referred to as factory farms, were viewed as a way to help bolster the health of the farming industry, but they provide threats for the environment.

CRIME LOCATOR

25

A recap of select categories of crime occurring in the past month in Birmingham, Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills, presented in map format.

OAKLAND CONFIDENTIAL

26

Local clerk going national; two charged for threats on officials; the Michigan Patriot Party, maybe; Epstein for governor; Lucido's call for investigation; drawing the new districts; plus more.

THE COVER

MUNICIPAL

62

Water lawsuit appealed to supreme court; township library director retires; city dining regs during pandemic; liquor licenses held up; citizen master plan feedback; township budget; bistro delayed; plus more.

Cover design: Chris Grammer.

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THE COMMUNITY HOUSE

95

The Community House President/CEO William Seklar writes about upcoming activities at the local Birmingham institution.

ENDNOTE

102

Our thoughts on the added stress local students have faced during the pandemic and our recommendations on exercising caution when it comes to spending federal stimulus money.

FACES

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Aaron Esser-Kahn Dr. Abdul El-Sayed Kiki Louya Jaclyn Goldis Diane Begin

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PUBLISHER David Hohendorf NEWS EDITOR Lisa Brody NEWS STAFF/CONTRIBUTORS Hillary Brody Anchill | Tracy Donohue | Kevin Elliott | Stacy Gittleman Austen Hohendorf | Jennifer Lovy | Jeanine Matlow | Gigi Nichols | Bill Seklar PHOTOGRAPHY/CONTRIBUTORS Esme McClear | Laurie Tennent | Chris Ward Laurie Tennent Studio ADVERTISING DIRECTOR David Hohendorf ADVERTISING SALES Mark Grablowski GRAPHICS/IT MANAGER Chris Grammer OFFICE 124 W. Maple, Birmingham MI 48009 248.792.6464 DISTRIBUTION/SUBSCRIPTIONS Mailed monthly at no charge to most homes in Birmingham, Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills.

Additional free copies distributed at high foot-traffic locations in Birmingham/Bloomfield.

For those not receiving a free mail copy, paid subscriptions are available for a $15 annual charge.

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INCOMING/READER FEEDBACK We welcome feedback on both our publication and general issues of concern in the Birmingham/Bloomfield community. The traditional “letters to the editor” in Downtown are published in our Incoming section and can include written letters or electronic communication. Opinions can be sent via e-mail to news@downtownpublications.com or mailed to Downtown Publications, 124 W. Maple Road, Birmingham MI 48009. If you are using the mail option, you must include a phone number for verification purposes.

DOWNTOWN GOALS/MISSION The personnel at Downtown newsmagazine bring a special commitment to the publishing effort, reinvesting in the local communities and working to make sure the Birmingham/Bloomfield area reaches its highest potential.

Our mission dictates that we strive each month to provide a solid news and advertising product that local residents look forward to reading. Our goal is to build a community of informed citizens through the efforts of our passionate team. We are innovators producing products that go well beyond what others offer.

Downtown newsmagazine captures life in the local communities through coverage of major municipal and school issues, personality profiles, the latest news from the business community and the all important social non-profit circuit that makes these communities unique. We also devote considerable effort each month to address major issues facing local residents through our longform story-telling efforts, further setting us apart from others competing for readers' attention.

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CRIME LOCATOR

NORTH

Map key

Sexual assault

Assault

Murder

Robbery

Breaking/entering

Larceny

Larceny from vehicle

Vehicle theft

Vandalism

Drug offenses

Arson

These are the crimes reported under select categories by police officials in Birmingham, Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills through March 18, 2021.

Placement of codes is approximate.

OAKLAND CONFIDENTIAL Oakland Confidential is a periodic column of political gossip/news, gathered both on and off-the-record by staff members at Downtown newsmagazine. We welcome possible items for this column which can be emailed to: OaklndConfidential@DowntownPublications.com.

All sources are kept strictly confidential. The gossip column can be viewed at OaklandConfidential.com where you can sign up to receive updates via email.

The 151 room Daxton Hotel opens its doors April 2021 in the affluent community of Birmingham.

The hotel is the first hotel by the local entrepreneurial Mitchell family and the latest of Aparium Hotel Group. Renowned chef Garrison Price serves as Executive Chef of the hotel’s flagship restaurant Madam. Madam features enlightened American fare, with an ever-evolving menu focusing on seasonality and the freshness emblematic of California cuisine.

Daxton Hotel features a minimalist-luxe design with close to 400 pieces of cutting-edge art curated by world-renowned Saatchi Art. The incredible portfolio of mixed media brings whimsical and energetic flair. Each guestroom will include at least two custom pieces of artwork from 160 artists representing 32 countries. The artwork crosses multiple mediums including painting, photography, collage, drawing, and sculpture of some of the best international, national, and regional artists, while local acclaimed muralist Ouizi (Louise Jones) will be creating mesmerizing design scrim headboard backdrops for the guest rooms.

Grand Opening Offer We'd like to welcome you to the newest luxury hotel in Birmingham with a special offer for our grand opening! Book your stay at the Daxton Hotel and enjoy a $40 daily dining credit to use at our restaurant Madam and overnight valet parking for one vehicle for each night you spend with us.

DAXTON HOTEL 298 S Old Woodward Ave, Birmingham, MI 48009 (248) 283-4200

daxtonhotel.com • facebook.com/daxtonhotel • @daxtomhotel.com 26

MOVIN’ ON UP: Rochester Hills Clerk Tina Barton, who ran unsuccessfully the last two cycles for Oakland County Clerk, is shucking her partisan cloak and going national. As of March 29, Barton will be the Senior Program Advisor to the Executive Director for the Election Assistance Commission, an independent U.S. government agency created by the Help America Vote Act in 2002 with a mission to improve voter experience and support election administrators. “I’ll be working on the needs of election officials across the country,” Barton said, who will work from home for the Washington D.C. BARTON agency, traveling about 25 percent of the time. Among her responsibilities will be creating best practices and helpful documents related to election procedures for state and federal regulations, media requests, and overseeing election-related work product – right up her alley. “This is an opportunity for me to have a voice on a national scale,” she said, along with about a $20,000 pay bump from her local clerk salary. “We’re seeing lots of areas where local election laws are being changed or curtailed. This gives me the opportunity to be in the mix.”

Barton said that in 2016, and since, clerks across the country were hyper-focused on foreign adversaries. “2020 was the most challenging election of my career,” she said. “We were so focused on the outside and forgot about the inside. We neglected the damage that can happen from within.” Since 2018, Barton, a Republican, has worked on state election security issues with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, and the Brennan Center for Justice, and was sent to Atlanta for a week in early 2021 to oversee the Georgia audit. “Rochester Hills was the first community in Michigan to do a risk limiting audit,” she said. Barton said she’ll miss Rochester Hills, where she worked for eight years after working in Bloomfield Township as assistant clerk – but is excited for her newest challenge. “I know where my heart is – with elections and election administrators. This allows me to do it on a national, non-partisan scale.”

DANGER ZONE: The January 6 uprising was definitely not a one-off for several Michigan politicians, as well as a jurist who made a few rulings that displeased the malcontents. Attorney general Dana Nessel has charged two men – one from Michigan, the other from Georgia – for targeting Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan), Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin (D-Rochester, Rochester Hills, northern Oakland, parts of Livingston and Ingham county), and Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens, with STABENOW threatening communications. Stabenow’s office received a voicemail the day before the mob attacked the U.S. Capital, as well as a threatening email which contained threatening remarks and vulgar language, Nessel said. Stephens received a threatening voicemail referring to “activist judges” SLOTKIN issuing rulings to help Biden win the November 3 general election through the expanded use of mail-in ballots. Slotkin’s office received a couple of threatening calls, including one to a member of her staff on January 19 that lasted over an hour which threatened violence. “I want to thank Michigan State Police, the FBI, STEPHENS Capitol Police, and Attorney General Nessel for their attention to this case and for their commitment to taking violent threats seriously. This is not the first time violent threats have been directed at me or members of my team,” Slotkin said in a release. “While I can’t

DOWNTOWN

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comment on the specifics of an ongoing case, there are two broad points that are clear: Myself and my colleagues in elected office, particularly women, are unfortunately no strangers to violent, threatening calls and comments – and it has got to stop. Not just for our safety and the safety of our staff, but for the health and functioning of our democracy. There can be no place in our system for using or threatening violence as a political tool, no matter who it comes from. We cannot allow threats to become normal.”

GOP ALTERNATIVE: Say you’ve been a Republican all your life, but even though the Grand Ol’ Party continues to trend to the right of center, it just isn’t far right enough for you. There may be some place new for you to hang your hat. Brian VanDussen of Zeeland, who was a Republican delegate and devotee, said he is now sick of the Republican Party, so he’s going to start his own – to be called the Patriot Party in Michigan. “Keeping American Great” is a goal for VanDussen and his new party. There are other efforts to form a Patriot Party in other states by folks who assert Republican officials didn’t do enough to investigate allegations about fraud – determined to be unfounded – in the 2020 presidential election, which former President Donald Trump (R) lost to President Joe Biden (D). Membership in Michigan’s American Patriot Party requires support of their platform, and a $35 donation. On their website, their platform repeatedly states their prime issue is “limiting the federal government,” as well as some interpretations of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, along with select writings of the nation’s founders – all of which emphasize the “rights of local communities over state, county and federal governments and entities.” It’s said that Trump has disavowed the new party which has yet to meet state equirements before its candidates can appear on the ballot.

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28

GOV. EPSTEIN? As Michigan Republicans search for a candidate willing to take on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2022, one may have arisen.

We’re hearing that oil heiress Lena Epstein of Bloomfield Township, who ran for the then-open 11th Congressional seat against Democrat Haley Stevens in 2018, and lost, is exploring a gubernatorial run. Epstein, runs Vesco Oil with her mother, Marjory Winkleman Epstein and sister, CEO Lilly Epstein Stotland. She recently lost her father, Donald. A domain site was procured by a proxy company in Scottsdale, Arizona – lenaepsteinforgovernor.com – EPSTEIN indicating a testing of the waters. This go-round she has a new watchdog by her side – boyfriend and former Bloomfield Hills Mayor Stuart Sherr, who got into hot water in 2018 for removing a Bloomfield Hills School Board board candidate’s signs which were allegedly blocking Epstein’s signs, he said at the time, which resulted in him pleading guilty in court to a misdemeanor and getting a “slap on the wrist” from the state’s attorney grievance committee. “If you’re going to lose, you might as well lose big,” said one top Republican honcho. “She has as much chance of winning as the Lions have of winning the Super Bowl next year.”

NO GO: Someone who won’t be giving Lena Epstein a run for her considerable dollars in the 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary is Northville’s Ronna (don’t call me Romney) McDaniel, who definitively ruled out a run for the seat her grandfather, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, held. McDaniel told Michael Patrick Shiels, radio personality and host of Michigan’s Big Show, on March 10, that “I just signed on to be Republican National Committee chair for another two years, so I’m not looking MCDANIEL to run for governor of Michigan. But I will definitely be involved in that race, because I think we need a new governor.”

DOWNTOWN

04.21

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DISCOVER COMFORT

McDaniel is credited with helping spearhead former President Donald Trump’s narrow win of Michigan in 2016, when she was Michigan GOP chair, and for her efforts has been the Republican National Committee chair since, largely working with Trump.

NEMESIS STILL: When Republican Peter Lucido left the Michigan Senate on a disgraced note, some thought he might actually fade a bit from the headlines as he focused on his newly-won role as Macomb County Prosecutor, but no such luck. For those who don’t remember, Lucido during his last year in office lost a committee chairmanship and was ordered to undergo what we would assume is sensitivity training after sexual harassment complaints were filed by three women, including Birmingham’s state Senator Mallory LUCIDO McMorrow (D-Royal Oak). His tenure in the state Senate was best characterized as an ongoing battle with Governor Gretchen Whitmer (name the issue). His place on the GOP spectrum– a loyal Trumpster. So we guess it comes as no surprise when he issued his March challenge calling for an investigation into COVID-19 fatalities in nursing homes and long-care facilities under Whitmer’s watch. It’s the latest Republican party line to undermine the incumbent governor’s standing with state citizens by somehow equating her performance early in the pandemic with the documented scandal involving New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose administration reportedly understated nursing home deaths last year to help burnish his image. One Lansing insider suggested Lucido’s harping on the issue, combined with Senate Majority Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) and his lackey crew’s battle plan, will provide some “real fireworks” in the coming months.

STAYING ON TOP: Despite her (largely Republican) detractors, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer continues to enjoy significant statewide popularity, according to recent polls, although the long winter and the public’s confinement is showing. A recent (March) EPIC-MRA poll shows Whitmer’s positive job approval has slipped, but remains in positive territory, with 52 percent of those responding giving her a positive job approval rating, and 47 percent a negative job approval rating. As for their favorable opinion of her, 49 percent had a favorable opinion of Whitmer, versus 44 percent who had a negative opinion. Seven percent refused to answer or were undecided. In September, her favorability rating was 56 percent. Statewide, Whitmer is most popular in Oakland, Wayne and Macomb counties, with a 59 percent favorability rating against a 35 percent negative approval rating. The UP? Those folks are not fans. She only had a 27 percent approval rating – and a 73 percent unfavorable rating.

REDISTRICTING ARTISTS: The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission has settled (8-5 vote) on a firm to help draw new state and congressional districts – Election Data Services, led by Kimball Brace, who some are calling the Picasso of redistricting efforts because of the convoluted district maps created at the behest of his partisan clients. The Virginia-based firm, the president of which admits has a slight Democratic leaning, will be assembling a Michigan team that includes the president of Applied Research Coordinates, considered one of the top Republican map creators. Both firms took part a decade ago in the 1991 redistricting, although the maps drawn then for their respective Democrat and GOP party clients were tossed out by the federal court, which ultimately drew up the new maps, an outcome all involved hope to avoid with the independent redistricting panel created under the 2018 voter-approved ballot issue. With that issue settled, the commission is expected to ask the Michigan Supreme Court for more time to complete their assigned task because information from the recent federal census won’t be forthcoming in time to meet constitutionally dictated deadlines on the redistricting process.

30

DOWNTOWN

04.21

FACES Aaron Esser-Kahn rowing up in Bloomfield Hills, Aaron Esser-Kahn, a Cranbrook Kingswood graduate, had an interest in science as a child that would develop as he got older and became more focused on biology and genetics.

“I was encouraged and directed by people in high school and my parents as well,” said Esser-Kahn who worked in a lab at Wayne State University while in high school as he continued to test the waters.

“It’s hard to know if you like science as far as doing it full-time until you’ve done it,” he said. After earning a BS in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, he worked at the University of California, Irvine before becoming an associate professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering in Chicago.

Esser-Kahn seems to have found his niche in the department known for its unique combination of engineering, science and immunology. “It really fit the type of research I wanted to do,” he said.

“The way my lab operates is to think about how the immune system works. We take a technical approach to examining vaccines against flu and find a new way to manipulate the immune response. We started exploring that for COVID. The pathology for the disease is very different, but from a vaccine point, they are similar.”

Their approach tends to redirect the response when you inject the vaccine and cause fewer side effects.

“You can get rid of side effects and make many conventional vaccines more effective,” he said. “As a second benefit, you can increase the antibodies so that you strengthen the protection when you focus on how to stimulate immune responses.”

In regards to research, his goal is twofold. “One is to develop a vaccine for COVID and other diseases that decrease the side effects while increasing efficacy. The result is something safer and more effective with less doses so that you can shorten the time it takes to vaccinate a population.”

During the pandemic, he has seen colleagues do amazing things in an incredible timescale. “It’s really exciting to watch from the sidelines and see the folks at the NIH (National Institutes of Health) take these ideas and accelerate them,” he said. “If your only limit was time, it’s pretty thrilling to see what human beings are really capable of delivering. They’re saving millions of lives going from the lab into the arms of millions of people every day.”

The lessons he learned early on continue to serve him well today.

“Cranbrook shaped my understanding,” he said. “I learned it was just as important to communicate ideas as it was to understand them.

That interaction has benefitted me a lot.”

What he enjoys most in his current position is being on the cusp of success. “When we repeat an experiment and we’re 95 percent certain it’s going to work, we’re going from a hunch to getting a real result,” said Esser-Kahn, who also celebrates the successes of those around him. “Equal to that is somebody from my lab getting employed in some meaningful way.”

Challenges come with the territory. “Staying on top of everything that comes at you from every different angle and trying to balance all of the different obligations in a lab can be challenging,” he said. “And consoling people when things don’t work, but making mistakes is a rite of passage. You learn a lot from the failures and what they mean.”

G

Story: Jeanine Matlow

Easter Worship Services Join us for Easter!

JOIN US! COMMUNITY EASTER EGG HUNT

Easter services and easter egg hunts, every hour on the hour!

Whoever you are, wherever you find yourself on the journey of faith,

you are welcome! christchurchcranbrook.org/easter *Masks required, social distancing enforced

470 CHURCH ROAD, BLOOMFIELD HILLS (248) 644–5210 | @CHRISTCHURCHCRANBROOK

Saturday, April 3 at 10 a.m. - Front Lawn

EASTER VIGIL CONCERT Saturday, April 3 - 7:30 p.m.

Performing live, outside, in our parking lot,

“Detroit original” Alvin Waddles, leads a gospel celebration of the promises of hope and new life.

Tune your car radio to our station and buckle-up because this will be a thrilling evening.

Easter Sunday April 4 at 9:30 a.m.

In The Parking Lot

Drive-in, park your car, tune in your radio, and be a part of the Easter celebration!

Online Services also Available Go to fumcbirmingham.org for more information.

Birmingham First 1589 West Maple Road Birmingham, MI

(248) 646-1200 www.fumcbirmingham.org

Easter Worship Services Holy Week at Kirk in the Hills We will be offering both in-person worship services* and online Worship From Home services

8:00 AM • 10:00 AM

1:00 PM

Palm Sunday in-person worship services*

Good Friday in-person worship service*

Livestreamed on our website and Facebook

Livestreamed on our website and Facebook

9:00 AM • Prerecorded Online Broadcast

7:30 PM

Streamed on our website and Facebook

A Service of Readings and Music*

11:00 AM • Radio Broadcast

Livestreamed on our website and Facebook

92.7 FM Faith Talk

8:00 AM • 10:00 AM • 12:00 PM

7:00 PM

Sanctuary in-person services*

Holy Week Musical Moment Streamed on our website and Facebook

7:00 PM Maundy Thursday in-person worship service* Sacrament of Holy Communion by personal cups & Stripping of the Altar Livestreamed on our website and Facebook

Livestreamed on our website and Facebook

9:00 AM • Prerecorded Online Broadcast Streamed on our website and Facebook

11:00 AM • Radio Broadcast 92.7 FM Faith Talk

7:00 PM • Easter Sunday Musical Moment Streamed on our website and Facebook

Register for in-person services:

Worship From Home online:

kirkinthehills.org kirk-in-the-hills.brushfire.com

kirkinthehills.org/worship/livestream facebook.com/kirkinthehills

All in-person services will be livestreamed on our website and Facebook *33% capacity—registration required for in-person services Kirk in the Hills

1340 W. Long Lake Rd. • Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302 • kirkinthehills.org • (248) 626-2515

YOUTH CRISIS TEEN SUICIDE ON THE RISE

BY LISA BRODY

D

iane Orley, now living in Birmingham, was woken up before dawn on August 26, 2013, by two police officers at her Bloomfield Township front door. Her first thought was that her son, George, 20, had been in a car accident. The day before he had packed up his car and was driving back to begin his sophomore year at the University of Michigan.

Instead, they informed her, her husband Randy, and her son Sam, then a high school student, that George had died in an apparent suicide, after he parked his vehicle along the side of I-94, exited the car, and walked into oncoming traffic. A semi tractor-trailer struck and killed him.

“He couldn't deal with life with bumps in the road,” Orley ruminated.

“Looking back, he had had surgery that took him out of college; he had diabetes at age 13, which was really hard for him to deal with. I think he was a kid who couldn't deal. And then the whole fraternity experience really beat him up and wore him down. It's what frats do with the hazing process – it breaks you. That humiliation, he was so fragile and probably broken – that was probably the beginning of the end, that humiliation and torture.”

She said that while George “wasn't super open with us,” about his struggles with mental health, and “kept his life inside,” he had come to her privately a year before that horrible day in 2013, asking to speak to her, to tell her that he had tried to take his life six months before.

“It was like an out of body experience,” she recalled, catching her completely off guard while out of town for a family celebration. “Looking back, he had had a hip surgery that took him out of college. I did see so much mania when he was recovering from hip surgery – and then of course then comes the lows. He was self-medicating,” she said, smoking a lot of marijuana, especially in the house, which she found out of character for him.

“We found him a good doctor to help – we got him into a psychotherapist, and he was diagnosed as bipolar,” she said. “It was shocking, but at least we had a diagnosis. We knew the seriousness of it but we got him on the meds.”

Orley said the mental health system was very difficult, without a lot of resources – especially since one doctor was required to prescribe medication but another was needed for talk therapy, as there are few who offer both. “I really feel for anyone going through it,” she said.

For George, medication to treat his bipolar condition “changed his personality. It flattens you. He was 'flatter,' tired. They take a lot of medication and they don't like how it feels. It turns out he did stop taking his pills two weeks before” his suicide, but they didn't know. “We did spy on him. We used to go to Ann Arbor to visit him and sneak into the bathroom and count his pills. We did everything we could. They're shutting down at that age anyway. We had zero warning signs that day,” she said, noting she had spent a “normal” day with him.

“My mantra was, 'he is out of pain,' and that is the only thing that has made me feel the slightest bit better. But it did, and it continues to this day.”

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S

adly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the leading cause of death among high school-aged youths 14-18 after unintentional injuries, based on their 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The report notes that “suicidal behavior presents a major challenge to public health in the United States and globally.

Although fatal (ie, suicide) and nonfatal (eg, suicide attempts) suicidal behaviors are a public health concern across the life span, they are of particular concern for youths and young adults 10-24 years. During 2018, a total of 48,344 persons (all ages) died from suicide, and suicide was the 10th leading cause of death overall in the Unite States, accounting for approximately 1.7 percent of all deaths. Among high school aged youths (14-18 years), 2,039 suicides occurred that year. Suicide accounted for approximately 33.9 percent, or approximately one of every three injuryrelated deaths among this age group. Between 2007 and 2019, in Michigan, there were 1,576 suicides for those between the ages 15-24, according to the CDC. “During 2009 to 2018, suicide rates among youths aged 14-18 years increased by 61.7 percent, from six to 9.7 per 100,000 population… Many more youths make suicide attempts and struggle with suicidal ideation,” the CDC tells us.

In 2018 alone, according to the report, approximately 95,000 teens visited emergency departments for self-harm injuries.

In 2019, according to the CDC study, almost 19 percent of students reported having seriously considered suicide, with the estimates highest among females, at 24 percent; white non-Hispanic students, 19 percent; students who reported having sex with persons of the same sex or with both sexes, 54 percent; and students who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, 47 percent.

Among all students, nine percent reported having attempted suicide, with females the highest estimated group, at nine percent; Black nonHispanic students, 12 percent; students who reported having sex with persons of the same sex or both sexes, 30 percent; and students who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual, 23 percent.

“The age group 14 to 24 years are particularly vulnerable,” noted professor Douglas Barnett, director of Wayne State University Psychology Training Clinic. “There are a lot of theories, notably that at that age biologically, socially and psychologically, they're seeing the world in new ways, their bodies are changing and the way they're interacting with the world, and the way the world is interacting with them, is changing. But they're still kids. All of the stresses add up. They can't always imagine improvements that in their world can change, that their parents can change – that it can all be temporary. However, the numbers are indicating they are more suicidal in the last several years. It's a very serious problem for all walks of life – not just the poor, inner city kid. It's the wealthy suburban kids too. It's an international problem from communities around the world.”

Barnett said there have always been suicides among teenagers, but often it was something people hid from others. Today, there is a greater awareness of mental illness and the need, and availability, of help. Couple that with the awareness that many psychiatric issues, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, psychosis and other mental health disorders do not develop until the late teens or early 20s, as the brain is still developing.

“Thirty years ago if a teen made a suicide attempt, they were brought to a hospital for several days or weeks. That was in the '80s or '90s, and they were getting thorough assessments of what they needed,” Barnett said. “Now, they are often released within 24 hours, with the hospital pretending nothing happened, or depending upon the parents to find the resources. One of the challenges of this age group is the need for parental support as well as the teen has to want to get help. You need both to have cooperation. Good therapists know how to work with that.”

“There is an increased awareness of suicide amongst Gen Z (ages six

to 24) – there is less stigma about talking about mental health issues. I think that's a positive,” said Alison Miller, professor of health behavior and health education, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education. “It's viewed as, 'everybody has stress at times, everybody needs help sometimes.' It's not seen as a sign of weakness. As we learn about the genetic markers of mental health like depression, there's less stigma and there's a greater ability to speak about it.”

An additional stress to teens and young adults in the last year is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has put their life on hold and placed them in isolation – a direct conflict to their biological development.

“With teens it's such an abnormal push with what they are supposed to be doing at this point in their lives. It is against their biology,” said Miller. “They're not able to reach their developmental milestones – which is autonomy. All teens are not doing as well now, even high achieving teens aren't doing well, because they can't meet their goals. They've been waiting so long, doing so much right and then there's this huge block in their way they cannot move.

“There's so much grief and isolation and trauma – and especially community level trauma which have experienced so much,” continued Miller. “It's impossible to get away from it, and a lot of those kids are taking on additional responsibility for their families – they're trying to attend school virtually while working.”

One possible reason there has been an increase in mental health issues and suicide rates from 2007 to 2018, and anecdotally during the pandemic, can relate to economic issues.

“Suicides were increasing in the '80s and early '90s, and they started down, and then started to go back up around 2007. We don't know why, but about 2007, 2008, 2009, was the Great Recession, and the suicide rate tripled among teenage girls, who were adding on lots of responsibilities and then were fielding criticism about growing up too fast,” stated Jonathan Singer, president, American Association of Suicidology and a suicide researcher. “Parents were laid off, they lost their jobs, then some lost their homes, some had to move so they lost their friendship groups. It could have translated to increased pressure and that the world is less safe.

“Then, in 2020, that same adolescent sees the world tanking again,” Singer said. “We know isolation, a sense of burden creates an increased suicide risk. It's possible for a cohort of kids, especially girls, who do not see a likelihood the world will be a stable place.”

Miller concurred. “Teens observe the economic pressure in their families, those economic uncertainties, whether food insecurities, eviction, job losses, parents who are frontline workers or essential workers,” she said. “They see that their future feels uncertain and the future of the world looks uncertain. It is hard for them to make plans.”

T

he Zoom fatigue that has become chronic among many, she said, is amplified among teens because not only are they on for hour after hour, “but they are hyper self-aware and their breaks are often on social media, which we know can be a powerful way to connect, but can also be dangerous. It can be toxic if it's stirring you up – if it's FOMO (fear of missing out). Teens are already preloading to test the boundaries, and anticipating that others have it better, with social media, it just can magnify that.”

“Pre-pandemic, I believe it (suicide) was a pandemic,” said Rebecca Vannect, professor of counseling, School of Education and Human Services, Oakland University, who spent 13 years as a public school counselor. “It was at a rampant level – even higher than many people realized. Almost every day it was something I was dealing with. You have to always take talk and a threat seriously regardless of the age, and I found a lot of minimizing by caregivers. Parents just don't know what to do.

“It's not that people don't notice at school, it's that how does the child get the mental health care that he/she/they need?” Vannect asked, noting

that Michigan has the second worst student/school counselor ratio in the country. “I had between 350 and 950 students to oversee – I would just have kids stacked up. Essentially schools are mental health waiting rooms in school offices because schools are responsible for them.”

J

ennifer Perrone, director of special education, and Margaret Schultz, director of instructional equities, Bloomfield Hills Schools, said anecdotally for the last several years their counselors, teachers and social workers have been relaying to them “an across the board uptick in mental health issues, and not just with student with IEPs (individualized education plans),” Schultz said. “It's as prevalent with students from our general population as those with previous issues.”

“In the last few years, we have seen a great increase in identification with anxiety, and anxiety and depression go hand-in-hand, and they are vying for services,” Perrone said.

The American School Counselor Association recommends no more than 250 students per school counselor. Michigan currently has no school counseling mandated for students in grades K-12, according to the association. However, in February of this year, state Rep. Felicia Brabec (D-Pittsfield) introduced House Bill 4156 to require schools in Michigan to employ one school guidance counselor for every 450 students enrolled.

The bill is currently with the House Education Committee.

School counselors are charged with providing critical guidance and support with secondary education and preparation, including skilled trades, but also on their plate is working with students to address struggles with mental health, suicide, stress and bullying.

“Our students' mental health must be a higher priority,” Brabec said.

“Students need resources available to them that can help lower the rates of depression, anxiety and suicide in our younger students and teens.

Having more school counselors available is a great first step a school can take.”

A further complication for teens and their families, Vannect said, is that once a student has indicated they need help, and parents are in the picture, navigating the mental health system “is very challenging. Many private practices are booked for weeks and can't get an emergency in. So it is left for the emergency rooms to deal with – which are only equipped to handle suicide attempts, and not the treatment or prevention of suicide.”

Vannect recalls a student she had who she felt was “imminent, and I told the parents to go directly to the hospital from school – this is an emergency. The hospital evaluated her, and she didn't have something physically wrong for them to treat, and they sent her home.

“She went home, swallowed a bottle of pills, and said to her parents, 'Can I stay there now?'”

This sad Catch-22, Vannect said, illustrates that there are few options in between day treatment programs and in-patient programs for young adults.

“The in-patient benefit is medication stabilization because it's very hard to get in with a child psychiatrist or psychologist in Michigan, to have them treat them,” Vannect said. One with 24-hours of supervision at night will provide a medical evaluation and stabilization – “and that's it. No therapy. They're given a referral. They're either waiting or given too much care. Maybe they just need to talk to somebody for a few times a week for several weeks.”

She said the ideal situation is an in-between program, where they can be hospitalized in a day treatment with group therapy and medication stabilization, and go home at night to parents' care.

Dr. Jaclyn Issner, a psychologist specializing in promoting mental health in children and adolescents, said while she has had many patients “with fleeting thoughts” or rumination, “distorted thinking where you get stuck in a dark, tough place – 'I'm horrible, I'm terrible, no one likes me, there's no purpose to my life, feeling so alone in life,' but we talk about

how feelings are fleeting and they change. We'll talk about riding the wave and riding out the storm. Thinking about reasons you do want to live.”

Since the pandemic began, she said, like other health care providers, her private practice is off the charts. “There's an increase in depression, anxiety, substance abuse. Part of it is the social isolation. For teens, they crave the social connection, which is developmentally appropriate – but now they're just at home.”

Another aspect for some teens is the loss of sports and other extracurricular activities, which for some, has been their identity.

“For an athlete, some who identifies themselves by their sport, it's a loss of part of their identity,” said Issner.

“We've heard from schools, from teams, from athletes, during the darkest of times when no sports were being played because this is a once in a generation event. It was just devastating for those when we had to cancel the entire season last spring. You have this four-year period of time – and for a lot of kids it's two years, because that's how much time they're on varsity – and they're building for this, and they suffered,” said Jeff Kimmerly, communications director, Michigan High School Athletics Association (MHSAA). While they have little concrete data, “I'm sure it took a mental toll on a lot of athletes. We hear about how much joy there is realizing now how important this is to their life – realizing how significant it is to them, and how grateful they are.”

Ironically, Kimmerly said, before the COVID-19 pandemic, as a continuation of the MHSAA's 20-year health issue initiative, which has examined heat, heart and concussion issues, it was planning a wideranging effort to look at student/athletes' mental health. It's still on the docket.

“Not playing sports or being involved in other extracurriculars, like theater, has added a tremendous amount of stress to those who relied on them for their identity,” said clinical psychologist Gretchen Marsh, who in addition to her private practice also works with Birmingham Public Schools on mental health awareness. “Now they are depressed, they are suicidal. We are seeing increased rates of suicide.”

M

arsh explained that for many who are suicidal, “suicide is not wanting to die necessarily – it's wanting to relieve the symptoms of depression or anxiety, and they want to feel better. They feel there is no other way to relive their symptoms. They can't find any other way out of it.

“Pre-pandemic, we saw this huge increase in suicide ideation and suicides between 2007 and 2018,” Marsh said. “Before that time, we saw a lot of depression, but after 2007, we saw an increase in anxiety disorders, which overtook depressive disorders. Anxiety disorders affect how you feel, with headaches, stomach aches, muscle tensions, jitters, how we think and thoughts often become irrational, highly negative and repetitive. We get these negative thoughts and we spiral, and consequently, when we get anxious we isolate, we withdraw, we get irrational, and we avoid anything that makes us anxious. In the shortterm – it works. But in the long-term, it leads to depression. With the pandemic, we were told to isolate for our physical health, but we weren't told how to cope and cultivate our mental health during a pandemic.

“For impressionable 12, 13, 18 year old girls who are on social media – they see beautiful faces, beautiful bodies, homes, perfect lives. We know teens suffer from low self-esteem and insecurity, which is all normal. But when we expose them to social media, they fall for it and that can cause terrible anxiety and depression, which can lead to increase substance abuse and depression,” Marsh continued.

For boys, she said, “they're turning into a huge gaming population.

Video games are made to be addictive, and not made to benefit kids.

They're alone in their rooms. They're isolated and becoming depressed.

For both sexes, YouTube and TikTok show a lot of inappropriate sex that

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are harming the young minds to what sex is.”

Marsh said there is a direct correlation of the increase in the use of social media and cell phones and the increase in mental health problems, as well as to the increase in academic and social pressures. “There is a parallel line,” she said. “Couple that with helicopter parents – now lawnmower parents, who move everything out of their way, and we don't allow children to fail, so they don't know how to cope with anything. That has led to anxiety and depression, which can be overlapping. Anxiety often precedes depression – and that is what we have seen with the pandemic.”

Schultz and Perrone of Bloomfield Hills Schools echo the issues they are seeing from an increase in social media exposure.

“Research shows access to technology, social media, and screen time equates to an increase in mental health issues,” Schultz said. “For example, if kids are not included in something, (because of social media) they know right away, and it's really hard on them. When we were kids, we left school, left our friendship groups, we weren't aware if other kids got together outside of school and did something and we weren't a part of it. Now they know instantly.

“It's very draining on their mental health. They have to be on all the time.”

Perrone concurred. “There's no place for them to be safe,” she explained. “They always have to be on monitoring Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok – and couple that with the expectation in this district with being one with high achievement expectations. There's this 'mom anxiety competition.'”

“Our brains function with the amygdala, which is fight or flight,” Schultz said. “If they're always on that 'fight or flight' mode, you're brain can't properly make decisions, and at that age the frontal lobe is fully developed.”

However, Singer of the American Association of Suicidology disagrees.

“At least for kids, research suggests there is no increased risk of suicide with those who have social media accounts or play violent video games,” he said. “Social media is a tool that can be used to support people or to tear them down. They can go on there and find someone who can be a support. Those kids with existing suicide risks, who watch prosuicide list serves or watch videos on how to kill themselves, there are increased risks.”

B

arnett of Wayne State University agreed, noting that “social media is an important part of the picture, and a part of the mental health picture. If they're isolating, it can help in getting them engaged in health, or if they're at a negative state, we try to get them to use positive apps, to make healthy choices and use healthier social media choices. However, the idea of hurting yourself can be contagious. But you can't cut them off from social media or their peers because it can be a way of getting them help.”

For those with suicidal ideation who have not received help, or it is still in process, “access to firearms is one of the biggest predictions of suicide completion,” said Miller of University of Michigan. “If somebody has suicidal thoughts or suicidal ideation (thinking about suicide, wanting to take your own life, and planning your suicide), they're more likely to die by suicide if they have access to a firearm because it's more lethal – and because they're home. If a teen is sad and stuck at home and feeling impulsive, if there's a delay, even by 30 seconds, if a firearm is locked up, that can make an important difference, much more than with pills or any other means.”

“Kids who have access to firearms in the home are 32 times as likely to die from suicide as any other means,” said the American Association of Suicidology's Singer. “Six percent who make a suicide attempt use a firearm – but half of the people who die of suicide use a firearm.”

Cathy Barber of Harvard School of Public Health's Injury Research

Center, said survey data shows, “Gun owners are not more suicidal, but case control studies do show that those with guns in the home have, if mental health issues are there, higher levels to try.

“Most people use pills,” she said, “and most people survive.”

More men “by far,” she said, use guns, and it is their leading method.

“With guns, it's pretty instant, unlike with other methods.”

Barber explained that most suicidal people have some level of ambivalence, “because most people don't want to go through pain. But if you're in tremendous psychic pain, where the thought is, 'I have to exit,' that kind of feeling can be a temporary feeling. Things have been terrible and there's a trigger and they want to check out. If they're using a gun and they can get themselves to pull the trigger – they can't change their mind. With pills, they might have second thoughts, they can reach out to someone or the body fights back.”

S

he said one area of work they are advocating for and working with suicide prevention and mental health professionals is to work with gun shop owners, firearm instructors and gun rights advocates, “in different ways to incorporate suicide prevention in their safety messaging. With firearms instructors, we explain they are in a position to teach awareness – if there are people fighting mental health issues, depression, bipolar, drug abuse, alcoholism, a divorce, maybe to carefully store the firearm in such a way the person at risk does not have access.”

She said they position it as a safety issue.

“What is the best way to protect the person,” she said. “We're looking at gun owners as part of the solution. For teenagers, a lot of access can be controlled by parents, and the message is lock it up, but also make sure that they don't know where the key is. If your kid is going through a really bad time – maybe it's a good idea to even get the guns out of the home for a period of time.”

She said they acknowledge that in rural areas, it's not entirely unusual for the guns to be the kids' own hunting rifle.

Although we may be rounding the corner of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading us out of isolation and back to a society of being together, there is no way to know if the young adult suicide rate will stabilize or drop. For every teen who is traumatized by being alone, there are some students who have felt comfort in being alone.

“What we have seen quite a bit are the ones we may have wanted to have had our eyes on, students who may have suffered from struggles with anxiety, depression or struggled with socialization pieces, they are choosing to stay virtual,” said Bloomfield Hills' Schools Perrone as schools return to in-person education.

“It makes sense,” noted Bloomfield Hills' Schultz. “If they're anxious, they're fearful. They're not always rational.”

One long-lasting benefit to the pandemic, will likely be the continued use of telemedicine. Miller noted it had previously “not been ready for primetime. But some kids are more accepting of telemedicine, which has become a key method.”

She also said it will continue to take a village to help each other, hence the Hear Something, Say Something program.

“Most kids will say something to someone at some point – it may be veiled and not obvious, but there has to be an awareness of red flags,” she said. “There is a big difference from a dark mood or days of dark moods. It's less of a sad mood and more of an angry mood. If there's a changed mood, a lasting mood – pay attention, ask your child if they're okay, and do they want to talk to someone.”

It could save their life.

(The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: We can all help prevent suicide.

The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.1-800-273-8255).

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Dr. Abdul El-Sayed have the unhappy circumstance of working in a number of different spaces that get a lot of attention when things are not going right,” Dr. Abdul El-Sayed describes of the varying spheres his career occupies. ElSayed, an Andover High School alum and current Ann Arbor resident, holds both a medical degree and a doctorate in public health. He rose to prominence in Michigan when he ran against now-Governor Gretchen Whitmer in the 2018 Democratic primaries on an unabashedly progressive agenda. This combination of medical and political expertise has made him a much needed voice over the past year.

“The pandemic, the election, the uprising for racial justice following the murder of George Floyd. The confluence across them is where I try to focus, so it has been a very eventful year,” says El-Sayed, who describes himself as “a physician and epidemiologist, justice advocate, and public communicator in the issues that I think we ought to be focused on in this country.”

He has become a regular commentator on CNN, especially for segments “where COVID gets political, or when we’re talking about the racial implications of our choices with respect to the pandemic.” He is also a prolific writer and podcaster, offering his unique perspectives and background to educate the public on the disparities he’s observed when it comes to access to healthcare.

El-Sayed was the youngest health director of a major city when, in 2015, he was tapped to run the city of Detroit’s. He left that post to run for governor, as his time there highlighted the racial disparities and inequities faced particularly by people of color.

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Growing up in Bloomfield Hills, where his parents still reside, he said he spent more time in Detroit than many of his peers, but not as much as he would have liked.

The city has great importance to his family, as his father came to America from Egypt “to go to Wayne State.” El-Sayed spent many summers with his grandmother in Alexandria, Egypt. She had eight children, two of whom she lost before the age of one.

“That’s a lot more in common than the circumstances that I took for granted,” El-Sayed notes, but “I didn’t have to go 15 hours to Egypt to see that. I could go 15 minutes to Detroit. That was really what drove my commitment to medicine.”

His commitment to social justice causes led him to create Southpaw Michigan, a state-level public action committee (PAC) supporting down ballot candidates with progressive platforms using the fundraising lessons he learned on his own campaign. The majority of these candidates won in the 2020 election.

But there is still much work to be done. Here in Oakland County, his hope is that we “build out together and think about Oakland County as the major metropolitan that it is rather than competing within itself. That we continue to be a leader. We were the arsenal of democracy because of our capacity to innovate. That still exists in the DNA of our region. We have to invest and stop taking it for granted.”

Story: Hillary Brody Anchill

CONTROLLING LARGE FARMS MINIMIZING CAFO IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

BY STACY GITTLEMAN

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arl Butz, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in 1973, told America’s farmers to “get big or get out,” ushering in decades of policies and incentives for the country’s agricultural industry to embrace farming at an industrial-sized scale as countless smaller family farms struggled and lost ground. According to the organization American Farmer, the United States between 1992 and 2012 lost 31 million acres of farmland to urban and suburban development.

While smaller, many family farms have been losing ground and jobs for decades, but for others, there is an area of growth in agriculture: the larger, industrial, or factory farm. Food and Water Watch estimates that there are now 25,000 factory farms in the country, accounting for 1.6 billion animals.

Anyone shopping at their local grocery store looking to get the best price on meat, dairy, or eggs should be aware that low prices come with a price to the environment.

“Everyone who eats food should care how it is raised, processed, and brought to market,” said Michigan State University Extension Environmental Management Educator Sarah Fronczak, who grew up on a Michigan hen and row crop farm and is passionate about helping farmers manage the environmental impact of their farms. “In Michigan, we are surrounded by water resources. We cannot separate farming practices from the food we consume. Without farmers, we do not have food. But we all must care about the quality of the water in the Great Lakes. It’s all intertwined.”

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ver the last 30 years, strains on the agriculture industry brought on an age of industrial farming, where animals are not fed in a pasture but for the better part of their lives are housed and fed commodity crops like corn and soy in large warehouselike confinements. Untreated waste from all of these animals, totaling up to millions of gallons a year, is stored in manmade waterways or vast holding containers until it is sprayed onto crops. When the ground becomes too saturated with nutrients like phosphorus, nitrogen, or potassium, or if manure is spread onto frozen ground or right before a soaking rain, this runoff of untreated animal waste winds up contaminating inland water tributaries, streams, rivers, and ultimately, the Great Lakes.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1976 coined the term Animal Feeding Operations, or AFOs, for this method of condensed farming, where animals are confined in an on-site building for more than 45 days per year.

When an AFO reaches an animal equivalent of 1,000 pounds of animal – which could be 1,000 beef cattle, 700 dairy cows, 2,500 swine weighing more than 55 pounds, 125,000 broiler chickens, or 82,000 laying hens or pullets – it is defined as a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, or CAFO. In the early 2000s, the EPA began to require permits of CAFOs under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) mandated by the Clean Water Act (CWA).

Whether they are classified as a CAFO or an AFO, there are nearly 300 of these industrial farms in Michigan, clustered in the lower peninsula in the thumb region around Lakes Huron, Erie, and Lake St. Clair, along the south central and southwestern coast of Lake Michigan.

The distinction between AFOs and CAFOs can be a matter of just a few cows or chickens. Unless they pollute, AFOS are not required to be regulated with an NPDES permit. However, that does not mean that livestock issues that affect surface water are not regulated. Possible violations can be reported to Michigan Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), or Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) through the Right to Farm Act. Environmentalists contend that AFOs are a tricky non-point source of contamination to nail down and say it is a critical task for EGLE to create enforcements, given that many water quality impacts in Michigan are partly caused by these sources. But farmers are looking at the bottom line.

Laura Campbell, manager for the Agricultural Ecology Department for the Michigan Farm Bureau, said CAFO owners in the state do not accept the 2020 permit – which is in the midst of litigation – because it

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“goes too far” and will put an increase of compliance costs onto farmers, including costs to transport manure to other locations.

She added that it also puts a pinch on the farming industry’s bottom line that has already been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It will be difficult to comply to the 2020 general permit’s newer nutrient maximum calculations and not spread manure in the winter. We feel these are arbitrary numbers not based on data or science.”

There is no question, though, that farming in Michigan is big business. According to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD), agriculture contributes more than $104.7 billion annually to our state's economy, with livestock and crop diversity that comes in second only to California.

Still, Campbell stresses that staying afloat for a family farm is a struggle. In the 1980s and 1990s, tight profit margins made some farmers look at their land as another commodity to sell. High-interest rates on loans for farmers put on more pressure, and more aging farmers saw less of the next generations wanting to work the land.

Eventually, she said efficiency in large-scale and concentrated farming became the best way to stay in farming.

The pandemic saw the further consolidation of the meat processing industry. Over 80 percent of the country’s meat processing industry is run by four companies: JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and National Beef.

“These companies want to process meat in high volume,” said Campbell. “If you are running a farm with a low headcount of livestock, they do not want to talk to you.

There are some farms that have found their niche marketing to the farm-to-table market and they can stay small. But the industry is telling you to have either a small, niche farm or a large commodity farm. There is not a lot of room for medium-sized farms.”

Campbell, who grew up on her family’s Ohio horse and hay farm, argues that concentrated farming has helped farmers hold onto land that their family has worked for generations. Because animals are fed a controlled diet, farmers can have better quality control of the final product, be it meat, dairy products, or eggs.

“CAFO farmers are looking for the most efficient way to use the land. On one property, they want to grow the crops for their animal feed, raise the animals for market, and then use the manure from the animals to fertilize their crops.”

Campbell said it is a farmer's primary responsibility to take care of their animals and the land so future generations of farmers – often their family members – can continue to work. And many see CAFOs as a highly efficient way to farm, protect animals from

disease, maximize an animal's nutrition intake, and efficiently bring quality meat, egg, and dairy products to market.

“Raising animals inside protects them from disease. Just because a farm is big does not mean that a farmer does not care about the welfare of the animals they raise or the land that they raise them on. It makes the best business sense to care both about the animals as well as the land.”

According to the Sierra Club, animals living on even the smallest CAFO in a day produces as much urine and feces as 16,000 humans. The big difference, the Sierra Club said, is that human waste is processed at a municipal wastewater treatment plant. CAFO waste is not treated to reduce diseasecausing pathogens, nor to remove chemicals, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, or other pollutants in the waste. Instead, it is stored untreated in storage structures or watery pits called lagoons for up to six months. Following its storage, the liquefied manure is sprayed onto farm fields for disposal. When waste from too many animals is spread on a disproportionate parcel of land, or on top of snow or frozen ground in the winter, an excess of phosphorus can enter into the waterway system.

Sierra Club Michigan Chapter State Director Gail Philbin said the organization has been monitoring activities and advocating for increased regulations on CAFOs in the state for over 20 years. Philbin said even though people may not live in the regions where CAFOs are clustered in the state, everyone should be concerned about how these factorystyle farms impact the water for recreation, fishing, and drinking water quality.

“No matter where you live in the Great Lakes, all our waters are connected,” said Philbin. “Wastewater that runs from CAFOs eventually will drain into a watershed that leads into Lake Huron and Lake Erie. You don’t have to live near a CAFO for it to impact your water quality.” hilbin and other environmentalists point to the massive toxic algal bloom in Lake Erie in 2014 that choked the drinking waters for Toledo, Ohio, as a lesson for those living in Michigan as to what can happen when phosphorus from agricultural runoff goes unchecked.

Philbin explained that in 2018, there were toxic algal blooms caused by agricultural runoff in Lake St. Clair and Saginaw Bay that were as significant as the Lake Erie algal blooms. However, the locations of those blooms did not impact drinking water supplies.

Officials with the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), which draws water from Lakes Erie, Huron, St. Clair, and the Detroit River watersheds to provide water and wastewater services to 127 municipalities in seven southeastern Michigan counties, said they do not do any studies on aquifers and

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inland waterways. GLWA said it is not concerned about algal blooms in Lake St. Clair or Lake Huron because water is drawn from deeper in the lakes and not close to the shore. GLWA is also participating in the Detroit River Watershed Project, which involves quantifying phosphorus loadings entering the watershed impacting algae growth. Partnering researchers will determine how the amounts of phosphorus in the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, and the Detroit River – all part of the Detroit River Watershed – contribute to algal blooms in Lake Erie.

In 2019, GLWA surpassed federal and state regulators’ goal of reaching a 40 percent reduction in phosphorus levels by 2025, six years ahead of its deadline. GLWA has said it has been able to reduce its phosphorus levels by approximately 60 percent in treated and discharged waters from its water resource recovery facility. It is the first treatment facility along the tributary to Lake Erie to achieve this milestone. nder Michigan’s Water Quality Monitoring Strategy, EGLE inspects the state’s watersheds on a five-year rotating basis by studying the small tributaries, streams, and rivers that lead into the watersheds. EGLE’s last comprehensive study on waters of the Saginaw River Watershed, Bay, Saginaw, and Tuscola counties was in 2014. The study identified sources of pollution that could impact the integrity of the tributaries and rivers that lead to the watershed and found “in general, agricultural and urban development within these watersheds has overwhelming effects on hydrology and water quality.”

Meaghan Gass, who works for the MSU Extension and the Michigan Sea Grant Project said that Michigan State University, the Bay County Health Department, and Saginaw Valley State University are working together to study the connectivity and quality of the waterways that start inland around farms and end up in regional watersheds.

They regularly sample the waters in surrounding counties for microbial activity and E. coli levels, especially in the summer when raised levels of E. coli and nutrients threaten to close beaches.

Gass said the shallow, warm waters of the Saginaw Bay are home to one of the world's most diverse nesting habitats for waterfowl.

Though there are indeed stressors to the water quality in these watersheds, including harmful algal blooms, Gass said there is a difference between water conditions in Lake Erie that make algal blooms there more threatening to drinking water compared to the ones that occur in the Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron.

Gass said that with this research, Michigan Sea Grant and MSU are creating weather and water condition modeling tools that can be used through a mobile app that can help farmers better predict runoff

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patterns so CAFOs can someday make quick recalculations on when – and how much – they can apply nutrients to their soil and crops.

“This is a free tool that can be used by anyone to better forecast runoff risk,” said Gass. “We hope it will be used by agricultural producers so they may use the data to be better informed on how to avoid nutrient runoff and to be better stewards of the Great Lakes.”

The issue farmers have with a lack of regulations or enforcement on CAFOs is that there is no centralized place either at the federal or state level where data is being collected on activity. The EPA in 2009 left monitoring and permitting up to the states, and state environmental agencies are stretched thin. As it stands now, there are just nine EGLE CAFO inspectors to perform routine inspections on the state’s 288 CAFOs once every five years.

That is where grassroots movements such as Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South-Central Michigan (ECCSM) have stepped in.

Group member Pam Taylor is a retired teacher and a descendant of farmers who have worked the land in Lenawee County since 1837. A believer in traditional and sustainable farming methods, Taylor is one of the leading authors of the 2017 report: A Watershed Moment, one of the first reports in the nation to create a fully digital, sortable interactive layered map and database that documents and inventories all permitted CAFOs in a single state.

The report’s digital maps account for any permit violations committed by a Michigan CAFO from 2003 through 2016.

Taylor said documentation in A Watershed Moment took a team of volunteers a year to compile working from countless state and federal documents unearthed with the help of 300 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Through her research, she learned that the state only began to thoroughly document CAFO activity in 2010. In fact, another 2019 national study on CAFOs by the National Resources Defense Council said Michigan received the lowest transparency rating, judged with criteria such as permit status, CAFO location and ownership, animal type and count and manure storage.

Taylor said within proximity of the southwest Lake Huron, Saginaw and Lake St. Clair watersheds – where millions of GLWA customers depend upon for their drinking water – many CAFOs have cropped up. This is because there is low population density, land is inexpensive and abundant and there is little that smaller townships can do from a regulatory standpoint to stop their growth.

Though many are run by families who have farmed in the area for generations, the area has attracted European agriculturalists who are buying up land and establishing CAFOs as well.

Within the Huron Valley watershed, there are 37 CAFOs with 728,949 animals producing 593,734,441 gallons of waste from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016.

From 2010 through 2016, these CAFOS were charged by the state with 67 enforcement actions. The St. Clair watershed, also a drawing source for GLWA, is host to just four CAFOs with 6,215 animals producing an average of 33,883,702 gallons of waste between 2010 and 2016. These CAFOs received 10 permit violations in that time span.

Taylor said with CAFOs receiving government subsidies and smaller dairy farmers raising their cows on pastures getting none, there is not much incentive for the larger agricultural operations to continue traditional farming methods.

“It puts the smaller, traditional farmer at a risky place,” said Taylor. “They can grow fruits and vegetables and stand to lose the farm their family had for generations, or they can go bigger and dedicate their acreage to commodity crops. From a business standpoint, it is a rational decision, but if you live downstream or enjoy the natural resources of the Great Lakes, not so much.”

In addition to polluting the water, CAFOs can also pollute the air with dozens of noxious gasses including ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, causing ailments like asthma and chronic bronchitis, according to a 2019 National Resources Defense Council report: CAFOs: What We Don’t Know is Hurting Us. The report said that the EPA provides no regulation on air pollution emissions from CAFOs, nor do they have any data quantifying how much noxious gases they emit.

However, those living around CAFOs just need to rely on their nose to know that something is not right.

On the western side of the state, former Michigan state Representative Dave Maturen (R-Kalamazoo), who lives on Indian Lake in Vicksburg, said beginning in the 1990’s, a small poultry farm across the street from his home gave way to a 1,000 hog CAFO which featured a million-gallon lagoon to contain the animal waste. Maturen said opening a window on a breezy summer night was not an option. aturen and many others in Michigan learned that local voices, petitions and a six-year process of passing a local zoning ordinance against large scale farming in Brady Township was no match for the Michigan Right to Farm Act which in 2000 was revised to pre-empt any local ordinances that tried to control the size or regulate CAFOs in their jurisdiction.

Though the hog farm is no longer there, those living around other CAFOs, and even some larger AFOs that come just under the wire of this classification, say that there is little they can do from a local level. They

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argue that the small number of inspectors assigned to oversee regulations and activities for the hundreds of CAFOs in the state are not enough and EGLE’s permit requirements do not go far enough to protect the quality of life in protecting Michiganders from air and water pollutants emanating from these farms.

“The farming industry still wants to paint the picture of a small family farm with a red barn, but some of these larger farms produce more feces in one day (that go untreated) than the city of Kalamazoo,” said Maturen, who is president of the conservation group Michigan Lakes and Streams Association. “Farmers have every right to make a living, but once they reach an industrial size, they should be subject to the same rules and regulations like any polluting industry.”

In Michigan, EGLE stands as the regulating body for CAFOs. Right now, environmentalists and those in the large-scale agriculture industry are in a dead heat about just how far the state should go in stepping up regulations as CAFO permits are revised and updated.

The 2015 EGLE CAFO permits expired in April of 2020. The 2020 permits have yet to be issued or enforced because they are being held up in court by the Michigan Farmer’s Bureau, representing state agricultural organizations including the Michigan Milk Producers Association, Michigan Pork Producers Association, Michigan Allied Poultry Industries, Dairy Farmers of America, Select Milk Producers, Foremost Farms and more than 120 individual permit holders. ob Michaels, a senior attorney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center, did extensive work on how the growth of CAFOs in the Maumee River Valley region in Ohio led to Lake Erie’s 2014 toxic algal bloom, and how this should stand as a lesson for Michigan’s regulating bodies. Most recently, he worked with a coalition of Michigan environmental organizations, including the Michigan Environmental Council, ECCSCM, Alliance of the Great Lakes, Environment Michigan, and Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, For Love of Water, Michigan League of Conservation Voters, Michigan Sierra Club, and Socially Responsible Agricultural Project to shape the new 2020 regulations in the EGLE CAFO permit, which is supposed to be revised and reissued every five years.

New stipulations in the 2020 permit call for a ban on spreading liquefied manure on frozen ground between January and March each year, as it can be the largest contributor to nutrient runoff. The new permit also calls for reducing the percentage of nutrients that can be calculated into a CAFO’s comprehensive nutrient management plan. The 2020 permit also calls for planting a 35-foot-wide vegetative buffer between waterway embankments as well as having a 100-foot easement between waterways and where

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manure is spread on crops to minimize agricultural runoff.

“The amount of animal waste produced at CAFOS poses a big threat to our water sources,” said Michaels. “The EPA has had such a success over the decades in cleaning up our country’s waterways from other industries. While we are pleased that EGLE added our suggestions (to end wintertime manure spreading on frozen ground), there are no hard and fast penalizations for non-point sources of pollution like the kind caused by agricultural runoff. EGLE needs to go much farther considering the threat they pose.”

Michaels said there are no “hard and fast caps against agricultural waste.”

“The best solution we see is to put a cap on the amount of waste that can be spread onto the land. We have found that many of the crops and the soil they are planted in cannot hold any more phosphorus. CAFOs need to expand their land base as well as invest in waste treatment technologies. History shows us that when proper regulatory functions go into place, the market will create a product or technology, and ultimately jobs, to meet compliance standards.”

EGLE spokesperson Nick Assendelft said while the 2020 permit is in litigation, Michigan CAFOs still need to adhere to 2015 permits.

CAFO permits contain requirements for design, operation, and maintenance of manure storage structures, land application requirements, and a requirement to develop and submit a nutrient management plan that is expected to be adhered to for the life of the permit. Every time a farmer applies manure to their property, they must document the amount and the weather conditions of that day.

“EGLE is determining a CAFO’s compliance or non-compliance by the 2015 general permit until a new permit is in place,” said Assendelft. “EGLE staff responds to any complaints and discharges and performs one full onsite inspection every five years. They also perform cursory inspections in that same five-year period. CAFOs are required to file annual reports by April 1 of each year, which staff reviews. EGLE is following its normal procedures in making sure permit holders adhere to the current rules.”

Recognizing the environmental degradation of CAFOs, some in Congress, like Sens.

Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Corey Booker (D-NJ), are going out on a limb against the agriculture lobby and calling for a phasing out of CAFOs by 2040, according to the Pew Research Institute.

But in Michigan, environmentalists and researchers – many of them with family roots in agriculture – are trying to provide CAFOs solutions to best manage their farm’s environmental impact.

When thinking about larger versus smaller farms and their environmental impact, Fronczak of the MSU Extension cautions that just because a farm is smaller does not mean

that they cannot harm a watershed. In fact, she said that size does not matter just so long as the farmer manages the farm in an environmentally conscious way. ronczak points to the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program as a national model for providing outreach and education to farmers on how to best adapt sustainability practices to their industry. Administered by MDARD, the program helps farms of all sizes and all commodities voluntarily prevent or minimize agricultural pollution risks. It has verified over 5,000 Michigan farms that have earned certifications for farmstead, cropping, livestock, and forest and wetland stewardship.

“Farms are a business, and like any business, they should be taking responsibility for their waste, care of their animals and care of the land entrusted to them.”

Some high-tech solutions that MSU has researched, developed, and put into production to lessen the impact of animal waste are anaerobic digesters. Anaerobic digesters can process large amounts of animal and food waste and turn them into fuel by capturing some of the gas emissions from animal waste. Since 2013, the anaerobic digester at MSU each year processes about 17,000 tons of organic waste from MSU and the greater Lansing area per year as feedstock to produce biogas to generate over 2.8 million kWh of electricity per year. The system is fed by the dairy manure from the MSU Dairy Teaching and Research Center, food waste from several campus dining halls, fruit and vegetable waste from the Meijer Distribution Center in Lansing, and fats, oil, and grease from local restaurants and provides enough energy to fuel several buildings at MSU’s south campus.

But the cost of digesters is steep – at an average of $5 million – and they are not foolproof. In 2018, a CAFO in Barry County using a digester had a malfunction causing a manure runoff spill of between 5,000 and 10,000 gallons.

ECCSCM member Taylor said farming cannot "high-tech" its way out of the problem of excessive manure production with things like anaerobic digesters.

“For 20 years, we have seen every kind of newfangled system digesters and other technologies come and go,” said Taylor.

“They are just too expensive and only create more problems. If a farm must exist as a CAFO, there must be regulations that the waste is treated just like human waste is treated. The government has its finger on the scale weighing very much in favor of larger farms. We try as much as possible to advocate for more sustainable farming practices. You cannot 'technofix' your way out of the amount of nutrients that run off from CAFOs which cause harm to wildlife populations, close our beaches and threaten our air and water resources."

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FACES Kiki Louya hen Detroit native Kiki Louya returned home to Detroit about seven years ago, she was excited to be closer to family and to focus on her interconnected passions of food, people, and community.

Her food journey began early in life and included working as a teenager at Lone Star Coffeehouse in Birmingham. It was there that she met her husband, who worked at the Birmingham Theater next door. They now live in her childhood home in the Rosedale Park neighborhood in northwest Detroit.

During the years she was away, Louya lived in New York, often finding ways to work in the food industry outside her regular 9-to-5 job. “I was tired of living a lie…I was drawn to mission-driven work and would come alive when working with food, people and communities,” she said. This realization pushed Louya to fully pursue a career in the food industry by attending Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago.

In addition to her educational experiences at Cass Technical High School, University of Michigan, and Le Cordon Bleu, Louya attended The Roeper School during elementary and middle school years. She makes the connection that the school’s warm, welcoming environment, emphasis on individuality, and “everyone matters” philosophy helped shape her worldview into adulthood.

“My passion is people. Connecting people. Finding ways to let people’s voices be heard. I have a strong sense of justice…it forms much of my work.”

Since moving back to Detroit, Louya has accomplished much on the local food scene toward promoting sustainability along the food chain and using food to improve people’s lives. She was a founding partner in the innovative restaurant concepts of Folk and The Farmer’s Hand, and cofounded the women-owned hospitality group Nest Egg, which allowed shared resources, efficiencies, and collaboration across multiple restaurant brands. She has also been involved in the growing urban farming movement.

According to Louya, sustainability in the food industry not only involves sourcing local agriculture but also ethical business practices and fair treatment of people – such as paying farmers more and offering employees flexible hours as well as better working conditions and pay. “It is of utmost importance to look at sustainability at every level and include community, waitstaff and farmers,” she said.

At the beginning of 2020, Louya decided to leave Nest Egg to “thread all my concepts together” and better use her voice for advocacy. She now focuses on her work as a chef, restaurant consultant and food activist – and soon will be seen on Bravo TV’s show “Top Chef” as a competing chef.

When Louya was approached to be on Top Chef about a year ago, she had recently stepped away from restaurant ownership which she considers “serendipitous” timing since her previous responsibilities would have prevented her from appearing on the show.

While Top Chef revolves around competition, Louya highlighted the learning, camaraderie, and lasting support network she gained. “Ultimately, the experience was so rewarding. I came away with fourteen friends.”

Louya describes her experience in Portland, Oregon, where the show was filmed as, “Enlightening, eye-opening…It reinforced the work I do in sustainability, food, and people.”

What’s next for Kiki Louya will partially play out on the eighteenth season of Top Chef, which is scheduled to premiere on Bravo TV on April 1, 2021. Find out by following at kikilouya.com and instagram.com/kiki_louya.

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Story: Tracy Donohue

Photo: David Moir/Bravo

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Planning board holds off on new bistro

MUNICIPAL

By Kevin Elliott

irmingham Planning Board members on Wednesday, February 24, delayed taking action on a site plan and special land use request for the Vinewood Bistro, proposed at 720 N. Old Woodward along the Rouge River.

Vinewood Kitchen and Cocktails was selected in October by the city commission as one of five bistro applications to move forward to contend for one of the two bistro licenses approved for 2021. During the selection process, Vinewood Kitchen and Cocktails was described as a modern casual American restaurant with a “modern meets rustic” interior ambiance.

The proposal presented is unique in that it proposes an outdoor dining area in the rear of the building that would allow for views of the river. Due to the existing grade on site, the lower level of the building is visible above grade at the rear of the building. It’s there where an outdoor dining patio, or a winter garden, would be constructed, if approved.

Designed by Birmingham architecture firm Ron & Roman, the winter garden would include a 38-seat outdoor patio and a 26-seat semi-outdoor winter garden, for a total of 64 seats.

City planner Nicholas Dupuis said while the winter garden is technically located outdoors, it doesn’t appear to meet the conditions entirely, in that the 26-seat area would be almost entirely enclosed.

“Although the space is indeed open to the air, it would likely not be as harshly effected by some of the more tolerable months during the outdoor dining season,” Dupuis said. “Furthermore, enforcement of the permitted outdoor dining season (April-October) would be difficult due to the patio and winter garden’s placement at the rear and lower level of the building, which is not at all visible from the street, and may not even be evident from any vantage point in Parking Lot 6.”

Under the bistro ordinance requirements, “outdoor dining must be provided, weather permitting, along an adjacent street or passage during the months of May through October each year. Outdoor dining is not permitted past 12 a.m. If there is not sufficient space to permit such dining on a sidewalk adjacent ot the bistro, an elevated, ADA complaint, enclosed platform must be erected on the street adjacent to the bistro to create an outdoor dining area” and that “enclosures facilitating year-round dining outdoors are not permitted.”

Roman Bonislawski, of Ron and Roman, said the idea was to meet the spirit of the bistro ordinance in a unique space. Further, he said the winter garden portion isn’t intended to add additional indoor dining, but rather “weather permitted” dining.

If approved, outdoor dining beyond the prescribed season would require an additional outdoor dining permit, and require the business to move all outdoor tables and chairs inside each evening.

The planning board also heard from three residents on Brookside, across from the river stream, who all opposed the bistro location.

Resident Kristen Tait showed board members the view of the current building at night from her home office, which would be clearly illuminated and be visible from her home.

“I can read license plates and hear conversations from here,” she said.

“We’ve also lost trees and can see straight into the parking lot. I can see straight into The Pearl (apartment building) now, so that will be interesting when it opens.”

Rob Kamenec, who also lives on Brookside, agreed, saying the noise has become obtrusive.

“Slowly but surely, this neighborhood is being squeezed out by noise,” he said.

While board members praised the design and concept of the bistro, they questioned if it met the bistro ordinance and would be a problematic location. Further, they indicated the proposed hours of operation, which were given verbally during the meeting, would need to be scaled back, as it would be open as late as 1 a.m. most nights.

“Is this the best place to put our best bistro?” questioned member Bert Koseck. “I think not.

“The premise of a bistro is to see and be seen, to look out and see activity with no more than 65 people, and when it’s nice it sprawls out onto the front. This has no visibility in the front. It reminds me of Edison’s a little, which is cool. The activity sprawls out to the rear. If I lived there, I would be concerned.”

The board unanimously approved postponing any action until April 14, during the board’s scheduled workshop that evening.

B

Water suit may go to supreme court

By Lisa Brody

Following a reversal of an Oakland County Circuit Court judgment of more than $9 million against Bloomfield Township, and a judgment in favor of the township by a three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals in the case of Jamila Youmans v Charter Township of Bloomfield, Youmans has filed notice to appeal the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Rodger Young, attorney representing Bloomfield Township, said he was notified recently that the plaintiff had filed notice of appeal within the window to appeal the decision by the Michigan Court of Appeals. “We're filing our response to the plaintiff's appeal. We do not need to have it in for a couple of weeks yet,” he said.

Young said the Michigan Supreme Court “takes very, very few cases. If they take it, the whole court (seven justices) would hear it.”

He said they would not know if the court chooses to hear the case for several weeks to a few months. If it is heard before the Michigan Supreme Court, a decision would not be rendered until late 2021, at the earliest, he said.

A class action lawsuit against Bloomfield Township had been filed in April 2016 by the law firm Hanley Kickham, which has been largely successful suing municipalities for excessive water and sewer fees, asserting there is an effort on the part of the municipalities to raise revenue in violation of the Headlee amendment. Bloomfield Township residents who had paid the township for water and sewer services since March 31, 2010, had been included in the Oakland County Circuit County suit which challenged the township's imposition of water and sewer charges as a tax in excess of rates imposed by Southeast Oakland County Water Authority (SOCWA). SOCWA resells water to Bloomfield Township from the city of Detroit, and the Oakland County Water Resources Commission, which provides sewer services for the township.

The case was tried before Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Dan O'Brien for the full month of February 2018. There were seven issues under contention in the lawsuit. A previous portion of the class action lawsuit had been awarded to the plaintiffs, in the amount of $3.8 million, in September 2018, and appealed by Bloomfield Township.

In addition, O'Brien awarded $5.4 million in damages in two parts of a class action suit against Bloomfield Township, determining the township should not have been integrating water loss costs into operations, as well as deciding that the township had overcharged sewer customers.

O'Brien also awarded the plaintiffs almost $2.2 million over the township's methodology of sewer and water collection, determining they had overestimated sewer flow and therefore were collecting all the revenue needed from water and sewer customers, and additional revenue from sewer customers was excess.

Young said Bloomfield Township's reversal at the court of appeals “makes our case very strong. For one thing, they have decided to publish it. It means the case can be uniformly cited.

It drives a stake in the ground as to what the law is in this area as of now.”

Also noteworthy, Young said, is that the opinion was 38-pages long, and all three court of appeals judges agreed.

“That is very important when the (Michigan) Supreme Court assesses a Court of Appeals decision.”

As to the efforts by law firm Hanley Kickham, which has found plaintiffs living in municipalities to be representative for a class action law suit, Young said, “This has got to stop.

It costs these communities in defending these lawsuits or in settling.

The law is clear in attacking a municipality's water and sewer rates, you need to assess all the line items in the water and sewer budget in order to do a viable model. What the plaintiff has done here, and in other lawsuits, is cherry pick a few line items rather than do an analysis of the entire budget.”

City regulations for parking, dining eased

By Kevin Elliott

Waived permit parking fees and extended off-season, outdoor dining standards for Birmingham restaurants were extended on Monday, March 8, by city commissioners in an effort to offer relief to local businesses.

In April 2020, Birmingham city commissioners agreed to several measures to provide financial relief to businesses in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those measures included waiving fees for temporary signage permits; free on-street parking and in parking structures; waived liquor license renewal fees; waived fees for pet licenses and other measures.

The commission in January

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extended most of the April provisions, with the exception of on-street parking, which is no longer free. They continued to waive fees for monthly permit parking holders and fees for public parking structures, as well as a continuation of off-season outdoor dining standards. Those standards allow for igloos, tents and other items to facilitate outdoor dining and restaurants limited to now 50 percent capacity indoors.

With the three measures set to expire at the end of March, city commissioners voted 5-2 to extend the measures until July 31.

Commissioners Clinton Baller and Brad Host voted against the measures.

Baller said he supported extending dining standards, but not passing up parking revenue.

“We are talking about forgoing, more or less, another million dollars in revenue,” Baller said. “We are also making zero progress on the long-term problem of parking permits and the waiting list on the permits.

“The way I see vaccinations progressing and opening up coming, I think we are going to be wide open by July 1, and it’s just not necessary to forgo that revenue and to put off dealing with the problem of permits.”

Many offices in Birmingham and elsewhere remain vacant in the face of a state executive order that requires businesses to allow employees to work remotely if a job can be performed virtually, so parking structures are only being used to about 35 percent of capacity.

Commissioner Rackeline Hoff questioned whether the outdoor dining standards should be extended to July 1, rather than July 31, in order to discourage plastic enclosures during summer months.

John Henke, a Birmingham attorney who represents several restaurants in the city, said the measures should be extended into 2022.

“With all due respect to commissioner Baller, I don’t think that on July 1 the entire state of Michigan is going to be re-opened, and suddenly we are going to be back to a pre-COVID situation across the board,” Henke said.

Henke also said a number of other nearby communities have already extended social districts and COVID dining provisions into 2022.

“I believe it’s a bit short-sighted to cut this off at June 30, because the science and data don’t suggest that these restaurants will have recovered

by July 1 from what has happened in the last year and a month,” he said.

“We need to protect those restaurants, 64

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and to do so means extending this further than the current proposal. You need to extend this into fall or into 2022 to have them recover what they lost last year.

“To try and get these restaurants to now go through a complete permitting process, again – which means not only planning, fire department, police and engineering – and then deal with the liquor control commission for resizing puts a tremendous burden on these restaurants.”

Township providing restaurants with relief Bloomfield Township Supervisor Dani Walsh updated the township board about efforts to provide restaurants with an Oakland County relief grant program at the board meeting on Monday, February 22.

“It's to help those bars and restaurants that were truly impacted,” by the COVID-19 pandemic, Walsh explained.

A total of $61,000 is available to Bloomfield Township. Walsh said that no more than $5,000 would be allocated to any one establishment because so many are in need.

This is for the second phase of the grant application of a grant program from Oakland County to support dinein restaurants, bars and cafes during COVID-19. “The Oakland Together Restaurant Relief Grant Program for Cities, Villages and Townships (CVTs) is using $3 million from the county’s General Fund – as approved by Oakland County Executive David Coulter and the Oakland County Board of Commissioners – to support dine-in restaurants, bars and cafes impacted by COVID-19 and the related public health orders.”

Walsh said the township did not work on the first phase, but this phase will help establishments with costs associated with creating and expanding outdoor dining opportunities by adapting operations for outdoor service; and providing products, supplies and services to assist dine-in restaurants, bars and cafes in operating safety and reopening.

Among the costs the county will reimburse establishments for are outdoor propane heaters, propane tank refills and delivery, Snap & Grow brand greenhouses, igloos and domes, electrostatic sprayers and disinfectant solution, along with some labor costs.

Email inquiries can be made to restaurantrelief@oakgov.com.

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11 liquor licenses withheld for violations

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Birmingham city commissioners held off renewing 11 liquor licenses in the city on Monday, February 22, in order to clear up ordinance violations or tax bills owed to the city by license holders.

The commission annually holds liquor license renewals for the 36 establishments in the city that are licensed to serve liquor. City code requires those establishments to be inspected annually for any outstanding violations. The commission also uses the inspections to settle any outstanding debts owed to the city.

Commissioners held off on approving 11 of the 36 liquor licenses, instead opting to hold public hearings on March 22 for each of the dozen businesses. Violations or arrangements for a payment plan can be made prior to the public hearing date, which would guarantee the license renewal.

The 11 establishments originally scheduled for public hearings and the violations are: Birmingham Sushi for a violation related to its unapproved outdoor seating deck; Hazel, Ravines & Downtown, which has an outstanding debt of $321.69 for July 2020 taxes; Hyde Park for an outstanding debt of $5,011; Mad Hatter, for an outstanding debt $6,891 for July 2020 taxes.; Pernoi for unapproved use of isinglass in its outdoor dining; Social Kitchen for an outstanding debt of $46.43 for July 2020 taxes; Tallulah Wine Bar and Bistro for an outstanding debt of $463; The Townsend Hotel for an outstanding debt of $4,172 for a sidewalk invoice; Vinotecca, which has closed, for an unspecified amount of outstanding tax due; and Rojo/Sidecar, for more than $34,000 in outstanding debt, including $20,114 in delinquent water bills.

The Community House, which had an outstanding debt of $2,086.50 from a sidewalk invoice, notified the city after the meeting that it had never received a bill for the sidewalk work.

The city presented The Community House with a bill which was then paid in a matter of hours, according to officials with the institution.

Kelly Allen, attorney for Sidecar, said the both Sidecar and Rojo are closed and the liquor licenses are currently in escrow. A new Sidecar business under a new LLC is a separate business owned by restauranteur Steve Simon, which

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has opened in the former Mitchell’s Fish market site, 117 Willits, and operates under a different license.

The Rojo/Sidecar license has reverted to the landlord of the building, James Esshaki.

Allen said both locations were subleased from the former Max & Erma’s restaurant, which filed for bankruptcy, effectively terminating the leases held by Simon. The restaurants were forced to close in March of 2020.

“There’s a payment plan there and we are trying to determine the taxes,” she said. “They will get paid when we determine who owes them.”

Commissioners also took the annual license renewals as an opportunity to review building inspections and contacts with police at each of the establishments.

While some businesses had more interaction with authorities than others, Birmingham Police Chief Mark Clemence said it’s most common when servers are forced to stop serving customers.

“They have appropriate security and overall, they are running a good operation and have no problem with what they are doing,” Clemence said about 220 Restaurant, which had the most calls for police. “We usually get called when a customer gets cut off and is upset about it.”

Public helps shape city 2040 Master Plan

By Kevin Elliott

More than 300 online comments and input from nearly a dozen public meetings over the course of the past two years will be used to shape the second draft of Birmingham’s 2040 Master Plan.

The long-range planning document serves as a citywide plan coordinating area-specific plans, such as the Triangle or Rail districts, and topic-based plans, including parking or multi-modal, and provide an opportunity to re-evaluate recommendations. The first draft of the plan includes proposed future policies and actions to be undertaken by the city.

Birmingham city commissioners affirmed the remaining steps of the plan in a resolution at their meeting on Monday, March 8, and set forth the direction for the second draft.

Specifically, the resolution set out the key themes and objectives of the 2040 Plan: to connect the city; embrace managed growth; retain neighborhood quality; invest in civic spaces and programs; support mixed04.21

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Mueller retiring as township library director

By Lisa Brody

n Thursday, March 11, Bloomfield Township Public Library Director Carol Mueller announced that she will be retiring from her position effective May 1, 2021.

Mueller, in her announcement, stated that as of this month, she is completing 43 years in the library profession.

“These last twelve years at Bloomfield Township Public Library have been the highlight of my career. However, the time has come for me to turn over the leadership of this library to a new director, and I will be retiring from my position as library director of Bloomfield Township Public Library effective May 1, 2021,” Mueller said.

Mueller informed the library's board at their regular meeting on December 15, 2020, of her decision, and board President Judy Lindstrom read her letter to the board, which stated in part, “Libraries have always been an important part of my life. As a young girl, I volunteered in both my elementary and middle school’s libraries, and continued working at libraries throughout my college years. When I was hired for my first professional librarian position at the Southfield Public Library, it was a dream come true. Twelve years ago, I had the wonderful privilege of joining the fantastic team at the Bloomfield Township Public Library, which was another dream come true!”

The board began a formal search for a new director in January, and will be interviewing library director finalist candidates Tuesday, March 30. Interviews will be conducted virtually and are open to the public, with a schedule of times and candidate names upcoming that will be posted at btpl.org. The library board hopes to have a new director in place by May 3, 2021.

“There is something special about the Bloomfield Township Public Library. I believe it’s the people that are connected to this library that makes this true – the dedicated trustees, amazing Friends (of the Library) and volunteers, and exceptional library staff. I have been so fortunate to work with each and every one of you, and am grateful to have been a part of the library’s proud history,” Mueller said. “I wish all of you the very best in your future endeavors and look forward to hearing about the new ways you make Bloomfield Township Public Library ‘the place to discover.’”

“Mueller said, this March 2021, I will be completing 43 years in the library profession. These last twelve years at Bloomfield Township Public Library have been the highlight of my career. However, the time has come for me to turn over the leadership of this Library to a new Director, and I will be retiring from my position as Library Director of Bloomfield Township Public Library effective May 1, 2021.

“There is something special about the Bloomfield Township Public Library. I believe it’s the people that are connected to this Library that makes this true – the dedicated Trustees, amazing Friends and volunteers, and exceptional library staff. I have been so fortunate to work with each and every one of you, and am grateful to have been a part of the Library’s proud history. I wish all of you the very best in your future endeavors and look forward to hearing about the new ways you make Bloomfield Township Public Library ‘the place to discover.’”

The Library Board began its formal search process for a new Director in January 2021, and will be interviewing Library Director finalist candidates Tuesday, March 30. Interviews will be conducted virtually and are open to the public, with a schedule of times and candidate names forthcoming that will be posted at www.btpl.org. The Library Board plans to have a new Library Director in place by May 3, 2021.

O

used areas; and advance sustainability practices. The resolution further affirms the remaining process, from the first draft through the final draft of the plan.

The city commission unanimously approved the resolution.

Under the direction of the commission’s resolution, the city’s planning board will continue to review and solicit input on the first draft of the 2040 Plan, which began on Wednesday, March 10, with planning consultants with DPZ CoDesign who summarized years of public comment received during the planning process in a report to be forwarded to city commissioners. The commission will then recommend changes to the first draft. Using that input, as well as subsequent public comment, DPZ will then prepare a second draft of the 2040 Plan in May. The process requires up to four public meetings to review the second draft of the 2040 Plan, as well as a joint meeting with commissioners and planning board members. A final draft will then be prepared, which will be distributed to adjoining communities, as required by state law. The planning board and city commission will then hold public hearings on the final draft of the plan, with commissioners making the final decision on adoption.

Matthew Lambert, planning consultant with DPZ, said the planning team received about 320 individual public comments through the project website and via email.

Public input was also collected during 11 public meetings. Additional feedback was collected in a survey following the release of the first draft, with 210 responses and 142 comments in the open-ended questions.

“Some public comment has clearly expressed concern that changes have not yet been made,” Lambert said.

“We are now completing the initial review to collect input. It has been quite lengthy, bur that has also allowed greater detail in review. Once the initial review is complete, the second draft will be written, reflecting the input received.”

In his report, Lambert summarized general direction provided by the board, as well as specific direction to mixed-use districts and neighborhoods.

The report reflected the community’s overwhelming opposition to the “neighborhood seams” approach, which they felt took too many bold changes in regard to housing density on the edge of single family neighborhoods. “Seams

should be significantly reduced in location, intensity and building types allowed, and be thoughtfully located in the limited areas where they may be appropriate.”

The planning board at its workshop approved forwarding the summary to the city commission, along with comments from the meeting for review and input into the second draft.

Planning board chair Scott Clein reminded participants that the city anticipates 2,000 new residents occupying as many as 1,000 new homes by 2040.

“I’ve heard a number of comments and again here tonight about this needs to be a plan for the people who are here and paid now,” Clein said.

“The only comment I’ll make is one to get you to think.

“This is a plan for 2040. In 2040 – without being too dark – there are a number of members on this (Zoom) call who will not be here. In fact, there are a number of people who do not live in this community that will not only be members of this community, but they may be members of this board or the city commission. As we sit here and talk about a master plan, we are talking about 22 years from now, so we need to balance what is best for those here now with what is best for this community in the future, knowing that our population is going to change. And, quite frankly, that’s a good thing.”

Township approves $33.5 million budget

By Lisa Brody

Bloomfield Township trustees unanimously approved the 20212022 fiscal year budget, estimated at $33.5 million for all budgeted funds, at their meeting on Monday, March 8.

The 2021-2022 budget represents a 3.6 percent increase from the 20202021 budget.

Assumptions in the budget, according to finance director Jason Theis, include a 3.3 increase in taxable value, but Headlee rollbacks will cause a net revenue effect of 2.3 percent. State revenue sharing is estimated to be consistent with the 2020-2021 budget year.

An impact to revenues from the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to be felt, with only a partial recovery of some revenues anticipated, such as from passports, EMS, 48th District Court, and other areas, Theis said.

There could also be a decrease to

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some investment earnings due to market volatility.

Revenue to the general fund is expected to include $9.2 million in property taxes; $5 million in transfers from other funds; $3.7 million in state revenue sharing; $1.25 million in rent; and $1.125 million in licenses, permits and fees.

Increases in expenditures include a two-percent increase to full-time wages. Salaries and wages are estimated at $3.6 million. Other key expenditures in the general fund are $12.3 million in transfers to other funds; $1.6 million in rent; and $851,390 in life and health insurance payments.

The public safety fund budget is estimated at $36.3 million. The road fund is estimated at $5.2 million.

Senior services is at $1.8 million. The safety path fund is estimated at $3.3 million. Each have their own dedicated millages which provide funding.

Estimated township millage for 2021

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Bloomfield Township Assessor Darrin Kraatz presented the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees with the estimated millage and revenue for the 2021 budget at their meeting on Monday, March 8, with an estimated reduction of the millage projected at .9910, for a total of 9.2350 mills.

Kraatz explained they will not know what the exact millage rate will be for 2021 until the township's board of review completes all tax reviews later in March. However, “We're leveraging more tax revenue this year than last year,” he said.

According to the township's millage reduction fraction calculation worksheet, 2020's taxable value was $4,091,548,158; total taxable value for 2021 based on state equalized value (SEV) is expected to be $4,232,574,320.

Kraatz said Headlee rollbacks will be used in determining the final millage rate. The Headlee Tax Limitation Amendment mandates that municipalites can only collect a maximum of five percent increase each year or no more than the rate of inflation, which ever is less. The current maximum allowable rate is 9.3631 mills.

Poverty exemption extends to city Originally penned as Senate Bill 1234, an amendment to the state’s law regarding poverty exemptions for DOWNTOWN

local property taxes was amended last year and executed at the local level on Monday, March 8, by the Birmingham City Commission.

Under the state’s general property tax law, owners of principal residences can file a claim seeking a poverty exemption for some or all of the property taxes due. Claims must be filed with the local supervisor or board of review. Under the amended law, a principal residence that was exempt in 2019 or 2020, or both, would remain exempt in 2021, 2022 and 2023 without subsequent reapplication as long as the eligible person’s ownership and occupancy were unchanged.

Birmingham Deputy Treasurer Jack Todd said the city does provide hardship applications for residents; however, he said the change has no fiscal impact on the city.

“The city averages less than 10 applications per year and most of the applications are recurring,” he said.

The changes do require the city to adopt a resolution with appropriate changes to its policy to comply with the new law.

Commissioners unanimously passed the resolution.

RCOC to continue to maintain streets An agreement for 2021-2022 between Bloomfield Township and Road Commission of Oakland County (RCOC) to have RCOC continue to provide maintenance and preservation work to the township's local roads and subdivision streets was unanimously approved at the board of trustees meeting on Monday, February 22.

Noah Mehalski, township director of public works, explained the maintenance contract is 16 percent of the township's budget. It will increase by two percent, from $726,879.30 to $741,416.89, for the next fiscal year.

Among the maintenance and preservation work the RCOC performs for the road department of Bloomfield Township is crack sealing, concrete replacement, pothole patching, sawing of pavement, routing, plant mix patching, gravel surface patch, reshaping of gravel surface, emergency drain clean out, swath mow out, winter snow and ice removal.

Trustees voted 6-0, with Michael Schostak not in attendance.

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City approves plans for second All Seasons

By Kevin Elliott 202 0-2 021

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Bloomfield Township BLOOMFIE LD HILLS HIGH SCHO Lettered in OL Football, Baske Student Coun tball (captain), Field cil, schoo l newspaper and Track, Takes speci . al pride in having helpe student news d redesign paper and our being part newspaper of team that twice monthly awards in student public won ation comp national Taking next etition. year off to travel addressing climate chang and work with a non-profit e in east coast of Accepted America. for entrance to NYU in fall of 2022 semester.

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Plans for a second senior living complex near Elm and Maple were approved on Monday, March 8, by the Birmingham City Commission, making the way for 25 new apartments under the All Seasons 2 moniker.

The project, as proposed by Maple Elm Development (The Beztak Companies), includes a 1.5-story building with 25, two-bedroom luxury apartments. The property, located at 219 Elm, is adjacent to the existing 131unit All Seasons 1, at 111. S. Elm Street, at the north end of the city’s Triangle District.

Birmingham City Planner Nicholas Dupuis said although the buildings are separate, residents of All Seasons 2 will have access to amenities available in the All Seasons 1 building, and a site connection plan was provided to the city.

“Although this purely residential model differs from the mixed-use developments that have been erected in the areas, the massing of the building and the proposed streetscape elements offer a similar experience from the pedestrian point-of-view,” Dupuis said.

Completed in 2015, the All Seasons Birmingham brand offers an active, resort-style independent living community. And, while the community is open to residents 55 and older, the majority are septuagenarians or older.

All Seasons 2 will appeal to seniors more between 55 and latesexagenarians.

The new building will feature 25 two-bedroom units ranging from 1,191square feet to 1,662 square feet. Ten of the units will have attached garages, with surface parking and carports available. The plans also call for a rooftop patio.

In December 2020, the Birmingham Planning Board recommended the city commission approve the final site plan, with seven conditions related to setbacks, building height, rooftop use, screening and lighting. The following month, the board recommended the commission approve a special land use permit for the project.

Commissioners questioned if all of the conditions required by the planning board had been met, and whether the impact on adjacent properties had been considered.

“This is a significant project,” commissioner Mark Nickita said. “Years ago, we kept getting plans without impact studies of adjacent properties … that seems to be missing … do we have DOWNTOWN

that information, and what is the proximity of the property, what is the requirement and is that met here?”

Birmingham Planning Director Jana Ecker said the planning board did look at the proximity of residential neighbors to the east, but wasn’t as concerned about commercial or business properties. Dupuis also noted that an existing conditions plan was submitted by the applicant and met the city’s requirements.

Commissioners unanimously approved the site plan and special land use permit.

Mark Highlen, project manager with The Beztak Companies, said the new building is taller than All Seasons 1, but has a smaller overall footprint and mass.

“The construction goal is to work through the process and start demolition in early spring, with on-site construction maybe in the summer,” he said. “It’s hard to tell at this point.

We would be starting as soon as we can.”

Birmingham applies for CDBG funds The Birmingham City Commission on Monday, February 22, approved the application of more than $36,000 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The CDBG program provides funds for housing, public facilities and public service activities that benefit lowincome households and people with special needs. Oakland County receives CDBG funding as an urban county, with participating communities required to join. Birmingham has participated in the program for more than 30 years.

Birmingham Director of Finance Mark Gerber said the city is expected to receive $36,090 for the 2021-2022 program year, the same as the previous year.

Under the CDBG guidelines, communities may spend a maximum of 30 percent of the funds on public service activities, with no less than $3,500 per activity with no more than four activities.

Birmingham has traditionally allocated the maximum amount to public services, which will total $10,827. Those funds will include $7,327 for yard services and $3,500 for senior services. Those funds will be administered by NEXT. The remaining $25,263 will be allocated to minor home repairs, which will also be administered by an outside agency 04.21

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through the city’s bid process.

“Since the city has so few lowincome residents, the city is really restricted on what it can do with the remaining funding,” Gerber said. “The remaining funding is usually allocated to minor home repair and/or the removal of architectural barriers. The minor home repair activity provides funding for repairs to homes of lowincome residents that typically are less than $5,000 per repair.”

Commissioners unanimously approved the resolution approving the application of CDBG funds.

CDBG funds approved for township seniors Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees unanimously approved a grant application of $51,857 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) at their meeting on Monday, February 22.

The CDBG program provides funds for housing, public facilities and public service activities that benefit lowincome households and people with

special needs. Oakland County receives CDBG funding as an urban county, with participating communities required to join. Christine Tvaroha, senior services director, said Bloomfield Township has worked with Oakland County on the minor home repair program since 2009, and Meals on Wheels since 2014.

“The programs extend senior independent living,” Tvahora said.

To date, there have been 116 minor home repair projects complete, with nine projects completed in 2020, five projects that are currently active, and 25 active inquiries.

Tvaroha said the average age of the homeowners is 79 years old, with the average age of home ownership at 30 years. The average annual income is $25,085. The minimum age for qualification is 60.

Typical repairs are to roof, siding, chimney, porch, driveway, stairs,electrical, plumbing, water and waste, with replacement of furnaces, water heaters, gutters, handrails, and other repairs common, as well as the addition of architectural ramps.

Of the $51,857 from CDBG grants for 2021, $36,300 will go to minor home repairs, and $15,557 to Meals on

Wheels, which is the maximum allowable under HUD eligibility, which sets it at 30 percent.

She said they currently have 187 clients being served by Meals on Wheels, 144 which are new clients. She said two-thirds live alone. There was a 40 percent growth this past year, with 8,648 meals served.

To be eligible, a township resident must be at least 62, participate in an in-home assessment, and have limited ability to leave home unassisted.

Township offers hardship assistance Bloomfield Township has streamlined its financial assistance for residents in need, providing a new application process, treasurer Brian Kepes and assessor Darrin Kraatz informed the board at their meeting on Monday, February 22.

“Last year, treasurer Kepes and I, along with Christine (Tvaroha, senior services director), tried to update the assistance we offer to people,” Kraatz said. “We had people running all over the township with income tax returns.

It was a disaster. Treasurer Kepes and I

tried to streamline the process. Over time, we've revamped it and made some changes to meet the COVID times we're in and to help people out if we can.”

The township is offering financial assistance to those qualified for property tax hardship exemption, waiver of solid waste (refuse), or minor home improvement community development block grants.

The poverty exemptions are intended to assist those who are in temporary financial straits and are not intended as a permanent or continuous subsidy.

“It's designed to help people for a year, not for year after year after year,” Kraatz explained.

Kraatz explained that due to a new state act, Public Act 253 of 2020, tax amounts are subject to and limited by the percent reductions to taxable value authorized in the act.

Applications are reviewed by the board of review, which meets three times a year. Applications are available at the township or on the township's website. All filings are confidential.

Trustees voted 6-0 to accept the application process, with trustee Michael Schostak not in attendance.

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Board updates purchasing policy The Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees on Monday, March 8, updated their purchasing policy to mandate approval of orders over $1,500.

Supervisor Dani Walsh explained they were putting into writing what has been operational in purchasing, as it would help them with grant writing.

Finance director Jason Theis said the township's purchasing policy had not been updated since 2005. “Over the years, we've talked about updating it, and we've finally gotten it done,” he said, noting the last few years they averaged 700 purchase orders a year.

The policy spells out that for purchases of less than $1,500, a purchase order is not required.

“Purchases in this dollar amount are made by the department head or their designee. Vendor selection and pricing should be reviewed annually for adequate and reasonable competition,” the policy states.

For purchases between $1,500

and $3,500, a purchase order is required by the department head with final approval by the township supervisor. The policy states that a minimum of three quotes for goods and services must be requested. The vendor’s price quote may be verbal, written, or electronic.

For purchase between $3,500 and $35,000, purchases or contracts must be by competition and there must be three competitive bids in writing.

For purchases above $35,000, a formal competition is required, with final approval by the board of trustees.

The supervisor was granted emergency purchasing power.

Trustees approved the new policy, 7-0.

Calls for service up in city COVID year

By Lisa Brody

Noting “the year 2020 will be remembered as one of the most difficult and challenging on record,” Birmingham Police Chief Mark Clemence presented the city with their 2020 police annual report,

having received 21,167 calls for service – 630 more calls than in 2019, and over 3,200 more than in 2018.

The department continues to have 32 sworn officers.

While there were more calls for service, Clemence noted 2020 continued a trend of decreasing crime in the community, with 14 burglaries compared to 20 in 2019.

There were 89 cases of fraud, versus 110 in 2019 and 139 in 2018. There were 84 larcenies, while in 2019 there were 94, and in 2018 there were 164.

There were no homicides in the city in the last three years, no cases of criminal sexual conduct I or II; in 2019, there were three, and in 2018, one case. There were 34 assaults, compared to 46 in 2019, and 51 in 2018.

Vandalism stayed the same, with 33 incidents in both 2020 and 2019; in 2018, there were 19.

There were 10 vehicle thefts in 2020, up from eight in 2019 and six in 2018.

In 2020, new measures were undertaken to improve the police agency to meet new and changing

roles and demands in order to safeguard the rights of all citizens.

Clemence reported they initiated a two-year project for department accreditation through the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police (MACP). All officers now wear body cameras while on patrol.

“Areas of concern in police reforms (chokeholds, duty to intervene, de-escalation training, use of force reporting, use of force continuum, bias-based policing, early intervention policy for potential problem officers) were all examined to ensure that all police department policies and procedures clearly addressed reform issues,” he said.

New projects for 2021 include examining mental health related service calls in the community, including methodologies utilized; the creation, development and implement of an interlocal agreement between the city of Birmingham, the township of Bloomfield and the city of Auburn Hills to collaborate with the Oakland Community Health Network to provide for a full-time social worker to be exclusively assigned to the aforementioned communities, with

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the cost of the social worker shared equally between the three communities; and assessing options to train at least 20 percent of Birmingham police officers in advanced crisis handling.

“Social unrest following a number of high profile police incidents strained community bonds and heightened racial tension… The men and women of the police department work diligently to keep Birmingham a safe and welcoming community.

Officers of the department are highly trained, educated and professional individuals,” Clemence said.

Proposed Birmingham Pub moves forward Birmingham planning commissioners on Wednesday, February 24, unanimously recommended approval of site plans and a special land use permit to allow The Triple Nickel, 555 S. Old Woodward, to change its name and operate under new ownership as Birmingham Pub. The Joe Vicari Restaurant Group purchased The Triple Nickel last year

following the permanent closure of The Triple Nickel in March last year.

The Vicari group, which owns Andiamo restaurants and Joe Muer Seafood, will offer homemade comfort food at the new establishment.

The Triple Nickel was started in 2010 using an economic development license, thus requiring Vicari to obtain a special land use permit and approval from the city commission for name changes and ownership transfers.

Changes to the building include new signage on the exterior, including a second-story building identifier that would read “Birmingham Pub,” to provide better visibility. Minor interior changes, such as new tables and some new seating arrangements will be made.

“The layout isn’t going to change anything,” said Joe Shallal, attorney for the Vicari Group. “If you’ve visited, you’ll have what you’ve already seen there.”

Vicari said last year that decorating would be done by David Savage, of Savage Design, as he was aiming to lighten up the space with new fixtures, paint, wallpaper and

carpet. Some improvements will also be made to the second floor area.

The planning board unanimously approved recommending the request and site plan with conditions that signage meets all zoning requirements. The issue will go before the Birmingham City Commission for a public hearing on March 22.

Chamber plans for summer Village Fair Hopes that the annual Village Fair will return to downtown Birmingham this summer got a boost on Monday, February 22, when city commissioners unanimously approved a permit for the event.

The Birmingham-Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce (BBCC) has held the Village Fair for more than 65 years, but was forced to cancel the event in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fair, which serves as the chamber’s largest fundraiser, includes four days of carnival rides, games, festival food and activities. Ultimately, the lack of an operational plan from the fair

operator in relation to coronavirus led the commission to cancel the event.

Joe Bauman, chamber president, said plans to hold the fair this summer are moving forward, but there are still many unknown factors as to whether the event will be allowed and at what scale. While planned for the first week of June 2021, he said the organization has some flexibility in the dates to allow it to be held later.

“We believe the Oakland County Health Department will have some input on the size of gatherings in Oakland County, as well as the state of Michigan. We will follow whatever guidelines are put in to place by the city, county or state,” Bauman said.

“For our own planning purposes, we wanted to get on the agenda when we did so if there were some specific questions that needed to be addressed that we would have plenty of time to address those until we got to a critical point as to whether we could hold the fair or not.”

City commissioner Rackeline Hoff recommended giving conditional approval for the fair, which would

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ultimately rest with the county and state guidelines that have yet to be determined.

Commissioners unanimously approved the permit on the condition that it is held within any state or county restrictions.

New workshop series to address city topics

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In an effort to delve deeper into various topics beyond city commission time constraints, a new workshop series will be offered at 6 p.m. prior to the first regularly scheduled city commission meeting of the month.

City commission meetings will follow. Residents are encouraged to attend the workshops to get a better understanding of the issues coming before the city commission. There will be a public comment period at the end of each session to allow for community input.

“Creating time for workshops will allow the city commission to take the necessary time to learn, explore and gain insight on important topics before making decisions in the best interest of the city,” said city manager Tom Markus.

The first workshop on Monday, March 8 explored future opportunities at the Birmingham Ice Arena, with topics discussed that included the pros and cons of using an enterprise fund; discussion about the ice arena renovation/addition design review with Robert Stempien from Plante Moran Cresa; and a deep dive into potential revenue sources that could be generated by the ice arena.

“With the passage of the Birmingham Parks and Recreation bond last fall, this is the perfect time to delve into the scheduled improvements, long-term use and financial aspects of the Birmingham Ice Sports Arena,” said Birmingham Director of Public Services Lauren Wood.

The tentative dates and topics for upcoming workshops are Monday, April 12, unimproved streets; Monday, May 10, a deep dive into the parking assessment district concept; Monday, June 14, short-term rentals; and a date in July, commission standards for online platforms/social media conduct.

Workshop agendas will be available each Thursday preceding the meetings at bhamgov.org/commissionagendas.

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EDUCATION Birmingham schools reopening rules set The Birmingham Board of Education on Tuesday, March 9, further defined how schools will handle the return of face-to-face learning.

These guidelines are to last for the remainder of the school year.

Elementary school students will attend school five days a week.

Secondary students will attend four full days with either Wednesday or Friday as an all-remote day to connect virtual learners with inperson learners in one setting. BCS, middle and high school students have the option of live-streaming as their remote option. There is a Birmingham Virtual Academy option for those seeking to continue with remote learning.

Elementary students attending in person in the Birmingham school district returned Monday, March 15, and will be in school from 9:15 to 3:30. Birmingham virtual students will attend from 8:50 to 2:50.

Berkshire and Derby students began attending in-person on Thursday, March 18, and will be in school from 8:35 until 3:15, with virtual Wednesdays. Remote students attend via live-streaming, the board said.

BCS students attending in person began Wednesday, March 17, from 8:35 until 3:15, and BCS will have a virtual Friday. Remote students attend via live streaming.

The board said high school students would begin attending in person beginning Thursday, March 18. X-block will occur on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 7:30 a.m.- 8:10 a.m. First hour will begin at 8:10 a.m. each day. Students will have a virtual Wednesday and remote students will attend via livestreaming.

Students in the special education Early Childhood classes will attend from 8:55-11:40 a.m. or 12:55-3:40 p.m., as is the normal half-day program.

Bloomfield schools back to school plan The Bloomfield Hills Schools' Board of Education voted to approve full five-day in-person learning plans at their meeting on Tuesday, March 16, for students in grades K-12, Wing Lake and PREP, March 22.

The Wing Lake Developmental Center provides educational 84

Birmingham schools superintendent resigns

By Lisa Brody

irmingham Public Schools Superintendent Mark Dziatczak submitted a resignation to the board of education at its meeting Tuesday, February 23, effective immediately, following an extended medical leave of absence which began in October 2020.

Interim Superintendent George Heitsch will continue in his role through the end of the 2020-2021 school year. Heitsch retired after being superintendent of the Farmington and Avondale school districts.

The board of education stated it will immediately begin the superintendent search process and has sent requests for proposals to superintendent search firms.

Dziatczak joined the district in January 2019, following a search process when former superintendent Dr. Daniel Nerad retired after six years with the district. Dziatczak came from the Troy School District, where he was most recently the deputy superintendent for teaching and learning.

“It has been an honor to serve with Mr. Dziatczak,” said Kim Whitman, president of the Birmingham Public Schools Board of Education. “His work to bring long term financial support to the district through the $195 million bond and Headlee Amendment, as well as his enthusiasm and support for our students and staff, will have a lasting, positive impact on our district. We wish him good health and sincerely thank him for serving our district.”

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programming for students with special needs. Eligible students reside within the 28 public school districts in Oakland County.

PREP is a post-secondary education program operated by the district, serving young adults with developmental and physical disabilities. PREP stands for prepared, responsible, employable and productive member of the community.

Superintendent Pat Watson, in an email letter to families, said that they had heard “from almost 400 families in the past week with concerns, ideas, acclamations and questions related to changing the current structure of learning. Each and every comment was read by our board of education, members of our administrative team, and myself…

Our decisions continue to be driven by science and data. We are seeing increasing evidence that, with prevention measures in place, there are low rates of COVID-19 transmission in primary and secondary school settings. This knowledge, paired with dozens of other considerations, including the mental health of our learners have led to the recommendation to return to full-in person instruction.”

Virtual and distance learning still remain an option for families.

Bloomfield Hills High School will begin daily at 9:35, following virtual education from 7:30 to 9 a.m., and continue until 2:30. The International Academy will begin at 7:45 each

morning and end at 2:35. The middle schools will run from 8:15 to 3:05; elementaries from 9:05 to 3:55.

Bloomfield Virtual will not change, beginning at 9:05 and ending at 3:55.

Wing Lake Developmental Center will start at 8:45 and go until 2:35.

PREP will begin at 8 and end at 3.

Unlike a previously introduced plan, all electives and specials will take place during the school day.

Ongoing water issues in schools As students return to full in-person instruction, many Birmingham Public Schools continue to be plagued by locations where legionella has been found, as well as lead and copper, with remediation continuing in all affected buildings.

Reports have come in from Greenfield, Quarton, Beverly, Pierce, Harlan and West Maple elementary schools, Berkshire Middle School, and Seaholm and Grove high schools, indicating that while there have been improvements in the water quality at the schools since they were last tested last fall, continued remediation is still needed to eliminate all legionella from school plumbing.

There have not been updates Derby Middle Schools or Birmingham Covington School.

According to communications from the school, “BPS is focused on the remediation of legionella while

DOWNTOWN

providing a lead-free source of drinking water for all staff and students. BPS will shift to cold water flushes to reduce copper and lead in the system in the coming weeks. All individuals should use water from home or bottled water until water filter stations are enabled again.”

At Groves, while legionella was found at more than 220 locations at the school in the first round of testing, following remediation and retesting, there are currently 79 locations were it was found.

“We are installing legionella filters at the highest risk taps and continue to flush the building plumbing to prevent new contamination. The filters are already installed in many district buildings. Water use at these taps is safe. Students and staff can help maintain water quality in the buildings by continuing to use the water in school,” said Dr. Susan Smith, principal.

Seahom originally was found to have legionella at 98 locations during its original round of testing; there ar now 52 locations. “We are installing legionella filters at the highest risk taps and continue to flush the building plumbing to prevent new contamination. Filters have been installed in our locker room showers and in a couple of other locations, but installing the filters will be an ongoing process,” said Kyle Hall, principal.

Lead and copper were not detected at either high school.

At Berkshire Middle School, legionella was initially found at 51 locations; since remediation and retesting, it was found at 27 locations. There were no reports of lead or copper detection.

At the elementary schools, following remediation and retesting, Quarton currently has 15 locations were legionella was detected, at West Maple, there were 24 locations and Beverly had one location. Beverly also had six lead results and four copper results throughout the building, while Quarton and West Maple had none.

Legionella was not found at Pierce Elementary, nor was copper, although lead was found in a handwashing station.

No legionella was detected at Greenfield, either; there was one lead result and two results for copper. At Harlan, there was no detection of legionella although there were eight lead results and two copper results throughout the building.

04.21

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FACES

Jaclyn Goldis hile author Jaclyn Goldis’ debut novel just hit bookstores in February, the former lawyer says she always knew she wanted to be a writer. “I was narrating this story of the animals in our forest when I was four. Some people just have a path.”

That path, however, contained a few twists and turns – and several countries. Goldis grew up in Bloomfield Hills and attended Hillel Day School, Andover High School, University of Michigan, and New York University Law School before settling into a corporate job in Chicago.

“I never thought writing novels was something I’d be able to do at 22.

You need money and life experience, and I didn’t have either.” As a result, the few years she thought she’d spend practicing law turned into seven, with her leaving the field just as she was about to go up for a prestigious partnership.

She quickly left Chicago’s winter weather behind, traveling to Hawaii, South Africa, Thailand, Bali, and Israel. Throughout her travels, Goldis kept returning to Tel Aviv, until eventually realizing she had unintentionally moved there. “I highly recommend the accidental move,” she said of the place she has now called home for four years.

During her year travelling, Goldis wrote her first novel; she has written three more since. When We Were Young is a cross-generational tale following a family from Greece in World War II to modern day Florida. Her other novels include more adult women’s fiction, as well as a “Nancy Drew meets Israel” book for middle schoolers that she’s hoping to turn into a series.

“They say your first novel is the most like you,” Goldis notes, while

W

making clear that When We Were Young’s main character is not her. The inspiration, though, comes squarely from her family’s history. Her father’s grandparents died in the Holocaust, with his mother escaping on the last train from their Ukrainian town.

“It’s very interesting to write about multiple generations, about someone more my age finding out the secrets of her ancestors. My grandmother, who escaped the Holocaust – I always felt close to her even though I never met her. I’m very close with my grandma on my mom’s side, so I merged the two.”

She had not, however, spent time in Greece. As she read about how the Holocaust had impacted Greece, and in particular about the Jews in Corfu, she spent three weeks there doing research, finding a locale that allowed for a story “on the fringes” of the Holocaust instead of putting those atrocities front and center.

Goldis cites her experience as a lawyer as making her a better writer. “It taught me a way of writing that is so precise and condensed, and how to say exactly what it is to get your point across and not say superfluous stuff.

It’s a skill you need as a creative writer – you have to know when to cut, and to be less emotional about it.”

But really, what sets Goldis apart at 37 from her 22-year-old self is the “passage of time. Of going through heartbreak and loss. The degree to which you can know your characters only as well as you know yourself.”

Story: Hillary Brody Anchill

Photo: Shai Hansav

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FACES Diane Begin iane Begin has been embroidering since the age of five. The Bloomfield Township resident learned from her grandmother, who believed in the benefits of staying busy and the old adage, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”

Today, Begin, a retired legal secretary who was born in Detroit, stays active serving others in the community. She and her husband Alex attend a chapel at the SS. Cyril & Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lake and support other locations with a Tridentine mass, which is always in Latin.

Begin sits in the first row to show others when to sit, stand or kneel during the Latin masses her husband organizes at various churches like Old St. Mary’s in Greektown in Detroit. As she explained, they can be hard to follow without some guidance as the priest faces the altar and often speaks softly.

While her husband teaches the mass to priests, she instructs parishioners with little red missals that have Latin on one side and English on the other. The Latin masses have become increasingly popular with close to 40 churches in metro Detroit alone. “There’s a solemnity to it. We follow the rubrics content in the mass just as if we were at the Vatican,” she said.

Begin also puts her sewing skills to good use by making articles like the amice, a sign of purity. The rectangular white cloth that has an embroidered religious cross in the center wraps around the priest’s shoulders and ties around the front of his body.

It takes about 30 minutes for her to make two of these cloths with a sewing machine. She also makes the surplice, an outer garment worn by the servers and the master of ceremonies that requires more time and effort as she makes the patterns for the three sizes she creates.

The more complex ciborium veil takes approximately four hours for her to complete. This piece, made from a gold fabric or a material with a special religious cross pattern, covers the ciborium, a brass container that holds the host.

Begin creates three layers for the veil, one that can be seen on the outside, a lining for the inside and a middle layer that gives it some weight to lay nicely like draperies.

“A heavy fabric has to lay a certain way to look nice,” she said. “The middle layer has a heavy weight, the lining covers up the inside, and the exterior layer is the pretty part.”

She typically adds gold or white trim around the edges of the veil for more detail. “They’re not easy,” said Begin. “But I want it to look nice.”

Her efforts began with the repairs that she continues to do today and grew from there. Some of the articles that have been professionally made are meant to last and to be passed down to other churches. She fixes the areas that start to fray, like the trim which is often the first to go.

Begin also began making quilted bags with zippers on one end to protect the costly altar cards and their frames being transported from one location to another. “I make them to last and the quilted bag really does help protect them when they travel,” she said. Three sets she made went all the way to St. Croix.

Though she remains humble, Begin clearly adds value to the lives of others through her generous gifts of talent and time.

D

Story: Jeanine Matlow

Photo: Laurie Tennent

nancykarasrealty@gmail.com 4130 Telegraph Road / Bloomfield Hills / MI 48302 / www.nancykaras.maxbroock.com

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BUSINESS MATTERS Luxury sleep There’ll be no need to count sheep when you visit Hästens, 100 S. Old Woodward at the corner of Maple in downtown Birmingham, a Swedish bed-making company which has been in business since 1852. The beds are handcrafted using only natural materials and with traditional methods handed down by generations to “give your bed a character and soul of its own.”

According to Arielle Walters, digital marketing analyst, the Birmingham location offers mattresses, linens, duvets, pillows, robes, pajamas, down booties, and a few other smaller items. “Hästens is driven by a passion for sleep and the benefits it brings to the body and soul. A Hästens bed is defined by its comfort and support, breathability and the ability to regulate your body’s temperature while you sleep.

Each natural material used in the bed has its own unique benefits, together, they give you perfect natural sleep,” Walters said. As to the choice of their new location, their first retail spot in Michigan?

“We chose Birmingham to launch our new store because it is a wellknow high end shopping destination in Michigan, and is a fairly central location within the metro Detroit area,” Walters said. “Additionally, our store is the largest Hästens store in the world!” There are Hästens stores in 36 countries around the world.

Newest fitness option The saying goes, “When one door closes, another opens.” Appears that holds true for fitness facilities, as well, with Pure Barre Birmingham/Troy moving to the now-closed Dailey Method location at 34665 Woodward Avenue in Birmingham. Pure Barre offers an effective total body workout focused on low-impact/high-intensity movements that improve strength and flexibility for every body. Each small group fitness class is taught by highly-trained instructors to their national standards. The new studio opened mid-March, with online sign ups, along with livestream options for those preferring to workout at home.

Britain meets Birmingham Platinum Motorcars, 1090 S. Adams, Birmingham, owned by Syed and Erica Ahmed, will be the official exclusive authorized dealer in Michigan and the Midwest for Briggs Automotive Company, and will bring Briggs’ Mono supercar to downtownpublications.com

this market. Designed and produced in Liverpool, England, the Mono has already been exported to 40 countries worldwide and has a strong U.S. presence. The Mono is a single seat sports car that is made to order for the driver, Ian Briggs said, with a top speed of 175 miles per hour. “People see it as their luxury weapon they want to cherish,” he said, designed for the track or the road. “We wanted to make sure it drives as well as it looks,” said Neil Briggs of the luxury vehicle.

Platinum currently offers a wide variety of luxury and sports vehicles, including Audi, BMW, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bentley. “We are automotive and racing enthusiasts at our core,” Syed Ahmed said. “We know our customers will appreciate the authentically analogue and pure driving experience delivered by these bespoke machines.”

Restoring wellness Feeling a little out of it from the last year? Restore Hyper Wellness Cryotherapy, opening the end of April at 643 S. Adams Road in Birmingham, next to Orangetheory Fitness, has lots of wellness options for you. Reece Jolicoeur, assistant manager for the Birmingham location, said that while many places have a cryosauna where you can dip in below your neck, “ours is a chamber where you can walk in. It holds up to four people, and will play your favorite music.” She said it gets “very, very cold. You work up to a maximum of three minutes. Dress in your favorite clothes, but the skin that’s out gets better.” The benefits, she said, is for pain management, aches, energy, metabolism boosts and helps with work outs. Other wellness options are compression therapy, where they offer “the gold standard of mHbot, which is mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy.” They also have a menu of IV therapy drips to choose from, as well as anti-aging therapies and cryofacials.

Bespoke clothier opens Looking for a look that reflects the true you? Check out David Abraham Custom Clothiers, 261 E. Maple Road, Suite 210, Birmingham, above Jos. A Banks. Owned by Tarance Deas, who has over 20 years of experience in the fashion industry, having honed his skills and eye for fashion at Ralph Lauren, Saks Fifth Avenue and others, and now wants to introduce the world of custom apparel to men and women. He says

he personalizes each garment to his clients’ exact specifications, ensuring the craftsmanship and quality of fabric, which he sources from all over the world, is superb.

Integrity, dedication and knowledge are synonymous with the name Pulte.

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Healthful culinary choices Fruition Açai & Coffee Cafe has opened in the new Pearl apartment building at 856 N. Old Woodward Avenue in Birmingham just south of Oak Street, offering a wide variety of açai bowls, bagels and toast and coffee and latte beverages. First opened in Grand Rapids in 2018, Fruition was started by two sisters who “strive to live healthy and happy lives.” Fruition is a fast, simple and healthy establishment serving fresh, nutritious food. Fruition offers an fresh and inspiring atmosphere, many gluten free and vegan options, as well as a diverse menu. Employees said their passion is to provide healthy food to kickstart a healthy lifestyle for all. “At Fruition, we’re always creating new menu items and perfecting them to the highest and best quality.”

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New and vintage rugs Molly Patterson, owner of the new rug shop Perch 313, 640 N. Old Woodward, Suite 202, Birmingham, said, “A definition of the word ‘perch’ is a place to land, sit, or rest. We invite you to find your place of rest, while admiring the beauty and message of times past.” Perch 313 offers hand-selected and lovingly curated vintage rugs, textiles, and unique home décor, with an emphasis on rugs and textiles that are high quality and sourced from trusted friends in Turkey – and then professionally cleaned to be ready for their new homes. “Vintage rugs sold by Perch 313 have all been selected due to their high quality, and have been handmade, hand knotted with wool on wool or wool on cotton. Wool is highly resistant to wear and contains lanolin which is a natural stain repellent,” Patterson writes on her website.

“Please remember these are vintage rugs, imperfections and wear are part of their unique charm.” Perch 313 offers concierge services and in-home consultations, and Patterson encourages shoppers to visit Perch 313 Facebook and Instagram pages for new arrivals and to book appointments.

Business Matters for the Birmingham Bloomfield area are reported by Lisa Brody. Send items for consideration to LisaBrody@downtownpublications.com.

Items should be received three weeks prior to publication.

DOWNTOWN

Maryclare Pulte 248-866-4277 mcpulte@signaturesothebys.com

Birmingham | Northville Grosse Pointe

248.644.7000 | sir.com 93

MICHAEL SBROCCA R EALT Y

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THE COMMUNITY HOUSE “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”

- Percy Bysshe Shelley As we look out the window of the venerable Community House, it’s hard to imagine that the start of spring is just days away! While it has been a cold, snowy and frigid winter here in Michigan, spring and summer 2021 planning at The Community House is well underway.

Ever mindful of the COVID challenges still facing our community today – all of us at The Community House are committed to working towards a “new” normal as soon as this dreadful pandemic and its related variants allow.

Over the years, The Community House has supplemented our fall, winter and spring children’s classes with a robust selection of summer camps. We believe that summer camps are a place where children get the experiences they need to bolster their range of coping strategies.

While still navigating through the pandemic, notwithstanding restrictions, The Community House is planning over 35 summer camps: half day, full day, morning, afternoon, lunch optional, with before and after-care opportunities. Our camps are offered from the months of June to August and are open to children between the ages of 3 and 18. We make it our mission to offer extraordinary summer experiences for all!

Make sure to visit communityhouse.com to see all our camp offerings and to register. You may want to hurry – there is pent up demand for summer activities for our children. Indoor & outdoor space is limited.

We know that many of our class takers, campers, civic groups, and supporters still have many questions about spring and summer 2021 at the historic Community House. We do, too.

While we are busy making every effort to Bill Seklar reopen, factors beyond our control may impact those plans. We will continue to monitor the coronavirus situation, and new variants of the virus, and will meet regularly to review the latest local, state, and national health and safety guidelines.

In the event of a best-case scenario, scores of new spring classes and summer camps are carefully being planned at The Community House; a wide array of exciting and popular art, culture and educational opportunities are being finalized for our spring calendar, inside (if permitted), outside, virtually, or otherwise. To register for a spring class or summer camp or for more information – please go to The Community House website at communityhouse.com or call 248.644.5832.

Finally, please know that it is vital that all members of our community continue to stay vigilant and follow current health and safety protocols.

We take the care and wellbeing of our employees, volunteers, children, and seniors quite seriously. We pledge to open as safely and as responsibly as possible. Like last spring and summer, should the capacity limits and the safety and health guidelines be eased, The Community House plans to act promptly. We really miss all of you. It really does take a village. Be safe, stay well.

If winter comes, can spring (or summer!) be far behind?

SAVE THE DATE – SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ARTISTS Our Town Art Show & Sale 2021 – The Community House in downtown Birmingham invites you to join us for our 36th annual OUR TOWN Art Show & Sale. Due to COVID restrictions, the iconic OUR TOWN Art Show & Sale will again be a virtual event, with accepted artwork available online for purchase from April 22 through May 6, 2021. This all media, juried art show provides a forum for Michigan artists to show and sell their work, fulfilling the mission of The Community House to impact lives through exceptional educational, social and outreach experiences, particularly through the arts and culture. This year’s show and sale takes on added importance for local area artists struggling to showcase and sell their art during this protracted pandemic. Proceeds from each sale of artwork benefits both the artist and The Community House. For additional information on the OUR TOWN Art Show & Sale or the Virtual VIP Opening Night Party, please visit our website at communityhouse.com or call 248.644.5832.

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN SUMMER CAMPS 2021 – Almost since The Community House was downtownpublications.com

established nearly a century ago, children’s classes, programs and services at The Community House have been at the center of our mission, purpose, and vision. Our founders envisioned The Community House to be a place where young people from our community and surrounding region would gather for camaraderie, learning and enrichment.

TCH Virtual Programming Spring 2021 – While we may be unable to meet in person (at this time), nothing can stop us from connecting with others. Take a trip back in time during our art lecture series. Learn a new skill with our investment series. Relax and unwind in our Tai Chi or Yoga classes. Engage your little one in our Kindermusik or baby and toddler sign language. Explore a new passion and sign your children up for babysitter safety, self-defense, or dance classes. We have amazing virtual opportunities for all ages. For a full online list of spring 2021 class offerings visit: communityhouse.asapconnected.com/ Activity Boxes – Is your child cooped up? Too much screen time? Help is on the way. Get your child engaged and active with our themed activity boxes. Your child will hippity-hop down the bunny trail, embark on a wild safari adventure, blast off into space, and save the city – all with the help of our customized activity boxes – in the comfort and safety of your own home. Each box includes 6-8 themed activities and crafts. Registration is now open and pick-up dates/times vary by box.

FREE: OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Senior Living Series 2021 The Community House is proud to continue its educational partnership with Pomeroy Living – Pomeroy Living Communities via a virtual Senior Living Series. This important virtual series includes webinars, videos, resource materials, recipes and more.

For more information about the TCH – Pomeroy Living Senior Living Series 2021, go to program@communityhouse.com or call 248.594.6415.

All talks are free but please pre-register.

• March 2021 – Best Exercises for Older Adults (and What to Avoid) • April 2021 – Right time Right Place - Community Based Living Options • May 2021 – Playing with Technology - Seniors Live Longer, Healthier Lives • June 2021 – Cooking with Chef – Fresh Taste for Seniors • July 2021 – Ask a Nurse - Your Chance to Discuss Health and Wellness Needs • August 2021 – Healthy you - How fit are you? Wellness Fair For more information or a catalog about our 2021 Summer Camps or more information about our other Community House offerings, please visit us at communityhouse.com or call the Programs & Enrichment Department at 248.594.6406.

William D. Seklar is President & CEO of The Community House and The Community House Foundation in Birmingham.

DOWNTOWN

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PLACES TO EAT

Go To Our Website For

DELIVERY

The Places To Eat for Downtown is a quick reference source to establishments offering a place for dining, either breakfast, lunch or dinner. The listings include nearly all dining establishments with seating in the Birmingham/Bloomfield area, and then some select restaurants outside the immediate area served by Downtown.

Birmingham/Bloomfield 220: American. Lunch & Dinner, Monday- Saturday. Reservations.

Liquor. 220 E. Merrill Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.646.2220.

5th Tavern: American. Lunch & Dinner daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2262 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Township, 48302. 248.481.9607.

Adachi: Asian. Lunch & Dinner daily.

Liquor. Reservations. 325 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham 48009.

248.540.5900.

Andiamo: Italian. Lunch & Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 6676 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Township, 48301.

248.865.9300.

Bangkok Thai Bistro: Thai. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 42805 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Township, 48304. 248.499.6867.

Beau's: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily.

No reservations. Liquor. 4108 W. Maple, Bloomfield Hills, 48301.

248.626.2630.

Bella Piatti: Italian. Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations.

Liquor. 167 Townsend Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.494.7110.

Beverly Hills Grill: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Liquor. No reservations.

31471 Southfield Road, Beverly Hills, 48025. 248.642.2355.

Beyond Juice: Contemporary. Breakfast & Lunch daily; Dinner, MondaySaturday. No reservations. 270 West Maple Avenue, Birmingham, 48009.

248.594.7078.

Big Rock Chophouse: American. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 245 South Eton Street, Birmingham, 48009.

248.647.7774.

Bill's: American. Lunch & Dinner, Daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 39556 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.646.9000.

Birmingham Pub: American. Lunch and Dinner, daily. Weekend Brunch.

Reservations. Liquor. 555 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham.

Birmingham Sushi Cafe: Japanese.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 377 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, 48009. 248.593.8880.

Bistro Joe’s Kitchen: Global. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Sunday brunch. Liquor.

Reservations. 34244 Woodward Ave., Birmingham, 48009. 248.594.0984.

Bloomfield Deli: Deli. Breakfast & Lunch, Monday-Friday. No reservations. 71 W. Long Lake Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48304.

248.645.6879.

Brooklyn Pizza: Pizza. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Liquor. No reservations. 111 Henrietta Street, Birmingham, 48009.

248.258.6690.

Café ML: New American. Dinner, daily.

Liquor. Call ahead. 3607 W. Maple Road, Bloomfield Township.

248.642.4000.

Casa Pernoi: Italian. Dinner, Tuesdaydowntownpublications.com

Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 310 E. Maple Road, Birmingham, 48009.

248.940.0000.

Churchill's Bistro & Cigar Bar: Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

116 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.647.4555.

Cityscape Deli: Deli. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations.

Beer. 877 W. Long Lake Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48302.

248.540.7220.

Commonwealth: American. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. No reservations. 300 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, 48009.

248.792.9766.

Dick O’Dow’s: Irish. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 160 West Maple Avenue, Birmingham, 48009.

248.642.1135.

Eddie Merlot's: Steak & seafood.

Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor.

37000 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.712.4095.

Einstein Bros. Bagels: Deli. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. No reservations. 4089 West Maple Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301. 248.258.9939.

Elie’s Mediterranean Cuisine: Mediterranean. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations.

Liquor. 263 Pierce Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.647.2420.

Embers Deli & Restaurant: Deli.

Breakfast & Lunch, daily. Dinner, Monday-Friday. No reservations. 3598 West Maple Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301. 248.645.1033.

Flemings Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar: American. Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 323 N. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.723.0134.

Forest: European. Dinner, MondaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 735 Forest Avenue, Birmingham 48009.

248.258.9400.

Greek Island Coney Restaurant: Greek.

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 221 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, 48009. 248.646.1222.

Griffin Claw Brewing Company: American. Dinner, Tuesday-Friday, Lunch & Dinner, Saturday and Sunday. No Reservations. Liquor. 575 S. Eton Street, Birmingham.

248.712.4050.

Honey Tree Grille: Greek/American.

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, daily. No reservations. 3633 W. Maple Rd, Bloomfield, MI 48301.

248.203.9111.

Hunter House Hamburgers: American.

Breakfast, Monday-Saturday; Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 35075 Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.646.7121.

Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse: American. Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 201 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham, 48009. 248.594.4369.

IHOP: American. Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 2187 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301. 248.333.7522.

Joe Muer Seafood: Seafood. Lunch & Dinner daily; Sunday brunch.

Reservations. Liquor. 39475 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.792.9609.

Kaku Sushi and Poke': Asian. Lunch & Dinner. Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. No Liquor. 869 W. Long

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DOWNTOWN

DINE-IN/CARRY-OUT/CATERING

OPEN Mon-Sat 9am-7pm Sunday 9am-6pm

Social Distancing Safe & Sanitized!

We’ve Missed You! Come Join Us! Open: Monday - Saturday: 9am-7pm • Sunday: 9am-6pm

Your order of $29.95 or more DT

Your order of $69.95 or more

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(NOT VALID ON PHONE ORDERS) Dine In or Carry-Out Orders

(NOT VALID ON PHONE ORDERS) Dine In or Carry-Out Orders

No digital coupons accepted. Excludes all other offers. With this coupon. Present coupon when ordering. Exp. 5/10/21.

No digital coupons accepted. Excludes all other offers. With this coupon. Present coupon when ordering. Exp. 5/10/21.

6646 Telegraph at Maple Bloomfield Plaza 248.932.0800 | stevesdeli.com

The Birmingham/Bloomfield area is filled with discriminating diners and an array of dining establishments. Make sure the message for your restaurant reaches the right market in the right publication—Downtown.

Contact Mark Grablowski for advertising rate information.

O: 248.792.6464 Ext. 601 MarkGrablowski@downtownpublications.com

97

Lake Road, Bloomfield Township, 48302. 248.480.4785, and 126 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham, 48009.

248.885.8631.

Kerby’s Koney Island: American.

Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 2160 N. Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304.

248.333.1166.

La Marsa: Mediterranean. Lunch & Dinner daily. Reservations. 43259 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills, 48302. 248.858.5800.

La Strada Italian Kitchen & Bar: Italian.

Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday.

Reservations. Liquor. 243 E. Merrill Street, Birmingham, 48009.

248.480.0492.

Leo’s Coney Island: American.

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 154 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009.

248.593.9707. Also 6527 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301.

248.646.8568.

Little Daddy’s Parthenon: American.

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 39500 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304.

248.647.3400.

Luxe Bar & Grill: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily; Late Night, 9 p.m.closing. No reservations. Liquor. 525 N. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.6051.

Madam: American. Breakfast, MondayFriday, Brunch, weekends. Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 298 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham, 48009.

248.283.4200 Mandaloun Bistro: Lebanese. Lunch, Monday-Friday. Dinner, Daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 30100 Telegraph Rd., Suite 130, Bingham Farms, 48025. 248.723.7960.

Market North End: Mediterranean.

Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. Liquor. 474 N. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.712.4953.

MEX Mexican Bistro & Tequila Bar: Mexican. Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner, daily. Liquor. 6675 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Township, 48301.

248.723.0800.

Nippon Sushi Bar: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner daily. No reservations. Liquor.

2079 S. Telegraph, Bloomfield Township, 48302. 248.481.9581.

Olga’s Kitchen: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 2075 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48302. 248.451.0500.

Original Pancake House: American.

Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 33703 South Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009.

248.642.5775.

Phoenicia: Middle Eastern. Lunch, Monday-Friday; Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 588 South Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.644.3122.

Planthropie: Vegan. Dessert and Cheese. 135 Pierce Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.839.5640.

Qdoba: Mexican. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Also 42967 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Township, 48304.

248.874.1876 Roadside B & G: American. Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 1727 S. 98

Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48302. 248.858.7270.

Salvatore Scallopini: Italian. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Beer & Wine. 505 North Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009.

248.644.8977.

Shift Cocktail Bar: Small plates. Dinner.

Liquor. 117 Willits Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.2380.

Sidecar: American. Lunch and Dinner, daily. Liquor. 117 Willits Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.2380.

Slice Pizza Kitchen: Pizza. Lunch and Dinner, daily. Liquor. 117 Willits Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.3475.

Social Kitchen & Bar: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations, parties of 5 or more. Liquor. 225 E. Maple Road, Birmingham, 48009.

248.594.4200.

Stacked Deli: Deli. Breakfast & Lunch, Monday-Saturday. Delivery available.

No reservations. 233 North Old Woodward, Birmingham, 48009.

248.593.5300.

Stateside Deli & Restaurant Deli.

Breakfast, Lunch, Sunday-Monday.

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. No reservations.

653 S. Adams Road, Birmingham, 48009. 248.550.0455.

Steve’s Deli: Deli. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 6646 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield, 48301.

248.932.0800.

Streetside Seafood: Seafood. Dinner, daily. Liquor. 273 Pierce Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.645.9123.

Sushi Hana: Japanese. Lunch, MondayFriday; Dinner, Monday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 42656 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.333.3887.

Sy Thai Cafe: Thai. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 315 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, 48009.

248.258.9830.

Tallulah Wine Bar and Bistro: American. Dinner. Monday-Saturday.

Sunday brunch. Reservations. Liquor.

55 S. Bates Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.731.7066.

The Franklin Grill: American. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 32760 Franklin Rd, Franklin, 48025. 248.865.6600.

The Gallery Restaurant: American.

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Beer & wine. 6683 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301. 248.851.0313.

The Moose Preserve Bar & Grill: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2395 S. Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48302. 248.858.7688.

The Morrie: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 260 N. Old Woodward, Birmingham 48009.

248.940.3260.

The Rugby Grille: American. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 100 Townsend Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.642.5999.

Toast: American. Breakfast & Lunch, daily; Reservations. Liquor. 203 Pierce Street, Birmingham, 48009.

248.258.6278.

Tomatoes Apizza: Pizza. Lunch & Dinner daily. Carryout. 34200 Woodward Avenue, Birmingham 48009.

248.258.0500.

Touch of India: Indian. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 297 E. Maple Road, Birmingham, 48009.

248.593.7881.

Townhouse: American. Brunch, Saturday, Sunday. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 180 Pierce Street, Birmingham, 48009.

248.792.5241.

Whistle Stop Diner: American.

Breakfast & Lunch, daily; No reservations. 501 S. Eton Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.566.3566.

Zao Jun: Asian. Lunch Monday-Friday; Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor.

6608 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Township, 48301. 248.949.9999.

Royal Oak/Ferndale Ale Mary's: American. Weekend Brunch.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations.

Liquor. 316 South Main St., Royal Oak, 48067. 248.268.1917.

Anita’s Kitchen: Middle Eastern. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Beer & Wine. 22651 Woodward Ave., Ferndale, 48220. 248.548.0680.

Assaggi Bistro: Italian. Lunch, TuesdayFriday. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday.

Reservations. Liquor. 330 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale, 48220.

248.584.3499.

Bigalora: Italian. Weekend Brunch.

Lunch, Monday-Friday. Dinner, daily.

No Reservations. Liquor. 711 S. Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067.

The Blue Nile: Ethiopian. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor.

545 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale, 48220. 248.547.6699.

Cafe Muse: French. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 418 S. Washington Ave., Royal Oak, 48067.

248.544.4749.

Cork Wine Pub: American. Sunday Brunch. Dinner, Monday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 23810 Woodward Ave., Pleasant Ridge, 48069. 248.544.2675.

Due Venti: Italian. Sunday Brunch.

Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 220 S. Main St., Clawson, 48017. 248.288.0220.

The Fly Trap: Diner. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. Dinner, Monday-Friday. No reservations. 22950 Woodward Ave., 48220. 248.399.5150.

Howe’s Bayou: Cajun. Lunch, MondaySaturday. Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 22949 Woodward Ave., Ferndale, 48220.

248.691.7145.

Inyo Restaurant Lounge: Asian Fusion.

Weekend Brunch. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 22871 Woodward Ave., Ferndale, 48220.

248.543.9500.

KouZina: Greek. Lunch & Dinner, daily.

No reservations. 121 N. Main St., Royal Oak, 48067. 248.629.6500.

Kruse & Muer on Woodward: American.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 28028 Woodward Ave., Royal Oak, 48067. 248.965.2101.

Lily’s Seafood: Seafood. Weekend Brunch. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 410 S. Washington Ave., Royal Oak, 48067.

248.591.5459.

Lockhart’s BBQ: Barbeque. Sunday Brunch. Lunch & Dinner, MondaySaturday. No reservations. Liquor. 202

DOWNTOWN

E. Third St., Royal Oak, 48067.

248.584.4227.

Oak City Grille: American. Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 212 W. 6th St, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.556.0947.

One-Eyed Betty: American. Weekend Breakfast. Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 175 W. Troy St., Ferndale, 48220. 248.808.6633.

Public House: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

241 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale, 48220. 248.850.7420.

Redcoat Tavern: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

31542 Woodward Ave., Royal Oak, 48073. 248.549.0300.

Ronin: Japanese. Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 326 W. 4th St., Royal Oak, 48067. 248.546.0888.

Royal Oak Brewery: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

215 E. 4th St., Royal Oak, 48067.

248.544.1141.

Strada: Italian. Dinner, Wednesday Sunday. Liquor. No reservations. 376 N. Main Street. Royal Oak, 48067.

248.607.3127.

The Morrie: American. Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 511 S. Main St., Royal Oak, 48067. 248.216.1112.

Toast, A Breakfast and Lunch Joint: American. Breakfast & Lunch, daily.

No reservations. 23144 Woodward Ave., Ferndale, 48220.

248.398.0444.

Tom’s Oyster Bar: Seafood. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor.

318 S. Main St., Royal Oak, 48067.

248.541.1186.

Trattoria Da Luigi: Italian. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor.

415 S, Washington Ave., Royal Oak, 48067. 248.542.4444.

Twisted Tavern: American. Dinner, daily.

No reservations. Liquor. 22901 Woodward Ave., Ferndale, 48220.

248.545,6750.

Vinsetta Garage: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

27799 Woodward Ave., Berkley, 48072. 248.548.7711.

Troy/Rochester Capital Grille: Steak & Seafood. Lunch, Monday-Saturday. Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 2800 West Big Beaver Rd., Somerset Collection, Troy, 48084. 248.649.5300.

Cafe Sushi: Pan-Asian. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1933 W. Maple Rd, Troy, 48084.

248.280.1831.

CK Diggs: American & Italian. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 2010 W. Auburn Road, Rochester Hills, 48309.

248.853.6600.

O’Connor’s Irish Public House: Irish.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 324 S. Main St., Rochester, 48307. 248.608.2537.

Kona Grille: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 30 E. Big Beaver Rd., Troy, 48083. 248.619.9060.

Kruse & Muer on Main: American.

Sunday Brunch. Lunch & Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 327 S. Main St., Rochester, 48307. 248.652.9400.

Loccino Italian Grill and Bar: Italian.

Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner, daily.

Liquor. Reservations. 5600 Crooks 04.21

Road, Troy, 48098. 248.813.0700.

The Meeting House: American.

Weekend Brunch. Dinner, TuesdaySunday. No reservations. Liquor. 301 S. Main St, Rochester, 48307.

248.759.4825.

Miguel’s Cantina: Mexican. Lunch, Monday-Friday. Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 870 S. Rochester Rd, Rochester Hills, 48307. 248.453.5371.

Mon Jin Lau: Asian. Lunch, MondayFriday. Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 1515 E. Maple Rd, Troy, 48083. 248.689.2332.

Morton’s, The Steakhouse: Steak & Seafood. Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 888 W. Big Beaver Rd, Troy, 48084. 248.404.9845.

NM Café: American. Lunch, MondaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 2705 W. Big Beaver Rd, Troy, 48084.

248.816.3424.

Oceania Inn: Chinese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. The Village of Rochester Hills, 3176 Walton Blvd, Rochester Hills, 48309.

248.375.9200.

Ocean Prime: Steak & Seafood. Lunch, Monday-Friday. Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 2915 Coolidge Hwy., Troy, 48084. 248.458.0500.

Orchid Café: Thai. Lunch, MondayFriday. Dinner, daily. Reservations.

3303 Rochester Rd., Troy, 48085.

248.524.1944.

P.F. Chang’s China Bistro: Chinese.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. Somerset Collection, 2801 W. Big Beaver Rd., Troy, 48084.

248.816.8000.

Recipes: American/Brunch. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

134 W. University Drive, Rochester, 48037. 248.659.8267. Also 2919 Crooks Road, Troy, 48084.

248.614.5390.

Rochester Chop House: Steak & Seafood. Lunch, Monday-Friday.

Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor.

306 S. Main St., Rochester, 48307.

248.651.2266.

Ruth’s Chris Steak House: Steak & Seafood. Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 755 W. Big Beaver Rd., Troy, 48084. 248.269.8424.

Silver Spoon: Italian. Dinner, MondaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 6830 N. Rochester Rd., Rochester, 48306.

248.652.4500.

Too Ra Loo: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 139 S. Main St., Rochester, 48307.

248.453.5291.

West Bloomfield/Southfield Bacco: Italian. Lunch, Monday-Friday.

Dinner, Monday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 29410 Northwestern Highway, Southfield, 48034. 248.356.6600.

Beans and Cornbread: Southern. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor.

29508 Northwestern Highway, downtownpublications.com

Southfield, 48034. 248.208.1680.

Bigalora: Italian. Weekend Brunch.

Lunch, Monday-Friday. Dinner, daily.

No Reservations. Liquor. 29110 Franklin Road, Southfield, 48034.

The Fiddler: Russian. Sunday Brunch.

Dinner, Thursday-Sunday.

Reservations. Liquor. 6676 Orchard Lake Rd, West Bloomfield Township, 48322. 248.851.8782.

Mene Sushi: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Beer & Wine.

6239 Orchard Lake Rd, West Bloomfield Township, 48322.

248.538.7081.

Meriwether’s: Seafood. Lunch, MondaySaturday. Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 25485 Telegraph Rd, Southfield, 48034. 248.358.1310.

Nonna Maria’s: Italian. Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 2080 Walnut Lake Road, West Bloomfield, 48323.

248.851.2500.

Pickles & Rye: Deli. Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 6724 Orchard Lake Rd, West Bloomfield Township, 48322. 248.737.3890.

Prime29 Steakhouse: Steak & Seafood. Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 6545 Orchard Lake Rd., West Bloomfield, 48322. 248.737.7463.

Redcoat Tavern: American. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations. Liquor. 6745 Orchard Lake Rd., West Bloomfield Township, 48322. 248.865.0500.

Shangri-La: Chinese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. Orchard Mall Shopping Center, 6407 Orchard Lake Rd, West Bloomfield Township, 48322. 248.626.8585.

Sposita’s Ristorante: Italian. Friday Lunch. Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 33210 W. Fourteen Mile Rd., West Bloomfield Township, 48322.

248. 538.8954.

Stage Deli: Deli. Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

6873 Orchard Lake Rd., West Bloomfield Township, 48322.

248.855.6622.

Yotsuba: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 7365 Orchard Lake Rd, West Bloomfield, 48322. 248.737.8282.

West Oakland Gravity Bar & Grill: Mediterranean.

Monday – Friday, Lunch & Dinner, Saturday, Dinner. Reservations.

Liquor. 340 N. Main Street, Milford, 48381. 248.684.4223.

It's A Matter of Taste: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor.

2323 Union Lake Road, Commerce, 48390. 248.360.4150.

Volare Ristorante: Italian. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor.

48992 Pontiac Trail, Wixom, 48393.

248.960.7771.

North Oakland Clarkston Union: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

54 S. Main St., Clarkston, 48346.

248.620.6100.

Holly Hotel: American. Afternoon Tea, Monday – Saturday, Brunch, Sunday,

Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 110 Battle Alley, Holly, 48442.

248.634.5208.

Kruse's Deer Lake Inn: Seafood. Lunch & dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor.

7504 Dixie Highway, Clarkston, 48346. 248.795.2077.

The Fed: American. Lunch and Dinner daily, Brunch, Saturday and Sunday.

Liquor. 15 S. Main Street, Clarkston, 48346. 248.297.5833 Via Bologna: Italian. Dinner daily. No reservations. Liquor. 7071 Dixie Highway, Clarkston. 48346.

248.620.8500.

Union Woodshop: BBQ. Dinner, Monday – Friday, Lunch & Dinner, Saturday – Sunday. No reservations. Liquor. 18 S. Main St., Clarkston, 48346.

248.625.5660

Detroit Bucharest Grill: Middle Eastern. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations.

Liquor. 2684 E. Jefferson, Detroit, 48207. 313.965.3111.

Cliff Bell’s: American. Sunday Brunch.

Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations.

Liquor. 2030 Park Ave., Detroit, 48226. 313.961.2543.

Cuisine: French. Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 670 Lothrop Rd., Detroit, 48202.

313.872.5110.

The Detroit Seafood Market: Seafood.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 1435 Randolph St., Detroit, 48226. 313.962.4180.

El Barzon: Mexican. Lunch, TuesdayFriday. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday.

Reservations. Liquor. 3710 Junction St., Detroit, 48210. 313.894.2070.

Fishbone’s Rhythm Kitchen Café: Cajun. Breakfast, daily. Sunday Brunch. Lunch, Monday-Saturday.

Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

400 Monroe Street, Detroit, 48226.

313.965.4600.

Giovanni’s Ristorante: Italian. Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 330 S. Oakwood Blvd., Detroit, 48217.

313.841.0122.

Green Dot Stables: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

2200 W. Lafayette, Detroit, 48216.

313.962.5588.

Jefferson House: American. Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 2 Washington Blvd., Detroit, 48226. 313.782.4318.

Joe Muer Seafood: Seafood. Lunch, Monday- Friday, Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 400 Renaissance Center, Detroit, 48243.

313.567.6837.

Johnny Noodle King: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations.

Liquor. 2601 W. Fort St., Detroit, 48216. 313.309.7946.

Mario’s: Italian. Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 4222 2nd Ave., Detroit, 48201. 313.832.1616.

Midtown Shangri-la: Chinese. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 4710 Cass Ave., Detroit, 48201. 313.974.7669.

Motor City Brewing Works: American.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations.

Beer & Wine. 470 W. Canfield St., Detroit, 48201. 313.832.2700.

DOWNTOWN

Prism: Steak & Seafood. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations.

Liquor. 555 E. Lafayette St, Detroit, 48226. 313.309.2499.

Red Smoke Barbeque: Barbeque.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. Trappers Alley Shopping Center, 573 Monroe Ave., Detroit, 48226.

313.962.2100.

Selden Standard: American. Weekend Brunch. Lunch, Monday-Friday. Dinner, daily. Liquor. Reservations. 3921 Second Ave., Detroit, 48201.

313.438.5055.

SheWolf Pastifico & Bar: Italian. Dinner, Tuesday through Sunday.

Reservations. Liquor. 438 Selden St, Detroit 48201. 313.315.3992.

Sinbad’s: Seafood. Sunday Brunch.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. 100 St Clair St., Detroit, 48214. 313.822.8000.

Slows Bar BQ: Barbeque. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

2138 Michigan Ave, Detroit, 48216.

313.962.9828.

St. CeCe’s Pub: American. Sunday Brunch. Lunch & Dinner, MondaySaturday. No reservations. Liquor.

1426 Bagley Ave., Detroit, 48216.

313.962.2121.

Tap at MGM Grand: American.

Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 1777 Third Street, Detroit, 48226.

313.465.1234.

Taqueria Nuestra Familia: Mexican.

Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 7620 Vernor Hwy., Detroit, 48209. 313.842.5668.

The Block: American. Sunday Brunch.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations.

Liquor. 3919 Woodward Ave, Detroit, 48201. 313.832.0892.

Tom’s Oyster Bar: Seafood. Lunch, Monday-Friday. Dinner, MondaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 519 East Jefferson Ave., Detroit, 48226.

313.964.4010.

Traffic Jam & Snug: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

511 W. Canfield, Detroit, 48201.

313.831.9470.

24grille: American. Sunday Brunch.

Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations.

Liquor. The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit, 1114 Washington Blvd, Detroit, 48226. 313.964.3821.

Union Street: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor.

4145 Woodward Ave, Detroit, 48201.

313.831.3965.

Vince’s: Italian. Lunch, Tuesday-Friday.

Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations.

Liquor. 1341 Springwells St., Detroit, 48209. 313.842.4857.

Vivio’s Food & Spirits: American.

Saturday Breakfast. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2460 Market St., Detroit, 48207.

313.393.1711.

The Whitney: American. Breakfast, Lunch, & High Tea, Monday-Friday.

Sunday Brunch. Dinner, daily. Liquor.

Reservations. 4421 Woodward Ave, Detroit, 48201. 313.832.5700.

Wright & Co.: American. Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations.

Liquor. 1500 Woodward Ave Second Floor, Detroit, 48226. 313.962.7711.

99

cucumber, chopped pickle, red onion.

Small 10 | Large 13 GREEK SALAD Mixed greens, feta, beets, tomato, olives, pepperoncini, cucumbers, House Greek dressing.

Small 8 | Large 10 HOUSE Mixed greens, tomato, cheddar, cucumber, croutons, red onion.

Small 7 | Large 10

248-550-0455

Facebook.com/statesidedeli Instagram @statesidedeli Partnered with DoorDash and Grubhub STATE DELI & RESTAURANT DAILY DEALS MELANIA MONDAY - 9.00 Fresh made tuna salad, melted cheddar, seasoned tomatoes with seasoned fries

TASTY TUESDAY HEARTY HASH - 10.00 Choose your hash, with two eggs your way and choice of toast - Corned Beef Hash, Country Hash, Happy Hash, or Irish Hash GREEK WEDNESDAY - 10.00 Your choice - Famous Greek salad, Chicken Gyro with Greek salad, Lamb Gyro with Greek salad, or Spinach pie with Greek salad BURGER-BURGER THURSDAY - 10.00 Choose your burger - All American Cheese, Super Bacon, Peetie’s Melt, Sedona Black Bean with seasoned fries FAMOUS FRIDAY THE #1 - 11.00 Get the Best seller - Corned beef, coleslaw, Russian dressing and Swiss cheese on Rye

MAURICE’S Mixed greens, oven-roasted turkey, chopped bacon, Swiss cheese, tomato, cucumber.

Small 10 | Large 13 MICHIGAN Mixed greens, grilled chicken breast, crumbled blue cheese, dried craisins, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions.

Small 10 | Large 13 CHEF’S Mixed greens, oven-roasted turkey, Virginia baked ham, American cheese, sliced egg, tomatoes, cucumbers.

Small 10 | Large 12 SOUPS HOME-STYLE CHICKEN LEMON RICE Cup 4 | Bowl 5 | Quart 13 GRANDMA’S CHICKEN NOODLE Cup 4 | Bowl 5 | Quart 13 HOME-STYLE CHILI Cup 5 | Bowl 6 | Quart 14 HOME-STYLE MATZO BALL Bowl 7 | Quart 16 BROCCOLI & CHEDDAR Cup 4 | Bowl 5 | Quart 13

FAMILY FEAST SATURDAY (Feeds Four) - 30.00 1 pound thinly sliced Corned beef or Pastrami, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing, Coleslaw, Potato salad and Jewish rye

SOUP OF THE DAY Seasonal Cup 4 | Bowl 5 | Quart 13

APPETIZERS

CREAMY COLESLAW Small 3 | Medium 5 | Large 8

AVOCADO TOAST - 9.00 Avocado, feta cheese, grape tomato, balsamic, toasted sourdough

1/2 lb Prime beef, applewood bacon, cheddar, red onion.

BACON AVOCADO CHEESEBURGER - 13.00 1/2 lb Prime beef, applewood bacon, avocado, provolone, red onion.

IMPOSSIBLE BURGER - 13.00 Plant-based vegan patty.

Add cheese 1.00 SEDONA BLACK BEAN BURGER - 11.00 Black bean veggie patty, provolone, red onion.

PETEY’S MELT - 11.00 1/2 lb Prime beef, on grilled rye with Swiss cheese and caramelized onions.

DELI BURGER - 13.00 1/2 lb Prime beef, corned beef, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing.

DELI DELIGHT SANDWICHES Extra-lean corned beef additional 1.00 / Extra meat 3.00 Gluten-free bread additional 2.50 / Onion roll additional 1.00 / Grilled bread FREE #1 FAMOUS - 13.00 OUR #1 BEST SELLER. Hot corned beef, Swiss cheese, coleslaw, Russian dressing, twice-baked rye. #3 GINA’S CHOICE - 13.00 Smoked turkey, Swiss cheese, coleslaw, Russian dressing, twice-baked rye. #5 NY STYLE - 13.00 Hot corned beef, Swiss cheese, yellow mustard, twicebaked rye. #7 LEAN N’ MEAN REUBEN - 14.00 Smoked turkey, melted Swiss, sauerkraut, Russian dressing, grilled rye.

HALF SANDWICH & CUP OF SOUP - 12.00 Choice of Deli Delight Sandwich Matzo Ball Soup (+2)

STATE-SIDES

#2 ROMAN’S BEST - 13.00 Hot pastrami, Swiss cheese, coleslaw, Russian dressing, twice-baked rye.

SEASONED FRIES - 3.00

#4 PRICE IS RIGHT - 13.00 Hot corned beef, pastrami, coleslaw, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing, twice-baked rye.

REUBEN FRIES - 11.00 Fries, corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing

AVOCADO - 1.50

TATER TOTS - 5.00

POTATO SALAD Small 3 | Medium 5 | Large 8

STATE ROLLS (Two) 6.00 Corned beef, pastrami, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese with choice of sauce

TATER TOTS - 3.00

#8 SPENCER’S REUBEN - 14.00 Hot corned beef, pastrami, melted Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, Russian dressing, grilled rye.

ASSORTED CHIPS - 1.25

CREATE A SANDWICH

FRIED CHICKEN TENDERS (Four) - 9.00 Choice of dipping sauce.

GRILLED CHICKEN BREAST - 5.00

HUMMUS PLATTER - 9.00 Homemade hummus and toasty pita chips CHILI CHEESE FRIES - 5.00 ONION RINGS - 6.00 Jumbo beer battered rings with choice of sauce CHEESE STICKS - 6.00 Served with ranch.

FRESH SALADS Add grilled / crispy chicken or seasoned lamb, 3.00 Dressings: House Greek, House Ranch, Balsamic Vinaigrette, Italian, Caesar, Honey Mustard, Raspberry Vinaigrette, Thousand Island FAMOUS CHICKEN GREEK Mixed greens, grilled chicken, feta, beets, tomato, olives, pepperoncini, cucumber, House Greek dressing.

Small 10 | Large 12 STATESIDE Mixed greens, lean corned beef, Swiss, tomato,

WHOLE PICKLE - 1.50

MEDITERRANEAN COMBINATIONS

SPINACH PIE & GREEK SALAD - 13.00 Flaky pastry stuffed with spinach and feta served with a small Greek salad.

LAMB GYRO & GREEK SALAD - 13.00 Sliced lamb, tomato, onion, and tzatziki in a warm pita.

Add lettuce/feta to your gyro, 1.00 CHICKEN GYRO & GREEK SALAD - 13.00 Marinated chicken, tomato, onion, and tzatziki wrapped in a pita served with a small Greek salad.

Add lettuce/feta to your gyro, 1.00

PRIME BEEF BURGERS

#6 D-TOWN REUBEN - 14.00 Hot corned beef, melted Swiss, sauerkraut, Russian dressing, grilled rye.

STEP 1 CHOOSE BREAD: Jewish Rye, Whole Grain Wheat, Challah, Lavash Wrap (Gluten Free Bread 2.50) STEP 2 COMPLEMENTARY ITEMS: Lettuce, Tomatoes, Red Onions, Jalapeños, Banana Peppers STEP 3 SAUCE: Mayo, Yellow Mustard, Spicy Mustard, Russian Dressing, Honey Mustard, Ranch STEP 4 PREMIUM ITEMS (add 1.00 each:) American, Cheddar, Provolone, Swiss, Coleslaw, Sauerkraut, Onion Roll Extra Lean Corned Beef or Extra Meat 3.00 HOT CORNED BEEF - 12.00 SMOKED TURKEY - 12.00 GRILLED CHICKEN BREAST - 11.00 VIRGINIA BAKED HAM - 10.00

All burgers created with lettuce, tomato and mayo on a brioche bun and served with a pickle and choice of French fries or coleslaw.

Onion Rings 3.00 / Gluten Free Bread 2.50

FRESH MADE TUNA SALAD - 10.00

ALL AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER - 11.00 1/2 lb Prime beef, cheddar, red onion.

HOT PASTRAMI - 12.00

LOX - 14.00 (Smoked Salmon)

RARE ROAST BEEF - 12.00 SUPER PRIME BACON CHEESEBURGER - 12.00

653 S. Adams Road Birmingham, MI 48009 (located in the Adam Square Shopping Center)

RISE & SHINE SPECIAL GRILLED CHEESE TRIPLE DECKER - 7.00 SALAMI - 10.00 (Beef)

Dine-in only: Monday - Friday 7am - 10am

2 Eggs • 2 CakEs • 2 MEats (baCon or sausagE) HUNGRY HUMAN - 11.00 Three eggs, applewood bacon, ham, sausage links served with toast and your choice of hash browns, pancake or tomato slices.

Turkey sausage substitution available

CHICKEN SALAD - 10.00

SIGNATURE SANDWICHES & LITE WRAPS

Extra lean Corned Beef additional 1.00 / Extra meat 3.00 / Onion roll additional 1.00 / Grilled bread FREE #9 SHOWTIME - 11.00 Grilled chicken breast, applewood bacon, provolone, mayo, lettuce, tomato, grilled onion roll. #11 CLUBBIN - 12.00 Smoked turkey, applewood bacon, mayo, lettuce, tomato, triple-decker toasted Challah bread. #13 GYRO - 10.00 Choice of lamb or chicken with tomato, onion, Tzatziki, grilled pita bread. add lettuce & feta 1.00 #15 IMPOSSIBLE GYRO - 12.00 Plant based vegan patty, cucumber, tomato, Tzatziki sauce, toasted pita. #17 ROCCO’S WRAP - 11.00 Chicken salad, applewood bacon, cheddar, mayo, lettuce and tomato, choice of classic tortilla wrap or spinach wrap. #19 BUFFALO CHICKEN WRAP - 11.00 Crispy chicken, Buffalo sauce, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, house ranch dressing, choice of classic tortilla or spinach wrap. #21 ITALIAN MELT - 11.00 Honey baked ham, pepperoni, salami, melted provolone, pepperoncini, lettuce, hoagie bun. #23 ORIGINAL CRISPY CHICKEN - 11.00 Buttermilk fried chicken, pickle, lettuce, tomato, American cheese, mayo, brioche bun. #10 MELANIA’S TUNA MELT - 11.00 Albacore tuna salad, melted cheddar, tomato on grilled rye. #12 CLASSIC BLT - 12.00 Thick cut applewood bacon, mayo, lettuce, tomato, triple decker toasted Challah bread. #14 BOSS CLUB - 12.00 Honey baked ham, turkey, applewood bacon, American cheese, honey mustard, lettuce, tomato, triple decker whole grain bread. #16 CALIFORNIA TURKEY WRAP - 11.00 Smoked turkey breast, avocado, tomato, cucumber, choice of classic tortilla wrap or spinach wrap. #18 CHICKEN CAESAR WRAP - 11.00 Marinated chicken breast, lettuce, parmesan cheese, Caesar dressing, choice white or spinach wrap. #20 VEGGIE HUMMUS WRAP - 9.00 Hummus, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, feta, choice of classic tortilla or spinach wrap. #22 PHILLY STEAK - 12.00 Thin sliced ribeye, caramelized onion, melted provolone, hoagie bun.

LOX PLATTER - 14.00 Nova Scotia lox, capers, eggs, tomato, onion, cream cheese, toasted bagel, choice of hash browns or pancake.

HASH BROWNS - 3.00 BOWL OF OATMEAL - 5.00 Add blueberries or craisins for 1.00 SOUR CREAM - 0.75

BISCUITS & GRAVY - 6.00 Fluffy buttermilk biscuit, sausage gravy.

FRENCH TOAST (One) - 3.50

CROISSANT-WICH - 8.00 Honey baked ham, scrambled eggs, melted Swiss cheese, croissant.

EGGS & MEAT - 9.00 Two eggs, toast and choice of meat, choice of side (tomato slices, hash browns, pancake).

Add corned beef or pastrami 2.00 EGGS & HASH BROWNS - 7.00 Two eggs, hash browns and toast.

SOUTHWEST BURRITO - 12.00 Scrambled eggs, applewood bacon, green pepper, grilled onion, salsa, queso and hash browns.

GRIDDLE BREAKFAST JUJU HOT CAKES - 8.00 Fluffy buttermilk pancakes. Stuffed with strawberries, blueberries or chocolate chips for an additional 1.00 STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE PANCAKES - 10.00 Buttermilk pancakes, cheesecake topping, strawberries.

CHALLAH FRENCH TOAST - 10.00 Thick cut Challah bread topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon. Add strawberries, blueberries or chocolate chips for an additional 1.00 BELGIAN WAFFLES - 7.00 Buttermilk waffle.

Add strawberries, blueberries or chocolate chips for an additional 1.00

OVERSTUFFED OMELETS

FRESH VEGGIE OMELET - 10.00 Green pepper, mushrooms, spinach, tomato, onion, cheddar.

HAM & CHEESE OMELET - 10.00 Chopped honey-baked ham and melted cheddar cheese.

no substitutions

TOAST - 1.50 Whole grain wheat, Challah, twice baked rye, country white, English muffin, grilled pita, sourdough, gluten free (add 2.5)

EGGS & PANCAKES - 7.00 Two eggs, buttermilk pancakes.

Add strawberries, blueberries or chocolate chips 1.00

BREAKFAST WRAP - 8.00 Scrambled eggs, cheddar, applewood bacon, green pepper, onion, choice of classic or spinach wrap.

$4.00

FLAKY CROISSANT - 2.00

Curbside Carr yout Order On line

SIDE OF CORNED BEEF HASH - 8.00 CREAM CHEESE - 0.75 PEANUT BUTTER - 1.50 SIDE OF MEAT - 4.00 Applewood smoked bacon, turkey sausage, honey baked ham, sausage links, sausage patties HOME FRIES - 3.50 EXTRA EGG - 1.50 GLUTEN FREE BREAD - 2.50 BAGEL - 3.00 With cream cheese or peanut butter PANCAKE (One) - 3.00 SIDE OF SAUSAGE GRAVY - 2.50 SALSA - 0.75 “BEST IN THE MIDWEST” CORNED BEEF HASH - 12.00 Two eggs, home fries, chopped corned beef, caramelized onions.

HAPPY HASH - 11.00 Two eggs, home fries, broccoli, tomato, mushrooms, feta, caramelized onions.

COUNTRY HASH - 11.00 Two eggs, home fries, applewood bacon, gravy, cheddar, buttermilk biscuit.

IRISH HASH - 12.00 Two eggs, home fries, corned beef, green peppers, Swiss cheese, caramelized onion.

KID’S MENU

Includes free beverage. Ages 8 and younger.

MEAT LOVER’S OMELET - 11.00 Applewood bacon, honey baked ham, sausage, provolone.

CHICKEN TENDERS (Two) - 6.00 With seasoned fries.

WESTERN OMELET - 11.00 Honey baked ham, green pepper, onion, cheddar.

COLD SANDWICH - 6.00 Ham or Turkey with cheese, with seasoned fries.

PHILLY STEAK OMELET - 11.00 Thin sliced ribeye, sautéed mushrooms, onion, green pepper, provolone.

KID’S FRENCH TOAST - 6.00 With your choice of scrambled egg, bacon, or sausage link.

GRILLED CHEESE - 6.00

GYRO OMELET - 11.00 Lamb, onion, tomato, feta, tzatziki.

With seasoned fries.

CLASSIC BREAKFAST

SEINFELD SUPREME OMELET - 12.00 Hot corned beef, pastrami, caramelized onions, Swiss cheese.

KID’S STYLED PANCAKE - 6.00 With your choice of scrambled egg, bacon or sausage link.

EGGS BENEDICT - 12.00 Virginia baked ham, poached eggs, Hollandaise, English muffin, home fries.

GARDEN OMELET - 10.00 Spinach, mushrooms, tomato, feta.

DESSERTS

BREAKFAST ALL DAY

FRIED CHICKEN & WAFFLES - 14.00 Two eggs, fried chicken, Belgian waffles, maple syrup.

THE AMERICAN DREAM OMELET - 11.00 Turkey sausage, green pepper, onion, cheddar.

BREAKFAST SIDES

HOME-STYLE BAKLAVA - 2.50 TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CAKE - 5.00 CARROT CAKE - 5.00 SEASONAL ASSORTED CAKES - 5.00 NY STYLE CHEESECAKE - 5.00 ASSORTED COOKIES - 2.00

Hours: Sunday-Monday 7am -3pm, Tuesday - Saturday 7am -8pm • StatesideDeli.com (order online!)

ENDNOTE

Spend the new stimulus money carefully e've all heard about the $1,400 stimulus checks for people earning $75,000 or less in the mammoth $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, which President Joe Biden signed into law in early March, along with continued unemployment supplements and child tax credits. What you might not have heard about was that a significant chunk of change is targeted to come to state, county and local governments, plus school districts.

For Michigan, that translates to $5.9 billion for the state, $244 million for Oakland County, and a nice windfall for our three local municipalities, as well. Bloomfield Township is slated to receive $4.1 million; Birmingham, $2.1 million, and Bloomfield Hills, $394,658, based on population. Some municipalities, such as the city of Detroit, which was the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country just six-and-one-half years ago, in July 2013, only to become a “phoenix rising from the ashes” success story as workers filled newlyrenovated office space and people flocked to live in apartments, condos and neighborhoods, is projected to get almost $880 million.

Although one would think that a financial rescue act at this time would be directed at addressing just the financial impact on local governments directly related to the pandemic, that is not the case with this broad stimulus package.

Yes, each of our local municipalities, as well as neighboring ones, incurred unexpected expenses in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news has been that state shared revenues have

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not dipped as much as expected, and property taxes are holding steady. Which means the influx of federal dollars can – and should – be carefully studied for how to best be utilized for any community.

Birmingham City Manager Tom Markus rightly analyzes the situation as one where “we should say you should spend it on a one-time expenditure because the money isn't ongoing. It's a lot more than in past stimuluses. I'd say to my commissioners that capital expenditures may be an area, where it's of community-wide benefit, that we may want to look at.”

Birmingham budget talks will take place in May, prior to the fiscal year ending June 30, and Markus anticipates the stimulus money to be part of the discussions.

Bloomfield Township Treasurer Brian Kepes noted, “We clearly have spaces to utilize it,” but township staff is continuing to study the bill, and are speaking with the Oakland County Treasurer's office to see if there are ways to collaborate on joint infrastructure projects or if there are constraints. One area, noted Kepes, where the money cannot be used for is pensions.

Birmingham and Bloomfield Township are on the right track. There is no rush to spend the stimulus dollars – which can be spent between now and 2024. It's important for local municipalities and counties to take their time, analyze needs and wants before plunging in – because once the money is spent, it's gone. We believe it is critical to not start any new, ongoing

programs that would then become ongoing costs for a community once the stimulus money disappears. We've seen that playbook in the past with federal programs – and the ending never changes.

Whether choosing to restore depleted funds, such as Birmingham's parking fund, which has lost well over $1 million in revenue due to the city's wise consideration of retail, restaurant and business needs during the pandemic and their continued response to not charge for monthly parking passes for employees and parking at the city's structures, or to help offset construction costs at a park or for the 2024 S. Old Woodward reconstruction project, there are spending options that should be discussed, debated and discussed some more, before final approvals are made. Ditto in Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills.

Meanwhile, municipalities must keep in mind that what is finally allowed as a legitimate expense for the federal stimulus money has yet to be determined. Attorneys general in a number of states are already questioning language in portions of the new stimulus act – specifically whether states are losing their authority to design their own fiscal policies – and some of these finer points will be determined in what is shaping up to be court challenges in the days ahead.

So there's no rush to determine how this local windfall should be spent over the next several years.

Teen mental health in the remote school he COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on numerous constituencies, some directly in our line of sight, others, obscured from view. No demographic has been immune from its long and dangerous tentacles – and none more so than our young people, who are being crushed by the weight of a mental health crisis whose effects will be felt for years to come.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide is the leading cause of death among high school-aged youths 14-18 after unintentional injuries, based on their 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. “Although fatal (ie, suicide) and nonfatal (eg, suicide attempts) suicidal behaviors are a public health concern across the life span, they are of particular concern for youths and young adults 10-24 years,” the survey said.

Even before the stress and isolation of the pandemic, from 2009 to 2018, suicide rates among youths aged 14-18 years increased by 61.7 percent, from six to 9.7 per 100,000 population. In 2019 alone, almost 19 percent of students seriously considered suicide.

While statistics are not available for 2020 and early 2021, experts report anecdotal reports that suicide attempts and suicide ideation has

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increased, to the point that fully one in four young adults are in such dire straits mentally that they are or have considered taking their own life. The additional stress to teens and young adults in the last year is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has put their life on hold and placed them in isolation – a direct conflict to their natural biological development.

The first priority must be for schools to actively and fully move to in-person education, and maintain that, with their most important consideration the education and well-being of students. Birmingham Public Schools, notably, has worked to get students back to full in-person education by mid-March, with the Bloomfield Hills Schools board of education reacting more hesitantly, but still moving towards a March 22 return date.

Both districts had students in a hybrid-form for parts of the year, but that often left students between two worlds, teachers preparing multiple platforms and parents struggling for child care.

Mental health experts, coaches, teachers, MHSAA, and others note the long-term damage to a young population that has lost not just a year of education but also an important part of their identity in the personal development continuum

with the loss or suspension of sports and other extracurricular activities. It's a major downside to living in a Zoom world.

A further loss for young adults trapped in the remote world is the inability of educators and administrators to identifying those students who could “fall through the cracks” – and who can benefit from receiving a visit with a student counselor or receiving mental health care. Yet, in too many schools, counselors are buried with too many students and too few resources as they work with students to address struggles with mental health, suicide, stress and bullying.

In February, state Rep. Felicia Brabec (DPittsfield) introduced House Bill 4156 to require schools in Michigan to employ one school guidance counselor for every 450 students enrolled. The bill is currently with the education committee. It is imperative to reach out to our state representatives – for most of us, Rep. Mari Manoogian (DBirmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township) to emphasize the importance of the passage of this bill for young adults.

It's critical we not lose one more teen – much less an entire generation – to the scourge of a mental health crisis.

LOOKING FOR A

REAL ESTATE AGENT?

2756 TURTLE BLUFF DRIVE BLOOMFIELD HILLS

L U X U R Y R E A L E S T AT E .

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248.289.0660 tushar@tvahomes.com www.tusharvakhariya.com

Magnificent ITALIAN VILLA Masterpiece

2 1 0 S O l d Wo o d w a r d S u i t e 2 0 0 Birmingham MI 48009

Situated on a bluff overlooking Turtle Lake

6755 Telegraph Road Bloomfield Hills MI 48301

$10,550,000

KB

KATHY BROOCK & CO.

M I C H I G A N ’ S # ࢤ R E A LT O R® L E A D I N G T H E S TAT E F O R ࢤ ࢤ C O N S E C U T I V E Y E A R S 4 T H G E N E R AT I O N R E A LT O R®

C ALL K ATHY BROOCK ࢥࢧࢫाࢦࢤࢫाࢧࢨࢣࢧ

kathy@ma xbroock homes.com w w w.kathybroock .com

275 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham