Downtown newsmagazine | Birmingham/Bloomfield

ENDNOTE: STATE ACTION NEEDED ON THE PLASTICS PROBLEM

JANUARY 2020

NATIVE AMERICANS THE 12 TRIBES OF MICHIGAN MICROPLASTICS INFILTRATE THE HUMAN FOOD CHAIN SOCIETY NOTEBOOK • METRO INTELLIGENCER OAKLAND CONFIDENTIAL POLITICAL GOSSIP ECRWSS Postal Customer EDDM

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Microplastics have now entered the food chain The average American is believed to ingest hundreds of thousands of minuscule pieces of plastic every year, equivalent to about five grams of plastic each week, and state and local waterways' tests show the problem is close to home.

LONGFORM

31

While Michigan has three reservations, the vast majority of the 12 tribes of Native Americans here live in cities, including the estimated 50,000 Indians receiving social services in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

14

David Hohendorf calls BS on a 2020 candidate who uses the nondiscrimination policy adopted in Oakland County to peddle disinformation about Democrats, the county's financial future and the LGBTQ civil rights issue.

CRIME LOCATOR

19

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

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Oakland election security; Mike Kowall out of county job; leaning more Democratic in two districts; dueling U.S. Senate fundraisers; Kesto may go for county spot; Gov. Pete Lucido?; plus more.

MUNICIPAL

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Brooklyn Pizza bistro approved; possible change in public comments; new clerk hired; city information officer exits; township preliminary budget; Bloomfield compensation study; plus more.

THE COVER Concrete tepee sculpture/monument in South Dakota. Cover design: Chris Grammer

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ERICA KOHLER REALTOR

New Year...

New Beginnings!

Same Commitment to Excellence

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The thought of buying a home for the first time was quite overwhelming.

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Hannah Awada

METRO INTELLIGENCER

86

Writer/reporter Dana Casadei helps us provide quick takes on what is happening in the world of food and drink in the metro Detroit area.

SOCIETY NOTEBOOK

91

Society Notebook reporter Gigi Nichols provides the latest news and snapshots from the society and non-profit circuit major fundraising events.

ENDNOTE

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Michigan must start addressing the plastic waste problem and undo past legislation hamstringing local communities; Birmingham may want to move public comment to accommodate public.

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FROM THE PUBLISHER amilies with college-age or post-college age young men and women living away from the area know well the Thanksgiving ritual the younger sets observe each year. Youthful hordes return for a few days and most follow the tradition of congregating with friends the Wednesday night before the holiday.

F

This year was not much different. Some gathered at the homes of friends still living in the metro Detroit area; for others there's the long-standing tradition of spending Wednesday night before the holiday at local drinking establishments, for many Dick's in downtown Birmingham or now at the newest addition to the city scene, The Morrie on Old Woodward.

If your home is anything like ours, Thanksgiving prep time the next day is filled with typical parental Q and A as a means of catching up on the latest gossip about your children's friends from the night before.

I am always curious to hear whether any of the Michigan expatriates are considering returning to the state. What I found interesting in recent years was that members (and allies) of the LGBTQ tribe don't have a return to Michigan anywhere on their radar, many citing the state's poor reputation in terms of being a welcoming place when it comes to diversity. I am convinced the negative image of the state on this issue has helped drive away/keep away who-knows-how-many bright, educated individuals who could be contributing to Michigan's future. And the blame for this lies squarely at the feet of public officials who ignore public opinion and have failed to update state law to provide codified civil rights protections for the LGBTQ community when it comes to housing and employment.

Fast forward to about a week after the holiday and I found myself reading in The Detroit News an op-ed critical of the new Oakland County nondiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation and gender identity (and veterans). The policy covers employees of the county, broadly defined, as well the employees of county vendors and contractors. Nothing new or unusual here – more of a fine-tuning of what has been county policy. Oakland's Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, last updated in 2010, already provided protection against sexual orientation discrimination for county employees and employees of contractors doing business with the county.

The Detroit News opinion piece was written by Republican Chuck Moss, a 2020 candidate for the county commission representing the BirminghamBloomfield area (a fact reportedly left out by The Detroit News). The gist of his column was to paint a portrait of the newly-emboldened Democratic party-controlled county board of commissioners as not sufficiently dedicated to a financially well-managed county in the L. Brooks Patterson tradition. Yes, Moss spent time on the finance committee when he was a county commissioner in the past, and at the state level as chair of the appropriations committee before being term-limited as a House representative. My recollection of his state-level service includes him being a loyal GOP soldier, seldom – if ever – straying from the party line on issues. A decent budgeteer but a party sycophant nonetheless.

What bothered me about his column was the use of the updated county nondiscrimination policy as a whipping post to illustrate his point, contending through a circuitous route that the new policy could well cost the taxpayers money, but no one will know because the recently adopted policy no longer carried “fiscal notes” to show the financial impact, which is actually not correct or, more accurately, it’s disingenuous. Moss' logic seems to infer that fewer contractors and vendors will want to bid on county business or at a minimum, the bidding process will be more complicated. And he illustrates his position by asking whether county taxpayers would rather have civil rights protections for the LGBTQ community if it meant less sheriff deputies on the streets or lead testing for water, for example. Pure crap, to put it bluntly. County administration says the new policy will not be an impediment in vendor/contractor bidding, just as the county's non-discrimination policy had not been in the past.

Oh yeah, the column also managed to weave in what has all the markings of party dogma boilerplate, calling the new policy “radical” and the social issue currently “unsettled” because it is “protested by conservative Christians and radical lesbians” – whatever that last bit means. To top things off, Moss questions whether county policy should be used for “social engineering” – a rather dismissive/offensive position for those of us old enough to remember past (and ongoing) battles for the extension of civil rights for other groups.

Borderline homophobic, some might even say.

My hat is off to the county board majority and newly appointed Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter for updating the non-discrimination rules of the game. At present, Michigan lacks a state law explicitly outlawing discriminating for sexual orientation and gender identification, so we have to rely on executive orders at the state level and adopted policies at the local level to start codifying rights of members from the LGBTQ community, estimated in some surveys to be about four percent of the state's population.

In 2003 and again in 2007, then-Governor Jennifer Granholm issued executive orders protecting state employees based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression of the same. In January of 2019, Governor Gretchen Whitmer followed suit, issuing an executive order to protect both state employees and those workers of contractors doing business with the state from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission in May of 2018 adopted a statement saying the state Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (adopted in 1974; co-author GOP House member and Oakland resident Mel Larsen) prohibits sex discrimination which commission members said includes sexual orientation and gender identity, although some question that legal interpretation.

In August of this year, the Michigan State Board of Education approved a resolution calling for expansion of the Elliott-Larsen Act and sent it to all legislators.

Even some Oakland County local communities got in the game years ago.

Among them: Birmingham, Farmington Hills, Ferndale, Huntington Woods, Lathrup, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak and Southfield, but not all ordinances provide employment protections.

The simple solution would be for state lawmakers to take the time this session to expand the Elliiott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, but I don't have a lot of hope. Countless bills to accomplish this, including ones by Michigan Senator Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), are now lost in the legislative graveyard. There was an inkling of promise in one past legislative session when bills addressing this were at least given a hearing, thanks in part to a coalition of several dozen prominent Michigan businesses which demanded the issue be addressed. But the bills went nowhere. All this despite strong public support, with some Michigan polls pegging it at over 70 percent in favor of codifying into law sexual orientation and gender identity protections when it comes to housing and employment.

We are then left continuing the grass roots approach to bringing about change while we wait for Michigan lawmakers to catch up.

In the meantime, everyone should do some soul searching and ask whether the tired rhetoric from the past has any place when it comes to the discourse on LGBTQ civil rights. And then ask yourself whether those who hold contrary views on an issue of civil rights should even have a place in the government where they can set public policy.

David Hohendorf Publisher DavidHohendorf@DowntownPublications.com

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271 West Maple Birmingham

PUBLISHER David Hohendorf NEWS EDITOR Lisa Brody NEWS STAFF/CONTRIBUTORS Hillary Brody Anchill | Dana Casadei Kevin Elliott | Stacy Gittleman | Austen Hohendorf 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. To secure a paid subscription, go to our website (downtownpublications.com) and click on “subscriptions” in the top index and place your order online or scan the QR Code here.

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.

WEBSITE downtownpublications.com

FACEBOOK facebook.com/downtownpublications TWITTER twitter.com/downtownpubs OAKLAND CONFIDENTIAL oaklandconfidential.com METRO INTELLIGENCER metrointelligencer.com Member of Downtown Publications DOWNTOWN BIRMINGHAM/BLOOMFIELD

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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 December 19, 2019.

Placement of codes is approximate.

INCOMING Getting country healthy Just read David Hohendorf’s From the Publisher (December).

It’s perfect – it explains my personal position exactly and I believe is the key to getting our country healthy again.

Hohendorf’s writings show a measured, reasonable and mature perspective – otherwise known as that oh so important independent, non-partisan view of governance.

Evolution rather than Revolution.

Right on.

Keep up the great work.

Raymond Cekauskas Birmingham

Ransomware issue I wanted to thank (Lisa Brody) for her articles (Ransomware threats/November). Love her style and well-researched.

Thanks for covering an important issue.

David Shulkin Director of Learning Technology Bloomfield Hills Schools FROM FACEBOOK

SIGN UP TODAY

Industry-funded studies No links to peer reviewed studies, no mention of MRLs, and using the EWG for a source (Food contamination/October). All mark this as a poorly done article.

The object is not to inform. It is to spread fear.

Kevin Boynton Vesta, Minnesota

Poorly done article Organic is the only way to grow anything (Food contamination/October). No amount of chemicals is safe.

Get rid of Bayer and their like.

Boycott them all.

Studies be damned. They are industry funded. Bad info in equals bad info out.

Eric Bjerregaard Newberry, Florida

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Farmer responds Bla bla bla - buy overpriced organic food (Food contamination/October).

I am a farmer and I choose to buy the cleanest, safest food which is best for the environment and use the best technology. That is why I won't buy organic and choose GMOs whenever possible.

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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 each month via email.

DUELING DOLLARS: What are the odds? It seems that on the very same day in November, in the very same town, two local wealthy businessmen held private fundraisers for the two men running for senator for the state of Michigan in November. The morning coffee hours – one for Senator Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township) – was held at the Bloomfield Township home of private equity entrepreneur and co-founder of Peas & Carrots Hospitality (Beau’s, Mex, Social Kitchen & Bar, Como’s, Gus’s World Famous Chicken), James Bellinson, while his Republican challenger John James of Farmington Hills, PETERS was shaking hands with folks at the nearby home of former race car driver, owner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and chairman of Penske Corporation, Roger Penske. While it’s unlikely anyone dined at both, poll numbers continue to show the races are close, with Peters, in the last year of his first term as senator, currently up by only about three points according to inside election-camp polling.

JAMES Word is some in Peters camp are starting to panic, but with nine months to go, it’s a marathon for both candidates, not a sprint. At least until October 2020.

CRYSTAL BALL: As President Donald Trump suffered the humiliation of being the third president in our country’s history to ever be impeached by the House of Representatives, two local Democratic congresswomen who flipped longheld Republican seats, Haley Stevens (Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Rochester Hills, Troy, Commerce Township, western Wayne and Oakland counties) and Elissa Slotkin (Rochester, Rochester Hills, northern Oakland County, parts of Livingston and Ingham counties) voted in favor of impeachment. Both congresswomen reported they solemnly studied the articles of impeachment, read the Constitution and voted based on the facts and their conscience – and not to appease any political base. Roll Call, a newspaper which reports on legislative and political maneuvering in Washington D.C., believes both of their district’s ratings, regardless of their votes on impeachment, “based on Republicans’ self-inflicted wounds, slow recruiting or suburbs continuing to shift against the president,” continue to gain in Democrats’ favor. For Stevens, in MI-11, Roll Call rated the district from “Leans Democratic” to “Likely Democratic.” Slotkin’s MI-8 district has moved from “Tilts Democratic” to “Leans Democratic.” The impeachment vote may have even helped move the needle for them. But that’s for the crystal ball to forecast.

HOW ‘BOUT DEM ROADS: Michigan Senator Pete Lucido (R-Shelby Township) in November announced on a Michigan syndicated radio show that he would run for governor in 2022. The announcement came prior to the finalization of the state’s 2020 budget, at a time when Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) line-item vetoed $947 million from the spending plan in hopes of negotiating additional transportation funding into the budget. A portion of funding was restored under a deal with GOP leadership, with the final budget being finalized in December. So, is Lucido still considering a run at the state’s LUCIDO top office? “Yes – 100 percent,” he told Oakland Confidential.

“I’ve seen no leadership. Absolutely no governing. What have we gotten done over the last 12 months?” Lucido pointed to bi-partisan support for his “Raise the Age” plan to raise the age of legal adulthood to 18 in the state’s court system; his work reform civil-asset forfeiture; and his bills to protect elder adult accomplishments, as well as his own experience as an attorney.

“After 30 years of real practice with real people, we need people that understand people in the government that will do the people’s work and not the government’s work. I’m sick and tired of watching from the sidelines. If this is your best shot, you have another thing coming,” Lucido said of the governor, whom he said he wishes he could debate immediately. “She plans on rolling out ‘round two’ in January, and I hope she is thinking of serving the people of Michigan better... A 45-cent per gallon gas tax is unsustainable... the city of Detroit put the world on wheels, and it will downtownpublications.com

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continue to do it, but it won’t be with petroleum. It will be with electric. If people aren’t going to the pumps anymore, it isn’t going to be funding the roads. I’ll still drive on the damn roads, but I ain’t paying at the pumps... I’m anxiously waiting with bated breath about what she is going to say for her next idea, because the first one didn’t go anywhere.” What do you really think, Pete?

CHANGE THE LOCKS: Election security is of utmost concern to protect the sanctity of our one person, one vote system – especially after the 2016 elections, where it has been established that the Russians meddled in our presidential election. Now comes a report in The Washington Post stating that county election websites in the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin are highly vulnerable to potential hacking by Russia or other bad actors who could try to disrupt the 2020 vote by misleading voters about polling locations or spreading other RONCELLI false information before they go to vote. It claimed that up to 45 percent of Michigan’s county election websites lack a key and fairly standard security protection – called HTTPS. Websites with it have that familiar “lock” icon, according to McAfee Security experts, which are easy and inexpensive fixes. Bloomfield Township Clerk Jan Roncelli noted that one of the strengths of Michigan’s system is that election machines are not connected to the internet – “each voting machine is separate and not connected. The county has a BROWN website, but doesn’t open its portal until after 8 p.m., after voting is done.” There’s good news from Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown – Oakland County’s website is definitely secure, so it should be safe from interference.

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ON THE OUTS: Word is that Oakland County and former state Sen. Mike Kowall (R-White Lake) recently parted ways, although reported details of the split are sketchy. Kowall joined the team at county headquarters as part of Oakland County’s economic development department after he was term-limited out of office from the state legislature in January 2019. Kowall, a longtime pal of late former county exec L. Brooks Patterson, came in at Patterson’s behest to do business development and maintain relationships with the Lansing establishment.

Much of that work is currently being done by Oakland HOBBS County Deputy Executive Rudy Hobbs, a two-term former state representative (D-Southfield, Franklin, Lathrup Village, Beverly Hills, Oak Park and Royal Oak Township) who was also Democratic Floor Leader, along with Republican Mike McCready, now Oakland County Director of Economic Development and Community Affairs, who is also a former state rep (Bloomfield Township, Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, West Bloomfield). With their combined legislative expertise, the two regularly engage with the county’s lobbyist, Muchmore Harrington Smalley & MCCREADY Associates, on Oakland affairs. The gossip mill has it that Kowall’s wife, Eileen, a Republican county commissioner, is taking her husband’s change in job status personally, with county executive Dave Coulter (D) allegedly on the receiving end of choice words and personal snubs.

TWISTS & TURNS: Republicans hoping to regain control over the Oakland County Board of Commissioners in 2020 may want to keep a close eye on district 5, which includes Keego Harbor, Orchard Lake Village, Sylvan Lake and portions of Waterford and West Bloomfield. Democrats gained control of the commission in 2018 for the first time in more than four decades when current Democratic commissioner Kristen Nelson beat former Republican incumbent Tom Berman. Berman, who lost the election by less than 500 votes, credited Nelson’s win to the blue wave that swept across the county in 2018, referring to his opponent as a “nameless and faceless ‘D’ on the ballot.”

However, word has it that former state legislator Klint Kesto (R-West Bloomfield) is looking closely at the seat in 2020. Kesto, who ran and lost in a crowded 11th district congressional primary race after being term-limited in the state House, could do well in West Bloomfield’s 5th because it sits in his former 39th state House district.

DOWNTOWN

01.20

245 W. Maple Road • Birmingham, MI 48009 • 248-781-3637

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Ethan Davidson ormer longtime Detroit Pistons owner William Davidson’s legacy is in good hands. His son’s hands, to be exact. Ethan Davidson is an active presence in metro Detroit’s artistic and cultural community, working diligently on behalf of the William Davidson Foundation to promote economic and cultural vitality from southeast Michigan to Israel.

But that wasn’t always his plan.

From the late 1990s through early 2000s, Davidson was touring the world as a musician, playing 150 shows a year for more than six years.

He credits his interest in music to his involvement in Lahser High School’s rock band, the Chrisco Band. His English teacher, Bill Chrisman, the band’s leader, said he’d teach Davidson how to play Motown songs as long as he also read the assigned readings for his class. That incentive paid off, with Davidson playing bass for several bands and releasing 10 solo albums. Now, he says, music is “more of a hobby,” although he still releases albums and can be found performing as a singer-songwriter from Detroit to Rome to Jerusalem.

He “quit that life about 15 years ago when I came back to help get the William Davidson Foundation started,” Davidson said.

At the time, Davidson thought that “I was just gonna help get this thing set up and then go back to touring the world as a professional musician.” However, after his father’s death, the family foundation quickly became Davidson’s “number one priority after my wife and kids.”

The foundation has granted approximately $400 million throughout metro Detroit over the past decade, but Davidson notes that “we follow his [father’s] philosophy of not putting his name up there in lights.”

Davidson is personally philanthropic as well. Earlier this fall, he was named chair of the board of the Michigan Opera Theatre, where a key focus is community engagement. “We’re so lucky to have one of the most beautiful opera houses in the country. We have a great space, and we want the community to understand that it’s their house.” Under the direction of David DiChiera, MOT’s late founder, the opera company has been a forerunner when it comes to presenting diversity on stage – the “performers really represent Detroit” – and has been recognized nationally for its efforts.

Making operas that date back hundreds of years relevant to a contemporary audience is particularly exciting. Noting the recent performance of Mozart’s classic Don Giovanni, in which the protagonist commits sexual violence against women and is later condemned to Hell, Davidson asked how they could take this “morally troubling” story and have a conversation in the community around violence against women.

“How do we have a conversation around this piece of art? I’d like for us to be at those conversations.”

Connecting with contemporary audiences is key for Davidson. As he looks to bring more from the opera outside of the majestic hall, including presenting works by young and upcoming composers in smaller theaters and bars throughout Detroit, he continually sees opportunities to bring awareness to Detroit’s musical legacies. That includes Motown Museum’s forthcoming new campus, which he says will “transform this whole West Grand Boulevard neighborhood while supporting one of the world’s most important brands.”

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Story: Hillary Brody Anchill

Photo: Laurie Tennent

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DOWNTOWN

01.20

urtis Williams fully acknowledges he was “that precocious, annoying kid in second grade.”

Matter-of-factly, he recounts how, since he already knew all of his math facts, he went to the local store and bought a bunch of gold stars and put them along the poster in his classroom next to his name.

“My teacher was pissed,” he recalled, failing to find the humor in the smart – and smart aleck – rascal in her midst. “My parents realized I was bored to tears. So my parents hooked me up with the school psychologist, who said I should be in high school already.”

For Williams, who today is in his 21st year as the seventh grade English teacher at Cranbrook Kingswood Boys' Middle School, finding an educational challenge, as well as an affordable opportunity, wasn't easy at the time, in the 1960s and 1970s.

Williams is a full-blooded Native American Indian, a member of the Seneca tribe, who grew up on Seneca land about 30 miles southwest of Buffalo, New York. He uses the lessons he has learned from his own life as a teaching tool for his students, many of whom come from homes of affluence. “I come from a people of poverty and hard work was a way out. I'm hoping that same attitude, my students can learn from and not just get away with things.”

Williams explained that for him, education was a way off the reservation, as well as an opportunity for advancement.

“Where we were, I went to one of three (public) school districts – none of them good. I was lucky because I had a brain, and a lot of kids didn't,” he said. There were no schools on the Seneca reservation, although many reservations do have schools, depending on the size of the tribe and land mass and whether the contiguousness of the reservation's property can accommodate it. Some tribes, such as in Oklahoma and Arizona, have reservations that are more than 1,000 acres in size, with thousands of inhabitants, both native and non-native, living there.

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In Michigan, three reservations have sizable land mass and inhabitants, none as large as out west, but tribal lands for the 12 recognized Michigan Native American tribes are similar to upstate New York – spread out, often notcontiguous, small.

A majority of the Native American population in Michigan no longer lives on reservations, but in cities. According to Fay Givens, executive director of American Indian Services in Lincoln Park, which provides social services to about 50,000 Native Americans in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, about 75 percent of Indians live in cities, with about 25 percent remaining on reservations.

“Most people have left reservations because there is very little police protections, lack of jobs,” she said. “They leave also for economics and education. If all the Indians went home (to a reservation), the reservation would be bankrupt in two weeks. There would be no housing, no education, no health care, no mortgage companies, because they don't give mortgages on reservations and building companies don't build on reservations. We compete for HUD money for housing, so it creates very poor housing on most reservations.”

“The reservation itself is like any society, it's full of Senecas, some that are married to tribal members, and some, although not a lot, that were not natives,” Williams said, of his native homeland.

Growing up, he said the tribal property was about 40 acres in the woods, where he, his parents and two younger sisters lived in a mobile home. His parents still live on the reservation – but today are in improved conditions.

“My parents live in a double-wide right now – it's a four-bedroom, two bath unit. Now they call them modular housing. The trailer I grew up in would fit in its living room,” Williams said.

After public elementary school, his parents and teachers said, “What are we going to do with this kid?” His parents looked at some of the private school options in the Buffalo area, from Catholic schools, “But I had no religious ties,” to a “rich private preparatory school, or am I going to go to this niche private school,” Calasanctius School, which while run by Jesuits, was an independent and non-denominational school for gifted boys. It closed in 1991 due to lack of funding. “I went there from sixth grade on.

When I graduated, it had 46 kids, and my class had 16 kids. But for the first time, I was challenged. The rigor was twice as hard as standard education, and I took AP classes as a freshman. I could get into any college.”

It altered the trajectory of William's life.

Following Calasanctius, Williams was accepted to Princeton University and waitlisted at Stanford University, which was his first choice, so he did a 13th year at Exeter Academy – and was accepted to Stanford. “I was so ticked

off they made me jump through a hoop, I said forget it, and went to Princeton,” he recalled.

Williams benefited from academic scholarships and academic prizes at each stage of his education, but most importantly, “If I wasn't Native I would have been dead in the water,” he said.

Why? “We got protection from the government. It wasn't always positive, but there are protections in place, and if you know how to utilize them, they're to your benefit,” he noted.

Calasanctius was almost 40 miles away from his home, “but because of reservation geography, my transportation was covered. From my parents' point of view, that was valuable.

School was an expense they weren't prepared for.”

Williams' father was an iron worker whose last job in the city of Buffalo, he said, was in 1977 or 1978. “He went around the country doing jobs, including in Port Huron.” He became a welder for nuclear power plants in the latter part of his career. Carpooling his son to a private school wasn't on his agenda.

Williams, a large man with the physique of a football linebacker, played some baseball, but not a lot of football – largely because he had to work before and after school in both high school and college. The Indian Education Act, passed by the U.S. government in 1972, also “helped me get money to make it manageable.”

The Indian Education Act established the Office of Indian Education and the National Advisory Council on Indian Education, providing federal funds for American Indian and Alaska Native education at all grade levels. It also empowered American Indian parents to form advisory boards for federally operated schools and for public schools that have programs for American Indian students.

The 1960s and 1970s was a period of civil rights protections for Native American Indians after centuries of discrimination and hardship, along with other disenfranchised and discriminated groups in the United States, with educational reform one aspect of that coin.

Native Americans were technically outlawed from practicing their own religions until 1978, when a law, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, passed to protect and preserve their traditional religious rights and cultural practices. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 protects Native Americans, as well as all others, from having their civil rights infringed, as it prohibited discrimination for the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and since 1974, sex.

“In literature, we were called the 'Invisible Population.' The American Indian movement was at the tail end of the '60s and '70s. We bought into the other civil rights movements,” said Aaron Payment, first vice president of National Congress of American Indians

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(NCAI), which was founded in 1944 to represent tribes and resist federal government pressure for termination of tribal rights and assimilation of their people. Payment is also chairperson of the Sault Sainte Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. ative Americans are citizens of the federal government as well as their own tribes – a hard-fought recognition that was not achieved until 1924. Michigan is home to 12 federally-recognized Indian tribes that are sovereign governments that exercise their own direct jurisdiction over their members and their territory. There are other tribes in Michigan still fighting for federal recognition. Tribal governments provide a wide array of government services to their members, from lawmaking, tribal police and court systems, health and education services, social services, and others. State government does not generally have legal authority over tribal governments and their tribal members inside the tribe's territory, which are lands that have been designated as the tribe's reservations or trust lands.

The term “Indian reservation” is a legal term for an area of land managed by a federally recognized Native American tribe under the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs rather than the state they are situated in, and each of the 326 Indian reservations in the U.S. is associated with a specific Native American nation, although not all of country's 567 recognized tribes have a reservation. Some tribes have more than one reservation; some tribes share reservations; and some are fragmented because of past land allotments, sales to non-Native Americans, and other public and private real estate sales.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is the oldest agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior, first established in 1824, and currently provides services, either directly or through contracts, grants or compacts, to approximately 1.9 million American Indians and Alaskan Natives. The Bureau is responsible for the administration and management of 55 million surface acres and 57 million acres of subsurface mineral estates held in trust by the United States for Native Americans. They also provide education services for about 42,000 students.

Matthew Fletcher, Michigan State University law professor and Director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, and a member of the Ottawa and Chippewa tribes in western Michigan, said, “Land is held in historic land trusts (in Michigan), but the land is not all contiguous. It can be spread out over several counties, which mine is. Some tribes

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may refer to each parcel as a reservation, others as parts of a reservation.”

He said his reservation, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, currently has 1,000 acres, “but we have had to repurchase all but 12 acres of it in the last 40 years because they were taken through trickery, theft and violence. There's no one thing that caused us to lose our land other than the federal government failed us badly in keeping this land that was bargained for between sovereigns in the 1830s and then again in the 1850s. Twice when the U.S. government negotiated with us for the reservation, and both times they failed they us badly.”

The majority of his tribe “live off the reservation because we have so little land,” Fletcher said. Before the purchase of almost 1,000 acres, “most of our land was two Methodist churches and a cemetery. You couldn't live on the land if you wanted to – so we lived near the reservations.”

Payment, of the Sault Sainte Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, said his tribe was not federally recognized until 1972, after first applying for recognition in 1938 – and repeatedly after. He explained that the Indian Reorganization Act of 1938 permitted federal recognition of tribes, and it can be difficult for tribes to get federal recognition “because there's a fiduciary and financial responsibility behind it. There's land in exchange.” He said language in treaties state the U.S. government has to protect Indians, “'for as long as the grass grows, and the wind blows, and rivers flow.' It's our perspective that our ancestors knew just what they were doing.” ayment, whose family has lived in the area, both on the U.S and Canadian side, for generations, only somewhat assimilating to white culture in the mid1900s, moving into the city of Sault Ste. Marie off the land, “where the conditions were the worst of the worst, without indoor plumbing, poverty, racism. We were still separate.” The tribe was one of four tribes that signed the treaty of 1836, which allowed Michigan to become a state in 1837, he said, exchanging 14 million acres of land for promises.

“We receive money from the federal government – it is not welfare; it is not reparations; it is not from atrocities at the hands of federal Indian policy, but because we pre-paid,” he emphasized. “We're underfunded for the obligations, for our needs. The value of the land – we're getting the short end of the stick.”

Besides the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, the other 10 federally recognized tribes in Michigan are the Bay Mills Chippewa

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Indian Community; Grand Traverse Bay Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians; Hannahville Indian Community (Potawatomi); Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (Chippewa); Lac Vieux Desert Band of Chippewa; Little River Bay Band of Ottawa Indians; Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians; Match-e-be-nashshe-wish Band of Potawatomi Indians; Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi Indians; and Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe.

Michigan, and the Great Lakes area, was originally populated by the Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Huron, Ottawa, Kickapoo, Ojibwe – also known as the Chippewa, and Menominee Indians. Some tribes moved on naturally, following their prey and avoiding war, whether from other tribes or European conquerers; others were forced by the U.S. government to leave their native lands. It's a long story of settlement, cultural appropriation and assimilation, war, and a fight for autonomy.

Ultimately, it's a tale of control and money.

“Go back to 1650, when European travelers first got to native Michigan. They arrived in small numbers – two, three, four, five people at a time, all men, all fur traders,” said Professor George Milne of Oakland University's Department of History. He said beaver was the main pelt, “the main resource of the Europeans, whether the French, Dutch or English, and it becomes very lucrative. The Native Americans were very aware of that, and played the Europeans against each other.”

That was a period of time known as the Beaver Wars – also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars, from the 1640s to the 1680s, which were battles of economic welfare throughout the St. Lawrence River valley in Canada through the lower Great Lakes between the Iroquois and northern Algonquians and originally, their French allies, according to Lee Sultzman, author of “Iroquois: Beaver Wars.” As the Dutch arrived, they supplied Indians with guns and “valuable tools that the Iroquois could receive in exchange for animal pelts,” Sultzman said.

“When guns, iron tools and iron weapons reach the Great Lakes, it becomes very violent,” Milne said, with the musket available to Native American groups. “A group only needed a few muskets and iron tools to tip the power in their favor.”

While to Europeans, Native Americans appeared one and the same, there was – and is – no one homogeneous group. “Native American groups are very different, with different languages, different religions, different spirituality, different practices,” Milne said. “The biggest misconception most people have is they are not all they same – and they didn't all get along. There were some deepseated rivalries and animosities.”

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France” and violence with the Indians – “New France was always a loss leader for them,” Milne explained. “France wanted to do away with all of the violence because of the fur trade. It's the only reason they're in North America. They managed to get almost all of the Great Lakes nations and the Iroquois” – originally from upstate New York, but whose power had spread to encompass much of the eastern portion of the United States, the Mississippi valley and the Great Lakes – into a general peace, with the French acting as brokers, called the Peace of Montreal in 1701.

With that action, “The French are able to set up in a couple of places in Michigan – at Mackinac Island, which they called Fort Michilimackinac, with Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac as the first governor. It was a choke point, where the Great Lakes came together, and they could buy up furs from Wisconsin, western Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and western Ontario.”

Cadillac then decided to move south and settled Detroit with a couple dozen Frenchmen, Milne said.

“He was a huckster,” Milne said. “He tells the French government, 'We can settle different Native groups,' so they have several Native groups settle the area. It's a real salad bowl, and it doesn't work. By 1711, it's open warfare with some groups, with the Sauk and Menominee on the receiving end. It took about 20 years to settle down, and a lot of groups moved west to avoid the hassle.”

At the same time, the French and English rivalry over territory and pelts took on greater impact, leading to the French and Indian War, from 1754 -1763, which Milne said was actually one finger of a global war being fought in North America, India, Africa and Europe between the two superpowers of the day – France and Great Britain, each with powerful navies and merchant marines.

“Most Indians supported the French. They saw them as just another group. A lot of French traders settled down and intermarried with Native Americans,” Milne explained, while, he said, the English were “a different story, drawing trade through Hudson Bay.” ilne said the “real disaster” for the Great Lakes nations came with the American Revolution and the Peace of 1783, also called the Treaty of Paris, signed between the United States, Great Britain and France. As Milne explained it, Great Britain “at least on the map, gave the Great Lakes region to the United States.”

France had exited North America in 1763, after the French and Indian War. “They said to Great Britain, 'We've had it, we've lost money for 150 years, Great Britain, you can have it.'”

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In 1783, Great Britain allowed the U.S. to have land up to the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.

“There were almost no Americans between the Appalachians and the Great Lakes regions, maybe a handful of American fur traders,” he said. “But, no one asked the Native Americans about this. There were no Native Americans in Paris, no Native American diplomats – no one asked anyone who lived in the area.”

“We are the most marginalized population in the country,” asserted Fay Givens of American Indian Services. Whether historically or today, “We are never part of any consultation.”

“It's the beginning of the end for Native American autonomy,” Milne said of the peace agreement, as the U.S. began to send in settlers first to upstate New York, then Ohio, and later into Michigan. As white settlers began to settle and inhabit the area, they surrounded the Native Americans, taking their land, food sources, and ultimately, their ability to control their own destiny. Then, they began to be systematically removed from their native lands.

Another misconception is that Native Americans were not always tribes, but small communities of similar Native Americans, until well into the 1800s, when Native Americans were forced from lands of their heritage to “tribal” lands. “Today in the 21st century, they identify as tribal because of what happened with the U.S. government,” Milne said.

What happened was a systematic governmental effort to remove American Indian tribes from lands where white settlers wanted to live and farm, leading to the Indian Removal Act in 1830 by President Andrew Jackson, and subsequently enthusiastically enforced by President Martin Van Buren. The law authorized the president to negotiate with Native American tribes, notably from the southeastern U.S., for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for white settlement of their ancestral lands. “The act has been referred to as a unitary act of systematic genocide, because it discriminated against an ethnic group in so far as to make certain the death of vast numbers of its population,” stated Guenter Lewy, professor emeritus of political science at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

It was also a time when treaties were signed between Native American tribes and the U.S. government, first in the 1830s, and in the 1850s, which preserved hunting and fishing rights and some land rights, although it pushed Indians in Michigan into specific land parcels, or “reservations.” To this day, the treaties endure.

“The idea of reservations was to concentrate Native American people, to make them accessible for administrative purposes, and to convert them to Christianity,” Milne explained. “Some reservations were to separate the Native Americans, to keep them away from white people – to protect them from getting ripped off by whites; others were to segregate them.” he treaty rights, which include the right to hunt, fish and gather on established reservation land and certain other ceded territory, were reserved to specific tribes. These rights have been granted in perpetuity in exchange for the vast amounts of land ceded to the federal government by Native American tribes – although they assert they continually have to battle to enforce those rights.

“The treaties, for hunting and fishing, we had fights on fishing rights in Michigan in the 1970s and '80s,” said Eric Heneway, director of archives and records, Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, of fights tribal members had around the Great Lakes when they were threatened and assaulted by white fishermen.

Kathryn Tierney, an attorney for Bay Mills Indian Community in the northeast part of the Upper Peninsula, argued a case in 1976, People v. LeBlanc, which further protected Indian fishing and treaty rights. Indians, using nets, were accused of using “lethal, nonselective devices” and taking fish that would not be available for sports fishermen. Tierney said similar nets had been used by Native American fishermen for generations and were legal under tribal law. If the state had forced the tribe to abide by Michigan law, Native Americans' ability to make a living would have been severely impacted, she asserted. The courts concurred, all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court.

“Article Six of the Constitution declares treaties to be the supreme law of the land, so treaties are just as valid today as they were on the day they were signed, and treaty rights are legally binding as well,” according to Alessandro Michelucci, author of “Treaty Rights Struggle.”

The treaty rights are rights retained in treaties negotiated between sovereigns, and Native American tribes are recognized as sovereign nations. Treaty rights are tribal, not individual rights, and are held and regulated by the treaty signatory tribes. That interpretation of sovereign nation status later permitted Native American tribes to prevail in the adoption of gaming and casinos on their lands as an economic tool, which withstood court challenges.

Hemenway said understanding the time

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period in which the treaties were created is very important. “It was a time of great duress, of diseases, forced removal, the tail end of war,” he pointed out. “It was a terrible time for Indians. Tens of thousands were removed west of the Mississippi and thousands died of smallpox, and yet the U.S. government was telling us to sign these treaties. One treaty ceded 16 million acres to the U.S. government.

But what options did they have?”

He credits “really good leadership” in the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa which kept them in their ancestral homeland. “It's very rare to have them in their homeland preColumbus.

The Native American people only make up one percent of the U.S. population today, so to even be here, and in your homeland is pretty remarkable.”

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, there are approximately 2.2 million Native Americans in the United States. There are estimated to be about 50,000 Native Americans in the tri-county area of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, with the majority residing in Wayne County. National Congress of American Indians' Payment said the census number can be misleading, “because the census allows you to recognize yourself only as federally recognized Native Americans or just as Indian, and an equal amount who identify as Indian, about 2.2 million are not federally recognized, meaning there's (really) about 5 million. A large number of Indians are disenfranchised.”

Payment said undercounting Native Americans is nothing new. “Once the government realized they had to uphold treaties, the government came up with a workaround to undercount American Indians in the census. For example, if you were away from home hunting, berry picking, your home and your family wasn't counted – and you didn't exist.” He said that is now reflected in their own records, as one way to trace their ancestral heritage and native blood is through written records of their heritage, along with field notes and annuities.

“All tribes must prove Indian blood and your ability to trace back,” he said. “There are large chunks of people who aren't counted.” cculturation of the treaty era was steeped in the European colonization blueprint, Payment pointed out, and was hardly unique – author Theda Perdue said it was originally proposed all the way back by George Washington. In an effort to assimilate with American culture, Native Americans were encouraged – or forced, depending upon the vantage point – to convert to Christianity, learn to speak and read English, and adopt

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European-style economic practices, such as individual land ownership and even, in some instances, ownership of African slaves, in direct contradiction to Natives' traditional communal land ownership and personal coexistence.

Despite congressional debates and some Christian missionaries opposing the act, Jackson prevailed in enacting the Indian Removal Act, as he viewed the eradication of Indian tribal nations as inevitable, having seen a similar Native American tribal demise in the northeast, according to H.W. Brands in “Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times.”

“Indian tribes had become nearly extinct, Indian hunting grounds had been replaced with family farms, and state law had replaced tribal law,” Brands wrote. “He dismissed romantic portrayals of lost Indian culture as a sentimental longing for a simpler time in the past, stating that 'progress requires moving forward.'”

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 paved the way for the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of American Indians from their land into the west, becoming an event known as the “Trail of Tears,” a forced resettlement of the Indian population. Of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma, about 3,500 made it.

The Cherokee nation negotiated the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, which traded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi for $5 million, relocation assistance and compensation for lost property. But by 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for Indian territory – when President Van Buren sent U.S. soldiers to expedite the removal process, according to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. At the end of bayonets, they marched Indians more than 1,200 miles, with reports of whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, smallpox, cholera and starvation prevalent along the way. Historians estimated more than 5,000 Cherokees died as a result of the journey.

Assimilation and loss of culture did not fade into the history pages once Indians were relocated to other lands.

Those Indians remaining in the United States or in U.S. territory had to be “dealt” with. Boarding schools were created by the government for school age Native American children who were forcibly removed from their families, taught English and punished if they spoke their native tongue or who practiced their own rituals or religion, beginning after the Civil War and continuing well into the 20th century.

“The way they went about it was horrific.

They would just go to a town and round up the children,” Payment said. “They would chop the Indian's hair off, and in the Indian

culture, hair is sacred. To make sure children wouldn't escape, they would tell them their parents died. We're a very spiritual people.

When the children tried to do death rites, they were prohibited to pray or speak their language and they were punished for it. Many of the children were discombobulated, and horribly damaged.” nitially, Payment said, the goal was simply to assimilate the children; later it became a way to create laborers and seamstresses. While some boarding schools lasted until 1978, Professor Fletcher of MSU Law School said up until 1930, many lower peninsula tribal children in Michigan went to the Mt. Pleasant School.

“Tribes negotiated for educational rights, and the government was doing pretty well until after the Civil War, and President Grant started boot camps, where he put in exmilitary and missionaries running schools,” Fletcher said.

In Harbor Springs, the Holy Childhood School, a missionary school, was in operation through the 1980s.

“The goal of these schools was to prohibit Native language, which was forbidden, and would guarantee a beating,” Fletcher said.

“There was limited amount of actual education. They taught manual labor, military discipline to both men and women, and many (Native) men went into the military after, because, really, that's all they knew.”

Payment said when many of the children left school, often around the age of 15, “they were treated differently by the tribe. They were ostracized because they were different.”

In the 1940s and 1950s, after the Mt. Pleasant School closed down, Fletcher said the government moved into forced adoptions – where Indian children were taken from Native families, either because there were family issues, or because they determined there were, or they had children that had been pulled from their families to go to school and were now homeless or orphaned, and they were placed with Caucasian families.

“They had all these Indians on their hands and they decided to adopt them out to nonIndians, to assimilate them, so they wouldn't know or recognize the tribe” Fletcher said.

“Native families had no recourse. They would have to hire a lawyer, which they couldn't afford. They were treated as subhumans.”

Land obfuscation was a third way of stripping them of their customs and identity.

“The U.S. government said, “'If we make them white, we won’t have to pay them anything,'” Payment said. Rather than encouraging Native

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Americans from remaining on tribal property, the government offered Natives allotments of land, which if they worked the land for 20 years, would become theirs. “It was an effort to dismantle Indian Nation and from being part of a community,” Payment asserted.

Further, there were lots of unscrupulous counties, he said. “When Indians were out hunting and gathering berries and other things, they purposely posted the land as vacant and sold it.” In that way, more and more Native land disappeared from tribal hands.

“I've been here for 26 years – I've seen what's gone on,” said Fay Givens, executive director of American Indian Services in Wayne County, a social services agency which feeds about 6,000 people a year among others services. “It still happens.

Every day I see a child come in who has been taken from their family. It's common.

The child loses their identity – and they have the highest suicide rate of any children in America, because if a child doesn't have any identity, they're lost.

“They're required by law to be put with an Indian family, but sometimes they say they can't find one – but often, they (the government) has alienated them, and they don't want to be foster parents because it's been such a negative experience for them.

So then, the children are put with white or African American or any families, and they lose their Native American identity,” she continued. “We have adoptees who say, 'We're not accepted anywhere. We don't fit in the white world, we don't fit in this Indian world, and we don't feel like we belong anywhere.' It's been a real problem.” orking to re-establish their tribal heritage after decades of assimilation is an effort tribes across the state – and the country – are involved in today. “It's been under attack for 200 years, to make us white, non-Indian. It permeated every aspect,” pointed out Heneway, director of archives and records for Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians near Harbor Springs.

“A series of laws were enacted in the late 20th century to address, re-establish and rebuild our identity and culture. Many tribes have their own language, culture, programs for youth, natural resources. Different tribes have different programs. There is a big movement to reclaim what we can, but some things are gone forever.”

American Indian Services offers youth programs after school and in the summer to teach them traditional crafts, such as bead

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work, making masks, sugar bushing, making drums from skins, designing and creating their own clothing for pow wows, and other native tasks. “You can't go to a store and buy dance regalia. Everyone makes their own dance regalia for pow wows,” Givens said.

She said pow wows are held somewhere in Michigan every weekend from March through September. “They're our social gathering, where we go to meet other tribes, meet other people, meet potential marriage partners. It's a celebration of life and culture.”

Williams, who sought education off the Seneca reservation in New York, said that in the 1970s, still a heightened period of assimilation for Native Americans, he received blowback from his relatives. “They'd say to me, 'Why are you acting so white?' But as soon as I got an award – it was, 'That's my nephew, that's my cousin.'”

Today, he said he knows little of the language and the traditions. Like many religions and ethnic groups, he experiences the ties through food.

“I'd love to learn the language, but it's not like Slavic languages where there are a lot of similarities (between languages). There are some commonalities, but they're from thousands of years ago,” he noted. “When I went home for Thanksgiving, I told my mom I wanted our traditional cornbread. It comes out like a wheel of concrete – unless you grew up with it. It's like home.”

The perception of Native Americans as poverty-stricken, riddled with high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, unemployment and suicide is both true and false – depending on who you talk to. Aaron Payment said the picture painted is accurate.

“We have the highest rates of suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism, unemployment – we have the greatest need for everything,” the chair of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians said. He cited a report updated last year, “Broken Promises,” from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, noting that for Native Americans, they are an underclass reaping the results of decades of forced removal, assimilation and lack of opportunity, which has perpetuated a cycle of poverty.

MSU's Matthew Fletcher disagrees. “It does exist in any population with a high rate of poverty, but it also shows that for those who live on reservations, they have a lower rate of alcohol and drug abuse than similar populations of similar economics living near them.”

In the early 1980s, bingo opened the door to economic opportunities for Indians in Michigan, as long-term economic problems and poverty on reservations led several Michigan tribes to seek revenue and jobs for

tribal members by opening large scale bingo operations. With that success, they next moved to open “Las Vegas” type casinos. At the time, other than the lottery, gambling was still illegal in Michigan. Fred Dakota, a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian tribe, personally challenged Michigan's authority to regulate Indian gaming, and he prevailed. here are now 27 Indian casinos or bingo operations in Michigan, providing revenue to tribes and tribal members, as well as jobs for Natives and non-Natives in their local communities.

“For most tribes, it's brought us up from abject poverty to lower middle class,” Fletcher said. “At least as important as the federal government recognizing the tribes being able to have self-determination is it creates economic opportunity.”

It's also created partnerships with the state of Michigan. Tom Durkee, business development manager, Michigan Education Development Corporation (MEDC), who works with all 12 tribes on a $1.3 million annual grant program to support economic development for the tribes, for job creation and tribal investment, he has worked to provide funds over five years to repurpose the former casino site of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians into a $24 million multi-tenant commercial project, assisting the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians to rebuild two commercial fishing docks on tribal properties in the Upper Peninsula by providing some grant funds, among other projects, with tribes required to contribute at least a 20 percent match.

Durkee said, “Native Americans have economic power – I believe they do and MEDC believes so, by the nature of the locations of their reservations, where their tribes are located, they are the largest employers in rural areas. They operate roads, schools, health care and social service systems, police and fire. They're sovereign nations so they operate as such, which is a full government. You add in their other economies, like casinos, gaming, farmers markets and manufacturing, and they tend to be large employers in rural areas.”

While the financial improvements are offsetting decades of abuse and deprivation, to Payment, it's a double-edged sword and a matter of perspective.

“Prior to intervention, we lived rich lives,” he noted. “Our stories tell us we had everything we needed. We lived in balance with our natural world – and that's all changed now.”

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FACES Hannah Awada iving in Shanghai, there weren't any grocery stores offering hummus or baba ganoush where Hannah Awada could get a quick fix for the Lebanese flavors she grew up with in Toledo, Ohio.

"There's no hummus in China. There are no grocery stores offering it," Awada said, explaining the origins of her Birmingham-based business, Hummus Goodness. "There are about a million expatriates living in China. There's no access to salsa or dips, or things like Ranch dressing.

It just doesn't exist there. The ingredients are hard to come by, and expensive, especially if you're just going to make it one time for a party.

You have to buy in bulk, and the average person isn't buying 25 gallons of tahini."

Discussing it with friends, Awada set out to make some different flavors of hummus she could sell to others to offset the cost of making her own batch. He goal was to sell 50 six-ounce containers of hummus a week.

"I sold 65 containers the first week, and after nine months, I was doing 450," she said. "It was all done by word-of-mouth. There was a need I didn't even know existed."

Nine months after starting Hummus House in Shanghai, Awada was on the move to the Detroit-area, where her husband works in the auto industry. A former high school history teacher turned marketing professional, she and her husband had moved around the globe before landing in Birmingham.

Sharing her experiences with her neighbors and friends, they quickly encouraged her start up the hummus business again. While she was initially hesitant because of the number of choices already available in the area, she knew she could make hers stand out by offering a freshmade, natural product. She also had another advantage: 26 different flavors she had already developed while living in China.

"One thing I realized was that store-bought hummus doesn't usually taste fresh, so the people I knew here said I should try it and see what happens," she said.

Rather than selling directly to customers, Awada approached local grocery stores to see if there was interest, starting with Holiday Market Select, in Birmingham. From there she was able to get her hummus into Market Fresh, Market Square, and other locations in Ann Arbor, Grosse Pointe and Clarkston. Next year, Awada will be expanding into Nino Salvaggio and Meijer stores.

"I was surprised there was so much interest, especially for hummus," she said.

Working out of the commercial kitchen at St. James Church in downtown Birmingham, Awada, three employees and a few friends make hummus one day a week. Batches include five varieties, as well as a rotating seasonal flavor. Regular flavors include a "naked" traditional hummus; Balsamic goodness, with roasted garlic and caramelized onion; her "Notorious RBG," which features roasted beets topped with goat cheese, honey and pistachios; "Let's Taco-Bout Hummus," that includes pico de gallo; and the spicy "Raging Bull" hummus that offers a slow, strong heat.

With more than two dozen flavors under her belt, expect Awada to roll out new flavors in the future, but don't expect to save it too long.

"We work in small batches because quality is very important. We don't use any preservatives, like citric acid. We use raw garlic and roast it in the kitchen, and caramelize the onions ourselves," Awada said. "We don't do anything to extend the shelf life. I don't think things should last six weeks in the fridge."

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Story: Kevin Elliott

Photo: Laurie Tennent

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PLASTICS INFILTRATING AND ALTERING FOOD CHAIN

BY KEVIN ELLIOTT

The average American is believed to ingest hundreds of thousands of minuscule pieces of plastic every year, equivalent to about five grams of plastic each week through the food we eat and the air we breath. Starting with firstlevel algae and ending with humans at the top of the trophic pyramid, microplastics have undeniably infiltrated the food chain, from seafood to beer.

"Human reliance on plastic packaging and food processing methods for major food groups such as meats, fruits and veggies is a growing problem. Our research suggests microplastics will continue to be found in the majority â&#x20AC;&#x201C; if not all â&#x20AC;&#x201C; of items intended for human consumption," said Kieran Cox, an oceanographer with the University of Victoria in British Columbia who was lead author on a 2019 study looking into human consumption of microplastics. "We need to reassess our reliance on synthetic materials and alter how we manage them to change our relationship with plastics."

The study, "Human Consumption of Microplastics,â&#x20AC;? looked at the presence of microplastics in fish, shellfish, sugars, salt, honey, sugar, beer and bottled water, as well as air intake.

Microplastics refers to tiny pieces of plastic that range from a single nanometer to about five millimeters. Sources include primary microplastics that are manufactured as microbes, capsules, fibers and pellets used in cosmetics, personal care products, abrasives and textiles. Other sources of microplastics include larger pieces of plastic that break down into smaller pieces when exposed to sunlight and other elements. Secondary microplastics include fragments from plastic bottles, bags, synthetic clothing and other debris.

Researchers evaluated about 15 percent of American's caloric intake and estimated that annual microplastic consumption ranges from 29,000 to 52,000 particles, depending on age and sex. The estimates increased to 74,000 to 121,000 particles when inhalation was considered. Further, the researchers said individuals who meet their recommended water intake through bottled water alone could be ingesting an additional 90,000 microplastics annually, compared to 4,000 for those who drink only tap water.

"Given methodological and data limitations, these values are likely underestimates," the study noted.

Despite the findings, the effects of microplastics on human health is still largely unknown. Overall, the majority of research into microplastics has focused on where it is, where it's coming from and the potential effects it could have on aquatic ecosystems.

A simple Google image search for "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch" will produce images of an island of plastic trash the size of Texas floating between California and Hawaii. However, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – which, yes, focuses on more than weather forecasts – are quick to point out that much of the debris includes a conglomeration of smaller bits of plastic and microplastics suspended throughout the water column.

Closer to home, concentrations of microplastics in the Great Lakes are considered the highest on earth. On the local level, concentrations of microplastics in the Clinton, Huron and Rouge rivers are among the highest of all the Great Lakes tributaries tested.

"We had samples in the Great Lakes that rivaled the most contaminated places in the world's oceans," said chemist Sherri Mason, who currently serves as sustainability coordinator for Penn State Berhrend, and is a lead author of studies into microplastics in the Great Lakes. "The point I try to drive home is that what we hear about in the oceans – and we hear about them more than freshwater – all the stuff you are hearing, it's happening much more localized. It's happening in our rivers and lakes. It's happening in the water you depend on to drink.

It's happening in the water used to grow your food. It's happening."

Mason began studying microplastics by chance in 2011. The Texas native had already lived along the shores of Lake Erie for a decade, but admittedly hadn't been out on the lake much. But in 2011 she and a group of students boarded the replica sailing brig, Niagara, and started sampling the water for plastics as a teaching exercise. Expecting to find plastic bags, straws and bottles floating throughout the lake, Mason instead found countless pieces of tiny microplastics. As her work expanded, the findings were astonishing.

The study, which was completed in 2012, found microplastics gathered from surface waters of the Great Lakes had a median concentration of 5,350 particles per square kilometer, and a maximum concentration of 466,000 particles per square kilometer – levels as high or higher than in ocean gyres.

Looking at the areas of the Great Lakes, which hold 20 percent of the world's surface freshwater, the largest, Lake Superior, flows into Lake Huron, which geologically forms a single lake with Lake Michigan and is separated by the lower peninsula. Considered the most pristine of the Great Lakes, researchers estimate about 30,000 microplastic particles per square kilometer in Lake Superior; 17,000 particles per square kilometer throughout Lake Michigan; and 3,000 particles per square kilometer in Lake Huron.

The primary outfall for Lake Huron is Lake Erie, where researchers estimate about 46,000 particles per square kilometer. As Lake Erie pours into Lake Ontario to form the end of the lake system, researchers found the highest concentration estimates, with about 230,000 particles per square kilometer. All of the water then flows into the St. Lawrence Seaway and eventually into the North Atlantic.

The study found microplastic fragments formed through the degradation and breakdown of larger Styrofoam, bottles and other plastic items, made up an average of about 52 percent of all particles in each sample. Pellets from preproduction plastic items and beads from cleaners and other uses made up an average of 16 percent of particles – however, 97 percent of all pellets and beads were found in two samples.

Microfibers from clothing and synthetic lines made up about two percent of the particles, on average.

"We started with the Great Lakes with the question, 'is it there?' because nobody was looking, oddly enough," Mason said. "So, then we looked at the rivers."

Working with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), researchers looked at microplastics in 29 Great Lakes tributaries in six states. Each tributary was sampled three or four times and plastic particles were sorted by size, counted and categorized as fibers/lines, pellets/beads/foams, films and fragments. Microplastics were found in all 107 samples, with a maximum concentration of 32.3 particles per cubic meter found in the Huron River, which flows from Springfield Township in northern Oakland County to Lake Erie.

The overall median concentration of particles for all the samples was found to be 1.9 particles per cubic meter. The highest median concentration of microplastics, 12.2 (21.5 maximum) particles per cubic meter, was found in the Clinton River, which flows mainly from Springfield Township to Lake St. Clair in Harrison Township. The Rouge River, which flows from Rochester Hills and goes through Birmingham, Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills before reaching the Detroit River, had a median concentration of 10.2 particles per cubic meter (11.4 maximum) – the third highest of the tributaries sampled, behind the Ashtabula River, northeast of Cleveland.

"The Rouge River was the most urbanized river that we studied. All particle types were found, with fiber being the most common, which isn't uncommon," Mason said. "We were looking across different urbanizations, from rural areas to more urbanized, and we looked at high flows and low flows.

"With all the different shapes of particles, you can go from rural to urban, and low to high flow and see an increase with all of those, except fibers. When you have more people, you have more particles, so it's pretty logical. When you have rain and a lot of runoff, you see higher counts of fragments that are running off the roads. With fibers, they are always the same. They are omnipresent. It doesn't matter if you're looking in rural or urban tributaries."

Overall, fibers were the most commonly detected particle type found in tributaries, making up about 71 percent of all particles found in total samples. Microfibers often come from synthetic clothing. Mason said those findings are a sharp contrast to the percentage of fibers found in most Great Lakes samples.

"In tributaries, the turbulence keeps the fibers afloat. In the absence of that, they are sinking, so they are found in the sediment in the Great Lakes," she said. "With regard to fibers, they are readily transported around the globe in air. They are everywhere. They are in soil and water.

They are in your beer. They are the most common type of microplastic."

Researchers found the Rouge River had an average concentration of about 6.5 fiber particles per cubic meter; the Clinton River had about five per cubic meter; and the Huron River had about three per cubic meter.

In terms of fragments, researchers found the Rouge had an average of two particles per cubic meter; the Clinton River had six particles per cubic meter; and the Huron River had about five particles per cubic meter.

Foams and film microplastics had lower concentrations in metro Detroit-area rivers, with Rouge River samples averaging about .25 film particles and 1.5 foam particles per cubic meter; The Clinton River had an average of one film and one foam particle per cubic meter; and the

Huron River had an average of about .7 film particles and .3 foam particles per cubic foot. Pellet and bead particles per cubic meter in each of the three rivers were on average less than .25 particles.

Microbeads are the tiny plastic beads that had been used in some toothpastes, facial scrubs, toilet cleaners and other products that work as scrubbers or exfoliators. However, the beads don't dissolve and aren't easily removed from wastewater, as most treatment systems aren't designed to catch the tiny particles. Concern about the damage to aquatic ecosystems and humans from microbeads lead to a nationwide ban in 2015 on the use of them.

The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 was passed in December of that year, and amended the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by prohibiting the manufacture, packaging and distribution of rinse-off cosmetics containing plastic microbeads. The law applies to non-prescription items, like over-the-counter drugs, as well as cosmetic products, including toothpaste and facial scrubs.

The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the law specifically addresses concerns that microbeads may not be filtered and end up in lakes and oceans where they are mistaken for food by small fish and other wildlife. The law doesn't address consumer safety, with the FDA stating "we do not have evidence suggesting that plastic microbeads, used in cosmetics, pose a human health concern."

Under the law, manufacturers had until July 1, 2017, to stop the manufacture of products covered under the law, and until July 1, 2018, to stop the introduction of these products into interstate commerce.

Rinse-off cosmetics that are also non-prescription drugs had until July 1, 2018, to stop manufacture and July 1, 2019, to stop their delivery.

Scientists studying the presence of microplastics in the digestive tracts of fish pulled from three Great Lakes tributaries found plastics in about 85 percent of all species tested. However, Tim Hollein, an assistant professor of biology at Loyola University who worked on the study, said the ban on microbeads could be having an impact.

"There might be a change or decrease in microbeads," he said. "The latest data looking at the transport of microplastics, in terms of where they are going and where they settle out, two of those studies were downstream of a wastewater treatment plant, and they observed microbeads at those and not the others. That suggests they are still coming out, so they are still around, but not in high abundance. They make up about 10 percent or less at those sites, and we don't see them at other locations that aren't near wastewater treatment plants.

"We did the same analysis in 2013, and found more microbeads â&#x20AC;&#x201C; about 20 or 25 percent. I can't say for sure that there's a decrease, but data over time suggests that may be indicative of a pattern."

As with most plastics, the breakdown of microbeads in the environment is done slowly. The beads, which typically float, rather than sink, are decomposed by microbes and exposure to sunlight or ultraviolet light. Hollein said that as most microplastics break down, they tend to get sticky and group together, reducing the distance they spread. However, the process tends to take years.

While the study of microplastics in aquatic species and ecosystems is relatively new, Hollein said one of the studies he's worked on used data from Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History to help create a historic timeline and try to determine when microplastics first started to appear in the digestive tracts of fish.

"It's pretty much in line at what we expected. There were none found in fish before the last mid-century, and then they increased in the 1950s

and 1960s," he said. "By shape, we found mostly fibers and some fragments. A lot of fibers from different materials. There were some synthetic polymers, like polyester, acrylic and others that were a mixture of cotton and spandex. That matches what our textiles are made of.

"Overall, there was a conglomerate of material types. There were also some semi-synthetics, like rayon, which is made of cellulose but are heavily processed and have dyes and wax additives and treatments, like flame retardants. Product availability changes over time. We expected to see a greater variety over time, and we did see that."

The first manmade plastic was introduced at the 1862 London International Exhibit and marketed as an alternative to ivory and horn, according to the Plastics Industry Association. The creator, Alexander Parkes, was trying to develop a synthetic substitute for shellac for waterproofing. The material was later developed into Parkesine, commonly known as celluloid. The first wholly synthetic plastic was created in 1907, under the name Bakelite. However, it wasn't until the 1930s and World War II that many modern plastics were created and began being popularly utilized, such as polyethylene, polystyrene and nylon.

By the 1950s, polyester and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) were created, and disposable plastics began coming on the market. For instance, HDPE, which is used for milk jugs, fueled the hula-hoop craze of the 1950s.

Today, plastics have led to innovations that have helped to improve the quality of life for countless people, offering access to items that previously didn't exist or were out of the economic range for the average consumer. At the same time, plastics have fueled a disposable society based on planned obsolescence and single-use products that some people claim, such as social critic Vance Packard, has led to "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals," and degraded the environmental, financial and spiritual character of American society.

Globally, plastic production has increased to about 322 million tons in 2015, not including synthetic fibers, which accounted for an additional 61 million tons in 2015, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It's estimated that in 2010, between 4.8 million and 12.7 million tons of plastic waste entered the oceans.

Microplastics contain a mixture of chemicals that are added during the manufacture process, which also absorb other chemicals and contaminants, which can bioaccumulate and attract even more toxic contaminants.

Back to the environment and ecosystems of the Great Lakes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the concern for microplastics isn't just among scientists or environmentalists. Dennis Eade, executive director of the Michigan Steelhead and Salmon Fisherman's Association (MSSFA), said microplastics fall under a larger concern of plastic litter in the Great Lakes.

"We have a lot of people in canoes and kayaks now, and they've come down the stream or river and stop to the side and have lunch. Instead of cleaning their litter, some just leave it on the riverbank," he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had a clean-up event on the Manistee River, and we pulled more than 200 pounds of litter out. We had people coming from Indiana and all over to help.

"My top of mind is that we have to take a look and do some scientific analysis. If we are finding microplastic pollution, what are the principle

sources of plastic pollution? Is it water bottles? Plastic bags? Is it other things? Then we put a hit list together on what we can do to replace that packaging,â&#x20AC;? Eade said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That would be the way I would attack it."

Eade said the MSSFA worked in the past to try to implement a ban on microbeads in Michigan. However, he said the association began working with Michigan Congressman Fred Upton (R-Kalamazoo) on a national effort, resulting in a bipartisan effort that resulted in the ban.

Among those Michigan congressional representatives who co-sponsored the bill were Republicans Upton, former Rep. Candice Miller (R-Harrison Township) and former Rep. Dave Trott (R-Birmingham), as well as Democrats Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint) and Brenda Lawrence (DSouthfield).

"The reason (microbeads) are so dangerous is that fish saw them as potential eggs or something edible, so they would consume them and not realize they were filling their stomachs without any nourishment, and possibly become contaminated with other chemicals," Eade said. "It was a dramatic problem, and one that I'm really pleased we were able to address."

Ingestion of microplastics isn't limited to microbeads. Rather fish, shellfish and other species are ingesting a variety of microplastics.

A 2018 study by biologists at the University of Victoria in British Columbia found microplastics in juvenile Chinook salmon and in their nearshore environments on the east coast of Vancouver Island. In fact, the researchers said microplastics are becoming so globally ubiquitous in the marine environment that they are ingested by various fish species to the point that it may be a significant threat to marine ecosystems, with juvenile fish particularly at risk during a critical time in their lifecycle.

The study sampled 74 juvenile Chinook across four sites and found that 59 percent contained at least one plastic fiber. Still, the consequences of microplastic ingestion are still largely unknown.

Jamison Gove and Jonathan Whitney, oceanographers with NOAA's Ecosystems Division at the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, are leading research into microplastics effects on larval fish nurseries in the Pacific. What they found is microplastics are in such abundance there that tiny larval fish are eating them, possibly slimming their chances of reaching maturity.

"We have limited understanding of where larval fish go: where they spend their time and who they spend their time with in the first 30 days of life. They just hatched and are trying to feed and grow until they go back to their natural habitat," Gove said. "Fish produce buoyant eggs, and they hatch and they swim until they grow. But there's limited understanding of where they are spending time and where their habitats are. We set out to understand this, which isn't historically known."

In starting their research, Gove and Whitney discovered currents pulling together small pools of organic particles on the surface that looked almost like oil slicks that were feeding grounds for larval fish.

However, slicks, which contained tiny organic nutrients, were also pulling in large amounts of microplastics.

"We found they were surrounded by and ingesting small pieces of plastic," Gove said. "Most of the plastics look like fragments, and appeared to be weathered fragments. We did test polymers of quite a few, and most were polyethylene, which make up a lot of single-use bags and bottles, and polypropylene."

Gove said there are two main implications for the ingestion of plastics in larval fish.

"One, if ingesting plastic is a death sentence for a baby fish, that has real implications for adult fish populations. If every fish ends up dying, that has consequences," he said. "Secondly, larval fish are important prey for larger fish. That means there's opportunity for plastics to accumulate in the food web. We are looking at plastic at the base of the food web, and that can be consequential for the entire food web.

"There's no research on the impacts on larval fish. There is a little on adults, but we hypothesize that because they are more vulnerable and their digestion tract is small, we believe their impact is more severe.

They are so underdeveloped and don't have any fat stores. It's possible if there is plastic in their stomachs, they may feel satiated and not look for food. And just one day without food is possibly a death sentence for these small fish."

Gove said the surface slicks where nutrients and microplastics pool are found in marine systems globally. In other words, they aren't isolated to the Pacific, but are believed to be happening everywhere, possibly impacting larval fish species throughout the world.

In early December, Honolulu passed a bill banning most single-use plastics, such as plastic utensils, food containers and straws on the island of Oahu. The ban is one of the strictest against single-use plastics in the country.

Gove said the ban is evidence of a groundswell of support to address plastic pollution, an issue that he hadn't considered as part of his work until he began finding microplastics in larval fish.

"When we first started this research, we weren't focused on plastics, but there were so many that we couldn't ignore it," he said. "I have no background in plastics, but this is like climate change now â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it's just part of everyone's research in the world."

Back in Michigan, the presence of microplastica in local tributaries confirms they aren't just present in oceans and the Great Lakes, but suggests their presence exists even in the small lakes around Oakland County. While no lakes in the county have specifically been studied for microplastics, research on inland lakes in Minnesota have shown the presence of microplastics there.

Kathryn Schreiner, an environmental chemist with the Large Lakes Observatory and assistant professor at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, said the university has been working with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources there to look at several inland lakes.

While results of the study aren't yet complete, she said the work will focus on concentrations, types, morphology of the microplastics and different chemical types.

"We hope to have a good set of preliminary results in the spring and will present them in June," she said. "We did work on microplastics in Lake Superior, and we extended that into the inland lakes. We wanted more connection with smaller lakes that are used for recreation and fishing in Minnesota."

Ed Golder, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said the department hasn't conducted any research into microplastics. Despite the department's lack of any research, the scientific community at some of the state's major schools are taking a lead on understanding microplastics.

Professor Donna Kashian with Wayne State University's Department of Biological Sciences is a visiting scientist at NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. She said a large grant from the Great Lakes Protection Fund is helping to make the Great Lakes "the epicenter" for microplastics research by pulling in resources around the region.

"One study that just wrapped up was a paper that took an in-depth look at quagga mussels, which a lot of people still call zebra mussels, but they aren't. They are filter feeders on the bottom of the sediment,

and they have a lot of opportunity to take in microplastics," she said.

"We brought them in the lab and targeted them with microplastics, and we looked at how they affected reproduction, oxygen consumption and other functions."

Kashian said researchers used imagining technology to track microplastics once they entered the mussel's system. What they found was that it was affecting both their ability to breathe and the filtration rate. The findings are particularly interesting, as Kashian said mussels are considered "selective" filter feeders, meaning they take all the contents of water they filter through their system, but do so by spitting out organic matter that may be harmful.

"Many of the microplastics don't pass through their system, they are staying in the organism. Even small amounts affect digestion, so they aren't able to eat normally. There was no effect in the gills, so there was no impact on oxygen consumption," she said. "In zebra mussels, for instance, when they are exposed to toxic algae, they filter feed everything in the water, but they spit out the microcystin. We watched, and we couldn't see them spitting out microplastics. It's different than a toxin, and the plastics may not have something that triggers them to spit it out.

"We can see it building up in their guts, and we expect that over time it will impact an organism's ability to get nutrition. That gives an indication that others in the environment could have these effects."

Kashian said research is also being done on how to reduce the flow of microplastics into waterways, as well as work to promote education and public outreach. For instance, one of the students in her lab is working on a project to help pull microplastics out of the environment by using green infrastructure, such as a number of bioswales throughout the city of Detroit.

The Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor has also pushed to increase research into microplastics.

Assistant Professor Melissa Duhaime, who investigates ecology and biology at the institute, recently studied the transport of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes. She said the dominant microplastics found were small fragments of larger plastics.

"People think we solved the problem because we don't put plastic beads in products anymore, but a huge part of the problem is these secondary plastics, or what is breaking down from larger plastic," she said. "That was the first work that came out of the Graham study. The other big twist and what we continue to study, as we study the microbes that live on plastic, is how they differ from microbes in the water itself. That can inform us of other things, like if they are also agents of the environment or a health concern."

Duhaime said they have confirmed microbes living on plastics are "unquestionably different" than those living on land or water, thus providing a niche environment. The microbes, she said, can help to tell where the plastic particles come from.

"It's sort of a tracer of where it has been, and whether its from a wastewater treatment plant, from the coast, or from a boat," she said. "It has a different history and it will have picked up different microbes along the way."

Another project, she said, suggests that microplastics pick up higher amounts of pathogens, particularly those near urban and wastewater treatment sites. Still, she said, more research on micro-DNA is being done to learn more. Work is also being done to determine how fast plastics are breaking down.

"How fast does it break down? Will it float or sink? Those are things we don't know," she said. "Right now, there is a lot of missing plastic.

Our estimate of how much is out there versus what we predict to be entering the system is off by magnitude. It's not all at the surface, so it could be distributed throughout the water column. There's evidence it migrates through the water column on a daily cycle, and that organisms that live on the plastic can control where it sits in the water column."

As research continues, there remains much concern about how to reduce the amount of waste entering the environment and our waterbodies.

"This should be a call to us as a society. We are flooded with plastic.

We can't ship it off anymore because nobody is taking it," said Mason, with Penn State. "This should be a call to us that some of that plastic isn't very recyclable material, so we really have to reduce or not use it.

"Our top program at Penn State is plastic engineering technology, and I moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, here where a lot of plastics manufacturing happens. I didn't know when I moved here, but now I'm in on the conversations that I wasn't privy to with the people making bottles and laundry detergent â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they come to me and say, 'Johnson & Johnson wants to change the packaging. What ideas do you have for us?' These corporations are feeling the push from consumer pressure."

Professor Ramani Narayan, with Michigan State University's School of Engineering and Materials Science, recently participated in a study looking at plastic debris in the oceans. He also works in the area of developing biodegradable plastics, which he said do break down faster than other traditional plastics. However, he warned that the substances are far from a silver bullet solution.

"The lesson from the paper is two-fold," he said. "One, which is always presented, is the fact that 8-14 million tons of plastic are leaking into the ocean, and if you don't do anything about it, it will continue to grow and not be manageable, and plastic debris will outnumber plankton, which is the lowest form of food on the food chain, and which is very scary when you look at that."

"The second part that missed everybody is that there is a strategy to address the issue. It's pretty straight: if the mismanaged waste is generated, why not try to reduce it? If you reduce by 'x' percent, you'll make s big dent. So the solution that you have to have is intervention.

You do that by managing the mismanaged waste."

Narayan said recycling in North America and Europe alone won't solve the problem. Rather, he said, all of the world's emerging economies must be included in the solution. Further, he said, addressing plastic food and paper appears to make up at least half of the source of plastic pollution. If those sources were made 100 percent biodegradable, it would reduce pollution in our waterways, as well as reduce CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions.

"Unfortunately, biodegradability is presented as a solution to this ocean plastics problem. These are claims made by companies that say their fishing net or other item is marine biodegradable. That's where I take strong exception," he said. "Biodegradability isn't a solution of plastic waste leakage. It's useful because it lasts less than polyethylene plastic, but it still lasts 10 or 25 years."

Narayan said claims of biodegradable plastics that are proven in a lab don't actually hold up to real world use, however.

"The tests are done at 23 to 30 degrees centigrade. That's about room temperature. But ocean temperatures are about four degrees centigrade," he said. "We know from simple chemical engineering, that for every 10 degree drop in temperature, the rate of something breaking down is reduced by half. By the time you get to four degrees â&#x20AC;&#x201C; what are you talking about? This is going to last for a very long time."

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FACES

Jacob Mondry f Jacob Mondry has his say, TV viewers will be hearing his music on shows like “This Is Us” and “A Million Little Things.” Hopefully, soon.

He was recently signed to Universal Music Group and Elias Music’s sync licensing department, who will be pitching his original music to movies, commercials, and TV shows.

Even if Mondry’s music isn’t heard right away on screen, this opportunity is huge.

“It could lead to publishing deals, writing for other artists, maybe features for my new song...it brings some nice attention to my music and hopefully I get to reach more people,” said Mondry, who currently lives in Los Angeles.

For some, focusing on this new deal would be enough, but not the Detroit Country Day School alumnus.

Earlier this year he released a single, “Color Me Blue,” which is the song Universal heard which got their attention. It’s also a song Mondry thinks would fit perfectly on television.

He also put out a new single in November, “Standing on the Face of the Earth.” Mondry said the song takes place in the future and is a conversation between a father and his son, who the former is talking to about what it was like to live on earth, a home the son never knew.

“It’s really a song about being grateful for what we have on earth...it seems like a really timely message, and people are really asking for this kind of message,” said Mondry, who is also part of a group in Los Angeles which practices Shiva Murti, a Balinese healing modality.

For Mondry, the song poured out of him and was written in about 15 minutes. He was on a singer/songwriter retreat in Mammoth Lakes, California.

While in a hot springs staring at the stars he got inspired to write the song.

What kind of singer/songwriter retreat was Mondry on when lightning struck? One of his own.

I

A few years ago Mondry – who has always loved to sing but realized during his bar mitzvah that singing was what he needed to do – had some friends approach him about wanting to learn how to write songs and about the business side of being a singer/songwriter. It started as meet-ups to bounce ideas around and guidance but then more and more people became interested.

“I thought, well, I could put together a retreat so that we could come together and have these conversations in a circle,” said Mondry, who has worked for the last six years with his own coach/teacher, Candace Silvers.

So he did. The retreat in September – which he ran by himself – was Mondry’s first. There will be another one in January. At that September retreat, the group wrote songs and discussed everything from how to find the right band mates and how to have conversations with producers.

“A lot of artists are really right-brained. They understand being creative, being emotional and vulnerable,” he said. “They don’t necessarily understand having structure in their lives, how to have business conversations, things like that.”

Mondry has gotten lots of positive feedback from those who participated and has been able to watch their careers grow. He said he would love to do more retreats and eventually serve as a liaison between artists and business people at major labels.

But he has no intention of leaving singing or songwriting behind any time soon.

“If I want to keep growing and offering more to them then I have to keep growing as an artist,” he said. “They go hand-in-hand.”

Story: Dana Casadei

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MUNICIPAL March millage vote language approved

By Kevin Elliott

Bloomfield Township voters next March will be asked to renew a 10year, general fund operating millage that generates about $5 million a year, under a resolution that was unanimously approved on Monday, November 25, by the board of trustees.

Voters in 2010 approved a 10-year, 1.3-mill property tax to fund all general operations in the township through 2019. Trustees approved language asking voters in the March 10, 2020 special presidential primary election to approve a reduced millage rate of up to 1.2401 mills through 2029.

Specifically, the request to appear on the March 10 ballot will ask: "Shall the millage previously authorized by electors in 2010 authorizing the Charter Township of Bloomfield to levy up to 1.3 mills as reduced by requiring millage rollbacks to a levy of 1.2401 mills in 2019, be renewed at the reduced rate of 1.2401 for a period of ten (10) years, 2020-2029, after the millage expiration in 2019?

"The renewal millage shall continue to be used to support and fund the operations of the Charter Township of Bloomfield, including but not limited to, Police, Fire, Emergency Medical Services, Department of Public Works and all other general operations of the Charter Township of Bloomfield. Approval of this proposal would permit a tax levy of up to $1.2401 per $1,000 of taxable value on all taxable property in the Charter Township of Bloomfield as reduced by required millage rollbacks. It is estimated that this proposal would result in the authorization to collect $5,100,000 in the first year if approved and levied."

The request comes less than a year after voters in August rejected a 15-year, 2.3-mill Special Assessment District (SAD) proposal that would have generated $9 million per year dedicated to public safety operations, including retiree benefits. Under the August proposal, the township would have been required to terminate the final year of the 10-year general fund millage, resulting in a net tax increase of 1.05 mills. Voters in August rejected the SAD proposal with 62.2 percent of primary voters against it and 37.8 percent in favor.

The rejected SAD would have provided a partial funding stream to cover about $164 million in unfunded liabilities related to other postemployee benefits (OPEB) over the next 30 years. Under a 2018 state law, downtownpublications.com

Brooklyn Pizza approved for bistro license

By Lisa Brody

irmingham's popular Brooklyn Pizza received unanimous approval from the Birmingham City Commission on Monday, December 9, to receive a bistro liquor license following a public hearing for a special land use permit and final site plan.

Owner Sam Abdelfatah has proposed a renovation of his current space, 111 Henrietta, as well as the adjacent storefront at 195 W. Maple, where Birmingham Geek is, with an L-shaped bar situated in the Birmingham Geek space. There would be 55 interior dining seats, plus 10 at the bar. As the location is already approved for outdoor seating, there would be 41 outdoor seats, including stools at a counter at a new bifold window, where planning director Jana Ecker said drinks could be passed in and out when the weather is nice.

The elevation on both Maple and Henrietta would be changed and updated, using cement board, and adding planter boxes which would be mounted. The entry door would be moved to the corner of Henrietta just south of Maple.

Ecker said the planning board, which reviewed the plans and recommended the restaurant receive a bistro license, had questioned whether the outdoor seats at the window were at the bar or not. She said they were determined to not be bar seats.

Commissioner Rackeline Hoff asked if there was to be waiter/waitress service, and Ecker responded no, “There's only counter service. They want to keep it casual. There's nothing in the ordinance that says there has to be waitress service.”

“But the alcohol has to be served in a bar or at tables?” Hoff asked.

Ecker responded it did. She explained customers could drink alcohol at outdoor tables, but not consume it on the way to their tables.

“But the MLCC, we don't allow patrons to carry alcohol – it has to be carried by the establishment,” commissioner Stuart Sherman said.

Police Chief Mark Clemence said he knew of no rule that said that, and when Cosi was in Birmingham, “we did not have a city ordinance prohibiting that.”

“When we created this ordinance, we created outdoor seating to be mandatory. But there was a law that said you couldn't have alcohol in the public right-of-way. Other cities did that – but it was our law. It was to be sure that we can have customers buy alcohol and just not wander off… The Cosi example is a little odd, because I don't remember alcohol outside. It's a little bit of an anomaly as it's self-serve. We'll need to monitor it carefully.”

Hoff concurred, noting a lot of teenagers patronize Brooklyn, and could have someone else purchase alcohol and bring it to them.

“There will always be a manager in the dining room monitoring the dining room as well as the outdoor area,” Abdelfatah said.

B

municipalities must fund at least 40 percent of OPEB liabilities, which were previously permitted to be paid as costs came due each year.

Although the renewal language approved by the board doesn't represent an increase from the township's current property tax rate, several residents who spoke at the meeting mischaracterized the renewal as a "tax increase."

Bloomfield Township resident Jenny Greenwell said she opposes the renewal because turnout will be low at the special election, which serves as the presidential primary for both political parties.

"Recently, the Oakland County

Board of Commission has voted to put a tax on the March 2020 presidential primary ballot. Our elections in Michigan are regulated to dates in February, May, August or November.

The March date is exceptional and therefore not the place to put a tax on homeowners... I think the fact that they (the Detroit Institute of Art) are coming back two years early for a renewal that they promised not to go after is reason enough to vote 'no,' beside the fact that they decided to put it on a presidential primary ballot,” Greenwell said. "In fact, any taxes that appear on that ballot deserve a resounding no vote from taxpayers."

DOWNTOWN

Other residents mistakenly claimed that township officials also promised that they wouldn't request a renewal of the 2010 general fund operating millage. However, trustee David Buckley corrected that claim.

"I don't recall, and some have said that we promised we wouldn't bring this (millage) back up, and I don't recall that. I don't know why we would have," he said.

Buckley also noted that while he supports the millage renewal, he cautioned that voters may take issue with the timing of the ballot proposal.

"I want to lend caution to the board that the public sentiment from the special assessment election carried forward to a bias or partisan election that is going to be happening in March may skew the numbers... I get it, we want a bite at the apple, and I do not want to see this millage fail," he said.

Bloomfield Township Supervisor Leo Savoie said the choice to utilize the March election for the renewal proposal allows the township a second try in August if it fails to get support.

"I prefer to wait until August, but if it were to fail in August and that's the only time we did it, we could not levy that millage on December 1," he said.

"We would have to go back to the November election, and even if it passed then, we could not levy it. So, it's imperative that there is a backup plan.

"I'm like you, I hope that it would pass. I hope that the rhetoric out there that this is a new tax would go away because it's not a new tax. It is a renewal. But the rhetoric never went away that the SAD was a $9 million tax, when in fact it was a $4.1 million. As I said earlier, 'if people say things enough times, other people are going to believe it.' I would hope collectively as a board that we can all get behind it and go forward."

Trustees voted 7-0 to put the millage on the March ballot.

James Allen new Birmingham clerk

By Lisa Brody

At its meeting on Monday, December 16, Birmingham city commissioners unanimously appointed James Allen as its new city clerk.

A subcommittee comprised of city manager Joe Valentine, commissioners Stuart Sherman and Rackeline Hoff, and human resources manager Ben Myers, recommended Allen to the commission.

Myers informed commissioners the 61

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city attracted 146 applicants for the position, which they then narrowed down to six, and finally to three finalists.

Allen comes from the West Bloomfield Township clerk's office; prior to that he worked in the clerk's offices in Ypsilanti and Farmington Hills. He received a Masters of Public Administration from Eastern Michigan University, with a concentration in public management. He has administered more than 20 elections, including presidential, gubernatorial, residential primary, state primary and more.

“It is my honor to accept your offer to be the next clerk of the city of Birmingham,” he said to commissioners at the meeting. “I have had the specialty of working on elections. It is my belief a city clerk's office is a team. My personality is low key. I stay out of the limelight to allow people I work with to shine.”

The clerk's position became vacant when city clerk Cherilynn Mynsberge resigned in September; deputy clerk Cheryl Arft was appointed as acting city clerk in the interim. The city commission began the process of

hiring a new municipal clerk at their meeting on September 16, posting the position on the city's web site as well as municipal sites in Michigan to reach individuals in the profession.

The clerk’s office is responsible for administration of all elections, management of the city code, agenda preparation, recording of meeting minutes, maintenance of board and commission membership rosters, legal notices required by state and local statutes, issuing several types of licenses, and more.

City hires professional communications firm For a six-month test period, the city of Birmingham has hired a professional communications and public relations company to provide them with communications and social media services, for a monthly retainer of $7,000.

Birmingham City Commissioners unanimously approved the hiring of Van Dyke Horn at their meeting on Monday, December 16.

“The demand for effective

communication services has become an integral role for municipalities in serving the public. Recently, our communications director has left the employ of the city and with the ongoing Master Plan efforts, lead testing regulations and planned Maple Road reconstruction project over the next several months, the opportunity to evaluate and enhance our efforts in this area is being explored,” city manager Joe Valentine wrote in a memo to commissioners.

He said the city asked four different communications firms to submit requests for quotations (RFQs) for overall communications support, social media services and project management for a monthly fee, as well as additional crisis management, as needed.

“We will evaluate it in six months,” Valentine said. “We think this group can help us.”

Commissioner Rackeline Hoff asked who would be the city contact, and Valentine said he would be.

A primary PR person from the firm would be located in city hall about once a week to attend meetings and meet with department heads.

AnneMarie Erickson, executive vice president of Van Dyke Horn, explained that the firm has worked with the city of Detroit in numerous capacities, and is expanding their work with Oakland County.

“We feel strongly you have a great foundation,” Erickson said.

“One of the things they'll be coming back with is areas for improvement,” Valentine said.

Birmingham launches water service line map

By Lisa Brody

Birmingham has launched a new online tool to permit residents to easily check if their home's water service line could potentially have high lead levels.

The online tool was unveiled after five Birmingham homes showed levels above the new state standard – 15 parts per billion – for their lead service pipes which bring water to the homes out of 8,870 total water customers.

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Firm chosen for township compensation study

By Kevin Elliott

check for your own water service line information courtesy of our GIS Mapping Database. A helpful instructional video on how to use the program can be found on the city's lead testing page: bhamgov.org/leadtesting.

Since 1992, the city has regularly tested for lead and copper.

Approximately 550 houses with lead pipes connect to the city's water main, city manager Joe Valentine said in October when the higher lead levels were found. During that time, he said, the city's results have never exceeded the state standard.

However, in 2018 the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act (MSDWA) was changed to include more stringent procedures for testing and analysis for lead and copper. The new regulations are intended to have a more proactive approach in monitoring each community’s lead and copper levels.

The new state lead standard is 15 parts per billion (ppb). The state requires cities whose testing exceeds the new standard to provide a public education campaign advising homeowners of actions they can take to mitigate any lead that may come from their pipes. As a result of these changes, Birmingham and many other Michigan cities expected that exclusively testing homes with lead service pipes would have lead levels that now exceed new state standards.

In September, Valentine said that Birmingham, in accordance with MSDWA, tested 32 of the 550 homes, and five of the homes tested at 17 ppb.

“As a proactive measure, the city is alerting all of its water customers, whether their house has lead service pipes or not, on practical steps they can take to reduce the risk to lead exposure, particularly for those whose houses have lead service pipes,” Valentine said. “While the action level exceedance is not a healthbased standard nor a violation of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act, we do want the public to be aware of this change, our results and what it means to them. The intent is not to scare the public, but let them know the city is proactively working to test and address known lead service leads in the city and work with property owners who want to improve water quality in their homes.”

The city held a community water forum at Seaholm High School in November, and has an action plan for testing drinking water for the new standards. They have now tested almost 800 properties that have lead

service lines out of 9,000 total properties, which is approximately nine percent of water customers in Birmingham. “Once our inventory is completed, expected by January 1, 2020, we will notify all affected water customers and provide them with a complimentary water filter as an initial step, if they would like one.

Anyone wishing to check their property to determine what their water service is made of can also visit our website to query their property,” the city website states.

For anyone with a lead service line that wants to replace their service ahead of the city’s schedule, the city has waived the associated permit fees. Concerned residents can contact the city’s engineering department at 248.530.1840 for more information on the waived permit fee initiative or go to bhamgov.org/leadtesting.

Bloomfield Township presents budget

By Kevin Elliot

Budget cuts in Bloomfield Township are already expected to lower staffing levels in 2020, and employee levels could be slashed to those of the 1970s if the renewal of the township's general operating millage is rejected next year, according to figures presented in a preliminary budget for the 2020-2021 fiscal year.

Bloomfield Township Finance Director Jason Theis presented the preliminary budget for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, at the board of trustees meeting on Monday, November 25.

The number of full-time employees in the township is expected to be reduced to 236 for the 2020 fiscal year, down from 243 in 2019. Five of those cuts will come from police and dispatch services; one from fire; and one from general services.

Voters in March of 2020 will be asked to renew a 10-year, 1.3 mill general fund operating millage. The millage contributes to police, fire and emergency medical services, as well as public works and other general operations in the township.

The renewal would extend the current millage that was passed by voters in 2010. The millage generates about $5.1 million a year in revenue.

"If the renewal fails, we go from 236 employees in 2020 down by about 40, to 194," Theis said. "How that breaks down has yet to be

he Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees on Monday, November 25, unanimously approved contracting with Minneapolis-based Segal Waters Consulting to conduct a comprehensive study into employee compensation and staffing levels at the township.

The proposed study will be the first of its kind in more than a decade, and is intended to address questions about employee recruitment and retention in light of budget reductions and upcoming contract negotiations.

The study will look at staffing and workloads, position descriptions, compensation, benefits and job evaluations across the township's departments, including its elected officials. The study will also look for any instances or appearance of conflicts of interest, and provide guidance and support for human resources and management staff.

The board in September approved issuing a request for proposals from vendors to conduct the study. An ad-hoc compensation study committee was also formed to develop specific components of the study and evaluate proposals. The committee, which recommended contracting with Segal Waters, consisted of Bloomfield Township Trustee Michael Schostak; Bloomfield Township Finance Director Jason Theis; government consultant and financial advisor Bob Kittle; Bloomfield Township resident and former Oakland County Deputy Executive of Economic Development and Community Affairs Tim Meyer; and resident and retired auto industry executive and consultant Paula Butler.

"Segal Waters was the only firm that did research on the township before meeting with us," Schostak said, who chaired the committee. "They are a big consulting firm with a deep bench of consultants nationwide. The down side is that they are the most expensive, and their project team is a little further away."

Schostak said Segal Waters reduced its proposal by about six percent but was still the highest bidder at $117,500. The lowest bid of $38,500 was from Paypoint HR, but didn't include the staffing study portion of the study.

Additional bids received included McGrath HR Group at $52,968; Rehmann Robson at $71,355; and GovHR USA at $94,750. Schostak said Segal Waters was the only firm that included a complete submission from the beginning.

Each of the five proposals was scored using a matrix diagram to compare which best met the township's criteria, with Segal Waters receiving the highest overall scores, which took into account methodology, thoroughness and quality of response, company expertise, project management, price, responsiveness and a proposed timeline. Three of the firms were interviewed on Thursday, November 14, by telephone or Skype. All of the firms are located outside of Michigan, except Rehmann Robson, which is based in Grand Rapids. The committee then selected GovHR and Segal Waters as its two finalists.

"Ultimately, this decision comes down to whether the service and end result of a project by Segal Waters is worth the premium price, a differential of roughly $23,000," Schostak said.

While Schostak said either of the two firms would meet the objectives of the study, the committee felt the level of service, end product and presentation from Segal Waters would be superior. He said the price difference was in part due to Segal Waters providing a flat price for the work, while others gave estimates based on hourly rates.

"They presented experience and knowledge that was unparalleled, and they have the most resources to complete the project within the timeframe presented," he said.

The study is expected to be completed within four to six months.

The board approved contacting with Segal Waters with the intent to negotiate a lower price; however, the maximum contract approved wasn't lower than the $117,500 proposed.

"If you ask for their best and final price, and feel they are best qualified to deliver the product you want, my recommendation is to have a motion to reflect the pricing they have," Savoie said, who said requiring a specific amount lower than that proposed could cause delays.

Trustee David Buckley, who initially recommended negotiating a lower price, supported a motion by trustee Neal Barnett that included negotiating a lower price with a maximum of $117,500. Buckley said he checked with other communities that had used the firm and received positive feedback.

"They said they were expensive but excellent at what they do," Buckley said. "I agree with the supervisor that their best and final is what we are dealing with."

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discussed and determined. I went through it based on prior discussions and studies, and previous presentations by the police and fire chiefs, and took a stab at how it might come out... hopefully, we don't have to get to that discussion, but this is what would have to happen to get roughly $5 million in savings to make up for that millage.

"That's an 18-percent reduction from 2020, which was already a large reduction from 2019 and 2018, and a 27-percent reduction from 2008 staffing levels. This would put the fire department at 1974 staffing levels, and we all know that the 6,000-plus EMS runs they are currently seeing — they were not getting anywhere near those numbers in 1974. It would take the police department down to 1970 staffing levels. You can see we are going backward, not forward."

Overall, the preliminary budget estimates total general fund revenues at about $22.1 million for 2021, up about 1.9 percent from 2020.

Trustees received the preliminary budget findings without discussion.

downtownpublications.com

"I don't think tonight is the appropriate time for any questions.

This is a preliminary budget that going forward we will have the chance to go through it and dissect it, and as we go along I'm sure those questions will be there," Bloomfield Township Supervisor Leo Savoie said.

City to look at moving public comment time

By Lisa Brody

At the Birmingham City Commission meeting on Monday, December 9, commissioners directed staff to look at how other communities treat the public comment portion of municipal meetings and report back at a future meeting.

Commissioner Brad Host brought the matter up during commissioner comments, noting “it's something that commissioner Clinton Baller helped me with. We said there are priorities that are not conditioned for long-range planning. These are entities where the public can speak

at the beginning of the meeting.”

Host noted several other communities which do have time for the public to comment at the beginning of their agenda; Birmingham has it at the end of the agenda. Host noted that “we want to encourage high school civics students, old people, who can't wait to the end of our meetings because they go on so long, if they have someplace else to be.”

“This is worth looking into,” mayor pro tem Therese Longe said. “Is this something staff can look into to see how we could implement this, factual and not theoretical?”

Baller said he thought it was a good idea if it “is limited, on a trial basis. I think we should look into it.”

Commissioner Rackeline Hoff did not share their point of view. “I think we need more information. It cannot be one commissioner having an idea.

We have to look at all the angles. It requires more thoughts, procedures.

I'm concerned the public would be frustrated because they would expect us to respond and we would not be able to.”

“We have to remember that this is

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a public meeting, not a meeting of the public,” commissioner Stuart Sherman said.

“I think that this is why the city manager should bring all the caveats before so we can have a robust discussion,” Longe countered.

“I don't think I can count on one hand the people who have felt this is a concern in the over two decades I've been involved,” said commissioner Mark Nickita. “I think it's a low priority, so I think we proceed very carefully.”

City manager Joe Valentine said, “I think I'm hearing we should do research and bring it back for a discussion.”

Township approves discounted legal fees

By Kevin Elliott

Addressing questions as to whether the municipality conducts a bid process for legal services, Bloomfield Township Supervisor Leo Savoie said on Monday, December 9, that the board of trustees had formed a subcommittee and received eight or

69

nine bids when the township originally chose Secrest Wardle as its general services legal provider.

Building on the point of value, Savoie proposed moving to five-year contract agreements with each of the township's three legal service providers. Under that proposal, he said each of the legal firms agreed to reduce their fees.

Secrest Wardle, which provides general legal services to the township, agreed to reduce its retainer legal fee of $12,500 per month by 10 percent provided the township agreed to a fiveyear contract. Rosati, Schultz, Joppich & Amtsbuechler PC, which conducts prosecutorial services for the township, also agreed reduce its retainer of $14,000 per month by 10 percent, provided the township agree to a fiveyear contact. And, Giarmarco, Mullins & Horton PC, which provides legal services pertaining to labor contracts and issues, agreed to reduce its hourly fee from $165 to $150, provided the township agree to a five-year contract.

Under the proposed agreements, the township would be required to pay back the discounted rate to the firm for each month of the discounted rate if it decided to terminate the contract.

Trustee Dani Walsh questioned whether the contracts would include provisions to protect the township if it decided to terminate contracts based on changes at any of the firms.

"When we did the (request for proposal), we picked based on specific lawyers. We picked based on their bench and who they had," Walsh said. "Let's say four-and-a-half years from now that there's turnover at Secrest Wardle, and (township attorney) Derk (Beckerleg) retires, or someone else leaves, and all of a sudden we are given another group of lawyers that we never would have hired, and we have to pay back all those years of savings. Is there a way to protect us in that case?"

Beckerleg said he had no issue in adding language to the contract that would preclude the township from having to pay back the discount if he were to leave Secrest Wardle. Savoie also said he could check with the other law firms to see if they would also agree to similar language.

Further, the discounts wouldn't have to be repaid if any of the firms breached any part of its original contract with the township.

Trustee David Buckley said he wasn't in favor of extending the contracts to five years, despite the associated discounted rates.

"I'm not for it because I don't like to hamstring a future board," Buckley downtownpublications.com

Watson to lead Bloomfield Hills schools

By Lisa Brody

he Bloomfield Hills Board of Education selected Patrick Watson, currently principal of West Bloomfield High School, as the district's new superintendent, on Wednesday, November 20.

Watson's contract begins January 1, 2020, with an official start date of Monday, January 6.

The search for a new superintendent began after former superintendent Dr. Robert Glass announced in April that he would be relocating to New York in July, after his wife accepted a job at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), and he had accepted a position as superintendent at a school district in Westchester County, New York. The board appointed Christina (Tina) Kostiuk interim superintendent of the district, beginning July 1, 2019, and hired Ray & Associates to conduct a national search for a new superintendent.

Earlier in November, the board was presented with a pool of 60 candidates which they then narrowed to nine candidates, and then to three, and held public interviews for Watson, Robert Durecka, principal of West Hills Middle School, Bloomfield Hills Schools, and Dr. Matthew Outlaw, superintendent of Brandon School District. Watson and Durecka became the board's two finalists.

Watson has been principal of West Bloomfield High School since 2014, and has been with the school since 1994, having previously been athletic director and assistant principal.

“This is an exciting time for all of us, and our students are at the top of the list,” said board President Paul Kolin.

T

said. "I think that's a big issue. To me, the five years and the commitment of having to pay back $40,000 or $50,000 in potential savings – there's some other ways that have been put on the table that we could easily get to that and more, as I continually get quoted with 'shared sacrifice.' To me, at this point, if they would like to reduce their rate as part of shared sacrifice, that's great. But, to commit future boards to legal services to me is not something I want to do."

Savoie said the savings of $40,000 to $50,000 per year over a five-year length of the contract would provide nearly $250,000 in cumulative savings.

Trustee Neal Barnett concurred with Savoie, calling the proposal a "win-win" situation.

"I don't believe it straps or commits future boards to these firms because of the additional language, and I think it's a good suggestion, Dani," Barnett said, acknowledging Walsh's proposed amendment to the contract agreements.

Barnett also said the township is fortunate to have three excellent law firms that he said are charging the township "below competitive prices."

"I know what the market is, and to decrease that by another 10 percent, I think we are getting outstanding value financially in the township, and the residents should be very pleased that we are trying to get additional

savings from some of the best law firms in the area," he said. "I'm certainly in favor."

Treasurer Brian Kepes commended Savoie for bringing the proposal forward.

"The reality is, if next year or two years from now that a board decides it doesn't want to continue with the practice and doesn't want to continue with the savings, then they are no worse off than we were today," he said. "I think it's a very creative way to save money and get the same services, and it's just good value. ... I don't know how we would lose here."

The board agreed to the proposed contract lengths and discounted rates with the added provision proposed by Walsh. The proposal passed by a vote of 6-1, with Buckley voting against it.

Road ratings improve in Bloomfield Hills

By Lisa Brody

Road maintenance and overlay activities in Bloomfield Hills have helped to raise the city's overall road ratings from at or close to "poor" to "good" under the state's Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating (PASER) system, city manager David Hendrickson informed city commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday, December 10.

"As part of our master plan, the

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city commission direction has been to work toward the goal of improving road infrastructure. In 2016, we looked at our PASER rating, as required to do under ACT 51, and our rating was 3.7 overall."

The PASER scale is a 1-10 rating system for road pavement conditions that gauges the quality of roads, with treatment recommendations assigned at each level. Under the rating system, roads rated 1-2 are failing; 34 are poor; 5-6 are fair; 7-8 are good; and 9-10 are excellent. The rating system is the statewide standard of pavement condition reporting adopted by the Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council.

Hendrickson said the 2016 overall rating of 3.7 was about average in comparison to similar communities near Bloomfield Hills. However, he said there were some roads that were of concern, leading the city to take "an aggressive approach" to renewing those roads in the poorest conditions.

He said the city commission at the time directed administration to work toward raising the PASER rating to six or higher.

Hendrickson said the city began conducting core sampling to determine the condition of the base of the road under the top layer of pavement. By conducting preservation overlay maintenance rather than a complete overlay of the roadway where appropriate, Hendrickson said the city was able to repair 14 roads that year without any bonding. He said that work raised the city's PASER rating to about 5.6 that year.

The city continued the 2016 program at an accelerated pace and was able to address 26 roads in the 2018-19 construction season, raising the PASER rating to an average of 6.8.

The presentation about road conditions was part of a broader discussion about road and infrastructure budgets.

Overall, the city is expected to have about $266,454 in carryover cash from the road construction fund at the end of the budget year ending on June 30, 2020. The city's road millage provided about $932,000 to the fund, while the city's general fund contribution was $350,000. Major road projects completed during the current fiscal year include work on Country Club, Hickory Grove, Whysall and Endicott.

"There are still roads that need work," Hendrickson said. "That work is up to the city commission and I think it's up to them to decide and is appropriate during upcoming budget talks."

71

LOCAL MATTERS.

Township maintains employee insurance

By Kevin Elliott

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A push by two Bloomfield Township trustees and dozens of residents on Monday, November 25, to boost healthcare premiums to township employees by hundreds of dollars a month without warning or negotiations failed to gain adequate support.

The board of trustees has voted for years to opt-out of a state mandate that would otherwise require municipal employees to pay a certain percentage of health care costs.

Municipalities are permitted to optout of the law in order to develop custom health care payment plans.

The law, known as the Publicly Funded Health Insurance Contributions Act, caps the amount of money public employers can pay toward health care costs. The law allows for employers to use a monetary "hard cap" on their costs, which requires employees to make up the cost over a set amount; use an 80 percent/20 percent split in costs, with employees covering 20 percent of costs. The law also allows public employers to opt out of the requirements on an annual basis. The options aren't required to be negotiated with collective bargaining units.

A governing body choosing to opt out of the law must do so with a twothirds vote, or five out of seven trustees in Bloomfield Township.

Since the law was enacted in 2011, the township has traditionally opted out of the caps, while at the same time keeping the healthcare costs to the township relatively flat, according to the township's health care consultants with Manquen Vance.

Consultant John Vance said township employees currently pay a monthly premium for insurance of about $8.40 a month for a single person, and $16.60 for a family.

However, single employees must pay a $2,000 deductible, and $4,000 for families, before any coverage begins.

Several residents speaking during the public comment portion of the meeting pushed the board to forgo opting out of the state law and require employees to pay higher premiums. Several carried homemade signs that read "No Opt Out!," "Pay Your Fair Share" and "No New Taxes!"

Bloomfield Township Supervisor Leo Savoie took issue with the signs and sought to clarify the issue.

"I hear so much and see these DOWNTOWN

signs here that say 'pay your fair share,' but I will tell you and I've said it all along, that health care is about utilization," Savoie said. "When I look at what our health care costs were in 2010, and we are 17 percent higher today, and the national average is 78 percent increase in that time.

"I've heard people say you only pay $17 a month for health care, and I went back and looked this weekend at what I pay, and I'm up about $9,000 this year for me and my family... when you look at what everybody pays outside of what people focus on, which is the $16 premium, the health costs are considerably higher than what is being purported out there."

Vance said using the state's 80/20 percent split would increase monthly premiums for single employees to $153 and families to $441. Under the hard cap option, single employees would pay $196 per month and families would pay $658 per month.

Employees would still have to meet the same deductibles under both increased premium options.

The board voted 5-2 to pass a resolution to opt out of the state law, with trustees David Buckley and Dani Walsh voting against the opt-out resolution.

DCDS Lower School reopens on W. Maple After a complete reconstruction, Detroit Country Day School (DCDS) officially reopened its lower school campus on Tuesday, November 19, with a ceremonial ribbon cutting, marking the completion of the second phase of the school's expansion plans.

The redesign and rebuild of the lower school, located at 3003 W. Maple Road in Bloomfield Township, is designed to transform DCDS's educational experience for current and future generations, school officials said.

In 2017, Detroit Country Day School embarked on a $33 million, multi-year VIVID Capital Campaign which will continue through 2021, to help support both the middle and lower school expansions.

The private school, which has 1,530 students, had been spread out over four campuses, with the upper and middle schools headquartered adjacent to one another at the upper school main campus on Thirteen Mile Road in Beverly Hills, and the junior school, for students in grades 3-5 on Maple Road in Bloomfield Township and the lower school, currently for 01.20

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MUNICIPAL students from PreK-3 to second grade on Bradway Boulevard in Bloomfield Village.

With the opening of the new lower school, the campus now accommodates Pre-K-grade students,. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is a monumental day for our community,â&#x20AC;? said DCDS Headmaster Glen Shilling. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As we welcome our youngest students to their new â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;home away from home,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; we are humbled by the forward-thinking leadership put forth by our board of trustees to make this vision a reality. This new campus is a testament to our schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to providing learning opportunities for the current students and generations of students to come.â&#x20AC;?

The $18 million lower school renovation features charming neighborhood dĂŠcor throughout the building with classroom fronts of Victorian, bungalow, or brownstone design; an innovation gallery incorporating a wet lab, a tinker lab, group study rooms, and a dedicated STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math) makerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s space; a full-size gymnasium and a state-of-the-art cafeteria.

Also part of the VIVID campaign is

a $14 million middle school expansion, officially unveiled in September 2018. The new middle school features enhanced spaces and technology, dedicated classrooms for each teacher, STEAM spaces for project-based learning, an instrumental music room, performance spaces and more.

Township supporting goose control efforts The Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees on Monday, December 9, approved a resolution supporting efforts by local lake associations in the township to seek goose population control efforts as authorized and permitted by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

The DNR requires that local lake associations seeking to conduct goose control measures receive approval from the municipalities in which they are located through a local resolution. The resolution doesn't pertain to any goose control measures on its own behalf.

Bloomfield Township Clerk Jan Roncelli said lake associations seeking the resolution do so on a four-year basis. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Every four years we revisit this resolution," Roncelli said. "The lakes that want to go out and do a goose round-up of the eggs have to attach a resolution to their application. We have lakes that do this sometimes on an annual basis, sometimes every couple years. This resolution is for 2020 through 2023."

Roncelli said the lake associations are responsible for submitting permit applications and other paperwork to the DNR, as well as for adhering to state guidelines for goose control measures.

The resolutions pertain to associations for Echo Lake, Forest Lake, Gilbert Lake, Hammond Lake, Heather Lake, Hunter Lake, Island Lake, Kern Lake, Kirkwood Lake, Lower Long Lake, Meadow Lake, Minnow Lake, Orange Lake, Shorewood Lake, Sodon Lake, Upper Long Lake, Wabeek Lake and Wing Lake.

The board passed the resolution unanimously.

Office building plans clear township board Plans for a two-story, 14,900square-foot office building on the west side of W. Maple, just north of Telegraph Road, were approved on Monday, November 25, by the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees.

Property owners Maplewood Office Park LLC, plan to construct the new building on a 1.38-acre parcel at 4050 W. Maple Road. The property is zoned for office use, with the owner proposing a mix of general office and medical office uses for the building. However, the owner proposed a non-conforming parking lot setback along the Maple Road bypass to Telegraph, as well as the side yard parking lot setback along the easterly property line.

Bloomfield Township Deputy Director of Planning, Building and Ordinance Andrea Bibby said the zoning board of appeals in October granted variances for the parking lot requests. The also received a

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favorable recommendation from the township's planning commission.

Bibby said the property owner included plans to provide crossaccess to the abutting Bloomfield Village Offices that will allow access to Telegraph in the event of any future developments at the Medical Village site. Existing access to Maple will remain, as well.

Trustees unanimously approved the site plan, which included seven conditions. Those conditions require the property owner to comply with all requirements of the township departments; compliance with any additional landscaping needed to screen the view from residents to the east of the building; compliance with the township traffic engineer; screening rooftop mechanicals from public view; screening ground mechanicals from public view; provide cross access to the parcel to the north at 6405 Telegraph Road for future site plan applications; and require the majority of tenant spaces to remain general office use.

Longe resigns from architect committee Following his wife, Therese Longe, becoming a city commissioner in November, Birmingham architect Chris Longe has resigned from the city's architectural review committee.

Longe had served on the committee for 15 years, after first being appointed in May of 2004. His term runs through April 2022, after being reappointed in April 2019.

However, as part of the Birmingham city charter, there is a Nepotism section, which prevents spouses or family members of commissioners or the city manager from holding any position in the city, or from being employed in the city.

Section 21 of the city charter reads: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Relatives by blood or marriage of the mayor, any commissioner or the manager, within the second degree of consanguinity or affinity, are hereby disqualified from holding any appointive office or from being employed by the city, during the term for which such mayor or commissioner was elected, or during the tenure of office of such manager.â&#x20AC;?

Four years ago, former commissioners Patty Bordman and Carroll DeWeese's spouses each resigned from boards they had served on when they took office. downtownpublications.com

Requests for applicants to finish Longe's term of office were made at the city commission meeting on Monday, December 16.

Township board to decide office plan The Bloomfield Township Planning Commission on Monday, December 2, recommended approval of a site plan for a twostory, 10,308-square foot office building in the 1600 block of Telegraph Road.

The proposed building will occupy a vacant space at 1675 Telegraph, on the east side of Telegraph and north of Crestview Avenue. The plan calls for a shared access drive from northbound Telegraph to serve the property and the existing building at 1681 Telegraph Road.

The building will be built on .84 acres, with 59 feet of frontage along Telegraph. The property owner, Michael McGlothlin, is requesting the property be rezoned from its current light manufacturing (M-L) to general business (B-3) zoning. The property is adjacent to general business properties to the north and south, with light manufacturing property to the east on the opposite side of a vacated street.

Bloomfield Township Deputy Director of Planning, Building and Ordinance Andrea Bibby said in a memo to the commission that the B-3 district is intended to allow for a variety of automobile services and goods incompatible with uses in the community business district, and not permitted. The general business district is more diversified and often designed to serve passerby traffic.

The planning commission recommended the zoning board of appeals (ZBA) approve the rezoning request, and the board of trustees approve the site plan, with six conditions. Those conditions include ensuring the plans are in compliance with all requirements of the township departments; comply with the township's landscape architect requirements; comply with the township's traffic engineer requirements; seek necessary variances from the ZBA; ensure roof-mounted mechanicals are screened from public view; and submit signage proposals to the design review board for approval.

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FACES

Abby Quinn hen Abby Quinn watches Greta Gerwig’s new adaptation of Little Women she’ll see a very familiar face: her own.

“It’s so exciting because it was my favorite movie ever growing up,” said Quinn, who said her family watched the 1994 version every Christmas. “So, even auditioning for this was crazy to me…I found out I got the part. I was beside myself, I didn’t know what to do.”

What she did do was go to Boston for a week and play Annie Moffat, a wealthy friend of Meg March. Quinn’s in two scenes, both involving large parties and a lot of beautiful gowns.

“It really transported me in to that world,” said the Detroit Country Day School alumna. “It was the greatest experience ever.”

The Bloomfield Hills native has been having a lot of great experiences lately. Not only was Quinn in Little Women, but she also starred with Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams in After the Wedding.

And then there was this teeny, tiny project she did with Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser – the Mad About You revival. Quinn plays the teenage daughter, Mabel, of their characters, Paul and Jamie Buchman, who is about to head off to NYU. Quinn, who is 23, had never seen the original series, which ran from 1992-1999. When she read the script though, she knew this was something she wanted to be a part of.

“I was really drawn to Mabel because she’s very outspoken, very opinionated, and she’s still so young,” she said.

For those who watched the original show, don’t expect Mabel to be anything like the twenty-something shown in an episode’s flash-forward. Hunt and Reiser made it clear they didn’t want Quinn to replicate that. They wanted her to make it her own.

W

That confidence to be creative and voice her opinions on characters goes back to her time at Detroit Country Day, where she was surrounded by passionate people who taught her so much.

It’s also where she made her stage debut, as a Munchkin in the Wizard of Oz in the first grade. Quinn did a play every year after that and also attended a theater camp in Telluride, Colorado, which was influential. Quinn landed an agent at 14 and sent out audition tapes from home for years.

She then went to Carnegie Mellon University – her dream school – for a year before deciding to head out to Los Angeles. She figured she would go for a year and then come back to school. Hollywood had other ideas.

After moving, she soon found herself cast her first movie, Landline with Jenny Slate and Edie Falco, which helped set the tone for what she’s drawn to in projects. The roles kept coming after that, including episodes of Better Call Saul and Black Mirror, the latter directed by Jodie Foster.

“I’ve been able to work with a lot of powerhouse female directors and actors,” Quinn said. “Also, male directors and actors who are very respectful and collaborative. I feel really lucky.”

Now that filming on Mad About You has finished, Quinn is open to being cast in just about anything. Especially if it’s a role that challenges her.

“I want to keep seeking out experiences like that, that really scare me…characters that might be really different from me and where it’s not something that comes so easy,” she said.

She would love to do a film or a musical in New York like 2012’s Once.

Perhaps a theater revival will appear on Quinn’s resume in the near future.

Story: Dana Casadei

Photo: Cat Gwynn

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BUSINESS MATTERS 30 years of eyecare

Casual boutique opens

“It’s been a pleasure being in service to the community,” said Dr. Bill Koppin, owner of Shades Optical, 193 W. Maple Road in downtown Birmingham, of reaching the major milestone of 30 years in business. “You feel like you’ve been an integral part of the community.

I’ve treated patients and their children, and now I’m seeing their children.”

Koppin said he’s very proud to be part of their everyday life – to be part of their vision. He has also treasured helping to grow the downtown Birmingham merchant community, “to see Birmingham grow, thrive and change.

It’s been wonderful.” Koppin said the next 30 years – which he is excited about – is all about wellness and prevention. “The eyes are the window to the whole body’s wellness,” he pointed out. “We can evaluate nutrition, the vascular system, whole body wellness by examining your eyes. I’m utilizing the latest technology to prevent problems.” He noted that 70 to 80 percent of brain functions are related to the eyes and vision changes, especially as we are all tied to so many devices, and he has the exact tools to assist patients, from updating prescriptions to dry eye. “We can really help with all of these issues.”

Downtown Birmingham welcomed lifestyle boutique Steele Angel at 150 W. Maple Road, featuring a variety of clothing lines, distinct jewelry lines from artists, gift items and home accessories. “We are an athleisure store that carries a little bit of everything,” said co-owner Wendy van Alstyne, who recently moved to metro Detroit from Denver with her family. She and business partner Staci Egloss opened Steele Angel in Denver three years ago with the ethos, “The strength within us all to live with purpose, love and gratitude.” Women can find altheisure items from Beyond Yoga, Alo, Joah Brown athleisure, Spiritual Gangster and Sugarboo, among others to go from working out to dinner, top it off with a fake fur cubby and casual jewelry, and gift a friend with a candle or pillow.

“People want quality, but curated. So, if they like my style, they’ll like the store.

It’s where style meets an active lifestyle,” van Alstyne said.

Shopping mecca Retail doyenne Rita Sayegh has opened Libertine, a new retail space offering curated gifts, personal care items, fragrance and accessories at 2163 Cole Street in Birmingham’s Rail District. Libertine is a specialty gift shop inside women’s clothing store Milieu, owned by Denise Howard, and connected to Arkitektura. Sayegh, former creative director of Mills Pharmacy + Apothecary and coproprietor of Sabine at The Siren Hotel in downtown Detroit, said, “I love being able to bring unique, hard-to-find products from all over the world to Michigan. Opening Libertine is a wonderful reflection of my work over the past decade, and I am thrilled to share my favorite brands with customers.” Sayegh said she hand picks every item, which includes items from Ortigia Sicilia, Photogenics + Co., Ellis Faas, Coreterno, and others. Libertine was designed with a focus on personal care items, fragrance, women’s and men’s accessories, and specialty gifts, which she said is a synergistic pairing with Milieu, with its global focus on designer fashion and accessories. The two businesses look forward to creating a unique experience for customers to shop each store concept. The stores are open seven days a week. downtownpublications.com

Urgent needs A new Beaumont Urgent Care by Beaumont Health has opened at 6543 Telegraph Road at Maple, next to Leo’s Coney Island. According to Beaumont Health, “When it’s not an emergency, but you need to be seen quickly, Beaumont Urgent Care brings you and your family the right care, right when you need it.” The new urgent care location is open every day from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. They also offer employer drug testing and employer pre-employment checkups, as well as diagnostic testing for flu, mononucleosis, strep throat screening, pregnancy tests, cultures and chemistry lab panels. Patients are welcome to walk in, or to sign up and save time by using Save My Spot.

New conditioning locale Reach, a new bodywork studio focusing on myofascial stretching, will open in Bloomfield Plaza at Maple and Telegraph in late January/early February, said owner Brett Borock.

“We’re really excited to come to the area,” Borock said, who is from West Bloomfield, and opened his first Reach in Ann Arbor a year ago. “Sessions are 30-minute, one-on-one stretching that works on myofascial active release and trigger points,” he said. The studio is an open concept, he explained, in everything from the design to the tables, and Reach is designed for everyone – “all ages, all fitness levels.

Whether you’re a fire fighter, construction worker, sit at a desk all day or are at peak fitness level, it’s very targeted to fit your needs,” Borock

explained. Reach is also designed to work in conjunction with other fitness programs, and clients are invited to utilize the studio via month-to-month memberships, packages or drop in sessions. Borock said myofascial stretching, which works on the connective tissue between muscles, bones, tendons and ligaments that support and stabilize mobility and help make the body work, is for all ages.

Further, all stretch specialists are massage therapists, physical therapist assistants or athletic trainers. “All are licensed and trained,” Borock emphasized.

Bakery transformation It’s a sign the cupcake craze may be officially kaput, as The Cupcake Station in downtown Birmingham, 136 N. Old Woodward, has not only closed for what was initially a renovation, but has had a change of ownership and branding, as well. When the rebuild is complete, it will re-open as Bakehouse 46, where presumably cupcakes will still be available – along with an assortment of other baked goodies.

Lovely lashes Kati Prater, wife of the Detroit Lions player Matt Prater, has an exciting gig of her own. This spring, she will be opening The Lash Lounge in downtown Birmingham in The Pearl, a new development under construction at 856 N Old Woodward. Prater will become the local franchisee of the first location of The Lash Lounge, which is based in Texas with over 94 locations nationwide. “The Lash Lounge is your destination for semi-permanent and permanent beauty services,” they state, offering a complete menu of services, including eyelash extensions, refills, threading and more. “When you visit The Lash Lounge, you enter a retreat designed to rejuvenate you from the inside out. The Lash Lounge provides a refreshingly new approach to the daily task of making eyelashes long and lush, saving women time and delivering amazing results.” The Pearl, arriving in March 2020, is a luxury 26-unit multifamily apartment development located near the corner of Oak Street, close to Birmingham Farmer’s Market and Booth Park.

SIGN UP TODAY Get the latest news online from the leading news organization for the Birmingham and Bloomfield area.

Go to downtownpublications.com and register to receive our weekly and breaking news updates, social lights, oakland confidential and metro intelligencer from the local area's best website.

124 West Maple Road BiRMinghaM 48009

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

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81

Lost in Ann Arbor: Detroit Edition

Performance Sponsored by Judith & Irwin Elson

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Musical Theatre Seniors

January 25, 2020 The Black Box Theatre at the Michigan Opera Theatre Shows at 6:30 and 8:45 p.m.

For more information or to order tickets, please call 313.405.5061 or visit cabaret313.org This activity is supported in part by an award from the MICHIGAN COUNCIL FOR ARTS AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS and the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS.

BIRMINGHAM

RESTAURANT week JAN 27-31 + FEB 3-7, 2020

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Birmingham’s finest restaurants • 2 hours free parking

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V I S I T W W W. A L L I N B I R M I N G H A M . C O M / R E S TA U R A N T W E E K F O R E V E N T M E N U S

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BIRMINGHAM SHOPPING DISTRICT

DOWNTOWN

@BHAMSHOPPING

01.20

PLACES TO EAT www.StDunstansTheatre.com 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, MondaySaturday. 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. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Liquor. No reservations. 31471 Southfield Road, Beverly Hills, 48025. 248.642.2355.

Beyond Juice: Contemporary. Breakfast & Lunch daily; Dinner, Monday-Saturday.

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. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, Daily. Reservations, lunch only.

Liquor. 39556 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304.

248.646.9000.

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. 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.

China Village: Chinese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. 1655 Opdyke, Bloomfield Hills, 48304.

248.758.1221.

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

downtownpublications.com

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 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.

St. Dunstan’s is located at 400 Lone Pine Road in Bloomfield Hills.

1-844-DUNSTAN (1-844-386-7826)

DOWNTOWN

Contact Jessie Miller Special Events Director | 586.944.8222 jemiller@aegpresents.com | www.romtlive.com 83

C O R D I A L LY I N V I T E S Y O U T O AT T E N D THE

DINNER

February 8, 2020 at 6:30 pm Three-Course Seated Dinner, Wine and Cocktails, Live Music from Ben Sharkey.

Inspirational Evening of Celebration and Recognition Black Tie Optional, Valet Parking

MASTER OF CEREMONIES Huel Perkins Iconic Broadcast Journalist, Reporter and American News Anchor

2020 PILLAR INDUCTEES INCLUDE: BUSINESS

PHILANTHROPY

WELLNESS

Mary Kramer

David Provost

Hanan Lis

Vice President & Group Publisher Crain Communications

Executive Chairman, TCF Bank

Principal, The WW Group, Inc / Principal & CEO, Lis Ventures LLC / Chairman, GSH Group, Inc.

C U LT U R E & P H I L A N T H R O P Y

Community Advocate & Philanthropist

Brian Berman, M.D.

Linda Solomon

Margaret Cooney Casey

Photojournalist and Author

President, Beaumont Foundation at Beaumont Hospitals

Chairman, Dept. of Pediatrics & Pediatrician-in-Chief, Beaumont Children’s; Chief of Pediatrics, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine

E D U C AT I O N Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D. President, Oakland University; Pediatric Endocrinologist and Researcher

Christine Provost

WELLNESS & PHILANTHROPY Keith Pomeroy Chairman, Pomeroy Living LLC & Pomeroy Family Holdings

PRESIDENT’S COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP AWARD HONOREES: Rose and Brian Bolyard Presenting Sponsor

Private VIP Champagne Reception Sponsor

Sponsors

For tickets or more information, visit communityhousefoundation.org or call 248.644.5832

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.

Mad Hatter Cafe: Tea Room. Brunch, Lunch & Dinner. No reservations. Liquor.

185 N. Old Woodward, Birmingham, 48009. 248.540.0000 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.

Panera Bread: American. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 2125 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48302.

248.253.9877.

Pernoi: Italian/Japanese. Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 310 E. Maple Road, Birmingham, 48009.

248.940.0000.

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

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

Pita Cafe: Middle Eastern. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 239 North Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.645.6999.

Qdoba: Mexican. Lunch & Dinner, daily.

No reservations. 795 East Maple Avenue, Birmingham, 48009.

248.988.8941. Also 42967 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Township, 48304.

248.874.1876 Red Olive: Middle Eastern/American.

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 42757 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Township, 48302.

248.481.7767.

Roadside B & G: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

1727 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48302. 248.858.7270.

Rojo Mexican Bistro: Mexican. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 250 Merrill Street, Birmingham, 48009.

248.792.6200.

Salvatore Scallopini: Italian. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Beer & Wine. 505 North Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.644.8977.

downtownpublications.com

Sidecar Slider Bar: Burgers. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor.

280 E. Merrill Street, Birmingham 48009. 248.220.4167.

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.

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

248.932.0800.

Streetside Seafood: Seafood. Lunch, Monday-Friday; Dinner, daily.

Reservations, Lunch only. 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; Dinner, Wednesday-Friday.

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.

Triple Nickel Restaurant and Bar: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Liquor.

Reservations. 555 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham 48009. 248.480.4951.

Vinotecca: European. Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 210 S. Old Woodard, Birmingham, 48009.

248.203.6600.

Village Coney Island: American.

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 653 S. Adams.

Birmingham, 48009. 248.593.7964.

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.

Bistro 82: French. Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. 401 S. Lafayette Ave., Royal Oak, 48067. 248.542.0082.

The Blue Nile: Ethiopian. Dinner, TuesdaySunday. 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.

GreenSpace Cafe: Vegan. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. No reservations.

Liquor. 215. W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale, 48220. 248.206.7510.

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 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.

Pronto!: American. Weekend Brunch.

DOWNTOWN

Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations.

Liquor. 608 S. Washington Ave., Royal Oak, 48067. 248.544.7900.

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.

Town Tavern: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 116 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak, 48067.

248.544.7300.

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.

Cantoro Italian Trattoria: Italian. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1695 E. Big Beaver Road, Troy 48083.

248.817.2424.

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 Road, Troy, 48098. 248.813.0700.

McCormick & Schmick’s: Steak & Seafood. Lunch & Dinner, daily.

Reservations. Liquor. Somerset

85

METRO INTELLIGENCER Metro Intelligencer is a monthly column devoted to news stories, tidbits and gossip items about what's happening on the restaurant scene in the metro Detroit area. Metro Intelligencer is reported/created each month by Dana Casadei who can be reached at DanaCasadei@DowntownPublications.com with news items or tips, on or off the record.

Pernoi’s plight Only open since September, Pernoi – 310 E. Maple Road, Birmingham – has recently encountered some behind-the-scenes turbulence. Michelin-star chef, and restaurant partner, Takashi Yagihashi left the Birmingham restaurant to focus on his restaurants in Chicago. Pernoi partner Luciano DelSignore said in a statement that the restaurant will carry on with the duo’s original vision and that Yagihashi is always welcome back in the kitchen. “It was always a dream of mine to open a restaurant with my dear friend, Takashi, and it’s been a thrill to see the vision for Pernoi come to life. Mission accomplished,” he said. Considering the duo was the raison d’etre for opening, and dining at, the restaurant, will the menu morph into a DelSignore-focused cuisine? Word about town is there has been staff turnover, as well, with restaurateur/sommelier Mindy Lopez, most recently at SheWolf in Detroit, brought in to right the front of the ship. Pernoi recently launched a new cocktail and food menu at their bar, as well as relaxing the strict “jacketrequired” policy for men to a more “jacket encouraged” attire. Stay tuned.

Coffee and a cure For the team behind The Alechemy Room – 22646 Woodward Avenue, Ferndale – opening a coffee shop that also had a taproom, along with the recent addition of a full absinthe menu, was a no-brainer. “It’s something I don’t think we see very often,” said David Leslie, operational manager of WAB Co., who run The Alechemy Room, along with the WAB (Woodward Avenue Brewery), the Emory, and The Loving Touch, all in Ferndale. “We get a lot of coffee houses that are closing early and we don’t have a lot of after dinner/drink speciality kind of places.” Much like their rotating beers – currently on tap are the Woodward Avenue Blonde and Detroit Maiden IPA, among others – their coffees will also rotate, focused on using local roasters, like Fourth Dimension Coffee Company in Pontiac. If you want coffee with a bit of a kick there’s their boozy coffees, which feature Kahlúa, and include Spanish, Irish, and Italian varieties. There’s also homemade cookies and muffins, and specialty sandwiches, like a California Turkey, chickpea salad sandwich, and Reuben. The Alechemy Room, which opened in November, has plans to expand their hours in 2020 and add a cafe loading zone.

Small and sleek Newly formed Nest Egg Hospitality Group opened its first establishment, Mink, around Thanksgiving. Located at 1701 Trumbull Avenue in Detroit’s Corktown, the space only has 20 seats, but executive chef Cameron Rolka said that’s part of its appeal. “I think it brings a different vibe of dining experience...it’s nice to have some place that’s super small,” he said. While its physical location is compact, the small plates menu is full of big flavors, with a lot of influences from Rolka’s travels. Spilt into categories like seafood, vegetables, and meat, each section of the menu has a raw, fresh-prep item, such as their apple salad. Dishes that are proving popular already include their shrimp roll and raw oysters on the half-shell, both of which pair well with the variety of sakes the restaurant offers. They also serve wine, beer, and hard cider. With a constantly evolving menu, Mink plans to start a caviar service and add more items with Eastern European flavors as the year continues.

Mootz and more Mootz Pizzeria + Bar – 1230 Library Street in downtown Detroit – launched some big menu changes in December, adding items like the Bee Sting Pizza (topped with soppressata, mozzarella, basil and hot honey), a Buffalo Chicken Pizza, multiple hoagies, and pizza fries, which sound sexactly like you imagine. Operating Partner Lisa Walters said they got rid of a few items and made adjustments to others before the relaunch. Their drink menu now has a more simplified cocktail list, including the 1990 Chilly Willy, a mix of vodka, elderflower liqueur, violet liqueur, lemon, soda, and is named after the year the Chilly Willy float blew away at the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade. The pizzeria has also partnered with Petoskey Brewing Company for an exclusive handcrafted beer, the Mootz Witbier, an American wheat beer now sold at the restaurant. So what does the exclusive beer taste best with? “The pizzas, most definitely,” Walters said.

Collection, 2850 Coolidge Hwy., Troy, 48084. 248.637.6400.

The Meeting House: American. Weekend Brunch. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. 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, Monday-Friday.

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.

Steelhouse Tavern: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1129 E. Long Lake Rd., Troy, 48085.

248.817.2980.

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, Southfield, 48034. 248.208.1680.

Bigalora: Italian. Weekend Brunch. Lunch, Monday-Friday. Dinner, daily. No Reservations. Liquor. 29110 Franklin Road, Southfield, 48034.

The Bombay Grille: Indian. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. 29200 Orchard Lake Rd, Farmington Hills, 48334. 248.626.2982.

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.

The Root Restaurant & Bar: American.

Lunch & Dinner, Monday - Saturday.

Reservations. Liquor. 340 Town Center Blvd., White Lake, 48390.

248.698.2400.

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.

Craft Work: American. Sunday Brunch.

Dinner, Monday-Saturday. Reservations.

Liquor. 8047 Agnes St., Detroit, 48214.

313.469.0976.

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.

1917 American Bistro: American. Sunday Brunch. Lunch & Dinner, MondaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 19416 Livernois Ave., Detroit, 48221.

313.863.1917.

Prism: Steak & Seafood. Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. 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.

Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria and Cucina: Italian. Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday.

Reservations. Liquor. 1777 Third St, Detroit, 48226. 313.465.1646.

Wolfgang Puck Steak: Steak & Seafood.

Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1777 Third St, Detroit, 48226.

313.465.1411.

Wright & Co.: American. Dinner, MondaySaturday. No reservations. Liquor. 1500 Woodward Ave Second Floor, Detroit, 48226. 313.962.7711.

New spot in center city For chef Jared Gadbaw, coming up with a name for his upcoming Detroit restaurant, Oak and Reel, was rather difficult. “It was easier naming my children than it was coming up with a name for this,” laughed the Michigan native. “Oak” comes from the wood they’ll be using in the restaurant’s woodburning hearth. “Reel” pays homage to the area’s history with cinema and fishing reels. The name isn’t the only area focused on the past. Gadbaw said when they do open – he’s envisioning the grand reveal in spring/summer 2020 – the feel of the original building at 2921 E. Grand Boulevard, Suite 100, Detroit, will very much be intact. But it is getting what he described as a pretty substantial face-lift. With a focus on seafood and Italian, the menu will be in Gadbaw’s wheelhouse, as he worked at the Michelin star seafood restaurants Marea and Vaucluse, both in New York City. Plus, everybody likes pasta, he pointed out. There are also plans to open a speakeasy cocktail lounge in the basement after they’ve been open for a bit.

Say aloha!

It might officially be winter in Michigan but Longboard – 21931 Michigan Avenue, Suite 100, Dearborn — wants you to forget the snow and focus on the beach. Open since late November, the interior of the 8,000-square-foot space features surfboards, bright colors, and a bar that looks like a tiki hut to offer that West Coast feel. “When you walk in, you feel like you’re somewhere tropical – you feel like you’re on vacation,” said General Manager John Elwell. Since Longboard is from the team behind Jolly Pumpkin – which was what the space was originally supposed to become – expect some Jolly Pumpkin staples on the menu, like their fried chicken sandwich and pizzas.

But the rest of the menu leans in to that beach feel, with dishes like poke bowls and a poke wrap, a variety of tacos, and their six signature cocktails, including two which are frozen – and there are plans to add more frozen drinks once spring arrives. Each cocktail is named after something associated with Hawaiian culture or surfing, such as their in-house mai tai and Beach Bum Punch. For those won’t don’t drink alcohol, they also have a list of non-alcoholic drinks, including a blackberry cooler. A back patio with fire pits and a bar – based on the idea of a Ford truck with a surfboard on top – will open next spring/summer.

Reset and reboot Looking for a reset at the beginning of the year? Beyond Juice has you covered with their recently launched meal replacement program, The Reboot.

Elliot Disner, who handles business development for the company, said the Reboot is a one-day program and sold one day at a time, both in their 12 locations and through their app. The program will come in a branded tote and include four bottled juices, one hot shot, and two all-natural, vegan, and gluten-free meal replacements. For those hesitant about doing a juice cleanse because you can’t have your caffeine, the Reboot may be the perfect fit since you won’t have to give up your morning coffee. Disner also noted that the Reboot has a bit more substance to it than a juice cleanse does. Beyond Juice – located in downtown Birmingham, 270 W. Maple, and in the city’s Rail District, 2221 Cole Street, as well as numerous other locations – is also working towards new specialty items to introduce in 2020, including a smoothie Disner said would be “the most well-balanced smoothie on the menu.”

So long & goodbye The last year was full of new restaurants and bars coming to the area, but there were also lots of closures throughout 2019 that you may have missed. A few restaurants had very short runs, such as Cantoro Trattoria Troy, 1695 E. Big Beaver Road, Troy; Katsu Japanese, 5063 Trumbull Avenue, Detroit; and Friend & Associate, 501 Monroe, Detroit, which closed after just two months before re-opening as a new concept. Over in Ferndale, Axle Brewing Co., 567 Livernois, served their last beer over the summer. Others closed after much longer stays, such as Hard Rock Café in Detroit, 45 Monroe Street, which said goodbye after being open for 15 years and Birmingham’s Cameron’s Steakhouse, 115 Willits Street, which had been open since 2001.

Golden Crown, 43239 Woodward Avenue, in Bloomfield Township, decided not to sign a new lease after 47 years in the spot. The last meal at Kim’s Restaurant, 102 E. Long Lake Road, Troy, was served after 45 years in business. And Detroit’s Fort Street Galley has changed vendors inside the space at 160 W. Fort Street so many times since opening in December 2018 its hard to keep track of what’s still there.

THE COMMUNITY HOUSE Work With A Top Performer In Michigan.

“We can find meaning and reward by serving some higher purpose than ourselves, a shining purpose, the illumination of a thousand points of light, we all have something to give.” – President George H. W. Bush As we begin 2020, full of hope and optimism, all of us at The Community House have taken pause to reflect on all of the people, individuals, corporations, foundations – kindnesses large and small, which have made a true and lasting difference at The Community House over these last 97 years.

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization, it is our duty and our obligation to remain ever mindful that good stewardship is an essential part of the fundraising cycle. It covers the entire relationship between donor and organization. Likewise, we must continually celebrate and honor the importance of selfless service and volunteerism. For without either, the work and missions of noble organizations such as The Community House would not be possible.

Several years ago, The Community House created the Pillars of Vibrancy: Education, Wellness, Culture, Philanthropy and Business. The purpose was to publicly recognize extraordinary individuals who have demonstrated selfless service and philanthropy toward others while helping to “Create More Vibrant Lives” in the community – selfless service offered and provided out of a genuine and deep desire to help and be of service to others.

With 34 years of experience, Tim Smith has been dedicated to helping his clients achieve their homeownership dreams.

As a top producer in Michigan, he can help you find the loan option to fit your needs.

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Join the many homeowners who have relied on Tim’s committed service. Contact Tim today!

Bill Seklar

Over the last few years, 61 pillars in our community have been recognized and inducted into The Community House’s Pillars of Vibrancy. This year is no exception.

Recently, The Community House announced its 2020 Pillars of Vibrancy – what an extraordinary and selfless group. They include: Pillar of Business, Mary Kramer, Crain Communications; Pillar of Culture & Philanthropy, Linda Solomon, Pictures of Hope / Linda Solomon Photography; Pillar of Wellness & Philanthropy, Brian Berman, M.D., Beaumont Health System / Beaumont Children’s Hospital; Hannan Lis, The WW Group Inc.; Keith Pomeroy, Pomeroy Living LLC / Pomeroy Family Holdings; Pillar of Education, Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D., Oakland University; Pillars of Philanthropy, Margaret Cooney Casey, Beaumont Foundation at Beaumont Hospitals; Christine Provost, Philanthropist; David T. Provost, TCF Bank.

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A Division of TCF National Bank

In an effort to also recognize individuals, corporations and foundations that have given extraordinary treasure, $25,000 or more cumulatively, or donors who make an irrevocable legacy gift of $25,000 or more to The Community House, TCH leadership decided to gather and recognize all of these key stakeholders, Pillars of Vibrancy and major donors, together, under the new Community House Foundation and under one philanthropic umbrella; Bates Street Society.

Bates Street Society was established in 2015, to publicly recognize and induct members who have made significant charitable contributions to support the work and mission of The Community House in Birmingham. Members will be acknowledged annually at its Bates Street Society Dinner, a semi-formal event hosted by The Community House together with The Community House Foundation’s Officers and Board of Directors. The fifth annual Bates Street Society Dinner, a three-course sit-down dinner is scheduled for 6:30p.m., Saturday, February 8, 2020 in the Wallace Ballroom of The Community House.

In 2020, the Bates Street Society and the Bates Street Society Dinner will also celebrate its fifth anniversary. To help celebrate this special milestone, Mr. Huel Perkins, iconic broadcast journalist and news anchor, will assume the role of master of ceremonies, Rose and Brian Bolyard will be presented with the President’s Community Leadership Award, and live entertainment will feature vocalist & musician Ben Sharkey.

Special thanks to our founding presenting sponsor PNC Wealth Management. Our thanks as well to TCF Bank as the presenting sponsor of the Pillar VIP Champagne Reception, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Beaumont, Oakland University, Mills Pharmacy + Apothecary, Metalbuilt, BlueWater Equity Partners, The Skillman Foundation, DeRoy & Devereaux, Barbara & Tim Hertzler, Crain Communications, Bolyard Lumber, Jewish Renaissance Media and Neighborhood SEEN. Members of the community are not only welcome but encouraged to attend. This important dinner will offer guests a wonderful opportunity to publicly show enthusiastic support for the 2020 TCH Pillars of Vibrancy inductees, and to the scores of individuals, foundations and corporations whose contributions and kindness make The Community House’s work and mission possible. Reservations are $250/person for General Admission and $350/person for Patron Admission and are on sale now. Seating is limited.

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For reservations, tickets or more information about these and other happenings at TCH, please go to communityhouse.org or call 248.644.5832.

Lic #: L-21897

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

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6 Bedrooms | 5.2 Bathrooms Set on 1.61 Acres

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Beaumont Health Foundation-Wine for the Spirit

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Beaumont Health Foundation’s “Wine for the Spirit” was held at the Max & Marjorie Fisher Music Center. Chaired by Ron Moran, the event included food and wine pairings, a silent auction and entertainment by the Ben Sharkey Band. This year’s event provides significant support for many Beaumont children’s programs throughout the region, including the Center for Exceptional Families in Dearborn, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Beaumont, Troy, and the Pediatric Neurology and Epilepsy Program at Beaumont, Royal Oak. Over $250,000 was raised. 1. Lori and Craig Warner of Royal Oak and Matt and Stephanie Geyman of Farmington. 2. Margaret Casey of Beverly Hills, Kevin and Kouhaila Hammer of Farmington Hills. 3. Jill Willen and Mark Bohen of Bloomfield.

4. Anthony and Paulette Stallion of Bloomfield. 5. Kris and Aaron Gillingham of Northville.

6. Drew Besonson and Celina Geronimo of Birmingham. 7. Event chair Ron Moran and Terry Moran of Grosse Ile. 8. John and Barbara Peetz of Royal Oak.

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Camp Casey Gold Rush Camp Casey, a 501(c)(3) horseback riding program for children with cancer and rare blood disorders, hosted its annual Gold Rush Gala at The Fisher Building in Detroit. The event offered a night of glitz, glam, and giving back, as guests enjoyed a strolling dinner, open bar, silent auction, dessert auction, wine and whiskey pulls. All of the proceeds will fund Camp Casey’s 2019 programming season enabling the organization to spread the healing power of horses to children in need in the greater Detroit and greater Grand Rapids communities. 1. Joanne Davis of Grosse Ile and emcee Shannon Murphy of MOJO in the Morning of Birmingham. 2. Dave and Kristen Stotera of Bloomfield. 3. Ed and Pam Boutrous of Bloomfield. 4. Jayne and Jarrod Wood of Royal Oak. 5. Barbara and Michael Valerio of Livonia. 6. Andrea and Robert Kavlik of Oakland Twp.

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7. Tom and Kathleen Nowakowski of Northville 8. Jeff and Michelle Vogel of Rochester.

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Dancing with Survivors-The Pink Fund

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The Pink Fund’s “Dancing with the Survivors” showcased an evening of dancing, music, a magical drink wall, and delicious food to celebrate the Michigan community of breast cancer survivors who thrive in their recovery and make a difference in the lives of Michigan breast cancer patients. The event, chaired

by Joan Primo, was held at Silver Garden Events Center in Southfield. Featured dancers included Kelly Schalk, Michele Baker, Rebecca Sorensen, Ryan Plecha and Tresse Roby. The event raised $175,000 for The Pink Fund’s mission to provide financial support to breast cancer patients in active treatment.

1. Leanne Saxman of Brighton, Michelle Quillico of W. Bloomfield and Mary Ann Lievois of Bloomfield.

2. Front: Event chair Joan Primo of Bloomfield (L-R) David Yared, Kristen and Matthew Nichols, and Ron Humenny of Bloomfield. 3. Liz and Stu Wolf of Birmingham. 4. Richard and Becky Sorensen of Bloomfield. 5. Eric and Karole Davies of Bloomfield. 6. Taja and Jeff Cunningham of Rochester Hills.

7. Dana Sorensen and Betsy Kruppe of Bloomfield. 8. Pink Fund Founder & Executive Director Molly MacDonald of Beverly Hills and dancer Michele D. Baker of Detroit.

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Playworks Michigan Get in the Game

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More than 200 people attended Playworks of Michigan’s “Get in the Game” to celebrate thousands of Michigan students’ access to safe and healthy play every day. The energetic evening was held at the Beacon in Detroit and included a combination of popular recess games, dinner, cocktails, silent auction and inspiring stories. The Game Changer Award was presented to the Detroit Lions. Amy Modica received the Educator of the Year Award, and Detroit Lion Miles Killebrew was honored with the Recess Hero Award. Proceeds from the event totaled over $100,00 for the cause.

1. Brad and Katie Balesky of Birmingham. 2. Mary Buchzeiger of Bloomfield, Don Tanner of Bloomfield and Rachel Decker of Birmingham. 3. Beth and Mike Eillston of Novi. 4. Honoree, Lion’s Player Miles Killebrew of Southfield and Playworks Executive Director Angela Rogensues of Warren.

5. Jeff and honoree Amy Modica, Samantha and Max Modica of Northville. 6. Ryan Combs of Shelby Twp., Amy Purcilly of Auburn Hills and Cathy Cooper of Livonia. 7. Former Piston Earl Cureton. 8. Jessica Worley and Connor Trombley of Detroit and Matt Ciccone of Novi.

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GigiNichols@downtownpublications.com 248.515.6105

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CARE House Gala

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CARE House of Oakland County hosted its annual CARE Night Gala at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham. Hundreds gathered to honor those for whom CARE House exists – to serve survivors of child abuse. The event kicked off with a cocktail reception followed by dinner and a short program. Detroit’s own Karen Newman served as the event’s emcee and Skyline & The Backstreet Horns provided the entertainment. Event proceeds of $388,800 will support CARE House’s intervention and therapeutic services, advocacy, education and prevention programs.

1. Cindy and Scott Penrod of Bloomfield. 2. Jim and Joy Garipey and Brier and Garry Neel of Birmingham. 3. George and Sandy Hebert of Birmingham. 4. Renee McLeod of Birmingham and President and CEO Blythe Tyler of Farmington. 6. Chris and Lori Cordon of Grosse Pointe and Whitney and Eliot Weiner of Birmingham. 7. Bob, Colin and Mary Clare Pulte of Bloomfield and Elise and Steve Guidos of Bloomfield. 8. Jim and Cathy Weissenborn of Bloomfield.

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Cultural Council of Birmingham Bloomfield Awards

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The Cultural Council of Birmingham Bloomfield selected Barbara Heller as the Cultural Arts Award Honoree. A jury of community arts enthusiasts selected Heller as the 2019 honoree for her immense impact on the arts not only in the Birmingham Bloomfield area, but also nationally and internationally as Director and Conservator of Special Projects at the DIA. The Council also presented its first Partners with the Arts award to Hagopian World of Rug for supporting arts in the Birmingham Bloomfield community. The awards were presented at a reception at the BBAC in Birmingham. 1. Peggy Kerr and Laurie Tennent of Bloomfield. 2. Annie VanGelderen of Commerce Twp., honoree Barbara Heller of Birmingham, Bill Seklar of Bloomfield. 3. Bill Seklar of Bloomfield, Annie VanGelderen of Commerce Twp., honoree Barbara Heller of Birmingham, and Laurie Tennent of Bloomfield.

4. Scott Moore of Birmingham and Vicky Heller of Boston. 5. Pierre Boutros of Birmingham and Anita Goor of Troy. 6. Business honorees Susanne Hagopian of W. Bloomfield, Edmond Hagopian of Howell and Angela Hagopian Snow of Farmington Hills. 7. Sandi and Claude Reitelman of Birmingham. 8. Cassandra Brower of Howell, Pam Coultis of Birmingham, Janet Gumenick of W. Bloomfield.

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Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) Gala

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Hosted by MOCAD’s Board of Directors, the Annual Gala & Benefit Art Auction raised funds to support the mission of the Museum’s Education & Public Programs and Exhibitions Departments.

Guests enjoyed a silent auction, musical entertainment and dinner. The event was co-chaired by Gretchen & Ethan Davidson, Kelle and Christopher Ilitch, Roz & Scott Jacobson and Sandy Seligman. Approximately 200 people attended the affair which raised $320,000.

1. Jay Sieferman and Rod Wasserman of Bloomfield. 2. Joel Tauber of W. Bloomfield and Marlene Rosenberg of Bloomfield. 3. Simon Leopold and Sarah Winkler of Birmingham.

4. Edith Briskin of Birmingham and Kathy Broock Ballard of Orchard Lake. 5. Salvador SalortPons of Detroit and Elyse Foltyn of Birmingham. 6. Christopher Burcham and Anna Rogers of Bloomfield. 7. Terese Reyes of Birmingham, Christopher Burcham of Bloomfield and GoGo Taubman of Birmingham. 8. Zina and Michael Kramer Bloomfield.

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Michigan Opera Theatre (MOT) Gala 49

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Michigan Opera Theatre celebrated Gala 49 entitled, "Saluting the Extraordinary," which honored MOT Board Chairman Rick Williams and internationally renowned tenor and educator George Shirley. The evening featured a concert by American tenor Michael Fabiano along with performances from soprano Leah Crocetto, tenor Rodrick Dixon, principal dancers from American Ballet Theatre, and the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra. The Gala raised over $1.6 million to enhance MOT’s education and community programs as well as maintenance for the historic Detroit Opera House. 1. Arnold Weingarten and Joanne Danto of Birmingham, and William Kupsky of Grosse Pointe Park. 2. Rep. Debbie Dingell of Dearborn, Wayne Brown of Detroit, George and Gladys Shirley of Ann Arbor, Gillian Darlow of Chicago and Julia Darlow of Ann Arbor. 3. Brenda Key of Detroit, Toby and Samuel Haberman of Birmingham.

4. Karen & R. Jamison Williams of Bloomfield. 5. Ruth Rattner of Birmingham and Wayne Brown of Detroit. 6. Edward Levy and Linda Dresner of Birmingham, Waltraud Prechter and Alphonse Lucarelli of Grosse Ile. 7. Celeste Demps Simons of Birmingham and Colin Knapp of Detroit. 8. Karen Williams of Bloomfield, Gretchen Davidson of Birmingham, Dr. Shauna Ryder Diggs of Grosse Pointe.

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GigiNichols@downtownpublications.com 248.515.6105

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Yatooma For the Kids Foundation Big Kid Costume Party

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Jack Krasula and Pam Good chaired Yatooma For the Kids Foundation’s Big Kid Costume Party at Detroit’s Garden Theatre. The event included strolling dinner, auction, a performance by the Detroit Youth Choir and inspiring words from Hollie Jackson, a mother of six who was helped by the foundation. Yatooma’s Foundation For The Kids is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing guidance, stability, and financial assistance to families with children who have lost one or both parents. The event raised nearly $350,000 for the cause. 1. The Yatooma Family: Olivia, Norm, Nicole, Gabriella, Sophia and Ava of Bloomfield. 2. Dr. Erin Baker of Ferndale and Kathie Zacharzewski of Royal Oak. 3. Bob and Patti Koval of Bloomfield. 4. Carl and Tara Clavenna of W. Bloomfield. 5. Caroline and Robert Dempster of Bloomfield. 6. Nabby Yono of W. Bloomfield and Emcee Paul W. Smith of Grosse Pointe Farms. 7. Co-chairs Pam Good of Rochester Hills and Jack Krasula of Bloomfield. 8. Valerie and Richard Leebove of Bloomfield.

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Impact100 Oakland County Annual Meeting

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Impact100 Oakland County is a women’s philanthropic organization dedicated to improving the community by providing large-scale grants to non-profits serving Oakland County. Grants are awarded to projects in the areas of arts & culture, education, environment/recreation, family and health & wellness.

At Impact100’s annual meeting, held at the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester, the member-based organization selected three non-profits from more than 70 applications. Grants of $106,000 each were awarded to Crossroads for Youth, Friendship Circle and Kids Kicking Cancer. 1. Kim Martin of Birmingham and Mary Pat Rosen of Bloomfield. 2. Sherry Dobbie, Samantha Amezcua and Rachel Leith of Bloomfield. 3. Patricia Tattrie and Linda Eriksen of Royal Oak and Michelle Manix of Franklin.

4. Tracey Zeman and Lindsay Noward of Birmingham. 5. Michelle Smith of Franklin and Jaime Katz of Birmingham. 6. Susan Hainer of Bloomfield and Fran Zajac of Shelby Twp. 7. Susan Vincenti and Samantha Foster of Birmingham. 8. Danielle Todd, Ann Callahan and Julie Nedelkovic of Birmingham.

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Alzheimer’s Association’s Chocolate Jubilee

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Tony Hawk, professional skateboarder, entrepreneur and philanthropist, was the featured guest speaker for the Alzheimer’s Association’s Chocolate Jubilee. Hawk shared personal stories of his mother's current struggle with Alzheimer's disease. The Chocolate Jubilee was held at the MGM Grand and showcased chocolate exhibitors from around the metro Detroit area. Proceeds from Chocolate Jubilee directly supports critical care and research efforts of the Alzheimer's Association. Thanks to the generosity of sponsors and the 500-plus attendees, the event raised over $1.125 Million. 1. Professional Skateboarder and Philanthropist Tony Hawk of San Diego and Alzheimer’s MI President & CEO Jennifer Lepard of Royal Oak. 2. Brian and Gosha Baumann of Bloomfield, Nathan and Christine Kyle of Livonia. 3. Yvonne and Brian Kinnie of Birmingham.

4. Ken and Mary Sue Sarzynski of Bloomfield. 5. Mary Trybus and Jim Boyle of Detroit.

6. Bill and Marlene Emerson of Bloomfield. 7. Peggy Daitch of Birmingham and Andi Wolfe of Bloomfield. 8. Mike and Diane Bennett of Rochester and Muzzy Shook of Bloomfield.

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Judson “A Night to Embrace Our Amazing Flight” Gala

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The Judson Center’s 95th Anniversary Gala, “A Night to Embrace Our Amazing Flight,” offered raffles, dinner, entertainment and live and silent auctions. Co-chairs for the Gala included John Aubrey, James Bayson, Curtis Bolden, John Carter, Richard DiBartolomeo, Peter Farago, Kyle Hauberg, David Lau (in memoriam) and Henry Mistele. Special tributes were made to David Lau, who served on the Judson Center Board of Trustees for more than three decades and passed away in October 2019. The event raised over $575,000 to support children, families and adults served by Judson Center. 1. Carol and co-chair John Aubrey of Birmingham. 2. Hunter Murret and Amy Emmett of W. Bloomfield, Natel Coleman and Tricia Ruby of Bloomfield and Dan Reynolds and Marrilee Reynolds of Birmingham. 3. Susan Cohen and Dan Gliniecki of Birmingham. 4. Bob Lott and Becky Walker of Birmingham. 5. Stephen Micklus of Royal Oak and Marie Leitao of Birmingham. 6. Adam and Maria Baron of Bloomfield. 7. Nicole McAvoy of Huntington Woods, Lucine Tarman of Birmingham and Marian Grout of Troy. 8. Matt Peach of Livonia, Roberta Beaudet of Bloomfield and Kristine Chandler of Ann Arbor.

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ENDNOTE

Limiting microplastics begins at local level s videos of tidal waves of plastic bottles and trash circulate on social media and across the media landscape, it might come as shocking to some that the Great Lakes and the rivers in our own backyards have some of the highest concentrations of plastics on earth, particularly small particles commonly referred to as "microplastics." The issue makes it abundantly clear that efforts to limit the amount of plastic entering our waterways must start right here, on a local level.

First and foremost, local municipalities and the Oakland County Board of Commissioners should encourage the Michigan legislature to repeal its 2016 law which prohibits local governments from passing ordinances regulating single-use plastic containers or banning the use of plastic grocery bags in its municipality.

In 2016, the Michigan legislature, in an adherence to archaic environmental laws that pander in the name of "business," quelled the fears of the restaurant and grocery industry that they could be forced to stop using plastic bags and single-use plastic containers. At the time, Washtenaw County had sought to enforce a 10cent charge on paper and plastic grocery bags.

Other communities across the country had also started to outright ban plastic bags and singleuse plastic containers. Michigan legislators,

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under the influence of a pro-business lobby, swooped in and put an end to any such efforts by imposing a prohibition on any such local ordinances, which was signed into law by former Lt. Governor Brian Calley when Governor Rick Snyder was out of state. Under this legislative administration, it appears the idea of local control is only worthy of adherence when the business lobby supports it.

Earlier this year, Rep. Robert Wittenberg (DBerkley, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak Twp.) introduced legislation to repeal the 2016 law, to allow local municipalities to determine what standards their own communities want to enforce. The bill has been in the local government and municipal finance committee since April. While the bill has had some bipartisan support, it's doubtful to gain much traction among business-minded Republicans without active support from local communities, and more importantly, local business chambers and pro-business authorities.

While we aren't so naive as to believe that picking paper over plastic bags will solve all of the nation and state's plastic problem – production of plastic bags actually creates less pollution that that of paper bags, while plastics remain in the environment for decades longer

before, or if, they break down – we recognize, as lawmakers should, that consumers, and in turn, businesses, are demanding more environmentally-friendly alternatives.

Consider that Kroger, which doesn't take back their own plastic bags for recycling, has plans to phase out single use plastic grocery bags by 2025. Likewise, the popularity of reusable bags that don't tear or break, are increasingly popular among shoppers.

We encourage the Birmingham Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce (BBCC) and the Birmingham Shopping District to work together with local businesses to become pro-active, whether by switching from single use plastic water bottles to water coolers and reusable containers, as our office has, to wrapping items in reusable bags, as some local stores do, to restaurants switching to paper straws, as well as promoting efforts by businesses to cut waste.

For too long efforts to reduce waste in favor of environmentally-friendly practices has been at odds with the business community. By leading the effort as good stewards of the environment, Birmingham and Bloomfield can become the business model to follow, both locally and at the state level.

Put public comments at start of meetings ew city commissioners or trustees always are eager to shake things up when they first get into office and immediately implement ideas that have been percolating during their campaigns. It's a natural desire, and we often caution an urge for propulsion with a stop on the brakes (or to at least go through the appropriate channels of putting things on the agenda). But one initiative recently introduced by new Birmingham City Commissioner Brad Host, with assistance from commissioner Clinton Baller, also recently elected to the commission, not only sounds reasonable to us – as long time observers of the commission meetings, we think it should be immediately implemented.

The idea is to place comments from the public – called “Open to the Public for Matters Not on the Agenda” – towards the beginning of city commission meetings, rather than at the end, where they have languished for as long as we

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can recall. One, Birmingham City Commission meetings are not brief outings – they often conduct important business until 10 p.m., 11 p.m., or even later, forcing residents or others who want to speak to commissioners or put something on the record to stay and outlast every other item on the agenda. Some are senior citizens; some are youth. Others are members of the business community or neighborhoods who are forced to perform endurance tests, or else give up and not voice their thoughts or opinions, whether they be important or trivial.

Several other local municipalities have moved their public comments for items not on the agenda to the beginning of meetings, whether in Bloomfield Township, which permits the public to speak for a maximum of three minutes only at the beginning of meetings, other than for public hearings; in Bloomfield Hills, where citizens are limited to three minutes; West Bloomfield, also at the beginning, for three minutes; Beverly Hills, at

the beginning of the meeting; in Rochester Hills, where it is near the beginning of the agenda; and in Rochester, where they open to the public at both the beginning and the end of the meeting.

Birmingham commissioners directed city manager Joe Valentine to have staff do research and bring it back for a discussion sometime in the new year – with the long-term commissioners – Rackeline Hoff, Mark Nickita and Stuart Sherman – not feeling the issue is a priority. But for a commission that has been tarred and feathered as not transparent and needing better communication with residents, this is an important first step.

Move items not on the agenda, only, to the front of agenda, let people talk and vent, with a time limit. Then do the business of the city as elected, with members of the public commenting on new items as they come up, as practiced.

Communications can go a long way for everyone.

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275 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham, MI 48009