Ferndale Public Schools Bond Proposal

METRO DETROIT SCHOOLS LOOK TO VOTERS FOR HELP

Millages would go toward upgrades

By Lori Higgins Free Press Education Writer

   Ferndale Police Chief Tim Collins has a vested interest in the $23-million bond proposal for Ferndale Public Schools on Tuesday’s ballot.

   He’s a community leader, but he also has children in the district. And he chairs a committee pushing to pass the bond proposal — a role he says he took on because he sees need in the district.

   “The main thing people need to realize is that the building stock of our school district for the most part is fairly old,” Collins said. “We have schools that are over 80 years old.”

   The proposal is one of a handful of school-related millage requests to be decided Tuesday. Voters in the Center Line, Riverview, River Rouge and Wayne-Westland districts also will be voting on school measures.

   In Ferndale, the money would go into four majorareas:upgradingbuildings,improvingsecurity, technology updates and energy savings. A large chunk of the money — $14.4 million — would be spent on the building that houses Fern-dale Middle and Ferndale High schools, including $5.4 million in mechanical upgrades and $5.2 million to remove asbestos and replace ceilings and lights.

   Home owners wouldn’t see a tax increase to support the bond proposal; instead, the district’s current 7-mill bond would be extended until 2041. It is currently set to expire in 2023.

   “We’renotaskingformoremoneyoutofyour pocket,” Collins said. “We’re asking you to pay for a longer period of time.”

   Also on the ballot in metro Detroit:

   ! Officials in the River Rouge School District are hoping they’ll win over voters in their latest bid to replace18 mills set to expire in December. Twice in the last two years, they’ve asked voters to OK replacing the mills — which would generate $3 million in 2013 — and twice voters have said no.

   The district has been in a deficit for four years. Interim Superintendent James Doig said if voters reject the proposal again, the financial crisis could get worse.

   “We probably would have to give up all the extracurricular things,” Doig said. “So it’s really going to be devastating. We’re already in bad shape.”

   The proposal doesn’t affect homeowners whose primary residence is in the district because it is a non-homestead replacement millage. Non-homestead refers to commercial property, industrial property, rental property, certain non-primary residential homes and some vacant land.

   The length of the proposed millage is 10 years.

   ! Center Line Public Schools has two proposals: one for $40 million that would pay for a new elementary school, new roofs on existing schools, technology upgrades and improved security, and one for $4 million that would pay for a new athletic complex, pool upgrades and locker room renovations.

   Combined, the proposals would add about 4.5 mills for 30 years. That means the owner of a home with a taxable value of $35,000 — the average in the district — would pay about an additional $160 in the first year.

   Voters rejected a similar proposal in July.

   ! Riverview Community School District is asking voters to approve a $43-million bond proposal that would pay for upgrades and repairs throughout the district — including replacing a two-story classroom wing at Riverview Community High, new roofs at all buildings, technology upgrades and new security cameras for all entrances, halls and common areas.

   The proposal would add 7.32 mills for 30 years, meaning the owner of a home with a taxable value of $60,000 would pay an additional $439 in the first year.

   ! Wayne-Westland Community Schools is asking voters to renew nearly 1 mill for 10 years for a sinking fund, which pays for things such as major building repairs. It generates $1.9 million annually.

   For the home with a taxable value of $40,000 — considered average in the district — it would cost the homeowner $39.69 annually.

   ! CONTACT LORI HIGGINS: 313-222-6651OR LHIGGINS

   @ FREEPRESS.COM  

LINDA PARTON

   Ferndale High School students rehearse for their production of “Grease” earlier this month. Fern-dale Public Schools is hoping voters pass a bond proposal to upgrade the district’s aging buildings.

City Tech Grant

IBM Seeks to Help Local Governments Solve Sustainability Challenges 
IBM is seeking applications from local governments for its Smarter Cities Challenge program. The program provides selected cities with access to teams of IBM technical experts and consultants to analyze unique opportunities and challenges facing municipalities. After conferring with officials, citizens, businesses, academics and community leaders, the IBM teams recommend actions to make the delivery of services to citizens more efficient and innovative. Issues addressed include sustainability, energy, transportation, recreation, jobs, health, public safety, education, and social services. For example, our client Dubuque, IA has been working with IBM to develop tools to help residents reduce electricity usage, improve water efficiency and decrease vehicle miles traveled. Sustainable Strategies DC is eager to help other communities become Smarter Cities. Click herefor a copy of the application. Contact Andrew Seth at(202) 261-9881 or andrew.seth@strategiesdc.comfor more details.




http://www.strategiesdc.com/Home_Page.html#smarter_cities

That old "Garage" innovation principle is catching on!

Peter Thiel's Latest Project: Funding For DIY Garage Scientists

BY ANYA KAMENETZTue Oct 25, 2011

He last turned heads by funding budding entrepreneurs who quit college to start businesses. Now Thiel's Breakout Labs is doing the same for scientists, granting $50,000 to $350,000 to entrepreneurial-minded free radicals.

Last seen paying kids to drop out of college and starting his own private island nation, PayPal founder Peter Thiel has announced a new philanthropic venture that sounds a littlemore reasonable. Breakout Labs, Thiel said at a speech at Stanford, would grant $50,000 to $350,000 in funding to "entrepreneurial" scientists--those completely independent of typical research institutions--for very early projects that may even be pre-proof of concept. Some of the money must be paid forward through revenue-sharing agreements with Breakout Labs, and the scientists must pursue patents or publish their findings in open-access journals likePLoS, Creative Commons-style.

We're increasingly living in an age of DIY biology, home gene splicing, and garage-based legions of alternative energy inventors. The Thiel Foundation told Fast Company that they expect grantees to be drawn from (sometimes, it seems, perpetually) cutting-edge fields like biotech, nanotech, and even neurotech (applications of new brain imaging and stimulus techniques). They're looking to support "platform technologies," such as those in testing and instrumentation, that can be the catalyst for many new advances, and to help new technologies vault across the "valley of death" from experiment to commercial application.

By spurring the accomplishments of such outsider artists of science, just as he previously sought to reward entrepreneurs under 20, Thiel seems to be doubling down on his theory that "College is a bubble"--or at least that large institutions like universities and the federal government aren't the only possible place to nurture new ideas and bright thinkers. Of course, in order for that theory to play out, they need to find at least one winner. Video of the announcement is here.

Home Recording Studios in Ferndale - part 1 and 2

Room and Boards: Ferndale's Home Recording Studios (Part 1)

Ferndale Patch takes a tour of Ferndale's home recording studios of some of the city's local musicians.

• By Jeff Milo
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• November 28, 2011

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Whatever method. Whatever works.

"There's a science to it," said local band Computer Perfection's Gene Corduroy, traipsing delicately through his basement studio, over vintage synthesizers and around a handful of "broken" organs. "I understand that science. But I understand, more, what my ears are telling me."

Chad Thompson reflects on his own basement studio.

"There's so many things, so many variables," said Thompson. "Whatever works, that's my philosophy."

Welcome to the subterranean soundproofed cellars of the all-to-hip city of Ferndale. These Ferndale DIY-audio engineers may be a breed onto themselves. They're bewitched, almost with a reverent, and some might say romantic, fixation with music. And both Thompson and Corduroy have recorded their share of songs in their basement studios.

Over the last decade, the recording industry has seen a substantial shift by audio engineers from analog to digital equipment, from recording to reel-to-reel tape decks to digital workstations, i.e. computers. Yet, mixing songs on a computer has made recording and mixing music accessible to nearly every budding musician.

"A lot of engineers are pissed off about digital and people being able to do most things at home," Thompson said.

Though Thompson said that a lot of bands still stick with an analog 4-track recorder, eventually, they'd need to go beyond that.

"You run out of options after a while and you want to do more, to upgrade microphones, equipment," Thompson said.

Thompson began "upgrading" after he and his brother Keith's band Johnny Headband went through mixing sessions at Detroit's White Room studio for their debut album. His set up began to transition (along with his residencies from Royal Oak to Farmington to Walled Lake back to Royal Oak and finally to Ferndale).

And so what began with a 4-track recorder became an elaborate sound laboratory and the primary means for demoing Johnny Headband songs.

For Corduroy, it's not about the equipment; it's about the song.

"I'm totally not a purist or nerd about digital-versus-analog," Corduroy said. "Lots of basement-recording enthusiasts are tape-only, or analog-only. I'm just not a gear-geek. I care more about the songs, in fact I probably spend more time on the songs than I do thinking about how they're recorded."

How Corduroy -- and collaborator and fellow Computer Perfection band mate Nathaniel Burgundy -- has recorded their songs in the past includes capturing the ambience of vocals in their hallway or drumming in the dining room.

Corduroy and his wife, as well as Computer Perfection singer, Bem moved to Ferndale four years ago. "It was the first thing I did when we moved in - we didn't even have pots and pans and I already had my studio computer already set up," Corduroy said.

One of the best parts of setting up your own studio - it becomes your own world, an escape - a meditative place from which you can shut out the rest of the world.

"I don't want to feel like I'm in a basement," Corduroy said, nodding to the Christmas-tree lighting, the construction-paper cutouts of Hobbit characters and the casual, cluttery spill of the instruments. "I can't write, I can't get into that stuff, unless my environment feels right to me."

Room and Boards: Ferndale's Home Recording Studios (Part 2)

Ferndale Patch talks to local musicians about building out their own home recording studios.

• By Jeff Milo
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• November 29, 2011

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Ferndale's home recording engineers will go to great lengths to establish their set up, whether it means nearly getting crushed by hanging drywall slabs or building an entire garage-sized structure from the ground up -- all for music.

The idea is to build a room within a room,soundproofing a space -- be it a basement, garage or even an attic.

"I can spend the whole day in here and I won't hear a single sound," said sound engineer Robert Buxton and member of the Ferndale-based psyche-blues quartet.

Walking inside the Rue Moor Counts' studio in Ferndale, it's quiet and you forget you're actually in the middle of Ferndale.

The boys in the band hung drywall on each side of the ceiling to reach optimal sound results, keeping out unwanted noises -- suburban traffic, neighbor's TV sets, and to control the reverberation of the instrument inside this room.

The group has been recording a new album as well as welcoming guests like Toronto's Speaking Tongues to utilize the space and equipment.

Meanwhile, in Scotty Iulianelli's (of Bars of Gold and Crappy Future) room within a room, he lifts away a small slab of drywall to show a nearly 12-inch gap between his actual basement wall and sound studio wall.

He also installed a line of seven electrical outlets for guitar amps into the wall with chords snaked, invisibly, up through the ceiling and back to his control room.

"That wall wasn't there when we moved in," Iulianelli said, pointing towards the booth, complete with a beveled glass window that houses his computers and vintage audio paraphernalia.

How did he do this?

"Dude," he said with a grin, "friends!"

Buxton also used familiar faces to help with Rue Moor Counts' studio. "Our dad's and various family members came out to help. We built this entire space from the ground up," he said.

"It was an experience, man," Buxton says, smiling in relief and reflection at the year's worth of steady work it took building their studio. "We know we'll always be making music together, that's what we love doing, but we also love helping other people make their music. I learn so much from other people."

Buxton started recording music on a 16-track reel-to-reel tape recorder out of a makeshift studio inside his grandfather's Pontiac car lot, where he worked as a mechanic through the early 2000s.

When Buxton and the band got to Ferndale, they were looking to set up inside a garage. The only catch was the best deal they found didn't come with one. Band member Nate Rivard said to Buxton: "Well, we'll build one in the back, just give us a year to save up the money."

Buxton said he was "overwhelmed" by the support and enthusiasm of his band mates -- he says he considers them brothers. Rivard and Buxton are skilled in carpentry and have had experience in construction. With their family members coming out to help as well as a visit from an electrician friend, the dream was visualized -- of course not without an excruciating day's worth of hauling 70 sheets of drywall, each weighing 80 pounds.

Buxton's space has slanted drywall and box-frames of sound foam, wrapped in burlap to control echo to sound proof his space.

Iulianelli, who got help from Bars of Gold's crafty singer Marc Paffi in sound proofing the studio, created acoustical treatments in the form of 3 inch by 2 inch framed boxes housing a galaxy of wood slants. These are to keep the room sounding natural but to absorb and diffuse it, taking away any "clang" sound, Iulianelli said.

"As soon as we bought this house," Iulianelli said, "first thing's first: where do I put all the things, the knobs, the buttons, keys and speakers (for the studio)."

Before the studio in Ferndale, though, he had a much more DIY-feel years back in his Highland, MI, home, with 8-foot cubicle walls salvaged from a closed Dentist's office. "Kinda like building a fort out of your couch cushions, I guess," he said.

Now, things are more high-tech. His control booth has its own green screen, too, for live web casting of friends transplanted to far off lands - and he can even do live streaming video and audio of the band's work via UStream.

"It's funny what you can do with your cell phone," Iulianelli said. He can even raise and lower the volume and fader levels on his Mac computer's Pro Tools digital soundboard with his Smartphone from 12 feet away over by the drum kit.

The Rue Moor Counts continue putting the finishing touches on their space while they continue work on a forthcoming LP.

Crappy Future continues to post singles on their bandcamp, while Bars of Gold look to settle down to serious studio work after the New Year.

Read Part 1 to our stories on home recording studios in Ferndale here.

Related Topics: Local Music

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