ADD Chickens to Database?

Ferndale weighing ordinance changes for chicken farms

Code rewrite is next, then council to vote

By MEGHA SATYANARAYANA and BILL LAITNER FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

   The Ferndale Planning Commission voted 7-0 on Tuesday night to recommend to the City Council that it allow much more lenient rules for building chicken coops and keeping as many as three hens in residents’ backyards.

   “Like any pet, if they’re managed, it’ll be fine,” commission chairwoman Sara Roediger said.

   A council vote isn’t expected until the city’s code enforcement staff writes language covering inspections and permits, a process that will take at least a month.

   Under the old ordinance, residents can keep chickens if a coop is150 feet from their residence. But that rule keeps chickens from about 90% of residential lots, said Laura Mikulski, who started the campaign to the change the rules.

   The city’s average lot is about 40 by 110 feet. The new ordinance would let residents keep hens (no roosters) in an enclosed space that is at least 10 feet from a house.

   Mikulski said she knows of about a half-dozen people who are eager to become chicken farmers, including her.

   “I like omelets and would like to have fresh eggs on a basically daily basis,” she said.

   Among area cities that allow hen keeping are Hazel Park, Madison Heights, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor and Rochester Hills. But many places continue to rule out anything deemed livestock.

   In West Bloomfield, trustees voted 7-0 Monday after only a minute of discussion to keep chickens out.

   “We didn’t squawk much at all. We thought it was a foul idea,” Trustee Steven Kaplan quipped this week.

   And in the Village of Milford, 93-year-old Archie Noon paid a $50 fine last month and has until Oct. 16 to get rid of his three hens, after a district judge said that they violated the city’s livestock ban.

   “I’m preparing a new ordinance that I will be submitting to the Village Council, and if they don’t accept it I’ll start a petition drive,” Noon said Wednesday.

   April McGrath, Ferndale’s new city manager, said she dealt with similar concerns about noise, waste and vermin as director of administrative services in Ypsilanti when residents sought to change their ordinance.

   “There’s been very little negative outcome,” she said of the changes in Ypsilanti. “You’re not going to see 5,000 people going out and getting chickens.”

Charrette Agenda

I think my thoughts are finally sifted enough to post this, so here I go.

My project loosely defined:

Goal: To strengthen local community (health, wealth, and happiness) via a network and database, connecting assets and needs of businesses, organizations and individuals.

AKA - Create a 21st century infrastructure (digital environment) with an early 20th century front porch feel.

The City of Ferndale is willing to be the test subject for this project. If it proves to be an effective method, the idea would be to reproduce in other cities.

Objectives:

Create a city-wide network
- an online database of human and physical capital assets and needs
- a physical hub of interaction for facilitation; including a coordinator (incubator potentially)

Assess supply and demand
- identify skill sets where industry could be developed
- create economies of scale
- Identify strengths to capitalize on

Leverage the identified assets
- connect skill to need
- share assets = save money
- use mentor/apprenticeship model to inform youth and cut cost for budding biz

Fulfill identified needs
- create connections outside of network where needed
- decrease unemployment by connecting workers and jobs

Develop relationships
- decrease risks by providing support network
- increase biz retention by improved owner relations

Identify common goal of community
- intellectual buy-in

Questions:
- Is this a crazy socialist unrealistic idea?
- What is an individuals motivation to participate?
- How is capacity created?
- What about the population that "doesn't need help"?
- How do you prevent isolation from computer inept? Low-income?
- Is software too expensive to create a tailored program?
- Can user data be updated accurately and timely by user?
- What information is needed?
- How has this fared in prior attempts? - Michelle researching
- What will foster longevity with the program?
- How do we quantify the value to show effect?


OK, that is a lot of questions. Mainly, I need to brainstorm whether this is a realistic project or not? If not, how can it be adapted to be more effective? How is it facilitated with benefits outweighing costs?

Charrette Needed

I need help developing my research and internship plan! It will be a community asset and need assessment/mobilization, working with the city of Ferndale. I would like it to be dynamic and need to have a complete end game in mind before developing it. (Potentially a physical hub of community interaction, digitally connected of course.) It is becoming more complicated than I had originally anticipated.

Perhaps we could put together a short design charrette?

Afterwards, we can tour I3 Detroit?

Thank you for all the help you've already given me, I appreciate it very much.

Qriously

Check out Qriously - http://www.qriously.com/

It is a service for measuring location-based public sentiment, in real-time, using a question instead of an advertisement on mobile apps.

"Any Time, Any Place, Any Way, Any Pace!" (Digital Learning Model)

Schools of Choice bill coming

Legislature likely to get proposal this week as foes from Detroit, suburbs gear for fight

By CECIL ANGEL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

   An education reform package that includes mandatory Schools of Choice and cyber schools could be introduced in the state Legislature as early as Wednesday, the chairman of the state Senate Education Committee said.

   “It’s a good possibility on Wednesday, the 24th, we’ll have part of the package ready for introduction,” said state Sen. Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair Township.

   The education package also addresses charter school caps and school aid. The package is part of Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed “Any Time, Any Place, Any Way, Any Pace” public school learning model.

   Education Committee hearings on the package will begin Sept. 7, Pavlov said.

   Mandatory Schools of Choice is emerging as the most controversial part of the education package.

   Opposition is strong in the heavily Republican Grosse Pointes. In heavily Democratic Detroit, three legislators have said they are opposed to state-mandated Schools of Choice because, they said, it will negatively impact Detroit Public Schools.

   “I don’t want the state to help usher children from one community to another at the expense of the community where they are,” said state Sen. Bert Johnson, D-Highland Park, whose district includes the Grosse Pointes and part of Detroit.

   State Sen. Coleman A. Young II, D-Detroit, said every proposal out of Lansing that was supposed to help DPS has hurt it. He cited the 1999 state takeover that was supposed to improve the district academically.

   At the time, the district had 180,000 students, a $93-million fund balance and a $1.5-billion bond project. Under state control, DPS wound up with a $200-million deficit, he said.

   “I don’t think the state should be imposing another mandate on the city or any other city,” Young said.

   State Rep. Lisa Howze, D-Detroit, said mandatory Schools of Choice “would further impact DPS’s ability to stabilize.”

   Last week, the Grosse Pointe Woods City Council passed a resolution against mandated Schools of Choice.

   The Grosse Pointe Woods-based Michigan Communities For Local Control has set up a Web site at www.miclc.com   and is contacting other school districts to build opposition.

   Peter Spadafore, assistant director of government relations for the Michigan Association of School Boards, said the MASB has been talking with the Snyder administration and legislators about the bill.

   Based on the ongoing discussion, the bill likely will include “universal choice K-12 up to capacity. The problem is how to define capacity,” he said.

   Spadafore said the MASB is opposed to mandatory Schools of Choice. “We feel that decision should be made by the local school district,” he said. “By mandating Schools of Choice, it’s just a solution looking for a problem.”

Models our Practice (Real-World Learning by Doing!)

Sunday: August 14, 2011 12:00PM to 2:00PM (Channel #4 MSNBC A Stronger America: "Making the Grade")

Clickondetroit.com
http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/28851709/index.html

Prepare for Incoming!

Suburbs to climb aboard light rail?

Extending line could boost whole region, leaders say

By MATT HELMS FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

   Detroit’s momentum in bringing light rail to Woodward Avenue may finally do what years of talks, political promises and symbolic gestures have failed to do: lead to real regional cooperation.

   Leaders in six southern Oakland County cities are taking a big step to literally bridge the 8 Mile divide by extending the rail service into the suburbs.

   “We recognize the opportunity here to really help move the region forward,” said Berkley City Councilman Steve Baker, a member of a task force of leaders from Oakland County cities.

   The proposed rail from downtown to 8 Mile already has 19 stops, including Cobo Center, the city’s two sports stadiums, Midtown and New Center.

   Supporters say extending the rail north would connect it to suburban hot spots, including downtowns in Royal Oak and Birmingham; boost property values and redevelopment, and raise crucial suburban support for a plan that, so far, has stayed within city limits.

   The Oakland group has hired a consulting firm to study how cities from Ferndale to Birmingham may prepare for potentially transformative redevelopment along Woodward.

   The group is working on an application for federal funding for a study of transit options for southern Oakland County, a crucial first move. A similar 18-month study by Detroit led to the city’s current plans for Woodward rail.

   Construction in Detroit is expected to start in the fall, with trains running by 2015.

   The suburban interest underscores Detroit’s long-held contention that progress on the $550-million first leg of the project would have others jumping on board.

Light rail could boost suburbs

South Oakland cities want line extended

By MATT HELMS FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

   Southern Oakland County communities are looking for a game changer to spur redevelopment.

   And they are looking to Detroit.

   The idea: expand the Motor City’s planned light rail line north to encourage redevelopment along Woodward into the suburbs. The move, they say, could create better transit for the 120,000 residents of cities from Ferndale to Birmingham and generate wider regional support for modernized rail and bus transit to boost metro Detroit’s economy.

   The group, under the auspices of Royal Oak-based economic and community development group Woodward Avenue Action Association, is preparing to apply for a federal grant of perhaps $2.5 million for a study of expanded transit options in six Oakland cities: Ferndale, Royal Oak, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Berkley and Birmingham.

   The group also has support from Beaumont Hospital and the Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak.

   Officially, the group isn’t choosing a specific mode of transit, but it’s clear that Detroit’s progress on light rail has suburban leaders thinking big — and getting ready for what could be transformative redevelopment along the region’s best-known thoroughfare.

   “They want to compete,” said Heather Carmona, the Woodward association’s executive director. “It’s a competition for economic viability, and Woodward Avenue is front and center in that. … The old adage is you grow or die, and people are seeing that.”

   The study — called an alternatives analysis — would measure population, traffic counts, travel patterns, cost effectiveness, community need and other factors and recommend options such as rapid-transit buses and light rail. The Federal Transit Administration requires such an analysis for communities seeking federal funds for public transportation projects.

   The Oakland group said the application could be turned in by October, and the analysis could begin in early 2012. A similar study in Detroit paved the way for the $550-million light rail project on Woodward that is to go from downtown to the State Fairgrounds near 8 Mile. It was paid in part with seed money from private investors and community organizations.

   Momentum is strong

   Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff is to convene a panel of officials today at Wayne State University from cities such as Denver, Dallas, Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Portland, Ore. Regional leaders in those cities overcame political and financial obstacles to modernize and expand rail and other transit. The event is invitation-only for metro Detroit’s civic and business leaders.

   The gathering comes as the Obama administration is trying to help struggling big cities such as Detroit stabilize through concerted housing, economic development and transportation efforts in a program called Strong Cities, Strong Communities.

   Bob Berg, spokesman for the Woodward Light Rail Project, said Oakland’s interest shows suburban support for a rail system that some still doubt will ever be built, given metro Detroit’s history of failed transit dreams.

   “It certainly sends a signal that light rail is not just a Detroit-only vision,” Berg said. “The vision was never to have the line stop at 8 Mile. The idea was this would be the first leg of what would be a regional system.”

   Many questions remain

   The region’s political leaders have yet to agree on how to manage a regional transit network that could involve merging the Detroit Department of Transportation and suburban SMART bus systems. Nor have they determined how to pay to build and operate a system that would almost certainly require a regional tax subsidy. Most major U.S. metropolitanareas levy such a tax.

   Federal spending cuts also could mean less funding for roads and transit in the next couple of years. Rob Healy, vice president of government affairs for the American Public Transportation Association, said Washington is still determining which parts of the federal budget will take big cuts.

   “There’s certainly not a great deal of certainty” about whether the government will continue to pay for transit upgrades nationwide, Healy said. But metro Detroit has a leg up, given the Obama administration’s commitment to helping the region.

   Detroit expects final federal approval for its part of the Woodward project in September, freeing up a $25-million grant that the federal government awarded the city last year.

   Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said he would support expanded transit if voters are willing to pay to subsidize the system through a regional tax.

   “My question all along has been: How much is it going to cost, and who’s going to pay for it?” Patterson said. “If it comes, it will come with the will of the people.”

   • CONTACT MATT HELMS: 313-222-1450 OR MHELMS@FREEPRESS.COM