Properties amended for RH development site
The Birmingham City Commission on Monday, May 10, unanimously approved a series of property line amendments along S. Old Woodward between E. Brown and Daines streets, making way for the future site of a four-story Restoration Hardware. >>>
Birmingham parking issues to be addressed
The future funding and expansion of Birmingham’s public parking system is the focus of a soon-to-be scheduled workshop following a May 10 workshop where city commissioners were presented with a historical overview of city’s parking woes. >>>
COVID reflected in decreases in crime report
The Bloomfield Township Police Department annual report for 2020 was presented to the board of trustees at their meeting on Monday, May 10, which reflected the year of the pandemic, with 23,778 calls for service, about 10,000 calls less than in 2019, when there were 33,690 calls for service. >>>
Safety path survey tabled in Bloomfield Hills
A consideration to survey the residents of Bloomfield Hills as to their attitudes towards safety paths on high traffic roads was tabled at the commission meeting on Tuesday, May 11, as most commissioners felt the cost of a survey was not justified, and previous surveys reflected a desire to preserve the city as it is. >>>
Birmingham 8 Theater ownership transferred
Birmingham City Commissioners on Monday, May 10, formally approved site plans and special land use permits for the Birmingham 8 Theater, moving operations and the transfer of a liquor license forward following the transfer of ownership of the theater in February. >>>
Grant to pay for native trees to reduce runoff
A grant of $7,500 from the Alliance of Rouge Communities through the U.S. Forest Service, to plant native trees for reduction of runoff in Rouge River communities, was unanimously approved by Bloomfield Township trustees at their meeting on Monday, May 10. >>>
Fund set up for equipment and replacements
Bloomfield Township trustees unanimously approved establishing a new enterprise fund designated for the purchase of equipment and replacement of capital assets at their meeting on Monday, May 10. >>>
Maple to close in downtown Monday – Tuesday
In order to complete the final restoration work on the Maple Road Reconstruction Project, Maple Road between Chester and Woodward will be closed on Monday, May 17 and Tuesday, May 18 to vehicular traffic. >>>
Driver arrested in fatal 2020 hit-and-run
A Davisburg man was arrested on Tuesday, May 11, in connection with the hit-and-run death of a homeless man along Woodward Avenue in Birmingham last summer. >>>
Bike thief arrested and stolen bike recovered
A man accused of stealing a bicycle on Sunday, May 9, from a backyard in the 400 block of Madison Avenue in Birmingham was arrested and the bicycle recovered, police said. >>>
Downtown newsmagazine has launched a membership campaign for donations to the publication to allow us to remain strong and grow while still remaining free to most homes in the Birmingham/Bloomfield area. Publisher David Hohendorf’s letter to the local community explains the background on the membership effort. >>>
Birmingham and the national planning trends
Residential neighborhoods in cities around the United States initially developed and grew as a hodgepodge, with single family homes adjacent to duplexes, townhomes scattered near quadplex homes. If your parents or grandparents grew up in Detroit, Minneapolis, Chicago, Cleveland or another midwestern urban city, they likely lived in a duplex or quadplex at some point. Small apartment buildings, some a few floors, others morphing into taller structures, expanded as populations swelled, some as immigrant relatives came from abroad; others, as laborers from other states flooded into states for jobs, such as the massive influx of both white and Black workers from southern states into southeastern Michigan for automobile factory jobs during the Great Migration, transforming the landscape of every aspect of life, including housing. >>>
Legionella concern as office buildings reopen
Across the nation, schools, businesses, and office spaces are embroiled in what is known as “hygiene theater” to assure the public that indoor spaces are safe to return to work, learn, shop, exercise and dine in once the pandemic ebbs. Back at the office, workspace experts are trying their best to implement guidelines from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), repartitioning and reconfiguring layouts to maximize physical distancing of desks, installing plexiglass barriers and posting one-way foot traffic signs around workstations. Some schools and businesses have deployed high-tech devices for temperature checks as the world figures out how to get back to a new, post-pandemic… >>>
Michigan’s U.S. Senator Gary Peters has been ranked as the most effective Democrat in the Senate for the 116th Congress (2019-2020) by the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint partnership between Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Members of the center considered a number of factors in their assessment and noted Peters for his “coalition building” that allowed him to have at least one Republican on each of his 24 bills that advanced out of committee, 14 of which passed the Senate and 10 of which became law. >>>
