2025-2029 township strategic plan update

By Dana Casadei

The board of trustees kept their promise of consistent updates to Bloomfield Township residents on the 2025-2029 Strategic Plan at their January 26 meeting, during which supervisor Mike McCready gave an overview of all that’s been accomplished since last October. 

“It’s a process that we’ve started, and hopefully it will help us all focus on where we’re going,” he said.

So far, it seems to be working given the multitude of updates discussed at the Monday night meeting for each of the strategic plan’s five priorities – vibrant lifestyle, welcoming community, enhance community character, reliable infrastructure, and best-in-class government.

Each strategic priority has multiple objectives, outcomes and performance measures to keep the board of trustees and township staff accountable for the work being done. The objectives were determined by Bloomfield Township department heads and two members of the board of trustees on the leadership board.

The first priority discussed was vibrant lifestyle, which focuses on building better relationships with local restaurants and businesses, partnering with other communities and community organizers on enhancing community and cultural events, developing an action plan to create outdoor spaces, and completing an inventory of potential green spaces and conducting a feasibility study. 

Since last October when the strategic plan was passed, the township has met multiple performance measures in this area, including three new restaurants opening and one expanding, and nearly 600 new customers in 2025 at Senior Services, and the relaunch of Friendship Club to serve people experiencing dementia. Five ribbon cuttings were also held within the township and attended by McCready. 

“I’ll continue to attend the ribbon cuttings… It’s a great way to welcome people in to our community,” McCready said.

The township is working closely with Oakland County Parks and Recreation on a few other performance measures. Those performance measures will be looked at more closely when they do their master plan review in December, McCready said.

Within the welcoming community strategy, a lot has been happening over the last few months. 

“We have so many homeowners associations, and I’ve attended many of their meetings. I encourage other trustees to do the same,” McCready said. 

McCready mentioned that along with visiting more homeowner groups, there is an ambassador program in progress, with plans for it to be in place by December 2027. The township held Food Truck Wednesdays over the summer as a way to welcome others, and a good time to chat with residents. Electronic bulletin boards will help to promote more events within the township when they are installed within the next year, and the township has been doing their best to continually update the website, including the established brand standards and website calendar. With their brand identity performance measure the township hopes to see an increase in everything from website clicks to high school government tours.

For those wondering about the third priority within the strategic plan, enhancing community character, clerk Martin Brook is revisiting Bloomfield Township’s tree preservation and protection policies to amend current zoning ordinances. The working team has begun to meet as of last October to update the tree preservation and protection policy/ordinance.

Brook isn’t the only trustee getting involved with leading items within the strategic plan. Treasurer Michael Schostak is leading the bicentennial committee celebration set for 2027.

Through the reliable infrastructure priority there is a 2028 goal to complete an organization-wide technology assessment to identify needs. Technology assessments for each department were completed last March, new technology and updates have been completed within the auditorium, and in April 2025, the road advisory committee was created to examine options for road improvements. 

Another objective is to continue the capital improvement program, which the township has done already through the South Bloomfield Highlands water project and Vernor Estates water main project which was completed just as winter approached. 

“I have to congratulate our engineering and department of public works for working on the South Bloomfield Highlands water project,” McCready said. “It was a very long, hardworking project, and for the neighbors who had to live with that, it was a very challenging situation for them.”

Public utilities in general – from the water meter replacement program to snow removal – are vital to many of the performance measures that fall under this priority. 

In December alone Bloomfield Township had 17 events that needed snow removal when they would usually only have about four, McCready said. The township is now using a liquid road application that reduces cost and the environmental impact, and helps further along the performance measure to maintain/increase resident satisfaction with public utilities. 

“It’s incredible the amount of time our department of public works is putting in right now,” McCready said. 

Another large focus is small cell wireless – an area that McCready and the board know is a problem in the township – which they are continuing to advocate for, especially regarding additional service areas and mainstreaming the permit process and increasing pole height. Brook and his staff are spreading this initiative. 

Best-in-class government is the fifth priority under this strategic plan, and one where they are working to establish an employee retention plan, and an employee recruitment that streamlines the hiring process in departments like police and public work, two of the township’s largest departments, according to McCready. 

Many of objectives under best-in-class government are being led by Schostak, who McCready said is already going great work in negotiating contracts, like the successfully negotiated three-year contract with all union employees for the township. He has also introduced a lifetime income program for non-pension employees. This will allow for employees who are close to retirement to covert all of some of their 401(a) and 457(b) accounts into a predictable monthly income stream. 

There’s also been the hire of Jennifer Haring, the new human resources director and the establishment of a human resources department, a huge priority for the township. 

“She has been so busy, it’s hard to even get time with her. It’s hard to believe we haven’t had one in place… but everyone has really embraced it for the most part,” McCready said. “Thank you Jennifer for coming on board and leading us down a path for a better relationship with all of our employees.” 

The board passed the 2025-2029 strategic plan last October after months of working with consulting firm BerryDunn, township staff and residents. 

“We guided the process but there were 3,000 community members who had a role in this plan… the township and the community should be proud of that,” said Michelle Kennedy, Berry Dunn project manager and lead facilitator, who presented the plan to the board in October.

The Strategic Plan ETC Community Survey allowed for BerryDunn to identify potential opportunities and would allow everyone to get involved in the strategic plan, from residents to trustees. It also utilized data from sources such as AARP and the census bureau to figure out the township’s livability index. Three community forums were held with township residents to gain input there, as well as through the data collected by community members through a social pinpoint site that allowed residents to answer surveys about the township. That site had over 2,000 visits, over 1,400 unique users, 92 hard comments and 572 survey responses. 

For those interested in learning more, the entire progress report is on the Bloomfield Township website.