Thursday, February 03, 2005

Draw on town's talent

We should have given the Eccentric credit for more than just its endorsement of our Booth Park plan. The following excerpt from its editorial really hits the nail on the head, and highlights one of the central tenets of the Buzz:

"Birmingham is fortunate to have so many professional people capable of drafting designs as residents. But what is far more important is that those people are willing to devote their time and effort to make their community a better place for everyone.

"That is a fundamental strength of this community. Having professional skills is important, but amounts to little without the dedication to use them to improve the quality of life for all."

Thanks to Eccentric editor Greg Kowalski for reiterating this.

Move PSD office, install public restrooms on Gallery Row

Improvements to Booth Park and expansion of the Farmers Market warrant the installation of public restrooms nearby. Restrooms in public parks are such a political hot potato around here that the Booth Park design committee left them out of the plan. The perfect spot for them, really, would be along Gallery Row, somewhere between Greenstone's and the surface parking lot. And they would combine nicely with a new location for the offices of the Principal Shopping District, which is currently located several doors north on N. Old Woodward. The PSD could set up a visitors center of sorts, staffed during hours the office is normally open. Adjacent to the visitors center could be public restrooms just a short walk from both Booth Park and the Farmers Market. What do you think? How 'bout somebody click on the comment link for a change and post something?

Eccentric endorses Booth plan

The Eccentric endorsed our plans for Booth Park in an editorial published today. Check it out. If you agree, please show up at the commission meeting on Monday, Feb. 28, at City Hall to show your support. You need not speak; your mere presence will help a lot. The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m., and we are expecting Booth to come early in the agenda. Experience tells us convincingly that the more members of the public that show up, the more likely an item is to be approved.

Read the Eccentric

Coverage in the Birmingham Eccentric has steadily improved over the past year or so, and we strongly urge our readers to check it out -- either the hard copy available by subscription or on newstands, or the online version, a link to which is at left.

We used to publish many Eccentric articles, and while that was certainly a convenience to our readers, it became too much work for us. Nonetheless, with improved coverage from reporter Jay Grossman, it really is must reading for anyone interested in city government. Editors still don't encourage long background stories, but you take what you can get, right?

So subscribe, pick up a copy on the newstand, or bookmark the link at left.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

News says reform liquor licensing

Check out the editorial in Monday's Detroit News regarding liquor licensing.

Let there be light atop McCann

Those cool colored lights atop the new McCann-Erickson building have been on-again, off-again, and they're currently off again at the request of city officials, who received complaints from two members of the Historic District & Design Review Commission. The HDDRC, which contains a few of the last remaining vestiges of the Antis in members Jeff Sadowski and Marsha Rowbottom and chairman Keith Deyer (their time to come), is to take up the issue Wednesday night, when the building's owner, Ted Fuller, and its architect, Buzz editor Chris Longe, are to appear before the board requesting official sanction for the lights.

According to city officials, no ordinance governs or restricts the lighting that is used on the McCann building. We hear the Antis are calling it the "red-light district," apparently oblivious to the rest of the spectrum projected from the high-tech LEDs atop the roof. Each quadrant of the roof sculpture is lit by 34 watts of lighting, little more than one-tenth of each of the 300-watt ghetto lights installed by the city itself on Maple and Bates.

Fuller gratiously turned off the lights as a courtesy to city officials. Really, the city would have been powerless to do anything had he refused.

We happen to like the way the top of the building is lit (about as much as we hate the way the street is lit), and hope that the HDDRC has the good sense to let there be (colored) light, though we also hope that if they refuse, Fuller simply ignore their mindless behavior.

We understand Buzz editor Shelli Weisberg, that flaming liberal staffer for the Michigan ACLU, will show up to defend Fuller's right to bring diversity to the city's narrow spectrum, and defend our right to have a building of color in downtown Birmingham.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Approve Booth Park upgrades

Next month, the Birmingham City Commission will be asked to spend approximately $750,000 to begin making major improvements to Booth Park. Booth, which was donated to the city many years ago by the Cranbrook Foundation, is located across the street from Salvatore Scallopini. Ten years ago, the park was torn up for a major sewer project, and it was never adequately restored.

Booth is a significant city park and serves as a gateway for visitors entering our city from the north. It is on a main street, Old Woodward, and borders the Gallery Row district, the Central Business District and the Mill Pond_Holy Name residential neighborhood. The Rouge River runs through it, and the Rouge Trail terminates in the park. Booth was identified for improvement nearly 10 years ago in our 2016 Plan, and more recently in the city's award-winning recreation master plan.

The commission will be asked to approve improvements to the interior of the park. Upgrades to the corner of Harmon and Old Woodward and a couple of bridges linking the park to Old Woodward and the CBD, are expected to be put off until Old Woodward reconstruction and the Bates Street extension come to the agenda.

A group of city residents has contributed significant time and effort to the plan and will contribute more time and labor building the playground component of the park. The group is soliciting tax-deductible donations for several of the park's new features, thus contributing approximately 20 percent of the cost.

Two years ago, when city voters approved a $25 million bond issue for parks acquisition and improvement, many of those voters envisioned just such improvements to Booth Park. They voted to increase their own taxes to pay for it. Booth Park would consume just 3 percent of the bond issue and cost little more than an affluent family spends on a single-family home in Birmingham. Amortized over a useful life of 50 years or more, the cost of the park is truly minimal.

The Booth improvements are long overdue. The City Commission should approve them without hesitation.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Booth Park plans

Here are some visuals on the Booth Park plan:

Overall plan view:



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High-resolution .pdf

Overall view looking south from Harmon:



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High-resolution .pdf

Playground detail:



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High-resolution .pdf

Main entry plaza looking south:



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High-resolution .pdf

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Board OKs Booth Park plan

The Birmingham Parks & Recreation Board on Tuesday gave unanimous thumbs up to a revised master plan for Booth Park. The plan, which we'll post as soon as we have it in suitable electronic format, was developed by a community group led by Buzz editor Clinton Baller. It is closely tied to plans for a community built play structure on the site.

The plan, which is proposed to be built in phases, uses several thousand cubic yards of slag that now covers the surface of the park as modeling clay for a sledding hill that doubles as a natural amphitheatre in summer. The hill also provides a buffer between the park and the adjacent neighborhood.

The most immediate phase of the plan includes the hill, an informal skating rink at the base of the hill, and a playground that is integrated into the landscape at the northwest corner of the park. Other features of the first phase include a custom-designed shelter, a natural labyrinth and a series of lawn waves that are to feature custom cast bronze dolphins. The plan calls for rich landscaping and plentiful seating areas.

Future phases include an urban plaza at the corner of Harmon and Old Woodward, an improved and widened sidewalk promenade up Old Woodward, and two bridges over the Rouge River, which flows through the park.

The design was done by James Page and Michael Dul of Michael J. Dul & Associates landscape architects in Birmingham, which has donated a substantial amount of time to the project. The shelter was designed by Birmingham architect Michael Willoughby. Willoughby and fellow Architectural Review Board member Christopher Longe sat on the design committee along with Baller and Planning Board member and urban planner Mark Nickita. The group worked closely with city staffers and city consultant Wade-Trim on the project.

The parks board sent the plan to the City Commission with its endorsement of the design and its recommendation that the city fund the improvement from proceeds of the Parks bond issue and other sources. The cost of the most immediate phase of construction is pegged at around $900,000. Organizers of the community built playground expect to collect some $150,000 in donations to help offset that cost.

We expect to take the design to the City Commission in February. Once approved, detailed construction documents can be prepared which will allow permitting and bidding on the project. Construction could begin as early as October of this year, close on the heels of the reconstruction of Harmon Street.

Speaking of Harmon, the parks board also unanimously recommended Tuesday that the City Commission bury power lines at the east end of Harmon as part of the Harmon street work.

Stay tuned for more.

Monday, January 17, 2005

Shain Park tops the agenda

Two posts, and not a single issue. Well, I guess three's the charm...

Things have been slow lately, but not that slow.

Here's one issue that has been occupying the time of city officials lately: Shain Park.

It's on the front burner again, in the form of underground parking.

Check out the Buzz Forum for some good chatter from some pretty informed people about what's up.

(Yes. I know. We still need to add a link to the Forum to our page.)

Honestly, we're still undecided about the whole thing, but we sure like to watch, and sometimes make, the sparks fly.

A few things are pretty clear:

* We don't need the extra parking. Nobody really disputes that. The city's parking committee has divided the city up into segments, and the segment that's served by the Chester Street structure has more than enough parking, even considering the addition of 300+ workers at the new McCann Erickson building.

* It seems to be mostly about the Community House and, to a lesser extent, the Townsend Hotel. Few people want to admit it, but the whole thing about parking in that area is about maintaining the convenient parking for those institutions and their patrons. Look: There's a beautiful, relatively new -- and virtually empty -- parking structure just two blocks away from the Community House on the corner of Chester St. and Maple. For what may be perfectly good reasons, some people don't think that parking structure is good enough for the CH. That may be. I don't know. Maybe the Community House is such a valued institution in this town that parking right outside its front door is perfectly warranted. If that's the case, then we just wish people would stand up and say so. The nonsense about underground parking being a "compromise" just kills us, because...

* Underground parking isn't a compromise, as some would have you believe. Maybe we're splitting semantic hairs here, but it looks a lot more to us like a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too solution. Isn't a compromise a trade-off? Doesn't it involve concessions? The only concession in the underground parking scenario is the one that involves spending a bunch of money to allow a lot of cars to drive in and out of our city center. The idea, to be fair, is that if we want a bigger park, and we want to maintain the current level of parking, then underground parking is the only logical solution. That's the "compromise." As we see it, a compromise would involve somebody giving up something (like a few parking spaces, maybe?) in return for something else (a bigger park, maybe?). Take it from somebody with a long history of getting his cake and eating it too, who has a somewhat obsessive desire for clarity of thought and expression: Underground parking ain't a compromise!

* Aside from the Community House, the other thing this seems to be about is the aesthetics of a butt-ugly parking lot in the middle of town. Truth be told, if they just cleaned the thing up -- get rid of the parking meters, make it an attended lot, plant some trees and shrubs and flowers -- a lot of people would probably be satisfied. Let's face it, the last time I wanted to throw a frisbee with my kid, there was plenty of room. The last time I attended a concert, there was plenty of room. The last time I went to the Village Fair carnival, it was cramped, but it was kind of cozy, and everybody seemed to make do. Ford manages to set up its Dream Cruise event without much complaint. So for me, it really isn't as much about making Shain Park bigger (although that might be nice) as it is about eliminating an eyesore that's within spitting distance of at least four of our most valued institutions (the CH, the Townsend, the library and City Hall).

* We can't help but wonder why we don't experiment with some less costly and less permanent alternatives. Landscape the parking lot. Or go with a Duany-style plan (bigger park, with parking around the perimeter) that fits in as much parking as possible, without being held hostage to the we-can't-lose-a-single-parking-space mentality. Or just close off a quarter, or a third, or even half of the existing parking lot to see what the effect would be of a loss of parking.

* Truly, a dearth of creative thought has been brought to bear on this question. The committee that concluded underground parking was the only alternative? It was populated with (please, don't laugh) the executive director of the Community House, the general manager of the Townsend Hotel, the library director and an assortment of other "stakeholders." The City Commission told it that its recommendation MUST (please, don't laugh again) maintain the number of parking spaces that currently exists. (Get the idea that underground parking was a fait accompli?) So far, the creative minds behind the whole thing include George Dilgard, a Planning Board member who is very, very good with numbers, and Paul O'Meara, the assistant city engineer who designs our streets and sewers. All due respect, these guys will be the first to admit their creative limitations.

I don't know. Underground parking may ultimately be the way to go -- despite it all. At this point, the City Commission is leaning toward allowing voters to decide. If you were against underground parking, or if you were interested in getting re-elected anytime soon, you might agree with that approach. If you really, really were convinced that underground parking was the way to go, however, you might just find the guts to make the decision yourself and make a real compromise by issuing bonds at a consequently slightly higher interest rate.

Blog notes

We'd like to think the decision to go with Blog software was thought out in excruciating detail. Actually, we just had a hunch that the blog thing was the way to go, and did a quick Google search. We came up with several options, but in a flash, Expression Engine looked like the best of them. Nonetheless, it required a little bit more technical ability than we have. So at the suggestion of an EE tech, we posted a request on the EE forum for programming help, and lo and behold, Sue Crocker reared her beautiful head. The former Microsoft programmer came to our aid literally within minutes of the post, and the deed was done.

The Buzz Is Back item at the top is "sticky." That's Blog Lesson of the Day. "Sticky" means it sticks to the top of the Blog, presumably until we "unstick" it by changing its properties in the guts of the program.

One more thing: That snap decision to go with Expression Engine? We were perusing the book aisle of Costco, our favorite emporium (Church of the Divine Dollar; Shrine of the Holy Bargain) the other day, and came across a new book by one of our current favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell, a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, has written a new booked called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It talks about the incredible quality and value of the decisions we make in the first two seconds of consideration. Check it out.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

The Buzz is back

Well, we're back. We have a new, less formal blog format with lots of functional improvements. We're hoping the increased ease of use for everyone will encourage a lot more posting -- by us and everyone else. For our part, we can post via simple email -- even from our handheld gizmo. For your part, you'll be able to comment on individual postings, or add your thoughts to our existing -- and unchanged -- forum with just a few mouse clicks.

We thank programmer Sue Crocker, of SheCodes.com, for helping us improve the functionality of the site. The underlying software running the site is called Expression Engine, for anybody interested in the technical end of things. Expect us to tweak the site a lot as we go along. If you have any comments or suggestions, don't hesitate to shout. Just add a comment or send email to .

Yes, we know that the satellite photo atop the site shows more of Troy than Birmingham. We're working on it. We got the photo from a very cool site from Microsoft called Terraserver USA. Plug in any address, and get aerial, satellite and topographic maps.

Here's an important change: We no longer plan to send content via email. Rather, we'll send periodic reminders to check the site for new posts. Formatting and sending the emails got to be too much work, and one thing we're really trying to avoid here is work -- at least more than is necessary.

All of our previous content is contained in the Archives, which are searchable along with the rest of the site. We've set up the main page to hold the 15 most recent entries. Earlier entries can be accessed by clicking the page links at the bottom of the main page.

We anticipate making future posts brief and numerous. Freed from our previous publishing schedule and format, we figure we'll just mouth off whenever (and wherever) the inspiration strikes. Please feel free to do the same. Frequent contributors are welcome to request access to post items themselves.

As always, if you like what you see, please tell your friends and acquaintances, and urge them to check in with us, and subscribe. We have a city election coming up in November, and we hope to inform and involve all of our existing readers, and many more, in plenty of time to allow for intelligent decision-making then.

One more thing: This item is "sticky," which means that it will stay at the top of the site until we unstick it. So until then, look for new entries just below this one.

Enjoy!