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Sunday, December 11, 2011

Tuesday December 13 is Super Tuesday for City Commissions and School Board

The fun starts to at the 4pm City of Bloomfield Hills Planning Commission Meeting. The agenda has but one item and that is a big one. It is either as explosive a megaton bomb or in the City of the sometimes somnambulists  nobody cares. They will wake up someday and care but then it may be too late. The Irony of it all is that Planning Commission's   Ordinance Task Force tried to peddle the proposed Tree Ordinance  to newspapers, lasts spring, the fourth estate would have died laughing (privately of course, because it never pays to be rude.) A Tree ordinance ? What the heck is that ? Like if a Tree dies who pays for it's removal or something ? Perhaps  one of  the better publications might have suggested that if this Tree Ordinance task force was going have meetings, the paper could run  listings in Meetings This Week or whatever.Even more ironic if the commission's task force announced it's plans to pursue a Tree Ordinance and invited all concerned to attend to a town hall meeting on a nice night in May or June few if any would  have bothered to come. In retrospect being boring isn't all that bad and it is definitively better than appearing to be sneaky.

One Tuesday evening immediately following the The Pledge of Allegiance and the approval of last month's minutes the Planning Commission will review the draft of the Tree and Woodlands Protection Ordinance.   In terms of being sneaky or less than honest Ordinance Task Force people  at sub committee meeting on Tuesday November 29th (the only meeting that was ever publicized)  told this blog  that Tree Ordinance was still in the planning stages and might not even be an Agenda item at the December 13th Planning Commission Meeting,.  True in the literal sense of the word and  false in what is implied. The  Tree and Woodland Protection Ordinance  is not an agenda item. It is the entire Agenda.

Planning commission meetings usually run an hour and a half. If there are fireworks at the meeting it will run late.Perhaps as late as 6:30 pm. If you are planning to do the Super Tuesday three meetings in one night you will have time to make  The Historic First meeting of Bloomfield Hills School Board and the Bloomfield Township Public Library Board at the BTPL.If you are a City of Bloomfield Hills resident with school age children the point to drive home (at proper time and place and manner) is that in the fall of 2012 the School Board will be asking the City residents to approve a 65 million dollar bond for a new and updated single campus high school. In the past there as been a disconnect with City students unable to coordinate homework assignments via the BTPL. The Baldwin Library has promised to coordinate homework with City residents who attend Birmingham Schools. One hopes that in order to further support for the 2012 Bond issue, the Township library will be willing do to the same for city residents who attend Bloomfield Hills Schools.
This writer has discussed this matter during Public Comments at School Board meeting and with Cynthia von Oelyen, the only school board member who is actually a City of Bloomfield Hills resident. If the timing doesn't seem right to demand homework assignments for shot at 65 million  there will be another school//library board meeting  on Feb 9th at the Doyle Center.

Be assured this publication trusts your discretion  on this matter. We are The City of Bloomfield Hills and we are never gauche. If you think it would help to attend the library tour at the end  of the meeting  you may do that as well. Just don't overdo.

If you can get back to City Hall for the agenda items below you will come away with most everything a concerned citizen needs for now.
You may be there to midnight however. If Items 10 and 11  get out hand, items 12, 13, and 14 may get scrapped. If everything goes smoothly 12,13, and 14 may be the most interesting parts of the meeting. Item 9 is a mystery. Did a fire engine throw a rod ?
 As always the City commission agenda  presents more intriguing questions than answers. We will cover both mysteries and answers, what little we know about the tree ordinance , and hopefully provide agenda packets before both meetings.


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