2011 Short List For Person of the Year.

• What would Robert Glass Bloomfield Hills School Superintendent. say about Doug Koschik ? He might say that Koschik is  man who excels at doing what he does best. So does Robert Glass who came to a school district divided and healed it to the point where people managed to get along without going for the jugular. At least for now. Glass is a master showman. If you are an educator it comes with the territory but the ability of Robert Glass go far beyond he classroom. By clever positioning which more or less  said "If I don't acknowledge you, you  not there"himself  he helped deflate the recall campaign. Fielding Nair cost $800,000 but it played to packed house.  Then there was the scene stealer Plan B which has already spun a humorous sequel Son of Plan B subtitled Trailers Up and  Down Long Lake.  Regardless One School (not two) on one campus or two became  the reality most people could live with. This month  the the superintendent  and the school board  will be at seven town hall meetings gathering information and the resident's opinions of what they want and what  should be put on the ballot. His biggest challenge in 2012? Talking to people who do not  go school board meetings or PTO's.,ave no kids and won't want to spend the dough.

                                                       

• What would Mayor of Bloomfield Hills Michael Zambricki say about Robert Glass ? He might says that Glass is a man  inspired and driven. The same could be said about the Mayor. When you've been Mayor five times and on City Commission since 1989 what do you do for an encore ? Micheal Zambricki has never lost a city election. If he gets re-elected  in 2013 he will pass the quarter century mark. A Politician you say ? Hardly. This year he has raised hackles without much notice of the vox populi. by asking questions  the sacred cows weren't keen on answering. He poked and prodded the beloved City Manger into acute awareness which caught a  DTE over charge and prompted an $85,000 refund to the City from DTE. Zambricki also took on the most sacred of all the cows Public Safety. Questions about new hires, overtime, and disability costs rained down and tempers flared. The City is solvent and even in the black but with diminished tax revenues it isn't easy. Zambricki manages quite well but now it gets tougher. He and the  Ordinance Task Force are about unveil a long and involved and some say controversial  city tree ordinance, Politically it is not advisable. Zambricki doesn't care He is proceeding because he believes it is the right thing to do and it's next the agenda.His biggest challenge in 2012 ? The Tree Ordinance.

• What would City Commissioner Pat Hardy say about  Mayor Zambricki ? She might say he is a legend in the City of Bloomfield Hills. So is she. Hardy was first elected to City Commission in 2003 and has been elected ever since.You will always find her in the Society pages (called Social-Lights) in the back or Downtown   Birmingham Bloomfield Magazine. Her accomplishments this year are many. By a tradition of rotating the position of Mayor among sitting  city commissioners based on seniority she was supposed to be  Mayor this year. The Commission dec instead elected Michael Zambricki. The City Charter, essentially the laws of how the city is governed, requires an election. The rotation was something the City Commission decided to on it's own with no basis in law a number of years ago.It  further marginalized the rights of the people. While disappointed  Hardy, a master politician who knows how the game is played  remained a team player on the commission. She was on the committee that negotiated with  Baldwin and is now the city's library liaison. Once again she is the chair person for Preservation Bloomfield. Her biggest challenge in 2012. Letting go of the past (specifically the City Commissions of 2007-2009.) If she can do that she will be a big  part of the City's future. 

                                                                                               

• The Andover and Lahser Football teams. What would they say about Pat Hardy? If they knew her they would say she is a lady who does things for the City. Lahser and Andover do a lot too. Lahser started the season by remembering Mom and wound up by making the State Play-offs. Quite a turn around for a team that won but one game the year prior. For the Knight Football the team work continues. This Christmas Players  raised $600 for needy family and contrinuted to nine familes in  Eastpointe  via a food drive. Lahser Coach Loria  told  the Birmingham Eagle, "I have always believed there is a responsibility to give back and I think the guys embraced that." Andover struggled all season with a shortage of players. Their play on the field was an inspiration to all who saw it. Their last offensive play was a dramatic score from midfield on on third and long . There is an old saying in sports played in a finite period of time. It is "we didn't lose. Time ran out on us." Luckily for our community Time did not run out on the Andover Barons Football. All indications are that they will back for 2012 after a community wide effort of all concerned to find players. As usual the big challenge in 2012 will be the last game for either school, the Battle for the Sword before both schools become the new Bloomfield Hills High School.

• If you  have read this far you are in for a pleasant surprise. You are on our  2011 Short List for Person of the Year. You say you don't Live in the City of Bloomfield Hills ? People weren't picked based on geographic location of residence. They were picked  for their contribution to the City. What do we know about you ?  A lot thanks to Google, guess, and by golly. Google tells us that since our blog began on June 1st of 2011, we have a 1395  visitors who chose to look at 5,356 pages. At any given time 75% percent of our readers are returning and 25% are new. 1338 of our  visitors are  from the United States.1042 of our readers are from  the communities  of Birmingham, Franklin, Bloomfield Hills and Keego Harbor.The average visitor spends 11.45 minutes on the site. People from the four above communities averaged 15 minutes. We guess  that in trying to measure communities  as small as ours from a global perspective there is some overlap or margin of error. Apparently we have no readers from Bloomfield Township and we wonder if  Franklin and Keego Harbor might be them since we have never reported on the latter communities.While we are flattered by the many Birmingham readers are reported, aside from the library we don't cover  many  the aspects of that  city like City Commision , The Schools, Shopping, Dining and more.We don't even know where or what  the railroad district or the triangle district  is. Does it matter ? Of course not. Sometimes we are chastised  by the  realization  that the City of Bloomfield  Blog which purports to take a cosmopolitan and global  view of everything frets over  the signs of city limits. More than likely if you are reading this you read other things as well. You think about things you read  and may share those thoughts with others. Your interest in community affairs civic or otherwise  is lauditory regardless of where you live or what community you choose to read about. Do not underestimate your contribution.  To   quote Edmund Burke, No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. You do a lot. Therefore we pleased to include all  1395 of you  in our short (now much longer)  list of Persons of the year. Thank  you for your support in 2011 and best wishes in 2012.