Are residents as important as butterflies downtown?
Life is mean't to be enjoyed. Money is not everything. Good mottos to live by, but I am having a really tough time convincing Royal Oak residents that the comission we have today is not as representative of many younger as well as senior residents, nor as concerned about quaity of life issues as past administrations. In my opinion it is largely because ot poor leadership exemplified by a lackluster non resident managerial department and its number one enabler I am sorry to say, our mayor.
In my mind the litmus test for a city with pride has always been just a few simple things. Needed is cleanliness and safety of its streets with a good mix of retail and restaurant/cafe, and just as important as a quality library is a quality downtown park. The jewel in the crown providing for family relaxation and reflection along with satellite parks that offer other amenities such as bicycle trails, tennis courts, baseball, basketball and swimming. Size does not matter, its the quality of its gardens, its benches, its fountain and play area for children. The Stardream/Fountain/Memorial plaza has ample room for a beautifull walk, and sit down park that would accomedate library patrons and residents seeking relaxation and sunshine around a sparkling fountain. Its a shame we have a comission and a DDA that is blind to its fiduciary responsibility to give residents and their guests that also use our library the very best that Royal Oak has to offer. Consider all the money that goes into new parking meters, storefronts, bar and restaurant expansions, the EMagine theater and holiday street lighting for just a few examples.
The will exists, there is just simply no leadership coming from the mayor's office. Instead he delegates the issue to a non resident city manager who I re-itterate once told me the residents of this city would rather sit on walls than benches. I do not have to tell you his attitude towards bicycles.
Only one city comissoner recognizes the need for a downtown central park and unfortunately he has damaged his own credibility as of late. His plans are grandiose but feasable as they include lot expansion and a much needed parking structure. My suggestions are less ambitious. More on the look of a small Europeon town square and fountain with flowers and sculpture and chess tables. We have so many visiting young students who enjoy our cafes and library but look as what is outside. A handful of cold metal benches. No chess tables, no toddler swing that would compliment our volunteer built butterfly garden. Missing cobbles, trees that have outgrown their iron bases which should be moved to the edge of the park grass on Troy Street and replanted with weeping cherry, or dogwood. Every year residents come to the English garden show and are forced to sit on curbs, walls. They carry away tons of beautiful plants and sculptures of which some could be purchased by the city and planted by volunteers who have already planned with the help of a master gardener as to what to buy and where to place it.
Please do not regale me with your suggestions on who to contact. There is only one person you need to contact. That is your mayor. Do not accept being told to go this comission, or that board. The mayor alone has the ear of the DDA, and its most powerful members. Look at the weathered bronze plaque celebrating the original Stardream Fountain, and cobbled paths. Read who contributed. Many of these residents and businesses are gone but look what they accomplished with only a fracion of the resources Royal Oak has today at its disposal. We have business men and women who would love to contribute to our community with a park. Mayor Bloomberg found sources to spend millions on park improvements in NYC that rival many in Europe. Even poor neighborhoods such as the lower east side found ways to create a community oasis where once there was nothing but discarded trash.
Even Detroit with all the problems Royal Oak does not have put together numerous community parks, not to mention Campus Martius. I challenge EMagine Theater, BlackFinn, Andiamos, Mr.B's, Toms Oyster Bar, and so many other old and new entrepreneurs and businesses with roots here to see who will step foward first and call with an offer. All we need is focus and leadership. Drop a dime on the mayor today and tell him we want change and it begins with our beloved Stardream Fountain that like New York's Statue of Liberty represents the heritage of Royal Oak. I believe he will respond if enough call as I am sure he would like to hear from you.
Until every mother's son and daughter has his phone ringing off the hook believe me next to nothing will be done to improve our residential enjoyment of our downtown and its satellite parks during the lifetime of both this administraton and the next. The dog that barks the loudest gets the most attention.
Please do not comment unless its with a promise to call your mayor and comissioners asking them just one question. Why did you stop with the butterfly garden and how about the rest of this park? Do not take "its not my job" for an answer and you might be surprised. If no one calls the mayor, manager and comissioners they will all have a good laugh at this relax and go back to business as usual, be assured.
This is a test, repeat, this is a test of your concern on where and how your tax dollars are spent downtown. I have confidence in the power of the Patch.
Ronald Wolf
12:16 am on Monday, February 11, 2013
One more thing. You were all told that any interest in a downtown park garnered the least interest(one star) in this Jerry-rigged master plan ( to borrow parlance of the great war) cobbled by our non resident city managerial kabal. To prove that this was just one of many inaccuracies make that call. Even the squirrels are disgusted.
H.G.
11:23 am on Monday, February 11, 2013
I've given up contatcing the mayor, and the city commissioners a long time ago. They are none responsive and useless. Unless your inquiry has something to do with their agenda, they aren't interested.
Bill
2:45 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
I couldn't care less about a downtown park. Do something for my neighborhood. Do a code enforcement blitz fixing backwards installed privavy fences, broken windows, and removing none working vehicles. Fix the old fencing and backstop at trhe corner park. Fix the potholes in the neighborhood streets.
The city is 12.5 square miles. There is much more to it than just the downtown.
Ronald Wolf
3:19 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
Bill, I wish you well. I have had NO probems fixing potholes in my area. I simply called ROSCO which you can find on our city site and the repairs were done in less than ten days. I suppose you also back the ticketing of bicycle riders riding on city sidewalks with fifty/one hundred dollar fines despite that there has been not one incident involving a bicycle on a sidewalk where senior tricycles and bikes with baby carriers feel safer. . I would like to see litterers ticketed, espyoecially the butt tossers. Do you smoke? The cost for making these improvements is nominal compared to all the money the city puts into its 13 mile golf course which I have never used. And I do not "forgin" them for doing it as there are sufficient golfers in the city who enjoy it.
Bill
3:28 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
Ron, I take it you live near the downtown. I don't.
Me and the Mrs. don't frequent the downtown too much anymore. We don't like the heavy emphasis on the drinking in the downtown. We're too old for putting up with obnoxious 20 somethings.
Our interest is in the neighborhood where we live. Many of my longtime neighbors don't frequent the downtown, either. The city commission spends too much time talking about the downtown. They have all but forgotten about the neighborhoods.
G. Rockwell
4:15 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
Amen, Bill, amen.
Ronald Wolf
3:44 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
Bill, get out of that funk. You are not the only one one ignored in this town, join the club. You should visit the library, they have free entertainment, book reviews, technical help for computer problems, all kinds of neat stuff for all ages.
I am also for designated two hour free parking for resident library patrons who would apply for a permit in the library to use it. Signs could be placed on selecte meters saying : " Two hour free resident library parking to 9PM with displayed permit."
Ronald Wolf
3:48 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
Add, the dogs downtown bark louder and they are closer to city hall. You have a phone?
Ronald Wolf
11:42 am on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Earth to Royal Oak, please copy.
Ronald Wolf
2:21 am on Friday, February 15, 2013
One other thing, as it seems that some of my critics may be partially correct in the lack of interest from RO residents in frequenting their own downtown as it can be expensive unless you have a parking permit, as our comissioners do (I presume). I would like to challenge ROHS students to comment on what they think about what I feel is a lack of a nice place outside to hang without having to spend money during the Spring and Summer, and Fall that a refurbished downtown Star Dream Fountain/library plaza could provide. This could make a good class discussion. Were any students polled about their wishes for better parks? I don't think so.
Bob of RO
4:02 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
LMAO!
The students are going to clamor for nice bench seating and chess tables, while the butterflies flutter around. That is high comedy I tell ya.
G. Rockwell
4:11 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
Any chess tables, benches, or any other structure put near the Star Dream statue will be used as a slidebar by the skateboarders. Look at the marble base of the Star Dream statue to see firsthand how any public improvement would be treated in that area.
Any pipedream about a splash pad, or water park in the downtown will quickly become the unofficial free public bath/shower for the homeless.
Give up on this nonsense.
Royal Oak Dog Lover
12:57 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
Royal Oak has a ONE HUNDRED MILLION dollar unfunded liabilty for it's retiree health obligations. No one on the city commission talks about it.
It is the 8000 LB gorilla in the city. The city does not have a plan on how we are going to pay for it. This is what the politicians need to be addressing. I suspect the city will want to pay for it with a dedicated millage in the near future (yes, another city millage).
Instead, you guys want to quibble about a downtown park. No wonder this city (and country) is in the shape it is in.
Bob of RO
3:59 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
The suggestions Ronald is making about a downtown park are nice, but you are correct RO Dog Lover. Except for one thing. You used the phrase "you guys." The only guys pushing for this are Ronald and Jim Rasor. Everyone else on this page seems to follow your line of thinking that there are bigger fish to fry.
Ronald Wolf
4:41 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
Your totally right up to the last sentence. This tiny improvement is nickels and dimes compared to the money wasted on the inflated ego of a non resident city mangager and of course his enabler our mayor and his get along first commissioners who mostly love to hear themselves talk..
This gorilla will someday come back with its hand out, and I do not want to be the one to deliver the bad news, Have you noticed how our State and Federal dances around the same issues. Its called kicking the can.
I have zilch support for the park, just nods of approval. RO kids are being spoon fed a fading illusion of an American Dream.. Suckers who thought if they get a civil service position they could obtain a lifetime of benefits are in for a rude surprise. Kimball I like Groundhog day remark. Decisions made just before meetings in the back room is is why you only get five minutes and no discussion for the dollar you placed in the meter. Downtown outside interests are in control, relax and watch, or what the hey tell'em why are you doing repressing residents with cockamamy fines for riding a biycle while littering is ok, and a delapidanted park used by residents is not on your list?
In Royal Oak you take kickbacks or take kicks. which are you? Mad, good get mad and pick up a phone and say:. Neighborhoods and residents first. The downtown logo was not listed in the survey, but you are going ahead? Is it downtown that calls the shots? Take your survey and put it you know where.
Kimball Grad
1:07 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
Many Royal Oak residents gave up commenting at the city commission meetings about a decade ago. I was one of them.
Every other month, the same argument would be had at commission meetings about adding another large bar. Every discussion was the same. The police chief and city manager would recommend against it. 12 to twenty residents would speak in opposition to more bars, and then a majority of the city commission would still approve it. It was like the movie Groundhog's Day.
It proved to a lot of citizens that their input was meaningless. I haven't been back to a city commission meeting since. I found better things to do with my time.
Ronald Wolf
4:52 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
The barking dogs that are closest to City Hall are the ones listened to. You gave up.
With so many more residents than non resident bar owners why do they get all the attention? FOIA their campaign records and find out.
Tom
5:37 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
$$$ talks!! The people making $$$$ dispensing alcohol in downtown is the biggest influence on the city commission. The bar lobby fills the mayor and commissioners campaign coffers. Then the commssioners use that $$$$ to send us suckers glossy campaign literature.
Ronald Wolf
12:36 am on Saturday, February 16, 2013
So its the messengers you don't like. First of all I am realistic, all I am requesting is a beautification of an an existing, aging downtown plaza/park so families can enjoy it, not an expanded park during a time of when we should be more penny conscious (Jim's idea). Jim's idea would put this town in competition with any in the Bloomfields, or the Pointes and would have flown during better times.
So I guess because of skateboards we should abandon all benches? More people are hit by golf balls than by kids on skateboards, lets close the golf course. Maybe Don Johnson should not move here, you guys would probably elect him mayor.
He would order a study or satisfaction survey before filling in a pot hole, or cutting the grass. No wonder the mayor likes him so much.
Royal Oak Dog Lover
11:22 am on Saturday, February 16, 2013
Ron-
At the city commission study session held just a short few weeks ago, the "downtown park" was brought up. The pipedream not only included the items you mentioned, but also dreamed about including a splashpad, and ampitheater, and also possibly moving the planned Honor Flight WWII Memorial planned for Memorial Park into this so called downtown park.
Rasor has also been quoted in the paper about including the splashpad and ampitheater.
The city commission has already forgotten that we continue to have major budgetary challenges, ie. $100 million unfunded retiree health obligation.
So forgive me if I have zero confidence in the city's discretion of what the city can, or can't afford. It's like giving the authority to the bank account to someone who has never had a checking account.
Mark Itall
12:59 pm on Saturday, February 16, 2013
Ronald, Nothing RO can do puts it in competition with the Bloomfields or Pointes, completely different types of cities.
Drops of Jupiter
1:07 pm on Saturday, February 16, 2013
That includes student test scores. We have the party downtown. They have the good schools.
Ronald Wolf
4:42 pm on Saturday, February 16, 2013
Jupiter,Sorry to hear you consider our schools inferior. I do not think so, they do a pretty good job, but consider a lot of the responsibility goes to the value their parents at home place on their education. We could always use more emphasis on education, that is a given and alcohol should not be our city's main attraction. Add that now there is an overlooked increasing heroin problem surrounding the bars.
Mark you are right there are different types of cities than Royal Oak, they have more professionals per capita as a rule. Royal Oak is attracting young professional families and unless the bars totally take precedent over anything else in this city, the pendulum will start to swing in positive direction. That is if this cockamamy commission gets the message behind the dissatisfaction with them. I am sure a lot of established bars would also like to see an end to the greedy expansions fueled no doubt by kickbacks in my opinion. Bob, I think you left the refrigerator door open and the beer is getting warm.
Ronald Wolf
5:01 pm on Saturday, February 16, 2013
As I stated on another blog about adopting parks by Mike Ripinski who is involved with our Optomists Club I am firmly convinced by some of these postings that decendents of Henry F Potter reside in Royal Oak.
There is hope, pick the battles you can win first, then move foward to the larger problems. If this commission continues on its present path you might as well replace our already ignored charter with a twelve step program.
Ronald Wolf
10:34 pm on Tuesday, February 19, 2013
I guess the only time fish big or little are fried in RO is on Friday. For some reason RO thinks that maybe the next commission will be THE one to throw down the gauntlet. In reality It does not matter who sits on the commission. What matters is the interest this community takes in its own well being. You know, like the bars take an interest in their well being. Like Jon Witz takes an interest in his well being. Its only natural.
Relax mayor, apparently your job is written in stone for as long as you want it and I just affirmed that as no one took time, or interest to call. I will even vote for you. After all whats the diff? Hey, anyone want to buy my bicycle? I can't afford a ticket and its too stressful for average seniors to ride RO streets these days unless you have very fast reflexes, perfect peripheral 20/20 vision, and good accident insurance. Anyway the butterflies are not too impressed with the tossed cigarette butts. Cities don't change unless they're made to change. Thanks Patch for the short opportunity to let off a little steam on this downtown park issue.
Bob of RO
9:23 am on Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Your bicycle riding belongs in the street. Especially downtown. You want to put your lack of good reflexes and vision on the sidewalk with pedestrians?
You should take your own advice and pick some better battles to fight. You are coming off as a crazed lunatic with shotgun, firing off in all directions with reckless abandon. You have some good ideas. Pick a couple and parse your words.
Ronald Wolf
5:36 pm on Thursday, March 14, 2013
Bob, its the crazed lunatics that drive on Main Street I worry about. You apparently do not frequent downtown that much to observe. I have my own opinions, Could care less on how I "come off". In case you have not noticed there are two problems with government, too much and too little. The genius(S) behind this asinine sidewalk bicycle ordinance should realize that the RO police have more important issues to address, such as bars, drunks, reckless driving, thefts from cars and homes, and last but not least in my opinion all the littering that ends up on our sidewalks. As for parsing words, you have to be joking. By the way its my awareness of my limitations that makes me both a safe driver, and a safe bicyclist. Have not run into anybody, and if the sidwalks are busy I walk the bicycle. Do not need the RO police, or you to tell me what is safer regarding a bicycle.
Bob of RO
9:17 am on Friday, March 15, 2013
Obviously you could care less because you drag this up weeks later. For if you could not care less you would not have done so.
Ronald Wolf
2:20 am on Monday, March 18, 2013
FYI I do not check Patch every day. You are right in that this is not a total obsession of mine though this BS bicycle ordinance that passed taking precedence over more important quality of life issues is in my opinion the real issue.
That this will take up the time of the additional hired police that were purportedly hired to serve the residents in their neighbohoods should exasperate you as well.
Ronald Wolf
10:15 pm on Wednesday, March 27, 2013
From the lack of any really positive response I conclude that our mayor is truly reflective of this city.. The layout and walkability is above average for a Southeastern Michigan "Bedrock". Someday someone will wake up and figure it out .Meanwhile, I am going to try to find something, anything more productive and enjoyable. Maybe whittling.
RO Raven
12:43 am on Thursday, March 28, 2013
Why don't you whittle a chess table and donate it to the parks and rec department?
Maybe you can carve the mayor's and the commissioner's heads into the table. If you take requests, please make Rasor's head a pumpkin.
Mark Itall
6:22 pm on Thursday, March 28, 2013
Whittling would be wonderful for you. Leaves an opening for a new spammer.
Ronald Wolf
12:20 am on Monday, April 1, 2013
Thanks guys the harder you push the harder I push back. Sorry if I do not always please my apparently avid fans. Mark, you would go crazy if I quit. You need to open your own blogs with your vast knowledge, and I am not being facetious.
Raven, an apt name according to native mythology. Bob, you left the fridge door open again. YUP, I am guilty of overflying your comments from time to time, their so "je ne sais quoi."
Not all the nuts under Royal Oak trees are acorns and as for butterflies: if cigarette butts were flowers we would not have to plant a special garden by the library.
Bill
1:22 am on Monday, April 1, 2013
Ron, why don't you whittle Don Johnson a house key that fits a house in Royal Oak!?
Bob of RO
10:23 am on Monday, April 1, 2013
Funny that you are always the first commenter and most prevalent commenter by far on your own blogs. You are under narcissistic suspicion.