Stale Livingston County leadership will stall any economic opportunity

Since last April the two main chambers of commerce have been holding meetings across the county for a “New Economy Summit” with the goal of laying out the process for writing a strategy for developing Livingston County's economy in light of the realities of the 21st Century.

It accomplished little because the all Republican Board of Commissioners are more interested in being able to put billboards up along I-96 that brag the county has the lowest county tax rate among Michigan's 83 counties than take any of the recommendations to make the county any thing other than a bedroom community. That has been one of my pet peeves since I moved here to my wife’s hometown 12 years ago.

We may have a low tax rate, but few services. Like the organizers of the forum said, quality of life amenities will improve the economy in Livingston County, "not industrial parks, not low wages, not low taxes."

Livingston County has no YMCA, yet smaller communities have them. We have no community colleges, yet almost every surrounding county has one. We have no county park system. We have no mass transit system. Our young people have to leave once they graduate from high school. Now, babies can no longer be born in the county after Saint Joseph Mercy Livingston Hospital in Howell announced last month that they are closing the birthing center at the hospital.

Now, it’s apparent that the organizers of the summit are beginning to realize the hopelessness of the situation with the stagnant leadership this county is saddled with, and we will always be a bedroom community with little opportunity or reason for young people to stay.

Another session was held last week, and Glenn Pape, the regional land-use policy educator for the southeast region of the Michigan State University Extension, summed it up very well:

“He said the county needs to create economic opportunities here instead of sending people to commute to jobs in other communities. He noted Livingston County will remain a bedroom community, but "we can become the best damn community around,” according to the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus.

I have wanted to comment on the situation on the hospital since I read about it, but this is my first opportunity. People were able to have their children born in the county for 82 years, but no longer. Does that even qualify as bedroom community anymore?

I covered the hospital in 2003 when it opened its $3 million birthing center renovation. I also wrote the story in May 2002 when it changed its name from McPherson Hospital, the name it had when it opened in 1928. I got a glimpse of how little the leadership at Saint Joseph Mercy care about the community.

The McPherson family settled Howell in 1836, but you will be hard pressed to find the once abundant name on anything in the city, other than a small street. Many long-time community members were upset at the name change because so many people had participated in the fundraising drive to establish and expand the hospital.

The McPherson family deeded their ancestral home on Michigan Avenue - site of the present day Banker’s Square and the former McPherson State Bank - to the city for a hospital that opened with 18 beds in 1928. When the need arose for a new hospital, a 10-acre site at the present location was purchased for $10,000 from the McPherson estate in 1954.

A fundraising campaign began in November of 1954 with the goal of raising $254,000. When the campaign ended in April of 1955, $789,000 had been raised from every segment of the community.

Ground was broken on the present hospital on July 15, 1956, and on Jan. 4, 1958 the 75-bed hospital opened for business. In 1990 the hospital underwent a $15.5 million expansion and renovation project.

The bottom line is to move forward we need forward thinking leadership.

Is planned fitness center the new Livingston County YMCA?

The recent news that the private Cleary University in Genoa Township is planning to build a $3 million 30,000-square-foot fitness center featuring aerobic exercise machines, climbing wall, basketball courts, racquetball court and a lounge area in a former plant/warehouse in a nearby industrial park in partnership with the Livingston County Family YMCA has left me more confused than anything.

Is this the YMCA building the community has hungered for since 1978, or is this a country club-type, for-profit fitness club? That seems to be unclear. According to the Daily Press & Argus, “Cleary President Tom Sullivan said, roughly $300,000 has been raised for the project, which would be a joint effort between Cleary and the Livingston County YMCA.” “The university would be responsible for building the fitness center, and the YMCA would operate the facility, according to Sullivan.”
“He said discussions began 18 months ago, and the university reached out to students and community recreation organizations on what they would want in the fitness center.”

I have been advocating for a YMCA since I moved back to the county in 2000 when I was a reporter, and I’m proud to say I had a very small, tiny hand in getting the effort off the ground. Cleary has been instrumental in the YMCA effort from day one, but I don’t understand the relationship, based on my great experience with the YMCA in the past.

I have been critical of Cleary in the recent past because of its embrace of hatemniongers like Ann Coulter, Steve Emerson and Dick Morris. But I have a long relationship with the school, and my late mother-in-law helped establish the Livingston County campus.

The Livingston County Family YMCA is an affiliate of the Metro Detroit YMCA. The YMCA is the largest not-for-profit service organization in the U.S., and the mission of the YMCA is “Putting Christian principles into practice through programs that build spirit, mind, and body for all.”

The Livingston County Family YMCA began very small back in 2000 when a group of five people did a feasibility study for their required public service project for Cleary’s Leadership Livingston class.

After gradating from the program, the group stayed together and continued the grassroots effort of establishing the YMCA, and that included forming several study committees, forming a board of directors. In 2003 the board decided to affiliate with the Metro Detroit YMCA instead of forming an independent YMCA. In January of 2006 the public portion of the Livingston County Family YMCA Founders Fundraising Campaign officially got under way. In August the board hired long-time supporter and founder Dawn Palmer-Van Camp as The Livingston County Family YMCA’s first Executive Director.

The YMCA requires three years of programs before it will allow any fundraising for a building, and programming began in late 2005 with youth sports. The YMCA has been visible at all of the county's festivals and other events, but there has not been a lot of news about the campaign.

Is the $300,000 raised that Sullivan talks about part of that building fundraising campaign? Is the fitness center the start of a building?

County board's decision to kill transit line demonstrates lack of foresight

A perfect example of why we need another viewpoint on the nine-member, all Republican Livingston County Board of Commissioners is their decision last week to not only not provide any money to the Washtenaw Livingston Line (WALLY) commuter rail line, but it will also not be part of the coalition that wants to form a taxing authority.

According to a report in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, board chair Bill Rogers said the county cannot afford to finance the project that aims to create a Howell-to-Ann Arbor rail link. Officials have estimated annual funding from each county ranging from $75,000-$150,000.

A move to establish a mass transit hub in Howell and Livingston County has been ongoing since the late 1990's, but there was hope this latest effort would succeed because of the strong commitment of the coalition members, gas prices above $4 a gallon and the backups experienced along U.S. 23, the north/south highway to Ann Arbor where many Livingston County residents work.

The good news is that even though the county board continues to lack any forward vision at all, the coalition members plan to go forward despite the county's refusal to get with the times. Washtenaw County Chair Jeff Irwin said establishing the line is still feasible without Livingston County's help.

Locally, the City of Howell and the Greater Brighton Chamber of Commerce are behind the project. U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, said a solid taxing authority needs to be in place before federal funds can be secured.

I have heard this project described by one rightwing blogger as a "train to nowhere." I don't consider Howell, Brighton or Ann Arbor nowhere. Perhaps we could have gotten some of the massive federal funds Alaska gets every year, like from the money for the real bridge to nowhere. The problem is Gov. and GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin, who campaigned hard for it then and now says she is against it, accepted the money anyway.

The current gas prices illustrate the need for some real mass transit in this state. Hurricane Ike helped shoot gas prices back up to as high as $4.24 a gallon in Howell. The day before the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast on Friday, there were reports that gas went as high as $5 per gallon in Lansing.

This spike came after weeks of a slow, but steady decline in gas prices that led to gas prices falling to as low as $3.69 a gallon in Howell. Now, that wasn't because of the goodness of the oil companies or because supply increased. It was because demand fell because Americans are cutting back on driving and finding alternative ways to get to work, such as car pooling.

Now, wouldn't it be nice if commuters actually had a few options besides one car and one driver? Since November I have been a member of a car pool, van pool actually. This might be a good time to give a shout out to the Michivan. I'm sure you have seen them tooling around Lansing or parked in the commuter lots scattered all over Michigan.

But the failure of the county board of commisioners to cooperate with its neighbors and help create something that will benefit the region is just one more failure to look forward and provide any type of service to its residents.

Livingston County is a bedroom community, and it was also once one of the fastest growing counties in the state. That has been because two major interstates – one east/west and one north/south – meet in Livingston County. After talking to many people, I have found that the county is a compromise of sort when people relocate. One spouse may work in Lansing and the other in the Detroit area. Then Livingston County is the compromise. With gas relatively inexpensive that commute was not much of a problem, but with gas at or near $4 a gallon Livingston County is not so attractive anymore.

Now, for the people in the county who are against growth and want to shut the door behind them that may be fine. But for school officials who need new pupils and the per-pupil foundation grant they bring to the budget it's not so good. A commuter option would help.

The board's lack of foresight will ensure we stay a bedroom community where we have to leave the county to work, to go to college or even to take in recreation.

The county has more than 180,000 people, but we don't have as much as a community college of our own. Of the five counties that border the county, all but one has a community college of its own. We only recently got a county park, and that was only after it was forced on the county with a donation via a will more than four years ago. It is not much more than a piece of property, but Washtenaw, Ingham and Oakland counties have active parks with amenities.

All five of the counties have a full-blown YMCA – on of my pet peeves, by the way – yet Livingston County has just started one but does not yet have a facility. Even much smaller Shiawassee County has one. Now, I understand that county government does not have much to do with establishing a YMCA, but it certainly illustrates our lack of identity.

Livingston County YMCA hosting family basketball clinic

HOWELL — The newly formed Livingston County Family YMCA is holding a family basketball clinic from 9-11 a.m. Saturday at the Howell National Guard Armory, 725 Isbell St.

The clinic is for all ages, and the clinic will focus on basketball fundamentals from the organization that invented basketball in 1891. The cost of the clinic is just $5 per family, and participants can call to sign up or pay at the door.

The clinic is a prelude to the Livingston County Family YMCA Youth Basketball League that will run from Jan. 12 -Feb. 23 for boys and girls ages 6-8 and 9-11. YMCA Youth Basketball is designed to focus on three things: the number one rules is Fun. Every child plays, every child wins and major goals are to foster progressive skill development and promote healthy lifestyles.

YMCA Youth Basketball League Registration Deadline is Jan. 3. You can download a registration form at www.ymcadetroit.org click on locations, then Livingston County or you can request a form by calling (517) 540-2325.

The Livingston County Family YMCA operates as a branch of the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit that serves Wayne, Macomb, Oakland and Livingston counties.

Dream of a Livingston County YMCA gets closer to reality

My dream of a YMCA finally coming to Livingston County is getting a little closer to becoming a reality with the hiring of long-time supporter and founder Dawn Palmer-Van Camp as The Livingston County Family YMCA’s first Executive Director.

The quest to bring a YMCA to Livingston County really began almost 30 years ago in 1978, but after some publicity, some initial fundraising and a strong interest, the Citizens for Organizing the Livingston County Family YMCA died a slow death. Fast-forward to the spring of 2000, and Livingston County earned the title of the state’s fastest growing county in Michigan.

As part of that growth the community’s two Hometown weekly newspapers are combined to form the first daily start-up newspaper in Michigan in more than 50 years, and yours truly came back to Livingston County and the newspaper to be part of history after a brief stint at the News Herald in Downriver as the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus rolled off the presses for the first time in September 7, 2000. Shortly after that I wrote an opinion column stating how we really wanted and needed YMCA here, and communities much smaller already have their own YMCA.

Shortly after that column was published I was contacted by a group of five people who were working on a project to conduct a feasibility study to see if a YMCA - the largest not-for-profit service organization in the U.S. - was wanted or possible in the county as part of their required public service project for Leadership Livingston. My part was small, but getting the ball rolling with the publicity I provide towards this project that the entire community will benefit from was one reason why I got into journalism to begin with.

Leadership Livingston was formed as a partnership in 1992 between Cleary University and the chambers of commerce in Brighton and Howell with goals that included identifying existing and emerging leaders and to expand the number of informed, civic-oriented volunteer leaders. Once a week from September through May the group of about 20 diverse people from the community in the program meet to learn about a particular area of the community, such as the local judicial system, state and local government, schools and human service agencies.

The class is divided into small groups of four to five people, and they choose a project to benefit the community that no one in the group has a background with. This particular group chose the YMCA as their project. Following their graduation from LL, the group stayed together and continued the grassroots effort of establishing the YMCA, and they earned the nickname the Fab Five. The Fab Five included Palmer-Van Camp – fondly known to the group as Dawn PVC – Jim Greene, Diane Vance, Kathleen Trader and Lillian VanHouten. These people deserve our gratitude.

The Fab Five formed several study committees, formed a board of directors, and in 2003 decided to affiliate with the Metro Detroit YMCA instead of forming an independent YMCA. In January of 2006 the public portion of the Livingston County Family YMCA Founders Fundraising Campaign officially got under way. The silent part of the campaign began with YMCA board members and the steering committee contacting corporations, foundations and local businesses to raise $200,000. The YMCA requires three years of programs before it will allow any fundraising for a building, and programming began in late 2005 with 90 kids participating in youth basketball and kids from Brighton and Howell took part in day camp at Camp Ohiyesa in Holly.

That brings us up to the official appointment of Palmer-Van Camp.

“This is a big step forward for our new YMCA,” said Tom Schumm, Financial Advisor at Ameriprise Financial in Brighton, who was recently elected as the chair of the 14-member board of directors for the Livingston County Family YMCA. “We know we have the right person to begin implementing our strategic plan to bring YMCA programs and services to Livingston County.”

Palmer-Van Camp has been with the effort to establish a YMCA in the county every step of the way. She was originally a market research analyst at Cleary University, and she was elected as the first-ever chair of the board of directors for the Livingston County Family YMCA in April of 2003. Palmer-Van Camp’s fondness for the YMCA began as a child growing up on a dairy farm in northeast Ohio where she spent lots of time.

The YMCA is offering fall programs beginning September 10. Two of the programs will target toddlers and adults - YMCA Junior Soccer Academy for 3 to 6 year olds to be held Saturday mornings in Howell and the Y-Strides Outdoor Walking Club to meet Monday and Wednesday mornings at area parks. Contact Palmer-Van Camp for more information at (517) 540-2325 or dpvancamp@ymcametrodetroit.org.

Online registration for these programs is available at ymcadetroit.org. Just click on Registration to search program availability and to register. Livingston County residents may also call for registration materials. The Livingston County Family YMCA operates as a branch of the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit that serves Wayne, Macomb, Oakland and Livingston counties.

Decision to embrace Coulter stains community asset

A Livingston County community asset has recently taken a beating across the state, and rightly so, for its shortsighted and awful decision to embrace and endorse the hate speech and discrimination of hatemonger Ann Coulter by paying her $30,000 for a 90 minute rant.

But the truth is Cleary University is an excellent school, and it truly is a community asset. Hopefully, the leadership at the school will come to its senses before Oct. 1 and be a leader again. One Cleary program that has greatly benefited the community is holding a breakfast next week for anyone interested in participating in the program. Leadership Livingston has inspired community leaders for 14 years, and the movers and shakers of the community are among its graduates.

Leadership Livingston was formed as a partnership in 1992 between the school and the chambers of commerce in Brighton and Howell. Its many goals include identify existing and emerging leaders and to expand the number of informed, civic-oriented volunteer leaders; to provide information on community resources; to challenge participants to increase their knowledge and become actively involved in problem-solving in the community; to develop a core of individuals who will serve the county as a source for informed, motivated project leaders and to have an immediate positive effect on the participants, their organizations, and the community.

One a week from September through May the group of about 20 diverse people from the community in the program meet to learn about a particular area of the community, such as the local judicial system, state and local government, schools and human service agencies. Where LL has had its biggest positive effect on the community has been through its required community service project.

The class is divided into small groups of four to five people, and they choose a project to benefit the community that no one in the group has a background with, In other words, a person who works in the judicial system could not work on a project to benefit juvenile delinquents. He group must work on the project outside their normal meeting time.

The project I think that has had the biggest present and future positive effect – and the one I came in very close contact with – was the project to establish a YMCA in Livingston County.

The quest to bring a YMCA to Livingston Country – the largest not-for-profit service organization in the U.S. - began in October 2000 when a group of five people from the 2000 class of Leadership Livingston chose to conduct a feasibility study to see if there was interest in establishing a YMCA here. There was a groundswell of support.

The original group from LL stayed together after the program was over and held community meetings to gauge interest in bringing a YMCA to the county in July 2001, and the support was overwhelming. In October 2001 the YMCA of the USA conducted face-to-face interviews with 45 community, business and religious leaders in the county. That also revealed overwhelming interest.

The group eventually evolved to the YMCA Founding Committee, and organizers formed several study committees and then formed a board of directors. In 2003 the board decided to affiliate with the Metro Detroit YMCA instead of forming an independent YMCA. The Livingston County Family YMCA Founders Fundraising Campaign began in January of 2006 and continues. The YMCA requires three years of programs before it will allow any fundraising for a building, and programs have been underway for the last two years at various locations, mostly at Cleary. The executive director of the Livingston County Family YMCA - Dawn Palmer-Van Camp – was a member of that LL class back in 2000 as well as a former employee at Cleary.

An informal “Prospective Applicant Breakfast” for individuals interested in participating in the 2007-08 Leadership Livingston program is being held Tuesday, July 17 from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. at Cleary University in Genoa Township, 3750 Cleary Drive. Anyone interested in attending the breakfast, please RSVP to Program Director Janet Filip at 517.548.3670, ext. 2228 or via e-mail at: jfilip@cleary.edu.