Photo by J. Patrick Pepper

By J. PATRICK PEPPER
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN — A group of young children, their father and grandfather were hit by a pickup truck on Tuesday while waiting on their bicycles for a traffic light on the south median of the Telegraph-Oxford intersection.

The children, ages 4, 6 and 8, suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were transported by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment, police said. The father and grandfather also received treatment for non-life-threatening injuries. All are expected to make full recoveries.

Dearborn Police Sgt. Doug Topolski said that 40-year-old Kristin Mandernach of Dearborn was issued a ticket for disregarding a traffic control device, which carries a maximum fine of $160 and three points to her record.

According to witnesses, Mandernach was headed east on Oxford when she ran a red light, causing a Dodge Ram pickup truck headed south on Telegraph to smash into her. The impact sent the truck and Mandernach’s Ford Flex skidding toward the intersection, where the bicyclists were waiting to cross.

Mandernach suffered what police described as non-life-threatening injuries and was taken out of her car on a stretcher by paramedics. She also had as passengers a 3-year-old and 4-year-old, who were not injured. Police didn’t say if they were her children.

The driver of the pickup walked away from the accident.

A crowd of pedestrian onlookers gathered at the accident scene. As emergency responders shuttled back and forth between the damaged vehicles, most people focused on the mangled bicycles jammed underneath the front end of the truck.

“My God, I don’t know how anyone could survive something like this,” said a woman who had pulled her car into a parking lot nearby to get a closer look.

Big changes for Michigan Ave. hospitality market

By J. PATRICK PEPPER
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN — The seismic restructuring of the local hotel market continued last week with the announcement that one property is under contract to change hands and another one already has changed brands.

The distressed Hyatt Regency-Dearborn, which has been operating under receivership since last year, is under contract to be sold for $20 million to an unidentified buyer, according to the broker who handled the deal.

Rick George of Chicago-based HREC Investment Advisors said in published reports that the new owners will keep the hotel open as a Hyatt, and that the sale should close by December. The final sale price actually will be $12.5 million due to undisclosed structural issues that will be addressed by the new owners, George said.

Built in 1976, the 772-room hotel last was sold in 2007 for $40 million to Dallas-based real estate investment group Ashford Hospitality Trust. Ashford defaulted on a $32.5 million mortgage for the property in December.

The HREC listing for the hotel estimated it would cost $155 million to rebuild it today from scratch. One of the selling points cited in the listing is the partial financing that is secured for a city-built convention center near the hotel. City officials previously said they hoped to work with the new owner, whoever it was, toward a management agreement for the proposed meeting center.

George did not return a telephone call seeking comment for this story before press time.

Across Michigan Avenue at the former Hampton Inn, new signage has been installed denoting the hotel as the Dearborn West Village Inn. Hampton Inn corporate parent Hilton Worldwide did not renew the property owners’ franchise because the owners declined participation in a brandwide capital improvement program.

But Michigan Avenue may not be without a Hampton Inn for long.

Southfield-based real estate development company Investico Development Co. has plans to build one at the southwest corner of Telegraph and Michigan and demolition contractors recently finished razing the two buildings that formerly occupied the 4.57 acre site, a movie Showcase Cinema movie theater and Wendy’s fast food restaurant.

Investico also is behind the nearly completed Holiday Inn Express a quarter-mile west on Michigan Avenue. The 100-room hotel, which officially will be known as the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Dearborn West, is accepting reservations for arrivals after Nov. 7, according to an announcement posted last week on the company’s Website.

Photo by J. Patrick Pepper

By J. PATRICK PEPPER
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN — The incendiary debate over a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan is reverberating far from the shores of the bustling island borough.

Located two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, the project has drawn varied criticisms from mostly conservative factions. Some have likened it to putting a Nazi billboard at the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C., or an anti-government militia’s billboard outside the Albert P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee, said the building would be insensitive to families of 9/11 victims who still are grieving and see Islam as responsible for the attacks.

Even President Barack Obama hasn’t been entirely supportive of it, saying that while he supports the group’s right to build a house of worship there, he would not comment on the political wisdom of the selected location.

But as the debate has evolved so has the rhetoric – and rationale – of the opposition. One of the biggest critics of the project, conservative blogger Pam Geller, has called it a “triumphal mosque” designed to celebrate the 9/11 hijackers’ victory on “conquered lands.” Geller, who is part of a group called “Stop Islamization of America,” has become a fixture on national news outlets as a poster child for the anti-mosque movement.

And with an apparent disregard for the first amendment, former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich equates the situation thusly: “There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia,” the presumptive 2012 Republican candidate for president said in a statement.

As the war of words has become more vitriolic, anti-Islamic sentiment also appears to be on the rise. Public opinion polls show increasing opposition to the New York mosque as the debate has worn on, and instances of anti-Islamism from across the country have been featured in dozens of news stories.

In Tennessee, for example, three plans for new Islamic centers in the Nashville area — one of which eventually was withdrawn — have provoked protests and angry outbursts. Members of one mosque there discovered a Jerusalem cross spray-painted on the side of their building with the words “Muslims go home.”

In Jacksonville, Fla., the pastor of an evangelical church has scheduled what he calls “International Burn a Koran Day,” to “send a message,” he said, “to Muslims across the world.”

And on Wednesday, a Muslim cab driver in New York was assaulted by a passenger who allegedly said “Assalamu Alaikum (a Muslim greeting meaning ‘peace be upon you’), consider this a checkpoint,” before slashing him in the throat, arms, and hand.

Muslims and non-Muslims Arabs have followed the controversy with rapt attention, here in metropolitan Detroit, which is home to the largest per-capita Middle Eastern population in the United States.

At Al-Ameer restaurant on Warren Avenue, Lebanese Christian Rafi Berry lamented the situation as he shared an iftar dinner with some Muslim friends on Wednesday.

“Christian, Muslim – it doesn’t matter,” he said. “(Arabs) all get the same hard stare at security checkpoints, we all get the same dirty looks from some people. In the minds of most Americans we are the same.” His friends nodded in agreement.

Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights called the controversy “tragic” and said it was unfair to lump Islam in with the radical extremists who perpetrated 9/11.

“There were Muslims who died in the World Trade Center, too,” he said. “This is so unfortunate that, during the month of Ramadan, Muslims have been put under attack by political people for selfish reasons. I know that this is not what is in the hearts of most Americans.”

Elahi said he is concerned that the growing public visibility of anti-Islamic cabals could lead to hate crimes against Muslims, though he downplayed the likelihood locally, saying that Muslims have been greeted with considerably more tolerance here than in most parts of the country.

University of Michigan-Dearborn political science professor Ronald Stockton agreed with that assessment, noting that according to public polls, little more than 25 percent of Americans know a Muslim. While he did not provide a specific estimate, he said that percentage is much higher in metro Detroit.

“Social science research has established that once you know someone, you stop looking at them as a stereotype and you start looking at them as a human being, with all of the positives and negative traits we all have,” said Stockton, a co-author of the recently published book “Citizenship and Crisis: Arab Detroit after 9/11.”

For his work on the book, Stockton was part of a team of researchers that surveyed more than 1,000 Arab-Americans in the metropolitan Detroit area about their beliefs on everything from foreign policy to civil rights.

Stockton said that as a political scientist, he sees this controversy as a matter of opportunistic GOP members trying to capitalize on an abstract — but powerful — idea for the upcoming Congressional midterm elections.

“I think that most of this is going to go away once the elections are over,” Stockton said. “There just won’t be anything to gain after that.”

Timothy O’Reilly, 37, will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole after the 12-member jury on Aug. 24 in the U.S. District for the Eastern District of Michigan was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether to put him to death for his involvement in the fatal shooting of Total Armored Services guard Norman Stephens, age 30, during a robbery at Dearborn Federal Credit Union at Fairlane Town Center.

O’Reilly’s case was a rare one for Michigan, which has not allowed capital punishment since 1846, when it became the first state in the country to ban the practice. But the death penalty is still allowed in certain federal cases, provided jurors reach a unanimous decision.

Federal prosecutors, however, have authorized the death penalty for O’Reilly’s accomplices in the $204,000 heist. Norman Duncan and Kevin Watson will face trial in coming months.

The last time someone was sentenced to death in Michigan was 2002. The defendant in that case currently is on death row. No one has been executed in a Michigan death penalty case since 1938.

Photo by Chris Jackett

Southfield Road project on final leg

By CHRIS JACKETT
Sunday Times Newspapers
ALLEN PARK – Area residents tired of the orange barrels through the heart of the city shouldn’t expect relief anytime soon.

Three new construction projects have been given the go-ahead while Southfield Road is still a traffic cluster due to ongoing construction.

The second of the four projects hasn’t even begun yet. Philomene will be converted from a one-way street to two-way traffic between Roosevelt and Allen roads.

City Engineer Rick Lang said Wednesday that the signage should be changed within the next two weeks. All that would be left to do is inform the public of the modification, which should ease navigation through the downtown area near the Civic Arena.

The measure is one of two brought forth by the Downtown Development Authority.

The other is improvements to the city-owned parking lot south of the PNC Bank and Ruby Tuesday restaurant, west of Allen Road between Philomene and Southfield Road.

Lang did not have a timetable for the project, and DDA Director Mike Donofrio did not return messages left Thursday seeking comments.

Lang said the city also would resurface Ecorse Road between Norwood (just west of the railroad tracks) to Pelham Road, but that project won’t begin until spring 2011 at the earliest.

“The resurfacing project will be two weeks, if that,” Lang said.

Ramps that intersect with Ecorse also will be resurfaced, causing the entire project to last about three to four weeks.
Lang said general maintenance all over the city, including spot concrete and joint repairs, can be expected throughout the year.

The $16.5-million Southfield Road project that extends from Porter near I-75 in Lincoln Park northwest to Pinecrest Drive (near I-94) has been a thorn is drivers’ sides for nearly a year, but Michigan Department of Transportation spokesman Rob Morosi said the end is approaching soon.

“At this point in time, we’re progressing and confident we’ll be able to get everything opened up by early November,” he said. “The road is open. Frequent the businesses. We’re coming around the final curve.”

He added that a few minor repairs may be needed in the spring, but only would close small portions of Southfield for a week or two at a time.

The 1.75-mile project began last fall with sewer work, most of which is now complete.

“Most of that went in toward the median side first,” Morosi said. “Most of the work to date in the right two lanes are the tie-ins for drainage. Minimal portions of the drainage is complete; the main line is under the left lanes.”

As for the construction cones that extend north onto Southfield Freeway, Morosi said those are just to start the traffic shift early for southbound travelers before the freeway curves into the construction zone along Southfield Road.

(Contact Chris Jackett at cjackett@bewickpublications.com)

Photo by Chris Jackett

By CHRIS JACKETT
Sunday Times Newspapers
MELVINDALE – The city is losing one of its longest-serving employees next month.

Department of Public Works Commissioner Eric Witte is retiring from his post with the city Sept. 30, although his last day will be Sept. 24, when a retirement party will take place 6:30 p.m. at the Civic Arena, 4300 S. Dearborn.

A Melvindale resident his entire life, Witte, 50, began working with the city when he was in high school. He spent the summer of 1976 working at the city pool before spending two years working at the ice arena.

“My idea of fun as a kid was to go across the railroad tracks and dig at what we called ‘The Holes,’ “ Witte said. “Here I am, still digging holes.”

Witte comes from a long line of residents who gave back to the community they lived in. His grandmother was born in Melvindale in 1908 in a house built on Outer Drive by his great-grandfather. Witte currently owns the house next door, which was built in 1909 by his great-grandfather’s brother.

“Melvindale was incorporated in the living room of the house I own,” he said of the historic 1924 event that made Melvindale a city.

His grandfather worked with the DPW from the 1930s to the 1960s, and his father and uncle spent a combined 71 years of service with the Police Department after both started there in 1953.

With all that family history, it was no surprise that Witte got involved with his community.

After high school, Witte spent most of 1978 working in road construction and took courses in law enforcement at Henry Ford Community College before he was laid off. He took a job as a building material wholesaler for a Detroit company until April 1981, when he quit to take a position with Melvindale’s DPW. He’s been there ever since.

“Initially I had considered a career in law enforcement,” Witte said. “My dad didn’t want me to get into police and law enforcement. You get three seconds to make a decision, and they spend three years deciding if it was right or not.”

After working with the DPW for a few years, his former boss from the ice arena, who now was with Public Works, sent Witte to take some educational courses in 1984.

“He sent me to some classes to get my water operator’s license,” Witte said. “I was always good in school.”

Witte got his initial license in 1985 and passed the test to service any size department in 1991. He also got an associate degree in business administration from HFCC in 1983 and his residential builders license in 1984, allowing him to become a building inspector for city.

Turning down multiple offers from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources between 1986 and 1987, Witte elected to stay in his hometown.

“I looked around at who I was working with and realized it wouldn’t be too long until I was in charge,” he said.

In 1989, Witte was named commissioner of public works, building and safety. Three years later, his position was combined with the other commissioner role that handled water and sewer. He also was named Downtown Development Authority director in 1994.

He said a lot has changed in the past 30 years. Residents call the DPW to sweep up broken glass in their driveways now, whereas they would just do it themselves 30 years ago.

“There’s always something,” Witte said. “It’s harder to respond to the request for service from the citizens with the reduction of manpower. We don’t have the money to fix everything.”

The DPW had a total of 23 employees in the 1980s and has just 10 now. Working extra hours has become a regular part of the job for Witte, but he said it gets to a point daily where he has to go home and let some things wait until the next day.

“There’s a lot of stuff I’d like to see done, I’d like to see fixed,” he said.

Some highlights of Witte’s tenure with the DPW include a $2.5 million project sanitary pump station construction project and brainstorming work with the Detroit Sewer and Water Department’s wholesale meter reading system, which Melvindale now uses to monitor water pressures and how many of gallons of water are being used at any given time.

Witte served as the Downriver branch president of the American Public Works Association in 2000, which led to the presidency position for the entire Michigan chapter in 2007 and 2008.

He contemplated returning to college to pursue a bachelor’s degree in engineering, but decided to put his time and efforts toward improving the city.

“We don’t have a lot of substandard housing in this community anymore,” Witte said of one of his accomplishments.

Although he is retiring from the city, Witte said he’ll remain a resident, mainly because of the poor housing market.

“I’m here for a while. It’s still a dream to retire to the (Upper Peninsula),” Witte said.

At age 50, Witte’s retirement is more of a financial move than anything else. He makes about $79,000 annually and plans to be one of several DPW directors and city engineers in southeastern Michigan who have retired from a position in one city and then move on to fill a similar position in a nearby city.

“My plans are to hopefully stay in the public works field, hopefully within commuting distance. I’m too young to do nothing,” Witte said. “I think they’re going to try to absorb the position, although I don’t know how.”

His retirement from the city also means he’ll give up his position as DDA director per pension regulations that require complete separation for 30 days, starting Sept. 30. Witte also worked with the zoning board of appeals and the planning and beautification commissions.

Witte said he has been appointed by four mayors and nine city councils.

His immediate post-retirement plans include tenting for a week in November during deer season. He hopes to find a new position to begin just after Thanksgiving.

For information on Witte’s Sept. 24 retirement party at the Civic Arena or to purchase tickets for $25, which includes a gift and cannot be purchased at the door, call Joan Luke at (313) 429-1060.

(Contact Chris Jackett at cjackett@bewickpublications.com)

Eugene Icenogle was headed east on North Line at Reeck Road in his Buick LeSabre when it left the roadway, glanced off a stone wall and struck a tree on the driver’s side, tearing off the fender and wheel.

“It does not appear to be any type of hazardous driving that caused the accident,” Detective Sgt. Tim Scott said.

Police said Icenogle did not appear to have been killed by the crash and believe the accident and his death may have been caused by some type of medical reaction.

Scott said a medical examination is being conducted to determine the cause of death.

Photos by Chris Jackett

The Allen Park Animal Shelter, 16850 Southfield Road, is housed at the rear of a large blue building behind the City Hall parking lot. Shelter hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, Thursday, Friday and noon to 3 p.m. Tuesday. The shelter is closed Wednesdays. Cat adoptions cost $35 and dog adoptions cost $45; both include adoption fees. Animals have been spayed/neutered through a state grant and tested for feline leukemia/AIDS and canine heartworm disease. Adopters receive a discount certificate for post-adoption veterinary care at Dix Animal Hospital, 1127 Dix in Lincoln Park. For more information call the shelter at (313) 282-6173 or go to www.petfinder.com/shelters/allenpark.html.

About 12:30 p.m. Aug. 20, a man described as a black male in a white T-shirt and driving a black 2007 Pontiac Grand Prix robbed TCF Bank,16350 Fort St. in Southgate.

Downriver Central Dispatch made the call to all Southgate and Wyandotte patrol units to keep an eye out for the suspect.

A Wyandotte officer in the parking lot of CVS/pharmacy on the southeast corner of Fort and North Line Road saw the suspect traveling north in the described Grand Prix. The officer turned out of the parking lot to follow the suspect’s vehicle north.

The officer saw Watkins observe the patrol car’s presence, which resulted in the quick maneuver of the Grand Prix – which is registered to a Southgate woman – across two lanes of traffic to get into the turnaround for southbound Fort.

At that point a Southgate officer also joined the chase.

Watkins saw southbound traffic stopped at a red light and turned the Grand Prix into the 7-Eleven on the northwest corner of Fort and North Line. He slowed down as if he was going to park the vehicle.

The Wyandotte officer turned on his car’s emergency lights, at which point the Grand Prix accelerated through the parking lot and into westbound traffic on North Line. Both officers pursued the vehicle west at speeds exceeding 80 miles per hour as it weaved throughout traffic.

After disregarding a red light at Dix-Toledo Road, Watkins sped up to faster than 100 mph while disregarding a red light at Fordline and nearly colliding with a white convertible that was turning left off Fordline onto westbound North Line.

He was forced to slow down at the I-75 interchange and nearly collided with two other vehicles. Watkins then maneuvered around others and onto northbound I-75.

The Grand Prix accelerated to more than 120 mph while weaving through traffic. Watkins temporarily slowed down as if he was getting off at the Outer Drive exit, but cut off several vehicles to merge back onto northbound I-75.

Pursuit continued as the Grand Prix forcibly turned off I-75 at the Schaefer Road exit, but Watkins was unable to control his vehicle at the high speed he was traveling and the car left the roadway off the left edge of the ramp, going over a curb and hitting a large amount of gravel.

Officers briefly lost sight of the vehicle as it hit the gravel and kicked up debris, but the car had rolled over at least once when leaving the road and coming to a stop.

When the dust settled, officers ordered Watkins out of the vehicle and to the ground at gunpoint.

He was handcuffed and a large amount of money and a loaded black semiautomatic handgun were found at the scene.

(Contact Chris Jackett at cjackett@bewickpublications.com)

The fun starts at 8 a.m. today with registration for the car show, followed by the show iitself at 11 a.m. The horseshoe tournament starts at noon, as does a Moslem Shriners outreach clinic.

The event also will feature a game-filled midway and carnival rides. Musical entertainment will be provided by the Bel Airs from 5 to 8:45 p.m.; the park closes at 9.

Lincoln Park Days is organized and operated by the Lincoln Park Exchange Club. For more information contact Debbie VanCleave at (734) 560-1121.