Photo by Andrea Poteet

By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspapers
WYANDOTTE – The city’s new fire chief is a familiar face to many residents.

City Councilors Monday appointed Capt. Jeffery Carley to fill the chief position vacated by the retirement of Chief Michael MacDonald, who retired Jan. 17.

Carley, a 21-year veteran of the Fire Department, was approved by the Police and Fire Commission and the Firefighters Civil Service Commission after scoring the highest on a test for the position. One other firefighter took the test.

Mayor Joseph Peterson praised Carley for his commitment to the Fire Department.

“He bleeds that fire engine red,” Peterson said.

Peterson also noted that Carley has “big shoes to fill,” in MacDonald’s absence and faces one of the toughest economic climates of any fire chief. He also praised MacDonald for his dedication to the department, including working within an overtime budget that had been cut in half.

“It’s always easy to do something when you have lots of money,” Peterson said. “It’s hard to make decisions when you have limited money.”

Carley said he hopes to continue MacDonald’s strategies and make no big changes to the department’s operations.

“I hope I can do just half as well as Mike’s done,” Carley said. “Mike’s done a great job and hopefully we can continue to do that, continue to work forward.”

Photo courtesy of Corki Benson

Wyandotte’s 117-year-old Labadie house, 303 Maple, is for sale after undergoing a yearlong restoration by the Wyandotte Community Alliance. Potential buyers can view it at open houses from 1 to 4 p.m. today, and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Feb. 4 and 5. The asking price for the house is $250,000.

The City Council Jan. 9 voted to upload the city council agenda and the entire packet of background documents for each meeting available to the council to the city’s website prior to each meeting.

The packet, usually compiled the Friday before each Monday’s meeting, was frequently requested by meeting attendees, and in a letter to the council Director of Information Technology David Fuller outlined two possibilities for diseminating it – allowing people to subscribe to an email containing the packet from the City Clerk’s office, or, placing it on the website for anyone to download, a choice the council accepted as it would create less work for the department.

But the move could also create problems, city councilors said during the discussion. Councilman Daniel Galeski voiced concerns that the new policy could create liability issues for the city, as they could not pull inflammatory letters submitted to the council from the agenda at the last minute.

City Attorney William Look said the new policy would have to include efforts to make anyone submitting anything for inclusion on the agenda aware that it would be available for download.

“If someone brings something into the clerk’s office, once it’s received, it’s considered public record,” Look said. “If that’s a concern, maybe they should reconsider (submitting) that.”

Councilman Leonard Sabuda said he did not anticipate problems with the new policy.

“I’m sure after we put this thing together, if there’s a problem, we can always correct it at that particular time,” he said. “How many years have we gone through now with the clerk doing the agenda and we’ve gotten some crank on the agenda? Never.”

The remodeled house, in the 200 block of Cedar, was sold for $100,000 to Shawn Slagle, who plans to live there with her two children, Elizabeth, 6, and Mark, 9.

The NSP 2 program, a project of the U.S. Department of Housing, is designed to offer affordable housing to moderate and low-income families who have undergone credit counseling.

Through the program, Slagle, who now rents a home in Wyandotte, purchased the house through the program with a $73,000 mortgage; the rest is covered by a Michigan State Housing Development Authority loan that is forgiven after 15 years of living in the house.

Slagle submitted a bid for the house Dec. 15, after the required lottery for the house yielded no entries.

“I had so many people praying for me that I felt like George Bailey (from the 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life”),” Slagle said. “Two days before Christmas, I experienced a joy like no other — the sight of these two little faces lit up when I said, ‘Do you want to go see our new house?’”

Mayor Joseph Peterson welcomed Slagle to the city and to the rehabilitated house, which the city completely remodeled with funding from the $7.8 million NSP 2 grant.

“This program is meant for families like you,” Peterson said, “for your daughter and your son to grow up in a good neighborhood.”

Resident Richard Miller said the sale was proof that fears about the program’s homeowners, which spurned a string of vandalisms at NSP 2 building sites, are unfounded.

“We’ve had so many rumors about these homes,” Miller said, “what kind of people they are going to bring in, and now the community can see exactly what kind of people are coming in – a beautiful family is coming in. Quit worrying, let’s move on with this.”

But one councilman had concerns about the project moving forward. Councilman Daniel Galeski voiced concerns that a letter about the program from City Engineer Mark Kowalewski stated the houses were to be sold on a “first-come, first-serve,” basis. Galeski said he worried that letter set a precedent that the city would have to accept bids lower than the purchase price of NSP 2 houses if they were placed first.

Councilman James DeSana disagreed, saying the resolution on the project clearly states that the appraised value is the only acceptable bid.

“The resolution prevails,” DeSana said, “not a letter from an individual, whether it be a department head or not.”

Photo by Andrea Poteet

By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspapers
WYANDOTTE – For Wyandotte artist Patricia Izzo, a commitment to capturing life through her camera lens means a refusal to shy away from the dark side.

“Not everything is going to be beautiful,” Izzo says, standing in her studio in River’s Edge Gallery, “If you are with humanity, you have to go to both sides, the dark and the light.”

That mantra informs all of Izzo’s work, from a portrait of a man who cheated death several times only finally to succumb to a drug overdose, to her current exhibit, Affairs with Serpents and Heroines, at River’s Edge, where she is the artist in residence.

The show, which continues through Jan. 31, pairs Izzo’s fine art film and hand-painted photography with work from two other artists, Brigit Huttermann-Holz, who uses fire, beeswax, wood and paint to create multi-textured pieces, and Barbara Melnik Carson, who creates three-dimensional work with clay and found objects.

Together, the women tell stories of good and evil in all aspects of life, from mythology and history to fairy tales. The artists approached gallery owner Patt Slack with the idea more than a year ago.

“The idea was the dark and the light, the good and the bad, the joy and the sorrow, the challenge and the reward,” Izzo said.

A “meet the artists,” event for the exhibit is planned for Jan. 20 at the gallery, during the city’s Third Friday event.

The exhibit showcases Izzo’s prime source of inspiration: people. Her photographs feature no professional models, but friends, family and strangers as subjects and draw from themes she finds in books, films, and her own personal history.

A photograph entitled “Bad Geisha,” features her daughter as a geisha, with lipstick smeared over her mouth, as if from a kiss, after she read a book about geishas and learned that they were forbidden from falling in love.

Another, called “Pioneeress,” features a young girl holding a rifle, to represent Wild West heroine Calamity Jane. Other works in the collection pay homage to Emily Dickinson, Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz,” and Tinker Bell, and capture moments with her subjects, not poses.

She said she prefers to think of her subjects more as “collaborators” than models, and prefers the “tension,” and authenticity real people bring to her work, which has been showcased at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the University of Michigan Museum, and galleries stretching from Florida to Canada.

“I’m motivated by the human being and written word,” Izzo said, “the commonality of being human. My work tries to express that thread.”

Next, she will showcase that theme with the exhibit “Homage,” in which she will pay tribute to one of her photography heroes, Diane Arbus. The exhibit opens at the gallery Feb. 17.

Peterson Monday proposed a letter writing campaign to U.S. Rep. Hansen Clarke (D-13th District) and U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to help keep the post office — slated to close in June — open.

Peterson called the decision, announced Monday, “devastating,” and said he plans to write his own letter, offering the use of a portion of the future City Hall building on Eureka and Biddle as a satellite office. The city plans to complete its move to that building next year.

According to published reports, the Wyandotte and Riverview post offices are to close and operate out of the Southgate office.

The Postal Service rents the building at 166 Oak that houses the offices, and chose not to renew the lease when it expires in June, Peterson said.

At the meeting, Peterson lamented the decision, adding that nearby cities with smaller populations, like River Rouge, will retain their post offices.

Wyandotte officials commented on the decision Tuesday via their Facebook page, saying, “We have had a post office presence in the city since 1855,12 years prior to our incorporation as a city in 1867. The Wyandotte Post Office brings thousands of people to our downtown and offers an invaluable service to the citizens of our community.”

U.S. Postal Service representatives did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story by press time.

Letters may be directed to:

• The Honorable Patrick R. Donahoe, Postmaster General and CEO, United States Postal Service, 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, DC, 20260.

• Congressman Hansen Clarke, 400 Monroe St., Suite 290, Detroit, MI, 48226,
(313) 962-7700.

• Conressman Hansen Clarke, 1319 Longworth HOB, Washington, DC, 20515.

Photo by Andrea Poteet

Southgate Mayor Joseph Kuspa (center) stopped by Wyandotte’s City Council meeting Monday to present a $100 check to the Wyandotte Goodfellows as part of a longstanding bet he and Wyandotte Mayor Joseph Peterson have on the outcome of the last football game between the two cities each year. The mayor of the city with the losing team makes a donation to the Goodfellow chapter of the city with the winning team. Wyandotte Goodfellows President and Councilman Larry Stec (left) and Councilman and Goodfellows member Todd Browning (right) accept the check.

Proposed by the Archdiocese of Detroit’s Arcdiocesan Pastoral Council, comprising 1,500 volunteers from each of its 270 parishes, the recommendations include the closing of St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, which would merge with St. Joseph Parish in 2012. The newly created parish would then eventually consolidate with St. Patrick Catholic Church and Our Lady of Mount Carmel would consolidate with St. Stanislaus Kostka and one of the two buildings would close in the next three to five years, an archdiocese press release said.

The final closings are to be announced by Archbishop Allen Vigneron in February and closings are to gradually start over the next several years.

Archdiocese of Detroit Spokesman Joe Kohn said the closings are part of a two-phase planning process that began in 2004, with its second-phase, of which the closings are a part, beginning last year.

“This is part of long-term strategic planning,”Kohn said. “It’s not like we got to a certain point and said, ‘Oh, gosh, we’ve got to do something.’”

He said parish representatives considered factors including finances, attendance, availability of priests, and shifts in demographics in an area when considering which churches would close. St. Elizabeth, St. Joseph and St. Patrick have been part of the same “cluster,” sharing resources and a priest, since July 2010.

Kohn said he could not speak to reasons specific churches were closing, but said overall the representatives considered additional factors such as Mass attendance and the numbers of baptisms and funerals they have each year.

“If a parish has 500 families, they might be able to sustain themselves,” Kohn said. “But if over the course of a year, they have five baptisms and 25 funerals, that’s an eye-opener there.”

Kohn also said in most parishes, the plans to submit the church for consideration to Vigneron were well-known to parishioners. At this stage, he said, any of the listed churches could still come off the list.

“It is a planning process, not a contract,” Kohn said. “What is planned can change. Even after Archbishop Vigneron formulates a final plan, there are certain things that happen that aren’t expected. Nobody predicted such hard economic times 15 years ago. Hopefully unexpected things might be brighter than that for the future.”

The plans also call for St. Mary Magdeline in Melvindale and SS. Andrew and Benedict in Detroit to form a merger plan by 2013. St. Albert the Great Catholic Church and St. John the Baptist, both in Dearborn Heights, would merge and one of the buildings would close, and Dearborn’s St. Barbara and St. Alphonsus would develop a transition plan to merge one site with its cluster parish, Detroit’s St. Cunegunda.

Clusters, sharing church services with the potential for mergers, are suggested for St. Alfred and St. Constance, in Taylor; St. Henry in Lincoln Park; Our Lady of the Angels in Taylor and St. Frances Cabrini in Allen Park; and St. Joseph and St. Timony, both in Trenton.

The city recently received a $56,000 Wayne County Parks Department grant to replace one frequently used court in Memorial Park and two at Pulaski Park.

The Memorial Park project is to cost about $17,000 while the Pulaski courts will cost about $34,000 and the construction is slated to start in the spring.

Interim Recreation Superintendent Tim Beaker said the existing courts, built about 20 years ago, are cracked and could be trip hazards in two of the city’s most-used parks.

Beaker said the rebuild project is mostly a safety issue.

“The courts will give a new first look to the courts themselves,” Beaker said. “They’ll allow kids in the area to enjoy the space without the chance of getting hurt.”

According to a police report, approximately $5,000 in damage was found on city-owned Christmas displays at the intersections of Biddle and Sycamore and Biddle and Eureka Dec. 4.

A city employee reported the damage to holiday decorative lights, illuminated signs and decorative buildings, at about 1:30 p.m. that day. Several extension cords to the displays had also been cut.

Police have no suspects.