A 16-year-old Wyandotte boy was hit by a Western Canadian National train about 11:45 p.m. May 11 on the railroad tracks about 450 feet north of Oak Street, Police Chief Daniel Grant said.

Grant said a cow catcher on the train pushed the boy off the tracks; he was thrown from the tracks and suffered a laceration to the back of his head. Police are not releasing his name.

“He went flying quite a ways,” Grant said. “The fact that he even survived was quite remarkable.”

Grant said the boy, who is listed in good condition at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, had been laying down on the tracks, but police are not sure why, as they have not yet interviewed him.

Grant said the boy was alert and talking when police and paramedics responded.

This is the second incident of a boy being struck by a train this year. Fourteen-year-old Jacob Marion was struck Feb. 28 while walking down railroad tracks near Oak and Ninth and wearing headphones.

Grant said he doesn’t believe the incidents are attributed to a lack of security on the tracks, as people are often removed and ticketed for trespassing on them.

“It’s unfortunate,” Grant said. “We try to remind people. We have school programs about the danger of being around railroad tracks and we tell them its a violation of the law.”

By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspapers
WYANDOTTE – Two city employees were honored at a city council meeting Monday night for going above and beyond the call of duty during recent structure fires in the city.

Firefighter Jeff Prisza and Municipal Services Employee James Sneed were recognized for their actions during fires in March and April.

Sneed received commendation for his actions during a March 28 fire in the 480 block of Cedar. Sneed, who was working in the area, saw the smoke billowing out of the house and woke up the sleeping resident, dragging him out of the house before firefighters arrived.

“He should be recognized more than even us,” Fire Chief Jeff Carley said. “This is what we do. But he was able to discover the fire, notified us, and was able to lend assistance and aid the homeowner from the structure prior to our arrival.”

Sneed said he did what anyone else would do under the circumstances.

“I didn’t do it for the honor,” he said. “I just did it to help someone else. I hope that someone would help me out if I were in anything like that.”

The homeowner was not injured in the fire and Sneed has not met him since, but said he hopes he’s “doing great.”

Prisza was awarded for saving a family’s dog from an April 7 blaze in the 7200 block of Third Street.

The 2-year-old English pointer, named Layla, was kenneled in the basement while Scott and Karie Heinbokel and their adult daughter, Anna, were away from the house. An uncle, Bruce Donaldson, alerted firefighters to the dog’s presence and Prisza pulled her from the house before giving her his oxygen mask.

The dog stayed at a local animal hospital for two days where she recovered from smoke inhalation.

“She was coughing a lot,” Anna Heinbokel said. “Her breath smelled like smoke for a few weeks. Everytime she coughed it was like a puff of smoke.”

The causes of both fires were ruled undetermined.

Mayor Joseph Peterson said he’s proud to have a Fire Department committed to saving animal – as well as human – life.

“They realize it’s still a life,” Peterson said. “That’s what our firefighters do, save lives.”

Hike to battle WMS deficit

By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspapers
WYANDOTTE – Wyandotte Municipal Service cable subscribers will see their rates go up more than 20 percent in the next five years, as the company seeks to overcome a $1.5 million deficit.

WMS Assistant General Manager Paul LaManes presented the company’s deficit elimination plan — which includes staggered rate increases, beginning at 6 percent this fiscal year — at Monday’s City Council meeting.

Rates will continue to jump 4.5 percent in 2013, and 3.9 percent each year until 2016. In addition, subscribers will be charged a 3.3 percent retransmission fee and 5.5 percent franchise fee, beginning this year and set to bring in a combined $700,00 this year.

LaManes said the deficit is a result of capital investments, most of which included high definition television equipment, Internet hardware upgrades and investment in video on demand equipment. Rising royalty payments also are a factor, he said.

WMS Cable Superintendent Steve Timcoe said the company also failed to increase rates when it should have in recent years to “help ease the financial burden people were feeling.”

But for some councilors, the rate changes, based on a five-year cost of service study completed last July, should have came much sooner.

“I don’t understand how we run a business and we run it at a loss for a year,” Councilman James DeSana said. “If I had a product I was selling I’d probably be out of business by the end of the year if I sold it for less than it costs to operate my business.”

Timcoe said that in a recent cost analysis of competitors, he found that WMS rates fell an average of 25 percent behind other companies operating in the area.

Councilors accepted the deficit elimination plan with a stipulation that the department present a report on its progress every six months beginning in January.

EPA representative Brian Kelly spoke during Monday’s city council meeting about the EPA’s emergency cleanup of Detroit Tubular Rivet Co., 1213 Grove St., a manufacturer of bolts, nuts and rivets which went bankrupt in December 2010.

The site contains about 300 containers of hazardous chemicals, including cyanide and methylene chloride.

Kelly called the waste an “imminent threat to the community.”

“We consider that these drums are an urgent problem for the community and we consider removing them a priority,” he said.

An EPA report about the scheduled cleanup also found signs of trespassing, which could contaminate the area around the site if not immediately addressed.

“We are trying to step in before that occurs,” Kelly said. “The waste is abandoned and people could get in and track that outside the building. As long as we get in and address it, there’s no danger to the community.”

Kelly said all residents within a half mile of the cleanup were notified of it and the cleanup itself should not disrupt the
community in any way.

The $200,000 cleanup is scheduled to take four to six weeks and begin in mid-May.

The cleanup comes after a request from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which listed 16 hazardous waste violations in a letter to the company and cited them for failure to maintain hazardous waste containers in good condition, poor waste handling and other issues.

Kelly also said the city will in no way be held financially responsible for the cleanup, but the former owners may.

“If we find that the former owners had money to get rid of the waste and didn’t do it, we will seek reimbursement,” he said.

The City Council approved Monday to allow the Police Department to purchase a new K-9, to be trained in detecting narcotics and missing people.

The dog will cost $6,800 in addition to $4,100 in equipment and training, to come from drug forfeiture funds, Police Chief Daniel Grant said.

Officer Ken Groat was selected in an interview process as the K-9 officer, who will work with the dog.

The selections fill a hole in the department created when former K-9 officer Dan Foley retired early this year.

The German shepherd dog is to be purchased through Wayne’s K-9 Academy, which trains all K-9 dogs from area police departments.

By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspapers
WYANDOTTE – Mothers and daughters often share eye color, a trademark laugh, or similar world views.

But mother and daughter artists Mary Breen and Jasmine Leciejewski share a love of art, a close relationship, and a common inspiration: each other.

Breen, a Westland-based mixed-media artist, and Leciejewski, a Dearborn-based photographer, will showcase their work in an exhibit “A Mother and Daughter Meet: Finding Inspiration in Nature and Eachother,” at Biddle Gallery. The exhibit opened Friday and will run through May 12.

Leciejewski will sign copies of her book, “Sunbeam’s Daydream,” from noon to 4 p.m. May 5 at the gallery.

The exhibit will feature nature-based photographs by Leciejewski and paintings by Breen, along with many of Breen’s interpretations of her daughter’s photographs.

Leciejewski said she didn’t realize her mother was recreating her photographs until she saw one of the finished products.

“It’s both our perspectives on the same subject,” she said. “It’s really interesting to see.”

Growing up, Leciejewski, who photographs for advertising campaigns, said she was inspired by her mother’s love of art, which drew her to photography when she was given a camera by her aunt as a child.

Nowadays, she’s inspired by the fine, close-up details of nature, a trait she said she picked up from her mother.

“There’s definately beauty in the small things in life if you pay attention to them,” she said. “She definitely brought that to my life, to pay attention to your surroundings.”

Breen used her love of painting to teach art programs for children and seniors until she retired in 2005.

Mary Breen will showcase paintings like this one, “Sunset,” while her daughter, Jasmine Leciejewski, will showcase photographs that inspired many of the paintings.

Breen said the show, their first joint venture, is the the realization of a lifelong dream.

“It’s really a show about us inspiring each other,” Breen said. “It’s a dream come true for me. We’ve always wanted to do a show together and were always busy with this or that.”

Breen first began painting when she was 10, and more than 50 years later, she hasn’t stopped.

“I just always looked at things differently,” she said. “It’s just something I was stuck with when I was born. I was sort of a quiet kid and I always got out those crayons and those juicy markers. I don’t know if there was a big inspiration, it was just always there.”

And when she gave birth to her only child, she sought to pass on the past time that always brought her so much peace. She never thought, however, that her daughter would make a career out of it.

“I didn’t really encourage her to go into the art field, because its so hard to make a living, but she was just a natural,” Breen said. “There’s no way I could stop her.”

While Breen has completed a vast collection of paintings and other work, she said her daughter, at 36, has far surpassed her in skill.

“I am so proud,” Breen said. “I’m just bursting my buttons all over the place.”

The USPS announced in December that it planned to close the post office, at 166 Oak, in June along with 223 others set for consolidation as part of its study of more than 252 post offices last fall as a cost-cutting measure.

Original plans were for the Wyandotte and Riverview branches to close and consolidate with the Southgate branch. After the announcement, Peterson launched a letter writing campaign to save it; the campaign gained support from U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Dearborn) and others.

The Wyandotte and Riverview post offices are not listed on the USPS’s list of branches scheduled to close on its website.

The list originally contained about 17 post offices in Michigan set to close, a number now at seven. That figure can always be changed.

Wyandotte had offered the use of space in its new City Hall building, at the corner of Eureka and Biddle into which they are scheduled to move this year, for a post office.

Peterson said he will continue to advocate for a post office presence in Wyandotte, which has had one for more than 160 years.

“We will fight to make sure this doesn’t happen,” Peterson said. “And if it does, it won’t be because we didn’t try. If we see anything further, the citizens will be the first to know, because I’ll be asking you to write letters.”

The firefighter was treated at Wyandotte Henry Ford Hospital for minor shoulder injuries sustained fighting the blaze, which broke out about 6:15 p.m. that day.

Wyandotte and Southgate fire departments sent a combined 16 firefighters to fight the blaze, which took about three hours to extinguish.

The house, built in the 1890s, sustained “significant structural damage” to the kitchen, second-floor bathroom, and rear of the house.

Carley said the cause of the fire is undetermined.

The blaze was the third such large structural blaze in a two-week period. Similar fires took place March 28 in the 400 block of Cedar and April 6 in the 970 block of Maple. Arson was ruled out of each of the fires, but their causes are still officially undetermined.

Carley said the rash of structure fires is unusual for the department, which usually responds to about 40 fires each year, the majority of which involve only the contents of a building.

“This was quite a little stretch there,” Carley said. “To have three significant structure fires and two back-toback like that is outside the norm for us.”

Councilors had purchased the building at 936 Ford to demolish it, as the building sits close to the curb and blocks the view of southbound drivers on Electric.

But at a recent meeting, councilors voted not to demolish the building and started a bid process for its restoration, a decision Councilman James DeSana, who was absent from that meeting, decried in a letter to the council read at Monday’s meeting.

“There was no reason given at the meeting for the change in plans,” DeSana, who watched it on television, said. “It appears to me that some discussion must have taken place privately between individuals that changed the direction of the plan to tear down the building and put the land out for bid.”

DeSana urged councilors to stick with the original plan to demolish and seek a builder to construct a new building that would improve traffic flow and bring in more tax dollars for the city.

“I stil feel that the building ought to be torn down,” he said. “Maybe in five to 10 years, we’ll make up what you may receive from someone else.”

Of four received bids, only one, a $1 bid from Joe DeSanto of Coachlight Properties, which did not meet the minimum bid requirement of $13,120, met the specifications and permitted use of the zoned district. DeSanto said he still wanted to remodel the building, and his low bid reflected the $15,000 estimated cost for removing the first 10 to 15 feet of the building to improve visibility for drivers. The bidder of the minimum bid has since rescinded it.

City Attorney William Look said if no one meets the minimum bid, the city can act at its discretion.

DeSanto said he could finish the building in about a year and hopes to find a long-term tenant in the medical field.

“The intentions are to turn the building into something we can all be proud of,” he said.

The city council voted to refer the issue to the city engineer and the land sale committee for a report back in two weeks. City Engineer Mark Kowalewski also recommended an ordinance change for a 10-foot setback for corner buildings and a five-foot setback for all other buildings.

“We have a situation here that we don’t feel is amenable to our city but we need to look at all the locations in our city too,” he said.