Downtown Newsmagazine | Birmingham/Bloomfield

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POLICING TECHNOLOGY IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES

As law enforcement resources become increasingly stretched, many law enforcement departments have begun to harness the capabilities of hightechnology cameras to investigate crimes.

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CRIME MAP

A recap of select categories of crime occurring in the past month in Birmingham, Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills, presented in map format, plus a reminder about our online interactive map with story details on public safety incidents.

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OAKLAND CONFIDENTIAL

Democrats and Republicans line up for U.S. Senate contest; Genesee County Sheriff officially declares for governor; public safety unions jump on Duggan train; DePerno hit with another complaint; plus more.

51 MUNICIPAL

Community center lease talks; two city bistro licenses held up; changes at Bistro Joe’s, Brooklyn Pizza; township budget in the works; new township hall proposed; jury awards $138 million verdict; plus more.

Photo by Theodore Michael

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David Hohendorf

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Lisa Brody

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Hillary Brody Anchill | Cris Braun | Dana Casadei | Tracy Donohue | Stacy Gittleman | Austen Hohendorf

Grace Lovins | Jeanine Matlow | Gigi Nichols | Susan Peck | Carla Schwartz | Michael Scott | Mark H. Stowers

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Laurie Tennent | Matthew Cromwell | Theodore Michael | Mackenzie O'Brien

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CRIME MAP

INCOMING

New community center

Your February Endnote analysis and recommendations regarding the new Birmingham Community Center/Next/YMCA project made a lot of sense and publishing it was sorely needed.

If we (the residents of Birmingham) are going to support this effort, let’s do it right.

Thank you.

Jack Burns Birmingham

Put FOIA on ballot

I loved David Hohendorf’s column in the February isaue.

We desperately need FOIA in Michigan state government and we need to get the dark money our of politics.

Two daunting tasks. It looks like putting it on the ballot is the only way to get this done (I did not know this was even an option).

All politicians say yes we need transparency but they never act on it.

I am ready to sign the petition to get this on the ballot and I hope some group takes the initiative.

Name withheld on request Bir mingham

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Resist even harder

Donald Trump taking the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement is the opposite of what needs to be done in the face of the L.A. wildfires and last fall’s hurricanes. But now is not the time to despair; we must resist even harder.

Several states, including Michigan and Minnesota, have passed legislation mandating that one hundred percent of electricity be from renewable sources by 2024. More states will do the same if we press our state representatives and senators.

In December, Montana’s supreme court upheld a suit filed by young people claiming that, by allowing oil, natural gas, and coal projects to continue, the state was violating its constitutional right to a clean environment.

We should push for a similar amendment in our own state.

Polls show that most Americans support climate action, and if we step up in our cities and states, we can still win.

Luke Daniels Rochester

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OAKLAND CONFIDENTIAL

Oakland Confidential is a column of political gossip/news, gathered both on and off-therecord. We welcome possible items for this column which can be emailed to: OaklandConfidential@DowntownPublications.com. All sources are kept strictly confidential.

U.S. SENATE GOP FIELD: The list of possible candidates for the U.S. Senate seat in Michigan seems to grow on a daily basis since Senator Gary Peters (D) announced weeks ago that he would not seek another term in 2026. At last count the speculation about possible contenders incudes about a dozen hopefuls who could throw their hat in the ring to be sorted out in an August 2026 primary for both political parties. On the Republican side, we find the name of west Michigan Congressman Bill Huizenga, whose Trump bona fides include being party to a federal lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 election; Michigan state Senator Jonathan Lindsey (RColdwater); Macomb-Oakland Congressman John James; and former US House member Mike Rogers who lost by less than one percentage point to Senator Elissa Slotkin in 2024 for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the retirement of Democrat DebbieStabenow.

A top Republican said, “He’s running. He already has the name ID. He’ll need to raise the money – and he will.”

While no formal committees have been formed, so personal fundraising has yet to start, Huizenga sits with $1 million cash on hand, but Rogers has nearly twice that amount ($1.922 million) for a race that will draw considerable outside donations that could push overall spending into the range of $150-$200 million. Rogers in recent polling has a marginal lead over likely Democrat candidates.

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U.S. SENATE DEM FIELD: Among a larger field of possible contenders, here’s the current gossip about the possible Democrats looking at a run for the open Senate seat. The list includes Pete Buttigieg, former presidential candidate and then Transportation Secretary in the Biden administration, who moved to Michigan in 2022, which could be an issue in the race regardless of high name recognition. The name of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is being floated but recent polls show her considerably behind Buttigieg. Also in the mix is the name of Michigan Senate Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow (DRoyal Oak, Birmingham) who has grown her state and national recognition, especially after addressing the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Then there is Congresswoman Haley Stevens (D-Oakland County) who says she is seriously looking at a run after r uling it out in the 2024 Senate race. One political insider offered that Stevens would be better off remaining in the House where she could have the post for life in the Democrat-leaning district that includes most of Oakland County, giving her a powerful position in that chamber. Although she has recently stepped up her social media presence and appearances on national television, one prognosticator said she will have to make up considerable ground in the next year to be ready for a state-wide race. Congresswoman Hillary Scholten of Grand Rapids is also considering a run. A name that has recently been thrown in the mix is former Wayne County Health Department Director and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Not much to report on the campaign cash front given that no one has filed a formal campaign committee, although Stevens has about $754,000 cash on hand in an existing committee; the same with Scholten with $346,000 on hand; Buttigieg transferred about $1.4 million from his presidential run to an ERA PAC; and both McMorrow and Nessel are considered prodigious fundraisers.

HUIZENGA

ROGERS

LINDSEY

BUTTIGIEG

MCMORROW

STEVENS

SCHOLTEN

GUBERNATORIAL GALLOP: While several aspirants consider their political future as senatorial candidates, a slew of others are lining up to run for the vacant governor’s seat when Gretchen Whitmer moves out of the mansion due to term limits. Democrat Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s term-limited Secretary of State, has officially announced she’s running, and is already picking up a stack of endorsements, while other potential candidates are still considering a run. EMILYs List, the Democratic group aimed at electing female candidates, officially threw its support behind Benson in late January, as have several notable fundraisers, including Lisa Mark Lis and Marcy Hermelin Orley, who is her campaign finance director. Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson has also announced he’s running to be the Democratic nominee for governor. Swanson came to wider prominence in 2020 during the George Floyd protests, when he put aside his protective gear and joined protesters in a move that went viral. He was also invited to speak at the DNC convention last summer. At his announcement he suggested that Lansing be rebranded a “help center.” Also seriously mulling jumping in the Dem pool, by all accounts, is Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrest II. Gilchrest ruled out a Senate run, with sources close to him reporting he is seriously considering a run for governor. The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association announced they plan to spend seven figures – as much as $1.5 million – to support his run if he gets in. Some politicos believe Gilchrest, who is a Black Detroiter, will rally African Americans in Detroit to turn out for him. Nolan Finley of The Detroit News speculated that Gilchrest’s clout with Detroiters, along with Benson’s fundraising prowess, are large reasons that Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced his run for governor as an independent. While fundraising numbers for all of these candidates were slim or non-existent for late 2024, don’t count any of them – including Duggan –out. Word is Duggan has held fundraisers, or get-to-know-you’s, at wealthy Democrat homes where primarily Republican honchos have been invited.

LAW ENFORCEMENT BOOST: Speaking of the governor’s race, in a unique endorsement, Detroit’s public safety unions have already come out in favor of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who is running as an independent candidate for governor. In a first-of-its kind endorsement, the Detroit Police Officers Association, Detroit Fire Fighters Association and Detroit Police Lieutenants and Sergeants Association all announced they were endorsing Duggan for governor, the first time the unions have not endorsed the Democratic candidate for governor, due to his commitment to public safety and proven track record of supporting Detroit’s law enforcement and firefighter communities, they said in a release. “Michigan’s next governor has to prioritize the safety of first responders and our communities. Detroit is proof you can do both successfully and serves as an example of what can be done across Michigan,” said DPOA President Craig Miller. “Duggan’s leadership as mayor has been transformative for Detroit, driving down crime and improving the quality of life for residents. We believe his vision and dedication make him the right choice to lead Michigan as governor.”

FAMILIAR TERRITORY: The new junior U.S. Senator from Michigan, Democrat Elissa Slotkin, ended up with some plum committee assignments, being named to panels much like she had held during her time in the U.S. House. When in the House, she was a member of the following committees: Armed Services; Homeland Security and Government Affairs; and Agriculture. In the Senate, she now sits on the Armed Services; Homeland Security and Government Affairs; Veterans’ Affairs; and the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry committees. On the latter panel she takes the post held by former Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, which was a critical spot as far as the farming industry in Michigan is concerned. In the Armed Services panel, she was also assigned to the Cyber Security subcommittee; the Airland subcommittee; and was named the Ranking Member of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee. Michigan’s senior Senator, Democrat Gary Peters, is a member of Armed Services and the three subcommittees with Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who did three tours in Iraq and national security roles at the Pentagon and White House under President Bush and President Obama. She is the first former CIA member to be elected to the Senate.

BENSON COMPLAINT: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson got hit with a formal complaint by the state Republican party for her alleged violation of the Campaign Finance Act for her gubernatorial campaign announcement in the lobby of the Richard H. Austin Building in Lansing. The act specifically prohibits use of public resources in a campaign, which the GOP complaint says is exactly what took place when the SOS used a public building to make her announcement of the run for governor next year. Violation of the law is considered a misdemeanor, with a possible fine of $1,000 or incarceration for up to one year. Normally such a complaint would be the purview of the Bureau of Elections but due to the obvious conflict with Benson as SOS, it has been transferred to the office of attorney general.

GOP GOVERNOR’S RACE: As we wrote last month, Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R-Porter Township) has officially thrown his hat in the ring with a video launch to introduce himself to voters statewide. He raised over $1 million in the first 72 hours after his announcement, making it a successful (at least financial) launch. Also ready to pounce is former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who formed a fundraising committee, Mike Cox 2026, and put $1 million in it. We await his official announcement for governor any day. The big kahuna, with some of the most speculation (other than Democrat Pete Buttigieg) revolves around Rep. John James of Shelby Township, who represents Macomb County and part of Oakland. While he just won his congressional seat for the second time, and would have to give it up to run for governor or senate, prognosticators on both sides of the aisle are pretty certain James will definitely run for one of the higher posts. He has long been considered a top contender for governor, and now with the credentials of a congressman, will have more gravitas than running as a former helicopter pilot, as he twice did for Senate (2018 and 2020). While there is speculation that he could choose to run once again for Senate, a longtime Republican politico disagrees and believes James will mount a run for governor. “Governor has more power,” he pointed out. While James is keeping quiet on his future plans – or even if he’ll just run for re-election for his House seat – he posted on X after Sen. Gary Peter’s retirement announcement, “Brighter days are ahead for Michigan!” Former Republican candidate for governor Perry Johnson of Bloomfield Township has told cronies (and everyone within earshot) he’s running for governor, and Tudor Dixon, who was trounced by Whitmer in 2022, is expected to run as well. There’s sure to be several more who announce before the sawdust settles

PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM: The hits keep coming for 2022 Republican attorney general candidate Matt DePerno, who lost in a landslide to Democrat incumbent Dana Nessel. He then missed gaining the reins of the Michigan GOP to the infamous Kristina Karamo, at the same time as the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission investigated complaints as to whether he committed alleged misconduct against former clients. We’ve yet to hear from the commission, which could discipline him if they find him at fault – including the ultimate penalty of revoking his license to practice law. Now comes another complaint, filed January 21, 2025, by Timothy Rugg with the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission, alleging DePerno failed to provide competent legal representation to a client as well as improper billing. Rugg hired DePerno in 2022 to represent him when he felt he was improperly fired as a fire inspector for Ann Arbor after refusing to get a Covid vaccine when his religious exemption request was denied. Rugg claimed DePerno failed to respond to union arbitration hearing requests, did not let him know when those union arbitration hearings were occurring, and did not respond to numerous emails from Rugg about updates on his lawsuit against the city of Ann Arbor. Then DePerno hit him up with almost $10,000 worth of billing. “It’s just what he (DePerno) did before. He takes the clients’ money but he doesn’t represent them,” said a top Republican. DePerno has blamed all his problems on Democratic opponents.

BENSON

SWANSON

NESBITT COX

JAMES

JOHNSON

GILCHREST

DEPERNO

DUGGAN

COURTESY OF GALIA LAHAV

FACES

Jacob Evan Smith

Detroiter Jacob Evan Smith makes his mark as a connector, community organizer, visual artist and voice amplifier.

“I grew up in a progressive-minded household and inclusivity has been important to me since I was a child on the playground. I didn’t like anyone being left out,” he explained. “My creative and entrepreneurial bent was influenced by my parents. My father is an architect, and my mother is a speech therapist turned master gardener. Both have an eye for design and beauty.”

Smith grew up in West Bloomfield and graduated from Groves High School and University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Over the past 15 years, his winding career path has included business ownership, business development and community building.

He recently started a new position as TechTown Detroit’s Director of Mobility & Health Innovation. He said his main role is “to facilitate initiatives by connecting startup founders to people and resources to help them thrive and develop a network of value-added partners.”

Outside his work at TechTown Detroit, Smith is busy as an artist as well as a community connector and organizer.

He started an art and design company, MazySuzan, during the recent COVID19 pandemic when he found himself at home with time and energy to create. His artwork focuses on funky interactive maze creations that “invite your inner child out to play.”

Smith’s creative mazes have been publicly displayed, and he has produced commissioned pieces. “I’ve been drawn to art and mazes my whole life. They promote focus and are calming -–and when I was a kid, they were a way to entertain my friends.”

He has a vision of creating an interactive design studio in the future.

Smith was also involved in launching The Coalition Series – ongoing casual dinners that include Black and Jewish Detroiters and friends to connect over food, art and music while building meaningful human-to-human relationships and cross-cultural understanding. Smith started hosting the unifying group dinners with his friend, Brandon Christopher, about seven years ago. Their uplifting gatherings were featured nationally on CBS Mornings in 2023.

“We hold big dinners throughout the year with the goal to empower members to build real connections and friendships and to have smaller at-home dinners with each other,” he said. “We’d like to see this model replicated to other areas outside Detroit.”

Additionally, the energetic Detroiter produces and co-hosts, with Erik Burgess, a podcast called The Returning Citizen, an inspirational Detroit-based storytelling platform that tells success stories of people transitioning out of prison. The podcast also features helpful resources and programs to help formerly incarcerated individuals create pathways to self-sufficiency and success.

“With the podcast, we try to elevate the voices of positive role models to inspire, motivate and show what is possible.”

Smith recently married and bought a house in Detroit’s Islandview neighborhood with his wife, Amanda Nouhan. The neighborhood is on the city’s lower eastside, west of Indian Village with views of Belle Isle. He enjoys playing basketball, collecting vintage sci-fi novels, travel and being an uncle to two nephews.

When it comes to making time for his various passions, initiatives and commitments, Smith offered, “It’s about narrowing the scope and zeroing in on or aligning my greatest strengths and passion of community-oriented connection and organization and expanding capacity by building teams.”

He added, “I’ve learned my lesson and now I push away things that drain my energy and move toward things that give me energy because no matter how noble it may be, it’s not sustainable if it’s draining my energy.

“When the focus is on things that give you energy, it doesn’t feel like work.”

Story: Tracy Donohue

Photo: Theodore Michael

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POLICING TECHNOLOGY

LOCAL DEPARTMENTS START TO HARNESS THE CAPABILITIES

BY STACY GITTLEMAN

his February, a male driver heading north at the intersection of Telegraph and Maple Roads cut off a female driver and then, at a red light, assaulted her by pointing a gun at her from his rolled-down window.

Bloomfield Township police received two 911 calls – one from the female driver and another from a witness in a nearby car, both saying the perpetrator was driving a silver or gold Cadillac.

Bloomfield Township police, using the license plate number of the victim, ran her plate numbers through a software system of an automatic license plate reader (ALPR). Within three minutes, the department detected which cars were next to hers at the time of the incident and made a positive match of the perpetrator’s license plate. The license plate number also revealed the perpetrator’s name and address.

According to Bloomfield Township police officers, on February 4 patrol officers tracked the driver of the gold Cadillac, Mohamad Qasim Al-Amiri, at his Dearborn Heights home. They recovered a toy black plastic handgun under the driver’s seat of the gold Cadillac, as described by the victim and witness. The man was arrested for assault and arraigned on February 5 at the 48th District Court by Magistrate Nelson-Klein.

According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, 70 percent of the nation’s crimes are committed with a vehicle. Each time a crime is committed, whether on foot or with a set of wheels, such as the one described above or a home invasion, robbery, theft, civil rights violation, assault, or vandalism, the first question is often asked: were there any cameras in the area to catch the crime?

As law enforcement resources become increasingly stretched, many law enforcement departments have begun to harness the capabilities of high-technology cameras to investigate crimes and sometimes use footage from body cameras used by law enforcement to exonerate charges made against them during heated interactions.

Body cameras, which have become commonplace, are a technology generally welcomed by both the public and the officers who wear them. They provide another layer of oversight that can protect one’s civil rights during an altercation and a tool that can also exonerate an officer accused of misconduct.

Kathryn James is a partner with the Detroit law firm Goodman Hurwitz & James, P.C., and specializes in police brutality and discrimination cases.

In terms of camera technology in police work, she said that the introduction of body cameras is a positive development both for the officers who wear them and people who interact with officers either in altercations, traffic stops or at political demonstrations. In some cases, her firm relies on footage from cameras to represent clients or family members of victims who may have been severely injured or even killed during an altercation with police.

When James began defending civil rights cases, including those who were wrongfully treated during police stops, she relied on footage taken from dash cams mounted on police cars, which were not very reliable.

“We relied on these as objective recordings of interactions between police and potential victims, although the views from these cameras were somewhat limited,” James said. “Body cameras increased our ability to get a more accurate feel for what happened. During an interaction with police, people’s perceptions and memories can be muddled because they may have been in distress. The footage from body cameras gives us an objective perspective and is a marked improvement over dash cams to fairly assess our clients’ claims. In general, body cameras on police are a positive public asset.”

However, James said she is apprehensive that some of her firm’s clients from Detroit have been unnecessarily tracked and their First Amendment rights potentially trampled when law enforcement uses surveillance cameras and equipment to keep a digital eye on people with certain political leanings. Her firm is especially concerned about the rights of clients who participated in Black Lives Matter or pro-Palestinian demonstrations in recent years.

In and around downtown areas, public parking decks, municipal buildings, and sometimes in retail and restaurant districts, law enforcement departments have installed hundreds of security and surveillance cameras. If a person is looking to commit a crime, law enforcement officials say they may think twice if they know there are cameras to catch them in the act. In places like Birmingham’s parking decks, new 360-degree cameras are useful for recording car thefts, break-ins, or assaults. Footage from them can also help solve disputes between motorists during a fender bender.

In the last decade, the technology that has quickly become the darling of law enforcement investigations is the ALPRs that helped Bloomfield Township Police catch the alleged gunman on Telegraph Road. These cameras, either affixed on a stationary pole over a main thoroughfare or mounted in police cars, capture and store images of

rear vehicle license plates. According to a 2020 report from the Brennan Center for Justice, a policy center at New York University School of Law, law enforcement officials around the nation are drawing data from tens of thousands of such cameras.

Between 2016 and 2017, 173 law enforcement agencies scanned 2.5 billion license plates. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, 93 percent of police departments in cities with populations of one million or more use their own ALPR systems, some of which can scan nearly 2,000 license plates per minute. Photos of the license plates are then stored for a finite time. All departments interviewed for this story keep their data for 30 days and share only selected photographs on a regimented and selective basis with other municipalities.

Photographs are matched against federal databases, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the database contains license plate information of suspected or “hot-listed” vehicles used in crimes such as missing or unidentified persons, theft, gun possession, or other wanted persons. If a license plate in a local system matches a hot-listed plate, the software will alert local law enforcement.

As law enforcement departments feel the pinch from tighter budgets and a shrinking pool of qualified applicants to join their ranks, they are leaning harder on these technologies to help investigate and solve crimes.

Officials say that using photos from these databases and then matching them up with the license plate numbers captured on the cameras – as in the case with tracking down the man from Dearborn Heights – is far easier than driving around their beat and asking every gas station or convenience store attendant if they noticed a certain car with a few digits from a partial license plate record recalled by another witness.

Our license plates are regularly photographed to pay fees and tolls on highways, bridges, or parking decks. But civil liberty and grassroots organizations are raising alarm bells and posing potential situations that data collected by law enforcement can be sold and used by third parties with sinister, privacy-invading intentions.

The biggest manufacturer of ALPRs used by law enforcement departments nationwide is an Atlanta company called Flock Safety

Body cameras are a technology generally welcomed by both the public and the officers who wear them, providing another layer of oversight that can protect one’s civil rights and can also exonerate an officer accused of misconduct.

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Camera. Flock was founded in 2017. According to its website, its mission is to scale public safety technology to a national level.

Flock was contacted multiple times for comment but did not respond to requests.

For transparency’s sake, when a municipality contracts with Flock, it can create a web landing page on its public website. In places like Troy and Ferndale, viewers can learn how many cameras a city has purchased and how many hot-listed cars have been detected in the last 30 days.

Michigan has no statewide law regulating the use of ALPRs. Each municipality creates individual policies, which include accepted and prohibited uses of the data and who is authorized to look at the data. All departments interviewed by Downtown stated that it is prohibited for the data to be used for immigration or traffic enforcement, checking for expired vehicle registration, harassment, or intimidation. It is also prohibited to use the license photographs to target a driver based solely on a protected class such as race, sex or religion.

The use of ALPRs in Michigan has sparked individual privacy debates and legal cases. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published reports on abuses of the cameras in 2013 and 2022. Because states are passing laws that make it illegal for people to even cross state lines to obtain an abortion, the ACLU is especially concerned about abusing license plate databases to track a car traveling to take a woman to receive reproductive healthcare.

The ACLU said that Ypsilanti Township banned the use of ALPRs after residents spoke out against a proposal to install them.

The organization argues that the widespread presence of these cameras constitutes as tracking people without cause and pushes the boundaries of search and seizure rights found in the Fourth Amendment.

A case of Fourth Amendment violations has yet to be brought to Michigan’s courts. However, there have been cases such as People v. Frederick (2017), where the Michigan Supreme Court deemed the necessity of attaining a search warrant for tracking individuals over global positioning systems, or as they travel between cellular towers. These cases have opened the door to suggest that increased presence of ALPRs pose a threat of continuous monitoring of individuals and could also face examination in the courts.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the court system has not yet required a warrant or other heightened standard for police officers to take pictures of individual license plates and compare them against a law enforcement database. This is because there is no expectation of the privacy of one’s license plate when driving on public roadways, and precedent holds that drivers on public roads cannot expect their movements to be kept private from the police since they could be observed by any member of the public.

A 2013 ACLU report cited a study out of the University of Maryland that revealed just 47 license plates out of one million photographed were involved with a crime. If a photo is blurry and does not accurately capture the alphanumeric details of a plate, the ACLU reported that artificial intelligence guesses what the remaining digits can be. This can lead to the possibility of innocent motorists being pulled over mistakenly, and sometimes this can lead to violent altercations between police and unknowing motorists.

The 2022 ACLU report alleged that Flock wants to sell its products to local law enforcement departments so it can create a large, centralized network of data that can eventually be accessed by private parties. The ACLU is concerned that what begins with the use of ALPRs can expand into other forms of surveillance technology that will be easier to install and implement once the initial ALPR devices are already up and running.

Philip Mayor, a senior staff attorney with ACLU Michigan, described a case the organization brought to court involving a case of mistaken identity involving ALPR data. He pointed to a 2023

As law enforcement departments feel the pinch from tighter budgets and a shrinking pool of qualified applicants to join their ranks, they are leaning harder on these technologies to help investigate and solve crimes.

case where the Detroit Police Department was sued for violently arresting a woman for driving a car that was mistakenly identified by using facial recognition software and an ALPR photograph. Her car was mistakenly identified as one used in a drive-by shooting. The woman and her young disabled child were placed in the back of a squad car.

“This shows us that too many times law enforcement departments are using mass surveillance technology as a false aid to solve crimes,” Mayor said. “Any of us who put an overreliance in GPS technology for directions, only to turn down the wrong street can understand how this can happen.”

Mayor said that such mistakes can be avoided if law enforcement uses data from ALPRs only as a preliminary part of their investigations before making an arrest.

“Flock camera technology presents a huge number of civil liberties concerns because they are able to track people from place to place, and that implicates a possible violation of the Fourth Amendment,” Mayor added. “There is a huge concern about how the data can be shared and accessed. That includes fears that information will be shared with (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement).”

While there is no statewide policy in Michigan regulating how law enforcement uses ALPRs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 16 states have statutes that address how private or government entities can use ALPRs and retain data from them. The strictest state law is in New Hampshire, which restricts the use of automated license plate readers to local, county and state law enforcement officers and prohibits the recording or transmitting of license plate numbers, which must be purged from any system three minutes after they are captured unless the number resulted in an arrest, a citation or protective custody or identified a vehicle that was the subject of a missing or wanted person broadcast.

According to Mayor, the public is approaching an era where the ubiquitousness of security and surveillance cameras, microphones, license plate readers, and facial recognition technology are creating a “dragnet” climate for collecting data on individuals by law enforcement.

“We are approaching a time when law enforcement has an

entire web of (surveillance technology) tracking us that is unprecedented and extremely dangerous,” Mayor said.

Chad Marlow is a senior counsel at National ACLU who focuses on privacy, surveillance, and technology. He said that the organization does not oppose using ALPRs in certain circumstances, adding that there are times when the data from ALPRs is quite necessary, such as tracking a vehicle involved in a missing child Amber Alert or stolen vehicles.

“The main concern we have is with Flock,” Marlow said. “They have a scalable business model that makes it the camera everyone wants to buy. That’s because you are getting more than the hardware. You have access to their database stored on the cloud. They are creating this nationwide and perhaps even worldwide network of license plate readers that anyone can read.”

Marlow said individual police departments are contracting with the company because it is the path of least resistance. It is the company that neighboring departments are signing contracts with. Marlow’s concern is that these departments may not read the fine print of those contracts. While the ACLU provides law enforcement departments with suggested templates that use better language to include in their contract, few are taking the organization up on its resources.

“If the police departments were on the ball, they would sit down with their local ACLU affiliate and ask, ‘How do I revise this contract to make it safe and limit who gets our data?’,” Marlow said. “Then it is possible to use Flock cameras safely. But most law departments lack the bandwidth, staff or curiosity to go through their contracts and make the changes.”

Marlow added that residents should be aware if their municipality is proposing to install the cameras, they can express their opposition to their town and city councils, writing opinion pieces to their local media or vocally opposing them on social media.

ACLU studies said that tracking people’s vehicles can potentially give law enforcement or third parties – from private companies to the federal government – the ability to compile data on an individual’s legal yet private activities.

The 2022 study stated: “People can engage in a lot of perfectly legal yet private behavior. Movements that would reveal things about their political, financial, sexual, religious, or medical lives that nobody in the police or a company like Flock has a right to track.”

Yet, when asked, Marlow could not point to a specific case or instance when a government or law enforcement authority had tracked an individual due to their political leanings or unnecessarily because of data they pulled from the license plate readers.

“That is difficult for me to illustrate because no local law enforcement jurisdiction is sharing with the ACLU or any other civil rights organization how they are using Flock technology,” Marlow said. “Law enforcement has to tell its constituents that it is using the technology, but they are not sharing how they use it. All we have to go on is to see how aggressively Flock is advertising itself to local law enforcement as building a nationwide network of cameras.”

He continued: “I don’t have an exact situation. But we can imagine a scenario where there are two neighboring police departments with differing policing philosophies or political leanings. They may decide that they want to look for someone in a neighboring town for someone who has different political leanings than their own and then use the Flock database and access the database of a different town to gain information on that person. The Flock agreement states that an entity with a contract is allowed to access its data.”

Marlow said that Flock is deceiving local law enforcement who believe the cameras are only collecting alphanumeric data of license plates and not additional identifiers, such as a bumper sticker.

“Flock cameras can capture the bumper stickers, so someone

can search for a car by inputting the wording of a bumper sticker,” insisted Marlow. “That’s the problem with Flock. Police departments do not know what they are signing up for or what this company is doing. And while a police force may trust their personnel, they don’t know if they can trust that personnel in neighboring forces that might abuse access to the Flock data.”

Locally, law enforcement agencies are putting technology to work in a variety of ways.

The city of Birmingham has seven Flock LPRs fixed at its city limits and one mobile camera on a patrol car.

“These cameras are not used for traffic monitoring or even catching speeders,” Birmingham Police Chief Scott Grewe said. “But if we had a scenario where there was a reckless driver that caused an accident and sped away, someone may have been able to describe the make and model of the car but did not get the license plate number. In the past, if we didn’t have that plate number, we would not have enough information to develop a case to pursue a suspect. But with the Flock cameras, we can search for the description of that vehicle in the timeframe of the incident. Any vehicle that matched that description will come up in that database, and we will also have their license plate numbers. Now our investigators have a suspect lead to go on.”

Another example that Grewe mentioned was a recent case of larceny. A witness saw the perpetrator get away in a car but did not get the license plate number. Through its Flock cameras, Birmingham police searched for the car’s descriptive details, matched the plate number, and apprehended the suspect, all within hours of the crime.

“Before we had Flock cameras, we would have incomplete information of an unknown vehicle that left the scene of a crime,” Grewe said. “We would be unable to identify that suspect. The information we get from Flock cameras has been extremely helpful in investigating and solving crimes. The days of us not being able to identify an unknown vehicle driving away are pretty much long gone.”

Grewe said Birmingham is also replacing its squad car cameras, though they are not Flock license plate readers. He said the city created its policy system within the framework of standards created by the Michigan Association of the Chiefs of Police.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the court system has not yet required a warrant or other heightened standard for police officers to take pictures of individual license plates and compare them against a database.

When asked if Birmingham police would share information on a license plate with a neighboring town, the chief said that depends on the situation.

“If we are on the lookout of a suspect and we identify their car through a Flock camera, and that car reads back with an address from another municipality, we are not going to call that department to notify them that a person suspected of a crime in Birmingham had a car with an address that traced back to their town.”

Instead, Grewe said this information is shared through a multijurisdiction task force that includes Troy and its special investigations unit.

“If my task force officer that’s assigned to the Special Investigations Unit team is investigating a case that happened here in Birmingham, and we have gathered information on a suspect vehicle with Flock data, the team will work to attempt to arrest that suspect. So that is how we share the data. We are not going to just broadcast it out to all other agencies.”

Aside from license plate readers, Birmingham police added body cameras in 2020 and in 2024 the city contracted with the company D/A Central to replace an aging set of security cameras within municipal buildings and parking decks. The outgoing cameras were installed shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. The cost for the project was budgeted for fiscal year 2025 at $890,000. It will replace 46 existing surveillance cameras around the city and add 57 new cameras to the city’s parking system.

In total, Birmingham uses 126 surveillance cameras. This includes 46 inside the police headquarters offices, booking rooms, prison cells, and around the outside of the building. There are also cameras in the city’s five public parking decks, at City Hall, Shain and Booth parks, and the downtown retail district.

As of early February, Grewe said the city is halfway through the project of replacing its cameras.

Footage from these cameras generally stays in the department’s system for 30 days. The cameras are not continuously monitored, but all are visible from the department’s dispatch headquarters, where trained officers can detect suspicious activity.

“Our new cameras do not use facial recognition,” Grewe said. “If a crime such as theft or retail fraud is committed downtown and a witness said the assailant wore blue pants and a red shirt, we can go on that. We can enter these specifics into our system, and it will pull up images of people that match this description.”

In Bloomfield Township, Police Chief James Gallagher said the township in 2023 installed nine license plate reader cameras and nine more in 2024 at a cost of about $3,000 per camera. Flock recommended 31 cameras for the township, but Gallagher said they would prefer to build on the existing system, explaining that adjacent communities will share data.

None of the cameras have facial recognition capability. Looking ahead, Gallagher asserted that when the township signed on with Flock, he was told that the company had no plans to expand into facial recognition software.

“There can be no facial recognition technology ever added to these license plate readers,” maintained Gallagher. “That is something we agreed on when the sale was approved by the township board. If (Flock) ever started to use this technology, we would have to reapproach our contract. These cameras briefly take a picture of a license plate and the rear of a vehicle. These photos do not reveal how many passengers are in the vehicle, nor to the photos give details such as gender, ethnicity or race.”

In private and retail spaces, we have become accustomed to having our faces recorded on hundreds of security cameras. But when it comes to government entities using facial recognition software, Gallagher said that crosses a line.

“It boils down to privacy,” Gallagher said. “There are cameras in many places, but when the government is controlling it, that’s a different story. We are trying to be as transparent as possible with the public. We do not want our residents uncomfortable with the kind of technology we are using.”

In the workshops he has attended about facial recognition,

ACLU studies said that tracking people’s vehicles can potentially give law enforcement or third parties – from private companies to the federal government – the ability to compile data on an individual’s legal yet private activities.

Gallagher said law enforcement departments must jump through many hoops to use the technology in criminal investigations.

Gallagher said data from ALPRs came in handy to solve a home invasion case in the summer of 2024 around Quarton and Wing Lake Roads. Bloomfield Township lost track of a car they were pursuing. Later, images from ALPRs in multiple locations gave officers a timeline of the whereabouts of that vehicle and placed it on Telegraph Road five minutes before the home invasion, giving officers highly valued information for their investigation.

In another case, Bloomfield Township police, after an eight-hour search, were able to locate an elderly person with dementia who was reported missing after she took out her car for a drive. By knowing the license plate number, the department detected that her car was repeatedly taking the wrong turn and passing the same location every 45 minutes. Eventually, police found the woman driving in Ferndale.

When it comes to people’s privacy regarding how we show our beliefs on our bumper stickers, Gallagher said that law enforcement is held to higher standards than other private entities who may be using these same readers in vehicles, such as repossession and towing companies.

“I can understand how some may feel this technology can seem a bit ‘Big Brotherish,’” Gallagher said. “But we must adhere to policies. We must follow the laws. There are safeguards out there to make sure law enforcement is not abusing the data we collect.”

Bloomfield Township Community Outreach Officer Heather Glowacz said that the Flock cameras are also beginning to be installed by homeowners associations. Those cameras are paid for through the associations.. Occasionally, an association will share data with police if suspicious activity arises, she said.

The township launched an “Extra Eyes” program that allows private residents and homeowners associations to register their cameras with the department.

“Our residents like these cameras,” Glowacz said. “They have paid out of pocket to install them in their own neighborhoods.”

Bloomfield Township officials approved the purchase of body cameras for police officers in 2021.

Neighboring communities are also employing technology as part of law enforcement efforts.

Troy, which admittedly lacks a walkable, pedestrian-friendly downtown, does not use street-level surveillance cameras. But since the spring of 2024, it has deployed 27 Flock cameras, which are placed along busy roadways at its city limits.

For transparency, the city has a Flock Safety landing page on its website, where it gives a brief outline of its camera policy, acceptable and prohibited uses of Flock data, and the types of national hot-lists it receives alerts from. As of February 10, Troy documented 1,893 hot-listed vehicles driving on its streets. Hotlisted vehicles detected from a camera must be verified by a human before warranting a pursuit or arrest.

Troy Chief of Police Josh Jones said the cameras are a game changer when it comes to helping to solve crime.

“I have been in law enforcement for 25 years, and in all this time, the fact that most crimes are committed in stolen vehicles has remained consistent,” Jones said. “This technology allows stolen vehicles to be identified just by driving down the road. We do not need to rely on someone seeing that car and identifying its license plate number. Once a license plate number is captured, we can run it through a database. Then, we can alert our patrols and those of neighboring cities to the location of that vehicle. That’s the biggest and most simple example of what these cameras are good for. It’s not just about the crime of stealing a vehicle but what other crimes can be committed while driving that stolen vehicle.”

Jones said installing the cameras around Troy, along with Flock’s straightforward training, has enhanced the capabilities of the city’s already “robust” investigative department.

“We have seen how police departments in neighboring communities were already putting these cameras to good use,” Jones said. “It’s a trend that made a lot of sense to us.”

Jones said Troy’s agreement with Flock states that it will not share its data with the company, nor can the company access Troy’s data and sell it to a third-party vendor.

“I cannot imagine why Flock would want to sell the data to a third party,” Jones said. “I disagree with the ACLU’s claim about Flock selling or keeping our data. Using these cameras was a substantial commitment taken on by my department. We thoroughly researched the product and explained to the city council what we intended to do with the collected information. The images captured are not intrusive to people’s privacy. The cameras photograph the back of the car and the license plate only, which is visible to the public. The Supreme Court has ruled multiple times that there should be no expectations of privacy when it comes to a vehicle’s license plate, and this is the basis of Flock’s business model. There are policies in place to prevent against misuse.”

In West Bloomfield, the township’s 82 police officers are outfitted with a body camera. In 2022, the department budget included $3,500 for additions to body cameras and surveillance camera equipment.

“It is the expectation that uniformed officers on patrol will wear the body cameras during their entire shift,” explained West Bloomfield Deputy Chief Dale Young. “The department has clear policies dictating when the cameras must be activated and when they can be turned off.”

Young added that the body camera footage can serve as important evidence in court. The department will often send body camera video to the prosecutor’s office to help them make decisions on whether to write warrants for cases.

When it comes to surveillance cameras, the township mainly places them around the buildings of its civic center complex on Walnut Lake Road.

However, Young acknowledged the potential for public-private partnerships, where businesses or residents could voluntarily integrate their private surveillance systems with the police department. “We would be open to [that] in the future,” he said, while also noting the need to carefully define the parameters of such arrangements to protect individual privacy.

In its 2024-2025 budget, the West Bloomfield Detective Bureau requested to spend $60,000 for the installation and contract for up

to 22 Flock LPR cameras to be placed on the township borderlines. Flock cameras can be spotted in high-traffic areas such as the traffic circle on Orchard Lake Road and 14 Mile.

Looking ahead, the department is also contracting with Axon to install their license plate readers on all their patrol cars. The cameras should be fully operational in squad cars by this spring. Axon is the same company from which the township purchases its body cameras and taser equipment.

Young said data from license plate readers is valued for evidence in fighting crime and locating missing persons. “License plate readers are one of the great advancements as far as investigative tools go,” he said. The department is also transitioning to a new incar license plate reader system from Axon, which will complement the existing stationary Flock Safety cameras.

Young said combining the capabilities of stationary and mobile license plate readers could offer police unique capabilities when it comes to solving cases such as bank robbers leaving the scene of a crime or missing persons alerts.

“The advantage of having a stationary Flock camera is that it is in a fixed spot, pointing in one direction and will photograph every license plate that passes by,” Young said. “When you put a license plate reader in a patrol car, it is helpful for when we are on an active chase when a crime is committed. Last year, these cameras could have come in handy when we were searching for suspects who got away in a car after they robbed a bank on Haggerty Road. If we had these cameras installed, we might have been able to capture the plate of the suspect that was trying to leave, and then our detectives would be able to go back to look at data from other cameras to see if they could develop a suspect vehicle based on this information.”

Ferndale has seen the most pushback on camera technology in law enforcement.

Grassroots organizations like the Ferndale Inclusion Network (FIN) believe there is a disproportionate number of ALPRs along the streets along the Ferndale/Detroit border. Though all law enforcement departments interviewed said that these cameras mainly reside along city limits, the FIN views this as a practice of over policing Black and Brown drivers.

FIN co-founder Kathleen LaTosch said there have been instances

When it comes to people’s privacy regarding how we show our beliefs on our bumper stickers, Chief Gallagher said that law enforcement is held to higher standards than other private entities who may be using these same readers.

where police mistakenly pull over motorists, often Black, who may have a similar but not exact license plate number of a car used in a crime.

“What is most concerning to use about the cameras used is that Ferndale has a history of problematic racial profiling,” LaTosch said. “People of color are more likely to be harmed in a police stop than at any other time. Ten of the 16 license plate camera readers are placed at the Eight Mile border of Ferndale and Detroit.”

LaTosch said Ferndale police have released their statistics about the number of hits these cameras produce of cars that are hotlisted. In reality, Woodward Avenue has a higher rate of hot-listed vehicles traveling on it, but Ferndale points most of its license plate readers at the Detroit border on Eight Mile. LaTosch views this as an over-policing of Detroit motorists.

LaTosch added that in 2020, the Ferndale City Council passed a resolution to perform a racial impact assessment to determine if any policies were harming minorities.

FIN determined that the deployment of license plate readers has done little in the way of keeping Ferndale’s streets safer. Once Ferndale installed the readers, the Ferndale Inclusion Network asked the city to perform a racial assessment study.

“There is a fundamental problem with the constant use of Flock technology taking photographs of everyone’s license plates,” said Ferndale resident Prasad Venugopal, who is also involved in the organization. “The ACLU in 2020 concluded that 99 percent of all the license plates captured with Flock cameras are not connected with crime. The technology itself relies on maintaining this big data that Flock owns. The data is shared with everybody and across all police departments. Ordinary Americans are being surveilled constantly by these license plate readers despite not having committed any crime or being suspected of it.”

Venugopal said that the camera’s abilities are not always accurate and uses AI technology to fill in the guesswork of missed numbers and letters on a license plate. He is also concerned that the cameras can take photos of people who may be standing around a car or the color of the vehicle.

The organization’s concerns go as far as fearing that imagery from license plate readers could someday be weaponized to track a vehicle with someone who is driving to a clinic to get an abortion or receive gender affirming care or to round up undocumented immigrants.

Like Birmingham, Ferndale uses surveillance cameras around public spaces in its downtown area, including around ballot boxes, City Hall and the police department. Ferndale also installed cameras in the restroom of a public park that was regularly vandalized. Under a city ordinance, facial recognition features in these cameras are prohibited.

Ferndale Chief of Police Dennis Emmi has heard from downtown business owners who want more cameras around their stores and restaurants to deter criminal activity. That would require cameras with higher resolution capabilities, which the city does not use.

“We place these cameras around town sparingly,” Emmi said. “We have a town ordinance that limits the use of surveillance cameras and how long we can retain recordings. I wish we could have more cameras because it is a law enforcement multiplier. It helps us to monitor certain areas without having to dispatch officers. We mainly use the cameras to keep an eye on some of the more expensive amenities we have installed to improve the quality of life in downtown Ferndale.”

Ferndale police mandates that every one of its officers use a body camera for the duration of their shift. Retention of video footage varies depending on the types of interactions with the public. While the retention schedule is generally 30 days, it may be longer for contested traffic stops or criminal investigations.

Ferndale Police began using Flock camera data from neighboring municipalities beginning in 2022. When they evaluated the success in solving crimes with the equipment, Ferndale installed the cameras in 2023.

“It was my staff that presented the idea of Flock cameras to me,”

The Supreme Court has ruled multiple times that there should be no expectations of privacy when it comes to a vehicle’s license plate, and this is the basis of Flock’s business model. There are policies in place to prevent against misuse.

Emmi said. “They told me the technology can make their investigations more efficient and would cut down the time wasted on false leads, randomly asking potential bystanders if they saw a certain car drive by or using video surveillance cameras that can often be unreliable. The cameras have been a game changer for my investigators.”

Ferndale has 27 Flock cameras installed in its jurisdiction. As of February 3, Ferndale’s dashboard recorded 372,455 license plates in the last 30 days, with 546 of those vehicles being hot-listed.

Ferndale parking authorities also use a separate ALPR system to enforce residential parking permits.

Last May, Ferndale police used images from a Flock camera to track an aggressive Hazel Park woman who was charged with felony assault in Ferndale after police say she rammed her car into an Uber Eats delivery car driven by another woman who refused to deliver to the suspect’s residence.

Responding to Ferndale Inclusion Network’s concerns and allegations, Emmi said the cameras do not take descriptor information that would reveal a driver’s political or social leanings, do not use facial recognition, and the data cannot be used by ICE. He added that the department is examining the count of hot-listed cars detected on some of the Flock cameras at the Ferndale-Detroit border and is taking down some cameras with the lowest counts.

“Leveraging technology to become more efficient or to be a force multiplier is a must,” Emmi said. “Resources for law enforcement are dwindling. We’re getting less and less money for our department, not more. So, efficiency is everything.”

Before contracting with Flock, Emmi knew there was skepticism in the community about the technology in terms of privacy rights. He and his colleagues attended workshops and seminars about license plate readers and had engagement sessions with the city’s mayor, city council, and then the community.

“Ultimately, we determined that we have been charged with making Ferndale safer, to solve crimes more quickly, and to look out for the rights of the victims of crimes,” Emmi said. “We vet the policies of other departments that want to share our network or share our cameras to make sure that their policy and oversight are consistent with ours. If it’s not, we have refused access to our data.”

FACES

Diana Matthews

Detroit Country Day School-Lower School science teacher Diana Matthews recently received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST), and is among the 300 K-12 educators nationwide to be honored at the White House awards ceremony later this year.

Established in 1983, the PAEMST includes a $10,000 stipend and is the highest honor that K-12 math and science teachers can earn from the U.S. government.

“I am honored and humbled to be named a Presidential Award winner, given the remarkable field of excellent teachers PAEMST celebrates,” said the elementary school educator. ”They are all exceptionally passionate and creative teachers who deliver dynamic and innovative lessons to their students across the nation.”

Being a self-described lifelong learner, Matthews hopes to instill a sense of awe and wonder in her students as they explore the world around them, often taking them on field trips to learn from nature. Her science classroom is home to a menagerie, including a puffer fish, fire-bellied toad, gecko, hermit crab, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, two turtles and a tortoise. Hands-on learning is by far the best way to engage students and give them a zest for science she said. “At any given time you’ll find the tortoise or the cockroaches – that are escape artists – walking around the classroom, and the students love it.”

Matthews, who earned a B.A. in education from Purdue University and a M.Ed. from Wayne State University, is adamant about integrating STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) into her lessons, and allowing children to create, tinker and explore while learning concepts and science-based phenomena.

“The key is by combining all of these things I see students light up with an excitement that is so fundamental to engagement and learning,” she said.

Matthews is a consultant for the Michigan Science Teachers Association regarding creative hubs called maker spaces, like those at Detroit Country Day School, that provide tools and hands-on techniques for students to design and bring their ideas to life. “These innovative work stations are so important in the scheme of things because this is how young people gain confidence to invent and develop critical thinking and solutions to problems,” Matthews said. “And they learn something that will help them achieve success in their future fields –how to handle failure and to keep trying until you find an answer.”

Garnering praise for creativity and ingenuity, the adventuresome educator recalls one special science project she thinks of as her legacy to date. Inspired by environmental artist David M. Bird, her class constructed “Acorn People” –charming, tiny “people” out of acorns, twigs, seeds, flowers and more, and then took photographs of them and developed an app to digitally animate them in nature settings.

“'Acorn People’ was a fun, hands-on project helping my students connect nature and technology, something important in our ever-growing high tech digital world,” she said.”Many students said they didn’t realize that learning could be so much fun, and that is my ultimate goal.”

Matthews revealed what keeps her motivated, teaching science year after year. ”I want to help in the development of deep thinkers with a zest for life-long learning who will go on to become future leaders – including under-represented females in both math and science. It’s my hope that my students become future stewards of nature and their world, working to make it a better place.”

Free time for the busy teacher and her husband often involves travel, including Portugal, a favorite destination for them.

“And we love to get dinner and a movie in downtown Birmingham – mostly a comedy – I believe it’s important to have fun both in and outside of the classroom!”

Story: Susan Peck

Photo: Theodore Michael

Next, YMCA lease pacts discussed

By Grace Lovins

Continuing the extensive work of establishing a new community center and home for Birmingham Next senior services, the Birmingham City Commission discussed drafts of a lease agreement between both the city and Next and the city and the YMCA for the building during the Monday, January 27, meeting.

Establishing a new home for Next senior services has been in the works for years, recently gaining significant momentum with the city’s purchase of the Birmingham MCA building in July of 2023. Since then, the city has determined that the building will house Next and YMCA operations as well as community space for Birmingham residents.

One of the city’s next steps is to create a lease agreement with both tenants that will operate out of the building. City manager Jana Ecker kicked off the presentation of the agreements by informing the commission that city staff were not seeking approval just yet. She said that with the programming, square footage assignment and the like still in the works, it’s too soon for the commission to approve a lease agreement.

Instead, staff members were looking for commission input on whether the lease agreements included what the commission had pictured.

Starting with the agreement between the city and Next, Ecker said the draft was predicated on the original memorandum of understanding that said Next would contribute $500,000 toward the purchase of the property in exchange for $1 rent thereafter. Next will also not be paying for their operating expenses as the YMCA has agreed to cover the operating expenses for the building as a whole.

Current Student Works Show at the BBAC

The Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center (BBAC) is currently hosting a free exhibit of its 2025 Current Student Works Show, an annual, juried exhibition showcasing the talent, skills and accomplishments of BBAC student artists (ages 18+) through March 13 at the center, located at 1516 S. Cranbrook Rd. in Birmingham.

Approximately 270 works of art were submitted this year for consideration to the Current Student Works Show. From those entries, 196 works have been selected and are part of the 2025 exhibition on display now. Among those are 28 specific works that were juror-selected as 2025 show honorees, with awarded artists sharing in recognition and approximately $2,500 in cash and prizes.

The 2025 Current Student Works Show, which fills four BBAC gallery spaces, provides tangible, inspirational examples of what can be learned and accomplished through the hundreds of classes offered year-round at the BBAC. The show represents a variety of art mediums, including: painting, drawing, mixed media, ceramics, jewelry, fiber arts and more.

“To all who see it, my hope is that our annual adult Current Student Works Show serves as an introduction, or reminder, of all that is being imagined, accomplished and created within the BBAC’s four walls,“ said Annie VanGelderen, BBAC president and CEO. “Additionally, I hope it may serve as a spark for some to perhaps consider exploring their own creative endeavors with us at the BBAC.”

The BBAC’s 2025 Current Student Works Show is juried by artist and educator Anita Bates, PhD, MFA, MA. Bates, an Assistant Professor of Teaching and Program Coordinator for Visual Art Education at Wayne State University, is a 2019 Kresge Arts Fellow. A contemporary artist, she has been exhibited in several venues, including the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. Other accomplishments include a Fulbright Memorial Fellowship in Japanese education and a King, Chavez, Parks Future Faculty Fellowship from Wayne State University.

The BBAC is a regional, non-profit art center committed to promoting visual arts experiences for all.

program operations. Also, with the assumption that a bond proposal for the new center passes this year, Birmingham residents will have a decreased membership fee for both Next and the YMCA.

Because of the city’s contributions toward getting Next a new home, said Ecker, changes to an interlocal agreement between Birmingham, Bingham Farms, Franklin and Beverly Hills—other communities assisting with the cost of NEXT operations— have been verbally agreed upon. The city will no longer be contributing $125,000 per year from the general fund to Next, per the draft agreement. Instead, the monetary contributions will increase from the three other communities ensuring Next has a steady influx of money for

The draft agreement with the YMCA shows a starting lease of 20 years with the potential for 10-year extensions. The YMCA will manage, operate and staff the building, Ecker said, but a provision is included to develop a capital reserve fund at $25,000 per year with a max of $250,000. This fund will be used toward the pool should the YMCA decide to terminate their lease and the city takes over the pool maintenance.

Since the YMCA is offering to cover the operating expenses for the whole building, the organization would also contribute $1 in rent, the same as Next. Both agreements include a bond contingency giving the city authority to declare the agreements null and void should a bond ballot proposal fail.

The commission collectively

agreed to suggest to city staff that the Next agreement should not be in perpetuity; the city considers that Next have some financial contribution on an annual basis beyond paying building operating expenses; have an increased and more well-defined community use; and the city should not have any additional cost for staff.

On top of these, there was also consensus that the city ought to have oversight of the operations of Next, meaning that the senior group should provide reports since the city is contracting them to provide services for seniors.

No formal action was taken to approve the lease agreements. Ecker said that the commission can expect to see lease revisions at a future meeting.

Voters in Birmingham are tentatively scheduled to decide on a .6715-mill tax proposal on the August ballot this year to fund construction of the center. On a taxable home value of $315,250, the city is estimating that the average

homeowner cost of the millage would be $212 annually.

Community center vision, space needs

By Grace Lovins

Birmingham’s new community and senior center project continues to move along with an updated vision, goals and objectives which were approved during the Monday, February 10, by the city commission which is now moving to the next step of determining programming space for the new building.

While the search for Next senior services’ new home had been ongoing for about a decade, the project gained momentum after the purchase of the former Birmingham YMCA building at 400 E Lincoln in July 2023.

Since the purchase, the city has pursued the route of constructing a new 44,000 to 49,000 sq ft. building for a maximum of $32 million. Both YMCA and Next senior services will be tenants of the city-owned building. Birmingham City Manager Jana Ecker explained that the ad hoc senior/comunity center committee reviewed a drafted update to the vision, goals and objectives for the project considering all the changes that have occurred along the way.

The updates reflect the commission’s recent approval of the name “Birmingham Community and Senior Center” as well as the fact that the city is pursuing construction of a new building rather than renovation of the existing one. Ecker said additional language adjustments were made to reflect such decisions made by the commission.

In a 4-2 vote, the commission approved the updated vision, goals and objectives for the new community center, with Katie Schafer absent and Brad Host and Clinton Baller voting against approval. While Baller didn’t explain his vote, Host has consistently voted against motions on the new center, repeatedly saying he feels the city is moving too fast on the project.

After discussing the new vision, goals and objectives, the commission transitioned to reviewing the programming for the new building. Jim Stock, design director with Neumann/Smith Architecture, explained that the draft was developed as an exercise to help outline the spatial requirements for the new building and is hypothetical. Based on the current programming

hours and potential future hours given to Neumann/Smith by Next and the YMCA, the draft program for the building accounted for 17 hours per day, under the proposed operating hours, totaling about 119 program hours per week, Stock said. The hours were calculated using the pool, both sides of the gym and six multipurpose rooms.

Stock said that, based on all the information provided to the architects for the exercise, the space required to meet the needs of all parties would be approximately 49,895 sq ft. after a 30 percent factor adjustment for things like wall thickness, plumbing and janitor’s closets.

Commissioners Andrew Haig and Clinton Baller specifically questioned the validation of the program hours used in the exercise. Baller, having done a quick calculation during the meeting, said the current program hours for Next do not add up to what was provided in the draft.

Haig, along with Baller, said the commission must be mindful of the ‘big asks’ that come along with such a project. He encouraged Next and the YMCA to look at compatibility opportunities, saying there was too much overlap between programs that could unnecessarily inflate the size of the building. Other commissioners echoed the sentiment of Haig and Baller, encouraging slimming the square footage down when possible and eliminating redundancy in programming.

The commission gave the city and owner’s representative direction to do an independent evaluation of the programming used to calculate the building size and reanalyze where the building can be shrunk without harming any party’s business operations.

Voters in Birmingham are tentatively scheduled to decide on a .6715-mill tax proposal on the August ballot this year to fund construction of the center. On a taxable home value of $315,250, the city is estimating that the average homeowner cost of the millage would be $212 annually.

Brooklyn Pizza ownership change

By Grace Lovins

Birmingham pizzeria Brooklyn Pizza, 111 Henrietta Street, may soon have a new owner after city commissioners voted during the Monday, January 27, meeting to set a

Bistro Joe’s now under new ownership

By Grace Lovins

New township hall, fire station needed

Restaurateurs Deni Bozinovski and Matt Moore, owners of now more than 16 restaurants under M&D Woodward LLC, are set to take over a Birmingham bistro, Bistro Joe’s, located at 34244 Woodward Avenue inside Papa Joe’s market, after city commissioners approved the ownership transfer during the Monday, February 12, meeting.

Bozinovski and Moore currently own and operate more than a dozen restaurants across metro Detroit under the name Johnny Blacks, including five Johnny Blacks Public House restaurants in Rochester Hills, Auburn Hills, Lake Orion and Waterford, with a seventh location planned for St. Clair Shores, as well as Johnny Blacks Taphouse in Shelby Township.

The duo also owns Cherry Hill North Bowling in Clarkston, Orion Sports Bar & Grill in Lake Orion, and Juan Blanco’s Tacos and Tequila in Fraser, among several others. Bozinovski noted during the meeting that Bistro Joe’s would be their seventeenth establishment with a liquor license.

According to Bozinovski, he and Moore plan to “get their teeth in” for the first few months and are not seeking SLUP amendments or permits to significantly change the bistro right away. He did hint his intention to look into establishing outdoor dining for the bistro and make improvements to the establishment’s current operations.

Commissioners took the opportunity during the public hearing to emphasize their expected compliance with the bistro’s special land use permit. Under the previous owner, Bistro Joe’s liquor license application had been up for debate due to issues with excess seating.

Included in the meeting packet and discussed by commissioners, Bozinovski and Moore have had violations in the past at different restaurants, which were noted in the city police department’s review. The pair was cited for failure to provide proof of the completed alcohol training program for their Fast Eddie’s location, and they’ve been cited multiple times for dishonored checks which Bozinovski explained was due to fraud but the issues were resolved.

A police department representative told the commission that the violations are not concerning and said it’s common for people with several businesses to have past violations such as these. Per Bozinovski, the violations are taken seriously by him and Moore, saying they work hard at providing the best they can for the community they’re in.

Commissioners voted 6-0 to approve the amendment to the special land use permit, authorizing the bistro’s change in ownership.

Commissioner Katie Schafer was absent from the meeting.

Bistro Joe’s was also given the green light to submit its liquor license application to the state liquor commission later on in the meeting.

public hearing on a special land use permit amendment to transfer ownership.

Brooklyn Pizza, known for its wood-fired NYC style pizza, has operated in the city since 1996. Back in 2019, the pizzeria completed major renovation to the restaurant, expanding north into an existing building and upgrading the exterior. Brooklyn Pizza also transitioned to a bistro during the time of renovations, obtaining a liquor license through the city.

According to a memorandum written by city planning director Nick Dupuis, the bistro has been in good standing since obtaining their liquor license in 2019. With a liquor license,

the bistro operates under a special land use permit which requires a public hearing to make amendments. The city commission and public will have a chance to hear from Brooklyn Pizza and the city’s planning department before a change of ownership is approved.

Dupuis writes in the memorandum that the ownership would be transferred from 111 Brooklyn, Inc. to 111 Brooklyn Bham, LLC. There are no changes to the use of the building or any changes to the site itself being proposed with the ownership transfer.

In a unanimous 7-0 vote, commissioners approved the setting of the public hearing for the Monday, February 24, commission meeting.

The Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees on Monday, January 27, received a formal report from an architectural firm retained to review the current township hall on the Telegraph Road municipal campus and fire station number three, with the analysis suggesting that replacement of the township hall and the fire hall would be the preferred approach in the future to provide necessary expanded space for government operations.

Redstone Architects, a firm noted for its extensive experience with buildings for law enforcement and public safety departments, was retained by the township last year to begin a review of the current township hall and campus, along with a review of fire station number three.

Daniel Redstone led the presentation to the township board at the meeting, highlighting portions of the formal report of his firm’s assessment of possible ways to meet space needs of both the township hall and the police department.

Redstone noted that the current township hall, first constructed in 1938, has had multiple additions over the years and currently provides about 32,000 square feet of space for both township offices and the police department. The firm’s analysis concluded that there was a need for 35,000 square of space for the township offices alone, and another 58,800 square feet of space for the police department which is experiencing space shortages now.

Redstone told the board the township “needs a new building” rather than trying to reconfigure and add on to the current structure. At one point in the presentation Redstone estimated that new construction would cost at an estimate $500 per square foot.

The report generated by the firm also noted that the review included possible options for location of a new building on the current municipal campus which now includes the township hall which houses the police department; a senior center; fire staton number one; an animal shelter; a building for the public works department; a salt dome; a cable TV office on an adjacent site; and the 48th district court. The firm also looked at vacant property at the current campus site along the Telegraph Road portion of the campus, as well as raising the question of moving the salt dome to another location. The firm also recommended that if a new building was the preferred option that the

township offices and the police department should be housed in separate buildings for safety and security reasons.

Redstone’s presentation and his firm’s report also addressed space needs for township fire hall number three, located at Maple Road and Woodbank Street. The fire station is now experiencing space needs issues, including the inability to house necessary fire trucks.

The current fire station building has 6,500 square feet of space and the architectural firm estimated that the ideal size would be a 14,400 square foot, three-bay station.

The firm’s report recommended a two-story building with 12,500 square feet of space, plus a mezzanine of 750 square feet. The report noted that township fire officials had reviewed and agreed with the proposal.

If the construction were to happen this year, the firm estimated that the cost would be $9.5 million which would rise to $10 million in cost if the project were done next year. The projected costs did not include temporary facilities nor the cost of demolition of the current building.

No formal action was taken by the township board. Township supervisor Mike McCready suggested that a public work session of the township board be scheduled to discuss the possible building projects and “how to pay for this.” McCready noted that the township has met with Congresswoman Haley Stevens and with state lawmakers to determine if any federal or state funding could possibly be available for the projects.

Long-range planning looks at multiple topics

By Grace Lovins

The 2025 Birmingham long-range planning session, hosted each year with city staff and commissioners, on Saturday, January 25, gave the city commission insight into anticipated long-term projects and plans from the city departments for the upcoming year.

Commissioners and staff spend a full Saturday every year discussing the future plans of all city departments to get a feel for what they can expect to see taking place in the city. During this year’s session, big plans were presented from the city’s planning department related to sustainability and the city’s police department related to city hall renovations.

Birmingham Planning Director Nick Dupuis spent his time slot briefing the commission on a number of broad trends anticipated for the next year, identified by the American Planning Association.

What earned Dupuis a ‘gold star’ from two commissioners was his talk on the Birmingham Green: Healthy

Climate Plan and city sustainability efforts as a whole. Dupuis updated the commission on the status with the plan’s implementation, noting establishing a full committee, budget proposal, residential rain garden program and schedule of deliverables that are in progress.

Dupuis also presented a new fee, called a congestion fee, currently being researched by the department. The idea is that a small amount of money per transaction for parking in the city would be put into a sustainability fund that would accrue over time. According to Dupuis, the city parks almost 3 million cars each year and the financial burden would not be placed solely on Birmingham residents.

Another significant item up for discussion was renovations to the city hall building. Commissioners discussed the topic in past meetings after the Birmingham police department’s accreditation assessment. As noted in past assessments, the accreditation of the police department could be in jeopardy due to significant concerns with safety, security and storage at their current facility inside city hall.

Birmingham Police Chief Scott Grewe walked the commission through the department’s plans currently in the works to address the issues, specifically their dispatch operations, interview room, lack of sally port and insufficient evidence storage.

Starting with dispatch operations, Grewe said the department is looking at expanding dispatch’s space by removing technology equipment that is no longer needed since the software they use has become cloud-based.

In terms of the building’s security, the department is looking to install new, 360 degree interior cameras for public hallways and department counters, as well as install a new access control system that uses key cards rather than an access code. New walls will also be constructed in certain parts of the building to enhance the security between the police department operations and other city hall operations.

Grewe explained that the department is also looking at ways to create direct access between the booking area and interview room. Currently, suspects have to be taken through multiple levels of the building to get to the interview room on the basement floor, which poses a safety issue. They will also be looking into developing a sally port, Grewe said. The current setup also poses a safety issue as officers have to park their cars and take a suspect through an area frequently used by the public to get them inside.

No formal action is taken by the commission during long-range planning. Commissioners can expect to see some of the items come before them as the year progresses.

Township board budget discussion

By Dana Casadei

Another fiscal year is almost in the books for Bloomfield Township, and with its 2025 fiscal ear coming near an end, the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees took one of many steps towards getting their budget for the 2026 fiscal year settled on Monday, February 10.

But before finance director Jason Theis could discuss the budget at the meeting the board talked for nearly half an hour about two issues that trustee Mark Antakli had brought up at prior meetings.

The issues included Antaki’s position that the township’s quarterly reports were insufficient and that the interest allocation from an enterprise fund should go back into that fund and not into the township’s general fund. An example of this would be having the interest earned from the water and sewer fund go back into that fund, and not the general fund.

Due to Antaki's opposition, supervisor Mike McCready had township attorney Derk Beckerleg provide more information on both these concerns from Antakli.

“I appreciate the questions that he raised. They were good questions, but I would respectfully say that what the township is doing with respect to the quarterly reports, as well as the income from their enterprise funds, is perfectly legal and appropriate," Beckerleg said.

This then led to another 20 minutes of discussion with Antakli, causing clear frustration from his fellow trustees, a theme that seemed to continue throughout the meeting, especially when Antakli tried to bring the points back up again later in their discussion.

Once finally able to get back on track, Theis gave a high-level summary of revenues and expenditures for the 2026 proposed budget. He noted that the proposed budget is balanced individually and when combining the township’s general fund, road fund and public safety fund.

“I know our directors are here and our deputy directors who help work on the budget are here… thank you for all your work on this and all you’re doing for the township,” McCready said. “I know it’s long and tedious… so thank you for being here and thank you for all your work, and thank you, Jason, this was very good work.”

Theis started by discussing township’s revenues for 2026, which have the projected taxable value of

Temporary move of township meetings

By Dana Casadei

For those looking to attend the next Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees meeting – or any other board or commission meeting in the near future – make note that as of Monday, February 17, all meetings will be held at the Cable Studio while the auditorium undergoes renovations.

This approved motion will impact all meetings of Bloomfield Township boards, commissions, and all other township public bodies, including the board of trustees, zoning board of appeals, planning commission and design review board.

Meetings will now take place at the Cable Studio, 4190 Dublin Road, Bloomfield Township, until April 11, after which time meetings will relocate back to the renovated Bloomfield Township Hall Auditorium.

“It looks like the Cable Studio will be satisfactory for our needs,” said clerk Martin Brook.

Brook was one of the township’s elected officials and impacted department heads who reviewed the space before this suggestion was brought before the board of trustees at their meeting on Monday, February 10. The Cable Studio seats 40 members of the public, and houses a board table, large screen display, podium and microphone for public comment.

Meetings will continue to be be live steamed and broadcasted from this new space.

The township’s legal counsel has reviewed and advised that this move and location are in full compliance with all legal requirements, and this change will be communicated on the township’s website, social media, eNews and bulletin boards.

There will also be a sandwich board notice displayed at Township Hall to direct people to the Cable Studio if they lose their way.

Major renovations for both the auditorium literal space and the electronics within it are set to take place during this time.

Chairs for the public and board will be replaced, the room will be painted, and an update will be made to the dais. On the electronics side, everything will be updated in the auditorium to allow for improved amplification, broadcasting and overall presentation.

The renovations were approved by the board at their meeting on September 9, and will be paid from Cable PEG (Public Education and Government) fees, which can only be utilized to pay for capital expenses.

The motion on the temporary move passed 7-0.

$5.37 billion – up slightly from 2025’s $5.2 billion – equating to a 3.6 percent net increase to tax revenues after the Headlee Tax Limitation rollback.

Similar to the current fiscal year, Theis expects state revenue sharing to be about $5 million for 2026.

The township will see decreases in investment earnings from the most recent two fiscal years due to lower interest rates., Theis said.

In the proposed budget, 72 percent of the township’s revenue will come from taxes, followed by revenue sharing at seven percent, and interest at four percent.

Another large aspect of the proposed budget that Theis discussed was expenditures for fiscal year 2026, including the defined benefit pension ADC payment of almost $5.3 million, and $1.25 million OPEB contribution. Breaking it down even further, labor

such as the $1 million from American Plan Rescue Act (ARPA) for the senior services fund that will focus on their parking lot and will begin construction on this spring; the public safety fund; and the cable fund. The later of which are seeing a significant decline in franchise fees in fiscal years 2025 and 2026, as is their revenue source.

Even in spite of all of their fiscal troubles, the township does have two new rooftop units on the buildings, costing $80,000 to be replaced, as part of the upcoming budget, and a few hundred thousands of dollars to make building and office improvements.

In 2026 the township will be providing 100 percent of the franchise fees to the Cable Fund. In the current year, they provided 85 percent.

“It’s been ramping up year after year as they face more declining revenues,” Theis said.

Lastly, Theis wanted to remind the board of the state opioid settlement fund, which has received approximately $240,000 so far. Projections are estimating this fund to receive approximately $50,000 a year until 2032, then smaller amounts through 2038.

Looking at those who are employed at the township, the 2026 budget has a proposal for the creation of a human resources department with two new employees, a human resource director and generalist, a need that came about from the board’s strategic planning.

“It’s in the early stages but we’ve put room in there,” he said.

is 47 percent of the township’s expenditures for the 2026 fiscal year, followed by pension and OPEB.

Theis brought up some of the most costly projected projects for the general fund, road fund and public safety fund.

A few items of note included the $1 million storm water costs from the general fund and the document management system costs; and the road fund needing over $900,000 for two swap loader plow trucks, which have already been approved by the board.

Highlighted expenditures for the public safety fund were split into two groups, police/dispatch and fire, with each having items of need that range from building updates and improvements to vehicle and technology replacements.

Other departments were brought up as well during Theis’ presentation,

In total, there are five new positions being proposed, including the two in human resources, being budgeted for in 2026. The other three positions include an associate planner and two additional dispatchers for the Bloomfield Township Police Department.

There will be no contractual wage increases to the 2026 budget year as they were adjusted this past January. They also had another successful healthcare renewal, keeping their illustrative rates and fees lower than trend. There was also an increase in their share of prescription rebates from Cigna to 100 percent. Theis noted that at one point those rebates were at zero percent.

The township is also looking to be close to spending all of the $4.4 million in ARPA funds they received, with the projections showing that they’ll have spent $4.2 million by the end of the fiscal year for 2026. They will need to spend all of it by the end of next December to comply with the federal ARPA deadline.

They are currently expected to

spend $1.8 million of the $4.4 million given to the township from the ARPA by the end of this fiscal year. This will pay for the Fire Tower Truck.

Outside of the budget discussion for 2026, Theis discussed with the board their options for where to put the projected $3.2 million surplus from the fiscal year ending in March, where revenues may exceed expenditures for the township’s general fund, road fund, and public safety fund combined.

The $3.2 million is primarily being driven by a reduction in expenditures rather than an increase in revenues, and is mainly from position vacancies. There are currently 16 open vacancies across the general fund, road fund and public safety fund. There was also a significant amount of grant revenues that the township received which were not budgeted for during the fiscal year.

Theis gave multiple suggestions that were similar to last year, such as using it for an extra contribution to the Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trust, which Theis did not recommend, or contributing to the Retiree Healthcare Trust.

His ultimate recommendation though was that they put it in the equipment and replacement fund. Many on the board agreed with this suggestion, and much like Theis noted that this option is the most flexible for relieving pressure on future years’ budgets. The approved budget already included a $1.35 million transfer, this $3.2 million would be added to that amount and will help contribute to the $14 million of capital purchases projected for the next five years.

“Certainly, the equipment and replacement fund has been very substantial, it’s been very helpful in getting us through some of these capital improvement purchases… I would go with your recommendation,” said trustee Neal Barnett.

Treasurer Michael Schostak and clerk Martin Brook also spoke in favor of the decision to put the surplus in the equipment and replacement fund.

Theis will return in May for the official resolution to approve committing the surplus to the equipment and replacement fund, and in March to further finalize the budget for 2026.

$138 million verdict against local firm

An Oakland County Circuit Court jury Tuesday, February 18, returned a $138 million verdict against a Birmingham business, Science Beauty Tech, and the owner of the firm, Gary Raykhinshteyn, on behalf of six former

Home generator rules could be changing

By Grace Lovins

were singled out for public hearings and potential application intervention due to multiple code violations.

Anew standby generator ordinance for single-family homes in Birmingham is heading to the city commission for approval after getting the green light from the city’s planning board during the Wednesday, February 12, meeting.

The push for standby generator regulations was brought to the planning board after the Birmingham fire department saw multiple close calls with carbon monoxide (CO) build-up in homes. Fire marshal Jeff Scaife noted when the item was first introduced to the board that the department has recorded over a dozen CO incidents involving generators in the past three years.

CO, an odorless, colorless gas, can be harmful to health, even with low level exposure. Per Scaife, there were three emergency calls where homes had deadly levels of CO build-up from generators in June 2024, with levels exceeding 100 parts per million. The World Health Organization recognizes that exposure can’t exceed 15 minutes when CO levels are between 90 and 100 parts per million, Scaife writes in the meeting packet memorandum.

Scaife, along with planning director Nick Dupuis, noted the goal of the ordinance was to ensure that generators are placed a safe distance away from homes as well as limit noise pollution.

The new ordinance considers standby generators an accessory structure. They may only be placed in the rear open space at least five feet from a principal building -- a house or building with habitable space.

Exhaust outlets must be directed to the rear open space and may not be pointed towards a principal structure or building with habitable space located within 20 feet. Dupuis stated the placement requirements apply to all properties, including corner lots.

Permitted use of a standby generator is limited to instances when the normal power source of a residence has been disrupted. Once the power is back on, generators must be turned off. Residents looking to install a standby generator must get a permit from the city to do so.

The planning board held multiple study sessions on the draft ordinance, beginning in November, to determine the language and content. As such, board members had little to add during Wednesday’s public hearing.

Board members voted unanimously, 6-0, to recommend approval of the ordinance to the city commission. Commissioners will make the final call on the matter following another hearing during a regular meeting.

workers who had charged in their lawsuit about a hostile work environment, employment discrimination, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress which included physical contact and a pattern of sexual advances and harassing sexual comments.

Science Beauty Tech, locate at 261 East Maple Road, Suite 204, in Birmingham, offers electrostimulation and laser treatment for body ailments and for body sculpting.

Five of the six female plaintiffs in the lawsuit were represented by Flood Law managing partner Todd Flood and attorney Alllexa Otto, according to a release from the law firm. A sixth plaintiff was represented by attorney Zachary Runyan.

Filed by the plaintiffs in the fall of 2023, the original complaint obtained by Downtown catalogues a string of incidences, many sexual in nature, in which Raykhinshteyn actually touched

workers’ bodies, made requests that workers wear more revealing clothing at work, or retaliated against workers who rejected his sexual advances while at work. All of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were referred to as Jane Doe and were employed by the firm between the years of 2012 and 2023.

After the jury returned the verdict, Flood said, “What these women had to endure in the workplace was nothing short of horrific. Let this be a lesson for all those who abuse their position of power – you will be held accountable.”

Hearing for two city bistros liquor licenses

By Grace Lovins

During the annual review of liquor license applications for Birmingham establishments at the Monday, February 12, commission meeting, two establishments, Zana and 220 Merrill,

Birmingham Clerk Alexandria Bingham told commissioners during the meeting that all the city’s establishments filing for a liquor license were up to date on bills and were found in compliance with city regulations aside from Zana, located at 210 S Old Woodward, and 220 Merrill. Both establishments have outstanding safety violations.

Zana has had multiple instances of overcrowding, one of which hindered emergency response needed in the building, and, per police chief Scott Grewe, has been the location of multiple fights or assaults within the last year.

According to Grewe, Zana is considered the popular place in the city and it isn’t uncommon for officers to be at the front of the building during closing time to help curtail behavior. He said that there have been seven instances over the course of the last calendar year, but police have had conversations with Zana staff about the issues and the staff has been receptive.

On top of the police department’s issues, fire marshal Jeff Scaife explained that twice issues of overcrowding have been reported. He said that a year ago, overcrowding was reported and misdemeanor tickets were issued after an investigation. Later the same year, medical crews were called for an emergency but couldn’t get in due to overcrowding at the front of the establishment.

Similar to Zana, Scaife explained that 220 Merrill was also found to have overcrowding which hindered response to a medical incident. Scaife said that the owner contacted the city right away and met with staff to address the issue. The only other violation was due to a ‘pyrotechnic’ candle on a dessert which they have since stopped doing. Grewe said of 220 Merrill that the bistro has had two minor instances, but nothing of real particular note concerning the police department. Commissioners voted 6-0 to approve the renewal of the liquor license applications for all city bistros except Zana and 220 Merrill. A public hearing for the two was set for Monday, March 10, during which both establishments will be able to speak to the commission about their applications. Commissioner Katie Schafer was absent from the meeting.

DOLLARS– LET US HELP YOU SLEEP BETTER AT NIGHT.

Owed $207,000.00 –Settled for $7,352.00

Owed $374,416.00 –Settled for $19,181.00

Owed $1,039,938.00 –Settled for $85,824.00

FACES

Michelle Adams

Legal scholar Michelle Adams – whose research centers on race discrimination, school desegregation, affirmative action and housing law – had a great role model. “My father was a lawyer who had a big effect on me. He was a public defender for many Black Detroiters and a larger-than-life figure,” she said.

Now Adams prepares future lawyers for their profession as the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, where she won the 2024 L. Hart Wright Teaching Award.

“As a full-time tenured law professor, that was really gratifying for me, especially in my first full year of tenure,” said Adams, who also taught at the Benjamin N. Cardoza School of Law where she was named Professor of the Year by the graduating class in 2022.

Her comprehensive approach shows her dedication. “From my perspective, I never forget that the students are paying my salary. I spend a tremendous amount of time to prepare for class and think about how the material is going to land for them, and illustrate the material to bring them into the conversation and take them on a journey,” she said. “I am really invested in their success…it’s all about creating excellent lawyers.”

Adams earned a B.A. from Brown University, a J.D. from CUNY Law School, and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, where she was the first Charles Hamilton Houston Scholar.

Her new book: The Containment: Detroit, The Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North, details the desegregation struggle that ended the Brown v. Board of Education era and the activists whose efforts led to federal Judge Stephen Roth’s landmark order to achieve racial balance between the city and the suburbs with busing for students.

In 1974, when the Supreme Court ruled that the suburbs could not be a part of the effort to integrate, Milliken v. Bradley brought a halt to school desegregation across the North.

“I have always been fascinated with Milliken v. Bradley. It takes place in Detroit and I’m from Detroit. I kept reading about it and realized it was an amazing story. The case was a natural for me to explore,” said Adams. “I basically wrote a book I wanted to read with a backstory almost like a legal thriller for a general audience to take a deep dive into Detroit at the time of the Nixon administration.”

Her book chronicles what happened and why can also be a teaching tool for law students and scholars. In 1970, the NAACP sued state officials to counter segregated schools that violated Brown v. Department of Education. At that time, racially segregated schools were unconstitutional and Michigan law prohibited segregation in schools, but Black children remained in Black schools and white children in white schools. The remedy that proposed busing in Detroit and the suburbs was upheld twice before it got to the Supreme Court in 1974 and was overturned.

“My book is about that case and how segregation in schools had a deeply interrelated relationship to North Jim Crow,” said Adams. “It’s also about incredible personalities.”

The historical account features key figures like Coleman Young and Justices Marshall, Rehnquist and Powell.

Adams, who grew up in Detroit, went to The Roeper School. “It was an extraordinary experience that taught me what integration can do,” she said.

The Containment includes some memoir elements. “I have a great love of Detroit. I moved away and just came back, so from the perspective of someone who lived in the area and then was removed, I hope people here and across the nation will appreciate the book,” said Adams. “It’s a bit of a love letter that takes the reader on a journey. I hope they come with me.”

Story: Susan Peck

Photo: Theodore Michael

BUSINESS MATTERS

New jeweler opens

SRL Jewelry has opened at 123 West Maple Road in the heart of downtown Birmingham. The initials S-R-L stand for owner Jack Basmadjian’s three children — Sophia, Rocco and Luca. Although this is Basmadjian’s first store, he is no stranger to the jewelry business. He has worked in the industry for the past 30 years including a stint with Rottermond Jewelers in Brighton and Milford where he served as the buyer for Rolex. SRL Jewelry is a full-service fine jeweler specializing in customdesigned pieces reflecting individual style. Luxury timepieces include preowned and unworn Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet. The store also offers appraisals, jewelry repair and watch repair. Customer care is important to Basmadjian. “I have built my business off of personal relationships and referrals. I opened with a business plan of just helping my current clients and their referrals. The walk-in traffic and the new people that I have met (in Birmingham) are a bonus,” he said. The store boasts a full espresso and coffee bar, creating a welcoming atmosphere where customers can relax and feel at home while they shop. Hours are TuesdayFriday, 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. and Saturday, 11 a.m.- 4 p.m., or by appointment.

Dandelion Kids store

A new children’s clothing consignment shop has opened at 2519 W. Maple Road, Bloomfield Township. The idea for Dandelion Kids sprouted from entrepreneur, mom and store owner Elizabeth Cunningham’s vision to design a bright, clean and organized kid’s resale boutique. “There really wasn’t another shop like this in the area. I feel like there was a lot of waste in the clothing industry and this is a way to reuse clothing. It’s also a great way for people to earn a couple bucks by cleaning out their closets, and on the buying side, it’s a way for people to get a great wardrobe at a reasonable price,” said Cunningham. Dandelion Kids provides consignees and savvy shoppers a welcoming environment with two private fitting rooms and an area for kids to play while their adult shops. The store showcases a curated selection of new-with-tag to previously loved merchandise featuring current styles from select high quality brands. Some of the brands available at Dandelion Kids include Hanna Andersson, Janie and Jack, Patagonia, Vineyard Vines, Polo Ralph Lauren, J. Crew and Lilly Pulitzer. The store provides a large

selection of clothing and accessories for babies, toddlers, children and teens, with new inventory arriving daily. All new consignors must complete an online registration and an online consignment agreement prior to scheduling a consignment appointment. All appointments are scheduled online. Proceeds are 30 percent of the final net sales price. The store offers a 10 percent premium on the cash value of the proceeds if the consignors choose to receive store credit. The store is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. More information on consigning is available online at dandelionkids.shop.

Jeffrey Floral Architecture

Jeffrey Jucewicz has been in the floral business for 16 years. He worked as the head florist for the Townsend for nine years and prior to that, he served as the personal florist for Art Van Elslandler and the Art Van Corporation. When COVID-19 hit, Jucewicz shifted gears and began creating planters for residential and corporate clients. Jucewicz has recently expanded his reach and has opened a new store — Jeffrey Floral Architecture Garden & Home, located at 110 S. Old Woodward in Birmingham. The store features wall sculptures, home accents, vases, planters and home accessory gifts. Jucewicz is also the sole Michigan distributor of Bacho Topiaries. The giant Bacho Topiary sculptures (some measuring 14 feet high) come in a variety of whimsical shapes including giraffes, rabbits, hippos, bears, deer, elephants and many others. The frames of the sculptures are made from a laser cut fiberglass core. The topiaries are covered with high-quality premium plush artificial turf which is UV resistant and durable in all weather.

“We get the same response from people all the time when they see the topiaries. They say ‘oh my gosh, these make me so happy. They make me smile.’” Local residents may be familiar with the topiary sculptures as they were showcased at the opening day for the Birmingham Farmers Market and also Birmingham’s Art Walk. Current hours for Jeffrey Floral Architecture Garden & Home are WednesdaySaturday 11 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, visit jeffreyfloral.com.

Business Matters for the BirminghamBloomfield area are reported by Gigi Nichols. Send items for consideration to GigiNichols@downtownpublications.com. Items should be received three weeks prior to publication.

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MATTERS

NEXT NOTEBOOK

We are frequently asked, how can Next provide so many programs and services with such a small staff and limited resources?

I have a one word answer, volunteers!

If it weren’t for our volunteers, Next programs and offerings would be considerably less — or our staff would have to grow exponentially, meaning our operational expenses would balloon.

Volunteer hours do not show up on a financial statement or balance sheet, yet we rely on an army of volunteers to make Next what it is today. Over 200 volunteers facilitate programs, teach classes, support staff, cover the front office, deliver meals to homebound seniors, serve on boards and committees, work special events, and so much more.

THE COMMUNITY HOUSE

We invite community members to take part in our lectures, events and classes that will enable us to support our outreach efforts in helping others. Our nonprofit partners for the Spring programs and events below are Women of Tomorrow Girls Mentoring and Scholarship Program and United Community Family Services. Register at communityhousehelps.org

Masterclass Professional Development Lectures: Businesspeople will hone their skills for everyday interactions and growth. Wednesdays, 11:30am-1:30pm. $35 per lecture. Sponsors: Oakland University School of Business, MiBank and The Original Print Shoppe.

March 19: “Create a Culture of Belonging” is part of James Cristbrook’s James Inspires You dynamic speaking series. James has forged an extraordinary path nationwide teaching others how to create a culture of belonging.

April 16: “ Turn Connections into Community: Top 5 Qualities of the Best Networkers”

Tina Sula, a networking expert and philanthropic advisor guides people in achieving their goals and aspirations.

Trying to get an understanding of why people volunteer, and why at Next, I spoke to several volunteers over the last couple of days. Toby, who teaches computer lessons and facilitates several discussion groups, loves what Next stands for. “Next isn’t just a place to come to play games or hear a lecture, it’s a place where I have found friendships, support and encouragement. I love giving back, when I volunteer at Next, I feel full.”

Maureen has volunteered in the Next front office for more than a decade. She spoke about using her professional skills to support Next but has found it a place where she is inspired by the vitality of Next members. “I enjoy the members; they are great role models and have become part of my social network”.

Ed likes helping people. Facilitating several card games throughout the week, he likes to adapt the games to be sure everyone who wants to play feels included. He likes giving confidence to players, so they are comfortable playing with people of all skill levels. That confidence he provides may mean the difference between someone coming to Next to socialize or staying home isolated. A pretty impactful endeavor.

Harley, who facilitates discussion groups, gives program suggestions, and admittedly, offers me support and often some well needed words of encouragement, explained why he volunteers at Next. “I like to create a sense of belonging in the groups I am involved in. Shaping an inclusive and supportive group of people from many different backgrounds and perspectives is what makes life meaningful.” Like many of our members who have created a smaller community inside the Next community, members check-in on each other, celebrate and grieve with each other, share meals, share faith, and at times commiserate, all while offering comfort and no doubt, a little levity.

Our volunteers not only bring great service, passion and commitment to Next, but also great value by providing hundreds of thousands of dollars in operational savings. Interestingly, Next volunteers come from all over. In fact, a vast number of volunteers at Next are not from Birmingham. Next attracts volunteers from many surrounding communities because of the culture we have created making Next not only a great place to belong, but also to volunteer.

When thinking of volunteering, Harley said it best, “community is not only a noun, at Next, it is a verb.”

March 27: “Get & Give a Basket Event”: Help feed families in need. A fun “girls night out” (and any brave men!) of connection and community while contributing to a worthy cause of helping to feed 1,200 food insecure families. Purchase a lovely gift basket (“Get”) and help TCH contribute (“Give”) nourishing food boxes in time for the Easter holiday. 5:30-7:30pm. $35/person.

Register before classes are filled:

Kids Create Action Art, 4 class series

Cell Phone Photography

Kids Create - Dino Discovery

Instant Piano for Hopelessly Busy People

Instant Guitar for Hopelessly Busy People

Knife Skills with Executive Chef Ryan Friedrich Vocal Techniques for Performance: Ready for the Stage

Intro to Ballet for Children; 4 class series

Intro to Ballet for Adults; 4 class series

Stretching for Flexibility and Mobility

Registration Opens March 1 for April Classes:

Sandra Krafsur: - Master Yoga Instructor teaching Gentle Yoga and Mixed Level Yoga. Chair Pilates Classes: A low-impact workout builds strength, flexibility and posture using a chair for support or balance, offering a gentle way to improve core strength and overall mobility. (6-week series)

Introduction to Ballroom Dancing: Learn the basic steps and rhythms of popular dances like the waltz, tango and foxtrot. Perfect for beginners, a fun and supportive environment will build your confidence and skills on the dance floor. (6-week series)

Challenge Island Family Fun Night: Roller Coaster Ridge: The history of roller coasters starting with Coney Island, how they’ve changed, and how physics and engineering make roller coasters possible. Each family becomes their own design firm to create and build a working coaster.

Cellphone Photography for You and Your Plus One: Explore creative techniques on how to make everyday moments look extraordinary. (4-week series)

Introduction to Latin Dancing Class: Dive into the vibrant world of Latin rhythms, learning the basics of salsa and merengue. For beginners or those looking to refresh their moves, this class will have you moving to the beat with confidence. (6-week series)

The Art of French Macaroons Virtual Class: Learn the delicate process of creating these melt-in-your-mouth treats. Be guided through every step to ensure you create these colorful confections with confidence.

Introduction to Bartending: Master the fundamentals of mixing drinks, understanding bar tools, and basic cocktail recipes.

Challenge Island Family Fun Night – Agra Monkey Playground: Families learn about the Taj Mahal and their challenges with keeping the monkeys in the nearby jungle away from the tourists; each family then builds a small paper-cutout and a playground of activities for the monkeys to play in.

Intermediate Bartending: Refine advanced mixing techniques, specialty cocktails, and understanding flavor profiles.

Go to communityhousehelps.org for exciting May classes!

TCH Charity Helping Charities: Birmingham Youth Assistance is seeking nominations by March 14 for their annual Celebration of Youth in Service, honoring youth who give back to their community. This recognition of area middle school and high school students is a wonderful addition to college applications, and selected nominees will also receive financial awards. For more information, visit BirminghamYouthAssistance.org.

Cris Braun is Executive Director of Birmingham Next

Cris Braun

PLACES TO EAT

The Places To Eat for Downtown is a quick reference source to establishments offering a place for dining, either breakfast, lunch or dinner. The listings include nearly all dining establishments with seating in the Birmingham/Bloomfield area, and then some select restaurants outside the immediate area served by Downtown.

Birmingham/Bloomfield

220: American. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 220 E. Merrill Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.646.2220. 220restaurant.com

5th Tavern: American. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2262 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Township, 48302. 248.481.9607. 5thtavern.com

Adachi: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner daily. Liquor. Reservations. 325 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham 48009. 248.540.5900. adachirestaurant.com

Andiamo: Italian. Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 6676 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Township, 48301. 248.865.9300. andiamoitalia.com

Beau’s: American. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 4108 W. Maple Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301. 248.626.2630. beausbloomfield.com

Bella Piatti: Italian. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 167 Townsend Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.494.7110. bellapiattirestaurant.com

Bell Bistro: American. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Liquor. Reservations. 185 N. Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.829.7900. bellbirmingham.com

Beverly Hills Grill: American. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 3147 Southfield Road, Beverly Hills, 48205. 248.642.2355. beverlyhillsgrill.com

48302. 248.540.7220. cityscapedeli.com

Commonwealth: American. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. No reservations. 300 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.9766. gocommonwealth.com

Dick O’Dow’s: Irish. Lunch & Dinner, TuesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 160 West Maple Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.642.1135. dickodowspub.com

Eddie Merlot’s: Steak & seafood. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 37000 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.712.4095. eddiemerlots.com

Einstein Bros. Bagels: Deli. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. No reservations. 4089 West Maple Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301. 248.258.9939. einsteinbros.com

Elie’s Mediterranean Grill/Bar: Mediterranean. Lunch, Thursday-Saturday, Dinner, MondaySaturday. No reservations. Liquor. 263 Pierce Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.647.2420. eliesgrill.com

EM: Mexican. Lunch, Friday-Sunday, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 470 N. Old Woodward Ave, Birmingham, 48009. 947.234.0819. embirmingham.com

Embers Deli & Restaurant: Deli. Breakfast & Lunch, Tuesday-Sunday. Dinner, TuesdayFriday. No reservations. 3598 West Maple Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301. 248.645.1033. embersdeli1.com

Flemings Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar: American. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 323 N. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.723.0134. flemingssteakhouse.com

Forest: Continental cuisine. Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 735 Forest Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.258.9400. forestbirmingham.com

Greek Islands Coney Restaurant: Greek. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 221 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, 48009. 248.646.1222. greekislandsconey.com

Beyond Juicery + Eatery: Contemporary. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 270 W. Maple Road, Birmingham, 48009; 221 Cole Street, Birmingham, 48009; 3645 W. Maple Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301; 4065 W. Maple Road, Bloomfield Township, 48301; 1987 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48302. beyondjuiceryeatery.com

Bill’s: American. Breakfast, weekends, Lunch, Wednesday-Sunday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 39556 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.646.9000. billsbloomfieldhills.com

Griffin Claw Brewing Company: American. Lunch, Thursday-Sunday, Dinner, TuesdaySunday. No Reservations. Liquor. 575 S. Eton Street, Birmingham. 248.712.4050. griffinclawbrewingcompany.com

Hazel’s: Seafood. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 1 Peabody Street, Birmingham. 248.671.1714. eatathazels.com

Honey Tree Grille: Greek/American. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, daily. No reservations. 3633 W. Maple Rd, Bloomfield, MI 48301. 248.203.9111. honeytreegrille.com

Birmingham Pub: American. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, TuesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 555 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.885.8108. thebirminghampub.com

Hudson’s Place: Pizza/Coffee/Takeout. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. 1087 W. Long Lake Road, Bloomfield Township, 48302. 248.540.2266. hudsonsplacepizzeria.com.

Birmingham Sushi Cafe: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 377 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, 48009. 248.593.8880. birminghamsushi.com

Bistro Joe’s Kitchen: Global. Brunch, Sunday, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Liquor. Reservations. 34244 Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.594.0984. bistrojoeskitchen.com

Bloomfield Deli: Deli. Breakfast & Lunch, Monday-Friday. No reservations. 71 W. Long Lake Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.645.6879. bloomfielddeli.com

Brooklyn Pizza: Pizza. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Liquor. No reservations. 111 Henrietta Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.258.6690. thebrooklynpizza.com

Café Dax: American. Breakfast, daily, Lunch, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 298 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.283.4200. daxtonhotel.com

Hunter House Hamburgers: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 35075 Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.646.7121. hunterhousehamburgers.com

Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse: American. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 201 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.594.4369. hydeparkrestaurants.com

IHOP: American. Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 2187 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301. 248.333.7522. Ihop.com

Joe Muer Seafood: Seafood. Dinner daily. Reservations. Liquor. 39475 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.792.9609. joemuer.com

Café ML: New American. Dinner, daily. Liquor. Reservations. 3607 W. Maple Road, Bloomfield Township. 248.642.4000. cafeml.com

Kaku Sushi and Poke’: Asian. Lunch, MondayFriday & Dinner daily. No reservations. 869 W. Long Lake Road, Bloomfield Township, 48302. 248.480.4785, and 126 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham, 48009. 248.885.8631. kakusushipoke.com

Kerby’s Koney Island: American. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 2160 N. Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.333.1166. kerbyskoneyisland.com

Café Origins: Global. Breakfast and Lunch, daily, Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations. 163 W Maple Road, Birmingham, 48009. 248.742.4040. originsbirmingham.com

Casa Pernoi: Italian. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 310 E. Maple Road, Birmingham, 48009. 248.940.0000. casapernoi.com

Churchill’s Bistro & Cigar Bar: Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 116 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.647.4555. churchillscigarbar.com

Cityscape Deli: Deli. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations. 877 W. Long Lake Road, Bloomfield Hills,

La Marsa: Mediterranean. Lunch & Dinner daily. Reservations. 43259 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48302. 248.858.5800. lamarsacuisine.com

La Strada Italian Kitchen & Bar: Italian. Dinner, Monday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 243 E. Merrill Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.480.0492. lastradaitaliankitchen.com

Leo’s Coney Island: American. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 154 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.593.9707. Also 6527 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301.

248.646.8568. leosconeyisland.com

Lincoln Yard and Little Yard: American. Little Yard take-out hours: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Lincoln Yard hours: Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 2159 E. Lincoln Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.653.5353. eatlincolnyard.com

Little Daddy’s: American. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 39500 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.647.3400. littledaddys.com

Luxe Bar & Grill: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 525 N. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.6051. luxebarandgrill.com

Madam: American. Brunch, weekends. Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner daily. Reservations. Liquor. 298 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.283.4200. daxtonhotel.com

Mare Mediterranean: Seafood. Brunch, weekends, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 115 Willets Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.940.5525. maremediterranean.com

Market North End: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 474 N. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.712.4953. marketnorthend.com

Marrow: American. Butcher shop and eatery. Breakfast and Lunch, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. 283 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, 48009. 734.410.0405 marrowdetroit.com/restaurant

MEX Mexican Bistro & Tequila Bar: Mexican. Brunch, weekends. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 6675 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Township, 48301. 248.723.0800. mexbloomfield.com

Middle Eats: Mediterranean. Lunch and Dinner, daily. No reservations. 42967 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield, 48093. 248.274.328. middleeats.com

Nippon Sushi Bar: Japanese. Lunch, MondayFriday, Dinner daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2079 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Township, 48302. 248.481.9581. nipponsushibar.com

Olga’s Kitchen: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 2075 S. Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48302. 248.451.0500. olgas.com

Original Pancake House: American. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. No reservations. 33703 South Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.642.5775. oph-mi.com

Phoenicia: Lebanese. Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 588 S. Old Woodward Birmingham, 48009. phoeniciabirmingham.com

Roadside B & G: American. Brunch, weekends, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1727 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield, 48302. 248.858.7270. roadsidebandg.com

Salvatore Scallopini: Italian. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Beer & Wine. 505 North Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.644.8977. salsbirmingham.com

Shift Kitchen & Cocktails: Small plates. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 117 Willits Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.2380. shiftbirmingham.com

Sidecar: American. Lunch and Dinner, daily. Liquor. 117 Willits Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.2380. sidecarsliderbar.com

Slice Pizza Kitchen: Pizza. Lunch and Dinner, daily. Liquor. 117 Willits Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.3475. slicepizzakitchen.com

Social Kitchen & Bar: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Brunch, Saturday & Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 225 E. Maple Road, Birmingham, 48009. 248.594.4200. socialkitchenandbar.com

Steve’s Deli: Deli. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday. Breakfast and Lunch, Sunday. No reservations. 6646 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield, 48301. 248.932.0800. stevesdeli.com

Streetside Seafood: Seafood. Lunch, Thursday & Friday, Dinner, daily. Liquor. 273 Pierce Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.645.9123. streetsideseafood.com

Sushi Hana: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 42656 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48304. 248.333.3887. sushihanabloomfield.com

Sy Thai Cafe: Thai. Lunch, Monday-Saturday, Dinner, daily. No reservations. 315 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, 48009. 248.258.9830. sythaibirmingham.com

Sylvan Table: American. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1819 Inverness Street, Sylvan Lake, 48320. 248.369.3360. sylvantable.com

Tallulah Wine Bar and Bistro: American. Dinner, Monday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 55 S. Bates Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.731.7066. tallulahwine.com

Terra Kitchen & Cocktails: New American. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 260 N. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.556.5640.dineterra.com

Thai Street Kitchen: Thai. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations. 42805 Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Township, 48304. 248.499.6867 thaistreetkitchen.com

The French Lady: French. Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. 768 N. Old Woodward, Birmingham, 48009. 248.480.0571. zefrenchlady.com

The Gallery Restaurant: American. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Beer & wine. 6683 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, 48301. 248.851.0313. galleryrestaurant2.com

The Moose Preserve Bar & Grill: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2395 S. Woodward Avenue, Bloomfield Hills, 48302. 248.858.7688. moosepreserve.com

The Rugby Grille: American. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 100 Townsend Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.642.5999. rugbygrille.com

Toast: American. Breakfast & Lunch, daily; Reservations. Liquor. 203 Pierce Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.258.6278. eatattoast.com

Tomatoes Apizza: Pizza. Lunch & Dinner daily. Carryout. 34200 Woodward Avenue, Birmingham 48009. 248.258.0500. tomatoesapizza.com

Touch of India: Lunch, Tuesday-Thursday, Saturday & Sunday. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. 297 E. Maple Road, Birmingham, 48009. 248.593.7881. thetouchofindia.com

Townhouse: American. Brunch, weekends. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 180 Pierce Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.792.5241. eatattownhouse.com

Whistle Stop Diner: American. Breakfast & Lunch, daily; Liquor. No reservations. 501 S. Eton Street, Birmingham, 48009. 248.566.3566. whistlestopdiners.com

Wilder’s: American. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 458 N. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.771.0900. wildersbirmingham.com

ZANA: Modern American. Dinner, TuesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 210 S. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham, 48009. 248.800.6568. zanabham.com

Zao Jun: Lunch, Saturday & Sunday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 6608 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Township, 48301. 248.949.9999. zaojunnewasian.com

Royal Oak/Ferndale

Ale Mary’s: American. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 316 South Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.268.1917. alemarysbeer.com

Anita’s Kitchen: Middle Eastern. Lunch, Monday-Saturday, Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations. Liquor. 22651 Woodward Avenue, Ferndale, 48220. 248.548.0680. anitaskitchen.com

Beppé: New American. Lunch, Saturday and Sunday, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. Liquor. 703 N. Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.607.7030. eatbeppe.com

Bigalora: Italian. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 711 S. Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.544.2442 bigalora.com

Blind Owl: International/American comfort. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 511 S. Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.216.1112. blindowlrestaurant.com

Café de Olla: Mexican. Breakfast, Tuesday, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. Liquor. 418 S. Washington Avenue, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.633.5311. cafedeollami.com

Cafe Muse: French. Breakfast & Lunch, Wednesday-Monday. Reservations. Liquor. 418 S. Washington Avenue, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.544.4749. cafemuseroyaloak.com

Coeur: New American Small Plates. Brunch, weekends, Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday.

Reservations. Liquor. 330 W. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale, 48220. 248.466.3010. coeurferndale.com

Como’s: Pizza. Brunch, weekends. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 22812 Woodward Avenue, Ferndale, 48220. 248.677.4439. comosrestaurant.com

Crispelli’s Bakery and Pizzeria: Italian. Lunch and Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 28939 Woodward Avenue, Berkley, 48072. 248.591.3300. crispellis.com

The Fly Trap: Diner. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. Dinner, Thursday-Sunday. No reservations. 22950 Woodward Avenue, Ferndale 48220. 248.399.5150. theflytrapferndale.com

Grand River Brewery: American. Brunch, Saturday & Sunday. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 1 E. 14 Mile Road, Clawson, 48017. 248.607-3631. grandriverbrewer

Gus’ Snug: Irish. Lunch and Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 38 S. Main Street, Clawson, 48017. 248.607.3631. gussnug.com

HopCat: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 430 S. Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.744.2544. HopCat.com

Howe’s Bayou: Cajun. Lunch & Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. No reservations. Liquor. 22949 Woodward Avenue, Ferndale, 48220. 248.691.7145. howesbayouferndale.net

Imperial: Mexican. Lunch and Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 22848 Woodward Avenue, Ferndale, 48220. 248.691.7145. imperialferndale.com

Inyo Restaurant Lounge: Asian Fusion. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 22871 Woodward Avenue, Ferndale, 48220. 248.543.9500. inyorestaurant.com

Kacha Thai Market: Thai. Lunch and Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. 205 S Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.942-4246.

KouZina: Greek. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. 121 N. Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.629.6500. gokouzina.com

Kruse & Muer on Woodward: American. Lunch, Monday-Saturday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 28028 Woodward Avenue, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.965.2101. kruseandmuerrestaurants.com

Lily’s Seafood: Seafood. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 410 S. Washington Avenue, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.591.5459. lilysseafood.com

Lockhart’s BBQ: Barbeque. Brunch, Sunday. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 202 E. Third Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.584.422. lockhartsbbq.com

Masala: Indian. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. 106 S. Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.850.8284. food.orders.co/royaloakmasala

Mezcal: Mexican. Bruch, Sunday. Lunch and Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 201 E. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale, 248.268.3915. mezcalferndale.com

Noori Pocha: Korean. Lunch & Dinner, TuesdaySunday. No reservations. Liquor. 1 S. Main Street, Clawson, 48017. 248. 850.7512. nooripocha.com

Pastaio: Italian. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 208 W 5th Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.565.8722. eatpastaio.com/royal-oak

Oak City Grille: American. Dinner, TuesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 212 W. 6th Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.556.0947. oakcitygrille.com

Oak Parker: American. Lunch and Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 13621 W Eleven Mile Road, Oak Park, 48327 oakparkerbar.com.

One-Eyed Betty’s: American. Breakfast, weekends, Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 175 W. Troy Street, Ferndale, 48220. 248.808.6633. oneeyedbettys.com

Pop’s for Italian: Italian. Brunch and Lunch, weekends, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 280 W. 9 Mile Road, Ferndale,48220. 248.268.4806. popsforitalian.com

Public House: American. Dinner, TuesdaySunday. No reservations. Liquor. 241 W. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale, 48220. 248.850.7420. publichouseferndale.com

Redcoat Tavern: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 31542 Woodward Avenue, Royal Oak, 48073. 248.549.0300. redcoat-tavern.com

Ronin: Japanese. Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 326 W. 4th Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.546.0888. roninsushi.com

Royal Oak Brewery: American. Lunch &

Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. Liquor. 215 E. 4th Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.544.1141. royaloakbrewery.com

Sozai: Japanese. Dinner, WednesdaySaturday. Reservations. 449 West 14 Mile Road, Clawson,48017. 248.677-3232. sozairestaurant.com

The Modern Vegan: Vegan. Brunch, Saturday and Sunday. Dinner, daily. No reservations. 304 N. Main Street, Royal Oak, MI 48067 248.206.7041. tmvrestaurants.com

Three Cats Café: American. Brunch, weekends, Lunch, Tuesday-Sunday, Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 116 W. 14 Mile Road, Clawson. threecatscafe.com

Tigerlily: Japanese. Lunch, Saturday & Sunday, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 231 W. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale, 48220. 248.733-4905. tigerlilyferndale.com

Toast, A Breakfast and Lunch Joint: American. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. No reservations. 23144 Woodward Avenue, Ferndale, 48220. 248.398.0444. eatattoast.com

Tom’s Oyster Bar: Seafood. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 318 S. Main Street, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.541.1186. tomsoysterbar.com

Trattoria Da Luigi: Italian. Dinner, TuesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 415 S, Washington Avenue, Royal Oak, 48067. 248.542.4444. trattoriadaluigi.business.site.com

Vinsetta Garage: American. Lunch and Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 7799 Woodward Avenue, Berkley, 48072. 248.548.7711. vinsettagarage.com

Voyager: Seafood. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 600 Vester Street, Ferndale, 48220. 248.658.4999. voyagerferndale.com

Troy/Rochester

Antica Nova: Italian. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 1695 E. Big Beaver Rd, Troy, 48083. 248.422.6521. anticanova.com

Cafe Sushi: Pan-Asian. Lunch, Tuesday-Friday, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 1933 W. Maple Road, Troy, 48084. 248.280.1831. cafesushimi.com

Capital Grill: Steak & Seafood. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 2800 W. Big Beaver Road, Somerset Collection, Troy, 48084. 248.649.5300.

CK Diggs: American & Italian. Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 2010 W. Auburn Road, Rochester Hills, 48309. 248.853.6600. ckdiggs.com

The Dime Store: American. Breakfast and Lunch, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 6920 N Rochester Road, Rochester Hills, 48306.248.963.0941. eatdimestore.com

Ernie’s on the Creek: Modern Mediterranean. Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 543 N. Main St #201, Rochester, 48307. 248.710.8808. erniesonthecreek.com

Firebird Tavern: American. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 4845 Rochester Road, Troy, 48085. 248.289.9650. firebirdtaverntroy.com

Grand Castor: Latin American. Lunch, Thursday-Sunday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 2950 Rochester Road, Troy, 48083. 248.278.7777. grancastor.com

The Jackson: Modern American. Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 184 N. Adams Road, Rochester Hills, 48309. 248.709.9453 thejacksonrestaurant.com

Kona Grille: American. Brunch, weekends, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 30 E. Big Beaver Road, Troy, 48083. 248.619.9060. konagrill.com

Kruse & Muer on Main: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 327 S. Main Street, Rochester, 48307. 248.652.9400. kruseandmuerrestaurants.com

Loccino Italian Grill and Bar: Italian. Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner, daily. Liquor. Reservations. 5600 Crooks Road, Troy, 48098. 248.813.0700. loccino.com

The Meeting House: American. Brunch, weekends, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. Liquor. 301 S. Main Street, Rochester, 48307. 248.759.4825. themeetinghouserochester.com

Mon Jin Lau: Nu Asian. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1515 E. Maple Road, Troy, 48083. 248.689.2332. monjinlau.com

Morton’s, The Steakhouse: Steak & Seafood.

METRO INTELLIGENCER

Metro Intelligencer is a monthly column devoted to news stories, tidbits and gossip items about what's happening on the restaurant scene in the metro Detroit area. Metro Intelligencer is reported/created each month by Gigi Nichols who can be reached at GigiNichols@DowntownPublications.com with news items or tips, on or off the record.

An Italian twist

La Pecora Nera, famous for its handcrafted traditional Italian sandwiches and dishes, is set to open in Birmingham in March. The eatery, which also has locations in Farmington and Detroit, will occupy the former home of Planthropie at135 Pierce Street. “La Pecora Nera is an authentic Italian deli with a true Italian experience. We bring in imported Italian meats, cheeses and fresh breads and we are really focused on quality,” said La Pecora Nera partner David Ayyash. The name La Pecora Nera translates to “black sheep.” Ayyash explains that the name is a play on the classic sandwiches that they prepare with an Italian twist. For example, their Rueben is made Italian-style and features Sy Ginsberg corned beef, with homemade spicy red wine vinegar cabbage slaw, pickles and mozzarella. Other popular dishes include the antipasti salad withmixed greens, genoa salami, fire roasted ham, capicola, mortadella, roasted red pepper, sun-dried tomato, mozzarella, parmesan, kalamata olives and homemade Italian dressing. Desserts include fresh baked cookies, hand stuffed cannoli and Italian gelato. The eatery has seating for approximately 12-15 guests and also offers charcuterie services as well as catering. La Pecora Nerawill be open seven days a week, 10 a.m.-8: p.m., Monday-Saturday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sunday. 135 Pierce Street, Birmingham lapecoraneradetroit.com

Terra Kitchen & Cocktails opens

Terra Kitchen & Cocktails has opened in downtown Birmingham in the space formerly occupied by The Morrie. At the helm of the kitchen is Executive Chef Fernando Mercado, who uprooted his family from Tampa, Florida and moved to Michigan because he believed in the vision that is Terra – “when you’re here, you are family and all gatherings are centered around none other than food.” The restaurant’s concept is described by Terra’s manager, Marko Juncaj, as “New American Fusion” which offers a melting pot of different cuisines. Fan favorite appetizers include the ahi tuna nachos and beef wellington bites while the crispy rice dishes featuring spicy tuna, yuzu salmon, steak tartare or spicy kani crab have also been quite popular. The modern Fattoush salad features romaine and iceberg lettuce, cucumber, pomegranate, tomato, onion, radish, mint and parsley all encased within a toasted crispy pita and presented with a wooden mallet for cracking — making for an instagrammable food moment. The sleek, modern interior, designed by Vanessa Foumia, showcases a neutral palate with concrete flooring and cozy leather booths, highlighted by wood accents, greenery walls and dramatic overhead lighting featuring hundreds of bubble glass bulbs. The restaurant seats 238 guests and is anchored by a large central bar that seats 28. Ten large screen TV screens line the bar, providing a lively and inviting spot for a drink and to watch sports. Nicholas Fortino, an awardwinning bar professional with over a decade of experience, serves as Terra’s bar manager. The beverage menu boasts a robust wine list, draught and bottled beers as well as craft cocktails. 260 N. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham dineterra.com

James Beard semifinalists

The James Beard Foundation has released the list of semifinalists for awards in national and regional categories. Many in the restaurant world consider this to be the Academy Awards for their industry. Nominees will be announced on Wednesday, April 2, and winners will be announced at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony on Monday, June 16, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The 2025 Restaurant and Chef Award semifinalists are recognized across 25 categories. In celebration of the Awards’ 35th anniversary, as well as in recognition of the ever-evolving independent restaurant landscape, the award program has expanded with a focus on beverages, introducing three new categories: Best New Bar, Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service, and Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service. Of local interest,the Foundation’s committee has named the following semifinalists from the state of Michigan: Outstanding Restaurant — Selden Standard, Detroit; Best New Restaurant — Vecino, Detroit; Outstanding Bakery — Secret Bakery, Ferndale; Outstanding Hospitality — Baobab Fare, Detroit; Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages

Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 888 W. Big Beaver Road, Troy, 48084. 248.404.9845. mortons.com

NM Café: American. Lunch, Monday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 2705 W. Big Beaver Road, Troy, 48084. 248.816.3424. neimanmarcus.com/restaurants

Oceania Inn: Chinese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. The Village of Rochester Hills, 3176 Walton Boulevard, Rochester Hills, 48309. 248.375.9200. oceaniainnrochesterhills.com

Ocean Prime: Steak & Seafood. Lunch, MondayFriday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 2915 Coolidge Highway, Troy, 48084. 248.458.0500. ocean-prime.com

O’Connor’s Irish Public House: Irish. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 324 S. Main Street, Rochester, 48307. 248.608.2537. oconnorsrochester.com

Orchid Café: Thai. Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner, Monday-Saturday. Reservations. 3303 Rochester Road., Troy, 48085. 248.524.1944. orchid-cafe.com

P.F. Chang’s China Bistro: Chinese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. Somerset Collection, 2801 W. Big Beaver Rd., Troy, 48084. 248.816.8000. pfchangs.com

Recipes: American/Brunch. Breakfast & Lunch, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 134 W. University Drive, Rochester, 48037. 248.659.8267. Also 2919 Crooks Road, Troy, 48084. 248.614.5390. recipesinc.com

RH House: American. Brunch, weekends, Lunch and Dinner, daily. 2630 Crooks Road, Rochester Hills, 48309. No reservations. Liquor. 2630 Crooks Road, Rochester Hills, 48309. 248.586.1000. rh.house.com

RH Social: Pizza/Sports Bar. Brunch, Lunch, Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 6870 N. Rochester Road, Rochester Hills, 48306.248.759.4858. rochesterhillssocial.com

Rochester Chop House: Steak & Seafood. Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 306 S. Main St., Rochester, 48307. 248.651.2266. kruseandmuerrestaurants.com

Ruth’s Chris Steak House: Steak & Seafood. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 755 W. Big Beaver Road, Troy, 48084. 248.269.8424. ruthschris.com

Saltwater Eatery: Seafood. Brunch, Sunday, Lunch, daily, Dinner, Monday-Saturday. Reservations. 3672 Rochester Road, Troy, 48083. 248.422.6151. saltwatereatery.info

Sedona Taphouse: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 198 Big Beaver Road, Troy, 48083. 248.422.6167. sedonataphouse.co

Silver Spoon: Italian. Dinner, Monday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 6830 N. Rochester Road, Rochester, 48306. 248.652.4500. silverspoonristorante.com

Stumblebum Beer Co.: American. Lunch and Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. Beer. 1965 West Maple Road, Troy 48084 248.307.7204. stumblebumbeer.com

Too Ra Loo: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 139 S. Main Street, Rochester, 48307. 248.453.5291. tooraloorochester.com

West Bloomfield/Southfield

Aurora Italiana: Italian. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 6199 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield Twp., 48322. 248.782.3000. auroraitaliana.com

Cornbread Restaurant & Bar: Southern. Lunch & Dinner, Thursday-Tuesday. Reservations. Liquor. 29508 Northwestern Highway, Southfield, 48034. 248.208.1680. cornbreadsoulfood.com

Bigalora: Italian. Lunch, Monday-Saturday, Dinner, daily. No Reservations. Liquor. 29110 Franklin Road, Southfield, 48034. 248.544.2442. bigalora.com

The Fiddler: Russian. Brunch, Sunday, Dinner, Thursday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 6676 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield Township, 48322. 248.851.8782. fiddlerrestaurant.com

Mene Sushi: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner, TuesdaySunday. No reservations. Beer & Wine. 6239 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield Township, 48322. 248.538.7081. menesususi.com

Nonna Maria’s: Italian. Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 2080 Walnut Lake Road, West Bloomfield, 48323. 248.851.2500. nonamariasbistro.com

Pickles & Rye: Deli. Lunch, & Dinner, TuesdaySunday. No reservations. 6724 Orchard Lake

Road, West Bloomfield Township, 48322. 248.737.3890. picklesandryedeli.com

Prime29 Steakhouse: Steak & Seafood. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 6545 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield, 48322. 248.737.7463. prime29steakhouse.com

Redcoat Tavern: American. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations. Liquor. 6745 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield Township, 48322. 248.865.0500. redcoattavern.com

Shangri-La: Chinese. Lunch & Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 6407 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield, 48322. 248.626.8585.dinesangrila.com

Stage Deli: Deli. Lunch, & Dinner, TuesdaySunday. No reservations. Liquor. 6873 Orchard Lake Rd., West Bloomfield Township, 48322. 248.855.6622. stagedeli.com

Yotsuba: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner, TuesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 7365 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield, 48322. 248.737.8282. yotsuba-restaurant.com

West Oakland

Volare Ristorante: Italian. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 48992 Pontiac Trail, Wixom, 48393. 248.960.7771. ristorantevolare.com

North Oakland

Clarkston Union: American. Breakfast, Sunday, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 54 S. Main Street, Clarkston, 48346 248.620.6100. clarkstonunion.com

Kruse's Deer Lake Inn: Seafood. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 7504 Dixie Highway, Clarkston, 48346. 248.795.2077. kruseandmuerrestaurants.com

The Fed: American. Brunch, Saturday & Sunday. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 15 S. Main Street, Clarkston, 48346. 248.297.5833. thefedcommunity.com

Rudy’s Steakhouse: Steak. Dinner, TuesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 9 S Main Street, Village of Clarkston, 48346. 248.625.3033. rudysprimesteakhouse.com

Via Bologna: Italian. Dinner, Monday-Saturday. No reservations. Liquor. 7071 Dixie Highway, Clarkston, 48346. 248.620.8500. joebologna.com

Union Woodshop: BBQ. Lunch, Saturday & Sunday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 18 S. Main Street, Clarkston, 48346. 248.625.5660. unionwoodshop.com

Detroit

Adelina: Italian. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 1040 Woodward Ave, Detroit,48226. 313.246.8811. adelinadetroit.com

Alpino: Alpine cuisine. Brunch, Sunday. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1426 Bagley Street, Detroit, 48216. 313.524.0888 alpinodetroit.com

Ash-Bar: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1509 Broadway Street, Detroit, 48226. 313.277.4736. ash.world/hotels/the-siren.com

Bar Pigalle: French. Brunch, Sundays. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 2915 John R Street, Detroit, 48201. 313.497.9200 barpigalle.com

Barda: Argentinian. Dinner, Thursday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 4842 Grand River Avenue, Detroit, 48208. 313.952.5182. bardadetroit.com

Basan: Asian. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 2703 Park Avenue, Detroit, 48201. 313.481.2703. basandetroit.com

Bucharest Grill: Middle Eastern. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2684 E. Jefferson Avenue, Detroit, 48207. 313.965.3111. bucharestgrill.com

Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails: Seasonal American. Lunch, Thursday & Friday. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 5 E. Kirby Street, Detroit, 48202. 313.818.3915. chartreusekc.com

Cliff Bell’s: American. Dinner, WednesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 2030 Park Avenue, Detroit, 48226. 313.961.2543. cliffbells.com

Coriander Kitchen and Farm: Farm to table. Brunch, Sunday, Lunch & Dinner, Monday and Thursday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 14601 Riverside Boulevard, Detroit, 48215.

313.338.9466. corianderkitchenandfarm.com

Corktown Taphouse: American and Mexican. No reservations. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Liquor. 1611 Michigan Avenue, Detroit, 48216. 313.362.8184. corktowntaphouse.com

Cuisine: French. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 670 Lothrop Road, Detroit, 48202. 313.872.5110. cuisinerestaurantdetroit.com

The Eagle: The Eagle: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 3461 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, 48201. 313.334.4530. eaglerestaurant.com

El Barzon: Mexican. Lunch, Tuesday-Friday. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 3710 Junction Street, Detroit, 48210. 313.894.2070. elbarzonrestaurant.com

Fishbone’s Rhythm Kitchen Café: Cajun. Lunch and Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 400 Monroe Street, Detroit, 48226. 313.965.4600. fishbonesusa.com

Freya: Price fixed. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations, Liquor. 2929 E. Grand Boulevard, Detroit, 48202. 313.351.5544. freyadetroit.com

Giovanni’s Ristorante: Italian. Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 330 S. Oakwood Boulevard, Detroit, 48217. 313.841.0122. giovannisrestaurante.com

Green Dot Stables: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2200 W. Lafayette, Detroit, 48216. 313.962.5588. greendotstables.com

HIROKI-SAN: Japanese. Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. Reservations. Liquor. 1265 Washington Boulevard, Detroit, 48226. 313.597.8344. hirokisandetroit.com

Joe Muer Seafood: Seafood. Lunch, MondayFriday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 400 Renaissance Center, Detroit, 48243. 313.567.6837. joemuer.com

Johnny Noodle King: Japanese. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2601 W. Fort Street, Detroit, 48216. 313.309.7946. johnnynoodleking.com

Lady of the House: New American. Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 4884 Grand River Ave Unit 1C, Detroit, 48208. 313.230.4678. ladyofthehousedetroit.com

Leila: Lebanese. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1245 Griswold Street, Detroit, 48226. 313. 816.8100. leiladetroit.com

Lena: Dinner, Wednesday-Monday. Reservations. Liquor. 2720 Brush Street, Detroit, 48201. 313.262.6082. lenadetroit.com

Le Supreme: French. Brunch, weekends, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1265 Washington Boulevard, Detroit, MI 48226. 313. 597-7734. lesupremedetroit.com

Lone Goat: British Pub. Lunch, MondaySaturday, Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 33 John R Street, Detroit, 48226. thelonegoat.com

Mad Nice: Coastal Italian/American. Lunch, Wednesday-Sunday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 4120 2nd Avenue, Detroit, 48201.313.558.8000. madnicedetroit.com

Mario’s: Italian. Lunch, Saturday & Sunday, Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 4222 2nd Avenue, Detroit, 48201. 313.832.1616. mariosdetroit.com

Mezcal: Mexican. Brunch, Weekends, Lunch and Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 51 W Forest Avenue, Detroit, 48202. 313.974.7441. mezcaldetroit.com

Midtown Shangri-la: Chinese. Lunch & Dinner, Monday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 4710 Cass Avenue, Detroit, 48201. 313.974.7669. midtownshangril-la.com

Motor City Brewing Works: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Beer & Wine. 470 W. Canfield Street, Detroit, 48201. 313.832.2700. motorcitybeer.com

Oak & Reel: Italian Seafood. Dinner, Wednesday-Monday. Reservations. Liquor. 2921 E. Grand Boulevard, Detroit, 48202. 313.270.9600. oakandreel.com

PAO Detroit: Asian Fusion/Pan Asian. Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 114 W Adams Avenue, Suite 200, Detroit, 48226. 313.816.0000. paodetroit.com

Parc: New American. Brunch, Saturday & Sunday. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 800 Woodward Ave, Detroit, 48226. 313.922.7272. parcdetroit.com

Prime + Proper: Steak House. Weekends. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1145 Griswold St, Detroit, 48226. 313.636.3100.

primeandproperdetroit.com

Prism: Steak & Seafood. Dinner, WednesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 555 E. Lafayette Street, Detroit, 48226. 313.309.2499. hollywoodgreektown.com

Red Smoke Barbeque: Barbeque. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. Trappers Alley Shopping Center, 573 Monroe Ave., Detroit, 48226. 313.962.2100.

Selden Standard: American. Dinner, Wednesday-Monday. Reservations. Liquor. 3921 2nd Avenue, Detroit, 48201. 313.438.5055. seldenstandard.com

Sexy Steak: Steakhouse. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1942 Grand River Avenue, Detroit,48226. 313.403.1000. sexysteakdetroit.com

SheWolf Pastifico & Bar: Italian. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 438 Selden Street, Detroit 48201. 313.315.3992. shewolfdetroit.com

Sinbad’s: Seafood. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 100 St. Clair Street, Detroit, 48214. 313.822.8000. sindbads.com

Slows Bar BQ: Barbeque. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2138 Michigan Avenue, Detroit, 48216. 313.962.9828. slowsbarbq.com/locations/corktown

Soraya: Japanese. Lunch, Monday-Friday, Dinner, Mondy-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 160 W Fort Street, Detroit, 48226. 313.262.6078. sorayadetroit.com

Sullivan’s Steakhouse: Steakhouse. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 1128 Washington Boulevard, Detroit, MI 48226. 313.591.2495. sullivanssteakhouse.com

Supergeil: Berlin Doner. Lunch & Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. No reservations. Liquor. 2442 Michigan Avenue, Detroit, 48216. 313.462.4133. supergeildetroit.com

Tap at MGM Grand: American. Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 1777 Third Street, Detroit, 48226. 313.465.1234. mgmgranddetroit.com

The Apparatus Room: New American. Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 250 W. Larned Street, Detroit, 48226. 313.800.5600 detroitfoundationhotel.com

The Block: American. Brunch, Weekends, Lunch & Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 3919 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, 48201. 313.832.0892. theblockdet.com

The Dime Store: American. Breakfast & Lunch, Thursday-Tuesday. No reservations. Liquor. 719 Griswold Street #180, Detroit, 48226.313. 962.9106. eatdimestore.com

The Peterboro: Chinese American. Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 420 Peterboro Street, Detroit, 48201. 313.462.8106. thepeterboro.com

The Statler: French. Brunch, Dinner, TuesdaySunday. Reservations. Liquor. 313 Park Avenue, Detroit, 48226. 313.463.7111. statlerdetroit.com

Townhouse Detroit: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 500 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, 48201. 48226. 313.723.1000. townhousedetroit.com

Vecino: Mexican. Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday. Reservations. Liquor. 4100 3rd Ave, Detroit, 48201. 313.500.1615. vecinodetroit.com

Vertical Detroit: Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations. Liquor. 1538 Center Street, Detroit, 48226. 313.732.WINE. verticaldetroit.com

Vivio’s Food & Spirits: American. Lunch & Dinner, daily. No reservations. Liquor. 2460 Market Street, Detroit, 48207. 313.393.1711. viviosdetroit.net

The Whitney: American. Brunch, Sunday. Lunch, Wednesday-Friday, Tea Service, Friday & Saturday, Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 4421 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, 48201. 313.832.5700. thewhitney.com

Wright & Co.: American. Dinner, TuesdaySaturday. No reservations. Liquor. 1500 Woodward Avenue, Second Floor, Detroit, 48226. 313.962.7711. wrightdetroit.com

Zuzu: Asian Fusion. Dinner, daily. Reservations. Liquor. 511 Woodward Ave suite 100, Detroit, 48226. 313.464.7777. experiencezuzu.com

Program — Spencer, Ann Arbor; Best Chefs Great Lakes — Javier Bardauil, Barda, Detroit; Jennifer Blakeslee and Eric Patterson, The Cooks’ House, Traverse City; Missy Corey, Pennyroyal Cafe and Provisions, Saugatuck; Ji Hye Kim, Miss Kim, Ann Arbor; and John Yelinek, Ladder 4 Wine Bar, Detroit. jamesbeard.org

Ringing in Happy Hour

Bell Bistro, the latest concept from Bloomfield Hills-based Cicero Hospitality Group, opened just a few months ago in Birmingham and has recently announced its new happy hour menu—The Bell Hour.The restaurant, features a new American-style menu crafted by executive chef Gabriel Botezan who is a Le Cordon Bleu-certified chef. The Bell Hour runs Tuesday through Thursday, from 4 to 6 p.m. and offers some tasty small plate favorites with discounted prices. A few of the menu highlights include: wagyu smash burger with red onions, American cheese, burger sauce; fennel-encrusted yellowfin tuna with cilantro aioli, salsa macha and pickled red onions; brussel sprout salad with baby beets, hazelnuts, thyme and citrus vinaigrette; wagyu meatballs with tomato sauce, whipped ricotta, basil and crostini. In addition to small plates, guests can enjoy a variety of $9 wines; $9 well drinks and $12 craft cocktails. Seating for The Bell Hour is available at the bar or the dining room. 185 N. Old Woodward Avenue, Birmingham bellbirmingham.com

One door closes; another opens

Popular Ferndale restaurant Public House, 241 W. Nine Mile Road, will be winding down operations in February, after more than a decade of serving as a neighborhood gathering spot and Metro Detroit brunch destination. Opened in 2013 as a classic American heritage bar, Public House quickly became a neighborhood gathering spot known for its gourmet sliders and craft cocktails, until its initial closure during the COVID 19 pandemic. The location was reopened in 2021 under Ferndale-based Hometown Restaurant Group, which added a second kitchen, a four-season garden room and a focus on vegan fare. In mid-February, Sidecar Slider Bar will be taking over operations at the location, remodeling and opening very quickly. “This was a very difficult decision, and a heartbreaking decision,” said Hometown Restaurant Group CEO Brian Kramer. “The restaurant business is very difficult right now. In my 30-plus years in the restaurant business, I’ve never experienced a tougher economy than what we are experiencing today. Add to this the high food costs, high labor costs, intense competition, the need for constant quality control, tight profit margins and endless hours of work — we just agreed the time was right to close the restaurant, take a step back, focus on our other restaurant operations and give someone else a chance to re-concept the location.” 241 W. Nine Mile Road, Ferndalesidecarsliderbar.com

Top Pick, Best Classic Restaurant

Detroit is the tenth U.S. city to be covered by the brand-new Michelin Green Guide and the publication has named The Whitney, Detroit as a “top pick” of places worth visiting in the city. Other top picks included the Detroit Riverwalk, the Fox and Fisher theaters, Eastern Market and the city’s growing collection of artistic wall murals. The Michelin Green Guide referred to Detroit as “a hidden gem booming with culture, art and atmosphere.” Meanwhile, in its recently released 2024 survey of “the best classic restaurants in every state,” Food & Wine Magazine named The Whitney as one of Michigan’s “most extravagant special occasion spots…with fantastic Beef Wellington” and “one of Detroit’s deepest wine lists.” Now celebrating its 39th year as an elegant and welcoming fine dining restaurant in an historic Woodward Avenue mansion, The Whitney offers dinner service each evening, afternoon tea service Friday and Saturday, an elegant buffet brunch Sunday, all accompanied by live piano music. The Whitney also offers champagne tours of the mansion, monthly paranormal dinners, unique craft cocktails and assorted beverages in the Ghostbar and summertime garden parties with live music. “We treasure this beautiful place and are proud to keep it open to the public. We love to see out-of-towners but our primary goal has always been to keep the mansion open for metro Detroiters, kind of as a way to add to their civic pride,” said Bud Liebler, owner of the restaurant. “A hundred years ago Woodward Avenue was lined with homes like The Whitney but we’re one of the very few left, and the only one really open to the public. We’re proud to be part of Detroit’s heritage and we’re especially proud to be recognized by these major publications.” 4421 Woodward Avenue, Detroit thewhitney.com

ENDNOTE

The price of growth, increased safety needs

Anyone who reads the news, whether national or local, can recognize that over the last several years there have been changes in the ways crimes are occurring, their frequency and how law enforcement are being tasked with handling them.

Neither Birmingham nor Bloomfield Township are high-crime municipalities, especially when you look at the statistics. Both are attractive, high-end communities, with excellent school districts and a variety of styles and prices of homes, making them extremely desirable for homeowners – and often, for thieves. Neither community has a history of violent crime – murder, rape or violent assault –there have been occasional incidents over the years of all of them. What has been on the rapid increase, no different than in any other neighborhood around the country, have been car thefts, notably from unlocked cars, identity theft, fraud, burglaries and shoplifting.

Both communities were pioneers, along with Auburn Hills, in developing and instituting the CORE response teams, which involve law enforcement and mental health professionals working together to respond to calls for service. The model can – and has – reduced the number of arrests, hospitalizations and use of force. The police departments note it has not only benefited their work with the public, but themselves as well, as they are being given tools to help process what they are doing and how they are coping and managing.

However, the way police departments process inmates and need to provide security for the public has changed drastically over time – meaning the current spaces that the Birmingham and Bloomfield Township police departments inhabit are now functionally obsolete. Each community shares space in the municipal building which houses city hall (or township hall) and the police department. What was once efficient space planning is no longer workable. They were also built before ADA-compliability was required. Birmingham City Hall opened in 1928. It initially housed the fire department as well as the police station.

In 2022, the Birmingham City Commission approved a contract to assess the current state of Birmingham’s municipal building to create conceptual designs for a renovation or expansion, depending on their assessment. Some of the objectives of the report include analyzing safety and security, accessibility and operational efficiency. The report revealed that several police procedures such as gun storage, prisoner transport to and from the building, and the prisoner booking room all are visible to the public. Additionally, several city hall departments do not have emergency exits which require employees to leave the building through the public area. A recommendation was made at the time for a threestory addition to the south side of the current building that would house the police department. With the police department removed from the

current building, additional room for renovations and updated security would be possible for the rest of the city hall departments.

To date, renovations to city hall and police department are on the to-do list, but have not been acted on.

In late January, the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees reviewed a formal report regarding a possible replacement of Township Hall, which was first constructed in 1938, and has had numerous additions over the years for a total of 32,000 square feet. The report indicated that the township offices need 38,000 square feet, and the police require 58,800 square feet, with a new building a better option than trying to reconfigure the current one once again, at a cost of $500 a square foot.

That would cost a staggering $48.4 million. However, safety and security does not come cheap. Bloomfield Township and Birmingham have each grown exponentially since those buildings were first constructed, morphing from sleeping enclaves into dynamic communities that are highly sought after. Birmingham, with its vibrant downtown, and Bloomfield Township, with main communal arteries of Woodward and Telegraph, have police and security requirements that mandate police departments that have access to the most sophisticated law enforcement technology and physical specifications.

Both communities will have to face up to the need to address municipal space in the short-term future.

Opening the door to financial transparency

In recent months, both Bloomfield Township and Birmingham have created portals on their websites which provide financial transparency for the public. These finance tools allow residents access to a much greater understanding of where the municipality's money is going, how it's budgeted, the actual revenues and expenditures, vendor payments, and other pertinent information.

In general, the financial transparency portals are easy to access, use and understand. We have to say, after years and years of pouring over annual budgets, accounts, revenue sharing programs and various funds, we are very pleased to see the move to accessibility for the public. Any move to greater transparency is a good thing. And the financial portals are a good thing.

Jason Theis, Bloomfield Township Finance Director, has explained that that Open Finance, their portal, is a new tool that allows financial transparency for residents. “This new program allows users the ability to access and act on financial data to build personalized experiences

and stay informed on all fiscal matters.”

The portal allows users to navigate through financial data, tables, charts and graphs.

Bloomfield Township explains the information is highly interactive to deliver a better understanding of the revenues collected and how those revenues are utilized in providing their citizens with the very best in public services.

Included on the site is a financial summary, inclusive of revenue budgeted and actual revenues, and expenditure budget, including adopted, amended and actual expenditures, so residents can see in real time what is being spent on what, and how much is coming in and from where. Also provided are the top revenue categories by function, such as public safety, general government, public works, debt service, community enrichment and judicial.

The site is updated on a weekly basis, and includes data from prior fiscal years for comparative purposes. It includes information on revenues, expenditures and vendor payments.

In Birmingham, the financial transparency

portal can easily be accessed at birminghammi.opengov.com. The portal provides detailed insights into all of Birmingham's city funds, departments, tax rates, overall property values and retirement funding levels. It is maintained by the city's finance department, which is responsible for accounting, budgeting, cash management, collection and billing, debt administration and purchasing.

Birmingham provides annual comparisons for several years, year-by-year, from 2019-2020 to 2024-2025. There are reports on overall city financial data, general fund information, ice arena information, golf courses financial information, the parking system financial information, road information, homestead tax rates, property values, and defined benefit retirement and retiree health care plans.

For those with the time and interest to peruse and dig deep into the weeds of their municipality's financial records, they're now all at their fingertips. And that's a very good thing.