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THE MICHIGAN CHRONICLE


September 8-14, 2010 Driving your ball down the


fairway always yields the fleet- ing hope that this shot may be a hole-in-one of your dreams. Although hole-in-one shots are more elusive than realized, getting within feet of the hole happens frequently, requiring golfers to use their putting and chipping skill to get in the hole.


“SHOPS AT WOODWARD PLACE” is a project of HP Devco’s which turned the site of an old Sears Warehouse in Highland Park into an upscale retail center with affordable residence condos on the site behind the center. Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano was involved through the Wayne County Land Bank TURBO program and Gov. Jennifer Granholm through the State of Michigan Cities of Promise program. They were both at the groundbreaking and came back to find the center 97 percent occupied. The Communicating Arts Credit Union was the second committed tenant.


Detroit’s own Communicating Arts Credit Union receives 750K grant to


expand financial outreach efforts Grant will allow credit union to stimulate economic growth in the city


Communicating Arts Credit Union (CACU)


recently announced that it has received a 750K grant from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. The grant, which is part of a total of $104.9 million in awards dis- tributed nationwide, was one of 180 given to local financial institutions serving struggling communities in 44 states and the District of Columbia.


These grants represent the largest single


round of awards in the CDFI Fund’s history and will help financial institutions support local entrepreneurs and small businesses, and spur local economic growth and recovery by expand- ing access to capital and affordable financial


services in underserved areas. “With this grant, Communicating Arts Credit


Union will be able to expand our impact and provide the critical financial support that our members need,” said CACU president Hank Hubbard.


The CDFI Fund received 408 applications


from organizations across the nation request- ing more than $467 million in funding under the FY 2010 round of the CDFI Program an- nounced today. This included 322 applications requesting more than $458.9 million under the Financial Assistance Program. CACU was the only credit union — and one of only two finan- cial institution awardees — in Michigan to re- ceive a grant.


Another side of education reform


By Tim Skubick Education reform, which


is code for “Our kids are not learning and we darn well better do something about it,” is like the weather. Every- one talks about it but can’t do much about it. Not that they haven’t tried, mind you.


There was Mr. Bush’s “No


Child Left Behind” which might have worked but they left the money behind which sort of doomed it to eternal criticism.


There was the “Race to


the Top” from the newest oc- cupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Michigan got none of the largess so nobody around here cares if it works.


On the state government


level, who can forget the “reform” effort launched by former governor John Engler who basically fired the duly elected Detroit School Board and installed a “reform board” with the help of his GOP cro- nies in the legislature.


The current governor never


had a real signature/urban school strategy per see, but did manage to shepard through some tougher high school graduation standards which on paper looks and sounds good, but it’s impact is yet to be assessed.


And then on her watch she


did oversee the appointment of an emergency financial manager (EFM). He has come in, taken names, referred al- leged corruption to the FBI and pretty much acted as an educational czar, opponents would say dictator, in a 11th hour attempt to save another generation of Detroit school kids from a life time of woe.


With segments of Detroit up


in arms over the performance of Robert Bobb it seems only fitting that the debate over that has entered the race for governor.


The lieutenant governor candidate for the Democrats


Tim Skubick has some


ins i ght ful o b s e r v a - tions on the dispute, but let’s begin with


Snyder.


Mr. the


GOP hopeful. With a cur-


rent lead in Detroit, Sny- der’s words


will be monitored closely by the pro-Bobb and anti-Bobb forces and any bobbing and weaving by the Ann Arbor guy could cost him votes with either faction.


Snyder supports the efforts


by Gov. Granholm et. al. to in- stall the EFM.


“It’s a good framework,” he


tells the media and he argues the state should have the abil- ity to “intervene” when appro- priate. Translated, he thinks the same model could be used on other failing schools in other urban and rural areas of the state.


Mr. Snyder does not want to,


however, wade into the murky waters of giving a local mayor the authority to pick the next school superintendent.


“That would not be my first


option,” Snyder continues. He is more concerned about


finding a replacement for Mr. Bobb when his contract ex- pires in March.


Having said that, Snyder


also acknowledges the local control aspect to all this. A factor Gov. Engler basically abolished.


There needs to be a “dia-


logue” he says which is one of his solutions for lots of stuff. He says once the state inter- cedes, there must be a way to “transition back” but he laid out no specifics on that which is another hallmark of his campaign.


Now comes Brenda Law-


rence, who from Southfield has a little closer perspective


on the events just north of her Eight Mile boarder.


She totally embraces what


Mr. Bobb has done but is to- tally uncomfortable with the way he just went it, did what he wanted, without any “bor- ders” on what he did do.


She sees a “gray area” with


this law. “Where does the author-


ity end?” she asks and under the current scenario, Bobb ap- pears to be playing as if there are no ends.


In fact, he re-


cently tried to move from run- ning the financial side of the DPS into the academic arena as well. He contends like love and marriage, when it comes to schools, you can’t draw a line between the dollars and the stuff taught in the classroom. Others strongly disagree.


The Democratic candidate


for lietenant governor says Bobb’s not at fault for doing what he thinks is correct, but she feels there’s been a “dis- connect” with the public be- cause of the lack of boundar- ies.


However, if there is a Virg


Bernero administration, she promises those boundaries will be established so that the next EFM does not have such wide latitude.


As a former school board


member, Ms. Lawrence is super sensitive to a loss of local authority all in the name of education reform. But the savvy candidate is extra cau- tious about choosing up sides in this emotional debate.


Asked point blank if Bobb


had overstepped his author- ity, she dodged it saying, “I wouldn’t say how I feel about it. I’m not going to take sides on the debate.”


To do so, of course, would


plop her in one camp or the other, and as she and Mr. Ber- nero struggle to hold the De- troit voter base in November, taking sides is a no-win situa- tion.


The damages done by greed


By V. Lonnie Peek, Jr. After reading the account


of several persons associ- ated with the Detroit Public Schools being charged with embezzlement, it caused me to reflect on a famous statement. In the movie “Wall Street,” Mi- chael Douglas, the high flying wheeler and dealer stated, “Greed is good.” Well when he said it I thought, “No greed is not good.”


When you think of greed,


words come to mind like glut- tony, ravenousness, excess and insatiable. These are not good things to have.


The recent charges against


these persons claim that they spent thousand of dollars on personal pleasures and needs. These monies came directly from the budget of DPS, and as we are all aware, it has been struggling with huge budget deficits and challenges over the past several years. So much so that the governor had to appoint an emergency financial manager to come in and try to wrestle the system out of the hole. Bottom line, if this money was stolen, it has a direct correlation to the edu-


cation of our children.


T o


add insult to


injury, Peek Jr.


one of the p e r s o n s c h a r g e d used to be a principal at the Ran- dolph Career and Tech- nical Center


and another was a bookkeeper there. These folks saw chil- dren every day walking up and down the halls of the school; these are the victims of the theft.


I believe what they did psy-


chologically was to separate their theft from the ones that they were stealing from, the children. These monies in their mind were in some dis- tant account; it had no con- nectivity to the children. But it did, for all the monies in the school budget somewhere con- nect with the education, goods and services for the children.


Greed disconnects you from


reality. It disconnects from the reality of the ramifications of what you are doing. It drives


you so much your boundaries of morality and values disap- pears. Your conscience disap- pears.


One of the accused is


charged with taking money between the years of 2006 and 2009 and making 13 mortgage payments on her house total- ing almost $30,000. Is that not greed? Once you start making these unauthorized and mor- ally decadent transactions, you lose scope of the fact that eventually you will get caught. It becomes a drug that you get hooked on. How much more can I take or get?


Life will present opportuni-


ties to make choices that are right or wrong. Each choice that we make sets us on a par- ticular path. Some paths lead to opportunities and benefits that enrich our lives. Others take us down dark paths that have holes and roadblocks. Within this darkness of the wrong choices, we pay the consequences for our deci- sions.


Greed should never be a


motivator for your decision, for eventually you will hit a wall and suffer the conse- quences.


In my 10 years of golfing


and golfing instruction, I find it interesting that people are rarely interested in tips to im- prove their putting. Perhaps we don’t give putting enough attention or we give too much credit to the actual putter itself to get the job done.


But statistics show that an


average of 44 percent of the strokes you make will be puts. That’s almost half of your game. Golf Digest reported that PGA tour players made 80 per- cent of their putts compared to amateurs with handicaps of 19 and below who made only 57 percent of their putts.


It’s always worth it to have


an instructor or mentor ob- serve your putting game so that you can determine where you stand and what you can improve on.


Here are some quick focus


Putting for dough Ladies on the Green


Page C-5


the ball accordingly • Remember that practice


eventually makes perfect but that it also produces confi- dence along the way. It’s easier to tell yourself you are a good putter when you know you have intentionally been build- ing that part of your game.


If improving your putting Jacquelyn Vaughn


areas to consider when evalu- ating your performance:


ture which should be similar to that of a full swing


•


tion of your arms and shoul- ders and be sure to keep your arms in the same position throughout the stroke


• Create a triangular forma-


best for you and keep your eyes on the ball


• Perfect the grip that works


the green and anticipate how the ball might roll before you take your shot and position


• Take a moment to read Consider your pos-


game can improve almost 50 percent of your overall perfor- mance, I think it’s definitely worth the effort! Being two feet from the hole is no time for guessing or nervousness, so prepare yourself accord- ingly and fall in love with the old green in a new way.


If you have golf success


stories, tips, questions, or ideas for upcoming articles, please send them to jackie@ ladiesonthegreen.com.


Jacquelyn Vaughn is the


founder, president and CEO of Vaughn Marketing Consul- tants. She currently owns and operates a Michigan based assisted living facility called the White House. A graduate of Northern Illinois Univer- sity, she holds an M.S. in In- structional Media, and a B.S in Radio, TV and Film. Cur- rently a MI resident, Jackie is the proud mother of two.


School’s in, so is the economy


By Phil Power Nearly two million Michi-


gan kids are back at school this week -- and that accounts for an immense part of our economy.


Each year, Michigan spends


nearly $17 billion in taxpayer money on K-12 schools. This enormous sum is parceled out among 551 public school dis- tricts serving, at last count, 1,757,604 pupils, not count- ing the thousands in paro- chial classrooms or in the 240 “Public School Academies,” or charter schools.


This sounds like a huge


number of school districts - - and it is. Many states that have more people than Michi- gan, including Ohio, Pennsyl- vania and Florida, have fewer districts. And not surpris- ingly, many critics (including me) say we have far too many school districts and that the inevitable duplication of ser- vices and personnel wastes millions. The average enroll- ment in a Michigan school district is 2,972, but half of the districts have fewer than 1,500 students.


Most of these could benefit


financially, as well as in terms of resources, if they were con- solidated into somewhat larger districts. Trouble is, the ad- ministrators and bureaucrats tend abhor consolidation and resist any efforts in that direc- tion. All too often, parents and recent graduates line up on their side.


My own experiences have


taught me that “abhor” may be too mild a term. Back in the days when I owned the Observ- er & Eccentric Newspapers, I wrote a column about the tiny Clarenceville school district, which is wedged between Farmington and Livonia. My argument was that is made no sense for this tiny district to survive, when much money could be saved -- and perhaps better education could be pro- vided -- by merging it with its two bigger neighbors.


Well, I was soon in for a


shock. You’d have thought I proposed murdering my mother. That column gener- ated more hostile comments than anything I’ve ever written. The Trojans, the school foot- ball team would disappear! The school colors would vanish!


she said. That’s valid -- in the short-term. It costs money for districts to adopt the same computer programs and hard- ware. The simple task of mi- grating distributed databases into one larger one is expen- sive.


Nevertheless, State Super- Phil Power


Community pride would be crushed! Needless to say, nobody took my advice.


Clarenceville remains to


this day a district proudly (and expensively) standing alone. But today, in a state that has suffered crippling rev- enue losses and budget defi- cits for a decade, finding ways to save lots of money is essen- tial. And much could be saved by consolidating services like operations, maintenance and transportation at the county level.


This would leave existing


school districts intact, while taking advantage of the econ- omies of scale and allowing the use of better technology and management. An issues guide prepared last year by The Center for Michigan es- timates the savings could be around $300 million. Another study estimated it could be double that. That’s not pocket change.


So why isn’t everyone


on board? In some cases, it clearly boils down to nothing more than distrusting locals defending their own turf. John Austin, Vice President of the state Board of Education, told me that “nobody has figured out the silver bullet of how to get districts to share services and save big money.”


Gov. Jennifer Granholm


made a small step in her last state budget, recommending using $50 million from the School Aid Fund to promote sharing services through a grant competition adminis- tered by the Michigan Depart- ment of Education.


“School districts facing


tight budgets often can’t afford the up-front costs of consoli- dation or service-sharing pro- grams even though they recog- nize the long-term benefits,”


intendent Mike Flanagan says it’s a “no brainer.” In a speech to local superintendents, he added: “You better get your districts on board with con- solidation of services in a big way, otherwise the Legisla- ture will go far beyond what you fear.” That’s almost cer- tain. State Rep. Tim Melton (D-Auburn Hills,) chair of the House Education Commit- tee, is one of the smarter and tougher minded lawmakers in Lansing. He is now mulling a method that succeeded in breaking down the turf battles involved in closing military bases around the country about a decade ago. Create a commission, he says, with the authority to impose service sharing across Michigan and submit the report to the leg- islature with the requirement that it’s either approved or turned down as a whole, with- out any turf-driven amend- ments.


Melton’s thinking about in-


troducing legislation yet this year, perhaps in a lame-duck session.


“If we don’t do something


once the election season’s over, I have no idea when it’s going to happen,” he told me. That’s a legitimate worry. The issue is, indeed, clear. Shar- ing services between school districts is a sensible step that ought to be at the abso- lute on top of everybody’s list of reforms. It’s time for local school people to quit rational- izing an indefensible system and get with the program.


Former newspaper publish-


er and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power is a long- time observer of Michigan politics and economics and a former chairman of the Michi- gan chapter of the Nature Conservancy. The opinions expressed here are Power’s own and do not represent the official views of The Center. He welcomes your comments at ppower@thecenterformichi- gan.net.


Rally aims to raise literacy awareness in Wayne County


By Alena Wright


SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE In observance of National


Literacy Month and Inkster Citywide Literacy Day, the Josie Odum Morris Literacy Project will host the 2010 Lit- eracy Day Rally on Saturday, Sept. 18, from noon to 3 p.m., at the Booker T. Dozier Recre- ation Complex, 2025 Middle- belt Rd. in Inkster.


The event is expected to


draw more than 300 Wayne County residents, according to Robin Morris, founder and executive director of the Josie Odum Morris Literacy Project (JOMLP). “We want to help bridge the education gap in our community by offering so- lutions and literacy resources to families,” said Morris


The rally is the first in what


Morris and fellow organizers hope will be an annual event. JOMLP has received support from 14 partnering communi- ty agencies who helped regis- ter participants for the event.


“Obviously, we believe


we can accomplish more by working together -- we all are striving to advance family lit- eracy awareness throughout the community,” Morris ex- plained.


The 2010 Literacy Day


Rally kicks off with a pep rally, followed by a lineup of speak- ers including Inkster Mayor Hilliard Hampton,


Inkster


City Manager Ann Capela, and Inkster Schools Supt. Manuel Wilson.


Award-winning


author Karen S. Williams, who is 2010 Honorary Chair for Wayne County Big Read, will also speak and Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley will serve as moderator for the event.


The entertainment high-


light of the rally will be the ap- pearance of Oprah’s National Pop Star, LaShell Griffin, who will perform with the Inkster High School Choir.


A reception will follow the program, with community


health and literacy resources provided by local nonprofit organizations. The event is sponsored by Wayne County Community College, Comerica Bank, and Panera Bread. For more information, call (734) 620-1335.


2010 Literacy Day Rally Part- ners:


Wayne County Head Start, Wayne County Community College District, National Kidney Foundation of Michi- gan, Western Wayne Detroit Edison Task Force (DTE Energy), Western Wayne NAACP Branch, Starfish Family Services, Adult Well- Being Services, Inkster Parks and Recreation Commission, Detroit Literacy Coalition, Leanna Hicks Public Library, Delta Sigma Theta Soror- ity (Inkster Alumni Chapter), Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (Eta Iota Omega Chapter), Springhill Missionary Baptist Church, and Middlebelt Bap- tist Church.


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