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Woods council committee gets
fiscal forecast for coming year

Grosse Pointe Woods City Council members put their heads together for nearly three hours at the Committee of the Whole meeting Monday night (March 8) to analyze the current city budget and help make determinations for the coming year.

“Consolidation,” “collaboration” and “job cuts” were some of the language tossed around as officials discussed what costs and services could possibly be reduced or eliminated to help the bottom line. read more...

Back down to earth with new job,
Farms resident told her firing story

Far from the glamour of the Oscar telecast Sunday night were men and women watching at home across the nation, rooting for “Up in the Air” to win a few awards. These were the real-life victims of downsizing featured in the George Clooney film, about a man who makes his living doing the dirty work bosses are too cowardly to do – firing people.

One of them was Erin Welsh-Krengel from Grosse Pointe Farms. Welsh-Krengel, 31, was happily toiling as a media planner for an advertising agency which served General Motors when the gurus at the one-time auto giant pulled the plug on her brand.

She planned to watch the Oscars with a few friends, but also plans to be at the Woods branch of the library March 16 at 7 p.m. for a special screening. read more...

City artist is a contender in
Let's Save Michigan Poster Contest

Grosse Pointe City art director and illustrator Margaret Kelly was one of 60 finalists from more than 300 entries in the Detroit Institute of Art’s “Let’s Save Michigan Poster Contest.” She is now in the running for a $1,000 prize to be given to the artist whose work receives the most votes on the Let’s Save Michigan website. 

The competition — sponsored by the DIA and Let’s Save Michigan, a group supported by the Michigan Municipal League — invited artists and designers to create posters that would serve as a “call to action ... to help rally citizens to do the hard work that’s necessary to position Michigan as a state that will thrive in the future.” The only requirement for the designs was that they include the phrase “Let’s Save Michigan.”

Kelly used Detroit’s Joe Louis read more...

Bledsoe sets March coffee hours

State Representative Tim Bledsoe (D-Grosse Pointe) is inviting residents to join him for upcoming coffee hours to discuss state and community issues.

The lawmaker's upcoming coffee hours will be held on: read more...

Karen Webb, left, and Janet Peplin, right, leading the most recent Welcoming Congregation seminar at Grosse Pointe Unitarian Church.

GP Unitarians hold workshops
on GLBT issues, outreach

The Grosse Pointe Unitarian Church (GPUC) has begun a "Welcoming Congregation" workshop series, an introspective and interactive educational journey into the issues surrounding the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. The yearlong program developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association is intended to educate the congregation and the community about how to be purposeful in its welcome and outreach to the GLBT community. read more...

Dave Brown has been cutting hair in the City for almost 40 years.

Dave's is more than a barbershop;
it's a Grosse Pointe clearing house

Dave Brown wakes up every day at 5 a.m. at his home in New Baltimore. He checks the weather first, to see if it’s a good day for golf, then gives his a wife a kiss and drives about 30 minutes to his barber shop in Grosse Pointe City. 

“Everyday’s a new day,” said Brown, owner of Dave’s Haircutting & Styling shop. read more...

Woods communications coordinator Sandy Waeiss won an award for a 30-second video she created, promoting the "Grosse Pointe Woods lifestyle."

Woods council applauds Waeiss for
award-winning 'lifestyle' video

The Grosse Pointe Woods City Council kicked off its Monday (March 1) meeting by congratulating Sandy Waeiss, communications coordinator for the city, for winning recognition from the Michigan Recreation and Parks Association.

Waeiss, the Woods' communications coordinator for 25 years, won an MRPA marketing award for a 30-second spot about the city featuring the mayor as its spokesman. “Grosse Pointe Woods Lifestyle” can be accessed from the first page of the city website. read more...

MME tests loom for high schools;
three-day exam includes the ACT

Grosse Pointe high school juniors begin taking the Michigan Merit Exam (MME) next week. 

“The tests provide a snapshot of student progress in relation to the Michigan Merit Curriculum,” said Joan Murphy, assistant principal at Grosse Pointe South High School.

Doing well on tests like the MME reflects on the school and community, where high scores are touted by real-estate agents and chambers of commerce. Students at South scored in the top 2 percent in 2009. read more...

Do new Pointe businesses herald
an economic spring? Let's hope so

A restaurant of the year award, a new grill in the Park, a coney island cafe called Drummy Dogs across from South High School, an alliance of entrepreneurs in the City and a new magazine for the Pointes – all could be signs of an economic spring at the end of a long, cold winter.

Hour Detroit magazine’s designation of the Dirty Dog Café as the Restaurant of the Year for 2010 gives us two such recognized eateries within 100 yards of each other on the Hill in the Farms, the Hill Seafood and Chop House being the other.

Hour’s writer Christopher Cook said this about the magazine’s choice this year:
“Chef Andre Neimanis’ cooking … exemplifies [Nat] Adderley’s aphorism — ‘Son,  jazz is knowing all the rules of music so that you can know how to break them without breaking the music.’"

Neimanis "knows how to break them. And he does so exquisitely to achieve his American bistro menu – taking traditional American dishes, breaking them down and rebuilding them by adding a culinary riff here and there and spinning them forward.”
  read more...

All-day kindergarten proposal passes,
despite some parental objections

While budget cuts and financial crises have eclipsed other concerns in Grosse Pointe schools, the question of an all-day kindergarten program stepped into the light at February’s school board meeting.  And the board approved the plan.

The program will cover every child in every Grosse Pointe elementary school, takes effect with the 2010-11 school year, is tuition-free and allows parents to remove their student from the program at mid-day if that is their preference. read more...

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