“I do see light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not a train,” Detroit Mayor Dave Bing told 250 members of the Grosse Pointe Senior Men’s Club recently.
Bing, who has spent a year in office, didn’t make any fanciful promises about Detroit’s future. He did say that his team would develop a plan within the next 12 to 18 months with the help of the citizenry that would focus on the same things he promised to push in his campaign: jobs, education, public safety and transportation.
On transportation Bing said the city was moving forward on the light rail system and would focus on developing the Woodward corridor.
On public safety he hired his primary opponent Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans to move the restructuring of the police department faster and is pleased with the job so far.
On education he praised the work of Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager whose contract runs through next March and suggested there was a possibility of greater mayor involvement in the improvement of the schools
On jobs he said, “We are bloated in city government and we’re not the ones that should be creating jobs. We had a city government that had 42 departments when we had 1.8 million people. We are now hovering around maybe 850,000 to 900,000 and we still have 42 departments.” He said entrepreneurs have to be encouraged to bring new jobs to the city.
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Big Bob Bashara is all over TV but where are the facts of the case?
Folks have been asking us why we aren’t covering the Jane Bashara murder case like a blanket. GrossePointeToday.com is a community news and information website. We strive in our news items to follow the advice of Jack Webb on "Dragnet": "Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” We are somewhat more opinionated in our columns.
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Grosse Pointe City discusses its future
It was like herding cats or watching sausage being made when the city fathers and mothers of Grosse Pointe held a workshop on what citizens want included or left out of the new master plan.
More than 150 concerned citizens piled into the Fries Ballroom of the War Memorial to vent their views. Most of them liked the idea of a movie theater or cultural arts center in the Village, but they didn’t want it to eat up all of Lot 2 behind Caribou Coffee and were concerned about one promise that an eight-screen movie complex would bring 500,000 people a year to the Village.
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Grosse Pointers hear history of the Coney Dog
The moral behind “Coney Detroit,” written by Katherine Yung and Joe Grimm is: “Greater love hath no man that he lay down his body for his fellow citizen.
Joe Grimm was probably a svelt 160 lb.Free Press newspaper editor when he started his quest for the perfect Coney dog. After 500 or so of the embellished hot dogs, Grimm, now, visibly showing the sacrifice he has made, probably tips the scales at somewhere north of 200 lbs.
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Grosse Pointers to hear Coney Dog history
If you want to hear a spiced up bit of history you should check out the Grosse Pointe Historical Society’s Frank Bicknell Lecture at 7:30 p.m. at the War Memorial Wednesday (April 18).
Joe Grimm and Katherine Yung, both newspaper pros at heart, will discuss their new Wayne State University Press book, “Coney Detroit.” Proceeds from the book will go to help feed folks through the Gleaners Food Bank. It will probably not be Coneys.
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True sharing at Trombly school
During a recent lunch at Trombly Elementary in the Park, two tiny kindergarten girls arrived at the ice cream table with one holding a dollar. They were talking about splitting the dollar so they could both have a treat as they looked at the menu, according to school officials.
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The three Patrick Walshes named after the legendary sea skipper Capt. Paddy Walsh. Photo by Pamela Walsh
A Grosse Pointe St. Patrick's Day story that started with a storm and a book
William Patrick Walsh III, a Pierce sixth grader, didn’t know much about where his name came from until a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who is a distant relative, published a book about a fierce 1935 Newfoundland storm that took 40 lives.
William Patrick III knew he was named for a legendary Newfoundland cod fisherman known as Capt. Paddy, but not much about how his ancestor and his three sons perished in a “devil” of a blow that descended on the north Atlantic. Paddy had gone back to sea to try to rescue one of his sons.
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Ray Laenen and shipmates aboard the crowded lifeboat.
Remembering Ray Laenen: World War II lifeboat survivor, beloved Rotarian
One of the “Greatest Generation,” a survivor of more than three weeks in a crowded lifeboat in the Indian Ocean during World War II died last Sunday without a lot of fanfare.
Ray Laenen was one of my heroes. Funeral services are Friday, (Feb. 24) at Our Lady of Hope Church, 28839 Jefferson, between 11 and 12 Mile at 10 a.m. Visitation is from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 23) at the Kaul Funeral Home on Jefferson at Martin in St. Clair Shores.
I have never met a man with more joy in his heart or more affection for this land of the free and the brave. A Belgian, whose parents brought him to the U.S. as a child, Remie Laenen led the sing along for decades at Grosse Pointe Rotary with gusto and enthusiasm. The Rotary song book is filled with selections that date to the 19th century or earlier like “Sweet Adeline,” but you could count on Ray to call for the group to sing “America the Beautiful” or “Smile” at least twice a month.
Even if you sang like a frog with a bug caught in its throat Ray could make you smile with his joyful singing until he fell ill last year at age 85. His absence was a palpable loss for the Rotary Club he joined in 1979. Ray was a highly successful steel salesman for most of his career.
Successful steel salesmen don’t win contracts by saying my steel is better than a competitors. They win them by customer service and a winning personality. Ray was tops at both.
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Does Mitt Romney favor the Grosse Pointe Library Millage?
“Mitt Romney can go to hell with his robo calls.” That was the greeting I got from one irritated Grosse Pointe Park resident when I telephoned him to urge him to vote on Tuesday in the library millage election on the ballot with the Republican presidential primary.
I told him I wasn’t a robot, that I simply would be happy to answer any questions he had about the library millage and the need for it. He said he wasn’t interested in that either and hung up.
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Bald-faced bid for Grosse Pointe story items
This a bald-faced or bald-headed bid for positive story items. Every week in the Grosse Pointes thousands of good news, positive and heart-warming stories occur. It is a part of the fabric of our community.
As a non-profit, community service, we would like to run some of them in Grosse Pointe Today to share with neighbors. There is enough bad news out there in the big-city publications.
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Bing, who has spent a year in office, didn’t make any fanciful promises about Detroit’s future. He did say that his team would develop a plan within the next 12 to 18 months with the help of the citizenry that would focus on the same things he promised to push in his campaign: jobs, education, public safety and transportation. 
Ray Laenen was one of my heroes. Funeral services are Friday, (Feb. 24) at Our Lady of Hope Church, 28839 Jefferson, between 11 and 12 Mile at 10 a.m. Visitation is from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 23) at the Kaul Funeral Home on Jefferson at Martin in St. Clair Shores.
