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A new use is being discussed for the 230-acre "Milliken property" in Elmwood Township which was recently proposed as the site for a massive waterpark. Traverse City civic leaders and others are discussing way the convert the property to a center for the arts and uses like a botanical garden and perhaps even a new home for the Traverse City zoo.
Both the Record-Eagle and the Leelanau Enterprise /a> have run stories in the past two days about the plans.
In the early 1900's, it became apparent that the "horseless carriage" was here to stay (some thought it was only a novelty item). The desire for improved roads grew, and Michigan's government raised money by having all automobiles registered, using license plates to be displayed on the vehicle. From 1905 through 1932, automobile license plates used numbers. It was not until 1933 that the plates began to be identified by county by means of a prefix letter.
At this writing, we cannot be sure which letter identified Leelanau County, but if its neighbor Grand Traverse County is any indication, it may have been the letter 'L.' Whatever letter it was, the single prefix letter continued through the 1938 plates. However, problems arose because the single letter caused confusion with other counties that began with the same letter.
In 1938, a county code using 2 prefix letters was created to begin with the 1939 license plates. This was a better system, as the county confusion was removed, and Leelanau County became identified with the letters 'LL.'
However, it was not long before another county code was created.
The 1940's saw multiple Leelanau County identifications on license plates. A new county prefix for the "Little Finger of Michigan" was 'SK.' During this same time, Michigan issued 1/2 year plates through 1946 to lighten the financial burden for those who needed to split their payments for car plates. A different county code was used for the 1/2 year plates, and Leelanau County's was 'ZP.' Probably the most varied identification was on the plates used for municipally owned vehicles. For example, vehicles belonging to the Leelanau County Road Commission would display license plates that contained wording such as 'Leelanau County Road Commission.' Cars belonging to the sheriff's office would be so identified, as were plates that identified different county and village departments. This practice was streamlined beginning in 1949 when license plates for all municipally-owned vehicles were made with a diamond-x prefix and had 5 numerals.
In the 1950's, Leelanau County had a program by which the head of the license bureau would go around to the county's villages and townships and take applications for new license plates. The plates would be mailed to the applicant. Also, another county code was created beginning in 1955, with Leelanau County given the 'XL' prefix. This prefix would be used through 1961.
In 1962, when Michigan reshuffled the codes again, 'WW' became Leelanau County's new license plate prefix. In 1965, still another reshuffling of the county codes took place, but Leelanau County was one county not affected by this change, so 'WW' continued as the prefix through 1969.
In 1970, Michigan's license plates began containing 3 prefix letters, which also reduced the numerals from 4 to 3, and used still a new county code. Leelanau County had more than 1 prefix, and was identified with the prefixes 'BLZ' through 'BMF'.
Beginning in 1972, Michigan's license plates were renewed with stickers, and today they are not identified by county code. However, one thread of information discovered by this writer may indicate that the 1971, 1973, and
1976 plates had specific county code prefixes. If this is proven, we will post which prefix letters were used for Leelanau County in those years.
~ Thomas Baird
Update 12/29/2006:
Someone read my article on Leelanau license plate prefixes, and shared information on the missing prefix code letters. They are as follows:
In 1940-41, Leelanau was TZ-50-01 to TZ-99-50, changing to SK from 1942-54.
1971-72 - BMM-BMR
1973-75 - BKX-BLB
1976-78 - BNS-BNW, and SKW
1979-83 - BPB-BPG
1984-86 - 200 AAB-249 AAB, ABV, APW-APX, CLK-CLL, JGB-JGC
1996 Auto Centennial Plate - DHH-DHM prefix
1997 Bridge Plate - BPF
~Thomas Baird
Leelanau County schools are in a funding crisis, and creative solutions are being explored--including the sharing of personnel and other resources. At the bottom, however, the problem has a simple cause: our schools are not receiving enough money from the state.
This Record-Eagle article describes how one group is fighting for equity in the distribution of funding to state schools.
Building 50 on the old State Hospital grounds in Traverse City is an outstanding example of the theories of Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride. Kirkbride advocated a treatment for the mentally ill known as Moral Treatment, an essential element of which was the creation of structures like Building 50 -- carefully planned, massive buildings located on spacious and beautiful grounds.
This site provides an introduction to Kirkbride's life and work and features the Traverse City State Hospital, among other institutions. It's also an extraordinarily well done and inviting website.
Deri Smith's lawsuit against three Elmwood township men she claims defamed her must go forward, ruled 13th Circuit Court judge Philip Rodgers.
At stake is Smith's claim that Don Barrows, Noel Flohe, and John Stanek engaged in character assassination when they circulated materials they knew to be false in a mailing to Suttons Bay residents. As this this Record-Eagle story describes, Rodgers expressed incredulity at claims of Flohe and Stanek that they did not know the contents of envelopes they stuffed.
Officials with the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department have confirmed a case of West Nile virus in a dead crow found in Elmwood Township near Fouch Road.
This Record-Eagle article has the story on the first appearance of the virus this year.
The most salient feature of this bird, the male’s brilliant blue feathers, results from the diffraction of light through the feathers, not from pigmentation. “It is surprising how abundant the bird can be without attracting the attention of the average resident,” said Barrows in 1912. This is largely true today. Females, which are primarily a grayish brown, tend to remain concealed in dense brush and so are seldom seen. The male’s small size, its finch-like song, and its tendency to sing from the tops of trees renders it not easily definitively identifiable by ear, and not clearly visible except with binoculars.
The second salient feature about this bird is that it is a creature of edges. Indigo Buntings are birds of deciduous forest edges and clearings. They are also found in open woodland, shrublands, and on the edges of orchards, old fields where farming has been abandoned, along cultivated weedy fields, railway and power line rights of way, and swamps. According to the Breeding Bird Atlas, buntings are seldom present in heavily wooded areas, urban areas, and in intensely cultivated lands.
Indigo Buntings return to Michigan in May. This year’s migratory count in Grand Traverse County on May 13 tallied just one Indigo Bunting. By mid June it is abundant along many edges throughout the region. Although males return about 10 days before females, the female selects the nest site. Buntings construct well-woven nests of a wide variety of materials from snakeskin to bark to Spanish moss. They are always well concealed and usually within a meter of the ground.
Research indicates that male Indigo Buntings often create territories within hearing of other males--thereby establishing bunting “neighborhoods”.
Courtship involves mating flights as well as a ground dance in which the male spreads his wings and dances around the female. Males tend to spend most of their time singing and guarding the territory. Females tend to the nest building and rearing of the young.
Nesting season extends from mid-May through August and sometimes into September. Buntings are a common cowbird host. However they have been known to bury cowbird eggs by building a new nest floor over the cowbird egg.
Males quit singing in August and leave quietly in September. At this time of year, buntings gather in flocks. Post-breeding molts result in males sporting patches of brown on that once unmarred blue.
~bob c.
One year later, what lessons can be learned from the Septage Treatment Plant fiasco? There's plenty of blame to go around, and no shortage of those to assign it to.
As this Record-Eagle article shows, blame should be placed first with the water and sewer committee, comprised of the supervisors of Elmwood, East Bay, Garfield, Peninsula, and Acme townships at the time the decisions were made. In the case of Elmwood township, that would have been former Supervisor (2000-2004) Noel Flohe who signed off on a financing scheme that was politically expedient but woefully unrealistic.
Second, blame accrues to the Grand Traverse Board of Public works, whose chairman, Doug Mansfield, recently acknowledged that the BPW acted as a rubber stamp for the water and sewer committee in the matter.
Third, project manager and BPW attorney Michael Houlihan shows up badly. Houlihan helped sell an unrealistic project to the water and sewer committee, and continues to profit handsomely from the project's legal fallout.
Fourth, the Gordie-Fraser company seems to have displayed a remarkable level of incompetence on the project, their engineer professing ignorance of industry standards for walls like the one that failed.
Is there any theme that pulls it all together? We think so. Michael Houlihan has been the BPW attorney for decades. Gordie-Fraser has been the DPW's engineer for almost 40 years. Gordie-Fraser wrote the request for proposals on the project and got the job even though they were not the low bid. In Elmwood, Gordie-Fraser has played a similar role, serving for years as the township's engineer, representing developers before the planning commission, and taking an active role under Flohe's administration in the drafting of the township's new zoning ordinance. In every case at each point along the line, cronyism and favoritism diminished the possibility of doing the project right.
The septage plant fiasco was a project that was managed by the old boy network for the old boy network--and it turned out just as badly as do most enterprises where merit, openness, and impartiality go by the wayside. When will we stop doing things this way in Leelanau County?
Nancy Kenney's long quest to find what exactly happened to her father came to an end Friday when navy divers confirmed that a submarine found sunk in the Gulf of Thailand was in fact the USS Legarto.
Kenney, of Lake Leelanau, was only two years old when her father went down on a mission to attack a Japanese convoy. But for the past six decades she has been trying to piece together the story of how and where her father was lost. This New York Times piece tells the story of the investigation that finally answered her questions.
ABET, don’t change your name. It’s perfect just the way it is.
ABET (the Angry Boaters of Elmwood Township) both proclaimed its existence at last Monday night’s Elmwood Board of Trustees meeting and at the same time announced that it was changing its name. We think they shouldn’t change a thing.
Let’s have a look at Websters New International Dictionary, 2nd edition (the good old prescriptive version of 1934). It says by way of defining “abet”:
“To incite, encourage, instigate, or countenance; -- now used chiefly in a bad or a disparaging sense; as to abet the commission of a crime.“
That pretty much sums up ABET, in our view. What and whom does the organization abet? First and foremost, it abets the four holdover members from the old Elmwood Board of Trustees – Terry Lautner, Jim O’Rourke, Connie Preston, and Debbie Street--in their attempts to slow or halt reforms in Elmwood township. These relics from the administration of Noel Flohe have been on a mission, literally beginning before the board’s new members took office in 2004, to reverse the effects of that election. The recently defeated recall attempt was only the most recent episode in that campaign. Now a group of disgruntled boaters are providing political cover for the holdovers to try to take away a few more of Supervisor Deri Smith’s statutory responsibilities and to politically weaken the most effective force for reform Elmwood has seen in years. (What, you thought the recall was over and Smith won?)
In return, the Board abets ABET. Ever since the 2004 election the holdovers have used every method at their disposal—and remember, they are a majority on the Board—to frustrate any attempts to bring some measure of accountability and openness to the way the marina is operated. Last Monday, they decided to “suspend the rules” at the Board of Trustees meeting in order to turn the floor over to a raucus, jeering crowd of “angry boaters” from ABET. And now, in exchange for the boater’s political support, the holdovers are promoting policies that allow for, um, flexibility in the matters of how fees are assessed at the marina and how the facility’s famously long and competitive waiting list is managed.
The fact is, the Elmwood township marina has been mismanaged for years. We can’t blame the boaters for howling when they are told that the various advantageous arrangements they have enjoyed may be taken away by enforcing the rules as they are written. But the Elmwood township marina is ultimately a resource for the whole community, not just the people who happen to have their boats there, and special attention should be paid to the long term interests of Elmwood township and its citizens. Deri Smith, Bob Doughty (whom ABET spokesman Jack Kelly wants to have expelled from the marina for “disregarding the Township Board’s will”) and a few other individuals have courageously stood up for the simple idea that the rules apply to everyone and should be followed. In our view, ABET stands for subverting and undermining it.
ABET, don’t change your name. It suits you to a tee.
Migrant workers have played and still play an important role in Leelanau's economy. But many of them are feeling threatened by the current national debate about immigration.
This fine Glen Arbor Sun piece comes to us via the Leelanau News blog.
Rep. Howard Walker has introduce a bill in the state legislature that would take away the ability of local townships to govern the placement of wind power generators via zoning, and would establish state standards governing the controversial behemoths.
This thoughtful piece on the MLUI site comes down on the side of state standards, but includes good arguments for maintaining local control as well.
The green slime is here. The blobs of algae that plagued Great Lakes shorelines in the 1960's are back.
This AP article described the resurgence of algae blooms, this time cause perhaps caused by the zebra mussel.
The Leelanau Conservancy has officially taken title to the 145-acre DeYoung farmstead in Elmwood township.
Now begins what Conservancy director Brian Price calls a "marathon" effort to raise the approximately $2 million cost of the project, which will include restoration and reuse of some of the farm's many historic buildings. This Record-Eagle story has some of the details. For even more on the DeYoung property, take a look at the Conservancy's site
The Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore continues to move ahead with the development of its general management plan, a document that will shape the ways the park is used for years to come.
This Record-Eagle article describes some of the issues and some of the players involved in the process.
A conflict is brewing over who will pay the costs for the collapsed septage treatment plant in Grand Traverse County. Five local townships, including Elmwood, are liable for the costs of the plant, which have ballooned as use revenues have fallen short.
As this Record-Eagle story describes, the townships' proposal to cover an annual $600,000 in revenues by imposing a surcharge on new septic tanks is being opposed by Grand Traverse County officials.
The business model for the plant was devised by county attorney Michael Houlihan and local engineering firm Gordie-Fraser, according to Acme township supervisor Bill Kurtz. The Gordie-Fraser firm was also involved in the design of the plant, which collapsed last June.
With the proposed wind power project for Leelanau County, we are being forced to come to terms with the trade-offs between clean energy on the one hand and the preservation of the skyline and landscape on the other.
This NY Times article shows that the controversy is being repeated all over the country.
Among the 10 northern Michigan state legislators, Jason Allen is the only one to accept contributions into secret accounts that avoid Michigan campaign finance law.
This Record-Eagle article, latest in a series documenting Allen's practices, has the details.
Many of the best new restaurants in our area are being built around the use of local foods whenever possible. Local foods are the freshest, and they help to provide a unique and local character that helps define a great restaurant.
This Record-Eagle article does a good job on some the innovating cooking being done at places like Hannahs and Tratorria Stella with ingredients from local farms and gardens.