City of Davison, Michigan

Next week residents might see or feel fluctuating water pressure.

Please don’t panic. This is a planned de-watering of our water tower. We do a planned examination of our water tower on a scheduled bases to check out the condition of this structure. In order to do this, we have to drain all million gallons of water. The inspection does not take that long, but the tank will be out of service for about a week.

After the inspection we will have to disinfect the tank prior to putting it back in service. The water tank not only gives us great reserves in case of emergencies like a structure fire, but it also helps keep our water pressure very consistent.

With our Multiple well system we have the capability to supply all the water the city needs during normal operations. This process does add some challenges, but our DPW is up to the task and we will have someone at the Skellenger Water treatment Plant 24/7.

This will lead us to our painting of the tower in 2007. When we do the painting the tower will be out of service for a longer period of time.

One of my neighbors was real excited that his son was wearing his new bike helmet as he rode his bicycle around our street. “He never wanted to wear the one we bought him” He explained, “But the one he got from the Davison School and Police Department he wants to wear all of the time”.

Last week, in conjunction with Safety Awareness month, our three police departments worked with the Davison Area Schools and several civic organizations to ensure all the Davison kindergarten students received bike helmets.

This is the 6th year of this program and it is still being received well by the kids and the community. This year we saw around 450 children.

Funds for Helmets and coloring/activity books supplied by local service organizations
This year’s benefactors were:

Davison Optimists
Davison Kiwanis
Davison Odd fellows

What is just as important as the helmets is that the kids also watch a video put on by a Davison City Officer and given other safety tips

There were wall to wall smiles on the faces of kids, cops, school employees and volunteers.

I’d like to introduce Lauryn Rachel…

Lauryn came into this world about 12:45 on April 18, 2006. I kind of forget what day it is now because they all run together after such a miraculous event as bringing a new little person into the world. Thanks to all who have emailed us their good wishes, prayers and support. It all helps.

Lauryn a few minutes
into this world.

Her mom still amazes me, and Jennifer is doing well.

Big sisters all approve of the new family member, and Tess can’t wait to teach Lauryn how to ride a bike…

For the next week or so my blogs will be more sporadic.

Our due date is past but we are still awaiting our new addition.

Stuff happens!

I met with Department Heads this morning and the office work will go on, just not with my presence. We have a lot of things going on and it will get done. There is no telling what my schedule is going to be over the next few weeks. I will be at home more than usual. I will be checking my email, but don’t panic If I don’t return calls or emails immediately.

“That’s good news” my wife said to me last night while seeing a commercial that some phone companies want to increase competition in the cable industry.

That is good news I told her, and we are waiting for them to jump in the game. Competition has been a great American tradition. It helps keep quality up and cost down.

So what is the problem?

Right now the “phone companies” don’t want to compete with Charter Communications (our cable provider). There are rules that everyone has to compete using the same rules. What the phone companies are attempting to do is compete with the cable companies without doing what we require the cable company to do.

There are a lot of things we require, but a simple example is that in our franchise agreement we make sure that cable is available to all in the City of Davison. What others are trying to do is an end around by buying Federal and State Elected officials to change laws that take away a local government’s right to control its own destiny and property.

I agree with my wife (and probably millions of other people) that competition is good. An example of technology and competition is the Dish operations.

I say to Charter’s competition, jump on board we welcome you, but you just can’t come in and compete in our “high end” neighborhoods and business and leave out everyone else.

It reminds me of that well known Peace profit Rodney King when after he instigated a confrontation with Police officers said “Can’t we all just get along?”

We sure can, follow the established rules that everyone else has to and come on in.

Have you ever had a day when you end up working on something you didn’t expect?

I had one of those days today.

One of our long term employees decided to change his employer and go to work for another community. This is not just any employee, but someone who wore many hats for us here in the City of Flags.

Dennis Miller has held many responsibilities under his hat for the almost eleven years he put into the City of Davison. I am happy for Dennis, because I never want to hold a person back from doing what they want or need to do. I also think Dennis will be an asset to the community he is going.

Dennis was in charge of our Building Department and has done all our plan reviews, plus performed the city’s inspections. He was also our chief code enforcement official. Dennis was in charge of out Planning Department and was the staff to our planning commission.

Wait… There is more. Dennis was our Assessor and did all our assessing duties.

And remember Y2K. Well the city turned to Dennis and made him our technical computer guy to keep us safe from certain doom. He also designed and was responsible for keeping our web site up to date.

As you might ascertain, Dennis helped the city to become what it is.

Dennis, to me was also a great sounding board. I could bounce things off him and know I was getting his perspective. I valued that.

Another thing Dennis was instrumental in was the re-establishment of the “Tippy Open”, the City’s annual Golf Outing.

You know, I am probably forgetting some items here, but now I have to get to work figuring out who is going to do all what Dennis did.

Congratulations Dennis, and thanks for the dedicated efforts to make Davison Davison.

What is a DCER you ask?

DCER stands for Davison Community Enrichment and Recreation. This is a relatively new joint venture funded by the City of Davison, Davison Township and the Davison Community Schools. We hope to soon add Richfield Township to that group.

Community leaders formed this cooperative agreement three years ago. Like most change, we had our negative people who said it couldn’t be done, it would be a failure, enrollments would go down, etc…

City Council Member Kevin McKague brought council up to speed at last night’s council meeting that the DCER advisory Board had met and reviewed some of the recent numbers.

We have a base line year of 2002-2003 when the City and the school had separate programs. The city had a recreation program and the school ran an enrichment program. We started out with 178 programs offered and approximately 3,200 participants.

Our first year we saw a slight drop in participation down to 2,723 as our city staff merged with the school staff and found its identity and eliminated duplicated efforts. As of today, we have 3,448 participants without the Spring/Summer Programs (which last year had over 1,000 participants).

The number of programs has over doubled in numbers from the 178 to over 400.

People of all ages
still enjoy working with
wood and building
things

Two of our City Councilmen have volunteered to work the award winning Special Needs Dances. We host 3 of these a year and average attendance is around 125. Just ask Council members Ron Emery or Jim Hansen and they are quick to tell you how much fun these events are.

Gymnastics classes last year rose up to 380 participants, our Daddy Daughter Dance had 390 people, and the Airbrushing class topped out with 72 participants.

What is really exciting is the ladies at DCER aren’t done yet. Wait till you see the new programming they have in the hopper.

Did I mentioned what this means for city residents? We have actually been able to cut what we use to pay for programming drastically, and receive more programs. Our annual cost for Recreation and Enrichment has stayed the same for the last three years and is looking to stay at the same rate for next year.

Just a few years ago, okay maybe a few decades ago my mom gave birth to an awesome guy…Okay would you believe an average guy?

That’s right today is the 44th anniversary of my birth. Thanks Mom.

I thought I’d take the opportunity to pass on some things I learned from mom:

1. My mother taught me to appreciate a job well done:
“If you’re going to kill each other, then do it outside, I just finished cleaning the house.”

2. My mother taught me religion:
“You better pray that will come out of the carpet.”

3. My mother taught me time travel:
“If you don’t stop that, I’m going to knock you into the middle of next week.”

4. My mother taught me argumentative logic:
“Because I said so, that’s why!”

5. My mother taught me foresight:
“Make sure you wear clean underwear — in case you’re in an accident.”

6. My mother taught me irony:
“Keep laughing and I’ll give you something to cry about.”

7. My mother taught me about osmosis:
“Shut your mouth and eat your supper.”

8. My mother taught me about stamina:
“You’ll sit there until all that spinach is gone.”

9. My mother taught me about weather:
“It looks like a tornado hit your room.”

10. My mother taught me about hypocrisy:
“If I told you once, I told you a million times, don’t exaggerate.”

11. My mother taught me about the cycle of life:
“I brought you into this world and I can just as easily take you out.”

12. My mother taught me behavior modification:
“Stop acting like your father.”

13. My mother taught me envy:
“There are millions of less fortunate children in the world who don’t have wonderful parents like you do.”

14. My mother taught me about surrealism:
“If you fall down out of that tree house and kill yourself, don’t come running and crying to me.”

15. My mother taught me about delegating authority:
“Go ask your father.”


By the way it is also my eldest daughter’s 17th birthday, happy birthday Brett (although she’s probably too cool to read her Dad’s blog).

Well Barb McCrea got a shock this morning as she walked into the office.

Barb is the voice you will most likely hear when you call city hall. Her Birthday is not until next week, but Barb has a great sense of humor and has been known to play a joke or two on people. So the office staff today turned the table on Barb to surprise her for her 5oth celebration.

A lot of staff even wore black today for casual day to honor Barb’s achievement.

So, if you are calling city hall in the next week or so, don’t forget to pass on your birthday wishes.

Happy Birthday Barb and thanks for being an important part of our team!

Just received an invite to the groundbreaking ceremony to the newest addition to minor league baseball in Michigan. Mid Michigan will have a stadium for good ole family fun. This is an ambitious project that will bring baseball back to its roots where families can go to a game together and build memories.

I was just speaking with a couple of Councilmen in our trip last month to Lansing about Lansing Lugnuts baseball. Everyone that goes to one of these games always seems to have a great time.

It was also explained to me that the Davison area entertained hosting a team not to long ago, but that deal fell through.

I must make it a point to venture out to a minor league game or two.

In the mean time congratulations to the Midland area to taking on this exciting adventure.