Visualize our
hometown
2020
The visioning process starts with you.
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Strings of My Heart
Saturday, March 3
4:00pm
Clarenceville's
Louis Schmidt Auditorium
presented by
Livonia Symphony Orchestra
Hey, it's a concert!!
Livonia Style
For tickets click here:
The typewriter will be there to
enjoy thanks to Bob and Janet Bennett
for passing along a ticket --
seems they are in Florida
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"Shamrocks and Tea"
A Livonia Irish Gathering
presented by
Livonia Symphony Orchestra
Sunday, March 18
2:00 - 4:00
Livonia Marriott Inn
Fine food, Irish music, lots of fun
And a little bit of an Irish Jig
Hey, it's a party!!
Livonia Style
$30.00
or
The typewriter will be there to enjoy
the ultimate green tea
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Livonia Prayer Breakfast -- May 3
Setting the standard for
38 years
Hey, it's a prayer!!
Livonia Style
On May 3, 2012, at 7:00 AM, Burton Manor,our Livonia community will host the Annual Livonia Prayer Breakfast with Dr. Paul L. Maier, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Western Michigan University, lecturer, and author as the special guest speaker for the 38th annual event.
As popular as he was at WMU, he is also widely known outside the university setting. He travels and lectures widely, appears frequently in national radio, television, and newspaper interviews, and has published many articles and reviews in general and professional journals. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees. His insights and expertise on current events are widely sought after.
Ticket prices will be $15.00 /$10.00 for students.
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Sponsored by
Bob Hardies
Financial & Portfolio Advisors, Ltd.
A Registered Investment Advisor
Induction Ceremony
Class of 2012
1. Bill Brown Ford
2. Felician Sisters
3. Livonia Rotary Club
4. Marge Roach
5. Robert Bishop
6. Alice Gunderson
7. Francesco Di Blasi
8. Livonia Youth Symphony
Class of 2011
Charlie Mahoney
Laura Callow
Harvey Moelke
Midge Ellis
St. Mary Mercy Hospital
Orchard, Hiltz & McCliment
Livonia Town Hall
Class of 2010
Richard McDowell
James McCann
Keith Geiger
Ed Katz
Bill Heaton
Lee Morrow
Jack Engebretson
Joe Taylor
Edgar Oren Durfee
Class of 2009
James Mies
Lyn Bankes
Bob Dietiker
Rosina Raymond
Stan Anderson
Sue Rosiek
Alfred Noble
Friends of the Library
Sheldon Land Company
Class of 2008
Dan Andrew
Bill LaPine
Harry Greenleaf
Paul Kadish
Sheila Taormina
Joe and Jane Soltesz
William Brashear
Paul Chandler
John Vroman
Conrad Gniewek
Class of 2007
Lee Landes
Fernon Feenstra
Sam Prisk
Louis Schmidt
Sister Mary Giovanni
Rudy Kleinert
Bill Warren
Roland Upton
Sister Mary Francilene
Class of 2006
Dr. Don Friedrichs
Jack Kirksey
Patrick Duggan
Joan Duggan
Mike Duggan
Debra Bonde
Alexander Blue
Ken Bourgon
Electra Stamelos
Sue Daniel
Bill Fried
Peter Ventura
Class of 2005
Ira Wilson
Alexander McKinney
George Nelson Bentley
Mable Ault
Jesse Ziegler
Dr. Ben Yates
Dr. Maxwell Stewart
Richard Joyner
Geraldine Joyner
John Dufour
Phil Power
Edward H. McNamara
Bob and Janet Bennett
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The 1835 Livonia City Hall of Fame is Sponsored by:
Bob Hardies
Financial & Portfolio Advisors, Ltd.
A Registered Investment Advisor
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As often as possible
It begins with you
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Think Ink
Publishers of FridayMusings
Livonia's #1 marketing firm
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Shop Livonia
Purchase Michigan
Made in America
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Speak up. Speak out.
Show your Livonia Pride
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In this issue:
St. Mary Hospital: named in the top 5% in America
Downtown Livonia: Are you kidding? or Bring it on!
Best of Livonia Balloting continues
Bowling for Seedlings: With your help
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St. Mary Mercy Hospital
named one of the best emergency
care hospitals in the nation --
ranking in the top 5%
of all hospitals
Hospitals named to the list are among the top 5 percent of the
 hospitals nationwide according to Healthgrades a Denver-based independent health care rating company's list of the best emergency medicine departments in America.
HealthGrades used more than 7 million Medicare patient records from 2008 to 2010 to name 263 hospitals to its 2012 list of Emergency Medicine Excellence award winners.
The study compiled information based on 12 common Medicare patient diagnoses, such as heart attacks, pneumonia and bowel obstructions, which led them to the emergency room and ultimately to being admitted.
Of the 8 hospitals from southeast Michigan making the national list only St. Mary Hospital, Livonia Hall of Fame Class of 2011, is located in western Wayne County.
Michigan hospitals receiving the national honor are
St. Mary Mercy Livonia Hospital
Beaumont Hospital in Troy,
Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital
Detroit Medical Center Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital
Lapeer Regional Medical Center (McLaren-Lapeer Region)
Mount Clemens Regional Medical Center (McLaren-Macomb)
St. John Providence Hospital in Southfield
St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital Macomb Center in Warren
St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital in Madison Heights
Look to Livonia to set the bar for excellence.
Look to St. Mary Hospital to help define
Livonia Quality of Life.
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Downtown Livonia? Two ways to look at it:
You have got to be kidding me! or Bring it on!
 For years the issue of a downtown has been on the back burner. Always there simmering but just never making it to the table as a main course.
For decades our hometown had 36 downtown venues. Each square mile was to a large extent a hometown center for neighbors. Amenities were all offered in one central location never more than 1/2 mile from the town center.
Take Rosedale Gardens and Rosedale Meadows in section 34 as a prime example:
- one junior high school and two elementary schools
- one high school in the next square mile
- one central park (Mies) and one neighborhood park (Rosedale)
- 10,000 residents in one square mile
- Sheldon Center for shopping -- hey, this was the front page picture on marketing materials for the City of Livonia highlighting hometown shopping
- one Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran Church
- civic association with 4th of July parade and picnic
The schools were the center of the neighborhood. Students could
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Rosedale Gardens was its own downtown starting in the 1930's
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go back to the buildings until 5:30 to pick up items left or books to read. Teachers and principals lived in the neighborhood.
Livonia was our square mile. We ventured out to Hydromatic Park for baseball games, would walk to Franklin in the summer when the school was open for pool, swimming, basketball, dancing.
We had it all right at our fingertips.
We were no
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The Madonna complex serves as a downtown to that community
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t unique. Coventry Gardens with their centralized park. It seemed that our founders made sure that every school had acreage and every mile had its park. Every neighborhood had centers to fill shopping needs.
We really did have 36 downtown, hometown communities that would with a creative synergy equal a city of which no other could compare.
Now we are at a point where Livonia needs to be redefined. Not rebuilt so much as establishing a vision process that allows for a
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How about a downtown at Greenmead?
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a creative redefinition of reality. We have what we have now how can we go about utilizing what resources we have to attract and keep families willing to engage in building a new hometown -- one in which they have ownership of problems and pride in solutions.
When word started to spread that the idea this typewriter has been writing about for years and some candidates for office, Maureen Brosnan, Steve King, Brandon Kritzman wanted to embrace in their own view of the synergy that could be created with a discussion of a downtown there was confusion, excitement and angst all rolled into one.
Some had heard rumors about a land deal with the schools, about redesigning property around Five and Farmington, about the cost and who would pay and just what a downtown would encompass.
That is why the council committee meeting last week was a breath of fresh air. Not only were Joe Laura, Maureen Brosnan, Brandon Kritzman and Tom Robinson talking openly about a process but citizens were in attendance expressing an interest in the process.
But to this typewriter the huge benefit of the meeting was the presence of a hometown resource, OHM,
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Downtown is in the eye
of the beholder -- like
the Musing Estate swimming pool
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Livonia Hall of Fame Class of 2011,and the explanation by them of how a process could work, that a downtown did not necessarily mean Five and Farmington, and that we could be talking 10 years.
It is great to have hometown resources willing to work with elected leadership in an open atmosphere to create an energy that can just by definition create an excitement drawing young families, encouraging older residents, and potentially being embraced by a region looking again to Livonia for ways to build and rebuild a hometown.
Have at it and bring it on. Out in the open and on the table with lots of community input. With a vision that will match our founders and what they created the first time around. It worked and so will this.
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Best of Livonia Balloting Underway
Balloting started last week and will continue through March 2nd with
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After being named best bakery in Livonia Heritage Bakery provided this award winning cake for the 175th Livonia Anniversary party
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results announced March 9.
We are running ahead of the pace last year when we received over 650 ballots.
There is still plenty of time to forward this link to your family and friends giving them the opportunity to voice their opinion on the Best of Livonia:
Click here to be taken to the survey:
There is heated competition in several categories especially for Best Hamburger (Masons, Five Guys, Eastside Mario's, Bigg Burger, Bates, Max & Ermas's) and Best Pizza (Buddy's, Corsi's, Dolly's, Papa Romano's, Jets).
Several new names are being submitted for rising political star (John Walsh, Tom Robinson, Brandon Kritzman, Bill Joyner -- huh?).
But the category drawing the most interest appears to be Best Produce with a tight competition between Joe's Produce and Westborn Market.
The Best of Livonia Balloting is sponsored by Mike and Mark Kwolek
graduates of Livonia Churchill High School and third generation owners of
Planned Home Improvement.
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The Musings Team is preparing for the
2012 Bowling for Seedlings and needs your help
The Musings team is collecting bundled donations to turn over to Seedlings Braille Books. We are looking for whatever amount our faithful readers might send along. Checks made out to Seedlings should be mailed to:
Bill Joyner, 18720 Blue Skies, Livonia 48152
We want to turn in our registration and donations before March 2nd. Seedlings is one of our great Livonia based, world serving non-profits.
With a team like this you will be glad you helped out Seedlings.
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The anchor -
the typewriter
whose weight is appropriate for
an anchor.
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The sleeper -
Eric Ladwig
rumored average approaching 200
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The ringers -
Dave and Beth
with rumored averages
too high to share
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Oops! Last week when discussing the Livonia Rotary donation night program the Typewriter was overdosing on green tea and identified this distinguished gentleman as President Bob Moore when as many readers correctly noted it is Marty Talty who presented $1,000 to First Step. Oh my! My bad.
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 City Fine Arts Gallery
Civic Center Library & City Hall Atrium
For the month of February:
Rena Laverty City Hall Lobby Michael Coppa Fine Arts Gallery
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Views from around
the Musings Estate
Charlie Mahoney, Livonia Hall of Fame Class of 2011: Please add my congratulations to the class of 2012 Hall of Famers -- I too will be there on October 4th to celebrate with them. It is truly an award that I cherish.
The Typewriter: See you at the Symphony Concert, the Symphony Green party, maybe the Symphony golf outing, at least for lunch. Did you say you were helping sponsor the Musings bowling team for the Seedlings bowling tournament? That's okay, you give so much to our hometown already. I will just collect a few more pop bottles.
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February 28 6:30 PM
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Can't write anymore. Downtown Livonia drained me. And besides it is going to be in the 40's for most of the next week. That means it is time to collect the estimates for lawn cutting, fertilizing, pool opening, new roof on the garage.
You know -- all those things that get in the way of enjoying Spring.
I am still waiting for Winter but have no problem in moving ahead to Spring. My favorite season of the year. Filled with expectations, newness. Hope for . . . just hope for a fresh start.
Later.
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