FEATURES SUBSCRIBE NOW Oktoberfest Division champs (313) 343-5577 $14.50 OFF THE NEWSSTAND PRICE Visiting German students add flair An early score sets the pace to SOC services PAGEIB PAGE1C Grosse Pointe News VOL. 70, NO. 43,46 PAGES OCTOBER29,2009 ONE DOLLAR (DELIVERY 710) One of America's great community newspapers since 1940GROSS E POINTE, MICHIGAN Complete news coverage of all the Pointes Parking issues Sunday, Nov, 1 nothing new week ahead in the Pointes 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 By Joe Warner 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Editor If you're in the mood for Starbucks on Mack FRIDAY, OCT. 30 in Grosse Pointe • The Friends of the Grosse Woods, be ready for a Pointe Public Library host the parking skills test. annual Trick or Read table Parking is where you from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. in the can find it. Village shopping center on The Mack paid park• Kercheval. ing in the area is shut • Grosse Pointe North High down with bags over School and Port Huron High the meters that say "no School meet at 7 p.m. at parking," though a cou• North's field for the district ple cars tested the football championship. Woods police by park• • Grosse Pointe South High ing and dashing into the School and DeLaSalle meet at store anyway. 7 p.m. at South's field for the m The lot out front is typically quite busy, but on district football championship. PHOTO BY RENEE LANDUYT Tuesday morning it was packed with legal parking spot • Birgit Hutteman-Holz, tradi• users and illegal parkers along the wall and out the dri• tional and encaustic artist and ve. board president of the Grosse Haunted maze The coffee must be good. Pointe Artists Association, dis• Construction and building projects were taking up cusses the ancient Greek form Brook Cornillie, Rachel Atland, Alison Laney, Taylor Laney and Moran Wilson hide in the haunted corn dozens of spots this week along Mack and Kercheval. of encaustic painting and of• maze on Rivard in the City of Grosse Pointe. The Laney family has set the maze up for about seven years Progress is good in this tough economy. fers a demonstration from 7 to A couple weeks of comments by readers of the 8p.m. at the art center, 16900 and family members who dress in holiday appropriate costumes. At night, strobe and colored lights light Grosse Pointe News have showed there isn't a real lack Kercheval, City of Grosse the area. of parking, but paying to park in some cases is very Pointe. The event is free. For frustrating. more information, call (313) Different rates and ticket costs have been the main is• 821-1848. sue. With an hour parking limit on The Hill with its me• • Grosse Pointe South Choir's ters, at 50 cents for the hour, it's impossible to park Fall Follies performance is at 8 along Kercheval and have lunch at some of the greatest p.m. in the Grosse Pointe Solving the poison issue restaurants in Metro Detroit without getting a ticket. An Performing Arts Center at hour isn't long enough for lunch, and it isn't enough Grosse Pointe North High time to get your hair done at one of the salons. School. Tickets are available at Monday, Oct. 26 council meeting. in the area, and the city should There is plenty of parking in the Henry Ford Cottage the door. Residents, officials Councilman Dan Clark read the not be in the poison business." Hospital structure and the lot behind Rite-Aid. Rates ordinance aloud during the meet• Park resident Fred Olds asked SATURDAY, OCT, 31 discuss vermin ing, after at least one resident the council if back alleys are in• See PARKING, page 6A Halloween questioned the council as to spected and if businesses are cit• • Trick-or-treating at business• problem whether the application of poison ed for having open containers. es along Mack in Grosse was the best solution to the rat "We have a code officer who Parking in the Pointes - Part Twd| Pointe Woods begins at 3 p.m. ByKathyRyan problem. should be looking at these," said Participating businesses will StaffWHter Nancy Gutierrez said her dog City Manager Dale Krajniak. have a designation in a win• died after ingesting rat poison, Hiller said his investigation of dow. An investigation into the distri• addressed the council with her focused on allegations that a city bution of rat poison in a Grosse concerns. Several other dogs in employee had not followed prop• SUNDAY, NOV. 1 Pointe Park alley didn't turn up the area have been treated for ill• er procedures in placing rat poi• Change clocks one hour back. any new issues, but a look at ness caused by ingestion of the son in the alley. • Grosse Pointe South Choir's Dumpsters in the area showed poison. Gutierrez and other resi• According to Hiller, the city's Fall Follies performance is at 3 some lacked lids and offered dents in the area of Lakepointe Department of Public Works em• p.m. in the Grosse Pointe easy access to rats and other ani• and Kercheval maintain that ployees had placed poison in the Performing Arts Center at mals. proper procedures were not fol• area, but they maintain they fol• Grosse Pointe North High Grosse Pointe Park Director of lowed by a city employee when a lowed proper procedures, that School. Tickets are available at Public Safety Dave Hiller was commercial rat poison, Contrac, the poison was placed in a locked the door. asked by Mayor Palmer Heenan was placed in the alley. box, and that once report of a to look into how rat poison was "Poison should be our last sick dog had been received that MONDAY, NOV. 2 placed in the city's alleys after choice in trying to control rats," all traps were picked up and the PHOTOS BY JOE WARNER • Grosse Pointe Woods City several residents complained. Gutierrez told the council. "I Parking at Starbucks in Grosse Pointe Woods takes a Council meets at 7:30 p.m. in Hiller gave his update at the don't think anyone wants poison See POISON, page 10A creative mind some mornings. Creative before coffee? council chambers, 20025 See WEEK AHEAD, page 10A POINTER OF INTEREST School, municipal elections Tuesday 7enjoy working with my hands. It's my Opinion 8A Grosse Pointers visit polling sites between 7 provements and repairs. All expire at the end of answer to creativity.' Schools 1AH a.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, to decide on two this year. Obituaries 7A 0 school millage questions and who will fill three Karl Kratz and Cindy Pangborn are vying for a Autos lAffl seats on the Grosse Pointe Board of Education. single three-year seat. Two four-year seats will Andrea Weyhing Business 5AUI In the Woods, City, and Park council seats are also be decided. Seeking those seats are Seniors 6B to be decided. Municipal judges will be elected in Anthony Ambrogio, incumbent Joan Dindoffer, Home: Grosse Pointe Farms Entertainment 8B both the Farms, Park and Woods. Farms incum• Tom Jakubiec, George McMullen and Michelle Age: 67 Classified ads 5C bents are seeking re-election. Peabody One school millage proposal calls for the con• Incumbent Matthew Rumora is unopposed for Family: Husband, Burt tinuation of the operating millage, which in• his sixth term as Farms municipal judge. Thomas Weyhing HI; two sons, cludes the hold harmless millage and the non- Two, Carl Jarboe and Dean Valente, are run• homestead millage. The other is for the continu• ning for the Park's municipal judge seat. one daughter ation of the Sinking Fund millage, which gener• Five candidates seek the Woods municipal Claim to fame: Won third ates approximately $3 million per year, depend• ing on the rise and fall of total taxable value in judgeship. They are Ted Merry, Lisa Pinkos- place for pine needle basket the district. The fund is solely for building im• See ELECTION, page 1 OA See story on page 4A PHONE: (313) 882-6900 # FAX: (313) 882-1585 • MAIL: 96 Kercheval 48236 • ON THE WEB: grossepointenews.com • E-MAIL: [email protected] * Domestic Relations Eastside's Premier Landscape Company Criminal * Personal Injury 586-774-0090 St. Clair Shores 15251 E. 12 Mile • Roseville & Grosse Pointe www.backerlandscaping.com GROSSE POINTE NEWS, OCTOBER 29, 2009 NEWS Yesterday's headlines took part in the September suit against the district after a robbery of Coin and Stamp 1997 incident in which the ad• Inc. on Mack Avenue were giv• ministrators told South's en jail sentences by a Windsor, Tower newspaper the 50 years ago this week Ontario judge. The two were teacher's involuntary transfer apprehended in Windsor after was the result of disciplinary • SCHOOL TAX AP• taking items valued at approx• action. The teacher has since PROVED: A near record 6,727 imately $40,000 in the theft. retired. voters approved three school One man received a 10-year • VANDALS HIT ST. PAUL: millage proposals totaling 3 sentence; the other seven Grosse Pointe Farms public mills to be used for increased years. safety was called to St. Paul operating costs and building Catholic Church's parish and site taxes. When the taxes house and school to investi• become effective next year, the gate incidents of arson and school rate will be 24.33 mills. vandalism over the weekend. • TEEN DRIVER HITS Papers were found burning HOUSE; A 17-year-old driver 25 years ago this week in a window well of the office lost control of a car, rammed and several classrooms had the rear of a house on Ida Lane • LIQUOR IN THE CITY?: been ransacked.