The State of Wolverine Lake: HOPEFUL!

Today I delivered my annual “State of Wolverine Lake” speech at the Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce’s annual “State of the Lakes” event at which leaders from several of our local communities give the Chamber of Commerce an update on the state of their municipality. I thought some folks who couldn’t make it might be interested to see what I said, so I’ve expanded out my outline with the words (more or less) that accompanied a lovely chicken lunch at the Edgewood Country Club:

Good afternoon,

Thank you to the Chamber for giving us all this opportunity to update you on the issues that face our communities. But before I get to the body of my update on the State of Wolverine Lake, I wanted to take a moment to recognize the terrible disaster that has happened in Japan. It may seem to be quite remote to those of us here in Oakland County, but when we look around we find that the impact may be closer than we expect. For example, I found out just a couple of days ago that my neighbor, Nick Humphrey, who is stationed with the Marines in Okinawa, has been deployed to the main island to help in the recovery efforts there. I know there are a lot of other folks out there who have loved ones there. In our increasingly small world, a disaster like that touches all of us. Let’s keep all of them in our thoughts and prayers.

Now on to the village, where the State of Wolverine Lake this year is hopeful. Like everybody, we’ve had to do quite a bit of budget cutting in the last year, and we lost some good employees. But because of the work that we did last Spring as part of our long-term budget planning process, I think that we’re well situated to ride out the next couple of years, despite the likely cuts in state revenue sharing, which is something that we anticipated.

Like all of us dealing with the current economy, we’ve tried to make the cuts in a way that had the least impact on the services that we offer our residents. I like to think we’ve done as good a job of that as possible. You’ve heard me speak about a few of those items before -- especially our joint policing effort with Walled Lake, which saves both communities hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But I really don’t want to stand here in front of you and talk about budget cuts for yet another year.

I want to talk about the things we are doing to make our village a better place to live, despite these difficult economic times.

Let me begin by talking about two places where the residents of Wolverine Lake have stepped up and filled the gaps left by our budget cuts.

• Last year we reduced the fish-stocking line item in our budget by $500. Village residents stepped up and collected more than $600 to replace the missing money. They told us loudly and clearly that this is a program that they value.

• Last year we eliminated the village contribution of $5,000 to our annual Tiki Night Fireworks display on July 3. The members of our fireworks committee have increased their fundraising efforts, and because of their hard work we were just able to sign a three-year contract with Zambelli Brothers to maintain the same great display that we’ve had the last several years. This is our lake’s signature event, and it will continue to be a great event, thanks to the hard work of our village’s residents.

These two items are especially important because our residents have stood up and said that they value these services so much that they are willing to go the extra mile to see them maintained.

We’re also working hard to continue to improve the infrastructure of the village:

• We just paved and accepted a new road in the village: Heron Hills Dr. in the Heron Hills Condominium development.

• We opened a new section of pathway on South Commerce Rd. to pedestrians and bicyclists off one of the most dangerous spots of road in our community. In doing this we worked together with our neighbors in Walled Lake to hook that pathway to their sidewalk system. As a result, hundreds of village residents who live on the East side of the lake now have safe access to Walled Lake. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Walled Lake's administration, DDA, and elected officials for joining with us to get this done.

• And speaking of the both the Eastern District and of working with our neighbors, we have worked together with Commerce Township to get a sewer main built down South Commerce Rd. so that we can extend sewers to the village's Eastern District. We’re very grateful to Commerce Township for partnering with us to make this happen. When this line is installed this Spring we will have nearly completely ringed the lake with sewers. Those hookups are replacing dozens of old, failed septic systems that previously leached into the lake.

• Now that we have better pathways in the village, we’re working on giving folks more places to walk. Right now our Park & Recreation Board is working on a really great concept: Pocket Parks. These are small parks with just a little bit of playground equipment – maybe a slide and a couple of swings – that will give families a place to walk with their kids and have a little fun. This is an idea that won’t cost a lot of money, but that can be a nice improvement in a neighborhood.

• Our Park & Rec Board is also working on a plan for some beautification of our village and subdivision entrances. Again, this isn’t something that’ll cost a lot of money, but it will say that this is our village and these are our neighborhoods, and we’re proud of them.

Finally:

• Real estate outreach –This Spring we launched our new real-estate outreach program. This is a program that’s been put together by a committee consisting of volunteers from the village and local real estate professionals. We wanted to join in a partnership with local agents to help them to explain to their clients why the village is a great place to live, and it’s been a true success so far. The committee put together an information packet and a flyer filled with all sorts of helpful information for somebody thinking about living in the village: subdivision contacts, tax rates, village services, events, and a whole lot more.

A few weeks ago, 40 local realtors took part in our first outreach event where we got this distributed this information and took some time to get their input into what we can do to help them sell homes in Wolverine Lake.

Is this program succeeding? Well, ten days ago a new resident came in to file closing papers on new house and this new village flyer was right on top of her papers.

If you’re a local real estate agent who hasn’t yet participated in the project, please stop by our village office and we’ll get you set up with this information.

So, that's a nice list of things that we're working on. But why do I say that the state of Wolverine Lake is hopeful? Here’s the thing that makes the state of Wolverine Lake hopeful today.

All these things I just spoke about don’t happen just because our village council decrees them to be so. These accomplishments have taken and will take hundreds of hours of effort by volunteers who care about the village and are willing to do what it takes to make it a better place, whether it’s knocking on hundreds of doors to fill out petitions for a sewer; sitting in long, long, lo-o-o-o-o-ng meetings; or raising money to make sure that Tiki Night continues to be a great, unique event that brings the whole village together.

That is what makes me hopeful about the state of Wolverine Lake. We’re still here, and every day we’re working hard to make our village a better place to live. And we will continue to do that.

It makes me very proud to be the President of Wolverine Lake.

Thank you.