Rescuing a Sandhill Crane

One thing I'll miss after I step down as our Village President is that you never really know what each month will bring. Sunday brought the opportunity to help an injured sandhill crane.

Village resident Nan Navalta Nehls reached out to me a few weeks ago because a family of three cranes had taken up residence in her yard, and the adult male and juvenile both had leg injuries. Nan had reached out to the Bird Center of Washtenaw County for advice and potential help. The initial advice was to monitor the situation to see if they recovered, and indeed the young one did. But the adult male's injury was too severe to heal on its own, and on Sunday a wildlife rescuer named Andrea came up to Wolverine Lake to see if we could capture the crane to take him to the Howell Nature Center for rehabilitation.

Here are some pictures from the rescue:

Standing on his right leg only.

So, he couldn't walk, but when Andrea approached with her long rod and loop we found that he could still fly...

... and so he did, across the street to the lakeshore.

From there he took off again, flying...

... between this hedgerow and the house next door. This is where I finally became useful because I heard him headed down that small passageway, and blocked his way with an umbrella that I had brought along to help with the crane capture. (The umbrella gives you added size to help herd the bird, a useful tip I picked up in a goose management class.)

When faced with an unexpected umbrella the injured crane dodged and crashed into the shrubbery, where Andrea managed to capture him.

With some help after he was captured she gave him an initial examination:

His leg was indeed broken and infected. Andrea also said that she could feel that he had lost a lot of weight. He was indeed in need of rescue and rehabilitation if he was going to one day return to the wild.

Everybody helped to wrap him up so that she could bring him to her car:

... and from there, it was off to the Howell Nature Center, where he is now Case # B-980-18. They have confirmed the fractured leg and infection. He'll be getting antibiotics and a splint. Hopefully he'll recover and be well enough to release before November, so that he can be reunited with the female adult and the juvenile before they migrate.

I'll post any updates on his health below.

Many thanks to Nan for reaching out and organizing the rescue, to Andrea for her expert crane-wrangling, and to our volunteer bird-herders, Paul and Ryan Nehls, my wife Monique, our next door neighbors Anna and Lexi, and my fellow Wolverine Lake Councilperson David Dumont, who took on the task with zero warning under the mantle of "other council duties as required."

Get well soon, Mr. Crane. We hope to see you back on the lake with your family.

So long, and thanks for all the fish stocking.

A bit of news from me -- I've decided not to run for another term on the Wolverine Lake Village Council this fall. Twelve years as our Village President has been a good run, but it's time to let somebody else pick up the gavel.

I didn't run for council in the first place to become El Presidente for Life. When I joined our council, our village faced some serious financial challenges. I thought I could help us work our way through them. Thanks to a huge amount of work by a ton of people: staff, boards, volunteers, and my fellow council people, we made it through the hard times and emerged better than ever. There aren't enough thank-yous in all the world to cover everybody who helped us get to this point.

I'm really happy with where the village is right now. The finances are rock solid and the leadership team is strong. It's a good time to bring in some new energy and some new ideas to the council table.

Democracy is participatory. From potholes to police and from fish stocking to financing sewers, you'll find there's a heck of a lot more that goes into making a municipality work than you ever imagined. And you'll find that there are a lot more great people making it work than you ever imagined.

The deadline for filing to run for council is July 24. Nominating petitions and an affidavit of identity must be returned to Commerce Township by 4 pm on that date. You can pick up an information packet and petition at Village Hall or the Commerce Township Clerk’s office.

Have at it folks.


Meanwhile, what's next for me? I have no idea. I'll be around. I'm not disappearing. I tend to get involved in things, so I'm sure something will come along. In the meantime, there might just be a few extra naps and a bit more time on the ol' pontoon boat.

So long, and thanks for all the fish stocking.

This Is Your Village, Your Government

My "Update from the Village President" letter from our upcoming Village of Wolverine Lake Fall Newsletter:

A few weeks after you receive this newsletter – after several more weeks of the most negative campaign in my memory – somewhere around half of the eligible voters will select a new President of the United States. Even fewer will go down the ballot to vote for in our village council election.

We live in an age of cynicism about politics and politicians. I suppose it isn’t surprising given a news media that spends its time obsessively parading the worst of us again and again while ignoring the good among us. But it deeply worries me that so many of us feel powerless to change or improve our situation.

We are not powerless. We can improve our government, our communities, our lives.

And so first of all I say to you all: VOTE. And don’t just vote for the first item on the ballot, the Presidential election. VOTE the full ballot. Many of those officeholders down the ballot – county officials, judges, boards of education, village council – will have a much more direct effect on our community than whatever happens with the Presidential election. If you’re looking for information on these candidates the League of Women Voters of Michigan (lwvmi.org) prepares an excellent nonpartisan voters’ guide every year with statements from the candidates themselves.

But also remember that improving our government and our community doesn’t end with voting. It starts with voting.

Our village was formed by neighbors who got together to form a village government. More than sixty years later it is still a government of and by neighbors. All of us on Council, Planning, ZBA, Water Management, Park & Rec, and the Historical Committee are your neighbors. We all live here and we’re all trying to make our community better by serving in our village government.

I invite you to join us. Sitting on a board or committee isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but come on down to a meeting and find out how and why we make decisions about the village. Volunteer to help with a Park & Rec event and have fun with your neighbors and children. Help the Historical Committee to preserve our unique village history and learn about our village’s colorful past and personalities. Help with a water management board project and learn how we try to keep our lake in good shape.

And in doing any of those things you will discover that our government isn’t made up of “them.” Our government is made up of “us.” Please join us.

A lot of people fought and died to preserve our right to self-governance. Don’t let cynicism and apathy steal it from you. VOTE on Nov. 8. Then keep exercising your right to self-governance afterwards by getting involved.

Yours truly,

John Magee

Village President, Wolverine Lake

Wolverine Lake Village Council Election: League of Women Voters candidate reponses for John Magee

Sadly, I have nobody to blame but myself. While I was gallivanting across the country on The Big Road Trip in August and spending a couple of weeks mostly offline, I missed the League of Women Voters election questionnaire that came into my e-mail box. Then it got buried in the midst of the dozens of campaign spams of various types that crowd my e-mail every day while we're in election season. When I went to find out why I hadn't yet heard from them about the election this weekend, I quickly discovered that I had missed the deadline for reply.

I really hate this because I consider the annual LWV election guide to be one of the most indispensable resources for voters. And failing to get your answers into the guide is really a basic competence test for any campaign. I just failed that test. (I would fire my campaign manager if I could, but since I'm the campaign manager I'll settle for docking my campaign manager's salary. It is henceforth reduced from zero to minus zero.)

Here are the responses you would've seen in the LWV guide had I made the deadline, in hopes that perhaps a few folks will come across this post.

League of Women Voters candidate reponses for John Magee, candidate for Wolverine Lake Village Council:

Question 1 (150 Words or less):
Please provide biographical information and explain why you are running for village office and relevant qualities and skills you would bring to the position.

I have served as Village President for the last eight years, on the council for nine years, and previously as the chair of the water management board for five years. As your President I have led the village back to financial health during the most difficult economy in our history. We've kept our local police department and invested in much needed long-term infrastructure improvements for the lake, the parks and pathways, and the village complex. We found an excellent developer to take over the abandoned and tax-foreclosed Heron Hills vacant land.

We did all this without raising the village property tax millage. If re-elected I intend to ensure we continue on our path of financial stability, local policing, and long-term improvements and investments.


Question 2 (150 Words or less):
What are the top 3 Priority Issues that your village should address and what actions would you, as a village officials, take regarding each of them?

1) We must continue to live within our means while making the most efficient use of our tax revenues. Examples include re-using the millings from the Glengary repaving project to build new pathways and replacing the crumbling stucco exterior of the village office with more durable, better insulating materials.

2) We must continue to rebuild our home values by making Wolverine Lake a desirable destination for home buyers. This means continuing our great record of community policing while also investing in infrastructure, park improvements, pathways, and improved recreational opportunities for all of our residents.

3) We must continue to protect and improve the lake. Our program of comprehensive lake management uses a variety of tools -- harvesting, herbicides, and now our aeration project in the Penny Lake arm -- to produce the greatest improvement with the least wasted effort.