Ford Homes Neighborhood News

April 2003

	Easter Egg Hunt	* FHHD Meeting * Thursday, May 1: 7:30pm The Ford Homes District Spring Meeting will be held at the First Baptist Church (corner of Beech and Nowlin). Enter through the back door next to the church parking lot. We will be covering some important new programs that the City of Dearborn is instituting this year. Please come to the meeting for more information. We also have some information within this newsletter. The agenda for the meeting is: * Spring FHHD board elections. * Update from Sylvia Tillman on her project * Edison Street Sale FHHD bake sale * Park clean up & flower plantings * FHHD Home Tour * City downspout disconnect program * City street sweepers program * City Mayor Exchange We hope to see you there. If you would like to volunteer to be on the FHHD board, please come to the meeting and take part in the election.
The annual Easter Egg Hunt for the children in the neighborhood will be held this Saturday, April 12, at DuVall School. All age groups should be at the playground by 10:30 a.m.
Good luck to all of our Easter egg hunters!
FHHD Bake Sale The Edison Street Sale is held the first Saturday of June every year. This is a popular event and it is well attended. We will be holding a bake sale at a tent somewhere on Edison. We will need volunteers to staff the bake sale from 8am – 3pm. Also please plan on bringing your yummy baked goods to donate to the sale by 8am (later if you can’t by then). This money is used to support our community events such as the Easter Egg Hunt and the Halloween Stroll.

The Neighborhood Newsletter author, Barb Smith, will be stepping down after this newsletter goes out. If anyone would like to take over this important job, please contact me: 730-2174 / brksmith@hotmail.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I would like to remember Don Westcott, a wonderful neighbor on Nona who passed away this last winter: Mr. Westcott was a long time resident who attended most of our neighborhood activities, and he was a faithful FHHD news captain. He always had a friendly smile and encouraged those who set up our events. Scott and I were also very pleased to be docents at Mr. Westcott’s house when it was on the last FHHD home tour. Mr. Westcott was a past Dearborn public school teacher, and there were many of his past students and parents on the tour who re-introduced themselves to him. They clearly admired and appreciated Mr. Westcott, as many of us also remember & admire him. Our sincere condolences to his family.	City Downspout Disconnect Program The City of Dearborn is under directives from the State and Federal Governments to separate its ground water from sanitary water discharges. What this means to us as homeowners is that we need to disconnect our gutters’ downspout drains from the city sewer system (if this has not already been done). The city is currently surveying homes, and will send a letter to the homeowners who need to make a change. If your downspout drains flow out on top of the grass in your lawn, you are set. If you still have the original downspouts flowing into a concrete tube (sewer standpipe) in the ground, you will need to make this change. On average, it takes about 15 minutes and $15-20 in supplies from a hardware store to do this. We will have pamphlets on how to do this process at the spring meeting, and Kevin O’Brian who is in charge of this program for the City will be at the meeting to answer your questions. If you are not able to attend the meeting, you can pick up a pamphlet that outlines the disconnection process from the Mayor’s office in City Hall. The pamphlet is also on the City website: www.cityofdearborn.org. There will also be a ‘how to’ video on CDTV, Dearborn’s cable T.V. channel. Two of the Home Depot stores will have “downspout disconnection” areas to help homeowners, and the CDTV video will be continuously played there: · Home Depot at 5951 Mercury Dr. in Dearborn (593-4644) · Home Depot at 24541 Michigan Ave. in Dearborn Heights (359-9600) With our downspouts emptying into the sewer system, it increases the chances that a heavy rainstorm will be too much for the sewer pipes to handle. When it does get to be too much, the overflow is dumped into the Rouge River. By reducing the amount of rain water that is dumped in to the sewer system, we will help protect the Rouge from sewage, and also will help reduce the chances of basement flooding during storms.
City Street Sweepers Program In the near future there will be a regular schedule for street sweeping: every other week on the day after trash pick up. Because our trash pick up is on Friday, our streets will be swept every other Monday. When this program starts, ‘no parking’ signs will be posted listing times that cars can’t be parked on the streets. Cars that are left parked during that time may be ticketed or towed at the owner’s expense. The program details are not yet available, so keep an eye on the local papers and the city cable TV channel!
New Recycling Items The city is now accepting household batteries for curbside recycling. All 9-volt, D, C, A, AA and AAA batteries should be put in a small clear plastic bag, and placed on top of the other recycling where they are easy to see. Household batteries contain mercury - please don’t throw them out in the trash! Other items that we can recycle curbside in our orange bins: Newspapers (and all inserts), office paper, phone books, magazines, catalogs (please bundle all of these with string or in a brown bag - no shredded paper is allowed), cardboard boxes cut to fit bin (no pizza boxes), plastic bottles with 1 or 2 on the bottom, green brown & clear glass bottles/jars, empty aerosol cans (throw out all lids first), and aluminum/tin cans.