Game 7 Wings, Ducks set for showdown, B1
P OW E R I N G M L I V E .C O M
Matriarch rules
Sunday, May 12, 2013
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Superintendent decision made out of public eye PORTAGE EMAILS SUGGEST PROCESS VIOLATED OPEN MEETINGS ACT BY JULIE MACK
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MARK BUGNASKI | MLIVE.COM
Sharon Sears hugs her mom, Rita Starbuck, of Bangor. Starbuck is 86 and is the matriarch of a family that includes 15 children and almost 100 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
MOTHER OF 15 NURTURED, MAINTAINS FAMILY TIES him a hug and then she gave him what-for. “Let’s just say I’m still hoeing the garden” as punishment for that episode, said Starbuck, who is now 55. Lori Reo, Rita’s 15th child, remembers her mother standing at the kitchen stove and turning out batch after batch of french fries or pancakes, too busy cooking to eat. Want a compelling story for Mother’s Day? The
BY JULIE MACK
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BANGOR — Sharon Sears, Rita Starbuck’s second child, remembers the fall that her mother canned 200 quarts of peaches, and that still didn’t last the winter in their large household. Bill Starbuck, Rita’s sixth child, remembers the time he ran away from home and his mother tracked him down after two days. She first gave
SEE MATRIARCH, A2
Mother’s Day Tributes Turn to Page A4, or read more at bit.ly/mlivemothers Ann Deering Johnson, of Richland, left, learned from her mother, Alida A. Deering, to “always stand up for myself, especially to men. To let the housework wait, and take my children to the beach. To play in nature, sing and dance and go on picnics. To comfort a crying child, feed a hungry dog and shelter an abandoned kitty.” The MLive.com/Kalamazoo Gazette collected testimonials about the good advice of mothers from around Michigan.
PORTAGE — Days before the Portage school district board members held their first public discussion on superintendent applicants, trustees had identified their “preferred candidate,” discussed contract details and given him and his family a tour of Portage neighborhoods in anticipation of their move here, according to emails obtained by MLive.com/ Kalamazoo Gazette. The emails also show board President Bo Snyder rejected advice from a search consultant to make the board’s deliberations more public. In addition, the emails reveal that the candidate, Brighton schools Superintendent Greg Gray, only was interested in the Portage job if he was the sole finalist and didn’t have to compete with other candidates. MLive.com/Kalamazoo Gazette examined 250 pages of emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Gazette requested all the emails to and from trustees regarding the superintendent search, which started in February. The board held its first public meeting on the 24 applicants for superintendent on April 15. After a 90-minute discussion, board members voted to make Gray the sole finalist. But the emails show that
days before that meeting, board members already were settling on Gray. In an April 12 email to his fellow board members, trustee Tom Eddy, who chairs the search committee, wrote of Gray: “He and his family will be in Portage tomorrow looking at neighborhoods to live in. I plan on meeting them and sharing some of the neighborhoods that may be of interest to them.” When the board announced Gray as its sole finalist three days later, members of the public immediately criticized the decision to have only one finalist and questioned whether the board had violated the Open Meetings Act. A week later, Gray withdrew his candidacy, saying his family wanted to stay in Brighton. The board has reopened the superintendent search and is taking applications through the end of May. Under the Open Meetings Act, deliberations and decisions by public boards about which candidates to interview and who to hire must be made in public, and private interviews of candidates or potential candidates by board members are not allowed. Snyder, the designated spokesman for the board, declined to comment for this story and referred all questions to acting Superintendent Rob Olsen. SEE DECISION, A10
LIVING DOWNTOWN
Look for residential growth on fringes of central city KALAMAZOO — Encouraging more residential development has long been a key part of Downtown Kalamazoo Inc.’s strategy to grow the downtown and its economy. It was identified in DKI’s 2009 Comprehensive Plan as a priority “to accomplish what we call the promise of downtown,” said Rob Peterson, business recruitment and retention director for Downtown Kalamazoo Inc. “That (the promise) is to be the center for educational, cultural and economic success for all.”
“It is a make it or break it proposition,” Kip Plew said of business survival and people living downtown. CONNECT “It’s a ‘making’ force not § To read other only because stories in this series, go to of the support they give busitinyurl.com/ n e s s e s , b u t livingdowntown because of the atmosphere and the diversity they give the area,” said Plew, owner of Irving’s Market & Deli, located in the Kalamazoo City Centre at 125 S. Kalamazoo Mall. “I knew going into this project that without the residential
Growth in properties and value
The value of properties classified as residential in the city’s Downtown Development District rose $5 million in assessed value and $4.6 million in taxable value from 2003 to 2013. The number of residential parcels grew from 68 in 2003, with a total state-equalized value of $2.8 million and a taxable value of $2.5 million, to 109 parcels in 2013, with a state-
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Speaking of nightclubs, eateries, festivals, the museum, banks and stores, he said, “There isn’t another city I know where you can walk to all those different things safely.”
ADVICE
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it would not work,” said Plew, who opened in 2005, about a year and a half before the Meyer C. Weiner Co. finished building 22 condominium apartments on the upper levels of the Kalamazoo City Centre. Having those in place has helped him and other downtown retailers. P l e w s a i d d ow n t ow n Kalamazoo is different than South Westnedge Avenue or other retail areas in the area because it has a community atmosphere. College students and business people buy milk and coffee before work starts, and they are downtown after work at restaurants and other businesses.
SEE DOWNTOWN, A6
THE SERIES MLive.com/Kalamazoo Gazette is taking a look at downtown living in Kalamazoo. This is the final installment in the series.
TODAY
A look at the future of residential living in downtown Kalamazoo. How livable is downtown? Where do you shop, where do you park? How’s the noise? A7 Spotlight on Martha Aills and her residence in the Arcadia Condominiums, which is for sale. A8
Stocks/Mutual Funds lists inside A page summarizing last week’s closing stock prices is on Page I5; Mutual Funds are on Page I6.
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equalized value of $7.8 million and a taxable value of $7.1 million, according to data provided by the city of Kalamazoo. In that 10-year span, the values rose 54 percent in 2004 and in 2008 and 31 percent in 2007 because of construction and sales of condominiums, said Andrew Falkenberg, deputy treasurer and deputy assessor for the city of Kalamazoo. Values peaked in 2009, with 110 parcels in the district valued at almost $11 million in assessed value and $8.5 million in taxable value, dropped sharply in 2010 and 2011 and then slowed in 2013.
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