News & Events

October 2005

October marks the launch of our new fiscal year at the Suburbs Alliance, and we are celebrating by bringing Rachel Gartell and Cooper Holoweski on to the staff full time. Rachel has proven herself an effective and energetic organizer of our Resource Sharing project. Besides that, we had to give her a job before this native Arizonan experienced her first Michigan winter. In trial by fire, Cooper has found himself among a small group of nine helping MSHDA develop a strategic plan linking land use and affordable housing. Our own artist-in-residence also has prints in a number of shows around the country, including one in Ann Arbor. If you've ever had a chance to work with either of these two, you know what energy they bring to our coalition. If you've got the chance, drop both of them a welcome-aboard note!

We've got big plans for the coming year, not the least of them opening up our signature Redevelopment Ready Communities certification project to the Suburbs Alliance cities. RRC is already having a clear impact - River Rouge is getting better marketing through a new web site; Eastpointe and River Rouge are developing business leader roundtables, and Hazel Park and Ypsilanti are identifying and prioritizing redevelopment sites. Our hope in the coming year is to provide similar technical assistance benefits to the breadth of the Suburbs Alliance membership.

This coming month, as you'll read below, we are co-hosting a major conference on regional service sharing. It is just the start of a challenging series of workshops that we hope will give new skills and confidence to those of our communities that are leaning on each other to mutually improve the quality of life they offer their residents. Governor Granholm's office has recognized the importance of this kind of collaboration, encouraging communities to form regional coalitions. The Centers of Regional Excellence Program offers direct support to communities that have asked for assistance, Today the Centers of Regional Excellence announced a 2 year $25,000 grant and pilot program.

We also drop our first quarterly print newsletter in the mail this month. This quarter we hone in on affordable housing, getting quips from residents around the region about their concerns, sending kudos to cities making advances, and introducing you to the staff working on our affordable housing project. This is the second of our four part communications plan that started with these e-newsletters; coming up you'll see in-depth analysis of a key innovation on a quarterly basis and finally a revamped Suburbs Alliance website.

As you can tell, we're expecting significant growth this year. Last year we doubled our budget and hope to do that again by recruiting new cities for membership and reaching out to new supporters for financial support and professional expertise. If you think you'd like to be a part of that strategy, don't hesitate to give any one of us on the staff a call. We could sure use the help and your continued generosity!

The Suburbs Alliance is entering its fourth year, and like so many toddlers, now that we've figured out how to walk we're going to be everywhere and into everything! We need your guidance and participation more than ever! We on the staff are looking forward to another exciting year and want you to be a central figure in uniting and strengthening our region.