The Year in Review: A look back at the last six months of 2022

 

By Charles Sercombe
This week we highlight the news happenings from July through December.

JULY
A familiar face was appointed as interim city manager.
In a special city council meeting, Max Garbarino was tapped to fill that position.
Garbarino had been serving as the city’s director of community safety and services.
Former City Manager Kathy Angerer had announced her resignation, effective July 15.
Garbarino is the city’s former police chief.
Garbarino’s salary was set at $10,000 a month, and he would continue to receive his current benefit package.
In the meantime, the council also set into motion a request for proposals from search companies to find “qualified and experienced city managers” to apply for the job.
The council later decided to skip hiring an outside search company, and instead conduct the search themselves. The position is still posted on the city’s website. There is Jan. 10 deadline for candidates to apply for the job.

 

Poetry was in the air on a July Saturday afternoon.
The first cultural event in what was called “Our City Series” kicked off in the Rose Garden area of Immaculate Conception Church, and was sponsored by the Hamtramck Arts and Cultural Commission.
About 50 people came out on a blistering hot day, but they were able to sit under a tent and in a largely shaded yard.
Several readers presented poetry and other writings. They represented the ethnic make-up of the city: Yemeni, Bangladeshi, Polish, Ukrainian and more.
The first reader was Hamtramck’s own Mayor Ameer Ghalib. The mayor, a practicing nurse by trade, is a writer of poetry himself, but he chose instead to read a poem by fellow Yemeni, Dr. Abdulaziz Almakaleh.

Matt Wyszczelski became Hamtramck’s new fire chief. He had risen up through the ranks, over the past two dozen years, to the position he now holds.
He told The Review that “The one big thing I bring to the job as fire chief is that I came directly from the floor to the chief’s office.
“What this means is that, up until I became chief, I was a captain, riding the rig and responding to fires with the crews. This allows me to see things now from both perspectives: what is happening in the field, and with the administrative side of things.”

 

Hamtramck recorded its first two homicides for the year.
A 25-year-old Hamtramck man and a 24-year-old Detroit woman were found shot dead inside an apartment at the Hamtramck Housing Commission.
Multiple shell casings were found at the site, suggesting that the weapon used was an automatic gun.
The housing apartment complex is located off the southbound service drive of I-75. The shooting occurred in among the back units of the complex, near to Oklahoma St.
Police were seeking two black male suspects, who fled in a silver or gray newer-model Dodge Durango.
Police declined to comment on a possible motive for the shootings.
“At this time, police believe this was not a random incident,” said Police Chief Anne Moise, in a press release.
The case is still under investigation, and anyone with information about the matter is asked to call (313) 800-5280.

Hamtramck’s community television channel got up and running.
Well… sort of.
Greg Kirchner, who was put in charge of organizing the channel, said at the time that there would be limited programming on WHPL (Comcast) Channel 19 during this introductory period.
But, here’s what Kirchner had to say about the ultimate plans for the channel:
“Some of the content we would like to broadcast includes: council meeting highlights; commission meeting highlights; library programs for adults and for children; story times for young kids; events sponsored by local organizations.
“Also, school events; sports events; social gatherings; informational videos prepared by governmental entities; opinions expressed by residents and business owners; debates and discussions on local issues; performances by local musicians and artists.
“Additionally, one or more game show(s); local news; a calendar of events; speeches by political leaders; lectures by intellectual personalities; interviews with both locals and visitors; and more.”
Kirchner further explained that the focuses will be to “serve as a communication hub for our community; promote Hamtramck; bridge the divide between different ethnic groups; and start a dialogue between residents with a wide spectrum of opinions and habits.”
Funding for the ongoing broadcast comes from a grant.

 

Hamtramck’s financial woes received a major fix.
But it was only temporary.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that the state was allocating $750 million to “underfunded municipal pension systems.”
Hamtramck was included in that list of communities.
At a city council meeting, Sue Feinberg, of the Municipal Employees Retirement System (MERS), said the city could receive about $17.6 million.
The city still had to apply for the financial aid, Feinberg said, and it won’t come until next summer or so.
“There are a lot of bugs to work out,” Feinberg said about the funding source.
City Manager Kathy Angerer said that what monies are coming will boost the city’s pension funding, from being at 45 percent to being at 60 percent of what’s fully needed.
The city’s financial commitment to the pension fund ate up $5.7 million out of its total $18 million budget, or nearly a third.
Angerer, who left the city on July 15 for a new job, welcomed the news.
“We have worked hard to communicate to leaders in Lansing about the challenge of the pension obligation. I am so pleased that the State of Michigan finally recognized (the issue), and the legislature came to agreement to relieve the burden the underfunded pension obligation is for our city and others, and using the one-time available funds to do so,” Angerer told The Review.
“This is so good for Hamtramck. I will leave my tenure as city manager knowing that this problem is on its way to being solved.”
While this was a one-time allocation, according to a state press release, there was still leftover federal funding that could be tapped into again in the future.

Former Mayor Karen Majewski was added to the growing list of local notables having a street renamed in their honor.

Majewski was mayor of Hamtramck for 18 years – tying former Mayor Robert Kozaren for having served in that position for that length of time.
Majewski lost her bid for re-election last November.
City officials and residents gathered across from city hall to unveil an honorary street sign that now sits atop the Winfrey St. sign. The honorary sign reads: and Mayor Karen Majewski Ph.D St.
(Majewski has an academic doctorate degree from the University of Michigan.)
“This is a great honor, and I’m very moved by it,” Majewski said. “When I was persuaded to run for city council back in 2003, I was full of apprehension not just about the difficulties of elected office in a city like Hamtramck, but about the ways my life plans, my career, my direction, would change.
“I was right — my life did profoundly change, and my career did shift direction. But the journey was also a great and challenging gift, and this final gift from the city is a most touching culmination.”

The display of the pride flag was once again an issue in Hamtramck.
It came to light that a pride flag — a symbol for gay rights — was being flown on a city-owned flagpole on Jos. Campau, near Carpenter.
Russ Gordon, chairman of the city’s Human Relations Commission, said he was asked to fly the flag by Timothy Price, who is chairman of the city’s Arts & Cultural Commission.
Gordon has been volunteering to raise money for the 18 flagpoles on Jos. Campau for a number of years, and has also been the one who raises and lowers the flags each year.
Price said, to those opposed to the display: “We have to separate church and state. Hamtramck is a place for all.”
He also reminded elected officials: “(You) represent all the people.”
The display took some city officials by surprise.
On the city’s Facebook page, this notice was posted:
“The City of Hamtramck is aware that there has been much concern over the status of the Pride Flag flown on Jos. Campau in our City. These flag poles and flags are maintained exclusively by the Hamtramck Human Relations Commission whom is a commission of the city, but has authorization to act on this matter independently.
“The City of Hamtramck’s elected officials and administration were not made aware prior of this specific installation. With that said, we understand that there are very strong views both for and against this flag from our residents.
“We strive to maintain a peaceful welcoming community for all of our residents and visitors here in Hamtramck. The flag will remain in place until further notice. City officials intend to meet at a later time to discuss the ongoing plan for display of this flag.”
According to sources, Mayor Ameer Ghalib, the city’s first Yemeni-American to hold this office, had ordered the flag to be removed. The Review reached out to the mayor for comment, and he gave this response:
“The mayor didn’t and will not do anything about it. It’s not my issue, it’s a divisive community issue made by the person who solely decided to rise it in Jos. Campau for the first time from a commission that its main mission is supposed to be bringing people together.”
The pride flag issue had first come up the year before, when a divided city council debated whether to allow it to be flown on the city-owned flag pole in Zussman Park.
The outcry against the flag has come mostly from Muslim community leaders.

 

By December of next year (2023), the city will have an important milestone to celebrate.
All it will take is the final construction of three more houses to finally put an end to a housing discrimination lawsuit, filed against the city back in the 1970s.
Recently, the city council accepted a $950,000 grant from Wayne County that will pay for the construction of the houses.
Work is expected to begin next year.
When the houses are completed, the city will have finally met all the terms in the settlement of a lawsuit filed against the city back in the 1970s. The lawsuit, named after one of the plaintiffs, Sarah Garrett, accused city officials from the 1960s of targeting primarily African-American neighborhoods for housing demolition.
That demolition was part of a national urban renewal effort to clear out dilapidated housing for redevelopment.
It took decades before a settlement was reached, and it wouldn’t be until some more years later that various funding sources would step in to actually help get the housing units built.
Several years ago, it was thought that the city had successfully finished the last of 200 housing units the settlement called for, and there were even celebrations.
But guess what?
The attorney for the plaintiffs counted up the total number of housing units built, and the city was still three short of the 200 required units.
Unfortunately for the dozens of plaintiffs, most – if not all – had died by the time any of the housing units were built. Among those deaths was Sarah Garrett herself, the lawsuit’s namesake.

AUGUST

State Rep. Abraham Aiyash of Hamtramck was virtually guaranteed a second term.
In the August primary election, he won his newly-drawn district, which now includes the Grosse Pointes, with 4,348 votes.
Aiyash could pretty much count on being re-elected in November, since his district always votes heavily Democratic.
Spoiler alert: He was indeed re-elected.
Two other Hamtramck candidates weren’t so fortunate. In fact, they both mysteriously disappeared from the ballot.
Sam Alasri and Hamtramck City Councilmember Mohammed Alsomiri were eliminated from the ballot as candidates for Wayne County Commissioner in the 3rd district.
That’s the seat that Martha Scott has long held, and she was seeking re-election.
Alsomiri told The Review that he believed “someone was behind this.” He added that he suspects it was a politician.
He was correct.
The matter was cleared up by the Wayne County Election Clerk’s Office.
A staff member for Martha Scott, Robert Davis, challenged Alasri’s and Alsomiri’s qualifications to be on the ballot, because they had both failed to fully fill out their affidavits of identity to qualify for office.
They were eventually removed from the ballot by Wayne County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Kenny.
Armani Asad was also a Scott challenger, but he lost his bid to unseat her – as expected, considering that Scott has been long-entrenched in her position.
In the past few years, Scott has actually brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamtramck, from the county, to improve Veterans Park and the historic baseball stadium.

 

One of Hamtramck’s more colorful festivals once again took over a portion of Conant Ave.
The Hamtramck Diversity Festival is a yearly celebration of the area’s Bangladeshi community, which numbers around 20,000 in an area that includes mostly the eastern edge of Hamtramck, along with the Detroit neighborhood just north and east of the city.
The festival was an explosion of colorful food, native Bengali clothing and jewelry.
Besides offering tastes of Bangladesh, there were a number of performers and bands, some of whom traveled all the way here from Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is a smaller country that sits along the eastern border of India. It is home to the eighth largest population in the world, cramming 166 million people into an area about the size of Iowa.
It is also the unfortunate target of frequent devastating floods, being so low-lying; these disasters have been known to kill tens to hundreds of thousands at a time when they occur.

Updating the city’s animal ordinance turned out to be no ordinary task.
An issue arose when some in the city’s Muslim community noticed that, in a proposed update of the ordinance, the sacrificing of animals is prohibited.
Some in the Muslim community demanded that the city allow such ritual sacrificing because it is a practice that is part of their faith, especially during the Eid holiday.
“We want to practice our religion,” said one resident, at a recent city council meeting.
But another resident, a non-Muslim, objected to the practice.
“This practice, while sacred to some, would be extremely offensive and traumatizing to others,” she said.
Others also objected, saying that slaughtering goats and other animals in backyards could cause health and vermin hazards from spilled blood, animal feces, or from entrails and carcasses sitting out in garbage cans.
City Attorney James Allen said there was precedent for the council to legally allow the sacrificing of animals for religious reasons, if it chose.
In 1993, the US Supreme Court ruled that religious animal sacrifices are allowed and protected under the First Amendment that, in part, provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise.”
Councilmember Mohammed Hassan, who is a Muslim — as are the entire rest of the council, and the mayor — suggested a compromise, by allowing the slaughtering of animals in a designated location in the city.
Councilmember Nayeem Choudhury, who was on the sub-committee revising the ordinance, argued that the city should allow animal sacrificing in order to make “accommodations” for those of the Muslim faith. Goats, lambs or chickens are the most frequently sacrificed animals.

The resignations of City Manager Kathy Angerer and City Attorney James Allen left the mayor and some councilmembers confused.
At a council meeting, Mayor Ameer Ghalib wondered out loud whether they were resigning because of him being elected as mayor — as well as there being some new councilmembers — or if there was something he or the council did.
“It was surprising to us that you are leaving,” Ghalib said. “Nothing happened from us. We had no intention of firing anyone.”
Angerer said that the mayor and council had nothing to do with her decision to take another job.
Angerer is now working for the state Department of Agriculture as a deputy director.
` “It’s been a good 10 years. … Hamtramck is in a good spot,” she said. “I don’t think I would have resigned two years ago, because I don’t think we were in that spot.”
She added: “I’m not leaving because of any one of you. Some opportunities come to you that put a smile on your face.”
Allen also stressed that city officials had nothing to do with his decision.
“I’ve had zero friction,” he said.
But Allen said he has been faced with an onslaught of criticism from some community members, and has felt like “you’re walking with a target on your back.”
Ghalib said he is confident that the city “will keep running.”

 

Once again, the Arts and Culture Commission came up with another winner for Hamtramck.
The commission’s block party was a great success, despite a later threat of rain.
The party was held at a sort of homemade park area at St. Aubin and Carpenter. It was geared toward both kids and adults, and featured plenty of grilled food, along with potluck dishes brought by attendees.
Kids had plenty of games to play, and, of course, took part in face painting because, well, that’s a huge kid thing.
Hamtramck firefighters stopped by with their trucks, and kids and adults got to gawk at the trucks and ask all sorts of questions.
The get-together made one wonder: why can’t the city have more of these homegrown events?

SEPTEMBER

 

After several weeks of putting off a vote on whether to grant a tax break for the development of the former Missant property, the city council agreed to the deal.
At a city council meeting, the council voted 4-2 in favor of granting a 10-year tax abatement to 8801 Conant Holdings, LLC.
The company plans to demolish any decrepit buildings on the 25-acre site, and then lease it to Zbox Global, LCC, an e-commerce company that specializes in selling truck equipment.
A new building will be constructed at the site as well.
The abatement will freeze the property taxes at their current rate, which is about $60,000 a year.
The council had been split 3-3 over this issue for several weeks, until Councilmember Adam Albarmaki changed his position and voted for the abatement.
Albarmaki said that, after talking with various people, he decided that “we want to send a clear message to investors to come to Hamtramck.”
He added: “This (tax abatements) is something common in the state of Michigan.”
Councilmembers Mohammed Alsomiri and Khalil Refai were opposed to the deal, and had counter-offered a tax break for six years instead of 10. That proposal was rejected by fellow councilmembers.
The site, located on Conant near the county jail on Hamtramck Dr., has been vacant for years and had turned into an eyesore. The current owner of the site promises to not only raze the old buildings, but also to install landscaping.

 

Turns out Hamtramck doesn’t need no stinkin’ Polish Day Parade.
The Labor Day Festival committee decided to throw their own parade, after being told by the organizers of the Polish Day Parade that they were no longer going to participate in the yearly tradition.
This year, the festival and parade were going to be extra-special. Parade co-organizer Jessica Urban explained:
“Being that it is Hamtramck’s 100th Birthday, we decided to organize a special parade to commemorate the city’s centennial history.
“We have reached out to many current organizations, as well as organizations that have been active in Hamtramck’s history.”
The parade’s Grand Marshal was Hamtramck’s own Vera Burk, who was 94 years old. Burk has been part of numerous city commissions and organizations for many years.
Many residents knew her as having been president of the Hamtramck Block Club Association, as well as for her role as a city code enforcer.
Burk was also a member of the city’s Human Relations Commission.
Burk, an African-American, has also long fought for civil rights, and was part of the fight against housing discrimination here in Hamtramck.
She has also been active in the Hamtramck Community Initiative, and is President of the Sarah Garrett Park.
As it turned out, the parade was a huge, and fun, success.

As for the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival: It was awesome.
That was despite Mother Nature throwing a curve ball on Sunday, with unseasonably cold and cloudy weather that reminded everyone that the Michigan gray period of the year was coming up way too soon.
A few highlights of the weekend:
The music line-up was both varied and simply incredible.
The food offerings were also top-notch, and folks seemed not to be able to get enough. Many folks were seen leaving the festival grounds with plates of food in hand.
Big Time wrestling was once again a crowd favorite, and provided plenty of laughs.
The canoe race. It was rowdy and wet — very, very wet. It’s the one time the public is encouraged to have a giant water balloon fight without being accused of assault – even as the Hamtramck police force is right there watching.
Monday evening, the last day of the festival, brought it all back home. The weekend’s marquee bands, ESG and ADULT., were knockouts.

All across the country, there was growing concern about the safety of election workers for the upcoming November General Election.
There was particular worry over some poll watchers attempting to disrupt voters or the counting of ballots.
Michigan was no exception.
To beef up election security in the state, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson created an $8 million fund for local and county communities to tap into to prepare for the election.
“My administration has worked with election clerks and law enforcement across the state to ensure they have the information and resources they need to protect voters and their rights, and voters can cast their ballot tomorrow confident they will be safe and their vote will be counted,” Benson said in a press release.
“We will not tolerate any voter suppression or election interference attempts in Michigan.”
In Hamtramck, City Clerk Rana Faraj said that security had not been much of an issue.
“Other than some campaigners harassing my door people, I can’t think of anything at the moment,” Faraj told The Review.

 

For a city that’s only two-square miles, Hamtramck has a lot of tax-exempt properties.
In response to a Review Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the city listed 229 buildings, municipal-owned parking lots, places of worship, schools, veteran posts, a county jail, vacant lots, and more, that Hamtramck does not collect property taxes from.
In total, there are about 7,000 properties in Hamtramck, most of which do produce property taxes.
Property taxes are no small matter. The city was projecting to collect $6.6 million in such tax monies during the year.
That chunk of change is the largest revenue source for the city. The next highest amount of revenue comes from state revenue sharing, at $4.5 million, followed by income taxes at $2.3 million.
The City of Hamtramck itself is the biggest single owner of properties that do not pay taxes, which includes buildings such as city hall, the fire station, the parks, and, mostly, city-owned vacant lots.
The Wayne County Land Bank also owns over 30 properties that it received from tax forfeitures.
Fortunately for the city, it is still selling off its vacant lots. At one time, those lots, which are mostly located in the city’s south end, had homes on them.

If you are a special education teacher — or even on your way to earning a degree in that field — the Hamtramck Public School District had –and still has — an offer for you.
The district needed to fill several positions, and was willing give successful candidates a signing bonus of up to $15,000. Then, it got even better: the bonus was offered annually, for up to five years.
The district issued a press release, saying that the HPS teachers’ union (the Hamtramck Federation of Teachers) had agreed to the deal.
“We hope passionate and compassionate educators apply for the open positions, and take advantage of the opportunity to advance their own education,” said Interim Superintendent Nabil Nagi in the press release.
The positions the district sought to fill included school psychologist, school social worker and speech pathologist.
“Candidates can hold endorsements for cognitive impairment, learning disabilities and/or emotional impairment, or be teachers who are in a degree program earning an Autism endorsement,” the press release said.

The Hamtramck Public School District wasn’t alone in offering hiring incentives.
The City of Hamtramck offers a $1,000 bonus for those who are hired into the police department.
The money, however, is restricted to the covering the purchase of uniforms.
The department has a long history of officers leaving for greener pastures in other communities. The incentives are usually better pay and better working conditions.
At a city council meeting, it was explained, in a note to the council, that:
“The ability of police agencies to recruit, hire and retain qualified police candidates has been a difficult task throughout the country.
“Quite often, even if candidates are hired, they receive extensive training and ultimately move on to other agencies for a variety of reasons but often for monetary reasons.”

OCTOBER
It didn’t look like much: Just a sea of tall weeds littered with broken bottles, pieces of smashed china and a wide variety of things that most of us would just call trash.
But, to a group of Wayne State University students, those are keys to the past. And they can open doors that have been locked for years — more than 100 years, in this case.
The 13 students (plus a handful of volunteers), armed with shovels, spades, measuring tape, markers and whatever else they needed to carefully dig into and document the past, explored what may have been the richest archeological site in Hamtramck.
“What we’ve learned, through preliminary archival research thus far, is that this site was the location of commercial and residential buildings, from at least 1881 onwards,” said Krysta Ryzewski, WSU chairperson and professor of anthropology at Wayne State, who was directing the students.
“There is a record from 1881 of a barn, possibly a railroad barn, where 33 Polish immigrants were living in squalor, in cramped quarters, because they were poor, and housing was unavailable. So, there’s the potential to learn about the experiences of the early wave of Polish immigrants to Hamtramck.”
The site spanned three parcels of land on Denton Street, just east of Jos. Campau. The property is owned by Hamtramck Recycling, which had agreed to allow the students to do the dig.
“The Denton Street site is part of the Old Hamtramck Center,” Ryzewski said. “The historic buildings had been lost to the expansion of industrial facilities in the area.”

Blame it on a lack of concrete.
That was the reason why Evaline, between Jos. Campau and Gallagher, had been blocked off for over a month.
That portion of the street had gotten its old lead water lines leading to the homes replaced, a job that had been completed weeks prior.
But, because of a concrete shortage, there was a delay in the reopening of the street.
“This is an ongoing thing with supply and demand,” said Bill Diamond, the Director of Public Services.

The 12th annual Hamtramck Neighborhood Arts Festival and the ongoing “Our City Series” took place on a Saturday.
The Neighborhood Arts Festival was spread throughout various locations in town, which included houses, porches, galleries, art studios and just about anywhere else you could imagine.
Some of the highlights included:
• A jug band performance at Hamtramck Disneyland (6-7 p.m.)
• Hamtramck’s art collaborative, Hatch, which hosted 16 Detroit area artists and their works.
• 9398 Mitchell (just past Bumbo’s), which featured sculpture and live funk music
• Henna body art – a Southeast Asian folk art – which was offered at 10225 Jos. Campau
• Popps Packing on Carpenter featured the works of Faina Lerman
• The Ukrainian American Archives & Museum (9630 Jos. Campau) featured the artwork of R. Baranyk

 

The city council considered beefing up code enforcement.
Instead of the city’s code inspectors first issuing a warning notice, Councilmember Mohammed Alsomiri proposed skipping the warning and instead immediately issuing a violation.
Violations would come with a financial penalty. Misdemeanor tickets could be as much as $500.
Councilmember Khalil Refai, who is a city code enforcer, said that issuing warnings can sometimes create problems, or additional work for workers.
Councilmember Nayeem Choudhury said that not giving a warning first will “backfire,” because a number of people work long hours and are not home much.
“People should be allowed to clean up,” he said.

For about two years, during the height of the covid pandemic, the state forbade communities from shutting off water service because of non-payment.
That ban came to an end in October, and Hamtramck was poised to turn off water to about 500 households.
But, since word got around that shutoffs were coming, Interim City Manager Max Garbarino said that most of those homeowners have ponied up what they owe.
He said there were just over 100 households holding out.
There’s still a helping hand available for those struggling to meet water bills.
Wayne County offers a program called WRAP (Water Residential Assistance Program) that helps financially-stressed households.

The American culture war came to Hamtramck.
Some Hamtramck Yemeni-American residents were urging voters to switch political parties over growing cultural issues involving LGBTQ and abortion rights.
Councilmember Adam Albarmaki recently told Hamtramck voters to vote straight Republican on a Facebook page called “Hamtramck Square.”
He also urged voters to reject state Proposal 3, which would ensure the right of women to get an abortion, but he faced criticism from some, who accused him of spreading misinformation about the proposal.
He spoke of the Democrats as having a “sinful agenda.”
He joined a small — but possibly growing number — of Arab-Americans who have recently been upset by LGBTQ books being in school libraries, particularly in the Dearborn Public School District.
The backlash against Albarmaki was immediate – so much so, that he deleted his posts from Facebook.
In an explanation to The Review as to why he deleted his posts, he said:
“I was expressing my feelings toward a political party. I am not against any specific group. I learned a great deal while researching Proposal 2 and 3. There is a lot of propaganda and misinformation going around in the community. I am not here to tell people how to cast their votes.
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and should utilize their right to vote. Our council is non-partisan, so as long as we are working as a team for the city we can disagree on state and federal matters. I deleted my post to avoid divisiveness.”
While there seemed to be a growing call for Arab-Americans to vote Republican, nationwide about 70 percent of Arab voters vote Democratic.
There are about two million Arab-Americans who live in the U.S., according to the Census. About 500,000 Arab-Americans live in Michigan, the highest number of any state.

NOVEMBER
Work and school duties proved to be a problem for city councilmembers Mohammed Hassan and Adam Albarmaki.
Both missed a number of meetings during the year. For Hassan, it was work obligations, and for Albarmaki it was a triple-whammy of trying to balance work, school and city council duties.
Their absences raised a question of what constitutes an excused absence from attending a meeting.
The city council struggled with this issue after Councilmembers Hassan and Albarmaki asked for their previous absences to be officially excused.
The question raised was: do councilmembers have to tell someone on council, before a meeting, that they can’t make it, or can an absence be excused later?
The council spoke at length on the subject, with Councilmember Amanda Jaczkowski saying “It’s silly to look backwards.”
Instead, she said the council needed to settle the matter going forward. She said one issue to be considered is whether a councilmember has to provide proof that their absence is legitimate.
“We don’t have anything to work with,” Jaczkowski said.
Councilmember Nayeem Choudhury took Hassan and Albarmaki to task.
“We choose to be on council,” he said. “If you want to be a good councilmember, you want to be here.”
In the end, the council agreed with Jaczkowski, and tabled the issue indefinitely to work out a policy.
A month later, Albarmaki resigned from the council because of work obligations.

 

Hamtramck voters stuck with Democrats, as well as supporting women’s right to have an abortion in results from the November election.
Democrats, in fact, also received support across the state from voters who also supported abortion rights in Michigan.
Not surprisingly, Hamtramck’s own State Rep. Abraham Aiyash (D) won his second term. His newly-drawn district, which includes Hamtramck, was expected to vote heavily Democratic.
Aiyash was later chosen by his colleagues to be the House majority floor leader.
It is his job to coordinate and schedule legislative plans, as well as to keep taking the pulse on what his party members think about the issues being considered.
Aiyash is the first Muslim to hold this position.
For the first time in 40 years, voters supported the Democratic governor with a Democratic majority in the state legislature.

The American culture war on what kinds of reading material should be available to school kids came to Hamtramck.
The Hamtramck Public School District posted a letter to the community, on its Facebook page, saying that a separate posting on a social media site erroneously claimed that the district allows students to access “certain materials for our students that contain inappropriate language, images, and concepts that are inappropriate for our students.”
The district did not provide further details on the material in question, nor the social media site where these posts were made.
The district stressed that it does not have any of the material in question.
“We have investigated these posts, and the material they reference, in order to respond to them with actual fact,” said HPS Interim Superintendent Nabil Nagi.
“That investigation has revealed that none of the material these posts have complained about and allege to have been made available to our students have in fact been reviewed or approved.”
The Hamtramck Public School Board was the latest board of education to come under scrutiny over what some say are inappropriate books on sexual and gender issues.
In total, there appeared to be just two books in question in the HPS District, and it was pointed out that they were never required reading and that, in fact, no student had even cracked them open.
Board President Sal Hadwan later announced that he would be investigating what books are available in the district’s schools.
“Some of you asked me to verify these concerns by going to the libraries to check for any other sexually explicit books that might be inappropriate for minors in our schools,” Hadwan said.
“I was able to make some time to do what was asked of me by community members. I can tell you that this will take a lot of effort to check every book, but I will do my best. I have started this process of verifying what we are told by the superintendent and teachers.”
Hadwan went on to say he found one book that he objected to, but he did not identify it.

 

Some residents were complaining that the city’s contractor for ambulance service, Rapid Response, was neither rapid nor responsive.
In one of the more dramatic instances, a Hamtramck High School student had a seizure in class, but, after 25 minutes, an ambulance still had not arrived.
By that time, the student’s parents arrived at the school and drove their child to a hospital.
At a city council meeting, HHS teacher George Hloros and several students spoke about the incident, and voiced their concerns.
“While that is troubling enough of an experience,” Hloros said, of watching what his student was going through, “what was most traumatizing for us all was what happened next.”
Later, he found out that the reason for the delay was that the city has only one ambulance on duty.
“This was such a shocking and unacceptable fact that it is beyond belief …” he said.
In the case of the school incident, the city’s sole ambulance was tied up on another run.
As it turned out, the city’s ambulance contractor supplies only one on-duty ambulance during what are considered non-peak hours.
The city has had a bit of a tortured history with ambulance service. At one time, the Hamtramck Fire Department operated that service.
But, several years ago, the department’s one-and-only ambulance died on a run, and police officers had to transport a person waiting for help to the hospital.
That incident prompted city officials to look into a less expensive ambulance service – while possibly improving upon it. The thinking was, by contracting out the service, the city would save money on both fire department staffing and the purchase and maintenance of a city-owned ambulance.
Initially, the city’s contractors provided the service at no cost to the city. The companies thought they could collect insurance money from the people they service.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turned out that a number of residents had no medical insurance that covered ambulance service.
The result was, the ambulance contractors were not earning money. Ambulance companies came and went.
A few years ago, the city’s current ambulance company demanded — and got — $140,000 a year for their service.
Former City Manager Kathy Angerer was in talks with the Hamtramck firefighters’ union about possibly bringing back service to the fire department.
But, even if the city were to return local service to the fire department, that would come with a price tag too; one that could possibly be more expensive than contracting it out.

After months of delays, the job opening for city manager was finally posted.
The city council had known that the position would be open since last June, when former City Manager Kathy Angerer announced that she was leaving to take a new job.
During that time, the council had hired former police chief Max Garbarino to serve as interim city manager, but delayed posting the city manager job until recently, when a council subcommittee was formed.
The qualifications sought for the job, which will pay $100,000 to $120,000, are numerous.
The job was posted only on the city’s website.
Applications for the job must be submitted by Jan. 10, 2023.

DECEMBER
The issue of whether to allow animal slaughtering in private homes came back up.
Nasr Hussain, a resident, suggested the council allow animal sacrifices to happen for one year as a test run “and see how it goes.”
He also said that those who call the practice “barbaric” are racists.
Councilmember Amanda Jaczkowski said she was willing to compromise on the subject, but first someone had to come up with rules and regulations on how animal sacrifices can be done at home.
“There are no guard rails,” she said.
She also said that allowing this, under the shield of religious practice, would then also “allow anything, as long as people can say its religious.”
Councilmembers Mohammed Hassan and Nayeem Choudhury disagreed, and voted to allow the practice.
Hassan said it’s a matter of “protecting religious freedom.”
Choudhury said the practice goes back to the time of “Adam and Eve.”
Jaczkowski warned, though, that bringing religion into the council’s decision making is a “problem, and that’s a line that needs to not be crossed.”
“We cannot become a theocracy,” she added.
The matter is still being considered and is due for a final vote on Jan. 10, 2023.

The resignation of Councilmember Adam Albarmaki became official.
According to the city charter, his replacement is the runner up from the field of six candidates in the last council election, which was in November of 2021.
That person is Muhith Mahmood.
Interim City Manager Max Garbarino told The Review that he has been in contact with Mahmood, who has said he is still interested in the job, and still qualifies as a candidate.
In other words, Mahmood says that he is still a resident of Hamtramck.
But there was a question of whether he truly is a resident.
According to Hamtramck and Troy property tax records, he lists his address as being in Troy. He also owns a house in Hamtramck, but does not claim a Homestead Exemption for it, which would mean he lived there.
Instead, he had a Homestead Exemption at his Troy house.
Mahmood told The Review that he did live in Troy for a time, but moved to his other house at 3119 Holbrook before the 2021 primary election for city council. He said that he has not yet updated his property tax records.

 

If the Hamtramck High School boys basketball team’s first game of the season was any indication, it’s going to be a rollicking – and winning — season.
The team steamrolled over Lake Shore right from the tip-off. By halftime, the Cosmos were far in the lead, 54-12.
They played tough and physical and did not let up for a moment. In fact, as the final minute wound down in the first half, it looked like Lake Shore had simply given up and sloppily allowed the Cosmos to score several times before the buzzer saved them from further humiliation.
This team didn’t happen by accident. Coach Dennis Foster has long mentored the players, teaching them about the sport, as well as how to become responsible young adults.
Foster has been delivering winning seasons for the past several years.
The highlight of the game was at half time.
That’s when former coach Elijah Warren, who at one time mentored coach Foster in turn, was honored for his service. His old jersey number, 34, was retired that night.
Foster credited Warren for his career in basketball, which is impressive, including playing professional ball in Ireland.
“I wouldn’t be here without you,” Foster told Warren.
Well, so ends our look back at the year 2022. Here’s wishing all readers a happy and prosperous new year!

Posted Dec. 29, 2022