I don’t normally post here during my lunch hour, but Prosper, an e-newsletter published by Oakland County’s Department of Economic Development & Community Affairs, just crossed my email box with a feature article titled “One Farmington”. I had to look. I’m only human.
Farmington and Farmington Hills were presented as “one of the brightest hopes and yet one of the most frustrating points for regionalism in Metro Detroit.”
Welcome to our world, Oakland County.
For the most part, I have no quibble with the article, although I wish the author would have spoken to a few residents. Quotes came from city officials, regional cooperation advocate Maxine Berman and Phil Power, founder of an Ann Arbor-based think tank, former publisher of the Observer & Eccentric newspapers and descendant of the family that settled Farmington. But this paragraph stopped me in my tracks:
A move toward erasing what little difference there is will be made next month when a Plante Moran study detailing the positives and negatives of a merger, most recently initiated by Farmington Hills, is released. That should give local leaders a chance to exorcise the devil in the details and allow them to create one Farmington.
Stunning, eh? Read it for yourself.
–Joni Hubred-Golden
Publisher, The Enterprise
