Neighborhood Email

Since the Fourth of July falls on a Saturday this year, there will be no curbside service delays. However, the Ypsilanti Recycling Drop-off Center located in Historic Depot Town will be closed Friday, July 3, 2009 and Saturday, July 4, 2009 in observance of the holiday. City Hall and the Department of Public Services will be closed on Friday, July 3, 2009.

It looks like it will be a great night for the Crossroads Festival Downtown. Come Downtown and see some live music and visit the local retailers. I’m certain many of you haven’t been Downtown in a while and I strongly encourage going.
The bands are Just Jill and Mylo Fix both accousticly rocky.

If you want a little more upscale but definelty affordable meal:
J-Neils Mongolian BBQ is a fabulous meal .. All you can eat local meat and produce* (there is seafood too but that isn’t local) stir fried with any sauce you want for $13.00. *when available. The Keystone Bar downstairs from J-Neils is fantastically nice too. Its pricier than the other local watering holes but it is a classier.

Beezy’s is a great choice if you want Fresh, Local, quality sandwhiches and soup.

Take a look around the ‘What is That’ gallery where they have really nice artwork.

If you are the family type:
The Event is very family friendly… Take the kids by the Rocket and let them pick out nickle candy or some crazy inexpensive toy. You can get burgers at Biggies for $1.00, Coney Dogs at the Wolverine for $1.00

If you want a beer and you are one of the cheap folks like me, You can visit the Tap Room — where you can watch the music from their patio. I think Friday is still $2.25 Pints of Bells, or you can sit on the Pub-13 Patio with $2.00 16oz Miller lites (I think I am correct).

I hope to see you at the Crossroads Festival

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Remember, Relay for Life is this Saturday at Riverside Park

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We are still looking for ideas for the Block Party

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We are looking for ideas on what to do for the Heritage Festival Parade
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Take care,
Kurt
prospectparkneighborhood@comcast.net

Incentives to Buying a Home in Ypsilanti

UPDATE: Here is the PDF of the New Flier

Are you looking to buy a house?

Consider buying a home in Ypsi? There’s lots of help available!
• Up to $15,000 in down payment assistance
• Up to $22,000 in grants for rehabilitating foreclosed homes
• Help with credit repair

Keep in mine these requirements:
• These incentives are available for owner-occupied homes only
• Applicants must meet income requirements which vary based on household size
• Purchase price cannot exceed $160,000
• Other restrictions and guidelines may apply

Where to Start? Free homebuyer education classes!

The free homebuyer education and pre-purchase counseling will provide all the information you need to purchase a home, and make it work for you. Attending the homebuyer educational session (6 hours in either two sessions or a single session) as well as the pre-purchase counseling will help you unlock some of the downtown payment and/or rehabilitation funds available. These funds can include the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), Community Development Block Grandt (CDBG) and HOME funds. So sign up for a session today!

Call 734-997-1678 or go online to read the registration packets at:
http://www.ewashtenaw.org/government/departments/extension/CommDevelopment/WHEP%20Pre-purchase

Description of Ypsilanti you might enjoy

Description of Ypsilanti from:
IGGY – Open Up and Bleed
By Paul Trynka
Copyright 2007 by Paul Trynka
Published by Broadway Books
Pages 72,73

Coachville Gardens Trailer Park sits in green surroundings on Carpenter Road, just outside the city of Ann Arbor, officially in the town of Ypsilanti, Michigan. Although it’s gained the inevitable gaggle of sprawling big-box stores, Ypsilanti is still mostly a lush, quiet place where nothing much happens. There are plenty of isolated wooden houses where you can live undisturbed, watching out for cranes and squirrels in the summer and taking your dog for long, reflective walks through the crisp virginal snow in the winter. It’s a beautiful setting, although, like many small country towns, there’s occasionally a feeling of claustrophobia, and it’s easy to bump into slightly odd characters who watch TV late into the night on jerry-rigged cable hookups, haunt Internet chat rooms, or get loaded on illegal drugs to numb their boredom.

Although these days Ypsilanti rather grandly terms itself a city , in reality it’s overshadowed by its much bigger neighbor, Ann Arbor, which since 1837 has been defined by the presence of the University of Michigan. The university was celebrated for its diverse curriculum and liberal ethos and, together with the presence of General Motors and Ford in nearby Detroit, it would attract a constant influx of new residents to the city and stimulate thriving local industries in engineering, pharmaceuticals, and electronics.

The influence of the university ensured that Ann Arbor was a classy town. People who lived there drank espresso, formed arts groups, and took dancing lessons. In contrast, people from Ypsilanti were often regarded as Midwestern hillbillies. The two towns weren’t totally uneasy bedfellows: plenty of academics might dispense intellectual wisdom at the university and then return home to a sprawling isolated farmhouse in Ypsi’s beautiful countryside, but the divide was perceptible for anyone who crossed the city limits: the gap between people whose salaries were generated by their intellects and those whose weekly paychecks were earned with the rude labor of their hands on the farm or in the factory; between people of culture and rural rubes. It was on that divide that Jim Osterberg and Iggy Pop grew up.

Oh those Sliders

Well our Sliders have dropped below .500 with a 10 and 11 record.

But wait there is more news:
Crain’s Detroit Business is reporting that the Sliders ownership is going Public. It was my understanding that the new stadium in Waterford Township, where the Sliders will play next year, was under construction. It turns out that the organization wasn’t able to raise the funds to build the stadium through banks and is now looking for public investors. They are looking to get 5 million dollars by selling blocks of 100 shares for $1000.

What does this mean for Ypsilanti? If the Sliders don’t come up with the money to build a stadium will the Sliders stay in Ypsilanti?

The Sliders are on the road this week but will be back next week so reserve your tickets now. Remember you get in for a buck with your Big Three, or UAW badge.

Why is the Miss Ypsilanti Pageant in Belleville?

The Ann Arbor news had an article on the new Miss Ypsilanti Pageant which is to take place in Belleville.

I had heard that Downtown was working on getting this Pageant for part of the new Downtown Festivities which are going to happen during the Heritage Festival. I found out that wasn’t going to happen but how can someone have a Miss Ypsilanti Pageant in Belleville? Isn’t anything sacred anymore?

I think we should have our own Ypsilanti Pageant still. Who cares if it has anything to do with professional pageantry. We could have categories like; community involvement, quirky talent, ability to get along well with others, using Ypsitucky in a sentence etc. Maybe we should forget the Miss too and open it up to anyone who wants to participate. What should we call it? I’m putting this on the agenda of YpsiCAN, it will the first thing the organization can support.

Kurt

Luna Lake HoeDown summary

Yesterday, About 35 neighbors came together to work at Prospect Park to do the spring maintenance at Luna Lake. Luna Lake was once a beautiful garden and pond but deteriorated into a mucky water retention pond in the Spring and dried mess in the Summer. Last year the community pulled together to change the pond area into a rain garden.

The idea for the 1st Annual Luna Lake HoeDown was to get the neighborhoods together for a work day and then have a community event to follow. We started the organization only 2 weeks prior to the event but what we accomplished was fantastic. I think the concept will work perfectly in the future. Hopefully, each year we will draw more people and spread the work into other areas of the park.

Many of the people that showed up had other commitments during the day but took the hour or two they had to work. I believe there were about 10 people who worked almost the full day which started at 9am and ended at 6:30pm.

At one point we had a local boxer, who had been doing a work out in the park before being drafted to move compost, shoveling alongside a woman dressing in a full Cat-In-The-Hat outfit, while a 10 year old community member entertained us with his fiddle playing (This is why I love Ypsilanti).

We had volunteers from all 4 surrounding neighborhood associations, volunteers from 2 EMU student organizations, and we got our business support from Linda French and Sidetrack which saved the day by feeding the troops with Black Bean Burgers and Hamburgers. We had a neighbor drop by just to bring cookies and other folks looked in with interest. Our city council representatives, Robb and Murdock, both worked really hard to help this project come together.

I’m happy to say that what we accomplished on a small scale, getting every segment of the Ypsilanti community to come together, is an example of what the city can accomplish on a larger scale.

In true Ypsilanti fashion, we did ruffle the feathers of some that thought the concept and the project shouldn’t be done. While we were working our butts off these folks were boycotting the workday but I suspect many would not have helped anyway.

Next time you are out and about on the East Side check out the progress we are making in Prospect Park.

The next project is to mulch the playground area.

Luna Lake HoeDown 2009

Are you looking for a great way to spend June 13th?

How about joining your east side neighbors for the 1st annual Luna Lake HOEdown.

Last year, a group of volunteers cleared the Luna Lake site and planted native perennials, shrubs, and trees, creating a rain garden. Now it is time to do some maintenance work on this neighborhood gem. On June 13th we’ll e mulching, weeding, labeling plants, re-planting, etc. from about 9-3pm (with a break for lunch) and then partying from 3-5pm.

We are looking for volunteers, gardening equipment, food donations, and Black-Eyed Susans.

We are also looking for folks to come and entertain us. If you are in an acoustic band we would like to have you entertain us.

This event is organized by neighbors for neighbors so please come out and help if you can. Of course we do accept monetary donations too (the plants aren’t cheap).

Please print and pass out the attached flier.

Luna Lake Hoedown PDF

Sliders post-weekend Update

This was a great weekend of professional baseball here in Ypsilanti. I attended all 3 of the Sliders games against Windy City. The Sliders won the first game but lost the next two. Pitching finally showed up for both teams on Sunday and it was a very good game. The Sliders had one bad inning against the monsters from the windy city. All in all on Sunday they had a very good showing.

There were still very few fans showing up. I believe there were around 170 on Friday and Sunday and only about 125 showed up for Saturday’s game. WHERE ARE YOU PEOPLE?

I strongly recommend going to the games since they are a good time. The next game is Tuesday evening at 7:05pm.