Club Meeting - Featuring Bill Joyner, Publisher of Friday Musings

Our regular meeting was opened with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by an Invocation by Rev. David Stechholz. Sharon Pommerville collected Happy Bucks.

President Nancy Darga was happy that later today, Northville will “Daylight” an 800 foot section of the Rouge River that ran under the Northville Downs Race track. Check out the short video she sent showing the water flowing.

Trenton Rotary Club sent an invitation for us to join them to a Zoom event,”100 Water Wells,” on Aug 20th at The Trenton Theatre. Details HERE.

Touch a Truck will not have a B52 Bomber flyover this year due to conflict, but they will have an all-women’s SkyDiving Team at 11:30 AM, and a Helicopter will land at 9:30 AM. Parking at Touch a Truck will be assisted by the Livonia Police, who will use golf carts on Newburg Road.

Rebuild Rotary Park - The club had been asked to hold off on fundraising until the bond issue election was completed. Bids have come in for the pavilion, ranging from $829,000 to $1.2 million. The engineer’s estimate was $600,000. City Council pulled the item and referred it to a study session. There was a discussion of installing a prefabricated structure for the budgeted price.

Reverent Dave asked for someone to water the new trees at Rotary Park during his absence.

The Spaghetti Dinner Community Fundraiser has plans to pre-make meatballs and offer them for sale at the event. They would be at an extra charge.

Bill Joyner, Publisher of Friday Musings, was called up and presented with a plaque for all his work to keep Livonia aware of what’s happening in the City. Bill then started his talk on the history of Livonia.

Bill said his family came to Livonia in 1959 and had seen many changes in the City. Wonderland had just opened. It was an airport before that. Livonia was blessed that good people worked for the City. John Duford was hired to work for Park and Rec. by Harvey Moelke He suggested that the City buy up all the park land that the City would need for 65 parks. In 1967 the city bought up that land. Livonia now has more park land than any city outside of Detroit. Dan Andrews was another talented employee of the City who was hired away from Dearborn. Dan said that Livonia should keep industrial placement between South of Schoolcraft Road and Plymouth Road. Dan also suggested that Livonia design the City and builders would follow. As more people were moving into the City, it was suggested that the City needed a recreational center to attract young families. So, those men decided to recruit 100 men to go door-to-door, collecting $25 to $50 from residents to build the YMCA.

People wanted to move to Livonia because of the commerce. Livonia had two busy malls, Wonderland Mall and Livonia Mall. The City decided that they needed a hospital. So, they spoke with the Felician Sisters, who owned a large tract of land at Five Mile and Newburg Road, which they had purchased in the 1920s. They decided to build St. Mary Hospital in that area. That was in 1956.

Ed McNamara played a pivotal role in acquiring Greenmead in 1976. The house now needs a lot of work to keep it up, but hopefully it will get the care it needs.

We enjoyed a few "good" jokes from Greg Greene.

Susan Paluchniak