I believe that Dr. Benjamin Vanderweide (Dr. Ben) is a major asset needed to keep Oakland Township “Rural”, as we say in our master plan, but also with restored, preserved and interconnected oak-barrens and other rare natural communities as shown on our Township Seal.  

Curamus Terram   – “We care for the land”

We must not let some other entity steal him away from us. He needs to be our sixth and final Natural Areas Stewardship Manager. But, of course, oversight of his plans and activities is required by our 20,000 community members through our elected Parks and Recreation Commission.

At the February 23^rd Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, Dr. Ben (as he is called), gave an overview of Natural Areas Stewardship accomplishments in 2021. He presented 159 slides and entertained questions at frequent intervals. Natural Areas Stewardship 2022 Update and Overview (oaklandtownship.org).

The questions resulted in some good discussions. I learned a lot, as did others. I hope this will be an annual public event from now on. One thing I learned is that Dr. Ben (as he is called) has issued a detailed Annual Report every year since 2014. These reports can be found on this page https://oaklandnaturalareas.com/about/.  Scroll down a little when you arrive at that page to see a list of links to these annual reports.  You can follow the annual progress since 2014 at your favorite park.

Apparently Parks encounters some difficulties posting on the Township website so for Stewardship activities most detailed information is seen at this website: https://oaklandnaturalareas.com/

You might also be interested in the education and experience Dr. Ben brought to Oakland Township. ths following paragraph is from the 2014 annual report:

“Dr. Benjamin VanderWeide joined Oakland Township Parks in April 2014 to lead parks Natural Areas Stewardship. Ben earned his Ph.D. in Biology from Kansas State University, focusing on how fire, grazing, and drought affect prairie vegetation, and a Bachelor’s of Science from Calvin College, with majors in Biology and Spanish, and a minor in biochemistry. Ben brings practical experience doing botanical surveys and ecological restoration in the Great Lakes region, invasive species management in Idaho with the US Forest Service, and 7 years of prescribed burning in Michigan and Kansas. His science education experience includes designing and teaching high school ecology experiments and teaching biology courses at Kansas State University. He loves to help people learn about nature in their backyards, and is excited to work in Oakland Township Parks to improve their natural areas. Ben and his wife Debbie recently moved back to the beautiful state of Michigan (he is originally from Sparta, Michigan), and now spend their time exploring the area, hiking on local trails, and enjoying the Great Lakes.”

In answer to resident Dr. Drew Moore’s questions about the future plans for the recently girdled maple trees near his home, Dr. Vanderweide said he planned to leave the large ones standing to eventually become woodpecker homes for rare woodpeckers. Any that present a hazard to trail users will be removed as a result of the annual hazardous tree survey, according to Parks and Recreation Director Mindy Milos-Dale.

Below is the table of contents for the 2020 Annual Report, showing where Stewardship efforts took place.

After this presentation, Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC) by a 5/0 vote approved his “2022 Field Work Plan”. Qualified as Dr. Ben is, his plans still must be approved by our elected Parks and Recreation Commission, who does our oversight for us. You can see the plan in the meeting packet here on pages 14-20 https://ecode360.com/documents/OA3183/public/646332345.pdf.

Commissioner Brian Blust questioned whether the public had sufficient time to review the plan and comment. The PRC consensus was that any resident concern about the plan can be addressed at any time.

Going through it you can see what is planned for your favorite park or other property. If you have any questions, Dr. Ben welcomes your phone calls at 248-651-7810.

With regard to one of my questions regarding the tree ordinance impact on Stewardship:

Counterintuitively, some of the work to restore natural habitat occasionally requires killing large maple trees to restore the rich biodiversity of the oak barrens that were here for centuries before European settlement suppressed fire. That original natural landscape is detailed in the 1816/17 initial land survey notes that are available to the public.

 Dr. Ben was told, when hired, that he was permitted to do such work under the tree ordinance exceptions 389-11 B and G.

389-11- B Conservation of natural resources. Conservation of soil, vegetation, water, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.

389-11-G. Outdoor recreation. Outdoor recreation such as the utilization of field trails or woodlands on publicly owned property for nature study, hiking, horseback riding, trapping and hunting as otherwise legally permitted and regulated.

It was a great meeting format in that citizens were allowed to ask questions and get answers – and discuss further.

Each park has a maintenance plan. Some of these are ten years old need revision according to Dr. Ben. I will be following how that process unfolds – who approves what, when and how.

Among the 14 members of the public in attendance were  Stacy Sobotka, reporter for “The Record” newspaper; Dr. and Mrs. Moore who live in the former Bill Fox home, surrounded by Lost Lake Nature Park Expansion; Mrs. Moore’ parents, Trustee Dave Mabry, Reg Brown, Cam Mannino and others.

Dear Neighbors,

I hope you are enjoying your 2022.

During the 2/8 Board of Trustees meeting, I was prepared to share my thoughts on the proposed resolution.  However, when there is no motion to discuss I generally prefer to remain quiet to keep the meeting brief. 

I do not like the contents of the proposed resolution.  I do not wish to name the property.   I do not wish to manage the property.  I do not wish to approve individual expenditures on the property.

There seems to be some misunderstanding/disagreement regarding who should control/manage the Land Preservation Millage.  Many arguments could be made supporting the differing opinions on the matter.  Unless someone can point to a specific important problem that must be addressed, I do not believe that we need to resolve these differing opinions.  Also, I do not believe a BoT resolution will resolve this issue.

We have two millages for the purposes of purchasing and managing properties for active/passive recreation.  It seems logical to me that both millages are managed by a single group.  Because the Parks millage is managed by seven elected officials, I feel confident that they can properly manage the land preservation funds while remaining fully accountable to the citizens of Oakland Township.  Based on our recent grant successes, there are a least 5 million reasons to support my thoughts.  I do not feel that adding another layer of elected authority over Preservation Fund expenditures will serve the residents well.  Because I was previously on the Parks Board, I could speak at great lengths to describe the care and detail Parks puts into our natural areas and preservation fund expenditures.  I would strongly encourage anyone interested in land management to attend Dr. Ben Vanderweide’s presentation on Wednesday night at 7p.

Regarding BoT authority and oversight, I think most people would agree that the BoT, at minimum, has the authority to approve the budgets for both Parks and for Land Preservation.  This authority has been used to request small adjustments to budgets over the years through cooperative workshops.  I feel confident that the elected Parks Board is representing the residents well by managing the Park Fund and the Land Preservation Fund, and as a Trustee I feel that the budget approvals process is an appropriate check and balance.  

Kind regards,

Andy Zale

I have come to realize that it is not very easy even for highly intelligent people to find these items on the Township website. So I created instructions and posted them under “Township Website Help”on my “Encyclopedia” to your right. Go there and scroll down and click on “Township Website Help”

See our 62 page report below. This includes verbatim transcripts of relevant parts of Parks and Recreaction Commission 1/12/22 and 2/9/22 Meetings and Board of Trustees 2/8/22 Meeting

In our investigation of the 2010 “Amended Agreement, Police-School Liaison Program”, my wife Barbara and I have found no evidence that the Executive Committee is setting goals and receiving annual progress reports as required. The Agreement was signed by the following members of an Executive Committee defined in the Agreement (Mayor of Rochester Hills, City Manager of Rochester, Township Manager of Oakland Township and Superintedent of Rochester Community Schools). Our FOIA requests to the City of Rochester and Oakland Township revealed no evidence of goal setting and/or reporting. Our FOIA request and follow-up to Rochester Community Schools went unanswered as did our FOIA appeal.

The 5 page letter below with 22 pages of attachments was sent to all government officials in all three Greater Rochester Area communities. We are asking that RCS school board lead the effort to bring planning and reporting actions in conformance with the written agreement.

See our full letter here –

Board of Review is the organization to appeal to if you think your taxes are too high due to improper assessment. Also make sure you have asked for your Principal Residence Exemption.

This from January 12th Parks and Recreation meeting. Thanks to Dr. Ben Vanderweide for his recent efforts to restore more natural features to this area.

Read about this park here:

http://www.oaklandtownship.org/boards_and_commissions/parks_and_recreation/blue_heron_environmental_area.php

Blue Hen Environmental Area is in green on this map from Township website

Aside from approving bills and past meeting minutes the Board will only address a resolution proposed by two Board members (who?) addressing Lost Lake Nature Park. The resoluton begins on page 59 of the packet found at this link:

Click to access 644122163.pdf

In the “Township Manager’s Report “on page 61, Township Manager Adam Kline says, “

“The following items are scheduled for the February 8 meeting agenda:
Resolution Regarding the Financing and Approval of the MNTRF Grant Property
Improvements: Two board members requested this item be placed on the agenda for board
consideration.”

During “Commissioner Comments”, Planning Commissioner Judy Workings, who also is an appointed Parks and Recreation Commissioner (appointed by Board of Trustees to fill the vacancy created by Maryann Whitman’s resignation) asked the group how the tree ordinance applies to removal of trees such as black cherry or red maple by Parks and Recreation.

Commmission Chair Gary Kwapis asked Planning Coordinator Don Mende to address the question. He asked Commissioner Workings the reason for the tree removal, assuming it was invasive species. Commissioner Judy Workinngs said “The Steward would like to change the environment of a forest and change it back to oak barrens and therefore in order to do that would need to take out certain trees that aren’t oaks, basically”.

Mr. Mende asked ASTI Evironmental Consultant Paul Renschler to address the Commission on this matter. Mr. Resnchler said,“The tree ordinance does have an exemption for forest management, for approved management plans, for timber harvest or other forest management objectives. So it may come under there. But as Mr. Mende suggests we can take a look at it and come back with an opinion, But, theoretically properties greater than 25 acres would still have some sort of requirement for tree protection, tree replacement outside of that kind of forest management objective.”

At this point Chairman Kwapis, (just reelected as Chairman) asked Mr. Mende and Rentschler if they could be prepared with their anwers at the next meeting.

Commissioner John Giannangeli suggested ” Also if you could, determine if the actual owner of the land have to approve that”. There was a discussion about the Township being the owners, not the Parks Commission.

There seemed to be a general consensus that Parks and Recreation endeavors are probably not exempt from the Tree Ordinance

The whole less than ten minute discussion can be seen starting at minute 2:23:28 or Agenda 9. If this interests you watch the whole discussion and attend next month.

https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/KGL-y_dHhCluQTy7c6YoVBzzQ5eHj7Lr/media/697834?autostart=true&showtabssearch=true

I suspect this discussion was motivated by this citizen comment made at the January 12, 2022 Parks and Recreation meeting, which I had overlooked.

The Planning Commission recommended preliminary approval of a small “development” of five lots served by a new public road about 900 feet long. This project will also create three other lots not part of the site condominium development. One of these three is 878 Buell Road and is already being built on by the developer for her private residence.

No paving of Buell from Landview to the entrance will be done. This cannot be required. The main concerns of Township Engineering Consultant, Matt Hocking were two. First, whether the soils in the area will be able to handle the stormwater which must sink into the ground fast enough to prevent overflow of the planned stormwater retention basin. There will be no stormwater piping off the site. Any overflow would be onto two lots planned on the stub street off Jack Pine, which is off Landview. HIs second concern was to see final plans that satisfy him that all storm water will drain properly into ditches along the proposed new road and not onto neighboring property. Details like this are often expensive to engineer and are approved by Planning Commission in the final plans, after the developer is assured that he can proceed with no major roadblocks.

Commissioner Judy Workings suggested they choose a tree species more disease resistant than Blue Spruce for landscaping. Commissioner Workings, who seems to have an extensive knowledge of plants,, offered that Blue Spruce are susceptible to a disease that in 10-15 years turns them in to ugly sticks with major needle loss. This is a problem all over Oakland Township.