Have a coffee conversation with Laura Harrison, and you are chatting with an entrepreneur (22 years as owner of Ladybug Craft & Framing Shoppe), an owner with her husband of three downtown Royal Oak properties (but she rents her current business location), and a former city commissioner (two 4-year terms,1992-2000).

Add to those multiple perspectives her take on current issues as a long-time resident working with City Hall to modify her house and garage, and you get knowledgeable comments about neighborhoods, downtown, condos, multi-use developers, politics, whatever.

About politics, for example, Harrison chuckles sadly about Royal Oak’s own "Watergate," the term being applied to the concern that the unexpected emergence of an additional water department-related $3 million debt may lead to something more serious than the current uneasiness about past accounting practices. As a past commissioner, Harrison is receiving calls. Carefully drawing on memory, she left me with the impression that the city commission was vaguely aware of the formation, operation, and dissolution of an ad hoc Finance Committee, but the commission was never really made knowledgeable about the details of the apparently legal but now-questioned bookkeeping.

Asked to compare the "now" and "then" of Royal Oak – using her own timelines – Harrison summarizes: "Residential life is better although lifestyles have changed.

She described the housing paradox: "Then, 1960, families with four to six children lived in 1,100-square feet homes. Now, families with two kids demand both more house area and outside space." For remaining seniors who can’t comfortably or safely climb stairs down to the basement laundry or up to the master bedroom, Harrison says the need is to convert their existing home to permit one-floor living.

About downtown businesses, the entrepreneur and former city commissioner comments, "It hasn’t been this tough since the early 1980s." But business owners have lived through down-times before. What’s different? "Primarily, a lack of attention from City Hall and the DDA, compared with ‘then.’" Calmly conversational through most of our coffee chat, Harrison became vehement when discussing suggestions to establish a Principal Shopping District (PSD) for downtown Royal Oak.

A PSD calls for "a new tax," she maintains, on top of the additional 1.7 mills which CBD property owners already pay. Years ago, the proposed PSD tax was 6 cents per square foot; today, numbers like 26 cents are being bruited. There is controversy, too, over whether second-floor or basement storage areas should be included in the taxable square footage.

What benefits would a PSD bring?
None, to hear Harrison describe the situation. "The DDA should use most of its 1.7 mills surcharge for operations and for such tasks as cleaning up the sidewalks, landscaping, funding promotional events . . . Remember, landlords serve as tax collectors. If a PDA fee is added, tenants will pay higher rents, customers will pay higher prices, clients will pay higher service fees."

In that context, Harrison questions the wisdom of the DDA’s funding half of the City Planning Director’s compensation, compensation for his secretary, and for a new Planner II position. She agrees with others who have told VersagiVoice that the DDA does not generate enough work for the Planning Department to justify such an allocation from the DDA’s operating fund, especially since the DDA has a Marketing contractor and will soon again have a Downtown Manager. (Disclosure: Laura’s husband, Bill, serves on the DDA.)

In terms of the overall Downtown Dialogue [CREATE LINK HERE], Harrison stands by the thoughts expressed in her previous contributions about relationships between and among the DDA, City Hall, independent retailers, Main Street Promotions Committee, the Chamber of Commerce. She adds that the DDA/Main Street entity has provided funds for retail-oriented events in its upcoming budget.

Harrison brings her multiple perspectives to bear on the interaction between city hall and residents or property owners.

While supporting, even defending, overall city hall operations, she agrees that when residents or business owners with widely differing personalities all complain about a specific city employee, "there may be some validity to the complaints," whether those complaints take the form of bureaucratic inertia or of aggressive abuse of an official’s power to make something happen, or to keep something from happening.

Harrison contends, "It is not micromanaging when a city commissioner follows up about such complaints from a resident or property owner."

Agreeing that it is easy to get confused about who is responsible for what in the functionally related Planning Department, Building Department, and Engineering Department, Harrison says this grouping is often mistakenly dubbed "anti-business," when it would be more accurate to identify an "anti-building" mindset in their differing interpretations about a given issue. "Too often, applicants – for plan review, for permits, for variances, for whatever – come away from the process convinced that the departments don’t talk to each other, especially when a re-do, rather than new construction is involved."

One question being asked: "Which department in city hall has given the developer at the northwest corner of Eleven Mile and Main permission to block off one lane of Main Street whenever they want?"

Little inefficiencies need to be eliminated, such as "Pay downstairs," at the Treasurer’s counter, after a permit is applied for and granted upstairs.

Harrison comments about the pluses and minuses of being an elected official, especially one which can require from 12 to 20 hour a week for token payment (Royal Oak commissioners are paid $20 per commission meeting, nothing for attending assigned committee meetings, none for the homework involved in reviewing related paperwork).

The pluses are real. At the individual level, "You actually get to affect, hopefully positively, the wishes and needs of residents, whether or not they are voters."

At the community level, "You deal with quality of life matters – like parks and parking – as well as with public health and safety issues – like police department staffing and liquor licenses."

The negatives of being an elected official include never being able to please everybody at the same time about a given issue; the feeling among some voters that there is no limit on how often they can call an official at home or at work; and there are those 12 to 20 hours of essentially volunteer work, "to meet your responsibilities."

Before our conversation at Hagelstein’s Bakery, Harrison had read my summary of my conversation with several Skylofts co-owners, in which they said they "use" downtown Royal Oak. She tracks her customers and becomes acquainted with new ones, and she knows of none who live in the Skylofts condos. One might suggest that upscale condo dwellers are not likely to do crafts, but Harrison adds that other downtown retailers (other than restaurants) don’t report much shopping by Skylofts residents. She is hopeful this will change soon.

In that context, she shares the hope that the new condos going up in and near downtown will attract new retailers and increase downtown shopping, although she wonders whether that will happen. But she is excited when a new retailer opens. "I love shopping in small stores. I am not a fan of malls."

That thought led to a brief discussion about the city’s relationship with "Developers" – with a capital D. Harrison sees two sides: On the one hand, city officials have been unaccustomed to dealing with large projects. Being "creatures of habit," they appear uncertain, inconsistent, or arbitrary when addressing details of plans or permits. On the other hand, developers characteristically tend to push the envelope, to complain that legitimate code requirements will raise costs unreasonably.

Interestingly, and unknowingly, Harrison – by suggesting that Royal Oak officials are being "too cavalier" in dealing with developers – seems to agree with others who have told me that the Planning Department, especially, is caught up in the excitement and romance of new construction and is permitting too much development.

Harrison was understandably the most tentative, the least willing to be open, even off-the-record, when I asked her to evaluate the performance of the current city commission, which an occasional former elected official and current administration employee have characterized as "not the brightest we’ve had."

"There is a learning curve," she offered, "and even old-timers need to answer actual questions, to be specific and brief." But she rose to defend the commission against the charge of micromanaging, using her earlier comment about using the power of the commissioner’s office to serve citizens who are having difficulties with the city employees or departments. – Frank Versagi, 26 May 2005

List of Coffee Conversations