metro
Eagle Has Not Landed
Controversy still surrounds approval of Eagle school reuse as mosque.
Don Cohen
Contributing Writer
T
he controversy over the sale of the
former Eagle Elementary school
to the Islamic Cultural Center
(ICA) continues to heat up with the battle
centering on three fronts: the ongoing
lawsuit to halt the sale, the Thomas More
Law Center request for a grand jury inves-
tigation, and West Bloomfield Township
Planning Commission and Wetlands
Review Board hearings.
The Lawsuit
The court case filed by Farmington Hills
residents in late July 2011 was derailed
by a September 2011 ruling in Oakland
County Circuit Court that plaintiffs
Eugene Greenstein and Melvyn Sternfeld
had no standing to challenge the sale.
The ruling was quickly appealed and both
sides filed briefs last December, but the
case has seen no action.
That Farmington Public Schools (FPS)
and ICA were negotiating for the sale of
the building and property, while the dis-
trict continued to publicly insist the build-
ing was not for sale and would be demol-
ished, is at the heart of the lawsuit.
With the appeal pending, the Eagle sale
closed on Jan. 12, 2012, but the $1.1 mil-
lion due the district for the property has
been sitting in escrow — along with the
property deed. Last month, FPS urged
the court to expedite action on the case
because it would like its money and the
ICA would like to move forward with its
plans for the property. Oral arguments on
the appeal are scheduled for Sept. 12. If
the ruling on the standing is overturned,
the case will be able to proceed and can be
decided on its merits.
Grand Jury Request
At the same time, the Thomas More Law
Center, a religious conservative public
interest law firm in Ann Arbor, is try-
ing a different tack, calling on Michigan
Attorney General Bill Schuette to appoint a
grand jury to investigate the sale.
At an Aug. 8 community meeting
organized by the More Center and held
at Congregation B'nai Moshe in West
Bloomfield, more than 150 people heard a
series of presentations regarding the lawsuit
and the request for a grand jury. Richard
Thompson, president and chief counsel of
the More Center, repeated his charge that
there was a "fog of corruption" in the district.
18
August 23 • 2012
Architect Roger Young and Majeed Kadi of the ICA discuss plans for the mosque
during an open house at the former Eagle School on Aug 8.
Thompson said that initially he had
no interest in the case, believing it to be
an ordinary zoning concern, but after
investigation decided to become involved
because "it was an issue of national secu-
rity." In support, Thompson claimed the
ICA is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood
and Hamas because of past and current
relations with the Council on American-
Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the North
American Islamic Trust (NAIT).
The program began with Bruce Burwell,
senior pastor at Light of the World Christian
Center that meets in West Bloomfield, say-
ing he was discouraged from bidding on
the property by an FPS administrator who
told him "the building was not suitable to
purchase" and that it would be demolished
and the land sold. FPS has claimed that while
there were inquiries about the property, there
were no formal bids except for an unsolicited
bid made by the ICA.
A More Center attorney then laid out its
case.
"All citizens who value public transpar-
ency and accountability should welcome an
independent grand jury investigation into
this public school system scandal that has
cost the students and taxpayers so dearly:'
the More Center says on its website, under a
section titled "Creeping Sharia (Islamic law)
the Islamization of America" with a picture
of the Twin Towers pre-9/11.
Robert Davis of Davis Burket Savage
Listman and Brennan, the plaintiff's attor-
ney from Mt. Clemens, also spoke. Davis
encouraged people in the audience to attend
the township hearings scheduled for the fol-
lowing week to express their displeasure.
B'nai Moshe has received some blow-
back for renting the facility to the More
Center, leading synagogue president Dan
Sperling of West Bloomfield to clarify in
various online forums and in a letter to
the Jewish News (page 5) that the congre-
gation has no position on the lawsuit nor
the claims of the More Center and the
school district, and was simply renting a
room for a program as it often does.
The same evening as the More Center
program, the ICA held an open house
for the community at the property. More
than 40 people attended and heard from
ICA leadership, including board mem-
ber Majeed Kadi of West Bloomfield, as
well as Roger Young of Young & Young
Architects of Bloomfield Hills. The pro-
posed plans for the property were part
of a PowerPoint presentation and artists
renderings were placed on easels around
the room. Signs for the open house were
placed outside the building a few days
earlier, and contacts were made with resi-
dents living within 300 feet of the former
school property. Reportedly, additional
open houses are in the works.
West Bloomfield Meetings
While challenges to the sale con-
tinue, attention also has shifted to West
Bloomfield Township, where site plans
need an OK from the wetlands board
and building plans need special land use
approval from the planning commission
before going to the township board for
overall approval. On Aug. 14, the commis-
sion and board met with more than 125
people packing the township's public meet-
ing room and spilling out into the hallway
and another overflow room. The back-to-
back meetings lasted nearly five hours,
including a short break.
Several members of the wetlands board
expressed concerns about the placement
and function of a detention pond in the
rear of the property, which would send
water under Middlebelt Road into the
Rouge River. While the property currently
is not up to code regarding water runoff,
it was decided early in the hearing that
an onsite visit would be necessary for
members to fully understand the plan and
consider other options. The request for
the approval of the site plan was tabled,
and the public was invited to the "onsite"
scheduled for 2 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 9.
At the planning commission meeting,
Senior Planner Sara Roediger explained
that the commission's role was limited to
answering four questions:
• Is the use of the property compatible
with existing uses of the area?
• Would the plans interfere with orderly
development in the area?
• Are there issues of safety and vehicu-
lar traffic?
. Do the plans meet ordinance require-
ments?
Roediger offered that a staff review
showed that the plans "meet 100 percent
of our ordinance requirement( and
appeared to exceed them. The FPS was
exempt from township ordinance and had
not kept the property up to code during
the more than 50 years it ran the elemen-
tary school, necessitating many changes.
A question came up about the lawsuit
against FPS now on appeal. Commission
members and township staff said they
were not aware of the lawsuit and there
was some confusion as to whether the
ICA was in possession of the deed to the
property. The district's attorney was asked
to look into the legal status of the prop-
erty's ownership, with several commission
members and later audience members
expressing concern that action could not
be taken until the issue was clarified and
the deed in the ICNs possession.
Architect Roger Young reviewed architec-
tural maps and filed documents to explain
that 72 percent of the existing building will
remain. The area where part of the building
will be demolished will be used to erect a
mosque and minaret expected to rise more
than 40 feet — about four stories high
— next to a banquet center. The mosque