Just two weeks after an official dedication ceremony where local district judges, law enforcement officers and politicians praised the new community service garden, its neighbors are speaking out with concerns.
In fact, they want to “squash the project,” resident Tim Smith said.
He and Pine Knob Road neighbors don’t feel safe with people convicted of misdemeanors working near their homes.
“The biggest concern I have with the whole thing is security,” Smith said. “It’s kind of like they’ve taken the jail and moved it into our backyard. That’s what we don’t like.”
The community service program, initiated by 52-2 District Judges Michael Batchik and Dana Fortinberry and approved by the Independence Township Board, allows first time and nonviolent offenders to opt to work in the 10-acre garden rather than serve jail time, while produce reaped is donated to the Food Bank of Oakland County for those less fortunate.
“This is a recipe for danger,” Smith said, who has lived in the area with wife Beth, and their eight children, for seven years.
The Smiths, and others, feel their neighborhood has been a safe and quiet place to live, until now.
They note several criminal incidents that have occurred this past summer they find ironic with the installment of the garden.
For example, on July 22, a Massachusetts couple came to check on a vacant home in the 8700 block of Pine Knob, which had been owned by a late relative. To their surprise, they found Christopher Michael Halpern, a 23-year-old homeless man, had been living in the home for two months.
Halpern fled, but police barricaded his path from Stickney to Whipple Lake, brought out the K-9 unit, and the sheriff’s helicopter to apprehend him in a north eastern wooded area at Pine Knob and Stickney.
Halpern also confessed he and a friend broke into a Stonewall streel, nearby, to use a phone to call for desired marijuana, police reports stated.
Detective Lonnie Mullins said Halpern is currently in custody and the case is still pending in circuit court.
Mullins as well as Lt. Dale LaBair, both of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department in Independence Township, said the incident has nothing to do with the garden.
“It’s totally unrelated to the farm,” LaBair said.
Also, according to Pine Knob residents, a woman was jogging on Sunday, Sept. 24, when a man came out of the woods, exposed himself and chased the woman. She did not file a police report.
“She did not call us,” LaBair said. “This is something we’d be real interested in. But I’ve not heard anything to confirm or deny it.”
As of press time, the woman had not returned a phone call from The Clarkston News.
“We’ve never had to deal with anything like this before,” resident Tony DeRose said. “I don’t think it’s coincidence.”
Tony and his wife Lynn, and their three children, have lived there for 12 years. They say the worst crime that has occurred in their area was the occasional smashed mailbox.
But LaBair defends, “I can’t attribute any of it to that garden. I will tell you that the people who go out there are supervised.”
The residents, though, aren’t happy with the amount of supervision versus offenders.
“There’s no security. No cops. No nothing,” Smith said. “There’s only two people in charge of over 70 or 80 men. Some are just kids, but some aren’t just kids.”
He and Tony DeRose went to the farm, and said only a gardener and a W.A.M. (Weekend Alternatives for Misdemeanors) representative were supervising.
Lynn said she would like to see a sheriff supervising. “The premise is great. It’s a beautiful garden. But it needs supervision,” she said.
Judge Fortinberry, who suggested utilizing the long dormant McCord Farm for the garden, said there are always at least two supervisors from W.A.M., plus two assistants, to look over the approximately 35-40 offenders when the program is in use Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“They are well-monitored,” Fortinberry said, noting the workers have a strict schedule to follow and must even ask permission to use the port-a-john.
The 52-2 court does not have it in its budget to hire a supervisor, so W.A.M. has volunteered. “I’m happier with them supervising, they have more experience. They are up front with me if they think someone is not suitable for the program, not because of any risk factor, but because of attitude problems. There has never been any security problems.”
Fortinberry assures there are none sentenced to work in the garden that are dangerous.
“Trust me, I live in that neighborhood. Even if I lived across town, I wouldn’t put anyone at risk. If in any way I thought there was a hint of danger, I wouldn’t assign anyone to the garden.”
Still many of the residents are leery of letting their kids play outside alone.
“I won’t let the kids go out on the road alone,” Smith said. “My brother Mike, lives down the road. His two young girls like to ride their bikes to the library. They don’t feel safe doing that anymore.”
The DeRoses said their kids enjoy going for walks on the weekends. “We can’t go in that direction and can’t let them go without adult supervision now,” Tony said.
Lynn said she did a mental count of how many kids live in the area, and noted between 35 and 40 between Stickney and Whipple Lake.
“If this was going up behind a subdivision, I’m sure they (the township board) would’ve said no because of the kids in the neighborhood, but because it’s a rural area I think they felt it would be okay,” she said.
The residents are particularly upset their feedback wasn’t sought before the garden got underway.
“I don’t like how it got there without us knowing about it. They constructed this garden without letting the neighbors know their plans and intentions,” Tony said.
“We weren’t asked if we wanted this in our neighborhood,” Smith noted. “They’ve invited these characters into our neighborhood who normally wouldn’t be there. They can case our houses.”
Fortinberry said the garden, in its prospective stages, was discussed at at least two open meetings, which are also filmed and rerun on local cable, as well as covered in community newspapers.
“People were made well aware of this.”
“The garden was highly publicized,” Independence Township Supervisor Dale Stuart also said.
Lynn said she wants to know exactly who the courts are bringing into her neighborhood.
Fortinberry specifically said most of the offenders are convicted of drunk driving, or other driving offenses such as driving with a suspended license.
“There is no assaultive people, no people with ties to CSC (criminal sexual conduct). We try to give these people an alternative to working off their debt to society in a positive way. This is not a prison work farm.”
Noted at the dedication ceremony, as of Sept. 5, 164 offenders have chosen to work in the garden, which will be closed for the season at the end of October, Fortinberry said.
Participants pay $15 a day to do so, and $12,495 has been collected from these fees, saving taxpayers more than $85,000 in jail days.
With a total of 8,540 hours of work completed — a five hour work day equates one jail day — this has saved $128,069 in jail costs. (Inmate costs are at $78 a day. )
In addition, more than 3,000 pounds of produce has been harvested and donated.
Batchik, who started a garden while at Novi’s 52-1 court in 1993, called the garden “a win-win situation all around,” saving jail days and taxpayers money, allowing offenders to keep their jobs, and donating to those in need.
The garden he began in Novi is in a semi-residential area and there have never been any security problems, Fortinberry said.
But Smith said, “These projects mean well, but eventually mistakes will happen. I know they’re tempering this with donating to the Food Bank, but grow it somewhere else.”
The residents plan to attend an upcoming Independence Township Board meeting to publicly voice their concerns.
“The community needs to be aware of what’s going on here,” Lynn said.
Stuart said, “I’m sorry the people feel this way. But the facts are, they are not in any danger. We wouldn’t let that happen. We certainly will listen to what they have to say.”
The supervisor also said the residents should be proud of the garden for what it has been able to provide to the greater community and that it is an asset to Clarkston, preserving the historical McCord Farm.
Fortinberry found it distressing the residents did not come to she or Batchik with their concerns.
“I want to work with them. I want them to understand we’re not placing dangerous criminals in their neighborhood. I wish people would come directly to me with their concerns.”