There has been talk that someday the City of Bloomfield Hills would lose the services of its “A-team”, a group of three former Mayors, who have been serving on City Commission for a combined total of almost 40 years. Age, fatigue,  burn out, and that old bugaboo of “getting on with one’s life, “were   the anticipated culprits.  Therefore it was a shock when the first to announce an if “elected State Representative” departure was the youngster Michael  McCready.  How young is Michalel  McCread y ? Assuming he didn’t skip any grades, the 1978 graduate of Seaholm High School is either 51 or 52 depending on birthday. Of the current crop of commissioners and commission candidates only Sarah McClure is close in age and she is 56 which mean that back in the day she was a senior when he was freshman. All the others are over 60 with an estimated 30% over 69.

Old age is only part of the story. All the candidates running for City Commission this spring are longtime residents of the City, with residencies that range from a low of 15 years to a high of 38. All were relatively youthful when they came to town arriving with ages of 27, 39 (2), 43, and 55 years.  All have been involved in City of Bloomfield government for an average of less than three years.  The pattern seems to be residents get involved in civic affairs later in life when career and family are firmly established.

That is not however an absolute. McCready was involved in City Government in his early 40’s. So was Mayor Zambricki. According to Southeast Michigan Government figures there are 101 City residents between the ages of 30 and 39. 436 are in their forties, and 700 in their fifties. That is close to 33% of our population. One out of three.  How many potential Mayor McCready and Mayor Zambricki’s are out there? How can we identify them? We are not talking about Nobel Prize winners or United States Presidents. We are talking about exceptional people who have an interest and some time to devote to City hall for  the good of the community.

The City of Birmingham has 32 boards and commissions to serve a community of 20,000. Assuming the average board has seven members or alternates that means that more than one on ten is involved in City Government.

We don’t need that.  We don’t need more government. What we need is more public interest, involvement, and participation from those who may wish to contribute.  We need a system that will allow any and all to participate on level that suits their lifestyle.

We need to say to our residents. “Many opportunities are in place for you to share your skills and input for the betterment of the city. Please consider attending one or more of the City’s Community Participation Meetings. You are not obligated to attend each one. Come to as many or as few as you like…just come.”

The Bloomfield Hills School System has exactly this system in place, and the “Many opportunities..” quote is from their literature.  The School Board’s Partnership Committees  are not government but advisory bodies. The program in its second year is currently being evaluated.  Attendance seems good. Some moneys savings features implemented by the district have been attributed to the partnership committees. The three finalists to fill a vacancy on the School Board came from the committees.

The program is not a School District original. They hired Project Innovations, a consultancy firm in Farmington .

Project Innovations according to its web site “solves complex problems through facilitation and collaboration. Our proprietary methods provide leaders with the necessary tools to resolve conflict, collaborate with customers, develop and coach leaders, facilitate large meetings, integrate the public for successful projects, and to plan strategically for the future. “

Interesting. Our City has just spent $9500 on a citizen survey, and hired a special consultancy firm for the tree ordinance. To the best of my knowledge the City has never spent money to enhance public involvement or leadership identification. It is certainly something to look into. I have volunteered for one of the partnerships. As a School district resident all that is required in the words of my committee chairman is “Just show up.”

My name is Mark Kapel and I am a candidate for City of Bloomfield Hills City  Commission.  I look at my fellow candidates and add up their years of service and wonder how better our community would be if we benefited from their skills and expertise five or ten years earlier. How about future candidates who state their qualifications as “19 year city resident. 10 years in community participation committees. 3 years Zoning Board.  3 years Planning Commission.” Wouldn’t our City be a better place for it?

You can help decide who our next Mayor will be !

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This year for the first time in decades (the exact number of which is still a matter of dispute) voters in the City of Bloomfield Hills will have some say in who their Mayor will be,

That’s because last year the commissioners pulled the rug on Commissioner Pat Hardy and a tradition some say went back thirty years. The City Charter,essentially the City’s constitution, states that the seven days after the election of City Commissioners, the Commission will meet to elect from one of their own a new mayor.

Somewhere in the distant past the commissioners decided to replace the election with a rotation. The next mayor of the city would s be the city commissioner with the most seniority who had either had not been mayor or who had been mayor in the most distant past. Per the rotation Commissioner Hardy was to be Mayor in 2011-12. Instead the commissioners decided to elect Commissioner Michael Zambricki Mayor.How were they able to by pass the tradition of rotating the position of Mayor?

The State of Michigan who’s laws trump everything else in Michigan, regards a City’s Charter as an important legal document. The Charter is signed by the Governor. Changes in the Charter must be approved by the people on a ballot. Those changes must also then be approved by the Governor and the Attorney General. The tradition of rotating the mayor, a defacto change in the Charter without the approval of the people had no legal basis stand on.

There are some who believe tradition is more sacred than law. There are some who believe rotation and election mean the same thing. There are some who argue in this election that the last two mayors stacked the city government with like-minded appointments while also arguing that the position of Mayor is a ceremonial one with no real power. Since the office was “simply ceremonial” slighting Pat was in their minds unforgivable.

 Actually it was politics where sooner or later everyone is slighted and he or she who laughs last laughs best. This year and every year if she musters enough votes from her fellow commissioners Pat Hardy can be elected Mayor. Under the old system the opportunity existed on at four or five year intervals.

Now voters have some input in regards to who the new mayor will be. They may ask the Commission candidates about their vote for mayor and hold them accountable. They may also tell the candidates who they think should be mayor and hope the candidate is listening.It is not much input but it is in this writer’s opinion it is better than nothing.

You haven’t heard the commission candidates talking about who they will vote for mayor which is odd. if elected that vote will be their first official piece of business. If they are running in tandem with another candidate however there may be a pre-arranged group consensus which precludes further input.

My name is Mark Kapel and I am running for City Commissioner. I am not running in tandem and therefore open to any and all opinions on the matter. If I am elected on the May 8th I will spend the week prior to the May 15th Mayor Election getting that opinions and taking it to the City Commission meeting for consideration before the vote.

That is not a campaign promise. I am interested in public opinions, our city government and writing for publications like the Patch so I will probably be doing it anyway. It is just that if elected the wife would cut me some slack on the chore list, if she could discern a meaningful purpose to what I am doing.

Eccentric Newspaper Article

Mark Kapel on Fiscal Responsibility

My name is Mark Kapel and I am running for City Commission
in the City of Bloomfield Hills.  I Believe City Commission can go a long way towards enhancing fiscal responsibility in the City. The two incumbent City Commissioners say they reduced the city’s expenditures by a million dollars but they don’t say how exactly. One Commissioner cites a $20,000 savings by hiring two part time public safety dispatchers instead of one full time.  That is the
only hard number mentioned and one wonders how much of that was put back into other expenditures. For example:

• A  City of Bloomfield Hills Resident Satisfaction Survey with a cost of $9500. The BaldwinLibrary does its own in house surveys distributed to an audience five times the size for a fraction of the cost. Some City officials say the survey the City contracted for is so economical at $9500 that the city possibly could make it annual event. By the same token with fiscal responsibility we could have quarterly  surveys for half the cost of what we contracted for. We would need to do it in house and we would need a resource the City is totally lacking in (because it has never asked) which is
  volunteers.

• When the City started work on a Woodland Protection Ordinance it hired yet another consulting firm even though one of the ones they currently use now use provides the same services. A fellow candidates running for city commission is a Landscape Architect and he says say the Landscape consultants the city hired expressly for the Tree Ordinance is of
  the garden variety.

• The City is spending $7,000 for an upgrade the web site. In the long run it will be cheaper than the one they are now using but it still costs money. In terms of electronic communications and the social media the current city commission thinking starts are stops with a web site. With a median age in the mid-sixties commissioners have no concept of blogs, Facebook,
  Twitter, or You Tube. They have no idea how those platforms could be used communicates  with the residents at no out of pocket expense. One Commissioner takes pride in the fact that City Commission Meetings are now available on cable and the city’s web site. That started in 2010. Now it’s 2012. Instead posting an hour and half or two and half hour meeting (with no fast forward  and no rapid reverse) we can chop up the topics discussed in  five or ten minute clips for posting on the City’s own channel on You Tube(when it gets one) which will cost us nothing.

• The City Commission serves bottled water. You know those little plastic bottles that go in landfills?  They costs money and their use isn’t helping the environment. Maybe it is only $12 or $20 a month but it is not zero. Why not? What’s wrong with tap water?

What is necessary to look at everything and consider other less expensive possibilities?  A good place to start is the City’s monthly expenditures published monthly in the Agenda Packet for City Commission which is appears on the City’s web site before each meeting. Last year one
commissioner discovered a $17 charge for a late payment on a City credit card bill. Good for Him. We need more Eagle Eyes. Maybe we could make a game of it with Commissioners vying with each other to find cost savings for say Tiger Tickets or something.

Mark Kapel in the Bloomfield Hills Eagle

Candidates for the City Commission were asked, in 150 words or less, to state the top three items they would wish to accomplish if elected and how they hope to accomplish them. The answers are printed verbatim.


Mark Kapel
Age: 62

Occupation: Retired Advertising Executive

Municipality in which you live: City of Bloomfield Hills

Resident of municipality for how long: 23  years


Previously held elected offices: Member Zoning Board of Appeals

Education: College Degree .Language Training University of Vienna.

Top three goals if elected: 

Three things I plan on accomplishing are

1.  Establishment of two way communications between the City Commission and city residents.
2.  Establishment of a partnership of City’s residents with the City’s Government in determining the workings, governing, and future of the City. 
3.  Maintain the City’s, financial well-being, and the services residents want.

A working model of the first two goals is already in place for voters to consider.


.Ongoing two way communications between Candidates and the voters  is part of the cityofbloomfieldhills.blogspot.com which I publish..


The Bloomfield Hills School Board uses Community Partnership programs allowing all residents to participate in the planning and decision makes process.

The accomplishment of the third goal is beyond the capabilities of individuals . To achieve it City Commission must utilize all of its assets and that is the collective wisdom its 3800 residents.

Why I am running

I have had the opportunity to see the best practices of our city commission,  the Bloomfield Hills School Board, and The Baldwin Library Board. I regret to say we are woefully inadequate in resident participation. We are a government of five of which four always agree. Maybe our commission sees no need to seek alternative points of view. In the last five months the city commission has not even sought the opinion of residents on issues such as a Code of Ethics for appointed or elected leaders, or questions for a $9500 Citizen satisfaction survey.  The Baldwin Library has in the meantime published two surveys for a much larger audience at a fraction the cost. The Difference? The library did their surveys in house. Our Commission hired a company.

There are ways Municipal City Commission or like organization can communicate with and involve it’s Citizens if it wants to little or no cost.

The School Board uses Community Partnership Committees to identify concerns and develop future leaders.

The Baldwin Library cites volunteers as main factor in balancing the budget.

Both School Board and the Library allow and encourage public comment at every meeting.

Public Comment at our City’s Planning Commission meetings is only allowed  at public hearings which are required by law.

Many municipalities use blogs  to keep residents informed about ongoing projects like the tree ordinance and to solicit continued resident input. Pages on Face Book and Twitter have been used to accomplish the same results. For almost all of the above money is not required.  Just imagination. Regrettably when you have four of five votes imagination is the last thing that comes to mind.

About Me

My name  is Mark Kapel. I am a 23 year resident of the City of Bloomfield Hills. I am running for City Commission because funny thing happened to me on the way to the city hall.  

A year or so ago I filled out a form to volunteer  for vacancies on the City’s Boards and Commissions. All the applications were published in the Agenda Packet for the appointment meeting .Reading the other applicants resumes told me mine was woefully in adequate and I was not surprised when I was not picked for anything. 

Later I discovered  an article in the Oakland Press asking people to write blogs about their passion.  Cats, Kids, Cars and Sports were the suggested topics. I asked if I could write about the City of Bloomfield Hills. They said I could and thus The City of Bloomfield Hills Blog was born. It appears three days  a week in the Oakland Press Blog Roll. Since June 1^st of 2011 we have received 11,000  page visits. We are not mass circulation media however. Return readers have always been 60 % to 75% of our readers. The average reader spends ten minutes and reads 3.5 pages per visit. Bloomfield Hills readers average fifteen minutes a visit and read close to five pages a visit.

To write articles for the blog I started attending City Commission Meetings. My attendance at City Commission meetings  last year rivals that of any commissioner and dwarfs that of any other candidate.

In July The OP asked me to cover the Bloomfield Hills School Board for the newspaper  so I attend School Board meetings as a  Special Writer for the Oakland Press. 

In the Fall Mayor Zambricki, citing me as independent thinker asked if I would serve on one of the the City's Boards I was pleasantly surprised and accepted. I am now a member of the  Zoning Board of Appeals