Looking back: 30 years ago, this is what was happening in the tri-community

We are celebrating completion of our 30th year of publication by printing stories from our earliest issues to show what was happening in Belleville, Van Buren, and Sumpter.
In our first issue of the Independent on Jan. 5, 1995, which had 12 pages, our front-page story was headlined: “Is ‘Haggerty Sub’ getting a bad rap?”
The story was about Van Buren Police Detective Gregory Laurain referring to “Haggerty Sub” as the headquarters for youth gang activity in Van Buren Township, surprising many people – especially those living in that neighborhood.
Laurain made his comments at a public forum sponsored by the Van Buren Public Schools in late November.
As if to underscore his comment, a brick house on Tyler Road with its back door to “Haggerty Sub” was painted with gang symbols in early December.
This followed months of gang graffiti removal at Tyler Elementary School across the street and defacement of Haggerty Center strip mall’s back wall.
But Ralph Eccles, who had lived on Van Buren Street for more than 20 years at that time, said he hadn’t seen any gang activity or disruptions in his area. He said he thinks the neighborhood is getting a “bad rap,” and always has.
Eccles spent 17 years as a counselor in the Taylor schools and another 17 years as a high school teacher there before retirement. He said his family moved into its new home on Van Buren in 1973, one of the first to buy in the development, which was then called Van Buren Estates.
But he said even then friends warned him not to buy in that area because it had the reputation of a HUD development where people could get mortgages with no money down.
Eccles said that was an incorrect assumption. He said he and others got conventional mortgages for their homes. Other neighbors got VA loans. Some were HUD mortgages.
He said over the years, some neighbors defaulted on HUD homes, which were empty and boarded up for a time. But, new owners eventually took over and fixed up the homes.
Eccles said the large subdivision of about 700 homes in the area bordered by Tyler, Haggerty and the North I-94 Service Drive, actually was built as three separate developments by three different developers.
He said the homes in his area, the first development to be built, all have basements. The second development, near Haggerty, which is 10 years younger, also has basements. The third development, around McBride, doesn’t have basements, he said.
Leland Ruedel of Coolidge Street, not far from Haggerty Road, said he thinks what Det. Laurain said was quite true. “Some parents don’t care what their kids do any time of the day … The community has to pull together to solve the gang problem,” he said.
Ruedel said, “I think it’s the police who are getting a bad rap. I understand there are some problems, but those people are being dealt with…”
Mark Perkins, Van Buren Township Director of Public Safety, said Haggerty Sub has an undeserved reputation, in his opinion. He said a lot of Van Buren police officers live in the sub. “There are a lot of good people and a lot of nice homes that are kept up very well.
“There is gang activity there, but anytime you have a high concentration of people, there’s gang activity,” Perkins said.
Perkins said the subdivision has always had a bad reputation, but he can’t understand just why.
Paul Thornsberry, a scoutmaster who lives in the sub, agreed with Perkins on Haggerty Sub getting a bad rap. He said when the comments were made about the sub at the gang forum, that made the kids from the subdivision go out and buy the gang colors and wear them.
“If they saw real gangs in there, they’d know it,” Thornsberry said of all the publicity over local youth gangs. “I was in Los Angeles when I was in the Marine Corps and I saw real gangs.”
Thornsberry said he feels the police hands are tied by weak laws. He agreed that it’s the parents’ responsibility to monitor their children’s activities.
Other stories in the Jan. 5, 1995 edition, included:
• Sumpter Clerk Joan Oddy is interviewed while recovering from surgery after the removal of a cancerous portion of her lung. No chemotherapy was necessary, but she spent 14 days in Beyer Hospital. She was waiting for her doctor’s OK before getting back to work at the township.
• Fred C. Fischer Librarian Debbie Green is wearing a new engagement ring and plans to marry in the fall. The ring is a sapphire set in white gold.
• Belleville City Council voted to demolish a house at 142 Second St. since the owner has not done so. The building had been hit with a fire, but the owner, identified as “a local attorney,” has the demolition permits but has not moved forward.
• Belleville City Council and Belleville DDA met in joint session on Dec. 28 to discuss preliminary plans for what was to become the 200-plus homes of Victoria Commons. They also discussed the proposed lakeside housing next to the bridge on the Doane family property from Main to Fifth Street and noted it was not in the DDA district. The business area on Main and Liberty between the bridge and Fifth Street also was discussed. The final agreement on the housing development was expected within 30 days. The city and DDA already had sold bonds for infrasture for Victoria Commons: $1.075 million on Dec. 15 and $825,000 on Dec. 27. In order to qualify as a state “pipeline” project which would get the city $1.5 million in revenue, up to $1.9 million in revenue bonds had to be sold by the end of December.
• We explained how the Independent grew from a newsletter put together on our family’s new desktop publishing software to send to four friends vacationing in Arizona. The newsletter carried news about Van Buren Township. When the four returned to Michigan, I was set to suspend the reports, but found the newsletter had taken on a life of its own. It had been faxed and copied and read all over this area. Our four readers grew to dozens who urged us to continue. Volunteers contributed money to have the newsletter printed by the thousands and volunteers delivered them to the newspaper tubes of township residents on weekend rural routes. Eventually it became a “real” newspaper with a dozen local residents as owners.
• We explained how a big, beautiful, double rainbow arched over the communities of Belleville, Van Buren, and Sumpter early in the morning of Saturday, Dec. 3. That was the same morning a group of investors met to decide whether to support starting a real newspaper. Those who saw it took it as a good omen, a blessing to the endeavor. We chose to have a double rainbow in the newspaper’s masthead, a symbol of new beginnings and hope – doubled.
• Published were columns by Lois Morioka, who told how she and her husband found Belleville, and a column by Lila Warner on pet care, with the offer to readers to send in their questions on pets for her to answer. The two columns continued in the paper.
• A story told how the Community Quilt was created and hung at the Fred C. Fischer Library. It was announced that Marilyn Locke would write a column beginning the next week and running for 30 weeks, telling the stories of each block in the quilt, week by week.
We will publish more history from 30 years ago as space allows.