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No. 15
NEWS YOU CAN USE, NEWS YOU CAN TRUST
75¢
April 12 - 18, 2012
w w w . a s s o c i a t e d n e w s p a p e r s . n e t
The Detroit Institute of Arts
is bringing art to downtown
Wayne with the Inside|Out art
exhibit, which brings framed
reproductions of masterpieces
to landmark outdoor spaces.
See page 3.
Romulus Police Cpls.
Dwayne DeCaires and
MatthewRobertson said "good-
bye" to police work and "hello"
to retirement recently and
werehonored at a luncheon.
See page 5.
Plymouth Community
United Way is still accepting
applications from senior citi-
zens and disabled people who
could use help with spring
yard cleanup.
See page 4.
Visitors to the Michigan
Historical Museum in Lansing
were guided by Girl Scout
Seniors from Troop 40737 in
Northville wearing authentic
historic uniforms recently.
See page 4.
Continued vandalism at the
Skate Park in Belleville has
prompted an effort to close the
facility permanently before the
10-year agreement withWayne
County expires in June.
See page 5.
Vol. 127, No. 15
Vol. 65, No. 15
Vol. 65, No. 15
Vol. 12, No. 15
Vol. 12, No. 15
Vol. 127, No. 15
Vol. 65, No. 15
Vol. 65, No. 15
More than 70 signs of drug
use will be part of a free work-
shop presented by educators
from Saint Joseph Mercy
Health System at the Booker
DozierRecreationComplex.
See page 3.
For home delivery of The Eagle call 734-467-1900.
Emergency medical care in
Westland has entered the elec-
tronic age as fire department
is now using electronic report-
ing which allows EMTs to send
reports of a patient's condition
directly to thehospital.
See page 3.
The budget Westland Mayor William Wild
presented to members of the city council
includes a predicted surplus of $2.4 million for
2013-1014 along with two new shared service
agreements.
The City of Westland will enter into a new
shared fire services arrangement with the City
of Wayne and has already agreed to a new part-
nership with theWayne Country Sheriff's Office
to provide traffic enforcement patrols on roads
in the city.
The proposed budget includes the current
joint venture with the City of Wayne to share
parks and recreation services. As a part of that
arrangement, the 45-year-old recreation center
and seasonal outdoor pool will be closed, result-
ing in a savings of nearly $900,000 annually. In
addition, Wayne and Westland will share a fire
chief resulting in a savings of $180,000 for
Westland and $140,000 for Wayne on an annual
basis. Wild said these shared services will help
qualify his city for $1.7 million in statutory rev-
enue sharing for the 2012-2013 fiscal year as
part of the state mandated Economic Vitality
IncentiveProgram(EVIP).
The intergovernmental agreement with the
Sheriff's Office provides that any revenue
received as a result of enforcement action
taken by Sheriff's deputies be equally divided.
The Sheriff's Office will assign officers from the
secondary road patrol unit, funded by a grant
from the State of Michigan Office of Highway
The Governor's Traffic
Safety Advisory Commission
awarded a 2011Traffic Safety
Achievement Award to the
Canton
Public
Safety
Department lastmonth.
See page 4.
See
Budget,
page 2
The proposed budget includes
the current joint venture with the
City of Wayne to share parks
and recreation services.
”
County sheriff, Wayne fire services join Westland
It has been about a year since
officials in Romulus agreed to
remove theRomulus Library from
the Wayne County Library System
to become a municipal facility.
The move saved the city about
$60,000, but also left somewith the
impression that the library was
closed, according to Patty Braden,
director of the library.
Just the opposite is true, she
said. The library actually has
extended hours and, despite limit-
ed funding, the facility has contin-
ued to expand programs and serv-
ices for the residents of Romulus
andHuronTownship.
The board of directors for the
librarywas formed in 2011 to over-
see operations and the Friends of
the Library continues to assist
with fundraising.
The $60,000 savings and
fundraising led to the hiring of
Braden as director, the purchase
of new books and DVDs, and the
expansion of library hours from
two to four days aweek.
Programs and services are free
to the public. They include sea-
sonal pre-school story time for
young readers, the Second
Monday Book Club, the availabili-
ty of 15 computers, wireless com-
puting and printing capability,
free computer classes and an
adult authors series.
The goal is to expand services,
Model citizen
Plymouth resident creates
virtual 3D building tours
The past led a Plymouth
Township man to the cutting
edge of the future.
And he's taken his home town
withhim.
Douglas Willett, through his
company, Luna
Tech 3D, is the
first in the state
to become a
Google Trusted
Photographer,
a designation
he needed to
be able to add
interactive and
i mm e r s i v e
interior tours
of buildings to
Google Places,
where he has
already modeled the outside of
almost all downtown Plymouth
buildings.
When Willett, now 45, was
pursuing his interest in genealo-
gy several years ago, he realized
he could never actually tour the
inside of his grandfather's house
in Adrian, which had been
demolishedmany years before.
Willett wondered if he could
create a virtual 3D model of the
home from old pictures, and
with his degree in Computer
Science from Central Michigan
University, andhis experience as
a programmer at Electronic
Data Systems, he was able to
accomplish his goal. That suc-
cess led him to create his busi-
ness around producing 3D build-
ing models for Google Earth.
Now, Willett is the only person
who is both a Google Certified
Geo 3D Developer and a Google
Trusted Photographer in the
U.S. One of his business part-
ners, Nicole Heyart, is also a
Google Certified Geo 3D
Developer, making them two of
only 12 in the country to have
that designa-
tion.
“We did the
fly-in buildings
for people and
they would con-
stantly ask us if
we could do the
inside,” Willett
said. “We could,
but the cost was
prohibitive. So
we had to figure
out how to
make it work
affordably.” That solution was
the new360 spin tours.
They've now done a 3-D
panoramic interior of Tom
Holzer Ford that is so complete,
every detail of the showroom,
including features of the new
model cars on the floor, and the
service department is crystal
clear.
“It is the closest thing to being
there,”Willett said.
His pride and joy, however, is
still his model of downtown
Plymouth where he startedmod-
eling 3Dbuildings in the commu-
nity. When the product manager
of Google Earth got a look at
what Willett had done with
www.3dplymouth.com
in
Plymouth a few years ago, he
picked up the phone and called
him to find out exactly how he
had accomplished this step into
the future.
“When I answered my cell
phone and realized who it was, I
was driving down Main Street. I
was so stunned I actually had to
pull the car over,” Willett said. “I
just kept thinking tomyself, 'I am
talking to the product manager
of Google Earth.' I literally could-
n't believe it.”
The Google executive told
Willett that this was the first
effort he had seen of anyone
using the technology to map a
small town from the ground up
and integrate it into a cus-
tomized virtual globe. “He told
me that it was really good work
and that a lot of people were
interested in it,”Willett said.
Willett is quick to point out
that his success is based on his
ability to connect the pieces of
technology. “We simply make the
technology work in tandem,” he
said. “We put the pieces togeth-
er.”
Google Earth, Google Maps
and Street View will take web
users to just about any building
in the world, then Luna Tech 3D
takes users inside on a 3-D virtu-
al 360-degree panoramic tour of
the interior of the building or
landmark. The photo quality is
Plymouth Township resident Douglas Willett, president of Luna Tech
3D, has modeled nearly all of downtown Plymouth and as the first
Google Trusted Photographer in Michigan plans to start 3D tours of
the interiors.
Library Director Patty Braden enjoys one of the quiet spots in the
library created for studying or use of wireless Internet.
See
Models,
page 2
We did the
fly-in buildings
for people and they
would constantly
ask us if we
could do the inside.
”
See
Library,
page 2
Romulus library expands service, revamps funding