A Tale of Two City's Counsels

[XLFD]

This Monday I had a night off of the usual council meeting, so I decided to head down to my Hometown of Scottville and participate in their commission meeting, something I haven't done in about three years. The weekend newspaper article about what was going on seemed intriguing enough particularly since it had some synchronicity with what was happening in Ludington.

I am not referring to the more than modest increases in water system related fees, the significant increases in their trash removal (both size bags increasing by a 25% rate), or even the specter of once again reviewing the prudence of marijuana dispensaries. One would think that such topics would garner some input from the public, but the public was noticeably absent other than Roy Holden who gave no presentation.

The topic that concerned me most was their City Attorney, Tracy Thompson (center), graciously accepting a nominal retainer for his services to the City of Scottville as he has for the last 25 years. Thompson lives in and operates his law office with his wife, Laura, and law partner, Ryan Glanville (both also pictured above) in downtown Ludington and lives in the city. Both help the City of Scottville with their legal needs.

Thompson charges $4000 as his retainer, which covers his attendance at meetings and routine and rudimentary legal work for the City. For special projects, he charges $190 per hour, over the years he usually receives a little over $10,000 for the legal services his law firm provides for Scottville City Hall. In the half dozen commission meetings I have attended, he has provided them with sound advice, in my opinion, and hasn't had any notable controversies between himself and either a city official or citizen of Scottville in his quarter century of work.

On the other hand, in Thompson's home city where he operates his business, city hall decided to contract with a Manistee-based law firm just over ten years ago in October 2009. Over the last ten years, this firm has merged with a Grand Rapids law firm, Mika Meyers, and has got mired in a host of controversies while acting as city attorney for Ludington.

There were the several years of overbilling he conducted with City Manager John Shay's help, who also used him to funnel money to a contractor the city councilor never hired in order to pay for a water rate study. He urged the City to block multiple FOIA requests without any reason (example, the tripartite water agreement with Michigan Power), he rationalized insanely high rates again without reason (example, the Baby Kate police report).

This law firm decided to represent the City in a FOIA lawsuit when it should have been handled by the City's insurance attorneys, billed the City for over $30,000 or more, and lost. Apparently, they figured that having the original judge's son as an associate in their law firm would get them through appeals court. These attorneys had no qualms about submitting a perjurous affidavit by Shay during that proceeding and making a host of nuisance motions to their associate's father acting as the judge.

These people are not fit to walk in the unblemished record of what Tracy Thompson and Ryan Glanville have done for Scottville; but what about costs?  Let's look at the 2020 Budget:

In 2018, the 'civil' services supplied by Mika Meyers is $83,111, we also see that the additional legal fees for FOIA and criminal services (services that Thompson provides for Scottville in his agreement) push that amount over $106,000. Future budgets project $89,900 for those legal fees in the future, which at least $55,200 will be just the retainer for Mika Myers.

This fails to take into account other sections of the budget where the city attorney hides other fees he accrues for working with a city department on legal issues, here are a half dozen of those examples from recent meetings in 2019:

There are plenty more of these covert charges in 2019 which cannot easily be gauged from the city attorney part of the budget, as they show up as 'contractor' items in other budgets.

So granted, Ludington is about seven times more populous than Scottville, and could have more routine legal issues, does this justify having a retainer for Ludington's City Attorney that is almost fourteen times as much as Scottville's? When Scottville can pay all of its annual legal costs with a little over $10,000, why does it take over $100,000 to cover Ludington's affairs? How does the retainer almost double in just ten years for Mika Meyers' services, going from $2350 per month to $4600 per month?

All of this should be examined in depth and honestly when the Ludington City Council meets in a 'committee of the whole' to look at potentially changing their legal services provider on Thursday, January 23. Unfortunately, word has it that Tracy Thompson's law firm is not one of the contenders, but Mika Meyers is.

[Willy]

I wonder if Tracy and Laura ever sit around in the evening and wonder why so much of their taxes have to pay for a mediocre, at best, attorney who keeps loosing court battles with an X fire fighter. Actually the City Council should also be asking the same question. They should also be asking why it's necessary to even have to litigate these actions in court instead of finding a solution that doesn't cost the City a fortune in attorney fees. Of course the City Attorney can recognize a cash cow when he has lassoed one. He'll keep milking it until there are smarter people in charge of the City who will finally figure out the City attorney is picking their pockets. Another A1 investigative report X. I learn more from you in one article than I used to from an entire year's subscription of the LDN. Except of course the obituaries.

[Du Wright]

Great comparison, X. What I think is the worst is that I've heard that the attorneys from Grand Rapids can charge for travel time at the same rate as defense. Can you confirm that? It's not like the
City makes it easy to get these facts that citizens have a right to know. So if the attorney-sharks drive up here to defend in court for one hour, they can charge 3 or 4 hours for travel time, depending on traffic and detours. Wouldn't it be nice to drive your BMW from Grand Rapids to Ludington and back and get paid somewhere around $1000 or more just for the drive? And how much to they actually charge an hour?

These are horrendous sharks taking advantage of municipalities and taxpayers, and even more ignorant for a city council to let that happen. Get local defenders who better understand the law and can provide just counsel. I hope soon that city council will stop defending and justifying breaking OMA and FOIA laws! Citizens have a right to have the their city council abide by the law. At least John Shay who would never admit any wrong doing and blamed it all on Tom Rotta is gone. That's a big improvement in a civil government and a move toward better transparency and accountability.

[stump]

I think the Councils thought on the law suits is just like state grants for their frivolous projects , IT'S NOT THEIR MONEY

[Freedom Seeker]

I agree, Stump. The city council and its boards like DDA and city marina have not had to be accountable to the taxpayers. It's like free money, just spend, spend, spend, get drunk some more and have fun! Downtown is out of touch with locals who are breaking their piggy banks to pay years of water rate increases and more to come. And wait until the school tax bill comes due. And takjng care of erosion and flooding. Dealing with unsafe workplaces, and potholes so many you can't avoid them on some streets. As Kathy Winccewski said after seeing the new water rate consultant discuss how much water fees must be raised, "this is depressing." That may be the smartest thing she has ever said. Maybe she is listening to some of her constituents. But they keep voting on fee raises, and stupid, unnecessary projects like splashpad and james st plaza that cost us a lot in maintenance. When will they realize the money comes out of taxpayer's pockets?

[Du Wright]

So where was the competitive bidding notice in seeking a city attorney? The two bids that have come through (Wilson's and Alvarado's) are both working already for the city. Sounds like an in-house deal. And doesn't Councilor Henderson-Miller's husband work for Alvarado? Sounds like she shouldn't vote on the new contact. 

I wonder if Tracy Thompson is even aware that a bid is out?

[XLFD]

Some very perceptive questions.  Last summer, Jordan Miller (Brandy's wife) was hired by the County of Manistee as an assistant prosecutor and his Linked account indicates he severed his association with Alvarado Law.  Manistee is a long commute from downtown Ludington, prosecuting in itself is a tough task, so it wouldn't be a big surprise to see him change careers if the City were to pick his former law firm and he could be able to walk to work again, but it may look suspicious to those in the know.

The bidding process seemed unclear, I think it would have been most effective to contact all law firms and independents in the general neighborhood that were or might-consider-being a public attorney and check their credentials and proposals.  I would have liked to have asked Thompson whether he was considered or heard of the spot opening up, but didn't get the chance on Monday.

[Du Wright]

Thanks for that update, X.

[XLFD]

While looking for other things this morning, I stumbled upon the 11-25-19 minutes of the Finance/Personnel Committee and read that the city manager mentioned contacting Tracy Thompson about the position and TT was not interested.  He also claimed that the City of Scottville had also went with a RFP bidding process, but I have seen no evidence of that when the COS Commission voted unanimously to retain Thompson at the $4000 yearly retainer rate.

Reminds me of the word on the street back when they went from local attorney Roger Anderson to Gockerman, Wilson, Saylor & Hesslin PC back in 2008/9.  Thompson's firm was reportedly snubbed because of politics and animosity existing between those who ran the city and the firm.

[Freedom Seeker]

Very interesting.  Thanks again, XLFD for taking the time to sleuth the information that doesn't come before City Council?   So it looks like the "RFD" is a hand-selected "Request for Proposal?"  So the finance committee made those decisions (and presumably someone contacted Tracy Thompson by phone or email?) in their own little close-knit committee without bringing their decision before the council?  As a reward to Carlos Alvarado who provided Councilor Henderson-Miller's husband a job for a couple of years?  Who never once made an announcement that she might have a conflict of interest in voting on a FOIA decision or a quid-pro-quo RFP?  Or were there no FOIA decisions made by council during that time?  Just asking, if you ran across that?