Just a little over 40 years ago, local attorney Carlos Alvarado received his first law degree after passing the Chilean bar exam.  About 18 years back, he received his Master of Laws degree from the University of Michigan.  Since 2008 he has ran law firms bearing his name as the major partner, finding great success last year by wresting the city attorney position in both Scottville and Ludington (sharing that responsibility with another firm for Ludington). 

 

As the lone lawyer representing the City of Scottville, City Attorney Carlos Alvarado (above ) has strayed into dangerous territory shortly after former attorney Tracy Thompson transitioned out.  Alvarado was part of an investigative committee which was given and exercised quite a few powers independent of the city commission's purview, as such it needed to follow the Open Meetings Act (OMA) whenever they met.  Yet, they never noticed the many meetings they claimed to have had, nor had they kept minutes of those meetings.  Alvarado admitted as much when he responded to a FOIA request for those public records from the local paper by saying those records did not exist.  

In 'virtual' closed sessions at city commission meetings, which followed afterwards, they violated the OMA again by not telling the public who was participating in the sessions, Alvarado would show he  violated the FOIA by not timely releasing the records until well after they took action on the records that had been totally non-exempt for over a month.  

Following another appealed FOIA request of a police accident report where 95% of the record should be fully exempt which came before the commission on March 15th, Alvarado counseled them to await deciding the issue for three more weeks after having responded by blocking 100% of the records.

The worst part about that meeting, however, was that at the the virtual event that day, the city commission violated the OMA once again by not allowing a member of the public (your humble correspondent) to make a comment at either the beginning or the end of the meeting.  Had this been an in-person meeting, what they did virtually was the equivalent of cutting off the microphone, gagging me, throwing a bag over me, and leading me out of the meeting-- just because I wanted to talk. 

Alvarado and other city officials have been contacted by both me and the local paper repeatedly without getting any answers as to why my video and audio feed was disabled.  Carlos Alvarado is leading the charge at Scottville City Hall against following the laws of our state, a bit of legal malpractice on his part.

Despite his Chilean heritage, which has no equivalent of our April Fools Day, I received a couple of E-mails from Alvarado on April 1st that shows he was definitely in the mood for joking around by issuing an incomplete FOIA response and a defense of his accident report denial that contained a blatant misrepresentation and fib.  Here are Carlos' jokes.

JOKE 1:  The Ludington Torch had made a FOIA request to inspect any communications between city officials and Arch Staffing prior to March 15th this year.  The company was hired to do a city manager search after the City of Scottville cut ties with the former City Manager Courtney Magaluk for very lame reasons (keep an eye open for a lawsuit by Magaluk for the sloppy way it was handled, with Alvarado overseeing the sloppiness).  The commissioner's packet for that meeting showed Commissioner Rob Alway had received a letter from Arch's Carla Hansen on 2-13-21 (p. 32-33)

and Acting City Manager Matt Murphy had received a letter from Carla on March 7th (p. 31):

Both referenced other communications, notably a Staffing Proposal that would be a written public record that should be responsive to my request, as should the two letters to Alway and Murphy from Hansen.  This was all I got, an E-mail on February 13 from Hansen to Alway; neither of the two letters above, nor a staffing proposal that was passed between them.  

Not providing all records compliant to a FOIA request can be a big deal when their is plenty of proof that the FOIA Coordinator I sent this request to (Murphy) and the city attorney knew full well there were other records compliant.  In Scottville they are getting so used to this bullshit from their city officials that it likely won't cause a noticeable ripple because they have no conscientious city officials to police themselves and the citizens have been reduced to accepting that fact and their inability to do anything themselves as their fate.  Great joke, Carlos, but your second one was pretty good too.

JOKE 2 (and 3):  Barrister Alvarado in a memorandum to the commission for the April 5th meeting (p. 20) defends his denial of the aforementioned accident report by summarizing my appeal argument by saying I used only the rationale:  "the response failed to state any proper exemption."  My rationale was quite extensive, here was the main arguments that would win the day in any fair court: 

The Michigan Supreme Court has held that “a generic determination that the release of documents would interfere with law enforcement proceedings is not sufficient to sustain an exemption.” King v Oakland Co Prosecutor, 303 Mich App 222, 226-227; 842 NW2d 403 (2013), citing Evening News Ass’n v Troy, 417 Mich 481, 486; 339 NW2d 421(1983). A public body claiming exemption under the statute must establish both that an investigation was open and ongoing, and that disclosure of the documents would have interfered with law enforcement proceedings. See King, 303 Mich App at 231-232. In Evening News, 417 Mich at 503, the Supreme Court set forth a clear set of rules concerning the application of the law-enforcement-proceedings exemption:

1. The burden of proof is on the party claiming exemption from disclosure.
2. Exemptions must be interpreted narrowly.
3. The public body shall separate the exempt and nonexempt material and make the nonexempt material available for examination and copying.
4. Detailed affidavits describing the matters withheld must be supplied by the agency.
5. Justification of exemption must be more than “conclusory,” i.e., simple repetition of statutory language. A bill of particulars is in order. Justification must indicate factually how a particular document, or category of documents, interferes with law enforcement proceedings.
6. The mere showing of a direct relationship between records sought and an investigation is inadequate.

The response made is fully conclusory, and falls far short of these rules, particularly when one considers the non-exempt nature of the vast majority of a traffic incident report; after all, police are required to fill out UD-10 forms for each accident ASAP and file them with the MSP . When Mayor Joe Baxter drove his car into the gulley on a super-drunk spree, Commissioner Rob Alway was resolute in having the MSP release their report and investigation , which they did without claiming exemptions that don't apply.

But his misrepresentation of my argument wasn't Alvarado's best joke in this memorandum, where he defends his complete denial by saying the investigation into the accident was still open, an argument that has no merit in any case, that's why you won't find any legal citation in his blather, nor does any statute cited work in his favor.  He ends with a recommendation:  to dismiss the appeal as moot since he redacted and released the appeal to me on Friday, April 2nd:

But just like I didn't get to speak on March 15th, I didn't receive anything from Carlos Alvarado on April 2nd in my Email inbox.  Or April 3rd or 4th.  As you can see my inbox has nothing except a note from me at 12:03 this morning (April 5th) since Carlos' Emails on April Fools Day:

One could laugh at these April Fools Day jokes, or one could look at them as a critical failure to release requested public records by a city attorney in the first issue, and then an outright misrepresentation of my arguments and his response in the second.  When a city like Scottville allows their city attorney to violate the laws repeatedly and then lie about his actions and his opposition in a commission 'courtroom', citizens whose resources and trusts are squandered should not be laughing.

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One has to wonder why Mr. Alvarado is mixed up in this mess at Scottville City Hall. I doubt that he needs the money after being in business for as long as he has. Is he trying to protect friends at City Hall? He certainly isn't stupid, after all he has a Masters degree regarding the law. Why would he let his name and reputation come into question by involving himself?

And now the citizens of Scottville are being forced to foot the bill for finding a new City Manager. Something that the Commissioners should be doing on their own. In a town the size of Scottville it's not necessary to hire a super star, just someone who is competent and trustworthy. As of now that seems to be something that is seriously lacking at City Hall.

I theorize that Mr. Alvarado is adapting to an environment in Scottville by doing what he must to survive.  Consider, Mr. Alvarado has been serving as the FOIA Coordinator for the city of Ludington since 2016, there have been several instances where he has denied FOIA requests under the dictates of John Shay, Steve Brock, and an antagonistic city council when there was no reason to do so.  In the ascent of Mitch Foster and a city council with Angela Serna thereon, the only problem I have had with FOIA with the COL has been in getting the minutes of two closed sessions that were held in violation of the OMA (where Foster and the other CA Ross Hammersley were willing to compromise), but Alvarado fell in line with a council that did not want them released, and had me take it to court.

Alvarado knows enough to figure out who butters his bread, which appears to be why he chooses to help the Scottville commission and the officers in charge in their odd pursuits for self-empowerment and self-enrichment, rather than help officers succeed in their public duties and transparency.  His fidelity to law is overwhelmed by his fidelity to succeeding in local politics and his career.  

Do not be surprised if the city manager search effectively fails (and I am officially blamed for the failure), and the Scottville commission chooses Matt Murphy as the next city manager.  As planned.

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