'Breaking a Legacy Park

[XLFD]

At noon today, the City of Ludington (COL) broke ground for the new Legacy Park, which apparently has gotten a $2.1 million grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) to proceed with their plans.  The COL apparently found $210,000 secreted somewhere in their Downtown Development Authority (DDA) to match the grant, remarkable in that their prior budgets showed no such savings over the last ten years as they claim there to be.  The process to get this grant had its share of unanswered questions and fraud, from the 2018 TIF Plan to the MEDC grant application.

The event took place in what is currently named the James Street Plaza and what will eventually be transformed into Legacy Park.  With the mayor and a representative of the main contractors wielding shovels, they dug into the ground which formerly used to be where their small stage was.  

The groundbreaking was noticed with an alert that there may be a quorum of city councilors who may attend through invitation (thus running the risk of being a public meeting of the group if they conferred at all), but only two showed up:  Kathy Winczewski and Brandy Miller.  I counted five (out of 13) DDA members present so there was no issue that this could be considered a meeting.  

The usual supporting cast was present, with Jen Tooman, the DDA's marketing person, handling the camera (a mounted cellphone), and Heather Tykoski, the community development director, handling the emcee duties along with the mayor.  

Fortunately, this wasn't an affair where one city official praised one or more other city officials ad nauseum, though there was some of that in the brief ceremony.   The majority of the groundbreaking involved an abbreviated ritual by an authentic native American blessing the project by invoking the spirits of the four winds.  He was on the east portion of that journey when photographed:

This was followed by the usual group picture of those who made and will make this $2.4 million project possible.

Ms. Tykoski, you will notice, is the only one not wearing a mask in the picture (other than the contractor's representative who later donned one), I'm sure she didn't want the camera to miss the satisfaction on her face of getting this costly project's grant when many downtown businesses lost so much money this summer due to being closed down by the very state government giving away all of this money for 'placemaking' an area which is already a place.  

Video of the event was added to the DDA's Facebook page and is shown below:

[XLFD]

Can her claim be any clearer than this (see it here)?  Yet the city manager is on record saying EGLE never issued a permit.  State says she's a liar, they should know she's a pathological liar from all the fraud from the past, but usually they just don't care. 

Heather Tykoski joins a long list of city officials who in the last dozen years have poisoned our waters and allowed the damage to be unmitigated.  She needs a dishonorable discharge and criminal charges if the EGLE is correct. 

So let's waste $2.5 million on an arch and canopy arrangement in the downtown...

[Freedom Seeker]

OH my Ancestral gods! I missed that in the 9 & 10 News. Thanks for keeping up on so much, X.  Someone she talked to gave her verbal approval to dump city water into the PM Lake???  I don't think so unless they are doing their job as wrong as our own.  Maybe she hears what she wants to hear.  I hope the city manager is honest about it.

I thought the arch was off the plan "due to cost."  Like they are being so conservative.  Not sure where I read that.

[XLFD]

The FOIA response on this is due tomorrow, that is, the one sent to the COL for discharge permit/permission records for the splash pad.  This dishonesty is a very serious issue, and could have cost her millions if she wasn't representing the City of Ludington.  Oops, she's on the Splash Pad Committee too-- which they've said all along is a private entity, even though they were making final decisions on a public project so they wouldn't get charged with Open Meetings Act violations.  

I wonder what they'll claim now.  FS, I know you're a strong researcher like myself, if you have the time feel free to look at the State's and City's penalties for unlawful discharges.  I don't want to reveal too much on this forum just yet.

[Freedom Seeker]

Thanks for the accolades X. Will see what I can find. Tomorrow is Sunday, so maybe Monday you can post the results?

[XLFD]

I got something planned for tomorrow already, then I have to make a comment on Monday or two.  Had a little mischievous fun tonight.  

[Willy]

Well stated LL