City of Ludington Closes Door On Alleged Open Meeting Act Violations

[XLFD]

On the first of this month, I introduced the problem to the loyal viewers of the Ludington Torch in the thread of "O Brother..." while getting together with the transparency-friendly law firm, Outside Legal Counsel around the same time.  By the fifth, the lawsuit was filed in the circuit court, and of course served on the City.  At the end of the week on the ninth, the Mason County Press, picked up on the story, and analyzed it on the eleventh.

On the day of the twelfth, the local radio stations  had presented the particulars, along with the Muskegon Chronicle on  M-Live, before the Ludington City Council met on the twelfth night (not a Shakespearean reference), and amended their agenda to reflect that they were going into closed session to discuss the most recent lawsuit initiated because of their faulty governance.  They did not use this terminology, the City Attorney saw to it that they went into the closed session properly by actually stating a legitimate reason to go into closed session, unlike they did recently in this meeting at the 31:30 point.

For the record, the two reasons for going into closed sessions, sections 8e and 8h of the OMA, claimed by the City Attorney are legit, but somewhat manufactured to avoid talking about the City's culpability in an open session.

For 8e, one could claim there is no "detrimental financial effect on the litigating or settlement position" since the lawsuit is strictly seeking injunctive relief, seeking only court costs and lawyer fees.  As a citizen, one should want the conversation public.

For 8h, Attorney Wilson created a document that day in his role as counsel for city officials, thus making the document "exempt from discussion or disclosure by state or federal statute" because of attorney-client privilege.  This allowed the City Attorney to call a closed session, under the OMA rules.  Any unscrupulous attorney wanting to close the discussion of a topic to the public can do this at any time.

The day after, the radio stations, the MCP and  M-Live  did a follow up on the City Council's non-response to the suit, limiting the comments to City Attorney issuing a statement that he was not going to comment on the merits, or the lack of merits, to the claims.

Come the fourteenth, the City of Ludington Daily News finally weighed in, with the usual disregard of the citizen's rights for open government, written almost verbatim from the stories by M-Live, with the exception that he had a direct quote from one of our City's contracted seven City Attorneys at the end.

Finally, today I happened to catch a Councilor Kaye Holman interview on WMOM just after 9 AM.  She was asked by news director Mike Tanis about this lawsuit, and the normally talk-your-ear-off Kaye's reply was that she needed to "button her lip" about the whole thing.

The Michigan OMA/FOIA Handbook  says "the basic intent of the Open Meetings Act is to strengthen the right of all Michigan citizens to know what goes on in government by requiring public bodies to conduct nearly all business at open meetings".

The City's reply has been to close the doors on any public discussion of whether they violated the OMA.  This should surprise nobody who has been paying attention, but should surprise anybody that expects their government to act within the law and act within the boundaries of law.  Ludington City Hall continues to be without...

[Marty Redman]

Did you notice the COL Daily News didn't comment on the Closed meeting to discuss the open meetings violation?  Have they even contacted you about this, X?

[XLFD]

The COLDNews did report on Tuesday that the previous night the City Council:  "met in closed session to discuss a lawsuit filed against the city alleging the council violated the Open Meetings Act. The council did not take action following the closed session.".

As of this point, no communication between any City operative and myself has happened.  But the City of Ludington has silently passed the baton from the City Attorney firm to the City's risk management firm and their main lawyer, Allen Vander Laan for a resolution to this case.  Did they do so openly?  Are you kidding me?