City of Ludington Daily News: One Side to Every Story

[XLFD]

The City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) came out with the usual type of story it has become familiar with on the day after Ludington City Council meetings lately.  Usually, however, they try to misreport what I was saying or emphasize a minor point I might make out of context.  They did me a favor on September 11, 2012.  They ignored every single thing I said, even though I spoke for about ten minutes of this meeting which amounted to about a third of it.  COLDNews 9-11 LCC Recap

They emphasized my clothing as usual, and Fire Chief Funk's reaction to it in a couple of paragraphs.  Told the citizens that another FOIA appeal was denied in another, and spent three paragraphs talking about a victory of the City of Ludington over the presumed enemy of the people in a FOIA court case.  Nothing was said about what I said those ten minutes.  It must not have been too important to the COLDNews or the citizens.

                  I cross-examined John Shay for over two hours earlier this day and found out a bit about 'legal' FOIA charges

They are limited in providing the footage of such a meeting, but due to the miracle of the internet I can provide it here, along with the transcript of my initial speech (see 1:55 mark) and my speech in defense of my FOIA appeal (at 15:00).  If you want to see the City Officials gloating go to the 25:15 and celebrate with them in the joy of successfully twisting the law in their favor for now.

  

Opening Speech:  "

My name is Tom Rotta, my place is 137 E Dowland St.

It has been two weeks since I last addressed the council and asked City Manager John Shay to provide to the taxpayers of this city an itemized list of the $6500 his spokeswoman says I owe the City of Ludington for FOIA requests.  Put up or shut up.  I surely do not appreciate a third party spokeswoman, who is part of the panel of judges who will help decide yet another FOIA appeal today, announce at a public meeting that I am in arrears for thousands of dollars to the City, and am some kind of indigent deadbeat.  Why has asking for information, used for news articles investigating local topics of interest, become such an imposition for Ludington City Hall that they have to repeatedly publicly attack the requester of that information using slanderous misinformation and lies?  The corruption in my City is deep-rooted and needs to be addressed by opening up the public records for all to see the extent of it, by getting rid of those who are at the vanguard of the forces that suppress information, and by insisting our local newpaper to start acting like a watchdog for the people, instead of a guard dog for City Hall.

I was unprecedentedly restricted from coming to the City Hall or Police Station for 14 months by a quickly formulated and passed City policy called the Workplace Safety Policy ostensibly because I represented some sort of threat to someone I had never formally met or contacted before, but this was not the real reason.  The ban made it impossible for me to inspect FOIA documents without the express written permission of the same person who enforced the ban, who was the FOIA Coordinator-- unelected City Manager John Shay.  Guess how many times I was permitted to come into the City Hall to see records during that ban?  Zero.

Ludington City Hall was the place I needed to go to vote in elections, yet I was not given permission to come into City Hall to vote for myself last November, not to mention attend a candidates forum hosted by the City of Ludington Daily News.  In February, I still couldn't vote in the primaries because even with a state investigation into my allegation of voter disenfranchisement in November, I was still not able to get to my polling place because John Shay failed to give me permission.  With increasing pressure from outside sources, Shay finally reversed the policy in the spring of this year, but indicated that it could still be replaced on me.  The horrible thing is that this policy can be placed on anyone here in Ludington, and anyone can be restricted from any public place if the unelected City Manager, who refuses to even take a state-mandated oath of office, wants to do so.

I must thank Councilor Wanda Marrison for asking John Shay last meeting about the fee structure the City uses for determining how much to charge for FOIA requests.  Shay publicly announced in his reply:  "we follow the City's FOIA policy.  $.25 per page, if the total cost of the request exceeds $50 then we can also charge our labor to compile the information, examine the information to see if anything is exempt."

He misstates the policy, because he states that if the total cost of the reply exceeds $50 then he can charge for labor costs, but the policy says if the labor costs, just labor costs, exceed $50 then he can charge for those costs lawfully.  Then he says "If the cost is less than $50, then we cannot charge for labor."

That follows the City policy, but he has repeatedly charged for labor costs for requests with labor costs under $50, contrary to City, State and Federal law of FOIA.  Just during my 14 month ban, I had the following replies {get copies} to my requests violating this policy or our request to simply inspect records.  Including a March 7 2011 request to see the actual policy I was charged with.  John Shay's reply for this FOIA request asked for $31 of fees for labor.

Mayor Henderson has stated here this summer that John Shay is the most ethical man he knows.  The FOIA responses I am not illegally priced out of has shown him to be quite the reverse, and shown he has been very permissive of unethical and unlawful activities under his administration.  You are judged by your friends and your neighbors, Mayor."

Apparently there wasn't enough meat in that opening salvo, and apparently there was no fact I represented that the City of Ludington Daily News figured was important enough to pass along that rose to the level of public interest rather than my choice of T-shirt.  Or any fact that they wanted to contest as fiction.  I am still waiting for that $6500 price tag, John Shay, with valid charges unlike the ones that were brought forth in court.

Here was the appeal I made for my FOIA request, which was later refuted by City Attorney Dick Wilson by saying the City can refuse me to inspect the records because the City wanted to charge for scanning rather than have me come and scan myself.  He then said there was definitely some records between the City Attorney and the City's attorney that had the attorney-client privilege that fell in my request.  They didn't fall within my request.  There was nothing newsworthy in this speech either, other than it was denied.

"I am once again before you with an appeal of a ruling by the City Manager as to a FOIA request.  This request asked for records involving Joseph McAdam's lawsuit with the City.  This lawsuit involved the repeated tasering of a Ludington citizen on the streets of Ludington in 2009 by a Ludington policeman and County deputies, followed by the repeated tasering of the same man when he was handcuffed to a hospital bed at Memorial Medical Center.  According to the deposition of the Ludington cop, who is now a county deputy, and the others involved, the citizen's only 'crime' was to inobtrusively record a traffic stop involving his mother made by another Ludington cop and to not get back on his bed he was cuffed to at the hospital.  One has to wonder why the City of Ludington Daily News has never reported anything about this in the over three years its been out there.  The request was to inspect and or receive scans of: 

1)  Court-related documents (the Complaint, Summons, discovery, etc.) received by the City and/or its officials regarding the lawsuit brought against the City and/or its officials by the McAdam party (Sue?), which is slated to be a topic of discussion on Monday night in closed session.

2)  Court-related documents sent to the McAdam party from the City and/or its officials/attorneys in response to that suit, and any countersuit, if applicable.

3)  All communications in the City's possession regarding the dispute in question between the McAdam party and the City of Ludington occurring prior to the lawsuit being filed.

John Shay's response stated there would be two hours of scanning documents required for the request.  This is the first time he has requested a fee for scanning time, this is a questionable fee he can charge for, and since I asked to inspect with the option of using my scanner, this was an unnecessary charge, and not allowed by FOIA under the circumstances of my request.  He also did not choose the lowest paid employee capable of doing so.

He also stated that it would take him two hours to review and remove exempt material from those records, the only exemption he noted was the attorney-client privilege.  The court documents filed have no such privilege, they are viewable by all parties.  The communications I ask for in 3), are between opposing parties in a lawsuit, not confidential material between a person and his lawyer.

Being that there is no exemptions in the requested records, John Shay is asking me to pay him $63.64 per hour for two hours of him doing nothing.  Don't we taxpayers already do that? Once again, John Shay is wanting to conduct public extortion while doing his job.  Councilors, if you think that's unacceptable then vote accordingly.

The City has already spent a lot of its resources covering up the facts behind this lawsuit, even called a closed session to discuss a lawsuit that the City and its officials are not even a party to anymore at the last City Council meeting.  By all means, endorse this shroud of secrecy by affirming the FOIA Coordinator's ridiculous and illegal charging of fees adding up to $153.42 on this request alone.  I think it effectively illustrates how the City Manager with the City Council's approval often adapts the FOIA fee structure to suit the need to keep the public documents safe from viewing by the public, who owns those documents by law."

[Willy]

Eye

Unless you've been living in your mothers basement [is that where your making your comeback from] you should already know the answer to that question. The sinister deeds have already been laid bare and have been examined and talked about for years. I of course am speaking of the sinister deeds committed by City officials. You on the other hand seem to be insinuating that the lawsuit and Mr Rotta are connected to "sinister deeds". Why don't you explain your post in a clearer fashion so that readers are aware of exactly what you are talking about?

[AQUAMAN]

The old "eye" or I called it, Black EyE on Ludington wasn't much in the way of proofs in history of yesterdays, more like a sinister accomplice to the COL. However, maybe this is a different EyE? Time will tell.

[Eye On Ludington]

Aquaman, you called it Black EyE? thats so funny! what proofs? do you know? it will be a different eye. wait and see. your knowledge might expand. or maybe not. guaranteed not a new eye just to please you and your way of thinking. might be comments about you too. wait and see. the new eye you might enjoy. if you have an open mind. wait and see. life is good. full of fun. full of wonder. if you want to know then wait and see. lol.

[XLFD]

Thanks, Eye.  I wish you luck in your selfless endeavor.  Xamine away.

[AQUAMAN]

EyE, I do hope your grammar improves, and isn't as silly as your investigations might lend me to believe to come. When you finish a statement or sentence, you then insert a period at the end, not while rambling on, full of who knows. SEE?

[XLFD]

I didn't even know Eye's grammar was under the weather.  Hope she gets better; hope his/her sentences get longer. 

Short sentence fragments.  Get creepy.  Very quick.  You see.  Point made?  No?  What part.  You're not understanding?  Sad.

[Eye On Ludington]

I C grammar police R out! May-B 2 many p.e.r.i.o.d.s mighta BBQ'd AQ's IQ? Yes? No?

O W8! I C now! U care about M-EyE "grammar"! Well, TQ so much 4'yr intrest in m-EyE grammar's life! Grammar is good. Grappar good 2! U grammy good? U Grappy 2?

Investigations No! Speculations Yes! If U want 2 know then W8 and C! Please B patient! No hurry, no worry, EyE r'nt blurry, no need to scurry! U C?

G'neyeght all.