Collusion/Corruption Between City of Ludington and 51st Circuit Court Brought to the Michigan Appeals Court Attention

[XLFD]

The last time the Ludington Torch reported on the FOIA lawsuit against the City of Ludington which was started in 2011 by plaintiffs Toni Swiger and Tom Rotta, we noted that the Michigan Appeals Court found that they had prevailed in the lawsuit, contrary to our local 51st Circuit Court's determination, and thus were entitled to all the costs for prosecuting the affair (as noted in the last entry here).  The Appeals Court remanded (sent it back) to the 51st Circuit Court to determine all those costs. 

This should have been easy enough to do since they accrued no attorney fees, had court costs of filing and making motions as part of the record, and had only a couple of hundred dollars of extra expenses involving publication, ordering necessary transcripts, service fees, etc. of a very reasonable nature.  But the City Attorneys would not let it end there.  They only wanted to pay for the original filing fee and nothing else.  

 

The acting judge (a poor actor indeed) without input from the plaintiffs other than their Bill of Costs, ordered only court fees only to be repaid, in defiance of the order from the Appeals Court.  He would not even consider the court costs for appealing his faulty decision that left plaintiffs in the lurch for hundreds of dollars for having their right to timely view public records taken from them by the City of Ludington. 

 

But let's not ruin the ending of the story that still remains unfinished.  Swiger and Rotta have re-appealed to the Michigan Appeals Court in an effort to get the law enforced and get the money due to them-- even when the City of Ludington and our local circuit court don't want to.  They timely filed for appealing Judge Wickens latest ruling (you may recognize him as the judge who let policeman's son Eric Knysz skate through the legal system unharmed before he killed Trooper Paul Butterfield) this spring and just last week filed our legal brief in support of our assertions. 

 

In this new appeal, we developed the "Statement of Facts" to include a more detailed account of the events performed by both the City of Ludington and the 51st Circuit Court to show how they went out of their way to illegally and/or unethically strip the plaintiffs/appellants of their rights under FOIA.  This was to bolster one of our two arguments to remand the case to an alternate court for cost determination due to the past actions of the lower court.  The other argument was to remind the court that the judge's orders on remand did not follow their original instructions or the law.

 

This is the full statement of facts presented to the court printed herein, and we invite the other side to dispute any of these facts here before they do so formally in their own brief, surely to be delivered to us soon.  I apologize for the length of the piece beforehand, but if you are interested in local events it should be a good read for you; particularly if you are interested in the circuit court race to the north of us where Attorney George Saylor is running for judge versus Attorney David Thompson. 

 

Saylor and his firm made quite a bit of money off of defending the City of Ludington, over $20,000 in attorney fees alone (soon to be itemized here on the Torch) without ever formally being nominated for the task.  The non-professionalism and complicity-for-corruption he shown throughout was unworthy of an attorney, let alone a judicial candidate.  This statement barely touches upon the range of that behavior, and most of the material herein is backed up by previous Ludington Torch articles on the drawn-out sordid affair.  Feel free to use the Torch archives to look anything up if you have questions, or submit any questions or comments you have in the comments.  We will provide the arguments with another thread.

 

                                          STATEMENT OF FACTS

 

In September 2011, Plaintiff/Appellant SWIGER made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on behalf of Plaintiff/Appellant ROTTA for records concerning business dealings between the CITY OF LUDINGTON (COL) and a city official NICK TYKOSKI (and his company).

 

SWIGER was acting on behalf of ROTTA for FOIA requests due to the COL governing body having passed a Workplace Safety Policy (WSP) that allowed the CITY MANAGER to ban ROTTA from being on Ludington City Hall and Ludington Police Department property, which the CITY MANAGER utilized the day after the WSP was enacted into law.  

ROTTA could not step foot in those two public facilities without expressed written permission of the CITY MANAGER, otherwise he could be charged with a misdemeanor of trespassing.  The COL's expressed rationale for enacting the WSP on ROTTA was publicly cited to be because unnamed employees felt threatened and intimidated by him, but cited no incident or behavior as to why these feelings would be existent, nor was ROTTA alleged to have done anything illegal. 

An internet article written by ROTTA in early February 2011 displaying records showing that city official NICK TYKOSKI had directly benefited from his COL position to get a $150,000 contract with the COL without this being noted in any official minutes and committing multiple violations of the standards of conduct for public officials seems to have been the impetus for the action, as other FOIA requests subsequently made seem to indicate. 

Both the CITY MANAGER and TYKOSKI's fiancé, the COL Community Development Director, were both officially involved in implementing the WSP and in the creating of the shadow contract with TYKOSKI.

 

The WSP had the effect of keeping ROTTA from inspecting public records at those public facilities, a right which he had used on many occasions prior, and made him utilize SWIGER as a proxy for all FOIA requests after the WSP was enacted. 

THE WSP also had the effect of keeping ROTTA from attending open public meetings and even from voting in two elections (the city hall was his voting place).  ROTTA did sue the CITY MANAGER and the COL in Federal Court over the implications on ROTTA's civil rights, and settled out of court in 2013, after arbitration, for $15,000. 

The CITY MANAGER's response to the FOIA request did not grant the records, deny the records, do a combination of both, or extend the time.  Appellants sent a second E-mail to note that the reply wasn't consistent with MCL 15.240(2), and requested some way to get the records.  The CITY MANAGER's second response once again gave no way to inspect or receive copies of the records.  Appellant's contacted the LUDINGTON CITY COUNCIL (LCC) to administratively appeal the constructive denial.  It was put on the agenda for the next meeting of the LCC. 

Due to the WSP, Appellant ROTTA could not go to the meeting at city hall, the CITY MANAGER denied him the ability to attend the meeting by not responding to ROTTA's requests to attend.   Appellant SWIGER is learning disabled, knows little of the FOIA, and was afraid to attend for fear of retribution akin to what was done with ROTTA.  At the beginning of the meeting, the FOIA appeal was removed from the agenda by the mayor and the issue was never discussed, effectively denying the administrative appeal. 

In September of 2011, TYKOSKI was running for city council, and besides the records shown in the February 2011 internet article by ROTTA, there were records in ROTTA's possession that indicated further business dealings existed between the COL and TYKOSKI, where the likelihood of TYKOSKI benefiting from his public office seemed probable. 

Timely response to the initial request (which would finally be delivered in February 2012 after the COL tried to pass a false record set in a motion to the court) would have shown some very incriminating records as to the legal and ethical conduct of candidate TYKOSKI in getting a large amount of money from the COL, without benefit of any written contract, with many records signed by his fiancé and the CITY MANAGER. 

On October 12, 2011, Appellants (plaintiffs) filed summons and complaint with the 51st CIRCUIT COURT (51stCC) and filed return of service two days later, their first action in Circuit Court, where they were on the understanding that the court would serve notice to appear of the hearing to the COL after conversing with 51stCC staff.  After learning it was plaintiff’s responsibility to do so, they sent notice to appear on November 4, 2011. 

 

The law firm Gockerman, Wilson, Saylor & Hesslin  (GWSH) came forth on November 9, by an appearance notification by Attorney WILSON.  The firm GWSH also served as the City Attorney for the COL, as a private contractor.  The City Attorney Agreement in force at the time did not automatically allow GWSH to defend the city in civil actions. 

 

Atty. WILSON later admitted the city's municipal insurance provider would provide such services against civil suits without need of council approval.  The COL council in an open meeting never assigned the GWSH firm to defend them in this case, this action was apparently initiated between the COL CITY MANAGER and the CITY ATTORNEY law firm. 

Unbeknownst to the other side, GWSH had a significant attorney on their firm, Craig COOPER, the son of the acting Judge Richard COOPER.  His name was on the letterhead sent to the court when the law firm came forth to say it represented the COL and he was an active associate in the firm.

 

This filial relationship  was not immediately disclosed by anyone from GWSH, Judge COOPER, or the 51stCC Administration, all who must have been aware of the impropriety of the son effectively representing a client in front of his father without the knowledge and approval of the other party. 

A letter to the plaintiffs from Judge COOPER on November 14 would not say anything regarding this relationship but notified there would likely be a countersuit filed due to some ex-parte communications he had received from GWSH (his son's law firm).  It would have been proper to notify plaintiffs of the relationship at that time before any decision by Judge COOPER. 

This oversight by the judge lasted for four months, when Judge COOPER would finally announce it at the first formal hearing.  The 51stCC Administrator and all attorneys from GWSH never indicated this relationship, even though a countersuit, answer, amended answer, affirmative defenses, witness lists, request to admits, and eight motions were filed by GWSH and handled by the 51stCC Administrator and Judge COOPER in that time period. 

 

The counterclaim filed by the GWSH, filed against a claim for the right to inspect public records, was allowed to be tried together by Judge COOPER, the father of one of the attorneys.  Judge COOPER did have the power to separate the trials, the counterclaim being based on sidereal issues unconcerned with the original claim, looking for civil penalties and debts on past FOIA activity.

  

By the time arguments for this counterclaim was heard by the court, under a different judge, the COL would only be seeking roughly $700 in damages from about ten prior FOIA requests.   

The original counterclaim filed was for nearly $5000 and alleged criminal activities performed by plaintiffs in making FOIA requests.  Many of the COL's motions asked for penalties on plaintiffs for alleged withholding of information in discovery, even though plaintiffs were cooperative.  The plaintiffs had filed a Motion to Quash a subpoena for SWIGER's deposition, which was never acted on by Judge COOPER. 

When Judge COOPER was disqualified, the counterclaim showed itself to be something better prosecuted in the district court, when the COL trimmed the unmerited criminal allegations against the plaintiffs, and cut the debt owed by the plaintiffs for previous FOIAs by about $4000.  These could be best called debts which the COL invented when they were sued and noticed their legal team's father was going to be judge.

  

Among the $4000 in redacted charges were two charges adding up to nearly half of that for a request and its amended request for the estimated charge of about eighty hours of the COL's Building Inspector's wages to fulfill in directly assisting plaintiff ROTTA to assess the records. 

This was rather steep considering that the request was to inspect several years of the Building Inspector's annual reports to the city council.  This request(s) was abandoned due to the stiff charge and the building inspector's time was never used or charged to ROTTA until the COL was sued.  The COL wanted to charge the plaintiffs this however, when the judge's son was on their legal team.

 

Plaintiffs had paid in full for every FOIA request they had had received from the COL, except for one time when the COL created 24 pages of superfluous records from a computer database that technically did not fulfill the request.  The $700 that defendant COL received judgment for eventually in the 51stCC much later, were requests that plaintiffs similarly abandoned after receiving responses that had unexpectedly large price tags which seemed to them to defy the fee structure of the FOIA. 

The COL argued that they had still incurred costs in trying to fulfill the requests successfully in the 51stCC, and plaintiffs by dint of the court order, paid that off.  Plaintiffs have yet to this day to receive the nine FOIA requests even after that payment in full.

In a FOIA proceeding for disclosure, plaintiffs cannot utilize discovery because they cannot name individual officers of the public body without fear of contempt.  In the counterclaim allowed by the improper court, the COL's City Attorney were able to send interrogatories, requests for production, requests to admit, and subpoenas for depositions, and utilized that liberally against both plaintiffs requiring a lot of time to reply to the invasive discovery for what would amount to the COL trying to collect $700 in debt. 

As stated a Motion to Quash subpoena for deposition for SWIGER was timely filed by plaintiffs (and not acted on by the court) claiming among other things that the subpoena was not filed timely, she subsequently did not appear at the deposition.  Plaintiff ROTTA appeared at the deposition even with the defects in the subpoena, was interviewed by CITY ATTORNEY SAYLOR for 160 minutes without any breaks offered, over topics that were already either part of the record or immaterial to their counterclaim.   He was roundly threatening legal repercussions (and later filed a motion) for SWIGER's non-appearance even though the law regarding motions to quash said otherwise.

During that interview, SAYLOR's partner in the firm, CITY ATTORNEY WILSON, misdirected an E-mail to Plaintiff ROTTA.  It isn't clear whether this E-mail was directed to another of their law partners or to someone from the COL.  It said:  

"BTW, George says Ms. Swiger apparently didn’t show up for her dep this morning.  He’s not back yet, so I presume Rotta did appear and is still being grilled.  George’s last words on leaving this morning was that he wanted to make someone cry before the day was over!" 

Atty. SAYLOR would later claim in his next filing that the reference made by his partner was referencing a running joke between the two regarding SAYLOR's very first deposition.  The intended recipient of the E-mail was never disclosed.  In that same filing, SAYLOR worked his argument in a brief for summary disposition around a false affidavit supplied by the COL CITY MANAGER.

  

In the brief, they argued that the records had already been supplied by the COL, and included as proof what the CITY MANAGER said was every record that fulfilled my request.  Each of these records had been supplied to the plaintiffs before in one former request which plaintiffs paid $2.75 for. 

Atty. SAYLOR said the CITY MANAGER's FOIA responses were therefore  proper, and the plaintiffs were wasting everyone's time in trying to get records they already received.  They attempted to explain why this was where the misunderstandings came from, and said that plaintiffs' complaint was now a moot point, and should be dismissed from consideration. 

However, only two of the eleven records were responsive to the request.  Fortunately for the truth, plaintiffs had in their possession other summary records which pointed to quite a few other invoices, receipts, etc. that were applicable, and sent a FOIA request to the COL after this brief specifically for each of those records. 

These records were eventually compiled for plaintiffs with apologies by CITY ATTORNEY SAYLOR for the CITY MANAGER’s mistake/oversight.  Most of these two dozen new records featured the COL CITY MANAGER's initials on them, TYKOSKI's fiancé's initials (the COL Community Development Director (CDD)) and invoices from TYKOSKI's company for over $10,000 that were paid with by $10,000 or less increments, illustrating an attempt to avoid the COL minimum level at which to avoid working with contracts. 

This spoiled the arguments of the first brief.  The arguments were reconfigured with the new facts in an amended brief, and CITY ATTORNEY SAYLOR  told plaintiffs the false affidavit supplied in the first brief was an oversight.  He didn't elaborate on the implications it had for their established defenses and assertions that were already part of the record, and now completely fictitious. 

Again, they refused to admit they had not worked in good faith toward getting the original records to plaintiffs, and refused any recognition of the plaintiffs' right to receive reimbursement for court costs and disbursements for having to take the appeal to court to inspect the records, saying it was now a moot point due to their disclosure of the records, albeit after the false records and rationales they attempted to pass off as a legitimate response. 

In the plaintiffs' briefs for summary disposition, they sought court costs, expenses, and punitive damages for the COL's actions.  The briefs discussed what transpired throughout the process, concerning and highlighting the unprofessional actions of the COL and their CITY ATTORNEYS. 

When they arrived at the hearing for summary disposition on March 7, over four months, after having formally come forth, Judge COOPER disclosed his paternal relationship to the COL's attorney who shared his last name.  Since the GWSH law firm also served as Ludington City Attorney, his son also was an employee of the COL, the defendants. 

 

Up to this point, plaintiffs had no idea of this relationship, but were given the opportunity at that hearing to consider disqualification of Judge COOPER because of this long-standing appearance of impropriety.  Plaintiffs decided to disqualify the judge, and were told by the court that if parties did not settle amongst themselves in a week, they would enter an order of disqualification, as noted in the docket. 

 

COL Attorney SAYLOR would not negotiate at all on paying plaintiff's court costs and expenses (disbursements) nor formally admit any wrongdoing by the COL or its agents, and still wanted money for a host of FOIA requests that were never fulfilled.  Plaintiff ROTTA contacted the 51stCC administrator twice in the next week and a half to first let them know there would be no settling, then secondly to ask where and when the order of disqualification would be entered. 

They were less than helpful in answering these questions, and so two weeks after the hearing, plaintiffs filed their own motion for disqualification in the timely manner suggested by Michigan court rules suggesting a different court to settle the problem.  At the same time they sent a request for investigation into the 51stCC Administrator and Judge COOPER to the Judicial Tenure Commission (JTC) concerning the various irregularities we had encountered.  

The docket indicates that the plaintiff's motion was never responded to, an order of disqualification was never drawn up by the 51stCC, and that the case was assigned to neighboring Lake County's 51stCC Judge Mark Wickens by the 51stCC Administrator.  It will be re-noted that the 51stCC and Judge COOPER was in the midst of an active JTC investigation during the summer of 2012 originated by plaintiffs.  

On May 21, 2012 a formal hearing was held in front of Judge WICKENS with plaintiffs and COL Attorney SAYLOR present.  After listening to both parties, replacement Judge WICKENS decided that the plaintiffs complaint for document disclosure was a moot point now that they had them, and otherwise ignored any consideration of awarding court costs and disbursements.  Nor did the court comment on any of the problems as presented here regarding false affidavits, long-term appearances of impropriety, etc.

 

The court did consider the COL countersuit's request for past FOIA fees on requests that plaintiffs abandoned when given responses offering unreasonably high and unlawful fees for and never received.  The table supplied to the court by the COL's CITY MANAGER in two different briefs had these costs nearing $5000. 

They would drop around $4000 of these fees at the beginning of the next hearing which was scheduled to strictly go over the amount of money owed to the COL by plaintiffs for making FOIA requests that were never fulfilled.  The COL CITY MANAGER had previously swore in an affidavit that the larger amount of fees were legit and proper, much like he swore to the accuracy of his initial FOIA response in February, the difference was never questioned by Judge WICKENS. 

A September 12, 2012 hearing before Judge WICKENS with the same parties including the COL CITY MANAGER started with COL Attorney SAYLOR handing several papers to plaintiffs that they had seen for the very first time, even though the COL adjourned the trial for two months from a scheduled July hearing. 

Plaintiff ROTTA tried to bring up the original complaint (so as to qualify for court costs and disbursements for prevailing) but Judge Wickens informed him that that part of the trial was already decided and was a moot point. 

The defendants illustrated one request where the COL CITY MANAGER provided two dozen documents to Plaintiff ROTTA and was not reimbursed (previously discussed), precisely because it was definitely not responsive to his request, and the request was for inspection or computer files, not printouts of computer records one month at a time. 

 

After establishing this one request as having been prepared and not paid for by the plaintiff, the COL team of CITY MANAGER and CITY ATTORNEY went through the time and effort expended in responding to plaintiffs' frequent (less than one a week on average, and typically very specific) FOIA requests. 

A simple request made in 2011 for inspection of receipts of budgeted beach safety purchases made in the spring of 2011, had the COL CITY MANAGER asking for around $100 for a half of day of work done by the city clerk, was representative of these charges. 

 

The COL CITY MANAGER has also tried to charge just under $100 for records that didn't exist, simply because of the labor involved in making that determination, apparently using the rationale that the citizens needed to pay for the COL’s poor record keeping practices. 

Afterwards, Plaintiff ROTTA cross-examined the COL CITY MANAGER, using the memory of these FOIA requests/responses since he had only heard about the COL seeking money for them at the start of the day, and established that for each of the nine FOIA requests discussed beyond the first, the plaintiffs never received or inspected any records. 

 

The CITY MANAGER related these were abandoned requests that the COL expended time and resources in trying to fulfill; but each of the CITY MANAGER's responses to these requests were all questioned by plaintiffs as regarded the fees or format.  These concerns were ignored by the CITY MANAGER, and until the COL advanced their original table showing thousands of dollars of debts owed in their countersuit, were never deemed to be owed by the plaintiffs to the COL. 

There was no record of any past debt owed to the COL or any attempt to collect past debt before they filed the counterclaim, a time more than two years after some of the plaintiffs' requests in question. 

Judge WICKENS deemed almost all of the debts as valid, only allowing some discounts due to the CITY MANAGER revoking plaintiff SWIGER's affidavit of indigency during the court proceedings improperly, and filed final judgment on October 8, 2012.  Both plaintiffs subsequently paid the order to the COL for the time and resources they used to fulfill the requests, yet plaintiffs have yet to see the requests they have paid for (even though many are not of use due to the elapsed time involved). 

Plaintiffs became appellants as they utilized this court in a timely manner shortly thereafter.  This court found on October 27, 2013 that appellants/plaintiffs were entitled to actual costs, but denied their request for a reassessment of the COL's charges, punitive damages, and sanctions. 

CITY ATTORNEY SAYLOR immediately sent a letter and then a check for $150 over to plaintiffs under the understanding that they sign a paper stating that the COL would be paid in full for 'court costs', as per the ruling.  It was ignored. 

The 51stCC received the file back from the Court of Appeals on December 12, 2012, yet never sent a notice of this fact until plaintiff ROTTA made an issue about it, the administrator finally sending that notice on February 11, 2014.  To plaintiffs’ knowledge of court rules, the court was duty-bound to send such notice immediately and withheld action until such time it was confirmed. 

In the meantime, on January 15, 2014 Judge Wickens sent a letter in response to my January 10th letter formally requesting confirmation from the 51stCC that they had received the file back.  The judge's letter never indicated the court had the file back for over a month, but encouraged the parties to settle.  Plaintiff ROTTA gave the COL a Bill of Costs on February 24 delineating costs and disbursements for circuit court and appeals court. 

The COL replied in March formally through its attorney that they were only responsible for the initial court filing fee, $150.  Within two weeks, and with my proposed bill of costs in the record but no other input, the court made a determination for $210, the $150 plus $20 for each of three motions filed. 

The court ignored publishing fees, service fees, transcript fees, mileage fees, postage fees, and the costs of filing in the appeals court, all legal costs and disbursements burdened by the plaintiffs in getting a positive result from this court.  

In a strange twist on procedure, the 51stCC issued checks in the amount of $210 to the plaintiffs on the same day of that order, to put the order in effect.  But the order and the instructions of this court in its ruling, and Judge WICKENS in his order, was for the COL to pay for the court costs, not for the costs to be refunded by the court.  This would only make sense if the 51stCC felt that it was somehow legally attached with the COL, a situation which plaintiffs would not find too hard to believe from their experience. 

Plaintiffs timely filed a motion to alter or amend the judgment in order to address the approximately $700 extra in reasonable disbursements listed therein, explicitly asking for a rationale as to why the court costs and disbursements for appeals court were denied, when plaintiffs had got a much favorable result (i.e. they prevailed and were entitles to all actual costs, rather than getting the moot point argument and a severe debt after the COL unlawfully withheld records from them and then submitted false affidavits covering the unethical actions of its officials). 

 

It shall be noted that Judge Wickens in his final order misstates that the plaintiffs have again refused to serve the pleading upon the other party's attorney of record.  Judge Wickens has the belief that service sent to the Ludington City Attorney via his office at the Ludington City Hall is not properly served, but such service is allowed by court rules. 

He then avoids addressing any part of the motion, leading to this appeal to this court to recover the court costs and disbursements in this matter, the actual costs as ordered by this court originally.    

 

[Willy]

Whew! That was like reading a mini novel. Thanks for posting this because it again brings to light what has transpired between a citizens right to know and an uncooperative and corrupt Government whose only concern is how to conceal it's anti citizens agenda. This is an important document and a must read for any and all concerned citizens. The real story is how unresponsive the members of the Council and Mayor have been to tyrannical wrong doings perpetrated by City officials and those connected to them. A perfect example is Wanda Marrison whose head was either stuck in the sand while this was going on or she was an active accomplice in all the wrong doing. Excellent work X.

[XLFD]

Thanks for your endurance on keeping tuned to local events, Willy, and all others who have acknowledged the problems along the way.  The strength of this mini-novel is that it is indisputable facts of what happened, with only a brief bit of acknowledged, reasoned  speculation at a point or two.  I even refrain from calling John Shay the perjuror that he is by just saying that he was not truthful in his sworn affidavit and had the highest likelihood of knowing the withheld documents existed because he had signed them (and of course attended the meetings where he set the agenda to assist in giving Tykoski the job).

Unlike my original appeal, I utilized the "statement of facts" section of the brief to show a complicity of interests that conspired to achieve a desired end which definitely wasn't in the public interest, and definitely not furthering the cause of justice or transparency.  In the original, the "arguments" section was a lot more critical-- here, the arguments amounted to just supporting the appeals court's original decision (which one would think the court would affirm), and to get a different venue for any remand for costs (or at least leave very specific instructions on costs to the rogue 51st). 

Now, we get to see the City law firm write up their brief at the expense of another couple thousand of dollars to the taxpayers of Ludington, so that they can explain why they do not owe us appellants about a thousand dollars (when you figure in the costs of this appeal to the past amount) that has already bee decided on by the court. 

[AQUAMAN]

After all the years it has taken all this to come to somewhat of an end, it's strange that no human being in local government office has seen and made any positive comment to your side X. If fact, they have remained silent, as compliant accomplices, or it's been over their head, or maybe they just don't give a hoot. And of course several others remain steadfastly entrenched in the good ole boy system of praise and applause for the shysters. CM Shay should have been brought up on multiple perjury charges on several occasions, yet, he isn't. Wilson too should have been fired several times, unethical conduct, and also multiple counts of perjury, and yet, he isn't either. Even old man Cooper played a significant part in his link of corrupt processes, and should be censored by the State, or fired from his job, yet, he isn't either. What we evidently have at all corners of this triangle of deceit, is a repetitive assertion and beating of an old drum of "ruling with an iron fist"! That these people "never make any mistakes", even if the point is made over and over with facts and figures right in their faces and on the record. The "arrogance and continuity of denial, must be intact, and always, but always, PREVAIL"! At any cost, any amount of time, at any possible disfavor by anyone on this earth. It should be evident to any local now, at long last, that a "inpenetrable wall of corruption" has been with this small town for many decades now. It has fed itself plenty over the years, and has become a "giant of strength and power". And instead of being on the extinction list, it's just the opposite, it continues to spiral it's power now, and far into the future. You know X, with some name adjustments and journalistic help from a professional, you could actually turn this story into a best selling novel imho. I'm talking the non-fiction based type too. Only the names of the corrupt and unjust have been changed. 

[XLFD]

The whole statement of facts above covered eleven pages of my brief, nearly three times the words of that section from the original appeal in the appeals court, simply to show the whole story and better explain the sequence of unethical behavior by the COL and 51st Circuit Court, which should make any honest man cringe, and any Ludington native ask "Why do we still have John Shay and the Gockerman law firm serving as public employees?" 

We are looking into getting some film subsidization money from the State of Michigan and casting Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as the Plaintiffs, Alan Rickman as John Shay (Rickman played euro-villain Hans Gruber in the original Die Hard movie), Anthony Hopkins as George Saylor III, Dennis Hopper as Richard Wilson, and Walter (Jeff Dunham's irascible dummy) as Judge Wickens.  This will of course follow on the huge commercial success of our novel All the City Manager's Men.

[Willy]

Well said Aquaman. Very good points

[XLFD]

I forgot to mention that he ran the full length of the field in his brief but thorough synopsis of the local problem.  By the way, congratulations to the Lions who spanked Eli Manning and his crew tonight on Monday Night Football.  Not much to celebrate this weekend for Michigan and MSU fans losing badly to two very good programs from Notre Dame and Oregon respectively on the gridiron.

[wildfire]

FEWWWWW that's a lot of reading but it's good to know whats going on in the sneecky town of ludville

[XLFD]

It's well worth the read, and as noted, it is just the facts, ma'am. 

The whole experience shows not only the extent of the corruption within the City of Ludington but also in the 51st Circuit Court.  Frankly, if the coordination between the two entities is as close as we have seen it, it is very believable that our COL officials operate freely against the law because the local trial court will not hold them up for any accountability. 

I see this not changing even with the retirement of Judge Cooper; the same administrative staff will continue, Lake County Judge Wickens will still be serving and the new county judge will be a former Mason County Prosecutor that has been part of the system for years no matter who wins.