Creating a Monster pt 3: Deconstruction, A PPO without POP

[XLFD]

In the thread Creating a monster pt 1, a process was described that started as early as 2-21-2011, with a letter from Ludington Police Chief Mark Barnett to City Manager John Shay about a reworking of a Letter of Trespass form that was made originally for private establishments.  The next day there was a bit of E-mail traffic between those two and the City Attorney, but there was also something else afoot.  A Personal Protection Order (PPO) was being applied for by Community Development Director Heather Venzke against a certain individual who not only happens to be the creator of this watchblog, but happens to be little ol' me.

I only found out about this because I had asked the prosecutor for an investigation to be conducted into why I was not permitted to vote in the November 8, 2011 City election without threat of arrest.  When the State Police told me the investigation was closed in December, and that they would not pursue any criminal charges in the matter due to the difficulty in showing an actual intent by the City Hallers to deprive me of the right to vote, I was mildly disappointed.  Particularly since I hadn't been asked for any input after my brief E-mail asking Prosecutor Paul for an investigation. 

But when I asked Mason County Prosecutor Paul Spaniola with a FOIA to see the investigation records, I got this bombshell 2012 1-28 FOIA Reply PA PS  where I learned:

1)   "... after numerous non-consenting acts of a stalking nature by the complainant [me] against a City Hall employee"

2)  "Furthermore a personal protection order was entered against the complainant upon application of a City Hall employee due to his actions."

3)  "Complainant subsequently moved to another location..."

4)  "Complainant has furthermore failed to request relief from the no trespass letter for purposes of voting on 11-1-2011.  On four previous occasions he had asked for relief and it was granted to him."

 

All, and more, of which are factually inaccurate.  So I then fired back a FOIA request to inspect the PPO and to view E-mails exchanged between County and City Officials that had my name in them.  This request went ignored for over 5 business days, so I filed an FOIA appeal to the Circuit Court regarding the County's denial to respond to get these records I considered vital.  I wound up being successful in my endeavor-- but more on this later. 

I went with trepidation to see how bad of a monster I was at my appointment to review the PPO application (I had found out incidentally that it had been denied to CDD Venzke).  Here was the Petition for a PPO Against Staking (Non-domestic) signed by her on 2-22-2011, while her fellow City Hall officials were busy with the second prong of this very personal attack, producing the Workplace Safety Policy.  The affidavit she attached was a sworn statement:

 

 

In order, some critiques: 

1) "Malicious" and "anti-government" is assigning evil intent to my website and the people who post here.  Such is not my intent, or any others here-- our intentions are good and we want government to be the same. 

2)  The links she speaks of are links to the City Assessor site, accessible by anyone for free, provided by the very government she works for.  If you own property in Ludington, you can find maps, deeds, specifications of your property, and anyone else's.  If you don't like it, like Ms. Venzke didn't, are you "anti-government"?

3)  Information was posted concerning her relationship to Nick Tykoski, in the context that she was providing unbid, non-contracted payments to him with public funds, while being affianced to him while buying a house together at a great price.  This is public corruption no matter how you look at it, and a violation of several ethics laws, discussed previously.

4)  The rest is more of an indictment of our educational system, with her massacre of the words "insight", when she meant "incite"; "residents", when she meant "residence"; "directly" when she meant "directing", and some other grammatical and spelling gaffes. 

 

Nor am I clear as to me being "the author of the above statements." as I would not make such errors, LOL.  But the application continued with this three page "PPO Questionairre, Stalking"

PPO_QS p1

PPO_QS p2

PPO_QS p3

 

Let's sum it up thusly:  Never spoken to me, only knows me as a past employee of the City, one admitted contact with me involving a request for information [made by me and addressed to her and Shay about DDA Administrative costs jumping from $10,000 to $30,000 without any new programs or rationale], and I only communicate on my website. 

She intimates that she was perhaps targeted by me, but the DDA series I had made up to that point, prior to the fifth episode, was targeted on the use of public resources by public officials to the advantage of private interests, many of which were other members of the DDA.  Furthermore, the fifth episode indicted the full DDA for not recognizing the ethics violations or properly stopping it and/or reporting it.  But the DDA is her livelihood, so I can see her uneasiness.

 

She then included about 40 pages of 'supporting documents', which included the Ludington City Assessor's total website on her property address, part 5 of the above series, and various other entries by me and others that was supposed to display the mob mentality that was insighted {sic}, beginning with this entry by Aquaman where she highlighted the last two sentences, and put in the margin:  "threats they are capable of".  Pretty tame to what I see on Facebook, and not a threat, as I see it.  But the rest of the attachments were even less harmless, and made her point a bit absurd, by the end.

But I wasn't the only one who thought so.  The judge who received her PPO was one I have had a history with, that isn't good.  He sat in judgment at my bicycle/ stop sign hearing back in 2008 that I requested and promptly lost even though I had shown several points of fact that invalidated the legitimacy of the sign. 

I had requested the district court to show that this probate judge had jurisdiction over the hearing, and they failed to do so, and I was found in civil contempt of the court when I defied his court order, which was effectively illegitimate.  I had reported him to the Judicial Tenure Commission, an act which didn't endear me to him, a fact he made known in the next hearing.  All in all, we have had some differences.  But in spite of that he denied the PPO the next day, citing:  "Respondent has not engaged in conduct that falls within the statutory definition of stalking and/or is Constitutionally protected activity."

 And so Plan A was denied, thus Plan B ( the WSP) needed to be applied.  And even if you, I, or a Judge that has ill-feelings towards me can see that there was not any problems with what content was placed on the Ludington Torch by me and others, the full choir of City Hallers were all for calling my behavior "threatening and intimidating" and having the local paper publish that "fact", they also maintained to a person that it was necessary to do so, and not worth reconsidering.

 

 

This is how the City of Ludington operates; which is why I think the PPO placed on a Grand Rapids native in January who had the audacity to lead a protest against the way the Ludington Police Department conducted their investigation into the Baby Kate case in October, was created to discredit her  (in Re: April Reynolds). 

It worked darn well for me for a year, but I will snatch my good name back from these tyrants if I have to spend all the time, spirit, and money I've got.  And that fact alone, makes me the Most Dangerous Man in Ludington to those who wish to violate their Oath of Office as a public servant, if they even bother to take one, in Ludington.

 

 

[XLFD]

Aquaman, they'd sooner tell us to limit our free speech, and lay personal warnings and attacks on us private individuals acting on our own behalf, rather than comment with any substance on the actions of our angelic, revered public servants selflessly breaking the law and altruisticly violating all codes of ethics. 

[XLFD]

Your last suggestion is good advice whether you talk about a judge, or whether you talk about anyone.  The judge is a public figure, making public decisions, however, so he does need to be held at the least to any standard that we might hold for other public servants.  The courts have routinely held that criticisms to public figures are generally protected by the Constitution, as long as they are not vindictively slanderous.  I don't see that happening here among the regulars, or the newbies.

Nick, Heather, and any other City Haller or their ilk, are always invited to participate in any of these discussions, but it would be nice if they could do so without anonymity and with a posture of not holding themselves above questions and criticisms. 

Fourth Ward Councilor Wanda Marrison has gotten a degree of respect from me and others for showing that she can do just that.  But it would have been even better if she could have offered us more insight and ideas during her participation.

[AQUAMAN]

So Dale, it's pretty obvious now from this new sermon on the mount, Mt. Crappie, that you are indeed a spy for X's opposition, and/or opposing counsel yourself. Just what I thought to begin with. Which means what? That the City of Ludington is paying you for all this internet investigation, to assault, lie, intimidate, extort, and do whatever, on the taxpayers of Ludington's dimes. Oh yeah, those dimes are Big Dollars for you attorneys, and with this and other posts all weekend, time and a half, or perhaps double time? Very very expensive folly that Mr. Shay has you doing, while these precious dollars could be spent wisely and prudently for the infrastructure and other pending issues we as taxpayers need it spent on. When you report back to your lackys tomorrow, will you have enough screen shots and proofs to have lunch with the Shyster Shay? Say at the finest restaurant in town? If Cooper Sr. has well known his son is on the opposition team for well over 3 years, do you not think the SCAO people will not listen nor be interested in such conduct or lack of ethics? When you people get your Juris Doctorate, and then go on to the bar exam, finally pass it, then take your oath of professional ethics, does it ever dawn on you those very ethics are to follow you until such time you quit practicing the law? That means a lifetime for most, unless, and until, they get their pants pulled down for violations like this. Dale, this very forum was created to help expose and stop the very things that you and your newbie buddies are participating in here daily, that of total undeniable unscrupulous corruption in a system meant to be free of such things. Are you proud of yourself and buds? I have to guess, in that warped mind of yours you could never envision being anything else, afterall, you were probably trained by the best con artists in the region, your bosses in Manistee. They together with the city and now the judge are all in collusion on this and so many other things the public doesn't know now, but has a right to know. I just wonder, how many other twists and turns of the road are you going to use as excuses for your continued disgraceful lack of ethics and spying without consent and identifying yourself as such here as the laws would require? You and your kind have to fall, sooner or later, just a matter of time, now, take it, or leave it, your choice!

[XLFD]

Well spoken Aquaman.  I repeat, you are a true patriot and a friend to good governance, not an enabler of corruption, like we've seen among the monotoned newbies now that their house of cards is beginning to crumple.

 

[Willy]

Dale

As I see it, it's not X's responsibility to see that Judge Cooper follows ethical practices. That honor belongs to his honor. Think about this. If the Judge felt at this time that there was an appearance of impropriety, [by his own admission] then that same impropriety  existed 6 months ago. He failed to follow the rules then and now. As far as this forum being in X's summary, that has no bearing on the FOIA situation. The FOIA hearing is not a criminal proceeding or a civil case regarding financial dealings. The FOIA case is supposed to be a simple procedure to have public information released to the public and is part of the FOIA process. The City has turned this into a ballyhoo and have sucked in all the parties involved which now includes a judge. We wouldn't even be discussing this if the City had turned over the records that were requested a long time ago. Don't you wonder how this got so convoluted or why? I don't know any of the FOIAgate individuals but I can easily see that something unethical is going on and needs to be aired so the citizens can see how their government has been twisted by those in power. I don't know who you are and I don't care but it's important that you look at this with a neutral mindset if you really want to know the truth. You stated "A word to the wise would be to refrain from publishing comments against an Honorable Judge without knowing all the facts. Take it or leave it." That sounds like a warning. Is that a freindly advice or something else. If we have to clam up about a judges decision, an ethical decision, and cannot discuss it then we are in real trouble from those in power don't  you agree?

 

[XLFD]

I hate to make this an "Amen" corner this Sunday, but when you can get such unanimous opinion from the diverse political views held by WS, AM and LO and me, I would be afeared to be in the public-official-friendly opposition. 

You can't put the egg back in the shell and you can't polish a turd, as Beavis and Butthead would say.  Dale, don't forget to write down in your notes that I dishonorably called the judge a turd, even though I didn't.  

[Willy]

Dale

You must be reading information on another forum. Where did you read that I accused the judge of anything. I referred to his own statements about him having the appearance of impropriety while dealing with X's FOIA appeal. He claimed that if he continued to preside over X's case that it could appear to be a conflict due to his son working for the City's attorney. I contend it was an appearance of impropriety long ago and he knew it , so why the delay. That means he was potentially violating an ethics code for many months [his own admission]. So my question to you is, why do you think the judge waited till the very last minute to drop this information into X's lap when he could have removed himself long ago after realizing his son was an attorney working for the CIty's law firm? If you have followed this insane ordeal X is being put thru then you will find a common denominator and that would be John Shay. He instigated this entire scenario by convincing Heather to file a complaint againts X. He convinced the City Council to pass the Workplace Safety ordinance, then banned X from City Hall, he then dragged his feet and refused to release documents under FOIA requests made by X which caused X to follow the chain of command in the FOIA process which brought this to Judge Coopers court. The Judge would not be involved if Shay would have cooperated and would have released the public documents that were requested. So the term "sucked in" means that Shay, the FOIA coordinator, has managed to involve half of Ludington in the process of not releasing documents that should have been released a long time ago. I think he has caused the City of Ludington a lot of harm and if you can't see that then maybe you should take a closer look at what has been happening in the "city on the lake."

[Willy]

Dale

That was his admission not mine. He admitted to a possible "appearance of imporopriety" and I said that appearance had been taking place for months. If there is no rule about the appearance of impropriety then why did he make the statement? Thus by his own admission he violated a rule he made reference to.

[Willy]

Dale

You seem to not see the forest for the trees. You harp on the fact the judge did nothing wrong and blame X for not catching the judge doing nothing. Huh? If the judge did nothing wrong then why did he excuse himself? If he would have dropped out of the case months ago when he realized his son was involved then I would say yes, no harm no foul but from that moment on until he excused himself in march of 2012 he in fact did do something wrong. He withheld the fact that his son was connected to X's case. He unnecessarily held up the judicial process and slowed down justice for X. Whether it was intentional or not is the question. I see it as a big deal and the judges motives come into question. I think he has a lot of explaining to do.

[XLFD]

My FOIA "legal team" are a couple of idiots.  It's amazing they're getting such positive results and traction against such accomplished attorneys as Wilson, Saylor and C. Richard Cooper.

[Willy]

I have a question. I'm sure his son's firm handles a lot of cases in Mason County. Does the judge excuse himself from every case his sons firm is involved with. If not, why not? If not then why drop from X's case?  Something is fishy here.

[XLFD]

Willy,

Congratulations, you have actually predicted the other shoe dropping in the Appearance of Impropriety sequel. 

Oh, what a tangled web they weave,

when GWSH is in practice to deceive.