Cull Places, pt. 3: Quid Pro Depot

[XLFD]

This is the third and last article dealing with the six places that city leaders have chosen for the deer cull (as yet unfinalized by the USDA).  In part 1, we reviewed three small lots of adjacent private property, two of which were adjacent to school grounds, and the other well within a school zone, where such an operation involving firearms were against state and federal law when done without explicit approval of the school board.  

In cull places part 2, we looked at the largest piece of property, city-owned, which consisted of the Lakeview Cemetery and Cartier Park, both of which explicitly prohibit firearms and their discharge in their confines by the city code, the cemetery off-limits due to state laws meant to prevent desecration of holy burial grounds.  

We will now look at the last two, and while it was tempting to separate the two for their own reasons, it made sense to put them together and complete just a trilogy.  Unlike the first four places, these two aren't in the First Ward, they're both in the Fourth Ward.  The first we will look at is the 2.3 acre plot of public land which has had its own share of controversial issues over the last few years with the siren and splash pad.

Copeyon Park

When one looks at the WI Form for this small open-air park on the shore of the PM Lake, one notices that, like Cartier Park', it is listed as private property, even though the owner is listed as the municipality of Ludington.  As a city park, section 38-71 of the city code says only a law enforcement officer can carry and shoot a gun lawfully (as we saw for Cartier Park).  Neither the contract with the city or their talking points indicate that the government snipers will be employed in law enforcement. 

Why would the city call these two parks private?  The main reason is that they have less local, state, and federal laws applying to the cull activities, most of which are unlawful on public lands.  The City has shown it is not above using fraud to get their way (see our articles on the Foster School property).

Copeyon Park is not a good place to hold a midwinter deer cull for the simple fact that you won't see a lot of deer there.  The park is used as a staging ground for ice fishing on PM Lake, meaning that at most any time you will have people and vehicles in the cramped park, scaring off any deer that may have wandered into this area, and posing a safety hazard.  As the lake is frozen over and the ice fishers begin their trade fishing in shanties at all times of the day, any deer lingering in the forests to the east (see map) that are not part of the park will assuredly travel further east to find better wintering complexes. 

Even if the culling team try their best to bait the deer back to Copeyon, there is nowhere to hide their piles in the little open park, and the sportsmen and sportswomen going there to fish will assuredly clean the park up (as they should) if and when these piles start appearing on that park.  Baiting is illegal in this part of Michigan (also against Sec. 38-69(2) of the city code), and what applies to the King's subjects, applies to the Kings when you're in America.  If you see a bait pile while visiting Copeyon (or Cartier) Park, let the Ludington Torch know and we'll send over a sanitation crew to clean the mess up and repurpose the bait as fertilizer.

"The Depot"

The other Fourth Ward property scheduled for a cull is commonly known as "The Depot" property and is currently owned by Erik Taylor.  More than half of the 3.6-acre lot is the old depot itself and the clear area to the south of it going across where the tracks used to be over to the Whitehall Industries property line.   Though Whitehall is mostly using the property for warehousing, there is no indication that the cull will he held on this side of the building.

The majority of the other side (above) is lightly wooded and used by properties across the street as a place to park their vehicles and campers.  Not the best wintering spot for a deer herd.  When one goes down the street to where Dowland meets Staffon, one sees a roughly one-acre area that could be viable deer habitat as seen below:

While there are a few buildings within 150 yards of this parcel, including a nice house just to the north of this picture, their knowledge or approval of a cull taking place in their neighborhood is not needed, as it normally is for hunting, since this is deer 'management'.  But that's not the major issue with this plot of land.  

At the last meeting of October, 2023 the city council approved of having a deer cull.  They offered exactly zero details of culling operations and they approved of no new or amended contract with the USDA, originally touted to take place on property owned by the city and school.  In the very first meeting of November, they will approve a very favorable PILOT for Erik Taylor's land.  Without knowing anything about Taylor's intention to facilitate deer cull operations on this tract of land, this reporter made a statement at the time at the November 13 meeting:  

XLFD:  "...When the original Depot project came before the council in 2018, which failed because it wasn't able to get enough money from the state and federal governments, the City set the PILOT at a mere two percent of rental income, but at the same time it imposed a "municipal services fee" of 8%, which it didn't need to share with any other taxing jurisdiction.  Combining those two fees, the city was effectively getting the same amount they would have with a PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) of 20%.  You have reduced their tax burden (to the city) in five years by a factor of 5..."

City Manager Foster would duck the issue by saying that developers would avoid projects like these without gifting them decades of very low property taxes, but that doesn't explain why they cut what they once considered a fair rate just five years ago by 80%!  It's a little easier to understand when you consider that they were figuring out how much to get through a PILOT at the same time they were trying to figure out where to hold a deer cull in the Fourth Ward when the railroad wasn't biting, and Copeyon Park was just not a deer-friendly enough place in February.  

The appearance of impropriety of these two coincidences, and the city's refusal to acknowledge the potential quid pro quo implications of granting massive 5X tax relief for a developer scheduled to formally buy Mr. Taylor's property (at massive profit for Mr. Taylor) should they get other gifts from state and/or federal sources, in exchange for the use of the pre-developed property for a deer cull is compelling.  And not difficult to believe, considering all of the other gifts to developers the City has used in just this last year based on false pretenses (such as calling a playground a historically commercial area).   

The cull is an expensive proposition without any clear mandate or objective, a wasteful token act to solve a problem described by a bunch of unproven anecdotes.  But it is a lot more than that, as seen by this trilogy looking at the places where the city plans to invite strangers to shoot deer in the dark.  It's fraud, it's appearances of impropriety, it's neglect, it's desecration, it's lawlessness, it's thoughtlessness, it's quid pro quo, and it's an elected mayor using public money for his own benefit and not explaining that to the public in timely manner.   

What Ludington needs more than any deer cull is a cull on the corruption evident in this action and others.  

[woodsman]

  SO what kind of weapons are they going to use to kill these animals?  Rifle bullets after pass through on a deer still have enough energy down range to kill a second deer if line up correctly , so Aunt Emma's house is in the background if she going to be at risk of a bullet going through her window and knocking her into the funeral parlors hands?  City going to pony up a huge lawsuit letting these expert hunters into areas where guns should not be and are not allowed?.... No Aunt Emma is not a real person but there are real people close to the zones...

[Freedom Seeker]

Good question, woodsman. I saw that some peolle think they are going to use compound bow and arrows?

[XLFD]

Because the city themselves hasn't publicly declared what's involved during the whole of 2023, here's what the contract from 2022 says, it's fairly clear.  These guys aren't using bows, they're able to shoot while riding vehicles.  Would any responsible hunter do that inside the city limits?  Never, but these are strangers to the area and are protected by government immunity from their mistakes.  What councilor in their right mind would let this happen?:

[Daniel Jensen]

Seems as if there are many questions to be asked, and answers to be given. Their is a coffee session today at noon with 2 city council members. Maybe we should ask them personally. I'm gonna try to be there.

[XLFD]

Did you make the java session, Daniel?

[Willy]

Congratulations X on a well thought out and well written series of articles regarding this crazy cull idea. It seems to me that if the application for a deer cull lists the property to be culled other than what it legally is, that would then render the application void because of course it would be a false statement. And since when is City, township, county, state or federal property in any way considered private property? Does that mean that Lansing's capital and it's grounds are private property? I can see a huge amount of legal entanglement if that is the case.
As far as what weapons may be used for the cull, my guess would be crossbows for small tracts of land. The newer crossbows are extremely accurate and powerful and can be fitted with all kinds of scopes and spotting gear. For larger tracts of land my guess would be the use of shotguns, machine guns, rocket launchers or a nuclear suitcase bomb. Who knows what these fools are deciding behind closed doors.