George De-pose-y, Muddying and Lie, Grill the Plaintiffs and Make Them Cry

[XLFD]

The above title is a bastardization of the popular nursery rhyme, "Georgie Porgie pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry".  On Thursday, I was treated to a bastardization of legal discovery process courtesy of the City of Ludington's legal defense team which also happens to serve as the Ludington City Attorney, the entire Manistee law firm known as Gockerman, Wilson, Saylor and Hesslin. 

 

George Saylor was chosen to be the Head Inquisitor on that day, having sent Two Depositions.pdf  to me and my fellow plaintiff, and longterm partner-in-arms Toni Swiger, in what started out as our civil action against the City of Ludington to produce documents pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which they had denied us the ability to inspect. 

 

These records just happened to concern all the business dealings of then candidate, now City Councilor, Nick Tykoski, with the City of Ludington since the beginning of 2008, when he became a city official on the Ludington Downtown Ludington Board.  As has been noted his familiar long term relationship with DLB Chairperson Heather Venzke has been a source of questionable contracts with rigged and no-bid contract decisions made in favor of Tykoski's business Tye's Inc. (aka Tye's Signs).  Furthermore, his involvement with other contracts with the City of Ludington seemed to be devoid of any terms of propriety or competitive bidding.

 

But we involved those who look into the Torch for information by devoting three links to that topic with an introduction to the original requests and responses in pt 1, the administrative appeal that wasn't in pt 2, and the beginning of our Circuit Court filing to get that information revealed and the beginning of the City's counter-offensive in Hiding Behind Signs pt 3.  That link includes the first two parts, leaving off the topic in mid November.

 

I think it is readily apparent to look at the FOIA Coordinator's (John Shay) two responses to determine that he hadn't granted the request but said he did; didn't mention a fee, but asks to be paid one and just a review of those two E-mails should be a quick determination that he failed to fulfill his duties under Section 5 of the FOIA, subsection 2,  and then by applying subsection 3, you have a ruling against the obstructing public body.  But the City of Ludington will never admit defeat, no matter how much of your money it costs them and how many rights given to you by the FOIA they deny.

 

The City Attorneys working on this case are being paid $185 per hour for this 'special project' to continue to impede the flow of information that every individual, unless incarcerated, is entitled to by rights guaranteed under the FOIA.  The City Attorneys have drafted (pages)

1)  Answers to Complaint (4)

2)  Affirmative Defenses (1)

3)  First Amended Affirmative Defenses (1)

4)  Counterclaim (5)

5)  First Amended Answers to Complaint (4)

6)  Timeline of FOIA Requests- Exhibit (6)

7)  Pre-liminary Witness List (3)

8)  Subpoena to Toni (4)

9)  Subpoena to Tom (4)

10)  Request to Admit Toni (2)

11)  Request to Admit Tom (2)

12)  Interrogatories and Request to Produce Toni (4)

13)  Interrogatories and Request to Produce Tom (4)

14)  Proof of Service, Cover letters to court and clerk (12)

 

These documents are mostly reproduced in the "City Hall is 2 Dam Corrupt Movement" group.  Let's be generous to their skills, and say that it only takes 15 minutes of research and development to produce each page of documents by the defendant's attorneys.  The production of the 56 pages would take 19 hours to make at $185 an hour, or $3515 charged to the Ludington taxpayer, to avoid producing City Councilor Tykoski's business records with the City.

 

But our sides tenacity in seeking this information has replied to all the various discovery, counterclaims, admissions, and affirmative defenses, we hadn't actually went through the depositions until yesterday.  The City Attorneys had asked for Toni to produce some documents not readily available and some without clear purpose-- and they asked her to produce it within twelve days while it is plainly written in Michigan Court Rules that any request for documents in a subpoena must give those deposed at least 14 days to compile them.  They were also asking a decidedly indigent person to produce documents she would have to spend money to get.  We objected to these impositions by serving a Motion to Quash (Deny) Subpoena for her.  Because this motion had not been acted upon in the week that the Circuit Court had it, she was not obliged to go.

 

But I went at 1:00 PM on Thursday.  For the next one hundred and sixty one minutes, (2 hr., 41 min.)with no breaks proffered or given by City Attorney George Saylor, I got grilled mercilessly by George about a variety of topics, mostly irrelevant and high on verbiage-low on content topics.  Dictatorially asking 60 word questions sometimes vague and with conditionals and requiring me to give a 'yes' or 'no' response, really wears on you after a while.  

That full deposition which I recorded from start to finish, with him beginning with inquiries on Toni's avoidance of the previous deposition, and ending with a threat to exact civil contempt charges on this poor woman (this was after the recorder was turned off) is available to anyone who sends me a message requesting it. 

 

CA George was apparently expecting Toni to appear at 10:00 AM, and was visibly upset at the end of our ordeal with her not showing up and wasting his time and the attending court reporter's time at this scheduled deposition which was under contention in Circuit Court.  The average salary for a court reporter in our area is roughly $25 per hour ($50,000/year) so let's say she was paid for my three hours and one for Toni's no-show, and presume George charged the City's taxpayers for only four hours and his 1.5 hours for travel from Manistee and back.  Let's presume he took about 6 hours to prepare his 20 deposition exhibits (some from this site) and his line of attack.  When I taught in college, I usually took about 1.5 to 2 times the length of the class in the need to prepare for that class.

 

The bargain was the court reporter at $100, the 11.5 hours that Torquemada-wanna-be George Saylor wasted on this deposition was $2127.50, totalling $2227.50 more going from Ludington taxpayers in the City Attorney's efforts to intimidate two information-seekers.  We are up to about $6000 in attorney fees for this lesson the City of Ludington wants to teach us, all going from us to Manistee.

 

But am I using the word 'intimidation' here too loosely.  No, because almost at the same time I was getting out of a City-induced Hell-in-Ludington experience, I was getting served an E-mail misdirected to me by City Attorney Richard Wilson, and I presume was targeted to John Shay (I have issued discovery earlier today to find that out) telling the recipient the following:

 

 An admission by one of our City Attorneys (Richard Wilson) to someone with an interest in these precedings, apparently saying that the purpose of that day's depositions, handled by another City Attorney George Saylor, was for that deposer to grill the plaintiffs in this civil action so that to make someone cry before the day was over.  Think about it:  Manistee's Dick Wilson is saying that Manistee's George Saylor wants to grill an indigent Ludington citizen, Toni Swiger, so hard that they want to make her cry before the day is over.  And receive over $2000 for the day from the Ludington citizens to do so. 

Shameless, disgraceful, reprehensible, and a whole lot of other adjectives not suitable for a family newsblog.  Fellow citizens of Ludington, and those who care about our area, I plead for you to get involved and get rid of this joke of a law firm who do not swear any allegiance to our area, and only swear allegiance, apparently, to the corrupt parts of our City Hall.  Make your voice heard, here and elsewhere.  We will continue the fight as well.

[Willy]

There are several things that make this such an amazing letter. The fact that a deposition regarding such a minor item as a FOIA request would require a 103 page document. The fact that Ludington's citizens are forking over thousands of dollars on attorney fees as well as other expenses to deny a citizen of Ludington  access to public information. The fact that that document will cost $206 to copy is astounding. The fact that all of the tax dollars spent on this silly sideshow that Shay has initiated is going to businesses in Manistee. And the most astounding fact is that the City Council is allowing this sham to continue. Wayland could take a few lessons from Ludington on how to operate a Government in direct opposition to the citizens it represents.

[XLFD]

The Ludington City Council, Mayor, and City Manager was made aware of the misdirected E-mail and the extent of the grilling two weeks ago, with a request by me and Toni for their take on it.   Have any of those nine august councilors and city executives weighed in?   Not a peep.  They were rooting for George "Bush-league" Saylor the Third to force poor Toni into tears, even more so for forcing me to cry. 

Tears of boredom with the inane line of questioning and tears of regret for the two hours and forty-one minutes I lost out in life that afternoon was all I could spare.