John Shay, Ludington City Perjuror?

[XLFD]

In the Ludington City Council meeting held on February 18, 2012, Ludington City Manager John Shay made clear in no uncertain terms that he never committed perjury as stated in this thread shay-takes-up-the-gauntlet saying at 28:30 into the meeting :

"Mr. Rotta brought up during the public comment a couple of issues, one again, one's accusing me of perjury and asking me to definitively state that I did not commit perjury.  I did not commit perjury and frankly, no matter what I say or write to you will never change your mind to that fact, so I'm not going to waste anymore of the taxpayer's time and money doing that, but I did not commit perjury and as I see it I will just have to keep putting up with the unsubstantiated attacks that you keep lobbing the City's way.  I guess that's the way it's going to have to be."

The March 4 meeting was filled with a variety of issues that the City was putting forth, and I found myself unable to properly refute Shay's statement, comment fully on those other issues, and show empathy with Councilor Tykoski's recent loss in his family (as the evidence that shows John Shay has 'willfully swore falsely' has to deal intimately with the councilor's own business dealings with the City of Ludington throughout his tenure as a public official).  Fortunately, I will have more time to go into this at the March 18 meeting, but unfortunately, I still have to pare it down so that I can get it performed in under the strict five minutes I (and only I) am allowed by the City to address the council.  A full five minutes will effectively not do it justice, so I will direct those with the curiosity to find out themselves to see what the fuss is by coming here.

Perjury is a serious claim, and I have tried not to make it lightly.  But the actual idea that someone had come before the Ludington City Council seven times with such an allegation against the City Manager, a person who has been the plaintiff of a Federal lawsuit for over half of a year with some very credible claims not involving perjury ( rotta-v-shay-et-al-federal-court-filing ) and no one from the City (just a contracted City Attorney from our contracted Manistee law firm) had bothered to address the issue, goes beyond the pale.

I expect neglect from the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews), but why does our elected City Council and Mayor ignore such a confidently made statement against the person who runs the City of Ludington?  You may as well ask them why they allow him to function in his office without an Oath of Office for ten years.  They really don't care as long as he does their dirty work for them without argument.  This is the fatal flaw of City Manager forms of government-- no accountability-- and it's nowhere more evident here.  The people's mandate has no control over a City Manager or contracted city officials like the City Attorney's office has become.  But without further ado, here's the proof of perjury I have withheld for so long, awaiting a response to the contrary from City Manager John Shay.

Background:  After months of fruitlessly getting no avenue to get the records we asked for early in September 2011, where we asked for an administrative appeal which was denied by the Ludington City Council, entered a complaint for FOIA appeal into the 51st Circuit Court, were countersued by the City for six pretty odd requests for relief.  They wound up seeking only money they figured that the plaintiffs owed them, even though they never had to show the court these were actual debts for the delivery of records for the plaintiffs' viewing.

After the bulk of discovery was finished, the City of Ludington submitted a motion for summary disposition, supported by a rather extensive brief, that spanned well over a hundred pages when you included the exhibits, and several motions against the plaintiffs' that were rather ridiculous considering the plaintiffs' up to that point were the only party that actually provided discovery.  Among this sizable packet was an affidavit signed by City Manager John Shay, notarized by Asst. City Manager Jackie Steckel, swearing among other things that the motion contained 4:   "an accurate itemization of the various FOIA Requests made by or on behalf of Mr. Rotta..."  this is shown below:

Being that many of the the Exhibits were past FOIA requests, the itemizations he refers to includes these, as he was the FOIA Coordinator, and the only one to provide these items for the brief supporting the motion, et. al.   It also includes a list of FOIA requests that had its share of inaccuracies.  But having an exhibit that has inaccuracies and swearing to its accuracy is not necessarily perjury unless the FOIA Coordinator has willfully done so.  He may have swore falsely, but honestly believed his account was accurate for example.

So for instance, he says in his self-constructed chart, part of his itemization, that in request 44 (EXH_K) that "Rotta reneged on his promise to pay for these records".  That is not factual, as seen in their (EXH L 3) a receipt of that time shows a payment of $2.68, which is the amount that Rotta paid for response # 43 and #44 which were $1.04 and $1.64 respectively.  No reneging on any promise there, so this itemization is false that he swore to.

But it would be fair to say that he may have just made a mistake, and that this error was not willingly done.  It's plausible he may have made this accounting blunder.  Exhibit K was loaded with other misleading or inaccurate data, but I felt there was no major effort to do so for the City's advantage willfully in any meaningful way.

Except for Exhibit K, 13 of the other different exhibits they put forth, prepared and itemized by FOIA Shay, were properly presented and accurate, only one other Exhibit was inaccurate, and was prepared so as not to be accurate with the intent to deceive the plaintiffs, the court, and the truth.  This was the 13 page, all-important Exhibit M which supposedly fulfilled the request we had made over five month's previously which was his Exhibit A, which asked for:

Exhibit M consisted of:

1)  Three pages of minutes available on the City website (not a bid contract, agreement receipt or invoice):  EXH M_0001.jpg  EXH M_0002.jpg  EXH M_0003.jpg

2)  Three legitimate records that document a 9-23-2009 invoice sent to the city, a 1-8-2010 invoice for NYE Ball Drop supplies, and a 4-20-2010 estimate for downtown signage from Tykoski's business.  As will be noted, the plaintiffs already received these incriminating documents prior.

3)  A memo with sign companies info thereon, not applicable to the request:  EXH M_0007.jpg

4)  Three cover pages for fax transmissions to three sign companies (not Tye's, nor applicable to the request):  EXH M_0008.jpg  EXH M_0009.jpg  EXH M_0010.jpg

5)  Three spec pages for bids on the sign project, once again, not applicable to the request:  EXH M_0011.jpg   EXH M_0012.jpg   EXH M_0013.jpg

Not only were 10 of the 13 records given not applicable to the five month FOIA request that spawned over two hundred court-submitted documents in its appeal, but amazingly, FOIAC Shay included only records that we had already received in the two replies to two prior requests which were paid for and received by the plaintiffs, but were drastically different in scope of the actual request under review.  And this was one of the points that the City was saying from the beginning of the case, which the plaintiffs knew was incorrect.

Keep in mind, the sign installation was done over phases and was originally scheduled to cost the City around $150,000 (and probably would have, if this intrepid website had not revealed the City's  scheme to hire its own official to do the contracting).  At the time Shay compiled Exhibit M, the City had done several phases of the sign project adding up to over $50,000, whereas, the three already-seen records only documents the payment of $15,001 for signs.  And we had already received some financial records of the Downtown Ludington Board (DDA) which pointed out other records specifically.

But was this another 'honest' mistake by FOIAC Shay?  Well, let's consider that John Shay has an excellent attendance record at DDA meetings where these things are discussed.  Let's consider that he trumpeted in the paper last year on March 15 how they saved a lot of money by having their own official do the work (note: without a contract or a legitimate competitive bidding process).  Let's consider that John Shay himself initialed several of the records that were withheld such as this, this, this, and others.  Let's consider that the 13 records received were exactly duplicative of the records plaintiffs received for two prior requests that they paid money to receive-- no more, no less-- even though ten were not applicable.

These are compelling reasons, but the most compelling reasons are within the brief itself, where the City Attorney law firm uses John Shay's assertions to make their case that this was a "duplicative" request for documents, and that because of this, FOIAC Shay's reply was appropriate and within the law.  If Shay in actuality believed we had already received the documents back in September 2011, would he not have said we already received the records, instead of referring back answers to four other replies, at the same time giving us no records, and no means to get those records (as in Exhibit B) and why would he not elaborate on any way to get the records after being contacted by both plaintiffs at different times?  Here is the salient points from the defendants case starting first with their answers to the initial complaint, and advancing chronologically.

Here the answer to plaintiffs' 9th point says plaintiffs are disputing fees, when no fee is ever offered by the City.  They do claim the request is both multiplicative and duplicative, but this is 3 months before they show Exhibit M.

Here is the response once again:  Exhibit B.  No fees asked for, and the request was not given.  In 3 months, Shay will say Exhibit M has already been supplied in two prior responses, but here says they did not provide the records requested, and indicated those 13 records may have also cost the same as here in Exhibit G which was $228 or the same as here in Exhibit H  which quotes $367.  Which accordingly, was 13 or less pages of records that should have been all together.  Is such a range of values for 'duplicative' records warranted by any fee structure, or just arbitrary and capricious?

These were among the several affirmative defenses of the City.  Number 2 says the 13 records (they disclosed falsely later) at issue were ones that plaintiffs refused to pay legitimate (their term) fees.  Yet those records had  been paid for, making this defense false.  Number 3 is just silly, but number 4 is just totally false.  Never were we able to get any agreement with the City to get the records we sought on Sept. 7, 2013, though we tried.  They never even allowed us an appeal before the City Council, taking it off the agenda after denying Rotta the ability to set foot in front of the City Council.

This is point 5-7 on the actual Motion for Summary Disposition submitted at the same time as the affidavit above, and the rest that follows are from the supporting brief to that motion.  Much of what will be shown is 'duplicative' in that it shows the City Attorney, through the information FOIAC Shay itemized for him and explained, trying to prove the 13 records of Exhibit M were already given to plaintiffs, and since they had already been given to them, showed that the City had followed the FOIA throughout.

When it was shown that a lot more records applied, some with Shay's initials on them, they never reworked this brief, just reclaimed the plaintiffs' point was still moot as they do in point 5 of this motion.  Point seven clarifies that John Shay's affidavit attesting to the proper itemization of records supports the brief, as he was the one who supplied all the FOIA requests, replies, and pertinent records in support of the City's assertions.

On p.4 of the brief's arguments, they say the records had already been disclosed to the plaintiffs, arguing the request was not denied because of that fact (though this was the first time they actually made that known to plaintiffs, who knew that was not the case).

They clarify further:  the two responses the City made prior supplied plaintiffs all the records of Exhibit M, which supposedly fulfilled the Sept. 7 request.  That's pretty clear, but false.  Shay is swearing that the 13 records provided were all of the business records between the City and Nick Tykoski's company.  Even though he knew the sign project was being done piecemeal, and had only gave out one invoice of the same, while at the same time giving out 10 records that did not apply.

Page 11 specifically takes each record of the 13 and points out in detail where else these records were or would have been supplied.  This actually shows that Shay put a lot of effort into this justification of the false records supplied.  It seems inexplicable that Shay would leave off several other invoices dealing with the signs downtown, and other invoices for NYE which Tye's has been involved with, particularly all those that he signed and didn't include with Exhibit M.  It's conceivable that he may have overlooked several of the 26 other records, but all 26?  Maybe, if he's trying to prove the point that these are "duplicative"-- after all any non-duplicative record would show that the initial answers and counterclaims of the City were false.  One lie begets another, as they say.

Page 12 reiterates the total duplicative nature of the records argument, and chides the plaintiffs for making Ludington roll along less smoothly by this request of records they say is duplicative, even when both sides know they are not.  It should be noted that the plaintiffs contacted the municipality at least five times over these matters before filing a suit in the circuit court.  The City's unwillingness to provide an answer or allow Rotta to go to the council's appeal was a lot more unreasonable than anything the plaintiffs wound up doing.

Summarizing an argument on page 14, the City repeats the mantra, "we already gave them these records, why did they make an issue of it?"  A false mantra.

Summarizing their conclusions, they say the demand had been granted, rewriting history-- except they are saying that the 13 records given five months later, duplicating other responses, but not fulfilling the request in question, are sufficient to make such a claim.  The demand was never granted until the plaintiffs made immediately after this a FOIA request for records the DDA's financial records said existed.  And amazingly the City FOIAC John Shay said "Doh!  I made an oversight", as explained here by his attorney:

Followed by 26 new records detailing bsuiness dealings between the City and City Councilor Nick Tykoski's business, to go with the three records we had previously.  FOIA Coordinator John Shay and friends missed nearly 90% of the records when they were busy compiling these for six months-- oops!  Sup Brief pt. 1  and Sup. Brief pt. 2

Summary:  John Shay is known for his wonkishness, and the tables and statistics he compiles shows that he is well aware of what happens in the City he manages, Ludington.  This is a good trait; which is why the 'oversight' of all of those records dealing with a variety of business dealings with Nick Tykoski is a specious argument.  Shay has to be aware that Nick's participation in the DDA's sign subcommittee on the way to doing over $15,000 of signwork is ethically suspect, especially after the Letter of Trespass was levied on Rotta just after that record and others showed it to all in the Signs of Love thread.   What better way to neutralize an opponent than to defame him with a letter of trespass and innuendo to the local paper of record?

Each and every record that shows Nick Tykoski, who has been a board member on the Ludington DDA since 2008, did contracted work for payment by the City DDA that was never acknowledged in the DDA's records is an ethical violation.  The records that are still missing: the lack of any contract or agreement, the lack of any bidding process until at least six months after he did $15,000 of signwork, a bid which allowed him to submit a bid over a week before the other candidates were even contacted, candidates who only received three days to make a detailed estimate, was a definitely unfair bidding process.   And who could forget this record from the new records:  Tye's that Bind.

If John Shay is intentionally shielding Tykoski's and his involvement to suppress the appearance of impropriety by officials of Ludington by attacking the messenger with a policy that may cost the City plenty as a violation of inalienable civil rights in Federal Court, why wouldn't he further suppress records that show a lot more improper ethical activity by Tykoski, Heather Venzke-Tykoski, and himself to this same individual? 

If you can believe that John Shay did not willfully swear falsely and that he honestly thought the thirteen records he gave out on February 13, 2012 was an accurate and true reply to the FOIA Request about business records  ( when only three of those were business records and 26 other records obviously fitting the bill were missing, not to mention that the records supplied supported his initial claims cleanly) then you are a very trusting person, who is likely working for the City of Ludington.

And you probably believe that the City Attorneys Dick Wilson and George Saylor III were not aware of their fellow partner from the law firm, Craig Richard Cooper, was not the son of Judge Richard Cooper, and their involvement for over four months in concealing this fact from plaintiffs was inadvertent on their part.

If we do not hold our public  officials accountable, they will continue acting as if they are held unaccountable, and continue to flaunt the laws they should be adhering to and acting  like a bunch of no-accounts.   Like anything, you get out of it what you put into it, and too few people are caring what their so-called leaders do that lies outside the law.

Lies beget lies, and Ludington operates with way too many of them, further hidden by secrets.  City Manager John Shay needs to step down and get some honest work where he doesn't have to avoid the truth and the oath of office one expects from public officials.  One needs only look over to Scottville and their recent mayor to see how badly lies can affect the running of a city.  Will I continue to press the issue?  I sure will, John Shay, because I for one have no doubt that you are guilty of perjury in this matter.

For more reading:  john-shay-criminal-intentions-public-extortion

john-shay-criminal-intentions-violation-of-personal-privacy

[Willy]

I don't know how you keep track of all that is going on. My head spins just reading the legalize in this post. I'm glad you have the determination and smarts to challenge Shay and the Council because a person of lessor courage would have shriveled  a long time ago. Keep up the good fight.

[XLFD]

This was excessively spinny because I used a lot of the accomplished spin jockeys', George Saylor III and John Shay, own words.  I unfortunately sometimes have to saddle the patient readers of this forum with long threads with a bunch of long words and long-haired notions. 

To adequately show the evidence behind my serious charge of perjury against City Manager John Shay, I had to be as complete with the details as I could, and provide some of the defendant's long-winded briefs that made briefs into long stories of exaggerations and misinterpretations. 

I do invite any commentary or input on whether or not perjury was committed, since I worry that me and my close circle of friends I talk with may be unduly biased against the City Manager.