Ludington City Council April 5th, 2021: Assessing Poor Policies

The April 5th meeting's agenda packet showed a variety of actions before the Ludington City Council, most of it was busy work, and the more interesting parts were hidden by the noise.  Looking at the noise first, we find that they set a public hearing for vacating a right-of-way 106 Laura Street (behind Brills) in preparation for a housing complex's parking.  They also had the first reading of an amendment to the Ludington Property Maintenance Code (primarily updating parts from the 2000 version to current standards).  These will be considered at the April 26th meeting.

They voted to terminate an easement inside the Lofts on Rowe project in preparation for the commencement of construction, while preserving a lease between the City and the project allowing them to use the existing salt barn for a little while longer as the City prepares to construct a new salt barn by the DPW Building on First Street.  They approved the lowest of 5 bids made by Gerber's Construction Co. of $335,000 to put up that new barn.  In like manner, they approved a change order for the wastewater treatment plant update and maintenance project that amounted to spending about $33,000 more.

Of interest, they settled a longstanding lawsuit brought against the City by Ronnie Carter dealing with injuries Mr. Carter sustained during the demolition of Star Watch Case in 1995.  The settlement effectively had the City of Ludington be able to dismiss the lawsuit provided they can help Mr. Carter properly refile the suit against one of the other parties who were 'more liable' in the injury. 

At the bottom of the agenda was an action item adopting a virtual meetings resolution which failed to have anything in the packet referencing the action.  This item was introduced at the meeting by noting that a local state of emergency was declared the previous week by Janet Anderson, chair of the county commission.  This dishonest declaration and adoption by the full board on Tuesday allows the commission and every public body in Mason County to hold virtual public meetings, where they can avoid the public at least until June, as noted in this declaration by Muskegon County.

Problem is, the only reason why this and other 'local states of emergency' (LSOE) are adopted is solely to permit public bodies to meet away from the unwashed public they so detest.  The only purpose for declaring the LSOE in Muskegon and elsewhere, including the template supplied by the Michigan Municipal League is to continue having 'open' meetings take place on video and not in person. 

These electronic meetings are contrary to the open and transparent sharing of ideas with the public, are rife with inequities to poorer people who cannot attend due to lack of internet access and libraries being closed, but local governments embrace this means of dodging public scrutiny even when no emergency exists.  Public bodies can eliminate anybody they want from speaking by just keeping them muted during public comment periods, as was done in Scottville.  

In the next two months, if you see any of these councilors that voted to accept going into virtual meetings (everyone except Councilor Johnson, who was absent) at Walmart or at city hall for committee meetings, you should give them an earful of their hypocrisy.  That includes you and the county commission too, Janet Anderson.  If we are really suffering from a local emergency, why isn't it mentioned at all at either the county or city website anywhere? 

Why isn't any local health emergency mentioned on the local health department website, which doesn't even track local cases or deaths any more?  Maybe because only two deaths have been attributed to the 'pandemic' over the last three months in the county, unlike the 25 we had in the prior three months when a local emergency may have been more applicable.  The absence of in-person meetings guarantee that local governments will get sloppier in every aspect of their public service, that's an obvious statement to those paying attention over the last year.  Look for the June 2021 deadline to be pushed further ahead by people in the same profession that told us 15 days to stop the spread in 2020: politicians.  Political science is keeping this going, not medical science.

I had a comment for the second period, but got sickened to the very base of my soul by the discussion over the local state of emergency and how the council desired virtual meetings rather than the in-person meetings they're supposed to be holding.  I walked out of the meeting in disgust, as the councilors selfishly tried to one-up their colleagues on why going virtual was the way to go, without consideration of reality and the duties they signed up for when they took their oath of office.

Here is an example of how things have got sloppy over the last two years, and of which I will develop further in detail in later articles; it's what I talked about in the initial public comment period.  The faceless, uncaring councilors ignored the issues in their entirety when they chose to spend a whole lot of money on a new assessor with little relevant discussion.  Dan Kirwin, pictured below, who attended, avoided the enormous pay hike as well as they made him a much richer man.

XLFD:  "Tonight the council will consider a substantial increase in the city's part-time assessor contract by potentially hiring Dan Kirwin with a contract that effectively raises the per parcel assessing rate of $10 we currently enjoy up to a rate of $16.50 per parcel rate, that's a 65% per parcel change and will result in over a $30,000 increase per year in city expenses.  

The person that submitted this hefty contract rate is the same person who submitted a proposal back in 2018, when the rate per parcel then was raised to $10 by hiring Jared Littwiller.  Dan Kirwin would have provided assessor services for the city at $43,200 per year for three years with a contract that allowed renewal by mutual agreement between parties at that same rate.

Kirwin now submits a proposal that is about 65% over what he offered then, and about 65% over what he would be making this year, had he been hired by Ludington in late 2018. 

The inflation rate between 2018 and 2021 has been about 4%, one wonders how a similarly qualified Dan Kirwin would raise his proposed rate by 65% and expect that he would have a chance to win a competitive bid, unless there was some sort of knowledge that he would not have a truly competitive bid, and could effectively set his rate 16 times the rate of inflation between those two bids. 

This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds with city management clandestinely hiring a building inspector full-time last year and doing so while ignoring the competitive bidding process and the city thereby breaking a promise the City made to all residents back in 2015 when it inflicted the rental inspection program on the landlords and tenants of Ludington.  

If you as councilors were unaware of these issues, you are not paying close enough attention and you are probably not aware that you were accessories to an offense against the Michigan Constitution when you hired State Senator Curt VanderWall's company over a lower company's qualified bid last year, and that negligence is a violation of your oath of office to fully support that Constitution when you ignored Article IV, section 10.  Thank you."

One should note also that in 2018 Kirwin contracted to have office hours in Ludington 6 full days per month.  In 2021, he contracted to be in the office for one day per week, or 4.3 days per month.  Less in-person services, much more money.  The city council doesn't give one hoot about why the disparity in costs or services happened or whether the bidding process was fair and offered to enough bidders (Kirwin was the only one that submitted a bid on time).  Not too surprising when you start advertising for a job opportunity and post it for less than two weeks.  

The Ludington Torch will explore further whether this bidding process was similar to the same process which gave us a new full-time building inspector back in late 2020 without anybody among the public knowing about it, even those of us who attended all of the virtual meetings we could.

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They've finally posted the video for this meeting:

Aoril 12th, 2021 Ludington City Council meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

Thanks for the information X. Excellent points all around. Is there any reason why the Council cannot have an in person meeting plus a virtual meeting at the same time? This would allow for more participation by the citizens, especially if they are out of town for business, personal reasons or vacations. This would also allow for a quorum at every meeting if a Councilor cannot be there in person. 

CM Foster has expressed an interest in being able to do a composite meeting that meets in-person but allows for virtual attendance allowing participation by the public.  In the fall, Scottville's CM at the time, Courtney Magaluk tried that at least once with some success.  It didn't catch on, however, and then a new season of Covid-19 kicked in.  I think both Scottville and Ludington could do this with very little problem, but they don't for some reason, probably because their councilors just don't care enough about giving the public access to what they're doing or offering the transparency they claim to adore every four years.

I would be striving for this goal as a councilor; the council's objectives should be to interest the public in these meetings and get their opinions, as they are funding the enterprise.  Offering the in-person meeting would satisfy the smooth transaction of business and allow the public to interact face-to-face.  Offering the virtual meeting would satisfy those who can't physically attend due to distance or other anxieties.  If somebody says they weren't able to attend a meeting, there would be few excuses. 

Additionally, I would like to see interactive features used for gauging the popularity of an action or policy under consideration by the attendants.  Modern meetings could achieve a level very close to direct democracy.

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