The Place Where Ludington Talks
Ludington City Council, May 4, 2015: How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth, Is the Pointy Edges of the Truth
The May Fourth meeting was only scheduled to have a couple of things occur. The council was set to hear the auditor's reports, approve another downtown event occurring on South James Street, and adopt an ordinance that would lessen the restrictions of alcohol in Cartier Park. Each of these agenda items were approved, along with the small amount of bills over the one week period since the last meeting on April 27.
Pretty uneventful, even the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) didn't run any articles on it the weekend before this meeting, held other than the usual second Monday of the month. Uneventful, except that a citizen would get up and for the third straight meeting expound on the reasons why John Shay has been a failure at his job, expanding during that time to spread much of the 'credit' to his supporting cast of characters, while worming in some culture with a little bit of Shakespeare to stress both the tragedy, the comedy, and the history of the situation. Councilor Holman, as usual, was the muse.
While at the last meeting, the city attorney tried to explain why the charter and state constitution were just plain wrong with a self-conflicting argument, this meeting had all officials holding their tongues, as there really wasn't much else they could do when confronted with their own irrefutable failures to police themselves and their appointees.
As if to complete the farce, almost immediately after the one citizen spoke, long-term auditor for the city, Ken Berthiaume, issued a report wherein he said the Ludington books were balanced and that accounting practices were being followed. Perhaps, Ken could explain the various discrepancies I pointed out that allowed the city attorney to overcharge the city for three years.
There's one good reason the City has kept the same auditor firm since the 1980's, and it's not because they do a thorough job and catch errors or misuses of public funds. After they received the auditing contract for a fair bit of change back in 1989 and get over $20,000 a year for the service from the city's coffers since 2007, the city has received an unblemished string of clean audits, with no exceptions:
2011- Unqualified Opinion, best
2014- Unmodified opinion (best)
Twenty-five years of only superlatives from the auditor-- do you really feel that safe with how your money is being used? One does not need to question the integrity of Mr. Berthiaume or his company to believe that our city leaders could fudge figures and get the best audit results by fully understanding what process he has been using. Likewise, one wonders whether they would keep renewing his contract without bid if, heaven forbid, he was diligent, found some discrepancies and publicly reported them.
Unlike the last meeting, the fiery rhetoric by the public commenter went ignored at the end of the meeting, which was surprising with the reference to "ancient bookends". The finished comment follows the video and begins at approximately 2:25 into the video.
LCC May 4 from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.
Let me remind this council they have all said these words when they were elected or appointed to their office:
"I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of this state, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Ludington City Councilor according to the best of my ability."
And yet, when you have been called over the years to support that state constitution, the one that says an oath of office is required by all state and local officers and employees, you have failed in that task. Have you not violated your own oath of office in doing so?
The city attorney claims that Mr. Shay's one year term of office, as it's referred to in the charter, and his employment contract makes him immune to having to take an oath of office, he is mistaken. If John Shay was an independent contractor, he would be right, but the employment contract says he is an employee with plenty of benefits, and thus required to take an oath by MCL 15.151, and our charter claims him to be an official also, who needs to take an oath by Article 11, section 1 of the state constitution.
To not force him to take an oath of office, is in complete violation of your own oath of office, for how can you support the constitution when you are flagrantly going against it?
I don't like spending a thousand dollars a year on car insurance, but the law says I have to if I want to drive a car. The law says a public officer or employee must offer their word up as insurance that they will do their work to the best of their ability and within the law. This doesn't cost anything beyond the paper it's printed upon, and yet assures us that the public servant's behavior is insured by his or her word.
I have here, Mayor Cox's oath of office as a Ludington police reservist, a position that is unlawful according to state and local legislation. Our city attorney has assured us in a written opinion that reserved officers are not officers or employees of Ludington, and yet here is an oath sworn by Mayor Cox to be a reserve police officer, a position created illegally and solely by our police chief. Yet, John Shay is both officer by charter and employee by contractual agreement, and bound to swear or affirm an oath, and that same city attorney tells us that the law does not apply here.
This is an attorney who submitted for three years, invoices asking for extra special project billings at a rate that was up to $140 per hour more than what his contract entitled him or other lawyers in his firm. Where was the outrage by this city council the first time I brought this up last year? There was none. The second time, none. The third time, none. Even though I had sent them records showing this.
You don't just accidentally overbill for three years, get it okayed by your fellow appointed officer, John Shay, for three years, and say oops. This impropriety was settled how? You let the city manager and attorney figure out the numbers, pay it back without interest and say no foul.
Then, as I have also brought up repeatedly, our city was sending thousands of dollars of our money to our city attorney's law firm in order to pay Utility Financial Solutions for a cost of service study. Pentwater and Manistee recently did the same, but it was an open process where the city council of our two neighbors agreed to pay for in an open meeting. Our City Manager and Attorney designed a way to get around such bother, by claiming this money was for special attorney billings. Yes, this is against the law.
How can Ludington citizens respect such lawless activity from their elected leaders on this council, when their appointed officers are disregarding laws or making the laws up as they go?
Our ancient bookends on this council respond by either attacking the herald or doing what Ms. Holman said last time by pooh poohing the problem, saying it is much ado about nothing. Keeping with the Shakespeare theme, it is more like a "comedy of errors" starring this panel in front of me. The status quo may be "as you like it", but the concerned citizen's do not like it one bit. She calls for anger, I all for accountability. Thank you.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Willy on
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Excellent comments X. This really shows how much integrity Shay, the Council and Mayor Have. By not requiring Shay to take the oath is completely contrary to common sense and the understanding of the law. As far as the City Manager and the City attorney "fixing" the overpayment problem themselves, it brings much suspicion upon how City business is handled. Why didn't any City Official suggest that Ken Berthiaume do the honors of correcting and explaining the over payments made to the Attorney. One would wonder why Berthiaume did not check into that situation on his own because without doing so it only sheds suspicion on him and his firm. How can an "OK" be stamped on the audit with this hanging over the City Manager and Attorney. I noticed how Holman held her tongue and as such did not make a fool of herself at this meeting. To bad, I was looking forward to another famous Holman quote.
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Permalink Reply by XLFD on
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I rarely taunt the elder councilors, but I did on this day, and they remained relatively docile throughout, except for a brief flash by Councilor Holman when the issues of signs on the right-of-way came up.
My impression of Berthiaume is that he is an otherwise honorable person/company, but they are a lot like the COLDNews, they go with what they are given by the city as the untarnished truth, and shut out the rest as background noise.
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