Ludington City Council Meeting 1-13-2014: First Day of School

[XLFD]

The first city council meeting featured the usual first of the year meeting business:  putting people in the too-many boards and committees that the City has, the council electing its mayor pro-tem and sitting its own subcommittees, and the DDA getting approval for their downtown events.  And that was pretty much the agenda when you round it out with the normal routines.

But a smaller than normal audience also was interested in the new members of the City team, with Ryan Cox replacing John Henderson at Mayor, and Kathy Winczewski replacing Wally Taranko as 2nd Ward Councilor.  Mayor Cox had a few small gaffes that were understandable for someone new to the position of directing a meeting, like moving to the next item before votes or discussion were made.  Not a big error when you consider that the outcome is mostly a foregone conclusion.

 

"Let Rotta know he has five and not a second more."

The council decided on Councilor Nick Tykoski as the mayor pro tem (the stand-in for the mayor), which isn't surprising from this vantage point considering the City's corrupt nature.  Fully documented cronyism with the City of Ludington covered up by the City Manager perjuring himself, and let's not forget he is currently being sued for a willful Open Meetings Act violation against the people.  Who could be better. 

The council also had second thoughts about painting the streets green for the St. Patrick's Day celebration, Councilor Castonia making a special amendment for approval with the exception of painting the street.  Funny thing is, there was no mention of painting anything in the official council packet (relevant part shown below), meaning this decision was either made outside of an open meeting or amended just that afternoon by the DDA at its meeting.  Each of the officials seemed to know what Castonia was talking about, so one has to wonder what other changes were made between meetings and how that information was passed along to all.   

Be that as it may, I wonder about the third annual St. Patrick Day event (last year was the second), none of which has actually took place on St. Patrick's Day, but on the Saturday closest to St. Patrick's Day.  That's okay, we don't have a lot of Irish immigrants around these parts to take offense at this weird celebration of downtown Ludington, or the DDA saying that March 15th is St. Patrick's Day.  We're all Irish on the Ides of March.

But that was the height of any controversy except for what the only speaker of the night talked about.  He talked of some of the board appointments being illegal, and about the new mayor having incompatible offices in his capacity for serving as mayor and being on the Ludington Police Department.  He quoted some numbers, some laws, some numbered laws, typical crazy stuff that this council ignores in the course of doing what they do.  The laws and portions of the city charter/code are linked to for your convenience as his speech is transcribed below the video.  And it must not have been controversial:  for nobody on the city responded to them and they were ignored by the "news" outlets covering the meeting. 

The speech's contents must therefore be incontrovertible and non-refutable or totally irrelevant to the City's business.  It definitely was not the latter.  And just so you know beforehand, the board appointments were not amended and were unanimously approved by the city council, the appointments are included at the end of the speech.

 

 

 

 

I welcome the new mayor, and the new councilor, and welcome the hope that they can provide a respectable and accountable future for all citizens of Ludington.  As you are both also teachers, a good analogy for tonight, the first meeting you are attending in your official capacity, would be that this is the first day of school for you. 

You will find this schoolhouse has over 8000 potential teachers, you definitely won't meet or hear from them all, but you will regularly rub shoulders with about 1% of them if you are lucky.  Just a few more than that will genuinely care overmuch as to how you progress.  

Most of the teachers you run into will be nice, nurturing, and expect something good coming back from you.  Others will be stricter in their teaching, and expect you to properly do your assignments independently without cheating, without favoritism, and within budget.  Your first assignments are on the agenda, your first lesson is about the "rule of law".

Thomas Payne, famous pamphleteer of the American Revolution wrote:  "in America, the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."   I hope we can all agree here that all our American governments from the Federal down to small towns like Ludington should  be governed based on the rule of law, and not by personality or whimsy.  You have all pledged an oath of office to our federal and state constitutions, and thereby also agree to abide by the laws and restrictions of our city charter. 

That's why it pains this Thomas to frequently see the city charter and those constitutions ignored by Ludington government in their efforts to do their business.  I have came here over the last two years pointing out the sections of the charter and sections of state law that this government have freely ignored, whether it be the five sections of the charter that was ignored in creating this year's budget, or the Open Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act, which have been repeatedly and willfully ignored. 

The limited amount of business tonight is no exception, and if anyone in front of me cared to read and follow the city charter, they would know that there are multiple law violations in just the appointments scheduled for here tonight.

Section 9.3 of the charter says the City's Board of Review "shall consist of five electors of the City who, at the time of their appointment, are neither elected nor appointed officials of the City."  Fred Hackert is also serving on the Municipal Marina Board, Lyla McClellan and Wallace Cain both have a year in on their terms in the Zoning Board of Appeals; Lyla also will be serving on the Board of Ethics, no less. 

Section 2-90 (b of the City Code says:  "No member of the board of ethics shall hold any elected or appointed office, whether paid or unpaid, or any position of employment with the city."  This excludes Lyla from serving on any other board than the ethics board. 

The Planning Commission in section 1200:2:2 has a similar restriction:  "All appointed members of the Commission shall hold no other municipal office, or be an employee of the City", and at least one recurring member fails in that regard. 

So if these appointments are allowed to let stand as they are, our new elected officials will be willful participants in breaking City law, and the appointees will be willful participants in carrying out those directives.  When our public officials willfully break the written law right in front of our face, after being told they are doing so, that is perhaps corruption at its worst. 

If they can justify appointing people onto boards when the law disallows it, why doesn't this city council and mayor just rewrite the city charter and put the same group of loyal cronies on every board and committee?  Or just do anything they fancy?  Or is that too blatant?

The last issue I want to address here tonight is also about incompatible public offices.  As this year was ushered in downtown, Ryan Cox was performing the duties of being a reserve police officer while he officially became Mayor Cox.  The mayor of a fourth-class city (as Ludington is by its population), when acting as the chief executive officer of the city has the ability to directly supervise the police forces and police reserves.  A police reservist on the other hand is subordinate to other full-time LPD officers and the mayor.   This makes these two jobs incompatible by state law definition and MCL 15.182 says that a person may not hold incompatible public offices at the same time. 

That is very understandable in this case, as every police officer on LPD would have a supervisory role to Officer Cox, and yet at the same time have a subordinate role to Mayor Cox..."

And it would have continued along the same lines as this thread about the incompatible offices, but condensed into three sentences, if the new Mayor would have let me finish.  But then he would lose favor and face among his fellow politicians instead of with the people that elected him to his office and fund his public enterprise, in all three of his occupations. 

 

 

[Willy]

Mayor Cox had better put his thinking cap on and do his own reasoning about what is going on. It's up to his discretion to allow an extension of time so a person addressing the Council can finish their speech. Limiting a speaker to exactly 5 minutes is a decision for the Mayor to make. For him to shut X down and not extend his time to finish is a foreboding sign, especially when he cuts off the time when a person is addressing a violation of the law involving the Mayor himself. They Mayor should realize that the reason for the 5 minute limit is to keep the meeting from being to long, not to shut down a citizen from speaking their peace. for God's sakes the meeting was only 20 minutes long. He demonstrated to me his arrogance in not listening to citizens who are addressing him for the first time. I don't care for the new Mayor's attitude and frankly he has just demonstrated the same spiteful attitude as demonstrated by the previous Fuhrer.

[XLFD]

What has surprised me about Mayor Cox so far: 

1) He campaigned against three other candidates for mayor and never really got into any specifics as to what he is going to do as mayor, just generalities.  Other insider baseball intelligence has me believing he was more attuned to the prior mayor than is generally known, perhaps a handpicked successor.  Two weeks into his term there is no vision, just what we might expect from Henderson's fourth term.

2) He was undoubtedly nervous last night about assuming the post, but my impression was that he did not project leadership, he seemed directed by his fellow officials.  I don't know whether that came through on the video.  Combined with his subservient acts of the prior meeting, I don't see him turning against the forces in the City of Ludington that have led it into corrupt acts and law-defying. 

3) He may feel ignoring the squeaking wheel will make it go away, but when he leads off with unlawful appointments and doesn't anticipate that his reserve police office is full of real and potential conflicts of interests and duties with his mayor office, then his ignorance of the problem will only aggravate the squeak. 

[Willy]

I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt but when the first person to address him from the podium as mayor was cut you off while  speaking about a crucial and important topic, immediately let me know what side of the fence he was on. Your right, it came across as tho the Council had installed a ring in his nose and was leading him with a rope tethered to it. This also shows he's not an independent and is easily influenced by others. He may have been nervous but we all know the Council probably had him in the empty chamber to have a few dress rehearsals on how to conduct a meeting. Even if it was legal for him to be Mayor and an officer at the same time, I find it very disturbing that the Mayor can be so heavily influenced by the Chief of Police. Cox should either resign his police position or his job as Mayor. In my opinion this is a serious breach of ethics and common sense. And to think he's just starting.