Ludington City Council Meeting 4-14-2014: Unruly Actions

[XLFD]

The City of Ludington meeting showed a bit of stuff on the agenda that they effectively passed without serious discussion.  Two 5k Runs were approved along with the Freedom Festival parades.  The Recreation Director, the Community Development Director, Treasurer, and the Assessor gave their 2013 annual reports, which extended the time of the meeting quite a bit, while telling us that everything was running peachy.  Am I imagining things or have these 2013 annual reports are taking over a lot of early 2014?

 An ordinance was passed that raised the water and sewer connection fees, while a first reading of an ordinance to change odd year elections for the city into even year elections.  This will give all the incumbent city councilors another year in office, so even if this wasn't a good idea, it will pass when it comes up for vote. 

As usual, the local media either downplayed or overlooked the main point of controversy coming from the usual source at this particular meeting when reporting on it.  Rob Always of the MCP, was there and has yet had anything to report about this meeting at all.  Kevin Braciszewski of the COLDNews was there and had the usual hard time for getting things right about my participation: 

Public comment complaint

Tom Rotta used his public comment period time Monday to complain that his comments are cut off after five minutes.

Rotta said he presumes the five-minute limit is a suggestion and not a set rule and said two people in the past three years have exceeded five minutes.

Mayor Ryan Cox then cut Rotta off after five minutes. Rotta asked by what authority Cox cut him off after that time and Cox replied it was his authority as mayor.

http://www.shorelinemedia.net/ludington_daily_news/news/local/artic...

As my speech transcript shows (presented after the video), my speech was a bit more than a complaint about being cut off for five minutes, it was a notice that the City Council meetings are operating without absolutely any meeting rules-- a FOIA response showed that there was no written rules that the meetings are governed by in existence.  It thus follows along the same path as their rules for LPD reserve officers that wear badges on their LPD officer uniforms, and walk around town with a Glock ready to fire, but no legislative authority, standards or minimum training at all backing them up. 

I'm sure that some people would like to think that giving good people the powers and weapons of police without any structure behind it other than what LPD Police Chief Mark Barnett deems reasonable at the time would be a good thing, but those people are only in the majority at city council meetings.  I find it immensely unsafe and prone to corrupt uses by Chief Barnett whose rationales and rationality has often come into question by many in the community when it comes to proper policing and accountability. 

I include both videos of the meeting-- there was an unaccustomed adjournment under the auspices that the reports were taking up a bit of time.  While these reports were being given, however, the mayor and others were doing a lot of table talk about something, so they may have called it for something else entirely. 

My speech comes at a little over two minutes in, I include a transcript, and I was followed by Tom Tyron, who complained about the poor patching job done on Ludington Avenue over the winter winding up on his front yard.  My 'complaint' was never addressed, Mr. Tyron left after the adjournment and missed City Manager Shay laying the blame on MDOT at the end, who usually does the roadwork on that section of highway.  Chances are, Mr. Tyron saw the City road-patchers doing that work as I'm sure he knows that too. 

Following the transcript (with my finishing sentences included) is an interchange between the City FOIA Coordinator and myself which indicates that in Ludington's history, rules for the conduct of city council meetings have never been drawn up, and if they have, they are long lost.  I will truly test them next meeting, by continuing my speech over five minutes unless I see some authority before then.  I appreciate all of you that will chip in on my bail money.

"About a month ago I made a FOIA request to the City asking for "The City of Ludington's written rules, by-laws, and regulations for conducting their City Council meetings."  I got back two documents, the latest FOIA policy which contains no real rules or regulations for conducting these meetings, and section 6 of the charter which only references general terms of procedure, like following the open meetings act, keeping a journal of the proceedings, and section 6.2 which states that "the council shall determine its own rules". 

Being that this was all I received, and no other rules or regulations for conducting these meetings, one can only presume that those rules have never been drawn up and codified by this public body.  Therefore to announce that certain members of the public have to restrict themselves to five minutes is just a suggestion during a comment period, not a set rule made by this public body ever.  The Open Meetings Act, section 3, subsection 5 says:  "A person shall be permitted to address a meeting of a public body under rules established and recorded by the public body."   No rules have been established and recorded, as per my FOIA response, ergo there are no limits as to the public's comments at these meetings. 

It has been shown over the last few years that public comments advocating policies this public body desires gets more time than five minutes to make their point.  In 2011, Jon Cade had a 7 minute 24 second exposition about his problem with cats, leading to a wacky cat feeding ordinance this council passed.

In 2012, this council allowed four common people to speak well over five minutes at a public hearing for the historic district.  One spoke for eight minutes forty seconds.  Each of these five spoke for the district, which had tacit approval by the previous mayor.

I have never been allowed to speak for over five minutes, being stopped often in mid sentence by the mayor of the moment citing some unwritten rule that they don't strictly enforce on others or themselves, and in violation of the Open Meetings Act and the equal protection laws of our state and federal constitutions. 

The lack of any specific rules and regulations for public comment at a city council meeting, means that a member of the public could get up at any time to make a comment, such as when the city council is about to break another city charter rule or when one of their officers decide to focus his own comments on a private individual, rather than focusing on the issue of whether he and his law enforcers are operating outside of the law. 

The lack of any codified rules for council meetings creates the very real opportunity for chaos at council meetings exactly like the lack of any codified rules, standards and regulations for Ludington's police reservists creates a very real opportunity for chaos in our community.  And yet this council allows the latter to exist without any legislative authorization or rules.

Chief Barnett had the opportunity to tell the citizens how his police reserve officers, including the mayor, had that authority without any directives for them in the City Charter or City Code.  He had the opportunity to tell the city council that they should enact ordinances so that the legality of the reserve forces could be in place, and we would have some standards and authority in place for these city officers that wield a gun, wear a police uniform, and assumedly wield the authority of a police officer. 

But he didn't take four and a half minutes to do any of that.  He used that time for a personal attack on a private citizen while using gaslighting techniques to distort the record and the relevant issues.  A lot of the members of this city council clapped or cheered afterwards in approval. 

But the lesson I will remember from that diatribe was that Mayor Cox, who runs these meetings, never warned Chief Barnett that he needed to address the chair or to keep the meeting's focus on matters of public policy.  He allowed the chief to focus on and address a member of the public, heaping four helpings of shame on him, apologizing on behalf of that citizen for statements that were never said or inferred, and not mentioning one thing that dealt even indirectly with public policy. 

Revealing once again, that Mayor Cox's  public offices are incompatible, since Reserve Officer Cox would be guilty of gross insubordination if he tried to stop his chief from speaking..."

Here's where I was cut off by the Mayor who noted my five minutes were up.  I asked:  "Under what authority are you stopping my presentation at five minutes?"

LPD Reserve Officer Cox:   "As Mayor I am stopping your presentation at five minutes."

Me:  "By the authority of... (if not interrupted:  "...MCL 15.263 sec. 5, I shall be permitted to address this body in a way that does not violate written rules of that body.  Being that there is no rules I am violating, I shall proceed to the end of my statement.")

LPD Reserve Officer Cox:  "Tom, sit down."

And since this was a police officer, or at least what passes for a police officer among the scofflaws of the city officials, I took my seat.  But before that I tried to get through to Mayor Cox but failed:  "I'd like to make a point of order?"

LPD Reserve Officer Cox:  "No."

Robert's rules of order and all others I can think of, allow a participant to raise a 'point of order' in a parliamentary proceeding, but I was denied the ability to do so.  He had the ability to deny my point once I raised it, but his authority to preclude me from raising it was a severe breach of parliamentary procedure.  But arguing with a vigilante officer of the law in a rule-less meeting is practically pointless, when they can create any rule and enforce it anyway they so desire.  This is what Ludington City Hall is all about.  Here is how I would have finished my speech:

"There could be no better illustration of incompatibility than last meeting's showtime.  And fairness to that citizen, according  to Mayor Ryan Cox, is to let him have one minute in response to six minutes of personal attacks from the City's fire and police chiefs during a time when the City has not traditionally allowed the public to speak at all. 

Mayor Cox you have a social studies education bachelor's degree, can you not see that what happened at the end of the last meeting was wrong and unfair with your knowledge of civics?  Is it that difficult to see that your police work and mayor work has and will lead to conflicts?  With police misconduct issues in our city occurring at a more frequent rate, do you not want to be seen as a fair arbiter when they do?  Thank you."

FOIAs show Ludington City Council meeting have no set rules!

The request was simple:

The reply had a notice of extension (first link) and section 6 of the charter, which gives the authority to the council to make rules, but has no rules for the conducting of their meeting (CHAPTER_6._COUNCIL_PROCEDURE.pdf):

On the due date for that extension, I received two more .pdf files, one telling me the request was granted at no charge, the other a link to the latest FOIA Policy, which has absolutely nothing on about rules of conduct for Ludington City Council meetings (as seen here):

Therefore, the City leaders are conducting these meetings without any set rules.  They have not defaulted the rules of conduct under any of the accepted types like Robert's, but instead work under an undefined set of rules and standards that they can adapt to their benefit when needed to-- just like the Ludington Police Reserve Unit.  Isn't it special how they can create laws that make it unlawful to feed your cat outdoors, but never create laws that restrict their own conduct as public officers using your tax money for their meetings, their unconstitutional groups, and their peccadilloes?

[XLFD]

Nice to know that you will chip in on your own bail money.  Are you getting in trouble too?

[AQUAMAN]

Note to CA Wilson: why not take an hour or two of the taxpayers monies to design and implement a simple format for rules the city council normally follows in their bi-weekly meetings? Should be simple enough to do, and will quell any future misinterpretations of having no formal rules too, making every action above board and legal. Seems simple and straight forward enough to me. Instead of wasting time defending more questionable lack of basics in government, and defending Shay's every unethical move.

[AQUAMAN]

Can't be many friends streeter, the jail population is made up of 50% inmates from downstate nowadays. You see, we really really needed that 100 bed jail forced down voters throats soooo bad, that now we have room for  many others and can charge the other counties with smaller jails too.

[Willy]

Your right about that Aquaman. The taxpayers built an oversized jail only to have it rented out. Well that fits the Ludington area doesn't it? Half the jail is rented out to criminals and Half the town is rented to tourists.