Ludington City Council Meeting 8-12-2013: Candid Camera Issues

[XLFD]

Despite having three weeks instead of the usual two weeks between meetings, the Ludington City Council meeting of August 12, 2013 had very little taking place.  Beyond the usual paying of the bills and other normal protocol, the only business was to approve a 5K run in September through the downtown area benefitting Staircase, and to decide on a FOIA appeal.  

 

Having been the FOIA appealer many times in front of the city council and getting exactly no votes in any appeal prior, the negation of my appeal was pretty much to be expected, especially since the FOIA appeal was basically a replay of another one I had in June of 2012 that came before the council about marina camera footage at the time of the Lingyan Zou drowning.  Chief Barnett allowed me to review two of their camera's footages but under no condition would allow me to get a copy of the recordings or even a still-frame picture, on some insane idea that the security of the marina would be compromised.  As if the municipal marina before the cameras were installed (circa 2011) did not have security issues. 

 

Even though I touched on the basis of my appellate argument in my five minutes of public comment, I had prepared a small refutation for the reason they denied my request.  I include that at the end of this piece.  John Shay saying it compromised the security of the municipal marina area is... ridiculous.  But all councilors present didn't think so, and voted unanimously without discussion to keep the public records private.

 

Other than that, Jess Karboske in public comments, graciously thanked the City for arranging a meeting on Wednesday at 10 AM with DNR officials to decide on the fate of dredging the PM Bayou, this follows my comments which all starts at 2:10 into the meeting.  But here is the video of the meeting followed by a transcript of my speech, Mayor Henderson once again showing how out of touch he is in his comments at the end of the meeting (19:10 in).  As usual, since I was not given the opportunity to refute his remarks at the council, they are addressed here in red among brackets.  I also include shots of City Manager John Shay's expressions at three different times:  1) when I inferred that maybe the City was trying to send a message   2)  when he heard about the cameras pointed at the stalls and urinals in the waterfront park's bathrooms (a topic that no official commented on, by the way)  3)  when Mayor Henderson was giving me the bio of Jerry Welton. 

 

 

Hi, I'm Tom Rotta, from Dowland Street, 

I wish to start with a simple question:  "Why do Ludington property owners and citizens pay in over five million dollars in taxes and fees per year to support their local city government?"  A look at the encyclopedia shows local governments provides basic public works for our streets and other infrastructure, manages parks, and police and fire services.  They can expand on those basic services, but it could arguably be concluded that private companies could offer up as good or better service on such things not mentioned.

 

And community policing is a service; Ludington will spend over $1.4 million on its police force this year, over a quarter of its expenditures, so the citizens that pay the salaries and bills of the LPD should expect exemplary and accountable actions by that department.  Our police officers get paid significantly more than our county sheriff's deputies, and patrol an area and population substantially smaller than they do. 

But at the end of the last meeting, when officials can get up and say whatever they want about private citizens without fear of being corrected by anyone attending the meeting, Mayor Henderson made a few irresponsible comments which illustrates why he has been in office for too long and is out of touch with how government is supposed to work.

 

I made comments about lawsuits that were taken up against the City involving alleged police brutality on innocent citizens accused of no crime themselves and violations of their civil liberties.  Our mayor has stood mute about these occurrences, showing no compassion for the people he serves that apparently have been wronged by his fellow public officials.  On the contrary, he has spoken two times to try and totally exonerate LPD Officer Aaron Sailor of any wrongdoing in his police career, even though he has a long record of violating his oaths to protect and serve the public. 

He has done this by allegedly entering a house without showing a warrant and pushing down an innocent lady from behind and denying her any treatment, beating up a group with fist and flashlight that called the police for help in the first place, and also entering a house, again without warrant or probable cause, and seriously beating up a drunken man and his girlfriend who posed absolutely no threat.  Our mayor said Aaron Sawyer had every right to do what he did, but the mayor is totally wrong.  Each of the innocent people he assaulted had rights which were violated by him acting under color of law, and he should be held accountable by the people he serves. 

And less than 18 hours after Mayor Henderson said that my comments on those cases effectively 'called out' the whole police force, which is a big stretch, I was cut off by a city official wielding a city truck who disobeyed a stop sign and stole my right of way on the corner of William and Filer Streets.  I was clearly in the process of making a left turn onto Filer from William on my bicycle, when Jerry Welton pulled out from the Marina entrance in front of me.  He had a stop sign, I didn't.  I would have been struck or struck him if I hadn't broken in dramatic fashion. 

This happened three weeks ago, I reported on it within the hour it happened, and then the next day to the police chief and the city manager.  I have gotten no responses at all, except to a FOIA request I made the Friday it happened, concerning footage of the security cameras in that vicinity at the time of the incident.  As usual, it was denied, saying that 'requested records were of security measures'.  They said I could watch it, but not receive the footage itself, but that wasn't my request.  It has been rationalized that if they fully allowed my request, everyone could see the coverage or lack of coverage of these areas by the cameras.  

Camera angles and locations can be changed, but you cannot change the fact that Code Enforcement Officer Jerry Welton in violation of law, nearly ran me over.  You can just ignore the complaint, and ignore a proper FOIA request that has been improperly denied, to thwart my intention to show what Jerry Welton did seemed intentional, and may have been done to send a message, or worse. 

 

 

Speaking of camera angles and locations that can be changed, I put out an article on my website, The Ludington Torch, last night which shows that the City Manager and Police Chief have no respect for the privacy rights of Ludington citizens.  At issue is a surveillance camera posted inside the men's bathroom at Waterfront Park which points directly at the sink, urinal, and toilet areas. 

In July, I made a FOIA request asking for footage of these cameras, one of which is also in the lady's rest room.  I was once again denied, this time on the grounds of invasion of privacy.  As if to say what the City is filming and able to look at is not invading your privacy.  If you or I were to do this at the restrooms in our business or schools, we would be facing felony convictions under state law.  But apparently our officials have been filming this stuff for years. 

Five million dollars plus, and all we can get from our leadership is them spying on our private affairs, [Editor:  Mayor Henderson gave me the 5 minute cut here, the rest was:] defending their own law-breaking officers, and denying the people information about how they waste the money taken by them through taxation and fees.  Mayor Henderson, instead of defending your errant officers whenever you have the chance, consider defending your constitution and your constituents, where you receive your actual power from.

Ludington Mayor Henderson and Scottville Mayor Baxter:  Mayors at beginning of 2013, Citizens at beginning of 2014, Yay 

Mayor John Henderson (19:10):  "In response to the allegation that a city employee, in this case, Jerry Welton, who takes his job very serious and (is distraught?) about how this has been perceived that someone would think that he would try to hurt them or hurt them [if he takes his job serious, why hasn't he, his boss, or the police chief responded to a citizen's complaint after three weeks?]and that's just so far from the truth that Jerry is a very kind-hearted individual, he's a ex-fire chief, he does Baby Badger for us, he basically volunteers, we do pay him a little amount of money to do code enforcement for us, but he's giving it his all, he's retired [OK... we have his resume.  What does that show?] and for someone to make an accusation that someone purposely did something is mistaken [read my words, mayor, I'm looking for answers and no one on your side is giving me anything.  This is at least negligent and unprofessional on the City's part.], and for some reason you continue, Tom, you continue to twist the words, you sit up there accusing people of being thugs [I have never used the word 'thug' at the meetings, but this is the second time you've said I have, John] and going after you [I haven't professed any paranoia beyond wondering whether this near miss was accidental or not.]. 

 

Listen to your words as you listen to ours, you really need to listen to yours more, or I am not understand what your saying, your communications are poor to me [And that's a great sentence you just put together to tell me that].  When you are accusing these people of going after you-- those are serious allegations and you need to, it's not funny, you may think it's funny, but it's not funny to those people and it's, it's really sad to see you move to those low levels for whatever you're getting out of this [If it's serious, then address it when it's brought to your attention, and allow the records to be made available that may show this incident so your co-worker can be proven innocent of any wrongdoing or careless driving]. 

 

So you know, whatever you got to do, you got to do, man, but, it's poor that you continue to take good people like Jerry and put him out in front of that and say that he's trying to hurt you [what's really poor is that you, the mayor of Ludington, take several minutes at the end of these meetings to comment not on public policy or actions, but on your critical and often false perceptions of an individual] .  He isn't trying to hurt you, he's not trying to hurt anyone [Did I ever say he was?].  Maybe there's better drivers, but let me tell you, people make mistakes every day, you know [Jerry Welton is 71 years old and wears glasses, and a driving mistake on his part was my first inclination.  But then the City never responded to my complaint, still hasn't, and blocked my FOIA request and now I have become very suspicious].  They pull out in front... people do that, but I'm not saying what happened then but it wasn't surely done on purpose there.  And as far as our officers and their duties are... you insulted our officers, the county officers, and law enforcement officers in general with your comments, and that was my comment back to you [I disagree.  I pointed out alleged police actions that wound up in Federal Court, many supported by witnesses and facts, that anybody should find disagreeable-- except those that support police brutality and civil right violations].

 

You've done this FOIA request, you continue not to acknowledge what happened that night, those actions [John, I am not following you, your communications are poor, as you'd say].  It is what it is, but our officers are number one, they're stand up guys, and so that's the end of my comments.  [None of your stand-up guys have stood up yet, Mayor Henderson, and either defended themselves or admitted responsibility for their actions.  Yet you have made it through another diatribe, where you have attacked a citizen, and defended a bad driver (at least), and a couple of officers accused of brutalizing innocent Ludington citizens, without ever defending a citizen once.  I repeat: your totally out of touch]" 

[Willy]

It still amazes me that not one of the boobs on the Council questions anything that goes on in the City. They're like pile of rocks, they're just there. It would be so refreshing to hear just one of them ask about the questions and concerns you raise. Logs have bumps that are more responsive.

[XLFD]

In my conversations with some other disgruntled citizens and their interactions with the city councilors it seems to be a common thread that the councilors are either uninformed about what's going on for the most part, or choose to remain ignorant.  But I wouldn't be surprised that their ignorance is feigned to give them plausible deniability of their own involvement in what's going on.  There was a meeting this morning involving private marina owners, the City, the MI DNR and Prein & Neuhoff that was most enlightening about how our City Manager's methodology and mindset works.  John seemed awfully happy to see I could make it.  But he should have saved some of that glibness for the meeting.

Which he did, but it was just about as believable as his happiness in seeing me.