Ludington City Council Meeting December 21, 2015: Deck City Hall with Bouts of Folly

The last city council meeting in Ludington each year typically takes place about a week before Christmas, and for all the wide-eyed city officials, it's a highly anticipated time for the gifts about to come.  The city clerk and treasurer have their salaries raised by ordinance, and if the city budget hasn't been adopted yet, the rest of the staff get their bonuses too. 

And these are usually in moderation, for the city has learned that they can provide a hefty benefits package to their officials as an alternative and have even happier employees.  The city councilors also decide on whether to continue retaining the city manager and the city attorney, whose contracts must be renewed annually.  My public comment was spent exclusively on explaining why those two positions should not be renewed. 

Other than a 'no' vote by Councilor Kaye Holman for the city manager, whom indicated that she thought the city needed a change (and that it was for his own good), everyone else thought that the transgressions partially enumerated in the five minute speech were immaterial.  Councilor Castonia and Councilor Katie Moonbeam (aka Kathy Winczewski) both chimed in with the same defense of the city manager they gave in March when I listed just ten of the reasons why John Shay should be fired.  Of course, to long term public servant Katie Moonbeam, all public officials are sacred and indispensable.

At 14:30 into the meeting, Spence Riggs gave a presentation on the Target Market Analysis (TMA) conducted earlier this year (shown here, with our own analysis).  For the next twenty plus minutes, it was described to the audience, but I still don't understand several basic things about it, including the basic idea:  why did we pay money for this? 

Even with Riggs' explanation not pointing directly to it, the implications here are more attuned to the community planning aspect of the data.  The analysis projects what community housing needs may be in five years for a mix of about 20 different communities, and we are somehow supposed to apply it to the Ludington situation, despite the fact that the Rental Inspection Ordinance has made the analysis effectively useless.  Many of the 'missing middle' currently existing and in use are being reverted to single family houses because of the RIO.

With the county and city investing your money into this and obviously eating the data up as some sort of mandate for how we should proceed, look for them to adjust their policies accordingly.  Having a lot of people living under one roof around a centralized location is a key tenet to Agenda 21, which requires a strong government presence dictating where and how people live.  We see that China has built sustainable cities that remain largely unoccupied, the 'high-in-demand' micro-apartments being shunned by the populace that are being aggressively encouraged to live there by the Chinese government.  Centralized planning of housing alternatives is not American, it's downright Marxist.

Public Safety & Pubic Utilities had the rest of the meeting.  First, they agreed to a consent agreement between them and Michigan Power, which was recently purchased.  The new owners were undoubtedly impressed with the very-favorable-to-them water supply agreement with the city.  I lightly touched on this in my comment.

They then approved a surcharge agreement with House of Flavors, adopted a resolution for the proposed microbrewery going in at Melendy and James, approved a water supply agreement with Amber Township, and lastly set a public hearing for the next meeting to issue bonds for water and sewer upgrades, as mandated by the Rural Development.  These are described in more detail beginning on page 57 in the council packet.

Besides my own public comment, Willy Reed rose (at 8:30 in) to publicly lend his support to the rezoning of the property near his father's bottling company on North Washington, previously discussed at the last Planning Commissioner meeting and here on the LT.  Recently, the COLDNews revealed what the proposed development is planned to look like:

This issue will come up at the next PC meeting on January 4th and in a future council meeting.  Although I do not believe the City should deny the change, I am of the belief that it would not be a wise construction, as noted in the link. 

My own comment was just before that (at 3:10 in) and touched primarily on the shortcomings of our city's management and legal leadership, and the call for a change.  Surprisingly, Councilor Holman once again voted against rehiring Shay, like she has done a few other times, always without a very good reason even though I and others could supply her with many.  Notably absent was Councilor Johnson, who represents my ward.  Conspiracy-minded citizens may wonder if the effect was to take the issue off the table for the election of 2016 if I were to run for the seat. 

December 21, 2015 Ludington City Council from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

I humbly come before you tonight to plead a case for not renewing the contracts of the city manager and the city attorney.  Now, with the current make-up of the city council, I know such a task is at best a fool's errand.  This makes me uniquely qualified to do it.

In March I came before the council and listed ten reasons why John Shay should be fired based on his actions or inactions as a public official.  Those transgressions were significant, many have led to the firings of other city managers and public officials; yet two councilors and Mayor Cox shrugged them off at the time and couldn't say enough about how professional, respectful, and downright indispensable he was to the city.  This, even when those ten reasons, most fully supported by records and admissions, showed quite the reverse. 

It is undeniable that he supplied the local circuit court with a false affidavit that he willfully swore to.  He can claim that it was not deliberate, but many of the public records he refused to disclose had his name or initials on them, showing that he knew about them enough to sign them .  And surely he and Attorney Wilson  must have known at the time that the judge in the case was the father of one of the city attorneys representing the City.  But that was unimportant, he had to block the release of the unscrupulous deal without a contract that the City had made with Councilor Tykoski's business; perjury and impropriety be damned.

Sitting across John Shay while he was being deposed in my federal lawsuit with him and the city, I was troubled but not surprised that he told more even more lies about events, clearly in dispute of the public records saying otherwise.  I admit being shocked, yet wasn't surprised that in the meeting after the City paid out $15,000 in that lawsuit that John Shay knowingly libeled me repeatedly with false claims and hearsay at the end of a city council meeting.  This forum is meant to discuss public actions and public policy, not to launch malicious personal attacks that have nothing to do with city business. 

Yet, our mayors allow such to occur at the end of the meetings, whether it be Chief Barnett launching a gaslight attack on my character or a serial perjurer who doubles as our city manager engage in defamation of someone he just lost a court case to.  These tirades were said when the private citizen could not publicly defend his honor and shows just how low this city hall has gotten in pushing forth their own warped agenda.   

The City manager and city attorney engaged in an overbilling scheme for three years, sometimes giving our attorneys up to $340 per hour when they were contracted to $185.  During this same time, the city attorney contracted with a water rate consultant, Mark Beauchamp-- the guy who was here two meetings ago telling us why our water, sewer and readiness to serve charges would be going up, up and away.  Unlike the many other cities that employ such consultants, our city council never voted to retain his services, which cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.  By charter law, they need to.

That money was funneled through city attorney Richard Wilson in an illegal and unethical scheme to deprive not only the people of knowing what was happening, but the city council too.  The service may have been used in an effort to secretly broker a water-selling contract with Michigan Power and PM Township.  At the last meeting, Wilson told an advocate for the poor folks of Ludington that the City could not adjust the water rates offered to fixed income households because the law doesn't allow them to. 

He failed to mention why someone who lives in town pays the rate of $1.65 per hundred cubic feet, while due to an intergovernmental agreement, PM Township gets the same amount for under a dollar.  Ask Attorney Wilson and John Shay, negotiators of the three-sided contract you signed off with earlier this year, how come the water rate for PM Township was dropped 58 cents per unit and under a dollar when ours will crest two dollars very soon in the shadow of the citizens of Ludington going into over $30 million in debt for major upgrades, well overdue, on both water and water treatment plants. 

Would a competent city manager almost totally neglect an aging water and sewer system for nearly thirteen years, even after a discharge permit has been denied for the last four of those years?  Painting water towers well before they need it at a price well above a reasonable rate, was not a smart use of $1.5 million from the water fund.  [My speech was interrupted due to the five minute limit, with an exchange of 'Merry Christmas' sentiments between myself and the mayor.  This is how it would have finished...]  Regular and preventative maintenance on the forty year old structures may have saved the taxpayers millions in this case, but the public has been continuously left out of the loop.  Scheming  in shadows is not leadership.

So in closing, please use your oversight to consider doing the proper thing.  Rather than give them both raises in their wages and other fringes, terminate employment of the city manager and city attorney for the good of the city."

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This city needs a wake up call. A few good lawsuits, and a huge change over at City Hall.

These people have to be voted out, and shunned!

Accepting a corrupt City Attorney and City Manager to continue is Not in the best interest of this city.

With the evidence presented before this vote, the results speak volumes of who is to blame.

More Townhouses, for the professionals coming to work at Memorial Spectrum Health Hospital?

The same one's with a "D" RATING? LOL So, laughable. Honestly, this group doesn't deserve such comfort. 

Good comment Streeter, yet public comments, though not being illegal, continue to fall of DEAF EARS! That's a BIG problem. Almost like not having any at all. If councilors know all too well with proofs and facts that the Shyster Shay and Wilson are doing business together illegally, against the city charter, against city contracts, and against the law, how can they vote for another year of appointments??? I guess licking council members boots is the trick to having them approved??? If they aren't performing their job duties in all respects legal-like, then they have no business being approved! As for Shyster Shay not turning red faced, I guess Moonbeam must be color blind. He's been repeatedly blushing after almost every episode of being accused of perjury, swindling funds, falsifying grant apps., and making illegal and over-costly contracts. The rest of the time he's raising his red party cup in drinking fluids probably for sake of keeping sweat off his face, and for more courage to face the truth. Lastly, it's hard to vote them out if no one runs in opposition against them, nor anyone making recalls. We're stuck with them until that scenario changes sadly.

The council outdid itself in the year of 2015 in the areas of taking away your money, taking away your rights, being permissive towards unethical and illegal activity amongst themselves, and making it hard to run a business in Ludington.  I'm under the belief that they took advantage of the extra year of unaccountability  afforded to them by changing the local voting from odd to even years back in 2014. 

Unfortunately, Aquaman, I have heard of no concerted efforts at recalls or fighting back against the Rental Inspection Ordinance, which has several legal weaknesses.  And, despite the uncontested corruption among several Ludington officials, there are no local officials (including county officials) who seem to care.  This is why everyone should care, and get involved!

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