Ludington City Council Meeting, December 23, 2024: Ignorance and Want

[XLFD]

The last meeting of the year for the Ludington City Council was held the evening before Christmas Eve.  Yet, except for a notice on the front door indicating that city hall would not be opened on the 24th and 25th, one could not discern that Christmas was in the air.  As you will see on the video, the council chambers had no decorations for the yuletide holiday present, and even the invocation was without reference to the reason for the season.  The 70-minute meeting would focus on many of the routine council tasks found in closing out a year and beginning another, including the remembrance of a couple members finishing their council career, but there would be otherwise no observance.

It was like officials at city hall, in all of their hubris, power-seeking, and cash-amassing, had forgotten their place in the cosmos and in the realm of humankind.  They needed a visitation by three spirits to refresh their perspective, but all that could be offered this evening would be one of the present.  He would bear a proverbial torch and reveal from beneath his robes their ignorance and want.  That ignorance could spell doom in the near future.  But would the ethos of city hall be moved enough to change their ways and carry the spirit of Christmas with them into the next year in serving the citizens of Ludington?

Not likely, the city will continue to steamroll the citizens in order to get their wants and brazenly show ignorance of ethics and laws as they do so.  We will illustrate this later in a review of how the 2024 version of the Ludington City Council was perhaps the most oppressive and counterproductive version ever seen.  But first, let's furnish the agenda packet and review what actually happened this meeting.

Councilors Jack Bulger and John Terzano took the night off and the only other voice at the beginning of the meeting would be Chuck Sobanski, leaving any gifts of deer poo at home this night, offering only supplication as the Fourth Ward mayor (albeit unofficial).  Before that, I would criticize a council action of the past meeting, the present meeting, and one that would be resolved in the future.  

 

XLFD: (12:40 in)  "At the last meeting this council approved by multiple motions several amendments to section 15.03 and 15.09 of the proposed Ludington Unified Development Ordinance (LUDO) found in the packet and on the city website titled "Ludington UDO, draft for adoption".  At the instant these motions passed, they changed the LUDO in several significant ways from what it was.  Surely this council can make motions to change a proposed ordinance to say something else, but after amending this way, you cannot then pass the amended ordinance wordage as if it had already been introduced the meeting before.  Section 6.2 of the city charter says "No ordinance of a non-emergency nature shall be enacted at the meeting at which it is first introduced."  You publish and present a draft LUDO for adoption, then you cannot pass LUDO 2.0 at what is essentially its first reading-- which happened at last meeting.  Why can't the lawyers in front of me read the city charter and stay constant with it when it comes to passing ordinances, especially one as game-changing as this one is?

I hope one of you attorneys up there can give me a better definition than what the MML offers for what an enterprise fund is as I continue to see, especially over the last two years, the general fund being used to maintain and improve the Cartier Park Campgrounds and the City Marina, both claiming to have enterprise fund status, but both being heavily subsidized by the city and state.  This meeting, an extra $100,000 is being used to remedy some issues with the new Cartier bathhouses that were originally affordable only through ledger legerdemain and taking several hundreds of thousands from their original purposes.

Then we have a contract with the county prosecutor for her to become the city's criminal attorney, a very appropriate title for Beth Hand.  Conveniently, three sections of her 2025 contract were left out of the packet, perhaps within them you might have had performance bonuses for malicious prosecutions against those on the city's enemy's list.  After I was almost killed by city agents acting outside of the parameters recorded in the minutes of meetings, the city and Ms. Hand decided to target me again by pressing unfounded criminal charges against me.  One charge was for operating a vehicle with a suspended or revoked license.  I have had to get my driving record from the SOS office and it shows my innocence of ever having a suspended or revoked license.  I have not had a traffic stop since 2022, and that didn't work well for the City.  This is an unfounded charge that the prosecutor is still not giving up on four months into this persecution with zero evidence that I have ever had a suspended license." [End Comment]

The timer would end after I said the word "unfounded" in that last sentence, with Mayor Barnett unseemly saying that my time was up and banging his gavel as I worked my way over my last sentence, as the most recently passed version of the public comment rules allows.  One only has to look at how unsettled his overreaction is during such episodes to understand that the city is deathly afraid of being on the receiving end of the truth.  

And had they not wished to hide behind the robe with their ignorance, they would take the advice and reenact the LUDO, before its authority becomes a credible defense for those citizens who have the LUDO used against them.  They would constructively discuss how to handle the enterprise funds so their wide advantage over private campgrounds and marinas in the area will not grow even wider with virtually unlimited funding of services that cannot support themselves unsubsidized.  

While I could ask about several other people facing spurious criminal charges that I have heard and sometimes write about, what sort of demon lives in the heart of a councilor that can hear manufactured criminal charges like I brought here and not wonder why the city they represent (through their police department) is pressing that individual, then using their contracted prosecutor to exact revenge on some imagined crime against the City just so that they can claim some sort of moral superiority that they never have had in the first place and who lose even more ground by sitting mute.  

They would avoid touching either of the three topics brought forth and proceeded with their own agenda, beginning with budget amendments for 2024.  Unless a special council meeting is called before the new year, this should be the last time they amend the budget-- but historically, they have unlawfully done amendments as late as the following May after the budget year.  The primary budget amendment mostly reflected a 'temporary deficit' of $213,000 to cover the supplementary costs of the Cartier Park bathhouses by sending that money over from the general fund to the campground's so-called enterprise fund.  The city plans to reclaim that money back to the general fund when they sell their Laura Street property east of Thompson's Marina, but that money would have gone there anyway.  

For some reason, city intelligentsia wants us to believe that this is just a loan that will be repaid, for they think a sale of property on the other side of town would have gone into the Cartier Park fund.  What it shows, however, is that the city isn't even being creative or honest in the subsidization of their enterprise funds.  They appear to have thrown $51,000 more over to the City Marina's enterprise fund to put an abutment on Dock D; the only nice thing about that purchase was that one of the marina board's members noticed his conflict of interest in bidding for the project, and that the low bid was accepted (and wasn't the board member's company, see packet, p. 33+).

They would pass ordinances raising the treasurer's salary to $58,656 (up from $57,919, a 1.3% raise) and the clerk's up to $80,874 (up from $77,763, a 4% raise).  The inflation rate was about 2.7% over the last year, so somebody was given a bonus.  Employee raises were never discussed by the new city manager when she presented the budget, but a look at the numbers show that the 4% raise, over $3000 extra, comes when the budget for personnel in the clerk's department (in a non-election year) goes up less than 1% ($1400).  Are other clerk's assistants getting less money next year?  

A lifeguard for the community pool at the high school complex was given a residency waiver as an employee of the City through its recreation department.  The developers of the 106 Laura Street project effectively provided a letter of understanding/agreement that the project would allow for a walkway through the property which would trigger if either of its neighbors had a connecting walkway/sidewalk.  Any such walkway would be either paid for equally by the company and the city, unless the company wanted more control over how the sidewalk would be built. 

They approved updating fees for rental inspections to reflect new licensing regulations in the LUDO that allow for licensed dwelling facilities (basically hotels that offer long term rentals in the offseason).  Other than some punitive fees, the costs of registering and inspections remain the same.

An ordinance for having a three-year contract with Biotech Agronomics for sludge removal at the wastewater treatment plan was read, the cost will be .0621 per gallon for 2025 and 2026, and .0640 for 2027.  Back in 2022, it was .0564, so the cost has risen about ten percent, somewhat more palatable than what they are hauling out.  This equates to about a cost of $130-150,000 per year, which still seems a bit steep, and there doesn't appear to be any attempt at competitive bidding. as this sewage, once treated can make great fertilizer.  

New City Manager Kaitlyn Aldrich indicated that the city would be concentrating on five problem parcels with more to come in order to fight blight, and this new war on blight will likely use the new LUDO as a weapon of battle.  Chances are, this will be a very visible conflict and may be bloody at times when poor homeowners and affordably-priced rentals become targets.  Ironically, after this was discussed, they approved a state sponsored poverty exemption policy meant to help such people with property taxes.  

The mayor would introduce the routine year-end procedures, appointing official boards including standing committees, setting 2025 meeting dates (2nd & 4th Mondays except for May), approving 2025 events held by the DDA, the Ludington CVB, and the chamber of commerce in the city limits and the necessary road closures associated with them.  New this year will be a Back to the Bricks car show scheduled for June 9th, sponsored by the DDA.  

As noted, they approved a contract with the county prosecutor without even knowing how much money she would be paid and continued with a city attorney that has had a very bad year in guiding the city through legal affairs.  Both Councilor Cain and May would be formally recognized for their single term of service with a plaque and an accommodation.  One hopes that their replacements will be a lot better than they have been as regards listening to the citizens and being part of the community.  

I would lead off the last public comment period by continuing my narrative from where I left off.  If our gentle readers wonder about why I would relate this story to those who would at best be amused that they were part of the organization that abused prosecutorial discretion and wasted a lot of resources (with a lot more to come) conducting a malicious prosecution against a leading innocent citizen, you miss the point.  If they do this egregious action against me for speaking out, they will do it to you when you don't jump high enough on order.  

XLFD:  (1:05:10 in)  "Continuing, the other charge is trespassing and it's as specious as this city setting policy that would bar me from city hall and the LPD back in 2011.  This is based on a document that I was given the day that I was almost shot in an unsecured Cartier Park after being inside of it when wildlife management assets started shooting during broad daylight.  These assets violated multiple city and state laws in endangering my life.  Captain Haveman went well beyond his authority that night by saying that I couldn't set foot in Cartier Park for a month, a public park that my taxes pay for.  This was done without any due process and without any right to appeal the arbitrary and capricious punishment he imposed on a near-victim of the city's recklessly conceived deer cull. 

Witnesses to trespassing include the husband of our circuit court judge, he works for the city, and her honor appears to be working for the city, failing to recuse herself from a FOIA fee case I have with the city with multiple claims charging public extortion against the city attorney and police chief.  Her honor this summer failed to disclose that her husband was a witness to alleged criminal activity by the plaintiff and make similar disclosures in deciding another case against the city.  This City is walking hand in hand with the corruption at the courthouse and I guarantee in the end, it will not work out well for either of you."  [END Comment]

Donald Trump and his travails in 2024 from facing millions of dollars in fines and decades of prison time to being the president elect of the nation, should have given our city leaders some pause as to how to proceed with my case and the cases they are bringing (or planning on bringing) against other innocent people they want to victimize.  City hall and their paid prosecutor will prove a better point about local corruption than I could ever do by saying a few minutes of words at meetings and holding up signs.  The Ludington Torch and the truth will endure as they flicker and fail for lack of oxygen.  The Ludington Torch has the winning hand, and all the city and county prosecutor can manage is going all in while they are effectively drawing dead with their ignorance and want in full display on the felt.

Councilor Cheri Stibitz's father and 12-year former councilor Les Johnson would follow up my comments with supplications to city officials that Mayor Sobanski would approve of, in order to defuse and dilute my words aimed at the corrupted officials.  But like the Ghost of Christmas Past, my words were meant to help reform a scoundrel so that they would better enjoy their lot in life rather than being a humbug to their constituents.