Ludington City Council Meeting, January 22, 2018: Another Dieting Resolution Broken in January

[XLFD]

A mysterious update on the proposed Ludington Avenue Road Diet (LARD, aka the reconfiguration) was on the agenda for the night, made that way because there was no written memo or supportive documents in the 1-22-2018 Council Packet as there normally is.

Otherwise, only a few other items were on the agenda, mostly routine: approving a triathlon, a lot split, a sidewalk contractor, the monthly police report. It also included four appointments to city committees, the most notable of these to be the replacement of the seat vacated in the First Ward after Richard Rathsack's death late last year.

I was surprised when City Manager John Shay would later announce that the LARD was reevaluated by the MDOT and determined to be unacceptable. The surprise was that my prediction that weekend of what he was going to say was so close to what he related.

Remarkably, there seems to be a fair amount of evidence that the Ludington Torch's exposure of MDOT Engineer Jason Ealy's capacity analysis, queueing analysis, and map showing flawed representations and figures had an effect not only of MDOT completing a reevaluation and discovering those flaws but also of causing Mr. Ealy, and maybe others who failed, their job.

Shay mentions there were personnel changes at MDOT shortly after our revelations and my FOIA probes in the background, and you will find that Lucien Featherstone no longer lists himself as an MDOT engineer. It's not a job nearly as satisfying as rolling a '20' when you really need it as a 'saving throw' anyway.

Deb Del Zoppo would lead off the night's comments regarding what I thought was a clever idea of having the Christmas Parade line up at the end of James Street's south end and go north. This would allow watchers to be closer and would provide windbreaks for the cold windy day it usually falls on. She ended with a hope that the City would find an alternate place to dump excess snow rather than the boat launch parking lot. The latter would be addressed later on.

Mayor Holman almost closed the comments before I could get my act together, as I noted before I got to the podium , I was recovering from a recent illness and wasn't as quick as normal. I still delivered a modest comment about the City and MDOT being less than transparent in their dealings and actions. You may notice that there was a new camera operator this evening.

January 22, 2018 Ludington City Council meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

XLFD (at 5:15 into the video): "The public utilities committee is to give some update on the Ludington Avenue Road Diet tonight, I think such updates are long overdue. In November, I made a FOIA request to MDOT and the City for records concerning a meeting between those two agencies that a press release referenced, asking for correspondence, and any records made or passed between them at this meeting which the public was not notified about.

One would think I would have gotten the same responsive records, but such wasn't the case, the City released E-mails between the two agencies, MDOT released a capacity and queueing analysis and a map showing a reconfiguration of Ludington Avenue. None of the records in the initial replies matched any of the others from the other agency. The records effectively showed a meeting between unknown agents of the city and MDOT on October 25th where either nothing was made or passed between these anonymous officials-- if you believe the City response, or they received the analyses and map if MDOT was to be believed.

Both parties had apparently violated the FOIA by not supplying all the records asked for, so I dug further to see whether this was intentional deception by them or just a clerical mistake, by challenging both agencies to amend their response with all of the records fitting the parameters.

MDOT replied with an apology for overlooking the missed E-mails and supplied me with all of the ones I got from the city and even more interagency, indicating the analyses would be part of this secret meeting. John Shay replied for the City and told me upfront that their response was accurate and complete. He continued "MDOT did not provide the City with copies of the capacity and queueing analysis and kept possession of the original documents. Therefore, the City did not have possession of these records when it received your FOIA request."

As my request asked for any written records made or passed between the agencies, Shay would have us believe that none of the secret participants of that meeting made a paper or electronic copy of this six page capacity and queueing analysis that may be quite instrumental in deciding whether the diet is to occur. Even with MDOT saying that it was given to the city in some form at that meeting, in their original and amended response. It's only logical to presume that the meeting covered this analysis and that the cabal who participated therein made copies for future reference.

The Ludington Avenue analyses has been completed for four months without either agency making those results public, the process has been so discrete that both MDOT and the City have a secret meeting without any notes or minutes being taken by anybody and fail to produce non-exempt documents to a simple FOIA request..." [Mayor notes my time is up before I can parenthetically ask, "Weren't we promised more?"]

Citizen Scott Foster took up the podium immediately afterwards and addressed the same topic saying: "It is my intent to start a referendum, should this be opted, to nullify the ordinance." He showed that he may need some education on the West End Project, but he definitely showed initiative (no pun intended) on the road diet.

The regular order of business went as planned over the next few minutes. The sidewalk construction contractual work for the year (p. 45 of packet) was given to perennial winner Spuller Concrete, not a big surprise when the two others who bid were from Grant and Lawton, 84 and 165 miles away respectively. The Branch-based business needs some local competition next year.

Starting around the 19:00 mark Shay details the demise of the LARD, leaving the October meeting's participants his secret, he tells of a January 10th meeting where he, and fellow officials Barnett, Tykoski, and Stickney went to Muskegon after some staff changes happened in December and were given news that the LARD would be likely to create significant delays on Ludington Avenue and while it may reduce some types of crashes, it may increase other types of crashes.

Kind of like driving the wrong way down the highway may reduce your likelihood of getting rear-ended, but increase those pesky head-on collisions.

He then says MDOT would not allow the LARD in the downtown area and would permit but not endorse it otherwise in the Jackson-Rowe length. Shay then went on telling a lot of details at the meeting where he or anybody else took notes, including that both the map and analyses were presented and explained to unnamed city officials who weren't interested enough in the preliminary findings to make a copy. Judge for yourself whether you believe him.

Councilor Krauch bantered with Shay talking about reverse angle parking and an 'unreliable resource'. He was not referring to the initial analyses or John Shay as the resource, before the mad scientist Councilor Winczewski reiterated her desire for experimenting with it under the guise of pedestrian safety. As noted here, the limited studies show pedestrian/bicycle accidents actually increase in streets where the DOTs went from 5 to 3 lanes.

The lot split was approved at 605 N. Sherman, and three lesser board appointments were made to fill vacancies, with the mayor noting she still had some in other areas. The city council's own vacancy was filled without much drama, with Joe Lenius being nominated, seconded and selected unanimously after her honor botched candidate John Beckett's name and Councilor Johnson and Krauch pointing only to Lenius' experience as a bonus.

Chuck Sobanski made a comment about the Copeyon fishing pier, and Scott Foster thanked the council for their due diligence in regard to the road diet. The city manager, prompted later, updated the boat ramp and fishing pier situation, where the pier replacement is still under discussion and using a grant to maintain the ramp is a priority over that.

[AQUAMAN]

Well, another night of some revelations and confusion on several topics. 1) Councilor Bourgett: when some city contract for cement sidewalks is let to anyone, why aren't the bidders named and their bid in $$$ values given? You never said how much Spuller and competitors bid, and how the quality of their work differs. Why? 2) I thought MDOT required RAP to be used if a lane reduction was made. We had highlighted some of those MDOT codes before too. Yet, Shyster Shay is denying that now? When was it in print in the past that parallel parking would be kept? I never saw that, anyone else? 3) Sobanski makes another reminder that the Copeyan Park fishing dock is still out of the picture for this season 2018. How does a $15K repair get a backseat to a $100K repair of the launch ramps? Limited resources?  The city's budget is over $4 Mil., and Shay says it's not that important? And that a permanent pier is being opted for now? A permanent pier would certainly cost much much more to build than repairing that which only needs some repairs. $15K is petty cash for this, and I hope more people go to city hall and complain that the city's priorities are mixed up and silly for this issue. Lastly, I continue to witness Holman being lost in her duties, and stumbling and mumbling a lot during the mtg.. Now she is also overheard saying that she maybe needs to start drinking again? Maybe she just isn't up to the job, sober or drunk, she needs to improve her tact and efficiency.

[AQUAMAN]

Then, Shyster also states the DPW is cleaning up the dirty snow at Loomis St. ramps? Just recently? Never saw that either. And also then says all the storm sewers also dump into PM Lake or Lk. Michigan? Shouldn't that also be illegal, and monitored by the DNR? He always has some rebuttal that exonerates the city from anything annoying and unethical, sick of it too.

[XLFD]

I always appreciate your perspectives on the meetings, Aquaman.

Sidewalks:  I regularly made the lack of sidewalk contract bidding an issue until they recently started addressing some concerns, but the same company Spuller Concrete (in its many guises) always gets the bid.  Now, that's sad, because I know a local guy who can do sidewalks and charge a small fraction of what SC charges.  The COL uses SC exclusively for their program even though the city ordinance indicates the COL will pay 1/2 for needed sidewalk repair/construction once the owner gets the permit:  you are not legally locked into using the city's contractor. 

Remember local court officer George West he used Tony & Sons to repair the damage to his sidewalk caused by the City's tree plantings, he sent the bill to the COL and eventually got his money, even over the COL saying you have to use our guy-- even though Spuller wasn't licensed at the time.  BTW, Kevin Spuller recently got successfully sued for assaulting and grievously injuring a man who let Spuller crash at his house after a weekend binge of alcoholic spirits.   Spuller's lucky he hadn't seriously injured the child the man was carrying when for no reason a rage-besotted Spuller allegedly attacked him from behind.

Reverse angle parking was strongly suggested by the markings of the map and the indication that more parking spaces would be created.  If RAP wasn't put in, you would have had an extra eight foot gap at least between parking and traffic lane left unused, but tempting cars to go around slower moving traffic dangerously.  A death zone for bicyclists and pedestrians too.

The dock removal, in my estimation, was done as a preparatory move to get Copeyon Park more in character for the proposed Splash Pad, just like the massacre of the healthy trees that went on.

[John Doe Jr]

Coming Soon....... "Copeyon West". Staring" Harry Peninsula" and "Rocky Roundabout". And...Special Guest... "Rip Uhoff".