Ludington City Council Meeting, July 22, 2024: Hard of Hearing

[XLFD]

Someone asked me before the start of the Ludington City Council meeting on July 22nd about why I had a bandage over my ear, I asked "What?".  They repeated their query slightly louder, and I completed the joke:  "You'll have to speak louder, I have a bandage over my ear."

Fear not for my ear or my sense of hearing, the bandage was little more than a prop for my first comment, which oddly enough was the only public comment made during the meeting, which featured nothing overly controversial on the agenda, at least yet.  Props, symbolism, and signs are an important part of making a point in front of public bodies who generally try to tone your comments out if they could be considered critical, and I did have some criticism tonight that I had to air.  

XLFD:  (9:30 in) "Nine days ago, in a small town in Pennsylvania, an assassin's bullet claimed the life of a volunteer firefighter and clipped the ear of the leading presidential candidate.  I had a flashback shortly thereafter to March 12th of this year, when shots rang out near me when I was in the middle of a city park in broad daylight.  

This former volunteer firefighter was not killed or even wounded, but for about 40 minutes I heard about a dozen other rifle shots before I was able to get out of Cartier Park, where the city code explicitly says that "No person, except a law enforcement officer, shall bring onto park property or have in his possession on park property any firearm or ammunition" and "Possession or discharge of a firearm in or adjacent to the cemetery is forbidden."  Those laws were in force on March 12th, and the city's contracted killers, trained assassins if you rather, without any law enforcement credentials or legal justification, repeatedly fired their rifles without even trying to figure out whether the park was secure of other lawful park users.  

You people and those you contract with, have to follow the laws that you expect all of the rest of us to follow; you have a duty to not misinform the people throughout, especially by repeatedly saying that any killing would happen during the middle of the night rather than in broad daylight, forcing one of your constituents to fear for his life for nearly an hour while shots were echoing all around him.  You should listen to our visiting pastors who do invocations at the beginning of our meetings, not to the false Christian among you who repeatedly bore false witness so as to invite these contracted killers to our home city to inflict fatal violence on God's creatures in a park where nobody has ever complained about seeing deer, rather they look forward to that prospect. 

I wear this shirt and this ear bandage to symbolize the repercussions of the violent and sinful acts this public body has condoned and justified with fraud and other illegalities.  Repent and atone for your sins, which this is just part of.  Jeanne Hoax has used her position in order to increase her wages by a factor of 22 and violated the city charter in the process.  The city attorney and police chief have engaged in public extortion.  Each of you look the other way.  You are all the problem, no exceptions."  [END comment]

                                                     Left to right, Jeanne Hoax and the False Christian

While the agenda packet had some busy work, there wasn't anything controversial, at least for now.  And while the city attorney promised an opinion on why Jeanne $ Hoax (aka "S. Oakes") his opinion beginning at 45:20 into the video was lacking, centering on the definition of the noun "election" and how it is defined in state law even though the charter section in question never uses that word, only the verb "elected". 

He mentions precedents as Young v. Edwards, a 1973 case heard at the Michigan Supreme Court, but it doesn't seem applicable.  Attorney Hammersley was paid good money to find anything that might sound good but he found nothing to support the case that Jeanne Hoax should be interim city manager, even when one considers that due to his legal malpractice, the city never created an "interim city manager" position.  The only 'official' officers coming close are city managers and acting city managers, the latter being city employees who hold the spot temporarily, what they should have done here since the top spot will likely be filled by September. 

Two refutations of Hammersley's opinion is the legal definition of the verb 'elected' is not what he suggests, Black's Law Dictionary is most succinct in its definition,

others specifically indicate that corporations can engage in their own act of electing their officers, and this is often used in the vernacular of other charters, like Scottville's, where the commissioners elect from one of their own, a mayor and pro tem mayor, like many other cities do:

Our insipid city attorney even failed to look at our own city's laws, where the Rec Board 'elects' its own officers, the Marina Board 'elects' its own officers and look, it's even in the charter that the council elects a mayor pro tem:

As shown in our article showing Jeanne was a hoax, we noted that the minutes of the meeting she was elected by the council to be the Third Ward councilor, two rounds of voting occurred.  There should be no doubt in any reasonable person's mind that she was elected to her council position, by a lawful voting process, no less.

Overlooking the incredible conflict of interest is an incredibly sinister omission in Mr. Hammersley's presentation.  Like many city charters our charter roughly follows the model city charter which has this prohibition as one of its general rules and explains why.  

Having a very inside track (as the record shows) at increasing your salary by 2167% is a gigantic conflict of interest, and the Ludington Torch will not let this infamy remain unpunished.  Jeanne Hoax is aptly named and she needs to resign immediately and give back any money that she was not ever entitled to.  There was nothing stopping her from being appointed as an uncompensated acting city manager, but she decided to ride the gravy train and grab the $$$ and go against the law.

And rather than do the right thing and correctly interpret the law so that the people can once again believe their city leaders have some ethics left, Ross Hammersley does his best to perpetuate a debunked myth, because he has to appease the person who signs his paycheck, and that currently is Jeanne Hoax who wants to raise her salary by a factor of 22.  Why is this city attorney charging people several hundreds of dollars for editing police body cam FOIA requests, when there is absolutely nothing to edit out? 

Why did he appeal Judge Wickens' principled decision on an election hoax against the electors of the city, earning tens of thousands of dollars in the process, and upon an unexpected success in doing so, figured out that all that work was for naught, as the timeline for a charter revision was not going to allow for them to do a charter revision after that success.  City Attorney Ross Hammersley is either actively being corrupt on his own or is being directed by other officials to pursue courses of action which aren't in the best interests of the people of Ludington.    

There was never any reason to have a deer cull in Cartier Park (especially one more hoax that said 21 deer were killed in 78 acres on a night where they couldn't even draw a bead on me who was in the park and saw no deer for two hours).  There was never any reason to put a charter revision question on the ballot without ever telling the public how much it would cost, another hoax on us all.  And there was never any reason to install a city councilor with zero city administrative to be the CEO of Ludington and earn 22 times their past salary and do all the negotiations totally outside of the public eye.  

The City of Ludington is only going deeper into the abyss rather than stepping back and reassessing their actions.  It's beyond time to get fed up.

[Willy]

Good post X. Is the City claiming that she was appointed and not elected? I agree with you that the term used in the State election law you provided uses the term "election" which is a noun and not a verb. She was "elected" by the Council to serve. She was chosen by the Council in an election held by the Council not in an election by the citizens. I also agree that the Council's attorney is grabbing at straws, searching for any wording in State Law to justify their illegal actions. This group of politicians are just so damned corrupt. Great idea about the ear patch and bringing up the fact that the hired gun slingers were shooting up the park during daylight, not after dark.

The people of Ludington should be upset with their current leaders but they should realize that Ludington is not the only town that is being led by shysters. A family member of mine told me that the City of Lansing is selling their City Hall for a measly 3 million dollars. This building is currently occupied and in full use. It is a 10 story building with underground parking. It sits on a quarter block of prime real estate across the street from the State Capital. 3 million dollars! Lansing is another City run by fools. It is so far left in could be a suburb of San Fransisco. Thanks X for posting this topic. Good job on the GIF

[XLFD]

In summary, the city charter and city code of Ludington uses the verb 'elect' when they refer to the marina board and recreation board to choose their own officers, and when the council chooses their own officer (the mayor pro tem).  In the charter, it says nothing about local or state elections (what the city attorney based his opinion on) when they prohibit those serving on council to not take a job with the city except for on an unpaid volunteer basis for one-year elapsed time.  

Alternatively, if one tries to suggest that Ms. Hoax was 'appointed' to her council position rather than elected to the position to fill a vacancy, we must ask what official did the appointment?  She wasn't appointed by the mayor or the former city manager, but by popular vote of the Ludington City Council, an election process that the record shows went two rounds.  She was elected by the 'corporation' much like the Pope gets elected, but there wasn't white smoke after her election.