Ludington City Council Meeting, June 24, 2019: Give and Take

There hasn't been this long of a meeting for a long time, even longer than when the topic of rental inspections came before the council in 2015 and dozens of people spoke their minds on the topic over several meetings, before it was ultimately approved. Since Mitch Foster became city manager the meetings have been averaging over 100 minutes, two years ago during the same period of time that average was just around 70 minutes.

Longer is better. This meeting was not prolonged due to controversial topics coming before it, nor by the public's comments, but by councilors, contractors and other officials actually having meaningful dialogue amongst themselves outside of the committee meetings.

Out of brevity, I will only touch on a few things, most summarily. The biggest by-product of the meeting was that the council unanimously passed a new policy wherein the City would assume the $15 yearly charge for those who wished to buy into the new recycling policy offered by Republic, the waste hauling contractor.

Formerly, 5/7 of the council decided that citizens would have to pay this expense, but the city manager was given the task of seeing whether the City coffers could bear the added cost. He found that the nearly $50,000 needed to do this would come from the state equalization fund, which appears to be very solvent over the next decade, and the other half would come from the 'trash fund' courtesy of the sticker program (at no additional expense).

This is a nice and not totally expected gift from the City, and illustrates a new brand of populism being advanced by the council's freshmen, especially Councilor Serna, and having a chance of winning against the old elite standards.

But this meeting also had the council considering an ordinance at it's first reading that reflects the council's ability to take things away. Other than the officials, I was the only one to bring it up for discussion, and I wasn't able to express all of my concerns, due to time, and the realization that this was only the first reading. I went after Miss Sawyer Hendrickson (2:00 in), a frequent visitor of the Ludington City Council circuit, promoting her latest ambitious project to honor the military.

Sawyer is only ten years old, but has more military medals and awards than most twenty year veterans. She wanted to build a garden in the Veteran's Mall out at Stearn's Beach, offering the council a schematic of it, pledged that it would be taken care of by her NPO, and offered it to council for consideration. When Miss Sawyer initially came before the council several years ago, I may have worried about her being exploited, much like several of the children that came before the council earlier this year at the prodding of adults with agendas, but she has shown through her dedication and achievements that this would be totally unwarranted.

June 25th, 2019 Ludington City Council meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

XLFD: "I will continue with the patriotic theme.  About 7 years ago, the state passed laws that allowed the broad use of consumer fireworks to offset the restrictions on fireworks that certain localities passed. The very next year they went back to pass a more restrictive version due to complaints that some annoying people would be lighting off window-rattling fireworks in the middle of the night, disturbing their neighbors and their pets.

This seemed good for about five years when the state legislature once again revisited the issue, apparently inspired by more complaints, and passed laws that said a locality could restrict firework use down to twelve days per year, centered around national holidays, and for them not to be used after 11:45 at night, except on New Year's Eve. Such political vacillation by the legislature is perhaps one of the best arguments for making their jobs part-time.

Nothing in the new law makes it mandatory for a local unit to set the new restrictions-- they can be compliant with the law if they abide by the previous limitations that allowed fireworks for 36 days up until 1 AM, if they had set those restrictions in the first place, like Ludington did. The underlying issue in this discussion should always be finding the proper balance between the rights of those people who want to use fireworks to celebrate with the rights of their neighbors to reasonable quiet enjoyment of their property.

I submit that a significant portion of our law-abiding working population is negatively affected by this proposed change, those who work second shift. Their work days start well-before dusk, they usually end around midnight, if they work Monday through Friday this will be the fourth straight year they will be working during the area's firework shows, so when can they enjoy celebration through fireworks, if not after their work day?

If the new rules were in place, that would be impossible this year, these people could only light off fireworks after dark on the last two days of June to celebrate July Fourth. If this seems contrary to what ideals are actually behind America's Independence Day, I would agree. We fought against heavy-handed government intrusions into personal lives then. Should we as a society penalize those earning a salary for their family just because they happen to work the evening shift?

So understand, the complaints against fireworks will always be there no matter how many or few restrictions there are; It's a lot like gun issues. Yet, realize that the people who will be most negatively affected by the changes being proposed in the new fireworks ordinance are those who cannot come to these city council meetings and air their concerns because they must work to achieve their version of the American dream [END Comment]."

The proposed ordinance is on p. 60-61 of the council packet. The ordinance reduces the dates you can set off fireworks by 67%, doubles the fine and earmarks that extra $500 to the LPD (which is allowable by the state law revision), lacks any need to warn violators that they are in arrears to the law, and thus is a dream for the municipality. It also provides the LPD with a believable probable cause alibi for sneaking around your backyard late at night: "I heard fireworks and was investigating." If you plan to shoot off fireworks on any of the 353 days that it will be illegal, don't forget to set up trip wire alarms, pits, and snares around your perimeter to alert you to their presence.

I'm at the age where I'm more annoyed than awed at fireworks, but that doesn't matter, this is a basic rights issue and the lame duck legislature passed another dud law that says even if one has quiet fireworks, have consent of all of their neighbors, or even invited all of the neighbors over, that some cop can write $1000 tickets to those who use the fireworks-- likely after sneaking furtively about to catch them in the act.

Tomorrow it will be eight years and you guys at the LPD haven't come even close to figuring out what happened to Baby Kate, hope these cops get some redemption in the future out of nailing caring fathers celebrating at their daughter's birthday party with some early evening fireworks on a forbidden day.

The ordinance had it's first reading later on, with the only official chatter being it's description and a notice from Attorney Wilson that it would not be in effect until 20 days after passage (likely July 28th) and Councilor Cheri Rozelle saying she likes this ordinance because she and others needs to get up early (and that most people have the Fourth of July off). I understand that sentiment, but you don't create rights-reducing legislation that will potentially fine a boy $1000 for lighting off a firecracker before 11 AM on Independence Day.

The council then got down to business, and this I will gloss over, just noting that there was very good discussion and elaboration of issues and projects. The three millage-settings and levies that were introduced at the last meeting all passed, the police pension raised significantly due to the formula that they use to project future needs in the system. The others remained the same.

Change orders for the wastewater and water treatment plants both passed, this should be the last of the money used for the water system. An engineering representative was there to describe the wastewater situation and that there was more sludge than they figured at the WWTP, requiring the extra money. Seems pretty crappy for all concerned. An easement was given to MDOT down at the West End so that their drainage pipe, recently replaced with wider pipe, was legal.

They approved the low bid for the Loomis Street reconstruction project for the year 2020; it will proceed from Delia to Robert Streets, so plan accordingly. West Shore is one step closer for getting City water as the council approved an extension to the college, the college met on Tuesday to complete the process. They approved nearly $67,000 for an 'emergency' project currently under way on the 200 block of North Washington. A sinkhole developing around a manhole turned into a much larger problem as they found the sewer pipes in disarray-- there should be more on this later.

They rezoned a Fourth Ward property (1108 S Madison) to residential use rather than business use, as the owner wishes to rebuild a house on this lot. The Rhythm and Dunes concerts were approved, as was the Back to School Backpack Bonanza, both taking place on city property. Then amidst discussion, the council approved a new recreation arrangement where the school would take over recreational activities from the City, a transition that would have taken place early next year without the retirement of Ludington's current rec director.

A moratorium on memorials was debated next, where it was explained that a maintained waiting list of people wishing to memorialize a friend or relative on city-owned public land was to be abolished for the immediate future, since it had grown unwieldy to maintain. This moratorium was placed, but the list will still be kept, pending the moratorium's eventual lifting when more memorial spots become available.

New guidelines for approving special events were put in place, an impetus behind this being the recent debates over how the Pride Festival can take over a park for a day without council approval, but other events need to go through a long process of committee, city manager, and council approvals. The new guidelines say that the council must pass all but the most minor of events which take over a very small part of a park for a very limited time without help from the City.

They finished by passing the recycling change, which will allow you to pick up a recycle container and use it for a year without having to pay extra.

The video of the meeting then finishes, leaving out the mayor's comments and a public comment from a recent arrival with a name I won't even bother to butcher, and whose points I will review later.  Overall, this was a very good meeting for the council and new city manager who are displaying more empathy towards the public, along with a greater sense of transparency and accountability by actually deliberating before the public.  Let's hope they keep this up after observing the holiday that celebrates the rights and rebelliousness of the people of this nation, and hope they shelve the Draconian fireworks law they are considering.  

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It looks like your persistence is paying off. Great job X. What can be said about Miss sawyer Hendrickson. What a beautiful and giving child. With kids like her the future does not seem so bleak. I hope the deep City/State does not start using her for their projects.

With apologies to our current and previous mayors, she is the best ambassador Ludington can have with the rest of the world.  Here she is in Traverse City yesterday, sharing her empathy and her smile with representatives from the coast guard, air force, and even state police.  She's an energizer bunny, I pity her parents and grandparents a little for having to keep up with her.  I also envy them for having such a caring and courteous offspring.  It must be in the genetics, since Miss Sawyer surely couldn't do all of this without their help.

As for my persistence paying off, it's definitely helped things get to this point, but I think that under new leadership and a more flexible and responsive council, it just became pragmatic for the City to embrace what they should have been doing all along.

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