Ludington City Council Meeting March 2, 2020: Part of the Solution

[XLFD]

Twenty-six minute meetings of the Ludington City Council have been rare over the last couple years, but you should be able to credit the briefness due to there being a regular meeting just one week prior.

The only topic in the agenda under consideration at this meeting of any note were the 2019 Budget Amendments, which one can check out in the councilor packet on pp 15-22.  Interesting in this was the deficit in 2019 which was projected/expected to be as high as $648,800 on the budgets of the prior city manager, was actually a bit smaller at $303,000.  This was largely due to the state providing $340,500 more than expected, but still it's a good start for the new city manager who had some emergency expenses to deal with due to high water levels.

In that same council packet, you will note that Ludington residents and visitors will see some borrowed artwork this summer at outside public places throughout the city as part of the Detroit Institute of Arts 'Inside/Out' program.  The only other order of business was approving use of the far west side of town the 40th running of the Lakestride Half marathon in June.

It was a perfect meeting to distribute lawsuits without having it interfere with other business of the council.  This last week I created a lengthy Open Meeting Act (OMA) lawsuit complaint with a sprinkle of FOIA on top and brought one of my trusty process servers along to make it official.  We discussed how best to present the four complaints, one to the three councilors and one to the city corporate, I was thinking of doing it during public comment Oprah-style as she passed them out:

But that seemed a little classless on my part.  I considered serenading them with a slightly re-worded version of Roberta Flack's 'Tonight I celebrate my love for you':

"Tonight, I distribute my lawsuit to you,

It seems the natural law thing to do,

Tonight, there will be litigation between us,

What i want most to do, is cure your closed boo-boo,

Tonight."

But even that seemed out of place, and would test the sorry limits of my musical range, so i had just planned to have her serve the lawsuits as I talked.  But even that fell through as Mayor Steve Miller talked with me to the side before the meeting urging me to either serve the papers before or after the meeting rather than during the comment section.  He had gotten wind of my intentions and wanted to save some face. 

Since he didn't try to strong arm the issue, and none of my beef is with the executive branch of the city, I wound up agreeing to serve the lawsuit before the meeting progressed.  I apologize to those who would have liked to see the expression on the trio's faces during the presentation on the video, but that's why you should come see these meetings firsthand.  My public comment was at the 2:00 mark:

March 2nd, 2020 Ludington City Council meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

XLFD:  "The city council actively forced this legal action by making a vote to keep minutes of improperly closed sessions sealed. The three councilors being served lawsuits are those three that were at both meetings where unlawful closed sessions were held. They lawfully decided to settle a lawsuit at that first meeting and despite their knowledge of that settlement, and despite the clear wording of section 8(e) allowing a closed session only if trial and/or settlement strategy of a pending specific lawsuit was discussed and only if an open meeting would have a detrimental financial effect on the litigating or settlement position of the public body, the TRIO intentionally ignored these requirements and went into closed session for 23 minutes.

A public body may meet in closed session only for the purposes listed in section 8 of the Open Meetings Act. Multiple courts have ruled that the closed session exemptions are to be construed strictly to limit the types of situations that are not open to the public. Lacking the need to deliberate over trial strategy or settlement strategy by the lawful decision made by the TRIO to accept settlement terms at the first meeting, the need to go into closed session was non-existent, nor was it articulated prior to going into closed session the second time.

Proud TRIO of councilors, you had the opportunity to avoid litigation by humbly admitting your dereliction of duties in a manner of your choosing. Your haughty and selfish attacks on the Open Meetings Act and the Freedom of Information Act and transparency in general should define your legacy as city councilors. How can any reasonable person believe that the way to remedy going unlawfully into a closed session is by doubling down and doing it again in reckless disregard of the law. See you in court."

An interesting factoid I noticed after the meeting was that the TRIO made up the Cemetery Parks and Recreational Committee (CPRC), ironically, the city committee that had made the most violations of the OMA in the prior OMA lawsuit.  It should come as no surprise that both Councilor Miller and Bourgette are on the Ludington CVB (convention/visitor's bureau) a group that takes in hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in 'room taxes' and has almost zero accountability as a private group, and that Councilor Rozell is a teacher at Mason County Central, whose school board goes into closed session about ten times a year just to evaluate the superintendent (yeah, and I'm a Chinese jet pilot).

Tom Tyron had the only comment during the late comment session regarding fire hydrants that were taken out of commission by accidents that happened on Ludington Avenue.  It's a good reminder, as these things often get overlooked when they happen during the winter, and then later get forgotten by the time spring comes.  From my years on the LFD, hydrants are often overlooked until a fire comes around and there's nothing to hook up your water supply to.  His topic wasn't directly addressed.  Mayor Miller wound up the meeting with the recent success of Ludington's O-bots.

[Freedom Seeker]

Thanks for the recap, XLFD. That's an interesting connection of OMA/FOIA violators included in the Parks Committee. Maybe that's a source of the problem? When one looks it is easy to see many potential conflicts of interest within. And maybe Councilor Henderson/Millers seeming desire to keep no-fee parking at Sterns Beach was not so much for the residents as it was for her Tourism constituents? I think the residents take back seat to any decisions made for the benefit of the Chamber of Commerce and our DDA is just another prop for the Tourists to benefit downtown commercialism and there would be nothing
wrong with that if the rest of the city was put first. Maybe if our deficits continue and gets worse, state agencies will take notice and make the city take care of its primary responsibilities first.

[Willy]

There are to many incestuous ties of the Councilors to other organizations who have their hands out for funding. These people live off others. They are parasites who can only survive by the hard work and productivity of the people and businesses that are the backbone of Ludington. So it's no wonder businesses must cozy up to these people in order to be competitive. People like Brandy have never really worked in the private sector. I believe papa Henderson got her a summer job working at the marina when she was in high school and ever since she has fed off the public. I don't mean to get down on Brandy but she's a perfect example of someone climbing the ladder of the "deep state [city]".

[XLFD]

There's not a soul on the current council that does not have allegiances to other public and private organizations around the area that would directly or indirectly influence them when deciding on public policy.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is when potential conflicts are not shared with the public and allows the perception of poor public performance to those paying attention (Willy, FS, others, and I) to be formed over time.

Brandy is the obvious focus because of her many hats, but Fourth Ward Councilor Cheri Rozell, who teaches upper elementary classes at MCC, seems to have thrown her constituency under the proverbial bus in just a little over a year as councilor in three issues that immediately come to mind.  The people (and even I) understand that sometimes you have to vote your conscience even if your constituency wants things one way, but when you do you do so repeatedly without a compelling argument, then being a representative of your ward may not have been your best career choice.  

Sometimes you just have to let go of your ego, let go of the needs of that other agency or company you are part of or friends with, and either abstain or make a decision for those you represent.