Ludington City Council Meeting March 25, 2019: No Holds Bard

[XLFD]

The March 25, 2019 edition of the Ludington City Council chronicles featured a little Shakespeare and a 'contact sport' feel to it, hence the title above.  A deceptively light and seemingly uncontroversial agenda introduced the new City Manager, Mitchell Foster, and led to almost an hour and a half meeting featuring the same motif of the last meeting.  The splash pad, kids crying, a faulty sidewalk contractor bidding process revealed, more reenactments of past votes, a confused ex-mayor giving an ambivalent comment or two.  Deja vu all over again.  Here's the council packet.  

Coinciding with spring break vacations, Councilors Les Johnson and Cheri Rozell took the night off.  They would miss Tom Sanders from the Sixth Ward leading off public comment by making some good points of the limitations that handicapped people have for getting into Copeyon Park, whether they use the steep hill entrance or take an alternate route involving steps and crossing private property which some advocates of the splash pad in Copeyon have showcased.  Following him, I had a little poetic fun with Willy Shakespeare and twisted a Nancy Pelosi quote to fit our local politics:

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

XLFD:  (4:30 in) "The local paper dutifully reported Saturday that the city council is set tonight to adopt a resolution to submit an application for a recreational passport grant, without explaining the deja vu many experienced when they saw that same resolution passed twelve days before in these chambers. City leaders seem to have finally noticed that the public input component involved having the public actually review and consider the grant application rather than comment out of ignorance. Hence the do over when the City reviewed and considered their own options. Over the last month, this city council has had more reenactments of tragedies than a Shakespeare Festival (Alas).

You will shortly make a vote to approve the minutes of the March 11 meeting found in the publicly available councilor packets, or is it? The page numbers jump from 35 to 38, leaving out two pages of the public hearing and councilors' discussion of the grant. It leads one to wonder which set of minutes will find its way into the actual grant application. Don't you want the State DNR knowing that you resolved to send them an application at that 3-11 meeting which wasn't made available to the public or yourself? An application that Heather said would be publicly available for three weeks when it's been available for only one week before tonight's vote, and less than two before it's submission. Apparently this council has adopted the "We have to pass the resolution for this grant so that you can find out what is in it” philosophy.

Frankly, most of this council hasn't seen the grant draft application put out on Facebook but not on the City website or in any council packet. There's actually a good reason for that. It's still incomplete, that's by the design of the grant writer who will submit an application much different than what you can see on the City's Facebook page, and what I received this afternoon. The grant requires letters of commitment from all funding sources, the grant application you're re-voting on tonight has none. How can our grant writer suggest we will get a $100,000 commitment letter from Patronicity, when they haven't even got over $15,000 yet in donations? The exclusion of all commitment letters suggests either the grant writer is not competent to do the job, or she's willing to have the City engage in a fraudulent practice in order to get this grant. Thank you."[End]

And oddly enough, the council would rehash the same resolution later on exactly like they did last time and pass it unanimously with a voice vote without noticing to the public why they did it again.  Since they didn't have a cast party afterwards that I know of, do not be surprised if they need to do it again in the future, but probably not until next year.  

Former mayor Kaye Holman came to the microphone and gave the first of three testimonials made by officials of Jackie Steckel, who was the acting city manager.  Mayor Steve Miller and Planning Commissioner John Terzano would also lend praise.  She was followed by Dianne Seelhoff who welcomed Mitch Foster and gave a rather interesting comment about the March 11 meeting minutes being skewed towards a viewpoint that endorsed the Copeyon splash pad rather than fairly reflecting the events.  It does seem odd that a petition signed by 53 residents was downplayed while an informal hearsay poll made by the splash pad committee chairman was overplayed in the minutes.  

After the council approved the minutes, noting that the missing pages I alluded to were left out of the packet but in the 'official' minutes at the website, DPW Director Joe Stickney gave his annual report which amounted to nothing really more than what you can find in the packet, but multiple officials praised his work, as they would do when Chief Barnett gave his annual LPD police report just after. 

Maybe the council should consider just one spokesperson to rain the expected accolades on department heads after these reports so as to make these meetings shorter and more cogent.  Questioning them about aspects of their reports is fine and expected, but the glowing testimonials effectively saying 'Good job', should be made by one person and affirmed by the rest who agree.

In Barnett's report, what I found interesting is that he noted the LPD was down two full-time officers and he used that fact to explain why crimes and arrests were down this last year.  Let that sink in and draw your own inferences using his logic. 

At 43:10 in the meeting discussion about the grant application took place, what I found remarkable there was that (at 46:25) Councilor Bourgette noted:  "Somebody in a wheelchair is not going to be dropped off on Washington Avenue and told 'hey, go down to the splash pad, because obviously they're not going to be able to do something like that."   This is an official saying that the park is not handicap-accessible.  Entertainer Danny "V" Vargas would make a similar point later in the second comment, but more offensively.  

Consider, we had a little girl saying she would be able to drive her bicycle down to the splash pad at the last meeting, other kids saying they looked forward to walking there, but what about that poor child in a wheelchair who wants to take off from home and go to the splash pad for fun?  Can't do it without getting an adult to take you in a vehicle.  The public safefty chairman admits the inherent problem with Copeyon Park's accessibility.

City Manager Foster then gave a good introduction of himself and a new direction for the agendas which will include a presentation of city issues and happenings by him and by interested councilors and he related among other things an interesting stat he learned that the city and county has a disturbingly high rate of household incomes going towards housing and transportation, nearly 60%, when the optimal rate is between 30 and 40%.  

Councilor Joe Lenius informed us that former councilor, current county commissioner, Wally Taranko, had been direly sick from kidney failure, and was on the road to recovery after nearly three months.  After him Councilor Kathy Winczewski informed us of her own experience in going to a local civics class and reenacting a city council selection of a city manager (probably violating the Open Meetings Act in doing so, if this January was any indication).  But then the meeting took a strange turn when she had two of the 16 y.o. students go to the podium and read two short essays.

Rebecca read the first of two speeches which seemed a bit coached and perhaps more than inspired by the councilor.  The poor girl gets to the 1:00:00 mark of the video and feels the weight of speaking in front of all of these strangers arguing over things she probably doesn't understand, she begins to cry.  To her credit, she does finish, and the young boy takes over with a suspiciously similar narrative of his making encouraging city leaders to make winter in Ludington more interesting.

I hope the adults who have been pushing political narratives over the last two meetings realize that using kids as political pawns or puppets is a terrible thing to do.  I don't mind listening to the younger people of the community, their voices should be heard, however, it is often clear by the way they present their topic of discussion whether they are motivated to speak by their own evolving convictions or being subtly used.

A special meeting was noted to fall on April 15 at 5:00 PM; ironically, a certain Open Meetings Act lawsuit against the City of Ludington may be adjourning at about the same time that day.  The main topic du jour that afternoon:  the OMA.

Second public comment had the meeting get interesting again.  Chuck Sobanski led off by inviting the new CM to the best that Fourth Ward had to offer, before getting serious in saying that their are still too many issues with having the splash pad at Copeyon Park.  Tom Sanders clarified his earlier remark, which Councilor Bourgette gave a poor answer to.  If Sanders paid for a place to park his boat trailer and Copeyon had no trailer spaces due to a hot day with the pad, how should that be handled?

I spoke a second time on a point which I hope to clarify myself later.  I already spoke up about it at the last meeting.  It's something I feel strongly about:  a majority of councilors who voted to reject the low competitive bid, did so with nothing to support their vote, other than another councilor saying 'performance issues' existed.

XLFD:  "At the last meeting it bothered me that four councilors, a quorum, who did not attend the 2-28 Public Safety Committee meeting and saw no sidewalk records in their packet, voted against taking the low bid for sidewalk repair submitted by Spuller Concrete. The council should be able to clearly justify why they fail to follow the competitive bidding process when they do, but a majority of councilors had nothing available to justify their vote rather than some general, unqualified, and unquantified statement from another councilor.

The committee chairman said there was timeliness and performance issues over the last two years with Spuller, but never elaborated on what they were, nor explained why there was a mysterious absence of issues with Spuller Concrete noticed last year at committee or council meetings over the work done in 2017. Instead, at the 2-28 committee meeting, they discussed how to address future deficits in the sidewalk program, while recommending we spend nearly 20% more for each sidewalk put in by ignoring Spuller's bid. That's just plain dumb.

According to the notes from this year's committee meeting, Joe Stickney gave some praise: "Kevin is very familiar with the work and the local area, his low bid price, when Kevin is on the job the work is done satisfactorily and occasionally Kevin would do some extras and not charge the City. (Such as if he felt the job would be easier to replace an extra sidewalk section even though it was not included in the bid, he would do it at no charge to the City.)" I have received a FOIA response from the City, and while timeliness has been a problem, the performance issues just don't seem to be there over 95% of the time. The sidewalk projects do get done eventually by Spuller, and I found satisfactory sidewalks at the few places where complaints were lodged."[END]

Is there anything stupider than worrying about having enough money to do the sidewalk projects you want and then voting to make your costs 16-18% higher than they need to be?  Maybe, but it would have to wait until after Dianne Seelhoff expressed more dismay with the tactics and processes of the City and their splash-pad-in-Copeyon fringe.  Local entertainer Danny V illustrated that fringe element in a rather obnoxious way, after first noting that he had been invited to this meeting to observe the 'full contact sport' (at 1:14:05).

"I look at all the negativeness (he means 'negativity') coming from those who aren't even going to go to the splash pad... there is nothing bad about this except opinionated folks that don't like fun... and then:

"Smart people would take their children, their folks who are handicapped down to the park let them out and let them walk to this wonderful little item in our community called a splash pad." 

Is Danny V telling us that the splash pad will miraculously allow wheelchair-bound folk the ability to walk.  Bless those healing waters, Danny V!  He continued his sermon:  "Thanks (mayor and council) for pushing forward, despite all the negativism... For the folks that support it, we're going to get this done.  For the people who don't have answers, maybe you should talk about something else."

Alas, poor Danny seems to have a lot of bombast and makes a lot of generalizations of others who don't agree with him, he doesn't seem to have a lot of answers.  Maybe he will talk about something else; however, I am highly suspicious that Danny has a hidden agenda in getting the splash pad put into Copeyon, with his 'business' across the street from it.

Kaye Holman spoke next, and I will defer analyzing her comments here, since her words actually inspired me to get off my backside and walk over six miles yesterday.  Summarizing she said Copeyon Park is appropriate, because there is no other place for a splash pad. 

Jamie Adam of Ludington Bay Brewing went next, also on the mayor's recommendation for coming to the meeting, asking the council whether she could hold a blessing of the boats, involving an entertainment (beer) tent, a visit by Reverend Wheeler, some assistance by the city, and some ceremony later this spring during tourist season.  Unlike your typical commenter, she was asked some questions and given four minutes time, before being told her proposition would go before committee and likely get out of that committee in good time.

You may remember I made a more modest proposition directly to the council about using a small section of Stearns Beach for a campfire to be held in late September back in early August 2016.  Nobody asked me any questions or arranged for me to address a committee.  I actively pursued it, but the city manager, John Shay, avoided everything the city code said and effectively pocket vetoed the application after dozens of communications got nowhere.  Maybe if I owned Ludington Bay Brewing rather than being a candidate for city council looking to reform the corrupt city I lived in, the rules may have been followed, or even eased.

But the meeting adjourned shortly after with no other business, and all the actors and actresses in this play exeunt.  

[Du Wright]

Thank you very much Jason and XLFD for the kind comments. I am not seeking office and I like to speak at city council about as much as the children appear to -- I feel like crying and running away too, I'm so afraid! I commend the high school girl who made it through! Even after a career teaching and speaking I still feel like bolting, but mostly I see something that needs to be said and done about the pedestrian/ handicapped access especially at Copeyon Park and that moves me forward to speak on behalf of the need and for the people who have not had a proper say at standing committee meetings, imo.

I'm grateful to Tom Sanders whom I do not know, but his pictures presented a thousand words. And Chuck Sobanski and many other Fourth Warders who should have a say in how their neighborhood and Park will be affected. And thank you X for standing up time after time for greater transparency for a government of, for and by the people.

Jackie Steckel had been very helpful and kind to me and pleasant to deal with, but thanks again, X, for the vote of confidence in me--I think some of my understanding lies in the fact that I've worked in states where the sun shines brighter literally and their OMA laws are even written more clearly. I've returned to the state of my birth and love all that Michigan offers even in the winter. And one can love the spring so much more after surviving the West Michigan winter and having more Sunshine! I think we are poised to move into sunnier days with our new city manager!

[XLFD]

For those thinking that Dianne may be seeing things, she is remarking over some comments put out on our Facebook interface, the Ludington Pitchfork.  I effectively said that Dianne would have gotten city hall in shape if she had been in Jackie's place over this last post-Shay near-year.  

I am not saying or even necessarily implying that Jackie is corrupt or doing her job badly, what I suggest is that she's too ingrained in the way things have been done over the last two decades, and she hasn't the political capital, inertia, or initiative to change it.  Dianne, on the other hand, would be cleaning house and getting the right people involved in reforming the system so that it works openly, honestly, and fairly.  Thanks a lot for joining the good fight, Dianne!

[Du Wright]

You're welcome, X, and thank you for the accolades. I'm sorry for the confusion between two platforms, I don't subscribe to Facebook but I can see public posts, I refuse to do Facebook, but I wanted to answer a comment about handicap law, as I understand it. I then have to write on Torch. I was a Computer network security designer in the mid1990s and I harbor some fears that have actually come true on Facebook some 20 years later. Not much of a firewall really, but it's one level of protection of privacy until our government steps in! Ha ha.

Regarding doing a job of opening up government, I'd do my best, but I also understand how hard it is to swim upstream, rock any boat, change any department, corporation, or even voice an opinion that gets heard in one, sometimes.

[Du Wright]

Handicapped accessible sidewalks are required by Federal law under section 303(a)(2) of the ADA, which reads:. Where can entity undertakes an alteration to a place of public accommodation or commercial facility that affects or could affect the usability of or access to an area that contains a primary function, the entity shall ensure that, to the maximum extent feasible, the path of travel to the altered area ... Is readily accessible and usable by individuals with disabilities, including those who use wheelchairs. 42 U.S.C. 12183(a)(2). It does get complicated with the wording "to the maximum extent possible" basically means an entity (the city) should look for areas better suitable for building (simply put).

What was built in Copeyon was done in 1985 before 1992 ADA laws required sidewalks INTO public parks.

Even if we can wiggle around the law, if we are developing a park for hundreds of kids, should we not have a pedestrian sidewalk, especially with many boats and trailers coming up and down a narrow road with no sidewalk. Common sense is clouded by some groups individual agenda to push the splashpad into Copeyon Park, imo. There are other areas and other types of fountains to consider.

[Du Wright]

In addition, all newly constructed city facilities must be fully accessible to people with disabilities. 28 CFR 35.149, 35.150, 35.151, 35.163.

[Willy]

Thanks for this report X. Common sense, like lead free water, is lacking in Ludington. Anyone, especially a first time visitor who uses the entrance to Copeyon Park cannot help but wonder about their safety when going down that hill. Now add a steady stream of vehicles and pedestrians and we have an unsafe brew of hazardous conditions. Mix in a lack of access for those with handicaps, stir the mixture and what rises to the surface? All the common sense that should have stayed in the thought process but was boiled out by the same kind of fools that keep making the same bad decisions everyone else has to live with. I simply do not trust these kinds of people. M L G A

[Freedom Seeker]

Yeah, that's some broken up narrow drive way. I wonder if they'll replace the road or make t wider? So what are they saying --they don't need sidewalks for all the baby strollers and bikes going down the road? Or are they expected to roll the strollers off into the grass when a big boat trailer comes up the road? Make the little kids riding their bikes get into the grass too.

It's about as well thought out as the grant was complete.

[shinblind]

Glad to see City Manager Mitch Foster acknowledge that the demographics of our community for housing and transportation are double from what is ideal. Around 60% instead of 30%.

60%. It doesn't leave much for frills like food or utilities or taxes or insurance or repairs. Works out the average household has to pay those expenses and others from less than $1,000 per month.   Tack on the additional financial burden of public debt for infrastructure projects, public servant retirement benefits and the foolish and totally unnecessary indebtedness to construct new public schools. 

Will be interesting to see if Mitch is up to the task to improving the demographics  or if like most of members on the city council and CM's that proceeded him he is ok with maintaining downward spiral that is named Ludington.

It is like putting lipstick the on the West End Scheme, it isn't exactly going to do much to improve the local demographics. 

[Freedom Seeker]

Good points, shinblind.  I hope Mitch sees through this city and the lipstick being put on secretly, like the lipstick splashpad because we should really afford lipstick when we can't afford food, but those in city hall getting paid high salaries driving fancy new cars can't understand that.  That's the Mercedes mentality.  So let's do this splash pad project in secret before the people know what's going on. Then they'll love it, and everything will be better.  If we divide the water and maintenance costs, the utilities and permits and labor costs of maintenance of DPW, what will it cost the taxpayer?  Not that much each, probably only $30 more a year per household for maintenance.  And it really is one of the most critical things the city needs at this time.  We don't need the lead out of our pipes, or new roads or sidewalks, or less taxes.  No, just let the water flow freely through the splash pad, maybe that will take the lead out.  Good thinking!   

[Du Wright]

Thanks for all your humor and wit in preparing your savvy political analyses, X. There's a lot of hidden meaning in the your Shakespeare of recent!