Ludington City Council Meeting November 14, 2016: Sparse Turnout

[XLFD]

I usually arrive at the Ludington City Council meetings between 6:25 and 6:30 PM, and notice at least a few folks.  But possibly due to many suffering from election-fatigue, the turnout to this meeting seemed rather small. 

Tom Tyron, who normally sits a couple of seats away from me in the front row to the north of the podium, was there, and I was wondering if he was going to say something about the liquor license for the New Year's Eve Ball Drop event (he didn't), he even left before the committee reports were given, since there was a bit of quibbling over some of the minutia of Slagle and Planck Streets.  The only other non-official I saw at the meeting was Dan Quinn, whose interest in coming was to lobby for his ORV business to make a sale to the city. 

Both of the county commissioners serving the city came, city official Wallace Cain and his significant other came, the cameraman came, and the COLDNews and WMOM had their usual representatives there, and surprisingly, the only official who normally goes to the meetings who missed was the fire chief.  Lyla McClellan, a city official in her own right, also was there and made a short comment on how the election mechanics went off over the county.

This not only indicated there wasn't a lot on the agenda, but it also emphasized my initial comment which was tailored to question the current public comment rules (transcribed in full after the video below).  The video cuts off with me and the mayor conversing after the meeting; she seemed interested in my remedy to improve it, which seemed odd, because back before she was mayor-elect, all I would get from her would be derisive comments made during the meeting. 

Nevertheless, the meeting lasted over 40 minutes even with the lack of red meat, mainly because the councilors were bantering about the topics more so than usual.  This is a good sign for a more open government, because most of this talk normally goes on off-camera in either committee meetings which the public generally doesn't attend, or in other city offices.  You could tell Shay was nervous about this, because he suggests after the aforementioned banter lasted for a few minutes, he suggested anything further to be discussed in committee. 

The agenda (and packet) had them approving a liquor license for the ball drop event, which is normally a rote task, but Councilor Rathsack, who has been gaining some level of concern over the last year over several topics, wondered whether the events were overly disruptive to the residents of the downtown area (who are coincidentally outside of his ward).  It's a question that should be considered at the least, but the other officers assured him that it has been okay, Councilor Winczewski saying that when the fireworks goes off, she knows it's the new year even though she's a ways away from the hubbub. 

The partial liquor license for the beer tent in the packet without the two nearby church's permission unfortunately means another FOIA request needs to be sent to the city to make sure they did, as they have skipped this for some churches in the past.  The city manager also avoided a direct question from Councilor Krauch just after the 16:00 mark regarding who has been paying for the stoplight at Rath and Ludington Avenue, making me expect that something beyond what was said was involved. 

The video, followed by my initial comment:

November 14th, 2016 Ludington City Council Meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

(2:55 in):  "On February 22, this council passed a new regulation for its meetings dealing with the length of public comments and when those public comments were to be made.  It decided that instead of five minutes at the beginning of the meeting, there would be three minutes at the beginning, only on agenda items, then two minutes at the end of committee reports over anything. 

We were told that this system would not only allow the public to keep up to five minutes of time to speak, but that it would encourage more people to stay until the end of the meeting.  Councilor Winczewski said if it didn't work out that it could be changed back at a later date.

Seventeen regular city council sessions later, I would like to say that if more public participation and more public accountability was the reason for this change, then the experiment is wanting.  Let me tell you why. 

If you're a citizen that wants to come to council to talk about an agenda item before the council considers it, then instead of the five minutes you used to have, you are now restricted to three.  If you have your own issue of public policy that isn't on the agenda, you now have only two minutes rather than five to comment on it.  The math is simple.

This has led to less public participation.  This is reflected when you compare the last 16 sessions with the previous 16 sessions as to the time and participants at the podium.   I know at least two folks who have decided to not participate in the public comment because of the new rules, which counters the stated objective.

I would advise a subtle change to the new rule that would keep the citizen's ability to address this council up to five minutes instead of only two or three minutes.  Give us up to five minutes at the beginning if what we speak about is on the agenda, allow us up to five minutes at the end for non-agenda items.  Five minutes total if you have comments ready for both.  Please consider this, thank you."

The last thing on the agenda was discussing the usage of a generous $40,000 donation made by Yogen Rahangdale and his wife, who sold Whitehall earlier this year to a Japanese firm and remained on to manage the local factory.  The memo to the council seems to indicate that they wanted this money to be used to replace some malfunctioning cameras at the beach, city marina, and city hall, and for the purchase of a new ATV for the LPD beach patrol. 

At around 37:00 into the meeting they discuss the issue, with Chief Barnett affirming the donation was made specifically for the purpose of replacing this equipment, which seems odd since Whitehall is well across town in the Fourth Ward, which has its own share of hardships that could be addressed with the $40,000 donation. 

Those familiar with the way city hall has been doing business could easily be suspicious about why this money was donated.  Was it a quid pro quo of some sort?  Was it money given on the condition that the city look the other way?  Was it money given in hopes of receiving some future tax abatement or grant? 

There are a lot of other worthwhile local charities that would love to have this money, and could find better things to spend it on that would actually help the citizens of Ludington, why was this donation directed to the City of Ludington, and then directed to go to basic city expenses already supposedly covered by the budgets?

An investigation is underway to determine some of these nagging questions, but before this came out, I took under two minutes to comment on the local drinking water problem (33:30 into the meeting:

 

"The blood lead levels of children in Mason County led the state in 2013, and we finished a strong second in 2014 and 2015, even considering the lead problems in Flint.  During this summer, the Ludington school district took some initiative and did water testing on all the taps located at their schools.  They found that two of those taps had lead levels far beyond the minimal reporting level and actually exceeding the maximum contaminant level.  These were located at Lakeview Elementary and the Middle School, both serviced by the municipal water system of Ludington.  The water taps were taken out of service.

 

Our public was not well served by the city manager and water department supervisor lying to us about there not being any lead in our water.  There is.  And while some of this may be because of old copper fixtures with lead solder inside our schools and houses which lie beyond the city's control, it seems quite likely that there may be such conduits within the city's own water system, which features miles of pipes over 100 years old and made of various substances popular for the times they were installed. 

 

For who would expect that a tap in the cafeteria area of an elementary school contained hazardous levels of lead ions, and that a water fountain in the middle school would dispense water with lead in it well over twice the maximum contaminant level?   Let's be more proactive for our kids, like the school district finally was, and get to the bottom of why our city and county have such high incidence of blood lead levels in our kids, even among those too young for school." 

Read more about this at:  The Killers in Our Schools

It must be noted that Mayor-elect Kaye said some magnanimous things at the end of the meeting 40:50 in, even to the losers of the election (including me) perhaps it reflects a new outlook that would be good to have as mayor.  She even said she appreciates me-- we'll see how long that honeymoon lasts.

[AQUAMAN]

You know X, you have been consistent and faithful to bring important problems and legal issues to this city council. You have been polite and loyal to Lud.. Yet, I see no actions nor comments to offset some things that should have their focus and attention for correction, still sad. Like water lead levels, the sunset on the NYE event, and the sunset on the public comment restrictions. I do want to commend Kaye Holman, at least at this mtg., for her improved demeanor and politeness. (Did she change meds.?) But lastly, I still did not get the donators' wishes for their $40K donation to the COL. The Chief never really said they presented it for these uses, and neither did Shay. If so, it's okay with me, but where is the proofs? Thanks.

[XLFD]

Hopefully, more information will be forthcoming on the donation, which has been a bit vague.  Usually $40,000 donations to a fairly-solvent municipality from a company within it has some extra story beyond it other than the donator thinking there is a vital need for replacement of optional police equipment used elsewhere in the city. 

Everybody needs to keep the faith and be consistent when it comes to the essentials of saving our area from corruption and unsustainable ideas; we will eventually drain the swamp.

[Brad]

Thanks X, great report. I commend the councilors for having more discussion in the open. I hope when Brandy starts to serve that she will keep to her points made in her response on MCP site. And I really agree that the city should expand the minutes per your suggestions. But most importantly the lead levels here must be resolved.

[XLFD]

Frankly, I believe Brandy will quickly become part of the system that she's effectively been part of since her father was mayor.  If we once again see the West End project grant come before the council in February (presuming it doesn't get the DNRTF grant this year), I believe she will be totally on board with it.  The CVB, Chamber of Commies, DDA, and several other powerful local agencies want to use the West End for more events and to move some out of the downtown.  The first three, she was a member of at one point or another.

[Willy]

Good points Aquaman. Excellent report X. In my opinion there is no reason in the World not to allow citizens 5 minutes to address agenda items and 5 minutes to address concerns at the end of the meeting. Rarely are there ever enough people that show up to address the Council that would warrant such a short period of time. Even when folks do speak they seldom talked for the entire 5 minutes. If there happens to be a situation where the Council is packed with people wanting to speak on an important item then it would make sense to shorten the time period. Of course we all know why the time limit to address the Council was reduced. It was to prevent you from speaking about the malfeasance that has run rampant in the City. Instead of calling it the 3 minute rule, they should have called it the Rotta amendment because the Council passed it in order to limit your time in front of the camera. if you had not tried to warn people about the corruption we all know that the 5 minutes would still be in affect.

[XLFD]

A rule named after me, the crowd has gone deadly silent, a Cinderella story outta nowhere. Former greenskeeper and now about to become the masters champion.

[Willy]

If you think about it your investigating the corrupt nature of City Hall has spurned several changes of the ordinances including the work safety ordinances which bans citizens from City buildings. That only shows how slimy those that are in power really are.

[Brad]

What's that safety ban...?

[XLFD]

Willy is talking about ancient history, LOL.  Back on March 1, 2011, I received a call from Sergeant Schultz, Colonel Klink was busy, of the LPD informing me that he had something to give me.  Appropriately, I met him in front of the Cops & Doughtnuts (then McDonald's) Bakery and he gave me two Letters of Trespass, telling me that if I set foot on either of the two locations that it would lead to my arrest for trespassing.  Those two addresses included one that I had never ever stepped foot on (it was Heather and Nick Tykoski's bargain house on Washington), and the other was the City Hall complex, including the police station (see here).  What had I done?  Some officials felt threatened by the content of my FOIA requests asking for DDA records and such and by my fully non-confrontational visits made to the city hall to view the records.  Maybe it was because I was exposing totally unethical behavior by the Tykoski's (Here's a prime example, notice the invoice is made out 3 weeks after I was given the letters). 

This eventually led to a Federal lawsuit that had the city settling with me for $15.000 with the additional task of revising the policy.  If the new policy is ever invoked again, they will lose again if it was as baseless as this last one.  More of that here:  The Monster Unchained

[Brad]

What a joke...  many jokes...  But ...NOT funny.  SMH!

[shinblind]

Can someone explain in the Agenda and packet, the section labeled Industrial Facility Exemption Requirement, how that works?
As an example, not to pick on Brill just that they are first listed, there are 3 different expiration dates ending on years 2015, 2017, and 2020.

For the year  Full time Emp at approval  #Emp pledged  # Emp added
2015                        39                                3-5                  4
2017                        34                                2-4                  5
2020                        37                                 5                    4

How can you be adding employees yet have a drop in full time employees in subsequent years?

There is probably a simple explanation that I must be missing here.
Can someone explain how this works? If you had 39 employees and you add 4 employees how can the number of employees drops to 34?

[XLFD]

I am at a loss.  Corporate welfare mathematics has always been a weakness of mine, and I have a Master's degree in mathematics.  It only seems to make sense if you believe there's a square root of negative one, of which 'i' am not one (math joke).