Ludington City Council Meeting, October 14, 2024: Choosing Between Vices

[XLFD]

The council packet for the October 14, 2024 meeting of the Ludington City Council was diverse with material, but two stood out as somewhat controversial, one dealing with smoking and one dealing with drinking.  The fully present council would introduce an ordinance that would ban smoking outdoors in public parks while at the same time consider a request that would allow their contractors to sell alcohol at the beach.

In true bipolar fashion, the council would argue for a while over how bad smoking is and outside exposure is at parks, and then a couple minutes later, bend over backwards to unanimously approve the making of a lean-to structure on the back of the southern concession stand in order to sell alcohol to those at the beach-- because drinking and swimming (without lifeguards, naturally) isn't as dangerous as secondhand outdoor smoking. 

Ultimately, Councilor John Terzano would convince his fellow councilors that the smoking ordinance was too self-contradicting to be good law, so it will be sent back to committee for some more work.  Apparently, some unnamed people complained about sharing city parks with those who would smoke and ruin their experience; one wonders if they would do the same prohibition for those who would buy city-sponsored alcoholic beverages at Stearns Park and ruin other people's experience.

Two people would comment during the first part of the meeting, both named Tom and both rather strident in their views of how city officials are failing the people.  Tom Sanders would relate his frustration in having the LPD enforce leash laws, especially when he walks his own dog on a leash and has to fend off other dogs that wander around the city without restraints.  He has a good point, Section 34(99)(d) of the city code says clearly:  "No person shall permit any dog to be in any public street, alley, on any premises open to the public, or upon any private premises other than the premises of the owner or with the consent of the owner of such private premises, unless such dog is on a leash."  Sanders has related similar stories of unleashed dogs getting in his leashed dog's face and his injuries therefrom in the past, without any sort of action by the LPD or county Animal Control when he asks them for assistance.

Before Sanders' comment, which went effectively ignored for the rest of the meeting, I had my own three minutes of outrage which was effectively in two parts, regarding the city defrauding a woman to the tune of $4500 and then the city stealing a car and then blocking her public record's request to figure out why they would do so.

XLFD: (8:45 in) "A retired Tennessee lady came to you at the last meeting and wondered why the licensing fee for her short term rental property in Ludington quadrupled from $1500 to $6000.  In approved minutes from 2020, Councilor Winczewski noted "The owner of a duplex would only pay one licensing fee of $1500.", which mirrored the resolution passed at the next meeting, $1500 per licensee.  Due diligence backed by a FOIA response shows that the council has not changed that licensing fee since.  

Now one could argue that the City should not come close to expending $1500 in resources to license a property being that they expend $100 to effectively license a long term rental in the City, making this licensing fee more of a tax than a fee, but few would argue that the costs/fees of licensing vacation rentals can be adjusted absent an action by the city council to do so.  Yet, the City offered a new policy that did just that and it was never approved by this council.  Why weren't you councilors upset that your set policies and fees are not being followed by your city administrators, led by the extra greedy Jeanne Hoax who, by edict of the city charter, should not be serving at her current position by dint of her prior service on and election to this council?

Another lady has not had her simple FOIA request fulfilled.  Reportedly, she had her car stolen by the LPD, an illegal impoundment of her car by Officer Austin Morris, who I've talked about here before in telling you how he committed outright perjury on a search warrant affidavit back when he was the school's resource officer.  The state has rules for impounding vehicles, those weren't followed, nor was the LPD's own policies that allow for impoundment under 5 circumstances, none of which applied here.  LPD policy section 06.09.02 explicitly states that her vehicle, driven by another person who was arrested, should have been properly released to her, but Officer Morris would not do this despite her pleading with him to do so, and forced her to spend hundreds of dollars to release it from impound.  Now they claim the incident report is not available as a public record because it would somehow interfere with law enforcement proceedings.  

Your only proofs of this is some affirmation from city-contracted prosecutor Beth Hand who was asked by the FOIA Coordinator whether an investigation was still in progress.  Sorry, the LPD investigation is over due to the fact that the warrant request has been sought and made against the driver by Hand.  Denials using section 13(1)(b) of the FOIA must state more than just repetition of statutory language.  You stole this lady's car, and now you are doubling down by denying her the public record that should describe that theft.  [END comment]  

Both sections would be ignored by the council, figuring that it would do them no good to argue that they quadrupled the cost of an already-too-expensive licensing fee without any rationale or official authorization, and that they're aware already that their police illegally steal cars from my 2022 incident.  As for the FOIA matter, the city council never follows the statute when tasked with FOIA appeals, and they would not prove me wrong this night.  No matter how cleanly they choreograph these meetings, with invocations to the Almighty at the beginnings and 'one good thing' at the end, they can't as of yet silence the public who are quite upset over their local government's incompetence, corruption, and/or overreach.  And it's quite widespread.

The first thing done was to approve amendments to the purchasing policy for city officials.  Department supervisors can make budget-aligned purchases up to $25,000, above that and up to $75,000 the city manager and council are involved with bidding strongly considered unless impractical, for purchases over $75,000 formal bidding must follow.  

The bidding process itself promotes cronyism.  Rather than accept making Request for Proposals (RFPs) that indicate the metrics of how bids will be evaluated, evaluation criteria is only discussed after bids have been opened.  This policy should never be passed by an honorable public body as it allows council favoritism and bias to play a large part in selection rather than price and whatever other criteria is wanted for a given purchase or contract when the City puts it out for bids.  This is why several good local companies refuse to put bids in with the City of Ludington anymore, because they routinely ignore low bids and hire cronies or conversely, not hire qualified but unfavored agencies.  Multiple examples have happened this year, notably including the hiring of a Strategic Plan consultant and in the search of a city manager.  The third lowest bidder was selected both times.

The first presentation of an ordinance making way for 'natural' (green) burials in city cemeteries was read.  If passed at a later meeting, it would allow remains and cremains of the deceased to be organically buried in biodegradable containers and set aside part of the cemetery for such burials. 

A sign (see above) showing the three types of birds normally encountered at Stearns Beach was approved to be put out on a standing signpost next to the breakwall.  Two LFD purchases were approved of SCBA tanks (through a grant) and other miscellaneous support equipment (with about $25K of restricted cash funds).  

After some discussion, the council would change their December meeting dates back a week to reflect two realities: that extra election duties from expanded voting procedures would take much of the clerk's time this fall, and their current lack of a real city manager.  It will now meet on December 9th and 23rd.  They officially closed an alley off North Washington for October 25th for a 'Harvest Festival' for Blue Hat Ministries.

Their last action was that FOIA appeal I mentioned earlier.  Janice Masters, a frequent target of the LPD, likely because of her associations, borrowed her car to a friend of hers, Tyler Howard, and for some reason he was signaled by LPD to stop and the officer claims he did not stop quickly enough and flagged him for fleeing/eluding.  Due to records being withheld, the public cannot determine whether that was the case, what is intriguing is that there was no other infraction on the ticket to indicate why he would have been signaled to stop. 

But the most intriguing thing is that when they were arresting this driver, Masters came to the scene and was actively disallowed to drive her own car away.  The elements of fleeing/eluding are totally independent of the vehicle used: there is no evidence to be gained for prosecuting such a charge by impounding the vehicle.  Reportedly, Officer Austin Morris gave zero probable cause for searching and then impounding the vehicle.  Howard would be formally arraigned on October 8th, meaning that the prosecutor had looked at the report and any other investigative information and decided enough was there to charge him.  It's likely he has been granted the police report and any dashcam or bodycam footage regarding the incident through discovery by this time.  

City Attorney Ross "Sewage" Hammersley has claimed this report is fully exempt because an investigation is ongoing, but he has not claimed what this ongoing investigation entails; recall it's a fleeing/eluding charge, where nothing beyond the actions you take as a driver to not stop for a marked police car signaling for you to stop is in play.  This and any elusive maneuvers would be on the dashcam video.  

The Ludington City Council had no interest in finding out why Ross and the prosecutor would suggest they had the power to withhold these records beyond their inconclusive generalities.  They have no interest in observing the law which requires specificity in such denials, or offering her a fair hearing, they have all been fully trained to follow their attorney's advice, and is backed by a prosecutor who says the investigation is still pending, but does not say why she's dropping charges a week ago at an arraignment without a full investigation already done.  

I had already anticipated the council's response, having gone through this step dozens of times myself and seeing that they never follow the law, only their lawyer's advice.  

XLFD:  "Big surprise, you erred on the side of non-transparency for the FOIA request, just like you're making everything else as non-transparent and unaccountable in the Mayor Marx era.  In late August, I published an article about Prosecutor Beth Hand where it was shown that she had committed unethical and illegal acts leading to the prosecution of the owner of the Rendezvous Bar.  The MSP reports indicate that she as witness, gave a false name and address to a police officer conducting an investigation, while failing to tell the trooper over the phone or in her written witness statement the relevant fact that she was in the prosecutor's office that would decide whether to prosecute an assault that appears to have resulted in no injury to the victim.  

Such actions indicate that she does not have the qualities of character you would want in a county prosecutor who is also a city contractor.  But shortly after that I got a letter in the mail effectively from Ms. Hand also known as Ms. Wiegand in police reports.  This was a summons to me listing two crimes that truly have no legal basis for being pursued by an honorable prosecutor.  One involved operating a vehicle while license suspended or revoked, when I've not only never had my license suspended or revoked, but also I have never had a traffic stop since 2022.  The other was for trespassing at a park that is open 24 hours a day to the public.  The offenses were stated to have happened in March, making one wonder why it wasn't pursued back then rather than six months later.

I was arraigned since our last meeting, and my Christian name will be forever connected on the internet with these spurious charges even when they are ultimately dismissed when a fair court finds that this was reckless and malicious prosecution... [END comment]

Prosecutor Hand had all of the elements easily provable to bring a charge of public extortion against the city attorney, but our county sheriff failed to get the state police to conduct an investigation and denied the people of Ludington justice against a man who is still asking myself and others for hundreds of dollars for FOIA requests that have zero exempt footage on videos, where he has developed his own policy of charging three minutes of supervisor level costs for each minute of footage, even the footage you don't request, that can be easily clipped off!  

Obviously, drinking isn't the only vice that the city has chosen to support, and that's true whatever you're smoking.