Ludington City Council Meeting, September 23, 2024: Taking the Cake, and Eating It Too

[XLFD]

At a meeting that would end with a very bad cake analogy, the agenda packet for the September 23, 2024 Ludington City Council meeting offered few items to get it towards that track.  Four action items were interspersed on that docket, all of which were uncontroversial and routine.

- Approving LHS's parade for homecoming (October 4th)

- Approving the purchase of Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) filling equipment for the LFD

- Approving services of engineering company Prein & Newhof for replacing D docks at the city marina

- Adopting a resolution to allow the Sand Bar (under new owners) to be part of the social district

As expected, these would all pass unanimously and without much discussion by an all-present council throughout the course of this meeting, which went nearly two hours.  Meetings with similar agendas and public turnout often are over in under 40 minutes, so what padded this one.  

First, four people spoke during the initial public comment.  Ron Mousel of the local Rotary Club thanked the council for allowing the five peace poles to be installed at Rotary Park's corners.  Pastor Brian Ford, who had already done the meeting's invocation expressed pride in the town (isn't that one of the deadly sins?).  For some technical reason, all of this was left off of the meeting's video, with the footage starting only before I started with my prepared comment. 

Before that, Mayor Mark Barnett, made a negative comment about my choice of apparel, and suggested I wear something different at the next meeting.  The funny thing is that I wore the same shirt at the August 12th meeting, and never heard a peep out of him or any other official as to its appropriateness.  This was just another case of the mayor trying to exercise control over stuff he has no control over, as we will see later, when he rambles about double chocolate cakes.

After his interruption, I commented about social districts and wondered why we still needed them at this juncture, since we surely didn't need them before 2020:

XLFD: (beginning of video) "The council is set to renew a social district due to a change of ownership with the Sand Bar.  Social districts allow participating businesses to sell alcohol to adults that they can consume outside in a common area that roughly spans the length of South James Street and two blocks of Ludington Avenue.  

Social districts had their purpose in offering bars and restaurants a lifeline during the COVID restrictions, but the only purpose they currently have is to make downtown Ludington a less family-friendly place by accepting and promoting alcohol consumption in full view on our sidewalks by our next generation and those trying to recover from addiction.  Statistics show our county has a drinking problem; we have had at least 25% more alcohol induced deaths in our county in comparison to the six other counties in Michigan who have between 24,000 and 30,000 population (including our neighbors in Oceana and Manistee Counties) both during the pandemic and afterwards.  Yet we want to parade and glamorize beer drinking in the public squares of our downtown, in clear view of our children and recovering alcoholics.

Without the severe restrictions that our state placed on us during Covid, why will the council continue with social districts?  You have the power to revoke them all by just holding a public hearing and voting your conscience, if any of you still have that inner voice.  Or are you afraid of standing up to the local beer lobby instead of standing up FOR your children and your constituents who want to walk through the downtown without dealing with beer-guzzling strangers at each corner and half-filled glasses left on ledges while city officials glamorize the debauchery? [END comment]

Before they voted on the Sand Bar social district, they would ask Police Thief Christopher Jones of whether there were any problems currently with the social district area in regard to complaints and beverage containers.  He would claim none he knew of.  The problem is he wasn't here during the COVID era, when I would regularly find the distinctive cups all over the downtown area, some still half-filled and unattended as claimed.  With those restrictions gone, it has become much less messy as patrons drink their beer inside, but the question remains: why have social districts now?  The answer lies in the packet: the City, its DDA, and Heather Tykoski's Safety Decals makes too much money to let it go away:

The reason why we never had social districts in the nearly 150 years of Ludington's existence before 2020, is because city hall and their officials weren't getting a piece of the cake.  Now that they prosper from public drunkenness, they have no issue with it.

Deborah Leeper of Nashville (3:00 in) got up after me, and shortly after she begins talking, some music comes on, accidentally one would hope, from the video-taker.  One doesn't hear that at the meeting, but it detracts a bit from the video.  One should recall that I was thrown out of a meeting earlier this year for having my own inobtrusive background music.

Her fee extracted by the city for offering short term rentals went up from $1500 to $6000 without any notice.  She indicated that the property (on the western end of Ludington Avenue near the beach) has been the focus of her retirement goals and that this 400% raise was a shock to that.  She distributed books to the mayor and council at this point (unknown what these books were about).  Faux-Interim City Manager Jeanne "Hoax" Oakes indicated that she wanted to talk with her tomorrow about the increase and anything else.  

Greed isn't limited to selling beer cups and stickers.  If Ms. Leeper is right, and no officials present doubted her tale of jacked up short term rental fees, then why were her fees increased fourfold?  If she was wrong, or the policy did not allow for such increases, why didn't one of those officials present state the current policy and state there must have been some error in her billing?  And why was she allowed to pass out gifts (rather than put them under the kiosk) in violation of public comment policy? 

Yet our comments did not extend this meeting.  A presentation of the first 'final' draft of the city's strategic plan (it's in the packet) by Allyson Brunette (via Zoom) did for a little bit.  Councilor Jack Bulger had looked it over and had a few questions, in particular a couple sections where various use-taxes and housing-taxes were mentioned for generating more revenue.  Such language would undoubtedly alert the public to the fact that even more taxes were about to come; better to couch such solutions with euphemisms in order to get acceptance.   Brunette welcomed such revisions and will be adjusting the plan accordingly over the next couple months.

This strategic plan will undoubtedly be used as much as the last one we had done in 2020: never.  When the mission statement ends with "maintain the highest standards of integrity and public engagement", you know it's all a waste of money as I've seen the COL devolve so much into a corrupt non-transparent state over the Barnett era, as chronicled regularly in these pages.

But not even this tripe made the meeting go on for two hours, it was due more to the city council trying to further its power and the mayor to do the same afterwards.  Councilor John Terzano began the flexing by offering up a resolution to open up the 100 block of South Rath Avenue, a street currently blocked by Dr. Andrew Riemer's construction team (Tridonn) using it currently as a staging place for his new restaurant.  

Early in construction, the southbound lanes of the street were open, but the city assented to blocking the whole street in spring, with an understanding that it would be open by Labor Day.  The contractors have reportedly been reluctant to lose this territory and so Terzano's resolution was made to have that lane reopened by September 30th, and the street opened, shortly thereafter.  

A discussion ensued where the council was telling us that it had a duty to the people to make sure this important street was back up, but what came out over the discussion is that they lacked paperwork generally required for such projects that require street closures, nor were the agreements made between city officials and Tridonn more than oral agreements.  So while each of the councilors decided to pass the resolution after discussion and rake Tridonn folks over the coals, nobody faulted the city officials who failed to do the duties of their jobs, so that their current action needed to be taken.  This includes potentially fining Tridonn day by day if the street isn't opened up by the 30th.

The second public comment featured only me, and I used the two minutes to let the council, so recently feeling empowered by their initiated street-cleaning, know that their negligence did not only extend to letting Riemer's private contractors walk all over them and the citizen's interests.

XLFD: (1:44:45 in) "It's a pity that city officials can't honestly debate the need for a lifeguard program in Ludington, even in an election year.  Instead, we get a short draft document and presentation from Allyson Brunette, the third lowest bid for creating a strategic plan for the city, who seems to have gotten the job because of her close relationship to former City Manager Mitch Foster and his endorsement.  Foster himself a noted consultant with his Double Haul Solutions company, submitted the third lowest bid for looking for his replacement, and once again won the competitive bid.  Does everyone here not see the lengths of corruption city leaders will go in wasting our tax money on high bids given to cronies, tax money raised by $300,000 by council action in both of the last two years.

I don't know whether Foster committed a trifecta of unethical acts, but last week I received a court summons accusing me of two crimes that arise from my being almost shot by the city's contracted killers at Cartier Park.  I committed no crime, this city violated numerous laws in the city code and statutes that prohibit much of what went down that night.  This council could have suspended those city laws, but instead they say that my license was suspended when it never was.  I look forward to embarrassing the city's totally unethical contracted prosecutor in my October arraignment and beyond and potentially cross-examining Mitch, Police Captain Caveman, and Susan Sniegowski's wife Thomas, who are all listed as witnesses. [END comment]

Councilor Kathy Winczewski followed with the usual announcements about invasive plants, but what was even more interesting was Councilor Cheri Stibitz not being very inclusive in her praise of those who commented that night: 

Stibitz: (1:48:15 in "I just want to thank Mr. Mousel, Pastor Ford, Ms. Leeper for coming to the lectern, and even though we all have issues, things that are underlying, and questions we need... you came and presented your issues in an appropriate way, and I mean, Deborah you've given us a book and it has a lesson in it that I've read before and it talks to everything that you spoke about, and did it appropriately and kindly, and I just want to thank the three of you for coming to the lectern and telling us good things.  I'm thinking that there's always good at the end.  So I appreciate that, and I expect everyone here appreciates that as well, and I thank you for doing that."

For some reason she didn't mention my name, even though I spoke twice.  Apparently, I wasn't talking about 'good things' or expressing it appropriately.  What a passive-aggressive sleight, one wouldn't expect it from an elementary school teacher.  But maybe she was just setting the table for Mayor Mark Barnett, who decided that he would not only bake a cake but bake a narrative as well. 

Barnett (1:49:40 in):  "If you'll indulge me for just a few seconds.  Imagine if you will that I have set here right in front of me a thick, maybe a six-inch-tall chocolate, double chocolate layer cake... and then I take a ladle and smear it over with hot fudge.  Then I took a fork and I set about consuming it and about halfway through I admonished each of you how to eat better to get into shape, and what a terrible, terrible things you are doing.

And I thought about that because in the first public comment, a gentleman came up and he admonished this council, chided this council on... not having family-friendly events and he used the word 'debauchery' in description of the particular issue he has.  And so, like that chocolate cake, I was focused more on a t-shirt that uses a language that many of us would not use in mixed company and showing a digital sign that we would all attribute to something profane.  And I couldn't think about what he was saying except that those two terms were used, because of the picture he painted, much the same as this chocolate cake, and you'd miss my encouragement to eat healthy, right?

It just seemed like the hypocrisy that was used then, it just distracted me, and I'll tell ya, I just think there's so much to Councilor Stibitz point, there is so much for people to come and exercise the wonderful right of free speech to address government and to talk about things but to do so in a civil way.  It is so missing and so important, and is so appreciated when seen and carried out.  I just want you to know and echo what Councilor Stibitz said.  Thank you so much for coming and doing that and I hope that the other gentleman that's here would maybe think about that.  His message and the way he comports himself, and you can be as effective by being nice and civil.  That's just my thoughts." [END comment]

I found his use of the cake as a bad analogy.  Nothing stated at this meeting, and nothing before that I can remember, has been critical of the council over something I am also guilty of (like eating a cake and telling others to eat healthy).  He is insinuating that when I mention criminal conduct by the council, that I also engage in criminal conduct-- and other than the summons I recently got indicating false claims by the criminal enterprise he's currently mayor of-- he has nothing other than minor traffic civil infractions.

As usual in his diatribes against free speech, he embraces the concept but is deeply critical of those who actually exercise the right in a manner that he doesn't approve of.  Mayor Barnett has made unnecessary restrictions to public comment, disallowed public comment on city websites where they were before, and stood behind FOIA policies that mirror the same non-transparency he exhibited back when he was police chief.  Now he wants to ban certain shirts at meetings.

Frankly, I have had only good reviews of this t-shirt (until the mayor's edict) which Amazon promotes as "funny" and an expression of "political pride".   I find deeper meaning in it, since I narrowly missed being killed in a city park by the city's deer cull efforts thanks to the City's misinformation and negligence.  The City missed then and rather than apologize for their omissions and commissions, they arraign me, the victim of multiple crimes, on bogus charges.

Mayor Barnett should be made to answer why he once asked a citizen $2500 to inspect the Baby Kate incident report several years after the fact, when beyond the addresses and phone numbers in the first couple pages, nothing was redacted.  LPD Chief Barnett lied and tried to steal throughout the whole litigated affair, he would later be unable to account for missing money in the Shop with a Cop program.  The cake is well-placed in front of him.

[Willy]

It' just so hard to understand these types of people. They think they are vastly superior to those  who elected them to be their representatives. Self important pea brains. Love the shirt X. They truly cannot look at themselves and see how small minded and arrogant they are. Keep up the fight X. There are many who understand what you are fighting for and what you represent.

[XLFD]

I was wondering why Marky Marx was so upset with my shirt the second time around, so I did a little more research on his social media and found that between the first time I wore the shirt and this time that he had become a fervent Kamala Harris supporter:

 

I thought he had lost a little weight when wearing his own offensive (to many) shirt until I read comments and found that the man in the picture was the bromance he shared a room with when going to the Kamala event.  Must have been fake news or Babylon Bee, I thought, until it all made perfect sense.

[Willy]

Being fat, stupid and a Marxist is no way to go thru life.

[AnxiousGuy]

It seems you are not the only one getting treated unfairly when it comes to FOIA requests. I just learned of a kid at GVSU submitting a request and getting an $84,000 bill for his request. This is out of control and needs to be addressed at the state level.