Ludington City Council Sept. 14, 2015: Public Service for Inadequate Public Service

It wasn't on the Ludington City Council packet agenda, and it hasn't been in any of the local news outlets since Monday except for this one in the straightforwardly named FOIA Lawsuit Initiated Against Ludington.  But even though its existence was ignored by the public officials for the full length of the 40 minute meeting and by the local media (at least until they get City Hall's press release telling us how baseless it is, when it's nothing but base), it's still out there at the end of the week. 

On my part, there was a little bit of choreography by performing the initial service of process during the public comment period by two of the people peripherally involved with the lawsuit.  It may look like a bit of showboating, but the city's legal team has precipitated this course of conduct in the initial service of process.  I have used certified mail, return service requested to do so on one of my previous lawsuits, but the good folks of the city took a look at the return address and refused the letter, as anyone has the right to do with such mail. 

The city's legal team also complained when my agents hand delivered court process to the city clerk during city hall's normal business hours, and have tried to claim such service is not proper, without legal citation on their part.  So it just makes sense to give them process where they cannot deny they received it properly, because the service airs on Ludington TV.  My two servers were very motivated to do their job.

This was the major moment at the city meeting, and it will not be addressed objectively by Ludington city officials or their friends in the media, because they have the losing legal argument no matter how they spin the results when I wind up winning once again.  The only question is whether the local courts will decide on punitive damages for them. 

Fueling the rumor mills, Mayor Ryan Cox was absent and replaced by Mayor Pro-Tem Richard Rathsack who had a few faux pas along the way.  Chief Barnett led off with an appeal to the Supreme Being for his fellow public officials, noticeably leaving off any praise for those who aren't, finishing ten minutes before I criticized the unprofessional acts of two of his poorly trained police officers in the public comments (transcribed and delivered in full below under the video). 

I arrived with my two process servers a little late due to the extra travel time I had to do, arriving during Deb Mannikko's public comment, which touched caustically on the ramifications of the rental inspection program and asked several questions which remained unanswered.  Anybody who knows her, knows that she cares deeply about the people she rents her multiple properties to, and the arguments she has been bringing to the table are sound, unlike the majority of the officials deciding this issue.

Deb's 75 second speech allowed late-arriving me to have my comments and my service, and ask my own questions.  Neither of our questions or other commentary received replies by the officials at any part of the meeting.

What else of importance happened at the meeting?  They approved some health care changes to new hires that are members of the SEIU public service union, designed to lessen the city's obligations to post-employment benefits.  They then formally approved a contract with the Franklin Holwerda Company for emergency services to replace the water treatment plant's filters in case of failure during the time they are improving the Water Treatment Plant, which will cost about $3600 over the next three years.  Insurance.

The next official event was to clarify for legal purposes the street right-of-way abandonment the City made in 2011 with Floracraft.  City Attorney Wilson noted their were several problems with the property descriptions which included references to railroad tracks that have been gone quite a while.  It's explained in detail in the council packet linked to above.

Councilor Winczewski then described why it was a good idea to create a charter amendment to submit the city budget to the council/public at the second November meeting rather than the first.  The news she fails to tell us, is that the current city manager has not followed this charter provision since his first year, and has received exactly zero grief from his employers on the city council during that time.  I hope this gets put on the ballot, for if it would be rejected by the voters, which it should, it would make John Shay's willful charter violations even more meaningful.

Lastly, they made the official nod to rezone the old Paulina Stearn's Hospital property from government service to waterfront.  So as you can see, the five topics that came up on the agenda were uncontroversial and for the most part, mundane and uninteresting.  Which makes it odd that the local newspaper avoided the words and actions by the public who attended and spoke or served court papers.  Why upset the public with non-agenda news.

September 14, 2015 Ludington City Council meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

" (4:50 in) Permit me to ask a question of the city attorney regarding the pending rental inspection program that his law firm is drafting in its final form before it will likely come to this council for a vote.  When Manistee adopted their own rental inspection program about 15 years ago under this same law firm, it was introduced much like our current proposed program is. 

We could argue over the regulatory need for this program, which doesn't seem to exist, since no specific tenant complaints about Ludington rental units or landlords were reviewed by the committee.  We could argue over the constitutionality of the program, as there is no language in the ordinance that allows a tenant their right to refuse a government inspection of their living quarters absent a warrant, without the tenant being summarily fined and/or imprisoned.

But perhaps the best argument against the program is its cost.  The City of Manistee on the recommendation of fired City Manager Mitch Deisch discontinued having the program oversaw by the building inspector earlier this year, citing a tremendous loss of revenue in running the program.  They hired a contractor known as the Spicer Group to take over the rental inspections, who have summarily hiked up the price and explicitly stated they follow the international Property Maintenance Code.  This code has clearly defined limits of ceiling heights, room dimensions, and several other hard limits on what's allowable or not in both new and existing buildings.   The City of Manistee is now effectively out of the inspection business, except for future liabilities of their hirelings, and more money is taken out of landlords hands which reduce their ability to make meaningful improvements.

So the question for the city attorney, is if this is what has happened over at Manistee and is likely to happen here in our future, then how could it possibly be in our city's best interests to adopt a rental inspection program? 

You councilors will have probably forgotten all about a FOIA appeal I made to you in March about certain police records that were declined because they were allegedly part of a police investigation whose disclosure would interfere with law enforcement proceedings.  I shared with you not only the law, but also Michigan Supreme Court precedent that said the FOIA Coordinator and Prosecutor Spaniola were utterly mistaken in denying the totality of an arrest report and associated records using generalizations that defy the public policy of this state which establishes full disclosure of non-exempt material.  

What's troubling in this immediate case was that the arrestee was also not provided with the records generated by the police and which needed to be provided to him by the prosecutor through the discovery process, namely the arrest warrant and any search warrants and the affidavits used to obtain them.  Such exclusions not only point to FOIA violations, but also prosecutorial misconduct. 

Perhaps even more troubling is the actions attributed to the two LPD officers involved in the search and arrest, Dave Krause and Tony Kuster.  The LPD has a search and seizure policy, which these two officers willfully ignored repeatedly on the date of March 10, 2015 when they invaded the households of two innocent parties without their consent in a search for Gene Foster.  Officer Kuster, who is the school resource officer, allegedly grabbed a woman's phone and looked through it extensively after his home invasion despite her protestations.  Neither officer ever exhibited a search or arrest warrant to her or the other apartment's renter. 

Is this the future of Ludington, where government agents freely enter the homes of our innocent citizens and search their belongings without any warrants?  Is this the type of behavior we want our ever-increasing burden of tax dollars to fund and protect?   

No answer is needed beyond your actions, but in the meantime, please accept this service of court process for the lesser FOIA violations from those whose rights you have trampled over, Mr. and Mrs. Gene Foster.  If you need an extra copy of the lawsuit, I will be posting it on the Ludington Torch later tonight.

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There should be no reason he cannot make the next meeting, and there hasn't been any indication that he has done anything contrary to the law (other than holding the incompatible offices of mayor and reserve police sergeant).  Most people, including myself, would consider Mayor Cox an unfortunate victim of circumstances and impropriety; they would likely be supportive if he did make it public and consider it a weakness to cover it up.

Sorry about the sublimation and obscure hinting in the meantime.

Well, that's just the problem with this new Mayor Cox. He, like many politicians, stated when running for office that transparency and new ideas would be followed. Instead, he just continued in the Henderson fashion of covering up more, and defending his crony council members and Shay in defiance of facing reality. He should of, and still can ask for some investigations of wrong-doing when it's been proven over and over again. If he does show his face again tonight, I'm sure he'll be eager to get the entire episode done and over with asap. He's certainly NOT a LEADER, he's another sheeple with Shay as the herdsman. That in itself is defying Ludington's charter, and a clear vision for Ludington's future. We continue to repeat the mistakes of the past, and compound it with even newer and dumber mistakes. 

I'm kinda surprised that John Streeter hasn't weighed in on this matter. What say ye Streeter, you have some inside connections, let's hear what you know, thanks. X, was the real Mayor there tonight, and any observations of his behavioral change? 

I know exactly what went on but cannot comment publicly. Digging deeper to find a Ledge wrongdoings. Stay tuned.

The mayor was present at the meeting and performing his duties well.  He seemed on his game. 

Streeter obviously is on his own game, appearing a couple of hours after your post about him.  It's like you can magically summon him, Aquaman.

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