Ludington/Scottville City Council meetings, December 4, 2023: Much Nothing About Ado

[XLFD]

If it seems like it's only been a week since the last meeting of the Ludington City Council and the Scottville City Commission, both convening at 6 PM on the evening of December 4th, you would be correct.  Meetings switch to the first and third week of December in order to not have meetings happen around Christmas-time, this year that holiday would fall on a regular meeting day.

Ludington

Hence, one week turnaround and not a lot of business at these meetings and a lot of empty seats in the peanut gallery.  Still, these are opportune times to show up at these meetings and pursue one's own agenda, and typically that arises from past actions of the public body, and so even though I could not attend the Ludington meeting because of being physically present in Scottville, I still participated by sending in a public comment, and even with that, the meeting lasted only about 25 minutes.

XLFD:  (read by Mitch Foster 7:15 into the meeting) "It's been two months since this council approved the deer cull 6-1, and city administrators have just announced in this meeting's packet that deer cull sites are finally being identified.  Shouldn't these sites, and all other of the details of any contract between the city and the USDA, have been known before this council decided 6-1 to approve a deer cull with no specifics other than it would cost around $20,000 and involve strangers coming to our area with high-powered rifles and shooting in the dark.  Strangers who would be unhindered by firearm laws designed for the safety of the public.  Our problem is not an overabundance of deer in the city, it is the overabundance of fools at city hall who agree to measures concerning handouts and hysteria without any foundation of common sense."

With Terry Grams being the only other speaker, reading a report on how the tainted groundwater plumes of past industries in the northern part of the city made it so that the state's DEQ (now, EGLE) advised that any animal who browsed in that area were not safe for human consumption, ergo indicating that any venison given away to the poor from these culls might be unsafe, the point was clear, that the deer cull controversy is not going away no matter how much city officials try to ignore it. 

Councilor Winczewski would touch upon Grams' contamination issue later by downplaying the report as nothing to worry about, and Foster would downplay the city's negligence by saying that they're still looking at getting approvals from property owners for deer cull operations.  Here's what your favorite chemistry teacher turned councilor and one of the professed few friends of the environment says about Grams' concerns:

"There's nothing on top of the earth that an animal could eat or drink that has (names some toxic chemicals) in it... and they're treating those chemicals... We don't have anything to worry about from plants taking up those chemicals or animals drinking those chemicals."

Why isn't there one person on the dais that will refute such nonsense when she spouts it.  The groundwater there is contaminated, the ground itself has contamination, the plants absorb those contaminants, animals eat those plants and can drink the groundwater when it comes to the surface.  Just one more example of how this city council doesn't have any idea what's going on, and blissfully enjoying themselves two months after agreeing to a totally unplanned deer cull to solve a problem that has never been established.  

The actions on the meeting agenda were otherwise ceremonial and routine.  Approving carpet installation at the senior center, having the first reading of ordinances establishing the salaries of the clerk and treasurer, approving next year's Ludington race events and appointing Rose Baker to the transit authority's board.  The only lift was getting the interlocal agreement for recreation services through, but that was done before the meeting, getting all of the townships together to forge a fairer way to pay for the services offered.  

The council acknowledged that they would be doing their evaluation of the city manager over the next couple weeks and were asked to identify goals for him and their selves in the process.  I could suggest a few.

                                                                        Scottville City Manager Jimmy Newkirk

Scottville

Scottville's agenda showed that they were also planning on reviewing their city manager (in closed session at the end of the meeting), along with an appointment to the planning commission of Jenna Morrill, and the traditional year-end budget amendments.  Notably absent were Commissioners Al Deering and Eric Thue, and also notably absent were any other member of the public (other than myself) as the only one's sitting in commission chambers were other city officials (the treasurer, the interim police chief, and the rural fire authority representative, each scheduled to give a report.

I would be the only one to have a comment, registering my surprise that they didn't try to rush the rental inspection ordinance (revised) through, so since it was still on the back-burner of the agenda, I didn't get gonged by the mayor for talking outside of the agenda, even when I touched upon her own illegitimacy for her position, as I try to each time when I come over for a visit:

XLFD:  "I'm half surprised that the new rental inspection ordinance is not in front of the commission for adoption.  While the charter says that "no ordinance shall be finally passed by the Commission until one month after the meeting at which it is introduced" in section 7.12, an unscrupulous city attorney could look at that and say, the ordinance was introduced in November, and now it is December, let's pass this now, the charter says we can.  

This actually is a more defensible position than looking at what the charter says about filling vacancies when they occur and having the council select a person to fill a vacancy two weeks after it's legally permissible.  Anybody who would take part in such a selection, and I see three seated here who did, deserve to be recalled for not defending or affirming the Michigan constitution by directly violating the Scottville City Charter, an offspring of our state's founding document. 

May I presume that the ordinance will not come up for a vote until January, since the next meeting is scheduled to take place three weeks after the rental inspection ordinance was introduced, over a week less than a month's time?"

The city attorney actually arrived just after my comment, so I never did get an answer, I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.  After doing their two actions without any problems the five commissioners voted to go into closed session for their city manager review.  This could have been an interesting thing to witness as a fly on the wall, especially if Commissioner Thue had been healthy enough to make it to the meeting, as there has been some rumbling among the citizens about Jimmy Newkirk, and Thue has been listening and observing.   

And although I had another comment about the Steve Spangler Situation and their lack of clarity on whether he is just a contractor or a city official, I decided to wander off after waiting about a half hour, figuring that everybody else in town and other news media had something better to do than wait around, and I know I certainly did.  Plus, I can only imagine they have read the article already.

[Willy]

Thanks for the article X.

[XLFD]

This was more like two half-articles, summaries of two meetings doing little more than nothing at the same time, but thanks for the acknowledgement, and a special thanks to Mason Counties two city governments for still having enough controversy to make it a little interesting.

[Freedom Seeker]

Another clever Title and report. First time I read it traditionally Shakesperian.

[XLFD]

Stay tuned then for "The Shrewing of the Tame", an autobiographical effort showing the metamorphosis of a mild-mannered firefighter into an aggressive firewood-selling community activist.