Ludington Sidewalks: Unfunded Mandate with Propaganda Over Priorities

[XLFD]

The Policymakers Speak

At 44:00 into the latest Ludington City Council meeting video Councilor Winczewski summarizes in some detail the new city sidewalk policy and the two new add-ons to the existing policy.  The second part concerning the DDA and downtown sidewalks really isn't new, the DDA has been doing sidewalk replacement and experimentation with their budgeted money, so it only clarifies that in the downtown district that DDA-budgeted money would be used to install sidewalks. 

The first part, making installation of sidewalks mandatory at the sale of a property in the city is a brand new concept, and one that might seem reasonable.  I could be for such a policy in a heartbeat if it was done in the right way.  But once again, like the updates on the tall weed and junk policies that were recently passed, and the new fees that are about to be passed for special events in Ludington, the new revised policy is all about greed and using the city's power to make Ludington a less friendly place.

Mayor Cox defers any comments about the policy to the end of the meeting, and starts off with his own take incorporating one of the initial commenters (Connie Vlahos) concerns about outside influences affecting this, but addressing nothing about the other concerns from the other commenter who noted by name several new and older buildings, private and public, which went around the policy and have no sidewalks even though the old policy mandated they had to within a year from construction.  Unfortunately, he didn't have a scripted response for that concern.

Mayor Ryan Cox: (1:03:15 in) "...one of the questions was asked about people pursuing this policy and who it was we heard from in regard to this policy being enacted.  Many of the people I come in contact with personally, I will say students of mine, are definitely in support of having sidewalks throughout the city especially as they do walk to and from school.  Not having to walk in the city street as cars are driving by during the morning hours when they're not necessarily will lit, that is a definite benefit to them along with their parents. 

That is one of the things that I've talked about quite extensively since campaigning and throughout the campaign process that I was elected to mayor.  It's something I've heard very favorably from people about in getting it so that our city can be walkable, can be accessible to whoever without having to walk in the streets.  And so those are more people pushing for sidewalks, and I would definitely would say other people I have heard from, it's not the people who don't live in the city or who aren't here permanently, that are the ones for it-- its the people who are here permanently, and have the children and have or are going to have school age children, that are for this policy.

So, in my answer to that, is that the people I heard from that have generally been for this policy and the policy to increase the amount of sidewalks in the city.  And as we looked at it in committee, it was established that this would be one of the most economical ways to accomplish that goal, and to make our city a more walkable city, and easier to travel without a vehicle or without having to walk in the streets, so that's basically where we're coming from with this policy." 

Unfortunately, the proposed sidewalk policy he refers to is not prepared to accomplish those aims, and Mayor Cox should be smart enough to know that that's the case, he listens to what Councilor Castonia say, without any further comment, which helps to show why the new sidewalk policy is fatally flawed for accomplishing any of the mayor's stated goals, and actually will work against what he and his kids want.

Councilor Gary Castonia (1:06:10 in):  "We only budget so much money for sidewalks each year, so that's all we're going to pay.  It's what we have budgeted.  It's not like we're going to dip into the coffers.  It's gonna cost us a couple of hundred thousand dollars to catch up on things.  It's gonna take us probably ten, twenty years to catch up or get going on this.  So that's the reasoning behind it." 

Councilor Gary will be long done with his job before ten, twenty years when some extra money will come in, but his reasoning makes no sense to me, and he's been working four years on sidewalks.  Then came out with this plan; the action continued.

City Attorney Wilson 'clarified' the new policy would only affect sidewalks in the public right of way; Connie Vlahos, the original speaker against the new policy wanted to ask a question but was denied explicitly by the mayor.  Councilor Winczewski then followed with some platitudes about years-long committee research and the future of non-motorized transit in the city in the future and how this ordinance would help so much, appending it with:  "we appreciate your input, we want your input, because we are the voice for you guys, so we want to know what you think to.  So thanks for giving the input, because we need to hear that too."

Condescend much?  Then allow for some public comment input at the end of the council meeting too, so you can get that instant feedback input, Councilor, like the County Board and other Mason County townships allow.  When you allow public comment only before your actions and not after, you lose some of that accountability that you claim is so dear to you.

Illegitimate Councilor Krauch finished up by claiming that the wording should be more precise in the final form of this ordinance, and that's hard to debate if you've taken the time to read the self-conflicting drivel that makes it up, and see how it works against the city's claimed objectives.  His arguments are limited to who needs to pay for installation after a sales transaction, and wants to plant it firmly on the buyer, as if they have been the ones who neglected to install one before.  Either way, it will make homes without sidewalks cost even more, and make them less attractive to buyers.

This is what the councilors told you, this is where the changes are shown it starts on p. 65 here. 

The Money for Sidewalks

After the City of Ludington spent less than $55,000 each of the three years between 2010 and 2012, after spending almost twice that per year for the three years prior, the City quietly got back to those previous levels in Mayor Henderson's last year (2013- $137K) and Mayor Cox's first year (2014- $113K) as seen below in the most recent budget for 2015 in Sidewalk Construction (includes both repair and installation):

This 2015 budget was passed just a little over two months before this new sidewalk ordinance was put out; chances are the Public Safety Committee of the City Council and city management was fine tuning this policy at the same time the budget was being crafted by roughly the same people.

But look at the numbers for 2015 through 2017, the City has budgeted only $110,000 (or less) for sidewalks, over a 10% reduction in money used from the 2013-2014 levels (averaging just over $125,000 for those years).   As you can see, concerned Councilor Castonia and Mayor Cox is raiding no coffers for sidewalks.

Sidewalk 'Demand'

The sidewalk work has been primarily repairs, few new sidewalks have been added in the city since the year 2000, even though it has been a priority during contested mayor campaigns.  The only time the city mandates new sidewalks is for new constructions of primary buildings, but they absolutely do not enforce this even on their own property.

The new policy will make any property transfer necessitate either 1) the building of a sidewalk or 2) half the payment to the city of the estimated cost of the sidewalk installation in lieu of construction, for the approximately 35-40% of the properties without sidewalks.  The mandate, if enforced, will add numerous properties to the sidewalk waiting list each year.      

There are approximately 4432 housing units in Ludington City, I took a look at a small subset of these houses in two sections of town whose common theme is that they are both streets with absolutely no sidewalks.  The 1000 block of Vogel Street is in a sidewalk free area north of Oriole Field just right of the red line:

The 24 properties on this street have been 'sold' 31 times since the year 2000, nine happened in 2014 alone.  That means about 1.3 sales happen each year here, roughly one sale per 20 houses.  Now let's look at the 800 block of Melendy Street way across town:

The 26 buildings in this block have had 33 'sales' since 2000, roughly the same rate as Vogel, about 1.3 every year.  Generalizing, if we have 1700 (4432 * 38%) houses without sidewalks in Ludington and 1 in 20 (5%) of those are sold each year, we add 85 properties to need installation of sidewalks the first year of this proposed change.  The City's 50% match would almost assuredly eclipse the annually budgeted amount just for these properties. 

But currently the city devotes about a 1/3 of its money to volunteer repair and most of the rest to non-voluntary repair of the properties currently sold each year with bad sidewalks (a percentage of the approximately 150 sold each year on average that have sidewalks installed already).  It has no stated plans to discontinue either.

So what they have is a new mandate that jumps the yearly amount to keep up with the status quo by over 100%, but they cut the budget by 10% to meet that.  Each succeeding year the city's waiting list gets longer.  The third year in, as budgeted, will put those installation projects for that year on a waiting list that is likely the ten to twenty years Councilor Castonia talked of, albeit in a different way. 

Sidewalk Priorities

The city leaves unchanged Section 46-71(B):  " Because resources available to the city to provide for the public portion of the cost of such sidewalks does not allow for addressing all of the properties in the City of Ludington immediately, the city council shall establish a list of priorities for addressing sidewalks from time to time."  Nor do any of them explain the new priorities they envision by trotting out this change. 

Mayor Cox says the changes are for the kids who walk on the street to school in the morning, Councilor Kathy says its for walkability and other non-vehicular transport.  But that's not where the priorities are in this new policy. 

The mayor and councilor both acknowledge the money available for sidewalks is going down, yet they want to make a large portion of the sidewalk money go to piecemeal 'sidewalks to nowhere' being built singly and without beginning or destination on streets like Vogel and Melendy's 800 block, based on the priority of "the lot being used in a transaction".   This strips the ability to establish meaningful priorities.

Worse, this aimless prioritization takes money from fixing the bad sidewalks the current program does, opening the city up to trip and fall claims on lots that used to be fixed within a year or two of sale, now taking many years.  Plaintiffs and co-defendants will wonder where that money went for repairs, back when the DPW declared the sidewalk unsafe at sale and took the money.  The City will only be able to point at a few new sidewalks built helter-skelter across the city and their insane policy with firm rules for you and where your money goes, but no firm rules for how they act or use that money.  Disgraceful. 

Mayor Cox, can we admit that we have some sidewalk problems near our schools?  Why don't we put priorities on that?  Here's just a small quadrant near the school you teach at that has plenty of missing sidewalks (in yellow):

And Councilor Winczewski, could you or some other councilor tell me why exactly the City is not requiring new sidewalks being installed within one year of a new construction when the existing law already states that it is needed?  Thirty year old facilities like Sherman Oaks, home of your fellow distaff councilor, still have not put any shade of gray concrete on the abutting street of Sherman or Nelson Road.

Unfortunately, this was a mandate that was never enforced or funded, and likely the new ordinance will not be, so the last thing to consider is where does that money go that people will be paying in, when their sidewalks won't be installed for years and years, if ever, anyway? 

Sidewalk Money

And what happens when we have a situation like this adapted to such a policy?  If we presume this policy became active in 2000 rather than 2015, this actual property in Ludington is a potential cash cow for the city. 

Consider, the initial transaction on 11-30-2001, the buyer pays half of what a sidewalk should cost into the city to complete the transaction.  Three days later and a new transaction, would the new buyer also be required to pay that same amount into the city?  

Using common sense, one should say no, but the law as written said if no sidewalk exists at the point of sale they need to pay in to the city. 

The property in question now gets sold again ten months later, and still the property has no sidewalk and is years to go on any waiting list, so the payment could be asked for again, and even again a week later when it's once again sold.  The city recoups twice the money for the sidewalk on four transactions simply because they can justify that the law says they can.  This may be the very reason they are putting even less money into the program, because in this case, it pays to procrastinate and pays to spend less.

Conclusion

The new sidewalk ordinance is not based on making our streets safe, it is based on making new revenue for the city while they invest less in our safety and our kid's safety while taking those kids totally off the priority list.  The facts don't lie.  Shame on you councilors!  Shame on you, Mayor!

[AQUAMAN]

I noticed the Mayor stated that one of the most important safety factors is kids walking to school in the dark of early morning. Well Mayor, if the DPW crew were to install replacement bulbs in burned out fixtures, perhaps the kids could see better to get to school more safely. As for CC Kathy, she asks for public input, and like Holman and Castonia for prime examples, when citizens give their comments, and it doesn't agree with their agendas, then it falls on deaf ears, and they give you dirty looks. Mostly, they totally ignore any comments, and look for ways to fend off any scrutiny about their COL performances to duty. Look at the sidewalk budget. The newer the year, the less money COL spends. So, they speak out of two sides of their mouths, and actions, and budgets, certainly speak louder than any of their rhetoric.

[XLFD]

 I reprise a 2010 link, Haight of Insanity to show that even replacing burnt out bulbs isn't always the action needed.  On the east side Lawndale Street which serves as a route to school for many kids from Pineway and other multi-unit dwellings east of Nelson Road , and as routes to the hospital area for others, there exist few street lights and of course no sidewalks, as seen in the pictures of that area. 

The city got a recent windfall from the electric company for overcharges, but didn't decide to invest any of that by putting in these safety lights for travelling this road or any others where it's needed. 

[Willy]

Well done and researched. It's hard to argue about any of the facts and conclusions you have raised. I agree, the wording and requirements of this sidewalk ordinance is way off base. From what I have seen, the city needs to hire an attorney to check the work of the existing city attorney to determine if what he has thrown together and is calling an ordinance, does in fact make  any sense or is workable.  Can anyone imagine one of the Councilors or Mayor questioning anything Shay or the City attorney have compiled and want to shove down the throats of Ludington's citizens. Castonia sounds like his common sense gene is a transplant from Shays ignorance genes.

[XLFD]

Thanks, I rarely think that something is irrefutable, but I invite anyone to seriously argue a counterpoint to the facts and logic presented after reading the proposed sidewalk policy and the analysis in this article.  Mayor Cox has said this new policy will benefit kids, keep them from walking in the streets, but building a sidewalk here and there on streets like Vogel does not accomplish that goal, shoring up those sidewalk gaps in school areas will do a lot more, but that can never be accomplished with the new policy until enough money is put into the sidewalk fund to get all those newly required piecemeal projects out of the way. 

Walkability can truly be improved when you have sidewalks going down the full length of the street, it's like drivability.  You don't pave the street in front of a couple houses of the block and have trees planted in the street in front of other houses, do you?

[AQUAMAN]

Willy, your last sentence about a transplant is true as can be.

[XLFD]

I just received the packet for the city council for Monday's meeting, and the new sidewalk policy is not part of it.  Maybe they sent it back to the drawing board, maybe they figured out it was a convoluted law that didn't serve its goal, maybe enough people complained (!?).  Anyhow, it doesn't look like they're addressing the passage of it at this meeting, but don't expect much better from a rewrite.