Manistee Evicts Bacon from Greasy Housing Commission

[XLFD]

City Councils Gone Wild

 

We had our share of wild behavior by Ludington City Councilors this summer at their meetings with Councilor  Holman making a lot of false statements directly at an indigent citizen, Councilor Castonia tearing up  because a citizen pointed out his grandson made his anti-drug postures look hypocritical and foolish, and Councilor Marrison coming on to the Ludington Torch and bashing that same citizen for some unknown purpose.  Perhaps proximity to that one citizen causes some temporary bout of insanity.  It may be communicable.

 

But then the fall and winter came, our own councilors moderated their stances (probably because they were told to by their multiple attorneys) and our neighboring towns started having their own problems with wildness.  To the east, Scottville City Councilor (who is elected to his mayor spot by his fellow councilor, went on a drinking binge and did the Knievel thing into Scottville's gully at the end of E. Second street.  To the south, Hart City Councilor Tim Shannon allegedly committed an assisted suicide to his unwilling young wife in their house's bathtub at the end of the year, deliberating and deciding on it without nary a vote in an open meeting.

Now, to the north, Manistee has had a couple of Manistee Councilors, resign at their January 15th meeting, both for the expressed reason that they have commitments in Lansing and Toledo, Ohio respectively.  This isn't wild behavior itself, what was more interesting at the meeting was that the City Council voted 5-1 to remove L.B. Bacon from the City's Housing Committee, (the one vote was from a departing councilor).  The Housing Committee already voted 3-1 to do so at their own meeting.

 

What's behind this action?  Good question the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) reported it amounted to this:

1)  Bacon directly contacted the US Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Dept. about concerns with Manistee City Housing Committee (MCHC) operations after he was instructed not to do so

2)  Bacon's contacts with HUD caused MCHC staff to spend time addressing issues with HUD.

3)  Bacon used his MCHC position to ask MCHC staff questions about day-to-day operations while intimating that some hidden, potentially illegal activity was occurring.

4)  Bacon met with City Officials and claimed there were illegal or unethical acts occurring at the MCHC.

 

These actions will get you fired?  It sounds more like Bacon has noticed something and is trying to report and/or remedy it, something you would hope a public official would do.  But Manistee has hired the same legal quacks the City of Ludington has employed for their City Attorney, the Gockerman, Wilson, Saylor and Hesslin law firm in toto, so this action to fire Mr. L.B. Bacon for effectively engaging in whistleblowing of what he saw as potentially unethical or illegal acts is questionable with the given info.   If Bacon's concerns had any basis, the MCHC and the Manistee City Council has set the table (with their law firm's approval) for a whistleblowing lawsuit against the City. 

 

Analysis of the Records

The Housing Committee gathered a few records to justify themselves.  This packet of supportive records for their decision to dismiss Bacon is what was presented to the Manistee council.  They give evidence to support their claim at the end of the packet, which amounts to the minutes of a meeting on 11-27 2012 where they Amended the minutes at the beginning and then made a vote on the resolution (that follows) after no discussion.  They also have a series of E-mails wherein L.B. Bacon plays no part, except that a HUD official CCs him and is questioned about it by the CMHC Executive Director Clinton Copus, to which the HUD official responds there is some breakdown of communication.  Here are the E-mails in chronological order, I think they show more paranoia from Clint than anything bad regarding Bacon.

10-20 CMC 943 CDRHUD.jpg

10-20 CDRHUD 950 CMC.jpg

10-20 CMC 1114 CDR.jpg

10-20 CDR 1132 CMC.jpg

10-20 CDR 1139 CMC.jpg

10-20 CMC 1241 WGHUD.jpg

10-20 WGHUD 1244 CMC.jpg

10-20 CMC 1248 WG.jpg

10-20 CMC 1519.jpg

And the resolution:

 

 

 Before this was brought before the City Council of Manistee they clarified their six findings:

 

An analysis of the records show no direct records or evidence implicating L.G. Bacon has done anything against his fiduciary and legal responsibilities, particularly to the people and the ideals of his agency, since he is obviously under the impression that something rotten has been going down in the MCHC and has talked about such activities to the City Manager and a state agency.  That IS his fiduciary and legal responsibility if he thinks it has occured.  

Getting fired for reporting corruption and suspected illegal and unethical acts is a sure cure for further investigation and liability for the City of Manistee.  But their legal firm of Gockerman Wilson Saylor and Hesslin, who wrote the resolution, were parties to the communications, and likely gave the advice to get rid of Bacon before he could do more damage to the gravy train, will just have more job security. 

[Willy]

I noticed that in the Board of Commissioners duties it includes a statement under #4 which says, "As a member of the Commission each Commissioner has a general fiduciary duty to the organization to always act in the Commission's best interest. Sorry, but that should read,  "each Commissioner has the duty to act in the public's best interest", and that is what he appeared to be doing.

[XLFD]

The standards of conduct foursome was written by one of the Gockerman, Wilson, Saylor, Hesslin boys and the whole content has been twisted, for all four of the standards, only hearsay suppositions are used. 

Then they offer nothing performed by LB Bacon that would implicate him, just some E-mail communictions and a trial-on-the-spot the next week with a last minute amendment to do so.  I would say that the executive director was acting below publicly expected standards based on the evidence presented, and anyone not associated with corruption in Manistee would come to the same conclusions. 

[AQUAMAN]

Very astute points and thread here guys. Methinks I smell more Spoiled FISH here. And isn't it a strange coincidence those Expert Legal Eagles of the same COL Nest are in the fray again with their finely honed deceit/twist on the matter?

[XLFD]

I happened to be up in Manistee earlier today and the local newspaper caught my eye, if you have a subscription to the News advocate here's the story on their website:  manisteenews/2013/02/27/housing-commissioners-respond-to-public-con....  You will only see the first couple of lines if you aren't.  They talked about the removal of LB Bacon from the commission, however, there was not a quorum of members at the meeting so nothing officially was done.

 

A citizen named Rick Schrock says:  "It appears that the commission has violated a number of their own by-laws and also city ordinance.  If that's the case, and you are correcting that, it would be good to know that corrections are being made.  If that is not the case, it would be good to clarify what the facts are." 

Commissioners Priester and Parkes were present, as well as Executive Director Clinton McKinven Copus.  It was revealed that the commission did not follow its bylaws regarding salary increases and did not conduct required annual inspections in 2011 and 2012.  Schrock and another asked about whether the commission would have had a mass resignation if Bacon wasn't removed.  Noone admitted that a mass resignation was threatened, and they passed the two's concerns to the Manistee City Council (Editor's note:  in typical gutless fashion.)

 

The Committee's continuing concern seems to be how LB Bacon was not working with the rest of the board, while having to admit they are not following their duties and bylaws.  My impression is that LB Bacon has tried to be a whistleblower and has been dealt with by the City of Manistee and the GockerManistee law firm.  I hope he continues to do what's right in his retirement, and I hope these Manistee citizens with good questions about these things continue to look for real answers, not the bureaucratic two-step that many public officials put the public through.

Meanwhile, I am going to look for that E-mail threatening mass resignations via the FOIA.

[XLFD]

I just got back a FOIA response from Manistee in response to the request for "Correspondence (E-mails, letters, memos, etc) since the beginning of 2012 between any members of the housing committee (CMHC) (including the executive director) sent to any members of the city council, city manager or mayor, threatening to resign because of any issue dealing in any manner with LB Bacon."

I was informed that no such records existed.  I invite our fellow Manistee contingent of citizens wanting answers to continue to search for answers, however, and invite LB Bacon to join and give us any truthful information about what exactly was going on here.  Better yet, I encourage him to attend future Manistee City council meetings or MCHC meetings and keep these derelicts at the MCHC from shirking their limited duties, and doing so ethically.