May 20 Meeting Recaps: MCC Board, COL Council, WSCC Board

[XLFD]

On Monday, May 20, the Ludington Torch skipped the Ludington School Board meeting, but it wasn't because we were taking the day off.  In fact, we were busy attending the West Shore Community College (WSCC) Board of Trustee's meeting at 4 PM, then the Ludington city council meeting at city hall at 6 PM, and finally, the MCC School Board of Education in Scottville at 7 PM.  These all had their points of interest, but here's the recaps of those meetings.

WSCC Board of Trustees:

This was our first visit to the trustee meeting since the meeting after Scott Ward became the president back in late 2017 and seemed to be a stabilizing factor after a couple of presidents had not lived up to expectations.  It was interesting enough with a presentation during public comment made by a couple members of the "Save the Pool" effort, hoping to sway the board to protect the college's pool from being removed, letting them know that 160 people showed up for a recent awareness and fund-raising campaign held at the pool.

The first item of new business was what I was interested in, however.  When Ward became president, his old position of vice president of administrative services was left fulfilled, and until recent was left that way.  After a reported nationwide search, they found the perfect candidate in their own backyard, Ludington City Manager Mitch Foster, who was said to be a known quantity with an impressive skill set.  Foster himself didn't show up, but he was approved unanimously and would start his new duties in June.  

While we were there to take that moment in, the board would take several other actions, with one of interest involving having their truth in taxation hearing in order to undo the Headlee rollbacks to their millage, which would be substantial, grabbing an additional $606,000 from the taxpayers of four counties.  The hearing will take place at a special meeting held on June 3rd, presumably at 4 PM at the same place in the administrative center (the notice has yet to be published).  We plan on going there to let them know exactly who they are taking that money from and how their income from property taxes would go up at least by the rate of inflation even if they do not decide to steal $606,000 more.  We would have to leave around 5:30 in order to get back to Ludington in time for their meeting, but caught all of the good stuff.

Ludington City Council, 6PM:

Foster would make it to the council meeting and would receive several accolades during comment and from his fellow officials.  Historians should look with favor back at his 5 years as city manager, but the overall assessment in any novelization of same should reflect the challenges he left behind in his last couple years where he seems to have lost his ethical compass on occasion. 

The first 50 minutes or so of the meeting was not recorded, and the city has decided not to indicate that it was due to technical difficulties, even when they had a cameraman there.  I would not assign a conspiracy to the loss of footage, even though the initial comments were mostly critical of city policy.  

During that comment, 5th Ward Councilor candidate Mike Shaw would comment unfavorably on the proposed alcohol sales on the beach and the ordinance with first reading (see the agenda packet), after congratulating Foster and before mentioning Bible verses in support.  Connie Vlahos would follow by asking poignant questions about why are the taxpayers paying for the concessionaire's utilities and services. 

Jordan Miller introduced himself and his qualifications to be the next county prosecutor.  Miller has impressed me both times he has introduced himself at a meeting, especially when both he and his main competitor, Beth Hand, was at last week's PM Township meeting, and he totally weighed in as to how inefficient the current prosecutor's office (effectively ran by Hand) is with an incredible backlog and how his current gig in the Manistee County PAO contrasts that.  Here, he danced around those topics without Hand present and marveled at the amount of acquittals happening in Mason County-- showing that the prosecutor has not been choosing their battles wisely.  

He sees the same problems I have seen over the last four years with office, so maybe my comment before his inspired him to be bold and to speak out.

XLFD:  Is there any coincidence between our city manager resigning and an ongoing vendetta by the mayor against open government and a citizen advocate?  Just look at last meeting, the mayor cut off my first comment midsentence once the timer sounded, I asked to finish my sentence, he denied that.  The mayor went a little gavel-crazy during my second comment, ruling that my protected speech involving background music was somehow out of order, and had the police chief lead me out of the meeting before I had fifteen seconds of comment. 

This was the same meeting mind you, that a basketball with a top hat introduced himself as "Gus Ludington" and indicated he lived at the WMOM radio station during public comment.  Did Chief Jones lead him out of the chamber under direction of the mayor for not giving his correct name and address?  I know I was badgered incessantly by the mayor last year when I refused to just give out my address in support of those citizens who come to these televised meetings and are afraid to comment because they don't want to dox themselves.

Mitch Foster came to Ludington with humility, scruples, and a desire for open government.  We have a mayor with his own agenda against those ideals and it is becoming clearer everyday by city policy that recently shut off commenting for social media posts, aprroved a FOIA fee policy where a few minutes of body cam video is given hundreds of dollars in costs for separating exempt material when no exemptions exist.  Not surprising because this mayor is the same extortionist who wanted $2500 for the same task for 100 pages of the Baby Kate incident report 6 years after the fact.  One redaction was made after the first three pages, a fact I found out only by taking the city to court and winning.

I missed it at the last meeting, but on the video, the mayor seemed the most interested in trying to use many thousands of dollars in city resources in order to get costs of around $500 in regard to an equitable relief lawsuit I filed and prevailed in the local circuit court but lost in the appeals court.  This city council needs to be constantly reminded that due to their inactions and our city attorney's omissions, the electors of our city were never allowed to know how much the charter revision process cost.  In the local circuit court, a judge with more judicial experience than the entire panel of judges in the appeals court saw the obvious and determined that keeping that information from the voters was material in affecting the results of the election. [Comment ended by time constraint, three sentences were left unsaid].

Notably, Mayor Barnett would allow me to finish the last sentence this time, but I wouldn't test him with background music the second time around, for two reason.  First, Foster would receive due support from other officials and citizens at the end of the meeting and I didn't want to spoil the mood by getting thrown out for my protected speech again (I'll have opportunities for that in the future), and secondly, Third Ward Councilor Oakes asked me nicely not to do so before the meeting.

As noted, the first reading changing the existing ordinance for selling alcohol at the beach was read, a companion item of approving the amendment of their beach concession agreement was passed without issue by all councilors, indicating a high likelihood that the ordinance would pass the next meeting.  

As normal, they ignored the competitive bidding process in order to give Manistee's Nunez Outdoor Living the contract for Harbor View Marina landscaping, even though their $42K bid was about 5% higher than Scottville's Larsen's Landscaping low bid.  They would try to justify their unanimous assent by saying that our county's company might not be able to do the work immediately, but such an idea is not in the paperwork, and any time element should have been part of the request for proposals (RFP).  Why is our city government even wasting money doing competitive bids if they never take the low bid anyway and just decide to do what they feel like with other people's money?

An update was given on the charter commission, and even the city attorney had figured it out.  The city's time effectively ran out for bringing a charter revision in front of the public within three years.  When they officially figure that out, the Ludington Torch will comment further on the topic.  Watch the somber and sobering discussion that happened at the meeting on the 16-minute mark.  Will our wise city leaders spend tens of thousands more dollars than they have already in order to try to get some Quixotic extra-statutory relief from laws that have strict timelines?   Stay tuned.  

Three of those Charter Revision Commission members (Shaw, Nick Krieger, Jack Stibitz) would comment at the end of the meeting and were mostly noncommittal in their speech about the charter commission, but praised the outgoing city manager, as would Les Johnson.  Foster's resignation would be regretfully accepted before then, effective June 24th.

  

Mason County Central School Board, 7 PM

This reporter arrived about 45 minutes late to this meeting due to the other meeting running for 90 minutes, seeing Tom Richert argue on behalf of his fellow teachers (two dozen present, in a very packed meeting in the Aultman Auditorium) about comp time for IEPs, plans made for the instruction of students requiring extra help.  The topic was holding up agreements between parties and in the end, over many minutes, it was resolved by the simple awarding of a small amount of comp time amounting to $100 for one teacher.  Richert's loss to the district through his retirement at the end of the year will be a tragic loss of the Forensic program's head coach, theater programs, and for reasonable negotiations like was seen here.

But the teachers stuck around and seemed in solidarity with the parents that spoke, led by Larry Graham and his son, Ryan, who each spent their three minutes of time by questioning the district's commitments to their policies and how they perceived the district's lack of following those policies had some real specific ramifications which affected the students, parents, teachers, and grandparents (like Larry).  These comments were supported by other speakers.

Frankly, if the board doesn't start doing their actual jobs rather than expecting the superintendent to do them, the bond proposal slated for May 2025 isn't likely to pass, because it will be very well-documented by then that a select few administrators are making unauthorized decisions on their behalf, some of which have already been found to be overly expensive, suspicious and/or inefficient.  Ryan would do the research and find that 15 other districts in MCC's conferences did several things much differently and much more transparently than MCC did.  

For the second consecutive month, Board President Jim Schulte would close the floor to public comment after about a half hour of concerned comments while there were still people with comments to give, but this time, nobody would stick their foot in the door, he just moved on to the next item.  This meeting was fortunately recorded by 2E Multimedia for the Scottville Connections website, those interested in learning about how the MCC School District rolls should listen in:

[Willy]

Thanks for this report.  Is it possible that all of the Counties and City boards get together and schedule the meetings close enough to each other in order to thin out citizens and media who want to keep track of what is going on? Also WSCC is taking advantage of folks who own second homes and hunting land by using Headlee to help empty the absentee taxpayers pockets. I mean those who live out of the Counties and pay a much higher tax rate than homesteaders. Just another way of taking advantage of others.

[XLFD]

The Principal Residence Exemption does not protect the homesteader from the 3+ mills that go to WSCC, just the 18 mills of school operations, so the college's actions will not single out non-homestead properties; it will affect everyone with equal misery.  

As for the coincidence that all Mason County public schools and the college all have their monthly meetings on the third Monday of the month and both cities in Mason County hold their council meetings on the 2nd and 4th Monday of every month at 6 PM, I would say that your theory is sound, especially when the underlying reason for moving the COS meetings to those dates and times was based on keeping the Ludington Torch out of Scottville.