One Billion Reasons Why A City Clerk Shouldn't be Appointed by a City Council

[XLFD]

The first day of autumn this year, the city council of Ludington unveiled seven proposals to make the city better by amending the city charter.  Easily the most debated by the public, and unanimously reviled by the same public, was the concept of having the city council appoint the city clerk.  The video of that meeting and the link above shows that the city council thought it was a great idea, primarily because they thought the 8000 plus people of Ludington were bound to make a poor selection at some point. 

It was an excellent example of the elitist bubble the city council put themselves in.  "Us seven elected people can make a better decision than you as to who would be the best person to handle the city's records and elections and whatever else the clerk does."  I haven't seen any converts to their line of reasoning, particularly after an appointment of a fourth ward commissioner without subsequently putting him on the next regular election ballot in November.  They did decide he needed to actually meet some of the people he is supposed to represent and spent city money illegally to do so, and thus proved he belonged with this ethically-challenged group, kept in line by serial law-violator City Manager John Shay.

But it has just become obvious that the city council is once again wrong in their assessment of what is the best way to seat a city clerk, courtesy of our friends in power in Grand Rapids.  Last time we visited Grand Rapids (GR) politics, we reported that term limits were approved by November's vote of the people in the city (GR Term Limits approved). 

The mayor and several councilors were crestfallen that they couldn't keep their position as a career and forecast bad times for the city's future-- while the people cheered.  If you recall, Ludington rejected an extension of mayoral term limits back in 2012 from three to five terms by a 2 to 1 margin, despite everyone in power telling us how popular the mayor was. 

But here's what's happening in Grand Rapids that proves letting the council pick the clerk is a potential disaster, one that would not occur in a popularly elected and then popularly recalled position. 

Back in 2008 the GR city council picked Lauri Parks (left) as the City Clerk, which is how they do it in GR.  Two of the seven councilors voted for the other candidate who had seven years of city clerk experience in Wyoming, Lauri Parks had no clerk experience, but had enthusiasm for the community said then and current Mayor Heartwell. 

Nearly six years later, in October 2013, she was out of a job without any clear reason revealed as reported here:

“We’ve never done that for anyone else, any appointed city official at any point that I’m aware of in the history of this city. So I would like to say the city commission went out of it’s way to try to ensure that Lauri Parks would succeed as the city clerk,” Mayor Heartwell said in November 2013.  He insisted that her firing of Parks was not discriminatory, which was later enforced by the hiring of another clerk who was the same race and gender of Parks.

Just over one year later, Lauri Parks is suing the community she has a passion for-- or perhaps we should say the City of GR and beleaguered Mayor Heartwell-- for a whopping one billion dollars. 

The details of the suit haven’t yet been filed with the court, but a docket sheet shows Parks is representing herself and is suing for employment discrimination, and her cover sheet shows a dollar sign followed by a one and twelve zeros as the figure being asked for. 

Consider what would have been the case if the clerical position was an elected position.  If Parks was an ineffective clerk, and noticeably so, she could have been either voted out of office or specifically recalled.  You can't sue voters for one billion dollars, let alone one dollar, for doing so.

But you can sue the city councilor, the mayor, the city manager, and the city itself for a bundle of cash, and likely get a lesser bundle in a settlement if there is any hint of credibility to the charge.  Is this what we want in Ludington?

[Willy]

Good find X. If this doesn't make it obvious why Ludington's City Clerk should not be appointed by the Council then I don't know what will. I'm no attorney but it seems to me that if she was under contract with the City of Grand Rapids then the City has the right not to renew that contract so I don't think she has much of a case, however this is going to be a PR nightmare for Grand Rapids. She would have been better off moving quietly into the $80,000 job she was offered but her feelings were hurt so instead of leaving gracefully she's being removed while kicking and screaming all the way out the door. She's kind of immature because most grownups in the business world understand what being a contract employee is all about.

[XLFD]

I have the video of Lauri Parks' legal team above, discussing how much to ask for, before they settled on the one billion figure.  I think she illustrates why it's always a risk when you reach into the EEO department for a replacement for a contracted employee-- they're trained for seeing employment discrimination in almost any action, as long as the fired employee has the right physical characteristics. 

I'm not an attorney, and neither is she, but I have prosecuted a lawsuit without one.  It's difficult and shouldn't be attempted if you think you should be entitled to a large amount of cash.  She probably shopped it around and got no takers from attorneys because of the weakness of the case. 

Likewise, the billion dollar figure is unrealistic, and perhaps used by her in order to get a bigger settlement, which probably won't come barring any major piece of evidence in her favor. 

[Willy]

Funny video. I agree that she is just fishing when she inserted that ridiculous amount of money she is seeking to extract from the taxpayers.  It seems that she is just testing the waters to see how deep it is.

I thought I would bring back some old memories that you referred to in your post, so I dug through my files and found this.

This billboard reflects the arrogance these people had and still have. Imagine trying to convince the voters that having a "lifetime" mayor will somehow make Ludington stronger. Stronger smelling maybe

[XLFD]

Amazing that even with those billboards, all those signers of the petitions, all of the campaign signs, advertising and websites created for that cause, and the free House of Flavors ice cream dished out, not to mention the lack of any organized effort working against the proposal and this charming elderly couple on the beach who might not last long enough to see Mayor Henderson serve the last of his five terms they so vehemently hope for (and vote for a couple more terms at that point), that this proposal went down so badly to those who had a contrary way of seeing what would make a stronger Ludington. 

Arguably, we have a stronger Ludington now without him, as I offer this as evidence:

[XLFD]

 Apparently, either the initial report or the cover page was wrong, and she's only suing for $1,000,000 (the court reports it was initially entered as 1 billion).

Here is a copy of the Parks' lawsuit, and I can only be embarrassed for her.  Her statement of facts drawn up by a law firm announces that she was told by the mayor on September 30, 2013 that she would be placed on administrative leave effective immediately.  Then on October 1, he told her she was terminated.  This is what amounts to being racially and sexually discriminated against.  She lists some dubious accomplishments before that which she accomplished in her seven years as clerk.  A job she received at the time over a lot more qualified city clerk (Heidi Isakson), who never claimed she was discriminated against as a white woman or for being someone whose grandpa was not a mayor of GR (like Ms. Parks could claim).

But from those employment actions, no more or less, she claims to have been discriminated against as a woman and as an African-American.  I don't usually pull for a city to win a lawsuit, but when I do, it's for nuisance lawsuits like this which I feel has no merit with the facts presented. 

[Willy]

She's just cutting off her own nose. Who's going to hire her after she filed this lawsuit. If I owned a business that required someone with her expertise, I wouldn't even consider her for fear that she would sue me if she didn't work out. She's either not using her head or she's taking the wrong advise from her supporters.

[XLFD]

The City has filed its reply to the lawsuit, and it is described in some detail here, it ends with the conclusion:  "“Ms. Parks was not qualified for her position. She was given the opportunity to improve, but did not do so. She was not treated differently than other appointed officials under similar circumstances, and she was not replaced by someone outside her protected class. The city commission legitimately made the decision not to re-appoint Ms. Parks to the city clerk position.”

The sad indictment of Grand Rapids is that their council appointed her using pure politics-- they had a seven year clerk of Wyoming (City) vying against Parks who had no clerk experience, and went against common sense and chose Parks, perhaps out of a sense for her heritage or her 'racial class'.  The Wyoming City Clerk is still going strong in her role. 

One wonders if Ludington Councilors Castonia, Winczewski, Rathsack, etc. wouldn't have done the same given a similar situation here to show that Ludington wasn't a lily-white community obsessed with experience.