Raiders of the Trust Fund: Ludington John and the Latest Crusade

[XLFD]

Let's consider the West End (of Ludington Avenue) Project.  This is a multiphase alteration/improvement planned for Stearn's Park, the queen of Ludington's city parks, and the only one offering Lake Michigan beachfront access to the masses.  Let me disclose, if it doesn't seem obvious, that I am totally against it.  There are many reasons for my opposition, and here are just a few.  

 

 

The price of these phases was scheduled to be about $2 million in 2004, when this plan came out of the minds of several heads, mostly heads that did not grow up here. Adjusted for inflation, this cost would go up to $2.5 million, adjusted for tweaks in the plan since then and the tendency to estimate low, the costs would probably, conservatively, be around $3 million.  With any luck, we may qualify for a DNR trust fund grant of $300,000 one of these years, but that is unlikely due to the scope of the project and the fact that the DNR trust fund has already blessed us overmuch in the past at a rate more than seven times the state average per capita. 

Thus, we may get 10% of the costs paid for by the DNRTF (which is funded by state taxes), may get another 10% (if we're lucky) from area foundations, but where is that other $2 million plus going to be coming from?  Well, consider that the Ludington City Council willingly and unanimously supported the walkway phase supplementary funding twice and the promenade phase supplementary funding once already, you begin to see who's going to be paying for it.  The same people who are forced to pitch in over $100,000 each year to prop up the downtown.  Ludington citizens.

 

And here's what we get:  the leveling out of the City's only sand dune, the beautiful lake vista at the end of Ludington Avenue obscured by a semi-permanent pavilion, likely fenced in to allow for the serving of liquor and distilled spirits, many new lights put up just out of the water, a new parking area over by the old Coast Guard Station, where people will need to walk over busy, obscurely-routed streets to get to Stearn's Park. 

 

There are benefits too, I guess:  a sidewalk will connect the end of Ludington Avenue to the breakwall (one already does), people won't have to leave the beach to buy liquor (liquor and swimming, does anyone see a potential liability problem here like I do?). 

 

But two of our new arrivals (along with our MDOT retiree Tom Coleman), have the mind to improve on our best natural wonder.  One of these is John Shay, a southeastern Michigan insurance claims adjuster turned City Manager of Ludington back in 2003.  Shay thought it was a great bargain to paint our two water towers ten years before they should be painted at a cost of nearly a million more than the prior paint job, so much that he contracted to paint the Brye water tank for about five times what it had been painted for by the previous City Manager at the turn of the century.  

 

Then there is Heather (Venzke) Tykoski, who came here in 2007, and has shown an amazing aptitude at begging writing grant applications.  As far as ethics, the two are almost identical.  Here is a sampling of how they approached the West End project for last year; it involves a series of E-mails between the City and the DNR which illustrates a little of what applying for grants is like, and how sometimes rules may be bent a little, when it's just two public officials and no taxpayers are paying attention.  Heather starts out the game by asking a question to her DNA contact person about a public walkway that was donated to the City of Ludington one year ago.  Here's a picture of the placard which announces that fact:

 

Seems like a fair question so as to reduce the local match of funds, everything's cool.  Since the question is right after the turn of the year, one suspects 'next year' to be 2013 at this point.

Shamika seems to mistake the parameters of the question, believing the donated walkway to be on donated land. Heather elaborates further:

Shamika (bottom E-mail, below) shows that she understands the question, but the DNR policy was to consider only 'permanent' structures, which will stay on the development for the life of the facility.

The next reply is from DNR's Shamika, informing Ms. Venzke how the cost of the removable walkway can be added unto the application:

Then Venzke wants clarification as to whether the walkway cost will apply to 2012's application if it is not donated until next year:  

Nearly two weeks elapse, and the DNR replies as to clarify:

City Manager John Shay, who has been included in copies up to now, clarifies the City's issue.  He would really like to do what it takes to get the walkway cost as part of the public match:

Shamika asks her bosses for advice on how to proceed, as the rules seem to disallow what Shay proposes, namely, doing part of the project before the application is considered by the DNR (the walkway) and saying it is a match later of the full project (which it technically won't be):

The DNR decision makers have some words among themselves, Shamika shows that she is a public servant with some principles, she does not believe it is part of the part of the expenses asked for, which it isn't.  She defers to respond to John Shay:

Steve Debrabander replies; further up the DNR's chain of command, they decide that the critical date is when the walkway is donated not when it was purchased (recall the walkway has been donated in May 2012):

Jon Mayes gets back to John Shay and specifies that the walkway cost can be included if it is donated within the eligible period of the grant:

And they wound up doing that in 2012, counting the $35,000 in receipts for the removable walkway towards the city match for the West End concrete walkway project application. 

But in the 2013 grant they are also counting this walkway dedicated in 2012 to the total cost of the project being considered in 2013.  But here's the rub:  the walkway is now not even part of the costs which should disqualify it as being local match if you use Shamika's interpretation of the guidelines (which is a strict interpretation), but not even a match with Steve and Jon's 'revised' rule of allowing such donated match if the donation is made during the year of application.  The removable walkway, once again, was donated in 2012. 

This is the 2013 application, Check out:   p. 1:  donated materials ($35,000), p.2 costs (no materials/labor for the seasonal walkway), p.3 donated materials, etc. 

When the Michigan DNR allows such acts to go under their fraud radar, they illustrate exactly why few people trust the government much anymore.  Looking the other way is defrauding the people of Michigan of their trust fund money, and allowing our City Manager to get away with more deceit, but they seem to be okay with that so far. 

[AQUAMAN]

I got a little lost on this one. Is the COL trying to use the cost of a donated walkway, one I contributed to into the hundreds of dollars, as a plank for another project, based on the disabled walkway at the north end of Stearns? I don't see how freely donated funds for such a project affect another state funded project for matches at the west end now, and how the COL figures it into the equation. It was never COL money that made this project possible, simply the good hearts of private donations. I'm kinda lost on this, but it appears like some type of fraud is being attempted, at the cost of dear-hearts that made the disabled walk possible to begin with, not COL funds, nor state funds either. Sincerely, perplexed in Ludville.

[XLFD]

This is a hard one to follow-- you will notice that the DNR reps even had a hard time trying to figure out what their own guidelines indicated.  The E-mail exchange was to try and figure out whether and how the removable walkway's cost would be included as the local match.  In this exchange during January of last year, the DNR allowed them to put the removable walkways cost ($35,000) towards funds for completion of the concrete walkway to the south.  The removable walkway was never included as part of that project.

Their final verdict, which had none of Shamika's support because it seemed to fly in the face of policy quoted in the third E-mail above, was that the removable's price would apply to the other project's local fund match, even when the locals would still have to get that $35,000 from some other source to pay for the project in 2012.  Consider in 2012, if the City actually got the $300K for the walkway (amended, w/o council approval)) project , they would have only been funded by resolution for $62K and grant for $25K, and fall about $100K short of dedicated match for the concrete section. 

That $35K they were given credit for cannot be put towards the cost of completing the project, as it was never part of the project except as a separate project in the same area. This is part of the established record, and why Shamika had the right call!

[Willy]

It does get a bit confusing to follow. I agree with Aquaman, it seems inappropriate to use a project funded by donations from citizens to bolster a request for grant donations to install another project that most people that I know do not agree with. I don't think that anyone who donated to the north end walkway knew this walkway was going to be given to the City and the City would then use it to suck more tax dollars from citizens for an unpopular cause. There seems to be no stopping these unelected officials no matter what people think. How many miles of sidewalk could be built around the City's schools for $3,000,000. This is Government gone wild at it's worst. Ludington's officials are going to install a walkway at one of the best beaches in the Country and destroy a natural setting, which will mostly serve tourists. In the process they will be ignoring the safety of school children who must walk to school in the streets in all types of weather and very often in the dark. There's something immensely wrong with this Council and Mayor's priorities. Another thing is the amount of time spent and salaries wasted by public employees to deal with all of this legal mumbo jumbo regarding laws and regulations dealing with grants. No wonder were going broke.

[XLFD]

Amen!  And for just some more clarification, John Shay, under the name of our fair City of Ludington, is now proposing in this year's application that something donated to us in the past, which isn't even part of the plans for this part of the project, counts as $35,000 towards the completion of it. 

"As long as the City accepts the gift of the walkway during the eligible period of the grant you can use the donation as match."  the DNR's Jon Mayer said last year, in broadly interpreting the rules.  Now that the donation is in the past, John Shay wants to use it again this year even though the money has been spent by a group over a year ago on something not a part of the walkway phase.  If the DNR doesn't totally yell "FOUL" this year, I will be.